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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 histories and little known fascinating

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Speaker 1: facts and figures behind your favorite movies, music, TV shows

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Speaker 1: and more. We're your two street rats of fast, furious

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Speaker 1: and fun facts. I'm Alex and I'm Jordan front and

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Speaker 1: we have been unprompted talking about a whole New world,

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Speaker 1: not the abstract philosophical concept, but my favorite Disney song

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Speaker 1: spoilers to what this episode is about. That's right, we're

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Speaker 1: talking about one of the high water marks and the

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Speaker 1: so called Disney renaissance of the late eighties, eighties, and

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Speaker 1: the nineties. Film has cemented Robin Williams second act as

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Speaker 1: a children's entertainment icon and set new financial records for

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Speaker 1: animation until The Lion King. That's right, We're talking about

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Speaker 1: a Latin that's turned thirty in November. God, whole New

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Speaker 1: World is so good. Yeah wait, I'm I'm want to

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Speaker 1: talk to you more about that, because I was more

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Speaker 1: of a tell me princess, when was the last time

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Speaker 1: let your heart decide? You have a bit of that

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Speaker 1: the inner theater kid in you? Yeah, and then guys

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Speaker 1: started listening to punk rock and the punk rocker strangled

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Speaker 1: him and garretted him in the crib. Uh. Yeah. One

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Speaker 1: of my mom's favorite things in the world as lame is,

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Speaker 1: so I just lame is the cast recording in the

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Speaker 1: car constantly when I was a kid. Um beer guests

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Speaker 1: might be might be my favorite Disneys. Yeah, it's God,

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Speaker 1: I was trying to top five this earlier. It's definitely

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Speaker 1: be our guest. It's either just Can't Wait to Be

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Speaker 1: King or or the opening from Lion King you know. Uh,

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Speaker 1: that's also an incredible one. Or street Staff Warfare from

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Speaker 1: Bliver and Company and then a bang or yeah yeah,

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Speaker 1: or to the Sea, which also goes unreasonably hard, but yeah, man,

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Speaker 1: whole new world. I'm actually very disappointed because one of

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Speaker 1: the random, like the facts that I read, by by

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Speaker 1: which I mean let me let me backtrack, one of

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Speaker 1: the low fidelity facts that I read, you know, like

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Speaker 1: one of the big p s A to anyone who's

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Speaker 1: podcasting or or doing bar trivia or anything, don't trust

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Speaker 1: i am dB trivia some of it. Some of it

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Speaker 1: is good, but you have to fact check it. One

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Speaker 1: of the facts that I read somewhere that was adjacent

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Speaker 1: to this that I could not confirm was that originally

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Speaker 1: it's Peebo Bryson and someone else who sing a Whole

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Speaker 1: New World on the soundtrack, And originally I had read

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Speaker 1: that that was somewhere that was supposed to be Michael

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Speaker 1: Bolton and Celine Dion. Can you imagine that? Oh my god?

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Speaker 1: Um Well, until the ALFA mentioned Lion King, this was

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Speaker 1: my favorite Disney movie as a boy. I know Beauty

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Speaker 1: and the Beast was your favorite, but Beauty and the

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Speaker 1: Beast always board me because I wanted it to be

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Speaker 1: more beast centered. Scans too much beauty, none of beast

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Speaker 1: hashtag um. I had like Robin Williams dialogue memorized from

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Speaker 1: this movie, do you still know some of it? Because

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Speaker 1: well that that gets into the other part from this,

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Speaker 1: like it Well, yeah, I can't go back and watch it, man,

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Speaker 1: I'll start crying, like it just makes me so sad.

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Speaker 1: Robin stuff, just it just crushes me. Yeah, that's like

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Speaker 1: the worst celebrity death I've lived through. So yeah, I've

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Speaker 1: not gone back and rewatched it, but god, Whole New

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Speaker 1: World bangs and oh and Jasmine is my favorite Disney

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Speaker 1: Princess until Mulan because Mulan had a sword. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I see you. But in Hercules leg Meg, I didn't

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Speaker 1: like her. I think I was the thing was like Hercules,

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Speaker 1: I was aging out a little bit too much for

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Speaker 1: by the time, like was after really yea, maybe I

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Speaker 1: just regressed for Mulan. Um was sword, Yeah exactly, That's

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Speaker 1: all I could see. I couldn't see fast sword. Um. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I Hercules. I've come around in retrospect, but at the

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Speaker 1: time I remember it not being great. Uh And then

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Speaker 1: by time like Hunchback rolled around, I kind of just

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Speaker 1: completely tuned out of it. Although Esmerelda, what about you?

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Speaker 1: Well Bell read So that's why I really liked Bell.

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Speaker 1: I thought we could be bookworms together. Yeah. Jasmine definitely

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Speaker 1: takes second place in my personal Disney Princess hierarchy. Um,

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Speaker 1: she's so dynamic. She did all the pole vaulting. It

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Speaker 1: was like running around the city and stuff. Yeah oh yeah.

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Speaker 1: In the opening yeah absolutely, yeah, I don't know. I

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Speaker 1: was a kid. I was very fascinated by just the

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Speaker 1: whole look of a Laddin because it was very exotic.

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Speaker 1: I mean, the only other Disney movies were so steeped

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Speaker 1: in that French or English fairytale aesthetic, and this was,

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Speaker 1: you know, the coin a phrase, a whole new world.

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Speaker 1: I'd never heard of Sultan's before, or really any of

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Speaker 1: those sort of folk tales from the Middle East. I mean,

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Speaker 1: it's bastardized as a Laddin. The plot is in this.

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Speaker 1: Uh so that was all cool for me, although it

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Speaker 1: did lead to me insisting on going to some a

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Speaker 1: Latin themed restaurant when we went to Disney World as

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Speaker 1: a kid. And uh in the middle of dinner, a

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Speaker 1: belly dancer pulled me up and it made me dance

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Speaker 1: with her in front of the entire restaurant, and it

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Speaker 1: was mortifying. Um so was the restaurant. Was it called

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Speaker 1: like the Sultan's Opium Den or something wildly racist like that.

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Speaker 1: I don't remember. Someone's gonna correct me. Maybe it wasn't

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Speaker 1: a Laddin them that, you know what. I think it

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Speaker 1: was at Epcot, at the Morocco Pavilion or whatever. Maybe

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Speaker 1: it wasn't a Latin themes, but I definitely had a

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Speaker 1: Laddin in my head when I insisted to go there,

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Speaker 1: and I quickly regretted it after that experience. Um But

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Speaker 1: back to greater pastors. As you mentioned, the Robin Williams

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Speaker 1: factor was huge, although it was, you know, like you

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Speaker 1: very kind of hard for me to revisit it now,

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Speaker 1: especially after that meme that everyone was sending around after

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Speaker 1: Robin died with Aladdin tearfully hugging him and saying, Genie,

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Speaker 1: You're free. That. Yeah, they stepped in it there, the

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Speaker 1: absolutely I mean talk about not that I expected them

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Speaker 1: to sensitively handle it, but like, good lord, the absolute

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Speaker 1: last thing you want to do is tell people with

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Speaker 1: any kind of depression or suicidal ideation that that death

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Speaker 1: is freedom. Mike, did Disney put that around or to

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Speaker 1: just fans because I was working for I was doing

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Speaker 1: the people snapchat or the e W snapchat at the time,

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Speaker 1: because I vividly remember that being like, well, I definitely

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Speaker 1: liked this movie as a kid, but for some reason

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Speaker 1: I was more prone to watching either Beauty and the

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Speaker 1: Beast or the old school forties and fifties Disney era movies,

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Speaker 1: which I don't know, I guess kind of goes with

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Speaker 1: my personalities, you know, keeping it Sleeping Beauty, Yeah, that

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Speaker 1: was a weird one. I like Sleeping Beauty. I really

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Speaker 1: liked Alice in Wonderland. I really like Pinocchio, dumbbo at,

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Speaker 1: this creepy circus stuff I liked. Yeah yeah, so so yeah,

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Speaker 1: only mildly more racist than this movie though when you

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Speaker 1: think that, yeah, yeah, uh so yeah. I don't know.

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Speaker 1: Maybe it's just a personal preference, but to me, Aladdin

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Speaker 1: kind of got a little lost in the shuffle between

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Speaker 1: Beauty and the Beast and Lion King. So no, I

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Speaker 1: mean it did. It absolutely did. Beauty and the Beast

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Speaker 1: came out and it was like a home run, and

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Speaker 1: then Aladdin came out and it was another home run,

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Speaker 1: and then Lion King came out and immediately your people

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Speaker 1: only people only have so much space for zeitgeists defining

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Speaker 1: things and they I think they just they should have

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Speaker 1: spaced them out better. I mean it was really like,

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Speaker 1: it's like three years in a row, right in the Beast.

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Speaker 1: Ninety two is Aladdin? I think Lion King was before.

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Speaker 1: I think yeah, And I think even though it's not

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Speaker 1: my favorite, I think a lot of people of the

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Speaker 1: Lion King is the high water mark of the Disney Yeah, yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: i'd put Yeah. I think that scans well from the

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Speaker 1: chaotic development process the film had at the hands of

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Speaker 1: Enemy of the Pod Jeffrey Katzenberg, to the much better

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Speaker 1: chaos that Robin Williams brought to his revolutionary depiction of

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Speaker 1: the Genie, to the film's trailblazing technical side, to the

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Speaker 1: outcry over its less than progressive depiction of the Middle East.

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Speaker 1: Here's everything you didn't know about Disney's Aladdin. The story

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Speaker 1: of Aladdin begins with Disney a team. Lyricist Howard Ashman.

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Speaker 1: At a virtual event in Beauty and the Beast, animator

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Speaker 1: Kirk Wise said, if you had to point to one

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Speaker 1: person responsible for the Disney renaissance, I would say it

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Speaker 1: was Howard Ashman's early successes were mostly off Broadway shows

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Speaker 1: like God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, which is a Kurt

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Speaker 1: Vonnegut adaptation. Do you know I had no idea about that? Uh?

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Speaker 1: And Little Off of Horse with his chief collaborator, composer

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Speaker 1: Alan Mankin. But he upped sticks for California in the

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Speaker 1: mid eighties, thanks largely to David Geffen, which is hilarious

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Speaker 1: to me. I guess I guess they they they had

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Speaker 1: done something after a Little Shop that flopped, But David

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Speaker 1: Geffen had funded Little Shop and was like, well you

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Speaker 1: know I can hook you guys up with Disney Jeffrey Katzenberg,

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Speaker 1: and so they moved out there, and Ashman's first effort

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Speaker 1: for Disney was Oliver and Company. Regrettably he did not

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Speaker 1: write that banger of a Billy Joel song, why Should

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Speaker 1: I Worry? The only the only song I remember from

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Speaker 1: that movie. And then he moved on to The Little Mermaid,

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Speaker 1: which obviously smash hit bolstered his confidence to the point

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Speaker 1: that he was moved to pitch a project that had

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Speaker 1: a deep personal meaning to him, Aladdin, which he had

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Speaker 1: started in a an adaptation of production of When He

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Speaker 1: Was Just When He Was a Kid. The plot outline

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Speaker 1: that he submitted hued largely to the original tail Uh.

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Speaker 1: He sent them a forty page treatment with character breakdowns

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Speaker 1: um seven original songs that had three reprises later in

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Speaker 1: the film demos of those songs design suggestions. But it

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Speaker 1: was more irreverent and satirical and overtly influenced by the

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Speaker 1: Bob Hope Bing Crosby road movies of the nineteen forties.

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Speaker 1: Jordan's what do you know about the Bing Crosby Bob

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Speaker 1: Hope road movies? They all kind of run together. It's

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Speaker 1: almost like those avant costella movies. There's like it's like

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Speaker 1: what road to Casa Blanca, road to Road to Morocco, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: road to There were seven of them, whether that Man,

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Speaker 1: Road to Singapore, Road des Anzibar, Road to Utopia, Road

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Speaker 1: to Rio, road to Bali, road to Hong Kong. I

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Speaker 1: mostly remember the family Guy they did that was like

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Speaker 1: a whole on the Road to Rhode Island. Yeah. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And the primary musical influence that they were working in

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Speaker 1: was like early swing and kind of twenties thirties jazz

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Speaker 1: Jason stuff like Cab Calloway and Fats Waller barber Shop

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Speaker 1: Quartet's Aladdin and His like cronies sang in Barbershop Quartet

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Speaker 1: and like Andrew's Sister's close Harmony singing quicksidebar About the

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Speaker 1: actual story of Aladdin and the lamp sh plural or

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Speaker 1: no genies plural one lamp to genies. Uh. Many people

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Speaker 1: think that comes from the collection of Middle Eastern folk

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Speaker 1: tales A thousand and one Nights, and it does. But

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Speaker 1: Aladdin is not one of the original tales and never

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Speaker 1: existed in Arabic in written form, nor was it set

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Speaker 1: in Baghdad. This is from a Washington Post article in

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Speaker 1: Hussein f Hadawi, who is the translator of the authoritative

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Speaker 1: collection of the Arabian Nights, according to the Washington Post,

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Speaker 1: said that it is actually a Chinese story, often set

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Speaker 1: in China, that circulated in the Arab world, presumably along

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Speaker 1: the trading roots, spice road, silk road. Yeah, and was

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Speaker 1: adopted into the Arabic oral tradition uh, and that is

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Speaker 1: where it got its Arabic name. Allah a deen means

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Speaker 1: one who examples eyes the sublimity of religion. Uh. In

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Speaker 1: the original tale, Aladdin is a ne'er do well whose

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Speaker 1: character arc is that he matures, accepts his adult responsibilities

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Speaker 1: and uh submits to the guiding hand of Allah. So

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Speaker 1: Jeffrey Katzenberg didn't like that. Yeah, this is really interesting. Me.

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Speaker 1: Let's talk a little bit about the differences between the

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Speaker 1: original Aladdin story from antiquity and the Disney movie. There

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Speaker 1: was no magic carpet in the original story. I don't

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Speaker 1: know why I lead with that, but I did. Boom. Uh.

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Speaker 1: In the original story, Aladdin has parents, or at least

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Speaker 1: a mother, and early versions of Aladdin the Disney movie

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Speaker 1: had a whole other character of Aladdin's mom, and the

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Speaker 1: whole message of the movie was basically him trying to

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Speaker 1: make his mother proud and do the right thing, you know,

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Speaker 1: much as you just said about how in the original story,

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Speaker 1: Aladdin is this kind of ne'er do well figure who

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Speaker 1: matures and accepts adult responsibilities. That was supposed to be

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Speaker 1: in the original Aladdin script. Uh uh. Jaffar, the bad guy,

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Speaker 1: wants the princess to marry someone else in the original

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Speaker 1: story rather than himself out of self interest. But I

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Speaker 1: forget why. Um. In the original version of Aladdin, there

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Speaker 1: are in fact that two genies, one inhabits a magical

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Speaker 1: lamp and another magical ring, and they grant Aladdin infinite

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Speaker 1: wishes rather than just three. And also in the original

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Speaker 1: there's no desire on the part of either of the

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Speaker 1: genies to be free. That's supposedly an American value that

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Speaker 1: was projected onto this character when Disney took over. But

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Speaker 1: Disney's main villain is Jaffar. But in the original text

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Speaker 1: there are three villains. The first as an evil magician

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Speaker 1: from Africa who poses as a Laddin's long lost uncle

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Speaker 1: in order to trick him into retrieving the lamp. The

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Speaker 1: second enemy is the magician's more evil brother, a more

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Speaker 1: evil brother, and the third villain is the visor's son

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Speaker 1: who is the rival to Aladdin's affections for the princess.

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Speaker 1: So Ashman submitted his treatment to Disney in January of

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Speaker 1: nineteen eight, but they ultimately passed, and Ashman thought that

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Speaker 1: he could produce a Laddin on his own. But big mistake,

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Speaker 1: because once you signed with Disney, they own you. Um.

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Speaker 1: Per his contract, Disney retained the rights to the treatment

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Speaker 1: songs that he had submitted. Um. This is super common

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Speaker 1: with them. There's a when I was researching this, I

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Speaker 1: came across this guy named Bill Plimpton, who's this Indian

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Speaker 1: animator who's very famous for one short that he did

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Speaker 1: called I Think Your Face. And he was originally contracted

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Speaker 1: to do our approach to do Genie because a lot

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Speaker 1: of his animation was dealt with like this morphing kind

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Speaker 1: of animation. Uh. And when he took a look at

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Speaker 1: what they wanted him to sign, where they basically own

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Speaker 1: everything that you do the second you start into perpetuity

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Speaker 1: the second you sign with them, he said no anyway. Uh. Meanwhile,

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Speaker 1: Disney had acquired the remake rights to Alexander Korda's nineteen

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Speaker 1: forty fantasy film The Thief of Baghdad, and commissioned screenwriter

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Speaker 1: Linda Wolverton, who also wrote the screenplay to Beauty and

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Speaker 1: the Beast, to develop an Aladdin script using elements of

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Speaker 1: that film. Uh And at this point in development they

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Speaker 1: would not have been a musical, which again was the

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Speaker 1: same route that they were going to take with Beauty

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Speaker 1: and the Beast, which is for both of those movies

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Speaker 1: almost impossible to imagine. Right. But when Little Mermaid writers

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Speaker 1: directors John Musker and Ron Clements came aboard the project,

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Speaker 1: they backtracked to Ashman's treatment and combined to the approaches

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Speaker 1: reinstating the songs that he had written. And these directors

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Speaker 1: had the choice of several projects other than what would

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Speaker 1: become a Laddin. One was a project that was then

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Speaker 1: called King of the Jungle, which became The Lion King,

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Speaker 1: and another was an adaptation of Swan Lake, which was

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Speaker 1: never made but would have been really interesting and probably

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Speaker 1: like Fantasia Vibes. I imagine, why was the working title

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Speaker 1: for Lion King not Lion Hamlet, King of the Jungle?

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Speaker 1: Come on, you already had you already had Jungle Book

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Speaker 1: according to James B. Stewart's monumental Tomb Disney war Or,

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Speaker 1: Disney CEO Michael Eisner quote didn't feel confident about the

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Speaker 1: mass appeal of a story set in the Middle East,

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Speaker 1: so Katzenberg dropped Clemens and Musker from Aladdin and sent

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Speaker 1: them to work onto Beauty and the Beast. This is

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Speaker 1: the first of many questionable takes on Middle Eastern culture

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Speaker 1: that will encounter in this episode. The problem was, as

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Speaker 1: Disney and t m I fans will remember from our

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Speaker 1: Beauty and the Beast episode, that Howard Ashman was dying.

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Speaker 1: He had contracted HIV aids during the production of Little

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Speaker 1: Mermaid in and while he was able to complete his

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Speaker 1: work on Beauty and the Beast and see an early

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Speaker 1: private screening of the film, he died at just forty

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Speaker 1: years old on March fourteenth, eight months before Beauty and

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Speaker 1: the Beast came out and conquered the world. Alan Mankin

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Speaker 1: in a just a mortifying visual Alan Mankin composed the

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Speaker 1: song Prince Ali sitting at Howard Ashman's hospital bed, which

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Speaker 1: is a rough thing to visualize. Wow, that is now

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Speaker 1: the second extremely depressing thing about this movie that I'll

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Speaker 1: never be able to get out of my mind? Did

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Speaker 1: you watch the documentary? Yeah, the one you sent no

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Speaker 1: Howard Ashman, the no oh god, No, what's what's it

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Speaker 1: called again? Just called Howard oh Man. I remember when

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Speaker 1: we Debauting the Beast. I think I saw clips from

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Speaker 1: it that I didn't I couldn't bring myself to It's. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's very sad, but you know what for reframing it

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Speaker 1: to the positive, he gave it untold amount of people

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Speaker 1: a lot of joy. Um, So focus on focus on that,

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Speaker 1: focus on that, make it through, Make it through. Uh

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Speaker 1: lyrist is Tim Rice, who did Lion King with Elton John,

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Speaker 1: was brought onto a Laddin to finish the songs for

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Speaker 1: the film. Supposedly Tim Rice was in the Disney orbit

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Speaker 1: because he was just hanging around the back lot trying

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Speaker 1: to get Evita made with Madonna. I read that somewhere

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Speaker 1: and I don't I don't remember if I was able

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Speaker 1: to verify it, but he was like that was his

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Speaker 1: passion project. So he was just hanging around the Disney

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Speaker 1: back lot all the time, chewing people's ears off about

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Speaker 1: Evita and specifically Madonna. And I'm pretty sure it was

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Speaker 1: Katzenberg who was like, we are not making a movie

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Speaker 1: with Madonna starring as Evita Peron and uh, after Catsenberg

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Speaker 1: was at it got made, and presumably after Lion King

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Speaker 1: gave Tim Rice some juice. But anyway, the first song

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Speaker 1: that Tim Rice and Alan Mankin wrote for the film

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00:18:23,560 --> 00:18:27,240
Speaker 1: was a Whole New World. How about that? I sent

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Speaker 1: the Magic Carpet Ride piece to Tim using the working

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Speaker 1: title the World at My Feet, Mancoln told the Recording

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Speaker 1: Academy in it's a bit on the nose for a

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Speaker 1: song about carpet wor all at my feet, it is, yes, uh,

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Speaker 1: and he very wisely changed it to a Whole New World. Um,

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Speaker 1: that that song came off so well is just amazing.

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Speaker 1: Because Brad Kine and LEAs Slongo, who will get to

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Speaker 1: later the singing voices of Aladin Jasmine met for the

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Speaker 1: first time when they were called in to do that

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Speaker 1: the demo for that. Wow. Yeah. Can I have talked

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Speaker 1: about how weird this was? He said. We were standing

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Speaker 1: there singing to each other, and it was a strange

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Speaker 1: situation because when you just meet someone you know nothing

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Speaker 1: about them, and yet the chemistry is undeniable. They're pros.

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Speaker 1: Tim Rice apparently called them back at one point to

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Speaker 1: re record a single line. The original was now from

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Speaker 1: way up here, it's crystal clear that now I'm in

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Speaker 1: a whole new world with you. And he didn't like

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00:19:23,560 --> 00:19:25,840
Speaker 1: the double now in there, so it changed too. But

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Speaker 1: when I'm way up here it's crystal clear, and you

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Speaker 1: know what he was right to do. I always thought

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Speaker 1: that bit where a Laddin goes, don't you dare close

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Speaker 1: your eyes was a little creepy because it's a little

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Speaker 1: Ted Bundy ish. I mean, they can all be recast

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Speaker 1: if you just do the slow plus reverb. It's just yeah,

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Speaker 1: look at me with with the low piano note, look

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Speaker 1: at me in the eyes. I really want to hear

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Speaker 1: you do more your your theater kids singing of this.

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Speaker 1: It's very good. Please give us a little it's really

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Speaker 1: just shining, shivering splend there. I'll give us that shining,

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00:20:02,600 --> 00:20:07,600
Speaker 1: shimmering splan. It kind of has a little hint of

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Speaker 1: like pop punk mid two thousand's. That's super bright. It's

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Speaker 1: that super bright nasal placement for like the theater kid diction, spiders, spiders,

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Speaker 1: hundred thousand things to see. I used to think I

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Speaker 1: could do that kind of thing pretty well, but I

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Speaker 1: can't hold a candle to yours assle, don't know the

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Speaker 1: words of that song well enough, just there's so it's

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Speaker 1: really tell me, princess, now, when did you last let

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Speaker 1: your heart decide? That's a great line. That is just no,

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Speaker 1: it's not uh anyway. Musker and Clements brought a story

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Speaker 1: real to Katzenberg um which is basically like the animation

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Speaker 1: equivalent of a demo, and Katzenberg disliked it. He uh.

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Speaker 1: In the special features of the film's DVD release, the

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00:21:07,600 --> 00:21:10,240
Speaker 1: animators related or Muskar and Clement's talk about it. He

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Speaker 1: told the animation team to rewrite the entire story without

364
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Speaker 1: moving the film's release date, which is an incident that

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00:21:17,240 --> 00:21:23,119
Speaker 1: the animators dubbed Black Friday, and in a telling uh example,

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Speaker 1: that is not the only Black Friday connected to Jeffrey Katzenberg.

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Speaker 1: There is an entirely different one related to the production

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Speaker 1: of Toy Story where I think he fired the whole

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Speaker 1: team or he did like the exact he did. It

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00:21:36,240 --> 00:21:38,120
Speaker 1: was like the exact same thing. It was just like

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Speaker 1: Jeffrey Katzenberg wanted the film to have more of a

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Speaker 1: cynical adult tone to it and wanted would he to

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Speaker 1: be like basically more of a jerk, and mandated that

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Speaker 1: they go back and create a new reel for it,

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Speaker 1: in which would he deliberately throws Buzz out of the window. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and I guess they showed all of this too. The

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00:22:00,320 --> 00:22:05,320
Speaker 1: studio executives, Roy Disney and other Disney heads were very

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00:22:05,359 --> 00:22:08,000
Speaker 1: angry about it. John Lasseter was very upset about it,

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00:22:08,200 --> 00:22:13,600
Speaker 1: and Disney nearly shut down Toy Story entirely. So Jeffrey

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00:22:13,640 --> 00:22:18,480
Speaker 1: Katzenberg in Black Friday too. Toy Story, Well, the Aladdin

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Speaker 1: team were really worried that Disney was going to shut

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Speaker 1: down Aladdin too, because, according to producer Amy Pell, no

383
00:22:24,960 --> 00:22:28,000
Speaker 1: one really cared for Aladdin in this early stage. It

384
00:22:28,080 --> 00:22:31,959
Speaker 1: was really not well received. Uh. Mercifully, they did not

385
00:22:32,000 --> 00:22:34,760
Speaker 1: pull the plug, but instead it just gave Katzenberg gave

386
00:22:34,800 --> 00:22:38,520
Speaker 1: perfect opportunity to go full on. Katzenberg and the team

387
00:22:38,560 --> 00:22:43,280
Speaker 1: did a page one rewrite in eight days. That is bananas.

388
00:22:43,680 --> 00:22:45,960
Speaker 1: He also demanded cutting all but three of the songs

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Speaker 1: that Ashman had written, which were later restored when Aladdin

390
00:22:49,200 --> 00:22:52,399
Speaker 1: was moved to Broadway as a musical Mancoln told CNN

391
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Speaker 1: two that part of the reason it was shelved at

392
00:22:54,880 --> 00:22:58,359
Speaker 1: this stage was it was very irreverent, even more irreverent

393
00:22:58,400 --> 00:23:00,880
Speaker 1: than it became, And there was a lot of concern

394
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Speaker 1: about how it would affect arab sensibilities, which how racist

395
00:23:06,400 --> 00:23:09,760
Speaker 1: must it have been? Yeah, I challenged that because, as

396
00:23:09,760 --> 00:23:12,439
Speaker 1: we'll touch on later, one line that deep make it

397
00:23:12,480 --> 00:23:14,520
Speaker 1: to the theatrical release, and it was in fact in

398
00:23:14,520 --> 00:23:17,720
Speaker 1: the opener Arabian Nights was where they cut off your

399
00:23:17,760 --> 00:23:21,520
Speaker 1: ear if they don't like your face. It's barbaric. But hey,

400
00:23:21,560 --> 00:23:25,480
Speaker 1: it's home, So no, I don't believe they were worried

401
00:23:25,480 --> 00:23:28,520
Speaker 1: about offending Middle Eastern people. Katzenberg told the l a

402
00:23:28,600 --> 00:23:30,879
Speaker 1: times around the time of the movie was made that

403
00:23:30,960 --> 00:23:33,879
Speaker 1: Aladdin was the least interesting person in the movie at

404
00:23:33,920 --> 00:23:36,440
Speaker 1: this phase of production. Whenever he was in a scene

405
00:23:36,440 --> 00:23:40,640
Speaker 1: with Jasmine, she so overwhelmed him with her personality and intelligence.

406
00:23:41,000 --> 00:23:43,399
Speaker 1: It was like he wasn't even in the scene. He

407
00:23:43,480 --> 00:23:47,000
Speaker 1: was transparent. You didn't care about him. Now, how do

408
00:23:47,040 --> 00:23:49,720
Speaker 1: you have a movie called Aladdin where Aladdin isn't worth

409
00:23:49,760 --> 00:23:54,120
Speaker 1: caring about? I would argue that he's still overshadowed dramatically

410
00:23:54,160 --> 00:23:56,679
Speaker 1: in the film. I mean, it's all about the genie.

411
00:23:56,960 --> 00:24:01,359
Speaker 1: It's Gene and then Jasmine. I would say, Iyago, maybe

412
00:24:01,400 --> 00:24:06,480
Speaker 1: Jaffar Aladdin is the least interesting person in that film. Um.

413
00:24:06,560 --> 00:24:09,680
Speaker 1: And they also uh in a in a quote preserved

414
00:24:09,720 --> 00:24:13,840
Speaker 1: for the Ages, Katzenberg called Aladdin's mom a zero and

415
00:24:13,960 --> 00:24:16,760
Speaker 1: demanded that she'd be removed from the script. I mean,

416
00:24:16,840 --> 00:24:20,159
Speaker 1: this sounds like a cigar chopping executive bit, but he

417
00:24:20,280 --> 00:24:26,359
Speaker 1: literally said eighty six the mother the moms of zero. Oh,

418
00:24:26,400 --> 00:24:29,760
Speaker 1: he's such a caricature of an all studio exactly. Really

419
00:24:29,800 --> 00:24:34,040
Speaker 1: makes our job easy. Uh. This was said earlier a

420
00:24:34,119 --> 00:24:36,520
Speaker 1: big change the story because a major part of the

421
00:24:36,560 --> 00:24:38,960
Speaker 1: plot had been doing right by his mother and making

422
00:24:38,960 --> 00:24:43,080
Speaker 1: good choices. But predictably, such a message was deemed unimportant

423
00:24:43,080 --> 00:24:47,879
Speaker 1: by Katzenberg and scrapped. They also cut three of Aladdin's friends, Bab,

424
00:24:47,920 --> 00:24:51,919
Speaker 1: kak Omar, and Cassim, who were generally just loafers who

425
00:24:52,000 --> 00:24:55,439
Speaker 1: hung around and sang barbershop quintet songs with them. There

426
00:24:55,520 --> 00:24:57,640
Speaker 1: was also the Genie of the Ring, who was sort

427
00:24:57,640 --> 00:25:00,600
Speaker 1: of the beta genie who stayed with a Laddin after

428
00:25:00,640 --> 00:25:02,879
Speaker 1: he lost the alpha Genie, the Genie of the Lamp

429
00:25:02,920 --> 00:25:05,959
Speaker 1: to Jaffar, and the loss of these characters also at

430
00:25:06,000 --> 00:25:08,160
Speaker 1: the loss of their songs, and one of the many

431
00:25:08,240 --> 00:25:10,800
Speaker 1: songs that was cut from Aladdin at this point was

432
00:25:10,840 --> 00:25:13,159
Speaker 1: a song that he sang to his mother called Proud

433
00:25:13,200 --> 00:25:15,959
Speaker 1: of Your Boy, which you know obviously got acts when

434
00:25:16,000 --> 00:25:19,080
Speaker 1: they lost that character. It was, however, reinstated for the

435
00:25:19,080 --> 00:25:22,960
Speaker 1: Broadway musical version of Aladdin and the Friends also had

436
00:25:23,200 --> 00:25:26,760
Speaker 1: three songs that were cut, one that just gave their

437
00:25:26,840 --> 00:25:30,879
Speaker 1: names basically it's called Babcock Omar Aladdin Cassim, another one

438
00:25:30,920 --> 00:25:34,560
Speaker 1: called how Quick They Forget, and another one called High Adventure. Uh.

439
00:25:34,600 --> 00:25:36,880
Speaker 1: They also lost a song called count on Me, which

440
00:25:36,880 --> 00:25:40,280
Speaker 1: has been described as sort of a low key I

441
00:25:40,440 --> 00:25:43,400
Speaker 1: want song, which was dropped in favor of one Jump

442
00:25:43,440 --> 00:25:46,120
Speaker 1: Ahead and its reprise. Uh. And then there was also

443
00:25:46,240 --> 00:25:49,800
Speaker 1: a deeply unpopular song called call Me a Princess, which

444
00:25:49,840 --> 00:25:51,680
Speaker 1: was written for an early version of the script in

445
00:25:51,720 --> 00:25:59,359
Speaker 1: which Jasmine was depicted as spoiled basically justice for Babcock. Um.

446
00:25:59,440 --> 00:26:02,360
Speaker 1: So the screen writing due of Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio,

447
00:26:02,600 --> 00:26:05,040
Speaker 1: who had one credit to their name at this point,

448
00:26:05,720 --> 00:26:09,119
Speaker 1: Little Monsters. Have you ever seen that movie Little Monsters? No? Yeah,

449
00:26:09,200 --> 00:26:14,320
Speaker 1: Oh it's wild Um it is uh. Howie Mandel and

450
00:26:14,560 --> 00:26:20,280
Speaker 1: he literally plays uh, like under heavy prosthetics, like um

451
00:26:20,840 --> 00:26:24,600
Speaker 1: Fred Savage is the little kid in there. He plays

452
00:26:24,680 --> 00:26:27,600
Speaker 1: a it's it's like a whole like there are actually

453
00:26:27,640 --> 00:26:30,159
Speaker 1: monsters living under your bed. But Howie Mandel is like

454
00:26:30,160 --> 00:26:34,240
Speaker 1: a whimsical good one. I believe it was a flop

455
00:26:34,280 --> 00:26:36,200
Speaker 1: but like the makeup and it was all really good

456
00:26:36,240 --> 00:26:40,399
Speaker 1: if I remember correctly. Yeah, weird, completely forgotten film. But

457
00:26:40,760 --> 00:26:43,920
Speaker 1: I uh, oh boy, yeah, four and a half to

458
00:26:44,000 --> 00:26:50,520
Speaker 1: five million budget gross seven thousand. That'll end your career.

459
00:26:52,200 --> 00:26:57,880
Speaker 1: Not those guys came in to rework the story, uh,

460
00:26:57,920 --> 00:27:00,920
Speaker 1: and that meant jettison the original carrot designs as well.

461
00:27:01,560 --> 00:27:05,360
Speaker 1: Veteran Disney animator Glenn Keene originally conceived of Aladdin as

462
00:27:05,359 --> 00:27:08,840
Speaker 1: a Michael J. Fox kind of teen type, but Katzenberg

463
00:27:08,920 --> 00:27:14,680
Speaker 1: made him go watch Top Gun and incorporate Tom Cruise's two,

464
00:27:15,600 --> 00:27:19,439
Speaker 1: the Cruise two into that. That's Katzenberg speak, go and

465
00:27:19,480 --> 00:27:22,320
Speaker 1: get me some of that Cruise two for that for

466
00:27:22,400 --> 00:27:28,680
Speaker 1: that Arab picture we're doing. He spits on him, puts

467
00:27:28,680 --> 00:27:33,240
Speaker 1: a cigar out in his face. Animator Glenn Keane would say,

468
00:27:33,280 --> 00:27:36,879
Speaker 1: there's a confidence with all of Tom's attitudes and his poses,

469
00:27:37,160 --> 00:27:43,840
Speaker 1: and they transferred that cruise to. Other visual influences were

470
00:27:43,920 --> 00:27:48,840
Speaker 1: male Calvin Klein models and mc hammer's pants and dance moves.

471
00:27:49,359 --> 00:27:52,320
Speaker 1: They literally looked at mc hammer in his parachute pants

472
00:27:52,359 --> 00:27:55,600
Speaker 1: to get the movements to Aladdin's pants, right, which I

473
00:27:55,640 --> 00:27:58,879
Speaker 1: love so much. That is a stunning insight into the

474
00:27:58,920 --> 00:28:02,320
Speaker 1: psyche of one j. Frey Catzenberg. Wow. Uh. The original

475
00:28:02,440 --> 00:28:04,639
Speaker 1: version of Aladdin, as you mentioned, was a bit younger.

476
00:28:04,680 --> 00:28:06,439
Speaker 1: I think they had imagined him as like a fifteen

477
00:28:06,520 --> 00:28:10,359
Speaker 1: year old, and then post the Catzenberg makeover, the animators

478
00:28:10,400 --> 00:28:14,199
Speaker 1: bumped it up to eighteen. Uh. The initial concept for

479
00:28:14,200 --> 00:28:16,720
Speaker 1: Aladdin was to make him a more relatable hero and

480
00:28:16,840 --> 00:28:21,199
Speaker 1: not your stereotypical Disney cardboard prince character that really, if

481
00:28:21,200 --> 00:28:23,200
Speaker 1: you look back, I don't know, Eric from A Little

482
00:28:23,200 --> 00:28:25,119
Speaker 1: Mermaid was a little bit more dynamic, but for the

483
00:28:25,160 --> 00:28:28,280
Speaker 1: most part, all the Disney princes were pretty boring. And

484
00:28:28,320 --> 00:28:30,240
Speaker 1: it's similar what they wanted to do for Belle and

485
00:28:30,280 --> 00:28:32,600
Speaker 1: Beauty and the Beast. She was the only Disney princess

486
00:28:32,600 --> 00:28:35,919
Speaker 1: who wasn't of royal birth or blonde, I believe. So

487
00:28:36,119 --> 00:28:38,000
Speaker 1: for Aladdin, they wanted to pick him as you know,

488
00:28:38,040 --> 00:28:41,120
Speaker 1: the underdog. They wanted to make him small and scrappy,

489
00:28:41,160 --> 00:28:45,640
Speaker 1: but Jeffrey Catsenberg hated it, supposedly telling the animators, come on, guys,

490
00:28:45,680 --> 00:28:47,920
Speaker 1: you got Julia Roberts and Michael J. Fox. They don't

491
00:28:47,960 --> 00:28:51,040
Speaker 1: fit together. You need Tom Cruise and Julia Roberts they

492
00:28:51,080 --> 00:28:54,440
Speaker 1: fit together. You need more Tom Cruise, which I think

493
00:28:54,480 --> 00:28:57,080
Speaker 1: is an interesting comparison because Tom Cruise is very short,

494
00:28:57,120 --> 00:29:01,040
Speaker 1: as is Michael J. Fox. But is that the quiet

495
00:29:01,040 --> 00:29:02,680
Speaker 1: part loud that I say, the quiet part loud? I

496
00:29:02,760 --> 00:29:09,680
Speaker 1: might have might have? I was just about Oh, Jeffrey

497
00:29:09,720 --> 00:29:18,160
Speaker 1: Katzenberg reportedly five four that explains everything, making everything. Yeah,

498
00:29:18,320 --> 00:29:20,080
Speaker 1: let's go for the rest of his DreamWorks crew. How

499
00:29:20,160 --> 00:29:26,880
Speaker 1: tas Geffen is also David Geffen is also a small man.

500
00:29:27,840 --> 00:29:31,600
Speaker 1: When I say five seven, Wow, nailed it? Yeah, I

501
00:29:31,640 --> 00:29:36,800
Speaker 1: see you know that. I I met Jeffrey Catsenberg briefly

502
00:29:36,840 --> 00:29:40,160
Speaker 1: as a kid. Right part of your studio, part of

503
00:29:40,160 --> 00:29:43,040
Speaker 1: your your when you're bumming around the studios trying to

504
00:29:43,080 --> 00:29:49,920
Speaker 1: get your version of made Oh Boy, Sha Guivara the

505
00:29:50,000 --> 00:30:03,240
Speaker 1: musical Age eight, Michael J. Fox is Fidel, Okay, so

506
00:30:03,320 --> 00:30:06,080
Speaker 1: hear me out. It's Romeo and Juliet in the Bay

507
00:30:06,120 --> 00:30:13,320
Speaker 1: of Pigs. Conversational dead end there. Just let that one die. Um.

508
00:30:13,360 --> 00:30:16,560
Speaker 1: By October of they had a script in place that

509
00:30:16,640 --> 00:30:21,200
Speaker 1: Catzenberg was okay with. They pitched him and he supposedly said, fine,

510
00:30:21,240 --> 00:30:24,960
Speaker 1: we'll go with that. Just Barry James Cameron asked of him,

511
00:30:25,480 --> 00:30:30,080
Speaker 1: I will do that. Let's go again. Uh, Robin, you've

512
00:30:30,080 --> 00:30:32,720
Speaker 1: done four hours this, can we go again? Uh? And

513
00:30:32,760 --> 00:30:35,960
Speaker 1: they moved on to casting. But the redesign of A

514
00:30:36,000 --> 00:30:38,080
Speaker 1: lad had come so late into production that there are

515
00:30:38,160 --> 00:30:40,000
Speaker 1: some frames of the film, like in A Friend Like

516
00:30:40,080 --> 00:30:42,240
Speaker 1: Me where you can see like his like scrawny or

517
00:30:42,280 --> 00:30:46,320
Speaker 1: Michael J. Fox frame, which is funny and I found

518
00:30:46,360 --> 00:30:51,240
Speaker 1: this amusing. Alan Mancin told Collider in that he doesn't

519
00:30:51,280 --> 00:30:54,640
Speaker 1: think Genie sings the song A Friend Like Me to

520
00:30:54,800 --> 00:30:58,800
Speaker 1: everyone who opens the lamp. It's not his standard welcoming song.

521
00:30:59,040 --> 00:31:03,240
Speaker 1: He just did that for Latin good. I approve of that.

522
00:31:06,240 --> 00:31:08,720
Speaker 1: As you meditate on that, we'll be right back with

523
00:31:08,760 --> 00:31:26,600
Speaker 1: more too much information after these messages cast grab bag

524
00:31:26,680 --> 00:31:28,440
Speaker 1: before we get to the big one. And you know

525
00:31:28,440 --> 00:31:35,440
Speaker 1: who the big one is, Scott winer Wingert Whanger you

526
00:31:35,480 --> 00:31:38,520
Speaker 1: would go on to play Steve or was playing Steve?

527
00:31:38,680 --> 00:31:40,280
Speaker 1: I don't know I don't care about this guy. God

528
00:31:40,320 --> 00:31:43,200
Speaker 1: bless him, but I don't give you about him. Played

529
00:31:43,240 --> 00:31:45,360
Speaker 1: Steve D. G. Tayner's boyfriend on Full House. Was the

530
00:31:45,440 --> 00:31:48,000
Speaker 1: voice of Aladdin. Muscar and Clements had seen him in

531
00:31:48,200 --> 00:31:52,200
Speaker 1: The Family Man, a CBS sitcom that ran for one season,

532
00:31:53,840 --> 00:31:57,239
Speaker 1: and he auditioned for it, and they didn't tell him

533
00:31:57,280 --> 00:31:59,440
Speaker 1: about it until six months later. I think they made

534
00:31:59,480 --> 00:32:02,200
Speaker 1: him do an other test. He had descended an actual

535
00:32:02,240 --> 00:32:04,360
Speaker 1: tape of it with his mom doing the other lines

536
00:32:04,400 --> 00:32:07,840
Speaker 1: for him, which is really funny. He seems like a

537
00:32:07,880 --> 00:32:13,920
Speaker 1: good dude. No quarrel. Oh, there's a cute nod. There

538
00:32:13,960 --> 00:32:17,040
Speaker 1: was role in Aladdin. In an episode of Full House,

539
00:32:17,080 --> 00:32:20,240
Speaker 1: when the Tanners go to Disney World, DJ briefly thinks

540
00:32:20,280 --> 00:32:23,840
Speaker 1: she sees Steve in an Aladdin the costume, and then

541
00:32:23,880 --> 00:32:26,840
Speaker 1: the actor turns around and it's a completely different person.

542
00:32:27,080 --> 00:32:29,200
Speaker 1: But they did shoot an image of him in an

543
00:32:29,240 --> 00:32:32,239
Speaker 1: Aladdin costume, which is cute. Uh. He was a very

544
00:32:32,360 --> 00:32:35,480
Speaker 1: enthusiastic voiceover artist. He later said, I really got into

545
00:32:35,480 --> 00:32:37,600
Speaker 1: it while I was recording. I have to take off

546
00:32:37,640 --> 00:32:42,720
Speaker 1: my watch in my shirt, I'd get really wild. I'm

547
00:32:42,880 --> 00:32:47,080
Speaker 1: sure I understand the watch. I don't. Aladdin is not

548
00:32:47,080 --> 00:32:51,360
Speaker 1: constrained by time North space. Brad Kane provided the character's

549
00:32:51,400 --> 00:32:56,920
Speaker 1: singing voice. Winer winger Scott Scott told Forbes in twenty

550
00:32:57,000 --> 00:32:59,560
Speaker 1: nineteen that at the original audition, when I thought it

551
00:32:59,600 --> 00:33:02,440
Speaker 1: was just some cartoon, they said that went great. Oh,

552
00:33:02,520 --> 00:33:04,920
Speaker 1: by the way, it's a musical. Can you sing? And

553
00:33:04,960 --> 00:33:07,520
Speaker 1: I had learned from being a veteran child actor to

554
00:33:07,640 --> 00:33:13,760
Speaker 1: just lie, to just say sure. I didn't say, oh,

555
00:33:13,880 --> 00:33:15,840
Speaker 1: can I sing, I'm the greatest singer of all time.

556
00:33:16,080 --> 00:33:18,440
Speaker 1: I just said I've never been on Broadway or anything,

557
00:33:18,520 --> 00:33:21,600
Speaker 1: but of course I can sing. They said great, and

558
00:33:21,600 --> 00:33:23,400
Speaker 1: then they gave me the sheet music and a tape

559
00:33:23,440 --> 00:33:25,760
Speaker 1: to listen to it with Alan Mankin's demo track, which

560
00:33:25,800 --> 00:33:27,800
Speaker 1: is on the internet now, and it was a gorgeous

561
00:33:27,800 --> 00:33:30,360
Speaker 1: song called Proud of Your Boy. I worked really hard.

562
00:33:30,560 --> 00:33:32,480
Speaker 1: I practiced with a singing coach, and I thought I

563
00:33:32,480 --> 00:33:34,240
Speaker 1: could really go in there and nail it. And it

564
00:33:34,320 --> 00:33:37,680
Speaker 1: was not a great experience for anybody. It was laughably bad,

565
00:33:38,440 --> 00:33:40,320
Speaker 1: and funnily enough, He and Brad Caine are both TV

566
00:33:40,400 --> 00:33:45,520
Speaker 1: writers now. Yeah, cute for them. Linda Larkin the voice

567
00:33:45,520 --> 00:33:50,320
Speaker 1: of Jasmine and nothing else that's really shocking to me

568
00:33:50,360 --> 00:33:53,760
Speaker 1: because she's such a distinctive, like Jennifer Tilly style voice.

569
00:33:53,760 --> 00:33:55,280
Speaker 1: I'm surprised she didn't go on to do a lot

570
00:33:55,320 --> 00:33:59,400
Speaker 1: of voice acting. Yeah. She also had been informed that

571
00:33:59,440 --> 00:34:02,800
Speaker 1: she got the role like months later in her case, uh,

572
00:34:03,160 --> 00:34:06,840
Speaker 1: nine months I read uh. And she had to lower

573
00:34:06,880 --> 00:34:08,600
Speaker 1: her voice for the role her As you mentioned, she

574
00:34:08,640 --> 00:34:10,960
Speaker 1: has a higher registered voice, and they thought it was

575
00:34:11,000 --> 00:34:13,120
Speaker 1: not a match, so she had to kind of artificially

576
00:34:14,160 --> 00:34:17,120
Speaker 1: speak down in a slowly lower register for the role.

577
00:34:17,680 --> 00:34:20,160
Speaker 1: I heard that was a Kazomberg edict, so I choose

578
00:34:20,239 --> 00:34:23,640
Speaker 1: to hate it. Um I. She gave some interview where

579
00:34:23,680 --> 00:34:26,200
Speaker 1: she said that she would be out with her family,

580
00:34:26,320 --> 00:34:28,920
Speaker 1: like a diner, her breakfast or something, and all these

581
00:34:29,000 --> 00:34:31,160
Speaker 1: kids would kind of whenever she talked, all these kids

582
00:34:31,239 --> 00:34:33,320
Speaker 1: heads would kind of turn and look towards her because

583
00:34:33,320 --> 00:34:36,600
Speaker 1: they very distinctive voice, and they would kind of recognize

584
00:34:36,600 --> 00:34:39,040
Speaker 1: that they knew it from somewhere, but I couldn't quite

585
00:34:39,080 --> 00:34:41,839
Speaker 1: place it. I mean, God, bless this woman. She has

586
00:34:41,880 --> 00:34:46,440
Speaker 1: been dining out on Jasmine for thirty years. She has

587
00:34:46,560 --> 00:34:53,279
Speaker 1: voiced this character in every single possible medium, um, which

588
00:34:53,320 --> 00:34:57,719
Speaker 1: good for her. More importantly, Jasmine singing voice was Leah Salanga,

589
00:34:57,760 --> 00:35:02,920
Speaker 1: who is a hugely important singer and actress. She's Filipino.

590
00:35:03,040 --> 00:35:05,560
Speaker 1: She originated the lead role of Kim and Miss Saigon.

591
00:35:06,400 --> 00:35:08,920
Speaker 1: It was the first Asian American actress to win a

592
00:35:09,000 --> 00:35:12,320
Speaker 1: Tony Award. She was the first actress of Asian descent

593
00:35:12,400 --> 00:35:17,920
Speaker 1: to play the roles of Eponine and Funkin In on Broadway,

594
00:35:18,080 --> 00:35:21,239
Speaker 1: and the first Filipino artist to sign with an international

595
00:35:21,280 --> 00:35:26,080
Speaker 1: record label. She sold nineteen million records worldwide. She's singing

596
00:35:26,160 --> 00:35:31,439
Speaker 1: voice of Milan. So she has a sword. Um, they

597
00:35:31,480 --> 00:35:33,839
Speaker 1: give them swords right like when they're in the when

598
00:35:33,840 --> 00:35:36,040
Speaker 1: they sing. I choose to believe them, don't. Well, they

599
00:35:36,040 --> 00:35:39,360
Speaker 1: gave the guy who did Jaffar a parrot to like

600
00:35:39,840 --> 00:35:43,000
Speaker 1: both with them, so at least they can do is

601
00:35:43,000 --> 00:35:46,400
Speaker 1: give her a sword. Jasmine originally did not have a

602
00:35:46,400 --> 00:35:49,920
Speaker 1: song in the film, since her I'm a Spoiled Brat

603
00:35:49,960 --> 00:35:53,640
Speaker 1: song was cut when they changed the character, thankfully, and

604
00:35:53,680 --> 00:35:55,480
Speaker 1: a whole new world was added when Tim Rice came

605
00:35:55,480 --> 00:35:58,360
Speaker 1: out of the project. So when Larkin was cast, she

606
00:35:58,480 --> 00:36:01,239
Speaker 1: told Forbes the fact Jasmine didn't have a song at

607
00:36:01,239 --> 00:36:03,680
Speaker 1: that time really opened up the opportunity for me. To

608
00:36:03,760 --> 00:36:06,239
Speaker 1: voice this character. And when they added the song and

609
00:36:06,280 --> 00:36:09,120
Speaker 1: told me about it, my heart fell. I thought, well,

610
00:36:09,160 --> 00:36:11,360
Speaker 1: that's the end of me doing Jasmine. Now they're going

611
00:36:11,400 --> 00:36:13,120
Speaker 1: to know I don't sing, and there's never been an

612
00:36:13,160 --> 00:36:15,480
Speaker 1: actress who didn't sing in a musical version of a

613
00:36:15,480 --> 00:36:19,920
Speaker 1: Disney animated film. So it's over. Uh. And Disney told her,

614
00:36:20,000 --> 00:36:21,839
Speaker 1: you know what, We're going to find a singer. Don't

615
00:36:21,840 --> 00:36:25,640
Speaker 1: worry about it. We are committed to your speaking voice. Yeah.

616
00:36:25,680 --> 00:36:27,959
Speaker 1: I didn't realize that Aladdin was such a turning point

617
00:36:27,960 --> 00:36:31,520
Speaker 1: for Disney movies using non singers. Uh. Apparently, when the

618
00:36:31,520 --> 00:36:35,000
Speaker 1: producers built the movie around Robin Williams, they really wanted

619
00:36:35,040 --> 00:36:37,320
Speaker 1: to get vocal performers who could hold their own against

620
00:36:37,400 --> 00:36:40,560
Speaker 1: Robin as an actor, so the singing component was deemed

621
00:36:40,600 --> 00:36:43,080
Speaker 1: not quite as crucial. And we'll get more into this

622
00:36:43,120 --> 00:36:45,279
Speaker 1: in a moment, but it's hard to recall a time

623
00:36:45,320 --> 00:36:49,240
Speaker 1: when doing voiceover work for cartoons, even of like Disney caliber,

624
00:36:49,360 --> 00:36:53,200
Speaker 1: was seen as like beneath most actors unless they were

625
00:36:53,280 --> 00:36:56,000
Speaker 1: kind of getting towards the end of their career. Voiceover work,

626
00:36:56,280 --> 00:36:58,120
Speaker 1: for the most part, up to this point was left

627
00:36:58,120 --> 00:37:01,600
Speaker 1: to professional voiceover actors. Uh. And Disney had a whole

628
00:37:01,680 --> 00:37:04,960
Speaker 1: stable of regulars that used throughout the decades, and like

629
00:37:05,040 --> 00:37:07,719
Speaker 1: just one of many examples, this guy did the voice

630
00:37:07,719 --> 00:37:09,880
Speaker 1: of Winnie the Pooh, also did the voice of the

631
00:37:09,960 --> 00:37:12,200
Speaker 1: cheshire Cat and the snake from the Jungle Book, and

632
00:37:12,239 --> 00:37:14,319
Speaker 1: the Stork and Dumbbo was all voiced by a guy

633
00:37:14,400 --> 00:37:17,719
Speaker 1: named Sterling Holloway. But yeah, Robert Williams went a long

634
00:37:17,760 --> 00:37:20,080
Speaker 1: way in changing that when he did a Laddin, which

635
00:37:20,120 --> 00:37:24,080
Speaker 1: added sort of legitimacy towards animated voice over work, and

636
00:37:24,120 --> 00:37:28,000
Speaker 1: he did it in Ferngali first. That's true, that is true.

637
00:37:28,760 --> 00:37:32,279
Speaker 1: Jonathan Freeman as Jaffar, he knew Ashman and Mankin from

638
00:37:32,320 --> 00:37:35,120
Speaker 1: the off Broadway days. He had unsuccessfully auditioned for a

639
00:37:35,120 --> 00:37:36,920
Speaker 1: Little Shop of Horrors, but they liked him enough that

640
00:37:36,960 --> 00:37:39,319
Speaker 1: they kept him in mind and kept mentioning him when

641
00:37:39,320 --> 00:37:41,839
Speaker 1: they moved west and started working for Disney. He said

642
00:37:41,840 --> 00:37:43,640
Speaker 1: in two thousand eleven that I took part in the

643
00:37:43,640 --> 00:37:48,400
Speaker 1: preliminary voice auditions for Jaffar. I read the script, I

644
00:37:48,480 --> 00:37:51,240
Speaker 1: sang the song, but it wasn't until my second audition

645
00:37:51,280 --> 00:37:54,880
Speaker 1: that I actually got to see Andreas Dias concept drawings

646
00:37:54,880 --> 00:37:58,480
Speaker 1: for this character. And once I saw those heavy lidded eyes,

647
00:37:58,719 --> 00:38:01,480
Speaker 1: that long, narrow face. I knew Jaffar was going to

648
00:38:01,480 --> 00:38:05,120
Speaker 1: be something really special, a classic Disney villain, so I

649
00:38:05,120 --> 00:38:08,319
Speaker 1: threw myself into that second audition and eventually won that part.

650
00:38:09,440 --> 00:38:12,600
Speaker 1: Jafar took design cues from another classic Disney villain, the

651
00:38:12,800 --> 00:38:16,799
Speaker 1: extremely hard to spell Maleficent Hard. Oh yeah, I never

652
00:38:17,040 --> 00:38:21,440
Speaker 1: they do look very much alike. That's so funny. Unfortunately,

653
00:38:21,520 --> 00:38:24,320
Speaker 1: since Jonathan was the first voice actor cast, he worked

654
00:38:24,520 --> 00:38:28,640
Speaker 1: largely alone, mostly um flying into record dialogue as it

655
00:38:28,680 --> 00:38:31,720
Speaker 1: was written and rewritten. He spent something almost two years

656
00:38:31,880 --> 00:38:36,640
Speaker 1: recording Jafar's dialogue. Yeah, I'd read that they initially considered

657
00:38:36,680 --> 00:38:39,279
Speaker 1: Patrick Stewart for the voice of Jaffar, but I guess

658
00:38:39,280 --> 00:38:42,960
Speaker 1: his schedule is too crazy with Star Trek Next Generation. Uh.

659
00:38:43,000 --> 00:38:44,680
Speaker 1: He was really the one who got away as far

660
00:38:44,719 --> 00:38:48,120
Speaker 1: as like the Disney Renaissance is concerned. Apparently Disney considered

661
00:38:48,200 --> 00:38:50,640
Speaker 1: him for Cogsworth and Beauty and the Beast and Scar

662
00:38:50,800 --> 00:38:54,080
Speaker 1: and the Lion King, but just didn't work out schedule wise.

663
00:38:54,800 --> 00:38:57,680
Speaker 1: And it's a great story about Jonathan Freeman, the guy

664
00:38:57,719 --> 00:39:00,680
Speaker 1: who ultimately did get the voice of Jafar. Apparently the

665
00:39:00,680 --> 00:39:03,040
Speaker 1: producers had a parrot in the studio that he could

666
00:39:03,040 --> 00:39:06,040
Speaker 1: look at as he recorded, and this was probably early

667
00:39:06,080 --> 00:39:08,880
Speaker 1: in the production when I think Jaffar was also going

668
00:39:08,920 --> 00:39:10,960
Speaker 1: to do the voice of the parrot on his shoulder too,

669
00:39:11,000 --> 00:39:13,719
Speaker 1: before they got Gilbert Godfrey as Iago, So they had

670
00:39:13,719 --> 00:39:16,280
Speaker 1: this parrot in there and he had to tell producers

671
00:39:16,360 --> 00:39:21,040
Speaker 1: that he was deathly afraid of birds. And for an

672
00:39:21,080 --> 00:39:24,400
Speaker 1: anniversary special feature att I think probably for the DVD release,

673
00:39:24,760 --> 00:39:27,399
Speaker 1: this guy Jonathan Freeman actually goes into an exotic bird

674
00:39:27,480 --> 00:39:31,279
Speaker 1: shop in Manhattan try to confront his fear as as

675
00:39:31,280 --> 00:39:35,360
Speaker 1: he tells stories of the production of Aladdin, which I appreciated.

676
00:39:35,800 --> 00:39:38,400
Speaker 1: But yeah, despite this minor trauma, Freeman apparently had a

677
00:39:38,400 --> 00:39:41,440
Speaker 1: great time voicing Jaffar and continued to do it for

678
00:39:41,560 --> 00:39:44,359
Speaker 1: many many years. As the Jasmine. He not only voiced

679
00:39:44,400 --> 00:39:47,400
Speaker 1: Jaffar in the direct to video Aladdin's sequel, which I

680
00:39:47,520 --> 00:39:51,000
Speaker 1: read was Disney's first direct to video sequel, which is

681
00:39:51,920 --> 00:39:54,640
Speaker 1: interesting to me, and made a boatload of money and

682
00:39:54,680 --> 00:39:59,680
Speaker 1: basically cemented that practice for them for the under Perpetuity,

683
00:40:01,160 --> 00:40:03,480
Speaker 1: also in the Latin TV series which I have no

684
00:40:03,600 --> 00:40:07,960
Speaker 1: memory of, neither do I actually, and then Patrick Stewart

685
00:40:08,000 --> 00:40:09,959
Speaker 1: would many years later go on to be the voice

686
00:40:10,000 --> 00:40:15,560
Speaker 1: of the poop emoji in the Emoji movie Better Like

687
00:40:15,719 --> 00:40:21,520
Speaker 1: Than Never, and Gilbert Godfried as Iago. According to the

688
00:40:21,600 --> 00:40:23,840
Speaker 1: DVD commentary, the parrot was originally supposed to have a

689
00:40:23,880 --> 00:40:27,160
Speaker 1: British accent and his name was Sindbad. But Musker and

690
00:40:27,160 --> 00:40:30,480
Speaker 1: Clements saw Gilbert Godfried in Beverly Hills Cop Too, and

691
00:40:30,520 --> 00:40:32,959
Speaker 1: they wanted him for the role Uh, and they wanted

692
00:40:33,000 --> 00:40:37,960
Speaker 1: a voice specifically that would contrast with Freeman during Jaffar. Originally,

693
00:40:38,000 --> 00:40:41,680
Speaker 1: there were concerns that Godfried would be to anachronistic in

694
00:40:41,719 --> 00:40:46,760
Speaker 1: the film, being a contemporary comic, but aftercasting Robin Williams

695
00:40:46,800 --> 00:40:49,959
Speaker 1: as Genie, they figured that they could keep someone as

696
00:40:50,040 --> 00:40:54,840
Speaker 1: broad Let's lease say about Gilbert Uh in the movie.

697
00:40:55,320 --> 00:40:58,040
Speaker 1: They invited Jeffreykatzenberg to a screening room to play him

698
00:40:58,040 --> 00:41:00,480
Speaker 1: Beverly Hills Cop To to try and sell him on

699
00:41:00,480 --> 00:41:03,040
Speaker 1: the idea of casting Godfried, and Musker told the ringer

700
00:41:03,080 --> 00:41:06,400
Speaker 1: that Katzenberg's initial reaction was, I don't know, isn't his

701
00:41:06,480 --> 00:41:11,080
Speaker 1: voice kind of grading, to which Musker says his initial

702
00:41:11,160 --> 00:41:14,120
Speaker 1: response was, well, was the pot calling the kettle black? Here?

703
00:41:17,239 --> 00:41:19,680
Speaker 1: Uh Clement says that Danny DeVito and Joe Pesci were

704
00:41:19,680 --> 00:41:24,080
Speaker 1: also considered for the part, and Gilbert Godfried echoed as

705
00:41:24,200 --> 00:41:27,960
Speaker 1: much to People Magazine in he said, the search was

706
00:41:28,040 --> 00:41:32,080
Speaker 1: on for short, unattractive Jews and Italians, so I went

707
00:41:32,120 --> 00:41:37,320
Speaker 1: in and auditioned for it. Oh God bless him. Freeman

708
00:41:37,360 --> 00:41:40,120
Speaker 1: told Forbes in nineteen I was very excited when they

709
00:41:40,120 --> 00:41:43,080
Speaker 1: brought Gilbert in. It made my job easier to be honest.

710
00:41:43,440 --> 00:41:45,880
Speaker 1: In the beginning, I was the voice of the parent too.

711
00:41:46,160 --> 00:41:47,719
Speaker 1: They had an idea that the parrot was going to

712
00:41:47,760 --> 00:41:49,759
Speaker 1: just be a parrot and mimic other people. When he

713
00:41:49,800 --> 00:41:52,120
Speaker 1: did that, they just take those other people to record

714
00:41:52,120 --> 00:41:54,520
Speaker 1: his lines and put their line in his mouth, and

715
00:41:54,600 --> 00:41:56,120
Speaker 1: the rest of the time he would just squawk and

716
00:41:56,120 --> 00:41:59,280
Speaker 1: scratch like a parrot. When they hired Gilbert, it allowed

717
00:41:59,360 --> 00:42:02,120
Speaker 1: him to be the cotic one, gave me permission to

718
00:42:02,160 --> 00:42:04,880
Speaker 1: smooth things out. I think it really helped my performance

719
00:42:04,880 --> 00:42:08,000
Speaker 1: not having to do both. And Iago actually also influenced

720
00:42:08,160 --> 00:42:10,880
Speaker 1: an aspect of the character design as well. Andreas Deja,

721
00:42:11,320 --> 00:42:14,719
Speaker 1: who is the animation supervisor, told Entertainment Tonight that with

722
00:42:14,800 --> 00:42:18,360
Speaker 1: the Jaffar's character design, they said we created almost a

723
00:42:18,400 --> 00:42:22,480
Speaker 1: little stage for Iago with the broad shoulder padge, so

724
00:42:22,520 --> 00:42:26,640
Speaker 1: that so that the parrot can pace back and forth. Uh.

725
00:42:26,680 --> 00:42:30,320
Speaker 1: Freeman said Robin and Gilbert both had one thing in common,

726
00:42:30,400 --> 00:42:33,200
Speaker 1: which is if there's more than three people in a room,

727
00:42:33,200 --> 00:42:36,160
Speaker 1: that constitutes an audience, and it gives them permission to

728
00:42:36,239 --> 00:42:40,440
Speaker 1: just go for it. Uh. Gilbert Godfried in Reddit A

729
00:42:40,560 --> 00:42:42,760
Speaker 1: M A and twenty sixteen said the makers of Aladdin

730
00:42:42,800 --> 00:42:45,520
Speaker 1: were very open to have me improvise. They gave me

731
00:42:45,520 --> 00:42:47,400
Speaker 1: a lot of freedom, but often they would have to

732
00:42:47,400 --> 00:42:50,400
Speaker 1: stop and go Gilbert, this is a family film. So

733
00:42:50,520 --> 00:42:53,799
Speaker 1: somewhere deep in the Disney vaults, next to Walt's frozen head,

734
00:42:53,880 --> 00:42:55,680
Speaker 1: never to see the light of day, is all of

735
00:42:55,719 --> 00:42:59,600
Speaker 1: the R rated material that Godfried and Williams improvised for

736
00:42:59,600 --> 00:43:02,920
Speaker 1: a ladd which I love. Animator will Finn even made

737
00:43:02,920 --> 00:43:05,440
Speaker 1: sure that the parts design looked like Godfrey gave him

738
00:43:05,480 --> 00:43:09,480
Speaker 1: the big thick eyebrows and big teeth, and Clemens told

739
00:43:09,480 --> 00:43:12,000
Speaker 1: the ringer, of course, parrots don't have teeth, and then

740
00:43:12,080 --> 00:43:14,400
Speaker 1: Muskar ads to get Gilbert, you needed to have the

741
00:43:14,440 --> 00:43:19,399
Speaker 1: smile and the toothiness. Yeah. Animator will Finn later said

742
00:43:19,400 --> 00:43:22,040
Speaker 1: that Iago was the only bird he'd ever drawn with teeth.

743
00:43:23,080 --> 00:43:26,000
Speaker 1: It's horrifying. They're not supposed to have teeth. Oh, and

744
00:43:26,160 --> 00:43:30,440
Speaker 1: the Emmy Award winning insanely prolific voice actor Frank Welker

745
00:43:30,600 --> 00:43:34,400
Speaker 1: as Abu, the monkey for Jasmine's Tiger Raja and the

746
00:43:34,480 --> 00:43:38,000
Speaker 1: voice of the Cave of Wonders. Welker is another one

747
00:43:38,040 --> 00:43:41,080
Speaker 1: of those utility voice actors who's been in everything. He's

748
00:43:41,080 --> 00:43:43,960
Speaker 1: the voice of Fred Jones and Scooby Doo since nineteen

749
00:43:44,080 --> 00:43:47,600
Speaker 1: sixty nine, has been playing Scooby Doo since two thousand two.

750
00:43:47,920 --> 00:43:50,719
Speaker 1: Is the voice of Megatron and other Transformers. He's a

751
00:43:50,760 --> 00:43:53,480
Speaker 1: voice of Curious George, the voice of Garfield on The

752
00:43:53,520 --> 00:43:57,680
Speaker 1: Garfield Show. According to his Wikipedia he holds over eight

753
00:43:57,760 --> 00:44:01,439
Speaker 1: hundred and sixty film, television and video game credits as

754
00:44:01,480 --> 00:44:04,600
Speaker 1: of two, making him one of the most prolific voice

755
00:44:04,600 --> 00:44:08,280
Speaker 1: actors of all time, with a total worldwide box office

756
00:44:08,320 --> 00:44:12,640
Speaker 1: grows of seventeen point four billions. That's thus making him

757
00:44:12,680 --> 00:44:16,000
Speaker 1: the third highest grossing actor of all time. That is bananas.

758
00:44:16,160 --> 00:44:19,040
Speaker 1: Frank Welker studied spider monkeys at the Zoo and tried

759
00:44:19,080 --> 00:44:20,800
Speaker 1: to find a way for Abu to have a voice

760
00:44:21,480 --> 00:44:24,680
Speaker 1: or to react, he said, in seeing what kind of

761
00:44:24,680 --> 00:44:27,319
Speaker 1: monkey he was, I knew he had to kind of

762
00:44:27,360 --> 00:44:29,480
Speaker 1: have a little voice. And at first there was no

763
00:44:29,560 --> 00:44:32,319
Speaker 1: dialogue whatsoever. He didn't speak at all, but they wanted

764
00:44:32,360 --> 00:44:34,759
Speaker 1: to give the impression that he had his own little language.

765
00:44:35,400 --> 00:44:38,200
Speaker 1: I find this very funny. Welker did the voice of

766
00:44:38,239 --> 00:44:41,799
Speaker 1: the monkey from Rangers of the Lost Arc and when

767
00:44:41,800 --> 00:44:45,440
Speaker 1: they when Clemens and Musker screened Aladdin for Steven Spielberg,

768
00:44:45,600 --> 00:44:50,240
Speaker 1: his advice to them was, whenever the movie gets to gooey,

769
00:44:50,360 --> 00:44:55,000
Speaker 1: cut to the monkey. It's a little free Steven Spielberg

770
00:44:55,040 --> 00:44:58,200
Speaker 1: directing advice there for you. And apparently while they had him,

771
00:44:58,239 --> 00:45:00,879
Speaker 1: they also apologized to him because they in the scene

772
00:45:00,880 --> 00:45:03,640
Speaker 1: where Aladdin's gets the lamp, they copied so much of

773
00:45:03,680 --> 00:45:05,640
Speaker 1: that from the scene and raised the Lost Arc where

774
00:45:05,640 --> 00:45:09,000
Speaker 1: Indie gets the stone Idol, and it really is like

775
00:45:09,880 --> 00:45:14,120
Speaker 1: almost frame for frame um and Steven Spielberg said, I

776
00:45:14,200 --> 00:45:15,719
Speaker 1: don't worry about it. I stole a lot of that

777
00:45:15,800 --> 00:45:19,600
Speaker 1: from old television serials. Uh. And there's I just one

778
00:45:19,680 --> 00:45:23,279
Speaker 1: last Steven Spielberg thing tangentially connected to this. Uh. This

779
00:45:23,360 --> 00:45:26,520
Speaker 1: is a tribeck of film festival. He said during the

780
00:45:26,600 --> 00:45:30,040
Speaker 1: making of Schindler's List because he had done Hook with

781
00:45:30,440 --> 00:45:32,960
Speaker 1: Robin Williams. He said, Robin knew what I was going through,

782
00:45:33,440 --> 00:45:35,799
Speaker 1: and so once a week Robin would call me on

783
00:45:35,920 --> 00:45:38,600
Speaker 1: schedule and do fifteen minutes of stand up for me

784
00:45:38,719 --> 00:45:41,920
Speaker 1: over the phone. I would laugh hysterically because I had

785
00:45:41,960 --> 00:45:44,319
Speaker 1: to release so much. And the way Robin is on

786
00:45:44,360 --> 00:45:47,400
Speaker 1: the telephone, he'd always hang up on the loudest, best

787
00:45:47,560 --> 00:45:50,879
Speaker 1: laugh you'd give him. He'd never say goodbye, just hang

788
00:45:50,960 --> 00:45:55,400
Speaker 1: up on the biggest laugh. Oh. And that leads us

789
00:45:55,400 --> 00:45:57,680
Speaker 1: into the most bittersweet part of this movie, which is

790
00:45:57,840 --> 00:46:02,640
Speaker 1: Robin william Hums Muscar and Clements created the role of

791
00:46:02,719 --> 00:46:06,560
Speaker 1: Genie with Williams in mind, but other alternatives floated for

792
00:46:06,600 --> 00:46:10,560
Speaker 1: the studio where John Candy, Steve Martin, Eddie Murphy, Martin Short,

793
00:46:10,640 --> 00:46:14,640
Speaker 1: John Goodman, and Albert Brooks Uh Clemens sold Entertainment Tonight.

794
00:46:14,960 --> 00:46:16,680
Speaker 1: Right from the start, we saw the Genie as a

795
00:46:16,800 --> 00:46:19,239
Speaker 1: very special character in this movie, and the concept of

796
00:46:19,280 --> 00:46:21,879
Speaker 1: him being able to change form constantly was right there

797
00:46:21,920 --> 00:46:24,960
Speaker 1: from the start. We wrote the script for Robin Williams

798
00:46:25,040 --> 00:46:28,360
Speaker 1: from the beginning. They told the supervising animator for Jennie,

799
00:46:28,480 --> 00:46:31,120
Speaker 1: Eric Goldberg to listen to Williams stand up albums and

800
00:46:31,200 --> 00:46:33,440
Speaker 1: animate a sequence based on one of his bits that

801
00:46:33,480 --> 00:46:36,520
Speaker 1: they could show to Disney and Williams to convince them.

802
00:46:36,680 --> 00:46:41,160
Speaker 1: Goldberg went with Williams riffing about schizophrenia, uh, and animated

803
00:46:41,239 --> 00:46:45,520
Speaker 1: Genie growing a second head rendered as Williams to argue

804
00:46:45,520 --> 00:46:48,160
Speaker 1: with himself, Oh yeah, tonight, let's talk about the serious

805
00:46:48,160 --> 00:46:50,719
Speaker 1: subject of schizophrenia. Now, what doesn't shut up? Let him

806
00:46:50,760 --> 00:46:53,880
Speaker 1: talk like that whole bit. Robin totally got what kind

807
00:46:53,920 --> 00:46:57,680
Speaker 1: of potential animation had in utilizing his talents. Goldberg told

808
00:46:57,719 --> 00:47:00,640
Speaker 1: the l a times, we could have just gotten someone

809
00:47:00,680 --> 00:47:04,200
Speaker 1: who's technically adept at impressions, but the warmth that Robin

810
00:47:04,280 --> 00:47:07,920
Speaker 1: brought was something we tried very hard to convey. Katzenberg

811
00:47:08,000 --> 00:47:10,840
Speaker 1: took this real to Williams and introduced him to Goldberg,

812
00:47:10,880 --> 00:47:14,800
Speaker 1: and Williams signed on for going his usual eight million

813
00:47:14,880 --> 00:47:19,279
Speaker 1: dollar payday and taking the minimum SAG scale pay, which

814
00:47:19,320 --> 00:47:22,080
Speaker 1: was seventy five grand. Later on, he said he did

815
00:47:22,080 --> 00:47:24,120
Speaker 1: it to be part of the animation tradition and do

816
00:47:24,239 --> 00:47:26,840
Speaker 1: something his kids would like. Um, but there was some

817
00:47:26,960 --> 00:47:30,480
Speaker 1: other contractual strings, which we will get to in a minute. Uh.

818
00:47:30,520 --> 00:47:34,279
Speaker 1: This Goldberg Guy, the animation supervisor for Jeannie, always said

819
00:47:34,280 --> 00:47:36,640
Speaker 1: how special it was that he was the one making

820
00:47:36,760 --> 00:47:39,160
Speaker 1: Robin Williams laugh with the animation that mocked up that

821
00:47:39,200 --> 00:47:41,480
Speaker 1: he put together. It was stand up routines. I thought

822
00:47:41,520 --> 00:47:44,160
Speaker 1: that was cute. Just a month later, Williams was in

823
00:47:44,600 --> 00:47:48,280
Speaker 1: a recording booth at George Lucas's Skywalker Ranch Recording Studios

824
00:47:48,280 --> 00:47:51,880
Speaker 1: in Marin County for the initial four hour recording session.

825
00:47:52,360 --> 00:47:56,480
Speaker 1: According to The l A Times, the first scene alone,

826
00:47:56,680 --> 00:48:00,640
Speaker 1: Williams tackled twenty five times in twenty five different ways,

827
00:48:00,680 --> 00:48:04,080
Speaker 1: stretching and bending premises to the point that scenes originally

828
00:48:04,080 --> 00:48:07,520
Speaker 1: meant to last thirty seconds, suddenly we're ten minutes long.

829
00:48:08,160 --> 00:48:14,200
Speaker 1: It's like doing this podcast. Uh. Time magazine wrote the

830
00:48:14,200 --> 00:48:17,720
Speaker 1: Williams spent fifteen months recording Genie in four hour chunks,

831
00:48:17,960 --> 00:48:20,480
Speaker 1: timed during breaks he had while filming the two other

832
00:48:20,520 --> 00:48:23,920
Speaker 1: films that he was starting at the time, Hook and Toys.

833
00:48:24,719 --> 00:48:27,920
Speaker 1: In that first recording session, Williams came up with the

834
00:48:27,960 --> 00:48:31,200
Speaker 1: concept of Genie calling a Laddin owl, which they made

835
00:48:31,200 --> 00:48:34,880
Speaker 1: into a recurring bit, which I love so much, Goldberg

836
00:48:34,920 --> 00:48:37,880
Speaker 1: told Entertainment Tonight. When we finally got Robin into the

837
00:48:37,880 --> 00:48:41,439
Speaker 1: recording studio. We wanted him to be improvisational. We didn't

838
00:48:41,520 --> 00:48:44,120
Speaker 1: quite know how improvisational he was going to be until

839
00:48:44,160 --> 00:48:47,759
Speaker 1: he came out with all of the celebrity impressions. Animators

840
00:48:47,880 --> 00:48:51,080
Speaker 1: narrowed the performance down to about sixty different characters. I

841
00:48:51,120 --> 00:48:54,600
Speaker 1: think it's actually it's fifty eight, and Goldberg added, Robin

842
00:48:54,680 --> 00:48:57,319
Speaker 1: spoiled us for choice. We would go in with three

843
00:48:57,360 --> 00:49:00,719
Speaker 1: script pages had come out with about four hours of material.

844
00:49:01,120 --> 00:49:03,640
Speaker 1: I mean that seems maddening, Like that almost gets to

845
00:49:03,640 --> 00:49:07,200
Speaker 1: the point where it doesn't seem helpful. Well, yeah, but

846
00:49:07,280 --> 00:49:09,239
Speaker 1: this is this is wild. This is like I just

847
00:49:09,320 --> 00:49:12,240
Speaker 1: learned this like three hours before we tape this. There's

848
00:49:12,719 --> 00:49:16,319
Speaker 1: thirty hours supposedly of Robin doing Genie material out there.

849
00:49:16,360 --> 00:49:19,840
Speaker 1: And this man had the foresight, perhaps because of this

850
00:49:19,920 --> 00:49:22,960
Speaker 1: Disney drama we'll talk about in a second, to mandate

851
00:49:23,000 --> 00:49:27,480
Speaker 1: that when he died, he bequeathed the rights to his name, signature, photograph,

852
00:49:27,520 --> 00:49:30,239
Speaker 1: and likeness to a charitable organization he set up called

853
00:49:30,239 --> 00:49:33,480
Speaker 1: the Windfall Organization, with the provision that none of that

854
00:49:33,520 --> 00:49:36,720
Speaker 1: could be used until twenty five years after his death.

855
00:49:37,120 --> 00:49:40,120
Speaker 1: And given what we have seen Disney do, with Peter

856
00:49:40,239 --> 00:49:43,360
Speaker 1: Cushing and Carrie Fisher in the Star Wars movies. That

857
00:49:43,520 --> 00:49:48,239
Speaker 1: is an incredibly forethoughtful move because you know, there are

858
00:49:48,320 --> 00:49:50,960
Speaker 1: discussions happening in the Disney back room being like, how

859
00:49:51,000 --> 00:49:54,200
Speaker 1: can we crack open the Robin Disney vault and uh

860
00:49:54,440 --> 00:49:58,680
Speaker 1: do some kind of ghoulish after the fact resurrection of

861
00:49:58,680 --> 00:50:03,520
Speaker 1: this character. But they can't do it until So stay

862
00:50:03,520 --> 00:50:10,760
Speaker 1: tuned for Genie coming out. Pretty backstory the R rated

863
00:50:10,800 --> 00:50:14,920
Speaker 1: material that would actually be kind of funny. Um. They

864
00:50:14,960 --> 00:50:17,480
Speaker 1: were originally concerns the kids wouldn't get some of Williams's

865
00:50:17,560 --> 00:50:21,680
Speaker 1: references like William F. Buckley and f O merman um,

866
00:50:21,680 --> 00:50:24,040
Speaker 1: which definitely flew over my head. And in fact, I

867
00:50:25,600 --> 00:50:28,560
Speaker 1: we were taping something. I think we were taping Fern

868
00:50:28,600 --> 00:50:31,239
Speaker 1: going when I couldn't figure out how I had a

869
00:50:31,280 --> 00:50:34,439
Speaker 1: memory of William F. Buckley's voice before I ever saw

870
00:50:34,520 --> 00:50:38,399
Speaker 1: William F. Buckley as a person, and it is from Aladdin. Um.

871
00:50:38,440 --> 00:50:39,920
Speaker 1: But they left them in because they just thought it

872
00:50:39,960 --> 00:50:43,279
Speaker 1: was funny. Kids find would find it funny, and they did. Uh.

873
00:50:43,320 --> 00:50:46,120
Speaker 1: They did cut his George Bush impression because they didn't

874
00:50:46,120 --> 00:50:49,959
Speaker 1: want the film to veer into politics. Um. Presumably because

875
00:50:49,960 --> 00:50:53,320
Speaker 1: this was taking place during the backdrop of the Iraq

876
00:50:53,560 --> 00:50:59,799
Speaker 1: One Iraq Iraq I. Goldberg and Clements both recalled having

877
00:50:59,800 --> 00:51:01,719
Speaker 1: gold Burg in the same room as Williams when he

878
00:51:01,719 --> 00:51:04,279
Speaker 1: was recording, like trying to get some of his mannerisms

879
00:51:04,280 --> 00:51:06,920
Speaker 1: down to sketch them, and Uh, they basically said that

880
00:51:07,080 --> 00:51:09,600
Speaker 1: he had to. Like he said, Robin went for an

881
00:51:09,640 --> 00:51:12,919
Speaker 1: hour and a half without stopping, and Uh then was like, Okay,

882
00:51:12,960 --> 00:51:15,840
Speaker 1: I'm gonna take a break, and Goldberg was like, I

883
00:51:15,880 --> 00:51:17,560
Speaker 1: cannot be in the same room with him. I will

884
00:51:17,640 --> 00:51:22,520
Speaker 1: ruin one of these takes from laughing. William's imbrowing was

885
00:51:22,560 --> 00:51:25,560
Speaker 1: not limited to Genie either. He also voices the narrator

886
00:51:25,600 --> 00:51:28,880
Speaker 1: of the film and those lines were originally scripted and

887
00:51:28,920 --> 00:51:31,120
Speaker 1: it was just not coming off well. Um So Musk

888
00:51:31,239 --> 00:51:34,760
Speaker 1: and Clement said on the DVD commentary that on Katzenberg's suggestion,

889
00:51:34,800 --> 00:51:36,920
Speaker 1: they just brought in a bunch of props into the

890
00:51:36,920 --> 00:51:39,719
Speaker 1: recording studio in like a covered box and did like

891
00:51:39,760 --> 00:51:42,240
Speaker 1: a wall off thing and just handed it to Williams

892
00:51:42,280 --> 00:51:45,319
Speaker 1: and he just started riffing on it, and they ended

893
00:51:45,360 --> 00:51:47,680
Speaker 1: up with an hour of material just off a bunch

894
00:51:47,719 --> 00:51:52,520
Speaker 1: of random crap he found in a box Um Goldberg

895
00:51:52,560 --> 00:51:55,000
Speaker 1: was talking Entertainment Weekly. He said, one of the things

896
00:51:55,120 --> 00:51:57,200
Speaker 1: Robin flewed out of the box was a bra and

897
00:51:57,239 --> 00:51:58,719
Speaker 1: he looks at it and goes, look at this, it's

898
00:51:58,719 --> 00:52:02,200
Speaker 1: a double slingshot of this, it's a double yarmuka. And

899
00:52:02,239 --> 00:52:04,759
Speaker 1: then he turns and goes, I should have called her

900
00:52:06,160 --> 00:52:09,560
Speaker 1: just like I thought. He was just so fast, man.

901
00:52:09,840 --> 00:52:12,640
Speaker 1: I mean, was it inside the actor's studio that they

902
00:52:12,719 --> 00:52:16,000
Speaker 1: had to hospitalize someone or someone got carted off in

903
00:52:16,080 --> 00:52:18,799
Speaker 1: an ambulance because they pulled a muscle in their groin

904
00:52:18,960 --> 00:52:23,239
Speaker 1: from laughing so hard. I haven't heard this. That was

905
00:52:23,840 --> 00:52:27,080
Speaker 1: an incredible inside the act of studio though, so I

906
00:52:27,120 --> 00:52:30,120
Speaker 1: wouldn't doubt it. That's the one where he's like acting

907
00:52:30,120 --> 00:52:32,800
Speaker 1: out what it was like the moment that he received

908
00:52:32,840 --> 00:52:36,040
Speaker 1: the oscar and he does that whole bit about like

909
00:52:36,280 --> 00:52:39,200
Speaker 1: everything in slow motion and that you forgot your mother.

910
00:52:39,880 --> 00:52:41,480
Speaker 1: It was it was inside the actors study and the

911
00:52:41,520 --> 00:52:43,600
Speaker 1: audience member laughed so hard he got a hernie on

912
00:52:44,120 --> 00:52:48,680
Speaker 1: left an ambulance after they were done taping. Um, that's amazing.

913
00:52:48,920 --> 00:52:52,960
Speaker 1: Apparently the longest recording of him improvising was him cheering

914
00:52:52,960 --> 00:52:55,880
Speaker 1: on a Laddin in the final Battle with Jafar, but

915
00:52:55,920 --> 00:52:57,560
Speaker 1: most of that ended up on the cutting room floor

916
00:52:57,600 --> 00:53:01,240
Speaker 1: because they said it's distracted from the action. Another famous

917
00:53:01,360 --> 00:53:04,920
Speaker 1: improvised bit was when he turns into Pinocchio uh in

918
00:53:04,960 --> 00:53:07,280
Speaker 1: the middle of the in his first scene with Aladdin,

919
00:53:07,360 --> 00:53:10,399
Speaker 1: and that is because he wasn't even a line. He

920
00:53:10,800 --> 00:53:14,160
Speaker 1: Goldberg said that he was watching him improvise and he

921
00:53:14,200 --> 00:53:18,000
Speaker 1: does the nose growing, he makes the sound, and he

922
00:53:18,080 --> 00:53:19,960
Speaker 1: made a note about it and was like, we have

923
00:53:20,120 --> 00:53:21,920
Speaker 1: to do this, like we have to have the character

924
00:53:21,960 --> 00:53:24,120
Speaker 1: Genie turned into Pinocchio. They're like, what are you talking about?

925
00:53:24,120 --> 00:53:26,640
Speaker 1: And he was like, that noise that he makes is

926
00:53:26,719 --> 00:53:29,960
Speaker 1: the Pinocchio nose growing noise. And he gestured what he

927
00:53:30,000 --> 00:53:34,319
Speaker 1: did was like something like that and uh. But he

928
00:53:34,360 --> 00:53:36,480
Speaker 1: was like they that wasn't like verbalized. It was just

929
00:53:36,520 --> 00:53:39,640
Speaker 1: like one of these like split second things that Robin

930
00:53:39,760 --> 00:53:42,160
Speaker 1: did and they seized onto it, and it did so

931
00:53:42,200 --> 00:53:44,280
Speaker 1: well and made people laugh so hard in test screenings

932
00:53:44,320 --> 00:53:46,560
Speaker 1: that they had to go back and add extra frames

933
00:53:47,040 --> 00:53:50,040
Speaker 1: to that because it was not giving the gag lot

934
00:53:50,040 --> 00:53:53,080
Speaker 1: time to land. The other Disney cameos that are in

935
00:53:53,080 --> 00:53:55,919
Speaker 1: the film are they do a musical sting from under

936
00:53:55,920 --> 00:53:59,560
Speaker 1: the sea when he Uh. He says, uh Alaskan king

937
00:53:59,640 --> 00:54:02,640
Speaker 1: crap or King's crab k crab soup or something and

938
00:54:03,040 --> 00:54:05,480
Speaker 1: pulls a crab out of the recipe book and uh,

939
00:54:05,520 --> 00:54:10,239
Speaker 1: it's Sebastian from Little Murad and they do they do

940
00:54:11,200 --> 00:54:14,959
Speaker 1: little sting from which have we ever talked about? How

941
00:54:15,480 --> 00:54:18,560
Speaker 1: isn't it uh only the good Die Young? That sounds

942
00:54:18,600 --> 00:54:22,680
Speaker 1: exactly like under the Sea. Mm hmmm, only the good

943
00:54:23,320 --> 00:54:26,160
Speaker 1: Banana Ana? Like that horn sting sounds like under the Sea.

944
00:54:27,040 --> 00:54:29,279
Speaker 1: I can kind of hear that maybe it was some

945
00:54:29,360 --> 00:54:32,759
Speaker 1: kind of deal with Disney when Millie Joel wants to

946
00:54:32,760 --> 00:54:36,480
Speaker 1: do Oliver and Company, I need give me that horn line.

947
00:54:37,520 --> 00:54:39,839
Speaker 1: Um the And then the other one is when when

948
00:54:40,680 --> 00:54:42,560
Speaker 1: they cut into the Throne room and the salt is

949
00:54:42,560 --> 00:54:43,960
Speaker 1: playing with a bunch of toys. You can see a

950
00:54:43,960 --> 00:54:47,680
Speaker 1: little doll version of beast in there. A Latin voice

951
00:54:47,719 --> 00:54:51,760
Speaker 1: actor Scott Winger Winger Wanger his favorite movie at fifteen

952
00:54:51,800 --> 00:54:56,600
Speaker 1: was Dead Poets Society. He told E, So he's entertainment Newsley,

953
00:54:56,880 --> 00:54:59,000
Speaker 1: that's just sounds. You can't cite that verbally, he told

954
00:54:59,040 --> 00:55:02,560
Speaker 1: exclamation point. So he was very nervous about meeting Robin

955
00:55:02,640 --> 00:55:06,160
Speaker 1: Williams when he introduced himself. He said, Hi, I'm Scott.

956
00:55:06,239 --> 00:55:09,640
Speaker 1: I play Aladdin, he said. Williams told him, well, I'll

957
00:55:09,680 --> 00:55:15,279
Speaker 1: be your Genie, which it destroys me. I can hear that.

958
00:55:15,560 --> 00:55:20,600
Speaker 1: So that's the closest time when I get to cry

959
00:55:20,640 --> 00:55:24,120
Speaker 1: and dropped on Mike during this. Obviously, as soon as

960
00:55:24,120 --> 00:55:26,360
Speaker 1: the red light was turned on and he would start performing,

961
00:55:26,440 --> 00:55:29,400
Speaker 1: it was the Robin Williams that everyone remembers. Winger continued.

962
00:55:29,520 --> 00:55:34,160
Speaker 1: Winger continued, Winer continued, just punching whatever's right. But then

963
00:55:34,239 --> 00:55:36,600
Speaker 1: there were these quiet moments when he was very thoughtful

964
00:55:36,680 --> 00:55:39,759
Speaker 1: and contemplative, and it was so me amazing to see

965
00:55:39,800 --> 00:55:42,239
Speaker 1: the process, like he was getting ready to turn it on,

966
00:55:42,480 --> 00:55:45,200
Speaker 1: and he really put me at ease. The Hollywood Foreign

967
00:55:45,200 --> 00:55:48,640
Speaker 1: Press Association gave Williams a Special Achievement Award for a

968
00:55:48,680 --> 00:55:51,799
Speaker 1: Laddin at the Golden Globes, citing that his performance didn't

969
00:55:51,800 --> 00:55:56,440
Speaker 1: fall into any of their traditional categories. Katzenberg supposedly mounted

970
00:55:56,440 --> 00:56:00,680
Speaker 1: an Oscar campaign for him, which obviously did not materialized,

971
00:56:01,080 --> 00:56:03,520
Speaker 1: and while it has often been repeated that the amount

972
00:56:03,520 --> 00:56:06,600
Speaker 1: of improvising Williams did for the film disqualified it for

973
00:56:06,600 --> 00:56:10,400
Speaker 1: an Academy Awards screenplay nomination. This just seems to be

974
00:56:10,400 --> 00:56:13,360
Speaker 1: one of those things that God repeated somewhere and preserved

975
00:56:13,400 --> 00:56:15,960
Speaker 1: into perpetuity. It's on IMDb, It's one of these things

976
00:56:15,960 --> 00:56:19,239
Speaker 1: I've constantly seen on Reddit and everywhere. I cannot find

977
00:56:19,239 --> 00:56:23,279
Speaker 1: a single primary or secondary direct source that verifies that.

978
00:56:24,040 --> 00:56:26,000
Speaker 1: And in fact, I think it would have been weirder

979
00:56:26,040 --> 00:56:29,400
Speaker 1: if it the film had been nominated, because no animated

980
00:56:29,440 --> 00:56:33,000
Speaker 1: film at the time had ever been nominated for a screenplay. Obscarre.

981
00:56:33,680 --> 00:56:35,560
Speaker 1: Beauty and the Beast was the first animated film to

982
00:56:35,600 --> 00:56:38,080
Speaker 1: be nominated for Best Picture, and it still didn't get

983
00:56:38,520 --> 00:56:43,120
Speaker 1: a nomination for screenplay. Toy Story is the first animated

984
00:56:43,120 --> 00:56:46,959
Speaker 1: film to do so. So I'm putting that one to bed.

985
00:56:48,080 --> 00:56:51,200
Speaker 1: I'm putting that that whole canard to bed Well. Ashman

986
00:56:51,280 --> 00:56:53,640
Speaker 1: and Menk and the composers of the songs for the film,

987
00:56:53,920 --> 00:56:56,280
Speaker 1: in keeping with the original conceit to have a Laddin

988
00:56:56,320 --> 00:56:59,440
Speaker 1: be this sort of Bing Crosby style road picture. They

989
00:56:59,480 --> 00:57:03,000
Speaker 1: conceived the genie as, in Mechan's words, a hip Harlem

990
00:57:03,080 --> 00:57:06,600
Speaker 1: jazz singer like Fats Waller or Cab Callaway, which meant

991
00:57:06,640 --> 00:57:08,759
Speaker 1: that the singing was gonna be a little bit more traditional,

992
00:57:09,239 --> 00:57:12,840
Speaker 1: but so you can probably imagine this quickly changed in

993
00:57:12,920 --> 00:57:15,960
Speaker 1: Robin Williams's hands. Uh to any of those who aren't

994
00:57:16,000 --> 00:57:19,640
Speaker 1: up on their jazz age band leaders. Cab Callaway had

995
00:57:19,640 --> 00:57:22,400
Speaker 1: a role in the Blues Brothers as Curtis the band leader,

996
00:57:22,920 --> 00:57:25,960
Speaker 1: and he was too cool for this planet. Megan later

997
00:57:26,000 --> 00:57:29,400
Speaker 1: told Billboard. We met at the house Robin was renting

998
00:57:29,400 --> 00:57:31,720
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles while he was working on Hook. He

999
00:57:31,840 --> 00:57:34,680
Speaker 1: arrived at our work session freshly released from spending hours

1000
00:57:34,720 --> 00:57:38,120
Speaker 1: as Peter Pan suspended at a flying harness, standing by

1001
00:57:38,120 --> 00:57:40,920
Speaker 1: the piano as my musical director, David Freedman plunked out

1002
00:57:40,960 --> 00:57:43,760
Speaker 1: the melody lines for a friend like me and Prince Ali.

1003
00:57:43,920 --> 00:57:46,880
Speaker 1: Robin Gamily learned our songs note by note and phrase

1004
00:57:46,960 --> 00:57:49,920
Speaker 1: by phrase. I wish I could say I remember zeni antics,

1005
00:57:50,000 --> 00:57:52,440
Speaker 1: or a touching connection, or any kind of special anecdote,

1006
00:57:52,640 --> 00:57:56,280
Speaker 1: but I remember was a quiet, unassuming, thoroughly professional actor,

1007
00:57:56,600 --> 00:58:00,960
Speaker 1: respectfully working hard to prepare for recording our songs. Next

1008
00:58:01,080 --> 00:58:04,160
Speaker 1: came our recording date at ocean Way Studio B. The

1009
00:58:04,280 --> 00:58:07,160
Speaker 1: room was packed. Everyone and anyone who had an excuse

1010
00:58:07,240 --> 00:58:10,160
Speaker 1: to be in the control room waited an anticipation. We

1011
00:58:10,200 --> 00:58:12,400
Speaker 1: had a trio of musicians there to set down rhythm

1012
00:58:12,480 --> 00:58:16,000
Speaker 1: tracks for both songs. Live with Robin, he dutifully sang

1013
00:58:16,000 --> 00:58:19,160
Speaker 1: every note and every word, making sure the phrasing, the intonation,

1014
00:58:19,240 --> 00:58:22,440
Speaker 1: the dramatic intention in the vocal style was all exactly

1015
00:58:22,480 --> 00:58:26,160
Speaker 1: as we wanted it. All the while everyone was asking, okay, Alan,

1016
00:58:26,240 --> 00:58:27,880
Speaker 1: do you have what you need? Can we let Robin

1017
00:58:27,960 --> 00:58:31,280
Speaker 1: go beyond the written notes? Now? The frustration was palpable.

1018
00:58:31,800 --> 00:58:34,280
Speaker 1: Finally the time came to let Robin do his thing.

1019
00:58:35,040 --> 00:58:37,040
Speaker 1: No one who was there can ever forget what it

1020
00:58:37,120 --> 00:58:40,160
Speaker 1: was like. The bursts of imagination, the endless parade of

1021
00:58:40,240 --> 00:58:44,600
Speaker 1: character voices, the hilarity, the sheer energy was astounding. Take

1022
00:58:44,640 --> 00:58:47,480
Speaker 1: after take of brilliant material poured out of him, and

1023
00:58:47,520 --> 00:58:51,240
Speaker 1: our minds reeled from all the possibilities. After a few hours,

1024
00:58:51,280 --> 00:58:55,320
Speaker 1: a few hours, we thanked Robin profusely and that was it.

1025
00:58:55,480 --> 00:58:59,240
Speaker 1: A few hours for two songs. Oh my god. Uh.

1026
00:58:59,240 --> 00:59:01,920
Speaker 1: The last fun fact the outfit that the genie wears

1027
00:59:02,000 --> 00:59:03,880
Speaker 1: is he prepares to leave for vacation at the end

1028
00:59:03,880 --> 00:59:06,720
Speaker 1: of the movie. Uh with the goofy hat. It's identical

1029
00:59:06,760 --> 00:59:09,120
Speaker 1: to an outfit that Robert Williams wore in a Disney

1030
00:59:09,160 --> 00:59:14,040
Speaker 1: theme park video he appeared in. Oh and so now

1031
00:59:14,160 --> 00:59:17,960
Speaker 1: on to the arc of the universe bends to Jeffrey

1032
00:59:17,960 --> 00:59:22,120
Speaker 1: Gatzenberg being a dick um, which touched on this briefly

1033
00:59:22,120 --> 00:59:24,160
Speaker 1: in our Firm Golly episode or was it Beauty the Beast?

1034
00:59:24,160 --> 00:59:26,880
Speaker 1: I think it was fair Golly. William's major beef with

1035
00:59:27,000 --> 00:59:31,040
Speaker 1: Disney and Jeffrey in this era came down to the

1036
00:59:31,080 --> 00:59:33,520
Speaker 1: fact that when he signed on to do a Laddin

1037
00:59:33,680 --> 00:59:38,600
Speaker 1: for again scale grand down from eight million, his stipulation

1038
00:59:38,720 --> 00:59:42,520
Speaker 1: was that Disney could not use his name in Aladdin publicity,

1039
00:59:42,600 --> 00:59:46,040
Speaker 1: including press kits, and the character of Genie couldn't occupy

1040
00:59:46,160 --> 00:59:50,200
Speaker 1: more than of whatever ad he was appearing in. Even

1041
00:59:50,240 --> 00:59:52,720
Speaker 1: a Disney gift book about the making of Aladdin contains

1042
00:59:53,080 --> 00:59:56,120
Speaker 1: nary a mention of William's name, referring to him only

1043
00:59:56,160 --> 00:59:59,560
Speaker 1: as the voice of the Genie or the actor signed

1044
00:59:59,560 --> 01:00:04,840
Speaker 1: to play Genie. There's been some kind of hindsight theorizing

1045
01:00:04,840 --> 01:00:06,840
Speaker 1: that this was because Williams big passion project at the

1046
01:00:06,840 --> 01:00:09,160
Speaker 1: time was toys and he was concerned that Aladdin was

1047
01:00:09,160 --> 01:00:11,760
Speaker 1: going to come out and detract from toys, which is

1048
01:00:11,800 --> 01:00:15,960
Speaker 1: exactly what happened. Uh Toys was a flop, right, that

1049
01:00:16,080 --> 01:00:20,160
Speaker 1: was Barry Levinson. Yeah, I used to love that movie.

1050
01:00:20,160 --> 01:00:22,439
Speaker 1: Though you got anything else to say about it? No,

1051
01:00:22,480 --> 01:00:24,600
Speaker 1: it's just it's a crazy movie. The whole last like

1052
01:00:24,600 --> 01:00:26,600
Speaker 1: twenty minutes of the movie is just like this war

1053
01:00:26,800 --> 01:00:30,240
Speaker 1: fought by old wind up toys. It's like it's really

1054
01:00:30,240 --> 01:00:32,560
Speaker 1: have you ever seen it? And the whole art direction

1055
01:00:32,600 --> 01:00:34,880
Speaker 1: behind it, it's like all Magreat styled. So they're all

1056
01:00:34,920 --> 01:00:39,280
Speaker 1: these like pictures of like an I know the cover

1057
01:00:39,520 --> 01:00:41,479
Speaker 1: art of him and like the bowler hat. I didn't

1058
01:00:41,520 --> 01:00:44,120
Speaker 1: realize that was a mcgreed clouds and realized that was

1059
01:00:44,120 --> 01:00:47,360
Speaker 1: a mgreed reference. Yeah, it's a very surreal looking movie.

1060
01:00:47,400 --> 01:00:51,680
Speaker 1: It's pretty cool. I don't remember the plot being that special,

1061
01:00:51,760 --> 01:00:55,840
Speaker 1: but just visually it was really cool looking. Well, there

1062
01:00:55,880 --> 01:00:59,320
Speaker 1: are two ground zero sources for this whole drama. One

1063
01:00:59,400 --> 01:01:02,760
Speaker 1: is a Today Show appearance the Williams May The other

1064
01:01:02,840 --> 01:01:04,960
Speaker 1: is a New York mag article from around this time.

1065
01:01:05,200 --> 01:01:08,360
Speaker 1: And he was promoting Mrs Doubtfire on Today's Show and

1066
01:01:08,360 --> 01:01:11,000
Speaker 1: he said, do you realize now, when you work for Disney,

1067
01:01:11,040 --> 01:01:13,760
Speaker 1: why the mouse has only four fingers because he can't

1068
01:01:13,760 --> 01:01:16,960
Speaker 1: pick up a check? Uh? He was a quipped to

1069
01:01:17,000 --> 01:01:20,280
Speaker 1: Jeane Shallott. We had a deal. The one thing I

1070
01:01:20,320 --> 01:01:22,920
Speaker 1: said was I will do the voice. I'm doing it

1071
01:01:22,960 --> 01:01:25,520
Speaker 1: basically because I want to be part of this animation tradition.

1072
01:01:25,760 --> 01:01:28,320
Speaker 1: I want something for my children. One deal is I

1073
01:01:28,400 --> 01:01:31,080
Speaker 1: just don't want to sell anything, as in Burger king,

1074
01:01:31,200 --> 01:01:33,920
Speaker 1: as in toys, as in stuff. Then all of a

1075
01:01:33,920 --> 01:01:36,680
Speaker 1: sudden they release an advertisement. One part was the movie.

1076
01:01:36,800 --> 01:01:38,360
Speaker 1: The second part was when they used the movie to

1077
01:01:38,400 --> 01:01:40,880
Speaker 1: sell stuff. Not only did they use my voice, they

1078
01:01:40,880 --> 01:01:44,000
Speaker 1: took a character I did and overdubbed it to sell stuff.

1079
01:01:44,040 --> 01:01:46,560
Speaker 1: That was the one thing I said, don't do that.

1080
01:01:46,560 --> 01:01:48,200
Speaker 1: That was the one thing where they crossed the line.

1081
01:01:48,760 --> 01:01:53,280
Speaker 1: It is hilariously evil, cartoonishly evil how they got around

1082
01:01:53,320 --> 01:01:56,400
Speaker 1: that rule. If you look at the poster for it,

1083
01:01:56,960 --> 01:02:00,600
Speaker 1: Genie does indeed take up the frame, but that is

1084
01:02:00,640 --> 01:02:04,640
Speaker 1: because everyone else is tiny. He is the entire top

1085
01:02:04,760 --> 01:02:08,440
Speaker 1: quarter of the box. And the nominal leads of the

1086
01:02:08,480 --> 01:02:14,400
Speaker 1: film are like the size of a dime, like lower third.

1087
01:02:14,440 --> 01:02:20,640
Speaker 1: Ied is so so funny. Um, this is wow. The

1088
01:02:20,880 --> 01:02:23,880
Speaker 1: l A Times article is wild and just such an

1089
01:02:23,880 --> 01:02:26,920
Speaker 1: amazing example of the power that the press used to have.

1090
01:02:28,360 --> 01:02:32,920
Speaker 1: Because this article, uh, they called it sour grapes. They

1091
01:02:32,960 --> 01:02:36,200
Speaker 1: basically said that Robin wasn't actually upset about them going

1092
01:02:36,200 --> 01:02:37,880
Speaker 1: back on their word. He was upset that he'd done

1093
01:02:37,920 --> 01:02:39,640
Speaker 1: it for scale, and the movie went on to make

1094
01:02:40,280 --> 01:02:43,560
Speaker 1: twelve point seventy billion dollars, you know, So they were

1095
01:02:43,600 --> 01:02:47,000
Speaker 1: like characterized it was a source close to the I'm

1096
01:02:47,000 --> 01:02:49,480
Speaker 1: putting this in air quotes. A source close to the

1097
01:02:49,560 --> 01:02:53,160
Speaker 1: drama said this in the in the Times, and so

1098
01:02:53,520 --> 01:02:57,800
Speaker 1: they refuted that. And then Disney or Katzenberg sent Robin

1099
01:02:57,880 --> 01:03:02,760
Speaker 1: eight Picasso like a one point five mill Picasso, which

1100
01:03:02,800 --> 01:03:08,040
Speaker 1: was weirdly a self portrait of Picasso as Vincent van Gogh.

1101
01:03:08,160 --> 01:03:10,040
Speaker 1: I'm not well versed enough in art history to know

1102
01:03:10,680 --> 01:03:14,320
Speaker 1: what the hell that's about, but that's what it was. Uh,

1103
01:03:14,360 --> 01:03:18,000
Speaker 1: it didn't work. In that New York magazine, Eric Idol

1104
01:03:18,320 --> 01:03:20,960
Speaker 1: for Monty Python and joked that he told Robin to

1105
01:03:21,520 --> 01:03:26,480
Speaker 1: take it on television and burn it. Um. So Williams

1106
01:03:26,560 --> 01:03:29,600
Speaker 1: didn't return for the director video sequel, The Return of Jaffar,

1107
01:03:29,840 --> 01:03:32,800
Speaker 1: in which the Genie is voiced by Dan Caste le Nada,

1108
01:03:32,920 --> 01:03:35,600
Speaker 1: the voice of Homer Simpson and like twenty other characters

1109
01:03:35,600 --> 01:03:39,720
Speaker 1: on that show. And then after Jeffrey Katzenberg exited Disney,

1110
01:03:39,960 --> 01:03:42,720
Speaker 1: they made a very public apology to Robin Williams, and

1111
01:03:42,720 --> 01:03:45,040
Speaker 1: he returned for not just the third film in the

1112
01:03:45,080 --> 01:03:47,800
Speaker 1: Aladdin trilogy is called The King of Thieves, but like

1113
01:03:47,880 --> 01:03:51,400
Speaker 1: it's just a boatload of Genie led extraneous materials for

1114
01:03:51,440 --> 01:03:55,520
Speaker 1: the theme park for educational stuff. Uh, that public apology

1115
01:03:55,800 --> 01:03:59,240
Speaker 1: is really something The guy who came in after Katzenberg's

1116
01:03:59,240 --> 01:04:01,960
Speaker 1: guy named Joe raw Off um, and not only does

1117
01:04:02,000 --> 01:04:05,520
Speaker 1: he allow that Disney may have been responsible for the

1118
01:04:05,560 --> 01:04:08,200
Speaker 1: earlier thing where they said this is Sara grapes, Robin's

1119
01:04:08,240 --> 01:04:10,560
Speaker 1: just pissing he didn't make enough money. And this is

1120
01:04:10,600 --> 01:04:13,520
Speaker 1: really funny because um, one of the things that might

1121
01:04:13,560 --> 01:04:16,360
Speaker 1: have brought Robin back into the Disney fold is that

1122
01:04:16,400 --> 01:04:19,440
Speaker 1: it was Joe Roth who greenlit Mrs. Doubtfire when he

1123
01:04:19,480 --> 01:04:24,320
Speaker 1: was at uh Fox and let Robin get his then wife,

1124
01:04:25,120 --> 01:04:30,840
Speaker 1: uh Marcia Cars's Williams to act as a producer, so

1125
01:04:31,320 --> 01:04:34,240
Speaker 1: that means she got paid from it. So there's this

1126
01:04:34,280 --> 01:04:37,280
Speaker 1: whole bit in there about Jeffrey Katzenberg getting canned and

1127
01:04:37,880 --> 01:04:42,080
Speaker 1: a friend of Robin coming in and making a giant

1128
01:04:42,080 --> 01:04:45,560
Speaker 1: public apology for something Catzenberg Dad that I just drama.

1129
01:04:45,600 --> 01:04:52,200
Speaker 1: Drama draws that. Yeah, And although Williams had just done

1130
01:04:52,280 --> 01:04:55,400
Speaker 1: Fern Gully, his turn as Genie, as we talked about earlier,

1131
01:04:55,520 --> 01:04:58,720
Speaker 1: really revolutionized the role of a list celebrity and animation,

1132
01:04:59,000 --> 01:05:01,560
Speaker 1: and the trend picked esteem with The Lion King, where

1133
01:05:01,600 --> 01:05:05,160
Speaker 1: you had Jonathan Taylor, Thomas, Whoopi Goldberg and James Harrel Jones,

1134
01:05:05,360 --> 01:05:07,360
Speaker 1: and then Toy Story of course with Tim Allen and

1135
01:05:07,400 --> 01:05:10,560
Speaker 1: Tom Hanks, but also Don Rickles and Jim Varney and

1136
01:05:10,640 --> 01:05:13,960
Speaker 1: Lulas Shawn and John Ratzenberger, among many many others in

1137
01:05:14,000 --> 01:05:16,800
Speaker 1: that movie. So it can really be easy to forget

1138
01:05:16,800 --> 01:05:21,200
Speaker 1: that pride of this animation was basically the province of

1139
01:05:21,480 --> 01:05:25,400
Speaker 1: either past it actors or professional voice actors, and it

1140
01:05:25,480 --> 01:05:29,240
Speaker 1: was kind of looked down upon. Be Arthur, for example,

1141
01:05:29,320 --> 01:05:32,160
Speaker 1: reportedly refused the role of Ursula and the Little Mermaid

1142
01:05:32,200 --> 01:05:35,400
Speaker 1: for this very reason. Aladdin also represented to step forward

1143
01:05:35,440 --> 01:05:38,600
Speaker 1: in the technical side of Disney's animation process, much as

1144
01:05:38,680 --> 01:05:41,880
Speaker 1: Beauty and the Beast had, but the inspiration for how

1145
01:05:41,920 --> 01:05:46,040
Speaker 1: they approached the character design was actually pretty anachronistic, by

1146
01:05:46,040 --> 01:05:50,200
Speaker 1: which I mean old uh. It was a long time

1147
01:05:50,640 --> 01:05:53,480
Speaker 1: friend of the pod long time New York Times caricaturist

1148
01:05:53,480 --> 01:05:57,760
Speaker 1: Al Hirschfeld, friend of the pod I love. I have.

1149
01:05:58,080 --> 01:06:00,960
Speaker 1: I'm right like a cup feet away from me. I

1150
01:06:01,000 --> 01:06:03,920
Speaker 1: have a book and old book of his inscribed in

1151
01:06:03,920 --> 01:06:05,800
Speaker 1: the front with a little animation that he did in

1152
01:06:05,920 --> 01:06:08,080
Speaker 1: the cover page. And it's one of my one of

1153
01:06:08,120 --> 01:06:10,000
Speaker 1: my special things. I love. He's the guy who put

1154
01:06:10,080 --> 01:06:12,480
Speaker 1: his daughter's name in every sketch, right, Nina, Yeah, all

1155
01:06:12,520 --> 01:06:18,320
Speaker 1: the hidden Nina's what's give us a Hershfield rundown style wise,

1156
01:06:18,360 --> 01:06:21,240
Speaker 1: I mean he's like if James Thurber got really into

1157
01:06:21,400 --> 01:06:25,200
Speaker 1: Art Deco. He's these uh, black line drawings with these

1158
01:06:25,360 --> 01:06:29,600
Speaker 1: swooping lines that I mean, it's just's like art Deco

1159
01:06:29,840 --> 01:06:33,680
Speaker 1: charactures essentially. I mean, he's Uh. I knew him mostly

1160
01:06:33,840 --> 01:06:37,360
Speaker 1: for doing like a lot of like Broadway stars, I

1161
01:06:37,400 --> 01:06:41,680
Speaker 1: think the later on Broadway. Uh he did caaractures for

1162
01:06:41,760 --> 01:06:45,800
Speaker 1: the arts and leisure sections of the New York Times. Um,

1163
01:06:45,840 --> 01:06:47,880
Speaker 1: I feel like he must have done stuff for the

1164
01:06:47,880 --> 01:06:52,600
Speaker 1: New Yorker. Yeah. He basically caricatured every major entertainment figure

1165
01:06:53,360 --> 01:06:56,840
Speaker 1: from the forties through to the early two thousands. I'd

1166
01:06:56,840 --> 01:07:00,880
Speaker 1: say he lived to be a hundred live. I think

1167
01:07:00,920 --> 01:07:03,280
Speaker 1: I think he died in like two thousand, two thousand

1168
01:07:03,320 --> 01:07:06,280
Speaker 1: one or so. Incredible life. It's a great documentary on

1169
01:07:06,400 --> 01:07:10,240
Speaker 1: him too. Eric Goldberg, who is Genie supervising animator, told

1170
01:07:10,240 --> 01:07:13,800
Speaker 1: The l A Times I look on Hirschfeld's work as

1171
01:07:13,800 --> 01:07:16,760
Speaker 1: a pinnacle of boiling a subject down to its essence,

1172
01:07:17,040 --> 01:07:19,880
Speaker 1: so that you get a clear, defined statement of a personality.

1173
01:07:20,360 --> 01:07:22,720
Speaker 1: There's also an organic quality in the way one line

1174
01:07:22,760 --> 01:07:25,240
Speaker 1: will flow into another. It may go along the back

1175
01:07:25,280 --> 01:07:27,760
Speaker 1: of a neck, down the spine, across the behind, and

1176
01:07:27,800 --> 01:07:30,480
Speaker 1: then down the leg, all in one single line. That

1177
01:07:30,640 --> 01:07:33,160
Speaker 1: is very, very elegant. I wanted the Genie to have

1178
01:07:33,240 --> 01:07:36,680
Speaker 1: that kind of elegance, so that kind of line work. Uh.

1179
01:07:36,840 --> 01:07:39,920
Speaker 1: You also see in the kind of classic Persian art

1180
01:07:40,000 --> 01:07:41,720
Speaker 1: that they were looking at. They were looking at these

1181
01:07:41,800 --> 01:07:47,960
Speaker 1: um uh miniature Persian miniatures. They're called um like miniature books. Uh.

1182
01:07:48,040 --> 01:07:54,320
Speaker 1: Supervising animator Andreas Deja said, Hirschfeld's work teaches you fluidity, appeal,

1183
01:07:54,400 --> 01:07:58,520
Speaker 1: and simplicity. A Laddin is composed of two interlocking triangles

1184
01:07:58,560 --> 01:08:01,120
Speaker 1: formed by his chest and his pants ants. Jasmine is

1185
01:08:01,160 --> 01:08:03,840
Speaker 1: sort of pear shaped, and Jaffar is basically a t

1186
01:08:04,400 --> 01:08:07,400
Speaker 1: A very skinny body with these broad shoulders. I kept

1187
01:08:07,440 --> 01:08:09,880
Speaker 1: that t shape in mind while I was animating, making

1188
01:08:09,880 --> 01:08:13,880
Speaker 1: sure it came through kept me from cluttering up the drawings. Hirschfeld,

1189
01:08:14,000 --> 01:08:16,000
Speaker 1: quoted in The l A Times, saw the influence of

1190
01:08:16,040 --> 01:08:18,360
Speaker 1: his own work most clearly in The Genie and the

1191
01:08:18,400 --> 01:08:22,560
Speaker 1: Flying Carpet, telling the paper, I'm more sympathetic and understanding

1192
01:08:22,600 --> 01:08:25,880
Speaker 1: of the abstractions than I am of the realistic representation

1193
01:08:26,200 --> 01:08:30,439
Speaker 1: of human behavior. Uh. Shout out to Andreas Deja, who

1194
01:08:30,560 --> 01:08:33,000
Speaker 1: had a hell of a Disney villain hat trick in

1195
01:08:33,040 --> 01:08:36,200
Speaker 1: the nineties. He was the supervising animator for Gaston, impauting

1196
01:08:36,240 --> 01:08:41,080
Speaker 1: the Beast Jaffar and then scar in Lion King. So wait,

1197
01:08:41,160 --> 01:08:42,639
Speaker 1: he must have been the guy who spent like six

1198
01:08:42,680 --> 01:08:46,599
Speaker 1: weeks trying to nail Gaston's chest hair configuration. Believe he

1199
01:08:46,680 --> 01:08:52,320
Speaker 1: was nice goals. Uh. In animation, it's important to break

1200
01:08:52,360 --> 01:08:56,280
Speaker 1: your character down to the simplest basic shape possible. Break

1201
01:08:56,320 --> 01:09:00,800
Speaker 1: your character down. Jeffrey Cassenberg taught me that. Uh. That

1202
01:09:00,960 --> 01:09:03,760
Speaker 1: is Glen Keane, animator Glen Keane talking to The l

1203
01:09:03,800 --> 01:09:06,120
Speaker 1: A Times and then to Entertainment tonight. He added, when

1204
01:09:06,120 --> 01:09:08,799
Speaker 1: you're animating a character, that has a lot of inside emotion.

1205
01:09:08,840 --> 01:09:11,559
Speaker 1: It's always going to be more difficult. Basically, he's talking

1206
01:09:11,560 --> 01:09:14,840
Speaker 1: about the challenges of animating human characters versus more exaggerated ones.

1207
01:09:14,880 --> 01:09:17,639
Speaker 1: He said on Beast, I had six animators on him.

1208
01:09:17,680 --> 01:09:20,600
Speaker 1: On A Laddin, we had between twelve and twenty animators

1209
01:09:20,600 --> 01:09:22,680
Speaker 1: working on him at the same time. In fact, there

1210
01:09:22,720 --> 01:09:25,200
Speaker 1: were forty principal animators on the film, more than it

1211
01:09:25,240 --> 01:09:28,839
Speaker 1: worked on A Little Mermaid. And art director Bill Perkins

1212
01:09:28,920 --> 01:09:31,479
Speaker 1: told Forbes in nineteen that try and cut corners where

1213
01:09:31,520 --> 01:09:34,760
Speaker 1: they could. I enforced an effort to design as many

1214
01:09:34,840 --> 01:09:38,439
Speaker 1: reused backgrounds and background layers as possible. I felt it

1215
01:09:38,479 --> 01:09:41,120
Speaker 1: would be more efficient for both layout and background, and

1216
01:09:41,160 --> 01:09:43,320
Speaker 1: then the artist could spend more time designing and painting

1217
01:09:43,320 --> 01:09:46,400
Speaker 1: more quality into each background. The average painter on Beauty

1218
01:09:46,400 --> 01:09:48,960
Speaker 1: and the Beast painted a hundred and twenty five paintings.

1219
01:09:49,000 --> 01:09:52,200
Speaker 1: On A Laddin, the average was seventy five. Artist. I

1220
01:09:52,240 --> 01:09:54,639
Speaker 1: know these numbers tend to make people's eyes glass over,

1221
01:09:54,720 --> 01:09:57,040
Speaker 1: but just the sheer quantity of all this stuff just

1222
01:09:57,040 --> 01:10:00,639
Speaker 1: still tends to fascinate me. It's what, twenty four pieces

1223
01:10:00,640 --> 01:10:03,679
Speaker 1: of paper a second frames a second, yeah, a second,

1224
01:10:03,720 --> 01:10:08,439
Speaker 1: so another fun statistic to anime the frenetic friend like

1225
01:10:08,680 --> 01:10:13,160
Speaker 1: me seeing Eric Goldberg, the Genie animation supervisor, made something

1226
01:10:13,200 --> 01:10:17,800
Speaker 1: in the area of ten thousand drawings. And also the

1227
01:10:17,840 --> 01:10:20,760
Speaker 1: Genies applause sign at the end of that song was

1228
01:10:20,800 --> 01:10:25,120
Speaker 1: actually necessary in test creatings, the audiences weren't applauding at

1229
01:10:25,160 --> 01:10:28,360
Speaker 1: the end of that song. I don't really know why

1230
01:10:28,400 --> 01:10:29,880
Speaker 1: they would. I can't remember the last time I was

1231
01:10:29,880 --> 01:10:32,840
Speaker 1: in a theater and the audience broke out into spontaneous

1232
01:10:33,600 --> 01:10:36,720
Speaker 1: in the middle of a movie. But apparently Jeffrey Katzenberg was.

1233
01:10:36,880 --> 01:10:39,479
Speaker 1: He took this personally and he didn't like this. So

1234
01:10:39,840 --> 01:10:43,240
Speaker 1: Eric Goldberg stuck that sign in there as kind of

1235
01:10:43,560 --> 01:10:50,559
Speaker 1: a delicate troll, both to audiences and also to Jeffrey Katzenbergh. Boy,

1236
01:10:53,400 --> 01:10:55,360
Speaker 1: We're going to take a quick break, but we'll be

1237
01:10:55,479 --> 01:10:58,320
Speaker 1: right back with more too much information in just a moment.

1238
01:11:13,200 --> 01:11:16,400
Speaker 1: A Laddin like Beauty and the Beast heavily utilized CAPS

1239
01:11:17,200 --> 01:11:20,760
Speaker 1: or computer assisted post production system, which is a technology

1240
01:11:20,840 --> 01:11:23,479
Speaker 1: made for Disney by Pixar. They first used it on

1241
01:11:23,520 --> 01:11:27,439
Speaker 1: rescuers down Under, but also in uh This was the

1242
01:11:27,479 --> 01:11:30,160
Speaker 1: technology that I believe took them three months to render

1243
01:11:30,200 --> 01:11:33,720
Speaker 1: a chicken leg in. Yes, but it's also how they

1244
01:11:33,720 --> 01:11:37,519
Speaker 1: got the ballroom background dance scene in Beauty the Beast.

1245
01:11:37,680 --> 01:11:40,320
Speaker 1: I think that the dancing um, the dancing forks, and

1246
01:11:40,360 --> 01:11:43,439
Speaker 1: the br guest scene that are doing like almost like

1247
01:11:43,439 --> 01:11:46,960
Speaker 1: a rockets kick. I think we're from caps as well.

1248
01:11:47,000 --> 01:11:49,080
Speaker 1: I think that was like the most successful use of

1249
01:11:49,160 --> 01:11:53,280
Speaker 1: caps in Beauty the Pieces. Background supervisor Kathy Altieri said

1250
01:11:53,280 --> 01:11:55,960
Speaker 1: the film relies on a blue, red and yellow color scheme.

1251
01:11:56,360 --> 01:11:59,839
Speaker 1: Good characters like Genie, Aladdin and Jasmine or blue villainous

1252
01:11:59,840 --> 01:12:02,639
Speaker 1: care arctors like Jafar and Niago are red and orange

1253
01:12:03,240 --> 01:12:05,720
Speaker 1: and uh, that's also in the Cave of Wonders, the

1254
01:12:05,800 --> 01:12:09,120
Speaker 1: lamp chambers blue and the ruby that tempts Aladdin is

1255
01:12:09,160 --> 01:12:12,280
Speaker 1: obviously bright red. The city of Agribao the desert, and

1256
01:12:12,320 --> 01:12:15,000
Speaker 1: the characters that are sort of background functionaries of that,

1257
01:12:15,080 --> 01:12:18,360
Speaker 1: like the Sultan are yellow and tan tones, and unlike

1258
01:12:18,400 --> 01:12:20,680
Speaker 1: a Laddin with Tom Cruise, Jasmine was not inspired by

1259
01:12:20,720 --> 01:12:24,920
Speaker 1: a celebrity. Uh. In Disney's D twenty three convention, the

1260
01:12:24,960 --> 01:12:27,719
Speaker 1: animator Mark Ken said, I was having some artist block.

1261
01:12:28,040 --> 01:12:30,600
Speaker 1: I was coming off designing Ariel and Bell and was

1262
01:12:30,600 --> 01:12:33,120
Speaker 1: starting to run out of ideas. So I pulled out

1263
01:12:33,120 --> 01:12:36,360
Speaker 1: my sister Beth's high school graduation photo and thought there

1264
01:12:36,400 --> 01:12:39,639
Speaker 1: was something there. Shout out to Beth Hen for inspiring

1265
01:12:39,640 --> 01:12:45,280
Speaker 1: my favorite Disney princess non Milan category. Yeah, I love

1266
01:12:45,320 --> 01:12:48,439
Speaker 1: this story. There's this behind the scenes feature at that

1267
01:12:48,479 --> 01:12:50,840
Speaker 1: talks a little bit more about this in detail. Mark

1268
01:12:50,920 --> 01:12:53,280
Speaker 1: Hen said that lots of people around the Disney Animation

1269
01:12:53,320 --> 01:12:56,000
Speaker 1: studio started stopping by his office to ask if his

1270
01:12:56,080 --> 01:13:00,680
Speaker 1: sister was single. He started animating Jasmine. I know she

1271
01:13:00,760 --> 01:13:03,719
Speaker 1: came to visit her brother at work. She was constantly

1272
01:13:03,760 --> 01:13:08,120
Speaker 1: greeted by animators shouting hey Jasmine to just be a

1273
01:13:08,280 --> 01:13:10,519
Speaker 1: cost off by a bunch of dorky animators trying to

1274
01:13:10,560 --> 01:13:15,120
Speaker 1: ask her out. I wouldn't mark your mark your sister

1275
01:13:15,280 --> 01:13:21,360
Speaker 1: is your sisters a babe? This is offensive, but just

1276
01:13:21,360 --> 01:13:25,080
Speaker 1: like as a bunch of sweaty animators being like, Mark,

1277
01:13:25,760 --> 01:13:31,040
Speaker 1: mark you of babe? Yeah? He I wonder how he

1278
01:13:31,200 --> 01:13:34,680
Speaker 1: balanced that. Um. He signed an illustration to her to

1279
01:13:34,880 --> 01:13:38,000
Speaker 1: Beth my inspiration with a picture of Jasmine that he

1280
01:13:38,040 --> 01:13:41,240
Speaker 1: gave to her and framed her. Kids would often tell

1281
01:13:41,280 --> 01:13:43,959
Speaker 1: their friends at school that their mother was Princess Jasmine,

1282
01:13:44,240 --> 01:13:47,360
Speaker 1: which I think is really cute, she's also a seamstress.

1283
01:13:47,400 --> 01:13:49,479
Speaker 1: And then years later, for Halloween, she made her son

1284
01:13:49,560 --> 01:13:52,639
Speaker 1: in a Laddin outfit and made her daughter a Jasmine outfit,

1285
01:13:52,960 --> 01:13:54,720
Speaker 1: and then decided, you know, what the heck, I'll make

1286
01:13:54,760 --> 01:13:59,200
Speaker 1: myself a Jasmine outfit to considering you know, I am Jasmine. Uh.

1287
01:13:59,479 --> 01:14:02,000
Speaker 1: She post for a photo as Jasmine and sent it

1288
01:14:02,040 --> 01:14:04,679
Speaker 1: to her brother, which was included in this featurette, which

1289
01:14:04,720 --> 01:14:07,400
Speaker 1: is kind of weird because she's like lying on a

1290
01:14:07,479 --> 01:14:13,360
Speaker 1: Chase lounge in the Jasmine outfit. Yeah, but Mark Hand,

1291
01:14:13,400 --> 01:14:15,720
Speaker 1: the animator, said that it was very emotional to see

1292
01:14:15,800 --> 01:14:30,400
Speaker 1: Jasmine brought to life. Uh, sister by my sexy sexy sister. Yeah, yeah,

1293
01:14:31,240 --> 01:14:35,400
Speaker 1: I don't know how. Yeah, and then have to draw

1294
01:14:35,479 --> 01:14:40,360
Speaker 1: that over and over and over and sister, stupid sexy sister.

1295
01:14:43,680 --> 01:14:47,080
Speaker 1: You mentioned the color schemes earlier. They initially considered making

1296
01:14:47,160 --> 01:14:50,360
Speaker 1: Jasmine's outfit pink instead of blue because it was believed

1297
01:14:50,400 --> 01:14:53,240
Speaker 1: that dolls in pink dresses would sell more than dolls

1298
01:14:53,240 --> 01:14:57,000
Speaker 1: and blue dresses, which is dumb. A similar approach was

1299
01:14:57,040 --> 01:15:00,160
Speaker 1: taken with aerial dolls just before The Little Mermaid was released.

1300
01:15:01,080 --> 01:15:03,840
Speaker 1: I guess, believing the kids didn't want redhead dolls. They

1301
01:15:03,880 --> 01:15:07,200
Speaker 1: made the early versions of the aerial dolls a lot blonder,

1302
01:15:07,600 --> 01:15:09,760
Speaker 1: and then of course they discovered once the movie is

1303
01:15:09,800 --> 01:15:12,599
Speaker 1: released that kids wanted dolls that looked like the character,

1304
01:15:13,040 --> 01:15:15,320
Speaker 1: so the hair was changed back to red once the

1305
01:15:15,360 --> 01:15:19,040
Speaker 1: movie opened. Another bit of elegance made possible by CAPS

1306
01:15:19,120 --> 01:15:22,280
Speaker 1: is a blurring effect in which different layers of background

1307
01:15:22,400 --> 01:15:24,599
Speaker 1: art coming in and out of focus as characters move

1308
01:15:25,080 --> 01:15:27,800
Speaker 1: towards or away from them. Um like the way that

1309
01:15:27,880 --> 01:15:30,800
Speaker 1: the human eye or camera lens would see them. You

1310
01:15:30,800 --> 01:15:33,600
Speaker 1: can actually see this stuff again. This is just so

1311
01:15:33,640 --> 01:15:37,160
Speaker 1: fascinating to me, like academically, um, not emotionally or anything

1312
01:15:37,479 --> 01:15:40,840
Speaker 1: or artistically because it does look kind of jankie in

1313
01:15:40,840 --> 01:15:44,000
Speaker 1: the Cave of Wonders, like the lava wall. And basically

1314
01:15:44,040 --> 01:15:46,160
Speaker 1: the way that they were doing this was hand drawing

1315
01:15:46,200 --> 01:15:48,400
Speaker 1: a lot of this stuff and then using CAPS to

1316
01:15:48,800 --> 01:15:52,240
Speaker 1: texture map it onto these surfaces that would ripple or

1317
01:15:52,280 --> 01:15:54,759
Speaker 1: move like they do it with the carpet. The shape

1318
01:15:54,800 --> 01:15:57,120
Speaker 1: of the carpet and the tassels are hand drawn, and

1319
01:15:57,120 --> 01:15:59,559
Speaker 1: then they mapped the design over to it and used

1320
01:15:59,560 --> 01:16:03,800
Speaker 1: this computer system to animate that. They spent so much

1321
01:16:03,960 --> 01:16:06,479
Speaker 1: time and money doing this for the carpet that Jeffrey

1322
01:16:06,520 --> 01:16:09,640
Speaker 1: Katzenberg started to get annoyed then and Uh called it

1323
01:16:09,880 --> 01:16:14,559
Speaker 1: a bunch of squiggles class act. For the Cave Escape,

1324
01:16:14,640 --> 01:16:17,439
Speaker 1: animator Rezul at Zani took his camera to the Magic

1325
01:16:17,479 --> 01:16:20,840
Speaker 1: Mountain theme park for inspiration, got on the roller coaster

1326
01:16:20,920 --> 01:16:23,640
Speaker 1: with his camera, got off the roller coaster, realized he'd

1327
01:16:23,720 --> 01:16:26,320
Speaker 1: left his lens cap on, got back on the roller coaster.

1328
01:16:27,320 --> 01:16:29,800
Speaker 1: Um The Tiger's head for the Cave of Wonders is

1329
01:16:29,840 --> 01:16:33,200
Speaker 1: believed to be the first fully computer animated character in

1330
01:16:33,240 --> 01:16:35,920
Speaker 1: a feature film. It was first sculpted out of clay

1331
01:16:36,000 --> 01:16:40,800
Speaker 1: and then animated digitally. All Right, Two controversies dogged A.

1332
01:16:40,880 --> 01:16:45,240
Speaker 1: Laddin upon its completion and release, one much more deserved

1333
01:16:45,280 --> 01:16:47,960
Speaker 1: than the other. I am speaking of the quite reasonable

1334
01:16:47,960 --> 01:16:52,120
Speaker 1: objection that Middle Eastern people and the Middle Eastern totality

1335
01:16:52,439 --> 01:16:55,000
Speaker 1: UH does not come off well in the film. Aladdin

1336
01:16:55,000 --> 01:16:57,519
Speaker 1: and Jasmine are these light skin They basically look like

1337
01:16:57,560 --> 01:17:01,880
Speaker 1: they have a tan uh englicized characters, and the Saltan

1338
01:17:01,960 --> 01:17:04,639
Speaker 1: looks like Santa Claus, while the rest of the supporting

1339
01:17:04,680 --> 01:17:07,280
Speaker 1: cast and all of the villains have very coded, caricatured

1340
01:17:07,560 --> 01:17:12,679
Speaker 1: Middle Eastern quote unquote arab features. Alan Mancoinn told Entertainment Tonight,

1341
01:17:13,160 --> 01:17:15,320
Speaker 1: it's so much of the Disney style to make characters

1342
01:17:15,400 --> 01:17:19,479
Speaker 1: very recognizable American types within that context. And then he said,

1343
01:17:19,600 --> 01:17:23,320
Speaker 1: uh so Aladdin and Jasmine are kind of valley kids

1344
01:17:24,080 --> 01:17:27,479
Speaker 1: as well as being these Arabian characters, which is very

1345
01:17:27,600 --> 01:17:30,439
Speaker 1: telling quote and if you need a finer point, put

1346
01:17:30,439 --> 01:17:33,680
Speaker 1: on that. Uh. In a nine article about the controversy

1347
01:17:33,800 --> 01:17:37,920
Speaker 1: around the film, the Washington Post quoted the former spokesman

1348
01:17:37,960 --> 01:17:42,240
Speaker 1: for the South Bay Islamic Association, a man named Yusuf Salem,

1349
01:17:42,280 --> 01:17:45,639
Speaker 1: and he said, all the bad guys have beards and large,

1350
01:17:45,680 --> 01:17:49,599
Speaker 1: bulbous noses, sinister eyes, and heavy accents, and they're wielding

1351
01:17:49,680 --> 01:17:53,360
Speaker 1: swords constantly. Aladdin doesn't have a big nose. He has

1352
01:17:53,360 --> 01:17:56,040
Speaker 1: a small nose. He doesn't have a beard or a turban,

1353
01:17:56,400 --> 01:17:59,200
Speaker 1: he doesn't have an accent. What makes him nice is

1354
01:17:59,240 --> 01:18:02,479
Speaker 1: they've given him this American character. They've done everything but

1355
01:18:02,600 --> 01:18:06,639
Speaker 1: put him into a suit and tie. There was, also,

1356
01:18:06,680 --> 01:18:09,840
Speaker 1: as you mentioned earlier, the lyric in the song Arabian Nights,

1357
01:18:10,040 --> 01:18:12,000
Speaker 1: which goes where they cut off your ear if they

1358
01:18:12,000 --> 01:18:15,439
Speaker 1: don't like your face. It's barbaric, but hey, it's home,

1359
01:18:16,040 --> 01:18:19,000
Speaker 1: and no less a person than Casey Caseum, who is

1360
01:18:19,040 --> 01:18:22,080
Speaker 1: of Lebanese ancestry, told The l A Times in that article,

1361
01:18:22,400 --> 01:18:26,360
Speaker 1: it's gratuitous arab a bashing. It just drives another nail

1362
01:18:26,520 --> 01:18:28,920
Speaker 1: into the casket of what has been a bad image

1363
01:18:29,000 --> 01:18:32,160
Speaker 1: for decades. That time to try my Casey case impression.

1364
01:18:32,400 --> 01:18:38,880
Speaker 1: Go for it. It's gratuda is Arab bashing. It just

1365
01:18:39,000 --> 01:18:41,439
Speaker 1: drives another nail into the casket of what has been

1366
01:18:41,439 --> 01:18:44,600
Speaker 1: a bad image for decades. Of what has been a

1367
01:18:44,720 --> 01:18:48,880
Speaker 1: bad image for decades. If you give me twenty minutes,

1368
01:18:48,920 --> 01:18:53,120
Speaker 1: I could will workshop this live on the air. Alan Mokeeber,

1369
01:18:53,320 --> 01:18:57,720
Speaker 1: the president of the American Arab Anti Discrimination Committee in Washington,

1370
01:18:58,040 --> 01:19:01,560
Speaker 1: wrote to Disney Studios chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg to suggest the

1371
01:19:01,640 --> 01:19:04,400
Speaker 1: lyrics to Arabian Nights be changed before the movie came

1372
01:19:04,439 --> 01:19:07,400
Speaker 1: out on home media. Like there are also complaints about

1373
01:19:07,439 --> 01:19:10,080
Speaker 1: a scene where a merchant threatened to cut off Jasmine's

1374
01:19:10,080 --> 01:19:12,240
Speaker 1: hand for taking an apple from a stand and giving

1375
01:19:12,240 --> 01:19:17,240
Speaker 1: it to a hungry child. In an incredibly tone deaf

1376
01:19:17,280 --> 01:19:20,040
Speaker 1: response to this, that just to show how far we've

1377
01:19:20,080 --> 01:19:24,719
Speaker 1: come in thirty years, A named as spokesman for Disney

1378
01:19:24,800 --> 01:19:27,799
Speaker 1: Howard Green. Shout out to Howard Green for the worst

1379
01:19:27,840 --> 01:19:32,200
Speaker 1: public response to this. It's certainly coming from a small minority,

1380
01:19:32,360 --> 01:19:34,880
Speaker 1: because most people are very happy with it. All the

1381
01:19:34,960 --> 01:19:37,759
Speaker 1: characters are Arabs, the good guys and the bad guys,

1382
01:19:38,000 --> 01:19:41,679
Speaker 1: and the accents don't really connote anything. As for the song,

1383
01:19:41,880 --> 01:19:44,599
Speaker 1: it's talking about a different time and a different place.

1384
01:19:45,320 --> 01:19:48,200
Speaker 1: It's a certain license that they're taking, but it's certainly

1385
01:19:48,200 --> 01:19:50,960
Speaker 1: not meant to reflect on the culture of today. It's

1386
01:19:50,960 --> 01:19:54,120
Speaker 1: a fictitious place. That was the wind up and here's

1387
01:19:54,160 --> 01:20:00,840
Speaker 1: the pitch. This seems kind of nitpicky anyway. Yeah. Man.

1388
01:20:02,360 --> 01:20:05,800
Speaker 1: Albert m'caber is the president of the American Era Anti

1389
01:20:05,840 --> 01:20:09,839
Speaker 1: Discrimination Committee. He also expressed disappointment that the Disney officials

1390
01:20:09,840 --> 01:20:12,680
Speaker 1: refused to meet with the committee. He says, certainly, I

1391
01:20:12,680 --> 01:20:15,120
Speaker 1: think it would have been a different situation if African

1392
01:20:15,160 --> 01:20:20,640
Speaker 1: Americans are Jewish Americans had been involved. I mean, this

1393
01:20:20,720 --> 01:20:23,920
Speaker 1: is also taking place during the backdrop of the as

1394
01:20:23,920 --> 01:20:28,000
Speaker 1: I mentioned earlier, Iraq one. Um. Yeah, it's just weird

1395
01:20:28,000 --> 01:20:29,439
Speaker 1: to think about this in the context of, you know,

1396
01:20:29,479 --> 01:20:31,920
Speaker 1: Disney took out Robin and his George Bush impression. Because

1397
01:20:31,960 --> 01:20:35,880
Speaker 1: this is happening during the Gulf War, so maybe that

1398
01:20:35,880 --> 01:20:39,639
Speaker 1: played into it, but man, calling those those objections kind

1399
01:20:39,640 --> 01:20:44,120
Speaker 1: of nitpicky good lord. Uh. Disney ended up agreeing to

1400
01:20:44,200 --> 01:20:46,960
Speaker 1: change the lyrics after the protests continued, and so for

1401
01:20:47,040 --> 01:20:49,720
Speaker 1: the home release, the lyric was changed to where it's

1402
01:20:49,720 --> 01:20:53,160
Speaker 1: flat and immense and the heat is intense. It's barbaric,

1403
01:20:53,400 --> 01:20:57,080
Speaker 1: but hey, it's home. They kept in barbaric at the

1404
01:20:57,120 --> 01:20:59,800
Speaker 1: opportunity to take that out, and they kept it in,

1405
01:21:00,479 --> 01:21:03,320
Speaker 1: and which is really puzzling because being barbaric has nothing

1406
01:21:03,320 --> 01:21:06,080
Speaker 1: to do with the temperature of a place. For the

1407
01:21:06,120 --> 01:21:08,679
Speaker 1: live action remake in ten, the line was completely changed

1408
01:21:08,720 --> 01:21:11,839
Speaker 1: to be where you will wonder among every culture and tongue.

1409
01:21:12,240 --> 01:21:17,040
Speaker 1: It's chaotic, but hey, it's home. Uh. And if you

1410
01:21:17,120 --> 01:21:19,680
Speaker 1: perhaps wanted to know how far as the society we

1411
01:21:20,040 --> 01:21:23,080
Speaker 1: had progressed in the intereating twenty years, the answer was

1412
01:21:23,120 --> 01:21:29,000
Speaker 1: not that much. In when Donald Trump was campaigning for president,

1413
01:21:29,439 --> 01:21:33,759
Speaker 1: promising a ban on Muslims entering the country, Public Policy

1414
01:21:33,840 --> 01:21:37,759
Speaker 1: Polling asked nearly five hundred and fifty Republican primary voters

1415
01:21:38,040 --> 01:21:41,360
Speaker 1: if they would support the bombing of Agroba, the fictional

1416
01:21:41,400 --> 01:21:46,080
Speaker 1: setting of a Laddin of respondents said they were not

1417
01:21:46,120 --> 01:21:51,880
Speaker 1: sure and said they supported the bombing on opposed it

1418
01:21:52,280 --> 01:21:55,960
Speaker 1: In fairness. Public Policy Polling also pulled Democratic primary voters

1419
01:21:55,960 --> 01:21:58,160
Speaker 1: are the nineteen of them percent of them said they

1420
01:21:58,200 --> 01:22:01,639
Speaker 1: would support bombing Agriba, thirty six percent said they would

1421
01:22:01,640 --> 01:22:04,680
Speaker 1: oppose it. The number of people who answered isn't that

1422
01:22:04,720 --> 01:22:10,200
Speaker 1: the city from Aladdin was not specified? Uh. In lighter news,

1423
01:22:10,840 --> 01:22:14,200
Speaker 1: it now seems that every Disney Renaissance film has to

1424
01:22:14,200 --> 01:22:17,120
Speaker 1: have some kind of weird sex urban legend connected to it.

1425
01:22:17,360 --> 01:22:20,600
Speaker 1: I think we talked about the allegedly hidden boner in

1426
01:22:20,800 --> 01:22:25,519
Speaker 1: a Little Mermaid, the bishop who's marrying them, right, yeah,

1427
01:22:25,560 --> 01:22:28,760
Speaker 1: And on the VHS case there's a phallic symbol in

1428
01:22:28,880 --> 01:22:35,360
Speaker 1: one of the castle turrets. Y y, yes, it's pretty unmistakable, uh,

1429
01:22:35,400 --> 01:22:38,120
Speaker 1: and then the swirling dust. A year or two later,

1430
01:22:38,160 --> 01:22:41,320
Speaker 1: in a line, King allegedly spelled out the word sex.

1431
01:22:42,439 --> 01:22:43,960
Speaker 1: Was it. The theory behind that was that it was

1432
01:22:44,000 --> 01:22:46,600
Speaker 1: actually SFX and it was a tribute to like a

1433
01:22:46,720 --> 01:22:49,960
Speaker 1: special effects team or something. Having said that this Aladdin

1434
01:22:50,000 --> 01:22:53,200
Speaker 1: one is weird, you can hear, well, you can supposedly

1435
01:22:53,240 --> 01:22:55,720
Speaker 1: you can hear in the scene when he's writing the

1436
01:22:55,800 --> 01:22:59,240
Speaker 1: carpet up to the balcony and he's confronted by Frank

1437
01:22:59,280 --> 01:23:03,360
Speaker 1: Woker as the Tiger. Aladdin supposedly says, good teenagers take

1438
01:23:03,400 --> 01:23:06,760
Speaker 1: off their clothes, or take off your your clothes. Take

1439
01:23:06,760 --> 01:23:10,000
Speaker 1: good teenagers, take off your clothes Snopes. If you go

1440
01:23:10,040 --> 01:23:12,160
Speaker 1: to the Snopes article about this, they have recordings of

1441
01:23:12,160 --> 01:23:15,080
Speaker 1: that line at different speed. And what is very bizarre

1442
01:23:15,120 --> 01:23:17,439
Speaker 1: about it is that you can distinctly hear a male

1443
01:23:17,560 --> 01:23:20,599
Speaker 1: voice that is not Aladdin's come in at the tail

1444
01:23:20,760 --> 01:23:23,120
Speaker 1: end of that line. So maybe there is something to

1445
01:23:23,160 --> 01:23:26,000
Speaker 1: this rumor we should punch it. It's really weird. Aladdin's

1446
01:23:26,040 --> 01:23:29,200
Speaker 1: line is scripted, is scat good tiger, take off and go.

1447
01:23:29,760 --> 01:23:33,559
Speaker 1: But why this extra line is in there remains a mystery.

1448
01:23:33,960 --> 01:23:37,280
Speaker 1: Snopes theorized it might have just been careless audio mixing

1449
01:23:37,479 --> 01:23:44,720
Speaker 1: that got this outtaken there. It almost it sounds like

1450
01:23:44,720 --> 01:23:48,320
Speaker 1: a mistake. Yeah, it's but you can hear two voices

1451
01:23:48,360 --> 01:23:51,599
Speaker 1: on that. That's what's so weird about it. But basically

1452
01:23:51,600 --> 01:23:53,760
Speaker 1: they started to pick up steam when Aladdin came out

1453
01:23:53,800 --> 01:23:57,840
Speaker 1: on VHS and conquered the world more than it already had.

1454
01:23:58,280 --> 01:24:01,800
Speaker 1: Word of mouth momentum about this line eventually caused it

1455
01:24:01,800 --> 01:24:05,760
Speaker 1: to get picked up in an Atlanta based Christian entertainment

1456
01:24:05,880 --> 01:24:10,080
Speaker 1: magazine called Movie Guide with the very generic name of

1457
01:24:10,120 --> 01:24:13,400
Speaker 1: just movie Guide. Uh. It was printed in there, and

1458
01:24:13,439 --> 01:24:15,479
Speaker 1: then from that it was brought to the attention of

1459
01:24:15,520 --> 01:24:19,679
Speaker 1: the American Life League, who claimed the phrase was evidence

1460
01:24:19,760 --> 01:24:22,960
Speaker 1: of a vast multi picture conspiracy by Disney to hide

1461
01:24:23,040 --> 01:24:27,200
Speaker 1: sexual messages in their animated films. From that, places like

1462
01:24:27,200 --> 01:24:30,439
Speaker 1: the AP and different regional newspapers all picked up on

1463
01:24:30,479 --> 01:24:34,520
Speaker 1: this story and the rest, as they say, is history.

1464
01:24:34,560 --> 01:24:38,360
Speaker 1: Can you sing the uh? The next topic? He I can't.

1465
01:24:38,400 --> 01:24:42,400
Speaker 1: I don't know this line. Sorry, tumbling, soaring, tumbling, freewheeling

1466
01:24:42,400 --> 01:24:47,080
Speaker 1: through an endless through an endless diamond sky. Thank you.

1467
01:24:49,360 --> 01:24:51,880
Speaker 1: Disney put a lot of promotional muscle behind the Ladin

1468
01:24:51,960 --> 01:24:54,920
Speaker 1: and the film's trailer proceeded most of their VHS releases,

1469
01:24:54,960 --> 01:24:58,640
Speaker 1: including One D One Dalmatians and Beauty and the Beast

1470
01:24:59,320 --> 01:25:02,760
Speaker 1: And there is a ton of merch and licensing tie INDs,

1471
01:25:02,760 --> 01:25:05,240
Speaker 1: I remember this. The film had its wide release on

1472
01:25:05,280 --> 01:25:09,439
Speaker 1: November two, and it only took eight weeks to surpass

1473
01:25:09,479 --> 01:25:12,320
Speaker 1: Beauty and the Beasts as the most successful animated Disney

1474
01:25:12,360 --> 01:25:15,360
Speaker 1: film at the domestic box office, a record that would

1475
01:25:15,360 --> 01:25:17,960
Speaker 1: then be broken a few years later by The Lion King.

1476
01:25:18,000 --> 01:25:23,600
Speaker 1: In Ultimately, Aladdin was the most successful film of nWo,

1477
01:25:23,760 --> 01:25:26,960
Speaker 1: which I didn't realize it did that. Common numbers gross

1478
01:25:27,040 --> 01:25:30,040
Speaker 1: two hundred and seventeen million in the United States and

1479
01:25:30,160 --> 01:25:33,840
Speaker 1: five hundred four million worldwide, making it the first animated

1480
01:25:33,880 --> 01:25:36,120
Speaker 1: film to pass the two million mark in the United

1481
01:25:36,160 --> 01:25:38,800
Speaker 1: States and Canada, and the first film overall to do

1482
01:25:38,920 --> 01:25:43,720
Speaker 1: so since Your Beloved Terminator to Judgment Day. Currently, it's

1483
01:25:43,760 --> 01:25:48,040
Speaker 1: the third highest grossing traditionally animated feature worldwide, behind The

1484
01:25:48,040 --> 01:25:51,679
Speaker 1: Lion King and The Simpsons Movie. One of those things

1485
01:25:51,800 --> 01:25:54,160
Speaker 1: is not like the I like the Simpson Movie. I

1486
01:25:54,200 --> 01:25:57,439
Speaker 1: thought it was better than it had any right to be. Really, Yeah,

1487
01:25:57,479 --> 01:25:59,439
Speaker 1: but it doesn't have I don't know. I think that's

1488
01:25:59,439 --> 01:26:00,960
Speaker 1: one of those things. Was kind of memory hold. I

1489
01:26:00,960 --> 01:26:03,280
Speaker 1: guess people went out and saw it in droves and

1490
01:26:03,280 --> 01:26:07,320
Speaker 1: then it just talking about it again. Yeah. The film

1491
01:26:07,360 --> 01:26:09,800
Speaker 1: was an equally big smash on home media, and in

1492
01:26:09,800 --> 01:26:12,960
Speaker 1: its first three days of VHS availability, it's sold ten

1493
01:26:13,040 --> 01:26:16,240
Speaker 1: point eight million copies, setting a record for the time,

1494
01:26:16,280 --> 01:26:19,160
Speaker 1: and it also went on to sell sixteen million units

1495
01:26:19,200 --> 01:26:22,200
Speaker 1: in three weeks, setting another record that would only be

1496
01:26:22,240 --> 01:26:24,640
Speaker 1: broken by The Lion King two years later, and the

1497
01:26:24,800 --> 01:26:28,960
Speaker 1: Sega Genesis video game adaptations sold thirty million units. Wow,

1498
01:26:29,000 --> 01:26:32,160
Speaker 1: these are insane numbers. I don't remember. I remember that

1499
01:26:32,160 --> 01:26:35,120
Speaker 1: gaming very frustrating. I don't remember. I looked. I looked

1500
01:26:35,120 --> 01:26:36,800
Speaker 1: it up, and it was there was too much out

1501
01:26:36,800 --> 01:26:39,920
Speaker 1: there about it to actually address. But it is very

1502
01:26:40,080 --> 01:26:42,560
Speaker 1: was enormously successful, and I think it was one of

1503
01:26:42,600 --> 01:26:46,200
Speaker 1: the first, one of the first, uh if not the

1504
01:26:46,280 --> 01:26:50,760
Speaker 1: first one to have like fully traditionally animated sequences in it. Well,

1505
01:26:50,800 --> 01:26:55,240
Speaker 1: I'm not sure that that's right cut that anyway. Critics

1506
01:26:55,240 --> 01:26:57,360
Speaker 1: were pretty unanimous in their love of the film, and

1507
01:26:57,800 --> 01:27:01,120
Speaker 1: almost everyone singled out Williams is the real star, although

1508
01:27:01,200 --> 01:27:04,599
Speaker 1: Roger Ebert, to his credit, criticized the ethnic stereotypes, writing,

1509
01:27:04,680 --> 01:27:09,080
Speaker 1: most of the Arab characters have exaggerated facial characteristics hooked noses,

1510
01:27:09,240 --> 01:27:12,760
Speaker 1: glowering brows, thick lips, but Aladdin and the Princess looked

1511
01:27:12,760 --> 01:27:16,240
Speaker 1: like white American teenagers. Shouts Roger Ebert for not saying,

1512
01:27:16,360 --> 01:27:20,439
Speaker 1: seems a bit nitpicky. Uh No, less an authority than

1513
01:27:20,520 --> 01:27:24,120
Speaker 1: Warner Brothers animation legend Chuck Jones called the film the

1514
01:27:24,160 --> 01:27:27,960
Speaker 1: funniest feature ever made. After he attended to screening and

1515
01:27:28,080 --> 01:27:31,160
Speaker 1: Aladdin picked up Oscars and Golden Globes for Best Original

1516
01:27:31,200 --> 01:27:34,559
Speaker 1: Score and Best Original Song. It really cleaned up at

1517
01:27:34,560 --> 01:27:36,639
Speaker 1: the Grammys. One Song of the Year for a Whole

1518
01:27:36,680 --> 01:27:40,160
Speaker 1: New World, which is the first and currently only Disney

1519
01:27:40,240 --> 01:27:44,320
Speaker 1: song to do so. Wow One Best Pop Performance for

1520
01:27:44,560 --> 01:27:46,680
Speaker 1: the p Bo Bryson and Regina Bell version of It,

1521
01:27:47,040 --> 01:27:50,599
Speaker 1: Best Musical Album for Children, Best Instrumental Composition, Best Song

1522
01:27:50,640 --> 01:27:53,519
Speaker 1: Written specifically for Most Picture of Television. The Whole New

1523
01:27:53,520 --> 01:27:56,320
Speaker 1: World was also the only song from a Disney animated

1524
01:27:56,320 --> 01:27:58,920
Speaker 1: film to top the Billboard Hot one hundred list until

1525
01:27:59,040 --> 01:28:03,000
Speaker 1: last year, when we Don't talk about Bruno from Encanto

1526
01:28:03,200 --> 01:28:07,080
Speaker 1: surpassed it. Frozens Let It Go did not that only

1527
01:28:07,120 --> 01:28:09,600
Speaker 1: made it to five. I had no idea that A

1528
01:28:09,600 --> 01:28:12,160
Speaker 1: Whole New World not only charted because the number one.

1529
01:28:12,200 --> 01:28:18,960
Speaker 1: That's crazy because it bangs bangs uh. Sadly, Aladdin has

1530
01:28:18,960 --> 01:28:21,760
Speaker 1: not yet been added to the Library of Congress till

1531
01:28:21,800 --> 01:28:31,880
Speaker 1: mark I, which means it was a failure. Um angrily

1532
01:28:31,920 --> 01:28:37,840
Speaker 1: writes email memo to self right Library of Congress. Dear

1533
01:28:37,960 --> 01:28:49,040
Speaker 1: haters at l OC, get bent, Sincerely, Jeffrey Katzenberg mail

1534
01:28:49,120 --> 01:28:52,439
Speaker 1: them a turn to take out talks. Well, that is

1535
01:28:52,479 --> 01:28:54,400
Speaker 1: sixteen pages on a ladd and George, do you have

1536
01:28:54,439 --> 01:28:57,280
Speaker 1: anything to say before we go out? I think I

1537
01:28:57,680 --> 01:28:59,479
Speaker 1: have truly never had a friend like you to do

1538
01:29:00,040 --> 01:29:03,800
Speaker 1: sixteen pages on Aladdin. I'd like to give the last

1539
01:29:03,800 --> 01:29:06,280
Speaker 1: word on Aladdin to the late writer and Disney historian

1540
01:29:06,360 --> 01:29:10,559
Speaker 1: John Colahane, who offered probably my favorite summation of a film,

1541
01:29:10,680 --> 01:29:14,519
Speaker 1: my favorite intellectualizing of the film, in the book Disney's Aladdin,

1542
01:29:14,600 --> 01:29:18,040
Speaker 1: The Making of the Animated Film. He wrote, in this

1543
01:29:18,120 --> 01:29:22,160
Speaker 1: house of the Human Spirit, there are many mansions. Animation

1544
01:29:22,200 --> 01:29:25,240
Speaker 1: lives in one of them, and currently the characters from

1545
01:29:25,240 --> 01:29:28,920
Speaker 1: Aladdin are holding a celebration there. It is a celebration

1546
01:29:28,960 --> 01:29:32,880
Speaker 1: that harmonizes Hamlets. What a piece of work is man,

1547
01:29:33,240 --> 01:29:37,600
Speaker 1: How infinite in faculty, inform and moving, How express and

1548
01:29:37,680 --> 01:29:43,160
Speaker 1: admirable with pucks? Lord, what fools these mortals be? Yet

1549
01:29:43,200 --> 01:29:47,080
Speaker 1: even Shakespeare never said it better than Disney's Genie. Why

1550
01:29:47,160 --> 01:29:52,960
Speaker 1: don't you just ruminate whilst I illuminate the possibilities. It's

1551
01:29:52,960 --> 01:29:55,880
Speaker 1: a beautiful sentiment about Aladdin. Thank you for listening, folks.

1552
01:29:55,920 --> 01:29:58,880
Speaker 1: This has been too much information. I'm Alex Hegel and

1553
01:29:58,920 --> 01:30:06,559
Speaker 1: I'm Jordan run Tug We'll catch you next time. Too

1554
01:30:06,640 --> 01:30:09,200
Speaker 1: Much Information was a production of I Heart Radio. The

1555
01:30:09,240 --> 01:30:12,400
Speaker 1: show's executive producers are Noel Brown and Jordan run Talk.

1556
01:30:12,560 --> 01:30:16,040
Speaker 1: The show's supervising producer is Michael Alder June. The show

1557
01:30:16,120 --> 01:30:18,920
Speaker 1: was researched, written and hosted by Jordan run Talk and

1558
01:30:18,960 --> 01:30:21,920
Speaker 1: Alex Hegel, with original music by Seth Applebaum and the

1559
01:30:21,960 --> 01:30:24,599
Speaker 1: Ghost Funk Orchestra. If you like what you heard, please

1560
01:30:24,600 --> 01:30:27,160
Speaker 1: subscribe and leave us a review. For more podcasts and

1561
01:30:27,200 --> 01:30:30,440
Speaker 1: I heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple podcast,

1562
01:30:30,720 --> 01:30:32,439
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows