The Brave Little Toaster: Everything You Didn't Know

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Speaker 1: Too Much Information is a production of I Heart Radio. Hello everyone, and welcome to Too Much Information, the show that gives you the secret histories and little known, fascinating facts and figures behind your favorite movies, music, TV shows and more. We are your two appliance repairman of Apocrypha. I'm Alex Sigel and I'm Jordan Run Talk and Jordan's. Today we are continuing our long standing tradition of delving deeply into children's movies that are directly responsible anecdotally at least, for severely traumatizing their intended audience for the rest of their lives. Having covered horse murder and weirdly erotic sentient Google villains, and just Christopher Lloyd being himself and Christopher Lloyd as himself, we now move on to the movie that showed us that household appliances were not only self aware and had independent lives, but that they were capable of deep, fathomless suffering, mental and physical. That's right, we're talking about Brave Little Toaster Turned this year, truth be told. I watched this movie as a child, I'm guessing a number of times, as was my wont but my only memory of it until now was the Jack Nicholson air conditioner blowing himself up and dying, although I'm told that he is repaired at the end of the film. Yes, yes, yeah, But that's all I carry with me from this movie, and I have never watched it again. But I will say that in doing my research for this I have come to a deep abiding love of director Jerry Rees, who is just this elfin little presence of can doitiveness and positivity, and I would protect him and I love him, and he must be saved from the evils of the world. What about you talk to me about Brave Little Toaster. Yeah, my chief memory of this movie was the a c blowing up. That was pretty horrifying. Let's also not forget the time that Kirby the vacuum cleaner tried to eat his own cord rather than across a waterfall. That one really stuck with me. That's why I'm a broom guy to this day. Whenever accidentally, like ladies and gentlemen, I'm a broom man. If I say I'm a brew man, you will believe me. I'm a broom man and a family man. And let's not forget the nightmare scene with the killer clowns. And the toaster being pursued by forks and knives while suspended over a bathtub, which is yet another seeming nod the suicide in this movie that's ostensibly for children. Um, so that's weird. Oh yeah, And then the scene of the beat up old cars are singing about their lives as they're going to be crushed to death in the junkyard. It's worse than cats for me pretty much, now that I think about it. It's really has a whole buffet of trauma. Have we We have not done a kid's movie that was like, actually just cute and cuddling. Everything has had a traumatic element to it, so that's not a movie. I mean, the closest thing we've done is like Rugrats and Blue. At least this movie had the electric blanket, which was adorable. Blankly why it's a little crying all the time. But yeah, I love this movie. I I was always really into Alison Wonderland and surreal Lewis Carroll like stuff, and this kind of always seemed cut from the same cloth, because I mean it's bizarre, like why is a toaster the hero of your movie? I mean I admire that now in a lot of ways, it seemed like a dry run for the Toy Story franchise, which will later Yeah, I mean, the comparisons are many. They're both stories of abandonment, loneliness, and wanting to be reunited with the one you love. And yeah, I mean really the plots are kind of identical. In animate objects dealing with the fact their beloved owner has grown up and doesn't want them anymore. In a lot of ways, it's far sadder than Toy Story because at least toys you have some element of like sentimentality and connection towards you know, kids not gonna care about throwing out a toaster or all vacuum cleaner, so that's sad. They go on this life altering journey to seek out their master, just like Toy Story three. There's a climat seen at the Junkyard where these appliances of the face throwing mortality and um, you know it's funny. This movie sparked what I took to be a semi serious theoretical ethical debate about the rights of AI appliances. You see this. There's a piece on Daily dot dot com called how the Brave Little Toaster predicted our robot future, which posits the question, we're designing as sentient being to operate with a singular function be a form of enslavement. It's like one of the most famous like Rick and Morty jokes is um he builds a little robot at the kitchen table and it passes him the butter like picks up the butter dish and rolls it over to him and drops it off, and he goes, what is my function? And he goes, you pass the butter and the little guy just goes, oh God, he goes, yeah, I joined the party pal. So this was all interesting to me. But I was also an extremely sensitive kid, to the point where it was almost debilitating. So this movie gave me a complex about getting rid of all appliances and likely contributed to my pack rat tendencies. I do wonder how many kids developed like a weird fixation to toasters after this movie came out. Well, I mean, no one talked about it in any of the making of or anything. But it's Shinto is um. It's the Japanese religion that like everything has a spirit, you know, the closest modern analog. I can think of it as like Marie Condo and she personifies stuff in terms of being like, I'm not like a condo person. I've never condued anything in my life. I'm I'm a hoarder. But treating your clothing and your objects with love because they serve you. Um, and just the idea that like, yeah, things do have spirits. So a rich text, as they used to tell me in English college. Well, the film has been seemingly memory hold by the House of Mouse. So future generations are, depending on how you look at it, either safer from debilitating trauma or deprived from an excellent piece of falling between the Cracks animation, but either way from the truly astounding array of nineties animation royalty who worked on this movie, to the interior Disney drama that threatened the film at its genesis and end, to the long and wild and sad career of the man who wrote the original book. Here is everything you didn't know about the Brave Little Toaster. Thomas M. Dish, the guy who wrote the novella that the film adapts, had a tremendously far ranging career as an author, and took a similarly tremendously far ranging route to get there. He was raised in Iowa, and Minnesota, and he displayed an early love for the written word. When he relates this anecdote, he had been given the assignment to memorize a hundred lines of poetic verse by a teacher, and he memorized a thousand, to which I say, good on you, overachiever. He had one of those really wild mid century American cvs that a lot of these writers have. He worked a job as a trainee steel draftsman. He was an extra at the Metropolitan Opera House for multiple productions. After he moved to New York, he worked at bookstores, newspapers, ad agencies, coatroom attendant at a theater, an insurance company. He was a bank teller, and he worked as a mortuary assistant funeral home. But in what will become a recurring theme in his life, he battled severe depression. He attempted suicide at the age of just eighteen by sticking his head into his gas oven, but failed because he had not paid the gas bill. Wow. That's that's like a Woody Allen. Real real truth is stranger than fiction. Wow. Um. He enlisted the Army around this time, but was so traumatized by the experience that he was committed to a mental institution for three months, but none of that stopped him from writing. Yeah, thank god. He had an incredibly varied writing career. Aside from writing science fiction, he wrote see children's books, but also horror, literary and theater criticism, plays, a libretto for an opera of Frankenstein, which rules, and many volumes of poetry. Have you seen this Frankenstein libretto? No? I haven't. Did you look into it? I've been able to find it. I would love to see that. And then in one of his plays called The Cardinal Detoxes, drew a season dessist order from the Catholic Archdiocese of New York because it was stage in a small experimental theater housed in the Most Holy Redeemer Church. Did you look up the plot? I haven't looked at the plot. But wasn't there a church? Uh near Meatpacking District that was turned into a club in the nineties for all the club kid. I don't know about that. But the reason the church came down on him for this was he he admittedly wrote it to piss them off. It is the story of an alcoholic cardinal going like cold turkey, detoxing in a I think, either in a rehab facility or like in a jail cell. And it's just like a monologue. It's like a one person play of this of like a guy getting like the Sheiks and the dt s and withdrawing from alcohol and just like ranting and raving. And he was like a very anti religious tract and it was staged in a church. Wow. So the Archdiocese came after him for it. That's yeah. I mean, apparently this was a fairly mainstream controversy, which is impressive considering it's just off off off Broadway, and the Archdiocese supposedly placed pressure on the Department of Buildings to close the building down on show night. So of course he went after him. Of course they denied it, but it's it's everyone involved in it was like, of course they did that, Like of course they leaned on the Department of Buildings to go in and be like it's unsafe. Well, is that the Catholic Church the largest private landowner in New York City. They were, as you can perhaps see by now, Dish was, to put it mildly, a complicated guy. Despite working frequently in the sci fi genre. He trashed a lot of the names the Sacred Cows of the ca in Uh, guys like Robert Heinlein in a he He did this in the Nine Say, provocatively titled The Embarrassments of Science Fiction. He panned Ray Bradbury in The New York Times, which is like, you know, panning Jesus for sci fi nerds, and then subsequently never got another assignment from The Times over that review. Supposedly, he then wrote a book about the genre in the nineties that took a very confrontational stance towards it, and my personal favorite. He had a feud with another acclaimed sci fi writer, Philip K. Dick. He of writing the book Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep that Blade Runners based on, and The Man in the High Castle, among many others. Um Dick, who infamously gobbled amphetamans like Tic tas Uh. There was a period of his life when he was writing a series of paranoid screeds missives to the FBI, and Dish came up. In one of these, Dick suggested to the FBI that there were a series of coded messages prompted by a covert organization. In one of Dish's novels Camp Concentration. Nothing ever came of this. The FBI correctly deduced that Dick was a crazy person, and uh, that was the end of that until in his final novel, The Word of God, Dish wrote an extended scene in which Philip K. Dick is dead and inhale with writer's block. Is a weird score settling two really weird guys having a really weird food. But he did begrudging. There was bigrudging respect there. Yeah. Towards the end of Dish's life, he was very forgiving of Philip K. Dick, very aware that he was going through a troubled period. I can't even call it a period in his life. He was a troubled person. Uh. In an interview with the website Linka Franca in two thousand one, Dish talks about what rough shape Philip K. Dick was in. He said, quote at this point in the early in mid nineteen seventies, Dick was really freaking out on drugs, almost the horror Foama Copia at peril, and the drugs didn't destroy his gift entirely, even at his native but they did make it impossible for him to distinguish between self interest and pose imp of the perverse. I don't know what that means, but I love it. He loved to make trouble. Uh. Yeah, Philip K. Dick is a really interesting guy. There was an incident in early nineteen seventy four where a person I believe his drug dealer, came to his door and he became transfixed by the necklace that this woman was wearing. And as he admired it, a sunray reflected off of it and it created this sort of pink beam of light, so he says, at least and Philip K. Dick became transfixed by this pink beam, and he became convinced that this beam of light imparted wisdom and special powers to him. And soon after he came to believe that he was living two parallel lives, one as himself Philip K. Dick, and one as Thomas, a Christian persecuted by Romans in the first century a d. So that's interesting. Yeah. Gnosticism, which is the big heretical movement of the second century of the Christian Church. People have called his later writing as he got into this Catholic phase that like he was basically writing gnostic science fiction he's such a fascinating guy. Man. You ever seen Scanner Darkly, Yeah, yeah, the old Rhotoscope movie when it's just like every every plot that dude did was a result of eating so many emphetamines, because it's all just like you start questioning your reality and like, m I am whom who I say I am? It's like, yes, those are fertile concepts for science fiction, but also you ate so much speed, like this is why your mind is fracturing. We talked about this in an earlier episode, but somebody talked about him having a bowl of pills on his kitchen table by the way that some people have like nectarines, and he would just gobble them while he was writing. Anyway, well he I mean, it reminds me of um and the way that he reads novel and basically read it as having coded messages to him. It reminds me of Brian Wilson, my hero from The Beach Boys, became convinced that his uh one time mentor and then rival Phil Specter was trying to sabotage him and then bugged his house and was sending him messages through movies. There's a famous story of Brian Wilson going the movie. He did see a movie called Seconds with Rock Hudson, this weird sci fi movie, and I guess Brian was late, and he walked in a few minutes into the movie, and right when he walked in, a character on the screen says, hello, Mr Wilson, have a seat. And this completely blew Brian's mind. And he was convinced that Phil had somehow gotten in touch with the producers of the movie to put this line in there, to screw with Brian's head. Yeah, I mean again, both of these men, and Philip K. Dick and Brian Wilson and Phil Specter, we're all not in great We're not operating with a clean bill of mental health, shall we say. But the story of this tangent kids is lay off the adderall or acid or speed or wherever it is. Yes, anyway, moderation, folks, t M I, the t M I, the t M I way, moderation. Anyway, back to the Brave Little Toasts, This episode is gonna be a hell of a ride already. I can tell um Dish, the man who wrote the Brave Little Toasta novella. He was a gay man who lived with the same partner for decades, and as you mentioned earlier, he really struggled with depression and despondent after his partner's death and really drained mentally from their fight to keep their home, as well as his battles with diabetes and sky attica. He died by suicide in two thousand and eight. He shot himself, and a friend told The New York Times for his oh bit that Dish spoke quote often and frankly about suicide and had once pitched a calendar with the famous suicide on each day of the year, like Sylvia Place on February eleven. Um. This is the mind that brought us the story of an anthropomorphic toaster and a vacuum cleaner who tries to suck up his own chords. So yeah, there's a real darkness there, although in the movie and they the movie was definitely took a lot of liberties with his text. I should say, yeah, and we'll find that out later. But he may be the most complex figure to ever have something adapted into Disney outside of like I don't know, Victor Hugo with like the Bunchback of Notre Dame, but like, good lord, what a life anyway, Brave Little Toaster first appeared as a novella in the August nineteen eighty issue of the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. It was nominated for both a Hugo Award and a Nebula Award, and as the big prestigious Sci Fi Literary Awards. The novella was later published as a book in May of eighties six, but even that that was an uphill battle firm as well. Um Dish told Strange Your Eyes in in two thousand one, All of the book publishers who saw the proposal for The Brave Little Toaster said, no, the notion of appliances talking and having characters is just too far fetched and children will not accept it. This was even after he had sold the rights to this to Disney and the film was in production. He was trying to get something that was currently being adapted for a feature film by the biggest children's entertainment company in the world, and his publishers were like, no, kids were asinine. Yeah. In case you haven't picked up on this, Dish is something of a misunderstood genius. In the Science Fiction Encyclopedia, the entry on Dish reads as follows quote Because of his intellectual audacity, the chillingly distance mannerisms of his narrative art, the austerity of the pleasures he affords, and the fine cruelty of his wit. Dish was perhaps the most respected, least trusted, most envied, and least read of all science fiction writers. Of the first to rank. That's a hell of a description. And yeah, this book was definitely outside the realm of most children's literature, that's for sure. I mean, the characters quote Coral Marx, which is unusual. I guess if you're not George Orwell writing Animal Farm, although I don't have the quote marks. The New York Times review of the Brave Little Toaster novella called it quote a wonderful book for a certain sort of eccentric adult, which sounds like a backhanded compliment. We're going to take a quick break, but we'll be right back with more too much information in just a moment. So much of the story of Toaster is inextricable from the freshman class at Disney's cow Arts and John Lasseter, who, if you have an even passing interest in modern animation, you know the name John Lasseter. He is the Pixar guy responsive over toy story cars and most of the company's world domination um. But in high school he was just another innocent, little animation nerd writing letters to Disney about wanting to work for them. And then his senior year, he gets a letter from the company explaining that they were starting a character animation program at the California Institute of the Arts Film School, taught by artists from Disney's heyday, and this class, this freshman class of cal Arts is His classmates included Tim Burton, brad Bird, who is another Pixar heavy hitter the Incredibles, and John Musker, who did Aladdin UM. And this first class graduates in nine But at the time, Lasseter explained to CNN in two thousand six, quote, the animation studio wasn't being run by these great Disney artists like our teachers at cal Arts, but by lesser artists and business people who rose through attrition as the grand old men retired. One of the directors told me, you put in your time for twenty years and do what you're told, and then you can be in charge. Sounds like publishing, but you know he managed to even reads John Reads, the director and the animators on this film managed to sneak in some loving tributes to cal Arts. Nonetheless, Yes, the master's address is seventy McBean Parkway, which is the address of cal Arts in Valencia, California. And the master's apartment is A one one three, which is the room where character animation classes were held at cal Arts. And that's an easter Eggan most Pixar films, if not all. UH crops up in the license plate on Andy's SUV and the Toy Story series. It's written in Roman numerals in brave, and it's on a Marquee movie. Marquis and the Incredibles too. I love their dedication to upping their exactly what do we do to the bit we commit um? So Lasseter is he sees some of the earliest experiments with computer animation in and then nine ten two Disney releases Tron, which famously was basically the first milestone in combining live action and computer animation. So Laster makes friends with an executive who worked on Tron, guy named Tom will Hight, and under will Heights you know blessing. He puts together a thirty second test which I believe is based on where the wild things are that combined traditional two D animation with three D computer rendered backgrounds. I think so interesting. I wonder why I landed on that. So a friend of his showed him The Brave Little Toaster the novella, and he gets Willite to acquire the rights so that they can pitch this film along with their test clip. And Lasseter said that going into the meeting, the head of the studio, guy named Ron W. Miller, had only one question, how much is this going to cost? I'm only interested in computer animation if it saves money or time. And then, Lasseter, I have to say diplomatically. In this CNN interview, he does not name any of these people, but later historians have name them, so that's how I got their names. Um and so he said. Later he found out that his immediate supervisor, who is an animation administrator named Ed Hansen, was miffed that Lasseter had kind of done an end run around him. He'd circumvented him in the chain of command to pitch the idea and, in Lasterter's words, poked holes in my idea before I had even pitched it. Ten minutes after the meeting, he got a call from Hanson firing him where he essentially said, well, since your project isn't green light, we don't need you anymore. But luckily he was taken on by Lucasfilms for the new Computer Graphics division and the rest this history. So now, sans Lasseter, the film is greenlit at Disney. Since they had already paid for the rights, they figured, we'll just do this thing anyway with a budget of eighteen million, so keep that figure in mind later. And then it is transferred to the new Hyperion Pictures, which is founded by Will hit the guy who greenlit Laster's initial experiments with computer animation. He requested the project from Miller, so they go, okay, fine, you can have it. So the budget is slashed from eighteen million to just under six million, and then again to two point three million. The budget for this was so low that they unheard of for a Disney associated project. They shipped animation partially overseas to Taipei for this hand picked group of American the American team to work alongside Taiwanese artists at the studio weighing film productions. Then six Hyperion picks Jerry Rees who worked on The Fox and the Hound and Tron along with a guy named Joe Ranft, who is another cal Arts grad to Helm Toaster. So now the Toaster creative team is in place. In Hi's own words, he said he was kind of languishing at Disney, getting paid to do nothing in between pictures, which it's kind of the dream buddy, you uh might have that one up, uh he but he was promised creative freedom this picture, but with the caveat that you have no money to do it. Two point three million. I mean, I don't even know, said how you would make a live action movie for that animation. I imagine it was significantly more expensive with all the people you need to actually, I mean, yeah, that's insane, it's nuts. He said later. We had to do every day on Toaster what we would do in two weeks at Disney. And because this thing was made on such a shoe string budget, they had four weeks for pre pro, which is insane. Again, and they didn't even get to record this in like traditional like the Disney vocal boots. Oh yeah, I read they had to find like a derelict building on the Disney lot that they had the revamp and get it somewhat up to spect to record v o and that they want the voice over book to give him the shack. The toaster picture gets the shack. Uh. They started storyboarding while the script was being written. Reese talked about, well, we would storyboard until there wasn't any more script, and then we would take a break and write the script and then go back to the story boards, always staying like twenty pages ahead of the process. Rees said that there were only four lines from the film that were actual lines in the book, and the scene that scened that you mentioned in the Well, I don't know if you mentioned this, but in the trash crushing scene, the scene where the toaster sacrifices themselves to save their owner was also a Jerry Rees and Company invention. Um, they really wanted the little guy or girl to earn the brave appellation. And this is funny reason. An interview from this year said that Maurice Sendac again, second appearance of a friend of the pod. Maurice Sendac, the second you get mentioned twice, you become a friend of the pod. Um, we don't make the rules now, it's just yeah, it's just podcast law. Sendak came and saw the film and they had dinner later and he supposedly told him. Sendac told Reese as an author, I'm sure that dishes piste off. You changed his story, but also as an author, I'm telling you it's better now. I'd just like to add right here that there's an actual AI toaster that's been engineered seemingly in reference to this movie. The toaster's name is Brad, and buckle up for this. Brad is networked with other toasters in the area, and quote knows when it's not making as much toast as the other toasters. And if Brad the toaster is falling below average usage, he's gonna let you know. Initially, he's going to get your attention by wiggling the little handles on the side of the you know, lowers the bread. If that doesn't work, Brad will go on social media and complain about the fact that he's not making enough toast for you. If that doesn't work, Brad will order bread online to be sent to the house, And if all else fails, Brad will sell himself online and arrange for ups to pick him up. That's grim. That is some Isaac Asimov, Oh God selling toaster. Moving on from Matt sin against God again because of the shoestring nature of this production, they had to cast this thing before the screenplay was even finished. Rant studied with the iconic l A improv troupe, the Groundlings, and as a result, the casting drew heavily from that crew, including Phil Hartman who was doing Jack Nicholson playing the air conditioner, and Peter Laurie for the lamp in the spare parts shop, probably the first Peter Lorrie impression I ever heard, and then in short order Wren. I thought it was yeah, that was what I was gonna say. I thought it was just the same voice actor who did Wren. You idiot? Uh? And then John Lovitts making his animated future debut. Fun fact, while we're talking about Hartman, he was actually hired to dub Nicholson's lines for this movie The Border. When Jack Nicholson was like, I'm not coming I'm not coming back for that. I got Lakers tickets. I've never heard that Jack Nicholson impression from you. I'm glad this is why don't she send Phil he's wearing the shades. Uh. Coincidentally, both Phil Harmon and Jack Elson, We're both considered to play the role of Hades in Disney's Hercules prior to James Woods being cast in the role. Another fun fact, Julia Phil Hartman ran his own graphic design studio in the seventies and he designed covers. He was like a member of the Laurel Canyon folk rock scene in l A. Designed album covers for America and Poco, and he certainly designed the logo for csm Y or CSN. Rather, I should say I think CSN they couldn't afford Gotta get that day right down. Um Reads said of the approach that he and rand took too because the characters in the novella don't have such strong personalities, they wanted to craft more specific visions for the characters, and so Reese said, we needed to have characters who would really complement one another. So we created opposites within the group. To do that, we looked at how each character dealt with the loss of his master. Toaster is warm and people are comforted by their reflection in it. Radio is constantly trying to be the entertainer Lamp. He thinks he's bright, but it's actually pretty dim. Vacuum holds things inside and has a nervous breakdown because of it, and Blankie is insecure because he doesn't have his child to hug. What is your therapist said about you? And which household appliance does that make you? What are you? I'm I'm well, I'm actually radio and and then vacuum retrograde. God, the character development in this is that's my dude. I that's the thing. I did not go back to rewatch this film, but now I'm like, so much craft and love went into this thing. For it's like a racer head all over again, where they're like, we had no money, we had no support, and we have put so much of ourselves and so much love into this. It's it's beautiful. Yeah, oh my gosh. I mean just little things that you wouldn't even think about. There's a scene when the Toaster has trouble reading the phone book to find his master's address and lamp. He has to chime in and help him, and Leppy knows how to read because he sat with the Master while he was reading his books. Like just all these little details like oh yeah, of course a bedside table lamp would know how to read, and the air conditioner. It's so bitter and resentful because the Master was too short to reach his dials, so he felt unloved. Yeah, that's great. And Kirby the Vacuum is grumpy all the time because the Master would only use him, you know, when he had to do chores and just very reluctant. So he has this kind of chip on his shoulder for that reason. And then as you mentioned, you've got the blanket, whose neediness stems from the fact that his primary function is to cuddle someone and keep them warm and he has no one to do that with. Oh that's just yeah, yeah, just as I said those words, that's uh so yeah. I just think the psychology of this movie is incredibly clever. Um. It's always like the line when lamp he sees the sun for the presumably the first time because lamp he is always inside and goes, wow, I wonder where the switches. That is some Philip k Dicky and dude like the lamp being like, I wonder how that turns on? Incredible incredible stuff. Love it. Who plays that motor mouth obnoxious radio based in part on Walter Winchell, who we talked about in the You Got What You Give? Episode. He's the gossip columnists who's credited with inventing the term friend of me, friend of the now. He's a friend of the pod is Walter Jamie. Can we get Walter Renchel on the pod next week? Can we get a Wigi board? And I need an old priest and a young priest. Um so love it. Love It gets cast on Saturday Night Live while Toaster is still in pre pro. This is incredible. This is my favorite, my single favorite anecdote from this film. Reason, who wrote the character with Love It's in mind, begged Love It's to stay in l A long enough to record and John agreed to. Apparently the consternation of his cast thing is whoever was rapping him, because they were like, you cannot go to SNL with a movie in the tank that you just did, like that violence contract. Whatever. But Reason finishes the third act of the movie under this Dress meets Love It's at the recording studio with the finished screenplay Love It's dozen entire films worth of dialogue. In one sitting, the recording engineer at this session said he had never seen anything like it. I love that so much. And the only thing that lovetts is not in the film, as is the singing voice of radio, which is Jerry Rees. Yeah. I just thought it was interesting that John Lovetts and Phil Hartman were best friends in real life and they worked together a few more times, and they were also famously both cast members on Saturday Live. But I think they were both on and by the time this movie aired, and John Lovett's, in a very sad turn, also replaced Phil Hartman after his murder on the sitcom news Radio, which led to a long running feud with fellow news radio co star Andy Dick. Have you heard the story I have from you? But I just want to say, folks, maybe skip thirty seconds ahead if you don't want to get very sad. You're sadder than the rest of this episode will make you. But if you love Phil Hartman and you love Johnian, it's a story worth hearing. There's a great book on him called You Might Remember Me as and I Am Joe McClure. You might remember me from I Think So. It's just great title for a book about Phil Hartman. So you'll recall that Phil Hartman was murdered by his wife, Bryn, who, it must be said, struggled with some mental health issues in her life, and she battled addiction and had apparently been cleaned for several years when Andy Dick gave her cocaine at a Christmas party for the news radio cast in December, the year before the murder, and Phil believed that Andy gave her the drugs that sparked to relapse, and he's denied it, saying that he knew nothing of Brin's drug history and she was already off the wagon and asked him if he had any coke and he said yeah and gave it to her, end of story. Regardless of the moral and ethical responsibility, Phil blamed Andy on some level and told his friend John Lovett's this, Andy Dick was responsible for my wife relapsing. And it's believed that when Phil's wife, Bryn murdered him and then took her own life, she was having some sort of episode due to cocaine mixing with her and I have depressant prescription. And her family actually filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Fiser, and I believe they settled out of court, which is unusual because Big farm A rarely settled. So I just think that's interesting. So after Phil's murder, John Lovetts was called into effectively replace him on News radio, and he and Nanny Dick immediately butted heads on the set at one point, and he told him he shouldn't even be there, to which John Lovett said, well, I wouldn't be here if he hadn't given Bryn coke in the first place. Things got heated, but they chilled out, apologized, moved on. Things were okay for years until two thousand six. John Lovett had restaurant when a drunk Andy Dick comes up to him and hissed, I put the Phil Hartman hex on you. You're the next one to die. And Lovetts, who I think it was? At a restaurant that John Lovetts owned, got Andy Dick thrown out and banned them from the place. And then a year later they crossed paths again the laugh Factory comedy club in l A. And John LOVETTZ basically gave him the opportunity to apologize, but Andy was like, well, you know why I said that because you said I killed Phil Hartman. That's the first thing you said to me when I got on news radio, and John Lovetts responded by smashing his head into the bar over and over until the bouncer broken up. So, yeah, I mean, I don't want to. I don't want to pile on Andy Dick, but just survey of his headlines on page six. Andy Dick will not be charged following sexual battery arrest. What was that? In May of this year? Oh wow? Uh? Andy Dick arrested for allegedly hitting boyfriend with liquor bottle. November two, twenty one, Andy Dick arrested for assault with a deadly weapon. June, Andy Dick charged with groping driver. October Andy Dick charged with misdemeanor sexual battery. July. Andy Dick ordered to stay away from wife and kids. March. Andy Dick arrested in theft of necklace November. So no judgment, but just just what he's what he's been in the news for for the best eight six however many years. I don't know. Time is a mystery to me. But you know who played the mom of Master? I believe you do? Jordan's That's right, I do. Mindy Sterling, famous as fraul Frobissona in Austin Powers. He was also a member of the Groundlings comedy group. Uh, You're never gonna believe this. I didn't even put this in here because I want to get an authentic reaction from you guests, who was allegedly considered for the voice of the teenage slash adult Master Christopher Walkin. No, mm hmm is it Groundling? Is a you said, I don't think he is. Macaulay Culkin. You got one more think of, think of think of this podcast. Tom Hanks, Yep, of course it's always Hanks, always Hanks. Dina Oliver the voice of Toaster. She originally auditioned for the role of a c using a Betty Davis impression. What. I can't imagine how that would have worked. Yeah, very much, so, I actually love this. Toaster is a non binary individual. The character's gender is completely indeterminate. Um in the book, none of the appliances have gender, because yeah, the film seems to refer to Toaster as a boy. But Rees has kind of interchangeably used in Reddit. He did his Reddit a m a where I'm pulling a lot of stuff from He referred Toaster as girls. As she and Dan Oliver, who did the voice, went through the movie believing that there it was a girl, and she was not corrected. And Rees said that he designed the character so that it would be androgyness. He said, I was thinking in a sort of androgynous way about the character. If a male is talking to toaster and sees the reflection, they think of it as a male presence. But if a female is talking to toaster, yeah, galaxy brain, and sees herself reflected, she would think of it as a female presence. This was this year he gave an interview about this. It was like dropping this knowledge. I mean, maybe he's had thirty five years to come up with a really great explanation for this, but actually, you know, I've read I watched way too many interviews with Jerry Rees for this, and I he has. He has stayed admirably on message with this stuff. Again gets back to the incredible character development, all the thought and care and love that went in this movie. And he says the only time his office door was ever slammed was when he told an execut came in to check on the film and he told them that think cast a woman is the lead? What the hell? Just Disney, Yeah, dude, like women are only for princesses, not toasters, something to that effect. Yeah, but yeah, I guess the debate surrounding the gender of the titular toaster burns hot on the internet. Toasters become something of a totem or a mascot in lgbt Q circles due to the androgens presentation. Some have called toaster a quote non binary icon. I'm here for it. Uh in a Q and a with rees that's a cow state. It's a really adorable interview. Oliver said that when her son was deployed to Afghanistan, soldiers brought toasters to the deployment ceremony for her to sign, which they then took overseas. So now there's only one degree of separation from the brave little toaster and the war on Terror. It's just so bad for her son's about to get shipped off to war and she's having leather toasters shoved in front of Wow. Uh. There's a funny story about Dana Oliver when she was called into record one day, but it was for a chase scene in the woods, and all they needed her to do was just inhale and exhale frantically for a few seconds and that was it. Yeah, she said, She's like, that was my favorite day of work. Hit your day rate for like three seconds of inhales and excels the voice of Blankie. You don't like blanket, No, I don't have annoying Uh. Timothy E. Day barely done anything else. I think he did like one movie right after this. Nothing before. This kid supposedly heard like a child's voice in an animated thing they were watching and turned to their mom was like, I could do that. And Rees said, like his mom brought him to the audition. She was not like a stage mom. She was like, he wants to do this. And this kid was a damn pro. His nickname on the set was one Take. Timmy. Rees said that even though this kid was in like elementary school, like seven and seven and a half years old. Uh, he would ask about his motivation before doing his lines. Um and really read said for the crying scene when the blanky first melts down, he goes, I want the engineer to hear you through that double glass window without his headphones on. Ahead a kid to cry harder. Damnit, we need more tears to sell this overseas. Yeah, the kid was like seven and a half doing this. That's amazing. And this is actually only my second favorite instance of electric blankets and cinema. You know what My first is what's that. It's the film The Thing from Another World, which is a great old James. In this movie, a electric blanket is haphazardly thrown on a block of ice that melts, and the alien monster that was encased in it is allowed to escape and run rampant. Well, folks, I don't want to give you any spoilers for a future episode of t m I, but we are laying the groundwork for an episode that is related to the Thing from Another World, so sharp eared viewers will pick up that one. It's the Thing. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you're right. Timothy Stack, who voiced Lampy i'd res, just mentioned that he would be on calls with his manager during recording and just like hang up with his manager and be like come back in and be like what a lot would Padreon? But he did ad lib the last line in the movie, I am aching with joy. Um. That's all you get out of me. I don't remember anything else about that character. But now we come on to Thurl Mother Trucking Ravens cross Boy tell us about thorough. He voiced the Vacuum, but more famously, he voiced Tony the Tiger and the singing Voice of the Grinch. He's done all kinds of stuff for Disney. The Pirates of the Caribbean Ride, another mansion, another head on the Wall of the Country, Bear Jamboree, another one. But he's also in Walt Disney's Enchanted Taking Room, as Fritz Walt Didney's Enchanted Tiki Room, the Sex Dungeon. Sorry, anyway, tell us about the Grinch. I always think, always found this fascinating because Boris Karloff. Yeah, Boris Karloff is the voice of the Grinch and the narrator in the movie. But he wasn't a trained singer, so they brought in Thurl Ravens Croft. Thurle is his real name. By the way I looked at up. I thought that would have to be short for something. Was some kind of nickname, thurless name. But they brought in Thorow Ravens Croft. The dub the song You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch, but he was uncredited, apparently by accident in the opening of the movie, leading many to believe that Boris Karloff had sung the song. And Dr SEUs himself felt really bad about this and called Thorle himself and profusely apologized, and he actually went a step further. Dr Seuss wrote letters to columnists nationwide telling him that it was thorough who provided the vocals for the musical number you wanted to set the record straight, which I think is beautiful. Um. There was apparently no bad blood, because Thurle later worked on the animated versions of Horton, Here's a Who, and Thetle Rax. Uh. He was a deeply religious man who once said that his lifelong dream was to record the entire Bible on tape, but James Earl Jones quote beat him out, so he got his revenge in a really great way. He appeared on an episode of the TV variety show Donnie and Marie, you know the Asben siblings, And on this episode it featured guest stars from the first Star Wars movie, and Thurrell was booked to provide the voice for Darth Vader, which James Earl in the movie. So yeah, it's so good. Did his own version of Darth Vader, which sounds awesome. Can you do raft? No? No, I didn't didn't with that one prepared. Uh. He is really one of the unheralded m v p s of Disney For people who just know him as Tony that is false. I mean not just all the theme park stuff you mentioned, but he was in a singing group called the Mellow Men. And not only did these guys get legitimate music industry gigs, they backed up being Crosby like Jones Rosemary Clooney. They also sang in Disney stuff like Pinocchio, Alison Wonderland Lady in the Tramp Thurl was also Monstro the Whale. And if that doesn't hew blow your mind. This dude was a civilian navigator in World War Two. He served with the US Air Transport Command spent five years flying courier missions across the North and South Atlantic, including uh, Winston Churchill and Bob Hope at points, so ferried Winston Churchill across the Ocean, and he's sang for the Grunch. Wow. Quite a life. Uh And in case you're curious, Vacuum is based on the Kirby Duel Santatronic eight. Uh. Toaster is pretty much a simplified some beam model toaster and radio was a distillation of the designs of a lot of bake light radios. I just want to do a quick distillation of the plot of this movie, just to remind people how bizarre, at some points terrifying. It really is. It's like Beauty and the Beast with more existential despair. These objects are trapped alone in this desolate cottage in the woods, awaiting the return of their beloved master, whom they served with an almost cult like devotion. They've been waiting years for him to return and bring their lives meaning through his use, and upon seeing a for sale sign posted in the front yard, they realize he's not coming back. One of these appliances, the A C. As we've mentioned, become so distressed that he explodes These surviving appliances, none of whom like each other, it's worth noting, battle the elements to seek out their master in the big city, and then they get sent to a junkyard against their will, where they witnessed a series of cars submit to their deaths willingly while lamenting their old lives with a song called worthless and Funnily enough, that junkyard scene was very nearly cut from the movie at the request of one of the producers, a guy by name of Donald Kushner. Uh. Not only was it extremely anxiety producing, but they were worried that the cars voluntarily heading to the crusher would imply suicide. And another scene that he wanted cut was the Nightmares scene where the toast there's dreaming of that horrifying clown dresses a firefighter who just whispers ron, oh god, cigar chomping exact the clown stays in the picture. Do you remember that? Yeah, it's so upsetting. Yeah. But they ended up leaving that scene at the Junkyard scene in despite this producer's request to cut it. I don't really know why. Certainly makes an impact, though. Take out the music, Take us to the music, keep moving as you meditate on that. We'll be right back with more too much information after these messages. Now, folks, we must come to the music of the Brave Little Toaster. In a little segment I called the Brave Little Soundtrack. This was David Newman, Yes, of those m Newman's, the most Oscar nominated family in Hollywood history. Randy Thomas, Alfred David, Zeppo, Chico, Curly Larry said, ringo, ringo Newman. Um. This was David's first animated score, really his first big film score proper, and it took into two thousand four to be released. This movie got so little love. We'll get to that in a little later. But David Newman studied violin performance along with composition, but he initially thought he wanted to just be a studio musician. He had done sessions with John Williams, Jerry Goldsmith other iconic Hollywood composers, but he got the scoring bug. He wanted to try his hand in composing. And it was Hyperion co founder Willard Carroll, who had also at handed screenplay, who passed David's demo along to Tom will Hide, who arranged for David to get his first gig at Disney, which was co scoring Tim Burton's first film for Disney, Frank and Weeny And that's the movie that has the kid who played um Pastion and the running story is that right? Yeah? Fun fact about Hyperion co founder Willard Carroll, he is recognized as having the world's largest privately held collection of Wizard of Oz related memorabilia in the world, and over a hundred thousand items. I respect that. I was gonna say game respects game, but you thought, yeah, anyway, Frank and Weeney is basically shelved because Disney justifiably looked at it like what the is this sim is the story cases you can't tell of France. Frankenstein retold with a child's dog him after this, right, Yeah, But that score essentially launched Newman's career. His next score was from six is Critters, which is horror films recognized as a classic of the weird little guys sub genre in horror, also typified by Gremlin's googlies. Um, you know s little Judd, Well, I don't know. I don't know if they're weird little guys. Lepricn Leprica be in there. David Cronenberg's The Brood has weird little guys in it. The thing is like, they have to be little and they have to be sinister, and I would put Mac and me in weird little Guys. Yeah, thank you. This has been the weird little Guys corner of the Too Much Information soundtrack. Anyway, The Brave Little Toaster was the first project of this scope that I had ever done. Newman said, I was learning how much music I could write a day, and it was hard work, and then I ran out of time. I had to get on a plane to Japan to track this. There was eight minutes of solid music that goes from the finish of the song Worthless, which is the aforementioned song of the automobiles as they're being destroyed to the end credits of the movie. I had to stay up fifty hours to write and orchestrate the music, and I still wasn't finished by the end of that twelve hour flight. Whoa David would approach the film's score or by keeping the characters in his mind as real people and not cartoons, in order to create what he felt were authentic sounds depicting moods and emotions. I didn't put this in there, but Jerry Rees has cited a repeated quote from David Newman that, um, every moment of happiness is tinged with sadness, at which I believe he paraphrises at one point as behind every smile there is a tear in the movie or just in life, in life, so he was like, you have to get this core of sadness in there. We didn't mention this earlier, but one of the people who had a stake in this movie is the Japanese electronics company t d K. And you can see their logo not just in the credits, but in a p o V shot of a city scape. There's a big t d K logo that Jerry Rees animated in himself as a thank you to this company for helping them scrape together enough money to make this thing. But because of that connection, they were able to record the soundtrack to this movie with the New Japan Philharmonic in a hall that included a German pipe organ he used for the beam. It's just B movies, I think is the calls and he he loves this score. Newman said it was later, uh, one of the only scores where I've been able to follow my muse. Yeah. I think he said it was his favorite thing he's ever done. I love that, um. But assisting him and kind of popping in his interstitials to his score is Jordan's beloved Van Dyke Parks, the songwriter and a ranger who notched credits with The Beach Boys and Carly Simon before branching into a few different films. But he is so much more than that. I I love Van Dyke Parks so much. He's one of my heroes. He's best known to me as my beloved Brian Wilson's lyricssistant collaborator on his infamous Smile project, a k a. His teenage Symphony to God that took him thirty seven years to complete. According to rock Mythology, Van Dyke Parks was introduced to Brian Wilson at a party held at producer Terry Melcher's house. The house that was later the one where Sharon Tate and her friends were murdered by the Manson family and then was later bought by Jeff Franklin, the guy who created Full House. So quite a lineage there um. The more realistic version is that Van Dyke was introduced to Brian by David Crosby, who allegedly invited Van Dyke to join the Birds, so did Frank Zappa. Frank Zappa invited him to join the Mothers of Invention, but Van Dyke turned it down because he quote didn't want to be screamed at, which is with frank Zappa a very real threat he was apparently this I really don't understand. Was also asked to join Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young at one point and also declined this offer. Probably a wise move, but is that is that up there with Nicky Hopkins turning down the Kinks and Rolling Stones like how many who has the record of most famous bands turned down, that's gotta be up there, but it sounds like he kind of dodged bullets across the boarder. Yeah. But Van Dyke man incredibly interesting guy. He studied composition under the great Aaron Copeland. Did you know that I didn't? Uh? And his solo album song Cycles in nineteen sixty seven is a really underappreciated album of baroque maximalist poppets. Was one of the most expensive records ever made at the time it was released, and it totally bombed, which to me makes it even cooler. Uh. He has another solo album nineteen seventy two is Discover America, which is really cool for his explorations in the Caribbean music. He was also reportedly one of the first people to ever own a Moog synthesizer. Him and Mickey Dolan's of the Monkeys were like the two first guys in l a um and speaking of the Monkeys and marrying music with TV. In nineteen seventy Van Dyke became the head of the audio visual department at Warner Brothers Records, which was the earliest department of its kind to use videos to promote records. But Van Dyke is no Stranger to animation scores. One of us first professional gigs was arranging the track The Bare Necessities for the Junkle Book in seven. Yeah. So around the same time he was hanging out with Brian Wilson in his sandbox writing heroes and villains and surfs up, he was writing scores for Blue and Mowgli. That's one of my favorite Disney songs, yoh yeah, and I Want to Be Like You sung by Louis Yeo Yeah. Van Dyke Parks is also the guy who convinced Frank Sinatra to record Something Stupid, the duet with his daughter Nancy, because Van Dyke's own brother had written that song. Anyhow, Van Dyke also did music for Sesame Streets, follow That Bird, Peewee, Herman's Christmas Special, songs for the eighties Popeye movie with Robin Williams sung by Harry Nilsen, and you know in Walk Hard the Dewey Cock Story, when Dewey's singing that psychedelic Black Sheep song, which is like a parody of Brian Wilson's Psychedelic Odyssey. Van Dyke wrote that himself. The guy who helped Brian Wilson write smile. That's amazing, right. Um, he's done a bunch of acting. He plays the character Jack Ray scene in an episode of Twin Peaks, and not many people know he was a child actor as well. He had a recurring role on The Honeymooners with Jackie Gleason as Little Tommy Manicotti, the kid upstairs. You say that, there's not a lot of people know that. Not many people. I can't do it. Not many people know that. Not a lot of people know that. Anyway. More to the point, Van Dyke was tight with David Newman's cousin Randy Newman from Crossing Paths as writers and arrangers for Warner Brothers in the sixties. I love Van Dyke park so much. I tried to interview him when I was at People for the fiftieth anniversary of his song Cycle album, and he sent me the most amazing email, turning me down. I'm sure I have it somewhere. Print that out. Yeah, my favorite Turndown letters. And I haven't been able to verify this. Bono of you two wrote to Captain Beefheart, and Captain Beefheart wrote back, dear Bongo, I don't know who you are or what you want from me, but don't call me again. I wonder if Bono has that framed anyway. Parks was actually brought onto this project before Newman, and Newman actually incorporated some of the themes that Parks wrote for his songs into the score. What's your favorite song from this? Oh, they're all pretty weird. I like the Scrapyard one because it's the saddest and weirdest. That was weird. I mean, the one that used to always get stuck in my head as a kid was a City of Light, the kind of big, optimistic we're heading out on the road song in the beginning that used to always play in my Yeah, it's a B movie, has the whole like something from like a Vincent Price movie. I think it opens with that German pipe or again that's pipe for anyway. Toaster was screened at the Sundance Film Festival, and until two thousand ones, Waking Life was the only animated film to notch that particular honor. Reason in Uheve reddit A m A said, several judges told me hind Closed Doors that it had been considered for Best Film that year, but they were afraid that no one would take the Festival. Seriously if they awarded top prize to a cartoon, but they wanted me to know how much it was secretly admired. Unfortunately, the House of Mouse, there's it's ugly head. Uh. In R's words, the Disney Channel, which had bought the rights for Cable, purposefully moved their air dates forward so as to preempt and kill our theatrical release. This made theater is nervous a book in the film because it would have already aired, and as a result, it's intended theatrical distributor backed out. I mean, it's so absurd. And and he talks about getting a lawyer. Um, he met a lawyer at Sundance and this guy apparently I forget this guy's name, but he's gone on to become a very big entertainment lawyer. And the guy was like, yeah, I don't really understand why Disney is doing this, because you'd think that having something opening in theaters, you're damaging it by putting it on TV before it goes out of you have more money. Anyway, This will all make sense when you hear the next name that I'm about to mention, which is Enemy of the Pod Jeffrey Katzenberg. Jeffrey Cattensberg could kill me, destroy my career with a gesture. But one thing he'll never do is fight me physically, which I will do. Um if he tanks my career, he at least owes me that much anyway. In this YouTube interview from this year, Reese said, I called Jeffrey Katzenberg and talked to him about it, this whole cluster and quote, and he's like, hey, good luck, kid, We don't want to stand in your way, and Rees says, and I said, but you are click yeah. The Disney chickenery also resulted in the movie being ineligible for OSCAR nominations such as Best Original Score and Best which it almost certainly would have been nominated anyway. By Hyperion was able to self distribute the film to the art house theater circuit, including a successful stint at the Film Forum in New York maybe another animated film that got to run out of the the Film Forum until like Beauty. The Beasts loved this film, including like big name legacy New York publication critics David Edelstein at The New York Post, Stephen Holden in The New York Times, David Denby in the New York are all wrote glowing reviews of this film. A year later, it lands on home video via Disney, where it became a big success in spite of the fact that, as Rees recalls, they put no promotional muscle behind it. And you can see this in the archival ads stuff that came out around the same time. It's like, see, uh, you know whatever else on home video Proud to own nowhere Brave Little Toaster gets to mention, and Rees said he used to go into video stores in l A And just surreptitiously moved the Brave Little Toaster to the front of the racks. As a former Blockbuster employee, I can appreciate deeply the film is still unavailable on streaming. And here's what really pisces me off. After all of the work that they put into this thing, the home video dubs that you can get are ripped from the original print of the film that went to all the festivals, went to all the theaters, which means it looks like garbage because you're getting a VHS dub of a reel that has been through the ringer, and then you're getting a DVD transfer of that of that VHS. So it looks like, yeah, so you may be wondering, why can't I see this original film on Disney Plus or any of the other streamers, But I can see two films called The Brave Little Toaster to the Rescue and The Brave Little Toaster Goes to in Mars. I'll tell you why these two movies were made concurrently a first time director named Robert C. Ramirez, who also was responsible for them recording the music and all the voice dubbing. I have no idea how they dragooned this guy into being like you are handling this entire but he probably did the craft services table as well, like Jesus Christ. I watched the interviews with him around the same time, like in the studio trying to like get all this happening, and he looks like a husk of a man. He's bravely trying. He's putting very he's trying to put a very brave face on it. He's like, well, you know, you get to learn a lot, which is what you have to do in this. But yeah, it looks like there's someone like Jeffrey katzenbergers holding a pistol on him outside of frame, but among other things. You can hear the original Herman's Hermit's singer Peter Noon sing I'm into something good that's exciting for me. Yeah. Do you know that's an early Carol King song song Love Carol King Um bravet Toaster Goes to Mars is actually based on a Dish story, but Rescue is not. Uh in that Reddit m A or maybe in their cow State interview, neither Reason nor Oliver have watched the finish film, But funny enough, they did actually recruit a lot of Coast talent for those sequels. Five Ish Finkle is in there, as is Alan King and and DeForrest Kelly better known as Bones McCoy from the original Star Trek. He's the voice of the Viking lander in the Mars sequel. I love that so much. Anyway, Rees explained in this Reddit A m A that he had started work on his own sequel in two thousand nine. We've been picking up on the where the original story left off. But he says that as he was basically sussing out the rights issues, the people who owned the rights at least who he thought did, actually didn't, and that they were subsequently outbid by another company now same year. He does that a m A. That company, Waterman Entertainment, the company behind Alvin and the Chipmunks, and now that they had acquired the rights and we're planning a remake of The Brave Little Toaster that, like Alvin, would have been a blend of live action in c G. I like that New Chippendale Dale. But there's some concept art out there by a guy named Alan Bettino, including a character named Smartphone. I wanted to stay retro. I don't want to see a smart phone. He told a YouTuber by the name of Veil ski Bum that that this art was indeed commissioned by the Waterman Company, who quote secured the rights and developed the project, but ultimately they pitched the round Town and couldn't drum up funding. I think it was mostly a timing thing, and Waterman the company actually shut down and the state of the rights is currently up in the air, where I have a funny feeling it is likely to stay. Jeffrey Catsenberg A tone for your sins by the rights. Give it to Jerry Rees Van Dyck Parks email me back. Aside from standing on its own as an artistic achievement, the Brave Little Toaster is a very important footnote in animation history because so many of these people have gone on to shape the entire landscape of the medium for the past thirty years. Ranft he became a script supervisor at Pixar, developed the stories for Tory Story and Monsters, Inc. Voiced characters in their various films before his untimely death in two thousand eight. Animators Glenn Keene, Kirk Wise and Kevin Lima went on to animate and co direct some of the biggest films of the Disney Renaissance, like The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Pocaconis, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and Tarzan. Effects animator Mark Dindal directed The Emperor's New Groove, one of my favorites. I love how much you love that movie and I've never seen it once. Oh, dude, rules, it's so good. It's John Goodman and David Spade and Patrick Warburton and Eartha Kit Like if I don't sell if I don't sell you on that, nothing will. I mean, this is just so. This was after I checked out of Disney, but before I started checking out, like the Pixar stuff, and well, I still had a little sister and so that's how stuff and Emperor's new group still holds up. It's incredible anyway. Uh. He also did Chicken Little Sure. Character designer Rob Minkoff directed The Lion King whoa to Stewart Little Movies and Mr Peabody and Sherman. You know, Herman's Hermits was supposed to be named Sherman and the Hermit's after Mr Pabody and Sherman, but they were printing up business cards and they accidentally there was a typo and they missed the s on Sherman. So they just left this Herman's Hermits because they don't want to pay it to have him reprinted. Huh, there you go. Okay, all right, I'd like that. Good. Yeah, I'm I'm actually bringing it all back. I mean, I'm been I'm giving dead air to this because of how how odd I am. In fact, this show is about making connections and yeah, no, well done. Um. David Newman has obviously gone on to continue in his family's legacy as an in demand composer. He went to pick up an Oscar nom for Fantasia though Anastasia Anastasia. Oh yeah, obviously that movie rules that was my that's my Emperor's new groove. I but my sister was that all the time. Yeah, there's a new book on him that just came out. I think we gotta do we gotta do a blue thing. Yeah yeah, Land Before Time watched that. Jerry Rees. Uh, Look, I make no bones about the fact I love Jerry Rees. He's had a slightly less auspicious career. He directed the Neil Simon penned The Marrying Man, which was a flop, and he did serve as an animation producer on the original Space Jam. But he has kind of transitioned into directing films for UM Disney theme parks. He's done a bunch of stuff, like the short films that are at the theme parks when you go on different rides UM. One of them was an award winning documentary called Back to Neverland, which starts Robin Williams and Walter Cronkite. Jerry Reads also did the Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular, So if nothing else, he has Brave Little Toaster and the Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular. That man can rest on those laurels. That sounds all It sounds like he said, I mean Neil Simon's one of my heroes, Walter Cronkite, Robert Williams since cool life to me. He also has not aged. He still looks just like a little elfin man and I want to hang out with him so much. Jerry is, I'll take you to dinner, come to San Francisco. You've seem like a fun guy, really sweet guy. We can talk to it about Jeffrey Katzenberg. As I mentioned before, he has become the biggest steward of this film's legacy online. He did this Reddit a m A. He does interviews about it with YouTubers and you dropped. Jerry reads a line He'll talk to you about Brave Wilt Toaster a few of the quotes that he has given from the past thirty years that really sum up this film. So I'm going to take some artistic liberty and edit together some quotes from the A m A. And the liner notes to the Soundtracker reissue that I really think some of the character of this film, he said. I think the only reason I was able to make that tone of a movie was because we were off the studio grid. No studio would have let us do that. When you got on the inside of Disney, and you talked to the veteran animators, not one of them would tell you that they made a kid's movie. They made these movies for themselves and wanted everyone to have a good time together in the theater. I figured that these characters, as charming as they were, we're dealing with an ominous world. Their fear of being obsolete rings true for all of us at one time or another as well. So many anim ated features at the time. We're kids e and talked down to you. But it was natural for me to say that the cartoon characters could be irreverend yet also be emotionally genuine. We wanted to go for the essence of character animation in the truest Disney tradition, moving the drawings as well as the audience. I can't think of a better epitaph for this movie than that I don't want to encourage anyone to pirate anything under the ages of my heart, but it seems to be your only option. So you know, if you want to see a film that it was made with an incredible amount of heart and pathos and skill, skill and love, go track down Brave Little Toaster tweet at Jerry Rees tell him how much he loved it. He'll appreciate it and tweet. Jeffery Kassenberg tweeted Jeffrey Kasenberg and Vandyke Parks too and Van Dyke Parks. He's very active on Twitter. Folks. Thank you for listening. This has been too much information. I'm Alex Hegel and I'm Jordan run Talk. We'll catch you next time. Too Much Information was a production of I Heart Radio. The show's executive producers are Noel Brown and Jordan run Talk. The supervising producer is Mike John's. The show was researched, written and hosted by Jordan run Talk and Alex Hegel, with original music by Seth Applebaum and the Ghost Funk Orchestra. 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