EarzUp! | Walt's 9 Old Men Part 6: Woolie Reitherman

[00:00:00] It's time for the show that brings the magic right to your speakers. Ears up!

[00:00:11] What's up everybody? Ears up!

[00:00:14] Podcast. We are back in the studio and we're continuing the tradition of the nine old men and hopefully we'll be done sometime in 20ra. Yes. Yes. Oh no, it's Willie Mammoth. Sorry. Nevermind. Well they left out the tusks. Oh, well that's good. Yeah. Well, you know, yeah. Just ask Jurassic Park how that worked out. You just modified it. They can't do anything. Can't hurt us. Frog DNA. Um, exactly. Exactly right. Which is the dumbest plot hole in the entire universe.

[00:01:40] Because like, oh, we just use frog DNA. So I mean, you mean to tell me that genetic scientists, her to be pregnant. And now there's a whole religion based around it. In a hundred years there's gonna be the Stingray people. Yeah, there's a lot of people. Does Alabama know? Exactly. Yeah, so do on the cruise ship, which maybe the fraction doesn't really sound like a lot, but you're in a confined space. There's a ton of stuff to do. But they are- I think you need to clarify because- I don't need to clarify anything, it's my show. But- The Swifties could literally shut down this show. Like they're very powerful. Honestly, they would be doing me a favor. You know, they would just come stand behind me

[00:05:42] and put a stiletto heel right in the back of my neck

[00:05:44] and I'm done, that's it, the blackout.

[00:05:46] I think what you're saying is that maybe like her lyrics with Las Vegas. It's a place where, yeah. That's a place for trophies. Okay. So there's that anyway. I don't know. Whatever. So hell divers two is like, is like the Taylor Swift of video games. It's good. It's not as amazing as everyone wants it to be, but it's fun. That's my opinion. Yeah. More Disney dream light Valley for me. It's better than Disney dream light Valley. I haven't touched that in,

[00:07:01] I don't know how long.

[00:07:02] It's a great thing to play while you're watching the news in the morning.

[00:07:06] Okay. So back to Sting amphibians. Nice. Oh, not a sharp stingray hybrid and... That's too bad. But she did get herself pregnant. The chimera we've been waiting for. Apparently the chat is not happy. Our stingray overlords. No, and this is what I was telling you. It's not that you can't... And this is why I was trying to explain further

[00:08:20] what you're saying,

[00:08:20] because the way that you just described it,

[00:08:22] if I were listening, I'd be like,

[00:08:23] oh, he doesn't like her.

[00:08:24] That's not true.

[00:08:26] You actually do like her.

[00:08:27] I don't mind her.

[00:08:28] I wouldn't call myself I mean she's you know, her songs don't they're not amazing well I don't know if you've listened to a lot of the lyrics of a lot of the songs you You're just a lot of the popular ones in this house

[00:09:42] No, I'm too busy being locked in the closet screaming while those songs are on but I will say I think she's really nice. And, and I, I, every time I see her and Travis Kelsey on my Tik TOK feed, I smile because I want those two to get married. I want them to buy a sports team and make little influencers. That's what I want. Genuinely. That's what I want. I think it's nice. I know. And I, I'm, I'm, I'm still on the fence on this guy. I don't know. He seems

[00:11:02] a little douchey.

[00:11:03] You were like, Oh, he, they, she saw him drinking and then let that sink in brother. June 26th, 1909 in Munich, which at the time was part of the German Empire in the Kingdom of Bavaria. That's how long ago Willy Reitherman was born. OK, wow. Just a seemingly indisputable landscape of calm and passivity passivity.

[00:12:25] Yep, nothing ever goes weird there. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:13:22] of Michigan when they moved from Sweden. Mine too.

[00:13:23] There we go.

[00:13:24] Weird man.

[00:13:25] But yeah, so when, according to one account, I haven't really confirmed this, but I saw

[00:13:31] it in one place.

[00:13:32] The family lived very close to Roy O. Disney when he lived in Kansas City.

[00:13:37] Nice.

[00:13:38] Before Walt moved out there.

[00:13:40] In Woolley's early days, he attended Pasadena Junior College and he worked as a draftsman

[00:13:45] for Douglas Aircraft until 1931. step where most of the artists would begin. So he was doing full-on animation right from the start and Woolley said that was great because he working as an in-betweener would have killed him with boredom. For those of you who don't remember some of the other times we've talked about Disney animation or any animation, the main animators would do these big beats and then all of the

[00:15:03] in-betweeners would come in behind them and draw the little bits of animation Yes, that's the band concert. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. OK, so then I have seen. Yes, let's just say yes. All right. Well, then obviously, you know, music land and Elmer Elephant and many of the other shorts that Woolie was was an animator on. You have probably seen Snow White, which was one of his. He was very honored to work on Snow White.

[00:16:21] He he drew the magic mirror.

[00:16:24] Oh, cool.

[00:16:25] And his take on the magic Willy became known for creating perspective and building this blend between comedy and drama in his work. He did Monster of the Whale and Pinocchio. We'll talk more about some of his approach toward animation later.

[00:17:41] He did some work in Fantasia, specifically in the Rite of Spring when the dinosaurs are

[00:17:45] fighting. stewardess named Jamie and he married Jamie Marie McMillan in 1946 and started having kids when she was pregnant with their first child they almost moved to San Francisco but waltz convinced woolly to come back. Wow. So 1947 woolly's back. Which means they were in touch. Oh yeah. Which means he kept in touch with waltz to the whole thing.

[00:19:02] And I'm sure like that's the sort of thing guess. You know, Walt needed that dependability. He just maybe trusted that Wooly didn't lose it. I mean, that's, I would imagine drawing and animating, you need to really keep up with that kind of stuff. You know, you're not killing nazis. That's not really gonna help you draw your, you know, your little figures. Right. But yeah, he, Walt had that trust in him

[00:20:22] and wanted him back.

[00:20:23] So he put, his first job back at the studio

[00:20:26] was animating the Headless Horseman. kids. Imagine that. I wonder why. That's so weird. We'll get down to his style and philosophy. In 1955, in 1959, he was fully directing. Walt had stepped back from animation a lot to work on Disneyland and such, and Woolie was trusted to be the sole director. He started out doing individual sequences in some movies like

[00:21:42] Sleeping Beauty and 101 Melt Dalmatians, but then when he got to Sword in the done and Walt saw most of that. Aristocats, Walt at least said that's a good concept, do it. Let's start those. And thankfully Jungle Book was very well received. It was a huge success. Aristocats was still pretty much a success and that kind of cemented animation for the next few years where Woolie was able who wrote the book The Nine Old Men. He has a blog that he's been doing for years. He was another Disney animator who really focused on the Nine Old Men in particular, and the history of Disney animation.

[00:24:20] So I've got a lot of quotes from Deja and from a lot of other animators that Woolie I think why people still gravitate towards the night on men is because they developed all these things. They redefined the industry and they had to figure it out. Just like the reason why Disneyland, I think is so popular. One of the reasons is because all this was new at the time. Yeah. Well, had to figure it all out. Imagineers had to figure it out. And that's why they're all revered is because they had to come up with stuff.

[00:25:40] Right.

[00:25:41] Nowadays, they just recycle everything.

[00:25:43] Yeah, whatever.

[00:25:44] Well, speaking of recycling, here's what happens.

[00:27:00] And you let the audience figure out what happened.

[00:27:02] Then you give goofy like a weird look or bewildered look or whatever.

[00:27:06] And it kind of like sketches to the movieola. So have you heard of a movieola before? No, no.

[00:28:21] The movieola was a device that many of the big animators had in their offices.

[00:29:22] and it was just, how does this move? How do these two dinosaurs fit onto the same screen?

[00:29:25] What happens when the tramp bites this rat?

[00:29:29] You know, how do we do that?

[00:29:31] And they would slowly come together over multiple tries

[00:29:35] and then suddenly everybody would realize

[00:29:38] that this was the animation, this was the scene.

[00:29:41] But to Woolie, the characters came like second or fifth

[00:29:45] to everything else. But it's also dramatic. Like it's believable because it's funny, but it's also kind of cathartic because this is the bad guy. He still looks like the bad guy. He didn't turn into a caricature of himself. He's just trying to stay away from this animal. Yeah, it's like the bad guy gets humiliated. And that's always a good way to end sort of a child's story

[00:31:01] or a family friendly thing where the bad guy doesn't die

[00:31:05] or the bad guy doesn't get away.

[00:31:06] But the humiliation of the bad guy Flying through the air. Now, Woolie became known for two major advancements, quote, advancements in animation. One was the Xerox method. Yeah, it sounds good. Let me guess, totally original pieces of art that he would stay up all night producing. Well, this was this.

[00:32:22] At least Xerox started out with pencil sketches.

[00:32:24] And this is something you start to see.

[00:32:26] The first time it was really seen in the middle of the process. And this is something that happened before Walt was gone.

[00:33:40] Nobody really liked it, but it did rest of the features on top of it and you can use this in Aristocats as well. You can use this in Jungle Book, The Rescuers. You can use it in

[00:35:04] anything because you already spent all this time and effort to

[00:36:04] other animated features that use the same exact movements throughout. This is Little John singing the song about the fake king of England, but there's a lot

[00:36:08] of dancing and movement that's going on that's reused in other sequences.

[00:36:12] So if you scrub through this video, they post both sides and you can see the exact same

[00:36:19] movements.

[00:36:20] Robin Hood and Snow White is on the screen here.

[00:36:22] Yeah.

[00:36:23] So you have the scene in Snow White where kind of pulled from for Robin Hood. Yeah, I'll try to post this, it is interesting. What's particularly interesting is that many people have said, well, it's because all of this happened because they were trying to save money, they were trying to save time.

[00:37:41] Right, that's what I've always heard.

[00:37:43] Well, yeah, and that's what a lot of places kind of recycle.

[00:37:46] What I've seen in multiple sources,

[00:37:48] Floyd Norman, you know movement. You want to create things on your own. Yeah, that stuff didn't work. It seems like it's, um, I just lost my loss. I had a great idea. I had a great thought and I lost it. Oh, it seemed, it seems like he might have been unsure of the, of Robin Hood of the story.

[00:39:01] Cause that's where it seems like all this has come kind of coming from where they're

[00:39:04] reusing all this stuff for Robin Hood specifically for the first time. and I drew the movie. But this critic came up and said, I recognize that sequence from Snow White. And he was so embarrassed that he couldn't defend himself. And he said, yeah, we reused it. It became a major point of contention between Wooly, Milt Call, Frank Thomas, Ollie Johnston, all of the, several of the nine old men really got upset about it. And it was a part of the

[00:40:24] reason several of them left. Yeah. Wooly I It was rolled. Yeah for sure. Yeah, like yeah, I just can't imagine ever watching two movies and going hey

[00:41:43] That's exactly the same art like I don't know it's so weird because it's actually not but it's kind of Allies and the younger animators, Dale Oliver said that underneath his iron crust, Wooly was a great, sensitive man. Iron crust. I'm hungry. Oh, all right. A lot of people said how, liked how he would help out with their animations. So Bored Kimball actually had, who basically came up with the main design of Jiminy Cricket

[00:43:01] with Mark Davis.

[00:43:02] Wooly still came in and animated some very key sequences of movement that they couldn't

[00:43:06] quite get. He's a very better man when it comes to Disney animation. Definitely worth a discussion in the future. Nice. I love it. But whereas other people are saying, oh, no, we work together well with Woolie. It was such a collaborative effort and he would help us with things. This guy's saying, no, he stole my character. And yeah, like I mentioned, he, you know, he he eventually

[00:44:24] kind of stepped away from directing because he had some clashes with folks.

[00:45:24] But yeah, pretty sudden there's not a lot of information about how that really happened. But yeah, he was, they say he was survived by his wife, Janie, his three sons, three grandchildren.

[00:45:29] He was described as, first of all, an actor, second, a story man, and third, an artist.

[00:45:34] I'd like to end this one on a quote from Wooly himself.

[00:45:39] My work has a vitality and a, I don't give a damn, just try it, quality.

[00:45:44] Nice.

[00:45:45] What does that even mean? All right, thanks for hanging around everyone. Sorry about that blank space, but don't blame me You have bills to pay Are you okay? What's the blank? With Taylor Swift songs yeah, I don't yeah, I don't get it

[00:47:03] I'm just the man. Are you ready for it? You need to calm down I

[00:48:01] You need to calm down. You're being too loud.

[00:48:03] So.

[00:48:03] Yeah.

[00:48:04] Look man, whatever.

[00:48:05] What are you going to do?

[00:48:06] Taylor, Alison, Swift.

[00:48:07] You know what I mean?

[00:48:10] You sure know a lot about Taylor Swift.

[00:48:11] She's all over my, look, I'm not saying I don't like her.

[00:48:14] You're saying as far as music goes,

[00:48:15] it's not the greatest.

[00:48:18] Well, the chat is saying her popular songs

[00:48:20] may seem a bit simple,

[00:48:21] but you should look into folklore and evermore.

[00:48:24] I don't want to.

[00:48:25] I know you're not going to,

[00:48:26] but I'm just saying maybe don't make opinions

[00:48:28] if you haven't be drowned out by the hundred for other people yeah we have BFFs in the chat yeah always true I like the you don't get that. There's nobody who puts on a vibe that's that popular that still has a vibe of like, I'm 18 and here's my song. You know what I mean? That's nice. That's accessibility, yeah. Relatability. Yeah, for relatability, 100%. And what's interesting is you haven't even seen

[00:51:00] the documentary of hers on Netflix.

[00:51:03] I don't need to fall more in love with her, Tara.

[00:51:04] I know you don't need to, but that's where I was like, 16th 18th 23rd 25th 30th and May 2nd 7th and 9th 2024. If your Star Wars dude with a Star Wars do Star Wars nerd with the extra money in your pocket in this economy, you know when we have a giant corporations raising price shrink

[00:52:21] flation, which is a real thing.

[00:52:24] If you can afford to go go man do it.

[00:52:27] Let me know how it is. That's it, I think. No, we did the Halloween one once. We did Halloween, but it was not Oogie Boogie's bash at that time. It was just Halloween. We're old heads. Yeah. It was cool at Disneyland, because you could do like all of Fanny C Land in 10 minutes and get a bag full of candy. Yeah, it's very fun. Or apple slices. Recreate your own, it's basically as Lego for apples.

[00:53:41] You recreate your apple, build your own apple.

[00:53:44] Guests are encouraged to dress in their Star Wars best.

[00:53:46] And those in themed costumes are invited to participate Disneyland and fun things that happen at the park. Have you guys seen the story going around social where a Disney influencer fell into Snow White's wishing well? No, but all three feet. Right. Yeah, I'm super glad this person fell. She was taking a picture and these people, I mean, look, I'm sure they're fine.

[00:55:02] Maybe I should.

[00:55:03] We should, we should see.

[00:55:05] Yeah, maybe we should see.

[00:55:06] Let me get, I gotta get back to this. It's hilarious. So she was also like in a dress, like she's dressed up. This is why I was like bringing it up because these people are dressed like in Princess. So you know, they're trying to be influencers. They're trying to do the thing. And these are the people I don't enjoy at the parks, like the Disney adults who, the main character syndrome kind of thing. I mean, there's a line between having fun and trying to be a part of the fun.

[00:56:24] And that's, I thought that that was like Conspiracy theorists stuff a lot of it is because because a couple days ago there was like Oh Russia Launched a nuke into the space and it's hovering it's gonna be an EMP blast and it's gonna invade Then we're gonna invade us or whatever and it's like they're sending 50 year old tanks into Ukraine. They're not gonna do anything

[00:57:44] It's fine. Wait, we weren't invaded. I

[00:57:47] Mean, maybe It literally happened, but they fight it. They, you know, the U.S. cybersecurity kind of like stops it. Yeah. And AT&T is no longer on Windows XP. There you go. Yeah, there are women's 95s of this afternoon. Per NBC, 71,000 mobile users reported having no cell service by 8 a.m. Eastern time. The carriers report that the cause of the mass outage is unknown.

[00:59:01] But like I said, they figured out now and stated we are working urgently

[00:59:05] to restore service, blah, whatever, you're fine. Right. So you raise the prices because only those people... You can't lift... Lift does it. Like when you're a driver, you don't have control of the prices. No, I understand. But Lift is raising the prices because they don't have enough... They won't have enough drivers to be able to handle their normal amount of people.

[01:00:21] Maybe. It seems automatic to me.

[01:00:24] So something triggered that. I think it was... I don't have cell service and I'm so glad because my boss is like well then we have much bigger problems like if the both of those things are not working there's a

[01:01:43] lot you break the glass you pull out your you? I'm just sad because it's like,

[01:03:00] I think I'm sad because Eric said that he's a part of it.

[01:03:03] And it's like, it's like.

[01:03:05] So you're trauma collecting.

[01:03:07] That's what you're doing.

[01:03:08] He's so cool. titles like Eric was just saying giving collectors a convenient way to receive all of the latest releases by mail following the closure of the club's Canadian branch geez Louise and the ceasing of physical Disney media in Australia altogether this news didn't come as much of a surprise still for those of us who hold on to DVDs and blu-rays like the treasures they are it

[01:04:21] certainly is disappointing Eric what are you gonna do with your little baubles saw 16 new Blu-ray exclusives become available. Several of which are unavailable to stream, which bugs me and it bugs a lot of people because Disney Plus was touted as the place to go for all the Disney stuff. Well, yeah, that's this is what's going to make piracy never go away. It's that these you sign up for Netflix, you set up for Hulu, you set up for Disney Plus

[01:05:42] expecting these things to always be there because that's how they were sold.

[01:05:45] And then they learned, oh, we don't do anymore cuz no one cares No one cares to do them. I think that would be good because I want to see like like million dollar duck and follow me boys again like Talk about those. I think it'd be fun. Yeah fun thing to do the computer work lasses Yeah, yeah, my son the shoe or whatever it is

[01:07:03] That's probably one

[01:07:05] Yeah, those are weird times man

[01:08:03] Plus 4K remasters of Fox Classics. This report claims that they won't release them at all anywhere.

[01:08:07] Why?

[01:08:08] Like what classics?

[01:08:09] Well, X-Men X3.

[01:08:10] I don't know.

[01:08:11] We're going to figure it out.

[01:08:12] Maybe we're going to dive into the Screen Rant article, getting it started in the anime.

[01:08:18] They bought 20th Century Fox in 2019, according to a new report from the Digital Bits.

[01:08:24] 20 classic titles from the Fox catalog have been we actually had decent internet, but we had to run a very, very long ethernet cable from the wall to our Xbox to stream early Netflix stuff. But the other main reason it was collecting the points that you would get from the reward points. This is what our friend Charlie, our announcer friend Charlie did.

[01:09:43] And he was like saving up to do a thing. And I don't know that he's Fox. The Philadelphia boys. Okay, we have some more news, but we're getting late. So let's, let me try one more. Not that one. That's really boring. That one's- It's about the Philadelphia story. That one's kind of sad. Yeah, that one's angry. This one's angry too. You know what? We're done. Okay.

[01:11:00] We're going to be done.

[01:11:01] Because there's a lot of like not really good news.

[01:11:03] And it's too late to get into that.

[01:11:05] And we don't want to end as Sully has done with the 21st amendment. So the beers travel very, very well from California to wherever you are. Check them out 21st amendment. They're great beers and if your place doesn't carry them, have them ask, please, please, please, please, please, please.

[01:12:21] Hell or high watermelon, all the various flavors that are out there.

[01:12:24] I'm pretty sure it's watermelon season again.