The Further Adventures of Dumbo? Fantasia
Frolics? Bambi: the Series? If television had been around in
the Forties, would these titles have been a reality? Difficult to tell
how far Walt Disney would have gone, but today's popular Disney animated
features go on to live forever--not only in the memory of generations who
will enjoy them for years to come, but also any child up early enough on
Saturday mornings.
As the studio's animated features become increasingly popular, audiences
clamor for more. To answer the call quickly and efficiently, Disney has
taken to adapting some of their more recent animated films to a format
once foreign to the Mouse House: television. Hits such as The Little
Mermaid, Aladdin, The Lion King and even the classic
101 Dalmatians have spawned TV siblings. With their characters and
stories so entrenched in the mainstream, creating new weekly situations
is the first and usually most daunting task.
A New Genre
Roy Price, director of development and
current programming for Walt Disney Television Animation (WDTVA), used
this analogy: "It's sort of like if you wanted to take the theme of
a symphony and transport it into a rock and roll song. You could do it,
as they showed in A Whiter Shade of Pale, but you have to be aware
that the demands of the medium, or the genre, are a little different. If
you just tried to play the symphony for minutes at a time, it won't be
satisfactory. It won't please the symphony lover or the rock and roll aficionado.
So, you have to be more sensitive to what works in the shorter time frame
and the different demands of the medium."
Disney has indeed met these demands, as Television Animation has become
a strong arm of the company since its inception over a decade ago with
shows like Adventures of the Gummi Bears and The Wuzzles.
One of the people there for the flash point was Tad Stones, an animator
who began his career at Disney in feature animation in 1974. Later he moved
to television and went on to serve as executive producer of the series
Aladdin, as well as director of the film's two lucrative direct-to-video
sequels.
He stated that adapting a popular feature for the small screen comes with
inevitable hurdles. "No matter what you do, no matter how much you
spend and put into it, you're not going to be spending as much as a feature
film," admitted Stones. "Everybody understands that this is a
TV series, but they still compare it directly to the feature films. So,
basically we're getting something done on a television production schedule,
albeit a lush one, compared to something that was four years in the making
and is lavished with computer effects and digital ink and paint. That hurts
us too, because it's daunting when someone overseas is drawing something
`off-model.' We give them notes and we try to refine something, but there's
only so much that we can do."
Adapting for the Tube
These limitations, however, have not stopped
Disney from experimenting and taking some chances with its characters.
Case in point is Timon and Pumbaa, a series based on the comic sidekicks
from Disney's behemoth of animated blockbusters, The Lion King.
Instead of re-creating the lush, lyrical mood of the film week after week,
supervising producers Tony Craig and Roberts Gannaway decided to shape
Timon and Pumbaa in a more Tex Avery-ish vein. "What we tried
to do, to keep it fresh, was expand on their personalities as a comedy
team," noted Gannaway, "in the tradition of good comedy teams
like Bob Hope and Bing Crosby or Martin and Lewis. The other thing that
we did to try and keep it interesting was to not have them locked into
the Serengeti, but allow them to travel the world and meet different kinds
of animals."
Gannaway and Craig have also translated one of Disney's most beloved films,
101 Dalmatians (which recently got a new 'leash' on life thanks
to a popular live-action remake), for the small screen. "The animated
feature and the live-action film are really about the human characters,"
noted Gannaway. "The objective of the TV series was to make a show
about the puppies' individual personalities. This isn't really explored
in the movie beyond a `tagging' of the different types."
In addition, the producers have given the new Dalmatians it's own highly
stylized look, different from that of the original film and have even tackled
what many would have thought verboten: Disney's most popular screen villain,
Cruella DeVil. "We needed to expand her so that she would become more
of a greedy character," said Gannaway. "It's been daunting, because
she is such a great villain."
This fall, WDTVA will again place their own distinct stamp on a new series,
when Hercules, Disney's loopy feature from last year, makes its
way to ABC's Saturday morning line-up, as a weekly animated series.
"What we've done in Hercules is what we've always tried to
do in every series which is keep the tone," said Stones, who will
also be serving as executive producer for the new show. "We look at
the feature film and we say, `What do people like?'"
The answer to this was the original's irreverence
and the producers of Hercules, the series, found that the best way
to capture this was through what they call a "mid-quel." That
is, the events that take place on the show, take place not before or after
those of the film, but at a point within the story. So, instead of taking
the safe route and relaying Herc's exploits as a strong-man here among
mortal earthlings, the series will focus on the character during his teenage
years, allowing the show to tackle issues of romance, teen angst and a
main character still struggling to find his place in the world. As Stones
noted, "By ignoring continuity and trying to stay true to the elements
of humor and adventure in the film, we came up with a much stronger series
that really stands on its own."
Most of the original voice cast from the film will return, including a
real surprise: James Woods in his blisteringly bad role of Hades. With
Woods signed on, the producers suddenly found that there was a flood of
recognizable names who wanted to be part of the show. "Every episode
was cast as if it was a feature film," says Stones of this unexpected
luxury. The new show will boast over 150 celebrity voices including: Seinfeld's
Jason Alexander as Poseidon, Mike (Mannix) Connors as the hard-boiled cop,
Chipacles, Regis Philbin as the voice of Typhoon and game show host Wink
Martindale, somewhat typecast as Sphinx Martindale. In addition, a majority
of the show's 65 episodes will also feature songs.
Working With Other Divisions
When films such as Hercules make the leap to the small screen,
the producers usually get little else but the blessing of the artists and
filmmakers from the original film. "They don't worry about a series
when they're doing movies," noted Stones. "They're worried about
the movie and that's it." In fact, the proliferation of animated features
into series has inspired some good nature ribbing at the studio. As Stones
remembered, "When [directors] Ron Clements and John Musker were developing
Hercules, they said, `Hey Tad, we're doing a pilot for a series.'"
The feature-to-series trend has also opened up a controversy, however,
as many animation purists now believe that Disney is "cheapening"
its own product. "To me, I don't think it's a taste thing," admitted
Stones. "I don't see how a spin-off of any kind takes away from the
original. When Disney did `Dance of the Hours' [in Fantasia] people
complained because they couldn't listen to that piece of music without
seeing dancing hippos. Maybe they did ruin that music, but then so did
Alan Sherman, when he did `Hello Mudda, Hello Fadda.'"
"I think the good thing is that it extends
the life of the characters," said Gannaway. "It keeps the characters
out there for the audience to enjoy." Gannaway and his partner, Tony
Craig, have recently been entrusted with Disney's first big screen star,
Mickey Mouse. The `Big Cheese' will come to television this fall in his
first animated series, Mouse Works, proving that no one under the
Disney umbrella is safe from the lure of television.
The show has been produced under the guidance of Walt's nephew, vice chairman
of the board, Roy E. Disney, who has been keeping a careful eye on the
classic characters, now also known as company icons. "He's looking
at all the scripts and all the storyboards," noted Gannaway. "Roy
is watch-dogging the show and this relaxes a lot of other executives."
It's actually very fitting that Disney's biggest hero of the big screen
would make his way to the small screen in such a top-notch manner. After
all, it was Walt himself, who in the 1950s, pioneered the idea of quality
family television with such shows as Disneyland, Zorro and
The Mickey Mouse Club.
Like those classic shows, the features-to-series evolve on their own, becoming
creative and entertaining variations on an original theme, not just cogs
in a corporate machine. "Everyone always says, `Oh, you guys also
have to worry about the merchandising and the dolls and everything.' You
don't. All you're concerned with is, `Am I putting a good story on the
screen?,'" noted Stones, adding, "You're really just focused
on your project, you're not thinking, `Is this going to be a good Disneyland
ride?'"
Mike Lyons is a Long Island-based freelance writer, who has written
over 100 articles on film and animation. His work has appeared in Cinefantastique,
Animato! and The Disney Magazine.
Links:
[1] http://www.awn.com/imagepicker/image/1495
[2] http://www.awn.com/imagepicker/image/1496
[3] http://www.awn.com/imagepicker/image/1497
