Aladdin with Jerah Milligan

[00:00:00] Blank Check with Griffin and David Blank Check with Griffin and David Don't know all you eat to know is that the name of the show is Blank Check

[00:00:21] Have some of column A try all of column B I'm in the mood to help you dude you ain't ever pot a cast like me That was great

[00:00:30] Good job good job good job you just didn't get you didn't go for a Robin Williams thing and I respect that

[00:00:35] I barely did and I tried to pick a section of the song where he's kind of doing a voice but not a voice that I don't want to replicate

[00:00:44] You know what I'm saying? Like I was like I don't know how well I can do default Robin but I also don't know if I want to do full character Robin

[00:00:51] That's when he's just sort of like I'm just singing now like this it's not as much like I'm playing a fucking bellboy for this stanza or whatever

[00:01:00] It is I look I watched this movie recently I mean you know time is a fucking flat circle but I watched it at some point within the last 10 months of pandemic

[00:01:11] I've seen this movie twice in lockdown every time I watch it I'm still just kind of surprised by how many fucking transformations he makes It's literally every two seconds he's got some new fucking wardrobe and voice That's the beauty of it

[00:01:26] The best thing about it's the harnessing the power of animation like that I'm not being critical I just always think I'm prepared Yeah absolutely

[00:01:36] Yeah no there's always a little joke that I had forgotten about it's sort of part of the fun actually you're right you know like this is some little joke I forgot

[00:01:43] I just learned he's the first he's the it sounds very though I did not know he's the guy at the beginning who's telling the story Of course absolutely I had no idea that was him

[00:01:55] I remember the Dead Sea Tupperware line like my dad who in the theater laughing so hard and me being like I don't know what that joke is but like clearly that's funny right now like clearly that that's a reference or something

[00:02:10] That must have just that's just him being silly right that's just him going in the studio it'd be stupid right

[00:02:16] That for me was like when he does the come a little closer and then the camera smashes up against his nose that was the thing for me are I was just like too close You could you could fucking do that

[00:02:25] Yeah I mean that that one I got that one I got when I was six years old I was like oh boy I've never seen anything like this Could you imagine how hard this movie again the movie was super successful but those animators must have been pissed

[00:02:40] I've read all the stories about how Robin just improvised so much stuff that he had to go back and redo a lot of the animations could you just imagine it do being like come here And I wasn't in the script and now they gotta make the camera smush

[00:02:55] Right right that's the thing it's like obviously that's his stand-up style but you look at this movie and the genie does not really have I would say more than five lines of dialogue that do not function as jokes right

[00:03:08] Like every line of dialogue functions as a joke but very few of them are written as jokes he has very few punchline setup jokes he has a lot of exposition that Robin Williams is like what if I say it like this kind of person or what if I do this impression

[00:03:22] What if I just punch it up right Yes right or what if I add this turn at the end of the line or whatever it is and so yeah he like forced them to have to animate more than any character probably an animation up until that point

[00:03:34] Also don't forget Aladdin had CGI was one of the first was the computer generated like the lava Yeah Aladdin was going for it man Well so we're doing this is a podcast called Blank Check with Griffin and David I'm Griffin Hell yeah I'm David

[00:03:50] I appreciate your support of me being Griffin I like the little hell yeah I got as a Hell yeah I know you were probably saying it more in response to me starting the show but the way it timed out it sounded like you really like that I'm Griffin

[00:04:03] I love it I love that you're Griffin And I love that you're David and we're having a two friends as a competitive advantage and this is a podcast about filmographies directors who have massive success early on in their career

[00:04:15] and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want and sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce into a whole new world baby Wooo

[00:04:26] And this is a mini series on the films of Musker and Clements, Chronicle-ing, The Disney, Renaissance, The Rise, The Fall, The Rise Again and then the retirement of these two guys who were kind of there the front seat for these this interesting 20 30 year period of Disney feature animation

[00:04:45] It's a mini series called The Pottle Murkast Today we are talking Aladdin and we got with us the great from Astronomy Club from Black Man Can't Jump in Hollywood one of the best movie podcasts out there

[00:04:58] A dear friend someone who it has been far too long since we had on the show I know The great Jura Miligan now we are talking Oh man

[00:05:06] Right before we recorded that you had said in an episode of Black Man Can't Jump in Hollywood that your three favorite films of all time I know it's not an exact science but at one point you said my top three are Batman Returns, Aladdin, Get Out

[00:05:20] I think it was maybe the Get Out episode Your craze of Get Out was this is I love this movie so much it now has entered It bumped the wiz Right It bumped the wiz was in my top three it bumped the wiz

[00:05:31] I mean Aladdin was the first time I get I'm gonna say it was so crazy Yeah I know now everyone's like you know representation matters But I think when you're a kid sometimes you don't know

[00:05:44] Like I didn't I didn't know that Bruce Willis was not like me you know to be Sure So when I watched Aladdin I was like oh snap there's a brown dude But I didn't know I know people were happy about that Yeah

[00:05:59] At the time but I didn't know what that meant at all And now looking back it's like oh 1992 Fire I still like the Latin better than Lion King I said it controversial I don't I'm not for me Here's the thing

[00:06:13] No no this is the thing David and I both like Lion King a lot less than almost everyone else of our generation And it's like no disrespect to Lion King but that's just never the movie that's hit for the two of us

[00:06:25] And I feel like everyone else views it as so sacred It's a movie I certainly saw all the time I owned it my brother wanted to watch it right like I've seen the Lion King a zillion times

[00:06:37] But yeah it doesn't have for some reason I can't like I don't know it doesn't push the same emotional happy button for me that then the other ones we just mentioned Same same but how do we do it in Latin though I like this movie

[00:06:51] Well this I mean you talk about what a breakthrough this movie was I believe the two major stats on this movie are it's the first animated movie to make $200 million domestically

[00:07:03] Right if Beauty and the Beast was kind of the first blockbuster animated movie right like this is the first real blockbuster Beauty and the Beast I think was the first to cross a hundred million in first run release That sounds plausible

[00:07:18] And then this pretty much levels all the way up to 200 million It does it made yeah a ton of money Yeah the Disney legacy to a certain degree was always these movies are so fucking expensive to make

[00:07:33] That Disney himself was always losing money anytime he made a feature and the model had to be Well you make the feature you promote as hard as you can it loses money Then you re-release it every couple of years you also make the ride you make the merchandise

[00:07:47] You put it on TV I mean it was just like this whole organization around keeping the preciousness of the movie Because it had to take like 15 years to fully go into profit And then eventually it would be evergreen and it's money forever

[00:07:59] But it would take that long to make back its investment And I feel like to a degree a Latin might be the first Disney film or first animated film that like Went into profit first run release

[00:08:11] Just fully went into green just in theaters and then proceeded to be just such a fucking endless cash cow for them Oh dude I tricked people multiple times I think I saw this in theaters five times

[00:08:23] I remember I saw it so many times I was like oh I told my auntie I wanted to see it on Maybe I had a friend who had a birthday party to go see it My mom said to me I never forget it she goes

[00:08:32] No I remember this is the only time she's ever said no when I was like oh can I go to the movie she was like No you've seen this already and I was like no me like once no didn't you go with such a sense

[00:08:42] And she just started clocking every time I saw it I was like I remember it and I was like probably five or six It also I mean it this was the highest grossing film of its year

[00:08:52] Which I also think was the first time that it ever happened with an animated movie And it played for a while in first run And but you know it's you're right that it was and it's the Robin Williams thing too is the first movie where like

[00:09:05] The fact that a star was in it mattered in a different kind of a way It's it's first yeah it's and it's like an it's kind it's an action movie in a way that a lot of It is

[00:09:20] You know what I mean? Like it's gotten a little more of that energy and it's a musical and it's a comedy you know It's it's the first time they kind of cracked the complete commercial calculation of how to be every genre at the same time

[00:09:33] And also be totally four quadrant Right that the supposed difficulty of Disney appealing to boys I suppose Aladdin is the one that defies that right Right right that was Aladdin and Lion King No but I mean you know I feel like boys are stupid little boys and they're

[00:09:53] Who's fighting? Who's fighting? Right and there's that sort of like I think I think things have gotten a little better culturally but certainly there's that thing of like Oh if you're a boy you don't want to be seen as liking girl stuff too much at certain delicate ages

[00:10:06] And I feel like Disney had come back with a string of princess movies and now it's like this guy's got a sword He's got a monkey it's like He looks like Tom Cruise I mean he looks like Tom Cruise and Michael J. Fox

[00:10:19] Right he looks like Tom Cruise he kind of acts like Indiana Jones it's a princess movie and a musical and a romance but it's also an action film

[00:10:27] And then the final piece of the puzzle is like yes you have this massive massive fucking movie star which it's sometimes hard to even fully process how mammoth the 90s were for Robin Williams

[00:10:39] Considering he'd already been famous for that long it was just a wild run he had for a couple years there

[00:10:44] And then on top of that it's like this is the movie that kind of breaks Jeffrey Katzenberg into the like oh fuck we can make jokes that grown-ups find funny

[00:10:56] And then that like perverts his entire sensibility and every movie becomes like how do we get the comedian playing the

[00:11:04] Yes yes this is the thing I think you're right Griffin like I love this movie I feel like you're more mixed in this movie but we were going to talk about it I feel like you've referenced that in the past

[00:11:14] I look at this is it's not a personal favorite of mine but it's a movie that I look at and I kind of cannot criticize you know what I'm saying

[00:11:21] Like it's just it's not the one that hits for me in that way but I watch it and I'm like it hits every single point so precisely

[00:11:27] But I think some of my hesitations with it are that you see every bad lesson that is taken from it and applied to like Right that's the thing Which isn't this movie's fault at all

[00:11:38] I think this movie is beautifully balanced right like I know but but right but you see the seeds of not even Disney but Dreamworks Or what like everything that follows an animation right like too much modern joking is too much emphasis on star power

[00:11:54] Right too much emphasis on like action and boys and you know yes I think that's all here even though it's not a problem here I guess right yeah yeah great agreed yeah the only thing about this movie I had a friend

[00:12:10] Who was my roommate for I think two years and he was Persian and I love my life I'm talking about like I used to work in a Disney store Me too what Disney store did you work at

[00:12:23] I worked in DC well it was in Virginia a place called Pentagon City and they had this huge at the time it was like You went to like the second floor and like in the corner was this huge Disney store

[00:12:34] Yeah now mind you parents would just come and just drop their kids off like we were like a babysitter Yes, and they would climb the little plush mountain but they didn't know that it shelves so it hurts

[00:12:43] So anyway, um, you know a land was in the vault my going away present when I was going to college was them giving me The Latin double just DVD which I still own to this day as a goatee

[00:12:56] Somehow I guess they when it was out the ball a year ago. They had a couple in the back It gave me one out the vault Wow they opened the vault

[00:13:05] My roommate Devin was like he wasn't allowed to watch it right and I was like what do you mean man it's perfect And he's like well the opening song is offensive. I was like yeah, they talk about cutting off your hands

[00:13:16] So I get it then he was like well also the cast because the land and Jasmine were people of color I was like okay, I mean I know he was on full house but his voice sounds so perfect

[00:13:28] I felt myself doing the thing right we were like well yeah but come on like I love it though right that thing And it was so hard because I'm like you he knows that we've been on such a different level so even though

[00:13:41] I hate to say I still love this movie because it has such a place in my heart But like damn even thinking about Robin Williams playing that guy to open in at the bazaar It's like Robin you can't do that

[00:13:54] Yeah every single member of the cast of this movie is incredibly white and it's funny Because this is like what your podcast is about It is and I liked the movie I mean for people don't listen to Black Man Kinchup in Hollywood which is great

[00:14:08] You guys you and John Braylock and James the third Yeah the mother dudes, the mother dudes but it's me Yeah past and future guests but you talk about representation in movies and try to explain the way it's sort of like

[00:14:20] Codes our brains seeing these things on screen how they're depicted and who isn't depicted and all that sort of stuff And this does also begin this period of I feel like

[00:14:29] You know little mermaid and beauty and the beast you're still going into like elemental fairy tales that every child knows to some degree And then Aladdin is kind of like pulling together a couple different sort of Arabian myths right It's picking and choosing a couple things

[00:14:45] Yeah yeah well I have a lot to say about that but yes yes I bring it up because I feel like at this point Disney starts to pivot into this sort of cultural tourism Of every movie is not just like here's the story, here's the fable

[00:15:02] We have to go to this place, this land, it's about this culture And I feel like they've spent the last 30 years every time going like We understand that the last one had some blind spots, we really worked hard to try to get it accurate

[00:15:14] Every single one they do the exact same thing where they're like look We went to the Middle East for four days, we really did our research Yes it's like how they were like the Lion King finally Disney salute to Africa

[00:15:27] Like I don't remember how that went over in 94 but that would be bananas yeah Everyone brings up like Lion King is like the black movie and I was like what the what with the animals

[00:15:38] Like that's the one I was like first off Mufasa dies and then Jonathan Taylor Thomas is Simba I was like come on man But look alright well so I have a lot to say for one giraffe

[00:15:54] One of my best friends when I was very little was from Iran and you know they I had the exact same conversation it was when I was small when I was like seven Oh I didn't have it small oh my god

[00:16:05] I remember watching it on VHS with her and like she was a lot to I think her family was like Look the movie's fine but you should be aware like you know I think that's

[00:16:14] But I remember her telling me about it and I you know me you know naive seven year old being like oh I guess so I like you know had no concept of these things

[00:16:23] The thing that blows my mind because yes you watch Aladdin now and you're like wow Wow like you right you know of course like Robin Williams kicking us off with They remade this movie in 2019 and they basically got away with it

[00:16:39] Guy Ritchie and not that that movie doesn't have hosts of problems but that movie came out in 2019 Guy Ritchie a white British man directed it Dude How Like you know Will Smith is in it you know they had like this cast of color but it was

[00:16:58] It's not like they were drawing from Middle Eastern actors or anything like that They weren't you know they're pretty vague about all that it came out People didn't really like it and it was a huge hit and it made a ton of money and they're like

[00:17:12] Made a casual billion dollars yes And they're like probably gonna make a sequel or something and like I don't know no one was like Hey this story that you told last time is this bizarre cultural mishmash like they were just like

[00:17:26] Oh yeah it's Aladdin again look Aladdin oh it's Aladdin he's back Prince Ali This speaks to the whole weird Disney cycle where it's like still when Moana comes out When Coco comes out when Sol comes out When Princess and the Frog comes out

[00:17:41] When Raya and the Last Dragon comes out there's always like The Disney self-generated we want to explain to you how seriously we took the responsibility Of representing this culture but I think people forget that they were doing that back in the 90s

[00:17:55] Like when you watched a Disney VHS there was always the preview of whatever next year's Disney movie was gonna be I remember yes I guess They would have that trailer that didn't even really have finished footage

[00:18:05] You'd usually see like pencil tasks and a lot of it was the animators in their cubicles saying like We worked really hard to get the Serengeti right Here we look we drew a real lion It's always like a bald guy with glasses in a Hawaiian shirt

[00:18:18] He's like yeah no we went to China where Mulan is gonna be You're like okay okay Right and people talk about like fucking like you know 2020 like cultural sensitivity It's like that was 1992 white dudes being like representation matters

[00:18:32] We take the responsibility seriously we're trying to tell this story correctly We just reviewed or it'd be out by the time we just reviewed Soul and I had such a problem with it It like has such a problem with it and it was the racial component of it

[00:18:49] Like again sure like how you guys are doing the whole Disney like the rise and fall of like you know the Greatest Era To me the movie that did it did it in was Princess and the Frog

[00:19:00] We can get to that later because there were so many missed opportunities in that movie It's one of those things where not only do I think you need like going to the God Richie part of it

[00:19:12] That was such a mistake and it felt like that mistake was doubled down Because there are certain things that like for instance if I wanted to make a movie And I wanted to make it about something that is strictly like women related

[00:19:26] Like something that is like yeah I may be able to know I may be able to have people come on And counsel me but there's so many intricacies to their everyday life

[00:19:34] Like I don't know what it's like to be cat called you know I mean I don't know what it's like to feel uncomfortable Walking past construction workers like those are things I just innately don't know

[00:19:42] So when I make that film it won't be second nature to me to do it You know so I will need help and when I think about God Richie in a Latin

[00:19:50] There's so many people who could make this movie and they had a Bollywood number at the end I was like why did you do this? Why? It is wild but yes I forgot about that

[00:20:01] It's so bizarre I also just think that cycle it's so fascinating that it's like They were aware of these things the first time around when they were making these original films right Then the films become like beloved nostalgic classics for generations

[00:20:16] And people are like I know it's got problematic elements I know the cultural stuff is this I know the gender stuff is this But come on I love it right Then they announce that they're gonna do a new live action remake

[00:20:26] And every time people are like I mean it feels a little dodgy We all let the original pass but if you do the same things again We're all gonna be harder and they go trust me we understand We've put together a council we have a council of sensitivity

[00:20:41] They're looking at every single thing we do We're really trying to she's gonna have a new song And the song is gonna be about the fact that she has a song this time She'll never be speechless You're never gonna make her be speechless

[00:20:55] And then the movie comes out and then people go Yeah, it's still got a lot of the same problems weirdly A lot of the things they did to try to negate the problems Highlighted them even more the movie makes a casual billion dollars

[00:21:05] Everyone forgets and then they just go back to liking the original more Then we get that sequel soon They're gonna make a sequel Supposedly I guess a billion dollars Right a billion A billion dollars that movie made like Before it got to like home downloads

[00:21:21] Yes all of it Blue red four red Just a quick smooth casual offhand bill It was like a billion tossed over the shoulder And for how long there was like six months of people being like This thing's gonna be a fucking disaster Look at these chunky genie memes

[00:21:39] Like even just when the casting announcements are coming out People were losing their minds And then everyone just kind of begrudgingly shrugged their shoulders Paid twenty dollars gave them a billion And forgot about it The reviews were like This is bad, bad film It comes down F

[00:21:57] People are like yeah but I guess I'll just go see it But I have a theory on that now I think it's the same thing with some of like Netflix's If you I am obsessed with watching the Netflix top ten In the US I am obsessed

[00:22:09] And when you look at it It tells me the same thing as with this movie a lot And it's like I don't think it matters whether or not it is quote on quote Like a good story It's like do people feel good watching it

[00:22:20] You know do people feel like When they leave are they excited Are they like ah Do they have that smile on their face And I think that's what this movie did Like I didn't like it But I got to watch a Latin with Will Smith

[00:22:33] In the Latin war hoodie You know what the live action Disney remakes largely feel Like to me now They feel like when there were those unlicensed Themed pop up bars Where it's like It's an Aladdin themed bar And you're like look it's like legally they can't call it

[00:22:50] An Aladdin themed bar It's called like Genie's Final Wish or something And they're dodging around a lot of the copyrighted material But it's like fun to stand in a room That feels like this movie I like And I'm drinking a drink and it's blue

[00:23:02] And they're playing the soundtrack And my friends and I are having a good night And mostly what it serves to do is Makes you want to rewatch the original film And I saw someone post this on our reddit Because we always talk about this phenomenon

[00:23:13] Of like movies that don't exist Movies that just like Somehow came out got a big release Some of them were even successful And just have no lasting cultural legacy And in a certain way the Disney live action remakes Are the ultimate movies that don't exist

[00:23:25] Because they're like these huge phenomenons That pop up And then everyone it just mostly serves To remind them of how much they love the original thing And especially now That everything is just on Disney Plus It's like it's so hard to imagine the circumstances

[00:23:42] Where someone pulls up the guy Richie Aladdin Instead of the animated Aladdin If they're both available on the same platform For the same price And I like whatever it was Two, three months into lockdown Searching through Disney Plus Trying to keep my mind occupied

[00:23:58] Was like I never saw the guy Richie Aladdin in theaters I just had so little interest I might as well watch it now And I made it an hour in And after I got to like the friend like me number Maybe I made it to Prince Ali

[00:24:10] I was just like I'd really rather be watching the animated one And I just turned it off And I watched the animated one Twice in lockdown That's a thing you have at home That you couldn't have in the theater This is the insidiousness of the evil spirit

[00:24:26] And the theater I'll sit down I'll eat my popcorn I'll watch Will Smith do his best In this shitty movie Yo, and it's What I'm gonna tell you is so frustrating about that When you watch I saw the live action one In theater

[00:24:43] Me, my girlfriend, her brother went And like I'm hype It's a lie no matter what And I'm like you know what they're gonna do It's not gonna be the In my mind it's not gonna be the exact same thing

[00:24:52] Will Smith is going to do a hip hop version Of a friend like me So that's what I'm thinking We get to it in the theater The scene and it's just the old one But then when the credits roll The music starts playing a hip hop version

[00:25:05] Of a friend like me Why did you not play the DJ Khaled? Didn't have the guts Didn't have the guts Didn't have the guts They didn't want to mess with it too much I feel like that's the thing with all these remakes

[00:25:16] They're like we can't fuck with it too much It's such a good song That's the only way to make it work To me it was like we keep taking these liberties And it's like I do love the stuff That they added with Jasmine

[00:25:27] But then I was like we didn't update Aladdin in any way Like he, matter of fact had less screen time Than he did in the other one When you watch the original animated one To me what was so cool about it is that I'm from DC

[00:25:41] I'm from the area of Southeast DC It's not like at the time It wasn't like the best area So seeing Aladdin in this kid Who was a bro A street rat Get everything He wasn't super cool But he kind of was cool

[00:25:58] Had a crush on a girl out of his league Had one friend who was weird He has one move One move Do you trust me? He says do you trust me And he rolls an apple down his arm Those are his entire romantic package Yes that's it baby

[00:26:14] Do you trust me And it's like it is hard because to see that For me like that was the most important part It wasn't the I guess the racial component Which I think that probably was more important

[00:26:25] For other people but it was like the fact that this kid had nothing And he ends as a prince Like whenever does the dude get that stuff It's usually like the young girl gets to become a prince

[00:26:36] But I'm like the guy can fantasize about a thing out of his league And he got it He beat the bad guy You know what I mean With his wits Right I mean you always talk about like Charting in movies with You know a POC leads

[00:26:50] Like who ends up defeating the big bad And how often in movies where you have a black lead The white sidekick ends up being the one Who gets the final shot in You know there's that weird sort of like And Aladdin really is in control of this narrative

[00:27:06] The entire time And it is interesting I mean the way you put it like that You're like on a sociological character Leveled this character is kind of a breakthrough For movies at that point But also they treat the Middle East like it's Oz

[00:27:22] Like it's just I think when you're a kid If you're not from this background You don't even register the idea that what they're doing Could be insensitive or offensive because it's just like It's a land of legend This is fictional land Right it feels so disconnected from reality

[00:27:37] Which of course if that's your heritage you go How dare they take my actual land And turn it into a fucking cartoon This is so disconnected It's an agrabah Right There's a moment in the remake And we have to stop talking about the remake

[00:27:51] Yes we're getting out of the way That where they have like a map Like an actual map and you see like agrabah Like with borders and stuff And I'm like I don't think we can do this I don't think we need to get into

[00:28:06] What the supposed geography is here Let's just not worry about this please Listen I'm not gonna lie to you When we like when we finally move over to the animated one I just want to put through this disclaimer I do know all the problems with it culturally

[00:28:22] But when I talk about this movie It has such a warm place in my heart So people, listeners don't kill me I know the problems but I just love the movie Because I'm gonna gush over it I think this is very popular film with people

[00:28:36] Like I'm gonna gush over it I got to Yeah it's the weirdness of this era of Disney movies In particular too where it's just like We did this gushy episode about Little Mermaid And we acknowledged the fact that the movie's literally about The lead character being mute

[00:28:52] And having no agency for the second half And a guy falling madly Head over heels in love with a teenager Despite her not having any personality or ability to speak But Beauty and the Beast is Stockholm syndrome Like she falls in love with a big animal dude

[00:29:09] Right and a big part of that is that Like these stories originally You know as fables were meant to be like moral tales To teach children lessons about difficult things And then it's of course the thing that everyone knows Where Disney comes in and they're like

[00:29:24] Saying that edge a little bit Put this in the middle Turn that into a joke Add this song baby Right right but you can't really get the inherent qualities Of what the tale is supposed to be about out of it

[00:29:38] I mean I have to ask you guys this right now To take us to the animated one Do y'all have a favorite song from the animated I have one and I think it's controversial I feel like we disagree on this right David We briefly touched on this

[00:29:53] Well I like all the songs except for Whole New World which I think is a stinker And kind of the beginning of the bad ballad Wow The Grammy winning It's a Menken rice rather than a Menken ashram And it kind of shows in my opinion

[00:30:12] But no my favorite is Prince Ali That is my slightly I suppose controversial favor Are you with me? That is my second favorite That's my second it's up there nobody's up there My first one is Jump Ahead The very first song Aladdin does I love that song

[00:30:28] It's so funny One jump ahead of the bread line It's so good It's also just such a good musical song It's like anyone can say that opening line And feel like you're on Broadway You know what I'm saying? Yes Like one jump

[00:30:42] You just have to hit the right end One jump It does feel like something you would audition with And also he stole bread He stole bread But he gives it to the kids I mean that's the other thing with this movie

[00:30:55] Is this is one of those movies where it's just like This is like how to structure a screenplay So that the audience is entertained the entire time Every time it makes the perfect screenwriting book decision Without feeling totally mechanical and lifeless But it is just like so

[00:31:10] It's the exact algorithm For keeping an audience on the character's side for 90 minutes But Ben, Ben I do want to bring you in because this is the right Because like do you I assume you like Aladdin We were talking about it off Mike You enjoyed watching the film

[00:31:23] It reminded of your youth Yes Yeah, absolutely But I was scared So he's a street rat He's a scumbum kind of You know He's pulling scams He's got a pet monkey Who's his best friend Which feels like a real Ben That feels like something you would like

[00:31:42] But is he too clean cut for you You know too little too chiseled Like I don't know No, come on Aladdin's the full package, man He's the full package He lives on the street He lives in No, really he lives in an abandoned building

[00:31:55] Which like as a kid I was like You can do that A squatter, right? Yeah And he's like I have a view of the palace What a great view Every home has a view of the palace It is the entire sky But Daryon

[00:32:10] But no, I love this movie I think Aladdin is the every man But is charismatic But not too I don't know Like I just like I usually hate princess and clean cut Good guys But he's like Gritty, you know Well it is that funny thing Like how consciously

[00:32:28] They not just physically modeled it After Tom Cruise But that was sort of the studio note Is like Aladdin should be like a Tom Cruise character Yeah And he kind of found a way to improve upon the Tom Cruise character By making him a lot more vulnerable

[00:32:42] Cause at this point in Tom Cruise He's still in the just All I do is when I'm invincible I'm like a fucking shark I smile every five seconds I think you're right He was I think the cool thing about Aladdin is that Aladdin had a lot to overcome

[00:32:57] But also he has so many moments of getting like Knocked down and embarrassed Like when he literally gets kicked in the mud You know He makes elves That's the thing Yeah, so many elves And you understand why he lies Like one side of it is like

[00:33:11] I used to live in New York And I remember being in a park I physically I ran into the cast of Aladdin They were in Bryan Park Like warming up with some crazy shit The Broadway cast you're saying The Broadway cast Yeah, not the voice actors from Aladdin

[00:33:26] 20 years later all just No Well I saw it when The Jafar from the animated Yes, right The movie He played Jafar on Broadway So my roommates at the time To practice for my birthday Took me to see the Broadway version And he was there

[00:33:41] So it was the real Jafar That rules Jonathan Freeman I didn't know Jafar Was white until I saw it I was like oh man Interesting they got this dude And then like he's the real Jafar I was like say what I think literally every Cast member, right?

[00:33:58] It's all Every single one is The singing voice of Jasmine Yeah, yeah Yeah Raleigha Solanga of course Was Jasmine's absolute fucking legend But even like the smaller roles There's that weird factor to this movie Where you watch it and now Every single part in an animated film

[00:34:16] Is some known face actor And this outside of the five main leads It's like oh that's Frank Welker That's Rob Paulson Like you recognize all the voices Of the small under five characters As being like that guy was on Ninja Turtles Was on DuckTales

[00:34:32] Like they're all 90s cartoon voices You recognize and they're all playing Like four characters I mean I love that Like I you know Every time you get like a voice over audition It's like oh man it's so fun to do But then I think about man

[00:34:45] Are they just gonna get like a famous person And then just add auto tune To their voice to make it sound different Every time I watched um Pets Pets Super Life of Pets Super Life of Pets With my little cousin And like little chipmunk

[00:35:01] Or something on there is like Kevin Hart And his voice is pitched up Yeah And I'm like this again I love Kevin Hart But I'm like you could have got Randy from Down the Street Who does a really cool Yeah Squeaky voice You know what I mean

[00:35:14] Cause when you're a kid You just wanted to be fun Well I mean I think I've shared this anecdote on the show before But like years ago Ben helped me With an audition for Scoob The Scooby Dooley And they were like We really want a new direction

[00:35:30] We want a new Scoob We want like a young comedian To be Scoob And so they were like Don't feel like you have to sound Like the cartoon Really make it your own And then you look at sides That go like Rott-Row Raggy Wearing Rubble And you're like

[00:35:42] There's no other way To say this that sounds right You just either do a Scooby impression Or you fail And if I'm gonna do a Scooby impression It won't be as good As the guy who plays Scooby Just hire him And he's like The guy who plays Scooby

[00:35:56] Just hire him And then unsurprisingly They hired four new stars To play the meddling kids And brought back Frank Welker To play Scooby Cause they want fucking Scooby To sound like Scooby And of course Frank Welker is in Aladdin Yes As a boo Yes he's a boo

[00:36:11] Frank Welker A king of voice acting But his real competitive advantage Is he can do fucking any animal So he does a lot of full dialogue Talking characters He was like fucking megatron He's like some transformers What? Yeah, he's got insane range He's been Fred on Scooby-Doo

[00:36:30] Since the beginning of Scooby-Doo He's played that character Since the 60s Yes, for 50 plus years So he's Fred and Scoob? Yes, and then he took over Scoob Like in the last 15, 20 years Wow So in this movie I wanted to give him full credit He is a boo

[00:36:44] He is Raja And he is the cave of wonders This is what I'm saying Oh, he's the cave of wonders So like A outside of the five main actors They're just bringing in these pros Pick four roles Which ones can you do? But Frank Welker's this guy

[00:36:56] Any time there's an animal They're like just get a Welker He can do If a fucking panther has two growls Welker knows how to make that different than a lion Wow I'm looking him up right Wow And Garfield Alright Oof, man Yeah, he's Garfield now Yeah

[00:37:14] Is he Garfield now? He's Garfield now Aladdin The film Aladdin Disney's Aladdin Directed by Ron Clements John Musker Written by them and Ted Elliott and Terry Rocio Who are like the kings of 90s Screenwriting This is their launching pad Right, they had one movie before this Little Monsters

[00:37:36] The Fred Savage movie But this launches them After this Right They're the problem I mean I love a lot of their scripts Yeah But you know they wrote Shrek Like you know they're They're kind of the thing They wrote Shrek They were complaining about They did, yeah

[00:37:53] But it's the interesting thing where like Shrek had been in development for so long And it's so clear that Katzenberg Like brought them in and was like Can you turn Shrek into Aladdin? Like can you Aladdinize Shrek? But they also it's like

[00:38:05] This is one of the first times I feel like Disney brings in Outside live action screenwriters In a major way They become Katzenberg's guys Right, because they worked in so many DreamWorks movies But they go back and forth Because they also do the parts

[00:38:18] They do the Air B in franchise They do They do Mask of Zorro Yeah, they do Mask of Zorro Right But they did Small Soldiers They did The Road to El Dorado Which is another movie where they're like Can we Aladdin this up? Can it be about like

[00:38:32] Roars having adventures? They did What else did they do? I think they did passes on National Treasure Right? Maybe they're not I mean they've done passes on 8000 things Right, they're zillion One of them got super weird And I can't remember which one it is

[00:38:49] It's Terry Rossio became an anti-vaxxer That's what it is Like never meet your heroes, man Like it is a thing where I am scared to Tell people This is a real bit When I bring up things from my childhood I am legit scared to talk about it

[00:39:07] Because I don't know if I don't know If something happened I don't know if the movie meant something Or like you know I am a big fan of all that Who created all those shows Apparently was like really mean and got fired In a really bad way

[00:39:21] I don't know how to talk about shit It is like there's nothing that isn't loaded But now James the third has gone in And cleaned up all that Everything is fine in the kingdom of all that I mean listen, he did I've seen Every episode of all that

[00:39:39] Because of James the third I saw it when I was younger But I've seen them all as an adult And they were talking about it as an adult You're like, man Some things, again Jokes in the last five years I just want to remember all that Fun-ly

[00:39:56] Yes, it is hard But this movie I remember when I think When the original one came out I know you don't like it I remember a whole new world Because I remember It's okay It's not a song from the movie at all But it is that song

[00:40:16] It was the first time I knew what a movie soundtrack was And I think at the time Disney would release Not the movie That came in that little plastic opening case But they released Disney Singalong VHSs This is the second episode we've talked about this in

[00:40:32] It's such an important piece of this era It is and I could never find The Aladdin Singalong Never, never could find it And I was like I want to sing because This guy in my school could sing And I thought I could sing

[00:40:50] And he sang a whole new world To one of the girls in the class And I was like I could learn it And I never could find it to learn it Craig, man That's another part of this David I agree with you Whole new worlds

[00:41:08] Part of it too is just like I just feel like this song was done to death I mean we'll get to it It became the middle school prom As we talk about in the movie When I actually got to watching the sequence When it happened in the film

[00:41:22] It's hard to process the song earnestly now I don't disagree I think Can You Feel The Love Tonight Is a worst ballad I don't think this is the worst ballad Agreed This kind of just originates that kind of Any mid-movie ballad thing And whatever

[00:41:40] And also that always became the Oscar winner Which was weird Right, right, A was annoying that they always gave the Oscar to that one And B there's also the thing where it's like This song feels like it's half Designed to play in a musical

[00:41:52] Half designed to be an adult contemporary cover That can chart on billboard Like there's that Yeah, it sounds like that I remember actually liking it in the Guy Ritchie one Which is a weird opinion Or maybe it is I remember kind of being like, oh this is nice

[00:42:07] But anyway Prince Ali is a great song Especially when he goes, let me see the monkeys Let's see the monkeys Prince Ali is the bass The bass is absolutely out of control It's the coolest song I mean, my brother Joey worked As an usher at the Broadway Aladdin

[00:42:25] Oh wow Which has a famously Large amount of costume changes I've never seen it I remember in the trailer For the remake drop The teaser or whatever It was just the B my guest I'm not B my guest, jeez Friend like me, the da da da

[00:42:45] That was like the whole It was just like shots of the lamp You barely saw anything else And Joey was like, it's like that when you're at the theater That's enough People get so excited just by that bear Bit of score It's so Pavlovian for everybody

[00:43:01] It's the beauty and the beast teaser That was just the camera Circling the rose in the case And it was just the Whatever score It was like the teacup or something that you end up seeing But you just hear a BR guest, right?

[00:43:15] Right, but they just played like The strains of one of this I don't remember it was the da na na na Or it was the beginning part or whatever But it was like, they put it up It was 15 seconds long

[00:43:27] It just had a shot of a CGI rose It was the most viewed trailer of all time People were just like, put it Let me freebase this Inject it under my armpits I need this It's that joy, man Even thinking of a land Like

[00:43:45] Because I am one of those people All I need to hear is da na da That's all I need When I watched the animated one And I watched it again For this podcast The moment Once the guy goes away The camera goes into agrabah

[00:44:03] I'm in it, I am Full-fledged And you see a Latin running Like I Guys, come on That dude is trying to kill him That guard is trying to kill this boy They've all got swords Am I correct, David In remembering It's Ashman who pitches Aladdin first

[00:44:27] This is what I wanted to get into Howard Ashman, who I think Had he lived Would have become essentially a hauncho At Disney, right? He would have just been The creative lead Because it's so obvious after these first couple hits It's just like

[00:44:43] Yeah, if Katzenberg is your producer Ashman will be the creative officer Right? Because he was full of ideas And had such an active hand In the shaping of the story And all these movies and the characterization And just to give the quickest Brief for people

[00:45:01] But everyone should watch the Howard documentary on Disney Plus Right, we mentioned it, I think But Little Mermaid's the first one Yeah Right after he wins the Oscar He tells Alan Menken his writing partner that he has AIDS He finishes all of Beauty and the Beast

[00:45:15] He does about half the work on Aladdin Before he passes away So here's the thing He's been working on Aladdin pretty much concurrently With the Little Mermaid Beauty and the Beast is a salvage job Right That Katzenberg taps them in He's like, can you fix this entire movie?

[00:45:33] They bring him in as a surgeon Right, really fast And they brought the movie to him As the Howard documentary Which is great, sort of explains Like he basically went to Katzenberg He's like, I can't fly I can't go to California

[00:45:49] He's in the studio in this guy's house In his final months of living But he got half of this movie done Which is one reason Beauty and the Beast has all these wonderful Broadway talents Jerry Orbach And Angela Lansbury But Aladdin In that documentary

[00:46:07] He was in a stage production of Aladdin When he was a kid It's clearly Just a thing he's always loved It's got that kind of Old British pantomime of Aladdin That's really popular I assume that's what it was A very campy Adventury story That he wanted to do

[00:46:29] And he was pitching This kind of Crosby and Hope Or whatever An old fashioned musical comedy With some thief of Baghdad Make Genie cab-callow it I think he was really comedy forward He pitches it He does his 40 page treatment They pass on it Eisner and Katzberg say

[00:46:53] Can you please come in and fix Beauty and the Beast instead Then Linda Wolverton who was a Disney story person Is the main credited writer On Beauty and the Beast among others Looks at that in the pile Throws in a lot of the more classical Adventure elements

[00:47:07] The thief of Baghdad and all that sort of stuff She expands upon it So then Musker and Clements The chance to pick what their next project is From a large pile They have three choices Do you know what the three choices were?

[00:47:21] I do not tell me what they were Aladdin, Swan Lake Which I guess they've never done but has always been Mulled New line essentially did it They did that Swan Princess movie And then a movie called King of the Jungle

[00:47:35] Which is the original title of the Lion King Interesting And they pick Aladdin At that point Ashman has died Like essentially Or is about to die and has written I think, well he wrote a lot of songs

[00:47:51] Because a lot of the songs that he wrote are not in the movie Like Proud of Your Boy And Humiliate the Boy All these weird other songs All these songs that started violin all right movements Proud of your boy Not his fault but insane

[00:48:05] That's the origin of this shit How quick they forget is another one There's one called High Adventure All these demos that he has The ones he wrote that survived Are Arabian Knights Friend Like Me Prince Ali Because one jump ahead is Tim Rice

[00:48:23] As is a whole new world That's right So Aladdin But it's just sort of crazy to think about it It's this sort of tail end project From this passion project That genius who just tragically Pass It's kind of like his AI

[00:48:43] Except if Kubrick had only made two movies When he was alive I had no idea of this Any of this And the bananas thing is that Muscle and Clements write as screenplayers They give it to Katzenberg This is the timing, April 1991 This film comes out November 1992

[00:49:01] And Katzenberg is like I hate this Rewrite the whole thing And his most famous line Is 86th the mother The mother's a zero Aladdin's mom was a major part I think of the original story That's what Proud of Your Boy is her song And he was like

[00:49:21] Get the mom the fuck out of here Who cares? So he had a mom and the mom had the song About how proud she was of him And they cut the song because the mom Was an unneeded story element This is the only energy we're going to spend

[00:49:35] Talking about this But it has been reclaimed by the Proud Boys Because they view it as They cut that song out of the movie Because Disney doesn't want boys to feel proud of themselves Which is Is this real? The name Proud Boys comes from a song

[00:49:51] Deleted from Aladdin That is how bananas are world I swear to you I believe Griffin is in The Broadway production I think that's how they became aware of it And then got angry These people walking around With guns They're from a Disney animated film Disney neutered Aladdin

[00:50:13] Because they don't want boys to be proud of themselves Wow So to swerve away from this conversation We'll never talk about it ever again Oh my god So Ted, Elliott and Terry Rocio come They kick the mom out

[00:50:29] I think they give Princess Jasmine a little more to do I think she was a little more static As a character before I think they bring in like She wants to escape the palace They give her more I know we've already established this

[00:50:43] But at this point in time The people who work in animated films Are Animated films people The screenwriters of animated films Tend to be people who have animation backgrounds It's voice actors The idea of hiring in like two hot shot Young live action screenwriters

[00:51:01] To come in and fix the screenplay Is also kind of unprecedented at this point Well, this is my favorite edit That they make, Iago is like a class Is a British butler type That's how he's written And they're like we just saw Beverly Hills Cop 2

[00:51:17] Gilbert Gottfried is really funny in that Let's just make Iago Gilbert Gottfried What do you think? We'll just have Iago Have that energy That's the kind of shit there And that kind of zazzing Is eventually going to be a problem For animated movies

[00:51:33] I don't think it's a problem here I think Iago is the best Iago, guys He really makes me laugh He's really funny I was so ready for Iago to be a Grading element and it is incredible Every Iago line still lands It's still flying I'm malting

[00:51:53] I'm going to say how deep my Latin is I used to own Return of Jafar Iago gets his own song And it's him leaving Is this breakup song with Jafar? Return of Jafar is a lot of Iago In my memory Very Iago heavy Iago is the lead

[00:52:11] It's the funny character Let's just have the story revolve around him Trying to prove he's a good guy Because they lose Robin Williams Gottfried's our comedy quarterback He was going to rack up points Yeah He's going to run the comedy offense You're right I'm thinking about it

[00:52:31] Jeannie isn't even in it that much You're right It was dollar store Jeannie They didn't want to make people too aware of the fact they didn't have By the way, we're doing Return of Jafar on Patreon So people know look out for that Look out

[00:52:45] I got to sing that song on Patreon That's a good song I hate that I know all these songs No, no, but that's the other weird thing I mean like you talk about Williams in this movie being like the first Major movie star

[00:52:59] You know in an animated film In this kind of way, especially with the marketing department Being built around it Which is its own little controversy But beyond that, it's not just that like Oh they got a major A-list star to be a voice In this movie

[00:53:13] Jeannie isn't played by Robin Williams Jeannie is Robin Williams That calculation too of Let's just take Robin Williams' comedic persona And allow him Just sort of like the authorship Of this part of the movie Yeah Do you know? No, you guys have the cool facts

[00:53:33] I feel like I'm learning so much Right, I think it's widely known Right, Robin Williams, he did the project for scale He was like Please don't lean on my Image and don't market the character Right, this was the deal he tried to cover

[00:53:47] His thing was he had already agreed to do fern gully And fern gully was like a charitable donation Of like I care about environmental issues I'll be your wacky bat And fern gully was going to come at her at the same time And he also had toys

[00:53:59] That was going to come out at the same time Toys is the one that was coming out At the same time that he was worried about it Right, yeah about it overwhelming toys Which I guess it probably did I mean toys was a bomb

[00:54:11] He wanted fern gully to have some specialness Being like a big first Robin Williams voice And toys was going to be in theaters at the same time He said I'll do it But there were all these contingencies Of like you can't put my name about the poster

[00:54:23] You can't put it in the trailers The genie character can't be bigger than any other characters In the marketing They did all of it They said yes, they looked him in the eyes They shook his hand and then just broke Every single promise

[00:54:37] The other thing is I'm sure this is how You know like I'm sure someone looked him in the eyes But Disney is this big You know company where like there's no way The marketing department is like Oh you promised him Yeah sure we won't have the genie toys

[00:54:51] Yeah well we'll cut those But also the poster is literally like Framed by genie like holding The poster it's like him going like welcome to My movie And he was like the character cannot be more than 5% of the poster And they like made a border of this guy

[00:55:07] Dude, he was That movie to me Yeah of course But do you guys know about how they tried To appease him How they tried to apologize No They gave him they sent him a Picasso painting With millions of dollars Like to be like We're so sorry

[00:55:29] How about this masterpiece Take a quick Picasso We'll flip you a Picasso And here's the problem You already owned one No It was a self portrait Of the artist is Vincent Benko Which I'm reading this for baiting I don't you know but just imagine That whatever that is

[00:55:51] And it clashed with his decor so he wasn't into it So it did not repair the relationship Oh my goodness Also why not just give him the money Yeah why not just give him like a million bucks Yeah give me hey this movie made 200 something million dollars

[00:56:05] Slip me 5 million Real quick Not only is he like Fuck you I'm not doing return of Jafar I'm not doing any live action Disney movies Either like get ready To not have Disney films in your portfolio He gets paid Like 50 Times more for

[00:56:25] The third direct to video movie For what is it Aladdin the Prince of Thieves The King of Thieves They get him back for King of Thieves And then they get the dialogue with Dan Castellonetta Voice of Homer Simpson who played Jeannie in Return of Jafar

[00:56:39] Then they brokered a deal with Williams at the last second He redubbed all the dialogue when animation was done And they paid him like 5 million dollars And he got like what I mean he got like 25,000 for Aladdin 75,000 The other thing was Katzenberg was gone Yeah Katzenberg had left

[00:56:55] Right Katzenberg was gone that's why They agreed to do it because he blamed Katzenberg Directly Jafar was in charge and he organized some sort of public Groveling to Williams to you know make amends They made him a Disney legend

[00:57:09] They gave him millions of dollars to be in a direct to video Movie They gave him his own cave of wonders Wait wait wait Are y'all telling me that Aladdin Jeannie and Aladdin Robin Williams was paid 75,000 Yeah and he was like look

[00:57:25] I'll do it for scale if you don't blank Blank blank blank blank That's what everybody we got Robin Williams for 75,000 Slap it on the poster Dude that is evil I didn't know it was that Actors complained about stuff like

[00:57:41] I got paid him 3 million but I should have got 6 I didn't realize he Wow and then we made almost half a Billion dollars Yeah and this is like Robin Williams who's already been a star for like 15 years at this point Wow You guys stop ruining this movie

[00:57:57] I'm ready for draw Thank you No it's fine every movie is There's no ethical consumption of the capitalism They're all bad That is evil Like that is It's probably also Given the tight turnaround that we're talking about Given the fact that they kind of junked the script

[00:58:17] You know with like A little more than a year out I'm sure it was one of those classic Hot House you know they made it Under really compressed conditions It doesn't look like it it's a gorgeous movie I love the character animation In Aladdin so much

[00:58:33] It's got this sort of Al Hirschfeld right The big rounded faces And you know the geometric like everyone's Sort of like a weird shape Like the sultans this little squat thing And Jafar is this big tall Skinny thing like I love That like I love how it looks

[00:58:49] It's a great movie It's fucking hilarious I already talked about who's like The secret all star picture within Disney animation At this point who they never let direct to film But he's still the supervising animator on this one And then Eric Goldberg Is the main animator on Genie

[00:59:05] Because at this point in time Pixar Sort of changes the workflow And Brad Bird changes the workflow with Iron Giant But at this point in time animation is mostly Done by like a team As assigned to each character And you have a team working on performance

[00:59:19] And then the supervising anime and make sure the whole Kind of fit together So Goldberg's in charge of Genie which I think is just kind of Like a Brevura revolutionary Piece of work and character animation Absolutely But I love it all like I love

[00:59:33] Jafar how still he is Right like you know like his weird physicality Like I All of the character animation and this is so Good Do y'all know why Jafar's face And neck are two different colors That's one thing I always never could figure out

[00:59:49] Was like is he wearing something I think he's wearing something He's got like yeah he's got the yellow You know like a sort of golden color But it's part of his Like you know robes It's a high color I guess it must be

[01:00:03] Yes, yes because he's supposed to look like Super right like everything about Him is tight because he's sort of like holding All this you know Nastiness in He's real snake like he's real snake like He's like slender like his face has a

[01:00:17] Like it comes to a point a little bit His whole characterization was originally Much more like a irritable kind Of fussy guy and they were like no he should Be scary like we need to You know we need to sort of make him A little more menacing

[01:00:31] This movie does do the Star Wars thing Which one is it Empire Strikes Back Well all of a sudden The bag I just puts The female lead into a hot outfit for No reason like at the end Jafar Pusser in a red outfit

[01:00:47] When I was talking about this Movie with some of my friends multiple women In my life Said that this movie was a A huge movie for them In terms of just Thinking about things on a different level Formative is The word that multiple people

[01:01:05] In text use about the Jafar Puts Jasmine in an hour glass Sequence had not thought About it in this way before but I just want to shout all of that out I just want to mention it It is a little less Stayed than a lot of the Disney

[01:01:21] Exactly Human films are they're usually A little more prim and proper and this one Has a little saucier energy and also Aladdin showing chest the entire time He is Oh yeah Parachute pants hanging loose They're hanging loose At one point that same scene Jasmine Salters over to seduce

[01:01:41] Jafar and I'm like this whole thing is Wild And it also was so funny about Aladdin Not talking about the old one again But in fact he went from being a shirtless to wearing a hoodie In the live action I was like

[01:01:52] Why didn't put this boy in a hoodie Now I'm looking that up He has like it's a hood It's a hoodie He has a whole thing Right I'm seeing it I guess They're two hotties those guys The two stars of the remake They're great looking people

[01:02:09] They have the worst kiss though Remember I complained about the kiss Their big kiss is terrible David flipped out about the kiss to a degree That like ten different critics Their first response tweets after the screening were David lost his mind at how bad the kiss was

[01:02:25] Like they weren't even reviewing the movie They were reviewing how visible Your disgust was at the kiss Oh my goodness Did you make it did you guys go to a screening And Dave did you make a noise In the screening I think I I like loudly exclaimed

[01:02:43] And I did That's it Because the kiss in this movie When the carpet kind of Gives a little nudge It's great It's a great kiss A good lesson to boys because I think so many times If you're not the biggest guy Or the most handsome guy

[01:03:05] Or do something To like get the girl if you will Whereas like the whole message of this Is to not lie and just Be yourself So many times people tell him Hey man, be yourself Even when Jasmine catches him Kind of towards the end

[01:03:23] She gives him the chance to tell the truth And he still can't do it because I think There's a thing with At least when I was going to With boys it's like we We're just Emote in a certain kind of way It's like you don't cry

[01:03:39] You don't show weakness You don't do these things And Aladdin was a character Who because of the streets Was probably taught the same thing And had to learn as the movie went on Hey it's okay to To just be a street rat man

[01:03:55] That's just not where you want to end up It's like you don't have to lie about who you are Just try to attain something else Outside of the songs And stuff like that's what I took from this movie It's like Aladdin went on a journey He learned something

[01:04:09] And he overcame it himself Like his agency was always there Throughout the whole movie Which I think is cool to have for a title character I also think yeah, I mean like Two really smart calculations they make Are one, he's innately Got a lot of compassion and empathy

[01:04:25] From the beginning It's so It's so good to have a character Who wrote on its face But it is truly so effective To have that whole One jump sequence Have him steal this bread Outrun the guards And then see two kids who have it worse

[01:04:45] Than he does and give them the bread It's just one of those things You're just like on this guy's side For the rest of the movie It's so hard to lose Faith in this dude after that point I do stand that a boo is like

[01:04:59] And then he's like I have the bread A boo's more begrudgingly giving up The bread for the right thing I personally am not a huge fan Of comedies that are predicated on a lie Or a misunderstanding about identities They tend to just stress me out

[01:05:15] They just go on too far And then it gets to a point where people overreact Or they underreact I can't believe you said you were a baker Like a record Right, it just stops making sense And then things are resolved way too neatly

[01:05:29] A thing I like that I think this film does well Is that Aladdin has the guilt And the doubts about what he's doing the entire time It is not a movie where he's just like I've nailed it I've created a fake persona

[01:05:41] Everyone loves it and then he gets caught And has to apologize There is that constant reckoning with him saying to Jeannie Like, but does she actually like me? Yeah I know this isn't real And that you're watching it Well, it is That you're watching it and you're like

[01:05:59] Well, she doesn't like that he's a prince Right! In fact, that's the least interesting thing about him She likes that he's Aladdin Because he's a cute sexy guy But his whole life is different Yeah, right, and that's the thing He's like well my only ticket to success

[01:06:15] Is pretending to switch classes Is to be an aristocrat That's the scariest part To me when it comes to dating period It's like you Want to make sure it works But showing who you really are Is this person like that?

[01:06:31] Or is this person like the person on the first date Or second date, you know If they know I like Watching TV on the couch all day every day Do they like that? I'm very exciting on a first date And very boring in day to day life

[01:06:45] Yes, bro You know, it's like I give him my like my letterman Five, you know, I'm doing my best material You're funny, you're charming And then you know when you're home I tell people a lot of times like when I'm home I don't like talking

[01:07:01] No, I don't want to do shit The cut-off switch is when I gotta Do the song and dance for people But when I'm at home, man I just don't want to do anything Man, we're making Aladdin sound like the deepest movie All the time It's got some shit

[01:07:17] I think it does Then Jeannie, we even talk about what Jeannie is going through Jeannie has been trapped Living his life for thousands of years By just serving other people And when that man, yo When that man's little gold bracelets Pop off at the end

[01:07:33] I'm like, jit, happiest ever felt Literally the happiest Here's a question that I can't Draws to his camera And I believe I'm right about this In the straight to video Sequels to Aladdin Jeannie has the gold bands on his hands He does When I was a kid

[01:07:55] I remember that bothering the shit out of me I was like, are those not the symbols of his bondage? It's the RoboCop 2 problem Don't put the helmet back on And that's depressing And they're like, no, but the helmet has to be on That's the iconography

[01:08:09] He looks a little naked without him I get it, I get that they sort of complete the look But I remember it really bugging me Serious character regression Hard to agree I watched some video on the sequel And apparently because Aladdin did so well They rushed a sequel

[01:08:27] Some of the animation when you look at it It's so rushed that certain pieces don't match I think In fact, with the Jeannie's Bands, it comes in and out Every now and then It's not consistent It has the black ones on

[01:08:43] And Jafar is trying to get his off the whole time It's sloppy We're starting to talk about the meat Of the story of the film But I want to talk about the one other main ingredient In the stew A lot of major blockbuster films Films that are big

[01:08:59] Important cultural artifacts They come from a weird Combination of places We're talking about the Ashman of it And the status of Disney And all the shit The other part of this is the thief in the cobbler Which is Richard Williams Is this legendary And I mean

[01:09:19] There are far better More comprehensive Tellings of this story You can read, you can listen to You can watch on YouTube But Richard Williams is like animation legend I think he died just this year Late last year He died in 2020 or 2019 A Canadian animation legend worked in England

[01:09:39] For a lot of his career And was sort of at the vanguard Of really trying to push beyond The technical limitations of what people thought Could be done in hand drawn animation And he did a lot of small pieces Open credit sequences, ads, this and that

[01:09:53] But his passion project for 30 years Was trying to make this movie the thief And the cobbler which was his big Sort of Arabian fairy tale Of Yes, a kind of street Man from humble beginnings who falls in love with the princess The evil vizier of the kingdom

[01:10:09] Tries to prevent them from getting together And the child like sultan father Is easily distracted, it's a very Similar setup, but it's a largely Silent film and part of his whole design Was to have almost no dialogue To not really have songs and it's mostly

[01:10:23] A visual experience and it was really trying to push Just how much you could do in animation So it was mostly self-funded and it took Like 30 years because he'd run out of money And then he'd take another job And he'd be like, I'll direct your

[01:10:35] Raggedy and an Andy movie, I'll do the ziggie Christmas special, I'll do this And then I'll take that money and hire 10 animators And work on it until the money runs out And so it kept on piecemeal getting closer and closer And closer, his big thing is he does

[01:10:47] The animation for Roger Rabbit He's the animation director for Roger Rabbit Which gets him a lot of money, a lot of cash So in the late 80s He's finally sort of got the capital to finish it off He shows a semi-completed Version of the film to Warner Brothers

[01:11:01] They agree for distribution reasons They agree to distribute it They give him the completion funds He thinks he's finally going to get to the finish line What had happened because the film had been going on for so long And so many different animators were working freelance for him

[01:11:14] Full time at different studios There was questions I believe Ashman brought a lad into Disney Of his own accord for independent reasons Years prior, yes Oh no! But a lot of the designs are incredibly similar It's more the look There's certain mirroring in the look of things

[01:11:34] There's no genie in the beef and the cup But the visor character who is Jafar is blue He looks like half like Genie, half like Jafar There are a lot of parallels And so to some degree

[01:11:47] I think it was just a lot of the guys who were working at Disney Full Time Had worked part-time on this movie over the decades Part of it is Katzberg was a very competitive guy He knew that Warner Brothers had now acquired this movie

[01:11:57] He didn't like the idea of other studios having animated films So they really tried to like beat them to the punch Which is another reason I think this film got made so quickly Because they wanted to get out first And what happened was Warner Brothers said

[01:12:10] We can't release this, now this looks like warmed over seconds And they let go of the film before it was ever finished Some weird British company bought it It went into like the fucking tax issues Some other guy finished the rest of it

[01:12:23] Harvey Weinstein bought it, add celebrity voices Added songs, the version that came out sucks ass This looks scary It looks crazy There have been fan cuts that mostly reconstructed it And he right before he died put together a version

[01:12:37] That's a pretty good approximation of what he was trying to do It's a very interesting film But Aladdin's legacy is very much tied into that movie The only thing I will say is that I don't think Warner Brothers cut it exclusively

[01:12:50] Because they were apparently shown in the early 92 And they had Aladdin come out and hated it They were just like this is never going to work commercially It's an esoteric movie, I mean yes Exactly And so I think they freaked out like a little independently of Aladdin

[01:13:05] Because it's a weird movie It's a classic lost masterpiece I know it mostly exists It's like a magnificent Ambersons kind of thing When Mira Max did release it in the 90s They called it Arabian Night That was a Harvey Weinstein Let me just make some money

[01:13:25] It was like fully let's trick people into thinking this is Aladdin Yeah Absolutely This movie looks scary That is all true Watching the trailer It looks amazing Anytime you watch any clip of it You're like there's all this stuff going on

[01:13:40] This weird like Buzzley Berkeley stuff with bodies It's so cool And his thing was essentially like let's just do zero cheats Let's do none of the cheats that usually happen in animation Have the most intricate patterns And people flipping 8000 objects in real time It's a technical masterpiece Yeah

[01:13:59] It's so cool But Aladdin though Aladdin though I want to point out We like love one jump ahead Love the opening of Aladdin But before that you have the Petler first You have that whole sequence And then you have the Cave of Wonders sequence

[01:14:17] It is a weirdly like sort of methodical start For a movie that's 90 minutes long Much like these other animated classics That pack everything in And gets through a ton of plot really fast Like once it gets going But the opening is kind of slow

[01:14:35] Right, Genie doesn't enter until over 30 minutes in Friend like me happens at like 40 minutes in And Aladdin doesn't come in until like 12 minutes You have an opening song that is done By an unseen narrator over credits

[01:14:47] Then you have a guy who is not factor into the rest of the film Set up the stakes for you Yep, yep Even with that though The movie doesn't feel too long Doesn't feel too short And like when Aladdin comes in It feels like It feels set up

[01:15:03] Like by this point We've heard the Petler talk about The story of the lamp a little bit Then we cut to the Cave of Wonders We see the thief die The movie opens with this dude just dying And then Jafar and Yaakov have this

[01:15:17] Little piece of dialogue about like Finding the diamond in the rough And it's like we know who It sets him up perfectly before he shows up So no matter what that opening scene That we see Aladdin in Is we know he's pure of heart

[01:15:32] So when we see him running And all that kind of crazy stuff We know he had this kind of a friend He had no reason Like he was starving He would have died, you know It's true It's kind of clever the way the movie

[01:15:45] Sets that up where they don't Try to make him like Neo They don't argue he's the one But through the framework They make it clear to you Like he has the inherent qualities needed Which means you have to trust us This guy is good This guy's cool

[01:16:00] You're gonna like him And Kazim, you know Kazim Look I don't know if he deserves to die But he says he had to slit a few throats To like get the thing You know I think Kazim might not be on the up

[01:16:11] But he's not a diamond in the rough I don't really know where Jafar found that guy A diamond in the rough man I mean you're right It takes 12 minutes for Aladdin to happen But I do think once we get into it I think Jasmine is established very well

[01:16:24] I think she's probably one of the first princesses That even though Aladdin does have to save her She doesn't come off as a damsel at the beginning You know like in the beginning Like she's telling her dad I don't want to do this She's standing up to Jafar

[01:16:36] She don't want none of these dudes that's coming to the house You know Rajas biting them on ass You know like And even when she does get captured at the end She does play an integral part In helping Aladdin save the day Oh yeah She's great

[01:16:52] I like Jasmine You're right She wants out and you're with her on that And also it's like Yeah she's a bit of a babe in the woods You know when she's You know taking the When the shop keep is mad at her But then Aladdin comes in

[01:17:08] He's like he does some improv And she's right there with him She pretends to be her dad She don't trust him the whole time She's getting them no side looks I think that stuff matters She's a little streak wise

[01:17:22] We don't see that stuff in live action movies now I feel like now we're trying to really address agency And you know female characters And you know characters of color And like I feel like those little looks That she would give him Like I don't trust you yet

[01:17:36] But I'm gonna go along with this Because I want to Right she's looking for her Yeah so Spice It's classic show don't tell shit Where I think now people are very conscious Of wanting to make sure the characters represent Well and that they have agency

[01:17:50] And the way they do that Because they are so nervous about it Is have Jasmine look Aladdin in the eyes And go look I want you to know I'm my own person I don't know if I trust you yet But I'm a strong independent woman

[01:18:02] And I'm gonna make decisions for myself And that always rings hollow if it's that laid out And this movie part of it is just like You think about I think Incredibles Was at the time of its release The longest American animated film ever made

[01:18:17] And Incredibles is like an hour And 45 minutes or something Like it was just animation was so hard to make At this point in time It's so expensive that it was like You gotta get everything done in 90 minutes With credits and six songs So they were just really economical

[01:18:35] About characterization And that stuff rings more true Even for whatever failings it has When you have to come up with the most Precise efficient way To set up a dynamic It always rings better than having a character Explain who they are Well I think the major one

[01:18:53] I think what I always say to people is like I really want whatever our version of Moana is or a Coco Like you know to learn about some type of Black culture I think my theory is If they do it on African American culture

[01:19:10] It will have to deal with America's past Which that is not what we do here So I'm not sure Unless it's like some folk tale That maybe I'm not familiar with yet But I don't know if we're ever gonna get that Unless Frozone

[01:19:26] Unless Sam Jackson gets his Frozone spin off Make the Frozone over Frozone spin off Then do we ever see his wife? No she's never been seen Like I'll kind of find a funny that she always Is yells from a distance but like if he has a movie

[01:19:40] Do we ever see No she's like the T-shirts and peanuts Like where's my supersuit We don't see her in two right? We don't It's the yeah At that point they're like let's double down on the joke Yeah they designed her and then they just went

[01:19:54] Like it's funnier if we never see her Which is like it's funny But then also think about what you're doing here I know, I know, it's that far too It is funny but Is that far too man Oh wow they made a whole design for Frozone Well okay

[01:20:12] Yeah they made it yeah yeah Uh oh So we have this The one jump sequence In addition to being a banger of a song Is also just like I feel like the first time people have pulled off This kind of like Action in a movie like this

[01:20:30] You know on this kind of scale The action's great I like him like hiding behind the pillar And they like throw all the swords at it Like all that stuff right All that kind of exaggerated You know Action to venture stuff is fun It's like Indiana Jones stuff

[01:20:46] It's like cause and effect Right Indiana Jones Comedic story beats of the action Of how he's outwitting them In each little turn They fall in crap at one point Like they fall in literal crap Yes, yes He biffs them

[01:21:03] And then I do love when he goes in and out of the rooms He ends up with like What all the women is like It's so fun cause I was thinking in my head Because Robin Williams played so many parts I was like is this Robin Williams

[01:21:17] As the big woman like First of all that song is messed up That part is like we will blame his parents But he hasn't got him That's so mean It's a bit of a salty line I know to just sort of squeeze in

[01:21:31] His mom was too proud, that's the problem I guess you're he's running through Your apartment Causing trouble I guess Crazy Hakim's discount fertilizer It has its own Wikipedia Disney Wikipedia page It's well worth reading It's three paragraphs long somehow For a one second psych gag

[01:21:51] I'm gonna put it in the chat Anyway Love that And just like the dynamic of Aladdin and Jasmine They're going in opposite direction She wants out of the palace, he wants in You know, they're bound up But they also like Want completely different things

[01:22:09] That's a good, I like the tension there It's a way better romantic tension than Beast and Belle God love them but You know, there's some problems there And like Simba and Nala who have no Tension at all Like I don't know they're just supposed to get married

[01:22:25] And then they do I guess they get married, we don't see them get married This movie takes the time to build The relationship at all points For Aladdin and Jasmine It takes you through the honeymoon phase Where she's like alright and he's

[01:22:39] Going this way for it, when he tries to Went over at the end and she kind of doesn't trust him He blows it, has to come back Like we go through every phase Of it, you know In those movies I think we kind of rush to these points

[01:22:51] Like, you know little mermaid He likes her because she's beautiful Aladdin ends up liking her not only because She's beautiful but because of who she is And what she represents so it's like There's a difference in the love Tonight Yeah one little mermaid has

[01:23:07] A whole like 40 minute stretch Where the two characters are together But none of the tension is about The two of them, it's about outside forces And she can't speak Like this is a movie in which Every time they reconvene There's an important shift

[01:23:23] In their dynamic, you know there's some Evolution of their relationship Every time they see each other again Right And it's also just another one Of those efficient characterization things Where it's like you got a princess Or a prince, someone with all

[01:23:39] The wealth and the world and all the access The way you make them are labeled to an audience Is that they don't want it They don't want it, they want out They want out And even though her life I guess Is fine, she's got this nice dad

[01:23:53] Who's a bit of a, you know, dimwit Right, like he's a A sweetie but You know, he's not He has this little micro-machines version Of the tanny, I always like that When Jafar is like, why don't you play with this thing

[01:24:07] I'm like what is this thing that he has That's like Pointedly a thief of Baghdad thing Thief of Baghdad, the Sultan is obsessed With toys and there's like a 20 minute sequence Where they like bring in all these Different mechanical toys for him

[01:24:21] Oh what, I need to watch this Thief of Baghdad rules draw So good, it's like One of the best special effects Movies of all time because you just watch it Like I don't understand how they did any of this Right, that's because it was made in what

[01:24:35] 1940 or whatever Thief of Baghdad and Thief Thief and the Cobbler are the two movies That really kind of Blend into this film with the Ashman Broadway sensibility And Hope and Crosby films obviously Yeah right, that general vibe With the Hope and Crosby because that's the thing

[01:24:53] Once you get Aladdin, you know, tossed in jail Hicked up by Jafar, put in the cave of Wonders, meets the genie Then you know The joy of the animation Of the fact that you have a carpet And a monkey and a Fantastic Oracle genie

[01:25:11] And Tom Cruise, that's your core Four heroes And the carpet is this like Such a triumph, he's like a square And they make him so lovable Like He has so much, he's like kind of Bashful and he's Like he's got a completely different energy

[01:25:29] To the other guys, you like the carpet He's a carpet, like these are These are not easy things to do Yeah no, it's like Really Stunning And it is, it's funny, like this film has Right, you have a monkey

[01:25:45] Who spends a good chunk of the movie being an elephant You have a parrot You have a tiger and you have A carpet On paper that should be overkill You cannot have all four of those You have four different Comic relief animals

[01:26:01] Because the carpet functions like a dog Right? Yes But somehow, even though Three out of the four don't speak Their personalities are defined Enough and their games are defined Enough that they don't step on each other's Toes, it's pretty Impressive It's another issue where then

[01:26:21] By the time you get to Pocahontas It's like, oh she has 20 animals And each one has a gimmick Because they need to sell a different toy But this is when they kind of have the right balance Of it all

[01:26:33] I know you guys are saying it but it just hit me Is this the movie that makes The animal comedic sidekick And like the wacky comedian As like some otherworldly creature Is this the beginning? I would argue Little Mermaid has it Little Mermaid sets up the animal dynamic

[01:26:51] That's when the animals become funny Right, but then this adds The Williams thing You got a magical and it's a celebrity Kind of playing themselves This is the first time that they had to Cast international voice actors To then do Williams' Bits Is that the beginning of like

[01:27:11] Spreading his acts basically Who is the Spanish Aladdin? Who's the Spanish genie? Who's the guy in India? It's a thing I love looking up Especially with movies that are Like animated films that are this based around Like blank is blank Where it's like a comedian is this character

[01:27:31] Is seeing who they cast Internationally Because so often they're like These audiences know who Robin Williams is But this is a voice over Film so they'll know if they're just Hearing a person doing a bad Robin Williams impression They'll find a local comedian who has

[01:27:49] Their own dynamic that matches well Enough with what the character is But you also can't rewrite it or change It that much So like seeing who plays these characters In other countries is always really fascinating I'm reading about the Finnish dub For example, a great Finnish

[01:28:05] Comedian apparently, Vessa Matilori Played the genie And had never like Obviously did not heard the American version And does like Of impressions of Finnish Celebrities Like it's all of Finland So that's my big question That's why I was thinking this up is just like It's fascinating because

[01:28:27] This movie paints them in such a corner Because it's like well now he has Nicholson face Yes, he does it He's gotta do Nicholson He does William F. Buckley at some point I know, so he does it twice? Does he? Yeah cause he does it He reprises it

[01:28:43] I have a few Yes he does I had to google it the last time I was watching Cause I was just like what is the specific face That they're trying to evoke here He's playing a nemeshi Conservative Who wants to enforce the rules It's so bizarre Yeah

[01:29:03] There's so much stuff like that He does Dangerfield, he does Rodney Obviously He does Ed Sullivan He does Ed Sullivan, yes You know you show it to your kid now Are you like, you have to explain Ed Sullivan No, you get it I guess

[01:29:19] You know what it is now if you're watching You know he's making fun of somebody I don't know who that is but I know it's a joke Once we like get to that magical carpet Right, like the carpet and it's like the lava

[01:29:29] I remember being a young girl saying Why does it look like this? It's so bright Like again I had no idea It was computer and not Hand drawn I just get to that musical number Man there was nothing bigger Than that because it looked so massive

[01:29:45] Like it looked like What's that like how animation worked It's like how did they do the Wide screen with a thousand genies In that, like literally It was so big that the live action version Couldn't even compete With the scope of that scene

[01:30:01] Yeah and I do think like That's pretty much what I tapped out of watching The live action movie cause I was like What else do I have to see I honestly handled that translation Better than I thought they ever could have

[01:30:14] Despite the fact that they took the wrong approach To how Will Smith sang the song Visually that sequence is pretty well realized And the dude can dance pretty well But there's something about watching The original friend like me Whereas one of the only animated musical sequences

[01:30:30] That somehow gives you the same How did they do that rush that you feel Watching someone like sweating bullets Dancing breathlessly on a stage You know when you see those bravura Like physical performances On a Broadway show or any You know theater show where you're just like

[01:30:46] I don't understand how this person hasn't collapsed yet There's something about the energy Of all the genies even though you just know Like I don't know some guy just drew it I mean his hand cramped up a lot but it's not like

[01:30:57] That's physically you know but it feels so I don't know it's so high energy So relentless and so good Rob is singing when he's done And he has an applause sign It's like I feel like this dude did that in one take

[01:31:14] Even though it's not true but it feels like that It has that lightning and a bottle energy And it's just like I feel like audiences actually burst into applause When that happened And there was this big campaign That year like should we Nominate Robin Williams for supporting actor

[01:31:31] Should we give him an honorary award For voiceover acting The Golden Globes gave him one There was this whole conversation of like This kind of feels like more than a voiceover performance Usually is He's so clearly like just willing this character Into being something bigger

[01:31:47] And so much of it is that number two Where fundamentally the guy's not a great singer I mean he's just sort of It doesn't even matter Right it doesn't matter It doesn't matter Right yes I have a few like right Apparently I didn't know this apparently right

[01:32:02] But the street merchant that's They literally brought him to a sound stage Stored him behind a table Gave him just gave him objects And we're like just go Just do stuff so like they I think that's what they did with him you know

[01:32:13] The other thing I just found That just was making me laugh so much is that Apparently you know there's the line Because Gottfried also ad-libbed Right like he obviously Is making stuff up You know when they're fleeing And he picks up a picture of Jafar

[01:32:28] And he's like how about this picture I don't know I'm making a weird face in it Like you know when they're packing their shit Apparently Robin Williams was like That's the funniest line in the movie That he would just crack up every time

[01:32:41] That they showed it to him That is so random Again my favorite line is Let's see the monkeys Like that line makes no sense I know he's going through all his animals But to see the soldiers doing the Let's see the monkeys dance Is so funny to me

[01:33:00] They want to see the monkeys We talked about in the Mermaid episode How like there's a real emotional Route to Sebastian that makes the character Work there's that palpable sense of Like this is not the job this guy wants He's trying his hardest in a bad position

[01:33:16] He wants to be singing songs And there's just something about Like Gilbert Gottfried's anger Doesn't feel like comedy anger It feels like real anger Anger He's too nervy He's got like a vein going Right there's something about a Yago that just feels

[01:33:34] Like it should not have been able to survive studio notes They should have been too scared about this character Being too intense But it's the reason he's funny because it's not Restrained at all He's so funny I mean but also and just

[01:33:48] His chemistry with Jafar is so good My favorite line I know Jafar Is sort of this archetypal Sort of queer coded villain And there's a lot that's complicated About that but like When he says What if you married Jasmine and Jafar just goes What?

[01:34:08] Just murders me every time Like it's so Their relationship is great We talked about it with Little Mermaid You know the sort of weird Crucial thing of your kind of rooting for the villain Like the movie kind of kicks off with Jafar you kind of get

[01:34:24] That he's like look I'm running this Stupid down like That Sultan is an idiot like You kind of on his side until the end The end he's too crazy And you're like okay now I'm scared of him

[01:34:36] But for a lot of the movie you need to kind of be with him It's another thing about Jafar is that You were talking about how the movie has got This sort of Hirschfeld art Style but it also is Like Disney had always been pretty

[01:34:50] Square about how they depicted Humans on screen right They wanted their human characters to be very Pretty you know And human like and not very Caricatured and this feels Like Disney You know in The early days of American animation It was like Disney has

[01:35:10] The money they have the Technicians everything is So precise but it's a little hermetic And Looney Tunes is wild And loose it's got personality But they got two dollars They're really scraping by getting creative Work arounds you know They have to use comic energy to overcome the fact

[01:35:28] That they don't have the same resources And this movie feels like Looney Tunes sensibility with the Disney budget And technicality because you have A character like Jafar who is this very Caricatured human being and his Proportions are so weird and his Facial expressions are so much more extreme

[01:35:44] But they're done with this Disney Sort of fluidity where like him just Deadpanning a line like that ends up Being so much funnier in the way that like Bugs Bunny will be an endless Meme resource for the end of time Because it's just like half the comedy

[01:35:58] Is just the facial reactions I want to another fact I learned Jasmine Still the only Disney princess Who kisses a villain Anna in Frozen comes close To kissing Hans Of course she does not know is evil But that's it and she knowingly does it

[01:36:16] Because she is a part Of the she's part of the scam Part of the yeah the hustle Man Jasmine was awesome I'm sorry like Jasmine was one of my favorites Like because Because I think again like she wasn't a push over

[01:36:31] And I think that was at least growing up Like my family's majority women like we like That's those are the people I knew Like those are the women I knew was like You talk out your mouth sideways And one of them is gonna be a problem

[01:36:43] And Jasmine had that kind of vibe to her And I think that was so cool Like it wasn't just a generic damsel in distress I thought like there was so much nuance Again I always laugh now As an adult of that whole red outfit It makes no sense

[01:37:00] No Is it the bridge? Is it the bridge? Is it the bridge? Is it the bridge? Is it the bridge? Is it the bridge? Is it the bridge? Is it the bridge? Is it the bridge? Is it the bridge? I honestly think it's partially that

[01:37:13] And I also think this is when The Disney machinery is up and running enough That they're bringing like the toy companies in At an early point and they're like Can she have two outfits please? Right We want to make sure she has a costume change I mean look

[01:37:27] She is a princess It would make sense for her to have multiple outfits I suppose I had which was probably one of the hardest Games of all time Latin Or I think I had it on like Super Nintendo Or something like that That's also another area though

[01:37:41] Where they're like Oh fuck we finally made one of these movies That works as a video game too Like this starts to get into It's all the things that ultimately Doom this wave of Disney Of just Katzberg getting so greedy Of like every one of these movies

[01:37:54] Needs to be everything at the same time It needs to have hit pop singles Spawn a video game Be dolls that little girls want to dress up Have a ride You know go to Broadway Appeal to everyone Has to have jokes for the parents Jokes for the kids

[01:38:11] This movie made so much money And then Lion King almost made a billion dollars They had never seen numbers like that It was like going for like 100 million dollars 200 and 300 million dollars 890 something million They were like Keep it going baby The escalation was just so wild

[01:38:32] And they just Like I think to them To some degree at like Disney corporate They were like This is like McDonald's We figured out how to get the production time On burgers down We know how to make a burger We know how to stack the ingredients

[01:38:45] Let's just get this down to a formula And then it starts to become like Why does this feel the same every time? So we talked about a friend like me I mean I don't know Like I don't know what else there

[01:38:55] He moves very quickly after the genie's there Yeah You know Prince Ali's a great number It's just a great Go ahead Ben, sorry He fucking right out is like Wait so what would you wish for man? And then you know he's a good dude He's empathetic

[01:39:12] Cause I know my ass I'd be like Make me the richest motherfucker You know like I wouldn't even think twice Yeah I mean he does beat you At your immediate trick though Ben His first rule is You can't wish for more wishes

[01:39:25] Which is that you always talk about that Yeah it's smart Smart, that's smart You gotta write that in Cause yeah otherwise See I would wish I would wish for the power to do whatever I wanted I would pull a I would pull a Wonder Woman 1984

[01:39:42] Yeah you'd ask to become the stone Just give me the power baby I'm gonna leave you alone You know what, since I have power You're free genie I got you Yeah I give you two wishes I'll give you two wishes to spend on yourself

[01:39:56] Come on now what else you need baby This is people being bring this up Like why doesn't he pass the lamp around Yeah You know hold his wish in reserve Let everyone get a couple wishes done But I don't know if that would work

[01:40:09] Like cause you need to resolve I think you gotta finish it Yeah you gotta finish it Exactly I don't know, I don't know I mean Jafar does three wishes In the middle of Aladdin's chain So I don't know what you know Jafar is out with it quick

[01:40:24] He wants it, what is it? First he's a sultan Then he's a sorcerer Then he's a genie It's real fast Can we say too Jafar is a bad wisher Because his wishes are just heightening us Of the previous wishes You gotta diversify your wishes right There's no creativity

[01:40:40] Yeah you don't want to put all your eggs in one wishing basket You wanna have a couple different plate spinning Also do you notice Every time he makes a wish His outfit changes and gets a little bit gnarlier Like That I like His hat gets worn

[01:40:53] Horns or something I was like why is this And they did it in the live action They had his outfit changed And I was like come on now If you gonna go for this It's gotta, again it's gotta be tighter It's gotta have a horn Yeah

[01:41:09] Devil ear thing The live action Jafar is interesting Cause he's so subdued And he's like very grounded He's very like angry And it's kinda personal with him That was their big character choices What if he's kinda hot low key Yeah he needed to be an old dude

[01:41:27] So like when he's trying to marry Jasmine It's extremely creepy Yeah He can't look handsome He's gotta be like I hate to say it He has to be overtly evil Like he has to look Like that dude was genuine He was like

[01:41:40] Hey man I'm a street rat too They always treated us like trash I want the city back I'm like I get that Right You're more with them The live action Sultan is also like too much of a real person I like that the Sultan in this movie

[01:41:53] Is two feet tall And he's just like a bowl full of jelly Yes He's a happy dude I like when the Sultan puts on the little eye glass thing And he's got a big eye I think that's funny Yes I think it's a great move by him

[01:42:07] Make him silly It's just like I don't know I mean I think about Cause I was just Because I had watched it recently I was really paying attention to The time code while watching it this time I was trying to sort of track

[01:42:21] Like how long the movements take When does someone come in Right Right It was quick But But Prince Ali happens like 40 some odd minutes in And that's essentially when the movie really gets started You know what I'm saying Like it's like You've essentially spent half the movie

[01:42:39] Setting up all the pieces for what is going to be Now your major conflict to ride you through The rest of the film How does Aladdin earn Jasmine You know How does he free her from Jafar You know how long can he keep up this ruse

[01:42:53] And it is just like The funny thing is that it takes 10 minutes for Aladdin to come in Takes 30 minutes for Genie Takes 40 minutes for the Prince Wish to happen You know And then the movie It doesn't feel like it's biting time It packs a lot in

[01:43:08] And then the remaining Whatever it is 30 or 40 minutes plus credits Is just breathless It just moves so, so fast Absolutely Yeah I think you're right So quick once he becomes Prince Hale he gets to town Meets Jasmine Takes him on the carpet ride Jafar tries to kill him

[01:43:29] It's parade and then that night he shows up On the carpet and then has the big song And you do a whole new world and then there's no more songs Which is true with so many of these Disney movies Where the song part is kind of over

[01:43:42] For the last third of the movie The last 30 minutes become them resolving stakes And right no more time for saying Dr. Jones Wow But I like all the stakes I remember as a kid I saw this film in theaters Griffin you were saying it's one of your first

[01:44:01] Theater memories right? I was This came out November 92 I feel like I saw it late but I was either 3 or 4 When it came out and I distinctly remember Not just seeing it in theaters And sort of the energy in that theater But also the anticipation

[01:44:18] It's one of the first times I remember Walking to the theater seeing the poster And turning my mom on being like I'm excited that we're gonna see that I remember vividly My dad coming home with the tickets Being like I got the tickets

[01:44:32] Like we're gonna go see it tonight Like he must have picked them up or whatever And I remember we went with my brother He must have been like 3 And I remember the cave of wonders Popping up my brother just picking up my dad's jacket

[01:44:44] Putting it over his head And just being like I'm out, I'm not watching this Like I won't be See ya I'll be asleep under this for the rest of the movie Because this movie is kind of intense The end is fairly intense It's all big

[01:45:02] It's kind of creepy when the genie's this big Golem thing right? And he's like moving the palace Jafar is scary Yeah I mean Aladdin almost dies several times Several times The snake thing is pretty crazy There are very high stakes in this movie That are illustrated very cleanly

[01:45:20] I also think, I mean Dra you were talking about Just like how seeing the cave of wonders Blew your mind Great Mouse Detective which is Musker and Clemens first movie Is like the first major use of CGI In a hand drawn film

[01:45:32] And then Little Mermaid has a little more This amps it up and then I feel like Lion King has the stampede And whatever There was something so beautiful about this period Where they were combining the two But more specifically it was like

[01:45:46] You'd have like one or two bravera Sequences or elements Where the CGI was coming in And it almost made it stand out as like The stakes are higher here This is more important, this is scarier This is more epic You know because suddenly this looks different

[01:46:02] Than any movie you've ever seen before There's something just about that cave coming up Where it's just like this is not how this movie is supposed to look You know the whole temperature changes I hate to say that I'm one of those people who

[01:46:12] Believes in like trying to Make things like you don't have any money So I feel like it makes you more creative Where I feel like now Because CGI is I guess cost effective to a certain extent You don't have to be As crafty

[01:46:28] And I think when you have moments like this Like in the early 90s in particular It's like you only have enough time for one So when you figure it out where it's going to go It has to be this big moment that Feels lively

[01:46:40] Because you only get one shot at it You know? Right, it's essentially the cave of wonders And the carpet is a lot of CGI Just because the patterns would be hard to Hand draw But it really would be like they'd have one sequence

[01:46:54] Or one character where it'd be like The vehicles of CGI or whatever it is And it helps like in this way Of I don't know spotlighting certain elements Making them feel more important Yeah, it's a cool movie It's a cool ass movie I just agree with your

[01:47:12] Thinker for it's like It's the roadmap to a lot of problems Yeah, it is I never saw it as that But it doesn't really hurt the movie for me Classic victim of its success Thing And to that point it's like a whole new world comes up

[01:47:28] Not our favorite song But like you know A song that ostensibly is effective The background for this is when Adam Driver And Cecily Strong did the Latin sketch But I was also thinking about like The whole teaser trailer for Lilo and Stitch With Stitch jumping on the carpet

[01:47:44] And interrupting them I just feel like there have been The teaser campaign for Lilo and Stitch Was they took the most famous musical sequences And then Stitch would come in and ruin them But the way the trailer started You would think it was just a re-release

[01:47:58] Of the original movie And then Stitch would fuck it up The next live action one is Lilo and Stitch They just better not It is, I know it's getting me They're gonna do that They're gonna do all of them

[01:48:12] They got it now, I think it might be next I think John Chu is gonna do it John Chu is supposedly Making it next My thing is Lilo has to look Kind of scary Stitch, Stitch to me That's the problem I just don't know how they make Stitch

[01:48:30] Look photo realistic And not make him too cute Or too upsetting It's a very delicate balance Which you can kind of only do in a fully animated world I think, that's my fear I think they're gonna have a fucking monster trucks problem

[01:48:44] Where kids don't want to meet Creech Where it's just like what's that fucking monster doing In this truck I don't like it But I just as the sequence was going on I was like weirdly bracing myself Because It's hard to look at a whole new world

[01:49:00] Just the straight version of it Because it's been parodied so much And clowned on so much And died karaoke so much That you're just waiting for like When are they gonna deflate this And you're like no right This is the actual thing that everyone Is covered on

[01:49:18] This is the one, right This is the text Yeah, this is the text Right I just watched it and realized that In that trailer for Lilo and Stitch Stich, Jasmine finds Lilo I mean, finds it's attractive And just leaves in the spaceship with him Like just

[01:49:38] She hops off the flying carpet And just leaves That was the whole thing? I mean look this is 92 And Lilo and Stitch is 2002 And in those 10 years People had kind of turned against the Disney machinery And Lilo and Stitch was like their biggest hit That decade

[01:49:56] And it was because their entire marketing campaign Was like don't worry it's not like the other Disney movies This one's a little different I remember there was that poster Where all the other characters Are beholding Stitch with horror Right, like the beast There's one in every family

[01:50:12] Their whole ad campaign was Every other Disney character hates Stitch, he burps and he's Horny and people were like Yes please Something new, something new Yeah, something new Will we do Chris Sanders? No, I don't know I don't think very well

[01:50:32] I mean I guess we could do Dean de Blas Who co-directed that and then fold it in And do the dragons We're talking a long time from now if we're doing that Yeah, I don't think we do either of those Lilo and Stitch is like

[01:50:44] It's maybe my favorite of the classical Like a hand animated Disney films I just think that film's a fucking masterpiece And a good circumstance to cover it on this show Who knows The final 20 minutes of this movie are Just kind of escalating

[01:50:58] Action and stakes in a lot of ways Right, I mean it's like Aladdin, you know Jasmine finding out about Aladdin Jafar capturing him Thrung him in the water Underwater with the ball and chain sequence Which I just find very upsetting It's so scary Yeah, it is

[01:51:18] It's like a very different version of The Disney ending Yeah, it's like a different version Of the Disney ending And the tension of just trying to Eek his way over to the lamp Genie being a submarine though That's fun Yeah, it's cool when he does that

[01:51:36] It's really cool Come on kid you gotta wish for it You gotta wish for it kid He's on his side That's why the ending Feels like a toy company note On the other hand Robin Williams improvising so much Shit must have just been a fucking gold

[01:51:54] Mind to the toy companies when they watch this And he turns into a fucking submarine He wears a baseball player outfit Like every five seconds he's got A different toy Can I get like a genie submarine Toy? I'm sure I'm trying to google it right now

[01:52:10] Is there a genie one? I'm just looking at this here where it's like Genie, tux genie Genie no shirt Human disguised genie But can you get tied up Sulting with crackers in his mouth Oh that's a moment Yeah that's a weird aggro moment

[01:52:28] For Miyago where he's stuffing crackers In his mouth But I found that as a kid funny as hell That's a great payoff You like turning the tables You just like that Now you like the crackers And you're like that's a comedy The moral of the movie

[01:52:46] Is also the sultans like Well I could just change the law This is a one man state And I am at the top And it's like great Problem solved No other needs Nothing else needs to happen in Agrabah Clearly I just put it in the chat

[01:53:06] But I just found the best genie toy Which just speaks to how well these must have been Frenchman genie With the beret and the stripe shirt And it comes with a baguette Wow A baguette that looks like a maggot It's not a very appealing baguette

[01:53:22] It is a bug Alright guys should we play the box office game Like what else do we have here On Aladdin that we need to address It's just a What it ends like super Neatly he out wits them all He uses his street smarts

[01:53:38] I mean I like that moment where he says I'm gonna Miscode it but where genie is like What are you gonna do he's like a snake He's all powerful how can you stop him Aladdin's like yeah that's a Fucking Aladdin baby I find an angle

[01:53:52] That's a that's a that is the line Right the verbatim it is I'm fucking Aladdin baby I find an angle I'm fucking Aladdin I'll slide on a jewel I'll get this guy I don't know I'll do the old jewel slide

[01:54:04] I'm about to send you guys look how creepy Look how creepy it is Jafar genie doll Looks the Jafar genie He's scary Well this is very creepy because there's a Weirdly long tail and he's like Screaming He's like a gay pretty maw Yeah he's like ahhh

[01:54:24] This is a nightmare Amazon pointedly telling us That this item is currently unavailable We don't know if it will ever be back in Stop I just want to say Jafar genie he He thick He's a big boy Yeah he is a big chungus He's an absolute unit

[01:54:44] You know like if Robin Williams genie is kind of like Blobby and fun and you know sweet Jafar genie's got like a 12 Pack he's like a whole muscle I didn't because I didn't make it To the end of the guy Richie won did they do

[01:54:56] A big evil genie Jafar transformation what does he fucking look Like yes yes Just google it man Dude I'm trying to remember it now God yeah I guess he just He just becomes really big He's just like it looks Like him you know And he's a little

[01:55:16] Reddish you know but Oh yeah this song it looks like A fucking Oprah Winfrey in Wrinkle In Time it's just a large It's just a big person Jafar yeah It's like why just do this God I'm watching this And I'm like I saw this movie

[01:55:34] I have no memory of this But that's what I'm talking about it like It just exists as like Brand rejuvenation to remind people That they like the original thing more 100% Does Iaco not talk in the live action Remake right he doesn't talk He doesn't right it's Alan Tudyk

[01:55:52] The great Alan Tudyk but he just does squawks Right doing voices Alright Should we play the limited weekend When it opened on one screen Or should we play it's wide release That was Disney's thing for so long Was they would release it in literally

[01:56:08] Like one or two theaters And get every year just break the Per screen average And then the next weekend go wide I didn't even know that Yeah that was their trick So it goes wide On November 27th 1992 $30 million but it's not number one Griffin Whoa

[01:56:30] It's a sequel to a colossal hit It's a hit itself Home Alone 2 Correct Home Alone 2 They're lost in New York Which in its second weekend Has dropped 8% That's how big a deal that movie was It opened to 31 second weekend 28 Bizarre Let that sink in this is not normal

[01:56:54] Fundamentally a film that should Be unsequelable Right it's just like It is defying the will of god To make a second home alone You can't do it I mean I saw Home Alone 2 I think I watched it last Christmas And They have to go so far out of

[01:57:14] Their way to make so many jokes about Like we know, we look like bad parents We did this twice And you just want everyone to scream at them Like no you can't fucking Self-afacing joke your way out of this You are a monster What do you mean twice?

[01:57:30] He's also not Home Alone Let's be honest he's in New York No it's not his home He's not alone it's a packed city Very populated That's true a lot of people Number three at the movie is another Colossal hit of 1992 That is a major cultural moment

[01:57:48] It's an adult Romantic drama Very overwrought Not good But kind of undeniable I guess A big huge star At the peak of his powers And a huge Oh is it the bodyguard? Wow good guess Thank you You got it there Griffin yes Opening to number three

[01:58:18] Just gonna have the biggest legs Yeah wow Huge movie Number four Griffin Is a movie we'll do on this Podcast one day A crazy blank check Horror Film One of the best looking movies ever made Oh is it Bram Stoker's Dracula Dracula that's right

[01:58:42] This is a wild top five How did you guess that I mean at this point Jorah we're like an old married couple And I know from the way He phrases certain things Where I can go like what movie would he Think to describe that way

[01:58:56] We just know how each other's brains Worked too well We are cursed at this point And number five A great film From a major director Kind of I guess like a sort of his One of his big studio breakthrough Kind of movies I guess Like

[01:59:16] Great film major director Early in his career Fairly early in his career It's like his sixth or sixth movie I think But it's his sort of It's his first big movie In a way he's already a huge figure The director It's not Malcolm X is it

[01:59:36] It is Malcolm X It is Malcolm X A three hour 40 minute Biopic that was a big hit You know Should have won an Oscar for Denzel probably Like you know a huge Another like cultural landmark Moving. It is just also rare that we

[01:59:54] Get a top five like this that is such A perfect cultural snapshot of this exact Moment in culture. Absolutely. Where you're Just like between the stars that are in The top five between the subjects The genres, the filmmakers It's just like so it's like Robin Williams you know

[02:00:10] Like Keanu Reeves Oscar, Whitney Houston, Cully Caulkken, right Denzel. Absolutely. I mean Let me give you the bottom half. You got Passenger 57 with Wesley Snipes You got a river runs through it with Pitt You got Underseach with Seagal number One Ben so don't get too excited

[02:00:30] Yeah, don't get too mad You got Last of the Mohicans with Daniel DeLosie. You got the Mighty Ducks with The biggest star in the mall, Emilio Estavez Mighty Ducks. I just watched that Mighty Ducks and Mighty Ducks too D2 is so good

[02:00:44] D2 is the one I've seen the most I realize a lot of the movies I like I think because of my age Is the sequel. Yeah. So like You know, I know Home Alone is a classic But I remember watching Home Alone 2 But I remember

[02:00:58] I know Ghostbusters is great But I remember Ghostbusters 2 But Mighty Ducks 2 is empirically The better film. I mean that's the best Of the trilogy. The Knucklepuck baby Keenan Knucklepuck One of the most tram-fit moments in the history Of cinema is they pass the puck to

[02:01:14] Goldberg takes the mask off It wasn't Goldberg. It was fucking Keenan It was Keenan. Keenan! And just I remember like Their Team USA in that one The Cakes are high in a good way Good villains Because the first one they're like a weekend team

[02:01:30] And the second one they're like you have to represent Our nation in the Goodwill games Yes, it's didn't it got Smash brothers! It was crazy It was great. And then the third one Is just bizarre because it's pretty Dry and Emilio's in it for two minutes

[02:01:44] And it's about them having a new coach who's an asshole I have not seen it We might need to put Mighty Ducks in our franchise Bracket. It's a thing to consider David Yeah, are we gonna do it? Yeah, I feel like we were considering it Griffin

[02:01:56] Might have to happen. I mean You know what, I'm making it into a Disney Plus series so Yeah, right, this could be very topical Very topical. But that's yes No, that's a wild top 10 and especially those top five Movies are just like juggernauts Cultural! Yeah, huge huge huge

[02:02:12] And then Aladdin it just Continues to play and play and play and play And play It does It's a good movie Alright, we're done Griffin Okay, Jorah you're the best in the biz No man thank you for having me You really are Jorah

[02:02:30] People should still watch the Strammy Club on Netflix It's a great fucking sketch show canceled way too soon People should always Listen to Black Man Ken Jump in Hollywood Because you guys are one of the best podcasts out there But also you're working on your new

[02:02:42] Show for HBO Max Yes, you know hopefully Sherlock Homies will come To the screens Your home screens I guess soon Yeah man, just trying to pay rent Y'all so that's my Trying to pay rent and stay sane That's it Shatane run Harlem's first

[02:03:02] Detective Agency is the premise right? Yeah, so it's like These group of five People Come together to like Take on the jobs the police don't want to Which is just like the small stuff Something happens at a bodega The bodega cat went missing

[02:03:20] So it's like that little kind of stuff they take care of So it's like funny stuff but very New York centric Yeah, I love it I can't wait to see it I was excited whenever you pop up in anything Love it, thank y'all for having me man

[02:03:32] Of course And thank you all for listening And please remember to rate, review and subscribe Go to blankies.red.com For some real nerdy shit Go to our Shopify page where you can buy some Real nerdy merch including comedy Point coins back in stock

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[02:04:06] Dipping into track now, right? Yeah, we'll be in track, we'll be in track territory Yeah, I think we just started it I think is where we're at with track So you can listen to those Track episodes Just, we're just I'm sorry, we're starting it Tomorrow

[02:04:24] So tomorrow, Star Trek The motion picture Today, it started to It dropped today, you're enjoying it right now I assume you listen to both episodes at the same time You're listening to both at the same time Wow, at the same time, you're wonderful

[02:04:38] It's like that Flaming Lips album You burned it onto two different CDs And put boomboxes I always make that reference and you always have to give the specific name Because I never remember it I love that reference, it's a great reference It's like when I saw

[02:04:52] Evil J at the big three finals game one year Filming Ice Cube With two phones for reasons I will never understand He had two phones in his hands Filming the exact same thing with the exact same angle I don't know why Tune in next week For Hercules Hercules

[02:05:13] Hercules, Hercules We're talking Hercules next Week and as always Evil Jafar Genius That