It's hard to think of something unpleasant associated with a dozen. Typically a dozen of something is usually pleasant and nice where that "something" might be roses or donuts. However, here are a dozen times where we as audience members, readers, children of the world, had our hearts kicked in the nuts.
1. Disney – Mufasa's death
That's right, pulling out the big guns right from the gate. Historically, Disney has had no problem making millions of children cry, myself included. However, whose idea was it for Simba to crawl underneath his dead father's legs as a sort of last embrace? If you ask me, that is something that should have been reserved for the director's cut.
2. "Friday Night Lights" - Boobie's injury
We all remember Booby from this movie as a gifted yet arrogant football star. But do you also remember when Booby let his guard down in front of his uncle? He told him all he wanted to do was play football, because that's all he could do, and so he could also buy him a house in the future when he would go to the pros like they planned but his career-ending injury made that impossible. Yeah, me too.
3. The real ending to "The Hunchback of Notre Dame"
Even Disney knew better and sugar coated the actual story of what happens at the end of The Hunchback of Notre Dame. They were right to not include the fact that Esmerelda dies by hanging and Quasimodo goes to her grave and remains with her corpse until he eventually starves to death.
4. Something depressing from a lovable comedic actor
It
is especially troubling and melancholy to discover that a beloved
actor like Rown Atkinson, famous for uplifting and comedic roles like
Mr. Bean, has a depressing side within himself.
5. When Spongebob and Patrick almost perished
Nickelodeon would have burned to the ground had they allowed that scene to go on
any longer before the tear of the Goofy-Goobers saved them. Still it's a hard scene to watch and maintain dry eyes.
6. The likelier ending to "The Life of Pi"
I haven't seen the movie but the book does a great job with telling a marvelous story in a framework of an interview with the boy who survived. As a man now, with a family of his own, he regales the interviewer with a tale as tall and unbelievable as it would seem to any of us. However, when pressed, Pi divulges what may have actually happened which is harrowing and incredibly sad. Personally I would have preferred the story of how he survived a ship wreck with a lion out in the middle of the ocean instead of an ordeal where his mother was killed and partially eaten before his eyes and only shortly after did he kill the starving man responsible.
7. Batman being Batman
This girl was going to die and quite possibly wipe out the city with her uncontrollable powers. However, Batman, also an orphan and robbed of his childhood, did something so profound instead of killing her as insurance. Instead, he waited with her in her last moments. Batman showed us yet again it doesn't take super powers to be a super hero but something as simple and honesty as empathy and humanity.
8. The Present
A powerful video that simply and elegantly shows the power of puppy innocence.
9. Putting down your only friend
This is sadder than that awful animal abuse commercial that pops up with a slide show of abused pets and all you can do is desperately look for the remote to mute it or change the channel.
10. Ending a friendship
One of the many reasons this movie was amazing and also made us die of a broken heart like "Padmé
11. Getting another melancholic insight from a beloved comedic actor
This is as insightful as it is jarring.
12. Kiwi
The last of the dozen and possibly one of the most powerful and heart-wrenching animated shorts, "Kiwi." It takes a powerful concept like achieving one's dreams no matter how seemingly impossible and making it come to fruition.
That was a lot. Go find someone and get some sugar.
