Disney Plus-Or-Minus: Cheetah
After Honey, I Shrunk The Kids revitalized the gimmick comedy, it makes sense that Disney live action would turn its attention to another long dormant genre, the nature picture. They were relatively inexpensive to produce and the studio had some success welcoming Joe Camp and Benji to the Disney fold. But unlike the gimmick comedy and its seemingly endless potential for sci-fi variations, Cheetah proves that there’s only so much to be done with kids and animals, no matter how exotic.
The old school vibes start immediately as the opening credits play out over animal footage that could have been taken straight out of a True-Life Adventure. The executive producer is revealed to be none other than Roy Edward Disney, who’d started his career at his uncle Walt’s studio working as an editor and photographer on the True-Life Adventure series. Apart from the ‘80s fashions and technology, Cheetah is practically indistinguishable from those ‘50s chestnuts.
The movie was based, however loosely, on the 1970 novel The Cheetahs by Alan Caillou. Caillou was quite a character. He’d served with distinction in the Intelligence Corps during World War II, had a lengthy career with the Palestine Police Force and was even a professional hunter for a time before turning to writing and acting. In fact, we’ve already seen Alan Caillou in this column as an actor. He played Emile in Herbie Goes To Monte Carlo. You’ll forgive me if I don’t remember exactly what role Emile played in Herbie’s Eurotrip but trust me, he’s in there.
The book was adapted to the screen by John Cotter, Griff Du Rhone and Erik Tarloff. Tarloff was primarily a sitcom writer, which tracks. His credits included multiple episodes of All In The Family, M*A*S*H, The Jeffersons and many others. Cotter and Du Rhone, on the other hand, don’t have any other screen credits, so I’m not sure where they came from or where they went post-Cheetah.
The film’s director was Jeff Blyth, a veteran of the Disney Theme Parks. His specialty was large-format attractions shot in Circle-Vision 360° such as Wonders Of China and The Timekeeper, which featured an animatronic character voiced by Robin Williams. Blyth is still active in visual effects but Cheetah was his only feature for regular old movie theaters.
Keith Coogan and Lucy Deakins star as siblings Ted and Susan Johnson. Coogan made his Disney debut as the voice of young Tod in The Fox And The Hound. Since then, he’d appeared in Touchstone’s Adventures In Babysitting, which we’ll get to on that side of things soon enough. Deakins had appeared in the charming 1986 fantasy The Boy Who Could Fly. She retired from acting not long after Cheetah was released to become an attorney. She’s currently a partner in a Denver, Colorado law firm. I have to admit, I think it would be kind of fun to have the girl from Cheetah representing you in court.
Ted and Susan are typical Pasadena teenagers whose father (Timothy Landfield) is stationed at a NASA tracking station in Kenya. Ted in particular is excited to explore Africa but their overprotective killjoy mother (Breon Gorman, who would shortly marry Landfield in real life) has other ideas. She wants the kids to stick as close to the house as possible.
It doesn’t take long for the kids to break that rule and befriend a young Masai boy named Morogo (Colin Mothupi) from a neighboring village. Morogo acts as tour guide, introducing them to the local wildlife and culture. That culture includes a performance of a song called “Jambo Bwana” that incorporates a now-familiar phrase, “Hakuna Matata”. The kids are so taken by this problem-free philosophy that they later sport shirts with the phrase emblazoned on them. For their part in this cultural exchange, Ted and Susan introduce Morogo to the joys of the Atari 2600 version of Pac-Man. Kind of seems like the Americans are getting the better end of this deal.
On one of their outings, the kids discover a cheetah cub whose mother has been killed by poachers. Ted and Susan adopt the orphan, who they name Duma, with remarkably little resistance from their parents. The months pass quickly (literally, we see almost none of Duma’s maturation) and it’s soon time for the kids to return home. But before they can release Duma into the wild, they have to teach her to hunt and fend for herself.
They also receive an offer to buy Duma from Mr. Patel (Kuldeep Bhakoo), the Indian owner of the general store. Patel has hatched a scheme to enter Duma in a greyhound race. Despite their great speed, cheetahs have poor endurance and would certainly tire out before the finish line. He persuades a sinister Brit named Nigel (Anthony Baird) that they could make a fortune by betting against the cheetah. And since the Johnsons refuse to sell, they recruit Abdullah (Paul Onsongo), the very poacher who killed Duma’s mom, to help steal her.
The kids are uneasy about Duma’s disappearance as they’re dropped off at the airport for their return flight home. They decide to skip the flight and go off in search of Duma, embarking on a cross-country trek on foot with Morogo. As the kids make their way to the bad guys’ camp, Morogo’s parents team up with the Johnsons to find their missing children.
There’s not a whole lot to say about Cheetah. The movie was shot on location in Africa, so at least it’s pleasant to look at. It’s harmless enough and very young kids might be entertained by it. But everybody else will likely be more than a little bored by the cardboard characters and rote story. There’s a difference between trying to make a good movie and making one that’s good enough. Cheetah definitely feels like everyone was satisfied with good enough.
Disney released Cheetah into the box office wild on August 18, 1989. It landed in tenth place, barely ahead of Honey, I Shrunk The Kids, which had been playing for over two months. By Labor Day weekend, it wasn’t even in the top twenty. But like I said, movies like this didn’t cost a lot to produce, so it ended up making a tiny profit before arriving on the crowded video shelves of daycare centers across America.
As long as there are animals and kids to love them, Disney will continue making movies like Cheetah. This column has already covered countless examples and we’ll see plenty more. Let’s just hope the next one offers something a bit more substantial. If not, well…Hakuna Matata, everybody.
VERDICT: I’m gonna have to bring back the dreaded Disney Neutral for this thoroughly forgettable film.