TIL when Jim Henson died, Disney Imagineers sent a drawing of Mickey Mouse consoling Kermit the Frog to his mourning company.

A lot of details about the original version(s) of Zootopia are spread around the internet, along with dozens of clips of test footage. It had Nick as the main character and basically the whole movie was all about completely off-the-rails racism of predators having to wear shock collars at all times, and prey species being intensely racist towards them because of their perceived "aggression".

....yeah, Disney didn't like that too much, and the movie's production was so fucked up that Pixar had to step in and help just to get the movie released on schedule. Disney had almost no faith in the movie, hence why they made very little merchandise for it and instead focused most of their marketing on Moana. And then, in a repeat of what happened with Lion King and Pocahontas, Zootopia went on to be way more popular and gross a billion dollars, becoming one of the highest-grossing animated films of all time.

/r/todayilearned Thread Parent Link - historybyzim.com