Wayne Allwine, the third voice of Mickey Mouse, has passed away. He voiced Mickey from 1983 to 2009, gave him the voice I at least grew up with. He died of Complications of Diabetes and it is not known if his wife, who voiced Minnie Mouse, will continue with her role.
My sympathies go out to his family. Before I start playing Kingdom Hearts 2 again to hear one of his last performances, I leave you with the Oscar Nominated Short, Runaway Brain.
I had planned on doing a song today, but I found out something last night that made me change my mind.
Jim Cummings has just been nominated for an Emmy for his work as Tigger in "My Friends Tigger and Pooh"! (insert fangirling) er...yeah...
This is his first Emmy award, but he has been nominated for Annies, along with taking over roles for Sterling Holloway, Mel Blanc, and Paul Winchell. And several living ones too. Usually singing roles for actors who can't for whatever reason.
Some of his favorite roles include the Talespin Villain, Don Karnage. This website is a fansite of his. Besides information on how it started, clips of his work, a feed of new information on him... it also has a list of quotes. Some of the best include him confessing that he sometimes goes through drivethroughs as Pooh and orders Hunny, and how the industry likes him for being able to do everything.
"My agency tells me I am rare because I sing, do movie trailers, and do cartoons too. I like that because it gives me variety in jobs. I don’t just sit and do movie trailers, and I don’t just do cartoons either. I can do both, and I feel very fortunate for that." — Jim Cummings, Dodge Globe, 1998
So, in honor of him and his award... He's the opening to My Friends Tigger and Pooh!
This version does deviate substantially from the already told story. Christopher Robin doesn't really appear, instead a girl named Darby appears instead. She has a dog called "Buster". But she does know Christopher Robin, since when he does appear she doesn't really need to be introduced. Kanga rarely appears, and neither Gopher nor Owl appear at all. In their stead appear some new characters such as Porcupine, Turtle, and Beaver. This is also Poohs first foray into CGI. While it looks good, I miss the 2D drawings and some subtle humor. And no obvious morals.
Pooh, Tigger, and Darby are apart of of a team known as the "Super Sleuths" who solve mysteries. Not just fooling around.
Despite my complaining, it is fairly good, it got my favorite VA an emmy nod, and it allows alot of kids to reexperience Pooh via a TV show.
Here's some clips, Darby sounds different so this isn't the American one, but it kept Jim Cummings!
A more recent song today! (and a short one) This one minute bit is from "The Three Musketeers" The movie is not a strict adaption of the movie, but is a loose sequel where the originals appear in the opening sequence, and influence these three.
The idea for a full length Mickey Donald Goofy movie had been around for around 65 years, but Disney lacked the established characters needed to pull it off. After all this time, they fixed the adaption problem (as stated above) and had enough characters to pull it off.
Pete reappears with his pegleg in this version, while his flunkies are the Beagle Boys from Ducktales (though altered so they appear and talk different. But they are still have their personalities and are still more or less flunkies. And not very intelligent)
The movie is filled with references to other Disney works. The most obvious in this clip is Donald in his Sailor's outfit (which has a reason which I will list below) but others include Mickey's costume being ripped off during a fight, revealing his traditional outfit, Pete (mockingly) referring to a number called "I just can't wait to be king" and mocking Mickey with the "Mickey Mouse Club March" and there are many more that I don't want to spoil ;)
Alright, the music. THis movie was going to have original music, but when one of the directors listened to a CD that had some of the proposed songs on there he went to the wrong number and listened the Habanera instead. He came back raving about how it would be interesting to use it, and then realizes he had listened to the wrong song. Well, they decided to keep the idea and all the songs in the movie are based on songs in the public domain. This one is Beethoven's fifth, I think.
The Reason why Donald is in his normal wear is because they changed his fault for the movie. Instead of him having a short temper, he became a coward (it works well in the movie, but it would have been nice to see the Temper too) The Musketeers (who were just put there by Pete because he thought they would fail) have been tasked to keep Princess Minnie safe. DOnald get's freaked out, and Mickey tells him that as long as they wear the uniforms they are musketeers. Donald promptly rips his off revealing his traditional outfit.
This scene takes place where Mickey has been captured and the narrator (our turtle friend) is trying to goad Donald into being loyal. It obviously works.
I wanted to put this up earlier, but they say "Hallelujah" and it would be during Lent where you can't say it, and, uh, yeah....
Here is "Everybody Wants to be a Cat" From the Aristocats!
This was the last movie approved by Disney, and the first to be completed by his death. Phil Harris played Thomas O'Malley, while Eva Gabor is Duchess (speaking voice only) The trumpet playing cat in the clip was supposed to be played by Louie Prima, he backed out at the last minute, and Someone named "Scatman Cathers" was hired in his place. The mannerisms of Louie Prima and body references remained.
Thurl Ravenscroft, also known for being Tony the Tiger and The Ghost Host, is the Russian Cat, while Paul Winchester is the Chinese Cat. The racist lines have been cut out in subsequent Audio rereleases.
Today is Opening day for Baseball! So with that, I give you one of the baseball scenes in Disney movies (which is kind of surprising) "I Don't Dance" from High School Musical 2. This is a baseball influenced song with Swing, Rap, and Samba influenced. And I would die of embarrassment if someone actually played Baseball this way.
THis song was adopted
High School Musical 2 was the TV movie sequel to HSM 1. This one took place over the summer and with everyone at their jobs. Ryan (the guy in white)played by Lucas Grabeel is pushed out of his normal position at the country club where they work so he is kind of adopted by the workers. THis leads to him being in the baseball game, since they are short one player.
Chad, the African American boy played by Corbin Bleu, and Ryan are having a baseball argument on this field and they are using baseball to argue their points. It was filmed in Colorado I believe and Lucas Grabeel only had 2 pairs of pure white clothes, so he couldn't let the first get dirty. Corbin Bleu, though, got beaned at least three times.
Corbin Bleu had a hard time with this song. Not all of the actors can do hip hop (Olyesa Rulin was trained as a Ballerina for example) and Corbin Bleu apparently had trouble with the sports aspect.
The review for the song and dance number were mixed. The general consensus was "I Don't Dance" was one of the most enjoyable songs in the movie, and was a good mix of genres, but the camera work was shoddy. The tune was either "insanely Catchy" or "excruciating" (I like it, but I'm a baseball fan)
On me being a baseball fan, yes, Ryan should be thrown out for Balking (starting to throw the ball, then changing his mind. He does this with his dancing) I think it is legal but improbably for people to score get on base with the dancing movies/headstands they do. and Disney promoted this song with having Clips from baseball games, players singing/saying "I don't dance" or shots of players dancing. Clip of that below, unfortunately the first 30 seconds were cut off. But enough remains you get the gist.
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