203 - The Sweatbox/The Emperor’s New Groove

I went to Stockholm, Sweden, just after Como, Italy, and let me tell you: the Swedes are delightfullly sweet people compared to people from Lombardy. - Can we seat here?- - No. You seat there-

Now I'm curious if you think you might have anything to talk about re Wonder Man.

Please don't judge all of Sweden by the behaviour of Stockholmers, that's like judging France after the Parisians!

I don't want to oversell it, but 'Into the Unknown: Making Frozen 2' is a Disney documentary that DOES make Disney look terrible, and that's still up on Disney+. Every animator is visibly suffering and one of the composers is clearly trying to murder the screenwriter and director with her mind. It's an absolutely incredible watch

this has one of my fav interstitials for sure

Maybe this is obvious, but if there’s no script, how does anyone know what to say? Do they figure it out through improv? Did someone just describe the scenario to them and they say the lines? Like did Eartha Kitt or Angela Lansbury just come with that? Also, thanks for reminding me about freaking out and wondering if it will be terrible being a part of the creative process, bad dress rehearsal means great opening night, etc. I open a show on Thursday and I am nervous so that made me feel better.

Im from Australia and goolies are in fact testicals. And while goolie guard is not in common usuage i immediately realised it was a cup/box

i'm working on a really big project right now, a visual novel that's probably going to take me FOOOOOOOREVER, elements of it keep changing on me, etc. and i gotta say, i didn't know i needed to hear this episode but i did. it was a reminder that it's ok for things to end up on the cutting room floor, it's ok to make sweeping changes, and if where you intended to go isn't where you end up, that might actually be fine

maybe my favorite interstitial outside of the conversion one. amazing.

"Llama llama It's a salesman drama" - Arthur Miller, Death of A Salesman

I loved the movie and the incongruous soundtrack. I really loved yzmas song

It’s me: I’m the kid who loved the soundtrack and listened to it regularly

I hope Sting never hears this episode.

Oh my god, cats don’t dance. I still get BIG AND LOUD stuck in my head 25 years on from the last time I watched it. Yeeeesss, miss dimpleeee

The Emperors New Groove has to be one of my favorite Disney movies. I've got to say I'm amazed that with everything that went on with the production it's surprising that we got the movie we did from it. It was strangely lighthearted but also meaningful, at least when I was younger. I think it helped me understand what friendship means to a young person and I keep it in a special place in my heart.

So my phone bugged out on the train this morning while I was listening to this. So for a few minutes the podcast was playing simultaneously on my earphones and out loud. I was receiving a car load of strange looks for " "every llama's face every Kronc embrace, I am drowning here". No idea what to do so I just said " worst of all possible worlds podcast, you understand." And then sat in silence until my stop.

I'd heard the whole story of the production history before (I knew some Disney people when I was younger) but it's always fun to hear more from it. Have watched the doc since finishing the episode, fully agree that if anything Disney comes out from it well. Not totally smelling of roses, but well. I'd imagine the fact it isn't total fawning praise though is why it is in the limbo it is. When it was made Disney was doing *well* but not perfect so didn't want to risk anything as I understand it. Since then, well, the Mouse does not tolerate dissent.

"I am here by my own volition and I hate it," The Josh Boerman Story

JAMES DOBSON'S DUMB ASS IS DEAD. CELEBRATIONS

🔫 🤠 (I'm a Hercules shooter in the comments)

Covering two of my favorite Disney projects AND James Dobson is dead!! And it’s not even my birthday

Southern Norway is like that too. The further north you go though, the more welcoming people get.

Burn in hell, Dobson! I'm looking forward to listening to this one. I remember endlessly quoting this movie in school, and the documentary is a fantastic watch even if you don't like the film. If you want to see more Disney production details, there's a really neat series of books called The Archive Series from the Disney Animation Research Library that has tons of art. It's hard to find in print, but it may or may not be available from Anna.

I really feel for Sting honestly. When you’re writing for non-soundtrack albums, you have to get really precious about notes and sounds because you work in an almost entirely non-visual medium and want to make sure everything is perfect…meaning you’re going to fixate on little details way more. Funnily though, I can’t shake the idea that Sting should have worked with Stewart Copeland. They can’t because they hate each other and can’t be in the same room (two massive egos slamming in to each other), but Copeland is a really great orchestrator and I think could have been a lot less fixated on getting exactly what he wants. It’s also worth noting that Sting is notorious for wanting what’s in his head and no one else’s, so some of this is a really inflexible guy being put into a situation where his back’s against the wall. I broadly think his solo career if boring, but the man is immaculate

if you guys care, the full version of this episode is up on Apple Podcasts with a description calling it a preview

Alright, so when does AJ’s Sting+The Police cover boxset (full discography I assume) drop and are you guys going to do a Vinyl run of it?

Emperor's New Groove was my first Disney movie, and even knowing the horrors that it took to make I will go to bat for it as a worthwhile movie.

havent listened to the episode yet but rest in piss dobson !!

I love how Brian speaking Swedish sounds like a 19th-century pastor

Swede here. First of all: perfectly acceptabla pronounciation. Second: were you perchance engaging in nonessential conversation? Speaking to people is a chore, and not one we appreciate engaging in when it's not necessary.

Rest in piss James Dobson!

As a Finn, I’d like to defend the non-Stockholm portion of Sweden and Swedes, who are mostly lovely and friendly people! But yeah, Stockholm is a bit unique when it comes to attitudes towards people from elsewhere. My friend from Skåne (far-south Sweden) said Stockholmers will often switch to English when talking with him, just because his accent sounds too foreign to them. Come over to Finland, where your american smalltalk will be seen as even more of a social murder, but where we are completely egalitarian in our asociality (and where the social barriers break down the moment you get into a naked sauna with complete strangers).

Holy crap... I had totally forgotten about having the soundtrack for Tarzan in a 6 disc cd changer growing up... Thanks guys, way to bring back memories I don't need. Lol

Im an Australian and i can confirm the gooley guard or however the fuck its spelt, is indeed the slang term for a nutsack shield

I can only say with certainty that Josh is absolutely right about us, but make some vague guesses for why. Could be my bias speaking from growing up there and leaving as soon as I could, but I've at least felt anywhere else I've been is more conversationally friendly than Stockholm - though most other places would probably still come across as rude by your standards. But, still. There's an old social norm called "Jante law" that promotes humility and shuns thinking of oneself as special or better in any way. I don't think that has as much power anymore as it's often made out to, but rather, it's been uttered with derision whenever it's mentioned for so long that I think we're kind of at peak backlash. So people will try to lean more into those tendencies to avoid getting accused of being meek Jante supplicants. Although paradoxically, Americans have long been stereotyped as the polar opposite to Jante, and I don't think presumptious sneering about that would go away just because humility is seen as less of a virtue. If anything it'd just reshape into envious resentment of the shameless braggard people will profile Americans as. Another tension point against Americans in particular might be that our middle class (like in most places, I suppose) is always starving for one moral panic or another to perform surface level gestures of concern over. And What With The Politics™️, a shallow form of anti-Americanism has gotten pretty popular in that territory across the mainstream political spectrum. Like, people loudly proclaiming that they're boycotting Coke and any other brands that can be easily identified as American (nevermind with that particular example that all of their drinks on our market is produced domestically lol) type of stuff. That probably gets experessed as derision for individual American strangers as well. And lastly yeah lol Malcontent Battery Pack is definitely on to something with their comment. We're not a very sociable bunch on average, and especially not with strangers. It goes beyond conversational rudeness too. This is a sidebar, and idk if this particular example is as visible in Stockholm or if they regulated against it more effectively, but... In the larger city where I live, the way you'll see rental e-scooters parked in the most disruptive ways I can fucking imagine on a daily basis has started feeling like a monument to people just not thinking of themselves as members of a society with other people in it anymore. Over the last few years it's seemingly been normalized to never exert the tiniest bit of effort to avoid creating unnecessary inconvenience for others. It sucks, to be honest. Idk. Maybe it's a little bit of each column and others, maybe I'm off the mark. I'll just conclude with saying sorry we're like this, and hope the trip gave you some other joys!

The Tarzan and Phil Collins praise really hits home. It's my favorite disney soundtrack snd movie.