August 18 - John Debney

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On this day, in 1956, John Cardon Debney was born in Glendale, California. John’s father, Louis, was a television producer for the Walt Disney Studio throughout his childhood. Louis was responsible for episodes of The Mickey Mouse Club, Zorro and the Disneyland anthology show. You name it and if it occurred during those early years, Louis had a hand in it. As a result, John did a whole lot of growing up on Disney soundstages and backlots. He also received the musical talent in his family, having started guitar lessons when he was just six years old. He also became proficient at a keyboard (the piano kind not the computer kind) and rotated through a number of bands right on into his college years. He was talented enough to get into the music program at CalArts and dedicated enough to graduate with a Bachelor’s degree in Music Composition in 1979. He then had to wait two whole weeks before starting a new job at the same place his father earned his living for so many years.

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John started out at Disney about as low on the totem pole as you can get. He was in the copying department and was basically what they call a runner. He gathered up sheet music and recordings and ran them to wherever they needed to go. Until the day the Legendary composer Buddy Baker, who undoubtedly was aware of both John’s parentage and his musical degree, dropped a little project in his lap. Buddy needed someone to arrange some French classical music into a medley and if it could seamlessly repeat itself, that would be great. Could John accomplish that? Sure, no problem. Soon Buddy was bringing John all sorts of tasks like that. One week it might be German oompah bands, the next traditional Japanese melodies. It might sound like a bunch of eclectic busywork, but by the end of three years, John had arranged and composed a big chunk of the background music that was going to be heard continuously in the pavilions of the World Showcase area of Disney’s newest park, EPCOT Center. So the next time you find yourself drinking around the world, pause a moment in each country and enjoy some of John’s early work.

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After three years of cutting his teeth with Disney, John was ready to cut himself loose and began freelancing as a composer of musical scores. He worked exclusively in television to begin with, collaborating with Mike Post, the legendary producer of series like Magnum, P.I., Quantum Leap and Hill Street Blues. He also dove into the madcap world of television animation with the Hanna-Barbera Studio apprenticing under their long-time musical director, Hoyt Curtin. During this period John wrote the scores for series as diverse as Star Trek: The Next Generation and The Young Riders (which earned him his first of three Emmy Awards for musical composition) and Dink, the Little Dinosaur.  As the Eighties turned into the Nineties, John began getting work writing scores for independent films, including two directed by Beau Bridges, The Wild Pair and Seven Hours to Judgement. Those projects led to his first studio film and the resurrection of a long relationship with the Walt Disney Company, for the second generation of Debneys.

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John returned to Disney in 1993 with the score for a little Halloween film that has since become a cult classic, Hocus Pocus. Since then he’s provided the music for all sorts of Disney films including White Fang 2, Houseguest, the Mickey Mouse short Runaway Brain, I’ll Be Home for Christmas, My Favorite Martian, Inspector Gadget, The Emperor’s New Groove (which nabbed an Annie Award nomination), The Princess Diaries (and its sequel), Snow Dogs, The Hot Chick, Raising Helen, The Pacifier, Chicken Little, Hannah Montana: The Movie, Old Dogs, Iron Man 2, and 2016’s live action remake of The Jungle Book.

Highlights of John’s work outside of Disney include several more collaborations with Garry Marshall (Valentine’s Day, New Year’s Eve) and John Favreau (Elf, Zathura: A Space Adventure). He nabbed his only Academy Award nomination so far for his work on Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ (he lost to Finding Neverland). He also picked up two more Emmy Awards, one for writing the main theme for SeaQuest DSV and another for scoring the pilot episode of The Cape. Currently you can hear John’s work on two television series, The Orville on Fox and Santa Clarita Diet on Netflix, as well as in movie theaters, if Dora and the Lost City of Gold is your thing. And of course, you can always take a stroll around World Showcase, where John’s music has been playing for over thirty years and will continue to underscore your Epcot adventures for many more to come. Happy 63^rd birthday John!

July 16 - Hocus Pocus

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On this day, in 1993, Walt Disney Pictures released the Halloween comedy Hocus Pocus. Pocus started life in the early Eighties. Screenwriter Mick Garris wrote a film about a boy who'd been turned into a cat three centuries ago by witches, based on an idea that producer David Kirschner came up with. That script was sold to Disney in 1984 and was dark,  scary, full of 12 year olds and called Halloween House. It languished in development hell for almost a decade, undergoing severe rewrites, gaining and losing cast and directors and generally going nowhere. Then, in 1992, Bette Midler caught wind of the project, said she wanted to do it (in the role that was originally written for Cloris Leachman) and suddenly all the lights on the movie turned green.

Disney hired Kenny Ortega to direct the film, which was an unconventional choice. Kenny had been a choreographer for years with classics like Dirty Dancing and Ferris Bueller's Day Off under his dance belt. While a choreographer isn't that far off the mark from a director, the only thing Kenny had directed up to this point was the movie Newsies, which wasn't a hit Broadway show yet (or even a cult classic film). It was a little picture that had flopped terribly at the box office. Kenny offered the lead role of Max Dennison, the virgin who accidentally resurrects the Sanderson sisters, to Leonardo DiCaprio, but Leo was too busy earning an Oscar nomination for What's Eating Gilbert Grape to accept. Omri Katz got the role instead and filming suitably began in October 1992, with the production being completed a mere four months later.

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When Hocus Pocus was released, it did better than Newsies, but not by much. It did gross more than its budget, but with advertising costs factored in it probably gave Disney a good $15 million tax write off. At this point you might be scratching your head and saying wait a minute. This is a Halloween movie and it was released in July. What gives? The official story is that The Nightmare Before Christmas was chosen as the studio's Halloween entry that year and management didn't want Hocus to interfere with that movie's returns. So they randomly released it earlier. A much truer story would be that management didn't think much of Hocus and didn't care when it was released, it was always going to be a tax write off to them. Except, in the end, it wasn't.

Owning a property means that you get to use that property over and over again, however you wish. When the Halloween season rolled around every year on the Disney Channel, and later on ABC Family, Disney needed content to show. Hocus Pocus became an annual tradition on both channels, and since people were seeing it at the right time of year, gained bigger and bigger audiences with each showing. It's gotten to the point now that Freeform (what ABC Family is currently called) actually breaks viewership records every year and Hocus Pocus has become a tentpole event for them. Excitement over the movie has led to the center stage show at Walt Disney World's Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party being based on the Sanderson sisters. Hocus' three stars, Bette Midler, Kathy Najimy and Sarah Jessica Parker (all of whom have had successful careers since) have even expressed interest in making a sequel. So far Disney has yet to commit to the sequel the fans want, but rumors continue to fly about a crappy made-for-tv remake. Like I said. When you own a property, you get to do with it whatever you wish. Not necessarily what the fans wish.

December 1 - Bette Midler

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On this day, in 1945, Bette Midler was born in Honolulu, Hawaii. She was named after another famous entertainer, Bette Davis, although she pronounces their shared name with only one syllable instead of two. Voted "Most Dramatic" of her senior class in high school (shocking, I know), Bette would go on to study drama at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. She only lasted three semesters before dropping out to try to make some money.

In the mid Sixties, Bette made her film debut in an uncredited (but still paid) role of a seasick extra in a movie titled, appropriately enough, Hawaii. Using the money she earned from that experience, she moved to New York City. Her first paid stage roles came in off-off-Broadway productions by Tom Eyens (Tony Award winner for writing the book for Dreamgirls). In 1966, Bette made her Broadway debut as Tzeitel in Fiddler on the Roof. After three years of Matchmaker, Matchmaker, she joined the original cast of the rock musical Salvation, playing alongside Barry Bostwick (whose big break was of course as Brad in the Rocky Horror Picture Show).

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In 1970, Bette made a pivotal career move as she joined a long list of first class entertainers and began performing at the Continental Baths, a gay bathhouse at the Ansonia Hotel. She not only became close to her pianist there, one Barry Manilow, but she earned one of her nicknames, Bathhouse Betty, and perfected another, the Divine Miss M. The latter nickname would be the title of her debut album in 1972 (produced by Barry) and the former would be the title of an album released in 1998, long after the Continental Baths would close its doors. The Divine Miss M would go Platinum and earn Bette a 1973 Grammy Award for Best New Artist. Not bad for her first time out. Her second album, Bette Midler, would also be produced by Barry and would also reach the Billboard Top 10. The remainder of the Seventies would see two more albums, a three year stint as the voice of a wooden spoon on PBS's Vegetable Soup and an Emmy winning television special, Ol' Red Hair is Back. Bette ended the decade with a disco album that flopped and her first starring role on the big screen in The Rose, which didn't. She nabbed an Oscar nomination and a Golden Globe win for that. Her single version of the film's title song went Gold and won her another Grammy for Best Pop Vocal Performance.

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For the beginning of the Eighties, Bette released a concert film, Divine Madness, that was relatively successful and a comedy, Jinxed!, which was not and caused her to concentrate on the singing side of her career for several years. She released two more albums and performed for the famous "We Are the World" recording and for Live Aid, both of which benefited famine victims in Africa.

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In 1985, Bette joined the Disney family when she signed a multi-picture deal with Touchstone Pictures. Starting with Down and Out in Beverly Hills, with Nick Nolte and Richard Dreyfuss, she began a string of successful comedic turns. She followed this with Ruthless People, Outrageous Fortune (earning a Golden Globe nomination) and Big Business. Bette was cast in 1988's Oliver and Company as the voice of the spoiled pooch, Georgette. One of her biggest hits (in spite of generally negative reviews) came that same year in a decidedly more dramatic role: C.C. Bloom in Beaches. The soundtrack for Beaches became Bette's biggest selling record, featured her biggest selling single, Wind Beneath My Wings, and won her a third Grammy Award for Album of the Year. She then appeared in Touchstone's Stella and Scenes From a Mall with Woody Allen. In 1993, Bette starred with Sarah Jessica Parker and Kathy Najimy in the now-cult classic, Hocus Pocus. She was also part of the original Back Lot Tours at the Disney-MGM Studios. A short film staring Bette, titled The Lottery, was used to demonstrate and explain everything that goes into making a movie, with set pieces and props available for viewing. It's also has the distinction of being the first film to be entirely shot at the park.

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Since her days under the Disney umbrella, Bette has continued to appear in movies as varied as What Women Want and the remake of The Stepford Wives. She's released several more albums including tributes to Rosemary Clooney and Peggy Lee. In February of 2008, she opened in her own Vegas show at Caesar's Palace that ran for nearly two years. In 2012, the Songwriter's Hall of Fame awarded her the Sammy Cahn Lifetime Achievement award. Bette returned to Broadway after an absence of over 30 years for 2013's I'll Eat You Last. The show was such a success, it moved to Los Angles for another run after the Broadway version closed. Starting in March of 2017, she continued on Broadway, reviving the role of Dolly Levi in Hello Dolly, snagging a Tony Award in the process.

After 25 albums, 20 concert tours, three Grammy Awards, four Golden Globes, three Emmy Awards, two Tony Awards and a fair number of controversies along the way, the Divine Miss M shows no signs of slowing down. Will she ever be in a sequel to Hocus Pocus? Will she find the energy for another go at Broadway? Will she release a tribute album to... herself? Only time will tell.