Cinderella gets a sequel on video

The story of Cinderella was written during a time when marrying the prince meant, "the end" because they will now live happily ever after. And that was what they all did, Snow-White, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Beauty and all those other maidens married the prince and lived happily ever after. They did so in many books and many languages and also later when they were translated into animated movies by Disney.

But Disney does not only make films and music, it is also a huge merchandising empire with a vast catalogue of characters that sell everything from books to clothes, bed sheets, etc. etc. When something like this is available, you can bet there will be consistent efforts to keep these figures popular, new and interesting for every generation. And one very effective way of doing so is by providing sequels or new takes to the old stories.

Disney has already done this successfully with Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Pocahontas and others with straight to video releases. And a few weeks ago, there came Cinderella II, Dreams Come True, which continues the Cinderella story with the use of old familiar characters and music from the original film.

While it tells of Cinderella’s life in the palace after marrying her prince, this sequel is actually made up of three short stories told from the point of view of three mice, Jacques, Gus Gus and Mary. If you will recall, these little creatures were among those who helped make Cinderella the stunning princess at the ball. They now live in the palace with the Fairy Godmother and bored. Because they do not have anything to do anymore, they decided to make a book for Cinderella.

The book is made up of three stories, Aim to Please, where Cinderella learns how to be her real self while remaining a princess, Tall Tails, where the Fairy Godmother makes a human out of Jacques and An Uncommon Romance where Cinderella plays matchmaker for one of her stepsisters and the baker boy while the mice match the cats Lucifer and Pom Pom.

As usual with Disney releases, the animation is superior in quality and everybody is as we remember them from the Cinderella feature film. Cinderella is sweet and spunky. The prince is handsome and dignified. The stepmother and her daughters are as snooty as ever. Gus Gus remains fat while Jacques and Mary are thin. And the jolly Fairy Godmother still intones "Saligadula michicabula, bibidibobidibu."

The stories are short and easy to understand and will hold the attention of even the younger children. And with the focus on the mice and the cats, there is a lot of stuff from these creatures that will keep the kids laughing their hearts out. Of course, each tale has a moral lesson with the common theme of always being true to oneself.

Get a copy. This will help keep the kiddies busy and learning this summer.

A victory for Randy Newman

Still on Disney. The computer-animated flick Monster’s, Inc., lost out at the Academy Awards in the Best Animated Film category. But somebody else from the picture won and everybody was so happy about it that they gave him a standing ovation during Oscar night.

Congratulations to Randy Newman. His composition, If I Didn’t Have You from the soundtrack of Monsters, Inc., was named Best Song at the 74th Academy Awards. Newman bested Until by Sting from Kate & Leopold, May It Be by Enya from The Lord of the Rings,There You’ll Be composed by Diane Warren and performed by Faith Hill from Pearl Harbor and Vanilla Sky from the movie of the same title by Paul McCartney. If I Didn’t Have You is performed by John Goodman as Sully and Billy Crystal as Mike in the movie. Newman sang it with Goodman during the Awards.

This is Newman’s first Oscar win after nearly setting the record for being nominated for 16 times! Among his nominated songs were You’ve Got a Friend in Me from Toy Story, When She Loved Me, from Toy Story 2, That’ll Do from Babe: Pig in the City, One More Hour from Ragtime, I Love to See You Smile from Parenthood and Make Up Your Mind from The Paper. He lost out in the music score category to Howard Shore of Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring.