All this has happened before...

...and it will all happen again, but this time...it's happening here.

I am speaking of watching and analyzing the entire Disney Animated Features canon. Since I was a very small child, I have watched Disney movies, which makes me no different than 99% of American children in the post home video era. I don't flatter myself as exceptionally special in the Disney fandom. I know there are people out there far more obsessed and far more qualified than me to write about this topic. Especially on the internet.

As for myself, I started taking Disney seriously my senior year of high school. I was on track to go to Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. It is a...progressive college which emphasizes independent study and creating your own major. I used my impending semester at Evergreen to "write up" my own independent study course on the history of Disney Animated Features. My guidance counselor was all for it. So for every week, I watched five (or so) DAFs and chose one to write a report on. It was the easiest A I ever earned.

Since then (2006, a bloody decade ago), I have made it a yearly goal to watch every DAF in chronological order. The exception was last year because in 2015, I happened to meet my one true love. I was far too preoccupied with my prince actually coming (it's a Disney blog, don't roll your eyes at me!) that I had no time for my annual Disney marathoning. In a way, it makes me a little sad...but then again, I'm engaged. I am living the dream of so many Disney princesses. I'm sure they wouldn't mind.

But now I have a little more time on my hands and a brand new outlook on life. (Love will do that!) So it seems like a pretty good time to revisit all those Disney Animated Features or DAFs, that I consumed in my youth and the ones that came out after my childhood. Not that enjoying Disney movies stops at childhood. Well, you don't need me to explain how watching something at seven is different from watching it at seventeen or twenty-seven.

So here's the plan. It is September 9, 2016 and there are currently 55 films that have been released through Walt Disney Animation Studios. No, this doesn't include Pixar. No, this doesn't include anything released through Studio Ghibli. And no, this definitely does not include any of the direct-to-DVD releases like The Lion King 1 1/2. I am also excluding all the live action/animation hybrids like Mary Poppins and Pete's Dragon. This is the Disney Canon. These films, for some reason, sometimes for an arbitrary reason (I'm looking at you, Dinosaur), are held in a higher regard than others. These are the films I will be analyzing. You can see the full list here.

In the past, I have done this chronologically--Snow White to present. Then I have also drawn them randomly out of a cup. I have gone by my personal ranking, worst to best. But for this time...I think I'm going to do random again. That will keep it fresh and exciting...but then I lose out on the historical perspective....hmmmm...

You can see the bind I'm in. Well, we'll find out soon enough...