Animators React 10: The Lion King, Mulan, VeggieTales 

I had the pleasure of animating at Big Idea (on a mix of 3-2-1 Penguins! and VeggieTales projects) when Tom was there. He's such an awesome guy, and I'm so glad that you were able to get him on the couch for one of these episodes, and also glad that VeggieTales finally made it into the discussion. Here's hoping that Tom can come back for more!

They really gotta include the guests names in the video title they deserve way more recognition for their work

7:07 "Well, fortunately the cleanup people, they refine it even more. My drawings probably looked pretty stinky, and then they would clean it up and kind of improve it, so... that's why it's a group effort." Always nice to see an artist praising the team effort and trying to give full credit to everyone who isn't on the couch with him. That makes him a much better storyteller, since we worry less about it being self-aggrandizing.

Man it feels honestly wholesome hearing animators talk about VeggieTales. It was very unique and groundbreaking for its time when it came out

14:00 Dude, the shot of Esther taking her crown off is one of my earliest film memories. Something about the invisible arms just made me think about it a lot as a kid and it stuck with me all the way to adulthood. I flipped when he mentioned it, cause it was like he dug straight into my mind from my preschool years.

I am constantly amazed at the level of guests you manage to get on your show. You guys are bringing in some of the best in the industry and they all want to come back for more. It is truly incredible how this little 'thing' you guys started so many years ago has snowballed into one of the premier shows for animators and artists to not only showcase their work, but teach the masses as well.I don't know if you at Corridor have ever sat back and thought to yourselves, "Man, this just keeps getting better and better. How did we pull this off?" But you did pull it off, and we are all so glad you did. Thank you for your amazing content and please keep it coming.

Yknow, the Esther veggie tale always did feel different than the others. Like more cinematic and eerie at times, but in a good way. So it def makes since when Tom said it was Disney inspired. Because it definitely feels like it in hindsight

Veggies Tales has aged so well for one of the first computer animated works ever. Like if they were make it for the first time ever today, I feel it would look exactly the same with the character expressions and humor, despite being a religious show. To say it was ahead of its time is an understatement

Finally getting to the peak of animation: early 90s VeggieTales

Whenever Wren is not in a video, I begin to anticipate which of his limbs will be in a cast the next time we see him on camera. Edit: Tom also highlighted something I always found interesting in those 90s Disney movies, in that the title character usually wasn’t the most memorable character of the film. From The Genie, to Sebastian, to Mushu, the title character almost became the supporting cast member to their antics.

Dear Corridor Crew, as a director in the commercial // music video scene, I can't tell you how much I appreciate your channel. It has become a literal hobby of mine to watch these videos. Thank you for creating such awesome content.

Casting animators to a single character so that it keeps personality is an exceptionally wonderful idea.

I grew up on Veggietales. I would LOVE to see another episode looking at Veggietales, especially in later years.

If you grew up on VeggieTales, you a real one 😤

Very cool to hear from someone that worked on veggie tales, I don’t see a lot of behind the scenes on it

I love the way Tom speaks and shares his stories, definitely one of the best guests so far.

Veggie Tales on Corridor React was not on the list of things I expected to see today. So awesome!

If you like to talk to tomatoes… this episode definitely made me smile. Tom Bancroft is genuinely one of the nicest people I’ve ever had the privilege of meeting and it’s so cool to see him on the couch. ❤

I grew up on VeggieTales. There times where an episode will be on for whatever reason, and I'll pick up on jokes that I didn't catch as a kid, and sometimes be on the verge of tears because of the way they expressed their positive messages that I sometimes didn't understand as a kid.

Hearing good things about Veggie Tales makes me so happy. It'd be super cool to hear y'all talk about The Legend of Vox Machina! The second season just dropped, and the dragon animation is so cool!!!

This guy is such fun and natural at explaining his work. Can see he is a storyteller.

iirc, there's a story about early early Pixar where they were having some kind of issue figuring out how to animate something, and the only people in the world with any kind of expertise in cg was Big Idea. So Pixar, THE pioneer in 3d animation, had to go ask VeggieTales for help to get to where they are now.

I just looove how humble Tom is regarding his work - like most of the guests you have on the show, and you as well. It's just about the passion, the exchange of wisdom, the smiles. I just love the wholesomeness of this channel.

Got to hear Tom and Tony talk at a Biola event years ago, and have been listening to lots of Bancroft Brothers Podcast since. They are awesome to learn from and find really cool people to interview! And they recommended Illusion of Life which is one of the best animation books out there

I grew up on VEGGIETALES. When our family traveled we kids would ask "How many more veggietales is it?" Our concept of time was measured by veggietales length....half an hour. The Jonah movie was the first film I ever saw in "theatres". It technically wasn't a theater, it was in a large church in the city but kid me didn't know the difference. We have family videos of us kids and veggietales playing on the tv. Buzzsaw Louie is one of our traditional Christmas films to watch each year. My Dad likes to imitate veggietales character voices for fun. I used to try to draw my friends as veggietales style characters. My parents had custom songs for each of their 4 children and my brother Daniel got the song "Fear not Daniel" from Daniel and the Lions Den. I find myself singing veggietales songs all the time. One of my favorite films was the Ester veggietales film as a young girl. I was fascinated by the biblical story. Veggietales was a big part of my life growing up and when I have kids of my own or when I babysit my little nephew I will play the videos for them.

On the topic of how do vegetables hold things one of my favorite lines in veggietales is from Josh and the Big Wall: "How are we clapping?" "I have no idea"

If you guys could get, like Phil Vischer (one of the co-creators/visionary, voice of Bob) on that would be so cool. He has so many interesting stories about production and seems a genuinely decent and communicative guy. I know other youtubers have been able to contact him to talk veggies before!

You helped make my children's childhood better. Right down to Veggie Tales. It has been so great to see you interviewed. All I have to say is "make me a sandwich"

Rick Moranis was mentioned in the video, but you also have to shout out to Dave Thomas as well. Their characters, Bob and Doug McKenzie from their SCTV sketches “The Great White North” ARE Rutt and Toque. Those two moose were the result of years of comedy writing and performance. Big reason the characters interact so well: two old friends doing what they do best.

Oh, I've seen *Dick Tracy!* It was a really cool gangster movie, and it was also a really interesting way to adapt a colorful pulp comic to the big screen. All the bright, primary colors were done in-camera, which means you have people in vibrant primary-colored sets wearing yellow or blue suits. It's great!

BTW, that Warren Beatty Dick Tracy movie is awesome. Highly stylized, bright colors everywhere, it's just like a comic book.

Veggie tales style reminds me of early pixel art in video games. Often not a ton of actual animation but your mind easily fills in the blanks.

Veggietales was one of my favorites as a kid

Veggietales, especially Silly Songs With Larry, is so unironically funny. Great humor.

One of my favorite lines in VeggieTales is in Josh and the Big wall when the group is cheering and grapes go: "How are we clapping?" "I have no idea."

I love Tom. He and his brother basically animated so many great things from my childhood that inspired me to become a professional animator myself working today 😊

"We were all cast to that one character." That's why in traditionally animated movies, in the credits, you'll see quite a few people under a certain character, it's not just the actor, but an entire TEAM of people bringing that character to life. One thing I love about the Lion King, is the use of shadows to convey a threat, as well as the camerawork and editing was amazing. The use of color in the movie in general was amazing, but in particular the shadows were great. This is done before the stampede, when we first see Scar he's in the shadow of Pride Rock. Then in the stampede scene in particular, the use of shadow is done very well to showcase evil triumph over good; the way Scar's shadow just slowly engulfs Mufasa was incredible then to zero it in on the eyes constricting in sheer terror and realization, and I love how the shadow over Mufasa's face highlight his eyes...but it isn't just the animators bringing the scene to life, it's people who do lighting, sound, and camerawork too. The use of extreme close ups, to Mufasa's eyes, and their paws to show the precarious situation, the slight smirk Scar does before uttering "Long live the king" was a nice animation touch, and of course going back to the paws as he throws Mufasa off, then cut to Mufasa falling roaring in rage as he does, something I noticed was that the camera doesn't stop moving, it follows Mufasa in speed as he falls, and then zooms right out of Simba's eye to convey that sense of helplessness and terror of someone falling and you being helpless in watching it happen. They use dust as well to cover the characters in darkness; the scene took place during the day, but because of all the dust thrown up by the herd, you completely forget. MEANWHILE IN THE LIVE ACTION ONE IT'S JUST ALL IN BROAD FCKING DAYLIGHT, NO PROPER SHADOW PLACEMENT, THE CAMERA AND EDITING WORK IS DISGUSTING, LIKE THE REASON WHY THEY HAVE IT FADE TO BLACK ISN'T JUST SO WE DON'T HAVE TO SEE MUFASA LAND IT'S TO SHOW THAT THIS MOMENT IS IMPRINTED INTO SIMBA'S MIND, THAT'S WHY IT GOES FROM BLACK TO THE FAST ZOOM OUT OF HIS FACE BUT IN THE REMAKE THEY JUST HARD TO CUT SIMBA YELLING LIKE THAT CAT IN THE MEOW MIX COMMERCIAL AND WHERE ARE THE SHADOWS, WHY IS EVERYTHING AT A MEDIUM FREAKING SHOT WHERE IS THE CAMERA LANGAUGE WHAT DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND ABOUT USING CAMERAWORK AND BODY LANGUAGE TO CONVEY EMOTION JOOOOON.

Can't believe he worked on Veggie Tales, that was the goat of kids shows back then! Still enjoy it haha. But shoot, all these classic Disney movies too? Crazy.

Great episode! I'd really enjoy seeing a breakdown of "Larryboy and the Bad Apple" from Veggitales!

Disney 2D animation is literally timeless. You'd think it was animated with digital programmes, cleaned up with the finger on ctrl+z, it's so clean, and the expressions, the emotions, it all looks flawless, like it was done recently with the best tools available. But it was all done by hand on paper! Amazing.. you never had to go 3D

Definitely would like to see more Veggie Tales content somehow btw... Thanks for sharing guys!

You know what'd be cool? If they reacted to the VFX for parody movies. (The Scary Movies, Superhero movie, Airplane, Naked Gun, etc)

I love that they finally talked about Veggietales. One of the best kids "shows" ever

Fenner is the best addition of the crew for reacts. He is learning quick and adding a lot to the reacts. Love to see more of him in the future. Great episode!

Love you bring up veggie tales. It doesn't get enough credit.

Wow honestly the best episode I’ve seen in a while. This guy is amazing

I grew up on VeggieTales. That scene with the crown immediately stuck out to me - even as a kid. Before the Esther movie, there had been very little "hand" movement of props by the vegetables. That crown scene in Esther just took the entire idea to a whole new world. I distinctly remember the first time I watched it. The animation took me out of the moment, but my mind almost immediately realized that the crown movements were correct and I was brought back in just a fraction of a second later. Huge props for that scene. It blew me away at like 10 years old.

Corridor Crew, I have to say, every week, I get super inspired by your guests and by y’all’s insight into the storytelling and story tellers and how hard everyone involved works. Thank you so much. Keep it up!

I would love a video on the dirty easter eggs with an inside perspective. Some I really can't imagine weren't at the very least a little intentional.

I'm sure it wasn't worth pointing out during the recording, but I found it interesting that Tom said that CG animation always has the smoothing between frames that you can't avoid. That was true at one point, but it hasn't been for a while. It's easy to lock in frames in 3D software nowadays so that there is no movement calculation (or smoothing) between frames. It's even showing more often in CG movies as of late such as "The Bad Guys" and "Puss In Boots: The Last Wish". Both by Dreamworks, which really seem to like playing with this concept as of late. A video covering the latter would be awesome. The style in that movie is incredible! This was awesome to watch as always. Seeing Veggietales was a huge surprise and honestly I would love to see another animator from that studio come on to talk about the early days of their CG just because of how groundbreaking it was.

Such a great video. Love the insight into 2d animation. It would be cool to see a breakdown of the Tai Lung prison escape in Kung Fu Panda

This was maybe my favorite episode of this show ever. What a great time visiting memories in a deeper way and learning more from someone who clearly loves it. It wasn’t bragging, just sharing the love of the art and achievement. Great show guys! Have him back!

Nice to see you guys talking about veggie tales .

You guys should react to the animation changes in Blues clues, from Steve's time with 2 dimensional animations, to a bit of experimenting with Joe, and lastly a 3D rendering of Blue with Josh. The pilot if "Blues Clues and You" was choppy, but bettered with every season. For some reason though the movie struggled with putting blue in the real life world.

What a cool guest to have on the show, he’s so humble and pleasant! Like this man literally had a direct hand in creating some of my favorite animated movies of all time. Such a legend

It is a pleasure to see Veggie Tales on here. Thank you for having Tom Bancroft on!

I watched so much Veggie Tales as a kid, crazy that the animator did them!

I don't recall if this has been talked about on the show before but with the mention of early CGI, Reboot (1994) needs to be discussed.

As somebody who draws I always tip my hat off to animators cuz I would never try to do that work. The sheer fact that they have to draw every single little motion to turn it into one big movement, facial expressions, backgrounds, thinking about what goes into a action scene let alone just a simple walking scene like when I think of the sheer magnitude of that I can’t imagine how draining or repetitive it might be as well and then hoping that the project you’re working on will be a hit and not a miss….these people are truly a different breed 🫡

Great episode, great animation insight. I was lead animator on Juju Brain episode 1 and 2, for pencilish it is a fun show to work on, thanks Tom and Pencilsh.

Great video! Was really cool to hear about Tom's experience working with disney and his work with Veggie Tales (I watched so many of those movies growing up). Especially cool to hear about the work he did on Brother Bear with the 2 Moose and having to 3d animate their antlers! I saw both of those movies in theatre as a kid with my cousins :) (P.S. The "corridorcrew" code does not work on the Vessie hiking boots, or at least at the time I'm writing this.)

VeggieTales, finally you guys are watching a masterpiece.

Thank you Tom, for heading parts of the animations of some of my favorite characters growing up. Seeing those shots, especially the Simba rolling down the cliff and the way you guys explained the 3D animation in brother bear, it gives me a new appreciation for the medium I constantly advocate for among my friends. I'll check out Pencilish right now, the world needs "traditional" animation techniques!

Can't wait for the dirty easter eggs episodes, I need it :D

These are always so cool. It feels like we get a little of what we've lost when studios stopped doing director's commentaries

The joy I felt when I saw you guys were going to look at Veggietales cannot be overstated. Also, please take a look at Atlantis: The Lost Empire and The Prince of Egypt at some point.

I really enjoyed this one! Tom and Tony are animation legends. I would love it if you had him on again; I bet there’s almost infinite cool stories he could tell about one of the best Disney eras, let alone his early CGI work on VeggieTales!

Tom was an awesome guest! It would be great to see him again!

Fenner was just in awe the whole time

Veggie Tales made it to animators react! That's a fun birthday present. :)

Really cool video. I love to see you guys include fenner in those videos! He has alot of expirience and brings alot to that series.

It’s heartwarming to see you guys having such a great time, appreciating the lesion you’re getting in animation and that you are sharing it with us. We really appreciate it too.

I loved veggie tales when I was a kid!

I remember the Dick Tracey film. Kinda similar to The Rocketeer where it was either a decade too early or a decade too late

We need a video talking about the all the “dirty and subliminal messages” in animation, it would be so cool to get to know what an actual animator thinks about all this subject

Would LOVE to hear more about Veggie Tales!

Veggitales? Yes please. That show was wonderful.

This was so insightful! And Brother Bear was one of my favorite movies growing up as well!

8:07 The Mushu/Figment love child we didn't know we needed in our lives.

I was super anxious at the end “Omg am I going to see how Wren broke his arm???? Nope nope nope nope”

Veggie Tales! I loved it as a kid! 😄😊

Parts like the one about antlers are exactly why I love this (and other of your React) series. Great stuff.

In Jonah: A Veggietales movie (a movie Tom also worked on), they have an audio commentary featuring the characters…and there’s a section where they mentioned mushu from mulan, comparing him to donkey from shrek

animation is one of my favorite hobbies and man, this episode was so insightful like it's actually so freaking cool that you got someone like Tom Bancroft on the show talking about how they worked on all these amazing shots from all these great movies.

Like actually guys, I watched some old veggie tales with my nephews a while back,and they have like jokes I never would have got when I was younger. Not dirty just it went over my head as a kid.

dude, Dick Tracy is an amazing movie, the visual style, the makeup.. with the exception of Madonna's acting in a lot of it, that shit was awesome

Best jokes in Veggie Tales are about the lack of hands. When everyone is clapping for Joshua and they ask how they're clapping.

For anyone interested; the creator of Veggie Tales, Phil Vischer, wrote a book about the rise and fall of his studio called 'Me, Myself, and Bob'. It's a really interesting story.

Here for Corridor, stayed for VeggieTales.

HE WAS AMAZING! You guys had a good back and forth and the energy was smooth. Also, holy crap his resume must look amazing

I saw an interview with I think Phil Vischer where they were saying that Esther was so hard to work with because of her hair and the shadows it cast on her face that they decided to finish the project with her since so much was already done, but then never work with her again.

Great episode, especially seeing Fenner enjoying all the techniques and creativity of his childhood movies so much.

The Bancroft Brothers podcast is really fun if y'all enjoyed this episode!

Say what you want any veggie tales story and so forth, but the animation was genuinely creative and for what it was great

This is a great episode. Thank you for educating us about Pencilish Studios!

Tom seems to be such a warm, loveable guy. How refreshing to watch this episode.

You guys need to get Don Bluth on for a future episode, he's a great guy, (just spent a year learning from him virtually) and I'm sure will have some great stories to tell from his storied career.

So I started wanting to work in vfx and film a bit after you guys started your vfx artists react and I recently found myself having a phone call with framestore to get some advice from them and found myself mentioning your work and how much you’ve helped people get into the community. You guys really are some of the most useful teachers on RU-vid, thank you for all of these lessons you’ve given us.

Tom was a a delightful guest. Please have him back!

Great one! Love Tom's work and this was a great inside chat/look into some of hits