June 17, 2024 • 48 mins
Michael Healy was the SVP of Original Movies at Disney for nearly 16 years!
Now, he’s sitting down to talk about his career at Disney, as well as behind the scenes stories many people have never about!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:15):
Thank you so much for joining us on our Part
Copper episode of Magical Rewind. And we are so excited
because we are doing something we haven't had a chance
to do at all on this podcast, and that's to
talk to somebody who actually worked at the Channel and
can tell us how a lot of these movies got made,
how a lot of them were put on there, what
it was like. We can't wait, so please please help us.
(00:35):
Welcome Michael Healy.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Hi, s Brenda, Hi.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
How are you so good to see you?
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Good to see you too. It's been a while, but
you haven't changed a bitch.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
Well, thank you, thank you. You can come on this
podcast anytime.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
How are you. I'm will I will welcome. Thank you
for joining us, Thank you for inviting me. We are
so excited because you're a first ever executive on the
podcast and we couldn't have asked for a better intro
into the studio. Oh can you tell everyone when you
joined Disney and what your position was.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Yes, I was head of Original Movies and I joined in.
I got my Wikipedia thing out here so I know
all all the dates. I was afraid I was gonna
be quizzed. I joined in nineteen nineteen ninety seven, nice
and I was brought in as a vice president and
finally became a senior vice president Disney Channel. Original movies
(01:36):
were my thing. I made about one hundred of them.
Speaker 4 (01:39):
Yeah, wow, that's amazing. So we've gotten a chance already.
We've not been doing it for too long, but we
have hit so many movies that you've.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
Been a part of.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:51):
Yeah, we've definitely watched the first Cheetah Girls, which was
Will's first time, which was very fun.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
Oh fun.
Speaker 4 (02:00):
We've done a ton of them, and we've gotten a
chance to talk to a writer. But we really love
the idea that you're going to be able to show
some insight on the process of how you guys find
whether it's a movie that's coming from books or just
completely new ideas, and you know the development process that
you guys put so much time and effort into.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Okay, I'd be happy to just to ask me questions
and I'll tell you fuelize anyway.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
Well, that's a great, great first question. How would you
be approached to get a project? I mean, is it
something where a writer would come in and pitch you,
would you go off and you would find the ip yourself?
How would something like that come to fruition.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
Well, you know, it changed over time, but the general
process is for a producer to come and and pitch
you an idea on a piece of material that he
or she owned or had an option on. And you know,
I listened to the pitch and try and play with
a little bit and see if I could fit it
into the Disney Channel original movie mold, not that there
(03:03):
was much of a mold, but and then I'd pitched
it to the people above me and they decide whether
I would be allowed to develop it. And I mean,
in the case of Cheetah Girls, it was Denver Martin
Chase who brought it to us with I think was Whitney.
Houston was like attached. Yeah, yeah, I never met Whitney.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
Nobody, none of It's so funny, nobody actually met her.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
I ended up making making a movie for a lifetime
about her life, but never never met her. She was
going by then anyway, Denver Martin Chase is more than
enough to uh produce that movie and the and the
subsequent ones do. So you know, I took it to
the people above me and said, I think we should
and there was some disagreement once we made it, among
(03:51):
the top echelon about whether it was the kind of
movie that we wanted to make, because Disney Channel was
always sort of torn between kind of good for you,
high class, award winning things and popular entertainment. And I
was on the popular entertainment side. But I wanted to
make them good too. And I remember the first response
(04:14):
I got when we wrote the script for A Cheat
the Girls was a real big shot there said, oh,
this is too lingually for me, which I meant that
it was in it was written in modern slang, yeah,
which of course is one of the things that made
it really good.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
But she got over it when it did the numbers.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
Yes, I imagine the cheetah chatter was something that right
off the back.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Cheated chatter, right, she was not totally on board.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
So we're going to try to break down as many
of the dcoms as we can on this podcast over time,
but so much of the research that we've done it
kind of says that you were the mastermind in bringing
back the TV movie to Disney. I mean, how did
that all come together?
Speaker 2 (04:55):
Well, I was hired to do that. They've not been
doing very well with their movies. The movie were you know,
things about Anne Frank and you know, very worthy topics
and the kind of thing adults would love. But they
had no kid audience really at all. And Nickelodeon, on
the other hand, was just kicking Disney channels and with
(05:15):
not with movies. But this looked like a place that
was open to Disney Channel, to a niche to fill.
And so when I was brought on board, I was told,
we want to make twelve a year. We want to
make them comedies and adventures and mysteries and you know,
genre pictures. We want kids in the lead, and we
(05:36):
want these to be about kid topics, you know, things
that are important at kids' lives. So I said, well,
sounds good to me. So within those very broad perimeters
we then, you know, created a development site myself and
Carol Rubin was there when I first got there, and
she had been there for a long time, but she
was a deer deer woman who she loves kids, and
(06:00):
she left movie making, and so she helped a great
deal in the beginning of this, and a few things
were in development when I got there that she had bought,
like I think Johnny Sunabi was one, and Brink was
certainly one, and we went on and developed them along
the new lines. You know, Brink was supposed to be up.
(06:21):
It was supposed to be inspired by Hans Brinker and
the silver skates, which we kind of threw that whole
thing out and just made it about some soil skaters
who loved inline skating. And it did great and people
loved it. I mean the people at the Channel at
about my position, and they loved it and said, let's
do more of these, and I said great, you know,
(06:41):
action action kid comedies with heart. So that's that's how
it got started.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
It's amazing.
Speaker 4 (06:49):
We have mentioned it quite a bit that during that
time you guys were putting out a dcom of the
month was such a big thing that you made sure
you were home for the mirror of it. They were
coming out once a month. That had to be so
much juggling because they took over a month to even film.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
Right, absolutely.
Speaker 4 (07:10):
Yeah, that's just it's so crazy to think how much
you guys were doing at one time with these Disney
Channel original movies.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
Well, you know, we were lucky we could do it,
because I think that's what that's what put us on
the map, is that kids really made this appointment viewing
and Friday night they'd come, you know, they'd get together
with their friends and see what's new on the Disney Channel.
And you know, viewing habits have changed a lot since then,
which was nineteen ninety seven or nineteen ninety eight, but
(07:41):
but in those days you were really could own a
time spot, yeah, a channel. And that's what we did
Friday Night's Disney Channel Original Movie Night. And the trip
was getting enough movies and making sure that the movies
were good enough to please us as well as the
as the kids. And that was the constant tension to say,
(08:04):
you know, is this our best work or do we
just need this movie to fill this spot? And I
was I was more along the programmer line and that
I thought, you know, they're not always they're not going
to be treated girls each one, but you know, we
can make them really good, and we can make them
as good as we can make them in the very
(08:24):
limited time period that we have. And it's more important
to the step was the brand, which was you know
what I just talked about, four kids, kids in the lead.
Speaker 4 (08:36):
We've definitely seen a spectrum of the ones that you
could tell you guys put you know that just developed
to be so great, and the ones that were a
little bit you know, not as big. You know, you
talk about Descendants into Quint's. You know we've seen that spectrum.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
Yeah, but you know, Quins did better than Descendants in
so many ways.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
They did absolutely.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
Wow, that's crazy in.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
Terms of number of viewers and that sort of thing.
Oh okay, that's a that's sort of you jump in
the head with the story a little bit. Because what
Disney Schell eventually did, but not until five six years ago,
was decided that they didn't really care that much about
the numbers. They cared about making movies that they could.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
Franchise, right, the tent pole films.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
Yeah, yeah, which I kind of shudder when I hear that,
because everybody wants them all to be ten pole films. Sure,
but they're not. And uh and but you know the
idea that they have like Zombies now and Descendants and
a few other things, those don't do particularly well wow
when they premiere, but they have an opportunity for toys
(09:47):
and for you know, soundtracks and all that other stuff. See,
it was harder in our day, if you don't mind
me bring you back to my time. But the movies
actually had to succeed and then we'd get a soundtrack.
I think Cheeah Girls was one of the first that
they really issued a soundtrack, and it was a big
hit and made way for High School Musical and Team
(10:10):
Beach and a bunch of other things.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
Now, how many films would you have in development at
one time.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
Well, if it's a development list, you know, like topics
and a progress report on projects that we bought or loved,
there'd be. And maybe we weren't like the studios certainly,
and we weren't like even the networks where they they
would develop, you know, twenty five movies for every one
(10:39):
they made. We developed two for everyone we made and
try and try and make both of them as a
matter of fact. So we were a very lean organization
and cheap. They didn't want to spend a lot of
develop money. They wanted to, you know, save that money
for production, and so we had to we had to
make every script count well.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
Speaking of one of the people that we did have
on the podcast, he was so much fun to talk
to is Stu Krieger. He's a great guy and he
was telling us that, you know, he he'd written so
many of the films. I mean, is that one of
the reasons why you keep going back to somebody likes
Stu because you know what you're gonna get. You know
it's going to be solid. You know you're not gonna
have to spend a ton of time developing. You can
just kind of give Stu a call and go from there.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Well, Stu. Stu is one of the people we always
we went to a lot in the early days, and
we loved him and he was just such a pleasant
guy and he got us there, you know, which was
the trick, and he wasn't he wasn't a diva. He
would make the changes that we needed to get into production.
(11:42):
And so yeah, eventually we kind of wore out our
welcome with him because we'd used him so much. And
and you know, you can only you can only take
your if you're writing the same kind of movie many
many times, it can loses a certain point. So we
were under pressure to get new voices and new writers
(12:05):
in there, and we tried hard to do that.
Speaker 4 (12:07):
Sure, but I mean it was I feel he was
used so well on the Channel. He did such great
work and he did we really have loved watching the
ones that he was a part of.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
The Xenon movies. I think we were the first franchise
that they ever had, and I love the Xenon movies.
Myself and my daughter dressed up a Xenon Florida for
a Halloween every year, and I was props to go
with it.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
Yeah, that's cool, actual props from the movie for your
daughter's costume. That's pretty cool to be able to pull
that out. I was. I was.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
I was a very very cool dad at that point.
Speaker 4 (12:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
Talk about a flex, do you? So? The d cooms
worked as as as a funnel really for a lot
of the Disney stars. And so when you approach a movie,
was it all about synergy within the network? Was was
the idea to hey, let's use some of our talent
that we already have, or do we want to spin
off the talent we're going to use in the d
(13:03):
com for a show? I mean, how did that work? Well?
Speaker 2 (13:06):
All those things were our hopes rather than our intentions. Really,
we developed the scripts to be the best scripts we
could make them with you know, identifiable ages and sexes
and the lead. I mean sometimes we Quins, for instance,
was originally about a boy who has all these faced
(13:27):
with all these these kids, and we changed it to
a girl because somebody wanted to and it worked out fine.
But somebody said, very wise, I think that the whole
reason for television is to make television stars, is to
create television starts. And we couldn't afford to go to
establish television stars for our movies. So then that means
(13:50):
we had to make our own stars. And Sabrina we
mad to bring us start by featuring her. You know,
I don't think she'd I think you get recognized in
in shopping walls even today, don't you.
Speaker 4 (14:03):
Yeah, I mean absolutely, it was a dream of mine.
And that's what I was telling Will. I've seen so
many of these because I was watching them, I was
studying them. I wanted to be in one of these
d coms so bad. Yeah, any chance I got to audition,
it was that. You know, I always say, I still
get like goosebumps going up if I ever go up
(14:24):
to the audition floor. My stomach starts to hurt. What
I'm anxious, you know, at the Disney Channel building. So yeah, absolutely,
I mean gave so many young actors an opportunity to
hopefully get on the channel.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
That's what you wanted to do.
Speaker 4 (14:38):
You wanted to do a d coom to hopefully get
into possibly being on a TV show for the Disney Channel.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
And it was also you know, I'm sure that's true
from the financial point of view. From from our point
of view, it's not easy for a fourteen or fifteen
year old to carry a movie to be a real star,
particularly without much prior experience and stuff. So these kids
did a remarkable work.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
I'd said, oh, yeah, we just saw that with Kimberly
Brown with Quins. When we just watched Out with Kimberly,
she was in every scene. She was in every scene
in that movie.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
Yep, amazing, she's she played every part except the quince.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
Yeah, totally.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
And she was great at Halloween Town and uh, you know,
she really established her stuff.
Speaker 4 (15:22):
That can't wait till we get to Halloween Town and
Will gets to see her in it, because it she's awesome.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
She's awesome.
Speaker 4 (15:30):
It's no wonder why you guys were able to make
so many of those, you know, movies of the Harting
Town because she was incredible. She would call her Disney
Channel royalty. She was so good.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
Yeah, I agree completely. I hear she just got married.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
She did she just got married to somebody else from
Halloween Town? That that is, she did. She married Daniel
Koontz from Halloween Town who she hadn't seen in a while.
They've lost touch after the movie, and they had re
established connection and they got married. So yeah, that's so cool.
Speaker 4 (16:09):
Have you been surprised at all about the resurgence of
the d coms now that Disney Plus is putting them
out there? And kids, the new generations are able to
find these amazing original movies from the Disney Channel.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
Well, so we sort of made them for the ages,
you know, I mean, because what I hear from kids
who are kids then and have now gone through college
and stuff is a lot of the and I suppose
the girls of Chris they say that the Disney Channel
movies were always comforting to them because they weren't about sex,
(16:45):
and they weren't about all the kind of threatening things
that you get in early adolescents. You know. The boys, girls,
stuff was always rather innocent and they were fun. Each
and every one of them was fun and about about
things in their lives, their identities. Now, can I be
(17:08):
a kid and still be a grown up? You know,
still grow up? Can I can I be nice to
my parents and yet assert my own identity. All these
things that remain true over the years. And I think
that's one of the reasons is that they're still popular,
is that those are universal themes and universal problems that
(17:31):
kids generation on generation have.
Speaker 4 (17:33):
Yeah, I loved to when we look at the list
of you know, we've got just such a long list
of all these movies that we want to cover. It's
so awesome that it shines light on other people's dreams
and passions. You talk about Brink Yep, you know, Johnny Tsunami,
the Cheetah Girls wanting to be superstars in music and dancing.
(17:56):
You know, there's just so many motocross There's just so many.
Speaker 3 (18:00):
Cool and it's a nice whether you know a lot
about it or not.
Speaker 4 (18:03):
There's they're easy watches, but it's cool to see these
new worlds of different athletic sports and you know, things
like that. I think that's so cool. And then you
go on to showing you know, what I love with
the Cheetah Girls was we went to Barcelona and open
their eyes to traveling outside of the United States.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
I go to India.
Speaker 4 (18:23):
Those kinds of things you're just you're introducing them to
a world that's not something they've grown up in themselves,
which I just think is incredible about the Channel.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
Oh that's great. I'm glad you think that, because that's
the way I felt about it too. Yeah, and you know,
particularly the travel Overceives was so much fun for me,
and I think for everybody else.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
I mean, well, yeah, no, I agree. I think unfortunately,
what's what the generation now is missing is what we
had back in the day is comfort food. You know,
it was there was a there was a comfort food
to Disney Channel movies, to Disney shows, to ABC shows,
to Wonderful World of Disney. There was something that you
could always go back to, and you you had that
sense of secure already in safety for lack of a
better word. And if you don't mind, we'd love to
(19:04):
throw out a couple of titles to you and just
see what you think about a couple of these films. Okay,
And we've seen all of these coming up so far,
and you mentioned so we wanted to start with Brinking
seemed to be one of the important ones for you.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
It was because you know, we were trying to reinvent
the sports movie for young kids, not that young, but
you know, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, and it was a sport
that was not a big popular sport, inline skating. But
it gave us a chance to tell a story about
outsiders who are perfectly happy being outsiders and have a
(19:42):
bond of friendship among themselves and have a whole set
of ethics and a whole set of ideas about what
they want to do. That money isn't the most important thing.
Sponsorship isn't the most important thing. It's soul skating, you know,
it's what does this do for your soul? And you know,
I loved it and I think that, you know, I
think that that's the thing that made it stick. Yeah,
(20:04):
plus the plus the you know, the music was great.
I think Phil Marshall did the music.
Speaker 4 (20:09):
The music was amazing, amazing. It took me right back
to that time. I couldn't believe you guys had some
great of that time music. It was because that was
the music I listened to during that time, and I
loved it. It was so good, so good.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
And so we learned a lot about ourselves in that
in that movie early on that how important music is
and how important, how important it is to get the
stunts right, so you can really sell the reality of
these things.
Speaker 4 (20:44):
Yeah, we got a chance to talk to two of
the actors who told us about the audition process, and
we were yeah, they said, I mean, they just let
us go. It was we were skating like note breaks
down hill, going full It was crazies to know that
some of them were really that great of inline skating,
(21:05):
you know, that's so awesome.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
Yeah, we were very I mean that was I think
that was in the days of Carol, who I told
you I was such a great, great lady of the
TV movies to begin with. But we kind of tightened
up a little bit about these extreme sports and made
sure made sure that nobody got hurt and that helduts
(21:29):
were always worn and even if it's even if somebody
is riding a bicycle in nineteen seventy six, they're still
wearing a helmet because we thought it was more social
good to kids imitating that than than taking the chance
of not doing it.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
That makes sense. Yeah, did Brink in any way, shape
or form kind of highlight for the channel the idea
of putting the teen heart throb in the lead role
because it seemed like we can when we talk to
people about Brink. We hear a lot about which boy
did you like? Did you like Eric? Did you like
where were you? I knew was that something that that
was done on purpose?
Speaker 2 (22:03):
Well, I don't think that we invented that. I think
that's always true of every teen movie. You know that that, uh,
there's gotta be some sex appeal all of our athletes,
you know, I mean right down to Tyschool Musical where
there there's.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
Dak and everybody else and that right, right, yeah, right.
Speaker 4 (22:21):
Another movie we covered was Johnny Tsunami. We got a
chance to also talk to Brandon Baker.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
Oh he's a great kid, great guy. I know, he's
a great man.
Speaker 4 (22:30):
Yeah great, Yeah, yeah, yeah, he's a wedding officiant now
really yeah, so he's doing great. I would say Johnny
Tsunami was my favorite growing up.
Speaker 3 (22:42):
Loved that movie.
Speaker 4 (22:43):
It was so good and one of the top ones
people asked when we started doing it, you wonder are
you doing Johnny Tsunami? So that it's definitely in the
top of so many people's list of d coms.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
Yeah, well it was. It kind of it clicked all
the the right spots because you know, it's about about
race and about class and about you know, the outsider again,
you know, the kid who was the ace surfer who's
going to reinvent himself as a snowboards rodboarder. Yeah, that's
I mean, that's a great I think that's a great idea.
(23:18):
I mean it was a great idea which I didn't
think of, but the idea that you know, if you're
great in one thing and you're a star, and then
you're brought someplace else and you have to do something
that you're completely unfamiliar with, can you succeed once again
or was it just a fluke? And so I think
kids love that.
Speaker 4 (23:35):
Also meeting a new group of friends that, like you said,
is something a lot of kids have to go through,
is changing schools, finding new friends, finding people.
Speaker 3 (23:44):
Movie you know, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
That's why we had the one kid whose father moved
around a lot, who was a army bred in the military.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
Yeah Mee Thompson's dad, Yeah, poor Lee Thompson. Yeah. How
about the another movie we liked and we got to
speak to one of the stars of was Got to
Kick It Up.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
Oh, I love Got to Kick It Up. That was
a real flyer on our parts because it was it
was hard to cast those girls all those girls that
really were not Disney Channel stars or anything like that,
but we we knew they could be stars. And they
became so big so quick elsewhere that that we could
never afford them again. But but we loved it. And
(24:23):
it was one of the very few movies that had
was that formula of a tea shirt comes from outside
and hit the great White Savior kind of thing. But
we were very careful not to make it that we
made it. This is the girls themselves desperately wanted this
dance team to take place, and they are the ones
who recruited the teacher and they're the ones who who
(24:45):
you know, taught her a thing or two throughout the
making of it. And and and once again, the music
was wonderful, the dancing was great. I think it was
just a real feel good movie. And those all those
girls have gone on to big careers, including and.
Speaker 4 (24:59):
There her career ye obviously, yeah, so incredible, and they
were great in it.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
She was what twenty six when the lead of the movie,
and she didn't tell anybody her age.
Speaker 4 (25:11):
She she told us a story about how it all
came out, and the girls were shocked. She went to
there's you know how kids have to go to schools
on set.
Speaker 3 (25:22):
She just went with them.
Speaker 1 (25:24):
All She's like, all right, I guess I gotta go
sit in set school. Even though I'm twenty six at
this point, I was.
Speaker 4 (25:30):
Like, I already graduated from college. I don't have any
homework to do. And the girls were like floored.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
Yep, Oh, it's so funny.
Speaker 2 (25:38):
That's what they call it acting, you.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
Know, yeah, exactly, totally Speaking of acting, one of our
favorites so far, actually our highest rate because we rate
them every week, and our highest rated one so far
was Going to the Match.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
Yeh love Going to the Mat. Wow.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
Man, a good movie.
Speaker 4 (25:55):
I mean so good, so emotionally and did even as
an adult, you know, watching that movie. The cast was
We got to talk to two of those cast members.
Both of them were incredible, and I just it's crazy
to watch a movie like that and not know how
(26:16):
it didn't win just numerous and numerous amounts of awards
because that movie was so good, so so good.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
Could I tell you just a little thing about the
genesis of that please. Somebody pitched the story of just
a wrestling story, a generic wrestling story, and you know,
I don't know wrestling, and I mean, I like fake wrestling,
but I you know, collegiate wrestling and stuff. I didn't
know anything about. I didn't know how much kids cared
(26:44):
about it. But they gave me the the products and
I actually read them the handoffs, and the very last
line of the first page said Greca Ruman wrestling is
the only high school sport where the blind and the
side to compete. Well that's the Movie's that's the movie. Yeah.
So we were able to take that high concept and
(27:07):
make it into going to the Map, which I was
very proud of. You know that that if you can,
if you can say you can overcome your disabilities. I
think that sometimes that becomes crazy, but in this case,
you know, it's it's the rules are the rules, and
you can they can compete. The blind can compete with
the decided and is that great? So you know, all
(27:30):
of our movies, I think we're about compassion in one
way or another. That they were about giving the other
gap break, trying to see through the surface into the
into what makes these other people tick and stuff. And uh,
you know, Kurt vonne Get called it one of his things.
You called it a good propaganda for compassion, And that's
(27:53):
sort of what all the Disney shanwel the movies were.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
Yeah, well that leads us perfectly into where I would.
I would it's as good as going to Matt And
that's saying something was the Color of Friendship? Oh, well,
such a film.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
I love that movie.
Speaker 3 (28:08):
I do too.
Speaker 4 (28:08):
And it had to have been so hard for you
guys to really dance on that line.
Speaker 3 (28:15):
I mean, there's not very many.
Speaker 4 (28:17):
Movies that you guys do that are talking about such
controversial No you no worldly things.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
No, you don't know how many people said no to
Color of Friendship before somebody finally said yes. Because I
had that. I had that treatment. In fact, I had
written the treatment years before at CBS, and CBS didn't
want it. Nobody cares about Side Letter too, HBHL didn't
(28:43):
want it any of those places. And it wasn't until
I got to the Disney Channel. I pitched it to
my superiors and they said, no, we don't want it.
We want this stuff that's more fun. But then Anne Sweeney,
who was the president at that point, asked me to
me and she said, do you have any thing it's
a little bit more substantial? And I told her the
(29:04):
story and she said well, that's that's the kind of
movie I love, and I said, well, we can make it.
Alan Sachs was the producer and you've never seen a
more surprised man in your life when the order for that.
But but yeah, I think we're all proud of it
all the way along the line. And Toronto looks pretty
good as Africa, doesn't it. We have the money to
(29:27):
go any place near that.
Speaker 4 (29:28):
We've actually talked about that. It sometimes feels like it's
a flip of the coin heads.
Speaker 3 (29:34):
Is Toronto, tails is Utah? Where are we film in
this movie The Cheetah Goes.
Speaker 4 (29:40):
We filmed in Toronto. That was my first time out
of the country for well. I had been to Mexico,
but you know that was to work out of the
country was in Toronto.
Speaker 3 (29:49):
I loved it there. I loved it there.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
Yeah, it's a great city. And every time I go
past certain places, I think, oh, this is where the
dog got lost, this is you know, memories come back.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
Was Cheetah Girls at the time the biggest d coom
when it was released.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
I don't think so it was. It was. It did
very well, though it did extremely well. Chetah Girls too
when it was released was the biggest dcom ever, beating
High School Musical by the way, Wow, which came out
that same that same year, And we had a run
going from a high school musical to Jump In, which
(30:39):
was with Corbin, and then Cheetah Girls too, which blew
them all out of the water. And so it was.
It was a great, great little knot of success there. Yeah,
because these are the kind of movies that get people
fired because it's in year and a year of comparisons.
You can't you can't beat them, you know, we couldn't
with high school musical.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
For this story, well, we have to talk a little
b about high school musical? How did how did that
whole franchise come about?
Speaker 2 (31:07):
It came about because we had wanted to do a
we would want to do a high school musical comedy.
But the weirdest thing was Peter Barskini, who wrote the script,
wrote a script about putting on a high school musical.
It wasn't a musical itself. And for a long time
I'd had my eye on Kenny Ortega, who is Sabrina
(31:29):
knows very well. He's a very mercurial kind of guy,
and his agent had to say that he would behave himself,
which sometimes he did not sexual things. It was all
anger and you know, resistance and things like that.
Speaker 3 (31:44):
But he had a vision. He'd have if he had
a vision, it was hard to say no.
Speaker 4 (31:49):
Because he was Once he committed to it, he couldn't
see anything else. You know, he's just such a visionary
for sure.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
Yeah, but sometimes the vision is better if you think
about it for a second rather than saying, given it
one second of thought, and this is the best thing
that could ever happen. And so I got I got
him to change a few things like that. But but
when he came in to talk to us about the movie,
we said to him, well, he said, this is a
movie about high school. It isn't a musical. And we said, well,
(32:21):
that's why you're here. We'd like your help to to
make it into a musical. And he really did. I
mean he he uh he. And Steve Vincent, who was
a was head of soundtracks he still is there, pieced
it together from various composers. We stayed on stories so
that so that there was a way to keep it
(32:43):
from being just a performance piece. And it was sort
of creation out of if not nothing, very little, and
it just the casting was so important that you know,
once we got Zach and Vanessa, we knew we had
something really great because of their chemistry. We didn't know
(33:04):
that was going to be as big as he was.
But in fact, one of the first times I saw
Zach after they they shot High School Musical, was it
a Cheatah Girls concert and he was there to shake hands.
But he also liked the Cheata Girls. And I said,
you know, you should do one thing high School hiscal
and I cannot it. I said, you should go to
(33:26):
the mall and buy all the underwear you're going to
need for a year. I said, because once your movie
is out, you're not going to be able to go
and buy underwear. You know, you're going to be mobbed
and all the malls that you go to. And I'm
sure that you find that too or sometimes Zabraina, don't
you that that people recognize you and they want to
watch your attention? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (33:47):
I mean it's wild to me that it's now a
multi generation situation for me that now it's it's girls
that have little kids.
Speaker 2 (33:56):
Isn't that great?
Speaker 4 (33:56):
You love the Cheetah Girls now, you know, I truly
believe if we went out to do a big concert
of any sorts, sort of like what you know, Backstreet
Boys and you know the new kids on the block
do that. Now they're going to be bringing they would
be bringing their kids with them, who are also now fans,
and it's it's such an honor that we're able to
(34:19):
cross over into new generations and inspire them the way
we did when we were actually on the channel.
Speaker 3 (34:25):
It's amazing.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
Have you seen the paramount series called Girls five Eva?
Speaker 1 (34:31):
Yes, I have.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
That's you guys, that's you. They they did.
Speaker 4 (34:38):
I thought I thought maybe I was just being a
little sensitive Michael saying that.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
Love.
Speaker 4 (34:49):
Yeah, absolutely it was, you know, but it's pretty cool.
And like you said, I remember being in Barcelona and
the high School musical cast was doing a lot of
their promotion stuff and will I kid you not, they
were comparing.
Speaker 3 (35:05):
These kids to the Beatles.
Speaker 4 (35:07):
The way the audience, the especially Zach and Corbin, the
way those young girls were just just was just insane.
I remember, because we were with Penny and you know
who did who directed in Barcelona, and so he's getting
all this feedback and we're just going, wow, you know,
(35:28):
when we did our movie, they had no idea they
were even going to really release the soundtrack and you.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
Know it's Gesz, You're the pioneers.
Speaker 3 (35:37):
Yeah. Yeah, it felt that way for sure.
Speaker 4 (35:39):
And you know, even going on tour, you know, for
the first time from our our Christmas show doing a
Christmas album, learned a lot, you know, it felt like
we were all learning this whole new world of making
these franchises into actual musical artists type thing.
Speaker 3 (35:58):
It was.
Speaker 4 (35:59):
It was really cool to be on the forefront and
I feel so lucky, so honored times.
Speaker 2 (36:04):
Yeah, that's great. Well, we were lucky to have you,
there's no question about that.
Speaker 1 (36:08):
Is there a film that, if you had to think
about it, that you were the most proud of, that
you were responsible for when you were on I have.
Speaker 3 (36:15):
To say Cheetah Girls.
Speaker 2 (36:16):
However, other than The che Girls three, I really love
Chetah Girls three. And uh, because I sat in India
and India is not an easy place to film.
Speaker 3 (36:29):
It was not to.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
Live, I know, and it was so foreign in some
ways from from Disney Channel because it was not whitebread
in anyway. And uh, it did not do as well
as we had hoped, but it was so badly scheduled.
It was scheduled against the opening of the Olympics. Can
(36:53):
you believe that?
Speaker 4 (36:54):
Yeah, and had slum Dog Millionaire it came out around
that time too.
Speaker 2 (36:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (36:59):
Yeah, that was showcasing India very differently than what we
were doing with the movie.
Speaker 3 (37:06):
Definitely was a contrast.
Speaker 2 (37:08):
Ye, that's a wonderful movie.
Speaker 4 (37:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
Well, it was another part that I really loved that
I meant to tell you about because I've been meaning
to tell you forever, but that I'll never forget that
tango scene that you did in Barcelona and it was
just magical, I think, and beautifully shot, and you're dancing
was impeccable.
Speaker 4 (37:26):
And yeah, I will tell you filming that scene, I
would say, I get asked all the time, you know,
my favorite things of it filming that scene with Kenny
because this was his Yeah, I mean, this was his money,
you know, talent as far as being able to translate
(37:48):
this kind of stuff onto screen. We all on set
felt that this is going to be so incredible. I
mean I just soaked it in because I know you
it was going to be everything that I'd hoped to
ever be able to film. You know, it was pretty cool,
pretty cool and emotional about it.
Speaker 2 (38:09):
I happened to be there that day and I remember
very well, you're giving it, you're all.
Speaker 4 (38:15):
So laser focused, because I just did not want to
be the one that screwed that.
Speaker 2 (38:19):
That's you know, no, you didn't develop.
Speaker 1 (38:22):
Is there a film that you think deserved more credit
than it got? Like it's like, yeah, maybe people hadn't
heard about it, and you're like, this is the one
that I thought was going to be the takeoff and
people should go see it.
Speaker 2 (38:33):
Well, I could never really predict the success of any
of them, you know, even even high school music. I
didn't know how whether kids were going to come to it.
But there's a movie that we made called minute Men,
which is sort of a midlest kind of movie, but
it was a terrific idea. I think it was about
kids who are are bullied and they see bullies in
(38:57):
their school and they are scientific, scientific nerds, and they
discover a way to go back in time by one day,
and so every time there's a bullying incident, they go
back in time and correct it or stop it from happening,
and they're they're called the minute Then it's a wonderful movie.
Speaker 3 (39:18):
I think we got to put that on our list.
Sure got to see.
Speaker 2 (39:23):
That very high concept and funny. It's a very funny week.
Speaker 3 (39:28):
What actors are in it?
Speaker 2 (39:30):
You know the kid who was in the succession of
Braun Oh, Nicholas Broun, Nicholas Ron and j. Yeah, and
there was one of the things who was terrific.
Speaker 1 (39:44):
Too, going on the list.
Speaker 2 (39:46):
Yeah, please please watch it. I think it's good.
Speaker 4 (39:49):
It seems like, again kind of going back into that synergy,
it seemed like the original movies were always a great
opportunity for somebody who was on a movie who wasn't
maybe the lead, or on a TV show who wasn't
maybe the lead on the TV show. It was nice
to give them a lead spot in a Disney Channel
original movie and showcase them and highlight them a little
(40:11):
bit more well.
Speaker 2 (40:12):
And I wish I could say it was done out
of the goodness of our heart. But the thing about
the series is it quite quickly became those kids became
so popular and so expensive that we could we couldn't
afford them, So we had to have the second or
third Banana, which we loved, but you know, we can't
afford Miley Cyrus. Right, they did a feature with her,
(40:34):
but we never got.
Speaker 1 (40:35):
Her, right. Yeah, the last time it was.
Speaker 2 (40:37):
I mean it was one with Dannie Lobado in a
called Princess Protection Program.
Speaker 3 (40:42):
Oh right, yes? Was that before after? Because what about
the Jonas brothers?
Speaker 4 (40:48):
They were right in because they actually opened for us
for the Christmas stour and it was not long after that,
I'd say, we went into the second movie. And then
at that point the Jonah his brothers was Christine Beach
like before the big big or was that right along
the side wright?
Speaker 1 (41:06):
Were they in Team Beach?
Speaker 2 (41:08):
No? No, no, no, they were. They were well before that, okay,
because Disney Channel gave them a series and all sorts
of stuff. But it was camp Rock, that.
Speaker 4 (41:16):
Rock, that's the rock, right And that week was camp
Rock before or after? Because I remember the Disney Channel
games was when we got to see how much they
were really into the channel by that time.
Speaker 2 (41:30):
They were before or after?
Speaker 3 (41:31):
What camp Rock was?
Speaker 4 (41:33):
It was that before their big like tours and stuff.
Did you guys get them or did you get them
ahead of beforehand?
Speaker 2 (41:39):
And really, yeah, that's how we're able to keep them
in Canada for you know.
Speaker 1 (41:47):
That's great.
Speaker 2 (41:48):
Camp Rock too is really pretty good movie.
Speaker 1 (41:50):
Yeah, okay, final final question for you, And here's what
I love. I love doing these. Was there ever a
project that you really wanted to do that you f
for that the channel never made that you you still
think about.
Speaker 2 (42:05):
Yeah, there is. There was one. It was based on
a based on a book, and it was called Downsiders.
I think we even bought the book and we wrote
script after script. Henry Winkler was the executive producer. And
it's about a whole underground culture, really underground in New
York City, people who live in this in the subway tunnels,
(42:27):
the abandoned subway tunnels below the real subway tunnels. And
and it's about this tribe of people who have been
down there for hundreds of years. And a girl, of
course in our day and age, makes contact with them
and they're, you know, their civilization is endangered, and she's
(42:48):
she's got to save them and save herself. And and
it was a wonderful story.
Speaker 1 (42:55):
What happened? Why didn't they make it?
Speaker 2 (42:57):
Because some people at the Disney chown't like to sit
and think about, Oh, I don't know, is it is
it really a Disney chan movie or is it not?
You know? And and it was going to be expensive,
and uh, it was a mistake, I think not to
not to make it, but who am I?
Speaker 3 (43:19):
Well, hopefully it does get made. That sounds awesome.
Speaker 1 (43:22):
Yeah, I'd have to argue you're exactly the person to
say what should be made and what should not be
made with your track record. Well, thank you so much
for joining us. This has been an amazing insight. Nice
to meet you too, and I hope you you'll you'll
come back because I I have a feeling we've just
scratched the surface of the stuff that.
Speaker 2 (43:40):
You know, Well, you know, I'll come. I'll come back,
But give me a couple of days notice so that
I can pretend to have a memory by looking up.
Speaker 4 (43:52):
Well, we'll let you know the ones where we've watched
so you can maybe do a quick overview of it,
because it does help happy to do it. We have
loved doing this podcast because the rewatching of these movies
and hearing from the fans. And one thing that I
want you to know, because it's not just me, everyone
that we ask you know all of that out of
(44:13):
all the things they've done, what are their tops and
it's all almost every time is what they did on
the channel because they felt like they made it a
difference when they get recognized from those shows or movies. Yeah,
it's always a positive, inspirational feeling that they just feel
lucky to have gotten the chance to do. You know,
(44:33):
you get to do a lot of acting, but you
don't always get to make a difference, you know, and
be a part of someone's childhood.
Speaker 2 (44:40):
Like that gotcha. Well, we tried to be kind to
people too, so that it wasn't just doggy dog.
Speaker 4 (44:46):
Yeah, everyone's like we went to New Zealand, we've been
to We're like, it's like you booked.
Speaker 3 (44:52):
A movie on the Channel and you got a vacation
out of it too.
Speaker 1 (44:57):
No, they loved it. All the actors we've spoken to
have said, I mean seriously to a person, they're like, no,
no joke. My time on the Channel or doing my
d com was the greatest time I've ever had in
my career. They really love it.
Speaker 2 (45:07):
Yeah, it's so great to hear.
Speaker 4 (45:09):
Awesome, great, amazing. So thank you Michael for giving us
all the chance.
Speaker 2 (45:15):
Happy to do it. Thank you for giving me a
chance too. It was a fun career to have.
Speaker 1 (45:21):
Yeah, well we appreciate it. Well, without your career, we
wouldn't have any of the stuff that we're watching, So
thank you. So much for joining us, and we hope
to have you back again because again we I've got
three more pages of questions. We just don't have the
time right now. We want to hear it. Thank you
so much for joining us, and we'll see you next time.
Speaker 3 (45:37):
Thank you, Michael.
Speaker 1 (45:37):
See so wow, just the font of knowledge. I love
hearing the other side of it, the kind of how
things are made and how they changed and what they're
supposed to be and who they're originally got a cast.
I mean, that's like all my favorite kind of stuff
is that.
Speaker 4 (45:53):
So can you just imagine this guy's schedule of trying
to get ten different movies no done at the same
times just unreal.
Speaker 1 (46:04):
It's also got to be that's why they had n't
thinking about it. That's why they had to flip the coin,
because they have to probably have one going in Toronto
and one going Utah like at all times.
Speaker 3 (46:12):
Exactly, I just keeps shooting.
Speaker 1 (46:14):
We're just gonna keep.
Speaker 4 (46:14):
Shooting and to feel really good about movies, but sometimes
to just not really know what the audience is gonna
even like you know that they think they should, but
then sometimes they just don't get I mean, yeah, and
he's such a wonderful man.
Speaker 3 (46:29):
He's so sweet.
Speaker 1 (46:30):
Well, I mean, look at everything he's done. And he
was the first one to say, I didn't know High
School Musical was going to be the thing. You just
don't know. It's like, we don't know what it's going
to be. We put it out there, we do the best.
I mean, I think that's what Disney Channel, especially at
the time, was doing was for the budget they have.
They were doing quality products for the budget, and it's like,
(46:51):
let's just make the best movie we can and hope
the audience comes. And even he's like, we didn't know
when that was going to be. Something's gonna say, Hey, wow,
Cheetah Girls too, biggest thing we've ever done. It's like
you just don't ever know.
Speaker 4 (47:01):
Yeah, I mean, I feel like at one point it
seemed to be that they really looked at the numbers, and.
Speaker 1 (47:08):
Then now, well now because the numbers don't exist anymore,
it's just that thing.
Speaker 3 (47:12):
It's just not how you how you do it.
Speaker 4 (47:14):
It's more about them being smart on what else the
franchise can do, you know, with toys and things like that.
Speaker 1 (47:21):
And yeah, the days of getting the millions of people
to watch the thing when it premieres. It just doesn't
exist anymore because you I'll watch it next week. I'll
watch I'll download it, I'll watch it on YouTube. It's
just there's such a different business now that those days
are gone.
Speaker 4 (47:34):
Even going to the movies anymore, you know anymore, that's
not a thing.
Speaker 3 (47:38):
We'll just wait till it streams. You just it's easy
to google.
Speaker 1 (47:42):
I want to go to a movie theater. Yeah, and
do that. I mean my wife and I did that
the Saturday night, like let's do movie night. We watched
the New Ghostbusters. We rented that, we made popcorn. It
was like that, we might as well have gone in
the movie theater.
Speaker 3 (47:53):
You know, totally.
Speaker 1 (47:54):
So yeah, that's just the world we live in. But
oh man, he is a font of knowledge and I
cannot wait to have him back. Thank you so much,
Michael for joejoining uses. Don't forget to join us next
time while we bring you back to your childhood. Thanks everybody.
Speaker 2 (48:05):
Bye,
Thank you so much for joining us on our Part
Copper episode of Magical Rewind. And we are so excited
because we are doing something we haven't had a chance
to do at all on this podcast, and that's to
talk to somebody who actually worked at the Channel and
can tell us how a lot of these movies got made,
how a lot of them were put on there, what
it was like. We can't wait, so please please help us.
(00:35):
Welcome Michael Healy.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Hi, s Brenda, Hi.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
How are you so good to see you?
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Good to see you too. It's been a while, but
you haven't changed a bitch.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
Well, thank you, thank you. You can come on this
podcast anytime.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
How are you. I'm will I will welcome. Thank you
for joining us, Thank you for inviting me. We are
so excited because you're a first ever executive on the
podcast and we couldn't have asked for a better intro
into the studio. Oh can you tell everyone when you
joined Disney and what your position was.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Yes, I was head of Original Movies and I joined in.
I got my Wikipedia thing out here so I know
all all the dates. I was afraid I was gonna
be quizzed. I joined in nineteen nineteen ninety seven, nice
and I was brought in as a vice president and
finally became a senior vice president Disney Channel. Original movies
(01:36):
were my thing. I made about one hundred of them.
Speaker 4 (01:39):
Yeah, wow, that's amazing. So we've gotten a chance already.
We've not been doing it for too long, but we
have hit so many movies that you've.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
Been a part of.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:51):
Yeah, we've definitely watched the first Cheetah Girls, which was
Will's first time, which was very fun.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
Oh fun.
Speaker 4 (02:00):
We've done a ton of them, and we've gotten a
chance to talk to a writer. But we really love
the idea that you're going to be able to show
some insight on the process of how you guys find
whether it's a movie that's coming from books or just
completely new ideas, and you know the development process that
you guys put so much time and effort into.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Okay, I'd be happy to just to ask me questions
and I'll tell you fuelize anyway.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
Well, that's a great, great first question. How would you
be approached to get a project? I mean, is it
something where a writer would come in and pitch you,
would you go off and you would find the ip yourself?
How would something like that come to fruition.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
Well, you know, it changed over time, but the general
process is for a producer to come and and pitch
you an idea on a piece of material that he
or she owned or had an option on. And you know,
I listened to the pitch and try and play with
a little bit and see if I could fit it
into the Disney Channel original movie mold, not that there
(03:03):
was much of a mold, but and then I'd pitched
it to the people above me and they decide whether
I would be allowed to develop it. And I mean,
in the case of Cheetah Girls, it was Denver Martin
Chase who brought it to us with I think was Whitney.
Houston was like attached. Yeah, yeah, I never met Whitney.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
Nobody, none of It's so funny, nobody actually met her.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
I ended up making making a movie for a lifetime
about her life, but never never met her. She was
going by then anyway, Denver Martin Chase is more than
enough to uh produce that movie and the and the
subsequent ones do. So you know, I took it to
the people above me and said, I think we should
and there was some disagreement once we made it, among
(03:51):
the top echelon about whether it was the kind of
movie that we wanted to make, because Disney Channel was
always sort of torn between kind of good for you,
high class, award winning things and popular entertainment. And I
was on the popular entertainment side. But I wanted to
make them good too. And I remember the first response
(04:14):
I got when we wrote the script for A Cheat
the Girls was a real big shot there said, oh,
this is too lingually for me, which I meant that
it was in it was written in modern slang, yeah,
which of course is one of the things that made
it really good.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
But she got over it when it did the numbers.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
Yes, I imagine the cheetah chatter was something that right
off the back.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Cheated chatter, right, she was not totally on board.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
So we're going to try to break down as many
of the dcoms as we can on this podcast over time,
but so much of the research that we've done it
kind of says that you were the mastermind in bringing
back the TV movie to Disney. I mean, how did
that all come together?
Speaker 2 (04:55):
Well, I was hired to do that. They've not been
doing very well with their movies. The movie were you know,
things about Anne Frank and you know, very worthy topics
and the kind of thing adults would love. But they
had no kid audience really at all. And Nickelodeon, on
the other hand, was just kicking Disney channels and with
(05:15):
not with movies. But this looked like a place that
was open to Disney Channel, to a niche to fill.
And so when I was brought on board, I was told,
we want to make twelve a year. We want to
make them comedies and adventures and mysteries and you know,
genre pictures. We want kids in the lead, and we
(05:36):
want these to be about kid topics, you know, things
that are important at kids' lives. So I said, well,
sounds good to me. So within those very broad perimeters
we then, you know, created a development site myself and
Carol Rubin was there when I first got there, and
she had been there for a long time, but she
was a deer deer woman who she loves kids, and
(06:00):
she left movie making, and so she helped a great
deal in the beginning of this, and a few things
were in development when I got there that she had bought,
like I think Johnny Sunabi was one, and Brink was
certainly one, and we went on and developed them along
the new lines. You know, Brink was supposed to be up.
(06:21):
It was supposed to be inspired by Hans Brinker and
the silver skates, which we kind of threw that whole
thing out and just made it about some soil skaters
who loved inline skating. And it did great and people
loved it. I mean the people at the Channel at
about my position, and they loved it and said, let's
do more of these, and I said great, you know,
(06:41):
action action kid comedies with heart. So that's that's how
it got started.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
It's amazing.
Speaker 4 (06:49):
We have mentioned it quite a bit that during that
time you guys were putting out a dcom of the
month was such a big thing that you made sure
you were home for the mirror of it. They were
coming out once a month. That had to be so
much juggling because they took over a month to even film.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
Right, absolutely.
Speaker 4 (07:10):
Yeah, that's just it's so crazy to think how much
you guys were doing at one time with these Disney
Channel original movies.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
Well, you know, we were lucky we could do it,
because I think that's what that's what put us on
the map, is that kids really made this appointment viewing
and Friday night they'd come, you know, they'd get together
with their friends and see what's new on the Disney Channel.
And you know, viewing habits have changed a lot since then,
which was nineteen ninety seven or nineteen ninety eight, but
(07:41):
but in those days you were really could own a
time spot, yeah, a channel. And that's what we did
Friday Night's Disney Channel Original Movie Night. And the trip
was getting enough movies and making sure that the movies
were good enough to please us as well as the
as the kids. And that was the constant tension to say,
(08:04):
you know, is this our best work or do we
just need this movie to fill this spot? And I
was I was more along the programmer line and that
I thought, you know, they're not always they're not going
to be treated girls each one, but you know, we
can make them really good, and we can make them
as good as we can make them in the very
(08:24):
limited time period that we have. And it's more important
to the step was the brand, which was you know
what I just talked about, four kids, kids in the lead.
Speaker 4 (08:36):
We've definitely seen a spectrum of the ones that you
could tell you guys put you know that just developed
to be so great, and the ones that were a
little bit you know, not as big. You know, you
talk about Descendants into Quint's. You know we've seen that spectrum.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
Yeah, but you know, Quins did better than Descendants in
so many ways.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
They did absolutely.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
Wow, that's crazy in.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
Terms of number of viewers and that sort of thing.
Oh okay, that's a that's sort of you jump in
the head with the story a little bit. Because what
Disney Schell eventually did, but not until five six years ago,
was decided that they didn't really care that much about
the numbers. They cared about making movies that they could.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
Franchise, right, the tent pole films.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
Yeah, yeah, which I kind of shudder when I hear that,
because everybody wants them all to be ten pole films. Sure,
but they're not. And uh and but you know the
idea that they have like Zombies now and Descendants and
a few other things, those don't do particularly well wow
when they premiere, but they have an opportunity for toys
(09:47):
and for you know, soundtracks and all that other stuff. See,
it was harder in our day, if you don't mind
me bring you back to my time. But the movies
actually had to succeed and then we'd get a soundtrack.
I think Cheeah Girls was one of the first that
they really issued a soundtrack, and it was a big
hit and made way for High School Musical and Team
(10:10):
Beach and a bunch of other things.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
Now, how many films would you have in development at
one time.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
Well, if it's a development list, you know, like topics
and a progress report on projects that we bought or loved,
there'd be. And maybe we weren't like the studios certainly,
and we weren't like even the networks where they they
would develop, you know, twenty five movies for every one
(10:39):
they made. We developed two for everyone we made and
try and try and make both of them as a
matter of fact. So we were a very lean organization
and cheap. They didn't want to spend a lot of
develop money. They wanted to, you know, save that money
for production, and so we had to we had to
make every script count well.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
Speaking of one of the people that we did have
on the podcast, he was so much fun to talk
to is Stu Krieger. He's a great guy and he
was telling us that, you know, he he'd written so
many of the films. I mean, is that one of
the reasons why you keep going back to somebody likes
Stu because you know what you're gonna get. You know
it's going to be solid. You know you're not gonna
have to spend a ton of time developing. You can
just kind of give Stu a call and go from there.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Well, Stu. Stu is one of the people we always
we went to a lot in the early days, and
we loved him and he was just such a pleasant
guy and he got us there, you know, which was
the trick, and he wasn't he wasn't a diva. He
would make the changes that we needed to get into production.
(11:42):
And so yeah, eventually we kind of wore out our
welcome with him because we'd used him so much. And
and you know, you can only you can only take
your if you're writing the same kind of movie many
many times, it can loses a certain point. So we
were under pressure to get new voices and new writers
(12:05):
in there, and we tried hard to do that.
Speaker 4 (12:07):
Sure, but I mean it was I feel he was
used so well on the Channel. He did such great
work and he did we really have loved watching the
ones that he was a part of.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
The Xenon movies. I think we were the first franchise
that they ever had, and I love the Xenon movies.
Myself and my daughter dressed up a Xenon Florida for
a Halloween every year, and I was props to go
with it.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
Yeah, that's cool, actual props from the movie for your
daughter's costume. That's pretty cool to be able to pull
that out. I was. I was.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
I was a very very cool dad at that point.
Speaker 4 (12:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
Talk about a flex, do you? So? The d cooms
worked as as as a funnel really for a lot
of the Disney stars. And so when you approach a movie,
was it all about synergy within the network? Was was
the idea to hey, let's use some of our talent
that we already have, or do we want to spin
off the talent we're going to use in the d
(13:03):
com for a show? I mean, how did that work? Well?
Speaker 2 (13:06):
All those things were our hopes rather than our intentions. Really,
we developed the scripts to be the best scripts we
could make them with you know, identifiable ages and sexes
and the lead. I mean sometimes we Quins, for instance,
was originally about a boy who has all these faced
(13:27):
with all these these kids, and we changed it to
a girl because somebody wanted to and it worked out fine.
But somebody said, very wise, I think that the whole
reason for television is to make television stars, is to
create television starts. And we couldn't afford to go to
establish television stars for our movies. So then that means
(13:50):
we had to make our own stars. And Sabrina we
mad to bring us start by featuring her. You know,
I don't think she'd I think you get recognized in
in shopping walls even today, don't you.
Speaker 4 (14:03):
Yeah, I mean absolutely, it was a dream of mine.
And that's what I was telling Will. I've seen so
many of these because I was watching them, I was
studying them. I wanted to be in one of these
d coms so bad. Yeah, any chance I got to audition,
it was that. You know, I always say, I still
get like goosebumps going up if I ever go up
(14:24):
to the audition floor. My stomach starts to hurt. What
I'm anxious, you know, at the Disney Channel building. So yeah, absolutely,
I mean gave so many young actors an opportunity to
hopefully get on the channel.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
That's what you wanted to do.
Speaker 4 (14:38):
You wanted to do a d coom to hopefully get
into possibly being on a TV show for the Disney Channel.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
And it was also you know, I'm sure that's true
from the financial point of view. From from our point
of view, it's not easy for a fourteen or fifteen
year old to carry a movie to be a real star,
particularly without much prior experience and stuff. So these kids
did a remarkable work.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
I'd said, oh, yeah, we just saw that with Kimberly
Brown with Quins. When we just watched Out with Kimberly,
she was in every scene. She was in every scene
in that movie.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
Yep, amazing, she's she played every part except the quince.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
Yeah, totally.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
And she was great at Halloween Town and uh, you know,
she really established her stuff.
Speaker 4 (15:22):
That can't wait till we get to Halloween Town and
Will gets to see her in it, because it she's awesome.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
She's awesome.
Speaker 4 (15:30):
It's no wonder why you guys were able to make
so many of those, you know, movies of the Harting
Town because she was incredible. She would call her Disney
Channel royalty. She was so good.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
Yeah, I agree completely. I hear she just got married.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
She did she just got married to somebody else from
Halloween Town? That that is, she did. She married Daniel
Koontz from Halloween Town who she hadn't seen in a while.
They've lost touch after the movie, and they had re
established connection and they got married. So yeah, that's so cool.
Speaker 4 (16:09):
Have you been surprised at all about the resurgence of
the d coms now that Disney Plus is putting them
out there? And kids, the new generations are able to
find these amazing original movies from the Disney Channel.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
Well, so we sort of made them for the ages,
you know, I mean, because what I hear from kids
who are kids then and have now gone through college
and stuff is a lot of the and I suppose
the girls of Chris they say that the Disney Channel
movies were always comforting to them because they weren't about sex,
(16:45):
and they weren't about all the kind of threatening things
that you get in early adolescents. You know. The boys, girls,
stuff was always rather innocent and they were fun. Each
and every one of them was fun and about about
things in their lives, their identities. Now, can I be
(17:08):
a kid and still be a grown up? You know,
still grow up? Can I can I be nice to
my parents and yet assert my own identity. All these
things that remain true over the years. And I think
that's one of the reasons is that they're still popular,
is that those are universal themes and universal problems that
(17:31):
kids generation on generation have.
Speaker 4 (17:33):
Yeah, I loved to when we look at the list
of you know, we've got just such a long list
of all these movies that we want to cover. It's
so awesome that it shines light on other people's dreams
and passions. You talk about Brink Yep, you know, Johnny Tsunami,
the Cheetah Girls wanting to be superstars in music and dancing.
(17:56):
You know, there's just so many motocross There's just so many.
Speaker 3 (18:00):
Cool and it's a nice whether you know a lot
about it or not.
Speaker 4 (18:03):
There's they're easy watches, but it's cool to see these
new worlds of different athletic sports and you know, things
like that. I think that's so cool. And then you
go on to showing you know, what I love with
the Cheetah Girls was we went to Barcelona and open
their eyes to traveling outside of the United States.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
I go to India.
Speaker 4 (18:23):
Those kinds of things you're just you're introducing them to
a world that's not something they've grown up in themselves,
which I just think is incredible about the Channel.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
Oh that's great. I'm glad you think that, because that's
the way I felt about it too. Yeah, and you know,
particularly the travel Overceives was so much fun for me,
and I think for everybody else.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
I mean, well, yeah, no, I agree. I think unfortunately,
what's what the generation now is missing is what we
had back in the day is comfort food. You know,
it was there was a there was a comfort food
to Disney Channel movies, to Disney shows, to ABC shows,
to Wonderful World of Disney. There was something that you
could always go back to, and you you had that
sense of secure already in safety for lack of a
better word. And if you don't mind, we'd love to
(19:04):
throw out a couple of titles to you and just
see what you think about a couple of these films. Okay,
And we've seen all of these coming up so far,
and you mentioned so we wanted to start with Brinking
seemed to be one of the important ones for you.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
It was because you know, we were trying to reinvent
the sports movie for young kids, not that young, but
you know, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, and it was a sport
that was not a big popular sport, inline skating. But
it gave us a chance to tell a story about
outsiders who are perfectly happy being outsiders and have a
(19:42):
bond of friendship among themselves and have a whole set
of ethics and a whole set of ideas about what
they want to do. That money isn't the most important thing.
Sponsorship isn't the most important thing. It's soul skating, you know,
it's what does this do for your soul? And you know,
I loved it and I think that, you know, I
think that that's the thing that made it stick. Yeah,
(20:04):
plus the plus the you know, the music was great.
I think Phil Marshall did the music.
Speaker 4 (20:09):
The music was amazing, amazing. It took me right back
to that time. I couldn't believe you guys had some
great of that time music. It was because that was
the music I listened to during that time, and I
loved it. It was so good, so good.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
And so we learned a lot about ourselves in that
in that movie early on that how important music is
and how important, how important it is to get the
stunts right, so you can really sell the reality of
these things.
Speaker 4 (20:44):
Yeah, we got a chance to talk to two of
the actors who told us about the audition process, and
we were yeah, they said, I mean, they just let
us go. It was we were skating like note breaks
down hill, going full It was crazies to know that
some of them were really that great of inline skating,
(21:05):
you know, that's so awesome.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
Yeah, we were very I mean that was I think
that was in the days of Carol, who I told
you I was such a great, great lady of the
TV movies to begin with. But we kind of tightened
up a little bit about these extreme sports and made
sure made sure that nobody got hurt and that helduts
(21:29):
were always worn and even if it's even if somebody
is riding a bicycle in nineteen seventy six, they're still
wearing a helmet because we thought it was more social
good to kids imitating that than than taking the chance
of not doing it.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
That makes sense. Yeah, did Brink in any way, shape
or form kind of highlight for the channel the idea
of putting the teen heart throb in the lead role
because it seemed like we can when we talk to
people about Brink. We hear a lot about which boy
did you like? Did you like Eric? Did you like
where were you? I knew was that something that that
was done on purpose?
Speaker 2 (22:03):
Well, I don't think that we invented that. I think
that's always true of every teen movie. You know that that, uh,
there's gotta be some sex appeal all of our athletes,
you know, I mean right down to Tyschool Musical where
there there's.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
Dak and everybody else and that right, right, yeah, right.
Speaker 4 (22:21):
Another movie we covered was Johnny Tsunami. We got a
chance to also talk to Brandon Baker.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
Oh he's a great kid, great guy. I know, he's
a great man.
Speaker 4 (22:30):
Yeah great, Yeah, yeah, yeah, he's a wedding officiant now
really yeah, so he's doing great. I would say Johnny
Tsunami was my favorite growing up.
Speaker 3 (22:42):
Loved that movie.
Speaker 4 (22:43):
It was so good and one of the top ones
people asked when we started doing it, you wonder are
you doing Johnny Tsunami? So that it's definitely in the
top of so many people's list of d coms.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
Yeah, well it was. It kind of it clicked all
the the right spots because you know, it's about about
race and about class and about you know, the outsider again,
you know, the kid who was the ace surfer who's
going to reinvent himself as a snowboards rodboarder. Yeah, that's
I mean, that's a great I think that's a great idea.
(23:18):
I mean it was a great idea which I didn't
think of, but the idea that you know, if you're
great in one thing and you're a star, and then
you're brought someplace else and you have to do something
that you're completely unfamiliar with, can you succeed once again
or was it just a fluke? And so I think
kids love that.
Speaker 4 (23:35):
Also meeting a new group of friends that, like you said,
is something a lot of kids have to go through,
is changing schools, finding new friends, finding people.
Speaker 3 (23:44):
Movie you know, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
That's why we had the one kid whose father moved
around a lot, who was a army bred in the military.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
Yeah Mee Thompson's dad, Yeah, poor Lee Thompson. Yeah. How
about the another movie we liked and we got to
speak to one of the stars of was Got to
Kick It Up.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
Oh, I love Got to Kick It Up. That was
a real flyer on our parts because it was it
was hard to cast those girls all those girls that
really were not Disney Channel stars or anything like that,
but we we knew they could be stars. And they
became so big so quick elsewhere that that we could
never afford them again. But but we loved it. And
(24:23):
it was one of the very few movies that had
was that formula of a tea shirt comes from outside
and hit the great White Savior kind of thing. But
we were very careful not to make it that we
made it. This is the girls themselves desperately wanted this
dance team to take place, and they are the ones
who recruited the teacher and they're the ones who who
(24:45):
you know, taught her a thing or two throughout the
making of it. And and and once again, the music
was wonderful, the dancing was great. I think it was
just a real feel good movie. And those all those
girls have gone on to big careers, including and.
Speaker 4 (24:59):
There her career ye obviously, yeah, so incredible, and they
were great in it.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
She was what twenty six when the lead of the movie,
and she didn't tell anybody her age.
Speaker 4 (25:11):
She she told us a story about how it all
came out, and the girls were shocked. She went to
there's you know how kids have to go to schools
on set.
Speaker 3 (25:22):
She just went with them.
Speaker 1 (25:24):
All She's like, all right, I guess I gotta go
sit in set school. Even though I'm twenty six at
this point, I was.
Speaker 4 (25:30):
Like, I already graduated from college. I don't have any
homework to do. And the girls were like floored.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
Yep, Oh, it's so funny.
Speaker 2 (25:38):
That's what they call it acting, you.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
Know, yeah, exactly, totally Speaking of acting, one of our
favorites so far, actually our highest rate because we rate
them every week, and our highest rated one so far
was Going to the Match.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
Yeh love Going to the Mat. Wow.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
Man, a good movie.
Speaker 4 (25:55):
I mean so good, so emotionally and did even as
an adult, you know, watching that movie. The cast was
We got to talk to two of those cast members.
Both of them were incredible, and I just it's crazy
to watch a movie like that and not know how
(26:16):
it didn't win just numerous and numerous amounts of awards
because that movie was so good, so so good.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
Could I tell you just a little thing about the
genesis of that please. Somebody pitched the story of just
a wrestling story, a generic wrestling story, and you know,
I don't know wrestling, and I mean, I like fake wrestling,
but I you know, collegiate wrestling and stuff. I didn't
know anything about. I didn't know how much kids cared
(26:44):
about it. But they gave me the the products and
I actually read them the handoffs, and the very last
line of the first page said Greca Ruman wrestling is
the only high school sport where the blind and the
side to compete. Well that's the Movie's that's the movie. Yeah.
So we were able to take that high concept and
(27:07):
make it into going to the Map, which I was
very proud of. You know that that if you can,
if you can say you can overcome your disabilities. I
think that sometimes that becomes crazy, but in this case,
you know, it's it's the rules are the rules, and
you can they can compete. The blind can compete with
the decided and is that great? So you know, all
(27:30):
of our movies, I think we're about compassion in one
way or another. That they were about giving the other
gap break, trying to see through the surface into the
into what makes these other people tick and stuff. And uh,
you know, Kurt vonne Get called it one of his things.
You called it a good propaganda for compassion, And that's
(27:53):
sort of what all the Disney shanwel the movies were.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
Yeah, well that leads us perfectly into where I would.
I would it's as good as going to Matt And
that's saying something was the Color of Friendship? Oh, well,
such a film.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
I love that movie.
Speaker 3 (28:08):
I do too.
Speaker 4 (28:08):
And it had to have been so hard for you
guys to really dance on that line.
Speaker 3 (28:15):
I mean, there's not very many.
Speaker 4 (28:17):
Movies that you guys do that are talking about such
controversial No you no worldly things.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
No, you don't know how many people said no to
Color of Friendship before somebody finally said yes. Because I
had that. I had that treatment. In fact, I had
written the treatment years before at CBS, and CBS didn't
want it. Nobody cares about Side Letter too, HBHL didn't
(28:43):
want it any of those places. And it wasn't until
I got to the Disney Channel. I pitched it to
my superiors and they said, no, we don't want it.
We want this stuff that's more fun. But then Anne Sweeney,
who was the president at that point, asked me to
me and she said, do you have any thing it's
a little bit more substantial? And I told her the
(29:04):
story and she said well, that's that's the kind of
movie I love, and I said, well, we can make it.
Alan Sachs was the producer and you've never seen a
more surprised man in your life when the order for that.
But but yeah, I think we're all proud of it
all the way along the line. And Toronto looks pretty
good as Africa, doesn't it. We have the money to
(29:27):
go any place near that.
Speaker 4 (29:28):
We've actually talked about that. It sometimes feels like it's
a flip of the coin heads.
Speaker 3 (29:34):
Is Toronto, tails is Utah? Where are we film in
this movie The Cheetah Goes.
Speaker 4 (29:40):
We filmed in Toronto. That was my first time out
of the country for well. I had been to Mexico,
but you know that was to work out of the
country was in Toronto.
Speaker 3 (29:49):
I loved it there. I loved it there.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
Yeah, it's a great city. And every time I go
past certain places, I think, oh, this is where the
dog got lost, this is you know, memories come back.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
Was Cheetah Girls at the time the biggest d coom
when it was released.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
I don't think so it was. It was. It did
very well, though it did extremely well. Chetah Girls too
when it was released was the biggest dcom ever, beating
High School Musical by the way, Wow, which came out
that same that same year, And we had a run
going from a high school musical to Jump In, which
(30:39):
was with Corbin, and then Cheetah Girls too, which blew
them all out of the water. And so it was.
It was a great, great little knot of success there. Yeah,
because these are the kind of movies that get people
fired because it's in year and a year of comparisons.
You can't you can't beat them, you know, we couldn't
with high school musical.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
For this story, well, we have to talk a little
b about high school musical? How did how did that
whole franchise come about?
Speaker 2 (31:07):
It came about because we had wanted to do a
we would want to do a high school musical comedy.
But the weirdest thing was Peter Barskini, who wrote the script,
wrote a script about putting on a high school musical.
It wasn't a musical itself. And for a long time
I'd had my eye on Kenny Ortega, who is Sabrina
(31:29):
knows very well. He's a very mercurial kind of guy,
and his agent had to say that he would behave himself,
which sometimes he did not sexual things. It was all
anger and you know, resistance and things like that.
Speaker 3 (31:44):
But he had a vision. He'd have if he had
a vision, it was hard to say no.
Speaker 4 (31:49):
Because he was Once he committed to it, he couldn't
see anything else. You know, he's just such a visionary
for sure.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
Yeah, but sometimes the vision is better if you think
about it for a second rather than saying, given it
one second of thought, and this is the best thing
that could ever happen. And so I got I got
him to change a few things like that. But but
when he came in to talk to us about the movie,
we said to him, well, he said, this is a
movie about high school. It isn't a musical. And we said, well,
(32:21):
that's why you're here. We'd like your help to to
make it into a musical. And he really did. I
mean he he uh he. And Steve Vincent, who was
a was head of soundtracks he still is there, pieced
it together from various composers. We stayed on stories so
that so that there was a way to keep it
(32:43):
from being just a performance piece. And it was sort
of creation out of if not nothing, very little, and
it just the casting was so important that you know,
once we got Zach and Vanessa, we knew we had
something really great because of their chemistry. We didn't know
(33:04):
that was going to be as big as he was.
But in fact, one of the first times I saw
Zach after they they shot High School Musical, was it
a Cheatah Girls concert and he was there to shake hands.
But he also liked the Cheata Girls. And I said,
you know, you should do one thing high School hiscal
and I cannot it. I said, you should go to
(33:26):
the mall and buy all the underwear you're going to
need for a year. I said, because once your movie
is out, you're not going to be able to go
and buy underwear. You know, you're going to be mobbed
and all the malls that you go to. And I'm
sure that you find that too or sometimes Zabraina, don't
you that that people recognize you and they want to
watch your attention? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (33:47):
I mean it's wild to me that it's now a
multi generation situation for me that now it's it's girls
that have little kids.
Speaker 2 (33:56):
Isn't that great?
Speaker 4 (33:56):
You love the Cheetah Girls now, you know, I truly
believe if we went out to do a big concert
of any sorts, sort of like what you know, Backstreet
Boys and you know the new kids on the block
do that. Now they're going to be bringing they would
be bringing their kids with them, who are also now fans,
and it's it's such an honor that we're able to
(34:19):
cross over into new generations and inspire them the way
we did when we were actually on the channel.
Speaker 3 (34:25):
It's amazing.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
Have you seen the paramount series called Girls five Eva?
Speaker 1 (34:31):
Yes, I have.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
That's you guys, that's you. They they did.
Speaker 4 (34:38):
I thought I thought maybe I was just being a
little sensitive Michael saying that.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
Love.
Speaker 4 (34:49):
Yeah, absolutely it was, you know, but it's pretty cool.
And like you said, I remember being in Barcelona and
the high School musical cast was doing a lot of
their promotion stuff and will I kid you not, they
were comparing.
Speaker 3 (35:05):
These kids to the Beatles.
Speaker 4 (35:07):
The way the audience, the especially Zach and Corbin, the
way those young girls were just just was just insane.
I remember, because we were with Penny and you know
who did who directed in Barcelona, and so he's getting
all this feedback and we're just going, wow, you know,
(35:28):
when we did our movie, they had no idea they
were even going to really release the soundtrack and you.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
Know it's Gesz, You're the pioneers.
Speaker 3 (35:37):
Yeah. Yeah, it felt that way for sure.
Speaker 4 (35:39):
And you know, even going on tour, you know, for
the first time from our our Christmas show doing a
Christmas album, learned a lot, you know, it felt like
we were all learning this whole new world of making
these franchises into actual musical artists type thing.
Speaker 3 (35:58):
It was.
Speaker 4 (35:59):
It was really cool to be on the forefront and
I feel so lucky, so honored times.
Speaker 2 (36:04):
Yeah, that's great. Well, we were lucky to have you,
there's no question about that.
Speaker 1 (36:08):
Is there a film that, if you had to think
about it, that you were the most proud of, that
you were responsible for when you were on I have.
Speaker 3 (36:15):
To say Cheetah Girls.
Speaker 2 (36:16):
However, other than The che Girls three, I really love
Chetah Girls three. And uh, because I sat in India
and India is not an easy place to film.
Speaker 3 (36:29):
It was not to.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
Live, I know, and it was so foreign in some
ways from from Disney Channel because it was not whitebread
in anyway. And uh, it did not do as well
as we had hoped, but it was so badly scheduled.
It was scheduled against the opening of the Olympics. Can
(36:53):
you believe that?
Speaker 4 (36:54):
Yeah, and had slum Dog Millionaire it came out around
that time too.
Speaker 2 (36:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (36:59):
Yeah, that was showcasing India very differently than what we
were doing with the movie.
Speaker 3 (37:06):
Definitely was a contrast.
Speaker 2 (37:08):
Ye, that's a wonderful movie.
Speaker 4 (37:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
Well, it was another part that I really loved that
I meant to tell you about because I've been meaning
to tell you forever, but that I'll never forget that
tango scene that you did in Barcelona and it was
just magical, I think, and beautifully shot, and you're dancing
was impeccable.
Speaker 4 (37:26):
And yeah, I will tell you filming that scene, I
would say, I get asked all the time, you know,
my favorite things of it filming that scene with Kenny
because this was his Yeah, I mean, this was his money,
you know, talent as far as being able to translate
(37:48):
this kind of stuff onto screen. We all on set
felt that this is going to be so incredible. I
mean I just soaked it in because I know you
it was going to be everything that I'd hoped to
ever be able to film. You know, it was pretty cool,
pretty cool and emotional about it.
Speaker 2 (38:09):
I happened to be there that day and I remember
very well, you're giving it, you're all.
Speaker 4 (38:15):
So laser focused, because I just did not want to
be the one that screwed that.
Speaker 2 (38:19):
That's you know, no, you didn't develop.
Speaker 1 (38:22):
Is there a film that you think deserved more credit
than it got? Like it's like, yeah, maybe people hadn't
heard about it, and you're like, this is the one
that I thought was going to be the takeoff and
people should go see it.
Speaker 2 (38:33):
Well, I could never really predict the success of any
of them, you know, even even high school music. I
didn't know how whether kids were going to come to it.
But there's a movie that we made called minute Men,
which is sort of a midlest kind of movie, but
it was a terrific idea. I think it was about
kids who are are bullied and they see bullies in
(38:57):
their school and they are scientific, scientific nerds, and they
discover a way to go back in time by one day,
and so every time there's a bullying incident, they go
back in time and correct it or stop it from happening,
and they're they're called the minute Then it's a wonderful movie.
Speaker 3 (39:18):
I think we got to put that on our list.
Sure got to see.
Speaker 2 (39:23):
That very high concept and funny. It's a very funny week.
Speaker 3 (39:28):
What actors are in it?
Speaker 2 (39:30):
You know the kid who was in the succession of
Braun Oh, Nicholas Broun, Nicholas Ron and j. Yeah, and
there was one of the things who was terrific.
Speaker 1 (39:44):
Too, going on the list.
Speaker 2 (39:46):
Yeah, please please watch it. I think it's good.
Speaker 4 (39:49):
It seems like, again kind of going back into that synergy,
it seemed like the original movies were always a great
opportunity for somebody who was on a movie who wasn't
maybe the lead, or on a TV show who wasn't
maybe the lead on the TV show. It was nice
to give them a lead spot in a Disney Channel
original movie and showcase them and highlight them a little
(40:11):
bit more well.
Speaker 2 (40:12):
And I wish I could say it was done out
of the goodness of our heart. But the thing about
the series is it quite quickly became those kids became
so popular and so expensive that we could we couldn't
afford them, So we had to have the second or
third Banana, which we loved, but you know, we can't
afford Miley Cyrus. Right, they did a feature with her,
(40:34):
but we never got.
Speaker 1 (40:35):
Her, right. Yeah, the last time it was.
Speaker 2 (40:37):
I mean it was one with Dannie Lobado in a
called Princess Protection Program.
Speaker 3 (40:42):
Oh right, yes? Was that before after? Because what about
the Jonas brothers?
Speaker 4 (40:48):
They were right in because they actually opened for us
for the Christmas stour and it was not long after that,
I'd say, we went into the second movie. And then
at that point the Jonah his brothers was Christine Beach
like before the big big or was that right along
the side wright?
Speaker 1 (41:06):
Were they in Team Beach?
Speaker 2 (41:08):
No? No, no, no, they were. They were well before that, okay,
because Disney Channel gave them a series and all sorts
of stuff. But it was camp Rock, that.
Speaker 4 (41:16):
Rock, that's the rock, right And that week was camp
Rock before or after? Because I remember the Disney Channel
games was when we got to see how much they
were really into the channel by that time.
Speaker 2 (41:30):
They were before or after?
Speaker 3 (41:31):
What camp Rock was?
Speaker 4 (41:33):
It was that before their big like tours and stuff.
Did you guys get them or did you get them
ahead of beforehand?
Speaker 2 (41:39):
And really, yeah, that's how we're able to keep them
in Canada for you know.
Speaker 1 (41:47):
That's great.
Speaker 2 (41:48):
Camp Rock too is really pretty good movie.
Speaker 1 (41:50):
Yeah, okay, final final question for you, And here's what
I love. I love doing these. Was there ever a
project that you really wanted to do that you f
for that the channel never made that you you still
think about.
Speaker 2 (42:05):
Yeah, there is. There was one. It was based on
a based on a book, and it was called Downsiders.
I think we even bought the book and we wrote
script after script. Henry Winkler was the executive producer. And
it's about a whole underground culture, really underground in New
York City, people who live in this in the subway tunnels,
(42:27):
the abandoned subway tunnels below the real subway tunnels. And
and it's about this tribe of people who have been
down there for hundreds of years. And a girl, of
course in our day and age, makes contact with them
and they're, you know, their civilization is endangered, and she's
(42:48):
she's got to save them and save herself. And and
it was a wonderful story.
Speaker 1 (42:55):
What happened? Why didn't they make it?
Speaker 2 (42:57):
Because some people at the Disney chown't like to sit
and think about, Oh, I don't know, is it is
it really a Disney chan movie or is it not?
You know? And and it was going to be expensive,
and uh, it was a mistake, I think not to
not to make it, but who am I?
Speaker 3 (43:19):
Well, hopefully it does get made. That sounds awesome.
Speaker 1 (43:22):
Yeah, I'd have to argue you're exactly the person to
say what should be made and what should not be
made with your track record. Well, thank you so much
for joining us. This has been an amazing insight. Nice
to meet you too, and I hope you you'll you'll
come back because I I have a feeling we've just
scratched the surface of the stuff that.
Speaker 2 (43:40):
You know, Well, you know, I'll come. I'll come back,
But give me a couple of days notice so that
I can pretend to have a memory by looking up.
Speaker 4 (43:52):
Well, we'll let you know the ones where we've watched
so you can maybe do a quick overview of it,
because it does help happy to do it. We have
loved doing this podcast because the rewatching of these movies
and hearing from the fans. And one thing that I
want you to know, because it's not just me, everyone
that we ask you know all of that out of
(44:13):
all the things they've done, what are their tops and
it's all almost every time is what they did on
the channel because they felt like they made it a
difference when they get recognized from those shows or movies. Yeah,
it's always a positive, inspirational feeling that they just feel
lucky to have gotten the chance to do. You know,
(44:33):
you get to do a lot of acting, but you
don't always get to make a difference, you know, and
be a part of someone's childhood.
Speaker 2 (44:40):
Like that gotcha. Well, we tried to be kind to
people too, so that it wasn't just doggy dog.
Speaker 4 (44:46):
Yeah, everyone's like we went to New Zealand, we've been
to We're like, it's like you booked.
Speaker 3 (44:52):
A movie on the Channel and you got a vacation
out of it too.
Speaker 1 (44:57):
No, they loved it. All the actors we've spoken to
have said, I mean seriously to a person, they're like, no,
no joke. My time on the Channel or doing my
d com was the greatest time I've ever had in
my career. They really love it.
Speaker 2 (45:07):
Yeah, it's so great to hear.
Speaker 4 (45:09):
Awesome, great, amazing. So thank you Michael for giving us
all the chance.
Speaker 2 (45:15):
Happy to do it. Thank you for giving me a
chance too. It was a fun career to have.
Speaker 1 (45:21):
Yeah, well we appreciate it. Well, without your career, we
wouldn't have any of the stuff that we're watching, So
thank you. So much for joining us, and we hope
to have you back again because again we I've got
three more pages of questions. We just don't have the
time right now. We want to hear it. Thank you
so much for joining us, and we'll see you next time.
Speaker 3 (45:37):
Thank you, Michael.
Speaker 1 (45:37):
See so wow, just the font of knowledge. I love
hearing the other side of it, the kind of how
things are made and how they changed and what they're
supposed to be and who they're originally got a cast.
I mean, that's like all my favorite kind of stuff
is that.
Speaker 4 (45:53):
So can you just imagine this guy's schedule of trying
to get ten different movies no done at the same
times just unreal.
Speaker 1 (46:04):
It's also got to be that's why they had n't
thinking about it. That's why they had to flip the coin,
because they have to probably have one going in Toronto
and one going Utah like at all times.
Speaker 3 (46:12):
Exactly, I just keeps shooting.
Speaker 1 (46:14):
We're just gonna keep.
Speaker 4 (46:14):
Shooting and to feel really good about movies, but sometimes
to just not really know what the audience is gonna
even like you know that they think they should, but
then sometimes they just don't get I mean, yeah, and
he's such a wonderful man.
Speaker 3 (46:29):
He's so sweet.
Speaker 1 (46:30):
Well, I mean, look at everything he's done. And he
was the first one to say, I didn't know High
School Musical was going to be the thing. You just
don't know. It's like, we don't know what it's going
to be. We put it out there, we do the best.
I mean, I think that's what Disney Channel, especially at
the time, was doing was for the budget they have.
They were doing quality products for the budget, and it's like,
(46:51):
let's just make the best movie we can and hope
the audience comes. And even he's like, we didn't know
when that was going to be. Something's gonna say, Hey, wow,
Cheetah Girls too, biggest thing we've ever done. It's like
you just don't ever know.
Speaker 4 (47:01):
Yeah, I mean, I feel like at one point it
seemed to be that they really looked at the numbers, and.
Speaker 1 (47:08):
Then now, well now because the numbers don't exist anymore,
it's just that thing.
Speaker 3 (47:12):
It's just not how you how you do it.
Speaker 4 (47:14):
It's more about them being smart on what else the
franchise can do, you know, with toys and things like that.
Speaker 1 (47:21):
And yeah, the days of getting the millions of people
to watch the thing when it premieres. It just doesn't
exist anymore because you I'll watch it next week. I'll
watch I'll download it, I'll watch it on YouTube. It's
just there's such a different business now that those days
are gone.
Speaker 4 (47:34):
Even going to the movies anymore, you know anymore, that's
not a thing.
Speaker 3 (47:38):
We'll just wait till it streams. You just it's easy
to google.
Speaker 1 (47:42):
I want to go to a movie theater. Yeah, and
do that. I mean my wife and I did that
the Saturday night, like let's do movie night. We watched
the New Ghostbusters. We rented that, we made popcorn. It
was like that, we might as well have gone in
the movie theater.
Speaker 3 (47:53):
You know, totally.
Speaker 1 (47:54):
So yeah, that's just the world we live in. But
oh man, he is a font of knowledge and I
cannot wait to have him back. Thank you so much,
Michael for joejoining uses. Don't forget to join us next
time while we bring you back to your childhood. Thanks everybody.
Speaker 2 (48:05):
Bye,
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