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Dispatch Ajax! Podcast
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Dispatch Ajax! Podcast
TaleSpin Part 2
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What happens when Disney takes characters from The Jungle Book and drops them into a quasi-1930s world with air pirates, corporate tycoons, and surprisingly adult themes? Welcome to part 2 of the strange, fascinating universe of TaleSpin, a show that broke the mold for children's animation.
Introduction to TaleSpin's Fandom
Speaker 1I paid for a fluffer, I'm getting a fluffer. Gentlemen, let's broaden our minds.
Speaker 2Are they in the proper approach pattern for today? Negative.
Speaker 1All weapons Now Charge the lightning field the online fandom for this show.
Speaker 2It's right up there with highlander when we were scrolling.
Speaker 1Yeah, it's some hardcore stuff, really hardcore, and a lot of it and people are like devoted to this show. I don't think I could ever really grasp what they love. I mean, I guess I get conceptually some of the things that they love. It didn't quite work for me. It's a fine show, it's fine. It's fine.
Speaker 2It's definitely ambitious. One of the few unifying things that I stumbled across while going through a lot of these fan sites. A lot of them, them, they like to pontificate like they're fucking writing an academic paper, like they're gonna get their fucking phd because of this, but almost all of them are like well, the show was way more complex, had more complex themes, had more adult situations than ducktales or darkwing duck or Rescue Rangers. All of them say that in one way or another. I kind of feel like that's why there is a fandom for it. I'm not going to write a dissertation on it, but I think that that's one of the reasons it stood out. For people like you and I was that it was more. That's why we're doing this. It's more odd, it's more complex than other cartoons of its ilk, its era or even by Disney. It's much more nuanced, which is a weird thing to say for a Disney cartoon in general.
Speaker 1Especially like being based off of a cartoon that was then based off of a classic literature of the you know 20th century.
Speaker 2Because it does raise those weird questions about hierarchy and about who we deem as having value and their place in not just society but in the overall sort of like ecosystem, you know. Yeah, so one of the things going through this that I think drew you and I both to this show was why, like, why jungle book? Why do this with the jungle book, right? Yeah, it is odd. The only thing I could really think of when I was going through stuff like that was this was a very specific era. Now, I think a lot of it is because the creators of this show did work on other shows of that era. Like they were involved heavily in darkwing, duck and duck tales and rescue rangers.
Speaker 2But this was a very interesting period in disney's history where they were making huge theatrical hits. Currently, I mean, this is kind of peak for them financially and box office wise. I mean we're just like a couple years away from little mermaid or no, just off of little mermaid, right around lion, right. So like this is a big period and they hadn't really done a lot of those Disney live action Disney Channel shows yet and I feel like this is in some way kind of like the original pitch for the show in that they take these characters that are considered B or C list in the Disney Pantheon as far as the Mickey Mouse thing goes, not necessarily in the Disney princesses or whatever and putting them, making them more relevant or making people remember they exist, just cashing in on IP and putting them in a different setting. Rescue Rangers is Chip and Dale from old cartoons in a different setting. Goof Troop goofy in a different setting. This show DuckTales, darkwing Duck, even though Darkwing Duck is mostly original characters.
Speaker 1It is, but you're kind of basing it off of that duck world, the duck universe, as it were.
Speaker 2Yeah, I mean Darkwing Duck is just a direct spinoff of DuckTales, ducktales alone, which is kind of the anchor, I think, of all these shows. It's not about Donald, it's about Huey, louie and Dewey and Scrooge. Donald is in a couple episodes and he's kind of a bad dad really if you really want to crack that nut. But we can get into that at a different time. But these are like the main big ones. This isn't minnie and mickey or donald. This is scrooge and chip and dale. Instead of tiny tunes you had, well, I mean, tiny kids is its own thing, but instead of like having a bugs bunny show, this is about pebula pew. You know, it's that kind of level which wonder brothers did too with tasmania, actually in that era, I mean really it's.
Speaker 2It's taking characters from a cartoon from 25 years before right that hadn't really been in anything, transposing them into this completely different story in different world and if it weren't for the disney channel showing because they used to show constantly old, actual disney cartoons from the 30s, 40s and 50s if it weren't for that, the the generation that was watching these cartoons at the time wouldn't have any idea who these characters were. So it's kind of like reintroducing and reinventing them for a new audience, but still appealing to the nostalgia of the ones that grew up on it. I think that's kind of the goal, right?
Speaker 1I mean, it seems like that was the vision, yeah, I think there's a little snake eating its own tail and keeping it live, keeping it fresh, but yet keeping it in house yeah, in the mouse house I would have to imagine.
Speaker 2I mean, obviously we weren't there and there's not a lot of documentation on it per se but I would imagine that this whole era of doing that very specific thing was to highlight ancillary characters, to keep them relevant and sort of grow the brand, both nostalgically and for a new audience. It's really the only reason I can think that any of this happened.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2I can get that. We had DuckTales, not the Adventures of Donald.
Speaker 1Yeah, as opposed to like what Looney Tunes is doing at this time, doing kid versions of those characters.
Speaker 2Yes, they were going DC and went Legacy. Yeah, doing kid versions of those characters. Yes, they were going DC and went Legacy, mm-hmm yeah. Instead of using older characters, warner Brothers newer versions.
Speaker 1Yeah, ultimate Universe rebranding.
Speaker 2It was Looney Tunes to the next generation.
Speaker 1Yeah, it really is.
Speaker 2They all had analogs, even for their other characters, and some of them were mashups and some of them were interesting. But I mean, we can talk about Tiny Toons a different time, but I imagine that that's what Disney was doing here, because otherwise you would have had shows with their main guys, not these other side characters. It's an approach, and you know what. We all remember them, so I guess it worked.
Speaker 1The Goofy movie was a big success, based on Goof Troop. Yeah, maybe I should watch the Goof movie.
Speaker 2I've never seen it. You know what? It's one of those things where you'd be surprised.
Speaker 1I mean, I have a really good friend. She loves the Goofy movie.
Speaker 2I actually did watch Goof Troop when it was on. I liked that show when I was a kid. I was a little, you know. You and I were both kind of a little older, so it was like we were like almost teenagers around teenagers at that point almost Right kind of drifting away from the kiddie program.
Speaker 1I think this was kind of an overarching vision, even if loose you know, yeah, but also blazing a trail in some ways, of taking characters completely out of context and doing something with those same characters in a whole new way.
Speaker 2Kind of ahead of its time. Not a bad idea. And it did refresh these characters, like I guarantee you talk to people now, especially people younger than us. They will remember Chip and Dale from Rescue Rangers, not from their old cartoons, oh, yeah, 100%. And DuckTales was so nostalgic that they rebooted it with david tennant, which is awesome on its own. It was tenant scrooge, is that right? Yeah, yeah, he's scrooge. We were more in the voltron, thundercats, gi joe era, but for kids just a little bit old or younger than us, ducktales and we were there for ducktales too, but that was their big anchor. It was these shows. And hey, it worked because we all remember. That's why we're talking about it today.
Speaker 1Yeah, it's fascinating. Let's get to a couple of the episodes that we did partake in to kind of get a flavor of this. So I think we both watched at least a bit of the couple episodes of the four part pilot, which is crazy to say that nowadays episodes of the four-part pilot, which is a crazy.
Speaker 2To to say that nowadays, it's really bizarre.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, but if they're only 20 minutes long each, it's like okay, well, still, I mean, if you want to get introduced to the series, well, strap in kid. These are four interconnected episodes yeah it was essentially a movie that they broke up into four pilots when they put in syndication or four episodes but first we're going to talk about is From here to Machinery.
Speaker 2Yes, that was my pick.
Speaker 1Yeah, at least if you were to go to, say, disney Plus and watch these. It's one of the first episodes after the pilot series that comes up. This episode is about a scientist named Professor Martin Tork who has come to rent the Sea Duck to test out his robot pilots called auto aviators. He's designed these full-scale anthropomorphic robots that will serve as pilots that will then revolutionize the air traffic industry, replacing all pilots because they are, I guess, faster, stronger, don't need to eat, sleep, take breaks. Your general corporate overlord replaced the working man with a better version idea, and so they he rents it. It's odd because at the beginning of the episode his first argument is kind of the main argument of the episode. That just gets lost for the second half. I'm a pilot, you know, and I think on the fly, you know, and I can adapt to any situation. This robot can't do it. It doesn't really have any comeback. The professor does. He's like well, these are better than I think.
Speaker 2they say human pilots again, ooh we should go back and look at that.
Speaker 1I'm 90% sure that they say human pilots in this. Wow, that's weird, why I mean?
Speaker 2I get why you're saying it, but but no, there are no humans, there are literally no humans.
Speaker 1I mean if you say you know this is better than a bear pilot or panther pilot, or, you know, skunk pilot or whatever, More racial implications.
Speaker 2They do say human, which is odd. That is really interesting, especially since they are androids essentially. I mean they are in the form of human beings, not animals.
Speaker 1Yeah, why didn't I mean? Obviously, again, you understand that they're just trying to take the easy draw robot. That's what we're going to put in, but in a world where it's all animals, why?
Speaker 2would you make a human?
Speaker 1robot.
Speaker 2Yeah, wouldn't one look like a warthog or like, or they would all look like, whatever species the creator is why not turn into like an octopus?
Speaker 2Right, sure, would that make more sense? It would. Why do they look like android? And I know, yeah, you're right, it's because it's cheap and they just wanted people to go oh, it's a robot, but it wouldn't take that much Extra thought to just be like oh, they look like these things they're replacing. It would have been so easy to just go like Well, this one looks like Baloo and he's replacing Baloo. You know what I mean. Well, this one looks like Baloo and he's replacing Baloo.
Speaker 2You know what I mean. It's almost like going out of your way to not make that commentary by making them humanoid. It's even beyond lazy at that point. Did you do it on purpose or was this just like not ever brought up? It's really weird.
Speaker 1Yeah, it is weird when you take a second and think about it. Let's not put the 10 seconds of effort and thought into it. Let's just go with the easy, simple thing.
Speaker 2Which sounds like more effort than just thinking about it. You know like having that argument internally, or even like with your writers or whatever seems like it'd be, that's more effort than just being like well, here's the pilot, it looks like blue because he's releasing blue. You know like it just seems like so much easier than that yeah, it's what they went with.
Speaker 1We will never know the answer to these questions, and so the professor is like oh, I have an idea. All right, let's publicize a race, you know, let's see who is the better pilot. Is it blue, the ace pilot of all the human pilots?
Speaker 2around quote, unquote Human, human.
Speaker 1Or is it the auto aviator, this robot? They do this run from Cape Suzette, where they're based, to the North Pole, or something.
Speaker 2Or something.
Speaker 1Or something, and then back. So it's supposed to be like I don't like 24 hour flight or something of the sort A long flight that the robot travels slower and in a straight line as Baloo is weaving in and out, but faster and gets to the package that they have to pick up, but on the way back he is falling asleep. This is a long bite. He didn't have enough sleep beforehand.
Speaker 2And it's an endurance race, basically yeah it's an endurance race.
From Here to Machinery Episode Analysis
Speaker 1So he falls asleep, winds up crashing into the water and stuck there for a bit having to refuel while the robot travels without having needing sleep and wins the race. Upon doing so, shere Khan sees this makes a big thing to buy a thousand of his robots, and it essentially replaces all the air pilot workforce with robots. He pledges to buy a thousand. He pledges to buy. So then they are on a flight with the robot. Baloo has quit now. Well, I mean, he's out of a job.
Speaker 2Yeah, yes, yes, he's out of the game now, which is kind of important, along with all the other pilots so all the other pilots at Louie's, all the other Panther pilots that were part of Shere Khan's flight crews.
Speaker 1They're all fired, they're all laid off. It's just robots who are going into mass production to then take over all of those duties going into mass production to then take over all of those duties. Now, I believe, on the first run, the first main job, shurkan, is along for the ride, along with Professor Tork. They're having some drinks, celebrating and, of course, pirates, led by Don Carnage, attack the plane, trying to take it over. Professor is trying to tell them like hey, robot, you need to think on your feet. You know, go outside your pre-programmed parameters to avoid these pirates. And he's like no, I cannot do that. The fastest way is a straight line. That's what I'm programmed to do, that's what I will do.
Speaker 2He cannot deviate from the flight plan.
Speaker 1His OCP hard-coded.
Speaker 2His prime directive?
Speaker 1Yeah, his prime directive is must fly straight and fly right. So do they get boarded? I'm trying to remember now.
Speaker 2So essentially what happens is they get attacked by the pirates and they're like take evasive action. And there's like we will not deviate from the flight plan. And then they cut away to the professor, inventor guy is like god, what are we going to do now? I'm out of ideas. And so shere khan sort of takes over and is like well, you're an idiot, let me fix this for you. And then gets on the radio and sends out a general distress. Call that baloo and rebecca and kit here, that's right. Baloo's like no, I'm, I'm out of the game, let them figure it out on their own. And then they have pangs of conscience and we're like well, let's go rescue them. You know I do like that.
Speaker 1He has this line of like. Why do you guys even hang out with a loser like me when he's talking to oh yeah, wildcat, it's like that's like some existential dread that your main character is displaying here, yeah, especially since, due to the nature of his job, it's not fleeting, but it's fragile.
Speaker 2It was always on the verge of bankruptcy, sometimes borderline on smuggling illegally, and so like his position, while he was proud of it and relatively successful because he's been able to do it not not because it was all that lucrative Now that it's being challenged head on, his entire world is now undercut and he's lost. He has no purpose or direction. I mean, he's essentially like a Detroit autoworker in the 80s. Yeah, robots took his job and now he's listless. The rug has been pulled out from underneath him and he doesn't know what to do and he's bitter.
Speaker 1Oh yeah, and right before this happens, it's time to shutter the business and Rebecca is selling the sea duck to someone else. It's over. Their lives are done. They're all going to split up, go their separate ways. This is the beginning of the show.
Speaker 2Well, and she's like I really wish I hadn't loaned him that plane. They all go into this for different reasons, these modes of regret and self-reflection, which is weird for a 20-minute cartoon.
Speaker 1Yeah, he gets one last spin with the sea duck before the buyer is going to get the keys to it, and that's when they hear about the Tork and Shere Khan's flight having issues. Don Carnage, they get on the plane, which, now that I'm saying that I don't remember how they get on the plane, because, logically, how does that happen? How are they still flying, but yet- that's what I was saying earlier.
Speaker 2Plane piracy makes no sense. Yeah, how do you do that? That's such a big effort that they do make a point of early on and then later on just kind of hand wave. It doesn't really make a lot of sense.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2Huh Baloo and the crew get on the plane.
Speaker 1Yeah, they get on the plane that's being hijacked.
Speaker 2Not Don Carnage, you're right.
Speaker 1I don't exactly remember how they board the plane, because if they board the plane, then nobody's flying the plane, because it was just Kit and Baloo Rebecca.
Speaker 2No, rebecca isn't on the plane, that's right. Yeah, they stay on the ground or whatever. So is it Kit flying the plane?
Speaker 1No, because, Kit comes over with Baloo onto the plane that's being boarded.
Speaker 2I remember Baloo being on the plane. I don't remember Kit in there, but it's very possible. I just don't remember. You know what.
Speaker 1Maybe Kit's flying it, I don't know who knows, maybe they have a wire hooked to it.
Speaker 2That's what I was thinking. Maybe it's being towed essentially, but I mean, that's not even really the point. Baloo comes on board and then shakes up like a. I think it's supposed to be a soda, but it's basically it's a beer. It seems like a beer.
Speaker 1I think it's supposed to be a soda, but it's in a glass bottle. It's an orange liquid of some sort, because anytime you try to like touch the robot, it will electrocute you to keep you from interfering with its duties. So Baloo shakes it up, sprays it all over it.
Speaker 2Obviously, a robot flying a plane over water would never encounter water in its life cycle, so you shouldn't try to plan for that, and especially since it's not even a danger of the thing shorting out. It explodes, yeah, it blows right up, which should kill everyone in that plane. There's metal shrapnel flying through the air inside this cabin and also explosions and pressurized things not good.
Speaker 1Well, I don't know how pressurized these planes are.
Speaker 2Yeah, it's not, because he opened the door and got in. Yeah, they're flying low too.
Speaker 1But essentially he gets in, he takes over, he uses his ace pilot skills to evade the pirates.
Speaker 2He does the Kessel Run.
Speaker 1Yeah, he made in less than 12 parsecs. He wins the day. Shere Khan's like. I've reconsidered. He ends up hiring all the pilots back. I will not be endorsing your park Exactly Ends up hiring all the pilots back. I will not be endorsing your park Exactly. And then you see, tork is now trying to sell these robots he has, who have now been turned into maid bots Lombrosi yeah. In Antarctica or wherever.
Speaker 2Which is just a weird bit.
Speaker 1It's a weird bit that doesn't fit at all. They didn't know how to end the episode essentially no, and you know they go back to Louise and Baloo's back. On top of being the best pilot around, Everyone's happy that he has saved all of their jobs.
Speaker 2And technology will never threaten them ever again. I know, I am aware, I'm perfectly aware, that this is the lens through which I see things, but this is an episode of Star Trek.
Speaker 1Although the odd thing is that I think in Star Trek and a lot of other science fiction stories the problem wouldn't be that the robot lacks a human component you might say an ability to think on its feet and use its imagination, but it would be some type of advancement towards violence and taking over.
Speaker 2You turn the evil robot vibe, but you don't get any of that in this show yeah, normally in a lot of sci-fi it would be that it lacks empathy and that's the, that's the crux of the thing. But in the original series episode, the ultimate computer, you know, they called kirk captain dunsel because he's no longer required, he, he's no longer necessary. But the computer lacks the ability to think on its feet and make gut decisions, which is essentially this episode. I mean, it's the same exact premise, right, yeah, with a little splash of John Henry in it. Yeah, except without the tragedy.
Speaker 1So Well, I mean, I bet, if we got into the backstory of some of those pilots who like well, I'm sorry, I don't have anything left. I've lost my plane, I've lost my job, I've lost my avenue of freedom for my life that I've designed over my 30 dog years. I'm just going to hang myself.
Speaker 2Yeah, Are you proposing that some of these pilots killed themselves in the interim? I mean probably.
Speaker 1Or lost their house or whatever position they had. Couldn't make their child welfare payments. You know, had divorces.
Speaker 2But this happens over the course of like 12 hours.
Speaker 1Well, it's a fast moving world, isn't it?
Speaker 2Sure, this workaday world of ours, it happens in a New York minute If we're just going by.
Speaker 1like what happened with them? They were closing a business selling the plane, had already sold the plane, that is true. The guy was coming up to take his keys for the plane. So I mean, if we're to that point, I think these other things could have happened and probably did happen.
Speaker 2A couple of these children's cartoon characters probably hanged themselves. Yeah, they did, or OD'd on pills or drank themselves to death.
Speaker 1Some of these pilots are now drug addicts, forced into prostitution. The Louie's glory hole that he has.
Speaker 2I imagine you hang upside down from something. I'd check that out. There's a bunch of snakes and there's a boa in there. A couple of them got some serious opioid addictions, yeah a boa in there.
Speaker 1A couple of them got some serious opioid addictions. Yeah, I'm thinking of like Louis, like when he's not there he turns into the Gary Oldman character from True Romance.
Speaker 2Yeah, I see a lot of them slapping around their wives or girlfriends. Yeah, I'm not a man anymore.
Speaker 1And then, well, honey, you were never a man, you're a panther anymore. And then, well, honey, you were never a man, you're a panther. Honey. What is man?
Speaker 2okay, look, this is a problem with the show. If you're gonna do jungle book, which is fine, where the fuck is mogli? Where are the humans?
Speaker 1no, how about that? How about just no?
Speaker 2that's one of the things that always fascinated me about it was that in jungle book, the dis Disney version at least well, in both, but in the Disney version especially, the life in the jungle was rudimentary. It was Bare necessities, just the bare fucking necessities. There's no like advancement. It's a simple life, but a primitive one, but a primitive one. And the human society proves to be more advanced and yet sadder and less simple, which is the obvious commentary. But this one, that quote unquote primitive world has advanced to the level of people, which is interesting on its surface. But where do you go from there? What does that say? But are there people? Is there remotely?
Speaker 1No, I distinctly don't think they're. I think they're literally just transplanting those characters.
Speaker 2I think maybe this is like an alternate universe of the jungle book yeah, because otherwise, just looking at it on paper, you're like, okay, this is an interesting idea and and then there's no follow-up. It is an interesting idea to comment on. You know, wiping away that obviously racist metaphor that they use in jungle book for the primitives and putting them on the level of man, but then never addressing man is bizarre. It's probably the only actual failing of the premise of the show I just don't think they're going that deep into it, honestly.
Speaker 2I know, but that's one of the reasons this show always stuck out, because it raises these questions that you think about. It makes you ponder these ideas, especially if you take Jungle Book as a literary work but then they don't fulfill its premise. It's like a half a premise, it's a concept of an idea, really. Yeah, I'm glad you coined that, because we're going to use that a lot. I didn't coin that. Trump coined that. He meme coined it.
Speaker 1And he short sold it for $50,000. He pumped and dumped it. We also covered another episode. Now this one we had to search for because this one isn't on Disney+. This is one of the two, I think, banned episodes.
Speaker 2Mm-hmm. This one was disappeared by Disney, though you can find it quite easily nowadays online.
Last Horizons: The Banned Episode
Speaker 1Yeah, you can buy it on YouTube or Amazon, but it's not readily available. This is Last Horizons Boy, oh boy. This is Last Horizons Boy, oh boy. The other banned episode is an episode called Flying Dupes, which is about militaristic warthogs using bombs and terrorism In planes.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah, I could see why that one was a little iffy. I think this one was obviously. This one was disbanded from syndication later. This is after 9-11, really essentially that they do this. I see why, though it really is just last gasps of Cold War stuff, more than it is about actual what we consider modern terrorism. Oh, the Flying Dupes one, yeah, okay, not like Last Horizons which 100%. I'm glad they banned this episode.
Speaker 1It is so fucking racist. Yeah, so Flying Dupes was pulled from the lineup after airing in 1992. The episode was re-aired on Toon Disney once, possibly by mistake, but it's never been rebroadcast since. Yeah, for Last Horizons. It was temporarily banned and then it did occasionally appear on Toon Disney and last re-aired in December 2002 and was on the DVD set, but it is not available on Disney Plus.
Speaker 2I'm shocked that it was available that late.
Speaker 1Yeah, from what I had read earlier, it was kind of like, oh, I don't know where they pulled it, and then they let it out a few times and then pulled it back to just never let it out again, which is where we're at now. So this episode I'll do a quick breakdown real quick, few times and then pulled it back to just never let it out again, which is where we're at now. So this episode I'll do a quick breakdown real quick. Cape Suzette is hosting a parade for the famed explorer Monty Mangrove, and Baloo feels slighted about this that he's a nobody and he wants to be a somebody and to be a somebody. He wants to be respected for being and lauded for being an explorer as well.
Speaker 2He says that he has seen the fabled hidden city of pandala which is obviously a stand-in for the fabled city of shangri-la, which is by not city but like kingdom. I guess magic island, magic kingdom. It's a real place in real life. They did quote discover the actual shangri-la. It is real. I watched a documentary on it. They found it in like the mid-2000s and what why is it the shangri-la?
Speaker 2I think it all comes from marco polo. If I remember right, it was an old legend about this city that was city-state, that was hidden away from the rest of mainland China, in these mountainous regions that was outside of contact, that were just living there autonomously for centuries and were essentially still in an agrarian state of existence since basically the time of Marco Polo. But that's also what they do in Iron Fist Kunlun. Every culture's got one of these Atlantis, el Dorado, these fantasy places that don't really exist.
Speaker 1Hey, aren't those both Disney?
Speaker 2cartoons. Actually, I think El Dorado was a DreamWorks one, wasn't it? In fact, I think both of those were DreamWorks. If not DreamWorks one of the other companies, it wasn't Don Bluth, but I mean, I think it was the goddamn Robert Mitchum.
Speaker 1John Wayne movie keeps popping up. I'm trying to yeah DreamWorks.
Speaker 2Yeah, because they were taking the ones that Disney didn't take. Most bizarrely, anastasia, why would you make a cartoon about a tragic murder of a princess? But she didn't get murdered. They found her body recently. Well, recently.
Speaker 1But you know, hey, it's like the Shangri-La of Russian little girls killed.
Speaker 2But even then her entire family was murdered.
Speaker 1Well, yeah, they kind of gloss over that pretty quick in the beginning, they sure do, and Rasputin was a son of a bitch and a pussy hound. Yeah, but what if he was a craggly old wizard with a funny bat sidekick?
Speaker 2huh, that's a good point. I mean it worked in Fern Gully, why not in Anastasia?
Speaker 1You know what? That's how I pitch all my movies. If it worked in Fern Gully, it's good enough for me this is how we pitch everything.
Speaker 2Hey, christopher Lloyd, funny bat. Where do I sign?
Speaker 1What does this have to do with tall blue people, though?
Speaker 2Well, you see, they come to the Americas and they stumble across a beautiful young woman named Pocahontas and Kevin Costner is there Great Dances with Pocahontas.
Speaker 1And the gully of avatars.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1All right. So they're celebrating Monty Mangrove and Baloo's like I know this places, I've been there, I'm going to go again. They're like no, baloo, don't go, it's dangerous. No one's ever been there. And he's like well, I know where it's at, sparked the question why haven't you gone there over the years if you know where this fabled city's at? And so he sets out and he gets there right away. It doesn't seem to be that difficult. I think he goes through like uh, is there kind of like a whirlwind, almost like a around kong island, around skull island? Like it's dangerous weather that he has to make his way through, but he's such a great pilot that he gets through and it's a lightning storm in space. Yeah, one of the space holes it's an ion storm, yeah uh, but he gets there.
Speaker 1He's stuck, though, but thankfully these panda people from Panda Law are there and they show up and go to help them. Now, these panda people, oh boy, oh boy, yeah Uh, so they look distinctly racially Asian.
Speaker 2The main guy literally has a Fu Manchu mustache Literal Fu Manchu and he's already covered in fur, yeah. And then added on top of that a Fu Manchu mustache, yeah.
Speaker 1Not good, not good. But they bring Blue in to the city, show him around and Baloo's really excited to be there and they're really nice to him, they feed him and they give him Pandala clothes.
Speaker 2Yeah, they do. The whole Temple of Doom, Every other race is like wow, this is some zany, wacky food.
Speaker 1Yeah, but they do gloss over pretty quickly. Yeah, they do. Yeah, but they do gloss over pretty quickly. Yeah, they do, as they do gloss over, like the emperor has a little daughter who has a toy that is attracted to heat. It's like a heat seeking remote control vehicle.
Speaker 2Well, this is such an odd setup too, because then they never they set it up. So you understand what happens later.
Speaker 1No explanation, as to why or how this happens. No, um, uh that we'll get to another big plot point like that in just a second. Um, he has a couple sons and they're like bumbling one's one's smart but small and the other one's big and strong but dumb. Big and dumb it's like the ideas of characters, but they didn't actually do anything with um.
Speaker 2Yeah, they're filling the blanks characters, but they never filled it in.
Speaker 1I'm also like this would have made more sense if it was like a two part episode that ends when Baloo gets back. The first episode, I think, would be like introducing Pandala and some of these characters and then, when Baloo returns and the Pandala people show up, that would be the end of the first episode. The second part would pick up with what they do. You'd have more of those characters that we met, like the little girl might have something to do, maybe dealing with the Becky's little daughter, maybe.
Speaker 1Kit might have something to do with the sons.
Speaker 2Anything, but they're just not there. After that, there's like no reason to even introduce them, except for as barely a plot device to introduce the heat seeking toy yeah, it's. Well, it'd be better too, because this episode, the whole thing, is set up like well, this is a fantasy paradise and we're all really nice people, we promise, and here's how we live in harmony or whatever, and then there's obviously the turn where they become evil. So it'd be better if that was the second episode. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1If you leave a cliffhanger, like on all these warships coming, because what happens is so they help them out. They're really nice, they're. You know, baloo's like oh man, you guys are the best. Well, you know, baloo's like oh man, you guys are the best. Well, you know, I love this. And they're like but my ship, it's stuck. And they're like well, we can help you. And then they use their air balloons to help get Baloo's plane up and into the air so that he can get in and fly away. And he's like well, thanks all. I'm just going to leave. Glad to meet you. It's a Baloo balloon, exactly. And the Emperor's like, twirling his mustache and twiddling his fingers, you know, like yes, yes, we'll see you soon.
Speaker 1He's literally a hand-wringing villain, yeah he is they, then I guess they needed a way out. So they need to follow Baloo's path to find Cape Suzette. So they need to follow Baloo's path to find Cape Suzette Because once he takes off, he sends out the order and balloons pop up from all of their pagodas and structures and lift up all of their houses and whatnot, to then be floating air fortresses. They follow Baloo to Cape Suzette. He gets there and he's like hey, you know, I did it, I found Pandala. I deserve a parade too. You might as well get it going. And then all the Pandala people come, and I guess they have microphone technology, because then they'd start loud speaking we are going to destroy you, give up. And they start shooting missiles and things.
Speaker 2Yeah, and if I remember right, don't they misuse the word pagoda in this too, because in the moment where, like, uh, what's her name? Molly, yeah, molly's like we can use this pagoda to get to the thing, and they're like are you talking about that missile?
Speaker 1yeah, I don't, I don't, I don't remember, but probably it's really weird. Yeah, they're playing fast and loose with a lot of things here. Yeah, no shit. So the mayor who's like oh Baloo, you led them to us. This isn't good at all. I'm going to send out the Air Force because no one's going to take over Cape Zeta on my watch. And they have these fighter pilots go up the Pandalons. I don't know what you'd call them.
Speaker 2Pandalettes, I don't know.
Speaker 1Pandalabras. The Pandalabras love it. They then unleash their secret weapon, which are heat-seeking missiles that take down almost all of the planes. And so then the mayor's like oh well, shit, there's nothing we can do about this, let's give up. Don't destroy the city, you can have it, we're all over in our bellies, it's all yours. But Baloo's like nah, I have to make up for what I did, for bringing them here, because they followed me. I've got an idea. And he gets a bunch of frozen cargo and fills his plane with it so that the heat-seeking missiles won't be able to find him, which is actually clever.
Speaker 2Doesn't make any sense. It's a Schwarzenegger, doesn't predator, kind of yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1And then he starts flying around and dropping, I guess, homemade bombs.
Speaker 2Ordinance of some kind?
Speaker 1I don't know where he got these, but he just has them and he's dropping them on their ships and then flying around using their own heat-seeking technology against them and he wins the day. But does he travel onto one of their ships or is he all on his plane the whole time?
Speaker 2I thought he was on his plane but honestly, I don't remember the end of this.
Speaker 1I don't remember the end of it either.
Speaker 2That's so sad is that we watched it yesterday and I'm like, uh, what happened? I can always pull it up. He's got the frozen stuff, dumps all this stuff on them. It's like ice cream.
Speaker 2Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, he had a bunch of ice cream that he dumps on the leader put my screen falls on the dude and then drops a cherry at the end, which is okay, whatever, shut up, uh. And then he's flying through inside their building, he's going to the armory that's right. And then he literally pulls Death Star and because the heat-seeking missiles were chasing him and he flew out the other side, the missiles blew up their fortress, killing so many pandas, killing all these endangered pandas. Another racist element we'd like to throw in here they treat the missiles as fireworks. Yes, they're essentially fireworks. They even make fireworks sounds.
Speaker 1When he first comes to Pandala he sees a little one. He's like oh, fireworks.
Speaker 2Yeah, that's not good. That's what happens is that he flies through their thing, causing the missile fireworks to chase him, and then subsequently, when they start going off, then the heat attracts all the other firework missiles and then the whole thing explodes and then he flies out. They think he's dead for like half a second and then he flies out and then they throw him.
Speaker 1But what happened to the rest of the airships? Did they flee? Did they retreat?
Speaker 2Well, they were balloons, so their baskets all. Just so, all the balloons popped.
Speaker 1And then they fell into the water. Oh, okay, they didn't actually show that, though. No, they do.
Speaker 2Oh, they all popped and they all fell. Yeah, they show the one with some of the main characters falling into the water. It shows the sequence where the balloon pops it falls into the water and then they're just adrift. And then they don't show the other baskets falling, but they show the other balloons popping. So you're too inferred that that happened to all of them so it's just a bunch of dead pandas and yeah bunch of dead pandas and law is no more completely genocided.
Speaker 1This well, don't, don't fuck with cape suzette, I guess. Yeah, yeah, no matter how angry you get and you hop up and down as your little Chinese panda guy, you can't beat the barrel chested strength of the western bear.
Speaker 2And then I just imagine that each of those baskets of afloat pandas started to starve and ate each other on the open sea and then we're hungry an hour later According to the racist logic of this.
Speaker 1To continue the racist logic of this episode, but you can't get them to fuck and propagate their species.
Speaker 2No, not at all.
Speaker 1One major question I have with this is that this is a warlike Chinese inspired racist group of pandas One. They are cut off from the outside world. So who are they warlike with? Right?
Problematic Representation of Pandala
Speaker 2So this is really fascinating, because it's not. It would be really easy for us to just go oh this is a bunch of racial stereotypes which it is, but it's actually way more insidious than that. It's basically every type of Orientalism possible, where they're cut off and pseudo-primitive, but also kind of mystical and enlightened, and then also warlike and invading your homeland, but with no real motivation or backstory as to why they would or how they would. Well, I mean, they show the how, but I mean, like it's basically every Orientalist stereotype all at once they're coming there to take your land and your jobs, or whatever.
Speaker 1No, it's just panda yellow peril.
Speaker 2Yeah, and so they're both enlightened but primitive at the same time.
Speaker 1Yeah and so they're both enlightened but primitive at the same time. Yeah, they are militaristic warlords, but they're cut off from the rest of the world. But once they get a chance to find you and your western white city, they will destroy it and subjugate it for their own purposes. Yeah, cool.
Speaker 2Great. It's so weird because it's Cape Suzette and we never addressed it. But the joke is it's a play on the French dish Crepe Suzette. Cape Suzette is like Potter's Mill or just some fucking place up in like Maine. I always kind of got you think it's like the West Coast.
Speaker 1Well, no, I think it's its own place. It gave me more of like a Melbourne kind of vibe, you know like a port city and like a Pacific, but it's distinctly American.
Speaker 2They have I don't, I don't know, in the pilot. They kind of make it feel like it's like fucking Americans living in like Jakarta.
Speaker 1Yeah, I always thought that this was kind of like or like Singapore, these are all expats, kind of was my vibe.
Speaker 2Yeah, at the beginning, like in the From here to Machinery, machinery, that just seems like they're in mainland America. They're just like a small port town in like New England, because, like this is another American businessman doing his thing and Sherehan is an american oligarch. Essentially, because you would think if it was in another land, a lot of these other villainous characters would be more colorful, ethnic, ethnic yeah with don carnage. It's kind of a comment, I guess, on like old spanish imperialism. I kind of got like a Spanish imperialist Philippines vibe there.
Speaker 1Yeah, I don't, I don't know. He just seemed bits of all over Europe really, but and also not in modern times.
Speaker 2No, not at all. He brandishes a cutlass, for Christ's sake. He's pirate through and through. But, like you know, in a weird time that's kind of set between World War I and II.
Speaker 1Maybe he came out of a time warp, which is why he doesn't fit.
Speaker 2That'd be an answer. At least we don't get that. Yeah yeah, we are putting too much onto this, we are thinking about it too hard, but that's because the show inspires these kinds of ideas, like they're right on the verge of saying something it's adult enough to where I feel like I need to question it, as opposed to like duckberg, where it's like uh who?
Speaker 1cares right, this is whatever it's. You know it's, it's a kiddie stuff. They're doing kiddie adventures, whatever you're right.
Speaker 2I mean, like at the beginning, the pilot and things like that, it feels like a bunch of expats living in Thailand or something, yeah, so that's how I always thought of it. But it's called Cape Suzette it's a western, you know what I mean. Like it's obviously at least at some point been under imperial or colonial occupation. It's almost like Cape Town, yeah, maybe if anything, it's like South.
Speaker 2African. Yeah, maybe, if anything, it's like South African. Yeah, you know what? That's probably the only thing I could think of but it's been populated by Americans. I mean Because they go out of their way to show you that these are Americans, that you have the Spanish one and then you have, like, a French one, but they're not the main populace of the town.
Speaker 1And Louis, who seems to be more indigenous maybe.
Speaker 2Oh, he's just the black guy, I'm sorry.
Speaker 1Well, yeah, a lot of the stereotypes, a lot of the old I know it's tough to like talk about because, like we don't want to.
Speaker 2No, we don't, yeah, because it is bad. We're saying it's bad, it's minstrel show stuff. It's not supposed to be overtly racist, but it's sort of like passively racist in a way that we feel OK with.
Speaker 1Yeah, it's like a wink and a nudge. You know what we're talking about.
Speaker 2but I think it's even less than that. I feel like it's more like well, we're not racist anymore, see, because we got this guy this racist stereotype. Yeah, this guy, this racist stereotype, yeah I, he runs around in hawaiian shirts in a lay which has its own level of racism that we should. That's why I kind of got a like a philippines vibe too, because like the sort of mixed cultures of the philippines and hawaii, because, like it also gives you kind of a hawaiian vibe a little bit yeah, I mean it's, it's spraying in a lot of different parts of the field.
Speaker 1And again it's like so in the Tales of the Golden Monkey, roddy McDowell, who ends up being the character. He's a French expat who is very French, his little pencil, thin mustache and everything, but he runs this bar, you know, for expats and whoever in these Pacific Island setting.
Speaker 2First of all, it is an American-ish name for a city. And why would somebody like Rebecca Cunningham, a single mother trying to make her way in the workaday world, move to like Jakarta, like you know what I mean Just to take over this airline, or whatever they want you to? Okay, let's just say take over this airline, or whatever they want you to, I OK, let's just say they didn't think it through. Let's say that I think that's safe to say Totally, it's all over the place, but there's enough there. That's that's intriguing. That makes us even have these questions, it's true.
Speaker 1It's true, which I think it's a bizarre show. It is a bizarre show, it's true. It's true, which I think it's a bizarre show. It is a bizarre show and this was a bizarre episode of that show. Oh yeah, that obviously was taken out of the rotation for distinct reasons. As we had said before, this is kind of in a post-World War world in a way, but it's never like they talk about ex-fighter pilots and some type of conflict. The technology seems to be of that era, but they don't actually go out and say anything. The closest they actually get to talking about like a world war is actually in a comic story, a short comic story in Disney Afternoon or Disney Adventures magazine from 1991, in a story called the Dogs of War, and in this you have what appear to be Nazi-inspired dog creatures, houns, h-o-u-n from Hounsland, who are a warlike, militarized, very tight, nazi-inspired garb. I couldn't actually track this comic down. It seems to be hard to find. Surprise, surprise.
Speaker 2Oh, wow.
Analyzing TaleSpin's Setting and Context
Speaker 1But that was also never put into any type of compilation or anything. They kind of stayed away from that. But at least to give you a little more context of the world and another slightly racist, slightly something we don't want to speak about um version of this weird tailspin world. One other thing I wanted to say before we move on one of the episodes I hope you're gonna pick, because we each threw out an episode to watch and check out her chance to dream again. They do a lot of fun. That's a good pun. It was about um becky finding this suave sea captain that she kind of falls in love with, but he's a ghost oh, it's like that's, that's your right, exactly, exactly like that and even apparently like I was just reading through the episode she didn't want to leave.
Speaker 1She wants to abandon her family and stay with this ghost guy. Wow, it's exactly like that episode she just gets. She gets forced to go against the will and like send him on his way uh that's the episode.
Speaker 2I was hoping you're gonna pick, but I didn't want to influence your decision honestly the reason I because I did see that synopsis, just like a little bit of it. I didn't pay it much mind because I saw From here to Machinery and I was like, wow, this is really, I mean, poignant today with AI and all that kind of stuff, and it felt like exactly like, hilariously, a different Star Trek episode, I mean, that one sounds fascinating too. I'd love to have done that as well.
Speaker 1Yeah, a lot of these episodes seem fairly interesting really, which is one of the reasons that I think we came back to tailspin in the first place. Conceptually, you know, it's kind of a kid show with adult themes, dealing with an era that you don't really get stories from at all anymore yeah, um, yeah, except for in, like the casablanca era, or at least that, that sort of era of nostalgia for that.
Speaker 2Yeah, which?
Speaker 1again, that's a that's bygone era. Oh yeah, even talking about indiana jones, I mean really, like the times they were dealing with that the last time you saw that was like late 80s yeah, really, you just don't get stories about this time frame and it's so interesting that they're like all right, let's pitch a kid show that's about adult problems with anthropomorphic cartoons, with all of these problematic possible elements. Let's take it from the Jungle Book of all places, but only kind of, but only kind of. Let's also put in some Casablanca and some Cheers in there, this weird TV show that nobody watched from 1982. How about that, you think?
Speaker 2kids will like that. Yeah, that's exactly why we wanted to do it, because it has just so many weird, quirky things that we all remember as kids but also as adults, makes you go back and look and like, wow, it raises these questions and makes you wonder what the mode of thinking was and the creation of the whole thing and like what they're trying to say. And so, even if it turns out an incomplete thought I mean conceptually but it's got so much. It's like the original Battlestar Galactica there's yeah, it's kind of a schlocky show, but there's so many, but you can see where Ronald Moore was like well, this is actually really interesting. There's more going on here.
Speaker 1Yeah, 100%, which is why maybe the Seth Rogen-led reboot of this that's supposed to be coming out. Maybe I mean that could go either way it really could. I mean that could go either way it really could. But there's a lot of possibilities that if they want to kind of stray off the path of the safe Disney thing and like explore some of the stuff, there's stuff there there is.
Speaker 2I hope they at least try and do that. I mean, seth Rogen is a crapshoot when it comes to stuff like that. Some of his stuff that he's produced is decent, good, interesting, some of it's bad.
Final Thoughts on TaleSpin's Legacy
Speaker 1So I don't know. Yeah, I do not know, but that's a tale to spin in the future. Indeed, and this was a, it was a overall, I would say, a fun and interesting look back at the genesis of Talespin and what the show was like, especially from adult eyes. So that was cool and we hope you guys enjoyed it. A little retro rewind. I'm going to turn that into a clip of some sort. Come back in the future, who knows what we'll cover next? But come back as we spin our own tales and go on our own adventures that, hopefully, are a little less racist than these. Just slightly, just slightly, just slightly, but definitely the adult existential drama that is inherent will be with us as well, 100%.
Speaker 2Yeah, until then, make sure that you guys out there have cleaned up after yourselves to some sort of reasonable degree, that you have paid your tabs, your bartenders, your KJs. You've left sizable tips for the hard work that they do. Don't forget to support your local comic shops and retailers. And from Dispatch Ajax we would like to say Godspeed, fair Wizard.
Speaker 1Please go away.