An Animated Short That Sends Up Hollywood Bigwigs
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If you’re a fan of animation, you know the name John Musker, whose four decades at Disney included writing and directing such classics as The Little Mermaid, Aladdin and Moana. Since retiring from the studio in 2018, he independently pursued an idea for a playful hand-drawn short, which he populated with caricatures of dozens of people from his life, among them fellow animators, CalArts classmates and Disney studios execs.
I’m Hip — shortlisted for an Academy Award — is a charming, music video-like film featuring a cat singing the catchy title song, Dave Frishberg’s 1970s recording of a tune he wrote with Bob Dorough. “[The song’s] very witty, and I always thought that would make for a fun short,” says Musker, 70.
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“I have a penchant for teasing people,” he says, and his film “teases people who are so desperate to be on the cutting edge of things. Certainly Los Angeles is full of those people. The most amusing ones maybe are the middle-aged ones who don’t want to be left behind.” Of the “cool” cat, the Chicago native says, “I thought it would be fun to play with this oblivious narrator who gets in people’s faces and isn’t even aware of it.”
The overall look of the hand-drawn short — which he directed, wrote, produced, storyboarded, designed and animated — was heavily influenced by illustrated 1960s jazz album covers, such as those by David Stone Martin. But Musker says he didn’t want the 4-minute short to feel as if it were from another era, so he “cheated” — for instance, he gave the cat a cellphone and access to “Wik Wok.” The animation includes nods to Bugs Bunny co-creator Tex Avery, with large objects such as a piano and a safe falling on the cat. For the dancing, Musker shot dance references of Dancing With the Stars’ Mark Ballas, who choreographed the cat’s moves.
An early wide shot features what Musker calls a “jazzy” street scene as the cat sings about “Makin’ the rounds, diggin’ the sounds.” Look closely and you’ll see hipsters that are caricatures of Taika Waititi and Lin-Manuel Miranda. A lyric, “Squares don’t seem to understand,” is performed in a playful rooftop club sequence during which three unamused “squares” — caricatures of Musker’s Disney bosses Michael Eisner, Jeffrey Katzenberg and Peter Schneider — toss the cat off the building.
Diehard animation and movie fans might recognize characters in the audience of an art house movie theater, with directors Henry Selick (The Nightmare Before Christmas) and Brad Bird (The Incredibles) and veteran Disney publicist Howard Green among those in the front row. A scene in a park features likenesses of Musker’s longtime writing and directing partner, Ron Clements, Clements’ wife and their three basset hounds.
Cameos sprinkled throughout also include Academy governor Marlon West, Beauty and the Beast producer Don Hahn, jazz pianist Judy Carmichael — all worked on I’m Hip — and even a blink-and-you-miss-it young Musker with his wife, Gale.
A fisherman who pulls the cat out of the sea is a caricature of the late Eric Larson, one of the core group of legendary animators known as Disney’s Nine Old Men. “He taught me how to animate and rescued me when my early animation was not well received,” says Musker. “My short is dedicated to Eric, the sweetest and most effective mentor one could ask for.”
This story first appeared in the Jan. 10 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
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