[00:00:00] Blank Check with Griffin and David Blank Check with Griffin and David Don't know all you eat and know is that the name of the show is Blank Check
[00:00:21] Item 96. A heavy tax should be levied against all parasites and sponges, such as the elderly, the infirm, and especially little podcasts. I feel like I had it more for the first three syllables and then it got worse the longer it went on.
[00:00:40] There was also like a siren going by, so like kind of cut the Victorian mood a little bit, but that's okay. I apologize for living in New York City. I am so sorry, David. It's no problem.
[00:00:56] That I happen to take up residence in the city that never sleeps. David. It doesn't sleep. It doesn't. The siren is still going on. Foggy London Town. No, I hear that place sleeps a lot, but you wouldn't know anything about that.
[00:01:11] David, we were just talking about right before this started just how completely incompatible my apartment is for recording sound. It's so fun to be going on like month 10 of this. December, baby. December mid December, baby. And this is posting when February, February. So February will be 11 months, right?
[00:01:36] We're that will be 11. It will be 11 months. Yes. Yeah. But hey, a friend of mine's mom just got her vaccine. Oh, she's a nurse. I don't want to say the name, but she's a nurse. She's been working this whole time and she just got a vaccine.
[00:01:54] This feels like a great time to announce that I am about to enroll in nursing school. Nurse Griffin sounds, you know, like an ABC sitcom I would watch. Maybe Ken Jong's in there. You know, he's like your boss.
[00:02:12] Oh, probably. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's a soft doctor can reboot. Exactly. I like the idea of like nice Grey's Anatomy. Like Grey's Anatomy is 22 minutes. That's not a bad version of it. No, no. Maybe I should reboot Scrubs. I don't know what that is.
[00:02:32] Scrubs. What if there were Scrubs? America's favorite sitcom. Remember when Scrubs was a niche sitcom for a few years that kind of would like get renewed by the skin of its teeth.
[00:02:42] And then like it's star quit the show and ABC was like, can we get like two to three more seasons though? We just like never kill this show. Wait, they kept going after Brash. Yeah. I didn't know Scrubs was on ABC.
[00:02:57] They moved it. It was on NBC and then it was moved to ABC. Correct. Okay. Okay. Okay. I was really like maybe I don't know what Scrubs is for real.
[00:03:06] It was produced by ABC and then NBC picked it up and then NBC canceled it and then ABC was like, we will not let this thing die. We'll move it over to our network. Eight. So who is the star? Who's the focus? The janitor? There's a final season.
[00:03:23] What's her name? Jesus. Eliza Coop. She was the star. It was like six people. Yeah. Oh, I love Eliza Coop. And Dave Franco was in it. Oh, Dave Franco from Easy. We love Easy. Yes. And Carrie B. Shea, Taryn Killam. They got all these people.
[00:03:39] The final season, Ben is almost everyone left and Braff is in like four episodes as an advisor and it's like Scrubs the new class. Right. Wow. It's just like the X files. It's this whole thing where they're like, no, what people love is that the Scrubs themselves.
[00:04:00] No, no, no. People like the actors from Scrubs. That's what they liked. They got used to those guys. They don't just need anybody in hospital Scrubs like that's not going to keep them on board.
[00:04:11] The other thing that's so weird is that Scrubs never had the window where it was a phenomenon like X files. It was always like a decent performer that they just wouldn't let die and they ended up doing 182 episodes. It was its peak was, yeah, like a decent performer.
[00:04:31] It went from niche to decent back to like, oh, that's still on. Wasn't the other thing. I remember season eight having like a hard finale ending. Like they were like, we know this is our last season. Let's wrap up all the threads.
[00:04:47] They ended. They shot the final episode and then ABC was like, no, we're going to ask you for one more. So there's like, they had to sort of undo the packaging. The finale of Scrubs, of course, everyone remembers the episode naming convention was always my blah.
[00:05:07] Right? That was the name of every episode. So the finale of season eight is called My Finale and JD Zach Braff like moves, you know, he like leaves the hospital. He moves to some other town and then season nine he's like, I'm back baby.
[00:05:24] Like to teach you guys. But part time. Right? He made like so much money only being a couple episodes. I'm sorry. My finale JD intends to leave Sacred Heart to move closer to his son while he and Elliott plan to take their relationship to the next level.
[00:05:39] He had a kid with someone else. He had a kid with Elizabeth Banks. God, somebody didn't watch Scrubs. I thought I did. He had a kid with Elizabeth Banks and it is revealed.
[00:05:49] It was one of those end of season reveals where like he's like, and everything's going good for me. And then she like shows up at his house and she's like an old girlfriend. You know, she was in old episodes and she's like, I'm pregnant.
[00:06:02] And it's like, whoa, you know, and like then so season six, they had to figure it out. And in season six, episode one, they revealed that he got her pregnant without having sex because he like jizzed near her. Oh boy. Okay.
[00:06:14] Is that why people thought that in like middle school and high school? There were always all these like, you got to be careful or like the that's how you get pregnant.
[00:06:22] I just really clearly remember a scene where he describes to Turk, the best character on Scrubs of course, that like they were having sex, but he got too excited and like finished before they started. Oh boy. And Turk laughs at him.
[00:06:38] And it's like, oh my God, JD like, you know, he can't even get pregnant regular. I don't know. I'm sorry. Scrubs! How many cold sitcoms have Elizabeth Banks get pregnant by one of the leads in the last couple seasons? I'm sorry, your 30 Rock is the other one.
[00:06:55] Is there a third? Are you trying to find a trend here? I'm trying to find a trend here. Hmm. I mean she was apparently on American Dad. Is there something you could do that maybe? Hmm. Maybe. I don't know.
[00:07:08] Apparently she dropped in for seven episodes of Modern Family. Okay. So, you know, people are always getting pregnant on that show. It's a family show. Well, it's modern. It's very modern. But you can't forget. That family is so modern. We still haven't caught up to them.
[00:07:24] God, I'm so glad Modern Family's off the air. I don't want to see like Modern Family confronting COVID. Same with Scrubs. It's so good that some of these like the shows that I had a lot of strengths but could be a little cloying if they wanted to be.
[00:07:40] The last thing I need is their pandemic takes. You know, Kirby enthusiasm is filming again now. Well that I cannot wait. That sounds great. Yeah, that'll be the best. But it's set post-vaccine. It's set when things are like under control.
[00:08:01] But apparently Larry David is just like completely paranoid on set at all times about catching it. I just, I'm somewhat perplexed by the decision to not just wait a year on his part. I don't know what to tell you. I don't know what to tell me either.
[00:08:22] You should probably introduce the show and the new mini series and our guest. Sure. This is Scrubcast, a podcast in which we recap Scrubs only from memory. Right. And we're kind of hostile to it even though it was a perfectly charming show.
[00:08:39] We're like, what's your fucking deal Scrubs? I truly have not ever seen a single episode. So I would be learning Scrubs from memory. You're the new. This is like Simpsons play but for Scrubs. Hey David that's a great take.
[00:08:56] Our podcast is about a bright eyed and bushy tailed young podcaster stepping into the world of Scrubs for the first time. Overwhelmed but with a rise sense of humor to all the obstacles. Right. They faced before them.
[00:09:14] I don't know this podcast is called Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin. I'm David and it's a good podcast. Well, come on let's not get ahead of ourselves. But what's that? David, what's that off in the horizon? I don't know but I think it's getting closer.
[00:09:32] Oh it's a cruise ship. It's a big ship. It's a big ship and they has a banner atop it and it's unfurling in the wind. I can't see it, the fog all the fog but it's coming closer. And David the banner says new mini series. Wow. The banner.
[00:09:52] Best place to put a banner is on a boat. It's one of those mission accomplished banners except it's the opposite. Mission started. Mission accomplished. Mission started. Yeah it was great, it was perfect. That was the moment we fixed America and it stayed fixed since then.
[00:10:10] Ladies and gentlemen this is a podcast of alphamography's directors who have massive success early on in their career and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. Sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they are unfurled atop a cruise ship baby.
[00:10:26] And this is a new mini series on the films of Musker and Clements who are talking Disney renaissance. It's called The Puddle Mercast. Wow, your voice trembled as you said that. I'm scared, I'm scared of the power of this mini series title.
[00:10:46] The raw power it holds, The Puddle Mercast. The Puddle Mercast we've finally done it. It's putting consonants together like they haven't been put together before. I honestly think look Fran you need to understand I'm a comedian okay?
[00:11:04] I push boundaries and sometimes I miss but I have to try, I have to try to put The Puddle Mercast together. Folks we're talking Musker and Clements, we're talking Disney renaissance, we're talking Great Mouse Detective and most of all today we're talking Radigan. That's right.
[00:11:23] It's a big subject and in order to commemorate that we had to bring in a blockbuster guest, Lays and Jowyn from the Aliens with the Dollar Sign episode from the Public Enemies episode Fran Hofner is here. Hello. Hi. Also from life? From life.
[00:11:45] Thank you for having me back to talk about one of my favorite presumably tenured professors. Radigan himself. Yeah, Professor Radigan. It was an immediate the second we committed to doing this David said and of course Fran is going to come on to talk about Radigan. That's right.
[00:12:03] Every year I fire off one to three insane tweets about Radigan just to keep him in the mix you know? Oh God now I'm gonna look. Can we talk about as we search for these tweets do you remember your first exposure to Radigan?
[00:12:20] How did your relationship with Radigan begin? Is this a movie you saw as a young child that stir the feelings in you immediately? This is a great question and I did research for this because I needed to figure out exactly what the deal was.
[00:12:33] So we had a handful of VHS, Disney VHS's but we did not have, we had both the full length feature films but we also had the Disney sing-along song compilations. You're familiar with these I imagine. Oh very yes.
[00:12:51] So we had two or three of those and one and we had and I went and looked these up and they have all the track listing so I was trying to figure out which one we had but we absolutely had the be our guest one from 1992
[00:13:02] which is you know predominantly beauty in the beast songs. I loved beauty in the beast but also had you know random one off songs including you know Heffa Lumps and Wuzels but then also the world's greatest criminal mind.
[00:13:17] So this was something I definitely watched from the ages of I don't know two to seven all the time and I love Radigan. I loved him so much. I think the world's greatest criminal mind which watching as an adult I'm like this song is not very good
[00:13:36] but I was just obsessed with this sort of like two minute clip and they obviously sort of cut out the you know the execution of his henchmen from this video and it was just sort of rats boozing and looking at jewels
[00:13:51] and I just sort of I really loved him and it probably wasn't until I was seven or eight that I got great mouse detective out from probably the library. We were a library VHS family not a blockbuster VHS family
[00:14:05] and I was like this is actually too scary for me and I don't like it because it has forced me to reckon with Radigan in the context of himself which is horrifying. On his own terms. Yes in a sort of edited music video perfect man.
[00:14:22] Do you think he's a professor at the University of Evil? Absolutely. Yeah. Yes. Tenured. Tenured. Easily tenured. It's an interesting I mean memory you're jostling up here Fran because the Disney sing-along videos were very formative to me too
[00:14:39] but it sort of like underlines this film's weird place in the Disney canon because those videos would often be like primarily themed around one of like the canonical movies whether it was a classic or whether it was a Renaissance
[00:14:55] or more modern one and those were the movies that were just always in the Disney conversation. Like I was a big fucking Disney kid. I was just like on the teeth for whatever they were selling me but then there were the movies like Great Mouse
[00:15:08] Detective where they would sort of ignore them other than when it's like it's time in the seven year re-release cycle was up you know and then you'd watch like a sing-along video and as a kid you'd be like
[00:15:21] what is this? Why does this never get discussed? What is this one? Who's this gentleman rat? Yeah I mean it was my exposure to a lot of the ones that I just never really saw also like Bedknob's and Broomsticks
[00:15:35] like they slotted in those ones that are not full musicals and to this day like I haven't seen Bedknob's and Broomsticks I couldn't tell you what happens in it but like I know I saw that song
[00:15:45] we also had the one that has Whale of a Tail, the Kirk Douglas iteration whatever that sing-along one was so that for a long time that was all I had seen of that film like weird stuff got slotted in there
[00:15:58] and I so Radegin just sort of existed kind of context list for me for a number of years. Zippity-Doodle would also always be on those sing-along videos and then you'd be like what is this from? And they'd be like nothing it's not from a movie there's no movie.
[00:16:13] I know my I remember my dad was like I guess we can talk about this but like I remember that that was his way or he was like I mean I guess we have to talk about America's history of racism sometime so sure
[00:16:26] Zippity-Doodle being on this fucking video is the time to bring this up. You know Zippity-Doodle overrated don't even put it because they're always like well yeah they get song in the south out of you know they try to ignore it except for Zippity-Doodle
[00:16:42] and I'm like why are you so addicted to Zippity-Doodle just get rid of it. Yeah it's also so fascinating where they're like look this movie is terrible this movie is awful
[00:16:52] we can never release it it's a blight in our company's history we have built one of our most famous theme park rides around it Zippity-Doodle will be played at every possible opportunity We will never hesitate to play Zippity-Doodle
[00:17:06] and you could just make up new words like they could have just remixed it Blippity-Doo-Bop Slow Zippity-Doodle Blippity-Doo-Bop but they should just fucking they should knock down racist mountain or whatever and they should build foggy London town instead they should have a great mouse detective world
[00:17:33] it's time to bring this movie back I think that's my opinion You know what they're actually doing I mean look I like that and we'll get into that but you know what they're actually doing they're replacing Splash Mountain with Tiana Oh they are?
[00:17:49] Oh that's fun right you told me that That sounds great that's another movie we're gonna cover that's really exciting Exactly that's why I'm bringing it up but it's wild that it took that long This movie comes at such an interesting folk-rune point
[00:18:03] I mean I feel like Muscle and Clements are different than a lot of the directors we've covered before I mean first of all they are only the second team we have covered behind the Wachowskis True
[00:18:17] And also they span this transition point to I think American studio animation being seen of as more of an Autorist thing but they are very much from the old school where these are sort of collaborative movies
[00:18:33] these are not like you know filmmaker driven movies in the same sense If you look at early Disney films they don't have credited directors right and then they get to a point where they have like a ton of directors This movie has four credit directors
[00:18:47] The other two guys don't really direct after this They remain Disney company men one of them I think was much older One of them sort of becomes more of a story guy But Muscle and Clements did not come up the ranks as a team
[00:19:02] They had sort of cross paths in different areas, different points Up until this point they get assigned to this movie as two or four directors And then this solidifies I think where they become a team for the rest of their career until they retired fairly recently
[00:19:18] But they are a vessel for us to be able to talk about the Disney Renaissance which is obviously this very transformative period in animation in America We're going to talk about these guys and I think they have a great body of work
[00:19:37] that's going to be really fascinating to discuss But right we are also just talking about a very influential moment in commercial movie making They're just also perfectly representative They're among the most influential directors on general culture that we have covered
[00:19:56] along with like Spielberg and James Cameron or whatever You know what I mean? Right, and they touch a lot of other important collaborators different movements and things going on But it is harder to find information centering them in the stories of these movies
[00:20:13] than it has been with the other directors we've covered up until this point And I have to imagine that will continue being somewhat of a through line because the stories of these movies tend to be very collaborative when they're retold now
[00:20:27] But there's much, you know, but these look we're going to talk about it But they have a very interesting Their partnership has a very interesting genesis and it's, you know, while making this movie The Great Mouth Protective, their first movie
[00:20:43] which they, yes, they co-directed with Dave Michener who I really know nothing about and Bernie Mattinson who's like still a, he's like Disney's grand old man He's the longest serving employee of Walt Disney ever Did you know this? He's 85 years old and he still works there
[00:21:04] He like worked on Ralph Breaks the Internet, you know, he's still going Yeah, nice, great movie He's just like, one of those guys who You'll know this term better than I do, Griff He started out as an in-betweener on Lady and the Tramp
[00:21:19] And in-betweeners, they draw like the boring shit in between the key frames Like they're like, they do the sort of grunt work Right, right, the key frames of the big pose is the in-betweeners fill in the gaps to move them from one pose to another
[00:21:34] Yes, it's the grunt work of character animation to some degree But we've sort of covered different parts of this in different mini series We've gotten to some of this in Roger Rabbit Obviously a lot of this keys into the origins of Brad Bird
[00:21:51] Who we covered on the show But this is sort of this generation of Cal Arts animators who are all in the same class, all part of the same sort of wave who are kind of the last guys to be taught hands-on by the kind of classic
[00:22:09] wise old men Disney animators And so they're the last guys who are sort of like the giver style passed along the secrets of classic Disney style character animation and then are released out into the world to a Disney Studios that doesn't
[00:22:25] is kind of in disarray, doesn't really know what to do with itself anymore Is in shambles, is constantly questioning whether or not they even want to be in the animation business Eisner takes over Is literally run by a football player Yes, who was the physical inspiration for Radigan?
[00:22:44] That's right Excuse me Did you know that Fran? Yes, Ron Miller He's based on a joke What? He was CEO of Disney from 83 to 84 Are you telling me someone successful in sports became in charge of a company?
[00:22:59] Yes, a former tight end for the LA Rams in the 50s And he greenlit this movie and was the It said I want to look like a tenured rat The thing about Ron Miller Griffin is he also greenlit Tron and Frankenweenie
[00:23:18] He was like weirdly just and he greenlit Roger Rabbit He was like let's try weird shit, right? Like he was the weird innovator before Eisner comes in and sort of you know And Katzenberg, you know they start streamlining back to like no Disney should be this
[00:23:35] Beautiful magical thing the families love like you know it's gonna be We're gonna break this formula sing baby Okay, so he was a jock He became a CEO his body inspired a professor and he's weird Yeah What the hell Oh god
[00:23:53] This is deep in Google images right now He's also on a great Wikipedia list List of celebrities who own wineries and vineyards It's a good list of things Oh Silverado It's like Hammond Cameron Diaz, right? Yeah Man what can I say
[00:24:16] Ron, Ron Miller he was the one who taught me it was okay to be weird Here's the thing about that I know the phrasing of that is a joke I cannot remember what it is referencing it's been so long you know I don't even remember who said that
[00:24:34] I don't remember what the origin of it was I just feel like it's anytime someone who is very mainstream for being out there dies It's like David Bowie. Wow, what can I say? I thought Bowie was the one that sort of cemented this
[00:24:49] I think of Bowie as the linchpin yeah Ron Miller they had already cast Vincent Price at that point and we're basing it off of a Vincent Price performance in another movie And had started designing Radigan as being kind of like skinny and Wiery and
[00:25:12] Nervy and then Ron Miller walked in and they were like oh that would be interesting If he had that voice in that body so that was the sort of like meshing
[00:25:22] Of the two which I think gets to the interesting chemistry of Radigan that makes him stick in your mind in your heart Yeah, and I think what's both terrifying and alluring about him is his general size
[00:25:33] And is what is scary about rats in general is that rat like rats are not mice like rats are big Too big They're too big I agree Way too big
[00:25:44] Eisner and Katzenberg come in you know like Katzenberg is a card counter Eisner at this point is just like A boss sort of studio chief And they're like we've got to crack Paramount right? Yes, we got to crack the formula on this thing
[00:26:03] The movie that's in production when they take over is Black Cauldron which seems Headed in the wrong direction but was too deep to pull the plug and it's also The great master movie that Clements and Musker were working on and stopped working on because they hated
[00:26:22] How it was going Yeah, is it any good? I've It's interesting Hilariously, I've only seen it without sound and the background of a house party It might be the best way to watch it It might It's kind of cool looking
[00:26:40] Yeah, it definitely is like always spoken of as the one that kind of broke Disney animation Not just in its failure but even just everyone who worked on it Kind of either like threw up their hands in frustration or got pushed off of it
[00:26:55] That's the one that Tim Burton got fired from because his drawings were too creepy And the movie is notorious for being too creepy Right, it was too dark and everyone was like Disney's lost it, it's over, cartoons are not cool For families anymore
[00:27:10] And there have been the run of stuff before that like Fox and the Hound and Rescuers That were like marginal successes but it was kind of clear like post-Walt death That the magic was a little bit had waned
[00:27:22] Then Black Cauldron is them trying to sort of evolve the form They're adapting more modern book series It's like they moved away from sort of fables and fairy tales And now you have things like the Rescuers and Black Cauldron which are all based on somewhat contemporary book series
[00:27:38] Things that are less hugely iconic And they were trying to like can we make a darker film? Can we make a big fantasy epic? But none of it's working And the Great Mouse Detective was based on a book series called Basil of Baker Street
[00:27:56] Which had been pitched a couple times internally at Disney as being good material for film But they kept on pushing it off because they thought it was too similar to the Rescuers Like we already have a Mouse Mystery Solving series
[00:28:11] It is undeniable that this is just a boom time for fucking mice Like the Rescuers, The Five-Oil movie comes out this year This, The Rats of Nym, it's a lot of rodents I know Mickey of the house that Mickey built Oh the Rats of Nym!
[00:28:27] Yeah, you know, it is wild to think that suddenly it was just all mice all the time Rodent PR was at an all time boom in the 80s With a ten year span, Don Bluth made three mouse movies Disney made three mouse movies
[00:28:43] And two of those mouse movies were sequels to other mouse movies And it's crazy, and none involved Mickey Mickey meanwhile is just like, yeah he's just cleaning up the garbage I guess I don't know what he's doing
[00:28:56] But yeah, it's like as you say, right this had long been gestating They had done a, Clements had created a 15 minute Sherlock Holmes animated short On Super 8 film that was sort of like floating around That's what got him hired at Disney in the first place
[00:29:13] He was a big Sherlock Holmes fan But he gets added to this project last because they give it the sort of tentative green light They do the couple years of story development Then Black Cauldron comes out and eats shit And they're like, okay we're teetering on the edge
[00:29:31] Do we shut down animation entirely? Apparently Eisner at that point was floating the idea like Our re-releases do so well Every seven years we're re-releasing classics and theaters They do so well and we have enough of them at this point
[00:29:47] We could just never make a new animated movie ever again And we'd be a solvent company just off the re-releases VHS comes about around this point in time So that adds some wind to the sales They throw the VHS into the Disney vault system
[00:30:02] Where they're gonna be released and unreleased And unreleased every seven years as well With Pinocchio being the first of those So they're a little more cash liquid And they're trying to decide like should we still be in this business And they look at Great Mouse Detective
[00:30:16] And they go like this is low risk enough This feels more classical, it's lighter It's sort of more the direction we should be going in Away from Black Cauldron But they go like okay we're gonna cut your production time in half
[00:30:28] And we're gonna cut your budget in half So it was like a 22 million dollar movie That was supposed to take three years to animate And then it becomes a year and a half at 10 million dollars And then they add two extra directors onto it
[00:30:41] Because it becomes an all hands on deck We gotta get this done movie I think I like about this film Is it has this energy that I think Toy Story 2 has as well Which is just like you can tell it's made by people losing their minds
[00:30:57] You can tell it's made by people who are so overworked And feel like they're fighting for the very survival of the medium they've trained in That the animation is all just loopy Like the performances, the actual character animation this movie is loopy This movie, yeah that's fair
[00:31:17] This movie is pretty weird Which I would not say is true of any other movie we're going to cover in this miniseries I got Oak Charger Planet, that's sort of You know what I mean? By and large this movie is just kind of tonally odd
[00:31:33] It's kind of sexy It's more adult than you want to give it credit for And there's always those people who are like the hidden sex stuff Or like this is more adult than you would think But I think this one genuinely is like hovering in a weird place
[00:31:51] Where like I think when I saw this at full length as a child I was like this is kind of too scary for me And watching as an adult I'm surprised by the adult stuff in it You know that nightclub scene is undeniably adult
[00:32:06] The nightclub scene is what the unhinged part Really it's hot, it's hot, it's very hot I'd like to go there Yeah but I think that also like you know it speaks to animation being at this kind of Amorphous point in its evolution
[00:32:25] At least in terms of like a big studio level And Don Bluth has decamped like six years before this And is going out making his own films sort of saying like Disney's done, I took all the best guys with me We're gonna start the new frontier
[00:32:42] Spielberg has been called Bluth He's busy making his own mouse films This movie comes out overperforms a little bit Just enough to let the axe sort of you know To stop the axe from dropping at Disney animation And then of course like four or five months later
[00:33:05] Fival comes out, American Tale And grosses twice as much as this movie And it becomes I think the first A. The highest grossing non-Disney animated film in the States And B. I think the first Disney film to be out grossed by a rival studio In its given year
[00:33:26] Right it made way more If the release had been flipped This movie might have been a death knell Like it benefited from coming out first Overperforming and the wheels got turning on the next wave of movies Before Fival came out and sort of made them eat their lunch
[00:33:42] Now let me just before we talk about the movie more Yes I just want to say a few things about Ron Clements and John Musker Who are the same age both 67 Similar names They're Ron and John They've got similar names
[00:33:56] People I feel like often are like is it John Clements and Ron Musker Right you know like they flip the first names I did this last episode yes Right Or you thought you did it But you actually had done okay Who knows you could tell me either way
[00:34:10] Yes Ron Clements he's from Sioux City Iowa Okay And he's worked as an animator for years And he's been married to his wife Tamara Tamara Jesus Since 1989 That's really all I got on him He seems just like a nice guy Yeah they just look like nice grandpas
[00:34:31] Fran you're gonna want to hear this John Musker Yes I'm here Hello He's from Chicago Illinois Okay that's what I'd like to hear Can we get a little more specific about where in Chicago Illinois No but I can tell you that he's the second of eight children
[00:34:47] In an Irish Catholic family That's right okay that sort of Does some geographical settling for me Sure and that his dad Robert Musker Worked for over 40 years at Illinois Bell Telephone Hey that's nice I used to use the phone all the time back in Chicago
[00:35:04] I think that's a lot of people don't know that we have those out there And we're using them all the time That's huge Thanks The thing that's the most interesting And we'll talk about this a little bit next week
[00:35:15] But I do think this is the week to talk about where we're setting them up But yes as you say they sort of both get They're both guys who work at Disney They work on a lot of the projects you would have heard of
[00:35:25] You know Fox and the Hound, Black Cauldron Right all that stuff Yeah They're both thrown onto this movie Obviously like you say Clements is actually a Holmes fan So he's more right passionate about this You know whatever But while they're making this movie
[00:35:40] Eisner and Katzenberg hold the gong show Right the famous gong show Where they're like pitch us your ideas You know and deliver die And the idea was also like anyone at the company can pitch an idea Like a janitor can come in and pitch an idea
[00:35:56] We're so desperate for ideas for our next wave of movies Anyone can come in We'll gong them if it sucks But you could potentially pitch the next Disney animation film And Clements and Musker Now I'm trying I think it's Clements pitches I want to get this exactly right
[00:36:16] Clements pitches the little mermaid He's like Hans Christian Anderson is the little mermaid He gives a little pitch And Katzenberg is like Splash just came out You know Eisner is the one who rejects that Splash just came out we can't do a mermaid And Clements pitches Treasure Planet
[00:36:36] A sci-fi Treasure Island movie Which is his deepest passion project So these are the two cornerstones of like The career we'll talk about right Little mermaid which brings them success Treasure Planet which is their lowest moment Right like that's the sort of pill leaves Right both rejected
[00:36:56] Yes they had them in the back pocket already this early Yes both rejected Right but it is crazy and that's where they unite Like Muskers like I like those ideas right there That's where they their partnership forms
[00:37:09] Katzenberg is like alright maybe work up a little mermaid treatment for me And that's where it all happens it's just it is crazy to think It's like it's really as little as that like dumb gong show thing Yeah I mean this movie was just successful enough
[00:37:26] To let the little mermaid live and it was like you know buy a hair The other thing that happens at this point Or roughly around this point is they bring in Why I'm forgetting their names now Schumacher Patrick Schumacher And the other guy who I'm forgetting
[00:37:45] Who kind of take over Disney animation directly overseeing it Because it was vaguely Roy Disney's domain But he admitted that he didn't really have the talent to oversee it He was just kind of like the connection to the past
[00:38:02] And Eisner said to him like you could use a Katzenberg Right right right Roy E. Disney right he's the right correct guy who's right yes okay So just crazy to think without little mermaid Disney as we know it does not exist modern Disney No
[00:38:28] Right fair to say I know Sorry the guy's names I just want to give credit here I apologize Peter Schneider is the one guy Thomas Schumacher is the other guy They come from a theatrical background And that's when the influence starts coming in on little mermaid
[00:38:45] Of sort of the Broadway musical sensibility being brought into these movies Sorry David what were you saying Nothing I mean no I was basically done I know Beast Beauty and the Beast happens somewhat parallel To little mermaid but that was also a movie that was made very quickly
[00:38:59] I think little mermaid Little mermaid is really the first thing that gets going after this And that's why we now have Dr. Strange and the multiverse of madness Like and we should give thanks to the great mouse detective Basil of Baker Street for that
[00:39:21] But Peter Schneider comes on I think in the early stages of this movie And Schumacher comes on later And they're sort of tasked with like you got to fix the culture around here
[00:39:37] There was a lot of cynicism I think from the animators that like this is going to get shut down any day These people in charge are bean counters There's this notorious like all hands on deck meeting They would do like 8am meetings with everybody
[00:39:53] Where Eisner and Katzenberg with no previous experience in animation Would sort of chastise them on what they were doing correctly And yeah I think Eisner especially as a Paramount live action guy Is like this movie is boring like you know is right
[00:40:09] And he's like it's just slow you need to jazz this up Like as if they could just like go and shoot some new scenes Like as if this is not this complicated process to make an animated movie
[00:40:19] Right and like the burlesque number which we've already sort of alluded to He wanted Madonna to do it He wanted Michael Jackson to do it And he wanted them to do it after had it already been animated Michael Jackson is the one that I believe he first pitched
[00:40:34] And the like thing I read is like his suggestion was met with an uncomfortable silence And Eisner withdrew the idea There's a lot of that shit So I mean Schneider's the guy who comes in who is sort of trying to like ease relations
[00:40:52] Right he's kind of the go between between the two groups And he comes from a creative background He's not a bean counter And he's the one who really starts listening to what the animators want to do And opens up the gates for Little Mermaid to come next
[00:41:06] But this is the movie kind of stuck between those two pillars Yes there's that movie Waking Sleeping Beauty Worth watching, I feel like some Schneider content It's all about the renaissance But this is right if you're talking about the quote unquote Disney renaissance
[00:41:24] This often is not even included This is the sort of weird bridge movie along with Oliver and Company Where it's like kind of the start of it But it's not you know the success isn't quite there yet It's kind of the guarantor
[00:41:39] Yeah it's a bit of a guarantor I saw this film in 1992 when it was re-released in theaters And it was a fairly pivotal, I remember it fairly well Like when I was watching this movie I was like oh I remember like exact like frames of this thing
[00:41:56] Like you know it's just that when you're a kid that stuff kind of burns into your brain Did you, you must have been too young though I'm assuming you did not see it in theaters Well I mean my first movie I saw in theaters was The Jungle Book
[00:42:10] Which I think was 91 or 92 for re-release I mean I distinctly remember that even though you argue that there's no way I could remember that You were very small I was very small, I don't think I saw this in theaters
[00:42:22] I think I saw this in video and I think it was one of those movies Sort of like what I was saying to Fran where I didn't realize it existed for a while It would feel like only when the re-release came about they would sort of act like
[00:42:34] And yes the Great Mouse Detective it's always been here I remember very clearly and it's again you know just one of those kid memories where you just remember a thing That's on its face Monday Like being on the bus, the bus that went down Broadway
[00:42:50] The M1 probably whatever that bus is Going to the movie theater and my dad trying to explain to me what Sherlock Holmes was To set me up for this movie This was my question was like did you have any frame of reference for Sherlock Holmes
[00:43:02] If I did it would probably begin and end with like it's a man who's a detective Like I don't think so, like I think he was trying to be like just so you know like he lives on Baker Street
[00:43:12] He has an assistant called Watson like this movie is referencing all you know He's just the thing of where your parent is just trying to like prime you for some of the world that you're about to enter when you're very small Does that make sense? Yes it does
[00:43:28] I'm trying to figure out if this was my introduction to Sherlock Holmes See I feel like I probably saw it late enough that I understood who Sherlock Holmes was at least as like a cultural meme
[00:43:41] But it is interesting how this movie doesn't operate like Robin Hood say where it's like oh it's a retelling of this classic character with animals
[00:43:53] This is very much like a riff on Sherlock Holmes like a lot of its potency comes from you understanding the way the real Sherlock Holmes works Yes it's jokes for fans
[00:44:05] The way Basil is introduced no one ever really slows down and is like so here's the deal with this guy and here's why he acts this way You just kind of have to be like right that's how Sherlock Holmes behaves he's like rude
[00:44:16] He's crazy, his landlady hates him, he's got his violin I think my introduction to Sherlock Holmes honestly was wishbone that's the other thing I'm sort of Oh that's Mapping onto my youth is I feel like I remember wishbone in the detective outfit pre this movie
[00:44:33] Right I mean when you're watching this you are like I mean and this is the coldest take possible You're like yeah I mean Sherlock Holmes it's a formula that always works like I can see why they fucking reboot this every five years right
[00:44:49] Like yeah he's bossy the other guy's befuddled there's a mystery to solve like this this is clicking like it right away I get it Yeah he's mean but then he's kind of nice at the end Basically what like all television is right
[00:45:03] But there's something pointedly more adult about him as a character which I think we're sort of getting at where it's like You can take a character like Robin Hood and like smooth out the edges and just make him heroic
[00:45:15] But there's something kind of more in innately hard edged about Holmes Especially the fact that he's dealing with like real crimes you know that in order for the character to function
[00:45:26] He has to be preventing murder from happening you know or at least trying to find justice for it He tests bullets that were fired from guns you know that's a little real This movie has like cigarette smoke and shit Disney would never allow any of that
[00:45:42] This movie makes smoking look so cool I'll just I'll say that that's okay though only for animals I wonder if it has the disclaimer on it because like now Disney plus it feels like well more often
[00:45:56] They won't put it before the movie but they'll put it on the page Yeah it has like a content you know it contains depiction of smoking or whatever you know They should say in the smoking looks cool Yeah make smoking look rad Rad again Rad again
[00:46:13] What I was gonna say though I don't know if any of you remember this I was such a big Looney Tunes kid But there was like this sub-genre of Looney Tunes that were animals that behave like classic comedians Or sitcoms or comedy duos
[00:46:31] Like there was like a cat, Abbott and Costello And there was a couple of cartoons that was like the Jack Benny program with mice
[00:46:39] This rings a fame fell but it was one it would have been one of those things where I saw it where I was like I don't get what this is Well that's what I was gonna equate it to like there were things
[00:46:47] And also how Peter Laurie would be in Looney Tunes Yes, yes And you're just like who is this guy and my dad or mom would be like oh that's like an actor who was like famous when this was made Like but I can't explain this
[00:47:01] Yes, these ones were so hyper specific because it would be like oh it's a mouse version of the honeymooners And every character dynamic is the same and it's just mapped onto a small hole in a house you know where they all live
[00:47:14] The Jack Benny when I remember in particular where it's like watching as a child and going like these are specific references There's something I'm supposed to be getting when he's calling for Rochester that is not apparent
[00:47:25] And this has the same relationship I know it's based on a book but the fact that it literally starts with like here's the address
[00:47:33] Here's the silhouette in the window and then we sort of go down and here in the bottom in the hole is the mouse equivalence of the real characters you're used to usually following
[00:47:44] Like even watching as a child you're made very aware that there's some odd like they aren't the real thing There's some reason they keep on refocusing attention on this guy upstairs who were not following
[00:48:00] Now I'm really remembering also the Peter Laurie thing where I had the experience like seeing Casa Banca the first time where I'm like That's Peter Laurie from the from Looney Tunes They got the Looney Tunes there
[00:48:13] It's the real man right it was so surreal to see it backwards Man, tenet Alright Tenet moment for me Tenet Knock it off I haven't seen it yet Look Fran it'll open some of the right doors maybe some of the wrong ones too
[00:48:28] Right I mean like you haven't seen it but in another way it's not a matter of have it's a matter of when In certain ways you have seen tenet Fran So the Great Mouse detective I saw it in 92 I don't think I've seen it since then
[00:48:47] It's not a movie we owned you know obviously we owned plenty of the Disney's this one we didn't I assume you didn't either Griff No I watching it today I thought to myself I maybe have only seen this once before on video when I was seven Same
[00:49:05] I threw this on and I texted you Griff and I was just like it's obvious like you say this movie was made cheaply It's obvious that it's the cutting corn right you know like they're really just trying to stretch their pennies
[00:49:20] You said your exact wording was this is like the cheapest Disney movie ever made and it makes all modern animation look like a toilet Makes all modern animation look like a toilet And then you said a picture of Olivia Flavisham and said look how cool Olivia Flavisham is
[00:49:35] I also got that I also got fit check on Olivia Flavisham she looks great She's fucking serving this eight year old Scottish Mouse in a beret She's just barging in and I'm like this woman is incredible She's the best She's a girl she's so good
[00:49:52] She's and I loved her as a kid when I finally saw it I was like Radigan move over there's a nice little girl And to read about the production of this movie where they were like that character was almost was a grown-up initially
[00:50:06] Right, but it was supposed to be a love interest for Basil Right, these classics are a lot of poems right you know right she's got a she's a damsel and they were like she should be a kid So that the kids have someone to relate to good note
[00:50:18] Who comes in and is like hey have you noticed there are no child characters in this children's movie like maybe this is going to be a little weird You've got a doctor who just like came over from Afghanistan
[00:50:29] Right it would be crazy to have a children's movie where it's like a detective a surgeon and a professor And be like get invested in this
[00:50:37] But I guess like I mean the rescuers is kind of like that I mean they'd sort of made this mistake a couple times recently Did they have the character do cocaine in this movie and they ended up cutting it out
[00:50:49] Yeah, you know he injects it right in there oh yeah Okay sure that's what I thought That's another thing we should mention is this movie is like 72 minutes without credits they just like whittled it down to the bone
[00:51:01] Hell yeah that was the other thing I was like this thing's gonna be over this is like an episode of a Netflix show that's a little long
[00:51:09] You know this is like when you you queue up an episode of fucking godless and you're like oh god this one's over an hour Like what the fuck is going on here like is there no quality control in Netflix
[00:51:23] If you read the like Sherlock Holmes books though those are also extremely straightforward books and like canonically those are just like very simplistic very in and out Here's the premise they solve it they move on
[00:51:37] Right apart from like how to the Baskervilles which is longer and not as good in my opinion
[00:51:42] Like then the novel length ones I often don't didn't like as much I liked the stories like yeah the little ones are good and now it's like now we stretch Sherlock Holmes out into like a two and a half hour Two and a half hour thing
[00:51:54] Well he's got to be a boxer you know And Nola Holmes is like two hours and twenty minutes Is it It's pretty long I like it though that's sort of mine that's my crazy take
[00:52:07] Did you see that thing where Robert Daniel Jr. did an interview recently and they asked him about Sherlock Holmes 3 And like that movie had been in stasis for a while and then they announced Dexter Fletcher and it seemed like it was like getting ready to go soon
[00:52:21] And he was like COVID has given us the opportunity to step back and really examine it And realize there's not an interconnected mystery cinematic universe out there There should be a mystery verse A mystery verse Dark Dark Holmes
[00:52:38] Oh God wait wait what studio has Sherlock Holmes Warner Brothers Warner Brothers 18 So I guess you could have a magnifying glass go over the logo I'm trying to think of how you can mess with the logo to demonstrate the universe
[00:52:52] But like motherfucker mystery verse what bullshit are you talking about Are you telling me Sherlock Holmes That's the franchise the franchise is Sherlock Holmes and he was like we were wondering what if we could make movies that are mysteries without Sherlock Holmes
[00:53:06] No he just needs to solve a mystery why is he making everything so complicated Robert Daniel Jr. is like Steph Curry it's like he just you give him fucking anything and you're like oh my God this guy is so annoying and charming
[00:53:22] Like he can do anything and he seems to be like willfully just like how do I make this so difficult for anyone to like me anymore
[00:53:30] Like that's his post Marvel fucking plan is do little like I'm gonna do a Welsh accent and I'm gonna make you know make the movie as dog shit as possible I'm gonna add notes every five seconds the dragon should fart more whatever I'm so mad at him
[00:53:46] He doesn't want to act anymore I just get the sense that he's over it I mean look here's the exact quote at this point we really feel that there is not a mystery verse built out anywhere
[00:53:57] And Conan Doyle is the definitive voice in that arena I think to this day So to me why do a third movie if you're not gonna be able to spin off into some real gems of diversity and other elements
[00:54:12] We think there's an opportunity to build it out more Spin off characters from a third movie to see what's going on in the television landscape to see what Warner Media is starting to build out things with HBO and HBO Max
[00:54:22] Or you know just make a third movie with that character that people like
[00:54:26] Why don't they just unite all the various active homes homes and Watson combos like rope in elementary rope in Enola like they should like they keep doing the Spider-Man 3 sort of announcements of bringing all those people back
[00:54:41] Bringing all the other you know elementary verse to the Sherlock verse You do a Sherlock verse verse you bring in Cumberbatch you bring in Cavill who I believe right Henry Cavill plays Oh yeah and you won't believe what his take on the character is Swole
[00:54:59] Oh that guy's hot and boring Oh my god Henry Cavill I love you He's good his take is that Sherlock Holmes is honorable Look I've come around for Henry Cavill what can I say Like I think he's a good actor this is the world we live in
[00:55:20] But Robert Downey Jr. makes a Sherlock Holmes 3 it makes 600 million dollars at the worldwide box office boring What if you made a mystery verse movie you pay Cumberbatch 20 million you pay Cavill 10 right you know
[00:55:35] Jack the bucket budget up on this thing it'll make 800 million you know like it's like who cares Who cares It's like a Sherlock Holmes movie it would make money people go see it all they want to do is be distracted the world is annoying
[00:55:49] They just want to go sit down and watch you solve a mystery you jerk Also this like mystery verse bullshit it's like we have an opportunity here to corner the market on mysteries
[00:55:58] And I'm like I feel like that's what Ryan Johnson has done now just making a mystery movie that people liked Like Benoit Blanc is cool but it's not like if they announced he's doing a new mystery movie with a different director
[00:56:11] People would protest whereas Sherlock Holmes the only thing going forward there is the idea of that guy playing that character right Absolutely but the whole thing with knives out is Brian Johnson's like what if I just did like a movie where there's a mystery and there's a detective
[00:56:27] And you solve it and people are like I don't know how I mean this is insane you're an alchemist You come up with this and it's like he did a fucking mystery movie it was good it had a mystery you know you felt satisfied
[00:56:40] There were suspects like I mean like no we got to make ten of these right now you are oh boy we're putting the golden handcuffs on you buddy It's so crazy and I love knives out
[00:56:52] Me too but mystery is one of those genres that is pretty budget friendly because you're just like You just need a good hook you need like a well written script and a capable cast of actors it doesn't need set pieces
[00:57:07] That's the other thing the fucking Poro franchise is also humming along Oh god what if there was a death on the Nile Fran Who has that is did it already come out is it coming out
[00:57:21] Disney has it because they bought Fox it has not come out they decided not to release two Kenneth Brown and movies to nobody in the same calendar year
[00:57:28] That'd be too weird that's the shame it'll come out next September we're all gonna be there I'm gonna rent a fucking boat on the Nile And we're all gonna fucking watch that movie on it and it's gonna be great
[00:57:41] I would love to watch a movie like on a riverboat that seems nice Yes exactly you would love a riverboat Oh absolutely You have big riverboat energy Can we gamble too before We have to The first one is alright the first one is alright
[00:57:57] I think I would like it I think you would like it It's pretty good This is the thing even I would say that movie is probably objectively not that great and it's very watchable because it's a fun mystery with character
[00:58:12] You know like this is this is what I'm saying this is foolproof Who gives a shit This movie The Great Mouse Detective is fucking 72 minutes long It's great Yeah just solves a little mystery Do you think there's a mystery
[00:58:24] I mean it's like you know figure out how to stop it Sure It's not so much a figure out what the plan is movie I kept wondering what's up with the robot because I wasn't sure what the purpose of it was But we find out eventually
[00:58:42] This movie also right when we should talk about this and Fran and I we were talking about this like even right it is also like us Like it's like everyone has a mouse version of themselves Oh yes yes yes Yeah
[00:58:59] Yes because I think one of the one of the great jokes of the movie is that you see you know human but cartoon Sherlock Holmes and you get a brief glance at Glimpse of like human the queen so yeah we they're all Human the queen we love her
[00:59:15] Human the human cartoon the queen Right this is a movie about mouse tethers And like when I was a kid I think my dad's trying to tell me like okay Sherlock Holmes is a famous detective
[00:59:26] But if you watch this movie you're like I guess Sherlock Holmes is a famous violinist like that's all you see of him Right Playing the violin in the windows Yeah
[00:59:36] Fran I want to roll back the tape for a second when we were talking about when we saw this movie for the first time Did I hear you say that you think you have only seen it once in full before this podcast?
[00:59:51] Yes I mean I was I was trying to think because our our system of sort of like movie purchasing when I was a kid was we would rent something that I hadn't seen
[01:00:01] You know before we would commit to buying it and I think I got this from the library and watched it and was like I don't I don't really like this outside of the Radigan song And so therefore never had it in my possession again until this past week
[01:00:15] So you have disproportionately watched the Radigan song probably hundreds of times more than easily in the film at large Easily hundreds of times that I mean also just that sing-along tape
[01:00:29] I think I watched more than the rest of them but you know I would say probably once a month in my adult life I do watch world's greatest criminal mind on youtube.com Wow Okay and what is it about the song Fran?
[01:00:43] Oh I don't even know anymore at this point I think it you know ticks some kind of comfort box as a kid I think I sort of liked it's like swoopy performativeness
[01:00:54] I loved all the I was really liked sort of villain layers in the movies and I loved seeing like piles of jewels And I love and I love love the aesthetics of the champagne fountain and I do have a very there is some childhood story about me
[01:01:13] I must have learned what champagne was through this movie because I was I'm sure I was like what is pink and comes out of a fountain I have to know what this is and I think my parents are like that's champagne
[01:01:22] It's what adults drink and there is a sort of famous story about me bringing a plastic cup to my grandfather and being like do you want some champagne
[01:01:30] Like as a as like a play thing and he was like why does Francis know what champagne is and I was like four or five or something like that So not only am I sort of familiar with the Holmes Canon from this but also champagne the beverage
[01:01:42] And I only learned it was Vincent Price probably like five or six years ago despite having seen it probably 200 times by that point A good singer
[01:01:51] Yeah he's great and having this whole separate context for price and then having to like merge them together in my squishy smooth adult brain I want to alright I found the tape Griffin and I'm sure you had this one too I also own some of these tapes
[01:02:05] It was the BR guest tape Amazing track list All 10 songs BR guest Good Spoon full of sugar Good From Mary Poppins Little wooden head from Pinocchio Which is um yeah sort of a weird Maybe that's a skip Bella note tape from Lady in the Tramp Good
[01:02:26] Half a lump's and wuzzles as Fran mentioned Beauty and the Beast title song World's Grace Criminal Mind coming in at the seventh slot Chim chimery we're back to Poppins Once upon a dream from Sleeping Beauty and then we're gonna take us out with a reprise of BR guest
[01:02:42] Wow So good I also really love Once Upon a Dream That's a beautiful song it's Tchaikovsky do you know that? That movie is so fantastic It's so good maybe my favorite of all the anime ones It might be mine too
[01:02:57] It is kind of a weird thing when you think about it Like that You could go out and buy a video of an entire movie Like if you're begging your parents to buy you a new VHS right? Or you can watch like a 45 minute YouTube compilation Right yeah
[01:03:16] Right exactly yes it was it was YouTube on VHS basically Right they had this robust line of VHS supercuts Like now with a kid you probably just write you throw on some YouTube playlist of Disney songs
[01:03:30] But I wonder if the organization of these tapes has also completely like ruined how I listen to music And that now I make playlists that are say 70% one album And then just a bunch of other random songs that I don't want to listen to the full album of
[01:03:44] I really do feel like the sort of layout of these videos was weirdly influential And how I just sort of I don't know listen to music Yeah there's a sort of fat cutting like all killer no filler Yes
[01:04:00] Right but anchored with like you want to watch like 50% of this one thing and then we'll throw in some other Popory for good measure Yeah totally well I remember also like when Disney Plus came out
[01:04:15] One of my students was like do you have Disney Plus and I didn't have it yet at that point And she was like how are you going to watch Mulan every day which is a very weird question
[01:04:23] But one that I will remember forever and I don't need to watch Mulan every day I can go and just watch the one song I want to see That I've been completely able to like divorce these from the like whole of the motion picture
[01:04:38] I think because I watched so many of these like song compilations growing up But also I mean I do think like we're you know we're currently living in the Great Depression Right the time before there are 10 different TV shows based on every single character on Disney Plus
[01:04:53] When they still have a pretty finite amount of content on there right Like so much of I feel like the discourse around the wild success of Disney Plus In terms of all the new streaming services and how good their subscriber numbers have been
[01:05:10] Relative to how little they have on there How much more shallow their catalog is It is just I think that exact thing Fran of just like I'm gonna pay my Disney Plus tax every month
[01:05:25] Because I want to know like a security blanket that I can watch Mulan every day The Mushu is there for me Right like when I open up like a Netflix or Hulu I'm going like hmm what do I want to see What haven't I gone around to
[01:05:39] When I open up Disney Plus it's very specifically like I'm in a mood Or it's three o'clock in the morning and I can't sleep And I'm looking for sort of like the serotonin rush I used to get from putting on one of those VHSs for the hundredth time
[01:05:54] Yes totally totally And this like it's somewhat odd to watch this movie and kind of focus on it just as its own thing And not as not its function in that kind of way Like there's there's something so calming about putting this movie on
[01:06:19] Just because it still has that like classic Disney feeling And it triggers some sense of like watching a VHS while your parents are eating dinner or something
[01:06:30] Absolutely right it's just a tape they put on and then it's bedtime or bath time or whatever and they turn it off Even though you're like 35 minutes in right like just that That's a real childhood thing that I sort of weirdly miss
[01:06:46] And like maybe just my eyes are not smart enough to sort of I mean I think now I can recognize cheap animation or something more thrown together than something else But I was like this is beautiful this looks great
[01:06:58] Oh that's the thing I mean it's not cheap animation It's like this is very much a last stand movie where they're trying to cut the budget as much as possible And these animators are fighting to make the film look as robust as they can
[01:07:16] And there are certain sheets they do in individual moments to work around it But a lot of the budget cuts were just this movie being trim like and fast you know and zero fat
[01:07:29] And it also is just like I think they made up for the budget cuts in just sort of sweat And blood and tears and there's so much personality and feeling in the animation at every moment They're like cramming as many little behavioral gags as they can
[01:07:49] There's the early one with the gun where he's like looking at the gun and he throws it over And then they like there's this weird back and forth with the gun that isn't has nothing to do with the dialogue
[01:08:01] And I just got the sense of like these animators being assigned individual scenes And going like I know my job is just to animate a two mouse conversation But I'm gonna try to fit as much into every second on screen as I possibly can
[01:08:16] Like what pieces of business can I come up with how much can I have them interact with in their environment These guys are wondering if they're ever gonna get to work on a movie ever again to some degree
[01:08:28] I gotta say that whole opening sequence which is the start of the movie The Great Mouse Detective Is my favorite part. The Rattigan stuff is obviously sort of great and kind of stands on its own
[01:08:40] And it's kind of the classic Disney thing of oh the villain is more exciting than the hero is a lot Right you know like villain song is always good right all that But this is sort of credited as being the start of the villain song thing
[01:08:53] That this was the first time where they were like the villains really popping The villain songs are the ones that people like and that starts the re-centering Which you see like from Little Mermaid they understand the power of Ursula
[01:09:04] Right villain needs a big song, big arc onto themselves And that these characters can be fun not just scary but there can also they can be comedic resources You know? Yeah and that they could find love even With friend offer With someone like me another professor you know
[01:09:26] Could be easy So and you know I mean thinking of the holiday thinking of past Fran episodes Jack Black could play Rattigan now if he did a you know remake He You know it's a different thing He's so gentle Yeah your tweet Fran was Tom Hardy
[01:09:47] I always say Hardy because that feels like the live action Disney sort of mad libs That they would do It seems like such an obvious Hardy type to me You're totally right I mean this is this
[01:10:00] They should just do Walt Disney presents the Peaky Blinders like with mice or whatever God I would go wild for that I was when you were saying like when you log on to Disney Plus as sort of like a comfort thing
[01:10:16] I was like oh well like when I log on to Netflix all of my still watchings are sort of like half watched Peaky Blinders episodes Where I just want to rewatch like Tom Hardy only compilations So that's maybe my sort of use of Netflix
[01:10:30] He plays a rabbi correct Yeah he's an I think he's an Orthodox Jewish mobster He's making rum and bread his name is Alfie Solomon's If you've ever wanted to hear Tom Hardy say Shalom so many times Always Peaky Blinders seasons two through four are the ones for you
[01:10:49] Can I throw something out quickly Please Uh squeaky blinders Hey I would really love this So but as a the opening sequence Foggy London Town Cobblestones Little Olivia Flavisham How do you know that They say it right Don't they say like ok ok ok 97 or 95
[01:11:18] They do say there's even a narrator right There's a Watson whatever his name is Dawson is narrating right Correct Dawson is narrating The Queen's Diamond Jubilee is like you know he's doing a whole thing
[01:11:30] And little you know the kidnapping of Olivia's father obviously but the the whole early sequence where Both she and Dawson are meeting Basil at the same time And he's doing all his business and he's firing the gun He's being chaotic as we would say in modern parlance
[01:11:50] Being chaotic and figuring out where they're all from and the Landlady is flustered and all this stuff Is what I love about this kind of animation it's so alive It's just wall to wall gags It's wall to wall gags it's wall to wall like kind of behavioral fun
[01:12:09] There's also something too this is that tail end of animation being shot on film And I do think there's some weird psychological effect too Because by the time you get to Beauty and the Beast it's caps It's all being done on computers
[01:12:28] They you know they draft it by hand but then they scan it in And it's all kind of painted and colored on computer And it looks just kind of incredibly clean Whereas watching this you can still tell the kind of
[01:12:45] There's the tactility of the layers that like the background is painted An entirely different style from the characters who are cell animated There's a distance between the two frames You have shots with the multi-plane camera which is when they do that sort of trick
[01:13:02] To make it look like there's depth in the animation by having a couple different layers Of background so the camera can move through a space and shit like that And it makes you so much more aware of the magic act of like this is unbelievable
[01:13:16] Like how is it possible that you can draw a bunch of shit and trick the brain into thinking it's moving But I also think you talk about all that business at the beginning They're showing off all the things they can do
[01:13:30] The more he moves the more the fabric is moving around them Right all the objects in their space And in hand drawn animation you don't have physics simulators I mean at this point like Pixar can animate something and the character's wearing a scarf
[01:13:44] And the scarf essentially has artificial intelligence right The scarf knows how to follow the movement of whatever is going on And then you can finesse it a little bit It's been programmed to understand what it is as a scarf And what the environment is and all that right
[01:14:00] But when you're seeing like Basil running back and forth doing all this business Moving around and his bathrobe is flapping all over the place You know or his nightgown or whatever it is It does it's show off shit that is just kind of still stunning to watch
[01:14:22] It all rules I like Basil I think he's fun I know Radigan is the secret star of this movie but I think Basil's a cool dude I like Basil Basil's just great Played by Barry Ingram I like the Watson character whatever the hell his name is He's good
[01:14:41] He's great I like when he's wearing a crop top at the club Yeah That's nice That's nice I like to see my body Well I thought he looked like Smee A lot of my queer friends and I are very obsessed with Smee core
[01:14:57] And when we sort of accidentally dress up like Smee And that to me was a very Smee core outfit Just based on someone sent someone an outfit being like Do I look cute tonight? And being like you look like Smee but okay Sometimes you look like Smee
[01:15:14] Smee is a wild character when you think about it What's wild about him? Well it's like Peter Pan has this hated enemy Captain Hook He's a murderous pirate with a hook hand He captains a ship filled with murderous pirates who are bad
[01:15:29] Also there's this kind of fun old guy Yeah also there's Smee It's Disney Smee in particular who's weird Because I feel like other depictions of Smee Make him more of like a complicit right hand man Even if he's funny And Disney Smee is like an innocent
[01:15:50] In the Disney one he is fully an innocent where he's right Usually he's just an idiot Like he's an incompoop but he is He's an incompetent villain Right, yes, yes I mean Hoskins as Smee for you know
[01:16:05] The hook has its flaws but Hoskins as Smee is just absolutely It was good casting Fucking murdering it God, Hoskins as Smee The basic setup of this movie is Olivia Flowersham's father who is a toy maker Is kidnapped so that he can make a replica queen
[01:16:25] So that Eradikin can displace the queen And take over as the ruler of mouse London Correct, correct Yes, there's sort of two things going on One he wants to rule mousedom in London England whatever I guess I don't know how far her kingdom reigns Queen mouse toria
[01:16:47] Two he is insistent that he is a mouse Despite obviously being a rat and literally being called Eradikin And we never dig into the details of like Why mice and rats are not common citizens Like what's so terrible about being a rat
[01:17:03] Except I guess just that they're big and different But he doesn't want to be a rat I'm sure he had to fight that reputation As he worked his way up in academia You know, it can be a really sore point for a lot of creatures
[01:17:15] Is there a mouse version of you David? Oh, there is The movie would imply Yeah, there's a little mouse version of me And he had to move to England When I moved to England he had to move back Like you know he's uprooting his whole fucking life
[01:17:29] You do want to dig into the fact like when Dawson talks about being in Afghanistan Was there a little mouse war that was running parallel To the big human war? That's what I want to know He's done surgery That's crazy to me
[01:17:49] But I guess a mouse could do surgery, why not their nimble Yeah they got little hands They carry over almost nothing from the book Everything was changed from the original book Aside from the character names And Radigan was in the book series
[01:18:05] A mouse who is misidentified as a rat And then they decide to flip it to He's a rat who desperately wants to be seen as A mouse Which works much better as like a comic Disney villain Sort of like a stem You know?
[01:18:25] A lot of the Disney villains are sort of like Trying to belong in their own You know fucked up way Right, the fundamental rejection of what they are The sort of Emperor's new clothes I demand that I remake myself and be seen as this Yeah Absolutely
[01:18:45] All this stuff gets set up incredibly quickly And then you're mostly just watching This fun trio Of Olivia and Dawson and Basil And then Shortly they get teamed up as well With Sherlock Holmes' dog Which is another odd aspect You have this one character who's kind of
[01:19:03] Passing back and forth between the two worlds An ambassador between the worlds Toby Much like the dog in Toy Story He's in both worlds I thought a lot about Toy Story 4 during the big set piece At the toy Are they at a Toy Store?
[01:19:19] In this? That's where Gadget's stealing Stealing the uniforms It reminded me a lot of that big sort of Toy Story 4 ending Fidget's bad, but he's great Come on I was really sure That your zoom background was going to be Fidget, Ben Fidget is Barry Ben
[01:19:37] But Ben went for another thing That you like I just liked the big cat Because the big cat is just a fun device She rocks Sort of girl boss vibes Fidget's kind of like a bad dude But he's got a great voice And I like his vibe
[01:19:55] Candy Candido That's the guy who plays Fidget He's a classic voice actor It's funny that Fidget is Kind of entirely terrifying Like He's just really scary He's kind of fucked up Yeah, but it's kind of a flip on the usual Dynamic these things have
[01:20:15] Where it's like, okay, the main villain Is a little more like straight evil And then they have a funny henchman sidekick And here like Radigan is a little more buffoonish You know And Fidget is just Straight up terrifying Fidget also looks so similar To Bartok From Anastasia
[01:20:35] So similar to Bartok, but Bartok Is a friendly fellow Yes He's the one who's always like You know, Rasputin, I know we live in hell But you know Why do you gotta be so mean Like he's always trying to chill Rasputin out I was trying to find it
[01:20:55] Maybe I just failed, but I was trying to find Some sort of bridge between the two projects If there was some animator On this who went on to Anastasia And ran the lead on that But the design is... Fern Gully also has a fun bat
[01:21:09] A fun bat is similar to Mouser, like I guess they just think bats are cool Bats are cool Yeah sure bats are cool His voice is so crazy His voice is insane They were modulating him, right? No, that seems like one of those Classic guys who can do
[01:21:27] A guy who can do that But it's also He's just got a lot going on He has a purple sweater He has a peg leg He's a very busy character Beyond just already being a bat He's like a bat-hyrate almost a little bit In his own way
[01:21:45] Oh yeah Sorry, I'm looking at Candy Candido here Candido's distinctive four-octave Speaking voice became familiar to radio Listeners and moviegoers Speaking his lines in his normal tenor He would suddenly adopt a high squeaky soprano And just suddenly plunge into a gruff bass Wow, cool His catchphrase was
[01:22:05] I'm feeling mighty low Which he would say on Jimmy Durante's Radio show Yeah, there's a better time for America probably And he's like one of those guys The fucking picture They have of him He looks like Robert De Niro From the 40s
[01:22:25] Look at this daguerreotype they have on Wikipedia He looks like Rupert Bumpkin Yes, he does That's right, he looks like De Niro In the King of Comedy He's got the exact same energy Wow Great mouse detective Act 1 is them doing the mystery So the whole Toy Shop sequence
[01:22:46] In my head, another formative thing for me At this age Was the TV adaptation of the children's book Corderoi Oh yeah, the live action corderoi I remember the character I didn't know there was a live action TV thing It's not very good It's on YouTube and I
[01:23:04] Like checked it out Because they're both set in Toy Shops Obviously, because Corderoi is a bear That comes to life in a Toy Shop And I realized that I had just completely Bonded these two things in my mind I must have seen them right at the same time
[01:23:20] When they break into the Toy Shop They go through the window I was like, no Corderoi does that And I'm like, no he doesn't, Cordero doesn't matter Very weird observation By me, not important No, no, I think there is that kind of thing though
[01:23:34] Like as a kid where there's something Eerie about a Toy Shop At night, because it both feels Like that's my fantasy And also it feels elicit To some degree you're like It'd be so cool if I could sneak into a Toy Shop
[01:23:48] At night when there are no adults And I could play with whatever I wanted And to another degree it just feels off-putting Well and it's in that time period Also where every toy is so scary looking The like Oy, Mr. Yumi Dad dolls
[01:24:02] Are all sort of like crashing down on them And they're like jacking the box All that stuff Oy, Mr. Yumi Dad is one of those Click holes that just I can't believe this one clung on But it really did Alright So there's the Toy Shop sequence
[01:24:24] There's also, well there's Radigan's song Which we talked about But if people want to talk about it anymore It's not like any other animated Crush I ever had again He really sort of stands alone My crushes in the Disney sphere Were never sort of like the leads
[01:24:42] It was always some weird side character And this sort of started that off But the rest are all like Well the other big one that I talk about All the time is The Bonnie Hunt voice Spider in Bugs Life Was huge for me
[01:24:56] Oh, she is so fucking hot And she's so nice I could not agree with that more Bonnie Hunt also just Huge crush Exactly Fran, I think that's a very underrated character I also always choke up When she says you did it kid At the end of the movie
[01:25:16] And then she starts the slow clap Bugs Life rules That's another one of those movies I haven't seen Since like P.P. I really like Bugs Life And some of the like more forgotten Disney ones because we're also both big Lilo and Stitch guys
[01:25:32] Nani from Lily and Stitch Is also big for me I also, I was rewatching Lilo and Stitch with my Poet neighbors and we all had a meltdown About the hammerhead shark looking Commander being really hot We were like is this guy Sort of you know himbo icon
[01:25:52] Fran used to live near some Poets and I used to love hearing about the poets I used to live around the corner From 4 or 5 Depending on the time of year Poets who were 5 to 6 years younger Than me which influenced
[01:26:06] The entire way in which I view the world now Boy, Bugs Life No, please I'm not going to stop you from saying something about Bugs Life What were you going to say? No, I have I'm going to watch it I guess we can't do last or anytime soon
[01:26:26] No, we absolutely can't She's such a beautiful Spider She's so beautiful Madeline Kahn also in that movie I mean Madeline Kahn in general Is one of my all time movie crushes So her is Gypsy the Moth By extension The spider in James and the Giant Peach
[01:26:46] Also very beautiful I feel But doesn't have the Bonnie Hunt effect That's a good call I mean she's Serranden and she's French So she's a little more standoffish That's me Knowing as a child that that's going to be a bigger obstacle for me You know That's too tough
[01:27:04] I got to go more In my line of sight Julie Louis Dreyfus' character Is also kind of hot In Bugs Life All the bugs in Bugs Life are kind of hot Hot bugs, because that was the thing They're not going to be hot
[01:27:20] But Bugs Life didn't worry about that Right, because you got like Sharon Stone And Jennifer Lopez But they just look like ants Sharon Stone is an ants I never saw it Ants, it's Woody Allen, Sharon Stone Jennifer Lopez I think I just always stop reading after Alan
[01:27:38] And then I didn't realize The cast is so weird Christopher Walken Jane Curtin and Dan Ackroyd They play wasps But they're wasps The bit is that they're wasps Oh, I see They're called Chip and Muffy And Paul Mazurski Of course plays Woody Allen's ant psychiatrist Oh, of course
[01:28:02] But that's not... We can't talk about that because we now have to talk about The scene in the Great Mouse Detective Where they go to a nightclub and a mouse performs A sexy song A burlesque number A whole number, right? With costume changes Also A character gets roofied
[01:28:20] Roofied And also, I mean as you know You love the cat, characters are fed to cats There's death in this like all over the place Disturbing Truly, I love the cat But it's intense It's heavy And the cat is based on Blofeld's cat from Bond
[01:28:40] Right, that's this whole other weird element Right But it's sort of the same breed I mean it does get into the weird shape Of this movie that like Radegin has two songs Then there's a song An extended burlesque number It's a Disney animated movie without Real hero songs
[01:29:00] They don't sing at all And it's Henry Mancini This is his first animated film It's got a very different vibe The songs feel more Adult But you don't have any I Want song You don't have any hero like love songs The songs are all
[01:29:18] At the weird corners of the story They're not sort of the emotional linchpins Of audience Surrogacy And I think, I feel like Oliver and Company which comes next year Has a little, the songs are a little more Plotty But there's no consistency
[01:29:36] Right, because it's like there's a Huey Lewis song Billy Joel song But that's the whole thing What Eisner wanted, he was like Get me Ben Midler, get me Billy Joel Make them all feel modern There's one that I have no memory of Oliver and Company
[01:29:52] I don't know that I've seen it in full I'm learning in real time that there's a Billy Joel song Billy Joel plays The artful Dodger He is the voice of the character He's the second lead of the movie He's got the best song in the movie called
[01:30:06] That movie is co-written by James Manne Gold Uh huh I like it Maybe I'm gonna watch it It's another one of those Disney movies That's fucking 70 minutes long Yeah, that's so nice It was also just kind of Nice this weird wilderness period
[01:30:24] Where they just all sort of shrugged And went like, I don't know if we know What a Disney movie is anymore Like maybe it's a bunch of street dogs In New York City or maybe it's Mice and London solving mysteries Right, but they do Know that
[01:30:40] Look kids are gonna see this thing If there isn't a fucking song after 20 minutes They're gonna lose their minds We need something to just kind of break it up for Little kids So there are songs The nightclub song is even As vague as it is
[01:30:56] I would say is like too adult for most children But that song is a banger That song's amazing And I almost wish more of these Just had songs that were songs for song's sake You know Melissa Manchester, the performer of that song Right, so Mancini wrote the song
[01:31:12] Originally then Eisner was like Can we get Jackson? Can we get Madonna? And then they brought in Melissa Manchester Because Melissa Manchester had become The first person to get nominated Twice in one year Best song at the Academy Awards So She performed too
[01:31:30] Oh, okay, but did she not write them as well? Am I wrong about that? I didn't see any Oscar now It doesn't matter, carry on But she did the two songs so he thought If we hire her it'll be a crossover success That was his weird thing
[01:31:44] Was Eisner was like we need to have these songs Chart on like the pop charts And shortly after this Not immediately But there was that weird Disney tradition Of there was always The end credits version Of the main song Sung by like adult contemporary people
[01:32:02] Right, that's more poppy Right Totally Is this song streaming? I want to listen to it Ooh, it might be It's fine Oh, it's on there It's crazy that a kids movie Has a song called Let Me Be Good To You Let me be good to you That's nuts
[01:32:24] I'm sorry, Melissa Manchester Melissa Manchester did write the song David Mancini wrote one that was Throne Out I understand that she wrote this Song, she did not however Write the two songs that were nominated For Oscars, those songs were She performed two different
[01:32:42] Songs that the Oscars and they were I'll never say goodbye from the promise And through the eyes of love theme song From Eis Castles Which is a good memory Of like sometimes even back in the day Cinema was thriving, the Oscars had Shit song years, but anyway
[01:32:58] We should talk about The big Ben sequence Right Briefly before then can we talk about how Radigan basically sets a Jigsaw style like saw Puzzle for Oh yeah I was like is he Jigsaw? Yes, he wants to Execute them through A Rube Goldberg machine Little steampunky
[01:33:24] Even though he kidnaps an inventor He still kind of has A steampunk thing going on It's interesting that he can do one But not the other, but I think it speaks to His sort of academic mind That he's like what's the most Complicated way I can execute
[01:33:40] These two guys and it's putting them In a mousetrap With a record That spins, that's tied to a string That lets a ball yada yada yada But they were supposed to get shot and asked His own record by the way friend He pressed his own record
[01:33:56] That's a huge flex, I was sort of like I wonder what song he'll play and then when it Immediately went to him I was like why did I think It would just be a known song Am I misremembering or does he not go
[01:34:06] Like I thought of like the eight different Ways I could kill you and then I realized I'll do all of them at once Like there's the overkill too He's Jigsaw Yeah Jigsaw went to grad school Which is kind of Moriarty's vibe too I think
[01:34:24] Cause he's always like I can out Think you Sherlock, like you know Moriarty's not just gonna go and walk up To Sherlock Holmes and like hit him over the head With a crowbar, like he wants to To you know defeat his mind So I guess you know
[01:34:38] That's what's going on here But he doesn't feel like as much Of a mastermind As Moriarty, he does have a little Bit more of the Bond villain thing in him Like he feels like a combination of Three or four different sorts Of theatrical British villain Archetypes
[01:34:56] Right, I mean like you say he's much more Self-conscious and You know he's got a lot of image Issues, he's worried about being a rat And right rather than design His own clockwork Queen Victoria He just kidnaps a guy to do it for him A little lazy
[01:35:12] And also he's so big That you know his physicality is part of it I think the physicality is a Big part of Why he is Why he's not sort of intellectual type He's too henchman-y Looks like a gangster, which is why it would be
[01:35:28] Hardy, you know? He does He does look like Al Capone On top of everything else that we're talking About There's a lot going on Griffin There's a lot going on Should we talk about Big Ben Because I mean there is Big Ben, Big Clown
[01:35:46] It was their big marketing Hook for this movie was We got CGI Like Black Cauldron had used a little bit But it was, I mean Pointedly designed because at this point Eisner still thought Is CGI a way to make animation Cheaper and faster
[01:36:04] Which it didn't really end up being the case But he wanted to Forefront it and so they have this Sequence which is entirely inspired By the Count of Caldliostro Hell yeah man It's Look, I mean maybe it's derivative or whatever I love just, and I think the CGI
[01:36:22] Is cool It looks so good I got so excited when it switched over It's kind of thrilling right It's kind of thrilling It feels a little bit like A wizard of Oz, like everything going into color Moment and it also Kind of makes you feel frustrated At
[01:36:42] How quickly CGI became Its own thing And overtook the idea of the two mediums Being able to blend together Because it is so effective I mean that whole, I think it's two minutes In total And they talked a lot about how they were doing
[01:36:58] A lot of it like in the dark I mean it was sort of you'd have to eyeball it Sully style and hope that the two elements Would line up together You gotta eyeball it No I understand I still always default to Monsters Inc
[01:37:12] Which is really annoying for me Anytime I want Sully GIFs and I get 80 fucking John Goodman Monsters But Griffin, I don't know if you know this Do you know when this film came out? 1986 Yeah but do you know the month Do I know the month?
[01:37:28] Did they do it in July? They did this one in July Griffin I just wanted to point that out They eyeballed it and you know, guess what They fucking did in July I was just gonna say The end of this whole sequence Where Rattigan has gotten like
[01:37:44] Trapped in the gears and then his clothes Are shredded and he's on all Four legs like running Wild Rappers Rap mode He goes rap mode, he's so scary It's thrilling It's crazy that I used to be attracted to one And now I'm so afraid of them
[01:38:02] Yeah well I mean it's like This is the kind of Ratt If you saw a Ratt dressed like this In your apartment You might be less scared A dapper A dapper little gent He's got a long cigarette holder He's like hello Yeah I mean I would like that
[01:38:22] That would be a much different year With Rodents than I've had Yeah, I've been having so many Mouse and Ratt At nightmares I haven't had I've had a lot of road and issues in past apartments I haven't had one in this apartment I keep on waking up
[01:38:40] From a nightmare where I found a mouse Or a rat Are you in real life Are you that alarmed by them Or are they Are you growing more fearful of them in your dreams I don't know if I'm that alarmed by them
[01:38:54] There's always just that sort of like Paranoia Kind of infestation in your home And then you're just constantly on guard You know, like are they going to pop out at any moment This is what happened to me this summer And it like ruined my life
[01:39:08] It's the tip of the iceberg thing where you see one And you're like are there ten Like are there a hundred Because when you talk to people about how you have one Someone is always like well it's never just one It's never just one
[01:39:20] They love to say that Did you guys, did you have a friend Like who had a snake Who would feed mice to it Yes Growing up That was always crazy To watch and disturbing But educational too Just talking about life Ben, you may not know this
[01:39:44] Or you may have forgotten But I had a roommate who had a seven foot boa constrictor Griffin selected this room Oh a roommate And he fed it rats And the rats would be in the freezer And I would constantly open the freezer
[01:39:58] And take one out and then realize what it was Wait, what did you think it was Like a frozen hot dog It would just, you know, it would be one of those things Where I'm like in the freezer, I'm like wait
[01:40:08] Okay, you know, we got, you know, ice cream We've got frozen did it, what's this thing Oh, it's the rat That's a burrito, that's a rat Sure, okay, got it What's this like paper towel Like wrapped around something
[01:40:22] But yeah, you would have to take it out of the freezer And let it get to room temperature Because otherwise the snake would be like that thing's dead Do you folks know the title thing with this movie? I know that Oh, you mean the sarcastic memo Yeah
[01:40:40] Can I know? Okay, so they want to call the movie Basil of Baker Street after the books And then the adventures Of young Sherlock Holmes came out And underperformed And Eisner was convinced it was because the movie was too British And American kids didn't like British shit
[01:40:56] So he threatened to redub the entire movie with American voices Which he ultimately was talked out of But they said like we got to give it a different title That feels more generic So they retitled it, The Great Mouse Detective And then when it was re-released Excuse me
[01:41:14] It was retitled The Adventures of The Great Mouse Detective It was which is bananas Like we get it I mean he's a great mouse detective I assume he's not just going to sit on his ass There'll be adventures Now the Disney story people hated this
[01:41:28] They were like this is the worst Lois Comet Denominator bullshit That title is so generic It has no character We're Disney, we're classy Right, we don't need to do that So they, what, it's still anonymous They never offered up who it was
[01:41:44] But someone, or I guess, no Ed Gombert is the name I'm seeing here Because Peter Schneider was the one who came What were you saying David? Yes, no, no I was going to say Schneider is mentioned Yes Schneider was the one who came up with the re-titling
[01:42:00] And that was like an early tension point between him and the animation team And then he worked hard to sort of get on their good side after this And that's where things really started working But Ed Gombert put together a fake memo Pretending to be Peter Schneider
[01:42:16] Saying that they were going to re-title the Disney classics For re-release in the new style of the great mouse detective So here was the list of titles on the memo Seven little men help a girl We know what that is Straightforward The wonderful elephant who could really fly
[01:42:36] The little deer who grew up This one I really like The girl with the see-through shoes Absolutely, absolutely Two dogs fall in love That's my favorite Oh the next one is actually my favorite This is my favorite Puppies taken away Imagine Disney being like
[01:43:06] Kids come see our new fun movie Puppies taken away And then the last one was a boy, a bear And a big black cat That's Jungle Book, right? Yeah, they leaked out and the L.A. Times Ran them in a piece about all the attention
[01:43:22] At Disney animation and then later That was a category on Jeopardy Where those were the answers And people had to reverse engineer Yeah That is funny I think the great mouse detective Is an all right title I think so too I think it's kind of fun
[01:43:42] I think it's okay that it's not called Basil of Baker Street Basil of Baker Street really does run into That issue of you being like I don't know who that's supposed to be Yeah, it's less Evocative It's also weird because he's named Basil
[01:43:58] Because of Basil Rathbone who's the actor Who played the guy So when you call a movie Basil of Baker Street You're like is it a Basil Rathbone biopic? I'm like Of course Americans know Sherlock Holmes But how many of them do know That he's on Baker Street
[01:44:14] Yeah, no one does It reads as Basil on Baker Street And you're just like what is this A cooking movie? What is this about? You're right, it's always What is this herb movie? I don't want to see Some damn Pesto movie When you were talking about that scene
[01:44:30] Where Dawson and Olivia meet Basil You're like it's so neat they don't have to explain What his deal is and part of that is because the movie Is already called The Great Mouse Detective So you don't have to sit down and be like
[01:44:42] Okay, so his job is that he's a detective Like it's in the title The word great does a lot for me It was called The Mouse Detective I would think it sucks But the Great Mouse Detective This movie is announcing to me
[01:44:56] This isn't your run of the mill mouse detective This guy rules at his job He is the Great Mouse Detective He's got a home chemistry set Like I love that He fires guns into pillows I always loved in the Disney Animated movie when they would do
[01:45:12] Little potions and chemical stuff And how it would change colors I hated learning real chemistry It's not like that You're not supposed to do it at home either Right These are things you learn later in life I just want to point out
[01:45:28] The poster for this movie is just like White background, all the characters Lined up on it and Basil is swinging Across the center of the poster And he's wearing a suit But not his like Trenchcoats Deer stalker, right Right because they pointedly were like Disassociated from Sherlock Holmes
[01:45:48] Less British, less British The tagline for the movie is just All new, all fun Like the selling point for this movie was just Could be any movie Yeah, it's a new thing All new, all fun The Disney movies were so few and far between
[01:46:04] At that point I guess right They are actually like hey this is a new one guys Just FYI It's 86 and they've only released Fox in the Hound and Black Cauldron In the 80s, total And they only release Oliver and company in Little Mermaid after this I think 101 Dalmatians
[01:46:22] Was the re-release right before this And it was the highest grossing Re-release they had had up until that point Like the re-release numbers just grew And grew, so it really seemed like Maybe there's no need to ever make a new movie again But yeah, this movie does just
[01:46:38] Well enough, especially because The budget was slashed And it wins the public perception Battle because It comes out before Fival People like Ebert write glowing reviews And goes like This feels like the most classical Disney movie in a while This has that quality of animation And feeling
[01:46:58] And artistry I think it's the best Disney movie since I guess Robin Hood Robin Hood is not a movie I've actually ever loved But I appreciate It's sort of weirdness and it's It matters to people Like you know, it's cool I've been watching it a long time
[01:47:16] See Robin Hood and Jungle Book Are my number two and number one Respectively I do like the Jungle Book I do like the Sword and the Stone Weird hippy hangout period That little period of Jungle Book Aristocats, Jungle Book Aristocats, Jungle Book, Sword and the Stone
[01:47:36] Yeah, they're fun Wolfgang Reatherman Yes, who was the director Those movies are a lot cheaper And they have this weird scratchy animation style And also like they reuse animation From other movies Literally just Xeroxed Which is why Little John in Robin Hood Is just Bulu
[01:47:56] Right, like if we did Reatherman It's I want to get this right 100 Wondo Mations, Sword and the Stone Jungle Book, Aristocats, Robin Hood Winnie the Pooh and the Rescuers That's his run Wolfgang, baby I've maybe only seen one in that run Really? I've seen Dalmatians, obviously
[01:48:20] You've never seen like the Jungle Book? No, I never saw Jungle Book I think because I had the songs on the compilation And I was like And I just never got around to it I was also weirdly sort of I feel like afraid of Jungle Adventure movies
[01:48:34] When I was a kid Because the big animals really freaked me out And that was like I feel like I had the comic part And that was like Come on, come on I was like I had the comic part And I was like I had the comic part
[01:48:54] And I had the comic part But it just really was an amazing space And then it was cut And it was like One of the big things That was the comic part That's that's me to a T. Yeah. So yeah, no.
[01:49:11] Anyway, we've said everything we need to say about this movie. The big Ben Climax rules. Right. Olivia is so cute. I feel like we just can't say this enough. I love her. But her little she's voiced by a kid. A real kid. She's got that little Scottish Brogue.
[01:49:27] It's so sweet. I really you were you were saying that there were like images or stills from this movie that like stuck with you as a kid that rewatching as an adult. And for whatever reason, I feel like the two things I always remember
[01:49:40] from this movie are the Rattigan song and her in that green glass bottle is always just a very striking image to me from this film. And I was just sort of like all I remember about her is they put her in the bottle.
[01:49:51] Yeah, it's scary. I don't want to be in a bottle. No, you don't want to get bottled up. No, I don't want to get bottled up. David, you said the box I was game for this one was wild. Well, it's more that.
[01:50:04] It's we clearly just keep hitting movies that are right around here. This was this is the aliens. It's also 1986. It is. It is another 86. Well, you sang Griff, I'm sorry. What? No, that was going to be my exact question. Is this like the weekend after aliens?
[01:50:21] No, this is the weekend after running scared, my friend. Oh, weird. This movie came out July 4th weekend, 1986, which also means that like everything the top five, like it's sort of like holdovers and stuff. Like this movie is opening number nine
[01:50:41] and a bunch of other shit is opening and bombing. So Psycho three opens this weekend about last night under the cherry moon and big trouble in little China all outside the top 10. Wow. Man. So either all going to get forgotten or all growers, you know?
[01:51:00] I'm just saying, Ben, you love carpenter. We'll do one day and running scared is number six. But Griffin, we I just feel like we've talked so the aliens might be one of them. I feel like we must have done another movie recently
[01:51:10] because a lot of these are popping for me. But number one at the box office is a big sequel to a gigantic hit movie. Is it Rambo to? No, it is not Rambo to. It is a kids movie. It's a kids movie. It's a family movie.
[01:51:29] It's a number two. It's not a Disney. No, it's a Columbia picture. Hmm. Hmm. Nineteen and six Columbia pictures at the Karate Kid part two. It's the Karate Kid part two. Now, didn't we guess that one recently, Griffin? We did. I don't remember why it came up.
[01:51:48] Yes, I don't either, but whatever. OK, all right. Number two. OK, this one is from Disney, but it's from, I assume, Touchstone. It's an adult comedy with a curious star of the eighties that we have enjoyed dissecting his above the line career. Curious.
[01:52:17] A curious star of the eighties. It's like, oh, this guy, right, like 10 years, 15 years in, becomes a A-list movie star. DeVito. DeVito. Is it Ruthless People? It's Ruthless People. That's the big one for him. That's sort of the one that turns it, I would argue.
[01:52:35] Yeah. Is it Children's Movie? No. But it's Disney. It's it's Touchstone. OK, OK, OK. Yeah. And it's first wave of adult movies being green lit by Eisner at Disney. Gotcha. I've never heard of this movie. It's fun. Yeah. The Zucker Brothers, but doing a non spoof movie
[01:52:58] like a sort of a nept criminals movie. Right. DeVito, Bette Midler, Judge Reinhold, Bill Polman. Great. Perfect. Yeah, perfect. We could do Zazz as well. We could totally do Zazz. We've talked about this. That's a great blank check.
[01:53:15] Yeah, I think the way we'd have to do it is we only do the films that all three of them did together, right? So that way we don't have to do like American Carol and shit. Might be fun, though. Not boy.
[01:53:26] It'd be fun to do American Carol Griffin. Not boy. It just gets unwieldy if you if you follow all three of them into their separate careers. Yeah. But like that. But you kind of want to talk about ghosts.
[01:53:37] You want to talk about some of these crazy hits first night. Jane Austen's first night. It's a weird one. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Number three. And again, this is a movie that comes up all the time for us. It's a comedy. It's a big comedy star.
[01:53:51] He's doing something. And it's the title of the movie. He's doing something that the title is his job. It's not his job. It's what he's doing. Take taking care of business. Every day. No, it is. He is not taking care of business. He's going somewhere. He's going somewhere.
[01:54:16] Does it have the word going in the title or is it? No, but think of it as like he's going blank and the blank is the title. Go and blank and over. Talk to me. These are good suggestions, but no, it says
[01:54:33] here's what he's doing on the poster. He's one thumb is up and another is holding something and he's going. Is it the land? No, because no, that doesn't fit into the hints you get in. I know that's come up a couple times or the super whatever that movie's
[01:54:46] called, the Joe Pesci. It's not the super. I believe in the super Pesci. Yes, go ahead. Is he hitchhiking? No, it's a he. He's not hitchhiking. Oh, I see. OK. He the thumbs up is almost a non sequitur, I guess. It doesn't really matter.
[01:55:04] It's just funny that he's doing it. Griffin, he's an older comedian. Is it back to school? It's back to school. Yeah, this also came up recently. We covered some adjacent weekend very recently. Yes. I'm going to have to hunt around to find out.
[01:55:22] And I got similarly stumped on it. I got I was just on it. Rodney. Yeah. I will say aliens is a few weeks from now, but I feel like it's before. We got to go before. God, where is it? I don't know. All right.
[01:55:41] Number four at the box office is the biggest one of the biggest hits of the year of 1986. Yeah. One of the biggest hits of the year. Yeah. What genre? Action. Militia Rambo. Is it Rambo first blood part two? No, it's not. Boy, is it platoon?
[01:56:04] No, I'll tell you what. The star of this movie was recently captured on audio having a go at some of his co-workers on set. Is it born on the 4th of July? It's not biggest hit of the year. Military. But it's a cruise military.
[01:56:25] Oh, it's top. Is it not top? Yeah. OK. I don't think of Topka being military. What you're right, it is. I mean, they are in the armed force. Yeah. No, I just think of it being a plane. Well, you know, they're at the point. They're at the point.
[01:56:37] Just about to you guys. Now, this next one, it is just a bunch of guys. This next one, I got to say, if I were on that set and I heard that cruise tirade, I would feel so comfortable. It's true. Right.
[01:56:49] You're like, Jesus, this goes all the way to the top. This intensity. No, but I'm also like, I'm just so terrified at the idea of being on a set right now because of people taking safety protocols flippantly. The idea of someone yelling that much, I'd be like, OK,
[01:57:04] I mean, I know there's going to be no oversight here. Right. Yes. Right. Exactly. He is afraid to die. He's afraid to die. And we should all be afraid to die. As am I. I say, as am I. But yeah, what if Cruz is like,
[01:57:19] this is the one thing that could get me like he's like, I've gone to space on give a shit. He knows a code that could get him. So for number five, this is a movie you'd think from the title. It was about things that fly. But it's not.
[01:57:40] It's not. No. You'd think from the title. It was about things that fly. But it is not. This feels like a Sphinx riddle. Is it does it? Does it have birds or something like that in the title? It has a bird in the title.
[01:57:57] It's not the the Nick Cage one that came up recently, right? I don't think so. The Firebirds or whatever that's called. No, it's a major movie star, great poster in which he and two female leads are just on a desk, leaning and sitting and stuff. It's legal Eagles.
[01:58:16] It's legal Eagles. Have I ever read the tagline to legal Eagles? No, please do. So long. It's three whole lines. OK, here we go. I'm going to need to fucking take a breath. Tom Logan has a law partner who put a dog on the witness
[01:58:32] stand, a client who can't enter a court, enter a room without a crime being committed and a case that could turn out to be the murder of the year period. His. It's like it's like an essay.
[01:58:46] You got to like stop in the movie, the lobby and like look at that for an hour. Well, that would just be a mini series now. There'd be like there's three things going on with him. That's a TV show. Legal Eagles, those are the top five movies.
[01:59:02] Griff, I'm just seeing the aliens is very soon after this. So maybe we've just done aliens twice because we think I remember Toppin being in box office game when we did aliens. I think you're right. And I think it's because we did it on the Patreon recently, too.
[01:59:16] Can I throw out a final thought? Yeah, I feel like, you know, recently, Disney Investor Day happened that national bank holiday where we all sit wrapped around the fireplace for four hours and listening to uncharismatic businessmen outline four years of incoming IP brand refreshers.
[01:59:35] But, you know, like they did that thing where they were like, hey, we're announcing six new TV shows. They're just six recent Disney animated films, right? We're doing Moana the series and Zootopia Plus and the Adventures of Mater and whatever the fuck, right?
[01:59:54] They're doing a Zootopia series, but it's just about like the sanitation guys. Yes, it's really municipal. Like they're really getting into the inner workings. It's called Zootopia Plus, which my friend Max was like losing his mind over the other night where he was just like, is the show
[02:00:11] about a fictional streaming service in the world of Zootopia? Yeah, it's about it's about this startup. There's a whole sequence with a pitch deck. Studio 60 for the Zootopia World. That'd be good. I wish. The weird thing to me about Zootopia Plus is that it then introduces
[02:00:31] children to the idea of a sort of like something plus way earlier than I would have learned about something plus and what that means for an object or a site. Do you know what I mean? Yes, yes. I all say. Go ahead.
[02:00:46] And then I worry you're going to say, David, just that Nick Wilde has Matt Albee energy. I don't know. I just felt that I should say that watching this movie. I felt like, oh, this is a kind of thing.
[02:01:01] I would watch Disney Plus make into a TV show to just do a half hour Great Mouse Detective show where it's these three and they solve a new mystery every episode. But it feels like whereas it used to be, oh, the things that are really,
[02:01:16] really valuable, we keep those on like a pedestal. We don't want to diminish the brand of something like, you know, whatever my brain is short circuiting. Do do series and spin offs and sequels of like the lower status stuff.
[02:01:33] Now they only want to like refresh the huge things. But this feels like a property that is ideal for doing some sort of new modern version, do a little mystery verse with mice. I would love that. Mice, Radigan, Clockwork things. Yeah, mysteries.
[02:01:53] This is just like Downey where it's just like, just fucking do it. Do one of these every three years. Like what is stopping you? Yeah. And what works about this is how straightforward it is. They could just keep doing the straightforward thing and it would work
[02:02:05] every time like it typically does with the Holmes adaptation. Yep. Right. Just do it. Now, can I say a new story I just read? Johnny Knoxville and Steve Oh, have already been hospitalized two days into shooting Jack S. for COVID or what?
[02:02:25] God, that should be their big stunt. Just be like, hi, I'm Johnny Knoxville and this is trying to film a movie during a pandemic. And then the stunt is just them sitting in chairs speaking until one of them gets sick.
[02:02:38] Ben, I have to tell you what hospitalized them because I think you're going to enjoy this. Are you ready? I'm ready. Apparently they got hurt by, quote, jumping on a full speed treadmill with band equipment and by band equipment, he means quote, a fucking tuba. It sounds great.
[02:03:02] It sounds funny. Honestly, I love how there are four movies in and they're like, have we ever run on a treadmill where like they're like, I'm checking. I don't think we have. And they're like, great, this thing's going to be easy. Movies are back, baby.
[02:03:16] Rumors of their death are greatly exaggerated. The cinema is back. Big screen, big movie, big movie. Fran, thank you so much for coming on and talking to my gosh. Thank you so much for having me back. This has been such a treat to process deep rooted feelings.
[02:03:37] I'm glad we could start the process. Yeah. What'd you say? David, back. Oh, thank you. Just amazing to have you back. I said your name. Oh, that's right. We're friends. It's true. Yeah. Yeah, this is going to be a good mini series, Griffin.
[02:03:55] I think it's going to be fun and loose and a nice start to 2021. Right? Yeah, it's good. Yeah, all tunes. I can't wait to hear you guys talk about Prince Ali, the banger of bangers. Prince Ali is so fucking good. It's so good.
[02:04:16] I know you don't like Aladdin as much as me, Griffin. And I'm sure I don't even like it that much. But I love that song. Yeah. I mean, I think the song is a friend like me is the one that I feel
[02:04:27] like jumps out to me as the real banger in that soundtrack. But I just not just considering the Prince Ali take a friend like me rules. Obviously, Robin Williams, lots of fun, but Prince Ali has the it's so good that that is so good.
[02:04:45] I had a friend once while sort of DJing, while I was driving and I was like, you know, take the take the phone, play whatever you want. And we had been listening to I would argue regular music.
[02:04:56] And then they were like, hang on, I want to put something on and put on Prince Ali. It's like maybe one of the craziest experiences. And it was it rocked. It was so funny. So it's good. We need that kind of boldness these days.
[02:05:10] We do. We do that kind of bold thinking to get our country turned around. That's what I'm thinking. If only we had someone in charge of this country with the energy of let me put on Prince Ali at three o'clock in the morning at this party.
[02:05:21] Do you remember when Biden like played a song from his phone? I can't remember what it was, right? It was like a Cardi B song or whatever. What if you played Prince Ali and like a lot of good ideas in this one? You really got to listen.
[02:05:36] That would be good. That's what might be able to finally bring the dirtbag left over to Biden. Maybe a vote for him. Prince Ali. Hey, you know, it's a weird thing. I just remember we're going to have to talk about. What? What?
[02:05:50] That the fucking proud boys movement comes out of Aladdin. Can we just now say that we've talked about it and that's the end of that? Can we can? Can I be it? OK, also the song was Despacito. It was. But it was Despacito. Sure did. Wow.
[02:06:08] I have no recollection of this. The remix or the original? Um, I think the original. I think the original. OK, because the version that's popular is a remix. I feel like I just want to have that on the record. Yeah, but I mean, come on, Biden, Biden.
[02:06:27] I know, I know. I'm just I'm just saying. Oh, God, I just have one thing to say. He comes out and just says I have one thing to say. Hang on here. He's looking at his phone. Just place it. Oh, God, I don't know. I almost respect it.
[02:06:48] Is it just him saying like, look, this is a normal thing. I do very often on my phone. It's right there at the ready for me to play because I do this all the time for fun. Just really right. No one is like, hey, Joe, come on.
[02:07:02] And people just don't buy that you're the kind of guy who, you know, goes home and throws on Despacito. No one thinks he's doing. No one needs Joe Biden to listen to Despacito. No, no, I think he listens to like the Charleston
[02:07:15] on a patrol that he winds up by hand. That makes me relate to him. That's the most connected. I don't know. It's our thing, Griffin, and it's that our generation will always think of old people as listening to the troll.
[02:07:31] Like Biden probably grew up listening to the Beatles or whatever, but we're just like, a guy so old, he listened to the Charleston. I was just, the trollers are funny. You just imagine Biden like like the RCA dog tilting his head up to listen to the horn.
[02:07:48] God, I'm sorry. Is it good? This is a good goofy start. That's of course our episode on the great mass detective. Fran, people should follow you on Twitter for rat again tweets once or twice a year. Yeah, yeah, I'm on Twitter. I'm on Letterboxed.
[02:08:06] My buddy Caroline Simons and I do a podcast about Jude Law called Law School. We record whatever we want. There's no regularity, so don't get comfortable, is what we say. What else? He is daddy though. Oh, he's daddy. He's daddy to be sure.
[02:08:22] We can talk about this later, but I wonder who will play Smee in the live action remake of Peter Pan. Peter Pan. What else? We do great stuff at Brightwell Darkroom all the time. I don't know if I'll have anything up there by the time this airs,
[02:08:35] but someone else will have something better probably. That's it. I'm not doing a ton these days other than posting tweets about rat again and then maybe deleting them if they're too weird. Okay, that's the way to be doing it right now. Honestly, this deep into a pandemic,
[02:08:52] that's all you can ask yourself. I'm having a lot of fun with tweeting and deleting and it's like, you see it or you don't? My fun these days is pre-deleting. Sometimes I tweet and then delete it within 30 seconds, but sometimes I just draft it out
[02:09:06] and then just never send it. I will say it. If I have a tweet, it goes to Joey Sims usually. If it's a tweet that I'm not gonna tweet, it just goes right to Joey Sims. I test a lot of tweets by David, I will say.
[02:09:17] Yeah, I appreciate it. He's a good soundboard in that way. Yeah. Folks, thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review and subscribe. And thanks to Lane Montgomery for our theme song and Joe Bowen and Pat Reynolds for our artwork and go to our Shopify page
[02:09:37] where the Talk in the Walk 2020 shirt is shipping out. And if you wanna be a little basil of Baker Street yourself, hopefully at this point someone has cracked the code for where the mystery surprise secret episode is. Right? With our listeners,
[02:09:55] someone's probably figured it out at this point. Oh yeah. Yeah. Tune in next week for The Little Mermaid, an obscure animated film of the 1980s that changed the entire industry and perhaps broke Hollywood forever. Multiverse of madness, baby. Multiverse of madness.
[02:10:15] And as always, Radigan is an absolute unit. Yeah, he's a chungus.