This week's movie is definitely a weird one, even beyond most of Disney's 80s fare. Because in many ways, CHEETAH is like a film displaced in time. It reminds our hosts of so much of the 60s and 70s output of the House of Mouse, what with the precocious yet utterly stupid teen protagonists, general cultural insensitivities, and a gambling subplot of all things. It makes sense that this movie came out when it did, though - right as the Disney Renaissance was getting started - because slipping through the cracks and getting lost from pop culture's collective memory is about as much as it deserves.

You gotta hand it to them, Disney had it all figured out in the 90s. Coming off an animation renaissance that basically saved the company, they had their fingers firmly on the pulse of what kid and families wanted in their movies. That's how we got MY FAVORITE MARTIAN, based on the 1960s sitcom that 90s kids just loved; starring Jeff Daniels and Christopher Lloyd, two actors who really resonated with the youth of the day. Yes, Disney really set themselves up for success with this one, you have to wonder how it possibly could have gone this wrong.

Our exploration of the Disney films of Tim Burton continues on our Summer of Sadness. In this episode, we see what happens when Timmy B takes a back-seat producer role in the sequel to our inaugural entry, ALICE THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS. For better or for worse, without Burton's direct involvement Wonderland (or Underland, or whatever) has been turned down but about 30%, but that doesn't mean there's any shortage of weirdness to talk about with this franchise - from Johnny Depp's accent and affectation choices to Sasha Baron Cohen's sexual energy (or the lack thereof) to altogether too much time spent on the framing device (again).

Ostensibly, this week's film is about a man who rescues three orphaned bear cubs from certain death and raises them in spite of opposition and criticism from the community around him. And when Disney's THE BEARS AND I came out in 1974, that's almost certainly how audiences received it (assuming anyone actually saw this movie). But decades later, let's just say this movie lands in an entirely different way that was almost certainly not intended.