David Lynch and Disney

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 kind of entertainment possible. It's what they hope to do here, to really develop something that, well, just more than an entertainment enterprise, it's something that contributes in many other ways. Hi. It is taste. Same RHD pose where we explore how the snake kindest took everything. Don't I hold almost exactly that. Start the snake hands the punch. What? What? What was that? Anyway, today we are taking a look at the late filmmaker, director, musician and artist David lynch and his connections to Disney. David Lynch's films are really special to me. My friends and I were really into everything he did back when we were in college and we soaked up anything we could get our hands on from short films like lamp animation, like Dumbland. We even watched his fragrance commercials, we read his angriest dog in the world comic strips and we soaked up his feature length films from Eraserhead to Inland Empire. I was actually able to attend the Chicago premiere of Inland Empire at the Music Box Theater and David lynch was there to introduce the film. It was amazing. But best of all, we held his television masterpiece, Twin Peaks in the highest esteem. So you could imagine I was super sad to hear that he had passed last month. And of course I wanted to pay him a deserving tribute. And I do this show where I take a look at how Disney connects to everything. So I have gathered all the ways that I could find where David lynch connects to Disney. And it's not always straightforward, except when it is and then it's a straight story. If you're not familiar with David lynch, he's not very Disney, not at all. What I mean is his films, his art, his music, they're dark, they're surreal, and they're often uncomfortable to watch. His first short film was called Six Men Getting Sick Six Times. And it is what it sounds like. But like a Disney film, there is a magic to a David lynch film. Like a colorful Disney movie. There are some beautiful saturated colors in David lynch films. And like Disney, David lynch deals in fantasy. But where Walt Disney loved to focus on a nostalgic, idealized version in the stories he told, like the pleasant small town life of Main street, usa, David lynch takes it the opposite way. Like in his 1986 film Blue Velvet. He shows off the dangerous, seedy underbelly of the idyllic suburbs that we all perceive to be safe. But it's like this. Cinderella sang, a dream is a wish your heart makes when you're fast asleep. And she was singing about her happily ever after. David lynch is best when he is telling a dreamlike story in his film. But his dreams are not wishes your heart made. They're more like beautiful fever dreams that leave you confused and guessing, wanting to revisit them, to try to make sense of it all. Not a happy ending and even sometimes an unresolved uneasy feeling at the end. But the truth is, dreams can really be either way. David lynch got his start in short films in the late 1960s and for the next decade he would use the format to hone his craft. These short films paved the way for his breakout feature length film in 1977, Eraserhead. Eraserhead is a deeply unsettling and abstract journey that feels more like a waking dream than a traditional story. It follows Henry Spencer as he grapples with becoming a parent. Eraserhead offers a surreal, nightmarish exploration of fear, isolation and the anxieties of parenthood. Set in a haunting industrial world, Eraserhead had a slow box office burn. Its first showing was just to a handful of people, but then it found its footing as a midnight movie. People absolutely loved it or absolutely hated it, but a lot of the people who seemed to get it were filmmaking people themselves. They understood the strange genius that David lynch had. One of these people was Mel Brooks. You know him from classics like Blazing Saddles, the History of the World, Part 1, Spaceballs, Robin Hood, Men in Tights. Mel Brooks is comedy royalty. Brooks was working on doing some more serious projects through his production company, Brooks Films. He was working on a biographical film of Joseph Merrick, who was called the Elephant Man. He needed a director and he chose David lynch based on a suggestion from his co producer, Jonathan Sanger. Sanger showed Brooks Eraserhead and it was a done deal. Released in 1980, the Elephant man was directed by David Lynch. It's a heartbreaking biographical drama based on the true story of Joseph Merrick, referred to as John Merrick in the film. Set in Victorian England, the film follows Merrick, a severely disfigured man, as he escapes a life of exploitation in a freak show with the help of a compassionate surgeon. As Merrick becomes accepted by London society, his humanity, intelligence and gentle spirit shine through challenging prejudices and evoking empathy. The film is celebrated for its haunting atmosphere and powerful performances, particularly by John Hurt and Anthony Hopkins, and it's known for its exploration of dignity and humanity. Mel Brooks had some trouble getting a major studio to support the film. He was known for comedy and this movie was the opposite. So many studios turned him down. When Mel Brooks pitched the film to Warner Bros. Frank Wells thought he was performing some sort of a strange joke and making up the concept on the spot just to string them along. He didn't think it was a real movie. Of course, Frank Wells would go on to become half of the Hollywood duo that would save Disney in 1984. Speaking of which, Michael Eisner, the other half of that duo and my favorite Disney CEO was at Paramount at the time that Mel Brooks was shopping around the Elephant Man. And he was the one to understand the vision that Mel Brooks pitched for the movie. He greenlit the Elephant man and it really paid off when the movie received eight Academy Award nominations. The attention rocketed David lynch into the Hollywood mainstream. He was the hot new director in town. And David lynch was approached to direct tons of big budget films. And one of the most high profile offers he got was from Disney legend George Lucas. David lynch was offered the role as the director of the third installment of the original Star wars trilogy, the Return of the Jedi. George Lucas had directed the first film, but he enlisted Irvin Kirshner to direct the Empire Strikes Back. This way Lucas could have more of the ability to oversee the whole operation. Kirchner wasn't going to come back for the third movie, so George Lucas was looking for someone who could be up for the task. David lynch tells the story of how he was invited out to Northern California to meet with George Lucas. And he knew it probably wasn't the best fit for him. But the meeting with George Lucas would be a great opportunity. In his account. He started getting overwhelmed by wookies and all sorts of creatures that George Lucas was showing him. And he left the dinner table with a headache to call his agent and say that he just couldn't take this Star wars job. The anxiety of the situation had given him a migraine and he couldn't imagine what it would be like to actually take the job. His agent just said, are you sure you're going to lose out on millions of dollars? But he passed. It really wasn't the right fit. I guess David lynch just shouldn't get involved with epic sci fi space blockbusters. He did do Dune back in the 80s, way before Timothee Chalamet. He kind of picked that one up instead of Star Wars. But I'll just say it again. David lynch probably shouldn't get involved with epic sci fi space blockbusters. It didn't go well. But after Dune, David lynch finally got to write and direct his films to his vision. 1986's Blue Velvet, like I mentioned earlier, and 1990s Wild at Heart gave David lynch an opportunity to show off his strange dreamlike stories to a mainstream audience. Of course, these bigger budget Hollywood films had pressure from the studios to fit the Hollywood mold. So they weren't Eraserhead, but still more of his vision than the Elephant man or Dune were. These movies also helped open doors into our homes on the small screen. In gearing up for the 1990s, David lynch teamed up with Mark Frost, who had a hit on TV with Hill Street Blues, to write a television drama about life in an American small town with all of its quirky citizens. Originally it would take place in North Dakota, but as the story evolved, it became a murder mystery soap opera set in the Pacific Northwest and titled twin Peaks. In 1989, ABC President of Entertainment Brandon Stoddard greenlit a pilot with the caveat that it would they would also film a clean ending to the murder mystery so that it could be aired as a TV movie in Europe. If the series didn't get picked up, he was probably expecting that it wouldn't get picked up. And then Stoddard immediately left the job. The show seems pretty much doomed at this point, right? That is until Stoddard's replacement, Bob Iger, fell in love with the pilot. We know Bob as the current and former CEO of the Walt Disney Company. Iger called a meeting with David lynch and Mark Frost to hear their take on where this story would even go. And he became a champion of making sure Twin Peaks would get put on the air. Though many of the other people at ABC thought the show was too strange, Bob Iger persisted in his passion for the show and ultimately put it on the air mid season in April of 1990. And it paid off. The show was a smash success from the beginning. Everyone was caught up in this mystery of who killed Laura Palmer. Twin Peaks was not like anything else on tv. I think it was pretty much ahead of its time. It paved the way for more out of the box shows in the future like the X Files. And it was definitely a precursor to the prestige television that dominates the Emmys these days. It also struck the same chord that gets so many interested in true crime podcasts today. Bob Iger helped make it a huge success, but then he turned villain. Maybe in more ways than one. After the smash success of the first very short eight episode season, Bob Iger renewed Twin Peaks for a second season. I mean, that's a no brainer. But as lynch and Frost continued the story on, they got pressure from Iger to reveal the killer in the second season. David lynch has said that revealing the killer was not the plan for the second season. But he kept getting pressure from Bob Iger to do it. That he went against his own instincts and they revealed the killer prematurely to his plan. The show suffered from this choice and after the reveal, the ratings totally dropped off and the replacement storyline was just not strong enough. David lynch really resented Bob Iger for the pressure. Okay, okay, Twin Peaks spoiler alert and fan theory time. But you know, it's been a long time since Twin Peaks was on. The murder mystery of Laura Palmer involves a demonic spirit named Bob. The character Bob wasn't given a name in the series until much later, like after Iger pressured David Lynch. Some claim that Bob is named after Bob's Big Boy restaurant where David lynch and his daughter would eat regularly. But I kinda wonder if the demonic spirit with a hand in Laura Palmer's demise wasn't named after the ABC executive with a hand in the show's demise. Any way you slice it, Twin Peaks is a damn fine show. Barely a year after its hot premiere though, Twin Peaks had fizzled off the air. And in 1992, David lynch did try out another TV show with ABC. And this time it was a sitcom. On the air was about a 1950s variety show and its on and off camera antics that would happen in the name of getting their show on the air. It lasted three episodes in the summer of 1992. Throughout the 1990s, David lynch attempted more television. He made another cult status movie, Lost highway, and he made a slew of commercials. So far in this story, he's only had brushes with Disney executives before they were at Disney. And he did have a run in with a future Disney legend, but not so much direct connection to Disney. But that all changed because in 1999, David lynch made a Disney movie. The Straight Story isn't the most famous Disney movie, and it's not the most famous David lynch movie either. But it is a great movie in my opinion and you should go on watch it. And if you squint while watching it, you can see the DNA that Disney and David lynch actually do share in this movie. 1999's the Straight Story is a heartfelt, meditative road movie based on a true story. The film follows Elvin Strait, played by Richard Farnsworth, an elderly man who embarks on a 240mile journey from Iowa to Wisconsin to reconcile with his estranged and ailing brother, played by Harry Dean Stanton. Because Elvin can't drive due to his poor eyesight, he makes the trip on a small John Deere riding lawnmower, encountering kind strangers and reflecting on his past along the way. The Straight Story is a slow paced, deeply emotional tale about family, perseverance and the quiet beauty of rural America. In essence, the Straight Story may lack the surreal horror of David Lynch's more famous works, but it carries his signature themes of small town America, a longing for human connection and the profound within the ordinary. You can also argue that this is a Disney fied David lynch movie and Disney did release it after all. But David Lynch's Disney project could probably only happen the way that this film did. When David lynch read this script, he instantly knew that he had to direct this movie. And when they started filming in production, it was shot totally independently. It wasn't until the movie was complete and it was shown at some film festivals that studios caught wind. When president of Walt Disney Studios, Peter Schneider watched the movie, he knew he needed it for Disney. He said that it was already a fully formed Disney movie with its heartfelt reunion between brothers and a midwestern lawnmower odyssey adventure. The movie debuted at the Cannes Film Festival and it is David Lynch's only movie to receive a G rating. It is a Disney after all, general audience is pretty much their bread and butter. David lynch had learned some lessons from working on big Hollywood movies. And it's very similar to how he felt about rejecting that Star wars job. In order for him to make something that he wanted to work on and something so Lynchian to the full extent. He needed to be fully invested and not be bothered from outside sources. In this same way, he really resented the fact that Bob Iger pressured him to change his vision for Twin Peaks. He needed to work independently. And if he had made this movie the Straight Story with Disney from the start, the stress of the studio scrutiny would have probably inhibited his creativity. David lynch needs total control. David Lynch's creativity though, was not limited to movies. He was an artist and a musician as well. And his music led him into another Disney connection. Let's reverse a little bit back to 1998. David lynch had been asked to collaborate and produce an album with Scottish fiddle player Jocelyn Montgomery. They had made Lux Vivens, an album of 12th century verses by German composer and mystic Hildegard von Bingen. Of course, David lynch added lots of harsh electronic sounds and ambient soundscapes. And the album was released on Mammoth Records, Disney's Mammoth Records. Just a year before the album's release, Disney's Buena Vista Music Group acquired Mammoth to get its catalog of alternative artists including the Squirrel Nut Zipper, because swing was the thing in 1997. So David lynch, with a Disney released album, Mammoth Records anyway, and a Disney released movie, all he needed was just a Disney release TV show and he'd have the whole trifecta of Disney branded content. And it really almost happened. In 1998, just before David lynch started filming the Straight Story, he had been working on a massive TV pilot to rival Twin Peaks for Disney's Touchstone Television. And it was slated to air on abc. And this is post ABC acquisition. When he had pitched it to Disney, ABC Television execs Jamie Tarsus and Steve Tao, they loved it. It was the story of a mysterious woman in danger. She narrowly escapes an assassination when the car she was riding in with her would be Killers was hit by a joyrider late at night on Mulholland Drive. She escapes with barely more than a purse full of cash. But it's like a lot of cash and she doesn't even remember who she is. She has amnesia. She finds a fresh to Hollywood aspiring actress named Betty, played by Naomi Watts, and starts going by the name of Rita after picking it up off of a Rita Hayworth poster. She and Betty vow to figure out who she really is and what kind of trouble she's actually in. At the pitch meeting, David lynch left Tarsus and Tao on the edge of their seats. They wanted to know what would happen next, but lynch said, you have to buy the pitch to find out. They quickly greenlit and ordered a script for Mulholland Drive and David lynch got writing. It would be just the thing ABC needed to compete against NBC's Thursday night must see TV sitcoms like Friends. When ABC got their hands on the pilot script, Tarsus and Tao loved it and they pushed it forward to start production. Jamie Tarsus said it was the fastest script she had ever read and knew immediately that it would have to be made. Mulholland Drive was innovative. It wasn't like anything else on tv. And it would be a breath of fresh air in the landscape of shows that just tried to mimic each other. Mulholland Drive would be a gem in the ABC lineup. And Disney ended up pouring over $7 million into the pilot throughout its production. It's unheard of money in TV at the time. David lynch started filming in locations all around la. Of course, the opening scene on Mulholland Drive, where the mystery woman escapes was filmed on Mulholland Drive. But as Betty and Rita investigate who Rita really is, they find themselves at the Sierra Bonita apartment complex, which has a big Disney connection. The apartments where they filmed were actually little cottages affectionately called the Snow White Cottages. The Snow White Cottages are eight cottage apartments surrounding an intimate little courtyard on Griffith Park Boulevard. They were built in 1931 and only blocks away from the Walt Disney Studios at the time. During this time, Los Angeles had a bit of a fairy tale inspired architecture boom. Another example of this style is one of Walt Disney's favorite restaurants. And it was a common hangout for Disney animators and imagineers. The Tam O'Shanter. The Snow White Cottages had been there since 31, but didn't get that name until after 1937 when Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs bec became a huge success. Life inspires art, and that art inspires life because it's said that these cottages that Walt and his animators passed daily on the way to and from work actually inspired the story and design of the movie Snow White. It's also rumored that during the late 1930s, when Disney was outgrowing the nearby original Disney studios, they rented space in these cottages for artists to animate classics like Snow White. So to recap, David lynch chose the filming location of the Snow White Cottages that were named for Disney's first animated masterpiece and the location where some Disney animators worked on the film itself. And these were some of the locations that were inspiration for Walt Disney's storytelling and design of the movie Snow White. Back to Mulholland Drive. David lynch filmed the pilot with his total creative control and vision and it ended up being almost two hours long. It followed his pacing and showed his Lynchian imagery. ABC's Tarsha Sentao came into it excited, but left the first screening feeling confused. It didn't fit the mold of what they usually put on tv and a pilot over an hour was unheard of to them. But wait, didn't they like Mulholland Drive because it was different? Unfortunately, the comfort of formulaic television seemed to have gotten the best of them. They wanted lynch to cut scenes down for time to fit a traditional hour long format, leaving time for commercial breaks. Of course, ABC standards and practices wanted less on screen smoking and less of the Lynchian imagery. Like the close ups on dog poop that he had included. David lynch felt the creative vice closing in. He didn't want to follow the laundry list of changes and cuts that ABC was imposing. It was turning out to be another Twin Peaks, Laura Palmer's killer and Bob Iger situation, and he wouldn't let that happen. David lynch made an appeal to let Disney CEO at the time, Michael Eisner, see it, stating, if Michael Eisner saw this, I can't believe he wouldn't dig it. And there's a good chance that he would have dug it. In fact, he did Green light David lynch and Mel Brooks's Elephant man so many years ago at Paramount, but he would not get the chance to see it. Tarsus and Tao continued to ask for cuts and changes, and David lynch finally agreed to cut the pilot down. But instead of leaving scenes on the cutting room floor, he cut from the end of the pilot with the intention of turning the cut material into the next episode. He disregarded the rest of the suggested changes and ended up with a shorter version of the first half of his intended pilot. Ultimately, ABC decided to scrap the entire project, but David lynch couldn't let it go. He reshot some of the scenes, teased out the rest of the story and put it into a feature length film. If it couldn't be on tv, he would show his vision theatrically. And anyway, this experience made him swear off television for a very long time. Mulholland Drive the movie premiered at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival and was released theatrically later by Studio Canal and Universal Pictures. It became a critical success. David lynch was nominated for Best Director at the Academy Awards and the movie received four Golden Globe nominations and the Los Angeles Film Critics association named it the Film of the decade. David lynch never worked with Disney or ABC again, but he did continue making art short films and feature films. He did actually return to television to give his unfinished vision for Twin peaks Redemption in 2017, but this time the show aired on Showtime cable. Prestige Television is probably where David Lynch TV belongs. David lynch has had some fans who became filmmakers and went on to make projects for Disney that were inspired by his stories. Mark Cherry cited Twin Peaks as an inspiration for his ABC Studios show Desperate Housewives, and it owes a lot of its aesthetic to Blue Velvet's underlying darkness in the picturesque suburbs. It also is filled with stars who appeared in David lynch projects. Kyle MacLachlan starred as Orson Hodges in Desperate Housewives. He had starring roles in David Lynch's Dune, Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks. Brenda Strong played Mary Alice Young in Desperate Housewives and was murdered in the first episode and became the narrator for the remainder of the show. She also had a role in Twin Peaks, another show where a murder in the first episode sets the story and the victim, though dead, has a major role in the series. In fact, originally Mark Cherry wanted to cast Cheryl Lee, who played the murdered Laura Palmer in Twin Peaks as Mary Alice Young. That would have really connected these shows, but I'm guessing that Sheryl Lee didn't want to be typecast as an important murder victim. Another show that owes a lot to Twin peaks is Disney XD's Gravity Falls. Gravity Falls and Twin Peaks share a quirky, mysterious Pacific Northwest small town forest setting filled with eccentric characters and hidden supernatural elements. Both series center around an outsider coming in and uncovering strange occurrences with cryptic clues, secret societies and eerie conspiracies lurking beneath the surface. While Twin Peaks leans into surreal horror and noir, Gravity Falls balances its mystery with humor and adventure, making it a more family friendly take on similar themes. Gravity Falls creator Alex Hirsch actually approached David lynch about voicing the show's villainous character, Bill Cipher. David lynch did not accept the role, but could you imagine that would have been a dream? A Lynchian dream. In January of 2025, David lynch passed away due to complications from emphysema when he was attempting to leave his home during the Southern California wildfires. Fans of David lynch will continue to mourn his loss, but also to spread the word of his beloved cult status projects. With the man behind the symbolism gone, we will only be able to guess at what his vision actually was his total creative control. Thanks for joining me on this adventure into David Lynch's Disney connections. I love David Lynch's films and I would suggest giving one a try. If you're not familiar though, please tread with caution. They're not like anything you've ever seen before. And as always, I got some more great Disney connections coming up, so if you want to make sure that you don't miss them, go ahead and subscribe or follow wherever you are enjoying Synergy Love's company right now. 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So until next time, keep discovering the magic in everything.