Home on the Range is the forty-forth film in the Disney animated feature canon. It was produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation, and released on April 2, 2004 by Walt Disney Pictures and Buena Vista Distribution. It will probably be the last Disney movie to use traditional animation; Disney animated films have used some computer-generated effects for many years, but Disney has announced plans to move entirely to computer animation after this one (an example of which lies in their upcoming Chicken Little), and it has laid off most of its animation department.

The film began pre-production after the release of Pocahontas in 1995. In August 2000, the movie was first heard of as Sweating Bullets, and scheduled for a fall 2003 release. Then, there were no proposed pictures from the movie. In the summer of 2001, the movie got its first pictures, a logo (still having the original title) and a screen-shot. Within the next few months, the movie got more pictures. In April 2002, it was decided that the movie should change its title to Home on the Range. It got its new logo in the fall of 2002.

This film was originally slated to have been released in November 2003, but story and production problems forced it to swap release dates with Brother Bear (originally slated for spring 2004) in December 2002.

The story is set in the Old West. Unusually for a Western movie (and a Disney film), the main characters are female: three dairy cows, Maggie, Mrs Calloway and Grace (voiced by Roseanne Barr, Judi Dench and Jennifer Tilly respectively), who must capture an infamous cattle rustler in order to save their idyllic farm from foreclosure. (As Grace puts it, "Who better to catch a cattle thief...than a cow?") Aiding them in their quest is Lucky Jack, a feisty, peg-legged rabbit, while an overeager stallion named Buck (Cuba Gooding Jr.) selfishly seeks the bounty – and the glory – for himself.

This was arguably the first Disney animated film to feature three female main characters. However several of its predecessors included female heroes and villains. See Female protagonists in Disney animated films for details.

The film premiered on the night of April 2, 2005 on the Starz! cable channel, exactly a year after its theatrical release.

External links

• Official web site