49 Fun Facts About Brother Bear

Disney opened Brother Bear nationwide on a Saturday to avoid which holiday?

Halloween: it fell on the Friday, and Disney's distribution chief said the night had grown as big for adults as for children, so the film opened wide on Saturday, November 1.

Who voices Kenai in the original 2003 Brother Bear?

Joaquin Phoenix: fresh from his Gladiator Oscar nomination, he told a columnist, 'Don't call me a leading man... I'm a leading bear.'

Where is Brother Bear set?

Post-ice age Alaska: co-director Aaron Blaise took his story artists there on a research trip, from Kodiak Island to the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes.

In Brother Bear, which pair of animals gets into a shouting match with its own echo?

Two rams: each bellows 'shut up' at the voice coming back off the cliffs, and the cub travelling with Kenai decides their horns are screwed on too tight.

In Brother Bear, the bear totem Kenai is given stands for which quality?

Love: Kenai asks who wants to trade, objects that bears are nothing but thieves, and later tears the totem off and walks away from it.

In Brother Bear, which shaman gives Kenai his totem and later heals him?

Tanana: when the wounded Kenai tries to tell her what happened, she says 'I don't speak bear', and that is how he learns what he has turned into.

In Brother Bear, what does a bear steal from the three brothers, setting the tragedy in motion?

A basket of salmon: Kenai had rushed off to his ceremony without tying it up properly, so the hunt that follows begins with his own mistake.

In Brother Bear, how does Sitka die?

He breaks off a glacier ledge: Sitka drives his spear into the ice so that it gives way under him and the bear, saving his brothers, though the bear survives the fall.

In Brother Bear, which game do the moose Rutt and Tuke play on their journey?

I Spy: whatever the clue, from 'something green' to 'a vertical log', the answer is always 'tree', until one of them suggests playing something else.

In Brother Bear, what does Denahi wrongly believe has happened to Kenai?

The bear killed him: Denahi finds only torn clothes and a bear on the cliff, vows revenge, and spends the rest of the film hunting what is really his own brother.

Which place must Brother Bear's Kenai reach to become a man again?

Where the lights touch the earth: the shaman sends him to that mountain to find Sitka's spirit, warning that he will change back only once he has put right what he did.

In Brother Bear, which animals do Kenai and the cub hitch a ride on?

Woolly mammoths: riding the herd hides the bears' tracks from the hunter behind them, and the two moose who tag along bicker over who gets to drive.

Brother Bear's moose Rutt and Tuke are based on which comedy duo?

Bob and Doug McKenzie: the directors wanted Canadian voices in their North American forest, so the moose inherited the beer-loving brothers' 'eh'-heavy banter.

How did Brother Bear's two moose actors record their lines, unusually for an animated film?

Simultaneously, together: cartoon voices are usually taped one actor at a time, but the pair riffed off each other until the directors left with jaws aching from laughter.

Who voices Tug, the leader of the bears at the salmon run in Brother Bear?

Michael Clarke Duncan: he had been cast as a different bear who was written out of the story, and the directors liked his voice too much to lose him.

In Brother Bear, what does Kenai realise during story time at the salmon run?

The bear he killed was Koda's mother: the cub's tale of her fighting off hunters is Kenai's own hunt, told from the other side.

How does Brother Bear end for Kenai?

He chooses to remain a bear: Sitka's spirit makes him a man again, but Kenai asks to be changed back so that the orphaned cub will not be left alone.

Jason Raize, the voice of Denahi in Brother Bear, created which Disney hero on Broadway?

Simba: Raize opened the stage musical in 1997, and Brother Bear was his only film because he died three months after its release, aged 28.

Which Disney film's success led Michael Eisner to call for more animal-centred features, prompting Brother Bear?

The Lion King: Eisner wanted a North American follow-up with the bear as king of the forest, and scenery modelled on a Bierstadt landscape he had bought.

Brother Bear's earliest story idea was inspired by which Shakespeare play?

King Lear: it had an old bear wandering the forest with his three daughters, an idea co-director Aaron Blaise later laughed off with 'That didn't work.'

Why did Aaron Blaise say he first signed on to direct Brother Bear?

He wanted to animate bears: 'I'm kind of an animal nut,' said Blaise, who joined around 1997 and found himself directing his first feature.

Brother Bear was the third and final animated feature made mainly at Disney's facility in which city?

Orlando, Florida: after Mulan and Lilo & Stitch, this was the first story the studio had developed itself from a blank sheet of paper, and Disney shut it in 2004.

Disney had to license the title Brother Bear from the owners of which children's book series?

The Berenstain Bears: their books already had a character called Brother Bear, so Disney could not use the name for its film without licensing it from the series' owners.

Who wrote the songs for Brother Bear?

Phil Collins: this time he asked to co-write the score as well, and was disappointed to learn that he would not be singing every song himself.

Which singer performs the opening song of Brother Bear?

Tina Turner: she had retired from touring in 2000, yet she sang it live at the film's New York premiere after its songwriter brought her on stage.

Which choir sings 'Transformation' in Brother Bear, in an Inuit-language translation of the lyrics?

The Bulgarian Women's Choir: the composers wanted singers for whom the words were completely foreign, saying it gave the song a sound no Disney film had used before.

Which Brother Bear song became the theme of Disneyland's 50th-anniversary Parade of Dreams?

Welcome: in the film it greets Kenai at the salmon run, sung with the Blind Boys of Alabama, and the 2005 parade used an upbeat version with new lyrics.

What happens to the picture when Kenai becomes a bear, 24 minutes into Brother Bear?

It widens and brightens: the frame opens out to full widescreen and the colours grow more vivid, so the audience sees the world change at the moment Kenai does.

Brother Bear co-director Aaron Blaise had earlier led the animation of which Aladdin character?

Rajah: Blaise supervised Jasmine's tiger and then a lion cub before the bear film, the animal work that led his studio chief to suggest he try directing.

Which film beat Brother Bear to number one on its opening weekend?

Scary Movie 3: the spoof held the top spot in its second weekend, though Brother Bear's $18.5 million came from only two days, Saturday and Sunday.

Brother Bear was nominated for which Academy Award?

Best Animated Feature: only three films were nominated that year, and the prize went to a Pixar release that Disney itself had distributed.

Brother Bear was originally scheduled for spring 2004 but swapped release slots with which Disney film?

Home on the Range: the swap was reported to be a promotional call, giving Brother Bear an autumn 2003 slot, and not a sign that the cow western was still in story trouble.

Roger Ebert's three-star review called Brother Bear what 'rather than exciting'?

Sweet: Ebert said it lacked the 'zowie factor' of Disney's biggest hits, but thought adults would connect with a man's soul passing into a beast while children enjoyed the adventure.

Who voices the grown-up Kenai in Brother Bear 2?

Patrick Dempsey: Disney's press release billed him as the 'hunky star' of Grey's Anatomy, though a different actor had voiced Kenai in the first trailer.

Who voices Nita, Kenai's childhood friend, in Brother Bear 2?

Mandy Moore: her Nita is on the point of marrying another man when the Spirits reveal that a childhood gift from Kenai still binds the two of them.

Which singer-songwriter contributed three songs to Brother Bear 2?

Melissa Etheridge: she wrote two of the three specially for the film and shared the end-credits song with Josh Kelley.

In Brother Bear 2, what must Nita and Kenai burn to break the bond between them?

An amulet: Kenai gave it to her as a boy after saving her from drowning, and the pair must burn it together at the falls where he handed it over.

How does Brother Bear 2 end for Kenai and Nita?

She is transformed so they can be together: Kenai will not leave Koda to become a man again, so Nita asks the Spirits to make her a bear instead.

The moose brothers' sweethearts in Brother Bear 2 are voiced by Andrea Martin and Catherine O'Hara, castmates on which sketch show?

SCTV: the same Canadian show produced the two comedians who voice the moose, so the sequel's antlered romance reunited four of its old cast.

Which two comedians voice the moose brothers Rutt and Tuke in Brother Bear?

Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas: they also recorded a full DVD commentary in character as the moose, heckling the film and Disney itself as it plays.

In 2001, Brother Bear's leading man told a columnist that the film was called what?

The Bears: he gave the working title while telling Liz Smith that a Disney cartoon, not his recent Oscar nomination, was 'the real pinnacle'.

In Brother Bear, how do members of Kenai's tribe mark becoming an adult?

A handprint on the wall: the shaman promises Kenai his place beside the ancestors' marks only once he has learned to live by his totem.

In Brother Bear, which animal totem did the eldest brother Sitka receive?

The eagle of guidance: after his death Sitka's spirit comes back in the form of a bald eagle to watch over his two younger brothers.

In Brother Bear, which creatures does the cub Koda call monsters?

Humans: studying a cave painting of a hunter facing a bear, Koda says the monsters are scariest 'with those sticks', and Kenai sees his own kind as bears do.

In Brother Bear 2, what stops Nita's first attempt to marry Atka?

The ground splits between them: the Spirits send a storm that opens a fissure at the couple's feet, and a shaman explains that Nita is still bound to Kenai.

An early version of Brother Bear gave Kenai an older bear mentor with which name?

Grizz: the directors felt the film lacked charm with an old bear leading the way, so the mentor became a chatty cub and Kenai had to play the grown-up.

Who voices Sitka, the eldest of the three brothers, in Brother Bear?

D. B. Sweeney: his Sitka dies early and returns as a spirit, while the old man who narrates the film turns out to be Denahi, voiced by Harold Gould.

In Brother Bear, the opening narrator Angayuqaq Oscar Kawagley translated his lines into which language?

Yup'ik: the professor never saw a full script, so he faxed his translation to Disney and was videotaped as he recorded it, unsure whether his face would be used.

After Brother Bear's end credits, Koda announces that no what were harmed in making the film?

Fish: as he says it a bear chases a screaming fish across the screen behind him, and Koda ends up covering the camera lens with his paws.