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Byers Airport Airport Airport-3125. and

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welcome back to

0:35

another episode of

0:38

what went wrong.

0:40

Your favorite podcast

0:42

full stop that

0:45

just so happens to

0:47

be about movies

0:49

and how it's

0:52

nearly impossible to

0:54

make them a good one.

0:57

let alone one of the most

0:59

influential films of all time.

1:01

Now today we are discussing Walt

1:03

Disney's Snow White and

1:05

the Seven Dwarfs. That's

1:07

the 1937 version, not the more

1:10

recent controversial film that I'm

1:12

sure will cover at some

1:14

point. If you have not

1:16

yet listened, I would encourage

1:18

you to check out our

1:20

brief primer on Walt Disney

1:22

and his rise to pre-featured

1:24

film Glory that's available on

1:26

our feed. If you know a lot about

1:28

Walt Disney, feel free to jump right into

1:31

this episode. Now my fearless co-host,

1:33

Lizzy Bassett, is still fending for

1:35

her newborn child. So today, I'm

1:37

going to be bringing in a couple

1:39

of very special guests. Elena Cravello

1:42

and Chelsea Davison are accomplished television

1:44

writers whose credits include Ted, both

1:46

of them. The Tonight show, starring

1:48

Jimmy Fallon, Grace and Frankie, and

1:50

many more, and they are also...

1:52

Podcast hosts, and we're big fans

1:54

of their podcast over here at

1:57

what went wrong. Pod struck a

1:59

Rahmcom rewah. It's a podcast where

2:01

they rewatch classic romcoms discussing the

2:03

good, the bad, and the totally

2:05

sexist of all the movies that

2:07

convince the generation of women that you're

2:09

not ugly. You just have glasses. Elena

2:11

and Chelsea, thank you so much

2:13

for joining us. Thank you for having

2:15

us. Thank you for having us. This

2:17

is like a dream come true right

2:20

now. We love your podcast, so this

2:22

is great. We appreciate that. And

2:24

thank you for sticking to the

2:26

script. This is like one of

2:28

the maybe four podcasts I actually

2:30

listen to every week. Well, our

2:32

children are friends. So I do

2:34

require that. Well, we are very excited

2:37

to have you, particularly because it's not

2:39

technically a romcom, but I would argue

2:41

that Snow White does have a lot

2:44

of the tropes and archetypes of a

2:46

romcom. Absolutely. And Walt Disney kind of

2:48

like leaned into some of those as

2:50

we'll discuss in the writing process. So

2:53

I'm curious, I'm sure you guys saw

2:55

this movie as children. Yep. What was

2:57

your, what's been your relationship to Snow

2:59

White? And how did you feel upon

3:02

re-watching it for the podcast? So

3:04

I am a huge Disney fan

3:06

and always have been like my.

3:08

Dream I've had two dreams for

3:10

my whole life, and I'm not

3:12

accomplishing either one, but one was

3:15

to win an Oscar for best

3:17

actress Oops not gonna happen. Chelsea.

3:19

It could still happen. I believe

3:21

in you. I'm not acting but

3:23

it could somehow happen and two

3:25

was to create to write a

3:28

Disney film and that one I'm

3:30

like who knows I'm a writer

3:32

now? Yeah, that could happen That could

3:34

happen. But Disney was something that, you

3:36

know, the first movie I really fell

3:38

in love with was The Lion King.

3:40

I watched it on repeat. And from

3:42

there, I felt like it became so

3:45

core to who I am. And the

3:47

way I think a lot of people

3:49

are very shaped by Disney. I'm not

3:51

necessarily a Disney parks adult who goes

3:53

every six months or six weeks. I

3:55

don't know how often they're going. Sometimes

3:57

people go every day. Chelsea. They're crazy.

3:59

Yeah, I guess so. I'm not

4:01

a true fan, but I think

4:04

I have done a lot of

4:06

rewatches through the catalog of all

4:08

the Disney movies. And so this

4:10

is one that definitely is iconic

4:12

is important for paving the way,

4:14

but maybe not. a favorite for

4:16

me. Oh, got it. All right.

4:18

Fighting words. Yeah, I'm kind of a Disney

4:20

adult, not in the way that I

4:22

go all the time, but I go

4:25

like once a year or I try

4:27

to. I grew up going to Disneyland

4:29

like once a year because my grandma

4:31

lived 20 minutes away. But for me,

4:33

Snow White, it's funny because it's one

4:36

of those movies I definitely watched growing

4:38

up, but then, you know. We had

4:40

a aerial, we had the little mermaid,

4:42

we had elated, like we had so

4:44

many classics growing up that this kind

4:46

of just got shoved to the back

4:49

of my mind. And so re-watching it

4:51

this time, I was kind of, I

4:53

don't know, I was like, this is a

4:55

really charming movie. I've really enjoyed it. And

4:57

I also thought there are moments where Snow

4:59

White's face is real amorphous. Like they could

5:01

have used some more lines in her chin.

5:04

I was like, let me get in there

5:06

with a sharpie. I can fix this a

5:08

little bit. You want to contour her? I

5:10

don't want to give her contour. Let's make

5:12

those cheekbones pop. No, but there are just

5:14

parts where her face kind of turns into

5:17

a little bit of a blob. But I

5:19

was like, oh, they ran out of time

5:21

or something. They did run out of

5:23

time. I knew it. And we'll

5:25

discuss. So as you guys mentioned,

5:27

we kind of came up during

5:30

what's called the Disney Renaissance, right,

5:32

which was a period of time

5:34

marked by a rebirth in Disney's

5:36

high quality animation. So you mentioned

5:38

The Little Mermaid. Beauty and the

5:40

Beast, Aladdin, The Lion King. This

5:42

continued through Pocahontas and kind of

5:44

famously ends more or less with

5:46

Hercules and the Emperor's new groove.

5:48

It's a 10 to 12 year

5:51

period where Disney really dominated at

5:53

both the box office and the

5:55

Academy Awards. Obviously, Snow White came

5:57

50 years before that, 1937. It

6:00

ushered in the golden age

6:02

of animation, and as you

6:04

mentioned, it does feel, I

6:06

think, a little quaint when

6:08

viewed through today's lens, and

6:10

the animation has improved, but

6:12

I hope I can convince

6:14

you that this movie is

6:16

one of the most revolutionary

6:18

movies in Hollywood history. Oh!

6:21

And I hope I will

6:23

convert you to my position

6:25

now, which is appreciating this

6:27

film as, you know, as...

6:29

groundbreaking as Jurassic Park was

6:31

in 1993 when we first saw

6:33

dinosaurs, you know, on the big

6:36

screen in a convincing way. Wow. And,

6:38

you know, like many, if not

6:40

most, Americans, this movie was

6:42

a staple of my childhood. It

6:45

was a VHS tape. I knew

6:47

very well. But like you

6:49

mentioned, Olena, I was...

6:51

very biased toward the

6:53

more recent and somewhat

6:55

more male-oriented releases from

6:57

Disney like Aladdin, The

6:59

Lion King, Beauty and the

7:02

Beast. And so I have to

7:04

say it had probably been 30

7:06

years, 28 years since seeing Snow

7:08

White, and I re-washed it with

7:10

my daughter, and I was completely

7:13

blown away by it. So Snow White

7:15

and The Seven Dwarfs is

7:17

a feature-length, hand-animated cell animation

7:20

fairy tale. It was produced

7:22

by Walt Disney under his

7:24

Walt Disney Productions banner, released

7:27

by R.K.O. Radio Pictures, and

7:29

based on Snow White by

7:31

the Brothers Grimm, Jacob and

7:33

Wilhelm, respectively. It was directed

7:35

by David Hand, William Cottrell,

7:37

Wilford Jackson, Larry Mori, Perce

7:40

Pierce, and Ben Sharpsstein. Written

7:42

by Ted Shears, Richard Creden,

7:45

Otto Englander, Earl Hood, Merrill

7:47

de Maris, Dorothy Ann Black,

7:49

and Webb Smith, the film

7:52

starred Adriana Cassellati, as

7:54

Snow White, Harry Stockwell, as

7:56

the Prince, Lucille Laverne, as

7:59

the Queen, Roy. Atwell as Doc,

8:01

Pinto Colvig as Grumpy, Otis Harlan

8:03

as Happy, Scotty Matra as Bashful,

8:05

Billy Gilbert as Sneezy, Eddie Collins

8:07

as Dopie, and Moroni Olson as

8:09

the Magic Mirror with Stuart Buchanan

8:11

as the Huntsman. Snow White and

8:13

the Seven Dwarfs premiered on December

8:15

21st, 1937, and as always, the

8:17

IMDB logline reads, exiled into the

8:19

Dangerous Forest by her wicked stepmother.

8:21

A princess is rescued by seven

8:23

dwarf miners who make her part

8:25

of their household. And that is

8:27

basically the entire movie, interspersed with

8:29

a number of fun gags and

8:31

set pieces. But before we dive

8:33

into the making of all of

8:35

this, let's get to the sources.

8:37

So there are innumerable incredible books

8:39

about Disney, Walt Disney, his origins,

8:41

its origins, and this film. But

8:43

these are the primary sources used

8:45

for this episode. Walt Disney, An

8:47

American Original, by Bob Thomas. Walt

8:49

Disney's Snow White and The Seven

8:51

Dwarfs, an art in its making,

8:53

by Martin Kraus and Linda Witkowski.

8:55

The Vault of Walt, Unofficial Unauthorized

8:57

Uncensored Disney Stories, Never Told, by

8:59

Jim Corkis. Walt Disney's Snow White

9:01

and the Seven Dwarfs and the

9:03

Making of the Classic Film, by

9:05

Richard Hollis and Brian Sibley. Walt

9:07

Disney, The Triumph of the American

9:09

Imagination, by Neil Gabler. and the

9:11

Hollywood reporters 80-year retrospective on the

9:13

film, published in 2018, along with,

9:15

still the fairest of them all,

9:17

the Making of Snowweight and the

9:19

Seven Dwarfs featurette, and there are

9:21

a number of other videos online

9:23

that talk about the technology and

9:25

innovations behind the film. Again, we're

9:27

going to post a number of

9:29

those to our patron, if anybody's

9:31

interested. So, let me take you

9:33

guys back, 1933. Walt Disney's kind

9:35

of had a bunch of success,

9:37

but also a lot of struggle

9:39

for the last 12 years or

9:41

so, and he decides it's time

9:43

to make a feature film, an

9:45

animated feature film. which had never

9:47

been done in the United States,

9:49

and I believe had only been

9:51

attempted twice around the world up

9:53

until this point. Now Walt, savvy

9:55

businessman that he is, knew that

9:57

he couldn't risk an entirely new

9:59

format on a brand new story,

10:01

so he did what any smart

10:04

producer would do, and he decided

10:06

to base it on IP. Something

10:08

that I'm sure you guys have

10:10

dealt with. countless times the screenwriters

10:12

in Hollywood. Yes, yeah. So he

10:14

decides he's gonna adapt a fable,

10:16

a myth, or a fairy tale

10:18

because he wants to animate an

10:20

existing story that was already known

10:22

and beloved in countries around the

10:24

world. So he wants to make

10:26

sure it's something timeless. And I

10:28

think this is for a couple

10:30

reasons. One, animation is ridiculously expensive

10:32

at the time-consuming. And two, he

10:34

needs to make sure it's still

10:36

going to be relevant when it's

10:38

finished, two, three years down the

10:40

line after he starts it, right?

10:42

Because there's nothing worse than like

10:44

starting a script or a movie,

10:46

and then all of a sudden,

10:48

like the moment has passed for

10:50

this thing. We've all been there.

10:52

Yeah. Also, you do have to

10:54

be a madman to want to

10:56

do a feature animation. Like I

10:58

remember making those little flip books

11:00

when I was little, that would

11:02

just like a little, you know,

11:04

stick figure moving, moving, moving, moving,

11:06

moving, moving, moving, moving, moving, Yeah,

11:08

so Walt is trying to figure

11:10

out what to adapt. Some sources

11:12

say he considered Rip Van Winkle,

11:14

but paramount on the rights. Yakes.

11:16

I know, thank God. And it's

11:18

a snoo's best, huh? I know,

11:20

bad. So he settled on a

11:22

19th century story featuring a female

11:24

protagonist, an evil queen, and whimsical

11:26

woodland creatures, but it was not

11:28

snow white. Any guesses? Mmm. Sleeping

11:30

beauty? Good guess, Allison Wonderland. Oh!

11:32

That's right. Wow, I think of

11:34

that, because you know, obviously they

11:36

do make that movie, and I

11:38

think of it as being so

11:40

60s trippy. It is, yeah. I

11:42

can't imagine what the 30s version

11:44

of that would have been. Opium

11:46

Dens? I don't know. Yeah, kind

11:48

of, right. Yeah, okay. Actually, that

11:50

sounds awesome. So, not only that,

11:52

it was going to be kind

11:54

of in a different style. Basically,

11:56

he thought, let's have the lead

11:58

actress be live action, like with

12:00

our Alice comedies that we did

12:02

before, and let's have everything else

12:04

be animated around her. And he

12:06

even had an actress in mind,

12:08

which was world-renowned Mary Pickford. Wow.

12:10

Who was basically the biggest actress

12:12

of the silent era. Oh, I

12:14

want to see that. I want

12:16

to see this. So, Walt stars

12:18

on the Rise. But Mary Pickford's

12:20

star was in decline. And I'm

12:22

not sure if you guys know

12:24

this, but the reason being, she's

12:26

kind of failed to make the

12:28

transition from silent film to the

12:30

talkies, because Mary Pickford's voice and

12:32

specifically her singing voice were not

12:34

up to snuff. I can relate.

12:36

So some people say that Pickford

12:38

actually offered to underwrite the cost

12:41

of making the movie Because I

12:43

think she knew that she needed

12:45

something like this and Disney was

12:47

viewed as you know kind of

12:49

a Genius at this point the

12:51

Mickey Mouse Club had a million

12:53

members worldwide. Wow and so this

12:55

was going to be oh a

12:57

vehicle for me to stay relevant

12:59

in this business I love that

13:01

hustle. Yeah A lot of hustle.

13:03

She was very vocal about it.

13:05

In March of 1933, she told

13:07

the New York Times that audiences

13:09

were craving a family film and

13:11

that making the movie with Walt

13:13

would take time, quote, people have

13:15

had enough of gangsters and sex

13:17

plays and are of a mind

13:19

for something near their own thinking

13:21

and living. It is time we

13:23

did some pictures that children want.

13:25

Alice in Wonderland is simple and

13:27

it is sophisticated. It can be

13:29

made into a film for the

13:31

adult as well as the child.

13:33

So I think she's really pitching

13:35

kind of what Pixar, right, would

13:37

end up doing 75 years later.

13:39

Mary Pickford is a genius. I

13:41

mean, I love her. She's amazing.

13:43

Well, and that's what we're still

13:45

trying to pitch four quadrant, you

13:47

know, to executives. It's for everybody,

13:49

the whole family. Yeah. I'm over

13:51

gangster movies too. I'm like, I

13:53

can relate to all of this.

13:55

And part of what she may

13:57

have been subtly hinting at was.

13:59

the introduction of the Hayes Code.

14:01

So I'm not sure how familiar

14:03

you guys are with the Hayes

14:05

Code, but it was basically like

14:07

a set of decency laws that

14:09

were passed in Hollywood in 1934

14:11

at the behest of the Catholic

14:13

Legion of Decency, designed to like

14:15

clean up Hollywood's morally reprehensible and

14:17

wayward films that were going on

14:19

screen. So if you look kind

14:21

of pre- 1934, there's quite a

14:23

bit of transgressive and progressive filmmaking

14:25

out there that includes really interesting

14:27

topics, including dark female protagonists, Gangsters,

14:29

homosexuality, etc. And that kind of

14:31

goes away in the mid-30s. And

14:33

I think Pickford is aware of

14:35

that. And she's aware of the

14:37

fact that Walt's, you know, kind

14:39

of coming up. So she's making

14:41

a very shrewd business decision. But

14:43

unfortunately for her, Walt ultimately gets

14:45

cold feet. So they did costume

14:47

tests with Mary Pickford. She'd actually

14:49

even gone to a Hollywood party

14:51

dressed dressed as Alice. which is

14:53

starting to feel like she's really

14:55

selling you know what I mean

14:57

this thing yeah how Jeremy's strong

14:59

of her yeah at a certain

15:01

point it's too thirsty it's like

15:03

calm down Mary we get it

15:05

yeah and I don't know it

15:07

doesn't seem like that's why Walt

15:09

backed out but there are a

15:11

few factors one Paramount and Columbia

15:13

are also doing their own live-action

15:15

adaptations of Alice in Wonderland at

15:17

the same time so Walt may

15:20

have just thought too much competition

15:22

I don't want to have my

15:24

animated film be directly compared to

15:26

a live-action film at the same

15:28

time. He also was worried about

15:30

the budget. he says, and quote,

15:32

other obstacles. Pickford is heartbroken. She

15:34

apparently said to him at the

15:36

time, quote, your apparent lack of

15:38

enthusiasm in our last meeting together

15:40

with the many obstacles you seem

15:42

to anticipate was the crushing blow

15:44

to my cherished hope. Oh my

15:46

gosh. End quote. I hope she

15:48

was wearing the Alice and Wonderland

15:50

outfit when she went on. Very

15:52

tragic. Now, I think what actually

15:54

happened was. Disney found a better

15:56

story for his first feature film.

15:58

So in early May of 1933,

16:00

Disney's company wrapped up a little

16:02

short for their silly symphonies called

16:04

Three Little Pigs. And Three Little

16:06

Pigs was a major milestone for

16:08

Disney animation. For a couple of

16:10

reasons. One, it was an American

16:12

retelling of a 19th century English

16:14

fable. So it kind of... followed

16:16

that same method. They'd simplified the

16:18

story, they sanitized it, nobody dies.

16:20

The pigs were anthropomorphized, right? So,

16:22

okay, we have animals kind of

16:24

acting like people for the first

16:26

time, and it was made musical.

16:28

And so obviously nowadays, right, like

16:30

half of the Disney equation is

16:32

the music. You mentioned the Lion

16:34

King, Aladdin, the Little Mermaid. That

16:36

was not an original ingredient to

16:38

a lot of the Disney shorts,

16:40

but they had an original song

16:42

for the Three Little Pigs called

16:44

Who's Afraid of the Big Bad

16:46

Wolf by Frank Churchill. This song

16:48

went viral. Yeah, it's a banger

16:50

still. Yeah, it is a banger.

16:52

It gets stuck in your head.

16:54

Yeah. Exactly. And the Big Bad

16:56

Wolf became synonymous with the Great

16:58

Depression. Oh. And so... It became

17:00

this like working man's mantra as

17:02

everybody across the country was listening

17:04

to it. This movie made $150,000

17:06

in its first year, which was

17:08

three times what the average Disney

17:10

Silly Symphony made in its first

17:12

year at the time. Wow. Wow.

17:14

And also in context, I'm sure

17:16

that was like a billion dollars.

17:18

Let me do the math really

17:20

quickly because I have some of

17:22

those numbers. Yeah, you say $150,000

17:24

now. I'm like, oh yeah. 3.3

17:26

million dollars in its first year.

17:28

It is a short film. Wow.

17:30

So this was just played, you

17:32

know, at the beginning of screenings

17:34

of future films at theaters. That's

17:36

wild. Imagine making a short film

17:38

now and making three million. dollars

17:40

off of it. It's absurd. Like

17:42

people only lose money on short

17:44

films now. I can speak from

17:46

experience. So United Artists who was

17:48

the distributor for that film couldn't

17:50

even keep up with the demand.

17:52

Theaters had to share a print

17:54

physically running it from one location

17:57

to another in between screenings and

17:59

showings just because so many people

18:01

wanted to see this movie. Wow.

18:03

That is so crazy. You need

18:05

a short film about that just

18:07

like seeing these guys who work

18:09

at the theater running back and

18:11

forth. I know. So by June

18:13

of 1934, Disney has publicly hinted

18:15

at Snow White. He told New

18:17

York magazine that they had a

18:19

new story they were using. They

18:21

were going to have a full

18:23

symphony with fine singers. He said

18:25

it would take 18 months to

18:27

make. Wrong. He said it would

18:29

take $250,000 to make. Wrong. And

18:31

there was a lot of speculation

18:33

as to what he was going

18:35

to cover. And so some other

18:37

names apparently considered, babes and toy

18:39

land. Bambi. The Iliad or The

18:41

Odyssey. Oh my gosh! Gulliver's travels.

18:43

Okay. But none of them had

18:45

what Snow White had, because none

18:47

of them had the Seven Dwarves.

18:49

Oh, well, I mean, Gulliver's travels

18:51

has tiny people, like a thousand

18:53

dwarfs. I thought you were going

18:55

to say the love story. It

18:57

does have the love story, which

18:59

is great, but it seems like

19:01

after the success of the anthropomorphicic

19:03

little pigs. in Three Little Pigs,

19:05

Walt realized, oh, we need a

19:07

vehicle for the comedy and the

19:09

gags in these stories, and the

19:11

Seven Dwarves can give the humor

19:13

opposite Snow White's love story. And

19:15

I would say, it's kind of

19:17

one of our early iterations of

19:19

the best friend character. in your

19:21

romcom? 100%. We have a segment

19:23

on our podcast where we give

19:25

out the Judy Greer Award for

19:27

Side Character Quirkiness, achievement in Side

19:29

Character Quirkiness. And as I was

19:31

watching this, I was thinking, this

19:33

movie is packed with them. There's

19:35

clothes rack, dear, googly-eyed raccoon. baby

19:37

bird and all the seven dwarfs

19:39

and my pick for the Judy

19:41

Greer Award was grumpy. Oh that's

19:43

a good one because he kind

19:45

of comes full circle on her

19:47

right he has a little bit

19:49

of an arc and I he

19:51

has he's got little quips throughout

19:53

yes yeah he does he's very

19:55

funny he is funny he does

19:57

have an arc I like dopey

19:59

personally like just is like the

20:01

purest me too dopey's kind of

20:03

the obvious that's what the movie

20:05

wants you to pick but The

20:07

thing with Dopie is he's not

20:09

that Dopie, his clothes are just

20:11

too big. Like you would be

20:13

Dopie too if your clothes were

20:15

this big. He just needs a

20:17

tailor is really all he needs.

20:19

Apparently it's not that he can't

20:21

talk. Walt said that he simply

20:23

never thought to. Yeah, I can

20:25

see that. Which is just a

20:27

different approach. So here's Walt's quote

20:29

on the dwarfs. The Seven Dwarves

20:31

we knew were natural. for the

20:33

medium of our pictures. In them

20:36

we could instill boundless humor, not

20:38

only as to their physical appearances,

20:40

but in their mannerisms, personalities, voices,

20:42

and actions, in addition, with the

20:44

action taking place in and around

20:46

the dwarf's cottage in the woods,

20:48

we realized that there was great

20:50

opportunity for introducing appealing little birds

20:52

and animals of the type we've

20:54

had success with in the past.

20:56

Lastly, the human characters were fanciful

20:58

enough to allow us a great

21:00

deal of leeway in our treatment

21:02

of them. So Snow White kind

21:04

of fits the bill across the

21:06

board and it's also a bit

21:08

of a sentimental choice. Walt had

21:10

seen an earlier film version of

21:12

this story when he was a

21:14

teenager and he had been left

21:16

with a lasting impression. Now, more

21:18

times up until this point. I

21:20

would love to see Lady Gagga

21:22

play Snow White. Oh, she'd be

21:24

fun. I actually rather see her

21:26

play The Queen. Yeah, you're right.

21:28

So there's a 1910 French version,

21:30

which I'm not going to try

21:32

to pronounce, that's 15-minute long short

21:34

film. There's a 1913 American version,

21:36

which was 40 minutes long, in

21:38

which children played the dwarfs. Importantly,

21:40

this is also the first version

21:42

that introduces the idea of the

21:44

prince saving Snow White with a

21:46

kiss. In the original version, the

21:48

prince accidentally knocks a piece of

21:50

the poison apple out of... her

21:52

mouth as he lifts her from

21:54

the glass coffin, which then resuscitates

21:56

her, much more like German engineering,

21:58

much less romantic. Yeah, right. They're

22:00

like, oh, the logistics, how would

22:02

a kiss even work? Yeah, that

22:04

doesn't make any sense. Going back

22:06

to the mechanics of a pitch,

22:08

right? Yeah. What is the logic

22:10

here? Right. So there were a

22:12

bunch of stage adaptations, including a

22:14

1912 stage play starring Marguerite Clark,

22:16

and that kind of became the

22:18

basis for Paramount's one-hour-long adaptation released

22:20

in 1916, which is the version

22:22

that Walt had seen as a

22:24

kid. Oh, by the way, one

22:26

other thing, very dark ending to

22:28

the original Grimm's fairy tale. So

22:30

the witch does not die falling

22:32

off a cliff as she does

22:34

in this film, right, where she

22:36

kind of is trying to do

22:38

the boulder and she kind of,

22:40

it's, she dies by her own

22:42

hand, so to speak, in this

22:44

version of the film, right? She's

22:46

trying to give you the boulder,

22:48

she's doing something bad, the cliff

22:50

breaks, she's punished for it. In

22:52

the book version, she gives Snow

22:54

White, she tries to poison her

22:56

like three times. She gets the

22:58

poison apple, she leaves, the prince

23:00

wakes her up, and then they're

23:02

going to get married, the prince

23:04

in Snow White, and the witch

23:06

is speaking to the magic mirror,

23:08

and she says, who's the fairest

23:10

one of all? And he says,

23:13

the prince is bride. She says,

23:15

oh no, this can't stand. So

23:17

she goes to the wedding where

23:19

the prince reveals her for who

23:21

she is and then binds her

23:23

feet in iron shoes that are

23:25

like molten hot from a fire

23:27

and forces her to dance at

23:29

the wedding until she dies. Oh

23:31

my God. And then everybody just

23:33

goes on and does the rest

23:35

of the wedding after she's dead

23:37

and that's the end of the

23:39

story. Wow. Wow, I was going

23:41

to say I was very, my

23:43

best friend's wedding of her to

23:45

just show up, but then it

23:47

takes a wild turn. Yeah, it's

23:49

very dark. Dark. Kind of like

23:51

the real version of the little

23:53

mermaid where, you know, it hurts

23:55

every step is like stepping on

23:57

glass for her to use these

23:59

legs, but the prince likes when

24:01

she dances. So she's just like,

24:03

okay. Yeah, whatever it takes. Yeah,

24:05

classic dance horror. Dance horror. There's

24:07

a lot of like a monkey's

24:09

paw or like, yeah, like you

24:11

have to pay for the thing

24:13

that you want, right? There's a

24:15

cost in all of these stories.

24:17

That's, the fairy tales had that

24:19

dark element to them that as

24:21

we'll get to Walt Wisely. removed

24:23

in trying to sell this to

24:25

a more mainstream audience. So Walt's

24:27

got his story and he has

24:29

his team. Now at this point

24:31

he had 40 animators, 45 assistant

24:33

animators, 30 anchors and painters, a

24:35

24-piece orchestra, a 27-person crew that

24:37

included camera operators, electricians, and sound

24:39

technicians. He had 187 people in

24:41

total. Six years earlier, his studio

24:43

had been a team of six.

24:45

Wow. So this is how much

24:47

he's grown in six years. whole

24:49

title card at the top just

24:51

thanking his staff. And I was

24:53

like, wow, you don't get that

24:55

anymore. No, and it's really interesting.

24:57

We'll talk a little bit about

24:59

it at the end, but there's

25:01

this question, I mean, what was

25:03

becoming a studio head more than

25:05

anything else before he had even

25:07

formed his studio, right? You can

25:09

tell that's what he's doing. More

25:11

than being a producer, he's developing

25:13

a new medium, and he has

25:15

people, he's not really doing the

25:17

drawing at this point, you know,

25:19

he's not doing the directing, he's

25:21

in charge of all of all

25:23

of it, really. feeling like he

25:25

got all the credit. And it

25:27

led to some fractures in important

25:29

relationships for him earlier in his

25:31

career. And I think maybe that

25:33

card is a way to address

25:35

some of that feeling that like

25:37

Walt, because it's his name, Disney

25:39

Pictures, even though he's not doing

25:41

the drawing, is taking credit for

25:43

everything. That's interesting. It's just crazy

25:45

because now. It's all these figureheads.

25:47

Like we don't know any of

25:49

the people who work on films.

25:52

We're all with just like this

25:54

one genius did it all by

25:56

himself. Exactly. I was gonna say

25:58

herself, but usually it's a guy.

26:00

Yeah, if anything like he was

26:02

ahead of. the auteur theory that

26:04

would eventually dominate Hollywood. In 1930s

26:06

Hollywood, the director was not particularly

26:08

important, especially not to sell to

26:10

an audience. It was the stars,

26:12

and that's the whole star system.

26:14

But everybody else was a contract

26:16

player for these studios, and Walt

26:18

kind of existed outside of that.

26:20

I don't care what business you're in,

26:22

but a good career is like a good

26:24

script. It takes a lot of talent, a

26:26

lot of hard work. And if you don't

26:28

have a plan, you're going to get stuck

26:30

in Act 2 and you will never make

26:33

it to the epic third act that you

26:35

know you deserve. Without a strategy, you're not

26:37

going to write The Dark Knight. You're

26:39

probably going to write Justice League.

26:41

It's going to start with a lot of

26:43

promise and somehow get a little worse, the

26:46

longer it goes on. And that's

26:48

where strawberry.me career coaching comes in.

26:50

These are the producers who step in and

26:52

give you good notes to make sure

26:54

that your script doesn't go straight to

26:56

DVD to DVD. Okay bad example I

26:59

would love some DVD residuals but the

27:01

point is they will match you with

27:03

a certified career coach who will hold

27:06

you accountable help you get clarity on

27:08

your next moves and develop a results

27:10

driven strategy so you're not throwing CGI

27:12

on your resume to try to fix

27:15

it two weeks out from the release

27:17

date. So go to strawberry.me slash what

27:19

went wrong and claim your $50

27:21

credit. That's strawberry.me slash what

27:24

went wrong. Because if you don't

27:26

take control of your career now, the

27:28

studio's going to pull the plug.

27:30

So the problem is, despite all of

27:32

his successes, Disney never made

27:34

a profit. Or if they did, it

27:36

was very small. Because any time he

27:39

made money, he would pour it back

27:41

into improving the quality of his films.

27:43

So he would always say, my goal isn't

27:45

millions, it's better pictures. According to Disney, it

27:48

took a Mickey Mouse comedy 12 months to

27:50

break even because it was so expensive to

27:52

make these. So the downside to making this

27:54

movie was a lot of short-term risk, right?

27:57

Because it was going to take a lot

27:59

longer to... make and release this, and

28:01

it was going to be a

28:03

lot more expensive. So he's going

28:05

to have to rack up a

28:07

ton of debt before he can

28:09

ever release this movie, and we're

28:11

coming out of the Great Depression

28:13

right now, and we're eventually going

28:15

to be heading into World War

28:17

II. So it's a risky time.

28:19

So he sits his wife, Lilian,

28:21

and his brother, Roy Disney, obviously

28:23

ran the business side of things,

28:26

and he says, okay, I'm going

28:28

to tell you, I'm going to

28:30

be straight with you. this movie

28:32

and they're like oh my god

28:34

because this was basically 10 times

28:36

what it costs making a short

28:38

one and then he's like but

28:40

it could also cost $250,000 to

28:42

make this movie and they're like

28:44

no that's that's insane we cannot

28:46

do this Roy is shook it

28:48

seems but Walt is adamant and

28:50

so they go and they take

28:52

out a loan from Bank of

28:54

America to finance the film and

28:56

it will not be the first

28:58

loan that they take out so

29:00

to be clear this is not

29:02

like Columbia this is not R.K.O.

29:04

This isn't a studio financing it.

29:06

This is Walt and his brother

29:08

taking out a loan from Bank

29:10

of America to finance this film.

29:12

This is an independent film at

29:14

the end of the day. I

29:16

love this. This is Francis Ford

29:18

Coppola, baby. This is, he's doing

29:20

it. So, there's a lot of

29:22

different timelines floating around for when

29:24

they officially started working on adapting

29:26

the story. But, according to one

29:28

source that I'll stick with, Neil

29:30

Gabler, Walt shared his original vision

29:32

of the story with a handful

29:35

of his storymen and artists sometime

29:37

between spring of 1933 and summer

29:39

of 1934. So, you guys have

29:41

worked in a bunch of writer's

29:43

rooms. And it sounds kind of

29:45

like that's what Walt was building

29:47

to tell this story. He brought

29:49

in all of these really accomplished,

29:51

you know, story writers, pitched them

29:53

a version of the story and

29:55

basically said like, okay, you take

29:57

a sequence, you take a sequence,

29:59

you take a sequence, you take

30:01

a sequence, you take, you know,

30:03

and they're almost like breaking a

30:05

season of television. And I was

30:07

curious if you guys could speak

30:09

a little bit about your most

30:11

recent experience, and this is probably

30:13

not... related specifically to Ted, but

30:15

for a writer's room coming up

30:17

with a movie, I'm surprised there

30:19

weren't more dick jokes in this

30:21

movie. Yeah, fair. There definitely could

30:23

have been. I mean, but just

30:25

for example, like, when you guys

30:27

are working with a showrunner, is

30:29

it kind of like top down

30:31

dictated, you know, hey, we know

30:33

this is the arc of the

30:35

season, and then we're gonna kind

30:37

of hand off sections? Like, how

30:39

do you guys work through it?

30:42

It depends on the person in

30:44

charge and kind of how they

30:46

want the process to go. And

30:48

I think it also really depends

30:50

on what season of TV it

30:52

is. In order to pitch the

30:54

show, you have to pitch the

30:56

first season and the second season

30:58

usually. So they might have very

31:00

strong ideas for the first couple

31:02

seasons and then it starts to

31:04

get a little more nebulous when

31:06

you get into season say six

31:08

or seven. Not that that happens

31:10

that often anymore. Yeah, I think

31:12

often it's blue-sky, quote unquote, for

31:14

the first couple weeks, which is

31:16

just throwing out big ideas of

31:18

where the season could go. And

31:20

that's usually the time where it's

31:22

a little more open. But I

31:24

find showrunners usually are pretty decisive,

31:26

and they'll say pretty quickly, like,

31:28

no, we're not going to do

31:30

that, or they might have an

31:32

ending idea of this is where

31:34

we're going to end the characters.

31:36

So let's figure out what happens

31:38

in between. I've also a lesson

31:40

it took me a while to

31:42

learn is that often if the

31:44

person in charge is like I

31:46

have an idea but it's not

31:49

quite right I don't know something

31:51

about blank they're wrong it's not

31:53

not that it's going to be

31:55

that so your job is to

31:57

say whatever you just said that's

31:59

my now with the greatest idea

32:01

I've ever heard and let's work

32:03

on it like too often it

32:05

will take days of people pitching

32:07

other things before realizing, oh know

32:09

they really wanted to do the

32:11

idea that they said not this

32:13

but yeah also I think a

32:15

good thing in a writers room

32:17

is you know when you're the

32:19

writer you're the hired writer you're

32:21

not the one making the decisions

32:23

and I think so often people

32:25

get so hurt when their ideas

32:27

aren't used or but I'm like

32:29

that's not your job your job

32:31

is just to come up with

32:33

as many good ideas as you

32:35

can and then they're either gonna

32:37

use them or not but like

32:39

don't take it personally and to

32:41

work with you. Like that's not

32:43

a fun energy to be around.

32:45

Like you got to roll with

32:47

it when your pitch doesn't work

32:49

too. Well, I think Walt definitely

32:51

fell into the category of like

32:53

he knew what he wanted. broadly

32:56

speaking, and then he was telling

32:58

people like, go fill in the

33:00

gaps, right? Like, I need, what's

33:02

this scene going to be? What's

33:04

this gag going to be? What's

33:06

this, you know, beat going to

33:08

be? And so for the first

33:10

six months, he's got a small

33:12

team of people. This includes Dave

33:14

Hand, websmith, Harry Reeves, Ted Sears.

33:16

These are mostly older animators recruited

33:18

out of New York, who then

33:20

transitioned out of animation into the

33:22

story. they've completed the first official

33:24

outline of the story. According to

33:26

one Disney animator, Ken Anderson, Walt

33:28

then, in the winter of 1934,

33:30

brought in a much larger group,

33:32

so kind of more like the

33:34

full team, they go to a

33:36

sound stage and quote, He proceeded

33:38

to intrigue us from eight o'clock

33:40

until early midnight, acting and telling,

33:42

even anticipating the songs and the

33:44

kind of music, and he so

33:46

thrilled us with the complete recitation

33:48

of all the characters he had

33:50

created that we were just carried

33:52

away. We had no concept that

33:54

we were ever going to do

33:56

anything else or ever want to

33:58

do anything else. We just wanted

34:00

to do what he had just

34:03

told us." End quote. That's what

34:05

Chelsea said. Yeah, I think he

34:07

knew what he wanted and he

34:09

got up and he performed it.

34:11

I mean, it's not exactly going

34:13

to be this. It's going to

34:15

be something like this. Maybe if

34:17

you like it. And everyone's like,

34:19

yeah. It's perfect. We love it.

34:21

Walt. Now, he had once described

34:23

Snow White as having the perfect

34:25

plot, but that did not mean

34:27

perfection could not be improved upon.

34:29

Now, to his credit, Walt was

34:31

very much an iterative person. He

34:33

was always trying to improve things,

34:35

be it his animation techniques or

34:37

the stories that they were telling.

34:39

So, one of the best decisions

34:41

he makes is he decides that

34:43

the anonymous dwarfs, they're anonymous, they

34:45

don't have names, in the original

34:47

story, will be named. Now this

34:49

idea wasn't kind of his original

34:51

idea, it stems from a 1921

34:53

edition of the story, in which

34:55

an English artist drew the dwarfs

34:57

with names embroidered on their pants.

34:59

Basically, household items, plate, bread, wine.

35:01

Yeah. And what was like, I

35:03

think we can do better than

35:05

that. So... He wants to come

35:07

up with names that will quote

35:10

immediately identify the character in the

35:12

minds of the audience. And they

35:14

came up with an initial list

35:16

of 50 names. And I'm just

35:18

curious if you guys have. Any

35:20

guesses you'd like to throw out

35:22

of alternate names that are, they're

35:24

very much like the final names,

35:26

you know, they're often two syllables.

35:28

All right, so it's not like

35:30

reginald or something. No, no, no,

35:32

no, no, no, no. Like there,

35:34

you know, things that describe, immediately

35:36

descriptive names. Okay, okay. I got

35:38

a couple. I got stinky on

35:40

my two. I don't think I

35:42

see stinky. Well, they really all

35:44

should have been stinky. But there

35:46

is dirty. Oh, dirty. They all

35:48

should have been stinky because they

35:50

have like a seven-minute section that's

35:52

just them learning how to wash

35:54

themselves. I know. So we'll give

35:56

you stinky because they have dirty,

35:58

weirdly feels harsher to me. I

36:00

agree. I had weepy. Weepy. Yes,

36:02

we have a weep. Very good.

36:04

That's good. Okay, braggy? No, braggy.

36:06

Do I see... Braggy? Oh, but

36:08

you know, Bigo, Ego? Bigo, wait,

36:10

Bigo, Ego? Or just Bigo, Ego?

36:12

That's the full name. So that's

36:14

Braggy. Like I'm thinking spice girls

36:17

now. Right, right, right. No. No

36:19

baby. We have a Gabby and

36:21

we have a Blabby. But I

36:23

don't see a baby. Oh, okay.

36:25

My last guess was horny, but

36:27

I'm not on there. No. There's

36:29

always a horny dwarf. Was. Flirty,

36:31

the Tamer version? There was, I

36:33

don't think there is a flirty,

36:35

there was one controversial name that

36:37

did make it into the finished

36:39

film that we'll talk about. I'll

36:41

read you the list. Scrappy, happy,

36:43

happy, sleepy, dirty, cranky, sneezy, sneezy,

36:45

hungry, hungry, hungry, hungry, hungry, Yeah,

36:47

nifty, woeful, doleful, wistful, soulful, helpful,

36:49

helpful, bashful, awful, snoopy, gabby, blabby,

36:51

silly, dippy, graceful, nertsy, nertsy. Sappy,

36:53

gloomy, gloomy, flabby, crabby, daffy, tearful,

36:55

gazpy, busy, dizzy, Jumpy. Jesse! I

36:57

know. Wow, they had puffy and

36:59

biggie. Wow. Yeah, they did. So,

37:01

five of the final names were

37:03

on this list. Happy, bashful, sneezy,

37:05

sleepy, and grumpy. Those were on

37:07

the original list. The outline also

37:09

described the Queen as, quote, stately,

37:11

beautiful in the way of a

37:13

benda mask. Have you guys ever

37:15

seen a benda mask before? No.

37:17

All right, let me show you

37:19

a picture here. What is that?

37:21

Do you see that there? Oh,

37:23

it just kind of looks like

37:26

a lady's face. Yeah, they were

37:28

popular during the 1920s. Creepy. And

37:30

you can see like very art

37:32

deco sort of style. I'm sure

37:34

you've seen photographs of them before.

37:36

So it kind of reduces all

37:38

the features down to a very

37:40

smooth kind of beautiful facade. And

37:42

is very, I think, evocative of

37:44

what the final animation looks like.

37:46

Totally. Absolutely. Now, rule of threes

37:48

is a big rule in screen

37:50

writing, as you guys are, I'm

37:52

sure aware, but Disney decided that

37:54

he needed to cut down a

37:56

little bit on this. Now, in

37:58

the original story, the queen tries

38:00

to kill Snow white three times.

38:02

Poison Apple is one of them,

38:04

the final choice. The first, though,

38:06

is that she puts her in

38:08

a bodice that is so tight

38:10

that it suffocates Snow White. Oh,

38:12

wow! But the dwarfs come back

38:14

and cut her out of it

38:16

in time before she dies. Oh.

38:18

The second one is she gives

38:20

her a poison comb. Yes. Yeah,

38:22

that leaks poison into her head.

38:24

You know what? I think fairy

38:26

tale theater did snow white and

38:28

did this version because I like

38:30

knew this in the back of

38:33

my brain. I remember this. Yeah.

38:35

And then the dwarfs came and

38:37

got the comb out just in

38:39

time. And so maybe it's like

38:41

a mercury laced comb. I'm not

38:43

sure. And then the poison apple

38:45

was the one that Walt Disney

38:47

kept. scenes that could show off

38:49

what you could do with animation

38:51

that you couldn't really do in

38:53

live action. So when she's going

38:55

to the forest, you know, she

38:57

ends up traveling through the kind

38:59

of morass of monsters, right? All

39:01

the trees and stuff that look

39:03

like monsters that scare her. They

39:05

also originally wanted to do a

39:07

scene called Upside Downland. This is

39:09

trees with roots in the air.

39:11

And this kind of reminiscent of

39:13

Alice in Wonderland. And then Sleepy

39:15

Valley, which quote had vast poppy

39:17

fields, slumbrous music from the wind

39:19

sewing through the wind sewing through

39:21

the trees. Wizard of Oz, anybody?

39:23

Yeah, seriously. So by November of

39:25

1934, things were solidifying. The characters

39:27

were further developed. They had added

39:29

another dwarf, Doc, the kind of

39:31

leader of the bunch. Songs were

39:33

starting to be written, and the

39:35

story was organized into 18 sequences,

39:37

one paragraph each. So focus turns

39:40

to crystallizing the story. after Snow

39:42

White met the dwarfs, Walt was

39:44

adamant that physical comedy was superior

39:46

to comedic dialogue. So he always

39:48

wanted like physical gags over dialogue

39:50

gags if possible because everybody could

39:52

appreciate a physical gag. Running gags,

39:54

character building gags, action gags. That's

39:56

why you just get like the

39:58

whole sequence for example of dopey

40:00

going up the stairs with the

40:02

candle shaking, you know, we're right

40:04

behind you. And they all just

40:06

like lingered down there, stuff like

40:08

that, you know, that would be

40:10

very fun. So jumpy becomes uneasy,

40:12

and finally. Dopey was added. Now,

40:14

Dopey was the controversial name I

40:16

mentioned. Dop? Any ideas what that

40:18

word also means? Oh, like drugs?

40:20

That's right. Drugs? This is like

40:22

the 90s dare seminar. Don't do

40:24

dope! Exactly. So, dopey was like

40:26

a relatively modern word in the

40:28

1930s, and it could be misconstrued

40:30

that it was a character who

40:32

was addicted to drugs. Like, dopey,

40:34

especially because he doesn't talk, seems

40:36

to be something wrong with him.

40:38

Walt defended the choice, even going

40:40

so far as to claim that

40:42

the word appeared in Shakespeare. Oh,

40:44

did it? I don't think it's

40:47

true, no. I looked up the

40:49

origins of the word dopey, and

40:51

it looks like it was not

40:53

introduced to English until the 19th

40:55

century, and it comes from a

40:57

Dutch word called dupe, meaning thick

40:59

sauce, and then it eventually became

41:01

dopey in English. Well, they didn't

41:03

have Google back then, so you

41:05

could just say something and people

41:07

would believe you. You can say

41:09

anything. Absolutely. So Snow White was

41:11

described as a Janet Gaynor type.

41:13

Yeah, absolutely. Also, she looks a

41:15

lot like Claudette Colbert. Yeah, and

41:17

a little bit of Betty Boop,

41:19

I feel like, is in there

41:21

as well, which we'll get to

41:23

why. Definitely. Sure, that's why she's

41:25

ready to get married. Exactly. She's

41:27

almost past her prime. Yeah, she's

41:29

ready to go to pastor really.

41:31

Well, we're going to get to

41:33

almost being past your prime at

41:35

a very young age when we

41:37

get... to casting Snow White. The

41:39

prince was described as a Douglas

41:41

Fairbanks type and was supposed to

41:43

be 18 years old. So that's

41:45

the, you know, the age gap.

41:47

It's appropriate for a fairy tale.

41:49

I would not pass today's standards.

41:51

I was going to say that's

41:54

actually better than like half the

41:56

romcoms we watch. Yeah, exactly. That

41:58

age gap is actually more appropriate

42:00

than a lot of other things.

42:02

Now, the Queen is described as

42:04

a mixture of Lady Macbeth and

42:06

the Big Bad Wolf. which I

42:08

think is a fantastic combination. Her

42:10

beauty is sinister, mature, plenty of

42:12

curves. She becomes ugly and menacing

42:14

when scheming and mixing her potions.

42:16

magic fluids transformer into an old

42:18

witch like hag, her dialogue and

42:20

action are over melodramatic verging on

42:22

the ridiculous. So originally she doesn't

42:24

become a hag in the books,

42:26

but they changed it to a

42:28

hag for stronger contrast. I think

42:30

she just puts on a disguise

42:32

to look like a peddler or

42:34

a merchant in the books. No,

42:36

no, no, no, no. Like, let's

42:38

make her the witch sort of

42:40

thing. Yeah. I love that because

42:42

the thing she wants is to

42:44

be the most beautiful. And in

42:46

order to become the most beautiful,

42:48

she has to become the most

42:50

hideous in order to kill Snow

42:52

White. There's just some beautiful irony,

42:54

poetry in there, irony, poetic irony.

42:56

But she does do it too

42:58

soon because she changes herself into

43:01

a hag before she even makes

43:03

the apple. I'm like, girl, slow

43:05

down. You can do that at

43:07

the eye. It is funny. I

43:09

think they wanted to show this

43:11

is how evil this apple is

43:13

because this hag is making it

43:15

here. And the hag is like

43:17

such an interesting staple of horror

43:19

all the way through, you know,

43:21

you think about the Shining, the

43:23

woman in room 237. even something

43:25

like barbarian, you know, for example,

43:27

like what could be more horrible

43:29

than this like giant naked woman

43:31

with pendulous breasts chasing me through

43:33

the underground, you know. So they're

43:35

definitely hitting on something that's been

43:37

deeply seated in our, you know,

43:39

kind of cultural law for a

43:41

long time. We hate older women.

43:43

Yeah, that's the most terrifying thing

43:45

in Hollywood. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And

43:47

so they cut a bunch of

43:49

stuff from the beginning of the

43:51

story. I mean, the story actually...

43:53

with Snow White's birth, the death

43:55

of her mother, and so they

43:57

remove a lot of that and

43:59

they just put it in the

44:01

preamble with the book that they

44:03

do at the beginning. Which I

44:05

also have to note, an orphan

44:08

is a key element to almost

44:10

every romcom we've realized. Most leads

44:12

are orphans, so Snow White fits

44:14

the bill. Yes. Exactly. Like you

44:16

just kind of want this character

44:18

with no history that you can,

44:20

you know, kind of throw in

44:22

there. Now, at the same time,

44:24

roughly, the studio released a silly

44:26

symphony that featured its first human

44:28

character. And this is like a

44:30

really important moment for Disney because

44:32

they're testing a human character before

44:34

they're going to go do it

44:36

in a feature film. It was

44:38

Persephone, Greek goddess, and it's called

44:40

Goddess of Spring. And let me

44:42

just play you a clip and

44:44

show you where we were at

44:46

in terms of quality of representation

44:48

of human movement. Oh, I'm excited

44:50

about this. So

44:53

she basically moves like an inflatable tube

44:55

man at a carte of machine. Yeah,

44:58

like talk about dopey She looks insane.

45:00

It's a little olive oil from Popeye.

45:02

Oh, yeah Very much so or like

45:04

my sister said D from it's always

45:07

sunny the way she dances She's limbless

45:09

is essentially what it is right. So

45:11

she doesn't really she doesn't move according

45:14

to human anatomy. Yeah, right. She's like

45:16

her elbows just flow and the wind

45:18

it looks like she's underwater She doesn't

45:20

have bones. Yeah, no bones. No bones

45:23

exactly And this was really hard for

45:25

animator sale because even though you could

45:27

do exaggerated motions for animals for the

45:30

silly symphonies, the humans needed to be

45:32

grounded enough that we would recognize that

45:34

they're people. So, Walt had formed an

45:36

animation school out of Disney in 1932

45:39

that was eventually headed up by this

45:41

guy Don Graham, who was actually an

45:43

art teacher. He didn't come from cartoon

45:46

animation. He came from the art world,

45:48

and he was a real stickler on...

45:50

Even if you're going to do a

45:52

cartoon, you have to base it in

45:55

the reality of the thing that you're

45:57

animating. Be it a person, you know,

45:59

or an animal, or whatever it is.

46:02

And his school was intense. He would

46:04

run classes. from 8am to 9 p.m.

46:06

13 hours a day. Wow. Just drawing

46:08

these characters. And he was a real

46:11

hard ass. Oh my God. And it

46:13

wasn't just the young animators that were

46:15

getting sent to the school. Walt would

46:18

send all of his animators like back

46:20

to school to constantly get retrained in

46:22

new techniques. Yeah, it's like an apprenticeship,

46:24

right? You're having to learn this thing.

46:27

And they were getting graduates because it

46:29

was the depression who came from like

46:31

pretty prestigious backgrounds, painting, illustration, who got

46:34

brought in. And there was one artist

46:36

who had a real strength for animating

46:38

women and he was of course the

46:40

creator of Betty Boop. And so I

46:43

don't know if you guys are that

46:45

familiar with Betty Boop the character. She's

46:47

got like very wide set eyes very

46:50

round like heart cherubic sort of face

46:52

So Grim Natwick who had animated Betty

46:54

Boop was at first the person who

46:56

was assigned animating and drawing Snow White

46:59

so the first renditions of Snow White

47:01

look a lot like Betty Boop like

47:03

a really funny to me very very

47:06

strikingly I mean even the final version

47:08

Still looks a lot like Betty Boop.

47:10

That's true. It was just even more

47:12

so. I would just love at the

47:15

end of Snow White. She's just like

47:17

boop-boop, you know. I know. All

47:22

right, I'm going to go off

47:25

script on this next one because

47:27

it's actually really personal. So as

47:29

you guys know, we lost our

47:32

home in the wildfires and one

47:34

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47:36

Eaton Canyon Fire here in the

47:39

east side of Los Angeles was

47:41

drinking water. And it's been a

47:43

lingering concern even as we've moved

47:46

back to the area. And that's

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code W-E-N-T-R-O-N-G at checkout. Speaking of

48:34

ROMcoms, she was blonde at one point.

48:37

Oh, Snow White was? Snow White was

48:39

blonde at one point. They did a

48:41

version of her blonde. They also did

48:43

a version of her redhead. Wow. Wow.

48:46

which I don't think you'd get a

48:48

redhead Disney princess until Ariel after this.

48:50

Yeah, there's not a lot of them.

48:52

No. Not a lot of representation in

48:55

Disney and also not on The Bachelor.

48:57

That's true. Which is hard for Chelsea

48:59

because she is a redhead. I am.

49:01

Yes, she is. Now the Queen at

49:04

one point was drawn in a more

49:06

cartoony style and they kind of made

49:08

her comically plump. I'm thinking something maybe

49:10

closer to like think Ursula right later

49:13

in Disney but they changed her to

49:15

be more conventionally beautiful and they made

49:17

her much more angular and so you

49:20

get that kind of like Angelina Jolie

49:22

Maleficent you know sort of look that

49:24

she's very stately in compared to the

49:26

usefulnessfulness of Snow White. And she's got

49:29

a great manicure which I just noticed

49:31

all watching. And I also think too

49:33

it's like it makes a real great

49:35

contrast with the hag as a result,

49:38

right? So you see how far she

49:40

has to fall. Now, by early 1935,

49:42

the studio began composing music, they were

49:44

casting voice actors, and they were writing

49:47

the official script. So casting director Roy

49:49

Scott helped Walt find his actors, singer

49:51

Harry Stockwell was cast as the prince.

49:53

Harry Stockwell was actually the father of

49:56

Dean Stockwell, if you're familiar with him.

49:58

and then the actress Lucille Laverne was

50:00

cast as the queen slash the hag,

50:03

but of course the most difficult role

50:05

to fill was Snow White. The problem

50:07

was that Walt needed somebody who could

50:09

speak like a 14 year old, but

50:12

sing opera, which is a very difficult

50:14

combination to find. So they would apparently

50:16

run a wire. from the sound stage

50:18

where the auditions were happening to Walt's

50:21

office so he could listen to the

50:23

auditions without being influenced by the actress's

50:25

appearances. Smart. Wow. Because he was concerned

50:27

that if he saw how old they

50:30

looked, he might just think, oh no,

50:32

they're not appropriate. when they might have

50:34

had the right voice for it. Which

50:36

is actually very, very smart. Yes. Kind

50:39

of the opposite of the typical cast

50:41

and couch nonsense that you hear, you

50:43

know, in Hollywood. So apparently he turned

50:46

down a then 14-year-old, Deanna Durbin. I

50:48

don't know if you guys are familiar

50:50

with Deanna Durbin. She would actually become

50:52

the world's highest paid female star by

50:55

the age of 21 surpassing Shirley Temple.

50:57

What? How do I not know who

50:59

this person is? I've never heard of

51:01

her. She had a pretty short career

51:04

in the 1930s. You can look up

51:06

some of her films. I think she

51:08

was kind of out of acting by

51:10

like 1948, but he said she was

51:13

too mature. He said she sounded like

51:15

she was between 20 and 30. I

51:17

think she was 13 when she auditioned.

51:19

She was probably smoking, you know? Yeah,

51:22

she was, hey, well, it's me, snow

51:24

white. Yeah. Now actress Virginia Davis who

51:26

had played Alice in the early Alice

51:29

comedies for Disney. claims she did an

51:31

early vocal test for the part, but

51:33

she turned on the role due to

51:35

a contract dispute. And it should also

51:38

be noted that Virginia had been replaced

51:40

in those Alice comedies by a cheaper

51:42

actress, something that she and her family

51:44

were very upset about because Walt had

51:47

convinced them to move to California specifically

51:49

to be in his movies. So he

51:51

does have a bit of a history

51:53

of using actors, you know, as meat

51:56

puppets, as we'll learn. Now we don't

51:58

know when, but it seems like it

52:00

was early in the process, when Roy

52:02

Scott reached out to a vocal coach

52:05

named Guido Cassellati, the most Italian name.

52:07

and says, do you know anybody who

52:09

could play Snow White? And as it

52:12

so happens, Castellati's teenage daughter, Adriana, was

52:14

eavesdropping on the call. And she picks

52:16

up the phone and she goes, oh,

52:18

me. And she starts singing on the

52:21

phone call. And Castellati's like, get off

52:23

the phone. And Roy says, hey,

52:25

who knows? Send her down,

52:28

let's, you know,

52:30

take a listen.

52:32

Cassellati singing. This

52:35

is actually

52:38

later to show

52:41

that she still

52:44

had it and

52:46

she'll tell a

52:48

little bit of

52:51

that story as

52:53

well. So ashamed

52:55

of the fuss

52:57

I've made. What do

53:00

you know when things go wrong?

53:02

Oh, you sing a song! Bye,

53:04

Grumpy. Summer! Hello, my real name

53:07

is Adrianna Castleotti,

53:09

and I was the

53:11

voice of Snow White

53:13

and Walt Disney's film,

53:15

Snow White and the

53:17

Seven Tours. And let's

53:19

see what that I tell you.

53:21

The way I was the fortunate

53:23

one to... get the job, Snow

53:25

White. My father was a singing

53:27

teacher in Los Angeles and one

53:29

day one of the Walt Disney

53:31

representatives called his studio and asked

53:33

if he knew a little girl

53:35

who could sing and speak like

53:38

a child would and yet she

53:40

should have had some operatic training.

53:42

Because they needed someone who would be

53:45

able to sing many high notes and

53:47

whatever it was they were going to

53:49

do. And I didn't know what they

53:51

were talking about, of course. You see,

53:53

I had lifted the other phone, the

53:55

extension upstairs, and when I heard this,

53:57

I said, Papa, how about me? And I

53:59

went, So

54:06

she goes on for a while. She's

54:09

very funny. She's very funny. She's very

54:11

funny. I said, I know you are.

54:13

Please let me try out. Maybe I

54:15

could be in that. And so a

54:18

man on the other side of the

54:20

phone said, send her down. You never

54:22

can tell. Maybe she could be somewhere

54:24

fit into this, even if we don't

54:27

have her do the leading part. Wow.

54:29

So she goes on for a while.

54:31

She's very funny. What's interesting is that

54:33

she was very terrified that she was

54:36

too old for the part. So Adriana

54:38

was 18 when she auditioned for this

54:40

and she knew Deanna Durbin, you know,

54:42

didn't get it eventually because she sounded

54:45

too old. So she lied to everyone.

54:47

She told them she was 17. Now

54:49

according to Adriana, she was actually one

54:51

of the first people to audition. She

54:54

says she was the first person in

54:56

that interview. Walt liked her, but wasn't

54:58

convinced. So they ended up auditioning 147

55:00

actresses for the role. And they couldn't

55:03

best her. So in the end, Walt

55:05

came back to her and said, all

55:07

right, you're my snow white. And she

55:09

was cast, just a no name, her

55:12

first credit for this film. 147. I

55:14

feel bad because watching it again. The

55:16

Queen's voice acting is so great, it

55:19

has so much gravitas. And then you

55:21

hear Snow White and it sounds like

55:23

an Alvin in the Chipmunks recording where

55:25

someone just sped it up. You're like,

55:28

this is not a human? What is

55:30

happening? And the fact that that was

55:32

an intentional choice. Oh, it's crazy. Yeah.

55:34

Very different. Different time, you know, obviously

55:37

what they're going for. I think personally,

55:39

she has an incredible voice that's very

55:41

out of step with our times, for

55:43

sure, but like her vocal control is

55:46

pretty amazing, you know, for that age.

55:48

And it's closer, I would describe it,

55:50

it's much closer to like anime, for

55:52

example, than it is to... traditional American

55:55

animation now. But regardless, the pressure is

55:57

starting to get to wall. And so

55:59

in the summer of 1935, he basically

56:01

comes to the edge of another nervous

56:04

breakdown. You guys miss this, but he's

56:06

already had one nervous breakdown up until

56:08

this point. So in the summer of

56:10

1935, he and Roy take an 11-week

56:13

vacation. In the middle of developing this

56:15

movie, right? They're like, all right, tensils

56:17

down, we're going to Europe with our

56:19

wives for 11 weeks. I know. So

56:22

he goes to Europe, he sees the

56:24

popularity of his cartoons abroad, he comes

56:26

back, like, doubly motivated. He came back

56:28

with all of these children's books, which

56:31

I would have to imagine influenced the

56:33

painting style of the backgrounds in Snow

56:35

White. And of course, the castle itself

56:37

is based on Alcasar of Segovia, a

56:40

medieval castle in Segovia Spain. So I

56:42

think we can see the influence of

56:44

Europe very much on the final product.

56:46

by way of this trip that Disney

56:49

took in the middle of production. It's

56:51

like these watercolors that I was still

56:53

blown away. Amazing. Beautiful. Because I think

56:56

of Bambi and some of these other

56:58

ones that came later as having these,

57:00

you know, such lush colorful backgrounds. But

57:02

even in this one, straight out of

57:05

the gate, it is just... breathtaking. It's

57:07

pretty amazing. So he comes back and

57:09

he's like, I'm good. Let's make this

57:11

movie. His doctor calls to remind him

57:14

about his thyroid injections. Walt tells the

57:16

secretary to tell the doctor, quote, I'm

57:18

cured. He can shoot those things up

57:20

his butt from now on. End quote.

57:23

And it's at this point, I believe

57:25

that the budget has already ballooned from

57:27

$250,000 to $400,000. Well, probably because they

57:29

also had that three month vacation to

57:32

Europe rolled into it. Exactly. So at

57:34

the same time, Walt starts assembling his

57:36

team of directors. Each director is going

57:38

to be responsible for a different set

57:41

of sequences in the finished film. So

57:43

all of these directors were hired from

57:45

Disney Shorts. These, you know, they'd done

57:47

silly symphonies. So Dave Hand was brought

57:50

in as the supervising director and then

57:52

under him were Perce Pierce, William Cottrell,

57:54

Wilford Jackson, and Ben Sharpsstein. And this

57:56

is actually still a common practice in

57:59

animation. There will often be two directors

58:01

on animated films because it's just so

58:03

much to wrangle that you just need

58:05

more than one person to help manage

58:08

this process, which was being developed by

58:10

Disney as they were making this movie.

58:12

No one had done it before. They

58:14

would start with storyboards, they would then

58:17

get approved for production. The storyboards then

58:19

would go to the music and sound

58:21

department. They would add the action sound

58:23

effects, dialogue, and background score first, which

58:26

would determine the timing of the scene,

58:28

right, and the length of the film

58:30

that they needed. Then that would go

58:33

out to the layout department who would

58:35

do like rough blocking with the backgrounds,

58:37

and then that would go to the

58:39

animators for pilot animation. Wow. So it's

58:42

a very complicated process and it's called

58:44

cell animation, which I'm sure you guys

58:46

have heard before, which is short for

58:48

celluloid animation. What this means is the

58:51

background is static, it's usually painted, and

58:53

that's where you get those beautiful paintings,

58:55

and then a transparency made of celluloid

58:57

is laid on top of it, and

59:00

the illustrator draws the character in the

59:02

first position, and then that ink drawing

59:04

is painted in, and that's one frame,

59:06

right? take another transparency in and they

59:09

draw the next one and that's two

59:11

frames right all the way up to

59:13

18 or 24 frames per second so

59:15

you can imagine you're doing 8,000 feet

59:18

of film it's a lot of drawing

59:20

that you're doing it's crazy for this

59:22

movie but you know you really feel

59:24

it when you watch these old hand-drawn

59:27

movies like it just has I don't

59:29

know, there's something about it when I

59:31

watch them. You feel the artistry in

59:33

it and not saying like frozen doesn't

59:36

have artistry, but you don't get that

59:38

same feeling, you know? No, there is

59:40

like kind of an organic quality and

59:42

a lot of that has to do

59:45

with the fact that it's still shot

59:47

on film. And so you guys can

59:49

see this online if you're interested if

59:51

you go on YouTube, you can look

59:54

at kind of the technical making of

59:56

snow white. They're using filters. technical processes

59:58

that Walt Disney had actually exclusively owned

1:00:00

the right to for the first two

1:00:03

years of their existence to make these

1:00:05

colors come to life. So this is

1:00:07

not in any way, obviously, digital. It's

1:00:10

entirely done in camera and organically. And

1:00:12

so you can kind of see all

1:00:14

the imperfections, but that makes it feel

1:00:16

like you're looking at something on a

1:00:19

table in front of you. Yeah, it's

1:00:21

beautiful. And in fact, if you go

1:00:23

back and watch some of the early

1:00:25

instances of animation, it's like a hand

1:00:28

drawing on a chalkboard. And then you

1:00:30

watch as it slowly becomes stop motion,

1:00:32

right? The hand disappears and then the

1:00:34

chalk characters start moving around, you know,

1:00:37

that kind of whiteboard style of animation

1:00:39

that you see on like LinkedIn now.

1:00:41

That was like the OG form of

1:00:43

animation 125 years ago. So, they're trying

1:00:46

to make these human movements, and they

1:00:48

bring in some really, really great performers

1:00:50

to model for their human movements. So,

1:00:52

Adriana Castellati is voicing Snow White, and

1:00:55

she would do some movement work with

1:00:57

her singing, so they could do some

1:00:59

movement work with her singing, so they

1:01:01

could see like how she moved her

1:01:04

hands and her face as she sang,

1:01:06

but when they were doing the bigger

1:01:08

scenes, they brought in one of the

1:01:10

animators Fiances, Betty Kimble, and she came

1:01:13

in and did kind of the bigger

1:01:15

movements, kind of the bigger movements, recordings

1:01:17

for 48 days and she was paid

1:01:19

$970 for her time. So she was

1:01:22

paid $20 a day for her contribution

1:01:24

to this movie. And I'm guessing no

1:01:26

back end points? We'll get to that.

1:01:28

Oh, okay. So... They also used Ellie

1:01:31

Dancer named Marjorie Belcher for reference as

1:01:33

Snow White. Rough last name. Yeah, I

1:01:35

know. Actor Lewis Hightower modeled for the

1:01:37

Prince, and actor Don Brody modeled for

1:01:40

the HAG version of the Queen. So

1:01:42

it was actually a male model for

1:01:44

the HAG. And then there's no consensus

1:01:47

on who modeled for the Queen, but

1:01:49

some speculate it was Joan Crawford's stand-in,

1:01:51

Sylvia Lamar. Oh. Which I would completely.

1:01:53

I would completely. Yeah. Now, have you

1:01:56

guys ever heard of a technique called

1:01:58

rotos? Yes, and I wondered if that

1:02:00

was involved here because especially in the

1:02:02

dance sequences, it looks like that. Right,

1:02:05

so rotoscoping, for those not familiar, refers

1:02:07

to a rotoscope tool which projected each

1:02:09

frame of film. onto a drawing table

1:02:11

where the animators could trace it. So

1:02:14

let's say you filmed an actor dancing,

1:02:16

you could then project each frame of

1:02:18

that dance onto a drawing table, and

1:02:20

they could use tracing paper, and they

1:02:23

could trace the outlines of the actor

1:02:25

to get perfect movement from that actor's

1:02:27

performance. Retroscoping nowadays refers more to cutting

1:02:29

something out of film digitally using, you

1:02:32

know, digital masks for V effects. Now.

1:02:34

Not everybody liked rotoscoping. Don Graham and

1:02:36

Grim Natwick, who had animated Betty Boop,

1:02:38

protested, saying this is a creative hindrance.

1:02:41

Like our job is to create these

1:02:43

characters. We don't want this technology doing

1:02:45

it for us. This is like the

1:02:47

AI debate. Exactly. Except we all saw

1:02:50

that animation of that floopy-looking lady. So

1:02:52

I'm like, rotoscope all you need. Well,

1:02:54

so some at the company thought it

1:02:56

would yield more realistic animation, which it

1:02:59

did. But actually, that's why it didn't

1:03:01

work in a lot of instances. It

1:03:03

wasn't exaggerated enough. In the scenes where

1:03:05

she's dancing and the dwarfs are dancing

1:03:08

with her, it is extremely jarring visually

1:03:10

because the physics of their bodies are

1:03:12

different. Right. So the kind of style

1:03:14

that had been established by Disney through

1:03:17

the Silly Symphonyies, for example, was very

1:03:19

different than the way that a human

1:03:21

actually moves. And so like the way

1:03:24

that a human moves is much less

1:03:26

theatrical, like you said, much less physics

1:03:28

defined. As one animator said, it's a

1:03:30

funny thing in animation, you have to

1:03:33

go further than normal to make it

1:03:35

seem normal. Yes. Oh. So the rototoping

1:03:37

I read was largely abandoned in the

1:03:39

end. However, I did read that they

1:03:42

had to use some of it, and

1:03:44

it may have been in like that

1:03:46

dance sequence, Chelsea, for example, I could.

1:03:48

figure out exactly when. They basically ran

1:03:51

out of time. And so they needed

1:03:53

to use rotoscoping just to finish on

1:03:55

time at a certain point in the

1:03:57

process. Walt himself was actually also against

1:04:00

rotoscoping, and this gets back to the

1:04:02

AI thing, he was nervous that the

1:04:04

public was going to find out that

1:04:06

they were using rotoscoping and that they

1:04:09

would be pissed and get the wrong

1:04:11

idea about the movie, that they wouldn't

1:04:13

think it was truly hand drawn. Interesting.

1:04:15

Interesting. That's wild. Now, the actors were

1:04:18

also entirely in the dark throughout this

1:04:20

entire process. So as Castellati later said,

1:04:22

she did not ever see any rushes,

1:04:24

meaning dailies. So she never saw any

1:04:27

of the animation until the premiere. Wow.

1:04:29

She started working on the film in

1:04:31

1934 when she was 18, and she

1:04:33

worked on it until 1937 when she

1:04:36

was 21. The studio would call her

1:04:38

in, she was paid $20 a day,

1:04:40

and then in the middle of the

1:04:42

production they ran out of money. That

1:04:45

may have been when Walt and his

1:04:47

brother took his vacation, for all I

1:04:49

know. They didn't know if they'd ever

1:04:51

be able to continue, and I wasn't

1:04:54

called for a year. Walt had to

1:04:56

go to the Bank of America to

1:04:58

borrow another $250,000 to finish the film.

1:05:00

So, more money is being racked up,

1:05:03

and in January of 1936, Walt basically

1:05:05

was like... He had been screwed a

1:05:07

couple of times on characters that he

1:05:10

developed, and so he didn't want to

1:05:12

give up any rights. He didn't have

1:05:14

to. United Artists was saying, we want

1:05:16

the rights to put your shorts on

1:05:19

TV, which was this brand new thing.

1:05:21

And while it's like, well, I don't

1:05:23

really know what TV is yet, I'm

1:05:25

not going to give you those rights.

1:05:28

Very smart. Smart. So he goes over

1:05:30

to RKO. Signs with RKO. And if

1:05:32

you guys don't know, RKO don't longer

1:05:34

exists, but it was one of the

1:05:37

five major studios during Hollywood's Golden Era.

1:05:39

Its library is controlled, I believe, by

1:05:41

Warner Brothers Discovery. So I'm sure David

1:05:43

Zazlov's just whiten those on fire for

1:05:46

tax write-offs. But meanwhile, Walt takes out

1:05:48

another loan. So the numbers vary on

1:05:50

what he's putting into this movie. I'm

1:05:52

going to go with Neil Gabler's account,

1:05:55

the triumph of the American imagination. I

1:05:57

believe this is when he took out

1:05:59

an addition. $630,000. Oh my God. The

1:06:01

budget has like tripled at

1:06:03

this point. I believe we had

1:06:06

did the math. This would be

1:06:08

somewhere around the line of 12

1:06:10

to 14 million dollars today. Holy

1:06:13

shit. Sorry, that's crazy. As a

1:06:15

loan, you know, a business loan for

1:06:17

his company. Wow. It sounds

1:06:19

crazy, but then you see

1:06:21

the budget for something like red

1:06:24

one and you're like, you know

1:06:26

what? Make your art. You know,

1:06:28

if your film production company is

1:06:30

ultimately the appendix of, you know,

1:06:33

Jeff Basos is commerce. True, true.

1:06:35

Jug or not. That's very different

1:06:37

than we are. This is our

1:06:39

only product. Self funding, you know.

1:06:42

Yeah. Yeah. That's insane. So everybody

1:06:44

thought he was insane. Around town,

1:06:46

the film was developing a bad

1:06:49

reputation. It was called, quote, Disney's

1:06:51

Folly. He was lambasted by many,

1:06:53

including people putting out full articles

1:06:56

saying that audiences would never sit

1:06:58

through an animated feature film. There

1:07:00

were reports saying the harsh

1:07:02

colors would hurt the eyes. Constant

1:07:05

gags would get tired. They thought

1:07:07

audiences would walk out. At the

1:07:09

studio, Disney team was putting in

1:07:11

15-hour days to try to finish

1:07:13

this thing on time. An anxiety

1:07:16

is really high. One. Disney had

1:07:18

a history of financial insolvency. Disney had

1:07:20

basically gone bankrupt. He hadn't declared bankruptcy,

1:07:22

but he'd basically gone bankrupt twice before

1:07:24

this. It was all those European vacations.

1:07:26

Yeah, everyone's like, oh my God, is

1:07:28

this thing going to go under? And

1:07:30

Walt changed his mind. I'm not sure if

1:07:33

you guys have worked with like a

1:07:35

showrunner or a director like this, but

1:07:37

apparently according to one animator, Walt would

1:07:39

change his mind very often and usually

1:07:41

stick with an idea for one whole

1:07:43

day. And then he'd come up with

1:07:45

a new idea that was twice as

1:07:47

good as the one he'd had before

1:07:49

and he'd get you all sold on

1:07:51

that. End quote. So there was a

1:07:53

lot of tumult as they were developing

1:07:55

this. And these things took forever to

1:07:57

forever to animate. Animators would be on

1:07:59

specific sequences. for well over a year.

1:08:01

Oh my gosh. Nightmare. So you mentioned

1:08:03

like the bathing scene. That would be

1:08:06

assigned to an animator and he would

1:08:08

be drawing that for at least 12

1:08:10

to 18 months. Wow. And so if

1:08:12

there were changes introduced or cuts or

1:08:15

trims, I mean, you're stripping down something

1:08:17

that somebody has put their life into

1:08:19

for an extended period of time. Plus,

1:08:21

there were new technologies being developed that

1:08:24

Walt needed to have if this movie

1:08:26

was going to be groundbreaking like... the

1:08:28

multi-plane camera. So did you guys notice

1:08:31

in watching this film? There is an

1:08:33

effect that's called parallax in film, and

1:08:35

that is when the foreground, midground, and

1:08:37

background shift relative to one another. Yes,

1:08:40

you can basically zoom in. Right. It

1:08:42

simulates like a dolly effect as you're

1:08:44

pushing in towards the castle. Yeah. How

1:08:46

do you do that in animation? Because

1:08:49

those are background plates. Yeah. Right. They

1:08:51

would have to animate every frame. So

1:08:53

what they would do is they would

1:08:55

insert these backgrounds on pieces of glass

1:08:58

vertically stacking them above each other and

1:09:00

then move the camera and those panes

1:09:02

of glass relative to one another in

1:09:05

this standing rig and they could. Create

1:09:07

this parallax effect the problem was it

1:09:09

all had to move in conjunction with

1:09:11

one another and the camera cost $75,000

1:09:14

to make and develop which in today's

1:09:16

money is 1.7 million dollars For a

1:09:18

camera is crazy I did notice though,

1:09:20

it's very cinematic, like watching it, like

1:09:23

this feels like a film, which must

1:09:25

have been so revolutionary then. It's worth

1:09:27

it. I mean, it's a pretty amazing

1:09:30

technological innovation. It kind of takes a

1:09:32

pop-up book and then puts it into

1:09:34

the story. So cool. They run out

1:09:36

of money which you could have seen

1:09:39

coming, you know, a mile away. This

1:09:41

is after they got that other loan

1:09:43

for like Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,

1:09:45

yeah. So Roy pulls Walt aside and

1:09:48

he's like, well, you know, we're out

1:09:50

of money. We need it. We need

1:09:52

another $250,000 to finish the film. And

1:09:54

Walt's like, oh my God, you know,

1:09:57

he's got to go back to the

1:09:59

bank and basically say, like, we still

1:10:01

can't release this thing. So he assembles

1:10:04

as many bits and pieces of the

1:10:06

completed film as possible, which I don't

1:10:08

know how long, but it's not that

1:10:10

much, it's probably a lot of pencil.

1:10:13

and sits down with a projector. And

1:10:15

he plays it at the bank for

1:10:17

Joe Rosenberg of Bank of America, which

1:10:19

is just amazing. You're basically like, watch

1:10:22

my movie and give me another $250,000.

1:10:24

I believe it because otherwise I'm like,

1:10:26

how is the bank continuing to say

1:10:28

yes at a certain point? Yeah, like,

1:10:31

we gotta cut you off, man. You're

1:10:33

an addict. This is what happens when

1:10:35

you're a white man. You could just

1:10:38

keep asking for more money. Chelsea, that's

1:10:40

how it works. Well, so here's quote

1:10:42

on what's quote on what happened. After

1:10:44

the lights came on, he didn't show

1:10:47

the slightest reaction to what he'd just

1:10:49

seen. He walked out of the projection

1:10:51

room, remarked that it was a nice

1:10:53

day, and yawned. Then he turned to

1:10:56

me and said, Walt, that picture will

1:10:58

make a pot full of money. End

1:11:00

quote. And they got the loan. Wow,

1:11:02

right. But of course, Chelsea, $250,000 was

1:11:05

not enough to finish the film. The

1:11:07

staff had to reduce and delay their

1:11:09

play. And Neil Gabler's book suggests that

1:11:12

they actually took out. In the end.

1:11:14

another 650,000 dollars in financing in March

1:11:16

of 1937. This is like stressing me

1:11:18

out, even though I know like it

1:11:21

works out, this is so stressful. Yeah,

1:11:23

we'll get to the final budget of

1:11:25

the film. It's high, even by today's

1:11:27

numbers, you know, let me rephrase, it

1:11:30

would be high as an independent film

1:11:32

by today's numbers. It's not compared obviously

1:11:34

like a Pixar film. Now Walt did

1:11:37

end up cutting scenes both for creative

1:11:39

reasons, both for creative reasons, and I'm

1:11:41

sure because they were running long time.

1:11:43

He would watch the movie two to

1:11:46

three times a day looking for trims

1:11:48

and timing. One of the most tragic

1:11:50

losses was a scene called the soup

1:11:52

eating symphony. You can see it on

1:11:55

the Bluery release of the film or

1:11:57

online. It's like a musical scene, the

1:11:59

dwarfs reading soup. It's very reminiscent of

1:12:01

the bathing scene. Walt felt that he

1:12:04

needed to get back to the B

1:12:06

story, the Queen's story, and the animator

1:12:08

who'd been working on it for 18

1:12:11

months. was devastated. Ward Kimball. I mean,

1:12:13

it's an amazing sequence. You can see

1:12:15

the pencil version online. All the dwarfs

1:12:17

are like rushing in. They're all eating

1:12:20

soup and synchronization. They're singing a song

1:12:22

about soup. Like, it's such good work.

1:12:24

And they cut it. Wow. Poor more.

1:12:26

That actually makes a lot of sense

1:12:29

to me. As I was watching it,

1:12:31

the whole extended bit of them washing.

1:12:33

I wrote down a note that I

1:12:35

was like, this feels so unnecessary. I

1:12:38

wish we had a scene of them

1:12:40

all at the table with snow white.

1:12:42

eating her cooking, eating soup. Yeah, I

1:12:45

was like, eating the soup. Maybe she's

1:12:47

teaching them table manners. Maybe we get

1:12:49

to see all the different ways. Yeah,

1:12:51

that's the scene that got cut. But

1:12:54

I don't think you get the grumpy

1:12:56

arc if you cut the bathing, which

1:12:58

I think they wanted. I think they

1:13:00

wanted the grumpy arc. Because they also

1:13:03

cut a meeting scene where the dwarves

1:13:05

are meeting and they decide to build

1:13:07

a bed. for Snow White, and then

1:13:09

a scene where they build her a

1:13:12

bed, too. So they caught a number

1:13:14

of sequences there. Those I agree with.

1:13:16

We don't need to see them building

1:13:19

a bed. They were barely going to

1:13:21

make it, even with those cuts. So

1:13:23

as late as September of 1937, animators

1:13:25

were still drawing, and in November, backgrounds

1:13:28

were still getting approved. The movie was

1:13:30

scheduled to premiere in December. So they're

1:13:32

finishing less than a month ahead of

1:13:34

this release. So RKO had pushed Walt

1:13:37

for a Christmas release, very smart. They

1:13:39

tried to force his hand on marketing,

1:13:41

you guys said, the romance earlier, well

1:13:44

that's what RKO thought people wanted to

1:13:46

see. They were like, this should not

1:13:48

be sold as a fairy tale, you

1:13:50

should just call it Snow White, and

1:13:53

you should not make mention of these

1:13:55

dwarfs, because people aren't going to know

1:13:57

what the heck this movie is. for

1:13:59

the film was released 10 days before

1:14:02

Snow White's premiere. It called the movie,

1:14:04

quote, the most daring adventure in screen

1:14:06

entertainment since the birth of the motion

1:14:08

picture, one of the greatest pictures ever

1:14:11

made, and claimed that the film was

1:14:13

widely praised by public and critics alike

1:14:15

at its premiere in Hollywood. Some of

1:14:18

those things are true. The guy from

1:14:20

Wells Fargo loved it. Yeah, exactly. Bank

1:14:22

of America. Please. Oh, sorry. That's true.

1:14:24

Now, there were some last minute jitters.

1:14:27

There was a literal on-screen jitter when

1:14:29

the prince shimmied it was an error

1:14:31

in the animation when he kind of

1:14:33

like bent down to Kish Snow White

1:14:36

and like his torso wiggled back and

1:14:38

forth for a minute. This flaw bothered

1:14:40

Walt so much that he actually pulled

1:14:42

the print after release and replaced it.

1:14:45

and replaced all the prints across the

1:14:47

country, just to fix this one error.

1:14:49

There was a staff screening where one

1:14:52

of the staff left on an anonymous

1:14:54

feedback card, stick to shorts, two walls,

1:14:56

but regardless, Snow White was ready for

1:14:58

its debut. So on December 21st, 1937,

1:15:01

at the Cathay Circle Theater in Los

1:15:03

Angeles, there were costumed dwarfs, a set

1:15:05

of their cottage, Mickey and Minnie and

1:15:07

Donald Duck, were all in attendance, and

1:15:10

of course... No one was more nervous

1:15:12

than Walt Disney himself. Let's listen to

1:15:14

an interview he gave from the red

1:15:16

carpet where he actually forgets the names

1:15:19

of some of the dwarfs because he

1:15:21

is so nervous. Some of the characters

1:15:23

in the picture, particularly Snow White and

1:15:26

possibly the Seven Dwarfs, what about them?

1:15:28

Well, our favorites are the little dwarfs.

1:15:30

There's seven of them. We've got names

1:15:32

for them all that sort of fit

1:15:35

their personality, such as Doc, who's the

1:15:37

pompous leader, and then there's a... Old

1:15:39

Happy, the smiling little fellow. Yeah. And

1:15:41

grumpy, the old sour police, the woman

1:15:44

hater. Yeah. And I can't remember them

1:15:46

all here tonight. And a little dopey.

1:15:48

Yeah, what about dopey? Well, he's sort

1:15:50

of our pet, you know. Was that

1:15:53

though? Yeah. Well, what are some of

1:15:55

his lines in the picture? Some of

1:15:57

his funny lines, Prince. Well, he hasn't

1:16:00

any lines. He doesn't talk. Why not,

1:16:02

Walt? Well, I don't know. I guess

1:16:04

he just never tried. Well, it's as

1:16:06

good a reason as any. Are you

1:16:09

going in to watch the preview yourself

1:16:11

now? Yes, uh-huh, and have my wife

1:16:13

hold my wife hold my hand. All

1:16:15

right, all right, all right, all right,

1:16:18

all right, I'll do that I'll do.

1:16:20

All right, all right, all right, all

1:16:22

right, all right, all right, all right,

1:16:25

all right, all right, all right, all

1:16:27

right, all right, all right, all right,

1:16:29

all right, all right, all right, all

1:16:31

right, all right, all right, all right,

1:16:34

all right, all right, all right, all

1:16:36

right, all right, all right, all right,

1:16:38

The final budget, any guesses? Oh man,

1:16:40

I should have been doing the math.

1:16:43

A billion million. Said, 2.5 mil. Good

1:16:45

guess. Like eight trips to Europe. 1.48.

1:16:47

million dollars was the official number I

1:16:49

don't think you were way high as

1:16:52

long as you're within an order of

1:16:54

magnitude in today's dollars that's like 33

1:16:56

million dollars wow wow and it's possible

1:16:59

that number is higher the 1.48 was

1:17:01

from one source there a number of

1:17:03

sources on this yeah because I swear

1:17:05

as you were telling this story you're

1:17:08

like and then they went back for

1:17:10

another 150 that's a low and probably

1:17:12

estimate but the point being if this

1:17:14

did not work Disney was done. There

1:17:17

was no way that they were going

1:17:19

to make up that money on, you

1:17:21

know, more shorts at this point. The

1:17:23

audience settles in. It's got a number

1:17:26

of Hollywood celebrities. They sit down. They

1:17:28

watch the film. And everybody's swept away.

1:17:30

Oh. Nobody's seen anything like this before.

1:17:33

Nothing like this has ever existed before.

1:17:35

They gave the film a standing ovation,

1:17:37

people laughed, they cried, they were stunned.

1:17:39

I mean, think of the release of

1:17:42

Toy Story, you know, the first time

1:17:44

you saw that, again, Jurassic Park, the

1:17:46

first time color film, you know, Dorothy,

1:17:48

when the movie goes from sepia to

1:17:51

color to technical color in the Wizard

1:17:53

of Oz. It really was revolutionary. It

1:17:55

was the first feature-length hand-drawn animated film

1:17:57

widely released in the United States. A

1:18:00

couple of notes, there was an Argentine

1:18:02

film made with paper cutouts. You were

1:18:04

saying like a flipbook, Elena earlier, called

1:18:07

El Appostole, and that was released in

1:18:09

1917. And there was a German film

1:18:11

using silhouette animation that came out in

1:18:13

1926. Nothing even close to this. And

1:18:16

I don't want to disparage those films.

1:18:18

For example, El Appostole. Sounds like a

1:18:20

fascinating political film with honestly a really

1:18:22

interesting production history that we should cover

1:18:25

that was unfortunately lost to time. But

1:18:27

the truth is from a technical perspective,

1:18:29

Snow White was so far beyond anything

1:18:32

that anybody had done at this runtime

1:18:34

at this point in time. They had

1:18:36

made between, if you think of, for

1:18:38

example, Persephone doing her inflatable tube man

1:18:41

dance, three years prior. One historian has

1:18:43

said it felt like they did 20

1:18:45

years of technical achievements in three years.

1:18:47

And so nobody saw it coming. It

1:18:50

just blew. everybody away. I bet the

1:18:52

bank saw it coming. How much we've

1:18:54

given you? It better be good. The

1:18:56

bank saw it coming. To be fair,

1:18:59

Bank of America, Joe Rosenberg. Variety wrote,

1:19:01

so perfect is the illusion, so tender

1:19:03

the romance and fantasy, so emotional are

1:19:06

certain portions when the acting of the

1:19:08

character strikes a depth comparable to the

1:19:10

sincerity of human players that the film

1:19:12

approaches real greatness. New York Times said,

1:19:15

I can recall no more joyous picture

1:19:17

than Snow White and the Seven dwarfs.

1:19:19

I suspect Santa Claus himself must have

1:19:21

had a hand. And it's making, it

1:19:24

was praised for being appealing to both

1:19:26

adults and children. So it did achieve

1:19:28

the very thing that Mary Pickford was

1:19:30

talking about, and that kind of becomes

1:19:33

the Disney formula. It was the first

1:19:35

film to run at Radio City Music

1:19:37

Hall for more than three weeks. It

1:19:40

ran for five weeks there. Film critics

1:19:42

across the nation voted it the best

1:19:44

film of the year, and it even

1:19:46

had the first feature-length soundtrack ever to

1:19:49

be released on phonographic record. Yeah, it's

1:19:51

a great soundtrack. The songs are all

1:19:53

bangers. Someday my prince will come. Yeah,

1:19:55

well, and also even just, I mean,

1:19:58

hi, ho. Whistle while you were, hi.

1:20:00

Like the one when they're bathing themselves

1:20:02

like these are all earworms? Oh no

1:20:04

it's good Chelsea Chelsea has some notes

1:20:07

now it was not Chelsea as

1:20:09

your face suggests all sunshine and

1:20:11

rainbows upon the release Adriana Cassellati

1:20:13

who voiced Snow White and Harry

1:20:16

Stockwell who voiced the Prince were

1:20:18

not given tickets to the premiere

1:20:20

and they had to sneak in

1:20:22

it's possible this was an oversight

1:20:24

I could not find confirmation that

1:20:26

this was intentional Now, what is known

1:20:29

is that Walt wanted the animated

1:20:31

characters to be the stars, not

1:20:33

the humans behind them. And this

1:20:35

was very much something he pushed

1:20:37

for. He did not want the

1:20:39

illusion that these characters were real

1:20:41

to be broken for the audience.

1:20:43

He didn't want the audience to

1:20:45

see the actors behind them. He

1:20:47

wanted to fall in love with

1:20:49

these characters. Now lawsuits did follow.

1:20:51

First, music publisher Thornton W. Allen

1:20:53

Company claimed that parts of their

1:20:55

copyrighted song, Old Eli March, were

1:20:58

deliberately copied in Snow White's, Someday My

1:21:00

Love Will Come. I don't know if

1:21:02

that ever went anywhere. It doesn't seem

1:21:04

like it did. But perhaps more distressingly,

1:21:06

in October of 1938, Adriana Cassellati

1:21:08

and Harry Stockwell sued Disney and

1:21:10

RKO for $200,000 and $100,000 respectively

1:21:13

because they claimed the soundtrack was

1:21:15

made without their consent. What? So

1:21:17

they said that their contracts only

1:21:19

permitted the use of their voices

1:21:22

in the film itself. Oh. And

1:21:24

that they should have been paid

1:21:26

royalties on the soundtrack.

1:21:28

I mean, yeah. Yeah. But Disney

1:21:30

and RCA slash, you know, RCA

1:21:33

owned RCAO, countered, no, read the

1:21:35

contract again, guys. It covers all

1:21:37

rights to use of your voices. Oh

1:21:39

man. So Disney was very shrewd

1:21:41

and he always made sure that

1:21:43

he owned everything. Oh my god, I

1:21:45

feel so bad for them. It wouldn't be

1:21:48

the last time that an animated

1:21:50

film profited off of the underpaid

1:21:52

labor of the people that made

1:21:54

it. No. Now, in the United

1:21:56

Kingdom, the film was partially censored,

1:21:58

fearing that it... would cause nightmares.

1:22:00

Yes, authorities decided that kids under 16

1:22:03

couldn't see the film unless accompanied by

1:22:05

an adult. Wow. I mean, I just

1:22:07

tried to watch it with my two

1:22:09

and a half year old and he

1:22:12

made me turn it off when we

1:22:14

got to the magic mirror. Yeah. The

1:22:16

face in the mirror was too scary.

1:22:18

So, you know, I relate. Yeah. Now

1:22:20

in a positive innovation, Snow White was

1:22:23

the first film to be made into

1:22:25

a quote, talking book for the blind.

1:22:27

Oh. So they created this braille. book

1:22:29

that had circular disks covered in Braille

1:22:32

similar to a photograph that would spin

1:22:34

at the rate where they would describe

1:22:36

what was happening on screen. to the

1:22:38

blind audience member in conjunction with the

1:22:40

sound, you know, and audio coming from

1:22:43

the stream. Yeah, so it was a

1:22:45

way for a blind person to quote

1:22:47

see what was happening on screen while

1:22:49

listening in a theater with a bunch

1:22:52

of other people to the soundtrack of

1:22:54

the film. That is so cool. Yeah,

1:22:56

like a record with Braille almost like.

1:22:58

Exactly. That's exactly what it was. That's

1:23:00

cool. Now the film in the end

1:23:03

became the highest grossing film to date.

1:23:05

It was responsible for $8 million at

1:23:07

the box office in its initial run

1:23:09

worldwide. At the time, this was like

1:23:12

$150 million. This would be... absolutely destroyed

1:23:14

by Gone With The Wind. So this

1:23:16

was not a long-held record, but this

1:23:18

was an era when a kid could

1:23:20

go to the movies for eight cents.

1:23:23

So even though it had cost $1.5

1:23:25

million, it was a runaway success. Now

1:23:27

Disney's name became synonymous with the highest

1:23:29

quality animation. A new medium was forged

1:23:32

in Hollywood. As we discussed earlier, it

1:23:34

ushered in a new golden age of

1:23:36

feature animation, which would continue all the

1:23:38

way through the 1960 the 1960s, and

1:23:40

then be... reborn again with the Disney

1:23:43

Renaissance in the 80s. But before we

1:23:45

get to the very end, you guys,

1:23:47

we always do a segment that we

1:23:49

like to call, what went right. And

1:23:52

so, Chelsea, I'm going to force you

1:23:54

to start because I feel like you...

1:23:56

didn't enjoy this movie quite as much

1:23:58

as the rest of us. I appreciated

1:24:00

it as a relic. Go after her

1:24:03

on social media. I felt like I'll

1:24:05

like respect your elders moment where like

1:24:07

I pay homage to it but like

1:24:09

am I gonna be like yeah let's

1:24:11

watch it again this weekend like no.

1:24:14

All right so let's pay respect to

1:24:16

our elders Chelsea and what would you

1:24:18

say went right in the making of

1:24:20

snow white in which a lot went

1:24:23

wrong. Well, I already shouted out the

1:24:25

art, but I do think the art

1:24:27

is still the crowning achievement. It is

1:24:29

so beautiful. The care that went into

1:24:31

this movie is so clear. So I

1:24:34

love that. I shouted out the voice

1:24:36

acting of the Queen. I love her.

1:24:38

And you know what? I'm going to

1:24:40

say, for its time, there is some

1:24:43

good... female representation. It's a woman in

1:24:45

charge of this kingdom. She's not only

1:24:47

a witch, she's kind of a chemist,

1:24:49

like she's got beakers, it's a little

1:24:51

steam punk down there, she's got her

1:24:54

own little animal sidekick. So you know

1:24:56

what? I wish they had a scene

1:24:58

together where they spoke maybe past the

1:25:00

Bechtel test, but you know what? I

1:25:03

love to see it. And I would

1:25:05

argue, you know, Snow White is really

1:25:07

in charge at the cottage, you know,

1:25:09

with the dwarfs. They can say that

1:25:11

they, or Grumpy can try to exercise

1:25:14

his authority. Right, he can talk about

1:25:16

her womanly wicked wiles and how women

1:25:18

are poisoned. I was like, uh-oh, in-cell

1:25:20

alert, grumpy. But yeah, they did have

1:25:23

some in-cell vibes. Yeah, but ultimately, you're

1:25:25

right. Snow White is like, uh-uh-uh, you're

1:25:27

going to wash. Very good. All right,

1:25:29

Elena, how about you? Well, like I

1:25:31

said, I think the music is really

1:25:34

good. I mean, there were songs in

1:25:36

there. I hadn't even realized I knew,

1:25:38

but watching it, I was like, I

1:25:40

know this entire song. So... I mean,

1:25:43

maybe that also just means I watched

1:25:45

this a lot as a child, but

1:25:47

I thought the music was really amazing.

1:25:49

And also the accuracy of snow white

1:25:51

cleaning their house and they show up

1:25:54

and they're pissed about it. Like I

1:25:56

feel that often with my husband. I'm

1:25:58

like, where did you put my clothes?

1:26:00

I know where they are when they're

1:26:03

on my bed and now I don't

1:26:05

know where they went. Nothing really changes.

1:26:07

I agree. I think the music's fantastic

1:26:09

and it does set the precedent of

1:26:11

you know earworm as marketing vehicle for

1:26:14

Disney films that they would follow all

1:26:16

the way You know we were just

1:26:18

listening watching Beauty and the Beast again

1:26:20

with my daughter which is an amazing

1:26:23

movie and has my favorite favorite music

1:26:25

of any Disney movie in that and

1:26:27

I think it all started here. Yeah,

1:26:29

I'm gonna give mine to Walt Disney.

1:26:31

We spoke a little bit about some

1:26:34

of his more problematic The problematic elements

1:26:36

of Walt in the first half of

1:26:38

this episode, but he was truly an

1:26:40

innovator and risk taker who at a

1:26:43

time when Hollywood had an estate. Maybe

1:26:45

that also just means I watched this

1:26:47

a lot as a child, but I

1:26:49

thought the music was really amazing. And

1:26:51

also the accuracy of Snow White. cleaning

1:26:54

their house and they show up and

1:26:56

they're pissed about it. Like I feel

1:26:58

that often with my husband. I'm like,

1:27:00

where did you put my clothes? I

1:27:02

know where they are when they're on

1:27:05

my bed and now I don't know

1:27:07

where they went. Nothing really changes. I

1:27:09

agree. I think the music's fantastic and

1:27:11

it does set the precedent of earworm

1:27:14

as marketing vehicle for Disney films that

1:27:16

they would follow all the way, you

1:27:18

know. We were just watching Beauty and

1:27:20

the Beast again with my daughter, which

1:27:22

is an amazing movie and has some

1:27:25

of my favorite favorite music of any

1:27:27

Disney movie in that. And I think

1:27:29

it all started here. I'm going to

1:27:31

give mine to Walt Disney. We spoke

1:27:34

a little bit about some of his

1:27:36

more problematic, the problematic elements of Walt

1:27:38

in the first half of this episode,

1:27:40

but he was truly an innovator and

1:27:42

risk taker who at a time. when

1:27:45

Hollywood had an established formula and a

1:27:47

star system, and they said, here's how

1:27:49

you do it, you know, you get

1:27:51

your biggest story that you can, and

1:27:54

you get another big star, and then

1:27:56

you get another one, and then you

1:27:58

just hire a bunch of people that

1:28:00

we've already got under contract, and you

1:28:02

pump out a movie, and they've already

1:28:05

got under contract, and you pump out

1:28:07

a movie, and they've kind of turned

1:28:09

it into a bit of a movie,

1:28:11

and they've, I mean, you've already got

1:28:14

under contract, it's, it's funny, you've, it's

1:28:16

funny, it's funny, you've, you've, you've, it's

1:28:18

funny, you've, you've, you've, you've, you've, it's

1:28:20

funny, you've, you've, you've, you've, you've, you've, you've,

1:28:22

you've, you've, you've, you've, you've, you've, you've, you've,

1:28:24

you've, you've, you've, you've, you've And I agree with

1:28:27

you, there are some structural moments

1:28:29

where you think, oh, okay, like

1:28:31

maybe we could have done this

1:28:33

instead of this. there was nothing

1:28:35

to reference. You know what I

1:28:37

mean? There was no other movie.

1:28:39

They couldn't say, yeah, well, you

1:28:41

know, in Toy Story, the act

1:28:43

break is here. So maybe we

1:28:45

need, you know, they were doing

1:28:47

it entirely on their own for

1:28:49

the first time. You know, things

1:28:51

that worked as gags and filler

1:28:53

scenes, you know, a dialogue scene,

1:28:55

a walk in talk, could fill

1:28:57

five minutes in a, you know,

1:28:59

a talkie at the time. He was

1:29:01

a huge, he was a vaudeville, chaplain,

1:29:03

Buster Keaton fan. And that really shows. So

1:29:06

it's like, you're right, he's not referencing

1:29:08

movies. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. Stage

1:29:10

acts. Performance, exactly. Yeah. Even in

1:29:12

the animals, like the deer and

1:29:14

the little birds. And I think that

1:29:16

ties into with the exaggerated movements and

1:29:19

like, you know, performing for the back as

1:29:21

opposed to the front, like that all kind

1:29:23

of ties in. All kind of ties in. All

1:29:25

right guys, that brings us. to the

1:29:28

end of our coverage. Snow White and

1:29:30

the Seven Dwarfs, a far less controversial

1:29:32

than its remake, which just came out,

1:29:34

Snow White, which I'm glad is finally

1:29:36

out and we're like can be done

1:29:39

talking about it. Chelsea and Elena, can

1:29:41

you remind our audience where they can

1:29:43

find more of you and more of

1:29:45

true Romcoms, this we're kind of faking

1:29:48

as Romcom. That's okay, we give

1:29:50

a wide birth to Romcoms in

1:29:52

our podcast too. Yes, yeah, totally

1:29:54

agree, Aletta. You can find our

1:29:57

podcast anywhere you listen to podcast.

1:29:59

Podstruck. Come Rewine. You can

1:30:01

follow us on Instagram at

1:30:04

Pods Truck Pod or Tiktok,

1:30:06

Pods Truck Podcast. So check

1:30:08

out our podcast. We're about

1:30:10

to cover How to Lose

1:30:13

a Guy in 10 days.

1:30:15

One of our favorites, we

1:30:17

just did a whole subcategory

1:30:19

of Romcoms from the 80s.

1:30:22

And continuing with the Disney

1:30:24

theme, we're actually going to

1:30:26

be covering Enchanted coming up

1:30:28

soon, which has so many

1:30:31

references in it to Snow

1:30:33

White. pays homage in so

1:30:35

many ways and is much

1:30:37

more of a rompcom than

1:30:40

Snow White is. So come

1:30:42

check out Podstruck or Romcom

1:30:44

Rewind and we'll see you

1:30:47

there. All right. All right.

1:30:49

Thank you for having you.

1:30:51

So much fun. I did

1:30:53

want to take a moment

1:30:56

now that our guests are

1:30:58

gone to address the recently

1:31:00

released Snow White live action

1:31:02

adaptation. Obviously the film has

1:31:05

become a lightning rod for

1:31:07

a whole host of issues.

1:31:09

I don't want to get

1:31:11

into that here, but what

1:31:14

I will say is that

1:31:16

I do find it funny

1:31:18

that there was such an

1:31:20

uproar over changing the story

1:31:23

of Snow White, a story

1:31:25