There have been a lot of great episodes of “The Simpsons” over the past 17 years. But one of my personal favorites comes from the fifth season of this animated Fox sitcom, “Deep Space Homer.” During which the father of the Simpson clan finds himself on board the Space Shuttle … along with an ant colony.
Now (for reasons that are far too complicated to go into here) Homer winds up breaking the glass ant farm that contains the colony. And — as a result — all of these insects end up floating around inside the Space Shuttle.
Which is a funny idea onto itself. But where this gag really begins to pay off is when the show cuts away to Springfield news anchor Kent Brockman. Who’s sitting behind the Channel Six news desk when he says:
Kent: We’re just about to get our first pictures from inside the spacecraft with “average-naut” Homer Simpson, and we’d like to … AAH!
The live feed from on board the Space Shuttle shows this ant looming large in the camera lens. While — in the background — Homer and his fellow astronauts now appear to be pitifully small. Then the live feed from the Space Shuttle suddenly cuts out.
Visibly startled, Brockman tries to continue with this live news broadcast.
Kent: Ladies and gentlemen … Um … We’ve just lost the picture. But what we’ve seen speaks for itself. The Corvair spacecraft has been taken over — conquered, if you will — by a master race of giant space ants.
It’s difficult to tell from this vantage point whether they will consume the captive earth men or merely enslave them. One thing is for certain. There is no stopping them. The ants will soon be here.
And I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords. I’d like to remind them that — as a trusted TV personality — I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground sugar caves …
I bring up this particular piece of “Simpsons” dialogue now because — just two months ago — there were an awful lot of people over at Disney Feature Animation who were doing Kent Brockman impressions. Saying — in essense — that “We welcome our new Pixar overlords.”
Of course, that was before John Lasseter and Ed Catmull began shutting down WDFA projects and/or requesting that films that were within inches of being completed now be radically reworked.
Case in point: “Gnomeo & Juliet.” Production of this CG fantasy (Which detailed the comical misadventures of two English lawn gnomes who fall in love) had been shut down once before. However, once Sir Elton John agreed to give Disney access to his entire song catalog (Thereby allowing the film-makers to build key moments of this still-in-development motion picture around such memorable John songs as “Tiny Dancer,” “I’m Still Standing” and “Candle in the Wind”), this Rocket Pictures co-production was then put back on the fast track.
In fact, WDFA had tentatively pencilled “Gnomeo & Juliet” in as one of Walt Disney Pictures’ big releases for 2008 … Until John Lasseter & Ed Catmull recently took a look at that film’s story reels and said …
Well, here. Steve Hulett over on the Animation Guild‘s blog tells this story so much better than I could. Which is why I’ll let Steve now finish out this particular animation anecdote:
A well-known Pixar executive asked last week at a meeting: “Why are we making this?”
After a long silence (SFX: crickets), the exec said “Well, we’re not.”
And — with that — “Gnomeo & Juliet” was dead in the water yet again.
Mind you, the news that Lasseter & Catmull had killed “G & J” absolutely infuriated the folks over at Walt Disney Records. Given that this proposed film’s score was supposed to have featured the greatest collection of Elton John songs ever assembled … Well, the soundtrack of “Gnomeo & Juliet” was virtually guaranteed to have been a best seller. Easily going double, triple, maybe even quadruple platinum.
But the brouhaha that erupted over “G & J” ‘s cancellation eventually paled in comparison to what happened when Ed & John finally got back to the folks at WDFA about what they thought of “Meet the Robinsons.”
Now some of you may recall that story that I did back on the 16th of this month. Where I detailed how this Stephen Anderson film had been sent up to Emeryville, so that “Meet the Robinsons” could then be viewed & reviewed by Lasseter, Catmull and Pixar’s “Sacred Seven” (I.E. That animation studio’s core group of creatives: “The Incredibles” director Brad Bird, story artist Brenda Chapman, “Monsters, Inc.” director Peter Docter, writer/director Bob Peterson, sound designer Gary Rydstrom, “Finding Nemo” director Andrew Stanton and editor Lee Unkrich).
Now what the folks at WDFA had been hoping for was that John, Ed & the gang would give “Meet the Robinsons” a quick once-over and then give Steve some brief notes about how to fix this motion picture’s still-problematic second act. But what they got back instead from Emeryville was something decidedly different.
Instead of a quick fix, what Lasseter and Co. were basically calling for was radical surgery on Anderson’s movie. For starters, John wanted “Meet the Robinsons” ‘s entire second act scrapped and that that section of this film be completely reworked. More importantly, Lasseter wanted “MTR” ‘s original villain (I.E. A Snidely Whiplash lookalike that had a futuristic floating bowler hat named Doris as his constant companion) to be eliminated entirely from this animated feature. John also wanted Steve’s production team to fold more of the original William Joyce book, “A Day with Wilbur Robinson” and its “The Future is Cool!” theming back into the motion picture.
This news — as you might have expected — totally depressed the “Meet the Robinsons” production team. Here they had been hoping Lasseter would basically give this WDFA production the “thumbs up” (Thereby allowing these artists, animators & technicians to begin buttoning up this motion picture. Which is due out in theaters just 367 days from today) … But now, in order to please Disney Feature Animation’s new bosses, huge changes are going to have to be made to large portions of this film. Which now makes it rather unlikely that “Meet the Robinsons” will still be able to meet its scheduled March 30, 2007 release date.
I’m told that “MTR” director Stephen Anderson was extremely resistant to many of the changes that John Lasseter was asking to be made to his film. And given that John (what with his non-confrontational leadership style and all) framed his notes on this still-in-production animated feature as “suggestions” … Well, it’s still unclear as to whether Anderson will actually follow all of Lasseter’s “suggestions” and make huge changes to what once had been a very personal motion picture.
As of this moment, everyone at WDFA is still waiting to see what happens next. Whether Stephen (in an effort to please his new bosses at Disney Feature Animation) will actually make all of the cuts & changes that John has suggested. Or whether Anderson will attempt instead to take a stand and then try to convince Lasseter & Catmull of the virtues of the original version of his motion picture.
Whatever winds up happening here … Well, given the recent staff lay-offs over at Disney’s Circle Seven Studios as well as the various projects that have been shut down over the past two months at DisneyToon Studios (All done on John’s personal order, supposedly ) … People in Burbank aren’t quite as optimistic as they once were about Lasseter & Catmull coming in to save the day at Disney. In fact — given all the productions that have already had their plugs pulled and/or all the extra work that has recently been created for WDFA staffers as a direct result of John’s suggestions — many folks on the Disney lot aren’t thinking all that kindly about their new Pixar overlords anymore.
To his credit, Lasseter seems to understand that this sort of free floating hostility for Disney Feature Animation’s new management team naturally comes with the territory. Which is why Lasseter was reportedly recently heard to remark “I guess I’m not going to be very popular around here” as he discussed which allegedly creative executives needed to be removed next.
But what do you folks think? Will the way that Lasseter & Catmull handle the “Meet the Robinsons” situation actually color the way that WDFA employees eventually perceive their new Pixar overlords?
Your thoughts?