Show 008 – Ron and John, Part Two

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In part two, directors and writers Ron Clements and John Musker detail how they made the transition from animating to the story department to directing.

Something interesting in this one: in Part Two, Ron & John talk about the days when Michael Eisner arrived at Disney. It’s a coincidence that today Eisner is giving his going away speech on the studio lot.

Get it here: Show 8: Ron and John, Part Two

(12.1MB, 26:16 minutes)

Continue for Show Notes…

0:00:00: The Intro Voice
0:00:12: Welcome
0:00:34: John directing on Black Cauldron (BC)
0:03:28: Tim Burton on BC
0:04:29: Story Development on BC
0:05:56: Great Mouse Detective (GMD) splits off from BC
0:07:58: Threat of a takeover of Disney
0:08:52: Joe Ranft & the original tone of GMD
0:10:45: Burny Mattinson & other projects around
0:11:59: Second take on GMD
0:16:20: How they became directors
0:18:00: Pitching ideas at the Gong Show
0:20:21: Little Mermaid going in to development
0:22:05: Howard Ashman
0:23:30: Disney moving in a new direction
0:25:41: Conclusion of Part 2
0:25:45: How to comment or ask questions
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Comments

17 responses to “Show 008 – Ron and John, Part Two”

September 30, 2005

Joel Smith

Thank you so much for making these. Their so inspiring to us animators who don’t have the oppertunity to meet these great artists.

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September 30, 2005

Jak

Clay,

That was too long of a wait! 🙂 Excellent work! I find the studio innerworkings particulary interesting.

Will Ron and John go into such detail about every one of their films?

And please give us listeners heads up about your work in Chicken Little so we can look out for it.

I’m eagerly awaiting next installments.

Greetings from Poland,

Jak

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September 30, 2005

AnimationPodcaster

Joel- It’s my pleasure. Glad to see one of the goals of doing this thing is becoming realized.

Jak- Thank you! I know, the wait stinks, but I’m trying to make it shorter.

Yeah, aren’t Ron & John great about sharing all those details? Such super guys. There’s more to come.

I’ve been thinking (only thinking, so far) about making some sort of about me page. I’ll have to get to that. For now, I’ll just point out that most of my work on Chicken Little was on the dad character, Buck Cluck. I worked under Nik Ranieri, who did amazing work for a first time CGer. By far, he did all the best stuff, I just tried to keep up and learn. Hopefully you’ll agree when you see it. Greeting to Poland too!

-Clay

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September 30, 2005

Brenton Simpson

Yay! A new podcast! I have an internship interview today in Hollywood – I think I’ll listen to it on the way.

Incidentally, iTunes has it described as Ron & John Part One, even though it is titled Part Two.

Anyway, thanks for the great work – looking forward to another saga. 😉

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September 30, 2005

AnimationPodcaster

Thanks Brenton. I’ll get that fixed in the feed (my bad). Good luck in your interview!

-Clay

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September 30, 2005

Brenton Simpson

Thanks much! Looks like I got it, so if you need any Friday filing or Photoshop work done, umm, hit me up next semester? =p

Take care, man. Keep up the great work! =)

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October 4, 2005

Richard Costin

Keeps on getting better!
Thanks Clay! 🙂

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October 4, 2005

Floyd Norman

Another fantastic podcast. This one had me hanging on every word, even though I was there during part of Ron and John’s adventures at Disney animation. Even though the early eighties were an exciting time, it’s great to hear from the two guys who lived with it on a daily basis. Really good stuff. Can’t wait to hear more.

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October 4, 2005

John Sanford

Great show, Clay! It was fascinating and inspirational.
I just hope that Ron and John are as forthright with the dirty details about their final days at Disney under Herr Stainton and his minion Susan Butterworth.
Remember, I want to hear swearing!

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October 4, 2005

AnimationPodcaster

Brenton- I hope the job works out for you.

Richard- That’s great news. Thanks!

Floyd- Again, I give all the credit to Ron and John, but I have to admit that in my periodic checking of things to make sure they work, I’ve clicked on their show and ended up listening to it FOUR times this week! Either they are totally interesting or I can’t get enough of my own voice. 😉

John- I can’t promise, but we’ll see. Thanks for listening!

-Clay

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October 5, 2005

Paul

Clay, another great episode that I enjoyed immensely – on a plane! I’m tellin’ ya, it’s creepy how it works out… :0)

Keep ’em coming – I need the frequent flyer miles…

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October 5, 2005

AnimationPodcaster

Paul- Wow. That’s getting strange. Maybe your travel plans control the podcast. I don’t know any more! Do you think that this podcast is proof that the “butterfly effect” exists? Thanks for taking me on the plane. Where did we go?

-Clay

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October 7, 2005

Viktor Venema

Clay!‚Ä¶wow! I really wanna thank you so very very much for all these great and insightful interviews your Poding (hope that‚Äôs not a dirty word or anything over there‚Ä¶) they make my train travels to work so much more bearable. So, I can‚Äôt wait for the next one (‚Ä¶and the one after that one and after that one‚Ä¶ et cetera, et cetera.) Undoubtedly they will be even so insightful and fun to listen at as the rest.

And please let us all hope that the industry will soon, and ones and (twos:-) for all‚Ä¶ be run by the creative‚Äôs instead of those manage?Ønator‚Äôs!

‚Ä¶anyways‚Ä¶

Keep it up!
-Viktor

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October 9, 2005

Bobby Pontillas

Always a great listen. I cant help but wonder what “Treasure Island in Space” would have been like if it were greenlit back then! I’m on edge waiting for the next show to see what’s next for Ron n John in life after Disney.

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October 10, 2005

Paul

This time around, it was Tulsa, Oklahoma. Usually it’s Vegas; I’m probably one of the few guys around who goes to Vegas on business…

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October 14, 2005

Stephani

Hey Clay,

Just want to say i really enjoy all the podcasts you have here. Why not interview Ollie before he die?

Thank you!

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November 17, 2006

yash

hi, I was subscribed to your podcasts in regular mp3 format, but I saw the option of getting enhanced podcasts on your website and subscribed to it only to find that there are some episodes missing. When Are you going to convert the previous episodes to aac format and make those available? looking forward to it. thanks.

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