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How Disney’s animators lost their way on the road to “Atlantis: The Lost Empire”

Jim Hill looks back at Disney Feature Animation’s Summer 2001 release — a project that started out with plenty of promise … only to have WDFA executives second-guess this film’s chance at greatness away.

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It’s all that people in Hollywood can talk about these days. The continuing success of Disney’s “Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl.”

Folks who were supposedly in the know about the way things really work in Tinsel Town had predicted that this pirate picture wouldn’t have any legs. (Which — given how many movie pirates are depicted as having peg legs — is a somewhat ironic comment, don’t you think? Anyway …) That Disney’s “The Curse of the Black Pearl” might have one really good weekend, then quickly fade from view.

Well, here we are — 4 weeks after “Pirates” first came sailing into theaters nationwide. And Jack Sparrow & Co. are still going strong. Just last week, this Walt Disney Pictures release was second at the box office. To date, this Jerry Bruckheimer production has grossed $214 million. Which is considerably more than anyone in Hollywood had ever expected this Disney movie to make.

But — then again — when it comes to making box office predictions, it’s genuinely difficult to predict which picture is ultimately going to come out on top in the summer cinema sweepstakes.

Take for example what happened back during the summer of 2001. Most Tinsel Town insiders felt that Walt Disney Pictures had a pretty decent shot at success with its animated action-adventure film, “Atlantis: The Lost Empire.” But “A:TLE” turned out to be a real disappointment, grossing only $84 million (which hardly came close to cover its production costs, never mind the tens of millions more that Disney poured into the marketing of the movie).

So what went wrong with “Atlantis: The Lost Empire?” Well, to hear Disney Studio insiders tell it, “A:TLE” really was a project with plenty of promise. At least when the production initially started out. But then “Atlantis” lost its one real chance at box office success as the project’s film-makers — under the guidance of WDFA’s allegedly Creative VPs — kept second-guessed themselves. Fixing and futzing with their film until “Atlantis: The Lost Empire” had become a pale shadow of what it once was.

I mean, back when work first began on “A:TLE,” this movie truly had some balls. “Atlantis: The Lost Empire” started out with a prologue that showed a crew of blood-thirsty Vikings meeting a grisly fate in the North Atlantic. Their longboat obliterated by some immense mysterious creature with tentacles. (This sequence was to have been the audience’s initial introduction to the Leviathan, the massive mechanical creature that guarded the one remaining gateway to Atlantis.)

Killing off a whole boatload of Vikings may seem like a pretty odd way to start off a Disney animated film. But that’s just what veteran animation directors Gary Wise and Kirk Trousdale wanted to do. Back when these two first met with WDFA producer Don Hahn in October 1996 (over a bowl of cheesy nachos at a Mexican restaurant in Burbank) to decide what sort of picture they all wanted to make next, Kirk and Gary said to Don: “We don’t wanna do another musical. We’ve already done that with ‘Beauty & the Beast’ and ‘The Hunchback of Notre Dame.’ We wanna do something new, something different this time. An adventure!”

But not just any kind of adventure. A Ray Harryhausen kind of adventure. A Saturday matinee sort of movie — in the tradition of “The Mysterious Island,” “Jason and the Argonauts” and “The Golden Voyage of Sinbad.” Loaded with exotic locations, colorful characters … and lots and lots of really cool monsters.

Well, Wise and Trousdale seemed pretty passionate about their idea. And given that Walt Disney Studios actually used to make live action films like this (EX: “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea,” “Swiss Family Robinson,” “In Search of the Castaways,” “The Island at the Top of The World”), Don thought that he might be able to sell the Mouse House brass on making a movie like this.

As it turned out, Hahn was right. Given Wise and Trousdale’s track record, the powers-that-be at Disney Studios were willing to let Kirk and Gary begin development of their Ray Harryhausen tribute movie. (Which — by the way — was initially supposed to have been an animated version of Jules Verne’s “Journey to the Center of the Earth.” So what happened to that movie? Sadly, after just a few months of development, Wise and Trousdale were said to have lost all interest and enthusiasm with the idea of making a movie that would have been based on that particular Verne novel. So they opted instead to go forward with an “original” cinema story that “borrowed” quite heavily from Jules’ “Journey.” That’s Hollywood for you … Anyway …)

Getting back to Wise and Trousdale’s Ray Harryhausen tribute film … Just as Ray used to load up his stop motion epics with lots of bizarre creatures, “Atlantis: The Lost Empire” was originally supposed to have had a lot of monsters.

Lots and lots of monsters.

I mean, if Kirk and Gary had just stuck to their guns, “Atlantis: The Lost Empire” would have had the crew of the Ulysses — once they survived their deadly encounter with the Leviathan — battling squid bats, lava whales as well as bugs the size of school buses as they made their way deep down into the bowels of the Earth. (Those of JHM readers who’d like to get some sense of what these sequences would have been like would be wise to go pick up a copy of the 2-disc collector’s edition of the “Atlantis: The Lost Empire” DVD. Here, hidden among the disc’s extras, you’ll find deleted storyboard versions of these various scenes. Which should give you some idea how truly exciting “A:TLE” COULD HAVE been — had these sequences been left in the movie.) In short, this film would have been just the sort of production that Ray Harryhausen could have been proud of.

But then … well … Wise, Trousdale and Hahn began getting all of these inane notes from WDFA’s cadre of allegedly-Creative Executives. These useless series of suits regularly bombarded the film-makers with mindless memos that often asked lame-brained questions like “Isn’t it taking Milo and his friends far too long to get to Atlantis? Can’t we speed things up a bit in this part of the picture?”

Plus the movie’s monsters — what with all of their numerous legs, wings and antennae — were proving to be pretty darned difficult to animate. Expensive too. And — given that Kirk, Gary and Don were coming under continuing pressure from above to streamline “A:TLE”‘s production as well as keep costs down — the easiest thing to cut back back then was the squid bat attack, the crew’s deadly encounter with the lava whale sequence as well as the bug hunt (Kida’s original introductory sequence, which was to have shown the Atlantaen princess — to the audience, anyway — as this truly awesome warrior).

The only problem was … once these three sequences were cut, Wise and Trousdale’s animated adventure film — supposedly crafted in the style of Ray Harryhausen — was now decidedly light on adventure and monsters. I mean, now that the encounters with the Lava Whales, the Squid Bats and the enormous caterpillar were cut … it only took Milo and the crew of the Ulysses about a half an hour to reach Atlantis.

Kirk and Gary tried to paper over this hole in their picture’s plot by upping the amount of human drama in “Atlantis: The Lost Empire.” They did this by trying to turn Kida and the people of Atlantis into characters that movie-goers could genuinely care about.

At least, that was what Wise and Trousdale were trying to do — back in March 2000 — when they suddenly opted to cut the film’s original prologue. (Remember? The sequence where the Vikings got attacked by the Leviathan?) But this just resulted in a large logic lapse in “A:TLE”‘s convoluted story line that animation insiders are still chuckling over.

What am I talking about? Okay. Try and follow along here. This gets kind of complicated. To explain:

At the start of “Atlantis: The Lost Empire,” Kida and her father (the King of Atlantis) are alive and well inside of this supposedly highly evolved civilization. As are hundreds of other Atlanteans. Then some unexplained calamity (allegedly caused by the crystal that powers the city, which the King — in his arrogance — tried to use as a weapon against Atlantis’s enemies) befalls the city. Which results in Atlantis being buried deep inside the Earth.

30 or 40 minutes later, Kida and Milo are talking. And — as part of this dialogue — the Atlantean Princess fills in a lot of the film’s back story. Among the points that Kida touches on is that:

She’s a survivor of the original calamity that sank Atlantis. Which makes her 4548 years old.

Kida then claims that there’s no one left in her world who can still read Atlantean. Which is why all of her civilization’s advanced technology (AKA those snazzy flying stone fish) are just lying around unused.

Well, correct me if I’m wrong, but if Kida and her father, the King, were alive when the initial cataclysm happened … well, the King could read back then. And I bet that a lot of his subjects who also survived this disaster can read too …

So what exactly happened here? An entire civilization spontaneously forgot how to read and/or how to make use of their society’s snazzy hi-tech technology? I mean, I could possibly buy that — if a couple of dozens generations had gone and gone in Atlantis since the initial cataclysm. (By that I mean, there’s actually some historic precedent for an event like this happening. Knowledge slipping away. Which explains why — as Napoleon marched his troops into Egypt in the late 1790s — there was no one left alive in that Middle Eastern country who could still read hieroglyphics.)

But Kida, her father, the King as well as the rest of the Atlantean survivors were supposedly alive with Atlantis was sunk .. and they could read back then … well, it just stands to reason that they should still be able to read their own language now. (I mean, if Kida and her fellow Atlanteans can still summon up the ability to speak in French, German, Chinese and Hebrew just seconds after they encounter the crew of the Ulysses, that means that they still have their powers of retention. So that means that these folks should still be able to read.)

It’s plot holes like this (which I should point out here, weren’t initiated by Wise and Trousdale. But rather, were forced on Kirk and Gary by lame-brained Disney Studio executives. Who were insisting that the film-makers do something to introduce the Atlanteans earlier to movie-goers. To try and make people care about Kida’s plight) that made “Atlantis: The Lost Empire” particularly difficult for people to embrace. But this is what happens when you start out making one kind of movie and — in mid-stream — decide that you really should be making another kind of movie.

Which is a real shame. Because — its flaws aside — there’s a lot to like about “Atlantis: The Lost Empire.” From the film’s distinct design to its wonderfully loopy supporting characters. I mean, how can you dislike a picture that features Gaetan Moliere, perhaps the weirdest individual to ever appear in a Disney animated film? Short, round and bi-spectacled. Totally obsessed with dirt and digging, Mole steals virtually every scene that he’s in (Though — I suspect — a lot of Moliere’s charm comes from the wonderful quirky voice that Disney voice vet Corey Burton provides for this character.)

Yes, I know. A lot of you animation fans were very disappointed with “Atlantis: The Lost Empire.” That — in spite of the promise of its premise — the picture basically failed to deliver the goods.

I say … if Wise and Trousdale had actually been allowed to produce the picture that they had originally pitched to Don Hahn — a film in the Ray Harryhausen tradition — this story might have ended very differently. “Atlantis: The Lost Empire” might have actually found the success at the box office that it deserved.

Which would have meant that WDI would have been able to go forward with construction of those “Atlantis”-themed attractions that the Imagineers had been planning for Disneyland and Walt Disney World.

Which would have meant that — this summer — WDW visitors would have been able to scream their way through “Fire Mountain,” Disney World’s first transforming coaster (which was to have been built — inside of a giant volcano-shaped show building — out behind Adventureland’s “Pirates of the Caribbean” ride). And guests at Disneyland would have been able to reboard that theme park’s Tomorrowland subs to go out on an undersea treasure hunt in Atlantis (and — with luck — avoid an encounter with the Leviathan).

And toon fans would have gotten to see the animated equivalent of “The X Files,” once the follow-up TV series for “Atlantis: The Lost Empire” — “Team Atlantis” — began airing. The ambition of that particular Disney Television Animation series (which had only completed work on three episodes prior to the project being unceremoniously shut down in the Summer of 2001) was just staggering.

Perhaps — sometime in the not-so-distant future — I’ll fill you in what you missed when “Team Atlantis” got canceled. But for now … well … perhaps it’s best just to mourn what might have been with “Atlantis: The Lost Empire.” Here was a film that could really have been something special. Something really different from WDFA.

But because those supposedly-Creative execs at Disney Feature Animation felt that they really had to have their say. They had to justify their basically useless existences by meddling in the creative process … a potential great idea for a motion picture got derailed, watered down and second guessed into becoming a pale imitation of itself.

Your thoughts?

Jim Hill is an entertainment writer who has specialized in covering The Walt Disney Company for nearly 40 years now. Over that time, he has interviewed hundreds of animators, actors, and Imagineers -- many of whom have shared behind-the-scenes stories with Mr. Hill about how the Mouse House really works. In addition to the 4000+ articles Jim has written for the Web, he also co-hosts a trio of popular podcasts: “Disney Dish with Len Testa,” “Fine Tooning with Drew Taylor” and “Marvel US Disney with Aaron Adams.” Mr. Hill makes his home in Southern New Hampshire with his lovely wife Nancy and two obnoxious cats, Ginger & Betty.

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Film & Movies

Before He Was 626: The Surprisingly Dark Origins of Disney’s Stitch

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Hopes are high for Disney’s live-action version of Lilo & Stitch, which opens in theaters next week (on May 23rd to be exact). And – if current box office projections hold – it will sell more than $120 million worth of tickets in North America.

Stitch Before the Live-Action: What Fans Need to Know

But here’s the thing – there wouldn’t have been a hand-drawn version of Stitch to reimagine as a live-action film if it weren’t for Academy Award-winner Chris Sanders. Who – some 40 years ago – had a very different idea in mind for this project. Not an animated film or a live-action movie, for that matter. But – rather – a children’s picture book.

Sanders revealed the true origins of Lilo & Stitch in his self-published book, From Pitch to Stitch: The Origins of Disney’s Most Unusual Classic.

From Picture Book to Pitch Meeting

Chris – after he graduated from CalArts back in 1984 (this was three years before he began working for Disney) – landed a job at Marvel Comics. Which – because Marvel Animation was producing the Muppet Babies TV show – led to an opportunity to design characters for that animated series.

About a year into this gig (we’re now talking 1985), Sanders – in his time away from work – began noodling on a side project. As Chris recalled in From Pitch to Stitch:

“Early in my animation career, I tried writing a picture book that centered around a weird little creature that lived a solitary life in the forest. He was a monster, unsure of where he had come from, or where he belonged. I generated a concept drawing, wrote some pages and started making a sculpted version of him. But I soon abandoned it as the idea seemed too large and vague to fit in thirty pages or so.”

We now jump ahead 12 years or so. Sanders has quickly moved up through the ranks at Walt Disney Animation Studios. So much so that – by 1997 – Chris is now the Head of Story on Disney’s Mulan.

A Monster in the Forest Becomes Stitch on Earth

With Mulan deep in production, Sanders was looking for his next project when an opportunity came his way.

“I had dinner with Tom Schumacher, who was president of Feature Animation at the time. He asked if there was anything I might be interested in directing. After a little reflection, I realized that there was something: That old idea from a decade prior.”

When Sanders told Schumacher about the monster who lived alone in the forest…

“Tom offered the crucial observation that – because the animal world is already alien to us – I should consider relocating the creature to the human world.”

With that in mind, Chris dusted off the story and went to work.

Over the next three months, Sanders created a pitch book for the proposed animated film. What he came up with was very different from the version of Lilo & Stitch that eventually hit theaters in 2002.

The Most Dangerous Creature in the Known Universe

The pitch – first shared with Walt Disney Feature Animation staffers on January 9, 1998 – was titled: Lilo & Stitch: A love story of a girl and what she thinks is a dog.

This early version of Stitch was… not cute. Not cuddly. He was mean, selfish, self-centered – a career criminal. When the story opens, Stitch is in a security pod at an intergalactic trial, found guilty of 12,000 counts of hooliganism and attempted planetary enslavement.

Instead of being created by Jumba, Stitch leads a gang of marauders. His second-in-command? Ramthar, a giant, red shark-like brute.

When Stitch refuses to reveal the gang’s location, he’s sentenced to life on a maximum-security asteroid. But en route, his gang attacks the prison convoy. In the chaos, Stitch escapes in a hijacked pod and crash-lands on Earth.

Earth in Danger, Jumba on the Hunt

Terrified of what Stitch could do to our technologically inferior planet, the Grand Council Woman sends bounty hunter Jumba – along with a rule-abiding Cultural Contamination Control agent named Pleakley – to retrieve (or eliminate) Stitch.

Their mission must be secret, follow Earth laws, and – most importantly – ensure no harm comes to any humans.

Naturally, Stitch ignores all that.

After his crash, Stitch claws out of the wreckage, sees the lights of a nearby town, and screams, “I will destroy you all!” That plan is immediately derailed when he’s run over by a convoy of sugar cane trucks.

Waking up in the local humane society, Stitch sees a news report confirming the Federation is already hot on his trail. He needs to blend in. Fast.

Enter Lilo

Lilo is a lonely little girl, mourning her parents, looking for a pet. Stitch plays the role of a “cute little doggie” because it’s a means to an end. At this point, Lilo is just someone to use while he builds a communications device.

Using parts from her toys and a stolen police radio, Stitch contacts his old gang. But Ramthar, now the leader, isn’t thrilled. Still, Stitch sends a signal.

Then he builds an army.

Stitch Goes Full Skynet

Stitch constructs a small robot, sends it to the junkyard to build bigger robots. Soon, he has an army. When Ramthar and crew arrive, Stitch’s robots surround them. Ramthar is furious, but Stitch regains command.

Next, Stitch sets his robotic horde on a nearby town. Everything goes smoothly until a robot targets the hula studio where Lilo is dancing. As it lifts her in its claw, Stitch has a change of heart. He saves her.

From here, the plot begins to resemble the Lilo & Stitch we know today. Sort of.

The Ending That Never Was

In Sanders’ original version, it’s not Captain Gantu who kidnaps Lilo, but Ramthar. And when the Grand Council Woman comes to collect Stitch, Lilo produces a receipt from the humane society.

“I paid a $4 processing fee to adopt him. If you take Stitch, you’re stealing.”

The Grand Council Woman crumples the receipt and says, “I didn’t see it.”

Nani chimes in: “Well, I saw it.”

Then Jumba. Then one of Stitch’s old crew. Then a hula girl. And finally, Pleakley pulls out his CCC badge and says:

“Well, I am Pleakley Grathor, Cultural Contamination Control Agent No. 444. And I saw it.”

Pleakley saves Stitch.

How Roy E. Disney Made Stitch Cuddly

Ultimately, this version of Lilo & Stitch was streamlined. Roy E. Disney believed Stitch shouldn’t be nasty. Just naughty. And not by choice – he was designed that way.

Which is how Stitch became Experiment 626. A misunderstood creation of Jumba the mad scientist, not a hardened criminal with a vendetta.

The rest, as they say, is history.

Ricardo Montalbán’s Lost Role

Here’s a detail that even hardcore Lilo & Stitch fans may not know: Ricardo Montalbán—best known as Mr. Roarke from Fantasy Island and Khan Noonien Singh from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan—was originally cast as the voice of Ramthar, Stitch’s second-in-command in this early version of the film. He had already recorded a significant amount of dialogue before the story was reworked following Roy E. Disney’s guidance. When Stitch evolved from a ruthless galactic outlaw to a misunderstood genetic experiment, Montalbán’s character (and much of the original gang concept) was written out entirely.

Which is kind of wild when you think about it. Wrath of Khan is widely considered the gold standard of Star Trek films. So yes, for a time, Khan himself was supposed to be part of Disney’s weirdest sci-fi comedy.

Stitch’s Legacy (and Why It Still Resonates)

Looking back at Stitch’s original story, it’s wild to think how close we came to getting a very different kind of movie. One where our favorite blue alien was less “ohana means family” and more “I’ll destroy you all.” But that transformation—from outlaw to outcast to ohana—is exactly what makes Lilo & Stitch so special.

So as the live-action version prepares to hit theaters, keep in mind that behind all the cuddly merch and tiki mugs lies one of Disney’s strangest, boldest, and most hard-won reinventions. One that started with a forest monster and became a beloved franchise about found family.

June 26th is officially Stitch Day—so mark your calendar. It’s a good excuse to celebrate just how far this little blue alien has come.

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How “An American Tail” Led to Disney’s “Hocus Pocus”

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Over the last week, I’ve been delving into Witches Run Amok, Shannon Carlin’s oral history of the making of Disney’s Hocus Pocus. This book reveals some fascinating behind-the-scenes stories about the 1993 film that initially bombed at the box office but has since become a cult favorite, even spawning a sequel in 2022 that went on to become the most-watched release in Disney+ history.

But what really caught my eye in this 284-page hardcover wasn’t just the tales of Hocus Pocus’s unlikely rise to fame. Rather, it was the unexpected connections between Hocus Pocus and another beloved film—An American Tail. As it turns out, the two films share a curious origin story, one that begins in the mid-1980s, during the early days of the creative rebirth of Walt Disney Studios under Michael Eisner, Frank Wells, and Jeffrey Katzenberg.

The Birth of An American Tail

Let’s rewind to late 1984/early 1985, a period when Eisner, Wells, and Katzenberg were just getting settled at Disney and were on the hunt for fresh projects that would signal a new era at the studio. During this time, Katzenberg—tasked with revitalizing Disney Feature Animation—began meeting with talent across Hollywood, hoping to find a project that could breathe life into the struggling division.

One such meeting was with a 29-year-old writer and illustrator named David Kirschner. At the time, Kirschner’s biggest credit was illustrating children’s books featuring Muppets and Sesame Street characters, but he had an idea for a new project: a TV special about a mouse emigrating to America, culminating in the mouse’s arrival in New York Harbor on the same day as the dedication of the Statue of Liberty in 1886.

David Kirschner
David Kirschner (IMDb)

Katzenberg saw the patriotic appeal of the concept but ultimately passed on it, as he was focused on finding full-length feature projects for Disney’s animation department. Kirschner, undeterred, took his pitch elsewhere—to none other than Kathleen Kennedy, Steven Spielberg’s production partner. Kennedy was intrigued and invited Kirschner to Spielberg’s annual Fourth of July party to pitch the idea directly to the famed director.

Spielberg immediately saw the potential in Kirschner’s idea, but instead of a TV special, he envisioned a full-length animated feature film. This project would eventually become An American Tail, a tribute of sorts to Spielberg’s own grandfather, Philip Posner, who emigrated from Russia to the United States in the late 19th century. The film’s lead character, Fievel, was even named after Spielberg’s grandfather, whose Yiddish name was also Fievel.

Disney’s Loss Becomes Universal’s Gain

An American Tail went on to become a major success for Universal Pictures, which hadn’t been involved in an animated feature since the release of Pinocchio in Outer Space in 1965. Meanwhile, over at Disney, Eisner and Wells weren’t exactly thrilled that Katzenberg had let such a promising project slip through his fingers.

Not wanting to miss out on any future opportunities with Kirschner, Katzenberg quickly scheduled another meeting with him to discuss any other ideas he might have. And as fate would have it, Kirschner had just written a short story for Muppet Magazine called Halloween House, about a boy who is magically transformed into a cat by a trio of witches.

The Pitch That Sealed the Deal

Knowing Katzenberg could be a tough sell, Kirschner went all out to impress during his pitch. He requested access to the Disney lot 30 minutes early to set the stage for his presentation. When Katzenberg and the Disney development team walked into the conference room, they were greeted by a table covered in candy corn, a cauldron of dry ice fog, and a broom, mop, and vacuum cleaner suspended from the ceiling as if they were flying—evoking the magical world of Halloween House.

Katzenberg was reportedly unimpressed by the theatrical setup, muttering, “Oy, show-and-tell time” as he took his seat. But Kirschner knew exactly how to grab his attention. He started his pitch with the fact that Halloween was a billion-dollar business—a figure that made Katzenberg sit up and take notice. He listened attentively to Kirschner’s pitch, and by the time the meeting was over, Katzenberg was convinced. Halloween House would become Hocus Pocus, and Disney had its next big Halloween film.

A Bit of Hollywood Drama

Interestingly, Kirschner’s success with Hocus Pocus didn’t sit well with his old collaborators. About a year after the film’s release, Kirschner ran into Kathleen Kennedy at an Amblin holiday party, and she wasted no time in expressing her disappointment. According to Kirschner, Kennedy said, “You really hurt Steven.” When Kirschner asked how, she explained that Spielberg and Kennedy had given him his big break with An American Tail, but when he came up with the idea for his next film, he brought it to Disney rather than to them.

Hollywood can be a place where loyalty is valued—or, at least, perceived loyalty. At the same time, this was happening just as Katzenberg was leaving Disney and partnering with Spielberg and David Geffen to launch DreamWorks SKG, which only added to the tension. Loyalty, as Kirschner found out, can be an abstract concept in the entertainment industry.

A Halloween Favorite is Born

Despite its rocky start at the box office in 1993, Hocus Pocus has gone on to become a beloved part of Halloween pop culture. And, as Carlin’s book details, its success helped pave the way for more Disney Halloween-themed projects in the years that followed.

As for why Hocus Pocus was released in July of 1993 instead of during Halloween? That’s a story for another time, but it has something to do with another Halloween-themed project Disney was working on that year—Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas—and Katzenberg finding himself in the awkward position of having to choose between keeping Bette Midler or Tim Burton happy.

For more behind-the-scenes stories about Hocus Pocus and other Disney films, be sure to check out Witches Run Amok by Shannon Carlin. It’s a fascinating read for any Disney fan!

And if you love hearing these kinds of behind-the-scenes stories about animation and film history, be sure to check out Fine Tooning with Drew Taylor, where Drew and I dive deep into all things movies, animation, and the creative decisions that shape the films we love. You can find us on your favorite podcast platforms or right here on JimHillMedia.com.

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How Disney’s “Bambi” led to the creation of Smokey Bear

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When people talk about Disney’s “Bambi,” the scene that they typically cite as being the one from this 1942 film which then scarred them for life is – of course – the moment in this movie where Bambi’s mother gets shot by hunters.

Which is kind of ironic. Given that – if you watch this animated feature today – you’ll see that a lot of this ruined-my-childhood scene actually happens off-camera. I mean, you hear the rifle shot that takes down Bambi’s Mom. But you don’t actually see that Mama Deer get clipped.

Now for the scariest part of that movie that you actually see on-camera … Hands down, that has to be the forest fire sequence in “Bambi.” As the grown-up Bambi & his bride, Faline, desperately race through those woods, trying to find a path to safety as literally everything around them is ablaze … That sequence is literally nightmare fuel.

Source: Economist.com

Mind you, the artists at Walt Disney Animation Studios had lots of inspiration for the forest fire sequence in “Bambi.” You see, in a typical year, the United States experiences – due to either natural phenomenon like lightning strikes or human carelessness – 100 forest fires. Whereas in 1940 (i.e., the year that Disney Studios began working in earnest of a movie version of Felix Salten’s best-selling movie), America found itself battling a record 360 forest fires.

Which greatly concerned the U.S. Forest Service. But not for the reason you might think.

Protecting the Forest for World War II

I mean, yes. Sure. Officials over in the Agricultural Department (That’s the arm of the U.S. government that manages the Forest Service) were obviously concerned about the impact that this record number of forest fires in 1940 had had on citizens. Not to mention all of the wildlife habitat that was now lost.

But to be honest, what really concerned government officials was those hundreds of thousands of acres of raw timber that had been consumed by these blazes. You see, by 1940, the world was on the cusp of the next world war. A conflict that the U.S. would inevitably  be pulled into. And all that now-lost timber? It could have been used to fuel the U.S. war machine.

So with this in mind (and U.S. government officials now seeing an urgent need to preserve & protect this precious resource) … Which is why – in 1942 (just a few months after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor) – the U.S. Forest Service rolls out its first-ever forest fire prevention program.

Which – given that this was the early days of World War II – the slogan that the U.S. Forest Service initially chose for its forest fire prevention program is very in that era’s we’re-all-in-this-together / so-let’s-do-what-we-can-to-help-America’s war-effort esthetic – made a direct appeal to all those folks who were taking part in scrap metal drives: “Forest Defense is National Defense.”

Source: Northwestern

And the poster that the U.S. Forest Service had created to support this campaign? … Well, it was well-meaning as well.  It was done in the WPA style and showed men out in the forest, wielding shovels to ditch a ditch. They were trying to construct a fire break, which would then supposedly slow the forest fire that was directly behind them.

But the downside was … That “Forest Defense is National Defense” slogan – along with that poster which the U.S. Forest Service had created to support their new forest fire prevention program didn’t exactly capture America’s attention.

I mean, it was the War Years after all. A lot was going in the country at that time. But long story short: the U.S. Forest Service’s first attempt at launching a successful forest fire prevention program sank without a trace.

So what do you do in a situation like this? You regroup. You try something different.

Disney & Bambi to the Rescue

And within the U.S. government, the thinking now was “Well, what if we got a celebrity to serve as the spokesman for our new forest fire prevention program? Maybe that would then grab the public’s attention.”

The only problem was … Well, again, these are the War Years. And a lot of that era’s A-listers (people like Jimmy Stewart, Clark Gable, even Mel Brooks) had already enlisted. So there weren’t really a lot of big-name celebrities to choose from.

But then some enterprising official at the U.S. Forest Service came up with an interesting idea. He supposedly said “Hey, have you seen that new Disney movie? You know, the one with the deer? That movie has a forest fire in it. Maybe we should go talk with Walt Disney? Maybe he has some ideas about how we can better capture the public’s attention when it comes to our new forest fire prevention program?”

And it turns Walt did have an idea. Which was to use this government initiative as a way to cross-promote Disney Studio’s latest full-length animated feature, “Bambi.” Which been first released to theaters in August of 1942.

So Walt had artists at Disney Studio work up a poster that featured the grown-up versions of Bambi the Deer, Thumper the Rabbit & Flower the Skunk. As this trio stood in some tall grasses, they looked imploring out at whoever was standing in front of this poster. Above them was a piece of text that read “Please Mister, Don’t Be Careless.” And below these three cartoon characters was an additional line that read “Prevent Forest Fires. Greater Danger Than Ever!”

Source: USDA

According to folks I’ve spoken with at Disney’s Corporate Archives, this “Bambi” -based promotional campaign for the U.S. Forest Service’s forest fire prevention campaign was a huge success. So much so that – as 1943 drew to a close – this division of the Department of Agriculture reportedly reached out to Walt to see if he’d be willing to let the U.S. Forest Service continue to use these cartoon characters to help raise the public’s awareness of fire safety.

Walt – for reasons known only to Mr. Disney – declined. Some have suggested that — because “Bambi” had actually lost money during its initial theatrical release in North America – that Walt was now looking to put that project behind him. And if there were posters plastered all over the place that then used the “Bambi” characters that then promoted the U.S.’s forest fire prevention efforts … Well, it would then be far harder for Mr. Disney to put this particular animated feature in the rear view mirror.

Introducing Smokey Bear

Long story short: Walt said “No” when it came to reusing the “Bambi” characters to promote the U.S. Forest Service’s forest fire prevention program. But given how successful the previous cartoon-based promotional campaign had been … Well, some enterprising employee at the Department of Agriculture reportedly said “Why don’t we come up with a cartoon character of our own?”

So – for the Summer of 1944 – the U.S. Forest Service (with the help of the Ad Council and the National Association of State Foresters) came up with a character to help promote the prevention of forest fires. And his name is Smokey Bear.

Now a lot of thought had gone into Smokey’s creation. Right from the get-go, it was decided that he would be an American black bear (NOT a brown bear or a grizzly). To make this character seem approachable, Smokey was outfitted with a ranger’s hat. He also wore a pair of blue jeans & carried a bucket.

As for his debut poster, Smokey was depicted as pouring water over a still-smoldering campfire. And below this cartoon character was printed Smokey’s initial catchphrase. Which was “Care will prevent 9 out of 10 forest fires!”

Source: NPR

Which makes me think that this slogan was written by the very advertising executive who wrote “Four out of five dentists recommend sugarless gum for their patients who chew gum.”

Anyway … By the Summer of 1947, Smokey got a brand-new slogan. The one that he uses even today. Which is “Only YOU can prevent forest fires.”

The Real Smokey Bear

Now where this gets interesting is – in the Summer of 1950 – there was a terrible forest fire up in the Capitan Mountains of New Mexico. And over the course of this blaze, a bear cub climbed high up into a tree to try & escape those flames.

Firefighters were finally able to rescue that cub. But he was so badly injured in that fire that he was shipped off to the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. and nursed back to health. And since this bear really couldn’t be released back in the wild at this point, he was then put on exhibit.

And what does this bear’s keepers decide to call him? You guessed it: Smokey.

Source: USDA

And due to all the news coverage that this orphaned bear got, he eventually became the living symbol of the U.S. Forest Service’s forest fire prevention program. Which then meant that this particular Smokey Bear got hit with a ton of fan mail. So much so that the National Zoo in Washington D.C. wound up with its own Zip Code.

“Smokey the Bear” Hit Song

And on the heels of a really-for-real Smokey Bear taking up residence in our nation’s capital, Steve Nelson & Jack Rollins decide to write a song that shined a spotlight on this fire-fightin’ bruin. Here’s the opening stanza:

With a ranger’s hat and shovel and a pair of dungarees,
You will find him in the forest always sniffin’ at the breeze,
People stop and pay attention when he tells them to beware
Because everybody knows that he’s the fire-preventin’ bear

Believe or not, even with lyrics like these, “Smokey the Bear” briefly topped the Country charts in the Summer of 1950. Thanks to a version of this song that was recorded by Gene Autry, the Singing Cowboy.

By the way, it was this song that started all of the confusion in regards to Smokey Bear’s now. You see, Nelson & Rollins – because they need the lyrics of their song to scan properly – opted to call this fire-fightin’-bruin Smokey THE Bear. Rather than Smokey Bear. Which has been this cartoon character’s official name since the U.S. Forest Service first introduced him back in 1944.

“The Ballad of Smokey the Bear”

Further complicating this issue was “The Ballad of Smokey the Bear,” which was a stop-motion animated special that debuted on NBC in late November of 1966. Produced by Rankin-Bass as a follow-up to their hugely popular “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” (which premiered on the Peacock Network in December of 1964) … This hour-long TV show also put a “THE” in the middle of Smokey Bear’s name because the folks at Rankin-Bass thought his name sounded better that way.

And speaking of animation … Disney’s “Bambi” made a brief return to the promotional campaign for the U.S. Forest Service’s forest fire prevention program in the late 1980s. This was because the Company’s home entertainment division had decided to release this full-length animated feature on VHS.

What’s kind of interesting, though, is the language used on the “Bambi” poster is a wee different than the language that’s used on Smokey’s poster. It reads “Protect Our Forest Friends. Only You Can Prevent Wildfires.” NOT “Forest Fires.”

Anyway, that’s how Disney’s “Bambi” led to the creation of Smokey Bear. Thanks for bearin’ with me as I clawed my way through this grizzly tale.

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