Cinderella

Sara: 0:07

Hello, and welcome to Mouse Ears and a Movie, a Disney animation conversation. I'm Sara Farrell Baker joined by my cohost, Chrissy Woj.

Chrissy: 0:16

We are two grown women avoiding responsibility and watching cartoons. Every episode, we will be watching a Disney or Pixar animated feature chosen at random from

Sara: 0:25

The bucket.

Chrissy: 0:27

Then we will reconvene here to share our thoughts, some behind the scenes knowledge, and probably make some weird noises.

Sara: 0:33

This week we watched the 1950 Walt Disney animated feature film, Cinderella. It's the classic riches to rags and back to riches story of a girl whose widowed father marries an absolute monster. When he up and dies, the girl must serve her wicked stepmother and stepsisters, and even their Satan cat. When a fairy godmother sends her in a pumpkin to a royal ball, she finds true love, but loses a poorly designed shoe. To refresh our memories, here's Chrissy with the Cinderella Olaf recap treatment.

Chrissy: 1:00

It began with an orphan girl living with two stepsisters and an evil stepmother. Her parents are dead. Her dreams of escape, infinite. A dream is a wish your heart makes. They can't order me to stop dreaming. New mouse in the house! Zuk Zuk. Cinderelly. Gus Gus. Lucifee not funny. Lucifee mean. Breakfast! Cinderella! Get on with your duties. We'll have a ball to welcome the prince home. Every eligible maiden is to attend the ball. Why that's us! And I'm so eligible. We can do it, we can do it, we can help our Cinderelly! This sash and these beads! Trash! What's a royal ball anyways? Happy birthday! Wait for me! My beads! Give them here! And my sash! Girls, girls. I don't want you upsetting yourselves. Good night. There, there. I'm your fairy godmother. Bibbidi bobbidi boo! You have until midnight. A pretty plot for fairytales. Take a look at that, you pompous wind bag! So this is love. Bing! Bing! Goodbye! Goodbye! The pumpkin is dead! Cinderelly, the slipper! Whoever the shoe fits will be the prince's bride. Block tower for one! Block tower for one! found the key! Silencio Bruno! Wait. We don't talk about-- Nope. Wrong movie. Get Bruno! Your grace! The orders were every maiden. If it would help, I have the other slipper. And they lived happily ever after. The end.

Sara: 2:32

Beautiful. I love that you did We don't talk about and silencio Bruno. Cause it just says Bruno in my notes. I wonder if this is our first Disney Bruno.

Chrissy: 2:41

This is our first Disney Bruno. There are three Brunos and two of them were in the last year and two of them were bad. This one's good.

Sara: 2:47

So this is the 12th Disney animated film. It is nominated for three Academy Awards. Cinderella is one of like our most iconic. I feel like we throw around the word iconic a lot here, but this time it's deserved.

Chrissy: 3:00

There's a lot of iconic Disney because Disney in and of itself is iconic.

Sara: 3:05

Very good point. Cinderella is a huge movie for Disney in so many ways. Not only is it. Just aesthetically, thematically, and princess- wise, an iconic movie. But it really saved the studio. It saved not just the studio, but Disney itself, the Disney company. The state of the studio prior to Cinderella was some crap. They were on the verge of bankruptcy because of the war, and if Cinderella did poorly, the studio would have been ruined.

Chrissy: 3:33

Well, and say it was because of the war and the history says it's because of the war, but it's also in part because of Disney. Like this was not the first time he was on the verge of bankruptcy by any stretch of the imagination. And it was not the first princess to save his studio.

Sara: 3:48

Do you want to tell us about that?

Chrissy: 3:49

So Disney was the dreamer. He was the Imagineer, the original Imagineer. He was the thoughts and ideas and creative mind. But if it weren't for his brother Roy, Disney would not be what it is. Roy was the money and the brains and the business. And he made sure that Disney's ideas got created, but he also made sure that didn't go into financial ruin every single time they would have.

Sara: 4:12

Kept the lights on.

Chrissy: 4:13

And Snow White saved the studio, too. They put everything into Snow White. If Snow White had failed, buh-bye.

Sara: 4:19

This is really interesting to think about kind of throughout the history of the studio, how princesses have saved this company. Or revived it in various ways just throughout its history.

Chrissy: 4:30

Yeah, Little Mermaid, man. We talked about her in the beginning.

Sara: 4:33

Brought us right out of the dark ages.

Chrissy: 4:35

The first dark ages.

Sara: 4:36

Oh dear God.

Chrissy: 4:37

And didn't Tiana bring us out of the second?

Sara: 4:39

That brought them into the revival. It is interesting also how they kind of go through like phases of princess stuff. You've got princess, princess, princess. No princess is for awhile. Princess princess princess. None for a while. And it seems like during the brighter parts of Disney film era's, you've got a plethora of princesses.

Chrissy: 4:58

It's true.

Sara: 4:59

I'm wondering if we have any princess movies in like any of the dark ages or just crappier times.

Chrissy: 5:05

Yes we do. Isn't Black Cauldron a princess movie?

Sara: 5:09

Girl, I know nothing about Black Cauldron, but it might be.

Chrissy: 5:11

I know there's a princess in it.

Sara: 5:13

Got it. We got to wait to find out about that one. Okay, so the movie itself costs about $3 million to make, but it would go on to bring in $85 million. It paid Disney's debts. It financed a distribution company. It paid for live action movies, animated movies, Disney's foray into TV with Wonderful World of Color and it also provided the seed money for Disneyland.

Chrissy: 5:36

That's a lot of money.

Sara: 5:37

Yes without Cinderella. We don't get anything that comes after 1950, which is a whole lot. Disney before Cinderella is an animation company. The end. Afterwards, they go on to

Chrissy: 5:49

Become a media giant.

Sara: 5:50

It is the beginning of the all- encompassing empire that we see today.

Chrissy: 5:54

It was nominated for three Academy Awards.

Sara: 5:58

I think it was best sound, best song and best score.

Chrissy: 6:02

Which song was the best song?

Sara: 6:04

Bibbidi Bobbidi Boo.

Chrissy: 6:05

Ah, of course.

Sara: 6:06

The other really neat thing here is some of these voice actors in the movie. First of all, you have Eileen Woods. She does have a real Cinderella story with how she got this role. She never auditioned. She was the demo singer for the songs. She was just who recorded the songs to say, "Hey, these are the ones that we would like to do for this movie." And Walt hired her because of those recordings.

Chrissy: 6:26

That's awesome. My favorite voice in this is Lady Tremaine, who is Eleanor Audley, and she is more famously known as the voice of Maleficent. Also the voice of Madame Leota in the crystal ball. She is not the voice at the end, just the crystal ball. And that is not her face.

Sara: 6:46

I didn't know that, that that the face and the voice were different people.

Chrissy: 6:50

Yeah. So the face is Leota Toombs and she had such a sickeningly sweet voice that they didn't want to use it in the crystal ball. And so they brought in the voice of Maleficent because they were like, "This is the voice we want, but we love your face." Leota Toombs was very well-respected Imagineer and Disney Legend. But she just didn't have the voice that they wanted for Madame Leota. And so they brought in Eleanor Audley. But at the end of the Haunted Mansion, the full body image, it's Leota Toombs and her voice.

Sara: 7:20

Oh, weird.

Chrissy: 7:21

Yeah. So when you hear hurry back, hurry back," that's Leota Toombs' voice.

Sara: 7:28

Okay. I get it now, because that is such a different voice from Eleanor Audley, who has this really fantastic, 1950s-- not haunting, but very scary lady in my life-- kind of voice.

Chrissy: 7:39

Touch the spindle, Touch it, I say.

Sara: 7:42

Oh my God. Shivas. We've got the Fairy Godmother, who was one of my favorite characters of all time. As much as Eleanor Audley's voice is the voice of a scary lady that you don't want to cross, Verna Felton's voice is the most comforting grandma baked me an apple cake kind of thing.

Chrissy: 8:01

Or a really tall, tiered cake? Pink and blue?

Sara: 8:05

Ooh, look at you. Verna Felton is also the voice of Flora, one of the fairies in Sleeping Beauty. And also the queen in Sleeping Beauty. On top of that, she is the voice of Mama Jumbo in Dumbo. She is the voice of Aunt Sarah in Lady and the Tramp. The Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland, which I love that that's her because that's taking such a sweet voice, but she puts like a growl behind it.

Chrissy: 8:28

And, for Aunt Sarah.

Sara: 8:29

Verna Felton's got range. She's got depth. She's got layers.

Chrissy: 8:33

And she died the same day as Disney.

Sara: 8:36

Verna Felton and Walt Disney both died December 15th, 1966. So then we have a few other familiar Disney voices. This movie is narrated by Betty Lou Gerson, who would go on to play Cruella Deville.

Chrissy: 8:51

Lucifer has a ton of roles. He was played by June Foray, who was Grandmother Fa in Mulan. Granny in the Looney Tunes. Rocky in Rocky and Bullwinkle and Cindy Lou Who in How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

Sara: 9:04

If you look at her IMDB, she's in everything. It's so funny because then once you know that the connection is there, then you hear things. You start to hear little bits between these different characters.

Chrissy: 9:15

So this is one of the older movies where the credits roll before the movie. And you've got all of this gorgeous art and, you know, I'm, I'm looking at em like, that is so Mary Blair."

Sara: 9:26

Mary Blair is all over this movie and I love it. It makes me so happy. She. is probably my favorite Disney Legend. Mary Blair is an artist who initially came to work for Disney as an animator, along with her husband who she met in art school. She really felt kind of stifled at the company. She didn't like having to animate in someone else's style. She didn't feel like she had a lot of creative freedom and she ends up leaving the company. However, Disney becomes a really big fan of her work. In World War 2, the United States government asks Walt Disney to go on a Goodwill tour of South America. He hand picks Mary Blair and her husband Lee to go down to South America, tour different countries and get inspiration for some of the movies that they go on to make like Saludos Amigos. This is where Mary Blair kind of comes into her signature style. These really bright colors, more bold lines and contrast in colors and not really blending things together. She eventually comes back to work for Disney and is put to work in movies like Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan. You can see her touches throughout these movies.

Chrissy: 10:33

Of course, back to the theme parks. She is the main artistic inspiration for It's a Small world.

Sara: 10:40

And she does the mural for inside of the Contemporary Resort at Walt Disney World. That ends up being her last project for Disney. She died a few years after Walt Disney world opened. So you see her throughout the opening credits.

Chrissy: 10:53

We open and we've got the birds chirping and we see Cinderella waking up with her menagerie of wild animals that just adore her. She's clearly sweet and wonderful and kind because all of the animals are doing her bidding.

Sara: 11:12

I'll tell you what-- I'd be so pissed if some birds were all up in my face tweeting when I'm trying to get up in the morning.

Chrissy: 11:17

I think she enjoys it.

Sara: 11:19

This is the most unpleasant way I can think of waking up.

Chrissy: 11:21

So she wakes up from a dream and she's telling her animal friends but without telling them what happened in the dream, because it won't come true. The clock chimes and it's time to start getting ready. She takes a shower with the help of birds---

Sara: 11:34

After they shoe all of the boy mice and birds out of the room.

Chrissy: 11:38

And then they get her dressed and then Jaq comes running in and there's a new mouse in the house. And it's my favorite little dude.

Sara: 11:45

We get to meet Octavius. I wanna how the hell Gus is short for Octavius, please.

Chrissy: 11:51

We'll call you Gus for short. Gus Gus.

Sara: 11:53

Gus in his trap and they give him a hat and a shirt and shoes, and he's all ready to go.

Chrissy: 11:59

And then it's time for breakfast and Cinderella goes down to feed Luc-- well, she has to go get Lucifer, which is a process.

Sara: 12:06

Who the hell names their cat Lucifer?

Chrissy: 12:08

An evil stepmother. Not quite as wicked witchy as Snow White's stepmother, but close.

Sara: 12:14

She's up there.

Chrissy: 12:15

So she's got to go feed Lucifer and Bruno the dog. We don't talk about Bruno.

Sara: 12:23

So Cinderella is going about her chores. She's feeding the chickens, she's feeding the cat, she's getting everybody their breakfast. It's weird to me that like, the mice and the birds help her so much, and she doesn't think to give them breakfast? They have to send Jaq on a suicide mission so that they can steal corn from the chickens?

Chrissy: 12:41

They spend an exorbitant amount of time on Jaq and Gus, particularly going on these little adventures. It's like The Jaq and Gus Show. Everything is trying to get past Lucifee-- who his name is Lucifer, but of the movie we hear him as Lucifee because the only people who talk about him are the mice.

Sara: 12:59

That's their nemesis.

Chrissy: 13:00

And then Cinderella's getting called and jingled and rang and she has to bring everybody their tea and pick up all of their laundry.

Sara: 13:07

I did laugh at the Downton Abbey bells that they're all ringing.

Chrissy: 13:10

I'm coming, I'm coming. So she's got to do the ironing and the laundry and the mending, which is all laundry by the way. And then she has to get on with all of her other duties. But because Jaq was hiding in a teacup, she now has to redo a bunch of her chores because she has time for wicked pranks. And then we jump to the King and his who when you look at them visually, change their facial hair a little bit-- and you've got the two kings in Sleeping Beauty. One of the things I loved about this scene is in the very beginning of the scene, I was trying to like pick out little details because I've seen this movie so many times and I've seen so many iterations of it. But had never noticed in the very beginning of the scene, the first thing that happens is the king throws his crown through the glass and there's this perfectly glass shaped crown cut out. And it was just fun to look at it. I want art, an art print of that.

Sara: 14:01

So the King is throwing a fit because he wants the Prince to marry so he can have grandchildren. I don't think the prince is super old. That's not the impression that I get. But the King appears to be pretty old. So it's like, well, you waited a long ass time to have a child. He is on the Grand Duke about like, We are gonna throw a ball. I want you to throw it tonight. I want every girl in the kingdom, and the Prince has got to like one of them. If we put everybody there, he'll find one he likes and then they're going to get married and I'll get some grandkids."

Chrissy: 14:28

And then we go back to Cindy and she's cleaning the floor and listening to her step-sisters music practice.

Sara: 14:36

Music in quotes. This is one of my favorite scenes though. I want an art print of just the bubbles, the Cinderella bubbles. The technique for Sing Sweet Nightingale-- this overdubbing technique when Cinderella is singing and it's her voice harmonizing-- Walt heard Eileen Woods singing and he said that he saw a bubble coming up and a harmonizing voice. And then another bubble with another voice. But this is not a thing that was done. This was one of the first examples of overdubbing that we see in music and in movies. And it gets pioneered because of Sing Sweet Nightingale.

Chrissy: 15:08

That's awesome.

Sara: 15:09

And it's so perfect. It wouldn't work as well if it was other people harmonizing with Eileen Woods. It works so well to just have Cinderella's reflection in all of these bubbles.

Chrissy: 15:17

So then after Sing Sweet Nightingale, the urgent message from his Imperial Majesty comes, and it is a letter saying, We're going to have a ball. Every eligible lady is required to attend."

Sara: 15:31

And it's tonight.

Chrissy: 15:32

We need to get this done. Prince has got to get married, lickety split. Even Cinderella is allowed to go as long as she gets all of her chores done and has something appropriate to wear. I said," if."

Sara: 15:44

The scene, it just really highlights how dumb the stepsisters are. And I know that they're bad, but I love them so much.

Chrissy: 15:52

I'm so

Sara: 15:54

She says it like an I'm so eligible. Remember, like as a child, being like you can't say eligible. And just loving. the delivery of that line.

Chrissy: 16:03

So Cinderella goes, back up to her room and she pulls out mama's dress from like 25 years ago. And it's little old fashioned.

Sara: 16:11

This is the base of a good dress. She's thinking of how she can do it.

Chrissy: 16:15

She's going to do it on her lunch break, just like me. And then the sisters are like calling her left and right. Calling her, we need your help to get ourselves ready for the ball and fuck everything you have to do.

Sara: 16:25

Because the word is if, and they don't want her to go there anyways.

Chrissy: 16:28

And then the mice come in and they're like, wait a minute, guys, we got this. We will make Cinderella's dress because mice are really

Sara: 16:37

accomplished seamstresses.

Chrissy: 16:39

Skilled artisans. We can do it, we can do it. We can help our Cinderelly. I can't tell you how often I sing that in my life. I don't know why, but it comes up a lot. Whenever I'm like, we got this, we can do this.

Sara: 16:52

They are ready to help their girl, even though she will not just set aside some frigging corn so they can safely eat breakfast in the mornings. They're going to help her out.

Chrissy: 16:59

All right, so they're singing the song and Jaq's like, "we got this, we can do some sewing." And the girl mouse, whose name I do not know is like, leave the to the women." In my house, do you know who does the sewing? It, it ain't me.

Sara: 17:13

In my house, it is also not me. But it is also not my husband. We just don't sew.

Chrissy: 17:17

When he needs something sewn, does it himself. I bring it to my mommy.

Sara: 17:21

Yeah. They're essentially saying, "hey, we're going to do this part. Please go find some odds and ends. And again, suicide mission with a cat go find some things for this dress.

Chrissy: 17:33

And so then we spend an exorbitant amount of the hour and 18 minute movie hiding away from a cat and trying to get around the cat. And I'm like, this is like a Peter Jackson movie, but shrunk down for mouse size. Like where you do the same scene over and over again big monster.

Sara: 17:49

If you don't beef it up with this B plot, you have an shorter-- you have a TV show. A 20 minute after school special. So Drizella and Anastasia have discarded a sash and some beads that are trash. Jaq and Gus go to try to find them, but Lucifer sees like "Oh, they want this?" I'm a really big fan of all of the little details throughout the film of the way that the mice get around the house. All the little doors in molding.

Chrissy: 18:16

I kind of want that, but don't because then that would mean I'd have mice in my house and I really don't want that.

Sara: 18:21

But then the mice in your house would need to know how to install hinges, which I don't see happening because mice today are not the artisans of yesteryear.

Chrissy: 18:29

So then the tiniest carriage in the world shows up. That's like the carriage in Beauty and the Beast that picked up Maurice and threw him in it

Sara: 18:39

The step sisters and stepmother are ready to roll.

Chrissy: 18:42

Just about. They're still topless. The stepmother is like, well, you're not ready Cinderella." And none of them are ready. They're all in their bras. And she's like, "well, I'm not going." Okay. So she goes up to her tower they apparently put their shirts on.

Sara: 18:55

She had no time to get herself ready. She got her chores done. But no time to get anything suitable to wear.

Chrissy: 19:02

And then looks the closet opens-- happy birth day!

Sara: 19:08

The mice and the birds show her their handiwork. This gorgeous pink dress.

Chrissy: 19:13

She throws it on, runs down the million steps of her tower. She's like, "wait for me! I'm ready!" The sisters are like, what the fuck? Evil Mama's all like, don't worry, girls. I got this. Oh, Cinderella, your dress is so pretty. What a lovely use of sashes and beads." And then the girls figure out that that's their stuff and they're like, I love that, why would you take that?" And then they tear her dress to shreds.

Sara: 19:38

That is such a traumatic, violent scene. It's so just upsetting.

Chrissy: 19:43

They would never be able to tell that that was their sash. The beads, maybe. Sure, rip off the beads. But rip the dress to shreds?

Sara: 19:50

They don't want her to go.

Chrissy: 19:51

Girls, girls, I don't want you upsetting yourselves." So she pulls them off of Cinderella after she's just in rags.

Sara: 19:59

That Lady Tremain's a real Lady Dickhead.

Chrissy: 20:01

She's a bitch. So Cinderella runs through this gigantic manor. All of a sudden it's like it gets bigger. Oh, okay. So visually the house just gets bigger and Cinderella gets smaller and smaller. It's a good visual perspective of how she's feeling. Then she runs into the garden and everybody's watching her. And when I say everybody, I mean, all the animals.

Sara: 20:23

She was, five minutes before that, elated. And now she's crushed. And then she does the classic Disney move. Girl will run away crying and she will collapse onto some kind of or seat to cry face down.

Chrissy: 20:35

Then all of a sudden, a Fairy Godmother starts appearing underneath her and she's crying into her Fairy Godmother's lap and no longer a stone bench.

Sara: 20:42

The Fairy Godmother pulls a wand out of thin air, and everyone looks amazed that she pulled a wand out of thin air. You just watched her appear out of thin air.

Chrissy: 20:52

And then she can't pull all of the other stuff out of thin air. She has to turn things into the necessities for the ball. So she turns a pumpkin into a carriage. Turns mice into a horse. And then turns the horse into the coachman. Bruno into a footman.

Sara: 21:10

As the mice turned into horses, they still have mouse teeth. And then as the horse turns into the Coachman, he still has horse teeth.

Chrissy: 21:17

And she's doing all of this while singing. Wait. No. Most of the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boo song is about the pumpkin. 90% of the song is just the pumpkin. And then she's like, "oh, Hey, we need all these animals to turn into things And then there's just like little bibbidi bobbidi boo pfft bibbidi bobbidi boo pfft bibbidi bobbidi boo pfft.

Sara: 21:35

Then once everything comes together and the Fairy Godmother is like, "great, you're ready to go," Cinderella's like "uh, but my, my dress?"

Chrissy: 21:42

Oh, yes, it's lovely. It's lovely. It's lovely. Oh, no, that won't do it all!

Sara: 21:46

This leads us into what ends up being one of Walt's favorite pieces of animation, ever, and that's the tattered dress transforming into The Dress. And it's so cool, I was watching a, I think it was Vanity Fair video. A animation effects person came through and like explain this transformation He was talking about how this moment you have to have the character animator and the effects animator working together. There's not like one person animating the whole thing. You've got the person animating Cinderella doing how the dress is transforming. One of the really cool details is the sleeve that is torn off of her shoulder-- cause she's in like a one shoulder dress by the end of having everything torn off of her-- that sleeve flows back up and makes one of the sleeves for her new dress. All the elements of the old dress transform into elements of the new dress. And while this is happening, you have the effects person coming in and animating all of this pixie dust. And in the industry, it's just known as pixie dust. This is, an effect that is used, throughout animation after this, where you've got these little dots, that then animate into these little cross stars, that then animate into these little bursts, and how they kind of flow up with everything. And by the time the magic is done, they all fall really nicely, just kind of fall to the ground. This is how you animate magic. This is how you convey that magic is happening. So she's got her hair up, she's got her gorgeous dress which still has some of the little sparkles to it so that we know that it's magic. And glass slippers.

Chrissy: 23:16

Size four and a half.

Sara: 23:18

I don't know how Cinderella stands up.

Chrissy: 23:20

My mom has really tiny feet, but ain't no four and a half. She's got like some Barbie size feet.

Sara: 23:25

My six-year-old daughter wears a size four.

Chrissy: 23:27

So Fairy Godmother tells her she has until midnight and then all of the magic will end.

Sara: 23:32

Which is a bummer, cause this ball didn't start until seven o'clock, I think? Eight o'clock?

Chrissy: 23:38

And she was already real late.

Sara: 23:39

Hey, you got 20 minutes to go hang out at this ball.

Chrissy: 23:42

And Cinderella is like, "it's more than I ever hoped for, so I'm in. Send me to the ball. Let's go."

Sara: 23:47

And then as she's going to the ball, you see a lot more of Mary Blair in the background pieces.

Chrissy: 23:53

So much Mary Blair.

Sara: 23:54

And so we're back at the ball. We see like every woman being introduced to the Prince individually and he's yawning and the King is pissed that the Prince has not picked someone yet.

Chrissy: 24:04

The Grand Duke is narrating in this fairy tale story. Like, this is what you want to happen but it's not gonna happen. Simultaneously. It's happening.

Sara: 24:14

We see Cinderella coming in,

Chrissy: 24:16

Doe-eyed and where am I? What's going on? I don't know anything." Everyone else is in order and being called in by name and she's just like, "huh? What? Me?"

Sara: 24:27

Prince Charming just sees her and is like, "ooh, a babe." They dance The King is yelling at the orchestra to "do the waltz, do the waltz!" And then once he sees the Prince dancing, he is like great, cool. This is done. I'm going to bed. They're getting married.

Chrissy: 24:42

Wake me up when there's a proposal.

Sara: 24:44

And hey, no pressure, Grand Duke. But if anything goes wrong, I'll kill ya. The. King is downright giddy that his son might get laid. It is real weird.

Chrissy: 24:53

And then there's like 10 minutes left of the movie and everything happens like, boom boom boom boom boom boom boom!

Sara: 24:57

Yes. Everything. The clock suddenly striking midnight and Cinderella being like, "oh crap, I've got to go! Bye!" She runs off. The Prince doesn't know her name, doesn't know anything about her. All this time they spent dancing and walking and like about to kiss and they never exchange any kind of words. She doesn't know he's the Prince. She has no clue.

Chrissy: 25:16

She's just like this handsome guy was dancing with me.

Sara: 25:18

She runs away. Her shoe comes off. The Grand Duke is running after her and she's like, "oh, just leave my shoe," and keeps running. Cause he's screaming, "close the gates!" And he sends out these evil ass murder horses to follow her. Girl, these are red flags. Keep going. Don't look back. This seems like a very toxic family to marry into.

Chrissy: 25:38

Some Sleepy Hollow Ichabod Crane.

Sara: 25:41

Oh, my God. So many headless horseman coming after her. And these like red-eyed horses. It was so creepy. As she's getting away, all the magic starts falling away. So her dress starts de-magicing and the horses turned back into mice and the Coachman turns back into a horse, and the carriage turns back into a pumpkin. And just as it does, the evil, red-eye horses run over the pumpkin crush it and all the little fairy dust is left falling to the ground.

Chrissy: 26:06

But her shoes remained because one was left at the Castle and one's in her pocket.

Sara: 26:12

Why didn't the shoes go anywhere?

Chrissy: 26:13

Well, you gotta have some kind of magic to bring back the Prince. So she goes home. Next day, everybody's talking.

Sara: 26:20

King wakes up.

Chrissy: 26:21

Pissed.

Sara: 26:22

He wants to know, all right, cool. So they're engaged? They're engaged?" We lost her. She got away and he is ready to murder the Grand Duke. He is going after him with a sword. This is a very upsetting work environment. So because they have a shoe left.

Chrissy: 26:36

And it's this teeny, tiny shoe. They're like, "This isn't gonna fit just any girl,"

Sara: 26:39

Whoever it fits-- I don't care who it fits-- he's going to marry. The Grand Duke has to try the shoe on everyone and then make the Prince marry whoever it fits. When word of this gets out, Lady Tremaine like burst into her daughter's rooms and is like, wake up! You're going to try to shoe."

Chrissy: 26:54

And Cinderella is just like

Sara: 26:57

She's twitterpated.

Chrissy: 26:59

And Lady Tremaine is like, well, that's dangerous Lock!

Sara: 27:03

Cinderella puts on a dress and puts her hair up and literally no one can recognize her. But as soon as she's like bubbly, happy, Lady Tremaine just locks her away.

Chrissy: 27:13

So the Grand Duke shows up and the sisters are trying on this shoe. Cinderella's trying to get out. The mice are trying to help her.

Sara: 27:21

They're trying to get the key.

Chrissy: 27:22

At least they don't try to cut their feet off like they do in

Sara: 27:26

Grimm's

Chrissy: 27:27

fairytale.

Sara: 27:28

In the Grimm's fairy tale, the stepsisters cut their feet to make them smaller. Don't ever read Grimm's fairytales, kids. It is upsetting

Chrissy: 27:36

I mean, I also enjoy me some Grimms. I have a whole book, all of them. Then, the mice get the key, but Lucifer captures Gus and is like, no way, man. You're not getting out. And so they need a hero.

Sara: 27:52

We need a hero! And Bruno answers the call.

Chrissy: 27:56

As Bruno's are, wants to do.

Sara: 27:58

As Anastasia and Drizella are just like assaulting the shoe guy, pissed off that it's not fitting their feet,

Chrissy: 28:04

Cinderella runs down she's like, "wait, your grace. I've got a foot. Can I try it on?" And the stepmother is like, no, the hell you will. And Grand Duke's like, excuse me, ma'am. I'm in charge here, so she's gonna try on this shoe."

Sara: 28:18

And as he goes to bring it to her, Lady Tremaine puts out her ominous, evil, villain stick, trips the Grand Duke, sending the shoe flying and it shatters. And like, if that shoe is so important and delicate, why aren't they just looking at big feet and being like, Nope, first of all. And then being insanely careful with it. Carrying around on the pillow like a terrible idea. a very precarious placing for a glass slipper.

Chrissy: 28:42

So then, she's like, "Hey guys, it's okay, I got a solution," and the Grand Duke's like," no, there's nothing we can do. So screw it. I'm dead." "But I have the other shoe." And he's like, "oh, will, you will marry the Prince." And then she marries the Prince and then the story is over. And that was like, boom, boom, boom, boom.

Sara: 28:59

We don't see her meet the Prince and the Prince being like, oh, Hey, you are the girl that I love." Or her being like, "oh shit, you're a prince. You never said you were a prince." And him being like, "we never said anything. We gave eachother literally no identifying information." And then Cinderella loses her shoe again as she is leaving the castle.

Chrissy: 29:18

You should just avoid stairs.

Sara: 29:19

But you know what? This wedding carriage, it's got a whole bunch of like very Regal horses. But at the front of that, is Cinderella's horse leading the bunch. He gets to lead it. And they live happily ever after. The end.

Chrissy: 29:32

The end, indeed.

Sara: 29:35

I generally am not very entertained by some of the classic Disney movies, but I love this. It is really well done. The mouse parts are definitely a little long.

Chrissy: 29:45

I would agree a thousand times. Like this could have been a 50 minute movie, and I would not have been upset about that. Although I also love the mice.

Sara: 29:53

It's got its good points and its bad points, but it definitely has more good points and it is just a really fun, entertaining movie. So that's it for Cinderella, guys. Shoot us an email at mouseearsandamovie@gmail.com before the stroke of midnight to share your thoughts or find us on social media before we turn back into pumpkins.

Chrissy: 30:12

Normally this is the part where we get our next movie out of the bucket, but we're going to change things up a little bit and wrap up our first season with a special episode. Sara and I are going to talk about the Disney movies we covered on the podcast this season, touch on some that we haven't ahem Pixar ahem, and uh probably still make some weird noises.

Sara: 30:32

That's the end of our show, guys. I'm Sara Farrell Baker, and you can find me across social media @SaraFarrellBaker. Woj, where can we find you on the internet?

Chrissy: 30:41

You can find me on Instagram @quirkychrissy and Twitter @quirky_chrissy. Follow along with us next week, when we'll be discussing all the things! Until then, you can find us online at mouseearsandamovie.com, on Instagram and TikTok @mouseearsandamovie, and on Twitter @mouseearmovies.

Sara: 30:56

See you're real soon.