Hello & welcome back to A Look at Disney and today, we continue our look at Tangled: The Series as we look at one of the most important aspect of the show, Rapunzel's Journal. Towards the end of Tangled: Before Ever After, Rapunzel is given a journal by her mother, Queen Arianna and the journal remains a key part of the show's first season. As we see Rapunzel write and draw in it as a way to express her feelings about what happened in an episode. Such as take a look at these pages from the episodes, "Queen for a Day" and "Challenge of the Brave"
The journal plays a key role in the show as a plot device that does get Rapunzel in trouble with her father as he reads it and finds out about the adventures that Rapunzel had been going on and this frightens him as he has promised to do anything to protect his daughter as he does not want to lose her again.
One of the most fascinating things that Tangled: The Series did as a way to promote the show during the early episodes is that it would air interstitials titled Inside The Journal during other Disney Channel shows that were entries in Rapunzel's Journal. They were all relationship based save for the first entry and really only focused on the new characters. Which once again was a way for the show to introduce the audience to these new characters. At least, at first. I was thankful that someone built a playlist of all the Journal Entries that aired and some of which I had not seen.
The thing that really works here is that A., Mandy Moore sells Rapunzel learning about the outside world for the first time and everything that she is thinking and these entries give the audience more insight to Rapunzel's character and how she has grown throughout the show. And I do like these as on the surface, it may just seem like a way to promote the show (which it is) but as I said in the last sentence, it runs deeper than that.
If I am being honest here, one of the main reasons I was inspired to write this blog is because of my copy of the Journal.
You see, when you get Tangled: Before Ever After on DVD, it comes with a physical copy of Rapunzel's Journal. And the first I did was to look through it as I was just amazed that they thought to include something like this. As silly as it may seem but holding a physical copy of something that one of my favorite characters is really inspiring. Probably, my favorite page is this drawing of Eugene and Rapunzel as it's my favorite page in the intro for the show.
Now, if I do have one complaint, it would be that for some reason, none of the Inside The Journal interstitials are included on the Tangled: Before Ever After DVD. They are instead included as bonus features for the DVD release of "Queen for a Day" and even then, it's only the first four. I just find it a bit confusing that the DVD comes with a physical copy of the Journal, doesn't have any of the journal entries on the DVD.
It's interesting to think that journals and the like have started playing a large role in animated Disney shows as before Tangled: The Series, there was Journal # 3 and that saw a physical release with all of the research that the Author had done. And while Rapunzel's Journal does include her entries as it came with the DVD, I would love to see a version of the journal that has more entries in it, after the show has gone on a bit longer. As right now, this is the only other version of the Journal that is out there to buy.
It's cute and I'm sure that kids probably love it but I'd be more curious to have a version of the Journal that has more of Rapunzel's thoughts that we may not have gotten to hear.
It's fascinating to think that something so small would prove me to be so important but the Journal is in many ways, one of the most important things in Tangled: The Series. Peace!
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