The Hand Behind the Mouse: The Ub Iwerks Story (1999) – The Film Buff Review

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Quiet on the set speed down production stage one action. >> Let’s go. Let’s go. Let’s go. I I just want to start this aka it’s it’s the weekend. It’s night time. So it’s it’s filmography, educational, creative documentaries during the day. On the weekends we do animation. There’s animations at the day, documentaries at night because we’re obsessive film freaks and I just doing two drops a day Monday through Friday isn’t enough. I got to bring you

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more. I’m almost maxing out too, by the way. I don’t know. I don’t know what else I can do other than 14 drops a week. The reason why I’m anxious, I’ll buy works. The hand behind the mouse. The mouse is Mickey Mouse. The guy behind Mickey Mouse is Walt Disney. I thought at one time, oh, I humbled myself. I thought at one time I I could sit down do a lecture on because yeah, I did I spent some time in animation school. I thought I could give a lecture on this guy, but I can’t. I thought I thought I

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knew his life. I thought I could uh connect it to Marvel Comics, Jack Kirby. I thought I had seen this documentary, The Man Behind the Mouse. What year? The Hand Behind the Mouse came out in 1999. Wow. I remember seeing this this and there there was a similar Walt Disney documentary that would be at Barnes & Noble for like 45 bucks for the longest time. Barnes & Noble 2 was just one of the the the only places to even peruse criterion collection and documentaries in in my multiple South Jersey areas

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because we were just surrounded by mecca shopping and tons of Walmarts, Targets, Best Buys, malls, Barnes & Noles, and Borders, so on and so forth. I thought I had seen this documentary. I knew the writer director Leslie Eyeworks who is now a prominent entertainment documentarian. Uh she made this fantastic Warner Brothers 100 years one that that we’ll talk about soon. But this is a granddaughter. This documentary now rated by Kelsey Grammar and it includes a litm of cancelled animators uh focusing on John

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Lacier the mind behind Pixar Pixar the company and Toy Story but he’s canceled. He’s now heading uh animation at Netflix and he’s probably better off for it. So, we have the these illuminaries, a lot of them, uh the last significant um time on camera, too. And they tell this story and and I thought the story of here was that he, you know, essentially got let go of the Disney company and Disney takes uh just takes the mouse to the house, right? like creates a Walt Disney Company and uh effectively would drift through

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entertainment. Maybe dying poor but not dying happy or maybe having money but not being happy, right? Just uh daily and the buck short. I thought there was a lot of similarities between his path and Jack Kirby, but they can’t be any more different. Got lured away. So, this is the guy behind Oswald the Lucky Rabbit with Walt Disney. Universal uh kept those rights. They lost their like somewhat hit character, but Scrambled struggled with Mickey Mouse. They they both sat down did Mickey Mouse.

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But it wasn’t until like the sound injection really wasn’t until Steamboat Willie that the Walt Disney Company got traction shorts with sounds and then everything became silly symphonies and then it was like the Walt Disney Company effectively never looked back. During this time got lured away. He got so he leaves and he gives up his share of the company and he fails. But he had a animation Illuminati of his own. See was somewhat of a illustrative animation genius. He found the right thing at the

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right time. A lot of those earlier shorts were built on his back. You hear these things a lot a lot. You hear about Jack Kirby, Frank Vonzetta, Ali Works. Their productivity was fascinating to their contemporaries. You hear similar things about the AKA pad, guys. People talk about my productivity as if I am coming from the mountaintop. And sometimes I am. So he gives it up. He does a frog cartoon. Guys like Chuck Jones, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, the look of Tom and Jerry, and the look of the

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Warner Brothers characters. his Bugs Bunny, his Porky Pig, especially his Daffy Duck are are the model lynchpin pieces that people still use today. And if they don’t, they should. And when they don’t, they should. So, he’s surrounded by, you know, like he has a good enough eye. He’s good. He’s well enough of a genius, guys talent, but the company fails. So he’s kind of like floating in the wind, but he gets hired back by Walt Disney. And when he’s with Walt Disney, he does

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nothing but innovate. He becomes a part of the Walt Disney Company, but he doesn’t get, you know, he doesn’t get the percentage. He’s got to kind of crawl back. And we see something very similar with the way Vince McMahon runs WWE and so many of those wrestlers. uh you know they left they came back some of them were accepted some of them weren’t. You get this a lot with uh companies that have like a singular purpose which is get the work done period. This is one hell of a documentary. I

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think for any animation documentary this is what you start with. I think people should know this tale. There’s there’s cautionary aspects of it all. It’s wonderfully written, incredibly narrated, and it does a wild thing. It It makes you want to watch everything they’re talking about. I just wanted to watch the symphonies as soon as this was over. I wanted to go to Disney Plus and see if Oswald the Lucky Rabbit was available and watch some of those early Mickey Mouse. I just I just I wish

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I wish Disney Plus have a buy works section and very well they they should. Maybe we will build that out here on aka Pad for aka.com. But guys, uh highly significant animation documentary. cannot tell you to watch this, even listen to it enough and follow some of its path. I mean, this guy at the end of the day had faith in his abilities and what he could do. And because of that, he he kept working. And that’s really all you want to do when you’re a creative person, to have the ability to to keep going. Blew me

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away. But now now we can do the lecture. I mean, we’re doing we’re 8 minutes in off the top of my head talking about. I would I if I did anything on before I real truly watched this documentary, I would have been wrong. It isn’t that crazy. Well, guys, we’re not perfect. It’s documentary weekend night. I don’t know how to 800 PM documentary weekend night. All right, guys. I love you. Rock and roll. >> Roll sound >> sound production take two. >> Cut in. Sorry. AKA patterns. I know it’s

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such a hot passionate episode, but I’m breaking I’m breaking the flow real quick. Just to remind you guys, if you want to support me, one of the best, easiest, and free ways to do it, leave a comment. Give me a like. I know there’s someone out there that you know that loves film as much as I do, that love the film industry as much as I show this to them. Comments, likes, and reviews, positive or negative, it doesn’t matter. We need to increase our reach. And to do that requires you, your involvement in

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everything that I do. We’re we’re linked. We’re forever bound. You’re the membrane. I’m the muscle. So guys, let’s just do it. One review. Do you have it in you? Okay, back to the show. Okay, that’s a wrap.

PETER A DELUCA AKAPD

AKAPAD is a versatile thinker known across Philadelphia, Europe, and even in the vast Multiverse as The Electic One. By day, he excels as an IT Mastermind, assisting individuals, both big and small, with a wide range of simple and complex solutions. In contrast, he is also a talented illustrator, a passionate comic book enthusiast, a creative content creator, and an active live streamer. Additionally, his podcast, “AKAPAD The Film Buff Podcast,” boasts an impressive catalog of over 500 episodes available on nearly every major platform.