In 1948, Disney began making a series of nature documentaries under the heading “True Life Adventures,” and they have churned out these marvels of nature continuously ever since (with only a brief hiatus from 1960 through 2007 when someone misplaced the company’s National Parks Service permission slip). Most fans will remember the first True Life Adventure, Stud Goat Nellie (the first nature film with synchronized animal sounds), in which such sights as a hand-cranked musical cow and a mouse operating a steamboat appeared on firm for the first time.
Disney has announced that they are renaming the True Life Adventures series. According to Babe Pigflinger, a hallucinatory Disney spokesanimal, “The new title, Disneynature, leaves out the ‘true life’ moniker so that our storytelling is not hampered by slavish attachment to reality. But the inclusion of the word ‘nature’ proves that the documentaries have not in any way been ‘de-natured’ by the change. Get it?”
According to Walt Disney Studios chairman Duck Crock, the newly renamed series will be under the direction of Chimp-Francois Calamari, a French guy, and will be produced in France “to be closer to nature.” Disney CEO Rodent Tiger stands completely behind this project, ready to pounce if necessary, but Calamari is not concerned, saying, “Tiger is a good man who can jump 20 feet, but I am safe because I am only 10 feet away from him so he’ll go right over my head and maul my boss.”
Among the features currently in production:
- Earth (feature-length study of dirt)
- The Crimson King (in-depth look at the things living in Stephen King’s imagination)
- Oceans (stalking the stars of Oceans 11, Oceans 12, etc., in their natural habitat)
- Orangutans (how long does it take an orange to get a tan?)
- Big Cats (Rosey Grier, Isaac Hayes, Samuel Jackson, etc.)
- Naked Beauty (Uma Thurman, Angelina Jolie, Samuel Jackson, etc.)
- Chimpanzee (the wacky adventurers of mismatched truckers Chimp and Zee)
- Lemming Flingers (nature documentary filmmakers at work and play)