Once Upon a Disney Podcast Co-hosts, Larry Brenner and Andie Redwine

Our guests on this episode are the co-hosts of Once upon a Disney Podcast, Larry Brenner and Andie Redwine.  

Check out their Facebook fan page https://www.facebook.com/onceuponadisneypodcast, and listen to their podcast most any place where podcasts can be heard. 

Transcript

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Hey there, listeners. Before we get into today's episode, we'd like to invite you to subscribe to our newsletter over at MFAPayday. com for fun goodies and all the most current goings on. Yay. Welcome to MFA payday, where we help you build or reignite your MFA and creative writing career from the ground up with intention. We're your hosts, Dreamer Drudge and Barry Drudge. Today, our guests are very special because they're fellow MFA grads from the same place that we're from. We're gonna, we're gonna investigate a little bit of their lives with their MFA to see how it's been brought to fruition through their avenues and channels they've chosen. So this is Larry Brenner and Andy Redwine, co host of the spectacular, informative and entertaining podcast, Once Upon a Disney. Larry Brenner is a playwright, screenwriter, and co host of Once Upon a Disney podcast. He teaches film, television, media, public speaking, and interpersonal communication at Bronx Community College, and dramatic writing at the Naslin Mann School of Writing. His research specialization is in educational theater with a focus on how role playing games can be used to achieve classroom objectives. Brenner's screenplay Bethlehem was sold universal in 2011. He has also written Labyrinth for Walt Disney Pictures and Angelology for Sony Columbia Pictures, Playwriting and Communications. Professor Brenner holds a PhD in Educational Theater for Colleges and Communities from New York University and an MFA in Creative Writing, Playwriting from Spalding University. Yay! Let's do my heart right there. Let's talk a little bit about Andy now. A professional writer for over two decades, Andy Redwine won a number of film festival awards with her first film, Paradise Recovered, a feature that she wrote and co produced. It's amazing. Since that time, she has produced and directed a number of documentary and corporate projects while collaborating on several screenplays. She holds an MFA from Spalding University's Naslin Mann School of Writing and co hosts the wonderful podcast, Once Upon a Disney Podcast. We just want to welcome both of you to the show. Thank you, Larry and Andy. Oh, thank you for having us. This is really fun. Sure. I have, if I may, before we get started into the deep dive. I have a memory with Larry. That was, I think, one of our first major conversation, and I was so impressed and so got by the font of knowledge that you are and were at that moment that it was even hard for me to speak. It was like I was in the presence of this great mind rolling. I had asked about why Namor was not in any of the Marvel Universe films, and you explained the contractual disaster in the, was the 90s, I think it was. So they sold different properties to different studios and Neymour went with the Fantastic Four because he originated in the Fantastic Four comic books. He was started and he didn't actually start there, but he's, he was considered part of the Fantastic Four family of characters. Okay. Yeah. And you told me all of those things and it cleared up the whole thing because I had never. I've never investigated that in any way, shape, or form, even though I've got hundreds of Namors from his own Submariner, and when he was in the Fantastic Four, I've got the first Fantastic Four annual number one from 1963, I've got the Tales to Astonish, and all of those with him, and the Hulk many moons ago, they're all in boxes upstairs, and I, ah, now and again. Anyway, that was such fun. Do you have anything? I do. First of all Andy is new to us. Yes. Spalding writing family meaning that you went to Spalding, obviously, and we did as well, but our paths haven't crossed until now. Yeah. Yeah. This is I've seen your name on alumni stuff and both of your names. And so it's exciting to yeah, it's exciting to be here and finally see you. I am so glad that you are. And I do have a quick Larry story as well. So I, and I was so thrilled that Barry and Larry were able to meet because I knew they'd get along great and they did. But I met Larry first on a Spalding trip to England. And do you remember the bath spa there? Oh, yes. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Before the trip. So that spring I had taken a world history class like just for enrichment world literature class and the professor had us read Candide and he said it was rough and he said. Someday you'll be at a party and someone will just mention candy. And I'm like, yeah, that will never, ever happen. I am on the rooftop in the pool with a glass of champagne and I hear two men discussing candied. And I'm like, you have got to be kidding me. And it was Larry. And I believe it was Kenny cook. Wow. And I'm like. That did not just happen. It does track? It does track? Yeah, the best thing about doing this podcast with Larry is all of the great literary references he brings. To the table, and they are as diverse as the Fantastic Four to Voltaire. Oh yeah. I'm seeing this as a mad shot, We'll start with Andy. Andy, since you're the historian, if you will, of the podcast, could you tell us a little bit about your podcast and how it came to be? And Larry, can you can jump in here anytime because to fill in the gaps, but as I recall, we were I just finished up my MFA at Spalding online during the 2020 craziness, because, not everybody got to, to be there in person because of COVID and so to keep our spirits up Disney plus had just come out and to keep our spirits up, Larry who was one of my mentors at Spalding and I started just watching things and talking about them. And there was one particular movie, I was a Disney Pixar soul that came out and, I really had to talk about it with somebody and Larry had the same thing. He's I really have to talk about this. So we we got on the phone and we talked for a little bit and we're like, Oh my gosh, this is crazy. And he's we should watch another movie and talk about it. I'm like, sure. And I don't remember what that next movie was, but we watched another movie and we've talked about it. And then we, like the next week he was like, all right, let's watch another movie and we'll talk about it. I'm like, okay. So we watched another movie. We talked about it. And that kept going. And he, at one point he was like, this should really be a podcast. And I'm like, if you really want this to be a podcast, I think it should be too. And I will absolutely produce it. And he was like, okay, let's do that. So we started rough and I'm a big believer in launching messy. And not launching, when you have something perfect, but building the plane as you go. And so we've been doing that now for we're almost finished with our fifth season. Wow. Yeah. Wow. It's, and it's amazing. It is just so much fun. Oh, yes. Every time I see this in my podcast feed. I'm like, Oh my goodness. Here's another one. Here's another one. I can't wait till I have a good excuse to listen to it. I've even taken you to the gym before occasionally. Oh, good. I check us through the gym too. So that works out. And I guess now I can say I go to the gym which was not previously a thing I would have said, but you heard it here. The Yes. Oh, yeah. Larry, you are known for beginning the analysis of the movie or whatever that you're analyzing for a particular episode with a phrase. Could you honor us by saying it and explain how it, or what it means and how it functions in your podcast? So this is something that I started doing even before the podcast. If you studied screenwriting or playwriting with me I often talk about the Manishtana. Manishtana is the opening of the four questions of Passover where we ask, why is this night different from other nights? And generally speaking, when I'm talking about it with a movie, what I'm asking is why did the. Director, the writers, whoever made the decision, make the decision to open the movie on this particular moment. Is it, there's probably a logic to it. What is that logic and what can that, what can we take away from that in terms of... Our own writing, like what, where should we begin at a place similar to that? And one of the things that, that we've discovered as we do this is sometimes when we're watching these movies, the Manishtana starts in entirely the wrong place. And sometimes it starts in such an amazing, unpredictable place that it doesn't reveal the logic behind it doesn't reveal itself until we've gotten all the way to the end of the movie. So I feel, and honestly, this is a thing that's true for screenwriting. You have a couple of pages. To get someone to decide they want to read your whole screenplay and you need to start in a place that from the beginning is interesting a point that Andy makes very often in our podcast is One of one of arguably the worst places you can start your movie is someone's by the bed. The alarm goes off Yes, wake up and they're starting their day What does that tell us about the movie? What does that tell us about the character? The answer is really not that much. It's also not usually a particularly visually interesting way to open up your movie. I think this is not a movie we've covered for our podcast, but I think arguably one of the best manishtanas I've ever seen happens in Back to the Future. And, cause it opens, and it opens. Without any characters whatsoever, we slide along the wall where we see this Rube Goldberg contraption which is designed to make Dr. Emmett Brown's morning easy. It'll feed the dog. It'll make the toast. It'll serve him breakfast. It'll do all of it at the same time as we're seeing this Rube Goldberg device. We also see that it's clear it's not functioning as intended. The toast is crispy and burnt because no one's removed it. The can of dog food, the dog food bowl is overflowing because the dog hasn't been here to eat it. Along the wall, we're seeing like signs and pictures about Doc Brown's life. And without introducing a single physical character, we are learning so much about this person we haven't even met yet. It's like the Manishtana is who, what is the mystery? Of this man, who did this, who created this device and where is he right now? That is arguably the best Manishtana I've ever seen. And of course, then the alarm clock goes off, right? Yeah. That beats my whole theory. There's another, you're talking about Manishtana's where that happens. Not to go down a rabbit trail, but I was thinking about all that jazz, which is also not a Disney movie. But like Joe Gideon, right? He's this director. And the first thing is he's getting up in the morning, but he's clearly an alcoholic and he's chain smoking cigarettes. And he's doing all these, he has Visine and Alka Seltzer and Dexedrine. And we get to see him over and he looks in the mirror every day and he goes, it's showtime folks. So that's an interesting way to wake up in the morning. If you're going to wake somebody up in the morning, make it a reason why they wake up. Tell us something about their character that we, that is so different than most other people that's going to feed into the rest of the story, right? Subverted. If you're doing the alarm clock, the subversion in back to the future is Doc's not there to turn it off. He's not waking up to it. He's not there. So subversion. Of tropes is fine But honestly at this point we have seen so many characters wake up to their alarm clocks and grumble about how they need coffee that is Imagine the reader start who's going to give your script a page. You want to use your first page on that, right? Yes, that's and I would say that you know as fiction writers. We have that same. Oh, yeah. Yeah, definitely Why is this story starting here? And if that's not strong enough Let's start somewhere else. Yeah. Yeah. We got to give it a hook. It has to hook people in. I was just doing an alpha read on a novel for some a couple of writers that I know pretty well. And that was my biggest note was we hook me in if you're going to give me a lot of exposition, that's great, but give me something to like, wonder about that leads to an immediate dramatic question that says, Hey, what? What's going on here and suck me into it. Don't just tell me stuff. Suck me into what's going on. Yeah. That was the greatest lesson with I had twice the mentor Leslie Daniels in my fiction. And one story, she goes, this is a great story. I really enjoyed it, but why don't we start four paragraphs down, hack out, kill the other stuff that doesn't get us. Right off the bat. It's Oh, okay. And it was like, yeah you've tightened it and made it something that's vibrant where it wasn't before. Yeah, you're basically cutting the throat clearing, we call it in fiction. I don't know if you call that or not. But yeah, getting warmed up and then you're warm. Now let's just take off what we don't need. A lot of classic movies and Disney movies are like this too, but a lot of classic movies you'll have. What I call like taking time to get your popcorn. Yeah. It's not so much a clearing your throat, but it's and really that function that way, because people would come late to the theater. So they might show a couple of previews, but they run the credits and there's this whole sequence. And that tells everybody, all right, everybody's time settled down. Go get your junior minutes and get in here. But we don't watch movies like that anymore. And so we literally have, less than 10 seconds. To get somebody, people watch for about 10 seconds and decide whether or not they're going to watch something or not. So it's it's definitely changed the way we watch films for sure. And so it has changed the way we write them. Exactly. This is a question I'm going to toss out to either of you. Since we talk with MFA grads about interesting career turns, is there a strategic career purpose for your podcast that you'd like to share with our audience or is it just for fun? I think I can answer for myself and then Larry could probably dig into this, but I think because again, it was 2020 and the studios were all shut down and nobody was really taking calls. In fact, they were calling to chat with me about COVID or get to get spiritual support or that, that's the, that's what my contacts were doing. Nobody was working and everything. It grinded to a halt. I found myself going I need to do something helpful. I did not think this was it. Honestly, just did this for fun, just to bring some joy. And then later I was like, I'm really keeping my skills sharp. Because I find myself now when I'm working with people or working on my own work. I'm going back and saying, you know what a movie you need to watch is this movie and I'll tell you why because you've got this in common with it and this is where they make a mistake and you're not going to wait, they can't see it in their own work until they see it in someone else's. So as I'm coaching people or editing that's helpful. I think for. I've had a lot of things go on with older kids and things like that. But as I'm thinking about moving into a teaching career, this is enormously helpful because basically I've written how we've come up with lesson plans for a hundred, a hundred lessons. So I feel like I'm getting, I'm cementing what I learned during my MFA program, but I'm also. Almost coming up with things that are analogous to the work that I'm creating. Does that make sense? It's not the work that I'm creating. It's not it's not the work that I'm creating, but it's definitely analogous and helpful. So there's a synergy that happens. I'm not sure if I can pinpoint exactly how it happens, but I've noticed that my own work has gotten sharper. I'm more careful to think about production and how things will be affected. And I'm also I'm a better reader of screenplays now, I think. Sure. Yeah. So yeah, I think that's, I think that's. I hope that answers it. I don't think either of us had the expectation that we were going to do this podcast and then like we were going to get our standard rich and famous contract from now from a producer and now and but truthfully, sometimes we, you spend so much time in front of your computer trying to break the scene staring at a blank piece of paper, that going to someone else's screenplay and analyzing what they've done helps you solve your own problem. And that is why the MFA program that we all went to. required us to do short critical essays and an extended critical essay. None of us went there because we wanted to write essays. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I was on the back of the brochure in a micro dot in one of the words but it is an essential part of the MFA experience is learning how to analyze the work of others because otherwise you're trying to recreate a science. In the art form where so many people have walked before you. And I know and Andy and I have talked about this, if you put me out in the woods, I'm never starting a fire someone. I'm not gonna be the guy who figures that out that I gotta rub a stick into another stick, or I gotta spark two rocks together, somebody else did that work, learn from them and build on it. And I think that's really what we want to do here. Is we want to sharpen, not just our ability to analyze story and write, but our audience's ability to analyze story and write. And also Disney films are really accessible especially to younger viewers. And so we have a lot of fans who are. Brand new to screenwriting. And so they'll be like, Oh, I didn't know you were supposed to do that. Oh, that makes a lot of sense. And these are films that they've known for years. So they grew up watching the little mermaid and probably have seen it, 50, 60 times when they were small children and it's imprinted. And so now they go back and look at it with adult eyes and go, Oh, that's why they did that. Oh, that makes sense. Oh, everyone has seen the Toy Story movies. It is a cultural milestone, which I don't know how you could miss out on the Toy Story movies, but those movies are so rich and so artfully created that you don't even know that you're learning lessons in writing as you're watching it. And it's an immediate reference point. I've never spoken to a class full of students where I said, it's like the moment where Woody pulls the match from buzz. And he's this is the solution to the problem. The wind blows out the match. That is what you need to do. You need to be at, if the audience thinks they know the solution to the problem you need to subvert expectations. That solution can't be the solution. Oh, I love that. They all immediately get, everyone knows that moment in that movie. I've been meaning to have the discipline to see what you were covering next in your podcast and to go and watch it and then listen, unfortunately, I don't always get around to that. I did for the princess diaries and I had not seen that in 20 years. And then I was, I had a positive. For my memory, I had a very positive viewpoint of it. And I was like, Oh, this will be fun. And then I watched it and I was like, Oh, and then I heard you too. And I was like yeah, I'm done with it for now. Some of these, movies just don't hold up over time. And so in the moment, it was great, but it's not working now. But it's a great way to show why it's not working. I wanted to love that movie. I really went in believing that we were in for a treat and yeah I, it's just, it's what Andy says, it has not aged well. Especially in the early movies, but sometimes in the later ones, the Disney movies distribute the protagonist function. Among several different characters. That's right. That's right. And so one example of this and you can talk about better ones is how in Cinderella. Ostensibly, the protagonist of that movie should be Cinderella. It's her story events are going to happen to her, but in actuality, they move so much of that protagonist function to the little mice Jack and Gus who live in the house that you could actually argue those characters are more of the protagonist. Then Cinderella, what does they take the risks, they fight the cat, they have the obstacles they need to overcome Andy. So she, and she benefits from that. She definitely benefits from that in Cinderella from their work. Yeah. So I think the protagonist function is one that does get shared in Disney movies, especially the early ones, as Larry mentioned But I think it's functional more so than intentional. So when they were creating these films, they would often split it up. What would happen is Walt would gather all of the animators into a room, and he would tell them the story of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. And he would start, and he would tell this amazing story, and then they would go, okay, we need to storyboard that. And so they would take what he had written or what he had told them. He hadn't written anything. He just told them the story orally. They would they would storyboard it and then they would divide it up. And so that would be like, all right, you guys are the dwarfs team. You guys are the snow white team. You guys are the the evil queen team. And so each of those, it becomes episodic. Like a cartoon, they're not really thinking of it as a screenplay necessarily. But what happens, the function of that is genius, I think, because the audience gets to be the viewer and we all, we know what's going on and it builds this great dramatic irony, it builds this great tension. So while we see the Queen and the Huntsman, we know that the Huntsman's been sent to kill Snow White, right? Snow White's just picking flowers. And we can see that the tension of the Huntsman, we know what's going on. If we followed Snow White the entire time, we wouldn't get that delicious tension. And sometimes Disney does it too much, but I think in some of those early classics, it's Just magic, but again, each of those animation teams are animating specific characters, and then they bring them all together and so them all up. So it's pretty it's, I think, yeah, they were working without a screenplay, right? There was no paper screenplay really until. Michael Eisner gets on board and he's Hey, we really need to see some paper here. Storyboard, you're saying mostly. Yeah. Yeah. It was mostly storyboard artists doing this. And, not completely. There definitely was some paper but yeah, if you go to try to go find a screenplay for Snow White or Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty, you're not going to find one doesn't exist. If you take a look at Alice in Wonderland, the process that they use to create Alice in Wonderland, it is such a scattershot approach towards creating it. They developed characters. without ever introducing them into the movie. The Jabberwock was going to be in it. The White Knight was going to be in it. But they're like developing these things. There are somewhere around 30 songs that they created for Alice in Wonderland that never make it into the movie. They're just generating all of this material. And at a certain point, they're like, let's string it together. And that's what Alice in Wonderland is. I love Alice in Wonderland. I love that movie. But it's a mess. It's, and I love it, but it's a mess. Yeah. And so you'll take, they'll take time out for the bit and they'll take time out for this. And so it's really it's weird. We would, I don't think we'd make movies like that now. Does Alice learn anything in her story? I don't know that she does but, those are the things, character arc, theme, what you're trying to tell, that stuff sometimes gets lost in the weeds a little bit when you're, when your animation comes before your story. And the danger, I think, again is a weak protagonist, because by today's standards, if you're watching Alice. They're all pretty passive. These wonderful things are going on and they're discovering them, but then you're maybe that's intentional because maybe, maybe Walt wanted a child or a family to watch this as the character. And then those things are happening to the character. So it's, and again, we're judging a really, this was brand new. Nobody had ever done this before. So judging it almost 100 years later seems, mean but it doesn't function the same way, but certainly looking at that Genesis of how that works. I think cannon form. Okay. That's an interesting function. That's interesting. Now, how do I put that into a screenplay form? How do I use that kind of to build dramatic irony, to build dramatic tension, to build subtext into my work? Yeah, be experts at the time. We're telling Walt, you're going to make a movie and it's going to be animated and in color that is going to hurt people's eyes. People aren't going to want to see brightly colored, right? Figures for it's going to scare them. It's going to scare them too much. You're not going to want to do that. Fascinating. No, Larry. Yes. Screenplays for various studios, including the Walt Disney Pictures Studio. Could you talk about the unique challenges and opportunities that come with writing for such a renowned and iconic brand? So there are, look I think it's not going to come as a surprise that if you asked Andy or I, do you want to write a screenplay for Disney? The answer is going to be yes. Seems like we're a little passionate on that particular subject. So the thing to understand so there is writing a screenplay. And then there's writing a screenplay specifically for Disney which is what I did. I was working with a producing partner, he on one project that just didn't happen. He said, listen, is there anything that you would want to do? That would be a Disney movie. And of course, yeah, sure. And I went through a bunch of. Different ideas and ultimately what we landed on is I'm someone who's really big on Greek mythology and what and I wanted to do a movie where we went to another world and ultimately what I wanted to do is I wanted to tell the story of the Labyrinth of the Minotaur and part of that is there's a number of ways to do the Labyrinth of the Minotaur you need to do it the way that you're not going to do a pans labyrinth you Version of the lab of the movie. You're not going to go hardcore horror. You need to have a story that works for that particular brand. And so when we were developing characters, for example, they told me. Here are the rules. You have a princess character in the lead of this movie. Here are the rules for our princesses like your princess now. cannot be motivated by love for a man that cannot be the thing that is important for her. Your princess now needs to be really great, really amazing at something. And at the time they were like, think Merida has her bow lawn can fight like a soldier. That sort of thing is much better than For example, Belle, who likes to read that, that sort of thing, because they really do think a lot about how their movie is going to be received. And that, the princess brand is particularly important to them. So as I'm generating it, those things have to be in your mind, what kind of movie are they hoping to make? And with that in mind, I generated a story for them that worked for what they needed at that particular moment, which they bought. I was very happy, they have not made it yet because they also went ahead and they purchased a little known property called Marvel. And they also purchased almost in that same year, a property called Star Wars. And, I am sure that as soon as they're done making Star Wars movies and Marvel movies, which has to be any day now, really at that particular point if the market bears out that it's time to take a risk on something brand new. They have it, it's theirs, they own it, they can do what they want with it. I know that I've keep reading as of now, especially Marvel Fatigue, which I really believe that because we've loved the Marvel movies. Sure. And I've loved the Star Wars, but there comes a point where it's like another one or I do what they're doing on Disney plus, like Loki and I liked WandaVision. We loved WandaVision. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But I think the problem with the Marvel movies isn't about the writing of the Marvel movies. I think the problem with the Marvel movies is the reality of creating the Marvel movies in the universe in which we are, which is you, if you're doing them live action, and you're, and you get an actor to play someone very important, and then that actor doesn't want to do them anymore. What do you do if you sold your properties to various different studios, but your desire is to weave them all together? What we're watching right now is them trying to consolidate the X Men and the Fantastic Four and the Avengers and get them all into one universe when right now they're in. Several different universes. All of those things don't come from story. They're movies specifically created to try to get the IP altogether on the same page for future stories. And that's Unfortunately, a necessity for them with those movies, they have to get all of those properties back together, right? But it's not necessarily story motivated to get us there. Now does Disney have people on board that kind of look through what Marvel is doing in their franchise and go, Yeah, nay, I've taken meetings with Marvel. I will tell you, they have gone through the catalog with a fine comb. At one point I read there's some confidential material, but what I can tell you about it is, as they were generating the Black Panther, They were looking through Black Panther's rogue gallery to try to find who is going to be the villain that's going to be the villain to the Black Panther, because the Black Panther does not have great villains. He's an interesting character, but one of them is Claw, the Master of Sound. Another one is... The man ate and they use those characters, but you'll notice they didn't use those characters as the linchpin for either of those movies. They're there. They have a presence. They are used in an interesting way. In the materials that I saw, I don't think I ever saw the word killmonger. I don't think that was even something they were considering at that particular time. So they really do a lot of research on it and yes, they have considered just about. Every character that they have the IP for and said, would this make a good movie with this character not make a good movie? The research is thorough. And well crafted. And look, there are characters whose absence from the Marvel Universe is really, it really hurts them right now. So back to the nuts and bolts of the podcast Andy, what would you say is the most rewarding aspect of hosting the podcast and the most challenging? I think the most rewarding aspect is interfacing, of course, with Larry every week, which is great and bringing on guests. We've had some really interesting and fun guests on the program people that I really respect and care about. I think our fans interfacing with them, especially if they want to watch something that's a beloved thing. And sometimes that goes well. And sometimes we wonder if they hate us, but but I think the most challenging part of it is it's being a preacher on Sunday morning comes every week, you're going to have something to say every week. And I think because Family and life and work and things sometimes get in the way. And so sometimes the scheduling can be difficult, which is why we decided after 20, I was like, let's take a break. Oh, wow. That's season one. Let's call that season. Yeah. Take a break. And so then it seems about 20, we start losing our minds and then we need a few weeks to rest recover and and then go all in again. And do either of you edit the episodes or do you farm that out? Both. So we have a Production team that handles the edits, but we tell them where the edits are. So we give them the moment. Some of them are more heavily edited than others, just because of, issues that happen with sound or issues that happen with I don't know, just lots of missteps or whatever. Sometimes we run experiments, so sometimes I'm like, Oh, what would this sound like if it sounded more like NPR and take all the ums and uhs out? And we did that once and I'm like that's okay. Just we lose a little something, but yeah, I, yeah. So we run experiments sometimes. We had that same experience, I ran a program that we have, and had all the ums take it out. Barry's a musician, so he's very audio oriented. Yeah, it cut it back too far to the point where it barely gave a space between the last sentence and the next. It would be like this doesn't feel always natural. There are times it's oh, for Pete's sake, I have stumbled over a word six times. And we'll, I think what I think I've landed on from a producer's standpoint, I landed on just the conversational tone. There's a rhythm to our podcast. There's a podcast. There's a cadence to how we set each other up and laugh and it's natural. And that's just evolved. And so why would I want to mess with that? I don't want to mess with that. I love that. That's beautiful. Yeah. I, like I said, I'm a big believer in launching messy. I, when we started, it sounds like I listened to the first one. I'm like, that's terrible, but I don't, I can't listen to that one anymore, but but that's okay. That's it. Yeah. Yeah. I got us going. That's awesome. Awesome. Yeah. And we're also finding our way. So we 100 percent and if we waited until it was perfect, it would never happen. Exactly. My manager often says the perfect is the enemy of the good. Yes. And that is a phrase that I often think about. And did you want to address that question as well, Larry? Sure. For me, I will also say the best part of this is interfacing with Andy. But the other best part of this is every once in a while you watch a movie that just becomes a part of your DNA and you don't always know that you're going to have that positive, a response to that movie. And I think for me, I, Pollyanna. Was a foundly moving experience for me watching Pollyanna. I, there's so much love of the audience in that movie. There's just so much inherent goodness to it that I will never forget the time I spent analyzing Pollyanna. And there's a lot of takeaways I have from that. You wouldn't make that movie that way today. It's still amazing and it's just, it was just amazing. Darby O'Gill, which we watched very recently, which I had watched a lot in elementary school, but watching it again as an adult, I was like, this is so charming. The downside is sometimes we watch movies, look, I often say sometimes we love them because and sometimes we love them. But that's that sentence that I say often is not true because sometimes we hate them. Yeah, that's hard. And that is really hard because very often you're hating someone's favorite movie. You may have noticed. That when we do, when we have our roles on a movie where there's a good cop and that's Andy. And then there is the jerk. Like we can't both but very often times when we're in pre production, like I'll be the bad cop and Larry will be the but we have to like it, but then we switch, we do the podcast, because people don't know how to handle it when Andy's upset they can't manage it, they can't manage it. Larry's tough as nails, that's all there is the thing. People love it when I'm upset, I don't know why, but that has always been true. The other thing is you could say Larry and Andy, you're doing this to yourselves. Why watch the movies that are going, that you suspect are going to be bad. And. I will say two things to that. Number one, Andy and I always go into the movies wanting to love them. Yes. Always. We are never hoping that the movie will be bad. Correct. Of course. Yeah. But number two, sometimes you learn a lot more from watching a bad movie than you understand from watching a good movie. When you see... A big mistake happening. And it's just like the big red flag that is so instructive. Unfortunately, if we just did the, if we just did a love fest every week, I think we would be doing ourselves and our listeners a disservice. Because we need to know just like we need to know what works. We need to know what people have tried that didn't work. But it's hard because sometimes I really hate a movie that, and our fans get a little upset with me because they're like, this was, this movie was my childhood. I watch it every week. There was an episode we did with the Aristocats where I came in pretty hard on the Aristocats. I really like the Aristocats. Andy really likes the Aristocats. And my feeling is the Aristocats is cats walking home the movie. There's no movie. That's all it is. And so that sometimes is hard because People have affection for this thing. And sometimes you might step on the thing that's sacred to them. Just if anybody ever came up to me and went Muppets I might cry. Someone said that to me. Yeah. I hear you. We really appreciate you taking the time. So I guess the final thing would be where can folks contact your show? If you want to contact us, we are eventually going to launch a website. But for right now, we've got a Facebook fan page, which is Once Upon a Disney Podcast. You can email us at once upon a Disney podcast at gmail. com, all one word. And those are really the best ways to get ahold of us if you need to. Great. We just want to thank you both so much for taking the time Larry and Andy, you guys have been a joy. This is probably the number one funnest podcast we've done thus far. Not that others are miserable. There's no miserable, but this has been a lot of laughs and a lot of information and it feels like I'm back talking to Larry again. A long time ago, and Andy, you're now a new fan favorite here in the house. Oh, great. I adore your voice, Andy, on the Larry's as well. And Larry actually said this earlier about you. And I do not say this about many people. I said, you are the most delightful human being that I know. That's true. Oh, wow. And you hear that, mom? Do you hear? And Andy, you need to make ASMR, okay? Oh, yeah? Have you thought of that? Your voices would just be buttery. I've done some radio and things in the past, so yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Perfect. Maybe I'll do that in my spare time. Nice. As for Larry's side of it Dream has been saying that since 2008. So it's not like this is a new thing because I hope someday you get to meet him. And of course, so there's all this build up and then I meet you and I was like, Oh, you've got the knowledge of Marvel in my mind. It's Oh, there we go. No, I absolutely agree. I'm delightful. I think it says a lot though, Larry, that, here's somebody who wrote an extended critical essay for you as a student. And then, graduates becomes, you immediately reach out and say, we're colleagues now. Now we get to work on something. It was just really wonderful to have that experience with you. And I get to do it every week. That is just awesome. And we'll tune in next year when we have Larry Fest 2024. Larry Fest! I love it. I love it. We thank you all for showing up and until next time, keep writing all the things. We Wish You a Merry Christmas