In which case, Disney's failed miserably, because Rise of Skywalker only made $20 million in the PRC; ditto the Mulan remake, where they've alienated both the potential Chinese audience and their existing Western audience. Gotta pick a lane.
A Hippie in the House of Mouse (Jim Henson at Disney, 1980)
- Thread starter Geekhis Khan
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yep, with the current policy the only target they are hitting is the: we displease both side (toxic fandom aside)
Oh boy, that reminds me how the Mouse reduced John Boyega's prominence on the The Force Awakens posters in China in their (failed) attempts to pander to Chinese audiences, but that's a whole other can of worms. That said, TTL's Disney is on a different and hopefully better trajectory under Henson's influence.
Good luck, because as we saw with Mask of the Monkey King, chinese government are a bunch of real tough hardasses.
Not even Jim and Jim's Disney could convince them.
I think it is a combination of both. But yeah, not entirely unfounded given the infamy of conservative Uncle Walt
Ironically, his father was part of the socialist party I think. Maybe things would be different if he didn’t serve abroad
Idea for the Wild Things film ITTL: the music of Daniel Johnson is part of the soundtrack (Karen O. provided a cover of "Worried Shoes" for the film IOTL, so to have the original in all its childlike, lo-fi indie pop glory on the soundtrack would be amazing):
The original:
Like, I could totally see this playing over the sequence where the island comes into being.
The original:
Like, I could totally see this playing over the sequence where the island comes into being.
Apparently, according to a few friends of mine who're in the know re China, it's really not an issue. It's something that gets used as an excuse by studios not to include LGBTQ characters.
(Stressing the studios here so that's current entertainment not current politics
)
Tim Burton I: Uncle Deadly's Nightmares
Part 4: Warped Speed at the Magic Kingdom!
Excerpt from Dark Funhouse, the Art and Work of Tim Burton, an Illustrated Compendium
The middle ‘80s would prove to be fruitful and fast-paced years for Tim Burton. He was a rising star at Disney and one of the principal artists whose style informed the unique look of The Black Cauldron. His Shorts had received Emmy nominations, and in the case of Vincent, a statuette. Success led to opportunity. Creative Chief Jim Henson gave him free reign to release his unique vision.
Uncle Deadly (Image source “ABC.com”)
“With Tim, I’ve found it’s best to just step back and let him do his thing.” – Jim Henson
After the success of his Shorts, Henson approached Tim in early 1985 to produce a special 2-hour Halloween 1985 edition of Disney’s World of Magic called Uncle Deadly’s Nightmares. The show, hosted by the eponymous gargoyle-like Muppet, would feature a mix of live action, animation, and puppetry sketches, all featuring some sort of macabre, spooky theme or story. In addition to rerunning his existing Shorts and the classic Disney Sleepy Hollow animated Short, Tim produced and directed the live action Short Frankenweenie, executive-produced a spooky stop-motion take on Alice in Wonderland, personally introduced, along with Uncle Deadly, the spooky Alice animatronics from the upcoming Dreamchild, produced and directed the animated Short “Jonathan Scissorhands” based on a drawing he’d made as a teenager (described by some as “Robert Smith from the Cure meets Freddy Krueger”), executive-produced the Muppet sequences “Put on a Happy Face” and a reprise of “Welcome to My Nightmare” with guest musician Alice Cooper, and executive-produced the computer-animated Short “Going Batty” by John Lasseter and Joe Ranft.
Wheh!
He filled in the various gaps between Shorts and Uncle Deadly hosting sequences with clips of Disney Villains, quick one-off animated or live-action sequences, the dancing skeletons from Silly Symphonies, and the deliberately bad Ed Wood style special effects that he’d made for the Gene Wilder directed The Ballad of Edward Ford[1]. He even broke new ground for Disney on music, bringing in Oingo Boingo’s Danny Elfman, whose strange and macabre “bouncing” sound would soon become forever associated with Burton productions. Burton made brief appearances himself when he visited the Dreamchild animatronics and when he was interviewed by Uncle Deadly about the importance of being scared and the universality of feeling alone. Viewers remarked that Burton was, in some ways, “creepier than the scary Muppet”.
The anthology earned an impressive 32-share and won Tim his second Emmy.
The success of Uncle Deadly’s Nightmares translated into his first feature-length opportunity, a cinematic musical version of The Nightmare Before Christmas, released by Christmas of 1987. Once again, he’d use the stop motion animation he, Rick Heinrichs, and Stephen Chiodo had been using since the original “Vincent” Short in 1982. He also once again recruited Danny Elfman to do the music and had Vincent Price provide voiceover work and voice performances for several characters, including the literally two-faced Mayor of Halloween Town.
Original Sketch that inspired the Jonathan Scissorhands animated short and live action film (Image source “zoomoncontemporaryart.wordpress.com”)
Burton also pushed for, and was approved for, a live action, feature-length take on Jonathan Scissorhands, produced and directed by Burton in parallel, which starred River Phoenix in the titular role and with original music by The Cure[2], released in the spring of 1987[3].
Suddenly the "weird guy in animation" was the up-and-coming guy at Disney!
[1] @GrahamB called it!
[2] In our timeline Burton tried unsuccessfully to get Robert Smith to star in Edward Scissorhands and tried numerous times to get The Cure to collaborate with him on a film. Bad luck prevented all of it from coming to pass.
[3] In our timeline Burton had to “prove himself” to Hollywood on films that he cared less about before he was cleared to do his passion projects. Here, Henson, who tended to trust the instincts of his creative artists, has given Burton the leeway to pursue his own ideas. And yes, this Henson trust has and will not always bear fruit.
Excerpt from Dark Funhouse, the Art and Work of Tim Burton, an Illustrated Compendium
The middle ‘80s would prove to be fruitful and fast-paced years for Tim Burton. He was a rising star at Disney and one of the principal artists whose style informed the unique look of The Black Cauldron. His Shorts had received Emmy nominations, and in the case of Vincent, a statuette. Success led to opportunity. Creative Chief Jim Henson gave him free reign to release his unique vision.
Uncle Deadly (Image source “ABC.com”)
“With Tim, I’ve found it’s best to just step back and let him do his thing.” – Jim Henson
After the success of his Shorts, Henson approached Tim in early 1985 to produce a special 2-hour Halloween 1985 edition of Disney’s World of Magic called Uncle Deadly’s Nightmares. The show, hosted by the eponymous gargoyle-like Muppet, would feature a mix of live action, animation, and puppetry sketches, all featuring some sort of macabre, spooky theme or story. In addition to rerunning his existing Shorts and the classic Disney Sleepy Hollow animated Short, Tim produced and directed the live action Short Frankenweenie, executive-produced a spooky stop-motion take on Alice in Wonderland, personally introduced, along with Uncle Deadly, the spooky Alice animatronics from the upcoming Dreamchild, produced and directed the animated Short “Jonathan Scissorhands” based on a drawing he’d made as a teenager (described by some as “Robert Smith from the Cure meets Freddy Krueger”), executive-produced the Muppet sequences “Put on a Happy Face” and a reprise of “Welcome to My Nightmare” with guest musician Alice Cooper, and executive-produced the computer-animated Short “Going Batty” by John Lasseter and Joe Ranft.
Wheh!
He filled in the various gaps between Shorts and Uncle Deadly hosting sequences with clips of Disney Villains, quick one-off animated or live-action sequences, the dancing skeletons from Silly Symphonies, and the deliberately bad Ed Wood style special effects that he’d made for the Gene Wilder directed The Ballad of Edward Ford[1]. He even broke new ground for Disney on music, bringing in Oingo Boingo’s Danny Elfman, whose strange and macabre “bouncing” sound would soon become forever associated with Burton productions. Burton made brief appearances himself when he visited the Dreamchild animatronics and when he was interviewed by Uncle Deadly about the importance of being scared and the universality of feeling alone. Viewers remarked that Burton was, in some ways, “creepier than the scary Muppet”.
The anthology earned an impressive 32-share and won Tim his second Emmy.
The success of Uncle Deadly’s Nightmares translated into his first feature-length opportunity, a cinematic musical version of The Nightmare Before Christmas, released by Christmas of 1987. Once again, he’d use the stop motion animation he, Rick Heinrichs, and Stephen Chiodo had been using since the original “Vincent” Short in 1982. He also once again recruited Danny Elfman to do the music and had Vincent Price provide voiceover work and voice performances for several characters, including the literally two-faced Mayor of Halloween Town.
Original Sketch that inspired the Jonathan Scissorhands animated short and live action film (Image source “zoomoncontemporaryart.wordpress.com”)
Burton also pushed for, and was approved for, a live action, feature-length take on Jonathan Scissorhands, produced and directed by Burton in parallel, which starred River Phoenix in the titular role and with original music by The Cure[2], released in the spring of 1987[3].
Suddenly the "weird guy in animation" was the up-and-coming guy at Disney!
[1] @GrahamB called it!
[2] In our timeline Burton tried unsuccessfully to get Robert Smith to star in Edward Scissorhands and tried numerous times to get The Cure to collaborate with him on a film. Bad luck prevented all of it from coming to pass.
[3] In our timeline Burton had to “prove himself” to Hollywood on films that he cared less about before he was cleared to do his passion projects. Here, Henson, who tended to trust the instincts of his creative artists, has given Burton the leeway to pursue his own ideas. And yes, this Henson trust has and will not always bear fruit.
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Uncle Deadly’s Nightmares sounds like fun, and the start of a long tradition on the channel.
This indeed sounds like nightmare juice...
How well did The Nightmare Before Christmas do ITTL?
Jonathan Scissorhands with River Phoenix and The Cure doing music? Oh that is going to be a lot creepier than the OTL movie.
This indeed sounds like nightmare juice...
How well did The Nightmare Before Christmas do ITTL?
Jonathan Scissorhands with River Phoenix and The Cure doing music? Oh that is going to be a lot creepier than the OTL movie.
Interesting to see that Tim Burton’s career launches earlier than IOTL. Seeing not only the creation of TTL’s Frankenweenie, but also Nightmare before Christmas and Edward Scissorhands could allow Tim Burton more time to give to other projects he neglect IOTL. I do wonder what’s going to happen to Johnny Depp or Henry Selick, as it was these films that gave them the launching point of their film careers. Selick’s still in Disney, so perhaps he stays in 2d animation?
Nightmare does eventually get released as a film...6 years ahead of OUR TIMELINE!? YES!
The Cure? The band best known for "Friday I'm in Love" and "She Sells Sanctuary?" There are many much better horror themed bands and solo artists out there. Even if White Zombie and The Toadies haven't happened yet, and the Speed Metal Five are laboring in obscurity until the Nineties, we still have the likes of Alice Cooper, Black Sabbath, Ozzie Osborne, Dio, Danzig, InXS, and possibly the newly-formed Guns n' Roses.
Okay, so they aren't The Carpenters or the Bay City Rollers, but still, I was expecting Tim Burton to shoot for the moon, and he only aimed for low earth orbit.
Okay, so they aren't The Carpenters or the Bay City Rollers, but still, I was expecting Tim Burton to shoot for the moon, and he only aimed for low earth orbit.
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Alice Cooper would be nice and seemed like he was having a ball on The Muppet Show.
First off, if you're going to criticize get the facts straight - the Cult did She Sells Sanctuary. Also, goth doesn't automatically equal horror themed, as Friday I'm In Love shows they had a clownish side. Most importantly, it seems like your personal music tastes are making you overlook that per Geekhis's footnote OTL Burton was desperate to collaberate with them. You may think there are "better" bands out there that would fit this, but that's your opinion, not the writer or, more importantly per making a plausible alt-hist story, Tim Burton.
Anyway, this was an awesome chapter and something tells me TTL me is becoming a Cure fan earlier, as will a lot of kids. Great chapter.
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- Does anyone know when Vincent Price's lung cancer start? I know it's probably a longshot to prevent Price's 1993 death from lung cancer, though.
- When eSports becomes a thing I could see the first official tournament calling their championship award the "Quarter Cup" as a tribute to arcade gaming.
So assuming that ITTL's Jonathan Scissorhands is anything like OTL's Edward Scissorhands than I think The Cure going the sound track is perfect.
How much longer do you want him to live for? The man was 82 and had Parkinson's (and COPD).
Fair enough. I failed to realize that Price was an elderly man with fragile health. Though we should discuss preventing the deaths of other people.
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