The ThawedCast: Conversations About Animation

Alex, Heather and Philip review the 2003 animated TV special, 'Scary Godmother: Halloween Spooktakular' from Mainframe Entertainment. The Canadian studio behind classic kids' shows like 'ReBoot' and 'Beast Wars' obtained the TV rights to Jill Thompson's 'Scary Godmother' book series in the late nineties. They eventually produced two hour-long TV specials that aired in the United States on Cartoon...

Philip and Bridget discuss the long-awaited sequel to the 1993 Halloween classic 'Hocus Pocus'. 'Hocus Pocus 2' is now streaming on Disney+ and features the return of Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Kathy Najimy to their iconic comedy trio of seventeenth-century witches from Salem. This time they are awoken by a pair of teenage girls who have unknowingly been supplied a notorious black-fla...

The ThawedCast takes a journey back to 1982 to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the release of 'TRON' from Walt Disney Pictures. Jodi, Alex, and Philip share their thoughts and varying degrees of enthusiasm for the film, which delivers a truly unique visual experience whose lack of direct imitators perhaps illustrates its mixed reception amongst moviegoers upon its release. Despite a poor box off...

Philip and Bridget discuss 'Inside Out,' directed by Pete Docter and the first of two films released by Pixar Animation Studios in 2015. 'Inside Out' imagines a world inside the human mind. We spend the 95-minute runtime getting to know the world inside the 11-year-old Riley's head. After giving us a look inside the world of anthropomorphic toys, bugs, fish, cars, robots and rats, this film goes a...

Alex, Bridget and Philip discuss 2015's 'The Good Dinosaur' from Pixar Animation Studios. This film was the directorial debut of Peter Sohn, and the second Pixar film release of its year following 'Inside Out.' While it underperformed at the box office, it was a stunning technical achievement in combining Pixar stylization with hyper-realistic environments and physics simulations. The film is set...

2022 saw the release of Pixar's 'Lightyear' in theaters in June and on Disney+ in August. For 27 years, audiences of all ages have gotten to know and love the heroic Space Ranger voiced by Tim Allen in the world's first-ever fully computer-animated feature film. Rumors have long floated of a spinoff portraying a human Buzz, describing a fictional universe akin to 'Star Wars' (or 'Trek') that would...

Philip and Bridget review the latest theatrical film from Dreamworks Animation, 'The Bad Guys' featuring the directorial debut of Pierre Perifel. This comical caper is based on the graphic novel series by Andrew Blabey of the same name, which first saw publication in 2015 and is ongoing as of 2022. The film stars Sam Rockwell as Mr. Wolf or simply "Wolf," who leads a gang of anthropomorphic predat...

Philip, Alex, and Bridget review the latest season of "Stranger Things," which saw its fourth season debut on Netflix on May 27, 2022. It's 1986, and Will, Eleven, Joyce and Jonathan have moved from Hawkins to California. Eleven has difficulty adapting to the new environment. A new threat has awakened in Hawkins, and the leader of the school Dungeons and Dragons club is implicated in an apparent m...

Jodi, Alex and Philip celebrate the 100th edition of the ThawedCast with a discussion of the musical 'Hamilton,' written, composed by and starring Lin-Manuel Miranda as seen on Disney Plus. This breakout musical and its dynamite cast made history with the show's popularity following its 2015 Broadway debut. The original cast was filmed in June 2016 with an eventual July 3, 2020 release date. This...

Alex and Philip review ‘Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers,’ the 2022 live-action/animation hybrid film from Disney. Released straight to Disney+, ‘Rescue Rangers’ features a wide variety of animation styles, an abundance of madcap hijinks, and some brutally incisive commentary on the film industry. The film is the directorial follow-up to the satirical ‘Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping’ by Akiva Scha...

Jodi and Philip discuss the series of nine short films from various Japanese animation studios who were tasked with telling a story set within the 'Star Wars' universe. Entrusted by Lucasfilm with broad creative freedom to explore some of the less-trodden territory of the Galaxy Far Far Away, these projects provide a diverse array of styles and scenarios, though they all deal in some way with the...

Brother-sister duo Philip and Samara review 'Moon Knight' from Marvel Studios on Disney Plus. The Oscar Isaac-led, six-part series follows Steven Grant, a museum employee and ancient-Egypt enthusiast living in London who suffers from dissociative spells, often finding himself in strange places and perilous situations with no memory of how he got there. Left disturbed by these occurrences, Steven e...

The 60th feature from Walt Disney Animation, 'Encanto' takes place in mid-20th century Colombia in an enchanted village led by a family who has been blessed with a magical home and miraculous abilities. La Familia Madrigal's matriarch, Abuela Alma was gifted an enchanted candle after overcoming the hardship of fleeing her home and witnessing the death of her husband. Her children and grandchildren...

Jodi and Philip review and discuss 'The Batman,' the new film starring Robert Pattinson from Warner Bros. and DC Comics. This all-new interpretation of Batman, his rogues gallery and the infamous setting of Gotham City finds wealthy heir Bruce Wayne at the start of his third year of masked vigilantism. His Bat-cave, suit, gadgets, and working relationship with James Gordon are fairly well establis...

Jodi, Alex and Philip discuss the new Pixar film, 'Turning Red,' available now on Disney+. The third major animated Pixar film to be released directly to the streaming service with no premium surcharge, 'Turning Red' has been an object of praise and criticism for tackling themes of adolescence. Any risk of an awkward family viewing experience is greatly superseded, however, by 'Turning Red's' char...

Dawson and Philip discuss 'The Book of Boba Fett,' the seven-part live-action 'Star Wars' series on Disney+, released December 2021. The series picks up where season 2 of 'The Mandalorian' left off, this time following the adventures of former bounty hunter Boba Fett as he ascends within planet Tatooine's organized crime apparatus. The show takes plenty of detours in the form of flashbacks and sid...

Philip and Jodi discuss 'Dune: Part One' from Warner Bros. Pictures and Denis Villeneuve, visionary behind such films as 'Arrival' and 'Blade Runner: 2049'. 'Dune' is based on the 1965 novel by Frank Hebert detailing the life of Prince Paul Atreides of Caladan, who in the far future leaves his home planet with his family, led by his father Duke Leto, for the desert planet Arrakis to oversee the re...

The Addams Family takes a vacation in this sequel to 'The Addams Family' (2019), a computer animated take on the long running comic series by Charles Addams. The Addams Family has appeared in various sitcoms and films throughout the years and this latest iteration imagines the iconic family more-or-less as the appear in the classic illustrations. Produced and released by MGM, 'The Addams Family 2'...

Jodi, Dawson and Philip review and discuss Stanley Kubrick's 'The Shining' from 1980. A film that has gone on to influence numerous filmmakers and storytellers, 'The Shining' is an adaptation of Stephen King's 1977 novel of the same name. These two creative powerhouses were sure to deliver an enduring film; however King ultimately disapproved of Kubrick's vision for the film. 'The Shining' got mix...

Jodi and Philip discuss 'The Last Unicorn' (1982) from Rankin/Bass Animated Entertainment. Directed by Arthur Rankin Jr. and Jules Bass, the animation was primary completed by Topcraft in Japan, which would later be acquired by Studio Ghibli. A majestic and mysterious unicorn inhabits and enchanted forest, but overhears that she may be the only remaining unicorn. Following a tip from an eccentric...

Alex, Hannah, and Philip discuss the 1970 film 'The Aristocats' from Walt Disney Animation. Centered around a group of cats that are promised a huge inheritance, the cats' future is threatened when the person promised the inheritance after the cats are gone learns of the will. Cartoon hi-jinks ensue as Duchess, Marie, Berlioz, and Toulouse find themselves in the french countryside, but are able to...

Philip, Jodi, and Alex review 'Vivo' from Columbia and Sony Pictures Animation, released in the U.S. on Netflix in August 2021. Directed by Kirk DiMicco and co-directed by Brandon Jeffords, this Cuba/Florida travelogue is the brainchild of Lin-Manuel Miranda, who first pitched the idea of a singing monkey--or kinkajou--back in 2010, following the Broadway success of 'In the Heights.' Miranda voice...

Philip and Hannah welcome new guest Alex to the ThawedCast to discuss the new film from Pixar, 'Luca,' released in the U.S. exclusively on Disney+ on June 18th. This directorial debut from Enrico Casarosa, who previously made the Pixar short 'La Luna' (2011), follows an Italian shepherd boy who lives with his family under the sea. Unlike classical merpeople, however, these sea monsters become full...

Hannah, Jodi, and Philip discuss the 1961 Disney film ‘One Hundred and One Dalmatians.’ This was the first feature-length film to use Xerox photocopying to save on animation costs. At the domestic box office it went on to gross around 850 million in today’s dollars, second only to ‘Snow White’ (1937) in this particular ranking (animated domestic grosses, adjusted for inflation). It would inspire s...

Philip is joined by Jodi, Hannah, and newcomer Heather Coy to discuss the new live-action spinoff of an animated Disney film, 'Cruella.' The film explores an alternative take on the classic villain Cruella de Vil from the 1961 classic, 'One Hundred and One Dalmations.' Like 'Maleficent' before it, 'Cruella' revels in the undeniable fascination that this eponymous character instills in viewers, hav...