The Princess and the Frog

Ron Clements and John Musker’s 2009 animation follows Tiana, working two jobs in New Orleans toward her own restaurant, until a kiss meant to undo a spell turns her into a frog. The hand drawn look was a choice, not a default. The studio’s previous hand drawn feature was Home on the Range in 2004; after the Pixar takeover, John Lasseter and Ed Catmull brought Clements and Musker back and let them choose the medium. Lasseter has said the point was never the medium but the story. In development the heroine was Maddy, a chambermaid. After criticism, in May 2007 she became Tiana the waitress and the title moved from The Frog Princess to its current one. The argument continued on release: Angela Bronner Helm, senior editor at Blackvoices.com, asked why the studio’s first African princess was not given an African American prince. Randy Newman took two of the five Music (Original Song) nominations at the 2010 ceremony, Almost There and Down in New Orleans; the award went to Crazy Heart. It also lost Animated Feature Film to Up. A good fit if you are here for the score, which took two of that year’s five song nominations. Not for you if you want Tiana in human form, since both leads spend nearly the whole middle stretch as frogs.