After Ribon poured her love of Disney into the cheeky script for the scene, she and the story team put together some placeholder audio and some storyboards so they could show it to the Disney powers-that-be for approval - and they loved it. Luckily for her, it turns out the latter was the case. And I laid down on the floor and I said, 'Well, I’m either going to be fired or this might be a big deal,"' adds Ribon. "I wrote the scene, and then I read it, and I had a panic attack. But Ribon was originally a little sheepish about that idea, and it didn't help that when she texted her pal Elise Aliberti (a longtime Disney animation vet who worked in development on Frozen, Big Hero 6, Zootopia, and Moana) her plans, she got back a text asking just what exactly she thought she was doing with these Disney classics. because everyone always assumes a big strong man solves her problems. The scene in question finds Venelope visiting Oh My Disney (a real website devoted to fandom of all Disney-owned properties), and realizing that she might too be a Disney princess. And so, I thought, what if Venelope met all the princesses?" Ribon says at a press day for the Wreck-It Ralph sequel, out Nov. With all these different parts of the internet you gotta be meta and it would be fun to have a scene where Disney is making a little fun of itself. "We knew that we’d like to do a scene that was meta. How did a team employed by Disney get permission to rib its most treasured (and bankable) set of characters? Well, when co-writer Pamela Ribon first came up with the idea for the scene, she had a very similar question. So, when the trailer for Ralph Breaks The Internet featured the Disney princesses in a scene with Ralph's bestie Venelope that totally (lovingly) rips into the entire concept of what it means to be a Disney princess, just about everyone's ears perked up.
The mega company owns some of the biggest fandom properties in the world, runs theme parks, and has pretty much everyone in America hopelessly devoted to at least one of its beloved characters. To say that Disney rules the world might not be entirely accurate, but there are certainly times when it at least feels accurate.