I think when, like, things like 'The Wizard' and even like 'Tron,' when it first came out, I was a teenager, and, man, I really wanted to kind of just kind of disappear into it.
You know how they say that old people with Alzheimer's, they kind of go back, and they revert to the most emotional part of their life, what they did when they were younger... I think I am going to be cursed with reliving 'Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope' in my mind. And playing 'Dragon's Layer' when I enter Alzheimer's.
There was a moment with 'Zootopia' where we said, 'This is the experiment: let's try Judy in the role of the protagonist. Let her character introduce us to the city and this world.' And suddenly, all that struggling and trying to make traction into this story was done.
What we've done now sits with those films that inspired me as a kid, and I hope there is a kid like myself today who is watching 'Wreck-It Ralph,' and he or she is inspired the way I was inspired when I was 5 years old, and now they'll pursue this crazy dream.
To me, I love being able to see some of John C. Reilly's face in Ralph, and some of Sarah Silverman in Vanellope. That there are hints of them there. In the broad strokes, they are there.
This new generation of animators was trained in CG. They know all the fundamentals of any 2D animator, but a lot of them learned on these CG rigs. You give them a good rig, and they can make that thing sing.
When I was young, I was on a real hot streak with 'Crazy Climber.' There was a good three-week span where I couldn't get that game out of my head. I could not get back to the arcade fast enough to try and climb up there and not get kicked by a potted plant this time. That one got under my skin.
I'm really excited that the studio is trying, because when I began my career in the early '90s, late '80s, Disney was not something - though I respected it and liked what they were doing in those years - it's not like I thought I wanted to be a part of that studio right now.
I'm part of that original generation that came up playing video games, that pumped a lot of our allowance into video games. We financed the rise of video games. I started playing them in the Straw Hat Pizza Palace at the Carriage Square Mall in Oxnard, CA.
I would say that what we called the Pixar sensibility goes back even further. It is kind of a CalArts sensibility because so many of the people who are creative instrumental people at Pixar came from that school.
It wasn't until I was in that world, directing shows and movies, that I realized basically my job is to give back to another generation what the generation before me gave to me.
I think 'Wreck-It Ralph' can stand proudly in the pantheon of the great Disney animated films. It's a fairy tale disguised as something more contemporary. With its balance of heart and comedy, it is still very much rooted in the Disney legacy.
I spent a lot of money and time at pizza places. Golf and Stuff in Ventura, right off the 101, was my hangout. Skating Plus, right behind it, always had a good selection of games. That was the place to be when you were from Oxnard back in the '80s.
I remember as a kid seeing Pong in a pizza place where I grew up in Oxnard, California, and having my mind blown by it. I thought it was a TV. I thought it was just something playing on a television. But then to be able to manipulate the paddle, and the ball with the knob was, in those days, pretty huge to a little kid! It was a simpler time.
I never saw a Laurel & Hardy movie in a theater when they first ran, when I was a kid. But as a child, I knew who they were, and knew the culture of it, what they meant.
I loved the Scarecrow and the Tin Man and the Lion and you could kind of see the actors' faces in them. It wasn't an entirely new face sculpted around them. What made those characters so human and appealing to me was seeing those great actors underneath there. They weren't lost behind a bunch of appliances.
I loved 'The Secret of NIMH.' When that came out, it felt like, 'Wow, this is something really, really new.' It looked like a Disney film, but it felt very cutting edge to me. To a twelve-year-old kid, it seemed very inspiring.
I love the idea of a very simple 8-bit video game character struggling with the complex question: 'isn't there more to life than the role I've been assigned?'
I love living in Burbank. It has major movie studios, huge media empires, but the city still feels like a mom-and-pop town. It's not pretentious at all. It doesn't feel like a big Hollywood town, and it has every right to be, but it's very friendly and easygoing.
I fell in love with this idea of an old school game character, like Donkey Kong, who looks like a very simple guy but is really wrestling with this very profound struggle: 'What's the meaning of life? What if I don't like this job I've been programmed to do?'
