Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - GGACP Classic: Brad Bird and Michael Giacchino Part 1

Episode Date: June 30, 2022

GGACP celebrates the 15th anniversary of the Pixar masterpiece "Ratatouille" (released June 29, 2007) by revisiting this 2-part interview with Oscar-winning writer-director Brad Bird and Oscar-winning composer Michael Giacchino. Also in this episode, the Brad and Michael discuss their various collaborations ("The Incredibles," "Incredibles 2," "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 pokes fun at 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! Special thanks to audio producer John Murray and Curtis Green Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Trivia and dirty jokes, an evening with the boys. Once is never good enough for something so fantastic. So here's another Gilbert and Franks Here's another Gilbert and Franks Here's another Gilbert and Franks Colossal classic 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. 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 the 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 wanted to give him credit for it. Please don't. But he said, no, I didn't do that.

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 Giant, The Incredibles, The Incredibles 2, Ratatouille, Tomorrowland, and Mission Impossible 4 Ghost Protocol.

And in 2020, he was named the newest host of Turner classic movie series, The Essentials. And he's going to tell us why, like yours truly, 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 it. I like his competition. We'll get through this. I never liked Michael that much

but his competition I thought was very nice. Now you sound like my mother. 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 that's just that's just my opinion. I just 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. 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. 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. 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. later he still can't understand whatever possessed him to wear a red Star Trek shirt to his first day of school. 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 FN3181, Brad Bird and Michael Giacchino.

Hello, hello, hello Wow What an intro That was amazing What an intro I mean, jeez 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, Thanksgiving

time at home. You've never been on a subject at a Comedy Central roast, so this is as close as it's going to come. And Brad, unlike 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. 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, Brad, 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? Now, Brett, I watched Mission Impossible 4, and 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. Yeah. Well, that's not unusual in a Mission Impossible movie. They are somewhat convoluted scripts, usually multifaceted. They're 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 that our villain was a little better figured out, but we had some really good ideas that didn't pan out and we had to go with what we had. It's kind of like, well, like they asked the filmmakers of The Big Sleep if they could explain. Oh, yeah, that was very famous. Yeah.

And they couldn't. They said, we don't know. Well, they asked him who the murderer was. Yeah. And of couldn't. They said, we don't know. Well, they asked him who the murderer was. Yeah. And 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. And Big Sleep is beloved. 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, incredible. Yeah, and the stunt guys say that, you know, if he weren't, you know, 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 mean who else can you name like that i mean a couple of times i've been in uh 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 yeah that's gilbert godfrey 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, it's odd. 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 2 o'clock in the morning and I just woke up like, you know, because I realized that, you know, my star was dangling by a thin wire, you know, 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. Uh-huh. 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 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 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 they can't be Tom are Tom. 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. He snapped his ankle or 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 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. Like, when you see that shot, when you see that scene, it looks painful, too. I mean, it's not. It was. He's jumping across that. That's when he's leaping from one building to the next. Yeah.

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 of that? I mean, we have these kind of conversations all the time, stop saying that. You're putting too much pressure on me. Do you have any memory of that? I mean, we have these kind of conversations all the time, he and I. 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'd say, I don't care! Doing research, by the way, on Mission Impossible, 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 Yakov 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. Like 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. And actually anybody that's in the vicinity

that has a bad pun really gets a shot. Yeah, 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 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 are always so boring. Yeah, another chase through something,

I think would be a good title. They sound like the titles of Three Stooges. Yeah. Yeah, right. They do. What an Eiffel from Tomorrowland was also a favorite. Yes. Gilbert, you're a sucker for a pun.

Oh, yes. It's so weird. There's been articles written about it. It's so strange. Vanity Fair like articles written about it. It's, it's, it's so strange. I vanity fair did an article about the puns. Uh, so you can look those up and, and, and get a lot of the history out of that, but it is, it's been, and actually there are some fans who hate it. There are some fans, like I remember when Star Trek came out, when that, when that, uh, soundtrack came out, there were, uh, it was a good group of people that were

very upset that we, 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.

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 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. And it was literally like he 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 that, you know, it winds up in his court, you know, you got it, 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 rewriting it again in the hotel. And right up until the moment that 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. 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, because 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, the one name you'll hear first is Peter O'Toole. And Oliver Reed and Richard Burton, those guys.

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, 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? 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 voice and and know that you know uh i could hear that being done live and hear you talking to him that was just such a special thing like i'll never forget that the world is often unkind to new talent new creations

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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, 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, 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 used one of his bras in the film where Ego, Linguini has a nightmare about Ego.

And then he snaps, he says, I want your heart on a steak or something like that. And then he starts laughing. And then as as Linguini wakes up, I use the bra. And I echoed it in all all of the speakers so that in the theater it was like, wow, you know, and it was 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. We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing, colossal podcast.

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crispy bacon and creamy parmesan sauce to our 100% Canadian beef makes it impossible to have a conversation. Try the new creamy parmesan and bacon quarter pounder today and discover how words are so unnecessary for a limited time only at participating McDonald's restaurants in Canada. 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 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. You're in 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 want to like sit some more and talk. We barely covered all of film history. Yes. Gil, tell them the ones you picked. The ones I picked, well, they were freaks. Todd Browning's freaks. Todd Browning, yeah.

Yeah. And The Conversation. Coppola. That's a good one. And The Original of Mice and Men with Cheney and Burgess Meredith. Is that John Ford? Lewis Milestone. Yes.

Milestone. Okay, okay. And 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, you know. I saw Vertigo that way. I saw, and I saw... Was that Stairway to Heaven? The Michael Powell press burger?

Stairway to Heaven, yes. The Michael Powell film. And it's just like you're like, I'm going to bed, but you turn the opening of a film like grabs you and gets you. And I thought that Burt Lancaster one was so weird, you know? Is it a John Updyer? Where is the story? I think it's Cheever.

Cheever, that's it. It's a John Cheever story. But Stairway to heaven is a movie more people need to know about well it was under the other title what is a matter of life and death yes beautiful 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 that's what you know people think that because i evangelize i evangelize about going to movie theaters and having that

experience and i'm i sort of bemoan the fact that it seems to be disappearing for the moment anyway. Yeah. But there are those experiences where the 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, you know, and that's sort of indisputable. I mean, every film is in stereo now, which is amazing. But every other part of the experience, the fact that nobody has curtains anymore, which is a gesture of showmanship. Sure. The fact that they project ads 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. Yes.

And then having multiplexes where the largest auditoriums are maybe 200 or 300 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. That was exciting. The moment of anticipation, yeah. And when you saw trailers, 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, 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 i'll go just stop just stop

making noise and that's what well and they give away too much of the plot yeah you know i remember seeing that uh 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 the 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 I don't, now I don't care. Now you've 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 where they were screaming out all the names. 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 got the gut punch of the Santa Barbara 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, 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. So, you know.

Exactly. Yeah. So it better survive. We hope somebody was going to take by the Ziegfeld up here in New York years ago. And unfortunately, you know, 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 that.

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 LA. Still standing. 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? Cause they used to show, they would show silent films there when I was in LA in the nineties with, with an,

I think so. With an accompanist. Yeah. But a lot of them now just, they do concerts and things like that there instead. They do this program called The Best Remaining Seats. That's right, I remember that.

And they show great movies one night only and they're trying to kind of say, we have these great theaters here, they still exist, let's resurrect them, you know, do something. But, you know, there become other issues like, 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. 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. think it was second 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 uh because second avenue had and and they just showed porn yeah some of those some of those old yeah some of those old theaters downtown on the east side became movie theaters and and then they fell into disrepair. That's been going on here for decades. 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. I know. 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, 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 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, it is some, one of those things that it's, it's one of the hardest things that I I've ever worked on in, in some time, you know, in terms of just trying to figure it out,

what's working, what's not working and everything. 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. Right, 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, you know, scare yourself, go try to make an original musical that can stand alongside, you know, the great ones without looking like a, you know, 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. 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, I guess 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 uh i say a little prayer for you and i'm going now in real life people don't know all the words to a song and you know in real life i say So you have come up with a radical idea, the first mumbly musical where no one knows the words. It'll 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? Can we put this in context? Go ahead. Let him put it in context. We should put this in context. I'll put it into context first. You always put it into context. 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 had 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 right Hanna-Barbera just we were just having this animation geek fest together because I I love it so much and obviously he does and and I left there feeling really good like I loved that meeting. I thought this guy seems really great. And weeks go by. I'm 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, you know, hold on a second. I just got to say a couple things first. And he goes, I want 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 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 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. 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 absolutely right.

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 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, you know? 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 gotta change this, then we gotta change that, then we gotta make it lighter 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 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, 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, 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 and 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 thing but what i'm saying is composers come in late to the process they they come 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, the trick, the trick, the trick is, it's like, I'm really coming at it from the same place you are, right. 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. You know, I grew up making movies. That's what I love doing. And I went to film school, Frank, as you know this. 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. 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, 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. Okay. 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, you know, 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? You know, because that sound that John Barry did is so embedded into your brain, you know, 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.

Yeah. And that can be 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's going to save it. 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, it has, it has, it has effect. We talked about this the last time you were here. The thing that gets my goat is, is manipulative music telling you when the comedy scene has arrived.

And I noticed it, I noticed 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 uh 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 it uh and you start and you start they start manipulating you here's the laugh here's here's the comedy scene and it makes me insane right uh yeah yeah they also do it in animated films oh they do it all the time in animated in animated

films they they do it when they go from the light comedy moments to the 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 real movies, you know?

And that's an annoying question because I feel like there is, first of all, because I feel like there is, 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 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, you know? And that's what I do on this. And that's, it's so annoying. It's so annoying. You can't even watch those kinds of movies. By the way, I was glad I asked that question because I got to see Brad get so excited. I got a sense of the way he is in a meeting, in a pitch meeting. He was bouncing off the walls. 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.

You know? 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, what's it like to do a real movie? And, and I always would say, you know, ha ha, uh, actually they're all real movies. Some of them are animated and this one isn't, you know, ha ha, 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 I get it 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. 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. Yes, you know? I mean, it wasn't,

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 the laughs. I didn't see him on an episode of I just saw him on an episode of Hawaii Five-O from years ago. I mean, I just saw him on an episode of Hawaii five. Oh, uh, from years ago.

I mean, I, I'm obsessed with that show, the old one, you know, and I, almost every night I will watch an episode, but,

uh, and I love to see the old guest stars and the 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 know. Love that guy. The I just, I don't know, love that guy. The titles for that always used to crack me up because the characters' names were like, Dan Jones as Bob Smith. Oh, yeah. And Zulu as Como. Right.

You know? Kim, what was it? Kim Fong as Chin Ho? Yeah. Yeah. And then there was one person that had one name. Zulu. Right.

Zulu. Yeah. But he played Kona or something. That's right. Kona, yeah. I'm in season eight. He's not on air anymore. And a former guest of this show, Gavin McCloud, was on Hawaii Five-0.

He was a big chicken. Big chicken. Big Chicken. Big Chicken. He was a drug dealer. Wow. And how about that Hawaii Five-0 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 it was like, I remember on The Incredibles, Brad saying, 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, to, to go even Mission Impossible. Lalo and Mancini and all those guys and John Williams. I was, you know,

doing research for this particular show was fun because I got to sit and listen. We were going to, I was going to ask you about them. I got to listen to John Williams, Lost in Space themes and the time tunnelnel and Earl Hagen's Mods. Oh, Time Tunnel. The Time Tunnel is the greatest.

Fantastic. Yeah. Two American scientists are lost in the 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, Earl 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. Does Brad say these are the things in my head? 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, you know, they try to tuck it in and it's like, it's not an instrument that you should tuck. You should like put it out front and, you know he was michael got it instantly you know i loved all that stuff growing up so for me it was just the biggest playground so i was able

to just write a love letter to all of the people who i i wanted to thank for 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? 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 thing. 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 hope it's true. 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 i hope it's true i read it i read it online it could be bullshit but we're gonna hope it's true what 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 heftyfty. Yeah, Neil Hefty was, he, the catrius,

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 do it. 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. Transmission complete. This podcast will self-destruct in five seconds.