Did You Know? - Fun Facts About "Madagascar"

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.

I can't believe Madagascar is twenty years old. I remember how I first found out about it - my family went to see Shark Tale in theaters (I don't know what we were thinking either), and at one point during the previews, I had to go to the bathroom. I walked back into the theater just in time to see the end of the teaser for the film. I sought out the teaser online after that.

The first film is a huge guilty pleasure for me. I feel like I should hate it - it's a film made by 2000s DreamWorks, which means that it's filled with celebrities who don't have much if any business doing voice-acting and unfunny pop culture references that have nothing to do with what's going on. And don't get me wrong, it's a very flawed film, but there's still a lot to like about it. The characters, even the ones that aren't given much to do, are great - the Penguins steal the show, of course, but Alex and Marty's friendship is definitely the heart of the film. And when the film is funny, it's genuinely really funny, and the dramatic and heartwarming moments work well too. The two sequels, while also flawed, are in my opinion even better.

The three Madagascar movies (I know there's technically four, I'm focusing on the three main films in this post) have a lot of fun facts about them that I would like to share. You probably already know that there are references to Planet of the Apes and The Twilight Zone (hot take: that "It's a cookbook! IT'S A COOKBOOK!" joke wasn't funny). You might also remember the "Madagascar Mania" tie-in with Denny's (I remember seeing that ad while watching Cartoon Network... or maybe it was Boomerang, I'm not sure). But did you know any of THESE things?

Concept art by Jordi and Carlos Grangel.

1) How did Madagascar come to be? In a recent interview with Animation World Network, co-director Eric Darnell revealed that Jerry Seinfeld had a hand in creating the idea: "I think part of it came from the relationship Jeffrey Katzenberg had with Jerry Seinfeld and this idea of doing something that would involve Manhattan and New York City. Jerry began developing the idea, and then he went on to work on what became Bee Movie. But we really fell in love with the idea: what if you take four New Yorkers, born and bred, rip them out of their New York home, where they've been their entire lives, and drop them into a savage jungle? How would they survive? And what if these New Yorkers were not people, but zoo animals?"

The other co-director, Tom McGrath, added, "It's a classic fish-out-of-water story. New Yorkers going camping. And New Yorkers going camping already feels funny. Originally, the story was about civility versus savagery, which is still a component of it, but it could be a very dark, unrelatable theme. We eventually found a theme that was more like, 'Don't eat your best friend.' Then, as we developed the movie, it became more about not letting the location define who you are. Home is where the heart is. It turned into a friendship story: as long as they were together, it didn't matter where in the world they were. That's why all the movies became kind of a travelogue built around that lesson."

2) Melman was originally going to be an okapi. They decided to make him a giraffe instead because more people know what a giraffe is than an okapi is (apparently, people were more aware of what one is by 2013, because the Valentine's Day special Madly Madagascar features an okapi as a minor character). Also, he was originally named Henry.

Concept art for Melman (then called Henry) by Buck Lewis.

3) The actual Central Park Zoo does not have lions, zebras, giraffes, hippos, or chimpanzees. It does have penguins, though. If you want to see lions, zebras, and giraffes in New York, you'll have to visit the Bronx Zoo (there are no hippos or chimpanzees there either, sorry).

4) The inital plan for the film had the animals being liberated from their cages by an animal rights group.

5) When the film was announced in 2001, Madonna and Jason Alexander were mentioned as being part of the cast (presumably, they were going to voice Gloria and Melman respectively). Ricky Martin, Adam Del Rio, and Mel Gibson were also attached to provide voices at one point. For whatever reason, all five of them wound up leaving the project at some point. Jennifer Lopez was also considered to voice Gloria, then Gwen Stefani was cast... then she left the project in 2002.

6) Melman wearing tissue boxes on his feet at one point in the film is a reference to Howard Hughes, who did it for the same reason as Melman - to keep germs away.

Concept art by Yoriko Ito.

7) King Julien's role was initially very, very small - originally, Maurice was going to be the leader of the lemurs, and it would've been his idea to have Alex help them against the foosa. Julien was just a minor character with only two or three lines who was questioning why they should have a lion help them. Then Sacha Baron Cohen got the part (and in case you're wondering why they brought a celebrity in to voice a character with only two or three lines, need I remind you that Zootopia 2 had Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson voicing a character who just screams and nothing more?) and did a lot of improvising, and the filmmakers liked it so much that they made Julien a more prominent character.

8) Editor Clare Knight was the one responsible for the film's use of "I Like to Move It". According to Eric Darnell, "We had the lemurs a little more cool, kind of loungy, almost like jazzy lounge lizards. Clare brought in this really fun number, and at first your instinct was, 'No, that's not who the lemurs are.' But as we listened to the song and brought it to Sacha, he totally embraced it and wanted to sing it. It completely redefined the character for the better."

9) Tom McGrath and Eric Darnell initially wanted Robert Stack to voice Skipper, but he passed away. Thus, Tom decided to voice Skipper himself because everyone really liked his scratch track for the character. Tom's voice for Skipper is sort of a combination of Robert Stack, Charlton Heston, and "maybe some Peter Graves every once in a while."

Concept art for Marty and Melman (who was still called Henry at this point).

10) Speaking of the penguins, they were very nearly cut from the film because they were only in one scene. Specifically, Jeffrey Katzenberg told them to take the penguins out, so they did, and then they had a test screening where a studio executive asked where the penguins were, resulting in Katzenberg saying that the penguins were "working out pretty good" and telling the filmmakers to put  them back in. According to Tom McGrath, "A way to give them job security was to embed them in the story, so we thought, 'OK, they can inspire the zebra to escape the zoo and then they're forever in the story and they can't be cut!'"

On top of that, the original plan was to have Alex, Marty, Melman, and Gloria's crates fly off the ship during a storm at sea. But a storm at sea is kind of cliched, isn't it? Tom McGrath thought so too, and he said, "I was in a restaurant, thinking about what to do with the storm. I thought it would be great if there was an animal revolt. When we first put them in the film, people were saying, ‘What’s with the penguins?'"

11) Okay, enough about the penguins for now. On the side of the pay phone that Alex uses when Marty escapes the zoo, there's a note reading "Room for rent, EAST Village, $10,000/mo, call Tom & Eric". This, of course, is a reference to Tom McGrath and Eric Darnell.

12) Madagascar is often brought up as one of the first CGI-animated films to have its characters move in a more "cartoony", squash-and-stretch style way. According to Eric Darnell, "We'd talk about animation style in the film, so we set out from the very beginning this very broad style with squash-and-stretch. But its difficult to do in computer graphics because you basically have a virtual puppet that you have to construct before you begin animation. All the controls and capabilities have to be built into this puppet before you start. With hand-drawn animation, if you want to draw a guy thats normally six feet tall and stretch him out to be 12 feet tall, or flatten him on the ground, you just draw it that way. And you're done. To design a puppet with those kinds of capabilities was a big challenge for us, because we wanted to be able to do that, too."

Animator Jason Schleifter said, "I think as a whole our department really started to push smear frames and stretching characters like crazy where it was warranted. We worked really hard to keep the characters on-model when striking a pose, but inbetween poses oh, man, we were going nuts! You'd have fingers stretch five times their normal lengths, eyes bulging all over the place. I even did a shot where a fossa hits the ground and when he does his eyes actually smack into each other, then stretch out so they're 2-1/2 times their normal distance from each other, and then rattle back. It happens so fast it's subtle, but boy does it add a nice punch to the action."

And Tom McGrath claimed, "We wanted to do something, animation-wise, that was more than what youve seen in 3D and to have a 2D sensibility, much like animation in the Forties: Tex Avery, Warner Bros. Because of the advancements we were able to do squash-and-stretch broad animation, and have this in a stylized world thats really believable in 3D."

13) And he does mean "stylized". "There were careful considerations in the design of this world that Kendal Cronkite had worked on with the simplification of things, and caricatured," Tom McGrath explained. "There were no straight angles. Everythings slightly off-skew. We called it Wack Factor. When things got to crazy we pulled it back. On Antz, when they surfaced the environments, they'd do it with photographs. They would photograph textures and use those. In Madagascar, it was all art. It was all hand-painted designs that were stylized that every surface was treated with. As opposed for using photos, the surfacing was all hand-painted."

Concept art for Alex.

"The artists in the surfacing department had a blast," Eric Darnell claimed. "Because they could invent every surface, every texture, for the surface of a leaf, the bark of a tree. Everything then could fit into this design paradigm that Kendal and her team devised. They just had a great time. They felt they had a creative input. What's up there on the screen is theirs. The majority of the plants that you see in the film are actual plants that are from Madagascar. But they're also very designed and stylized and fit in the style of the film. Even their organization and arrangement inside the frame and the environment, it's very different than how they would occur naturally, as we try to create this stylized fantasy of a jungle based on the Malagasy rain forest."

14) Jeffrey Katzenberg contributed to a lot of the film's jokes. For example, Eric Darnell and Tom McGrath thought of having that old lady beat up Alex, and Jeffrey suggested having her also kick Alex in the groin and mace him. And when the scene where the characters were all doing spit-takes ("You don't swallow it. It's just temporary 'till the plumbing's done.") wasn't getting the laughs the filmmakers were expecting in test screenings and they were getting advice that maybe it just wasn't a good gag, Jeffrey claimed, "No, the problem is, you don't have ENOUGH. You need two more big spits." And it worked!

Concept art for Madagascar itself.

15) Dana Carvey turned down a role in the film. I don't know which character they wanted him to voice.

16) The scene where the penguins arrive in Antarctica and discover that it, in Private's words, "sucks" was suggested by Bob Saget (who also voices a mnor character in the film - that one zoo animal who shouts at Alex and Marty to shut up because "WE'RE NOT ALL NOCTURNAL, YOU KNOW!"). It was originally going to be the film's stinger - for those unaware, that means the scene after the end credits. The filmmakers decided that they wanted the penguins to come back into the story, so they moved it.

17) Look closely at the patch on the suit that the ship captain is wearing - apparently, the name of the boat is "S.S. ACT II".

Food tie-ins for the film - maybe you remember seeing the Madgascar fruit snacks?

18) Remember how Mason and Phil escape the zoo because they've heard Tom Wolfe is giving a speech and they want to fling their crap at him? According to a behind-the-scenes bonus feature, the line was originally "I saw in the Times that Donald Trump is speaking at Stony Brook." Ah, remember the days when Donald Trump was just a punchline and not our president? Good times...

In the German dub, Tom Wolfe is replaced with Hilary Clinton. In the Hungarian dub, it's simply a lecture on evolution. In the Russian dub, they want to visit a lecture on "anarchy in the society". Speaking of foreign dubs, in the Hungarian dub Marty wants to go to Miami instead of Connecticut (probably harder to get to via train, unless you live in Florida already), and in the Korean dub, Melman assumes that they've wound up in Hollywood as opposed to San Diego.

19) The look of the jungles on the island was inspired by the paintings of Henri Rousseau.

A billboard for the film.

20) At some point in production, there was a reference to The Lion King in the movie - specifically, Maurice made a comment about the "oval of life". For some reason, this line was removed, but it's still present in the junior novelization.

21) Madagascar was released on May 27th, 2005 - the very same day that The Longest Yard, starring Adam Sandler, was released. Why is that noteworthy? Because both movies feature Chris Rock as a main character.

22) 2010 saw the launch of a live touring stage show adaptation of the first film that I believe is still being performed every so often today. Here are some photos of some productions:

Not exactly Shrek the Musical, is it?

23) Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa was originally going to be called "Madagascar: The Crate Escape". Presumably, somebody pointed out that at no point in the second film do the animals wind up in crates (unlike the first) so they gave it a new name.

24) In the second film, Young Alex is voiced by Ben Stiller's son, Quinn Dempsey Stiller, and Young Gloria is voiced by Jada Pickett Smith's daughter, Willow Smith. According to Eric Darnell, "You can’t coach [Quinn]. Ben was doing most of it, he was trying to get stuff out of his son and the most valuable stuff we got was things like when he didn’t want to sit in a chair and he was like, 'No, I don’t wanna…' and we had the mic on him and could use it when [young Alex] gets thrown into the crate.  So we really weren’t able to coach a performance out of him as much as we were able to follow him around with a mic and get what you would get following any toddler around."

For those wondering, no, Young Marty and Young Melman were not voiced by the kids of Chris Rock and David Schwimmer - Young Marty was voiced by Thomas Stanley and Young Melman was voiced by Zachary Gordon, who would go on to play Greg in the Diary of a Wimpy Kid movies.

25) Once a month during production on Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, the crew would act out scenes. "We put wigs on the layout artists. The animators got involved," Tom McGrath claimed. "We did 60 percent of the film in this high-school play type of video. In the first movie, we locked off the camera to reduce rendering time. It felt a lot like postcard shots. With this one, we had more processors."

Concept art for Alex's father, Zuba.

26) What was the hardest thing to animate in the second film? According to Scott Peterson, the film's effects head, "Grass - that was a big one. The African plains are vast, big vistas, where you can see a couple of miles out. Our challenge was to fill those plains with grass and do it in a way we could manage. We designed a tool for the layout department that would distribute grass by positioning geometric chunks of it in a shot. From there it went to the surfacing department where they handle its density: how it clumps, how scraggly it looks. They add accent grass and come up with the overall texture.

Then it goes to the lighting department. They had to develop tools that would regroup those chunks of grass into layers that make it easier to render large amounts of geometry. The surfacing department had to come up with a way of changing the grass' density -- have it very detailed when it's close to camera and more coarse as it get further away, but do it in such way that the audience doesn't notice the transition. We spent some time implementing that, making it efficient and coming up with intuitive controls for them to set up. On the rendering side, one of the ways we fixed the 'buzzing problem' [between the grasses' differing textures] was from a trick I learned at SIGGRAPH. It was the same one they used to fix King Kong's fur, which was to make the grass transparent as it gets skinnier -- it makes it blend better."

27) A couple of DreamWorks' other films have cameo appearances from the franchise's characters. For example, Roddy's owner in Flushed Away has an Alex doll:

Mason and Phil are seen on a newspaper at one point in Turbo:

And Gloria makes a cameo in How to Train Your Dragon... being carried by a dragon presumably to be eaten:

28) Some early plot summaries for the third film mentioned that Alex, Marty, Melman, Gloria, the Penguins, the Lemurs, and the Chimps would be joined in their quest to get back to New York by a performing llama. There aren't any llamas in the actual film, so I don't know if there WAS a llama in early script drafts or if the plot summaries were inaccurate (probably the latter).

29) Gia was initially going to be an albino jaguar kept in a cage at the Monaco casino. She would've been freed by Alex and joined the zoo animals in the ensuing chase (in the book The Art of Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted, you can find storyboards for the car chase scene featuring Gia among the animals in the car). The filmmakers decided it'd fit the story better if Alex met her in the circus.

Concept art for the third movie by Travis Koller.

30) Look closely at the multiple hunting trophies on Captain DuBois' wall. Among the animals she's hunted down are Nana's dog from the Madagascar Penguins: A Christmas Caper short (released theatrically in front of Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit), a larger version of King Julien's gecko buddy Stevie from the first movie, that fish from the second movie who screamed when the watering hole went dry, and Eggy the duckling from the Penguins of Madagascar TV series.

31) At the end of the third film, when DuBois and her crew are in crates on a ship headed for Madagascar (yeah, sorry about the spoiler), take a look at their crates. Stenciled on them are "Freedom Fries", "Freedom Dressing", "Freedom Toast", and "Freedom Dip Sandwiches". For those unaware, this is a reference to the House of Representatives' decision in 2003 to start calling the French fries served in their cafeteria "Freedom Fries" in response to France refusing to support Iraq.

32) Character designer Craig Kellman modeled Stefano's face after his own.

34) Marty's (in)famous "Afro Circus" song was ad-libbed by Chris Rock - he was originally just supposed to hum that usual circus music, but he made up his own lyrics. So if you hate that song, you now know who to blame for its existence.

Concept art by Samuel Michlap - you can see the albino version of Gia among the characters here.

35) Finally, I found an interesting tidbit in an interview with Eric Darnell for the second film. Now, as you probably know (if not... sorry again about the spoiler), Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted's third act has Alex, Marty, Melman, and Gloria making it back to the zoo... but they realize that they actually prefer being free and traveling the world, and that when they were with the circus, they were already home. So they, the penguins, the lemurs, and the chimps join the circus.

But back in 2008, Eric had this idea for the third (or fourth, I'm not sure if the plan was for three or four films at this point) film's ending: "I have this idea of them back in the zoo and Marty saying something like, 'You know, we never made it to Connecticut,' and so the last shot would be a freeze frame of them jumping over the wall for one more adventure."

Sources:
- https://www.awn.com/animationworld/survival-funnies-lion-zebra-and-wack-factor
- https://www.awn.com/animationworld/madagascar-escape-2-africa-what-next
- https://www.cgw.com/Publications/CGW/2008/Volume-31-Issue-10-Oct-2008-/Home-is-Where-the-Art-is.aspx
- https://www.skwigly.co.uk/behind-the-scenes-of-madagascar/
- http://am.animatedviews.com/Madagascar.html
- http://legacy.aintitcool.com/node/15457
- https://www.razorfine.com/news/film-news/madagascar-2-the-interview/
- https://www.awn.com/animationworld/madagascar-20-qa-tom-mcgrath-and-eric-darnell
- https://animationscoop.com/interview-madagascar-back-in-theaters-for-20th-anniversary/

Seriously, twenty years of Sacha Baron Cohen singing "I Like to Move It Move It". It doesn't feel natural.

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/

Did You Know? - Fun Facts About "Hercules"

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.

So, Hercules. I've talked about the film before on my blog - well, specifically, I've looked at the spin-off TV series that it spawned. At the beginning of that post, I talked a little about the film's being a black sheep of sorts for Disney. I think it mainly stems from the fact that saying it's accurate to the Greek myths is like saying that pigs have the ability of flight. Regardless, there are a lot of people - myself included - that actually like the movie.

I've already told you about the cancelled direct-to-video sequel, Hercules II: The Trojan War. You probably don't need to be reminded that Scar from The Lion King makes a cameo. And if you didn't pick up that "Air Herc" campaign is a reference to Nike's "Air Jordan" campaign, I'm guessing you were living under a rock for most of the 1990s (or maybe you just weren't born yet when the "Air Jordan" campaign was popular, like me). But did you know any of THIS?

Concept art for Hercules and the Hydra.

1) Animator Joe Haidar is the one who came up with doing Hercules as a Disney movie. After pitching the idea, he hoped that he would get a supervising position on the film. He did not - in fact, he didn't work on the film at all.

2) When Gerald Scarfe was brought on as the film's production designer, Disney was apparently frightened of him at first. "Partly because of my drawings, and partly because they thought I was going to be cross with them for not being able to draw like me," he said in an interview. "But I felt these people were the top of their world and they might just say 'Shove off. Who are you?' to me."

Gerald initially considered basing the main character on a young Paul Newman or Elvis Presley. Yep, Elvis Presley as Hercules. What a mental image THAT is...

Concept art for Hercules and Philoctetes.

3) Andreas Deja, Hercules' supervising animator, said in regards to Gerald Scarfe's work on the film, "When I first came on the movie, Gerald had done a few drawings and I thought, 'my God, this stuff is wonderful and wild but how am I going to animate it?' 'Where are the joints and how can you make this stuff move in a believable way?' But you just roll up your sleeves and try it. Then you find a middle ground where you have your Disney experience and you take on this new look and it becomes a fun mix. Gerald was a joy to work with because he loved what we did. He had also done some animation in the past so he knew the problems that we were up against."

4) The film's directors, John Musker and Ron Clements, make a cameo during the scene where Hercules is pulling the hay wagon into the marketplace.

This is them.

5) Ron and John's pal Howard Ashman was an inspiration on the decision to have gospel music. John explained on a now-deleted Howard Ashman tribute website that when trying to figure what musical approach would work for the story, he thought back to how, whenever they visited New York, they would always ask Howard what show he recommended seeing. On a 1988 trip, Howard suggested they see Gospel of Colonus, saying that it was the best thing on Broadway at the time.

For those unaware, Gospel of Colonus was a show created by Lee Breuer and composer Bob Telson, a take on Sophocles' Greek tragedy Oedipus at Colonus (the very same Oedipus who gets a reference in Hercules - Hercules mentions that he and Meg went to see a play about him). The play had a black Pentecostal preacher and his choir tell the story of Oedipus. John never wound up seeing the play (although years later he did see a production in Los Angeles), but he did check out the cast album while Hercules was in development. According to John, "It seemed to suggest a way to approach the music in our movie. It seemed appropriate to have a Greek chorus tell us the story, this being, after all, the story of a Greek demigod. And who better than the Muses, the goddesses who inspired art, literature, and science to be this Greek chorus? And since our chorus was to sing about the exploits of ‘the gods’, having them sing gospel, a style of music that celebrates ‘God,’ seemed appropriate.  It was a short step from there to seeing them as an all girl group like the Supremes, and have them musically bridge scenes, do exposition, comment on action, and celebrate the exploits of our mythic hero."

When they pitched the idea to Alan Menken, he was concerned that the Muses might come off as a bit too similar to Crystal, Ronette and Chiffon from Little Shop of Horrors (which, of course, Howard also had a hand in). He suggested doing Hercules in a more "classical" style a la Candide, but Ron and John were worried that the material would become "stiff and inaccessible" as past handling of Greek mythology in film had been. They felt a gospel approach to the music would make the movie more fun. Alan eventually relented.

Concept art for Megara.

6) Donny Osmond was considered to do Hercules' singing voice, but after his audition they decided that he wasn't quite right for the character.

7) In fact, a LOT of different people auditioned or were considered to voice characters. Brendan Fraser auditioned to voice Hercules. Anne Heche auditioned for Meg. Rod Steiger auditioned for Zeus. Richard Lewis was Ron and John's first choice for Panic.

Danny DeVito was the filmmakers' first choice for Philoctetes, but he wouldn't read for the part. Ed Asner, Ernest Borgnine, Dick Latessa, and Red Buttons all auditioned (as he was leaving, Red guessed that Ron and John would eventually give the part to Danny DeVito). Ultimately, Danny agreed to do Phil - he didn't read for it but was interested.

More concept art for Hercules and Phil.

As for Hades, they initially wanted Jack Nicholson to do his voice (he also offered to voice Phil), but he turned it down because he wanted Disney to give him participation in the merchandising, which they were unwilling to do. Michael Ironside, Terrence Mann, Ron Silver, James Coburn, Ron Steiger, Kevin Spacey, Martin Landau, William Shatner and Phil Hartman all tried out for the role. Nik Ranieri, the character's supervising animator, suggested Frank Sinatra. Even Jerry Lewis was considered. At some point John saw Robert Evans, the producer of Love Story and Chinatown, being interviewed by Charlie Rose and started thinking about casting him as Hades. When he suggested the idea to Michael Eisner, he replied, "Evans?! He would be great! He IS the devil! Well, actually, David Geffen is the devil, but Robert Evans is right behind him!" So Ron and John met with Robert, who was interested in the part and wanted to base his performance off of mobster Lucky Luciano, with whom he'd had experiences that were "laden with threat and fear". He came into the studio to record dialogue, but it soon became apparent that Robert wasn't much of an actor. As John put it, "He gave it a Herculean effort, but in truth, Robert Evans plays pretty much one character and it’s one that he invented and for which he writes all the lines: Robert Evans."

More auditions were held, and James Woods was among those who auditioned, playing Hades as... well, the character we got in the finished movie. John Lithgow was cast, but they didn't feel he was bringing enough energy to the character. Eventually, they decided on James Woods.

Concept art for Hades (and Pain).

Even Thalia, the muse of comedy, was originally going to be voiced by Nell Carter. John explained, "We generally are reluctant to cast people who don’t come in to read. We like to hear what people will do with the material, something not always possible to anticipate based on past performances.  We loved Nell’s singing in Ain’t Misbehavin' and her TV work was very funny. And she wouldn’t audition." Regardless, they cast her, and when she came in for the first recording session, trouble began immediately. "She did not take well to direction. If we suggested ‘faster’ she went slower. If we said ‘bigger’ she got smaller.  She seemed very defensive, out of sorts, and ironically (there’s that word again) for a woman playing the bubbly muse of comedy, unfunny.  She was concerned that we were saying unkind things about her in the booth. In truth we were thinking them, although we really were scrambling, trying to find some way to unlock her 'funny'." After recasting the character, they found out that Nell had reportedly declared bankruptcy that week, and also struggled with substance issues. Make of that what you will...

8) The Fates tell Hades that "in eighteen years precisely, the planets will align ever-so-nicely" and we see the planets aligning... but there are only six of them. This is because the Greeks were only aware of five planets plus Earth which they could see with the naked eye.

Concept art of the Muses.

9) According to Nik Ranieri, Eric Goldberg was originally supposed to animate Hades and Chris Buck was supposed to animate Phil. Then Eric decided he didn't want to animate Hades, and Chris Buck left Disney. So Eric jumped at the chance to be Phil's supervising animator, and Nik was asked to do Hades.

10) When Hermes presents Zeus and Hera with a bouquet of flowers, it's a reference to the logo of FTD Florists, which features Hermes - or, as he's called in Greek, Mercury.

11) Charlton Heston provided the film's opening narration. When the filmmakers asked if he was okay with the lines as written, he said that he had an issue with one - specifically, "You go, girls." He thought they had the grammar wrong for that line and suggested that it instead be "Go ahead, young lady." The filmmakers just thought there was comedy to be had from hearing somebody who played Moses say "You go, girls."

12) Pegasus uses his feathers to emulate a peacock when Zeus says that he has the brain of a bird. In Greek mythology, the peacock was a sacred animal to Hera.

13) When Pain and Panic are feeding baby Herc the potion that'll turn him mortal, Pain says, "Here you go, kid. A little Grecian formula." For those unaware, Grecian formula is a real life hair product that's used to color grey hair.

Concept art of Pain and Panic.

14) In the original myths, Pain and Panic actually worked for Ares, the God of War, not Hades. He had four servants - Pain, Panic, Famine and Oblivion (which John Musker once quipped "sounds like a terrible law firm"). The filmmakers decided to use Pain and Panic in the movie because they thought they sounded like the perfect names for Hades' sidekicks.

15) When Hades says "Guys, relax. It's only half-time.", he's not just referring to how Hercules hasn't taken out the Hydra yet - he says it exactly at the 46-minute mark, the halfway point of the 92-minute long movie. And by the way, since this article has thirty-one facts about the movie in it, by being in the fifteenth spot this fact is at (more or less) the halfway point in the article. Aren't I clever?

16) Y'know that gag in "Zero to Hero" where Hercules and Pegasus fly by a constellation of Marilyn Monroe? Well, originally, the scene had constellations of Ariel and Sebastian from The Little Mermaid, but it was removed because it distracted test audiences (they were too busy going "Hey, that's Ariel and Sebastian!" to pay attention to the rest of the song).

More concept art.

17) When the two boys (who, spoiler alert, are actually Pain and Panic in disguise) are trapped under the rock, one of them yells, "Somebody call IXII!". "IX-I-I" is "911" in Roman numerals.

18) At one point during the song "I Won't Say I'm in Love", there's a reference to the iconic Disney Parks attraction the Haunted Mansion. Specifically, at one point the Muses turn into the singing busts from the ride:

Which one's Thurl Ravenscroft?

19) Two prior Disney characters inspired Eric Goldberg's design for Phil. Those two characters were Grumpy from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Bacchus from Fantasia. Danny DeVito himself also inspired the character's look (a lot of people have joked that he looks like Eric Goldberg, too).

20) Hercules and Pegasus leaving their handprints (well, HOOFprints in Pegasus' case) in concrete is an obvious reference to Grauman's Chinese Theater, but notice that Hercules adds the words "To Sid" to his handprints. This is a reference to Sid Grauman, the founder of the Chinese Theater.

Does this mean that Sid Grauman was around in Ancient Greece?

21) Hercules' "Grecian Express" credit card featured during the "Zero to Hero" segment is an obvious parody of American Express. Don't leave Thebes without it!

No wonder Doug Walker doesn't like the movie - this gag probably gave him
flashbacks to the "Bat Credit Card".

22) When Hades and Hercules make their deal (that Herc has to give up his strength for twenty-four hours so Hades can unleash the Titans and take over Mount Olympus, but if Meg gets hurt Herc gets his strength back), Hades shakes Hercules' hand with his left. Left handedness is associated with being evil - apologies to all you lefties out there - and shaking with your left hand is seen as rude.

23) It took a while for the filmmakers to figure out what Hades' punishment should be. Barry Johnson posted some gag drawings depicting ideas that were considered on Instagram - Hades being reduced to a used chariot salesman or the Underworld ferryman, becoming the janitor at the museum we see at the start of the movie, and getting locked in the Titans' pit with Pain and Panic. Eventually, they settled on having Hercules punch Hades into the River Styx, where he is attacked by the vengeful souls.

24) Some of the twelve labors from the original myth are included in the film - specifically, during the song "Zero to Hero", Hercules has to fight an Erymanthian boar, a Stymphalian bird, and a Nemean lion (who may or may not be Scar from The Lion King), which he also did as part of the twelve labors.

25) Speaking of the myth, at one point Hera (who in the original myth was the villain) sent down two snakes to kill Hercules, only for him to beat them up. Pain and Panic's shapeshifting into snakes is a reference to that.

A t-shirt presumably once worn by someone who attended the world premiere
of the film in New York.

26) The shooting star that Hercules sees at one point during "Go the Distance"? Some have theorized that it's Aladdin and Jasmine flying over Greece on their magic carpet ride. But according to Ron Clements and John Musker, the star is actually Pegasus watching over Herc (Hercules did meet Aladdin in an episode of his TV series, for what it's worth).

27) One of the most frequent criticisms Hercules receives is that it's really, really inaccurate to the myths. Ron Clements defended this in the film's press kit - "We discovered that there wasn't just one definitive version of the Hercules legend, but many, many different stories. He became such an incredibly popular hero that, in fact, a lot of other stories about other heroes got turned into Hercules stories. He was so popular that they took the earlier myths and reinvented them."

Do you remember the tie-in plates from McDonald's? Question - could you eat
off these? Were they microwave-safe?

28) I had to share this tidbit from Nik Ranieri... Hades was inspired, at least in his mannerisms and dialogue, by Jeffrey Katzenberg, who left Disney before the film's release (reasons include his completely ignoring Robin Williams' wishes while promoting Aladdin and his meddling with the production of Toy Story [he's the guy responsible for the infamous "Black Friday" reel]). As you probably know, Jeffrey helped found DreamWorks.

At a recording session for the scene near the end of the film where Hades is begging Hercules to put in a good word for him to Zeus (just before Hercules punches him into the River Styx, as mentioned above), Nik suggested that James Woods ad-lib the line, "This was my destiny, I had a DREAM in the WORKS." Get it?

James recorded it (then added "I'm sorry Jeffrey, they made me say it..."), and Nik begged Ron and John to include the line in the movie just for the upcoming screening of it that Michael Eisner was going to watch, but alas, they were too afraid to do it.

29) Here's another interesting story from Nik - during early publicity for another Disney film, 2008's Bolt, Nik noticed that the teaser poster - this one here...

...looked a lot like the teaser poster for Hercules.

When no one was looking, Nik put up the Hercules poster right next to the Bolt poster that was hanging up in the studio foyer. Within a couple of hours, it was taken down.

30) In the 2000s, you could find a stage adaptation of the movie on two of the Disney Cruise ships (the Disney Magic and the Disney Wonder, specifically). It was called Hercules: The Muse-ical. You can find videos of the show on YouTube, it really must be seen to be believed.

31) Finally, we have to talk about just how much promotion there was for the film. First of all, they had something called a "Hercules Mega Mall Tour", which was described online as a "20-city traveling show" featuring a stage show, a miniature carousel, a carnival, an animation workshop where visitors could learn how to draw Hercules, and even a sneak peek at the film. I don't think even Frozen was promoted with a gigantic touring mini-amusement park.

This ALSO got a t-shirt.

In addition, to celebrate the film's premiere Disney sent their beloved Main Street Electrical Parade to New York City - with several new Hercules-themed floats among the usual ones - for a special one-night-only performance.

And then there was the weekend upon which the actual premiere, also held in New York City, took place. Aside from the parade there were also dancers, jugglers, and something called the "Hercules Forum of Fun" at Chelsea Piers. Then the next morning there was a stage show called "The Hercules Summer Spectacular" at the New Amsterdam Theatre.

Not bad for a movie that Disney rarely acknowledges nowadays, huh?

Sources:
- http://web.archive.org/web/20131219065443/http://howardashman.com/blog/john-musker-question-countdown-3/
- Nik Ranieri's FaceBook page