March 4 - Zootopia

On this day, in 2016, Walt Disney Pictures released its 55th animated feature, Zootopia, to theaters. Zootopia started life as a Sixties themed spy film but with animals. And not just animals living in the wild or a cityscape, but animals who existed in an environment that they’d designed and built for themselves. Anthropomorphication (to coin a word) taken to the next level. As the story was developed, the writers discovered that the part that took place in the city was the most interesting, so the spy theme was dropped, the Sixties were changed to modern day and Zootopia became a police procedural, starring a fox and his bunny sidekick.  Things progressed until someone suggested it might be better to tell the whole thing from the bunny’s point of view. Everyone agreed (pretty much), scrapped most of what they had and forged ahead again, eventually landing on the blockbuster film that hit theaters.

Image copyright Disney

What emerged from all the changes was a highly entertaining (if thinly veiled, well, maybe not for a cartoon) allegory about modern life. Yes, Zootopia is a who-dunnit in the classic style (complete with one spy movie holdover: an unlikely supervillain manipulating everyone behind the scenes), but it’s also a tale about how we’re all different and how that can make the world a better place, if we can each get over our fears. One of my favorite parts of the film is the city itself, with all the different ecosystems representing the different neighborhoods that make up any city but ultimately combining into one big whole. I mean sure, you could remove the small rodent part of Zootopia (or the Little Italy part of New York or the Gold Coast in Chicago) but would it still be Zootopia then? The correct answer is: no. No it would not.

Image copyright Disney

Producing the movie also pushed the limits of animation technology way beyond anything Disney had done before. Take the example of hair. For Frozen, Elsa was animated with a few hundred thousand individual hairs on her head. Because of all the fur in Zootopia, that number had to be raised a little bit. Even though both Nick and Judy, our two brilliant protagonists, are wearing clothes (even when they visit the nudist colony, weirdos) they were animated with over 2.5 million individual hairs. Each. And that's only two of the cast of literally thousands (Oh, and if you're impressed with that many hairs, just know that one of the giraffes had over 9 million) . An entirely knew program was developed just to handle all the fur called iGroom. There are clearly a few movies since then that have declined to use that innovation, but I digress.

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Needless to say, the world went gaga for Zootopia. It grossed over a billion dollars worldwide (and was still only number four in box office for 2016). When the awards season came around it won the Golden Globe, the Critic's Choice Award, the Annie Award and the Oscar for Best Animated Movie beating out Moana and Finding Dory. Audiences and award voters weren't they only ones who found something to like about Zootopia: it has a 97% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes with 294 reviews.

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If you haven't seen this now classic tale I suggest you (Judy) hopps to it, there are reportedly not one but two sequels under serious consideration. If both of those actually get produced, it could constitute the first theatrically released animated trilogy ever done by Walt Disney Pictures. A very specific first, but an important first none the less. One last bit of trivia I enjoyed while researching this post: Zootopia's title in China translates as Crazy Animal City. So in other words, it's no different from any other one.

December 26 - Byron Howard

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On this day, in 1968, Byron P. Howard was born in Misawa, Japan. Byron grew up in Issaquah, Washington, a small city about 15 miles east of Seattle. He graduated from Issaquah High School in 1986 and moved on to Evergreen College in Olympia. His dream had always been to be an animator for Disney and to help achieve that dream he wrote Frank Thomas, one of Disney’s Nine Old Men, for advice. The letter he got back was treated like a roadmap to success and it clearly worked (or I wouldn’t be talking about him today).

To help speed up his goals, Byron moved to Orlando, Florida after his college graduation and began submitting his portfolio in an effort to get hired. While he was waiting to check that box, he figured why not and took a job at the Disney-MGM Studios as a guide on the animation tour. In 1994, after four submissions, Byron was selected to be a part of the internship program. He began as an inbetweener on Pocahontas. He then became a full-fledged animator for Mulan and by Lilo and Stitch, a mere five years after being hired, he was the supervising animator for the character of Cobra Bubbles. He continued that role with Brother Bear as supervisor for Kenai. After the release of Brother Bear (and the collapse of the Florida animation department), Byron relocated to Southern California and enjoyed another promotion.

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In 2008, Byron co-directed Disney’s 48^th animated feature, Bolt, with Chris Williams. Bolt was only moderately successful at the box office but signaled a turnaround in Disney’s commitment to story and quality in its animated offerings. Byron and Chris’ efforts earned them an Oscar nomination for Best Animated Feature (they would lose to Disney’s other feature that year, WALL*E). Byron followed his freshman picture with the even more successful Tangled. He co-directed the Rapunzel tale with Nathan Greno (and it strangely did not get nominated for the Oscar).
 
As they sometimes say, the third time’s the charm. In 2016, Byron teamed up with Rich Moore to direct the mega-hit Zootopia. This time out, Byron’s work became the fourth animated film to rack up over $1 Billion in worldwide box office receipts (which still only made it the fourth highest grossing film of the year) and put several little golden statues on his mantle including an Oscar, a Golden Globe, a Critic’s Choice Award and an Annie. As a follow up to Zootopia, Byron is reportedly working on a new story with Lin-Manuel Miranda, who we all now know as Jack from Mary Poppins Returns (I think he also did some sort of historical piece on Broadway).

September 22 - Bonnie Lynn Hunt

On this day, in 1961, Bonnie Lynn Hunt was born in Chicago, Illinois. As the sixth of seven children in an Irish/Polish Catholic family, Bonnie learned early on that life can be noisy and chaotic and that it helps if you know how to improvise.

Bonnie worked part time as a nurse's aide while attending Chicago's Notre Dame High School for Girls. After graduation she became a nurse at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in oncology. Since the cancer ward of a hospital doesn't lend itself to much in the way of lightheartedness, Bonnie co-founded an improv group in 1984 called An Impulsive Thing. Two years later she joined Second City, keeping her day job to pay the bills. Two years after that, she had a life-changing lunch break: an audition for the movie Rainman.

Bonnie got the part of waitress Sally Dibbs in the Dustin Hoffman/Tom Cruise vehicle. Two years later (there seems to be a pattern forming here) she would appear on the small screen in a show called Grand. I loved that show, at least the first season of it, but the network managed to kill it in the second season, like so many things the networks touch, and it died a horrible death. She was offered a role on Saturday Night Live but turned it down as she prefers more improvisation than Lorne Michaels does. She also declined a replacement role on Designing Women, instead joining season two of the Randy Quaid/Johnathan Winters sitcom, Davis Rules, in 1992. Unfortunately, season two was also that shows last season. In 1993, she had a sitcom that lasted only five episodes, The Building, that was filmed live and generally left any mistakes in. Two years later, a good chunk of the cast of The Building would return for Bonnie, another attempt at an improvisational loose comedy. Alas, it was critically acclaimed (again I found myself in the minority that loved it) but only made it 11 episodes.

Bonnie had returned to the big screen in 1992 in Beethoven with Charles Grodin. A sequel happened the following year, as well as a turn in Dave with Kevin Kline. For the next several years, Bonnie worked steadily in such films as Jumanji, Jerry Maguire and The Green Mile, which earned her a SAG Award nomination. In 2000, she wrote and directed the movie Return to Me starring David Duchovny, Minnie Driver and Carol O'Connor in his final performance. In 2003, she starred with Steve Martin in Cheaper by the Dozen and its sequel, you guessed it, two years later.

In 2007, she tried her hand at hosting a talk show. The Bonnie Hunt Show was loosely modeled after Live with Regis and Kelly in that Bonnie made a point of interacting with the audience as much as possible. The show ran for three seasons and earned Bonnie a Daytime Emmy nomination for Outstanding Talk Show Host in 2010.

You many have noticed that there are some gaps in Bonnie's history so far. That's because starting in 1998, Bonnie has had an increasing presence in the Disney catalog, mostly in Pixar films. Her first character was Rosie in A Bug's Life. She next appeared as Mrs. Flint in Monsters, Inc. Bonnie then played Sally Carrera in Cars, for which she also received writing credit, Dolly in Toy Story 3, Sally again in Cars 2, Karen Graves in Monsters University, Bonnie Hopps in Zootopia and Sally again in Cars 3. She also has a recurring role on Sophia the First as Aunt Tilly. Bonnie also starred in a sitcom produced by Touchstone Television from 2002-04 called Life with Bonnie, earning Golden Globe and Primetime Emmy nominations along the way.

When not lending her voice to subtly hilarious characters, Bonnie is, as all real Chicagoans are, an avid Cubs fan and, in a nod to her former profession, a board member and ardent supporter of the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation.