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Speaker 1: Too Much Information is a production of I Heart Radio.

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Speaker 1: Hello everyone, and welcome to Too Much Information, the show

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Speaker 1: that brings you the secret history and little known fascinating

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Speaker 1: facts about your favorite movies, music, TV shows, and more.

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Speaker 1: We're two guys with too much free time on our hands.

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Speaker 1: My name is Jordan run Tug and I'm Alex Tigel,

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Speaker 1: and we're talking about a tale as old as time,

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Speaker 1: a tune as old as song. Yes, we're doing a

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Speaker 1: deep dive into Beauty and the Beast, a crucial part

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Speaker 1: of the so called Disney renaissance of the late eighties

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Speaker 1: and really into the nineties. The Little Mermaid kicked it off,

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Speaker 1: but Beauty and the Beast really showed that this wasn't

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Speaker 1: a fluke. This was the bar that the Disney animators

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Speaker 1: were holding themselves too, and it was a high one. Uh.

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Speaker 1: We'll talk about this in the episode, but Beauty of

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Speaker 1: the Beast really took feature length cartoons out of the

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Speaker 1: realm of children's entertainment and into the world of adults.

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Speaker 1: And you know, even I can say this high art

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Speaker 1: truly one of my favorite animated films. Ever, I think

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Speaker 1: it's probably my favorite Disney film. If I had to

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Speaker 1: pick what do you think. Well, it's the only one

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Speaker 1: with Jerry Orback in it, so that's why he gets

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Speaker 1: a sterling A plus for me, it's incredible, great film.

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Speaker 1: And yeah, like you said, I mean, I would argue

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Speaker 1: hasn't been topped. There are some that would argue Lion King,

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Speaker 1: but I'm gonna I'm more of a Beauty and the

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Speaker 1: Beast guy. I don't know. It's that I can't get

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Speaker 1: past sexy Nala. It's too weird for me. Not that

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Speaker 1: I wasn't sexually attracted to the Beast, but like he

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Speaker 1: at least was bipedal. All right, let's get into it.

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Speaker 1: You're all listening to this right now, just imagining we're

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Speaker 1: doing this in like a big library like the Beast

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Speaker 1: right now. Oh yeah, absolutely, that is where I am seated.

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Speaker 1: Is awesome, It was so cool. All right, Well, folks,

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Speaker 1: we welcome you to beat our guests, as it were. Relax,

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Speaker 1: pull up a chair as Higgel and I proudly present

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Speaker 1: everything you didn't know about Beauty and the Beast. So

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Speaker 1: Walt Disney and himself and his frozen head wanted to

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Speaker 1: do a version of Beauty and the Beast way back

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Speaker 1: in the day. And just to give you a quick context, Um,

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Speaker 1: there's Disney's like first great phase that runs from ninety

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Speaker 1: nineteen fifty nine roughly, and Walt had supposedly considered the

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Speaker 1: source material for this for adaptation in the nineteen thirties,

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Speaker 1: but according to Peter M. Nichols in The New York

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Speaker 1: Times Essential Library Children's Movies, he then abandoned it. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: apparently the studio endured a lot of financial losses actually

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Speaker 1: after the kind of not so great responses to Bamby

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Speaker 1: and Fantasia their classics now, but I guess they didn't

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Speaker 1: do as well as Disney had hoped the time, and

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Speaker 1: then they were drawing into the war effort for the

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Speaker 1: Second World War to make propaganda films, and so the

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Speaker 1: whole Beauty and the Beast idea I kind of got

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Speaker 1: put in the back burner for you know, at least

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Speaker 1: a decade, probably into the fifties. Didn't Fantasias start finally

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Speaker 1: recouping its losses when they started rerunning it in like

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Speaker 1: the sixties for those donors, I think so, yep, yeah,

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Speaker 1: um so by this point though, when once we get

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Speaker 1: out of the war phase, when they started making propaganda films,

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Speaker 1: which I don't know if I've seen any Disney propaganda

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Speaker 1: films that sounds fun. It's up there with the doctors

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Speaker 1: who's propaganda films. They're good, I mean good, let me

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Speaker 1: qualify good. They're they're they're interesting. Yeah, but so by

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Speaker 1: Jean Cocteau has put out his own live version adaptation,

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Speaker 1: which is justifiably famous, regarded as one of the best

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Speaker 1: films ever made. But between Disney's presume and hatred for

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Speaker 1: the French and the fact that he just didn't like competition,

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Speaker 1: which I'm probably also projecting, they just gave up on

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Speaker 1: the storyline. Yeah, I mean, I guess Disney made an

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Speaker 1: attempt to revisit the idea in the fifties, but he

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Speaker 1: and his writers really struggled with the second half of

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Speaker 1: the movie when Bells just locked in the beast Castle,

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Speaker 1: and they were worried that the film was gonna be,

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Speaker 1: in their words, claustrophobic, because there's some versions of this

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Speaker 1: fare tale where she's locked up for months before she

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Speaker 1: meets the Beast. So they really struggled with how to

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Speaker 1: kind of like make this something that really played on

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Speaker 1: the screen. And also Walt was tied up with not

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Speaker 1: only other movies throughout the fifties, I mean from Cinderella

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Speaker 1: and Sleeping Beauty and Peter pan On down. But he

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Speaker 1: was trying to get Disneyland off the ground as well.

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Speaker 1: So the Biddey and the Beast idea was put on

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Speaker 1: ice before Wald himself was put on ice in six

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Speaker 1: when he died. I'm sorry, I'm really sorry for that.

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Speaker 1: That That is what brief is. Walt frozen sidebar. That

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Speaker 1: is true, right, That's not an urban legend. He is

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Speaker 1: crygetically frozen. I have no idea. I don't want it ruined.

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Speaker 1: I wanted. I wanted in my heart he is and

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Speaker 1: you're and you're equally frozen. Art. Yeah. Anyway, So fast

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Speaker 1: forward to the nineteen eighties and honestly another one of

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Speaker 1: my favorite films of all time. During production for Who

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Speaker 1: Framed Roger Rabbit? You have to understand that at this

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Speaker 1: point Disney had set up a satellite studio in London,

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Speaker 1: and so they are doing kind of overseas productions at

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Speaker 1: the same time they're doing stuff in the States, and

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Speaker 1: so they initially pitch doing Beauty and the Beast to

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Speaker 1: Roger Williams, who is the guy who's running the animated

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Speaker 1: portions of Roger Rabbit. His passion project is another movie

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Speaker 1: called The Thief in the Cobbler, which does eventually get made,

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Speaker 1: and it's been kicking around also since the sixties. That

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Speaker 1: film is wild because it's been it was just tating forever,

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Speaker 1: like finally, yeah, it finally gets released and it flops.

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Speaker 1: And one of the reason it flops is because Mirra

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Speaker 1: Max and Harvey Scissor Hands actual monster Harvey Weinstein had

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Speaker 1: done his classic thing, which is just get involved and

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Speaker 1: just meddle with it. Um. You know, we don't have

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Speaker 1: to go into what and how he did. But this

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Speaker 1: film flops when it comes out in so um. Roger

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Speaker 1: Williams almost directed it, wound up not directing it, and

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Speaker 1: then his passion project was mercilessly with and died. So

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Speaker 1: that's a fun story about the animation machine in the

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Speaker 1: late eighties and nineties. Yeah, it's interesting. I think that

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Speaker 1: duty to the beast at this stage was they wanted

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Speaker 1: to be a non musical, which is sort of hard

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Speaker 1: to imagine now. I know, one of the some of

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Speaker 1: the best songs of all times, of all of like

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Speaker 1: some of the best Disney songs, oh easily. Yeah, three

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Speaker 1: of those songs were nominated for an Oscar that year.

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Speaker 1: I mean, that's how you know the quality of these songs.

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Speaker 1: So they decided that making it a musical is probably

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Speaker 1: the best direction after the success of The Little Mermaid

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Speaker 1: in nine. And that's really what we said. This is

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Speaker 1: the top of the episode, the the movie that really

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Speaker 1: kicks started the so called Disney renaissance. I mean that

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Speaker 1: was really like the set the tone for the next

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Speaker 1: ten years for the company. So Linda Wolverton, who went

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Speaker 1: on to co write The Lion King, she also contributed

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Speaker 1: to Milan. She wrote Malificent, she wrote we don't want

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Speaker 1: to talk about this, but she wrote Alice in Wonderland.

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Speaker 1: In their sequels, she becomes the first woman to script

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Speaker 1: a major animated feature. Uh. And it was quite the

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Speaker 1: promotion for her. And why was that, Jordan's because at

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Speaker 1: this point her only experience writing for Disney had basically

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Speaker 1: just been working on episodes of Chippendale. Rest You Rangers

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Speaker 1: also a classic. Yeah, absolutely, um. And it's interesting to

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Speaker 1: note that this is really the first Disney animation film

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Speaker 1: that used a dedicated screenwriter. I mean, prior to that,

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Speaker 1: most animated films kind of you story artists and story

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Speaker 1: editors to dictate what, you know, what the film would

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Speaker 1: be and the beat out the different plot points. And

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Speaker 1: at this point, Michael Eisner had just joined Disney, and uh,

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Speaker 1: he was relatively new to the animation world, and he

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Speaker 1: basically wasn't used to how the stories traditionally came together,

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Speaker 1: you know, as these big collaborative efforts in animators offices

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Speaker 1: rather than you know, in the mind of a dedicated screenwriter.

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Speaker 1: So he brought Linda Wolverton on board to work the

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Speaker 1: script out and they really worked hard on this. Apparently

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Speaker 1: that the prologue at the beginning of the movie with

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Speaker 1: the you know, with the stained glass windows and everything,

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Speaker 1: Apparently that scene was rewritten some two hundred times before

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Speaker 1: they got the final versions. I mean it makes sense.

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Speaker 1: I mean, think about when you're writing an article or

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Speaker 1: even like writing a song or something, you want to

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Speaker 1: get that opening just perfect because that just sets the

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Speaker 1: that draws people in. So in a way I understand that,

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Speaker 1: but still that's times. Yeah. So at this point the

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Speaker 1: film is starting to take shape, or at least the

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Speaker 1: loose idea for the film is starting to take shape,

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Speaker 1: and Roger Williams punts it to his buddy and another

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Speaker 1: British gentleman, Richard Perdume, who starts work on the non

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Speaker 1: musical version of the film under a producer named Don

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Speaker 1: ham Uh. And it was meant to be kind of

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Speaker 1: like The Rescuers down Under, which was also in production

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Speaker 1: at Disney at this time, and it was also a

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Speaker 1: non musical, so that was kind of the tone that

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Speaker 1: they were going for. But executives jump in after seeing

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Speaker 1: some early footage, Walt Disney Studios chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg scraps

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Speaker 1: the entire thing and orders the team to start over

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Speaker 1: from scratch, over, which Williams quits. I mean, yeah, I understandably, so,

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Speaker 1: I mean, you can see this early storyboard on YouTube.

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Speaker 1: I think it's like twenty minutes of it, and it's

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Speaker 1: pretty interesting. It kind of follows in the tradition of

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Speaker 1: Cinderella and Snow White and Beauty where Bell is basically

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Speaker 1: being harassed by an older woman. This time it's like

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Speaker 1: her aunt, I think, because she wants to marry her

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Speaker 1: off to Gaston. And at this stage the enchanted objects were,

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Speaker 1: I think, with just one exception, voiceless and faceless. And

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Speaker 1: I said earlier there were no songs in this and

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Speaker 1: the comment that kept recurring again and again for this

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Speaker 1: early storyboard was that it was kind of dark. It

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Speaker 1: was like, I think the summation was kind of unfair.

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Speaker 1: That I heard mostly for this early version was that

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Speaker 1: was basically two people sitting at dinner every night, and

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Speaker 1: the general consensus with it was just pretty dark and depressing.

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Speaker 1: And this became really even more apparent when A Little

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Speaker 1: Mermaid premiered in eighty nine with you know, under the

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Speaker 1: Sea and and you know Caribbean music and all the

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Speaker 1: colors and the songs. It's bright. So like, Okay, maybe

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Speaker 1: having a movie that's mostly like dinner and a dark,

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Speaker 1: gloomy castle, like a you know, animated masterpiece theater kind

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Speaker 1: of thing, maybe isn't the way to go. So they

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Speaker 1: changed everything and and the producer's approached Beauty and the

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Speaker 1: Beast basically as an animated Broadway musical, although we you know,

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Speaker 1: the current Disney plan of rebooting every single franchise is

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Speaker 1: like a dark and gritty origin story. I for one

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Speaker 1: of him, am thrilled for am my Dinner with Andre

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Speaker 1: esque version of Beauty and the Beast My Dinner with

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Speaker 1: Louiser yea so at this point, Little Mermaid directors John

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Speaker 1: Musker and Ron Clements are then approached and asked to

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Speaker 1: take over production, but they basically said we are Are

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Speaker 1: they British? Would they say, uh, we're knackered? I think

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Speaker 1: they're American, but you can say an acurative, so they

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Speaker 1: just said Disney. Um so then director the directing team

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Speaker 1: of Kirk Wise and Gary Trousdale, who were sort of

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Speaker 1: I don't want to use the phrase jobbers, but they're

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Speaker 1: like Disney roustabouts. They've been working on Epcot short films.

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Speaker 1: They storyboarded Rescuers down Under, the storyboarded Prince and the Pauper.

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Speaker 1: They're teamed up with Han. Yeah. Kirk Wise, it's funny

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Speaker 1: put himself through art school by drawing caricatures for Taurus,

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Speaker 1: not at Disney but Universal Studios. They Disney looked past

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Speaker 1: that and hired him. Anyway, Um, why isn't Showsdale really

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Speaker 1: kind of had their work cut out for him because

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Speaker 1: at this stage they basically had to start from scratch,

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Speaker 1: you know, leaving just two years to meet Jeffrey Catsenberg's

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Speaker 1: one film a year pace that he wanted to hit

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Speaker 1: and Catsenberg, we really haven't talked enough about him. He's

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Speaker 1: kind of the engine behind this whole operation, the so

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Speaker 1: called you know, Disney renaissance. Uh. He had this mantra

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Speaker 1: of bigger, better, faster, cheaper, and Little Mermaid has certainly,

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Speaker 1: you know, achieved the first two goals of this aim.

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Speaker 1: But making low budget animated films on a tight schedule

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Speaker 1: really wasn't gonna work for these animators, Like they really

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Speaker 1: believed in quality above all else. You can cut out

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Speaker 1: when I call him, but you have to put in

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Speaker 1: that thirty years later, he would be responsible for the

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Speaker 1: stunning failure of Keep Queeby What is that right? Yes? Yes, yes,

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Speaker 1: quick bites, the vertical oriented uh micro content and thing

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Speaker 1: that launched during the pandemic and flopped majestically. Is it

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Speaker 1: still still in existence? No? I think they had to

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Speaker 1: port all of it to like whatever streamer would have it.

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Speaker 1: Um anyway, so what do you say about these next guys,

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Speaker 1: the greatest Disney composers Ashman and Mancon Howard Ashman and

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Speaker 1: Alan Mencon. Oh, good lord, yes McCartney of Disney. Yeah yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's yes, roll with that. Um. So. Katzenberg also decides

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Speaker 1: that the film is going to be a musical and

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Speaker 1: At this point, he brings on Howard Ashman and Alan

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Speaker 1: Mancon to write the score. And you can't say enough

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Speaker 1: about these guys, but Jordan's please try. Yeah. I mean,

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Speaker 1: they were really a throwback to like the Sherman brothers,

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Speaker 1: who were Walt Disney's go to composers who had worked

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Speaker 1: on movies like Mary Poppins and The Jungle Book. And

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Speaker 1: Ashman and Mankin really brought this Broadway musical sensibility to

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Speaker 1: the production, and they structured the story as if this

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Speaker 1: were for the stage, considering that this wasn't initially going

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Speaker 1: to be a musical. The final result, I think has

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Speaker 1: twenty five minutes of songs in the film, and I

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Speaker 1: think there's only five minutes of the movie total that

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Speaker 1: has no music at all. So I mean, they really

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Speaker 1: transformed this top to bottom to have one small piece

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Speaker 1: of their brilliance. Just look at the opening bell sequence,

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Speaker 1: and it's just such an incredible example of their brilliance.

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Speaker 1: It's it's like an operetta, like it's something that's like

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Speaker 1: Stephen Sondheim would be proud of. I mean, it's what

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Speaker 1: the folks in the in the Broadway business call and

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Speaker 1: I want song where all of the desires and problems

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Speaker 1: of the main characters are laid out, and in three

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Speaker 1: and a half minutes you have all this information and

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Speaker 1: exposition given to the audience. You know, you have who

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Speaker 1: Bell is, what her relationship to her father is, what

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Speaker 1: her relationship to the town is, what the people in

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Speaker 1: the town think about her, what Gaston wants, what Bell thinks.

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Speaker 1: A guest on the economy of that song is really amazing,

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Speaker 1: not to mention the the instrumentation, the arrangements, and the

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Speaker 1: melody um amazingly. Megan and Ashman were absolutely terrified about

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Speaker 1: how Disney execs would receive this song. They were like,

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Speaker 1: you know, what are you doing? What you're putting an operetta?

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Speaker 1: This is for kids? Like what do you like? This

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Speaker 1: was this in Gilbert and Sullivan. But thankfully Disney executives

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Speaker 1: loved it, and in any event, the duo had much

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Speaker 1: bigger problems than Disney's response. So, Howard Ashman has just

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Speaker 1: found out that he's dying of complications from AIDS, and

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Speaker 1: the other important thing in his life at this point

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Speaker 1: is that he's working on his passion project, which is

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Speaker 1: a Laddin, and he was reticent to pick up Beauty

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Speaker 1: and the Beast because um, you know, he had other

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Speaker 1: things on his plate. And the team at this point

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Speaker 1: has also relocated production from London to New York to

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Speaker 1: accommodate him. And that's what factors into this next part

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Speaker 1: of the story. So Howard Ashman lived up about two

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Speaker 1: and a half hours north of New York City, kind

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Speaker 1: of upstate New York. And it's amazing I think that

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Speaker 1: so much of the Beauty and the Beast story was

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Speaker 1: banged out in a residence in in the town of Fishkill,

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Speaker 1: New York, where a screenwriter, Linda Wolvelton and and the

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Speaker 1: production team would meet to be closer to Howard Ashman

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Speaker 1: and and they really banged out the story together in

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Speaker 1: this residence in and Katzenberg approves the script, which had

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Speaker 1: input from Ashman and Mencon and so storyboarding for the

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Speaker 1: film picks back up in and there is really amazing

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Speaker 1: article written by the Disney storian Josh Bagel for Slash Film,

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Speaker 1: and according to him, Ashman wrote most of the lyrics

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Speaker 1: for the six songs, while seven songs have you count

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Speaker 1: the one that was cut, which we'll talk about later.

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Speaker 1: But Ashman wrote most of the lyrics for these films

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Speaker 1: when he was quite literally on his deathbed, which is

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Speaker 1: I mean, just makes it all the more astonishing when

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Speaker 1: you hear you know how how well crafted they are

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Speaker 1: and how touching these lyrics are. And he would die

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Speaker 1: before the film was released, although he did manage to

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Speaker 1: see a rough cut of it, and there is a

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Speaker 1: dedication to him in the film's credits, apparently his partner

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Speaker 1: Alan mankon. I mean, he didn't know that Ashman was

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Speaker 1: sick until I think it was the after party for

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Speaker 1: the Oscars ceremony where they had just one for The

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Speaker 1: Little Mermaid, which is if that's true, what uh I

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Speaker 1: mean talk about your moment of glory immediately be an

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Speaker 1: undercut by Oh it's it's too awful to even think about,

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Speaker 1: but too brilliant composers. We'll talk more about them later

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Speaker 1: in the episode. But their gifts live on, yes, well,

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Speaker 1: said um So, speaking of the musical part of the film.

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Speaker 1: The Voice of Bell beat out five hundred other hopefuls

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Speaker 1: for this after seeing an ad in the New York Times.

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Speaker 1: And that's Broadway actress Page O'Hara. She's thirty. She was

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Speaker 1: thirty years old at the time, which actually ended up

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Speaker 1: working in her favor because the team wanted an older

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Speaker 1: sounding voice for the character. Um, there's a bunch of

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Speaker 1: different influences that go into the character, one of which

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Speaker 1: is Judy Garland, which is maybe a tad depressing, but yeah,

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Speaker 1: you can definitely see that in the outfit. She's wearing

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Speaker 1: that blue and white dress. It's exactly what Dorothy wears

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Speaker 1: in the Wizard of Oz. But apparently Courtney Lender Wolverton

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Speaker 1: at least based on a lot of Bell's personality on

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Speaker 1: the actress Katherine Hepburn. So in the scenes where bells

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Speaker 1: dressing the beast wounds after he saves her from a

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Speaker 1: wolve attack, you see a little bit of like play fighting,

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Speaker 1: and she's kind of like, you know, hold still, won't

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Speaker 1: hurt if you hold still, Like it's it was supposed

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Speaker 1: to be playing on Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy's relationship

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Speaker 1: in the movies and thirties and forties. But the big

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Speaker 1: influence was Katherine Hepburn's part in Little Women when she

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Speaker 1: played Joe March. Speaking to the l A Times in,

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Speaker 1: Wolverton said that both Joe Marsh and Bell were strong,

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Speaker 1: active women who loved to read and wanted more than

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Speaker 1: life was offering to them. The Wolverton really wanted to

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Speaker 1: move Bell basically outside the realm of the you know,

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Speaker 1: helpless princess kind of archetype that Disney had uh really

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Speaker 1: carved out of the last half century. And there's this

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Speaker 1: great story that Lyndon Wolverton tells. She had initially written

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Speaker 1: a scene where Bell was sticking pins in a map

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Speaker 1: of all the places she wanted to go, and then

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Speaker 1: by the time the story boarders had animated it, Bell

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Speaker 1: was just in a kitchen decorating a cake, and she

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Speaker 1: was just like, no, that's not what we agree. This

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Speaker 1: is not who this person is. So they compromised by

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Speaker 1: going with the Bell as a bookworm angle. So that's

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Speaker 1: kind of more where her personality came from. In terms

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Speaker 1: of her look. Animator Mark Henn said that her visual

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Speaker 1: parents drew on more modern influences like Jenny Garth apparently

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Speaker 1: and Alissa Milano, and her movements were based in part

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Speaker 1: on Ballerina's. I guess she studied for reference, like a

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Speaker 1: lot of tapes of Ballerina's moving. Do you know if

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Speaker 1: you watch the film and she moves very grace, she's

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Speaker 1: light on her feet. Yeah, she's very light on her feet. Um.

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Speaker 1: For a reference model, the animators hired a woman named

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Speaker 1: Sherry Stoner, who also served as a reference model for

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Speaker 1: Ariel in The Little Mermaid and What is Sherry Stoner

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Speaker 1: Girl on to Do? She went on to create envoys

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Speaker 1: Slappy Squirrel in the animated acts. I love that. I

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Speaker 1: love that so much. Getting back Judy Garland, we talked

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Speaker 1: about how her her blue and white outfit was really

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Speaker 1: inspired in part by by Dorothy and The Wizard of Oz. Blue,

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Speaker 1: the designers said, was an important color because if you

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Speaker 1: look at the opening bell sequence in the town, she's

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Speaker 1: the only person wearing blue, which is meant to signify

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Speaker 1: that she's sort of out of step with everybody in town. Um.

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Speaker 1: And then later during the famous Beauty and the Beast

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Speaker 1: title song sequence in the ballroom, the Beast is wearing

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Speaker 1: a blue regal uh suit, which is sort of meant

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Speaker 1: to be, you know, their way of visually signifying that

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Speaker 1: he's kind of connected to her. Now, I love that suit,

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Speaker 1: which is it's a great suit. Um, they really borrowed

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Speaker 1: a lot from the Wizard of Oz. I guess think

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Speaker 1: the enchanted rose with the pedals falling off was supposed

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Speaker 1: to be inspired by the Wicked, which is our glass

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Speaker 1: and you know when the Beast is getting his makeover

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Speaker 1: before that beauty and the Beast like dinner sequence and

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Speaker 1: like Lumier has given him a pep talk and they

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Speaker 1: cut to him and he's got like curlers in his beard,

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Speaker 1: and like his hair is all done up and he's

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Speaker 1: just look stupid. That was supposed to be. I don't

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Speaker 1: know if it's supposed to be, but it definitely seemed

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Speaker 1: to be an homage to the Cowardly Lion when he's

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Speaker 1: getting a makeover at the Emerald City, right when they

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Speaker 1: when they arrive with the ribbons and the curls. So yeah,

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Speaker 1: a lot have a lot of little winks to the

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Speaker 1: Wizard of Oz there. As you meditate on that, we'll

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Speaker 1: be right back with more too much information after these messages.

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Speaker 1: So I mentioned earlier, this was supposed to be a

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Speaker 1: new kind of princess. This was like a Disney princess

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Speaker 1: for the nineties. They all apparently was I think the

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Speaker 1: oldest Disney princess at the time. She was I think

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Speaker 1: twenty one, whereas Ariel I think was just sixteen, and

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Speaker 1: uh Pedro Harry like sort of celebrated this fact. She said,

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Speaker 1: I love the fact that Bell is independent, she wasn't

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Speaker 1: looking for a man, and she's highly intelligent. I also

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Speaker 1: love that she's the oldest Disney princess. She's the only

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Speaker 1: one that they ever created to be in her twenties.

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Speaker 1: All the others have been teenagers, so there's a maturity

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Speaker 1: about her, which is true. And this is an insane

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Speaker 1: factoid about the homogeny of Disney. I guess in this era,

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Speaker 1: Bell was the first Disney princess that was brunette, which

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Speaker 1: is crazy. And also apparently she's the second Disney princess

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Speaker 1: to be a non royal birth. I think Cinderella was

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Speaker 1: the was the first. Can you imagine, like if that

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Speaker 1: casting news was announced today and it would be like

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Speaker 1: BuzzFeed being like diversity win. Bell is the first brunette

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Speaker 1: Disney princess and it's giving us life. Anyway, Pedro har

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Speaker 1: is incredible. She knocks it out of the park and

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Speaker 1: there's a great behind the scenes story where she is

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Speaker 1: troules done wise talk about this. They're recording the Beast's

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Speaker 1: death scene and we'll talk about how they actually recorded

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Speaker 1: this later. Which is also precedent breaking. But um, she

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Speaker 1: is crying so hard when they're taping this that the

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Speaker 1: engineers actually stopped recording and you know, punch into the

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Speaker 1: studio monitors and ask if she's okay, at which point

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Speaker 1: she looks up, raises her hand and says, acting just

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Speaker 1: like man, if you can fool a bunch of hardened

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Speaker 1: studio engineers into checking if you're doing a wellness check

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Speaker 1: on you, your hell of an actress. Um. But so

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Speaker 1: we just alluded to the Beast, and uh so, there

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Speaker 1: were a lot of people that they went through before

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Speaker 1: they landed on gentleman named Robbie Benson. So Lawrence Fishburne,

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Speaker 1: Val Kilmer, Tim Curry, and Mandy Pittankin were all supposedly

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Speaker 1: considered for the role of the of the Beast, which

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Speaker 1: was eventually played by Robbie Benson, who's one of the

425
00:22:21,320 --> 00:22:23,879
Speaker 1: I keep using the term animation roused about, which is

426
00:22:23,920 --> 00:22:27,760
Speaker 1: probably insulting, but um, Benson has been kicking around the

427
00:22:27,760 --> 00:22:31,360
Speaker 1: industry for a long time. He famously lost the role

428
00:22:31,400 --> 00:22:33,879
Speaker 1: of Luke Skywalker to Mark Hamill after getting to the

429
00:22:33,880 --> 00:22:39,159
Speaker 1: screen test phase, but he didn't completely strike out. I

430
00:22:39,200 --> 00:22:41,600
Speaker 1: guess when he was a kid. He dubbed old Godzilla

431
00:22:41,640 --> 00:22:44,639
Speaker 1: movies into English back in the sixties, Like some of

432
00:22:44,640 --> 00:22:47,880
Speaker 1: his earliest gigs were just screaming like oh Godzilla, Like yeah,

433
00:22:48,040 --> 00:22:51,480
Speaker 1: so here's that going for him? Which, um, He and o'

434
00:22:51,520 --> 00:22:55,040
Speaker 1: harro recorded their lines together, which is um any animation

435
00:22:55,080 --> 00:22:57,879
Speaker 1: nerds will know was kind of a rarity in the

436
00:22:58,080 --> 00:23:00,879
Speaker 1: history of the genre. You know, Simpson are famously one

437
00:23:00,880 --> 00:23:03,320
Speaker 1: of the shows that broke that convention of having the

438
00:23:03,359 --> 00:23:05,919
Speaker 1: cast in the same room anyway, so he and recorded

439
00:23:05,960 --> 00:23:09,879
Speaker 1: recorded their lines together. Robbie's lines are slightly pitch modulated,

440
00:23:10,000 --> 00:23:12,639
Speaker 1: which is funny because I don't know how they actually

441
00:23:12,680 --> 00:23:14,440
Speaker 1: did this, but it would have been probably pretty tricky

442
00:23:14,440 --> 00:23:16,800
Speaker 1: at the time unless no, no, it wouldn't have because

443
00:23:16,840 --> 00:23:19,520
Speaker 1: they were already doing the like unsolved mysteries like or

444
00:23:21,200 --> 00:23:25,080
Speaker 1: that pitch modulation. Obviously it's not that severe. But you know,

445
00:23:25,160 --> 00:23:27,399
Speaker 1: Benson would continue to dine out on the Beast for

446
00:23:27,440 --> 00:23:30,280
Speaker 1: a long time, as he rightly should have. U there's

447
00:23:30,280 --> 00:23:34,000
Speaker 1: a great, great story about this. Oh yeah, I love this. Apparently, Um,

448
00:23:34,119 --> 00:23:37,159
Speaker 1: in Robbie Benson's post Beast life, moms would come up

449
00:23:37,200 --> 00:23:38,760
Speaker 1: to him and ask him to do the Beast roar

450
00:23:38,880 --> 00:23:42,359
Speaker 1: for their kids, and their kids would inevitably burst into

451
00:23:42,400 --> 00:23:45,159
Speaker 1: tears because instead of a you know, a vaguely lovable

452
00:23:45,200 --> 00:23:49,280
Speaker 1: cartoon character, you just have a strange man screaming in

453
00:23:49,520 --> 00:23:52,439
Speaker 1: your kid's face. So I guess Robbie Benson stopped doing

454
00:23:52,440 --> 00:23:55,200
Speaker 1: it and he started doing some other line instead, roar

455
00:23:55,280 --> 00:23:59,520
Speaker 1: it my child, Yeah please, but your you missed a

456
00:23:59,560 --> 00:24:04,159
Speaker 1: crucial bit of of Beast fantasy casting that kind of

457
00:24:04,400 --> 00:24:09,159
Speaker 1: sort of almost took place. Apparently Regis Philbin audition to

458
00:24:09,160 --> 00:24:11,879
Speaker 1: play the part of the Beast, which sounds like an

459
00:24:11,960 --> 00:24:14,040
Speaker 1: urban legend, but this was I guess around the time

460
00:24:14,040 --> 00:24:16,480
Speaker 1: that Disney bought a BC. So now Regis and Kathy

461
00:24:16,560 --> 00:24:18,920
Speaker 1: Lee were We're in the Disney family as it were.

462
00:24:19,080 --> 00:24:22,120
Speaker 1: And uh, Producer Don Han, in an interview with Glamour,

463
00:24:22,160 --> 00:24:26,000
Speaker 1: I think in and I don't think he was being sarcastic,

464
00:24:26,080 --> 00:24:29,719
Speaker 1: said that both Regis and Kathy Lee auditioned, but he

465
00:24:29,720 --> 00:24:31,639
Speaker 1: was kind of vague about what the roles were. He

466
00:24:31,680 --> 00:24:34,000
Speaker 1: said that he still has reaches his audition tape and

467
00:24:34,040 --> 00:24:36,560
Speaker 1: that he and this is a quote auditioned for Bell's

468
00:24:36,640 --> 00:24:39,960
Speaker 1: dad or the Beast or something. And I prefer to

469
00:24:39,960 --> 00:24:43,080
Speaker 1: believe it was the Beast. Apparently Kathy Lee could actually sing,

470
00:24:43,320 --> 00:24:45,960
Speaker 1: so they, you know, had a harder time turning her down.

471
00:24:46,240 --> 00:24:48,439
Speaker 1: But I think everybody kind of knew pretty quickly that

472
00:24:48,480 --> 00:24:50,320
Speaker 1: she wasn't right for the role. I could see Reaches

473
00:24:50,400 --> 00:24:55,000
Speaker 1: being like like Lumier in a way, Yes, he's gonna

474
00:24:55,000 --> 00:24:59,000
Speaker 1: cartoon his voice. Yeah. Maybe, I mean even Bell's dad.

475
00:24:59,080 --> 00:25:01,920
Speaker 1: Maybe It's just it's like executive think like, oh, we

476
00:25:02,040 --> 00:25:04,120
Speaker 1: just paid a load for this thing, how can we

477
00:25:04,240 --> 00:25:09,600
Speaker 1: jam them together? Awkwardly? So, speaking of Beast, um and

478
00:25:09,680 --> 00:25:12,000
Speaker 1: I want everyone to know Jordan's title for this section,

479
00:25:12,040 --> 00:25:16,879
Speaker 1: and the outline is we can rebuild him Um. The

480
00:25:16,960 --> 00:25:21,280
Speaker 1: design for the Beast, it's great character design, it really is.

481
00:25:21,320 --> 00:25:23,439
Speaker 1: It's one of those things that looks like it has

482
00:25:23,480 --> 00:25:25,840
Speaker 1: a bit of the uncanny to it, but everything is familiar.

483
00:25:25,920 --> 00:25:29,119
Speaker 1: And so they achieved that by using the head structure

484
00:25:29,200 --> 00:25:32,159
Speaker 1: and horns of a bison, the arms and body of

485
00:25:32,160 --> 00:25:35,080
Speaker 1: a bear, the eyebrows of a gorilla, which is partially

486
00:25:35,080 --> 00:25:38,280
Speaker 1: why he's so expressive in the face, the jaws, teeth,

487
00:25:38,320 --> 00:25:40,480
Speaker 1: and mane of a lion, which I guess good warm

488
00:25:40,560 --> 00:25:42,600
Speaker 1: up for doing Lion King a couple of years later

489
00:25:42,840 --> 00:25:45,400
Speaker 1: uh tusks from the wild boar, and then he has

490
00:25:45,440 --> 00:25:49,200
Speaker 1: the backwards bent legs of a wolf. And I guess

491
00:25:49,280 --> 00:25:53,800
Speaker 1: Katzenberg wouldn't let the animators see Robbie Benson beforehand because

492
00:25:54,160 --> 00:25:57,960
Speaker 1: he would unduly influence their design of the character. And

493
00:25:58,000 --> 00:26:00,959
Speaker 1: he's supposed to be ten ft tall, which is wild

494
00:26:01,000 --> 00:26:04,439
Speaker 1: when you consider the next design note that they originally

495
00:26:04,480 --> 00:26:06,600
Speaker 1: had for the beast, which is one of the film's

496
00:26:06,600 --> 00:26:11,040
Speaker 1: storyboard artists, Chris Sanders, who used birds, insects and fish

497
00:26:11,200 --> 00:26:15,760
Speaker 1: as touchstones, which is horrifying. Trous Dale Wise, in the

498
00:26:15,800 --> 00:26:21,840
Speaker 1: film's commentary, used the phrases avian insect, oyd and stag

499
00:26:21,960 --> 00:26:25,439
Speaker 1: beetle and mantis beasts, which just put that in your

500
00:26:25,480 --> 00:26:27,840
Speaker 1: mind's eye for a second. And it's also just it's

501
00:26:27,880 --> 00:26:29,879
Speaker 1: just a bad sight. Again, tell them again so that

502
00:26:29,920 --> 00:26:32,399
Speaker 1: they can really visualize it. I'm putting my mouth is

503
00:26:32,400 --> 00:26:36,040
Speaker 1: close to the mic as fossile, avian insect oid and

504
00:26:36,280 --> 00:26:40,320
Speaker 1: stag beetle and mantis beasts. It just doesn't make any

505
00:26:40,359 --> 00:26:43,000
Speaker 1: sense to me, because it's like, you don't use God's

506
00:26:43,119 --> 00:26:47,000
Speaker 1: most terrifying creatures as design notes for a children's film.

507
00:26:47,520 --> 00:26:51,040
Speaker 1: But it's funny because Sanders later goes on to codirect

508
00:26:51,119 --> 00:26:55,680
Speaker 1: and create Lelo and Stitch Andy Voices Stitch, which perhaps

509
00:26:55,760 --> 00:26:58,760
Speaker 1: fulfilled his need to create animated sins against God and

510
00:26:58,800 --> 00:27:02,560
Speaker 1: man alike. You know. And I think it's in the

511
00:27:02,880 --> 00:27:06,960
Speaker 1: west wing of not the White House, the Beast Castle. Uh.

512
00:27:07,000 --> 00:27:11,399
Speaker 1: They're all those like really terrifying sculptures of beasts, is

513
00:27:11,400 --> 00:27:13,160
Speaker 1: the only way to put it. I guess those were

514
00:27:13,240 --> 00:27:16,840
Speaker 1: early character drawings for how they were, you know, artists

515
00:27:16,840 --> 00:27:18,439
Speaker 1: renderings of how they were going to do the Beast

516
00:27:18,840 --> 00:27:22,080
Speaker 1: that didn't imagine it. Can you imagine a Sorkin scripted

517
00:27:22,160 --> 00:27:24,680
Speaker 1: Beauty and the Beast where they're doing. They're doing walk

518
00:27:24,720 --> 00:27:28,360
Speaker 1: and talks throughout the castle. But um, yeah, so apparently

519
00:27:28,440 --> 00:27:31,320
Speaker 1: all those aren't at least many of those sculptures and

520
00:27:31,359 --> 00:27:34,320
Speaker 1: stuff of these kind of really horrifying, monstrous almost like

521
00:27:34,320 --> 00:27:37,320
Speaker 1: gargoyle figures. And I don't think the gargo. I think

522
00:27:37,320 --> 00:27:38,959
Speaker 1: the gargoles are set, but the ones in the hallway

523
00:27:38,960 --> 00:27:42,000
Speaker 1: that are really scary looking are disused. Beast concept designs.

524
00:27:42,520 --> 00:27:45,720
Speaker 1: My favorite story about designing the Beast was designed by

525
00:27:45,840 --> 00:27:49,600
Speaker 1: an animator, Glen Keane, and for inspiration he went to

526
00:27:49,640 --> 00:27:52,480
Speaker 1: the Los Angeles zoo to study animals, and he came

527
00:27:52,520 --> 00:27:57,200
Speaker 1: across a six hundred pound antisocial guerrilla named Caesar. Anti

528
00:27:57,320 --> 00:27:59,880
Speaker 1: social is a very crucial part of this story, I guess,

529
00:28:00,040 --> 00:28:03,280
Speaker 1: and Keene tried to draw him. Caesar charged at him

530
00:28:03,320 --> 00:28:06,479
Speaker 1: and slammed against the bars, and he knew that this

531
00:28:06,560 --> 00:28:08,680
Speaker 1: was how Bell would feel when she first caught sight

532
00:28:08,720 --> 00:28:10,840
Speaker 1: of the Beast, and that proved to be something of

533
00:28:10,840 --> 00:28:13,639
Speaker 1: like a breakthrough in his creation of the character. Do

534
00:28:13,680 --> 00:28:16,120
Speaker 1: you want to know something funny about Caesar? Yeah? I do.

535
00:28:16,400 --> 00:28:19,120
Speaker 1: He was the first guerrilla born by Caesarean section, which

536
00:28:19,160 --> 00:28:25,119
Speaker 1: is where he gets his name. Yep, you It's astonishing

537
00:28:25,119 --> 00:28:27,199
Speaker 1: how quickly you pull that up. You're you're quick on

538
00:28:27,240 --> 00:28:30,240
Speaker 1: the Google draw there, my friend. Wow, another part of

539
00:28:30,280 --> 00:28:33,520
Speaker 1: the beast anatomy. Uh. We may even end up cutting this,

540
00:28:33,560 --> 00:28:37,000
Speaker 1: but I guess. An interview was screen ran. Never glad

541
00:28:37,040 --> 00:28:39,280
Speaker 1: here you read this part. I feel like you you'll

542
00:28:39,280 --> 00:28:43,440
Speaker 1: get some perverse delight out of sharing this information. In

543
00:28:43,480 --> 00:28:46,920
Speaker 1: an interview with screen rant, Glenn Keene claims they gave

544
00:28:46,960 --> 00:28:50,120
Speaker 1: the beast a rainbow butt like a man drill, but

545
00:28:50,560 --> 00:28:55,280
Speaker 1: he says nobody knows that but bell Um. Uh, he

546
00:28:55,360 --> 00:28:57,440
Speaker 1: might have been being facetious, we don't know, and Keen

547
00:28:57,600 --> 00:29:00,959
Speaker 1: actually wished that the Beast had remained a beast, transforming

548
00:29:01,040 --> 00:29:06,200
Speaker 1: his incredibly handsome human self later on, and UM, I

549
00:29:06,240 --> 00:29:09,080
Speaker 1: don't know this, dude's got some issues because he wanted

550
00:29:09,560 --> 00:29:12,680
Speaker 1: he wanted to have Bell also feel that way and

551
00:29:12,760 --> 00:29:16,200
Speaker 1: be like sort of mezzo metso on the transformation, implying

552
00:29:16,240 --> 00:29:18,520
Speaker 1: that she wanted him to stay a beast. And also

553
00:29:18,760 --> 00:29:22,440
Speaker 1: at Keen's request, they had the voice of Bell overdubbed

554
00:29:22,480 --> 00:29:24,880
Speaker 1: the line do you think you could grow a beard?

555
00:29:25,520 --> 00:29:28,320
Speaker 1: Attack on at the end, and it got cut. And

556
00:29:28,360 --> 00:29:32,960
Speaker 1: this is also under Jordan's header of the Beast's Rainbow Ass. So,

557
00:29:33,120 --> 00:29:37,240
Speaker 1: in keeping with our tradition of hashtagging specific episodes of

558
00:29:37,240 --> 00:29:38,880
Speaker 1: the show, if you have anything you want to tweet

559
00:29:38,920 --> 00:29:41,440
Speaker 1: at the show about eating the Beast, please use the

560
00:29:41,480 --> 00:29:47,040
Speaker 1: hashtag the beasts Rainbow Ass. Thank you, Thank you very much. Um.

561
00:29:47,120 --> 00:29:50,280
Speaker 1: On the topic of the beast transformation, the smoke used

562
00:29:50,360 --> 00:29:53,520
Speaker 1: during that scene when he kind of like spins around

563
00:29:53,600 --> 00:29:56,240
Speaker 1: very lazarous like and begins turning back into a human.

564
00:29:56,240 --> 00:30:00,240
Speaker 1: That's smoke wasn't animated. That was actually real smoke would

565
00:30:00,240 --> 00:30:04,480
Speaker 1: have used for the black Cauldron film that Disney did

566
00:30:04,560 --> 00:30:06,880
Speaker 1: with with Jim Henson. Yeah, it's funny. We'll get into

567
00:30:06,880 --> 00:30:08,719
Speaker 1: a little bit of the of this later on, but

568
00:30:08,800 --> 00:30:11,440
Speaker 1: this film like broke a lot of barriers with UM

569
00:30:11,600 --> 00:30:14,720
Speaker 1: regards to animation technology, and it's funny that they were

570
00:30:14,760 --> 00:30:18,520
Speaker 1: still also trying to cut corners where they could bring

571
00:30:18,520 --> 00:30:21,160
Speaker 1: in the smoke we already used to get. I mean, yeah,

572
00:30:21,160 --> 00:30:22,400
Speaker 1: that kind of seems like of all the things you

573
00:30:22,440 --> 00:30:25,440
Speaker 1: can cut corners on, that seems like, I mean, I'm

574
00:30:25,480 --> 00:30:28,000
Speaker 1: not an animator, so I don't know. Actually, you know what,

575
00:30:28,080 --> 00:30:30,880
Speaker 1: I take that back. I can imagine you are an animator. No, no, no,

576
00:30:30,920 --> 00:30:33,680
Speaker 1: I all the little tend rules and stuff. I guess

577
00:30:33,680 --> 00:30:36,720
Speaker 1: that could be really annoying and time consuming. But but yeah,

578
00:30:36,720 --> 00:30:39,480
Speaker 1: that smoke has some history. Um. We were trying to

579
00:30:39,480 --> 00:30:42,160
Speaker 1: figure this out earlier about the best way to address

580
00:30:42,480 --> 00:30:45,360
Speaker 1: the beast is it the beast or just beast? And

581
00:30:45,400 --> 00:30:47,400
Speaker 1: I'm giving him a little dignity. I like giving him

582
00:30:47,400 --> 00:30:50,280
Speaker 1: the title the title, It feels it feels appropriately respectful.

583
00:30:50,640 --> 00:30:53,600
Speaker 1: But according to some sets of Disney scholars, the beast

584
00:30:53,720 --> 00:30:56,400
Speaker 1: actually has a first name, which you can use if

585
00:30:56,400 --> 00:30:58,320
Speaker 1: you get close enough to him. I guess. Yeah, so

586
00:30:58,480 --> 00:31:01,200
Speaker 1: again on the commentary, troustill and wise joke about never

587
00:31:01,280 --> 00:31:04,040
Speaker 1: having given him a name. And there's a persistent rumor

588
00:31:04,120 --> 00:31:06,760
Speaker 1: that you will see in the Disney circles of the internet,

589
00:31:07,120 --> 00:31:10,400
Speaker 1: which I don't really recommend going into um that the

590
00:31:10,400 --> 00:31:14,080
Speaker 1: Beast's real name is Adam. But this does not come

591
00:31:14,160 --> 00:31:17,040
Speaker 1: from I don't think canon stuff. It comes from a

592
00:31:17,240 --> 00:31:24,640
Speaker 1: CD rom trivia game that Disney licensed called The d Show. Uh.

593
00:31:24,680 --> 00:31:28,479
Speaker 1: The multiple Disney staffers, including Glenn Keene, who supervised all

594
00:31:28,480 --> 00:31:30,840
Speaker 1: the animation for it, have gone on record said the

595
00:31:30,840 --> 00:31:33,560
Speaker 1: Beast's name is not Adam. But you have an alternate

596
00:31:33,600 --> 00:31:36,000
Speaker 1: theory about this. Yeah, i'd heard the whole like Adam

597
00:31:36,120 --> 00:31:38,960
Speaker 1: name came from the Broadway musical that they made a

598
00:31:38,960 --> 00:31:41,360
Speaker 1: Beauty in the Beast a few years after the film premiered.

599
00:31:41,400 --> 00:31:43,440
Speaker 1: But yeah, you're right. Producer Don Hans said in an

600
00:31:43,440 --> 00:31:45,840
Speaker 1: interview with Glamour, had we named him, we would have

601
00:31:45,880 --> 00:31:48,120
Speaker 1: named him a French name because the fairytale takes place

602
00:31:48,160 --> 00:31:50,600
Speaker 1: in France, so we would have been Francoise or something.

603
00:31:51,040 --> 00:31:53,280
Speaker 1: But also he doesn't care. He said, like, if you

604
00:31:53,280 --> 00:31:55,200
Speaker 1: want him to be Prince Adam, go for it. Making

605
00:31:55,240 --> 00:31:57,600
Speaker 1: Prince Adam if you want. The Beast is all things

606
00:31:57,680 --> 00:32:01,240
Speaker 1: to all people, right, It's much like Jerry or ball u. Uh, well,

607
00:32:01,280 --> 00:32:04,520
Speaker 1: the Beast is the hero of this movie. I guess

608
00:32:04,680 --> 00:32:07,800
Speaker 1: was the male hero. Let's talk about the uh the villain,

609
00:32:07,840 --> 00:32:10,080
Speaker 1: shall we? I thought you were gonna be like but

610
00:32:10,240 --> 00:32:16,600
Speaker 1: the real hero of the films? Yeah, Jerry Orbach so uh.

611
00:32:16,840 --> 00:32:19,360
Speaker 1: Gaston one of the famous Disney villains, one of my

612
00:32:19,400 --> 00:32:22,280
Speaker 1: also favorite Walt Disney World characters because it's just like

613
00:32:22,320 --> 00:32:25,440
Speaker 1: a handsome, buff dude who rolls around wearing the outfit.

614
00:32:25,520 --> 00:32:28,200
Speaker 1: They don't like costume him any other way. But you

615
00:32:28,200 --> 00:32:29,920
Speaker 1: know who they could have gotten to play him was

616
00:32:30,120 --> 00:32:35,120
Speaker 1: Jay Leno, the supervising animator for Gaston. Uh. Andreas de

617
00:32:35,320 --> 00:32:38,880
Speaker 1: Haa originally designed the character with an enormous jay Leno

618
00:32:39,040 --> 00:32:43,560
Speaker 1: esque chin and jaw, which is a huge backhanded compliment

619
00:32:43,560 --> 00:32:46,880
Speaker 1: to jay Leno because standard Disney operating procedure is making

620
00:32:46,920 --> 00:32:52,080
Speaker 1: your villain as physically unappealing as possible. Um So Katzenberg

621
00:32:52,200 --> 00:32:55,080
Speaker 1: later comes in, hasn't refined the character and wants to

622
00:32:55,120 --> 00:32:58,080
Speaker 1: make him, you know, the hottie that he is in

623
00:32:58,120 --> 00:33:01,080
Speaker 1: the final film. A lot of I've been covering a

624
00:33:01,160 --> 00:33:03,640
Speaker 1: lot of things about myself during this taping. I mean

625
00:33:03,960 --> 00:33:06,719
Speaker 1: it's tough because I mean the hero of the story

626
00:33:06,960 --> 00:33:09,080
Speaker 1: is this ugly monster, so I mean you kind of

627
00:33:09,080 --> 00:33:12,600
Speaker 1: almost have to accentuate the difference by making the villain

628
00:33:13,080 --> 00:33:15,280
Speaker 1: this sexy amount, right, you know, It's true. I feel

629
00:33:15,320 --> 00:33:18,840
Speaker 1: like the who's the bad guy in the Hercules Hades? Yeah,

630
00:33:18,840 --> 00:33:21,040
Speaker 1: I always thought that Hades was supposed to be like

631
00:33:21,080 --> 00:33:23,120
Speaker 1: a jail So maybe just Disney really has it in

632
00:33:23,120 --> 00:33:27,880
Speaker 1: for Jay Leno and making him the villain. Who Jay

633
00:33:27,960 --> 00:33:31,000
Speaker 1: Lennon was the answer that I gave on the when

634
00:33:31,040 --> 00:33:32,400
Speaker 1: I was on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? That

635
00:33:32,400 --> 00:33:35,000
Speaker 1: I got wrong, So I I personally have it in

636
00:33:35,040 --> 00:33:37,840
Speaker 1: for j Yeah. So I'm on disney side if they're

637
00:33:37,840 --> 00:33:40,640
Speaker 1: gonna make Jay Lenno the villain on all of these movies.

638
00:33:40,760 --> 00:33:44,120
Speaker 1: But um, yeah, I mean that they basically they kind

639
00:33:44,120 --> 00:33:46,400
Speaker 1: of needed to accentuate the difference between the Beast and

640
00:33:46,440 --> 00:33:48,800
Speaker 1: guests on by making him, you know, this handsome, good

641
00:33:48,800 --> 00:33:51,480
Speaker 1: looking guy to kind of offset it. They apparently based

642
00:33:51,520 --> 00:33:55,360
Speaker 1: his physical appearance off the arrogant character from Stephen Sondheim's

643
00:33:55,640 --> 00:33:57,880
Speaker 1: A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to the forum,

644
00:33:57,880 --> 00:34:01,040
Speaker 1: Miles Gloriosis. There's a little but a superman in there,

645
00:34:01,160 --> 00:34:04,520
Speaker 1: and I guess some soap opera stars too. Um. Apparently

646
00:34:04,600 --> 00:34:09,080
Speaker 1: the screenwriter Linda Wolverton based his personality on some ex boyfriends,

647
00:34:09,440 --> 00:34:13,280
Speaker 1: which is amazing. But my favorite story about developing guest

648
00:34:13,360 --> 00:34:15,520
Speaker 1: On is that one of the supervising animators said there

649
00:34:15,560 --> 00:34:19,040
Speaker 1: was actually a contest to design his chest hair that's

650
00:34:19,040 --> 00:34:21,560
Speaker 1: exposed when he sings. Every last inch of me's covered

651
00:34:21,600 --> 00:34:25,560
Speaker 1: with hair. Go ahead, sing the line I feel like you,

652
00:34:26,000 --> 00:34:27,960
Speaker 1: sing the line I can't, I can't do it. But

653
00:34:28,040 --> 00:34:30,759
Speaker 1: how many variations of gaston his chest hair did they

654
00:34:30,800 --> 00:34:35,440
Speaker 1: go through? About twenty two hundred initial drafts of the

655
00:34:35,480 --> 00:34:39,200
Speaker 1: opening monologue, twenty different variations of chest hair for Gaston.

656
00:34:39,360 --> 00:34:41,719
Speaker 1: I hope you people know how much Disney bled for

657
00:34:41,760 --> 00:34:46,320
Speaker 1: you for this film. In the realm of alternate universe casting,

658
00:34:46,640 --> 00:34:50,040
Speaker 1: Rupert Everett auditioned, but I guess he didn't sound arrogant enough,

659
00:34:50,520 --> 00:34:54,279
Speaker 1: just too darnlikable. But he redeemed himself and he was

660
00:34:54,320 --> 00:34:56,719
Speaker 1: cast as the voice of Prince Charming and Shrek to

661
00:34:57,120 --> 00:35:01,799
Speaker 1: a decade later. UM other potential Gaston's where Donny Osmond

662
00:35:02,360 --> 00:35:05,640
Speaker 1: and Patrick Swayzy. I can see swayzyrazy to be great.

663
00:35:05,760 --> 00:35:08,480
Speaker 1: I didn't realize this. Donnie Osmond apparently provided the singing

664
00:35:08,560 --> 00:35:12,400
Speaker 1: voice for Shang and Mulan m it makes me like

665
00:35:12,480 --> 00:35:16,200
Speaker 1: it less now, no district, I mean, yes, disrespected don

666
00:35:16,280 --> 00:35:19,040
Speaker 1: An Osman. Sorry, I know you're probably an Osman's fan, right,

667
00:35:19,320 --> 00:35:22,840
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know what was it? One bad apple.

668
00:35:23,120 --> 00:35:24,920
Speaker 1: He's a little bit country, she's a little bit rock

669
00:35:24,960 --> 00:35:28,839
Speaker 1: and roll. Yeah, I'm a little more country, I guess then, like,

670
00:35:30,280 --> 00:35:33,120
Speaker 1: but so answer the real burdening question, which is does

671
00:35:33,200 --> 00:35:37,640
Speaker 1: Gaston die? Yes, there's that's kind of a something of

672
00:35:37,640 --> 00:35:40,200
Speaker 1: a debate in uh in Beauty in the Best Circles,

673
00:35:40,600 --> 00:35:44,160
Speaker 1: there's an easter egg when Gaston's falling from the castle turret.

674
00:35:44,600 --> 00:35:48,360
Speaker 1: For a split second, tiny skulls appear in his eyes,

675
00:35:48,520 --> 00:35:52,200
Speaker 1: almost like a subliminal message, and um, According to the filmmakers,

676
00:35:52,239 --> 00:35:55,040
Speaker 1: that's meant to indicate that Gaston does indeed die from

677
00:35:55,040 --> 00:35:57,560
Speaker 1: a fall. But the guy from the who voiced the

678
00:35:57,640 --> 00:35:59,719
Speaker 1: character's a guy by name of Richard White, thinks he

679
00:36:00,200 --> 00:36:02,919
Speaker 1: didn't die. He's gone on record saying did you see

680
00:36:02,920 --> 00:36:07,040
Speaker 1: a body? I never saw a body, thinks animation works

681
00:36:07,080 --> 00:36:10,360
Speaker 1: like he thinks that like does he not have object permanence?

682
00:36:10,480 --> 00:36:13,280
Speaker 1: Or he's like, oh, something falls out of screen frame

683
00:36:13,320 --> 00:36:16,960
Speaker 1: it doesn't exist. Um. I guess they were originally going

684
00:36:17,040 --> 00:36:20,520
Speaker 1: to be less subtle and a bit more obvious about Yes,

685
00:36:20,560 --> 00:36:24,319
Speaker 1: Gaston did die. An early version of the storyboard had

686
00:36:24,360 --> 00:36:27,279
Speaker 1: him surviving the fall only to be mauled to death

687
00:36:27,320 --> 00:36:31,239
Speaker 1: by wolves. Hell. Yeah, which I guess they did end

688
00:36:31,280 --> 00:36:34,759
Speaker 1: up reusing that for for scar and uh and laying

689
00:36:34,800 --> 00:36:39,160
Speaker 1: when the hyenas ripped them apart. We're going to take

690
00:36:39,160 --> 00:36:41,439
Speaker 1: a quick break, but we'll be right back with more

691
00:36:41,520 --> 00:36:54,799
Speaker 1: too much information in just a moment. All right, let's

692
00:36:54,800 --> 00:36:58,160
Speaker 1: get into more alternate casting lightning rounds here. First up

693
00:36:58,239 --> 00:37:01,480
Speaker 1: is Cogsworth. John Klee supposedly turned down the role of

694
00:37:01,520 --> 00:37:04,920
Speaker 1: Cogsworth to appear in wait for It, on American Tale

695
00:37:05,040 --> 00:37:09,719
Speaker 1: five Will Goes West, one of the also misbegotten sequels

696
00:37:09,760 --> 00:37:12,840
Speaker 1: to Classic Properties. I would put Rescuers down under with

697
00:37:12,920 --> 00:37:15,319
Speaker 1: that too. I think American Tale Five Goes West was

698
00:37:15,360 --> 00:37:17,720
Speaker 1: released on the same day as Beauty and the Beast. Dude,

699
00:37:17,840 --> 00:37:23,200
Speaker 1: really unfair. Yeah, if you like, I I rewatched Beauty

700
00:37:23,200 --> 00:37:26,560
Speaker 1: and the Beast in advance of doing this episode. The lines,

701
00:37:26,640 --> 00:37:29,000
Speaker 1: I mean it sounds like Basil Faulty in Fawlty Towers,

702
00:37:29,040 --> 00:37:31,279
Speaker 1: like he Cogsworth is written. You can just hear John

703
00:37:31,360 --> 00:37:34,160
Speaker 1: Kleese doing those lines. It really makes sense that he

704
00:37:34,239 --> 00:37:36,799
Speaker 1: was like the one that they approached first. Apparently they

705
00:37:36,840 --> 00:37:41,480
Speaker 1: considered asking Patrick Stewart, Sir Patrick Stewart, I should say um,

706
00:37:41,520 --> 00:37:44,000
Speaker 1: but his schedule was slammed because he was doing Star

707
00:37:44,080 --> 00:37:48,000
Speaker 1: Trek next Gen. Uh. Sir A McKellen also missed out,

708
00:37:48,480 --> 00:37:52,360
Speaker 1: so they went with David Ogden Styres. I think how

709
00:37:52,400 --> 00:37:54,319
Speaker 1: you say his name? Who played it was familiar to

710
00:37:54,360 --> 00:37:58,560
Speaker 1: me as Major Winchester on Mash though he originally auditioned

711
00:37:58,560 --> 00:38:00,759
Speaker 1: for Loumier. I feel like you would you should take

712
00:38:00,760 --> 00:38:03,400
Speaker 1: Glumier from here on out. Yeah, well, speaking of Loumier,

713
00:38:03,760 --> 00:38:07,480
Speaker 1: Dan Castelnada, the voice of Homer Simpson, apparently auditioned for

714
00:38:07,480 --> 00:38:11,839
Speaker 1: the role, but it ultimately went to Jerry or back Baby,

715
00:38:11,880 --> 00:38:13,920
Speaker 1: famously of Law and Order and also the dad from

716
00:38:14,000 --> 00:38:18,080
Speaker 1: Dirty Dancing, who also want a Tony for his work

717
00:38:18,160 --> 00:38:22,560
Speaker 1: in Chicago. And he called his take on the Candlestick

718
00:38:22,960 --> 00:38:27,360
Speaker 1: a combination of Maurice Chevalier, Gene Kelly, and Pepper Lapu

719
00:38:27,880 --> 00:38:30,279
Speaker 1: along with a little bit of Fred Astair God. I

720
00:38:30,280 --> 00:38:31,920
Speaker 1: love Jerry or Rock. I don't know if it's going

721
00:38:31,920 --> 00:38:35,000
Speaker 1: to influence my appreciation for Beauty and the Beast or

722
00:38:35,080 --> 00:38:37,440
Speaker 1: Law and Order more. It's just so weird to me

723
00:38:37,880 --> 00:38:40,680
Speaker 1: that there's a link between those two. Is it fifty

724
00:38:40,680 --> 00:38:43,319
Speaker 1: second or one of the streets in midtown is named

725
00:38:43,360 --> 00:38:46,279
Speaker 1: Jerry or back Way? Oh yeah, you're right, absolutely right.

726
00:38:46,320 --> 00:38:48,760
Speaker 1: I mean, I know he obviously is a big theater background,

727
00:38:48,760 --> 00:38:50,719
Speaker 1: but still, it's just it is very weird to make

728
00:38:51,080 --> 00:38:55,040
Speaker 1: native born in the Bronx baby. Oh yeah, alright, continue,

729
00:38:55,080 --> 00:38:56,480
Speaker 1: all right, I'll take us to Mrs Potts. I got

730
00:38:56,520 --> 00:38:58,960
Speaker 1: all have to say about Mrs Potts. So Julie Andrews

731
00:38:59,000 --> 00:39:01,800
Speaker 1: was originally considered to be the voice of everybody's favorite

732
00:39:02,120 --> 00:39:07,320
Speaker 1: t Receptacle before the part ultimately went to Angela Landsbury, who,

733
00:39:07,400 --> 00:39:10,440
Speaker 1: according to my research and I really hope this is true,

734
00:39:11,040 --> 00:39:14,080
Speaker 1: recorded her dialogue between breaks on the set of Murder.

735
00:39:14,160 --> 00:39:16,239
Speaker 1: She wrote, isn't that great? I mean, that's more or

736
00:39:16,280 --> 00:39:18,239
Speaker 1: less how imagined it, and I'm so glad that that's

737
00:39:18,239 --> 00:39:20,319
Speaker 1: how it was. In reality. Life is what happens in

738
00:39:20,360 --> 00:39:25,640
Speaker 1: between takes of Murder, she wrote, Uh, side note, everything

739
00:39:25,680 --> 00:39:28,880
Speaker 1: gets back to Murder. She wrote. Jerry Orbach, David Ogden,

740
00:39:28,960 --> 00:39:32,160
Speaker 1: Stairs and Joanne Worley, who played the voice of the

741
00:39:32,200 --> 00:39:35,439
Speaker 1: Wardrobe all made guest appearances on Murder. She wrote, which

742
00:39:35,600 --> 00:39:37,359
Speaker 1: now I take to me, and that Murder she wrote

743
00:39:37,400 --> 00:39:40,480
Speaker 1: as part of the Extended Disney and therefore the Marvel

744
00:39:40,640 --> 00:39:45,760
Speaker 1: Extended Universe. So put Angela Lansbury in a Marvel film,

745
00:39:45,800 --> 00:39:49,440
Speaker 1: you cowards. I mean, this is insane story about So.

746
00:39:49,480 --> 00:39:53,880
Speaker 1: I guess Angela Lansbury flew to New York from I

747
00:39:53,920 --> 00:39:58,240
Speaker 1: guess Los Angeles to record the title song for the movie,

748
00:39:58,840 --> 00:40:01,480
Speaker 1: and the flight had to make an emergency landing because

749
00:40:01,520 --> 00:40:03,920
Speaker 1: there was a bomb scare. I guess somebody claimed that

750
00:40:03,960 --> 00:40:05,840
Speaker 1: there is a bomb on board and they had to

751
00:40:05,840 --> 00:40:07,960
Speaker 1: make an emergency landing. I think in like Las Vegas

752
00:40:08,320 --> 00:40:11,200
Speaker 1: and so, I mean, that's enough to shake anybody. But

753
00:40:11,680 --> 00:40:14,680
Speaker 1: Landsbury is such a pro. Flight continued on eventually to

754
00:40:14,680 --> 00:40:19,879
Speaker 1: New York landed did the song in one take? One

755
00:40:19,920 --> 00:40:23,920
Speaker 1: would take Landsbury absolutely amazing. I I think we'll get

756
00:40:23,920 --> 00:40:26,800
Speaker 1: more into the music of this later on. But good lord,

757
00:40:26,840 --> 00:40:30,080
Speaker 1: what a pro. But did you know that Mrs Potts

758
00:40:30,160 --> 00:40:32,760
Speaker 1: was originally supposed to be called Mrs cam a Mile

759
00:40:33,239 --> 00:40:35,360
Speaker 1: because the producers wanted a name that was supposed to be,

760
00:40:35,400 --> 00:40:39,399
Speaker 1: you know, the most soothing association possible. Unfortunately, nobody knew

761
00:40:39,400 --> 00:40:41,399
Speaker 1: the correct way to pronounce it. If it's cam a Mile,

762
00:40:41,520 --> 00:40:43,640
Speaker 1: came a meal and they were also worried about kids

763
00:40:43,680 --> 00:40:45,880
Speaker 1: not being able to pronounce it. Same with the character

764
00:40:45,920 --> 00:40:49,360
Speaker 1: of Lumier, which is hard enough to say. They was

765
00:40:49,400 --> 00:40:52,680
Speaker 1: originally gonna be called Shandal like Chandelier. Honestly, I think

766
00:40:52,760 --> 00:40:58,160
Speaker 1: Lumier is harder to say for me than Sean Chandels Sands. Um.

767
00:40:58,239 --> 00:41:00,960
Speaker 1: Why didn't they Mrs Shandls? Yeah? Why didn't they just

768
00:41:01,000 --> 00:41:05,680
Speaker 1: call her Mrs Sleepy time t this is celestial seasonings. Yeah.

769
00:41:05,800 --> 00:41:08,840
Speaker 1: On the topic of of Mrs Potts her what I

770
00:41:08,880 --> 00:41:11,680
Speaker 1: assumed to be her son, Chip, Uh, he's a ward

771
00:41:11,719 --> 00:41:16,520
Speaker 1: of the state. I mean, Chip seems very, very very young,

772
00:41:16,560 --> 00:41:19,520
Speaker 1: and Mrs Podds seems quite old. Maybe it's her grandson.

773
00:41:19,600 --> 00:41:22,120
Speaker 1: I don't know. But Chip was originally supposed to be

774
00:41:22,120 --> 00:41:25,879
Speaker 1: a one line character, and the line was prepared to die.

775
00:41:26,480 --> 00:41:28,200
Speaker 1: I guess maybe that was when they at the end

776
00:41:28,200 --> 00:41:31,239
Speaker 1: of the movie, when the objects are fighting off the

777
00:41:31,239 --> 00:41:33,439
Speaker 1: town's people invading the castle and maybe he was gonna

778
00:41:33,440 --> 00:41:37,080
Speaker 1: spill scalding hot water and Lufu's eye or something. But um,

779
00:41:37,280 --> 00:41:39,279
Speaker 1: the producers decided they really wanted to get like a

780
00:41:39,360 --> 00:41:41,719
Speaker 1: kid's point of view in the story, and that's what

781
00:41:41,800 --> 00:41:44,240
Speaker 1: Chip was. Chip was one of the kid's access points.

782
00:41:44,280 --> 00:41:45,959
Speaker 1: So that's why they beefed up the roll of Chip.

783
00:41:46,360 --> 00:41:48,960
Speaker 1: And prior to that, the sort of token cute role

784
00:41:49,000 --> 00:41:51,000
Speaker 1: in this movie was supposed to be a little music

785
00:41:51,080 --> 00:41:53,480
Speaker 1: box that jumped around and didn't speak, but it made

786
00:41:53,480 --> 00:41:56,560
Speaker 1: like little chiming sounds. But that wasn't the only element

787
00:41:56,640 --> 00:41:59,040
Speaker 1: dropped from the final film. Yeah, get into some of

788
00:41:59,040 --> 00:42:02,440
Speaker 1: the what ifs of the of the of the score,

789
00:42:02,520 --> 00:42:06,120
Speaker 1: I mean of the musical numbers. There's a long lost

790
00:42:06,239 --> 00:42:09,320
Speaker 1: musical number, a very like eleven minute long musical number

791
00:42:09,400 --> 00:42:12,520
Speaker 1: that got cut from the final version. It's called human Again,

792
00:42:13,280 --> 00:42:15,719
Speaker 1: and it was basically the sequence features all of the

793
00:42:15,760 --> 00:42:20,040
Speaker 1: beasts many servants who are tired of living as household objects,

794
00:42:20,080 --> 00:42:23,239
Speaker 1: longing to be human again and uh again. The song

795
00:42:23,320 --> 00:42:25,680
Speaker 1: was dropped in part because it was added eleven minutes

796
00:42:25,680 --> 00:42:27,399
Speaker 1: to the movie and it just dragged down the pace

797
00:42:27,400 --> 00:42:30,239
Speaker 1: of the story and it created timeline issues too in

798
00:42:30,280 --> 00:42:33,200
Speaker 1: the narrative, basically like what is the dad doing all

799
00:42:33,280 --> 00:42:36,080
Speaker 1: this time? Like it just added like days to the story,

800
00:42:36,160 --> 00:42:38,600
Speaker 1: I guess, and it just messed everything up. And it

801
00:42:38,640 --> 00:42:43,040
Speaker 1: was basically considered too ambitious. So what did our friends

802
00:42:43,200 --> 00:42:45,720
Speaker 1: Howard Ashman and Alament can right in its place? Cycle

803
00:42:45,960 --> 00:42:48,480
Speaker 1: there's something there which they kind of dash off at

804
00:42:48,480 --> 00:42:51,960
Speaker 1: the last minute because they needed something a little simpler, shorter,

805
00:42:52,440 --> 00:42:54,920
Speaker 1: more direct, puts the focus back on Bell and her

806
00:42:54,920 --> 00:42:58,040
Speaker 1: relationship to the Beast. But not all is lost for

807
00:42:58,160 --> 00:43:00,760
Speaker 1: human again because it's included in the odd Way production

808
00:43:00,800 --> 00:43:03,120
Speaker 1: of Beauty and the Beast, and then it's actually thrown

809
00:43:03,160 --> 00:43:05,520
Speaker 1: back as an extra on the DVD and Blu ray

810
00:43:05,680 --> 00:43:08,320
Speaker 1: editions when those come out in two thousand two. That

811
00:43:08,920 --> 00:43:11,760
Speaker 1: I'm just now thinking about this, but this is still

812
00:43:11,800 --> 00:43:14,800
Speaker 1: a very dark movie. Like it is dark an adult

813
00:43:14,840 --> 00:43:17,000
Speaker 1: you have, Chip is like the only child character all

814
00:43:17,040 --> 00:43:20,000
Speaker 1: that all the characters are adults. They're trapped in a cough,

815
00:43:20,080 --> 00:43:27,960
Speaker 1: gast nightmare of slave servitude as inanimate objects. It's dark, dude,

816
00:43:28,719 --> 00:43:32,759
Speaker 1: honestly rewatching it. The scariest part to me and never many,

817
00:43:33,320 --> 00:43:38,200
Speaker 1: was when when the Beast freeze Bell's dad and puts

818
00:43:38,400 --> 00:43:42,600
Speaker 1: him in this carriage and the carriage move, it moves

819
00:43:42,640 --> 00:43:46,319
Speaker 1: like a spider, and the legs move. I can't even

820
00:43:46,360 --> 00:43:49,719
Speaker 1: really articulate why it's terrifying, but it is so upsetting.

821
00:43:50,120 --> 00:43:53,600
Speaker 1: It's Freud. It's the uncanny. It's like seeing that's what

822
00:43:53,719 --> 00:43:56,480
Speaker 1: the whole That's why the furniture thing is so sinister

823
00:43:56,520 --> 00:43:59,680
Speaker 1: to me, because just anytime you have an inanimate object

824
00:43:59,719 --> 00:44:03,560
Speaker 1: that's been like humanized in some way, your mind, like

825
00:44:03,800 --> 00:44:06,680
Speaker 1: I mean, according to Freud, like you're subconscious, like is

826
00:44:06,760 --> 00:44:10,920
Speaker 1: just like automatically like what is that? I'm unsettled anyway,

827
00:44:10,920 --> 00:44:12,759
Speaker 1: And one of them is a child, which is so

828
00:44:12,880 --> 00:44:15,919
Speaker 1: much worse. It boggs my mind that they're like, that's

829
00:44:15,920 --> 00:44:18,040
Speaker 1: how we need to make this film lighter. Let's have

830
00:44:18,080 --> 00:44:25,320
Speaker 1: a child who's trapped as a slave in an inanimate object. Anyway, great, oh,

831
00:44:25,360 --> 00:44:28,000
Speaker 1: great segue. It could have been a lot worse because

832
00:44:28,920 --> 00:44:31,080
Speaker 1: there was a scene where I guess the beast was

833
00:44:31,480 --> 00:44:35,520
Speaker 1: gonna drag a dead animal carcass into the castle. Here's

834
00:44:35,520 --> 00:44:38,440
Speaker 1: a question. Does the beast kill only what he eats,

835
00:44:38,600 --> 00:44:41,279
Speaker 1: because like he's cooked for right, so is he doing this?

836
00:44:41,320 --> 00:44:48,040
Speaker 1: Does he kill for funerous game. Alright, other lightning ground,

837
00:44:48,120 --> 00:44:52,120
Speaker 1: other bits. And Bob's speaking of when when Maurice spells

838
00:44:52,200 --> 00:44:55,320
Speaker 1: Dad is uh is lost in the woods. Uh towards

839
00:44:55,320 --> 00:44:57,399
Speaker 1: the beginning of the movie, when he when he ends up,

840
00:44:57,920 --> 00:45:00,879
Speaker 1: you know, the horse runs away. He sees a bunch

841
00:45:00,920 --> 00:45:02,920
Speaker 1: of signs, like in a fork in the road. One

842
00:45:02,920 --> 00:45:04,920
Speaker 1: of them, if you look really closely, points the way

843
00:45:04,960 --> 00:45:09,439
Speaker 1: towards Anaheim, which is the home of Disneyland. It's also

844
00:45:09,480 --> 00:45:11,279
Speaker 1: like in nash when they have all the signs pointing

845
00:45:11,320 --> 00:45:14,800
Speaker 1: to everybody's hometown in the camp, like four thousand miles

846
00:45:14,800 --> 00:45:18,840
Speaker 1: to Des Moines. Maybe that was a David augen Styr's tribute. Yeah,

847
00:45:18,960 --> 00:45:21,480
Speaker 1: And I was speaking of Maurice's horse of office is

848
00:45:21,520 --> 00:45:24,360
Speaker 1: called Philippe. And this name, and I guess other variants

849
00:45:24,400 --> 00:45:27,120
Speaker 1: of Philip means lover of horses. Your mom is a

850
00:45:27,120 --> 00:45:30,400
Speaker 1: French teacher. Did you know that? I sure didn't. What

851
00:45:30,480 --> 00:45:33,600
Speaker 1: else we got um? As per Disney tradition, they throw

852
00:45:33,680 --> 00:45:37,319
Speaker 1: characters of different people involved in production. In Gary, Trousdale

853
00:45:37,320 --> 00:45:39,759
Speaker 1: and Kirk Wise are in the scene where Bell is

854
00:45:39,800 --> 00:45:43,040
Speaker 1: given the book. Three men sing in this scene. Look

855
00:45:43,160 --> 00:45:45,840
Speaker 1: there she goes the girl who's so peculiar. I wonder

856
00:45:45,880 --> 00:45:48,360
Speaker 1: if she's feeling well up. Thing to say about a

857
00:45:48,360 --> 00:45:50,799
Speaker 1: woman who just wants to read. They're the two people

858
00:45:50,840 --> 00:45:53,440
Speaker 1: on either side of the blonde guy. And again you know,

859
00:45:53,800 --> 00:45:57,080
Speaker 1: again that thing to say. There's three women who swoon

860
00:45:57,160 --> 00:45:59,959
Speaker 1: over Gaston in that scene. They were termed the bim

861
00:46:00,080 --> 00:46:03,200
Speaker 1: Bets and they're true and you look at IMDb, that's

862
00:46:03,200 --> 00:46:05,799
Speaker 1: what they're called. That's other credited and their hairstyles are

863
00:46:06,000 --> 00:46:10,440
Speaker 1: references to Ariel's Bells and Jasmine, which wasn't even released

864
00:46:10,440 --> 00:46:12,839
Speaker 1: at the time. Too. That was just yeah, it seems like, yeah,

865
00:46:13,000 --> 00:46:18,879
Speaker 1: super deep cut to throw in, um oh god, oh yes.

866
00:46:19,120 --> 00:46:22,239
Speaker 1: So in the opening shot of the movie, there's a

867
00:46:22,280 --> 00:46:25,319
Speaker 1: cameo made by Bambi's mother. You can see the opening

868
00:46:25,320 --> 00:46:27,279
Speaker 1: shot of the movie. She's drinking from a stream in

869
00:46:27,320 --> 00:46:30,319
Speaker 1: the lower right in front of the castle. So, uh,

870
00:46:30,360 --> 00:46:32,439
Speaker 1: you know, traumatizing, as so many moments of this movie

871
00:46:32,480 --> 00:46:34,919
Speaker 1: can be. At least know that Baby's mom got away

872
00:46:34,920 --> 00:46:39,080
Speaker 1: everybody and she's living on the beast Front lawn, which

873
00:46:39,120 --> 00:46:42,840
Speaker 1: somehow makes me, I guess less happy about her survival

874
00:46:42,880 --> 00:46:45,360
Speaker 1: now that I think about it. It would have been

875
00:46:45,360 --> 00:46:47,320
Speaker 1: great if they'd kill her again. I say that was

876
00:46:47,400 --> 00:46:52,480
Speaker 1: the carcass that the Beast was dragging in. So Belle though,

877
00:46:52,520 --> 00:46:55,680
Speaker 1: pops up again in Hunchback of Notre Dame. Um, which

878
00:46:55,719 --> 00:46:58,080
Speaker 1: is on the sort of downward slide of Disney movies

879
00:46:58,160 --> 00:47:01,320
Speaker 1: in my opinion throughout the nineties. But you know she's

880
00:47:01,400 --> 00:47:05,000
Speaker 1: reading during it, and also in that film speaking of

881
00:47:05,080 --> 00:47:11,240
Speaker 1: beloved characters who have been slaughtered. Yes, um, I guess

882
00:47:11,280 --> 00:47:13,920
Speaker 1: pumba Is also makes a cameo, or at least his

883
00:47:14,000 --> 00:47:16,799
Speaker 1: body does in the Hunchback of Notre Dame because he

884
00:47:16,880 --> 00:47:20,080
Speaker 1: appears to have been slaughtered and the magic carpet from

885
00:47:20,080 --> 00:47:22,200
Speaker 1: A Laddin pops up. Oh yeah, I think it's like

886
00:47:22,520 --> 00:47:26,920
Speaker 1: being sold or something like hanging. Yeah, But the directors

887
00:47:26,920 --> 00:47:29,359
Speaker 1: have confirmed all of these cameos, so it's not just

888
00:47:29,640 --> 00:47:32,879
Speaker 1: overactive imaginations. So well, and there's the there's one last

889
00:47:32,880 --> 00:47:35,640
Speaker 1: one in a Laddin when the Sultan is like sort

890
00:47:35,680 --> 00:47:39,600
Speaker 1: of being magically enchanted and infantilized by Jaffar. One of

891
00:47:39,640 --> 00:47:42,040
Speaker 1: the one of the toys he's playing with is the Beast.

892
00:47:42,400 --> 00:47:44,719
Speaker 1: I think my favorite little odds and in fact toy

893
00:47:44,880 --> 00:47:46,920
Speaker 1: is you know the scene when the beasts asked Cogsworth

894
00:47:47,320 --> 00:47:49,120
Speaker 1: about like a special thing he can do for Bell

895
00:47:49,280 --> 00:47:52,640
Speaker 1: and cog'sworth response with, well, you know, there's the usual things.

896
00:47:52,719 --> 00:47:56,640
Speaker 1: Flowers Chocolates promises you don't intend to keep the voice

897
00:47:56,640 --> 00:48:00,440
Speaker 1: actor for Cogsworth David uggen Stairs. Um, that's probably not

898
00:48:00,480 --> 00:48:04,640
Speaker 1: how you say his name. I'm sorry, David Sires, but

899
00:48:05,160 --> 00:48:08,239
Speaker 1: he apparently improvised that last part in the vocal booth

900
00:48:08,239 --> 00:48:10,080
Speaker 1: and the directors liked it so much that they kept

901
00:48:10,080 --> 00:48:12,799
Speaker 1: it in. Yeah, that's a great line. Uh. And as

902
00:48:13,000 --> 00:48:16,480
Speaker 1: again with every Disney film, there's hidden mickey's. And so

903
00:48:16,640 --> 00:48:18,719
Speaker 1: if you're if you're watching along at home while you

904
00:48:18,800 --> 00:48:23,040
Speaker 1: listened to this podcast, which why would you? The mickey's

905
00:48:23,040 --> 00:48:25,760
Speaker 1: are at the top of the center bookshelf in the library.

906
00:48:26,600 --> 00:48:29,080
Speaker 1: After guests on his men chopped down the tree, there

907
00:48:29,080 --> 00:48:32,399
Speaker 1: are three droplets of water that form an upside down

908
00:48:32,480 --> 00:48:36,520
Speaker 1: mickey head, which is wild. Um. There are three stones

909
00:48:36,680 --> 00:48:39,040
Speaker 1: by the roots to the left of the cottage at

910
00:48:39,040 --> 00:48:42,000
Speaker 1: the beginning that also form an upside down mickey head.

911
00:48:42,520 --> 00:48:45,520
Speaker 1: And on the back of Cogsworth's head there's a latch

912
00:48:45,600 --> 00:48:48,320
Speaker 1: that looks at a scooch like Nicky's face. So, getting

913
00:48:48,320 --> 00:48:50,640
Speaker 1: into more the nuts and bolts of the film, but

914
00:48:50,920 --> 00:48:52,680
Speaker 1: this we mentioned a little bit early on. This is

915
00:48:52,680 --> 00:48:55,680
Speaker 1: film kind of during a transition period for the animation industry.

916
00:48:55,880 --> 00:48:58,280
Speaker 1: But they're they're off, They're on the wrong foot already

917
00:48:58,280 --> 00:49:01,480
Speaker 1: from the beginning because they remember they scrapped an earlier

918
00:49:01,560 --> 00:49:04,319
Speaker 1: version of this film. So the production team has two

919
00:49:04,440 --> 00:49:06,640
Speaker 1: years to finish it, which is down from the standard

920
00:49:06,680 --> 00:49:10,200
Speaker 1: Disney operating timeline of three or four. So, again going

921
00:49:10,200 --> 00:49:12,799
Speaker 1: back to Peter M. Nichols, Heat says that this is

922
00:49:12,840 --> 00:49:15,800
Speaker 1: one of the first film that Disney considered using computer

923
00:49:15,880 --> 00:49:20,040
Speaker 1: animation for but three months of work with an earlier

924
00:49:20,120 --> 00:49:26,000
Speaker 1: version of computer animation yielded exactly one wire frame chicken leg,

925
00:49:27,320 --> 00:49:31,160
Speaker 1: which is again like two drafts of the opening monologue,

926
00:49:31,600 --> 00:49:35,960
Speaker 1: twenty version of Gaston's chest hair, three months to sculpt

927
00:49:35,960 --> 00:49:38,799
Speaker 1: a wire frame chicken leg and a computer and so

928
00:49:38,840 --> 00:49:43,319
Speaker 1: they said, uh, and they they use um. They go

929
00:49:43,400 --> 00:49:45,840
Speaker 1: back to traditional animation, which is then rendered with a

930
00:49:45,920 --> 00:49:50,960
Speaker 1: scanning and compositing system called CAPS Computer Animated Production System

931
00:49:51,000 --> 00:49:53,960
Speaker 1: developed by Disney four Pixar, And this is one of

932
00:49:54,000 --> 00:49:57,560
Speaker 1: the earliest collaborations between the two companies. Yeah, I think

933
00:49:57,560 --> 00:50:01,040
Speaker 1: this was the second Disney movie after Rescuers down Under

934
00:50:01,040 --> 00:50:03,239
Speaker 1: to use this system, but it was the first, you know,

935
00:50:03,560 --> 00:50:07,480
Speaker 1: non sequel prestige film, and this system allowed for characters

936
00:50:07,480 --> 00:50:09,839
Speaker 1: and scenery to be depicted in a wider range of

937
00:50:09,880 --> 00:50:12,640
Speaker 1: colors and to be placed on separate layers to give

938
00:50:12,640 --> 00:50:15,080
Speaker 1: the illusion of depth. So you know, you see that

939
00:50:15,160 --> 00:50:17,440
Speaker 1: in the in the Beauty and the Beast title song sequence,

940
00:50:17,840 --> 00:50:19,759
Speaker 1: it's so much more three dimensional, and that just the

941
00:50:19,760 --> 00:50:22,840
Speaker 1: different layers of varing degrees of focus. It's really it

942
00:50:22,920 --> 00:50:25,840
Speaker 1: was strange watching it from the vantage point of thirty

943
00:50:25,920 --> 00:50:29,320
Speaker 1: years later to see the moments that were very clearly

944
00:50:29,360 --> 00:50:32,239
Speaker 1: traditional animation and then these moments when did you get

945
00:50:32,280 --> 00:50:36,319
Speaker 1: into sort of primitive computer animated stuff, because the juxtaposition

946
00:50:36,320 --> 00:50:39,279
Speaker 1: between the two really pretty jarring. Yeah, and the technology

947
00:50:39,360 --> 00:50:42,840
Speaker 1: that underpins the industry is advancing so fast that during

948
00:50:42,880 --> 00:50:45,960
Speaker 1: the two years they were producing this, the animation computer

949
00:50:46,000 --> 00:50:48,759
Speaker 1: animation gets good enough that they're able to use it

950
00:50:48,800 --> 00:50:53,080
Speaker 1: for the ballroom dance scene. But the dance scene at

951
00:50:53,120 --> 00:50:56,040
Speaker 1: the end of the film is again an sort of

952
00:50:56,080 --> 00:50:59,960
Speaker 1: an example of economy. Uh. They reused animation from Sleeping

953
00:51:00,080 --> 00:51:02,480
Speaker 1: Beauty because they got down to the point where they're

954
00:51:02,480 --> 00:51:06,160
Speaker 1: deadline to finish. This was literally days away I mean,

955
00:51:06,239 --> 00:51:08,560
Speaker 1: that's something. There's a lot of YouTube clips of like

956
00:51:09,200 --> 00:51:13,160
Speaker 1: little moments that Disney recycled, like from characters, just like

957
00:51:13,200 --> 00:51:15,840
Speaker 1: turning around or like waving a flag or in motion

958
00:51:15,960 --> 00:51:18,680
Speaker 1: or in this case, dancing where I mean they reuse

959
00:51:18,719 --> 00:51:20,839
Speaker 1: animation from movies that are forty fIF years old. In

960
00:51:20,840 --> 00:51:23,799
Speaker 1: some cases too. It's really amazing how they kind of,

961
00:51:23,880 --> 00:51:25,880
Speaker 1: you know, obviously changed the details on it, but in

962
00:51:25,960 --> 00:51:28,480
Speaker 1: terms of the actual motion of it, it's really interesting.

963
00:51:28,520 --> 00:51:30,439
Speaker 1: But yeah, there's a YouTube clip where you can see

964
00:51:30,480 --> 00:51:33,040
Speaker 1: the uh, the ballroom dance at the very end, right

965
00:51:33,040 --> 00:51:35,640
Speaker 1: before the credit sequence. It's the same as at the

966
00:51:35,719 --> 00:51:39,919
Speaker 1: very end of Sleeping Beauty when they're they're dancing. Apparently

967
00:51:41,160 --> 00:51:45,080
Speaker 1: Don Han, the producer, talks on the commentary clip about

968
00:51:45,120 --> 00:51:49,359
Speaker 1: keeping the film really really lean with smash cuts and

969
00:51:49,440 --> 00:51:52,480
Speaker 1: no extraneous exposition or dialogue, which is, you know, one

970
00:51:52,520 --> 00:51:55,120
Speaker 1: of the ways that they helped get Duty to be

971
00:51:55,239 --> 00:51:58,160
Speaker 1: done on time. But the finished product consisted of are

972
00:51:58,200 --> 00:52:01,160
Speaker 1: you Ready for this? Seventh was in feet of hand

973
00:52:01,239 --> 00:52:06,239
Speaker 1: drawn film, one thousand, two hundred backgrounds, two hundred and

974
00:52:06,239 --> 00:52:10,440
Speaker 1: twenty six thousand painted animation cells, and over a million

975
00:52:10,560 --> 00:52:15,160
Speaker 1: drawings created by nearly six hundred animators, artists, and technicians

976
00:52:15,200 --> 00:52:18,719
Speaker 1: over the course of about four years. That is insane.

977
00:52:18,920 --> 00:52:23,719
Speaker 1: That is yeah, I mean, I guess I don't know

978
00:52:23,719 --> 00:52:27,040
Speaker 1: how normal. You know, any other animation that might just

979
00:52:27,080 --> 00:52:31,480
Speaker 1: be Sting's hearing that is insane. But enough about the

980
00:52:31,600 --> 00:52:34,160
Speaker 1: nuts and balls of the thing. Let's when it finally

981
00:52:34,239 --> 00:52:37,840
Speaker 1: gets out into the world, even in an incomplete form.

982
00:52:38,040 --> 00:52:40,040
Speaker 1: This was a first for Disney in that when they

983
00:52:40,080 --> 00:52:42,200
Speaker 1: screened it at the New York Film Festival in September,

984
00:52:43,200 --> 00:52:46,200
Speaker 1: they only screened a partially completed version of it. Roughly

985
00:52:46,280 --> 00:52:49,720
Speaker 1: sevent of the completed film was shown at this premiere.

986
00:52:50,160 --> 00:52:52,320
Speaker 1: The version that they showed at the Film Festival included

987
00:52:52,360 --> 00:52:55,800
Speaker 1: pencil tests and storyboards. You could see like coffee stains

988
00:52:55,800 --> 00:52:58,680
Speaker 1: and paper folds and sometimes there'll be a character that

989
00:52:58,680 --> 00:53:01,799
Speaker 1: would be accompanied by arrow was enhand scribbled numbers on it.

990
00:53:02,280 --> 00:53:04,960
Speaker 1: And it was pretty revolutionary as far as Disney was concerned,

991
00:53:04,960 --> 00:53:08,160
Speaker 1: because obviously they're so concerned about, you know, the finished

992
00:53:08,200 --> 00:53:10,600
Speaker 1: product and how they presented the public. This is really

993
00:53:10,640 --> 00:53:12,160
Speaker 1: one of the first times that they pulled back the

994
00:53:12,160 --> 00:53:14,799
Speaker 1: curtain and let you see, you know, how they did

995
00:53:15,200 --> 00:53:17,080
Speaker 1: what they did. I mean, they were toggling back and

996
00:53:17,120 --> 00:53:20,080
Speaker 1: forth between the work in progress and the final result,

997
00:53:20,719 --> 00:53:22,840
Speaker 1: and in the way it really added to the experience

998
00:53:22,840 --> 00:53:25,319
Speaker 1: of seeing especially at the New York Film Festival, which

999
00:53:25,320 --> 00:53:27,959
Speaker 1: is a bunch of cinephiles who really kind of appreciated

1000
00:53:28,000 --> 00:53:30,799
Speaker 1: seeing you know, Okay, this is what we started with,

1001
00:53:30,880 --> 00:53:33,439
Speaker 1: and this is what it's gonna look like when it's done. Um,

1002
00:53:33,480 --> 00:53:38,160
Speaker 1: And there's clips of it on yes, yes, and you

1003
00:53:38,239 --> 00:53:42,000
Speaker 1: can you can see the the opening bell sequence, uh

1004
00:53:42,080 --> 00:53:44,480
Speaker 1: that was shown at the New York Film Festivals on

1005
00:53:44,520 --> 00:53:47,880
Speaker 1: YouTube where I mean again, it's like three quarters of

1006
00:53:47,880 --> 00:53:49,600
Speaker 1: the way dumb, and everything all of a sudden in

1007
00:53:49,640 --> 00:53:51,640
Speaker 1: the middle will just be like chicken scratches on a

1008
00:53:51,640 --> 00:53:53,600
Speaker 1: piece of paper with a character and arrows going where

1009
00:53:53,600 --> 00:53:56,279
Speaker 1: they're walking and stuff, and it's really as interesting to

1010
00:53:56,280 --> 00:53:59,439
Speaker 1: see it. But the crowd at the New York Film

1011
00:53:59,480 --> 00:54:05,439
Speaker 1: Festival loved it. Ten minutes standing ovation at screening. Yeah,

1012
00:54:05,520 --> 00:54:08,520
Speaker 1: and you know, also important to note probably no children

1013
00:54:08,560 --> 00:54:11,759
Speaker 1: at this screening, So the fact that a bunch of

1014
00:54:11,760 --> 00:54:14,600
Speaker 1: critics have kind of stamped it and its approval in

1015
00:54:14,600 --> 00:54:17,640
Speaker 1: in an under three quarters finished version, that sort of

1016
00:54:17,680 --> 00:54:20,040
Speaker 1: gets the ball rolling for the adult cachet that the

1017
00:54:20,080 --> 00:54:23,360
Speaker 1: film is gonna accrue and uh, Hans says later on,

1018
00:54:23,440 --> 00:54:25,400
Speaker 1: it was almost as if everyone wanted to regard it

1019
00:54:25,400 --> 00:54:28,320
Speaker 1: as live action. Yeah, I mean no, we we touched

1020
00:54:28,360 --> 00:54:30,200
Speaker 1: on this at the beginning of the episode. But this

1021
00:54:30,239 --> 00:54:32,440
Speaker 1: was really a crucial moment in the history of not

1022
00:54:32,560 --> 00:54:34,000
Speaker 1: only of The Beauty and the Beast of the film,

1023
00:54:34,040 --> 00:54:37,560
Speaker 1: but also just the so called Disney Renaissance. And there

1024
00:54:37,560 --> 00:54:41,400
Speaker 1: are like really lengthy pieces in Vulture and Gothamist about

1025
00:54:41,400 --> 00:54:43,960
Speaker 1: this premiere. It's really like a big moment in in

1026
00:54:44,040 --> 00:54:47,359
Speaker 1: cinema history. Uh. The New York Film Festival, who you know,

1027
00:54:47,440 --> 00:54:51,360
Speaker 1: aren't the most nostalgic bunch, they staged a tribute screening

1028
00:54:51,400 --> 00:54:54,920
Speaker 1: for the twenty fifth anniversary in so this was this

1029
00:54:55,000 --> 00:54:58,000
Speaker 1: was a big deal. And the Code director Kirk Wise

1030
00:54:58,000 --> 00:55:00,120
Speaker 1: said in the in the Vulture piece, I really do

1031
00:55:00,239 --> 00:55:03,080
Speaker 1: feel that that screening represented the turning point in terms

1032
00:55:03,080 --> 00:55:05,840
Speaker 1: of the audience perception of these movies, from Beauty and

1033
00:55:05,880 --> 00:55:08,520
Speaker 1: the Beast onward. I think animation managed to escape the

1034
00:55:08,600 --> 00:55:11,239
Speaker 1: kids movie ghetto we've been consigned to for so long.

1035
00:55:11,719 --> 00:55:14,120
Speaker 1: It made the audience look at it not as just cartoons,

1036
00:55:14,200 --> 00:55:16,760
Speaker 1: but as film. I think that look behind the curtain

1037
00:55:16,840 --> 00:55:19,440
Speaker 1: really did give the audience a much clearer understanding of

1038
00:55:19,440 --> 00:55:21,960
Speaker 1: the complexity of these movies and just how much art

1039
00:55:21,960 --> 00:55:25,160
Speaker 1: and decision making and planning goes into them. Absolutely, Yeah,

1040
00:55:25,160 --> 00:55:27,960
Speaker 1: it's insane. I mean the stretch, the stretch from Little Mermaid,

1041
00:55:28,320 --> 00:55:31,640
Speaker 1: Beauty and the Beast Lion King. I mean, that's Aladdin.

1042
00:55:31,960 --> 00:55:35,120
Speaker 1: That's nuts. Oh good lord. I mean even the ones

1043
00:55:35,200 --> 00:55:38,320
Speaker 1: that you know, you were saying, how you know, Hunchback

1044
00:55:38,680 --> 00:55:43,680
Speaker 1: is kind of Stack is Fine's Hercules move on, Pocohonas

1045
00:55:43,719 --> 00:55:46,400
Speaker 1: are kind of I don't like them as much as

1046
00:55:46,400 --> 00:55:48,239
Speaker 1: those first ones you mentioned, but still, I mean when

1047
00:55:48,280 --> 00:55:50,880
Speaker 1: you watch them today, it's still is pretty astonishing. The quality,

1048
00:55:51,000 --> 00:55:56,560
Speaker 1: especially the stuff that came that wasn't Pixar driven in

1049
00:55:56,800 --> 00:55:59,880
Speaker 1: the late nineties and early two thousands. Yeah, there's a definite.

1050
00:56:00,320 --> 00:56:02,600
Speaker 1: I mean it's also important to note, I think at

1051
00:56:02,640 --> 00:56:06,520
Speaker 1: this point that also Nightmare Before Christmas comes out like

1052
00:56:06,960 --> 00:56:11,160
Speaker 1: a year after Aladdin, in between a Laddin and Lion King,

1053
00:56:11,280 --> 00:56:14,080
Speaker 1: and that's not I mean, that is a Disney product.

1054
00:56:14,320 --> 00:56:18,440
Speaker 1: But like you want to talk about crazy animation achievements,

1055
00:56:18,480 --> 00:56:20,880
Speaker 1: I mean, the stop motion in that movie, Henry Selick

1056
00:56:21,080 --> 00:56:24,839
Speaker 1: is just that is out of control. And I think

1057
00:56:25,000 --> 00:56:27,080
Speaker 1: if you're going to consider that film in the lineage

1058
00:56:27,080 --> 00:56:29,640
Speaker 1: of Disney, that's another feather in their catman. I mean,

1059
00:56:30,560 --> 00:56:34,720
Speaker 1: good Lord bat in a thousand Baby or close to it.

1060
00:56:34,760 --> 00:56:38,040
Speaker 1: But the death of Howard Ashman, that lyricists for this

1061
00:56:38,120 --> 00:56:41,120
Speaker 1: movie and and Little Mermaid and Aladdin really cast a

1062
00:56:41,200 --> 00:56:45,160
Speaker 1: pal over this otherwise really triumphant story. Early in the production.

1063
00:56:45,200 --> 00:56:47,120
Speaker 1: I think this was even before the New York Film Festival,

1064
00:56:47,120 --> 00:56:49,520
Speaker 1: Disney convened the bunch of critics and members of the

1065
00:56:49,520 --> 00:56:53,239
Speaker 1: Motion Picture Academy to watch a really rough cut. I

1066
00:56:53,239 --> 00:56:55,239
Speaker 1: think the bell sequence was the only thing that was

1067
00:56:55,280 --> 00:56:57,360
Speaker 1: in color, but everything else was in black and white,

1068
00:56:57,719 --> 00:57:01,279
Speaker 1: and it got this extremely enthusiast stick response, and the

1069
00:57:01,320 --> 00:57:04,960
Speaker 1: filmmaking team immediately went to St. Vincent's Hospital in New

1070
00:57:05,040 --> 00:57:07,279
Speaker 1: York City to tell Howard Ashman about him was where

1071
00:57:07,320 --> 00:57:10,480
Speaker 1: he was dying. Um and Don Han, the producer, told

1072
00:57:10,520 --> 00:57:13,400
Speaker 1: him that the film quote would be a great success.

1073
00:57:13,760 --> 00:57:17,520
Speaker 1: Who'd have thought? And Ashman, who's at this point so

1074
00:57:17,560 --> 00:57:20,320
Speaker 1: ill that he's lost his sight and he's extremely frail,

1075
00:57:20,400 --> 00:57:23,920
Speaker 1: he apparently whispered, I would And he was dead a

1076
00:57:23,960 --> 00:57:27,760
Speaker 1: week later. And uh, he receives a dedication in the

1077
00:57:27,800 --> 00:57:31,600
Speaker 1: closing credits of Beauty and the Beast for quote having

1078
00:57:31,640 --> 00:57:34,480
Speaker 1: given a mermaid her voice and a beast his soul.

1079
00:57:35,440 --> 00:57:40,840
Speaker 1: Oh oh man, it's a real heart punch. Yeah. Well here,

1080
00:57:40,880 --> 00:57:43,080
Speaker 1: this will help. This will help it a little bit.

1081
00:57:43,280 --> 00:57:47,400
Speaker 1: Jeffrey Katzenberg claims it's just the mere invocation of Katzenberg.

1082
00:57:47,960 --> 00:57:52,040
Speaker 1: Will we'll fire up the rage um. He claims that

1083
00:57:52,040 --> 00:57:55,120
Speaker 1: there are two angels watching down on him. Uh, whenever

1084
00:57:55,120 --> 00:57:56,760
Speaker 1: he makes his movies to help him, you know, put

1085
00:57:56,760 --> 00:57:59,160
Speaker 1: their magic touch on every film that they've made. Those

1086
00:57:59,160 --> 00:58:02,280
Speaker 1: two angels are how at Ashman and Walt Disney himself.

1087
00:58:03,000 --> 00:58:05,880
Speaker 1: Walt Disney's going, can we make this ten more racist?

1088
00:58:07,360 --> 00:58:10,800
Speaker 1: I need some I need some jive talking crows in

1089
00:58:10,960 --> 00:58:15,600
Speaker 1: this film. Uh God, when Song of the South going

1090
00:58:15,600 --> 00:58:20,720
Speaker 1: in the Criterion collection, Yeah, through chattering teeth from the

1091
00:58:20,760 --> 00:58:26,840
Speaker 1: frozen cryogenic m Yeah. So once the film comes out

1092
00:58:27,240 --> 00:58:30,640
Speaker 1: to no one's I guess actually too many people's surprises.

1093
00:58:31,080 --> 00:58:33,680
Speaker 1: In the review mirror, it seems completely obvious, but it

1094
00:58:34,040 --> 00:58:37,880
Speaker 1: conquers the world. Comes out in November, becomes the first

1095
00:58:37,960 --> 00:58:41,360
Speaker 1: animated film to reach a hundred millions in the US

1096
00:58:41,400 --> 00:58:44,560
Speaker 1: and Canada. During its initial run finishes as the third

1097
00:58:44,640 --> 00:58:46,720
Speaker 1: highest grossing film of the year, behind as you would

1098
00:58:46,720 --> 00:58:50,720
Speaker 1: probably expect, Terminator to Judgment Day and Robin Hood Prince

1099
00:58:50,800 --> 00:58:53,880
Speaker 1: of Thieves, as you would less probably expect, given that

1100
00:58:53,960 --> 00:58:56,800
Speaker 1: it is most popularly remembered at this point in history

1101
00:58:56,800 --> 00:58:59,720
Speaker 1: for the film in which Kevin Costner butchers in English

1102
00:58:59,720 --> 00:59:02,760
Speaker 1: acts got about that. It's also the highest grossing film

1103
00:59:02,920 --> 00:59:07,320
Speaker 1: in checks notes Italy that year, beating out I mean,

1104
00:59:07,360 --> 00:59:09,800
Speaker 1: this is hard to beat out Roberto Bernini in Italy,

1105
00:59:10,440 --> 00:59:13,520
Speaker 1: but it beats out his film Johnny Stickino, which is

1106
00:59:13,560 --> 00:59:17,560
Speaker 1: a mistaken identity film in which he his character is

1107
00:59:17,800 --> 00:59:21,680
Speaker 1: believed to be a savage gangster. I watched that movie

1108
00:59:21,960 --> 00:59:25,240
Speaker 1: parts of it in my uh college Italian one oh

1109
00:59:25,320 --> 00:59:30,280
Speaker 1: one class. Oh yes, yeah. While we're on the topic

1110
00:59:30,280 --> 00:59:32,920
Speaker 1: of foreign adaptations of Beauty and the Beast, did you

1111
00:59:32,960 --> 00:59:36,880
Speaker 1: know that Jackie Chan the Jackie Chan dubbed the Beast

1112
00:59:36,960 --> 00:59:39,680
Speaker 1: voice for the Chinese version of the movie. He's sang too,

1113
00:59:40,520 --> 00:59:43,720
Speaker 1: I love it, probably while being hit with a ladder. God,

1114
00:59:43,800 --> 00:59:46,080
Speaker 1: Jackie Chan is the best. But the film does not

1115
00:59:46,160 --> 00:59:50,080
Speaker 1: only read financial rewards. It cleans up during awards show season.

1116
00:59:50,240 --> 00:59:52,800
Speaker 1: It picks up the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture

1117
00:59:52,880 --> 00:59:56,080
Speaker 1: in the Musical or Comedy category, the first animated film

1118
00:59:56,120 --> 00:59:58,760
Speaker 1: to do so, and it becomes the first animated film

1119
00:59:58,800 --> 01:00:02,120
Speaker 1: to be nominated for the Best Picture Oscar. It wins

1120
01:00:02,160 --> 01:00:06,480
Speaker 1: Best Original Score. It wins Best Original Song. You mentioned

1121
01:00:06,520 --> 01:00:09,760
Speaker 1: earlier that it has three of the original songs UH

1122
01:00:10,000 --> 01:00:14,120
Speaker 1: nominated in that category, Bell, the opening number, be Our Guest,

1123
01:00:14,280 --> 01:00:17,840
Speaker 1: and the title track. And obviously be Our Guest was robbed?

1124
01:00:17,920 --> 01:00:20,000
Speaker 1: Which one we didn't look up? What do you know offhand?

1125
01:00:20,040 --> 01:00:24,320
Speaker 1: What one? I think the title track of Eating Them? Okay,

1126
01:00:24,360 --> 01:00:26,760
Speaker 1: well that's fine as long as it was kept in house,

1127
01:00:27,000 --> 01:00:28,960
Speaker 1: but b our Guest was robbed. Weird think about be

1128
01:00:29,040 --> 01:00:31,320
Speaker 1: Our Guest. That song was basically written I guess you

1129
01:00:31,320 --> 01:00:35,360
Speaker 1: could say almost by accident, because Megan wrote this really

1130
01:00:35,400 --> 01:00:37,680
Speaker 1: kind of simple melody, just as a dummy melody so

1131
01:00:37,760 --> 01:00:41,160
Speaker 1: that Ashman could write words to it, and it just stuck.

1132
01:00:41,240 --> 01:00:43,360
Speaker 1: Like Mechan would later say that he couldn't write anything

1133
01:00:43,400 --> 01:00:46,200
Speaker 1: better than quote that dumb piece of music I wrote

1134
01:00:46,240 --> 01:00:49,040
Speaker 1: initially because it was just right. A really weird part

1135
01:00:49,120 --> 01:00:50,520
Speaker 1: is that, I guess in an early version of the

1136
01:00:50,560 --> 01:00:52,360
Speaker 1: Beauty in the b script, b our Guest was going

1137
01:00:52,400 --> 01:00:56,160
Speaker 1: to be sung to Bell's kidnapped father Maurice after he

1138
01:00:56,280 --> 01:00:59,080
Speaker 1: arrives at the castle instead of Bell. And then they thought,

1139
01:00:59,160 --> 01:01:01,320
Speaker 1: wait a minute, this is a really great song and

1140
01:01:01,360 --> 01:01:04,000
Speaker 1: production number. Why are we wasting it on what's you know,

1141
01:01:04,080 --> 01:01:06,640
Speaker 1: kind of a secondary character. So the whole scene had

1142
01:01:06,640 --> 01:01:09,560
Speaker 1: to be reanimated with Bell, and the lyrics tweaked and

1143
01:01:09,560 --> 01:01:11,760
Speaker 1: the principles had to be brought back to re sing it.

1144
01:01:11,880 --> 01:01:15,080
Speaker 1: And uh, side note, the gray stuff in um be

1145
01:01:15,200 --> 01:01:17,400
Speaker 1: our guest. You know, try the gray stuff. It's delicious.

1146
01:01:17,680 --> 01:01:21,440
Speaker 1: There's a br Guest restaurant in Disney World, and I

1147
01:01:21,440 --> 01:01:24,600
Speaker 1: guess they actually served the gray stuff. And and I

1148
01:01:24,640 --> 01:01:26,560
Speaker 1: don't know what's in it. I do know what's in it.

1149
01:01:26,640 --> 01:01:28,960
Speaker 1: I maybe we should launch an investigate a podcast to

1150
01:01:29,000 --> 01:01:35,720
Speaker 1: talk about what's in the gray stuff. It's um seal meat. Sorry,

1151
01:01:35,720 --> 01:01:40,600
Speaker 1: that's an Eric Andre reference in the In the iconic

1152
01:01:40,640 --> 01:01:45,800
Speaker 1: episode where they scare Kristen Cavalry off the set, Hannibal

1153
01:01:45,880 --> 01:01:48,160
Speaker 1: Brus says, I don't know what kind of meat, but

1154
01:01:48,360 --> 01:01:50,800
Speaker 1: I think the only meat that's gray is seal meat.

1155
01:01:51,560 --> 01:01:54,440
Speaker 1: It's probably porridge, right, I don't know what French food

1156
01:01:54,520 --> 01:02:00,960
Speaker 1: is gray cheese Uh, nice smoked brie. I anyway, talk

1157
01:02:01,040 --> 01:02:05,360
Speaker 1: about award show season. Yes, speaking speaking of seal meat,

1158
01:02:07,640 --> 01:02:10,840
Speaker 1: talk about the Oscar. If they gave Pulitzers for podcast

1159
01:02:10,880 --> 01:02:14,680
Speaker 1: transitions right now, that would that would most certainly that's

1160
01:02:14,680 --> 01:02:17,840
Speaker 1: a Peabody Award right there. But yes, Beauty of the

1161
01:02:17,840 --> 01:02:20,440
Speaker 1: Base was up for Best Picture, and uh this was

1162
01:02:20,480 --> 01:02:23,280
Speaker 1: the error when there are only five films per categories.

1163
01:02:23,320 --> 01:02:25,280
Speaker 1: So I mean, I feel like that makes the fact

1164
01:02:25,320 --> 01:02:27,040
Speaker 1: that this was the first animated film to be up

1165
01:02:27,080 --> 01:02:30,120
Speaker 1: for Best Picture even more impressive. But the Academy went

1166
01:02:30,160 --> 01:02:32,520
Speaker 1: in the way opposite direction that year and gave the

1167
01:02:32,560 --> 01:02:37,360
Speaker 1: Best Picture Oscar to Silence of the Lambs. Um, another

1168
01:02:37,440 --> 01:02:41,200
Speaker 1: film in which an older flesh eating gentleman has undue

1169
01:02:41,200 --> 01:02:50,120
Speaker 1: sway over a young woman. Man like Go four era

1170
01:02:50,480 --> 01:02:54,880
Speaker 1: some weird time, wacky weird time. Um. But yes, I

1171
01:02:54,920 --> 01:02:57,280
Speaker 1: think that was the only animated film to be nominated

1172
01:02:57,280 --> 01:03:00,120
Speaker 1: for Best Picture until up in two thousand nine, I

1173
01:03:00,200 --> 01:03:03,680
Speaker 1: think m I fewer than three years after the film's release,

1174
01:03:03,880 --> 01:03:06,880
Speaker 1: it becomes Disney's first animated film to be adapted into

1175
01:03:06,920 --> 01:03:11,720
Speaker 1: a Broadway musical, which subsequently runs for thirteen years. And uh,

1176
01:03:12,040 --> 01:03:15,640
Speaker 1: it's later selected for preservation in the National Film Registry

1177
01:03:15,680 --> 01:03:18,280
Speaker 1: by the Library of Congress in two thousand two, the

1178
01:03:18,400 --> 01:03:21,160
Speaker 1: same year as an IMAX version of the film was released,

1179
01:03:21,160 --> 01:03:23,120
Speaker 1: which I didn't see. Did you see it in Imax?

1180
01:03:23,240 --> 01:03:25,560
Speaker 1: I did not know. I do kind of want to. Yeah,

1181
01:03:25,600 --> 01:03:27,080
Speaker 1: I want to see be our guests at imax, So

1182
01:03:27,200 --> 01:03:29,000
Speaker 1: that sounds awesome. I was gonna say, yeah, I want

1183
01:03:29,040 --> 01:03:35,120
Speaker 1: the like speaker, like the synaps rattling drops, I want that.

1184
01:03:36,080 --> 01:03:39,120
Speaker 1: Um yeah, I mean, I don't know. What more do

1185
01:03:39,120 --> 01:03:41,560
Speaker 1: you say about Beauty and the Beast? Not bad for

1186
01:03:41,600 --> 01:03:46,280
Speaker 1: a film about beast reality and Stockholm syndrome. Bump bump bump,

1187
01:03:46,480 --> 01:03:52,120
Speaker 1: But Nana, Nana, I think well. As always, as always,

1188
01:03:52,160 --> 01:03:53,959
Speaker 1: if you have anything to tweet at us about the show,

1189
01:03:54,240 --> 01:03:57,280
Speaker 1: please do so, do using the hashtag the Beasts Rainbow

1190
01:03:57,320 --> 01:04:00,680
Speaker 1: ass and uh, We'll see you now. Time for more.

1191
01:04:00,720 --> 01:04:03,800
Speaker 1: Too Much Information. I'm Alex Hegel and I'm Jordan runt Talk.

1192
01:04:03,960 --> 01:04:12,240
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for listening. Too Much Information was a

1193
01:04:12,280 --> 01:04:15,440
Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio. The show's executive producers are

1194
01:04:15,480 --> 01:04:18,480
Speaker 1: Noel Brown and Jordan run Talk. The supervising producer is

1195
01:04:18,520 --> 01:04:21,600
Speaker 1: Mike John's. The show was researched, written, and hosted by

1196
01:04:21,680 --> 01:04:24,680
Speaker 1: Jordan run Talk and Alex Heigel, with original music by

1197
01:04:24,680 --> 01:04:27,560
Speaker 1: Seth Applebaum and the Ghost Funk Orchestra. If you like

1198
01:04:27,640 --> 01:04:29,840
Speaker 1: what you heard, please subscribe and leave us a review.

1199
01:04:30,080 --> 01:04:32,360
Speaker 1: For more podcasts and I heart Radio, visit the I

1200
01:04:32,480 --> 01:04:35,440
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to

1201
01:04:35,440 --> 01:04:36,320
Speaker 1: your favorite shows,