1
00:00:06,736 --> 00:00:09,655
[Goldberg] I'm one of the guys
who gets to draw Mickey.

2
00:00:12,366 --> 00:00:17,705
I take pride in the fact
that the studio trusts me enough.

3
00:00:18,914 --> 00:00:22,460
It's kind of like being handed
the keys to the castle.

4
00:00:35,264 --> 00:00:39,935
I remember the first time
that I drew Mickey in a public forum,

5
00:00:40,019 --> 00:00:43,481
Roy Disney, Walt's nephew, was with us.

6
00:00:43,564 --> 00:00:48,361
And I'm thinking to myself, "Oh, my God,
[chuckling] I better not screw this up."

7
00:00:50,112 --> 00:00:54,700
When I was very young,
the first Disney movie I saw was Dumbo.

8
00:00:57,328 --> 00:01:00,039
I was just absolutely struck...

9
00:01:01,165 --> 00:01:06,045
by how wonderful animation looked
and made me feel.

10
00:01:07,338 --> 00:01:10,216
It's life, pushed. [chuckles]

11
00:01:10,299 --> 00:01:14,387
It's making something larger than life.

12
00:01:16,764 --> 00:01:18,516
I was a very focused kid.

13
00:01:18,599 --> 00:01:22,686
You know, knowing at a very early age
what I wanted to do.

14
00:01:23,938 --> 00:01:25,940
I've made my key positions,

15
00:01:26,440 --> 00:01:33,114
and now I'm putting the positions
in between to help flesh out the movement.

16
00:01:33,823 --> 00:01:36,534
When I started making my Super 8 films,

17
00:01:36,617 --> 00:01:40,621
my parents would willingly
give over the dining room table,

18
00:01:40,705 --> 00:01:44,458
and I would lay out all my cels,
drying, you know, [chuckles]

19
00:01:44,542 --> 00:01:48,546
and the living room would become
where I would shoot the stuff

20
00:01:48,629 --> 00:01:50,297
on my downshooter.

21
00:01:50,381 --> 00:01:52,258
Put a new sheet of paper down.

22
00:01:53,801 --> 00:01:57,972
I never thought that I'd be good enough
to work at Disney.

23
00:02:00,224 --> 00:02:04,854
Back in 1974,
I applied to their training program.

24
00:02:05,396 --> 00:02:07,106
And the response was,

25
00:02:07,189 --> 00:02:10,359
"Well, you didn't make it, Eric,
you're not good enough."

26
00:02:12,653 --> 00:02:17,575
In the late '80s, in London,
I was running my own animation studio.

27
00:02:18,284 --> 00:02:21,746
It was a very successful
commercials company.

28
00:02:22,747 --> 00:02:27,209
But I was getting very stressed out
working on commercials.

29
00:02:27,793 --> 00:02:32,590
I go to an animation festival
in Los Angeles, bringing my reel,

30
00:02:32,673 --> 00:02:35,718
and there are a couple
of Disney guys there.

31
00:02:37,011 --> 00:02:39,305
One was Charlie Fink,

32
00:02:40,181 --> 00:02:42,600
who just kept calling me once a month.

33
00:02:42,683 --> 00:02:46,228
"You wanna jump ship yet, huh?
You wanna join Disney's yet, huh?"

34
00:02:47,355 --> 00:02:49,440
Charlie finally dropped the bombshell.

35
00:02:49,523 --> 00:02:53,402
He said, "They're thinking of doing
this film Aladdin.

36
00:02:53,486 --> 00:02:56,489
And they're thinking
of getting Robin Williams."

37
00:02:57,323 --> 00:03:00,409
I just thought,
"Okay, if I don't do this now,

38
00:03:00,493 --> 00:03:02,661
I'm gonna miss the crest of a wave."

39
00:03:07,124 --> 00:03:08,584
My first week at Disney,

40
00:03:08,667 --> 00:03:13,130
and I'm starting to draw
developmental sketches of the Genie.

41
00:03:13,214 --> 00:03:14,548
And here we are.

42
00:03:16,133 --> 00:03:20,971
If you look at Mickey,
he's got this organic way of being drawn

43
00:03:21,055 --> 00:03:23,432
where one line leads to the next.

44
00:03:23,516 --> 00:03:25,267
Same thing with the Genie.

45
00:03:25,351 --> 00:03:28,020
You know, you've got all these lines

46
00:03:28,104 --> 00:03:31,816
that kind of add up to something whole.

47
00:03:31,899 --> 00:03:36,987
So, I started doing Robin William-esque
Genies in my designs.

48
00:03:38,239 --> 00:03:39,740
John and Ron said,

49
00:03:39,824 --> 00:03:45,204
"Why don't you take a couple
of Robin's bits off his comedy records

50
00:03:45,621 --> 00:03:47,623
and animate a Genie to them?"

51
00:03:47,707 --> 00:03:48,791
But first, before we do the play,

52
00:03:48,874 --> 00:03:51,127
I'd like to talk about
the very serious subject of schizophrenia.

53
00:03:51,210 --> 00:03:52,420
-No, he doesn't.
-Shut up! Let him talk!

54
00:03:52,503 --> 00:03:53,504
[audience laughs]

55
00:03:54,380 --> 00:03:57,925
[Goldberg] And I have to say,
it's one of the great joys of my life

56
00:03:58,634 --> 00:04:00,344
to have made Robin Williams laugh.

57
00:04:00,428 --> 00:04:03,013
[screams]

58
00:04:03,097 --> 00:04:04,348
-Oy!
-[bones crack]

59
00:04:04,932 --> 00:04:09,687
Ten thousand years
will give you such a crick in the neck!

60
00:04:10,646 --> 00:04:12,273
[Goldberg] I was in the right place
at the right time.

61
00:04:12,356 --> 00:04:14,650
Animation, all of a sudden, is hip again.

62
00:04:15,526 --> 00:04:21,073
Aladdin was getting towards that peak
of what people call the Renaissance.

63
00:04:22,116 --> 00:04:23,242
Welcome to my wall.

64
00:04:23,325 --> 00:04:24,910
[chuckles]

65
00:04:24,994 --> 00:04:28,205
The Shanghai assignment was great.

66
00:04:28,914 --> 00:04:32,918
They wanted to decorate a restaurant
in Shanghai Disneyland,

67
00:04:33,419 --> 00:04:36,839
à la Hirschfeld/Sardi's.

68
00:04:36,922 --> 00:04:40,718
I even got to do modern characters
like Anna and Elsa.

69
00:04:40,801 --> 00:04:45,264
Whenever I have to draw characters
from the Disney canon,

70
00:04:45,347 --> 00:04:48,851
I always feel all those people
who created those characters

71
00:04:48,934 --> 00:04:51,604
looking over my shoulder saying,
"Do it right."

72
00:04:51,687 --> 00:04:52,688
[chuckles]

73
00:04:52,938 --> 00:04:58,486
Often, they would straddle two drawings
like this with Gaston and LeFou.

74
00:04:58,569 --> 00:05:03,866
Every one of these movies has a theme
and they're universal.

75
00:05:03,949 --> 00:05:08,162
How many people of our generation
grew up dealing with death

76
00:05:08,245 --> 00:05:10,498
because they saw Bambi's mother die?

77
00:05:10,581 --> 00:05:12,083
[calling] Mother?

78
00:05:12,708 --> 00:05:14,627
♪ I've got no strings
To hold me do-- ♪

79
00:05:14,710 --> 00:05:15,795
[Goldberg] With Pinocchio, it's,

80
00:05:15,878 --> 00:05:18,214
"Always let your conscience
be your guide."

81
00:05:19,632 --> 00:05:23,094
In the case of Aladdin,
the theme was, "Be yourself."

82
00:05:24,345 --> 00:05:27,431
And even though, yes,
they do deal with serious subjects,

83
00:05:28,099 --> 00:05:32,269
you always walk out of a Disney film
delighted and feeling like...

84
00:05:33,479 --> 00:05:34,563
"Yeah. That was great.

85
00:05:35,773 --> 00:05:37,191
I think I'm gonna see it again."

86
00:05:37,274 --> 00:05:38,442
[chuckles]