We’re watching Nutcracker on Netflix right now. I had to take a break: this is weird stuff. There’s rat bites causing transformations and tiny little people dancing in people’s brains.
But have you seen Godfather Drosselmeyer? The guy’s a tinkerer and wears an eyepatch. Tell me he’s not straight out of Final Fantasy:
Thanks, Jesse, for thinking of me when you watched Tom Wilson play songs in haiku.
Haikus for a year
Make me want to play guitar
Just like Biff Tannen
Tom Wilson is also on Netflix. I will definitely have to check it out.
I hope you all are having a happy Veteran’s Day.
On Sunday, this is what I’ll be wearing:
No, Mike, I haven’t converted to something, although you gotta admit that my wife’s texts were a lot funnier than my own. (I said I had converted to Awesomeness. She beat that.)
I’m wearing it in solidarity with believers, specifically with Juma Nuradin Kamil’s family, around the world on a Sunday when we remember and pray for followers of Jesus who have been/are being persecuted. (Really, we should remember and pray all year long, which this app (for iPhone and Android) can help you with, but it’s also good to have a set day on the calendar.)
Thanks, Jeremy, for showing us this video that lines up with one of the songs we play. We won’t be showing it on Sunday, but it’s definitely worth a watch.
Art that expresses my heart? Sign me up.
Travis Prinzi of the Rabbit Room has a great article about telling a meaningful story, quoting from Walk the Line:
I mean, you can’t help nobody if you can’t tell them the right story.
I started a new story as part of NaNoWriMo, yes, but also because it’s straight from my heart. Each book I’ve written, I’ve rejected people-pleasing more and more and now write what I believe to be a good story and not what I think will sell (if you’ve watched the majority of what’s on TV, you’ll notice that it’s not always the best story that sells).
Thanks, Futile Ohm, for the link to the NaNoWriMo version of Scrivener. This project has so many character details that it definitely helps me keep all my notes organized. Anyone that has seen me in the midst of writing a novel knows that they should have bought stock in legal pads and tiny memo notebooks.
And for those praying about agents looking at my manuscripts and all that, James 4:2-3 had some insight for me this morning.
We’re making leaves for our thankful tree. Grabbing the red construction paper, I subconsciously cut out the official leaf of William Shatner’s home.
Have you watched Captains on Netflix yet? What is that all about?!
Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix, said that the people who still wanted DVDs fell into two categories: rural folks who didn’t have broadband and film school types.
I can’t imagine too many film schools wanting to stockpile episodes of the Clone Wars or The Tick.
Now, Batman: The Animated Series… That’s a whole different story.
My oldest and I watched episode 36 of Robotech on Netflix this afternoon. It had a crazy ending (would Rick choose to stay with Min Mei and settle down or join Lisa on her quest to track down the enemy planet?) and we wanted to find out what happened to Rick Hunter and then…episode 37 is 15 years down the road and everything looks funky (different animation style that includes Precious Moments-scale heads and feudal MechWarrior-esque Veritech).
Robotech, in its U.S. form, is actually a combination of three anime series. Episode 36 marks the end of the Macross Saga. Episode 37 is a clip show to try and bridge the gap.
The big question, Mike: Are episodes 38-85 worth watching?
We are indeed back from California and this is indeed mega. We drove the whole way. On the way there we saw scenic Blythe and on the way back we enjoyed the lovely town of Yuma. Okay, so the drive is nothing compared to Flagstaff, Logan, or Billings, but we still had fun.
My wife lined us up with a hotel right across the street from Disneyland, which was awesome. All we had to do each night was escape Main Street and the bleeping turnstiles (not an expletive – the turnstiles do bleep) and totally skip the Happiest Traffic Jam on Earth. I also know that I have what it takes to make the trek into Mordor. I was able to carry 30 pounds worth of lembas in my backpack while hefting an exhausted hobbit over my shoulder (substitute the One Ring for pink princess Minnie ears).
So, the moment Mike has been waiting for: the new Star Tours.
It was awesome.
Okay, moving on.
Just kidding. The ride was great, although not as random as I thought. The beginning and end set up a storyline that a Rebel spy has stowed away on the Starspeeder 1000. The middle is random. Driving to California, I told my wife that the one storyline that I didn’t want to see was our ship being involved in a podrace in the Boonta Eve Classic.
You guessed it. My first time riding Star Tours, our 40-passenger ship traded paint with Sebulba and his podracing rivals, throwing all sense of scale out the window. But our last night in Disneyland we rode it again and made our way to Kashyyyk where stormtroopers spiraled into trees and a Wookiee faceplanted onto our windshield in a vaguely Garfield-esque manner.
The way that the ride incorporates members of the audience into the story is great and I don’t want to ruin the surprise. The storyline is protecting a spy. It’s not blowing up the Death Star. Fans of the Rogue Squadron novels will like the “not everyone in the galaxy is a Jedi, folks” aspect. Waiting in line has been updated, too. The repair bay droids now scan luggage instead and have a cool thermal effect on a big screen TV that uses current video from the line. I also found out that the REX droid from the original ride must have had a jacked vocabulator, because the REX in the pre-boarding video sounds like a leading man from a 1930s space serial. Ralraa, you’re not alone in your Star Wars speech impediments. Most of the line was indoors and, at the very least, involved listening to Star Wars music while chatting with friends. Not a bad way to spend my time.
My oldest got to be a part of the Jedi Academy (thanks, in part, to Auntie Tina jumping up and down yelling, “Pick her! Pick her!”) and my wife was savvy enough to stick around after the Princess Faire to give my youngest a chance to hang out with Cinderella and Snow White.
It’s a weird thing to pray for as a dad, that your oldest would get chosen to go on stage and swing a flashlight around, but if you know my daughter’s heart, you’d understand. And check out my youngest’s face in the Cinderella photo. Yep, she’s excited.
Another really cool ride is the Toy Story Mania ride. Now, this may not be new to you, but it’s been almost a decade since my wife and I had been to Disneyland/California Adventure. I thought I got a pretty good score. My wife beat it by 30,000 points.
131,200 was the high score for everyone on the ride to see (my youngest got 18,700). I shall now sulk with Hamm the sarcastic bank.
My oldest and I do look pretty cool in 3D glasses, though.
World of Color
When I heard this “attraction” advertised to me, I pictured the old Sparklett’s water display that was a bunch of high-powered drinking fountains and some gel lights. World of Color sounded like something my grandma would enjoy, like how she always stopped for an hour to take pictures of the flowers at the Disneyland entrance.
I was pleasantly surprised with World of Color. It’s definitely something that you have to see at least once in your lifetime. Colors of the Wind was not predictably included in the soundtrack medley, which was pleasantly surprising.
We did get to meet a lot of characters. Any other place on Earth and they would just be twenty-somethings trying to pay off their student loans, but in Disneyland we ask for their autographs.
Sea World and the San Diego Zoo were perfectly timed in that the weather started getting warmer, so we were able to choose more of where to go without standing in line too much. Sea World and the San Diego Zoo also have different approaches to conservation. At Sea World, we were told multiple times that we (an inclusive “we” that clumps in whales, otters, sea gulls) are all part of the same family. The zoo told us that humans are the only species with the ability to enjoy and protect every other species on the planet. The zoo is definitely more my approach and didn’t leave me wondering why dolphins never attend our family reunions. [insert your own "So Long and Thanks for All the Fish" joke here]
Sea World and the San Diego Zoo are best recalled in photos, so here comes the blast (from Sea World, since the only picture from the zoo that you can’t see in Phoenix is yesterday’s panda):
I swear that beluga was smiling at me. I put my hand up to the glass and knew that he would swim to it. It was a weird connection.
I’m a storyline person, especially when it comes to rides. I tried really, really hard to follow the story on Sea World’s Atlantis ride. From what I can tell, Neptune is peeved that humans are polluting and he throws us around a lot. As we’re put in an aquarium and shot into the air, a humpback whale, an orca, and a blue whale realize that we have kindness in our hearts and break the glass in the aquarium in the sky and send us splashing to the ground.
That’s my best guess. I’m now going to Google it.
The ride cobbles together a disjointed “story” through several ride element “scenes.” Ride narrative played on speakers mounted throughout the ride provides prelude to the next ride element. While the audio was clear, the distraction of the ride and the music made it hard to understand everything that was said; nor could this reviewer find any cohesive story arc after several rides.
Yep. That about sums it up. At least with Splash Mountain I could figure out that Brer Fox was trying to catch Brer Rabbit – and that there’s bees!!! Tons of fun, though. If the desired outcome was wetness, that was accomplished. It made for a great night of showering up and having dinner in the hotel lobby, which is next to a beach and we didn’t have to drive anywhere.
We had a great time as a family, both immediate and extended. The Netflix Project helped. It also has me eyeing Disney Universe…
We finish up our series of Disney History posts with 101 Dalmatians (yes, it’s -an, not -on).
It’s Buena Vista and not RKO. It’s also based on a book
This is the beginning of that rougher look of the 1960s cartoons, and here’s why: Xerox. In order to draw those complex scenes with all those dogs and all those dots, the animators Xeroxed much of the movie. That style and technique stuck until computers started being used. All of the vehicles are live action that have been traced.
On the topic of Xeroxing: Lady, Peg, that bulldog, and Jock all show up in one quick scene. At first I thought that it might be a cool “this story is happening at the same time as 101 Dalmatians“, but then the timelines don’t fit. A headline on a newspaper Roger is reading says “Carlsen speaks”, which is from an accident in 1952. Jim Dear and company are from the early 1900s.
Another interesting collision of worlds: Jasper and the Colonel come face to face at the end. What’s funny is that Pat O’Malley voiced both characters.
The DVD DOES have a Disney channel kid singing the Big Song. What’s funny is that, for a movie about a guy who writes music, there are only two songs in the film. One song is “Dalmatian Plantation” (and I won’t make any snarky comments about how long it took Roger to come up with that rhyme) and the other is “Cruella DeVil“:
Yep. Selena Gomez. Is it bad that I miss the Jonas Brothers?
What was my youngest’s favorite part? When the puppies hid their spots in the dirt.
My oldest’s favorite part? The bark network.
My wife’s? When Roger writes the Cruella song and then plays it sarcastically when she shows up. (That is pretty funny.)
Mine? I thought a story of a writer and a musician living together was rather delightful.
Well, as Netflix DVD Doomsday approaches, I’m glad that we went out swinging. For those that have known me for a long time, the following should catch your attention.
I think I’m actually a fan of Disney.
One factor heavily swaying my opinion is the prospect of taking my daughters to Disneyland. Another huge factor is that one of my old roommates now is one of their animators (woohoo, Tom! Try and work a Red Ox (or, even better, Mike’s EggMan) into the next movie).
I still think it’s shady that Walt Disney put the people organizing a Disney labor strike in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee. The watering down of stories also bugs me.
But as I create, I now understand why Disney protects their intellectual property so rigidly. Yes, there’s obvious moneymaking, but there’s also a desire for Walt’s artistic intentions to be preserved.
Today I came across this cartoon tribute from 1966 when Walt died of cancer:
Storybook opening, once again, although this time the movie was distributed by Buena Vista and not RKO. This was one of the first signs of Disney becoming the mega-empire (that and, you know, the land named after Disney). The song at the beginning is not the goofy 1950s crooners; it’s now an actual bard. The first lines are not the first lines of The Once and Future King (“On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays it was Court Hand and Summulae Logicales…” That wouldn’t have been a toe-tapper.)
The songs do become the catchier jingle style that the 60s had for Disney. You can thank the Sherman brothers for that. They also worked on Jungle Book, Mary Poppins and Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree (“I’m just a little black rain cloud…”) They’re the 1960s version of Alan Menken.
BUT ALAN MENKEN DIDN’T WRITE “IT’S A SMALL WORLD”.
SURRENDER YOUR BRAIN TO THE SHERMAN BROTHERS.
They introduced leitmotifs into Disney movies. Every time Mary Poppins shows up, a strand of instrumental “Spoonful of Sugar” plays. In The Sword in the Stone, you hear traces of the packing song (“Higitus Figitus“) when Merlin’s doing his thing.
I still say Higitus Figitus sounds like “Everybody Wants to be a Cat” (check three minutes into the clip), but maybe that’s the John Williams syndrome. Every time I hear the Indiana Jones tank song, I hear the Separatist droid army song. At least it’s not as cookie cutter as Randy Newman (in this link he’s getting political and yet I can still sing “You’ve Got a Friend in Me”).
The DVD did not have a bonus feature of the Big Song. I can’t even name the Big Song, but my wife would like to see Ashley Tisdale try and sing “Mad Madam Mim“.
My oldest’s favorite part? The flirting squirrels.
My youngest’s? When Mim turns into a dragon.
My wife? The wizard battle, which is funny because her second favorite part is the moral that magic won’t solve your problems.
Mine? That Merlin said the books always get packed first. Finally, someone who understands my packing strategy.
I have to comment on the animation style. Even though it’s more Jungle Book/Aristocats (rougher edges than the 1950s), the attention to detail is awesome. Even when Merlin is a fish or a squirrel, it still looks like Merlin. Every little misplaced hair, every ruffle of fur, is very impressive. Robin Hood, why can’t you be more like Sword in the Stone? That’s how you do mythological-Britons-who-may-or-may-not-have-been-real-people-but-history-still-obsesses-over.
Through pretty extensive analysis, I’ve determined that the 1950s were a strong time for the Disney studio as compared to the 1970s. All of the RKO movies we’ve seen have been awesome, even if they all open with a cheezy choir singing.
Peter Pan breaks from the mold by not having an actual book open nor do the singers croon about the name of the main character. This time they’re singing “We Can Fly”, which is pretty fun.
Also in the beginning is a screen thanking the copyright holders, the Great Ormond Street Hospital. How cool is that? Give your copyright, which is worth quite a bit, to an organization that helps children. I want to be able to do that someday.
Let’s take a moment to honor Bill Thompson. He is another voice actor, much like Phil Harris and Ed Wynn, that is very recognizable. If you liked Jock in Lady and the Tramp, the White Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland, Hubert in Sleeping Beauty (Hubert?), or Smee, you’ve enjoyed the work of Bill Thompson.
Droopy Dog is Bill Thompson, too.
Bobby Driscoll is The Pan (in my mind, Hook is still the original). He’s also Jim Hawkins in Treasure Island and, more importantly, Johnny. You know, Johnny, the kid from Song of the South.
I’m still wrapping my brain around the physics of Never Land, which might be a futile endeavor. How is Peter Pan able to hold his own versus a rapier using only a dagger? Does he have enhanced reflexes from being part pixie? Has he trained for a very long time as an immortal? Is he Legolas’s cousin?
Still no Disney channel star singing the big song. Is “We Can Fly” the big song? That song’s on many sing-alongs. You know which song is not as featured? This one:
“Good. This should be most enlightening.”
Yeah, I don’t think “enlightening” and “Why is the Red Man Red?” can be uttered in the same sentence. Actually, I think I just did.
I appreciate that the story’s about Wendy, really. Boy and girl relationships run throughout the story and complicate things. I was talking to my friend, Andrew, today about growing up. He was told that he needed to wear shoes now that he’s out of college. I have the opposite thing going on with my basketball shorts. Maybe it’s because we’re both from the same hippie college, but if changing our fashion is the requirement for growing up, then I pass.
What were my family’s favorite parts of the movie?
My youngest liked how the crocodile’s eyes bounced to the rhythm of the clock. My oldest liked that but also thought it was cool that Mr. Darling recognized the pirate ship from a distant memory of youth (yeah, my daughter’s awesome).
My wife is more a fan of the slapstick. Every time Hook was dancing with the crocodile (“dancing with the crocodile” being a euphemism for “on the verge of being eaten by a mankiller”), she was cracking up.
I’m no better, though. My favorite part was the pirate singing and playing the concertina only to be shot nonchalantly by Captain Hook.
I won’t drag out an analysis of the plot or symbolism. You can Google that.
I will quote this comment from Martin Gardner:
As a check against the tendency to find too much intended symbolism in the Alice books, it is well to remember that when Carroll gave the manuscript of this poem to Tenniel for illustrating he offered the artist a choice of drawing a Carpenter,a Butterfly or a Baronet. Each word fit the rhyme scheme and Carroll had no preference as far as the nonsense was concerned. Tenniel chose the carpenter.
I will give my two wacked-out cents/sense (see? I can wordplay, too!) about the art. My oldest and I appreciated that the English countryside is very detailed, down to the blades of grass, so that Wonderland has a stark contrast of screensaver-ish proportions. (She noticed the details. I don’t think she knows what a screensaver is (flying toasters had lyrics?).)
I classify Disney songs in one of two categories: radio friendly and not. “A Whole New World“? Radio friendly. “The Morning Report“? Not. (Pull up to a stop light blasting that. You’ll see what I mean.)
Alice in Wonderland‘s title song sounds a lot like Cinderella’s, which makes sense since Cinderella is 1950 and Alice in Wonderland is 1951. Have you ever sat through the opening credits of these movies?
“Cinderella/She’s as lovely as a breeze”
or however that song goes.
Alice in Wonderland is the same.
“Alice/in Wonderland”
but what makes it more awkward is that they try and rhyme everything with Wonderland…underland…blunderland.
I have also determined that any song Alice sings is not going to see any airtime outside of the movie. Did you know that she sang? Me neither.
Disney songs also have a tendency to narrate character actions. Guess what the cards are doing during “Painting the Roses Red”. I’ll give you a hint: it isn’t doing their taxes. To be fair, most musicals and even Mozart’s operas narrated actions to death…literally.
Alice also is guilty of major foreshadowing. “If I ever have my own land, it will not make sense. It will be a wonderland.” My favorite line of hers is, “This is the stupidest tea party ever.” I thought that was gutsy for 1951.
Disney first started working on the film in 1933, so you can see it took the studio a while. They said it was tough capturing the episodic style of each section of the books into one coherent movie. I can see that.
There is no Disney channel heart throb singing “Very Merry Unbirthday”, which made me kinda sad, but there was a deleted scene of the Duchess and the Psycho Baby. The artwork matched the first edition of the book, with the insanely disproportioned heads. So scary.
The Cheshire cat in the theatrical release sings part of “Jabberwocky”. That decision cut his original song, “I’m Odd”, out of the picture. BUT THANKS TO THE HEROIC EFFORTS OF THE VAULT DWELLER (is this Disney or Fallout?), the sheet music was discovered. Enjoy it in all its Haunted Mansion-esque glory.
My oldest’s favorite part of the movie? The Mad Tea Party (hold your Bachmann jokes, please) song. My wife loves the visual gags connected to the wordplay, like the actual half a cup of tea.
My youngest? The “cat who smiles in the moon”. I had to ask her to limit her answer. Initially she said she liked Mickey swing dancing with the queen, which is a part of an old cartoon included on the DVD.
My favorite part? When the cards number off and 1-10 and then there’s a random yell of, “Jack!” I also find it funny that the guy who voiced the King of Hearts is named Dink (you know, because the king is bossed around and everything). I also recognized Pat O’Malley (from Jungle Book), James Macdonald (every Disney mouse other than Mickey), and Don Barclay (the Guy Who Gets Kicked Around in Every Movie).
But who could miss Ed Wynn? That guy’s voice is so cool. Only one guy could play Dr. Dussel, Uncle Albert, and the Mad Hatter.
That’s how you do it, Disney!
They followed up Snow White with Pinocchio. They enlisted the talent of Mel Blanc (the voice of the donkeys) and the ukulele-wielding Cliff Edwards (as the singing cricket).
The storybook opening is the same as the others. What’s cool is one of the storybooks is Alice in Wonderland, which wouldn’t come out for another decade. Disney prioritized Three Caballeros. How do you win a war? With singing birds. And guns.
The animation is beautiful. The only parts that date it are the schools of fish and the Blue Fairy’s face. Her very diminished facial features are similar to Snow White’s. One of the really cool parts, though, is that the animators drew the Blue Fairy without the telltale black outline that the other characters have.
Geppetto is so steampunk. His tinkering with gears and THE BLUNDERBUSS HE KEEPS UNDER HIS PILLOW give it away. I also love his clocks that depict various stages of animal death.
My wife’s favorite part? Any time Jiminy Cricket sings. A close second are the clocks.
My oldest’s? The tiny fish that follows Jiminy when he’s underwater. My youngest’s? Cleo the goldfish dancing with Figaro the kitten.
My favorite part? The existential analysis of what it means to be human.
Yeah, you heard me.
Jiminy is not sure about a puppet gaining life. “A lovely thought, but not at all practical.” Yep. Life is not practical. God could have very well existed on his own but created some very impractical works of art. Jiminy describes himself as “the still, small voice that no one listens to” with the purpose of guiding people “along the straight and narrow path”.
Jiminy is definitely not deity, though, unless you count some very Zeus-ish tendencies. Every single chance he gets, he tries to hook up with a girl. If he hadn’t been trying to get with a clock, he might have noticed the boy made of wood sticking his finger in a fire. Can a conscience have a conscience? Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
The DVD started out with an anti-smoking ad. Watch the movie. Count how many times Pinocchio, a donkey-boy, a fish, a cricket, or a whale inhale tobacco. Heck, they even have Tobacco Row on Pleasure Island.
Like with all the special editions, the Big Song is sung by a Disney channel puppet.
This time, the Big Song is THE BIG SONG. You know, the one they play every time the Disney logo shows up? The one they’ve played for decades?
They had Meaghan Jette Martin sing it. The autotune fits the whole automaton theme.
Watching this video made me wonder if Robin Hood had a music video. Do I want to wait another Netflix DVD cycle to find out? No.
We finished our comedies, like The Office and 30 Rock. We’ve watched all of Friday Night Lights (“we” being “my wife watching and me falling asleep on the couch”) and Veronica Mars. We watched Lie to Me and loved it. We were looking for another show and decided to forgo Netflix’s recommendation for dancing cows and instead go with our friends’ recommendations.
Multiple people have recommended psych. We’ve only watched the pilot so far, but already we’ve seen the cool attention to detail that Lie to Me and Veronica Mars boasted. It has the wacky person/straight-laced person, so we have some 30 Rock going on. If psych ever features a key character who plays football in Texas, we’re golden.
This afternoon we finally got around to watching the first Disney animated feature, Snow White.
Just like how Jungle Book looked like it was from the 60′s, this one is definitely the 30′s. Snow White looks like a 30′s Hollywood star and some of the animals looked Betty Boop-ish.
It’s a classic tale of obsession with beauty that leads you to hire a guy to cut out your stepdaughter’s heart and bring back the evidence in a conveniently-decorated box.
There’s an interesting blend of stop animation water in the wishing well (and the obvious storybook opening and closing).
The Big Song is covered on this DVD by Tiffany Thornton. (who?)
My oldest’s favorite part? When Dopey stood on Sneezy’s shoulders and danced with Snow White a la Sleeping Beauty.
An aside: Snow White sleeps more than Sleeping Beauty. She’s discovered in the dwarves’ house sleeping, much like Goldilocks, and then is encased in the glass coffin for her Sleeping Death. (The ornery dad part of me told the girls that when the dwarves killed the queen, that was the end of the movie. Roll credits. They were not happy with that ending. It helped that the movie faded out and defaulted to text to catch up the narrative.)
My youngest’s favorite part? The queen turning into a bad girl, with the spiky hands.
My wife’s? The pipe organ silly song:
Proof that my wife and I are meant for each other? Just like with Jungle Book, she stole my favorite part. You gotta love this song. It bring backs so many memories of walking around Disneyland. Add that to the Hobbit-esque dwarf hoedown, and it’s instant win.
So, I have to pick a new favorite part. I guess I’ll choose when the dwarves return from their Heigh Ho mine to see the lights on. Grumpy warns everyone to approach with caution. Listen to the guy. In a world where apples can kill you and princes feel free to hop over walls to stalk you at your only water source, some caution may be prudent.
I do love that the haunted forest is not really haunted but is really a fear-induced jazz daze montage. I also appreciate (in a “Wow. This is the 30′s and not the 50′s” sense) the vultures sweeping down to snack on the queen. Very grim, like the hunter getting tangled up in the vines at the end of Tarzan. Snow White does actually do more things than Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty. I’m definitely more of a Mulan and Rapunzel fan.
Call down an avalanche using a rocket? Yes, please.
Growing up, I enjoyed a healthy balance of Mr. Rogers, Sesame Street, and Die Hard. One of the deficient areas, though, was Disney movies.
Yes, I saw everything from the 80′s on, but some of the older ones I only saw once or twice and don’t remember that well. I know that I saw the 50th anniversary for Snow White in the theater because I won a coloring contest. All I remember was some dwarves running up a mountain and lightning.
As a family, we’ve decided to use the now annoyingly-priced DVD portion of Netflix to watch all of the Disney movies I don’t remember.
We started off the new bloggh series with The Jungle Book.
This one is representative of the 1960′s Disney movies (101 Dalmations, 1961; Sword in the Stone, 1963; Jungle Book, 1967). You can tell it has the 60′s influence by the shading of the cells and how the character designs have more stray lines. It’s also the 60′s because you have the vulture Fab Four.
It’s funny how distinct some of the voice actors are. You can hear characters from other Disney movies in the voices. Sterling Halloway played Kaa and Winnie the Pooh, as well as the Cheshire Cat and that Bob Newhart-ish mouse from The Aristocats. Phil Harris is Baloo and O’Malley from The Aristocats.
And then you have Clint Howard:
Baby Elephant, Roo
He’s been in 203 films. Most people know him as That Guy.
So, with each venture into Disney history, we’ll give you our family reactions.
My youngest’s favorite part? When the tiger claws the snake.
My oldest’s? When the snake falls and breaks his back.
I asked them separately, so this is proof that kids, in general, are inherently violent.
My wife’s favorite part? King Louie and the monkeys.
I agree with her. That’s my favorite part, too. “I Wanna Be Like You” is just so catchy.
King Louis Prima
Ooo bee doo
With every re-release of Disney movies “out of the vault” (imagine being that security guard. “I am willing to take a bullet for you, Song of the South. There is no way anyone’s taking you out of the vault. Over my zipadee-doo-dah dead body.”), the DVD has a music video of some Disney channel golem performing The Big Song.
And here, to ruin it all, are the Jonas Brothers:
If I had to pick a new favorite since my wife chose mine, I’d choose that stupid look Mowgli gives when The Girl (Check the cast. That’s her name.) goes all weird eyes on him.
To finish, let’s pause for a moment of silence for Ricky the Rhino, the dumb, blind animal that never made it past the storyboard:
“Hyuk. Hyuk. I will have my revenge.”
You can view what Netflix recommended to me in all its pretentious glory. “Mind-bending” means so many things to so many people, I guess. What you can barely see at the top of the photo brings a facepalm: “Like: Step Up 3″
One of the side effects of watching mainly Netflix (my only currently-aired show being So You Think You Can Dance (you wanna make something of it?)) is that any comment I make about a show is akin to *SPOILER ALERT: E.T. PHONES HOME*.
But the chance to draw Kim Cardassian was too entertaining to pass up:
Now, that joke has been done. Where I boldly go is The Latinum Situation:
Are the Kardashian-Jersey Dominion still influential? I’ve been a little out of it. (Refer back to the whole Netflix Paradox.)
Click on the thumbnails if your eyes can sustain the damage from zooming in. The same caution can be applied to the new Weird Al video. So disturbing, so true, so hilarious.
Yep. That’s Weird Al.
A special thanks goes to my in-laws. My birthday gift was perfect. I like to write. (You may have picked up on that.) I was looking unrealistically at a Macbook Air because it has the instant-on/long sleep feature. I could write and not have to wait for a long boot.
You know what? My new technique boots even faster:
When I chatted with Mike Lupica, he said his biggest technology was a really nice pen. The slightly-Thernadier thing about being a librarian is that students lose really nice pens all the time. (I swear I don’t go too “Master of the House” on them.) Lupica writes most of his drafts on a big legal pad. Christopher Paul Curtis, author of The Watsons go to Birmingham, wrote his first novel on a legal pad in the public library.
I found that when I sat down to start a short story this week, I cranked out a thousand words pretty quickly. It’s funny how distractions decrease on a piece of yellow paper compared to a computer screen. The only distractions are the myriad of other ideas zipping through my brain. For those, I write them down:
The Apple Dapples thing was going to be an LL Cool J-esque rap:
When I say “Apple”, you say “Dapple”/ Hey-o!
but, even though generic breakfast cereals have a very limited budget for advertising, I’m going to keep that one for myself.
In April, old CBS shows will be streaming on Netflix. That means The Twilight Zone and the original Star Trek. (We’ll also be seeing Cheers and Family Ties.)
In December, ABC/Disney made a deal with Netflix for more content. I don’t know if you noticed the influx of made-for-Disney channel content, but that’s why. Side note: is it just me, or is every single show that’s made for ABC Family not something that I want my family watching?
Yesterday started with my oldest saying, “You’re like The Tick. You’re strong and you’re silly.”
That made me feel pretty cool.
My wife later in the day had me pick the oranges off our tree (yes, it’s a tree and not a slightly zealous shrubbery).
My youngest and a Wookiee chieftain for size comparison.
My wife’s reaction?
“The fruits of Kashyyyk are like that of the Promised Land!”
Yeah. Just take a moment and bask in the many layers of why she’s perfect for me.
(Also of note: last year it was right around this time that we picked THE orange.)
As I got the kids ready for bed, I wore a pair of pants on my head (does it surprise you? No. I didn’t think so.) and tried to do my best Gungan impersonation.
Instead, my youngest said, “Hey! You’re Ahsoka.”
And that’s when I realized:
Today I woke up remembering a dream from last night where I had to organize 80 (why not 100, I don’t know) Kindergarten through 3rd graders and I only had three helpers. The helpers weren’t really help (they all taught at the high school I long-term subbed at)(oh, and they only would sing the Yale fight song at the top of their lungs) and when we got to our destination, the auditorium, the show had started, we couldn’t see the stage (it was literally blocked by a section of seats), and I hadn’t had a chance to go to the bathroom.
It was then that I realized that the field trip for the elementary kids was to go see The Crucible.
Yeah. 2010 was weird. I still stand by my predictions from last year.
Here’s what it looked like from a Most Frequently Used Words on the Bloggh perspective (the larger the font, the more frequently used):
It doesn’t do justice to some of the big events:
but it does challenge me to use more words than “Check this out” or “just” or “get/got”, although this is my relax bloggh so you won’t “see” me writing:
I have obtained the next DVD from Netflix.
Words that are pretty funny for the bloggh: If you think that I talk about “Wars” a lot, remember that it’s usually connected to “Star”. Also notice that “Sarlacc” is the same size as “Netflix”.
The visualization was made on Wordle. Go SEE it here.
You can now download the Netflix channel to your Wii or PS3. (This was something the 360 had but for whatever mystical reasons (there are dark rumors of espionage and betrayal) had been missing from the other systems.)
I gifted the channel to some people that I thought might like it. It’s free to anyone; I just gifted it because it’s really easy to download then (like sending you a link, but with an Italian plumber hitting his head against bricks).
Tonight’s parenting lesson: Don’t bring a towel to a gunfight.
My youngest likes to solve problems through automatic weapons provided by Mike, the world’s nicest arms dealer. How should I repay the favor?
Semi-unrelated: We’ve been watching Ducktales on Netflix. It’s not quite how I remember it (thanks, Slade).
My oldest left me a note, though. “My dad is as cool as a break-dancing sun.” That’s the best way to be welcomed home.