Disney On Acid

The Sunday Age

Sunday June 17, 2007

Andrew Stephens

Today's animators have a love-hate relationship with the classics of the Disney canon. On the eve of ACMI's animation festival, Andrew Stephens talks to two artists who dared to spoof the litigious legend.

The rumours are legion about Walt Disney, that mild, avuncular-looking man we used to see on Sunday nights on The Wonderful World of Disney. From red-baiting and anti-Semitism to the legendary cryogenic freezing of Walt's head, such myths never seem to go away - and are particularly rife among animators.

Most of the tales are ludicrous, but they're all fascinating, and that's why two New York animators, Robert Marianetti and David Wachtenheim, have made an animated spoof about it all.

The two artists, like many contemporary animators, see the vast Disney canon as simultaneously sacred and flawed: in some ways, they find it inspirational; in other ways, it is a lesson in what not to do as an animator. Either way it is a rich source. Disney, after all, is one of the largest entertainment corporations in the world: it's pumped out more than 40 animated features and hundreds of live-action films since 1923.

The Wachtenheim/Marianetti Animation's short film, which is showing at this month's Melbourne International Animation Festival at ACMI , is called Journey to the Disney Vault - the "vault" being the enigmatic place where all Disney films eventually go.

American television, says Marianetti, regularly broadcasts ads urging viewers (especially young ones) to race straight out and buy the latest special-edition DVD of, say, Bambi 2 . They are told to do so before the date it is to be "consigned to the Disney vault".

"After that," says Wachtenheim, "(the films) go into this mythical Disney vault, never to be seen again" - until the studio deems it necessary to bring them out. It is, he says, just a supply-and-demand marketing ploy: scarcity, or at least the threat of it, always encourages enthusiastic consumption.

Here in Australia, there is no threat of the "vault" - DVD titles simply vanish from store shelves: "not available" is all we're told.

It all seems a bit "Mickey Mouse" - which delights the satirically inclined Marianetti and Wachtenheim. While they don't believe there is any physical vault as such at Disney headquarters, they have created a version of one in their new three-minute film. It tells the tale of two wide-eyed children whisked off to the vault with the legendary Mickey Mouse - the Disney mascot - whom they ask difficult and hilarious questions, such as: "I heard he (Disney) was anti-semantic?" "Anti-Semitic," corrects Mickey, deflating the suggestion - though he cannot hide from the kiddies the decapitated head of Disney, floating in a cryogenic tank. Disney died of lung cancer in 1966, hence only his head (goes the rumour) was preserved.

Marianetti and Wachtenheim have been creating animations such as the Disney parody for the Saturday Night Live television show on NBC for almost a decade, making six to nine shorts a year. The program is a showcase for US comic talent and the two animators have been thrilled at the support they've received - especially for the Disney Vault, which they thought might attract a legal veto.

Fortunately, parody laws in the US allowed most of their ideas, worked out with writer and producer Robert Smigel, to be approved by lawyers and producers. But they had to wait for Disney's next announcement of plans to put a film in the vault before they could make and air Journey to the Disney Vault.

"We found out that Bambi 2 was going to be put away in two weeks and immediately got the green light and started working on the cartoon," says Marianetti. "The entire production, from start to finish, was cranked out in a little under two weeks by a talented group of animators working around the clock at breakneck speed."

The thrust of the short is to show that films are not the only things kept in the vault -there are also many secrets and rumours.

"We were all pretty nervous at first," says Marianetti. "We thought it might not even air. Lorne Michaels, who created Saturday Night Live, loved it and wanted it played. We were all waiting with bated breath (after it screened): were we going to hear from the Disney lawyers on Monday?"

They didn't, but they did hear from disgruntled Disney animators who had been sacked when the company decided to drop 2-D hand-drawn animation in the big move to computer-generated work. They even heard from the producer of Bambi 2, who loved the short.

Disney parody is nothing new. Box-office-dominating franchise Shrek famously spoofs Disneyland, Disney characters and the Disney studios in its Kingdom of Duloc. When the wooden dolls sing Welcome to Duloc, it's It's A Small World After All all over again. And The Simpsons, as any fan will know, have Diz-Nee Land Historical Park.

The internet is rich in Disney parody, with bloggers discussing the various rumours that Marianetti and Wachtenheim have squeezed into three minutes, including the legend that Disney animators periodically inserted single risque frames (such as nude women) into the films.

This is something that Marianetti and Wachtenheim have made use of in Journey to the Disney Vault, with Mickey trying to hide cells showing Jessica Rabbit (Who Framed Roger Rabbit?) baring her nethers and a priest with an erection (The Little Mermaid).

They also had a go at the sacrosanct Mickey Mouse, who tells the children: "Think of all the laughs I've given you!"

The children pause. "You're supposed to be funny?" they ask, bewildered.

Wachtenheim laughs about this. "The older 1930s and 1940s Mickey Mouse - he was definitely funnier, an innocent kind of character getting into all kinds of trouble. As Mickey became more the icon for the company, they wanted to make him more run-of-the-mill - I don't know, more kind of home-grown. And he lost his edge."

But what it is about Walter Elias Disney that attracts some of the wildest lies and myths in the film and on websites? The disneylies.com site is especially unhinged, claiming that Disney was a Satan worshipper and a pornography collector; had been dishonourably discharged from the military; was an alien...

This is in stark contrast to the official Disney site, which describes old Walt as "a legend, a folk hero of the 20th century" whose "worldwide popularity is based upon the ideas his name represents: imagination, optimism, and self-made success in the American tradition".

Marianetti and Wachtenheim say that the Disney canon will always be double-edged. "People revere Disney because of the great work they've done, but, also, Disney's old hat," says Wachtenheim. "There's definitely a reverence and a nostalgia, but, since Pixar with the CG has exploded - even though they're under the Disney label - Disney itself has not been able to come out from under the shadow of Pixar. People really love Pixar."

The director of the Melbourne International Animation Festival, Malcolm Turner, agrees, but says 2-D hand-drawn animation is far from dead. Of the 2200 entries he had for the festival, only about a fifth were "high-concept computer animation". The rest, while often run through computers, were largely hand-work.

"Most of the animation that's created is 2-D," says Turner. "When you look at what European animators or creative animators are doing, there's really only a handful of them playing with 3-D (computer-generated) stuff."

But it's 3-D that draws the audiences now, he says. "At the end of the day, 3-D definitely dominates the (mass-audience) commercial space, there's no question, and I don't see that ever changing. Until someone comes up with 4D or 5D."

miaf.net/

acmi.net.au/miaf-2007.jsp

Festival highlights

Roger Ramjet collection and the Fred Crippen retrospective

Among animation fans, Fred Crippen, the creator of the cultish Roger Ramjet, is a legend. The retrospective was curated by Crippen himself. When the festival organisers met him in his "cluttered, memory-clogged studio in LA", they found a tiny, low-ceiling studio filled to bursting with the evidence of 50 years of animating. The entire Roger Ramjet collection will also be shown at the festival.

An Imaginary Life (Steve Baker), Australian Panorama # 1

This film was the winner of this year's Tropfest, even though director Baker has been making films for just seven years. Baker recently joined forces with Brisbane production company Head Pictures and has worked on music video clips for bands such as the Grates, and animation for clients such as Coca-Cola. With Head Pictures, Baker has also made his first animated TV series for ABC called Did You Know?, which he created, wrote, directed and co-animated. He's now working on a film funded by the Australian Film Commission called Dog with Electric Collar.

abc.net.au/didyouknow

Masters of Polish animation

Polish animation holds a special position in the hearts of all fans of classic animation. In Poland, animation has been a favourite since the early days of cinema. They were among the first to use animation in commercials, says the festival program. Recently, the Pompidou Centre in Paris curated an enormous collection of Polish master animators, much of which will be shown over two sessions at ACMI.

Pixar: 20 years of Animation

Pixar fans will love this exhibition at ACMI, which has been timed to complement the animation festival. It takes viewers behind the scenes of the famous studio that created Finding Nemo, Monsters, Inc., Toy Story, Cars and The Incredibles. It includes more than 500 sketches, paintings, sculptures and storyboards that explain how the scenery and characters are created, plus immersive environments and interactive experiences. It's described as the world's "largest exhibition dedicated to the art of animation" and comes from the Museum of Modern Art in New York. It opens on Thursday June 28 ($15, concession $10).

acmi.net.au/pixar.jsp

© 2007 The Sunday Age

Back to News Index | Back to Home