Don Hahn (Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King)

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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(00:21):
slash Jim Cummings Podcast. Do it now? How you doing
out there? It's me Tigger, I am Doc Wayne Duck.
It's me Bunkers keep bobcat All right, y'all? Is it
rate your favorite firefly you desire? Hold old knock Gud.
My name is Jim Cummings and welcome to tuned In.

Speaker 2 (00:43):
Welcome back, everybody to another episode of Tuned In with
Jim Cummings. I'm producer Chris sitting here with the legend
as always, Jim Cummings. How are you doing today, sir?

Speaker 1 (00:51):
It's another day in Paradise and here we are again.
Stay tuned.

Speaker 2 (00:56):
That's right, that's right, and today we have a literal
Disney Legends joejoining us. Mister Don Han. Thank you so
much for sharing.

Speaker 3 (01:02):
Up you please please, thank you sitting on everyone, Thank you?

Speaker 2 (01:07):
How are you doing today?

Speaker 3 (01:08):
We are good.

Speaker 1 (01:08):
How are you doing today? Yes, great, you're looking fantastic.
Thank you, Becky smiling and grooving. It's a beautiful thing.
I think the last time that we ran into each
other was over on the lot. Yeah, and we were.
We were there celebrating some inexplicable some old movie I think,
something to.

Speaker 3 (01:28):
Do with I mean, we'll show up any anytime there's
something well, that's true, will be there if there's.

Speaker 1 (01:32):
Food, yes, and there was, and we did.

Speaker 3 (01:36):
Yeah, we're lucky that that Disney thing is something we
both stumbled into with a great, great fortune and not
you know, sometimes financial, but mostly emotional and personal and
mental and all those good things.

Speaker 1 (01:49):
I agree.

Speaker 3 (01:50):
And friendships, So.

Speaker 1 (01:51):
No, I do agree. And uh, you know, along with yourself.
One of one of the friendships that I've cherished is
the Sherman brothers. Yeah, I mean, I mean, how many
times have you met them and work with them? And
just yeah, I'm marveled at them.

Speaker 3 (02:10):
Richard. I didn't know Robert that well. He was pretty
much gone by the time I came around. But Richard,
you know, has only been gone recently, and he was
He's so damn prolific And wrote so many things up
until his nineties and beyond, and not just it wasn't
just courtesy songs. He was writing things like a kiss

(02:31):
good Night from main Street at Disneyland after the Fireworks show,
like these beautiful ballads and stuff.

Speaker 1 (02:36):
And I.

Speaker 3 (02:38):
Did a PBS special about Richard, actually, which I don't
I should send it to you, because I kept seeing
Richard do shows at D twenty three or these fan events. Yes,
and I thought, yes, why isn't somebody filming? That's why
last Yeah, it's going to evaporated if we don't. And
so I, with great foolishness, I called him up and said, Richard,
if I got a sound stage like this with a piano,

(03:00):
would you come in and sing your songbook? And he
said yeah, and so I sat down. I went to
his house, I sat down, we worked out what he
would sing, and I filmed it. And that was ten
years ago, and so he was still very much in
good voice, which he pretty much was his whole life.
And man, was that a pleasure. And I brought in
some singers. I brought the Dapper Dance from main Street,

(03:20):
the Barber Show, Corte Yes, Ashley Brown, who does Mary
Puppins on Broadway, and so I brought in a few
singers so he didn't have to sing the whole thing himself.
But everyone's while I do these kind of crazy ideas
because I just thought this is going to go away
if somebody doesn't capture it. So anyway, but that's a
wonderful long way of saying, yeah, what an amazing guy.

Speaker 1 (03:41):
Yeah, unbelievable. He's There was an intro for Carol King.
She's twenty eight years old, has brown hair and wrote
your favorite song. And I told them, I said, well,
you know, except for the twenty eight years old and
brown hair and packed the female and you're two of
you everybody's favorite song, you know, and you you just

(04:03):
want to say and it's one of those things that
everybody comes up to me and asks me, like it
a comic con. So you do we need to boot? Yeah?
What's it like? You know? I actually found I actually
found myself going. So you wrote everybody's favorite song? What's that?
What's like?

Speaker 3 (04:20):
What does it feel like?

Speaker 1 (04:22):
You know? Because there's I just got goosebumps thinking about it.
There is nobody on earth who doesn't know, uh, the
Sherman Brothers.

Speaker 3 (04:32):
To this day, you walk around the parks, the cruise
ships that you know, anything on the planet, the New
Abu Dhabi, disney Land, you know whatever. And you see
you hear the Sherman Brothers. Any one making and others,
but the Sherman Brothers. And they have that thing which
is so rare among songwriters that it just gets in
your head and you can't get it out.

Speaker 1 (04:48):
Airworm I one of my favorite things. I was again,
I was so fortunate I work with any number of times.
But you know, the two of them, they were sitting
there and h Dick was sitting down and uh, and
I said, oh, I did mean to tell you this
guy's for a couple of past couple of recordings. I

(05:09):
found the cure for It's a Small World.

Speaker 4 (05:12):
He went, he found a cure for It's a Small World. Ye,
I said, so we needed a cure.

Speaker 1 (05:23):
And I said, yeah, well you tell me, you know
if you, if you because they used to make fun
of it. I remember Lorenzo Music had a commercial out
I'm going to disney Land today. I guess which right
I'm going to go again on you know? And and
he so he found the and I said, he said,
please pray, tell what is the cure for it's a

(05:46):
small word. And I said, well, it's the Long and
Winding Road by the Beatles. Yes, yeah, any.

Speaker 3 (05:54):
Guys get that the Beetles are the cure for the Sherman. Yeah,
I could probably live with that. Yeah, I think it
is words to live by.

Speaker 1 (06:05):
Yeah, but it was the long and winding Road. And
I said, the long al winding road. And you get
to the second line and it's a little thing sort
of thing, and you know, if that warms its way
into your head, you don't want to kill yourself.

Speaker 3 (06:22):
No exactly. So yeah, no, you have to use songs
like that that used to having with be our guest.
You know when that came in, that was like yes anyway,
but Happily so fine, which was a Medley melody.

Speaker 1 (06:37):
You know.

Speaker 3 (06:38):
Alan Macon wrote that and he said I'll come up
with a final melody, but he gave it to Howard
and Howard wrot the lyrics and he said, you know, okay,
here it is, and Howard Wrot the lyrics and then
he said, okay, I'm going to go back in now
and write a final melody because I don't think this
one works and you can never do it well.

Speaker 1 (06:54):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (06:54):
I thought it worked. It works fine, kind of yeah,
I think. Yeah, it's a little eight Yeah it is,
it is. But the Sherman's I mean, all the Winnie
the Pooh songs and things like that which you sang
it to Richard's life celebration was fantastic. Yeah, very amazing.
You you're like an amazing musician that people must know

(07:15):
about you. But if they don't, like how did did
you grow up in a musical family or.

Speaker 1 (07:19):
Oh no, no, no no, I was aware to believe me. Yeah. Yeah,
we're all very blue collar Youngstown, Ohio. Yeah, here in
northeast Ohio. You know you're from a blue collar town.
If Bruce Springsteen writes a song named Yokstown, yeah yeah
you reelll Poors Hill.

Speaker 3 (07:39):
We have to get to and less overtime.

Speaker 1 (07:44):
Yeah, you're you're screwing wow, Bruce.

Speaker 3 (07:47):
Somewhere along the line, you had an injection of musical talent.

Speaker 1 (07:50):
Yeah, well, I yeah, I started off as well, more
of a musician than an actor. I was in plays
and stuff, you know, the Youngster a playhouse. But but
singing and playing drums was my main thing. Yeah, you know,
and I was and I was the white kid in
the band, remember the Fantastic Parrels. I was a parrel, Yes,

(08:12):
And I was a sweet and beautifully so yeah, thank you.
And I was a sweet soul spice oh.

Speaker 3 (08:21):
Yeah, Grady.

Speaker 1 (08:24):
Yeah. Then I finally moved to New Orleans and fell
into a band that I actually made a living on
banfusion a long time, and you know, played in the
French Quarter and strip joints and everything.

Speaker 3 (08:36):
It was great. Well, yeah, I mean there's it's a
part of America that's not really part of America. You know,
it's like such a different culture every level, musically and
food wise and everything else. That explains a lot about
who you are.

Speaker 2 (08:49):
Yeah, how about you, don I'm curious how you went
from studying school music in school to then what's the
from music to producer.

Speaker 3 (08:57):
I'm a Chicago guy. So I was born in Tinley Park,
which is the South side of Chicago, kind of White
Sox territory. Like the Pope. I'm just going to point
out that's right. Yeah, Well, I knew the conversation would
revolve around to him eventually, but my folks moved out
here in the fifties fifty nine. I think I was

(09:19):
born around that time, and so I grew up in
southern California, and southern California was amazing still is. I
love LA. But it was the kind of place where
there was aerospace going on, it was a big oil producer,
there was entertainment going on. And I had a really
musical family. My mom played piano in the church and
sang in the choir, and my dad was a Lutheran minister,

(09:39):
so we kind of grew up around church music the
whole time, which is pretty common. But I never wanted
to go into the ministry or that kind of stuff.
I don't know what I wanted to do, except I
was a music major. I played cello for a long
time coming up, but I grew up with drums. Karen
sticks around like you did. And I ended up going
to music school cal State Northridge, and so I'm I'm

(10:01):
a music guy, and I was going to play in
orchestras and I probably still would have, or I might
have been a music teacher or something like that, but
I got sidetracked to this animation gig and glad I did.
And I always loved it too.

Speaker 1 (10:13):
Yeah, by the way, Yeah, I'm really glad you did.

Speaker 3 (10:16):
I mean, I grew up with the Walt Disney Eve
on Sunday Night on TV and going to Disneyland and
afterwards totally so in mutual of Omaha's will, the Kingdom
was beforehand. Yes, another lost reference, Lady and Gentlemen. Yes
with Marlon Perkins.

Speaker 1 (10:31):
Yes with Marlin. Here's Raoul diving in with the crowd. Yes,
he's no longer with the show.

Speaker 3 (10:40):
He was sending thoughts and prayers to his family anyway.
So you know, living in southern California, Disneyland, that's very
farm Those places are really special. So I grew up
loving that. And then I was twenty years old got
a summer job at Disney, working downstairs in the basement
of the Incan Paint building, delivering stuff. I was just
a delivery guy, and but I was delivering things to

(11:01):
Frank Thomas and Ali Johnson and mill Call and Ken
Anderson and these legends of animation. And they were generous.
So I often feel like my university education was Disney. Wow.

Speaker 1 (11:14):
Yeah, that's that's incredible that that. I mean, you those
those are like o g as the kids say, yeah, yeah, yeah, yes,
I've seen too much. But they were they were really generous.
It had no real reason to be generous to me,
you know.

Speaker 3 (11:28):
So, Yeah, And I was there about a year and
they they need some help up in Willie Ritherman's office.
Willy Ratherman, who producing directors all the movies that you
and I grew up on, including Winnie the Pooh, including
Jungle Book one hundred one, Dalmations, Great Animator Legacy, Anime
nine old man legend. I got to work for Wooly,
so I'm in his office getting him coffee, threading up

(11:50):
his Movieola, which, for you kids, is a machine that
plays film, and working in his office. So again, luck,
dumb luck. And that was in the seventies when kel
Arts was producing a lot of students. So Glenn Keene
was coming into the company, Tim Burton was coming into
the company, Brad Bird, Ron Clements, John Musker, all the

(12:10):
people that you've worked with, yes, were flooding in as trainings.

Speaker 1 (12:14):
That sounds like I mean along with you. That sounds
like Mount Rushmore to me.

Speaker 3 (12:19):
It is, it is, it is. And all those people
are now the leadership of animation and have been for
a while. Oh and so we were the beneficiaries of
the night old men kind of generation and learned literally
at their feet. Eric Larson, who ran the training program,
Frank Canelli wrote their book Illusion of Life. So we
were you know, we were there, and I just feel

(12:43):
so lucky for that.

Speaker 2 (12:44):
Yeah, what is the nine Old Men generation?

Speaker 3 (12:47):
You know, Walt, oddly, it's a great question, called a
few of his animators none, as it turns out, the
Night Old Men. Because Fdr. Roosevelt was having battles with
his Supreme Court, it happens, and he called them the
nine Old Men. So Walt thought, if FDR can have
his nine Old man and for FDR that was kind
of a derogatory jo Oh, Walt, jokingly, I didn't know that. See, wow,

(13:12):
this is why I'm here.

Speaker 1 (13:14):
That's right.

Speaker 3 (13:14):
Well called his supervising animators the nine Old Men, and
it was a joke, and they all didn't take to it.
That's just a term that's kind of caught on the
last maybe thirty years or so, because it's it's a moniker.
We can remember to them. It was a big organization.
Everybody contributed and there are a lot of people that
weren't in that posse of nine Old Men, but they
became very publicized, I think. And so yeah, Paula in

(13:39):
the Wall Gang exactly. So that was the probably the
seventies sixties after Walt died. Walt, God bless them, never
gave that much credit to anybody. And you could say
the same about the Hollywood studio system. You know, people
just didn't do that until Sleeping Beauty came out. And
then that book about Sleeping Beauty in nineteen fifty nine
started to have names of Ivander and and you know,

(14:01):
Ken Anderson and things. So yeah, that's who the nlemen are.

Speaker 1 (14:05):
Interesting m m man oh man. Did you ever think
that you I mean, is this literally what you were
aiming for as a kid.

Speaker 3 (14:13):
Yeah, I didn't have that.

Speaker 2 (14:15):
You know.

Speaker 3 (14:15):
I admire people that go, oh, I always want to
be an animator or something. I always love Disney, But
I was really headed for music. But what ironically it
gave me a vocabulary to deal with musicians. So I've
done a lot of musicals now, ye, which you have
performed on yourself, and so I had a vocabulary to
musically have a conversation with On Zimmer or Alan Macon
or whoever was doing the score. Uh, And that's a

(14:37):
real pleasure. Those guys are, oh my gosh, unbelievable and
you know that as well as I they are have
another breed.

Speaker 1 (14:43):
Yeah on Zimmer. That that's you know, it's crazy, it is.
I don't know where that kind of I don't know
where that comes from, you know, that that that ability
to pull magic from there, it's a Quincy Jones has
a quote he said, well, you know, there's only one
scale and there's only that, you know, but it's what
you do with it.

Speaker 3 (15:04):
Yep.

Speaker 1 (15:05):
And I mean yeah, wow, and there's only three primary colors.
Is that right? Yeah? I think that's right.

Speaker 3 (15:11):
I'm gonna say it is. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (15:12):
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (15:13):
So you know, I never dreamed of being a producer
or director or making films. Loved animation, but my heroes
were Quincy Jones. My heroes were Jim Henson, you know,
people like that, hmmm, Steve Martin, weird, weird heroes. And
I was not necessarily a film guy because we couldn't afford.

Speaker 1 (15:34):
To go to the films.

Speaker 2 (15:35):
You know.

Speaker 3 (15:35):
My dad was making five thousand a year or something
like that, and so we never went. Yeah, just getting exactly, yeah,
we just didn't here.

Speaker 1 (15:44):
Yeah. Well yeah, well you know Youngstown, Ohio. Same with me. Yeah,
my dad working at a machine shop, yep, and uh
so we have.

Speaker 3 (15:51):
My dad was machinist before we went to the ministry.

Speaker 1 (15:53):
Mm hmm. Yeah, there you go.

Speaker 3 (15:55):
Oh there, but for the grace of God, no joke.
That's how I feel and you may too, But you
just feel really lucky and also be in there with
like Glenn Keene and Tim Burton and all those guys.
Nobody at the time in the seventies, eighties, nineties called
it the Disney Renaissance. You know, you just know you're working,

(16:16):
trying to get movies done, getting gigs. Yeah, it was, yeah,
and events going to work exactly so, and eventually there
was enough experience and ideas and you know, push behind it.
And a big thing that really made it go was
home video in a funny way because now all of
a sudden they went to the library fast and have
to replace those titles. Yeah, and so that meant animation

(16:39):
had to step up and do some things that could
sit on the shelf alongside Peter Pan and Cinderella and
be worthy of people wanting to buy it. And that
was really a big kind of push and can't we
didn't really talk about that, but that was the business
push behind it.

Speaker 1 (16:54):
M Yeah, I remember the video revolution. I worked at
Anaheim Hills Video Depot. My sister and her husband and
a couple of friends of the started up a video
chain and it was video depot back then. And of
course now they're all gone, they're all you know, gone

(17:14):
the way of all things. But boy, it was a
monster when it first hit. Yeah, it was you know,
cub boom, and I remember right from there. I was very, very,
very fortunate. I got a job right away in this
part of the business. And just as the you know,

(17:36):
the business was falling out of the video business, I
should say, was falling out, I got in a couple
of movies and they sold it shit ton of things
and I'm went, yeah, so I was all four videos,
got yeah, please more videos here, please please. And now
it's all streaming and you know, we each make five cents.

Speaker 3 (17:55):
Yeah, it was. It's hard to describe the cash cow
that videos were for any studio, but it's actually animation. Oh,
I agree, And the movies had to be good, but
still it was that generation of the nineties or whatever
was absolutely huge. And the library to pull out things
like snow White and Pinocchio and things to put it.
It was heavily debated Roy Disney. I remember Roy Edward Disney,

(18:16):
our generation's Roy really didn't like that idea, and he
actually he made kind of a deal with Michael Eiser
and said, you know, if you let me do another Fantasia,
all that you released snow White and Pinocchio in those movies.
So Fantasia two thousand comes out of that handshake deal. Wow,
probably in a back room and Burbank somewhere, and I

(18:38):
think Roy knew instinctively that you can't stop that kind
of progress. It was huge, and Michael knew that Roy
was responsible for bringing him into Disney and had to
give Roy something in exchange. So that whole Fantasa two
thousand film is the thank you to Roy for doing
all that.

Speaker 2 (18:55):
Do you know what specifically he was bothered by, Like
why was the adverse to it?

Speaker 3 (19:00):
Here's the argument, if I let you buy snow White,
you're never gonna to the theater and watch it again.
And every seven years they were re releasing snow White
and Pocrant Peter pennin Cinderella, so that was the cash cow.
It's like there was a new generation to see those
films in the theater and if we sell them to
you and you have it on your shelf. You're never
going to go to the theater, which is somewhat true.

(19:21):
But you'll also watch it a million times and wear
out the tape and buy another one. Yeah, and then
we'll up the technology to CDs and DVDs and Blu
rays and you.

Speaker 1 (19:31):
Know, yeah that stuff. Yeah, that's true.

Speaker 3 (19:33):
That is true, which reads the question should we keep
our blue rays or just go with streaming? I just
need to know your opinion. Well, I think you keep them.
I've heard that too.

Speaker 1 (19:43):
You keep them on account of someday that'd make great
coasters if there's no others whatsoever. Yeah, yeah, you know
what this is, don't you. It's one an academic Yeah.

Speaker 3 (19:57):
Yeah, well it used to be a movie.

Speaker 1 (19:58):
You're yeah, you're schlit spear. Yeah, you're foaming over Yeah,
beauty and the base. Wow, I'm going to do that tonight.

Speaker 2 (20:06):
Well, then I would say, also, there's like the aspect
of them. You know, they alter things. You know, so
many movies are altered, and times change, and you know,
what's politically correct changes and who knows what comes in
the future, you know, And then if you have that
original hard copy, then it's like, okay, this is like
preserved what it really was like at the time it

(20:27):
was released.

Speaker 3 (20:27):
I've heard the same and not every movie is available
all the.

Speaker 2 (20:30):
Time, right exactly and eight days later, Yeah, it's never
been on any single streaming service ever. Did you guys
know that? No, twenty eight days later has never been
on a streaming service ever.

Speaker 3 (20:41):
Whoa wow, And then you have the whole anyway, this
is a whole topic that we shouldn't get into it
because there'll be a fist fight. Yeah, but you know,
you sign up to a streaming service just to see
one series and then.

Speaker 2 (20:53):
Oh yeah, you know White Lotuses over there got me
with the Office they re released the extended. Yeah they
got me, they got me.

Speaker 1 (21:00):
Yeah, that's true.

Speaker 3 (21:01):
Huh man, what a topic that is.

Speaker 1 (21:03):
And you have to go buy you know, one hundred
turds to find one.

Speaker 3 (21:06):
Yeah, which I've done.

Speaker 1 (21:07):
Actually, yeah, it's not pleasant. It's now now, Oh man,
So what what what is the driving force for you
right now?

Speaker 3 (21:20):
These days? Wow? You know, I do you care anymore?
Do you give us drugs and alcohol? For me?

Speaker 2 (21:29):
No?

Speaker 3 (21:29):
I you know, I'm making a lot of documentaries and
I've uh so something happened in my head maybe ten
years ago, and I'm not a political animal, but it
happened around the changes in the world and that kind
of thing, and I thought I could use my storytelling
skills to tell stories that aren't necessarily animated. I don't
have any aspirations of doing live action movies. I've done some.

(21:49):
They're fine. It's a whole nother story we can talk about.
But I love making documentaries, especially about artists. So now
for and I've I have a lot of document on
Disney Plus and PBS, so it's only only two companies
I work for, really because I believe in them. So
we just finished one about the Goofy movie called Not

(22:11):
Just a goof and it's about the phenomenon that that
movie has become Awaken Sleeping Beauties on Disney Plus. And
but for PBS, I made a film about Tyros Wong,
the great art director for Bambie and Gosh a bunch
of other stuff. So I love doing that. It's also
very different than animation. It's very small. There's no it's

(22:32):
not six hundred people in four years. It's you know,
six people and four months. It's it's more contained. I
feel more personal for me. I can get my hands
into it and I really enjoy it, and I feel
like I can tell stories that aren't being told. There's
plenty of documentaries about sports, heroes and politics and all
that stuff, and well, I enjoy Waking Sleeping Beauty.

Speaker 1 (22:52):
Was that that was a hell of a thanks it was.
I mean, that was beautiful, you know, seeing seeing all those.

Speaker 3 (23:03):
The gang. Yeah, you know, I mean I was like, whoa,
you just well you were there.

Speaker 1 (23:08):
It tugs at my heart. Yeah, it really does.

Speaker 3 (23:12):
You were there in the middle of it. And I
got this. This was like twenty years after that era.
Not the feeling again like if we don't tell this story,
it's not going to happen, and that sounds arrogant, but
I felt like, you know, I I know, it sounds accurate.
I know the story. And I also felt really lucky
that people would be willing to talk to me. So
I could call up Jeffre Katzenberg or Eisner or whoever,

(23:34):
and they you know, I could sit with him for
two hours and they would talk to me. And I
felt like, for whatever reason they're willing to do that,
I need to do that. And so I have, you know,
I have two hours of Roy Disney talking about his
life at Disney and Katzenburg and Eisner and all those
things that are not even.

Speaker 1 (23:52):
In the movie.

Speaker 3 (23:52):
They're just archival and I've given them to Disney Archives.
So I just felt like, again, those things evaporate too easily,
and wouldn't you love to have a documentary like that
about Walt Disney and Roy and and that era and
there are any and so anyway, so I dove in
and did that a few years back, and it was amazing.

Speaker 1 (24:14):
I mean, two hours of Roy, isn't it. He just
opened up. Yeah, there's not many people. Okay, there's one
that can say that, and he's you. That's what a beautiful,
beautiful thing. It's beyond an honor.

Speaker 3 (24:28):
And I feel like, yeah, I think partly because I'm
a I'm a filmmaker, I'm an artist, I'm a producer.
I'm not a threat. I'm not an executive. I'm not
a reporter. So like Jeffre Katzenberg, who I admire, you know,
he said, he just I said, well, you know, he
had a really troubled relationship with Roy, and he came
out and said, yeah, I could have managed it better.

(24:48):
I could have I could have been deferential to Roy,
but at that time in my life, I wasn't ready
to do that. It's really raw feelings. Wow. So uh yeah,
before those stories disappear, I just wanted to capture this
and file him away.

Speaker 1 (25:04):
Wow. You know, I have one little mini. I met
Jeffrey Katzenberg any number of times, but one of one
of them was after Lion King. We were done. It
was post production, it was done, it was ready to go,
ready to go. And I was unplugging my daughter's sink

(25:27):
because she had all this hair and she would and
I'm in there with the plunger, you know, doing this,
and and it's a Saturday morning, and the phone rings
and my daughter, my eldest daughter, Olivia answers to Hi. No, yeah,
hey Dad, it's it's a who is He's a friend
of you, always wants to talk to you. And I said, well,

(25:49):
all right, well, honey, Jesus, tell him I call him back.
Tell him I'll call him back. Give me. Can you
take his name? Okay, okay, so Jeffrey, Jeffrey cats and
cats C A C A T S I N B
U R G oh okay k A T. Who is it?

(26:11):
What's your name Jeffrey Katzenberg. Jeffrey Katzenburgh, and I go, okay, Dad,
Daddy's coming, And I swear to God, if I'm lying,
I'm dying. Jeffrey, it's Saturday. What in the hell do
you want?

Speaker 3 (26:27):
He probably loved that.

Speaker 1 (26:28):
He loved it. He did, he did, and he was
so gracious he busted up laughing, and I was like, oh, okay,
good wow, because you know, that could have gone a
whole nother way.

Speaker 3 (26:39):
It could have.

Speaker 1 (26:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (26:40):
I mean, there's you hear a lot of things about Jeffrey.
And what's weird is Jeffrey's very actor behind the scenes
in life. Like if there's a new book out about
Joe Biden, it's got Jeffrey Katzenberg, and it he could
He's He's moving around in the background talking to people
and whatever things that I certainly don't understand.

Speaker 1 (26:59):
Tough, tough job doesn't. Yeah, I'm sorry.

Speaker 2 (27:06):
It was.

Speaker 3 (27:06):
I don't know how sad is that. But anyway, so
Jeffrey's very just really tough, but just one on your side.
And there wasn't a movie that I did that he
didn't call up and say thank you or or want
you to be to feel like you were successful, and
but man was he tough. He We used to really

(27:27):
prepare for his meetings and we used to really have
to push back if his ideas were funky, because a lot
of times he was really good.

Speaker 1 (27:33):
That must have been fun.

Speaker 3 (27:34):
It was great fun.

Speaker 1 (27:35):
It was like, okay, who wants to take the first hit?

Speaker 3 (27:37):
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Well, and sometimes he was right, you know,
like he one day, one of the story guys said,
you know what we're we're singing be our Guest to
Belle's father, and I think we're singing it to the
wrong guy. And Jeffery said, yeah, you should be seeing
it to Bell because the whole be our Guest song
was written for Maurice and we recorded it for Maurice.

(27:58):
That great character actor did Maurice's voice anyway, So it
was all storywear and everything else. And so sometimes Jeffrey
would say, yeah, man, we should change it, and we go, yeah,
you're right. Other times he would have bad ideas and
we would, but he would know what was broken. That
was the thing. He was open to other solutions, but
he had this weird sense to be able to say, oh,

(28:18):
that sucks and it's not working yet.

Speaker 1 (28:21):
Yeah, Well he knew what he knew, doesn't he did.
He's good at that stuff. He's the K and SKG.
I don't know if you knew that.

Speaker 3 (28:26):
I have heard that I did.

Speaker 1 (28:27):
Yeah, yeah, that's not bad.

Speaker 3 (28:29):
I don't know the other guys, but.

Speaker 1 (28:30):
Yeah, yeah yeah. If you're a fan of everything we
do here at tuned In with Jim Cummings, you could
support the show on Patreon for bonus exclusive podcasts, as
well as early in ad free access to the show itself,
prize drawings, and more. You'll feel the difference, so go
ahead and join the tuned In family today at patreon

(28:53):
dot com slash Jim Cummings Podcast. Do it now.

Speaker 2 (28:58):
I have a question for you.

Speaker 3 (28:59):
Oh, if you're a young man in the front, yes.

Speaker 2 (29:01):
I don't cut you off. If you have a thought, please.

Speaker 3 (29:03):
Go No I need to be cut off.

Speaker 2 (29:05):
Okay, I'm wondering if you can describe to our audience
what exactly it means to be a producer, Like, what
does the job entail? What's you get hired? You get
hired on The Lion King as a producer. What does
your job entail?

Speaker 3 (29:19):
So you're like a coach on a soccer team, football team?
A coach you have to pull a team together of
people and then coach them and get everybody to play
well together and deal with problems as they come along.
And the problems in the film industry are daily. It's
you don't get into entertainment to have a problem of
free lifestyle. So it's really that. It's really like I

(29:41):
was the first guy on Beauty the Beast. I was
just finishing who framed Roger Rabbit. Jeffrey called up and
said we wanted to be in the Beast. We went
through a list of directors, Richard Williams, Bob zamchas different.
We ended up with Richard Purdham, who was great. Then
that version. We had to replace directors and we put
in Kirk and Gary Kirkwuise and characterist.

Speaker 2 (30:00):
And when you're doing this, is this meetings like in
a room? Is this phone calls meetings? It's phone calls,
it's wherever.

Speaker 3 (30:07):
Whenever we were putting Maleficent together and we were considering,
you know, different directors, and I was in Colorado skiing,
I think, and the phone would ring. It would be like,
you know, some big name director on Kenneth Brown. I
actually it was on the phone and and he's pitching
like what he would do with it kind of thing,
and then Tim Burton was going to do Maleficent, and

(30:28):
so you're trying to say, Okay, how can we pull
us together. Let's get a screenwriter and a director that
can collaborate and then start to put pieces together. And
you really it's a very much. It's a sports metaphor.
It's baseball. It's you're trying to put that team together,
get a spree to corps, and then if people don't
fit or are miscast, you have to deal with that sometimes.

Speaker 2 (30:48):
So what kind of creative control do you have over
the project?

Speaker 3 (30:51):
I would say plenty is the answer. Walt Disney never
directed a film at Disney as a producer. I'm no
Walt Disney. Let's be clear. Yeah, there's no directed by
yeah's direction by Walt Disney anywhere. It was produced by
Walt Disney, but he was all over those guys. I

(31:13):
I'm know Walt Disney, and I had great directors to
work with. I worked with Kirkwise and Gary Trusty Alon,
Beauting the Beast and Hunchbrecker Notre damin Atlantis, which was
a great experience. Rub Mankoff, Roger allers On Lion King,
Richard Williams, Bobs and mechas On who friend Roger Rabbit.
So the real secret is you get the best people
you can and then you stay out of their way

(31:35):
and do exactly what they tell you to do.

Speaker 2 (31:38):
And so do you source funding as well? Bring your own?

Speaker 3 (31:42):
Yeah, I guess it's project to projects. I mean on
the documentaries, that's very much part of the job. It's
it's not only are you making them and producing them
and directing them, but you're saying, Okay, this is going
to be a you know, X dollars, we have to
go raise this or find partners to it. At Disney's
different because they're in the movie business, they're going to
fund it, but they're only going to fund it with
so much money and the like. We made Beauty the

(32:02):
Beast under pretty horrific financial controls because the stock was
in the toilet and it wasn't little. Budget was tiny
really later when we got show didn't show, but we
made a lot of concessions we thinks nobody will ever know.
You know, we would field up on a scene a
little bit to eliminate the shadow on the floor so
we didn't have to draw it. Oh, the Beast used
to have three stripes on his cheeks. We go like,

(32:24):
can you get away with one stripe on his cheek?
So it sounds simple, but when we have to draw everything, yeah,
that's true. So yeah, a lot of concessions all and
it's painful to sit down with the directors and the
art director and that and say, you know, we can't
afford this sequence. But the thing as a producer you
want to do is give your creative people choices. It's like, here,

(32:45):
here's your palette of choices. Where do you want to
put your money on the screen. And there's some sequences
that don't need all that money, And so it is
you're you're taking a very finite amount of money and
trying to just put it in places where the audience
is going to see it and not waste it. And
that's hard to do. But I like it, you know,
And I love the musical part of it. I've done

(33:06):
a lot of musicals and I love that. And the
directors were always differential to me on the music side
of things, and the story was collaborative. I had complete
ability to weigh in on story. But with Kirk Wise
and Gary Trousdale and my story group on Beauty the
Beast was Chris Sanders and Roger Allers and Brenda Chapman

(33:26):
and Kelly Asberry and all these people, big Bernie Mattinson.
Oh wow, that was my story crew. You know, I
drank a lot of coffee. That was about my job.
Oh so it's different on any movie.

Speaker 2 (33:38):
Yeah, wow, yeah.

Speaker 1 (33:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (33:41):
The story crew on Beauty was unreal. I mean, so
that's where I feel like, if I'm really good at
my job, I've hired a lot of really good people,
myself included, and I feel like those people are going
to step up and do something that I never thought
of and give you performances, you know, like Ed the
Hyena that you know, the pitch I think was it's

(34:03):
like Ed mcmahony laughs at Johnny's jokes, whether they're funny
or not. Oh, that was a whole pitch. And then
we called it.

Speaker 1 (34:09):
Oh god, yeah, well I remember that was such an
insane gig. And I've told this so many times and
people go, no, no, But I did it in a
less than an hour. And because you know, I showed
up and I want to say, Roger was there and anyway,

(34:32):
and we couldn't think of what to do, and I
just said, well, but we finally narrowed it down to
the fact that he has to laugh, but it has
to represent every possible nuance in every possible emotion totally.
So so I had to laugh like I was scared
poop bless. I had to laugh like I was laughing occasionally,

(34:56):
and one like I was afraid, one like one was
you know, one was timid, one was hesitant, wistful, one
was recalcitrant, wistful was a big why was my favorite?

Speaker 3 (35:08):
It's tough, it's full.

Speaker 1 (35:10):
Of whist And we just went down the last and
I wish I'd saved that piece of paper. It was
on a yellow pad.

Speaker 3 (35:18):
I probably have it somewhere. It's absolutely true, and like
you don't know if the actor is going to be
able to do all that. It's funny, like we James
Earl Jones, nobody's better forget it, but didn't laugh a
lot himself, so you couldn't do that and say, hey, James,
gonna give you a bunch of different laughs. He was

(35:41):
like why what for anyone needed to know? Like why
he was doing it? When he did laugh, it was
this big, warm, wonderful thing. But he was an actor's actor,
and so as you have that, and then you have
like the amazing kind of utility hitters that I think
I'm positive we could bring you in and ask you
to do anything, and and we did, by the way.

(36:01):
So anyway, so that's.

Speaker 1 (36:05):
You know, as Finnys James will, I have to just
jump in here because this is such a damn cute story.
My buddy Tom Kane, the great Tom Kane voice guy,
he tells the story. He was at Buzzies because James,
a lot of people don't know, but he had a
little trouble with you know, dyslexia.

Speaker 3 (36:22):
We all do, we have a stutter when he was
a kid.

Speaker 1 (36:25):
Yeah, I see how you can't. That one's hard to
even believe, but you hear it. And anyway, Tom says
he went into the bathroom and he was doing something
standing up and there was apparently someone else in there
that was sitting down, and so he's he says, I'm
standing there and I'm doing this and have you heard

(36:45):
the story? No wait, but he says, and I hear
this voice this is.

Speaker 3 (36:52):
C and and.

Speaker 1 (36:56):
No, no, no, that's not it.

Speaker 3 (36:59):
This this is c.

Speaker 1 (37:01):
N no, no, no, this is c N N.

Speaker 3 (37:09):
Yes, oh my.

Speaker 1 (37:11):
God, nailing this is CNN read.

Speaker 3 (37:15):
The Consummate pro while in the men's room, because you know,
where else do you have? Anyway, we always had to
record of buzzies for him. Yeah, And one day we
were done with the session, said done, I have something
that the trunk would like to show you. It's concerning,
but I went out.

Speaker 2 (37:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (37:36):
Anyway, so he used to have a pulse. Yeah, he
said there was a yard sale up the street and
I bought this art and I thought you'd like to
see it. And he opened it up and he had
these really great kind of forties somewhat Polynesian oceanic art
kind of prints. I just love these and I thought
you'd really enjoy them, and I did, and I felt like, wow,

(37:58):
here I am in the parking lot way James Earl
Jones at bus show seen his garage sale stuff. It
was like fifty cents apiece forever. But the bigger thing
is I thought, what the hell if you were having
a garage sale down the street and James Earl Jones
walks up the driveway, are those for sale?

Speaker 1 (38:13):
You know?

Speaker 3 (38:13):
Yeah? Yeah, can you take twenty five cents for it?

Speaker 1 (38:16):
Yeah? I know?

Speaker 3 (38:17):
And so those are they're real people. Yeah, the thing Angela.

Speaker 1 (38:21):
Lansbury, Fassa or Darth Vader, I mean great great actors,
my god. Yeah, it's amazing, it is amazing.

Speaker 3 (38:32):
Yeah, and we're you know, we were lucky to stumble
across people like that on our movies and use them
and it you know, it's funny. There was a marketing reason.
I suppose you would go after people certain people, but
that was never pushed on us, especially the Broadway musicals.
We could really go after the Paedo Harros or Jody
Benson's are people that could deliver, deliver. Yeah, but I

(38:53):
mean again, it goes back to your talents, because you could,
you could come in and do anything, and you did.

Speaker 1 (38:58):
Oh thanks thanks, Yeah. I h I run into the
princesses here and there and and you know, and it
didn't occur to me until the last time I worked
with all of them. I was in I was in
their individual.

Speaker 3 (39:12):
Movies really really yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (39:15):
You know, because you know, Lion King or there was
no princesses in there. Jim shut up. But Anika, Nonna
Rose Princess and the Frog fantastic, you know, and and
Jodie and I had a couple of lines in this
one and a couple of Aladdin. I was so so,
I was like, oh, this is great. I get to

(39:37):
hang with the royalty, Disney Royalty.

Speaker 3 (39:41):
But there's a group of you guys and girls that
are kind of voiceover royalty. And I mean that in
a respectful way, but I think of you and Corey
Burton and Bill Farmer, you know, just people of that
generation that are so like fine tuned with what you
do with your voice in front of a microphone, because
not everybody knows that. Everybody thinks they do. I think

(40:01):
they can do an impression. But boy, how tough is that? Yeah,
you're you're right about that.

Speaker 1 (40:05):
I you know again, I'll do comic cons and and
people will always say, you know, I do you, I
could do you? I said, do you please give it
to me? Okay, here, here we go. Oh bother. They're
so damned happy.

Speaker 3 (40:25):
Yes, wow.

Speaker 2 (40:28):
Yeah, there's some that are shockingly good though. Yeah, but them,
but most of the time they can only do like
a phrase, you know, it's not like you can be
the whole character. Yeah, but there is some of them.
Because I've been at conventions with Jim It's like.

Speaker 3 (40:43):
Whoa that's pretty darn good.

Speaker 2 (40:45):
And what's your line? Always to them like, Okay, stop
doing that.

Speaker 1 (40:49):
Okay, that's really good. Never do that again. Yes, take
this you.

Speaker 3 (40:55):
Know, yeah, you say kind of these only you could
do that. Yeah, if she had a complimence.

Speaker 1 (41:01):
Oh god, yeah, what was that one by? Who was
it Liza Manelli or Judy Garland said it to Liza
Minelli because she went to a Broadway play. This is
kind of an old story, but I've gotta be true.
And she goes, you have to go backstage and see
this person. Now, that was the biggest dump up that

(41:23):
I've never seen anything this bad in my entire life.
I have never This is the worst thing anyway. And
they wanted to do this in front of you, and
and and of course her mother says, just don't worry, honey,
just follow me. Judy Garland walks in and she goes
and she goes, please tell me you don't do it

(41:46):
like this every night, as if to say it was
the most incredible thing in the world. Yes, And she goes, well,
I like to think I do. Oh my god, did
you did you see that? I can't believe you did that.

Speaker 3 (42:02):
I can't you just stood up and and there it was.

Speaker 1 (42:05):
Oh yeah, and she and there it was, and so
she said and and every word she said was true.
She couldn't believe that she did that every night. And
you know what I mean. Yeah, but it's a perspective,
is everything. God bless the fan, our old friend perspective.

Speaker 3 (42:24):
Yes, yeah, date him just weird because anyway, Oh yeah,
the fans are amazing. You must have and I do
two great stories about the fans in terms of that.
One in a million people that come up and just
talk about how movies have changed their life you worked
on and stuff that. You know, it's why we make them,
we don't, you know, for our audience. And man, yeah,

(42:46):
can't be Yeah.

Speaker 1 (42:47):
It is true. Yeah, I've got a lot of stories
that put you on your knees and uh. And I
always get a kick out of it, you know. And inevitably,
some sweet little lady or little old lady at the
point they're young, it doesn't matter, there'll be something and
they'll they'll trying to get an autograph from Winnie the
Poo or Tigger, and inevitably it'll be pooh or you know,

(43:10):
and they go, yeah, and I go, she wants and
her husband goes, she wants you to write her name. Okay,
I'll write her name, you know, and and it'll be
Mabel or something like that. And it's just you know,
and I just think of it as an honor, you know,
thanks for letting me into your heart.

Speaker 3 (43:30):
These characters mean so much to people in a way
that it's hard to take in.

Speaker 1 (43:36):
Yeah, you know, yeah, yeah, but but oddly enough, I
I I can remember thinking that, you know, if I
had ever met Mel Blank, I would have probably fell
out too, you know, not that I'm Mel Blank, but
I'm reasonable, uh fact similar thereof. And uh, I just

(43:56):
used to think that, you know, he had to be
doing I mean, the time of his life.

Speaker 3 (44:02):
Yeah. I worked with him on Roger Rabbit because he
did those voices. Yes, And we went to his house
in Beverly Hills where he recorded Noel. Was that his
son's Yeah, no, no, yes, yeah, I know was there
and and Mel was pretty old at that time. Yeah,
And they had all kinds of back room magic that
they did, which was, you know, he'd speed up some
voices and tweak it and that. Oh yeah, we always
did too. I think Daffy was, yes, And we don't

(44:26):
know if we ever talked about this, but we did
the same like on Loumier. We took Jerry Orbuck and
just sped out a tiny bit to make him feel small.
Oh yeah, I don't you may want to cut that
out at her, but it's it's an age old thing.
But yeah, mel, oh my god, what those radio era
guys beyond amazing.

Speaker 1 (44:44):
Yeah. Yeah, and uh I worked with Stan Freiberg for
Oh You're kidding? Yeah, that was that was great. He
art Fotello, Uh, the evil genius. Uh. He he brought in, Uh,
he brought him in a tas Mania show. I was
task and uh, you know, and I spent the day

(45:05):
with him, and it was just he had a lot
to say about other famous voiceover people of his area. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (45:16):
Competitive, Yeah, and it was apparently back when there were
three or four people and uh, you know, most of
them were mel and Stan was one of half of
one of the other end June for Aye and she
was officially the woman or squirrel as as a tour beautiful.

Speaker 1 (45:36):
So yeah, and uh and he gosh, I really can't
say it because it's he wasn't He wasn't kind, yes,
but he was honest and heartfelt and Oh.

Speaker 3 (45:51):
Yeah, they were competitive. We had Chuck Jones work with us,
who I know are old God Roger Rabbit. Yeah, great
guy did a lot of designs for us and things.
But you didn't necessarily want to stick around and be
a part of the process in a deep way. I
can't blame him. He's kind of in his life where
I am in mind, which is as you've made your
statement and yeah, but very critical of other people's work

(46:12):
and that kind of stuff, and hard to disagree with
him in a lot of ways because he's the master
and he knew what he was talking about, so well,
you can't, No.

Speaker 2 (46:20):
You can't.

Speaker 1 (46:20):
I learned his feet.

Speaker 3 (46:22):
Yeah, you can do that. Yeah, isn't that the truth?

Speaker 1 (46:24):
Yeah? And there aren't. I mean, who is out there
now that is filling shoes in that that regard? I
don't know.

Speaker 3 (46:35):
It's a short list. It's a short list and thin.
But when you can find those people like yourself, I
would put you on the list for sure. When you
find those people, kats Wusie, you know those kinds of people.
They are so multi talented and versatile that you are
just so happy to find them because you know they'll

(46:55):
get you to a place really quickly in terms of
you know, workshopping are real or even scratch dialogue for
a real or whatever. There's no replacing them. There's no
I'd like people are worried about AI. I don't worry
about AI. It's pretty junkie. But the real deal, those
those people are fantastic.

Speaker 1 (47:12):
Yeah, I was going to ask you about that. What
do you think about this AI thing? It's there, but
is it going to be It's I don't. I don't
see it as the juggernaut that's going to take over
like in Terminator.

Speaker 3 (47:25):
No, you know, it's it's I have many schools of thought,
but I'm not worried about it. It's over hyped. If
you use it to create images, the images are really
junkie and awful, like you, and you could never really
use it to make a feature film.

Speaker 1 (47:39):
It's just a tool.

Speaker 3 (47:40):
It's a tool. I mean, I think of like the
Human Characters and Toy Story were terrible. If you look
at Toy Story and look at the little Boy and
the human characters, you go, oh my god, what were
they thinking? But ten years later they were doing The
Incredibles and it was fantastic. So there'll be a learning
curve a as a tool. You can use it for
voice work. Yeah, but like why is my and it's

(48:03):
an artist's choice, you know. It's like you're going to
pick up a paintbrush. I would rather use a paintbrush
than a stick, because of paintbrush has some bristles and
it's made for this tool. So in some cases AI
is going to be great. And I do use it.
I use it for a spell check, I use it
for a bunch of stuff.

Speaker 1 (48:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (48:18):
Yeah, And different parts of it are going to mature
at different rates. Different parts of it for film editing,
for color timing, for a million things are going to
be fantastic. We live in a fantastic era, believe me,
because you know, as they say, of our heroes from
one hundred years ago never had a hot shower. So
you just think, oh my god, it's true, you know.

(48:39):
And so we have all these tools to use, and
I think like that's how we should be looking at
it as artists. You can pick up AI as a
tool or not.

Speaker 1 (48:47):
Yeah. Well, Christopher's got a project that he's been writing
for a little while now and it's slowly coming to fruition.
And you used a lot of AI for your background
and for your for.

Speaker 2 (48:57):
The look book, for the look book, for a look book,
just to like for the look book and storyboards. Like
it makes it so easy. It's like I'm just trying
to convey a message, you know, like it doesn't have
to look like this, but I'm trying to block out,
you know, everything to get you guys thinking about how
it should look, you know, and then pass that on
to the animators. Okay, cool, we know we have a
starting point.

Speaker 1 (49:18):
Yeah, yeah, good for you.

Speaker 3 (49:20):
That's perfect. Like I used to my documentaries, like if
I need a steal of a guy in a hospital bed,
I'll just say give me, give me that, and it'll
come up with something and I just look at it
as a placeholder. Yeah, and so that kind of quick
at your fingertips library. It's like it's a fancy Google thing.

Speaker 1 (49:37):
Yeah. I can't even imagine that I know about it,
and I still can't.

Speaker 2 (49:41):
Yeah. I actually had a funny moment. Sorry, I'm just
gonna interject, just since we're on this topic. And while
I was you know, I had hand drawn this little
this one of the characters in the show. And you know,
I'm not the greatest artist, but like I convey it
what it just didn't really look. You know, I didn't
want to put that in the look book, so I
type in a little prompt and like, I refresh it

(50:01):
like three times. You know, it gives me a little character,
you know, like Cia Agent, you know, who's short and
stubby and blah blah blah. And then one image popped
up and I was like, this, this look of this
character is different from what mine is, but it actually
speaks way more to his character, like he should actually
look like that instead of like what I was trying.

Speaker 3 (50:21):
To achieve, And why wouldn't you use that?

Speaker 2 (50:22):
And it was an interesting little moment because I was like, oh, okay,
like you know, it's not going to be an AI
animated character, but this is a way better representation of
who he embodies totally. So yeah, it was interesting.

Speaker 1 (50:34):
Yeah, it's all.

Speaker 3 (50:35):
A tool, it is, and I think, you know, it's
it's with us to stay and you know, how it
deals with the job market and things like that, I
don't know. But I also remember vividly when computer animation
came along and everybody said, you'll never be able to
do a feature in computer animation. It's never going to
do what hand drawn does, and the smart ones among

(50:56):
us embraced it and said, you know, you're right, it
does do this now, but it's going to And they
grew up with it, and we're able to ride that
horse to its conclusion and find a way to use
it eventually, and then that kind of took over the
animation business. Whether that happens with the AI, I don't know.
There's always a fear about technology, but I wouldn't be
fearful of it. We're pretty powerful as human beings, and

(51:19):
like you can always unplug it.

Speaker 1 (51:20):
Well, you know, nothing comes out. I remember we were
going on strike one hundred years ago because of cable,
because we've we've got NBC, we've got ABC, we've got CBET,
we got don't forget BBS, that jug or not. And
and I was thinking, because cable was coming out, you know,
HBO blah blah, you know, fill in the blank, Disney

(51:42):
plus and I said, and I remember thinking, no, we
we have to address this. We have to do something
about it, because nothing comes out. I mean they said
the same same thing about cars. Yes, you know horseless carriage,
so a carriage with no hoo. Yeah, yeah, that's right.

(52:03):
Calm down, clem.

Speaker 3 (52:04):
Yes, you know, it's a.

Speaker 1 (52:05):
It's a and apparently we have cars.

Speaker 3 (52:09):
I have been told that. Yeah, yeah, so you know,
nothing comes out and then falls away.

Speaker 2 (52:15):
On that note, I think that's what makes Disney such
like a successful and interesting company because they've been so
innovative and literally developed like new ways. Like I'm thinking
of what was that thing called the void for Star Wars,
you know, like a literal invention, Like they're inventing things
and how they even used to animate back in the
day with the I'm sorry, my terminology is terrible, but

(52:36):
like you know, the split apart frames and they shoot
it from overtime helped me out here. What's that? What's
that process?

Speaker 3 (52:43):
The multiplane?

Speaker 1 (52:44):
Yeah, yeah, yes, yes.

Speaker 3 (52:46):
But there's also the other thing that's happening right now
is there's a huge, if you're of a certain age,
a return to analog, handdone things. So my daughter are
her friends, and they're in their twenties and thirties are
doing stop motion animation. They're doing their shading, they're doing
things that are made by hand because they've lived their
whole lives on the screen and nothing good happens on

(53:08):
the screen. So the the embrace of sports and an
analog lifestyle is really cool, and I think that's something
that nobody's planned, but it's just starting to emerge.

Speaker 1 (53:21):
A lot.

Speaker 3 (53:21):
More travel, you know, things where you can get out
and have real experiences is still very popular as opposed
to virtual goggles.

Speaker 1 (53:30):
Hmmm yeah, yeah, yeah. Well I remember for Lion King,
any number of people move went to Africa, right, oh yeah,
I mean and and I remember going to Africa a
few years afterwards thinking, oh my god, they war dogs
really do that with their butt. They really do. That's

(53:53):
you know, that's how they look.

Speaker 3 (53:56):
Yeah, it's kind of amazing. Actually, Chris Senders, Brenda Roger,
they all went to Kenya, Masamara and the Ukovungo Delta
and all those places, and it is really in the movie.
I mean they saw the acacia trees, the yeah, the gorge,
Yeah it's there. Rafiki's baobob tree. That kind of thing

(54:18):
is from that research tree.

Speaker 1 (54:21):
And he flies just like that. That's how they fly.

Speaker 3 (54:23):
Yeah, you know the homework. Yeah, I mean we brought
in h we brought in lions. Just down the street
here to to come full circle. Jim Fowler, who used
to appear with Marlon Perkins. On mutual line. Well, the Kingdom,
we called it Jim, and he brought in live lions
to our animation studio, so they could be ten feet

(54:43):
away from you, and there's you draw a lion differently
when you're in the presence of a seven hundred pound
pound thing. Yeah, and so that made a difference. The
quadrupeds and the feeling of that. That deep research is
something that Disney's famous for and still to this day.
I mean, the Frozen guys went off to Norway and

(55:04):
so yeah, and you know, certainly Mowana or Lelo and Stitch.
You know, you've got to immerse yourself in those worlds
and then you can tell that story.

Speaker 1 (55:13):
Wow. Yeah, no kidding.

Speaker 3 (55:15):
Way it was well likes six for cars and then
bugs Life was the only down ear. They just went
to the parking lot of Pixar. It was just like
some ants and stuff. Really good movie, but badfield trip through.

Speaker 1 (55:30):
Hershey bar on the ground. Yeah, went back twenty minutes later.
Look at this.

Speaker 3 (55:34):
It's not disinteresting, but it's it's different. It's different than Norway.

Speaker 1 (55:38):
Yeah, it's a little different than Norway. Yeah yeah, yeah,
Melting on a parking laden burbank. It's true God almighty.
So what what is your favorite thing nowadays that inspires you?

Speaker 3 (55:51):
What what makes you get out of bed?

Speaker 1 (55:53):
I mean, because you kind of you're one of those
guys it's kind of done at all. Wow, thanks, I
mean you really there's what are you gonna do? Make
a big movie? Kind of did that well? I mean too.

Speaker 3 (56:07):
I think it's something that maybe faces all of us,
is like how do you turn a chapter? And certainly
doing documentaries for the last ten years has been fantastic
for me. What does it for me? What fills my bucket,
as the kids say, is travel, you know, like just
to be able to get around, see what other people
live like and and that kind of stuff is fantastic

(56:29):
because if you get to a different place, if you
go to New Orleans, if you go immerse yourself in
another culture, that's great, and it slows down time. As
you get older, time flies. So if you can travel,
there's something biologically that happens to us where instead of
the routine of every day where time does fly. You
can be gone for a week and it seems like
you're gone for a month. And so just to suspend

(56:51):
reality and time by traveling is a happy thing. I
love to paint, so I do a lot of painting.
I just finished a book about Disneyland. Oh what's it
called The Happiest Place on Earth? It comes out now
you can. It's comes out in July for the seventieth
anniversary of Disneyland. And I spent Wow crazy, huh. I

(57:12):
spent the last three four years with a great imagineer
named Chris Merritt writing a book about the history of
the origin story of Disneyland. So it's all about Waltz
and how Disneyland came about. And it's unbelievable the stuff
those guys went through, mainly because they didn't know they
couldn't do it. Yeah, isn't that? You know? The truth

(57:32):
with a lot of things in life, especially when you're younger.
Like all of these guys, like the guy about gerr
that designed all the vehicles at Disneyland. It was twenty
five out of our center when he was doing the
monoail in the Autopia cars. Tanya Norris, who did all
the Haunted mansion shopping for antiques, interiors and stuff, twenty.

Speaker 2 (57:52):
Five you know.

Speaker 3 (57:54):
So Waltz surround himself with these high energy kids. I'm
going to say and then he also pulled people a
lot of animation. Mark Davis designed a lot of Just
Ken Anderson, Claude Coates, you're all animation superstars. And Walt said,
you know, Mark Davis, I know you've done Corilla Deville
and you know Madam, all these amazing things. I want
you to go to Anaheim and do some jungle cruse gags.

(58:15):
And they were Mark Ken, Are you just Mark Davis?

Speaker 1 (58:19):
Mark David?

Speaker 3 (58:20):
Yeah, you know, like a previous that old men.

Speaker 1 (58:22):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (58:22):
Yeah, So a lot of those guys were really refreshed
in their careers late in their lives because Walt just said, listen,
I know you've never done this, but you're going to
go down and do this.

Speaker 2 (58:33):
That's so cool. Yeah, it really is.

Speaker 3 (58:36):
If you, like somebody came to you and just said, listen,
I know you maybe have you know, never designed an
attraction before, but we're going to put a new line
King attraction somewhere and you're going to go design it
and come up with the story and all that stuff.
You would do it?

Speaker 1 (58:50):
I would. I wouldn't. In fact, I'm just saying.

Speaker 3 (58:54):
That, yeah, maybe both of us actually are available and
we're we could flash the number on the bottom of
the screen.

Speaker 2 (59:00):
That's kind of how this happened with this podcast. I mean,
Jim asked me to do this podcast. You know, I
went to school for you know, theater and media art technology,
so I had some you know, camera experience and whatnot. Yeah,
certainly never done a podcast before, and in the last
two years I've learned so.

Speaker 3 (59:14):
Much, to which I say, who cares? And it's a
great podcast. Yeahk god, you guys are doing it. I mean,
like I said, it shows up in my feet all
the time. I've had a great time. I've had a
great time traveling with Jim. I think, yeah, oh my
good good together. Yeah, yeah, we're some of your more
present company, excepted your more interesting guests or experiences while
you're on the road with this podcast.

Speaker 1 (59:32):
Gosh, I don't know. Well, we just did Charlie Adler
this morning. That was a revelation or when was that?
That was last year?

Speaker 3 (59:40):
Anyway, it's all I'm right there with you here.

Speaker 1 (59:44):
Yeah, it's uh. And you know, some some people that
you would you know, you just never know. Yeah, and
if they're going to even do it.

Speaker 2 (59:53):
I think the most random and cool place that we
did was the Tomorrowland. The concert. Oh, going to that Belgium.

Speaker 3 (01:00:00):
Are you familiar with Tomorrowland, Yes, Disney, not the Disney.

Speaker 1 (01:00:04):
Tomorrow Land, but the Disney Tomorrowland is amazing.

Speaker 3 (01:00:09):
Is the Voice, I'm the voice, the.

Speaker 1 (01:00:11):
Voice, I'm the guy who introduces the whole shebang from
day one, from day one.

Speaker 3 (01:00:17):
Yes, I'm a huge fan of that concert because it's
so different than anything out there and the most theatrical
thing on the planet.

Speaker 2 (01:00:24):
That's what we were saying. It's very reminiscent of Disney, right,
It's like the attention to detail that they put into.

Speaker 3 (01:00:30):
I have watched entire concerts online. I haven't been, but
it is amazing in terms of theatrical Piro and all
that stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:00:38):
Yeah, and the little the little go carts that they
take you around on the golf carts they're in, They're.

Speaker 3 (01:00:45):
In there everything.

Speaker 2 (01:00:47):
The garbage can, the garbage.

Speaker 3 (01:00:50):
Can are in, the mushrooms are insane.

Speaker 2 (01:00:53):
It's like they literally like Jurassic Park, you know, like
they spared no expense. Yes, every single little detail very
reminiscent of when you're in the park at Disneyland. You
can look down and it's like, oh, there's not a
spec of gum on the ground. You know, everything is
sordid in its own very clear where it goble. I

(01:01:13):
mean the VIP room where we conducted the podcast. They
gave us like a little couch, you know, like a
little section. They had like the best catered food there.
Everybody's friendly, you know, they have monitors. It was amazing.
It was amazing. And then talking to like DJs and
then like, you know, nobody knows that Winnie the Pooh,
the voice actor of Winnie the Pooh Tigure is also

(01:01:35):
the voice of Tomorrowland. So it's such a shock for everybody.

Speaker 1 (01:01:39):
Oh yeah, they lost kind of lost their minds. Wait
what what? Yeah? But I thought, you know, I thought
you were some old guy, and I go, you are
still right, You're still correct.

Speaker 3 (01:01:54):
You talk about like what lights me up these days.
It's stuff like that. It's stuff where you see people
doing something that's just extraordinary, beyond what you would think.
It used to be burning Man years ago, and that
may still be, I don't know, but Tomorrow and concerts unbelievable.

Speaker 2 (01:02:07):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (01:02:08):
And there's there's those people on the planet that just
are wired differently than all of us, and then they
know enough to bring in people like you and and
and make it work. But that's so cool. I stumbled
across some years ago. I just love it.

Speaker 1 (01:02:20):
Yeah yeah. If you're a fan of everything we do
here at tuned In with Jim Cummings, you could support
the show on Patreon for bonus exclusive podcasts, as well
as early in ad free access to the show itself,
prize drawings, and more. You'll feel the difference, so go
ahead and join the tuned In family today at patreon

(01:02:41):
dot com slash Jim Cummings podcast Do It Now, Burning Man.
That's funny. You know, you know who goes all the time. Well,
I don't know if it's been Bill Farmer.

Speaker 2 (01:02:52):
Oh, I was gonna you imagine, No Bill that would
have been.

Speaker 3 (01:02:59):
There all your long.

Speaker 1 (01:03:00):
Yeah yeah, he's probably yeah yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:03:05):
Bill Farmer. Wow, Okay, that is funny. I'd love to
see him at Burning Man. Imagine running.

Speaker 1 (01:03:13):
And what's interesting about Billy? You know, God, he's a
good buddy mine. And I'd say it if he was here?
Is he kind of sounds like goofy anyway he does.
He's from Pratt, Kansas. Yeah, you know and in Well,
I'll tell you what, And I'm thinking, Wow, that's.

Speaker 3 (01:03:31):
How you got this job, I can hear it, he delivers.

Speaker 1 (01:03:35):
He do. Yeah, I've meeting it for the first time.
And he walked up, Yeah, how are you doing? Okay?

Speaker 3 (01:03:44):
Yeah, you know, it's like Wayne and Russy. You know,
it's just those people you run across. But those kinds
of things, like you know, go to Tivoli Gardens or
go to any number of things. I'm not a big
theme park person necessarily. It's the things that aren't theme parks,
Like there's so many great news and experiences now where
you can go and have a whether it's projection or whatever.

(01:04:06):
Those are the things I love. It just makes life interesting.

Speaker 1 (01:04:09):
Yeah, good stuff. Where you headed next?

Speaker 3 (01:04:13):
Literally headed to Europe this summer for all the reasons.
I just talked about going to Amsterdam, going to the
Reich's Museum to see some Rembrandt paintings, and taking a
canal cruise for the Disney Vacation Club. And this is
not a plug, but I do a lot of lectures
because they you know, if you're looking for like an
old guy who knows a lot of Disney history, that's

(01:04:35):
become our generation and proudly so, and because it used
to be you know, you call up Frank Thomas or something.
So I do a lot of Disney history talks about things,
and I'm not a historian. There's some Disney historians out
there that are insane, the Hyperion Club and stuff like that.
But I enjoy doing it and just hanging out with

(01:04:57):
Disney fans. I think they're great. I do to, you know,
the D twenty three folks. Yeah, the Walt Disney Family
Museum folks are great. Yeah, yeah, I sure have.

Speaker 1 (01:05:08):
What a great place then, I sure have when we uh,
let's see it was a Christopher Robin and then the
movie Winnie the Pooh Winnie the Poop. Yeah, I was
on a little mini circuit yeah, yeah, a tour to
promote it, of course. Yeah. And it was just great.
And and you know, I've said it before, I think

(01:05:29):
that the Disney fans are just some of the nicest
people on earth.

Speaker 3 (01:05:34):
Really are. They just are and they're they're they're there.
They can be fussy sometimes, and I often agree with
them when they're fussy, you know, when they see something
broken or somebody's not working whatever. Yeah, but by and
large all I was down at Disneyland last week doing
a uh oh wow, and it was the beginning of
the seventieth anniversary of Disneyland, and we had my book

(01:05:55):
there and some of the imagineers were talking about the
new stuff they're adding at Disneyland, and so all the
influencers and bloggers were there, such great people and so
like genuinely enthusiastic about what they talk about. Uh So
that's that's humbling, because again, when you're working in the trenches,
you know, you're just trying to come up with something
that's funny, you're emotional or whenever, in the fact that

(01:06:17):
people appreciate it is always great.

Speaker 1 (01:06:20):
In the trenches. That's that's I remember the first time
I heard anyone said there was alan Zaslov.

Speaker 3 (01:06:29):
Wow, that's the name I haven't heard in a while.

Speaker 1 (01:06:30):
Yeah, alan Zaslov and his son Mark the Great Marcus
Aslove he he. He was lamenting the fact that people
didn't know and and and oh it was something about computers.
He was not happy about Computer Animated and he goes,
they don't understand what it was like to us. We're

(01:06:51):
down there in the trenches. We were in the trenches.
And I was thinking, okay, well, sure, you know, because
you're going how it could only have been so bad
because I would have loved to have been in a trench,
you know, from coming from Youngstown, Ohio. Where's that trench? Yeah,
you know, let me dive in. I'll help you. I'd
like to be there to dig out. And so I

(01:07:11):
think I was in for a while.

Speaker 3 (01:07:13):
So human nature, because I think the we always think
the previous guys had it better than we do, and
and the younger kids don't respect us. And you know,
it's I think that's right always. Wow, It's just the
way it goes. It's the way it is. It's always
been the way it's people have perceived life. Yes, I
think we're pretty unlucky to be in the era where
in are their challenges? Yes? Is there stuff going on

(01:07:34):
in the world. Oh my god, I mean, but that's
that's why it's even more important to create stories and
entertainment and do what we do. At least that's my
argument to myself at nighttime when I've had a glass
of Shardinay.

Speaker 1 (01:07:46):
Yes, that's true, all right, Damn I knew I forgot
something Shardenay is it?

Speaker 3 (01:07:51):
Boris? You really should go into the wine business or
hard liquor. But I feel there's a branding thing there.
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:08:02):
Yeah, yeah, well yeah, I had what was it, I
can't remember, but I had sort of an offer like
that to be really yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:08:12):
And you yeah, they wanted to use like Pooh, they
wanted to use Pooh on the NSE it.

Speaker 1 (01:08:18):
I said, well, first of all, good luck. Yeah yeah,
but at that point I think Disney had lost the license.
But but for their own image. Yes, you know, apparently
you could still go back and.

Speaker 3 (01:08:28):
Use the shipperd drawings.

Speaker 1 (01:08:30):
Yeah, yeah, I think those might be a public Yeah.
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:08:35):
I'll look in at that and call you later.

Speaker 1 (01:08:36):
Yeah. Yeah, see if there's a chance we can.

Speaker 3 (01:08:39):
Knock a nickel, Yeah, maybe not a wine and winery,
but you could do like floor mats for cars and
things like that. Now you're talking, Yeah, I'm just throwing
out ideas. Yeah, bar tunnels, Pooh, hello boy. So there's
always possibility. Well, it's like the I really stop when

(01:08:59):
you when you see consumer products and you think of,
you know, characters you've played, like the Who. The amount
of consumer products that go out to there because people
want to take you home, they want to have you
there at home and talk to you every night and stuff.
That would be another money maker for you. You can
actually call up and have you go to people's houses.

Speaker 1 (01:09:19):
Well that's true. Yeah, a couple knock a few bucks there.
I remember it edny Fair Esquire magazine. Anyway, they gave
out the Dubious Achievements of the Year award and I
did a long long time ago. It got to be
got to be twenty five years ago. They did a

(01:09:41):
talking doc. There was the Teddy Ruxman. If you remember
there was well, there was a mother Goose one that
I did. Well, this one was Pooh and this one
was Poop and you bought and Pool would tell a
happy Birthday story. He would tell a merry Christmas story.
He would say, you know, a happy honk and whatever Halloween,

(01:10:01):
you know, Philip, and you would tell a story and
you would download your child's name. And there were and
I so we did the show. We did the stories
really quickly. And uh then we started on the names, dear,

(01:10:22):
and I tell you how many names there are on.

Speaker 3 (01:10:25):
Earth that are you know difficult? And from a variety
of yes, ethnic origins, yes, yes.

Speaker 1 (01:10:33):
And and and we started on the a's and we're
going through and they and the lady told me, she goes,
she said and here are the a's and no, no,
I really wish I was, but I but and I said, okay,
well I'm I'm charging more, you know. And and so

(01:10:54):
she said, just give me three in a row of each.
And I said, three in a row. I know what,
let's do, not that, how about how about one? And
if it stinks, make a note. We'll get it at
the end of this, you know, blah blah blah. Yeah,
And so we did it. And we scratched and sniffed

(01:11:15):
our way through this thing, and at the end of it,
you know, five and it was six months, honest to god,
actual six on the planet. Very single name. Now, which
do you think is the name that the letter that
has the most names?

Speaker 3 (01:11:32):
We would have to be like John or Peter or
or or something like that.

Speaker 1 (01:11:37):
It's D D D. I'm pretty sure it was D,
you know, because the Sean, the Sheikua do shaboozie sugar
and just on down with the d's and the d's
and the d. And it was the only time I

(01:11:57):
ever went home in the phone rang and I went, hello, sorry, sorry,
but I've been poohing all day. Yeah, which is a hazard.
And uh, and not everybody gets to make that.

Speaker 3 (01:12:12):
Once you hit forty Yeah that yeah so funny.

Speaker 1 (01:12:18):
But and sure enough the punchline was that Esquire magazine. Yeah,
Esquire Magazine gave it the Dubious Achievement of the Year
award because they called it my interactive Pooh.

Speaker 3 (01:12:33):
That's beautiful. There was a book called and you remember, yes,
Cooking with Pooh.

Speaker 1 (01:12:41):
Oh oh, well yeah, and then another one everything Pooh,
Everyone poops, but it was with the pee on the
I was.

Speaker 3 (01:12:50):
Off the book everyone poops. I was off the yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:12:52):
Yeah yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:12:53):
Have anyone has anyone asked you to do kind of
a serie version of or traffic directions and things with pooh? No,
I mean I would, I would buy that.

Speaker 1 (01:13:04):
Ya.

Speaker 3 (01:13:04):
I think you can get like Sam Jackson or something
like that. Yeah, doing your your Google maps.

Speaker 2 (01:13:09):
There was somebody at a convention that actually just brought
back a memory. There was somebody at a convention and
I think with ways, with ways you can program your
own so and so they had asked Jim to do
like it was like one of the handlers, one of
the handlers at a convention, and she had the directions,
so it'd be like turn.

Speaker 3 (01:13:27):
Left, yeah, yeah, yeah, this has to be like Disney
and Google Maps or Apple Maps, and you have to
just do directions for people.

Speaker 1 (01:13:35):
Well yeah, yeah, turn left, dumbass, you know stuff like that.

Speaker 3 (01:13:39):
Maybe yeah, maybe you clean up is there?

Speaker 2 (01:13:41):
Like is how does that work with like because you
own your voice? But like, is that you'd have to
infringing on like a Disney property.

Speaker 3 (01:13:50):
Well, you would want to really do pooh, and so
you'd want to license, have the company license poo and
then pay you a hearty feed.

Speaker 2 (01:13:57):
Just like I know Snoop Dogg's done that, Seth Brogan's done.

Speaker 3 (01:14:00):
So you can dial them in. So I think it's
I think it's time. That's really why we've done this podcast.
That's right, arrive at money making schemes, which I'm good at.
I'm a producer for guys. Get that right that Yeah,
traffic direction. I think a lot of your listeners actually
would love that. Yeah, and we can we can start
a letter writing campaign if you want.

Speaker 1 (01:14:20):
Tail as old as time. That's right, man, oh man,
oh man.

Speaker 3 (01:14:25):
I can see that. I can see you doing it.
I could see things.

Speaker 1 (01:14:28):
I could see it. I'll meet you at the bank.

Speaker 3 (01:14:31):
I'm not going to be there. I'll be in jail.
But the other ways that you could do, you know,
angry voices, villains. Uh, you know, there's there's so many
in your kit of parts. It would before you could
do it like a Disney villain's thing with other collaborators,
and that would be traffic directions would be hilarious.

Speaker 1 (01:14:49):
Oh that's true.

Speaker 3 (01:14:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:14:51):
Well, you know Pete was technically the oldest villain because.

Speaker 3 (01:14:55):
He started off a villain. Yeah yeah, yeah, I mean
he was at least provid did friction. Great character, yeah, yeah,
great character.

Speaker 1 (01:15:03):
It was. It was great that because when we were
doing goof Troupe there, you know, as you know, as
a storyteller, you have to have a hero, and you
have to if a hero is not a hero without.

Speaker 3 (01:15:13):
A villain, Yeah, gotta have a villain.

Speaker 1 (01:15:15):
Yeah. Peter Pan was cool, but only because he could
beat the hell out of Captain.

Speaker 3 (01:15:19):
Hook and his an animator. There were fights over who
would get to do the villain. Paul was had to
did a lot of Peter Pan oh animation. He was
terribly jealous of Frank Thomas who did Captain Hook, because
that really that was the character to do.

Speaker 1 (01:15:35):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:15:35):
Frank knew how to play piano and he knew how
to do all that great anyway?

Speaker 1 (01:15:38):
Yeah, oh wow, id villain.

Speaker 3 (01:15:41):
Yeah, man, if you could do Corilla to Ville or
Ursula or whatever you were Scar, you know, all those
characters are so great.

Speaker 1 (01:15:49):
Yeah, that's right.

Speaker 3 (01:15:50):
The heroes, it's tough.

Speaker 1 (01:15:52):
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, that's true. Huh because they're you know,
villains are sneaking around.

Speaker 3 (01:15:57):
The kind of cool stuff fifties. They were kind of
wooden and they had to be drawn beautifully. So somebody
like mel Call, who could draw amazingly well, would get
a lot of those kind of the Prince and yeah
that you really want to do you know, Malephicon or
something like that.

Speaker 1 (01:16:12):
Yeah, yeah, man, oh man, amazing, it's crazy.

Speaker 3 (01:16:17):
I know.

Speaker 1 (01:16:18):
Well, I'm so glad that you were able to do this.

Speaker 3 (01:16:21):
Yeah, me too. I've been looking forward to it and
it does not disappoint. I'm just going to say that
out loud. Yeah, it's good to see. I've always been
a fan, you know that, And now I always call
you up like I did not too long ago, to
perform for Richard Sherman's life celebration.

Speaker 1 (01:16:38):
Yeah, and I thought that was pretty fickted.

Speaker 3 (01:16:41):
Yeah, I mean, gosh, we got Feinstein to do the
musical direction. And you and a cast of thousands. Jody
Benson has so many great talents that night.

Speaker 1 (01:16:53):
Yeah, Jody, she had two or three songs. I think,
didn't she what's the deal with her?

Speaker 3 (01:16:59):
She's ever?

Speaker 1 (01:17:01):
Yeah? Oh yeah, Well she's a doll, you know.

Speaker 3 (01:17:04):
She's a doll. Yeah, absolutely, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:17:06):
And I remember, I remember we were doing a thing
for it was the last iteration of Little Mermaid that
came out. Yeah, and I got to be her dad
on that one. And she came out on the stage.
What's that it's it's not Balbo Island, Catalina Island. Yes,

(01:17:29):
it was out there, and it was at the main
that big, classic old theater. Yeah, and Jody walks out
on stage. She was getting ready to sing, and you
hear this little four year old voice goes, Mommy, it's Ariel.
You know. She goes, yes, I am Ariel, you know,
and it was just so sweet. It was one of

(01:17:51):
those things kind of goose bumpy, you know.

Speaker 3 (01:17:54):
She sang on Broadway just two nights ago because it
was Hard Ashman's seventy fifth birthday, Oh my god, and
also the four thousandth performance of Aladdin, So the end
of Aladdin. Wow, she came out and sang part of
Your World, and the cast of Little Shop of Horror
came out and sung and sung at Howard Ashman song,
and uh the new Bell and the Beast from the

(01:18:15):
Broadway Touring Company of being the Beast that they just
announced came out and sang Tale as Old as Time,
And then the curtain went up and Allen Macon was there. Wow,
And it was all unannounced. It was all just like, hey,
let's celebrate Howard and uh so yeah exactly. Oh what
a crazy world.

Speaker 1 (01:18:31):
Yeah, yeah, I remember something similar to that when when
Elton John rose up at the the El Capitan, Yeah,
from beneath the stage yep, with that big, gorgeous piano
and singing his little guts out being Elton John. And

(01:18:52):
I mean how cool was that? You know? It's like,
did you work with him? I mean, did you have
any I mean you you hung out with him?

Speaker 3 (01:18:58):
Yeah? Yeah, yeah. I mean so a lot of people
of that caliber are the sharpest knife in the drawer,
and he is. He's so smart, and he would come
he would know his record sales in Ecuador and in Brazil,
and he knew all that his ego was in check

(01:19:19):
pretty much, and he would say, if a song's not working,
let me know. It's the first version of Circle of
Life wasn't working. It was very popcorny, bubble get me,
I should say. And so instead of fixing it, he
would say, I'll just write something new. So he and
he did. He was recording an album in Paris and
we gave him the notes Robin Roger did and then
he went away during lunch while everybody else was making

(01:19:40):
cheese sandwiches. He said, ah, I gotta do this song,
and Tim Rice was there. So he wrote Circle of
Life and he called it the Cheese Sandwich Song for
a long time and that became Circle of Life on
the in the movie The Cheese Sandwich. Yes so fast.
Another guy who's really gifted always needs the lyrics. So

(01:20:01):
whether it's Tim Rice, Berney Toppen, whatever, it really works
off the rhythmic quality of the words. Has that thing
about his writing, you know, the is a thing where
the ear bug gets in there and you're just going,
I'm kind of saying that the rest of the day.
But yeah, he's intense guy, but smart, nice, generous as
the day is long. In terms of his work for

(01:20:24):
AIDS victims during the AIDS crisis is still Yeah. Yeah,
I mean, I can't say enough about him. It's it's
very rare to have a rock star of his caliber
that has been able to last that long. There's a few.
There's the you know, Paul McCartney types.

Speaker 1 (01:20:40):
Yeah, I was gonna say, it's really kind of like him,
Paul McCartney optional.

Speaker 3 (01:20:45):
Optional, sting, but great musician. Oh my god. To sit
there and watch him play piano in person, these little
stubby fingers, yeah, but powerful and you can tell he
just grew up with that instrument. So that's great. Yeah,
staying different, you know, very different personality, but all the
same characteristics. Very introverted, uh, the empathic kind of guy.

(01:21:09):
But yeah, we're lucky to work with a lot of
really well your top three Elton John songs, Wow, Candle
in the Wind, A Tiny Dancer maybe maybe you know,
kind of a rocket man kind of thing like something
like that. Certainly for these I could say, can you

(01:21:30):
Fear the Left, Tonight and the Way because we tried
to cut it out of the movie but we didn't
do it win the Oscar for Best Song that year.

Speaker 1 (01:21:37):
So yeah, Tiny Dancer is one of mine, and it
really is. Yeah, tiny Dancer, Blue Jean Baby ell Lately
and what was the and uh and and where to
now Saint Peter. People don't wow, people are Yeah, people
don't they go what what? What?

Speaker 3 (01:21:57):
Why did they go?

Speaker 1 (01:21:58):
Uh? I took myself up of Blue Canoe who and
I flewed I can leave wow And and and it's
just and it's one of those songs that lilts its
way into your head and and not a real strong hook.
But now you're gonna be You're gonna go home and

(01:22:19):
listen to it again totally and and it's gonna infest you.
And yeah, he's got the gift. Yeah, it really is.

Speaker 3 (01:22:28):
You point to a few people and say, oh, yeah,
they've got it whatever it is, and he's one of them.

Speaker 1 (01:22:34):
Yeah, well he's beat a lesque in that in that regard. Yeah, yeah,
who And I imagine it was he came cheaply too,
write for to write the music, he probably pulled a
few nickels.

Speaker 3 (01:22:47):
Don't remember if we paid him or not. I think
we did. I think we did. But you know he was, oh,
I go okay. So he never he had never written
a musical before, mmm, never, Like, why would you think
he could?

Speaker 1 (01:22:58):
That's true? Yeah, that's true.

Speaker 3 (01:23:00):
Tim Rice was on the movie. First. Tim had had
finished up for Howard Ashman on Aladdin, so a whole
new world and that kind of stuff, and then Tim
was thinking what do I do next? And there was
this Lions story King of the Jungle knocking around and
he was kind of sitting there, and so Tim said, well,
let me play with that a little bit. And Tim
wanted to use Abba as the musical group for Lion King.
Did you know this? No, yes, so Abba, because he

(01:23:22):
had worked with lad They were busy, no offense, We
love Abba, we love say that out aloud for all
the Abba fans. And he had worked with Abba and
did chess in the West End of London. So he
had worked with them and loved them, and they're great
guys and girls. They were busy, and so he said,
what about Elton John. We were looking at Lady Smith,

(01:23:42):
Black Bombaso. We were looking at oh okay, I could
see that indigenous, genuine South African musical groups. Sure, yeah,
but you know, so a ton of them to choose from. No,
but it was a style. And he said what about
Elton John? And we thought, we thought it was a
bad idea. We really did because we thought what he

(01:24:04):
has done a musical. The only thing in his favor
is he's a great songwriter. But Tim said, you know,
I've done musicals. He's a storyteller. I know what to do.
And we had great directors. Robin Roger are great directors,
and Elton was a great collaborator. He never turned us
down on changes, he never turned us down on wanting things,
and he would push back. And we did try to

(01:24:25):
cut Canoe the Left Tonight out of the show and
we showed it to him without the song and he
turned bright red and he said, one of the main
reasons I did Lion King was to write a love ballad.
And we said, but Elton, it's not a love story.
It's about a father and a son. And he said, yeah.
But what if Nala didn't come back and go to

(01:24:46):
the wilderness and push Simba into returning to the Pride
Lands and taking his place, this movie wouldn't have happened.
It's Nalah the one that's a catalyst. She's the match
in the gasoline tank that gets him going back to
the Pride Lands. And you need this song to on
them or it's not going to happen. And he was right.

Speaker 1 (01:25:02):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (01:25:03):
So he so he was arguing not for his ego,
that he needed a ballad to get an oscar or something. Yeah, yeah,
that turned out to be the case. But he had
a story reason and was very articulate about it, very
very articulate about it, and he was right, and he
was right.

Speaker 2 (01:25:19):
That's a fascinating story.

Speaker 3 (01:25:20):
Yeah, so we still we used to have Puma and
Timones sing it, I can see What's happening you know, oh.

Speaker 1 (01:25:25):
Yeah, and kind of you for you the love tonight,
thank you couldn't have been Yeah, that might have been
a little.

Speaker 3 (01:25:32):
Yeah it was. It was mocking the great Disney love
songs and and that would have been okay, And we
kept that a little bit in the introduction of the song.
T Moans sings a bit of it. But yeah, Elton articulate, smart,
smart spart Yeah, boy oh boy.

Speaker 1 (01:25:46):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:25:47):
Do have a couple of lines in that song still,
I can see What's happening? Yeah yeah, And at the
end and he comes back and yeah that's the closing line.
Yeah you've seen it. I've seen it. Rings a bell,
yeah a bell. Can't see enough about those guys, uh
sting the same way, just thoughtful, complicated people. But you know,

(01:26:11):
so is everybody in an entertainment business. So are all
my animators. So the directors I worked with complicated people.
But man, I'm I feel lucky to work with him
who is the biggest a hole? Just kidding, it's like
for yourself, I feel like present company. That's what people
talk about. No, you know it's funny.

Speaker 1 (01:26:33):
The real.

Speaker 3 (01:26:36):
The really big step up stars I almost have never
had a problem with, right, I agree, Whoopi Goldberg. Ye,
Angela Lansbury. I mean we did like Maleficent with Angelina
Joe Lee. Complicated, Oh my god, but boy does she

(01:26:56):
know herself and she knows what the camera loves about her,
and she knows what she can do and can't do
so demanding, yes, but thank god she is because she
has to make her character work. She gets it done,
and she loved that character and she loved that movie
into existence. Wasn't a job for her, she loved it.
And so you want to support her and give her

(01:27:18):
what she needs. So complicated and yes, but the real asses,
and I say the Swiss respect tend to be the
junior people in the industry.

Speaker 1 (01:27:32):
Right about that? Unbelievable?

Speaker 2 (01:27:34):
Yeah, It's funny because even like in the process of
the last two years of doing this podcast, we've noticed
that like it's like almost it's like almost you know.
We've had like a few like a listers, you know,
and it's like when we ask them, it's like, yeah,
no problem. And it's kind of like the people like
in the middle who like feel the need to like
prove themselves like I'm a big star. It's that where
it's like tougher where it's like they'll give it or

(01:27:57):
they'll say yeah, it's your face and then like you
get back in touch with their team and it's radio silence,
you know.

Speaker 3 (01:28:03):
For yes, Yes, it's the insecurity of it all.

Speaker 2 (01:28:06):
It is. It is because everybody's you know, trying to
get on something bigger and bigger and bigger. You know,
like yeah, you know, everybody wants to be on Joe Rogan.
You know, it's it's.

Speaker 3 (01:28:14):
A bigger about me. I've heard of him. I yeah, whatever,
this is, Uh, this is perfect for me. I have
to say you guys, I'm really glad you asked me.

Speaker 2 (01:28:25):
Yeah, thank you very much for being here.

Speaker 3 (01:28:26):
I was really really glad, really.

Speaker 1 (01:28:28):
Good, really glad you said yes.

Speaker 3 (01:28:31):
I think I yeah, I said, I said no, but
I came anyway. No, it's fun.

Speaker 1 (01:28:36):
You know.

Speaker 3 (01:28:36):
I love you guys, and I love you're just kind
of sharing our experiences because we were lucky boys and
you know, let's just talk about some of the work
and that is great.

Speaker 1 (01:28:46):
Yeah, luck is so true. I mean there, before the
grace of God, I would have been and if I
stayed in this deal, mil it closed seven years after Yeah,
I left, so see i'd have been out of work
for like thirty years at this point.

Speaker 3 (01:28:59):
Totally.

Speaker 1 (01:28:59):
So.

Speaker 3 (01:28:59):
And you have to but you were prepared, you know,
Like what was that saying, Look favors the prepared or whatever,
fortune favors the bold. It's the same quote. And so
you're able to step up when good song, when nature calls,
you're able to step up and do what your nature
to do. That is that a quote to natures? It's yeah, yeah, wow.

Speaker 2 (01:29:24):
All right, Well I'll close this out here.

Speaker 3 (01:29:25):
There we go, Please save us from ourselves? Please.

Speaker 2 (01:29:29):
Well, we hope you enjoyed that episode. That was another
episode of Tuned In with Jim Cummings. I'm producer Chris,
joined as always by the legend Jim Cummings and yet
another legend.

Speaker 1 (01:29:42):
Ladies and gentlemen.

Speaker 3 (01:29:45):
Yeah a hats and glasses in the lobby.

Speaker 2 (01:29:46):
Thank you all for watching. We hope you notice that
we've been really making a concerted effort to give you
guys more content. We're uploading more shorts, more videos, all
that good stuff, like this content wearing shorts today. If
you like this content, be sure to like and subscribe.
And did you know that on YouTube it's possible to
see a video and then never be recommended it again.

(01:30:08):
I know it's sad, so please like and subscribe to
make sure that doesn't happen. And if you like this
content so much that you want to see more of it,
guess what you're in for some good news. There's more
on Patreon. That's right, Patreon tuned in with Jim Cummings. Yes,
there's additional content. You're on fire, additional content, bonus interviews
that you don't get to see anywhere else. We do contest, giveaways,

(01:30:30):
all that good stuff, so be sure to check us
out there. If you want some merchandise, shopify Jim Commings closet.
You can get t shirts, keychains, a whole bunch of
other good stuff. And we've got a lot of good
episodes coming up for you. I mean, we have necessarily
to look forward to, to look forward to. This one
was great, yeah, but we had a whole bunch of

(01:30:51):
good ones coming out, so stay tuned for that. And
other than that, don Han, thank you again. So nice
to meet you asking me. It's great to be here, Jim,
great to be here always with you. I'm producer Chris.
We'll see you in the next one.

Speaker 1 (01:31:02):
Click click, thanks a thousand times.

Speaker 3 (01:31:06):
Yes, it's just fun talking to you.

Speaker 1 (01:31:07):
It's great me too. Mm hmm.

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