June 8 - Finding Dory

Image copyright Disney

On this day, in 2016, Pixar's seventeenth animated feature, Finding Dory, had its world debut at the El Capitan Theater in Los Angeles, California. When Finding Nemo burst onto movie screens in 2003, it became a heartfelt classic that grossed nearly $900 million. Creating some sort of sequel was an obvious choice to make. Unfortunately, since Disney and Pixar were separate companies at that point, Disney decided to create a new studio to crank out sequels to Pixar films (which, under the agreement they had with Pixar, they were allowed to do). Circle 7 Animation was the name of that studio and, thankfully, nothing they ever began to create actually went into production. In 2006, Disney bought Pixar and they were allowed to take care of their own sequels while Circle 7 quietly disappeared. Why didn't Pixar ever use a single script or idea that Circle 7 wrote? A short synopsis of their proposed Nemo sequel tells us all we need to know. Remy, a long lost twin of Nemo, is found (where he come from since Nemo centers around the fact that only one egg survived, who knows). Then Marlin gets captured (even though he managed to travel thousands of miles through all sorts of perilous situations without getting captured in the first one, never mind the fact that everyone learned plenty of techniques to thwart being captured) and it's up to Remy, Nemo and Dory to rescue him. Ugh. We all really dodged a whole barrage of bullets with that acquisition.

Image copyright Disney

As the years went on, Ellen Degeneres, the voice of Dory, began campaigning on her talk show for a chance to play the forgetful blue tang again. Disney was obviously interested in as many sequels as they could squeeze out of any product. Andrew Stanton, the writer and director of Nemo (as well as a big wig at Pixar) only wanted to do sequels if they made sense creatively not just as a crappy cash grab, and resisted. It wasn't until Nemo was being prepared for a 10th anniversary re-release, that Andrew watched it again for pretty much the first time in a decade. Elements of Dory's character began coming together in his mind for a potential new story. He didn't say anything about his ideas to anyone until he'd spent some time with it, got a story he thought might hold up and then pitched it to John Lasseter in early 2012, who loved it. He then sat down with Victoria Strouse and hammered out a full script before revealing it to Ellen and Albert Brooks, the voice of Marlin, both of whom enthusiastically jumped on board.

Finding Dory opened in general release nine days after its premier and became a juggernaut. During its theatrical run, Dory racked up several box office milestones including the biggest opening weekend of an animated film in North America, the highest North American overall gross of an animated film and the second Pixar film to cross the $1 billion mark. Dory won several Kid's Choice Awards, People's Choice Awards and a Saturn Award among nominations for all sorts of other awards, but was edged out of the year's nominations for a Best Animated Feature Oscar by two other Disney films that came out the same year, Zootopia (which won) and Moana. Another Pixar sequel that took over a decade to appear (I'm looking at you Incredibles 2), Finding Dory turned out to be a sequel we didn't know we needed, but are glad we received (especially considering the alternative).

March 13 - Joe Ranft

Image courtesy collider.com

On this day, in 1960, Joseph Henry Ranft was born in Pasadena, California. As a kid, Joe developed two great passions in his life: magic and film. By the time he was 15, he was a member of the Magic Castle Junior Group (which, as anyone who is into magic knows, is a big deal). Unlike most of the members of that group, who go on to become professional magicians, Joe felt the pull of comedic storytelling a little bit more and enrolled at CalArts to study character animation. Working alongside fellow students like John Lasseter and Brad Bird, Ranft eventually caught the eye of Disney with a student film called Good Humor. After graduating in 1980, he moved right into the Television Department at the Disney Studios (knowing full well that if it didn't work out, he always had a bit of magic in his back pocket to rely on).

Image copyright Pixar

The first five years of Joe's career weren't exactly what anyone would call auspicious. He worked on all kinds of projects, developing stories and creating storyboards to go along with them, but none of them were ever actually produced. Eventually Joe was transferred into the Feature Animation Department where he had the good fortune to apprentice under one of Walt's Nine Old Men, Eric Larson and his prospects picked up considerably. Joe spent the rest of the Eighties and early Nineties working on the stories of films like Oliver and Company, The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and The Lion King. He was Story Supervisor on The Rescuers Down Under and Storyboard Supervisor for The Nightmare Before Christmas and James and the Giant Peach.

Image copyright Pixar

In 1991, Joe's old schoolmate, John Lasseter, asked him to join his new venture, a studio called Pixar. The move earned Joe his only Oscar nomination (for Best Original Screenplay on Toy Story). In addition to being Story Supervisor on Toy Story and A Bug's Life, he began to get more heavily into voice work (hey, Pixar was a small place at the time; everyone had to do multiple things). He'd already provided some screams in Beauty and the Beast and was Igor, Dr. Finkelstein's assistant, in The Nightmare Before Christmas, but now he actually got dialogue. Joe is the voice of Lenny the Binoculars in Toy Story, Heimlich in A Bug's Life, Wheezy in Toy Story 2, Pete "Claws" Ward in Monsters, Inc., Jacques the Shrimp in Finding Nemo, and Doggy Loggy in Chicken Little.

In the early Aughts, Joe was elevated to co-director on Cars. He provided the voices for Red and Peterbilt, but never got to see them on the big screen. Tragically, on August 16, 2005, Joe was a passenger in car that lost control, crashed through a guardrail and fell 130 feet into the Navarro River in Mendocino County, California. Joe and the car's driver were killed on impact. Both Cars and Tim Burton's Corpse Bride (which Joe had been executive producer for) were dedicated to his memory. He was posthumously made a Disney Legend in 2006 and given the Windsor McCay lifetime achievement award at the 2016 Annie Awards. He was only 45 at the time of his death and was a loss felt throughout the entire industry.

March 12 - Frank Welker

Image courtesy disney.fandom.com

On this day, in 1946, Franklin Wendell Welker was born in Denver, Colorado. Since the total box office take of all the films he has ever been in is well over $6 Billion, I probably don’t need to tell you who Frank Welker is. I do? But what about all the iconic characters he’s played on television? You say you still couldn’t pick him out of a crowd of one? To be honest, neither could I but what I could do is listen to his voice and tell you who his is. If you haven’t figured it out by now, Frank is a voice actor, and not just any old guy who sits in front of a microphone for a living, either. He’s considered by many to be the King of Voiceover Land.

In the early Sixties, Frank moved to Southern California and decided to become a corsair at Santa Monica City College studying the theatrical arts. His first professional acting gig was as Rutgers College Kid in Elvis Presley’s second to last film, 1969’s The Trouble with Girls. Around the same time he was cast as a disembodied voice in a Friskies commercial. During the Friskies shoot, Frank heard about an audition that was taking place over at the Hanna-Barbera studio for a new cartoon series about a group of meddling kids and their dog. He auditioned for part of the dog, but when the cast list for Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? came out, he’d won the role of Fred Jones. Not only has Frank been performing as Fred ever since (he’s the only original actor still involved with the franchise), he’s become an almost ubiquitous voice in the industry.

Image copyright Hanna-Barbera

Frank’s early years centered almost exclusively on Hanna-Barbera productions. In addition to Fred, he was the voice of Jabberjaw, Wonder Dog, Dynomutt (theDog Wonder), the Schmoo, and Marvin White. As the Seventies wore on, he began to branch out to other studios until he was one of the busiest actors in Hollywood. His resume is a who’s who of Eighties and Nineties cartoons:

Inspector Gadget: Brain, Dr. Claw and MAD Cat

Super Friends: Mister Mxyzptlk, Darkseid and Kalibak

G.I. Joe: Wild Bill and Dreadnok Torch

Image courtesy theinfosphere.org

The Transformers: Megatron, Soundwave, Buzzsaw, Ravage, Mirage and about a dozen others

The Real Ghostbusters: Ray Stantz and Slimer

The Muppet Babies: Kermit, Beaker, Skeeter and Camilla the Chicken

Johnny Quest: Dr. Jeremiah Surd

The Smurfs: Hefty Smurf, Poet Smurf and Peewit

The Simpsons: Santa’s Little Helper and Snowball II

Futurama: Nibbler

Image copyright Warner Bros.

Animaniacs: Mr. Plotz, Runt, Ralph the Guard and Buttons

Tiny Toon Adventures: Gogo Dodo, Furball and Bleeper

And those are just the highlights. From those two decades. And only covers television. This brings us to some of his film work, which is again a widely varied group of characters. Frank’s been the voice of the martians in Mars Attacks!, the penguins in Mr. Popper’s Penguins, Spock’s screams in Star Trek III, the Thing in The Golden Child, Jinx the robot in SpaceCamp, Alien Sil in Species, Malebolgia in Spawn, Azrael, Gargamel’s cat, in the latest Smurf movies, a whole slew of bots in the Transformers film series, Stripe and Mogwai in Gremlins and Mohawk in Gremlins 2.

Image copyright Disney

Frank has managed to pretty well permeate the Disney family as well.  For a while there, if there was a cute, usually fuzzy sidekick in a Disney film, chances were pretty good that it was one of Frank's performances. He's been Louie the Hot Dog Vendor and additional dogs in Oliver and Company, Dumbo in Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Max in The Little Mermaid, Stuffed Tiger in DuckTales the Movie, Marahute and Joanna in The Rescuers Down Under, the Footstool in Beauty and the Beast, Abu, Rajah and the Cave of Wonders in Aladdin, several additional voices in The Lion King, the Reindeer in The Santa Clause, Bigfoot in A Goody Movie, Flit in Pocahontas, Pegasus in Hercules, Cri-Kee, Khan, Little Brother and Hayabusa in Mulan, Thumper in A Bug's Life, Sabor in Tarzan, Nana 2 in Return to Neverland, the Anglerfish and the Whale in Finding Nemo, the Bandersnatch in 2010's Alice in Wonderland and will be reprising his roles of Abu and the Cave of Wonders in the live action version of Aladdin coming out later this year.

Image copyright Disney

As if that weren't enough, he's appeared in the following television series for the company as well: DuckTales, Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers, TaleSpin, Darkwing Duck, Goof Troop, The Little Mermaid, Bonkers, Aladdin, Gargoyles, Timon and Pumbaa, Quack Pack, Jungle Cubs, 101 Dalmatians, Hercules, Recess, Mickey Mouse Works, Buzz Lightyear of Star Command, House of Mouse, The Legend of Tarzan, Kim Possible, Lilo and Stitch and The Emperor's New School. And we haven't even touched video games yet (just know that there are dozens, including the role of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit in Epic Mickey).

At the age of 73, Frank seems to be slowing down, if only slightly (he is already in pre-production on another Scooby-Doo movie). But even if he were to stop cold today, he leaves behind a body of work that most actors can only dream of. So it is with a joyful heart and many thanks for bringing so much of our childhoods to life that we wish a happy birthday to the King of Voicelandia!

January 26 - Ellen DeGeneres

Image courtesy NBC.com

On this day, in 1958, Ellen Lee DeGeneres was born in Metairie, Louisiana. Shortly after her parents divorced in 1974, Ellen's mother remarried and they relocated to a small town on the western edge of Texas called Atlanta. Her older brother Vance stayed in Louisiana with their father. She graduated from Atlanta High School in 1976, returned to Louisiana to begin attending the University of New Orleans, made it through one semester and dropped out. She began working a variety of jobs, doing anything from clerical work in a law firm to being a waitress, all the while performing as a stand up comic wherever someone would give her a microphone.

By 1981, Ellen had made enough of a mark on the local comedy scene that she was working as the emcee at Clyde's Comedy Club in New Orleans. She began touring nationally and, in 1984, was named Funniest Person in America by Showtime. As the Nineties began, Ellen supplemented her stand-up career with appearances in (mostly) forgettable movies like Goodbye Lover and Mr. Wrong. It wasn't until she hit the small screen that she truly became a household name.

Image copyright Fox

In 1989, Ellen landed a one episode role on the Fox sitcom Duet. When Duet was cancelled shortly thereafter, her character from that episode became a recurring character on the spin-off show, Open House. The second show only lasted one season, but was great exposure for Ellen. Two years later, she landed a role on the ABC sitcom Laurie Hill. That show only lasted five episodes, but Ellen was generally praised as being the single bright spot. When the producers of Laurie Hill created another show in 1994, These Friends of Mine, they included her as one of the four friends. By the end of the first season, Ellen was clearly the most successful character on the show so focus was shifted to her and the show itself was renamed Ellen.

Image copyright ABC

Ellen itself was a modest hit that ran for five seasons. The highest ratings it ever got for a season put it at the number thirteen show but it was nominated for a slew of awards in those years. Ellen herself was nominated for everything from Golden Globes to SAG Awards including the Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy four out of the five seasons. The series won the Satellite Award and GLAAD Media Award for Best Comedy in 1988. The thing Ellen is remembered most for, though, is its fourth season. Ellen had come out as a lesbian on Oprah in April of 1997. Naturally she felt it was important that her television character do the same thing. ABC agreed and the show experienced a surge in popularity leading up to the coming out episode. I would argue that the string of shows where her character danced up to and around the big announcement are some of the funniest episodes ever on television. Then the fatal episode actually aired.

Image copyright Disney

Ellen crashed and burned, in my opinion, for two reasons. While ABC (and its parent company Disney) should be lauded for green lighting the first sitcom with an openly gay lead, once they had that show, they no longer knew what to do. They got scared of backlash and began running a parental warning before every episode, not something that bodes well for a comedy. They also became super sensitive (and highly defensive) towards any criticism. I know this was all pre-Will and Grace but the network executives clearly got a bad case of buyer's remorse. The ultimate reason Ellen was ultimately cancelled though was that following the coming out episode, it became a whole lot less funny. It limped through an entire fifth season with rapidly dwindling ratings. Disney had clearly lost interest in it as well, as they didn't do hardly any promotion for it and seemed pretty relieved when they could finally pull the plug in 1989.

Image copyright Disney

After another try at a sitcom in 2001 that only lasted eight episodes, Ellen changed tactics in 2003 by joining a growing list (at the time) of celebrity hosted daytime talk shows. The main difference with The Ellen DeGeneres Show, of course, is that it's still on the air (and still as popular as ever). Her talk show won a total of 25 Daytime Emmy Awards in just the first three seasons (it has a total of 59 now). Almost universally heralded as a bastion of good will in the wasteland of television, the show has garnered legions of fans and made Ellen one of the most beloved celebrities in existence, with a YouTube channel consistently in the top twenty. She's hinted that her run as Queen of Talk Shows may come to an end in 2020, but we'll worry about that later.

Ellen cemented her place in the Disney family in two big ways after the demise of her sitcom on ABC. One was as the star of the revamped Universe of Energy attraction at Epcot, Ellen's Energy Adventure (the Audio-Animatronic of her alone will live on in infamy). The second was when she voiced the befuddled blue tang, Dory, for Pixar's 2003 classic, Finding Nemo. Ellen won that year's Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress, the first time a female had won for voice work. 13 years later, she returned as Dory for the delightful (and even more successful) sequel, Finding Dory.

What will Ellen do once her talk show wraps up? Probably anything she wants. She recently returned to stand-up with a special on Netflix after a 17 year hiatus. She's hosted multiple awards shows including the Emmys three times and the Grammys and the Oscars twice. She's currently acting as producer on several upcoming projects. If we're lucky, we might see her return in another theme park attraction or Nemo sequel. Or she might just relax for the rest of her life with her wife, Portia. But I think that's about as likely as Dory getting Nemo's name right.

December 3 - Andrew Stanton

Image courtesy of Twitter.com

On this day, in 1965, Andrew Stanton was born in Rockport, Massachusetts. Andrew graduated from CalArts and cut his professional teeth as a writer on the late Eighties television series Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures. In 1990, he became the ninth employee of a fledgling studio named Pixar.

Andrew was only the second animator to be hired by Pixar because they weren't really an animation company at the time. It was all about selling their high-end computer system to produce animation, not necessarily making any themselves. Andrew's job was to make commercials and small pieces of animation that showed off the computer's capabilities. But then the idea for Toy Story came along and changed everything.

Image copyright Disney

Along with John Lasseter, Pete Doctor and Joe Ranft, Andrew helped conceive of the plot of Toy Story and develop it into a script. After Josh Whedon, of Buffy the Vampire Slayer fame, contributed some ideas, Andrew took the script and gave it a thorough dialog rewrite. His revisions worked wonders for the film as Toy Story became the first animated movie to be nominated for the Best Original Screenplay Oscar.  Following that success, Lasseter asked Andrew to work on the script for Pixar's second film, A Bug's Life. The film's writers were having a hard time getting the parts with the circus bugs and the regular ants to mesh together. Andrew wrote a draft in a single day that fixed everything up nicely.

Image copyright Disney

Following A Bug's Life, Andrew headed up the team that wrote Toy Story 2 (he also provided the voice for Emperor Zurg) and then co-wrote the script for Monsters, Inc. Monsters' director, Pete Doctor, credits Andrew with the idea that everything in the monsters' world is powered by screams.

For his next project, Andrew took inspiration from how overprotective of his own son he was and Finding Nemo was born. He co-wrote the script, was given the directorial reins for the first time as well and he once again donned the performer's hat as the voice of the 150 year old sea turtle, Crush. In spite of Michael Eisner's lack of confidence in Nemo, it went on to be the highest grossing film of 2003, became the highest grossing animated film ever after passing The Lion King, earned Andrew another nomination for Best Original Screenplay and won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature.

Image copyright Disney

The success of Nemo gave Andrew the confidence to tackle a far more experimental movie: WALL-E. Even though there isn't any dialog in the first thirty minutes of the film, Andrew knew that if he made them charming enough, audiences wouldn't mind. He co-wrote the script based on an idea he hatched with Pete Doctor and directed WALL-E to another big success, in spite of (or maybe because of) its commentary on issues ranging from obesity to consumerism to the environmental impact humans are having on the planet. The script was nominated for the Best Original Screenplay Oscar and Andrew picked up his second Best Animated Feature statue.

Since Disney's official acquisition of Pixar in 2006, Andrew has been the vice president of creativity at Pixar. He's become an executive producer and creative mentor on projects as diverse as Brave, Inside Out and The Good Dinosaur. He was part of the writing team for both Toy Story 3 (earning a Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar nomination) and Toy Story 4, coming out next year. Andrew was also the writer and director for Nemo's sequel, Finding Dory, which passed the one billion dollar mark in worldwide ticket sales.

Image copyright Disney

Now before anyone starts thinking that everything Andrew touches turns to gold, I do need to address the blemish on his resume (and it's a big one). He has one live action directing credit to his name so far: a science fiction film based on novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs (think Tarzan) called John Carter. To be fair, many studios had spent decades trying to adapt Burroughs' Barsoom novels for the big screen, including more than one go at it by Disney. Some things are just not meant to be filmed. After spending a total of 350 million dollars (making it one of the most expensive films ever produced), John Carter received decidedly mixed reviews and failed to earn back its budget, even though it set an opening day record in Russia. Disney ended up taking a 200 million dollar write off on the project. Luckily for Andrew, his track record in animation meant he was just embarrassed after that disaster, not unemployed.

Image copyright Netflix

Outside of Disney, Andrew has directed a few things for television, most notably two episodes of Netflix's smash hit, Stranger Things and an episode of AMC's Better Call Saul. He may be trying to sharpen his skills up a bit as he's expressed interest in directing another live action feature, but we'll see about that. Otherwise he continues to shepherd the Disney/Pixar crew in the fine art of animation, looking on proudly at the release of things like Ralph Breaks the Internet.