{"id":106322,"date":"2025-12-23T12:47:12","date_gmt":"2025-12-23T12:47:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/106322\/"},"modified":"2025-12-23T12:47:12","modified_gmt":"2025-12-23T12:47:12","slug":"zootopia-2-disney-movies-best-animal-puns-references-explained","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/106322\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Zootopia 2’: Disney movie’s best animal puns, references explained"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Following a $1-billion-grossing, Oscar-winning smash<\/a> could have left writer and director Jared Bush and director Byron Howard feeling like rabbits in the headlights, but they seem to have outfoxed the challenge. \u201cZootopia 2\u201d<\/a> has already stampeded past $1 billion to surpass its predecessor, and the awards nominations have just begun slithering in. But how did the sequel survive such high expectations, stay as socially relevant as the original and navigate the peril of too many cooks in the kitchen?<\/p>\n

\u201cAnimation\u2019s a team sport,\u201d says Howard, referring to the sheer number of people who worked on the film over five years. \u201cIt\u2019s 700 in the crew, but in this building, it\u2019s about 1,000 and another 300 in Vancouver. So it\u2019s everyone\u2019s collective ideas, saying, \u2018Here\u2019s where we can do better.\u2019 So everyone has skin in the game and they all want these movies to be great. It\u2019s an emotional investment.\u201d<\/p>\n

The creative team screened \u201cZootopia 2\u201d for all of Disney Animation multiple times in various stages of development. A feedback system enabled every employee to respond.<\/p>\n

Bush says Disney regularly seeks internal reactions after screenings, \u201cbut we asked way more direct questions for this one, like at an audience preview. Then we shared that feedback, unfiltered, with the entire building. That allowed people to see that their feedback mattered because you could actually see ideas that came in [manifest] from screening to screening.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bush and Howard acknowledge that having that many collaborators keeps the inspiration flowing but also allows fragments of the colossal group brain to sneak into the film unnoticed. Even they aren\u2019t sure where all the in-jokes are planted.<\/p>\n

\"A <\/p>\n

A \u201cstory jam\u201d \u2014 reminiscent of a TV writers room \u2014 was just one of many avenues for collaboration in the making of \u201cZootopia 2.\u201d<\/p>\n

(Disney)<\/p>\n

Like its predecessor, the sequel is packed with movie references and animal puns \u2014 \u201cA Moose Bouche<\/a>\u201d; \u201cGnu Jersey\u201d \u2014 and the directors are quick to spread the credit (or blame). \u201c \u2018A Moose Bouche\u2019 \u2014 we\u2019ve gotten emails about that one,\u201d says Howard. \u201cCory Loftis, our production designer, came up with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a \u201cStar Wars\u201d cantina bit, a soup\u00e7on of James Bond in the score at a fancy gala and dashes of Steven Spielberg in the camerawork. It\u2019s easy to spot \u201cRatatouille\u201d when an animal chef is revealed to have a rat under its hat, but Bush asserts there\u2019s a second reference in that moment \u2014 the animal declaring \u201cI knew it!\u201d isn\u2019t just any raccoon, but \u201cRaccacoonie\u201d from \u201cEverything Everywhere All at Once.\u201d That character is itself a \u201cRatatouille\u201d reference (and, Bush points out, \u201cEEAAO\u2019s\u201d Oscar-winning supporting actor Ke Huy Quan voices \u201cZootopia 2\u2019s\u201d lead snake, Gary). So it\u2019s a reference coupled with another reference to another film\u2019s reference to the first reference. Whew.<\/p>\n

Those Easter eggs, including an extended callback to Stanley Kubrick\u2019s \u201cThe Shining\u201d \u2014 the realization of which they credit to animator Louaye Moulayess, a \u201cShining\u201d superfan \u2014 speak to a willingness to cater to audiences beyond kids. Presumably, most children attending \u201cZootopia 2\u201d haven\u2019t watched Kubrick\u2019s film. That\u2019s a shoutout to the grown-ups for bringing the kids and, hopefully, discussing the historical practice of redlining<\/a> with them after the show.<\/p>\n

\"Byron <\/p>\n

Byron Howard, left, and Jared Bush.<\/p>\n

(Christina House \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

The first \u201cZootopia\u201d was not notable just for funny talking animals but also the fact that the funny animals were talking about bigotry and stereotyping. Perceptive viewers may have noticed a mammalian bias in the original \u2014 there were no reptiles to be found in its near-perfect society. It turns out they were discriminated against as a class and denied their rightful place as residents, as we learn in \u201cZootopia 2.\u201d Bush said that concept fit right in with \u201ccontinuing this discussion about how we as human beings have a hard time looking past each other\u2019s differences.\u201d<\/p>\n

Howard says the diversity-as-strength theme plays out not just in grand terms but also in the dynamic between the two protagonists, Judy (a rabbit, voiced by Ginnifer Goodwin) and Nick (a fox, voiced by Jason Bateman): \u201cNick and Judy are such different, contrast[ing] characters that are really stronger [together] because of those differences, and that speaks to something we really value, which is differences between each other as a working pair,\u201d he gestures to Bush and himself. \u201cWe continue to thrive in that way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Howard agrees with the comparison of him and Bush to conductors of a giant orchestra, listening for notes being played just right. He thinks of composer Michael Giacchino \u201constage with those virtuosos at their respective instruments; we work with masters all around us, so we have a lot of trust in them.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, he admits with all those voices, \u201cWriters have a tough time here because we scrutinize these movies and redo them over and over and over again. Jared is a great example of someone who thrives in this environment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bush, explaining he came from the culture of TV sitcoms and all their constant revisions in writers rooms, says, \u201cWe have this amazing luxury of being able to rewrite and rethink and absorb these better ideas over years. It is an extreme luxury.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s nothing else like this in Hollywood that I\u2019ve seen \u2014 that level of deep collaboration and iteration. There\u2019s no place I\u2019m ever going to be that I will love as much as this.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Following a $1-billion-grossing, Oscar-winning smash could have left writer and director Jared Bush and director Byron Howard feeling…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":106323,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[57411,57406,25074,57407,1924,57412,26338,57410,3410,48,52,51,47,50,49,4287,57409,57122,57408,18672,56590],"class_list":["post-106322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-audience-preview","tag-bush","tag-difference","tag-feedback-system","tag-film","tag-good-animal-pun","tag-howard","tag-judy","tag-kid","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-movie","tag-nick","tag-reference","tag-stanley-kubrick","tag-writer","tag-zootopia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106322"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106322\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/106323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}