If you think Pixar movies are sad, you know nothing about movies for kids from the 90s. Kids movies have always had an addiction with killing parents. Bambi is one notable Disney movie that killed the parent, but another horrifying example is The Land Before Time. I'm not saying it's horrifying as in the movie is bad. It was a scene that taught children a valuable lesson: one day your parents will be killed by a t-rex. OK, so maybe the lesson isn't that specific, but it's close to that one.
This is another VHS that me and my sister wore out, along with The Brave Little Toaster. We couldn't stop watching it, so when the lesser straight-to-VHS sequels came out, we ate those up too, even though they sucked. It's not like we had Netflix with a billion movies on it back then.