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The Time Salvador Dali Partnered with Walt Disney - Part 1 · Ridiculous History

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  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Ye,
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: welcome to the show Ridiculous Historians. As always, thank you
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: so much for tuning in. I for one, am excited
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: about this episode because it allows me to use a
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  Speaker 1: pun that I wrote years ago, and I've never found
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: a good use for that pun. I will reveal in
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  Speaker 1: the course of today's show. But first, I'm Ben really
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: gonna bate and switches like that? Ben. That is hurtful. No,
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: it's foreshadowing. It's big switch if we don't get to
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: that's true. But you know, sometimes we forget. I'm gonna
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna bug you about him, like Ben, where's that pun?
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: That pun? Give me that pun? Buddy system, keep accountable?
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: Who are you know? Your buddy in this buddy system
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  Speaker 1: of fools? And there, of course, as always, is our superproducer,
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  Speaker 1: Casey Pegram. So today's episode touches on a lot of things.
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  Speaker 1: That touches on art, it touches on surrealism, it touches
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  Speaker 1: on the mouse capital M, touches on what's that my heart? Ah?
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: That's sweet man, And I think it's sincere too, right. Yeah, always,
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  Speaker 1: I'm nothing if not perpetually sincere to a fault. So
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  Speaker 1: Salvador Dolly. It should be well known to anyone, even
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  Speaker 1: people who don't just save themselves for some reason or
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  Speaker 1: another fans of art. Salvador Dolly is perhaps the most
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  Speaker 1: famous surrealist in modern history. I mean you should know him,
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  Speaker 1: if if not only just for his mustache. Yes, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: and uh, while we're while we're on the subject of
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  Speaker 1: facial hair. Very quickly thanks to our good friends over
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: on the Ridiculous Historians community page, who specifically requested that
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: we talked more often about our facial hair. I don't
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  Speaker 1: know how I feel about that. I don't know either,
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  Speaker 1: because you know, I thought our French mustache episode was
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  Speaker 1: pretty good. You know, what else is there to say
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  Speaker 1: about facial hair? About our facial hair in particular, I
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  Speaker 1: guess we'd have to do some changes, do some updates,
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  Speaker 1: or something that gonna happen. Well, I I don't know, man,
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: I if we have to. One of the interesting things
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: was the idea of having to disappear like we had
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: to disappear. We we probably end up change our facial hair.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: But you can only use that move once. Yeah, then
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  Speaker 1: you get into uh, you know, the thing is, don't
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  Speaker 1: believe what you see in fiction. Fake facial hair never
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: works for a long term disguise. No, absolutely not. It
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: always looks just that looks like fake facial hair. You
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  Speaker 1: mean the genuine article if you truly want to stage
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  Speaker 1: some sort of grand escape. But we're not talking about
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  Speaker 1: our facial hair today. We're talking about somebody else's facial hair.
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  Speaker 1: Uh barely in passing right, right, Salvador Dolly, one of
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  Speaker 1: the most famous artists of his day and one of
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  Speaker 1: the most famous mustache rockers of all time, was approached
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  Speaker 1: by another fan of the mustache uh fellow named Walt
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  Speaker 1: Disney in nineteen and Walt Disney came to Dolly with
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  Speaker 1: with a pitch, Right, he pitched him on something he did, indeed.
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  Speaker 1: But before we get into the specifics of that pitch,
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  Speaker 1: we should talk a little bit about Disney and Dollies
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  Speaker 1: respective childhoods and kind of what led them to become
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  Speaker 1: the geniuses that they ultimately did become. Yeah, they had
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  Speaker 1: a lot of they had a lot of parallels. They
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  Speaker 1: were actually born in a relatively uh similar time, right,
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  Speaker 1: they were born three years almost three years apart, so
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  Speaker 1: they were around the same age range, but they were
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  Speaker 1: born in different parts of the world. They both were
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  Speaker 1: coming up in this game called life in the ninth hundreds.
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  Speaker 1: And when you think of Salvador Dali and you think
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  Speaker 1: of Walt Disney, other than the fact that they're fans
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  Speaker 1: of mustaches, uh, they may not seem to have very
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  Speaker 1: much in common. But as you said, no, if we
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  Speaker 1: look a little deeper into into their professional lives and
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  Speaker 1: to their artistic inclinations, we see that they actually had
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  Speaker 1: a lot in common. Thematically. Yeah, they both grew up
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  Speaker 1: in very small towns. Um. They were sort of big
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  Speaker 1: fish in little ponds. There wasn't a whole lot going
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  Speaker 1: on um in terms of like the arts or any
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  Speaker 1: kinds of culture in these towns. Uh. Disney was born
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  Speaker 1: in Chicago, which would have been great, but he actually
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  Speaker 1: grew up in uh Marshaling, Missouri, Marcelline, Missouri. And Salvador Dali,
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  Speaker 1: on the other hand, spent his youth on a small
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  Speaker 1: rocky coastal town of Costa Brava in Spain, um, which
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  Speaker 1: was near another place where he spent some of his youth,
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  Speaker 1: which was a fishing village called katta Quas Yep yep.
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  Speaker 1: And Walt Disney is the elder though not by much.
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  Speaker 1: He was born on December five, nineteen o one. Dali
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  Speaker 1: was born on May eleventh, nineteen o four, and, as
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  Speaker 1: pointed out on Walt Disney dot Org of all places, uh,
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  Speaker 1: the two men had some common parenting themes when they
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  Speaker 1: were growing up. Their fathers were described as domineering, but
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  Speaker 1: their mothers were deeply affectionate and warm. This is sadly
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  Speaker 1: not an unfamiliar situation to a lot of people listening
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  Speaker 1: to the podcast today. They always felt like dreamers. You know,
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  Speaker 1: what's How's that old saying go in English? Walking around
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  Speaker 1: with your head in the clouds? They were. They were
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  Speaker 1: those sorts of people prone to flights of fancy, but
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  Speaker 1: they were also very driven figures. So without making the
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  Speaker 1: entire podcast about Walt Disney, it's important to know just
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  Speaker 1: how driven he was and how driven Dolly was. Disney
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  Speaker 1: was the cartoonist for his high school newspaper, which sounds
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  Speaker 1: like a cool job, but while he was doing that,
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  Speaker 1: he was also attending In addition to attending high school,
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  Speaker 1: he was attending night classes at the Chicago Academy of
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  Speaker 1: Fine Arts. Talk about an honor student. Yeah, it's almost
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  Speaker 1: like by the time he finished high school. He was
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  Speaker 1: firmly um educated, uh and ready to kind of jump
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  Speaker 1: right into a career as a cartoonist and elevate that
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  Speaker 1: to what would be essentially a very new art form
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  Speaker 1: of the time, which was animation. Dali was also in
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  Speaker 1: a slouch when he was a youth. He had his
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  Speaker 1: first public art show at the Municipal Theater in Figueres, uh,
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  Speaker 1: and that was when he was just fifteen. And then
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  Speaker 1: he later a couple of years later, would enroll at
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  Speaker 1: the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Madrid, and that's
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  Speaker 1: where he kind of started to develop his reputation as
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  Speaker 1: not only an incredible artist and innovative thinker, but also
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  Speaker 1: a very eccentric personality, which was a big part of
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  Speaker 1: his brand. And because they were both unorthodox, because they
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  Speaker 1: were pioneers doing new things, they faced a lot of
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  Speaker 1: initial bumps in the road was be bumps, a lot
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  Speaker 1: of obstacles. You know. Disney was a groundbreaking animator and
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  Speaker 1: Dolly was a genius fine artist who was just notoriously weird.
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  Speaker 1: He was a weird dude. Disney focused on stuff like
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  Speaker 1: developing new technologies for audio visual equipment. Him along with
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  Speaker 1: his partner of eye Works developed things like the optical printer,
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  Speaker 1: which allowed you to insert, you know, animation, like compositing
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  Speaker 1: things together. It was basically the earliest analog version of
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  Speaker 1: after effects, where you could take different elements and put
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  Speaker 1: them together, whether it be you know, things that were
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  Speaker 1: filmed in the real world and combined with like sell
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  Speaker 1: animation like you would see in bed nobs and brimsticks
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  Speaker 1: for example. That was all the results of these crazy
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  Speaker 1: inventions that he and of Eye Works came up with together.
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  Speaker 1: Dolly was more of a creative kind of innovator, and
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  Speaker 1: he was pushing form. He was pushing kind of the
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  Speaker 1: idea of what art is. And it was part of
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  Speaker 1: the surrealist movement, which was an offshoot of the datast movement,
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  Speaker 1: which was like the idea of anti art, you know,
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  Speaker 1: are like like Marcel Duchamp and his ar mutt, you know,
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  Speaker 1: toilet bowl. That was literally just the idea of art
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  Speaker 1: can be whatever I say it is. Uh. It makes
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  Speaker 1: me think of this big thing that's making the rounds
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  Speaker 1: right now, banana, the banana taped to the wall, which
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  Speaker 1: is this idea that this idea is worth hundreds of
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  Speaker 1: thousands of dollars. But the banana itself is ephemeral and replaceable,
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  Speaker 1: and it's really funny it almost not to get too
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  Speaker 1: off the subject, but it makes me think of like memes,
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  Speaker 1: because really the idea is what is proliferating, and people
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  Speaker 1: are reposting it and turning into different forms, and you know,
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  Speaker 1: there's like a silver Kanye like with like as as
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  Speaker 1: a piece of duct tape over the banana. It's just
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  Speaker 1: become this like taken on a life of its own.
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  Speaker 1: So you could say initially, oh, that's a really b
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  Speaker 1: s idea, but then you start to see it really
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  Speaker 1: like infiltrate the zeitgeist an interesting way. What do you
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  Speaker 1: think about that, Casey, Yeah, I think it's really interesting.
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  Speaker 1: I think it's part of almost a sort of meta
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  Speaker 1: art idea. You could look at somebody like Damien Hurst
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  Speaker 1: or maybe Jeff Cohns, who are sort of you know,
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  Speaker 1: their their pieces self for millions of dollars, but they're
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  Speaker 1: almost about a commentary on the art world and how
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  Speaker 1: it's all just money and it's all just kind of
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  Speaker 1: rich people sort of almost laundering their money or or
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  Speaker 1: protecting their investments their assets by by buying art. But
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  Speaker 1: it's sort of no longer about just that experience as
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  Speaker 1: a human being of seeing a piece of art and
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  Speaker 1: like having an emotional response to it. Agree with you
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  Speaker 1: their case you because because there's there's a commentary about process, right,
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  Speaker 1: and so many quote unquote avalante guarde artists have made
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  Speaker 1: their fortunes and their careers by essentially proclaiming the emperor
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  Speaker 1: has no clothes. The emperor in this case being the
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  Speaker 1: value assigned to art, or the the illusion that there
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  Speaker 1: is a quantifiable sta value and a meme itself. While
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: we're on this, uh, a meme technically is just an
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  Speaker 1: element of a culture or system of behavior. Memes started
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: as an idea, you know, and now we call what
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: we call memes are kind of a genre of of
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: the the larger concept of the meme. And one thing
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  Speaker 1: that really stands out to me for what you're describing
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  Speaker 1: their knowal is that Dhalio would say, had this mission
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  Speaker 1: not just to redefine what visual art is, but to
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  Speaker 1: blur the lines between art forms that were usually considered
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  Speaker 1: distinct and separate. Right. So he he would say, you know,
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  Speaker 1: he would love jazz. He loved improvisational jazz, and to
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  Speaker 1: him that was a kind of painting, and I think
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  Speaker 1: that's a beautiful way to look at it. Yeah, I agree,
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  Speaker 1: And I don't want it to sound like I'm saying
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  Speaker 1: that Dolly was doing this overtly conceptual stuff, because if
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  Speaker 1: you look at Dollies work, it is very pleasant and
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  Speaker 1: intriguing to look at, and it gives you all kinds
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  Speaker 1: of ideas and it's not a banana tape to a wall.
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  Speaker 1: It is very masterfully in agunitive landscapes and like you know,
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  Speaker 1: the melting clocks and these kind of worlds that he created,
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  Speaker 1: which is kind of what made him have a lot
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  Speaker 1: in common esthetically with Walt Disney, cause weal Disney was
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  Speaker 1: all about creating that stuff too, And you never really
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  Speaker 1: peg Disney necessarily as being someone who would be a
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  Speaker 1: fan of surrealism. But as his career progressed, and I
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  Speaker 1: think he started getting a bad rap for pushing, um,
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  Speaker 1: you know, commercial work over artistry. I think he started to,
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  Speaker 1: you know, get a chip on his shoulder about that,
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  Speaker 1: and that is what led Um. You know, we're skipping
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  Speaker 1: some stuff here, but you all know what happened with
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  Speaker 1: Walt Disney. He became the most influential, important person probably
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  Speaker 1: the history of cinema. Honestly, I mean that's arguable, but
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  Speaker 1: at least in terms of like really pushing animation to
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  Speaker 1: this massive mainstream explosion. Um. He had hits with things
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  Speaker 1: like you know, snow White, adapting fairy tales into these lush,
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  Speaker 1: beautiful animated films that made lots of money and got
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  Speaker 1: people just hooked on animation. Um, but it got to
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  Speaker 1: a point where he wanted to do something a little
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  Speaker 1: more innovative and interesting and Fantasia where he started incorporating
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  Speaker 1: much more kind of surreal imagery without dialogue, just SYNCD
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  Speaker 1: up to music. That was when he really started to
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  Speaker 1: be like, Okay, I want to push the envelope of
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  Speaker 1: creativity here. And that kind of coincides with a round
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  Speaker 1: the time that he met Salvador Dali. There's some backgrounds
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  Speaker 1: that I want to provide here before we get to
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  Speaker 1: their meeting. So we know that they had initial uh skepticism.
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  Speaker 1: Let's say that I'll be diplomatic and call it skepticism,
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  Speaker 1: but we know they also proved themselves and they started
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: acquiring mainstream notice and acclaim uh dollies. Early work was
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  Speaker 1: praised widely, as was Disney's Silly symphonies. These were the
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  Speaker 1: short form animations that function as experiments or proofs of
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  Speaker 1: concept for some of those technical uh innovation they were making.
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  Speaker 1: And as these guys continued their careers, they had a
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: brief mentioned where they first they first became aware of
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: one another, if not physically meeting, and that was at
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  Speaker 1: the Museum of Modern Art in New York the Moment.
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  Speaker 1: In nineteen thirty six, Dolly had a couple of different
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  Speaker 1: pieces on display in an exhibition called Fantastic Art, Data
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  Speaker 1: and Surrealism. And in that same exhibition there were two
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  Speaker 1: cells animation cells from a short film by Disney called
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  Speaker 1: Three Little Wolves. Fast forward next year seven, Salvador Dolly
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  Speaker 1: visits Hollywood for the first time and he says, you
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  Speaker 1: know what I want to He's always trying to find
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  Speaker 1: new formats and new mediums. He says, you know what
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  Speaker 1: I want to make an animated film. I think this
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  Speaker 1: can really bring the metaphysical to this concrete, observable, experiential play.
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  Speaker 1: And he writes to Andre Breton Casey ke checked me
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  Speaker 1: on that. Yeah, it's aunt great surrealist writer. Highly recommend
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  Speaker 1: his novel Naja Casey on the Case. Thank you, sir,
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  Speaker 1: Dolly and His In his letter to Breton, says that
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  Speaker 1: Surrealism's influence has become so enormous that even creators of
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  Speaker 1: animated cartoons are proud to call themselves surrealists. And I
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  Speaker 1: have come to Hollywood and I am in contact with
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  Speaker 1: what he called the three great American surrealist Ready for
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: this list, this might be surprising the Marx Brothers, Cecil B. DeMille,
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  Speaker 1: and Walt Disney. For a lot of people would be
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  Speaker 1: strange to hear Disney lumped in with those. It's true, Um,
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  Speaker 1: but we have to remember to how new this kind
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: of animation was. And another another couple of influential folks
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  Speaker 1: that would have been lumped into that would have been
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: um Tex Avery for example, and Max Fleischer, who were
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: I don't know if you've ever seen any of these
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: Um from the Inkwell cartoons. They're black and white. There's
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: one it's like an early example of rotoscoping, where they
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: take the dance moves of Cab Callaway and like map
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  Speaker 1: them essentially. I don't know, this is a rudimentary way
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  Speaker 1: of describing to the movements of this really weird ghost
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  Speaker 1: who does this kind of like Cab Calloway type dance.
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  Speaker 1: Betty Boop is in it, and that's all like in
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  Speaker 1: the early thirties, if I'm not mistaken. So that's yeah,
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: twenties even exactly. Um. So, just to get the chronology down,
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: Disney made a huge splash with Snow White, which came
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  Speaker 1: out in nineteen thirty seven. And there's some folks that
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  Speaker 1: actually conjecture that Disney and Dolly may have even met
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: as early as nineteen thirty seven. Um. But it was
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  Speaker 1: then he followed up by Pinocchio in nineteen forty, and
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  Speaker 1: then that Fantasia which was in production concurrently with with
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: with Pinocchio. Um, and that came out in as well. Yes.
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: So Disney is known for employing European artists because he
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  Speaker 1: likes their esthetic. He also is a very acious collector
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  Speaker 1: of art books, of books of fairy tales, and he's
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: been doing that since at least nineteen thirty five, and
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: he keeps the library of These two have inspire his artists,
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: and years later he has read The Secret Life of
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: Salvador Dolly, which is Dolly's autobiography. Disney not only sends
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  Speaker 1: his copy to Dolly asking for his autograph, but he
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: also says, hey, you know what, we should hang out,
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  Speaker 1: we should be a crew, we should collaborate, come to
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  Speaker 1: the Walt Disney studios. So they're conflicting reports, the um
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: different narratives. You'll hear. You know you mentioned there was
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: a rumored meeting before nineteen five. In early nineteen five,
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: we do have a confirmed meeting at a party in Hollywood. Now,
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: regardless of when they physically met, whichever narrative ends up
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: being true, they already were so aware of each other
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: and they had mutually agreed on their camaraderie and their
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: common cause. This friendship is supported by hard evidence by
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: primary sources. They sent each other fan mail, which I
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: think is so sweet and so cool. You can see
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: these letters where they're just they're like, you're the greatest. No,
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: you're awesome. I love what you're doing. And those kind
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: of friendships are amazing. It's super interesting. I would have
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: thought that Dolly might have turned his nose up a
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: little bit, being some such a out there kind of
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: thinker and uh and and visionary, that he might have
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: been like, oh, Disney and all this commercial stuff and
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: the Seven Dwarves and all of this, like you know,
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: big Hollywood money stuff. He might that might have not
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  Speaker 1: been for him. But it's cool that he recognized the
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: innovation and brilliance behind what Disney was doing, even though
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: it was obviously very commercially successful. Um not that Salvador
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  Speaker 1: Deli wasn't also a pretty wealthy man at this point
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: just because of his influence on the art world as well.
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: It was definitely a superstar in his own right. And
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: here is where we enter into a bit of speculation,
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: because these guys on board no reservations, and we have
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: to wonder how their collaboration would have proceeded were it
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: not for World War Two, because as as World War
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: Two is at its fever pitch, uh, they you know,
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  Speaker 1: it's stymies their abilities to collaborate or their opportunities to
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: do so. And then in nineteen Walt Disney, like Nassalvador Dolly,
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: asked him to design an animated short straight from the
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: mind of Dolly, to be part of this film that
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: would be kind of like Fantasia. And and it's tough
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: to you know, I think it's tough for us, uh
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: in the modern day to really understand how amazing and
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: just out there Fantasia was in nineteen because we all
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: grew up with this extended flight of fancy. I love
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: I love the whole thing too, and it still holds
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  Speaker 1: up brilliantly and is is pretty terrifying in some sections.
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: There's the whole night on Bald Mountain with the crazy
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: demon coming out of the volcano thing. I mean, it's
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: really some some pretty dark stuff. And then of course
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  Speaker 1: it goes into like you know, parts with fairies and woodland,
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: uh kind of spirits and all of that. And then
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: there's you know, the whole hippo hippos and all of
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: this uh kind of stitched together by the soundtrack and um,
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: not to get too of course, but it's always fascinating
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: me how he was able to figure out how to
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: sink these hundreds and hundreds of of you know, hand
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: drawn animations with the soundtrack because you have to hit
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: these beats, these marks absolutely perfectly to to make that work,
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: and it just sinks up just like, absolutely flawlessly. Um,
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: And so you're you're right, then it absolutely was a
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: work of surrealism in its own right, and he wanted
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: to keep doing stuff like that. Yeah, and shout out,
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: I I don't want to is to get lost. Shout
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: out to my favorite character and Fantasia Scharona Bog the
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: demon from Night on Bald Mountain and Ave Maria. That
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: is still one of my favorite sequences of animation. So
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: Dolly agrees. Of course, his best bud mutual admirer of
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: his wants to work with him. Dreams do come true,
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: it seems. So Dolly goes through the extensive Disney Music
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: library and he says, okay, let me find you know,
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: Fantasia rules. Let me find a song, uh that will
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: inspire this visual element, and then he chooses a ballad
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: by Ray Gilbert and Armando Domingo is called Destino because
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: the title, the Spanish word for destiny, really really speaks
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: to him. I wonder, can we play just a brief
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: clip of that to let everybody get a get a
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: handle on what we're talking about a quick so for
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: a let's see. I don't want to spoil this for people,
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: but you can. You can hear the song Totino. It's
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: easy to find, and you can also you can see
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: the storyboards the Dolly worked on. But don't do that
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: just just yet. Let's get to the rest of the
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: story because World War Two is still going on. But
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: Disney is still working right, yeah, as his dolly, as
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: a essentially a full time employee of the Walt Disney Company,
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: at least for a time where he's showing up to
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: the studio every morning and around eight am and working
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: NonStop on the storyboards you mentioned until around five or
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: six o'clock at night. Disney says, Okay, I'm having a
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: tough time making these feature length films, but I need
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: to keep the studio afloat, so I'm gonna make package films.
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: And uh, these package films are things like The Adventures
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: of Ikabad and Mr Toad, which is one of the
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: the last ones of that iteration, but there were five
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: others for a grand total of six after they go
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: back to features, and they famously create Cinderella. But Disney,
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: this is interesting. He saw that Fantasia could be a
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: viable thing to bring to the public, and he wanted
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: to Uh. He wanted to try to focus on those
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: package films. So it wasn't just a financial concern, it
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: was an artistic an aesthetic concern. Ultimately, he wanted to
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: take the public perception of animation and change it from
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: something silly, something steamboat. Willie asked to something that would
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: be considered high art. And we see this with different
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: formats of art throughout the ages, Like there was a
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: time when novels were considered you know, low and not
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: not particularly respected. What do you think podcasts are gonna
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: fall on this continuum? How history regard our our medium
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: ben like radio? Maybe? I I don't know. I've been
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: keeping an eye on blogs. I want to see what
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: happens to blogs because you remember before we got into
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: this business, or even well, um, right around the time, uh,
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: we we were seeing peak blog and inundation. Everybody was
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: a blogger, right if you were at my blog. And
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: now you know, many many people are podcasting, which I
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: think is great. I don't know. I don't know. I
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: don't have the crystal blog for that. It could not
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: worth it. I was absolutely worth it. I got I
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: gotta chuckle out of this old shriveled grinch. Heart. So
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: you have a you have a big heart goal. Uh
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: so what do you have the heart of a lion?
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: And a lifetime band from the Atlanta Zoot. Then the
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: funny ones are not written by me, but we can
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: understand that. You know, he's this guy Disney. He has
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: an artist he's a visionary, and he's saying, hey, the
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: money is great, and I need the money, but also
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: to feed my soul and to garner the respect that
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: I feel this deserves. We need to start thinking of
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: animation as an art form, not just something entertaining for children.
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: But he's still he's still having a tough time. And
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: we talked about too how a lot of his employees
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: were drafted into the military during this time point. Yeah, yeah,
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: and not to mention that another way that they made
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: money was I don't know exactly how the money changed hands,
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: but imagine they would have had to get some government
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: funding for those propaganda films. There's a really interesting period
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: in Disney history where they were making like there's the
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: in the Fuers Face where it's like if the furor says,
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: v is zamasta raise sigile right in the furorspace, and
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: I believe that's starring Donald Duck was the star of
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: a lot of those, uh, And they're really fascinating. And
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: by the way, if if anyone and you you in
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: Casey as well, find yourselves in San Francisco, I highly
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: recommend visiting the Disney Family Museum. It's not connected to
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: like the Walt Disney Company. It's strictly from the Disney
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: Family Trust, so it's very much a lot of the
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: things that Disney Company would kind of tend to disown
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: or not want to like talk about, like these propaganda
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: posters and films. So you can see a lot of
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: the original posters for these, uh there, in addition to
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: a lot of like potentially problematic merchandise that might have
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: come out that kind of stuff exactly. And also you
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: have like scale models of his theme parks and a
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: lot of the animatronic imagineering kind of innovations. And they
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: actually have their that optical printer that we talked about. Um,
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: it's either a recreation or it it might well be the
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: actual thing um there in the museum. So I highly
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: recommend checking that out and you can get a I
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: don't remember seeing any of the Dolly stuff there, but
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't be surprised if it was and I just
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: missed it. And we do want to warn anybody who
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: hasn't seen the World War two era propaganda films from Disney.
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: They do contain blatant and offensive racist stereotypes, particularly against
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: German and Japanese people, and just just gird yourself before
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: you see that. Well, folks, you may be asking yourself,
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: why is Casey talking all of a sudden, Well, it's
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: because we have reached the end of part one of
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: this two parter on Salvador Dali and Walt Disney and
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: a little Peek behind the Curtain. We recorded this episode,
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: we really enjoyed it and decided to make it a
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: two parter because it was kind of long, and then
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: we forgot to record the intro outro that would be
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: necessary for all those pieces to fit together. So you find,
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: folks out there in podcast land get to hear me
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: kind of stumbled my way through an outro for a change. So,
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: first and foremost thanks to all the Ridiculous Historians for
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: tuning in from week to week as we do this
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: Goofy program. We're we're a little mystified, but you know,
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: happy that you've seem to enjoy it. You can join
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: the conversation over on our Facebook group Ridiculous Historians. All
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: three of us post there at least once in a while.
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: You can write us an email. We are ridiculous at
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: my heart radio dot com. We always like to see
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: what folks have to say. Sometimes we'll read things on
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: the air, probably not as much as we should. Uh.
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: You can find Ben A. Nol individually on social media
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: BNS on Twitter at Ben Bowling hs W. He's also
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: on Instagram at ben Bowling. Nol is on Instagram exclusively.
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: He does not do Twitter at least not beyond being
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: a lurker. And Noel's Instagram handle is at how Now
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: Noel Brown. Thank you as always to our super producer,
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: Casey Pagram. Whoa, that's me. That's awkward. Yeah, thank you
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: to been a knowl I have to this is this
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: is fun. I get to say this on the air,
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: so um, you know, we've been doing the show for
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: or I think a couple of years at this point.
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: It's been a real pleasure. It's been an adventure. It
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: hasn't been much of a roller coaster. It's just been
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: fun the whole time. I guess roller coasters are fun
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: the whole time too. But you know, usually when people
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: say a roller coaster, they mean like highs and lows,
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: but this has all been highs. So yeah, thank you
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: guys for being just uh you know, being you. Thank
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: you of course to Alex Williams, who composed are awesome
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: theme music that you're hearing at the beginning and ending
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: of pretty much every episode. I don't think we've ever
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: really messed around with that formula too much. Thanks to Gabe,
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: our research associate, always delivering on the great research that
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: kind of fills in a lot of the blanks in
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: these stories. Thank you to Christopher hasciotis here in spirit.
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: Thanks to Jonathan Strickland, also known as the Quister, purveyor
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: of the most cringe worthy segment and all of podcasting,
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: at least before me doing this outro, I will be
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: back at the top of the show on Thursday, and
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: I will I will still explain some of what's happening then,
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: just for the people that are for some reason only
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: listening to part two. But you folks who are listening
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: to a part one, you get it. You know what's
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: going on, and uh as Noel is fond of saying,
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: we'll see you next time, folks. For more podcasts for
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: My Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast,
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.