What Makes Disney Music Sound Nostalgic

when you think about Disney what's the first thing that comes to mind is it those old black-and-white cartoons is it those classic films from the 50s or is it those 90s animated films or maybe it's some of their newer CG films maybe it's even whatever it is that they're doing nowadays it's really weird to think about where Disney is in this time in place cuz like technically John Williams is a Disney composer now and I think it illustrates a big problem when trying to answer a question about a massive library of work like the entire Disney repertoire there's like a hundred years of material there and trying to unify it all and explain how it might all somehow sound a certain way is almost impossible but I think if we broke it down into a case study and found a perfect example of that Disney sound you might see what I mean when I say that Disney always manages to maintain a nostalgic sound with their music regardless of the time period regardless of when where or what your first disney film was so where would we even start in trying to find something that best demonstrates Disney's signature sound well I think if you're gonna get a really great example of that Disney music then you have to look at the Disney Renaissance the Disney Renaissance was a decade where Disney's animation department was enormous ly successful and managed to recapture that old Disney flare in their animated feature films it all started in 1989 with a little mermaid and then it ended in 1999 when Phil Collins ruined everything but this is the critical period in the 90s with hits like The Little Mermaid Beauty and Beast Aladdin Hercules Hunchback of Notre Dame the lon all those greats and since the Renaissance began with the success of the Little Mermaid then it really is in our best interest to break apart the music from the Little Mermaid and see if we can figure out what made it so successful in the first place and how that music in essence paved the way for the Renaissance but on top of that we also want to see if we can pinpoint how the Little Mermaid perfectly encapsulates that timeless Disney magic so without further ado let's talk about the single most influential film for the Disney Renaissance here is Who Framed Roger Rabbit [Music] okay I think I might have lost a couple you see Disney hasn't always been this extraordinarily successful company and if you want to see how who framed roger rabbit really led to the Little Mermaid then we have to go back like all the way back the year is 1928 Walt Disney releases Steamboat Willie his first ever animated cartoon with synchronized sound this is a big deal for the time as the inclusion of synchronized sound with cartoons gave way to something called the Golden Age of American animation which lasted from when Steamboat Willie was released in 1928 all the way through the 50s and into the 60s this was a time period where all the cartoons as we know and love them today came around Mickey Mouse Donald Duck Goofy Bugs Bunny Daffy Duck Vasili symphonies the Merrie Melodies all those hanna-barbera cartoons the brilliant Fleischer Superman cartoons in every single one of Chuck Jones's creations that we know and love today and spearheading this Golden Age of American animation was Walt Disney in 1937 Disney releases the first ever feature-length animated film Snow White and the Seven Dwarves and three years later in 1940 we had the beginning of Disney's legendary run of classic films Pinocchio Fantasia Dumbo Bambi the Three Caballeros which is a personal favorite Cinderella Alice in Wonderland Peter Pan leading the Sleeping Beauty 101 Dalmatians the sword in the stone you know him you'll love him but in 1966 during the production of The Jungle Book Walt Disney passed away The Jungle Book was the last film with Walt Disney's fingerprint and following Walt Disney's death the Disney Company flounders for the next few decades immediately following the Jungle Book the Disney company releases the Aristocats to mediocre reviews the next year Roy o Disney Walt Disney's brother also passes away then in 73 the released Robin Hood which fell way behind on the production schedule which like makes sense considering how they lost both their leaders in a relatively short time frame but falling behind on schedule like that forced them to recycle animation from previous films and overall it did really mediocre at the box off on top of all that animation just isn't that popular during the 60s and 70s no one is going out to watch animated feature films like in 77 they released the rescuers but it had to compete with Star Wars and then in the middle of production for the Fox and the Hound which released in 81 Don Bluth a lead animator along with a bunch of other animators all decided to resign from Disney at the same time and go start their own company I had heard that even though they had done some of the work on the fox and the hound Bluth and everyone else that left asked not to be credited the Fox and the hound bombs Bluth goes off of the other animators to start their own studio and they released the secret of NIMH which does fantastically well and then in 84 Disney almost gets bought up by Saul Steinberg a multi-millionaire but instead is able to dodge a complete buyout only to then bring on Michael Eisner as CEO who then infamously says we have no obligation to make history we have no obligation to make art we have no obligation to make a statement to make money is our only objective then in the next year in 85 the Black Cauldron releases which has a legendarily terrible performance at the box office throwing away about a decade of production at this point Eisner who already isn't a fan of animation either because it's just not selling or maybe he's just more of a fan of live-action films he decides to kick the animation department out of the Burbank lot which was a building designed for animators to animate in and instead moves the animation department to a series of hangars warehouses and trailers in Glendale California so the animators who are still with Disney who remember working with the one and only Walt Disney are somewhere in between their third and fourth daily bottles of liquid courage in order to get by after Disney's passing the company but especially the animation department is just in shambles so as a response to the failure of the Black Cauldron and as a break of tradition Eisner pushes the animation department to start working on TV shows like duck tales and The Adventures of gummy bears but with the encouragement of Roy Disney Roy o Disney son and Walt Disney's nephew Eisner let the animation department work on a new animated feature but something kind of strange happened during this period so while Disney is on fire and not in the good way Don Bluth was writing off the success of the secret of NIMH and ended up working on a couple of videogame projects namely Space Ace and dragon's lair but in 1986 Bluth releases the immensely popular and American tale but also in 1986 three months before Bluths release Disney led by Eisner releases the Great Mouse Detective now although the Great Mouse Detective had a better opening weekend than American tail and American tail beat the Great Mouse Detective out the long run but the animation departments performance reassures Eisner and he begins work on another film two years later in 1988 Eisner releases Oliver and company but he releases it on not only the exact same year only the exact same month not only the exact same weekend but the exact same day as Bluths the Land Before Time and Oliver and company comes out on top again at least during the opening weekend and this is where things get kind of awkward si Bluth leaves Disney and makes the secret of NIMH and some video game stuff for youtubers to talk about a couple decades later then Eisner the guy who doesn't really care for animation decides to make an animated rodent themed film and release it the exact same year as Bluths animated rodent themed film then eysan releases oliver and company the exact same day as Bluth slam before time but only one year later in 1989 Bluth would go on to release all dogs go to heaven both of these animated films are about dogs and feature a little girl now I'm not saying this because I don't want to upset the mouse but the similarities and time frames are kind of suspicious but on top of releasing kind of similar films that kind of similar times Eisner also ends up going after the producer for Bluths an American tale in the Land Before Time who just so happens to be wait Steven Spielberg whoa okay anyway so I just gets together with Spielberg and together they make a film called Who Framed Roger Rabbit and aha okay we have our backstory we're back to where we started but like what does any of this have to do with Disney music or the Little Mermaid or like anything well okay for Who Framed Roger Rabbit was enormous Lee successful not just financially successful but like changed the world successful like you know how odd is knees built a Star Wars land in Disneyland and an avatar land in the animal kingdom and a Toy Story land and like wherever they opened out I think it's at Disney World well in 93 in response to the success of Who Framed Roger Rabbit they added Mickey's Toontown to Disneyland that's why it has a Roger Rabbit themed ride this film single-handedly revitalized the public interest in animation before this no one really cared about animation but in the 90s off the coattails of this film suddenly everyone is super excited about Chuck Jones and those old Disney cartoons almost overnight everyone suddenly really into this Golden Age of American animation and the success of this film even spawned a wave of animated television shows that were inspired by it like the Animaniacs freakazoid Tiny Toon Adventures and even bonkers who was directly inspired by Rogers character design like Cartoon Network happened because of Roger Rabbit if it wasn't for this film we would have never had Space Jam so all hail Roger Rabbit anyway so Who Framed Roger Rabbit really setup Disney for a comeback everyone's interested in animation again Walt Disney was the master of animated feature films so what does Disney go and do they decide to make their next film an animated Broadway musical which at first seems like it completely comes out of nowhere how would an animated Broadway musical be any kind of successful whose idea was this why do that well see I've only been telling you half of the story back in 1928 Disney makes his first synchronized sound cartoon Steamboat Willie but a year before that in 1927 there was another show about a steamboat that was just as significant [Music] he must know but don't say showboat was a genre-defining work that for all intents and purposes really solidified what musical theater could accomplish before showboat musical shows weren't really taken that seriously you might have seen a medley of pop tunes at a vaudeville show or some kind of musical comedy or an operetta or even in a burlesque show which technically doesn't mean what people think it means nowadays but nothing had really combined comedy sentimentality and narrative so cohesively with a musical score and songs to boot and the music was written by a guy called Jerome Kern but the book which is musical leaves for script and the lyrics were written by a guy called Oscar Hammerstein the second and by the 1940s Hammerstein teamed up with composer Richard Rodgers to form the legendary duo Rodgers and Hammerstein and together they would define the musical theater scene for several decades because of this pair some people go far enough to call the 40s and 50s a golden age of musical theater pinked Golden Age hint shows like Oklahoma carousel South Pacific the king and I and eventually The Sound of Music these guys were what made musicals musicals but what else is going on during this time well Walt Disney and his classics right well the releases between these two entities lineups super neatly first to get Disney's Pinocchio Dumbo and Bambi then in 43 a year after Bambi Rodgers and Hammerstein's released Oklahoma then carousel then South Pacific right after South Pacific Disney releases Cinderella then Alice in Wonderland and in that same year we get the King and I then we get Rodgers and Hammerstein's version of Cinderella even though it was technically just for television and then after that we get the sound of music and before you start thinking okay yeah but just because they're released during the same time period doesn't mean that they're musically related well check this out is also the Golden Age of the Broadway musical that's also when first Rodgers and Hart then Rodgers and Hammerstein were working there was a stage musical tradition that was growing up at the same time this is Howard Ashman the brains behind the Little Mermaid describing how and why Disney films were structured the way they were now remember him because we're going to come back to him so when it comes to how something like Who Framed Roger Rabbit could incentivize Disney to make something like an animated Broadway musical which arguably is more in line with Disney's older films you can really see how Roger Rabbit hammered the point home and isn't just about the revitalize love for the Golden Age of American animation you can even kind of see it in the music just look at this scene here no really pay attention what are we hearing Jessica Rabbit is singing why don't you do right written by Joseph Kansas Joe McCoy in 1936 and popularized by Peggy Lee in the 1943 film Stage Door Canteen where she performed right next to Benny Goodman so even though this film is canonically set in 1947 at least this song is pulling us to an even older time like this song was written in 1936 Snow White the Seven Dwarves came out one year later in 1937 so Disney needs a Broadway musical and luckily through an extraordinary series of events involving the Little Shop of Horrors a guy so wealthy that his Wikipedia page doesn't have a picture of him and instead just has his net worth and the fortunate opportunity to work on one of the songs from Oliver and company now it's always once a fun in New York City Disney already has a brilliant if legendary musical theater expert to write The Little Mermaid Ashman knew that he was gonna need and I want song where the protagonist sings about what they want this kind of song exists and the Broadway musical from wouldn't it be loverly Eliza Doolittle and my lady tells us what she wants Russian Hammerstein every show the leading lady has a chance to plunk herself down on a tree trunk somewhere and to sing about what she dreams about and she sings this is what I want it's called the girls I want song Disney version of same beginning of every film of the classic fairy tale there's a version of this song fascinating Cinderella Misha's one there's no white somehow they got away with two I'm which again someday my prints are exactly the same song I want to be where the people are he was the one who advocated for Sebastian to have a Jamaican accent instead of a British one so he could include some Caribbean inspired music because he needed an up number I was working on some Sebastian drawings very early on and um Howard had a specific idea for Sebastian I asked for very specific I wanted to be able to get convincingly a more contemporary sound into a couple of the songs I wanted an opportunity to do something with a beat so we could have up numbers and think about if you know what enough numbers right now that doesn't sound like part of your world he knew that when it came to Ursula poor unfortunate souls was gonna be the most musical theatre resounding song and that he was gonna have to lean into it song is justified by nothing and even when it came to the character design for Ursula the animators look to the one and only divine for inspiration even the minor details like how to transition from spoken word to music was something he handled masterfully we had dialogue in the script parts like not enough we will back that vamp up under the earlier dialogue so he won't be speaking over that musical vamp so you make the transitions between the sung stuff and the dialogue stuff as seamless as possible and you don't even realize that you've gone from sort of a seeing where characters are just interacting naturally suddenly they're singing but but the change just happens kind of without even noticing it at every twist and turn ashley knew that he was merging musical theater and animation to create something new but familiar he knew that based on everything he was doing that if he was successful that this work could stand the test of time with the older Disney classics the idea of doing one of those is like there's all these library books on the show there's there's no light in this sleeping beauty in this Cinderella this Peter Pan is Pinocchio and to try to make something that fits comfortably on the Shelf with those I mean that's like what a difficult thing to do but what a great thing to try to do like if you want an even more clear example of how this film emulated the older Disney style then look no further than the opening it has that same choral style that you find in the openings to a lot of older Disney films [Applause] [Music] but in this case if you listen carefully you can tell it's actually part of your world which is aerials I want song I want to be where the people are [Applause] which is an interesting time to mention all the music that isn't the songs or in other words the music that plays in the background of the film or the score Howard Ashman brought on Alan Menken who he knew from working together on the Little Shop of Horrors to do the music for the Little Mermaid which is great because he was exceptionally experienced when it came to film music I'd never written a score I had written you know the incidental music and my own musicals and Howard convinced me I should take that on I'd never written a score I'd never written a score and you got to think about it the first film you ever scored just so happens to be the one that begins the Disney Renaissance but if you pay attention a lot of the music that making uses is just repurposed music from the songs for example whenever Ariel's doing something related to her central motivation something that she says in her I want song we get a reference to part of your world [Music] whenever ercel is up to no good we get some of poor unfortunate souls you can even hear some of the music that plays when Eric shows Ariel around town come back when Ursula and Eric leave to get married on the ship [Music] Menken referenced a lot of music as it appeared in the film which ultimately created an extremely effective score for the Little Mermaid and lo and behold we have the recipe for our Disney Renaissance Ashman and making went on to write for Beauty and the Beast and although some of his work appears in Aladdin Ashman unfortunately passed away shortly after Beauty and the Beast due to complications from AIDS which is why buting the beast is dedicated to him loss of a legendary storyteller aside his work propelled Disney through the Renaissance until again fill over here ruined it but one thing is absolutely clear Disney knew what they were doing at every step of the way I mean at least sorta they knew that they wanted to emulate Walt's classic style and they knew that they needed to do something more like a musical but there's a story that at one point someone wanted to remove part of your world and they did squirm during part of your world a child dropped their popcorn box or the container of popcorn and became Restless with needing to clean that up and Jeffrey took that as a sign I came out of that just said don't think this is working he said maybe we should lose the song which is like how do you have a Broadway musical without an I want song so maybe they weren't totally on the level the whole time but whether or not Walt Disney knew he was implementing musical theater techniques and his classic films are not the elements are there as Ashman put it Snow White in the Seven Dwarfs has to I want songs before Rodgers and Hammerstein ever actually got together and when it came to revitalizing the Disney brand in the 90s the execs knew that they were gonna have to do something more like a Broadway musical in order to recapture that Disney feeling and it doesn't stop there they actually did this exact same thing in 2013 with frozen and by a stroke of dumb luck I happen to already have a video on my channel talking about how frozen capitalized on the success and popularity of the revival of musical theatre during the late 2000s before I knew any of this stuff about the Disney Renaissance so there's one thing that you can learn from the history of Disney it's that once they have a successful formula they'll exploit it or I guess repeat it again and again and again and again nevertheless that's why Disney music always sounds nostalgic it's because it's always calling back to a collective nostalgia of both animation and musical theater but it creates something new and how it brings them together thanks for watching I think my patients making these videos possible the very special thank you to F and Matt Andrew claret and dr. world donovan hodges DJ now Ananda Haydn Elsa Jordan Adams Karen Rosa now Who am I anzo Bhutto in general and also like to thank everyone on my patron who requested this video if you'd like to request a video come check out on my patreon you'll have to give me money making requests but it sure does help if you like this video be sure to check out my other videos on my channel and maybe even subscribe if you want to ask me some useable questions live be sure to follow me on Twitter and twitch by a livestream and if you really like what I'm doing here they could seriously point the channel on patreon but that's all I got for now thanks for watching [Music]

Channel: undefined

Views: 773,874

Rating: 4.9543242 out of 5

Keywords: Little, Mermaid, Roger, Rabbit, Rodgers, Hammerstein, Howard, Ashman, Alan, Menken, Little Shop of Horrors, Beauty and the Beast, Oliver and Company, Bluth, Eisner, Disney, Who Framed, Ariel, Part of your World, Poor Unfortunate Souls, Under the Sea

Id: JX0gZY9VKlM

Length: 20min 51sec (1251 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 30 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/ElementalTurnip]

You sold me on Eisner bashing.

[u/TheAngelPeterGabriel]

Sideways is so underrated. 💚