Progress City, U.S.A.

Seeing as we’ve dedicated this month to Disney artist Herbert Ryman on the occasion of what would have been his 100th birthday, it’s only appropriate that we review at last a book about Mr. Ryman that came out earlier this year. Warp and Weft: Life Canvas of Herbert Ryman is far from a conventional biography or history; in fact, author John S. Donaldson bills it as a memoir/biography. Donaldson spent three decades as a friend and apprentice of Ryman’s, and practically grew up in his household. While this obviously brings a certain lack of objectivity to the proceedings, Donaldson’s unique situation lends a perspective that any other biographer would necessarily lack. Is it the definitive last word on Ryman’s artwork and career? No. But it’s a fascinating look at one of Disney’s most important artists and the most in-depth work that I’m aware of about any of the Imagineers.

Herb Ryman and Walt Disney. Ryman is working on conceptual artwork for the Magic Skyway attraction from the 1964/65 New York World’s Fair. (Photo: Daveland)

Herb Ryman occupies a fairly unique place in Disney history. He’s a member of that generation of artists at the Disney animation studio that would go on to found Walt Disney Imagineering (then known as WED Enterprises). But Ryman had a successful career before his time at Disney; he was well-established both as an independent artist and as a member of the art department at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. In fact, he came within a hair’s breadth of being the art director for Gone With The Wind in 1939.

This photograph of the 20th Century Fox art department shows several individuals that would soon prove crucial to the development of Disneyland, and later Walt Disney World. On the back row you can find Richard Irvine (3rd from left) and Marvin Davis (5th from left). On the second row, far left, is Ryman, and beside him is George Patrick.

Over the years Ryman would come and go at will, leaving Disney when things got dull to take projects he found more interesting in other venues. His time at 20th Century Fox proved especially fruitful, as it was there that he would meet several key members of the art staff that would later be brought back to WED to help design Disneyland.

Disney fans well know Ryman’s contributions in this field – not only did he create that legendary first rendering of Disneyland in 1953, but also the first painting of Cinderella Castle for Walt Disney World and a number of other historic pieces. In fact, he was working on new Disney park projects up until the time of his death in 1989.

Ryman’s famous first rendering of Disneyland from 1953. Ironically, Ryman himself was embarrassed by this image, created as it was in merely two days, yet it’s gone on to fire the imaginations of generations of fans.

But Warp and Weft isn’t necessarily the tale of Ryman’s work. Instead, it’s the story of his life and how it intersected and overlapped with a number of other notable characters, and the grand web of coincidence and happenstance reflected in the lives of people who live in interesting times. The books title is entirely apropos; at times it’s not really Herb’s story at all, but rather a snapshot of the entire fabric of his existence and the others that attached themselves to it.

The main thread of the fabric is, naturally, Ryman himself. Aside from that, though, a great amount of time is given to the tale of Walt Disney; his early life in the Midwest came remarkably close at times to Ryman’s own upbringing. In fact, Ryman’s mother, in an attempt to improve their situation, associated herself with a group of investors in the O-Zell jelly company – the very same O-Zell company whose collapse took with it the savings of Walt’s dad, Elias.

There are many coincidences like these as Herb and Walt live out their childhoods in the Midwest; as Walt heads to Kansas City and then Hollywood, Herb tries to make it as an artist despite the constant discouragements of his mother. Some of the details Donaldson turns up about Walt’s life in Kansas City are fascinating and there are several stories I’ve never heard elsewhere; Donaldson is good at digging to the root of the story and finding the odd connections that make these yarns truly interesting in an “ah-ha!” sort of way. Often you’ll find yourself following the doings of people you’ve never heard of, until its finally revealed how they fit into the tale – one expects Paul Harvey to chime in with “that’s the rest of the story!”

This rare Ryman sketch shows an unknown, unbuilt attraction planned for EPCOT Center

Ryman’s life is a series of fascinating connections itself; a trip around the world to paint put him in the path of oncoming war, and so we have brushes with many fascinating characters in Siam and China. Even the Peking Man himself makes an appearance! There are movie stars known and obscure; Howard Hughes makes an appearance as does, much later, Marilyn Monroe. Quite a tapestry, indeed.

Warp and Weft has caused some sturm and drang in the Disney historical community, mostly concerning Donaldson’s portrayal of Ryman’s sister Lucille and her husband, actor John Carroll. The portrayal is indeed unkind; Ryman and Carroll come off as a combination of Bonnie and Clyde and Laurel and Hardy – she’s a shallow, grasping type, always on the take and on the make. Carroll is a suave, aging film actor, who also seems to always be on the lookout for a fresh mark and willing to do anything for a buck. The two of them con and scam their way through the years, defrauding and bilking seemingly everyone they come across, while working hard to portray a veneer of respectability and taking everything they can from Herb. The picture, as painted, is not pretty.

After Herb’s death, Lucille spent most of her time promoting their legacy through the Ryman-Carroll Foundation, and in the process it’s not surprising that she seems to have made quite a positive impression on many of those in the Disney community. Thus, many have reacted strongly in the negative against Donaldson’s book, claiming positive personal experiences with Lucille or having heard positive things from others. Some have charged bias; Donaldson claims in the book that Lucille denied him his inheritance from Herb (that inheritance being Herb’s paintings and artwork) and it’s clear those wounds go deep. That certainly can’t be discounted, but Donaldson has been careful to provide documentation for many of his claims and that makes them difficult to dismiss out-of-hand. Add to that the predilection that Lucille and John Carroll had for audiotaping everything, from phone calls to conversations, and the evidence becomes far less circumstantial – especially considering that Donaldson has made some of the most pertinent recordings available on his website. After my own heart, there’s a 41-page list of citations in the back of the book pointing to primary sources for further reading and research; there’s also a wonderfully detailed index, which is a pleasant rarity.

Rendering of World Bazaar at Tokyo Disneyland

It’s up to the reader to make up their own mind on these controversial issues, based on the facts given them. For my part, it’s hard to imagine an author forging such copious amounts of documentary evidence for the sake of some post-mortem one-upsmanship. The author certainly doesn’t try to hide his feelings and opinions, so I would encourage the individual reader to assess the well-cited sources and judge the more personal passages for themselves. Regardless of any disputed historical content, I found the segments of the book documenting Ryman and Carroll’s shenanigans at the very least to be an entertaining yarn.

It’s impossible to discuss this book without mentioning the style in which it is written. Donaldson writes in a very stylized fashion; it’s a very lyrical style with lots of alliteration, rhyme, and wordplay. The prose is very punchy and at times staccato, and there is the occasional overuse of commas. At times it reads like beat poetry, or even hip-hop lyrics, and at other times it consists of rhymed couplets, almost like a limerick. It takes getting used to, I found, and can be jarring at first; after you get in the “mindset,” though, it becomes less noticeable and part of the experience. Unfortunately the wordplay can sometimes get in the way of the narrative, obfuscating meaning and drawing the reader’s attention from substance to style. Stylized prose can be effective in describing a bucolic Midwestern childhood, for instance, but just tends to get in the way of the narrative when the action picks up or when the author is trying to convey complicated issues or nuanced interactions.

The resulting effect of this style is fairly affable, though, and the presence of the narrator as a distinct voice makes sense when the story is being told by a participant. While some of the wordplay and punnery at times reminds one of the pleasant yet corny uncle lobbing zingers at the dinner table, there were plenty of times that I laughed out loud at the narration’s commentary. It’s definitely an unusual style, but it’s also unique, at times lyrical, and it works most of the time.

As stated, there’s some debate amongst Disney historians about some of the opinions expressed in this book. Fans might blanch at less-than-flattering portrayals of a number of Disney icons, especially John Hench, Marty Sklar, and Harrison “Buzz” Price. Indeed these criticisms are deeply personal and often scathing. It can make for conflicting feelings and it’s certainly not unbiased, but even for skeptics I think the book as a whole contains enough fascinating stories of Ryman’s life and Walt’s own history to justify itself. You might disagree with the more contentious parts of the narrative or not, but the fact remains that the majority of the book devoted to Herb’s life, work, and friendship with Walt demands attention. For those with an open mind about the more controversial aspects, it’s an interesting read. At the very least, it’s a much-needed tribute to a great artist and it keeps the name of Herbert Ryman alive while fleshing out his life for a generation of fans.

Could this book have been more? I think so. I could definitely have used more discussion of Ryman’s work, from both technical and historical standpoints, and more detail about the projects on which he worked. There’s also a certain anecdotal element that’s missing; those bits and bobs of stories from daily life that would be invaluable in understanding the man, especially considering that the author spent so much time observing Ryman firsthand. But the desire to know more doesn’t mean that what’s already in the book isn’t illuminating itself, and so Warp and Weft: Life Canvas of Herbert Ryman should be on the reading list for anyone interested in the Disney titans of old. Herb’s work – and long career – certainly deserve the attention.

Warp and Weft: Life Canvas of Herbert Ryman – 400 pages, softcover. Published by Incanio, Ltd. $19.95, available from their website.

Let’s just cut to the chase – I’m a big fan of The Great Mouse Detective.

I’m also a firm believer that this modest 1986 feature is one of the most underrated gems in the Disney animated canon; more than just a solid stepping stone on the way to the later renaissance of feature animation, it’s a very entertaining film in its own right with more than its share of big ideas, funny moments, and interesting animation. To say that the film is overlooked is an understatement; it’s received little attention from the company since its release more than twenty (!) years ago, and I’d venture to guess that a number of fans have never even seen or heard of it.

The Great Mouse Detective (I prefer, rather pedantically, to call it by its development title Basil of Baker Street) has returned to home video via the rather absurdly titled “Mystery in the Mist” edition. Apparently all earlier releases were either some degree less mysterious or misty. I couldn’t detect the difference, but I assume it must be there since it’s in the title.

Anyway, this new edition, which hit stores on April 13th, 2010, is a rather bare-bones affair, with a brief making-of feature that was pulled from an earlier DVD release as its only bonus feature of note. The only new material here is a bizarre little featurette only tangentially related to the film, as well as the requisite slew of new trailers and promo videos. But, for the uninitiated, let’s first take a look at the film itself.

The Film

Dr. Dawson and Olivia Flaversham meet Basil of Baker Street, the Great Mouse Detective

In 1985, the Disney animation studios reached what is considered their lowest ebb when The Black Cauldron flopped upon release. As the recent documentary Waking Sleeping Beauty points out, Disney was defeated at the box office that year by the bottom-drawer TV spinoff The Care Bears Movie. A year later, in July of 1986, The Great Mouse Detective arrived in theaters.

The film was a smaller, leaner production than The Black Cauldron; that earlier release had been in development for around a decade, while Mouse Detective was made on a much smaller budget and a much tighter schedule. It was also the first of the Disney features to be predominantly created by the new generation of talent at the studio; directing alongside veteran storyman & animator Burny Mattinson and animator David Michener were Ron Clements and John Musker, who would famously go on to direct The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, and most recently The Princess and the Frog.

Based on a series of stories by author Eve Titus, The Great Mouse Detective takes place in the fog-shrouded gaslight era London of 1890. It depicts a world in which mice live in a society parallel to our own, with their own houses, pubs, and palaces carved out of the urban clutter. The titular Basil of Baker Street is a detective of great renown in the animal world; his signature magnifying glass, pipe, violin and deerstalker hat mirroring those of his more famous upstairs neighbor at 221B Baker Street, the human detective Sherlock Holmes.

Dr. Dawson and Basil of Baker Street consult with a new client

From his office beneath Holmes’s townhouse, Basil has made a name for himself by solving innumerable crimes through his combination of forensic science and good old-fashioned detective work. Even the great Basil’s skills, though, are taxed when faced with the nefarious schemes of his mortal nemesis (and the world’s greatest criminal mind) – the vile Professor Ratigan.

We’re introduced to Basil and his world via young Olivia Flaversham, daughter of a great mouse inventor and toymaker, who has just seen her father mousenapped by a gang of thugs. Alone on the streets of London, Olivia meets Dr. David Q. Dawson, just returned from the war in Afghanistan (!); as the rodent stand-in for the famous Dr. Watson, Dawson acts as our narrator throughout the film. The two meet up with Basil, enlist his help in finding Flaversham’s father, and in the process uncover an elaborate scheme by the evil Ratigan that threatens the very fabric of the Empire itself.

The insidious Professor Ratigan

The film is great fun; it moves at a very quick pace but never seems rushed or frantic. The characters are all appealing, and there’s some really fantastic voice work across the board. Most notable is Vincent Price’s work as Ratigan, a larger than life character that Price later would say was one of his favorite roles. Ratigan is a great villain and actually quite menacing; more to the point, he’s interesting, which always helps.

Basil himself is great fun as a character, exuding a kind of manic energy that is both simultaneously in control of every situation but also just a hair’s breadth from running completely off of the rails. Basil is cool but awkward, confident and insightful but often oblivious. He’s a really fun character that Disney has completely abandoned – it occurred to me as I watched that while it seemed obscene to make two or three sequels to Cinderella, it would be perfectly natural and actually quite worthwhile to continue the serialized exploits of Basil. Barrie Ingham, who voices Basil, and Val Bettin as Dr. Dawson play well off of each other, and their brief appearance together in the making-of featurette was far too brief for my tastes.

The young Ms. Flaversham is equally well-executed, taking a character that could be irritating or saccharine and making her genuinely sweet. Her father, inventor Hiram Flaversham, receives a familiar Scottish brogue courtesy of Scrooge McDuck himself, Alan Young. Long-time character actor Candy Candido contributes his trademark gravelly croak to “a peg-legged bat with a broken wing,” and the great Basil Rathbone himself has a brief cameo as the voice of Sherlock Holmes.

Visually, the film has its highs and lows. The production design is by turns moody and cozy, and goes a great job of creating a very lived-in world for the characters. There are a lot of neat ideas and even “Easter eggs” – look for visual tributes to Dumbo, the Firehouse Five, and even the airship Hyperion! Overall the animation is quite good, but there are some glaring exceptions. Character animation on the leads is mostly great; Basil is dashing, and evokes Errol Flynn at times. Dawson is suitably pleasant, and young Flaversham is as cute as a young Scottish mouse should be. Their animation is fluid and full of detail, as are most incidental characters – there’s a lot of interesting character design here, and even bit roles and background characters seem very evocative of the period. Where things get rough, though, are the group scenes; the animation seems much more crude in the musical numbers especially. In one particular song the mouths of the “chorus” seem out of sync with the lyrics, and this makes me wonder if something musically was changed very late in the process. But while the crowd scenes seem dodgy due to a lack of time or money (or both!), there’s still a lot of great animation to be found. The exception among the main characters, unfortunately, is Professor Ratigan, who is hampered on occasion by lead animator Glen Keane’s trademark…. overexuberance.

No mention of the film’s animation would be complete without discussing the famous climax inside Big Ben’s tower at Westminster Palace, which marks the earliest prominent use of computer-assisted animation in a Disney feature. Computers were used to render the complex machinery inside the clockwork mechanism, allowing for complex and fluid camera movements within the whirling gears and cogs. The effect still works; perhaps due to its relative simplicity, or the appropriate meshing of technique and subject matter, the scene within Big Ben is still exciting, well staged, and impressive. It remains among the great action finales in Disney films and is a far more organic integration of computer-generated imagery than even many recent features.

Seriously, it’s really cool

In the end, perhaps one of the most entertaining aspects of the film is how different it feels from anything you’d get from Disney today. Everything aside from the title feels like it never saw a focus group, and there’s loads of stuff that feels downright bizarre in today’s pasteurized world – both Basil and Ratigan smoke, booze of various sorts flows freely throughout (“Rodent’s Delight”!), people are drugged and kidnapped and murdered, stilettos and daggers fly through the air, people wave guns around, and, oh yeah, there’s totally a showgirl mouse doing a striptease.

Yeah, you heard me.

I’ll just say that if you ever wanted to hear Melissa Manchester sing a song she penned for a showgirl mouse in a rundown sewer-side tavern, this is the film for you. There are a couple of other songs in the film by Henry Mancini, who also contributes the musical score.

Yeah, seriously, I was totally not kidding

All in all it’s a good time, and well worth checking out if you’ve missed it over the years.

The DVD

As mentioned, this new release is titled, rather ridiculously, the “Mystery in the Mist Edition”. Aside from a new transfer there’s nothing new of worth here; if you have the previous pressing of the disc you’re not missing anything. Well, unless you care that the new transfer includes the film’s original title cards whereas the previous DVD’s titles are from the film’s 1992 re-release when it was billed as The Adventures of the Great Mouse Detective.

Video & Audio

It looks good; really good, in fact. Most of the film’s action takes place in the span of a single night so the film is generally darker than most, but the colors in the new transfer were richer than I remembered. It’s far from washed out and it’s mostly free from dust and various other artifacts of its age. It’s good to see Disney at least giving a lesser-known film a respectful digital cleanup. The film is presented in the 1.78:1 aspect ratio.

The soundtrack, in Dolby Digital 5.1, is nice and clear, but due to its age doesn’t feature a lot of fancy surround effects. There’s some nice swooping sounds when Basil and Ratigan are soaring around London in dirigibles, but otherwise it’s just a good, high-quality audio track.

Bonus Materials

There’s not a lot here as far as bonus materials, which is a real shame. The making-of featurette, The Making Of “The Great Mouse Detective” (7:50) is ported from the previous DVD release and looks to have come directly from some television special in the 1980s. It’s fun to see young animators like Glen Keane at work, as well as Vincent Price and the other voice talent. Roy E. Disney also makes a welcome appearance. But it would have been even better to have some current interviews, and perhaps a better look at the actual creative process behind the film and the groundwork it laid for later features.

Also from the original DVD release is a Sing-Along Song for Professor Ratigan’s number, The World’s Greatest Criminal Mind.

New to this release is an odd little nut of a feature called So You Think You Can Sleuth? (4:40). From the blurb on the DVD package, I thought this was going to be one of those awful set-top games that appear on every release. Instead, it’s a short summary of the history of private detectives and forensic science, which culminates in a “mystery” for the viewer to solve. You’re presented with a mystery, conveyed via static black-and-white photos, in which you must determine whether your mother, father, sister, or slouchy unemployed uncle stole all the cookies from the kitchen. It all happens so quickly that you don’t really get a chance to realize how strange it all is until it’s over.

And that’s pretty much it. There are the requisite trailers for upcoming Disney films, which are pushed via the irritating “FastPlay” feature, and this really creepy thing with the actors from The Suite Life trying to hype kids up to pester their parents into buying a Blu-ray player (ironic, since Disney didn’t see fit to release The Great Mouse Detective on Blu-ray). That little gem is even listed as a “Bonus Feature” on the DVD package. Sad. Then there’s one more promo video, which is perhaps the strangest thing I’ve ever seen on a Disney DVD. It starts off like a trailer, and for the life of me I thought it was a promotion for the next video in the Tinkerbell franchise. Oh, look it’s Pixie Hollow. Oh, Pixie Hollow is in danger. Oh, it’s because of DVD piracy.

What?

Yes. According to Disney, and I swear this is true, DVD piracy will DESTROY THE MAGIC OF PIXIE HOLLOW FOREVER. So the next time you start up bittorrent, please remember: you’re killing Tinkerbell. Sleep tight, kids!

The Shallow Stuff (aka the Package)

The Great Mouse Detective comes in a standard-issue black keepcase with a cardboard slipcover. The cover art is the typical eye-gougingly awful Disney marketing artwork with off-model characters crammed in the frame accompanied by bare-bones Adobe Illustrator fonts. There’s no artwork on the disc, and no inserts in the case aside from a coupon for 100 Disney Movie Rewards points and a flier for, again, Disney Blu-ray.

In Summary…

I find this film really, really enjoyable. I think it’s underrated and fun, and really kicked off the renaissance of Disney animation in style. Yet it’s hardly heeded even in fan circles; in the recent film Waking Sleeping Beauty little is said about it except for the controversy surrounding its title change, and much more attention is given to the subsequent Disney release Oliver & Company. Perhaps this is understandable as Oliver was a more profitable release; while The Great Mouse Detective was a modest success it was bested at the box office by Don Bluth’s An American Tail. But The Great Mouse Detective has aged far better than Oliver; the story feels more timeless and less calculated.

While this “Mystery in the Mist” edition has little to recommend it in the way of bonus features, it’s still worth checking out if you’ve passed on previous releases or somehow missed the film altogether. The film’s the thing, after all, and this is a good one.

Click to buy

Waking Sleeping Beauty is a film that, by all rights, shouldn’t exist.

After all, at its core it’s the story of massive egos maneuvering for control and credit in the wake of one of the Disney company’s most successful artistic and financial periods since Walt’s death in 1966. Getting any of the parties involved to reflect on those events with even a modicum of honesty or introspection would seem beyond the reach of even the most determined filmmaker – especially when two of those parties are named Michael Eisner and Jeffery Katzenberg. Yet that’s exactly what former Disney animation producer Don Hahn has done, combining archival footage with new interviews to craft a look at the rise of Disney feature animation from 1984 to 1994 that feels remarkably honest, authentic, and even-handed.

The arc of the story itself is well-known to fans: the fortunes of Walt Disney Productions’ animation unit were at their lowest ebb in 1984 when new management arrived at the company. Ten years later, Disney released the most successful animated picture ever to that point – The Lion King – and was on top of the film world. Waking Sleeping Beauty shows what happened in between, and how the moribund animation division went from teetering on the edge of closure to lavish bonuses, parking lots full of sports cars, and worldwide fame.

The CalArts graduating class of 1975 included many prominent future animators. Back row: Joe Lanzisero, Darrell Van Citters, Brett Thompson, John Lasseter, Leslie Margolin, Mike Cedeno, Paul Nowak, and Nancy Beiman. Center row: Jerry Rees, Bruce Morris, instructor Elmer Plummer, Brad Bird, and Doug Lefler. Front row: Harry Sabin & John Musker.

The film begins in the early 1980s, with a look at the sleepy Disney lot where young animators seemed to be desperately looking for a creative outlet while the animation division spun its wheels in the morass of The Black Cauldron. The clips are downright eerie – animator Randy Cartwright’s home movies document the young faces of artists who would later become a “who’s who” of famous talent in the animation and filmmaking worlds. A very young Tim Burton appears, as do John Lasseter and Joe Ranft. A lot of the talent in that building would soon leave or be laid off; others would remain, working to keep the Disney legacy alive until someone gave them a chance to unleash their talents on something fresh.

One of the more interesting aspects of this film is how it presents the opposing sides of various conflicts, and actually helps the viewer at least understand the viewpoints of parties that are typically portrayed as antagonists. We witness the inevitable culture clash as Hollywood outsiders arrive to run the company, but in many ways the changes they made were necessary to give the production side of the company some sense of direction and control. A lot of disputes still fall into the grey area of history – The Black Cauldron is said to have been a shambles when the new management arrived, but Katzenberg’s first move was to cut out some of the darker moments from the film. This is depicted as a rather common-sense decision, but it would also seem to contradict any ideas about letting the young animators stretch themselves in new directions. In other instances, notably the decision to kick the animation division off the lot to clear up offices for celebrities with new production deals, management clearly went too far.

In many of these cases, whether they were tone-deaf memos or meetings gone wrong, there’s a remarkable amount of candid perspective from the executives themselves – former studio chief Jeffrey Katzenberg, in particular, seems to have mellowed considerably over the years.

The film’s arc follows these threads – the desires of the animators to keep topping themselves and to produce art clash with the constraints of corporate leadership and the new-to-Disney management styles of Katzenberg and Peter Schneider, who was brought in to act as President of Feature Animation. The film also shows the rise of marketing’s influence and some of the unfortunate effects thereof – notably the much-opposed title change from Basil of Baker Street to The Great Mouse Detective.

Better days: Peter Schneider, Roy E. Disney, and Jeffrey Katzenberg in the early 1990s

The film doesn’t necessarily dwell on the “artists versus the Man” aspects of the story; there’s a lot of conflict at the executive level as well. The tensions between Disney CEO Michael Eisner, Katzenberg, and animation Chairman and champion Roy E. Disney shaped the era in many ways, and what’s interesting is not necessarily the conflicts themselves but what they say about the parties involved and how they viewed the purpose of Disney animation. In the end, even if you disagree with their actions, I think one can see where the various factions were coming from. There’s a particularly fascinating bit where Hahn transposes archival footage from various interviews filmed in support of The Lion King’s 1994 release. As each executive tries to describe the film, they relate very different stories – each individual has projected the film’s plot through the lens of their own perception. It’s so telling, and serves as a wonderful summation of the story; as one animator is quoted as saying about The Lion King, the film they were making was about themselves.

I could talk forever about the fascinating insights of the film – for instance, the contributions that Howard Ashman made during his all-too-brief career at Disney, which are illustrated in wonderful excerpts from filmed story meetings and presentations. Ashman was no mere lyricist, but is shown to be a valuable contributor to the entire creative process behind the films on which he worked. Thankfully, the film also gives a great deal of credit and screen time to Disney President and COO Frank Wells, and it confirms what many have long expected – that it was his stable hand and disinterest in the spotlight that kept the potboiler of talent and ego at the studio at least somewhat in check until during this Golden Age. Wells was the buffer, and it was after his 1994 death in a helicopter crash that things really unraveled and began the long, downward slide that would follow. The footage from Wells’s memorial is quite touching, and one really does feel for Eisner who is obviously shaken and rather at a loss about what to do.

In the end, I suppose the best compliment I could pay to a film like Waking Sleeping Beauty is that I’d happily and gladly sit through ten more films just like it. It strikes the perfect balance between answering questions one might have had, and raising so many more that one can only hope that more tales from this period will eventually emerge. Each of the films covered in the span of this story, The Black Cauldron, The Great Mouse Detective, Oliver & Company, The Little Mermaid, The Rescuers Down Under, Beauty & the Beast, Aladdin, and The Lion King, could merit a documentary of their own showing the tortured creative process that led them from concept to screen. The true story behind the making of The Black Cauldron would be especially fascinating.

I’d also be glad to see more about the periods both before and after the events depicted in Waking Sleeping Beauty; the reasons behind the studio’s decline after Walt’s death have never been fully explored, and there are many, many tales to be told of the second great decline leading to the death of traditional animation at Disney in 2004.

Of course, the true stars of the show are the animators themselves and the seemingly endless amount of filmed material documenting their shenanigans gives a wonderful sense of what life was like at the studio in those days. I hope to see more of this material in the future; these behind the scenes glimpses of alternately bored and overworked animators and frustrated story artists tell us more about the films that resulted from their efforts than a thousand glossy DVD featurettes. The artists deserve to have their stories told, too, and of course there remains a great deal to be told about Roy E. Disney himself.

Waking Sleeping Beauty hits the sweet spot that I think will manage to please Disney fans, fans of animation in general, those who enjoy tales of corporate intrigue, and just about everyone who simply likes a good story, told well. Hahn and his co-producer Peter Schneider have done an excellent job in putting this film together, and I would love to see more from them in the future. If you can find this film playing near you, I highly recommend that you check it out; it’s also playing at a number of film festivals so watch the film’s official website for scheduling information.

Walt Disney Animation Studios recently released their latest effort, 2009’s The Princess and the Frog, to home video on DVD and Blu-ray disc. The film, highly publicized as Disney’s first traditionally-animated release since 2004 and their first fairy tale since 1991, also received a great deal of attention due to its protagonist – the first black lead in a Disney animated film, and the first black Disney “princess”.

So, you know, no pressure. With animation fans seeing the film as a deciding factor in the future of traditional animation at Disney, and the project’s significance as the first greenlight of the Lasseter era of Disney feature animation, the studio dug deep to try and recreate the magic that ushered in Disney’s second golden age twenty years ago with The Little Mermaid. They brought back directors Ron Clements and John Musker, Disney vets who had directed Mermaid and several other films before eventually leaving the company. Many other animators, like Eric Goldberg, also returned to Disney after departing in the diaspora following former CEO Michael Eisner’s decision to switch the company entirely to computer animation. The Princess and the Frog would be, Disney hoped, the film that vaulted them back to prominence once more.

With all this baggage circulating in the background – the long-awaited return of hand-drawn animation with its future hanging in the balance, not to mention the vast number of pitfalls provided by the race issue – it’s not surprising that the film itself occasionally got lost in the shuffle. But while the picture itself isn’t a home run, hampered by story issues as well as stylistic nitpicks, it’s still a solidly entertaining offering with some lovely visuals, good music, and engaging vocal work.

The Film

If you’re reading this blog, you’re probably a Disney fan, which means that by now you’re at least somewhat acquainted with the story. Tiana, born to a poor black family in jazz-age New Orleans, dreams of opening her own restaurant. Naveen, a visiting prince from the fictitious nation of Maldonia, is a wastrel gadabout who leads a life of leisure but has had his purse-strings cut by his parents. When Naveen is turned into a frog by voodoo conman Dr. Facilier, it leads to the traditional series of madcap hijinks and self-actualization. The froggy Naveen and the also-transformed froggy Tiana must make their way through the bayou with a trumpet playing alligator and redneck firefly to find a voodoo priestess who can turn them back to their human selves. So, you know, your usual.

The first act moves along at a good clip and introduces the characters efficiently and effectively. We get Tiana’s backstory without too much needless melodrama, and we quickly are shown her ambitions and how hard she’s willing to work to achieve them. The upbeat tempo of the story is aided by Randy Newman’s peppy New Orleans-inspired score and songs, which help to set the stage for the film and move things along.

The story starts to drag in the middle, as the two frogs go on their adventure in the bayou. Here the films starts to feel episodic, and I can’t help but wonder if this is an effect of the balance of power being more in the hands of the animators. At the very least, there seems to have not been a clear voice making the hard calls on what to cut, and the result is that some sequences – most egregiously the scene with the redneck hunters – feel straight out of the more turgid Disney films of the late 1970s. I’m sure they were fun to board and animate (and are, usually, generally entertaining), but they grind the film to a halt. The real problem with these shenanigans is that they elbow out scenes with more character development that would help in making the characters’ arcs – especially the budding froggy romance – seem less rushed and arbitrary.

The rushed feeling isn’t helped by the fact that the film has too many characters; I can think of two that could be completely excised without any harm to the narrative whatsoever. Louis, the trumpet-playing alligator, is a hilarious character with plenty of good bits and great voice work, but he takes up a great deal of screen time without adding anything to the story. He doesn’t even lead the two frogs through the bayou; that task is left to Ray the firefly. Why is Louis there?

The same can be said for Naveen’s manservant, Lawrence. Aside from being visually unpleasant with his squishy chimp-like features, he only serves to provide some comic relief when he betrays Naveen and, using voodoo shapeshifting magic, takes the prince’s place in wooing wealthy heiress Charlotte LaBouff. Why Dr. Facilier needs this incompetent lackey to act as his proxy is unclear, and it would make far more sense for Facilier to just transform into Naveen himself and cut out the middle-man. It would also eliminate the need for Lawrence at all, and save us from some needless slapstick sequences in the middle of the film.

The ending of the film is a mishmash, with so many balls in the air that everything is forced to come together rather haphazardly. There are some really nice turns here, and some truly poignant moments, but there’s also a lot of rushed exposition and a heapin’ helping of deus ex machina. Still, although it stumbles to the finish line, the film ends on a really strong note with perhaps its strongest asset – Anika Noni Rose as Tiana, belting out one of Newman’s jazz numbers.

Visually, the production design was spectacular and a lot of the work on backgrounds, layout, and effects animation was really wonderful. There are a few excellent sequences where the animators play with the style a bit, and I enjoyed these greatly. The first, during Tiana’s number Almost There, visualizes the restaurant she hopes to build in a lavish, art-deco inspired graphic style. Facilier’s big song, Friends On The Other Side, features a great deal of effects work and swirling, black-lit voodoo masks. It almost hearkens back to the experimentation in the package films of the 1940s, and these are by far the most interesting sequences in the film. I seem to differ with most reviewers, though, in that I have a problem with some of the character animation.

A great deal of the animation in The Princess and the Frog is fantastic, don’t get me wrong. They do fairly well in not using a lot of the clichés and visual shortcuts that permeated latter-day feature animation releases. But there’s a general inconsistency in the tone of the animation that really bothers me. Simply put, a lot of the characters seem like they’re from different movies altogether. Some, like Tiana, are drawn in a caricatured but somewhat realistic style – they stay on model, and seem to occupy the same physical universe as the rest of us. Others seem to squash and stretch at random, limbs flopping around without any underlying physiology and eyes bugging out like old Warner Brothers cartoons. There are far too many extreme poses used for the sake of a gag – whether it be a smashed, disfigured frog or someone’s hair standing full on end in shock. You can have exaggeration and caricature while maintaining the “plausible impossible” – a textbook example being Bill Tytla’s work on Stromboli for Pinocchio. But too many of the gags in The Princess and the Frog seem straight out of the notebook of some CalArts Chuck Jones fanclub. And some of the work is positively Bluthian. Special notice for this inconsistency should go, once again, to the trio of hunters that the two frogs encounter in the swap. I don’t know what movie or Kricfalusi TV show they wandered in from, but it’s a completely different universe than the rest of the characters we’ve seen.

A big example of this is on a character that’s received a lot of plaudits from the animation community – Eric Goldberg’s work on Louis the alligator. Now I’m a great fan of Goldberg’s, and have a great deal of respect for him. But this character is all over the place visually, which is fine for a blue genie but less appropriate for a mere mortal alligator. Again, I’m sure it was fun to animate and shows a great deal of skill – and his work for the film has garnered a number of animation awards – but it’s too “big” for my tastes. Too “loosey-goosey”.

On the other hand, I’ve seen a lot of animation “academics” speak ill of Nik Ranieri’s work on debutante Charlotte LaBouff, but it’s my absolute favorite work in the entire film. Charlotte, too, is a “big” character, devouring the scenery whenever she’s around. But you also get a sense of structure; all that energy is packed into a single, well-defined form that still seems to follow the niceties of physics and anatomy. Charlotte’s a hilarious character, with lots of subtle movements tucked into her big, dramatic flourishes. It’s hilarious work and Ranieri should be proud.

Final praise should go again to the voice cast – to Anika Noni Rose for her sympathetic work as Tiana, as well as her sublime singing voice; to Keith David for his fantastic, growling work as villainous Dr. Facilier; to Jennifer Cody (Charlotte) and Michael-Leon Wooley (Louis); and lastly to Jim Cummings – the most pleasant surprise of the entire film, as the Cajun firefly Ray.

I was prepared to hate this character. He appeared, at the outset, to be the kind of dippy sidekick that you tend to enjoy only for the sake of campy awfulness. But while he did get the lamest jokes in the film – the flatulence jokes as well as the “my butt is a lightbulb” gags – he wound up being shockingly entertaining and sympathetic. In fact, he runs the risk of stealing the entire film in the third act; in the end, his willingness to take up action to affect the outcome makes him the hero of the finale far more than either Tiana or Naveen.

One cannot discuss The Princess and the Frog without addressing the issue of race, not only because the film takes place in Jim Crow-era New Orleans but also because Tiana’s place as the first black Disney heroine was a huge part of the public narrative behind the film’s release. Mostly the race issue is ignored within the film itself, an issue which some find absurd. Typically, I would say that it’s unnecessary for a film to be “required” to address any specific issue, but with these characters, and this time, and this place… well, it’s an issue.

That’s not to say that I wanted the film to underline these points. It’s better done subtly, and I like the dissolve from the ritzy mansions to the less-scenic row houses as Tiana takes the streetcar home from work. Unfortunately, several changes in the film’s story were made early on to appease critics, and that somehow muddled the world of the film. Tiana’s mother was originally intended to be a cook in the LaBouff household, rather than a freelance seamstress who made dresses for the spoiled young Charlotte. This would lead to Tiana (originally called Maddie) growing up in the household, and eventually becoming chambermaid to the wealthy girl. That original storyline would explain their close relationship far more realistically than in the finished film, where they have an undefined friendship that, while nice to see, seems improbable for the era.

In fact everyone seems on their best behavior racially in The Princess and the Frog which, again, while being pleasant, seems at odds with history. New Orleans was more cosmopolitan than most southern cities of the era but everyone mingling and hobnobbing across social and economic barriers makes the issue more obvious than it might otherwise be. While I wouldn’t suggest that Disney do anything as trite as using the frog transformation as an obvious metaphor for “it only matters who you are on the inside,” it does seem that there are several thematic threads drifting through the film unrelated to each other. It would have served the story better, I think, to pick one and have something to say about it rather than just giving lip service to many different themes.

The result is that The Princess and the Frog feels like a film that’s supposed to have a message, but it’s unclear what that message is. The thesis, revealed by voodoo priestess Mama Odie towards the end of the film, is that you have to “dig a little deeper” and “find out who you are.” Essentially, if you can’t get what you want, you have to get what you need.

It’s hard, though, to see how this applies to Tiana. We see her working hard at the start of the film, taking two difficult jobs to save money to open the restaurant that was the dream of her and her late father. The film plays with the notion that she’s working too hard and not enjoying life, but it’s hard to find fault in someone determined who’s busting their tail to make their dream come true. Although she’s billed as a Disney princess, Tiana is actually the antithesis of the mindset typical to animated fairytales. She has no interest in adventure or romance, she just loves to cook. And what’s wrong with that? I actually found myself wishing I was a little more like her during the first act, which doesn’t usually happen in cartoons. Her determination hasn’t made her hard or bitter, it’s just hard work in pursuit of something she loves.

Yet somehow there’s a false equivalence between Tiana’s situation and that of Naveen, a layabout ladies’ man with no obvious skills or abilities besides smooth talk and a pretty face. I think the movie’s telling us that they need to meet in the middle, somehow, but if I were her I’d be just as irritated with him as she was. Let’s face it, if you’ve been turned into a frog by a witch doctor and are trying to survive in a dangerous bayou, you might not have any interesting in stringing up the banjo and having a hoedown.

And in the end, of course, they fall in love – although it feels rushed and not completely natural. Perhaps if we’d had some indication that Tiana did want more than her restaurant, that she wanted a little excitement and romance but was keeping it on the back burner because she thought that’s what she had to do, then her journey would seem more necessary and believable. In the end, after all, she just winds up where she wanted to be in the first place – her restaurant.

The Discs

As is their fashion, Disney has released three versions of Princess and the Frog for home theaters. A single-disc DVD, a single-disc Blu-ray, and a combo package that includes both those discs with a third containing a digital copy of the film. I’ll save you all the audiovisual chatter – the film looks incredible on both Blu-ray and DVD, and the various surround mixes are of the quality that home theater fans have come to expect.

The Single-Disc DVD

Disney continues their trend of feature-light DVD releases with this disc, which features a handful of deleted scenes and one real gem – an audio commentary by John Musker and Ron Clements, who wrote and directed the film, and producer Peter del Vecho.

Four deleted scenes are presented as story sketches and rough animation, with each clip featuring an introduction by Musker and Clements. These scenes are intriguing, as a few of them present elements of character development that were left out of the final feature. One scene, in which Tiana’s mother Eudora is prevailing upon her to settle down and have a family, illustrate a possible alternative to Tiana’s hardworking single life that is never explored in the finished film. Another scene, with Naveen in his frog form, features a very different character design that is both more frog-like and far more visually appealing than his final appearance.

A music video by Ne-Yo for his song Never Knew I Needed rounds out the extras, along with the obligatory interactive game and an assortment of trailers.

The Single-Disc Blu-ray

The Blu-ray release contains all the extras from the DVD version, as well as an assortment of new material. Most prominent is the 22-minute “making of” documentary, Magic in the Bayou: The Making of a Princess. There are also six short featurettes that were originally released to promote the movie’s release in 2009. They focus on the characters from the film, as well as the legacy of Disney animation. There are a number of art galleries detailing the film’s development, which is nice to see, and an excellent and unheralded feature – a workprint version of the film that can be viewed with picture-in-picture along with the finished product. That’s a very cool extra, and something that I’d love to see for every animated film.

Blu-Ray Edition + DVD + Digital Copy

This edition, as has become common practice, combines the Blu-ray disc, the DVD disc, and a third disc with a digital version of the film that you can download to your computer or mobile device.

In Summary…

Overall I found The Princess and the Frog to be highly enjoyable if flawed. While obviously the story needed to be streamlined, even when the plotting dragged there was always something worth watching. Most of the characters were well realized, the voice acting was great, and the music suited the proceedings perfectly. In fact, it’s hard to get many of those ditties out of your head afterward.

The future of Disney animation is murky at the moment, with no further traditionally animated films announced beyond 2011’s Winnie-the-Pooh. But while The Princess and the Frog didn’t smash records at the box office last year, it’s a more than welcome addition to the Disney canon and a film whose characters, animation and music will continue to be appreciated for years to come.

I first heard about The Muppet Man last December when it received a great deal of publicity due to its appearance at the top of the fabled “Black List.” The list, which has become something of a big deal, is an annual ranking of that year’s best unproduced scripts circulating around Hollywood. Making the list is now a badge of honor for screenwriters, and sometimes leads to high-profile pickups for scripts that are spotlighted.

The Muppet Man made news not only for its growing buzz as a screenplay, but for its content; it’s an unconventional biopic of Muppet creator Jim Henson, interspersing scenes from Henson’s life with vignettes from the Muppet world. Even stranger, it was written on spec by unknown young screenwriter Christopher Weekes without permission from the Henson family – pretty much guaranteeing that it would never be filmed unless it miraculously received the Hensons’ approval.

Oddly enough, the Henson company purchased rights to the script, but development remains at a standstill due to those ol’ “creative differences.” The problem is that Weekes wrote this biographical film without any knowledge whatsoever about Henson or his life save for what he could glean from Wikipedia and similar sources. It’s a biography rooted in speculation, so perhaps unsurprisingly the Henson family is reluctant to film a script that depicts their patriarch’s marriage and last days from such an uninformed perspective. According to the L.A. Times, the Hensons want to lighten the tone of the film and make it a more conventional Muppet tale. For now, the script remains unproduced.

It’s always risky to judge a film solely by the script; there can be a big difference between what’s on the page and what’s on the screen, and reading a script is simply a much different experience. I feel safe talking about The Muppet Man, though, because not only will it probably never actually be filmed, but it’s also so laden with cliche that no amount of visual whiz-bangery could enliven the more leaden elements of the screenplay.

I find myself despairing for Hollywood if The Muppet Man truly represents the best unproduced screenplay in town. At its core, it’s a very rote by-the-numbers biopic that’s straight out of “Misunderstood Creative Type” 101; you’ve already seen most of it a thousand times before. While there are elements of the story that provide a momentary spark or indicate interesting directions in which the film could go, these threads are quickly ignored or abandoned. In effect, the script reads like a checklist of Henson’s accomplishments and any interesting examination or introspection about the man is eschewed in favor of moving along to check another item off the list.

I’m an enormous fan of Henson and the Muppets, but I never knew anything about his private life or the creative process behind the development of the Muppet films and shows. This script certainly doesn’t shed much light on the man or his creations, a situation made worse when you realize that what vignettes that are shown are probably completely fabricated.

The script – the draft I read was dated August of 2008 – interweaves three basic storylines. The first follows Henson through the days before his death in 1990. These scenes serve to link a series of flashbacks that begin with Henson’s high school days in the 1950s and carry through to his successes as he builds his company in the 60s and 70s. A third storyline bookends the film, and takes place within the surreal Muppet world of “Moo York City.”

These Muppet sequences are, perhaps unsurprisingly, receiving the most attention for their “edgy” overtones. They follow a grizzled, middle-aged Kermit the Frog as he attempts to cope with Miss Piggy’s marriage to another. The sight-gag heavy world of Moo York is strongly reminiscent of Toontown from Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, and we come to learn that Kermit and Piggy’s alienation is intended to mirror the real-world separation of Henson and his wife Jane.

But while these scenes might get the most press, the majority of the film is spent in the “real” world. The scenes from 1990 follow Henson as he becomes progressively more ill, rebuffing the constant efforts of his colleagues and family to have him see a doctor. We follow Henson from New York to Los Angeles, where he does an appearance on The Arsenio Hall Show; his return to New York and subsequent trip to North Carolina, where Henson and his daughter Lisa visit his parents, follow an increasingly predictable pattern. Henson staggers around coughing, looking progressively more pale and drawn, and sleeps a lot. It’s about as entertaining as it sounds, too. Everyone he comes in contact with urges him to do two things – see a doctor, and call his wife. Despite the constant repetition of these exhortations, Henson does neither until it’s too late.

In fact, the gist of the film seems to be that everything would have just been OK had Henson called his wife. The flashbacks are filled with instances of people telling him to call Jane, which he never seems to do. Their marriage never seems to have any clear-cut conflict; he doesn’t fool around, he’s a good father, and his work demands aren’t portrayed as any more unreasonable than any other filmmaker. Yet throughout their marriage, Jane is by turns supportive and a flight risk; she cries – a lot – and tends to walk out on Henson with little provocation.

The bulk of the film takes place in flashbacks, which is unfortunate as those are the script’s weakest points. Young Henson is an affable oddball with a straightlaced father who just doesn’t understand Henson’s puppetry shenanigans. The whole setup is well-worn, to say the least – Henson gets pressured into dating a girl, takes out the pretty blonde who is initially put off by his social awkwardness, and he forces her to go see a monster movie while remaining completely unaware of her indifference. Later, when Henson meets his future wife at college, she’s dating – wait for it – a handsome jock! Even the means by which the flashbacks are introduced is creakily familiar; a character in the present day says something unexpected, Henson is shocked, and – surprise – we find out that the person who was speaking is now someone completely different, and we’re now in a flashback.

The cliches don’t end there. There are several scenes of Henson performing his early routines for skeptical executives or television crews, only to win them over immediately with his antics. There are cigar-chomping agents and businessmen, all of whom call Henson “kid” and “Jimbo” and speak in absurd showbiz patois. There’s the initial thrill of a first major success, followed immediately by a return home and – wait – are those police lights flashing in front of Henson’s house?

Weekes even uses, repeatedly, the oldest trick in the book for these biopics – the idea of “spontaneously” creating some famous idea/skit/character/song from random stimuli in the environment. The grouchy waiter at a dirty diner Henson visits is named Oscar? I bet we’ll be seeing that name again! Henson’s son is scared of monsters? What if this new character Grover is scared of monsters too? These vignettes might be true for all I know, but they’re all presented in such a gimmicky way that it stretches credibility.

Perhaps these cliches are so much more apparent because the Muppet films, especially The Muppets Take Manhattan, are themselves intentional spoofs of the “let’s put on a show!” tradition of corny old showbiz films. To take those same cigar-chomping cliches and repeat them creates some sort of feedback loop, as the script about Henson seems to rip off Henson’s own spoofs of hoary Hollywood tropes. There’s no deconstruction or synthesis in Weekes’s script, merely emulation.

But aside from the by-the-book personal tragedies and relationship difficulties, Henson’s professional rise is depicted as nothing less than meteoric. Everyone is immediately won over by his work; there are many scenes of studio crews reduced to hysterics and “rolling” with laughter as he performs. Even the Muppeteers themselves aren’t immune; any time we see the Muppets filming, Henson and his staff can barely keep themselves from cracking up at their own material. There are really no hindrances to his success; everything Henson wants to do, he pretty much gets to do. At times this makes him seem flighty, as we really get no reason for why he’ll suddenly want to do serious art or installation pieces, and then decide to go film children’s programming. There’s no insight; again, you just feel as if the screenwriter is ticking off accomplishments from a list without knowing why the decisions were ever made.

When Henson succeeds, though, he really succeeds – I don’t think there’s a single television set in the entire movie that isn’t tuned to one of his shows. At one point Henson looks out the window of his flat to see a number of other apartments, all full of children watching Sesame Street. In 1990, Henson awakes to find a television airing a 24-hour marathon of The Muppet Show. Trust me, if a television station in North Carolina had been airing 24-hour marathons of The Muppet Show in 1990 I would have known about it.

The most successful elements of the film are those where the human and Muppet worlds collide. In the start of the film, one worries that these moments will become irritating. They’re introduced as a series of Henson’s delusions, where a Muppet will come up to him and say something unexpected and – surprise! – he realizes it’s actually a member of his staff or one of his friends. Henson’s continued bewilderment in these moments makes them merely repetitious instead of interesting. Then, instead of using the Muppet interactions as a useful narrative conceit, the script proceeds to mostly forget about them for huge chunks of time.

The Muppets – mostly Kermit – do show up randomly throughout Henson’s life, mainly serving to mirror significant moments in his relationship with Jane. There’s very little interaction between the human and Muppet characters, though; an entire musical number is staged around Henson after he successfully proposes to Jane, yet neither of them notice. The entire concept of Kermit as an avatar for Henson is limited to the Frog sitting at Jim’s side during these moments, while Jane is mirrored by Miss Piggy. This would be ok, and could be quite amusing, if it weren’t always just a bit too on-the-nose. It doesn’t help that most of these montages – and there are a lot of montages in this film – are set to various songs from the Muppet films. What’s more, they’re deliberately staged to mimic those specific scenes from the original films. The end effect of this, at least from reading the screenplay, is to make me want to put down the script and turn on one of the Muppet films. Callbacks and references are one thing, but this is often straight-up mimicry. The more successful Muppet moments are when the worlds blend together in a less referential and more surreal manner, such as when Henson and his wife are shown their new apartment in New York by a couple of Muppet realtors.

The best bits come towards the end of the script, which is probably no surprise since these scenes best match actual events. It’s obvious that Henson’s death would be poignant and affecting, and it seems so much more tragic due to its sheer unnecessary and preventable nature. In fact, I wasn’t at all sure that I wanted to read a script or watch a film that focused on these events. After all, one could make a pretty fascinating biography of Walt Disney, but I wouldn’t want it to be based solely on those last few weeks of him skulking around the studio coughing loudly.

Strange, then, that while the film lingers too much on Henson’s declining days, it finally clicks as he’s nearing the end. The line between worlds finally breaks down, and the idea of Kermit acting as a sort of Jiminy Cricket figure for Henson finally pays off when the Frog appears at Henson’s bedside for an honest conversation between two old campaigners about mortality and their respective loves. After so much time spent on the cliched rehash of Henson’s life, this one scene shows the unexplored potential of the film. It’s good – and it make me re-think entirely the potential of making a film about Henson.

Henson’s death and the subsequent memorial are, as expected, incredibly affecting. This is most likely due to the fact that it was lifted wholecloth from the actual events – you can even find footage of the real service on YouTube, and the script copies it nearly verbatim. The whole thing wraps up with a postscript in the Muppet world – after all, as Kermit says, you can’t end the film on such a down note – but like so much else in the script a good idea is spoilt by a lack of focus. Kermit, inspired by Jim’s actions, wrenches Piggy from the arms of her self-absorbed new love; there’s a wedding, and the events culminate with a Muppet version of Jim Henson arriving to join them for a final number. This is almost the perfect way to end such a film – Muppet Henson and all his creations in a sort of puppety Valhalla – but there’s too much going on. There’s the wedding, and then Animal goes nuts and tears down the church, then they’re on a soundstage, and there’s rainbows and singing… it’s just too much, and it muddles the message.

That’s pretty much the problem with the entire film. What are we supposed to take away from this? See a doctor? Call your wife? Don’t be such a creative genius or your wife will leave you? Subjects float in the background but are never meaningfully addressed – Henson’s desire to simultaneously be a serious artist and a entertainer of the masses, the commercialization and corporatization of his productions, and the urge to innovate vs. the push to repeat past successes would all be fodder for an interesting screenplay. Other key events in Henson’s life, such as his plans to sell his company to Disney and increase his creative activities, are ignored completely. And, in the end, who was Henson? Aside from finding out that he was a quiet, nice guy who was really creative (which we already knew), there’s not a lot to walk away with.

The idea behind The Muppet Man is sound. Perhaps that’s why the Henson company wound up buying the script; a complete rewrite that retains the successful concepts of the current script could be quite enjoyable. What’s inexplicable, though, is how this script is receiving so much attention in Hollywood for being a dark and edgy look at Henson, when in fact its observations seem facile and one feels that it barely scratches the surface of what might have made the man so truly fascinating. That’s a script that I’d like to see.

Special thanks to you-know-who-you-are…