Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - GGACP Classic: Alan Menken

Episode Date: November 10, 2022

GGACP celebrates the 30th anniversary of Disney's animated "Aladdin" (released November 11, 1992) by revisiting this interview with Tony, Emmy, Grammy and (8-time) Oscar-winning composer Alan Menken. In this episode, Alan talks about the marriage of music and images, the demise (and resurrection) of movie musicals, the brilliance of the late, great Howard Ashman and the "architecture" of unforgettable songs like "Be Our Guest," "I See the Light," "Part of Your World" and "Somewhere That's Green." Also, Danny DeVito mimics Jimmy Durante, Steve Martin plays a sadistic dentist, Brad Garrett and Jeffrey Tambor perform a "want" song and Alan praises the talents of John Williams, Thomas Newman and Lin-Manuel Miranda. PLUS: "I'll Do Anything"! The influence of "Fantasia"! The comedy of Randy Rainbow! Alan wins a Razzie! And Bob Dylan turns down "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head"! (special thanks to Rick Kunis, Leah Levenson and the audio production magic of John Murray) 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. I can't take it anymore!

Pritz Ali! Hey, hey, Pritz Ali! Pritz Ali! Hey, hey, hey, hey! Pritz Ali! Ba-da-ba-da-ba-pow! Ba-da-ba-da-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-bow! Oh, that hurt! Hi, this is Gilbert Gottfried, and this is Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast with my co-host, Frank Santopadre.

Ah, well, we'll probably embarrass our guest this week by calling him a living legend. But we're going to do it anyway. He's a songwriter, conductor, music director, record producer, and composer for stage, television, and motion pictures, who has received a Tony Award and an Emmy Award, 11 Grammy Awards, and eight Academy Awards. His celebrated stage work includes the musical Sister Act, The Bronx Tale, Newsies, A Christmas Carol, and Leap of Faith, successful stage adaptations of his iconic Disney musicals, and of course the most successful production in the history of Off-Broadway, Little Shop of Horrors. His unforgettable compositions for feature films helped to usher in a renaissance for both Walt Disney Studios and for big screen musicals in

general. And his scores and songs for films like The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and Aladdin. Hey, I think I know that one. The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Pocahontas, Hercules, Home on the Range, Enchanted and Tangled have earned him eight Oscars and a hallowed place in the history of American songwriting. Classic hummable melodies like Under the Sea, Be Our Guest, Beauty and the Beast, Friend Like Me, A Whole New World, Go the Distance, Colors of the Wind, and I See the Light have thrilled generations of moviegoers and become part of the soundtrack of our lives. Not bad for a guy who originally thought he'd go into dentistry. Frank and I are excited to welcome to the show one of the most talented and admired artists of his generation and a man who clearly didn't think enough of my singing voice to write me a solo in a lab.

The great Alan Menken. Thank you, Gilbert. I would have written you a song. We just didn't have room for a song for Iago. I swear. It would have been great. Wasn't Humiliate the Boys supposed to be Jafar and Iago, Alan? Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So why didn't you cut out one of Robin's numbers? Yeah, no, that would have made sense. Like, sorry about that. You should have cut out friend like me and whole new world. Let's do it. Let's do it.

That's fine. Was that, when Humiliate the Boy, which didn't make the cut, Alan, if I understand it correctly, was at the point where Gilbert had not even been cast as Iago. Yeah. Because I think the parrot, if I'm understanding this correctly, the parrot was also kind of a cultured British voice. Oh, boy. It's possible. possible. But it goes way back. Yeah, it was really way back. You know, it was one of many songs we tried to get into the movie for Jafar. And for the movie,

we were never able to get a song in for Jafar. And we ended up putting in a little reprise of Prince Ali. But yeah, Humiliate the Boy was one of the early versions that Howard and I wrote. And then Tim Rice and I wrote a song called Why Me. Again, it didn't make the cut. Gilbert, did you do a song for the Tiki Room, an Aladdin song that you record? Yes.

Yeah? Yes. When the Tiki Room switched over, you know, when they got rid of those horrible birds going, T, tiki, tiki, tiki, tiki room, which is like torture. They made it that Iago takes over the tiki room. I love that. And so I sang a reworded version of A Friend Like Me. There you go.

I want to hear that. I might have heard. I'm trying to remember if I heard that. Because I heard something about that I remember. Well, good. Good. So you would have written me a song if there was... Absolutely. Absolutely. First of all,

you're Gilbert Gottfried. You're not chopped liver. Alan, he sung on this show dozens of times with Jimmy Webb and Tony Orlando and Paul Schaefer and Kenny Loggins. And Paul Williams. And Paul Williams. All right. Well, let's sing something. Sing with me.

What should we sing? The whole new world. I can't wait for this. I can show you the world. Take you wonder by wonder. Take you wonder by wonder. Over, sideways, and under. On a magic carpet ride.

Okay. A whole new world. Oh, my. Oh, my God. What the world missed. I can't believe it. You know why it never happened. In the sequel to Aladdin, their direct-to-video ones they were making, Return of Jafar, I had two solos in that.

See? Well, I wasn't involved with those. Yes, I know. But as far as the Tiki Room goes, Gilbert have you have recorded and performed an Alan Macon composition. They have. Yeah. And and here's one of those trivia things I bring up. I have a habit of a future guest of this podcast that I've written next to on planes. Richard Mazur. Well, Cole Reiner, I said two rows behind.

Mike Nesmith. Mike Nesmith. Oh, wow. And, oh, God, why do I always forget his name? John Leguizamo. Oh, yeah. Oh! And you and I, Alan, rode next to each other,

sat next to each other on a plane. Oh, yeah, of course. I think on some press junkets, too. We traveled together. What I remember is this is the way I'm always in a daze. You were sitting by the window. I sat down next to you,

and you turned to me and said, Gilbert, how are you? And I was like, hi. And then you pointed to me and said, Gilbert, how are you? And I was like, oh, hi. And then you pointed to yourself and said, Alan Menken. And I went, oh, oh, yes. Hi, Alan. I didn't know if you remembered.

Well, listen, you're more of a known face and voice than I am. Did you think it was just another fan saying hello, Gilbert, on a plane? Yeah. I was very annoyed that he was bothering me. Oh, that's right. Wait a sec. No, we got onto a plane together. Was it in Toronto?

Yeah. I don't remember where. Oh, yeah. It was some airport. We were standing in some waiting area, and we were both fetching as one does. Alan, tell us why I'm interested in your childhood. I was doing some research, and you grew up in a home, like many of us did, where Broadway soundtracks were playing. Your parents had a great love of music.

Your father played the piano. Yes, my father played piano. Your father played the piano. Yes, my father played piano. My mother was an actress. My father was a dentist, but he loved to play the piano, mostly boogie-woogie. Boogie-woogie, yeah. But he had all the books of the great, there's a Rodgers and Hart book, and the Gershwins, and Frank Lesser, and he would open the book and just pound his way through the songs. And I would play the right hand and he'd play the left hand. And they'd play, you know, cast albums throughout the whole house. And, you know, it was great.

You know, when I wanted to become a, go into music, they were a little concerned because I never liked to practice. And, you know, most people assume, well, someone's going to go into the music business, he's going to sit and be very diligent to practice. And, you know, most people assume, well, someone's going to go into the music business, but he's going to sit and be very diligent and practice. But all I wanted to do was just play to enjoy myself. And of course, that kind of passion to just sit and play and people have a misconception that that means it's just a hobby and not something that becomes important in your life. And the truth is the thing you want to do every day is what you should do in your life. It's a thing you really love. And that's, is what I love just creating music on the spot.

I love, I love learning things about the guests and going to your website. There's that wonderful video of you with the electric guitar doing your best Jimi Hendrix. Oh yeah. My, my. My Harmony Electric guitar. Oh, God. Those things you remember when you were a kid. I remember, you know, even the smell of the guitar. The feel of that, oh, my God, I have an electric guitar. So there were pop star aspirations?

Oh, yeah. Yeah. My dad, Norman Menken, DDS. And he introduced me to a lot, you know, a lot of music. For instance, when we were working on Aladdin and we had the character of the genie and actually it was the genie of the ring. The description of the genie of the ring really brought Harlem and Harlem jazz to mind. And and so I thought of Fats Waller. And thus came a friend like me and Prince Ali, which is more Cab Calloway. Those are all out of, you know, Normie. My dad was a huge influence

on me that way. What a thrill that must have been for him, getting to hear this stuff and knowing that he implanted some of that. Yeah, well, once I was, you know, sort of making it in the business, it became thrilling to him. Until then, he was a little concerned. I remember when I was working on Little Shop of Horrors, as I always would, I would make a recording of the score to the show and send it to my parents just to have them hear what their son is working on. And I sent the score to Little Shop. Now, I should explain that my dad, of course, was a dentist. That's all the men in my family were. Besides that, my dad was president of the New York chapter of the American Analgesia Society, a society of dentists that promote the use of

nitrous oxide as safe. I know where you're going with this. And I thought it would be funny if we had the dentist, because how are we going to end Act One and have the dentist killed? In the movie, Seymour throws a bottle and it hits a bump on the head. That becomes Audrey 2's first big meal. But, you know, that wasn't going to work for a stage musical. I said, how about that the dentist laughs himself to death on nitrous oxide because he really wants to give it to himself instead of the patients. Howard thought that was hilarious. And we went with that. And so I, you know, my parents heard the tape and I came home and it was on the answering machine. I guess.

Hi, Alan. It's mom. We heard the tape. OK, click. So Janice said, oh, I think your mother was just so moved. I said, I don't think so. And I called the magazine. Well, how would you feel if you expect your life promoted

if you use nitrous oxide as safe and your son writes a show where somebody dies on nitrous oxide? But then, of course, the show opened, became a big hit. And my dad, you know, would talk to his buddies and said, well, you know, you have to believe in man-eating plants. And next thing I know, whenever, you know, Oren would pull the thing down and say, look, Seymour, this could happen to you. And he'd show an x-ray of a, or a photo of some really horribly deformed teeth. That was usually one of my dad's patients that he would give me the photo to use for the show.

And among your many awards, endless awards, you won an award for worst song. Yes. Worst song of the year, the Razzie Award. I found out I won the Razzie Award on the night of winning the two Oscars for Beauty and the Beast, which was a big night. It was wonderful. And I go back there, I'm in the press room and I'm talking about, you know, Beauty and the Beast and Celine Dion and Angela Lansbury and all the wonderful things about the show and all that. And then somebody says, how does it feel to have won the award for worst song of the year? I said, what are you talking? I didn't know.

He said, what are you talking about? And it turns out I'd won the Razzie Award for worst song of the year for High Times, Hard Times from Newsies. The song was Ann Morgan on the swing. High times, hard times, sometimes I live in the sweet. And sometimes there's nothing to eat. And I got to admit, it was a pretty embarrassing scene. But years went by.

People loved the movie. And then I went from the Razzie for Worst Song of the Year to the Tony for Best Score for the same project. But 30 years later, which is, you know, 30 years later, which is, I think, a great lesson for people. You never give up on anything. Gilbert, you don't have any Razzies in your whole career? Amazingly, no. You'd think I'd have an entire...

Well, I have to say, with the Razzie, I found out just very recently there was a physical Razzie award, which I didn't have. So I had my office get in touch with them and say, Alan would love to get the physical Razzie. So years later, they send me, the box comes with a physical Razzie award. And it's this little, you know, it's in a little, on a stand. And it's got these little gold beads together in a raspberry form. I put it down, and literally five of the beads just fall off the thing immediately. So it's clearly not exactly the most expensive thing in the world, but it's very appropriate.

You said when Newsies came out, it was really bombing, And you were sitting with Jeffrey Katzenberg. And did you, yeah. Well, so yeah, I loved the movie. I knew the songs were really good. And it was, you know, we did have, it was Christian Bales. He was like 15 years old. Yeah, he's a kid. Playing our Jack Kelly.

And so the movie opened and it made like, you know, bupkis at just like 2.6 million at the box office. And I had breakfast, I remember, at the Four Seasons with Jeffrey Katzenberg. And it's traditional with Jeffrey Katzenberg. You usually get about a five-minute breakfast with him. Hey, buddy, have a cup of coffee? Okay, hey, you know what I'm going to do?

And out. I mean, you're just like have a coffee. Okay. Hey, you know what I'm going to get out. I mean, you're just like, anyway, but I remember saying, you know, what are we going to do? He said about, about news. He said, Mencken, I could take $10 million and throw it up in the air here on Doheny Boulevard. And it would do just as much good. It's DOA baby, DOA. And bye-bye Newsies. And yet you win a Tony for the same music years later. People loved it.

It really made a splash over the years. But not at the box office. There's that challenge you talk about in interviews where you're talking about how slow people are to accept actors in live action, suddenly opening their mouths and singing? Well, there is that problem you don't have in animation. You know, there's a documentary out now about Howard, Howard Ashby. Oh, I just watch it. It's great. So you saw, um, that, that, yeah, in that interview we were doing at the, um, 92nd street, why Howard, it was just hilarious. He's saying, you know, people are watching a movie and they're going, why are they singing?

But at that time, movie musicals were pretty dead. So were animated musicals. It was dead. And, you know, really, I got to say, we were involved in bringing it back with Little Mermaid. It was just really good timing. You absolutely were. I remember James L. Brooks making a film called I'll Do Anything. I don't know if you remember this. I do remember. In the 90s. And there were songs in it. He had Albert Brooks was in there and Nick Nolte. And I can't remember who the actress was. And they were, he had to pull the songs out because they tested so poorly.

And then there was also, there was the, Woody Allen did a movie called, I think, Everybody Says I Love You. That's right. Which had songs in it. And you really have to know exactly how you're using these songs. In the form, you've got to, you're making a pact with an audience. They have to know why things are being sung. these songs it's it's in the form you've got a you're making a pack with an audience they have to know why things are being sung and they have to really know why and understand the context and understand the style and understand how it works otherwise they're just going to tune it out

well it's just like when i'll watch a movie sometimes you watch a movie and music starts playing and and you go okay they want us to start laughing now or they want us to and and it it distracts you from the scene well if it's done badly it distracts you if it's done well yeah and and also it's like if a musical is done badly, you go like, well, why are these people in the street singing? Yeah, yeah. I mean, and then, but if you carry it even further, then you look at something like Springtime for Hitler, right? And the brilliance of Mel Brooks. I mean, it's spoofing somebody who creates something so absurd.

But if you're in on the joke, it becomes the best joke ever. I mean, the thing about comedy songs especially is almost always when you want to laugh at a comedy song is because you feel smarter than the person singing it. You know, the character that's singing it, you're sort of ahead of it. Um, so they, you know, with, with comedy, it's, it's a very specific, um, set of conditions that, that helps, let's say a comedy song to land or an emotional song to land. Um, if you want an emotional song, you know, to land and make

someone cry, the last thing you're going to do is write a song where somebody's feeling sorry for themselves. Now, you know, you want to write something where they're feeling very hopeful in a very dark situation. So there's all these little nuances that you learn over the years about what makes a musical tick. I've heard you say that about Audrey's character in Little Shop, that she has every reason to feel sorry for herself, and yet she doesn't when she sings her want song, as you call it. Yeah. Yeah, it's... I know Seymour's the greatest, but I'm dating a semi-savist. So I got a black eye in my arm

to the cast. So that Seymour's a cutie. Well, if not, he's got inner beauty. And I dream of a place where we could be together at last. She's just so dreaming of this

little tacky house that she can be in. And we fall in love with her because she has this dream, but she is the saddest loser in the world. And that rule of opposites really works for musicals. We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast after this. FanDuel Casino's exclusive live dealer studio has your chance at the number one feeling, winning. Which beats even the 27th best feeling, saying I do. Who wants this last parachute?

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It's a new season of Canada's Ultimate Challenge, and sparks are going to fly. New episodes Sundays. Watch free on CBC Channel. And here's something I ask every singer and composer on this show. It's still a mystery to me, and that's where do songs come from? It's the vocabularies. Like, where does that last sentence come from?

Because you know how to speak and you understand the language. And music is a language. So I understand the language, and I also understand that language and music is a language so i understand the language and i also understand that with any music like take a lot like you know our aladdin for example um to just have somebody start singing without a context wouldn't have worked but to start the movie with for instance, immediately you go, oh, I get it. We're doing a very broad spoof of the mysterious East. And as soon as they get the tone and they go, okay, we're not taking this seriously. I get it. People are in on it. And every step of the way you make choices that are fun and

imaginative, and then always have a wink that you can go to where people understand the context of the music. And then, yeah, and then it comes to, you know, it comes from an inner place where I love music and I love creating music of a style. And also, you know, part of that is also going, you know, I'm going to write this thing and I go, oh, no, that's a piece of crap. I'm going to throw that out. Let me try this one. And knowing when to go, OK, that one's good. Good. You know, you never fall in love with your own material.

Just always be ready to throw something out. You know, it's funny. I was just watching. They just showed recently The Conqueror. Yeah. John Wayne's Genghis Khan in Asian makeup. Oh, my God. And there's, out of nowhere, there's like a musical scene with these girls.

And I remember thinking, oh, there's Hollywood's faraway land music. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, in different eras, people are more used to it. You know, it's all a matter of context. I don't know where audiences became so cynical about music and films, though, Alan, because we grew up with West Side Story and The Sound of Music. Musicals were a part of the fabric of American cinema. And then one day, you know what I mean, Gilbert?

Yes. One day it just became unhip for people to sing. Music migrated over to recording. It came back a little bit with the Beatles, you know, and Help and Hard Day's Night. But, you know, heartfelt break into song where you're really singing in the moment really counts on it being in a genre that supports it and um and yeah and audiences now have have obviously um smaller attention spans and they're smaller now than they were when we were doing Aladdin they're getting smaller and

smaller um and but that's that's that's why you, if you look at what Randy Rainbow does, for instance, on YouTube. He's great. Those are currently the equivalent of musicals now. That's amazing. Little mini moments. But that's how it works. Anytime somebody you sing in a

context where it's telling a story or giving a message, that is a musical. And if it works, it's a musical. But people need to understand the context and understand why am I listening to this. And can you play, if you could remember, everybody has that one song that they're completely embarrassed by that they wrote. Do you have one of those? that they wrote. Do you have one of those?

Well, do I have one of them? I have like a ton. Well, I'm not, okay. I'm not embarrassed by any song I've written in terms of the quality of the actual writing, except when I was a kid. I mean, when I was a little, I remember when I got my first guitar, I wrote a song.

It went, I was, I think I was 11 years old. I wrote, if she's gone, if I wanted to sound, you know, I think Bob Dylan had come out and I wanted to sound, you know, sort of hip and I've been through a lot in my life. She's gone and I want to die. You know, I'm living a lie. She'd have stayed if only I had ass.

But I know I can't bring back the past. And of course, I only had about 11 years of past. See, I like that. I must be crazy. For an 11... I thought the same thing. I thought, oh, this is one of his bad songs. It's pretty good. And it's good.

No, I don't write bad songs. It's only bad musical assignments or inappropriate times to be writing, playing a song. And for an 11 year old to be hunched over the guitar playing, ah, she's gone. That'd have been a little stupid. You have to see a picture of me when I looked like at 11, you know, basically with my horn ribbed glasses and my crew cut and the pants that were two sizes too large and all that.

Alan, where did you learn the storytelling of songwriting? Was it learned in the BMI workshop or was, did you, did you know instinctively listening to all these, these, these soundtracks as a, as a kid? No. Did you learn, did you learn structure? It came later. No, the structure, you know, there was a great teacher named Layman Engel who ran the BMI Musical Theater Workshop. Laman had been a legendary conductor and composer. But as a conductor, he had conducted so many of the Broadway shows of the 40s and 50s. He conducted Porgy and Bess.

Wow. And he also wrote a book called Words with Music, which really defined the ABCs of writing a musical from the viewpoint of the pit of a show. And so in this workshop that I was in for years, we would basically discuss how songs land in a musical. And they follow an arc. how songs land in a musical and they follow an arc. And besides, you know, being in the context, the songs also, you always have to be ahead of the story. Songs always have to be pushing story forward. You never write a song without knowing how are you going to stage this?

What is the actor doing while they're singing? What is, you know, what is going on that, that we want to watch? So you have to ask all these questions and be able to answer these questions before I let my hands anywhere near the keyboard or near a piece of music paper. Because Little Shop seems like a textbook case to me of that. It establishes the world, the girl group establishes the tone. You know what you're in for, you get Seymour's story right up front, you get Audrey's story, what she wants. And before we came up with that version of Little Shop, we had an earlier

version of Little Shop, which was completely, was much more like the Corman movie, like there was a song uh uh Feed me, I'm hungry Feed me I'm hungry. Feed me, I'm starving. Feed me, I'm fading in fast. Feed me, you moron. Feed me, you nudnik. It was very much, you know, also there's a song.

When it's time to pick a pet flower, who's the shrub we love?'s our pot and plant of the hour who's our bush when push comes to shove who rakes in that cash those kudos look my hook came through that Audrey happened or Audrey would both those ladies are well and good the dismal failures besides the beautiful Audrey too and little pods go Audrey, Audrey, Audrey too and people listened to it and said, you guys, are you crazy? this made no sense

and then Howard came in with the idea of you know what, we're going to do this, the dark side of Grease and also, it's a story that feels like the end of the world they want to tell through songs that feel like the Phil Spector rock and roll and the girl groups. And as soon as you go, oh, I get it.

I get what they're doing. It's like the music you find in some cheap beach blanket horror movie from the 60s. Then, boom. It's all about the conceit. And, again, if you get that right, then you start writing and you sort of pour your creativity into that mold because it's funny if a musical's not done right uh you go well why are they singing in the middle of dinner exactly you know i mean there's many examples, you know, of wonderful pop singers or, you know, songwriters who don't really know the rules of writing a musical and just write songs to tell the story that sort of follow the story, but don't really have a break into song quality about them. And they're kind of legendary. They kind of,

they become concept albums that people sort of think they love and they have some wonderful songs in them, but they're never going to work in that bigger context. And that bigger context is, is a huge part of what we do is as musical theater writers. Your late great partner, Howard Ashman and people really should see the documentary, which will plug like crazy, made by Don Hahn, who you worked with forever.

Yeah, and it's on Disney+. Disney+, a real labor of love, a real sweet film. But I found it interesting that when Howard first had the idea to take this kind of obscure Corman movie and turn it into a musical, that there was some skepticism. You yourself had not seen the film. Do I have that right? No, I didn't see it until Howard recommended it to me, and then I flipped out because I knew you could just feel it's such a good idea. But Howard and I were very in tune that way. Yeah.

There was that sense of that off kilter. And, you know, when you, there are, when you find a property that, um, that you can make your own, you know, for instance, the idea of telling the Aladdin story, um, in a style of like a Hope Crosby road picture, which is really a lot of the style of, which is really a lot of the style of what we drew on for that, you know, the mysterious East and the idea of telling it through that. Now the idea of telling the Little Mermaid and using Brecht and Weill for the style of Ursula or whatever, all those choices are worth their weight in gold. You know, one of the inspirations for ursula was divine that's gonna ask you about that a lot of you know that there's a very hip elements and you sneak

them into something with a heart so pure of the like the disney animated things and something magical happens did you ever have one of those assignments where you have to write a song for something and you go, I just don't know. I just don't see it. Yeah, of course. I mean, I've had whole musicals that, you know, you could, so much wonderful material could go into something. And if it's not right, it's just like flushing it down the toilet. And other times, if the idea is right, you can write almost anything for it, and it works.

Yeah, let's see. I remember we wanted to write a comedy song for Pocahontas. And we kept trying, Stephen Schwartz and I, to write a comedy song. And we had Grandmother Willow. I remember we were trying to find something comedic. And one after the other, they were just embarrassingly not funny. But, you know, it's simply a bad assignment. And then we wanted to have a comedy song for Hunchback of Notre Dame.

And we actually were able to, even though the stage version was removed. But what possibly could be funnier, you know, in the animated movie of Hunchback of Notre Dame? And we came up with, well, we had to establish these characters, these gargoyles, who are sort of basically Quasimodo's inner voice. And at some point, they know that his heart is just so moved by Esmeralda and said, you know what would be funny? If these grotesque gargoyles sing to Quasimodo about what clearly good-looking guy he is and how a guy like you, she'd never thought of. So it's basically a French boulevard song that three grotesque gargoyles sing to a deformed hunchback.

And it was charming and funny, but it took a lot of work to find something funny in Hunchback of Notre Dame. But Howard was a master of that in sort of beating up your own characters to make a comedy song. You know, the Gaston. Another great one. Yeah.

Would you call that a drinking song, Gaston? Well, yeah, it's like a Sigmund Romberg drinking song, but it's it's uh-huh it's these denizens of this bar who are basically like neanderthals singing the in praise of this complete lunkhead and you get it now you know when you get i use antlers and all of my decorating it's just it's full on the floor hysterical so um those are really good assignments. But there are some times where people say, we need a comedy song here, but there's no good idea for it. You're just falling over, not laughing, trying to write anything that'll work.

Similarly, if you get trapped into writing a self-pitying song and thinking that people will be moved by it, that's not going to work. I wouldn't dare ask you a favorite Macon composition, but I will ask, is there one song that was especially satisfying and that you struggled with it and then you finally solved it? Does something like that come to mind? Or does it happen so frequently? No, it doesn't. If the assignment is right, it's not a struggle. But talking about Hunchback, I'm very drawn to the, you know, out there. There's something about that piece of music preceded,

which is one of the very few times I write a piece of music that preceded the actual project. And ironically, with that score, that was when i finally stopped getting oscars they drew the line after pocahontas said no more for menken that's it and they were like among musicians it seems like uh well that's why there are a lot of hack musicians who do this and great ones. You find certain notes. I heard that these notes make you happy. These notes you get sad.

Well, it's harmonies. You know, yes, every piece of music obviously has a connotation. If I want you to be here. Yeah. That clearly will give you sort of a sense of melancholy about it, as opposed to. There's simply, it's, you know, right on the face of it, music is a vocabulary. It's like having a discussion. And it's, to me, I always believe that when you get to a musical, you should be able to be so,

you should be able to actually just play the music with no words for a song moment and get what is dramatically needed. Oh, that's fascinating. You should be that clear about the musical choice. It's creating an emotion. It creates a moment. It creates an emotion. It creates a world. It doesn't mean that it entirely tells the story, but the musical choices should be that specific and that tailored to the moment, to the character, to the arc of the story and all that.

Tell us about meeting Howard for the first time. I had been exclusively a composer-lyricist myself. And I get a call from, I think, Maury Esten wrote Nine and Grand Hotel and the musical of Titanic. And Maury called me and said, Alan, this is guy Howard Ashman. He's looking for a composer. I know you write music and lyrics, but would you meet with him? I said, I don't know. He said he has the rights to a novella by Kurt Vonnegut called God Bless Mr. Rosewater.

I said, oh, I love Vonnegut. And so I agreed to meet with Howard. He came to my apartment. Howard had his own theater. Is that the WPA? WPA. And Kyle Rennick and Howard, it was this hole-in-the-wall theater

on the third floor of 18th Street and Fifth Avenue. 19th, sorry, 19th and Fifth, right above the chopsticks massage parlor. This wonderfully tacky little space. And yeah, I mean, you know, he has the property that I love and the theater. Little did I know he's also an incredible genius. Although I could tell his lyrics were good, but his sense of what he wanted was so palpable. And he was this triple threat. He was a book writer, lyricist, and director, which worked wonderfully with Rosewater and with Little Shop. It's fascinating in the dark to watch how he would sing for the performers, how he always kept everything in his head the whole time.

Oh, yeah, absolutely. He knew exactly how things should go, exactly what, how, how things should play, how the joke should play. Yeah. Where to, where to place the emphasis. Yeah. Did you guys all, did you, your process was, were you always in the same room together? You prefer it that way? Oh, absolutely. Yeah. You want it, you want to get the nuance of somebody going, oh, I love that. Or, I don't know, you know, or I I like that but I think that came too easy to you or you I think you've done that one before you should do something a little further you want that immediate feedback to just that's at least I do and and and I also want to get you know him to have a sense of

of where I want to go with the song and so it's that whole push and pull those must have been great moments yep i thought yeah i thought of another song but i mean it's just such a terrific burt baccarat song so yeah what's that but when you really think about it raindrops keep falling on my head. Yeah. It's like you go, I'm falling on my head. Bert has this wonderful, you know, a song like that, and many, most of Bert Bacharach's,

when you get into it. There's number one. What you're responding to first is a sense of ownership. You feel comfortable. Rhythmically and harmonically, this is a man who knows exactly where he wants to be. You feel it in the music. You feel it in the voice.

You feel it in the whole sense of the song. And music is a combination of obviously tonalities and rhythm and dynamics in a way that it's like cooking in the hands of the right person. You cook a meal and it's just heavenly and someone else can have the same recipe, but it may not be quite as good. Burt Bacharach and Bacharach and David are just masters, master songwriters. I think that song was written with a hope that Bob Dylan would do it. Have you heard this story? No.

Yes, I believe that's true. We'll double and triple check it. And it eventually wound up in the hands of B.J. Thomas, who did a wonderful job with it. My understanding is they had a fantasy of Dylan recording that. That must have been quite a fantasy. I'll triple check and get back to you. It's so perfect because when you really think of

Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head in that scene, he's on the bicycle. Yeah, it's great. It's a great marriage. In a funny way, when you think about it, you go, well, what does that song have to do with anything but look at the look at um sound of silence and the graduate yeah that's a marriage that defined a generation you know we all went away to college with simon and garfunkel be sort of in our blood you know a lot of it because of the marriage of, again,

that story and that song. Not to say, all the material was wonderful and had a magical effect on us. But when you combine a song with a visual, when I was growing up, I think my favorite Disney movie was Fantasia. And it was, you know, you have these great classical pieces and it's imagery. And I just forever after that married the sense of a story and imagery to music. And I never listened to classical music in the same way again after that. I think you have some of those moments in your films too, in your work. I mean, I see the light as a great marriage of imagery and music. It's beautiful. Thank you. The way that comes together.

Okay, there's one I struggled with about, I don't know, 10 different versions of that song until we came up with that one. Because at a certain point we had one that was just big. In a blaze of light. Na, na, na, na, na. You know, a perfectly wonderful song if you wanted a big, over-the-top big ballad. And it turns out that, you know, all those days watching from the windows,

all those years outside looking in, something very delicate and quiet, that's what was needed. But I remember sitting in a room with a guy named Chris Montan, who was the head of music and animation at Disney for all those years, and just trying, how about this one? How about this one? It was like an eye test. Is this better? Is this better? And we followed him. Okay, that's where we want to go? Great. And once we, you know, because you've got to get just, what does that moment want?

Yeah. We talked before, Gilbert, on this show about songs of longing. And Alan, you write a great longing song. Thank you. You write a beautiful love song. Thank you. I assume you just have a knack for it. Yeah, I do. You know, it's like a player hitting a fastball.

We couldn't hit a Chapman fastball. Part of your world is another one. Yeah. Yeah, it's another one that's just haunting. But where it comes from is we know there's water flowing in the ocean. That sense of just water flowing. Look at this stuff. Isn't it neat?

Wouldn't you think my collection's complete? Wouldn't you think I'm the girl, girl who has everything? Look at this trove, treasures untold. How many wonders can one cavern hold? Lookin' around, who you think is sure? She's got everything I got gadgets and gizmos aplenty And listen to the Howard's lyric specificity I got who's its and what's its galore You want thingamabobs? I got twenty But who cares? No big deal i want more i want to be where the people are

it's you know there are times where the music needs to be a bed for those lyrics just to rest on and there are times where the music is the propulsive element and the lyrics need to support that. It's, again, that's all about collaboration and experience working together. What wonderful moments. I can only imagine the magic that you guys, those little moments when the sparks hit, when it all came together in the room. When you hear the songs years later, I mean, songs trigger memories in everybody in a way, but when you hear these songs years later, do you flash back to a moment?

Ah, I remember we solved that right there. Absolutely. Absolutely. How nice that they all trigger such happy memories. Oh, yeah. I'll tell you a story that is

the silliest story ever. We were doing the stage musical of Hunchback of Notre Dame in Berlin, Potsdamer Platz. And we were doing what's called a zitsprobe. Zitsprobe is the first time the orchestra plays through a score. And the singers are there and the orchestra is there. And a big orchestra in this room full of producers,

all Germans. We were literally within spinning distance of where Hitler's bunker was. Wow. It was right by the walls, Potsdamer Platz was right by it. And Stephen Schwartz

and I had a problem we couldn't solve with one number. And Michael Cosby, our conductor, was about to run down this number. I said, we want to go down the hallway and we were michael cosby our conductor was about to run down this number i said we want to go down the hallway and just try to fix this one section if so just rehearse something else and then we'll come in and we can rehearse that number

so he says well i'll rehearse the first part of the song we went to another room we're fiddling at the piano and we finally solved it we go oh my god we solved it and i am so excited i come rushing into the room, throw the doors open. I said, guys, I've arrived at the final solution. Ouch. And the room freezes.

These two Jewish songwriters, a Jewish conductor. And I'm sure, you know, the orchestra, you know, that God knows Germany's changed night and day since, obviously, since the Holocaust. But I just think of that moment of the aha moment, and I have to laugh any time I think about, you know, one of the aha moments and I have to laugh anytime I think about one of the aha moments. Anyway.

So there are humorous moments as well. Yeah. Not just moments of triumph. Anytime I play Beauty and the Beast, I think about how Howard never lived to see Beauty and the Beast. the Beast. Tale as old as time.

It's just, you know, it's, I always, I simply flash back to when we wrote that song. There's also, you know, it says over the years of, I lose the sense of ownership of the song. It's like your children, your children grow up, they go out into the world and they have their own lives.

And in a way I know I gave birth to these songs and these songs are really, they have their own lives now, you know, I'll gladly still accept the royalties. You've sent them off to college. Yeah. And they've sent my them off to college. Yeah. And they've sent my kids off to college. Yeah, there's a sense that the songs belong to the world at a certain point. Good memories, too, about when the songs come together

in the recording session. There's a nice moment in the Howard documentary where you guys are sitting there, and Angela Lansbury and Jerry Orbach go into the booth. Oh, God. Oh, God. And boom, it there's, there's just,

it clicks and you could see the two of you guys light up. Understand. We had rehearsed the song, David Friedman conducted, and we had rehearsed the song. Angela went in to just sing it with the orchestra. And that was the first take. Wow.

Now we did, you know, afterwards get a couple of just for safety, but that was the first take. And it was, yes, it was utter, utter magic. It can be, it can just be gutting, you know, the experience of that full orchestra and, and the voice. Are there composers that you look at and go, damn, I wish I could be as good as that guy. In certain respects, I can tell you which composers I love. You know, listen to a John Williams score and I just go, where is, you know.

Oh, yeah. You're a Jerry Goldsmith guy, too? Jerry Goldsmith. Yeah. Alan Silvestri. OK, one I can't duplicate. I cannot duplicate how Tom Newman does what he does. Tom Newman.

He's great. He's great. And I knew Tom when he was trying to write for musical theater. It was the same kind of style. And it wasn't really quite right for musical theater. But what he does for film, every score will have a temp score. They'll give you, they'll put it maybe, if they put it a Tom Newman piece of music in the temp score, it gives you fits because you can't duplicate what he does. I mean, Lin-Manuel Miranda, I can't, just you look at the brilliance that comes out of him.

I knew Lin when he was a kid, a little kid, because he was a huge fan of Little Mermaid. Then we got to work together on the latest Mermaid movie. But when you see In the Heights and Hamilton, and I go, how? How? Yeah, he's a talent. And that's with any of the, you know, there are moments I so remember in seeing Dear Evan Hansen

and what Pasek and Paul did. I went, look what they did there. They're sort of repeating that. Just, you know, there's a freshness of style and intelligence. You see, when I saw Book of Mormon, that's what Bobby Lopez does. And yeah, there isn't a song where I look, I say wicked. And I say, what Stephen did in that. There are moments that are just magic.

But because I've had a lot of gratification for what I do and a lot of support, it doesn't throw me into a feeling of insecurity. I'm now, thank God, able to just be, I love that. Adam Gettle has done some things and I go, look at those turns he makes. It's so so interesting I wouldn't have thought to do that you know there's Gershwin I mean you just and you grew up listening to Lerner and Lowe and Rodgers and Hammerstein and you said Frank Lesser Frank Lesser and think of a song like sit down you're rocking the boat and the construction yeah I mean it's artful artful to listen to it's just a pleasure a pleasure to listen to. And also in anything like movies, a director or a cameraman is going to be extra critical. So do you find yourself when you're watching a musical?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I do. I will find myself getting ahead of it. Like I, you know, if I find that I'm going, I know what the next chord's going to be, I can feel what the next note's going to be, then, you know, I get a little disappointed because you want to be taken on a journey,

but you want the journey to be a surprise. And for me, it's harder. It's harder for it to be a surprise for me than it would be for other people to a degree. And also structurally, I go, oh God, they missed an opportunity there. You know, it's hard for me to see musicals because I will have basically one of two reactions,

both of them not good. One will be, oh my God, it's so good, it makes me depressed. Or it's not good and I'm depressed. Doesn't that happen with you in comedy, Gilbert? Don't you see the bit coming or see by this point in your career? Oh, yes. See where the turn is or where the twist is coming.

You're ahead of it. Yeah. When I watch comedy, for the most part, I'm going, oh, that was clever. Oh, that was, yeah, that's a good line. But the thing is, the Gilbert Gottfried style of comedy is a conduit for certain comedy that will be funniest coming out of your mouth. Yeah. There's just something about it it's like there's a part of you that's like it's like a stult behind it that is not commenting on it but it's it's just this welcome mat where sometimes it's crazy sometimes it's utter filth sometimes it's utter absurdity and it's perfect

gilbert godfrey you know i've seen i listen a lot to the comedy channels on Sirius. They play, you're up there a lot. And I'll hear some, you know, some of your routines that I haven't heard before. It's just, it's like, it's like a gospel preacher getting on a roll, but this is sometimes a roll downhill or a roll just into someplace you just never thought you were going to go to. I would think the same thing with musically. I may feel like, oh, I envy that, but I have my own voice. You have your own voice. I think we know that we have our own niche.

I think that's why no one can write for you, Gilbert, because your comedy comes from such a unique sensibility, and you're deconstructing your comedy as you do it. You know this about yourself right uh yeah but they they used to call some sometimes they would call what you did anti-comedy remember that phrase yeah because real comedy is funny yeah okay sure we know Gilbert's self-deprecating but you know what that's funny so many comics are really self-deprecating. But you know what? That's funny. So many comics are really self-deprecating, and that's part of the strength, isn't it? Well, he's an absurdist. He's a surrealist, Gilbert. The Ben Gazzara bit, extraterrestrial

showing up on Ben Gazzara's lawn is pure Dolly. It's Salvador Dolly. Alan, how hands-on are you with performers? We know Howard was very hands-on are you with performers? We know Howard was very hands-on. And I'm bringing up two people who've done this podcast, Brad Garrett and Jeffrey Tambor. Oh, Brad. Another song, another I guess I've got a dream is a Watt song. Yes, I work with both of them. Entangled.

I'm less hands-on than I used to be. I used to be very hands-on and for a multitude of reasons, one being, I have a great team to be, to being a lot of the times we're doing something in mind for the third time. And I don't really have anything new to add. I'd rather have somebody else bring something fresh to it. Also, maybe I don't want to get on a plane and actually sit in a recording studio for, you know, for four days.

And I'd rather just give you my notes. And the thrill is gone for that kind of thing. I see. You know, Howard and I took on producing the music because we were the only ones who really understood what we were going to do. And now, you know, I feel it's people who really do understand, you know, not better, but to understand what our intentions are, what my intentions are.

And I still there are times I've said some crazy things. I'm a little notorious for sometimes saying the wrong thing to singers. I remember Judy Kuhn was doing just around the River Bend from Pocahontas. And she had just gotten to the ISO booth, and I wanted to make sure that the mic was getting her at the right volume. So she's singing Just Around the River Bend. And I put my finger on the button. I said, Judy, was that your performance?

To which the room got very quiet. Judy said, I guess not. You know, and he goes, no, no, no, no. Christian Bale came in. He had been working on Santa Fe for, I don't know how long, six months. You know, because he's clearly not a singer, but he said, no, and I go, I really enthusiastic. I said, God, that's good. It's a start.

It's really good. It's a good start. He goes, it's a start. It's a start. It's a, you know, it's a fucking start. You know, so sometimes I'm best leaving my finger off the buttons. I see. Even with non-singers like Jeffrey and Brad?

Yeah, I mean, I loved – oh, Brad says one of the funniest things I've ever heard in my life. We were working on Tangled. And the conductor on that session, B.A. Huffman, his name is. He's a little short guy. He was completely bald. And he happened to be wearing sort of a gold outfit that day. And he was conducting Brad, who's really tall, and BA's in front of him, and Brad goes, I don't know whether to follow him, but thank the Academy.

You're a funny guy. Cracked. He was so, so, so, so funny. But, you know, I remember Danny DeVito was, was singing the Philocates part, Phil in Hercules. And he was, he was right. You know, I'm down to one last. I was, I said, I just needed to get one image. So if I said, I said,

Danny, tell, think Jimmy Durante, which is that, I'm down to one last, just that one image did it. Oh, that's great. So just like Howard, when he could barely speak, told Pedro, he couldn't even come into the studio anymore because the neuropathies had robbed him of everything. And she was singing, new and a bit alarming, da-da-da-da. And Howard wanted much more of the quotes around alarming,

but he didn't want to use the words. He said, everyone had to get very quiet, and Howard said, tell Paige on new and a bit alarming. Tell her, it's dry, Sam. And she went, oh, new and a bit alarming. Tell her, it's dry sand. Oh, new and a bit alarming. And that was just that one note. Wow.

Nailed it. So for me now, it's a matter of, if I can come in and make that one adjustment that needs to be made, great. But then when it comes to nuts and bolts, I think I'm best stepping back. I love that you guys speak this language. You all speak this language. A little bit of that, a little bit of Durante here, a little bit of Streisand there. Yeah, yeah.

And they get it. It's all part of a vocabulary. It's the vocabulary of music, the vocabulary of performances. You want to do a kind of performance. It's always, I get it. Oh, I get what you're doing. We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing, colossal podcast. But first, a word from our sponsor.

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have dreams where i see the future and i'll go you know i i met janice in the dream i knew who she was years before i met her your wife um yeah I, yeah, I do write songs in my dreams. You know, I often, I often have this dream where I'm playing a concert, you know, and I'm, I'm playing. And then I realized in the dream that everyone has lost interest. They sort of walked out out of the theater and I'm still playing and I'm going, oh no. Anyway. Here's another, here's another, uh, slightly painful question, Alan, that, Alan, that comes from our engineer, John Murray. Is there a song that got cut from something that was an unkind cut, something that really hurt? So even if you see the film now, you go, oh, why isn't that song still in there?

It belongs. Okay, good question. Good question. Good question, John and Samantha. The basic answer is no. At the end of the day, the best song wins, and it will win. In Sister Act, there was a song that we changed radically between London and New York, and I was happier with what we had in London. The I was happier with what we had in London.

The director was happier with what we had in New York. But it worked. It was fine. So at the end of the day, I just go, okay. Now, I do have songs like Proud of Your Boy was cut from Aladdin because the character of the mother was cut. And it's one of Howard's of my best songs. But it's found its way of course into the

um the broadway show of aladdin uh a song called shooting star was the first song we wrote for hercules to sing before we wrote go the distance was a beautiful song but very different in tone so i understand absolutely why we made those those changes those cuts what's the one that howard in the documentary, I'm trying to remember, that Katzenberg wanted to cut? Was it part of your world? Yeah, it was part of your world. And Howard said over my dead body?

Yeah, believe me. I mean, if we hadn't come up with the solution we came up with, Howard's dead body would have been, would have been there for Jeffrey, and Jeffrey would, you know. But luckily, we came up with the idea that we, we, of course, we needed to have the context of she's singing part of your world. But in fact, this is a bad thing.

We don't want her to go there and do that. So we're able to keep the attention of the younger part of the audience. What's a song that you consider? I heard you talk too, about songs that let the lyrics shine? Oh, Be Our Guest. Like one of the, you know, one of the most predictable pieces of music is

It's a nothing, simple, simple piece of music. But you put on top of it, Be our guest, be our guest, put our service to the test. Tie your napkin round your neck, sherry, and we'll provide the arrest. Soup du jour, our hors d'oeuvre. It just allows us to bed for these brilliant lyrics to pop off of. I love it. I heard you say, too, sometimes that some of your favorite songs, and it's always hard to pick favorite songs and you've you've made that very very clear is some of the songs that you like to play are songs

that were maybe less appreciated maybe a song like leap of faith yeah sure leap of faith um i mean i have a deep deep trunk of of songs and shows that people haven't heard. Some of my best songs are just sitting, you know, sort of submerged in that. When they opened the New Amsterdam Theater in New York, Tim Rice and I wrote an oratorio called King David, which was very ambitious. It was the life of King David told in a huge two-act oratorio with symphony orchestra and choirs. And there's some beautiful, beautiful material in it. But the context, it was like a meal that was just too rich. And I still am working on it, you know,

pulling things out and trying to modulate it so that the things that are strong about it will work. And there's a lot of material in there that people have never heard. And some they have heard. But again, I don't get very attached to that stuff because if I look at the Newsies example, I just go, you know, just wait long enough and things come back. That's interesting how that happens. John is requesting, he's saying to me, yes, I would love to hear a song from The Trunk, if you have one in you. I have to get the lyrics out. Home is the hunter.

High flown and contented. Home is my lover. All sins are repented. Mobile expressions. Ah-da-da-da. Never again Never again Sorry about just the lyrics.

Was that supposed to be in Beauty and the Beast? No, that was in King David. In Leap of Faith is a ballad. When I was just a kid, more than a bit naive, I knew dreams could come true, especially if you believe. Anyway, those songs, there's a trunk full of them. It's hard for me to play them right now. But those of us that love songwriting would love to peek into Alan Menken's trunk, wouldn't we, Gilbert? You know what?

I'll be glad to play you those songs. We could do that share the screen thing sometime, and I'll play them for you. Oh, we would love to hear them. What do you mean? And I saw an interview with you on YouTube. Are you talking about the importance of having fun when you're composing a song getting out of your own way yeah let letting it flow letting it happen letting and sometimes you say the music takes you in the direction that it wants to go in absolutely okay i like in writing i like in music is a flow it's like a

water it's like a flow of water you can you can put a you know waterfall whatever you put your hands out you could you could divert it you could it this way. You can move it that way. You can make it splash. You can do, but what you can't do is stop it. It's going to go somewhere. And that's what we do. We, we divert the flow, but the, but that flow, it sits in a key. I can move away from that key. But then, you know, when I come back home. Go someplace surprising.

It's just, you let it flow, but you take people on a journey. And you always have to stay ahead of them. Beautiful. And you always be specific about where you're taking them. I got a memory now out of nowhere when we were talking earlier about songs that don't belong in the scene. earlier about songs that don't belong in the scene. And it's just the song of watching a TV production. I have a Jekyll and Hyde with Kirk Douglas. Wow.

Where, yeah, where all of a sudden he and this girl, he takes out a bicycle, which I don't know when that was in Jekyll and Hyde. He takes out a bicycle and they sing this song, I Have a Bicycle. And it just looked like the composer had it sitting in his trunk and said, oh, let's use this.

It could be. It could well be. I'd love to see the scene in question so I could comment on it intelligently. It's all a matter of how you do it and how you set it up. We lay pipe in order to set up song moments. You definitely lay pipe so the story flows into the song, leads to the song, the song elevates and moves story forward, and then you continue with dialogue. And that interrelationship is crucial. You're always... You're like an architect of sorts.

Exactly what you are. We are architects. We design a house that other people are going to live in. That's fascinating. And when they live in that house, the house has to be constructed really strongly so they can, if they want to repaint it, they'll repaint it, but the house will still stand. it, they'll repaint it, but the house will still stand. If they want to even maybe adjust the room, we create a structure, a vocabulary, and a way of storytelling that is a structure that actors will live in and musicians will live in and designers will live in. That's great. Alan, you've been very generous with your time. As we wind down, one question from a listener, if I could. Jonathan Sloman says,

what can Alan tell us about the unproduced Who Framed Roger Rabbit prequel and the songs he wrote for it? Oh, wow. These are deep dives, these people do. This would have been... I think it would have been a lot of fun.

Uh-huh. A lot of fun. Glenn Slater, it was my first collaboration with Glenn Slater. And we wrote, I think, three songs. One actually has gotten out a little bit. Oh, God, what's it called? Maybe Jonathan Sloan. Jonathan, if you know what the title is. We'll ask Jonathan.

Oh, it's called This Only Happens in the Movies. Okay. It was just going to be so expensive, unfortunately, to make that movie, I think. So the plug got pulled. It never happened. That's too bad. Okay, I lied. A second question from a listener. Greetings from New Rochelle, David Wachtenheim. It's your hometown, is it? Yes, it is. Love your work. I'm a huge fan. Now, you've worked with so many lyricists.

Do you ever find yourself tailoring your music to match a particular style of that lyricist, or is everything just dictated by the subject matter? Oh, no. When I wrote A Whole New World, I tailored it to Tim. I was thinking about some of the work at Evita when I wrote A Whole New World. I tailored it to Tim. I was thinking about, you know, some of the work at Evita when I wrote A Whole New World. Another beautiful love song. Yeah.

Thank you. You've got so many. Oh, thanks. There are occasional times I will do that. More and more I'm writing music first these days. But, you know, again, every collaboration with every lyricist and every project, they're all different. And you try not to be inflexible about how you work,

because that's death. You want to always be reinventing yourself. And I'm going to push you to work again. And can you play a little and sing, Brent, like me? Sing Rent Like Me. Oh, my. Oh, my. My, my. Oh, ho. Well, Alabama had them 40 thieves, Shahara Zali and a thousand tales. Mr. Ewan Luck goes up your sleeve.

You got a brand that magic never fails. You got some power in your cone and no heavy ammunition in your cap. You got some punch because I see Thank you. Fantastic. Thank you. I want to hear you sing it next time, Gilbert. Gilbert, can we get a copy of your version from the Tiki Room to Alan so he can hear it? Oh, yeah.

I bet it's on YouTube. I probably can find it on YouTube. Alan, what's coming up as you work under lockdown, as you work under these less than ideal conditions? It's A ton. We have the sequel to Enchanted. We start filming in about two months. Disenchanted? We're calling it Disenchanted for the moment.

We'll see. That's the working title. Okay. Obviously, the Little Mermaid live-action movie is now back filming after the pandemic, and Rob Marshall allowed me a little peek into it in London just today, in fact. A new animated with John Lasseter's new company

called Spellbound. Uh-huh. A beauty prequel. Basically the backstory of LeFou and Gaston. And that's for Disney+. A stage musical of Hercules, which we did in Central Park, you know, last year we did it at the Delacorte Theater, and a stage musical of Night at the Museum.

So you got nothing going on and you're looking for work? Yeah. Gil, I saved this for last. One of your favorite movies, here's a wild card for Alan, one of your favorite movies you revealed on this very show is The Apprenticeship of Doody Kravitz. Ah! Did you know there's an Alan Menken connection? Wow!

Did you know I wrote a musical of The Apprenticeship of Doody Kravitz? No! I'll send it to you ASAP. Look for your check in your mailbox, Gil. Well, no. Obviously, I'll send you a link. Get me Gilbert's email address. Well, wait, I have somebody's email address involved with the show,

and I'll send it to you, Gilbert. Because on this show, sometimes we'll recommend movies to see, and I recommended The Apprenticeship with Duddy Kravitz. I will show you the, I have a cast album here somewhere. It's good. It's very good. As you the, I have a cast album here somewhere. It's good. It's very good. It's a, you know,

as a musical, it's a tough story because Donnie is this kid who's, you know, this Jewish kid who's really ambitious and he wants to please his father,

but he also screws over a bunch of people and it's, it's a delicate subject matter. But yeah, I'm really proud of that musical and i worked with a man named david spencer and um i will send it to you thank you there you go gil there you go and a cut one compliment for you gilbert going back and watching aladdin which

i did again to do the to do the research for alan i'd forgotten what a terrific actor you are so good oh thanks so there and i told d but I said, don't tell him. He'll get a swelled head, but I'm telling you. Oh, God. So many classic. He's got so many great moments. Yeah, they are great. They are great.

Yeah. See, I'm a great actor, so fuck you for not writing me a solo. I said, get a grip. Get a grip. get a grip. You're young, Gil. Get a grip, get a grip, get a grip, get a grip. Get a grip. Alan Macon has the best party tricks in the world.

Okay. Alan, this was great. So Gil will do a sign-off and let this man get on with his 27 projects. Alan, thank you for so many years of entertainment. My pleasure. You've made us so happy, and you've made so many millions happy. And we're glad we finally got you here. Nice to meet you.

And great to see you again, Gilbert. Oh, well, great seeing you again, Alan. And this has been Gilbert Gottfried's amazing, colossal podcast with my co-host, Frank Santopadre, and the legendary Alan Menken, who I know from Aladdin. A real treat for us. Thank you, gentlemen.

Thank you. It was fun. You ain't never had a friend like me. Curse Black!