Pop Culture Flashback: Disney's 'Chicken Little' Gamble (Nov. 4)

In 1995, Disney first embraced the idea of computer-generated animation when Pixar released Toy Story. Both companies needed each other. Disney was allowed to have complete ownership and control of the films and Pixar would receive 12.5% of the movie’s ticket sales. By 2001, Disney was ready to create their own fully computer-generated film: Chicken Little.

2005 – The Sky is Falling: Disney’s First Computer Animated Film

Since 1995, Disney had enjoyed large profits with their co-production deal with Pixar, but that deal was set to expire in 2006. Pixar’s computer animated films were successful, but Disney’s traditional hand-drawn animation were failing. Some people began to suspect that audiences were no longer interested in hand-drawn films and preferred computer animation, but that really wasn’t the case. Pixar’s storytelling was just better.

After a string of underperforming animated tales (Fantasia 2000, Atlantis: The Lost Empire, Treasure Planet and Home on the Range), There was a lot of pressure put on Disney’s Chicken Little. It was Disney Animated Studios’ first fully computer-animated film.

Before the studio began working on the movie, Disney’s CEO, Michael Eisner had 50% of the hand-drawn animation team sent to Industrial Light and Magic to attend an 18-month computer animation training program. It was his belief that CGI was the way of the future.

Loosely based on the famous folk tale, Chicken Little centers around Cluck (voiced by Zach Braff) who is a nervous wreck and can often be heard alerting his town of Oakey Oaks of some impending doom only to find that he had been mistaken. After too many “false alarms” the townspeople (or townsanimals in this case) no longer believe a word that Cluck says.

And then it happened. Cluck discovered an UFO. After telling his outcast friends Abby Mallard (Joan Cusack), Runt (Steve Sahn) and Fish Out of Water (Dan Molina) the group had the task of convincing the town.

The movie also featured the voice talents of Garry Marshall, Amy Sedaris, Don Knotts, Fred Willard, Catherine O’Hara, Patrick Stewart, Wallace Shawn, Patrick Warburton, Adam West and Harry Shearer.

While not a runaway hit, nor highly praised by film critics, Chicken Little ranked in the number 1 spot on the movie leaderboard for two weeks.

OTHER EVENTS THAT HAPPENED ON THIS DAY:

1879 – Ka-Ching! The First Cash Register

An early version of the cash register. — *(Wikimedia Commons)*

James Jacob Ritty opened his first saloon in Dayton, Ohio in 1871 and billed himself as a “dealer in pure whiskies, fine wines and cigars.” While his business was successful, Ritty discovered that some of his employees were pocketing customer’s money instead of depositing the cash. For years he struggled to find a way to better record his cash transactions.

While on a steamship trip to Europe in 1878, Ritty was fascinated with a mechanism that counted how many times the ship’s propeller made a full circle. When he got home, he and his brother began working on the first cash register and on this day in 1879 the device was patented as “Ritty’s Incorruptible Cashier.”

Soon, the pair opened a small factory manufacturing cash registers but kept the saloon open as well. The second business wasn’t as successful and created too much stress for the Rittys. The brothers sold the second business to a group of investors who created the National Manufacturing Company which was renamed The National Cash Register Company in 1884 and today is better known as NCR. (Main image: Wikimedia)