Did You Know? - Fun Facts About "Aladdin"

Welcome to another edition of a series that I like to call Did You Know?. Inspired a little by the Nostalgia Critic's "What You Never Knew" series, this series will allow me to share with you some interesting tidbits, behind-the-scenes information, and fun facts about an animated movie or TV series. Because I like sharing new information with people.

It's been too long since I've done one of these posts. Since I've already done editions talking about The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast, I think it's time I did one about the FOURTH film in Disney's animation renaissance (I'm guessing there aren't a lot of fun facts about The Rescuers Down Under online, so don't expect a Did You Know? about THAT film) - Aladdin.

Aladdin was the highest-grossing animated film of 1992, and for good reason. It's fun, it's energetic, it's colorful, it's one of those animated films that you can't help but love. And a lot of that is owed to the talented cast and crew that brought it to life. John Musker, Ron Clements, Howard Ashman, Scott Weigner, Alan Menken, and Robin Williams, just to name a few, all contributed to the movie's greatness. Like the Genie of the lamp, it's often-imitated, but never duplicated...

My apologies to Will Smith, but he's no Robin Williams.

...and is still one of the most beloved Disney animated films to this day. And it has a lot of history behind it, too.

You probably already know about the falling-out between Disney and Robin Williams. You probably also know that Pinocchio, Sebastian the Crab, and the Beast all make cameos. You likely don't need to be told about deleted songs like "Proud of Your Boy" and "High Adventure". And if you read my previous post about an early draft of the film's script, you probably know all about scrapped characters like Abbi, Aladdin's mother, and his three idiot friends. But did you know any of THESE things?

1) Technically, this wasn't Disney's first adaptation of the Aladdin story. That honor goes to their 1970-released LP, Disneyland Records' Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp.

It's not even Disney's SECOND adaptation of the Aladdin story. That would be a 1971 LP from Disneyland Records called The Story of Aladdin and His Lamp. Why they released two LPs adapting the same story so close together, I don't know.

2) While Robin Williams was always the filmmakers' choice for the Genie, they did have some backup options in case he turned it down, or if they couldn't convince Jeffrey Katzenberg it was a good idea - Steve Martin, John Goodman, Martin Short, Eddie Murphy, Albert Brooks, Matt Frewer, and John Candy were all considered. What convinced Robin to accept the role was a bit of pencil animation Eric Goldberg did of the Genie set to a routine from one of Robin's comedy albums.

In addition, Danny DeVito and Joe Pesci were considered for the role of Iago. Patrick Stewart was offered the role of Jafar, but he turned it down due to scheduling conflicts with Star Trek: The Next Generation. Tim Curry, Kelsey Grammer, Christopher Lloyd, Ian McKellen, and John Hurt were also considered to voice Jafar.

3) Y'know all those animals and servants that appear during the "Prince Ali" sequence? Where the heck did they all come from? Well, according to a deleted scene, the Genie created them by transforming bugs, rodents, stuff like that.

Concept art of a devious-looking Aladdin and Jasmine.

4) Initially, Aladdin was modeled after Michael J. Fox. Jeffrey Katzenberg urged the filmmakers to make him look like Tom Cruise. "In all his poses, I noticed there was a confidence, a look in the eyebrows, that gives him intensity and at the same time a smile that has kind of an impish look, like he’s got something up his sleeve," said Glen Keane, Aladdin's supervising animator. He also found inspiration for Aladdin while observing and sketching volleyball players at the beach. Meanwhile, Will Finn, the supervising animator for Iago, designed Iago by drawing a caricature of Gilbert Gottfried and adding feathers (Iago shares Gilbert's squinty eyes and toothy grin). For Jasmine, her supervising animator Mark Henn had two inspirations - his sister Beth and actress Jennifer Connelly. And Aaron Blaise, the supervising animator for Rajah, had difficulty with "the fluidity in the design" until he looked at a Jaguar hood ornament.

5) The film's art style as a whole was inspired by Al Hirschfeld. According to Eric Goldberg, "I look on Hirschfeld’s work as a pinnacle of boiling a subject down to its essence, so that you get a clear, defined statement of a personality. There’s also an organic quality in the way one line will flow into another: It may go along the back of a neck, down the spine, across the behind and the down the leg--all in one single line that is very, very elegant. I wanted the Genie to have that kind of elegance."

Al Hirschfield himself said, "I’m very flattered that the animators say they were influenced by my use of line, but art isn’t a 50-yard dash - it’s more like a relay: You keep handing it on to somebody else, and there’s no beginning or end to it. I didn’t invent the line: That simplification that communicates to a viewer goes back to the cave drawings at Altamira."

Concept art for the Genie - the one on the left is the same design Eric used
in the aforementioned pencil test.

6) It's hard to imagine anyone BUT Eric Goldberg - one of my favorite animators - animating the Genie, but before him, the job was offered to independent animator Bill Plympton. "You know, the Robin Williams Genie that does all this crazy stuff. Because I was so good at transforming the head, like in Your Face. They wanted me to do some of that with the Genie," he explained. "But, I had the studio in New York. I had people that I'd have to fire and I'd have to shut down the whole operation." And he was already working on a film called The Tune at the time as well, so he turned Disney down.

"And I say if you want to work for Disney, go ahead," he added. "It's a great opportunity. I'm always the first in line to see a Disney or PIXAR film, because they're really wonderful. But every morning when I get up and I go to my drawing board and I start drawing and there's no one looking over my shoulder saying, 'We don't like that, change it, please,' I say I can draw whatever I want, and to me that's worth more than a million bucks."

Concept art of the film's main characters, including Aladdin's mother, who wound
up getting cut.

7) Here's another interesting anectdote about Katzenberg - remember that scene where Abu, after being turned into an elephant, climbs up a tree? In a test screening, Katzenberg complained the accompanying sound effect was "much too cartoony". He later complained that there weren't enough pounding noises during the scene where Elephant Abu climbs up the palace stairs.

8) Caricatures of the film's directors, John Musker and Ron Clements, can be seen in the crowd watching Prince Achmed. Originally, this scene was going to have an appearance from caricatures of film critics Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, but the filmmakers thought they would need to get permission to do that.

More concept art for the Genie.

9) John and Ron aren't the only caricatures in the film. There are actually quite a few, all of them were designed by animator T. Daniel Hofstedt. A few appear during the "One Jump Ahead" song - the jewelry vendor is clean-up artist Marshall Toomey, the fire walker is a CalArts teacher named T. Hee, and Crazy Hakim the fertilizer dealer is animator Tom Sito. Going back to the crowd watching Prince Achmed, there are also caricatures of Eric Goldberg, Glen Keane, and T. Daniel himself with his three-year-old son Daniel.

Another caricature appears at the beginning of the "Friend Like Me" song. One of the Forty Thieves that the Genie summons is a caricature of effects animator Dorse Lampher (he's the tall, pear-shaped one with bare feet and a small sword).

10) Are you familiar with Disney's 1959 live action film Darby O'Gill and the Little People? Well, that film actually had a bit of influence on Aladdin.

Let's be honest, most of Disney's 1950s live action films
would be at least slightly more well-known if they were animated.

You see, screenwriters Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio were in a meeting with Ron and John. Ron and John asked if the Genie should be able to grant an unlimited amount of wishes like in the original story, or if it should just be three. According to Terry, "Going down the path of unlimited wishes (which they had done) created what we deemed an 'addiction story' paradigm. Aladdin wishes for more and more stuff, which starts out fine, but eventually gets out of control, and he can't stop - essentially an addiction tale. But limiting the wishes to only three would make each wish crucial, have story purpose, and enhance the opportunity for drama."

What does this have to do with Darby O'Gill and the Little People? Easy - that film was exactly what Terry was thinking of when he was explaining this to Ron and John. I haven't actually seen the film, but Terry filled us in on what happens in it. Darby O'Gill captures the King of the Leprechauns, Brian Connors. And that means Brian has to grant him three wishes. He says, "Three wishes I grant you, great wishes and small, but if you wish for a fourth, you lose them all!" So eventually, Darby's daughter is injured and going to die, and Darby wishes that he could take her place and die instead. And as he's being carried away to the land of the dead in a spectral coach, Brain appears and tricks Darby into making a fourth wish - wishing that he could see the aforementioned daughter get married. And remember that "if you wish for a fourth, you lose them all" thing Brian said earlier? Well, by making that wish, Darby forfeits the other three, and he doesn't have to die.

Terry pitched that they could create a similar crisis for Aladdin if they limited the number of wishes. And wouldn't you know it, Ron loves Darby O'Gill and the Little People, so...

Concept art of Aladdin and Abu. Somebody make Abu stop staring at me.

11) Here's another thing that Terry informed us - why can Iago talk? According to him, the idea was that Jafar took all of his emotions and transferred them into his parrot, leaving him free of distractions and thus more able to conjure magic... but Iago is too small for so many emotions to be bottled up inside, so Jafar wound up with a loud, hot-tempered Angry Bird.

12) As you might recall, Howard Ashman and Alan Menken's original treatment for the film took place in Baghdad. The reason why the final movie doesn't take place in Baghdad? The first Gulf War. Roy Disney told the crew that they couldn't have the film in Baghdad, so John Musker did a "jumbled anagram" and came up with Agrabah.

Concept art for Jafar.

13) So, back to that "three wishes makes for better drama" thing... the story requires Aladdin to use his second wish before the third act starts up so he'd have to decide whether to use his third wish to sort out his own problems or free the Genie like he promised. So somebody came up with the idea of having Aladdin use his second wish to get through some sort of obstacle course designed to test Jasmine's suitors so they could prove they were worthy of being her husband. Alas, the idea didn't work out, and they decided to just have Jafar somehow convince the palace guards to help him throw Aladdin off a cliff and as a result Aladdin has to use his second wish for the Genie to save his life.

14) An early version of the climax was to have Jafar wish not just that he was the sultan, but that he'd ALWAYS BEEN sultan and would always be the sultan, resulting in some sort of magic wave that changed everyone's memories. The magic carpet would wrap itself around Aladdin and Abu and protected them from the wave, so they'd be the only ones whose memories were unaltered. Aladdin would, as in the finished movie, put everything back to normal by tricking Jafar into the lamp. They decided it was "too science fiction-y".

15) Before Aladdin, Robin Williams starred in the Back to Neverland attraction at Disney-MGM Studios (now Disney's Hollywood Studios), a theatrical show about animation. The Genie's outfit at the end, with the hawaiian shirt and the Goofy hat, is a reference to that attraction - Robin wore the same getup at the beginning.

Here's a screencap from Back to Neverland with Robin in his tourist getup.

16) The "Friend Like Me" sequence was the first scene to be animated. In fact, the animation had already been done before they decided to make Aladdin look more like Tom Cruise, so he looks a bit more Michael J. Fox-ish during the scene.

17) The filmmakers went through a couple different songs for Jafar to sing before deciding on his reprise of "Prince Ali". The first was called "Humiliate the Boy", and you can find an animatic for the song on YouTube where Jonathan Freeman voices both Jafar AND Iago (who was originally going to be British, apparently). Then they came up with a song called "My Time Has Come", in which Jafar lamented how much his life stunk and how he was going to make everyone miserable in revenge. Also written for Jafar were "Why Me?" and "My Finest Hour".

Concept art for Iago.

18) As you likely already know, Robin Williams also voiced the Peddler at the beginning of the film. For the scene where the Peddler offers us some of his wares (would YOU buy that combination hookah and coffee maker that also makes "Julienne fries"?), Robin was brought into the soundstage, positioned in front of a table where there were a bunch of random things covered by a sheet, and told to just ad-lib everything.

19) Gilbert Gottfried was allowed to improvise a lot, too. Remember Iago's line as he's packing his bags after Aladdin reveals to the Sultan that Jafar has been hypnotizing him? "I'll bring the guns, the weapons, the knives... and how about this picture? I don't know, I think I'm making a weird face in it." That was an ad-lib, and it got a laugh out of Robin when he heard it.

20) You know that kid from the marketplace who Jasmine gives an apple to? He's got a name. It's Tony:

Credit for this goes to havesomedisney.tumblr.com.

21) You probably recall that the Genie briefly dons a tux and acts like a game show host before turning Abu into a camel. For the movie's release in India, Disney swapped this out for the Genie becoming a "cricket commentator" (don't know if that means a cricket who does commentary or a commentator at a cricket GAME).

22) "A Whole New World" was originally called "The World at My Feet". Tim Rice suggested to Alan Menken that having the word "feet" in a Disney love song wasn't such a good idea.

23) Y'know how the Beast makes a cameo in the film as one of the animal figurines that the Sultan is stacking just before the "Prince Ali" song? Well, he's not the only cameo in there. Somebody on Reddit revealed that, if you look very closely, you can also see the back of Donald Duck's head (it's under the deer and to the left of the pink rhinoceros):

I've also heard claims that Simba from The Lion King is hidden among the animal figurines as well, but I don't see him.

24) While animating the Magic Carpet, Randy Cartwright kept folding a piece of cloth to see how to position it.

25) The movie actually has a color scheme inspired by its desert setting: blue (the color of water) represents good, red (the color of heat) represents evil, and yellow (the color of sand) represents neutral. Notice that Jafar is clad in red and blacks and is entirely red when he becomes a genie, whereas Jasmine wears blue and the Genie IS blue.

Concept art for Jasmine.

26) Aladdin was the first Disney film to be dubbed in Icelandic.

27) Yes, the Peddler at the beginning is indeed the Genie in disguise. The original plan was to have the Peddler show up again at the end and reveal himself to be the Genie, but they replaced it with the "Genie's face on the moon" ending. The Broadway musical removes the Peddler and simply has the Genie introduce the story as himself.

28) During "Friend Like Me", Genie writes Aladdin's order from right to left - which is how Arabic would actually be written. However, what Genie wrote is actually Persian, not Arabic. Specifically, he wrote "Turkey Pilaf" in Persian to match the Middle Eastern setting. However, the list that Genie pulls out of Aladdin's ear IS written in Arabic.

Here's a very strange piece of concept art for either the Genie or
Jafar. Whoever it's supposed to be, it looks more like Jim Carrey's Grinch.

29) It's often mentioned that Genie is the only character in the movie with four fingers. This is false. You can see some merchants during the "Prince Ali" song that ALSO have four fingers.

30) The Cave of Wonders scene was originally going to be even longer - there was a scene where Aladdin walked up to the lamp and was about to grab it, but then noticed his shadow on the wall... and many more shadows that once belonged to other fools who stumbled upon the cave and tried to grab the lamp (including the thief from the beginning of the film). He would've stepped away from it, and it would've turned out that the lamp was a fake. And because Aladdin didn't take it, he was allowed access to the real one.

31) During preview screenings, there was a distinct lack of applause after the musical numbers. So they gave the Genie an applause sign on his back after "Friend Like Me". It worked!

Concept art of Aladdin discovering the magic lamp.

32) To promote the film, a parade called Aladdin's Royal Caravan marched down the streets of Disneyland and Disney-MGM Studios in Walt Disney World. The first parade at a Disney park based on a single movie, it featured live actors, inflatable costumes, and puppets. Genie was all over the place, Aladdin and Jasmine rode on the back of elephant Abu, and Jafar was at the end - as a street sweeper. For more information about the parade, I recommend checking out Yesterland and Walt Dated World (they're great sites for Disney Parks afficianados like me!).

After its run, the golden camels featured in the parade were placed outside a restaurant in the park called the Soundstage Restaurant, which (at least in 1992) was themed to the movie as well and featured animation cells and concept art hanging up on the walls, marquettes, and I believe meet-and-greets with the characters while you ate. The restaurant eventually closed (it was where the Playhouse Disney live show was during the 2000s), and the camels now stand nearby the Magic Carpets of Aladdin attraction at the Magic Kingdom, continuing to spit on guests. There was also an Aladdin's Oasis dinner show at Disneyland from 1993 to 1994.

33) Jonathan Freeman went on to play Jafar in the Broadway adaptation of Aladdin. He also played Grimsby in the Broadway adaptation of The Little Mermaid.

34) According to Andreas Deja, Marc Davis didn't like that Robin Williams was allowed to ad-lib dialogue for the Genie. He felt that the ad-libbing would date the film (he did, however, tell Andreas that he enjoyed Jafar). On the flip side, Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnson had "a few quibbles with the story" but were otherwise okay with the film. Chuck Jones loved it, calling it "the funniest animated film of all time".

SOURCES:
- http://www.wordplayer.com/columns/wp53.The.Rules.html
- https://cartoonresearch.com/index.php/celebrating-the-25th-anniversary-of-disneys-aladdin/
- https://www.cinemablend.com/news/2552347/that-time-aladdin-songwriter-alan-menken-had-to-cut-feet-lyrics-out-of-a-whole-new-world
- https://www.thewrap.com/aladdin-25th-anniversary-facts-robin-williams-disney-photos/
- https://www.orartswatch.org/bill-plymptons-animated-imagination/

Let's Watch This... Again: An Episode of "The Spooktacular New Adventures of Casper"

NOTE: Please do not take any of the little nitpicks in this review (or any of my other reviews, for that matter) seriously. I write these reviews in the hopes of making people laugh. Those nitpicks are really just dumb little observations that I'm attempting to make jokes out of, not complaints that add to whether or not I like something.

NOTE #2: No disrespect is meant towards anyone who worked on the show I am reviewing today. I'm sure they are all very nice and talented people.

NOTE #3: If you like this show, that is great. Go ahead and like it. I'm not judging you. But please be civil in the comments.

Somebody on DeviantArt requested that I do a re-review of this show. As I've said before, I am nothing if not a people-pleaser.

For those who didn't read my first review of The Spooktacular New Adventures of Casper, it premiered in February 1996 and recieved four seasons and a total of fifty-two episodes (each one consisting of two or three segments). The show was developed by the writers of the Casper movie released the previous year, Sherri Stoner and Deanna Oliver. Taking place after the film, the show had Casper (voiced once again by by Malachi Pearson) still living in that haunted house with his obnoxious uncles Stretch (Joe Nipote), Stinky (Joe Alaskey), and Fatso (Brad Garrett in the first two seasons, then Jess Harnell in the third and fourth), ghost psychologist Dr. Harvey (Dan Castellaneta) and his daughter Kat (Kath Souice as opposed to Christina Ricci). Also along for the ride were Casper's teacher Ms. Banshee (Tress MacNeille), his cousin Spooky the Tuff Ghost (Rob Paulsen), and Spooky's girlfriend Poil (Sherry Lynn).

I didn't care much for The Spooktacular New Adventures of Casper when I first reviewed it in 2022. The episode I reviewed had Casper helping the astronauts on the Apollo 13 shuttle, scaring his uncles by playing a record of some woman singing in a foreign language (it makes just as little sense in contex), and disguising himself as a human boy. I didn't care for it. Mostly because the episode consisted mostly of pop culture references and characters being snarky. Y'know, kind of like Animaniacs, except that show had actually funny gags and heart to make up for the lame pop culture references (by the way, I know I said in my first review that the writers worked on Animaniacs, but according to IMDB only one of them aside from Sherri Stoner and Deanna Oliver, Chris Otsuki, did. My mistake). It probably doesn't help that I didn't care for the movie much when I rewatched it in 2015. But I know the show does have its fans, so I'm gonna take another look at it and see if I just happened to watch one of the weaker episodes the first time around.

I was originally going to do a review of the nineteenth episode, but it wasn't giving me enough joke material - plus, as I was typing up the review, my computer ran out of power and most of the review I'd written got erased, and I didn't feel like retyping all of it. So instead, we're watching the twenty-fifth episode of the show (the fifteenth episode of the third season). Once again, this is The Spooktacular New Adventures of Casper.

The first segment of this episode is called "Gargoils". This one focuses on Stretch, Fatso and Stinky... who, I should mention right now, are characters who I found incredibly annoying and unlikable in the movie. In fact, the only reason I probably didn't hate the previous episode I reviewed more is because they weren't in it much. So this segment's having them be the stars doesn't exactly fill me with confidence.

Anyway, the three ghosts are at some sort of ghost dating service. They want "three hot babes" for the night. "And we ain't talkin' talkin' pigs!" Fatso says, the first of what I assume will be MANY pop cutlture references in this episode. You see, they're recieving the MVS - that's the most Valuable Spook Award.

I know the Nostalgia Critic already brought this up in his review of the film, but why
do some of the ghosts have hair and clothes but Casper and his uncles don't?

So the ghost matchmaker sets Stretch, Fatso and Stinkie up with three gargoyles. NOT the ones from the beloved Disney cartoon show (note to self: review Gargoyles at some point), but these lovely ladies. One of them is, for some reason, a caricature of Rosie O'Donnell. I'm pretty sure the other two are supposed to be caricatures as well, but I'm not sure of who. One of them sounds like a bad impression of Rosie Perez, but I don't know if she ever looked like that. The third one... maybe Roseanne Barr? I don't know.

Why are they caricatures? Is the show trying to imply, by making these three celebrities into gargoyles, that they're ugly? Or is it just because celebrity caricatures are automatically hilarious or something? I'm guessing the latter.

And why WOULD somebody sculpt a gargoyle to look like Rosie O'Donnell? Gargoyles
are supposed to ward off evil spirits. I don't imagine that a lot of evil spirits would be scared
of 1990s talk show hosts...

Fatso and Stinkie lament that if they show up at the ceremony with those "pigeon potties", they'll be laughingstocks. "We'll have to go stag," Stretch says. Fatso, whose elevator doesn't go all the way to the top if you get what I mean, pulls out three literal stags.

"You'd better have a good reason for dragging us away from our reindeer games."

The gargoyles make a reference to Showgirls, because... it exists, right? Stretch, Fatso and Stinkie tell them that they can't go out with them because, uh, Fatso has chicken pox, and then fly off laughing... but the gargoyles show up at the ceremony anyway. They already had chicken pox in the sixteenth century. I didn't know gargoyles could get chicken pox. I'm learning so much today!

I guess the joke is that they're all based on celebrities with "Rose" in their name?

"If only there was a way to turn 'em into ghosts!" Fatso says. Oh, jeez, is this gonna go where I think it's going? Are they gonna try to kill the gargoyles? Is it even POSSIBLE to kill a gargoyle? It's made of stone, after all...

Fortunately, they don't attempt to commit gargocide. Instead, they tell the gargoyles that the party is a COSTUME party, so they'll have to go in disguised as ghosts. Despite how laughably bad their ghost costumes are, everybody buys it, because apparently all the ghosts at this party are as dumb as Fatso.

That's the worst Patrick Star costume I've ever seen.

(See? I can make pop culture references too. Doesn't make me funny)

Of course, their costumes wind up falling off, revealing to everyone that they're gargoyles. The ghosts are shocked and appalled by this. Ghosts are racist against gargoyles, it would seem. One unfunny sequence later, the gargoyles return to their posts and ask Stretch, Fatso and Stinkie if they can go out again sometime. Only problem is, they only come to life once a year, so they'll have to wait a while. 

All's well that ends well, right? Well, no. You see, Ms. Banshee, who seems to have some sort of on-again off-again relationship with the trio, was at the ceremony, and she's mad that they went out with somebody else. The moral of today's story, as she puts it, is that Hades knows no fury like a wraith scorned.

Next we get a commercial for an album of Ms. Banshees' Public Domain Hits. The only joke of this segment is that Mrs. Banshee screeches random lyrics of the songs she's singing. Dear lord, I hope Tress MacNeille was paid well for this role. It must've put quite a strain on her vocal cords.

I'm gonna be seeing those teeth in my nightmares.

Order now, and you will also recieve such soon-to-be-classics as "How Dry I Am - Thanks to Pampers", "Skip to My Lou Grant", and "Ring Around Rosie O'Donnell" (why are these writers so obsessed with Rosie O'Donnell?). There are only two good things about this segment. One, the announcer is Jim Cummings, which automatically makes it better. And two, as the random song names fly up the screen, they eventually start including things like "No, Really, You Think Up Some Goofy Titles!", "Is Anyone Reading This?", and "Go Read a Book or Something!". Also, the offer is prohibited in states containing vowels and is not avaliable in areas surrounding lakes. An actually funny joke? It must be my birthday!

Our third segment, "Boobsom Buddies", begins with Stretch telling Stinkie that he's "about as scary as Valerie Bertinelli". Of course the actually funny joke is immediately followed by a pop culture reference. Even if the kids watching this when it aired in 1997 knew who Valerie Bertinelli was (I didn't even know, I had to look it up!), did they actually consider this joke funny?

Casper - yes, the main character of the show is actually IN this episode - and Dr. Harvey find Stretch, Fatso and Stinkie arguing over which of them is responsible for their losing The Price is Right... oh, I mean, The Price is FRIGHT... because they weren't scary enough. Who won? Howard Stern. Is Howard Stern considered scary? Simply mentioning a celebrity is not a joke.

Casper seems exasperated by his own cartoon. I feel your pain, Casper.

"Don't you game show losers ever speak to me again!" Stretch tells Fatso and Stinkie. Then he pushes their beds out the window and announces that he's evicting them. "Can't we all just get along?" Casper asks. Well, Casper, I've spent enough time on the internet to know that, no, we can't.

So, Fatso decides to sleep in Casper's room. He keeps Casper up all night, so when Casper leaves for school the next morning, he's exhausted. On top of THAT, Stinkie decides to go to school wtih Casper. He makes a reference to Saved By the Bell because, again, it exists, so that makes it funny, right?

Isn't this more or less a painfully unfunny version of the SpongeBob episode "Naughty
Nautical Neighbors"? I know this show premiered before SpongeBob, but still...

At ghost school, Stinkie charms Ms. Banshee and douses the class with rotten milk (it's "show and smell"). All the other ghost students love Stinkie, and he announces that he's going to join Casper at school EVERY DAY, much to Casper's dismay. Then when he gets home, he finds out that STRETCH wants to hang out with him, too.

Those veins in Casper's head are even scarier than Ms. Banshee's teeth.

After talking to Dr. Harvey about the situation, Casper thinks up a way to get Stretch, Fatso and Stinkie to make up. He invites each of them to a special banquet for best firends only. Of course, when they show up, they're not pleased by the presence of the other two ghosts, and a food fight starts up while Casper attempts to make a milkshake. Then a tornado pops out of the blender for some reason and sucks everything in. When Casper turns off the blender, his uncles spill out, now blended into... this:

This whole fiasco causes the three of them to make up. All's well that ends well... except that now they're gonna go back to tormenting Casper. No good deed goes unpunished.

What's the Verdict?

Sorry, but I'm still gonna have to put The Spooktacular New Adventures of Casper in the "not worth your time" category. The best thing I can say about it is that the animation and voice acting are good. But that's not enough to make up for how painfully unfunny the show is.

Pop culture references in of themselves ARE NOT JOKES. If you're going to make them, at least have some sort of logic behind them. For instance, it wasn't funny when Mighty Max made references to The Flintstones, but if nothing else they had SOMETHING to do with what was going on: he was talking to a caveman, and The Flintstones is an iconic cartoon about cavemen. Even when I make stupid unfunny pop culture references, it's because they have something to do with what's going on in the cartoons I review. Here, they just have the characters mention Howard Stern and Valerie Bertinelli and Showgirls for seemingly no reason.

Problem number two - as the show went on, it started to focus more on Stretch, Stinkie and Fatso than Casper, and I really don't like these three as characters. They're not quite as hateable here as they are in the movie (they don't do anything as bad as, say, mocking Kat over the fact that her father turned into a ghost and she was now an orphan), but they're loud, annoying, and have most of the least funny lines. Casper himself is basically just reduced to reacting with exasperation to their antics here - basically, he's the Dr. Scratchensniff to their Yakko, Wakko and Dot.

So, no, I wouldn't recommend watching The Spooktacular New Adventures of Casper. Even if you like the movie, there's not much of substance here. As I said before, the Animaniacs style of humor can only really be pulled off by Animaniacs itself, and most attempts to ape it wind up being washes.

I should probably mention, by the way, that I wasn't really in the Halloween spirit this year at all. The first chunk of October, my family was pretty busy with my sister's wedding. And after that I still didn't really have time to do full reviews. I'm not a huge fan of Halloween in general, but this year, in particular, I really just wanted to get through the month so I could start doing reviews of non-Halloween stuff again. So my apologies if it didn't feel like my heart was in any of these October posts. I'll make up for it during the Christmas season.

Back to the Drawing Board: The Early Drafts of "Hotel Transylvania 2"

When I did a review of Hotel Transylvania: The Series, I'd only seen the first Hotel Transylvania movie. Now that I've seen the second and third ones - I know there's a fourth one, but I have no interest in watching it - and of the three, I personally believe that Hotel Transylvania 2 is the best of the bunch. I know that's kind of a hot take (although it does have a slightly higher Rotten Tomatoes rating than the first), but let me explain WHY.

It seems to have the most heart of the three, Dennis is adorable, the new characters as a whole are fun, the jokes are funny, and Dracula's friends get more to do - also, I like Keegan-Michael Key as Murray the mummy more than Cee-Lo Green. It IS the one that wastes Molly Shannon the most (she only gets, what, one line?), but that's just a minor thing.

Did you know that you can actually find early drafts of Hotel Transylvania 2's script online? That's right! You can! THREE of them, in fact. Two of them are pretty close to the finished film, but one of them features some noticeable differences. So, in this edition of Back to the Drawing Board, we're going to look at this early draft - written in September 2013 - and see just how Hotel Transylvania 2 shaped up to be the film we got. Here is the script:

https://wikileaks.org/sony/docs/03_03/Mktrsch/Market%20Research/Scripts/HT2_2nd_draft%20%283%29.pdf

The script starts off NOT with a wedding but rather with a parody of Oprah's show. I don't know if Oprah was still relevant in 2013, but she seems like one of those celebrities who's never NOT been relevant (the script also describes the Oprah parody as "a Latifian host". Make of that what you will). She's interviewing Frankenstein's Monster, who complains to his creator, Dr. Frankenstein, that he couldn't even be bothered to give him a name - "Why is MY first name YOUR last name?!"

It seems that, since the monsters now know that humans aren't EEEEEEEEEEE-VIL, they've come out of hiding and have really made a name for themselves. Frank wrote a book called "Pieces of Me", Murray is a judge on some fashion design show, Griffin the invisible man has a workout video, and Bigfoot has joined the Italian Soccer League. The latter two gags made it into the finished movie, but later on.

As for Dracula, he's still running Hotel Transylvania, but now humans are welcome to stay at the hotel too. He's getting ready for Mavis and Jonathan's wedding. The scene that plays out is more or less the same one from the finished movie, except we don't get the gag where the flower girl gets mauled. Speaking of weddings, my older sister got married a week ago. If she and her husband are reading this -congratulations, you two!

A monster throws maggots instead of rice, we get to see Johnny's mom's underwear (thank goodness THAT gag wasn't in the film), one of Johnny's brothers has his arm eaten by the Venus flytrap centerpiece. After that, we don't get the scene where Dracula finds out that Mavis is pregnant... instead, we just cut right to one year later, with the pregnancy in full swing, Dracula insisting that Mavis eat "monster ball soup" instead of zuccini and ice cream ("They take the milk from a COW! Using CLEAN GLOVES! And stir it with SWEET FLAVORY SYRUP!"). And when the baby, Dennis, is born, we don't have Dracula disguising himself as a nurse. We DO, however, get a briss ceremony where Dracula and the other monsters are horrified by the mohel's attempt to circumcise the baby. I think it's pretty safe to say why THAT got cut.

Concept art for Dennis by Joey Chou.

Six months later, Johnny's parents are visiting the hotel again. Johnny's dad, Mike, and Dracula disagree on whether or not Dennis is a vampire, and Mavis' attempts to get them to stop arguing are futile. Mike also suggests that Jonathan come home with them to get a real job, but Johnny wants to stay at the hotel, and Dracula claims that he's in charge of "working with, eh, supervising, uh, human relations". Then it's time for presents! Like in the movie, Murray gives Dennis some cursed bling, Frank and his wife Eunice give him a tiny guillotine, and we see that Mavis has babyproofed the entire hotel. Also like in the movie, Dennis' first words are "Bleh-bleh-bleh". By the way, Johny's mom's name is Linda. My sister's husband's parents are named Mike and Linda. Amusing coincidence, huh?

Okay, okay. I'm gonna try not to talk too much about my sister and her husband's personal lives. I won't even tell you their names because I don't want you to look them up on Facebook or whatever and invade their privacy. This is Animation and All Things Related, not Let's Spill the Tea on My Sister's Life and Relationship History.

Dennis is now two. He still doesn't have fangs, but Dracula is determined to at least teach him how to turn into a bat. While this is going on, he's also trying to get the hang of having both monsters AND humans at his hotel. An aquatic-looking monster is annoyed that he got served a human dish ("COOKED meat?! Who would DO that to meat?"), whereas a human couple got a steak that attempts to eat THEM (must be from Soviet Russia... get it?). The hotel also has a TV room now, and while the humans and monsters agree that watching football is fun, they have differing opinions on Ghostbusters - the monsters find it horrifying.

Eventually, Dennis turns six. The sequence where Mavis tries to explain his new sleep schedule to Dracula is similar to how it goes in the movie, except we don't get the Cookie Monster parody. Instead of goofing around with some sort of photo-altering app, the zombie employees are playing Plants vs. Zombies, much to Dracula's bafflement. Before Johnny brings up the monster magician, Harry Three-Eye, he suggests that Dracula get a human bartender. The current bartender is Dr. Jekyll... isn't he already human? I know he turns into Mr. Hyde, but still...

Mr. Hyde actually appears as a background character
in the first Hotel Transylvania. Here's a picture of him.

Speaking of Harry Three-Eye, his act is a little different. He saws another monster in half... not the way magicians usually do it, he just takes a saw and cuts the guy in half right then and there. I'm guessing they changed the scene because they thought it was too gruesome. Then Dracula gets a text from Frank, who wants to introduce him to someone he met at a white party - the "Quinston hotel heir", a big fan of Drac's, and "wants to talk about opportunities" with him.

A storyboard featuring Quinston for a scene later on in the movie by
Steve Fonti.

Then it's time for the werewolf pups' birthday party. Like in the movie, Wayne and Wanda's daughter Winnie is head over heels in love with Dennis. Mavis tells Dracula to stop trying to push her son into liking everything he wants, just because Dracula hypnotized the werewolf pups into chasing their tails so Dennis could have some malted eyeballs. After that, Dracula and Johnny meet with the guy Frank texted Drac about, Carter Quinston, who the script describes as "a goofier Mark Cuban". He insists that they could make an entire chain of Hotel Transylvanias, but first they've gotta make a few changes. "With Monsters having other vacation options now, it's crucial for you to fully engage the human market," he explains. "The T will be the ultimate tribute to Monsters while bringing them into the 21st century." His ideas include...

- Renovating the exterior to have tall, dark floor-to-ceiling windows to make it look more "sleek and hip"... kind of like how they keep removing all the whimsy and character from McDonalds buildings and turning them into drab brown and grey coffee shops.

- Replacing the current staff with new vampires and zombies who look like they just stepped out of True Blood (so, more Edward Cullen than Count Von Count).

- Having a "Monsters Hall of Fame" for the "old school" monsters are put on display like they're in a zoo. Quinston suggests that to make it more "kid-friendly", Dracula could talk about his chocolate cereal and "the counting thing" (making the Count Von Count reference I just made a little redundant).

"Alright, I'm sorry, I just don't see me running a place like this," Dracula says. "Oh, no, no, no worries, dude, you wouldn't have to," Quinston insists. "I'm gonna buy it." Dracula, of course, is opposed to that idea, but Quinston explains that he'd still be a big part of it - not RUNNING the place, but rather being a meet-and-greet character like the ones at the Great Wolf Lodge. "I'd want you greeting everyone by the Blood Bar. You'd be the prototype for all the Draculas we put out there when we chain it," Quinston continues. "You know, we'd just limit your dialogue... keep it simple, 'I'm Dracula, bleh, bleh bleh..." They'd even have "Dracula's Bleh-berry Ice Cream", "Bleh cheese dressing", and "Bleh-berry muffins".

When I looked up "Dracula ice cream", I found this. Do you think Dracula would approve?

Dracula uses his telepathy powers to make Quinston kick himself repeatedly adn then has a yeti throw him out of the hotel. Wise call, Drac. Not every business needs a "modern" update, and if I ran a hotel I certainly wouldn't want to be reduced to its Mickey Mouse equivalent either.

Later, Dracula wakes up to find Johnny and Mavis putting Dennis to bed. He still hasn't figured out that Dennis sleeps at night and is awake during the day, unlike vampires. He's also surprised to find out that Mavis is feeding him Mueslix cereal instead of Lucky Maggots.

Product placement!

They're also talking about Dennis' birthday party next month (didn't he just turn six?). He wants to have a special hero on his cake, a special hero who wears a cape and can climb walls. That hero, of course, is NOT Dracula, but rather Batman. Dracula is miffed that Johnny and Mavis are seemingly trying to steer Dennis away from liking monsters at all, but it turns out that Dennis DOES like ONE monster: Cakie, the aforementioned Cookie Monster parody.

Concept art for Cakey.

And that's when Mavis drops the bombshell: they're thinking about moving to where Johnny's family lives in California. "I just think maybe he needs a more normal life," she explains. Now, this brings up a common complaint I see about the second movie a lot... unlike most of the internet, I never saw Drac as unlikable or forgetting what he learned in the first Hotel Transylvania. He loves his grandson regardless of whether or not he's a vampire, he's just being overly-enthusiastic and then goes to extremes to "get the fangs out" because he doesn't want him, Mavis, and Johnny to move (Johnny and Dennis didn't want to move either, it's worth noting). He was trying too hard to make Dennis a monster, and Mavis was trying too hard to make him a human, which is implied to be because she thinks she's "freaky" and doesn't want Dennis to feel like that too. It's not just "Mavis is right, Dracula is wrong", they both have good intentions but are going about it the wrong way.

Dracula talks to a portrait of his wife, Martha - who, for those of you who didn't watch the first movie, was killed by humans. "I don't think I could bear it if they left me," he laments. "I'd feel so alone. I know she's a good mommy but I've been at this for 2000 years, maybe I know a little more than her. I'm telling you, that boy, it's in there! If I could just get some real Grandpa time... show him the ropes. I KNOW I could get those fangs out of him..."

I don't know why, but I find this meme hilarious.

Then he gets an idea. We cut to a brunch buffet, with a three-legged race going on (an actual three-legged monster, of course, is in the lead). Drac is seated at a table with all the main characters, and everyone can see that Mavis is pretty stressed-out. Wanda advises her to get a stress toy - which is a tiny sentient monster whose eyes pop out when you squeeze it (he's cool with it). Dracula suggests that maybe Mavis and Johnny could go on a little vacation, by themselves. Wayne and Wanda agree. They always make sure they get some "alone time" by locking themselves in a closet for thirty seconds every day. "Doesn't matter how hard they kick the door, that time is for us," Wayne declares. Then Johnny suggests that, while they're out, Dracula could take care of Dennis. "Who, me? That's not my ulterior motive at all!" Dracula exclaims.

Through a montage, Johnny and Mavis prep Dracula by showing him all of the things Dennis does and likes. Mavis shows him all of the different vitamins Dennis takes, then they go to a place called Kidboree, Color Me Mine, a wildlife center, a music class, and a kids' yoga class. As soon as Mavis and Johnny leave for the airport, the other monsters show up with their luggage. They've all got things to do: Frank and Eunice are meeting with a reality show producer, Griffin is going to Coachella, and Murray has a book signing in Akron. As for Wayne, he's working as a caddy - this scene is basically a repeat of the "Wayne is a lousy tennis instructor because he's a dog and likes chasing balls" gag from earlier.

Dracula explains to Murray, Frank, Wayne, Griffin, and Blobby the blob monster in the sauna that he needs their help to help Dennis. They have to go to all their own haunts and show Dennis how to be a monster. As they're leaving, they run into Eunice, who wants to know where they're going. Uh-oh. Dracula tells her that Dennis has a fever, so they're taking him to a specialist in China. And just to make sure that Eunice has no lingering suspicions, he puts her in charge of the hotel until he gets back (along with the Human Fly). I smell a wacky subplot!

Concept art by Michael Spooner.

While Dracula and his buddies head off, we cut to Mavis and Johnny arriving NOT in California, but rather in France. Because Johnny wanted to show Mavis France. First they go rock-climbing. Then they climb the Eiffel Tower (which is usually frowned upon, don't try it in real life or you'll get thrown in French Jail like Johnny was the previous time he did it). Only downside is, they're stuck in a crummy hostel, in a tiny room, with a bunkbed - and somebody is already in the bottom bunk!

Back with the Drac Pack (note to self: review Drak Pack at some point), they arrive at the Dark Forest of Slobozia, which is now a Municipal Park and Bike Trail, much to Dracula's shock. The windmill where Dracula sucked his first blood has been turned into a wind turbine ("More cost efficient and safer for Mother Earth!" Wayne points out). Instead of a deer, Dracula tries to get Wayne to kill and eat a coyote. I looked it up, and apparently wolves DO eat coyotes in real life. Since they're both wild dogs, wouldn't that be cannibalism?

Storyboards for the scene (after they decided to swap out the coyote for a deer)
by Aurelien Predal.

Wayne's attempt at attacking the coyote just results in them all getting chased by the coyote's pack. Then it's off to a cemetary, where Dracula tells Murray to raise some ghosts. Mummies can do that, I guess. I'm not a mummy expert. And sure enough, Murray DOES raise some ghosts - an elderly Jewish couple who the script suggests casting Mel Brooks and Martin Short as the voices of. Then the coyote shows up again, and when Murray sees it he creates a huge sandstorm that covers the entire cemetary... is that the mummy equivalent of crapping one's pants?

Mavis and Johnny are having crepes at a French bistro. Mavis isn't the only monster in Paris - Bigfoot is there, too, on a date with a model. Hey, if Tex Avery can get a girlfriend far more attractive than he is, I see no reason why Bigfoot couldn't. Especially since Bigfoot is far less annoying.

Concept art by Sylvain Marc.

We get another scene pretty much exactly as it is in the finished movie - Mavis calls up Dracula, and Griffin puppeteers the sleeping Dennis. The only real difference here is that they bring up Mueslix again. Back at the hotel, everything is, as the script puts it, going to crap. The zombies are riding luggage carts like they're Zack and Cody (I haven't watched an episode of that show in years, did they ever actually do that?). The Human Fly, another zombie, and a grotesque monster are messing with a photo-altering app - hey, that joke's in this draft after all! And Eunice is too busy getting sixteen massages and buying everything in the gift shop to do anything about the chaos. As soon as she storms out, Quinston walks back into the hotel with a fake mustache (which he needs because there are multiple signs with his face on them and the words "NOT PERMITTED IN HOTEL").

Dracula and his buds arrive at Camp Winnepacaca, the vampire kid summer camp. Just like in the finished movie, it's been drastically altered since Dracula went there. They are greeted by an older vampire named Grigor - not to be confused with Bulgarian tennis player Grigor Dimitrov, who I'm pretty sure is NOT a vampire. He shows them that Dracula wet his coffin when he attended the camp, then attempts to give Dracula a purple nurple before the camp director, Dana, shows up. In addition to "tee-mousing", they also have "crossbow-dodging", just like when Drac was there... except that the crossbows they dodge are Nerf. Fun fact: Nerf crossbows are a thing. I looked it up.

More concept art by Michael Spooner.

Back in Paris, the waiter at the bistro complains to Mavis and Jonathan that monsters are disgusting. "They eat three times what us humans eat and they are lousy tippers. Maybe they don't know math. But the Cyclops was in here? He left me a gall bladder!" he complained. And he's badmouthing monsters IN FRONT OF A VAMPIRE. Insensitive much, waiter? Mavis obviously isn't comfortable with this, so Johnny tries to cheer her up with a trip to the Louvre. It's closed, so they climb onto the roof.

Okay, so then we get the most iconic scene in Hotel Transylvania 2 - Dracula attempts to help Dennis learn how to fly by throwing him off an extremely tall and rickety tower, eventually realizing just before Dennis hits the ground that he's not gonna fly and saves him.

Why would Dracula think this is a good idea? Because he's, as he would put it,
"nusty cuckoo".

Then while Dracula is arguing with Dana, the tower falls over and Frank winds up accidentally setting the entire camp aflame. This scene is almost exactly the way it is in the finished film (the only difference is the lack of Dracula saying that Dennis' mother is "nutsy cuckoo"). What happens next, not so much. The monsters wind up in jail. Murray's cellmate implies that he's going to use him for toilet paper... at least I HOPE that's what he's implying.

Dracula tries to cheer Dennis up by saying that they're just playing pretend, and that he's Batman and he's locking him in a cell. Then he somehow butt-dials Mavis, and despite Dracula's best efforts, she winds up finding out that they're in a jail cell. Murray runs in, screaming, "He wiped with me! He wiped with me!" Poor Murray. Mavis announces that she's going back to the hotel, and if Dracula isn't there when she arrives, they're moving to California tomorrow. I didn't know that you can move to another state - heck, another CONTINENT - in just one day.

A storyboard for the scene featuring poor Murray and his cellmate.

As Mavis and Johnny hail a taxi, Griffin, who managed to avoid being arrested (there are benefits to being invisible), sneaks in and frees Drac and the others. The scene that follows is basically the same as it is in the finished film - although, since Paris and Transylvania are both in Europe, Mavis and Johnny probably get back to the hotel faster.

So, like in the movie, Mavis and Jonathan get back to the hotel before Dracula and his pals do. Mavis is MAD! She doesn't know about the "throwing Dennis off a tower" thing, which makes her anger seem a bit less justified - she can't even give Dracula a chance to explain? Not even asking, "How the heck did you guys end up in jail?"

After Mavis storms off, Dracula gives up on trying to get Dennis' fangs out. "Maybe Mavis is right. I have to let him be who he is, just like I did with her," he tells Frank. Plus, he has a lot of angry hotel guests to worry about. Later on, we see Mavis, Jonathan, and Dennis on a plane. Mavis turned into a bat and is inside a box (they didn't have enough seats, and Johnny couldn't bear to check his backpack). Unbeknownst to them, Dracula and the others are hiding in the cargo hold. Dracula changed his mind on the whole "let him be who he is" thing because he knows that Dennis needs his vampa - that's "vampire grandpa", for those who haven't seen the film.

Back at the hotel, while chaos ensues in the lobby, Quinston is hanging out in Dr. Jekyll's bar with a bunch of monsters and humans. He tells them that Dracula is selling the hotel and "dumping all the monsters". The Phantom of the Opera - technically not a monster, but technically neither is the Invisible Man so we'll let it slide - says that Dracula would never do that, but Quinston insists: he's "replacing [them] with humans and hip, teen-friendly monsters. Dudes, look what he's done already, making it humany. TV. Pillows." And guess who else is there? Quasimodo, the head chef and the closest thing that the first movie had to a villain. He believes Quinston's claims... after all, Dracula prevented him from eating the human who went on to become his son-in-law, did he not?

The monsters are still skeptical until Quinston introduces them to his new musicians - a zombie boy band! The human guests go gaga over them... I guess the whole "boy band" thing makes them ignore the "zombie" thing. The monsters are furious. "Everything was fine till Drac let humans in!" Harry Three-Eye snaps. Dr. Jekyll is so mad that he chugs down his potion and turns into Mr. Hyde, then leads the monsters in attacking the humans. The Human Fly attempts to restore order, but it's futile. Human/monster relations are falling apart. Nobody sees Quinston paying the zombie boy band, or pouring some of Dr. Jekyll's potion into an empty bottle.

For those of you who don't remember what Harry Three-Eye looked like
in the finished movie, here's a picture of him.

Mavis, Johnny, and Dennis arrive at Johnny's parents' house, where Dennis has to deal with his obnoxious seven year old cousin, and then gets attacked by the neighborhood kids. I'm sure he'll LOVE IT there! Meanwhile, at an outdoor shopping mall, Dracula and his pals are trying not to get noticed, and Drac suggests they get new clothes. They spot a store called The Halloween Store, which confuses Frank as it's only June. I can confirm that, yes, stores DO start getting out Halloween decorations months before October (I'm not sure if they start in June, though). I don't understand why either, nor do I understand why stores also have CHRISTMAS stuff out when it's only October right now.

We get the "mixed couples" gag seen in the finished film, then Mavis gets attacked by Johnny's brother's cocker spaniel. She has a monster phobia. Johnny's brother suggests that he could get him a job at his firm - then he could start up a career in investment banking! Nobody knows that Griffin is inside the house, spying on them and reporting to Dracula what's going on via the phone. This is pretty creepy, isn't it? Probably a good thing this scene wasn't in the film. If it had, the people complaining about Dracula's behavior would've had a field day...

Concept art for Johnny's parents' house.

After Murray and the blob are scared by a kid in a Jason mask, the monsters head to a WalMart-esque store and buy some cargo shorts, plaid shirts, socks, and trucker hats. To make Griffin visible again, Dracula douses him with tanning spray. Remember how angry everyone on the internet was when we actually saw what Griffin looked like in Hotel Transylvania 4 and it turned out that he wasn't a hot guy (granted, I'm not a huge fan of the design they gave him either)? Just think, they could've gotten to see how ugly he actually was much earlier.

Johnny's family and friends are eating at a Chinese restaurant. Dennis is still being picked on by his cousin and a half-human/half-monster boy named Troy. Dracula and his chums enter and sit down at a table very close to theirs. Of course, their disguises work - apparently all a werewolf has to do to avoid anyone noticing that he's an anthropomorphic wolf is to put on a plaid shirt and a trucker hat. Eventually, Johnny notices Dracula after he gets into an argument with the waiter, and they meet up in the bathroom to discuss the situation.

Johnny and Dennis do not want to live in California. "I don't want to work with Intestine Spanking!" Johnny moans. "Do you know what they do?! They help people ALLOCATE and MANAGE their assets! And you have to wear SHOES!" He also mentions that tomorrow, they're gonna have a birthday party for Dennis, and that he hired Cakey the Cookie Monster parody to perform. "If that kid sees Cakey in this town he'll never want to leave!" Dracula laments. But he has an idea: Johnny brings Cakey to where he's staying, and he'll apparently be so psyched to meet him that he'll make him part of his show and then Dennis will see that real monsters are cool, too. It's foolproof! Or maybe it isn't. Who knows?

Back in Transylvania, Eunice and Wanda emerge from the hotel spa and are suprised to find the lobby empty, except for the Human Fly. He explains to them that the monsters are attacking the humans. Unbeknownst to them, the monsters have left the hotel and are being ushered by Quinston and his aides onto a large private jet. Quinston claims that they're not gonna HURT Dracula, they're just going to talk him out of it before he signs over the hotel. And because the monsters are apparently idiots, nobody has any suspicions that maybe this Quinston guy isn't super-trustworthy.

Concept art of the monsters on the plane.

Dracula and his pals meet up with Johnny and the guy who'll be playing Cakey, Brandon, in their hotel room. Brandon isn't so sure about having Dracula and the other monsters in his performance because "it wouldn't really be true to the Cakey character", and it doesn't help that Dracula's proposed routine is pretty lame. Then Brandon ticks off Dracula by bringing up the "bleh, bleh, bleh" thing and Dracula knocks the guy out cold. Oh, great. NOW what is Dracula gonna do?

And what is he gonna do when Quinston and the other monsters arrive? They're still on the plane, and he's showing them a contract that he's drawn up promising never to sell the hotel and to always employ monsters - or so he claims, it actually just hands over the hotel to him. Quinston's aides give the flight attendant the bottle of potion he'd swiped earlier as she prepares the monsters' drinks. Moments later, we see the pilots in the cockpit, nonchalantly talking about going to Napa. One of them hears noises from the cabin and opens the door to check it out. All of the monsters have drank the potion, and they've gone all Mr. Hyde - crazier, larger, and fiercer versions of themselves who want to make Dracula pay. The pilot's reaction to this? He calmly closes the door and says "Must be a bachelor party."

A storyboard featuring Quinston and Quasimodo.

It's Dennis' birthday, but he's not having much fun. Neither is Mavis, who has to put up with the other moms' looking down on monsters. Eventually, in comes Cakey - or rather, Dracula dressed as Cakey. His performance sucks more than a vampire sucks blood, mostly because the other kids hate it and continue bullying Dennis. Poor kid. At least nobody is using him as toilet paper.

After Cakey Dracula violently punishes the other kids for picking on Dennis, Frank freaks out at the sight of the lit candles on the birthday cake and runs out of the house. When the other monsters tackle him, Mavis pulls off Cakey's head to reveal that it's Dracula in the suit. "How could you do this? Why can't you ever let go?" she demands. "Let go of what? Dennis isn't happy here!" Jonathan protests. "You KNOW he doesn't fit in here!" Just like in the finished movie, everyone starts arguing over what's best for Dennis, and they're so busy bickering that they don't notice an uncomfortable Dennis running off. And while this is going on, Quinston and his army of Hyde-ified monsters are driving through the neighborhood in a line of stretch limos, looking for Johnny's folks' house.

Fortunately, everyone eventually notices that Dennis is missing. Unfortunately, Quasimodo spots Dennis and points him out to Quinston. The limos screech to a halt, and Quinston and the monsters get out and ambush the poor kid. Dennis tries to get away by climbing up a tree, but Quinston manages to grab him. "Now we can use this kid as ransom to get his Grampa to do what we want!" he snaps. "Why do you be so mean to Papa Drac?" Dennis protests, to which Quinston makes it pretty clear: he said "no", and Quinston really, really, REALLY wants to own Hotel Transylvania, even though surely there's some other hotel chain he can buy. Maybe he already started production on cartons of "Dracula's Bleh-berry Ice Cream"?

Quinston's taunts and threatening of Dracula make Dennis MAD! And here we get the OTHER scene from the movie everyone talks about: Dennis gaining his vampire powers. A complaint I've seen about the film is that the moral seems to be that Drac should accept that Dennis might not be a vampire, but having Dennis gain vampire powers during the climax kind of flies in the face of that. But there are two things that don't bother me about it. One, Dracula already puts his foot down and decides it's not worth it BEFORE Dennis gets his powers (I love the scene where he stands up to Vlad and defends Dennis). Two, there is a scene after the battle against Bela and his goons where Dennis asks Drac if he's cool now because he has vampire powers, and Drac tells him he was ALWAYS cool. Somebody on TV Tropes pointed out that if Dennis didn't have vampire powers, it would basically just be a rehash of the first movie's "Dracula must accept Johnny even though he's a human" thing, so either way it was going to be a problem. Now, granted, I think it miiiiiiiiight work a little better here because Dracula already gave up on trying to make Dennis a vampire long before the climax and followed them to California because he knew Dennis didn't want to leave, but chances are people still would've complained.

Pictured: how most vampires react when they watch Twilight.

Except Dracula - in the first movie, his reaction to it was an exasperated, "THIS
is how we're represented? Unbelievable..."

So, Dennis gains vampire powers and beats the crap out of Quinston and the Hyde-ified monsters. As he gets away, Quinston feeds the potion to some squirrels and sics 'em on Dennis, but they're no match for the kid. Mavis and Dracula arrive just as Dennis is finishing off the monsters. But now QUINSTON has drank the potion, and he's now a Hulk-like Hyde monster sneaking up on Dracula with a wooden stake. Fortunately, Dennis spots him and freezes him. Kind of an anti-climax, isn't it?

As Dracula hugs Dennis, Mavis apologizes and admits that her father was right. "None of us were right. We all wanted to tell Dennis who he was," Dracula assures her. "He could only figure it out when he was left alone." Then we cut to the next day. Back at Hotel Transylvania, the monsters are all back to normal and they've made amends with the humans. I guess all that got cleared up off-camera. Dennis is having a birthday party there, and Dracula gives a speech about how he will never stop protecting his fellow monsters. Wayne is now Harry Three-Eye's apprentice, and he makes a rabbit disappear... by eating it. Dance party ending time!

I know this is from the third movie, not the second, but I couldn't resist...

Oh, and there's even a scene for the middle of the credits. Quinston is still frozen in place... and then the cocker spaniel shows up and attacks him. Justice is served.

So that's the second draft of Hotel Transylvania 2, and while it starts off being pretty similar to the film we got, things really take a turn for the different in the third act. Personally, while I prefer the film we got - the absence of Dracula's father, Vlad, is very much felt - there were some interesting ideas in here that had potential. I liked the idea of this evil guy who wants to take over the hotel and who tricks the monsters into turning on humans. The villain we got in the film - Vlad's crony Bela - works just as well, but feels a bit tacked-on just to provide a big battle for the climax. But seeing the good guys come together to defeat Bela was certainly more satisfying than having them sit the climax out. I think, if nothing else, Dracula should've been involved.

Speaking of involved, I also think having Jonathan be in on Dracula's plan to make Dennis a vampire works better than having him be oblivious. It makes Dracula seem slightly less skeevy. Keyword: SLIGHTLY. Still, this was a pretty fun read, but I'm still glad they revised the script in time for the film's 2015 release.

I was originally going to make this a one-part post and look at the other two script drafts in the second part, but I decided against it because they were pretty close to this draft and the film we got. I'm just gonna sum 'em up quickly right now:

Third Draft

- Instead of an Oprah parody, the script begins with Frank, Murray, Wayne, and Griffin being interviewed at a red carpet event. We get the same gags - Murray working in fashion, Griffin having a workout video, Bigfoot playing soccer, etc. Frank talks about how Dracula is still running the hotel. Then we see Dracula waiting for Mavis and Johnny, who are off traveling, to return. Mavis and Johnny call him via video-chat, using Wayne's phone - so they can tell everyone that they're engaged.

- There's a scene where Dracula talks to that sassy talking head.

- The montage of Dracula tagging along to Dennis' various activities now includes a scene at the pool (where a monster tries to swallow Dennis) and a music class run by the Phantom of the Opera.

The Phantom of the Opera, as seen in the finished film.

- The brunch buffet has a Hawaiian theme. Some monsters are hula-dancing and Dracula slices spam off a large, squarish Spam Monster.

- There's no evil hotel manager guy, and Johnny and Mavis go to California instead of Paris. Johnny also still isn't in on Dracula's plan, and Mavis still doesn't find out about the "throwing Dennis off a tower to see if he flies" thing.

- Johnny and Mavis go waterskiing at one point.

- After Mavis decides that they're moving to California, Johnny begs Dracula to help him convince her not to move. He wants to stay at the hotel. There's still a joke about the Zombie Boy Band, but this time Johnny hired them.

- So, Dracula and Frank go to see Vlad. Dracula hasn't seen him in years, it turns out, because Vlad didn't approve of his wife (she wasn't a "pure vampire", her great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmother's cousin was from Baltimore). Dracula asks for his help getting Dennis' fangs out, and Vlad suggests they have a ceremony where they sacrifice what he cherishes the most. Dracula isn't sure about it, but Vlad insists that they have to "remove what's holding him back from his dark destiny".

Concept art for the scene where Dracula and Frank visit Vlad.

- After that, Dracula tells Johnny about Vlad's plan and they get the idea to sacrifice Cakey. Dracula also tells Johnny that his father can't know that he and his family are humans because Vlad hates humans.

- The scene where Dennis talks to Winnie about having to move is earlier - just before the birthday party and Vlad arrives at the hotel. Winnie also suggests that she and Dennis could "have really weird babies".

- Vlad flirts with Johnny's mother at one point.

- Vlad attempts to sacrifice Cakey, but Dracula puts his foot down and stops it, which leads to Mavis finding out and them all getting into an argument. When Mavis says that they can't change Dennis, Dracula says, "I don't want to change him! I don't care anymore if he's a vampire! I just want you all to stay!" Then Vlad asks, "You don't care about the shame he brings you? What's become of you, son?" While all of this is going on, Dennis runs off.

- Johnny stands up to Vlad and accidentally reveals he's not a vampire not because Vlad called him and Dennis wimps but because Vlad was giving Dracula a hard time. Vlad is furious that Dracula "ruined [their] bloodline" and "let humans into [their] world" and declares that the hotel must be extinguished. He summons his demonic cronies to destroy the hotel. The knights and staff try to fight them. Meanwhile, Dennis and Winnie are in their fort, but they hear the hullabaloo going on in the hotel and go back to the hotel. However, the cronies get out of control and don't listen to Vlad when he clarifies to only destroy the HOTEL, not the PEOPLE. The cronies' actions result in Dennis gaining his vampire powers. We get a big fight scene, and once the cronies are defeated, Vlad sums up that what Dennis actually cherished was his FAMILY and that he realizes now that humans and monsters can coexist and blah blah blah. Johnny offers to give Vlad his backpack.

Fourth Draft

- We open with Dracula sitting on Mavis' bed and playing with her old dolls. He has the girl doll say "Save, me, oh King! That Lunatic stole me and took me to Hawaii!" and the boy doll say "Fear not, my little Princess! That Red Headed Gorilla will pay for trying to steal you!" ...yeah, really glad they cut this part. Wasn't the point of the first film's ending that Dracula accepted Johnny despite him being a human?

- Frankenstein and Wayne walk in on him and point out that Dracula needs to deal with the fact that his daughter is out seeing the world. Frank suggests that HE get out and see the world a little, too, like the other monsters, which is how we get the workout video and soccer gags. Eventually, Mavis and Johnny walk in, Dracula is very happy. Johnny asks Dracula if he can marry Mavis and have a room at the hotel where they can stay - or at least he tries to, Dracula can read his mind, but he agrees to it.

Concept art of Mavis and Dennis.

- After the wedding, things play out the way they do in the movie until the scene where Dracula talks to Frank about Mavis wanting to move. When Frank points out that Johnny doesn't want to leave, Dracula says, "Yeah, well he's got some way of showing it. Running around contaminating my hotel staff with his facebooks and his rock 'n' roll!" and that the reason why Dennis doesn't have fangs yet is because "they're babying him so much with the Cakey sharing and the avocados."

- In the movie, Johnny says that he "hasn't felt this alive since they invented stuffed-crust pizza". Here, he says that he "hasn't felt this alive since [I] sat on Dave Matthews' amplifier in the rain".

- We still have the Hawaii-themed barbeque scene.

- After Mavis makes up her mind about moving, things play out the way they do in the third draft, minus the zombie boy band joke. Dracula still goes to Vlad, instead of Mavis inviting him to the party herself. There is, however, some new dialogue here - Vlad mentions that all Dracula learned at the summer camp was "how to pee stain every kind of wood" and that he played with a kitten all day... so Vlad ate the kitten.

Concept art of Dracula and Frank on their way to see Vlad.

- So we get the party, Vlad's attempt to sacrifice Cakey, the argument, Vlad summoning the cronies to destroy the hotel. Dennis runs in and asks Dracula what's happening to the hotel. Dracula says, "Don't worry about the hotel! I'll build a new one. I just care that you're okay." Dennis says, "Even if I'm not a vampire?" and then Dracula says, "I don't care if you're a vampire. You're my grandson. My perfect, beautiful grandson."

- From there, it's pretty much the same as in the third draft.

...boy, this post was a lot longer than I expected it to be. I hope you enjoyed reading about the writing process of a sequel that I seem to be in the minority on liking. If you didn't enjoy it? Sorry, no refunds.