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The Princess and the Frog marks Disney’s triumphant return to hand-drawn animation, features its first African-American lead and the voice of Oprah. Its directors talk to DONALD CLARKE

THE LAST time I met John Musker and Ron Clements – the amiable directors of Disney animations such as Aladdin, The Little Mermaidand, now, The Princess and the Frog– we were contemplating the potential annihilation of their chosen art form. Treasure Planet, the team’s latest 2-D animation, had cost a fortune and looked very creaky when set beside digitally animated Pixar features such as Toy Story 2and Monsters Inc. Sure enough, the picture flopped and pundits declared that John Lasseter, the Pixar supremo, had made hand-drawn animation as redundant as tableaux vivant.