Everybody Likes Parfait

So says Donkey in the first Shrek movie. But my daughter wasn't ready for that movie until she was almost seven. Ogres are like onions, and Shrek himself was way too scary. So what movies are parfait? When our daughter was little, we had two standby movies.

Although it has only recently become popular in the US, it is the most-viewed animated movie of all time in the world (I can't prove that but I'm pretty sure it's true. There are entire stores dedicated to this movie's merchandise in Japan.) I have shown My Neighbor Totoro to dozens of kids over the years, and none of them have ever been scared. I had almost memorized this movie before I had kids. There is nothing that could offend anybody in this charming fantasy about two little girls in rural Japan in the 50s.

The Catbus should be creepy, but he isn't. 

Once upon a time, you could only get a badly translated, dubbed version of this movie. I saw that version so many times that it will always be the one in my head. And I still like the translation "dust bunnies" better than "soot gremlins." Nowadays, Studio Ghibli movies are distributed by Disney/Pixar with new dubbing and optional subtitles. I still haven't see the subtitled version (although I did watch the movie in Japanese once on TV in Tokyo) since my girls are too young to read the subtitles. The new dubbed version with the Fanning sisters voices is probably a better translation, but I think it loses something insofar as it tries to Americanize some of the dialogue. For me, a lot of the appeal of the story is the Japanese culture that it presents.

The other standby is Curious George. It's a cute story with bubbly animation, great voice actors, and an excellent soundtrack by Jack Johnson. There is nothing in it that could offend or frighten anyone. I was never a fan of the H.A. Rey books, and I like them even less now, as a mom. But the modern PBS cartoon is fun and educational. If your kid is going to get obsessive about a character-driven toddler franchise (and she will) Curious George is better than most.

Does anybody else have standby parfait movies? What are they?