Eighties Diz --Tim Burton, Ron Clements (?) and...

me... It was somewhere around 1981. The "Fox and the Hound" was coming out, and the Disney publicity department thought it would be a good idea to plug the picture on college campuses. With a kind-of documentary that could unspool after touring animation staffers gave a talk... For some reason, Publicity decided that Tim Burton, Ron Clements (I think it was Mr. Clements. Ron, if you're out there, confirm or deny, will you?) and Yours Truly. We were all put on stools in a Disney Animation story room, lights and camera were set up, and a publicity honcho started asking us questions. Things like "How did you come to work at Disney?" "What's your day to day work like?" and "How was it working on 'Fox & the Hound?'" Ron answered quietly and succinctly. I bloviated on in my usual way. Tim, stylistically, hit every question out of the ballpark. And when I say "stylistically," I mean he pretty much upstaged everyone. For instance, when asked about how I got to Disney, I rambled on about going through the training program, working with the old-timers, blah blah. But Tim just stared solemnly at the camera and said: "I don't know. I was just going to school, they showed up and hijacked me, and here I am." He said it all with deadpan sincerity. And I had the faintest glimmering that his answers were more entertaining than mine. Or Ron's. It was the same for the "what do you do day to day" question. Ron and I answered in boring detail. Tim looked around the room as though he was on an alien space ship and said: "I don't know. Whatever I'm told..." The interview session ended. The three of us returned to our respective duties. Several weeks later, an animator stopped me in the first-floor hallway and asked: "Have you seen that interview film you did? The one with Ron and Tim Burton?" I told him I hadn't. He rolled his eyes. "You don't look too good in it. Every time you talk, Tim stares at you with his mouth open. Like you're the creature from the black lagoon..." I grunted, my heart sinking a little. I hadn't been aware that Tim had been looking at me while I talked. I'd been focused on enunciating clearly and crinkling my eyes at the camera. "But that's not the only thing," the animator said. "You pause in the middle of one of your answers, and they put a big cartoon 'GULP' in there." My heart sank some more. "Anything else?" I said. "Nothing I can think of, but man. You look like a doofus." "Thanks for letting me know." "No problem." I have zero memory of ever seeing the publicity department's little opus of the three of us. I do know it went out on the college circuit for a time. I do know other people viewed it, because I talked to them. And I know that I once heard it being projected in a third-floor projection room, because I could hear my voice blathering on and the faint sounds of laughter. And I remember hurrying away down the hall, away from my voice. Somewhere in the Disney Publicity archives is a reel of film that contains an interview that's of historical interest because Tim Burton and Ron Clements are in it. And that I hope never to see. (I think I've talked about some of the above before here. Because I'm in a masochistic mood, I thought I would present it in its full glory...)