I feel that I am perhaps the last individual in the Disney blogosphere to post any sort of public comment about the recent controversy surrounding the rumored changes to Disneyland’s version of it’s a small world. This is due to a number of reasons, but mostly, as a grizzled veteran of Eisner’s last decade at the helm of the Walt Disney company, I have attained a degree of scandal fatigue. Quite simply, I have seen so many desecrations and obscenities foisted upon the art of themed entertainment and design that I have become inured to such grand disappointments.
I fought in the Toad Wars of 1998, had the first website devoted to saving Horizons and wrote a letter so incensed by Journey Into YOUR Imagination that I got a call at home from the then Vice President of EPCOT Center. I watched Disney built a park with amazing theming but little to do (Animal Kingdom), minimal theming and nothing to do (California Adventure) and no theming and nothing to do (Disney Studios Paris). I consider Hong Kong Disneyland something of a gated botanical gardens. After wands and hats and Pop Century, I had no store of indignation left.
Young revolutionaries on the barricades - the last Toad-In, September 7, 1998. I seem distracted.
But just as things looked bleakest, there was a ray of hope. Paul Pressler left to destroy another company. Michael Eisner left to hang out with Bette Midler and trade baseball cards. John Lasseter and the Pixar squad rode in on their white horses to give the triage badly needed by a dying WDI and dead Feature Animation department. Even Bob Iger, Eisner’s hand-picked successor, proved me wrong and wound up not being a proxy for the departed CEO but a fairly bold new leader who embraced a far more progressive view of new technologies than his predecessor. Surely, everyone would live happily ever after.
Still, all was not well. The management purges and noxious politics of the last decade had left Imagineering paranoid and factionalized, split between the embattled creatives who had managed to survive in the hope of better days ahead and those who, bolstered by political maneuvering and their ability to “play the game” successfully had risen through the ranks. Not since the Augean stables had an organization so desperately needed a flushing out of the dross and a complete rebuilding.
While change came, however, it came slowly. Sub-par attractions still filtered out into the parks, and more alarmingly, newly announced attractions started to have a noticeably Pixar-centric tilt. The “toonification” of the parks amped up in earnest, and areas that once whisked guests away to adventure in fantastic but real-world settings became new venues for promoting the Franchise of the Month. It seemed that at our moment of greatest triumph, the folks from marketing had won after all. The parks were going to become ads for character merchandise, and the days of the great non-”property” rides like Pirates or Mansion might never return.
Oh noes.
There remained reasons for optimism, though, and obviously a great deal of wonderful, devoted and creative staff continue to try their best to keep the company living up to Walt’s ideals. I’ve tended to cut them slack even in times of irritation, and even though I might disagree with their choices I’m usually eager to see where they’re going in the hopes that the ship will eventually get turned around completely. So, for a while, my crusading came to an end.
Recently, though, rumors emerged of something so strangely unnecessary, blinkered and contrary to both good taste and Disney legacy that I felt that old activist drumbeat once more. Something had been planned so purely based in concepts of “marketing” and “brand awareness” and intended to move merchandise that it can’t help but to raise the hackles of fans. Something that strikes right at the nexus of several “sacrosanct” movements in Disney park history, and something that was neither asked for or needed.
So why not? Once more into the breach, dear friends. Start your petitions and phone calls, emails and letters. Grab the pitchforks and light up those torches, because they’re going to screw around with it’s a small world.
Although unconfirmed, it’s widely believed that Pixar director Andrew Stanton’s next film after WALL-E will be John Carter of Mars. The science-fiction film, based on the series of novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs, has been alternately rumored to be animated, live-action or a hybrid of both. Yet it is not Hollywood’s first attempt to film Burroughs’ tales of Barsoom - several studios have tried and failed over the decades to get a John Carter project off the ground. The first of these attempts was all the way back in the 1930s, and ironically this iteration of the tale was actually intended as an animated serial.
In 1931 Bob Clampett went to work at the Harman-Ising Studios, where the Disney expatriates were producing shorts for Warner Brothers. Here he worked on the early Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies shorts, staying with Warners when Harman and Ising left and Leon Schlesinger took over the animation unit. Working with Friz Freleng and Tex Avery, Clampett would eventually become one of Warners’ legendary animators. Around 1936, however, he had an idea for striking out on his own.
Clampett approached Edgar Rice Burroughs about serializing his Mars novels in animated form. Burroughs, although unfamiliar with the animation world, was enthusiastic about the project and gave it his consent. Clampett worked for about a year on development with Burroughs’ son, John Coleman Burroughs. While still working for Warners, Clampett moonlighted on the John Carter project with assistance from animator Chuck Jones and eventually created a pencil test and demo reel.
Sadly, studio politics were just as wrongheaded then as they are now and executive interference eventually led to the demise of the project. MGM, who held the rights to Burroughs’ properties, didn’t understand the serious, science-fiction tone Clampett was trying to achieve. They instead wanted more slapstick, comical films and wanted Burroughs to adapt his more popular Tarzan character for animation. Eventually Clampett tired of the process and returned to Warners where he signed a new contract to direct.
The project never revived; animated shorts remained the domain of the funny animals and slapstick that had dominated them for years. The closest that Hollywood would come to the aesthetic of Clampett’s John Carter would be the Fleischers’ Superman shorts several years later. Clampett’s project, if realized, might have changed the face of science-fiction and animation forever.
This little history lesson is basically so I can show you this footage - the quite awesome demo that Clampett produced in 1936 to demonstrate his concept:
More information is available in this interesting article by Jim Korkis.
Due to a bit of uncharacteristic good luck, a trip back home last weekend led to a brush with Pixar. I had already decided to drive over to Winston-Salem when my BFF swingin’ Teddi Barra rang me up with the news that Pixar staffer David Park would be a featured speaker at the Reynolda Film Festival. Park was the Art Department Coordinator for Ratatouille and is currently the Animation Department Coordinator for WALL-E. Needless to say, I was in.
After getting up early on Saturday, we met up and headed over to Wake Forest for the festival. While sadly I don’t have any good documentation of the presentation, as it didn’t seem savvy to be snapping tons of pictures in a dark auditorium, I thought that I’d bring it all up here in case you, dear reader, ever have a chance to attend one of these talks. If you have the chance, be sure and go - it’s well worth it.
Park led off with a discussion of Pixar itself - its campus and its culture. His presentation provided us with a brief history of the company’s creation and culminated with an audiovisual tour of its Emoryville, California, campus. Both the technical and artistic halves of the company were discussed, with accompanying pictures and anecdotes from Park’s own experience. Needless to say, Pixar is an amazing place and I will shamelessly solicit tour offers from any of my readers from the pixar.com domain. The tour of Pixar segued into a discussion of their core values which are well known amongst fans - the focus on story which is achieved through a constant, iterative process of collaboration.
To illustrate the process, Park walked us through the production of Ratatouille from its original concept to final rendering. While the actual animation process is not a mystery to any avid fan, it’s still fascinating to watch it play out from an insider’s perspective. Throughout the presentation, Park peppered his speech with little facts and stories from production that gave an insight that was missing in the film’s bare-bones DVD.
All in all, the presentation didn’t contain any earth-shattering revelations, but it was full of great art that I had never seen, and nice slice-of-life peeks into Pixar headquarters. It was highly enjoyable and I would recommend it to anyone, regardless of their animation I.Q. One interesting tidbit: considering Pixar’s history of focusing on a new technological innovation in each new film, my companion Teddi asked Park what breakthroughs the company was introducing in WALL-E. Hedging a bit due to his NDA, Park said that all he could tell us was to watch how the camera moved. So - camera moves! Be prepared. I asked him what Pixar’s specific production contribution would be to its upcoming live-action co-productions (thinking of 1906 and hoping to get him to say something about John Carter of Mars), but Park said that it was too far out to know for sure about those issues.
So there you go, kids - my brush with Pixar. If their traveling roadshow ever comes to your town, be sure and catch it. I’ll now be quitting my job, packing my hobo sack and catching a boxcar to Emoryville. They can only pass me, sitting on the sidewalk outside the front gate, for so many days before someone lets me in, right?
Frank Thomas, left, and Ollie Johnston in 2004’s The Incredibles
As I predicted, many heavy-hitters of the animation community have begun to share their thoughts and remembrances of Disney animator Ollie Johnston. One thing that is obvious from reading all these posts is that Johnston was universally loved and respected; it’s rare in any industry for such a prominent individual to pass on without anyone having something nasty to intimate about them. Johnston has been repeatedly described as a gentle, incredibly friendly and giving man as well as a fiercely talented animator. He was also one of the greatest personality animators in Disney history.
Below are some of the better tributes I’ve found to Ollie. I’ll add to this list as I come across more.
Ollie, seated, with frequent collaborator Frank Thomas
Jenny at the Blackwing Diaries has posted the very sad news that Ollie Johnston, Disney animator and the last of Walt’s Nine Old Men, passed away today at the age of 95. I’m sure that many tributes will begin to appear very soon, so any attempt for me to eulogize Ollie here would be glaringly deficient. I never met the man in person, but his work and the work of his peers has affected my life greatly. His contribution to the art of animation is incalculable, as is the effect of his training and mentoring on the subsequent generation of animators that studied under him. He was an artist, a teacher, a family man and a heck of an engineer. His passing marks the end of an era; he is the last of the titans to fall. He will be missed.
Young revolutionaries on the barricades - the last Toad-In, September 7, 1998.
Oh noes.
Ollie, seated, with frequent collaborator Frank Thomas
