This essay has two interrelated aims: one, to analyze a group of commercial movies that have a unique pedigree, and two, to argue for the enduring relevance of genre in the analysis of motion pictures. I do not contend, however, that the movies in question constitute a genre, so am therefore not arguing for the relevance of genre on the grounds of its ability to organize or categorize movies into useful groupings. Rather, through an examination of these movies in their historical context as products of the Walt Disney Studio and Company, I arrive at the idea that genre criticism is a more productive way of understanding them than (what might seem to be) a more obvious alternative.