Michael Rianda

1 sketch, 14 claims, and 6 fun items attributed to them. What was said about them.

Personality, episode by episode

Blank Check — Patreon: The Nightmare Before Christmas with Michael Rianda (Ad-Free) (guest)

Loves hand-made animation with visible thumbprints, Ren and Stimpy, The Simpsons, experimental animators and Pixar's manifesto culture. Can't stand CG-printed stop-motion faces and celebrity casting. A sucker for the Willy-Wonka feel of a stop-motion set.

Stances

  • Animators are inwardly little artists chafing at studios
  • Treat a movie like a jailbreak
  • Celebrity casting doesn't matter
  • Hand-made imperfections make stop motion magic

Humor: Self-deprecating and breathless, mocking his own portfolio and voice acting.

In their words

  • “I'm a dangass freak for this podcast.” (0:10:29)
  • “you have to treat it like a jailbreak and like you're stealing the keys to the, to your dad's car and driving off a mountain or whatever.” (2:37:19)

Their shows' recurring bits

Running bits, not opinions; a critic read aloud is cited, not present.

Their claims

Showing 1–14 of 14 claims.

  1. lineage (lineage): The Mitchells vs. the Machines → Hayao Miyazaki. Katie's Mount Rushmore idea came from an office poster of Miyazaki, Ashby, Sciamma and Moodysson.
    “inspired by just a thing that was in my office of Miyazaki, Hal Ashby, Celine Siama, and Lucas Moodison”
    Blank Check — Patreon · The Nightmare Before Christmas with Michael Rianda (Ad-Free) · 0:14:52 · Michael Rianda (0.90 sure it was them)
  2. career (career): Henry Selick → Monkeybone. Selick's blank check Monkeybone is the feature closest to his experimental shorts.
    “Monkey Bone, which is his biggest, like, blank check or whatever, is the one that's most like those short films”
    Blank Check — Patreon · The Nightmare Before Christmas with Michael Rianda (Ad-Free) · 0:18:23 · Michael Rianda (0.80 sure it was them)
  3. people (people): Joe Ranft → Henry Selick. Ranft, Selick and Burton were CalArts contemporaries alongside the Pixar founders.
    “Bird, the Pixar guys, you know, Joe Ramped, Selleck Burton, all there at the same time.”
    Blank Check — Patreon · The Nightmare Before Christmas with Michael Rianda (Ad-Free) · 0:20:30 · Michael Rianda (0.50 sure it was them)
  4. career (career): The Nightmare Before Christmas → Wendell and Wild. Selick's newest film is praised as sharpening, not shaving, his edges late in his career.
    “you're not shaving any of the edges, any of the edges away.”
    Blank Check — Patreon · The Nightmare Before Christmas with Michael Rianda (Ad-Free) · 0:21:40 · Michael Rianda (0.60 sure it was them)
  5. contrast (contrast): Tim Burton → Walt Disney Pictures / Touchstone Pictures. Burton and his peers all rebelled against Disney while still loving it.
    “It's like, oh, Disney's sweet and I will be dark.”
    Blank Check — Patreon · The Nightmare Before Christmas with Michael Rianda (Ad-Free) · 0:44:26 · Michael Rianda (0.50 sure it was them)
  6. career (career): Joe Ranft → A Bug's Life. Lasseter heard Ranft's scratch recordings get laughs and pushed to make Ranft the voice of Heimlich.
    “he noticed that every time his wife was laughing, it was ramped.”
    Blank Check — Patreon · The Nightmare Before Christmas with Michael Rianda (Ad-Free) · 0:59:26 · Michael Rianda (0.50 sure it was them)
  7. craft (craft): Anthony Scott → The Nightmare Before Christmas. Anthony Scott animated many of the film's standout shots, and told Rianda about the green capture screen.
    “this guy, Anthony Scott, who's like animated all these amazing shots on it.”
    Blank Check — Patreon · The Nightmare Before Christmas with Michael Rianda (Ad-Free) · 1:16:56 · Michael Rianda (0.80 sure it was them)
  8. craft (craft): The Nightmare Before Christmas → Busby Berkeley musicals. The swirling camera makes the musical numbers feel like Busby Berkeley.
    “it feels like a Busby Berkeley musical”
    Blank Check — Patreon · The Nightmare Before Christmas with Michael Rianda (Ad-Free) · 1:17:23 · Michael Rianda (0.80 sure it was them)
  9. contrast (contrast): The Nightmare Before Christmas → Edward Scissorhands. Scissorhands keeps its real and fantasy worlds firmly separate; Nightmare has no totally real reality.
    “They don't pull any punches, even, even like, you know, a movie like um, Edward Scissorhands or something”
    Blank Check — Patreon · The Nightmare Before Christmas with Michael Rianda (Ad-Free) · 1:33:25 · Michael Rianda (0.80 sure it was them)
  10. industry (industry): The Nightmare Before Christmas → James and the Giant Peach. The film's long tail made Disney try stop motion again, back to back with Peach, before Laika and others.
    “James and the Giant Peach is almost made like right back to back with this movie”
    Blank Check — Patreon · The Nightmare Before Christmas with Michael Rianda (Ad-Free) · 1:40:45 · Michael Rianda (0.50 sure it was them)
  11. programming (programming): The Nightmare Before Christmas → The Haunted Mansion (Disney ride). The film's iconography now powers a seasonal Haunted Mansion overlay.
    “the haunted mansion ride is like so amazing.”
    Blank Check — Patreon · The Nightmare Before Christmas with Michael Rianda (Ad-Free) · 1:45:36 · Michael Rianda (0.60 sure it was them)
  12. career (career): Danny Elfman → The Nightmare Before Christmas. Elfman, said to have been bored at the height of Oingo Boingo, found film composing exciting again through this film.
    “it was like him at the height of Oingo, Boingo, like he became a rock star.”
    Blank Check — Patreon · The Nightmare Before Christmas with Michael Rianda (Ad-Free) · 1:57:01 · Michael Rianda (0.45 sure it was them)
  13. lineage (lineage): The Mitchells vs. the Machines → Pixar. Michael stole the pitch manifesto idea from the Pixar founders.
    “which I stole from the Pixar guys who made a manifesto before they made the story”
    Blank Check — Patreon · The Nightmare Before Christmas with Michael Rianda (Ad-Free) · 2:35:31 · Michael Rianda (0.80 sure it was them)
  14. industry (industry): The Nightmare Before Christmas → The Incredibles. The studio asked Michael to make Mitchells look like The Incredibles; the crew held him to the manifesto.
    “the studio was like, just make it look like the Incredibles”
    Blank Check — Patreon · The Nightmare Before Christmas with Michael Rianda (Ad-Free) · 2:36:51 · Michael Rianda (0.90 sure it was them)

Their fun items

Showing 1–6 of 6 fun items.

  1. fun, about The Nightmare Before Christmas: Michael dodged the film as a teen because of Hot Topic, then watched it around age 20 and loved it.
    “and then I watched it in college and I was like, this movie is so wonderful.”
    Blank Check — Patreon · The Nightmare Before Christmas with Michael Rianda (Ad-Free) · 0:05:37 · Michael Rianda (0.80 sure it was them)
  2. fun, about Seepage: Michael's pitch for Selick's student short: life-size paper cutout puppets in live action, plus a dazzling horse animation in the middle.
    “it also has this like dazzling horse animation in the middle of it”
    Blank Check — Patreon · The Nightmare Before Christmas with Michael Rianda (Ad-Free) · 0:41:56 · Michael Rianda (0.85 sure it was them)
  3. fun, about Joe Ranft: Lasseter tested A Bug's Life reels on his wife; she laughed only at Ranft's recordings, which got Ranft cast as Heimlich.
    “every time his wife was laughing, it was ramped.”
    Blank Check — Patreon · The Nightmare Before Christmas with Michael Rianda (Ad-Free) · 0:59:26 · Michael Rianda (0.50 sure it was them)
  4. fun, about The Mitchells vs. the Machines: Michael voiced the Mitchells dog himself because the scratch reel tested best; studio wanted Jessica Alba.
    “What if Jessica Albez, the voice of Monchi the dog?”
    Blank Check — Patreon · The Nightmare Before Christmas with Michael Rianda (Ad-Free) · 1:07:10 · Michael Rianda (0.85 sure it was them)
  5. fun, about The Nightmare Before Christmas: Camera moves in most shots; a motion-control rig and a green digitized screen showing only the previous two frames let animators check work.
    “But in these guys only had 3 frames to work with.”
    Blank Check — Patreon · The Nightmare Before Christmas with Michael Rianda (Ad-Free) · 1:16:52 · Michael Rianda (0.80 sure it was them)
  6. fun, about Mrs. Doubtfire: Box-office game: Doubtfire's winter run, losing #1 to Philadelphia for two weeks then back again; the hosts are ecstatic and Michael calls it his month's highlight.
    “The fire in David and Griffin's eyes is like shining right now.”
    Blank Check — Patreon · The Nightmare Before Christmas with Michael Rianda (Ad-Free) · 2:32:22 · Michael Rianda (0.60 sure it was them)