Blank Check with Griffin & David - The Princess and the Frog with James III

Episode Date: March 14, 2021

Just when they thought they were out, Musker & Clements are called back in to helm 2009's The Princess and the Frog. After 7 years in directorial semi-retirement, John and Ron bring Disney animated films back to its musical roots in this historic fairytale starring Disney's first Black princess. James III (Black Men Can’t Jump In Hollywood) joins this week to discuss the missteps, Keith David’s body of work, how cool Louis the jazz loving alligator is and more! Join our Patreon at patreon.com/blankcheck Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter and Instagram! Buy some real nerdy merch at shopblankcheckpod.myshopify.com

Blank Check with Griffin and David Blank Check with Griffin and David Don't know what to say or to expect All you need to know is that the name of the show is Blank Check Grab somebody, come on down Bring your paintbrush, we're painting the town. There's some sweetness going around. Dreams do come true in podcast leans. So I want to because I think people might be confused. It was a heady opening. What I did there, this movie is set in New Orleans. Yeah. New Orleans. Right. Right. Right.

Now, I'm I'm pronouncing it in the very nontraditional way, the overly formal way. New Orleans instead of New Orleans, because in order to execute the and once again, a very subtle sort of nuanced joke that i want to open the episode with i had to um imply that there is a place called podcast leans and that in fact that place is where dreams uh do come true they sure do in podcast leans here's the thing that really hit me hard watching this movie. Because I was digging back into, like, while I was watching it, I was going through all the, like, Wikipedia citations. A thing I often do when we do this show is I'll start on the Wikipedia,

and then I'll start looking at the linked articles from the time the movie came out, and then I'll use that as a rabbit hole to look into other things. I'm always trying to remember, like, how were things received? How were they anticipated? What was the discourse like at the time, uh, rather than, than what's it like now? And there was so much hand wringing, obviously about the representation in this movie and Disney would announce something and then they get blowback and then they go, nevermind, we're changing it. We're changing it. There was all this stuff, but they were trying so hard to be like, this is important. We understand the importance of it. It's our first black princess. It's an African-American movie.

It's set in New Orleans. We're being respectful of the culture. Musgrave and Clements going like, trust me, we take this seriously. We went on vacation there for 10 days. We did our work. We took it very seriously. They did their classic two-week vacation. We went to Africa. We went to China. We went to New Orleans. Don't worry, guys. We soaked it in. Their defense every time is, trust me, we didn't take this lightly. We spent 10 to 14 days there. It never surpasses two weeks. It's always 10 at the minimum, 14 at the most. But for all of that, for all of that, you look at this movie and they're like,

we really wanted to be respectful to the culture of New Orleans. And that's why we made sure to throw that authenticity into the movie by putting in the voice cast, the three most important New Orleans residents, Dr. John Emeril Lagasse and John Goodman. Hmm. What's the end?

There's a hmm. There's some connective tissue of the three New Orleans residents you choose to put in the film as voice actors. What is it? There's some Dr. John John Goodman Emeril Lagasse. Well, no, I think that pretty much covers the spectrum. I did not think about it that way but it's a fair point it it hit me it hit me with the emerald legasi because i would not have recognized the voice he plays an alligator very briefly but i was just like sure that's weird that emerald's a voice actor in this because he's

not an actor famously conclusively as one season of emerald on mbc taught us i was about to say the man put his time in on network tv can't forget about that he tried he he tried and we all collectively said no thank you that's all right emerald thank you thank you but no thank you i mean you could say they went bam to this movie right we they went bam despite the fact that the public had said to emerald maybe take it down a notch but that's the one where i was like why is emerald in this oh because they wanted real new orleans authenticity and it stopped at two white guys named john and a chef you're right i can't deny anything you just said.

You asked me right before we started recording, do I like this movie? And I said, let's save it for when we start recording. So hello, everybody. This is Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin. I'm David. It's 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. Sometimes those checks clear, and sometimes they bounce in podcast leans. And this is a miniseries on the films of Musker and Clements charting the Disney Renaissance, the rise, the fall, the rise, the fall. This is a sort of an aborted rise before the the real rise takes post fall post rise it's a mild rise but yeah it's a mild rise it's a half rise uh it's called uh the puddle mer cast we are talking about their final 2d animated film uh Princess and the Frog, which I do not really like.

That's interesting. Okay. All right. I saw it in theaters. I was pretty nonplussed with it. I wouldn't say I dislike it, but there are elements I find mildly charming, and there are a lot of things I find frustrating in it, and it ends up just sort of evening out to a net neutral.

Because I think my take and I don't know what our guest thinks either to be honest is that this film is excellent but you know while I acknowledge some of the broader almost outside of the film issues with the film

if that makes sense as a cultural statement I don't know if this film is that is totally successful, but I like, I like this movie a lot. I've watched it many times, many times. Wow.

Okay. It's that's hard. It's hard. I think it's the movie is, I feel like the movie is, is good, but then, but then when you think about it,

it's bad. Yes. When I, when I think about like, Oh, is this what they should have done i'm like probably not no but when i'm like i kind of want to watch my my little frog buddies flirt and then like you know i want i i really like the villain and oh i you know like you know there's lots of things about this movie i enjoy i've seen it several times but right was the entire enterprise well-mounted? I don't know. Our guest today has done an entire podcast episode on this movie before,

on his own podcast, Black Man Can't Jump in Hollywood, which I listened to at the time and then realized right before we started recording I should have re-listened to anticipation of this so as to not make you repeat every point because we want to try to establish new things. But do you not even remember what you said? I have no idea what I said. I don't know if I liked it then or what. You had Caroline Martin on.

I remember listening to the episode at the time, but I certainly relate to that very hard. I now have the experience i don't know if you've had this increase our guests our guests today our guests today from the black man can't jump in hollywood podcast and astronomy club all that black mirror james the third is back on the show whoo so glad to be back this is so glad to have you and to talk about this movie in particular will be fun i gave you i gave you a pretty long list and you said princess and the frog's the one i i'd want to do and i'd remember

that you did an episode on it but i didn't remember where you really came down on it i was gonna say uh i don't know if you have this james and in general it's just like uh our podcast started about the same time i think you guys have been doing your show for about five or six years, the same with us. It's just at this point, you've put a lot of thoughts down on microphone. It's hard to keep track of them. And also so many episodes are like, this is my very, very strongly formed opinion

on this movie on the day I recorded it. You know, like those opinions can like shift over time or at least intense intensity. They can shift. But also you just make so many bits and you like share so many opinions and you share so many anecdotes and all this sort of stuff. And then now at the point where we're almost like a year into doing these things like remotely in this isolated way in this like nebulous time where everything's soup. I just no longer remember anything I've said on the show.

I don't know what I've talked about. I don't know how I, I don't know how I feel about any movie anymore. Like, I don't know. This is why I would listen to the podcast that we put out to just remind myself like, Oh,

okay. I say, you know, helps me not repeat myself later. But now there's the dual problem of one. I'm so behind on my podcast listening because of the pandemic. I don't commute and so I don't listen to as many podcasts. So I'm behind

on our podcast. And two, some of these episodes are five years old. I don't fucking remember what I said about Vanilla Sky. I don't know. Let's do another Vanilla Sky episode. That movie's kind of grown on me. I'm in the exact same position where it's like it's not even like a self-satisfied, like,

oh, I want to listen back to this podcast I did. But it was like, well, let's listen back. Like in a, like, DeFara, like, let me have a slice after I close up the pizza shop every night to make sure I still know how to make pizza, you know? I still got it. Right, yeah. Okay, yeah, that's all right.

That was pretty good. Yeah, yeah yeah it's still good i i don't need to retire yet but but a yes i'm so behind on podcasts b we we record so much because we like try to stay ahead so like the idea of throwing on three hours of myself talking after it's like all i do is listen to myself fucking talk. I sit alone and silence an apartment and I record five episodes a week. I never want to hear myself on microphone ever again. It's not five. It's three.

But yeah, it's, yeah. I thought, you know, it'd been long enough since you, you wanted to do this movie and it'd been long enough since you had done on Black Can't Jump in Hollywood. I was curious to hear your thoughts on it, especially within this context. I mean, I just, I definitely on this rewatch feel like

some of the stuff was similar. I was like, oh yeah, I remember loving how much it just felt like a 2D Disney animated movie. The way it looks and the way they talk and the way, like and the way like just everything it just had that energy and and they really especially the beginning of the movie they're like hey remember what this feels like you know and they caress you with it and it feels good and you're like yeah yeah oh my nostalgia for this is very is very prevalent it's been i mean

if you're counting tarzan that's a musical musical, right? They sing in that, right? I barely remember it. But it's been 10 years. It's a long-awaited thing. Right. That's the weird thing. It's been like 10 years since there was like a classical sort of like Disney fable musical in 2D. But it's only been five years since they've released a 2D film. I mean, you have like

Tarzan's the last of like that era. And then you have Atlantis, Treasure Planet, Lilo and Stitch, Brother Bear, Home on the Range, which are all sort of weird. Emperor's New Groove, which are all sort of weird new experiments and expanding that end up sort of like falling off a cliff at the end of that run. And the timeline is so bizarre. I was re-familiarizing myself with it. It's like they stop production on everything that wasn't too far along after Treasure Planet bombs. They go like, Brother Bear and Home on the Range, you get to finish. You're the last two through the door. Everything else, just stop it in its place, right? Rapunzel was supposed to happen.

The Ice Princess was supposed to happen, or the Snow Queen or whatever, which then becomes Frozen. Like, they just put the brakes on everything. We're stream, front-lining Chicken Little and Meet the Robinsons in Bolt, right? We're going CGI. The old Disney movie style is done. Right. That happens in 2004. After Home on the Range, they officially announced, like, we're closing down the studios. Musker and Clements are let go. All the old guard guys are let go. Then in 2005, Disney buys Pixar, places lots of Huggin' Lasseter in charge of animation,

and he immediately is like, we're reopening Andron. We're hiring everyone back. It was a span of a year. And he immediately is like, we're reopening Andron. We're hiring everyone back. It was a span of a year. And then this is announced in 2006. It was a logical decision to, like the decision, I mean, the saddest period in Disney history is that chicken little Meet the Robinsons bolt.

You know, that's just, that's not, no one was happy with that i know you sort of stick up for meet the robinsons i kind of like meet the robinsons yeah i i remember when i first saw chicken little i like laughed and thought it was really fun and then i went back and watched it and i was like oh like it was like no it's not it's not what i remembered it to be it's so bizarre that movie it's it. It's so bizarre, that movie. It's such a weird period. I mean, I do think, like, part of the issue is, yes, I have the same, like, it activates the same sort of, like, buttons for me just watching a movie be this unabashedly a Disney princess musical.

After it felt like they were taking so many half measures and being so embarrassed of that for so long. But there's also a degree in which it feels like it is doing all of that stuff a little bit too self-consciously for me. Like it's like a cover band of itself where the movie keeps on announcing like, you love this, you miss this, right? And then the next year after this is Tangled, which I think is the best of the modern Disney animated movies, the best of the last 15 years.

And Tangled is obviously CGI, but I think does a better job of representing the energy of those movies and also putting something more modern into it. And then obviously after that Frozen happens and just the chance of them ever making a movie this classical again kind of goes out the window, it feels like. Sure. Once they nail the Frozen tangled balance where it's like, oh, you're doing a Disney princess musical, but it's modern and it's CGI. The CGI is styled to look more like Disney drawings. It's not realistic and you have the weird clothing shapes and whatever, then I just feel like that's the exact formula that they now want to work on.

I don't like that nonsense. I do like Tangled. I prefer this film to Tangled, though. I greatly prefer Tangled. And I don't like how Tangled looks, which is part of the problem. But I also don't like how tangled looks uh which is part of the problem but i also don't like tangled is about rapunzel i mean like that that's that's my big problem with tangled like it's just the fundamental problem which is like i i can't with with you know

girls in dresses and castles anymore as much as i like that you know there is a lot of fun stuff that tangled does i i really liked tangled but but i avoided i avoided frozen for a long time like i like i didn't frozen 2 was coming out and i hadn't seen the first frozen but i but and and but i had seen the that like olaf movie that they put in front of coco we all saw that but i hadn't seen frozen so i had no understanding of of like why i should hate this were you like oh this snowman guy he's fun and i so i was like this is fucking incredible i loved it i thought it was hilarious wow the only person but i but i get that it was like they were like let's tack this movie on to Coco in case this movie bombs and people don't want to see a bunch of brown people talking for 90 minutes.

But me just being like, all right, this Disney baby, let's see what's going on. It's so funny that that was their calculation. It was so clear that that was their exact calculation of like, OK, here we have like a Mexican Disney movie coming out after Trump was elected. Is this not going to work? Let's give them 25 minutes of Frozen beforehand. And people reacted so negatively,

they pulled the Frozen short. Yeah, like that's astonishing that the response was that vicious that they were like, no more Frozen on my screen, please. I remember it being 40 minutes long. Is that wrong? Like, I remember it being just like

interminably, insanely long. Maybe it was like- It was really long. 40 minutes if you're including the trailer pre-roll, right? Like, it's going to take you- I think it's 25 because it was supposed to be a TV special. And it's also just,

you're seeing a lot of trailers and your brain is conditioned to oh, the shorts that play before these movies are four minutes long. Yeah, yeah. Not a like, has a full, like, several act story. Multiple songs?

This has act breaks? I left the theater. Because I knew, I'd been warned, you know this thing is like so I left I went and got snacks I don't know I probably walked around and made some conversation like I just like was like I have to stall as long as possible because I

actually want to enjoy Coco I saw Coco I think three times in theaters and the first time I caught the fucking Olaf thing and the second two times I went to see it with people I was like good news you don't even have to show up to the theater until 20 minutes after the First time I caught the fucking Olaf thing and the second two times that I went to see it with people, I was like, good news. You don't even have to show up to the theater until 20 minutes after the advertised show time. Right.

What time's the movie at? 4.50? I'll meet you at 5.50. But wait, wait, did this have an animated short in front of it, Griff? I think it did. Princess and the Frog? It must have, right? Like, they usually did that. I don't know.

I mean, they start doing that more with the Disney, because that's another Lasseter thing. Like, oh, the Disney animated films should also have shorts in front of them. But I'm trying to think of what it would have been. I'm not sure if there was one. Yeah, there may not have been one. I'm not seeing any mention of one.

Griffin, I'm assuming you said you saw this in theaters. You were whelmed, it sounds like. I was whelmed. Were you pumped for it? Were you like, I'm so happy Disney's back to the princess 2D thing? Or were you kind of like, well, let's see what this is? I mean, a combination. I think I was not very excited for the movie itself.

Like the materials I would see for the movie were not very exciting to me. But I was very excited philosophically for them doing this. Like, I was excited for every single thing about this movie on paper. And then every time I saw a trailer, I was like, this just doesn't feel totally right to me. And I, you know, a lot of the Disney movies

were often marketed on the most simplistic level. We talked about this, but like Frozen and Tangled tangled it was largely because of the underperformance of this movie and the movie still made 100 million domestic and like 250 worldwide but the bar for disney is obviously so goddamn high that they viewed this as an underperformance tangled was already like almost done uh and then you know the the snow queen became frozen and they punted that over to cgi and rethought the whole thing.

But both of those movies were supposed to be called Rapunzel and the Snow Queen. And then they were like, no, cannot have any princess shit in the title. Come up with like an action word. Right. Put that in there and then make the trailers as much about like the funny animal sidekicks as possible. Like they were actively trying to hide the fact that they were musicals and that they were princess movies exactly like tangled you had the the poster where you got a flynn with the like uh cast iron pan and that the horse has a sword like same with frozen obviously being Olaf heavy they tried to emphasize comedy over majesty

in the advertising and then of course post Frozen they're like back to majesty Disney is the distillation of magic like there we have it again but now they can do it again like by the time you get to Moana which we'll talk about next week they're just

like this is a Disney princess musical. We're proud of it. Here's our lead character. She is the hero of the movie. Everyone enjoy. And people are amped. It's a big hit. Everyone loves it.

And we've brought in a major composer. We're spending the money. It's everything. It's not just like one or two. Because I feel like by the end of the Disney boom, the Disney renaissance, I mean, I guess they start to go for because phil collins they start to go for um pops pop singers like you know elton john i guess kind of breaks their brain so they're like right phil collins sting let's get in

these guys which was a mistake but i guess i guess i get what they were doing with this this one's of course randy newman the great Randy Newman. Yeah, but I mean, that Randy Newman was one of my issues with this movie. And it sucks, too, because I love Randy Newman. One of my favorite musical artists of all time, both as a solo artist and his film work. I have no problem with Randy Newman. Like, you know, you got a friend in me. All right, cool.

Great. That's great. You do indeed have a friend in me, Randy. And the songs in this movie are fun. And, you know, they're fun. And you, like, you go through the story. But, like, I just want a real knowledge jazz musician to, like, do all of this music. It's a strange decision. it's a lot of what i

struggle with on this movie is is that it just feels like they're they're kind of one foot in one foot out about a lot of stuff and also overthinking a lot of the calculations right because this movie was pretty much just sold on two planes look at the progress we're making culturally here is your first african-american princess and also we're making culturally. Here is your first African-American princess. And also we're getting back to our roots. We're doing the thing that Disney's known for. We're not embarrassed anymore. But then the Randy Newman element is so weird because it's like, well, but like, are people still cynical about those songs? If we bring Mencken back and make it super classical, is that too much? Randy Newman does Pixar movies, which are a little more modern and a little more edgy. Also, he's from Louisiana, so we can have him do the music. But also, this isn't really the person you should have writing these songs.

thing of the the slightly lip servicey i mean every not just randy new but like the you know i'm sure you read it but the early like the character was called maddie uh what was you know she was a chambermaid like it feels it felt like they made these the movie was called frog princess right it wasn't called the princess and the frog right that that title was changed because people thought it was offensive to french people well there are there are french speakers uh you know sort of i suppose zip down in the bayou i don't know but yes no it is funny that people were like hey you trying to come after the french is that is that what you're doing here it just speaks to the fact that every time they like stepped out on stage tightened like straighten their bow tie and went we are proud to announce people just booed them right because i'm saying like the next element is randy newman and people are like what i mean just the fact that they brought on oprah winfrey

as a quote-unquote technical consultant what like what does that mean like what was that phone call like i know oprah winfrey is a black woman from the south but it's like are they just like can we just like bounce this story off you see what you think like i like what that the weird disney lip service of the year i mean and it's it's a story of so many of the movies we've covered like yeah uh on this on this miniseries aladdin is what i'm thinking of i guess i guess the other ones were not musker clements you know you think of mulan you think right pocahontas like where it's like oh you know sure one step forward you want to do something different you

want to have a different kind of protagonist okay and then they're like anyway so like i don't know what the dragon should be called what mooshu maybe like like you know like there's just no further uh and and of course the classic two-week vacation to china or africa or like what you know the lion king is another example right you know where they're like yeah we did we we got it we we know what's going on like this this movie's going to be highly culturally attuned but i even think like the the randy newman of is just like, A, his sensibility isn't totally right for a straight sort of more earnest Disney princess musical, right? Like he obviously is beloved for writing like the Pixar songs and stuff, but the Pixar movies notably don't have characters singing those songs. They're not story songs. That's not really what he's good at. And his one Broadway musical he did was his biggest calamity of his entire

career. He did a bizarre Faust musical that people hated that I think is interesting. But it's like this is not his strong suit is doing character story songs. No, I have to put my foot down. Randy Newman is a great storyteller songwriter. Like he had just written a massive anthem about Louisiana, Louisiana, 1927. That was all about Katrina. Like that had like dominated the airwaves over there. Like,

and he's famous for his storytelling and his songwriting, not in the Pixar movies, but in his albums and his music. Randy Newman. I didn't have a problem story-wise with like, like I really liked, like, Are You Ready? I really liked, I really liked Almost, I'm Almost There. Almost There, that's the one song I think fully rules.

So good. I think that's a great number. I love it visually. I think it's a great song. That's the one where it feels like they hit the bullseye for me. I didn't know this was going to be a contentious at our each other's throats episode, but this score is great.

I love all the music. I just, this is what I'm saying. It's like, I like the music. I like the movie. I agree that I don't think they should have hired Randy Newman, like in a broader,

like this is Disney making its first musical with a black protagonist. You know what I mean? Like, even though I enjoy the outcome, not knowing Newman's, uh, new Orleans roots. Like I just wanted a black composer. scent you know what i mean like even though i enjoy the outcome not knowing newman's uh new orleans roots like i just wanted a black composer like i just wanted a black composer and like absolutely and i wanted there and and and i think i wanted watching it now was like

it's it's hard because it's it's it's me i think it's me overthinking this and not me actually just trying to watch this kid's disney movie but like i wanted it i wanted everything to sort of feel edgier like i just mentioned really liking are you ready but i don't like how much are you ready sounds like it sounds like it's like trying to it's hearkening back to to early disney instead of being like this song about like voodoo uh creatures pulling you into hell or whatever it right it's technically called uh friends on the other side is the name of that song yes yeah yeah i i just think that they they can't totally decide which things they want to be step forwards and which things they want to be throwbacks to their history. And if I can split a hair here and I am allowed the opportunity

to refine my point, David, I'm a huge Randy Newman fan. I fucking know that Randy Newman is good at story songs. But let's make it clear, on his albums, each song is one isolated story. He writes songs from the perspective of a character,

and most of those songs are satirical. What I'm talking about is Faust. He does not do like concept albums. Faust is one of his only works where he's building one solid narrative around the culmination of songs building to a story, right? That is not what he's asked to do. The only other musical film I think he's written was cats don't dance where the the songs are fun right i'm not saying he can't do this but it is not what he does primarily i think he can do it as evidenced by the princess and the frog which i think is pretty good how many how many randy newman tattoos do you have david i gotta say i fucking love randy newman i do i do like i love i love the guy this is the thing i might be a bigger randy newman fan than

you are i'm worried that this is coming off like i'm a randy newman hater when i'm a randy newman obsessive we've all established that we love randy newman we love randy newman one of the saddest things was when um the the new york film critics circle gave him a special award i guess it was last year for like i guess his marriage story was the peg but you know for like whatever like a lifetime of film music you say it was for marriage story i'm pretty sure it was for i won't let you throw yourself away the greatest song ever written for a movie toy story for forky's ballad it's true he had also done toy story 4 so we were very excited because randy knew it's like okay then randy newman will come to the dinner and then like i mean randy newman is not a young man anymore uh and he you know he could not

travel uh at whatever that month you know he was there was something up so he couldn't come which was sad i would have liked to have seen r Randy Newman. It was still nice to award Randy Newman, obviously. Just a little thought about Randy Newman. We belong together. I want an Oscar for that one. Oh, and I loved, hold on, there's one more that I really loved. It's like probably a couple of the Ray songs were really fun. Yeah, the Ray songs are great.

This movie has got a fucking firefly that wants to turn into a star. It's got all kinds of cool shit going on. No, I just want to make this very clear, because I feel like, as you said, this is already feeling like it's shaping up to be a contentious episode. And it's not that I have a bunch of really strong anti-takes on this movie. The problem is, watching it just now, I felt the same way that I felt seeing it in theaters, both times really wanting to love it. Like, as I said, I was not super excited by the marketing materials, but I loved that they were doing this. And, you know, the Tangled and Frozen marketing campaigns I mentioned were after this, but there was a history of Disney trying to misrepresent things in order

to try to make them seem broader. And I was like, maybe I'm going to sit down, I'm going to feel that classic Disney Renaissance magic. And this time I went, I haven't seen this movie in 11 years. I've been watching Musker Clements for the last month or two. I'm really in that headspace. Maybe I'm going to rediscover it as a masterpiece. And both times, I just feel kind of bored by this movie. I find this movie weirdly kind of unengaging. There are things in it that I respect where I go like, I like that craft. This is cool. There are things in it that I respect where I go like, I like that craft. This is cool. There are things in it where I go like, that conceptually feels off. That seems a little like wrongheaded. But it just levels out to me just being a little bit unengaged.

Here's my thing that I felt this time that I had not felt before and I have no idea if you guys will have felt the same thought but like this is the first time I watched this movie after having seen Soul and the fact that 11 years later Pixar finally had a movie with a black lead

where the you know black lead is in the body of an animal for a lot of the movie which is a complaint people had about this movie and a complaint people had about Soul. I don't know, for whatever, like, it just was more lodged in my brain, or even more lodged in my brain this time watching this movie. I don't think it's, like, it's a thing that makes stories sense. You know, like, I don't think it's like this absolutely bananas thing in either movie, but you do, you know, it's hard not to sort of be like, what is up with that?

Like, you know, like right to sort of have the eyebrow raised moment. Am I? Did this occur? I don't know. James, at the time we're recording this, you guys at Black Man Can't Jump in Hollywood just released your Soul episode yesterday, which I have not listened to yet. Will have been out for a couple months by the time this episode comes out. Don't want to make you relitigate that. But it is, I

was thinking about the exact same things while watching this movie in the light of Soul. What's your basic stance on Soul? I liked Soul, but had a problem with the, especially because the story, what's actually happening story-wise of him being in the body of the cat, they could have just written something else. It could have just been something else.

It felt like they needed antics, right? Like, it felt like there was this sort of need for like, okay, we need something that, you know, kids will respond to and it'll be madcap and fun. That seemed to be, it didn't have the same thematic thrust but isn't it as much an issue if 22 ends up accidentally in the cat like isn't it still a problem like right the soul has the double swap right that's the that's the other issue with soul specifically. Right. With both of these movies, right? Watching both of them on Disney Plus within a span of a month, right? And comparing the two of them a lot in my mind, as all of us are right now, by the nature of these podcast episodes we have to do. In both cases, I just hit, like, couldn't they just do this instead? And for Soul, is there any reason Soul didn't do all of me?

Like, didn't do the Steve Martin, Lily Tomlin, where they're both stuck in the one body, and the complication is that he... Wow, that's... Yeah, I would have loved that. Right? That hit me, and I was just like, that accomplishes everything they're trying to do with having 22 walk a day in his shoes, but still give Joel control of his body and his agency and all that sort of shit.

And the same thing with this movie where I'm just like, it could have worked if she's still a human and Naveen is a frog and she's trying to help him because he promises that he'll give her the money for the restaurant. Like this movie could still pretty much work as well, if not better, just on a story level, right? Like putting aside the larger sort of like perception issues of this movie. But there's this weird thing where they had optioned this book called The Frog Princess that was like a YA early 2000s book that was the take on, oh, it's like a riff on The Frog Prince. The girl kisses the frog, but rather than the frog becoming a prince, she turns into a frog too. I think that was maybe optioned by Pixar originally. I was trying to track the trail of this, but it was its own independent project.

Then Lasseter comes on, says, we're going back to hand-drawn. And his sort of proposal was like, maybe one out of every three movies will be hand-drawn. But we want to be in the hand-drawn business. We're still doing CGI, but we want to be doing our classic princess musicals. We want to be doing this. And then at some point, like all the things gel where they're like, we're probably overdue to do a black princess movie. We want to do a hand-drawn musical. The options exist within the Disney Pixar family for this book. And the princess and the frog or the frog prince or any of those variations of the stories are like one of the sort of classical fairy tales that haven't been touched by Disney yet. So all those things get mushed

together. And the problem comes from, as you said, David, it doesn't feel malicious or strategic, but it's like, okay, so you bought the rights to this book that's kind of a clever twist of, oh no, what if she turns into a frog as well? And then you decide representation matters. We want to make a movie in New Orleans about Southern cooking and jazz music and have an African-American lead character for the first time. Let's combine the two and have her be a frog for 90% of the running time. And no one said that it would be that no one had an issue, even when they asked Oprah to be a consultant. Do you have an issue with the full like-thirds of this movie where we don't see the black woman?

Do you think Oprah was like, wait, do you think she should be a frog for that long? And they were like, Oprah, look, we realize this, but it's too late. We're halfway through drawing this thing and we can't turn that boat around. We're just trying to fix things on the side. That's honestly what it feels. I mean, there's that story Dan Harmon tells about being brought in to do rewrites on kung fu panda and they show him the entire movie on like storyboards right and they're like we can't change it you can only change 30 percent of it and he said what did that mean and you said you can change 30 percent of the storyboard

cards entirely you could take 30 them, replace them with something new, or you could modify 30% of what is in each storyboard. Singular. Just stuff on the sidelines. Isn't that, wait, isn't that Patton Oswalt? Now I can't remember who that is. I think both of them have done bits about this. It's possibly Brett's book.

That kills me to even think about. Right. They did something similarly with Soul. The movie was almost done before they brought in Kim Powers, who co-wrote and co-directed it. bar and we on for they did something similarly with soul like the movie was almost done before they brought in kim powers who co-wrote and co-directed it and it's like it's still great it's great that that they do stuff like this like it's like yes get people please get people involved that can provide a different perspective like please do that but like now you know can you

just get them a little bit earlier can you just can you bring them in at the top maybe they're the people who should be formulating these movies in the first place rather than the people you bring in as like a council at the end this is the i mean but right but like right what's happening here instead is lester is like i want to take you you guys took these movies off life support i'm trying to just bring them back in any way. Clements and Musk are obviously, you know, the old legends who, you know,

started the Renaissance. Like let's bring them in. And then you have Rob Edwards who worked with them on treasure planet on their last movie co-writing with them. So, you know, but yes, I mean, every world in cinema seems so cloistered.

Animation seems so cloistered. Animation seems so cloistered. Right. Like the fact that Pixar just now is putting out shorts like. But but yes, it's taken so fucking long. James, I'm curious because it sounds like you've read a lot of the same like crafting of soul interviews and pieces because I like after watching it was like, I really want to try to figure out the gestation of this movie, how this came to this shape. And I just keep on sort of digging into it to try to figure out some of the story decisions because soul is a movie. And Moana is like this for me, too, where like i love this i find this very watchable if i engage with it i find a lot of things problematic in it but the movie as a piece i find very functional and effective and then i have these large kind of issues with them uh this movie for me i it does not grab me as much uh to distract me from the issues that I find. But I found some Kemp Powers interview recently where he directly said, and I think part of like the weird soup of soul is that

it's a doctor created thing, obviously. He's the one bringing it to life. It originally was supposed to be the Joe Gardner character was supposed to be an animator and then he was an actor. They landed on music late. Then it became jazz because it felt like oh that's the form that's maybe the easiest to represent like this sort of like spiritual ether of what we're trying to do this sort of uh jazzing that the whole movie ends up being about um and and then kemp is brought on after they've realized oh oh, this character should be black. If if the movie's about a jazz musician in New York City, they came to that last. They had jazz musician before they were like, oh, should he be a black guy?

Right. So that's the chain of things. They were like actors to self-involved animation is too insular because that's our experience. He should be an artist. At a certain point, he was a scientist like they were like, but it's better if it's art because... It's just like your life's passion, I guess, right? Then they were like, it should be a jazz musician. Is Dr. John still alive? Is he available?

The last step is, I guess this guy shouldn't be white. Then they bring Kemp Powers on, but that also coincides with Lasseter being ousted and Pete Docter being placed in charge of Pixar. And so I think Ken Powers has a lot more authorship over that movie

than a lot of co-directors or co-writers brought on late in these films. Because I think Pete Docter started having a full-time job and it feels like Ken Powers maybe kind of was running quarterback on the last year of that movie. But I read an interview with him where he was addressing the complaint of people being like, why is fucking spies in disguise he's a pigeon the whole time why is princess and the frog a

frog the whole time why is this i got spies in disguise fully forgot right right like why are there three of these right and he said like well you have to understand it all kind of happened organically all this story development was done before i came on board. This and that piecemeal. When I came on board, I immediately sort of like pulled the fire alarm saying like this. We have to be very careful about what we're doing here. The optics of not having him in his own body aren't great. And he was the one who was like, I want him to be in the cat's body. That was a Kemp thing. So that way he could be around the whole movie.

That was a Kemp thing. So that way he could be around the whole movie. Oh, right. Because this thing that he revealed in this interview was 22 was supposed to be the lead of the movie until like a year ago. The entire film was designed from 22's perspective. Right? That's like a crazy thing.

It feels like the movie was designed to open in the great beyond, focus on 22, and you don't even really deal with Joe until she ends up in that body yeah yeah so but that's interesting though too even thinking even thinking about like then it's like it becomes even more confusing if like the movie was originally supposed to be about 22 then like like, then like, why folk? I have so many more questions. I agree. There's a lot of questions.

Why focus so much on Joe? Like, like, like why not? Why not just start? Cause one of my issues with, with soul was like, I would have liked to have been in the land of the dead more or in the,

the land of the great before. And like spent more time with that. Like, I feel like Pixar does has so much fun with, with their new worlds and and stuff but they were kind of like they kind of did the like bullet points of like this is the land this is the great before all right we out we back on earth you know which i i agree with a hundred percent and that only makes sense when you realize that's what the movie was supposed to be and then kemp powers came in and it's like you're playing with some volatile elements here.

You need to completely reconfigure what you have on the board. You have not thought about the larger takeaway points being made by this movie. Right. I also think, I don't know, like doctor had literally made his feelings blobs movie. It feels weird that he was like,

but what if it's about souls and i'm like is that that different from feelings like how how are you putting all your credit this is going to take you years to make like it feels too close like especially since you know there's thematic threads running through all the movies he's made but like monsters inc to up to inside out it's not like it's like oh you're just repeating yourself you know what i mean like so it's weird i don't know i i'd like to see soul again but i i thought it was you know i thought it was good yeah i i like it a lot i i've seen it twice now but i have these fundamental issues with it uh when when soul got announced i remember talking with you about it

david and it was like oh the first time they were announcing a couple original movies. It had been so many sequels in a row. And then they announced like Onward and Soul, whatever it was, three or four years ago that those movies are eventually coming. And they're the animated originals at the end of this sequel pipeline. And you were like, that's encouraging that they're announcing new movies, right? new movies, right? And I, the biggest Pixar fan in the world, remember saying to you, like, it feels a little bit like self-parody for Pete Docter to make a movie about souls called Soul. It's the Steve Jobs-iness, you know, their whole Silicon Valley vibe where, you know, it's like,

he comes out, he's in his half zip, and he's like, you know, we just got to thinking, like, where does a soul come from? And everyone's just like whoa are you gonna show us the world of souls but that was like almost verbatim the exact log line when the film was announced a film that asked the question what is a soul what is a soul where did our personalities come from and then princess and the frog is kind of like the exact opposite where it's just like a lot of elements right there are a lot of elements that you can understand them getting excited about and going like, let's put them all together in this box without necessarily a larger overarching idea or vision. And it's, you know, Musker and Clements are like the old masters at this point within the system. Lasseter hires them back is like, we're starting up hand-drawn. If someone's going to be making a hand-drawn movie it should be these two guys but to your point it's

like if this is the story you're landing on then maybe it shouldn't be these two guys whereas i i agree with that i agree i and again i will watch soul again in a year or two maybe we do doctor one day it's four movies like he's one of the most prominent Pixar auteurs. Right. Obviously. But I agree with everything being said. And I preferred Onward, which I guess is a hot take, I guess. But I like Onward a lot. And I think Onward is underrated. I agree with that.

James, this opens up a question I realized we should throw to you in general. James this opens up a question I realize we should throw to you in general what is your sort of general relationship to Disney movies and especially this sort of Disney renaissance era we're all roughly the same age I feel like we've we've had guests on for this miniseries that are all roughly our age and it is hard to like extricate our generation from what these movies represented at different points in time yeah I i started not really i grew i grew up uh with like the disney vhs's so we had we had a ton uh we had like uh peter pan and and aladdin and you need the beast and like we had like all of those movies at at home um and then like i like prince and the frog obviously i did not see until like way later and got got into pixar but they're in the disney pixar regime but

like there's a handful of like of of like big ones that i just i haven't seen like i like you would be like have you seen this i'd be'd be like, no, I'm sorry. But like Finding Nemo and like, Finding Nemo and like Monsters, Inc. are like my jam. Yeah, the best. I freaking love them. Perfect movies.

Yeah, I also, you were slightly more of a Nickelodeon kid, were you not? I know you were a big Nick kid. Yeah, yeah. I was a big, big, big Nickelodeon kid. I didn't have like Disneyney channels like i wasn't i didn't like super buy into disney i went to disney world though and and land as a kid and loved both of those like like still like wide-eyed kid and experienced both of those places and loved

that but we were talking about this on some episode we recorded recently. Maybe it was our Return of Jafar episode, but my family had Disney Channel in those early days. I mean, obviously it wasn't the beginning, but before they became Basic Cable when they were still Pay Cable and it was seen as like a forbidden fruit thing. And I remember being so excited when my dad was like, we have added the Disney channel to the cable bill.

And I watched it all the time, but they had so little Disney on the Disney channel at that point in time. The Disney channel at that point was such a weird channel because they still were like, we could make more money licensing these things out to bigger channels that more people watch. My only memory of early Disney,

because until it was like a part of most cable packages, I never had it. But like, I remember like, I feel like, oh, but even like Goof Troop was like not on Disney Channel. That was like on like Fox and stuff, right? That was the thing. Like all those shows was like on like Fox and stuff, right? That was the thing. Like all those shows would be on like ABC, CBS, Fox, and then they would rerun on Disney Channel. Or like the one that had gotten canceled two years earlier was still in rotation on Disney Channel.

Like those early 90s cartoons would still play on Disney Channel. But I think it's like 97 is when Disney Channel becomes part part of a basic cable bundle and they start doing the original movies and disney channel becomes what people think of as disney channel right a whole generation that i missed out on like because like you know if there are people five years younger than me who are like oh my god my favorite disney channel original movie is like you know sarah in paris wait that just sounds like the netflix show but you know what i mean like or it's just like you're just like wait what is i've never heard of that and they're like it was on disney yeah my wife loves bring yes yes exactly right great example great example right right like and i'm i'm a couple years younger than you guys i don't know if your wife and i are the

same age but i think that's literally the difference of like Brink was like the second or third Disney Channel original movie. Like I was still in at that point, you know, for the first couple of them. But Disney Channel now represents something entirely different. And at the time that we were growing up, Nickelodeon had such a clear brand identity. There was such a thing to get into. And it's not just their programming, but there was the whole sort of like philosophical thing of like fuck you parents get out of here i'm playing with boogers yes the kids have taken over the programming yes yes slime man come on i just watched a documentary about early nickelodeon and that literally was there they were like

everyone sat in a room and they were like yeah we want to say fuck you to the parents right and i would say i would argue that nickelodeon has lost that that edge now like they're not quite as like fuck you parents used to be but that was a great that was a great time they used to be antipa they used to be anti parents but it did feel like it was like it was organized in that kind of way like every commercial on nickelodeon was like, while they're out of the room, we must plan. You can trust no adult. Put shaving cream in their slippers.

Tell them to go suck a lemon. Parents fucking suck. Even just, do you remember how aggro the Nickelodeon magazine commercials were? About how you just had to pester your parents to get you a Nickelodeon magazine commercials were about how you just had to pester your parents to get you a Nickelodeon magazine subscription until they broke down psychologically. It was like advanced interrogation techniques.

Right. There was those commercials, right, where it's like, yeah, listen up. Here's the strategy. Here's how you, like, put your parents' mind in a box, basically. And then you shake it. They're not the boss of you. You's the strategy. Here's how you like put your parents' mind in a box, basically. And then you shake it. They're not the boss of you. You're the boss. You rule everything. Your dad is a fucking bug. You can own him. Listen to me. I am your God. I am Gak.

In the 70s, it's like kids don't exist. We have no idea what those are. We don't make programming for them. In the 80s, it's like kids buy toys. The programming should just be toys moving around. And then the kids will want to buy the toy. By the 90s, they're like, kids are basically have credit cards. Like we need to treat them as an entirely independent demographic. And this is also it's a political movement now. This is an ideological stance.

And as right in contrast to that,ney is just like it feels like movies made by parents who are like come on trust us i i know we're parents but the movie's gonna be fun you know yeah right disney was never gonna be cool it's never gonna be cool disney is not cool if anything disney is the coolest it is now in that weird creepy way where it's become like a lifestyle for people it's a little you know much to handle but yeah disney will never be cool cool it's no no they also this is the disney channel shift i think that really takes hold in the early 2000s where they start like engaging with uh teen sexuality they start being like we're gonna make things about like kids dating each other and crushes and singing to each other like We're gonna make things About like Kids dating each other

And crushes And singing to each other And we're gonna create Like teen idols You know Which was a thing They had sort of Not done since

The Mickey Mouse Club Lizzie McGuire Sort of She's the dawn Of a new era For Disney Yeah Cause she's

Right She's like She's like a teenager She's a young teenager but still right it's it's whereas like in the 90s if you wanted that you had to be on nickelodeon you had to be watching clarissa and and you know all that stuff but but i mean to the point of what you were saying earlier james it is funny that like i mean watching it now i get it because now we've gone longer without a movie like this.

Like now it's actually been 11 years since they've taken a stab at making this kind of film. I think the only other major hand-drawn movie they did after this was the Winnie the Pooh movie, which quietly slaps is so fucking good. I didn't see it, but I remember being like all every movie that I feel like when this movie came out and when Prince and the Frog came out, it was like, we haven't done this. Like, this is going to get you right in the feels of your memory. And I didn't see it because of the fanfare. Like, it was so like, yeah, Winnie the Pooh's back you guys and i was like yeah i also have not seen it it's so good but it also felt like their whole marketing campaign was like you were saying

like guys this movie is so short and inconsequential it's the kind of thing that disney used to make like you don't even need to come right it's so charming, that film, but it also is like designed to be a non-event. It's 62 minutes. It's just got three loosely connected episodes. Like it's just good. It's funny. It's got good gags and shit, but yeah, it was like designed to be a minor film. Whereas this movie was all about like, this is important. We need this as a a culture we have to bring this back and it does like get to you it is weird i mean the movie starts and and like what you were saying at the beginning the episode james you watch it you're like fuck i didn't realize i missed this yeah i like there's something about the diction like the diction of the voice actors and you're just like that sounds i don't hear that sound in

anything else like i hear it in this the way that they move like the way that she cuts the ribbon in the beginning is like such a disney i'm not looking at the ribbon but i'm cutting it like it's so there's just the angles yeah everything. Everything about, yeah. Everything about it just is like trying to be like, and it feels like this movie in particular, it's like, we should have had a black princess earlier. Like, so we're going to make it feel as like,

this was actually just in the archives this whole time. That's the thing that kind of rubs me the wrong way about it is this feeling of like, we know, and we also think we should have done it earlier like that the movie is saying honestly i agree with you yes when they cut to when they cut to the the southern bell as a kid yes when we first see her like fully dolled up and like all excited and they're like the story is about her you know what i mean like they're like wasn't this dumb that we did this for so long yeah look see we're making fun of it now that's the character that feels so disney to me like whatever it is like the third shot of the

entire movie i mean you see the like cityscape or whatever and then when they go inside to them hearing the story and it's tiana and Bafoo girl or whatever her name is both like leaning forward on their hands like rapt attention. Her name is Lottie. What's her last name? It's Laboof, isn't it? Yeah, Laboof. Big Daddy Laboof

is her daddy. But just the way they animate these two little girls in princess dresses leaning forward listening to a fairy tale I was like this is just the most Disney animation shit of all time in a way that like hits me I'm like yeah I'm ready for this I mean

Griffin I'm I've been looking at the best animated feature nominees post you know of this last decade and for like how many American 2D films have even been made like period, not Disney anywhere is the only one I can see is Klaus Klaus. Right. I mean, I can tell you some that haven't been nominated, but they're mostly like seriously, like genuinely things like, you know, the two Spongebob movies. I mean, they're almost entirely TV show adaptations. Like the

My Little Pony movie. It's like shit like that. Right. It's just TV continuations. In terms of original, I don't think there are really any. Certainly going theatrical, because like Claws I love, but went to Netflix. It did, but it was at least, you know, that's at least a feature, right?

But like, you know, you see in these 10 last 10 years there's like stuff like the illusionist you know like european stuff there's obviously miyazaki the ghibli movies like there's things like you know it's not like it's a dead dead dead medium but it's just not coming from america right you know obviously and there's the great uh cartoonoon stuff, right? You know, Song of the Sea, yeah, all that stuff. Wolfwalkers this year.

Yeah. No, it always feels like you expect that every year it's going to be like two to three CGI movies, maybe one stop motion film, and then one film that has to function

as both the representative for overseas animation and for hand-drawn. Right. Right. Exactly. And otherwise, if a studio is making a big theatrically released the representative for overseas animation, and for hand-drawn. Right, right, exactly. And otherwise, if a studio is making a big, theatrically released 2D film in the States, it's almost always because that's the style

of the TV show that it's based on. Just a bit of a bummer, just in general. This is kind of the last one, and maybe it's the last one forever, although I do feel like with Hollywood, everything old is new again. I'm sure someone will come along like and maybe it's the last one forever although i do feel like with hollywood everything new old is new again like you know i'm sure someone will come along and be like well don't we miss that like let's do you know like that surely that will happen again at some point right and it'll hit

kids kids will be like i've never seen anything like this yeah that's right right i've never seen this on the it's big it's on the big screen It feels like that's sort of maybe what Netflix is trying to do. I mean, Claws, they did not develop, they acquired while it was in development, but it was not something birthed by them, or at least it wasn't their genesis. I think is really good and and and uses CGI to augment the 2D in a really interesting, smart way that gives it its own unique look. But it is fundamentally a 2D film. That movie is like English Spanish, right? It was directed by a Spanish guy. So even that movie is not entirely American either. But then they did that one this year or last year, Over the Moon, that Glenn Keane directed, who's like a legendary Disney animator.

That's a Chinese fable that was co-produced by them and Pearl Studios, which used to be DreamWorks China, but then DreamWorks sold it off into its own company. And that was sort of created by Netflix in-house. I mean, they developed that from the beginning. And Glenn Keane was a big hire. They took away from Disney to say, you should be helping run our animation department. And it feels like they've been making

a lot of announcements. They've been making a lot of big hires. There's a lot of things they haven't announced in terms of specific projects. But it feels to me like Netflix strategically is maybe trying to exploit that gap, that hole in the culture. Yeah. It just in general also that there there's an animation you can make more animation it's very popular in

general like yeah 3d 2d whatever right but uh as you as we sort of said for context we should get into the movie itself obviously but right you know lassiter brings them in uh apparently new orleans is his favorite city did you know this this is part of the i didn't but it's it's it's frustratingly on brand it just he loves to party right new orleans is his favorite city in the same way that hawaiian is his favorite shirt you know it's like i i get it i understand what you like about this city john um uh oprah winfrey of course hired as a technical consultant as you said based on both the frog princess the frog prince story but also this like YA book from the early 2000s that I think you're right Pixar had been working on something but they don't even I mean they bought the rights

from her she got paid i don't even think there's any sort of proper story credit for the movie it's like she got paid a lot of money for them to use nothing other than the hook of the girl becomes a frog too yeah i don't know you know wikipedia lists it but yeah i know i don't remember seeing it like in the credits or anything like that no and it's got's got a Nekanoni Rose. She had just done Dreamgirls. She's obviously like

a big Broadway figure. This is actually a good point. James, you were saying how different the voice acting is in this movie. This is them

consciously sort of like running back the dial to what Disney was doing in the 90s of mostly cast Broadway actors. Right. Not big celebs. Yeahs of mostly cast Broadway actors. Right. Not big celebs.

Yeah. I mean, you know. Right. Cast Broadway actors, cast veteran voice actors, and maybe a couple of character actors with interesting voices. Right. But it's like your leads are pretty much Broadway actors. Then you have like Jim Cummings and Kevin Michael Richardson, who are just animation

vets playing the key supporting parts and then it's like oh you'll sprinkle in like Keith David and John Goodman right and like Oprah plays that is the mom yeah right uh Keith David's um a voice legend in his own right of course he's and same with Goodman, right. A lot of the people in this movie who are also live action actors are either primarily Broadway performers or have done so much animation that it qualifies as an entire second career for them.

Absolutely. I didn't even hate Terrence Howard being all smooth and whatever. I was like, yeah, cool. Her dad's super smooth. This is fine. It's also good casting like he's got a fucking good voice he's only gonna be in the movie for five minutes like make him stick out in our minds uh jennifer lewis obviously who is another broadway legend yeah you know been in

everything and is giving a performance oh yeah i i enjoy it oh come on it's a performance yeah i looked at i looked up the cast before i started watching the movie i started watching Oh, yeah. I enjoy it. Oh, come on. It's a performance. Yeah. I looked up the cast before I started watching the movie. I started watching the movie, and then when Mama Odie came on screen, I went, who is playing this? Even though I had just looked up, I went, this can't be Jennifer Lewis.

So, the plot of the movie, she's not really a princess, much like many a modern Disneyney princess much like mulan like all these yeah characters that they you know dub princesses yeah uh i guess it's those two are the the most egregious they have you know they're not princesses they're regular people yes but uh tiana is a she's a waitress she lives in in New Orleans. Her best friend is a local rich girl and she wants to own a business as her dad wanted to do. And he's dead. That's the that's the that's that's where we're starting.

Yeah. I mean, I like her a lot as a character. I'm most engaged in this movie for the first whatever it is, 15, 20 minutes. When she's like doing the waitressing, she's like juggling all the dishes around and all that. Yeah. Yeah. And it is like you talk about this movie trying to get back to like, oh, the way the Disney movies used to feel.

I was thinking while watching this, it's like, you know, the princess movies, the musicals, the fairy tales, they are usually, you know, period pieces set in a very specific culture or a fictionalized version of a culture working off a tale that we've all heard a thousand times put in some specific genre into it, right? The contemporary Disney animated films, and I know this movie is set in the early 1900s, but in the span of Disney animated films, I think anything that's in the 20th century counts as contemporary. Certainly. Yes. The contemporary Disney animated movies are almost all the animal movies, right?

Like the ones that are more modern are Lady and the Tramp and 101 Dalmatians and Rescuers. Those are the ones that take place in like a modern civilization. And they're talking animals who see the world differently because they're not really in the world of men. And this movie is weirdly, it's like, it's bizarre. You're like, oh, this is odd to hear a Randy Newman score, which feels more modern. To see Tiana existing in like a modern city. To be like trying to build up money to buy a business and not be like concerned with the decrees of the king and shit. And you're like, this feels like something new.

This is them taking a step forward. And then it just slips kind of into animal movie. And I immediately, there's just a deflation for me once they become like frogs on a river. James, what do you think? Part of it is I really like frogs. Frog is my favorite animal. Interesting.

You mean to eat? I do like to eat a frog. I will say that. What? Yes. I love frogs too. I've never eaten frog, but I love frogs as well. I'm with Griffin in that it does

deflate for me the second she becomes a frog too. And I feel like I did this the first time i watched it which was i always you know check the time to see like oh how long has it been and i was deceived this time because i got so wrapped up in in in her being like her what she was going through before she turns into a frog but i was like wow i don't i didn't remember it being this long and it's like not long it's just under it's less than 30 minutes before she turns into a frog it's like 29 50 or something i think is the exact moment when she when she shifts into a

into a frog and i don't know it just feels like it's like what even is happening now that she's like it's now just all she wants to do is like not be a frog so that she can, you know, I don't know. And we're going to see them fall in love over the course of an hour. Like, yeah, right. Once she's a frog, the conflict becomes, can I get back to the movie I was doing beforehand? And the problem is, as an audience, you're like, yeah, I preferred that movie, too. Here's the thing. I agree that the central metaphor of their frog hood is not really clear for him.

I guess it's a little more like he needs to be humbled. He's a, you know, jerky, uh, rich kid, right? Like I,

I get his part a little bit more, but she's just kind of like, I don't want to be a frog. Like, let me get out of this right now. I enjoy journeying through the swamps and meeting fireflies and crocodiles and and all that uh just fine like i don't mind the change in milieu but i don't like if you're thinking of the classic disney transformation uh movies right like

a little mermaidermaid or even, what else? What else do we got? Come on. There's like a few words. Emperor and the Guru. Beauty and the Beast. Beauty and the Beast, right.

Right, like, you know, there's a huge lesson that has to be learned. I guess, what does she have to figure out? Look, this is my single biggest problem with the movie. These are the two biggest failings for me, okay? And they become pretty fatal flaws. One, I do not at any point buy that there is a lesson that Tiana needs to learn and that she learns it. I don't think this film ever convinces me that she has a character flaw that needs to be resolved, that it somehow happens through her experience being a frog.

I think she's a pretty fucking good, well-adjusted person. I like her. She's responsible. She's got good priorities. And they shoot themselves in the foot too, because like it could be that she could, she could like not have such a strong reliance on the fairy tales and the magic and the mysticism of that.

Like, but like, but in the beginning, they're like, you can't just wish on a star. You have to have hard work. And she immediately takes that in. And it's just like, okay, I don't believe in the mythology of these stories. I'm good. I'm going to make my own way. And then she suddenly gets thrusted into one.

And it's like, none of the, none of the magic works still, but like, she has no reason to think that it, there's nothing there. And at that point, it, it doesn no reason to think that it would. There's nothing there. And at that point, it doesn't feel like her learning a lesson. It feels like this movie is just being cruel to her. You fucking you knocked these fairy tales out of her brain and told her to fucking grow up and care about the real world.

And the second she got her shit together, they were like, never mind, Jinx, you're in a fairy tale. But that, yes, that is, that's the arc the arc is that she needs to not just worry about you know being this great success and fulfilling this dream that she's had with her father and her right like it's like no like you should make time for fun and for silliness and for kissing frogs and like uh living your life beyond your career and it took being a frog to do that.

Of course. That was the only way she was ever going to learn. Soul does a much better job of that exact same story idea. Oh, the guy follows his passion to the sacrifice of everything else in his life. He needs to slow down. Yeah, but no one kisses in Soul. There's no kissing.

There's no romance between cute little cartoon frogs. That's why David likes this movie. David loves kissing. I like this movie because it has two little frogs that need to fall in love. They're little frog guys. I like frogs. Okay.

And I like kissing. Can I- And they figure it out. Can I throw out my second fatal flaw of this movie? Yes. I don't buy that Tiana has a lesson she needs to learn and that she learns it is A. And B, I don't buy that she ever falls in love

with naveen i don't know he's pretty cute though prince naveen of maldonia griffin maldonia i agree because like she even as the movie's going on she like when when when she learns that she wants to marry him and she's like oh my she wants to marry her he she's like, oh my, she wants to marry her. He wants to marry her. And she goes, oh my God, thank goodness. You're like, what? When did that happen? When did the scene happen?

When did you fall in love with him? Because I didn't see it. I didn't see it at all. And this is another staple of these types of movies, right? Where you have like the guy who's either so brutish and rude, like Shrek or Beast, or the guy who's so vain and caught up in his own stuff. And it's only through them being stuck together on an adventure together that she finally breaks through and sees the real him.

Right? Right. Same with Tangled 2. Stuff coming later. Yeah, absolutely. You know. Right. It's all an act.

You know, it's a defensive thing. You find out who they really are. Zootopia. Yes. A later Disney film. Yes. Obviously. Right. an act you know it's a defensive thing you find out who they really are zootopia a later uh disney film obviously right although a movie that i appreciate for being a romantic but their buddy duo is very much based on that dynamic yes nonetheless right like you know she's he's the charming rogue she's the straight arrow they're gonna break each other's walls down yada yada i agree with you james i had that exact same moment when she goes oh thank god he does love me i went where did the scene go yeah where she starts liking him i guess one of those scenes was supposed to represent that but but it just doesn't feel like they really sell

that to me yeah and and part of the problem is uh the frog faces aren't super expressive because i do feel like there's that moment when he's like, I love how excited you are about your dream. And, and we do, we get two, two looks from Tiana as a frog. And one of them is like, what do you love? And then the other one is, and when he says my, your dream, but, but we know that he's like covering up. It does not read like it doesn't read that it's something more than that. And it's because I think the frog faces are just a little too pared down, a little not as expressive as they could be. And, you know, I like the frog face. James, I fully agree.

We've gotten to the central conflict of this episode. We've identified it. This is a movie about kissing frogs. And David is always going to be in the tank for that. You and I are less innately drawn to frogs, James, than David is.

Here's my larger point. Here's my larger point. Yeah. Beyond this movie. Now, Tangled has a romance. I think the romance is the least interesting part of Tangled.

I think it works. It's not my favorite part, but I think it works. It's fine but i don't like flynn rider very i like him i think he's good it's the only zachary levi performance i like go on that's crazy no you like shazam now you have to admit it you you you like it yeah come on shazam's pretty great oh i love shazam i i it is almost a testament to shazam i think he's doing the bare minimum to make that movie work. And everything else in the movie is firing on all cylinders.

But post Tangled and Disney is now is just resistant to romance. Yeah, it's and I think it's partly born out of the fact that the Disney princess story arc is very regressive. And the old, you know, narrative trope of like you need to find your prince charming and at the end you're gonna get married is something they wanted to leave behind or or he needs to find you you need to sit around and wait for him to find you yeah you know and like your reward is this right like i understand that they wanted to dispense with that so even when they bring back the princess stories with Frozen, they consciously avoid romance.

You know, you got Anna and Kristoff mucking up a little bit, but like the whole point of Frozen is it's about the sisters and their connection. And that's what saves the day at the end. Right. And Zootopia, like you say, like it's got that like, you know, moonlighting sitcom energy, but it's not a romance moana doesn't have a romance so pointedly a romantic yeah the ralph movies lack romance um uh frozen 2 finally lets on and christoph kiss you know thank god but it doesn't look like raya

and the last dragon's gonna have a romance like i don't object to this entirely. I just think, give me a little, once in a while? Come on. I miss it. It's been so long since we've had kissing in Disney movies. I mean, it's really cute that he minces a dinner for her. I loved that. I thought that was really cute. That's the closest they come to having chemistry in frog form, I feel like, in terms

of setting that up. But I still think it's missing a beat. Yeah, because even in that scene, it's like, yeah, good, he tried to do a thing. Like, it's not that she didn't need anything from him. No, no, which is the other reason I think the movie probably

works better if she stays a human the whole time. Like, somehow, I think the story, because the movie at the end tries to get back to this idea of like, well, my father wasn't didn't have everything he wanted, but he had everything he needed. Right. She has this realization that the love in the family is the thing that matters most of all. And her father was rich in love or whatever, which it does not seem to be. Which it does not seem to be that woven into the rest of the film. Right. But but also it's like, well, she's stuck with Naveen because they're both in this shitty situation together. Whereas if it had been a little more of a Zootopia thing where it's like, look, I don't like you, but you're telling me if I can figure out how to make you a human again, you'll give me the money for my restaurant. Okay, we're uneasy allies, you know? Versus they're

just united because they're both fucked. Yeah. I think they can't have one of them be a frog and the other one not be a frog because then she'd be falling in love with a frog as a human and maybe Disney was just like no, we can't do that. Yeah, but they did Beauty and the Beast. We can do and the Beast we can do it again

we can do it again I was gonna say yes yeah and also it's it's just once again it's like Naveen gets turned to a frog because he goes to fucking Facilier who tricks him but also because he's like fucking flighty and like looking for easy life hacks and shit his just reward yes

right exactly Tiana has done nothing wrong well that's fine i think another reason i like this movie is that i am someone who often as griffin can attest encourages people to set things aside in the name of romance a little bit right like come on throw caution to the wind right like i'm a little bit like that right yeah kiss Yeah you know and just We're talking about the movie but like as you said Right um Prince Naveen

The penniless but handsome prince Uh gets turned into a frog by The shadow man Dr. Facilier Played by Keith David okay He runs into Tiana she's Dressed like a princess for a costume party Uh she kisses him Turns into a frog.

Now they're both frogs. Now they gotta go in the bayou and figure out their situation. And they meet, as we mentioned, Mama Odie. Played by Jennifer Lewis. A 200-year-old voodoo priestess. Who is essentially the movie's fairy godmother, right? She's the one. They're going to her.

They're like, can you help us out of this situation? She's the fairy godmother, but she's also like Yodaoda she's a little yoda-y sure right and then she's small and old and silly right yes and dancing around and cooking things and yes that plays with snakes she has a staff right doesn't she when she first walks out yeah she's hitting things with sticks. Yeah. And it's basically, she is me in that these two people come to her door and they're like, we don't know what the fuck to do. We're hanging out all the time. It's, you know, we're making each other crazy. We want to be rid of this situation.

And she's like, yeah, well, you know, you know what you need to do, right? And they're like, yes, what we need to do is be rid of the situation and go back to doing the normal things that we were doing and she's like you don't get it at all what you need to do is kiss that's what you need to do and they don't get that they'll figure it out it was really funny when when the song ended and they asked like do you know did you get it and she and she says like, I have to raise the mic. Whatever the thing is that she says. And then Ray's like, okay, we got to sing the song again. One, two, three. That kind of joke gets me every time. Every time.

Get the trombones out. Let's do it again. Like, I love that. The one I was thinking of that's my favorite version of that joke is in Muppet Treasure Island where they do the cabin fever number. And then it cuts down to like the barracks where the few pirates are being kept and they were like what's going on there and like oh you missed it was a whole musical number and then they start telling them like singing it again uh yes that joke always fucking gets me when a musical number ends and the characters go like that was a good musical number i still want to be singing um so yeah like and this is a movie where everyone is in some kind of debt right like

uh naveen he has no money his parents have kicked him out because he's such a scoundrel tiana is trying to raise money for her thing dr facilier literally owes like a magic debt to voodoo gods that's why he's like right he's doing the thing he's doing and like you just you just gotta kiss and you're going to figure it out together. Like strength in numbers, people like this. It's it's a beautiful thing. Princess and the Frog. I always knew you liked this movie more than I did.

I didn't realize this movie was the purest distillation of your heart song. I just really like. Yeah, that's like I just love the message of that scene where she's like don't you realize you're in a disney movie that's what you're doing right now you got you should you guys should get together and tiana's like if i take out a bridge loan i heard bank of america has good interest you know what i mean like she's but i also sure i just don't think look i think they avoided it because it felt like oh like cliche wrote to do all the story building blocks. And also they want to not shame her for being an independent, strong minded, business oriented woman.

But I think that's part of the conundrum this movie gets itself into where it's like they want to be supportive of her dreams and her progress and the way she's built her life at the beginning. But then they're also trying to argue that there's something lacking from her life. Yeah, you don't need a man, but you need a man, girl. Right, because there's nothing, there's no moment in the first 30 minutes where you get the cliched, like, she goes home and then she's just lonely

eating a can of soup, you know, above a mat. She eats dinner alone. Right, exactly. Right, there's no scene of her rejecting a bunch of boys who like her a lot, you know? It's just like, I don't know, she seems pretty okay.

She's pretty good. This is the whole problem. This is the needle they can't thread where they're like, well, what, can we do a romance without it feeling didactic? And it feels like they're like, I guess not, let's not do it. And I love Moana,

and we're going to talk about Moana, but I do think Moana slightly struggles from her being a little too together when the movie starts. Like, and that's sort of my problem with the 2010s disney thing these characters are two together we'll get to it i mean i have my home i want to take on that but we'll get to it yes fair enough but i mean like you know frozen uh you know uh is the one that figures that out the best i just my problem with frozen is how it looks i just don't love how it looks like i know i don't mind the the whole

sort of narrative arc of um elsa like i i dig that by and large the the tangled the tangled frozen thing i like is i feel like they have figured out how to replicate the disney art style in three dimensions even if you prefer it hand drawn it it it's got the right shapes it's got the right stylings it's got the right lines it's got the right stylings. It's got the right lines. It's got the right movements. Tangled is better to me because I like the colors more. In Frozen, if I drop them, they just shatter is how it always feels. They're just so pale and doll-like. Well, that's the problem. When they're in three dimensions, they all look like really bespoke porcelain dolls.

You become very aware of the physics of that head is huge and that waist is tiny you know and those wrists are like toothpicks um the thing i was gonna say i think tangled is the one that solves that problem the best i i think i agree that the romance is not my favorite aspect of it but i I think it does it well enough, at least goes through the basic motions. But I also think Tangled has the right balance of kind of she thinks she's an independent, strong-minded woman who knows what to do. But also she's lived in a tower her entire life. She doesn't understand how anything works. So I feel like the movie lets her feel confident about herself while also creating comedy out of the fact that her misunderstanding of the world around her is sometimes that she thinks things are more dangerous than they are.

And sometimes she doesn't recognize the danger. And there's a lot of versatility in how she can behave. This movie just, as you said, backs itself into a corner where they don't want to shame anything about Tiana's life before she turns into a frog. And then once she's a frog, they have to argue suddenly that she was missing something earlier. It's the Moana problem that I just mentioned. It's the same thing where they're just like, they build her up so much, which is good in that she's this pretty lovable

and interesting and put together character from minute one. But then it's like, right, well then what do we do with this? Like, we're not going to do a movie about someone opening a business. Like, come on, you know, like, right. You know, like you said, they back themselves into a corner. Remind me, we'll come back to that a movie about someone opening a business. Like, come on, you know, like, right. You know, they, like you said,

they back themselves into a corner. Remind me, we'll come back to that at the end of the episode. Let's, let's talk about some of the supporting characters. Let's talk about, uh, Lewis and Ray and Facilier.

Cause they're like, they're the color in this movie. I love all of these characters so much. I love them so much. I watch their songs a lot, like on YouTube or whatever. Like I go to their song. It is funny that Ray probably sings more

in this movie than Tiana does. Yeah, there was a point where, I don't think I realized this on my first watch, but there was a point this time where I was like, Ray's singing again? Again? I couldn't believe it. It's another first watch, but there was a point this time where I was like, Ray's singing again? Again? I couldn't believe it. It's another Ray solo?

He's got a good arc. We had a minute has passed and he's singing again. Ray's got two I Want songs? Ben, Ben, Ben, Ben. Wait, you haven't really weighed in, Ben. What's your take on Princess and the Frog? Ray is the character that feels very Ben friendly. Off mic, you've been hyping ray up to ben for the last two months saying ben you're gonna like this guy and i did i loved ray yeah he's cool i think ray

is like my kind of guy he stuck out but i just watched this movie for the first time and it just was like what is happening sure right she's a frog in a lot of different ways just like this is wild um a lot of stuff yeah a lot of stuff just like a alligator that plays trumpet but that talks to humans. My favorite. Yeah. Good character. All about him. He's a great character. It's so like, and then,

but then the payoff, imagine going to a restaurant and an alligator is playing trumpet while you're eating dinner. You'd be like only in Norvins, baby. Yeah. Could you imagine? Oh my God. See, like little things like that are really cool but overall i i was very perplexed by it i i think louis is so funny i think uh uh why am i forgetting

his name now eric goldberg who was the main animator on genie is the one who was the main animator on louis and he's got the like all the fun disney comedy character energy the physicality great voice performance yeah and i just love his his fucking uh conflict of just all he wants to do is play jazz for humans and he's a terrifying alligator i have had this image stuck in my head for since the first time I saw this movie, which I think was a few years ago. But but when he played when he plays on the boat and then jumps off and then all of the rifles come out. That's so crazy. There's so many rifles. It's so funny. I remind I remember being so underwhelmed by this movie in theaters

and just exploding when that happened like i was like i don't remember the last time i laughed that hard at anything the entire setup and timing of that is so exquisite of just well why don't you do it i tried once didn't work out well you're not expecting a cut to right that is not in the common vernacular of these movies it's so not on disney where it's like well have you ever tried it and you're like we're gonna move on your i assume we're just about and he's like well and you're like wait we're doing a family guy style cutaway and then it works and then it has like it would be funny if he just jumped on the boat played the trumpet

and they and then jumped off like that would be funny it would not be seismic wouldn't it would be would be hilarious if it was that same lockdown shot everyone's playing on the boat he climbs over the side looking sneakily proudly starts playing the trumpet everyone looks at him aghast that would be funny right it's the timing it's the rhythm of it yeah it's the timing it's the fact that he's like i know they won't like that I'm a crocodile, but surely once I start playing this trumpet. He thinks he can win them over. And the fact that they don't immediately

like run off in revulsion, that they're just stunned, silent, watching him. But then once he jumps back into the water and the guns come out, it becomes. Hold on. Wouldn't you, Griffin? Yes. Wouldn't you be astounded?

Yes. Wouldn't you be astounded? Yes. You'd stop for one minute at least. Yes, I would. I'm not questioning. I'm saying it's funny and good. I like it. Yeah. But everyone on the boat had a rifle.

Yes. And people on other levels had, like, he wasn't even on those other levels. Why did someone on every level come out and try to shoot this they're ringing the croc bell everyone please get your croc guns out just the deeper thing of like where it's like he's a crocodile who loves jazz and they're like

well how do you know about jazz like and he's like well the riverboats he's an alligator I'm sorry I always confuse that with a crocodile but the riverboats are always going by and all the legends have played on that and i hear that and i'm like yeah that makes sense i love that that's great that makes total sense i also i love that his conflict is so specifically i want to be able to play for humans like these these creatures in the swamp don't appreciate my music i know that's the audience that would get my skill, and they are scared for their life when they see me.

Now, let's move from Louis to Ray, who is a middle-aged Cajun Firefly who's friends with Mama Odie. That's how he comes in. Okay, sure. Yeah, let me just say, I mean, you, David, saying that Mama Odie represents your outlook on life comes in. Okay, sure. Yeah, let me just say, I mean, you, David, saying that, like, Mama Odie represents your outlook on life, which is

you just need to calm down and find someone to kiss. Ray represents Ben's outlook on life with, wouldn't it be cool if you wanted to fuck the moon? That's just what I'm saying, where he's like, my thing is that I'm in love with the evening star in the sky.

And it's like, oh oh he thinks it's a firefly i get it this won't come up again and they're like no no that's gonna be the emotional button of the movie come on when he when he dies in his in his essence becomes another star it's amazing it's fantastic it's fucking great. I had totally, totally forgotten that happened. I forgot that he actually dies and that they prove him correct, that he gets to be with his love in the night sky forever. You assume because he sort of dies because when Facilier steps on him, you don't see it happen. we'll okay he'll he won't be dead he'll come back to life right it's really upsetting that it happens and it happens in that way because to be stepped on is so graphic like we see him get

stepped on real bad and this is a movie where several frogs have gotten like smacked with books and then popped back up while I know when a bug gets stepped on. So the way he just sort of does it casually and then he's just sort of like, OK, you know, and then moves on as well. It's so cruel. I love

it. I mean, and then yeah, go ahead. No, no. What are you gonna say, David? Sorry. Well, I was gonna move on to facility. So no, if more ray talk let's talk ray he's voiced by jim cummings uh yeah jim cummings who's winnie the pooh is a thousand darkwing duck a a million billion different characters he's ed uh and the hyenas the lion king yeah you know he's like he's often your funny guy i feel like right like he can give you weird, weird noises. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. But yeah, Dr. Facilier, the shadow man. I mean, just from an acting standpoint, Keith David's the MVP of this movie, right? Yeah. So dialed in. Such a good singer. The character is frightening. Also, like it's just all Keith David has to do is just, like,

and you're like, oh, my God, I'm terrified. Everything about this character visually, every time he's on screen, is just, this is the argument for 2D animation, right? Like, the character just feels like an argument for this medium being worthwhile. His shadow, the shadow, his own shadow, like, the back and forth that he has with his own shadow and then the other shadow creatures are, it's like, it's so, it's terrifying to me.

And when he gets dragged to wherever he's going. To whatever, voodoo hell, whatever. Yeah, he's going to get turned into a statue. It's terrifying. I can't imagine being a child and seeing that it it's and it's faced in the in the tombstone at the whoo come on the conception of this character is so bizarre because it's like voodoo street magician who wants to own the city sure he is haunted by a bunch of masks who function as like the backup vocalist for cab

calloway right and he's constantly trying to stay ahead of his debts like like he's a gambling addict and they're constantly trying to collect on him yes but he's so he just sort of like he he kind of like coincidentally stumbles into the plot i mean like the opening number you just see him like playing like three card monty with people and shit yeah and then it gives someone a hair cream and they like turn into a werewolf I like I like that that's really funny

right but then it's just kind of like he's just this guy who exists in the tapestry of this city looking for a way to run everything yes he's basically like he's gotten these magic powers but the price is that he needs to like pay these people in whatever dark you know magic tricks and things like right

like like yeah cursing people essentially yeah he has to hand over oh that was another very frightening image when he when he's like i'm gonna have the city in the palm of my hand and you'll have as many souls as you as you want. And then we see the masks suck the souls out of the fictional people of New Orleans that he has in his hands. But we see them pulled out of people. It's so scary. I could I could I can't imagine seeing that as a good. I probably would have fast forwarded through it every time. I just feel like it's interesting that so often the Disney villains, you know, especially in these movies we've been watching, they're very close to the main characters, right?

It's like, this is your guardian. This is your parent. This is your boss, you know? Yeah. This vagrant, essentially, this fully not connected at all. Like, she's like, i'm here too right right naveen is just dumb enough to walk through his like curtain you know like but it could have been any mark yeah he and he needs money right yeah and then naveen happens to sort of stumble upon

tiana i mean there's like an interesting amount of coincidence in this movie versus the usual disney uh princess movies which are so like it is destined. You know, it is in the tapestry. I ran this by you, David, but my brother, James, you know, my past and future guest, a huge fan of Keith David. We talk about Keith David a lot. We have a group text thread with his friend, Gabe, who I think listens to the show, where we often will talk about if we've rewatched a good Keith David performance or seen one for the first time. It's just like, that guy never gets enough credit.

Let's have this three-person text thread be a safe space to discuss Keith David at any moment. And I think Gabe at one point threw out, what is the best Keith David movie? And I had extended this to you, Dave, and I said, it's an interesting question because you have to go, is it what is the best film that Keith David is in? Right, in which case you're thinking The Thing, right?

You're thinking that kind of thing, right? You know, he's been in some very masterpieces. Right, like The Thing might be the best movie he's in, right? But you're like, or is it what movie uses Keith David the best movie he's in right but you're like or is it what movie uses keith david the best and when this is top this is high on the list right right like i don't love this movie but you kind of have to like it's kind of inarguable this is a top three keith david movie from that prism and that it almost feels like this movie is a tribute to like keith david this guy great yeah this guy's unbelievable we love't we love Keith David? Yeah.

Yeah, like, let's give him, let's he finally gets a run. I find that really hard to even try to answer, like, even attempt to answer. It is a fascinatingly difficult question. And you forget that, like, oh, right, he's in Requiem for a Dream,

right? Like, there's so many movies he's in where you're like, oh, I completely forgot he has like 10 minutes in that one and then even if you're thinking about like utilizing him versus how good is the movie but like he's such a good he's such a good villain and yeah but then he's also such a good like warm lovable character like he can he plays so he can play both sides and you're just like, I don't know. I don't know what even is the best energy I like from Keith David. Like you don't know which one of those you want more than the other. That's what makes it so tough. I mean, I was saying to David, there's almost an argument I want to form that the best Keith David movie is something about Mary.

Just because that is a performance that is just Keith David. Like he gets to own about a 10 minute stretch of that movie where you just feel like none of that was on paper. And he's just giving you everything. He's so funny in that movie. He's just so funny. Kind of very crucial to the movies, obviously. Crucial early scene, right? You know, like the line deliveries are very crucial.

I mean, in that year, he has that and Armageddon. Yeah. Two huge hits where he has like 10 minutes in each. I mean, I would argue that the best Keith David movie is the one you're watching right now. Whichever one, that's the best one. And you probably are watching a movie that he's in. It's very possible. Or a TV show.

That's a great point. And that's why this group test exists. Because anytime we watch a Keith David movie, one of us wants to text the other two and go like, is this the best one? I'm just looking at his Wikipedia right now. First of all, he says that his three favorite voice performances of all time are Spawn, Goliath, and Dr. Facilier. Which even just thinking about that, you're like, right. He was HBO's Spawn. He was the voice of Spawn,

right, yeah, in the HBO show. He was Goliath on Gargoyles, and then he's like the best modern Disney villain. But then you also look at like other voiceover roles and you're like,

right, he's the narrator in the English version of Princess Mononoke. He has vaguely anonymous roles like Frollo's soldiers in Hunchback of Notre Dame, Apollo the sun god and Hercules. He's got a lot of the small ones. But then he's in

Coraline. Oh, yes. He's the cat in Coraline. Yeah, he's great in Coraline. He's the cat. Yeah, he's so cool. Oh my gosh, when that cat starts talking, you're like, oh my... I want the movie to be this for the rest of the time. I just want to hear this cat talk.

He's the narrator of Ken Burns' burns's jazz like you know he can give you obviously his one season turn on community is fantastic i love elroy potashnik every time he pops up on on rick and morty i'm like can i yes i just want to hear him i love how much they use him and the president all that shit but i'm just looking at other shit here. And it's like, right. He was he was Black Panther on the Fantastic Four cartoon. I mean, and this is just us talking about the voiceover work. Right. I mean, from what we know, right.

He's one of those guys where, like, if you've got a role for him, he'll do it. Like, he's not he's a hard worker. He's not hard to get. He makes like 10 movies a year. Right. Like, you know, he'll show up in a big movie. He'll show up in a straight to video behind enemy lines sequel. Like he'll he'll do it all. I believe I've read interviews with him where he's said as much of just like, I consider myself very lucky to be able to work. And I don't take that lightly. And he's also a guy who just has the craft and the discipline enough that he truly is never bad. Why should he turn down a role?

He will always be the best thing in whatever he's in. It will never diminish his reputation to be in a movie. He only makes himself look better by going, how was Keith David so good in this? I just want to say I'm looking at his live action Wikipedia now. He has like 10 Broadway credits. He's a Tony nominee. Like, you know, he's obviously he's won Emmys. He's done everything and he's done everything equally well.

I just want to say I'm looking at his live action filmography. His first film credit is Disco Godfather Club Patron Uncredited. Right. So that doesn't really count. That doesn Hell yeah. So that doesn't really count. That's pretty good. But that doesn't really count, right? That sounds like it's an extra. What do you think his first proper film role is?

I unfortunately know because I was looking too. It's The Thing. That's his first movie role. It's The Thing. The Thing is his first movie. He's very good in it. His second movie is Platoon. Yeah, he's good in that too right

and then you're just like okay within that first decade he does bird he does they live he does roadhouse he does always he does two carpenters and Eastwood a Spielberg mm-hmm it's true yeah fucking best he does a works with Spike Lee he did clockers he works with Sam Raimi did the quick and the dead

like I mean he's got an incredible voice as of course that's what we're talking about here yeah um i did i keep replaying when i was in when i was i did uh a a training lab at the shake at the public theater in new york right after school and um right after college i should say so that people know what i'm talking about but um i it i played othello in one of my scenes and i i keep i replay this in my head often which was the director was just like you know keith david played othello on this stage so you gotta bring it and i i think about that every time i do anything. I go, yep, Keith David played Othello on that stage once. I could be in LA shooting something and it'll be like, yep, but remember that Keith David played Othello on that stage. You know what's incredible about that, James? It's not like you got to see that performance. Someone just told you, you know Keith David?

He played Othello, and you in your head went, well, that must have been one of the great performances in history. You just have no doubt in your mind that that must have been historic work. And it must be true. The video's probably somewhere.

Yep. More things I just forget. Like, right, he's the villain in barbershop he's five roles in cloud atlas it just it's so deep yeah i i mean i do it's just so much fun to watch this character move on screen and it is so much fun to hear him see say or sing anything and you you don't want him to be sucked to the to voodoo hell like you're like you're like oh shit even though he's been doing all this stuff we haven't seen him he hasn't killed anybody he has oh wait no he stepped on he stepped on ray he stepped on did step on ray that's the most

egregious thing he did and honestly i loved ray yeah but when he's like oh no i have other plans i have other plans please no you're no, don't suck him into hell. That having been said, he also is one of the most purely villainous Disney characters in that there's no, like, tragic backstory. There's no redeeming. He's just a guy who enters, is scary, is in league with demons and cons people. And you're still like, I feel bad for this guy. We should give him another chance. That's Keith David.

That's all Keith David, though. Like, Keith David is just everything he says is simultaneously kind of scary kind of funny kind of sexy it is all three of those things at all times i want to say that bruce smith who uh co-directed space jam uh is his animator and said basically like my favorite disney villains are captain hook and cruella de vil and that is what i wanted him to be i wanted him to have the physicality of a cruella de vil right this sort of long exiguous you know crazy stick like sort of you know herky jerky figure uh at but then right like i guess the sort of panache of a captain hook is sort of right yeah yeah absolutely we we were talking about that on one

of our earlier episodes how it feels like captain hook and ursula were the first two disney villains that enjoyed being villains that were like having fun captain hook is cool he's got a hook yeah and did you know that we respect them you fully respect them for having such a good time being like i'm gonna kill this kid like he's like it looks like I'm gonna kill this kid. Like, he's like, Captain Hook's like, I'm gonna kill this child. And you're like, fuck yeah, Captain Hook. Not only that, you're like,

maybe I should kill a child? I mean, it seems like it's working for this guy. Jesus. It's true. He's cool. So all this stuff that we're talking about, all this side stuff, I just love it.

It's part of why I always enjoy this movie. Anytime I've thrown it on is the middle section. I think everything you guys are saying about the Naveen Tiana romance, totally fair. As much as I like people kissing. But it's powered along by all this other stuff, which is lots of Disney movies do that, obviously. They have the side characters, you know, give you a lot of the energy. But I love it.

I guess I just, it just exclusively becomes about the side characters and the villains at this point. Pretty cool. As long as they're frogs, I kind of just stop giving a shit about the two of them

until that's resolved. They really do hand the movie over to them and it feels like it's theirs. And it's, I mean, it's sad. I also agree with you, James, that I think in particular, Tiana's frog design is pretty uninspired and unexpressive. Like it's the Naveen frog at least has a little more fun where it's like, oh, is this Pepe Le Pew frog and whatever. I like when he has the little banjo and he's playing it, the little, like, log banjo.

Yes, the log with spider web on it, right? Is that what the... Yep. The Tiana frog just looks like they put eyelashes and hips on the Naveen frog. Boom! Right, it just feels like, well, of course, the two genders, frog and lady frog.

We all know that frog is neutral, and lady frog is the variation uh yeah she's got her hands on her hips a lot obviously because she's always frustrated with him because he's such a cad with good reason yeah he's a bit of a cad played by bruno campos uh who is like kind of retired now uh he stopped at right after this movie he like went to law school and now he's like an environmental lawyer wow he was great in this but i get it yeah he's brazilian but before this you know he'd been on like nip tuck a lot and he'd done you know foreign films and you know been in sitcoms and stuff uh he's on jesse uh if you remember. He got that Disney money and he was like, I don't need to do anything else. Let me save the world.

Went to Michigan, got a JD. Disney residuals must be so bananas. I heard a story secondhand from a friend who is friends with someone who had a primary role in a Pixar movie. And I was talking to him about how I've been trying to focus more on voiceover work. And he was like, that's lucrative, right? And I'm like, no, it's just like, it all pays scale, right? If you get one of these big things, I imagine it pays well. It's a lot easier and less time consuming, but everything pretty much pays scale. And he was like, so my friend who was in a Pixar movie, I asked her about it. And she said, and like a big part in a big one she was like it was like sixty thousand dollars you know

like nothing to sneeze at but it's like for a movie that big you're just like oh that's you know it's what fucking robin williams got for aladdin before all these things got it but it's like unless you're a massive movie star and you're the title character it's pretty much like baseline you get sixty thousand dollars and then he was like and then a year later the first residual check paid for her house oh my wait paid for a house yeah she just bought a house the next year the residuals bought a house wow yeah and like a good house in hollywood this is a major role i'm assuming it's like a major supporting role but then it was also like and then you do the things for the theme parks and the video games and

the specials and the shorts and whatever it And it's just like it just never stops. Like the thing you get paid least for is doing the movie itself the first time. And then it just never ceases to pay out for you. Well, people do pay for these movies and Disney remains successful. Well, this is the thing I want to talk about. David, you were saying the Moana conundrum of, you know, do we want to just watch the girl be good at everything? Do we want to see Tiana just be good at running a business? It was recently announced at Disney Investor Day that they are doing a Tiana TV show for Disney Plus that is going to be 2D.

And it is pointedly going to be 2D by Walt Disney feature animation. It is not done by the television department. It seems like they are giving them a show in order to keep 2D animators on payroll, giving them something to do. So it's going to be high quality. I think this is coinciding with Splash Mountain is now going to be a Tiana ride.

Disney looked at the clock and went, 2020 now feels like the moment to begin considering that maybe one of our biggest rides shouldn't be themed around Song of the South. So they announced that Splash Mountain is going to be redone

to be all Tiana themed. And I think they're probably dovetailing those two things together. It seems like Disney is trying to use Tiana as a human who is now a princess and a business owner as more of a character to make more stories in that timeline and not just be stuck with Frog Tiana. We should acknowledge that in the final act of this movie, of course, Nivine tries to get kissed by um what's her pants the john goodman's daughter doesn't doesn't get it done in time it's also a pretty sweaty oh she will technically be a princess for three hours because her father is king of mardi gras okay no it's cool it's cool he's the king of Mardi Gras. Okay. Uh,

just like if you're the mattress King, right. Or you're like, right. The real estate King. But then does that make your daughter the mattress princess? That's my question. Okay.

Why not? Yes, but it doesn't work because Mardi Gras ends. And so they decide to just be frogs together. And then of course they are legally wed as frogs. And in that, that makes Tiana princess because he is a prince. And so when they kiss, they are legally wed as frogs. And in that, that makes Tiana a princess because he is a prince. And so when they kiss, they are humans again.

That's how they close that circle. And I'll say when that happens, I go, yeah, duh, guys, you should have realized that a long time ago. You're a prince. They sang the whole song. They sang the whole song. They didn't get it. Maybe they were worried that like a swamp wedding, a swamp frog wedding might not be legally binding in the eyes of magic.

I don't know. I don't know. Did you notice, though, that the magic was slimy when they transformed? Very slimy, yes. I like that. Oh, at the end when they reverted back? Yeah.

Oh, I didn't notice that. They got some mucus magic. We love it. I am just like, I don't know that. They got some mucus magic. We love it. I am just like, I don't know what this Tiana show is going to be, but I would be very excited if it was just like, Tiana and her animal friends

run a cafe. I would love for it to be that. Yeah, like, Louis plays the trumpet there. I mean, that's a great start right there. Right, I'm just like, make it Cheers in the 1920s

in New Orleans, and Louis is like Coach, but he also plays music. I don't not like that. I would love that. Like, it's called Tiana's Place, and like, you know, everyone shows up. They're the regular people that go there every day.

There has to be, though though like a voodoo like a protege of of a facility who is like who's going after them or i won't watch the show yeah keep david needs to be involved please please but yeah all that's known is it's called tiana oh it's just called tiana that's they should have done that that's wrong it's just called tiana. Oh, it's just called Tiana. That's they should have done that. That's wrong. It's just called Tiana, which in and of itself is like encouraging. No, it should have been called Tiana's place. Well, I'm saying we're halfway there.

We're almost there. What if it was called like the further adventures of Tiana and she's definitely a frog? Yeah. No, I'm hoping they'll evolve the title to tiana's place yeah because it feels like if it's something called tiana i would feel like there'd be like we found a reason to make her a frog again you know what i mean like it just feel it begs it begs to do that again you know like i like i hate when tv shows about a movie do that where they're like that thing that you really don't like about the movie we're gonna make that the whole thing uh we're gonna undo whatever exciting cathartic uh victory happened at the end of the movie um yeah i mean i'm interested to see what

that uh show is uh but it is interesting i feel like this movie comes out, they were pinning a lot on it, they were banging the drum really hard of like, this is important. We have to regain the Disney musical. It underperforms and then Tangled is so big the next year, you know, then the next run of them are all just getting bigger and bigger and bigger that it's just like, well, I guess no looking back now. It feels like, I don't know, I worked at the Disney store a couple years after this movie came out and Tiana Merch was always really, really big. It did always feel like there was a lot of love for this character, even if the movie never got elevated to that classic status. I think this movie has a big cultural footprint. I know a lot of

young kids like it. It does feel like it has lingered. I mean, for them to do the Splash Mountain thing and to announce the TV show, like you say, obviously they must have noticed. It feels like they're noticing that there's love for this movie a decade plus later. I'm interested to see what they do with, with the character in the world now. Uh, cause there are elements I like. Yeah.

They also made a huge mistake, which was that they released this film in mid December. I don't know why they did that. Like obviously they put it out limited like Thanksgiving weekend, but like it's, it's wide releases December 11th. This is a summer movie. I think like I,

I, I, you know, I, you know, sure, Disney, Christmas, it's family time, but, like, nothing about this movie is Christmassy. No. And also, that's just such a busy time. Like, you know, it's a little tougher to nose in there. I also, I think it's weirdly, like, it's too light. It's too much of a romp to play as a holiday movie.

You know, where I think if a Disney musical is going to come out in the holidays, it usually has a little more weight to it. And even just like Tangled and Frozen feel more epic

and have more adventure and action and shit, you know? When did Frozen come out? Frozen was a Thanksgiving movie, right? Frozen and Tangled both come out in November. Yeah, yeah. Now they pretty much stick with the

Thanksgiving. Moana, Frozen, Tangled, both Ralph movies are Thanksgiving. Zootopia is like the one that came out in the spring. Huge hit. Huge hit. I mean, all of them have been hits. Yes. Okay. We're going to play the box office game. We're doing the wide release, right,

Griffin? That's what you want. Yeah, right. Because they tried to repeat that thing, too, where like released it in one theater in LA one theater in New York and then it didn't even really blow the doors off there oh I would say that it did I mean a four hundred thousand dollar per screen average is pretty good right yeah I I stand corrected I misremembered it did it did good I but I do think that whole strategy is a mistake these days but i i i know in new york they played it at like the zigfeld and they had some pre-show thing and like a a program and the tickets cost more and they were really trying to make it into like a road show style event thing for that one week to hope that it would build word of mouth as like this is important.

Am I correct in remembering it just made $100? It made, yeah. Domestically, it made $104. Made $270 worldwide. Tangled, like you said, makes $200 and like $580 worldwide. Like Tangled's just a big level up and it's partly the 3D thing, I think. You know, there's other things too,

but like I do think that it's just like, no, 3D movies are now what children's animated movies look like, you know, get used to it. Yeah. And one could argue there this had not laid dormant long enough for there to be quite the sense of longing that was needed. I think Tangled also like even though it's a different visual style, I think Tangled benefited from the same, oh, it's been a while since there was a princess musical.

Right, I guess that's part of it. I also think, the reason I didn't see this movie in theaters is that she turns into a frog. And I saw the trailer, and I was like, that seems stupid. Why is she a frog?

I was just kind of like, eh, I'll catch this later. And then I caught it later, and i was like a firefly turns into a star it's about kissing this is good all the disney corporate people also like talk about this is like one of their waterloos where they're just like we really had faith in if we sell the disney magic we need to be a princess it needs to be traditional it needs to be classical people will want it and they said, by the time it came out, the perception was, this is old-fashioned and only

for little girls. This is for five-year-olds. This is a baby movie. It very much read juvenile and read kind of stodgy. It's why I think it will happen at some point. There will be some moment where whatever, the cultural temperature is right. And this probably wasn't it. I think when people saw Tangled and Frozen, which they marketed deceptively, but it worked in terms of getting people to the theaters, I would hear people say, oh, I didn't

realize how much I missed those movies. Okay, so does this movie open at number one? Well, in its wide release, yes. It gets to number one. It's a $24 million. It's not a huge opening, but solid. And the next week in Avatar comes out, right?

See, that's another fucking problem. You're right. Yes, the next week in Avatar comes out. Yeah, I think it's literally the week before the biggest movie. Oh, come on. There's too much. There's too much to act against this. It was just, they fucked up everything.

Number two, though, Griffin, is one of the major phenomenons of the year. It's dropped 25%. In its fourth week, it's still number two, dropping really low every single time. It was number one the week before. Is it what I consider the most inexplicable blockbuster of the 2010s? Sure.

I don't know. The Blind Side? It's The Blind Side. Yeah. How the fuck did that happen? I still don't get it. It's like American Sniper. It was like a Heartland movie.

It was a movie where it's like, this is a great inspirational true story. We're taking the whole family. Like, you know what I mean? Like, even more so because American Sniper was, you know, intense. So that had that. But Blindside, it's just like this is a movie for the whole family. You'll laugh. You'll cry.

You'll check your blind side like it, right? You know, I cannot. I once again, David, it's not that I don't understand that they were successful. The numbers on those two movies are so outsized. It's bizarre. It's bizarre that it's just like, why these ones to some degree? And like what Blindside was 250 domestic. Yeah, there was the Bullock thing, I guess, like, oh, it's a comeback for her.

Proposal had come out that same year. Right. Yeah. And like she wins the Oscar, obviously. But yeah, not a good movie i did see it not very good just like really treacly but but as you said it like opened big like the same weekend as twilight and they were like wow that's a big number two for blindside and then twilight started dropping and blindside started growing and then it was number one like

in its third or fourth week and And it's still holding on. Yep. Just so bizarre, that movie. Number three, another inspirational sports true story drama. New this week. From 2009. And it's not a live-action Disney, right? No, it's not.

It's an Oscar-nominated film from a major auteur who we will cover one day maybe I guess even though he's made like a million movies Is it based on a true story a true athlete Yes true story major historical figure of our lifetime

but it's a sports movie Yeah it's a sports movie with a major historical figure of our lifetime. Certainly. That's an interesting distinction. I mean, I just mean like this is the movie where it's like,

oh my God, this big actor is playing this insanely famous consequential person. But also it's a sports movie. Hmm. The sports thing is almost kind of secondary.

You think of the person as a figure first, kind of? He's a political figure of major importance. It's just that, like, it's just that... Oh my god. Do you know what this is? I'm just like, this isn't Ali. What is this? Yeah.

I have no idea. I'm trying to think of other athletes who had major political importance. He's not an athlete. He's not an athlete. But the movie is a sports movie. Oh, oh, oh, oh, motherfucker. It's Invictus. Invictus.

Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela. Yeah. Basically the first major Nelson Mandela movie. Because the Idris Elba one comes later, right? Long Walk Mandela. Yeah. Basically the first major Nelson Mandela movie. Cause the Idris Elba one comes later, right? Long walk to freedom. Yeah. Uh,

like, and like Morgan Freeman, I feel like had been circling a Nelson Mandela movie for so long. And then it's like, we're doing it. Clint Eastwood is directing it. And it's specifically about the 1994 rugby world cup. That's what it's about.

It's about it's about that like that year him getting this like team like to win a big trophy this team of like white players like that that's the narrative they finally settled on it is one of those movies that i feel like in like january or february of any year there's a movie that entertainment writers already resent where you're like, this is just going to win every fucking Oscar. And that film always

somehow comes up short. Like it's like the Cinderella Man. Yes, Good Shepherd. Charlie Wilson's War, Good Shepherd kind of center where you're like, these people making this movie on this subject.

And I just remember my dad watching some ESPN like 30 for 30 about the real story. And he was just like, that's going to win Best Picture so fucking hard. You're telling me Morgan Freeman is playing Nelson Mandela. They're going to give him all four acting categories this year. Just won an Oscar was part of the problem

for a Clint Eastwood movie. But also the whole movie is just kind of a little limp. It's just sort of there. It's a little limp. Yeah, I only saw it once. Have you seen it, James? I mean, it's okay. I have not seen it.

It's such a shrug of a movie. Such a shrug of a movie. All right, number four, Griffin, as you mentioned, it's a major franchise entry. It's Twilight, but it's the second one. It's New Moon. Directed by a friend of the show, Chris Weitz. New Moon, a colossal, friend of the show, Chris Weitz. New Moon.

A colossal, colossal hit. $300 million. I mean, as I've said before on the show, I went to see New Moon at midnight. And when the Summit Entertainment logo came up, it got more applause than I will ever earn for anything in my entire life. It was a sobering moment. It was, you have to limit your expectations

for your career. You will never create that much excitement in anyone. And number five is a movie that we just discussed on this podcast. Another Disney film. More suited to the holiday than Princess and the Frog.

We just discussed it on this podcast. We didn't do an episode about it, did we? We did in our past miniseries oh it's fucking Christmas Carol it's a Christmas Carol I mean truly the most boring film ever made Jim Carrey you're very dull I never

saw it it's not good yeah I mean James I'll put it this way I've watched it and I haven't seen it that's how I feel about the blind side I'll put it this way. I've watched it and I haven't seen it. That's how I feel about The Blind Side. I've watched it, but I haven't seen it. It's impossible to have seen that movie. You can watch it.

You can be in the act of watching it currently. You cannot have watched it. Some other movies in the top 10. Brothers. Remember Brothers? Tobey Maguire, Jake Gyllenhaal. Brothers. What if they were brothers?

That's another one though Where it's like, isn't it a remake of a Suzanne Beer movie And it's Jim Sheridan and Natalie Portman It was just like, oh, Oscar, Oscar, Oscar Big one Too dark, I think It's an Iraq war drama That sort of long legacy

Of Iraq war dramas not connecting with audiences Until American Sniper Old Dogs, Griffin, is in the top ten uh yes i mean the most demented film ever made uh you've got 2012 roland emmerich is 2012 a movie i love uh you love 2012 yeah you always give me shit for this yeah when that when the dude throws his his his child up and then falls into the chasm, oh man, come on. It's beautiful. Exactly, James. It is precisely my flavor of nonsense.

It is the exact kind of ugly bullshit nonsense that I fall for. Well, we hated that guy. You know what I mean? Yes. We were like, this guy's such an asshole. But then he died saving his child. And so then it was like, but was he... Because that was what was driving

him was his kids the whole time. Yes. Absolutely. Also, that movie has an original song sung by Adam Lambert called Time for Miracles that feels like one of the more recent examples of someone trying to do a i don't want to miss a thing and i just love the music video of adam lambert fully adam lamberted singing like

this love theme from 2012 intercut with footage of like buildings falling into the center of the earth it's just it's a thing we stopped getting outside of the 90s and that alone makes me love the movie so much um the only one i want to shout shout out is Nimrod Antal's Armored, which is like a pretty good B-movie. Like, that guy is a good B-movie director. And that's his best work. He was sort of supposed to be the next guy. I feel like he was being pegged as like, this is a cool genre scrappy guy who's gonna move up and be like jamie colette sarah and then it sort of never really happened it didn't happen because his predators movie which is pretty fun doesn't make enough money or whatever like and

that kind of dooms him but that movie you know matt dillon like laurence fishburne jean renaud you know they're robbing an armored truck it's good good shit. Yeah, geez, right. He does Vacancy, Armored, Predators. He does Controlled, which was Hungarian. But those three American movies, which people like, then he does the Metallica half-concert documentary, half-fiction film. And then he's made one Hungarian film since then.

He just like totally... He's working on Shyamalan's show Servant right now. He's been directing some of that. So I guess maybe he's trying to nudge his way back in I don't know I just definitely felt like he was being primed yeah anyway that's it princess and the frog it doesn't do that well

print Ron Musker I mean is it Clements and Musker they go into retirement sort of right right that's what's so funny is it's like Disney fires them they go like retirement, sort of, right? Right, that's what's so funny is it's like, Disney fires them, they go like, I guess we're done. Lasseter pulls them off and goes like, you gotta come back, they do this movie, it underperforms, they're like I guess we're retired. I forgot,

no, I forgot, they don't retire, they go back to developing an adaptation of Terry Pratchett's novel Mort from Discworld, which is like their other passion project. Right right which was never going to get made at Disney right right and they can't figure out the rights and so it never

happens and they're kind of like well you know I guess you know whatever and then Disney's like you're coming back baby that's what that's what happened they didn't retire they left Disney they got fired from Disney they left Disney and now they're retired.

Now they now they are officially retired. I think I've heard that John Musker and we can talk about this next week is currently animated. He's animating a digital short himself by hand, which sounds like just like a fun old guy project. You know what I mean? Like so that's cool. But yes, that's there. That's what's up with them. seem like nice old guys but it also is hard to picture them ever being young they just feel like they fundamentally have always been nice old bald men but you know that it's such a run from them it's the most definable run in like disney history in a crazy way uh james thank you so much for coming on the show guys thank you it had been far too long we will have you on again much sooner uh people should watch astronomy club on netflix i'm a strong believer in that you should never stop plugging your canceled streaming show yeah please watch astronomy club watch watch season one i feel

like they need to change the you know they have the they'll tell you how many seasons something is the drop down menu yeah and they you know they need to just be like the show you know they need to not say the season number because then that feels like makes you feel like there's gonna be more seasons to it you know because seasons come back that's the whole thing about a season is it right it should say like the complete series or whatever right something very fancy found it's fancy sounding it should say a season yes ac yeah well that sounds weird because then it's like you have to go hunt for the other ones like i don't think we got a season yeah we got a season of this uh but it was a great show uh canceled far too soon too soon. Yeah. But you're

the best. And people should listen to Black Pan Ketchup in Hollywood, obviously. Please do, yeah. Listen to both episodes. Listen to me talk about Prince of the Frog here and then there. And then just see. And Soul there as well. I'm excited to listen to your guys'

whole episode. And thank you all for listening to this episode. Please remember to rate, review, and subscribe. Thanks to Joe Bone and Pat Reynolds for our artwork. Thank you to Marie Barty for our social media. Thank you to our editing team, Alex Barron and AJ McKeon. Thanks to The Great American Novel for our theme song. Go to blankies.reddit.com for some real nerdy shit and go to our Shopify page for some real nerdy merch.

We're still trekking. We're going to keep on trekking through the Kirk and Spock movies over on Patreon. So tune in for that. And I guess our blankie awards episode will be coming up right around now. Right. I believe Moana next and then the blankies. Yes. Yes. So that's what

you have to look forward to. Next week, Moana closing the book on Musker and Clements. We're going to consider the Coconut. And then after that, we're going to consider the best of 2020. A year that is defined by how good it was. A year to remember.

I love reminiscing about 2020. All those movies I watched on my couch. James, you just made me realize there's going to be a point where people start saying, is it crazy that I'm like a little bit nostalgic for quarantine? It's going to happen right away. That's going to happen next week. It's going to take two goddamn days and I'm going to happen next week. It's going to take two goddamn days, and I'm going to go berserk.

A week into Biden's presidency, and we see how everyone goes crazy. I mean, probably by the time this comes out, it will have very much passed. But a week into Biden's presidency, everyone's going to be like, oh, remember when whatever crazy thing happens didn't happen anymore. I know, right. By the point this episode comes out, people be writing New York Times op ed saying, is it just me or do I miss getting offended by things the president tweets every day? I miss Trump on Twitter. Why is this guy so level headed? I mean, where's the drama? I felt a sense of risk every morning when I woke up.

To be clear, I do not feel that way. I don't feel that way either. Never. Absolutely. Never. Fucking never. Fun-mentally. Never. Well, and as always.

That's it. Yeah. As always, we're just never going to feel that way. I don't even have an additional joke. I just want to reassert. We will never feel that way. I don't even have an additional joke. I just want to reassert. We will never feel that way. Do you have a Cajun in you, Griff? We're going to find out right now.