Shout Out / The Princess and the Frog

• So many, that a lot of them are unintentional by the Word of God. Perhaps it's because they wanted to emphasize the "CLASSIC DISNEY IS BACK!" marketing strategy.
  • Pinocchio: "When you wish upon a star, makes no difference who you are..." — Charlotte, Tiana, and Ray all wished on that Evening Star.
  • The Little Mermaid (1989):
    • King Triton appears as a Mardi Gras float, with the directors (John Musker and Ron Clements) standing on top as Mardi Gras bead-throwing fish.
    • Likewise, one of the costumes at the masquerade looks rather like Ariel.
    • During "Friends on the Other Side," Naveen answers Facilier asking about his parents cutting him off with, "Sad but true." Coincidentally what Ursula said during "Poor Unfortunate Souls," or a deliberate reference to it, since both films have the same director?
    • The scene where Tiana walks in on Charlotte and Lawrence in disguise at Naveen's wedding has a striking resemblance to the scene where Ariel walks in on Ursula, disguised as a woman, with a hypnotized Prince Eric.
    • When Charlotte cuddles up to Fake Naveen during their "wedding," it looks like a lot like the scene where Vanessa (Ursula in disguise) cuddles up to Prince Eric during their "wedding".
  • The Lion King:
    • At the end of "Ma Belle Evangeline," compare the loving grin Naveen gives Tiana with the one Simba gives Nala at the end of "Can You Feel the Love Tonight."
    • Ray thinks Evangeline (a star) is a firefly. Later, a despaired Tiana tells him that it's just a ball of gas far away. This alludes to a scene where Pumbaa asks Timon what those "sparkling dots are up there". A confident Timon tells him that they are "fireflies that got stuck up in that big bluish-black thing," and Pumbaa is embarrassed to admit he always thought they were "balls of gas burning billions of miles away." This movie shows Timon might have been partly right.
    • At the end, when Facilier is about to be taken down by his "friends", look at the three masks when they say "Are you ready?". Don't they remind you of three hyenas? Specifically, compare the shot with the one at the end of "Be Prepared" when the trio sings "Yes, our teeth and ambitions are bared". Also, Facilier calls them "friends", only to be proved otherwise, the same way Scar calls the hyenas friends before his demise.
  • Aladdin :
    • One of the floats features a giant, over-Orientalized Jafar towering over Agrabah castle.
    • In this frame◊ from "Down in New Orleans," someone is shaking out the Magic Carpet.
    • During "Dig a Little Deeper," while Mama Odie is rummaging about in that trunk of hers, she tosses out Genie's lamp◊.
  • Cinderella's Coach is a toy in Charlotte's room.
  • The Sword in the Stone: When Louis describes Mama Odie, he pulls some Spanish Moss aside exactly the same way as Mad Madam Mim pulls her hair out of her face.
  • Multiple films in the same sequence:
    • During the "Evangeline" sequence, Tiana's eyes sparkle with the reflection of a star just as Lady's do in Lady and the Tramp, Duchess's do in The Aristocats and Maid Marian's do in Robin Hood (1973).
    • Juju, Mama Odie's put-upon snake sidekick: A benevolent version of Sir Hiss. Or is it Kaa?
    • There's a scene where Charlotte dances with Naveen (or rather, a transmogrified Lawrence) at the masquerade ball. It uses the bit of animation previously seen at the end of both Sleeping Beauty and Beauty and the Beast. Part of the point of this scene is to evoke the scene where the Prince dances with Cinderella, since Charlotte wishes to be such a princess. Her gown is also based off of concept art from Cinderella.
    • During the credits, Naveen and Tiana (as frogs) are sitting on a leaf, and go down a water fall. Naveen plucks a white water lily from the side, giving it to Tiana, copying a nearly identical scene to the magic carpet ride from Aladdin. Not long after, two spoonbills pull apart a curtain of vines, mirroring a scene from The Little Mermaid, onto a scene with Tiana and Naveen walking over a bridge similar to one from Cinderella. The swans making a heart with their necks also might be a shout-out to the ones from Cinderella III: A Twist in Time. Whew.
  • After Ray joins Evangeline as a star in the sky, it's made a bit clearer that Evangeline is the second star on the right.
  • Another parade float is modeled after a flying pirate ship, which could be a dual reference to Peter Pan and Treasure Planet, the latter of which shares the same directors as this film.
  • During Dr. Facilier's demise, a certain doll bears a strong resemblance to Lilo's doll, Scrump...
  • When Tiana was wearing the blue princess gown, does anyone else think that her necklace looks a LOT like the necklace Pocahontas wears?
  • There's a scene from Ma Belle Evangeline during Naveen and Tiana's dance where Ray lights up the lily pads, leaves, and dandelions in a manner very similar to the Nutcracker Suite from Fantasia.
  • At the masquerade ball, there was a man dressed as an octopus with several glasses of wine. He's a caricature of legendary Disney story artist and character designer Joe Grant (the designer of Queen Grimhilde, the author of the first treatment of Lady and the Tramp, and the man responsible for the characters of Grandmother Willow and Cri-Kee, among others). When the man sees Tiana and Naveen go past with Stella chasing them, he dumps out his wine. The scene, what with the expression and the mannerisms are similar to those one man from The Aristocats makes when seeing a mouse chase a cat.
  • The gag with the drummer at the Mardi Gras party is possibly a shout-out to Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, in which something similar happened when Dopey tried to catch a fly while playing a makeshift drum set.
  • The morning after Naveen and Tiana are turned into frogs, she calls out to him, "Rise and shine, Sleeping Beauty!" Coincidentally, this same thing was said to Mulan by Mushu.
  • One of the Friends on the Other Side has a shadowy figure very reminiscent of Jack Skellington.
• There are number of Disneyland References as well
  • The steamboat is based on Disneyland's Mark Twain.
  • Another Disneyland nod is the name of the band Louis ends up playing in, "The Firefly Five plus Lou", being based on "The Firehouse Five plus Two". Frank Thomas, the piano player for the band, is caricatured as the pianist for the band as well.
  • Another Disneyland shout-out! In the end credits, there's a shot of a run down shack in the middle of the bayou with a rocking chair on the front porch and a little rowboat next to it. This looks suspiciously similar to the little shack with the old man in a wooden rocking chair in the beginning of the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, which just happens to be located in New Orleans Square.
  • The singing masks are very reminiscent of The Enchanted Tiki Room.
  • The face on the middle tombstone (before transforming) during Facilier's demise is that of Madame Leota's headstone from The Haunted Mansion. This makes sense as both the Disneyland Mansion and the film are set in New Orleans and deal with the supernatural, although the tombstone itself is only at the Florida attraction.
• The three frog hunters end up in a familiar routine.
• The LaBouffs' dog is named "Stella". Naturally, when Big Daddy has to sic her on the frogs at the ball, he does so by screaming, "HEY, STELLAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!"
  • Big Daddy himself is named after another Tennessee Williams character, that being a character from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.
• "Evangeline" is the name of an old Cajun (Acadian) Fairy Tale.
  • As well as a parish in Louisiana, a town in Acadia Parish, and a song about lovers torn apart by a riverboat capsizing by The Band featuring Emmylou Harris off the concert film The Last Waltz.
• Facilier's song and dance number has him strike a pose very reminiscent to the late King of Pop.
• The scene where Dr. Facilier is shuffling the cards is animated very similarly to Zigzag's card tricks from The Thief and the Cobbler.
• Louis references Louis Armstrong and Sidney Bechet in "When We're Human". Plus:
  "I know that tune! Dippermouth Blues!"
  • Works as both a Shout-Out to his namesake and King Oliver!
• Look carefully during Tiana's Dream Sequence song "Almost There." The piano player is none other than Duke Ellington.
• The plot and characters of the film are rather similar to The Swan Princess.
  • A character was turned into an animal due to a curse and goes on an adventure to break the curse.
  • Both films have a scene where the frog(s) is/are riding on a turtle.
  • Both films also have the frog(s) being attacked by alligator (although one alligator in the latter film is friendly and caring towards them instead, even helping them with their journey back to becoming humans).
  • The whirlpool transformation sequence is reused when Tiana and Naveen revert back into humans.
• As Tiana and Naveen are first crashing into the swamp, Tiana gets tangled in some spiderwebs and is briefly held above the water in a very similar fashion to the famous cable drop sequence from Mission: Impossible (1996).

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