And Peter Cullen WAS the announcer for the CN era of Toonami and even CN's short-lived You Are Here Friday night block from 2008-2010, and possibly the very short-lived Action Flicks block that only lasted a few months after they cancelled Toonami, just a few things to prove my point:
When you Wish Upon a Frog (Book II of the Jim Henson at Disney saga)
- Thread starter Geekhis Khan
- Start date
- Status
It was, he stayed at the network a bit longer after Toonami's cancellation.
And it even said it on Wikipedia, and I know how his voice is.
Up with your Chinny Chin Chin
Talking Hansel & Gretel (1996) with its Creators
Interview with Phil Nibbelink and Tim Disney from AniMagic with Debbie Deschanel on the Disney Channel, February 6th, 2014
Int – Studio (Chromakey)
DEBBIE the host sits in a director’s chair across from two director’s chairs with Phil Nibbelink and Tim Disney. The chromakey background changes to show the title page for the show and occasionally plays stills and clips from the film to coincide with the discussion. The AniMagic theme plays.
TITLE CARD: “AniMagic, with Debbie Deschanel”
Still from Babes in the Woods (1932) (Image source Dr. Grob’s Animation Review)
Debbie
But then Steven Spielberg came into the picture.
Phil
Yes, Steve had collaborated with us in Disney Feature Animation twice by that point, with Shrek and Cats. The latter was where I had met him.
Debbie
You’d done character animation on Bustopher Jones.
Phil
Yes, and we gave him and the animation style in general a Gatsbyesque, art deco look that Steve really liked. So, we started to talk. I’d been a full animator for Disney since the days of The Fox and the Hound, but I wanted to direct and competition was very high in that regard, as you might imagine. There were and are so many good animators at Disney.
(Image source PBS Twitter)
Vintage 1964 Album cover that inspired the minimalist animation (Image source Biblio.com)
All laugh.
(Tim and Phil applaud; Debbie waves them off, looking embarrassed)
(Image source D23)
Debbie
But this meant changing the whole “trying to eat the kids” thing.
Tim
Yea, making her a murderous cannibal would be a hard thing for audiences to just overlook, so we made it all a misunderstanding by the kids. In reality the gingerbread cottage was a distraction to keep the kids fat and forgotten while she worked her long con on their dad. A series of comedic misunderstandings lead H&G to be sure she’s going to cook and eat them.
Debbie
Hence the original seventh song “I’ll have you over for dessert” by the Sherman Brothers and Alan Menken.
Tim
Of course, and it was a childhood dream come true sitting with the brothers to help compose the song. We lost Robert a couple of years ago, so there’s a bittersweet attachment to the song for me now.
Debbie
Hansel & Gretel debuted on March 29th, 1996, and managed to pull in $89 million[2] against a $52 million budget, so a mild underperformance, but it made up lost ground in home media and syndication. Today it’s considered a classic.
Phil
Yea, I was really hoping for a nine-figure return, but the combination of old and new alienated some audiences at the time. Still, for my directorial debut I can’t complain too much. I did well enough that Steve offered me a job at Amblimation, and I accepted. We spun up an actual core animation team so we were no longer wholly reliant on Disney, even though given Amblin’s investment in Disney we still typically partner with them.
Tim
And for me it was a production debut after struggling as a writer. My last name meant nothing and I had to earn my stripes like everyone else. Dad flat out forced me to work in the trenches with Brian and Cheryl Henson, and Oliver and the Dodger became my first break, but H&G is my crowning achievement in feature animation. I went mostly into TV after that.
Debbie
And with that, we are out of time. Thank you to Phil Nibbelink and Tim Disney for giving us the inside scoop into 1996’s classic Disney/Amblimation partnership, Hansel & Gretel.
Phil
Thanks Debbie!
Tim
Greatly appreciated, I enjoyed my time.
Debbie
This has been AniMagic. I’m Debbie Deschanel, and I’ll see you all next week when we discuss the first Amblimation co-production, Shrek, with some of its creators.
The AniMagic theme plays as the lights fade out.
TITLE CARD: “AniMagic, with Debbie Deschanel”
Fade to commercial
[1] Making an assumption here. He was born in 1961 so he’d hypothetically be able to be wandering the floor with his family at the time.
[2] Roughly on par with what the thematically similar Hoodwinked! Made in 2005 in our timeline, accounting for inflation.
Interview with Phil Nibbelink and Tim Disney from AniMagic with Debbie Deschanel on the Disney Channel, February 6th, 2014
Int – Studio (Chromakey)
DEBBIE the host sits in a director’s chair across from two director’s chairs with Phil Nibbelink and Tim Disney. The chromakey background changes to show the title page for the show and occasionally plays stills and clips from the film to coincide with the discussion. The AniMagic theme plays.
TITLE CARD: “AniMagic, with Debbie Deschanel”
Debbie
Hello again, Disney Fans, and welcome to AniMagic, where we explore the behind-the-scenes magic that brings animation to life. And with me today are Phil Nibbelink and Tim Disney, the director and producer of the Disney/Amblimation animated feature, Hansel & Gretel, a fun and deconstructive take on the Grim Brothers tale.
Phil
Thank you, Debbie, it’s great to be here.
Tim
Yes, thank you for having us.
Debbie
Now, it’s worth mentioning that this feature was a very long time coming, reportedly going all the way back to the days of Walt
Hello again, Disney Fans, and welcome to AniMagic, where we explore the behind-the-scenes magic that brings animation to life. And with me today are Phil Nibbelink and Tim Disney, the director and producer of the Disney/Amblimation animated feature, Hansel & Gretel, a fun and deconstructive take on the Grim Brothers tale.
Phil
Thank you, Debbie, it’s great to be here.
Tim
Yes, thank you for having us.
Debbie
Now, it’s worth mentioning that this feature was a very long time coming, reportedly going all the way back to the days of Walt
Tim
Yes, that is correct. My Great Uncle had been supporting a live-action production back in the 1960s before his untimely passing, which was produced by Bill Anderson, to be directed by Norman Tokar, and with a soundtrack by the Sherman Brothers. There’d been an album in ’64 and things were progressing well, but then Uncle Walt passed and the project faded away without him.
Phil
Disney had played with the story for years. He had a 1932 Silly Symphony short Babes in the Woods about H&G.
Yes, that is correct. My Great Uncle had been supporting a live-action production back in the 1960s before his untimely passing, which was produced by Bill Anderson, to be directed by Norman Tokar, and with a soundtrack by the Sherman Brothers. There’d been an album in ’64 and things were progressing well, but then Uncle Walt passed and the project faded away without him.
Phil
Disney had played with the story for years. He had a 1932 Silly Symphony short Babes in the Woods about H&G.
Still from Babes in the Woods (1932) (Image source Dr. Grob’s Animation Review)
Debbie
But then Steven Spielberg came into the picture.
Phil
Yes, Steve had collaborated with us in Disney Feature Animation twice by that point, with Shrek and Cats. The latter was where I had met him.
Debbie
You’d done character animation on Bustopher Jones.
Phil
Yes, and we gave him and the animation style in general a Gatsbyesque, art deco look that Steve really liked. So, we started to talk. I’d been a full animator for Disney since the days of The Fox and the Hound, but I wanted to direct and competition was very high in that regard, as you might imagine. There were and are so many good animators at Disney.
(Image source PBS Twitter)
Debbie
Spielberg offered you the chance to direct the next Amblimation collaboration, I assume?
Phil
Eventually (laughs). Back then Amblimation wasn’t really an animation team as much as a small production team, and we did talk about my future in a lot of ways. But for the start, he asked me what I’d make if I had carte blanche. And, well, after kicking a few ideas around, we started talking about the Brothers Grimm.
Debbie
And that’s where Tim comes in, correct?
Tim
Yea, I overheard them talking about H&G and I felt the need to butt in. As a young kid I’d had the chance to see Bill’s production team working on the film in the mid ‘60s and got to hear the Shermans writing some of the songs[1]. I was very, very young so it was mesmerizing.
Phil
He totally had Steve and I convinced that we needed to resurrect that project!
Tim
Yea, we went to the archives and dug everything up: the original script by A.J. Carothers, the Master Tapes and sheet music of the Sherman Brothers songs, concept art, costume studies, the whole works! It was really exciting for me since it was like rediscovering my childhood
Phil
And Steve really picked up on that passion, so he dragged Tim and I into making this as an Amblimation co-production. Tim convinced Jim [Henson] and it was done.
Debbie
You dropped the live action angle fairly quickly, then.
Tim
Yes, Debbie, Steve really wanted to do an animated feature. We briefly discussed a hybrid animation like Roger Rabbit or Lost in La Mancha, perhaps live action kids in an animated world, like the Alice Diaries, but very quickly settled on fully animated.
Debbie
So, for the animation you did things 2D, but computerized.
Phil
Yes, we did everything through the DATA systems, so many of the images started hand-sketched, though some we entered directly into the computer using tablets and light pens. Steve fell in love with the midcentury minimalist look of the cover art for the 1964 album, so rather than follow the traditional “Disney look” we instead deliberately took everything into that midcentury minimalism. It was the 1990s and the ‘60s were back in the public imagination. Jurassic Park had a midcentury vibe already, Bond was back in the ‘50s, and Shagwell was just a few years out at this point…you get it.
Spielberg offered you the chance to direct the next Amblimation collaboration, I assume?
Phil
Eventually (laughs). Back then Amblimation wasn’t really an animation team as much as a small production team, and we did talk about my future in a lot of ways. But for the start, he asked me what I’d make if I had carte blanche. And, well, after kicking a few ideas around, we started talking about the Brothers Grimm.
Debbie
And that’s where Tim comes in, correct?
Tim
Yea, I overheard them talking about H&G and I felt the need to butt in. As a young kid I’d had the chance to see Bill’s production team working on the film in the mid ‘60s and got to hear the Shermans writing some of the songs[1]. I was very, very young so it was mesmerizing.
Phil
He totally had Steve and I convinced that we needed to resurrect that project!
Tim
Yea, we went to the archives and dug everything up: the original script by A.J. Carothers, the Master Tapes and sheet music of the Sherman Brothers songs, concept art, costume studies, the whole works! It was really exciting for me since it was like rediscovering my childhood
Phil
And Steve really picked up on that passion, so he dragged Tim and I into making this as an Amblimation co-production. Tim convinced Jim [Henson] and it was done.
Debbie
You dropped the live action angle fairly quickly, then.
Tim
Yes, Debbie, Steve really wanted to do an animated feature. We briefly discussed a hybrid animation like Roger Rabbit or Lost in La Mancha, perhaps live action kids in an animated world, like the Alice Diaries, but very quickly settled on fully animated.
Debbie
So, for the animation you did things 2D, but computerized.
Phil
Yes, we did everything through the DATA systems, so many of the images started hand-sketched, though some we entered directly into the computer using tablets and light pens. Steve fell in love with the midcentury minimalist look of the cover art for the 1964 album, so rather than follow the traditional “Disney look” we instead deliberately took everything into that midcentury minimalism. It was the 1990s and the ‘60s were back in the public imagination. Jurassic Park had a midcentury vibe already, Bond was back in the ‘50s, and Shagwell was just a few years out at this point…you get it.
Vintage 1964 Album cover that inspired the minimalist animation (Image source Biblio.com)
Tim
I loved it. Again, it was a portal back into my childhood.
Debbie
It probably also made the animation easier.
Phil
(laughs) Yea, easier and cheaper. So many of the minimalist shapes were simple Platonic geometry: circles and rectangles and triangles. Very easy to make digital. The strange thing was that we ended up having to simplify the movement to something more like if we were shooting on the fours so it “looked right” and didn’t flow with uncanny smoothness.
Debbie
Shooting four frames per one still, you mean.
Phil
Yes. This gave it a movement profile that matched the midcentury animation style, but we did it in a way that looked artful, not cheap, if you catch my drift.
Debbie
Yes, a stylistic choice rather than a fiscal one. The animation was nominated for an Annie for innovation. But let’s also talk about the story and dialog, which also bridged the ‘60s and ‘90s in a unique way. Like with the earlier Shrek and Cats, the dialog was very snarky and borderline self-aware. Well, fully self-aware for MacCavity in particular, of course. But much of that aspect hearkens all the way back to the original A.J. Carothers script, yes?
Phil
Yes, one of the original deconstructive elements of the Carothers script – and this was way before anyone was using the term “deconstructive”, mind you – was that Hansel & Gretel were themselves total brats. Their father the woodcutter was too busy to properly raise them after their mother died, so they were complete terrors. Of course, the humor came when the wicked witch tries to marry their father, disguised as a beautiful woman. She hopes to capture the power of True Love, the one power beyond her grasp, but since True Love must be given, not taken, she sets off to trick their dad into giving it to her. OK, that came off wrong.
I loved it. Again, it was a portal back into my childhood.
Debbie
It probably also made the animation easier.
Phil
(laughs) Yea, easier and cheaper. So many of the minimalist shapes were simple Platonic geometry: circles and rectangles and triangles. Very easy to make digital. The strange thing was that we ended up having to simplify the movement to something more like if we were shooting on the fours so it “looked right” and didn’t flow with uncanny smoothness.
Debbie
Shooting four frames per one still, you mean.
Phil
Yes. This gave it a movement profile that matched the midcentury animation style, but we did it in a way that looked artful, not cheap, if you catch my drift.
Debbie
Yes, a stylistic choice rather than a fiscal one. The animation was nominated for an Annie for innovation. But let’s also talk about the story and dialog, which also bridged the ‘60s and ‘90s in a unique way. Like with the earlier Shrek and Cats, the dialog was very snarky and borderline self-aware. Well, fully self-aware for MacCavity in particular, of course. But much of that aspect hearkens all the way back to the original A.J. Carothers script, yes?
Phil
Yes, one of the original deconstructive elements of the Carothers script – and this was way before anyone was using the term “deconstructive”, mind you – was that Hansel & Gretel were themselves total brats. Their father the woodcutter was too busy to properly raise them after their mother died, so they were complete terrors. Of course, the humor came when the wicked witch tries to marry their father, disguised as a beautiful woman. She hopes to capture the power of True Love, the one power beyond her grasp, but since True Love must be given, not taken, she sets off to trick their dad into giving it to her. OK, that came off wrong.
All laugh.
Phil
Anyway, the comedy of errors happens as the witch, in bad faith, pretends to want to love these kids and acts ridiculously friendly to them, at least when dad is watching, but they see through her disguise.
Debbie
It sounds very Wicked Stepfather.
Phil
Yea, and Macaulay Culkin was our first through to voice Hansel, but his voice was cracking by this point.
Debbie
But you still had to modernize things, yes?
Tim
Yea, A.J.’s original script betrayed its 1960s origins in some rather not-with-the-times ways, and so we handed it to Carrie Fisher at Steve’s suggestion. Carrie, of course, told me that she could “totally relate” to the witch. And witches were getting a bit of an image makeover in the ‘90s anyway. So the witch was tweaked into a more sympathetic character. Carrie made her a sort of Norma Desmond character, once a great and powerful and bewitchingly beautiful enchantress, but now reduced to an “old hag in the woods doing crude charms”, as she saw herself. Her attempts to extort True Love were not just a way to power, but a way to turn her life around after the world of magic shunned her as “yesterday’s news”.
Debbie
She was replaced by someone younger and more beautiful, in other news.
Tim
Exactly. Systemic sorcerous sexism, as Pratchett says. Of course, the irony is that she’s not really that ugly. We dispensed with the green skin and nasty teeth and made her a perfectly normal forty-something woman with a few extra curves and wrinkles, just to heighten the stupidity and vanity of it all.
Debbie
But she’s still the villain.
Tim
More or less. Sort of an anti-villain. Understandable motives, not evil per se, just driven to desperation. And yet still doing something wrong. In general, we wanted the audience to sort-of root for her to succeed.
Debbie
And part of that was making the kids total brats.
Phil
(laughs) Yea, we kept that aspect of the original [script] and ran with it. Two uncontrolled chaos machines. Not bad kids per se, but certainly in need of some guidance and attentive parenting.
Debbie
So for casting you said you originally considered Macaulay Culkin, but ended up getting Nancy Cartwright of Nuclear Family fame, which is why Hansel arguably sounds like Bart crossed with Ralphie.
Phil
Yea, but he still sounds like Hansel to me.
Debbie
Jude Barsi voiced Gretel, of course. John Goodman for their father the Woodsman. Bette Midler as Agnes the Witch. Frank Welker for, well, pretty much everyone and everything else.
Tim
Yea, they were great. We had a blast with the recording. Fun fact: Gretel’s burp was an unscripted moment by Jude. She “let it slip” after drinking too much Pepsi and we decided to keep it in, which gave my dad a near heart-attack!
Debbie
And we should also take the time to acknowledge the music. The Sherman Brothers’ original six songs were taken almost word-for-word with some pragmatic changes made based on some different directions taken with the Fisher cut of the screenplay. I mean, there are some great classic “old Disney” style songs there. (Sings) “Chin up/ You'll be happy hearted/ Once you get it started/ Up with your chinny chin chin!”
Anyway, the comedy of errors happens as the witch, in bad faith, pretends to want to love these kids and acts ridiculously friendly to them, at least when dad is watching, but they see through her disguise.
Debbie
It sounds very Wicked Stepfather.
Phil
Yea, and Macaulay Culkin was our first through to voice Hansel, but his voice was cracking by this point.
Debbie
But you still had to modernize things, yes?
Tim
Yea, A.J.’s original script betrayed its 1960s origins in some rather not-with-the-times ways, and so we handed it to Carrie Fisher at Steve’s suggestion. Carrie, of course, told me that she could “totally relate” to the witch. And witches were getting a bit of an image makeover in the ‘90s anyway. So the witch was tweaked into a more sympathetic character. Carrie made her a sort of Norma Desmond character, once a great and powerful and bewitchingly beautiful enchantress, but now reduced to an “old hag in the woods doing crude charms”, as she saw herself. Her attempts to extort True Love were not just a way to power, but a way to turn her life around after the world of magic shunned her as “yesterday’s news”.
Debbie
She was replaced by someone younger and more beautiful, in other news.
Tim
Exactly. Systemic sorcerous sexism, as Pratchett says. Of course, the irony is that she’s not really that ugly. We dispensed with the green skin and nasty teeth and made her a perfectly normal forty-something woman with a few extra curves and wrinkles, just to heighten the stupidity and vanity of it all.
Debbie
But she’s still the villain.
Tim
More or less. Sort of an anti-villain. Understandable motives, not evil per se, just driven to desperation. And yet still doing something wrong. In general, we wanted the audience to sort-of root for her to succeed.
Debbie
And part of that was making the kids total brats.
Phil
(laughs) Yea, we kept that aspect of the original [script] and ran with it. Two uncontrolled chaos machines. Not bad kids per se, but certainly in need of some guidance and attentive parenting.
Debbie
So for casting you said you originally considered Macaulay Culkin, but ended up getting Nancy Cartwright of Nuclear Family fame, which is why Hansel arguably sounds like Bart crossed with Ralphie.
Phil
Yea, but he still sounds like Hansel to me.
Debbie
Jude Barsi voiced Gretel, of course. John Goodman for their father the Woodsman. Bette Midler as Agnes the Witch. Frank Welker for, well, pretty much everyone and everything else.
Tim
Yea, they were great. We had a blast with the recording. Fun fact: Gretel’s burp was an unscripted moment by Jude. She “let it slip” after drinking too much Pepsi and we decided to keep it in, which gave my dad a near heart-attack!
Debbie
And we should also take the time to acknowledge the music. The Sherman Brothers’ original six songs were taken almost word-for-word with some pragmatic changes made based on some different directions taken with the Fisher cut of the screenplay. I mean, there are some great classic “old Disney” style songs there. (Sings) “Chin up/ You'll be happy hearted/ Once you get it started/ Up with your chinny chin chin!”
(Tim and Phil applaud; Debbie waves them off, looking embarrassed)
Phil
You know, we may be looking for another singer for…
Debbie
(laughs) Oh please!
Tim
Yes, I remember them working on “Chin Up” as a kid. It’s great, all the happy forest animals singing it when Agnes tricks them into getting lost in the woods. H&G’s sarcastic responses are priceless. There’s also the Woodcutter singing “Guardian Star” and “Love Is…”, not to mention the kids singing “If I Could Be What I'd Like to Be”, which helped to humanize the little terrors. (laughs)
Tim
Yea, we loved getting to play with the ironic juxtaposition of the cheery Old Skool music and the modern cynicism. The irony was great. It was both a celebration of the Walt Years and a nod to postmodern sensibilities.
Debbie
But this is a PG-rated happy ending film, despite the cynicism.
Phil
Of course, Debbie! In the original script and in the original storyboards Agnes throws herself into the oven and is magically, and preposterously, transformed into gingerbread men. It didn’t work for a variety of reasons. And by this point Carrie had made us all like Agnes so much that we wanted to see her live. So in the end when all of her glamor and bad-faith attempts to get the Woodsman to love her and attempts to ditch the bratty kids fall through, and she lets her guard and glamor down, that’s when he and the kids actually get to know her and learn to love her. So True Love manifests in a familial way and allows her to transform, well, into herself, really. No more beautiful enchantress, but a loving wife and mother who becomes a beloved healer and protector for the local villagers. With a heaping dollop of self-awareness about this all, of course.
You know, we may be looking for another singer for…
Debbie
(laughs) Oh please!
Tim
Yes, I remember them working on “Chin Up” as a kid. It’s great, all the happy forest animals singing it when Agnes tricks them into getting lost in the woods. H&G’s sarcastic responses are priceless. There’s also the Woodcutter singing “Guardian Star” and “Love Is…”, not to mention the kids singing “If I Could Be What I'd Like to Be”, which helped to humanize the little terrors. (laughs)
Tim
Yea, we loved getting to play with the ironic juxtaposition of the cheery Old Skool music and the modern cynicism. The irony was great. It was both a celebration of the Walt Years and a nod to postmodern sensibilities.
Debbie
But this is a PG-rated happy ending film, despite the cynicism.
Phil
Of course, Debbie! In the original script and in the original storyboards Agnes throws herself into the oven and is magically, and preposterously, transformed into gingerbread men. It didn’t work for a variety of reasons. And by this point Carrie had made us all like Agnes so much that we wanted to see her live. So in the end when all of her glamor and bad-faith attempts to get the Woodsman to love her and attempts to ditch the bratty kids fall through, and she lets her guard and glamor down, that’s when he and the kids actually get to know her and learn to love her. So True Love manifests in a familial way and allows her to transform, well, into herself, really. No more beautiful enchantress, but a loving wife and mother who becomes a beloved healer and protector for the local villagers. With a heaping dollop of self-awareness about this all, of course.
(Image source D23)
Debbie
But this meant changing the whole “trying to eat the kids” thing.
Tim
Yea, making her a murderous cannibal would be a hard thing for audiences to just overlook, so we made it all a misunderstanding by the kids. In reality the gingerbread cottage was a distraction to keep the kids fat and forgotten while she worked her long con on their dad. A series of comedic misunderstandings lead H&G to be sure she’s going to cook and eat them.
Debbie
Hence the original seventh song “I’ll have you over for dessert” by the Sherman Brothers and Alan Menken.
Tim
Of course, and it was a childhood dream come true sitting with the brothers to help compose the song. We lost Robert a couple of years ago, so there’s a bittersweet attachment to the song for me now.
Debbie
Hansel & Gretel debuted on March 29th, 1996, and managed to pull in $89 million[2] against a $52 million budget, so a mild underperformance, but it made up lost ground in home media and syndication. Today it’s considered a classic.
Phil
Yea, I was really hoping for a nine-figure return, but the combination of old and new alienated some audiences at the time. Still, for my directorial debut I can’t complain too much. I did well enough that Steve offered me a job at Amblimation, and I accepted. We spun up an actual core animation team so we were no longer wholly reliant on Disney, even though given Amblin’s investment in Disney we still typically partner with them.
Tim
And for me it was a production debut after struggling as a writer. My last name meant nothing and I had to earn my stripes like everyone else. Dad flat out forced me to work in the trenches with Brian and Cheryl Henson, and Oliver and the Dodger became my first break, but H&G is my crowning achievement in feature animation. I went mostly into TV after that.
Debbie
And with that, we are out of time. Thank you to Phil Nibbelink and Tim Disney for giving us the inside scoop into 1996’s classic Disney/Amblimation partnership, Hansel & Gretel.
Phil
Thanks Debbie!
Tim
Greatly appreciated, I enjoyed my time.
Debbie
This has been AniMagic. I’m Debbie Deschanel, and I’ll see you all next week when we discuss the first Amblimation co-production, Shrek, with some of its creators.
The AniMagic theme plays as the lights fade out.
TITLE CARD: “AniMagic, with Debbie Deschanel”
Fade to commercial
[1] Making an assumption here. He was born in 1961 so he’d hypothetically be able to be wandering the floor with his family at the time.
[2] Roughly on par with what the thematically similar Hoodwinked! Made in 2005 in our timeline, accounting for inflation.
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It's time that Disney finally handled this most famous fairytale.
Interesting choice, definitely making it stand out from it's competitors and the other Disney Classics.
Also what's Shagwell?
So the witch is their stepmom while the kids are more Dennis the menace rather than innocent little kids. Certainly a unique premise
Good thing it's not actually the 60s anymore or they would've fired him like poor Bobby Prescott.
It's also a feminist pic about how women are treated after growing out of the conventional beauty standard? This plot is getting wilder and wilder.
Lol Hansel played by Bart Simpson 🤣
I guess they make a reference to that eventually?
Dream casting tbh. Jude probably enjoys playing the seemingly sweet gretel who turns out to also be a brat.
Rick Sanchez has nothing on Gretel.
Also Tim's dad is Roy right?
I hope that if they ever do a H&G ride that it will also follow that sentiment and look like a classic 60s right aswell.
Hopefully they at least add them to Epcot's Germany pavilion.
Oh that's so beautiful, real Pratchett vibes from this.
Lol what a twist, but I think it works.
Not to shabby
Seems like Amblination is here to stay.
Can't wait to see their other, self produced films.
Great chapter @Geekhis Khan
If I had to guess, considering the references to the 60s, I'd say Shagwell is probably some alt version of Austin Powers
Hey, Jude...
Interview with Judith Barsi
From Fresh Air with Terry Gross, first aired August 15th, 1996
TG: Hello and welcome again to Fresh Air. With me today is actress Judith Barsi, who most recently has been doing voice work for animation as well as for the computer-generated dinosaurs in the upcoming Dinotopia. She has been the star of many productions, and the subject of challenging drama behind the scenes as well. Welcome, Judith.
Jude Barsi, 1996 (Image by @nick_crenshaw82)
JB: Hey, thanks, Terry, call me Jude.
TG: Jude. You’ve been acting since you were three, including performing in numerous film and television roles throughout the 1980s before transitioning to voice work.
JB: Yea, I’d be the obnoxious little girl or the precocious little girl or the adorable little girl…you’re seeing a pattern, right? Well, I had fun with that for a while, you know. It was a nice escape, but as I got older all the attention became an issue for me. Then Steve Spielberg brought me in to do voiceover work for Stryker on The Land Before Time, who was, well, a precocious little styracosaurus (laughs). That was my first big film role and my first voice work. Unlike cartoons, where the voice work is done before they start animating, I got to visit the set and see the real dinosaurs, which were honestly kind of scary for me at the time, which was super cool (laughs). Then Disney brought me in to do dub work as Setsuko in Grave of Fireflies and Chika in [My Neighbor] Totoro. Lots of stuff for Nocturns. I voiced the cute little fish friend Flounder in The Little Mermaid and Don Bluth hired me for Anne-Marie in All Dogs go to Heaven and then gave me various roles as kids in Ritzy Gal and Retriever. Slight change when I played a precocious boy ghost in Casper, though I at least got some good dramatic stuff in there. Most recently I voiced Gretel in Hansel & Gretel. I’m eighteen and still playing precocious little girls (laughs).
TG: You’re also currently voicing an intelligent and outgoing little girl for Whoopass Stew.
JB: (laughs) Yea. Blossom.
TG: It’s a cartoon that we’ve gotten plenty of requests about from our listeners. We did our interview with Craig McCracken and Genndy Tartakovsky, who praised you as well as Tara Freeman and E.G. Daly. Can you give our readers a taste of Blossom?
JB: (as Blossom) Alright, girls! Remember the plan and let’s go kick Mojo’s ass!
Terry laughs.
JB: Honestly, I play Blossom, but I really identify more with Buttercup. She’s dark and she kicks the most ass. (passible impression of Buttercup) Aw, man! This is bullcrap! Can’t I just kick his ass? (as self) Yea, sorry Liz!
TG: (laughs) But you did manage to break out of the Precocious Typecast with Pip in Gargoyles, who became a breakout hit character for her mix of seeming innocence and casual cruelty.
JB: Yea, great stuff there, Terry. And yea, they originally handed me a Pip that was, you guessed it, a precocious, innocent little thing. I was like “[bleep] that! Make her kick some ass!” She then evolved into the diabolical little bitch we all know and love. I got a tat’ of her here on my arm, not far from my heart. (as Pip) “Come out, come out, it’s time to play! Let’s laugh and dance the night away!” (giggles menacingly)
TG: Delightfully chilling! And you still occasionally make live performances too. Luke Skywalker’s apprentice Halixiana in the made for TV Star Wars special Luke of Tatooine, for example.
JB: Yea, that was fun, but I hated the makeup. I played a…let’s see if I remember it right…twy-lick, so it was three [bleep]ing hours in a makeup chair as they painted my skin baby-diaper green and put these huge tentacle-like “head tails” on me that hurt my neck. I started calling them my “head [bleep]s” because there’s just something weirdly Freudian about them. I also cameo as a pterodactyl rider in Dinotopia and voice some background dinosaurs.
TG: But you prefer voice work.
JB: Yea, much more. No costumes or makeup required. I can show up in jeans. They don’t care if I’m a few pounds overweight. I had to lose fifteen pounds for the Star Wars thing and then they hang ten more pounds in prosthetics back on me. Whatever.
TG: You’ve been open about your struggles with eating disorders and body image.
JB: Yea, it started young. I looked young and had a high-pitched voice so I could be a ten-year-old and play a seven-year-old, so producers loved me because I could work longer hours and pay better attention than a kid the right age. But then I hit twelve and my boobs started growing in, which threatened those sweet gigs, so they put me on these diets. I developed an unhealthy relationship with food where I was obsessed with it but also revolted by it. I still can’t just have ice cream without feeling self-conscious about it. I’ve found some help groups and all, but it still sticks with me.
TG: You called yourself a “survivor of child acting” when talking to Arsenio Hall. Can you elaborate?
JB: Yea, Terry, well, you know it’s always hard growing up in Hollywood. There’s so much going on all around you and to you and behind your back, so it’s a real roller coaster of emotion. On one hand you have these producers that butter you up and tell you you’re special and that you’re going to be a big star and then when you’re not doing what they want they turn around and tell you you’re nothing and that they can replace you. There’s big expectations, you know? But then you’re working these long hours, often at weird times and places, and then you have to do school too. They have tutors or therapists sometimes, Disney is really good about that, but then you’re constantly getting interrupted because there’s a take, so it can be hard to concentrate.
TG: You’ve found other former child actors and formed a bit of a support group, yes?
JB: Yea. Drew’s sort of the leader.
TG: Drew Barrymore.
JB: Yea. She’s [bleep]ing awesome. Sam…Samantha Smith calls her the “Canary” like the one in the coal mine. She was the first one of us through the gauntlet and she went out of her way for people like me and Sam and all. She gave us a lot of advice and still checks in on us and we go out of our way to be there for the next generation. We’ve recently “recruited,” if that’s the word, Macaulay Culkin, whose career stalled out the second he hit puberty and who’s seen some [bleep] himself. Neal Patrick Harris too. Dr. Who was a roller coaster for him.
TG: Speaking of Samantha Smith, the two of you had a falling out a few years ago.
JB: Yea, I’d been working with her on Law & Order behind the scenes, kind of telling her everything. And she’s so beautiful and has parents who love her and has this great life, and honestly, I was so jealous because I’d gotten [bleep] on all of my life. We got in an argument on the set that’s, like, now legendary, but Drew intervened and got us back together.
TG: And you’re friends again?
JB: Closer than ever, really. You learn about people and you find out that her life wasn’t picture perfect either. Creepy stalkers. Obsessive fans. Repressed pedophiles that still see her as the little girl from The Littlest Diplomat. You know. On that last bit, we both started getting hounded by nudie mags the second we turned 18, the [bleep]ing pervoes. “Hey, you’re legal now! Show us your [bleep]s.” What the [bleep]? Christ, people suck.
TG: You’ve made no secret of the fact that you were the victim of abuse.
JB: Yea, my father has a long history of mental illness and alcohol abuse. He was physically and verbally abusive to both my mom and me.
TG: And at one point he tried to kill you both.
JB: Yea, back in ‘87. Disney had put us up at their Roman hotel in Disneyland when mom left him and he tried to break in with a gun. I don’t really think that he would have killed us, but just wanted to scare us, but anyway, he was arrested and he’s still in confinement between prison and psychiatric [hospitals].
TG: In an interview you spoke about the pain that this caused you, the abuse and the arrest.
JB: Yea, the [bleep]ed-up thing is that when he’s not hitting or yelling, he’s telling you how much that he loves you and wants to be there for you. You start to wonder if you’re the problem. He tells you the lies he tells himself to justify it all.
TG: This affected you in physical ways.
JB: I was gaining weight, which was causing the producers to talk to my parents about putting me on a diet. I was [bleep]ing 10. Dad would just drink and yell and throw pots and pans at me, which only made it worse.
TG: And it was then that the self-abuse started…and the pet abuse.
JB: Yea, I’d start to pull out my eyelashes or my cat’s whiskers[1]. My shrink calls it a nervous disorder resulting from my abuse, a sort of way to try and control things. I’ve worked with her on medication and replacement behaviors and it’s pretty cool now, though I still occasionally catch myself pulling on my hair when I’m nervous or upset. I occasionally get a buzz cut just to stop that habit. And before someone screams about the cat thing, yea, I’ve stopped that. I feel like [bleep] for doing that.
TG: As a teen that gravitated to shallow cutting.
JB: Yea. I’d have to wear long sleeves ‘cause I’d have all of these little cuts on my inner arm. The tats cover the scars now.
TG: The tattoos. That’s Ysabel from Mort on your inner arm, yes?
JB: Yea, I kind of, like, resonate with her. She grew up in a fake world out of time with Death as her father but still had to be girly, you know? I got her daughter Susan, who I voice for Reaper Man and Soul Music, here on the other one.
TG: And did you ever seriously consider suicide?
JB: Yea, sometimes. I was 14 and my mom had some pain pills. I thought about taking the whole lot, just, you know, ending it there. I’d already been cutting myself, of course. Nothing deep. I never put thoughts to action. But – and this is weird, I’m sure – I just wanted to know that if it came down to it, that I could end it, you know? Get out if I had to.
TG: You’ve been in therapy since you were ten.
JB: Yea. They started me on it at Disney. Jim and Cheryl Henson got me started. Thanks, Kermit! (laughs) It’s helped. I’ve tried about every med combo you can name, but the new SSRIs are working wonders. I still talk to my psychiatrist, like every week, sometimes more. Bipolar disorder, anxiety-depression, post-traumatic stress, occasional dissociative episodes…she loves me. I’m putting her [bleep]ing kids through college! Things are better, but they’ll probably never be great, you know?
TG: You’ve since become an outspoken mental health advocate.
JB: Yea, anyone listening to this, seriously, take care of yourself. No shame in it. You break your leg you go to the doctor, right? They put you in a cast and maybe give you some pills for pain. It’s the same if you break your brain. It’s no different. There’s still, like, a stigma to it, you know? Bull[bleep] really. People are stupid that way. But take care of yourself. Call a crisis hotline. See a therapist. Talk to your doctor. I doubt I’d still be here if I hadn’t taken care of myself. Like Drew says, “The world sucks, but you don’t have to. Be there for yourself and be there for each other.”
TG: You’ve also called your work, particularly your work for producer and director Tim Burton, as your “work therapy.”
JB: Oh, definitely, yea. Keeps me focused and connected to people who, you know, are there for me. Jim Henson and the Disney folks are awesome, but Tim and his Skeleton Crew are the best. I was doing Flounder [for The Little Mermaid] and came across some of the crazy art they were doing for Nocturns. Real dark [bleep]. I loved it.
TG: You were already getting into the Goth subculture by that point.
JB: Oh, totally. I was introduced to The Cure from watching Jonathan Scissorhands back when I was 13, and I so connected to it. That was like the start. I got big into Siouxsie and the Banshees and totally wanted to be Siouxsie. I’d already started dying my hair jet-black or blood red and was dressing up like Zondra from Digit’s World. So, like, I walk into the production room for the Skeleton Crew uninvited and just begged Tim to do voice work for, like, anything. I was [bleep]ing pathetic! Tim was, like, “you came to the right place.” They hired me not just to voice and act, but I became a production assistant and gofer. I’d give my thoughts on designs and music choice and I even got to meet Siouxsie and the Banshees when they recorded a bit for Season three of Nocturns. [bleep] it was beautiful.
TG: You played a teenage vampire on “High School Sucks” for Season 4.
JB: (laughs) Yea, it was brilliant. Joss [Whedon] wrote and directed that. I’d play this coy little innocent thing who got super-drunk at parties and the guys would think that I was an “easy lay”, but it was all a trap to, like, kill them and suck their blood. Speaking of “suck”, we even made a [long bleep] joke.
TG: I’m sure we’ll have to censor that. An oral sex joke, you mean.
JB: (laughs) Yea. (sultry voice) “You say you want me to…” (normal voice) Ok, ok! Your producer is waving that one off! (laughs loudly)
TG: Some people were shocked by that portrayal, particularly when you “baited” females as well. The tabloids are claiming that you’ve dated both men and women. They specifically call out rumored relationships with an androgynous Goth musician and lesbian sitcom star.
JB: Yea, no names, since neither relationship lasted long. Let’s just say that I have a “type” and it’s not a good one for me. Too much like “dear old dad.” We’ll leave it at that. I don’t like to talk about my relationships.
TG: You mentioned about your character in that episode pretending to be drunk. You also got nominated for an Emmy playing an alcoholic teen on Law & Order. But you yourself do not drink alcohol.
JB: Not a [bleep]ing drop. Seriously, real bad associations. Even the smell makes me shake! I smell booze on a man’s breath and I have an anxiety attack.
TG: But you have admitted to marijuana use.
JB: Yea, it helps me regulate. Nothing harder. I tried cocaine once and they had to restrain me before I destroyed everything and clawed someone’s eyes out. I was offered a tab of acid once and turned it down. The last thing that I need is a peek into my subconscious, thank you! Otherwise, just lots of coffee. Black like a psychopath.
TG: No Starbucks mocha Frappuccino for you, I take it?
JB: Are you [bleep]ing me, Terry? (laughs)
TG: We need to take a short break. We’ll be back in a few minutes to speak more with Jude Barsi. This is Fresh Air on NPR.
[1] Barsi reportedly did these things in our timeline in the years leading up to her murder.
From Fresh Air with Terry Gross, first aired August 15th, 1996
TG: Hello and welcome again to Fresh Air. With me today is actress Judith Barsi, who most recently has been doing voice work for animation as well as for the computer-generated dinosaurs in the upcoming Dinotopia. She has been the star of many productions, and the subject of challenging drama behind the scenes as well. Welcome, Judith.
Jude Barsi, 1996 (Image by @nick_crenshaw82)
JB: Hey, thanks, Terry, call me Jude.
TG: Jude. You’ve been acting since you were three, including performing in numerous film and television roles throughout the 1980s before transitioning to voice work.
JB: Yea, I’d be the obnoxious little girl or the precocious little girl or the adorable little girl…you’re seeing a pattern, right? Well, I had fun with that for a while, you know. It was a nice escape, but as I got older all the attention became an issue for me. Then Steve Spielberg brought me in to do voiceover work for Stryker on The Land Before Time, who was, well, a precocious little styracosaurus (laughs). That was my first big film role and my first voice work. Unlike cartoons, where the voice work is done before they start animating, I got to visit the set and see the real dinosaurs, which were honestly kind of scary for me at the time, which was super cool (laughs). Then Disney brought me in to do dub work as Setsuko in Grave of Fireflies and Chika in [My Neighbor] Totoro. Lots of stuff for Nocturns. I voiced the cute little fish friend Flounder in The Little Mermaid and Don Bluth hired me for Anne-Marie in All Dogs go to Heaven and then gave me various roles as kids in Ritzy Gal and Retriever. Slight change when I played a precocious boy ghost in Casper, though I at least got some good dramatic stuff in there. Most recently I voiced Gretel in Hansel & Gretel. I’m eighteen and still playing precocious little girls (laughs).
TG: You’re also currently voicing an intelligent and outgoing little girl for Whoopass Stew.
JB: (laughs) Yea. Blossom.
TG: It’s a cartoon that we’ve gotten plenty of requests about from our listeners. We did our interview with Craig McCracken and Genndy Tartakovsky, who praised you as well as Tara Freeman and E.G. Daly. Can you give our readers a taste of Blossom?
JB: (as Blossom) Alright, girls! Remember the plan and let’s go kick Mojo’s ass!
Terry laughs.
JB: Honestly, I play Blossom, but I really identify more with Buttercup. She’s dark and she kicks the most ass. (passible impression of Buttercup) Aw, man! This is bullcrap! Can’t I just kick his ass? (as self) Yea, sorry Liz!
TG: (laughs) But you did manage to break out of the Precocious Typecast with Pip in Gargoyles, who became a breakout hit character for her mix of seeming innocence and casual cruelty.
JB: Yea, great stuff there, Terry. And yea, they originally handed me a Pip that was, you guessed it, a precocious, innocent little thing. I was like “[bleep] that! Make her kick some ass!” She then evolved into the diabolical little bitch we all know and love. I got a tat’ of her here on my arm, not far from my heart. (as Pip) “Come out, come out, it’s time to play! Let’s laugh and dance the night away!” (giggles menacingly)
TG: Delightfully chilling! And you still occasionally make live performances too. Luke Skywalker’s apprentice Halixiana in the made for TV Star Wars special Luke of Tatooine, for example.
JB: Yea, that was fun, but I hated the makeup. I played a…let’s see if I remember it right…twy-lick, so it was three [bleep]ing hours in a makeup chair as they painted my skin baby-diaper green and put these huge tentacle-like “head tails” on me that hurt my neck. I started calling them my “head [bleep]s” because there’s just something weirdly Freudian about them. I also cameo as a pterodactyl rider in Dinotopia and voice some background dinosaurs.
TG: But you prefer voice work.
JB: Yea, much more. No costumes or makeup required. I can show up in jeans. They don’t care if I’m a few pounds overweight. I had to lose fifteen pounds for the Star Wars thing and then they hang ten more pounds in prosthetics back on me. Whatever.
TG: You’ve been open about your struggles with eating disorders and body image.
JB: Yea, it started young. I looked young and had a high-pitched voice so I could be a ten-year-old and play a seven-year-old, so producers loved me because I could work longer hours and pay better attention than a kid the right age. But then I hit twelve and my boobs started growing in, which threatened those sweet gigs, so they put me on these diets. I developed an unhealthy relationship with food where I was obsessed with it but also revolted by it. I still can’t just have ice cream without feeling self-conscious about it. I’ve found some help groups and all, but it still sticks with me.
TG: You called yourself a “survivor of child acting” when talking to Arsenio Hall. Can you elaborate?
JB: Yea, Terry, well, you know it’s always hard growing up in Hollywood. There’s so much going on all around you and to you and behind your back, so it’s a real roller coaster of emotion. On one hand you have these producers that butter you up and tell you you’re special and that you’re going to be a big star and then when you’re not doing what they want they turn around and tell you you’re nothing and that they can replace you. There’s big expectations, you know? But then you’re working these long hours, often at weird times and places, and then you have to do school too. They have tutors or therapists sometimes, Disney is really good about that, but then you’re constantly getting interrupted because there’s a take, so it can be hard to concentrate.
TG: You’ve found other former child actors and formed a bit of a support group, yes?
JB: Yea. Drew’s sort of the leader.
TG: Drew Barrymore.
JB: Yea. She’s [bleep]ing awesome. Sam…Samantha Smith calls her the “Canary” like the one in the coal mine. She was the first one of us through the gauntlet and she went out of her way for people like me and Sam and all. She gave us a lot of advice and still checks in on us and we go out of our way to be there for the next generation. We’ve recently “recruited,” if that’s the word, Macaulay Culkin, whose career stalled out the second he hit puberty and who’s seen some [bleep] himself. Neal Patrick Harris too. Dr. Who was a roller coaster for him.
TG: Speaking of Samantha Smith, the two of you had a falling out a few years ago.
JB: Yea, I’d been working with her on Law & Order behind the scenes, kind of telling her everything. And she’s so beautiful and has parents who love her and has this great life, and honestly, I was so jealous because I’d gotten [bleep] on all of my life. We got in an argument on the set that’s, like, now legendary, but Drew intervened and got us back together.
TG: And you’re friends again?
JB: Closer than ever, really. You learn about people and you find out that her life wasn’t picture perfect either. Creepy stalkers. Obsessive fans. Repressed pedophiles that still see her as the little girl from The Littlest Diplomat. You know. On that last bit, we both started getting hounded by nudie mags the second we turned 18, the [bleep]ing pervoes. “Hey, you’re legal now! Show us your [bleep]s.” What the [bleep]? Christ, people suck.
TG: You’ve made no secret of the fact that you were the victim of abuse.
JB: Yea, my father has a long history of mental illness and alcohol abuse. He was physically and verbally abusive to both my mom and me.
TG: And at one point he tried to kill you both.
JB: Yea, back in ‘87. Disney had put us up at their Roman hotel in Disneyland when mom left him and he tried to break in with a gun. I don’t really think that he would have killed us, but just wanted to scare us, but anyway, he was arrested and he’s still in confinement between prison and psychiatric [hospitals].
TG: In an interview you spoke about the pain that this caused you, the abuse and the arrest.
JB: Yea, the [bleep]ed-up thing is that when he’s not hitting or yelling, he’s telling you how much that he loves you and wants to be there for you. You start to wonder if you’re the problem. He tells you the lies he tells himself to justify it all.
TG: This affected you in physical ways.
JB: I was gaining weight, which was causing the producers to talk to my parents about putting me on a diet. I was [bleep]ing 10. Dad would just drink and yell and throw pots and pans at me, which only made it worse.
TG: And it was then that the self-abuse started…and the pet abuse.
JB: Yea, I’d start to pull out my eyelashes or my cat’s whiskers[1]. My shrink calls it a nervous disorder resulting from my abuse, a sort of way to try and control things. I’ve worked with her on medication and replacement behaviors and it’s pretty cool now, though I still occasionally catch myself pulling on my hair when I’m nervous or upset. I occasionally get a buzz cut just to stop that habit. And before someone screams about the cat thing, yea, I’ve stopped that. I feel like [bleep] for doing that.
TG: As a teen that gravitated to shallow cutting.
JB: Yea. I’d have to wear long sleeves ‘cause I’d have all of these little cuts on my inner arm. The tats cover the scars now.
TG: The tattoos. That’s Ysabel from Mort on your inner arm, yes?
JB: Yea, I kind of, like, resonate with her. She grew up in a fake world out of time with Death as her father but still had to be girly, you know? I got her daughter Susan, who I voice for Reaper Man and Soul Music, here on the other one.
TG: And did you ever seriously consider suicide?
JB: Yea, sometimes. I was 14 and my mom had some pain pills. I thought about taking the whole lot, just, you know, ending it there. I’d already been cutting myself, of course. Nothing deep. I never put thoughts to action. But – and this is weird, I’m sure – I just wanted to know that if it came down to it, that I could end it, you know? Get out if I had to.
TG: You’ve been in therapy since you were ten.
JB: Yea. They started me on it at Disney. Jim and Cheryl Henson got me started. Thanks, Kermit! (laughs) It’s helped. I’ve tried about every med combo you can name, but the new SSRIs are working wonders. I still talk to my psychiatrist, like every week, sometimes more. Bipolar disorder, anxiety-depression, post-traumatic stress, occasional dissociative episodes…she loves me. I’m putting her [bleep]ing kids through college! Things are better, but they’ll probably never be great, you know?
TG: You’ve since become an outspoken mental health advocate.
JB: Yea, anyone listening to this, seriously, take care of yourself. No shame in it. You break your leg you go to the doctor, right? They put you in a cast and maybe give you some pills for pain. It’s the same if you break your brain. It’s no different. There’s still, like, a stigma to it, you know? Bull[bleep] really. People are stupid that way. But take care of yourself. Call a crisis hotline. See a therapist. Talk to your doctor. I doubt I’d still be here if I hadn’t taken care of myself. Like Drew says, “The world sucks, but you don’t have to. Be there for yourself and be there for each other.”
TG: You’ve also called your work, particularly your work for producer and director Tim Burton, as your “work therapy.”
JB: Oh, definitely, yea. Keeps me focused and connected to people who, you know, are there for me. Jim Henson and the Disney folks are awesome, but Tim and his Skeleton Crew are the best. I was doing Flounder [for The Little Mermaid] and came across some of the crazy art they were doing for Nocturns. Real dark [bleep]. I loved it.
TG: You were already getting into the Goth subculture by that point.
JB: Oh, totally. I was introduced to The Cure from watching Jonathan Scissorhands back when I was 13, and I so connected to it. That was like the start. I got big into Siouxsie and the Banshees and totally wanted to be Siouxsie. I’d already started dying my hair jet-black or blood red and was dressing up like Zondra from Digit’s World. So, like, I walk into the production room for the Skeleton Crew uninvited and just begged Tim to do voice work for, like, anything. I was [bleep]ing pathetic! Tim was, like, “you came to the right place.” They hired me not just to voice and act, but I became a production assistant and gofer. I’d give my thoughts on designs and music choice and I even got to meet Siouxsie and the Banshees when they recorded a bit for Season three of Nocturns. [bleep] it was beautiful.
TG: You played a teenage vampire on “High School Sucks” for Season 4.
JB: (laughs) Yea, it was brilliant. Joss [Whedon] wrote and directed that. I’d play this coy little innocent thing who got super-drunk at parties and the guys would think that I was an “easy lay”, but it was all a trap to, like, kill them and suck their blood. Speaking of “suck”, we even made a [long bleep] joke.
TG: I’m sure we’ll have to censor that. An oral sex joke, you mean.
JB: (laughs) Yea. (sultry voice) “You say you want me to…” (normal voice) Ok, ok! Your producer is waving that one off! (laughs loudly)
TG: Some people were shocked by that portrayal, particularly when you “baited” females as well. The tabloids are claiming that you’ve dated both men and women. They specifically call out rumored relationships with an androgynous Goth musician and lesbian sitcom star.
JB: Yea, no names, since neither relationship lasted long. Let’s just say that I have a “type” and it’s not a good one for me. Too much like “dear old dad.” We’ll leave it at that. I don’t like to talk about my relationships.
TG: You mentioned about your character in that episode pretending to be drunk. You also got nominated for an Emmy playing an alcoholic teen on Law & Order. But you yourself do not drink alcohol.
JB: Not a [bleep]ing drop. Seriously, real bad associations. Even the smell makes me shake! I smell booze on a man’s breath and I have an anxiety attack.
TG: But you have admitted to marijuana use.
JB: Yea, it helps me regulate. Nothing harder. I tried cocaine once and they had to restrain me before I destroyed everything and clawed someone’s eyes out. I was offered a tab of acid once and turned it down. The last thing that I need is a peek into my subconscious, thank you! Otherwise, just lots of coffee. Black like a psychopath.
TG: No Starbucks mocha Frappuccino for you, I take it?
JB: Are you [bleep]ing me, Terry? (laughs)
TG: We need to take a short break. We’ll be back in a few minutes to speak more with Jude Barsi. This is Fresh Air on NPR.
[1] Barsi reportedly did these things in our timeline in the years leading up to her murder.
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Good update on Judith...
Speaking of the goth subculture, was the West Memphis Three case butterflied away? With a PoD in 1980, it would be, IMO (to be fair, while Damian Echols and his friends were likely innocent of the murders of those three boys, Echols had...mental issues that predated the murders; this in no way justified what happened to him (1))...
(1) If he really was innocent--there is a section that says he was guilty...
Speaking of the goth subculture, was the West Memphis Three case butterflied away? With a PoD in 1980, it would be, IMO (to be fair, while Damian Echols and his friends were likely innocent of the murders of those three boys, Echols had...mental issues that predated the murders; this in no way justified what happened to him (1))...
(1) If he really was innocent--there is a section that says he was guilty...
So this is a grown up Judith Barsi? Not bad. I can see Pan-Pizza simping for her in his vids if he were to exist ITTL
Interview with Judith Barsi
From Fresh Air with Terry Gross, first aired August 15th, 1996
TG: Hello and welcome again to Fresh Air. With me today is actress Judith Barsi, who most recently has been doing voice work for animation as well as for the computer-generated dinosaurs in the upcoming Dinotopia. She has been the star of many productions, and the subject of challenging drama behind the scenes as well. Welcome, Judith.
Jude Barsi, 1996 (Image by @nick_crenshaw82)
JB: Hey, thanks, Terry, call me Jude.
TG: Jude. You’ve been acting since you were three, including performing in numerous film and television roles throughout the 1980s before transitioning to voice work.
JB: Yea, I’d be the obnoxious little girl or the precocious little girl or the adorable little girl…you’re seeing a pattern, right? Well, I had fun with that for a while, you know. It was a nice escape, but as I got older all the attention became an issue for me. Then Steve Spielberg brought me in to do voiceover work for Stryker on The Land Before Time, who was, well, a precocious little styracosaurus (laughs). That was my first big film role and my first voice work. Unlike cartoons, where the voice work is done before they start animating, I got to visit the set and see the real dinosaurs, which were honestly kind of scary for me at the time, which was super cool (laughs). Then Disney brought me in to do dub work as Setsuko in Grave of Fireflies and Chika in [My Neighbor] Totoro. Lots of stuff for Nocturns. I voiced the cute little fish friend Flounder in The Little Mermaid and Don Bluth hired me for Anne-Marie in All Dogs go to Heaven and then gave me various roles as kids in Ritzy Gal and Retriever. Slight change when I played a precocious boy ghost in Casper, though I at least got some good dramatic stuff in there. Most recently I voiced Gretel in Hansel & Gretel. I’m eighteen and still playing precocious little girls (laughs).
TG: You’re also currently voicing an intelligent and outgoing little girl for Whoopass Stew.
JB: (laughs) Yea. Blossom.
TG: It’s a cartoon that we’ve gotten plenty of requests about from our listeners. We did our interview with Craig McCracken and Genndy Tartakovsky, who praised you as well as Tara Freeman and E.G. Daly. Can you give our readers a taste of Blossom?
JB: (as Blossom) Alright, girls! Remember the plan and let’s go kick Mojo’s ass!
Terry laughs.
JB: Honestly, I play Blossom, but I really identify more with Buttercup. She’s dark and she kicks the most ass. (passible impression of Buttercup) Aw, man! This is bullcrap! Can’t I just kick his ass? (as self) Yea, sorry Liz!
TG: (laughs) But you did manage to break out of the Precocious Typecast with Pip in Gargoyles, who became a breakout hit character for her mix of seeming innocence and casual cruelty.
JB: Yea, great stuff there, Terry. And yea, they originally handed me a Pip that was, you guessed it, a precocious, innocent little thing. I was like “[bleep] that! Make her kick some ass!” She then evolved into the diabolical little bitch we all know and love. I got a tat’ of her here on my arm, not far from my heart. (as Pip) “Come out, come out, it’s time to play! Let’s laugh and dance the night away!” (giggles menacingly)
TG: Delightfully chilling! And you still occasionally make live performances too. Luke Skywalker’s apprentice Halixiana in the made for TV Star Wars special Luke of Tatooine, for example.
JB: Yea, that was fun, but I hated the makeup. I played a…let’s see if I remember it right…twy-lick, so it was three [bleep]ing hours in a makeup chair as they painted my skin baby-diaper green and put these huge tentacle-like “head tails” on me that hurt my neck. I started calling them my “head [bleep]s” because there’s just something weirdly Freudian about them. I also cameo as a pterodactyl rider in Dinotopia and voice some background dinosaurs.
TG: But you prefer voice work.
JB: Yea, much more. No costumes or makeup required. I can show up in jeans. They don’t care if I’m a few pounds overweight. I had to lose fifteen pounds for the Star Wars thing and then they hang ten more pounds in prosthetics back on me. Whatever.
TG: You’ve been open about your struggles with eating disorders and body image.
JB: Yea, it started young. I looked young and had a high-pitched voice so I could be a ten-year-old and play a seven-year-old, so producers loved me because I could work longer hours and pay better attention than a kid the right age. But then I hit twelve and my boobs started growing in, which threatened those sweet gigs, so they put me on these diets. I developed an unhealthy relationship with food where I was obsessed with it but also revolted by it. I still can’t just have ice cream without feeling self-conscious about it. I’ve found some help groups and all, but it still sticks with me.
TG: You called yourself a “survivor of child acting” when talking to Arsenio Hall. Can you elaborate?
JB: Yea, Terry, well, you know it’s always hard growing up in Hollywood. There’s so much going on all around you and to you and behind your back, so it’s a real roller coaster of emotion. On one hand you have these producers that butter you up and tell you you’re special and that you’re going to be a big star and then when you’re not doing what they want they turn around and tell you you’re nothing and that they can replace you. There’s big expectations, you know? But then you’re working these long hours, often at weird times and places, and then you have to do school too. They have tutors or therapists sometimes, Disney is really good about that, but then you’re constantly getting interrupted because there’s a take, so it can be hard to concentrate.
TG: You’ve found other former child actors and formed a bit of a support group, yes?
JB: Yea. Drew’s sort of the leader.
TG: Drew Barrymore.
JB: Yea. She’s [bleep]ing awesome. Sam…Samantha Smith calls her the “Canary” like the one in the coal mine. She was the first one of us through the gauntlet and she went out of her way for people like me and Sam and all. She gave us a lot of advice and still checks in on us and we go out of our way to be there for the next generation. We’ve recently “recruited,” if that’s the word, Macaulay Culkin, whose career stalled out the second he hit puberty and who’s seen some [bleep] himself. Neal Patrick Harris too. Dr. Who was a roller coaster for him.
TG: Speaking of Samantha Smith, the two of you had a falling out a few years ago.
JB: Yea, I’d been working with her on Law & Order behind the scenes, kind of telling her everything. And she’s so beautiful and has parents who love her and has this great life, and honestly, I was so jealous because I’d gotten [bleep] on all of my life. We got in an argument on the set that’s, like, now legendary, but Drew intervened and got us back together.
TG: And you’re friends again?
JB: Closer than ever, really. You learn about people and you find out that her life wasn’t picture perfect either. Creepy stalkers. Obsessive fans. Repressed pedophiles that still see her as the little girl from The Littlest Diplomat. You know. On that last bit, we both started getting hounded by nudie mags the second we turned 18, the [bleep]ing pervoes. “Hey, you’re legal now! Show us your [bleep]s.” What the [bleep]? Christ, people suck.
TG: You’ve made no secret of the fact that you were the victim of abuse.
JB: Yea, my father has a long history of mental illness and alcohol abuse. He was physically and verbally abusive to both my mom and me.
TG: And at one point he tried to kill you both.
JB: Yea, back in ‘87. Disney had put us up at their Roman hotel in Disneyland when mom left him and he tried to break in with a gun. I don’t really think that he would have killed us, but just wanted to scare us, but anyway, he was arrested and he’s still in confinement between prison and psychiatric [hospitals].
TG: In an interview you spoke about the pain that this caused you, the abuse and the arrest.
JB: Yea, the [bleep]ed-up thing is that when he’s not hitting or yelling, he’s telling you how much that he loves you and wants to be there for you. You start to wonder if you’re the problem. He tells you the lies he tells himself to justify it all.
TG: This affected you in physical ways.
JB: I was gaining weight, which was causing the producers to talk to my parents about putting me on a diet. I was [bleep]ing 10. Dad would just drink and yell and throw pots and pans at me, which only made it worse.
TG: And it was then that the self-abuse started…and the pet abuse.
JB: Yea, I’d start to pull out my eyelashes or my cat’s whiskers[1]. My shrink calls it a nervous disorder resulting from my abuse, a sort of way to try and control things. I’ve worked with her on medication and replacement behaviors and it’s pretty cool now, though I still occasionally catch myself pulling on my hair when I’m nervous or upset. I occasionally get a buzz cut just to stop that habit. And before someone screams about the cat thing, yea, I’ve stopped that. I feel like [bleep] for doing that.
TG: As a teen that gravitated to shallow cutting.
JB: Yea. I’d have to wear long sleeves ‘cause I’d have all of these little cuts on my inner arm. The tats cover the scars now.
TG: The tattoos. That’s Ysabel from Mort on your inner arm, yes?
JB: Yea, I kind of, like, resonate with her. She grew up in a fake world out of time with Death as her father but still had to be girly, you know? I got her daughter Susan, who I voice for Reaper Man and Soul Music, here on the other one.
TG: And did you ever seriously consider suicide?
JB: Yea, sometimes. I was 14 and my mom had some pain pills. I thought about taking the whole lot, just, you know, ending it there. I’d already been cutting myself, of course. Nothing deep. I never put thoughts to action. But – and this is weird, I’m sure – I just wanted to know that if it came down to it, that I could end it, you know? Get out if I had to.
TG: You’ve been in therapy since you were ten.
JB: Yea. They started me on it at Disney. Jim and Cheryl Henson got me started. Thanks, Kermit! (laughs) It’s helped. I’ve tried about every med combo you can name, but the new SSRIs are working wonders. I still talk to my psychiatrist, like every week, sometimes more. Bipolar disorder, anxiety-depression, post-traumatic stress, occasional dissociative episodes…she loves me. I’m putting her [bleep]ing kids through college! Things are better, but they’ll probably never be great, you know?
TG: You’ve since become an outspoken mental health advocate.
JB: Yea, anyone listening to this, seriously, take care of yourself. No shame in it. You break your leg you go to the doctor, right? They put you in a cast and maybe give you some pills for pain. It’s the same if you break your brain. It’s no different. There’s still, like, a stigma to it, you know? Bull[bleep] really. People are stupid that way. But take care of yourself. Call a crisis hotline. See a therapist. Talk to your doctor. I doubt I’d still be here if I hadn’t taken care of myself. Like Drew says, “The world sucks, but you don’t have to. Be there for yourself and be there for each other.”
TG: You’ve also called your work, particularly your work for producer and director Tim Burton, as your “work therapy.”
JB: Oh, definitely, yea. Keeps me focused and connected to people who, you know, are there for me. Jim Henson and the Disney folks are awesome, but Tim and his Skeleton Crew are the best. I was doing Flounder [for The Little Mermaid] and came across some of the crazy art they were doing for Nocturns. Real dark [bleep]. I loved it.
TG: You were already getting into the Goth subculture by that point.
JB: Oh, totally. I was introduced to The Cure from watching Jonathan Scissorhands back when I was 13, and I so connected to it. That was like the start. I got big into Siouxsie and the Banshees and totally wanted to be Siouxsie. I’d already started dying my hair jet-black or blood red and was dressing up like Zondra from Digit’s World. So, like, I walk into the production room for the Skeleton Crew uninvited and just begged Tim to do voice work for, like, anything. I was [bleep]ing pathetic! Tim was, like, “you came to the right place.” They hired me not just to voice and act, but I became a production assistant and gofer. I’d give my thoughts on designs and music choice and I even got to meet Siouxsie and the Banshees when they recorded a bit for Season three of Nocturns. [bleep] it was beautiful.
TG: You played a teenage vampire on “High School Sucks” for Season 4.
JB: (laughs) Yea, it was brilliant. Joss [Whedon] wrote and directed that. I’d play this coy little innocent thing who got super-drunk at parties and the guys would think that I was an “easy lay”, but it was all a trap to, like, kill them and suck their blood. Speaking of “suck”, we even made a [long bleep] joke.
TG: I’m sure we’ll have to censor that. An oral sex joke, you mean.
JB: (laughs) Yea. (sultry voice) “You say you want me to…” (normal voice) Ok, ok! Your producer is waving that one off! (laughs loudly)
TG: Some people were shocked by that portrayal, particularly when you “baited” females as well. The tabloids are claiming that you’ve dated both men and women. They specifically call out rumored relationships with an androgynous Goth musician and lesbian sitcom star.
JB: Yea, no names, since neither relationship lasted long. Let’s just say that I have a “type” and it’s not a good one for me. Too much like “dear old dad.” We’ll leave it at that. I don’t like to talk about my relationships.
TG: You mentioned about your character in that episode pretending to be drunk. You also got nominated for an Emmy playing an alcoholic teen on Law & Order. But you yourself do not drink alcohol.
JB: Not a [bleep]ing drop. Seriously, real bad associations. Even the smell makes me shake! I smell booze on a man’s breath and I have an anxiety attack.
TG: But you have admitted to marijuana use.
JB: Yea, it helps me regulate. Nothing harder. I tried cocaine once and they had to restrain me before I destroyed everything and clawed someone’s eyes out. I was offered a tab of acid once and turned it down. The last thing that I need is a peek into my subconscious, thank you! Otherwise, just lots of coffee. Black like a psychopath.
TG: No Starbucks mocha Frappuccino for you, I take it?
JB: Are you [bleep]ing me, Terry? (laughs)
TG: We need to take a short break. We’ll be back in a few minutes to speak more with Jude Barsi. This is Fresh Air on NPR.
[1] Barsi reportedly did these things in our timeline in the years leading up to her murder.
Fuck, Judith's been through some heavy shit - and everything about her life you sketched out here, up to and including dating people with a questionable moral compass, is scarily realistic, for an abuse victim. No fucking wonder she went goth.
Great posts on Hansel & Gretel and Judith Barsi.
I'm glad that Judith is doing well after the horrific abuse that she went through. Plus seeing all of the former child actors intermingle and develop a kind of kinship together through their shared problems is actually quite endearing. I wonder what will be the in-universe/out-of-universe term for this little group?
Judith becoming an advocate for mental health problems is also a huge positive. Hopefully, we will see more celebrities and other major figures push for better mental health care in the United States ITTL.
I'm glad that Judith is doing well after the horrific abuse that she went through. Plus seeing all of the former child actors intermingle and develop a kind of kinship together through their shared problems is actually quite endearing. I wonder what will be the in-universe/out-of-universe term for this little group?
Judith becoming an advocate for mental health problems is also a huge positive. Hopefully, we will see more celebrities and other major figures push for better mental health care in the United States ITTL.
I mean, Lynn Loud Jr. and Lucy Loud share the same VA, so you wouldn't be wrong for imagining that.
Kurt Cobain's still alive maybe we could see him push for better mental health care.
God. I hope Pan makes a cameo in one of these posts soon lol
Cullen works. Let's say that.
It seemed fun to explore resurrecting some old ideas along with the alt and new ones.
Coming soon, baby, yeah!
Based entirely on an incident iOTL during the taping of Shrek where Cameron Diaz was recorded burping. They added it in to the film since it kind of fit the character and was a nice foreshadow to the reveal.
Yes.
Tim Disney | Producer, Director, Writer
Known for: A Question of Faith, American Violet, Southbound
www.imdb.com
I hadn't put any thought into that crime. Likely butterflied due to time, but something like it is bound to happen somewhere given the tendency in the US justice system to drive false confessions and doggedly pursue "gut feelings" of guilt even in an absolute lack of evidence. And biased juries, particularly in small communities against social or ethnic "outsiders", are all too common.
Oh wow, very well done here! The fact you can go inside these characters and give them life is a lot to admire here! Wonderful work over like always
Fuck, Judith's been through some heavy shit - and everything about her life you sketched out here, up to and including dating people with a questionable moral compass, is scarily realistic, for an abuse victim. No fucking wonder she went goth.
When I decided to "save" Judith Barsi I put a lot of thought into her and her future. She lived a short, rough life iOTL full of use and abuse and is pretty much the poster child for the trials of the child actor, particularly in the 1970s-90s where they received the worst treatment. I based her alt-life and ensuing interview on a lot of interviews I've heard from other former child actors and put a lot of thought into her psychology. Mental illness, under-confidence, body image issues, eating disorders, and substance abuse are very common. Thankfully she got medical help fairly early in TTL, or she might not have turned out this well. She was already inflicting self-harm and harming her cat iOTL when she was murdered. It's crazy-tragic and horrible on so many levels. I assumed that her PTSD might ironically help protect her from alcoholism, and marijuana use is very common with people suffering mental illness like bipolar disorder and schizophrenia and even being actively explored therapeutically, since the endocannabinoid system appears to play a major part in neuroimmune modulation.
But seriously, listen to "Jude" here. Take your mental health seriously. Fuck the stigma. Get the help you need. We love you.
Yes, both would find kindred spirits in each other on that score. They could team up for PSAs.
Not anyone that I was familiar with, so open if someone wants to use his "voice" or someone like him.
Thanks, all. On work travel this week. Will try to post, but no promises.
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