#for context i went to epcot recently and i did what i always do when i go to a disney park. think about how

[spamtoon]

Fearsome Five Epcot trip headcanons:

This is a complete shitpost they're not robbing the place they're just kinda there

Negaduck had the alarm at the hotel set to the sound of his chainsaw (which is still in his suitcase) because it's the quickest way to get the four's attention. Rather than taking a shuttle or anything they figure they can just hijack a car. After trying several cars until they found one big enough.

They paid for everything they didn't steal with Quackerjack's fake money and if staff didn't notice Negaduck made one of the four pay. Usually Bushroot. I don't think they bought anything at the gift shops though, the only real money spent not from Bushroot was to Liquidator, who carried the bags and as a result got people to charge him for his bottled water when they started sweltering in the Florida humidity. I mean lord knows they drink Liquidator's stupid water all the time but it's way better than stooping to drinking Dasani

Highlight of the trip for Negaduck was getting to crash the ship in mission space. It's so easy you press two buttons but I guarantee he would have just sat there and cackled while the others experienced so many lateral g forces and after so many opportunities to opt out. The four were getting scared but Negaduck likes pushing them. Off a cliff

Highlight of the trip for Liquidator was making a profit but Liquidator's other best moments were on the various boat rides, particularly Frozen. He can just merge with the water and go off track and it's not like any staff is there to tell him he can't do that. He made it look like Elsa endorsed his water to the next boat down and when the others were going down the small drop he had a bit of revenge and made the drop steeper for them. Ever since Negaduck parted the red sea with his powers he's been experimenting with them. Going in the jumping fountains and becoming a puddle to move faster and I think he can have fun with the various slow moving boat rides.

Highlight of the trip for Bushroot was Living with the Land, not because it's not anything he didn't already know and not because he missed the greenhouse after a long vacation (though he did enjoy seeing all those plants in one place) but because Liquidator insisted on "protecting him from garden employees" by holding him the whole time. Quackerjack and Megavolt spent the whole ride joking about the two of them. The whole trip he had been bordering on wilting it was so hot and the indoor sunny but air conditioned greenhouse is just what he needed. His favorite ride as a ride however was Soarin though I can imagine him being swayed by the music.

Highlight of the trip for Quackerjack was getting to see Megavolt's face during Journey to Imagination with Figment. He has a soft spot for the original as a work of art (and has some distain for Disney's merchandising as toy competition) but damn it. There's so many stupid effects in that ride and there are so many colors Megavolt was not processing any of it and Quackerjack laughed his head off the whole time. He also has a soft spot for the goofy dated kids play areas after a lot of the rides, with dumb little quizzes and spinny things and interactive things that are NOT video games.

Highlight of the trip for Megavolt was... Well, he thought it would be Remy's because of how cool and new the track vehicle was but he didn't actually get to see it very well up close before he was on and off it. The real highlight was Spaceship Earth, and all the dozens of animatronics in that attraction as well as others. He will infodump about hydraulic fluid and trackless ride vehicles and he just loves learning how these things work and seeing them in action. Figment was too much for him though he could not stand Figment.

[hot-soong-type-summer]

1975 and pantone!!

Ooh good ones! Thank you! 😘

1975, first happy memory that comes to mind: my brain went like WAY back to when my younger sister and I would turn our entire room (half of a converted two car garage, so big for a bedroom) into a blanket fort, which we usually declared to be a spaceship. It had a large central room that was the bridge, and the four smaller rooms off of it were the sleeping areas and battle stations. I also recall the fort being a mine at least once, in which we liberated all our stuffed animals who were working in the mines.

(Second and more recent memory that came to mind was our first trip to Disney World last year, specifically my friend tasting whiskey for the first time and spitting it into the bushes at Epcot 😂)

Pantone, describe a person close to you in detail: U KNO I gotta go with Mr Roboto here lol. Settle in, it's long.

To give a little context, I was homeschooled and my mom met his mom through our homeschool group. My brother is a little older than him, and his sisters are the same age as mine, so our families hung out a lot.

I actually don't remember meeting him (I was like 7 or 8) but I DO remember my earliest impressions of him, which is that he is the kindest and most patient person I had ever met. Just a v nice and gentle boi. I also thought his hair was pretty. As I got to know him over the years (slowly, bcuz he's really quiet and we gals would usually scamper off and do dumb shit while the boys played PC games and built elaborate Lego things), I learned that he is also hella smart. He'd always win at Clue. ALWAYS. And he was very good at math, which was very impressive to me cuz I was v bad at it. He possesses like, superhuman dexterity, so he'd always win at Spoons too. Basically don't play games against him if you want to win.

His alignment is Lawful Good. We girls would annoy our older brothers into taking us to the corner store for ice cream (or mini Shrek themed m&m's, what a wild time that was), and he would INSIST on everybody walking on the correct side of the road. So obviously we'd walk on the wrong side until he'd physically drag us over to the correct side bcuz we were terrible goblin girls. Also I uh, enjoyed being dragged. U know. Basically I'd annoy him for attention, but he's SO patient he never actually got annoyed. And he's SO funny, he didn't talk much but when he did he had gr8 jokes.

We started all hanging out together in high school so we could play Halo (guess who always won) and make dumb YouTube videos. I told him I liked him (over the internet and NOT while playing Halo with our siblings lol), we started dating and we've been together ever since.

He's a very consistent person, and he's still just as kind and patient and superhumanly dexterous as he's always been. He got smarter and hotter, which is nice 4 me. Emotionally he's a happy and contented person basically all the time, so I joked that he was a robot and basically everyone who knows him agrees it's an apt comparison (his level-headedness and consistency also contribute to that).

So yeah, that's the tale of Mr Roboto. He's cool.

[upontheshelfreviews]

Of all the animated Disney films out there, few have had a history as troubled or as fascinating as The Black Cauldron. Shaped less by the average process of transforming a novel to film and more by the decade, regime, mindset towards animation and internal struggle of power of the studio that made it, The Black Cauldron is considered the black sheep of the canon; those who worked on it have few fond memories of the experience, and the result of all that blood, sweat, tears, and voodoo curses hurled in Jeffrey Katzenberg’s direction is an odd creature Disney is content to let wallow in relative obscurity. To this day it’s looked down upon by all but a few loyal fans who’ve elevated it to semi-cult status. The story of how and why this is is worth a documentary of its own.

As for my thoughts on the film itself…well…

“It’s complicated.”

I honestly can’t talk about my feelings towards The Black Cauldron without putting it into some context first. And there’s a LOT of context that needs to be explained. Hence why I’ve decided to split this review into two parts. This first half will go over the history of the movie and behind the scenes shenanigans, while Part 2, which is the review I know you’ve been anticipating, will be released next week. So if you want to avoid an engaging history lesson that discusses the climate in which The Black Cauldron was created in depth and go right to the film itself, I suggest you return at a later date. Or go watch Waking Sleeping Beauty. It’s a fascinating, personal look into the struggle that shaped Disney’s Renaissance era and they devote a good chunk of the beginning into what went down during the making of The Black Cauldron.

By the 1980’s, Walt Disney had been dead for nearly twenty years and his enterprise as a whole was lacking a good leader to keep everything together. The live-action films were woefully behind the times, Walt Disney World’s recently-opened second park EPCOT wasn’t meeting attendance expectations, and while the animated films were holding up surprisingly well, the department had to deal with their budgets continually being slashed in order to make up for the failures of the previous two branches of the company.

Politics within the animation studio threatened to tear it apart as well. It was time for the stubborn old guard of Walt’s day, which included the revered animators known as the Nine Old Men, to pass on everything they knew to a ragtag band of fresh recruits with newfangled ideas about how Disney animation should be. Needless to say there was plenty of headbutting and saltiness from each end throughout the ordeal. One of the outcomes was that two no-name pipsqueaks decided to jump ship – Don Bluth, who committed high treason in his contemporaries’ eyes by forming his own animation studio (and giving Disney some admittedly much-needed competition to get their act together), and Tim Burton, who was dissatisfied with the direction The Black Cauldron was taking and felt his own inventive if bizarre contributions were going unappreciated. Bluth is still considered a persona non grata in Disney’s circle for his mutiny, but I can imagine their parting ways with Burton going something like this:

“Tell ya what, loser, if you manage to gross over a hundred million with those weird little films of yours, we’ll make that stop-motion singing skeleton picture you always wanted!”

Things came to a head after it was announced that Disney’s next animation project would be Lloyd Alexander’s popular high fantasy series The Chronicles of Prydain – or rather, taking the first two books of said series and combining them into one 80 minute film.

“It worked for Ralph Bakshi!”

“No it didn’t.”

“Come on, what kind of cockamamie studio would we be running if we devoted an entire movie to each entry in some crummy little fairy tale saga? Or hell, splitting one book into two movies to cram everything in! How do you expect to make bank on that? We’re not made of money, you know!”

“Sir, the contractors are here to go over the building of your swimming pool to contain all your other swimming pools.”

“Thank you, Ramsley. Tell them they’ll receive their deposit once we get the box office returns on Herbie Goes Bananas.”

“Of course, sir.”

Now the 80’s were a golden age for cult fantasy flicks. You couldn’t swing a dead elf around without hitting a Labyrinth or a Princess Bride or a Last Unicorn or a kajillion overlooked Baron Munchausens. Disney tried their hand at this genre with fare such as Return to Oz and Something Wicked This Way Comes and I think they’re good films. Like, really, REALLY good films. But unfortunately they share something in common with the previously mentioned fantasy movies, and that is they were major flops upon release. Yet the animators’ toiled away under the sincere hope that The Black Cauldron would be the one to break that losing streak. They were going to do something unique, something that no other animation studio – least of all classic Disney – had ever done before…

…or they might have if the old guard hadn’t kept stepping in to curb their creativity.

I understand where the former generation was coming from; I’d be pretty grouchy too if I had to train these too-big-for-their-britches whippersnappers who were going to replace me, but one of the reasons why the Disney company was this close to declaring bankruptcy in the decades after Walt’s passing was because it was adhering dangerously close to the mentality of “What would Walt do” instead of trying new things and evolving with the times. The very idea of “What would Walt do” is a paradox; none of us – not me, not the most religious of Disney fans, not even the workers who knew him the longest – could ever really know what his course of action on creative decisions might be, and yet the one thing we do know for certain is that Walt Disney always chose to move forward instead of clinging to the formulas or modes of thinking that were deemed the most successful. His whole body of work reflects that. Walt was one of the first studio heads to embrace television as another method of entertainment instead of fearing its growing popularity over theatrical venues. He not only revolutionized the theme park business but he kept building upon what was already there to enhance the experience and bridge the gap between man and machine, rather than just letting Disneyland sit in the middle of Anaheim and churn out money while it gathered dust. And as for features, well, after he was pressured into making sequels to the successful Three Little Pigs which proved to be less popular than the first, he infamously said “You can’t top pigs with pigs!”. Walt hated repeating himself in order to triumph, and he took every opportunity to push the envelope when it came to the story or technical aspects of anything he touched. He dove head first into the new, and if he made a mistake along the way, he learned from it instead of retreating back into the safe zone. Sadly, in a misguided attempt to keep Walt’s legacy alive, the old regime forgot about that and micromanaged every aspect of the company until it became a time capsule instead of a thriving creative business.

Look no further than the artwork made during the concept stage of the film’s production if you need an example. Here’s some of what the new crowd came up with:

Pretty neat, huh? Now here’s what Milt Kahl and some of Walt’s homeboys pressed on to them.

Compare these sketches to something from Sleeping Beauty, The Sword in the Stone or any silver-era Disney film. It’s too close to the house style from back then. You’d think it was rejected concept art from one of those films. Poor Tim Burton got the worst of it. He shared some awesome ideas for the Horned King’s henchmen, his gwythaints (aka dragon things), and just about anything having to do with the guy not excluding his own living space. The animators adored them, but management, in a move that would be the last straw for Burton, told him they wouldn’t spare the time or expenses needed to revamp the look for the film.

“Redo a bunch of doodles so it’ll look like a bunch of DIFFERENT doodles?! We’re stretched for cash as it is!”

“Sir, your 30-foot diamond sculpture of yourself has arrived. Where shall I have the men place it?”

“Eh, stick it in the ballroom with all the other diamond sculptures, I’m busy!”

“Very good, sir.”

To further quash morale, the animation department was unceremoniously booted out of the original building it was housed in from back when Walt Disney built the studio. They now worked in what was basically a cramped little trailer park across the street.

Tensions were high all around.

Animation, once the lifeblood of the Disney company, was now on life support.

Certain higher-ups were even questioning if they should pull the plug and turn their focus to the parks and live-action films.

“Hmm, they did make those wacky duck cartoons I liked when I was five…then again, I’ve been wanting my own private archipelago for some time now. Oh, nobody has it harder than I do!”

“Sir, just a reminder, you have a meeting with Misters Eisner, Katzenberg and Wells at four.”

“Who?”

“Your new bosses? The former heads at Paramount Pictures? The men who greenlit hit after hit for film and television including Happy Days, Laverne and Shirley, Raiders of the Lost Ark and the Star Trek motion pictures?”

“…Doesn’t ring a bell.”

Indeed, a solution of sorts came in the form of a sweeping management makeover. Out went Ron Miller, in came Michael Eisner and Frank Wells. Together they were something unprecedented – they ran the company in a manner parallel to Walt and his brother Roy, and it WORKED. See, Walt was the idea man as well as the amicable people person; he was able to generate ideas and see them through thanks to his power of persuasion and ability to inspire others. Roy was the sensible subdued banker who calculated what could and could not be feasibly done and brought Walt’s dreams into reality. Through their lifelong partnership and ability to compromise commerce with art, they founded one of the biggest entertainment enterprises on the planet.

I’ve noticed any time where Disney’s CEO is just one person, they’re rarely able to handle that balance of creativity and finance without leaning heavily towards one aspect – which nine times out of ten is always the financial one. When it’s a partnership like these two pairs, however, the company has flourished. Wells was approachable, knew how to appeal to his employees, a good risk taker and vicariously enjoyed the process of bringing a project to fruition. Eisner was known for having some pretty stupid ideas – ideas he’d carry with him once he was given full command – but his business savvy brought the company out of the red and into a new golden age. Working together they shaped Disney into the company we know it as today. Wells was Walt, and Eisner was Roy; the only difference between them being it was Eisner who was the charming face of the company thanks to his many appearances on TV via holiday specials and the Wonderful World of Disney.

“…which is why it came as such a FUCKING HUGE STAB IN THE BACK when he cut corners in the parks, started the direct-to-video sequel line, and divorced Disney from traditional animation, the greedy bastard!! SHELF SMAAAASH!!!”

Also along for the ride at Eisner’s behest was Jeffrey Katzenberg, who was tasked with overseeing the animation studio. Eisner recognized from his years in television that there was money to be made in marketing nostalgia, and what gets people more nostalgic than Disney animation? This decision proved to be both a blessing and a curse. Sure, Jeffrey was one of the pillars in revitalizing Disney’s animated films, but his adjustment from working with the live-action medium to pencils and paper was rocky at best. He quickly developed a reputation among the staff for being passionate about his work but highly volatile. No one knew what could piss him off one day or make him laugh the next. The one certainty was that Katzenberg was a man with a mission. He wanted to bring Disney animation back to its glory days. To the days when the name Disney meant something. In his own words, to wake Sleeping Beauty.

Joel Hale, producer on The Black Cauldron, scoffed at this. He already didn’t approve of the new animators acting like privileged children and he certainly wasn’t fond of these Hollywood big shots coming in and shaking up the status quo. “Who do they think they are? Sleeping Beauty’s already awake,” he replied.

He was fired almost immediately after.

And so, down one producer, up several more, nearly seven years after production began and several million dollars over budget, The Black Cauldron finally entered the most anticipated and dreaded stage of the Hollywood assembly line, the test screening. When it got to the part with the cauldron born, animator Mike Peraza counted down to the second the moment he knew the screaming in the audience would commence. And he was right on time. According to well-documented testimonies, the children there not only screamed and cried but fled the theater. As for Katzenberg’s reaction to The Black Cauldron as a whole, it wasn’t a far cry from what was happening on screen.

Indeed, the animators succeeded in creating something Disney had never done before – and Katzenberg HATED it. It was too violent, too frightening, and too distant from all things associated with the Disney name. Granted, I can see why he would feel that way; Disney has gone dark before (The Headless Horseman, Fantasia’s Night On Bald Mountain, the entire second half of Pinocchio, you get the idea), but at this rate The Black Cauldron was coming very close to earning Disney its first R rating. Not mincing words here. The film we have today is the freaking Care Bears Movie compared to the original cut that was screened. There were some pretty gory deaths in the action scenes, the Horned King’s own demise was somehow even worse than the one we’re familiar with, and most notably the cauldron born sequence not only had them kill some unnamed henchmen onscreen but explicitly showed one dissolve alive in the mist. To this day, individual cels of that scene circulate the internet as proof of its existence, and I can only imagine the awe and terror of seeing it play out as it was meant to.

Desperate to salvage whatever he could with as minimal mental scarring as possible, Katzenberg demanded the directors cut fifteen minutes from the film. Not any specific fifteen minutes, mind you, just fifteen minutes. It went down almost exactly like the scene from Amadeus where Emperor Joseph praises Mozart’s opera but asks if he could cut a few notes because he thinks there’s too many. He thankfully backs down when Mozart pointedly asks him which notes he wants him to cut. Unfortunately, trimming a couple of seconds here and there wasn’t enough to mollify Katzenberg, and he took it upon himself to fix his own perceived problem.

Pictured: Katzenburg preparing for an editing session.

Katzenberg shocked all present when he said that this film needed to be edited. They protested that there’s no way you can edit an animated movie, to which Katzenberg replied “Of course you can!” In a way, he was correct. All films, including animated ones, can and should be edited to some degree; either to give a moment some breathing space or get to the point of a scene. The problem is, Katzenberg was NOT an experienced editor in his own right.

Imagine you’re given a fine steak to eat and someone offers to cut it for you. They trim off the fatty bits first, then carve it into equal portions. Seems good, right? But then they start to cut away parts they think may have too much gristle, or look burnt or undercooked, or has one peppercorn too many sprinkled on – parts that you might actually enjoy and would make the experience of enjoying this meal more complete – and you’re forced to watch as they turn a culinary treat into a dinner with an unfortunate amount of its flavor and meat stolen from you. Once you recognize where Katzenberg made those haphazard cuts and alterations, you see the film in a new light, like that steak. You’re left wondering what could have been, how a pretty decent movie could have become a potentially great one.

And how is it that I am privy to such arcane truths?

Because, hand to God, my boyfriend managed to procure a shooting script of The Black Cauldron that was produced before Katzenberg did his hack job.

What, you don’t believe me? Then tremble before me and despair, you heretics!

“BRING. IT. ON.”

• TO BE CONTINUED •

Artwork by Charles Moss.

Milt Kahl and Andreas Deja production sketches courtesy of Andreas Deja’s blog Deja View, which I can’t recommend enough.

October Review: The Black Cauldron (1985) PART 1 Of all the animated Disney films out there, few have had a history as troubled or as fascinating as The Black Cauldron.