According to someone who heard something on some blog somewhere, Pixar’s The Bear and the Bow (the touching story of a princess who wants to stop training with her Bowflex and just sit around watching Brother Bear) may instead be released with the title Brave. Scandalous as this may seem, there are actually some reasonable reasons for making such a change. For example, shorter titles are easier to remember and to spell, and don’t take up as much room on the Internet. The title also has some historical precedent — those of us who are Americans of a certain age can remember the days before the 28th amendment when we used to stand with our hands over our hearts at baseball games while someone sang about “the land of the free and the home of the bear and the bow.”

But the important thing to remember here is that Disney often creates films under working titles that were changed before final release. A few examples:

According to an official Disney press release that was channeled to us from a local astrologer, “Tangled will be the story of Rapunzel, a woman who took a nazarite vow at birth that has made her an amazing warrior. After an incident in her youth when she burned down an enemy’s field by setting local animals on fire, she was locked in a tower for fear that she would destroy the town if let free.

“As a teenager, Rapunzel is visited by a young man, Delilo, who speaks to her while standing at the base of the tower. Delilo is from Philistia, a town that is the historical enemy of Rapunzel’s town. Even so, they fall in love. But the inhabitants of Philistia are enraged when, at Delilo and Rapunzel’s wedding, she beats thirty of them to death for guessing the answer to her favorite riddle. They tie her up, intent on taking her back to her tower, but she breaks free and kills a thousand more, using the jawbone of her funny talking animal pall ‘Donkey’ as a weapon.

“Things go downhill from there. Delilo is upset by all the violence, and uses his manly wiles to get Rapunzel to tell him that the secret of her strength is in her hair. In the night, Delilo cuts Rapunzel’s hair and then lets in her enemies, who poke out her eyes with swords. Rapunzel, blind and powerless, is bound between two pillars on the steps of the capital of Philistia. Gathering her will, Rapunzel miraculously grows her hair out to its full length in an instant, pulls down the pillars of the capital (causing it to collapse and crush the elders of the town), and beats the living daylights out of everyone within reach.

“In the end, Delilo sees the horror brought by his treachery. He sings a happy love song to Rapunzel, who responds in kind. They renew their wedding vows in a lovely ceremony at the base of her tower, attended by all the creatures of the forest. Rapunzel opens a blacksmith shop, and they live happily ever after.”

For example:

• In the 1950s, little boys all across the country, in imitation of their TV hero Davy Crockett, donned raccoon-skin caps and ran for Congress.
• The popular Frisbee toy was invented to sate children yearning to imitate the disc-battling antics of their movie hero Tron.
• After the release of Beauty and the Beast, little girls followed the movie heroine’s lead and began to read books for entertainment (much to the annoyance of film-based corporations, causing Disney to focus its next animated film, Aladdin, on a more commercial female role model — a marriage-obsessed princess in scanty clothes who hangs out with big, fluffy animals).
• Many children who saw Toy Story subsequently wanted toys.

This is not to say that The Princess and the Frog has had no impact on children. Quit the contrary — although there are no reliable reports of children doing anything so ridiculous as kissing frogs, a number of youths in the southern U.S. have been devoured (whole or in part) while trying to teach alligators to play jazz music.

DisneyLies.com: The Princess and the Frog

Beware, it’s full of spoilers that will completely ruin the film for those of you who foolishly haven’t seen it! After you read it, be sure to leave your comments in the comments.

Apparently, Disney plans to announce on Monday that in 2010 they will be rereleasing the animated classic Beauty and the Beast with all-new additional animation. Said supposed Lead Animation Director of Animating Animation Jade Austin, “This will be the first time that Disney has reworked one of its animation classic, not just to add new footage, but to add additional characters and animation to existing scenes, completely changing the tone and plot of the film.”

Austin continues, “Beauty and the Beast and Zombies will be much darker than the original film, and though the plot will be more significantly about how the cruel beast’s massive strength and claws make him the epitome of warriors against the undead, we haven’t lost sight of the love story that is at the heart of B&B.”

Rumor has it that the final battle between Beast and a certain stuck-up undead hunter has to be seen to be believed, and when animated furniture returns to life after being smashed in the castle invasion, a chill is guaranteed to go up every spine. The (much more threatening) version of “Be Our Guest” should also be quite a hit. It is possible that the ending — in which the titled couple is devoured after Belle’s love turns Beast human — will prove controversial.

We asked Austin how this project was developed. “It’s something that’s been floating around the halls for years. We thought of a number of possible ways to go with the ‘add a zombie’ idea — The Fox and the Hound and Zombies, Lady and the Tramp and Zombies, 101 Zombie Dalmatians, Snow White and the Seven Brain-Eating Undead Dwarfs — but Beauty and the Beast just seems perfect for this treatment. We hope you find it as horrifying as we do!”

Eaton paused for a moment and asked us why we had stopped eating our lunch, then continued without waiting for answer. “And it wasn’t just the robot! Think about all those people on that space ship. They’ve been there 700 years, we don’t see signs that anyone ages, but there are babies being born. Why isn’t the place bursting at the seams? Because they’re drinking soylent green Slurpees, that’s why! The evidence is everywhere, clear as the Fourth of July. This might as well have been the Donner Party cartoon.”

We contacted Disney’s Ethics Officer for comment, but he was at lunch — and his secretary was missing. Coincidence? We hope so.