David Silverman is an Emmy-award winner, animator, writer, and director most known for his work on The Simpsons. He was part of the original team of animators hired to work on The Simpsons back in the 80 and is responsible for the look and design of the family on the longest running series on American Television. He tells his story of how he joined the show, worked on the first episode, what goes into producing an episode and how The Simpsons Movie almost killed him. Mike reviews Weird: The Al Yankovic Story starring Daniel Radcliffe which is on Roku. And in the Trailer Park, Mike talks about A Christmas Story Christmas coming soon to HBO Max.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, and welcome back to movie Mike's movie podcast. I
am your host Movie Mike. Today I am talking to
director David Silverman. He directed movies like The Simpsons Movie, Monsters, Inc.
But we're gonna talk all about the Simpsons and the
fifteenth anniversary of the Simpsons movie. In the movie review,
I want to talk about Weird, the Al Yankovic Story,
which is available now to watch for free on Roku
(00:21):
and in the trailer Park. It is Christmas time like
Halloween's over. We're gonna talk about a Christmas story, Christmas
the Continuation, one of the most beloved Christmas movies of
all time. We have a lot to cover here we go.
Let's talk movies. In a world where everyone and their
mother has a podcast. One man stands to infiltrate the
(00:41):
ears of listeners like never before in a movie podcast.
A man with so much movie knowledge, he's basically like
a walking aud mtvt with glasses From the Nashville podcast Networking.
Is Movie mis Movie podcast about to get into my
converse station with director David Silverman. He is most known
(01:03):
for his work on the Simpsons and directing the Simpsons movie,
which came out fifteen years ago in two thousand and seven,
And you may think, well, what does the director do
on an animated movie, because normally the director is the
one working with the actors on their performances. They're working
with the director of photography to get the look in
the field of the movie. Well, he essentially does the
same thing, but with these animated characters. So if you
(01:24):
think of the Simpsons, what his job is to do
is to make sure they look correct, all the movements
make sense, and since they have a lot of different
people drawing and animating the characters, he has to make
sure as director that it all looks like one cohesive
piece of material and like there was only one person
doing the entire thing. So you can imagine how it
goes from doing one episode to doing an entire movie
(01:47):
like this. And that's what I want to talk to
him about today. So let's talk to David Silverman, director
of the Simpsons movie. David Silverman, how are you. I'm great.
How are you doing today? I'm doing pretty good. It's
an honor to get to talk to you. You're just
know much of an influence on the Simpsons and the
design and the look, and I'm a huge Simpsons fan,
and we want to get into talking about the fifteenth
(02:08):
anniversary of the Simpsons movie fifteen years right, But as
a kid, when did you fall in love with animation? Oh?
I think when I was very young. I think by
the time I was five, I knew what I wanted
to do, and that was animation. Believe it or not,
I had been drawing ever since I can remember. I
think most of us our memories start around four and
(02:29):
I just remember drawing around that time and continue to
draw and being influenced by everything I was seeing on TV.
But you see that the comics page was also a
big influence. By the way, this is leading up to
final really big influence was Mad Magazine. I got older
and older. I mean by the time I was seven,
you know, my dad had introduced me to Mad Magazine,
(02:51):
but that was very good at introducing me to things
like that. So you fall in love with that at
a very young age. When do you realize that you
have the talent to go on turn this into a career.
I think around the time I was doing cartoons. I
was about nine years old and I was doing drawings
and my parents were showing it to their adult friends
who were laughing uproariously what I was drawing, and I thought, well,
(03:12):
maybe I could do this professional if I if I'm
nine and I'm making my adult parents friends laugh, maybe
there's there's something to this very young age, I guess. So,
I mean, I don't know. I look, I wasn't a
drawing prodigy, per se. I mean I drew funny I
don't know about incredibly. And then I think it all
(03:33):
goes back to you just knowing how to draw funny
at a very early age, because I think that's what
they were looking for when they were starting The Simpsons
back in the eighties. They needed just something that looked
completely different on TV. The original drawings were just so unique.
So how did you get that first job being the
first one hired onto the Simpsons? Oh well, the first
one real, really, the first one hired on in terms
(03:55):
of the animation will be West Archer and West Brilliant
Animation cartoon. This animator director, he worked for this small company,
I mean really small company called class Key Chupo, which
is that he may ring a bell, but at the
time was very small and they did occasional character commercials,
character animation, personal but he mostly did what was called
(04:16):
most motion graphics. West had worked, I guess occasionally for
them to do character animation. Wes and I met on
one Crazy Summer directed by savvy Steve Holland animation direction
by Bill Copp who I had met and I was
he had me brought me on as an animator on
that live action film with about ten minutes of animation,
and I met West from there. Anyhow, after one Crazy
(04:38):
Summer rap we worked from eighty six and I was
thinking actually of focusing on illustration and putting the brakes
on animation for a while because I just wanted to
focus on my own personal style. But West got first
Bill cop involved with the Tracy Allman Show in the
beginning of eight seven because class Key Chupa had gotten
the contract to do the animation for The Simpsons. For
(05:02):
mc ranning's where we just didn't know what's called The
Simpsons were just like working with mc graning, and we
love mcgrany's work. Life in Hell was one of our
favorite underground comics, and just a style and the humor,
and we thought, oh, that'd be fun to animate, and
that's how the whole thing started. It was started in
March of eighty seven, and it was Wes and Bill
Copp and myself as the three animators animators starting on
(05:26):
the Tracy Olman shorts. We animated all forty eight Tracey
Holman shorts between eighty seven and the beginning of eighty nine,
and it was around that time we heard about the
show becoming a series. Apparently, James L. Brooks says that
I helped the Grease of the Skids to go into
a series by approaching him and a rather, I had
(05:51):
a few drinks under on my battles. I remember saying
something about, I'm glad that you're giving us an opportunity
to do really adult animation on a P time show,
because it was really kind of cool. That was our animation.
There was no connection overseas, just me and Wes and
Build animating and cleaning it up and time me and
doing everything. And it was you know, painted by Georgie
(06:12):
Pellucy who gave them the distinctive yellow color. And uh,
by the way, you see how Bart doesn't have a hairline,
It's just a shape. That's why she made yellow because
yellow worked at the skin and hair color for characters
that had no hair line, like Bartleasa and Maggie, and uh,
you know, you don't want to destroy the graphic integrity
(06:33):
or the shape by adding a hairline. So her solution was, well,
I can't make them the cartoon flash color, so I'll
make them yellow. So that's I think that's That is
to my mind, the primary reason I never acted asked
her directly, But it makes the most sense because otherwise
you'd have to do some I mean, as I say,
(06:53):
the traditional cartoon flesh color would not work for Bartleasa
and Maggie that well, they'd have flesh color skin and
hair yellow. You kind of buy them as you know,
light skin blunds or something, regardless of case. In the
beginning of May of eighty nine, we started working on
The Simpsons as a series. The first thing I did
(07:14):
was I designed the main title sequence. Later I went
in and I started devising ways of how to draw
the characters for new animators. Because we're the things were
going like way off the rails. We only had like
a turnaround model sheet, and I thought, I gotta do
some construction type drawings to demonstrate how to sort of
analyze the character and break it down and to draw it.
(07:34):
And then you know, other people followed followed through with
that respect. So in that way, I think that I've
got credit for, like, you know, helping to you know,
really solidify the designs down because I guess while I
was directing the first season with a lot of you know,
young animators and even experience once who weren't used to
drawing in this kind of style, this was a new
(07:57):
type of style. I would say, the more shall we say, season,
the animators um that we worked at. They there's the
hannibur Barra style and the Disney style and the Warner
Brothers style, but this was a Matt Graaning style as
interpreted by me and West Archer, and it was a
different approach. Now it's very common that, you know, even
after this happened, it became the norm that you'd have
(08:19):
a creator driven project where you know, specific style to
the the creator artist, if you will. But back then
it was it was totally new and you know, and
so that's when we we realized we've got to start
coming up with devise ways for the people to analyze
the characters so that can draw them properly, and I
properly the way that West and I were drawing. So
(08:40):
looking at the show, now, how long is a single
episode of The Simpsons take from when it's written to
when it comes to you? Like, how did it come
to you? Well, it comes to us as a generally,
it comes to us on the table read. That's the
first time we get it. And I remember in the
very beginning to that was my first experience. There was
a table read for Bart the Genius. That was the
first show I direct, and I remember, this is the
(09:00):
funniest thing ever written for animation. At the time, I
just thought this was this is genius. So table read,
it's about it's about nine months episode. There are a
lot but what you have you have we we it's meticulous.
You have the table read, and then you have the
storyboard process and then notes on storyboard, and then we
(09:20):
do an antimatic process. And that's a number of weeks
of doing all the drawings for the auntmatic. We should
lay out the entire show basically before you decided to
story real the entire show. Save a lot of time
and money that way, and then comes you know, the
finished animation and timing it and then going out to
our Korean studio either a coome or rough draft Korea,
(09:44):
and they take like ten weeks to animate, finish, fill
in the mostly and we we actually do a lot
of animation. We do all those key posing, heavily key
posed our shows. Uh and um uh to take some
ten weeks to finish it up and paint. It used
to be painted on cells, you know, and uh, but
(10:06):
now it's digitally painted, but still takes the same way.
At the time, it's still time consuming. You're saying nine
months from one episode, but you're working on several different episodes,
I mean, the whole season. How in the world do
you get an entire season done like that? All I
can tell you it takes a chunk of time. And
it is is like, okay, here's this timeline for let's
say the first episode of the season, right, and then
(10:27):
here's the next episode, and here's the next episode. Here's
the next episode. So they're staggered, right, So one director
is working on this, and our second director is working
on this with his you know, animation team and so forth.
And then we have you know, we have designers that
work on all the shows basically at all the times.
So there's imagine that it's like it with different moving trains,
(10:48):
you know, but they're all a week apart and they
leave the station and then the film arrives here and
then they come back on a weekly basis. Oh, that's
why we start in March. So we start the process
of store reboarding in March to make our times for
the next you know, for for the fall season. And
we have like seven episodes, six seven episodes for the
(11:10):
previous schedule to sort of give us a head start
onto the next season as as we went through in
a season after season we started building up. Oh, we
have two additional episodes, so that gives more of a
a a break to get to you know, to allow
the process to continue. And then it then somehow, and
I can't remember how we got it up to, but
(11:31):
we had like like six what we called hold over episodes.
So we do twenty two episodes a year, and like
seventeen is usually the last show that will be broadcast
that year in May, and the following you know, uh,
six or seven episodes will be for the following season
and they'll hit the beginning of the season then, you know,
(11:51):
so forth and zone. It keeps rolling on. Man. So
looking now back at the movie, it's been fifteen years
since the Simpsons movie, which you directed the movie. How
does that process begin of going from justin all right,
we're gonna make this one episode to making this full
feature that's never been done before. People often asked us,
why didn't you do another one? Well, the Simpson movie,
(12:11):
Damniel damn near killed us because we had another team
of people. We didn't expand to some extent, you know,
for the do the movie. But we had a lot
of the people that work on the show also working
on the movie simultaneously. Now some some kind of like
I had I had four um sequence directors too, were
(12:31):
not on the show over that had been on the show,
Rich Moore, Lauren McMullen had been on the show previously.
Rich had been working on Futurama at the time. I think, yeah,
it's it's hard to like put everything together. But in
any event, and then we had two other who were
working on the show, Mike Anderson and Steve Bore and
(12:52):
there was there were my four uh sequence directors because
we were That was one raised way we got it
done so fast. Is I had I had you know,
I had field generals because it was we had to
do everything and once all in a great big box.
So I had to delegate quite a bit in that respect,
but h and still look and still make it look
like it was dealt from one hand, because you know,
(13:15):
it's a movie. But we started the writing started. I
think they really got started in like two thousand and three,
and by two thousand five, there was a table read
in the summer of two thousand five, and we really
got it started story boarding in two thousand six. We
did it rather fast when you think about it, because
we started in the production in January of two thousand
and six and we basically got it done under like
(13:37):
fifteen months, you know, which is pretty fast considering into
the feature and pretty fast because a lot of stuff
we did was thrown out the window. We had to
start over a lot of Act one. But um, I
don't know, I guess we all had you know, um
they're all pretty season people and we got other people
uh involved to uh uh. It's got a Steve Marksky
(14:00):
who did a great job. He was almost like a
like a fifth uh sequence director. He did a lot
of great board work for me. I mean that's how
we got things done. We just kind of plowed through
it and uh we were still drawing on paper at
the time. We hadn't gone digital, although I started um
working on cintique tablet, you know the Wacom centique tablet
where you take a stylists and you draw directly onto
(14:22):
the screen, and that kind of got the attention of
our US president Gracie Films. Richard skais like, oh, this
is the way to go, and I say, absolutely, this
is where this is the whey to go. We started
boarding when she started buying cintiques for the board artists,
which made things very much go faster because the story
was mercurial and many respects of these things kept changing,
(14:45):
particularly uh, the character of Cargo. Originally he was like
this kind of kind of like a sad sack, you know, uh,
head of the e p A who was like, you know,
miserable because he was so it was not respected. And
then this thing happened in Springfield and he's given all
this power and resources. That storyline wasn't working because you know,
we were like, we're doing Simpsons movie, it should be
(15:05):
about the Simpsons, and we're concerning this character. We've never
heard it before. Voiced by Albert Brooks, who's like kind
of a semi regular in the Simpsons, but still not
very entertaining. So that's when we kind of pitched that
all out and said, okay, for a hot second, we
actually thought Hank Scorpion would be the head of the
E p A. And that was that tost out rather quickly. Uh.
(15:27):
And Albert Brooks actually he was. He was one of
people said that doesn't work for me. And you know,
Albert Brooks, though doing the voice, is also you know,
a very accomplished comic uh director, so his his instincts
are worth listening to. But he basically did a Scorpio
type of character, you know, and aggressive. It says if
Donald Rumsfeld ran the e p A, you know, and
(15:50):
that was sort of like the the the the idea
behind it. So you're saying, the first movie almost killed
you guys. So should we not expect a sequel anytime?
I'm like ever in our lifetime? Oh, I think that.
I never say never. You know. It's like one of
these things that that will that will, that will happen. Possibly.
I can't go work and saying it's gonna happen and
(16:12):
it's not. I can't go where I'm saying it's not
gonna happen because I can't go and record saying anything.
I can't give you no scoop because you know what,
I don't know. So I was rewatching the movie, and
obviously you're able to do now in this movie things
you couldn't do on TV. But I wonder, was there
a meeting about how to draw Bart Simpson's wiener. Yeah.
(16:36):
I don't think there was a meaning of meeting about that,
but I sort of did it. I went forward tastefully
enough so we would get away with it, you know,
let's put it that way. And we were really, really
really worried that that was going to be a problem
from the sensors. I mean, we didn't know what we're
gonna do. We figured we could get away with it
with the European audiences, but we just did not know
(16:56):
how it was going to react. And to this day
I rateful for the Ratings Board for apparently actually their
rating was I think it was it was a PG
or PG thirteen. I think rating PG thirteen for adult
humor throughout. I think that was their rating, which was
like almost a mini review, which was very flattering to us. Yeah,
(17:19):
it was. It was a lot of work, let's put
it that way. It was. It was a lot of work.
But I remember at one point it's like, this is
a lot of work, but hey, you wanted to do this,
Let's let's enjoy it. So I did. Throughout all the
work and the and stressful times, I did enjoy myself,
I think, and I think at the end of the day,
everybody else, even though it was a lot of work,
enjoying themselves to Certainly we enjoyed the way it came out,
(17:42):
and certainly enjoyed the way it was responded to. I
think you worked on one of my favorite Simpsons episodes
of all times, Summer or four ft two. Yes, well
I was. I was supervising director at the time, so
I didn't have as strong of a voice in it
as you may think. But but do go on. There's
a scene wherever Homer is talking to Ned Flanders, and
(18:02):
he's like leaning up against the fence and his hand
is doing like this weird intricate motion. I wonder, how, like,
when you think of a like an animation like that,
is it just so painful to do even though it
looks so simple. It depends. I mean, I think when
we're doing something really um inventive and interesting, uh, you
(18:22):
just kind of get into it, you know, no matter
how never mind how difficult it may be, but you know,
that's what it reminds me of. You know, one of
my favorite bits of animation is this one. This is
of course Homer's skipping through the land of Chocolate. This
is something I did do and um and this is
a cycle uh from Fortunately I was smart enough to
(18:44):
xeroxyes drawings, so I would always have because I was
happy the way this came out and when I will God,
when about this um. Mark Kirkland was directing it and
I was supervising director at this point a third season.
They made me supervising to Rector and Mark said, well,
we're having trouble with the layout is not coming out
(19:04):
as funny as your storyboard. I actually boarded the sequence
because when I read the script, I fell out of
my chair laughing. I think it's because just what I
imagined in my head, because it wasn't really on the page.
It says Homer skips after chocolate bunnies. That's all it said.
And I guess this is opted into my head. Which
made me laugh was it says that delirious. So I
(19:25):
started like doing the extremes of the you know, the
poses that I wanted to do, and then I thought, well,
I think I'll do a breakdown. I think I do
a breakdown with the breakdown and a break you know,
I'm just gonna animate the whole thing. So so I did.
So I decided to animate the entire cycle just because
I wanted to have this certain sort of like I
didn't know how to just do the extreme drawings and
(19:46):
explain to the animator in Korea how to in between
it without doing it, you know, and I figured I
just had time, like I would like tinker on it
every now and then when I had a free moment.
So looking at that animation, now, how does that work
into the entire episode? Do you just draw that and
then somebody else that's that's what gets chipped off? The
(20:07):
other got chipped off and also the bunny who's who
was skipping after I also had admitted, So those segments,
those two pieces of animation with the scene were entirely
uh animated basically here uh and uh. Then of course
the backgrounds were done, and then we were timing. Basically
what we would do is that in the exposure sheets,
we would time put the drawings in where they go.
(20:27):
How they go and you know, one after the other
and how the background pans behind it. So there you go.
That was it. Well, this has a been incredible to
get an insight on how this animation stuff works and
much it went into making the movie. Did you keep
anything from the movie, Like I know there were so
many like promo things that came out. There was maybe
(20:48):
like a cell or something that you kept from the movie.
So no, I do not do not have a lot
of art from the movie per se, And a lot
of the art that I do have would actually be
drawn digitally because at that point, at least for me,
on the movie, it was more efficient to draw on
the cintique than to draw on the paper. Well, David,
I really appreciate the time. I think if anybody wants
(21:08):
to see more of your work, definitely follow you on
on Twitter at tubatron And I love all the little
sketches you put up there in the behind the scenes stuff. Yes,
and I think people know this and some people who
know my my stuff. I've seen that this was a
going to be the ending of the Christmas Special, but
we decided not to. We decided to have this as
an off screen sort of thing as opposed to showing it.
(21:29):
I think I think Jim Brooks said, ah, it's funny,
but let's let's go quite to that excreen. But we're
hidging our bets back in nine, you know exactly. Well,
thank you so much, hope we have a great rest
of your day. Thank you, Thanks very much. I have
a good one. By Let's get into a movie review now.
(21:53):
I want to talk about Weird the Al Yankovic Story.
It's the new movie streaming on the Roku app, which
if you don't know where that is, all you have
to do is google Weird the Al Yankovic Story, and
that first thing that comes up in Google is the
Roka website. So it's for free, which is great. And
I am a fan of Weird Al Yankovic's music. I
(22:15):
I didn't know what to expect while watching this movie
going into it, and maybe I was completely blindsided. And
why would I think that a movie about the greatest
parody songwriter who has ever lived wouldn't be a parody
movie about the music biopic genre. So I thought that
was genius. This movie was so well written. I want
(22:36):
to get into more about this movie, but before I do,
here is just a little bit of the weird The
Al Yankovic story trailer, Hungry Wan up a package of
five Dude, I've got chills. Every once in a great while,
(22:58):
I can spot a talent that I know is the
future of music. The first We've got to find you
a stage name, Al Yankovic. It's long, it's hard to pronounce.
I'm just gonna throw this out there, Weird Al Yankovic.
I love it. So the movie stars Daniel Radcliffe, who
is most famous for playing Harry Potter, but he's done
(23:21):
so many great movies since. One of my favorites of
his Swiss Army Man. So I really feel like in
the last decades since Harry Potter, he has reinvented himself.
But I just think when you go into a movie
like this, people are always like, oh, it's the Harry
Potter guy. But I think he was a perfect person
to play weird Al Yankovic because with the costume, he
(23:41):
resembles him a lot, and he's just a great actor.
So why not get one of the best actors to
play weird out. But the funny thing about this movie
is that it pokes fun at all of the tropes
that come along with music. Biopics, the tropes that I
often point out when I go see a movie like
Elvis Well Heemian Rhapsody, and all those little things they
(24:02):
put in to make those movies seem a little bit
more flashy and a little bit more extra than maybe
their actual life actually was. You have to make a movie,
you have to make it more cinematics. So there's always
these little embellishments they do, whether it's like their quick
rise to fame, how big a certain song was, and
how much an artist took the world by storm. And
(24:24):
this movie pokes fun at that. It pokes fun at
the quick rise to fame, it pokes fun at the
record executives telling weird how that he would never make it,
and it does a funny job at rewriting history when
it comes to the life of Weirdow. So I don't
know why I didn't expect that one of the most
(24:46):
famous parody writers of all time, if not the most famous,
wouldn't do a music biopic parody, which I think historically,
now even most recently talking about different genres of movies,
i've felt like the parody movie was kind of dead.
I think historically, when you look back at some of
the greats like Airplane and Spaceballs. For me personally, I
(25:08):
think because of when I grew up, Scary Movie one
and Scary Movie two are my favorite parody movies. But
it's a really hard thing to do. But I think
this movie was so well written and it all actually
works together. But you have to go into it knowing
that that the movie is poking fun at the music
biopic genre. So if like me, you are a fan
(25:31):
of movies like The Dewey Cock Story or pop Star
Never Stopped, Never Stopping, those are probably the most recent
ones that have done it well, and I think this
one's right up there with that. And I actually may
even like this one more than both of those combined,
because there was actually a really solid story at the
foundation of this entire movie, because what this movie is
(25:54):
about is weird Out and his relationship with his father.
His father did not want him to do music, and
they put fun out of it a lot, because you know,
he starts out playing the accordion and listening to polka
music and that's what his dad is not wanting him
to do, and then he goes on to a chief
success sell a bunch of albums, but it all kind
(26:16):
of comes back to that relationship with his father and
going back to him just trying to make his parents proud.
So at the core of it, even though as ridiculous
as this movie goes on to become, it is telling
that relationship, and maybe it's the only thing that's actually
true out of this entire movie. I guess I was
kind of expecting to learn a little bit more about
(26:37):
his life, but at the end of it, I just
wanted to watch a funny, entertaining movie, and that's what
I got. I really enjoyed the whole plot line that
came with him meeting Madonna and their relationship in this movie,
I thought that whole thing was pretty funny. Doesn't look
like there's any truth to that, So I think on
service level, you could watch this and think this is
(26:59):
a pretty a movie. But it's also just a lot
of fun and enjoyable, especially if you're a fan of
weird al Yanko Bigs music and want to see a
different side of Daniel Radcliffe. And there's also just a
lot of fun cameos. Rain Wilson, Jack Black, just a
bunch of funny people that also make this movie work.
And it's available for free. So I know when they
(27:22):
came out saying that it's on Roku channel, you think,
where do I even find this movie? If you just
google weird the Al Yankovic story, the first thing that
comes up in Google is the Roku website, So you
just click it and you can watch it there on
your computer. If you have the Roku app on your
Amazon fire Stick, or if you have the actual Roku device,
(27:43):
you can watch it there for free to I kind
of like that, just being able to watch it on
an apps website and not have to subscribe to a
different kind of streaming service. So I think this is
a pretty big get for them to go over to
Roku channel. I don't think I've ever went over there
to watch a movie. So if I had to rate
this movie, I would give it four out of five
(28:04):
Hawaiian shirts. It's exactly what I needed right now, something fun,
something mindless, and something to remind me that you can
still make a good parody movie. It's time to head
down to movie Mike La Paul. As soon as November hits,
I think we all went full blown Christmas, so we're
(28:25):
all getting ready for Christmas movies, Christmas music, and the
Christmas movie I am most excited about just put out
their trailer. It is A Christmas Story Christmas, which is
a continuation of the original Christmas Story, and I think
this one may actually do the film justice. And just
(28:46):
by watching this trailer it gave me that warm feeling
seeing all of at least most of the original cast
come back. I'm excited for this one. So before we
talk about A Christmas Story Christmas, here's just a little
bit of the trailer from the movie that's coming out
on November sevente on HBO Max Live Moves Fast. One
day you're playing kick the can with kids name Flick
(29:07):
and Schwartz, and the next thing you know, you're a
certified adult. Ralph dear old man Frodge, he was the best. Ruff.
Promise me you're going to make this a wonderful Christmas
pill and make your father so happy. I promise what
(29:30):
had I done? And that was all up to me.
I suggest you start drinking and don't stop the New
Year's So, A Christmas Story Christmas takes place about thirty
years after the original. The original one took place in
nineteen forties, so this one is set around the nineteen
seventies and now Ralphie is older, he has kids of
(29:51):
his own, and as you heard in that trailer, his
father has passed away. So he goes home to his
childhood home in Cleveland to try to give his kids
that same kind of magical Christmas that he had growing up.
And a lot of the original cast is back. Ralphie,
his brother, Randy flick Schwartz, his mom, the Bully, they
are all back in this movie, and I think that
(30:13):
is a big deal when it comes to making a sequel,
especially when you're banking on nostalgia. Now, this isn't a
direct sequel because they did come out with A Christmas
Story two back in twelve, but didn't have any of
the original cast, and that movie took place five years
after the original one, so it really wasn't very good.
So let's all forget about a Christmas Story too and
(30:34):
look to a Christmas Story. Christmas and what I like
about what I'm seeing in this movie is it looks
and feels very warm. This movie feels like Christmas, and
I think that's what the original movie did. It's a
movie that just lives embedded in my head. We know
all the scenes, we know all the lines, and it really,
to me doesn't feel like Christmas unless I watch a
(30:56):
Christmas story. I would probably rank it as my second
Christmas movie of all time. I still think Elf is
right up there at number one, but you can't deny
a Christmas story. And why I'm excited about this movie
and looking forward to seeing it is I want to
see all of the original cast come back. And even
though they are probably doing a lot of the same
(31:16):
things that they did in the original one, but now
with Ralphie's kids, I'm okay with it. When it comes
to a Christmas movie. I like a little cheesiness in
my Christmas movie. I just want something that's going to
make me feel warm and fuzzy, and I think that's
what this movie is going to do. In the trailer,
there are references to him being shoved down the slide
by Santa the Triple Dog dare. I'm sure they'll bring
(31:39):
back the licking of the pole, so it might be
all of the old tricks again, And normally I get
too overcritical and analytical about that, but it's a Christmas movie,
and I also think it kind of hits you on
that emotional level knowing that it's taking place after his
father has passed away, and how big of a character
he was in the original movie, So maybe there's a
(31:59):
little bit of an emotional level that the first one
didn't get to that you can achieve now. So I
think this movie looks like a lot of fun. And
it's coming out on HBO Max streaming for free on
November seventeen. Interesting thing that they wouldn't put this movie
out in theaters. I feel like bringing back a Christmas
story would crush at the box office, because I think
(32:20):
this is one that would be fun to take the
whole family too. I think one of the best feelings
is going to the movies around Christmas time. There's just
something special about the entire world slowing down, especially in
those days leading up to Christmas where we're not really
getting a whole lot of work done. The entire country
feels like it's kind of slowed down. I think that
(32:41):
is the perfect time to go to the theater and
watch a movie like this, So I think we will
miss out on that a little bit this holiday season,
but has more movies just moved to the streaming only,
That is the world we live in. And again that's
coming out on November seventeen on HBO Max. This links
a dish of parting bar and that's going to do
(33:01):
it for another episode here of the podcast. Before I go,
I gotta give my listeners shout out of the week.
How do you get a listeners shout out on the podcast?
All you have to do is tweet me at Mike Destro,
send me an email movie Mike d at gmail dot com,
or comment over on my Facebook page Facebook dot com
slash Mike Destro. And this week it is from at
(33:22):
Craig Wig on Twitter, who tweeted me about my Black
Adam review and said, one of the few times I
got to disagree with you. We thought it wasn't that
bad of a movie. The action kept up pretty much
throughout the entire thing, and I would rate it a
three point five or maybe a four. Appreciate the feedback there,
Craig and I love that we don't have to agree
on our interpretations and our feelings about a movie. Anything
(33:44):
when it comes to art is subjective. So I like
to create this open discussion of a few things. I
rated something a little bit too high, or think I
rated something a little bit too low. Let me know
your true feelings on the movies. I just like to
know what you guys think about this stuff too, so
I appreciate that egg. And thanks to everybody for listening
to this week's episode. I hope you enjoyed the interview
(34:05):
as much as I did doing it. And I'm a
huge Simpsons fan, so I found that stuff fascinating. I
hope you did too. And if you want to comment
with the secret emoji on TikTok or Instagram or Facebook.
I do this every time I do an interview to
let me know if you enjoyed it. The secret emoji
for the David Silverman interview will be the pencil emoji,
So comment with the pencil emoji on the video and
(34:26):
I'll pick one of those to shout out on next
week's listeners. Shout out, and until next time, go out
and watch good movies and I will talk to you
later
Hello, and welcome back to movie Mike's movie podcast. I
am your host Movie Mike. Today I am talking to
director David Silverman. He directed movies like The Simpsons Movie, Monsters, Inc.
But we're gonna talk all about the Simpsons and the
fifteenth anniversary of the Simpsons movie. In the movie review,
I want to talk about Weird, the Al Yankovic Story,
which is available now to watch for free on Roku
(00:21):
and in the trailer Park. It is Christmas time like
Halloween's over. We're gonna talk about a Christmas story, Christmas
the Continuation, one of the most beloved Christmas movies of
all time. We have a lot to cover here we go.
Let's talk movies. In a world where everyone and their
mother has a podcast. One man stands to infiltrate the
(00:41):
ears of listeners like never before in a movie podcast.
A man with so much movie knowledge, he's basically like
a walking aud mtvt with glasses From the Nashville podcast Networking.
Is Movie mis Movie podcast about to get into my
converse station with director David Silverman. He is most known
(01:03):
for his work on the Simpsons and directing the Simpsons movie,
which came out fifteen years ago in two thousand and seven,
And you may think, well, what does the director do
on an animated movie, because normally the director is the
one working with the actors on their performances. They're working
with the director of photography to get the look in
the field of the movie. Well, he essentially does the
same thing, but with these animated characters. So if you
(01:24):
think of the Simpsons, what his job is to do
is to make sure they look correct, all the movements
make sense, and since they have a lot of different
people drawing and animating the characters, he has to make
sure as director that it all looks like one cohesive
piece of material and like there was only one person
doing the entire thing. So you can imagine how it
goes from doing one episode to doing an entire movie
(01:47):
like this. And that's what I want to talk to
him about today. So let's talk to David Silverman, director
of the Simpsons movie. David Silverman, how are you. I'm great.
How are you doing today? I'm doing pretty good. It's
an honor to get to talk to you. You're just
know much of an influence on the Simpsons and the
design and the look, and I'm a huge Simpsons fan,
and we want to get into talking about the fifteenth
(02:08):
anniversary of the Simpsons movie fifteen years right, But as
a kid, when did you fall in love with animation? Oh?
I think when I was very young. I think by
the time I was five, I knew what I wanted
to do, and that was animation. Believe it or not,
I had been drawing ever since I can remember. I
think most of us our memories start around four and
(02:29):
I just remember drawing around that time and continue to
draw and being influenced by everything I was seeing on TV.
But you see that the comics page was also a
big influence. By the way, this is leading up to
final really big influence was Mad Magazine. I got older
and older. I mean by the time I was seven,
you know, my dad had introduced me to Mad Magazine,
(02:51):
but that was very good at introducing me to things
like that. So you fall in love with that at
a very young age. When do you realize that you
have the talent to go on turn this into a career.
I think around the time I was doing cartoons. I
was about nine years old and I was doing drawings
and my parents were showing it to their adult friends
who were laughing uproariously what I was drawing, and I thought, well,
(03:12):
maybe I could do this professional if I if I'm
nine and I'm making my adult parents friends laugh, maybe
there's there's something to this very young age, I guess. So,
I mean, I don't know. I look, I wasn't a
drawing prodigy, per se. I mean I drew funny I
don't know about incredibly. And then I think it all
(03:33):
goes back to you just knowing how to draw funny
at a very early age, because I think that's what
they were looking for when they were starting The Simpsons
back in the eighties. They needed just something that looked
completely different on TV. The original drawings were just so unique.
So how did you get that first job being the
first one hired onto the Simpsons? Oh well, the first
one real, really, the first one hired on in terms
(03:55):
of the animation will be West Archer and West Brilliant
Animation cartoon. This animator director, he worked for this small company,
I mean really small company called class Key Chupo, which
is that he may ring a bell, but at the
time was very small and they did occasional character commercials,
character animation, personal but he mostly did what was called
(04:16):
most motion graphics. West had worked, I guess occasionally for
them to do character animation. Wes and I met on
one Crazy Summer directed by savvy Steve Holland animation direction
by Bill Copp who I had met and I was
he had me brought me on as an animator on
that live action film with about ten minutes of animation,
and I met West from there. Anyhow, after one Crazy
(04:38):
Summer rap we worked from eighty six and I was
thinking actually of focusing on illustration and putting the brakes
on animation for a while because I just wanted to
focus on my own personal style. But West got first
Bill cop involved with the Tracy Allman Show in the
beginning of eight seven because class Key Chupa had gotten
the contract to do the animation for The Simpsons. For
(05:02):
mc ranning's where we just didn't know what's called The
Simpsons were just like working with mc graning, and we
love mcgrany's work. Life in Hell was one of our
favorite underground comics, and just a style and the humor,
and we thought, oh, that'd be fun to animate, and
that's how the whole thing started. It was started in
March of eighty seven, and it was Wes and Bill
Copp and myself as the three animators animators starting on
(05:26):
the Tracy Olman shorts. We animated all forty eight Tracey
Holman shorts between eighty seven and the beginning of eighty nine,
and it was around that time we heard about the
show becoming a series. Apparently, James L. Brooks says that
I helped the Grease of the Skids to go into
a series by approaching him and a rather, I had
(05:51):
a few drinks under on my battles. I remember saying
something about, I'm glad that you're giving us an opportunity
to do really adult animation on a P time show,
because it was really kind of cool. That was our animation.
There was no connection overseas, just me and Wes and
Build animating and cleaning it up and time me and
doing everything. And it was you know, painted by Georgie
(06:12):
Pellucy who gave them the distinctive yellow color. And uh,
by the way, you see how Bart doesn't have a hairline,
It's just a shape. That's why she made yellow because
yellow worked at the skin and hair color for characters
that had no hair line, like Bartleasa and Maggie, and uh,
you know, you don't want to destroy the graphic integrity
(06:33):
or the shape by adding a hairline. So her solution was, well,
I can't make them the cartoon flash color, so I'll
make them yellow. So that's I think that's That is
to my mind, the primary reason I never acted asked
her directly, But it makes the most sense because otherwise
you'd have to do some I mean, as I say,
(06:53):
the traditional cartoon flesh color would not work for Bartleasa
and Maggie that well, they'd have flesh color skin and
hair yellow. You kind of buy them as you know,
light skin blunds or something, regardless of case. In the
beginning of May of eighty nine, we started working on
The Simpsons as a series. The first thing I did
(07:14):
was I designed the main title sequence. Later I went
in and I started devising ways of how to draw
the characters for new animators. Because we're the things were
going like way off the rails. We only had like
a turnaround model sheet, and I thought, I gotta do
some construction type drawings to demonstrate how to sort of
analyze the character and break it down and to draw it.
(07:34):
And then you know, other people followed followed through with
that respect. So in that way, I think that I've
got credit for, like, you know, helping to you know,
really solidify the designs down because I guess while I
was directing the first season with a lot of you know,
young animators and even experience once who weren't used to
drawing in this kind of style, this was a new
(07:57):
type of style. I would say, the more shall we say, season,
the animators um that we worked at. They there's the
hannibur Barra style and the Disney style and the Warner
Brothers style, but this was a Matt Graaning style as
interpreted by me and West Archer, and it was a
different approach. Now it's very common that, you know, even
after this happened, it became the norm that you'd have
(08:19):
a creator driven project where you know, specific style to
the the creator artist, if you will. But back then
it was it was totally new and you know, and
so that's when we we realized we've got to start
coming up with devise ways for the people to analyze
the characters so that can draw them properly, and I
properly the way that West and I were drawing. So
(08:40):
looking at the show, now, how long is a single
episode of The Simpsons take from when it's written to
when it comes to you? Like, how did it come
to you? Well, it comes to us as a generally,
it comes to us on the table read. That's the
first time we get it. And I remember in the
very beginning to that was my first experience. There was
a table read for Bart the Genius. That was the
first show I direct, and I remember, this is the
(09:00):
funniest thing ever written for animation. At the time, I
just thought this was this is genius. So table read,
it's about it's about nine months episode. There are a
lot but what you have you have we we it's meticulous.
You have the table read, and then you have the
storyboard process and then notes on storyboard, and then we
(09:20):
do an antimatic process. And that's a number of weeks
of doing all the drawings for the auntmatic. We should
lay out the entire show basically before you decided to
story real the entire show. Save a lot of time
and money that way, and then comes you know, the
finished animation and timing it and then going out to
our Korean studio either a coome or rough draft Korea,
(09:44):
and they take like ten weeks to animate, finish, fill
in the mostly and we we actually do a lot
of animation. We do all those key posing, heavily key
posed our shows. Uh and um uh to take some
ten weeks to finish it up and paint. It used
to be painted on cells, you know, and uh, but
(10:06):
now it's digitally painted, but still takes the same way.
At the time, it's still time consuming. You're saying nine
months from one episode, but you're working on several different episodes,
I mean, the whole season. How in the world do
you get an entire season done like that? All I
can tell you it takes a chunk of time. And
it is is like, okay, here's this timeline for let's
say the first episode of the season, right, and then
(10:27):
here's the next episode, and here's the next episode. Here's
the next episode. So they're staggered, right, So one director
is working on this, and our second director is working
on this with his you know, animation team and so forth.
And then we have you know, we have designers that
work on all the shows basically at all the times.
So there's imagine that it's like it with different moving trains,
(10:48):
you know, but they're all a week apart and they
leave the station and then the film arrives here and
then they come back on a weekly basis. Oh, that's
why we start in March. So we start the process
of store reboarding in March to make our times for
the next you know, for for the fall season. And
we have like seven episodes, six seven episodes for the
(11:10):
previous schedule to sort of give us a head start
onto the next season as as we went through in
a season after season we started building up. Oh, we
have two additional episodes, so that gives more of a
a a break to get to you know, to allow
the process to continue. And then it then somehow, and
I can't remember how we got it up to, but
(11:31):
we had like like six what we called hold over episodes.
So we do twenty two episodes a year, and like
seventeen is usually the last show that will be broadcast
that year in May, and the following you know, uh,
six or seven episodes will be for the following season
and they'll hit the beginning of the season then, you know,
(11:51):
so forth and zone. It keeps rolling on. Man. So
looking now back at the movie, it's been fifteen years
since the Simpsons movie, which you directed the movie. How
does that process begin of going from justin all right,
we're gonna make this one episode to making this full
feature that's never been done before. People often asked us,
why didn't you do another one? Well, the Simpson movie,
(12:11):
Damniel damn near killed us because we had another team
of people. We didn't expand to some extent, you know,
for the do the movie. But we had a lot
of the people that work on the show also working
on the movie simultaneously. Now some some kind of like
I had I had four um sequence directors too, were
(12:31):
not on the show over that had been on the show,
Rich Moore, Lauren McMullen had been on the show previously.
Rich had been working on Futurama at the time. I think, yeah,
it's it's hard to like put everything together. But in
any event, and then we had two other who were
working on the show, Mike Anderson and Steve Bore and
(12:52):
there was there were my four uh sequence directors because
we were That was one raised way we got it
done so fast. Is I had I had you know,
I had field generals because it was we had to
do everything and once all in a great big box.
So I had to delegate quite a bit in that respect,
but h and still look and still make it look
like it was dealt from one hand, because you know,
(13:15):
it's a movie. But we started the writing started. I
think they really got started in like two thousand and three,
and by two thousand five, there was a table read
in the summer of two thousand five, and we really
got it started story boarding in two thousand six. We
did it rather fast when you think about it, because
we started in the production in January of two thousand
and six and we basically got it done under like
(13:37):
fifteen months, you know, which is pretty fast considering into
the feature and pretty fast because a lot of stuff
we did was thrown out the window. We had to
start over a lot of Act one. But um, I
don't know, I guess we all had you know, um
they're all pretty season people and we got other people
uh involved to uh uh. It's got a Steve Marksky
(14:00):
who did a great job. He was almost like a
like a fifth uh sequence director. He did a lot
of great board work for me. I mean that's how
we got things done. We just kind of plowed through
it and uh we were still drawing on paper at
the time. We hadn't gone digital, although I started um
working on cintique tablet, you know the Wacom centique tablet
where you take a stylists and you draw directly onto
(14:22):
the screen, and that kind of got the attention of
our US president Gracie Films. Richard skais like, oh, this
is the way to go, and I say, absolutely, this
is where this is the whey to go. We started
boarding when she started buying cintiques for the board artists,
which made things very much go faster because the story
was mercurial and many respects of these things kept changing,
(14:45):
particularly uh, the character of Cargo. Originally he was like
this kind of kind of like a sad sack, you know, uh,
head of the e p A who was like, you know,
miserable because he was so it was not respected. And
then this thing happened in Springfield and he's given all
this power and resources. That storyline wasn't working because you know,
we were like, we're doing Simpsons movie, it should be
(15:05):
about the Simpsons, and we're concerning this character. We've never
heard it before. Voiced by Albert Brooks, who's like kind
of a semi regular in the Simpsons, but still not
very entertaining. So that's when we kind of pitched that
all out and said, okay, for a hot second, we
actually thought Hank Scorpion would be the head of the
E p A. And that was that tost out rather quickly. Uh.
(15:27):
And Albert Brooks actually he was. He was one of
people said that doesn't work for me. And you know,
Albert Brooks, though doing the voice, is also you know,
a very accomplished comic uh director, so his his instincts
are worth listening to. But he basically did a Scorpio
type of character, you know, and aggressive. It says if
Donald Rumsfeld ran the e p A, you know, and
(15:50):
that was sort of like the the the the idea
behind it. So you're saying, the first movie almost killed
you guys. So should we not expect a sequel anytime?
I'm like ever in our lifetime? Oh, I think that.
I never say never. You know. It's like one of
these things that that will that will, that will happen. Possibly.
I can't go work and saying it's gonna happen and
(16:12):
it's not. I can't go where I'm saying it's not
gonna happen because I can't go and record saying anything.
I can't give you no scoop because you know what,
I don't know. So I was rewatching the movie, and
obviously you're able to do now in this movie things
you couldn't do on TV. But I wonder, was there
a meeting about how to draw Bart Simpson's wiener. Yeah.
(16:36):
I don't think there was a meaning of meeting about that,
but I sort of did it. I went forward tastefully
enough so we would get away with it, you know,
let's put it that way. And we were really, really
really worried that that was going to be a problem
from the sensors. I mean, we didn't know what we're
gonna do. We figured we could get away with it
with the European audiences, but we just did not know
(16:56):
how it was going to react. And to this day
I rateful for the Ratings Board for apparently actually their
rating was I think it was it was a PG
or PG thirteen. I think rating PG thirteen for adult
humor throughout. I think that was their rating, which was
like almost a mini review, which was very flattering to us. Yeah,
(17:19):
it was. It was a lot of work, let's put
it that way. It was. It was a lot of work.
But I remember at one point it's like, this is
a lot of work, but hey, you wanted to do this,
Let's let's enjoy it. So I did. Throughout all the
work and the and stressful times, I did enjoy myself,
I think, and I think at the end of the day,
everybody else, even though it was a lot of work,
enjoying themselves to Certainly we enjoyed the way it came out,
(17:42):
and certainly enjoyed the way it was responded to. I
think you worked on one of my favorite Simpsons episodes
of all times, Summer or four ft two. Yes, well
I was. I was supervising director at the time, so
I didn't have as strong of a voice in it
as you may think. But but do go on. There's
a scene wherever Homer is talking to Ned Flanders, and
(18:02):
he's like leaning up against the fence and his hand
is doing like this weird intricate motion. I wonder, how, like,
when you think of a like an animation like that,
is it just so painful to do even though it
looks so simple. It depends. I mean, I think when
we're doing something really um inventive and interesting, uh, you
(18:22):
just kind of get into it, you know, no matter
how never mind how difficult it may be, but you know,
that's what it reminds me of. You know, one of
my favorite bits of animation is this one. This is
of course Homer's skipping through the land of Chocolate. This
is something I did do and um and this is
a cycle uh from Fortunately I was smart enough to
(18:44):
xeroxyes drawings, so I would always have because I was
happy the way this came out and when I will God,
when about this um. Mark Kirkland was directing it and
I was supervising director at this point a third season.
They made me supervising to Rector and Mark said, well,
we're having trouble with the layout is not coming out
(19:04):
as funny as your storyboard. I actually boarded the sequence
because when I read the script, I fell out of
my chair laughing. I think it's because just what I
imagined in my head, because it wasn't really on the page.
It says Homer skips after chocolate bunnies. That's all it said.
And I guess this is opted into my head. Which
made me laugh was it says that delirious. So I
(19:25):
started like doing the extremes of the you know, the
poses that I wanted to do, and then I thought, well,
I think I'll do a breakdown. I think I do
a breakdown with the breakdown and a break you know,
I'm just gonna animate the whole thing. So so I did.
So I decided to animate the entire cycle just because
I wanted to have this certain sort of like I
didn't know how to just do the extreme drawings and
(19:46):
explain to the animator in Korea how to in between
it without doing it, you know, and I figured I
just had time, like I would like tinker on it
every now and then when I had a free moment.
So looking at that animation, now, how does that work
into the entire episode? Do you just draw that and
then somebody else that's that's what gets chipped off? The
(20:07):
other got chipped off and also the bunny who's who
was skipping after I also had admitted, So those segments,
those two pieces of animation with the scene were entirely
uh animated basically here uh and uh. Then of course
the backgrounds were done, and then we were timing. Basically
what we would do is that in the exposure sheets,
we would time put the drawings in where they go.
(20:27):
How they go and you know, one after the other
and how the background pans behind it. So there you go.
That was it. Well, this has a been incredible to
get an insight on how this animation stuff works and
much it went into making the movie. Did you keep
anything from the movie, Like I know there were so
many like promo things that came out. There was maybe
(20:48):
like a cell or something that you kept from the movie.
So no, I do not do not have a lot
of art from the movie per se, And a lot
of the art that I do have would actually be
drawn digitally because at that point, at least for me,
on the movie, it was more efficient to draw on
the cintique than to draw on the paper. Well, David,
I really appreciate the time. I think if anybody wants
(21:08):
to see more of your work, definitely follow you on
on Twitter at tubatron And I love all the little
sketches you put up there in the behind the scenes stuff. Yes,
and I think people know this and some people who
know my my stuff. I've seen that this was a
going to be the ending of the Christmas Special, but
we decided not to. We decided to have this as
an off screen sort of thing as opposed to showing it.
(21:29):
I think I think Jim Brooks said, ah, it's funny,
but let's let's go quite to that excreen. But we're
hidging our bets back in nine, you know exactly. Well,
thank you so much, hope we have a great rest
of your day. Thank you, Thanks very much. I have
a good one. By Let's get into a movie review now.
(21:53):
I want to talk about Weird the Al Yankovic Story.
It's the new movie streaming on the Roku app, which
if you don't know where that is, all you have
to do is google Weird the Al Yankovic Story, and
that first thing that comes up in Google is the
Roka website. So it's for free, which is great. And
I am a fan of Weird Al Yankovic's music. I
(22:15):
I didn't know what to expect while watching this movie
going into it, and maybe I was completely blindsided. And
why would I think that a movie about the greatest
parody songwriter who has ever lived wouldn't be a parody
movie about the music biopic genre. So I thought that
was genius. This movie was so well written. I want
(22:36):
to get into more about this movie, but before I do,
here is just a little bit of the weird The
Al Yankovic story trailer, Hungry Wan up a package of
five Dude, I've got chills. Every once in a great while,
(22:58):
I can spot a talent that I know is the
future of music. The first We've got to find you
a stage name, Al Yankovic. It's long, it's hard to pronounce.
I'm just gonna throw this out there, Weird Al Yankovic.
I love it. So the movie stars Daniel Radcliffe, who
is most famous for playing Harry Potter, but he's done
(23:21):
so many great movies since. One of my favorites of
his Swiss Army Man. So I really feel like in
the last decades since Harry Potter, he has reinvented himself.
But I just think when you go into a movie
like this, people are always like, oh, it's the Harry
Potter guy. But I think he was a perfect person
to play weird Al Yankovic because with the costume, he
(23:41):
resembles him a lot, and he's just a great actor.
So why not get one of the best actors to
play weird out. But the funny thing about this movie
is that it pokes fun at all of the tropes
that come along with music. Biopics, the tropes that I
often point out when I go see a movie like
Elvis Well Heemian Rhapsody, and all those little things they
(24:02):
put in to make those movies seem a little bit
more flashy and a little bit more extra than maybe
their actual life actually was. You have to make a movie,
you have to make it more cinematics. So there's always
these little embellishments they do, whether it's like their quick
rise to fame, how big a certain song was, and
how much an artist took the world by storm. And
(24:24):
this movie pokes fun at that. It pokes fun at
the quick rise to fame, it pokes fun at the
record executives telling weird how that he would never make it,
and it does a funny job at rewriting history when
it comes to the life of Weirdow. So I don't
know why I didn't expect that one of the most
(24:46):
famous parody writers of all time, if not the most famous,
wouldn't do a music biopic parody, which I think historically,
now even most recently talking about different genres of movies,
i've felt like the parody movie was kind of dead.
I think historically, when you look back at some of
the greats like Airplane and Spaceballs. For me personally, I
(25:08):
think because of when I grew up, Scary Movie one
and Scary Movie two are my favorite parody movies. But
it's a really hard thing to do. But I think
this movie was so well written and it all actually
works together. But you have to go into it knowing
that that the movie is poking fun at the music
biopic genre. So if like me, you are a fan
(25:31):
of movies like The Dewey Cock Story or pop Star
Never Stopped, Never Stopping, those are probably the most recent
ones that have done it well, and I think this
one's right up there with that. And I actually may
even like this one more than both of those combined,
because there was actually a really solid story at the
foundation of this entire movie, because what this movie is
(25:54):
about is weird Out and his relationship with his father.
His father did not want him to do music, and
they put fun out of it a lot, because you know,
he starts out playing the accordion and listening to polka
music and that's what his dad is not wanting him
to do, and then he goes on to a chief
success sell a bunch of albums, but it all kind
(26:16):
of comes back to that relationship with his father and
going back to him just trying to make his parents proud.
So at the core of it, even though as ridiculous
as this movie goes on to become, it is telling
that relationship, and maybe it's the only thing that's actually
true out of this entire movie. I guess I was
kind of expecting to learn a little bit more about
(26:37):
his life, but at the end of it, I just
wanted to watch a funny, entertaining movie, and that's what
I got. I really enjoyed the whole plot line that
came with him meeting Madonna and their relationship in this movie,
I thought that whole thing was pretty funny. Doesn't look
like there's any truth to that, So I think on
service level, you could watch this and think this is
(26:59):
a pretty a movie. But it's also just a lot
of fun and enjoyable, especially if you're a fan of
weird al Yanko Bigs music and want to see a
different side of Daniel Radcliffe. And there's also just a
lot of fun cameos. Rain Wilson, Jack Black, just a
bunch of funny people that also make this movie work.
And it's available for free. So I know when they
(27:22):
came out saying that it's on Roku channel, you think,
where do I even find this movie? If you just
google weird the Al Yankovic story, the first thing that
comes up in Google is the Roku website, So you
just click it and you can watch it there on
your computer. If you have the Roku app on your
Amazon fire Stick, or if you have the actual Roku device,
(27:43):
you can watch it there for free to I kind
of like that, just being able to watch it on
an apps website and not have to subscribe to a
different kind of streaming service. So I think this is
a pretty big get for them to go over to
Roku channel. I don't think I've ever went over there
to watch a movie. So if I had to rate
this movie, I would give it four out of five
(28:04):
Hawaiian shirts. It's exactly what I needed right now, something fun,
something mindless, and something to remind me that you can
still make a good parody movie. It's time to head
down to movie Mike La Paul. As soon as November hits,
I think we all went full blown Christmas, so we're
(28:25):
all getting ready for Christmas movies, Christmas music, and the
Christmas movie I am most excited about just put out
their trailer. It is A Christmas Story Christmas, which is
a continuation of the original Christmas Story, and I think
this one may actually do the film justice. And just
(28:46):
by watching this trailer it gave me that warm feeling
seeing all of at least most of the original cast
come back. I'm excited for this one. So before we
talk about A Christmas Story Christmas, here's just a little
bit of the trailer from the movie that's coming out
on November sevente on HBO Max Live Moves Fast. One
day you're playing kick the can with kids name Flick
(29:07):
and Schwartz, and the next thing you know, you're a
certified adult. Ralph dear old man Frodge, he was the best. Ruff.
Promise me you're going to make this a wonderful Christmas
pill and make your father so happy. I promise what
(29:30):
had I done? And that was all up to me.
I suggest you start drinking and don't stop the New
Year's So, A Christmas Story Christmas takes place about thirty
years after the original. The original one took place in
nineteen forties, so this one is set around the nineteen
seventies and now Ralphie is older, he has kids of
(29:51):
his own, and as you heard in that trailer, his
father has passed away. So he goes home to his
childhood home in Cleveland to try to give his kids
that same kind of magical Christmas that he had growing up.
And a lot of the original cast is back. Ralphie,
his brother, Randy flick Schwartz, his mom, the Bully, they
are all back in this movie, and I think that
(30:13):
is a big deal when it comes to making a sequel,
especially when you're banking on nostalgia. Now, this isn't a
direct sequel because they did come out with A Christmas
Story two back in twelve, but didn't have any of
the original cast, and that movie took place five years
after the original one, so it really wasn't very good.
So let's all forget about a Christmas Story too and
(30:34):
look to a Christmas Story. Christmas and what I like
about what I'm seeing in this movie is it looks
and feels very warm. This movie feels like Christmas, and
I think that's what the original movie did. It's a
movie that just lives embedded in my head. We know
all the scenes, we know all the lines, and it really,
to me doesn't feel like Christmas unless I watch a
(30:56):
Christmas story. I would probably rank it as my second
Christmas movie of all time. I still think Elf is
right up there at number one, but you can't deny
a Christmas story. And why I'm excited about this movie
and looking forward to seeing it is I want to
see all of the original cast come back. And even
though they are probably doing a lot of the same
(31:16):
things that they did in the original one, but now
with Ralphie's kids, I'm okay with it. When it comes
to a Christmas movie. I like a little cheesiness in
my Christmas movie. I just want something that's going to
make me feel warm and fuzzy, and I think that's
what this movie is going to do. In the trailer,
there are references to him being shoved down the slide
by Santa the Triple Dog dare. I'm sure they'll bring
(31:39):
back the licking of the pole, so it might be
all of the old tricks again, And normally I get
too overcritical and analytical about that, but it's a Christmas movie,
and I also think it kind of hits you on
that emotional level knowing that it's taking place after his
father has passed away, and how big of a character
he was in the original movie, So maybe there's a
(31:59):
little bit of an emotional level that the first one
didn't get to that you can achieve now. So I
think this movie looks like a lot of fun. And
it's coming out on HBO Max streaming for free on
November seventeen. Interesting thing that they wouldn't put this movie
out in theaters. I feel like bringing back a Christmas
story would crush at the box office, because I think
(32:20):
this is one that would be fun to take the
whole family too. I think one of the best feelings
is going to the movies around Christmas time. There's just
something special about the entire world slowing down, especially in
those days leading up to Christmas where we're not really
getting a whole lot of work done. The entire country
feels like it's kind of slowed down. I think that
(32:41):
is the perfect time to go to the theater and
watch a movie like this, So I think we will
miss out on that a little bit this holiday season,
but has more movies just moved to the streaming only,
That is the world we live in. And again that's
coming out on November seventeen on HBO Max. This links
a dish of parting bar and that's going to do
(33:01):
it for another episode here of the podcast. Before I go,
I gotta give my listeners shout out of the week.
How do you get a listeners shout out on the podcast?
All you have to do is tweet me at Mike Destro,
send me an email movie Mike d at gmail dot com,
or comment over on my Facebook page Facebook dot com
slash Mike Destro. And this week it is from at
(33:22):
Craig Wig on Twitter, who tweeted me about my Black
Adam review and said, one of the few times I
got to disagree with you. We thought it wasn't that
bad of a movie. The action kept up pretty much
throughout the entire thing, and I would rate it a
three point five or maybe a four. Appreciate the feedback there,
Craig and I love that we don't have to agree
on our interpretations and our feelings about a movie. Anything
(33:44):
when it comes to art is subjective. So I like
to create this open discussion of a few things. I
rated something a little bit too high, or think I
rated something a little bit too low. Let me know
your true feelings on the movies. I just like to
know what you guys think about this stuff too, so
I appreciate that egg. And thanks to everybody for listening
to this week's episode. I hope you enjoyed the interview
(34:05):
as much as I did doing it. And I'm a
huge Simpsons fan, so I found that stuff fascinating. I
hope you did too. And if you want to comment
with the secret emoji on TikTok or Instagram or Facebook.
I do this every time I do an interview to
let me know if you enjoyed it. The secret emoji
for the David Silverman interview will be the pencil emoji,
So comment with the pencil emoji on the video and
(34:26):
I'll pick one of those to shout out on next
week's listeners. Shout out, and until next time, go out
and watch good movies and I will talk to you
later
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