He began studying portrayals of older people in TV and magazine advertising and TV sitcoms and dramas. When he read another study that showed ageism exists in a lot of classic literature, Robinson decided to look at cartoons because of their socializing function.

For the Disney study, Robinson and fellow researcher Mark Callister had BYU graduate students Dawn Magoffin and Jennifer Moore independently watch 34 animated Disney movies. The students found 93 characters they determined were 55 or older.

One positive finding was that, beginning in the 1990s, animated Disney films have included more and more older characters, including positive ones like Rafiki in "The Lion King," King Triton in "The Little Mermaid" and Mother Willow in "Pocahontas."

Those positive role models helped balance negative ones like Cruella De Vil, the buffoonish Smee in "Peter Pan" and Madam Mim in "Sword in the Stone."

Researchers also generally praised Disney animators for the physical characteristics of the older characters. The BYU team decided that gray or white hair, baldness and wrinkles, while common, were neutral characteristics.

But the students found that 27 percent of older characters were presented as toothless or missing teeth. They said they noticed a number of older background characters were depicted with cracking voices, as hunched over or with "saggy breasts."

Other findings:

• 22 percent of older characters in major roles were villains.

"Villains are extremely negative characters and, arguably, more memorable to young children, perhaps contributing to their prejudices toward older people," Robinson wrote in the study.

• Just 17 percent of older characters were minorities and half of those — six — were in a single movie, "Mulan." The other six were in four other films — "Brother Bear," "Lilo and Stitch," "Pocahontas" and "Home on the Range."

Robinson now has a team using the same process to study Disney live-action movies.

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E-mail: twalch@desnews.com