Disney crossovers are nothing new, as there's been so much online discussion about all the hidden secrets and messages supposedly hidden within the popular films. But not all crossovers are created equal. Here are the most bizarre Disney crossovers.
Category
✨
PeopleTranscript
00:00Disney has been planting Easter eggs into their movies for almost as long as they've
00:04been making them, and fans have always enjoyed attempting to untangle this truly bizarre
00:09connected universe.
00:11Here are a few of the weirdest and most wonderful Disney crossovers.
00:15The Disney television animation studios had its heyday back in the mid-to-late 90s after
00:20DuckTales skyrocketed in popularity, and Aladdin and Hercules were apparently ripe with enough
00:25material to each warrant their own spinoff series.
00:29Eventually, someone at Disney clearly decided the two should meet.
00:32The Greek hero and Prince Ali teamed up in the episode Hercules and the Arabian Knight,
00:37which aired for the first time in February 1999.
00:40In this crossover, the two are tricked into fighting each other by Hades and Jafar as
00:44part of a nefarious plot to take over Olympus.
00:47Obviously, Hercules and Aladdin quickly figure out they've been set up, and turn their attention
00:52to kicking the villains' butts.
00:53All in all, it's a pretty fun episode starring two of the Disney Renaissance's biggest stars
00:58working together to save the day.
01:00Sadly, as Disney's TV animation has moved more towards independent properties, it's
01:05unlikely two Disney icons will team up like this any time soon.
01:09Big Hero 6 might take place in the futuristic city of San Fransokyo, but there are actually
01:14a fair few references to Frozen's Kingdom of Arendelle hidden throughout the movie.
01:18For example, statues of Frozen characters Hans and Olaf can be seen in the movie, with
01:23the former ending up being blasted to bits by Baymax.
01:26Whoa!
01:27Rocketfist!
01:28You can also see an Arendelle ship docked at the San Fransokyo marina, and while Disney
01:37has actually revealed these Easter eggs themselves on the movie's Blu-ray extras, there's one
01:42left that has yet to be confirmed, namely that fans have speculated that it's possible
01:47to spot a wanted poster for Hans in the background of the police station.
01:51Of course, that wouldn't be too surprising, considering Hans is a dangerous criminal in
01:55Arendelle's estimations.
01:56Still, if this Easter egg is anything to go off, it looks like the Prince of the Southern
02:01Isles is making quite a name for himself in the dark underbelly of the Disney universe.
02:06Here's an easy one to miss.
02:08Did you know Beauty and the Beast's Mrs. Potts and her son Chip are in Tarzan?
02:12Well, kind of, at least.
02:14In one scene in the movie, Turk and the other gorillas mess around at Jane's camp, and Turk
02:18starts tapping away on a tea set that will look suspiciously familiar to fans of the
02:221991 animation.
02:24In this appearance, however, Mrs. Potts and Chip don't appear to be sentient.
02:28Interestingly, this is one of the few Disney crossovers that you can actually go out and
02:33experience in the real world.
02:34In 1999, Disneyland rethemed their Swiss Family Treehouse attraction into Tarzan's Treehouse.
02:40The idea that visitors walked through the treehouse remained the same, but the decorations
02:45were changed to fit the film's story.
02:47And sure enough, if you enter the campground near the end of the attraction, you can clearly
02:51see Mrs. Potts and Chip tucked away on top of some boxes.
02:55True to its name, the trailer for Ralph Breaks the Internet, well, it kind of broke the internet.
03:01More specifically, everybody got talking about the Disney crossover scene in which Vanellope
03:05ends up hanging out with all the other Disney princesses.
03:08Pamela Ribbon, who wrote the scene, later told The Washington Post about the process
03:12it took to get it made, and, in particular, how nervous she had been that directors Rich
03:17Moore and Phil Johnston wouldn't let her do it.
03:20Luckily, however, they were fully on board with the idea.
03:23She told The Post,
03:24"...the idea of satirizing Disney is the greatest gift we have been given."
03:28During this scene, the princesses and Vanellope lampoon a number of typical Disney cliches
03:33— their endless singing, their reliance on male characters, and their weird tendency
03:38to figure things out about themselves after staring into a pool of water.
03:41Do you have daddy issues?
03:42I don't even have a mom!
03:43Neither do we!
03:46Director Phil Johnston told The Post,
03:48It's like when I make fun of my dad.
03:50Yes, I can do that.
03:51I love my dad and I love his foibles.
03:54We're coming at this from a place of love."
03:56If you watch closely during King Triton's entrance at the beginning of The Little Mermaid,
04:00you might just spot iconic Disney characters Mickey, Donald, and Goofy in attendance as
04:05the king floats above the crowd.
04:07Gamers, in particular, might find this Easter egg amusing, since it seems to have inadvertently
04:11predicted the Kingdom Hearts series over a decade before the first of those games was
04:16released.
04:17When speaking about these particular cameos, director Ron Clements told Insider,
04:21It was one of those things that you can almost never, ever, possibly notice in the movie,
04:25seeing it in the theater.
04:26It would only be on home video, where you could kind of look at it over and over and
04:30go back and forth, that anyone would ever even have noticed it."
04:34Lilo and Stitch
04:35Lilo and Stitch the series never really crossed over with any other Disney movies, which might
04:38seem a little odd, considering those early trailers for the movie in which Stitch crashed
04:43into classic Disney movie scenes.
04:45But the character did have some run-ins with other Disney favorites.
04:48For example, Kim Possible was called in to help Lilo find Stitch in the episode Rufus.
04:53Meanwhile, the characters of the Proud Family dropped in for some vacation time in the episode
04:57Spats, which featured a wrestling mat between the series' Big Bad Gantoo and the Proud Family's
05:02Sugar Mama.
05:03The gang from Recess even showed up in the episode Lax.
05:07Turns out, all those Disney cartoons of the early 2000s share the same universe.
05:11Who knew?
05:12This might be one of the most well-known sightings in Disney history.
05:15Eugene and Rapunzel from Tangled can be seen walking into the castle's gates for Queen
05:20Elsa's coronation in Frozen.
05:22This particular Disney crossover has led fans to speculate that there might be some kind
05:26of a connection between Rapunzel's family and Elsa and Anna's.
05:30Some even speculated that Elsa and Anna are not sisters at all, and that Elsa is actually
05:35Rapunzel's twin.
05:36Hey, you never know!
05:37Anyway, if there is some kind of massive conspiracy connecting the two princesses, the directors
05:42aren't in on it.
05:43Co-director Nathan Greno found out about the cameo on Facebook after the film had premiered.
05:48After confirming that the two characters at the coronation were indeed Eugene and Rapunzel,
05:53he posted,
05:54"'I guess I missed that when I watched the film.'"
05:56Remember Carl and Ellie?
05:58Of course you do.
05:59Honestly, who could forget them?
06:00Well, turns out, they're in Toy Story.
06:03Kind of, at least.
06:04It was BuzzFeed writer Billy LaRusso who pointed out that Andy's corkboard in Toy Story 3 has
06:09a postcard with the names and addresses of the couple from Up.
06:13But you won't spot that postcard if you go back to check your own copy of Toy Story 3,
06:17because this Easter egg didn't quite make it into the final film.
06:20No!
06:21No, no!
06:22Oh, you almost had it.
06:24Despite not appearing in Toy Story 3, the Easter egg does show up in one of the trailers
06:28for the movie.
06:29It seems that, for whatever reason, the postcard didn't survive the various edits and revisions
06:33the film went through before finally hitting theaters.
06:36Why?
06:37Nobody's really sure.
06:39The appearance of the Lion King's Scar in Hercules isn't much of a secret.
06:43In fact, his hide is very clearly worn by Hercules and then thrown onto the floor at
06:47Phil's feet, plain as day.
06:49This connection probably exists because artist Andreas Deja was a supervising animator for
06:54both Scar and Hercules, but there are still so many morbid questions that this scene raises.
06:59After all, Scar's end in The Lion King was, well, it wasn't clean, that's for sure.
07:05So how did he end up in Hercules' hands?
07:07Who came along and, uh, scooped him up in the first place?
07:11And is this all a morbid reference to Zazu's quip about Scar early on in The Lion King?
07:15What am I going to do with him?
07:18He'd make a very handsome throw rug.
07:20Zazu!
07:21Of course, this is probably also a reference to the Nemean Lion, a creature that the real-world
07:25legend of Hercules had to overcome.
07:28Funnily enough, the Nemean Lion can be spotted in the song Zero to Hero, and he does look
07:32a little bit like Mufasa's nefarious brother.
07:35Maybe he's some kind of ancestor to Scar and the rest of the Lion King's royal family?
07:40Moana has more than its share of hidden references, including Flounder from The Little Mermaid
07:45and a Baymax mask on one of the Kakamora that attacks Moana and Maui.
07:49And when directors Ron Clements and John Musker discussed these Disney crossovers with ScreenRant,
07:54they revealed that the movie also featured another hidden cameo, Flash the Sloth from
07:59Zootopia.
08:00Musker said,
08:01"'Yeah, Flash, the very slow-talking sloth from Zootopia, is in there, in a disguise
08:05of sorts.'"
08:12Ah, ah, ah."
08:17Flash can be seen when Moana enters the realm of monsters and is greeted by a creepy-looking
08:21masked creature.
08:22If you look closely enough, you'll see that it's Flash, something that becomes immediately
08:27obvious once you recognize those long claws of his.
08:30Of course, Flash was last seen at the end of Zootopia getting pulled over for speeding.
08:34Is this where Zootopia puts its criminals?
08:37It might seem a little drastic, but think about it.
08:40Tamatoa is a giant crab.
08:43Shiny, I'm so shiny.
08:47Didn't help me though, did it?
08:50Still upside down here."
08:51The Hunchback of Notre Dame is probably the black sheep of the Disney canon, mostly because
08:57it features some of the darkest scenes in all of Disney's history.
09:00And sure, the movie throws in those gargoyle characters in a pretty desperate attempt to
09:04lighten the tension, but all they really end up doing is coming off as a little tonally
09:09dissonant.
09:10At the end of the day, The Hunchback of Notre Dame just isn't very kid-friendly.
09:13It's also a Disney movie that isn't based on a fairy tale, but rather on a truly macabre
09:17novel by Victor Hugo.
09:19So that makes it all the more weird that Belle from Beauty and the Beast can be seen in Hunchback's
09:23streets of Paris.
09:25The fairy tale on which Beauty and the Beast is based is the French tale La Belle et la
09:29Bête, so the animators probably thought it would be fun to connect the two French stories
09:33with a Disney crossover.
09:34Of course, it's pretty amusing to think that, at the same time that the townsfolk are gleefully
09:39singing and prancing around their village, Judge Frollo is skulking around, singing about,
09:44well, something much less wholesome.
09:46I'll find her.
09:47I'll find her if I have to burn down all of Paris.
09:52Let's just hope that Belle was able to get out of Paris before things really started
09:55heating up.
09:57One legendary Pixar-Disney crossover involves Toy Story's iconic Pizza Planet delivery truck.
10:02The truck may have seemed like any other mangy, run-down delivery truck during its initial
10:07appearance in Toy Story, but little did audiences know, this truck has really seen some things.
10:12A lot of things.
10:14In fact, the truck has been spotted in every single Pixar movie, barring one exception,
10:19The Incredibles.
10:20Of course, how Pizza Planet can deliver to Paris but not to the Parr family is anyone's
10:24guess.
10:25Oh, I seriously doubt he's getting this kind of mileage.
10:28The car has been seen parked at Monsters University, rolling around inside Riley's memories in
10:33Inside Out, and even gained sentience in the Cars film.
10:37And this particular Easter egg even transcends the movies themselves.
10:40In 2012, a group of college students built a replica of the truck and drove it around
10:45the country.
10:46At the time, the team told Pixar Post,
10:48"...the response to the truck in person and online has been amazing.
10:51With people slowing down on the freeway to snap a picture or even just giving us a thumbs
10:56up as we pass on the street, we can tell that people recognize it and love the final product."
11:01See?
11:02That truck gets around.
11:07Thanks for watching.
11:08If you enjoyed this video, be sure to like and subscribe!