One of the many, many, many things people have come up with and posted to the internet is a variety of speculation and theories as to how the various Disney movies are all actually linked. I’m going to attempt to compile a single master theory. Please bear in mind that these are all unconfirmed speculation based on cameos that were thrown in there by the animators for fun, so these are probably not canon. It’s just something that’s really fun to talk about.
Starting off, we’re working with the Frozen theory. For the, like, two of you who haven’t heard it, here it is. Rapunzel as a cameo appearance at the end of “For the First Time in Forever,” attending Elsa’s coronation along with Eugene/Flynn Rider.
Since she isn’t all shriveled up like Mother Gothel, we can assume that the two movies take place around the same time. The theory is that Elsa and Anna’s parents died going to Rapunzel and Eugene’s wedding, as portrayed in the short Tangled Ever After. Notably, Elsa’s parents died three years prior to the start of the main part of Frozen, and Tangled came out three years prior to Frozen. The theory doesn’t even think that they died in the shipwreck. It thinks that they crash-landed somewhere in the Jungle, and gave birth to Elsa and Anna’s brother, Tarzan. The theory states that Elsa’s mom and Rapunzel’s mom are sisters, making them cousins.
The theory ends on the idea that the shipwreck was then visited by the Little Mermaidat the start of her film. Here we have the first snag, since there’s a storybook in Rapunzel’s tower with a mermaid on it. In order for this theory to work, we have to assume that the storybook was simply about mermaids in general and not The Little Mermaid in particular.
Now, we can place Frozen, Tangled, Tarzan, and the Little Mermaid as all taking place at around the same time, assuming the shipwreck was relatively fresh. See, fans have speculated that Cinderella has a slight cameo in the back of Frozen at Elsa’s coronation. Now, it’s probably just a girl wearing the same dress, but we know that Cinderella happens around the same time. See, the Grand Duke and the King from that movie have a cameo at Eric’s wedding to Ursula/Vanessa at the end of The Little Mermaid.
Since the wedding happened so quickly -- I mean, it was literally held at the end of the day it was announced -- this has got to mean that Cinderella’s kingdom is right next to Eric’s. So, if Cinderella is off at Elsa’s coronation, then that would explain why the Grand Duke showed up to the wedding instead of her. While we’re on the subject of Little Mermaid, there’s a picture in Eric’s castle a looks like it could be Prince Phillip and Aurora, and that’s good enough for us. That would seem to indicate that Eric is their descendent, and that places Sleeping Beauty at a few generations prior to Little Mermaid.
The next theory we’re working off here is that Jane form Tarzan is the granddaughter of Belle from Beauty and the Beast. You know, they both wear yellow, they both are intellectuals, and they both are good at calming wild men. But since Jane has the tea set from Beauty and the Beast, it makes sense. This places Beauty and the Beast at the earliest point in the Disney timeline so far. I’m also going to go ahead and put Bambi around here, due to the suggestion, that Gaston killed Bambi’s mother. Really, since Bambi has all animal protagonists, it could happen anywhere in the timeline.
The next link is The Hunchback of Notre Dame. There’s a shot during the song “Out There” that contains Belle, the carpet from Aladdin, and a dead warthog that looks like Pumba from The Lion King.
Now, we can assume that this is just a warthog that looks like Pumba, becauseI’ve got another idea about where Lion King goes. Since the Carpet is an inanimate object, it being here proves nothing. Belle being here means that Hunchback most likelytakes place before Beauty and the Beast, or at least around the same time. I propose that Belle lived in Paris, and her mother died in the events of the movie.
There’s evidence against this theory. The style of dress for the two movies are from distinctly different time periods, but this list is ignoring evidence like that. Because just saying “oh, this movie happened in 1683 because that’s when the story took place” is no fun.
Next, we have Aladdin and Hercules. There’s a theory that a blue shooting star during Go the Distance is Aladdin and Jasmine on the magic carpet, which is possible. See, we can confirm that these two take place at the same time, because the Aladdin TV show crossed over with the Hercules TV show! I will admit that it is questionable -- the Hercules TV show played fast and loose with the movie’s cannon, but it fits pretty well.
Now, the next question. When do these take place in comparison to the other movies? There’s a single pretty well-circulated movie regarding Aladdin. Namely, it’s that they’re post-apocalyptic. This theory is usually only tacked to Aladdin, but it makes perfect sense in correlation with Hercules. If the Genie is a product of some sort of advanced technology, it would explain how he can imitate long-dead comedians and his comment about Aladdin’s clothing being “much too third century.”
In terms of Hercules, It would also explain why in ancient Greece there are action figures and soft drinks and such. It explains why the gods weren’t interfering in any of the other Disney movies. This theory is a perfectly valid theory that explains the oddities of these movies quite nicely.
On the flip side, the Genie could be able to imitate comedians because of his cosmic powers allowing him to see the future. The gods could have seen into the future, imitated the trends they saw there, and accidentally inspired mortals with these same ideas. The two pieces of evidence supporting these movies being in the past are thus: one of the Fates mention that “Indoor Plumbing -- it’s goanna be big.” Additionally, one of the episodes from Hercules: The Animated Series shows that King Triton is Poseidon’s son, making Hercules and Ariel related.
On a simpler note, Scar’s skin appears in Hercules, which places The Lion King prior to Hercules, although it really could fall anywhere in the timeline, since it has a distinct lack of human characters.
We can also confirm that Big Hero 6 takes place in the same timeline. There are statutes of Olaf and Hans in the background of the movie. This seems to indicate that the events of Frozen became legendary to the people of Big Hero 6.
Here’s how the timeline looks. I placed Aladdin, Hercules, and the Lion King twice, since there are arguments for and against it being post-apocalyptic
Lion King
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Aladdin-Hercules
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The Hunchback of Notre Dome
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Beauty and the Beast-Bambi
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Sleeping Beauty
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Cinderella
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Tangled
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The Little Mermaid
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Tarzan
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Frozen
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Big Hero 6
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Lion King
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Hercules-Aladdin
There we have all of the movies that we can directly link. There’s a verity of other Disney movies that link together to each other, but they don’t fit into the timeline as neatly. I’m going to outline some of them here.
We do know that Oliver and Company, Lady and the Tramp, 101 Dalmatians, and the Aristocrats happen around the same time because all of the animal characters appear throughout the different movies, such as Lady and the Tramp appearing in 101 Dalmatians as some of the dogs who are involved in the chain of dogs barking at each other in order to deliver messages.
Oh, and there’s a separate Pixar timeline, which claims movies such as Brave and Brother Bear, but that’s a theory for another day.
This is by no means an all-inclusive list-I haven’t even started on the fact that Mickey Mouse is present in a plethora of these movies. Again, this is mostly just speculation, but dang if it isn’t super fun to think about.
And if you’re interested in this sort of thing, I highly recommend DisneyTheory.com, which goes into much more detail than I have here.
And until next time, remember, if you want to be a man, you must be swift as a coursing river, have all the strength of a great typhoon, be fierce as a raging fire, and mysterious as the dark side of the moon.
