Bambi and Pinnochio were pretty disturbing on their own no? The Little Mermaid and BATB (1991) are saved by the songs. The death of brilliant lyricist Howard Ashman shortly thereafter was a huge loss.
BATB, I agree. Not sure about The Little Mermaid, though: The plot itself probably was good enough that the songs probably didn’t need to save it (though the songs certainly helped).
They have their tear jerking moments, but they always put the fluff in. I hate Disney songs, even if the lyrics might be good with their need to have singing rats and chairs and whatever else they make them dumb. Part of it too is the era I grew up in, when your childhood is in the 70s Disney is Apple Dumpling Gang and Cat From Outer Space. You learn very quickly that the mouse logo = crappy movie coming. Which then makes you start looking at the classics differently. When I look at those I see fantastic animation (it really is amazing) in the service of bad stories that insult their audience. Then I took German and we started translating Brothers Grimm and I found out that many of these stories were once good, and that was it. Disney is an Ugh for me now, and I’m always waiting for them to Disney-ify their properties. Like they’ve already done to Pixar, remember when Pixar meant awesome, now it means yet another freaking Cars movie.