Waking Sleeping Beauty

At the end of the ‘80s the Disney animation department was at a low ebb. Nobody had any new ideas, and the movies weren’t making any money. There was serious talk of shutting it down completely. Only Roy Disney wanted to stick with animation. Then Frank Wells, Michael Eisner, and Jeffery Katzenberg arrived, and within a few years they were making movies like {{The Little Mermaid, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Beauty and the Beast,{{ and The Lion King. A decade later, Wells died in a helicopter crash and Katzenberg was out because of personal conflicts with Eisner. This is the story of how it all came down, and it’s a fascinating one. There are interviews and a ton of old home movies of the people at work and at play. If you are interested in Disney, as I am, you have to see this.