Disney’s comeback story

Somewhere in existence–probably hidden in the bowels of my parents’ closets–is a video tape of five-year-old me singing the soundtrack–or what I knew of it–to The Little Mermaid. This movie, along with its successors Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and The Lion King, were huge parts of my childhood, and like many others of my generation, I still enjoy watching them (and, yes, singing along) from time to time. Heck, I even liked The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

But according to a new documentary, those movies were almost never made. Waking Sleeping Beauty provides a behind-the-scenes look at the Disney animation department from 1984-1994, a decade during which it recovered itself from a series of flops by imagining some of the greatest animated movies of all time. This is sure to be a business comeback tale worth seeing.