All Dogs Go To Heaven

Em: 00:03:10

Hi, everyone. I'm Em. And welcome to Verbal Diorama, episode 334, All Dogs Go To Heaven.

This is the podcast that's all about the history and legacy movies you know, and movies you don't that can't keep a good dog down. Welcome to Verbal Diorama. Whether you're a regular returning listener, whether you're a brand new listener, thank you for being here.

Thank you for choosing to listen to this podcast. I am so happy to have you here for the history and legacy of All Dogs Go to Heaven.

And if you are a regular listener, thank you so much to you for continuing to listen to this podcast and continuing to support this podcast. Especially now, because this is the final of three special episodes celebrating this podcast's birthday.

E, which came out in the year: 2000

It's actually a decent movie and it definitely doesn't deserve the hate and it definitely doesn't deserve to have the reputation of destroying an entire studio. But that's for that episode. Over the years, I've returned to Don Bluth a couple more times on this podcast.

I've done episodes on the Secret of NIMH and Anastasia, and I've always been a huge fan of Don Bluth.

Ever since my very early childhood I have watched Don Bluth movies and this season is basically not only to celebrate animation, just generally, but also to celebrate Don Bluth and how much he means to me as a person who grew up watching his movies on repeat and probably at the same time as watching the Disney movies on repeat. Obviously Don Bluth used to work for Disney, so it kind of tracks. Animation has always been so important to me.

So important to the person that I am today is from the animated movies that I watched as a kid. And that's not hyperbole. Genuinely, I feel like I learned so many lessons from the animated movies that I watched when I was a kid.

And still to this day as a semi official grown up, I still love animation. I still treasure it. And it's why this podcast started with animation and why animation continues to feature on this podcast so often.

It's just genuinely because I love it so much. We are coming to the end of the 6th annual animation season on this podcast.

Previous episodes this season have been on Monsters, Inc. K Pop, Demon Hunters, Paprika, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Mutant Mayhem, the Princess and the Frog, An American Tail, and the Land Before Time.

There is one more movie yet to come in this season as well, and animation season is a celebration of animation in all its forms from all different studios, from all decades, from all time periods.

I just think it's really important to talk about animation because while ostensibly this movie is very much aimed at children, arguably probably shouldn't be, but we'll get to that. Animation is not just for children. And it's also not a genre either. It is the perfect art form. It is capable of depicting anything and anyone.

It has none of the limitations of live action cinema, which still kind of irks me that there are so many studios, especially Disney, who are now taking these treasured animated classics and turning them into live action, not because of the art form, but because they just want to make a little bit of extra money from the ip.

And I understand it from a business point of view, however, the movies that they create are never going to be as great as the original animated movies. It's just not possible. There is not one movie that exists that is better than the animated movie that came before it.

There are some great ones out there, definitely some great ones.

And there are some great ones that I do actually want to talk about on this podcast in the near future when we do talk about live action remakes, because it is something I have avoided on this podcast. But I do think there are some wonderful examples of live action remakes. But let's not discount the animated classics that came before.

And that's why this season is so important. And that's why I do this season every January and February.

And I have done since the very start of this podcast, and I will continue to do it until this podcast ends, whenever that happens. And the reason why I'm doing Don Bluth is kind of obvious. He was the guy that we all grew up watching.

He gave us joy, he gave us pain, he gave us fear. But mostly for this movie in particular. Everyone loves dogs, but they've been our faithful companions for centuries.

Charlie B. Barkin isn't exactly a good dog. He associates with some awful dogs. And those awful dogs decide to send him to heaven earlier than planned.

And as the first Sullivan Bluth movie without the guidance and final word of Steven Spielberg, this movie had a lot to prove. So here's the trailer for All Dogs Go to Heaven.

Charlie B. Barkin, a rascally German shepherd with a shady past, breaks out of a New Orleans dog pound with the help of his faithful friend Itchy, a nervously hyperactive dachshund.

He then makes tracks to reunite with his gambling casino partner, Carface Carruthers, a shifty pitbull who has planned dastardly and potentially deadly double cross. Suddenly, Charlie finds himself at the pearly gates face to face with Annabelle, the heavenly whippet.

Charlie weasels his way back to earth and reunites with Itchy. He plots his revenge against Carface and along the way acquires help from a little girl named Anne Marie who can talk to animals.

After a series of fiendish schemes, close scrapes and unexpected adventures, both Charlie and Ann Marie find their lives are at stake. Only one of them can be saved and the outcome is in Charlie's paws. Let's run through the cast.

We have Burt Reynolds as Charlie B. Barkin, Dom DeLuise as Itchy Itchiford.

Judith Barsi as Anne Marie, Vic Tabak as Carface Carruthers, Charles Nelson Reilly as Killer, Lonnie Anderson as Flo, Melba Moore as Annabelle, and Ken Page as King Gator. All Dogs Go to Heaven has a screenplay by David M. Weiss and story by Don Bluth.

worked at Walt Disney between: 1955

on the Sword in the Stone in: 1963

He became the directing animator for the Rescuers and Pete's Dragon and drew a few accredited scenes for the Fox and the Hound before creative tensions reached a breaking point.

September: 1979

But he didn't leave alone the departure of animators Don Bluth, Gary Goldman and John Pomeroy, along with a further four animators and four assistant animators, represented about 17% of the studio's animation staff. The loss was so significant to Disney that it delayed the release of the Fox and the Hound by six months.

Bluth left Disney and started Don Bluth Productions. And he was passionate about reviving the classical animation style Disney had used on its golden age classics.

And the cost cutting measures of the 60s and 70s left Bluth feeling concerned for Disney's future.

He felt they could no longer be creative, that there was too much bureaucracy, that artistic value was reduced and with no scope to grow, they had no choice but to leave and set up on their own. Their first feature length animated movie was an adaptation of Mrs. Frisbee and the rats at NIMH, which became the secret of NIMH.

That's episode 76 of this podcast. And it represented the sort of animated movies that would become blue trademarks, often dark, a little scary and nightmare fuel for our childhoods.

ions filing for bankruptcy in: 1982

And this was why the collaboration with Steven Spielberg and Amblin Entertainment led to two of Bluth's most endearing and popular movies, especially where sales of Kleenex are concerned. An American Tale of the Land Before Time are the previous episodes of this podcast.

But both were projects that frustrated Bluth because of his lack of creative control. Despite partnering with Amblin, giving Son of and Bluth their two biggest hits, the partnership wouldn't continue.

Spielberg would instead create Amblimation. Fievel had found his family in America and Littlefoot had been reunited with his grandparents in the Great Valley.

There would be no third collaboration.

Instead, Sullivan Bluth, bolstered by two of animation's biggest hits of the 80s, had a new studio in Dublin, had acquired some of the most talented animators in the business, and had lined up a new deal with independent British producers Goldcrest Films and All Dogs Go to Heaven had been a story brewing in Bluth's mind for a while since the Secret of NIMH, an idea of an animated film consisting of three short stories with one of Them a satire of detective films with a shaggy German shepherd as a private eye. The idea was with Burt Reynolds in mind, who was a friend of Dom DeLuise, who was a regular collaborator of Don Bluth.

But back in those days, Don Bluth Productions, as it was known at the time, struggled during periods of financial instability, ultimately declaring bankruptcy. And the doggy Private Eyes story just remained an idea with a few storyboards.

The studio did apparently adopt a similar real life dog, whom they named Bert, a stray German shepherd mix who also moved with them to Ireland. But Bert the dog was the only thing to come out of the idea.

Once the Land Before Time was complete, Bluth now had the creative control he craved, and three of the biggest animated movies from Disney up until that point were the Fox and the Hound, 101 Dalmatians, and Lady and the Tramp. And dogs seemed to be the magic ingredient.

and From October to December: 1987

They'd done immigrant mice, they'd done dinosaurs, and they wanted something that would hook the audience. And who doesn't love dogs?

David N. Weiss was brought on board to write the script, which would take inspiration from films like It's a Wonderful Life, Little Miss Marker, and Heaven Can Wait. And from when we're little, we're told about heaven or places similar and that good kind people end up there.

So while there would be an implicit reference to death, Bluth was adamant that All Dogs Go to Heaven was the title to be kept and even a suggested alternative, Charlie the heavenly Dog, was denied. When the title of the maybe was announced to the press, it wasn't taken particularly seriously. But Bluth played up the idea it was a fairy tale.

And just like the previous episode Fairy Tale, the Princess and the Frog, All Dogs Go to Heaven would also be set in New Orleans as somewhere totally different to any of their previous settings, with a rich history of jazz, Mardi Gras, the bayou, the Mississippi river, as well as a general feeling of spirituality which would tie into the themes of heaven. For casting, they would go back to Burt Reynolds, who loved their movies and wanted to play the role Charlie.

And his only stipulations were that his name wasn't used to market the movie and that he wanted to play total jerk who became reformed halfway through and really earned his spot in Heaven.

He was cast alongside his friend Dom DeLuise and Reynolds and DeLuise's friendship meant that instead of recording their lines separately, Bluth had them record together. The pair ad libbed and altered the script to fit their characters.

Even Reynolds wife Lori Anderson got in on the action and got herself a role in the movie too as the collie Flo. This would also be Bluth's first movie to feature a main human character in 7 year old orphan Anne Marie.

And after testing around 20 young girls to perform the live action references, the studio picked a six year old Irish girl.

Across the course of six or seven months, she would come into the studio two or three times a week and would be filmed doing in live action what Anne Marie was to do in animation.

John Pomeroy had recently remarried and he and his new wife were filmed as reference for the married couple and Anne Marie's future foster parents, Kate and Harold.

Don Bluth had been so taken with young Judith Barsi when she voiced Ducky in the Land Before Time, he had already planned to hire her again for this movie. He had also planned to use her extensively in publicity. She was not yet 10 years old, cute as a button with talent way beyond her years.

But after she'd recorded her lines for the role of Anne Marie, tragedy struck. Barsi's story is one of the most tragic of Hollywood stories.

So trigger warning for the next section because I'm going to be briefly talking about Judith Barsi's tragic death at the hands of her abusive father. Judith Barsi, like many child actors, was providing for her family at a young age.

But by: 1987

But all was not well at home.

Despite her earnings and career successes, her father Joszef's alcoholism worsened and he started verbally and physically abusing both Judith and her mother, Maria. Maria would report him to the police, but would end up dropping the charges.

His threats continued though, with Judith starting to suffer extreme physical and emotional abuse and her agent took her to a child psychologist who reported her findings to Child Protective Services.

th July: 1988

Both the Land Before Time and All Dogs Go to Heaven were released posthumously with the closing credits Song of All Dogs Go to Heaven dedicated to Judith. The news of Judith's death affected the whole cast and crew.

In an interview with Meridian magazine, Bluth would say the news nearly paralyzed the production, that they still had her production cassette recordings of her voice to help in the animation process and no one could actually listen to those cassettes. Everybody would start tearing up and it stopped production for a short while.

Bluth was reportedly so distressed when he heard about Judith's death that he left the studio for the day on hearing the news.

There's also a long standing rumour that Burt Reynolds was so upset over Judith's murder he took multiple takes to record the dialogue at the end of the movie where Charlie is allowed to see Anne Marie one more time. The rumour is 63 takes. However, Snopes, a fact checking website, has yet to find evidence to substantiate the claim.

to spawn either out of a June: 2024

But everyone wanted to pay tribute to Judith and the best way was to finish the movie and have her star shine that little bit brighter because of it. The Irish crew, free from the burden of pleasing Steven Spielberg, felt more free on this movie and the production moved quickly.

They felt the experience of drawing dogs more fun than dinosaurs. Computer animation was also used sparingly.

Don Bluth wasn't a huge fan of using the computer for animation, but for a tricky shot, the scene of the car running down the pier towards Charlie, as well as some of the mechanical crane work at the junkyard, he consented to the new technology being used for those Midway through production, John Pomeroy returned to the US to head up a new division of the company there, and the US crew he built also started working on All Dogs Go to Heaven. They also used the new larger US presence to rekindle grassroots interest in the US for the newly growing studio.

A division entitled Don Bluth Animation Gallery began officially marketing the Bluth cells unseen for several years, except for those for American Tale and the Land Before Time, which belonged to Amblin. But despite all of this hard work, they still didn't have a US distributor for All Dogs Go to Heaven.

And a proposed deal with Universal was unsatisfactory to Sullivan, Bluth and Goldcrest on terms.

bal Marketplace at the end of: 1988

It wasn't until the summer of: 1989

The United Artist deal was unusual though, in that they would not handle the publicity and Goldcrest would cover that with promotional tie ins and merchandise worth 20 to 30 million dollars. United Artists would pick up the film print and advertising costs at around $10 million.

Because of the split, United Artists would receive one third of the usual distribution fee. And if the film grossed over $35 million at the box office, United Artists agreed to pay Goldcrest a minimum of $8 million from the home video sales.

But I am going to come back to both of those things in a little bit because the box office takings and the DVD sales of this movie are both incredibly important and incredibly interesting. This is a good moment though to segue into the obligatory Keanu reference of this episode.

And if you don't know what that is, is where I try and link every movie that I feature with Keanu Reeves for no reason other than he is the best of men. And genuinely, there was ever only gonna be one reference for this movie. Two words. John Wick, if you know, you know.

James Horner wouldn't return to score this movie after he scored An American Tail and the Land Before Time. Instead, they brought in Ralph Burns to compose the score along with Tony Award winner Charles Strauss to write the songs.

Strauss had previously composed the music for Bye Bye Birdie and Annie. Burns had written the score for all that Jazz and was the music supervisor on Cabaret.

Strauss wrote four songs for the soundtrack and he and Bluth worked together writing specific concepts for each song, wanting each one to further the plot and enlighten audience.

The setting for let's Make Music Together was inspired by the Esther Williams movies with the Alligator King Gator stylized on Williams, complete with a flowery swimming cap. Two of the songs were written by TJ Kuenster, brother of co director Dan Kuenster. All Dogs Go to Heaven had a special display presentation.

The: 1989

When the MPAA gave it a PG rating, the movie was cut down to ensure a G rating. In the us the majority of cuts involved two scenes.

The first was the scene where Charlie is killed by the car, which originally showed a more graphic depiction of the car hitting Charlie. Charlie's body seen flying off the pier and into the river. But the other cuts came from the nightmare where Charlie envisions hell.

Originally, the giant demon spoke to Charlie, attempting to reach out for him. It also appeared for much longer and more threateningly on the screen.

Minor cuts were made to the type of weapon, car, face and killer used against Charlie and Anne Marie. Originally, the pair attacked them with a tommy gun.

However, mid production, there was an attack at a California school by a man using automatic weapons and several children had been killed. So to keep it from looking like a similar scene, the tommy gun was changed to an atomic gun to make it seem a bit more fantasy sounding.

Allegedly, Don Bluth owned a private 35 millimeter print with the cutscenes included and planned to release a director's cut. But the print was stolen from Bluth's locked storage room.

So there are diminishing hopes of this version ever being released on home media because the print has never been recovered. Once the cuts were done on the movie, they were happy, ready to set All Dogs Going to Heaven into the Doggy park.

And just like with the man before time, Disney were prepped and ready to take on Sullivan Bluth at the US Box office. Last time it had been Oliver and company. This time around, All Dogs Go to Heaven was set to battle the Little Mermaid.

th November: 1989

It was the same week as the Little Mermaid, but also the same week as Back to the Future Part 2, Harlem Nights and Steel Magnolias. Harlem Knights actually took the top spot in that first week with Back to the Future Part 2 in second.

Look who's Talking was in third, Steel Magnolias was fourth, The Little Mermaid fifth, and All Dogs Go to Heaven 6. But while The Little Mermaid grew 14% in its second week, All Dogs Go to Heaven didn't it dropped 7.2% in its second week.

By its third week, All Dogs Go to Heaven had dropped seventh place with a 52.5% drop, and by its fourth week it was 10th in the US box office.

All Dogs Go to Heaven was in more cinemas than the Little Mermaid, but Ariel remained more popular, and Even a small 28% boost over the Christmas period couldn't save All Dogs Go to Heaven from going to box office. Heaven within seven weeks of release, All Dogs Go to Heaven would end up grossing $27.1 million on its $13 million budget.

Not a huge financial disappointment according to the books, but a disappointment for Sullivan Bluth.

was released on VHS in August: 1990

Coming from a theatrical disappointment to to a massive success, cementing its legacy on home video and fulfilling all the obligations it needed to fulfill, it was re released on VHS several times as well as on SVHS 8 millimeter video, LaserDisc and later on DVD and Blu Ray. But because All Dogs Go to Heaven came out at the same time as the Little Mermaid, critics immediately and rather unfairly compared them.

They criticized the disjointed narrative, the quality of the animation, and the songs by Charles Strauss and T.J. Kuenster.

bs up from Roger Ebert on the: 1989

The film's depictions of hell, death, murder, gambling, violence, kidnapping and generally dark themes were also heavily criticized for a family animated film.

in: 1996

Don Bluth has historically not been involved in the sequels of any of his movies, and Don Bluth would have no involvement in this with this sequel either.

Heaven series, which ran from: 1996

For the seventh birthday of this podcast, I've done episodes on An American Tail and the Land Before Time, and now All Dogs Go to Heaven. And if you need to know which one of those movies made me cry the most, it's this one. And there's a really simple explanation for that.

Because while I've not recently had dogs, I had a dog when I was a child, but not during my adult life have I had a dog. I have had cats. And the reason why this movie affects me so much is because I still lived with the pain of losing one of my cats.

And so this one just hits me deep in the feels so much more. Because I would give anything to see Jess again.

She died in: 2022

And when Charlie and Anne Marie get to reunite one at a time, I can't help but be seriously affected by that. And I ugly cry hard at this movie because that is the one thing that I would want. But then I also believe that all cats go to Heaven.

If I'm being honest, all three of these movies elicit the same kind of response. And it's something that's not unique to Don Bluth, but it is something he's become synonymous with.

I've not seen the next movie Sullivan Bluth made with Goldcrest, which is Rock a Doodle.

ions filing for bankruptcy in: 1992

so that was released first in: 1994

Central park also came out in: 1994

e final nail in the coffin in: 1995

But all stories end up somewhere, and it would lead to Don Bluth ending up at Fox Animation Studios for their first film, Anastasia, which would end up becoming Don Bluth's biggest ever hit. And that's a story I talk about in episode 138 of this podcast, so I would recommend going back and listening to that one.

As for All Dogs Go to Heaven, it's definitely leaning more towards grown up themes. I don't think any animated movie by no scene features quite so much drinking and gambling.

And while you can understand Bluth's annoyance at leaving Disney because he felt the studio was losing its way, only to go out on his own and end up having to answer to other people that this could easily just be the movie, he decided to go all out on that this was his rebellious phase and he was relying on a lot of audience grace from An American Tail and the Land Before Time. And honestly, this one does feel so different. The 10 credited story writers probably didn't help matters either.

It does feel muddled and inconsistent and oftentimes inappropriate, but also incredibly memorable in so many ways.

As a finger to the establishment that forced him to cutesy his previous works, this movie does work and it does somehow preserve the illusion that it's a movie for children, despite it kinda not being and also despite its inherent weirdness. But it's hard not to watch this movie and think of the heart-breaking death of Judith Barsi. At least Anne Marie got her happily ever after.

Just keep breaking my heart Don. So the question is, do all dogs actually go to heaven? They sure do. Except Carface. He's a very bad dog. You can never come back from that kind of life.

And I just want to end and say, you know, goodbyes aren't forever. Then goodbye Charlie and goodbye Don Bluth for now.

We love you and thank you and thank you for listening and as always, I would love to hear your thoughts on All Dogs Go to Heaven and thank you for your continued support of this podcast. Genuine, heartfelt, wonderful thanks for listening to this podcast. Whether it's your first episode or your 334th episode.

Thank you for being here for the seventh birthday of this podcast. I'm so grateful to you for listening to me talk about these movies and I hope you will join me next week for the final episode of animation season.

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Em: 00:42:26

Bye.