Disney's frog is a prince of a movie!

He finds himself unwittingly turned into a frog by evil magician Dr Facilier and, mistaking Tiana for a princess, asks her to kiss him in order to break the spell.

Unfortunately for both, the kiss transforms Tiana into a frog, too, and the couple have to travel to the depths of the Bayou to reach voodoo priestess Mama Odie - the only one capable of lifting the spell.

Setting aside the race issue, this film was already a risky endeavour.

CG-animated films have become a staple at the box office, with recent films such as Up and WALL-E (both created by Pixar, which was acquired by Disney four years ago) proving just how far the medium had come.

And so when John Lasseter, chief creative officer for Disney animation and Oscar-winning director of Toy Story, announced that he wanted to bring back hand-drawn animation, there was naturally some scepticism.

'Hand-drawn animation is a wonderful artform,' he says. 'And I never understood why the studios wanted to stop making it. They felt that audiences only wanted to watch CGI, but the medium of the film isn't what makes a film interesting - it's the story and the characters.

'The concerns people had were the same concerns they had when Toy Story was released and people weren't used to CGI. But it ended up doing OK [it made more than $350million].

'That's not to say that I don't love 3D, too - I've always loved 3D; I took my wedding pictures in 3D! But all an audience ever wants is to be entertained. That's the most important thing.'

Even though they encountered some teething problems going back to the 2D animated form (one animator remarked: 'There are lots of challenges, a lot of training and just trying to figure out where to buy paper from again.'), there seems to be genuine excitement from the animators at Disney about its return.

'Hand-drawn animation is a wonderful artform,' he says. 'And I never understood why the studios wanted to stop making it. They felt that audiences only wanted to watch CGI, but the medium of the film isn't what makes a film interesting - it's the story and the characters.

'The concerns people had were the same concerns they had when Toy Story was released and people weren't used to CGI. But it ended up doing OK [it made more than $350million].

'That's not to say that I don't love 3D, too - I've always loved 3D; I took my wedding pictures in 3D! But all an audience ever wants is to be entertained. That's the most important thing.'

Even though they encountered some teething problems going back to the 2D animated form (one animator remarked: 'There are lots of challenges, a lot of training and just trying to figure out where to buy paper from again.'), there seems to be genuine excitement from the animators at Disney about its return.

One commentator said: 'We can have a black president in office, but not a black Disney prince?' But, interestingly, the film was conceived long before Barack Obama was a frontrunner for the presidency.

Moreover, although the story is set in New Orleans, no allusion is made to Katrina - the hurricane which decimated the city five years ago - and many questioned why it needed to take place in a city which was, according to one critic, 'the setting of one of the most devastating tragedies to beset a black community'.

'We didn't make any references to the tragedy,' says Lasseter. 'But all our hearts went out to the people of New Orleans. It's a magical city, my favourite in the world and we were really proud to set the story there.'

The film is also populated by some of the most interesting characters in Disney's recent history. Aside from a trumpet-playing alligator called Louis (a homage to Louis Armstrong) and a sweetly sappy firefly called Ray, it boasts one of the scariest Disney villains to date, in the shape of Dr Facilier.

According to animator Bruce Smith: 'Dr Facilier is the lovechild of Cruella de Vil and Captain Hook - a kind of visual, physical mix of John Waters, a young Michael Jackson, Usher and Cab Calloway.

'The directors took one look at the early sketches I did and said: "It's too scary - we don't want kids running out of the cinema", and I said: "But kids running out of the cinema is exactly what I want."

'Kids love being scared. I remember how I felt when I saw the evil stepmother in Cinderella - and Dr Facilier was my shot at creating a villain who was pure evil.'

The film's fairy godmother, 197-year-old voodoo priestess Mama Odie, was fashioned largely on Margaret Rutherford, the actress best-known for her role as Miss Marple.

'I've just always loved Margaret Rutherford,' says animator Andreas Deja. 'I remember one scene in Miss Marple where she just threw her cape over her shoulders in a magnificent fashion.

'I thought: "If there's any way I can work that into a scene, I will," and if you watch the film closely, I get Mama Odie to do exactly the same thing.'

The Princess And The Frog has already taken more than $160million at the U.S. box office and Disney stores have reported that sales of Princess Tiana dresses are out-stripping those for other Disney princesses.

Excellent news for the accountants, but even more heartening to see a strong woman who works hard, reveres her parents and depends on herself, rather than a man, to succeed should have become a role model for young girls.