When Disney announced that “Home on the Range” would be the last traditionally animated Disney Canon film, we were all horrified beyond belief!
Then after the acquisition of Pixar (and other factors), Disney decided to create another traditionally animated Disney Canon film and we were all ecstatic with immeasurable glee!
That film is none other than Disney’s 49th animated feature, “The Princess and the Frog”.
Released in 2009 and loosely based on the “The Frog Prince” fairy tale, the film is set in New Orleans and features our heroine, Tiana, Disney’s first African-American heroine.
She has a dream of opening a restaurant, a dream that was shared by her late father; so she works hard to earn money to make this dream possible.
And by hard, I mean REALLY hard! She works two jobs with little practically none no time at all for leisure activity.
One night at a costume party, she comes across a talking frog who tells her that if she kisses him, he’ll revert back into a prince and give her the money for her restaurant. So, Tiana puckers up and kisses the frog.
She puckers up and kisses the frog.
SHE PUCKERS UP AND KISSES THE FROG!
And wouldn’t you know it, the plan backfires and Tiana turns into a frog herself!
They both quarrel and end up lost in a bayou while we understand what’s going on. Apparently, the frog was a human prince named Naveen from the fictional country of Maldonia.
He was visiting New Orleans, came into contact with the local con man, Dr. Facilier (the villain of our film), and fell right into Dr. Facilier’s evil plan! What is Dr. Facilier’s evil plan? Well, he changed Prince Naveen into a frog, changed Prince Naveen’s valet into Prince Naveen, and planned to use the fake Prince Naveen to marry Charlotte, the daughter of the self-proclaimed “King of Mardi Gras”, which would allow Dr. Facilier to take over the city and give all the city’s souls to his “friends on the other side”.
Yeah, I don’t really get it either.
In short, Prince Naveen and Tiana are now frogs and need to turn back human and stop the fake Prince Naveen from marrying Charlotte.
The movie, in my opinion, is ok; it’s not great, but it was like a breath of fresh air to see Disney’s amazing 2D animation department at work again, and that alone makes this movie viewable many times!
So where does our forgotten/minor character come in? Well, the Reverend is the person who’s performing the marriage between the fake Prince Naveen and Charlotte. Poor Reverend! He doesn’t understand what’s really going on behind the scenes. And I don’t think I’m giving anything away, but the marriage is never completed due to a distraction that the fake Prince Naveen needs to take care of.
So I wonder what exactly happened to the Reverend. Did he just leave?
Is he still waiting there for the groom to return?
Has he been assassinated by the evil Emperor Zurg, sworn enemy of the Galactic Alliance?
Ok, too much! But the point is that the Reverend only is seen for a brief time and doesn’t even get to complete the work he was set out to do. What a shame and waste of his precious time! Let’s recognize him with this post. Everybody, here’s to the Reverend!
The Animation Commendation 
Now I understand your view on this movie. I don;t think it is in the Top 10 best in any way, but I do like it. I never noticed him, thus the forgotten minor characters. I am getting into these.
It’s always great to know that people are interested in my Forgotten/Minor Character Disney Canon Project 🙂 ! Too bad, it’s nearing its end 😦 .
Maybe you could do the Pixar or Disneytoons ones.
I’ve thought of that, but I’d like to take a break after this Project finishes to focus more on my live-action Disney Project as well as doing more “My Thoughts” on this site. But we’ll see.
Now that my girls are older we don’t see as many of the newer Disney movies much. Ok, I take that back. We still watch them but not eleventy-billion times like we used to. I’ll have to watch this one again for all the little things I missed.
Disney movies are meant to be re-watched innumerable times over 🙂 !
I adore Princess and the Frog, it’s one of my favorites. Great call with the forgotten character, I didn’t even recognize which movie he was from when I first saw the picture!
Thanks, I tend to choose the forgotten/minor characters to be ones that I forgot about and the Reverend fit the requirement, lol!
I also loved this movie, though some aspects were a little questionable. And I totally forgot the reverend too!
The animation is the only thing that keeps me coming back to this movie.
Just watched the film for the first time ever! (Sorry, I know I am very slow when it comes to catching up with this sort of stuff) Haha the Reverend part was quite hilarious in the film, glad you featured him!
Thanks!
Personally, I rank THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG as my #1 favorite entry in the Disney Revival lineup (although MOANA is also a worthy contender). It boasts a mold-breaking heroine (both for her ethnicity, and the fact that she’s the first with a career), a male lead with the most personality of any before him (except maybe for Aladdin), a really cool villain, a well-developed supporting cast, beautiful animation, and a knock-out soundtrack.
One little thing that I must take issue with is the design of Dr. Facilier; in terms of his facial features, his design borders a little too closely on ethnic caricature for my liking…
I wish I had that much positivity about this film as you did!
Being a self-made naturalist, I’ve always wondered what species of frogs are represented by the protagonists of this movie. Fortunately, my older sister was a major frog nerd as a kid, and owned a fair number of scientific books on them; one of these books included separate profiles for several species, including range distribution maps and full-color photos of individual specimens.
Using that book as a reference, I’ve concluded that while Naveen is under Facilier’s spell, he is a southern leopard frog (Lithobates sphenocephalus), whereas Tiana, when she kisses Naveen, turns into an American green tree frog (Hyla cinerea).
Southern Leopard frog and American green tree frog…interesting! Leopard frogs sound awesome!