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Speaker 1: Also media, Ah, what's raising my children? If you're the

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Speaker 1: subject of today's episode, the answer is no one really.

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Speaker 1: I'm Robert Evans. This is Behind the Bastards, a podcast

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Speaker 1: about terrible parents. We've just finished our Steve Jobs episodes

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Speaker 1: who was a Shitty parent for the history books, And today, folks,

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Speaker 1: we have a horrible, horrible man who was also a

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Speaker 1: horrible horrible parent for you. That is boy howdy, this

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Speaker 1: guy much worse than your guessing he's going to be.

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Speaker 1: And before I introduce our subject for this week, this

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Speaker 1: is a cartoonist who we're going to be talking about.

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Speaker 1: And whenever I bring on a cartoonist, bastard and there

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Speaker 1: are many, we have our resident official Behind the Bastards

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Speaker 1: podcast cartoonist Randy Millholland Grance.

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Speaker 2: Thank you so kindly. That was a lovely intro. I

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Speaker 2: really can't wait for this best because you're talking about

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Speaker 2: his property is done by the same syndic that I

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Speaker 2: work for.

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Speaker 1: Good Well, speaking of that, you are the creator of

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Speaker 1: the webcomics Something Positive and you are currently pop by

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Speaker 1: the sailor Man's uncle. I think is I think so?

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Speaker 2: I think I'm his adoptive father.

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Speaker 1: Now this pot Yeah, yeah, his adoptive father. You draw

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Speaker 1: him to this day, and actually we'll be talking a

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Speaker 1: little bit about that, about how comics go on when

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Speaker 1: they're original artist no longer one's tour is able to

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Speaker 1: draw them and stuff. That's part of the story here.

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Speaker 1: But our bastard for this episode is the Dennis the

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Speaker 1: Menace guy. And I know what you're saying. People, The

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Speaker 1: term history's greatest monster gets thrown around a lot, especially

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Speaker 1: mostly by me. Yeah, mostly by me, But obviously, who

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Speaker 1: could be a better pick for the worst human being

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Speaker 1: in history than the guy who draws Dennis the Menace?

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Speaker 1: I don't know.

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Speaker 3: I'm actually surprised you didn't try to do the Hitler

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Speaker 3: of comics because you also throw that alout on.

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Speaker 1: I've done a lot of the Hitler of X titles

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Speaker 1: over the last couple of year, Sophie. I'm not a

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Speaker 1: very creative man. I know, Randy, What can you tell

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Speaker 1: me about the Dennis the Menace creator, Hank Ketch him

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Speaker 1: not spelled like the guy from Pokemon.

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Speaker 2: Well, I know that he served in the Navy during

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Speaker 2: World War Two. I know the names of a few

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Speaker 2: his ghost artists who worked on the comic and the

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Speaker 2: comic book. I also know that around the time Dennis

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Speaker 2: the Minists launched in America and Britain, a comic also

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Speaker 2: named Dennish the Menace, Completely Unrated launched. I know he

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Speaker 2: was not rumored to be the nicest dad.

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Speaker 1: Not that we'll be talking a lot about him as.

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Speaker 2: A dad, not to his first son anyway, not to

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Speaker 2: his first kid. Yeah, ef fact, I would say that

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Speaker 2: there's definitely a lot of like sadness involved with children,

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Speaker 2: because like the TV show, I know there were some

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Speaker 2: sad things happening to Jane Orth as well.

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Speaker 1: I'm nervous.

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Speaker 2: I'm not gonna lie.

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Speaker 1: This is an interesting story obviously, like we're talking about

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Speaker 1: a lower stakes bastard than a lot of our war

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Speaker 1: criminals and genocide airs here. But I think it's interesting

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Speaker 1: both because Hank's career kind of straddles the birth of

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Speaker 1: animation as a field, and he has involved in some

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Speaker 1: of like the early acts of bastardry within animation as

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Speaker 1: it relates to like Disney and labor issues. And he's

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Speaker 1: also just a fascinating case study of like where's the

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Speaker 1: ethical line about creating art that's inspired by your life? Right?

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Speaker 1: Because most people who do some sort of fictional art,

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Speaker 1: especially for like an audience and an ongoing basis. Their

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Speaker 1: real life experiences play into that somehow. It's like a

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Speaker 1: common joke that like writers and whatnot, you know, takes

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Speaker 1: stuff from their lives and put it into their stories.

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Speaker 1: And is there actually a moral line? There is there

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Speaker 1: a degree to which that's like wrong? Like what is

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Speaker 1: the extent to which you should do that when it

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Speaker 1: starts to have an effect on the real people that

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Speaker 1: you're inspired by. These are actually some kind of tough

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Speaker 1: questions that I think will be rolling over a little bit.

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Speaker 1: But I will tell you Hank does the wrong thing

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Speaker 1: in every possible instance. So oh no, yeah, oh god, Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So Hank King Ketcham was born on March Fourteen's you

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Speaker 1: say king King is his middle name? Yeah, is a

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Speaker 1: king of God. And again not like ash Ketchum of

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Speaker 1: the Pokemons, that's k e tchu Wim. Hank is k

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Speaker 1: E tch a m And he was born on March fourteenth,

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Speaker 1: nineteen twenty, in the flooded hellscape of Seattle, Washington. His

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Speaker 1: father's first name was Weaver, which I don't like. I

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Speaker 1: don't think that's a very good name.

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Speaker 2: It's a weird one.

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Speaker 1: It's a fine last name if you want to get

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Speaker 1: shot by the FBI, or at least have several members

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Speaker 1: of your family shot by the FBI, but a bad

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Speaker 1: first name. And his mother's first name was Virginia, which

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Speaker 1: I'm neutral on. When he was six years old, he

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Speaker 1: met an illustrator who was a friend of the family.

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Speaker 1: And this is like his inciting incident as a kid

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Speaker 1: who wants to become a cartoonist. And here's how Hank

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Speaker 1: describes that moment. A lot of artists I and I

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Speaker 1: guess basically everyone who becomes an artist has a moment

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Speaker 1: like this. Hank describes his in his autobiography, which has

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Speaker 1: the most insufferable title of a famous cartoonist attabious, imaginable.

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Speaker 1: Do you know what this autobiography is named? I am

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Speaker 1: dreading this so you know he's the guy who created

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Speaker 1: Dennis the Menace, right, not weird that people might want

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Speaker 1: an autobiography for that. What do you call that? I'm

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Speaker 1: the Dennis the Menace guy, you know, Hank Ketchum a

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Speaker 1: life in cartoons now.

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Speaker 2: Drawing trouble. That that's why I go drawing trouble.

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Speaker 1: Sure, all of these are fine titles. He calls it

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Speaker 1: the Merchant of Dennis the Menace, Oh, like the Merchant

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Speaker 1: of Venice for no reason, because there's no similarity, like

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Speaker 1: other than the fact that there's an iss in both that, like,

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Speaker 1: there's no through line between the Merchant and Venice and

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Speaker 1: drawing Dennis the Menace. I'm so angry about this, and

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Speaker 1: I shouldn't be, And like, I don't normally say this,

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Speaker 1: but Hank Ketchum should have been murdered by the government.

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Speaker 1: What else can you say about that? I'm sorry.

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Speaker 2: The next National Cartoon Society meeting after this podcast, my

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Speaker 2: next editors meeting, where they're like, hey, heard you were

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Speaker 2: on a podcast about talking about property distribute, But.

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Speaker 1: Seriously, why would you call it the Merchant of Dennis

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Speaker 1: the Menace.

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Speaker 2: I'm sure you thought it, and I'm sure he had

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Speaker 2: no one who was willing to say no.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I mean it is a little telling because past a

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Speaker 1: certain point in his career, this is just a property

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Speaker 1: he's marketing, rather than which I mean, I don't actually

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Speaker 1: hold that against him, right, Like, if you draw a

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Speaker 1: doodle of a misbehaving little kid and it makes you

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Speaker 1: a very wealthy man, you kind of ride that ship

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Speaker 1: as long as you can, right, Who wouldn't you know?

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Speaker 2: It's also really common in comics that a lot of

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Speaker 2: times you'll have cartoonists who will get ghost artists and

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Speaker 2: ghost writers, and you know, once you get big enough,

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Speaker 2: you can like Jim Davis hasn't drawn Carfield probably decades.

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Speaker 1: God has been, of course not. And we're well on

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Speaker 1: the record of saying there's nothing wrong with Jim Davis.

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Speaker 2: Really not a lot of my friends. In fact, a

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Speaker 2: lot of cartoonists like Jim Davis Scott their start in

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Speaker 2: this field. Yeah, being ghost artists, it's a very common.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. And of all the ways to get that

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Speaker 1: kind of money, drawing a little a weird little guy

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Speaker 1: is like one of the least problematic ways, right, Like,

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Speaker 1: there's not as much exploitation normally with Hank there kind

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Speaker 1: of is because his child is like the sacrifice he

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Speaker 1: makes for his comic to work. But I've gotten ahead

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Speaker 1: of myself.

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Speaker 2: Oh God.

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Speaker 1: Anyway, here's how he describes first getting pilled on the

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Speaker 1: wonders of working as a cartoonist. As I watched him

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Speaker 1: scribble some quick sketches of Barney Google, Moon Mulleins and

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Speaker 1: Andy Gump. I couldn't wait to borrow his magic pencil

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Speaker 1: and try my own hand at drawing these comic strip characters.

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Speaker 1: It looks so easy and such a lot of fun.

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Speaker 1: I couldn't have been more than six years old at

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Speaker 1: the time. Well, the two men sure came up with

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Speaker 1: a good way to get rid of me. In a hurry,

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Speaker 1: I moved over to the creaky roll top desk, found

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Speaker 1: some thin sheets of paper, and remained there until dinner,

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Speaker 1: slavishly tracing the visitor's sketches. Quite sure the pencil was magic.

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Speaker 1: And uh, yeah, I think that that's not an uncommon

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Speaker 1: kind of story, right, Yeah.

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Speaker 2: I think it's how a lot of us start off.

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Speaker 2: Either we see it or we just are lucky enough

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Speaker 2: to start doodling one day you just can't stop.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, And that's what happens with Hank. He starts doodling.

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Speaker 1: When this guy comes over, he sketches his drawings. He

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Speaker 1: actually has the opposite experience I had his little kid

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Speaker 1: where his teacher finds his cartoons and takes them on

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Speaker 1: in front of the class to be like, look at

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Speaker 1: how good Hank is it drawing, And she has him

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Speaker 1: like draw for the class to like praise him, not

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Speaker 1: as like a to punish him or whatever in.

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Speaker 2: This garbage you were doing, piece of shit. I had

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Speaker 2: those teachers. I had a lot of those teachers.

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Speaker 1: Yeah I got. I got in trouble because my cartoons

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Speaker 1: were way too violent and in a post column by

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Speaker 1: in America, you didn't want to your teacher to find

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Speaker 1: your notebook with those drawings.

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Speaker 2: Oh shit. I didn't realize how lucky I was to

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Speaker 2: graduate in nineteen ninety four.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. I would have been in so much trouble for

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Speaker 1: so many things. Yeah. I mean it's only gotten worse since,

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Speaker 1: like I was not there and nearly as bad as

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Speaker 1: it would become. But like I did have, I did

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Speaker 1: catch some flak for some of my cartoons. So in

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Speaker 1: his autobiography, Hank describes himself as lucky. And I find

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Speaker 1: this interesting because he's aware that, like other kids spend

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Speaker 1: years trying to figure out what they're going to be,

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Speaker 1: and like often never really do And he knew from

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Speaker 1: like is, basically as long as he could remember, he

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Speaker 1: knew the only thing I want to be is a cartoonist.

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Speaker 1: It is interesting he's got that kind of self awareness

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Speaker 1: that is a blessing, right knowing that you have this

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Speaker 1: one very specific thing, and it's the only thing you'll

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Speaker 1: ever want to do.

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Speaker 2: I can relate. Actually, that's something my earliest memory was bluring.

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Speaker 2: People can draw for a living, and that's why I

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Speaker 2: wanted to do. I God, I hope that is the

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Speaker 2: only similarity between us.

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Speaker 1: I'm I also hope that's the only similarity between you.

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Speaker 1: In his autobiography, he describes himself as like becoming increasingly

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Speaker 1: obsessed with cartoons as a child. The Wondrous World is

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Speaker 1: inhabited by Barney Google, Harold Teene, Mutt and Jeff, the

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Speaker 1: Tuonerville Folks, and the Gumps, and like I went through

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Speaker 1: those and I was like, I have not heard of

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Speaker 1: any of these fucking people. M Jeff A little bit,

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Speaker 1: A little bit.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, Andy. The Gumps was actually one of the first

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Speaker 2: comics to have continuity. It started just before Simple Theater did.

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Speaker 2: It was also had like one of the first storylines

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Speaker 2: where a character died. It was a national event.

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Speaker 1: People freaking wow. Yeah, like America for a while. Oh

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Speaker 1: like wow, that dates it.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, Like it was like I think it was Spanish

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Speaker 2: flu or some It was something that a woman got sick,

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Speaker 2: and it was a very big deal.

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Speaker 1: No.

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Speaker 2: Granted today I would probably get fireball and for doing

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Speaker 2: the same thing. But at the same time.

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Speaker 1: That is I don't know. I don't know if kids

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Speaker 1: today are having these experience, but I like one of

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Speaker 1: the first things I remember learning about death was from

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Speaker 1: a Calvin and Hobbes cartoons.

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Speaker 2: So oh the bird or the phone?

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Speaker 1: No it was it was the raccoon, I think. Sah, yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: it really was. And one one of the fun things

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Speaker 1: about cartoons is that they never die, at least if

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Speaker 1: they're successful enough, they never die.

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Speaker 3: Right.

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Speaker 1: The reason I bring that up is because some of

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Speaker 1: these comics I hadn't heard of. I looked up and

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Speaker 1: in the case of Bunkie and Barney Google and Snuffy Smith,

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Speaker 1: which is a cartoon I was not aware of, it

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Speaker 1: was created the year before Hank was born, and it

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Speaker 1: is still in print today under a new cartoonist. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Oh cool.

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Speaker 2: Oh, Rose is a sweetheart. He's a wonderful man. Again.

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Speaker 2: It's the King Features And like Bimble Theater, it's a

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Speaker 2: comic that started off about one character, Barney Google. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: eventually they're brought in Snuffy Smith, and Snuffy kind of

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Speaker 2: outshine Barney and he just kind of vanished from the comic.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, they like killed him or took him away for

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Speaker 1: a while, and he came back back.

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Speaker 2: Every once in a while the current artist does his

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Speaker 2: best to bring him back and actually bring back a

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Speaker 2: lot of old characters from the old days.

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Speaker 1: And yeah, I had not heard of this comic at all,

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Speaker 1: but I you know, when I came upon the name,

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Speaker 1: I was immediately like, I wonder if this has anything

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Speaker 1: to do about like Google, the search engine, and you know,

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Speaker 1: the Barney Google comic, I think obviously exists before the

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Speaker 1: concept of computers in most people's mind. But the answer

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Speaker 1: is probably. As a matter of fact. In the book

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Speaker 1: That Hidden History of Coined Words, published by Oxford University Press,

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Speaker 1: author Ralph Keyes argues that Barney Google was probably the

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Speaker 1: inspiration for the term goggle, which is the term for

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Speaker 1: a very large number, which is what inspired the name

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Speaker 1: for Google. So you know, what does all this mean?

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Speaker 1: Should you burn down Google headquarters and draw and quarter

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Speaker 1: there's c suite in public as vengeance for Barney Google suffering.

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Speaker 1: Maybe I haven't read the comic. I don't know. Pop

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Speaker 1: Probably I feel like I.

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Speaker 2: Should say at this point no opinion here expressed as

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Speaker 2: an opinion of King Features Syndicate or their parent company

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Speaker 2: hurst uh want to get fired?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, none of these are even my opinions usually. So

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Speaker 1: the first animated movie that's going to come out that

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Speaker 1: that Hank is going to be aware of as a

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Speaker 1: kid is the French film Phantasma Gory.

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Speaker 2: Oh probably, Yeah, I've heard of that. I haven't seen it.

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Speaker 1: Seen some ancient stuff, and like we're saying probably because

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Speaker 1: like a lot of media from them was lost, so

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Speaker 1: you can't ever say, like for certain nobody tried it before.

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Speaker 1: But if you look at least from the clips I've

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Speaker 1: seen and stuff, it actually kind of reminds me a

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Speaker 1: little bit of Don Hertzfeldt's work, Like a lot of

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Speaker 1: it's like stick figure style animated art. There were also

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Speaker 1: some pseudo animated movies that kind of predated Phantasmagori, but

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Speaker 1: they were all animated by like putting images on a

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Speaker 1: wheel and projecting light through it and like moving the

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Speaker 1: wheel around to make the images move or some shit,

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Speaker 1: which is like it's not considered like it's not animation

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Speaker 1: in the same way that like traditional animation is done

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Speaker 1: right now, cartoons grew up fast from this point in

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Speaker 1: nineteen twenty eight, we get Steamboat Willie, a short film

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Speaker 1: by Walt Disney and UBI Works that is generally considered

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Speaker 1: the first Mickey Mouse cartoon recently enter the public domain.

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Speaker 1: As I think we're all aware.

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Speaker 2: I'm doing a comic based off of it right now too. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: I want to see if I get sued.

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Speaker 1: Where is that line You're allowed to call him Mickey?

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Speaker 2: Right?

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Speaker 1: Uh?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm also a Mickey. He's not allowed to have

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Speaker 2: read shorts. He's not allted have gloves.

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Speaker 1: I love copyright law.

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Speaker 2: It's a little dance we do. And I know there's

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Speaker 2: there's some poor lawyer in the basement of Disney whose

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Speaker 2: job is every day like as he fucked up.

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Speaker 1: It is fucked up. It is wild, like is like

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Speaker 1: a seven or eight year old Hank's watching Steamboat Willie

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Speaker 1: with no idea that like, in the not too distant future,

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Speaker 1: this mouse will be worth more than most of the

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Speaker 1: nations on Earth, Like he will absolutely change large aspects

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Speaker 1: of how life is lived and creativity functions for a

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Speaker 1: huge percentage of the human population. Yep, it's so fucking

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Speaker 1: crazy where that all goes. But yeah, so he loves

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Speaker 1: this as a little kid. He's enthralled by all animation.

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Speaker 1: You have to think about animation in the period where

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Speaker 1: Hank is a kid. It's not like we animation today

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Speaker 1: is like, yeah, kids like animated movies, right, and so

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Speaker 1: do adults. Animated movies are a big deal. Animation is

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Speaker 1: kind of like it's close to the Internet than it

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Speaker 1: is to like a type of entertainment. Yeah, because the

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Speaker 1: idea that you could just like draw pictures and have

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Speaker 1: them move and have that on a screen is like

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Speaker 1: such a wild like it really has this almost hallucinogenic

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Speaker 1: effect on people in the day because it's such a

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Speaker 1: new concept. Like you have to imagine going from like

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Speaker 1: dying of the Spanish flu to seeing Fantasia is quite

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Speaker 1: an experience, you know, Oh my.

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Speaker 2: God, or seeing the goddamn donkey transformation in Pinocchio.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that shit's intense, you know. And I do think

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Speaker 1: that like really or you know, it might be better

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Speaker 1: than compared to the Internet, compared to like how YouTube

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Speaker 1: videos impacted the development of kids who were born like

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Speaker 1: after the two thousands. Right, It's both in some good

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Speaker 1: ways and some bad ways. It's this thing that just

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Speaker 1: like utterly captures a generation. And Hank is right in

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Speaker 1: the center of the blast radius. Hank saw cartoons from

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Speaker 1: a very early age, not just as a method of

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Speaker 1: self expression, but as a path to money. His first

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Speaker 1: job was when he was ten years old. A classmate

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Speaker 1: with a rich dad offered to pay him twenty five

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Speaker 1: cents cash. He writes it in his book if he

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Speaker 1: drew one hundred cartoon heads, and he describes this as

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Speaker 1: like a nightmare job. It was like the first time

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Speaker 1: he took a horrible gigwork animating piece and was like, Oh,

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Speaker 1: this sucks. Why would anyone do this?

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Speaker 2: Every cartoonist has that job in their history. I'm glad

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Speaker 2: he got out of the system.

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Speaker 1: Really back in his day, like that was the equivalent

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Speaker 1: of mid journey is find a kid who's good at

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Speaker 1: sketching and give him a quarter. His childhood was not

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Speaker 1: all cartoons, of course, and they seem to have served

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Speaker 1: as at least a partial escape from his world, you know,

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Speaker 1: And he grows up in a world you might want

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Speaker 1: to escape. He's kind of comes into being right after

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Speaker 1: the Spanish Flu and shit calms down, and he grows

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Speaker 1: up right in the teeth of the Great Depression, and

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Speaker 1: his own description of his father's discipline style sounds unpleasant

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Speaker 1: to say the least. Quote. My sister Joan is two

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Speaker 1: years younger than I, and we grew up as too normal,

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Speaker 1: well behaved, insecure, terrified kids. Dad served in the Navy

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Speaker 1: during the First World War and was by nature a

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Speaker 1: stern disciplinarian. I don't know what prompted it, but one

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Speaker 1: evening he brought home a horsewhip, a stiff, tapered thing

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Speaker 1: about three feet long that he solemnly placed in the

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Speaker 1: corner near the front door. My first thought was, oh boy,

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Speaker 1: when is he goin to bring the horse? The rules

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00:17:10,000 --> 00:17:12,520
Speaker 1: were quite simple, no whipping above the knees. Now, maybe

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Speaker 1: this is as it should be on horses, but on skinny,

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Speaker 1: little underfed kids, it's murder. However, it did stimulate the

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Speaker 1: circulation on cold afternoons, and I developed various techniques of

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Speaker 1: fancy footwork that to this day have given me the

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Speaker 1: reputation of being an agile dancer, which is like a

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Speaker 1: very funny and lighthearted way of saying, yeah, like, my

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Speaker 1: dad beat the hell out of us when we were

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Speaker 1: bat Oh my god, love the old times.

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Speaker 2: I'm sure that's not gonna come back later in any way,

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Speaker 2: that's not the effect anything in the future, is it.

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Speaker 1: I mean, you know, his kid might have done better

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Speaker 1: if he'd been like there and just smacking him sometimes

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Speaker 1: as opposed to like this is a weird case of

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Speaker 1: like honestly, if he'd just been there at all, it

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Speaker 1: might have been better. Fuck, I don't know. I can't

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Speaker 1: make a conclusive stance.

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Speaker 2: There still like what a what a fuck of a thing? Like, yeah,

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Speaker 2: we grew up as normal terrified children. That's not fucking normal.

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Speaker 1: Dad brought a whip and just laid it in the room,

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Speaker 1: so we had to think about it for a while.

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Speaker 2: Oh my Jesus Christ.

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Speaker 1: I mean I had I had the healthy version of

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Speaker 1: that as a kid, which was my dungeon Master bought

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Speaker 1: a copy of The Book of Vile Darkness and just

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00:18:14,760 --> 00:18:16,800
Speaker 1: like set it out on the table for like five

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Speaker 1: sessions before he ever used anything from it. And the

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Speaker 1: instant we're in a fight and he like grabs it

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Speaker 1: from the middle of the table and opens it up.

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Speaker 1: We're all like, oh fuck, that was my having a switch.

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Speaker 2: That book, wasn't it.

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Speaker 1: Yeah?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I had a book that was awful, great,

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Speaker 2: great source book. I never used him a player once,

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Speaker 2: couldn't so.

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Speaker 1: Hank doesn't claim to we have had a bad relationship

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Speaker 1: with his father, who actually supported his ambitions to be

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Speaker 1: an animator. I do think that description of himself as

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Speaker 1: his and his sister as insecure and terrified shouldn't just

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Speaker 1: be read as a joke. We should maybe use that

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Speaker 1: as a little bit of like a oh, yeah, the

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00:18:55,240 --> 00:18:58,480
Speaker 1: boomers make a lot of sense, or in their predecessors, like,

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Speaker 1: I'm not surprised they've done some of the things they've

403
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Speaker 1: done as a generation.

404
00:19:02,520 --> 00:19:03,680
Speaker 2: Nope, not remotely.

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00:19:04,160 --> 00:19:06,879
Speaker 1: Hank would later claim that the first animated thing that

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Speaker 1: really had a huge impact on him was The Three

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00:19:09,920 --> 00:19:13,560
Speaker 1: Little Pigs. This is a Disney short film that's released

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Speaker 1: in nineteen thirty three, and this is what makes him

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Speaker 1: want to be an animator specifically. He always wants to draw.

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Speaker 1: He's like, because you know, there's a bunch of different

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Speaker 1: jobs for animations. You could do advertisements, you could do cartoons,

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Speaker 1: Film animation is new, and it's Three Little Pigs that

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Speaker 1: makes him want to become specifically a Walt Disney animator.

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Speaker 2: Also of the early color ones as well.

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Speaker 1: Wasn't that Yes, yes it is. It comes out in

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Speaker 1: thirty three, and then four years later is the very

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Speaker 1: first animated film of all time, Snow White and Some

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Speaker 1: Dudes Yes right, which still actually looks great, you know

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Speaker 1: it does.

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Speaker 2: It has never like they really worked hard, like the

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Speaker 2: work that is core. It was groundbreaking.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, It's such a cool thing about animation is that

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Speaker 1: like it ages, but not in a way where it

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Speaker 1: like it doesn't look worse with age. Good drawings are

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00:19:59,000 --> 00:20:01,600
Speaker 1: always good drawing. You can date them because like, people

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Speaker 1: don't draw the way they did for Snow White anymore,

427
00:20:03,640 --> 00:20:04,520
Speaker 1: but they don't look bad.

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00:20:05,040 --> 00:20:08,600
Speaker 2: Well. Across town, the Fleischer Studio did their Goalvers Travels movie,

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00:20:08,600 --> 00:20:11,240
Speaker 2: which you know, hell lot of rotoscope and actually even

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00:20:11,240 --> 00:20:16,080
Speaker 2: the Popeye meets Sindbad thirty minutes short they did it

431
00:20:16,160 --> 00:20:18,600
Speaker 2: is still one of the most stunning things I've ever seen,

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00:20:19,240 --> 00:20:23,440
Speaker 2: as the actual real background that they rotated and it

433
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Speaker 2: sells over.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I love when they I mean, I grew up

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Speaker 1: on a lot of rotoscope stuff, like I'm a big

436
00:20:29,800 --> 00:20:34,080
Speaker 1: I'm a big like Fritz the Cat Boxhi fan, Yeah,

437
00:20:34,119 --> 00:20:37,840
Speaker 1: Bakshi y rotoscope Oh yeah yeah. He couldn't get enough

438
00:20:37,840 --> 00:20:40,320
Speaker 1: of it. And that was when you're nineteen years old

439
00:20:40,320 --> 00:20:44,560
Speaker 1: and hallucinating every weekend recreationally like rotoscoped movies hit different.

440
00:20:45,640 --> 00:20:49,520
Speaker 1: He didn't have hallucinogens, probably, but he did have cartoons.

441
00:20:50,000 --> 00:20:53,240
Speaker 1: And as he kind of grows into an adolescent, he

442
00:20:53,800 --> 00:20:57,760
Speaker 1: continues to like love drawing, and he gets what's weird

443
00:20:57,840 --> 00:21:00,159
Speaker 1: is he describes it as like this is what makes

444
00:21:00,240 --> 00:21:02,640
Speaker 1: him a cool kid, Like I've never actually I've read

445
00:21:02,680 --> 00:21:04,600
Speaker 1: a lot of car because I like cartoons. I've heard

446
00:21:04,640 --> 00:21:08,280
Speaker 1: a lot of cartoonists autobiographies and memoirs. I have never

447
00:21:08,320 --> 00:21:11,480
Speaker 1: heard of cartoonists say that it got them late, not once.

448
00:21:11,920 --> 00:21:15,520
Speaker 1: But Hank Ketcham makes that claim. And here's what he says.

449
00:21:16,280 --> 00:21:18,760
Speaker 1: I accepted most any request for a funny drawing. It

450
00:21:18,800 --> 00:21:21,280
Speaker 1: was a splendid ego massage. I received as much attention

451
00:21:21,320 --> 00:21:23,840
Speaker 1: from the girls as the muscular athletes and was never

452
00:21:23,920 --> 00:21:24,640
Speaker 1: out of breath.

453
00:21:25,800 --> 00:21:28,280
Speaker 2: That sounds like he was getting dates from both, which

454
00:21:28,440 --> 00:21:29,920
Speaker 2: is the headcanon I want.

455
00:21:30,119 --> 00:21:33,159
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know if I really believe that, Hank,

456
00:21:33,520 --> 00:21:36,240
Speaker 1: just because I've never heard of it of a guy

457
00:21:36,359 --> 00:21:39,280
Speaker 1: drawing cartoons getting that kind of attention from it. But

458
00:21:39,320 --> 00:21:40,280
Speaker 1: perhaps that happened.

459
00:21:40,320 --> 00:21:43,360
Speaker 2: I mean, I did meet my spouse because of my comic,

460
00:21:43,480 --> 00:21:43,919
Speaker 2: But I.

461
00:21:44,280 --> 00:21:47,240
Speaker 1: Still like in high school it was like in high school.

462
00:21:47,600 --> 00:21:49,240
Speaker 2: Oh god no, I was like, oh, could you draw

463
00:21:49,280 --> 00:21:51,280
Speaker 2: this horse? I'm gonna give it to my boyfriend? Okay,

464
00:21:51,440 --> 00:21:51,960
Speaker 2: here you go.

465
00:21:52,400 --> 00:21:55,639
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely not. But I don't know, maybe it was

466
00:21:55,680 --> 00:21:58,440
Speaker 1: a different era. Disney animators were the U. I don't

467
00:21:58,440 --> 00:22:01,040
Speaker 1: know what's a sexy job? Is any think sexy anymore?

468
00:22:01,840 --> 00:22:03,119
Speaker 2: Took your bills?

469
00:22:03,359 --> 00:22:06,760
Speaker 1: Yeah, having more money than rent costs.

470
00:22:07,000 --> 00:22:08,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's pretty hot.

471
00:22:08,600 --> 00:22:11,240
Speaker 1: So after he graduates from high school, Hank hitchhike to

472
00:22:11,280 --> 00:22:13,320
Speaker 1: Hollywood and talked his way into a job at an

473
00:22:13,359 --> 00:22:17,520
Speaker 1: ad agency. He hitchhiked, Yeah, he hitch set Yeah, yeah,

474
00:22:17,560 --> 00:22:21,480
Speaker 1: down to It's not that you're not like, no car's

475
00:22:21,480 --> 00:22:23,760
Speaker 1: gonna go particularly fast and begin with but damn. And

476
00:22:23,840 --> 00:22:25,480
Speaker 1: he makes the claim that, like, you could never do

477
00:22:25,600 --> 00:22:28,200
Speaker 1: this today. Everything's too dangerous today. And I don't know,

478
00:22:28,200 --> 00:22:30,359
Speaker 1: I have I have friends who hitchhike. Now, it's not

479
00:22:30,440 --> 00:22:32,520
Speaker 1: that much worse. You may just be more scared of

480
00:22:32,560 --> 00:22:37,120
Speaker 1: the way would argue dangerous back then got murdered. Yeah,

481
00:22:37,720 --> 00:22:39,000
Speaker 1: there was nobody to check.

482
00:22:40,240 --> 00:22:43,479
Speaker 2: Sometime from Texas that's the same time period. In a hotel,

483
00:22:43,640 --> 00:22:45,560
Speaker 2: he just threw people to alligators. I mean, it's just

484
00:22:46,840 --> 00:22:47,520
Speaker 2: he's not lucky.

485
00:22:47,920 --> 00:22:49,800
Speaker 1: This is why I keep trying to start an alligator

486
00:22:49,840 --> 00:22:52,600
Speaker 1: farm in my backyard, and my neighbors on the property

487
00:22:52,720 --> 00:22:56,080
Speaker 1: keep saying, Robert, you can't just buy. You can't keep

488
00:22:56,160 --> 00:22:59,479
Speaker 1: alligators alive in the Pacific Northwest by just buying hundreds

489
00:22:59,480 --> 00:23:01,720
Speaker 1: of them and the body heat works out. That's not

490
00:23:01,840 --> 00:23:04,760
Speaker 1: the way alligators are. If they love each other, they'll

491
00:23:04,800 --> 00:23:08,000
Speaker 1: find a way, That's what I say. And that's kind

492
00:23:08,040 --> 00:23:10,480
Speaker 1: of how Hank feels, because he loves Walt Disney. And

493
00:23:10,560 --> 00:23:13,480
Speaker 1: he says that as he's hitchhiking down to Los Angeles,

494
00:23:13,520 --> 00:23:16,240
Speaker 1: the only thing on his mind is Walt Disney. He

495
00:23:16,800 --> 00:23:19,720
Speaker 1: gets a job doing like some kind of like you know,

496
00:23:19,880 --> 00:23:22,480
Speaker 1: scrub work here and there, and this is this shows

497
00:23:22,480 --> 00:23:24,280
Speaker 1: how easy it is to like break into Hollywood. He

498
00:23:24,400 --> 00:23:26,840
Speaker 1: like moves to Hollywood with nothing. He gets like a

499
00:23:26,960 --> 00:23:29,880
Speaker 1: gig doing like a little bit of work for a studio,

500
00:23:30,200 --> 00:23:32,960
Speaker 1: making twelve dollars a week, and his bedroom, which comes

501
00:23:33,040 --> 00:23:35,080
Speaker 1: with three cooked meals a day a cost six dollars

502
00:23:35,119 --> 00:23:39,520
Speaker 1: a week, Like without food, you're lucky if you're doing

503
00:23:39,640 --> 00:23:42,760
Speaker 1: that well. Income as a percentage of rent in Los

504
00:23:42,800 --> 00:23:45,680
Speaker 1: Angeles these days, it is such a different fucking world.

505
00:23:45,720 --> 00:23:49,160
Speaker 1: It's so different, Oh my god. And it's different also

506
00:23:49,240 --> 00:23:52,440
Speaker 1: in that like there's just it's opportunity is easier to

507
00:23:52,520 --> 00:23:55,240
Speaker 1: find because like he has this first job and then

508
00:23:55,600 --> 00:23:57,680
Speaker 1: that leads him to get a gig at Universal that

509
00:23:57,760 --> 00:24:00,560
Speaker 1: pays a little bit more as an animator's assists. Because

510
00:24:00,600 --> 00:24:03,080
Speaker 1: he's working as an animator's assistant based on the strength

511
00:24:03,080 --> 00:24:05,840
Speaker 1: of showing up and shaking some guy's hand. He's in

512
00:24:05,920 --> 00:24:09,359
Speaker 1: the right place at the right time when Disney is like, shit,

513
00:24:09,840 --> 00:24:12,720
Speaker 1: we've got this movie Pinocchio, and we're trying to finish

514
00:24:12,800 --> 00:24:14,960
Speaker 1: The Son of a Bitch, and we did not realize

515
00:24:15,000 --> 00:24:17,920
Speaker 1: Pinocchio was going to be such a complicated endeavor. So

516
00:24:18,040 --> 00:24:21,600
Speaker 1: we need a fuckload of people really fast, and we'll

517
00:24:21,600 --> 00:24:23,840
Speaker 1: pay them twenty five bucks a week, which is a

518
00:24:23,960 --> 00:24:25,680
Speaker 1: lot of money back then. And so that's how he

519
00:24:25,720 --> 00:24:26,919
Speaker 1: gets his first job with Disney.

520
00:24:27,400 --> 00:24:29,280
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, like Disney paid better than whe else,

521
00:24:29,320 --> 00:24:31,880
Speaker 2: but you also worked way more hours than were yes too, sorry.

522
00:24:31,720 --> 00:24:34,159
Speaker 1: Call yeah, yeah, and this is I mean, this is

523
00:24:34,200 --> 00:24:35,600
Speaker 1: going to be a lot of work, but it is

524
00:24:35,760 --> 00:24:38,760
Speaker 1: like because the industry is so this is a little

525
00:24:38,800 --> 00:24:40,600
Speaker 1: tip for all you kids out here. Find a thing

526
00:24:40,720 --> 00:24:43,120
Speaker 1: that people have just started figuring out how to make

527
00:24:43,200 --> 00:24:46,239
Speaker 1: money on and then walk into the room and say, hey,

528
00:24:46,320 --> 00:24:48,640
Speaker 1: do you have anything for me to do? That's that's

529
00:24:48,680 --> 00:24:52,240
Speaker 1: how to get yourself a job. And was Pinocchio before

530
00:24:52,520 --> 00:24:56,080
Speaker 1: the Big Strike. Yes, we're coming to the Big strike.

531
00:24:56,160 --> 00:24:58,800
Speaker 1: But first, you know who never strikes.

532
00:24:59,240 --> 00:25:02,159
Speaker 2: Would be these fine ads and.

533
00:25:03,800 --> 00:25:06,240
Speaker 1: That's right, they have no need to strike because we

534
00:25:06,359 --> 00:25:11,680
Speaker 1: love them too much. And they shoot strikers, don't they? Well, yes,

535
00:25:12,440 --> 00:25:16,720
Speaker 1: occasionally allegedly, probably not now with live ammunition.

536
00:25:17,320 --> 00:25:18,720
Speaker 2: The Goal people absolutely do.

537
00:25:19,320 --> 00:25:22,440
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the Reagan Coin people and look to be

538
00:25:22,600 --> 00:25:25,119
Speaker 1: entirely honest. We've had the Washington State Highway Patrol on

539
00:25:25,240 --> 00:25:27,440
Speaker 1: our show and they have definitely shot some strikers in

540
00:25:27,520 --> 00:25:30,800
Speaker 1: their day. You know, we're not gonna say nobody shoots

541
00:25:30,800 --> 00:25:36,200
Speaker 1: strikers who advertises on this podcast, but probably not. Sorry, Sophie,

542
00:25:43,560 --> 00:25:48,200
Speaker 1: we're back and speaking of shooting strikers. A guy who

543
00:25:49,000 --> 00:25:54,639
Speaker 1: didn't shoot strikers but probably made emotional peace with shooting

544
00:25:54,680 --> 00:25:58,439
Speaker 1: strikers if he had to, was Hank Ketchum's boss at Disney.

545
00:25:59,119 --> 00:26:03,960
Speaker 1: The most legendary animators in all of animation history, Ward Kimball.

546
00:26:05,600 --> 00:26:07,440
Speaker 2: Wait, we're kimble' that's your sweet guy.

547
00:26:08,119 --> 00:26:10,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, but he was we'll talk. He's not the worst

548
00:26:10,920 --> 00:26:13,200
Speaker 1: guy in the story, but we're building to that. I

549
00:26:13,280 --> 00:26:16,600
Speaker 1: was like, oh no, there's some shade on the fella.

550
00:26:17,160 --> 00:26:20,840
Speaker 1: So Kimball is one of the first professional animators period, Right,

551
00:26:20,960 --> 00:26:24,439
Speaker 1: he's of the first generation of people who do this ever. Right.

552
00:26:25,040 --> 00:26:28,080
Speaker 1: The old Men, Yes, yes, there's a there's a termu'l

553
00:26:28,119 --> 00:26:30,280
Speaker 1: here when you people talk about Disney this period, Disney's

554
00:26:30,320 --> 00:26:33,000
Speaker 1: nine Old Men, which is the core animation team that

555
00:26:33,080 --> 00:26:35,640
Speaker 1: ran the studios projects from the start in the twenties

556
00:26:35,720 --> 00:26:37,960
Speaker 1: to the really to the beginning of like the Reagan years.

557
00:26:38,080 --> 00:26:40,320
Speaker 1: A lot of these guys are still in there. And again,

558
00:26:40,480 --> 00:26:43,160
Speaker 1: when you think about Disney at the start, we're actually

559
00:26:43,200 --> 00:26:45,480
Speaker 1: talking about the period where Disney changes into the company

560
00:26:45,520 --> 00:26:48,000
Speaker 1: that it's going to become. At the in the early

561
00:26:48,160 --> 00:26:50,440
Speaker 1: days in the twenties, when like Hank is in love

562
00:26:50,480 --> 00:26:53,240
Speaker 1: with what these guys are making, Disney is kind of

563
00:26:53,400 --> 00:26:57,720
Speaker 1: closer to like a tech startup than anything. No one's

564
00:26:57,760 --> 00:27:01,119
Speaker 1: ever done this before. It's hugely profitable, it's really sexy.

565
00:27:01,240 --> 00:27:03,920
Speaker 1: It's like this thing that people are fascinated by, and

566
00:27:04,080 --> 00:27:07,399
Speaker 1: it's this like team of self taught weirdos who all

567
00:27:07,480 --> 00:27:10,000
Speaker 1: come together. There's not really much of a hierarchy for

568
00:27:10,080 --> 00:27:12,600
Speaker 1: a long time. It's very much not a traditional workplace,

569
00:27:13,000 --> 00:27:18,440
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, yeah, everyone's figuring everything out as they're

570
00:27:18,480 --> 00:27:21,280
Speaker 1: doing it. How could you have a traditional business structure right,

571
00:27:21,440 --> 00:27:22,879
Speaker 1: like where you've got like bosses telling.

572
00:27:22,760 --> 00:27:25,800
Speaker 2: People being as you go along.

573
00:27:27,160 --> 00:27:30,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, and Ward is again like undoubtedly one thing no

574
00:27:30,160 --> 00:27:34,440
Speaker 1: one can argue. One of the greatest animators who's ever lived. Unfortunately,

575
00:27:34,560 --> 00:27:37,240
Speaker 1: he was also a strike breaker during the Disney animation

576
00:27:37,320 --> 00:27:42,240
Speaker 1: revolt of My Team. Dude. Yeah yeah, andre Ward will

577
00:27:42,280 --> 00:27:45,119
Speaker 1: talk about being sad about this. I don't know how

578
00:27:45,200 --> 00:27:47,080
Speaker 1: much that should get you. I'm not I'm not here

579
00:27:47,160 --> 00:27:49,159
Speaker 1: to absolve anyone's soul, but I am going to try

580
00:27:49,200 --> 00:27:50,159
Speaker 1: to tell the story.

581
00:27:50,119 --> 00:27:53,240
Speaker 2: Ass as I guess. I'm a Union kid, so.

582
00:27:53,480 --> 00:27:57,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. So one of the great animators that was

583
00:27:57,720 --> 00:28:00,680
Speaker 1: central in Disney's early success and in the work that

584
00:28:00,760 --> 00:28:03,160
Speaker 1: had so inspired Hank was a guy named Art Babbitt.

585
00:28:03,960 --> 00:28:06,560
Speaker 1: Art worked at Disney through the thirties on productions like

586
00:28:06,640 --> 00:28:09,680
Speaker 1: Snow White and Fantasia, and Hank Ketchum also worked on

587
00:28:09,760 --> 00:28:12,159
Speaker 1: some of those. When he's like new to Disney. But

588
00:28:12,320 --> 00:28:14,840
Speaker 1: as the Great Depression is kind of going on, as

589
00:28:14,920 --> 00:28:18,480
Speaker 1: it's like hitting its peak and whatnot, workers are unionizing

590
00:28:18,520 --> 00:28:21,760
Speaker 1: in the US at a pretty unprecedented rate. And Babbitt

591
00:28:21,800 --> 00:28:24,000
Speaker 1: is looking around at Disney, which is turning from this

592
00:28:24,800 --> 00:28:27,960
Speaker 1: kind of small shop where a bunch of weirdo geniuses

593
00:28:28,080 --> 00:28:32,080
Speaker 1: are making great stuff together into like a real sizable business,

594
00:28:32,119 --> 00:28:34,159
Speaker 1: and he's like, we should probably have a union, you know,

595
00:28:34,200 --> 00:28:36,440
Speaker 1: we should probably get this locked down before this place

596
00:28:36,520 --> 00:28:41,320
Speaker 1: gets much bigger. Right, Yeah, Walt Disney is not gonna

597
00:28:41,520 --> 00:28:45,960
Speaker 1: like this, right, No, I'm not a union man. You know.

598
00:28:46,680 --> 00:28:50,160
Speaker 2: He did a cartoon on his Alice Comedies that literally

599
00:28:50,440 --> 00:28:54,520
Speaker 2: was making fun of the idea of unions, and the

600
00:28:54,720 --> 00:28:59,200
Speaker 2: heroes literally start harassing all these chickens are trying to unionize.

601
00:29:00,120 --> 00:29:02,920
Speaker 1: Hear that that's such a Walt Disney thing.

602
00:29:03,160 --> 00:29:08,040
Speaker 2: This really fucking is. The villain of the cartoon is

603
00:29:08,120 --> 00:29:11,200
Speaker 2: a communist rooster named little Red hens Key.

604
00:29:11,600 --> 00:29:15,880
Speaker 1: Oh my god, oh beautiful, that is actually the story.

605
00:29:16,000 --> 00:29:19,080
Speaker 1: You have just summarized the story of the Great Disney Revolts,

606
00:29:19,240 --> 00:29:22,640
Speaker 1: the Disney animation revolt of nineteen forty one. So Art

607
00:29:22,920 --> 00:29:25,560
Speaker 1: and another other employees are like, hey, let's organize. They're

608
00:29:25,560 --> 00:29:28,160
Speaker 1: trying to organize their shop. They're talking to their co workers,

609
00:29:28,640 --> 00:29:31,160
Speaker 1: and eventually there's like a big fight, you know, at

610
00:29:31,240 --> 00:29:35,480
Speaker 1: the office between Disney and art, and Disney fires art, right,

611
00:29:36,040 --> 00:29:38,320
Speaker 1: and not just art, he fires a number of employees

612
00:29:38,320 --> 00:29:41,440
Speaker 1: who were trying to organize workers. And this sparks a strike.

613
00:29:41,960 --> 00:29:43,640
Speaker 1: And in a very good book on the subject, The

614
00:29:43,720 --> 00:29:47,720
Speaker 1: Disney Revolt by Jake Friedman, Jake writes, quote the salaries,

615
00:29:47,800 --> 00:29:49,480
Speaker 1: and this is him trying to explain, like kind of

616
00:29:49,920 --> 00:29:53,160
Speaker 1: where the workers are coming from here. The salaries of

617
00:29:53,200 --> 00:29:55,719
Speaker 1: the Disney artists average less than those of house painters.

618
00:29:55,800 --> 00:29:58,479
Speaker 1: Read a press bulletin the Disney Girl. Inkers and painters

619
00:29:58,560 --> 00:30:00,840
Speaker 1: received between sixteen to twenty dollars dollars a week on

620
00:30:00,960 --> 00:30:03,800
Speaker 1: snow White. The much publicized bonuses did not even compensate

621
00:30:03,880 --> 00:30:05,960
Speaker 1: the artists for the two years of overtime they worked.

622
00:30:06,320 --> 00:30:08,840
Speaker 1: Snow White made the highest box office gross in history,

623
00:30:08,920 --> 00:30:12,400
Speaker 1: over ten million dollars. All the other major cartoon studios

624
00:30:12,440 --> 00:30:15,480
Speaker 1: in Hollywood have Screen Cartoon Guild contracts. The Disney studio

625
00:30:15,600 --> 00:30:19,120
Speaker 1: is the only non union studio in Hollywood. The union

626
00:30:19,160 --> 00:30:21,880
Speaker 1: demanded a ten percent wage increase across the board, a

627
00:30:21,960 --> 00:30:24,600
Speaker 1: twenty five percent wage increase for the lower bracketed artists,

628
00:30:24,840 --> 00:30:27,480
Speaker 1: and the reinstatement of the nineteen animators who they argued

629
00:30:27,560 --> 00:30:30,960
Speaker 1: were fired for union activity. So what's happening here shouldn't

630
00:30:30,960 --> 00:30:34,520
Speaker 1: be surprising is Disney artists are making bank. They have

631
00:30:34,680 --> 00:30:37,960
Speaker 1: just had the highest, the most success. This is snow

632
00:30:38,000 --> 00:30:41,280
Speaker 1: White is the fucking Avatar of its day, except unlike Avatar,

633
00:30:41,360 --> 00:30:43,600
Speaker 1: it's deeply influential and people will not shut up about

634
00:30:43,600 --> 00:30:47,200
Speaker 1: it for years, right, Like it is in every conversation.

635
00:30:46,760 --> 00:30:48,720
Speaker 2: People forget they saw Avatar.

636
00:30:48,960 --> 00:30:52,360
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, nothing against it or for it particularly, but

637
00:30:52,440 --> 00:30:56,080
Speaker 1: like snow White Gully, it's just fucking Ferngully. Yeah, we've

638
00:30:56,200 --> 00:30:59,760
Speaker 1: kind of forgotten because it's been so long. How much

639
00:30:59,800 --> 00:31:03,240
Speaker 1: of a pop culture bomb in like the successful way,

640
00:31:03,320 --> 00:31:05,560
Speaker 1: not like yeah, I shouldn't use the term bomb, Like

641
00:31:05,680 --> 00:31:08,360
Speaker 1: there's nothing, very little that is Like The Matrix is

642
00:31:08,360 --> 00:31:11,200
Speaker 1: actually probably the movie in our lifetimes that's most like

643
00:31:11,280 --> 00:31:14,120
Speaker 1: Snow White in terms of like everyone is obsessed with this.

644
00:31:14,320 --> 00:31:17,600
Speaker 1: It completely changes the way movies are made. It's copied

645
00:31:17,640 --> 00:31:22,120
Speaker 1: a million times, Like that's probably the closest thing you

646
00:31:22,160 --> 00:31:25,240
Speaker 1: could have And none of these animators who Disney is

647
00:31:25,400 --> 00:31:29,200
Speaker 1: keeping nights and weekends for months while they're working for years,

648
00:31:29,240 --> 00:31:31,640
Speaker 1: while they're working on this thing, get any kind of

649
00:31:31,680 --> 00:31:34,680
Speaker 1: like profit sharing or any additional wages for the fact

650
00:31:34,680 --> 00:31:36,480
Speaker 1: that this movie that they break their backs on makes

651
00:31:36,520 --> 00:31:39,320
Speaker 1: a bunch of money. So it's not hard to see

652
00:31:39,360 --> 00:31:41,120
Speaker 1: why these guys are like, well, we probably should have

653
00:31:41,160 --> 00:31:42,560
Speaker 1: to strike if we want to get any kind of

654
00:31:42,600 --> 00:31:47,440
Speaker 1: better deal. Now. Hank Ketchum is just another Disney animator

655
00:31:47,520 --> 00:31:50,040
Speaker 1: during this period of time, and he's one of the

656
00:31:50,120 --> 00:31:53,120
Speaker 1: guys who all of his coworkers around him are unionizing,

657
00:31:53,320 --> 00:31:56,120
Speaker 1: and so he's going to be pressured directly to participate

658
00:31:56,160 --> 00:31:57,920
Speaker 1: in this. And this is what he says about the

659
00:31:57,960 --> 00:32:02,200
Speaker 1: strike in his autobiography. A handful of dissident artists organized

660
00:32:02,200 --> 00:32:05,280
Speaker 1: a group of unhappy employees, and, with the gleeful assistance

661
00:32:05,320 --> 00:32:08,880
Speaker 1: of the Teamsters union, Disney was presented a list of grievances.

662
00:32:09,040 --> 00:32:11,840
Speaker 1: To no one's surprise, a general strike was called. Most

663
00:32:11,840 --> 00:32:13,760
Speaker 1: of the men in my unit were recently married, just

664
00:32:13,800 --> 00:32:16,560
Speaker 1: starting a family, and scratching to make monthly mortgage payments,

665
00:32:16,600 --> 00:32:18,960
Speaker 1: barely making ends meet. They had every reason to join

666
00:32:19,000 --> 00:32:23,080
Speaker 1: the picket line at the gate. Now that's a promising start, right.

667
00:32:24,120 --> 00:32:26,640
Speaker 1: There's that little weird thing about like the teamsters unions

668
00:32:26,640 --> 00:32:29,400
Speaker 1: were so happy to do this. But he's like, I

669
00:32:29,600 --> 00:32:31,880
Speaker 1: understand why all my coworkers wanted this. They had a

670
00:32:31,920 --> 00:32:35,280
Speaker 1: good reason to need to unionize. They had families to support, right. Yeah,

671
00:32:36,440 --> 00:32:39,720
Speaker 1: And for a few days, Hank joins the picket line,

672
00:32:39,840 --> 00:32:42,640
Speaker 1: right for a little while, he does what you should

673
00:32:42,680 --> 00:32:45,560
Speaker 1: do when your coworkers unionize, right, And this is the

674
00:32:45,640 --> 00:32:48,120
Speaker 1: thing what he's kind of insinuating there by saying I

675
00:32:48,160 --> 00:32:50,160
Speaker 1: get why my coworkers wanted to is like, well, I

676
00:32:50,240 --> 00:32:52,920
Speaker 1: didn't really benefit from this for me. This was good

677
00:32:53,000 --> 00:32:56,120
Speaker 1: paying work for me. I was exactly where I wanted

678
00:32:56,160 --> 00:32:58,880
Speaker 1: to be, so I didn't want to strike. And like, yeah, man,

679
00:32:58,960 --> 00:33:01,160
Speaker 1: that's a strike. Don't always do it for you, you

680
00:33:01,800 --> 00:33:04,400
Speaker 1: are in any time you're striking, it's never just for

681
00:33:04,600 --> 00:33:06,960
Speaker 1: you or even just for your co workers. It's for like,

682
00:33:07,760 --> 00:33:11,200
Speaker 1: especially in a creative discipline the field, like the art.

683
00:33:11,200 --> 00:33:13,840
Speaker 2: Form, you will benefit from it eventually, if you're not

684
00:33:13,960 --> 00:33:17,040
Speaker 2: benefiting from now, years down the road, when you have

685
00:33:17,200 --> 00:33:20,960
Speaker 2: health benefits, when you are getting paid over time, when

686
00:33:21,000 --> 00:33:24,960
Speaker 2: you have like something, you will benefit from it. Yeah,

687
00:33:25,040 --> 00:33:27,840
Speaker 2: And honestly, the pictures I've seen of the Disney strike

688
00:33:27,920 --> 00:33:31,480
Speaker 2: line cross God, Sam, guillotine.

689
00:33:32,080 --> 00:33:35,800
Speaker 1: Yes, these guys are so fucking radical. And part of

690
00:33:35,840 --> 00:33:39,200
Speaker 1: why they're so radical is they're very young. The average

691
00:33:39,240 --> 00:33:42,040
Speaker 1: Disney employee is under twenty five, right, So these guys

692
00:33:42,160 --> 00:33:43,840
Speaker 1: number one, they all grew up during the Depression. This

693
00:33:44,000 --> 00:33:46,200
Speaker 1: is a time when socialism is in a very different

694
00:33:46,240 --> 00:33:49,360
Speaker 1: place in American public consciousness, Like it is a lot

695
00:33:49,480 --> 00:33:52,600
Speaker 1: more people are openly calling themselves socialists as a percentage

696
00:33:52,640 --> 00:33:55,760
Speaker 1: of the population back then than tend to today, right,

697
00:33:56,360 --> 00:33:58,560
Speaker 1: And a lot of these are very radical young men

698
00:33:58,640 --> 00:34:02,320
Speaker 1: who are also talented artists, And so there's a lot

699
00:34:02,400 --> 00:34:07,120
Speaker 1: of cool shit that gets made for the Disney. There's

700
00:34:07,200 --> 00:34:10,760
Speaker 1: some yeah, yeah, the worst people to like have drawing

701
00:34:10,880 --> 00:34:13,480
Speaker 1: posters for a strike if you're the boss. It's a

702
00:34:13,560 --> 00:34:15,640
Speaker 1: bunch of fucking Disney's.

703
00:34:15,160 --> 00:34:18,200
Speaker 2: Pissed off Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse posters. And then

704
00:34:18,480 --> 00:34:20,760
Speaker 2: the guillotine. They brought a goddamn guillotine.

705
00:34:21,120 --> 00:34:25,280
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, fucking if only they'd used it. So, because

706
00:34:25,320 --> 00:34:28,479
Speaker 1: strikes b the way strikes do. A bunch of people

707
00:34:28,480 --> 00:34:31,239
Speaker 1: who worked for Disney and other outside of animation who

708
00:34:31,280 --> 00:34:35,880
Speaker 1: were unionized joined the strike. Disney carpenters, machinists, teamsters, and

709
00:34:35,920 --> 00:34:38,879
Speaker 1: food service workers all refused to cross the picket line.

710
00:34:39,360 --> 00:34:41,920
Speaker 1: And this is along with most editors and cameramen, right

711
00:34:42,040 --> 00:34:45,360
Speaker 1: because those are all unionized positions too, And everybody's like, no,

712
00:34:45,520 --> 00:34:49,320
Speaker 1: you know, we're not going to fucking scab. And this

713
00:34:49,520 --> 00:34:54,160
Speaker 1: is the Disney strike again, is super organized and very militant.

714
00:34:54,239 --> 00:34:56,360
Speaker 1: One of the things they do is this is a

715
00:34:56,480 --> 00:34:59,200
Speaker 1: twenty four hour a day's strike. There are never not

716
00:34:59,440 --> 00:35:02,120
Speaker 1: animators out in front of the Disney building doing a picket,

717
00:35:02,719 --> 00:35:05,840
Speaker 1: and one of them is always kind of around the

718
00:35:05,920 --> 00:35:08,239
Speaker 1: side where like the scabs are driving through to like

719
00:35:08,440 --> 00:35:11,239
Speaker 1: go work at Disney offices while the strike is going on,

720
00:35:11,560 --> 00:35:14,440
Speaker 1: and they take pictures of every single person who scabs,

721
00:35:14,960 --> 00:35:17,440
Speaker 1: like they have like a spy unit there so that

722
00:35:17,560 --> 00:35:18,399
Speaker 1: they can shame them.

723
00:35:18,560 --> 00:35:18,759
Speaker 2: Yeah.

724
00:35:19,120 --> 00:35:21,480
Speaker 1: On the line itself, workers took full advantage of the

725
00:35:21,560 --> 00:35:23,640
Speaker 1: fact that they were the best animators on the planet.

726
00:35:23,880 --> 00:35:26,560
Speaker 1: Here's how Friedman describes the picket. About five hundred men

727
00:35:26,560 --> 00:35:28,319
Speaker 1: and women were on their feet walking in a large

728
00:35:28,360 --> 00:35:30,200
Speaker 1: circle in front of the entrance. Nearly one in ten

729
00:35:30,280 --> 00:35:33,080
Speaker 1: carried a wooden picket sign all painted with cartoon characters.

730
00:35:33,640 --> 00:35:36,520
Speaker 1: It's not cricket to pass a picket, warned Jimminy cricket.

731
00:35:36,719 --> 00:35:37,440
Speaker 2: I'd rather be a.

732
00:35:37,520 --> 00:35:40,880
Speaker 1: Dog than a scab, chided Pluto. I sign your drawings,

733
00:35:40,960 --> 00:35:44,799
Speaker 1: you sign your lives, taunted a caricature of Walt, Michaelangelo,

734
00:35:44,960 --> 00:35:48,760
Speaker 1: Rafael Leonardo da Vinci, Rubens Rimbrandt all belonged to gilts.

735
00:35:49,920 --> 00:35:51,560
Speaker 1: That what I like a little bit less than the

736
00:35:51,960 --> 00:35:54,920
Speaker 1: I sign your drawings, you sign your lives, Walt Disney

737
00:35:55,000 --> 00:35:58,320
Speaker 1: cart did they tried? They tried, like I like that.

738
00:35:58,520 --> 00:36:01,160
Speaker 1: I mean, most of those are pretty good, you know, yeah, no, no, yeah,

739
00:36:01,440 --> 00:36:04,040
Speaker 1: it's really good ones in there. But yeah, and the

740
00:36:04,120 --> 00:36:06,080
Speaker 1: number six hundred shows up a lot, because that's how

741
00:36:06,120 --> 00:36:09,160
Speaker 1: many artists are striking. One of their handouts reads one

742
00:36:09,280 --> 00:36:12,680
Speaker 1: Genius against six hundred guinea pigs, and then another reads

743
00:36:12,719 --> 00:36:16,680
Speaker 1: snow White and the six hundred Dwarves. I guess they're

744
00:36:16,719 --> 00:36:19,000
Speaker 1: they're comparing Walt to snow White there, which.

745
00:36:19,960 --> 00:36:23,400
Speaker 2: He did, and what was going on around I'm sure.

746
00:36:23,320 --> 00:36:27,040
Speaker 1: Sure probably hit a lot of poisoned apples. So I

747
00:36:27,160 --> 00:36:29,440
Speaker 1: think this is all kind of cool. Like everything I

748
00:36:29,520 --> 00:36:32,919
Speaker 1: read about the Disney Animators revolt is like pretty dope.

749
00:36:33,600 --> 00:36:35,800
Speaker 1: Hank is really pissed off about this.

750
00:36:36,120 --> 00:36:37,640
Speaker 2: He considers all of.

751
00:36:37,719 --> 00:36:41,239
Speaker 1: These signs and cartoons that his coworkers are drawing and

752
00:36:41,360 --> 00:36:43,480
Speaker 1: repurposing for the strike to be He calls it quote

753
00:36:43,520 --> 00:36:47,880
Speaker 1: infantile behavior, and he grows and enraged at his coworkers

754
00:36:47,920 --> 00:36:50,759
Speaker 1: and specifically the teamsters, who he considered quote a bunch

755
00:36:50,800 --> 00:36:53,960
Speaker 1: of heavy handed spoil sports interrupting my life of Riley.

756
00:36:54,400 --> 00:36:56,640
Speaker 1: He is very clear about, like, I am angry about

757
00:36:56,640 --> 00:37:00,200
Speaker 1: this because my life was good. Well, don't workers, bro,

758
00:37:00,760 --> 00:37:04,680
Speaker 1: like you know, they have a problem. You should care

759
00:37:04,760 --> 00:37:09,680
Speaker 1: about that. Yeah, he decides to betray his colleagues and

760
00:37:09,880 --> 00:37:11,759
Speaker 1: returns to work. So this is the thing that he

761
00:37:11,840 --> 00:37:14,680
Speaker 1: does that is like his first bastard move is he

762
00:37:14,800 --> 00:37:17,800
Speaker 1: joins the strike initially, and then he decides to scap

763
00:37:18,680 --> 00:37:21,719
Speaker 1: Like he leaves the picket line and crosses and goes

764
00:37:21,800 --> 00:37:25,720
Speaker 1: to work drawing for the company. Okay, not remotely, Okay,

765
00:37:26,120 --> 00:37:30,200
Speaker 1: not remotely Okay. He rides to the office with his

766
00:37:30,360 --> 00:37:32,520
Speaker 1: roommate who's the brother of a Disney manager and is

767
00:37:32,600 --> 00:37:35,560
Speaker 1: on the side of management. And this, for whatever reason,

768
00:37:36,480 --> 00:37:38,040
Speaker 1: this actually kind of says a lot about the man.

769
00:37:38,320 --> 00:37:40,800
Speaker 1: You don't get much about his experiences during the depression,

770
00:37:40,880 --> 00:37:42,920
Speaker 1: other than he talks about what a bad time it was.

771
00:37:43,680 --> 00:37:46,200
Speaker 1: But he notes at this point in the book that

772
00:37:46,480 --> 00:37:48,560
Speaker 1: kind of the straw that broke the camel's back was

773
00:37:48,600 --> 00:37:51,840
Speaker 1: when some of the wives of his fellow animators started

774
00:37:51,880 --> 00:37:54,920
Speaker 1: cooking meals for everybody in a big communal kitchen. It

775
00:37:55,080 --> 00:37:57,759
Speaker 1: reminded him of a soup kitchen. And the line he

776
00:37:57,840 --> 00:38:00,040
Speaker 1: says is like, well, that was in the past, and

777
00:38:00,080 --> 00:38:02,480
Speaker 1: I'm only a guy who wants to move forward, right,

778
00:38:02,920 --> 00:38:05,239
Speaker 1: so I didn't. That's made me decide to scab on

779
00:38:05,320 --> 00:38:07,359
Speaker 1: the union as seeing a soup kitchen. I don't want

780
00:38:07,360 --> 00:38:09,759
Speaker 1: to do stuff from the past. You know, that's such

781
00:38:09,800 --> 00:38:13,440
Speaker 1: a weird justification for betraying your colleagues.

782
00:38:13,400 --> 00:38:17,040
Speaker 2: That, Like my dad was a union president. I remember

783
00:38:17,400 --> 00:38:18,800
Speaker 2: like a lot of union stuff, and it was this

784
00:38:18,960 --> 00:38:21,919
Speaker 2: common thing. You know, you have a large catherine, there's food,

785
00:38:22,000 --> 00:38:25,320
Speaker 2: You've got to make sure everyone's fed. It's just life.

786
00:38:25,480 --> 00:38:28,399
Speaker 2: And what a weird fucking thing. Oh no, we're taking

787
00:38:28,440 --> 00:38:30,360
Speaker 2: care of each other. I can't handle have this.

788
00:38:31,160 --> 00:38:33,319
Speaker 1: Yeah, whenever you have like you've got like a coal

789
00:38:33,400 --> 00:38:36,320
Speaker 1: mine strike, right, and you've got it's especially in this

790
00:38:36,400 --> 00:38:39,040
Speaker 1: period it's like white workers striking the minds won't hire

791
00:38:39,080 --> 00:38:41,439
Speaker 1: black people normally, and then suddenly they get a chance

792
00:38:41,520 --> 00:38:43,279
Speaker 1: to work at the mine and make more money than

793
00:38:43,320 --> 00:38:46,280
Speaker 1: they otherwise would by scabbing. I got nothing against those people,

794
00:38:46,400 --> 00:38:49,120
Speaker 1: right like they're in an impossible This is the opposite

795
00:38:49,160 --> 00:38:52,360
Speaker 1: of that. Yeah, you saw you saw free food and

796
00:38:52,520 --> 00:38:56,839
Speaker 1: got angry, so you scapped? Is so weird to me, Yeah,

797
00:38:59,280 --> 00:39:02,080
Speaker 1: it's it's weird to the other Disney animators. This is

798
00:39:02,120 --> 00:39:04,919
Speaker 1: the kind of thing they take very seriously. And Hank

799
00:39:05,000 --> 00:39:07,640
Speaker 1: recalls being screamed at as he drives through the picket line.

800
00:39:08,120 --> 00:39:12,359
Speaker 1: I scrunched myself down between Kenny and Albertino, two protective linebackers,

801
00:39:12,600 --> 00:39:15,120
Speaker 1: hoping to be invisible as the Mercury convertible ease through

802
00:39:15,160 --> 00:39:18,719
Speaker 1: the mass of chanting, wild eyed revolutionaries. But they spotted me,

803
00:39:18,800 --> 00:39:21,200
Speaker 1: and I instantly became king of the pinx and the

804
00:39:21,280 --> 00:39:23,920
Speaker 1: target of other creative terms of outrage and venom. The

805
00:39:24,000 --> 00:39:26,040
Speaker 1: loudest insults seemed to come from those who I once

806
00:39:26,120 --> 00:39:29,359
Speaker 1: considered very good pals. It was a shattering experience for many,

807
00:39:29,400 --> 00:39:31,400
Speaker 1: as in any civil war, the house was divided and

808
00:39:31,480 --> 00:39:37,000
Speaker 1: close friendships evaporated. Years later, the stigma remained. I'm like, well, yeah,

809
00:39:37,200 --> 00:39:40,279
Speaker 1: of course your good pals are pissed. They're striking because

810
00:39:40,280 --> 00:39:42,120
Speaker 1: they need to pay their mortgage and they just found

811
00:39:42,120 --> 00:39:43,279
Speaker 1: out you don't care about them.

812
00:39:45,440 --> 00:39:47,319
Speaker 2: Man, I'm going to try to hide bet between these

813
00:39:47,360 --> 00:39:51,440
Speaker 2: looks of larger men. Yeah, what a fucking worm.

814
00:39:52,239 --> 00:39:55,800
Speaker 1: Such a worm. Oh my god. So, as a result

815
00:39:55,880 --> 00:39:58,200
Speaker 1: of his craven nature, Hank is going to miss one

816
00:39:58,239 --> 00:40:02,240
Speaker 1: of the defining moments payment labor history. Now, Walt Disney,

817
00:40:02,480 --> 00:40:04,000
Speaker 1: one thing you got to say for him, The man

818
00:40:04,160 --> 00:40:06,920
Speaker 1: was a formidable foe, right, this is this is not

819
00:40:07,080 --> 00:40:10,440
Speaker 1: an incompetent guy to go up against as a union.

820
00:40:10,920 --> 00:40:13,399
Speaker 1: But again, the Disney animators, among other things, had youth

821
00:40:13,560 --> 00:40:15,880
Speaker 1: on their side. They split the whole crew into two

822
00:40:15,960 --> 00:40:17,800
Speaker 1: or three hour shifts, and so they keep a twenty

823
00:40:17,840 --> 00:40:21,960
Speaker 1: four hour picket line. They never give up on like protesting.

824
00:40:22,280 --> 00:40:24,480
Speaker 1: And this is because, yeah, we'll get into that. So

825
00:40:24,880 --> 00:40:26,840
Speaker 1: because a lot of these guys become famous later, you

826
00:40:26,920 --> 00:40:29,440
Speaker 1: get some quotes from the ones who broke trying to

827
00:40:29,560 --> 00:40:32,000
Speaker 1: explain their behavior. And this brings me back to Ward Kimball.

828
00:40:32,160 --> 00:40:34,520
Speaker 1: Right Ward is Hank's boss. He is one of the

829
00:40:34,560 --> 00:40:37,160
Speaker 1: guys who scabs, and he says of it quote, I

830
00:40:37,280 --> 00:40:39,840
Speaker 1: felt terrible. Friends on the inside waving to me to

831
00:40:39,920 --> 00:40:42,120
Speaker 1: come in, friends on the outside pleading with me to

832
00:40:42,160 --> 00:40:46,400
Speaker 1: stay out. Jesus I was on the spot. I won't forgive, like,

833
00:40:46,760 --> 00:40:49,560
Speaker 1: you know, his decision to scab here, but at least

834
00:40:49,600 --> 00:40:52,920
Speaker 1: he provides more of like a description of like why

835
00:40:53,000 --> 00:40:55,759
Speaker 1: this would be complicated. Some people you care about a

836
00:40:55,800 --> 00:40:58,399
Speaker 1: lot are in management. They don't, you know, you feel

837
00:40:58,520 --> 00:41:01,359
Speaker 1: torn as opposed to who's just like well, I saw

838
00:41:01,360 --> 00:41:04,120
Speaker 1: a soup kitchen and got pissed, But it is.

839
00:41:04,520 --> 00:41:06,640
Speaker 2: It has to be like a hard thing to decide on.

840
00:41:06,880 --> 00:41:09,680
Speaker 2: And like you said earlier, he's been there since almost

841
00:41:09,719 --> 00:41:12,920
Speaker 2: the start. Yeah, it was his friend.

842
00:41:13,280 --> 00:41:15,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, And like I get how that's I'm not like

843
00:41:16,040 --> 00:41:18,200
Speaker 1: saying it was okay, But I get that more than

844
00:41:18,239 --> 00:41:20,840
Speaker 1: I get what Hank is describing as his reasoning.

845
00:41:21,080 --> 00:41:23,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, everything about what what Ketchum was saying is just

846
00:41:23,640 --> 00:41:25,200
Speaker 2: kind of weasley. Yeah.

847
00:41:25,560 --> 00:41:28,279
Speaker 1: Yeah. So the union issues a warning that animators who

848
00:41:28,320 --> 00:41:30,719
Speaker 1: stayed would be fined five dollars a day plus one

849
00:41:30,760 --> 00:41:35,960
Speaker 1: hundred dollars penalty once shit resumed normality inside Disney. One

850
00:41:36,000 --> 00:41:38,960
Speaker 1: of the Disney executives Norm Ferguson told Hank and everyone

851
00:41:39,000 --> 00:41:41,000
Speaker 1: else who crossed the picket line that any deal that

852
00:41:41,160 --> 00:41:44,000
Speaker 1: was signed would protect them and like cover that amount

853
00:41:44,000 --> 00:41:46,800
Speaker 1: of money if they stayed loyal. The thing that was important,

854
00:41:46,920 --> 00:41:49,360
Speaker 1: the thing that everyone had to do who was scabbing,

855
00:41:49,800 --> 00:41:53,759
Speaker 1: was finish Dumbo. So this is the movie they're working

856
00:41:53,800 --> 00:41:57,320
Speaker 1: on at the time, and when this the strike interrupts

857
00:41:57,360 --> 00:41:59,960
Speaker 1: finishing Dumbo, and this comes at a critical moment for Disney.

858
00:42:00,320 --> 00:42:02,640
Speaker 1: One of the reasons people are pissed is Disney had

859
00:42:03,440 --> 00:42:07,400
Speaker 1: prior to about this moment basically been like set up

860
00:42:07,440 --> 00:42:09,600
Speaker 1: in a series of just like kind of shacks, right,

861
00:42:10,239 --> 00:42:12,239
Speaker 1: And after they make all this money from snow White,

862
00:42:12,400 --> 00:42:14,520
Speaker 1: Walt decides, rather than paying a lot of that money

863
00:42:14,520 --> 00:42:16,759
Speaker 1: to his employees, decides to reinvest it into building an

864
00:42:16,800 --> 00:42:20,320
Speaker 1: elaborate new campus. And he's still he can't fund it

865
00:42:20,400 --> 00:42:21,840
Speaker 1: with the money they have. He has to get a

866
00:42:21,880 --> 00:42:24,480
Speaker 1: loan from Bank of America. And Bank of America is

867
00:42:24,520 --> 00:42:27,320
Speaker 1: willing to invest in this weird new upstart company because

868
00:42:27,360 --> 00:42:30,480
Speaker 1: they're looking at the money that's coming in. But Bank

869
00:42:30,560 --> 00:42:34,080
Speaker 1: of America doesn't have enough faith in Animation that like

870
00:42:34,200 --> 00:42:37,480
Speaker 1: if they miss getting Dumbo out on time, right, the

871
00:42:37,560 --> 00:42:40,600
Speaker 1: bank could foreclose theoretically, right, that's at least I don't

872
00:42:40,600 --> 00:42:43,480
Speaker 1: know how realistic that was as an actual possibility, But

873
00:42:43,600 --> 00:42:46,279
Speaker 1: that's what Ferguson is warning everybody. That's what Walt is

874
00:42:46,320 --> 00:42:49,520
Speaker 1: obsessed over, right, if they miss this release date. It's

875
00:42:49,560 --> 00:42:51,960
Speaker 1: one of those things where like I don't find I

876
00:42:51,960 --> 00:42:54,239
Speaker 1: don't have any sympathy for Disney for that because like

877
00:42:54,320 --> 00:42:56,360
Speaker 1: his workers on the outside who are striking, are in

878
00:42:56,400 --> 00:42:58,840
Speaker 1: the same position with their actual houses, not with it,

879
00:42:59,000 --> 00:43:02,279
Speaker 1: like the fucking offices that he decided to build, and

880
00:43:02,440 --> 00:43:05,600
Speaker 1: it was like a ten million dollar campus. It was

881
00:43:05,640 --> 00:43:08,319
Speaker 1: a lot of money, which is like what snow White made.

882
00:43:08,440 --> 00:43:10,879
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, if I'm not mistaken, I could be wrong

883
00:43:10,920 --> 00:43:13,000
Speaker 2: in this. At the same time, I don't think they

884
00:43:13,120 --> 00:43:15,719
Speaker 2: really got most of the European money from snow White

885
00:43:15,800 --> 00:43:19,239
Speaker 2: because when World War two broke out, Yeah, not to

886
00:43:19,360 --> 00:43:20,840
Speaker 2: Jermy's like we're not sending you anything.

887
00:43:21,280 --> 00:43:24,280
Speaker 1: Yeah, they get hurt, I mean and just in general,

888
00:43:24,400 --> 00:43:27,080
Speaker 1: like they get hurt because like there's not a European

889
00:43:27,160 --> 00:43:29,239
Speaker 1: market for a while, effectively for cartoonist.

890
00:43:29,280 --> 00:43:32,200
Speaker 2: Well, honestly, Walt Disney was not a good businessman, like

891
00:43:32,600 --> 00:43:36,360
Speaker 2: Disney's company was always kind of hurting. Yeah, it's not

892
00:43:36,520 --> 00:43:38,200
Speaker 2: what it was. It's not. It wasn't then what it

893
00:43:38,280 --> 00:43:39,319
Speaker 2: is now. Yeah.

894
00:43:39,760 --> 00:43:42,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it it like it was not not even

895
00:43:42,200 --> 00:43:44,880
Speaker 1: all that similar. And like, I think these workers have

896
00:43:44,960 --> 00:43:46,680
Speaker 1: a good point of like, well, why are we spending

897
00:43:46,719 --> 00:43:48,840
Speaker 1: all this money on a new campus instead of taking

898
00:43:48,880 --> 00:43:51,240
Speaker 1: care of our people? Like, obviously, I think the workers

899
00:43:51,320 --> 00:43:54,719
Speaker 1: have a point. Walt himself is like kind of dumbfounded

900
00:43:54,760 --> 00:43:56,800
Speaker 1: when the strike begins. He had been the one to

901
00:43:56,880 --> 00:43:59,839
Speaker 1: fire Babbitt, but he never expected his animators would betray him.

902
00:44:00,320 --> 00:44:02,359
Speaker 1: The company had up to this point been run more

903
00:44:02,440 --> 00:44:06,040
Speaker 1: like an extended family or friend group than a traditional employer, right,

904
00:44:06,120 --> 00:44:09,560
Speaker 1: because it's the scrappy startup. And this is what really

905
00:44:09,640 --> 00:44:12,440
Speaker 1: starts the process of changing Disney, because as soon as

906
00:44:12,520 --> 00:44:14,839
Speaker 1: Walt is challenged by the union, he starts to get

907
00:44:14,920 --> 00:44:18,600
Speaker 1: deranged and he increasingly begins blaming the whole thing on communism.

908
00:44:19,000 --> 00:44:21,640
Speaker 1: He would later after the employees win their strike, he's

909
00:44:21,680 --> 00:44:23,200
Speaker 1: going to inform on a bunch of them to the

910
00:44:23,239 --> 00:44:27,640
Speaker 1: House on American Activities community for being Communists. But this

911
00:44:27,880 --> 00:44:31,000
Speaker 1: is an act of callo vengeance because again Disney loses

912
00:44:31,080 --> 00:44:34,760
Speaker 1: the fight as the Washington post summarizes the picketers marched

913
00:44:34,800 --> 00:44:37,560
Speaker 1: on bad publicity for Disney's company mounted, as did pressure

914
00:44:37,600 --> 00:44:40,040
Speaker 1: from its creditors. In late July, the government stepped in

915
00:44:40,160 --> 00:44:43,440
Speaker 1: and in federal arbitration, the studio agreed to various demands,

916
00:44:43,480 --> 00:44:46,960
Speaker 1: including paid increases, back pays, sick leave, and Babbitt's returned.

917
00:44:47,480 --> 00:44:49,879
Speaker 1: The cash strapped Disney studio shut down for two weeks

918
00:44:49,920 --> 00:44:52,239
Speaker 1: in late August during a battle with the newly recognized

919
00:44:52,239 --> 00:44:55,600
Speaker 1: guild about fresh layoffs. Walt Disney escaped the ordeal, embarking

920
00:44:55,640 --> 00:44:58,839
Speaker 1: on a government sponsored South American tour. Three months later,

921
00:44:58,960 --> 00:45:01,000
Speaker 1: the attack on Pearl har Arbor drew the company into

922
00:45:01,040 --> 00:45:01,680
Speaker 1: World War Two.

923
00:45:02,360 --> 00:45:04,600
Speaker 2: He was going to South America. They're preparing to make

924
00:45:04,600 --> 00:45:07,640
Speaker 2: the movie Saludas and Eagles and kind of one. It

925
00:45:07,680 --> 00:45:09,880
Speaker 2: was basically to kind of get South America into the

926
00:45:09,920 --> 00:45:10,480
Speaker 2: war effort.

927
00:45:10,920 --> 00:45:14,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, and he's going to like that's how he's going

928
00:45:14,719 --> 00:45:17,400
Speaker 1: to kind of like destress from this. And then thankfully,

929
00:45:17,800 --> 00:45:19,719
Speaker 1: we need a bunch of propaganda for the war. And

930
00:45:19,800 --> 00:45:22,920
Speaker 1: that's kind of what saves Disney is making wartime propaganda

931
00:45:23,120 --> 00:45:25,960
Speaker 1: in this period. Now the strike is going to be

932
00:45:26,000 --> 00:45:28,680
Speaker 1: the end of the friendly camaraderie that had been central

933
00:45:28,719 --> 00:45:31,120
Speaker 1: to Disney's early image. What's interesting to me is you

934
00:45:31,160 --> 00:45:33,719
Speaker 1: get very different pictures of how that looked depending on

935
00:45:33,880 --> 00:45:37,840
Speaker 1: who is telling the story. Friedman says, it's the returning

936
00:45:37,960 --> 00:45:40,880
Speaker 1: workers who suffered because they were treated like pariah's by

937
00:45:40,920 --> 00:45:43,399
Speaker 1: people who were scared that Walt would see them being

938
00:45:43,480 --> 00:45:46,839
Speaker 1: friendly with like someone who had gone on strike. Right, Yeah,

939
00:45:47,080 --> 00:45:50,080
Speaker 1: and I'm sure that's true. Hank, for his part, is

940
00:45:50,520 --> 00:45:53,920
Speaker 1: like basically says, those of us who scabbed got treated differently,

941
00:45:53,960 --> 00:45:56,080
Speaker 1: and that was what was unfair. Also, he complains a

942
00:45:56,120 --> 00:45:58,400
Speaker 1: lot about the ping pong tables being taken away in

943
00:45:58,480 --> 00:46:01,520
Speaker 1: the office, which he blads on strike. Oh, I don't know, No,

944
00:46:02,320 --> 00:46:05,480
Speaker 1: I don't know. Man. He's gonna have bigger concerns though,

945
00:46:05,520 --> 00:46:08,239
Speaker 1: because the US enters the big Dub Dub dose not

946
00:46:08,400 --> 00:46:10,560
Speaker 1: long after the strike comes to an end, and Hank

947
00:46:10,680 --> 00:46:13,279
Speaker 1: is right at that sweet sweet draft in age. So

948
00:46:13,440 --> 00:46:15,600
Speaker 1: he joins the Navy. He's going to serve for the

949
00:46:15,680 --> 00:46:19,799
Speaker 1: duration of the war, and he kind of lucks gets

950
00:46:19,840 --> 00:46:23,960
Speaker 1: really lucky here. His status as a Disney animator benefits

951
00:46:24,000 --> 00:46:26,400
Speaker 1: him a lot because people find out when his superiors

952
00:46:26,440 --> 00:46:29,040
Speaker 1: find out, like Oh, you can draw cartoons. We're not

953
00:46:29,160 --> 00:46:31,040
Speaker 1: sending you over to get shot at by a crowd,

954
00:46:31,400 --> 00:46:33,000
Speaker 1: Like you're going to stay here and you're going to

955
00:46:33,080 --> 00:46:36,440
Speaker 1: try to convince Americans to buy war bonts by drawing stuff.

956
00:46:36,760 --> 00:46:38,560
Speaker 2: Yeah. They use a lot of animators in the World

957
00:46:38,560 --> 00:46:40,319
Speaker 2: War two. Yeah, he saved a lot of the room

958
00:46:40,400 --> 00:46:41,080
Speaker 2: going overseas.

959
00:46:41,680 --> 00:46:44,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is why we need to have another war.

960
00:46:44,120 --> 00:46:46,920
Speaker 1: It's the only thing that could save our animation industry

961
00:46:47,000 --> 00:46:51,239
Speaker 1: for a I. Oh god, all the poor laid off

962
00:46:51,360 --> 00:46:53,920
Speaker 1: Rooster Chief animators. Yeah, ah, that is a bummer.

963
00:46:54,200 --> 00:46:54,439
Speaker 2: Yeah.

964
00:46:55,040 --> 00:46:58,320
Speaker 1: So Walt writes him a letter while he's he's working

965
00:46:58,360 --> 00:47:01,360
Speaker 1: for the army, which is nice canidering. Walt probably wished

966
00:47:01,960 --> 00:47:04,600
Speaker 1: we'd enter the war on a different side, but that's

967
00:47:04,680 --> 00:47:08,480
Speaker 1: a story for another day. It was in nineteen forty two,

968
00:47:08,640 --> 00:47:10,640
Speaker 1: after moving to d c to serve in the Navy,

969
00:47:10,880 --> 00:47:15,200
Speaker 1: that Hank married Alice mahar His autobiography says nothing about

970
00:47:15,239 --> 00:47:18,240
Speaker 1: how they met or her personality at all. He provides

971
00:47:18,400 --> 00:47:22,640
Speaker 1: one picture that describes her as his Massachusetts mate. The

972
00:47:22,719 --> 00:47:25,520
Speaker 1: two would have a boy together, Dennis Ketchum in nineteen

973
00:47:25,680 --> 00:47:29,000
Speaker 1: forty six, And yes, that is the inspiration and namesake

974
00:47:29,239 --> 00:47:32,680
Speaker 1: for Dennis the Menace. Now, despite the central role that

975
00:47:32,719 --> 00:47:35,319
Speaker 1: Dennis would play in his later success, his own son

976
00:47:35,600 --> 00:47:38,920
Speaker 1: scarcely merits more mentioned than Alice in this book. And

977
00:47:39,000 --> 00:47:40,720
Speaker 1: we're going to get in all of that. But first,

978
00:47:41,280 --> 00:47:42,640
Speaker 1: you know who does merit mention?

979
00:47:43,960 --> 00:47:47,879
Speaker 2: I would say, the progus and services of these fine advertisers.

980
00:47:48,080 --> 00:47:50,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm going to tell you right now, folks, forget

981
00:47:50,320 --> 00:47:53,560
Speaker 1: the name and face of your parents, you know, just

982
00:47:53,719 --> 00:47:57,040
Speaker 1: remember these advertisers. If you have children, delete them from

983
00:47:57,120 --> 00:47:59,960
Speaker 1: your memory, and just remember the people who sponsor this show.

984
00:48:00,400 --> 00:48:02,120
Speaker 2: Done and done. I don't have a father more. I

985
00:48:02,200 --> 00:48:03,280
Speaker 2: only have Chumbu Casino.

986
00:48:03,680 --> 00:48:12,919
Speaker 1: That's right, That's right, chump, but casino is everything. We're back.

987
00:48:13,440 --> 00:48:16,120
Speaker 1: People online talk about those Chumba ads. I've actually never

988
00:48:16,239 --> 00:48:16,920
Speaker 1: heard one yet.

989
00:48:17,160 --> 00:48:18,600
Speaker 3: I haven't heard it either.

990
00:48:19,120 --> 00:48:21,680
Speaker 2: It is every time I listen to the show, every time,

991
00:48:22,000 --> 00:48:22,839
Speaker 2: at least three of them.

992
00:48:23,239 --> 00:48:25,960
Speaker 1: One of my favorite things is, like we get a

993
00:48:26,040 --> 00:48:28,120
Speaker 1: lot of if it's not like us reading an ad,

994
00:48:28,400 --> 00:48:31,080
Speaker 1: we often don't really know what's because because they're different

995
00:48:31,120 --> 00:48:33,080
Speaker 1: for like geographical areas, right, Like they're not going to

996
00:48:33,120 --> 00:48:34,719
Speaker 1: want to serve the same ad to somebody in like

997
00:48:35,040 --> 00:48:37,280
Speaker 1: Australia as they are to somebody in Michigan.

998
00:48:37,640 --> 00:48:37,839
Speaker 2: Yeah.

999
00:48:38,400 --> 00:48:40,279
Speaker 1: So a lot of times people are like, wow, it's

1000
00:48:40,320 --> 00:48:42,640
Speaker 1: wild these people are sponsoring you, and I'm like, I

1001
00:48:42,719 --> 00:48:45,160
Speaker 1: didn't know, man, Like it's it's just a random ad.

1002
00:48:45,640 --> 00:48:48,200
Speaker 1: We had one recently which I do feel bad about.

1003
00:48:48,800 --> 00:48:51,080
Speaker 1: You know. We get asked like, what's kind of stuff

1004
00:48:51,080 --> 00:48:52,959
Speaker 1: are you're okay with? And a while ago I filled

1005
00:48:53,000 --> 00:48:55,399
Speaker 1: out a thing being like, yeah, you know what I hunt,

1006
00:48:55,440 --> 00:48:57,520
Speaker 1: I shoot, Like there are certain kinds of like hunting

1007
00:48:57,560 --> 00:49:00,400
Speaker 1: and shooting products that might theoretically endorse I'd want to

1008
00:49:00,520 --> 00:49:03,879
Speaker 1: like know what they were. And then they we kind

1009
00:49:03,920 --> 00:49:06,839
Speaker 1: of started running random ads for like a local gun

1010
00:49:06,960 --> 00:49:10,239
Speaker 1: shop in like Kansas or something that like, oh, I

1011
00:49:10,280 --> 00:49:11,600
Speaker 1: don't want to be doing that. I don't know that

1012
00:49:11,719 --> 00:49:13,880
Speaker 1: gun shop. I don't know who those people are, like

1013
00:49:14,000 --> 00:49:17,040
Speaker 1: I have. We need to fix that right away.

1014
00:49:18,120 --> 00:49:19,600
Speaker 2: It could be a good gun shopper, it could be

1015
00:49:19,840 --> 00:49:20,400
Speaker 2: real bad, it.

1016
00:49:20,400 --> 00:49:23,759
Speaker 1: Could be a very bad gunshop. Certainly don't want to

1017
00:49:23,800 --> 00:49:26,400
Speaker 1: sponsor that shit at random, So we we should have

1018
00:49:26,480 --> 00:49:29,279
Speaker 1: fixed that. And a lot of the like really.

1019
00:49:29,080 --> 00:49:33,120
Speaker 3: Really bad ones that have already been like removed come

1020
00:49:33,200 --> 00:49:36,920
Speaker 3: in on like secret categories and oh yeah, and then

1021
00:49:37,440 --> 00:49:41,560
Speaker 3: it's like you you're coming in as usiness. No.

1022
00:49:42,360 --> 00:49:45,920
Speaker 1: So back to Dennis the Menaces. As we get to

1023
00:49:46,000 --> 00:49:48,840
Speaker 1: this story, it is nineteen forty six Dennis and his

1024
00:49:49,080 --> 00:49:53,799
Speaker 1: new wife Alice. Hank and his new wife Alice had

1025
00:49:53,840 --> 00:49:58,200
Speaker 1: their son, Dennis Jesus real mess here I am. And

1026
00:49:58,520 --> 00:50:01,320
Speaker 1: despite the central role that Dennis playing, his success his

1027
00:50:01,480 --> 00:50:04,279
Speaker 1: own son scarcely merits more of a mention than like

1028
00:50:04,400 --> 00:50:07,719
Speaker 1: the mother of his child. And Hank's autobiography, Hank does

1029
00:50:07,800 --> 00:50:10,800
Speaker 1: provide a loving description of how he came up with

1030
00:50:10,920 --> 00:50:13,920
Speaker 1: the idea for the comic. And this happens once he's

1031
00:50:13,960 --> 00:50:15,960
Speaker 1: out of the Navy. He moves back west and he

1032
00:50:16,120 --> 00:50:19,640
Speaker 1: establishes a home in Carmel Woods near Monterey that cost

1033
00:50:19,760 --> 00:50:22,960
Speaker 1: him again this like Bay area house he buys costs

1034
00:50:23,080 --> 00:50:27,840
Speaker 1: twelve thousand dollars. Damn it, that's like a twelve million

1035
00:50:27,920 --> 00:50:28,840
Speaker 1: dollar home today.

1036
00:50:29,400 --> 00:50:29,880
Speaker 2: At least.

1037
00:50:30,239 --> 00:50:32,560
Speaker 1: He picks up a handful of gigs drawing cartoons for

1038
00:50:32,640 --> 00:50:35,640
Speaker 1: newspapers and magazines like the Saturday Evening Post, and he

1039
00:50:35,719 --> 00:50:39,120
Speaker 1: starts putting together ideas for a comic strip. In most

1040
00:50:39,239 --> 00:50:41,720
Speaker 1: news articles about the manual, here what comes next described

1041
00:50:41,760 --> 00:50:45,000
Speaker 1: as like he's working one day and his little kid

1042
00:50:45,320 --> 00:50:47,920
Speaker 1: is His wife Alice tries to put Dennis down, and

1043
00:50:48,000 --> 00:50:49,759
Speaker 1: Dennis doesn't want to go to bed, and he like

1044
00:50:49,840 --> 00:50:51,800
Speaker 1: tears up his room, and when his mom walks in

1045
00:50:51,880 --> 00:50:55,160
Speaker 1: and sees the mess, Dennis Maid, she cries out to Hank,

1046
00:50:55,480 --> 00:50:58,880
Speaker 1: your son is a menace, and that inspires Dennis the

1047
00:50:59,000 --> 00:51:01,920
Speaker 1: Menace as a title and both the premise also of

1048
00:51:02,160 --> 00:51:05,680
Speaker 1: this cartoon. That's kind of accurate, but it leaves out

1049
00:51:05,760 --> 00:51:08,640
Speaker 1: the ugliness of Hank's own description of this moment, which

1050
00:51:08,640 --> 00:51:11,759
Speaker 1: I'm in a quote from now. At four years of age,

1051
00:51:11,800 --> 00:51:14,600
Speaker 1: Dennis Lloyd Ketchaim was a thirty six pound handful, too

1052
00:51:14,640 --> 00:51:16,600
Speaker 1: young for school, too big for his playpen, and too

1053
00:51:16,680 --> 00:51:19,719
Speaker 1: small to hit, not old enough for jail, and one

1054
00:51:19,840 --> 00:51:24,520
Speaker 1: hundred percent anti establishment. One October afternoon in nineteen fifty,

1055
00:51:24,640 --> 00:51:26,920
Speaker 1: I was at home in my tiny studio finishing a

1056
00:51:27,000 --> 00:51:29,560
Speaker 1: drawing for the Saturday Evening Post when I was startled

1057
00:51:29,600 --> 00:51:31,920
Speaker 1: by a sudden outburst of mother noises coming from the

1058
00:51:31,960 --> 00:51:34,720
Speaker 1: bedroom area of our new home and car mother noises.

1059
00:51:35,000 --> 00:51:38,120
Speaker 1: There's in these two paragraphs, there's so many moments that

1060
00:51:38,280 --> 00:51:40,240
Speaker 1: like I need to stop and be like, wait a second,

1061
00:51:40,440 --> 00:51:42,840
Speaker 1: what is a mother noise does? How is that different

1062
00:51:42,840 --> 00:51:44,919
Speaker 1: from a father noise? And why are you so sad

1063
00:51:45,000 --> 00:51:47,279
Speaker 1: your child is too small to When are they big

1064
00:51:47,440 --> 00:51:51,440
Speaker 1: enough to hit hank? When are they big enough for jail?

1065
00:51:52,280 --> 00:51:54,360
Speaker 1: What are your opinions on these things?

1066
00:51:55,239 --> 00:51:56,200
Speaker 2: Jesus right?

1067
00:51:56,640 --> 00:51:59,520
Speaker 1: The little darling was supposed to be taking a nap. Instead,

1068
00:51:59,520 --> 00:52:01,720
Speaker 1: he had spent the better part of one hour quietly

1069
00:52:01,800 --> 00:52:06,040
Speaker 1: dismantling his room, bed, mattress springs, dresser drapes, and curtain rods,

1070
00:52:06,280 --> 00:52:08,640
Speaker 1: when the accidental load he carried in his underpants was

1071
00:52:08,680 --> 00:52:11,000
Speaker 1: added to his collection of plastic toys, cookie crumbs, and

1072
00:52:11,040 --> 00:52:13,919
Speaker 1: left over peanut butter sandwhich it formed an unusual mix

1073
00:52:14,320 --> 00:52:17,000
Speaker 1: enough to drive an Irish mother to the brink. Now

1074
00:52:17,200 --> 00:52:19,960
Speaker 1: he was my son. Her rich expletives, most of them

1075
00:52:20,000 --> 00:52:22,840
Speaker 1: coined in Boston, were spliced with suggestions of abandonment and

1076
00:52:22,920 --> 00:52:26,160
Speaker 1: threats of bodily harm. After informing me that I could

1077
00:52:26,239 --> 00:52:28,360
Speaker 1: jolly well clean up his room, her parting shot was,

1078
00:52:28,800 --> 00:52:33,120
Speaker 1: your son is a menace, Dennis a menace?

1079
00:52:33,640 --> 00:52:34,280
Speaker 2: I mused.

1080
00:52:35,400 --> 00:52:37,200
Speaker 1: Now, I don't know if I believe that that's exactly

1081
00:52:37,280 --> 00:52:40,600
Speaker 1: how it happened, But interesting things from those two paragraphs

1082
00:52:41,800 --> 00:52:44,040
Speaker 1: that he really make what she to know she's Irish,

1083
00:52:44,400 --> 00:52:46,280
Speaker 1: and when you know she's Irish.

1084
00:52:46,120 --> 00:52:48,560
Speaker 2: Because there's some strong opinions on Irish people.

1085
00:52:48,600 --> 00:52:51,080
Speaker 1: He does. Their marriage does not work out, and he

1086
00:52:51,200 --> 00:52:53,319
Speaker 1: blames it on her being an alcoholic. And she's an

1087
00:52:53,320 --> 00:52:57,719
Speaker 1: alcoholic because she's Irish. Is that is Hank's attitude? Right?

1088
00:52:58,160 --> 00:53:01,759
Speaker 2: And he basically used her in the comic, didn't he? Yes?

1089
00:53:02,160 --> 00:53:04,279
Speaker 1: Yes, the mother, the dad is based on him, The

1090
00:53:04,320 --> 00:53:06,200
Speaker 1: mother is based on her, the kid is based on

1091
00:53:06,239 --> 00:53:09,000
Speaker 1: their son. The whole cartoon is based on the family.

1092
00:53:09,080 --> 00:53:13,040
Speaker 1: That he will be very shortly now abandoning fuck it

1093
00:53:13,760 --> 00:53:16,320
Speaker 1: now for reasons that will become very clear. Hankaty vested

1094
00:53:16,360 --> 00:53:18,759
Speaker 1: interest in making his wife look bad, but even his

1095
00:53:18,840 --> 00:53:21,280
Speaker 1: description provides some hints that he was not a present

1096
00:53:21,480 --> 00:53:24,640
Speaker 1: or engaged father, because he states that, rather than actually

1097
00:53:24,760 --> 00:53:27,120
Speaker 1: cleaning up the room like his wife had asked him to,

1098
00:53:27,400 --> 00:53:30,920
Speaker 1: or parenting their son cleaning up their kid, right, he

1099
00:53:31,239 --> 00:53:34,560
Speaker 1: instead ignores his family to draw the first Dennis the

1100
00:53:34,600 --> 00:53:38,560
Speaker 1: Menace cartoons. This does work out financially, the concept sells

1101
00:53:38,600 --> 00:53:42,239
Speaker 1: out within weeks to the post syndicate. Dennis the Menace

1102
00:53:42,360 --> 00:53:46,719
Speaker 1: launched in March nineteen fifty one on sixteen newspapers as

1103
00:53:46,760 --> 00:53:49,160
Speaker 1: a weird aside, and you mentioned this a little earlier.

1104
00:53:49,440 --> 00:53:52,440
Speaker 1: His cartoon debuts at like the exact same time as

1105
00:53:52,480 --> 00:53:55,680
Speaker 1: a British cartoon named Dennis the Menace with a similar plot.

1106
00:53:56,120 --> 00:54:01,120
Speaker 1: They're both about like kind of misbehaving kids. Both creators agree,

1107
00:54:01,360 --> 00:54:03,440
Speaker 1: neither plage the other. This does. This is just a

1108
00:54:03,520 --> 00:54:06,960
Speaker 1: weird coincidence. I think the same day, wasn't that. Yeah,

1109
00:54:07,000 --> 00:54:09,399
Speaker 1: it's like the same day. But both of them, neither

1110
00:54:09,440 --> 00:54:12,160
Speaker 1: of them tries to claim this is plagiarism. They're all like, nah, man,

1111
00:54:12,239 --> 00:54:14,160
Speaker 1: this is just a weird thing that happened.

1112
00:54:14,880 --> 00:54:16,439
Speaker 2: It's amazing, honestly. Yeah.

1113
00:54:17,200 --> 00:54:19,760
Speaker 1: I guess the universe needed there to be to Dennis

1114
00:54:19,800 --> 00:54:21,960
Speaker 1: the Menace comics in the same way it needed us

1115
00:54:22,000 --> 00:54:24,120
Speaker 1: to have World War One, Like it was just it

1116
00:54:24,239 --> 00:54:26,240
Speaker 1: was going to make sure that happened.

1117
00:54:27,160 --> 00:54:31,960
Speaker 2: I'm imagining Dennis the Mena is assassinating.

1118
00:54:33,160 --> 00:54:37,400
Speaker 1: That No, no, no, the Archduke of a Yeah no,

1119
00:54:37,520 --> 00:54:39,800
Speaker 1: I I you know what. That's the cartoon that we

1120
00:54:39,920 --> 00:54:42,120
Speaker 1: need from these episodes is Dennis the Menace with a

1121
00:54:42,239 --> 00:54:45,080
Speaker 1: sandwich in his hand, pumping a bunch of bullets into

1122
00:54:45,200 --> 00:54:52,200
Speaker 1: Franz Ferdinand, mister, mister Wilson, just Dennis stop starting. He's

1123
00:54:52,320 --> 00:54:55,680
Speaker 1: so angry he's gonna have to go in act the

1124
00:54:55,760 --> 00:54:59,640
Speaker 1: Schleefen Plan. Now, I do imagine mister Wilson in this

1125
00:54:59,800 --> 00:55:05,080
Speaker 1: as like the military commander of Germany. So the cartoon

1126
00:55:05,360 --> 00:55:08,040
Speaker 1: is a wild success. It takes off very quickly, and

1127
00:55:08,120 --> 00:55:10,239
Speaker 1: it expands in short order into one of the most

1128
00:55:10,280 --> 00:55:14,319
Speaker 1: successful comics in history. This much people know. What has

1129
00:55:14,400 --> 00:55:16,719
Speaker 1: been lost in the intervening years is a sense of

1130
00:55:16,800 --> 00:55:19,799
Speaker 1: how nasty the original cartoon would be. I don't even

1131
00:55:19,880 --> 00:55:22,400
Speaker 1: mean this as a criticism. It's just surprising because like

1132
00:55:22,520 --> 00:55:26,560
Speaker 1: today's Dennis the Menace, I would not call controversial, no, right,

1133
00:55:27,120 --> 00:55:31,640
Speaker 1: it's it's pretty tame humor for like all ages. Right,

1134
00:55:32,440 --> 00:55:35,279
Speaker 1: nothing against that, but it's not something You would be

1135
00:55:35,560 --> 00:55:38,080
Speaker 1: surprised if someone said there's a really offensive Dennis the

1136
00:55:38,160 --> 00:55:41,800
Speaker 1: Menace cartoon this week, right, you would think, like something

1137
00:55:41,880 --> 00:55:44,040
Speaker 1: must have gone wrong. They must have switched up their

1138
00:55:44,120 --> 00:55:47,000
Speaker 1: captions with the far side, Like what happened that one time.

1139
00:55:47,480 --> 00:55:50,000
Speaker 1: That's an actual moment from cartoon history. Folks. Look it up.

1140
00:55:50,920 --> 00:55:53,279
Speaker 1: There's like a cartoon where Dennis is talking about like

1141
00:55:53,400 --> 00:55:56,359
Speaker 1: taking people's skin off of their skulls and preserving them

1142
00:55:56,640 --> 00:55:58,719
Speaker 1: because it got swapped with a far side caption.

1143
00:55:59,120 --> 00:56:04,960
Speaker 2: Oh god, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, A couple of times too.

1144
00:56:05,160 --> 00:56:06,960
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, there's a few times that happened with the

1145
00:56:07,000 --> 00:56:10,320
Speaker 1: far side. I found a few of these early Dennis

1146
00:56:10,360 --> 00:56:13,279
Speaker 1: the Menace cartoons chronicled in an article by Seattle Times

1147
00:56:13,320 --> 00:56:17,000
Speaker 1: reporter Mark Raymer or Rainer in two thousand and five,

1148
00:56:17,239 --> 00:56:21,600
Speaker 1: and oh boy, I did not expect this quote. Walking

1149
00:56:21,640 --> 00:56:24,480
Speaker 1: out of an elevator with his concerned looking mom malicious side,

1150
00:56:24,520 --> 00:56:27,000
Speaker 1: Dennis says, did you see that? I pinched that fat

1151
00:56:27,120 --> 00:56:29,480
Speaker 1: dame to make her give me room and she slugged

1152
00:56:29,520 --> 00:56:34,960
Speaker 1: a guy in back of her Jesus fat dame. Huh wow,

1153
00:56:35,800 --> 00:56:38,879
Speaker 1: I will say, like, that's at least a little it's

1154
00:56:38,880 --> 00:56:41,800
Speaker 1: a lot more colorful than I expected from Dennis the Menace.

1155
00:56:43,280 --> 00:56:45,320
Speaker 2: A lot of those early cart comics they got a

1156
00:56:45,760 --> 00:56:48,120
Speaker 2: lot more, even some early Family Circus or.

1157
00:56:49,120 --> 00:56:53,600
Speaker 1: Blue Yeah, yeah, you could. You could definitely work Bluer

1158
00:56:53,719 --> 00:56:56,320
Speaker 1: back then. Quote. A swan with its neck tighten and

1159
00:56:56,400 --> 00:56:58,360
Speaker 1: not warns its mate stay away from that kid with

1160
00:56:58,440 --> 00:57:01,560
Speaker 1: the black pants armed a slingshot on a park bench,

1161
00:57:01,640 --> 00:57:03,560
Speaker 1: Dennis asks his mom, Hey, do you know how to

1162
00:57:03,640 --> 00:57:08,080
Speaker 1: cook a pigeon? A teacher tells Dennis's mom, your Dennis

1163
00:57:08,120 --> 00:57:10,399
Speaker 1: is a happy child. He hits Sammy with a sand

1164
00:57:10,480 --> 00:57:14,400
Speaker 1: shovel and I thought he'd die laughing. There's another cartoon

1165
00:57:14,440 --> 00:57:17,480
Speaker 1: where Dennis constructs a crude sap filling a sock with

1166
00:57:17,760 --> 00:57:22,560
Speaker 1: sand to beat people with. Again, this is kind of based.

1167
00:57:24,040 --> 00:57:26,480
Speaker 2: This is actually great. I'm not gonna lie, he's pretty good.

1168
00:57:27,240 --> 00:57:29,480
Speaker 1: It does get creepier, especially when you think of the

1169
00:57:29,560 --> 00:57:32,560
Speaker 1: real world dimensions here, because here's the description of another cartoon.

1170
00:57:33,120 --> 00:57:35,520
Speaker 1: Holding his embarrassed mom's hand, Dennis stops a friend on

1171
00:57:35,600 --> 00:57:38,200
Speaker 1: the sidewalk, Billy, this is my mother. Some looker, eh.

1172
00:57:38,760 --> 00:57:41,120
Speaker 1: He walks in in another cartoon on his mother while

1173
00:57:41,200 --> 00:57:44,480
Speaker 1: she bathes, and she covers her nude body in horrified modesty.

1174
00:57:44,760 --> 00:57:47,200
Speaker 1: He tells another friend, this is my mom, Tommy, isn't

1175
00:57:47,240 --> 00:57:50,080
Speaker 1: she pretty? There are a bunch of comics like this

1176
00:57:50,560 --> 00:57:52,720
Speaker 1: of Dennis walking in on his mom when she's like

1177
00:57:52,960 --> 00:57:55,480
Speaker 1: indecent and talking about how hot she is to his

1178
00:57:55,600 --> 00:57:59,840
Speaker 1: friend's weird joke to make about your wife and kid, hanky,

1179
00:58:00,400 --> 00:58:02,320
Speaker 1: weird joke to make about your wife and kid.

1180
00:58:02,680 --> 00:58:05,880
Speaker 2: That is uncomfortable as like a cartoonist and a parent.

1181
00:58:06,000 --> 00:58:08,560
Speaker 1: I just don't think I could do that. Look, any

1182
00:58:08,680 --> 00:58:11,400
Speaker 1: kid would be glad to be portrayed as making a

1183
00:58:11,560 --> 00:58:14,640
Speaker 1: crude sap to beat people within the street. No kid

1184
00:58:14,760 --> 00:58:16,840
Speaker 1: wants to be in a cartoon calling their mom hot.

1185
00:58:17,160 --> 00:58:20,520
Speaker 1: That's not okay, Hank, you shouldn't do that to the

1186
00:58:20,640 --> 00:58:24,160
Speaker 1: cartoon founded in the image of your son. A little

1187
00:58:24,200 --> 00:58:27,920
Speaker 1: odd yeah, like I know she was your wife, but

1188
00:58:28,080 --> 00:58:32,960
Speaker 1: not his. That's a therapy session, he will say later.

1189
00:58:33,120 --> 00:58:35,440
Speaker 1: I think Dennis was more based on me than my son.

1190
00:58:35,520 --> 00:58:38,920
Speaker 1: But still, man, a little little fucked up buddy. So

1191
00:58:39,120 --> 00:58:41,440
Speaker 1: that's good. As soon as he starts making a fortune

1192
00:58:41,480 --> 00:58:43,600
Speaker 1: off of this cartoon, you know, this cartoon that is

1193
00:58:43,680 --> 00:58:46,320
Speaker 1: inspired by his son and his wife, he grows to

1194
00:58:46,480 --> 00:58:49,600
Speaker 1: resent them. In one interview, he described how he empathized

1195
00:58:49,640 --> 00:58:52,320
Speaker 1: with the put upon father in his cartoon. He comes

1196
00:58:52,360 --> 00:58:54,400
Speaker 1: I'm tired, full of other thoughts, and it's hard to

1197
00:58:54,440 --> 00:58:57,560
Speaker 1: come back and relax enough to enjoy your family, he says.

1198
00:58:58,280 --> 00:59:01,280
Speaker 1: The young Ketchum saw children, in particular his son Dennis,

1199
00:59:01,400 --> 00:59:03,720
Speaker 1: as part of the problem. They always seem to be

1200
00:59:03,800 --> 00:59:07,160
Speaker 1: in the way of what you wanted to do. He remembers, I.

1201
00:59:07,280 --> 00:59:09,479
Speaker 2: Just wondered, this is when his ghost artists and ghost

1202
00:59:09,520 --> 00:59:10,680
Speaker 2: writers start taking over.

1203
00:59:11,160 --> 00:59:13,360
Speaker 1: Right, this is right at the start. They haven't done

1204
00:59:13,400 --> 00:59:15,120
Speaker 1: this yet. Yeah, this is fifty nine, so.

1205
00:59:15,160 --> 00:59:17,520
Speaker 2: Wisra's not drawing and I can't know the name of

1206
00:59:17,560 --> 00:59:18,280
Speaker 2: the art the writer.

1207
00:59:18,600 --> 00:59:21,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, no, not quite yet. This is like, this

1208
00:59:22,400 --> 00:59:26,240
Speaker 1: is I think him being like sad in retrospect, because

1209
00:59:26,240 --> 00:59:27,720
Speaker 1: at the time I think he was just happy to

1210
00:59:28,040 --> 00:59:30,280
Speaker 1: ignore his family to make a bunch of money, and

1211
00:59:30,320 --> 00:59:33,440
Speaker 1: as a result, his marriage deteriorates quickly for reasons that

1212
00:59:33,760 --> 00:59:37,680
Speaker 1: should be obvious. In the winter of nineteen fifty nine,

1213
00:59:37,760 --> 00:59:40,840
Speaker 1: Alice leaves him, and he simply writes, it was a bummer.

1214
00:59:41,160 --> 00:59:44,240
Speaker 1: We had been on a collision course and nobody cared.

1215
00:59:45,200 --> 00:59:45,760
Speaker 2: Jesus.

1216
00:59:46,320 --> 00:59:48,840
Speaker 1: We're going to talk about what happens to his wife,

1217
00:59:49,000 --> 00:59:52,400
Speaker 1: and more importantly, what he does to his son in

1218
00:59:52,520 --> 00:59:54,440
Speaker 1: the wake of the very sad thing that's going to

1219
00:59:54,520 --> 00:59:58,080
Speaker 1: happen to her, And we're getting into, you know, the real,

1220
00:59:58,240 --> 01:00:01,760
Speaker 1: the very worst bastardury of the Han Catchum story. But first,

1221
01:00:02,760 --> 01:00:07,840
Speaker 1: that's the episode we're done for right now, So that no, no, no, no,

1222
01:00:07,920 --> 01:00:09,600
Speaker 1: no no, I caused this to be a two parter

1223
01:00:09,720 --> 01:00:12,200
Speaker 1: because I wrote twenty pages on the Dennis the Menace

1224
01:00:12,280 --> 01:00:16,000
Speaker 1: guy says that no one, no one will ever be

1225
01:00:16,080 --> 01:00:19,080
Speaker 1: able to explain. This was not my initial intention. I

1226
01:00:19,440 --> 01:00:22,960
Speaker 1: did not oh my chanese, well, you know, obviously not

1227
01:00:23,160 --> 01:00:26,440
Speaker 1: like compared to you, I'm not knowledgeable or nerdy about animation,

1228
01:00:26,680 --> 01:00:28,600
Speaker 1: but like I really love cartoons.

1229
01:00:28,840 --> 01:00:31,600
Speaker 2: I'm only wanting to be just a rage to happen.

1230
01:00:32,760 --> 01:00:33,080
Speaker 2: That's why.

1231
01:00:33,360 --> 01:00:36,440
Speaker 1: Just there's so much to talk, like the Disney animator

1232
01:00:36,520 --> 01:00:39,080
Speaker 1: strike and ship, the story of animation, like I just couldn't.

1233
01:00:39,480 --> 01:00:40,600
Speaker 1: I couldn't help myself.

1234
01:00:41,040 --> 01:00:43,760
Speaker 2: You could do a whole episode on on Disney the forties,

1235
01:00:43,920 --> 01:00:44,760
Speaker 2: especially the strike.

1236
01:00:45,120 --> 01:00:48,080
Speaker 1: I think we will at some point, but first, let's

1237
01:00:48,120 --> 01:00:49,840
Speaker 1: do an episode on your pluggables.

1238
01:00:50,160 --> 01:00:53,560
Speaker 2: Oh uh oh, Well, my name is a Randy mill Holland,

1239
01:00:54,040 --> 01:00:58,840
Speaker 2: and I do an online comic called Something Positive. I've

1240
01:00:58,840 --> 01:01:02,160
Speaker 2: been doing it since the year two thousand and one.

1241
01:01:03,800 --> 01:01:05,000
Speaker 2: Let's see what else do I do?

1242
01:01:05,120 --> 01:01:09,640
Speaker 1: I do a few things now, Randy. Two thousand and one,

1243
01:01:10,040 --> 01:01:12,560
Speaker 1: the War on Terror started and it hasn't really ended.

1244
01:01:13,040 --> 01:01:16,840
Speaker 1: Is it possible that your cartoon caused the War on terror?

1245
01:01:18,080 --> 01:01:22,800
Speaker 2: Technically my comics started after the war on Terror began. Okay, okay,

1246
01:01:23,200 --> 01:01:27,040
Speaker 2: I have a few months grace period. Thankfully I can

1247
01:01:27,120 --> 01:01:29,240
Speaker 2: tell you where I was when all that started.

1248
01:01:29,520 --> 01:01:31,640
Speaker 1: I guess it will remain a mystery why the war

1249
01:01:31,720 --> 01:01:32,959
Speaker 1: on terror started that at.

1250
01:01:32,920 --> 01:01:35,200
Speaker 2: Least until you do about the behind the Bastards episode

1251
01:01:35,200 --> 01:01:35,440
Speaker 2: on me.

1252
01:01:37,440 --> 01:01:43,360
Speaker 1: Next year holland the fourteenth hijacker. I forget how many

1253
01:01:43,440 --> 01:01:44,200
Speaker 1: hijackers they were.

1254
01:01:44,240 --> 01:01:47,000
Speaker 2: Folks, I did live in Boston, you know, well, I

1255
01:01:47,200 --> 01:01:51,880
Speaker 2: live not far from that from logan that to happen,

1256
01:01:54,200 --> 01:01:56,160
Speaker 2: So I do something pause that something positive dot net.

1257
01:01:57,000 --> 01:02:00,720
Speaker 2: I also draw the Sunday pop Ey strips Kingdom dot

1258
01:02:00,760 --> 01:02:05,120
Speaker 2: com slash Popeye. I also do a Tuesday Thursday comic

1259
01:02:05,640 --> 01:02:11,160
Speaker 2: with a woman sorry being named uh, Emmy Burke. That's

1260
01:02:11,200 --> 01:02:14,000
Speaker 2: all of them. Popeye Tuesdays are focused on all of uh,

1261
01:02:14,600 --> 01:02:16,680
Speaker 2: That's what Emmy draws. I do the Thursday strips that

1262
01:02:16,840 --> 01:02:20,000
Speaker 2: focus on Popeye and his family. And I started a

1263
01:02:20,080 --> 01:02:22,800
Speaker 2: couple of months ago a comic called mouse Trapped. It

1264
01:02:23,000 --> 01:02:25,920
Speaker 2: is my sequel to the comic or the cartoon in

1265
01:02:25,960 --> 01:02:27,680
Speaker 2: the sting about Willie. But I bring in other public

1266
01:02:27,720 --> 01:02:30,920
Speaker 2: domain comic characters from like Universal and Walter Lance.

1267
01:02:31,160 --> 01:02:33,080
Speaker 1: Hell yeah, So it's.

1268
01:02:33,000 --> 01:02:35,720
Speaker 2: Basically a lot my excuse to pull out really old,

1269
01:02:35,760 --> 01:02:38,160
Speaker 2: forgotten cartoon characters. I forget how they would fit together.

1270
01:02:38,880 --> 01:02:42,320
Speaker 1: Well that sounds fucking dope, thank you. Yeah, I uh

1271
01:02:43,080 --> 01:02:48,640
Speaker 1: don't have a cartoon, but I do have a podcast

1272
01:02:48,800 --> 01:02:52,360
Speaker 1: and you're listening to it. So would novels. I have

1273
01:02:52,440 --> 01:02:55,480
Speaker 1: written a novel. It's called After the Revolution, and you

1274
01:02:55,600 --> 01:02:58,880
Speaker 1: can find it on the internet at atrbook dot com

1275
01:02:59,200 --> 01:03:01,120
Speaker 1: or any place that lets you buy books.

1276
01:03:01,360 --> 01:03:03,800
Speaker 2: You know, would you have one of the stacked things

1277
01:03:03,960 --> 01:03:06,120
Speaker 2: that raters have a subst.

1278
01:03:06,000 --> 01:03:08,360
Speaker 1: And I don't really do that anymore. Oh okay, sorry,

1279
01:03:08,520 --> 01:03:10,560
Speaker 1: I mean I want to get some sort of regular

1280
01:03:10,640 --> 01:03:13,080
Speaker 1: writing thing up again. But substack. There's this whole thing

1281
01:03:13,120 --> 01:03:16,400
Speaker 1: over Nazis, and like, I'm mixed because where aren't there

1282
01:03:16,480 --> 01:03:19,600
Speaker 1: Nazis on social media? Why would we get bent out

1283
01:03:19,600 --> 01:03:21,480
Speaker 1: of shape about one or the other. But also, like,

1284
01:03:21,680 --> 01:03:23,479
Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't want to go to bat

1285
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Speaker 1: for substack over whatever all of this. So I'm just

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Speaker 1: not doing anything right now aside from these podcasts.

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Speaker 2: Fair enough. Yeah, well, don't forget cool Zone media and

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Speaker 2: the app.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, don't forget that, but forget everything else you've

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Speaker 1: ever heard in your life. Remember only us.

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Speaker 3: Behind the Bastards is a production of cool Zone Media.

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Speaker 3: For more from cool Zone Media, visit our website cool

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Speaker 3: zonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,

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Speaker 3: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.