Sigh... Disney Disney Disney.... Ya know, back when y'all reissued MAKE MINE MUSIC (oops... MELODY TIME) where you completely screwed with PECOS BILL... well that told me that you should Never Ever touch the West again. How can you have a title as cool as SWEATING BULLETS, and then have no guns, drinking or tobacco? It's set in the West... ya know. The cowboys... ummmm... they carried guns ya know... Wait... I have an idea, let's do SNOW WHITE again, but ya know what... Poisoning an apple is just... well, remember some people do that every Halloween and it might depreciate the value of apples and then the Apple growers of America might protest our Studio, so... Ummm... Hey wait... The Old Witch, looks too much like an older person with a back problem. Can't make fun of the elderly, they're a market area... And as for these Broadway Hustlers ya got running digs... What's wrong with you people?!?! Stories inherently do not need Broadway Musical numbers in them. And... lastly... About DON QUIXOTE... Well I've seen the work that the Brizzi Bros, did on the Firebird seqence in FANTASIA 2000... It's fantastic. Give them carte blanche. You telling me you have a suit that knows his animation better than those two brothers?

Ola Harry, Hank Quinlan here. When I'm not busy with the candy bars and the hootch, I take my cane and go for a stroll on the third floor of Disney Feature Animation Southside. That's the building with the great big blue sorcerer's hat and the even bigger hole that will be parking underneath the new ABC building going onto that plot of land. You may or may not know that this is where Walt Disney planned to build Disneyland before his ideas got to be too big for that Riverside Drive plot of land in Burbank.

Thought you might like to know what's on the horizon from this shrinking division of the Mouse House. Yeah, that's right, we're letting lots of people go when they finish their work on Tarzan, the Dinosaur project or Fantasia. There is a funky feeling that Tarzan just has to be a hit or even more people will get purged. That doesn't mean that there aren't plans for more delightful movies.

Sweating Bullets

This is the project that has been keeping Mike Gabriel and Mike Giamo busy since Pocahontas. One might think that after all these years there would be more on this one, but it's still pretty early in development. The characters look very strange. The cowboys will not drink, smoke, cuss, or carry guns. It looks like the story will be told from the point of view of a cow. It really doesn't show a whole lot of promise right now, but the crew is expanding. Once they start working on story maybe it will look more interesting.

Wild Life

If you sensed I'm not a big fan of Sweating Bullets, you're not going to have a hard time reading my distaste for this project. It's a fabulous tale of manhattan nightlife, fashion, drugs, and fame. An elephant is to be made a big star by a bunch of simpering warholian freaks. The characters are badly drawn 2D nonsense that are going to be done in CGI. (No....really....) If ever there was a sign that the ranks of the development department here are far far far too filled with people whose sole qualifications involve their work in theater, this awful concept is that sign in garish neon. Hopefully somebody with a sure fire backup job and a lot of chutzpah will speak up and let the emperor know he ain't wearing any clothes. This project must die.

Now, lest you readers fear that all is bleak at the Disney Brothers' Studio, these next two projects should put those fears to rest.

Frog Prince

Those nutty Goldbergs are at it again. They are creating a parody of the Disney formula with their take on this classic story. There isn't a lot of artwork in the hallways, but the buzz on this project is very very positive. Eric and Susan are great people, and if folks aren't trying to get onto this show, they are hoping they can work on:

Don Quixote

This is the project that this studio must not ruin. Right now it looks like the coolest movie the place has ever made. There is a dark, spooky tone to the drawings that the Brizzi Brothers have made. They show a gangly but obviously youthful Don Quixote, his burly and dim sidekick Sancho Panza, and some other younger looking dude who completes a trio of adventurers. There seems to be enough artwork for about 4 movies. I hear that the Brizzi Brothers work faster and more intensely than anyone else in story. Somehow they pack enough information in those regular sized little story sketches to show what the whole movie could look like if not given the normal Disney Animation treatment. Oh, I hope so much those hamhanded oafs back away and let these geniuses make the epic it's obvious they could make. I hope the broadway types aren't planning musical numbers that would just ruin this movie. These funny french brothers just moved over here to Southside from Feature Animation Northside, the other California studio near the Burbank Airport. Unfortunately they don't seem to have on display as much artwork from their "Firebird" piece they did for "Fantasia 2000." I could look at that stuff for hours, and what makes me so happy is that a lot of that artwork is what's called iris prints, actual frames from the movie that proves how cool something under their direction can be.

Well, Harry, that's enough for now. I sure could use a bowl of chili after that long walk....