Older Than They Think / Zootopia

• The danger of Talking Animals reverting back into wild, savage beasts is a recurring subject in The Chronicles of Narnia, primarily in Prince Caspian and The Last Battle, although they're first warned about this terrifying possibility in the series prequel The Magician's Nephew.
• In Wicked, like in this film, the "intelligent animals turning into savages" theme is also being influenced by the series' antagonists in order to disenfranchise the victims and turn popular opinion against them.
• This isn't the first animated feature film to use anthropomorphic animals as a metaphor for racism. Cats Don't Dance beat it to the punch nineteen years beforehand.
• The idea of predators and prey co-existing (mostly) peacefully is not new.
  • A relativity obscure British cartoon (based on a relatively obscure British children's book series) called The Animals of Farthing Wood did it as well.
  • Webcomic fans might also recognize the predator/prey discrimination dynamic as well as deconstruction of a Funny Animal society/world from Kevin & Kell.
  • This can also be found even earlier in the Belgian comic Chaminou (starting in 1964), whose similarity with Zootopia were noted by magazine L'Obs.
• Finnick being an adult who pretends to be a baby resonates as far back as a Little Rascals short from the '30s centered around that very premise.
• A redheaded character with the last name Wilde is assisting the protagonist in stopping a Villain with Good Publicity, who tries to turn harmless creatures into savage beasts via Chemically-Induced Insanity. Despicable Me 2 did it first, folks.

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