Blank Check with Griffin & David - Aladdin with Jerah Milligan

Episode Date: February 21, 2021

#thetwofriends try and stay one jump ahead of the breadline and one swing ahead of the sword on this week's Aladdin episode as part of the mini series on the animated films of John Musker and Ron Clements. Jerah Milligan (Black Men Can’t Jump In Hollywood) joins to discuss the influence of Aladdin, adult humor in kid's movies, what if Aladdin had a hoodie and which songs are bangers and which aren’t.  Join our Patreon at patreon.com/blankcheck Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter and Instagram! Buy some real nerdy merch at shopblankcheckpod.myshopify.com

have some of column a try all of column b I'm in the mood to help you, dude. You ain't ever podcast like me. That was great. Good job. Good job. Good job. You just didn't, you didn't go for a Robin Williams thing. And I respect that.

I barely did. And I tried to pick a section of the song where he's kind of doing a voice, but not a voice that I don't want to replicate. You know what i'm saying like i was like i don't know how well i can do default robin but i also don't know if i want to do full character robin that's when he's just sort of like i'm just singing now like this it's not as much like i'm playing a fucking bellboy for this stanza or whatever it is i look i watched this movie uh recently i mean you know time is a fucking flat circle but i watched it at some point within the last 10 months of uh pandemic i've seen this movie twice

in lockdown uh every time i watch it i'm still just kind of surprised by how many fucking transformations he makes it's literally every two seconds he's got some new fucking wardrobe and voice it's that's that's the beauty of the best thing about it's the harnessing the power of animation. Like that. I'm not being critical. Yeah, I know. I know. I love it.

I'm prepared. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. No, there's always a little joke that I had forgotten about. It's sort of part of the fun. Actually, you're right. You know, like this is some little joke I forgot. I just learned he's the first.'s the it sounds very dumb i did not know he's the the guy at the

beginning who's telling the story of course absolutely i had no idea that was him that i remember the dead sea tupperware line like my dad who in the theater laughing so hard and me being like i don't know what that joke is but like clearly that's funny right now like clearly that that's a reference or something that and that must have just that's just him being silly right that's just him going in the studio and being stupid right that for me was like when he does the come a little closer and then the camera smushes up against his nose that was the thing for me or I was just like, you could fucking do that? Yeah, I mean,

that one I got. That one I got when I was six years old. I was like, oh boy, I've never seen anything like this. Could you imagine how hard this movie,

again, the movie was super successful, but those animators must have been pissed. I've read all the stories about how Robin just improvised so much stuff that he had to go back and redo a lot of the animations. Could you just imagine the dude being like, come here.

And that wasn't in the script. And now they got to make the camera smush. Right, right. That's the thing. It's like, obviously, that's his stand-up style. But you look at this movie and the genie does not really have i would say more than five lines of dialogue that do not function as jokes right like every line of dialogue functions as a joke but very few of them are written as jokes he has very few punchline setup jokes he has a lot of exposition

that robin williams is like what if i say it like this kind of person or what if i do this impression right or what if i add this turn at the end of the line or whatever it is and so yeah he like forced them to have to animate more than any character probably in animation up until that point also don't forget Aladdin had um CGI was one of the first was the computer generally like the the lava yeah Aladdin was going for it man well so we're doing this is uh uh this podcast called blank check with griffin and david i'm griffin oh yeah i'm david uh i i appreciate your support of me being griffin i i like the little hell yeah i got as a oh yeah i know you were probably

saying it more in response to me starting the show but the way it timed out it sounded like you really like that i'm griffin love it. I love that you're Griffin. And I love that you're David. And we're hashtag the two friends. It's a competitive advantage. And this is a podcast about filmographies. Directors who have massive success early on in their career and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy

passion projects they want. And sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce into a whole new world, baby. This is a mini-series on the films of musker and clements chronicling the disney renaissance the rise the fall the rise again and then the retirement of these two guys who were kind of there the front seat for these this interesting 20 30 year periodyear period of Disney feature animation. It's a miniseries called The Pottle Murcast.

Today we are talking Aladdin. And we got with us the great from Astronomy Club, from Black Man Can't Jump in Hollywood, one of the best movie podcasts out there, a dear friend, someone who it has been far too long since we've had on the show. I know. The great Gerard Milligan. Now we were talking right before we recorded that you had said in an episode of black man can't jump

in hollywood that your three favorite films of all time i know it's not an exact science but at one point you said my top three are batman returns aladdin get out i think it was maybe the get out episode you were your praise of get out was this, I love this movie so much, it now has entered. It bumped the whiz. The whiz was in my top three. It bumped the whiz. Aladdin was the first time. Let me tell you what's so

crazy, is I know now everyone's like, you know, representation matters, but I think when you're a kid sometimes, you don't know. I didn't know that Bruce Willis was not like me. You know what I mean? Sure. So when I watched Aladdin, I was like, oh, snap.

There's a brown dude. But I didn't know. I know people were happy about that at the time. But I didn't know what that meant at all. And now looking back, it's like, oh, 1992. Fire. I still like Aladdin better than Lion King lion king i said it controversial i don't for me here's the thing no no this is the thing david and i both like lion king a lot less than almost everyone else of our generation and it's like no disrespect to lion king but that's just never the movie that's hit for the two of us. And I feel like everyone else views it as so sacred.

It's a movie I certainly saw all the time. Like, we owned it. My brother wanted to watch it. Like, I've seen The Lion King a zillion times. But, yeah, it doesn't have, for some reason, I can't, like, I don't know. It doesn't push the same emotional happy button for me than the other ones we just mentioned same same but how are we doing in Latin though I like this movie

well this I mean you talk about what a breakthrough this movie was I believe the two major stats on this movie are it's the first animated movie to make 200 million dollars domestically right if Beauty and the Beast was kind of the first blockbuster animated movie, right?

Like this is the first real blockbuster. Beauty and the Beast, I think, was the first to cross $100 million in first run release. That sounds plausible. And then this pretty much levels all the way up to $200 million. It does. It made, yeah, a ton of money. Yeah. The Disney legacy to a certain degree was always these movies are so fucking expensive to make that Disney himself was always losing money anytime he made a feature.

And the model had to be, well, you make the feature, you promote as hard as you can. It loses money. Then you re-release it every couple of years. You also make the ride. You make the merchandise. You put it on TV. I mean, it was just like this whole organization around keeping the preciousness of the movie because it had to take like 15 years to fully go into profit. And then eventually it would be evergreen and it's money forever. But it would take that long to make back its investment. And I feel like to a degree, Aladdin might be the first Disney film or first animated film that like went into profit first run release, just fully

went into green just in theaters and then proceeded to be just such a fucking endless cash cow for them. Oh, dude, I treat people multiple times. I think I saw this in theaters five times. I remember I saw it so many times. I was like, oh, I told my auntie I wanted to see it. Or maybe I had a friend who had a birthday party to go see it. My mom said to me, I'll never forget it. She goes, no. This is the only time she's ever said no. And I was like, oh, can I go to the movie? She was like, no. You've seen this already. And I was like, no. I mean, like once. No, didn't you go with such and such? And she just started clocking every time i saw it i remember it and i was like probably five or six it also i mean it this was the highest grossing film of its year which i also think was the first time that it ever happened with an animated movie

and it played for a while in first run yeah and but you know it's you're right that it was and it's the robin williams thing too is the the first movie where the fact that a star was in it mattered in a different kind of a way. And it's an action movie in a way that a lot of... It is. You know what I mean? It's got a little more of that energy. And it's a musical and it's a comedy. I mean, like, it's got a little more of that energy.

And it's a musical and it's a comedy, you know, but. It's the first time they kind of cracked the complete commercial calculation of how to be every genre at the same time and also be totally four quadrant. Right. The supposed difficulty of Disney appealing to boys. I suppose Aladdin is the one that defies that. Right. Right. That was Aladdin and Lion King. No, but I mean, you know, I feel like boys are stupid little boys and they're...

Who's fighting? Who's fighting? Right. And there's that sort of like, I think things have gotten a little better culturally, but certainly there's that thing of like, oh, if you're a boy, you don't want to be seen as liking girl stuff too much at certain delicate ages. And I feel like Disney had come back with

a string of princess movies. And now it's like, this guy's got a sword. He's got a monkey. It's like, he looks like Tom Cruise. I mean, he looks like Tom Cruise and Michael J. Fox.

Right. He looks like Tom Cruise. He kind of acts like Indiana Jones. It's a princess movie and a musical and a romance, but it's also an action film. And then the final piece of the puzzle is like, yes, you have this massive, massive fucking movie star, which it's sometimes hard to even fully process how mammoth the 90s were for Robin Williams, considering he'd already been famous for that long. It was just a wild run he had for a couple of years there. been famous for that long it was just a wild run he had for a couple years there and and then on top of that it's like this is the movie that kind of uh uh breaks jeffrey katzenberg into the like

oh fuck we can make jokes that grown-ups find funny and then that like perverts his entire sensibility and every movie becomes like how do we get the comedian playing the... Yes. Yes. This is the thing. I think you're right, Griffin. Like, I love this movie. I feel like you're more mixed on this movie, but we were going to talk about it. I feel like you've referenced that in the past. I look, this is, it's not a personal favorite of mine, but it's a movie that I look at and I kind of cannot criticize.

You know what I'm saying? Like, it's just, it's not the one that hits for me in that way, but I watch it and I'm like, it hits every single point so precisely. But I think some of my hesitations with it are that you see every bad lesson that is taken from it and applied to like. Right. That's the thing. Which isn't this movie's fault at all. beautifully balanced right like i don't but but right but you see the seeds of not even disney but dreamworks or whatever like everything that follows an animation right like too much modern jokiness too much emphasis on star power too much emphasis on like action and boys and you know yes i i think that's all here even though it's not a problem here, I guess.

Right. Yeah. Agreed. Agreed. Yeah. The only thing about this movie, I had a friend who was my roommate for, I think, two years. And he was Persian. And I love Aladdin.

I'm talking about, like, I used to work in a Disney store. Me too. What Disney store did you work at? I worked in D.C. Well, it was in Virginia, a place called Pentagon City. And they had this huge, at the time it was like, you went to the second floor and in the corner was this huge Disney Store. Now, mind you, parents would just come and just drop their kids off. We were like a babysitter and they would climb the little plush mountain, but they didn't know that it shelves, so it hurts. So anyway, you know, Aladdin was in the vault. My going away present when I was going

to college was them giving me the Aladdin double disc DVD, which I still own to this day. Somehow, I guess when it was out the vault a year ago, they had a couple in the back. They gave me one out the vault. Wow. They

opened the vault. My roommate Devin was like, he wasn't allowed to watch it. I was like, what do you mean, man? It's perfect. He's like, well, the opening song is offensive. I was like, yeah, they talk about cutting off your hands. I get it. Then he was like, well, also the cast

because Aladdin and Jasmine were people of color. I was like, okay. I know he was on Full House, but his voice sounds so perfect. I felt myself doing the thing. Right. Well, yeah, but come on. I love it though.

Right. That thing. And it was so hard because I'm like, he knows that movie on such a different level. So even though I hate to say I still love this movie because it has such a place in my heart. But like, damn, even thinking about Robin Williams playing that guy at the opening at the bazaar is like, Robin, you can't do that. Yeah.

Every single member of the cast of this movie is incredibly white. And it's funny because this is like what your podcast is about. It is. And I like the movie. I mean, for people who don't listen to Black Man Ketchup in Hollywood your podcast is about. It is. And I liked the movie. I mean, for people who don't listen to black man, can't jump in Hollywood, which is great.

You guys, you and, uh, uh, John Braylock and James the third, uh, yeah, them other dudes,

them other dudes, but it's me past the future guests. But you talk about representation and movies and try to explain the way it's sort of like, uh, codes, our brains, seeing these things on screen and how they're depicted and who isn't

depicted and all that sort of stuff. And this does also begin this period of, I feel like, you know, Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast, you're still going into like elemental fairy tales that every child knows to some degree. And then Aladdin is kind of like pulling together a couple different sort of Arabian myths, right? It's picking and choosing a couple things. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I have a lot to say about that, but yes, yes. I bring it up because I feel like at this point, Disney starts to pivot into this sort of cultural tourism of every movie is not just like, here's the story, here's the fable. It's we have to go to this place, this land.

It's about this culture. And I feel like they've spent the last 30 years every time going like, we understand that the last one had some blind spots. We really worked hard to try to get it accurate. Every single one, they do the exact same thing where they're like, look, we went to the Middle East for four days. We really did our research.

Yes. It's like how they were like the Lion King. Finally, Disney salute to Africa. days we really did our research yes it's like how they're like the lion king finally disney salute to africa like i don't remember how that went over in 94 but that would be bananas yeah everyone brings up like lion king is like the black movie and i was like what the one with the animals like that's the one i was like first off uh mufasa dies, and then Jonathan Taylor Thomas is Simba. I was like, come on, man. But look, so I have a lot to say.

For one, Jara, one of my best friends when I was very little was from Iran, and I had the exact same conversation. It was when I was small, when I was like seven. Oh, I have a small, oh was like 7 I remember watching it on VHS with her and like she was a lot I think her family was like look the movie's fine but you should be aware like you know I think that's but I remember her telling me about it and I you know me

you know naive 7 year old being like oh I guess so I like you know had no concept of these things um the thing that blows my mind, because yes, you watch Aladdin now and you're like, wow,

you know, of course, like Robin Williams kicking us off with, they remade this movie in 2019 and they basically got away with it.

Guy Ritchie, and not that that movie doesn't have hosts of problems, but that movie came out in 2019 guy richie a white british man directed it dude how like uh you know will smith is in it you know they had like this cast of color but it was it's not like they were drawing from middle eastern actors or anything like that they weren't you know they're pretty vague about all that it came out people didn't really like it and it was a huge hit and it made a ton of money

and they're like i made a casual billion dollars yes and they're like probably gonna make a sequel or something and like i don't know no one was like hey this story that you told last time is this bizarre cultural mishmash. Like they were just like, oh yeah, it's Aladdin again. Look, Aladdin. Oh, it's Aladdin. He's back, Prick and Sully.

This speaks to the whole weird Disney cycle where it's like still when Moana comes out, when Coco comes out, when Sol comes out, when Princess and the Frog comes out, when Raya and the Last Dragon comes out, there's always like the Disney self-generated, we want to explain to you how seriously

we took the responsibility of representing this culture. But I think people forget that they were doing that back in the 90s. Like when you watched a Disney VHS, there was always the preview of whatever next year's Disney movie was going to be. I remember. They would have that trailer

that didn't even really have finished footage. You'd usually see like pencil tasks and a lot of it was the animators in their cubicle saying like we worked really hard to get the serengeti right here we look we drew a real lion it's always like a bald guy with glasses in a hawaiian shirt and he's like yeah no we went to china we move on is gonna be you're like okay okay and people talk about like fucking like you know 2020 like cultural sensitivity it's like that was 1992 white dudes being like representation matters we take the responsibility seriously we're trying to tell this story correctly i we just reviewed um or it'd be out by time is that we just reviewed soul and i had such a problem with it um like i had such a problem with it.

I had such a problem with it and it was the racial component of it. Again, how you guys are doing the whole Disney rise and fall of the greatest era. To me, the movie that did it in was Princess and the Frog. We can get to that later because there were so many missed opportunities in that

movie. But it's one of those things where not only do I think you need going to the Guy Ritchie part of it, that was such a mistake. And it felt like that mistake was doubled down. Because there are certain things that, for instance, if I wanted to make a movie and I wanted to make it about something that is strictly women-related, something that is like, yeah, I may be able to know. I may be able to have people come on and counsel me. But there's so many intricacies to their everyday life that I don't know what it's like to be catcalled. I don't know what it's like to feel uncomfortable walking past construction workers. Those are things I just innately don't know. So when I make that film, it won't be second nature to me to do it. So I will need help. And when I think about Guy Ritchie and Aladdin, there's so many people who could make this movie and they had a Bollywood number at the end. I was like, why did you do this? Why? It is wild that, yes, I forgot about that. It's so bizarre. I also just think that that cycle it's so fascinating that it's like they were aware of these things the first time around when they were making these original films right

then the films become like beloved nostalgic classics for generations and people are like i know it's got problematic elements i know the cultural stuff is this i know the gender stuff is this but come on i love it right then they announced that they're going to do a new live action remake. And every time people are like, I mean, it feels a little dodgy. We all let the original pass, but if you do the same things again, we're all going to be harder. And they go, trust me, we understand we've, we've put together a council. We have a council of sensitivity. They're looking at every single thing we do. We're really trying to, she's going to have a new song and the song's going to be about the fact that she has a song

this time. She'll never be speechless. She'll never be speechless. You're never going to make her be speechless. And then the movie comes out and then people go, yeah, still got a lot of the same problems. Weirdly, a lot of the things they did to try and negate the problems, highlighted them even more. The movie makes a casual billion dollars. Everyone forgets. And then they just go back to liking the original more. Then we get that sequel soon. They're going to make a sequel or supposedly,

I guess. A billion dollars. Right. A billion. A billion dollars. That movie made like before it got to like home downloads. Yes. All of it.

You know, Blu-ray. Right. Exactly. Smooth billion. just a quick smooth casual offhand bill it was like a billion tough tossed over the shoulder and for how long there was like six months of people being like this thing's gonna be a fucking disaster yes look at these chunky genie memes like even just when the casting announcements were coming out people were

losing their minds and then everyone just kind of begrudgingly shrugged their shoulders, paid $20, gave them a billion, and forgot about it. The reviews were like, this is bad. Bad film. It comes down F. People were like, yeah, but I guess I'll just go see it. But I have a theory on that now, though. I think it's the same thing with some of Netflix's. I am obsessed with watching the Netflix top 10 in the US.

I am obsessed. Yeah. And when you look at it, it tells me the same thing as with this movie Aladdin. It's like, I don't think it matters whether or not it is, quote unquote, like a good story, blah, blah, blah. It's like, do people feel good watching it? Yeah. Do people feel like when they leave, are they excited?

Are they like, ah, do they have that smile on their face? And I think that's what this movie did. I didn't like it, but I got to watch Aladdin with Will Smith. And Aladdin wore a hoodie. You know what the live action Disney remakes largely feel like to me now? They feel like when there are those unlicensed themed pop-up bars. Where it's like, it's an Aladdin themed bar and you're like look it's like legally they can't call it an Aladdin themed bar it's called

like genie's final wish or something and they're dodging around a lot of the copyrighted material but it's like fun to stand in a room that feels like this movie I like and I'm drinking a drink and it's blue and they're playing the soundtrack and my friends and I are having a good night and mostly what it serves to do is makes you want to rewatch the original film. And I saw someone post this on our Reddit because we always talk about this phenomenon of like movies that don't exist. Movies that just like somehow came out, got a big release. Some of them were even successful and just have no lasting cultural legacy.

And in a certain way, the Disney live action remakes are the ultimate movies that don't exist because they're like these huge phenomenons that pop up and then everyone, it just mostly serves to remind them of how much they love the original thing. And especially now that everything is just on Disney Plus, it's like, it's so hard to imagine the circumstances where someone pulls up the Guy Ritchie Aladdin instead of the animated Aladdin if they're both available on the same platform for the same price. And I like whatever it was, two, three months into lockdown, searching through Disney Plus, trying to keep my mind occupied, was like, I never saw the Guy Ritchie Aladdin theaters. I just had so little interest. I might as well watch it now. And I made it an hour in

and after I got to like the friend like me number maybe I made it to Prince Ali I was just like I'd really rather be watching the animated one and I just turned it off and I watched the animated one I watched the animated one twice in lockdown that's a thing you have at home

that you couldn't have in the theater this is the insidiousness of the experience at the theater i'll sit down i'll eat my popcorn yeah i'll watch will smith do his best in this shitty movie yo and it's let me tell you what's so frustrating about that is that when you watch i saw the live action one um sure in theater uh me my girlfriend her brother went and like i'm hype i mean because it's a latin no matter what and i'm like you know what they're gonna do it's not gonna be in my mind like it's not gonna be the exact same thing will smith is gonna do a hip-hop version of a friend

like me yeah right so that's what i'm thinking we get to it in the in the theater the scene and it's just the old one but then when the credits roll the music starts playing a hip-hop version yeah of a friend like me and i was like why did you not play the dj cali guts didn't have the guts they didn't want to mess with it too much i feel like that's the thing with all these remakes they're like i have we can't fuck with it too much it's such a good song that's the only way to make it work like to me it's like we keep taking these liberties. And it's like, I do love the stuff that they added with Jasmine. But then I was like, we didn't update Aladdin in any way. Like he, matter of fact, had less screen time than he did in the other one.

I'm like, what? And when you watch the original animated one, to me, what was so cool about it is that, you know, I'm from D.C. I'm from the area of Southeast D.C. It's not like at the time it wasn't like the best area. So seeing a Latin and this kid who was broke, a street rat, get everything. He wasn't super cool, but he kind of was cool. Had a crush on a girl out of his league. Had one friend who was weird.

He has one move. What one move do you trust me he says do you trust me and he rolls an apple down his arm those are those are his entire romantic yes that's it baby do you trust me and it's like and it's hard because to see that for me like that was the most important part it wasn't the i guess the racial component which i think that probably was more important for other people but it was like the fact that this kid had nothing and he ends as a prince like whenever does the dude get that stuff you know like it's usually like the young girl gets to become a prince but i'm like the guy can fantasize about a thing out of his league and he got it he beat the bad guy you know what i I mean? With his wits. Right. I mean, you always talk about like charting in movies with, you know, POC leads, like

who ends up defeating the big bad and how often in movies where you have a black lead, the white sidekick ends up being the one who gets the final shot in, you know? There's that weird sort of like, and Aladdin really is in control of this narrative the entire time. And it is interesting, I mean, the way you put it like that, you're like, on a sociological character level,

this character is kind of a breakthrough for movies at that point. But also, they treat the Middle East like it's Oz. Like it's just, I think when you're a kid, if you're not from this background, you don't even register the idea that what they're doing could be insensitive

or offensive because it's just like, it's a land of fictional land. Right. Right. It feels so disconnected from reality, which of course, if that's your heritage, you go,

how dare they take my actual land and turn it into a fucking cartoon. This is so disconnected. It's Agrabah. Right, right. There's a moment in the remake, and we have to stop talking about the remake. Yes, we're getting out of the way. That where they have like a map, like an actual map, and you see like Agrabah, like with borders and stuff. And I'm like, I don't think we can do this.

I don't think we need to get into what the supposed geography is here let's just let's just not worry about this please listen I'm not gonna lie to you I'm when we like when we finally move over to the animated one I just want to put the disclaimer I do know all the problems with it culturally but when I talk about this movie it has such a warm place in my heart. So people, listeners, don't kill me. I know the problems, but I just love the movie because I'm going to gush over it.

I think this is very popular film with people. I'm going to gush over it. I got to. Yeah, it's the weirdness of this era of Disney movies in particular too, where it's just like, we did this gushy episode about Little Mermaid and we acknowledge the fact that the movie is literally about the lead character being mute and having no agency for the second half and a guy falling madly head over heels in love with a teenager, despite her not having any personality or ability to speak. Beauty and the Beast is Stockholm Syndrome. Like she falls in love

with a big animal dude right no and a big part of that is that like these stories originally you know as as fables were meant to be like moral tales to teach children lessons about difficult things and then it's of course the thing that everyone knows where disney comes in and they're like sand that edge a little bit put this in the middle turn that into a joke add this song baby right right but you can't really get the inherent qualities of what the tale's supposed to be about out of it i mean i have to ask you guys this right now to take us to the animated one do i have a favorite song from from the animated i have I have a favorite song from the animated I have one and I think it's controversial I feel like we disagree

on this right David we briefly touched on this well look I like all the songs except for a whole new world which I think is a stinker and kind of the beginning of the bad ballad wow the Grammy winning.

It's a Mencken Rice rather than a Mencken Ashman. And it kind of shows, in my opinion. But no, my favorite is Prince Ali. That is my slightly, I suppose, controversial favorite. Are you with me? That is my second favorite. My first favorite. That's my second. It's up there. Nobody's up there.

My first one is Jump Ahead, the very first song Aladdin does. I love that song. it's so funny jump ahead of the bread line it's so good it's okay it's also just such a good musical song it's like any anyone can say that opening line and feel like you're on broadway you know what i'm saying yes one jump yes you just have to get the right energy one jump it does feel like something you would you would audition with and also he stole bread he stole bread but he gives it to the kids i mean this is that's the other thing with this movie is this is one of those movies where it's just like this is like how to structure a screenplay so that the audience is entertained the entire time

like every time it makes the perfect screenwriting book decision without feeling totally mechanical and lifeless, but it is just like so... It's the exact algorithm for keeping an audience on a character's side for 90 minutes. But Ben, I do want to bring you in because this is right. Do you... I assume you

like Aladdin. We were talking about it off mic. You enjoyed watching the film. It reminded you of your youth. Yes. Yeah, absolutely. But, but I was scared. So he's a street rat.

He's a scum bum. Kind of, you know, he's pulling scams. He's got a pet monkey. Who's his best friend, which feels like a real Ben. That feels like something you would like,

but is he too clean cut for you? You know, too too a little too chiseled like i don't know no come on package man he's the full pack he lives on the street he lives in no really he lives in an abandoned building which like as a kid i was like you can do that a squatter right yeah yeah and he's like i have a view of the palace. What a great view. Every home has a view of the palace. It is the entire sky. But carry on. But no, I love this movie.

I think Aladdin is the everyman, but is charismatic, but not, I don't know. I usually hate princes and clean cut good guys, but he's gritty. Well, it is that funny thing like how consciously they not just physically modeled it after Tom Cruise but that was sort of the studio note is like Aladdin

should be like a Tom Cruise character but they actually kind of found a way to improve upon the Tom Cruise character by making him a lot more vulnerable because at this point in Tom Cruise he's still in the just all I do is win I'm invincible I'm like a fucking shark I smile every

five seconds I think you're right he was I think the cool thing about Aladdin is that Aladdin had a lot to overcome but also he has so many moments of getting like knocked down and embarrassed like when he literally gets kicked in the mud you know he takes L's that's the thing so many L's and you understand When he literally gets kicked in the mud. He takes L's.

That's the thing. So many L's. And you understand why he laughs. One side, though, is like, I used to live in New York and I remember being in a park. I physically ran into the cast of Aladdin. They were in Bryant Park, like, warming up with some crazy

shit. The Broadway cast, you're saying? The Broadway cast. Yeah, not the voice actors from Aladdin 20 years later all just. Well I saw it when the Jafar from the animated movie he played Jafar on Broadway. So my roommates at the time

surprised me for my birthday took me to see the Broadway version and he was there. So it was the real Jafar. Yeah that rolls. His name Jonathan Freeman yeah i didn't know jafar was white until i saw it i was like oh man interesting they got this dude and they're like he's the real jafar i was like say what i think literally every cast member right i mean it's all every every single one except for the singing voice of jasmine yeah yeah yeah yeah of course,

was Jasmine's singer. Absolute fucking legend. But even like the smaller roles, there's that weird factor to this movie where you watch it and now every single part in an animated film

is some known face actor. And this, outside of the five main leads, it's like, oh, that's Frank Welker. That's Rob Paulson. Like you recognize all the voices of the small under five characters as being like that guy was on ninja turtles he was on

ducktales like they're all 90s cartoon voices you recognize and they're all playing like four characters i mean i love that like i i you know every time you get like a voiceover audition it's like oh man it's so fun to do but then i think about man are they just going to get like a voiceover audition, it's like, oh man, it's so fun to do. But then I think about, man, are they just going to get like a famous person and then just add auto tune to their voice to make it sound different? Every time I watched Pets, Pets? I think it's Pets. Secret Life of Pets?

Secret Life of Pets. Yeah. With my little cousin and like the little chipmunk or something on there is like Kevin Hart and his voice is pitched up. Yeah. And I'm like, again, I love Kevin Hart hart but i'm like you could have got randy from down the street who does a really cool yeah squeaky voice yeah you know what i mean

because when you're a kid you just wanted to be fun well i mean i i think i've i've shared this anecdote on the show before but like years ago ben helped me with an audition for Scoob, the Scooby-Doo reboot that ended up coming out last year. Because at that point in time, they were like, we really want a new direction. We want a new Scoob. We want like a young comedian to be Scoob. And so they were like, don't feel like you have to sound like the cartoon. Really make it your own. And then you look at sides that go like rut-row raggy wearing rubble.

And you're like, there's no other way to say this. That sounds right. You just either do a Scooby impression or you fail. And if I'm going to do a Scooby impression, it won't be as good as the guy who plays Scooby. Just hire him. And then unsurprisingly, they hired four new stars to play the meddling kids and brought back Frank

Welker to play Scooby. Cause they want fucking Scooby to sound like Scooby. And of course, Frank Welker is in Aladdin. Yes. As a boo. Yes, he's a boo. Frank Welker a king of voice acting but like his real competitive advantage is he can do

fucking any animal. So he does a lot of full dialogue talking characters. He was like fucking Megatron on Transformers what i don't know that he's got insane range he's been fred on scooby-doo since the beginning of scooby do since the 60s yes for 50 plus years so he's fred and scoob well yes and then he took over scoob like in the last 15 20 years uh so in this movie i want to i wanted to give him full credit he is abu he is raja and he is the Cave of Wonders.

This is what I'm saying. Oh, he's the Cave of Wonders? So like, A, outside of the five main actors, they're just bringing in these pros and going like, pick four roles, which ones can you do? But Frank Welker's this guy where anytime there's an animal, they're like, just get Welker. He can do, if a fucking panther has two growls,

Welker knows how to make that different than a lion wow i'm looking him up right wow and garfield wow man yeah he's garfield now yeah is he garfield now huh he's garfield now aladdin the film aladdin disney's aladdin directed by Ron Clements, John Musker, written by them and Ted Elliott and Terry Rocio who are like the kings of 90s screenwriting. This is their launching pad. They had one movie before this. Little Monsters.

The Fred Savage movie. But this launches them. After this. They're the problem. I mean, I love a lot of their scripts, but they wrote Shrek. They're they're the problem i mean i i love a lot of their scripts yeah but you know they wrote shrek like you know they're they're kind of the thing they wrote we're complaining about they did yeah but it's the interesting thing where like shrek had been development for so long and it's so clear that katzenberg like brought them in and was like can you turn shrek

into aladdin like can you aladdinize shrek also, it's like, this is one of the first times I feel like Disney brings in outside live action screenwriters in a major way. They become Katzenberg's guys, right? Because they worked on

so many DreamWorks movies. But they go back and forth because they also do the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. They do. They did Mask of Zorro. Yeah, they do Mask of Zorro.

Right. But they did Small Soldiers they did The Road to El Dorado which is another movie where they're like can we Aladdin this up

can it be about like bros having adventures yeah they did what else did they do I think they did passes on

National Treasure right but maybe they're not I mean they've done passes on 8,000 things right they're resilient

right yeah one of them got super weird and i can't remember which one it is it's terry racio became an anti-vaxxer that's what it is like never meet your heroes man like it is a thing where i am scared to tell people this is a this is a real bit when i bring up things from my childhood i am legit scared to talk about it because i don't know if i don't want some no if something happened yeah yeah like i don't know if the movie meant something or like like you know i am a big fan of all that and the guy who created all of those shows apparently was like really mean and got fired in a really bad way i'm like i don't know how to talk about shit. Yeah. Oh, God.

There's nothing that isn't loaded. But now, you know, James III's gone in and cleaned up all that. Everything's fine in the kingdom of all that. I mean, listen, he did. He did. I watched, I've seen every episode of all that because of James III. I saw it when I was younger,

but I've seen them all as an adult. And when you're watching that as an adult,'re like oof man some things again jokes in the last five years are different than they are now I just want to remember all that fondly I can't do that yes it is hard

but this movie I remember when I think when Aladdin the original one came out I know you don't like it I remember a whole new world because I remember when Aladdin, the original one, came out. I know you don't like it. I remember A Whole New World because I remember... It's okay. I just... No, it's not my favorite song from the movie at all.

But it is that song. It was the first time I knew what a movie soundtrack was. And I think at the time, Disney would release... Not the movie that came in that little plastic opening case but they released Disney sing-along VHS's. This is the second episode we've talked about this in. It's such an important piece of this era.

It is and I could never find the Aladdin sing-along. Never, never could find it. And I was like, I want to sing because I remember this guy in my school could sing and I And I was like, I want to sing because I remember this guy in my school could sing and I thought I could sing and he sang

A Whole New World to one of the girls in the class and I was like, I can learn it and I never could find it to learn it. Craig. Craig, man. That's another part of this, David, is I agree with you like A Whole New World's maybe my least favorite song in this movie and my least

favorite of the major ballads of this era, but a part of it too is just like, I just feel like this song was done to death. I mean, we'll get to it. It became the middle school prom song. As we talk about in the movie, but like when we got when I actually got to watching the sequence when it happened in the film, it's

hard to process the song earnestly now. I don't disagree that i think can you feel the love tonight is a worse ballad i don't think this is the worst ballad um but this kind of just originates that kind of treacly mid-movie ballad thing and whatever and also that always became the oscar winner which was weird right right a it was annoying that they always gave the oscar to that one and. Right, right. A, it was annoying that they always gave the Oscar to that one. And B, there's also the thing where it's like,

this song feels like it's half designed to play in a musical, half designed to be an adult contemporary cover that can chart on Billboard. Like there's that thing. Yes, it sounds like that. I remember actually liking it

in the Guy Ritchie one, which is a weird opinion, but, or maybe it is. What? I remember, I remember kind of being like, oh, this is nice. But anyway. Prince Ali is a great song. Especially when he goes, let me see the monkeys. Let's see the monkeys.

Prince Ali is, Prince Ali, the bass is absolutely out of control. It's the coolest song. I mean, my brother Joey worked as an usher at the Broadway Aladdin. Oh oh wow which uh has a famously large amount of costume changes i've never seen it um and i remember him saying like i remember when the the trailer for the remake dropped the for the teaser or whatever and it

was just the the be my guest the i'm not being my guest jesus a friend like me the right like that was like the whole, it was just like shots of the lamp. You barely saw anything else. Yeah. And Joey was like, it's like that when you're at the theater, that's enough.

Like people get so excited just by that, like bare bit of score. Like it's so Pavlovian for everybody. Well, do you remember the, there was the beauty and the beast teaser that was just the camera circling the rose in the case. And it was just the camera circling the rose in the case? Yeah. And it was just the whatever score.

It was like the teacup or something that you end up seeing, but you just hear be our guest, right? Right, right. But they just played like the strains of one of this. I don't remember if it was the da-na-na-na-na or it was the beginning part or whatever. But it was like they put it up. It was 15 seconds long. the beginning part or whatever but it was like they put it up it was 15 seconds long it just had a shot of a cgi rose and the piano keys and it was in 24 hours the most viewed trailer of all time people were just like put it direct let me freebase this inject it under my armpits i need

this it's that joy man like again like even thinking of Aladdin, like, because I am one of those people, all I need to hear is, that's all I need. Like, when I watched the animated one, and I watched it again for this podcast, and the moment, the moment the camera, like,

once the guy goes away, the camera, like, goes into Agrabah, I'm in it. Like, I am full-fledged in it. And you see Aladdin running. Guys, come on. Come on. That dude is trying to kill him. Do we remember that? That guard is trying

to kill this boy. Oh, yeah. They've all got swords. Am I correct, David, in thinking, in remembering it's Ashman who pitches Aladdin first this is what I wanted to get into so Howard Ashman who I think had he lived would

have become like essentially a honcho at Disney right he would have just been the creative lead because it's so obvious after these first couple hits it's just like yeah yeah this you know if Katzenberg is your producer ashman will be the creative officer right like because he was full of ideas yeah and and had

such an active hand in the shaping of the story on all these movies and the characterization and just to give the quickest sort of brief for people uh but everyone should watch the howard documentary on disney plus We mentioned it, I think. But Little Mermaid's the first one. Right after he wins the Oscar, he tells Alan Menken, his writing partner, that he has AIDS. He finishes all of Beauty and the Beast. He does about half the work on Aladdin before he passes away.

So that's the thing. The thing is, he's been working on Aladdin pretty much concurrently with the Little Mermaid. Beauty and the Beast is a salvage job that Katzenberg taps them in. He's like, can you fix this entire movie? They bring him in as a surgeon. Right. Right.

Really fast. And they brought the movie to him as the Howard documentary, which is great, sort of explains. He basically went to Katzenberg. He's like, I can't fly. I can't go to California. And he's like, fine, we'll just bring everything to New York. Like, whatever works.

Right, they built a studio in this guy's house as he was, like, in his final months of living. But he got half of this movie done, pretty much. Which is one reason that Beauty and the Beast has all these wonderful Broadway talents, you know, Jerry Orbach and Angela Lansbury and all that. But so, but yeah, Aladdin, as you could like, because, like, in that documentary, you see, like, he he was in like a stage production of aladdin when he was a kid

like it's clearly like just a thing he's always loved it's got that kind of you know there's an old british pantomime of aladdin that's like really popular like that it's like i assume that's what it was like a sort of very camp campy adventure-y story that he wanted to do. And he was pitching this kind of like, you know, Crosby and Hope, right? Like, you know, or whatever, like an old-fashioned musical comedy with like some Thief of Baghdad, right? Like make Genie Cab Calloway. I mean, I think he was really comedy forward.

He pitches it. He does his 40-page treatment. They pass on it. Eisner and Katzenberg say, can you please come in and fix Beauty and the Beast instead? Then Linda Wolverton, who was a Disney story person, is the main credited writer on Beauty and the Beast, among others, looks at that in the pile, throws in a lot of the more kind of classical adventure elements, the Thief of a lot of the more kind of classical adventure elements the thief of baghdad and all that sort of stuff she expands upon it so then musker and

clements are sort of like given the chance to pick what their next project is from a large pile right they have three choices do you know what the three choices were uh i do not tell me what they were aladdin uh-huh swan lake which i guess they've never done but has always been mauled new line essentially did it they did that swan princess movie yeah right right and and then a movie called king of the jungle which is the original title of the lion king and like you know it also been cooking yeah and they pick aladdin at that point, Ashman has died, like essentially, like,

or is about to die and has written, I think, well, he wrote a lot of songs because a lot of the songs that he wrote are not in the movie, like Proud of Your Boy

and Humiliate the Boy, all these weird other songs. All these songs that started violent all right movements. Yes. Well, not his fault,

not his fault, but insane, insane that that's the origin of this shit. How quick they forget is another one. Like there's one called High Adventure. There's all these demos that he has. The ones he wrote that survived are Arabian Nights, Friend Like Me, Prince Ali. You know, that's it.

I'm pretty sure. Because one jump ahead is Tim Rice, as is A Whole New World. Yeah. That's right. Yes. So, Aladdin. Right. But it's just sort of crazy to think about it. It's this sort of like tail end project from this passion project from this dead genius who like just tragically passed. It's kind of like his AI, except if Kubrick had only made two movies when he was alive right

i had no idea of this any of this and the bananas thing is that musker and clements write a screenplay or whatever they they give it to katzenberg in this is the timing april 1991 this film comes out november 1992 yeah insane and katzenberg is like i hate this i think this is stupid rewrite the rewrite the whole thing and his most famous line is 86 the mother the mother's a zero uh there because the aladdin's mom was a major part i think of the original story that's what proud of your boy is her song yeah and like and he was like get the get the mom the fuck out of here who cares that was this whole thing so he had a mom and the mom had the song about how proud she was of him. And they cut the song because the mom was like an unneeded story element.

And it has been reclaimed. This is the only energy we're going to spend talking about this. But it has been reclaimed by the Proud Boys because they view it as they cut that song out of the movie because Disney doesn't want boys to feel proud of themselves. Wait, wait, wait. Is this real? The name Proud Boys comes from a song deleted from Aladdin. That is how bananas our world is. I swear

to you. I believe, Griffin, it is in the Broadway production, right? They did bring it back, I think, for... I think that's how they became aware of it and then got angry and said like, I swear to for... I think that's how they became aware of it and then got angry. I think that's correct. And said like, what? Are you... I swear to you...

These people walking around with guns? Yes, they're... They shoot from a Disney animated film? Right, they're like Disney neutered Aladdin because they don't want boys to be proud of themselves. Wow. So to swerve away from this conversation... Yeah, we'll never talk about it ever again.

Oh my God. So Ted Elliott and Terry Rocio come in. We live in a simulation. They kick the mom out. to swerve away from this conversation we'll never talk about it ever again oh my god so ted elliott and terry rocio come we live in a simulation they kick the mom out they give princess jasmine a little more to do i think she was a little more static as a character before maybe you know they i think they bring in like she wants to escape the palace she right they give her more and i just i just want to recircle i i know we've already established this but at this point in time like the people who work in animated films are animated films people right like the screenwriters of animated films tend to be people who have animation backgrounds it's voice actors it's all that sort of shit

the idea of hiring in like two hot shot young live action screenwriters to come in and fix a screenplay is also kind of unprecedented at this point well this is my favorite edit that they make iago is like a class is a british butler type that's how he's written and they're like we just saw beverly hills cop 2 gilbert goffreid's really funny in that let's just make iago gilbert goffreid what do you think like we'll just have iago to have that energy uh like that's the kind of shit there that they're that like and that kind of zazzing is eventually going to be a problem for animated movies yes i don't think it's a problem here i think iago's the best iago guys he really makes me laugh he's really funny i was so ready for a yago to be a grading element and it is incredible every yago

line still lands it's still funny i'm all ticked i'm first off a yago listen i'm gonna say how deep my latin is goes i used to own return of jafar of course yago gets his own song and it's him leaving is his breakup song with jafar return of the, Jafar is a lot of Iago in my memory. Very Iago heavy. Iago is the lead. It's like this funny character. It's the funny character. It's like, let's just have the story revolve around him trying to prove he's a good guy.

Right. And because they lose Robin Williams. They're like, Gottfried's our comedy quarterback now. He's the guy who's going to rack up points. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You're right. He's going to run the comedy rack up points yeah yeah yeah you're right he's gonna run

the comedy offense right right you're right because i'm thinking about it genie isn't even in it that much you're right right because he didn't want to do it it was like it was dollar store genie they didn't want to make people too aware of the fact they didn't have by the way we're doing return jafar on patreon just so people know look out for that yeah look that's it i had it i hate to be yo he's got some good songs i gotta sing that song on patreon that's a good song oh yeah i hate that i know all these songs but no no but that's the other weird thing i mean like you talk about williams in this movie being like the first major movie star uh you know in an animated film this kind

of way especially with the marketing department being built around it, which is its own little controversy. But beyond that, it's not just that like, oh, they got a major A-list star to be a voice in this movie. It's that like, Genie isn't played by Robin Williams. Genie is Robin Williams.

Like that calculation too of, let's just take Robin Williams' comedic persona and allow him just sort of like the authorship of this part of the movie yeah i mean i mean you know all right go ahead no go ahead you got no you guys have the cool facts i feel like i'm well so obviously right i think it's widely known right robin williams he did the project for scale and he was like please don't lean on my image and don't market the

character right like this was the deal he tried to cut his thing was he had already agreed to do And he was like, please don't lean on my image and don't market the character. Right. Like this was the deal he tried to cut. His thing was he had already agreed to do Fern Gully and Fern Gully was like a charitable donation of like, I care about environmental issues. I'll be your wacky bat. And Fern Gully was going to come out at the same time. And he also had toys that was going to come out the same time. Toys is the one that was coming out at the same time that he was worried about it right yeah about it overwhelming toys which i guess it probably did i mean toys was a

bomb he wanted fern gully to have some specialness about it being like a big first robin williams voice and toys was going to be in theaters at the same time he said i'll do it but like there were all these contingencies of like you can't put my name above the poster you can't put it in the trailers the genie character can't be bigger than any other characters in the marketing you can't make merchandise they did all of it they told him they did it all they said yes they looked him in the eyes they shook his hand and then just broke every single promise wow the other thing is and i i'm sure this is how you know like i'm sure someone looked him in the eyes but disney is this big you know company where like there's no way the marketing department is like oh oh you promised him yeah sure we won't

have the genie toys yeah well we'll cut those but also the poster is literally like framed by genie like holding the poster it's like him going like welcome to my movie and he was like the character cannot be more than five percent of the poster and they like made a border of this guy dude he was that movie to me yeah of course but do you guys know about how they tried to appease him how they tried to apologize no no they gave him they sent him a picasso painting worth millions of dollars like to be like we're so sorry how about

how about this masterpiece you just said we'll flip you a Picasso and here's the problem here's the problem he already owned one he had the same one already no

it was a a self-portrait of the artist as Vincent van Gogh I which I'm reading this verbatim. I don't, you know, but just imagine that, whatever that is. And it clashed with his decor, so he wasn't into it.

So it did not repair the relationship. Oh, my goodness. Also, why not just give him the money? I know. Yeah, why not just give him like a million bucks? Yeah, give me, hey, this movie made 200-something, 300-something million dollars. Slip me five million real quick.

But that's the wild thing, Gerard. Not only is he like, fuck you, I'm not doing Return of Jafar. I'm not doing any live-action Disney movies either. Like, get ready to not have Disney films in your portfolio. He gets paid like 50 times more for the third direct-to-video movie for, what is it, Aladdin and the Prince of Thieves? The King of Thieves. The King of Thieves, yeah. They get him back for King of Thieves. They record all of the dialogue with Dan Castellaneta, voice of Homer Simpson, who played Genie in Return of Jafar.

Then they brokered a deal with Williams at the last second. He redubbed all the dialogue when animation was done, and they paid him like $5 and he got like what I mean he got like 25,000 for Aladdin it's 75,000 the other thing was Katzenberg was gone yeah Katzenberg had left right Katzenberg was gone that's why they agreed to do because he blamed Katzenberg directly right and Joe Roth was in charge and he organized some sort of public groveling to Williams to, you know, make amends. They made him a Disney legend. They gave him millions of dollars to direct a video movie. Look, they gave him his own cave of wonders. Like they've got a lot of stuff they can do. Are y'all telling me that Aladdin, Genie in Aladdin, Robin Williams was paid $75,000?

Yeah. And he was like, look look i'll do it for scale if you don't blank blank blank blank blank and they were like cool guess what everybody we got robin williams for 75 000 slap it on the poster dude that is evil that i didn't know it was that i thought you know half the time like actors complain about stuff it's like oh i got paid him three million but i should have got six. I didn't realize he, wow. And that movie made almost half a billion dollars. Yeah, and this is like Rob Williams, who's already been a star for like 15 years at this point.

Wow, that is, that is. You guys, stop ruining this movie for draw. Come on. Oh my goodness. Thank you. Thank you, Ben. No, it's fine. Every movie is, you know,

there's no ethical consumption of the capitalism. They're all bad. Oh my God. That is, that No, it's fine. Every movie is, you know, there's no ethical consumption of the capitalism there. They're all bad. Oh, my God. That is evil. Like, that is... It's probably also, given the tight turnaround that we're talking about, given the fact that they kind of junked the script,

you know, with like a little more than a year out, I'm sure it was one of those classic hothouse, you know, they made it under really compressed conditions it doesn't look like it it's a gorgeous movie I love the character animation in Aladdin so much I love the whole it's got this sort of Al Hirschfeld right the big rounded faces

and you know the geometric like everyone's the sort of like a weird shape like the Sultan's this little squat thing and Jafar is this big tall skinny thing like i love that like i love how it looks it's a great movie it's fucking hilarious glenn keen who we've already talked about who's like the secret all-star pitcher within disney animation at this point who they never let direct a film but he's still the supervising animator on this one and then eric

goldberg is the main animator on Genie. Because at this point in time, Pixar sort of changes the workflow and Brad Bird changes the workflow with Iron Giant. But at this point in time, animation is mostly done by like a team is assigned to each character and you have a team working on performance and then the supervising anime makes sure the things all kind of fit together. So Goldberg's in charge of Genie, which I think is all kind of fit together so goldberg's in charge of genie which i think is just kind of like a bravura revolutionary piece of work in character animation absolutely but i love it all like i love jafar how still he is right like you know like his weird physicality like i all of the character animation in this is so good do y'all know why jafar's face and neck are two different colors that's one thing i always never could figure out was like right now i'm googling i'm googling i

think he's wearing something he's got like yeah he's because he's got the yellow you're like a sort of golden colored yeah but it's it's it's part of his like you know robes it's a high color i guess it must be yeah yes because he's supposed to look like super right. Like everything about him is tight. Cause he's sort of like holding all this, you know, uh, nastiness in.

He's real snake. Like he's real snake. Like he's like slender. Like his face has a, like it comes to a point a little bit. His whole characterization was originally much more like a irritable kind of fussy guy. And they were like,

no, he should be scary. We need to make him a little more menacing. This movie does do the Star Wars thing. Which one is it? Empire Strikes Back.

Well, all of a sudden, the bad guy just puts the female lead into a hot outfit for no reason. At the end, Jafar just puts her in a red outfit. When I was talking about this movie with some of my friends, multiple women in my life said that this

movie was a huge movie for them in terms of just thinking about things on a different level. Formative is the word that multiple people in texts use about the Jafar puts Jasmine in an hourglass sequence.

Had not thought about it in this way before, but I just want to shout all of that out. I just want to mention it. It is a little less staid than a lot of the Disney human films are.

They're usually a little more prim and proper. And this one has a little saucier energy. And also Aladdin showing chest the entire time. He is. Oh yeah. Parachute pants hanging loose. They're hanging loose.

At one point, that same scene, Jasmine salters over to seduce Jafar. And I'm like, this whole thing is wild. And it also was so funny about the line okay not talking about the old one again but the fact that he went from being shirtless to wearing a hoodie

in the live action I was like why did he put this boy in a hoodie did he now I'm looking that up he has like it's a hood it's a hoodie it's a hoodie he has a whole thing right I'm seeing it I guess he looks fine look they're two hotties those guys the

the two stars of the remake they're they're they're they're great looking people they have the worst kiss though remember i complained about the kiss it's a bad kiss their big kiss is terrible david flipped out david flipped out about the kiss to a degree that like 10 different critics their first response tweets after the screening were david lost his mind at how bad the kiss was like they weren't even reviewing the movie they were reviewing how visible your disgust was at the kiss oh my goodness did you make it did you guys go to a screening and then david did you make a noise in the screening i think i i think, I like loudly exclaimed and I, and I did like, that's it. Like, because the kiss in this movie, when the, uh, the carpet kind of gives a little nudge is great.

It's a great kiss. A good lesson to boys, because I think so many times, like, you know, if you're not the biggest guy or the most handsome guy, you always try to lie or peacock or do something to like get the girl, if you will. Whereas like the whole message of this is to not lie and just be yourself. Like so many times people tell him, hey man, be yourself. You know, even when Jasmine catches him like kind of towards the end, she gives him the chance to tell the truth and he still can't do it because I think there's a thing with, at least, I don't know, at least when I was growing up with boys, it's like we weren't taught to emote in a certain kind of way. It's like, you don't cry,

you don't show weakness, you don't do these things. And Aladdin was a character who, because of the streets, was probably taught the same thing and had to learn as the movie went on, hey, it's okay to just be a street rat, man. That's just not where you want to end up. You don't have to lie about who you are. Just try to attain something else stuff like i was like that's what i took from this movie it's like atlanta went on a journey he learned something and he overcame it himself like his agency was always there throughout the whole movie which i think is cool to have for a title character i also think yeah i mean like two really smart calculations they make are one he's innately got a lot of compassion empathy from the beginning it's like it's it's so it it's so rote on its face but it is truly so effective to have that whole uh one jump sequence have him steal this bread outrun the guards and then see two kids who have

it worse than he does and give him the bread right it's just one of those things it's a great intro you're just like on this guy's side for the rest of the movie. It's so hard to lose faith in this dude after that point. And then Abu does too. So then you're also like, all right, well, this fucking monkey rules too.

But I do stand that Abu is like, and then he's like, all right. Abu's more begrudgingly giving up the bread for the right thing who's like man i i personally am not a huge fan of comedies that are predicated on a lie or a misunderstanding about identities they tend to just stress me out they just go on too far and then it gets to a point where people overreact or they underreact believe you said you were a baker like right as sort of how dare you right just stops making sense and then things are resolved way too neatly.

A thing I like that I think this film does well is that Aladdin has the guilt and the doubts about what he's doing the entire time. It is not a movie where he's just like, I've nailed it. I've created a fake persona. Everyone loves it. And then he gets caught and has to apologize. There is that constant reckoning with like him saying to genie like but does she actually like me yeah i know this isn't real this is a fiat currency and that you're watching it well it is that you're watching it

and you're like well she doesn't like that he's a prince right in fact that's the least interesting thing about him she likes that he's aladdin because he's uh you know he's a prince right in fact that's the least interesting thing about him she likes that he's aladdin because he's uh you know he's a cute sexy guy like and his whole life is different yeah right and that's the thing he's like well my only my only ticket to success is you know is pretending to switch classes is to be an aristocrat that's that's the scariest part to me when it comes to dating period it's like you want to make sure it works, but like showing who you really are is like, this is person like that? Or is this person like the person on the first date or second date?

You know, like, you know, if they know I like watching TV on the couch all day, every day, do they like that? That's the thing. I'm just like, I am very exciting on a first date and very boring in day-to-day life. Yes. Bruh. You know, it's like on a first date, I give them my Letterman 5. You know, I'm doing my best material.

You're funny, you're charming. Yeah. When you're home, I tell people all the time, when I'm home, I don't like talking. No, I don't want to do shit. No, I'm like, the cut-off switch is when I got to do the song and dance for people but when I'm at home, man, I don't want to do shit. No, I'm like, the cut on switch is when I got to do the song and dance for people. But when I'm at home, man, I just don't want to do anything. And I think that's...

Man, we're making Aladdin sound like the deepest movie of all time. But it's got some shit in it. It's got some shit. I think it does. Then Genie. We even talk about what Genie's going through. Genie has been trapped living his life for thousands of years by just serving other people and we when that man you know when that man's little gold bracelets

pop off at the end i like jit happiest ever felt literally the happiest here's a question that i you know and i believe I'm right about this. In the straight-to-video sequels to Aladdin, the genie has the gold bands on his hands, right? He does. He's animated with them. When I was a kid, I remember that bothering the shit out of me.

I was like, are those not the symbols of his bondage? It's the RoboCop 2 problem. It's the RoboCop 2 problem. Don't put the helmet back on him. That's depressing. And they're like, no, but the helmet has to be on. That's the iconography. Right.

He looks a little naked without him. I get it. I get that they sort of complete the look, but I remember it really bugging me when I would see the ads for it. Hard agree. So I do know, I watched some video on the sequel, and apparently because Aladdin did so well, they rushed a sequel. And so some of the animation, when you look at it, is so rushed that like certain pieces don't match.

And like, I think, in fact, with the Genies bands, it comes in and out every now and then. It's like it's not consistent because Jafar has the black ones on and Jafar is trying to get his off the whole time. It's sloppy. I mean, we're starting to talk about the meat of the story of the film, but I want to talk about the one other main ingredient in the stew because we're talking about, like a lot of major blockbuster films,

films that are big, important cultural artifacts, they come from a weird combination of places, right? So we're talking about the ashman of it and the status of disney and using williams and all this shit the other part of this is the thief and the cobbler which is richard williams is this legendary something you know more about than me right yeah and i mean there are far better more comprehensive uh uh tellings of this story you can read you, you can listen to, you can watch on YouTube. But Richard Williams is like animation legend. I think he died just this year, late last

year. I say this year. He died in 2020 or 2019. But he was a Canadian animation legend, worked in England for a lot of his career, and was sort of at the vanguard of really trying to push beyond the technical limitations of what people thought could be done in hand-drawn animation. And he did a lot of small pieces, opening credit sequences, ads, this and that. But his passion project for 30 years was trying to make this movie The Thief and the Cobbler, which was his big sort of Arabian fairy tale of- Oh, no! Yes. A kind of street rat, a man from humble beginnings who falls in love with the

princess. The evil vizier of the kingdom tries to prevent them from getting together. And the childlike Sultan father is easily distracted. It's a very similar setup, but it's a largely silent film. And part of his whole design was to have almost no dialogue, to not really have songs. And it's mostly a visual experience. And it was really trying to push just how much you could do in animation. So it was mostly self-funded and it took like 30 years because he'd run out of money and then he'd take another job and he'd be like, I'll direct your Raggedy Ann and Andy movie. I'll do the Ziggy Christmas special. I'll do this. And then I'll take that money and hire 10 animators and work on it until the money runs out. And so it kept on piecemeal getting closer and closer and closer. His big thing is he does the animation for Roger Rabbit.

He's the animation director for Roger Rabbit, which gets him a lot of money, a lot of cash. So in the late 80s, he's finally sort of got the capital to finish it off. He shows a semi completed version of the film to Warner Brothers. They agree for distribution reasons. They agree to distribute it. They give him distribution reasons. They agree to distribute it. They give him the completion funds. He thinks he's finally going to get to the finish line. What had happened because the film had been going on for so long and so many different animators were working freelance for him, but full time at different studios. There's questions. I believe Ashman brought Aladdin to Disney of his own accord for independent reasons. Years prior.

Right. Oh, oh no but a lot of the designs are incredibly it's similar it's more the look right there's certain mirroring in in the look of things there's no genie in the thief in the cup like there's a lot the vizier character who is jafar is blue he looks like half like genie half like jafar there are a lot of parallels and so to some degree i think it There are a lot of parallels. And so, to some degree, I think it was just a lot of the guys who were working at Disney full-time had worked part-time on this movie over the decades. Part of it is Katzenberg was a very competitive guy. He knew that Warner Brothers had now acquired this movie. He didn't like the

idea of other studios having animated films. So, they really tried to beat them to the punch, which is another reason I think this film got made so quickly. Because they wanted to get out first. And what happened was Warner Brothers said, we can't release this. Now this looks like warmed over seconds. And they let go of the film before it was ever finished. Some weird British company bought it. It went into fucking tax issues.

Some other guy finished the rest of it. Harvey Weinstein bought it. Added celebrity voices added songs the version that came out it sucks ass uh this looks scary he ultimately crazy there have been fan cuts that mostly reconstructed it and he right before he died put together a version that's a pretty good approximation of what he was trying to do um it's a very interesting film but it's aladdin's legacy is very much tied into that movie. The only thing I will say is that I don't think Warner Brothers cut it exclusively because they were apparently shown it in the early 92, well before Aladdin had come out, and hated it. They were just like, this is never going to work commercially.

It's an esoteric movie. I mean, yes. Exactly. And so I think they freaked out a little independently of Aladdin because it's a it's a weird movie. It's a it's it's it's a classic lost masterpiece. Right. I mean, I know it's like a magnificent Ambersons kind of thing. And when when Miramax did release it in the 90s, they called it Arabian Night. That was that was a Harvey Weinstein. Let me just make some money.

Right. But I mean But it was like fully Let's trick people into thinking this is Aladdin Yeah This movie looks scary That is all true It looks amazing Anytime you watch any clip of it, you're like This is just, there's like all this stuff

Going on, this weird like Bowsby Berkeley stuff with bodies It's so cool And his thing was essentially like Let's just do zero cheats stuff going on this weird like buzzly buzzbee berkeley stuff with bodies and it's so cool and his thing was essentially like let's just do zero cheats let's do none of the cheats that usually happen in animation have the most intricate patterns and people flipping 8 000 objects in real time it's it's a technical masterpiece yeah it's it's so cool but al Aladdin though I want to point out we like love

one jump ahead love the opening of Aladdin but before that you have the peddler first you have that whole sequence and then you have the cave of wonders sequence like it is a weirdly like sort of methodical start for a movie that's 90 minutes long much like

these other animated classics that pack everything in yeah and and gets through a ton of plot really fast like once it gets going but the opening is kind of slow right genie doesn't enter until over 30 minutes in friend like me happens at like 40 minutes in and aladdin doesn't come in until like 12 minutes you have an opening song that is done by an unseen narrator over credits. Then you have a guy who is not factor into the rest of the film, set up the stakes for you.

Yep, yep. Even with that though, the movie doesn't feel too long, doesn't feel too short. And like when Aladdin comes in, it feels like, it feels set up. Like by this point,

we've heard the Pella talk about the story of the lamp a little bit. Then we cut to the Cave of Wonders. We see the thief die. The movie opens with this dude just dying. This is him dying. And then Jafar and Yako have this little piece of dialogue about

finding the diamond in the rough, right? And it's like we know who... It sets him up perfectly before he shows up so like no matter what that opening scene that we see aladdin in is we know he's pure of heart so when we see him running and all that kind of crazy stuff we know he had this yeah he had no reason like he he was starving he would have died you know it's true it's kind of clever the way the movie sets that up where they don't try to make him like neo they don't argue he's the one but through the framework they make it clear to

you like he has the inherent qualities needed which means you have to trust us this guy is good this guy's cool yeah you're gonna like him yeah and kazim you know kazim i look he i don't know if he deserves to die but he says he had to slit a few throats to like get the thing you know i think kazim might not be on the up but he's not a diamond in the rough i don't really know where jafar found that diamond in the rough man also i mean i mean you're right it takes 12 minutes for a lot of these things to happen but i do think once we once we get into it i think jasmine is established very well i think like she's probably one of the first princesses that, even though

Aladdin does have to save her, she doesn't come off as a damsel at the beginning. At the beginning, she's telling her that I don't want to do this. She's standing up to Jafar. None of these dudes has come into the house. Raja's biting them on the ass. Even when

she does get captured at the end she does play an integral part in helping aladdin save the day oh yeah you know she's great i like jasmine i you're right she wants out and you're with her on that and also it's like yeah she's a bit of a babe in the woods you know when she's um you know taking the you know then when the shopkeep is mad at her but then Aladdin comes in he's like he does some improv and she's right there with him she pretends to be here

she don't trust him the whole time she's giving him those side looks I think that stuff matters she's a little streetwise we don't do that stuff in live action movies now I feel like now we're trying to really address agency and female characters and characters of color. And I feel like those little looks that she would give him, like, I don't trust you yet,

but I'm going to go along with this because I want to. Right, she's looking for some spice. It's classic show don't tell shit, where I think now people are very conscious of wanting to make sure the characters represent well and that they have agency. And the way they do that because they are so nervous about it is have Jasmine look Aladdin in the eyes and go, look, I want you to know I'm my own person. I don't know if I trust you yet, but I'm a strong, independent woman and I'm going to make decisions for myself. And that always rings hollow if it's that laid out. And this movie, part of it is just like you think about I think Incredibles was at the time of its release, the longest American animated film ever made.

And Incredibles is like an hour and forty five minutes or something like was just, animation was so hard to make at this point in time. It's so expensive that it was like, you got to get everything done in 90 minutes with credits and six songs. So they were just really economical about characterization.

And that stuff rings more true, even for whatever failings it has. When you have to come up with the most precise, efficient way to set up a dynamic, it always rings better than having a character explain who they are. Well, I think the major ones,

I think what I always say to people is like, I really want whatever our version of Moana is or a Coco, like, you know, to learn about some type of like black culture i think my my theory is if they do it on african-american culture it will have to deal with america's past which that is not what we do here so um yeah i don't i'm not sure unless it's like some folk tale that maybe i'm not familiar with yet but i don't know we're ever gonna get that you know what i mean? I'm just that.

And let's Frozone. Let's Sam Jackson get his Frozone spinoff. Make the Frozone. A Frozone spinoff? Yeah. I don't know. Then do we ever see his wife? No, she's never been seen.

Like, I kind of find it funny that she always just yells from a distance, but like, if he has a movie, do we ever? No, no. She's like the T-shirts and peanuts. Like, where's my super suit is that right we don't see her in two right we don't it's the yeah at that point they're like let's double down on the joke yeah they designed her and then they just went like it's funnier if we never see

her which is like it's funny but then also think about what you're doing here i know i know it's that part too it's it is funny but is that part two man oh wow they made a whole design for front wow okay yeah they made it yeah yeah oh so we we have this this uh the one jump sequence in addition to being a banger of a song is also just like, I feel like the first time people have pulled off this kind of like, uh, action in a movie like this, you know, on this kind of scale. Action's great.

I like him like hiding behind the pillar and they like throw all the swords at it. Like all that stuff. Right. All the, all that kind of exaggerated, you know, uh,

action adventure stuff is fun. It's like Indiana Jones stuff. it's like indiana jones stuff it's like causing a fact specific comedic story beats of the action of how he's outwitting them in each little turn they fall in crap at one point like they fall in literal crap yes yes he biffs them and then i do love when he goes in and out the in and out of the rooms he ends up with like what all the women is like oh it's just a lady it's like it's so fun because i was thinking in my head um because robin williams played so many parts i was like is this robin williams as the big woman like thank god first off that song is messed up that part it's like we will blame

his parents but he hasn't got them. That's so mean. That's so mean. It's a bit of a salty line, I know, to just sort of squeeze in. His mom was too proud. That's the problem. I guess he's running through your apartment, you know, causing trouble, I guess. I wanted to shout him out. Crazy Hakeem's Discount Fertilizer.

It has its own Wikipedia, Disney Wikipediaipedia page it's well worth reading it's three paragraphs long somehow for a one second sight gag i'm gonna put it in the chat um anyway uh love that and and just like the dynamic of aladdin and jasmine they're going in opposite direction she wants out of the palace he wants in you know they're they're bound up but they also like kind of want completely different things that's a good i like the tension there it's a way better romantic tension than beast and bell god love them but you know there's some problems there and like simba and nala who have no tension at all like i don't know they're just supposed to get married and then they do.

I guess they get married. I guess we don't see them get married. This movie takes the time to build the relationship at all points for Aladdin and Jasmine. It takes you through the honeymoon phase where she's like, alright, and he's putting his best foot forward. When he tries to win over at the end and she kind of doesn't

trust him, he blows it, has to come back. Like we go through every phase of it, you know. In those movies, I think we kind of rush to these points. Like, you know, Little Mermaid, he likes her because she's beautiful. Aladdin ends up liking her not only because she's beautiful, but because of who she is and what she represents. So it's like, it's a difference in the love tonight. So it's like, is it is a difference in the love tonight? Yeah.

One Little Mermaid has like, you know, a whole like 40 minute stretch where the two characters are together. But none of the tension is about the two of them. It's about outside forces. And she can't speak like this is a movie in which every time they reconvene, there's an important shift in their dynamic. You know, there's some evolution of their relationship every time they see each other again. Yeah, that's totally it. Right. Right.

And it's also just another one of those efficient characterization things where it's like, you got a princess or a prince, someone with all the wealth in the world and all the access. The way you make them relatable to an audience is that they don't want it. Yeah. They don't want it. they don't want it they want out they want out and and even

though her life I guess is fine she's got this nice dad who's a bit of a you know dimwit right like he's a sweetie but um you know he's not he's not he has this little micro machines version of the town I always liked that.

When Jafar's like, why don't you play with this thing? I'm like, what is this thing that he has? That's like pointedly a Thief of Baghdad thing. Thief of Baghdad, the Sultan is obsessed with toys. And there's like a 20-minute sequence where they like bring in all these different mechanical toys for him. Oh, I need to watch this. Thief of Baghdad rules draw so good it's like one one of the best special effects movies of all time because you just watch it you're like i don't understand how they did any of this right that's because it was made in what 1940 or whatever yeah

yeah it's yeah thief of baghdad and thief of thief and the cobbler are the two movies that really kind of blend into this film with the Ashman Broadway sensibility and, uh, and hoping Crosby films, obviously. Yeah. Right. And then,

right. That general vibe with the open card, because that's the thing. Once you get, uh, Aladdin, you know, tossed in jail,

picked up by Jafar, put in the cave of wonders meets the G, you know, like then, you know, the joy of the animation of like the fact that you have a carpet and a monkey and a and a phantasmagorical genie and tom cruise that's your like core four heroes yeah you know and like the carpet is this like such a triumph like he's like a square and they

make him so lovable like and he he so much, he's like kind of bashful and he's like, he's got a completely different energy to the other guys. You like the carpet. He's a carpet. Like these are, these are not easy things to do.

Yeah, no, it's, it's like really stunning. And it is, it's funny. Like this film has, right, you have a monkey who spends a good chunk of the movie being an elephant. You have a parrot, you have a tiger, and you have a carpet. On paper, that should be overkill.

Too much, right. You cannot have all four of those. You have four different like comic relief animals, ostensibly, I mean, because the carpet functions like a dog, right? Yes, yes yes absolutely but somehow like even though uh three out of the four don't speak their personalities are defined enough and their games are defined enough that they don't step on each other's toes it's pretty yeah uh impressive uh i mean it's another issue where then by the time you get to pocahontas it's like oh she has 20 animals and each one has a gimmick yeah because they need to sell a different toy but like this is when they

kind of have the right balance of it wait is this the movie i know you guys are saying it but it just hit me is this the movie that makes the animal comedic sidekick and like the wacky comedian as like some otherworldly creature is this, is this the beginning? I would argue. Little Mermaid has it. Little Mermaid sets up the animal dynamic. That's when the animals become funny. Right.

Right. But then this adds the, the Williams thing. This adds the, like you got a magical and it's a celebrity kind of playing themselves. This is the first time that they had to cast international voice actors to then do Williams bits. Like,

is that the beginning of like spreading his act? Yeah. Basically. Like who is the Spanish, like Aladdin? Who is the, who's the Spanish genie? Like who's the guy in India?

It's a thing. I love looking up, especially with movies that are like animated films that are this based around like blank is blank, where it's like a comedian is this character is seeing who they cast internationally. Because so often they're like, these audiences know who Robin Williams is, but this is a voiceover film. So they'll know if they're just hearing a person doing a bad Robin Williams impression. You kind of have to find a local comedian who has their own dynamic that matches well enough with what the character is, but you also can't rewrite it or change it that much.

So like seeing who plays these characters in other countries is always really fascinating. I'm reading about the Finnish dub, for example. A great Finnish comedian, apparently. Vesa Matilori, played the genie and had never, like, obviously did, had not heard the American version and does like tons of impressions of Finnish celebrities. Like it's all Finland material. So that's my big question. material so that's my big question that's why i was bringing this up is just like it's fascinating because this movie paints them in such a corner because it's like well now he has nicholson face yes he's doing he's gotta do nicholson he does william f buckley at some point i know it's so

he does it twice does he yeah because he does it he he reprises it he william f buckley's uh i have a few yes he counts on his fingers. Right. I had to Google it the last time I was watching because I was just like, what is the specific face that they're trying to evoke here? He's playing a nemeshy conservative

who wants to enforce the rules. Yeah. There's so much stuff like that. He does Dangerfieldfield he does rodney obviously yeah i love that ed sullivan he does ed sullivan yes you know you show it to your kid now are you like you have to explain ed sullivan no you get it i guess it's just yeah you know he you know what it is now if you were to watch it you know he's making fun of somebody you know like i don't know who it is but but I know it's a joke.

Once we get to that magical carpet ride, the carpet and it's like the lava. I remember being younger saying, why does it look like this? It's so bright. Again, I had no idea it was computer and not hand-drawn. But when we get to that musical number, man, there was nothing bigger than that because it looked so massive. It looked like... Once I learned how animation worked, there was no, there was nothing bigger than that because it looked so massive. Like, it looked like, once I learned how animation worked, it's like, how,

how did they do the widescreen with a thousand genies in that? Like, literally, it was so big that the live-action version couldn't even compete with, like, the scope of that scene. Yeah, and I do think, like, I mean, that's pretty much what I tapped out of watching the live-action movie, because I was like, okay, they did it well, what else do I like, I mean, that's pretty much what I tapped out of watching the live action movie

because I was like, okay, they did it well. What else do I have to see? Like, they honestly handled that translation better than I thought they ever could have, despite the fact that they took the wrong approach to how Will Smith sang the song. Visually, that sequence is pretty well realized, and the dude

can dance pretty well. But there's something about watching the original Friend Like Me, where where is one of the only animated musical sequences that somehow gives you the same how did they do that rush that you feel watching someone like sweating bullets dancing breathlessly on a stage you know when you see those bravura like physical performances on a broadway show or any you know theater show where you're just like, I don't understand how this person hasn't collapsed yet. There's something about the energy of all the genies, even though you just know,

like, I don't know, some guy just drew it. I mean, his hand cramped up a lot, but it's not like that's physically, you know, but it feels so,

uh, I don't know. It's so high energy, so relentless. And Robin's singing when he when he when he's done and he's like and he has the applause sign it's like i feel like this dude did that in one take even though it's not true but it feels like that right it's it has that lightning in a bottle energy and it's just like i feel like audiences actually burst into applause when that happened. And there was this

big campaign that year, like, should we nominate Robin Williams for supporting actor? Should we give him an honorary award for voiceover acting? The Golden Globes gave him one. There was this whole conversation of like, this kind of feels like more than a voiceover performance usually is. He's so clearly like just willing this character into being something bigger. And so much of it is that number two, where fundamentally the guy's not a great singer. I mean, he's just sort of,

it doesn't even matter. Right. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Right. Yes. I have a few like, right.

Apparently I didn't know this. Apparently, right. The, the, the opening scene with the street merchant, that's, they literally brought him to a soundstage,

stood him behind a table, gave him, just gave him objects just gave him objects and were like just go just do stuff so like they i think that's what they did with him you know the other thing i i just found that just was making me laugh so much is that apparently you know there's the line because gottfried also ad-libbed right like? Like he obviously is making stuff up. You know when they're fleeing and he picks up a picture of Jafar and he's like, how about this picture? I don't know. I'm making a weird face in it.

Like, you know, when they're like packing their shit. Apparently Robin Williams was like, that's the funniest line in the movie that he like would just crack up every time that they showed it to him. That is so random. Again,

my favorite line is let's see the monkeys. Like it makes that line makes no sense. I know he's going through all his animals, but to see the soldiers like doing the, let's see the monkeys dance is so funny to me. They want to see the monkeys. Well, we talked about in the mermaid episode,

how like there's a real emotional route to sebastian that makes the character work there's that palpable sense of like this is not the job this guy wants he's trying his hardest in a bad position he wants to be singing songs and and there's just something about like gilbert godfrey's anger doesn't feel like comedy anger it feels like real yeah anger everything too nervy yeah he's got like a vein going right there's something about a yago that just feels like it should not have been able to survive studio notes they should have been too scared about this character being too intense but it's the reason he's funny because it's not restrained at all he He's so funny.

Jafar! I mean, but also, and just his chemistry with Jafar is so good. My favorite line, I know Jafar is sort of this archetypal sort of queer coded villain. And there's a lot that's complicated about that. But like when he says, like, you know, what if you married Jasmine? And Jafar just goes, what? Just murders me every time. Like, it's so, like, their relationship is great. This has the, we talked about it with Little Mermaid, you know,

this sort of weird, crucial thing of you're kind of rooting for the villain. Like, the movie kind of kicks off with Jafar. You kind of get that he's like look i'm running this stupid down like the sultan's an idiot like you know like you're kind of on his side until the end the end he's at the end he's too crazy and you're like okay now i'm scared of him but for a lot of the movie you need to kind of be with him yeah it's another thing about jafar is that uh you were talking about how the movie has got this sort of Hirschfeld, uh, art style, but it also is like Disney had always been pretty square about how they depicted humans

on screen, right? They wanted their human characters to be very pretty, you know, and, and human-like and not very caricatured. And this feels like Disney, you know, in the early days of American animation, it was like Disney has the money. They have the technique, the technicians. Everything is so precise, but it's a little hermetic. And Looney Tunes is wild and loose. It's got personality, but they got two dollars. They're really scraping by getting creative workarounds you know they have to use comic energy to overcome the fact that they don't have the same resources and this movie feels like looney tune sensibility with the disney budget and technicality because you have a character like jafar who is this very caricatured human being and his proportions are so weird and his facial

expressions are so much more extreme but they're done with this disney sort of fluidity where like him just dead panning a line like that ends up being so much funnier in the way that like bugs bunny will be an endless meme resource for the end of time because it's just like half of the comedy is just the facial reactions i want to another another fact i learned jasmine still the only only Disney princess who kisses a villain. Anna in Frozen comes close to kissing Hans, who of course she does not know is evil. But that's it. And she knowingly does it because she is a part of the-

She's part of the scam, part of the, yeah, the hustle. Man, Jasmine was awesome. I'm sorry.asmine was one of my favorites like because because i think again like she wasn't a pushover and i think that was at least growing up like my family's majority women like we like that's those are the people i knew like those are the women i knew it's like you talk out your mouth sideways in one of them it's gonna be a problem you know what i mean? And Jasmine had that kind of vibe to her. And I think

that was so cool. It wasn't just a generic damsel in distress. I thought there was so much nuance. Again, I always laugh now as an adult of that whole red outfit. It makes no sense. No. It's great. Is it to match him? Because he's red?

I guess so. because he's wearing red it's it's so you know we're in a dark universe right that's the idea i i honestly think it's partially that and i also think this is when the disney machinery is up and running enough that they're bringing like the toy companies in at an early point and they're like can she have two outfits please right we want to make sure she has a costume change. I mean, look, she is a princess. It would make sense for her to have multiple outfits, I suppose. I had what was probably one of the hardest games of all time, Aladdin.

I think I had it on like Super Nintendo or something like that. That's also another area, though, where they're like, oh, fuck, we finally made one of these movies that works as a video game, too. Like this starts to get into it's all the things that ultimately doom this wave of Disney of just Katzenberg getting so greedy of like every one of these movies needs to be everything at the same time. It needs to have hip hop singles, spawn a video game, be dolls that little girls want to dress up, have a ride, you know, go to Broadway, appeal to everyone, have jokes for the parents, jokes for the kids. This movie made so much money and then

Lion King almost made a billion dollars. They had never seen numbers like that. It's true. It was like $100 million, $300 million, $890 something million. They were like, keep it going, baby. The escalation was just so wild.

And they just, like, I think to them, to some degree, like Disney corporate, they were like, this is like McDonald's. We figured out how to get the production time on burgers down. We know how to make a burger. We know how to stack the ingredients let's just get this down to a formula and then it starts to become like why does this feel the same every time so we talked to a friend like me i mean i don't know i don't know what else there it moves very quickly after the genie's there yeah i don't you know prince ali is a great number it's just a great go ahead ben. He fucking right out is like,

wait, so what would you wish for, man? And then you know he's a good dude. He's empathetic. Because I know my ass, I'd be like, make me the richest motherfucker. I wouldn't even think twice. Yeah.

I mean, he does beat you at your immediate trick though, Ben. His first rule is you can't wish for more wishes. You always talk about that. Yeah. I mean, he does beat you at your immediate trick, though, Ben. His first rule is you can't wish for more wishes, which you always talk about that. Yeah. It's smart. Yeah. Smart. That's smart.

You got to write that in. Because, yeah, otherwise. See, I would wish for the power to do whatever I wanted. I would pull a Wonder Woman 1984. You'd ask to become the stone. Just give me the power, baby. I'm going to leave you 1984. You'd ask to become the stone. Just give me the power, baby. I'm going to leave you alone. You know what?

Since I have power, you're free, genie. I got you. Yeah, I give you two wishes. I'll give you two wishes to spend on yourself. Come on now. What else you need, baby? This is, people bring this up, like, why doesn't he pass the lamp around? Yeah.

You know, hold his wish in reserve let everyone get a couple wishes done but I don't know if that would work like because you need to resolve I think you gotta finish it yeah you gotta finish it exactly I don't know I don't know I mean Jafar does three wishes in the middle of Aladdin's

chain so I don't I don't know what you know Jafar is out with it quick he wants to what is it? First he's a sultan, then he's a sorcerer, then he's a genie. It's real fast. Can we say too, Jafar's a bad wisher because his wishes are just heightening us of

the previous wishes. You gotta diversify your wishes, right? There's no creativity. Yeah, you don't want to put all your eggs in one wishing basket. You want to have a couple different plates spinning. Also, do you notice every time he makes a wish, his outfit changes and gets a little bit gnarlier? Yeah, his hat gets more

horns or something. I was like, why is this? And they did it in the live action. They had his outfits change and I was like, come on now. If you're going to go for this, again, it's got to be tighter. It's got to have a horn. Devil ear thing. The live action Jafar

is interesting because he's so subdued. And he's very grounded. He's very angry and it's kind of personal with him. Well, that was their big character choice. What if he's kind of hot and low-key? Yeah, he needed to be an old dude so like when he's trying to marry jasmine it's extremely creepy yeah he can't look handsome he's got to be like yeah i hate to say it he has to be overtly evil

like he has to look like that dude was genuine he was like hey man i'm a street rat too they always treated us like trash i want the city back back. I'm like, I get that. Right. You're more with them. The live action Sultan is also like too much of a real person. I like that the Sultan in this movie is two feet tall and he's just like a bowl full of jelly. Yes. He's a happy dude.

I like where the Sultan puts on the little eyeglass thing and he's got a big eye. I think that's funny. Yes. I think it's a great move by him. Make him silly. It's just like, I don't know. I mean, I think about, because I was just, because I had watched it recently, I was really paying attention to the time code while watching it this time.

I was trying to sort of track like how long the movements take. When did someone come in? Right it was quick but but but you prince ali happens like 40 some odd minutes in and that's essentially when the movie really gets started you know what i'm saying like it's like you've essentially spent half the movie setting up all the pieces for what is going to be now your major conflict to ride you through the rest of the film. How does Aladdin earn Jasmine? You know, how does he free her from Jafar?

You know, how long can he keep up this ruse? And it is just like the funny that it's like takes 10 minutes for a lad to come in, takes 30 minutes for Jeannie takes 40 minutes for the Prince wish to happen, you know? Uh, and then the movie,

it doesn't feel like it's biting time. It's, it packs a you know? And then the movie, it doesn't feel like it's biding time. It packs a lot in. And then the remaining, whatever it is, 30 or 40 minutes plus credits is just like breathless. It just moves so, so fast. Absolutely. Yeah, I think you're right.

It's so quick once he becomes, because once he becomes Chris Hall, he gets to town meets Jasmine takes him on the carpet ride Jafar tries to kill him it's parade and then that night he shows up

yeah on the carpet and has the big song yeah and you do a whole new world and then there's no more songs like which is true with so many

of these Disney movies where the song part is kind of over for the last third of the movie the last 30 minutes become them resolving stakes and no more time for singing Dr. Jones. Wow. But I like all the stakes. I remember, I mean, as a kid, I saw this film in theaters.

Griffin, you were saying it's like one of your first theater memories, right? I was, I mean, this came out November 92. I feel like I saw it late, but I was either three or four when it came out. And it's, I distinctly remember not just seeing it in theaters and sort of the energy in the theater, but also the anticipation. Like, it's one of the first times I remember walking into the theater, seeing the poster and turning my mom being like i'm excited that we're gonna see that i remember like vividly my dad coming home with the tickets like being like i got the tickets like we're gonna go see it tonight right like he must have picked them up or whatever like yeah and i remember we went with my brother and it must have been like he must have been like three and i remember the cave of wonders popping up my brother just picking up my dad's jacket putting it over his head and just being like i'm out i'm not i'm not watching this

like i won't be i see you like i'll be asleep under this for the rest of the movie because this movie's kind of intense the end is fairly intense yeah it's all big it's kind of creepy when the genie's this big like golem thing right and he's like yeah moving the palace jafar is scary yeah i mean like aladdin almost dies several times several times the snake the snake thing is pretty crazy there are very high stakes in this movie that are illustrated very cleanly i also think i mean dry you were talking about just like how seeing the cave of wonders blew your mind.

Great mouse detective, which is Musker and Clemens. First movie is like the first major use of CGI and a hand drawn film. And then little mermaid has a little more, this amps it up. And then I feel like a lion King has the stampede and whatever. There was something so beautiful about this period where they were combining the two,

but more specifically, it was like you'd have like one or two bravura sequences or elements where the CGI was coming in. And it almost made it stand out as like the stakes are higher here. This is more important. This is scarier. This is more epic. You know, because suddenly this looks different than any movie you've ever seen before. There's something just about that cave coming up. Yeah, it's cool.

Where it's just like, this is not how this movie is supposed to look. You know, the whole temperature changes. I hate to say it, I am one of those people who believes in, like, trying to make things like you don't have any money. So I feel like it makes you more creative, where I feel like now, because CGI, you know, is, I guess, cost effective to a certain extent. You don't have to be as crafty.

And I think when you have moments like this, like in the early nineties in particular, it's like you only get, you only have enough time for one. Yeah. So when you figuring out where it's going to go, it has to be this big moment that feels lively because you only get one shot at it, you know?

Right. It's essentially it's the cave of wonders and the the carpet is a lot of cgi just because the patterns would be hard to hand draw but it really would be like they'd have one sequence or one character where it'd be like the vehicles or cgi or whatever it is and it helps like in this way of, I don't know, spotlighting certain elements, making them feel more important. Yeah. It's a cool movie. It's a cool ass movie. I just, I kind of just agree with your thing, Griff,

where it's like, it's the roadmap to a lot of problems. Yeah. It is. I never saw it as that. But it doesn't really hurt the movie for me. Classic victim of its success thing i mean and to that point it's like whole new world comes up right not our favorite song but like you know a song that ostensibly is effective my zoom background for this is when adam driver and

cecily strong didn't aladdin sketch but i was also thinking about like the whole teaser trailer for lilo and stitch was Stitch jumping on the carpet and interrupting them. I just feel like there have been the teaser campaign for Lilo and Stitch was they took the most famous musical sequences and then Stitch would come in and ruin them. But the way the trailer started, you would think it was just a re-release of the original movie and then Stitch

would fuck it up. That's the next one, right? The next live action one? They better not. They just better not. They keep the next one, right? The next live action one? Lilo and Stitch? They better not. They just better not. They keep, it's... It is.

I know it's getting made. I know. They're going to do that, right? They're going to do all of it. They're going to do it. They got announced. I think it might be next. I think John Chu is going to do it.

Who I like. John Chu is supposedly making it. Yeah. My thing is, Lilo has to look kind of scary. He is not a... Stitch. Stitch, you mean. Stitch, he is not an attractive Stitch. That's the problem. I just don't know how they make Stitch look photorealistic and not make him too cute or too upsetting.

It's a very delicate balance, which you can kind of only do in a fully animated world, I think. That's my fear. I think they're going to have a fucking monster trucks problem where kids don't want to meet Creech, you know, where it's just like, what's that fucking monster doing in this truck? I don't like it. But but I just as the sequence was going on, I was like weirdly like bracing myself because it's hard to look at a whole new world, just the straight version of it because it's been parodied so much and clowned on so much and die karaoke so much that you're just waiting for like when are they going

to deflate this and you're like no right this is the actual thing that everyone this is the one yes this is the right this is the the text yeah this is the text right um i just watched it and realized that in that trailer for lilo and stitch stitch jasmine finds lilo i mean sponsors attractive and just leaves in the spaceship with him like just she hops off the the flying carpet and just leaves with stint that was the whole thing i mean look this is 92 and lilo and stitch is 2002 and in those 10 years people had kind of turned against the disney machinery and lilo and stitch was like their biggest hit they had pretty much i think for that decade and it was because their entire marketing campaign was like don't worry it's not like the other disney movies this one's a little different

i remember it was that there's that poster where all like all the other characters are beholding stitch with horror right like the beast it's there's one in every family their whole ad campaign was like every other disney character hates stitch he burps and he's horny and people were like yes please yeah something new something new yeah something new will we do chris sanders no i don't know i don't think we will i mean i guess we could do dean debois who co-directed that and then fold it in and do the dragons we're talking a long time from now if we're doing that yeah i don't think we do either of those leon stitch is like it's maybe my favorite of the classical like a hand hand-animated Disney films. I just think that film's a fucking masterpiece.

But I don't know if we'll ever find a good circumstance to cover it on this show. Who knows? The final 20 minutes of this movie are just kind of escalating action and stakes in a lot of ways, right? I mean, it's like Aladdin uh you know jasmine finding out about aladdin uh jafar capturing him throwing him in the water that that underwater with the ball and chain sequence which i just find very upsetting it's so scary yeah yeah it is just drowning's the fucking worst and the tension of just like trying to eke his way over to the lamp genie being a submarine though that's fun

yeah oh yeah it's cool when he does that it's really cool come on kid you gotta wish for it you gotta wish for it kid yeah yeah he kind of he's on his side that's why the ending it's a good resolution you know aladdin just be yourself everyone should just be themselves like that's it's it's the very disney ending yes uh i i mean the jasmine wearing a couple different outfits feels like a toy company note on the other hand robin williams improvising so much shit must have just been a fucking goldmine to the toy companies when they watched us they were like he turns into a fucking submarine he wears a baseball player outfit like every five seconds he's got a he becomes a different toy yeah can i get like a

genie submarine i'm sure i am sure i'm trying to google it right now i mean i'm just looking at where it's like vacation genie tux genie genie no shirt uh human disguise genie but can you get tied up sultan with crackers in his mouth oh that's a moment yeah that's a that's a weird aggro moment for miyago where he's stuffing crackers in his mouth but i found that as a kid funny as hell that's a great payoff you like turning the tables you just you know you just like that he's like now who now you like the crackers huh i'm like that's comedy it's also i mean the moral of the movie is also the Sultan's like, well, I could just change the law.

My word is law. This is a one man state. And I am at the top. And it's like, great, solved. Problem solved. No other needs. Nothing else needs to happen in Agrabah, clearly. I just put it in the chat, but I just found the best genie toy I think

which just speaks to how well these must have been selling if they went this deep in the roster wow Frenchman genie Frenchman genie with the beret and the striped shirt and he comes with a baguette wow a baguette that let's be honest essentially looks like a maggot it's not not not a very appealing baguette it is a bug all right guys should we play the box office game like what else do we have here on aladdin that we need to address it's just a what it ends like super i think we did neatly he outwits them all he uses his street smarts i mean i like that moment where he says uh i'm gonna i'm gonna fucking misquote it but where genie is like what are you gonna do? He's like a

snake. He's all powerful. How can you stop him? Aladdin's like, you know, fucking Aladdin, baby. I find an angle. That is the line, right? The verbatim it is, I'm fucking Aladdin, baby. I find an angle. I'm fucking Aladdin. I'll slide on a jewel. I'll get this guy. I don't know.

I'll do the old jewel slide. I'm about to send you guys. Look how creepy. Look how creepy this Jafar genie doll looks. The Jafar genie. He's scary. Well, this is very creepy

because there's a weirdly long tail and he's like screaming. He's like a gaping maw. Yeah. He's like, ah! This is a nightmare. amazon pointedly telling us that this item is currently unavailable we don't know if it will ever be back in stock but i just want to say no no jafar genie he he thick he's a big boy he's a chungus yeah he's a big chungus he's

an absolute unit you know like if if robin williams genie is kind of like blobby and fun and you know sweet jafar genie's got like a 12 pack he's like all muscle i didn't because i didn't make it to the end of the guy richie one did they do a big evil genie jafar transformation what does he fucking look like yes yes just google it man do they geez i i'm trying to remember it now god yeah i guess he just he just becomes really big he's just like it looks like him you know and and he's a little reddish you know but oh yeah this song it it looks like uh uh fucking oprah winfrey in wrinkle in time it It's just a large. It's just a big person. Jafar, yeah.

It's like, why just do this? God. I'm watching this and I'm like, I saw this movie. I have no memory of this. That's what I'm talking about. It just exists as brand rejuvenation to remind people that they like the original thing more.

Yeah. 100%. does iaco not talk in the live action remake right he doesn't talk he's just right it's alan it's alan tudyk the great alan tudyk but he just does squawks right doing voices yeah he doesn't know all right now should we play the limited weekend when it opened on one screen or should we play it's wide release that's the only question that was that was disney's thing for so long was they would release it in literally like one or two theaters and get every year just break the per screen average and then the next weekend go wide i didn't even know that yeah that was their trick so it goes it goes wide on November 27th, 1992 to $25 million.

But it's not number one, Griffin. Whoa. What's number one? It's a sequel. It's a sequel to a colossal hit. It's a hit itself. Home Alone 2? Correct.

Home Alone 2. They're lost in New York. Yeah. Which in its second weekend has dropped 8%. Jeez. That's how big a deal that movie was. It opened to 31, second weekend, 28. Bizarre. Let that sink in.

This is not normal. No, and just fundamentally a film that should be un-sequelable, right? It's just like, it is defying the will of God to make a second Home Alone. You can't do it. I mean, I saw Home Alone 2, I think I watched it last Christmas. And they have to go so far out of their way to make so many jokes about like, we know, we know, we look like bad parents.

We did this twice. And you just want everyone to scream at them like no you can't fucking self-effacing joke your way out of this you are a monster what do you mean twice can i say the guy's he's also not home alone let's be honest he's in new york it's not his home no it's not his home he's not alone it's a packed city very populated that's true a lot of people a lot of people um number three at the movie is another colossal hit of 1992 that is a major cultural moment.

It's an adult romantic drama. Very overwrought. Not good, but kind of undeniable, I guess. A big, huge star at the peak of his powers and a huge bodyguard oh wow good guess thank you um you got it there griffin yes another opening to number three to 16 million but just gonna have the biggest legs you know just yeah wow um huge movie huge movies all number four griffin is uh a movie we'll

do on this podcast one day a a crazy blank check um horror film one of the best looking movies ever made oh is it bram stalker's dracula dracula that's this is a wild top five. Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula. How did you guess that? I mean, at this point, we're like an old married couple. And I know from the way he phrases certain things where I can go like, what movie would he think to describe that way? Wow.

We just know how each other's brains work too well. We are cursed at this point. And number five, a great film from a major director um kind of i guess like a sort of his one of his big studio breakthrough kind of movies i guess a biopic great film major director early in his career is it early yeah fairly early in his career. Is it early? Yeah. Fairly early in his career. It's like his sixth, fifth or sixth movie, I think. But it's his sort of it's his first big movie in a way. He's already a huge figure.

The director. It's not Malcolm X, is it? It is Malcolm X. It is Malcolm X. A three hour, 40 minute biopic that was a big hit. You know, should have won an Oscar for Den denzel probably like you know a huge another like cultural landmark movie it is just also rare that we get a top five like this that is such a perfect cultural snapshot of this exact moment in culture where you're just like between the stars that are in the top five between the subjects the genres the filmmakers

it's just like so it's like robin williams you know like keanu reeves kevin costner whitney houston macaulay caulkin right denzel absolutely i mean let me give you the bottom half you got passenger 57 with wesley snipes you got A River Runs Through It with Pitt. You got Under Siege with Seagal, number one, Ben. So don't get too excited. Yeah, don't get too amped. You got Last of the Mohicans with Daniel Day-Lewis. And you got The Mighty Ducks with the biggest star in them all, Emilio Estevez.

Mighty Ducks. Emilio. I just watched that recently. Mighty Ducks and Mighty Ducks 2. D2 is so good. D2 is the one I've seen the most. I realize a lot of the movies I like I think because of my age

is the sequel. I know Home Alone is a classic but I remember watching Home Alone 2. I know Ghostbusters is great but I remember Ghostbusters 2. But Mighty Ducks 2 is empirically the better film

I mean that's the best of the trilogy the knuckle puck baby Keenan knuckle puck that is why one of the most triumphant moments

in the history of cinema is they pass the puck to Goldberg takes the mask off it wasn't Goldberg it was fucking Keenan get him and just

I remember like their team USA in that one right like the stakes are high in a good way yes right like yeah good villains right cause the first one

they're like a weekend team and the second one they're like you have to represent our nation in the goodwill games yes didn't they got

the Bash Brothers it was crazy man it was great and then the third one is just bizarre because it's pretty dry and Emilio's in it for two minutes

and it's about them having a new coach who's an asshole. I have not seen it. We might need to put Mighty Ducks in our franchise bracket. It's a thing to consider, David. Yeah. Are we going to do it? Yeah.

I feel like we were considering it, Griffin. Might have to happen. I mean, well, you know, they're making it into a Disney Plus series, so. Yeah, right. It's going to be very topical. Very topical. But that's, yes. so yeah right it's gonna be very topical very topical but that's yes no that's a wild top 10 and especially those top five movies are just like juggernauts cultural yeah huge huge huge

and then aladdin it just continues to play and play and play and play and play yeah it does it's a good movie all right we're done gr. Jara, you're the best in the biz. No, man. Thank you for having me. You really are, Jara. People should still watch Astronomy Club on Netflix. Great fucking sketch show canceled way too soon. People should always listen to Black Man Can't Jump in Hollywood because you guys are one of the best podcasts out there.

But also, you're working on your new show for HBO Max. Yes. You know, hopefully, you know, Sherlock homies will come to the screens, your home screens, I guess. Um, yeah,

man, just trying to pay rent y'all. So that's my, trying to pay rent and stay sane. That's it. But it's, it's, uh,

you and shotane run Harlem's first detective agency is the premise, right? Yeah. Yeah. So it's like, it's like it's it's uh these these group of five people like kind of come together to like take on the jobs the police don't want to which is just like the small stuff like something happens at a bodega the bodega cat went missing so it's like that little kind of stuff they take care of so it's

like funny stuff but very new New York centric. Yeah. I love it. I can't wait to see it. Always excited whenever you pop up in anything. Oh man, thank y'all for having me, man. Of course.

And thank you all for listening. And please remember to rate, review and subscribe. Go to blankies.red.com for some real nerdy shit. Go to our Shopify page where you can buy some real nerdy merch, including comedy, point coins back in stock, and the new pin set, along with, of course, the Gossip Man t-shirt that

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Yeah, we'll be in Trek. We'll be in Trek territory. Yeah, I think we just started it, I think is where we're at with Trek. So you can listen to those Trek episodes. We're just, I'm sorry, we're starting it tomorrow. Oh boy, so tomorrow, Star Trek, the motion picture. Oh no wait, I take it back.

Today, it dropped today. You're enjoying it right now, probably. I assume you listen to both episodes at the same time. You're listening to both at the same time. Wow, at the same time. Two phones. It's like that Flaming Lips album. You burned it onto two different CDs and put boom boxes.

I always make that reference. You always have to give the specific name because I never remember it I love that reference it's a great reference it's like when I saw LL Cool J at the big three finals game one year filming Ice Cube with two phones for reasons I will never

understand he had two phones in his hands filming the exact same thing with the exact same angle I don't know why uh uh tune in next week uh for uh only the exact same thing with the exact same angle I don't know why uh uh tune in next week uh for uh Hercules Hercules

Hercules Hercules we're talking Hercules next week and as always evil Jafar genius there