Parodies of Snow White

From The Unofficial DisneyWiki

As perhaps the most famous and iconic of Disney's animated classics, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs has been the subject of many parodies.

[edit] Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs

Released on January 16, 1943, Warner Brorthers' Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs parodies Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, telling the story in an all-black environment, completely in rhyme, and making reference to jazz, sex and World War II. The cartoon was directed by Bob Clampett and written by Warren Foster. It is infamous for it's depiction of racial stereotypes.

The wash basin meeting

The cartoon begins with a child asking her 'mammy' to tell her a story. 'Mammy' begins her story with the Wicked Queen (Ruby Dandridge), a thug-like woman who reclines on her throne munching chocolates. The Queen approaches her Magic Mirror, requesting a prince, 'about six feet tall'. A car immediately arrives by the castle, and Prince Chawmin' (Zoot Watson) emerges. He thinks the Queen 'is a fright', but that 'her gal So White is dynomite!' So White (Vivian Dandridge) is washing clothes and, in a shot directly parodying Disney's, meets Price Chawmin' by seeing his reflection. The two jitterbug together as the Queen watches angrily from above. She rushes to a telephone and orders Murder Inc. to 'blackout So White'.

So White and Dopey

So white is quickly kidnapped by Murder Inc., but escapes by bribing the hired killers with her charms. She wanders through the dark woods, soon encountering the seven dwarfs (complete with a small 'Dopey' dwarf), who are in the army and take her in. Meanwhile, the Queen (in a sequence which may parody Disney's use of shadows) injects poison into a candied apple, dons a disguise and visits the army camp, giving So White the apple. The dwarfs manage to dispose of the Queen by firing a shell containing Dopey, who hits her on the head with a mallet. Prince Chawmin' arrives to give So White his special 'Rosebud' kiss, which does not revive So White and leaves Chawmin' drained and exhausted. Dopey, however, manages to wake So White with his kiss. The worn-out Chawmin' asks 'Dopey' what his secret was, to which the dwarf replies, 'that is a military secret!'

Though Coal Black is one of the Censored Eleven (cartoons banned from circulation due to their depiction of racial stereotypes), it is considered one of the greatest cartoons ever made. Animation historians Jerry Beck and Will Friedwald consider it 'a Bob Clampett masterpiece, and certainly one of the greatest Warner Bros. cartoons ever made'^[1] and animator John Kricfalusi called it 'the greatest cartoon ever made'^[2]. Most animation historians consider Coal Black to be Clampett's greatest masterpiece, cobining all the necessary elements of a great cartoon^[3].

[edit] Shrek

The Shrek series of films feature a number of references to Snow White. The Seven Dwarfs are among the fairy tale creatures banished to the swamp. The Magic Mirror plays a significant role in the first film, telling villain Lord Farquaad that he must marry a princess to become a proper king (Snow White is one of three 'batchelorettes' presented to Lord Farquaad as an eligible princess).

[edit] 1989 Academy Awards

The most imfamous case of a parody of Snow White came during the opening of the 1989 Academy Awards when Rob Lowe did "Proud Mary" with Eileen Bowman, an actress portraying Snow White. The Walt Disney Company was angered by what had happened with producer Allan Carr's disasterous number, including the fact that Bowman played a raunchy version of Snow White in a Las Vegas casino production of Charles Busch's "Bleach Blanket Babylon", which bombed with television critics becoming one of the worst television and award show moments in history, and had sued the The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, which awards the Oscars, for copyright infringement and defamation of the Snow White character, but later accepted an apology and a settlement that the footage never be aired or seen again. Carr, who died in 1999 from liver cancer, never worked another Hollywood production again.

[edit] Enchanted

Spoiler warning: Plot or ending details follow.

The Witch, portrayed by Susan Sarandon, with a poisoned apple, in Enchanted

Disney's 2007 film, Enchanted, parodies the Disney fairytale established in Snow White by placing it within the context of the real world; evil Queen Narissa (Susan Sarandon) sends Princess Giselle (Amy Adams) from the enchanted land of fairytales to New York City in the real world. As Giselle wanders through the streets, she mistakenly calls a short, irritable man Grumpy and summons cockroaches, rats and pidgeons to help her clean an apartment in a parody of "Whistle While You Work". The stately, sinister Queen Narissa transforms into a hag in order to deceive Giselle, parodying the Queen and her alter-ego, the Witch.