What A Cartoon Movie! - Frozen
Added 2024-12-30 05:00:04 +0000 UTCAn idea of an animated feature based on Hans Christian Andersen's The Snow Queen had been floating around at Disney since, oh, the time of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, but by the 2010s, the world was finally ready. But let's just say the writers and artists behind Frozen weren't quite as prepared; the film that would (temporarily) become Disney's biggest hit of all time went through significant changes abnormally late in production, and nearly didn't make it to the finish line.
But this last-minute work paid off, and now the world of Arendelle is the home of the studio's most profitable adventures, with several sequels on the horizon. On this episode of What A Cartoon Movie, listen in as we discuss the film that made the world fall in love with an adorable little snowman who tacitly wishes for death: Frozen.
Comments
I know Arrested Development did the “finish each other’s….sandwiches” joke before Frozen.
Steve
2025-01-12 22:36:48 +0000 UTCI happened to be in Japan at the time Frozen fever had swept the world, and I get the feeling it might have been even bigger there than everywhere else. Every store seemed to be playing the Japanese version of "Let It Go" ALL the time. It's an excellent cover though, which I'm sure helped it succeed there. The massive hype for Frozen and then the following (just as massive?) hype backlash against it kept me from checking it out for a long time. I think it was just a year or two ago that I finally saw it, expecting to hate it... But I thought it was a lot of fun. And I found Elsa the surprisingly relatable Disney princess, as a stressed and depressed millennial introvert who failed miserably once put under a bunch of pressure upon becoming an adult. But unlike Elsa, I never recovered... Oh well. (We're also both ace, maybe? Well, at least until the higher-ups mandate she get a boyfriend in Frozen 3, of course.)
N Rose
2025-01-12 03:43:27 +0000 UTCWicked—Lee talented
Steve D
2025-01-09 17:03:23 +0000 UTCI played Kay in a production of the Snow Queen at our local youth theater back in the 90s (we were all Hans Christian Anderson pilled) when I was about 9. There was a confrontation with the Snow Queen at the end but I definitely do not remember it. What I do remember is they asked me for the next show to play a daisy with 5 year olds in a production of The Wizard of Oz - I tossed my thespian's cap in disgust and diva'd out of that theatre. I think there's more Snow Queen around if you look for it, but prior to Frozen I think had crumbled in the public consciousness a bit.
Cody C.
2025-01-07 10:41:20 +0000 UTCWhile I DO like Olaf, I wanted to chime in about Josh Gad briefly. While I am also personally sick of him, apparently he's an asshole too. My friend works as a grip/best boy in film, and last year Josh Gad was in town to film a movie directed by Alex Winter. Basically, if you were any below the line crew member, he either wouldn't talk to you or would be a belligerent jerk to you, but then act nice around the other cast, Alex Winter, or producers when they were around. I guess it's not surprising, tons of actors are assholes, but it's frustrating that he's getting SO MANY ROLES while treating the people making a tenth (at best) of what he's making like garbage. Hollywood never changes.
Dylan (batmanboy11) Freitag
2025-01-06 17:15:16 +0000 UTCThe moment Hans mentioned he had 12 brothers was the moment I realized he was the bad guy. He was too good to be true and just struck me as a guy that doesn't want to wait in line to rule.
That Guy, Joe
2025-01-05 20:55:21 +0000 UTCJosh Gad would make a better Nermal than Garfield.
Ian Stratton
2025-01-05 01:45:13 +0000 UTCRewatching Frozen and contextualizing it against the Disney movies before and after it made me realize my biggest problem with it is “irony poisoning” Princess and the Frog doesn’t hit you over the head with its subversion and even Moana confines it’s irony mostly to Maui It’s like the flirting vs harassment meme even though I’m probably in the minority on that opinion
Tricia
2025-01-03 18:45:08 +0000 UTCI hadn't thought about it much until listening to this, but prior to Frozen I saw Wreck-It Ralph in theaters, but before that I don't think I had watched a Disney animated movie in a theater since The Lion King. And I only saw Frozen because my then fiancé wanted to see it. We saw it opening night and I can just remember when "Let It Go" was playing immediately have the realization "This is gonna be huge." I'm sure I wasn't unique in that thought, but it was interesting to me because there wasn't a lot of buzz for the movie. There were still local Disney Stores absolutely overflowing with Olaf plushes that no one cared about. Then after the movie started to get around those dolls vanished. I even bought my fiancé one for Christmas that year soon after that and would see it going on eBay for hundreds of dollars a few weeks later. It was interesting hearing Bob's take on "Let it Go" as Elsa's villain song when it's Jennifer Lee who credited the song with changing the character from a villain to...something not. It was during the ABC Making of special (which I don't know if it's easy to find now), but she described it as this big revelation, but also an "Oh shit" moment because the song was so good and it was taking the movie in a new direction which just meant more crunch and awful times ahead for the staff working on the movie. I just think of the song as Elsa's emancipation moment, but one followed by some regret since she doesn't know how to actually live out loud in such a manner since those god damned trolls didn't teach her anything except fear. We got married the following summer and since we were east coast Disney folk we decided to honeymoon in Disneyland since neither of us had been before. One of my main memories from that trip is the meet n' greet section for Elsa and Anna and the massive line that would encircle it every day. Usually the line was made up of dad-types clearing holding a place in line while the rest of the family roamed the park until it was time. Thankfully, when I went to Disney World in 2019 with my daughter it wasn't quite so bad. We got in really quick since we were in Epcot before it opened for a breakfast reservation and it was wonderful. My daughter has grown up on this stuff and loved it. I've seen this movie (and the sequel, which I don't care much for) so many times so I should hate it, but it's honestly fine. There are way worse things for your kids to obsess over. It's not perfect, it's easy to see the movie had problems with its story, but they did find a solid core and the performances and songs really carry it. And one kid story, but when my daughter was probably 2-3 years old you could not go to the bathroom in my house and not hear a quiet knock on the door followed by "Elsa?" Then you would be serenaded by a toddler singing "Do You Want to Build a Snowman?" You were expected to play along and say "Go away, Anna," so she could close with an "Okay, bye." It sure made for entertaining bathroom visits, though my son hated it and would yell at her to leave him alone, which was also kind of funny. And count me as someone willing to go to bat for Winnie the Pooh. It's a really good, modern, interpretation of the very old property. It's quite funny and so short. I think it's only 70 minutes or something. I grew up on The Many Adventures...but my kids were thoroughly bored by it. They would only watch the 2011 movie.
Joe Hodgson
2025-01-03 16:12:31 +0000 UTCHave you guys heard the flatulence-based parody on YouTube called “Let One Go”?
Matt
2025-01-02 22:00:05 +0000 UTCALSO I've always thought Elsa making her castle in Let It Go was influenced by Dr. Manhattan conjuring his castle on Mars in Watchmen. Both characters are revelling in the freedom of leaving humanity behind and letting loose.
Jon
2025-01-02 17:55:21 +0000 UTCA few other notes: I had first heard of Santino Fontana in Frozen but I grew to love him in the incredibly musical comedy show "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend" where he plays a similarly conniving douche. He has some particularly amazing songs such as "Settle For Me", "What'll it Be (Hey, West Covina)" and his own swan song "It Was A Shit Show." Highly recommend searching those up on youtube. I also geeked out when the film critic you pointed out on RogerEbert.com was the great Christy Lemire! (Pronounced "Le-Meer") She's one of my favorites, she's been doing online work for over a decade now and does the great film podcast called Breakfast All Day with long time friend/queer film critic Alonso Duralde. They had escaped under the thumb of Cenk Uygur's series "What The Flick" cause of how much of a douche he is. I highly recommend them as super approachable and knowledgeable critics who can stand pretty firm on their opinions while expressing them eloquently.
SilkiePJ
2025-01-02 09:42:18 +0000 UTCThe success of Frozen put a real albatross around Disney's neck. It set the seeds for Disney to make their movies more about subversion, lamp-shading, and celebrating Disney as a brand than a creative force. Even good movies of the modern era like Zootopia, Moana, or Encanto feel very deliberately made to show that new Disney won't make the mistakes of old fashion fairy-tale tropes. You can see it on full naked display in Frozen 2, Wreck it Ralph 2, and Wish. And now Disney's going full steam ahead sequel mode with Frozen because they don't seem to nurture any new ideas with enough time, resources, or trust. Learning that Frozen had to be rushed and re-written I think explains a lot about the barebones nature of it all with the limited cast and some particularly flimsy plotting and character motive. Still, I can't deny Let It Go as a powerhouse and Olaf being the charming weirdo who won me over. I'm very happy Bob and Henry are Pro-Olaf.
SilkiePJ
2025-01-02 09:26:35 +0000 UTCOnly when Henry pointed out that 'Love is an Open Door' is technically a villain song did I catch the dual meaning; Open doors symbolise the connection Ana's been missing, while Hans views faking love as his way into the Arendel royal family. Disney tried to do their own Wicked (sans blackjack or hookers) throughout the 2010s: Hiring Adele Dazeem for a similar role, doing sympathetic origin films for 'Maleficent' and 'Cruella' and who could forget Sam Raimi's big flop 'Oz the Great and Powerful' which focuses on the Wizards background. I bet they're salivating looking at all the money the official film adaption is raking in. Also, the way Bob pronounced 'El-PHA-ba' tickled me and is how I imagine Hank Hill would say the name sight unseen.
Joshua Marchant
2025-01-02 03:18:01 +0000 UTCI remember this discourse! I had to watch the clip several times before I even noticed. I appreciate the added commentary from David Suroviec who explains it wasn't a mistake, it was a deliberate cheat to better support the main action.
Joshua Marchant
2025-01-02 03:05:52 +0000 UTCTangled walked so that Frozen could walk. This might be a hot take but Olaf is better than the Minions! I would rather watch a movie about him over Bob, Kevin and Stuart
Giovanni
2025-01-01 12:23:53 +0000 UTCI was surprised you brushed over the many other adaptations of the Snow Queen, when the 1957 Soviet version produced by Soyuzmultfilm is cited by Hayao Miyazaki as one of his favourite films of all time, and the film that made him believe in animation again when he was thinking of leaving the field!! It's included in the Ghibli Museum Animation Library. There's a great bit in the Animation Obsessive substack here about it. https://animationobsessive.substack.com/p/hayao-miyazakis-favorite-film I also absolutely think the imposing Snow Queen of the Soviet version was an influence on Rebecca Sugar for White Diamond in Steven Universe. It's an extremely important film in Soviet animation history, released only a few days after Sputnik was in the sky, and it was the first Soviet film of any kind to be purchased for American distribution, and the first animated film distributed by Universal. You could even say like Gerda melted the splinters of ice in Kay's eye and heart... she also warmed the tensions of the Cold War a bit. с Новым Годом! Novym Godom! Happy New Year! Thanks for another wonderful year of the podcast.
Jon
2025-01-01 02:44:43 +0000 UTCJust thinking about this is just reminding me about how when Disney bought Pixar and Lasseter took over WDAS one of his big agendas at Disney was to bring back hand drawn animation at the studio and after two movies they gave up. This was pretty disappointing because Disney under Lasseter and the animation industry tried so hard to push against the popular narrative that 2D films were failing because audiences preferred CGI films over 2D ones. This was of course false and now unless it’s anime or a more niche film you will never see hand drawn animation on the big screen again.
Mark
2024-12-31 20:02:05 +0000 UTCI wasn’t a big fan of Frozen when it came out. I liked it just fine on opening weekend but as a huge Disney animation fan at the time the tsunami of people calling it Disney’s grand return to classic musicals (even though Princess and the Frog and Tangled recently preceded it) kind of rubbed me the wrong way. This podcast makes me want to revisit it. Never saw Frozen 2 either, but that’s because I thought Wreck it Ralph 2 was bad and kind of soured me on WDAS films for a while.
Mark
2024-12-31 19:40:33 +0000 UTCOkay I can't find the specific copypasta rant but just google "tumblr frozen animation error" to see some just wonderful internet discourse, the type of stuff that gets dissected on the Guys podcast
Lambda
2024-12-31 13:38:05 +0000 UTCI'm trying to find some original sources but when Frozen came out there was this copypasta of someone losing their shit about a small animation error during Let It Go. So far this post is the only artifact of it that I could find https://www.tumblr.com/degari/150535766741/tumblr-flashback-2013-edition?source=share
Lambda
2024-12-31 13:22:12 +0000 UTCRecently I got to go to Tokyo DisneySea and visit the brand-new Fantasy Springs expansion which has Anna and Elsa’s Frozen Journey, which might be the best ride based on a Disney animated film ever made and blows the EPCOT version out of the water. (no pun intended) The boat ride is a full retelling of the original film and includes incredible effects such as ice shards jutting out of the floor when Elsa first freaks out, an ice bridge being constructed out of thin air and Anna’s dress magically de-thawing in the end. I got to ride it three times in a row and was in awe each time. If, well I guess when you make it back to Japan you have to check it out!
Ryan O'Reilly
2024-12-31 13:08:31 +0000 UTCI do not believe that Paranorman had any production drama.
K-S-O
2024-12-31 06:31:08 +0000 UTCI think Bob admits in their SpongeBob movie episode that there wasn’t a lot of drama behind the scenes of that one.
Mark
2024-12-30 19:03:15 +0000 UTCThe overt Book of Mormon connections in Frozen made me think that one day Disney would get Parker and Stone to make a musical for them. Trey had his wedding at Disney World he’s a Disney adult.
Mark
2024-12-30 19:02:37 +0000 UTCoh wow...that "How Did We Make Frozen" troll on the blu-ray was something I had almost entirely forgotten about. I too remember being all-in on the Frozen hype at the time of its release and eagerly buying it on home video day 1 only to be mildly miffed that the special features were so lackluster. Oddly enough, there WAS a fully-produced "Making of Frozen" special that aired on ABC fall of 2014 that I still haven't seen as I did not have network tv access at the time. I don't believe it's on Disney+ either, which drives me a little insane. It has to be floating around somewhere but I fully believe Disney was not anticipating Frozen to be the titan it was by the time it had locked down its home media release and hastily scrambled for behind the scenes footage to produce something worthy of a primetime special several months later. It even included an animatic for a deleted song "Life's Too Short" which I think is one of the better songs that was cut but was also part of the story when Anna and Elsa were more antagonistic towards one another. It's crazy that you can't watch this on Disney+ but they proudly display the Making of Frozen II which paints them in as bad a light as The Sweatbox did with Emperor's New Groove.
Blake R.
2024-12-30 17:03:32 +0000 UTCYou guys were asking what films you have covered that sounded like they had a smooth production I think you said the toy story 3 went really well? Unless I'm mistaken
Covey M.
2024-12-30 16:28:40 +0000 UTC
