April 1, 2025
Happily N’Ever After (2006)
Critics hate it; weirdos love it. Happily N’Ever After (2006) was another movie that went platinum in my house. This animated film is a reimagined Cinderella story from the perspective of Prince Charming’s servant, Rick (Freddie Prinze Jr.), who mostly works in the castle’s kitchen. Right away, Rick shows his distaste for Prince Charming (Patrick Warburton) and annoyance at others, like Cinderella (Sarah Michelle Geller), due to their obedience to following the usual storyline of their fairytale. Though often irritated at Cinderella, Rick’s crush on her is still strong, even if he knows there’s zero chance of anything happening. That is, until the Wizard (George Carlin) heads out on a golf trip, leaving his two helpers Mambo (Andy Dick) and Munk (Wallace Shawn) with the task of guarding FairyTale Land and keeping the scale of good and evil from being tampered with.
The film follows a lot of the usual storylines people know: Cinderella gets invited to the ball, and her evil stepmother Frieda (Sigourney Weaver) and stepsisters torment her before leaving her home. It starts deviating from the usual structure as we meet Fairy Godmother (Lisa Kaplan), who shows up, name drops a few other fairytale characters in this world, and helps Cinderella get ready for the ball. With this switch in storytelling, we are also given a chance to see Prince Charming’s character a bit more. He’s beloved by all, as per usual in retellings, but because we get his story from Rick’s perspective, we are shown how empty-headed Charming is as he reads from a book about his life for short, quick reminders of how he’s supposed to act and what to do.
As for the two unknown characters Mambo and Munk, we finally see them again when Cinderella arrives at the ball, in the same castle as each other, mind you. As Mambo and Munk look into the glass that shows each fairytale in current time, Frieda breaks in, sending the two away before she takes control of the scale, turning it to evil and watching different fairy tales fall apart and change. Now in control of the fairy tales, she ruins her stepdaughter Cinderella’s story by changing her back to her servant clothes early and sending an army of fairy tale bad guys after her, giving Rick his opportunity to save the day.
As the story nears the end, Mambo and Munk stumble upon Cinderella first, and the trio is saved from attacks by Rick, leading to the audience getting to watch a short-lived montage of Cinderella realizing that she loves Rick and not the Prince, breaking out of the mold Rick despised. After three minutes of screentime together though, Cinderella is captured. Rick, Mambo, and Munk go to save her, but things once again shift from the original story. Instead, Cinderella decks Frieda, sending her through a portal and saving the day. After all seven minutes of screen time Rick and Cinderella had together, the two get married, and everything else is restored to the balance of good and evil just in time before the Wizard returns from his golf trip. Is this one of the best reimagined Cinderella stories? It’s questionable, but trust me, back in the early 2000’s, this was fire.
Available on YouTube.