What if DreamWorks Pictures/DreamWorks Animation was founded in 1934?/Headin’ South

Headin' South is a 1942 American animated musical comedy-adventure film produced by Dora Wilson Productions, in an partnership with MGM Cartoon Studio (as the two studios' first full-length animated feature film), and released by MGM. It follows the story of a young duckling named Janice (voiced by Shirley Temple in her only animated-film role) who discovers most of the ducks, including her parents, didn't return from south after the migration. So, she sets off by attempting to go south, but ends up getting lost in the process, where she then befriends with a raccoon named Ringo (voiced by Arnold Stang) who helps her in her quest to find her family and the rest of the ducks, while they face the challenges and dangers of a hostile world of crooks, villains and monsters.

The film released on June 11, 1942. The film had received positive reviews, but was a poor performance commercially and didn't get its released outside from United States due to World War II. It wasn't until that the film was re-released on 1946 and became a cult classic after its re-releases on theaters, television airings and home video releases and is considered one of the greatest animated films ever made, with a rare 100% rating on the website Rotten Tomatoes. Headin' South was added to the United States National Film Registry for being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Two direct-to.video sequels Headin' South Again and Headin' South Pole were released in 2002 and 2010, respectively.

Plot
In Duck Pond Square in Iowa, a little girl duckling named Janice is finally off from school for the upcoming winter season, along with other children. Mallard, her father, takes Janice home where he and her mother Millard tell her that they both are heading off to south, along with other ducks due to migration as Millard makes a call to Grandpa Duck to come and babysit Janice once they're gone. After Grandpa Duck arrived, Millard and Mallard takes off to south while Janice sadly watches and wishes they she can try to go south, despite being told by her parents that she's too young.

TBD

Production
Development of Headin’ South started in early 1938, a year after Walt Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Hollywood’s first full-length animated motion picture, was a critical and commercial success, which caught the attention of Dora Wilson, who had her willing to produce her own animated feature to compete Disney. She first asked Republic Pictures, the distributor of Dreamtoons shorts, to be the distributor for her first animated full-length project, but turned down. Wilson asked many other movie studios for an distributing deal for her film such as Paramount, Columbia, United Artists and 20th Century Fox, which also rejected it, until Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) agreed her and TBD

Fellow animation producers Walter Lantz, Paul Terry, and Leon Schlesinger all considered producing animated feature films, but after seeing the disappointing box-office performances of Walt Disney's new films Pinocchio and Fantasia (both 1940) and Max Fleischer's Mr. Bug Goes to Town (1941), they cancelled any potential animated feature projects. However, Dora Wilson was the only of them who still had continued the project.

Main characters

 * Janice Duck - Voiced by Shirley Temple; the film's main protagonist who is an adventurous, innocent, coy, and optimistic young girl duckling.
 * Ringo - Voiced by Arnold Stang; a fast-talking, easy-going, music-loving raccoon who befriends Janice.

Other characters

 * Mallard Duck - Voiced by Pinto Colvig; Janice's father who is often lazy, clumsy, silly, but serious.
 * Millard Duck - Voiced by Barbara Jo Allen; Janice's mother.
 * Grandpa Duck - Voiced by Mel Blanc; an elder duck who is Janice's grandfather and Millard's father, who is retired from flying and has his job to babysit Janice, while Millard and Mallard left.
 * Mayor Gobble - Voiced by Bert Lahr; a turkey who is the mayor of Southernville.
 * Craney, Ratso and Armadilla - Voiced by Ray Bolger, Mel Blanc and Vivien Leigh; the crane, rat and armadillo trio performers for Steamboat Saloon.
 * Robert Rabbit - Voiced by Billy Gilbert; a piano playing rabbit in Steamboat Saloon and also a friend of Ringo.
 * River - Voiced by Dickie Jones; a boy otter who is Janice's classmate.
 * Digger - Voiced by George McFarland; a boy mole who is Janice's classmate.
 * Possi - Voiced by Cammie King; a girl possum who is Janice's classmate.
 * Mr. Owl - Voiced by Walter Catlett; an owl who is Janice's teacher.

Antagonists

 * Bob Cat - Voiced by Billy Bletcher; the main antagonist who is a bobcat that attempts to devour Janice.
 * Silly Snake - a mute, dim-witted snake henchman of Bob Cat.
 * The Fox - Voiced by Vincent Price; a con-man fox who tricks Janice several times, but gets defeated at the end. He later made a cameo appearance in Shrek as one of the exiled fairytale creatures (as well as the same fox from Carlo Collodi's Pinocchio).
 * Mr. Wolf - Voiced by Edward G. Robinson; a scarred, cigar-smoking wolf gangster who has kidnapped all the ducks (including Janice's parents) to use them as slaves in his mansion, and plans to use Janice for his greedy plans. He bears similarities to Carface Caruthers from DreamWorks' later animated film All Dogs Go to Heaven.
 * The Hunter and his Dog - an unseen duck-hunter and his pet dog.

Deleted characters

 * Singing Crows - a group of crow performers for Steamboat Saloon, who are similar to the crows from Walt Disney's Dumbo, who were never added to the film as they later got replaced by Craney, Ratso and Armadilla,
 * Ally the Gator - TBD
 * Fee and Line - Two cats who are attempting to catch Janice. They were deleted in favor of the Hunter and his Dog. They would be used instead for All Dogs Go to Heaven.
 * Elderly Butterfly

Songs

 * No More School (sung by Janice, voiced by Shirley Temple)
 * Headin' South (sung by Janice, voiced by Shirley Temple)
 * Dixie Land (sung by Ringo, voiced by Arnold Stang)
 * Southern Medley (sung by the southern critters of Steamboat Saloon, voiced by Ray Bolger, Mel Blanc, Vivien Leigh, Billy Gilbert and the MGM Studio Chorus)
 * Whatta Jamboree (My, Oh, My Me) (sung by Janice, Ringo and the critters of Steamboat Saloon, voiced by Shirley Temple, Arnold Stang, Ray Bolger, Mel Blanc, Vivien Leigh, Billy Gilbert and the MGM Studio Chorus)
 * Headin' South (Reprise) (sung the the MGM Studio Chorus)

Theatrical re-release dates

 * June 12, 1946
 * November, 11, 1962 (20th Anniversary)
 * November, 11, 1967 (25th Anniversary)
 * March 1, 1975
 * January 1, 1982 (40th Anniversary)
 * June 24, 1988
 * November 20, 1992 (50th Anniversary)
 * December 1, 1999
 * July 12, 2001 (in Argentina; in a double feature with A Thousand Attempts and One Invention)

Home media
In 1989, the film was first released on VHS by Worldvision Home Video. TBD

TBD

In late 2012, Headin' South was re-released on a 70th anniversary DVD and Blu-ray edition released by Paramount Home Entertainment. TBD

Sequels
TBD

Video game
TBD

Comic books
TBD

Reboot
TBD

Misc.
TBD

Transcript
Click here to see page