Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - Brad Bird & Michael Giacchino Part 1

Episode Date: June 7, 2021

In the first part of a 2-part episode, Oscar-winning writer-director Brad Bird and Oscar-winning composer Michael Giacchino join Gilbert and Frank for an informative and wildly entertaining conversation about their numerous collaborations ("The Incredibles," "Incredibles 2," "Ratatouille," "Mission Impossible - Ghost Protocol") complex action plots, "pre-loved" soundtracks, the demise of movie showplaces and the genius of John Barry and Elmer Bernstein. Also, Peter O'Toole clears his throat, Tom Cruise scales a high-rise, Burt Lancaster swims in an imaginary river and Michael Keaton teases comic book fanatics. PLUS: "The Big Sleep"! "Never Say Never Again"! The lost James L. Brooks musical! Brad co-hosts TCM's "The Essentials"! And Michael composes a love letter to Henry Mancini, Lalo Schifrin and John Williams! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Incoming GGACP IMF transmission. Good morning, podcast listener. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to play and enjoy the following interview with Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol director Brad Bird and composer Michael Giacchino. As always, should any of your fellow listeners be caught or killed, my co-host and I will disavow all knowledge of your actions. Transmission complete. Beginning program.

Hi, this is Gilbert Gottfried, and this is Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast with my co-host, Frank Santopadre. We're pleased to have two guests this week, both responsible for helping to create some of the best and most memorable TV viewing and movie-going experiences of the last 25 years. Brad Bird is an animator, screenwriter, producer, voice actor, occasional TV host, and a two-time Academy Award-winning director. A former boy wonder who started working for Walt Disney Studios at the tender age of 14, he would go on to work on the features, the Fox and the Hound. And to our surprise,

even though it's in his credit, he never worked on the Black Cauldron. I gave, I wanted to give him credit for it. Please don't. But he said, no, I didn't do that.

And then he would write and direct the classic family dog episode of Steven Spielberg's amazing stories. And he would serve as executive consultant on the classic shows, The Simpsons and King of the Hill, and serve as a member of the senior creative team on Pixar films like Toy Story 3, Brave, Inside Out, and Finding Dory. But it's his work as a writer-director that's brought him international acclaim, creating immensely popular entertainments like The Iron of Turner Classic Movie Series, The Essentials. And he's going to tell us why, like yours truly, he also loves Billy Wilder's Ace in the Hole. those ace in the hole. And our returning champion,

Michael G. Aquino, is a musician, a composer for feature films and television and video games who has received an Academy Award, a Primetime Emmy, and three Grammy Awards for his work. You've heard his competition on TV shows like... His competition? You've heard his...

I like his competition. We'll get through this. I never liked Michael that much, but his competition, I thought was very... Now you sound like my mother. He is... He's trained for incompetence. Yeah.

The people he's up against, I think, are immensely talented. Michael, I always thought was shit. That's just my opinion. Michael, I never liked you. And if you want to walk out now, you can. Frank, you didn't tell me my mom was going to be on the show. And you've heard his compositions on TV shows like Alias and Lost. And in the blockbuster film Star Trek.

Star Trek Beyond. The Incredibles. The Incredibles 2, War for the Planet of the Apes, Doctor Strange, Jurassic World, Speed Racer, Star Wars, Rogue One, Jojo Rabbit, Coco, and up for which he took home a well-deserved Oscar. I didn't think so. What? For Best Original Score. Well, I never thought the voting was fair.

But the people he was up against I thought were amazing. And he's now hard at work on the 2022 features Jurassic World Domination.

Or Dominion. Dominion. Dominion. And he's hard at work. I don't give a fuck what his films are. He's hard at work on the 2022 features Jurassic World Dominion and the Batman. Dominion, and The Batman. And he's also written and arranged and conducted music for dozens of video games, short films, and TV movies. And in 2005, he created new soundtracks for Disney theme park rides.

And all these years later, he still can't understand whatever possessed him to wear a red Star Trek shirt to his first day of school. And, oh, and in case I didn't say, I never thought his work was all that good. And his competition, I think, is amazing. They deserve awards. Frank and I are excited to welcome to the show Edna Mode and Stormtrooper FN-3181. Brad Bird and Michael G. Aquino Hello, hello, hello.

What an intro. That was amazing. What an intro. I mean, geez. Have you ever been so flattered by an intro, Mike? No, no. I mean, I've never seen so many compliments. I haven't seen compliments like that since, you know, uh, you know,

Thanksgiving time at home. Well, you've never been on a subject at a comedy central roast. So this is as close as it's going to come. No, I'll take it. And Brad, unlike, uh, Michael, I'm a fan of your work. It's going to be a running joke. But my competition was terrible. Because he couldn't read the intro,

this is now going to be an ongoing joke. That's right. He won't let it go now. Maybe we should give some thought to shortening the intros. What do you think? Either that or make the type bigger. Hey, Gil, when Mike Reese was here, Gilbert gave him a lot of shit

for never having him on The Simpsons. Gilbert, Brad worked on The Simpsons for eight years. But I was not in a position of power for signing up voice parts. There you go. You sound like a Nazi at the trials. I had no idea of the atrocities taking place. Yeah. So now I feel like I fit right in.

Listen, we have our first edit already. that was your first i watched mission impossible 4 and it's it's very exciting and fun but do you know what the plot is yeah i know what the plot is do you want me to use this valuable air time to explain it to you? I think he got a little lost. I had. Well, that's not unusual in a Mission Impossible movie. They are somewhat convoluted scripts, usually multifaceted. They're like complicated machines. like complicated machines. And they, for some reason, they are constantly rewriting the script constantly as you make them. So a lot of times you don't have all the answers when you start

the movie and you try to find them in some way by the end, you know, and we certainly had our share on that movie. I wish uh our villain was a little better figured out but um we had some really good ideas that didn't pan out and we had to go with what we had it's it's kind of like um well like they asked the filmmakers of the big sleep uh if they could oh yeah that was very famous yeah and they couldn they couldn't, they said, we don't know. Well, they asked him who the murderer was of one of the characters. They said, so-and-so is murdered. Who killed him?

And they went to Raymond Chandler, who wrote the book, and he went, that beats me, you know? And Big Sleep is beloved, so there you go. Oh, it is. It's great. It's great. So Gilbert, suffice it to say, you had some issues following the storyline.

Yes, yeah. I was lost in the first 15 minutes. I liked watching it. But not unlike this interview. Just like it. Art imitates art. Art imitates art. And unlike every, I mean, every actor claims he does his own stunts.

But Tom Cruise actually does, it seems. He actually does. And that's actually him on a mile above the earth on the Burj. And he was quite comfortable up there, surprisingly so. Incredible. Yeah. And the stunt guys say that if he weren't a really successful actor, he would be the best stuntman in the world because he understands stunts really well and understands how to make them look cool on the screen. And he believes, and I do too, that audiences can tell when it's all CG and they're not really in danger, you know,

or not really at the place they're supposed to be. And I agree with that assessment. And so I was really lucky on my first film to have somebody that was willing to do that who was a big star. I mean, who else can you name like that? I mean, a couple of times I've been in TV shows where they got stuntmen who are like six foot four and muscle bound who are wearing my shirt and pants. And it's like you go, oh go oh yeah that's Gilbert Gottfried I love when the stuntman yeah like the later bond the later Roger Moore bonds where they make no effort for the stuntman to resemble to resemble Roger Moore like in a view to a kill

Brad was there ever a a discussion about not doing it with him or was there any ever you know did that ever happen uh not doing it with Tom not not having him do the stunt uh there was no there was never Tom you know lives for those kind of movie moments and once they decided to shoot on the burge he was not only up for it he was excited about it but it's like a studio that has like billions of dollars yeah wouldn't they be scared letting him do that yeah and there was one night when we were shooting it where you know it was two o'clock in the morning and i just woke up like, because I realized that my star was dangling by a thin wire about a mile. I mean, it's hard to imagine how big that building, how tall it really is because you would look down significantly on,

it's almost twice as tall as the Empire State Building. So planes fly below the top floors. Good Lord. Yeah. Wow. It's unbelievable. So we can assume he did every other stunt too, in the climax where the car drives off the elevator platform.

There is a couple of shots where it's too dangerous for Tom, and they add up to about two and a half seconds. Wow. They're literally quick inserts where you show a body bouncing off the hood of the car, and there's another one where he had to drop and hit an edge and literally they're they're that long but in both cases the stuntman injured himself and so it's like that's why they didn't have him do it but they none of the stuff that and the audience would never see those moments and go that's the most amazing stunt I've ever seen. They're good, but the ones that everyone believe are, they can't be Tom, are Tom, you know?

That's incredible. So, yeah, it is incredible. And I heard he was hurt, not this one or a few times. No, the last one. Yeah. Yeah, well, he didn't um he he snapped his his ankle or something his knee real bad his knee and the funny thing is is the shot where that happens is in the movie because he knew something was wrong so he made sure he completed the take. He kept he got he got it, got the injury and then started to run again.

And he and when they wrapped it, when when they completed the shot and said cut, everyone knew he was injured. And he said, did you get it? Because I can't do it again. You know, and they said it's in it's in the movie, you know. Wow. And yeah. So they had to stop filming for a while and let him heal up. But that's him, and he injured himself. And it hurts. When you see that shot, when you see that scene, it looks painful, too. It was.

He's jumping across that. That's when he's leaping from one building to the next. And he barely catches the edge of the other building. And it looks painful, like Giacchino said. And so there you go. That's the kind of dedicated guy he is. Mike, what were you saying? You were saying that you wanted to see Brad direct something that big?

You were making some David Lean comparisons, and he said, stop saying that. You're putting too much pressure on me. Do you have any memory? Do you have any memory of that? I mean, we, we have these kinds of conversations all the time,

he and I, and, and, and, you know, I'm always happy to push him comfortably or uncomfortably into whatever direction is most entertaining for me. So I always,

yeah. And I keep saying, can't we double the size of the orchestra? And Michael goes, it's 113 pieces. You really wouldn't hear it. And I said,, can't we double the size of the orchestra? And Michael goes, it's 113 pieces. You really wouldn't hear it. And I say, I don't care. Doing research, by the way, on Mission Impossible, and I love the names.

I assume you're the one coming up with all the names for these tracks, Mike. Well, it's a combination. Give her my Budapest and the Jakob Smirnoff homage in Russia phone dials you. Every movie, every movie, if you look at the soundtrack, every cue is like that. Yeah. Well, I will tell you one thing about that. That is a group effort. And that is a group effort between me and my music editors.

And the music editors, Stephen Davis and Paul Applegreen, deliver quite a lot of amazing, amazing stuff. And actually, anybody that's in the vicinity that has a bad pun really gets a shot. Whoever has the best worst pun gets it. So it's really just a little contest. I think my favorite is Mumbai's the word and a man,

a plan, a code, Dubai. Yeah, there's some good ones on that. Tomorrowland as well. They're on that soundtrack. But you know what? When we did Star Wars, there was a point. So we're doing Star Wars and we're working. And I only had four and a half weeks to do that movie.

So we were just heads down doing the work and doing the titles as we normally would. But at some point while we were recording, it was like sort of, oh, wait, are they going to let us do goofy titles for a Star Wars movie? And sure enough, they preferred if we kept them more serious. So for Star Wars, on the inside booklet of the CD, there's an alternate track list with our titles. But the outer cover has the normal titles you know i mean i was like what do you what are we going to do name something you know i don't know such and such blows up or

you know another you know chase through something i don't know the track titles yeah another chase through something i think it'd be a good title they sound like they sound like the titles of three stooges yeah yeah yeah right they do yeah what what an eiffel from uh tomorrowland was also a favorite yes gilbert you're a sucker for a pun oh oh yes oh we have it's so weird there's been like articles written about it it's it. It's so weird. There's been articles written about it. It's so strange. Vanity Fair did an article about the puns.

So you can look those up and get a lot of the history out of that. But it's been... And actually, there are some fans who hate it. There are some fans... I remember when Star Trek came out, when that soundtrack came out, there was a good group of people that were very upset that we were sort of having fun with the titles. And they were like, does he not take his job seriously?

What is this all about? Why can't he just name it normally? Like I'm ruining their childhood by, I don't know. So entertainment is a fickle thing when it comes to the fans. What Michael Caton used to call the pop culture fundamentalists. Yes, yes.

Yeah, they take it very seriously. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Brad, I'm going to forget to ask this later, but so since we already brought up David Lean and I wrote down, please tell us something about working with the great Peter O'Toole and Ratatouille. Oh, well, I mean, that's one of the highlights of my life.

You know, not unlike Michael on Rogue One, I was not the original guy on Ratatouille. And they had already cast somebody in that role. And I was rewriting the script down to the studs. I mean, I just started from scratch. Using the storyline that we had all sort of, that Jan had originated and we had all been working on. But I saw, I heard a different person for that character. And they had already kind of gone a little bit down the road with this other person who I think is great. But I didn't hear him for that role. And, you know, there's something just, you know, dominating about Peter O'Toole's voice. And I just thought it'll, you know, it needs to hang

over this movie in a way. And so I asked him and he had only done one other animated thing in his life and it didn't he kind of disdained it and he sounded kind of like he was picking a piece of lint off his shoulder and he goes i think i did some sort of nutcracker once you know and he and he and and and it was literally like he had you know was trying to get some stain off of his jacket. And I just, you know, said, come on, man, this will be amazing. The character bookends the movie, he hangs over it, you know, it winds up in his court, you know, you gotta, you know, please, I mean, I'm imagining you, I'll be so disappointed if we don't get you. And he agreed to do it and he ended up having a fantastic time on it.

And I think that that review that he does at the end, one of the highlights of my life was writing that and rewriting it on the plane and I gave it to him and him getting it and really loving it and loving the fact that he got to have that moment because it kind of, it's probably the most memorable thing in the film, strangely, because it's not an action scene or anything. It's just a guy talking while you look at people having trouble sleeping. It's the anti-finale of all the rules of what you're supposed to do in a finale and in a summer film and in animation were broken by that. You're supposed to get loud and fast at the end. And here's a scene that got slow and quiet. It's quite beautiful. But he did it better than I could possibly imagine it being done.

And so it was really a thrill. I mean, he's like royalty to me. Yeah. Well, you're right. Cause you're such a lean buff and such a Lawrence of Arabia lover. And Peter O'Toole,

he's one of those like legendary drinkers. They always, when they talk about drinkers, I mean, of one name you'll hear first is Peter O'Toole. And Oliver Reed and Richard Burton. Sure. Those guys. Yes.

Richard Harris. Sure. Those four are the big knockabout London, you know, tanked guys. Did you ever witness it on the set, like during his working? No, he was in, you know, he'd been around a while by that point and had settled down. But he had stories that would just make your jaw drop on the floor. I can imagine. He had the best stories ever.

Yeah. You went to London to record him, right? Yes. Yeah. And do you remember setting up your thing? You set up your FaceTime so that I could listen into the session when you were recording him. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So I remember sitting in my office listening to you record him for the film. And it was just even from, what, 6,000 miles away, for me, it was incredible just to hear that voice and know that I could hear that

being done live and hear you talking to him. That was just such a special thing. I'll never forget that. The world is often unkind to new talent, new creations. The new needs friends. Last night I experienced something new. An extraordinary meal from a singularly unexpected source. To say that both the meal and its maker have challenged my preconceptions about fine cooking is a gross understatement. They have rocked me to my core.

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who is, in this critic's opinion, nothing less than the finest chef in France. I will be returning to Gusteau soon, hungry for more. And he did this weird thing where he would clear his voice. He would go, right before they recorded, he'd go, and I'd go, whoa, you know, and everybody would kind of jump that wasn't used to him, which is most of us. We'd, you know, and he'd go, Audrey Hepburn taught me that. You know, she did it while we were doing a film on Two for the Road or something like that. And he said, she suddenly went, blah. And I said, what is, oh, good Lord.

And she said, you know, it helps me get, you know, centered into the scene and focus. So I've used it ever since, you know? And I actually, I actually used one of his bras in the film where Ego, he has, Linguini has a nightmare about ego, and then he says, I want your heart on a steak or something like that.

And then he starts laughing. And then as Linguini wakes up, I use the brah! And I echoed it in all of the speakers so that in the theater it was like, brah! And I'm the first one to get his bra on film. Fantastic. Fantastic. Yeah, I love I love that he got it from Audrey Hepburn. Yeah, I know the least likely person you would ever get that sound from. that sound from we will return to gilbert godfrey's amazing colossal podcast but first a word from our sponsor brad gilbert was on the essentials way back with our friend robert osborne who we had

here on the podcast and we also had ben mankiewicz here a couple of weeks ago but gilbert tell tell brad your picks that was first of all it's one of those jobs that didn't feel like work at all. No, it's great. An easy chair with Bob Osborne and sitting back talking movies. I know. It's kind of like you should pay them. Yes, yes. It was like when it was over, and it was one of those jobs when it ended and they said

that's a wrap i thought no i wanted to like sit some more and talk we barely covered all of film history yes gail gail tell them the ones you picked the ones i picked well they were freaks todd browning todd browning yeah yeah and um the conversation coppola it's a good one and the original of mice and men with cheney and burgess meredith is that john ford uh lewis milestone milestone okay okay and the The Swimmer with Burt Lancaster. Wow, that's a weird one to pick. That's a weird one. It's an eclectic collection of films. Yeah, I saw that film, you know, in the middle of the night back when you had to stay up to watch weird films.

Yes. And I would oftentimes switch over to that before I turned off the TV. And a couple of times they got me, got me. I saw Vertigo that way. I saw... Was that Stairway to Heaven? The Michael Powell film? Stairway to Heaven, yes. The Michael Powell film. It's just like you're like, I'm going to bed, but you turn the opening of a film like grabs you and get you and i thought that

burt lancaster one was so weird you know it's is it a john updyer i think it's i think it's cheever i think it's a john cheever story but but stairway to heaven is a movie more people need to know about well it was under the other title what is a matter? Matter of Life and Death. Yes. Beautiful film. It's also with the swimmer when he explains that he's going to swim in everyone's swimming pool as an imaginary river and he'll swim home. And I remember when I heard that, I thought it was also late at night and I thought, all right, I'm in. Yeah, it's so weird. But that's what, you know, people think that because I evangelize about going to movie theaters and having that experience, I sort of bemoan the fact that it seems to be disappearing for the moment anyway. Yeah. But there are those experiences where television is a really intimate way to discover a film. And, you know, if it can be that, then it's great.

But I don't want it to become instead of, you know, gathering in the dark with strangers and watching it on a big screen without being able to stop. This I ask both of you now, because I really do think going to the theater to see a movie is dead now. I don't like it, but it seems to be dead. Well, L.A. just suffered a blow. I don't think so. Yeah, I think it's going to come back. I think that there are two ways to respond to this. One is to shrug and give up. And the other one is to say, let's take this opportunity to improve the movie experience a thousand percent. Because we've taken paper cuts to the movie experience for the last 40 years.

And the only thing that's really gotten better is sound. And that's sort of better is, is sound, you know? Um, and, uh, that's sort of indisputable. I mean, every film is in stereo now, which is amazing, but, uh, other, every other part of the experience, the fact that nobody has curtains anymore, which is a gesture of showmanship, uh, the fact that they, they project ads on, on a screen as the audience is gathering, that's kind of like taking a leak on the screen, as far as I'm concerned, because it's making it like home. And then having multiplexes where the largest auditoriums are maybe two or three hundred seats instead of giant movie theaters where you have a gigantic audience response. There are different reasons for all these things, how they happened, but it all amounts to a diminishing of the theatrical

experience. I agree. Yeah, anyway. No, I always, when I would go to the movies and you'd be sitting there waiting, and then you go, oh, wait a second, did the theater just get slightly darker now and that would mean like oh it's starting yeah yeah that was exciting the moment of anticipation yeah and when you saw trailers um they were not micro targeted right now if you go to see like a horror movie every trailer you see before that horror movie will be for other horror movies. And it makes it, it's kind of like giving people tiny hamburgers before they eat a hamburger. That's like, you know what I mean? It's like you have no appetite for it by the time the movie starts because you've seen every cliche horror movie moment

in the trailers uh you know the being yanked under the bed or whatever you know the the turning around and the thing is behind you you know i mean all those shots which still work um are in the trailers and then you know you're supposed to get it up again for the for the movie at that point good point you've already seen somebody open a window or move something and a cat jumps out yes exactly all of those golden cliches i would also say that i was just going to say that even in terms of trailers they're very assaultive now too. Yes. There's nothing about storytelling in them at all. It's just a series of shots and sounds,

and it's as loud as it can possibly be until you just go, okay, I give up. I'll go see it. I'll go. Just stop. Just stop making noise. And that's what it is. Well, and they give away too much of the plot. Yeah.

I remember seeing that movie with Sam Jackson called The Negotiator. And I'm watching the trailer and it shows, you know, this is the setup. And I'm like, I'm so into this movie. I'm going. And they actually talked me out of it by the end of the trailer because they told me too deep into Act Two that the Sam Jackson character and the negotiator joined powers. And to me, that's a middle-of-second-act kind of reveal. And now I don't care.

Now you told me too much, and forget it. I heard a story that Mel Brooks was in a movie theater, and they were doing one of those like, where they were screaming out all the names, you know? It's like Robert De Niro, Sylvester Stallone, Christopher

Walken, and Mel Brooks said, who's arguing? That's exactly right. Mike, are you as optimistic as brad is on this subject we just we just got the gut punch of the uh of the center rama dome well yes but i refuse to believe i won't even let myself believe that that will be let to just die you know i feel like someone has to come in and take care of that theater. And I believe it will happen.

You know, it's just too important. I hope so. And I hope I'm not wrong. But I feel like, I know that even with my kids and stuff, like they cannot wait to go back to a movie theater. They want to. They want to, you know, of course, everyone wants to feel safe. We all want that.

But they can't wait to get back and do those kinds of things. I can't wait to get back into a movie theater, especially a big one, something like the Cinerama Dome. Exactly. It better survive. We hoped somebody was going to take By the Ziegfeld up here in New York years ago, and unfortunately it wasn't rescued, so I'm pessimistic. And I don't

think there'll ever be those old, beautiful theaters anymore with the statues and uh yeah you might have one or two you might have one or two but it's not going to be like it used to be even downtown la there are so many beautiful theaters in downtown still standing yeah still standing and they're just used as film sets and they use them for tv shows and they use them for filming and things like that, but rarely for movie theaters. But it's amazing how many are still there.

Is the Orpheum still there? Because they used to show, they would show silent films there when I was in LA in the nineties with an accompanist. I think so. Yeah. Downtown. But a lot of them now just do concerts and things like that there instead. They do this program called the Best Remaining Seats. That's right. i remember that they show they show great movies one night only at and they're trying to to kind of say we have these great theaters here they still exist you know let's you know resurrect them you know do something but you know they're become other issues like uh you know, the sound bounces around those really elaborate theaters a lot. And you have to do a lot to get the sound to be able to handle all the speaker systems that modern movies have.

And they also, you know, it's downtown. You know, parking is hard. And so there are other problems. But I agree with you. And I feel like there's another movement that could happen where we resurrect and exalt the movie experience. I don't ever think it's going to be like it was in terms of the numbers. Sure. I don't think it's going to be like it was in terms of the numbers.

Sure. But I do feel like there's an opportunity here to turn it around and make presentation king again. I remember on, I think it was 2nd Avenue and 14th Street. I forget the name of the theater. And I imagine it was probably like one of the original like Yiddish theaters. Really? Because 2nd Avenue had, and they just showed porn. like one of the original Yiddish theaters. Because 2nd Avenue had... And they just showed porn. Yeah, some of those

old theaters downtown on the east side became movie theaters and then they fell into disrepair. See, now nobody had the vision for Yiddish porn. That's right. That's what I was going to say. Was it Yiddish porn?

Brad, I loved how many musicals you chose too on TCM. Like The Red Shoes and Singing in the Rain. And that leads me to a question you guys probably can't answer but there is some talk afoot of the two of you collaborating on something of a musical nature.

Can you say anything about it? Yeah, we can acknowledge that acknowledge that yeah we can acknowledge we thought it would be a little easier yeah it's really hard no we didn't we knew that it was hellaciously hard i thought we'd be done by now we we we both had this idea that musicals are amazing, but there's only a handful of great ones. It's true. There are not that many. And the reason is they're really hard to do well. I mean, most of the great ones,

practically every song is a great song and every number behind that song is a great number. And that's kind of what makes them great. But I think that the fact that it scares both of us a lot is kind of the reason we want to do it. Good for you. I think the bar we're holding ourselves to is pretty damn high. So it is one of those things that it's one of the hardest things

that I've ever worked on in some time, you know, in terms of just trying to figure it out. What's working, what's not working. And every time you think you have it working, every time you think you lay it out and you're all like, there it is, there it is. That's okay. Let's just do that. And then that doesn't work. But most people that do musicals now want a pre-loved soundtrack. So they'll get somebody like Billy Joel or whoever who has a catalog,

and they'll just say, we're going to wrap a story around all these Billy Joel hits. Like a jukebox musical on Broadway. Yeah, and that's what gives them the courage to make the musical, is the fact that the songs are already loved. Nobody's going to have a problem with the songs. But to me, if you really want to scare yourself, go try to make an original musical that can stand alongside, you know, the great ones without looking like a, you know, a bad cousin or something. Yeah, you could argue that what we're doing is no different than what Tom Cruise does when he goes and stands out a mile above the earth.

You could! And do you think audiences nowadays, that audiences nowadays might get a little too snide and cynical? So if somebody, an actor starts singing, they'll go, what? That's ridiculous. He's standing in the street scene. Well, I think that it's incumbent upon us to be a step ahead of that and take the piss out of it in any way that we can by making it too fun to be able to resist. I think that humor is one of the key components in every musical that I love. And I think that that's one of the keys to getting it to work. It's not the only key, but it helps a lot.

It helps you buy crazy things. Your old boss at The Simpsons, as you know, Brad, made a musical and wound up taking the songs out of it. Jim Brooks, yeah. Yeah. He had one with Prince music, yeah. I'll Do Anything. And it broke my heart when the test audiences just, you know, they they they I guess they they put a scare into him and he wound up taking the songs out. Right.

Does that version exist? Somewhere. Yeah, it hasn't been burned. I'd love to see it. Yeah, me too. I know I would, too. Here's a pet peeve of mine. It's usually in romantic comedies, not musicals. But like, say for instance, I think it was my best friend's wedding.

And everybody at the dinner table sings, I say a little prayer for you. And I'm going, now in real real life people don't know all the words to a song and you know in real life it's I say so you have come up with a radical idea the first mumbly musical

where no one knows the words it would make our job a lot easier. I would go out with that tomorrow, man. It's a pandemic audience. They're tired. They will roll with it. Brad, what did you mean when you said that music was the fastest way to derail a film?

Well, it's because... Wait, can we put this in context? All right, wait a second. Go ahead, go ahead. Better put it in context. We should put this in context. I'll put it into context first. You always put it into context.

Well, you could do it. No, no, no, because then you kill the story if you do that. All right, so here's the deal. So way back, this was 2003 maybe, I guess, 2004. I don't know. So I had not yet done a movie that was actually on a screen in a theater. I was still trying to leap from television and get that gig. And I met with Brad about The Incredibles. I'd been working on a show called Alias for ABC and Disney at the time. And for whatever reason, the slot opened up for a composer on the Incredibles. And Brad met with me. We had a great first meeting. I went up to Pixar. We ended up talking for a long time about things like Johnny Quest and Hoyt Curtin and Hanna-Barbera. We were just having this animation geek fest together because I love it so

much. And obviously he does. And I left there feeling really good. Like I loved that meeting. I thought this guy seems really great. And weeks go by, you know, you know, I'm like waiting to hear if I'm going to get this movie or not. And day after day, I'm like, no one's calling. And every once in a while, I would check in with his assistant. She was like, I'm so sorry, nothing to report yet, blah, blah, blah. I don't know, three weeks go by.

Finally, the phone rings, and it's Brad. And he's like, hey, it's Bird. And I'm like, hey, Brad, how are you? And he's like, listen, I want to tell you, you got the job. And I was like, oh my God, this is great, because I absolutely love the movie. I love what Pixar has done. So I just thought, this is crazy. And he goes, but hold on a second. I just got to say a couple things first. And he goes, I want to to tell you this is going to be the hardest job you've ever had and i was like that's fine i'm game for that i don't mind working

hard i expect that and he goes and and i just have to say that your music could ruin my movie and i was like and i and i i remember just sort of holding the phone, you know, while you pull it away from your head like, am I still on the same call? You know? And he said, what I mean, what I mean is this. He goes, if you and I are not in lockstep every step of the way during the making of this movie, then the audience is going to just. The telling of the story. The telling of the story.

Right. That the audience is going to start thinking things we don't want them to think or feeling things we don't want them to feel. So it's very important that you and I are always 100% together on this road in terms of telling the story. So it went from a big WTF moment to, oh, yeah, well, yeah, that makes sense. That makes a lot of sense. He's my setup. He's absolutely right. This is point counterpoint.

Yeah, it's actually, it doesn't derail his, but here's what I meant when I said that, is that the movie making process is this unbelievably long and complicated process from the initial idea toward battling it out, toward testing all the ideas, meaning do they hold water when put with all the other ideas, all of that. It's like this itchy, horrible suit that they put on you and they say, this is your suit. This is the suit that you described to us. And you go, it's horrible. It's heavy. It's itchy. It looks like shit. And they go, well, that's what you

described. And then you go, no. Okay, first of all, we got to change this. Then we got to change that. Then we got to make it lighter. Pretty soon after years of this, you get a really kind of snazzy looking suit and it kind of cuts you off, makes you look even a little trimmer than you are. And it feels good. And you like it's nice to wear and you got it all nice. And then you hand it to the composer. You're almost done. You're ready to wear this suit out into the world. And you hand it to the composer and the composer can undo all of that in very little time by doing the wrong music for this thing. And they can unmake a movie. You know, they have too much power late in the game.

And you know what I'm saying? It's late. Almost everything is done. And that's when they get it. And it's literally like they get to open the patient's, you know, chest and go into all of the body parts that are functioning and mess around a bit. And the thing is, is that, you know, if they do a good job, which Michael always does, then it makes the thing better than it ever had a right to be. It's just fantastic. The musical identity is inseparable from the movie and it

becomes this complete, whole, magnificent thing. But what I'm saying is composers come in late to the process. For how much power they have over the movie experience. It's frightening that they come in at the very end, you know, and they hold all of that power in their hands and you're just sitting there going, ah, you know. The trick is, it's like,

I'm really coming at it from the same place you are. Right. You know, from like a filmmaking, but you know, from the mind, from like a filmmaking mind, you know, as a, like, I'm not just like a guy who,

who studied music and thought, Oh, well that sounds like a good job. I'm going to try and get a job. You're a storyteller. Right. You know, I grew up making movies. That's what I love doing.

And, and I went to film school, Frank, as you know, this so, so, so everything I do is really centered on the story, but I do know people that are more interested in the notes that they're putting down than

what it is doing to the picture in front of them. Yes. And he was absolutely right. One false note can get an audience thinking like miles away from where you want them to be. And so you do have to be careful. miles away from where you want them to be. And so you do have to be careful.

There are movies that we talk about that we will not mention where the soundtrack is so wrong that it almost ruins a classic movie. That certain movies are strong enough to take something that's not that great and they can kind of still manage to get up in the air like that Howard Hughes plane that was like the size of Cleveland you know he can like the spruce goose yeah right or the Hercules as he liked it to be called Hercules um but you know it's like it's the size of you know Rhode Island and he's got to get it up the water and we will not mention these movies, but we all have our pet movies alike. I will mention one of them. If you see, there's one James Bond movie that they made outside of the group that made all the famous ones. Oh, the Never Say Never Again? Yes. And the composer is a good

composer named Michel Legrand. But he is absolutely the wrong guy for a Bond film. And you're sitting there thrilled that Sean Connery is going to do this one more time. And they spent money on it and they've got good co-stars and the sets look good. And then this music comes in that just seems like it's from some other movie. And you go, what the hell is this? Because that sound that John Barry did is so embedded into your brain, is the sound of Bond that, anyway, try watching that and just listen to the music. I'm going to watch it now, because now you've got to be curious.

I always think when music is done right, it can make you start crying, it can make you frightened, but boy, when it's done wrong, you go, okay, here's the music. Yeah. Well, you're aware of the strings that they're pulling. And that can be, you know,

a couple of things. That could be wrong choices by the composer, absolutely. It could be that. It could be wrong direction, too. It could be a story that's not really working in the movie, and no matter what you do with the music, nothing. It could be that. It could be wrong direction, too. It could be a story that's not really working in the movie. And no matter what you do with the music, nothing's going to save it, you know? So it's any number of things that could go wrong. It was like he was saying, there's all these pins

that you set up just perfectly. And if one goes down, you know, it has effect. We talked about this the last time you were here. The thing that gets my goat is manipulative music telling you when the comedy scene has arrived. And I notice it on network television shows, primetime dramas. Yeah, they're the king of it. Where they have to have the comic relief scene and they start messing around.

And again, I won't mention any shows. They're on ABC primetime and it's been on for medical drama. It's been on for 20 years. But I won't mention any shows on ABC primetime, and it's been on for medical drama. It's been on for 20 years, but I won't mention it. And you start, and you start, they start manipulating you. Here's the laugh. Here's the comedy scene. And it makes me insane. Right.

Yeah. Yeah. They also do it in animated films. Oh, they do it all the time in animated films. In animated films, they do it when they go from the light comedy moments to the serious moment. They always have the heartfelt moment, and the music suddenly does its sad shift. And now you're supposed to get the heartfelt moment, and it's supposed to move you. And it so doesn't, because you feel them twisting the knobs.

Well, it's and it's what people one of the questions I get asked the most, probably more than any other question is, it must be very different scoring an animated film than it is scoring a live action film. Or a lot of times they'll say it must be different working on the kids movies that you do as opposed to sort of the the real movies you know and that's that's that's an annoying question because i feel like there isn't first of all why is captain kirk is no more real than the remy the rat like this they are both fake you know things things that are up on a screen that we're watching. The medium is irrelevant. It's, you know, but if you treat them as if they are both real humans, real people with

emotions and thoughts and hopes and dreams and all of that, you have a chance of actually bringing the audience in with you, you know? But a lot of people don't do that. They say, there's a lot of composers that will get on an animated film and just feel like, oh, I just have to write goofy music. And that's what I do on this. And it's so annoying. It's so annoying. I can't even watch those kinds of movies. He got a sense of the way he is in a meeting, in a pitch meeting. He was bouncing off the walls. He's had to deal with this. But he's had to deal with this in terms of the relegation of what people do to animated films. They tend to think they are kids' films. And Brad, you go ahead.

I don't want to put words in your mouth. Well, I mean, it's every time. I know you have very specific feelings about this. Well, I mean, I've even had interviewers say, not knowing that they're insulting me, say, you know, you've worked a long time in animation. What's it like to do a real movie? You know, when I did Ghost Protocol. Wow. What's it like to do a real movie and and i always would say you know

uh actually they're all real movies some of them are animated and this one isn't you know but i'm sitting there wanting to like lunge at them we will return to gilbert gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast after this. I remember when they were making all those movies that were trying to be airplane, and they were missing by a thousand miles. So when they would do those, they'd hire Leslie Nielsen whenever they could, and in one scene, they're doing the comedy music.

whenever they could. And in one scene, they're doing the comedy music. And I'm thinking, if you know how to make this kind of film like Airplane, you would be making fun of comedy music there. Exactly. You wouldn't actually be using it. No, you would be very serious. That's the thing. If you look at, you know, Elmer Bernstein was one

of the greatest sort of composers for comedies. And I always loved it because he treated it all seriously. Animal House too, yeah. You know, I mean, he wasn't out there writing goofy music to remind you that what you're watching is funny. He was literally following the story and doing what was real. So if it was like any moment was treated with respect and sort of this grandeur that most people just weren't brave enough to do. I don't know what it was, but he knew how to do it.

He was the best. It was the same thing, the same reason why they would hire somebody like Leslie Nielsen and tell him, don't play it like a comedy. Say it as if this is the most serious movie ever, and the lines are absurd, but say them absolutely straight, and that's what the Zuckers did so well. That their imitators did not do well. Right. And what's always scary,

and that happened with Leslie Nielsen, he started to realize he was funny. And once he did that, it was no longer funny. He was playing it with a lapse. Well, also, I don't think he was getting... You didn't see him on an episode of... I just saw him on an episode of Hawaii Five-0 from

years ago. I mean, I'm obsessed with that show, the old one. And almost every night I will watch an episode. And I love to see the old guest stars and and i almost every night i will watch an episode but uh and i love to see the old guest stars yeah different people that come on but he was on it and he he was amazing like he was great that guy is such a he was such a great actor especially he was just straight and to the point and i just i don't love that guy the titles for uh that always used to crack me up because the characters' names were like, Dan Jones as Bob Smith. And Zulu as Como.

Right. What was it? Kim Fong as Chin Ho? Yeah. And then there was one person that had one name. Zulu. Zulu. But he played Kona or something. That's right. I'm in season eight.

He's not on air anymore. And a former guest of this show, Gavin McCloud, was on Hawaii Five-O. He was a big chicken. Big chicken. Big chicken. He was a drug dealer. Wow. And how about that Hawaii Five-O theme song, Mike?

Oh, it's the best. Come on. Well, just theme songs in general from that era were just so amazing and brave and just in your face and the best you can even imagine. Well, their goal was to burrow into your brain permanently. And they succeeded. And they succeeded. And they succeeded. And it was like, I remember on The Incredibles, Brad saying, you know, when this movie's over, I want our theme playing, and I want kids screaming and running from the theater singing this song.

And what he was asking for was basically what we grew up with, was all of the great stuff that we grew up with, and the way that we were treated musically. We were given these incredible melodies to go, even Mission Impossible. Lalo and Mancini. Lalo Schiffer. And all those guys. And John Williams. You know, doing research for this particular show was fun because I got to sit and listen.

I was going to ask you about them. I got to listen to John Williams' Lost in Space themes and the Time Tunnel and Earl Hagen's Mods. Oh, Time Tunnel. We were just in Wad. The Time Tunnel is the greatest. Fantastic. Yeah.

The shuttle is the greatest. Fantastic. Yeah. Two American scientists are lost in a swirling maze of past and future ages during the first experiments on America's greatest and most secret project, the Time Tower.... And Land of the Giants, John Williams' Land of the Giants, and what is it, Carl Hagen's Mod Squad. They're just, they're... So when you guys sat down initially

and had initial conversations about The Incredibles music, I assume this is how the conversation went. A little bit of this, a little bit of that, you know, does Brad say these are the things in my head? Well, I, well, we talked about the things that we loved and we talked about, I mean, one of our. And I just said, it's brassy. It should be brassy. People don't use brass in that way anymore. And they try to tuck it in. And it's not an instrument that you should tuck. So I was able to just write a love letter to all of the people who I wanted to thank for entertaining me all these years, you know, and all of those themes. And, you know, this was a big blender of all of that, you know, just my inspiration. So I remember when I was a kid, my mother used to call me in

when Perry Mason would come on because I really enjoyed the theme music. It's the greatest. There you go. You know, it sets the table. How about that Quincy Jones theme from Ironside? Yes. Who wrote that one? Wasn't it Quincy Jones?

Did he do that one? I think. I know. What about Sanford and Son? That's another great one. Yeah, right. Right, right, right. And the Munsters is a great theme.

I never knew that Jack Marshall, who wrote the Munsters theme, was Frank Marshall's dad. Wow. I didn't know that till this second. I didn't know that. I didn't know that. Wait, what else did he write? I hope it's true. I read it online.

It could be bullshit, but we're going to hope it's true. What else did he write? We should ask him. On this podcast, we once played the lyrics to one of the greatest theme music ever, the Odd Couple theme, which is classic, classic theme music. Neil Hefty. Yeah, Neil Hefty was, he, the catchiest, they immediately brought in. And since, let's go with this Frank Marshall thing, he invented the hefty bag, too.

I'm not sure of that. I just emailed him and asked him if his father was a composer. I don't know. We'll see if he gets back to us before we're done. I hope I'm not wrong. If I am, what the hell? It's on the internet. You can't trust the internet.

But it's a great. I did say my friend Frank Santopadre swears that your dad was a composer. Is this true? He can take it out on me if I'm wrong. Yeah. Okay, guys. We're going to take a break right here because, once again, we have an embarrassment of riches and too much great content to cram into one show.

So we're going to do this in two parts. Stay tuned for part two next week, and it's a good one, with Oscar winners Brad Bird and Michael Giacchino. We'll see you then. Confucian Conflict This podcast will self-destruct in five seconds. Bye.