Van Dyke Parks: JUMP! + THE BRAVE LITTLE TOASTER

Summary

Jokermen Podcast: Van Dyke Parks – JUMP! + THE BRAVE LITTLE TOASTER

Release Date: August 18, 2025
Hosts: Evan and Ian
Subject: Van Dyke Parks’ album ‘Jump!’ (1984) and his music for ‘The Brave Little Toaster’ (1987)

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Overview

In this episode, Jokermen podcast hosts Evan and Ian dive deep into Van Dyke Parks’ quirky, criminally overlooked 1984 album Jump!, an adaptation of Joel Chandler Harris’s Uncle Remus tales (and thus a weird cousin to Disney's Song of the South), as well as Parks’ songwriting contributions to the cult classic animated film The Brave Little Toaster. The conversation swerves through topics of American folklore, lost media, streaming service quirks, cultural appropriation and preservation, and the secret legacy of trickster rabbits.

The hosts explore the musical, historical, and cultural context of both works—pondering their place in the canon, why they’ve vanished, and how Parks distills the richness of American culture (for better and for worse) in compact, playful arrangements.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

I. The Elusive Nature of Jump! (00:28–08:04)

• Obscurity & Availability:

  • Neither host was previously familiar with Jump!; it’s mostly scrubbed from streaming platforms.
  • The hosts discuss how they sourced the album, referencing iTunes Match and the “forgotten” nature of the record, noting its near-total absence from public review spaces like AllMusic.
  • Possible reasons for its obscurity include discomfort with the source material (Song of the South territory).
    • Evan (06:00): “That makes you wonder, is it part of the scrubbing of all things related to Song of the South and related properties? Did it get iced for that reason?”

• Folk Tale Origins and Cultural Editing:

  • Jump! as an adaptation of Harris’s Uncle Remus tales, which themselves adapted African-American folk material.
  • Parallel with John Cale: both Parks and Cale have vast catalogs with large swathes missing from streaming.

II. Van Dyke Parks as an American Folklore Enthusiast (08:04–13:54)

• Parks’ Artistic Identity:
  • Parks’ unique position as an interpreter of American musical folklore—a Southern white artist fascinated by the “component parts of American culture: music, film, show tunes, stage performance, anything” (13:30).
  • Comparison with Bob Dylan’s folk covers: the idea of trusting an artist to lead you into uncharted roots music.
  • Ian (13:30): “Van Dyke Parks is kind of fascinated with Americana—not the genre, but literally the component parts of American culture... that’s where a lot of the interest in this material for him comes from.”

III. The Spirit and Form of Jump! (10:12–18:31)

• Musicality and Structure:

  • A joy to listen to; likened to “a soft serve ice cream cone but with an elaborate pretzel castle on top”—simple and sweet, but full of odd, complex flourishes.
  • Sounds like a children’s movie score, but is weirder in structure—a musical for a film that doesn’t exist.
  • Hosts embrace their ignorance of the tales themselves, seeing the record as a surface-level delight with deeper resonances to uncover.

• Connection to Other Concept Albums:

  • Songs for Drella (Lou Reed & John Cale) is cited as a related work in terms of being a self-contained musical universe reflecting on culture and biography.

IV. The Complicated Legacy of Uncle Remus/Brer Rabbit (20:12–31:21)

• Origins and Appropriation:

  • Harris collected and published post–Civil War southern folktales told by Black Americans (Brer Rabbit, Brer Fox, etc.), acting as a sort of Alan Lomax figure for stories.
  • Acknowledgment of the problematic framing, i.e., Harris as a white man popularizing Black traditions, and the “Uncle Remus” persona as a controversial, even propagandistic, figure in American racial history.
  • Parks’ liner notes highlight the “Rosetta Stone of American culture” aspect of these stories (14:13).

• Recycled Storytelling and Characters:

  • The trickster archetype connects Brer Rabbit to Bugs Bunny; these tales are “modern myths” (25:14).
  • Relevant theme: are the core archetypes and folktales universal, or do their appropriated forms do more harm than good?

  Evan (25:14): “The fact that those more popularized versions became such a sensation also just speaks to the essential concept here that these stories have innate, beloved characters — they just are archetypal.”

V. Defensive of Van Dyke Parks’ Artistic Approach (29:35–31:21)

• Generosity vs. Exploitation:
  • Parks’ urge to “mine” musical tradition beyond the typical sources is lauded but discussed in terms of context and power dynamics.
  • The hosts agree Parks brings sincerity and curiosity, rather than exploitation, to his “uncovering” of hidden American musical veins.
  • Ian (30:35): “I do find it admirable…that he was, and always has been, so willing to go beyond the standard sources of influence... I find it a generous gesture on his part, and I really appreciate it.”

VI. Song-by-Song Impressions and Structure (33:30–47:19)

Musical Structure & Thematic Flow

• Jump! is described as “a stage play or constant three-act thing,” with songs that flow together (34:10).
• Paired with a children’s picture book edition at one point.

Notable Tracks & Collaborators

• “Opportunity for Two” (37:52): duet with Jennifer Warnes (Leonard Cohen/John Cale collaborator).
• “Come Along” (41:18): hosts’ favorite—captures the bouncing, vaudevillian energy of the record.
• Frequent comparisons to other animal-fable works like Wind in the Willows and Mr. Toad.
• Emphasized Parks’ signature lyrical playfulness reminiscent of Smile and Song Cycle; “mixing words together... he’s having a ball” (48:16).
  • Ian (47:19): “That is one of the great pleasures of listening to this album…a dense package of Van Dyke Parks-written songs.”

Thematic Comments

• The work intentionally feels like the “soundtrack for a movie that doesn’t exist,” drawing parallels to Brian Eno’s Music for Films.
• Songs imbued with Parks’ poetic turns but also silly, character-rich, and inviting.

VII. The Brave Little Toaster: Parks as Children’s Musician (49:00–54:43)

• Brave Little Toaster (1987): Van Dyke Parks contributed four songs to this film, which despite being animated by future Pixar personnel, is not a Disney property, and exudes old-school charm.
  • Film known for winking references and musical cues that entertain both “literal actual children” and adults.
  • “It doesn’t really condescend to anyone, whether that is the child watching it or the parent who is forced to watch it” (53:03).
• Park’s contributions praised for their sophistication and refusal to pander—music loaded with cultural references (classic horror icons, etc.) and dense, witty songwriting.
  • Evan (50:01): “It’s cute and, compared to everything else today… actively corrosive to the developing mind, it’s a sweet and cute little story… with some themes more adult woven throughout.”

VIII. The Death and Durability of American Cultural Memory (54:54–65:21)

• Loss of Shared Cultural References:

  • Discuss the gradual erasure of folktale figures (e.g., Brer Rabbit, Peter Lorre references), both in media and in theme parks.
  • Compare older cartoons and kids’ media (“Animaniacs”, Looney Tunes, Gremlins 2) to contemporary, more ephemeral modern content.

• Animators’ Traditions vs. Content Churn:

  • Some references still survive, but often only as “memes” among artists (e.g., Peter Lorre caricatures in SpongeBob).
  • Parks (and the hosts, by covering his work) as keepers of a threatened tradition.

  Ian (62:04): “We’re on the precipice of an era where just…the actual literal touch of a human being in the creation of a film, music, whatever, like that is even about to be wiped away… except for, you know, presumably freaks like us who still obsess over this stuff.”

• Nostalgia and the Value of the Obsolete:

  • Hosts agree Jump! will only grow in value for listeners who crave real artistry and a tactile sense of the past.
  • Tension between culture as a living tradition vs. a relic to be referenced.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments (with Timestamps)

• Evan (06:00):
  “That makes you wonder, like, is it part of the scrubbing of all things related to Song of the South and related properties? Did it get iced for that reason?”

• Ian (13:30):
  “Van Dyke Parks is kind of fascinated with Americana—not the genre, but literally the component parts of American culture...”

• Evan quoting Parks (14:24):
  “[Parks] said that those stories are the Rosetta Stone of American culture.”

• Ian (25:19):
  “Regardless of how much like, advantage this Chandler Harris guy took of the people who told these stories… what he did was extraordinarily valuable and important, and is a major contribution to kind of the American literature canon... he at least just wrote them down and put them in a book and got them out there.”

• Evan (36:59):
  “Worth mentioning—a huge influence just from this character on things like… there’s no Bugs Bunny without Brer Rabbit.”

• Ian (47:19):
  “That is one of the great pleasures of listening to this album…a dense package of Van Dyke Parks-written songs. And just to hear him kind of spiel this stuff off with these really, frankly, beautiful and well conceived arrangements behind him—that’s a fine musical experience as far as I’m concerned.”

• Ian (53:03):
  “It doesn’t really condescend to anyone, whether that is the child watching it or the parent who is forced to watch it along with the child… there’s something… refreshing, if not, like… admirable and brave about this little toaster.”

• Evan (64:57):
  “On the day that this comes out, this episode, more people around the world will think about this album at the same time than probably any time in the weeks, months and years before it.”

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [00:28] – Introduction to Jump!, the search for the album, streaming availability
• [05:21] – Van Dyke Parks’ other composition credits (Barney’s Great Adventure, etc.)
• [08:04] – Context: Van Dyke Parks’ artistic approach and joy in tackling his records
• [13:54] – Parks’ Southern roots, connection to American folklore
• [20:12] – Joel Chandler Harris & Uncle Remus: History, context, ethics
• [29:35] – Parks’ work with calypso tradition and the lineage of cultural mining
• [34:10] – Song-by-song impressions, discussion of album as musical/storybook
• [37:52] – Jennifer Warnes’ cameo and musical cross-pollination among artists
• [41:18] – Detailed breakdown of “Come Along” and “I Ain’t Going Home”
• [49:00] – Brave Little Toaster: Parks’ contribution to the soundtrack
• [54:54] – Cultural memory: Decline of references, the changing landscape of children’s media
• [62:31] – Human artistry, nostalgia, and the looming threat of AI art

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Closing Reflections

Jump! is assessed as delightful, odd, and unfairly marginalized—an album whose playful approach to deep American myth deserves wider rediscovery. The conversation weaves the musical into questions of memory, cultural inheritance, and the disappearing common ground found in art.

Final assessments:

• “Three stars for jump from Van Dyke Parks. What the hell?” (65:10)
• “Three stars. It’s perfect.” –A tongue-in-cheek undersell for a record the hosts clearly cherish.

Sign-off (65:26):
“Home sweet home is the lesson today I’m ready, glad to be here and I’m sure going to stay… the blind patch is where I’m heading Zippy do da zip I’m back in my home now and I’m sure going to stay…” –Van Dyke Parks

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Summary At a Glance

• Explores the forgotten, magical, and somewhat controversial Jump! as an artifact of American folk culture
• Unpacks the odd career of Van Dyke Parks as a meticulous but playful transmitter of tradition
• Dives into the intersection of art, race, history, and media preservation
• Connects musical details to larger questions of legacy, cultural memory, and the future of art in an age of erasure and AI

For the intrigued listener: seek out Jump! if you can, and remember—sometimes the best universes are those nobody else is watching.

Transcript

[Van Dyke Parks]

Come to the sunshine Hang your ups and down. Here comes to the sunshine. To the sunshine. You know I know you know that I love the sunshine.

[Evan]

Welcome back to the Van Dyke Parks program from Jokerman Podcast.

[Ian]

This is Evan and this is Ian.

[Evan]

This is. This one caught me by surprise. I didn't know about it. I'll be totally honest.

[Ian]

You're not a jump scholar.

[Evan]

No, no, I'm definitely not that.

[Ian]

Well, good thing I am. So. No, I'm not. Yeah, I mean, I was aware of this, but it's not something I'd ever willingly listened to before realizing we had to listen to it and talk about it on this podcast. Jumping Men. Jump.

[Evan]

Jump Men.

[Ian]

How about Brayer Men?

[Evan]

Brayer Men. Brother Man. You know that that's what that means.

[Ian]

Oh, geez. Yeah, I know. I know that's what that means. Brother Men. Boy, I didn't know the Brother man would continue to live on to the extent that it has. I feel like every third episode we end up referencing that song.

[Evan]

I wonder what's more famous, that song or this album. I think it's possible that I.

[Ian]

Brother Man.

[Evan]

The song song Brother man from John Cale in 2000.

[Ian]

Brother Man. Brother Man.

[Evan]

Three or when was that?

[Ian]

Five, right. Wasn't it on? It was. No, because it wasn't on Hobo Sapiens. It was on Black Acetate.

[Evan]

Well, what it is certainly on is probably a streaming service or two, whereas I don't think that this is.

[Ian]

Yes. No, I had to. I have. I have done my best to try. I always try to download, so I like to listen to music on the old school, you know, music app on the phone, just music, you know, the pink one. Orangey. Kind of. Pinky.

[Evan]

Whatever color is the closest thing to just itunes. To ipod for you.

[Ian]

Yeah, exactly. And I still. I still. I've been paying for itunes match for as long as it has existed, and it still exists.

[Evan]

What's itunes match?

[Ian]

It's just you pay $25 a year, and all of your music, they just put it in the cloud and you can stream it. And so it's like your own kind of private streaming service, and it works with Bob Dylan bootlegs, and it works with weird albums I download from Internet Archive. And it looks and it works for just any random bullshit that I RIP from YouTube. But so. And you don't need to pay every month, and you don't have Spotify looking at your, like, you know, user statistics or anything. It's all just basically your own private little. It's kind of like a Plex that just runs through itunes.

[Evan]

I didn't know that they offered that I should just get rid. Because I've been paying for Apple music just so that it automatically syncs my, my library onto my phone.

[Ian]

That's how they get you. Yeah, they want you to think the fat cats there in Cupertino exactly want you to think you gotta be paying whatever it is, 15, 20 bucks a month to do that. But this is a service that they introduced, I think like back when, like, I don't know, 15 years ago when ipods still existed and they just haven't. They continued to allow it to exist. So every June, my iTunes match subscription, $24.99 comes back around.

[Evan]

Oh my God. All right, well, that makes my life just a tiny bit easier. Which means they'll probably announce they're getting rid of it.

[Ian]

I mean, I keep waiting for them one day to just be like, yeah, this is done. Cause I feel like if anyone realized if the money makers up there, the bean counters knew that it was still extant, they would kill it tomorrow. But I feel like they just kind of forgot about it. And so, you know, I'm living on a prayer with it.

[Evan]

It all just sort of exists in the. You know, I watched last night a movie, the. Well, this completely unrelated, but I watched Gremlins 2 last night. Have you seen Gremlins 2? You should watch Gremlins 2. It's great.

[Ian]

I haven't seen Gremlins 1.

[Evan]

You don't need to see Gremlins 1 to watch Gremlins 2.

[Ian]

All right. They don't like water. Right. You can't get them wet or they can't get wet. Isn't that the idea?

[Evan]

You're not supposed. Yeah, don't get them wet. Don't feed them after midnight and don't. There's. There's a third one.

[Ian]

Yeah, sounds like my wife, am I right?

[Evan]

Yeah, well, they, they. Just kidding. That's not sure where. Yeah, I. I watched it with, with my girlfriend and she loved it. And the only reason I reminded is because that film has a very strong anti corporate greed kind of message. And it all takes place in a giant multi purpose skyscraper which like, also includes things that kind of like they don't really know that they're. It's so big that they like the management doesn't even know what's going on in that building. And including a laboratory where they accidentally unleash the gremlins.

[Ian]

Interesting. Well, that is, you know, a relevant enough tangent to go down on this episode. And we've knocked another two minutes off the clock.

[Evan]

Beloved characters, the Gremlins. I mean, it's so cute. Gizmo is so cute. And he's also a good man. He's brave. Anyway, I guess kids movies like, things like that are also on my mind. Cause we were talking about the Brave Little Toaster also.

[Ian]

That's right. This is the. I guess if we haven't made it clear, this is Van Dyke Parks Jump.

[Evan]

Jump. Which does not hardly. Barely even exist. Like, I was looking on AllMusic, there's not a single user review.

[Ian]

Yeah, you gotta really go down the. I mean, there is. I ripped a. There's a full album video. Like, it's not even one where there's like, you know, 10 videos for the 10 songs.

[Evan]

There is one of those.

[Ian]

Is there one? Okay, I only found the one that was just the whole thing, like 35 minutes long with nothing.

[Evan]

That too.

[Ian]

That's where I've been listening to this. So we'll put a link in the description or something. But yeah, it has been. It's been scrubbed from just about every place on the Internet.

[Evan]

That makes you wonder, like, is it part of the scrubbing of all things related to Song of the south and related properties? Is that. Did it get iced for that reason?

[Ian]

I wouldn't be surprised if that were the case.

[Evan]

I kind of doubt that there was like any outcry. My kids are watch. Are listening to this Van Dyke Parks, and I don't. I think this is a. This is not the right message.

[Ian]

No, I mean, I. I think that this is not undergone. The Song of the south thing that. I feel like we've talked about Song of the south like four times on this podcast before, probably.

[Evan]

But that now is the time because.

[Ian]

Well, yeah, it is. Literally.

[Evan]

They share the source material.

[Ian]

The same thing. Exactly. It's. It's an adaptation. Jump. Van Dyke Parks album is an adaptation of Joel Chandler Harris's Uncle Remus Tales. And Song in the south is an adaptation of the same material. I don't think that anyone was raising their hackles about this subject matter, but I do imagine that when whoever decided, all right, which of these Van Dyke Parks albums are we gonna keep on streaming services and which ones aren't we? Someone was just like, you know, that one. You could probably just let that sit. I don't think there's going to be a big outcry for it. Kind of the same thing that we've seen with John Cale, you know, on streaming services, you know, because such a. Not half of his material, but A large portion of his recorded material has been unavailable on the Spotify, the Apple music, and so on. Although I think that is changing. I think I just saw that. I want to say Mercenaries just got posted. Not all of Sabotage, but the song, literally Mercenaries, I think is available to stream for the first time. So just the song. Who knows? Anyways, I feel like we're doing a little bit of, you know, we're brave soldiers in the battle to get this, like, completely forgotten bullshit available on streaming services. Well, yeah, anyways, it's the Jump episode and it's also.

[Evan]

You might as well jump and.

[Ian]

Well, I don't think it's like that. It's also the Brave Little Toaster episode, because why not? I was looking at the Van Dyke park composition credits. He's actually got more composition credits than I realized. At one point I believed that he had only composed or like he arranged Popeye and he composed for the Two Jakes. And at one point I believed that that was it. But he's actually got quite a few more composition credits to his name. So if we're. If we're ever looking for anything to, you know, kind of string this along a little bit, we can go back to the. Well on that stuff, including Barney's Great Adventure from 1990.

[Evan]

He did a. Barney.

[Ian]

He did. He composed the score for the 1998 theatrical release, Barney's Great Adventure.

[Evan]

That must have made a ton of money back in the day, though.

[Ian]

Van Dyke has been rolling around on, you know, the Barney Barney, the Barney cash since. Since the 90s. Anyways, this was 83 or 84, I guess, and brave little toaster 87. So we're here smack dab in the middle of the. In the middle of the 1980s. We're in a period of transition, per Van Morrison, I think, in our Beach Boys series. So we get to have a little bit of fun here. Let me just say I love this Van Dyke park shit. Just like every time we have Van Dyke Parks, Van Dykes, Van Dyke Parks.

[Evan]

Record to talk about Van Dyke's Parks.

[Ian]

It's a delight, complete delight to me. I remember in the Velvets series, the Lou John series we did. Van Dyke is kind of our Nico on this series, I think, where we're doing just a couple, you know, odds and ends episodes every once in a while. I like. I mean, I'm glad we did the Niko episodes. And some of those records are really great. But I always dreaded having to actually talk about them on the podcast because they were not particularly pleasant to Listen to. And they were even less pleasant to spin up an hour of jabber about Van Dyke. It's just like it is always a delicious little, you know, soft serve ice cream cone for me anytime I get to encounter one of these new records. Absolute pleasure, everything.

[Evan]

It's like a soft serve ice cream cone, but with like an elaborate pretzel castle on top of it. Like, there's just so much going on.

[Ian]

Yeah, there's something weird to. Yeah, I had a soft serve actually the other day at this fancy place in Sonoma that was, you know, delicious Strauss vanilla soft serve, but it was topped with. I got it with candied fennel seeds.

[Evan]

As you do.

[Ian]

As you do.

[Evan]

That is what you get on. Yeah, that's a topic.

[Ian]

That's a Van Dyke Parks ice cream cone, for sure.

[Evan]

I think that's a good analogy for it because it is, like, on one level, completely easy to approach. And it's. It almost sounds exactly like a children's movie. Like, that is kind of the feeling of it. Like the music from a Disney film. Yeah, that's like the ice cream part, the everything else part, the candied fennel seeds is like the part where it's like, not. It's like a purely auditory thing. There is. It's not even directly based upon the stories. Like, there's kind of a loose adaptation of. Of an adaptation of folkloric tales. I. I mean, I. I'll just be honest. I don't have the familiarity with the source material to.

[Ian]

Thought you were a Song of the south scholar.

[Evan]

I've never seen it.

[Ian]

I've only written Splash Mountain, you know, many times. Which, you know, as we know is.

[Evan]

Is it's no longer with us. It's now. I don't know what it's actually called.

[Ian]

But it's now Princess in the Frog Log Ride.

[Evan]

Well, woke in that. It's the. The one black princess is the. I mean, like, when I heard they were doing that, I was like, nice save. Like, you really found the one thing you could. Could do to be like, all right, how. How do we, like, do that one around Pretty well. Yeah. Good for them. Still haven't been on that ride either. All what I was meaning to say is just that I. I don't think I get the references that are, I assume, jam packed in this record. I think this will be, like, one that I will tease things out of through the rest of my days as I become more and more inevitably more and more familiar with the folklore upon which it is based.

[Ian]

Yeah, I mean, we're working from a deficit here, you and I, just in terms of our knowledge about the subject matter. But I do. I mean, I think, frankly, this fits in nicely with a lot of the stuff that we've looked at in the past. Certainly like things from Bob, for instance, where, you know, I didn't know shit about the people that he was covering on World Gone Wrong or Good As I've Been to youo. But, you know, I trust in Bob Dylan to know that stuff and to put it across in an interesting, compelling way for me. And now I know, you know, not a ton necessarily, but I'm, you know, vaguely conversant in that material. Kind of the same thing with. With Van Dyke Parks here. It's a. It's an even more obscure reference point, of course, because it's Van Dyke Parks. But I think it's. It fits into that same kind of rubric. Yeah, he, of course, Van Dyke from the South. From the south, as we've discussed, kind of fascinated with Americana and Americana, not like the sense of the music genre that is kind of falsely known as Americana today, but literally the component parts of American culture, whether it's music, film, show tunes, stage performance, anything. And I think that's where a lot of the interest in this material for him comes from.

[Evan]

When I saw him perform some months ago at his ostensibly final run of.

[Ian]

Shows, his falsely advertised final shows ever.

[Evan]

Yeah, he apparently has done that multiple times, which I'm happy to report, you know, that he's done it.

[Ian]

That's great. Absolutely. We want him to continue doing that.

[Evan]

He did refer to the music that he played from this very album as being inspired by those tales. And he said that those stories are the Rosetta Stone of American culture.

[Ian]

That sounds exactly like. I can picture Van Dyke Parks himself saying that in his little sing song voice.

[Evan]

Well, I can because I saw him say it. I can.

[Ian]

You heard it firsthand.

[Evan]

Yeah, he did say that. And I actually don't recall which song he did sing from this. But I really do get the feeling like I will grow to appreciate this record more.

[Ian]

I'm just enjoying it on a very surface level. I mean, I've been bopping along to it for the last couple weeks and, you know, trying to catch some of the lines and statements and lyrics when I can, and figure out kind of who the characters. Because there are different vocalists that appear on this record. And they seem to be inhabiting different characters who kind of bounce off one another. Trying to pick that up the best I can. But at the same time, it's just a very enjoyable listen. It's quick, it's short, it's snappy, and it's got some fantastic Van Dyke Parks arrangements to it. So it kind of fits. Follows on from Discover America and Clanging the Yankee Reaper. I think in that it, you know, from the outside it might seem like it is this, you know, difficult, really esoteric material that you're gonna have a hard time keeping up with. Especially coming from the song cycle guy. If ever there was a difficult, esoteric pop album, that's it. But I mean, frankly, I find it very approachable. Again, I'm probably only getting maybe 25% of what there is to get out of this record, if that. But if you're just kind of trying to listen to some catchy, like, jazzy vaudevillian show tunes, Disney soundtrack type material, you could, you know, you're gonna have a great time.

[Evan]

And there is something to it, which I appreciate a lot, is that as much as there might be a thing of like, oh, I don't know exactly what he's talking about because I don't know the material. You don't have to ever feel like, oh, this is like just an ox. Like part of a movie that I haven't seen. Like, there is nothing else but the text and the music. There is no movie.

[Ian]

That's right. Basically, you know, it feels like there should be a movie. You know, it's kind of like music for films in that way. You know, the Brian Eno record in that, like, it's this music score soundtrack for a movie that doesn't exist, I think. You know, obviously Brian Eno goes about that in a slightly different manner with his music, but I kind of feel like it's got the same relation to the subject matter.

[Evan]

Yeah. Or a musical. I mean, in this case, more of like a musical. I mean, that's also like. I guess, I mean, Songs for Drella does have the film and the stage version, but to me that is always going to be more. And it's great as a musical work that like, stands on its own as something that, you know, references art and then like an opera, basically. Like, it's sort of like it just takes this artistic and cultural moment and then recognizes there's plenty in there to power a cycle of songs.

[Ian]

Songs for Drella, I guess I see some relation to this in some ways. I almost think of that, like, as its own kind of genre, its own medium, and like one of one. Like they're had never been anything else. That is, whatever that genre is. And There never will be anything else.

[Evan]

In the way that it's like diaristic aspect too.

[Ian]

Exactly. There's an auto fictional aspect to it. And there's this kind of referent, you know, this kind of like a Hall of Mirrors referential aspect to it. And then there's obviously kind of the personal collaboration, slash animus angle between John and Lou, between Lou and Andy, between John and it like this whole kind of fucked up triangle there. It's like it's a very dense object. And jump. Maybe not quite so. Quite so nice.

[Evan]

Well, I think that jump does have that, but it's at least to me.

[Ian]

Because I'm much more familiar with the John Cale, Lou Reed, Andy Warhol saga than I am with Rare Rabbit stories.

[Evan]

Me too. But I think that the characters, if you want to triangulate it in that way, if Songs for Jella is like Lou, the Velvets, John, Andy, culture at large. There's also like, in this instance, there is this. These folktales. American Culture Then, American Culture now and Van Dyck Parks. And he kind of like makes this stuff, I think, with a. I think he's definitely making it with the current moment or the contemporaneous one in mind and also the past in mind. He's accessing the timeless quality of those stories with, I think, a sense of the timely. Even though that. Not to say the songs have anything particularly topical in them. They like. They don't. But I think that he. When he made that comment, like the Rosetta Stone of American culture, I think it's sort of like he's betting on the. Or for him. He just sees the kind of roots of everything leading back to this material. And by going closer to it, you do kind of inadvertently get close to something essential about any time in America.

[Ian]

Yes. Yeah. And, you know, just to offer a little bit of context about these stories, I suppose. So it's the. It's the Uncle Remus stories, which were written by one Joel Chandler Harris White Fella should be noted American journalist and folklorist. Basically, from what I understand, kind of, you know, I guess Alan Lomax might be a good point of comparison here. And different people have different opinions about the work that Alan Lomax did. Obviously recording and kind of publicizing a lot of the folk music that he went out and taped. Whether he was doing something important and kind of preserving a culture that would have otherwise been lost, or if he was kind of taking advantage of people and succeeding commercially on the back of individual artists who weren't savvy enough or Canny enough to demand their fair share. Maybe a little bit of both. I think there's a similar kind of thing going on with this Joel Chandler Harris character. From what I understand, this fellow who lived down in, I think, Georgia somewhere post Civil War. So we're in, like, Reconstruction era.

[Evan]

It should be noted, that's the period in which Song of the south, the Disney movie, takes place. It doesn't. That movie is not. It doesn't take place during the time of slavery. It actually takes place during that period of.

[Ian]

It also stars a whole series of lovable talking animals.

[Evan]

Yeah, there's live action stuff, too. Yeah, no, that's the thing. It's framed with these kids in a live action world in a post Civil War South. And there's like, the kid gets, like, the dad has to, like, leave, and then the kid is left to wander around and feel sad and then meets up with Uncle Remus who, like, regales him with the stories.

[Ian]

I see. I say, okay. Anyway, so Uncle Remus, you know, on that note, is the supposed kind of narrator of these stories that Joel Chandler Harris, you know, kind of wrote. It's sort of a collection of fables and short stories. You know, think Grimm's Fairy Tales or something like that about these characters in the south. And they're supposedly being told through the voice of this Uncle Remus character who's obviously, you know, sort of perhaps a less than a stereotypical depiction of an old African American man at this moment in time, you know, Reconstruction era. And a lot of the material was written in this vernacular or dialect, you know, basically kind of like proto Ebonics from this guy.

[Evan]

Well, which was. It's worth noting. It's not like he made that up. Like that phrasing and stuff is, you know, it's like you see in Mark Twain.

[Ian]

Absolutely.

[Evan]

You definitely hear the argument from Van Dyke Parks that these stories have. And I think that he actually. I don't want to, like, misrepresent him because I. I do feel like when he said that and when he was talking about this at the performance, I think he made a point to say, like, I was. I'm talking about the real origin of these stories, which is not even the. The Chandler Harris stuff or is the Song of the south stuff. Like, those were very popular. He popularized that stuff. And I don't get the impression that Van Dyke Parks is like, has antipathy toward that version. But I think he is looking back even further because from what I understand, like, the Brer Rabbit stories, like that actually comes from an Actual, like African folk tale tradition.

[Ian]

Well, yeah, that's what I was saying. And, you know, with the Alan Lomax comparison was it's not even like this Joel Chandler Harris character thought these stories up. Right. He was the one who spoke to these people and heard these stories and might have read them in other places and then kind of like packaged them, rewrote them, put them together in a published, publishable form. There were a whole series of volumes of these stories that were sold and, you know, were quite successful. But the stories themselves, you know, were full. Were folktales. They belonged to other people, they were invented by other people. And he just kind of was the one who recorded them and packaged them and disseminated them. Similar again to what Alan Lomax would go on to do with music a couple decades after the fact. So I think that makes sense. I feel like Van Dyke Parks may be. It almost doesn't matter what his opinion is of this Joel Chandler Harris guy. It's more his fascination with the original document, the source material behind all this stuff.

[Evan]

Yeah. The fact that those more popularized versions became such a sensation also just speaks to the essential concept here that like, these stories have like an innate beloved characters. They just are like archetypal characters, sort.

[Ian]

Of the Superman and the Batman.

[Evan]

Yeah. The modern myth.

[Ian]

I mean, I think it's incontrovertible and not particularly controversial to say, you know, regardless of how, you know, much like, advantage this Chandler Harris character guy took of the people who told these stories, regardless of how insensitive any of these portrayals might have been, certainly by modern standards, what he did was extraordinarily valuable and important and is a major contribution to kind of the American literature canon. If for no other reason, then he at least just wrote them down and put them in a book and got them out there.

[Evan]

Yeah. I mean, I would find it hard to believe that this guy was like, I'm going to make so much money writing down these folk tales that I have compiled. Like, okay, yeah, that's.

[Ian]

Yeah.

[Evan]

I mean, that's a classic money making scheme if I've ever heard one.

[Ian]

I would imagine it's, it's, it's frankly similar to Lomax in that it. You know, I'm sure that he did kind of think, hey, there's a market for this stuff. I can do something with this and kind of make a name for myself and kind of get myself out there. But like, it's not like he just. It's not like he is a crypto guy where, like, he doesn't Actually give.

[Evan]

A shit about whatever Alan Lomax isn't. Quite like being a crypto guy.

[Ian]

Right? Yes, I know. That's a shocking thing for me to say. They're fundamentally interested in the subject matter in the first place. Right. And the fact that they can kind of capitalize on it and publicize it and get it out there, that's another aspect. But they wouldn't be doing that if they weren't actually in love with and interested in the subject matter in the first place, would be my read on it.

[Evan]

The controversy, such as it is, was about the character. The Uncle Remus character is. Should be noted that it's like it has less to do with the way that he talks or anything like that, and more to do with the context of just the larger optics of, like, this character being this kind of kindly, passive black man with the context of him having been a slave, a freed slave. The detractors would argue that it served to base, sort of launder the image of the south in a more forgiving light and give a white audience a kind of softball of, like, this is, you know, yeah, things were bad, but we're not really going to talk about it. And also, look how happy everyone is now.

[Ian]

They just love to sing their songs.

[Evan]

You know, it's complicated because. Yeah, that's like, you know, when this movie came out and, I mean, we're not talking about Song of the south, but kind of hard not to. When it came out, the stars, the black stars of the movie couldn't go to the premiere because of segregation. So it's like, yeah, I can imagine why a movie about, like, a jovial black character cheering up white kids when the actors in the movie couldn't even be in the same room as the people. It's a. It's obscene. The complicated aspects of it are just that it's not all, you know, done with. I mean, I don't believe any of it's done with malice. I think it's done in ignorance and also in earnest as an attempt to. At best. At its best, I think that film and iterations of these stories by white people are. Are done in a spirit of positivity and trying to find common and universal things that. And that do happen to have their roots in a. In black and specifically an African American culture and just have, like, a place where everybody can recognize. These are like, what this album. I think where that comes in is. Let's be very. Just honing in on the essence of these characters and how that's kind of borderless timeless storytelling.

[Ian]

Yeah. I mean, to bring it back to Van Dyck Parks, I think he did something similar on the previous records with his exploration of calypso music and kind of Trinidadian.

[Evan]

Yeah, that's a perfect example. Because calypso is not just about someone who lives in Trinidad and Tobago. It's about anything.

[Ian]

Right. And it should go without saying at this point, but obviously the kind of standard rock pop genre of music that went on to be codified right back to Elvis, also kind of pilfered from black culture.

[Evan]

You're telling me Elvis didn't make that?

[Ian]

Oh, he's white.

[Evan]

That's like a big part of that movie, huh? I didn't see that.

[Ian]

You didn't see it. You got to see that. You would love that. It's legit. Like, I mean, it's not a good movie, but it's like. It's not like a good, good movie, but it's like. It is good, if that makes sense.

[Evan]

Yeah.

[Ian]

Anyways, you know, so it's not like this is. This is a brand new kind of story, I think. And, you know, I don't want to sit here as a white guy and Van Parks being another white guy and you commend him for his bravery or anything, but, like, I do find it admirable to me that he was and always has been so willing to kind of go beyond the standard sources of influence to, you know, uncover and, you know, mine these different fantastic styles of music, sources of inspiration that, again, I wouldn't. I wouldn't fucking know at all if not for him. And I'm sure that says just as much about me as it does about anything else, but I don't know, I find it a generous gesture on his part, and I really appreciate it.

[Evan]

Well, it's like one more thing in the world that is keeping any of this storytelling tradition alive. Because it is crazy that there was a ride, that every kid who went to Disneyland knew something of these characters from that ride. But at the same time, the film that all the characters were from, Washington was buried, locked in the Disney vault. And then that ride is now gone. And it's like, there's also this album, but there's no movie attached to it. And it's kind of like loosely adapted. It is kind of like, wow, if there weren't, you know, this basically completely unknown Van Dyke Parks album is one of the last threads of any of that original material to be left in, in our world.

[Ian]

Sayonara, Uncle Remus.

[Evan]

Yeah, well, he doesn't show up in This. I don't think there's any explicit mention of a character in any of this. Like.

[Ian]

Yeah, it's a little unclear. I mean, I guess. So we can assume we've got.

[Evan]

That's definitely him.

[Ian]

Sure is. From what I understand, Uncle Remus was kind of the narrator of the stories, but not necessarily, like, a participant in them. And so I think that that's kind of the same frame or window through which this album is being told.

[Evan]

Is that Uncle Van Dyke Park.

[Ian]

Van Dyke Parks is Uncle Remus here and is the one kind of relating these stories. That's at least how I interpret it. Especially when you get some of these songs where he does, you know, Again, I don't. It makes me smile more than anything. But there are instances of the, you know, kind of stylized vernacular that he's. He's speaking in here, which might be another part of the reason that people have decided not to bring this one back to streaming. Should we talk about some of the songs now that we've, you know, pattered on this long?

[Evan]

We can try.

[Ian]

It is really kind of like. Like stage play or constant sort of, I don't know, 1, 2, 3 act thing in that, like, everything kind of flows into itself. It starts with the overture or, like, the theme of the whole thing, which I think is just the title track, Jump. And there aren't even any lyrics to it, but it's got this kind of. I don't know. I feel like I should be watching a movie when I'm listening to the start of this record. And of course, I am not. I'm just walking around, you know, walking the dog or lifting weights or something.

[Evan]

Yeah. And nobody has ever seen the movie that goes along with it either. It's just all in the mind.

[Ian]

Apparently, there. There's a children's book that goes along with it.

[Evan]

You mean a Jump, Van Dyke Park's book?

[Ian]

I think there is. I think the record might have been sold, like, as a, like, picture book slash record initially. There's a. There's a cool cover that is not the. The COVID is kind of. Not particularly inspiring to me. But there's a cool alternate cover that I think might be the version with the picture book.

[Evan]

The one with all the animals.

[Ian]

Yeah, with all the green. Like the kind of, like, weird that. I dig that.

[Evan]

Yeah. It's like. Well, the main cover is just this picture of this. An illustration of a winding country road. And then in the center of it, those black and white. Old. More old. Olden time illustration, I would presume, taken from Some actual version of the stories. Like from the stories?

[Ian]

Yeah, sure enough. Look at this. You see this jump? The Adventures of Brer Rabbit by Joel Chandler Harris. Adapted by Van Dyke Parks and Malcolm Jones, illustrated by Barry Moser. There's the book.

[Evan]

Well, that's different art than the COVID.

[Ian]

I like that art. That looks nice.

[Evan]

Yeah, it's just his.

[Ian]

He's got his little hand rolled cigarette and his work shirt and his denim trousers and suspenders.

[Evan]

Yes, there he is.

[Ian]

Bray Rabbit. Let's see. $54.

[Evan]

Geez, I can't imagine they're making more of those.

[Ian]

Yeah, there's probably not a. We gotta reissue that on Jokerman Records slash imprint.

[Evan]

There is also worth mentioning a huge influence just from this character on things like when, when he says it's the Rosetta Stone, it's like pretty, pretty much for sure. There's no Bugs Bunny without Brer Rabbit.

[Ian]

Yeah, I see that.

[Evan]

He's like a trickster character sort of evading the. The powers that be and, and you know, using his wit to braver fox, I think. Right, yeah. The fox is the malevolent, the force here.

[Ian]

Bad guy. I like that. There's also Brayer Bear. That's. That's good to me. Brayer Bear.

[Evan]

Brayer. Yeah. Bruh, Bruh, Bruh Fox. Bruh Rabbit.

[Ian]

How about Opportunity for two?

[Van Dyke Parks]

Yeah, an opportunity for two. It had to be me, it had to be you it seemed to be a dream it happened to be true A prime fraternity for one a day to make hay A race to be run Rude A blue for you they say you do one.

[Evan]

So it's just, you know, nice. I like this one. It's. It's very, as you said, flows. The songs sort of flow into each other. So I kind of. I didn't necessarily think like, okay, this is the start of the first song.

[Ian]

When I. Yeah, no, I mean when I listen to it. I've been listening to this 35 minute rip that I have in my itunes match library. So it just all goes one into the other. Like I don't even know any of the song titles or when one song ends and another one begins. But you know, you can do your best looking at the YouTube like timestamps and stuff. He is singing with someone else on this song and in many of these songs actually appears to be Jennifer Warnes. Do we know anything about Jennifer Warnes, collaborator of Leonard Cohen.

[Evan]

Oh, interesting.

[Ian]

All right, let's learn more from Wikipedia. Let's see. In 1971, Warrens met Canadian songwriter and poet Leonard Cohen. The two remain friends. She toured Europe with Cohen's band in 72 73, first as a backup singer, then as a vocal arranger and guest singer on Cohen's albums, live songs, recent songs, Various positions, I'm your man, the Future, Alexander Cohen and Old Ideas. Wow.

[Evan]

It's a really long career collaborating with LC wait.

[Ian]

And here we go. In 1972, Warrens released her third album, just titled simply Jennifer, produced by one John Davis Kael.

[Evan]

No way, boy.

[Ian]

All right, you know, salute to Jennifer Warnes. I was not familiar with your game.

[Evan]

Wow. Wow.

[Ian]

Maybe we got to do the whole Jennifer Warnes side series now.

[Evan]

Well, we will probably, in a way, end up doing that. Yeah.

[Ian]

Interesting. Boy, she did Empty Bottle on General. You remember Empty Bottle? Empty Bottle, it's that John Cale song that doesn't exist anywhere. But he plays it at the Bataclan show with Lou and Nico in 1972.

[Evan]

Yeah, I mean, vaguely. I recall this.

[Ian]

The one recorded version of Empty Bottle. Or I guess Empty Bottles seems to be on this Jennifer Warren's album. She also does it these days. Boy, I gotta give this a spin.

[Evan]

Well, it makes sense that he's. He's got the two people. It's. It's, you know, Van Dyke and Jennifer. Because it's an opportunity for two.

[Ian]

That's right.

[Evan]

That's why that is right.

[Ian]

Very good.

[Evan]

Yeah.

[Ian]

All right, how about the rest of this? Come along. That's good.

[Van Dyke Parks]

Come along, come along, Come on along I just may be going your way and I won't take your note I gotta giddy up and go on the road with the show if I may say so. Go to. Oh, rodeo. Oh, here we go where they say the lovelies to play maybe sooner or late that's the time to go straight.

[Evan]

How does that one go? I mean, I'm trying to, like, remember, because it does all.

[Ian]

Come along, Come along. Oh, yeah, this is one.

[Evan]

Yeah, I know. I like. This one's probably my favorite. I guess it's okay because I like that this. The rhythms are good. You know, he just does some interesting stuff. And then the next one, it's like the fishing. It's kind of like Wind in the willows is probably another thing to mention too. Is just like another thing like this that kind of exists. Like Wind in the willows. Yeah. You know, Mr. Toad.

[Ian]

Oh, sure, sure, sure.

[Evan]

See, exactly. It's like there's like. That's like as. As much an analog for this whole phenomenon as I can think of.

[Ian]

Another great ride at Disneyland.

[Evan]

A ride at dis.

[Ian]

It was A very popular ride for some reason. I remember Mr. Toad's wild ride always used to have the biggest land or the biggest line in fairytale land.

[Evan]

Fantasy land.

[Ian]

Fantasy land.

[Evan]

Yeah. Well, I love that. The cartoon which was Ichabod and Mr. Toad, 1947, just a year before, I guess the release of. Or maybe the same year as do we know.

[Ian]

Does Mr. Toad, does he have any relation to Froggy? Froggy? When in Courtney. What do you mean?

[Evan]

Who? No, I don't think so. But in spirit perhaps.

[Ian]

And I'm just looking at the Wind and Willows page on here and it says there's the beloved characters Mole, Mr. Toad, Mr. Badger and Rat.

[Evan]

Yeah, yeah, those are his friends.

[Ian]

Well, we know Rat. We love Rat from Froggy Win accordant.

[Evan]

You've never seen the cartoon of Mr. Toad's Wilde or. Yeah, whatever the cartoon, whatever it's called.

[Ian]

I'm sure I have, but not for many, many years.

[Evan]

Well, it's great, but I do feel like there's just sort of like. Yeah, that's the other thing I can think of where there's kind of like it's public domain. Many adaptations, some more famous than others, of these animals that are anthropomorphized in various ways. In that context, I think it's. They're English, but you know, I think the badger is Scottish in the cartoon. Anyway, I'm just looking at the COVID and I'm listening to this music and I am thinking about like the songs in the cartoon of the Disney version of the Wind in the Willows.

[Ian]

I feel like we should just have the Jump album playing behind us as we're talking on this episode.

[Evan]

Yeah, well, we might get that taken down.

[Ian]

No, we won't, because it doesn't exist anywhere. There is no way to strike it.

[Evan]

But that would be just a shame. It's like one day because for some reason they. The algorithm just gets as powerful as it gets and then it's just like song detected. And then the one thing of anybody talking about this album on. On the Internet is. Is snuffed out.

[Ian]

It'll be for the elaborate five album box set 50th anniversary re release of Jump with liner notes written by Grail Marcus. Coming in, you know, 2034.

[Evan]

I ain't going home.

[Ian]

Yeah, you know, that's another one.

[Van Dyke Parks]

Don't go Be minding me of pity a brother in law. Birds gotta swim and fish gotta fry When I cry Back in the bottle.

[Ian]

Again.

[Van Dyke Parks]

I ain't going home.

[Ian]

Fine day for fishing Fine day for wishing I Mean, I just. I love to hear him say these things and speak. That's one thing that I think I do admire about this record to, you know, kind of try attempt to speak seriously about it again for a moment is, you know, Van Dyck, Parks lyricism, his, you know, kind of effortless, poetic way of speaking. That's what we love about him so much. Or one of the things we love about him so much. And that isn't something that you get on Discover America or Clay and the Yankee Reaper, because those records are almost entirely covers. You do get a couple moments here and there. You know, I think there are a few original songs, if I remember correctly, on each of those. But in general, he's singing songs that have been written by others. And that is one of the great pleasures of listening to this album is just. It's a whole. It's very dense kind of package of Van Dyke Park's written songs. And just to hear him kind of spiel this stuff off with these really, frankly, you know, beautiful and well conceived arrangements behind him, that's, you know, that's a fine musical experience as far as I'm concerned.

[Evan]

Yes. Yeah, I feel the same way. He did also do the music for. I'm getting Popeye vibes from some of this, you know.

[Ian]

Oh, absolutely.

[Evan]

Just imagine Popeye, like, sort of grumbling and mumbling through all this. It's like kind of like sweet, I'm back in sweet Haven.

[Ian]

Sure, sweet, Sweet Haven. That's right. Yeah. I mean, some of these. Some of these lines I've got. I've got this stuff on Genius, you know, God bless whoever it was who, you know, transcribed this whole thing on a Genius. Probably for you and I to be the only people to ever look at these lyrics ever. What does he say, though? With disresponsibility Underneath this domestic tree Even if my Mrs. Mrs. Me tonight I ain't going home. That's, you know, that's Smile shit from Van Dyke Parks right there.

[Evan]

It's very song cycle, like the widow's walk. Kind of feeling like sort of like mixing words together to. Yeah, he's having a ball.

[Ian]

Holocaustly bow and so on.

[Evan]

Exactly.

[Ian]

And I love at the end of this song also, he just kind of like, I ain't going home. He's just like, you know, ugh, yes.

[Evan]

Then we got many a mile to go, which is how it feels sometimes.

[Ian]

I mean, I don't think we need to do every one of these songs song by song. And frankly, we've gotten quite a bit more out of this than I even anticipated us to be able to do at this point. Although that seems to be the way these episodes tend to go.

[Evan]

Well, we can talk more about the Brave Little Toaster.

[Ian]

Well, sure. How about that? So that is kind of the flip side of this, which is actual songs written by Van Dyke Parks for an actual children's movie from 1987, which was an adaptation of, I guess, I think the Brave Little Toaster book had come out in the early 1980s or something. Interestingly, I didn't realize this until just the other day. So he wrote four songs for that, for that movie. There are four songs with lyrics on the soundtrack. The score done by one David Newman.

[Evan]

Cousin of no Way.

[Ian]

Randall Stewart Newman. Exactly.

[Evan]

Wow, I was wondering about that. I saw Connections.

[Ian]

We got the whole Jokerman universe coming through on this episode. John Cale, Van Dyke Parks.

[Evan]

Dave.

[Ian]

Leonard Cohen, the Newmans.

[Evan]

David Newman.

[Ian]

Are you, I imagine you to be fond of the Brave Little Toaster. Am I correct in that?

[Evan]

I haven't seen it in a long time and I didn't really re. Watch. I watched like parts of it, little clips of it for this. But basically, yes, you know, it's like a. It's cute and it's compared to everything else today, which is like, you know, actively corrosive to the developing mind. It's a. A sweet and cute little story about. With a lot of like very, you know, some themes sort of woven throughout that are more adult. It's good, you know.

[Ian]

Yeah. I mean, interestingly, it's one of those. I'm learning a little bit more about it here, just in real time. I knew it was a non Disney animated film, which to me, at least at one point growing up, I always kind of had this slight chauvinistic opinion about non Disney animated films. Like they were lesser than kind of knockoff, cheapy type of shit.

[Evan]

It can be burned by bad quality stuff.

[Ian]

Yeah, exactly. And this. And so the Brave Little Toaster, not from the hand of the mouse. But interestingly, it looks like a lot of the people that were like the initial talent at Pixar were the ones who animated this film. And actually the rights to the book were acquired by Disney in 1982. John Lasseter, you know, founder of Pixar slash present day Sex Pest, wanted to do an early Pixar CGI film based on it, but didn't get that off the ground. And so it ended up being this, you know, non Disney effort that I guess was actually animated by many people who'd go on to actually work at Disney, so it's interesting. Yeah, it's fun. I mean, these songs that he plays on here, I don't think he's singing on any of these songs, you know, but once again, they just. They kind of sound like Van Dyke park songs in many of the ways. There's some sealed drum that you get on a couple of the songs, which is classic, you know, calypso shit. And there are just some fantastic turns of phrases that come through. And it's packed full, even on this movie, with these songs that are ostensibly for literal actual children. Like, there's even. You know, the one. It's a B movie. You know that song. Just try to relax. It's the house of wax.

[Evan]

I'm for getting out of here to shout My.

[Van Dyke Parks]

Goodness, who will go to the cellar? Down below Grandpa lives are bubbling in.

[Ian]

The brew and while you got a.

[Van Dyke Parks]

Mr. Mr. Price will give you good advice he'll know what to do. You just came, boo.

[Ian]

There's references to Frankenstein and I think maybe Bela Lugosi and Vincent Price and stuff like it. I guess what. What I admire about these songs and this approach towards children's entertainment in general is that it doesn't really, like, condescend to condescend, you know, to anyone, whether that is the child watching it or the parent who is forced to watch it along with the child. And in an era when, frankly, I think most mainstream media condescends to everyone, even media that is ostensibly catered towards adults, not even children, you know, there's something kind of, you know, certainly refreshing, if not, like legitimately, like, admirable and brave about this little toaster.

[Van Dyke Parks]

It's like a movie. It's a bemobie.

[Ian]

Again, I'm not here to be, like, a return guy.

[Evan]

I am when it comes to children's entertainment. I mean, it's gone really downhill for the most part.

[Ian]

Yeah, I mean, I agree in general, but, you know, I got bigger fish to fry. But I just. All I want to say is, like, it really does kind of make you appreciate what. What this shit used to be and how far we've kind of fallen since then. Even up until, like, Randy Newman soundtracks for, like, Cars or something, you know, which. I remember when the first Cars movie came out in 2006, everyone thought, like, oh, this is Pixar's really jumped the shark here. This is just commercial bullshit.

[Evan]

That was.

[Ian]

Compare that to what you get now.

[Evan]

It's like, Pixar hasn't made a good movie for, like. Like, you know, I don't even know how long now.

[Ian]

I don't even know what the Pixar movies are anymore.

[Evan]

Exactly. They just look interchangeable with any of the other, like, animated Disney things. They. And they all. Yeah, I mean, I'm sure there's some that are better than most stuff. Most slop. But. And also, this is just, you know, it's gonna inevitably be the case that, like, certain reference points culturally are no longer there. But I grew up still with, like, in, you know, having watched this movie, like, it was still something that kids would encounter, like on TV or VHS or whatever. And also, like the Animaniacs. All of that has the same approach to, like, the reference points being, like, you know, Casablanca and, like, Bela Lugosi and stuff like that's coming through as a reference point. Watching Gremlins 2 last night, directed by Joe Dante, who's, you know, also, if we want to tie in Brer Rabbit, he did a lot of the. He did Looney Tunes Back in Action, you know, so he's done stuff with. With Mr. Bunny, with Bugs and, you know, just in general Mr. Bunny, he has a. He's had that. Like, I put on Gremlins, too, and the beginning part with the Warner Brothers logo. There's like an sort of extended gag, animated gag of Daffy and Bugs, like, fighting over the Warner Brothers logo. And then it just goes right into Gremlins, too. But that movie also has just, like, Sinatra and like, a million references to, like, old movies. And it kind. It just kind of used to be like, more in the air that there were. There were like, known cultural totems. Whereas now I feel like that. That does happen, but increasingly at this point, it's like you don't even blink and you'll miss it. Like, the. The staying power of, like, a character in the cultural memory most of the time. But back in the day, it used to be like, we have a few of these, so we're gonna always reference them. Like, we've got Humphrey Bogart, we've got Bugs Bunny, we've got Brer Rabbit for sake. Like, we have.

[Ian]

That's true.

[Evan]

They were just like, well, I guess we can use Brer Rabbit.

[Ian]

I'm seeing that in the Brave Little Toaster. Apparently there's a Peter Lorre inspired pendant light. Peter Lorre shows up in all sorts of Looney Tunes cartoons and stuff.

[Evan]

Yeah, exactly.

[Ian]

Like, imagine Peter Laurie showing up in the next. There's an inside out character. Like an emotion that's supposed to look like Peter Lorre.

[Evan]

Well, not specifically, but I do think that Peter Laurie does, does show up still in some ways, like, on cartoons like it.

[Ian]

He is today in, like, 2025. Creators, I think. I can't believe that.

[Evan]

I don't know that it's, like, literally referencing him. But I do think that his likeness and sort of voice has, has become a kind of like, like an ephemeral sort of trope that just sort of like a meme that exists within animated stuff. Like, I mean, Ren from Ren and Stimpy is just, is Peter Laurie.

[Ian]

That's, like, 40 years ago.

[Evan]

But I think that, like, there's, I think people, like, have continued to just kind of like, make characters that have that going on. But, you know, yes, the point. Your point stands. Everything's getting worse. I like to think that there's examples of Peter Laurie inspired characters still.

[Ian]

Maybe he'll show up in the next Avengers. When all of the characters from all the different universes gather to battle, Peter Lorre will walk through.

[Evan]

Okay, I'm actually looking at something. I'm looking at something right here. It says, this is Spongebob in Spongebob, like, 10 months ago. I'm saying there's a character that's based on Peter Lorre.

[Ian]

All right, well, yeah, I mean, they're.

[Evan]

Still making new Spongebob, you know, which is a whole other.

[Ian]

That's also 40 years old.

[Evan]

But yeah, yeah, I'm looking at him right now. I'm looking at this character Slappy, which looks, you know, they just went directly from, like, the Looney Tunes.

[Ian]

Peter Laurie with the big weepy eyes. Oh, yeah. Okay, I see, I see this. Yeah.

[Evan]

So, like, I think it does look like Peter Lorre. It's more like animators know. I think they, they like that, and they keep that going. That is, you know, just another example of this phenomenon of, like, animators know certain things, and there's, like, traditional. There's, like, certain things that kind of stay with the tradition and the culture on some level. And for animators, it might be something like that. And for someone like Van Dyke Parks, it is this stuff. You know, him being kind of just someone who's particularly, particularly invested in, like, folklore and Americana. He's gonna put that into his music. And I, I do like to think that, like, some of these things are durable enough.

[Ian]

I don't know. I, I, I, I would like to think that also, but I am increasingly skeptical that any of this is going to have any sort of connection to contemporary culture going forward.

[Evan]

Well, it does in ways that you can't ever really understand. Like, it does because there aren't. There's no going back to like a pre. If we take for granted that like Bugs Bunny, for example, and like all the Looney Tunes and like, like so much stuff does kind of actually come back to this in these type of stories and fables and whatever. There is kind of like an eternal isness of that in the world.

[Ian]

Yeah. I mean, people can tune into it.

[Evan]

Or tune out of it, but like it'll exist in bastardized form or refined and thoughtful form. Everywhere you look there's some kind of thing.

[Ian]

I mean, there's a trace of a trace of a trace of, you know, these actual institutions, DNA. In a lot of modern, you know, media. It's a little bit like the Nick at Nite conversation we had a couple episodes ago on whatever that subject was. Like, you know, instead of Lucy and MASH and the Honeymooners, it's now How I Met your Mother. And so yes, you could say the three camera sitcom does was created by Lucy and Honeymooners and stuff like that. That still exists in the form of How I Met yout Mother or whatever. But it's such a shadow of what it should have been.

[Evan]

You're right. But I do feel like, yeah, also like now it seems like we're getting so, so much more cut off from even like. Or threatening to be cut off from even stuff that was like, so taken for granted. It's the stuff we.

[Ian]

Well, stuff that was even made by human beings. Like, it seems like we're on the precipice of an era where just like, you know, the actual literal touch of a human being, a human being in the creation of a film, music, whatever, like that is even about to be wiped away. Except for, you know, presumably freaks like us who are still, you know, kind of obsessed over this stuff.

[Evan]

I think there's an appetite already visible and forming in the world of like videos that say, like, no AI voice. Like people want. People will always want the real thing.

[Ian]

Some people will.

[Evan]

Some people. Some people always will. And I do think that it will increasingly be like looked. Art from the past will be looked at with new appreciation at times of like, how did they do this without blank. Like in the same way that we used to. You know, that's commonly said now, like watching an old movie where there's like a great special effect that holds up. Like, I can't believe they did this without increasingly people are like, you know, callous to that. But in the future it will be like, I can't believe you listen to this album. And you're just like, this was just people like doing all of that because they're so intricate and it's so full of life and so many layers of personality and performance that yeah, I think this kind of thing will only appreciate and perceived value to the people who take the time to discover it.

[Van Dyke Parks]

Off the wall, wall flower now the dance has begun it's our shining hour Til all our dancing is done Whammy whammy Jammy Cooking up on a stove for me and my butterfly Things have been looking up Become a deep roll Sweet comedy.

[Ian]

Sure, I appreciate Van Dyke's interest in and application of the the long sordid history of American culture and bringing it up to you and I here in the present day. And hopefully in some small way, we are continuing his mission for a very small, select group of people who tune into this podcast.

[Evan]

On the day that this comes out, this episode, more people around the world will think about this album at the same time than probably any time in the weeks, months and years years before it.

[Ian]

That's, you know, that's a good point. 3 stars for jump from Van Dyke Parks. What the hell?

[Evan]

Three stars. It's perfect.

[Ian]

Jokerman.

[Van Dyke Parks]

Home sweet home is the lesson today I'm ready Glad to be here and I'm sure going to stay I'm through with moving on now it's where I'm born and breded the blind patch is where I'm heading Zippy do da zip I'm back in my home now and I'm sure going to stay Sam.