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Category Archives: Disney

Episode 530: Jamie Hecker!

02 Saturday Jul 2022

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Disney, Episode, Film

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Episode 530 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature, is available on Apple podcasts, stitcher, spotify, or click here to stream (right click to download, if that’s your thing).

On this episode, I speak with Disney historian Jamie Hecker about the relationship Walt Disney and the Disney Company have had with Washington D.C.

TEXT DISCUSSED

NOTES

ScribophileTDO listeners can get 20% of a premium subscription to Scribophile. After using the above link to register for a basic account, go here while still logged in to upgrade the account with the discount.

If you are a Disney fan and a reader, check out Celebrations magazine.


Episode 530 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature, is available on Apple podcasts, stitcher, spotify, or click here to stream (right click to download, if that’s your thing).

The Curator of Schlock #373: The Secret of Nimh

11 Friday Mar 2022

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in animation, Disney, Film, The Curator of Schlock

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The Curator of Schlock #373 by Jeff Shuster

The Secret of NIMH

I like cartoons. Stop giving me grief. 

We heard the screeching, a sound of hellish death coming from beyond. The factory security guard brandished a taser and I wondered why we hadn’t run away with the rest of the factory personnel that had nearly trampled us. A factory employee, bloodied and limping, staggered toward us. He was missing an eye and his right hand covered the crimson stump that was now his left. The poor man collapsed, crying out, “They’re loose! The devils are loose!” — To be continued.


This week’s movie is 1982’s The Secret of NIMH from director Don Bluth. I’d completely forgotten about this movie. The DVD release seemed lacking so I never snagged it. Yet I remember watching The Secret of NIMH over and over again on Showtime when I was kid. I was an animation snob then, cutting my teeth on classic Disney shorts like Silly Symphonies.

I have to give Don Bluth and his team of animators credit. After defecting from the Disney company, they went all out to create a feature on par with those created in the glory days of the Walt Disney Animation Studios. The movie centers around Mrs. Brisby, a widowed mouse and mother of four children, one of whom has pneumonia.

The sick child’s name is Timothy. She’s been advised to keep him on bed rest for four weeks or he may die. The only problem is the farmer’s plow is coming early this year. If Mrs. Brisby doesn’t move her family, they all will die.

This simple conflict sets up an amazing journey for our main character that brings her to seek counsel with the Great Owl, a terrifying giant with glowing eyes. He tells her to seek out the Rats of NIMH, hyper intelligent creatures who may know of a way to move her house without her son having to leave his bed. We learn that rats had been experimented on in a lab, injected with a drug that raised their intelligence to that of a human. And we learn that some mice had also been given this drug, including Mrs Brisby’s late husband, Jonathan.

The Secret of Nimh features an all star voice cast that includes Elizabeth Hartman, Derek Jacobi, Dom Deluise, Arthur Malet, Hermione, Baddeley, Shannon Doherty, Will Wheaton, and John Carradine. The movie’s score was composed by the great Jerry Goldsmith, who also scored Poltergeist that year. The Secret of NIMH had stiff competition that summer as it had gone up against such movies as Blade Runner, E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial, Conan the Barbarian, TRON, and John Carpenter’s The Thing.

What stood out for me when watching The Secret of NIMH so many years later is how it makes a simple farm into a c world fillemplex with danger and mystery. A family cat becomes a fearsome monster, a farmer’s plow becomes a force of nature, and a rose bush becomes a city of marvels. I hope this movie gets a proper remaster some day as it stands as the pinnacle of animated feature films from the 1980s.

 

Episode 511: David A. Bossert!

19 Saturday Feb 2022

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in animation, Disney, Episode, Film

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Tags

Claude Coates, Dali and DIsney: Destino, David A. Bossert, Disneyland, Old Mill Press, Walt Disney

Episode 511 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on Apple podcasts, stitcher, spotify, or click here to stream (right click to download, if that’s your thing).

On today’s show, I talk to Disney artist and historian David A. Bossert about the astounding career of Claude Coats, the flexibility required of Disney artists, and the power of saying yes to new professional challenges.

TEXTS DISCUSSED

NOTES

ScribophileTDO listeners can get 20% of a premium subscription to Scribophile. After using the above link to register for a basic account, go here while still logged in to upgrade the account with the discount.

The Kerouac Project of Orlando is open for applications for its residency program.


Episode 511 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on Apple podcasts, stitcher, spotify, or click here to stream (right click to download, if that’s your thing).

Buzzed Books #95: The Art of Soul, The Art of Raya and the Last Dragon, and The Art of Luca

18 Tuesday Jan 2022

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in animation, Art, Buzzed Books, Disney, Film

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Tags

Chronicle Books, The Art of Luca, The Art of Raya and the Last Dragon, The Art of Soul

Buzzed Books #95 by John King

The Art of Soul,

The Art of Raya and the Last Dragon,

and The Art of Luca

As a lifelong fan of Disney films, there’s not much nostalgia in my obsession. I have never found ways to make Condorman, The Fox and the Hound, or Herbie Does a Thing important or fun or profound. The only connection I feel between my childhood and films I saw then is how the great films still loom in my imagination. In the 1970s, Bedknobs and Broomsticks, Star Wars, and The Rescuers would repeat in my mind for months after seeing them in the theater. One movie ticket provided me with rich experiences that endure.

Sometimes, though, the art and music of Disney films transcend the actual overall film itself, such as Alice in Wonderland (1951). Oliver Wallace’s score, sometimes combined with Lewis Carrol’s poetry as lyrics, is a wonderful soundscape; the 1997 compact disk release interpolated dialogue and sound effects, in essence creating a sonic film for the mind that is a better experience than the film. The film itself quivers with the miraculous design work of Mary Blair. Alice in Wonderland has some colorful, very daft scenes. But the parts surpass the whole. Listen to the soundtrack in the dark instead.

Such have been my musings while considering the extraordinary Disney titles recently released by Chronicle books. Chronicle publishes Didier Ghez’s exceptional series, They Drew as They Pleased, which unveils never-before-seen artwork from the developmental stages of classic Disney films.

Separate from Didier Ghez’s series, Chronicle also publishes volumes devoted to the creation of recent offerings by Pixar and Disney, such as Soul, Raya and the Last Dragon, and Luca.

The Art of Soul is one of my favorite books in my Disney library for how well the volume allows me to appreciate the mind-bending, yet somehow familiar visual grammar of the film.

The running time of Pixar’s Soul might be too short, which is to say, the visual experience is too sublime to appreciate in real time, with the film’s half-abstract, celestial sense of realms for the creation and dissolution of souls and, in contrast, the film’s densely realistic New York City.

As an animation nerd, I am also gratified to learn more about how the designs of Soul were worked out, with digital sketches that look rather like hand-drawn sketches—with enough practice, digital work was certain to catch up to hand-drawn illustration.

And The Art of Soul also focuses on the designs within the designs, such as jazz signage. In this deeply original film’s design art, I can see elements of Modern art, along with jazzy resonances with Disney’s 101 Dalmatians and the “Rhapsody in Blue” portion of Fantasia 2000. This book is both frozen in time—allowing the reader to experience the art as slowly as the reader wants—and also bursting with the intelligence and inspiration of the film’s creation.

I liked Raya and the Last Dragon. The Chronicle book may persuade me that the film is better than I thought. On my first viewing, the narration seemed a touch glib, the setting seemed too allegorically on-the-nose, and the water dragon seemed too goofily comic. I suspect that the filmmakers aimed for a YA audience, a demographic that clearly isn’t me.

The mythic setting of Kumandra seemed like a generalization of lots of Asian tropes and imagery, and this seemed indiscriminate to me when I watched the film. The Art of Raya and the Last Dragon points out that the inspiration for the film was Southeastern Asian countries: Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore. So I was partly right, but in a wrong way.

In the Chronicle book, the different regions of the Dragon Lands—Heart, Spine, Talon, Fang, and Tail—are explained in terms of philosophy, architecture, and costuming. The art is transcendent, reminding me of how beautiful the film is, all while encouraging me to look deeper into its world-building.

The Art of Luca focuses on Italy, tales of merfolk, and friendship. The film is a charming meditation on childhood conflicts and life in a seaside Italian village in the 1950s. The art style is vibrant and iconic, yet original. For example, the merfolk’s design do not look like mermaids from Peter Pan or The Little Mermaid, but more humanoid, like transitioning-tadpoles, with cartoony, detailed faces.

The settings of the seaside village and the ocean are stunning (reminding me of the contrasting settings of Soul). The claustrophobic clustering of colorful dwellings in the hilly town of Portorosso makes me want to live there, in a modest, beautiful, shabby place in a time when a Vespa was the most beautiful thing in a beautiful world. The dark aquamarine of the underwater world somehow feels spooky, yet comforting, a dreamscape that makes the merfolk seem like a realistic possibility.

The character designs, even the human ones, are memorable.

I cannot assert this enough: I tend to take for granted how sublimely beautiful Disney and Pixar films are. Seeing the storyboards, character design, and concept sketches in so many styles is a gift that Chronicle brings to animation fanatics.

Enrico Casarosa, the film’s director, makes this unusual plea at the end of his introduction to this book: “I have a favor to ask … Reach out to that friend you once had from those formative days of awkward adolescence and self-discovery. It’ll give you the opportunity to tell them how important they’ve been in your life. I bet they might even remember some hilarious moments you’ve long forgotten.” This is true of friends, but also true of the great films I and my friends love, Disney and Pixar films among them.


John King (Episode, well, all of them) holds a PhD in English from Purdue University, and an MFA from New York University. He has reviewed performances for Shakespeare Bulletin.

Episode 487: Todd James Pierce!

28 Saturday Aug 2021

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Comic Books, Disney, Episode, Film, Star Wars

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Episode 487 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on Apple podcasts, stitcher, spotify, or click here to stream (right click to download, if that’s your thing).

In this week’s show, I talk to Disney historian Todd James Pierce about how Covid-19 and the home streaming of entertainment might affect the future of visual storytelling, plus we discuss his current historical work on Disney Legend John Hench.

TEXTS DISCUSSED

Ward Kimball

Three Years in Wonderland

NOTES

This episode is sponsored by the excellent people at Scribophile.

Scribophile

TDO Listeners can get 20% of a premium subscription to Scribophile. After using the above link to register for a basic account, go here while still logged in to upgrade the account with the discount.

Check out Todd’s site and podcast, The Disney History Institute.


Episode 487 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on Apple podcasts, stitcher, spotify, or click here to stream (right click to download, if that’s your thing).

450: Tron Legacy Roundtable Discussion

12 Saturday Dec 2020

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in animation, Disney, Episode, Film, Science Fiction

≈ 8 Comments

Episode 450 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on Apple podcasts, stitcher, spotify, or click here to stream (right click to download, if that’s your thing).

In this week’s episode, I talk with Julian Chambliss, Leslie Salas, Todd James Pierce, and Jeff Shuster about the legacy of Tron Legacy (2010) and Tron (1982) and Tron Uprising (2010) and many other things.

TEXTS DISCUSSED

NOTESScribophile

  • TDO Listeners can get 20% of a premium subscription to Scribophile. After using the above link to register for a basic account, go here while still logged in to upgrade the account with the discount.
  • RIP, Zoe.

  • Register with Miami Book Fair Online in order to stream its free events, including a debut poet panel moderated by yours truly.

  • Check out my literary adventure novel, Guy Psycho and the Ziggurat of Shame.

Episode 450 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on Apple podcasts, stitcher, spotify, or click here to stream (right click to download, if that’s your thing).

The Curator of Schlock #332: The Black Cauldron

20 Friday Nov 2020

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in animation, Disney, Fantasy, Film, The Curator of Schlock

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Lloyd Alexander, Richard Rich., Ted Berman, The Black Cauldron, The Chronicles of Prydain, Walt Disney Studios

The Curator of Schlock #332 by Jeff Shuster

The Black Cauldron

I liked it!

Wally has kept me locked in my bedroom as I churn out pages for a spec script that reads like My Dinner With Andre, but with vampires.

schlock mansion

Wally figures once we pique the interest of Hollywood execs, he can pressure them to choose him as director. Of course, he’ll insist on directing the scenes at night. I keep trying to explain to him that nobody buys spec scripts anymore!

Tonight’s movie is 1985’s The Black Cauldron from directors Ted Berman and Richard Rich. This Walt Disney production with a sordid reputation is is based on The Chronicles of Prydain series of children’s fantasy novels written between 1964 and 1968 by Lloyd Alexander. The House of Mouse snatched up the film rights in 1971, but the film suffered a deeply troubled production.

I remember The Black Cauldron being hyped by Disney back in 1985 along with the movie Return to Oz (another problem release for the studio). That summer, my mother took me to see The Black Cauldron and I remember liking it at the time. I didn’t love it, but I liked it. The estimated budget was around 44 million, but the box office only took in 21.3 million.

This was my first introduction to a box office bomb. The news media tore into it, calling it one of the worst movies of the year. The Black Cauldron had a eputation of being too dark and scary for children (the same could be said for many children’s movies from the 80s). I also remember fans of Lloyd Alexander’s work dismissing the film as it deviated quite a bit from the source material.

The Black Cauldron faded from my mind. I never got the chance to re-watch it during my childhood. The movie became one of these forbidden Disney movies like The Song of the South. The Black Cauldron hadn’t gotten a VHS release nor was it aired on The Disney Channel.

Whenever someone tells you that you can’t watch a movie, you want to watch it all the more.

The Black Cauldron had received a European home video release and I managed to get my hands on a crummy bootleg while studying film at community college. Disney eventually relented and gave The Black Cauldron a home video release in the late 90s. I eagerly purchased a copy, but again the quality wasn’t ideal. Disney must have used the cheapest VHS tapes they could find and the movie was pan & scan which is a problem for movies shot for widescreen. Years later, Disney would begrudgingly release a decent print of it on DVD (a Blu-ray has yet to be released), and I believe you can catch it on Disney+.

Is The Black Cauldron worth your time? Shot on 70mm, it is one of the most gorgeous animated features I’ve ever seen. John Hurt voices The Horned King, a skeletal menace WHO has to be the scariest Disney villain I’ve ever laid eyes on. Elmer Bernstein provides a score that is both haunting and enchanting. Is the movie good? Yes, and good is good enough for your curator of schlock.


Photo by Leslie Salas

Jeff Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, episode 284, episode 441, episode 442, episode 443 and episode 444) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.

The Diaries of a Sozzled Scribbler #19

16 Friday Oct 2020

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Disney, Sozzled Scribbler

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The Diaries of a Sozzled Scribbler #19

Transcribed by DMETRI KAKMI

16 October 2020

In the 199th year of this my mortal life, I find me in Altamonte Springs, Florida, waiting for Little Lord Pantsleroy—otherwise known as Mr John King—so that I may capture him and torment him to my heart’s content.

For he hath offended me most high when he interviewed my pasty faced amanuensis Deutoronomy Katalapsycon, or whatever its name is, for a modern convenience called the invasion of the podcast people, and banished me from the room.

‘That man is a menace,’ Little Lord Pantsleroy declared. ‘He is banished.’

Banished, moi! Banished!

And so here I sit in that valley that pierces my heart with dread, and I look aloft and see his shoulders broad approach, awaiting him that is mine enemy so that I may entrap him and inflict punishments upon his conceited corse that he will not forget.

So overcome with fury am I that I risk being seen by stepping forth upon the perilous wide waste, strike a Napoleonic pose, and quote my good friend, God.

‘For vengeance is mine and I will repay. His day of disaster is near and his doom rushes upon him.’

My prize is almost upon me, sauntering at the bottom of the prominence upon which I stand, whistling a happy tune, carefree as Mariella Frostrup sans brassier.

‘Fly high, mine silvered snare,’ quoth I, as I cast a net into the air, ‘and bring my quarry like a fish from fathomless depths unto me.’

‘What, ho?’ cries the Shakespearean dolt as the latticework settles around him.

I step forward so that his eyes can look upon my bedazzled form for the first time.

‘What are you?’ says he. ‘That looks not like the inhabitants of the earth and yet walks upon it. Speak if you can. What are you?’

For although he publishes my world-wide hit column, he has never seen me before.

‘Hail, Little Lord Pantsleroy.’

My prey freezes.

‘Hail to thee, Thane of the Drunken Odyssey,’ I wheedle.

He trembles. Fear is in his eyes.

‘Surely it can’t be you,’ he gasps.

‘Tis I,’ I say, advancing. ‘And none other.’

‘Say why upon this blasted heath you stop my way with such horrendous greetings.’

On and on he goes, like a cold bum, quoting Shakespeare as if he’s John Gielgud. A quick application of ether knocks him out. Now to my secret laboratory and to execute my dastardly plan. But boy is he heavy. And badly dressed. First, I strip him of the rags he wears and burn them. Then I hire a crane to lift him.

Hours later, the victim returns to consciousness, strapped to an operating table in my eyrie.

I gloat in my white laboratory coat, made exclusively pour moi by none other than Issey Miyake.

‘It’s alive,’ I scream maniacally, raising my arms to the heavens. ‘It’s alive.’

Little Lord Pantsleroy is so frightened he almost poops his pants.

‘Where am I?’ he says. ‘What do you want?

‘For there is nothing covered,’ I quote, ‘that shall not be revealed; neither hid, that shall not be known.’

Little Lord Pantsleroy struggles in his bonds, but it’s useless. He is in my power.

‘Why I am covered in bandages?’ he says, looking down the length of his body. ‘What have you done to me?’

‘Tell me, my little friend.’ I stand over to him. ‘What is your favorite place in the world?’

‘Disneyland.’

‘And who is your favourite Disney character?’

‘Donald Duck. But Joe Carioca from The Three Caballeros is a close tie.’

‘And how would you like to be these characters?’

I let my pronouncement sink in.

‘What do you mean?’ he squawks.

‘This!’

I rip the bandages from his body with a grand flourish, and move a suspended mirror above the operating table so that he can see his body.

At first there is stunned silence. Then the eyes grow wide with shock and disbelief. And then the mouth (or rather the beak) opens and a prolonged quack of dismay is emitted.

‘What have you done?’

‘I have turned you into a half-duck, half-parrot.’

‘Why?’

‘Oh,’ I say, pretending to be perplexed. ‘I thought you wanted to be Donald Duck and Joe Carioca.’

The dismal quack is followed by a cacophonous squawk.

‘No!’

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

‘Because you did not to put me in your invasion of the podcast people thingy.’

And then the mad creature begins to laugh.

‘Why laughest thou, oh Caliban?’

‘Because,’ he says, half sitting up and staring at me with maddened eyes, ‘now I can work in my favourite place in the world, Disneyland.’

But I have one more nasty card up my sleeve.

‘That’s what you think, my little canard.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You are sold.’

‘To whom?’

‘To Fraulein Elsa Mars.’

‘Who is she?’

‘She, my beaky little perroquet, is the manager of the Cabinet of Curiosities, a freak show, in Jupiter, Florida. Why here she is now.’

A divine creation right out of the Weimer Republic saunters in, half Marlene Dietrich, half Consuela Cosmetic.

The half-duck, half-parrot parody gapes at the miraculous apparition.

‘What are you staring at?’ Elsa Mars snaps, with that fake German accent of hers. ‘Do you value your job around here?’

Le canard et perroquet anomalie nods, knowing he is her slave forever.

‘Then get out there and make people laugh. Schel!’

Elsa Mars cracks her whip and l’homme canard et perroquet is carried away by assorted aberrations never to be seen again.

And now, dear reader, I am in charge of the Drunken Odyssey.

À bientôt, mes amies.


The Sozzled Scribbler was born in the shadow of the Erechtheion in Athens, Greece, to an Egyptian street walker (his father) and a Greek bear wrestler (his mother). He has lived in Istanbul, Rome, London, New Orleans and is currently stateless. He partakes of four bottles of Bombay gin and nine packets of Gauloises cigarettes a day.

Dmetri Kakmi is a writer and editor. His first book, Mother Land, was shortlisted for the New South Wales Premier’s Literary Awards in Australia, and his new book, The Door, will be released in September 2020.

Episode 425: Mixtape #13: Tender Ballads for Subhuman Lovers (2005)

20 Saturday Jun 2020

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Disney, Episode, Mixtape

≈ Leave a comment

Episode 425 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on Apple podcasts, stitcher, spotify, or click here to stream (right click to download, if that’s your thing).

Tender Ballads for Subhuman Lovers

NOTES

This episode is sponsored by the excellent people at Scribophile.

Scribophile

TDO Listeners can get 20% of a premium subscription to Scribophile. After using the above link to register for a basic account, go here while still logged in to upgrade the account with the discount.

Check out my literary adventure novel, Guy Psycho and the Ziggurat of Shame.


Episode 425 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on Apple podcasts, stitcher, spotify, or click here to stream (right click to download, if that’s your thing).

Episode 421: Didier Ghez!

23 Saturday May 2020

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in animation, Art, Disney, Episode

≈ Leave a comment

Episode 421 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on Apple podcasts, stitcher, spotify, or click here to stream (right click to download, if that’s your thing).

Didier_Ghez

This week I talk with Disney historian Didier Ghez about the joys of research and forging one’s own path as a historian.

TEXTS DISCUSSED

TDADP5

TDATP5 page

Designs by Ken Anderson.

TDATP5 p194b Shaw

Design by Mel Shaw.

NOTES

This episode is sponsored by the excellent people at Scribophile.

Scribophile

TDO Listeners can get 20% of a premium subscription to Scribophile. After using the above link to register for a basic account, go here while still logged in to upgrade the account with the discount.

If you want me to talk about creativity, check out my appearance on Jeff Wilfong’s podcast, Dub Ya Mind.

Consider donating to City Lights Books to sustain it and/or buying a book online from Powells.

Check out my literary adventure novel, Guy Psycho and the Ziggurat of Shame.

Guy Psycho and the Ziggurat of Shame Cover

Episode 421 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on Apple podcasts, stitcher, spotify, or click here to stream (right click to download, if that’s your thing).

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