A MOUSE CLUBHOUSE EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW
RANDY THORNTON
talks about getting his first job at Disney

by Scott Wolf

For me, one of the best things about working for Disney was getting to meet some great people and learn about what they do. Back in the early '90s I was working in the same building and on the same floor as Walt Disney Records and I spent many memorable hours with Randy Thornton, talking about our shared love of Disney, getting tips about audio and editing, and observing him at his craft while he was working on some of my favorite CD's to ever come out of Walt Disney Records.

Although I never officially interviewed Randy, this day felt like a throwback to some great old times, and I'm so happy to be able to share these interviews with you.

Scott Wolf: Were you a Disney fan growing up?

Randy Thornton: Yeah, as a matter of fact the first film I ever remember seeing was “Mary Poppins.” There was something just really magical about it. It just sort of stood out to me when I was a kid. Really completely blew me away.

I was born in 1960 so I was only like four when the film first came out and then I saw some of the animation and things and early on I wanted to be an animator for Disney, so I took art classes and stuff. Nothing really hardcore but that’s what I wanted to do.

My first hero actually was Abraham Lincoln because I was born on his birthday. So most of my school reports were about Abraham Lincoln and I think that also got me in to Disneyland, too. Because when “Great Moments with Mister Lincoln” came out here (to Disneyland), here’s my first idol in front of me and I have very fond memories of that attraction and I think that’s when the two Disney things came together.

Honestly, it wasn’t until I started working here that I realized how much of an important figure that Abraham Lincoln was to Walt (Disney) as well. But, yeah, I wanted to be an animator.

SW: So where along the line did that change?

RT: I learned to play the saxophone in fourth grade and was very very bad. I still have my instruction book which says, “BUY REEDS!” I was stuck on page 9 for a very very very long time. By eighth grade I improved a bit and was looking forward to high school and I started getting more and more involved in music, and I taught myself how to play the piano. I tried to take some lessons but I wanted to play. I didn’t want to do the scales and things… you need to have the foundations and things, but I just wanted to play.

I guess I had a natural aptitude or something because I could pick up any instrument and play it quickly. My high school band director went to my parents and said, “Randy has a gift here and I don’t think I have the facilities to help him, and I think that he would benefit from a tutor.” And my parents said, “Well, he’s not going to be a musician.” But by the same token they gave me trumpets and clarinets and pianos and things to play but, “He’s not going to be a musician.”

Then I started getting involved in theatre in high school and was in a lot of the plays, and was fortunate to be cast as most of the leads. So at that point I’m going, “I don’t know what I want to do now.” The Disney animation thing sort of fell off. I was still a huge Disney fan, people would always ask me, as I’m sure you remember when you were younger as well, they would always come to me about questions about Disneyland and where it was and I had it memorized.

So I was really kind of in a flux. I didn’t know what I wanted to do with music, or theatre, or art. How was I going to balance these? Do I have to pick just one? So I floundered around for awhile. I tried going to PCC (Pasadena City College), was there for a couple of years. Didn’t graduate with a degree or anything.

Then I got a job at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, running their multimedia auditorium and also handing out photo and film equipment, and I met a lot of the film students and photography students and I ended up writing a couple of student film scores. Just simple little things, and decided I wanted to become a film score composer.

Of course, in 1977 when John Williams came out with Star Wars, that sort of spun me in the musical direction even farther. So I figured, well there’s a way. The theatre’s involved to an extent as far as that I’m trying to interpret somebody’s acting as a musical style or trying to create emotion.

I loved soundtracks, particularly starting with the three big influences, “Mary Poppins,” the very first soundtrack for me, and then “The Sting,” ragtime music, and then “Star Wars.” I wanted to be a film score composer but I just didn’t really have the training or the background. I feel pretty lucky that I can pick up a lot of things and I think of things musically but I could never really consider myself a real musician. I mean, I have some stuff and I write music and I play things but then I meet real musicians and I go, “Ahh… I can’t hold a candle to that.”

So I was really floundering around. I’ve always had an affection for Disney. As I’ve said I wanted to be an animator but that dream kind of went away after awhile. One of the film students got a job as an apprentice editor at the (Disney) studio and I said, “God, it would be great to work at the studio.” To get involved in the industry somehow, I don’t care… the mailroom. I said, “If there’s ever an opening in the mail room, let me know.” And about a year or two went by and he called me up and he said, “Yeah, there’s a position in the mail room.”

I applied, I was at Art Center, I had been there for about three years at that point and I got a very nice letter back saying that there wasn’t a position of mutual interest and that they will keep my résumé on file and I thought, “Oh well.” It was a shock.

SW: I got one of those letters, too. Actually I got it after I got the job believe it or not. (We laugh)

RT: Well, about two weeks later I get a phone call asking me to come in for an interview. So I was just stoked. They said, “We were wondering if we could schedule an interview with you. I said, “I’ll be there tomorrow.” I could be there NOW! I would have been there yesterday! (We laugh)

I don’t really have any high aspirations. I’m just willing to come in in the mail room or whatever, just to be in a creative environment. One of the things that was a real benefit to me, before I started working at Art Center, I knew I was different than a lot of people. I really just couldn’t fit in. I had my friends and stuff and we were all these creative types without any real focus.

SW: I was the same way. I know what you mean.

RT: When I got to Art Center I realized that there were other people out there and that they can be just as distracted but they were finding their focus, so I felt that that was a really good environment for me and figuring that if I could get into something like Disney…

So I just figured it would be just a really cool way to earn a paycheck and I go in for the interview and I do my little typing test and they go, “Well, we’re gonna call you back for a second interview. But, just a second, let me see if Ron is available.” He goes, “Well, first let me tell you what this is for. This is for the clerk in the music company.” And at that point the little guys in my head are going (makes a POW!! sound effect)!

SW: Did they know that you had a musical background?

RT: I had put that in there. Sort of backtracking a little bit, while I was at Art Center a friend of mine got a job as the development director for KPCC in Pasadena and the station manager, Larry Shirk, was unbelievable. We wanted to do radio drama. Now most of the things that my friend and I had been writing before when we wanted to write movies and things were all very visual comedy. We wrote a stage play that we produced at our old high school as sort of a fundraiser for them.

When our friend Frank Whitely got a job at KPCC as a Development Director we thought, “What can we do with radio?” I loved the old radio shows and maybe we can do a spoof on that, like B Movies and “Curse of the Clam People,” “Sheep of Death.” These are actually titles of shows that we produced there. We had done some of that and we were getting students in to do the voices and I would write the music for it and I’d add sound effects to it.

It was after that that I applied at Disney, so working on the radio shows, some of the film scoring I had done at Art Center was all on my résumé, which I found the other day by the way, which was typewritten and very badly Xeroxed and it was crooked and oh my God, it looks ancient. You just expect somebody in very fine handwriting and a quill pen writing around it.

So that was on my résumé, back at the interview he said, “Let me see if Ron’s available but first let me tell you what this is for… it’s the clerk for the music department. What that is is you’ll be running around and doing errands. There is a company car, but if it’s booked, would you mind using your own car?” And I said, “(lowkey) Yeah, whatever it takes.” And he sort of outlined kind of what it was, but not really, and he leaves the room to make the call to Ron and I’m sort of, “(to himself) AH HA HA!!” and he goes, “Yeah, Ron’s available right now, so why don’t you just walk down Mickey Avenue (at the Disney Studio)…” so I’m really jazzed and I’m thinking it doesn’t matter from this point on. It doesn’t matter whether I get the job or anything… I am going for a second interview in the same day and I’m walking down Mickey Avenue at the Disney Studio.

I’m smiling and I’m not very much of a smiler and I had my sunglasses on and everything.

I sat down, waiting for Ron and one of the secretary’s was there and I actually struck up a conversation… another thing I normally don’t do. I was called in for the interview and everything was fine and I left.

I found out that during my interview I had my sunglasses on the entire time and did not know. These were Porsche Carrera driving glasses and I actually looked like a hit man.

Several people had applied for the job and were coming up and asking who was going to take the position and I found out later that somebody asked if the job was taken and Ron said, “We’re going to give it to that Thornton guy. He seems like an assassin, to where if any of our people give us trouble…”

SW: (laughing) Did he really say that?

RT: Yeah, he really said that.

SW: Who was Ron?

RT: Ron Kidd, he was the Director of Product Development. He was the guy that actually
hired me.

I started January 12, 1987 and February 12th was my birthday and that was when the Disney store first opened on the lot.

SW: That was a great store because it was very unique studio merchandise, and they didn’t have Disney Stores all over and it was things only for employees.

RT: Right, so my birthday is when they actually opened it up and I’m going, “Wow, it’s my birthday and I’m going to work at Disney… it doesn’t really suck.” And I pull into the driveway there off of Alameda and there’s three of the seven dwarfs (from Snow White) out there waving me in, and I’m going, “What? Are they having this for my birthday? This is a really cool place.” (we laugh) No, it’s a celebration for the Disney store. It was just sort of a big party they were having.

More from Randy:
Producing the first "Mary Poppins" CD

See other interviews

NOTE: The views and opinions expressed by the participants in the interviews are solely those of the interviewee and do not necessarily reflect the views of Mouse Clubhouse. Mouse Clubhouse accepts no legal liability or responsibility for any claims made or opinions expressed within.