Home on the Range (2004)
A Disney original story named after the popular cowboy song Home on the Range.
Intro song (“(You Ain’t) Home On The Range”). In the days of the Old West, Maggie is the only cow left on the Dixon Ranch after a wanted cattle rustler named Alameda Slim and his gang, the Willies, steals all the rest of Mr. Dixon's cattle. Dixon has no other choice than to sell Maggie to Pearl, a kind, aging woman who runs a small farm called Patch of Heaven (“Little Patch of Heaven”). Maggie, a show cow, meets the farm cows Mrs. Caloway and Grace as well as the rest of the farm animals. Sam the local Sheriff, arrives to tell Pearl that her bank is cracking down on debtors. Unless she pays the bank $750 in three days, her farm will be sold to the highest bidder. Hearing this, Maggie convinces Grace and Mrs. Caloway to go to town to attempt to win prize money at a fair. While the cows are in town, a bounty hunter named Rico (whom Buck, the Sheriff's horse, idolizes) drops a criminal off and collects the reward. Stating he needs a replacement horse to go after Alameda Slim while his own horse rests, he takes Buck. When Maggie finds out that the reward for capturing Slim is exactly $750, she convinces the other cows to try to capture him to save Patch of Heaven. After a fight between Maggie and Caloway, the three are taken to a cattle ride.
That night, they hide among a large herd of steers, when Alameda Slim and the Willies arrive. Before Maggie can attack him, Slim begins a yodeling song which sends all the cattle (except Grace, who is tone deaf) into a trance that causes them to dance madly and follow him anywhere (“Yodel-Adle-Eedle-Idle-Oo”). Grace is able to bring Maggie and Mrs. Caloway back to their senses just before Slim closes the path behind him with a rock slide to stop Rico and his men from chasing him. As Rico discusses what his next move will be with his men, Buck starts to argue with the three cows. This causes Rico to believe Buck is unreliable and decides to return him to the Sheriff. Buck escapes, determined to capture Slim for himself to prove his worth.
Maggie, Grace, and Mrs. Caloway continue their search for Slim, determined to pass Buck and get to Slim first, but they have a fallout when they lose the trail in a flash flood. Mrs. Caloway argues that Maggie is going after Slim only for personal vendetta and states that Patch of Heaven would have been better off without her, to which Maggie cynically suggests they part ways. The three spend the night under a large rock (“Will the Sun Ever Shine Again”). The next morning, however, they are awakened by a peg-legged jackrabbit named Lucky Jack, who has also lost his home, an old mine called Echo Mine, to Alameda Slim. Maggie decides to go after Slim with Lucky Jack as a guide, but Grace convinces Caloway that they help. At the mine, Slim reveals that he has been stealing all cattle from his former patrons. When his former patrons can no longer support their land, Slim buys the land when it is auctioned off, under the guise of the respectable-looking Yancy O'Dell, using the very money he gets from selling the stolen cattle.
After arriving at Slim's lair, the cows manage to trap Slim. They run off with Willies, the buyer Mr. Wesley, and Rico in pursuit. When the chase stops, Rico is revealed to be one of Slim's henchmen. Crushed by this, Buck decides to help the cows and fights Rico while setting the other cattle free. Slim dons his O'Dell costume and goes to attend the auction of Patch of Heaven. However, the cows follow by driving the cattle train locomotive to the farm. After a fight against the cows and the farm's animals, Slim is defeated, exposed and arrested, and the reward money is used to pay the farm's mortgage.
A few weeks pass, and at the county fair, most of the livestock on Patch of Heaven have won prizes. Lucky Jack moves in with Jebb the Goat, and two steers and Slim's gentlemanly steed Junior the Buffalo arrive unexpectedly to join the festivities (“Wherever the Trail May Lead” & “Anytime You Need a Friend”).
TRIVIA
Deleted Scene(s)
A deleted scene reveals that Alameda Slim’s original plan was to hypnotize cows into an army so he can storm the White House and become the President of the United States of America.