DreamWorks at 30

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Friday, October 18th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Nick Eicher.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: a cultural icon turns 30. For generations, Disney Studios was king of animated films. But three decades ago, all that changed. Here’s Arts and Culture editor Collin Garbarino.

COLLIN GARBARINO: Thirty years ago this month three entertainment giants founded DreamWorks Animation as a division of their newly created DreamWorks SKG… The SKG standing for superstar director Steven Spielberg, former-Disney executive Jeffery Katzenberg, and music mogul David Geffen.

Katzenberg took the lead on the animation studio. Audio here from a 2022 interview with Summit co-founder Jeff Rosenthal:

JEFFERY KATZENBERG: My teacher turned out to be Walt Disney, even though he had been dead 20 years when I got there.

Katzenberg had overseen Disney’s animation renaissance that had created instant classics like The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and The Lion King.

KATZENBERG: And I learned these amazing, amazing lessons which became North Stars for me. He said I make movies for children and the child that exists in every one of us. And he said, my movies are only as good as their villains. And so I learned from the greatest.

But Katzenberg split from The Walt Disney Company after a dispute with then CEO Michael Eisner and Walt’s nephew Roy Disney. Katzenberg felt Eisner and Disney had overlooked his contributions. Bringing his talents to DreamWorks would give him both the creative control and renown he desired. It would also give him the chance to humiliate the mighty Disney Animation Studio.

And DreamWorks did beat Disney. After Katzenberg’s departure Disney animation entered a slump that lasted about 15 years. Meanwhile DreamWorks created some critically acclaimed hits and launched its wildly successful Shrek franchise

SHREK: This is the part where you run away.

TOWNSPEOPLE: [screaming]

But it turns out DreamWorks’ real competitor wasn’t Disney. Just as Katzenberg was building his new animation studio, another upstart company was hoping to revolutionize the industry.

WOODY: You’re my favorite deputy…

Pixar released Toy Story in 1995, and kids’ entertainment hasn’t been the same since.

DreamWorks’ first animated feature film was Antz which came out in October of 1998. A month later Pixar released its second film, A Bug’s Life. Doesn’t it seem a little coincidental that two computer-animated movies about ant colonies would come out at the same time? It wasn’t a coincidence. Katzenberg knew what Pixar was working on, and he rushed out a similar product. A Bug’s Life is a little more slapstick than Antz, and it beat Antz at the box office, probably because it appealed more to kids. Antz, with Woody Allen voicing the hero, took a more ironic tone.

Z: My mother never had time for me. When you’re the middle child in a family of five million, you don’t get any attention. I mean, how’s it possible?

Both films fall into the category of being pretty good, but not especially memorable.

Even so, they are good examples of the divergent paths Pixar and DreamWorks would take. Up until 2015, Pixar was creating hit after hit, focusing on heartfelt stories and innovative animation that held broad appeal for both parents and children. DreamWorks, on the other hand, designed its biggest films to please more adolescent tastes.

GINGERBREAD MAN: Do you know the muffin man?

KING: The muffin man?

GINGERBREAD MAN: The muffin man.

KING: Yes. I know the muffin man. Who lives on Drury lane?

DreamWorks’ films usually featured voice work from Hollywood A-listers to help sell the film. The humor was more irreverent, and it tended to rely heavily on jokes about pop culture. DreamWorks wanted to be timely, while those early Pixar movies proved timeless.

Over the last three decades, DreamWorks Animation has churned out 49 feature length films. Not all of them are great, but there are some gems that you might want to revisit.

A couple of months after Antz, DreamWorks released The Prince of Egypt, a retelling of the story of Moses.

MOSES: Rameses! Let my people go!

The movie stars Val Kilmer as Moses and Ralph Fiennes as his adoptive brother the Pharaoh. It isn’t 100 percent faithful to the story as told in the book of Exodus, but it’s respectful. The movie uses traditional hand-drawn animation and show-stopping songs reminiscent of the classic Disney style. DreamWorks would abandon hand-drawn animation five years later after its movie inspired by the story of Sinbad flopped in cinemas.

But DreamWorks would have plenty of monster hits. The fairytale mashup Shrek launched one of the studio’s most profitable franchises.

PUSS: Fear me!

In 2004, Shrek 2 became the highest-grossing animated film worldwide, a record it would hold on to until it was surpassed by Toy Story 3 in 2010. The Shrek franchise didn’t create the cracked fairytale genre, but it definitely helped make it ubiquitous. These days it seems kids encounter the cracked versions of fairy tales before they even know the traditional versions.

DreamWorks also created family-favorite franchises like Madagascar, How to Train Your Dragon, Trolls, and Kung Fu Panda. When my youngest daughter was a toddler, the only thing she wanted to watch was the original Kung Fu Panda.

PO: Legend tells of a legendary warrior whose kung fu skills were the stuff of legend.

And in recent years, DreamWorks has been experimenting with animation techniques that are in my opinion much more interesting than what Disney and Pixar have been offering lately. Check out The Bad Guys, Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, and The Wild Robot, which is still in theaters.

I’ll end today by recommending what I consider to be DreamWorks’ most underrated film: Rise of the Guardians, which came out in 2012. In the movie, Santa Claus, Sandman, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, and Jack Frost ensure the safety of the world's children.

TOOTH FAIRY: Each of those lights is a child.

NORTH: A child who believes. And good or bad… Naughty or nice… We protect them.

Rise of the Guardians remixes the traditional stories from America’s holiday traditions. It’s amusing, and clever. But the thing that struck me was how much Christian imagery was in the film. Jesus’ name is never mentioned, but as Flannery O’Connor might say, He’s haunting every scene if you have eyes to see.

I’m Collin Garbarino.

WORLD Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of WORLD Radio programming is the audio record.