In today's episode, we're riding a wave of Disney magic with the Beach Boys. Host Eric takes us on a journey through the intertwined history of the iconic surf rock band and the Disney empire, just in time for the debut of the Disney+ documentary about the band!. From their songs featured in Disney projects to their collaborations with Annette Funicello and appearances in TV shows like Home Improvement, the Beach Boys have left an undeniable mark on the Disney universe. So, grab your surfboard and get ready to catch some good vibrations as we explore the synergy between the Beach Boys and Disney. This is an episode you won't want to miss, so let's jump in and uncover the magic! Thanks for listening to Synergy Loves Company: How Disney Connects to Everything.
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00:04 --> 00:06 Synergy loves company.
00:10 --> 00:34 We have this coterie of rich franchises. The company now that people want to engage with. I came here to try and continue what Walt Disney and his associates set in motion 50 years ago, which is to experiment with every new and innovative, innovative kind of entertainment possible.
00:40 --> 00:53 It's what we hope to do here to really develop something that's more than an entertainment enterprise. It's something that contributes many other ways.
00:59 --> 21:51 Hey, this is synergy, love's company, where we explore how Disney next to everything. Because you don't have to be at the Disney parks to experience the magic every day. I'm Eric, and I got a good one for you today, so I'm so glad you stopped by. God only knows how much I love Disney. Of course, I'm doing a Disney podcast right now, and I love documentaries and pop music. I mean, who doesn't love music? All of them give me good, good, good, good vibrations. So when I heard there was a new documentary on Disney about the Beach Boys, I got super excited. This one's directed by Frank Marshall and Tom Zimni. Frank Marshall was a producer on the Indiana Jones movies, and he had a producer credit on who framed Roger Rabbit also. So there's some Disney connections right there. And Zimni has done a ton of rock documentaries. So who better to do a documentary on the Beach Boys? The Beach Boys documentary has interviews with all of the founding members, and they even got archival, never before seen or heard interview footage of the ones who have passed away. And it's going to be pretty amazing. At least I hope so. But it all got me wondering, have the Beach Boys ever done anything with Disney? So today we're going to catch a wave and surf the connections between Disney and the Beach Boys. And we'll have fun, fun until your daddy takes your t bird away. Well, I hope that doesn't happen to you. That would be terrible. Let's just do the fun part. The Beach Boys are known for for the teen surf pop rock melodies and vocal harmonies of their early career, as well as the studio experimentation and complex arrangements of their later hit albums. They evolved from a clean cut boy band to elevating pop music to a legitimate art form with their complex arrangements and experimental recording methods. But at their core, they're a one and only original family band. In 1961, the original lineup was formed by the Wilson brothers, Dennis, Carl and the songwriting genius brother, Brian Wilson. They were joined by their cousin Mike Love and their childhood friend, Al Jardine. In 1963, they broke it big with Surfin USA. They had become a smash sensation and stuck around for the next. Well, they're still out there rocking today. Throughout the 1960s, the Beach Boys were known for pioneering the California sound, especially the surf rock sound. Most of their early singles had surf in the title, and for all of their surf songs, only one member, Carl Wilson, actually surfed. The rest of them did it. The Beach Boys are noted as kicking off the modern pop cultural wave of the California myth. They had a clean cut look. They sang about cars, girls and surfing. All adding to the California we have come to know in pop culture, the California myth. You know, the California myth. It's the whole life is better in the Golden State. It's better than wherever you are right now, unless you're in California, because you're already there. There's great weather, beaches, laid back lifestyle, beautiful people. We've seen it on tv and in the movies. Beverly Hills, 90210, la la Land. Heck, the whole premise of the fresh Prince of Bel Air is based on escaping to the utopia of California. The song Surf in USA is pretty much a prime example of this. If everybody had a surfboard across the USA, they point out how it would be great if there was an ocean in the middle of the US so that everyone could surf, because surfing is so amazing. But you can't unless you live in California, because it's really great there. I like to think of this as the California that always was but never will be. Michael Eisner's California Adventure 1.0 was really based on this pop cultural California myth. So of course, it leaned heavily into the Beach Boys. Their hit California girls was part of the entrance Plaza loop, and a slew of their other songs were done up in a carnival, Calliope style. For back in the Paradise Pier section of the park and as a crowning jewel of the DCA 1.0 Beach Boys Love Fest, the band actually performed at the Parks Rock in the Bay concert series in 2002. They were actually there. But California Adventure is not the only place where the Disney parks have used the Beach Boys songs. The country Bears performed a parody of California girls called California Bears. It was part of the country Bears vacation hoedown. Back in the day, Grizzly hall used to get overlays. There was a Christmas show in the winter, and it was really popular. Because of the popularity of the Christmas show, they tried out a version of the show with a more modern popular music touch. In 1986, the vacation Hoedown debuted at Disneyland, and soon after at Walt Disney World. It ran as the regular country bear show in Florida for about seven years, and it was performed at Disneyland up until it closed in 2001. With the new country bear Jamboree on the way, it helps to be reminded that they did this before another parody of the Beach Boys, the Peach Boys sang good nutrition instead of good vibrations in food rocks over at Epcot's Land pavilion. When Epcot opened in 1982, the land Pavilion was sponsored by Kraft Kitchen Cabaret opened and it was a totally original show featuring animatronic food performing in Bonnie Appetit's Kitchen. Veggie fruit fruit. Veggie Veggie fruit, fruit. When craft sponsorship ran out after ten years, though, Nestle took over and wanted a brand new show. And food rocks was born out of this new sponsorship and the Eisner era's love of celebrity and pop culture. The food now would feature punny names on famous musical acts and they would sing parodies of artists biggest hits. For instance, PETA Gabriel sang high fiber. The refrigerator police sang every bite you take. Adding refrigerator to police is not that much of a pun. Come on, try harder. And the Peach Boys? Not a bad pun, saying good nutrition instead of good vibrations. All right, there's still more that Disney did with the Beach Boys music. So outside the parks, a handful of the Beach Boys songs were also featured on DTV shameless plug for the episode I did on DTV back in February. Dtv, if you didn't listen to that one, started in the eighties, and it featured music videos made by pairing Disney animation clips with pop songs. And there were a handful of Beach Boys songs that got the treatment. But that's just some of the ways Disney used Beach Boys music in their own projects. Let's get to some real synergy between the Beach Boys and Disney. Back at the beginning of their career, the Beach Boys teamed up with Annette Funicello and the Monkey's uncle. The Beach Boys weren't the only ones into surf and beach culture. Annette Funicello was the beach babe on the silver screen. After she hung up her Mickey Mouse club ears, she became a pioneer and a symbol of the beach movie genre of the 1960s. Beach movies, I might add, were another contributor to the California that always was and never will be. It only made sense that Annette and the Beach Boys would work together at some point. The Monkeys uncle is a 1965 sequel to the misadventures of Merlin Jones, and at the beginning of the movie, Merlin, played by Tommy Kirk, another Disney regular, adopts a monkey, and then the rest of the plot has less to do with the monkey than the title would let on. But there you go. This would actually be the last Disney movie that both Annette and Tommy Kirk would star in. But we got to get back to the Beach Boys. The self titled theme song from the Monkey's uncle was written by the Sherman brothers and performed by Annette Funicello and the Beach Boys. The Annette and Beach Boys song reminds me of what was happening in the two thousands with movies on Disney channel like Camp Rock. It was a vehicle to pair up a young Disney pop star like demi Lovato and a family rock band like the Jonas Brothers. See, they did this. Before that. Let's get back to the monkey's uncle. The song was totally what you'd expect from a Sherman brothers Annette jam with layered harmonies of the Beach Boys stacked right on top. It's a pretty awesome song regardless of the fact that it is totally ridiculous. Not so ridiculous though is the ways the Beach Boys showed their love of Disney in their own work. The Beach Boys song Disney Girls 1957 was a song written and sung by Bruce Johnston. He wasn't a founding member, he joined a little later, but he stayed on for the long haul. Even though 1957 is in the title. The song actually came out in 1971. That is on purpose because the song is all about looking back. Disney Girls is sung from the perspective of someone who turns to nostalgia as a way to escape from the stresses of the world and find someone to love, who shares in that love of nostalgia. It is a sentimental song and its not, not a song about being a Disney adult or just anyone who really loves nostalgia. Really, most people who arent interested in some fandom, I mean, I love to unwind to some Disney movies or visit the park for a break from the stresses of the world. Oh, fantasy world and Disney girls. Im coming back. Dont we all keep coming back to those fantasy worlds in the park. Alright, heres another one where the Beach Boys gave a nod to Disney. The Beach Boys released a compilation album in 1975 called the Spirit of America. It was from a time period in the seventies where their popularity had waned a little and they were trying to get in front of a new, younger audience by re releasing old hits in new packaging. It was also released in the lead up to the Bicentennial, so they really leaned into the Americana aspect. The title was the spirit of America. On the COVID they included a lot of references to Americana. Right smack in the Middle is a blue Mickey mouse with white and red striped ears. The Beach Boys had gotten into the hidden Mickey game. Individual members of the Beach Boys have also made their own Disney connections. Brian Wilson recorded an album in 2011 called songs in the key of Disney, and it's a Beach Boys style Disney cover album on Walt Disney Records. Disney songs like Kiss the Girl from Little Mermaid, can you feel the love tonight from the Lion King? And you've got a friend in me. Really, all of these songs on this album sound great in their Brian Wilson Beach Boy like arrangements. This was the follow up album to his Brian Wilson reimagines Gershwin for Walt Disney Records. So there's another one he did on Disney's record label. Founding member Al Jardine also got into his Disney connections here with a picture book he wrote in 2005 called Sloop John a Pirate's Tale. And if you're familiar with the Beach Boys music, you're probably familiar with their rendition of Sloop John B. The book is about a kid who gets to hoist up the John B's sales, his grandfather and him, and around Nassau town they do roam. Then they get into a fight with some pirates. There's lots of adventure, but we got to get to the Disney connection. The book was illustrated by Jimmy Pickering. If that name doesn't sound familiar, I'll tell you why he's so Disney. From 2015 to 2020, he worked as an imagineer and art director on some pretty big Disney parks projects. Millennium Falcon smugglers run for Galaxy's edge Ratatouille in Epcot Galactic Star Cruiser, which kind of had a short run, and that Epcot Mary Poppins attraction that didn't get to see the light of day. Right now Jimmy Pickering does work at universal Creative, but he had a pretty good run there with some, some great Disney attractions, some of them that maybe one day we'll get to see or see again, but we could still ride Ratatouille and Smuggler's run. Speaking of members of the band, the Beach Boys aren't the same band that they were back in the sixties. Members have left or just stopped touring, but that doesn't stop the band from performing. Over the years, the Beach Boys have evolved and in the 1980s, founding member and cousin to the Wilsons Mike Love, took over the helm as the leader in the 1980s. The 1960s had somewhat of a resurgence. You know, everything old is new again, similar to how the nineties are kind of having a resurgence right now and were inching into the early two thousands as far as style goes because of the sixties resurgence. The Beach Boys had their own little resurgence in the late eighties and into the 1990s. One of the ways they again entered the public consciousness was through cameos on sitcoms and one of the sitcoms they graced was Disney's Buena Vista television's big hit, home Improvement. Disney legend Tim Allen JTT tool time, you know it's all right. Remember Tim Taylor's neighbor Wilson? You never saw the bottom of his face. Well, in the episode the Karate Kid returns from the 6th season of the show, we found out that Wilson's cousins are none other than the Beach Boys and they're visiting him. I mean, it kind of makes sense. The Wilson brothers started the band. Wilson is probably the neighbor's last name. So the story checks out, but the scene has nothing to do with the rest of the episode. There are some jokes about Tim Taylor wanting them to sing a car song for him, but he can't remember which sixties car songs they wrote. And the Beach Boys sing Surfer girl and little deuced coupe and then that's it. But the biggest moment of the Beach Boys eighties nineties resurgence has a big Disney connection. In 1988, the Beach Boys song Kokomo shot to number one on the Billboard charts. They got there fast and then they took it slow cause that's where they wanted to go number one with Kokomo and it was their first number one hit in over 20 years, since the sixties. The Beach Boys song Kokomo is pretty darn Disney. The song debuted in 1988 on the cocktail soundtrack. You know, Tom Cruise does complicated flair bartending while trying to raise enough money to have a bar of his own, but of course he falls in love along the way. That's a Disney movie. Well its a touchstone movie anyway, you know Disneys more adult label. And the music video for the song was really cool. It had clips from the movie Cocktail and the band is playing the song on a beach at night. It had a real tropical feeling. But the beach that theyre playing on is actually on the seven seas lagoon at Walt Disney World. Its the one at the grand Floridian resort. You can actually see the grand Floridian right behind them. The cool thing is they hadnt actually planned to film the video that way. It was just kind of a spur of the moment decision. Earlier that evening, the Beach Boys had pre recorded some performances with the Fat Boys for the Walt Disney Worlds 4 July spectacular tv special. Okay, lets talk about the fat Boys and the Beach Boys for a minute. In the eighties after Run DMC and Aerosmith brought rock and hip hop together with their update on walk this way, others like the Fat Boys and the Beach Boys tried to do the same thing, but with less success. The song that all the boys, beach and Fat came up with and performed on Disney Worlds. Fourth special was a hip hop version of Wipeout which wasnt even a Beach Boys song. I dont even know. Anyway, the Beach Boys were already set to perform and there was a live beach audience so why not? It was a song from an eighties movie soundtrack. They really were just going to throw on those sweet, sweet movie clips on the top. Some performance clips would just tie it all together. So the band took their places again and started to harmonize, strum their guitars and play their steel drums. Wait a minute. Was that Uncle Jesse playing a steel drum? Hold up. Wait. I almost forgot. What might possibly be the biggest Disney connection to the Beach Boys. Actor, musician and living patron saint of Disney adults. John Stamos is pretty much a member of the Beach Boys. He's an honorary beach boy and he played with them a lot starting in the 1980s and he still does today. Okay, okay, you don't have to bend my arm. Next time on Synergy Loves Company, John Stamos and Disney the Beach Boys have carved out a big slice of americana pop culture in the shape of California right alongside Disneyland. The band stood out as a successful american based act at a time when the british invasion was sweeping over the US. Of course, they crossed paths with the likes of the Walt Disney Company. So there you have it. Thank you so much for listening in to this episode. I hope it gave you good vibrations. I know I had a great time recording it. Go check out that Beach Boys documentary. I know I'm going to. And if you enjoyed this episode and want some more, make sure that you subscribe or follow in your podcasting app so you don't miss it. I got that Stamos one coming down the pipeline, so if you subscribe or follow, it'll come straight to you and your podcasting app. If you've been enjoying exploring the world through a Disney lens with me on Synergy Loves Company, there are a few ways that you could support the show. First off, find me on social media. Come on, say hi, I'm on Instagram and threadsynergy lovescompany. Next if you know someone else who loves Disney just as much as we do, I'd love it if you'd share the show with them. Just tell them to visit synergy loves company so they could join in on all the fun fun. And they will think that you're totally awesome for recommending the show. So it's a win win for all of us. And remember, this show is listener supported. There's no sponsors. It's just you and me. And if you feel like you get value from the show and you want to give some back, you could donate on Ko Fi. On Ko fi, you can make a donation to buy me a cup of coffee, let me know you get some value from the show and help me keep making new great episodes just like this one. And if you look into the show description or go to Synergyloves company.com, you'll find a link to my Ko fi page where you can give back to the show and help it keep going. But no matter how you decide to support the show, your support does mean the world to me. So thank you so much. That's all for today. Thanks for exploring Disney's connections with me. And until next time, keep discovering the magic in everything.