Monday, October 09, 2006

"Little Mermaid" and Jeffrey K.

My wife, who was an assistant ink-and-paint supervisor on "Mermaid," couldn't contain herself this weekend. She rushed out to buy the new 2-disc DVD of the picture. And you could have knocked both of us over with Dumbo's feather when we saw...

...Jeffrey Katzenberg expounding at length on the creation of the movie in the "Making of..." documentary appearing on the disk. That's TODAY'S Jeffrey, not the archival J.K. from, oh, 1989.

So obviously, Jeffrey is happy to appear in the two-disk deluxe edition of "The Little Mermaid" now that Mr. Eisner has departed the Mouse House's premises. Or maybe I am just reading more into this than is actually there? Maybe Jeffrey would have appeared on-camera anyway?

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Welcome home, Jeffrey.

Hmmm. Could there be more to this than meets the eye?

Anonymous said...

I was surprised, too...but that's the kind of a guy JK is. He's clearly extremely proud(as he should be)of having worked with and on the Mermaid crew and that extends to the virtually unprecedented act of appearing on a his main competitor's DVD release. I think he would have gladly done it in Eisner's time--but I doubt that Eisner would have let him. Anyway, that's moot now.

Btw I have never heard Jeffrey say anything but positive and admiring things about all his talented competitors(artists) from both the other major studios, btw. Which frankly bespeaks a lot of class.

Anonymous said...

I was surprised, too...but that's the kind of a guy JK is. He's clearly extremely proud(as he should be)of having worked with and on the Mermaid crew and that extends to the virtually unprecedented act of appearing on a his main competitor's DVD release. I think he would have gladly done it in Eisner's time--but I doubt that Eisner would have let him. Anyway, that's moot now.

Btw I have never heard Jeffrey say anything but positive and admiring things about all his talented competitors(artists) from both the other major studios, btw. Which frankly bespeaks a lot of class.

Anonymous said...

It strikes me more like he's commenting on a project he was involved in, rather than contributing to a competitor's release. Actors and directors do this kind of thing all the time; why should Katz be any different?

Anonymous said...

Well, he's actually doing both, isn't he--commenting AND contributing? And the difference between the "actors and directors" who do that on DVDs and JK is that he happens to be the head and a part owner of a competing studio with the same stuff, animated films. Actos and directors are itinerant, employed one pic at a time; a CEO or exec isn't.

In any case, it's very cool of him to do it, and cool of them to have him do it. Great all around!

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