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Disneyfication (view source)

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{{quote|''"It was much earlier even than that when most people forgot that that very oldest stories are, sooner or later, about blood. Later on they took the blood out to make the stories more acceptable to children, or at least to the people who had to read them to children rather than children themselves (who, on the whole, are quite keen on blood provided it's being shed by the deserving), and then wondered where the stories went."''|'''[[Terry Pratchett]]''', ''[[Discworld (Literature)/Hogfather|Hogfather]]''}}
 
A form of editing, known for often falling into [[Adaptation Decay]], that renders a story "safe" for juvenile audiences (or the parents thereof) by removing undesirable plot elements or unpleasant historical facts, adding Broadway-style production numbers, and reworking whatever else is necessary for a [[Lighter and Softer]] [[Happily Ever After]] Ending. [[Talking Animal]] sidekicks tend to be tacked on somehow.
 
[[Tropes Are Not Bad|This isn't always a bad thing, though.]] Done properly (i.e. not [[Tastes Like Diabetes|too cute]] or dumbed-down), the Disneyfied property can be just as entertaining as the original or even better (possibly more so if you're not a fan of [[Downer Ending|Downer Endings]], or if they've improved boring parts and given the characters personality, or fixed a [[Plot Hole]]). The actual tales themselves are often too short to adapt properly, and the expanded versions can be hit and misses. The reworked Disney versions lead to [[Adaptation Displacement]] and [[Sadly Mythtaken]], with most people being unaware that the original fairy tales might have even contained [[A Worldwide Punomenon|grimmer]] aspects. Visual representations of the fairy tales are often strongly influenced by Disney--[[Snow White (Disney film)|Snow White]] is seen wearing a dress with primary colors and a red bow in her hair, [[The Little Mermaid]] with red hair, a green tail, and a purple seashell bra, and so on.
 
Named for its most notorious practitioner, Disney studios, although it actually started [[Older Than They Think|before the Victorian Era]].
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= Disney =
 
* ''[[Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs (Disney film)|Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs]]''. The original script was actually closer to the original fairy tale than the final film, but as the film was made during the [[Great Depression]], the animators could not afford to make the film as long as the source material demanded (such as having the witch try multiple times to kill Snow White, and the opening with Snow White's mother.)
** An interesting case is with the witch's death. In the original story, the queen is exposed for her crimes at Snow White's wedding to the prince, and is burned to death. In the Disney film, she is chased on top of a cliff by the dwarves, struck by lightning, [[Disney Villain Death|falls off]], and is presumably eaten by vultures. While the latter is seemingly darker than the former, keep in mind, this way it is nature getting revenge on the witch, not any of the heroes.
*** The Witch does survive in the comics, though her later activities are less malicious.
* ''[[The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Disney film)|The Hunchback of Notre Dame]]''. You wouldn't think [[Victor Hugo]]'s [[The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Literaturenovel)|original novel]] would be suitable fare for a children's movie. Despite being one of Disney's darkest movies, they still made it much nicer than the book - Esmerelda was nicer, Phoebus was nicer, Quasimodo was nicer, there was a clearer line between good and evil, and the good guys didn't all die or kill themselves at the end.
* ''[[Hercules (Disney film)|Hercules]]'' not only has a [[Hijacked Byby Jesus]] style, but also implies that the Greek gods had wholesome family values! Remember, in the original myths, pretty much every god is up to sexual hijinks at one point or another.
** The [[Everybody Hates Hades|Disneyification of Hades]] from [[Dark Is Not Evil]] to [[Big Bad]] is pretty amazing. They took the Greek concept of the Underworld and Hades (which was more or less pretty much a neutral judging point) and spun it to better resemble Hell and the Devil. Complete with imp minions. Luckily, [[Chewing the Scenery|James Woods]] is a great actor. They also made him quite cynical (and possibly the [[Only Sane Man]]), which only helped.
** In the original myth, not only was Heracles the product of an extramarital affair (with a mortal woman, Alcmene), but Hera loathed him and tried multiple times to torture and kill him. At one stage she inflicted a madness on him that drove him to murder his children and his first wife, Megara - and it was Heracles who had to carry out penance for this in the form of the Twelve Labours.
* [[media:LittleMermaid2.jpg|Disney's]] ''[[The Little Mermaid]]'' gets a happy ending, unlike the [[Our Mermaids Are Different|mermaid]] in [http://www.bygosh.com/hca/mermaid.htm the original version] by [[Hans Christian Andersen]]. You really don't get much more bittersweet than:
{{quote| ''Once more she looked at the prince, with her eyes already dimmed by death, then dashed overboard and fell, [[media:LittleMermaid.jpg|her body dissolving into foam]].''}}
* Another [[Hans Christian Andersen]] story, "[[The Steadfast Tin Soldier (Literature)|The Steadfast Tin Soldier]]", was given a happy ending by Disney in ''[[Fantasia]] 2000'', partly from the [[Soundtrack Dissonance]] that would occur if they did keep the original ending. The animators had storyboarded the sequence ending with the tin soldier and the ballerina melting into a heart-shape. (Yes, Andersen [[Creator Breakdown|had issues]].)
* ''[[Pinocchio]]'' actually underwent this process by the original author: Pinocchio is killed (still a puppet) by hanging in the original tale, and the author, Carlo Collodi, added extra chapters in which Pinocchio not only is restored to life, but also becomes a real boy ([[Earn Your Happy Ending|after a lot of hard and cruel life lessons, that is]]). Guess which version Disney went with, in addition to cutting out Pinoke {{spoiler|killing the cricket}}. The original also saw him {{spoiler|getting turned into a donkey and drowned. He survived because his wooden body remained intact inside the donkey body and thus climbed out of the water after fish ate the donkey skin away.}}
** Of course, much like ''The Hunchback Of Notre Dame'' the film is still noted for being much grimmer than the average Disney affair, most notably retaining the villain's [[Karma Houdini|Karma Houdinis]] (and even adding another in the case of Foulfellow). There are few [[Lighter and Softer]] adaptations that depict hundreds of children being captured, transformed and [[The Bad Guy Wins|successfully]] sent to a [[Fate Worse Than Death]].
* Disney's so-called adaptation of Mary Norton's ''[[Bedknob and Broomstick (Literature)|Bedknob and Broomstick]]'' dropped the original book's ''entire plot'', and instead created a new one from whole cloth involving Eglantine Price's attempt to learn magic solely in order to help the British effort in [[World War Two]]. Along the way, a medieval sorcerer became a modern con-man, an island of [[Talking Animal|Talking Animals]] was added apparently just to give Disney's animation division something to do that year, and a climactic battle scene of magically powered suits of plate armor versus a Nazi invasion force replaced the book's much more low-key conclusion. Oh, and they made it a musical. A major plot element complete with its own musical number, critical to the climax of the film, was conjured up out of a random two-word phrase ("substitutiary locomotion") that appears only once in a minor conversation on which the children eavesdrop in the book. And on top of all that, they pluralized both nouns in the title for no obvious reason.
* Likewise, ''[[Mary Poppins]]'' began as a series of seven books about a quite snarky and unpleasant magical nanny. Particularly towards the final books, the series become increasingly bizarre and increasingly interested in mythology, mysticism and herbalism (as was [[Author Appeal|its author, P.L. Travers]], a devotee of Theosophy). It's all a far cry from the Disney film version, which Travers loathed.
* ''[[Pocahontas]]'' pretty much shredded everything we know about the historical woman. For one thing she was between 10 and 12 years old when she first met John Smith, making a romantic relationship unlikely at best. Her father had fifty wives and many children. She was taken to Jamestown as a hostage and married before her trip to London, and no Armada was threatening to annihilate her people. John Smith was not a Prince Charming type, but in fact an unattractive, short man with a giant woolly beard. Just about the only bit they got right was her saving Smith from execution, and even that is considered by some historians to be the enactment of a ritual (and thus Smith wasn't in any real danger). [[Unreliable Narrator|Still other historians suspect Smith of making up the entire story, since it doesn't appear until he wrote his memoirs, four years after her ''death'']].
** And she didn't actually marry John Smith. She married John ''Rolfe''. The sequel addresses this, albeit in an inaccurate way, playing with drama between the two Johns. History dictates that when she met John Smith in London, she slapped his face.
* ''[[The Black Cauldron]]'' mishmashed plot elements from [[Lloyd Alexander]]'s book of the same name with his earlier ''The Book of Three'', gave the amalgamated villain an annoying sidekick, turned the truculent dwarves into cute little pixies, and made beast-man Gurgi the very definition of [[Tastes Like Diabetes]]. No songs, though. Disney itself acknowledges the failure of this movie nowadays, and wishes they could give their fans a more book-accurate version. Why they don't, given that they still own the adaptation rights to the series, is anyone's guess.
* In T. H. White's ''[[The Once and Future King|The Sword in the Stone]]'', young Wart's education by the wizard Merlin contains powerful moral lessons that will help the young man face his future role as {{spoiler|[[King Arthur]]}}. [[The Sword in Thethe Stone|The Disney version]] throws away all of the moral messages and replaces them with (admittedly sometimes very good) visual gags.
* [[Rudyard Kipling]]'s ''[[The Jungle Book (Literaturenovel)|Jungle Books]]'' (yes, two of them) depict the orphaned Mowgli growing into a strong and intelligent young man whose jungle upbringing will make him something of a [[Noble Savage]]. Baloo was a serious, wise old animal, rather than fun-loving comic relief. Kaa the python, while large, intimidating, and alien, is one of Mowgli's ''allies'', not enemies. Hathi the elephant is wise and powerful and when he tells Shere Khan to clear off("How Fear Came"), the tiger does so - he is not a pompous ass who fancies himself a Victoria Cross-winning British Army colonel. There is quite a lot of violence, too. At one point Kaa hypnotizes a troupe of monkeys into becoming his helpless (ahem) dinner guests; later on Mowgli and the wolves kill Shere Khan by a stampede of water-buffalo over him. (In the Disney version he doesn't even die!) The story "Red Dog" has Mowgli cause the marauding dogs of the title to be attacked by millions of angry bees; those who jump in the river to survive are attacked by Mowgli with a knife; and those left then face Mowgli ''and'' his enraged wolf pack. And incidentally, Mowgli does most of this while he's naked. It should come as no surprise that none of the violence or nudity makes it into the Disney version, but Disney not only censors the story but effectively throws out every last original plot thread. A documentary on the DVD explains how Disney's writers "improved" on the original, but in fact it becomes clear that what they really did was to whittle away at the original storyline until there was almost nothing left except for a few almost coincidental similarities. They can't even pronounce Mowgli's name right. ("''Mow'' rhymes with ''cow''", says Kipling.)
** All this can be easily explained by the fact that Walt Disney specifically told the production crew ''not'' to read the book. He gave an outline on the characters and plot ideas he wanted and didn't want the book itself to be used as a reference. In spite of these directions, the composer did, in fact, read the book and as such, the soundtrack gained a bit more darkness than is usual in a Disney film.
* ''[[Bambi (Disney)|Bambi]].'' ([[Adaptation Displacement|Yes, it was based on a novel]]). True, Bambi's mother dies in the film, but its tone still is significantly lighter than the novel's (it was written for adult audiences), which was much darker and more brutal, including graphic death scenes. They also never included Bambi's cousin Gobo's death. [[Kissing Cousins|And they failed to mention Faline was his cousin!]]
* The story of the ''[[Three Little Pigs]]'' originally had the first two pigs eaten by the wolf after their houses were blown down. The Disney cartoon of the story allowed them to run to the next house before the wolf could get his meal. The original has the big bad wolf being boiled alive after he attempts to gain access to the brick house via the chimney, whereas the Disney version simply has the wolf burning his hand and running away scared. Some other sanitized versions will have the wolf pass out from the exhaustion of trying to blow the third house down.
* ''[[Aladdin (Disney film)|Aladdin]]'', as well done as it is, is drastically different from the original. In the story as presented in the ''[[Arabian Nights (Literature)|Arabian Nights]]'', Aladdin had ''two'' genies - a weaker one in a ring, and the stronger one in the lamp - and had ''no limit'' on the number of tasks he could set them to. Yes, he won the hand of a princess, but that was barely the midpoint of the story; the evil wizard who had first used Aladdin to try to retrieve the lamp (and who had no connection to the princess in any way) was not quickly disposed of but instead discovered Aladdin's success, and successfully stole the lamp (and the princess, and Aladdin's palace, and almost everything else) with the clever ruse of "New lamps for old!" Aladdin had to win everything back from the wizard using his wits and the lesser genie he still had in his ring. There weren't any cute animal companions, magic carpets hadn't been thought up when the story was written, and the princess didn't have much of a part - she ranged from ruining everything by giving away the lamp, all the way down to being eye candy only present for Aladdin to marry.
* ''[[Sleeping Beauty]]''. Besides the minor [[Hijacked Byby Jesus]] elements, we also have the fact that the only precaution to protect the princess in the original was the outlawing of spinning wheels; the princess slept for one-hundred years, as opposed to just until [[Prince Charming]] returned home; speaking of the Prince, he wasn't introduced until ''after'' those one-hundred years had passed; and there's also that [[Egregious]] case of [[Dude, She's Like, in Aa Coma]], too, which ended up with a pregnant princess... And she also didn't wake up until one of her babies, more by pure, rotten luck, accidentally sucked out a cursed splinter from her finger... And then there's the version where it wasn't the Prince, but A BLOODY OGRE who did all of the above mentioned to her, and then planned on eating her AND the kids.
* Oddly enough, ''[[Newsies]]'' is not a particularly [[Egregious]] example of Disneyfication. It's safe to say that the New York newsboys of 1899 didn't burst into spontaneous well-choreographed musical numbers as they walked the streets, and the violence occurring as a result of the strike is a bit sanitized (no blood); but we do see newsboys sleeping on the streets, smoking cigars, betting on races, beating up strikebreakers, et cetera.
** Of course, one must point out that the newspapers ''never actually lowered their prices'' in the end; they came to an agreement with the newsies where they agreed to buy back their unsold papers. While this agreement was pretty mutually beneficial, clearly the idea of the rag-tag kids' union getting everything they wanted in the end was too good for Disney to pass up.
* ''[[The Fox and The Hound (Disney)|The Fox and Thethe Hound]]''. In the [[The Fox and The Hound (Literaturenovel)|original book]], {{spoiler|Tod and Copper were never friends to begin with, Tod loses his mate to a trap, Chief doesn't survive his encounter with that train, and at the end Tod dies of exhaustion while being relentlessly chased by Copper and Slade. And then Copper is [[Shoot the Dog|literally shot in the head]] by his owner to avoid having to abandon him.}}
* Disney's dulling-down of subject matter actually extends into the physical world -- real estate, in particular. The differences between New York City's Times Square before Disney took over most of 42nd Street and Times Square afterward are profound and at times somewhat depressing. Yes, it's cleaner and more family-friendly, but sometimes it seems about as real as Main Street USA.
* The story of [[Robin Hood]] had been thoroughly bowdlerised before Walt Disney was born, and [[Robin Hood (Disney film)|their take on it]] is actually far from the worst abuse of the mythos.
** To be fair, the narrator outright admits that everybody has their own version of the story (true enough) and that this was just the version that the animals tell.
* ''[[Tangled (Disney)|Tangled]]'' skips the [[Teen Pregnancy]] and {{spoiler|has Flynn get a [[Bloodless Carnage|rather clean]] stab wound at the end, instead of having his eyes gouged out. Although one could argue that the two balanced out, since Flynn actually ''dies'', only to be brought back.}}
* Disney actually went back and did this to an attraction in [[Disney Theme Parks|Tokyo Disney Sea]]. The [[Sinbad the Sailor]] attraction went from a telling of all of Sinbad's daring adventures and the dangers he faced along the way though in a rather stylized Mary Blair fashion to a sanitized [[Tastes Like Diabetes]] version with a happy Alan Menken song, Sinbad given a clean shave and a tiger cub sidekick, and all the monsters becoming Sinbad's friends or helping him along the way that brings to mind "it's a small world".
* In a non-movie related example, Disney managed to do this to ''themselves'' by censoring some things in ''[[Kingdom Hearts]] II'''s [[Pirates Of The Carribean|Port Royal]] level. Such as removing the part where Will aims a gun at his own head, giving the Rifle wielding [[Ghost Pirate|Undead]] [[Pirate|Pirates]] Crossbows instead, and toning down the special effects on Undead Pirates hit with magic spells. All of this was done in order to keep the game at a E10+ rating. An attemp which ultimately failed, because they left the scene where Undead!Barbossa drinks a bottle of wine to scare Elizabeth in the game.
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== Anime and Manga ==
* [[Asatte no Houkou (Manga)|Asatte no Houkou]], for instance, in the original manga Hiro is probably Karada's father. Her mother is [[Incest Is Relative|Hiro's aunt]].
* Most of the dubbings of [[4Kids! Entertainment]] tend to do this, removing all the religious/ pagan/ demonic imagery, removing violence and firearms, removing almost all the references to death and murder and removing all the fanservice...You got the idea.
** Nelvana is guilty of this too. ''[[Cardcaptor Sakura (Manga)|Cardcaptor Sakura]]'' for example was basically torn in half to get rid of context unsuitable for Western demographic (eg. implied incest and underage romance). This is more in terms of context rather than narrative however, given the dialogue and characterizations are actually somewhat less [[Tastes Like Diabetes|cutesy and whimsical]] than the original Japanese original.
*** Also due to omitting almost all romantic elements, a large amount of the show's finale had to be edited, making it more [[Bittersweet Ending|bittersweet]] (especially since Nelvana lost the rights to dubbing the show before ''[[Happily Ever After|The Sealed Card]]'' was released).
* "Les Miserables: Shoujo Cosette" is a family friendly adaptation of [[Les Misérables]], removing almost all the violence, adult themes and angst.
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** The film also toned down a lot of the original anti-Catholic themes, to try to stave off complaints from religious viewers. [[Complaining About Shows You Don't Watch|It didn't work.]]
*** This was, apparently, much to get Nicole Kidman to take the job and play Mrs. Coulter. She's so perfect in the role it's almost worth it. Besides, [[Author Tract|the anti-Catholic themes]] really aren't that prevalent in ''The Golden Compass''; they become more prevalent as the series goes on.
* Although the film ''[[Enemy Mine (Filmfilm)|Enemy Mine]]'' and [[The Enemy Papers|the novella]] both have happy endings, the film has a very optimistic one in which Davidge saves Zammis from evil slavemasters and this leads to an implied greater understanding between humanity and the Dracs, as Davidge is added to the line of Jeriba. Meanwhile, the novella instead ends with Davidge saving Zammis from ''his own people'', who have had him imprisoned as mentally ill due to his strong identification with humans. Davidge then takes Zammis back to the planet Zammis was born on and Davidge and Jerry crashed on and founds a colony for those few humans and Dracs that are willing to look past the hostility and cultural differences between the races and work together in a spirit of cooperation, while giving up on a greater reconciliation of the two peoples in his lifetime.
* The Live Action Film adaptation of ''[[Animal Farm]]'' qualifies big time. To give you a context, Napoleon and his fellow Pigs essentially get away with completely overturning Animalism in everything with the exception of its name, with the animals being unable to do a thing but watch in the original book. In the Live Action adaptation, its implied that Karma managed to bite Napoleon and his pigs in the butt when they neglected to use any money he utilized to actually help his fellow animals, and instead used it on trivial matters. Ironically, this ends up being justified because it was released after the Soviet Union collapsed... under very ''similar'' reasons to how Animal Farm collapsed.
** The animated adaptation from the '50s also tacks on an ending where Benjamin the donkey rallies the other animals to get rid of Napoleon as they did Jones, though it's left ambiguous whether they succeed.
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== Literature ==
* [[Charles Perrault (Creator)|Charles Perrault]]'s "[[Sleeping Beauty (Literature)|Sleeping Beauty]]" was based on the 17th-century tale "[[Sun, Moon, and Talia (Literature)|Sun Moon and Talia]]" by Giambattista Basile, in which the princess was woken not by a kiss, but by being raped, giving birth -- both while unconscious -- and her child sucking the sleep-inducing splinter out of her finger.
** "[[Prince Charming]], is it? Why don't you have a seat over there..."
** It gets better. The ending of one variant of the tale is the princess being so pissed off when she realizes what's happened to her that she ''eats the babies''.
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*** This troper has a third or fourth edition of Grimm's Tales from the 1800's. They specifically state in the introduction that they have entirely left out some stories they thought would be TOO objectionable to English speaking audiences.
** [[Grimmification|Ironic, isn't it?]]
** One interesting example is what they did to the story of "[[Rapunzel (Literature)|Rapunzel]]". In the most commonly encountered version, Mother Gothel learns that Rapunzel's being visited in her tower when ''Rapunzel tells her'' -- asking her, "How is it, good mother, that you are so much harder to pull up than the young Prince? He is always with me in a moment", which makes the heroine seem at best a bit on the dim side. In the original edition, Rapunzel was only naive, not stupid: she wanted to know why her dresses had grown so tight.
*** Specifically, why they're so tight around her stomach...
* [[Older Than Steam]]: Folktales were being softened as far back as [http://www.straightdope.com/columns/071026.html Charles Perrault's version of the Pentameron] in 1696.
* ''[[Gulliver's Travels (Literature)|Gullivers Travels]]'' is often a victim of this trope because it has giant Brobdingnagians and small Lilliputians which make for easy kid appeal, but the original novel is satirical and includes a scene where Gulliver upsets the Lilliputians by pissing on a fire to put it out. This scene, needless to say, is nearly always changed.
** Most modern renditions leave out ''vast'' amounts of ''Gulliver's Travels'', starting with scenes like the one in which a Brobdingnagian woman uses Gulliver as a ''dildo'', and moving on to excise the entire ''second half'' of the book with the voyages to Laputa and the land of the Houyhnhyms, which can in no way be made kid-friendly.
*** The closest interpretation was the 1996 TV movie featuring Ted Danson, and even that one told the story differently, with Gulliver being treated as a mental patient raving about his adventures, while [[Grimmification|Grimmifying]] many elements of the tale and toning down the various elements involved in the story's ending, whether they contributed to its [[Downer Ending]] or not. {{spoiler|At the end, he's proved sane when his son finally manages to live-trap a Lilliputian sheep (which he'd brought back from that journey) and present it to the judge.}}
* The book ''[[The Tales of Beedle the Bard (Literature)|The Tales of Beedle the Bard]]'' discusses this, with the tales of a [[Bluenose Bowdlerizer]] who'd rewritten the primal and admittedly [[Nightmare Fuel|occasionally horrific]] Tales to be filled with obnoxious [[Glurge]]. Dumbledore sourly comments that hearing her versions of the Tales causes children to be filled with "an intense urge to vomit". However, the book takes a sympathetic stance on her, attributing her attitude as being caused by sneaking downstairs as a child and hearing her sisters talk about what she claims was the most bloody of the Tales, but what is implied to be details of a sexual affair.
And apparently "The Warlock's Hairy Heart" was just too gruesome for her to find a way to give it this treatment.
 
 
== Live-Action TV ==
* ''[[Merlin (TV series)|Merlin]]''. Goodbye incestuous lovechild of Arthur and Morgan le Fay, hello adorable orphan druid boy.
** Mordred does get considerably less adorable as the series goes on. He was a [[Creepy Child]] when he was first introduced, and he just keeps getting creepier.
*** At one point he magically picks two spears and stabs one soldier with each of them. Then he smiles. All this before the watershed.
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== Theatre ==
* ''Stephen Foster -- The Musical'' was originally the story of Stephen Foster's life, called, appropriately, ''The Stephen Foster Story''. It was later revised to give the story a happy ending and omit references to slavery.
* ''[[Wicked (Theatretheatre)|Wicked]]''. Can't have the heroine of a musical (at least, not a [[Stephen Schwartz]] one) be a [[Code Geass|homicidal terrorist]] -- or {{spoiler|dying at the end}}.
* ''La gazza ladra'' is based on actual history. At the last minute, Ninetta, the heroine, is saved from the scaffold, whereas the real accused wasn't so lucky.
 
 
== Videogames ==
* In-world example: In ''[[Escape Fromfrom Monkey Island]]'', the legacy of the dread pirate Tiny LaFeet is Disneyfied by [[Executive Meddling|real estate kingpin Ozzy Mandrill]] to better appeal to local tourists. According to Ozzy's marketers, the actually quite mean Tiny LaFeet "always said 'please' and 'thank you', twice!"
* Occurs in story in ''[[Sid MeiersMeier's Alpha Centauri]]'', when the tale of a war hero is repackaged as a story for kids:
{{quote| ''Richard Baxton piloted his Recon Rover into a fungal vortex and held off four waves of mind worms, saving an entire colony. We immediately purchased his identity manifests and repackaged him into the Recon Rover Rick character with a multi-tiered media campaign: televids, touchbooks, holos, psi-tours, the works. People need heroes. They don't need to know how he died clawing his eyes out, screaming for mercy. The real story would just hurt sales, and dampen the spirits of our customers.''}}
* Budokai Tenkaichi 2's GT Mode's ending was disneyfied in a very odd way. In the GT series itself, Goku had to sacrifice his time on Earth to allow Shenron to revive all those killed during the reopening of Hell and the Shadow Dragon's emergence, and apparently returns to Earth 100 years later in the final episode. In GT Mode, however, Goku (who is an adult in this instead of a kid) ends up wanting to have lunch after killing Omega Shenron, with Vegeta making a snarky comment while leaving with him as if nothing happened.
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== Web Comics ==
* ''[[What's New With Phil and Dixie (Comic Strip)|What's New Withwith Phil and Dixie]]'' on possible ''[[Magic: theThe Gathering]]: [[The Movie]]'': "of course, [http://www.airshipentertainment.com/growfcomic.php?date=20080921 there] ''are'' elements of game play that'll be changed onscreen to make the characters more sympathetic".
{{quote| '''sidekick''': Look, Lars, Orcish Chiropractors!}}
 
 
== Western Animation ==
* The Dreamworks movie ''[[The Prince of Egypt]]'' was relatively faithfully adapted from [[The Bible (Literature)|the book of Exodus.]] However, it still Disneyfied the potential drowning of Pharaoh.
** Kind of odd, since they included the deaths of his soldiers and two separate genocides (one by the Egyptians against the Hebrews and one by God against the Egyptians).
*** And small, vaguely defined cartoon baby penises.
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** Which is closer to being [[wikipedia:February Revolution|historically correct]]. Bolsheviks were not a major power until November in 1917. Well, except for [[wikipedia:Soviet (council)|Soviets]], given you [[Adaptation Displacement|recall what that word originally meant]].
** There was one Communism joke. One. "That's what I hate about this government: everything's in red!" They get out of the USSR about [[Traveling At the Speed of Plot|as fast as the plot can carry them]], saving it from any further inconvenient relevance to the cute-little-bugs musical numbers.
* This actually happened to ''[[Tom and Jerry (Animation)|Tom and Jerry]]'', of all characters, in [[The Movie]], where they ditched most of the slapstick, [[Suddenly Voiced|started to talk and sing]], became best friends, and helped an annoying little girl reunite with her father.
{{quote| '''Tom:''' ''"Don't... you... believe it!"''}}
** Nowadays, they are back to their usual characterization, but they were also portrayed in a more pleasant light in the 1970s TV show too, thanks to [[Moral Guardians]] trying to crack down on slapstick.
* The [[Warner Bros]] animated feature ''[[Quest for Camelot]]'', supposedly based on Vera Chapman's novella ''The King's Damosel'', itself a feminist retelling of the [[King Arthur|Arthurian]] tale of Linette and Gareth. Similarities between the book and the film are, in total, that the lead character is an [[Action Girl]] with a falcon, she's accompanied by a blind man, and it's set in Arthurian England. [[Serial Numbers Filed Off|Change all the lead characters' names]], add ''three'' [[Non-Human Sidekick|Non Human Sidekicks]], dump the [[Bittersweet Ending]] in favour of "Kayley" living [[Happily Ever After]] with "Garrett" (an amalgamation of Lucius [the blind man] and Gareth) and you're done.
* ''[[Titanic: theThe Legend Goes On]]'''s alters history so that (almost) everyone survives, including bad guys who would be considered an [[Acceptable Target]], and also shoehorns some really bad singing and dancing in. It's a ripoff of a bunch of more famous movies, such as like James Cameron's ''[[Titanic]]'', with comic scenes practically lifted wholesale from Disney movies.
** It's even worse in ''[[The Legend of the Titanic]]'', released at the same time as the former in Italy, where the ship is rescued from sinking by a giant octopus [[The Atoner|atoning]] for having chucked the iceberg in the ship's way in the first place. And in this one, ''everyone survives'', even the captain and the band. The only possible saving throw is the ending, which implies that the narrator of the story, as a sailor, exaggerates and makes up stuff. This does absolutely nothing to excuse the ''sequel'', which involves mermaids, Atlantis, talking toys, and evil mice.
** On ''[[Saturday Night Live]]'''s TV Funhouse, a cartoon-skit is made advertising a Disney film called "Titey" in which the Titanic is a singing, dancing ship and the story mangles history in countless ways - the ship swordfights a singing, dancing iceberg voiced by Whoopi Goldberg, and then "refuses to stay sunk" by being rescued by a gang of wise-cracking whales. (The final line of the skit is "See it, or your children will ''hate'' you!") The sad thing is, this skit predated the two above films -- and if ever became a real movie, it'd probably ''still'' manage to be better than them.
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** Stagings of the ballet are divided on this: some have the lovers die (or parted forever as Odette is condemned to remain a swan), while others have them live happily ever after. [[Mercedes Lackey]]'s retelling ''The Black Swan'' splits the difference: {{spoiler|Odette and Siegfried throw themselves in the lake but are restored to life by a turned-good Odile.}}
* The Rankin-Bass movie adaptation of ''[[The Hobbit]]'' makes a few questionable changes (all death is represented by the screen spinning) but is actually less destructive than you would expect. But for a sequel, Rankin-Bass got to make a mawkish version of ''The Return of the King''.
* ''[[Arthur and The Minimoys]]'' was an international hit and yielded two sequels, but the American release of the first film, retitled ''[[Arthur and Thethe Invisibles]]'', failed miserably at the box office. This might be because the American release completely removed the romantic subplot between Arthur and Selenia.
* ''[[The Secret of NIMH]]'' is based on a book called ''Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh''. There were a number of small changes between the books, notably, Mrs. Frisby of the novel became Mrs. Brisby in the film (mainly to avoid trademark issues with the Wham-O! company) and a shift of focus from the rats' time at NIMH to Mrs. Brisby's looming crisis. Some of the characterizations are obviously much more whimsical and goofy than in the novel (particularly [[The Klutz|Jeremy]]). However, the biggest and most Disneyfied change is the random inclusion of magic and mysticism, which plays an important role in the movie, but was not present in the book whatsoever. Many fans prefer the movie to the books -- enough that a [[Broken Base|large schism]] is present in the ''NIMH'' fandom.
** Then there's the treatment of Jenner, which actually inverts this trope and adds more drama and darkness with making him the evil, murderous [[Big Bad]] out to take control of the rats, while in the book he's never even ''seen'', just mentioned as a rat that disagreed with the way the tribe was living, and so he and some people that thought the same way packed up and left.
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** And then, in came the sequel.
*** ''Timmy To The Rescue'', despite being an example of [[Lighter and Softer]] of the highest order, actually uses some elements from the book the novel neglected (eg. [[Nightmare Fuel|Brutus]] turning out to be a [[Gentle Giant]], the NIMH survivors being six rather than two). That said, these mostly do play more into softening the tone of the film, and naturally also cause some contradictions with the first film.
* It didn't hit much harder than in ''[[The Thief and The Cobbler (Animation)|The Thief and Thethe Cobbler]]''. What was intended to be Richard William's magnum opus (and a decidedly anti-Disney film) eventually became a victim of [[Executive Meddling]], and the film was edited by different studios to fit into the Nineties Disney format. The theatrical versions added musical numbers, half of which were [[Award Bait Song|very dated pop ballads]]; Yum Yum became a stock [[Rebellious Princess]]; and the two [[The Voiceless|voiceless]] title characters were given dialogue and would simply [[Lull Destruction|not. Shut. UP.]] [[Did Not Do the Research|Critics even dismissed the movie as a knockoff of Disney's]] ''[[Aladdin (Disney film)|Aladdin]]'' despite the former's production beginning [[Development Hell|three decades earlier]].
* ''[[Veggie Tales (Animation)|Veggie Tales]]'' used to do this to Bible stories, but more recently they've expanded their horizons to basically any story they want to use.
* ''The Adventures of [[Sam and Max Freelance Police (Animationanimation)|Sam and Max Freelance Police]]'' replaces the guns with bazookas and generally has the characters involved in decidedly not detective-related plots. Max also has a much friendlier voice and personality than he did in Sam And Max: Hit The Road. However, the humor and general atmosphere is still there, [[Getting Crap Past the Radar]] constantly.
{{quote| '''Max:''' I never dreamed we could have this much fun and still be suitable for young viewers!}}
* The animated adaptation of ''[[Animal Farm]]'' is Disneyfied in a similar manner to the later live action version, although a notable difference is that while the animals in the live action adaptation express their displeasure of Napoleon's policies after a cumulation of him sending Boxer to the butcher shop and altering the entirety of the animal seven commandments, especially the seventh, by simply leaving the farm, the animals actually rebel outright against Napoleon and his pigs and successfully depose his regime.
* The PBS show ''[[Super Why!]]'' has adaptations of fairy tales; one is of Hansel and Gretel. The titular characters go and nibble on the witch's house. The witch comes out and yells at them for ruining their roof. After a brief break for literary education from Our Heroes, Hansel and Gretel apologize to the witch; she accepts their apology and delivers the moral, then ''gives them cookies shaped like houses''.
** And "The Twelve Dancing Princesses"? Turns out they were sneaking out to plan a surprise party for their father, the king. What this has to do with the original tale is...um...there's twelve princesses. And there might have been some dancing. "The Little Mermaid"? The titular character is afraid to play with the kids on the island because ''she has a tail''. Combine with an especially [[Anvilicious]] frame story about "being different" and it's arguably the worst of the lot.
*** We can save time by saying that every single story on ''[[Super Why!]]'' is horribly Disneyfied, to the point of barely resembling their original stories. The main characters ''edit the story to get the result they want'' every episode, after all.
*** Ironically, for a show about learning how to read, the writers really don't, or more likely [[They Just Didn't Care]]
* ''[[Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales for Every Child (Animation)|Western Animation: Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales for Every Child]]'' mellowed down most of the fairytales they adapted. For instance, their ''[[The Little Mermaid]]'' adaptation is closer to the source than the Disney movie, but in the end the Mermaid marries the Prince anyway.
* Just about any comic book adaptation that isn't specifically praised for being dark and edgy. There's a reason why so many people confuse comics books with cartoons, or assume superheroes are for kids (and admitting to reading them to those who haven't may lead to awkwardness). Apparantly, that characters such as the Punisher and Wolverine regularly kill others, and characters like Batman and Spider-Man's entire premise is based around death means nothing to some people, because the cartoons are too childish to be taken seriously sometimes.
 
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