A MOUSE CLUBHOUSE EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW
ED GHERTNER
talks about TaleSpin

by Scott Wolf

Ed Ghertner is such an amazing artist and has done design work on films such as Lion King and Mulan. In fact, he was one of the designers of the famous ballroom in Beauty and the Beast.

Ed and I worked together at Disney Television Animation. On Talespin, he was one of the Producers and I was the Assistant Producer on his team.


Recently Ed & I reunited for the first time in about fifteen years and we reminisced about TaleSpin. 

It's pretty candid and I think you'll enjoy it.

Scott Wolf: Doing TaleSpin was pretty nuts for us because we had four Producers, four Assistant Producers, four prop designers, everything. We had a lot of difficulty with it. Great people, but a lot of difficulty, don’t you agree?

Ed Ghertner: I think all four Producers had their problems with it because there were so many people. We had to use everybody we could get our hands on. I think they pushed it into production faster than it should have been. It wasn’t locked down, there weren’t designs, there wasn’t a feel for the show yet. The story guys thought they had it but it really wasn’t, but it evolved into something that was okay.

SW: Do you remember that you didn’t take any stories with Shere Khan? You didn’t want any with Shere Khan because he was behind a desk. You didn’t like that.

EG: That’s right! That was my thing. Yup. “What the heck is he doing behind a desk?”

SW: You’ve done so much since TaleSpin but do people still bring it up with you?

EG: Some people do. They say, “Yeah, I saw it when I was a kid.” And I say (sarcastically) “Thank you." Yeah, I was a kid, too.

SW: It actually amazes me how many people liked it and still remember it.

EG: You know what was funny is when we got away from the original Jungle Book characters like with Don Karnage and those guys. To me, that’s when it turned good. I liked that part of it because it was the bad guy… (in his voice) Don Karnage. I remember that.

When we got away from the original it seemed to work better. I thought it had a lot of heart. There was a writer, Libby Hinson who had a lot of feeling for the characters.

SW: Oh, I remember Libby.

EG: Yeah, she added a lot of heart to it and I think that’s what helped the show, too, because everybody got it. It wasn’t just for kids, it was for adults, too. I think parents could watch it with their kids and it was alright. It was tolerable at least.

SW: You know, I never really thought until this minute that maybe that’s why they based it on the Jungle Book… so it would seem familiar to adults.

EG: It could have been.

At the time part of the problem that I had with it was that they made them too anthropomorphic. They made them walk on twos and made them more like humans rather than keeping them in the jungle and having their own worlds within the jungle world. I think it was because of McDonalds and the toys. They wanted the toys. They wanted the biplane, they wanted the house.

When I came back to TV Animation to art direct Little Mermaid (TV series) I actually had a VP come into my office and say, “I want a purple telephone in her room” and I said, “You’ve got to be kidding me.” Why would she have a phone? They said, “Mattel wants it.” I thought, “Oooooooh…” That’s when I left TV (animation.) I didn’t want to deal with it.

SW: Did they have TaleSpin toys at McDonalds?

EG: Yeah, I still have them. I’ve got all of those.

SW: I didn’t know that. Wow, you were a bigger Disney geek than me. You'd think I would have gotten all of that.

EG: I still have all that stuff I have to get rid of.

SW: eBay!

As a Producer you were really responsible for everything,  to make sure the storyboards look right and everything.

EG: Most of my concerns weren’t how long did it take to do this, or the business end of it. I always looked at it as, “What’s going to be on that screen?” “What are people going to see?” So my thinking was the storyboards were first and foremost.

Those boards had to be good because that went overseas and where we were sending our work they basically Xeroxed and blew up the drawings and that’s what they worked from. So I wanted to make sure those boards were as tight as possible.

That’s how Disney worked at that time whereas here on The Simpsons (where Ed was working at the time of the interview) we do animatics so they basically pretty much animate it, shoot it, show Fox, correct things and then send it to Korea to be finished.

SW: Is that easier? Do you wish you did that on TaleSpin?

EG: Yeah. I have to laugh because some of the Directors here complain they’re so tired. A director on The Simpsons does two shows a year. I said, “I had thirteen to do in six months!” They only do two a year.

SW: Is that what we did, thirteen?

EG: Yeah, there were a total of sixty five and four teams.

SW: But, there were fun times. I really liked the people on our team.

EG: Yeah, it was fun.

See some Mouse Clubhouse exclusive photos of the people of TaleSpin.

Check back for more from ED GHERTNER in the future.

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.