Ramble: Prejudice Allegories in Children’s Media

Mater would definitely do a top 10 races and not have it be about Nascar.

Jenny: "Five Nights at Freddy's" Jenny, 4 seconds later: "FNAF" Me, bewildered: "What the hell is FNAF?!"

I love how, with the introduction of a Top Comments feature, it revealed that like half of the most liked comments are just about the fact a character in one of the mentioned is named Jenna. And I think that's just beautiful.

i love jenny's hatred of don bluth films because i didn't grow up with them, and i've tried to watch a few of them as adults and i can never get past like 20 minutes

I saw Milo Manheim (Zed from Zombies) in little shop of horrors off broadway and he was amazing. I also love zombies I get so excited when people talk about it

Kind of a funny video to revisit now that Zootopia 2 is the 9th highest grossing film ever made.

Descendants is an allegory for Australia

Everything I learn about Z O M B I E S just reaffirms my belief that it’s just Kids Bop Beastars

Rewatching this ahead of seeing zootopia 2 tomorrow

When Jenny talks about the sexyness of that evil dog I can’t help but be reminded of Michael Scott talking about Ryan

I saw Fox and the Hound sooo many times growing up because my little sister loved the movie. I, too, thought it was screwed up that the man and woman are together at the end. In my head canon, she is tormenting him, rather than genuinely helping him recover. She deliberately screwed up the cast so he will never heal properly, and she's mixing just a tiny amount of dog shit into his food. If they make a chronological sequel, it will be about the widow going to prison for murdering him. She'll join a gang called the foxes, and their rival gang will be the hounds, and she'll make friends with one of the hounds, and... and so on.

My english teacher in the 6th grade was the mother of the little sister zombie of the male lead in the hit enduring classic DCOM movie Z-O-M-B-I-E-S and would constantly talk about how hard it was to go from Las Vegas (where i went to school) to Los Angeles back and forth for her children’s acting. Her son was also a child actor but he was apparently only in commercials and you better believe an entire day in class was devoted to watching all his Liberty Mutual commercials (in which he had no lines) and another separate day she just put on Z-O-M-B-I-E-S to watch in its entirety and in which her daughter had like 5 lines and 10 minutes of screen time. Apparently the male lead really dyed his hair for the role but the little girl wore a wig instead. Riveting. She stopped being a teacher there the year after and Z-O-M-B-I-E-S had only come out like that year or the year prior so I guess this is a unique experience. Miss Foster I still think about you. I learned nothing that year because she was a terrible teacher in general so good riddance

I feel like the predator/prey divide in zootopia makes more sense as a sex allegory. predators as men, prey as women. predators = viewed as more aggressive, yet more suitable leaders somehow

I'm like so sure the dream mall at 1:02:07 is just Meow Wolf Denver

The Balto slander is a rare miss from Jenny (I haven't seen Balto since I was a kid and have no idea how it holds up but it's very special to me)

In fairness to Simba, Kovu was trained from a young age to assassinate him and was fully planing to do so until he incidentally fell in love with Kiara. I feel like Simba had a point.

So much for "no sequel". Zootopia 2 is allegedly in the works now

It felt to me like a missed opportunity when Jenny unironically noted that "[Disney has] a lot of blonde actresses who look a lot like each other" while discussing prejudice in media.

high praise for zombies I KNOWWWWW THAT IS RIGHT

I think the more impactful message Zootopia sends is yes, maybe you can do anything you dream of, but it might be harder for you than your neighbor. Maybe they should have leaned into that more.

Hard disagree on "Cats Don't Dance" being more fun than Zootopia. I always thought it was kind of boring—definitely one of those movies that a lot of animation fans like to recommend, but unlike The Iron Giant or Treasure Planet, CDD really lacked heart to me. It felt very surface-level. [Edit: This is a reply to the comment below this one, not something that Jenny said.]

No "Cats Don't Dance"? When Zootopia came out, I felt like it was a less fun, sadly musicless version of "Cats Don't Dance," and of course the confusing allegory of "don't stereotype" even though the animals are all true to stereotype. Personally, I love Balto! I think the allegory works well, but it's just not racism but stereotyping in general. I loved Muk, Luk, and Boris, but I do have to agree about the pointlessness of Jenna. I felt like the wolf scene was meant to represent Balto accepting his wolf heritage, and then he uses it to help him survive and lead the dogs home. Works for me!

Cars 3 is about Race-ism😅😅🏎🏎

an example i think is actually pretty good of a prejudice allegory in kids media is that episode of spongebob where he’s doing stand up and his entire set is making squirrel racist jokes, and then the townspeople start treating sandy differently. idk i think it’s just a lot more nuanced and reflective of how racism often manifests in real life, with “harmless jokes” gradually molding people’s opinions

They’re from two different worlds but they see the same stars…and then the movie would have no scenes involving stars

I was a big wolf kid so I watched Balto all the time as a kid, as WELL as the direct to VHS sequels! And I am here to tell you that indeed the sequel does answer all your questions: Balto and Jenna have kids together, and most look just like Jenna, but one looks just like Balto, and that movie does deal with the kid dealing with and running away to face her wolf heritage!

Why are there so many old guy sidekicks?Lady and the tramp had both a Scottish guy and an army general guy . I’m thinking it’s a comedy archetype from the 30’s or something?

Hi Jenny, I love your videos! Rewatching this one and I just wanted to point out, as a car history nerd, that the Cars characters are less random silly voices and more personifying iconic cars throughout history (the old lady being the first kind of car ever produced, the hippie being the kind of van that was popular amongst young travelers in the 70s, etc.) A kid would never know that, but it's really cool and fun to see for car-loving adults like my dad and I!

Pretty much all my Bluth exposure was via Cartoon Network/HBO, with American Tail & Anastasia being my top faves. It’s small wonder how this film became Amblimation’s swan song, not helped with airing against Toy Story of all things. Also, I decided to look up the cast of Balto to confirm your thoughts, and it turns out Steele was gonna be voiced by Brendan Fraser before settling in for Jim Cummings (also the worthless polar bears was performed by…Phil Collins😅)

Apologies if this has already been said, I'm just catching up after re-subscribing! Addison, the main female character in Zombies, is actually by no means static: without spoiling the whole thing, despite the fact that she outwardly fits in with the ruling class, she is also secretly 'othered', possibly explaining why she's so receptive to the Zombies and definitely why she wants to fit in so badly with the werewolves in Zombies 2. Zombies 3 is about her actually finding her place, while helping others to do the same. Addison's journey parallels Zed's, reinforcing the allegory.

i can’t believe someone else on this planet knows about the zombies movies

i got hit by a car while having this on as a podcast today which sucks bc i like this vid but idk if i can rewatch it after that

I'm 100% sure someone told you already but the fox and the hound video youtuber Cardinal West is a xenofiction (animal story) author and reviewer and makes tons of amazing videos about animal related books and movies.

I never would have thought Jenny would have had praise of the zombie movies let alone seen it. It’s been a while but i feel like in balto lore it is established that wolf spirit guides are a thing in the later movies.

On my main channel I got rid of ads by monetizing it and disabling all ads. My second channel isn't eligible for monetization so I got rid of ads by putting a block of text in the description with keywords that YT describes as not advertiser friendly. Both methods seem to be 100% effective.

When Jenny started talking about the dog named Jenna all I could hear in my mind was "Nooo!! (awkwardly long pause) ...Jenna!!"

Makes me feel like I have ears

I haven’t watched the video yet but— GUYS, did she mention anything about Trolls World Tour?

Your hatred of Bolto breaks my heart! I have a core memory of watching that with my mom. She would cry every time during the opening scene with Professor Sprout. I always used to laugh at her for crying, and then I watched it recently and teared up at the beginning. I think it's because of all the good dogs we've had, and after living long happy lives, passed away. Also I always hated Steel too. His voice acting is nasty.

everytime you cut from an analysis of zombie racism to a clip of them singing and dancing about racism I crack up

best part of descendants 3 is when they make mal be pro border wall for like half the movie, then is revealed to be a covert republican to her friends, they all get mad at her and then they lowkey die, and then she sings a ballad about how she has to not be republican. incredible movie franchise!!!!!!!!!!!!

I always thought zootopia was more about sexism than racism

I cant remember much of cars 3. I know it had like an actually solid message on par with monsters university, and I enjoyed it. I also distinctly remember being so enthralled by the plot that I gasped during the beginning when the commentator called a new competitor a "rookie" and I said out loud "oh my gosh, lightning mcqueen was a rookie too"

I am nostalgia blind to Balto, so I can't say anything helpful. Jenna is a character so that when kids play pretend Balto, there could be a girl dog to be. My cousin let me be Jenna and she'd be Balto. Much fun. Anyway there is a sequel where Jenna and Balto have puppies, and then the wolfy-est puppy joins a group of wolves. The second movie isn't very good, but it is short.

Yippieeee

I know this is deeply silly, but it will drive me nuts if I don’t “umm actually” the car racism analysis. In Cars 3, Cruz is facing discrimination for being a V6 in American motorsport. That’s why they bring up her not sounding like the other cars at the racetrack, not because of any implied accent.

Balto really is kinda the worst movie. Actually, if you want some Historical Dog Drama, there was a fair bit of it going on. Balto today is basically only famous because he was the lead dog of the final team in the relay. In fact, the musher who did the most mileage in the serum run, and who also owned Balto's team, thought Balto was kind of a mediocre sled dog, and always resented that he's the dog who got the fame. Also, it's been ages since I've actually seen the movie, but does it whitewash all the diphtheria victims? Because in real life it was actually the native population around Nome that were hardest hit. There's a great little non-fiction book about the serum run, The Cruelest Miles, but the Disney+ movie Togo is also fairly accurate and certainly a lot more enjoyable. Features Willem Dafoe as said resentful musher. One plus I will give Balto: I remembered despite the decades that it has a cool Morse code montage, and I just rewatched that and liked it. The montage in Rescuers Down Under still has it beat, though!

It's not as good as what Jenny is describing but IKEA had Smaland which was a playarea that was very forrest-y. i don't know if they still exist but they were very wonderous to me as a child.

After Jenny talking about Zombies I have to watch this as it sounds crazy.

hey I think I have that turquoise pony with the pink and purple hair and one hoof up, I might be mixing it up but I think mine has a pink crystal on the side and a light-up flower in her hair - my cat used to play with her - is she rare?

I agree that it's a little revolting, but I have to say that I find the animation style in the featured Balto clips precious, in a "product-of-its-time" way. It joins CD-I Zelda in being a somewhat grotesque time capsule that I can't help but somewhat love

Its wild to me that it takes 3 days to upload a 1hr video to patreon. Are the servers just that bad(ik nothing of how the internet works)?? Also, what if you reuploaded the fish asmr video that's on your main channel? I personally put on videos that are relaxing to fall asleep so id rewatch it a ton of times. Idk if YT would allow that but maybe to get around it you could put a min intro in the beginning telling viewers what it's for?

It’s wild to have the icon line of have courage and be kind when decades earlier Into the Woods deliberately calls out how unsatisfying it is to be nice to assholes

sooo curious if you have ever watched cats dont dance, it was one of my weirder childhood faves and is very much so about prejudice

I know I'm kinda late here, but does anyone remember an animated kids' show called 'Sitting Ducks'? It aired for 2 seasons in the early '00s and there was even a PlayStation 2 game. The basic premise was that a duck living in the mostly-ducks town of Ducktown is best friends with an alligator from the nearby town of Swampwood, but since alligators eat ducks, there was all manner of inter-species conflict. It's been a while, but my memory of it is that there were a lot of race/racism allegories, some of them kinda heavy-handed, with Ducktown being basically a middle-American white neighborhood and Swampwood feeling a lot more "ethnic" or what-have-you. And of course, it ran smack into the exact kinds of storytelling problems discussed in the video: the show wanted to convey an anti-prejudice message, but in a situation where one group has biologically hard-wired reasons to be afraid of the other group. So yeah, it sticks in my mind as an interesting, clunky, problematic attempt at an anti-racist cartoon (but I haven't seen it in a long time and I might be projecting).

Has she missed a month before?

Me patiently bursting with anticipation for this month's video: Pretend there's a spongebob gif here

Omg it’s October 🥲

sometimes the shortest distance is between two hearts

The in app patreon video is so awful. Even watching YT in here and not on the YT is the worse experience ever.

NOOOOOO! JENNA!

Jenny, have you ever read or looked up the Warriors series about cats who fight each other in the forest? I feel like it's right up your ally

This video reminds me of classic Jack Saint

The month is almost over I’m so excited for a new video!

Aw man I have a soft spot for Balto! Yeah it’s dumb but I actually enjoyed it when I rewatched it as an adult. But of course it’s subjective

See when you were describing that play space it reminds me of a place in the children’s museum in Indianapolis. Idk if you ever went or heard of it but it sounds exactly like that and they had animal costumes and everything

I don't know if anyone brought this up, but you can compare FNAF with Willy's Wonderland. I don't know if that would be enough of a varied take.

Regarding your "forest but not a forest", when I was a kid growing up in San Francisco, the Metreon Center downtown used to have an interactive play space based on Where the Wild Things Are. And while not nearly as detailed as what you describe, it definitely gave me the feeling of being in another fantastical island forest place

reading your little text at the end made me so fcking sad why are people horrible

Hey Jenny! Patreon video player watcher here, I have YouTube premium so I can watch videos in the background BUT YouTube disables background play on YouTube Kids videos so Patreon is actually the only way I can get Picture in Picture or listen to these in the background on my phone.

Also I would love a Balto 2 video as well

Who 👏🏼 was 👏🏼 the 👏🏼 mean 👏🏼 blonde 👏🏼 Disney 👏🏼 actress 👏🏼

You're being so mean to Don Bluth films in this ramble and it's making me cry because I love a lot of his films and definitely his animation style. (Except I agree about the female characters, especially the human ones, ugh) To each their own though!

There’s a joke somewhere about racism and racing in Cars 3 haha

I'm reading the amazon reviews for "Cruel Logic" and I'm begging you to do a book reading, this sounds hilarious. Taking a shot every time a reviewer mentions the "Woke Mob" or "Neo-Marxist Agenda"

I really want a video about Balto 2 now lol. Just going from what I remember, as a kid, I liked it a lot better than the second one. I thought Bato's daughter was just a really cool character

I don't think your forest idea is too complicated at all. Check out Meow Wolf or Factory Obscura. Actually you should totally visit both of those places, I would definitely watch a video about that, and I think you would love it. I've been going to FO regularly for a couple years now and it's so magical. There's a big room in the back that looks both like an underwater scene and a desert at the same time, and it also has a little stage where they host events for local bands. Both are immersive art experiences handmade by local artists, with all sorts of interactive elements. Everything is touchable and sensory-focused, and it's really popular with kids and adults alike.

i've been saying the zombies franchise is about apartheid

This was an interesting topic! Jenny's Steel really got me haha

i feel i must obligatorially say that wolf-dog hybrids are dangerous abominations who you should be predjuduced against and they should be put down wherever they are found. Like, for the extreemly low number of them that exist now and historically they have very high (and well documented) odds of maiming or killing people. Its because of the combination of the dangerous predatory instincts of the wolf (who instictivley fears humans) with a domestic dog (who doesn't fear humans), Basically they are a dangerous predator that feels really comfortable in your living room and no qualms about eating your baby. They have killed people, like a lot of people. In fact it has been specualted and partually substantiated that most "wolf" killings in the historical records actually killings orchestrated by wolf-dog hybrids, who look like wolves.

Cars is literally about race. They're racing.

i actually stopped the video and went and watched cars 3 and realized that i can't always trust youtubers </3 cuz damn that was a waste of time

I named my dog Jenna when I was 8 after watching the movie because I thought the name was so cool 😶

I love the plushie Gastly! And the Simba hat!

I think I never watched Balto in full, feels like I always got annoyed at some point

The patreon video platform is useful for me because I’m exclusively watching things on my phone these days, and YouTube doesn’t have Picture in Picture but the patreon app does so I can be in another app and not miss all the visuals

I watched that Cardinal West video on the Fox and the Hound book and I've been haunted by that ending for days...

I don’t have Youtube premium so I watch in the Patreon player cause it keeps the audio playing if I want to turn off my screen and just listen!

why did I think I had to watch the patreon videos only on the patreon player? I'm one of these faithful 5 people, but only because I'm ignorant

Finally, the Zombies movies get the praise they deserve! I'm so glad my daughter is very very into these movies because you're right, as an adult I'm not going to sit down and watch them by myself, but they're definitely the best option to watch with my daughter. We went to MNSSHP dressed as zombies and she got into cheerleading because of it. And I also don't mind listening to the music in the car.

I was astounded to hear that you thought Balto was bad and then the more I watched I realised I didn’t remember any of that stuff… I’ve now come to the realisation that somehow (likely through some sketchy car boot sale) my copy of “Balto” was ACTUALLY “Balto 2”! I’m gonna rewatch that and see if it holds up.

Zootopia is about racism, it’s just old timey Gilded Age white-on-white racism. Prey are Protestants, predators are Catholics. Judy Hopps is Mormon (Confirmed)

If you haven't been to Meow Wolf (specifically the one in Santa Fe) you should! There's a section that has many plush stones and plants, but the whole experience is great. The City Museum in St Louis also feels that way a little, but most of the natural-ish stuff has an underwater vibe instead of a forest imo.

Thinking about it now, a lot of clumsy-if-well-meant race allegories make a lot more sense as allegories for /caste/. In Descendants and Zootopia, social positions are informed largely by what a given person's ancestors did (ate prey animals, tried to turn a bunch of puppies into a coat, ect). I think because all these films are American, the primary reference for social divide is along racial lines, which can look similar to casteism but is a different beast altogether.

I love the idea of putting up the Pokemon world’s footage! It would be a great way to promote the Patreon!

The tagline for fox and the hound would be like “growing up doesn’t have to change you” or something

I feel like the predator/prey dynamic in media like Zootopia and Beastars works much better as a gender allegory than a racial one. When half of a population has a history of being terrorized and brutalized by the other half, and now they all live in an integrated society where that kind of violence is now taboo but still remains as an undercurrent running through all interactions between the two halves, well, it’s not a difficult comparison to draw.

Have you seen Nimona? I was introduced to it recently and really liked the way that it handled the character arcs.

please please please don’t stop uploading videos to the patreon video player, it lets me toggle out of the app with the video still playing in the corner 😭

Jenny, as a southern USian, I will never blame anyone for having their AC on while filming.

Jenny: "Cars 3 has a race allegory." Me: "No, it's not an allegory. The race literally happened."

Thank you for the ramble! FWIW, I'm still always blown away by how much you make available through Patreon in time and content. From that perspective I wouldn't mind at all if you made some older videos more broadly available on the second channel, especially if it's trying to undermine frustrating behaviour on YouTube's part. But fingers crossed you can achieve that with the Pokémon Worlds footage, which I'm v excited to see! (PS I love Porg's Comfey crown, they look delighted to be wearing it!!)

Ok the line for the Fox and the Hound is probably gonna be something totally ridiculous like “we grow up to find our destiny” that’s just like “uh, duh?”

I was like is she doing social media wrong? Because so many influencers on her level would be in at least a mcmansion by now. Then I remember they are probably faking till they make it. I don’t have any answers but I hope that you get the pay you deserve.

I was about to comment to ask if you could upload your (more significant) TikToks on YouTube somewhere, as I don't use that app and I'd still like to see them, but you're already doing that! Very thoughtful, Jenny, thank you.

Uploading an older patreon video to the second channel for watchtime would be a quick option, (might pay to poll the patrons about it though). Plus it would bring more awareness to the patreon and let people see if they dig the ramble style. Also I might be the only person lol but as someone who doesn't have the youtube app enabled on their phone (too distracting) and watches these exclusively in the patreon app, I really do appreciate you uploading them here, even though it takes so much longer. ♥️

I always thought zombies 1 was basic racisim to acceptance 2 is how some migrant Americans assimilated but feel anger at those who don’t try or hold onto their traditional culture , and 3 was about lgbtq inclusion with the aliens I know she said 4 is vampires but I would love if 5 was about mummies and how it could be an allegory for how people from other countries “Mummies” view their American counterparts who live there “Zombies” . African ideas about African Americans as an example

Because she mentioned 'The Lion King', RIP James Earl Jones, you will be missed. :(

The Little Polar Bear is another children's film that really fumbled the racism metaphor - it does the basic x group and y group can't be friends (in this case polar bears and seals) but the main character solves it by having the seals PAY THE BEARS IN FISH TO LEAVE THEM ALONE, and while I don't think that's the situation when the film ends like I think they do just live in harmony, the film never addresses how messed up it was that the seals had to essentially pay a racket to their oppressors lmao

Really appreciated the section about ZOMBIES!! It's been a long time fave in our house bc the premise is so ridiculous but then as you continue to watch them and learn more about the various lore you can feel the care that the team who makes them put into it. The set designer has a whole section on his website dedicated to the movies that gives really interesting insight about Zombie culture (which has only been a thing for ~50 years in the lore of the film!!) One of my fave lines from the site is: "Having spent years in a blind haze of ravenous wandering, the recovered zombies live in a wonder of the five senses. They love sound, color, and especially light. Every house in Zombietown is a celebration of each family's particular joy. " I agree with one of the comments above that it has a similarly bad racism allegory to Zootopia but understand that it might get repetitive to say that for every movie.

Bedbugs die at relatively low heat (like 105F) so for your clothes and plushies put them in the dryer for a bit. A steam cleaner can get your luggage and other stuff.

The closest thing I can think of your "play forest" would be a re-skinning of a place that we used to have in my area growing up called "the Discovery Zone." It was essentially a massive indoor play place, like the kind they used to have at McDonald's, but twenty times bigger or more. It was the coolest thing to go to when you were like six because there was always at minimum a new layout or something and the vastness of it remained fresh. If that was woodland themed it sounds relatively close to what you want.

With all due respect, I think I you're the only creator whom I could listen to talk about absolutely anything for an indefinite amount of time. You are seriously talented and have such an entertaining and insightful writing style.

Fox and the Hound tagline: "Frienship Even When Apart." I don't know, I can bet I'll be taking a shower,driving to work, trying to fall asleep and have a better idea.

btw jenny have you thought about making that bonus evermore video public, would be easy to get the watch hours with it i think

Factory Obscura in Oklahoma City has plush, climbable, dreamlike forest elements like you’re looking for!

I love that she just decided the dog’s name was Rosie

I would kill to see Jenny review the Harry Potter Forbidden Forest experience

I'm not subscribed at the tier where I can suggest topics, but I'd love to see a ramble where Jenny rips apart the bad movies that a sizable portion of millennials insist are good, actually, just because they have nostalgia for them. I get unreasonably happy when she slags on Balto or The Brave Little Toaster etc.

The plush forest play place's "river" should be a ball pit.

They showed us Fox and the Hound at school when i was a kid, and I got so upset and cried and ended up at the nurse's office, not sure how far i made it through the movie but yeah, it was a bummer. Also unrelated but didn't the main girl character in the zombie cheerleader movies find out she was like part zombie? or something like that?

I can do picture-in-picture playback on the Patreon videos, but that may be browser-specific. As usual Jenny, I vote for whatever video publishing strategy is less time consuming for you. I don't care about YouTube inserting ads, but it may be easier to add a disclaimer to your ramble video title cards saying that any ads served are not inserted by you and don't benefit you financially.

i would've loved it if balto had focused on the problems with a wolfdog even existing in the first place and taken it really seriously so that it was just the most depressing furry movie ever

That artificial forest play place sounds a lot like the old (and maybe new) versions of the Smalland daycare at Ikea.

“It’s houndin’ time.” - my icon line pitch

zootopia sequel was announced months ago

I would watch the videos via Patreon if it's the only option. No worries. I also have YouTube Premium so would never have known about the ads!

I was a Balto kid and Steele was so viscerally uncomfortable for me to watch. Yes drag this weird dog!

"The most powerful boundaries are the ones in our hearts"

I think you described Radio at the end of your Balto rant

"friendship conquers all"

I don’t know if others have commented, but I was one of the ppl who experienced an egregious number of ads when watching last month’s video, the Star Wars post-mortem, but watching this one, and trying others today, there were none. So hoping that either your playing with settings or something on Youtube’s end changed!

Ok I don’t know where else to comment this but I’m currently rewatching the ahsoka series, and did yall notice there’s a character in episode 2 named Wen Weaver?? Evermore reference??👀😂

I feel like Ella Enchanted does interesting things with fantasy prejudice, especially when you compare the book to the movie.

Jenny, I'd l ike the opportunity to fight Taylor to the death for your hand.

JENNY do u know ab the Andrew Lloyd Webber train musical.

What a perfect video ending!

happy birthday queen Jenny thanks for the endless entertainment

unrelated, but has jenny spoken about dinoland usa closing, along with the it's tough to be a bug show?

You're supposed to end the video by waving at the camera (usually both hands) and saying "byyyyyyyyyeeeee!" This is a standard now. We like standards.

the maddening dramatic irony of listening to you describe your low opinion of balto while knowing the plot of balto 2 is exquisite.

When you said you wish there was a plush, playroom forest, I thought of Iceland's mossy hills. That was the exact description I used of those hills because they're so soft and springy. They aren't any plush trees to swing from though.

every christmas my mom talks about how much she hates rudolph because everyone only accepts him once he's useful . also she hates how santa is just straight up mean .

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JENNY!

I watched this video on Patreon (didn’t see the youtube link until afterwards, lol), but COULD see it as Picture-in-Picture, so I could play games on my iPad whilst you waxed poetically (or ranted mildly) in the corner of my screen. So, your 3-day Patreon upload is much appreciated. 💓

You went to the furry convention??? Future video??? 😀

Happy birthday Jenny! Hope you have the best birthday ever. :)

I like the new image quality. Looks like „Jenny - The movie“🤩

Random question: who votes on the Patreon video topics? Is it a thing that happens on Twitter?

Can I watch Cars 3 if I haven’t seen Cars 2? Like will I be missing crucial car lore

actually dying to know which blonde non sabrina carpenter disney actress was mean to jenny at a party once

My fox and the hound line would be “believe in your senses and trust your faithful truth”

Surprised she mentioned that it's problematic in zootopia that the predators did historically harm prey animals and still represent a realistic threat on account of their size strength etc, but doesn't touch on the same issue for ZOMBIES. The historical zombie outbreak/brain eating thing combined with the fact that zombies have to wear their magic bracelets to keep them from hulking out sort of puts a damper on everything that she mentioned in her review about it being one of the more interesting "better" allegories (though still shallow). But she did also say that it wasn't very well thought through so maybe everything that I just said was implied. Just odd.

I think tying fnaf into a video about modern animatronic restaurants and the current state of them is actually a really cool concept

I think the allegory of the wolf vision seems like more of a story of becoming in tune with his primal self. It's less that wolves and dogs can both smell, but that dogs are a domesticated and "civilized" species and the wolf is the great beast in tune with nature and that's how Balto finds his way home.

btw patreon player does have auto captions and picture in picture!

I can't believe I'm 4 days late. I have so many insightful comments to add and wisdom to impart: jenny's hair looks pretty. I saw balto when I was little. the fox and the hound is very vibes.

Clearly that was a Loth-wolf who appeared to Balto…

Makutu’s Island in Chandler Arizona is similar to your imagined plush forest play area. It’s rain forest themed, but it is decorated to make kids feel like they’re animals in a jungle canopy. It was made after a club Disney there closed its doors.

My dogs: Tiffany and Cheryl

Jenny, when you were describing your plush forest play area, I thought of it being in a building like the loading area in Pirates. Take away the water for the soft ground you wanted, make it brighter and put all the plush trees and boulders you talked about. I can imagine that big area being like that. You can keep Blue Bayou there if you want, when you and your friends got hungry. Imagine having a place like that.

Balto wasn’t even the main sled dog of the serum run!! JUSTICE FOR TOGO!!!!!!!!

Ok but who was the blond Disney actress who was mean to Jenny at a party?!

I just can't decide if i agree that the fox and the hound should be considered a (racial) prejudice allegory, on the one hand I agree that some of the lines about the world/society do seem to indicate someone at disney was thinking in that direction but on the other hand i always thought it was fundamentally a fairly literal story about the nature of animals (which I think is a very important lesson for kids to learn). Also, I DO think zootopia is a race allegory, but Jenny's points made me realize the social steroetypes of the predator/prey thing in the movie would actually map pretty well onto a gender allegory

I can't even express how much I like that Jenny enjoys the Zombie movies. They're absolutely ridiculous and I love them so much.

To be fair, Don Bluth was not involved in the production of Balto. He wasn’t working with Spielberg anymore at that point.

i'm so here for more heavily criticizing don bluth films.

I'm holding out hope she went out and bought a Halloween Store werewolf outfit so she can dress up as a hyena....

Gonna bet the Fox and the Hound video Jenny mentions is by Cardinal West! His channel is excellent literary analysis and history of animal novels and the like, he’s honestly one of my favorite literature YouTubers. He actually has a video about Balto and why he loves it so much that I resonate a lot with lol, but yeah I can totally see why someone would find the movie more irritating than enjoyable so no shade

Jenny please review the balto sequels in a future video

About getting watch time up on the second channel: Another YouTuber I watch (Jenna Stoeber) was trying to monetize her channel, and uploaded a video that was mostly just a shot of an empty chair in her office for an hour. She started the video with an explanation of the problem and then asked the viewers to let it play in the background. I am positive that if you did this, you'd have enough watch time more or less instantly. Edit: Though please still upload the video about Pokemon Worlds, that sounds great.

oh jenny, you have to see balto 2

What about Fox and the Hound 2: The country jambree? They were friends? In that….

Someone else might have already said this but to me the "predator/prey"-dynamic in Zootopia is very obviously a gender thing? Like every stereotype maps onto gendered stereotypes of men "not being able to control their natural urges" and women as " weak and in need of defence, not fit to lead" etc. And then you can analyse the specific animal types as a certain races, if it makes sense to do so

The Fox and the Hound: friendship beyond the fur

38:00 - i’m annoying so im speculating that this is dove cameron. im not gonna do anything with that thought it’s just the first thing that came to mind.

Hiii so random but hoping someone here can help me. I'm looking for a Jenny video where she describes a comic strip from bb-8's POV where he thinks Poe Dameron's ear is the centre of his face. it feels like a fever dream right now because I thought it was the 'A Star Wars Story' channel video and it's not! Is it a patreon video? Is it deleted? Am I insane?

The Fox and the Hound — “True friendship is worth taking a shot at”

8:58 Zootopia 2: "there's a beaver named Nibbles, I feel like that's not going to be funny." But then 35:50 Zombies 2: "They have shrimp that go to prom, but they call it "Prawn", like a shrimp, and I think that's funny." Ok so clear favoritism for the arthropod race over the mammal race! That's just so shellfish of you, Jenny.

I think that Balto having big paws would help him stay above the snow, like snowshoes, but I don't know that that aspect of wolves makes them better at climbing things...

What the FUCK i didnt get an email about this! *crashes my car*

this is SUCH a good topic omg, prejudice allegories can be so funny when done badly and heavy-handedly

I sincerely hope that topic of animatronic based restaurants ends up in the monthly video poll because I need to know. I crave the information.

My brain autofilled the title to be "Prejudice Allegories in Children’s Media Ranked" and I don't know if it says more about me or these videos that I didn't question it

Sounds like I'm in the minority here, but +1 to uploading your videos here. I don't pay for YouTube and the experience kinda sucks as a result. I mainly listen podcast-style and the Patreon app let's you play content when the phone is locked.

Crossing my fingers that one of the films you are making a video on is Freddie as F.R.O.7 which is just such a buckwild beautiful animated disaster.

Jenny, this may be off topic, but do you think The Lion King is a rip-off of Kimba the White Lion?

i can't believe you didn't mention how the main girl in zombies finds out she's also part alien in zombies 3!!

Also- if you want more watch hours and don’t care about copyright, do one of those “Jenny Nicholson videos play in a room next door during a thunderstorm” audio videos and you can just loop it and make it really long and people can listen while they sleep!

We have a play place similar to what you describe at my local outdoor mall!! There’s like a smaller scale indoor play room with mushrooms to climb on, puffy stumps, and a plastic climbing tree with a hollow and a slide

I don't know if this is useful data, but... I watch all your rambles on YouTube because I can watch them on my TV (and I think they're worth viewing that way, as films/prestige TV) and I've never (so far) had ads. If you shared links to videos you'd like me to watch outside of the Patreon link (either not signed in to YouTube, or through an alternate account) I'd be very happy to do that. If it were a monthly/quarterly/annual/whatever event I might need reminding. And because I'm not a big commenter, thank you for giving me a monthly moment (hour+) of joy!

Zootopia 2: THERE MAKE BE SNAKES

this book just sounds too beautiful to comprehend. did he go to jail for being too good at debating? did the woke left put him there? I need this so bad

My pitch for the Fox and the Hound line is "You'll never know freedom until you've found a friend." I think it has a good amount of buzzwordiness without actually meaning anything.

This video was Amazing !!! I would absolutely love to see a video on the contemporary landscape of animatronics at restaurants....

Mentally I’m in Jenny’s fantasy plush forest play place

Jenny I would like you to know that I did in fact pause the video just to go watch Cars 3 and then immediately returned to the ramble. Extremely worth it

you actually are missing a lot of context having not seen Balto 2

I looooove Ginnifer Goodwin, have you ever discussed OUAT? It's so stupid but man I love that show

Balto was my absolute favorite movie as a young kid, it defined my childhood. I'd always rent the VHS from the local video store, daydream and make up stories about the characters, and when I was 5 I'd even pretend I was a "race dog" and run around my house on all fours. I haven't watched it in years, but it still holds a huge place in my heart.

When I was little my grandma had balto 3 on vhs and I watched it so many times never knowing anything about the lore until today

We weren’t allowed to watch Fox and the Hound as kids because the book scarred my mother for life when she was a kid. After reading the book synopsis I understand why!

The plush forest sounds fun

Not to make you watch/rewatch a Don Bluth movie, but of his films, American Tail has the strongest prejudice allegory, since it's quite literally about Eastern European Ashkenazi Jews immigrating to the US in the 19th/early 20th century to escape pogroms.

My tag line for the live action Fox & the Hound is "It's not about what you are, it's about what you do." And it will played in the trailer, juxtaposing the moment where Copper turns his back on Tod to when he defending him from Slade. Also, it will be changed so that Tod is one who directly saves Slade from he bear, preserving the whole "earning" your right to be treated humanely thing Disney's got going on.

Copper and Todd are gay lovers now and own an antique store together

Also I think this was a great video, who else could tackle such a topic, but I think sometimes we forget that older movies used to have a lot of animals are the way they are so you wouldn't try to touch birds or raise exotic pets.

I just so emotional watching the Caterpie video. Dang you jenny, you maverick, you rogue. You are the best and I will always be on jennyside. (Lame 30 rock reference...say it quickly) Jenny! You are doing great and I think you should remember that your hardwork and over analasys has led to you being my pick for greatest of all time. When I think of people that remind me to be better, somehow you are on there haha and yes I am sure you won't actually read this, there are already 400 comments, but I feel I need to say it. Thank you!

I need Jenny’s Triton impression to use as a ringtone.

I guess you could say that Steele from Balto is "Otto from Barbie as Rapunzel Coded"

I don't particularly care about FNAF, but a video about animatronic restaurants would be totally my jam!

When I got to the part about switching Rosie and Jenna's names, I was unsure if Rosie was like a historical real child who might have been alive when the film came out (I looked it up and I don't think she was), but like imagine watching a cartoon biography of yourself and seeing they named your character after your dog and gave your name to a dog's useless love interest who the weird horny villain harasses. Balto is super weird bc the "real" story -- Balto was judged to be a bad sledge dog by his owner bc he was too small and stocky, and then it turned out those traits that would maybe make him a poor racer would make him good at pulling freight -- dovetails with a story about self-acceptance or diversity much more than this wolf thing, or at least would be cleaner than the wolf thing? And it's also wild that considering Balto's actual life after his run, with being sold to a shady circus, being rescued by a zoo, stuffed, and then there being a campaign for the zoo to return his remains to Alaska, which tbh any one of which I would think would be more fun for a sequel than his daughter not passing as a dog, which I can't believe this studio could handle well lmao

I think I forgot to say that even though the songs in Fox and the Hound are really weak the score is really good, it's been stuck in my head since my rewatch

petition for next month's ramble to be delivered entirely in Jenny's balto villain voice :D

I thought Elemental would be one of the movies, which of course has the same issue as practically any racism allegory ever - which is that the "races" are actually biologically different in a way that genuinely affects life/interactions and in a way justifies the mistreatment. I also thought it was about the fire family being climate refugees and the climate crisis beginning to affect the water city or w.e it was called, but uh...this did not pay off at all. Music was dope though.

part of the problem with kids media trying to do a racism allegory is that there's no valid explanation for racism irl, but that doesn't translate well to childrens stories (or even stories as a whole). they cant really go with "this group of characters is discriminated against for no real reason" because it would feel like there was no world building; the audience would feel like something major is missing and be confused about why the community shuns that group. they always need to set up some reason for the racism so that the movie makes sense, but then when they do that it kind of wrecks the allegory.

Im glad you touched on Zootopia how you did. I’ve always found the criticism of the movie trying to tie the predator or prey animals to real world races to be pretty lazy. It’s clearly doing its own thing and is commenting on racism as a concept, not on real world racism. It’s not perfect, I agree with the critique that it fails to acknowledge that racism isn’t rational, that you can’t tie it back to a specific behavior and “cure” it by proving “they’re good actually”.

Lice at a furry convention sounds like a joke or a southern saying lol

Fox and the Hound is my go to break-up movie lol. I've always viewed it more about relationships than about society/race. I know there ARE lines of dialogue that evoke "the world is cruel for not allowing them to be friends" but for me its more of a cosmic kind of thing. Not really "foxes and hounds" can't be friends but more "you can love someone and still not be compatible with the world they live in"

I would LOVE to see your breakdown of that ridiculous book! I also got ads for it on Twitter, and actually read some of the free sample because it looked so funny. Definitely reminded me of Trigger Warning.

Ughh, it sucks to hear they're putting midroll ads on unlisted videos, but I'm not surprised. They were putting a bunch of midrolls on mine before I was eligible for monetization too, and I now have it set to No Midrolls but am always suspicious that they'll try to sneak some in. My channel dashboard has a little thingy that keeps urging me to turn midrolls on. Bleh.

The evil dog in Balto creeps me out in the same way the villain in Quest for Camelot does. Why do they have to move their faces like that??

Oh. Balto a wolfdog and he got feet!

your point on conditional acceptance based on merit/talent when talking about balto reminds me a lot of the conversation around hermione in harry potter. lots of supposedly 'anti-racist' talking points in those books that boil down to "you're smarter than them so they are wrong."

🚩 For those of you suffering with youtube ads, there is an adblock web browser called Brave that i've used for years. It works 100% on YT ads, and you can save vids offline for later. I had to start using it after youtube started targeting me with alt right propaganda ads bc I refuse to be held hostage at bigotry-point for $16.99

Jenny, I am begging you to take on the task of opening a soft forest playland. I will fly to wherever it is. I will back this forest on kickstarter. Please add a climbable spider web room with hammocks. Will there be giant mushrooms? Slides shaped like giant blades of grass? You have the theme-park and event knowledge to make it a reality! Please, there are dozens of us!

Petition to have a ramble topic be analyzing tropes in live action Disney movies

Do you think the live action villain will be as weirdly sexual? And if so do you think they'll put out a casting call for a dog with weirdly sexual energy or will they just CGI that in. Maybe Cats live action walked so Balto could run

I can't watch the patriot without thinking of Steel the dog because the antagonist looks like a human version of steel sooo much

Yesss I love hearing your take on the Zombies movies and also would love a video on Balto 2! Love this ramble! BTW, I’ve never had an issue with ads on YouTube for any rambles, this might not be an issue that requires too much stress on your end, but I appreciate how much you value us :’)

Please, please, please for the love of whatever god is out there, let the obscure bad movies Jenny is covering be Max Magician and the Legend of the Rings and the even more obscure horse movie (name escapes me) from the same writers.

I seem to remember getting ads on the rambles about a year or so ago, but then they stopped and I haven't had them since *shrugs*. As someone said earlier, it's kind of hypnotic watching the ears on Jenny's hat flop around as she's talking. Also, boooo to the Disney actress who was mean to Jenny at the party!

I paused the video and watched Cars 3. Why does a movie about talking cars have me emotional? Solid movie, gorgeous animation.

I feel obnoxious pointing this out, but in Zootopia it's not true to say the police force is mostly pred animals. There are some, but like, the chief is a buffalo, an herbivore. There are wolves and big cats, but also hippos and rhinos and elephants. The police aren't mostly pred animals, they're just mostly large animals, hence the prejudice against Judy.

i always thought the widow in fox and the hound released fox into the wild because she was too old/dying and could no longer take care of him. maybe the marketable phrase for the live action would be something like “the world needs your wild” or “anyone can be a friend”

That Steel impression was worth a year of Patreon subscription at least!

Based on this video (Samsung user, idk if things are different for the Patreon app on Apple products), closed captioning is auto-generated and doing a pretty decent job for the in-app player! Though there isn't an option to cast to a TV or anything (workarounds for this do exist, to just Screencast your whole Samsung to a smart tv). Just wanted to let you know! The whole 3 days to upload thing definitely feels like enough of a reason to not upload directly and exclusively to Patreon, though 😅

I would kill to see you watch balto 2 lol. it's like objectively not a good movie but 1) it feels like all the points you make about balto are fixed there and 2) it's a lot weirder

It is also very disappointing to hear that youtube is continuing to shove more ads into everything, especially after their crackdown on adblocks. I find youtube to be basically unwatchable with ads (and why I don't watch on my phone at all), but did manage to find an adblock that works consistently on PC (AdNauseam for anyone curious, though has to be updated/installed manually on Chrome cause Google removed it from their store, I wonder why...)

Regarding your "soft forest playground" idea, something along those lines exists at the Explore & More Childrens' Museum in Buffalo, NY. It isn't *huge*, but it is rather spacious, and features a hobbit hole with warm lighting and loads of books.

I actually do still really like the don bluth animation style, though I do agree its waay over the top on the movement and does tend to be objectively a bit ugly, but I think part of why I liked it so much as a kid is just was nice to have a different type of animation to look at. And it tends to have more attention to detail when a lot of kids animation veers towards being really simplistic (which can still be good of course).

Full stop about the widow and the hunter hooking up. I HATE that.

My fox and the hound line would be "it doesn't have to last forever. It just has to matter right now" before the widow tweed returns him to the wild and then at the moment of conflix the fox will say that and I will hate it but I will enjoy being right more

Jenny’s annoyance at Jenna (the dog) is highly amusing lol I also thought the little girl’s dog was a descendant when I was a kid…never thought about it being a pure bred. Sad.

Had no idea there was a second channel on YT

I want to make the case for why The Lion King can be thought of as a race allegory. I haven’t watched it in maybe 17 years (and did not bother to see the CGI remake), but that was the VHS tape I watched every day for like 6 months as a toddler, so the plot is very much a part of my oldest memories. Some of this argument will be influenced by essays I’ve read/watched about the movie, but for the life of me I can’t remember where I consumed that analysis. So first, I don’t think it’s off-base to say that the hyenas represent another country. I think that’s probably not incorrect. But why is it that they represent another country, when every other animal is allowed in the Pride Lands? Mufasa says everything the light touches is his kingdom, and every creature in it, is his subject. Simba asks why are the antelope subjects if they eat them? It’s because they don’t get to be characters at all anyway, but Mufasa says it’s because they like he and Simba are all part of the circle of life. They eat the antelope now, but later the antelope will eat the lions once they’ve died and become grass. And so on. So why don’t the hyenas participate in the circle of life? Why are their lands barren and dark and lifeless? Do they not also eat meat and then decay? It’s because the hyenas are fundamentally gluttonous. They just eat everything with no thought to balance in the ecosystem. Mufasa has quarantined them in that certain area, and they aren’t allowed to come to the Pride Lands. And obviously, the story frames this as the correct decision. Once Mufasa is assassinated and the hyenas are allowed to roam free, they bring ecological destruction to the savannah, all because they ate all the herbivores, and Scar is lazy, prideful, angry—basically all 6 of the other 7 deadly sins—ruler in Simba’s stead. So the hyenas MUST NOT be on the Pride Lands, and Simba MUST remember that he alone is the rightful heir to the throne. It’s a story that says when the RIGHT people are absolute rulers, it is a good thing, and everyone necessarily benefits. It’s a story that works off of the assumption that people are fundamentally good or evil, and redemption is not an option. It’s a kid’s film, in other words. But that poses a question: Were the hyenas asking for too much? Textually, the answer is obviously no. In the narrative as presented, the hyenas’ problems are all of their own doing. They were the ones who ate all their antelope, and they’re bad guy characters who can’t change, and therefore can’t be trusted. But if we add real world nuance, what it seems like to me is that a ruling faction/ethnic group/colonial power ghettoized another group and now they’re suffering and want to break free. And then when they do break free that’s horrible because now the lions and hyenas are SHARING RESOURCES. Oh no, not sharing my hard fought stolen wealth! I’ve always found it odd that there are only two types of carnivores who have speaking roles in the movie—lions and hyenas. I want to say that they’re the only two types of carnivores that show up in the entire film, but I vaguely remember cheetahs bowing down to King Simba… But isn’t that interesting? The lions have complete control over all their resources, because any other type of carnivore in the Pride Lands listens to the lions. Except the hyenas won’t accept their beneficial rule, even though they obviously don’t know what’s best for them. In this story, the hyenas HAVE to be ruled by someone else. ALL other carnivores have to obey the might of the lion, just as the herbivores do. TL;DR The Lion King can be thought of as a white savior narrative a la the Irish Potato Famine. Also for what it’s worth, as a child I definitely read the hyenas as a minority rather than just bad guys. And not really in a “seeing yourself” sort of way—I’m white. I am Jewish, but the hyenas don’t feel like they’re from the Pale of Settlement or anything. No, they felt like they have different racist tropes attached to them. idk, that’s it. sorry for the length.

The Fox and the Hound live action trailer should just use "With great power comes great responsibility" as its not-actually-in-the-film soundbite. Actually, all trailers for every movie should use that.

Trigger warning was the first video of yours that I ever saw. It randomly popped up on my recommended video list and I just happened to click on it and was hooked immediately. I’d love another bad book reading because those are some of my favorite videos and I rewatch them all the time

When I was a kid, Balto 2: Wolf Quest was my favorite animated movie (and I didn’t like Balto 1 that much). From what I remember, it does delve into a lot of the issues you hoped Balto 1 would explore. I’m not sure how it would hold up if I watched it as an adult, but I remember it having some striking visuals and a different story structure than most kid’s movies. I hope you check it out.

I hated the fox and the hound as a kid. I was a little black kid who was constantly moving and spent the majority of my childhood in predominantly white areas. I was always the odd one out. My first experience with racism was being made fun of and laughed at by my entire kindergarten class because I wore my hair styled in an Afro instead of my usual braids. It made me ashamed of my hair and I grew up insecure about how I looked. Watching Fox and the hound as a child made me feel like I was always meant to be an outsider and the differences between me and my classmates were so great, I would never fit in. I didn’t even relate to it as a racism, prejudice allegory, I was just a little kid who felt different who really related to this cartoon Fox, who had a very sad ending.

I totally get your issues with the Amblin/Bluth animated movies from this period; I remember enjoying a lot of them growing up but the way everyone's so over-animated makes me queasy watching them as an adult (I feel like Don Bluth's work in particular has an overreliance on giving characters these grotesque underbites)

My issue, and I'm hardly alone, with Zootopia's racial allegory, wasn't that you can map a specific race to the prey/predator animals, but that it's a biological difference in the movie, where race is just a social construct. That is kind of problematic, even if not intentional.

Oh I guess I'm one of the 5 people who watches these in Patreon. Tbh I figured you wanted us to watch them here, because the comments were turned off on the youtube uploads. I'll switch over to youtube! Also, would super love more bad book readings! The Trigger Warning video is probably my second favorite of your entire channel, always gets me laughing out loud.

I just got back from Alton Towers and they had a fossil digging game that had that like fake soft dirt/gravel and it was amazing 😆 I feel like they could totally make your play forest!

I'm so happy to finally hear you talk about the ZOMBIES movies, they're such iconic camp to me. But I can't believe you didn't mention (spoilers, I guess) that the human girl finds out she was secretly A QUARTER ALIEN which is absolutely wild. The third movie also features a nonbinary character who is romantically interested in both girls and boys! Kinda cool for a DCOM!

Re: next video. It's so dense, every single scene has so many wokescreeches going on.

I've paused to second your demand that everyone go watch Cars 3. It's one of the most oddly mature and sombering sequels in the Disney canon, and being the follow-up to Cars 2 only makes that fact weirder.

The summary you gave of the hypothetical soccer movie was just the plot of The Blindside and I don’t know if it was planned or not but either way was very funny

the way the ears on jenny's simba hat flop around gently while she talks is entrancing. also, the fox & the hound is the first movie i remember watching that genuinely devastated me as a (very young) child - we're talking full-on broken hearted sobbing for HOURS. i didn't understand why they couldn't be friends!!!!!

Jenny is so incredibly loyal to her Patreon supporters. She’s going to extraordinary lengths to try to find a solution to the ad problem. Unfortunately I don’t think there’s anything she can do to fix it. YouTube is always going to show ads to anyone not on premium because getting people on premium is all they care about. I doubt there’s any way to stop them.

I loved the Ginnifer Goodwin shoutout, I always loved her and Josh Dallas. Candlelight Vigil in D’Land covers the story of the birth of Jesus with some verses and choirs singing Christmas songs. Really cool experience that I highly recommend.

thank god i feel so validated on my opinion of balto now 😭

I wonder if it's at all possible to read Fox and the Hound as a queer allegory, rather than an allegory about racism. This is how I always read it (implicitly at first lol). Like, the hound is in this super hetero, very masculine environment, and tod wants to play and have fun and mess around, and their relationship is highly discouraged partly because of the kind of role that the hound is expected to play. The nature stuff doesn't really make much more sense on this reading either, but maybe some of the stuff like the animals discouraging Todd from being friends with the hound does. Like, if the animals are metaphorically queer, maybe it has resonances with older queer people warning younger queer people about the danger of getting hurt by someone who is deeply committed to playing a cishet role. Idk, maybe it doesn't make any more sense than the racism allegory, but your interpretation revealed to me that my queer reading has always been in the background for me lol

Please make a video on the current state of animatronic restaurants!!! Omg I need to go to all of them

Friendship is about to outfox the doggone system.

I'm really happy this video topic prompted Jenny to talk about DCOMs, especially Z-O-M-B-I-E-S

I just remembered that Jenna the dog has two dog friends whose whole thing is that they are shallow and really horny for Steele, like if the silly girls from Beauty and the Beast had more than three lines and were dogs. What is it with the horny side characters in Amblin Entertainment movies?

my idea for the tagline: "Our differences make us who we are." It HAS to be said passionately with emphasis on each word in the trailer. And though I agree that the whole kindness thing isn't really necessary and that it's a personality trait of Cinderella, I'm reminded that Cinderella without kindness just results in Bad Cinderella from ALW, and I shudder a bit

In terms of other animated children’s movies with dodgy prejudice allegories: in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie that came out last year, the Mutants are very clearly representative of minority groups. April tells the Turtles the only way they’ll be accepted is if they do something big to help the city. While she does admit to having selfish reasons for doing this, the movie proves her words true. Also, when the news tells people the Mutants are dangerous, people hate them, but when April gets on the news and tells people the Mutants are good, suddenly it’s the end of the first Spider-Man movie… even though essentially it’s just showing that people will do whatever the media tells them. Pretty lousy message for the intended audience.

Omg the Balto storyline reminded me of the show When Weather Changed History that I was obsessed with when I was a kid. There was one episode about the real event that Balto is based off of. Iirc it was a diphtheria outbreak among the children in remote Alaska. The weather channel constantly ran reruns of this specific episode lmao

Why not release a Patreon ramble on the Cooler Jenny channel publicly as a teaser? Then it wouldn’t require any work and it would promote the Patreon.

YES YES PLEASE MORE BOOK CONTENT

I can’t believe how much Jenny has had to endure (closing the petting farm, replacing Maelstrom with a lackluster Frozen ride, having a Disney actress be mean to her at a party), and yet she’s still a Disney fan. But I completely understand.

King triton: (Maurice 2017 voice) im so overprotective

"You are who you are. Nothing can change that."

As somebody who has watched Balto forever, I am probably biased, but I thought the Balto wolf scene WASN'T him accepting his big paws, but accepting his whole self?😭He howls back at the spirit! What does the howl have to do with his paws?

(Also I loved Balto as a kid, but like, more specifically Balto the character, since his lack of characterization and Kevin Bacon's 'Go Girl Give Us Nothing' of a performance made him a perfect canine blank slate to project Child Angst onto)

Okay but I NEED everyone to know that both of the annoying polar bears in Balto were voiced by PHIL COLLINS for some reason. Like. He didn't even do the music?? Is this what sent him down the path that led to Tarzan and Brother Bear!?!

My favorite moral lesson about racism in kids media is when they go "see, it's not smart to be racist, because different races have different abilities that we can use to our advantage!"

Feeling so called out. I named our childhood dog Genna lmao. I was 5

I can only dream, but it'd be cool if you did short travel vlogs and crafting videos on your 2nd channel.

I'm so in need of a Lion King Expanded Lore video. I'm like super facinated by the Lion Guard show going for high-drama and also fitting in the Lion King 2 lore. I love it when spin-off franchises start taking themselves more seriously than you'd expect in a way that signals that someone working on it is genuinely invested in it.

I need to know more about the shrimp mascot immediately

I want that plush simba hat so bad

It's funny, I watched Balto as a kid, but before you talked about it I had forgotten about all the comic relief, the fact that Balto was a half-wolf, or Rosie as a character. I just remembered it as a grim movie where a bunch of children are going to die but a dog saved them at the last minute. The moral I took from it as a kid was just "dogs are great", which I see now was probably not what they were going for.

Really enjoyed this one, Jenny! I'm sorry about your hats being in bed bug hell :(

Now, I’m curious as to what obscure show it is, even if you don’t make a video.

As the biggest fan of these two "forgotten" Pixar movies, I was kind of hoping you'd reference Luca and Elemental. Luca is I think a surprisingly elegant and tender allegory for queer acceptance and coming out, however unintentional that might've been. On the other hand, Elemental is an extremely direct allegory for interracial dating and culture clash in a super NYC-coded fictional city. It's also interesting in that unlike Zootopia, you can kind of directly "get" what ethnic groups our two focus points are (water = white, fire = some asian blend) to the point where we have water boy at some point trying out "fire food" (spicy food) and his water family making inappropriate but well-meaning prejudiced comments at fire girl. The allegory isn't perfect, but it a veeeeerry sweet movie. Both are really underrated, imo!

ah, cardinal west was the video essayist you mentioned! his vids are really good. his watership down/plague dogs video made me bawl my eyes out 😭

You can Chromecast to your tv from the Patreon app, I do it for some other creator content, but I still prefer to watch from youtube!

Glad you read a little about Balto 2. Definitely hitting some of the notes you mentioned, but probably just as clumsy. I liked Balto as a kid, but I can understand it was probably one of those movies that's better enjoyed young and then not revisited lol. My version of seeing a movie past the time to enjoy it was Nightmare Before Christmas. I thought it was just okay.

44:52 NO! JENNA!

scrolling through a google generated list of blonde disney actresses trying to guess which one was mean to jenny at a party. i have my suspicions of course….based on nothing.

Bizarrely it turns out I am one of the people that boosts your views on youtube. I like to watch your vids on my xbox so I'll click on the video in patreon to open it up in youtube. Then once it's in my watch history I pull it up on the xbox. I've been doing my part, how nice.

Absolutely read this as "Pride & Prejudice Allegories in Children's Media" when I was tipsy last night (UK time). Went to sleep listening and wondering when Jenny was going to start talk about Lizzie and Mr Darcy 😅🍸

As I was listening to you describe predators vs prey stereotypes from Zootopia, I started thinking it sounded more like masculine/feminine gender roles than racism, though I'm sure that doesn't map exactly to the story either.

bro every damn time creators tell us about the shit YT forces them to have to do for their art to be seen i want to scream, like for the love of GOD.....

I am SO ready

Lion king 2's biggest flaw is that they weren't brave enough to make the heartthrob romeo character a hyena

Okaaay, so im now 20 minutes in, well as i prewatched the video essay and when prompted cars 1-3, more like 6h 20 in, so i wanted to add that in cars 3 there is also a black guy, when the old lady racer car is reminicing how she stole the number they switch to a we at the end, implying heavily they where both not wanted with the heavy implication that he is black, in turn i didnt catch the thing bout her being discriminated against as beeing latina

I’d want my iconic fox and the hound line to both be thematically irrelevant AND vaguely problematic so: Real friends lasts forever

Pitch for Fox and the Hound icon line: “Trust your red fur and wild soul Tod. But remember Copper and his canny ways .” Is that clunky and on the nose enough? You are awesome, great ramble.

“you cannot nurture nature”

Zootopia 2 is coming out in 2025

Jenny's rant about Balto's happy ending only being about how people value him for his utilitarian purpose is literally the plot of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer fyi

I wish the candlight ceremony was twas the night before Christmas....but no it's very Christian suedo mass. Balto was in irl, according to Wikipedia, was neutered at a young age. So he wouldn't have had puppies with Jenna. That's why I liked Ever After, she moved on with her life but her abusers still got just deserts.

I was so excited for your Cardinal West shout out. His videos are super interesting. He was the reason I rewatched Balto recently and my response was the same as yours.

Oh I need to know who the mean blonde Disney actress is……. Or what the circumstances were 😭😭

I generally just watch the YouTube link in the patreon app, and have never had ads. But just now clicked on the same vid and had it open in the YouTube app and there were immediately ads. Assuming that’s not just a fluke it’s a quirk I guess.

Don Bluth’s exaggerated animation wasn’t suited to film but it worked well in video games. Dragon’s Lair is beautiful to look at until it becomes cringe at the end with the arrival of the dimwitted damsel in distress.

I haven't watched Cars 3. BRB, pausing the video to go watch Cars 3.

Remember when Jenny used to wear big hats?

I’m surprised you didn’t mention how in Zombies the lead girl’s big fear is that her hair is white and that she’s totally capable of understanding generations of segregation against an entire separate race because of it and triumphantly removes her blonde wig in solidarity, or how she thinks she’s a werewolf and tries really hard to reclaim her heritage, or how she’s an alien. Certainly a strange perspective for what is more or less the POV character to have. Also, “Best Embrace The Suck” is Beastly’s ominous symbolic quote they’d use in the trailers.

The description the fun faux-forest reminds me of a small section of the kids play area of the YMCA my family used to go to. It was more of a temple/jungle theme and it couldn’t have been more than just a slide and a ball pit with a tunnel connecting them, but at that young age I remember it capturing my imagination well enough. A full entertainment establishment like that would’ve been my absolute fave.

I haven't seen Balto in like 25 years, I didn't remember Steele being so exaggeratingly villainous/horny sounding like that. Or the overly active animation. The Bluth films did tend to have that look to them, although I feel like that one might be the most glaring example.

There’s gonna be a zootopia 2

watching jenny ramble through trying to unpack the cars universe and the plot of balto have to be among the funniest moments in any of her videos

It’s not quite the same as a forest but when I was a kid the please touch museum in philly had an alice in wonderland section and I was obsessed. Like there was a plushy hedge maze and a springy floor and weird mirror mazes and a giant tree and it was awesome. 10/10

jenny, your description of a play place forest hit me SO hard in terms of nostalgia… when i was a kid i was obsessed with this idea about going to an indoor playroom that was just a big dirt cliff with trees and plants growing on it that you could climb around on .. but like, fake and inside … always thought i was so weird for that but i wanted to go there more than anything

I feel like the fox and the hound phrase has to include friendship. Maybe "friends are forever" or "friendship as strong as steel" or some other non thematic nonsense

I just watched the video essay about the fox and the hound, and they just released a 6 hour long video about Tolkien. Perhaps an extremely fast response to the criticism of only making videos about fictional animal protagonists.

PiP does work on patreon mobile, but watching this video on the patreon app video player made my phone extremely hot, way more than the native ios or youtube player would do.

If the debate lord serial killer isn't named "Hannibal Lectern" then their editor is asleep at the wheel

I think what’s brilliant about Zootopia is that it’s not specifically about racism, but about bias. A lot of people assumed it was about race, but it functions quite well as a metaphor for other kinds of biases. The screenwriters clearly spent a lot of time thinking about kinds of biases animals might have about one another, which don’t necessarily perform as a 1:1 in the human world. The biases against Judy as a bunny can work pretty well as a parallel for misogyny. Despite being fully qualified to be a police officer, she’s made a meter maid- a traditionally female role with the assumption that larger animals (not necessarily predators. We see several females and herbivores in the ZPD) are better suited to rough and dangerous work. Chief Bogo, of course, is an herbivore too, but a particularly large and aggressive species. The issue with Judy isn’t that she’s a prey animal, it’s that she’s the wrong kind of prey animal. I also remember reading a tweet from a Muslim man who saw Islamophobia in Nick’s situation. Seemingly, he, as a medium/large predator species should be able to get ahead, but being a fox means that he’s viewed as not being incapable (like Judy), but inherently untrustworthy. This is a nice contrast to Mr Big, who, as an Artic shrew, is actually an incredibly vicious predator animal despite being tiny. The polar bears, panthers, etc still respect him. Like with a biases, there’s a level of intersectionality, too. Judy can suffer discrimination from others and still be biased herself. So can Nick, as we see when he insults her at the beginning. A lot of the criticism of Zootopia centers around its allegory of racism being quite poor, but I think that’s deliberate because they are not targeting racism specifically. The resolution might not be a satisfying as we might like, but the moral is that it’s worth examining our own biases and that the effort of trying to correct them is valuable.

Not about racism but still prejudice: A reoccurring problem in Disney is they will resort to ableism humor as a shortcut. I work with neurodivergent and disabled kids and it really bums them out when Dory’s amnesia is the but of a joke or the sloth in zootopia tales took long to talk and it’s considered funny. I know kids post stroke or other conditions like meningitis and it really upsets them because they hate that they take ‘too long’ too talk already and for that to be the butt of the joke sucks. WALL-E is another one because all the humans are fat and use mobility devices and the joke is they’re fat and lazy. It’s not so funny to a 9yo ambulatory wheelchair user when strangers are constantly telling her she’s lazy for using a chair because she can walk sometimes. It’s obviously a factor of ableism and saneism being systemic biases but kids don’t really understand that they just get the impression that they’re existing wrong and that’s supposed to be funny.

Not every story about discrimination is an allegory for racism or immigration Jenny

My friend was named Jenna Rose after the dog from Balto and its owner, lol - her older sister was obsessed with the movie and convinced the parents to use those names. 😆 What a movie to be named after.

Also I am stunned that these Zombie Disney movies made it to aliens before vampires, how does that even happen. It's like they tried a flex for the third installment, went sci-fi, and it wasn't popular so they went back to Halloween monsters for the latest.

My old roommate and I used to watch all the DCOMS as our weekly bonding ritual in college and over lockdown as we were across the country we virtually simul-watched descendents and zombies to cope with the end times and were pleasantly surprised by how much we enjoyed them. However we just watched descendants 4 and it was awful

isn't the movie jenny (jokingly) pitched in the Balto discussion basically The Blind Side? Just football instead of soccer

The original iconic line from fox and the hound is "My, my. Look at that. A fox and a hound... playing together!". I can still hear it. For the live action remake... "They come from two different worlds but friendship, is a world they're changing"

The furry convention! I thought you were out of that world, maybe I'm just not up on my Jenny lore

can vividly hear the fox & the hound owl saying something like “things are different now …… you know that, right?” as the score drops out on the middle, hard cuts from them wrestling as kids to them falling down the waterfall etc etc

Re: ads in Patreon vids Maybe I’m the only one but tbh I’ve never seen an ad run on one of your Patreon videos but even if I did I’m not sure I’d care? I mean I’m subbed here because I want to support your content (and obviously extra content is a part of that) but I’ve never actually found the occasional mid-roll that obtrusive. But maybe I’m in the minority, I don’t know. Also I didn’t know you made a TikTok! I’m chronically not online (I’m actually entirely social media free aside from YouTube and podcasts) is there a way to see that without making a TikTok account? Can you put those on Patreon too?

The icon line of the Hallmark channel movie adaptation that plays over footage of Nicole and Lauren dueling with DIY foam swords: "Doctor it up with some grapes"

That King Triton impression was unreasonably funny for how quickly it was tossed off

I would love to see a review or hear your thoughts on the other Balto movies. I can't remember if I ever saw the third movie, but I loved Balto 2 as a kid. Watching it as an adult it's all over the place - so many unanswered questions and story and pacing issues - it'd be fun to hear your thoughts!

I love that you thought Jenna's name was Rosie multiple times, and yet you were also able to consistently, correctly, call the little girl Rosie.

The relationship between predator and prey animals in Zootopia might correlate better to gender dynamics than to racism. The predator animals are like men in that they stereotypically commit more crimes but also are disproportionately represented in government and law enforcement.

Iconic Fox and the Hound line: Growing up is hard. But, childhood memories last forever.

was it crime scene kitchen? that show is so weirdly addictive

#SteeleIsOverParty

*An* option you could consider instead of youtube would be Nebula - I've heard great things about the platform from some of my favorite creators - but that's yet another pay-for-sub option and I don't know that you'd want to have two and/or phase away from Patreon.

I think it’s good not to share an idea before it is realized because then it doesn’t want to come out anymore. I think it’s terrible that your associate stole your idea. So I don’t mind if you keep those obscure IPs under wraps until you are ready. The telling of your idea will be fresh and no one will take it from you. This is a good take on how well intentioned movies just fail. My pet peeve is one about women in animated features. Specifically, it makes me mad that Anna needed Christoff to help her find Elsa in Frozen. She was a plucky, intelligent, caring fully realized young woman with an achievable goal of saving her sister. She didn’t need a man’s help. But I guess that’s different than correcting racism or sexism through story telling. Am I making sense? ONE MORE THING. Zootopia did reference a very specific thing that happens to people with fluffy hair. When the bunny tells the fox not to touch the sheep’s furry head, that is lesson bout not touching the hair of people with Afros, which is a lesson about respecting personal space.

At least on my browser, the video player on Patreon is working much better than I remember it working in the past. It seems like they made some upgrades to it...if you ever had to start posting the videos only here, I think it would be okay, especially if it means having to deal with less of YouTube's bullshit.

That book sounds hilariously bad, haha

I hope jenny does more book reviews. "Trapped in an Island With Josh Hutcherson" is one of my favorite pieces of media ever.

Maybe it's because I'm new, but why not post like return to evermore? Or one of the older patreon videos? Is this taboo?

I'm so mad because I remember that fox and the hound video so well but I also can't find it. Maybe the channel unlisted it?

"No matter what happens....never forget who you are." Or just borrow whatever Monk Gyatso said to Aang in the Netflix show and paste it over footage of Todd running across train tracks and stuff.

It’s terrible that YouTube is making things difficult but you’re right not to use the Patreon app for the videos. This app is so buggy it could be a Pittsburgh hotel room. You should include Patreon in next month’s video about hilariously dysfunctional websites.

My pitch for a fox and hound icon line is ‘Every fork in the road leads to a crossed path’

Iconic Fox and Hound line: What happens in the forest stays in the forest.

I didn't even think of it before, but Todd DOESN'T belong back in the woods in The Fox and the Hound because he was taught to rely on humans for survival and never learned "how to be a fox". When wild animals are saved from being orphaned, they are kept with others of their own species and generally the caretakers interact as little as possible because they can be released back into the wild, but animals that are naturally wild but have been raised as pets CAN'T be released into the wild because they have only ever been fed by humans and don't know how to take care of themselves. Considering how Todd was raised, he would naturally gravitate towards humans and probably wouldn't know how to hunt effectively. I'm not sure of how/if the book explores this, but that's what I know about this issue.

Zootopia was originally supposed to be from a predator's perspective and have shock collars to train them to be safe around prey animals. Way way darker

Jenny I saw you on the stream of the pokemon finals! You were literally the last shot of fans they added at the end of the awards ceremony. I literally screamed at my boyfriend “that’s jenny nicholson!” lol it was very out of the blue and literally the last 5 seconds before the stream ended

After hearing Jenny talk about wanting the plush forest playroom, I am begging someone to pitch "Jenny ranks Warrior Cat story arcs"

Steele, the leering wolf from Balto, reminds me of a thing I just read where the animators of Rock & Rule had trouble animating the villain Mok's lips because they kept doing this in every scene. Rock & Rule was part of that trend of dark animated movies aimed at an older audience like Wizards and Heavy Metal, and has Debbie Harry from Blondie playing a singer the villain needs to summon a demon to increase record sales. Also they're all animal people but not in a consistent way that makes sense

I feel so vindicated about Balto. Steele always creeped me out, and not in a fun villain way. The side characters are so annoying, and I agree about the over-animation (this is also how I feel about a lot of modern 3D Disney like Frozen 2 and Wish, where the characters are really visually chewing their lines). If you do watch the sequels I feel obligated to warn you that they give Boris the goose a love interest in the third movie. However, I do think the second one does the internal identity conflict a lot better than the first Balto, and there's one song that kind of slaps that I remember pretty strongly. ("Who You Really Are" which is pretty on the nose, but y'know.)

It’s like Jim Cummings wanted to play Steele like a knock off of Jeremy Irons’ Scar, but also got lost in a trance of lunacy and saliva

Love how this ramble turned into a big breakdown of Balto 😂 I can't believe nobody has built a big plush forest for people to play in man I'd go everyday if it existed!

Jenny, I'm intrigued by your concept of an indoor plush forest. On the one hand,It does sound kind of cool in an "immersive" theme park sort of way, But on the other, why go to all the effort of creating it when the real thing is so readily available? Take a trip up to the Humboldt Redwoods, Jed Smith State Park or Calaveras Big Trees. I think you'd find the experience far superior to any manufactured simulacrum.

Bang on analysis on the Fox and the Hound film. I bet you couldve made an excellent literature teacher if you ever wanted to go that route.

Ur assuming the message would be racism bad. Remember boomers? Most of them actually want racism.

Heh ... my parents were pretty immature and bad at conflict resolution, and seeing my Disney heroes grow up into parents getting too in their fears to do their parenting very well ... I'm not sure now how to describe how it made me feel, but I thought a lot about how these were people who I knew were full of love and trying their best, but yeah, a story of fallout still happens. Those Disney sequels seemed (to me, at five years old) sympathetic to the fact that the bad parenting given by good people still creates conflict and pain despite coming from good people. Their kids deserved a story of overcoming what their parents did to them too, even though maybe Simba and Ariel would still think themselves the heroes when they've become villainous ... or at least an active antagonist to their kid in an unfair way that has nothing to do with careful parenting.

I have not seen Balto and yet every single complaint Jenny had felt inherently familiar, like Balto was just five mediocre Hanna Barbera cartoon episodes in a trench coat. My Fox and the Hound line suggestion is "Fur is fur, whatever it wraps," which like the remake's commentary on race relations will sound meaningful, but then actually means nothing.

I'm glad you pointed out that Don Bluth thing where characters just... move too much. Some people LOVE Don Bluth movies, but honestly I can't get over how gross they look at times. Like I distinctly remember that part of your Land Before Time video where you show a clip of Daddy Topps saying "three horns should never play with long-necks" and between the animation and the voice-acting it just feels like there so much TONGUE in the line. It's tough to describe this phenomenon, but it's all like someone exaggerated every syllable so that people could accurately lip-read the animation, which makes it look less natural than an actual video of people talking. It's like Don Bluth doesn't understand how much sound control is IN the mouth and not outside of it. The eyes getting crazy-wide also seems to be a consistent part of this, and I have no idea why because it looks INSANE.

this is one of my favorite rambles yet-- was so glad balto made it on the list, as a kid i watched balto 3: wings of change and none of the other balto movies so i had none of the context on who the characters were but i was obsessed even though it does NOT rlly hold up on rewatch. i could not wait for you to talk about that extremely fucked up goose

Before she showed an example clip of Steele from Balto I looked up a photo and of course the first thing I saw was furry porn

Balto is honestly one of those movies that people seem to think of as "classics that weren't as popular when they came out" like The Iron Giant and Treasure Planet, but I think it's a lot more... generic? And I HATE the comic relief characters. It has a weirdly disjointed-feeling story otherwise, and it's like "I like movies about talking animals, I like dogs and wolves, but the character design (excluding the polar bears and goose, which just look weirdly gross) is just about the only thing I like about this".

You are right about everything you said about Balto, but listening to you talk about it made me realize that Balto was my nonbinary awakening and his love interest was my bisexual awakening. I watched that movie on repeat as a child and I couldn't have cared less abt the story, I just wanted to watch my genderqueer wolfdog and xer hot lesbian wife. Still waiting on my furry egg to crack though.

As a pretty big fan of Sabrina Carpenter, I’m glad she wasn’t mean to you at a party once 😂

My the fox and the hound line suggestion is "nature finds a way". I think it really maintains the confusing message of the original while also carrying the same slightly menacing spirit of relenting to evil that the Cinderella one has.

I wonder if everyone who subscribed to your second channel were to unsubscribe, it might have an influence on the ads as well...

Contenders for Fox and Hound live action motto: "Find your true self inside." "Get lost to find your way home." (or the longer version "Sometimes you need to get lost to find your way home" which would be said at the end of the trailer by a motherly lady character.) "Only friendship lasts forever." "Friends know the real you." "Remember your heart."

Why are you so certain the tainted plushies went to Plushie Hell instead of Plushie Heaven? I feel there are things you know about them that you’re not sharing with us.

I remember really liking Balto 2, but then I watched it as an adult and it's pretty much unwatchable. I'm honestly not sure if it's the type of bad that is fun to complain over either.

As a candidate for the Fox and the Hound icon line: "Failures are like fallen leaves; they line our trails but do not block the dawn."

Sneetches?

If anyone was curious about the craziness of the lion guard, Athena p has a pretty decent short recap video

1:05:00 The weird part is so much media for kids--and even for adults, for that matter--take this view of racism where it's only wrong on technicality due to individual merit. Harry Potter even has Hagrid explain to Hermione that basically Malfoy calling her slurs is wrong specifically because she's talented, and sort of implies that if she were academically below-average the racism against her would be justified.

Yessss. I have made very similar comments about Zootopia and Cars and basically had to do the "why are you booing me, I'm right" thing. I just think it's so funny to think for even a second about the very obvious questions that kids movies desperately avoid asking. Like obviously who cares, it's a kid's movie, but also let me have fun picking at it, it's not like I'm lecturing children about it.

Every time you mentioned Jenna I imagined that clip from The Vampire Diaries

The Fox and the Hound: Noone Can Be Friends with Bears

That plush forest sounds amazing, I want that in my bedroom

just wanted to say, my high school used to sing in the candlelight processional and they don’t read the night before christmas, it’s actually just straight up passages from the Bible lol

Also, as someone who grew up going to Bullwinkle's, I would love to see a video on animatronic restaurants 🫎 🍕 🐿️📺

I thought the notification said Pride and Prejudice so I was confused when she started rambling 🤣

I bought my friend some Frozen 2 merch in a little box and every item inside all had passive aggressive messages about being truthful to yourself

Is the Porg's lei a Comfey? Also love the Azumarill and Pikachu hanging out 🥰

That Steel impression took me out multiple times. It was perfect.

🎶I'm a MAAA- [🎵 I'm a MUPPET] -AAN...🎵

That obscure show you told someone on youtube abt and then they did a video on it 😭 wow that does seem annoying, happened to my sister with baby names TWICE like all her top ideas are gone now

I think the line in the live action fox and the hound would be something like “break free from ___” idk what the word would be but it would be odd and not make sense to the story

I'm not all the way through, but I feel compelled to say that Judy Hops is OBVIOUSLY a white lady in the male-dominated police force (the sheep is also a white lady, and when she's evil it's like, deep, right?) and the fox is obviously a trickster character in a way that is heavily correlated with POC. And the hyenas in The Lion King are obviously meant to be understood as black people: https://www.fastcompany.com/90379067/critics-said-the-first-lion-kings-hyenas-were-problematic-disney-revamped-them

Right off the bat, I gotta say I came here expecting “prejudice against allergies in children’s media” and was really looking forward to a discussion of disability studies and how allergies became shorthand for “weirdness”

I’m surprised you gave kudos to Zombies. The messy metaphor of the bracelets being hacked making Z better at football, only getting acceptance because of football in the first place, the revolutionary character getting attacked as unrealistic and a radical, the idea that their restrictions are justified because of past violence, and their secret dance club being shut down by the cops. I haven’t seen the sequels which maybe get less hamfisted but that first one is a mess. So now I gotta watch all the sequels.

this is the most jenny video idea ever

The Zombies films are such a delight! There’s something very funny about Addison immediately wanting to date/ become/ lead each new Halloween monster crew that comes to town. She’s only 1 for 3 at this point, maybe she’ll have better luck with the vampires? 😝

Admittedly, in the Lion King 2, the enemy lions were made up of lions who had been loyal to Scar, so there's a pretty solid reason for Simba to be wary of them. Also, Zira is a legit great villain because of how dark they went with her. She has maybe the most vicious villain song Disney ever made because it's got large parts that are just about her enjoying killing and dreaming about what she's going to do as revenge on Simba.

Anyone know where I could find that Gastly plush? It looks different from the PokeCenter one.

I’ve always wanted to write an essay on that really weird fixation Disney had in the 2016-ish era on ‘explaining’ racism. In Zootopia the predators USED to be murderous killers but they’re cool now! That Zombies movie where the Zombies who dance to hip hop and rap and live on the wrong side of the tracks USED to be murderous brain-eating monsters, but thanks to these bracelets we make them wear they’re fine now! Descendants, sure their parents were all evil terrible people but the kids deserve a chance! Like you say it’s just this really weird insistence that racism Must have a root cause where once upon a time one side must have done /something/ wrong Also it’s unlikely that Smallfoot will come up, but it deserves a mention in these kinds of discussions. “I never want to watch this movie again but I do think it should be mandatory to show to children”

I was going to wait until the whole thing because I have sooo many thoughts on this topic, but I had to get my Lion Guard opinions out first. I’ve seen all of it, multiple times, and it is insane, but as a racism metaphor it kind of slaps. The Simba racism plot point comes from the pilot where his son has to assemble an animal Avengers, that traditionally should all be lions, but he chooses a hippo, a little bird, a cheetah, and a badger. Simba is racist about that and he’s like “They won’t protect you as well as lions could, you’re not taking this seriously” and stuff, until he’s proven wrong and diversity is their strength etc etc. He never actually directly talks to the girl hyena. In her intro episode it’s the main character who has to get over his own racism and realise that she’s actually nice and helpful and stuff. She shows up in one of the final season battle scenes (which are insane by the way, this show has such a strong recurring cast of side characters), and Simba barely even acknowledges her, which is even weirder. It’s such an insane stupid show and I love it Not a huge Lion King 2 fan though, even though people seem to love it. I think it wouldve been a lot better if the villains had just been the hyenas, and you could kind of understand where both groups’ prejudice was coming from. If you’re setting a Romeo and Juliet story in a world where every animal can talk, but your opposing factions are just lions, then why am I not watching a movie about humans?

In Zootopia a lot of the police are actually large herbivores, like Chief Bogo being a water buffalo and there was at least a hippo, rhino, and elephant. This isn't a criticism or anything, but definitely shows that the prejudice Judy faces when it comes to wanting to be in the police is mostly down to how she's a SMALL herbivore that's generally seen as weaker. I always felt that that particular aspect was more similar to sexism than racism. I totally agree that Zootopia gets weird with the biological differences, especially the predators previously hunting the herbivores. I think that the earlier ideas for the script where the predators were essentially an oppressed group makes this whole idea work BETTER, as it shows that the herbivore society is paranoid and therefore the putting undeserved pressure on predators, but it does fall into the same problem of "you could argue that some speciesism is justifiable". I think the concept would work a lot better as an adult animated movie that was more concerned with just exploring "what if these animals had a society" in a speculative fiction way, without trying to explicitly have a moral that's analogous to reality.

I always thought Zootopia was trying to blend race, class, and gender into the predator/prey dynamic, in order to be able to tell a more complex individualized story at the expense of muddling the broader social allegory. It seems like Chief Bogo being a buffalo (large) and Nick being a fox (small) show how subpopulations within the dichotomy can have very different fates in the system, but they didn't have time to fully bake those ideas while getting through a digestible plot.

For what it's worth, and with the disclaimer that I understand and respect the reasoning behind your decision to shelve certain projects, I would always welcome your take on whatever media you feel like talking about (even if it's no longer strictly topical, even if someone else also did a video about it, even if it features unexpected tangents, etc.). I can't think of another youtuber who matches your level of in-depth and well-researched analysis and also has such a good and effortless sense of humor.

Yay right on my birthday which is actually on Tuesday but who's counting :D

Zootopia really hit home for me growing up when the kids in the cafeteria with their sandwiches would make fun of me for hunting and eating them

Yes! I’m so stoked for this. I just picked up my phone looking for something good to watch. Search over. Thank you Jenny!

I'm not sure Disney has any misgivings about Zootopias future, just based on opening that new land in Shanghai

IMO Jenny’s Patreon is the only Patreon I feel like I’ve gotten my Money’s worth on, monthly high quality 1-2 hour rants is crazy value for your money

i was literally needing a video today this means everything to me

Thank you for another great upload!

I appreciate the immediate shade towards Pittsburg Wyndham. Bed bugs are awful I spend a good 15 minutes checking every hotel room I book for them

so hype for this

The porg plush is looking very stylish