Time to debunk a myth:
"The Black Cauldron was the first Disney animated theatrical feature to receive a PG rating.
It even had to be edited twice to avoid being released with a PG-13 or R rating."
nope.
I think they have intended this to be PG rated,
this was in pre production since the 1970′s, and in production since the early 1980′s.
There was no PG 13 rating until after parents criticizing the violence in films like Gremlins (1984)
and Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom (1984)
if you look at what was happening in the late 1970′s and 1980′s Disney was going through a slump,
While outside of Disney, filmmakers like Spielberg and Lucas made some interesting films.
According to Don Hann’s documentary Waking Sleeping Beauty: :”Around that time,
the studio did a survey that teenage movie goers would be caught dead near a Disney movie”
If you look at the Disney feature films
from the late 70′s and early 1980′s range from dark SciFi (The Black Hole 1979)
Thriller (The Watcher In The Woods 1981) Dark Comedy (The Devil and Max Devilin 1981 it’s a stinker)
horror (Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes 1983)
Could it be that with Disney and their animated Prydain film was aimed at Spielberg or Lucas type crowd?
niche audience? 80′s teen crowd? Obviously the cauldron born scene is very Indiana Jones eqs.
( even resulting a outraged Katzenberg to order cuts to the film)
More about Disney's dark phase at this link:
http://www.denofgeek.com/us/movies/disney/260524/exploring-disneys-fascinating-dark-phase-of-the-70s-and-80s
Excerpt from The New York Times Article
ANIMATION AGAIN A PRIORITY AT DISNEY
By ALJEAN HARMETZ
August 27, 1984
“The Black Cauldron,” the most complex and expensive animated feature ever produced by Walt Disney Studios,
will be released next summer. This medieval Welsh fable,
based on a series of award-winning children’s books by Lloyd Alexander,
was filmed in 70 millimeter at a cost of $25 million.
The film’s Horned King villain is one of Disney’s most sinister characters.
The boy hero must find the Black Cauldron before the Horned King uses it to bring back dead warriors
from past wars and gather an invincible army. "It is conceivable," said Ron Miller,
president and chief executive officer of Walt Disney Productions,
"that the movie will be the first Disney cartoon to get a PG rating.”
https://www.nytimes.com/1984/08/27/movies/animation-again-a-priority-at-disney.html?rref=collection%2Fbyline%2Faljean-harmetz&action=click&contentCollection=undefined®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=search&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=collection
Excerpt from an August 1984 Chicago Tribune article
https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1985-08-03-8502210564-story.html
''The Black Cauldron'' has received a PG rating, instead of the usual Disney G.
Like ''Snow White,'' which changed ratings from G to PG during its re-release,
''Cauldron'' contains some terrifying moments.
But the change in rating doesn`t signify a simple alteration in a rating;
it represents a different direction for Disney.
''We decided to go back to the essence of the great animated features of the past,'' Hale said.
''We want real heroes and, to have real heroes, you need real villains.
We wanted the Horned King to be as formidable as the wicked stepmother in `Snow White,` and I hope we succeeded.''
excerpt of an interview with animator Kathy Zielinski by the animation guild
transcribed by Tumblr user: hellyeahprydain
"
A Conversation with Kathy Zielinski
She talks about her work on “The Black Cauldron” from 13:50 to 16:05, if you prefer a transcript:
Kathy Zielinski [KZ]: […] And then, from there, went on to “The Black Cauldron” which already, I guess, some animators had been working on for several years,
I think even before I had started there.
Steve Kaplan [SK]: So, what did you animate on “The Black Cauldron”?
KZ: Black Cauldron, I did the three witches.
SK: Oh ok.
KZ: Yeah, yeah, and my—
SK: So, they were fun characters.
KZ: [laughs]
SK: In the picture?
KZ: Yeah, yeah and I’ve got some very embarrassing scenes that I did in that film. It was the frog that got stuck on the witch’s cleavage.
SK: Oh…
KZ: It was bouncing around.
SK: They gave that to you?
KZ: Yeah, they gave that to me. Lucky me! I mean, I did a lot of things on the witches but that was… The one.
SK: One of the few that ended on the picture.
KZ: [laughs] Yeah, it was really fun. It was even more fun getting issued the scene by Ted Berman.
SK: Did he? Act embarrassed?
KZ: Yeah, he had to… Well, he didn’t act embarrassed, well,
he was embarrassed certainly because he was having to describe what the scene was and it was really funny because he was saying
“Ok Kathy now you got to animate this frog moving around in the jugs”
[both laugh]
KZ: In the jugs! I was like, “Isn’t that going to—”
SK: Bottles?
KZ: “And huh, and her breasts are called jugs? Ok.” [laughs] But, that was hilarious, so yeah. So, those were,
you know… I actually haven’t seen Black Cauldron since it came out, I should watch it again but I probably would have a pretty good laugh [laughs]
SK: Yeah, it’s just two years I’ll never get back.
KZ: Yeah, yeah, and that picture, god, that went on for a long time and I remember it was at a time where you could spend forever doing a 2 foot scene,
I mean there was no footage quotas. At all!
SK: Oh yeah.
KZ: I don’t recall.
SK: Well, it was kind of the end of the old era.
KZ: Yeah.
SK: Where Frank and Ollie were doing 60/80 feet a week and all the, well, you know,
the relatively green people were doing 3 or 4 feet a week and some less than that and its… Yeah it was an interesting time.
[and then they go to talk about Kathy’s training with Eric Larson]
Part 2 (if anyone’s interested in listening to the full thing)"
https://animationguild.o...history/kathy-zielinski/
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