Disney Film: Best Scene Ever

[Tom Chaney]

Just for fun, I offer a competition/poll to solicit your thoughts on the best Disney film scene ever. Now, it's probably unfair to compare funny, moving, bombastic, etc. scenes with each other, but nobody ever said life was fair.

First, the categories:

Funniest
Most Emotionally Moving (happy, sad, other)
Best musical production number.
Most beautiful animation/live production scene. (eye candy)
Most memorable or iconic.
Most innovative, clever or technically wonderful.

We'll take each category in turn. You submit your nominations then we'll have a poll to determine the winners. After the close of each poll, I'll note the top two in each category. The grand finale will be a last poll pitting each of the top two winners from each category against each other. This will be our unscientific determination of The Best Disney Film Scene... EVER. Yep, this will take a couple of months to come to fruition, but it should be interesting.

Rules:
1. Any Disney production is eligible.
2. The "scene" may actually be comprised of several shots and angles but must be recognizable as a discreet section of the production as a whole. (ie: the "Be Our Guest" sequece in "Beauty & The Beast" or the "Feed The Birds" scene from "Mary Poppins.")
3. You may nominate as many as you like.
4. Nominations for each category will last for 1 week. Then the top 10 from that thread will be placed in the poll. The poll will last for another week.
5. At the end of each poll, the top two will be noted and will be eligible for the final "Best Disney Film Scene Ever" poll.

Ready?

Let's begin. Please post your nominations for the FUNNIEST Disney film scene ever. (Features, shorts, cartoons, TV....everything is eligible.)

I'll lead off: In 1951, Disney released a Chip 'n Dale cartoon called "Out Of Scale" featuring Donald Duck. Donald has made a "ride-on" train set in his backyard. Chip 'n Dale's tree home is out of scale to Donald's railroad so he chops it down. No problem, Chip 'n Dale move into one of Donald's scale homes along his railway. When Donald discovers them, he torments with with hoses, heat lamps, etc. to change their "weather" and drive them nuts. The scene is hilarious!

Victoria also would like to nominate the "I love to laugh" scene in Mary Poppins where Bert, Mary and Uncle Albert all float around near the ceiling while singing.

(If you can think of a category that I missed and really feel that it should be included, please let me know.)

[disneytim]

My funniest favorite is the 1941 Goofy short "The Art of Skiing." With the help of the cartoon's narrator, Goofy demonstrates the basics of navigating the slopes with the expected disastrous results. One great sight gag after another. I can't limit it to one scene. The whole cartoon is a classic.

[quasimodo1384]

My nomination also comes from a short cartoon with Chip & Dale terrorizing Donald Duck. I believe the short is called "Working for Peanuts." It has Chip and Dale in competition with Dolores the Elephant at the zoo, trying to get peanuts.

At one point, Donald is chasing Chip and Dale and winds up getting hit over the head. He immediately gets a goofy look on his face and rigidly falls down. The scene continues, but when we next see Donald again, he is in the same position we left him, with the same look on his face!

This cracks me up, because normally in cartoons, the characters get hurt and then easily shake it off. To re-visit a character and still have them showing their battle scars, was pure comic and story genius! Other studios would not have taken this risk in animation because it makes the story a little more complicated, but better and funnier because of this!

Since I don't think I did a very good job explaining that, I found a low quality version of this short on youtube! Here's the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdp4EeXVZFw

[merlinjones]

Funniest: "In the Bag" musical number - - bump bump.

Most Emotionally Moving (happy, sad, other): Mr. Banks walks to the bank to get fired and stops to see the steps of St. Paul's - as chorus wells up to the tune of "Feed the Birds."

Best musical production number: "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah"

Most beautiful animation/live production scene. (eye candy): Climax of "Sleeping Beauty"

Most memorable or iconic.: "Snow White" finale

Most innovative, clever or technically wonderful.: "You Belong to My Heart"

[Tom Chaney]

Thanks for some good nominations, so far. I watched "Working For Peanuts" and laughed at that gag!

[Speedway]

Most Emotionally Moving: When the Emperor and the whole of China bows to Mulan. I'm getting shivers thinking about it. - Mulan

Best musical production number: "Be Our Guest". Full of colour, a stunning song, humour, just overall excellence. - Beauty and the Beast

Most beautiful animation/live production scene: Well when you said eye candy, I thought of "Under the Sea" because of the colour, but then I read the question properly and thought of the beautiful animation. I'd go for the first half of Pocahontas - yes, sorry, I'm picking quite a few newer Disney films, but you cannot watch that film and deny its beauty. The scene where John Smith first views Pocahontas is a classic. - Pocahontas

Most memorable or iconic: Iconic? The transformation of the Queen. I last saw that scene maybe ten years ago and I can still remember every second. - Snow White

Most innovative, clever or technically wonderful: Hmm. Have to get back to you on that.

[Experiment626]

Funniest: "In the Bag" musical number - - bump bump.

Is this the one with Humphrey the Bear? I love that cartoon. I now have the song in my head.

Here are my nominations:
For funniest: I have to say at the end of Emperor's New Groove when Yzma and Cuzco are fighting for the vile that contained the potion to turn them back into humans. He is still a llama and she is not a cute little kitten with a high pitched voice that she already has. I haven't laughed at a Disney film like I have with this scene alone.

Most emotionally moving:
Happy: Ending of Snow White when the Prince finds her and gives her love's true kiss and she awakens. When I saw this scene when I bought the DVD I got all teared up.
Sad: I have two for sadness. First one is in Dumbo, the "Baby Mine" scene. So sad, again when I watched it after I bought it on DVD I cried. I really felt for Dumbo and his poor mother.
The other film is Lilo & Stitch when Nani realizes Cobra Bubbles will be taking away Lilo away from her, the scene in the hammock where she sings to Lilo and the scene where he takes Lilo and puts her in the car. Her screaming out to Lilo was very sad to watch.
Best Musical Production Number: Without a doubt, "Be Our Guest" from Beauty & the Beast. I don't think there is no need to explain why.
Beautiful animation/live production scene: I loved the animation in Sleeping Beauty of the forest. I think the animators captured the medieval art style very well with all the lines. I also really enjoed Finding Nemo. It was a very stimulating movie. The ocean water and everything in it just looked so beautiful.
Memorable/iconic: I already used Snow White & Sleeping Beauty so I'm going to say Pinocchio, when he turns into a real boy and Cinderella, when the glass slipper breaks and all hope is lost but not after Cinderella manages to appear to declare that she has the other slipper.
As for innovative, clever, & technically wonderful, I would say Mary Poppins when she, Bert, and the chlidren were in the park after jumping through the art.

[Alice's Wonderland]

Most memorable or iconic: When Cinderella's dress changes from rags to a beautiful ball gown

[Yendorb]

Not sure which to put it under. It is one of the best designed sequences in animation ever. It is the scene in Cinderella where she takes the tray to the stepmother. Cinderella is always shown smaller than the stepmother, and the way the bars from the windows fall across her dress emphasize that she is a prisoner in her home.

That is great design.

[roxystar68]

Funniest:I like Working for Peanuts too.
Most Emotionally Moving (happy, sad, other)
Happy:Silly Song from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs makes me happy.
Sad: Mufasa dying in The Lion King
Best musical production number:
I agree that Be Our Guest is the best.
Most beautiful animation/live production scene. (eye candy)
I'm very fond of Tale as Old As Time in Beauty and the Beast, not for eye candy, but for the romance in it. I also like the reprise to Once Upon a Dream at the end of Sleeping Beauty with the dancing and the dress changing color.
Most memorable or iconic: Steamboat Willie, Mickey steering the steamboat.
Most innovative, clever or technically wonderful.
I have to say the graphics of the ballroom in Tale as Old as Time. You can tell I love Beauty and the Beast, can't you?

[Disneyland Daddy]

....there are so many I love, but one that stands out is when a cake lands on Miss Inch's face in The Parent Trap!

[PrincessY]

Cpt. Norrington: "You are without a doubt the worst pirate I've ever heard of."

Jack: "But you have heard of me."

[DisneyIPresume]

I don't know if this is a category, but I think Roger Ebert (and I agree with this) has stated that one of the greatest on-screen kisses of all time is the scene in Lady and the Tramp, when they are eating the spaghetti?

[toonaspie]

Funniest: "They popped out of the snow...like daisies!!!" ~Mushu (Mulan)
Most Emotionally Moving: near end of The Lion King where Simba walks up Pride Rock in the rain
Best musical production number: I cant decide but it would definitly be from one of the Disney Renaissance films
Most beautiful animation/live production scene: Circle of Life sequence hands down!, a close runner up would be Can You Feel the Love Tonight sequence (both are gorgeous depictions of Africa)
Most memorable or iconic: any scene in Bambi where you hear "Love is a Song" playing in the background
Most innovative, clever or technically wonderful:

• ballroom scene in Beauty and the Beast
• "A Whole New World" in Aladdin
• Simba seeing Mufasa's ghost in The Lion King
• numerous scenes in Tarzan
• possibly others

[doobwah]

Does this have to be a pure Disney film, or do Disney-Pixar ones count? When I saw this thread, the first film I thought of for Best Scene Ever goes to Monsters Inc. This would have to fall into Best Emotional Scene: It's the very last scene when Sulley opens Boo's door after putting it back together, and she simply says, "Kitty?" That one gets me every time. Goosebumps and all.