‘Pride’ Goes Before A Fall – A Look At Father Of The Pride
It seemed like a sure thing. As the popularity of 3-D CGI animation was exploding around the world to the happy tune of billions of dollars in box-office revenue, DreamWorks SKG would ride the wave onto American network TV with a weekly show based on one of the most successful Las Vegas acts in history. Not only was DreamWorks uniquely qualified to pull off the world’s first prime-time CGI hit, the premise of ‘Father of the Pride’ might be considered something of a marketing marvel, combining A-list voice acting talent, state-of-the-art animation, and a family friendly fantasy concept taking full advantage of the popularity of the Vegas powerhouse stage show,‘Siegfried and Roy’. What’s not to like? But as with many high-flying can’t-miss media creations, the jury is still out on the future of ‘Father of the Pride’.
Aside from competitors Pixar and Disney, DreamWorks already had bragging rights with ‘Shrek’ and ‘Shrek 2’, easily one of the most popular and profitable 3-D CGI animated feature film franchises in recent memory. Created by Jeffrey Katzenberg and Jonathan Groff (of ‘Late Night With Conan O’Brien’), ‘Pride’ would enlist the acting talents of family-favourite John Goodman, comedy legend Carl Reiner, along with Cheryl Hines (of ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’) and Orlando Jones (‘Magnolia’), among others. Guest appearances by other well-known celebrity voice actors in the first season include Lisa Kudrow, Matt Lauer. Gary Marshall, Eddie Murphy, Betty White and Danny DeVito. The stage was set for a weekly show that would wow audiences in big numbers.
‘Pride’ debuted in late August of 2004. But as early as September of 2003, the Writers Guild of America was in a dispute with Animation Guild Local 839, part of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, over which union would represent the show’s writers. Credited writers included Mike Barker, Robert Cohen, David M. Goodman, Jonathan Groff, Cheryl Holliday, Vanessa McCarthy, Glascow Phillips, Jon Pollack, Jon Ross, Ron Weiner, Matt Weitzman and Jean Yu. At that time, WGA-West President Victoria Riskin accused DreamWorks of pressuring writers to accept representation from the Animation Guild, saying they would receive less pay and fewer benefits, which DreamWorks denied. Shots were fired back and forth, a bump in the road that could not foreshadow what happened next.
On October 3, of 2003, which happened to be world-famous magician and big cat trainer Roy Horn’s 59th birthday, Las Vegas audiences enjoying the fabulous stage show at the MGM Mirage Hotel-Casino were shocked when the unthinkable happened. After 30 years performing their famous show combining magic and tiger stunts, German-born Roy was attacked by a 7-year-old white tiger during the Friday night show. His condition was initially listed as critical, and members of the audience described how the tiger grabbed Horn by the neck about half-way through the show and dragged him off-stage like a rag-doll. Massive blood loss and other injuries were treated at the Vegas University Medical Center.
Speculation in the media was almost over-night regarding how Roy’s extreme misfortune would affect ‘Father of the Pride’. Both Siegfried and Roy (voiced by actors Julian Holloway and David Herman) were written into episodes of ‘Pride’ as regular characters. Katzenberg announced by April of 2004 that he would scrap the series, if Roy Horn did not survive his injuries.
The cost of each episode of ‘Pride’ was revealed to be between $2 and $2.5 million, making it one of the most expensive half-hour shows ever for network TV. Despite early negative reviews, and with Roy in recovery, NBC touted the show as a centrepiece of its Fall line-up. In fact, TV critics were willing to maul the program as savagely as Roy was attacked by his own tiger. Phil Rosenthal of the ‘Chicago Sun-Times’ called the show “ill-advised”; Robert P. Laurence of the ‘San Diego Union’ said it was “too blue for kids, too dumb for grown-ups”, and Mike Duffy in the ‘Detroit Free Press’ said ‘Pride’ was “a puerile, raunchily misbegotten exercise in corporate entertainment stupidity”. Others were more kind, remarking that the show was “not a train wreck” (Bill Goodykoontz in ‘The Arizona Republic’) and also “one of the few original delights for fall, an amusing, handsomely drawn, computer-animated tale” (Mike McDaniel in the ‘Houston Chronicle’).
Katzenberg blamed NBC’s promotional efforts in public statements for the early ‘bad buzz’, but to the delight of all concerned, ‘Pride’ had the highest national viewer ratings on the night of its debut (August 31, 2004). For the evening, ‘Pride’ had a 7.0 rating and an 11 audience share number for its time-slot. Upset with the adult tone of some of the scripted stories in ‘Pride’, the Family Friendly Programming Forum, which is a group of advertisers who wish to promote wholesome family entertainment on TV, was reported by ‘Advertising Age’ to be dropping its endorsement of the show. Ratings for ‘Pride’ were down 20 percent the next week, but still in the top-ten according to Nielsen Research. 12.9 million viewers watched ‘Pride’ in the second week, beating old-favourite ’60 Minutes’ for the time-slot.
With DreamWorks ready to announce an Initial Public Offering of stock in its animation division, the success of the show was important. An NBC decision to run three back-to-back episodes of ‘Pride’ on October 12 due to scheduling changes also raised viewer awareness. But as with any network offering on American TV, audiences make the final call with their viewing habits, and advertisers, time-slots, producers, actors and artists all fall in line with what is or isn’t popular at the moment, despite artistic success.
The tone and setting of ‘Father of the Pride’ were calculated to cultivate that same viewer interest and loyalty. With stories and dialogue similar to the “cheeky, edgy and ironic humour that proved so popular in the Dreamworks hits ‘Shrek’ and ‘Shrek 2’” (from the NBC website), the show had hopes to be a favourite of adults and teens alike, which was always the target demographic and formula for the theatrical animated films. With the glitzy back-drop of Las Vegas for the setting, and Goodman in the role of a hard-working white lion named Larry (a regular in the Siegfried and Roy show), ‘Pride’ would bring us the misadventures of Larry’s off-stage family, including lioness wife Kate (Cheryl Hines), ribald father-in-law Sarmoti (Carl Reiner), rebellious 15 year-old daughter Sierra (Danielle Andrea Harris) and 9-year-old son Hunter (Daryl Sabara of ‘Spy Kids’).
Let’s face it: lions are big in animation. From the 2-D Japanese cartoon ‘Simba the White Lion” that was popular with world audiences in the 1960’s and 1970’s., to the enormous success of ‘The Lion King’ (in several versions include a Broadway stage show), the African lion remains an enduring symbol of strength, courage and male power. Biblical in proportions, always the king of his jungle, you just can’t miss with a story about lions, white or otherwise. With ‘Father of the Pride’, Larry is a bit over-the-hill, removed from the wild as a stage performer, and thoroughly modern in attempts to deal with the quirks and foibles of family life. But he’s still a lion, and so are his family, with all the furry fun and Jungian symbolism that goes with it.
Directing credits go to Mark Baldo, Bret Haaland, Klay Hall, Steve Hickner, John Holmquist, John Puglisi, Mark Risley and John Stevenson. Producer Ron Weiner and executive producers Katzenberg, Peter Mehlman and Jon Pollack were assisted by five co-executive producers. Original music was created by Toby Chu and Harry Gregson-Williams.
As subjective as any critique of the writing or execution of the program may be, we do see once again in ‘Pride’ a reliance on fundamentals of the sit-com world that were introduced by shows like ‘I Love Lucy’, transformed without apparent vision through the last 50 years of television, and remain basically un-changed and un-inspired today. Could it be that no matter how great a concept you have, how high-tech you go with animation, how much you spend, or how great your cast, that modern viewers are a bit tired of this mode of story-telling? Is there something else out there, some new approach or model, that could have provided ‘Father of the Pride’ with the genuine novelty and creative newness that would make the difference with viewers both young and old? And at what point will a company like DreamWorks be willing to take those kind of artistic risks? These and other questions about the fate of this tremendous animation effort are of interest not only to big-league companies, but also to the myriad of smaller animation studios with all the same tricks and talent, who would like a slice of the multi-billion dollar 3-D CGI animation pie. Time will tell, but meanwhile, it may simply be a matter of pride.
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