Eight-time Academy Award winner and rare EGOT achiever Alan Menken took part in a terrific American Cinematheque conversation about his career following a screening of Spellbound Monday night. The Disney Legend discussed how he and his writing partners, beginning with the phenomenal Howard Ashman, came up with some of the most iconic songs in film history.
Menken was there in conjunction with the release of Spellbound on Netflix, a new animated film from Skydance Animation that reunited him with three people he’d worked with previously on Tangled – producer John Lasseter, lyricist Glenn Slater and music producer Chris Montan. As Menken put it, “These were three people I knew I was going to be working with on this project, and that was a big attraction for me.”
Spellbound had a notably long production process and Menken said, regarding the challenges they had figuring out the story, “We had a real balancing act between narrative and between capturing the emotional moments in the journey, and times where it was hard, really hard. And we had to pull it together and we did.”
The opening song of the film, “My Parents Are Monsters,” has the film’s heroine, Princess Ellian (voiced by Rachel Zegler) explain that her parents have quite literally been transformed into monsters. Ellian does this song straight to camera, singing to the viewer, which Menken felt “captures the tone of a real teenage girl, basically just saying, ‘Look, things are frustrating, but I'll be okay.’”
Menken noted the original plan was to have a different song called “Once Upon Another Lifetime” first give you a lot of backstory, before moving into another song called “Keep it Together” that eventually became “My Parents Are Monsters,” as the decision was made to jettison the earlier song altogether. As Menken put it, “As always happens with musicals, you write it, you look at it, and you go, ‘Okay, let's go ahead and throw that away.’ And we ended up starting right at [“My Parents Are Monsters”], which I think is a great way to start, because it starts with energy, it starts with optimism, but it also tells you something's really wrong underneath this.”
Following his chat about Spellbound, Menken went into an extended look back at his career, playing clips he’d personally selected from songs he co-wrote from 12 different films through the decades, including the Disney animated films he’s worked on (first with his original collaborator, the late, great Howard Ashman, then with other lyricists), to material like “Star Spangled Man” from Captain America: The First Avenger to “Speechless” from the live-action version of Aladdin.
Some highlights follow.
"Mean Green Mother from Outer Space” from Little Shop of Horrors
The movie version of Menken and Ashman’s off-Broadway stage musical marked their first Academy Award nomination, for the film’s one new song, "Mean Green Mother from Outer Space.” Menken recalled how they were seated very far from the aisle, which he joked should have warned him they weren’t going to win. However, he recalled that after Levi Stubbs, the voice of Audrey II, did an amazing live performance of the song during the ceremony, “the house went crazy! Of course, they don't vote on that night.” When it came time for their category, Menken said he reached into his pocket to make sure he had his speech ready just in case and “I feel Howard’s hand slap my hand down. ‘You're not giving any speeches.’”
“Part of Your World” from The Little Mermaid
Regarding putting himself into the mindset of his characters, Menken said for Ariel’s big “I Want” song – a term coined by Ashman for a protagonist singing about what they want from life – “One of the first things I did when we were starting work on Mermaid was to think about Ariel being under the water, under the sea, and the way water flows. And that was the basis of this.” He smiled, recalling that he and Ashman would laugh that “We had Little Shop. We had ‘Somewhere That's Green.’ We would call this ‘Somewhere That's Wet.’ Actually, we'd call it ‘Somewhere That's Dry.’ But it is that same [thing]. We're gonna say we're with you on this journey. And Howard, again, Howard Ashman… amazing.”
There was some hesitation from Disney during the production process to include “Part of Your World,” which they feared was too slow to hold kids’ attention. Said Menken, “The battle over that song really helped to find the extent to which we were bringing back classic Disney Animation, the tradition, and that was essential to the tradition.”
Ashman and Menken were nominated for two other songs from The Little Mermaid, “Kiss the Girl” and Under the Sea,” winning their first Oscar for the latter. Said Menken, “When we went to the Oscar the next time, we were right on the aisle.”
“Santa Fe” From Newsies
Menken recalled what a huge bomb Newsies was when it first opened. In fact, he had the surreal experience of winning another Oscar, this time for Aladdin’s “A Whole New World,” only to be backstage moments later and have a reporter ask how he felt about having also just won a Razzie for Worst Song for Newsies’ “High Times Hard Times." Of course, Newsies gradually gained a loving fanbase, which Menken credits to VHS and cable in the 1990s.
“Color of the Wind” from Pocahontas
1995’s Pocahontas marked the first collaboration between Menken and Stephen Schwartz, who’d already written hit stage musicals like Godspell and Pippin but who was considering changing careers all together to become a psychotherapist at the time, according to Menken. Schwartz accepted Menken’s offer to work on Pocahontas and “Colors of the Wind” was the first song they wrote together. Said Menken, “I learned that Stephen loves to do research, so he was researching Native American drums and rhythms.” Looking back, Menken said “We nailed it on our first song, I have to say,” before joking about how Schwartz “Went on to do this little show I don't know if you've ever hear of… Wicked.”
“Hellfire” from The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Moderator Katcy Stephan noted she was surprised and delighted to see Menken had chosen the song sung by the villain Judge Claude Frollo in 1996’s Hunchback, which featured lyrics by Schwartz. Menken said the song was a crucial part of the story, noting Frollo is “sexually obsessed with a Gypsy and he's also deeply religious at the same time.” Menken said he really liked how the stage version of Hunchback had turned out and that if they were ever to make a live-action movie, “Hellfire” is “So essential. The religious bigotry, ethnic bigotry, the hatred, the obsession, all of the carnal emotions that flow through this are essential, and this song really embodies that. So I hope we can do that in live-action, but we'll see.”
“That’s How You Know” from Enchanted
Asked about the meta aspect of Enchanted (another collaboration with Schwartz) and how it was commenting upon and having fun with Disney tropes, Menken noted, “initially, I think, they wanted to hire other writers to do sort of parodies of Disney songs, which included parodies of my songs.” He said when he heard about the project, “I thought, well, I can write parodies of my songs! Thank God, I got to do it.”
During the course of the conversation, Menken discussed frequently working on new versions of Disney animated films from his past, whether they be stage productions or live-action films and what it’s like coming back to add to a story he already has experience with. As he put it, “Every time I come back to the well again and go, ‘Okay, what can we add? And what's the new team I'm working with? Who's the director?” It becomes a new experience, and I'm sort of between being the keeper of the flame of what original intentions were and also part of a new team.”
One new version of one of his prior works, the stage version of Hercules, actually was Menken’s idea. As he recalled, he went on a Disney Cruise with his daughter and her friends and one of the show’s on the ship was Hercules, including songs he and lyricist David Zippel had written. He recalled hearing the muses singing “The Gospel Truth” and immediately thinking “This is a stage musical. At that point, the dream was born, and I began to lobby Disney theatrical.”
He said they were skeptical at first, but eventually, he was able to do an early version of Hercules in Central Park “and it was amazing. It was absolutely amazing. 200 people on stage and also it was a cast of diversity, and that had an amazing effect on the story. And now we’re going to open at the Royal Drury Theater in London in late June and we’re really excited.”
For more on Spellbound, check out what director Vicky Jensen (Shrek) told Laughing Place about her return to animated fairy tales.