Bittersweet Infamy - #70 - Finding the Groove

Episode Date: May 14, 2023

Josie tells Taylor about the embattled production of a Disney cult classic: The Emperor's New Groove. Plus: one mother's quest to secure Hannah Montana tickets for her daughter—no matter the cost.

Welcome to Bitter Sweden. I'm Taylor Basso and I'm Josie Mitchell. On this podcast, we share the stories that live on in envy. The strange and the familiar. The tragic and the comic. The bitter. And the sweet. Sweet. I had a really good apple. Yeah, tell me about the apple. Oh, fuck, exactly what you was an envy. I don't know if that means anything, but like others who saw me, if I were not alone in my apartment, others who would see me eat this apple would surely feel envy as it was just the first apple I've had where I was like, I see what Eve was thinking. I see what Eve was about. Wow, dude. Sounds like it was probably good. You were alone eating it. May have been like an herbal essence commercial. Wow. Yes. I forgot about herbal

essence commercials, but you damn right it was. I was moaning and fingering myself while I ate that apple. It was fucking good. Big and juicy and sweet. Yeah, carnal. I'm happy for you and your apple. Apple. Yeah, it was good. I really enjoyed it. Do you say apple? Yeah, happy for me and my apple. Josephine, this episode in Arizona, a pretty special day. Oh yeah, Mother's Day. It's Mother's Day. Yes. Who in your opinion is the greatest mother in history, the mother of all mothers, if you like? Oh, gosh. There's a lot that come to mind. Mother Mary, it's like in her name. Yeah. You know? Probably the most famous of the mothers. Well, I mean, she kind of came late to the game. There are a lot of moms before her, but you know. She kind of innovated the game though. She was,

because they all needed dads. That's true. Not her. Yeah, not her. Another famous mother is Mommy Dearest from the film. Joan Crawford. Joan Crawford, No Wire Hangers. She's a famous mom. A very, an infamous mom, if you like. She just knew what she liked. That's all. Or what she didn't like. She was a particular mother. A particular mother. Yeah. Famous moms. I didn't say famous moms. I said, who's the greatest? Who's the greatest mother? Oh, shit. I was supposed to say my mom, wasn't I? Fuck. Yes, you were. I set you up and you fucking whiffed it. Alice Mitchell. And, or I was waiting for you to ask me so I could be like my mother. It would have taken me moments. No, my mom is a very good mom. I love my mom. Listen, happy Mother's Day to all the mothers

out there. Happy Mother's Day. And to those of you who are on good terms with your mother, because she was bad to you, fuck her. It's that simple. Damn. Am I wrong? No, no. It might be a little more complicated. Thank you. People might get a little defensive, but. Fuck her. Fuck her. Forget her. It's over. You have a new mother now. I'm your mother now. It's going to be great. That's the real answer that I should have given. The greatest mom of all time is Taylor Masso. I love all my babies. Well, since this episode is airing on Mother's Day, I would like to use the episode 70 Minfamous to honor one mother who went above and beyond the call of duty for her child. Some would argue she went too far. Okay. That's always the fine line with motherhood.

Where is it just right? Where is it not enough? Where is it too far? It's a very, it's a very hard thing. I suppose I would argue that she probably went too far, but I am not among those who judge her harshly for this. Okay. In fact, I want to give her an award, a sort of ad hoc informal award. I was going to suggest Bitter Sweet Infamy Mother of the Year. However, the story takes place in 2007, so I'm going to suggest Bitter Sweet Infamy Mother of the Millennium. Oh, whoa. Wow, that jumped, eh? So far. So far. So Josie is my co-signatory, so I can't give out any awards without her permission. So I'm going to tell you the story of this mother and you at the end, we can kind of agree or agree

to disagree on whether she is the mother of the millennium. Okay. Behind Anna Maria, behind Alice. Possibly ahead of, depending how swayed you are by the story. Maybe you decide that our mothers are a pile of warm puke. Yeah, I have a lot of catch-up work to do with my mom, so I might need to just pull some strings. Cut bait and try someone else. No, give her the millennium award. Well, she'll have to beat my mother, and I'm sorry, but in... That's fair. They're counting the votes. They're counting the votes and they've informed me that my mom could kick your mom's ass. In the mid to late 2000s, the hottest ticket for young concert goers is Hannah Montana,

okay, aka Miley Stewart, aka Miley Cyrus. Oh, I didn't know there was a steward in there. That's her, like, TV character. So to give you the breakdown, it's a Disney channel sitcom about a teen girl hiding her identity as a mega famous pop star. Miley Cyrus, daughter of Billy Ray Cyrus, plays Miley Stewart, who in the show has a secret identity, this little wig that she wears, and she's going out on stage and being Hannah Montana. Layers, baby. And she has to keep it at... keep it quiet. Layers. It's basically twelfth night. Oh, okay. For kids, with no drag. So it's really not that much, like, twelfth night, I guess at this point. You get a lot of twelfth night out of that, yeah, okay.

You've got to really squint and tilt your head and maybe have, like, a couple of shots of tequila before the show, but you can get to twelfth night, I promise. Okay. The show's nearing its climax, and its star is beginning slowly to branch out into music under her own name, hence her new album, Hannah Montana II, colon, meet Miley Cyrus, which explores both sides of its star's public persona and its subsequent live show, the best of both worlds tour. Okay. Oh, I see what they did there. You got the two worlds they're competing. On the one hand, it's Hannah Montana. On the other hand, it's Miley Stewart. But on the other, there's, see, again, these layers, it's Hannah Montana Miley Cyrus. There's a third hand. It's really what we're talking about here. Yeah. She's taking

off the wig within. That's deep. Since these tickets are such a hot commodity, naturally, they're quickly snapped up by scalpers in one of the early incidents of a now common place occurrence, a ticketmaster event being overwhelmed by its secondary market. Right. Under the scalper regime, the sold out tickets, which originally sold for $26 to $66, begin appearing at costs of three and four figures. A single ticket in Charlotte, North Carolina fetches over $2,500. Oh, what, in 2007? Fuck. For Hannah Montana slash Miley Stewart Cyrus? This is before the subprime mortgage collapsed, folks. So this was, you know. That's right. We were all riding high. We didn't care what Hannah Montana cost. It didn't matter. So naturally, caregivers look for ways to satisfy

their young Hannah Montana fans without remortgaging the house, selling plasma, discreetly knocking off those expensive family pets, etc. Parents sign up for a $29 a month subscription to MileyWorld.com, which promises pre-sale tickets but doesn't deliver. I don't know what happened there, except to say that I know that there was a lot of, like, investigation, if not outright litigation, around this ticket scalping and all of this stuff, like a lot of state attorneys general. Yeah. Received a lot of complaints and did some looking in kind of stuff. Yeah. About 150 fathers compete in a high hill derby hosted by St. Louis's Y98 radio station, who recently appeared on episode 68 of the podcast, The Cult of the Clitoris,

with their jam, Poopoo Bus, by fake Dave Matthews. Oh my God. Wow. The Morning Traffic Show. They really know what to do to get the crowds motivated. Poopoo Bus. One such ticket giveaway is hosted by Club Libby Lou, which web searches describe as an experiential retailer. Josie, do you know anything about Club Libby Lou? Does that ring any bells for you? Absolutely not. What a shame. Not a distant, not a close. No. Because I got to tell you, in the looking into Club Libby Lou that I did, I thought, this shit is lit. And if I was like a little eight year old American girl at the right time, in the right place, I would have been fucking climbing the walls for Club Libby Lou. And I

think that you, it's a little kind of princessy for you, but I think you would enjoy the general vibe. So. Okay. Club Libby Lou was founded by Mary Drolet. She's an exec from Montgomery Ward and Claire's. So she has this, and like a women's apparel at Montgomery Ward. So she's got like this background in fashion, trans, merchandising apparel for women and girls. Right. And Claire's too is like a very specific market that I was definitely a part of. Oh, who among us hasn't gotten, you know, their eyebrow pierced at Claire's? We've all been there. Nice and green. I mean, I got my ears pierced. Who hasn't gotten their pierced at Claire's? I'm joking. It's a joke. Nobody gets their eyebrow pierced or their clip pierced at Claire's.

Well, I know you don't get your clip pierced. Don't say that. Listen, happy Mother's Day. You never say never. So it's called Club Libby Lou Club, because it's like an inclusive club that everybody can join. And Libby Lou was Mary Drolet's imaginary friend when she was a child, which I love. I think that's a very cute as somebody who has a lot of imaginary friends, even as a grown up. I think that's kind of sweet. Yeah, it's basically like you roll in there. They give you like a makeover. They have this like pick and mix wall of what I would peg at like five to $15 accessories now that you can kind of like get a headband, get a little bracelet, get a little compact, which is kind of the Claire's vibe. Yeah. Yeah. And there's like these kind of

packages. You can get like a glam tiara makeover. You can get a rocker girl makeover, you know, all of these different things. One of them seems to be like an official partnered Hannah Montana makeover. Hannah Montana TMS. Yeah, you can go in there and get your little Hannah Montana wig and put on your little pink dress over your jeans and do all the fun 2008 things. And at the end, you'd get sent home with like a little goodie bag of like Hannah Montana goods and Club Libby Lou goods. Okay. In 2007, Club Libby Lou announces the Hannah Montana Rock Your Holidays Essay Contest. Okay. So a little essay writing. Old school, I'd say. That's how it was back in the day. You had to write a pill both ways. The prompt, describe how you would rock someone else's holiday.

The prize, a Club Libby Lou makeover, airfare for Ford, Albany, New York, and four tickets to the sold out Hannah Montana concert taking place January 9th, 2008 for that's your whole fam. That's you, your caretaker, your older brother who doesn't really like Hannah Montana all that much. And I wanted to bring Jenny, but my mom said I had to bring Brad and dad who has to drive and smoke. That's the whole crew. Yeah. Now, you know, all the little girls are turning out their absolute best essays in order to get a sweet pink like rebel with sequins on it, some patchy grape lip gloss, a flight top, St. New York, and the chance to rip off Miley Stewart's wagon, expose her duplicitous ass once and for all. Yeah, that's the goal. Let's speak the truth

and shame the devil here. One wrenching essay, however, stands out amongst all of the 1000 essays in the Dallas area. Six year old Alexis of Garland, Texas, so neighbor writes quote, My daddy died this year in Iraq. I'm gonna give mommy the angel pendant that daddy put on mommy when she was having me. I had it in my jewelry box since that day. I love my mommy. Damn. And indeed, according to company spokesperson Robin Caulfield, Alexis's mother, 25 year old Priscilla Savios confirmed that Alexis's father, Sergeant Jonathan Menjivar died April 17th in a roadside bombing in Iraq. And so Alexis wins the essay contest and gets whisked away for her princess makeover at the local club Libby Lou. The makeover is great. She looks like beautiful little Miley

Cyrus like pre pre twerk Miley Cyrus, you know, let's don't get it twisted. And after the makeover club Libby Lou hosts a party and Alexis of course is the guest of honor. The media is invited and they start asking this little girl questions about her father and the mother Priscilla seems a little rattled. I mean, it's her young daughter who's supposed to have this happy moment is getting grilled about her father who was killed. I could see how the mom would be like, let's move along, move along, move along. So she won't let the reporters talk to Alexis about the essay. And then when they start asking the mother more direct questions, she kind of starts to panic. She doesn't want to be on TV. So naturally, being reporters, they do a little bit of digging and

can I rock your world? No soldier named Jonathan Mangevar has died in Iraq. In fact, there isn't a Jonathan Mangevar in the entire armed forces. How this little girl get it so wrong? She misheard some really important phone conversations. Yes, Priscilla's mother confirms that Alexis's father is alive and merely living a couple of towns over. Oh, fuck. So now we have news and definitely not the kind Disney or Club Libby Lou wants. Right. Sibios, of course, is set upon by various cameras and media outlets for her side of the story. She tells Fox Four in Dallas, we never said anything like this was a true story. Never, it's just an essay. We do essays all the time. You know, my daughter does essays at school all

the time. It never said it had to be true. But the contest organizer said that's what we expected. Yeah, essay does imply a nonfiction form. A story implies fiction. Okay, so you're a hater. I see how this is. Maybe there needed to be some fine print too, because what if it's like evidently if it's a more experimental essay. And it's like the soldiers stricken in Iraq was a metaphor for my grief when I don't win these Hannah Montana tickets. Yes, feels like my father has died in a roadside bomb in Iraq in on April 17. As Priscilla Sibios, we wrote whatever we could to win. And that's what it really comes down to. You'll notice that in the original, what was this prompt? Hold on, let me rock someone's Christmas, describe how you would rock someone else's holiday.

And this girl comes in with like my daddy died in Iraq. And I would love to rock my mother's holiday by taking away the immeasurable grief she feels every time she looks at my face and sees his smile. I love See You Again. That's my favorite Miley song. Let's rock. Get me a wig so I don't look like my father anymore. Yeah, totally. And the thing is, I kind of salute, and we can get more into this, but I salute Priscilla for having the hoods, but I know that like, this is a country where they let veterans board the planes first. I need to roll in there and be like, my daddy died in Iraq, give me money, and it will work and I will win. And it did. And she did. So I could also see how you would just roll that dice and just be like, well, let's just see. Let's just see how

it goes. There's no way I'm getting these tickets any other way. And then all of a sudden it happens. And you're like, Oh, dude, that's what seems to have happened. She didn't know there was going to be media involved. And the second she sees the cameras, you can see her just like blue screen. She's like, Oh, I fuck off. So Club Libby Lou is now in the obviously unenviable position of needing to figure out what to do with these tickets. You revoke the tickets. You're going to snatch that little blonde wig off Alexis's head. Her father died in Iraq. She gets the Club Libby Lou treatment. But does she get the tickets for tickets to Albany? Oh, heartless, heartless. I run a hardship, my dude. Fair enough. Judge Josie has room.

It's not their fault. It's her mom's fault. You can't bring your kids into it. You can't put them in it is the thing. So Club Libby Lou releases a statement on the website, quote, Club Libby Lou has been evaluating the situation surrounding our Hannah Montana Rock Your Holidays essay contest and is extremely sensitive to the fact that we're dealing with a six year old little girl. We wanted to take ample time. She's barely out of kindergarten. We wanted to take ample time. She did not write that essay. But there's absolutely no way that six year old bitch wrote that essay. The field medic said is my daddy was bleeding out in Baghdad that he looked at him and said, I really want my daughter to go to the Miley Cyrus concert in Albany. And that's what happened.

We want to take ample time to gather all the necessary facts in order to make an appropriate decision regarding whether or not we would reward the Hannah Montana concert tickets and other prizes to the Savios family. After awarding the grand prize, we unfortunately learned that the statements made in the essay were untrue. Club Libby Lou greatly values honesty and integrity in order to uphold these values. We have decided to withdraw the award initially given to the Savios family. Consequently, we will award the prize to another winner already identified with this decision. We hope to revive the intended spirit of the contest, which was designed to make a little girl's holidays extra special in order to protect the family's privacy.

We have decided not to disclose the name of the new winner. Let's keep the media out of it this time. Okay. Yeah, that's very smart, especially for a fucking six year old. Yeah. I mean, in really what's at stake here is the integrity of the Club Libby Lou Hannah Montana essay contest, which must be upheld at rock the holidays. All costs that the integrity must be maintained. Well, they never would do another one of these. So maybe the damage was done. Yeah, I think they maybe learned. I would argue that it was at least the statement as I just read it was a classy handling of a difficult situation. Yeah. Although one that doesn't quite match with the account of Priscilla Savios who told today's show is Matt Lauer. I told my daughter the truth.

I told her we wrote an essay and they say it was a lie and I refuse to accept the tickets. I told her there will be another time. That's yeah. I don't think that's true. But then she explained that lie on public. Yeah. TV. Okay, cool. She also adds I sincerely apologize to those people who feel misled because of my bad judgment. I helped my daughter write an essay that was not true. It was not my intention to mislead. I just want to help my daughter write a compelling story. There is no more compelling story than the struggle and sacrifices of our military and their families. I apologize to our military and their families. Did she salute? No, that was just me. That was just me. Okay. Savios relates that she's been subject to

harassment and has had to move out of her family home, which I think is bullshit. Let people do silly and even things that you find outrageous and immoral without sending them death threats and shit. Anti-death threat. We take an anti-death threat stance here at Bear Sweden for me. Also, I mean, it wasn't a very like integrity laden move that she enacted by falsifying an essay written by a six year old, but she also like, she didn't hurt anybody. Like no one's pain, no one's in the hospital. You know what I mean? That's the problem though. The issue is that no one, she said that there were people tied and they weren't, I can understand. I see what you're saying. I'm able to laugh because by the grace of God, I don't know anybody who was a casualty of war

and certainly not the Iraq war. I think that like, if I were like a veteran of Iraq, for example, I would be fucking livid at this person. But in terms of what you're saying, no, there isn't a victim in the casual sense other than whatever child. Alexis. Yeah, Alexis. I think Alexis is kind of the victim here. Yeah. But Savios says, I meant no disrespect. I just made a bad decision, which I sincerely regret. I apologize to my daughter for getting her mixed up in this mess. I wanted to help my daughter realize her dream of seeing Hannah Montana. Instead, I brought so much negative attention to my family. Please accept my heartfelt apology and please do not punish my child for my mistake. Fair enough. Yes. From there, the mess blows over.

Club Libby Lou gets bought by Sachs and then goes out of business in 2008 due to the recession, RIP. In 2011, Hannah Montana took off her wig and revealed herself as Miley Stewart, who had different hair. And as for Priscilla, if she's done anything infamous since, I haven't heard about it, which means she's either learned her lesson or she's refined her tactics. Either way, I'm happy to leave her to her newfound anonymity and encourage listeners to do the same. But before we finish this Mother's Day Minfamous, pending the thumbs up from my co-host, I'm excited to present her with the newly minted award of bittersweet infamy, Mother of the Millennium, a woman who scammed, yes, but she scammed for love. Josie, what do you

think? Can I haggle you down to Mother of the Century? I was gonna say, could we maybe, I was gonna be like decade, but maybe we'll settle for century. I don't want to ask would you do it, because I feel like the answer to that is no. But like, in spirit, if it wasn't this exact thing, but you could use your writing skills, your skills of fabrication, your unblemished, undefeated, your 6-0 record in the April Fool's Minfamous game, if you could bring all this to bear, to get your daughter tickets to the dream concert that is completely out of your price range, because of scalpers, would you do it? And you wouldn't get caught. You're not Priscilla, you're a little bit slicker, and you know you wouldn't get caught. Would you do it?

I, you know, I think I probably would. So? I think I would. Scalpers are the real villains here. Thank you. I'm not the villain. The ticket economy, ticket master. Yes. She's a hero, she's a folk hero, yes. At Robin Hood, really. She's stealing from little girls and giving to her little girl. Happy Mother's Day. You should all be doing it. Wait, let me ask you, would you falsify an essay contest to get your small child impossible tickets to a show that's probably subpar anyway, but they love it with their whole heart and being? Would I get caught? No. Then yes. Maybe that's the defining thing here. It's like, would you get caught? No, would you get caught? Yes. In actual practice, no, I wouldn't do it, and here's why. You can't bring your kid into it,

not only because it's not really fair to the kid, but also because you can't recruit your children as your accomplices. It doesn't work. They're not built for it. I wasn't, I certainly wasn't. I had no chill as a kid. If you have like a really good like paper moon kid where you can, they can just lie with a straight face until the day is long, one, watch out for that, two, then you can do the essay thing. That's what I think. Sure. Perfect. So Mother of the Century is what we've agreed on. Yes, Mother of the Century. Perfect. I'll get the plaque then. Yeah, just scratch out Melodium. Well, interesting that always your story. Every time. I know. Every fucking time. It's kind of

cool, huh? A little mind meld, a little animorphs, but brains. A brain morphing into another brain on the cover. Yeah, that's what I'm seeing. You know, because it's your brain that's morphing into mine and then back into mine. It's just brains all the way down. You read a Disney enterprise to the discussion. I'm going to be discussing another Disney enterprise. We'll leave the Disney channel. We'll move to the big house, baby, like the full length feature animated situation. This story takes place when things were doing real good for our writers and animators at the Disney corporation. It was the 90s. The animated features were on a total upswing. Oh, yeah. There was the little mermaid.

A lattice. Lion King, Beauty and the Beast. Hunchback. Big ones, big ones, big ones. Hmm, funny that Hunchback is up there for you. Oh, no. Is that okay? No, no, no. Okay, okay, okay. Don't worry. I like that the villain in Hunchback is a horny old priest. I think that's fun. Yeah. So, 90s, 2D animation. At this point, it's still initially hand drawn. So the long tradition of Disney hand drawn animation is still alive and well at this time. Those really big winners I talked about, Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast. They're coming out really hot and they're extremely popular, making a lot of money. The love of Disney is thick and well again. And then there's there's a few releases that don't

quite match the same zeitgeisty way. We get Pocahontas, which didn't get a lot of love. Tarzan, which got an okay rating, but it was extremely expensive. Did Pocahontas not get a lot of love? I feel like Pocahontas was well liked. Am I crazy? Pocahontas was well liked, but it wasn't like a cultural high note like Beauty and the Beast. Sure. Also, I really like the Phil Collins song from Tarzan. No, those were those slapped. Those were great. But I think really what we're talking about here is dollar signs. Pocahontas, Tarzan, even with Philly Collins on the soundtrack, they weren't making. Keep going. There you go. Your Phil Collins quote from the night. So Disney executives Roy Disney and Michael Eisner, they had come to expect not only like

well liked, but like well loved, cherished stories in these animated films. Yeah. They wanted, you know, something really, really shiny. They are ready at this point for the next multimillion dollar idea that'll cement Disney into the very definition of, you know, this is what good storytelling is. So their expectations are extremely high, right? They have high hopes for something that would be set in Latin America. Lion King had this African vibe and now they're like, okay, well, there's other continents. Let's try and dip into some other cultures. They were really going for like that high Shakespearean drama with also like the goofy, lovable side characters. I think Akuna Matata, the Lion King, to get this magic that they want,

they turn to the golden child, golden man of Lion King, story supervisor and director Roger Allers. Okay. And they say, go my son, make the movie, make it happen. Creative control. Here's Eartha Kitt. Here's David Spade. Here's a little known actor named Owen Wilson. The first new group. Sting is interested too. And Sting's wife, Trudy Styler, she's going to make a documentary about the making of this film. Was this a disaster? Fantastic promotions. Lots of trust in this one. All the artistic vision that you could ever dream. Go Roger Allers, go. Four years later, a team of animators, Studio execs and a small documentary film crew packed into a theater on the Disney lot and they watched the rough cut of this film where a third, one third of the

animation had been completed. Sting had written a handful of the songs of the six bangers that he was contracted to write. The rough cut runs and when the lights come up in the theater, the execs go No. I don't like it. Start again. Oh no. We want you to start again, but you have the same exact release date. We won't give you more time. No, corporate America, don't do that. We got money to make whether or not the thing is good. Taylor, welcome to the story of the Disney cult classic, which you could say like, does Disney even have cult classics? Probably not. But the Disney cult classic, the kingdom of the sun. Wait, no, the kingdom in the sun. Wait, wait, wait, no. All right. I'm going to give you the emperor's new groove. Okay. So I didn't know this had drama. Oh, that's

hilarious. Good. Good. Okay. I've never seen this. Now I want to watch it. I'm annoyed. You've never seen. I've never seen. I've never, if I knew that it was a disaster, then I would have watched it long ago. Oh my God. It comes out okay, right? You know, spoiler, it's not the next Lion King. That doesn't happen, obviously. Llama King? It definitely sits in my mind as like one of the tangential animation houses, but it's Disney and it was slotted to be the golden child Disney. Didn't quite get there. Taylor, what's your favorite Disney movie? I love the Great Most Detective. It's a deeply underrated Disney film. It's my favorite by far. It's so much fun. Nobody talks about it.

It has like one song, no shitty singing, one song, and it's by Vincent Price as an evil rat. Come on now. My second favorite Disney movie after The Great Most Detective is The Three Caballos, which is like a 1940s South American propaganda piece starring Donald Back and two original characters who are also birds. So much fun. We used to put that shit on all the time. Amazing shit. Wow. That's a deep cut, my dude. So for the record, if anyone is like what kind of insufferable hipster fuck is Taylor Basso, my favorite Disney movies are The Great Most Detective and The Three Caballeros. That's good. I like that. I like that a lot. You should watch The Three Caballos. I recommend it. What about you? What's yours? What's your favorite Disney movie? What's your favorite

Disney movie? My favorite is based off of how much paraphernalia I had from the film and how it was deep in the subconscious and it's a little mermaid. Yeah. Oh my god. Of course it is. Underwater Girl got it. Right. I know. So we've talked a little bit about Disney before. I forget what that segment was, but I got on a kick about the ties that early Disney animation and that has continued on through all the legacy of Disney, the ties to Minstrelsy, a beloved American institution obviously tied to racism. Yes. We'll fast forward a little bit to when these feature length animated films were being made. Snow White was the first, beloved. And then Walt Disney puts his fingerprint on the final film that he will make, which is The Jungle Book. It comes out

in 1967. He dies in 66, but we know the process of making these animated films is very extended. So he had a lot to say about it, even though he passed away the year before it was released. So we're in the late 60s and then from then into the 80s all up until the 90s, Disney dives a little bit in its popularity, which is when Taylor really loved it. Classic. Apparently in the 80s, the whole animation section of Disney was about to fucking fall apart and they were thinking about how they could dismantle bits of it to be sold off. Have you ever heard of The Black Cauldron? Yes, I have. The animated film? I don't know the full story there, but you're like alluding to it rings a distant bell as as flops go. It was a major flop because it was a big money sack. It was

very untenable. The storyline did not hold up. It was just like unenjoyable and it tanked and it sank a lot of money. Nothing worse than a bad movie nobody likes. So that was nearly a death now for Disney animation The Black Cauldron. But they made it out that I have a feeling you're going to tell me that they escaped. Roy Disney, son of Walt Disney and Michael Eisner, who were both working as executives for Disney at the time, they decided to bring in an outsider and do the organization to kind of whip things into shape. And so they hired a man named Jeffrey Katzenberg. I'll warn you right now, there are a lot of pretty standard white guy names in here. So if you lose the thread a little bit, I'll try and give a little predicate-nominated tag on things so we

can stay clear and focused. But Katzenberg is pretty cutthroat. He wants the very best out of everybody, but he also kind of lifts it to 11 a little bit because he's like, I not only want you to work hard and give me 110%, I want you to be so invested in this that this is your life. These stories, this work is live or die situation, ladies and mostly gentlemen. Not unless it's your own work. Not for a corporate overlord, not for Jeffrey Katzenberg, I'm sorry. Very wise. Very wise. But I'll counter that too. If you want to be in animation, making big movies, you're going to have to collaborate. That's true. With a lot of people. And the money for all of that at Disney. Yeah, no, you're right. Pretty sweet. We'll get into that. We will certainly get into

that. So under Katzenberg, cutthroats, we get 1989, The Little Mermaid, 1991 Beauty and the Beast, 1992 Aladdin, which is the first animated movie to make over $2 million in the box office. And then we get to the high point for Disney animation, which is 1994 with The Lion King. The Lion King is the highest grossing traditionally animated, so like 2D hand drawn animated film of all fucking time. Yeah, that sounds right. That shit was big. We were singing Lion King songs in my choir when I was six. Yes. And Miss Burton didn't want us to roar on the part where he says, listen to me roar. And she would be like, you need to sing it like the guy on the tape where he just sings it. And that was such a, I mean, a fool's errand. These are six year old

kids. They want to sing it like the Disney movie Miss Burton on Clench. Yes, I agree. Tide butthole over there. There was Mrs. Burton, burdened by name, burdened by nature, man. Classic burden, Miss Burton strikes again. All this fame, all this renaissance happens under Katzenberg. And he wants some credit. He wants the fame. He wants it all. But Roy Disney and Michael Eisner are like, wait, wait, wait. We've been here the whole time. Like, slow your roll. This is the Disney Corp. We all work at collaboration. We're all in it together. And so they decide to pass him over for a promotion that he felt he was very due. Katzenberg, he calls up his good buddy, Steven Spielberg, and says, Hey, what's she doing? Boom. Then you get DreamWorks. Yeah. So they created

the rival company to Disney's animation art. Yes. They also poached some of the top animators from Disney. Right. 1995, we get Pocahontas, 1996, Hunchback of Notre Dame, which was a very expensive one, apparently. Hercules comes next. All of these are, they're kind of waning. They're not, they're very popular. You know, we had all the plushies and the toys and like the cute little- Not breakthrough in the way of the Lion King at all. Exactly. Mulan has a little like, get Christina Aguilera in the soundtrack, cute girl power kind of vibes, but it doesn't quite have the same oomph that they wanted. Tarzan comes through, Philly Collins does a great job. He was here earlier. He left behind his cigarettes, so make sure you get this. So kind. So good.

At this time too, Disney has made perhaps a strategic error in that they've created their computer animation arm with Pixar. Right. Toy Story comes out of that, some really big ones that are fantastic and that are like really like pulling people's attention, but it means that the traditional animation, it just feels kind of lagging behind. It's like nobody's really into the technology of it and it's not holding up story-wise. It's kind of like, what's going on here? But Disney is going to be fine because they have this project that Roger Allers, the golden boy of Lion King, he is putting his full weight behind it. They've given him full creative control. This is going to be the thing that like, it's going to be even better than the Lion King.

This is what is going to save the traditional animation. And one of the things that they were also getting feedback on or critique on Disney was, is that they seem to be kind of remaking some of their storylines. It was like, oh, well, this is a Disney movie because it's a princess. They were like, let's let Roger Allers just like go off into the sunset and figure out this whole new original script and we'll alleviate any issues with that. This is going to be great. Roger Allers created all of this goodwill because he was the emotional heartbeat behind the Lion King. You know the scene where Simba is pawing at his father who is not waking up? He's like, daddy, daddy. And like the the wildebeest have just run him over and it's just like, oh my

fucking god. So apparently Disney execs were like, this is too, this is plucking too hard on the heart string. We got to roll this back. This is a kid's movie. And Roger Allers was like, no, this is what cements the film. This is what makes everybody interested. This makes him the hero. This makes it makes sense that he runs away and comes back all of it. It hinges on this and they kept it in and it worked because Lion King is super sad. It's like Bambi in the Sahara, right? It's Hamlet. It's Hamlet. Yeah. Bambi, Hamlet, Sahara. Boom. Throw a little Swahili in there. Shake it up. Port of Rice. So Disney is like, okay, Roger, we want the same thing but more like original and but the same but whole new but kind of the same. And we want it in Latin America.

You've got the Aztecs. You've got the Mayans. You've got the Inca. Where do you want to go? What's looking good to you? And Roger Allers is like, I choose the Incan. I choose Peru. I like the high mountains. I like the clouds coming. Yeah, yeah. Strong images. I quote him when I say, the mythical aspects of the Incan culture is important to me. I'd love to get some of the essence that does have to do with their gods and the sun and the beautiful imagery of that sort of thing. The challenge of trying to make something of the Incan culture and make it come alive and take us to a magical place that perhaps once existed but doesn't anymore. Thank you, Roger Allers. Extremely probably. So wait, I've got a few. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

So one of all, Peru is still there. Two of all, many of the like specific physical buildings and landmarks of that time are still there. Number three, there are still members of that ethnic group there. Yes. And number four, it didn't just go away. No. It didn't just stop being, it didn't just stop. People didn't just stop culturally chilling in a particular way. There was reasons. There was outside forces that came in and impinged themselves that made that happen. Yes. Other than that, I have no issues with what he says. Yeah. Other than all that, it was pretty tidy. They sent their research team of white guy middle-aged animators down to Peru to Machu Picchu and all these white guy animators were saying things like, oh, they were such great designers,

like the fabrics and the tech. But they're saying that in front of a market stall that has all of these geometric shapes that they're really into. And it's like, somebody made that behind you. She's right behind you. Just like turn around. You can probably ask her what she was thinking when she made it. Yes. And she was thinking, I want to sell a blanket to a white guy today. So you can go away, please. Yes. So, I mean, you can see that a lot in this era of Disney, and they've done their best to approach it. And there's been some edits and some changes. But I would say that what I know of how they make similar movies now, they seem to be pretty culturally sensitive about it. But I'm sure it behooves them to be. But this time too,

I think the intention was, let's share other cultures. Let's get to know other cultures. Yeah, which is great. Let's have kids who travel around the world. Yeah, I mean, Carmen Sandiego, the fuck out of that, for sure. I learned about the Incas from fucking Carmen Sandiego, the Pachikouti case. I learned all about the Kipu Kamioks. Yes. It works. The system works. But of course, this mid-90s tone is like, let's send a white guy down in a bucket hat and have him report on how mystical and cool it all seemed to me. Got it, got it, got it. So, you know, so Roger Allers comes to this idea of story, the original script, of the kingdom

of the sun. And it's based on a series of ink and myths. One of them is a hero character is able to tie up one of the distant stars and bring it close to earth to provide sun for the earth, which is a really beautiful, that imagery is really fantastic. And I can see why he was so into it. So, he kind of does this patchwork of mythology and he creates a story where at its core, it's about a common man teaching an arrogant man how to rule. There is Prince Manko, who is voiced by David Spade. There is a talking 1000-year-old rock who works as kind of a diplomat sorts, like a guide. And his name is Waksha. There is Isma, who's voiced by Eartha Kitt. And she's this aged advisor to Manko. She wants to take revenge on the sun for stealing her youth and

beauty. She wants eternal youth, eternal beauty. So, there's the conflict there. She wants to get rid of the sun and she attempts to do so. But Prince Manko, through his series of learning from this llama herder named Paksha, he learns how to rope the sun and bring it to earth, defeating Isma. Paksha would have been voiced by Owen Wilson. And the other element of the story is that Paksha, the llama herder, is a doppelganger for Prince Manko and they would have been able to switch places. Allah, the Mark Twain story, the prince and the popper. They both learn something from their own quests and the common man teaches the arrogant man how to rule. Throw in a little love story between Paksha posing as Manko with Manko's fiance. Throw in comedic timing of the

villain who's played by Eartha Kitt, Isma. And with this kind of overarching big storyline, the new Lion King but with like a Latin flair, Sting is fucking in. Why Sting? It's been maybe about about 10 years since he broke away from the police at this point. And he has his solo career and one of his most recent albums to this time, he had a lot of like pan flute. There was a lot of pan flute going on. Okay, say no more. I got you. No, but there is more because Elting John had done the songs for the Lion King. But for Sting, it was like Felton John can do the Lion King. Okay, sure. I want to be like in the canon too. Let me. Why not? Because I can do it. It's totally why not. The producers were a little bit concerned that Sting wouldn't be as comfortable with the

back and forth thing that animation requires. It's just a very intense collaborative project. There's a lot of building up to tear it down. There's a lot of like, Oh, great, you've done 10 weeks on this one scene. Now we're going to remove that character completely. That song that you wrote for that character, she's no longer here. Like there's just a lot of back and forth thing. And they were worried that Sting wasn't going to be able to commit like they needed him to. So when Sting's wife, Trudy Styler, approaches Disney and says, I'd be interested in making a documentary film about Sting's involvement and the making of The Kingdom of the Sun. And Disney was like, if we get Trudy Styler connected to the project, invested in the project,

then she's going to be locked in. And then Sting is going to be invested not just to outdo Elton John, but because his wife is invested in it too. Makes perfect sense. They told Trudy, bring those cameras on the lot. No big deal. Rider's room. Come on in. You want to get into the theater? We've got a lot of footage for you. We'll do some interviews, whatever you want. Peru, sure. Great. We got anything for Sting's legacy, baby. Anything for Sting. Anything for Sting. Have I ever told you that my lie when I'm walking around fancy furniture stores and I imagine that the furniture store employees will approach me to ask me to leave because I'm not fancy enough to be there. My lie that I have prepared is that

do you know who my daddy is and it is Sting? Yeah, he has a lot of kids. Don't I know it? That's a good one. I don't know what this world is where the furniture store employees come up to you like, you're poor, please leave. Yeah, a really pretty woman teacher. Yeah, yeah. Selina buying the dress at the mall. Absolutely. So Trudy Styler's locked in with her documentary that she calls the sweat box. Okay. Let's questioning look on your face. Yeah, I'm willing to let you answer those questions before I judge. Apparently Walt Disney had a screening theater on the Burbank lot that was unair conditioned. And so it became Disney lore that whenever you went to the screening room, which is really it's the critique room,

they tear you apart after that. They called it the sweat box. So her documentary, the uses Sting and his involvement in the film as an anchor point. And Sting repeatedly appears shirtless writing songs. And he always appears in a new location. He's like in the Malibu house or the New York penthouse. Wait, no, he's in Tuscany, riding horses. Oh, wait, no, he's on the beach back in California or the Himalayas. Fuck off, Sting. Sting is very excited. He's gonna out to Elton John. It's gonna be beautiful. He hires a musician, but of his to be a co collaborator, David Hartley. David Hartley is a pianist. He goes on to do some Broadway stuff. He has somebody who's working with him on all of these, but they hit the ground running and they create a lot of

songs pretty fast. There's all this pressure for the kingdom of the sun to have all this emotional gravitas, but still be a movie for kids and still be animated. But also unprecedented for Disney, who keeps a very tight fist on everything. There's a film crew following everybody around. Disney will own the rights to this film. They do determine that. But Trudy Styler can put her camera anywhere she wants because Sting is her husband and they want Sting. Sting her best. Let's get big. Let's get big names like Sting. Let's get Sting famous. Then we can tell people to do whatever we want. That's the plan. So do the first screening of the kingdom of the sun. Very rough cut, sketchy drawings. Though they do have the voice actors voicing the characters. That part

of the script is written. Some of the songs are in there as well from Sting, the ones that he's written. We were talking about Sweatbox and how screening can be just total takedown. There's a director who worked with Roger Allers on The Lion King. His name is Rob Menkoff and he says screening the movie is like this. It's like having somebody chop your hands off and pull your pants down in front of a crowd and you stand there with stumps leading and capable of pulling your pants back up. That is what screening a movie is like. Artists are so dramatic, dude. The most magical place on earth. I appreciate the analogy. It's colorfully John. He's a real housewife's husband, that one, Rob Menkoff. You know Rob. I know Rob. I know Rob go way back. I know Rob and his stumps

very well. He's always dragging himself in and out of the scene leaving a blood trail everywhere he goes, old Rob. Well, he's not wrong about how brutal the screening can be because the execs watch it and they come back with notes. They say, I don't, what? I don't know who to root for. Remember they have this swapping story between the llama herder and the king. They're like, who's the hero here? The pacing, they said, is really wacky. It feels really let in. There's not a lot of levity to the story and not having much fun. Oh no. These are bad notes. I know. And this is a quote. There's Thomas Schumacher, who's the president of Disney Animation, and then the VP is Peter Schneider. They're the one giving these notes. I believe it's Peter who says, it's not a movie yet.

It's not a drama. It's not a comedy. I don't know what it is. Certainly not the Lion King. Certainly not the Lion King. This is not even going to be the next great most detective at this point. So Allers is pretty devastated. This has been his baby and they're like your baby sucks. Ugly baby. You got to go tell Sting that they didn't like the baby. It's a lot. But Allers is like, okay, give me six months. Let me do some more pre-production. We're going to get the story right six months. And the Disney executives are like, sorry, Rog. We did a deal with McDonald's. We have a Happy Meal that's expected. We can't push this date back anymore because we'll get fined if we don't do the Happy Meal and it'll cost us millions. No six months. This is

all the time you have. A nightmare. Because of the Happy Meal tie-in, right? Because the Happy Meal tie-in. That's so frustrating. What the execs do like, they do have some positive notes, compliment sandwich. They love the songs. Sting has done a really great job with the love song and there's a llama song that he's written. A plus across the board. And Sting is like, okay. Okay, thank you. But we're going to have to scrap all of that, right? And they're like, yes. We love it. So keep it around. But we don't know if those characters are going to exist. So we'll get back to you. Hang on tight. And I'm sure the execs are like, oh, so glad we got Trudy on this documentary. Because Sting would be long gone by now.

In fact, Sting was under the impression that once the screening had completed that he'd probably have a few more days on the project and then he'd be done. Oh no, Sting. That's gotta sting. Yeah. They also liked some elements that were still exciting to them. They loved Eartha Kitt. Fantastic. Playing Isma. They thought she was great. David Spade out of the ballpark loved him. And they realized too, like they had all these very disparate elements like David Spade, Sting, Eartha Kitt, really heavy heart-wrenching, huge mythological story, like all these very different elements. And they needed the execs were saying that they needed to come together in this very tight package. Because it's so exciting when you kind of picture it. Eartha Kitt, David Spade,

Inkins, Rope in the Sun, Animation. All of it. Let's do it all. The expectations were fucking through the roof. At this point, it was not only like the Lion King plus some. It was like, we want that plus some, but then we want all this constellation of things that we've promised to an audience. And we want you to make it like absolutely fucking perfect. Water into wine, baby. They need to look like the toys that we're putting out for the Happy Meal also. Yes, yes, exactly. So the execs have said, start over from scratch, please and thank you. But no, you don't get any extra time. And so what they decide to do is put together what they call like a brain trust meeting. They bring in all these other writers and all these

other story directors to just like slam the story into shape. They called it story hell for a month. They just pick every single thing apart. And this room of writers is like, no, that's a little too Lion King-y. What if we made David Spade turns into a rock? At one point, there are four scripts being pitched, one of which is no longer even in Peru. How do we leave Peru? I don't, just throwing shit at the wall. No bad ideas. We're in Tuscany now. There's just rumors flying among all the Disney employees, all these animators and like people who've been assigned characters are like, is my character going to stick around? Like, how do I put so much work into, you know, this whole design catalog based on like ink and geometric shapes. And now it might be in fucking

Tampa, Florida. Like, I don't know. And there's just a lot of like sweat. This part is in the documentary film Sweatbox, which is kind of appropriate, but they're interviewing all these animators and they're just like nervously laughing. They're like, haha, I guess just the last three years of my life are on the chopping block. Yeah, it's funny. I didn't think much of the name Sweatbox when you first said it and out of context, still a little troubling, but it's on point. Right, yeah. Finally, one of these writers who was brought in, he does just kind of like Hail Mary past story where David Spade turns into a llama. What if we did that? Hilarity ensues. The execs are like, yeah, that's funny. I like it. It's not bad. Great. Why don't you continue

developing that? Roger Allers, you keep working on your thing and we'll come back in a few weeks and we'll see which script we like better. So they put them in this competition, which is essentially just like a bake off, like who's going to have the better pie for us to try. Corporate America is hell, hell on earth, hell on earth. The work you are doing is meaningless. So I mean, it's all times a ticket. We got to have. There are nuggets to sell. Fries are in the fryer. There's only so much time. Yeah, they do keep developing their scripts with their own teams. They come back together. Roger Allers pictures his. The execs aren't laughing. Mark Dindall pictures his. They're guffying all over the place, almost pee their pants. And they're like, Mark,

David Spade turns into a llama. You got it. Really? That was really it. That was, it was really that good. They must have seen some real stinkers and they were just eager for something that like, I haven't laughed in three months since we started thinking about this fucking thing. So they were looking for something that was really humorous, obviously, because I went with the choice. They just made them laugh. And I think Roger Allers was more interested in the storyline and trying to pack in as much as he could and pulling on the original ink and myths and doing a lot of this massaging. He made something accurate and a little bit pretentious, but not that fun. And what we really needed was something that kids would actually want to go and fucking watch

and buy a stuffed animal of and play with their friends and whatever, which is a little interesting because one of the Disney trademarks up until this very moment, too, has been it's not a slapstick comedy situation. It's not a Looney Tunes. It's not a Scooby Doo. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Usually no. The heart of it is story and something like frozen or cocoa or whatever, right? There's always a real beating heart at the center of the story. When they go with Mark Dindal's script, Roger is, he's not booted. He's invited. In fact, Mark asks, I would love it if you kept working on this with me. Your insight is invaluable here. You know, you will have a role in this film if you want it. And Roger says, I think I'm going to look at some other projects. I'm not feeling it. Thank you and

good luck. The vibe is off. He has this very emotional moment in the Sweatbox documentary where he says the day before they made this decision, he was dropping his eldest daughter off at college. So he was like saying goodbye to his baby and this like end of this chunk of his life and her life and how emotional it was. And then he came to work the next day. And then this baby was being taken from him too. And he was just like stumps and I'm bleeding and I'm gouged out my eyes and they yanked out my teeth. Yeah, terrible, which is like, it's just a cartoon, but at the same time, it's a lot of cats and Berg and Disney has created this whole environment where like, it's not just a cartoon. This is your heart. This is your bleeding heart. This is your soul. This is

your contribution to mankind. This is, you know, this is your art. Hey Stumpy, get over here and listen to what we have to say about your stupid movie. It's pretty rough. And this process of, oh, you had a really cool idea and we built this whole enterprise around it and now we're shifting it a little and you're no longer involved. Not the first time. Aladdin was built on a film, The Thief and the Cobbler. Have you heard of this story? Yes, I have. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's like a weird original animation of it, right? Yes. Okay, okay. Yes, I've watched that. Because the original animator on it, Richard Williams, he was working with Disney and they're like, dude, you're taking way too long. And they're like, we gotta, we gotta tighten this up.

We got happy meals. We gotta go. Let's, you know, come on. And he was like, no, this is my heart. You told me this is my heart. This is my soul. And so I'm going to keep working on it. And it's the longest animated film production timeline in the history of it. Yeah. But because it's based off of one of the stories of 2001 Arabian Nights. And he takes one of those original stories and then Disney had the rights to some of those early ideas that he had. So they twisted that into Aladdin, in which Aladdin is a thief, but also there's a cobbler in there somewhere, a shoemaker in there somewhere, right? The thing is, though, again, high art, beautiful, pretentious, involved or neat. I don't know that kids would want to watch it.

Kids want a talking parrot. They want Robin Williams as the genie. They want a carpet that has a bit of a personality to, I was really into the carpet. Maybe some kids aren't going to be into the genie or the bird or the monkey or the, or, or whatever you want to be in the carpet. That's me, baby. Weird. But he's like a little cute. Maybe you want someone to have a princess or something. No, it's not weird to like a character in a Disney movie, Josie. They put them there. So I would like it. It's a fucking adorable carpet that acts like a dog. So at this point, Mark Dindal is the new director. They could do a name change. We are no longer kingdom of the sun. We are kingdom in the sun.

That's this is again, deck chairs on the Titanic. I don't really think that solves your problem. No, it's not the issue here. We weren't new, new, especially when you have a year and a half to make this fucking film. David Spade turns into a llama year and a half and we'll all have some chicken nuggets. Get it on. Yeah. It's pretty intense. So the main story becomes Cusco, who's played by David Spade, is an emperor. He's no longer a prince and he's the like snot-nosed little enfant terrible. Yes. As we say emperor. Exactly. And then Pacha is still a llama herder, but he's no longer 16. He's now 45. And he's a dad figure who plays the best dad, John Goodman. Will he come? Sure. John Goodman's

coming in the door. Then we get the B storyline and that becomes Isma, who's still played by Eartha Kitt. But her character is no longer this profound like block out the sun, eternal youth and beauty. Now she's a little bit more shallow. She's just kind of vain and has these scary wrinkles, but she wants to live forever. There is a new character that becomes her sidekick, which is Cronk. So he's a brand new character in the script with a year and a half left till production. Cronk pulled the lever fame. Yes, you know the memes. I know Cronk. Meamed around the world. I love Cronk. Do you want to watch the trailer for this? Yeah, sure. I would love to. I would love to. Yeah, okay.

Long ago, in a faraway land, there was a prosperous kingdom ruled by a young emperor. He had a serious attitude. He threw off my groove. I'm sorry, but you've thrown off the emperor's groove. Sorry. An evil advisor. By the way, you're fired. I'll take over and rule the empire. And one major problem. I'll just poison him with this. Hey, Cronk, can you top me off, pal? Be a friend. A llama? He's supposed to be dead. Yeah, weird. Take him out of town and finish the job. Now, his only hope is a humble peasant. Even llama? Even llama? Where? You kidnapped me. Why would I kidnap a llama? You're the criminal mastermind, not me. What? Tell me Cusco's dead. Ow. Well, he's not as dead as we would have hoped.

Where are you hiding us? I got you. You're safe now. Or not. Walt Disney Pictures presents the emperor's new groove. Uh-oh. Don't tell me we're about to go over a huge water fountain. Yep. Sharp rocks at the bottom. Most likely. Bring it on. Okay. A little boo-yeah there for ya. Looks like a fun buddy comedy. That is exactly what it becomes. It's a road trip buddy comedy. Getting herself into scrapes, getting ourselves out of situations.

Eartha Kitt, I've got to say, a timeless casting choice. Always a good poll. Always good pick. Always good. And that role is just like... Oh, among her best. Yeah, I've heard good things. It is so good. And then her sidekick, Cronk, is played by Patrick Warburton, who he was in Seinfelds. He also is the tit. He's American dad. He's in Scream 3, which is a very niche poll, but I know he's been in all of the screens. He was also... One of his first roles was co-starring with Eartha Kitt in a South African exploitation film. He played the one white slave. Interesting. Eartha was paying those bills. Yeah. So there's a bit in the documentary, sweat box, where they're interviewing David Spade because they get to interview

all of these people. Right, right. Access. It's total access, right? And so they're interviewing David Spade about kind of the changes in the script. And there's so many fucking changes that by the time the movie wraps, David Spade, Eartha Kitt, John Goodman, they've never met each other in these roles. And they're not quite sure what the story is. So the interviewer is like, your character used to be called Mango, right? And David Spade is like, yeah, oh yeah, I forgot. Mango. Yeah, before his Cusco, it was Mango. And the interviewer is like, why did they change Mango? And David Spade says, well, I think it means pussy in Japanese. And that's not what bothered them, actually. It means bad movie in Turkish, and they didn't

want that. Well, that's no good. You gotta think about that Turkish dub money. So the movie tonally changes in a huge way. It gets to another screening. They do the first act. So just the first 20 minutes. And the execs are like, okay, yeah, we like it. This is good. This is funny. We're laughing our asses off. Very few notes. My one concern is, can we sustain these hijinks and still be emotionally involved? As long as you can do that for the next two acts, should be good. Which even Mark Dindal was like, I've never gotten such positive notes like that. That was like a rarity in my career. His llama idea really had legs, huh? Four of them, it turns out. Yeah. Really? And so with that green light, they said, okay, what does Sting think? What are we

going to do? We've passed almost every test, but there's still one critic left and he's the pickiest of them all. Sting. So there's a group of producers and some of the script writers, including Mark Dindal, and they set up a meeting and they get to his big gorgeous house that's right on the beach and they are so fucking nervous. Sting is like three buttons buttoned down on his on his shirt. It's just all types of intimidation and these dorky animators who didn't get laid in high school are like, fuck, what do we do? They finish up the meeting and Sting is like, this is a very different project and they're like, we know, we know, but you know what, you're going to cut down your commitment. You won't need to do six songs anymore. We're going to

ask you to do two, an opening song and the closing song that runs over the credits. That's all we need. And Sting is like, this is not what I signed up for, but okay, I'll do it. And you know, Trudy's like rolling with her director behind the documentary film crew and she's like, you are doing it. So all these animators leave Sting's house and they're like, oh my god, he'll do it. Thank the fucking board. They're driving away on highway one out of Malibu and one of them goes, you guys are really have to pee. I've had to pee this whole fucking time, but it was way too nervous to ask Sting if I could pee in his house and everybody else in the car is like, dude, same. And so they stop at the closest gas station and all of them just like pee their

fucking dicks off. Good for them. Good for them. Sting's new song, his intro song, it's going to have like a loungey Las Vegas vibe. There's a few of the story directors who are like Tom Jones, Tom Jones, Tom Jones, Tom Jones. So they end up getting Tom Jones to come in and do the opening song. Tom Jones fucking workhorse came in, did it again, did it again, did it again. It wasn't till the very end that he poured himself a glass of like weird liqueur and had a drink and left and then that was that. Some DeSerono. Yeah. At this point, the schedule is just absolutely insane. It makes no sense whatsoever. And the writer's room is just this caffeine-fueled, bleary-eyed den of confusion. They're turning into llamas.

There's a certain point, this is a longer quote, but I think I'll just go ahead and it's Mark Dindal, the director. Sure. And he says, story rooms, often someone will picture an idea, almost as a joke. And then someone else goes, that's funny. But what are we really going to do? This was the only movie I've worked on where somebody pitched an idea like that and went, let's use that, like Isma, who in this sequence in the film has been turned into a kitten. She's falling off the tower and we're like, how are we going to get her back up? She's not going to go splat. I don't remember if it was Dave or Don Hall, another story artist who's become a director since. Anyway, he said, what if there's a trampoline salesman at the bottom and she hits that and

bounces back up? We said, oh yeah, that's what it should be. That is good. That made me laugh. Yeah, that's honestly, that's a really good, intuitive way to write a comedy. If you pitch something and it makes you laugh, work with it. It's not very traditional for animation though, where these things have to be like planned out pretty meticulously and kind of tight. But since we're working under the gun and we just need to make it work and whatever the first thing that makes us laugh, we need to pick it and go because that is the fastest thing we can do. And they do it across the board. There's a one point when Disney, which is conglomerated with ESPN at this point, and this is before, you know, they've taken over everything, Disney ESPN is doing

a promotion on the World Double Ducks jump roping championship. And so some promo person comes in and is like, can you guys put jump rope in there? And they're like, yeah, sure. So the sequence for Cronk is a jump rope champion. Chris Reynolds, who's a storyboard artist who is working on this project. There's another long quote, but I'm going to go ahead and read it all because it's good. At some point, I was like, my gosh, what can't be in this movie? I need to know. There was another meeting back when the idea was that Cusco, the emperor played by David Spade, Cusco would be trapped in the village and he's meeting all these weird and interesting people. This is one of the storylines that never makes it. I was suggesting a picture like, hey, what if we did a split screen

where you have them in all these different scenarios and he's being overwhelmed? So there's a split screen into two frames and then into four, and then we go to eight and into 16. But what if we just kept doing split screens, keep doing it until all these tiny little boxes. And I said, in one of the boxes, we put live action footage of the space shuttle taking off. Then is when I finally gotten, I don't know. So I was like, okay, I think I know the tonal limit now. Interesting. Legitimately, very interesting. I like hearing how creative process works. Right. Yeah, that collaboration. So the next step after this bleary-eyed delirium of maybe the shuttle launch, maybe not. We don't know. Actually, we do. That's not in it.

They do a screening, a rough cut screening of the whole movie. Michael Eisner is there, Roy Disney, Sting is there. It's the whole shabu. And it's working. There's a few tweaks. There's a few elements. Sting hasn't quite completed the final song. They want him to see it so he can kind of put that in. Everything seems to be going. There's notes, but there's no major overhaul. Until they get a letter from Sting. Post via the post. He's doing this. Okay. Of course, it's in the documentary sweatbox by Trudy Tyler. And he is concerned about the very ending of the film. Of course, as you can imagine, with a road trip buddy comedy, they make it to their destination and they learn all the lessons they need to learn how family and friendship is

important. And so they go ahead with this idea that Cusco builds a water park not on pox's home where he originally thought it was. So he doesn't build it there, but he builds it on the mountaintop right next to him. Sting writes a letter and he says, I'm concerned that this is the takeaway lesson that you can still build a dump water park wherever you want, as long as it's not on your friends. And you know, Sting is like this environmentalist and like this is what he's concerned about. He has a quote in the documentary. I think he gets to a point that I think is commendable. Sure. He says, I think it's a real concern of mine that I'm alloyed to this organization that seems to want to take the best of different cultures, suck them up and spit them out into

something like a hamburger. It's really not what I want to do. I don't think it's what they want to do. I'm in an interesting position. I'm only a songwriter. Do I have any say in the final product? Maybe I'll have some effect? Question mark. I'm of a few minds there. I don't disagree with what he says. No. Part of me is like a little bit skeptical of like, you must have known that when you got in bed with Disney. Yeah. But let's say he didn't know that when he got into bed with Disney and he kind of learned it over this process of watching the churn. I don't know. He makes some fair points. The solution isn't to move the water park. In a spirit of collaboration that has been going on for the five years of the production of this film, which granted some of it has been very brutal,

but the execs are like, you know what? Sting gave a good note. He's totally right. We should redo the ending. And so it's not a huge long sequence, but even like a few seconds of hand-drawn animation takes a very long time. Yeah. But they do it. They redo the ending so that a water park is not built instead. The emperor moves to the hillside next to Paksha and they become good family friends and go to a watering hole of natural design rather than the cement. I'm sure our friend Kuzco has learned a lot about these unnecessary trifles. So with these final few notes, they hire a film composer who doesn't end up working out. They have to hire somebody else. There's a lot. There's still quite a few changes that take place at this stage, one of which is they go to the

third and final name, the emperor's new groove. Better name. So long gone is the kingdom in or of the sun. Much more distinctive and memorable. Yeah. And I think much more fitting too of the tone. Of the groovy, loungy, funny, slapsticky, trampoline, jump roping tone. Yeah. It does kind of okay at a test screening in the valley. They make a few more changes based off to that. It does get pushed back a little bit with all these extra last minute changes so that eventually the release date is six months delayed, which is what they told Roger Allers that he couldn't have. So that's a bit rough. They have to rearrange some other premieres. I think Dinosaur came out that year. If you remember that shit. Okay. Okay. Okay. I was

going to say, stop. Stop. We're taking a second on Dinosaur. Because no, I sure don't. And I like there must be. I bet. Are you a dinosaur? I said, did you watch Dinosaur? No, no. I've never seen it. Nobody has. Nobody has. I was like, that movie has bad vibes. That, well, because they had to move it up six months. They lost six months on the production line. We could tell. We could tell. Even as kids, we were like, this has development L slash weird corporate meddling vibes. Yeah. The eyes are not right. There's something wrong with the eyes, but they're sold. What is this color palette? Did they color correct it? What's going on? Well, you can blame the Emperor's new groove because they had to rearrange the release date.

It was finally released December of the year 2000 to Harold in, you know, the very last month of the new millennia. And it did not do very well. Oh, no. Darn it. They kind of knew what was happening. And a lot of the promotion was not super great either. I think probably my guess is they must have been to some degree content with getting something out that was somewhat amusing and stemmed a disaster a bit. Like they must have been thrilled to get a movie out, basically. Yeah, because there are plenty of projects where it's just nothing comes out of it at all. It's a movie that even if people didn't go to it, it doesn't entirely suck. Like it's not a complete fucking embarrassment. David Spade is funny. Earthquake is fantastic. David Spade is funny. John Goodman,

like it's a good crew. What happened to Owen Wilson, by the way? He just got totally shlooped. So he was... Oh, classic shlooping. We'll say no more. He was not very well known at the time. He had just done Bottle Rocket. I don't even know that movie. And that was it. So I think him being kind of gently let go from the project was not a big issue for them promotion-wise. Sting and Eartha and David Spade, they were all still in and ready to go. So as long as we have the A team then, okay, then I'm satisfied with that. So the documentary is wetbox. It concludes, when the movie concludes, we get to see the final screening, the test screening, and we see Sting putting together the final touches on the credit song. He's in Rome on tour when he has to finish it. I'm sure he is.

And she starts post-production on the film, editing, getting it together. It becomes a viable film, ready to be sent off after the Emperor's New Groove has already come out and has not done too well. So we don't really want or need a documentary about its making. Not in a promotion way that was originally considered. Sweatbox gets a premiere in Los Angeles and New York. And then Disney says, thank you so much. We're gonna put that, just tuck it right away into the vault and shut that door and, oh, this key just swallowed it. It's gone. We're tucking it away into the Chernobyl vault. Where it all works. Got it. The radio activity keeps the film really fresh. Pour some concrete on that. All right.

So in 2012, a young cartoonist named Amid Amidi, he makes available a copy of Sweatbox for all the world to see on the internet. And Disney is not too excited about that. Can't imagine why. The documentary is released in 2002. And so 10 years later, it gets released by this punk-ass cartoonist and gets deep into the internet too. So now it is only available via pirating it. I actually went to the internet archive to watch it. Beautiful. So I do recommend going and looking for that because it's a great documentary. I might just. I might also watch The Emperor's New Groove. You have me interested now. You definitely should. I mean, any filmmaking process is a bumpy road. It's a large collaborative

process that involves a lot of people and a lot of money too, especially when we're talking about big, huge studio productions. And especially when it comes to animation. That's like the bumpiest of all the bumpy. But certainly The Emperor's New Groove was perhaps even bumpier than anybody could ever have anticipated. I kind of have mixed emotions when it comes to like really loving a Disney movie because it's Disney. And I have a lot of reservations about kind of like going full-throat in support. Sure, I get that. And I think too, there's something about the executives in this particular case with Emperor's New Groove. They kind of like, they shat in the middle of the road with it in a lot of ways.

You tell them. You finally shat in the middle of the road. I agree. I'll co-set that. Thank you. Thank you. And so I hate to kind of like, to give love to a film that I don't think was loved in its production by the executives. And those executives are tied to Disney. You know, it's just like, it's a mixed bag. What about the notion of found family? You weren't loved by your parents. That's okay. I love you. That's true. Like Pacha and Cusco found each other. Yes. Buddy comedy. Yes. But certainly one of the charming things about The Emperor's New Groove is how it does not fit into any template that Disney has set for itself. And it still made it out of the gate. And one of the things that is very telling, I think, about it not fitting into

a template is the Disney archives are very well taken care of. They are extremely thorough. They track so much of American history just because they've done an excellent job of like keeping everything in there. And one of the things that they do is for every film, they archive the script. Wow. Like all the drafts, everything gets archived. Oh, wow. Every script that makes it to the writer's room gets copied and put in the archive. The movie is premiered. It's been out for about two months. And there's one of the story directors who's approached by an archivist who says, hey, I'm from the archives. I just need the final script for The Emperor's New Groove. The whole final script. Like the whole, you know, just like the finalized Ching Ching. They didn't send one

down. I need to get a copy. And they told me to come to you. This guy, whose name is Dave Reynolds, says no script. The archivist says, there's no script. What are you talking about? Like this is Disney procedure. Dave Reynolds says, we don't have a script. We never wrote a script. We just made the movie. Tell them to go see the movie. It's in theaters right now. They can transcribe it. And he's still confounded because it's so outside of the procedure. He's like, you must have some bound pages somewhere. Nope, we have no bound pages. There's three or four legal boxes. You can have all you want. Just take all the boxes. And so eventually they had a couple of interns take all the pages and put them into a document. And then they wrote some of the interstitials by

transcription. And they slapped Dave Reynolds' name on it, The Emperor's New Groove. According to Dave Reynolds, this is the first and only draft of The Emperor's New Groove was handed in two weeks after the movie was in theaters. That makes sense. Disney goes on to collapse their traditional 2D hand-drawn animation. The final film is The Princess and the Frog, which comes out in 2009. Which is my third favorite. You fucking hipster! It was one of my mid-movies that I love. Certainly The Emperor's New Groove was part of that process of collapsing it because it was not the Hail Mary pass. It was not the life buoy that they wanted for the traditional animation program. Instead Pixar took over, Dreamworks got bigger, the story goes on and on. But that

is the story of what a shit show The Emperor's New Groove is. I had no idea. I would have regarded The Emperor's New Groove prior to this with my limited knowledge as something like a hunchback where it's like a strong B-lister, let's say. It wasn't again on that god-like tear of the Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, where they could not fuck up and everybody was turning out in droves. But still very respectable performances, still things that, again, they sold happy meal deals around. Which for when you're a kid, if you look over and you see it being advertised at McDonald's, it might as well be the Lion King to you, right? Like you put it on that level. Oh, it's fucking Bible! It is basically the Bible at that point.

Except I want to go to McDonald's and I don't want to go to church, right? It's a saturated fat. I getcha. Absolutely. I would have put it in that level. I had no idea it had such a trouble development. I mean, you want to watch it. I watched it recently. It holds up. Okay. I will say, I think Eartha Kitt's character, there's a little bit too much like, ooh, an old woman is scary and there's four funny because she's ugly. You're gross. Yeah. Can we calm down? Like wrinkles are not ugly. Right. But it's also like Eartha Kitt voicing an evil hag. There's no ceiling on how fun that could be even with the problematic aspects. And I think the left turn out of like the mystical Incan myths, the left turn into Vegas,

Trumpian gold, saturated emperor, alleviate some of the cultural appropriation questions too. Terms of co-opting story and leaving the film being like, well, I think I know a little bit about Incan culture. Thank you so much, Disney. That does not happen. It's like, oh, and I know who Eartha Kitt is and I know Tom Jones and now David Spade is in my kid lexicon. I get it. Yeah. It's squeaky Mcsqueakerson. Cronk, pull a lever. Again, I've never seen this movie, but I know The Poison for Cusco. It's Cusco's poison. Yeah. I think that that speaks to like how much it obviously endeared the right generation of kids who just went in there. They're not kids who are going to the Lion King because they like Shakespeare and Elton John.

They're kids who are going to the Lion King because it's a fucking Disney movie. You go to the fucking thing and you have a good, because Disney, like even something like this, they typically make a good movie. Yeah. And then years later, you become the meme lords who are like, damn, you know, who is the shit Isma? You know what I mean? Cusco. What's Cronk up to? I've been thinking about Cronk lately. Yeah. Cronk is a hottie. Cronk is a hottie, that jaw. He looks like a dinosaur. Those dinosaurs are fucked up. Disney can make a piece of shit. Yeah. That is true. That is true. That is true. We should watch dinosaurs. I don't want to talk. We should. Because I'm not talking. We're talking out of school. Maybe dinosaurs is like a secret job.

That's true. Yeah. Who knows? Who knows? We should look up maybe some memes, get a little taste. Never seen any. Shockingly, I've never seen any. Thanks for listening. If you want more infamy, we've got plenty more episodes at bittersweetinfamy.com. Or wherever you listen to podcasts. If you want to support the podcast, shoot us a few bucks via our coffee account at ko-fi.com forward slash bittersweetinthamy. But no pressure. Bittersweetinthamy is free, baby. You can always support us by liking, rating, subscribing, leaving a review, following us on Instagram at bittersweetinthamy. Or just pass the podcast along to a friend who you think would dig it. Stay sweet.

The sources I use for this episode's Minfamous were Hannah Montana Ticket Prices Soar, Parents Enraged, October 20th, 2007 on CTV News. Happy 10-year anniversary of dads paying $3,000 for Hannah Montana Tickets by Mitchell Sunderland for Vice June 13th, 2017. Mother Goes Too Far for Hannah Montana Ticks ABC News, December 31st, 2006. Mom Regrets Lie in Hannah Montana Contest Entry, Cron, January 15th, 2008. Mother Apologizes for Hannah Montana Hoax by Mike Selizic, January 4th, 2008 for Today. I watched an ABC News report, which I accessed on Daily Motion on the account Scambuster 2007. Reporter Confronts Mother Who Faked Hannah Montana Essay. Lastly, I watched What Happened to Club Libby Loone, a nostalgic deep dive by Maddie Hartz on YouTube.

The sources that I used for this episode include an article from CartoonBrew.com, entitled The Sweat Box, the documentary that Disney doesn't want you to see. Published March 22nd, 2012 by Amid Amidi. I watched the documentary The Sweat Box, directed by Trudy Stiler and John Paul Davidson. I watched that at the Internet Archive. I read an article from Vulture, entitled We'll Never Make That Kind of Movie Again, an oral history of the Emperor's New Groove of raucous Disney animated film that almost never happened. I billed a beery, film critic for New York and Vulture, published January 27th, 2021. I watched a YouTube episode of It Was a Shit Show, entitled The Making of the Emperor's New Groove Was a Shit Show,

published May 12th, 2021, by It Was a Shit Show. And of course, I watched The Emperor's New Groove, released December 2000, directed by Mark Dindle, with screenplay credit to David Reynolds, based on the original story by Roger Allers and Matthew Jacobs. A special shout out to our subscriber, Jonathan Mountain. Thank you so much for all your support. This podcast is on the 604 podcast network. The interstitial music you heard earlier is by Mitchell Collins, and the song you are listening to now is Tea Street, by Brian Steele. Video calls are good for now, but there's nothing like going there in person to elevate your business. So why not elevate your business travel while you're at it? With the TD Aeroplan Visa Business

Card, you can earn towards lounge access from everyday purchases. Plus, enjoy a whole suite of travel perks and rewards. The TD Aeroplan Visa Business Card. Learn more at TD.com slash aeroplanbusiness. Conditions apply.