We'll Be Right Back Part 4

So we have covered some of the great cartoon advertisements of the 50's through 80's so far here in this week's discussion, but it would seem that cartoon advertisements on on the way down. While there certainly has been a decline over the years in animated spokespeople, I certainly don't think that they are in danger of disappearing. Not only are many of the animated characters from the past still around like Tony, Toucan Sam, Mr. Clean, etc., but companies continue to create new animated characters to sell their products.

Just look at ads for insurance:





And several pharmaceutical companies have animated characters in their ads:







While the trend seems to be a switch to computer animated characters over traditionally animated characters--sound familiar--I feel like the animated spokesman is not going anywhere any time soon. They could be used for this or this or this or this or...

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We'll Be Right Back Part 3

While breakfast cereal reigns supreme in the realm of cartoon advertisements, there are many products that feature popular cartoon spokesmen. Today we'll look at some of the most memorable and interesting characters from vintage television commercials.

Bucky Beaver
Though Bucky Beaver is iconic on his own--one of those characters who is synonymous with the product he advertised: Ipana Toothpaste--he is interesting to me for another reason. Many people, especially those who grew up when he was on the air, remember Bucky, and in the musical Grease they even parody his famous "brusha, brusha, brusha" song, but many people don't realize that Bucky Beaver is actually a Disney character.

Long forgotten by most, the Disney company had its own commercial production division back in the 1950's. One of the chief designers there was Tom Oreb, who designed Bucky and is most known at Disney--and in the animation community--as one of the people responsible for the "cartoon modern" style of animation popular in the 1950's. Most memorable from the cartoons of UPA, the style was implemented at Disney in 101 Dalmatians; Toot, Whistle, Plunk, and Boom; and even a strange looking Mickey Mouse:

Bucky Beaver, voiced by Jimmie Dodd (who also wrote that famous jingle), helped to make Ipana the most popular toothpaste in America, through the 1960's, although you wouldn't know it today.



Charlie Tuna
Like Tony the Tiger, Charlie the Tuna was created by the Leo Burnett Co., and gave way to a slogan that has become a part of the American vernacular. Starkist Tuna's "Sorry Charlie" has been referenced in countless TV shows and movies. Charlie is also a remarkably fun character, kind of an early hipster in his fishing hat and horn-rimed glasses. Charlie was voiced by popular stage actor Herschel Bernardi and animated by DePatie -Freleng, who you may remember as creating the Pink Panther and animating some Looney Tunes and Dr. Seuss specials.



Mr. Clean
Proctor and Gamble's Mr. Clean character first appeared in 1958 and has become an icon in advertising over the years. I really only mention him because in recent appearances, the use of CG animation has made him look weird.



Also, I'm pretty sure he's gay, and I don't have anyone on this list that is yet, so I thought I'd diversify.

These are some of my favorites because they have interesting animators, histories, or sexual preferences, but if these aren't enough for you, you may want to revisit the Keebler Elves or the Jolly Green Giant. (Also all gay.)

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We'll Be Right Back Part 2

Today in our look into the world of cartoon commercials we are gong to cover the market that started it all: Breakfast Cereal, specifically, breakfast cereal aimed at children. "Can't get enuffa that Golden Crisp...," "Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs," "Follow your nose," "Theeeeey're GRRREAT!" The slogans for these products are an advertiser's dream. Not only are they memorable, they have etched themselves in the stone of pop culture, but how did it all get started?

Most companies were sponsors of radio programs throughout the thirties and forties, but as the medium of television grew in popularity, advertisers decided to follow the market. When they made this switch, they decided that animated forms of advertising would reach children best because children were already watching cartoons. Post Sugar Crisp cereal spent a great deal of money to have Bill Tytla create an ad for them in 1949. You might remember Bill Tytla from his work on this or this or this. The ad quickly became a phenomenon with children repeating the slogan and talking about the ad featuring the three bears on playgrounds all over America. And the landscape of Saturday morning television would never be the same.

Let us visit now some of the greatest animated cereal spokesmen past and present.

Franken Berry and Count Chocula
A part of General Mills "monster breakfast cereal" line, these guys first appeared in 1971, and were later followed by Boo Berry and Fruit Brute.


Snap, Crackle, and Pop
These guys started out as radio characters and are supposed to be old gnomes of some kind. When they became animated children's characters, they were aged down of course. Here's an old ad featuring these guys:


Sugar Bear
First appeared in the sixties to advertise Post Sugar Crisp Cereal, which later became Golden Crisp. His voice was originally an impression of Dean Martin, and into the nineties he became even more of a hipster, what with his ironic love of cereal.


Sonny the Cuckoo Bird
Originally created in 1964, this manic bird is constantly trying to do things that with take his attention off his addiction to Cocoa Puffs. Here's one such instance from the early eighties.


Trix Rabbit
For the love of Christ, it's been 57 years since this guy first appeared to advertise Trix, can we please let this guys have some cereal?


Toucan Sam
What a terrific character. I remember begging my mom to buy me the cereal with a cut-out of Sam's nose on the back. All you had to supply was your own rubber band to tie to it, and you could "Follow your nose" just like Sam. Originally voiced by Mel Blanc when he appeared in 1963, he was later replaced by Paul Frees to give him a high class English accent. Currently he is voiced by Maurice LaMarche.

Mel Blanc


Paul Frees


Maurice LaMarche


Tony the Tiger
In 1952 an ad man at the Leo Burnett Co. named Eugene Kolkey, was set with the task of creating a new character to advertise a new cereal from the Kellogg's account called Kellogg's Sugar Frosted Flakes. What he created was possibly the best known and most beloved cartoon spokesman of all time: Tony the Tiger. Full disclosure, I may be a bit biased, as Tony was voiced for 5 decades by Thurl Ravenscroft--a man who inspired me and is one of the reasons I wanted to be a voice actor. I have a little Tony toy sitting on my desk right now. Although Thurl's depiction of Tony s the most recognizable, Thurl wasn'tthe original voice of Tony. He was originally voiced by brilliant character actor Dallas McKennon, who is known for many things--not the least of which is his safety spiel on the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad at Disney Theme Parks. When Thurl passed away in 2005, he was replaced by veteran announcer Lee Marshall.

Tony is still going strong today, although over the years he has changed in appearance from a simple cartoony tiger, to a more brawny, extreme sports athlete. He's appeared with many celebs in commercials--both animated and live action alike. Here's a little retrospective on Tony's career that I think is pretty good.

Good? It's GGGGRRRRREEEEAAAT!















There are far too many cereal spokespeople to cover in just one post, But Tony, Sam, Sonny and the rest are stand-outs. But just in case you haven't had enough, maybe you remember Lucky the Leprechaun, Buzz Bee, Dig 'Em Frog, etc., etc., etc.

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We'll Be Right Back Part 1

This week’s Cartoon Guru is sponsored by...Commercials! I am one of the few fans of cartoons who really enjoys the cartoon spokesmen of commercials. Now of course there are famous cartoon characters who also did commercials, but I am talking about those members of Cartoondom whose entire source of fame is commercials. Characters like Tony the Tiger, Charlie Tuna, Toucan Sam, and others.

I was speaking with the head of the ASIFA Hollywood’s Animation Archive Steve Worth a couple of weeks ago, and he has a huge collection of animation artwork from commercials because he happens to like them a lot as well. And back when he was collecting them people thought he was crazy. While other people were paying top dollar for artwork from the Disney features or Looney Tunes, he was purchasing Cap’n Crunch, the Jolly Green Giant, and more. I thought that was so neat because I thought I was the only one with an affinity for these characters.

The first image ever broadcast was Felix the Cat, so television and cartoons have always had a special relationship, but cartoon commercials reigned supreme as the most iconic advertising spokespeople for many years. The first cartoon commercial was broadcast in September 1941, when barely 5000 TV sets were in homes. The cartoon character The Botany Lamb was produced to promote Botany Mills ties. Though seven spots were produced for this original campaign, the character its self lasted through 1948.

As television caught on across the country more companies and advertisers went the way of cartoon advertising. Unlike with radio, images could be used to sell products, and these cartoon shorts were not only visually stimulating, but they could also allow spokespeople to do anything that could be imagined. Though the work was not theatrical quality animation, many of these ads had budgets ranging from $3,000 to $5,000. This was top money for the time and was used to attract top talents like Jay Ward and even Disney, and voiced by the greatest in the business like Paul Frees and June Foray. Art Babbitt, who created Goofy, and Grim Natwick, who created Betty Boop and is widely respected as one of the greatest animators of all time, both animated the Ajax Elves:

Over the years, the number of advertisers who used cartoon characters to sell products expanded astoundingly. Coke, Sprite, Plymouth, De Soto, Tide, Alka Seltzer, Skippy Peanut Butter, and all manner of breakfast cereals were just a few of the most popular advertisements. Recently, however, the trend has been to move away from animated characters focusing on live-action comedy or special effects.

But these animated commercial characters have become an indelible part of the collective consciousness. Ask anyone you know, and everyone will know where the Keebler Elves live or what you go for Cocoa Puffs. Part of the reason that these characters are so etched in our brains is the nature of the medium of advertising. Cartoons used for advertising are unique because they appear onscreen for a minute or two at the most. Because of this small window of time, they have to be as packed with entertainment and information as they can. The massive volume of commercials that you see also plays a part, as each needs to be as unique and captivating as possible. Also, you often see the same commercial many times before it is replaced with another spot.

And it isn’t just the information, it's also the way in which the information is presented to you. Cartoons utilize sight and sound, but in a way that is different from watching a TV show or an animated feature or short at the movies. In these little snippets, you are not meant to just react to what you see, but participate. These lovable characters ask you to go out and buy their products and then use (eat, play with, clean with, etc.) what you bought. They encourage you to be a full player in their world. This complete “sensory inclusion” makes cartoon commercials an unforgettable part of a television experience, and seeing them as a child adds an element of nostalgia as well.

Though some of the cartoon advertisements no longer fit in to what society finds acceptable to be on television, like animated Kool Cigarettes ads or Hamm’s Beer ads featuring the Beer Bear, most of these cartoon characters are funny, charming, or have otherwise won their way into our hearts. So this week on the Cartoon Guru, I am going to pay tribute to some of these great characters. We’ll get back to your regularly scheduled Cartoon Guru after these messages.

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A New Segment

I have decided to institute a new segment on the blog spotlighting voice actors. Not only am I a voice actor myself, but of the many blogs out there about cartoons and animation, few of them pay tribute to the great voice actors in animation. So I am creating a segment that I'm calling: Voice Actor Vridays. (I know it's dumb, but when you have your own animation blog, you can name segments whatever you want.)

To kick off the segment I think it is only appropriate that I showcase possibly the most famous and most respected voice actor of all time. This is a man whose resume reads like a who's who of the most beloved cartoon characters of all time; a man whose name is synonymous with cartoon voices. I'm speaking, of course, of Mel Blanc. So well known is he, in fact, that when I tell people outside of the industry that I do voice over, the first response is usually, "Oh, you mean like Mel Blanc?" The voice of characters like Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Pepe Le Pew, Porky Pig, Sylvester, Tweety, Barney Rubble, Mr. Spacely, Heathcliff, Woody Woodpecker, Foghorn Leghorn, Yosemite Sam, Marvin the Martian, and Private Snafu to name a few, it's hard to find a cartoon from animation's golden age without Mel Blanc's voice in it somewhere.

Mel Blanc was born in 1908, San Francisco, California. From an early age, Mel was interested in music and taught himself to play the sousaphone, the violin and the bass. He parlayed this into a career as a radio musician, and while working on a radio program called The Hoot Owls, he began making regular appearances as various characters on the program. Then in 1933 he was given the opportunity to host his own radio show in Portland called the Cobweb and Nuts Show. The budget for the show was so limited that he had to provide the voices for most of the characters himself, and it was here that he began perfecting the skills that would make him famous.

Throughout the thirties, Mel freelanced on radio programs all over Los Angeles. He became very popular on the Jack Benny program, and one of his most famous characters was a shy Mexican character named Sy. Here is a version of that routine recreated for the Jack Benny television Show:

In 1937, Leon Schlessinger hired Mel to provide voices for the Warner Bros. cartoons. This was to be the beginning of a very long and fruitful relationship. Being well known for his hiccupping drunk character, he was to provide the voice of a drunken bull in the cartoon Picador Porky. Then he took over as the voice of Porky and originated Daffy Duck in Porky’s Duck Hunt.

Blanc continued working with Warner Bros for the next fifty years, and also with Universal and Hanna-Barbera. He even did a voice for Disney in Pinocchio as Gideon the cat, which Walt later decided would be funnier as a mute character, so all that remains of that performance are the drunken hiccups. People have speculated over the years that this caused a rift with Disney, and that Mel refused to do any voices for Disney after that, which is not true. Blanc was a regular on the Disney radio program and can be heard as Uncle Orville and the pet bird on the Carousel of Progress attraction at Walt Disney World.

Despite his many characterizations over the years, no character was more beloved or more endearing than a quick-witted, carrot-chomping gray rabbit named Bugs Bunny. That was never more evident than in 1961, when Mel was in a terrible car accident that nearly killed him and put him in a coma for three weeks. Thousands of get-well cards poured in from saddened fans from all over the world, many of which were addressed only to “Bugs Bunny, Hollywood, USA,” according to Mel’s autobiography. Though things looked bleak, one doctor had a bit of inspiration. The doctor walked to Mel’s bedside and asked, “How are you today, Bugs Bunny?” Eyes still closed, Blanc answered feebly in Bugs’ voice, “Okay, Doc.” Blanc thus credited Bugs with saving his life.

Mel Blanc died in 1989 leaving a legacy of characters that millions of people have enjoyed over the years. His tombstone in Hollywood Forever Cemetery appropriately reads, “That’s All Folks.”

And here I leave you with a clip of Mel on Johnny Carson describing how he creates some of his characters:

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Cartoon Music Part 5

To close out our week of music I leave you with two of the greatest animated tributes to music. The first is a highly stylized and delightful short called Toot, Whistle Plunk, and Boom, a part of the educational Adventures in Music Series. The short won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short in 1984. This one is directed by Ward Kimball is is very indicative of his more stylized and less realistic cartooning approach.



The second is a featurette produced by Disney in 1962 called A Symposium on Popular Songs. As you know, Ludwig Von Drake is one of my favorite cartoon characters of all time--probably in the top three. This featurette is written by X Atencio, starring Paul Frees as Ludwig Von Drake, music by the Sherman Brothers, and directed by Bill Justice. It's as if they made it just for me.

The featurette was nominated for and a Academy Award for Best Animated Short, and features some really great original songs that both parody and pay tribute to 20th century music.

Enjoy.





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Cartoon Music Part 4

Today is a tribute to cartoon music in television. This is a category that is far too big for me to cover in post, so I'm sure I will miss something. If there's a particular song or show that you would like to recognize, please post it in the comments.

Television animation is rife with music. There are many shows in which the music is almost a character in the show, such as Animaniacs. The writers and performers were lucky on this show. Since the entire Warner Bros. orchestra was sitting around with not much to do, the show was given access to them. As such, Animaniacs features tons of musical numbers and is underscored nearly every second. Here's one of my favorite musical numbers from the show:

Now the music in Animaniacs ranged from "educational" like this one or "The Presidents Song" or "50 US Capitals" to completely silly and ridiculous like "The Monkey Song."

But when it comes to educational musical television, the grandaddy of them all is Schoolhouse Rock! Animated segments that teach children all about things from grammar to math to political science. This one is probably the most iconic, and one of my favorites:


Partially I like it because it features jazz man and comedian Jack Sheldon, who you you might also remember as Louie the Lightning Bug on the old safety PSAs from the eighties.



You'd also be remiss in not mentioning The Simpsons for their contribution to animated television music. Alf Clausen and his orchestra have related many memorable songs for the show, but this one is my favorite. The last couple of seconds is probably my favorite moment in Simpsons history.


That is not do discount numbers like "The Stonecutters' Song," "See My Vest," or the musical version of Planet of the Apes.

Spongebob Squarepants also has some great Musical moments. Tom Kenny and the Andy Paley orchestra are great with coming up with wacky little songs for the show. Though this is not one of the original songs, here is a great one:



But You might also enjoy "The Ripped Pants Song" or "The Campfire Song."

And, of course, we cannot talk about television animation's music without talking about theme songs. I love theme songs. I have over 7 hours of theme songs in a playlist on my iTunes right now. They are so silly and fun. A little weird party trick I can do is to sing the them song to any show you can name. I have been tested, and always pass. But animated series tend to have really great theme songs especially. Here's a little playlist of some of the best from the 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's, and 90's.

I leave you with the theme song to my favorite animated TV series of all time. But as I said at the beginning, if there is anything that has been left off that you think should be included in a TV Cartoon Music post, please post it in the comments or over at the Facebook Page.

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Cartoon Music Part 3

Last week I talked about musical numbers in animated features using very strict guidelines for what constituted the list. I used more musical theatre standards for what a musical number is than film standards. So for today's post, I would like to include some feature animation sequences that couldn't necessarily fit into last week's list.

"The Sorcerer's Apprentice" from Fantasia

This is the mother of all musical animated features. I chose "Sorcerer's Apprentice" to showcase because it is quite nice and one of the few Mickey Mouse cartoons I actually like. But it could just as easily have been "Dance of the Hours" or "Night on Bald Mountain."

"Rhapsody in Blue" from Fantasia 2000

While we're talking about Fantasia, I might as well mention Fantasia 2000. On the whole, not a terribly great movie, but this sequence by Eric Goldberg based on the work of his hero Al Hirschfeld is quite brilliant. It's probably one of my favorites. Love the song, love the animation, love Hirschfeld. This one is right up my alley.

"The Circle of Life" from The Lion King

Technically probably fits more into the other category, but it didn't follow the rules of the other list, so I'll include it here.

"Pink Elephants on Parade" from Dumbo

Here's a nice little psychedelic piece from Dumbo. You either love this piece or you hate it. I personally think it's pretty cool.

Yellow Submarine

How could we mention psychedelia without this piece. I almost broke my rules last week and put this one on the other list. Here is the film in its entirety because I couldn't decide which one was best to include.

"When She Loved Me" from Toy Story 2

I know everyone thinks that I hate Pixar--not true--and that I hate Toy Story--also, not true--but if this number doesn't leave you a little choked up, there's something the matter with you. This is a little short film on its own.

"Digga Tunnah" from The Lion King 1 1/2

This is not great, and it certainly doesn't belong on a top anything in animation, but I really like this freakin' song.

"Worthless" from The Brave Little Toaster

Again, probably belongs on the musical number list, but not in the top ten, though it's quite chilling, and pretty creepy to watch when you're a little kid.

I could keep going and going with these, but you'd be watching clips all day. Like I have been. The point is that in animated features, music and action go hand in hand a lot more than in live action. In live action music can overpower the scene or work against the scene. In animation, the music and action work together symbiotically more often than not. It's a really cool thing to watch.

Side note: I know this list seems a little Disney heavy, but quite frankly the animated feature genre is a little Disney heavy. There haven't been many heavy hitters in the American animated feature racket until the last 20 years or so. I try to be even handed with showings from production companies, but what are you going to do?

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Cartoon Music Part 2

The Great Carl Stalling

If you tried to write about the history of cartoon music without mentioning Carl Stalling, the huge gap in your timeline would make it look as though for many years there was no music in cartoons. Stalling is unquestionably the seminal cartoon musician creating some of the most iconic scores in animation history.

Carl Stalling was from Missouri and at the age of 12 he was the pianist at the local silent movie theatre. From there he moved on to conducting his own orchestra in Kansas City. It was here that he met a young Walt Disney when Walt was making the Laugh-o-Grams. After the success of the synchronized sound in Steamboat Willie, Walt persuaded Carl to come out to Hollywood to create the score for Plane Crazy and Gallopin' Gaucho.

There was always friction between Walt and Carl over which element should inform the other. Should the action inform the music, or should the music inform the action? In a compromise, Walt offered a series of cartoons that would be completely informed by the music called Silly Symphonies. Carl would create the scores for the Silly Symphonies and the animators would animate, while in the Mickey Mouse cartoons, the gag and story men would create the story and then Carl would compose a score. Very quickly, the Silly Symphonies became just as popular as the Mickey Mouse cartoons, and The Flowers and the Trees became the first animated short in color as well as the first animated short to win the Academy Award for best animated short film.

After a couple years at Disney, the friction between Walt and Carl became too much to handle, and Carl left the Disney Studio. After freelancing for a while, Leon Schlesinger hired him to work on the Warner Bros. cartoons, and he remained there for twenty-two years. While at Warner Bros. he would create some of the most iconic musical scores of all time indelibly associating various pieces of classical music with cartoons.

Though many people enjoyed his punny musical scoring, director Chuck Jones did not, saying, 'He was a brilliant musician. But the quickest way for him to write a musical score was to simply look up some music that had the proper name. If there was a lady dressed in red, he'd always play "The Lady in Red". If somebody went into a cave, he'd play "Fingal's Cave"...I had a bee one time, and my God, if he didn't go and find a piece of music written in 1906 or something called "I'm a Busy Little Bumble Bee".'

Here are just a few of the great musical gags and animation scores of the brilliant Carl Stalling:
For scenes at sea, the Spanish tune "Over the Waves"

For machinery, Raymond Scott's "Powerhouse"

For waking up, "Morning Mood"

For characters out driving, "In My Merry Oldsmobile"

For chase scenes, "The William Tell Overture"


Too many to include in one simple blog post. However, if you enjoy the work of Carl Stalling, check this out as well.

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Cartoon Music Part 1

Last week I did a top ten list of musical numbers in animated features, and it reminded me that one of my favorite aspects of cartoons is the use of music. So I decided to do a week-long tribute to music in cartoons.

Today, we'll start at the beginning. Picture it, the years is 1928, Walt Disney was in the process of bouncing back from a harsh business failure. His business partner Charles Mintz, in an attempt to take over the Disney Brothers' business, had signed over all of Disney's animators and snatched the popular character Oswald the Luck Rabbit. Mintz believed that he had Disney over a barrel and that Disney would be forced to come and work for him. However, he didn't count on Walt's drive and stubborness.

Walt along with his one loyal animator Ub Iwerks sat down to create a new character one that could replace Oswald. What they came up with was one of the most iconic characters of all time: Mickey Mouse. While the rest of the Disney studio ran out the Charles Mintz contract by work on the last few Oswald cartoons that Disney was contractually obligated to produce, Ub worked in a secret locked room on the new character. Ub had created the first two Mickey Mouse cartoons, when something happened to change the face of the entertainment medium. A film called The Jazz Singer starring Al Jolson was released.

While many studios believed that synchronized sound was a novelty and a fad that would pass, Walt decided that this was a huge opportunity to make his new character stand out. So the third Mickey Mouse cartoon was to be made with synchronized music and sound. After developing the process and finding a distributor, Mickey Mouse made his big screen debut on November 18, 1928 in Steamboat Willie.



The other silent Mickey Mouse cartoons Plane Crazy and The Gallopin' Gaucho were fitted with the new technology, and became a sensation. Since then music and sound have become an integral, if not crucial, part of cartoons, but this is the musical cartoon that started it all.

I would also like to remind you as you watch this of the genius of Ub Iwerks. This entire cartoon is drawn by Ub. Every. Single. Drawing. Pretty impressive if you ask me.

Check back in tomorrow as we continue the discussion of music in cartoons.

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Rango Review

I saw Gore Verbinski's and ILM's recent release Rango, the other day, and I am now getting around to my review. (I apologize for my absence this week. It has been a busy week filled with a voiceover audition for a two-year campaign, two pitch meetings for my own animated series, and my birthday.)

I must say, I really enjoyed this movie. I knew going in that it would probably like it, but I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would. First off all, I was really fascinated with the way in which the film was made, which you can read about in greater detail here. The process basically involved the cast getting on their feet to play act the script and then the animators would use the actors' performances as reference. In a world of the highly mechanical and fairly unartistic process of motion capture, this creative and and collaborative process really intrigued me.

As far as the animation goes, again I am no expert on the craft of animation, but ILM seems to have knocked it out of the park. The characters are very detailed--almost hyper-realistic--and yet they maintain an exaggerated, cartoonish quality.

The performances are pretty good. Johnny Depp does a fine job, but nothing to write home about. There's also a host of admirable performances from veteran character actors like Stephen Root, Alfred Molina, and Harry Dean Stanton. Abigail Breslin, gives a nice performance. And I even liked Bill Nighy's performance as Rattlesnake Jake, which is basically a weird sounding cowboy version of his Davy Jones from Pirates of the Caribbean. Although--full disclosure--you will be hard pressed to find me saying anything bad about Bill Nighy. I am still trying to get him to return my calls and let me pitch him my idea for a reality TV series called "Mike and Bill Nighy Are Best Friends and Go on Adventures." The only performance that is stand-out bad is Isla, man was she annoying and over-the-top.

Finally, the only real I have with the movie is the story. It is pretty formulaic, and you have seen a version of this story in Flushed Away, A Bug's Life, Three Amigos, etc. It's pretty weak and kind of hackneyed, and if the performances and animation weren't as good as they are, I probably would have hated it. But overall I left smiling and I got a few laughs, so all-in-all I think it's pretty solid.

Starting next week, inspired by the early post about musical numbers in animation, I am going to do a week long discussion of music in animation that I think you will enjoy. So be sure to check back.

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Top Ten Cartoon Musical Numbers

Yesterday, while doing some errand running, I set my i-pod to a playlist that I hadn't listened to a in a long time. One that has only animated movie soundtracks, cause I'm that freaking cool. There is some really fun music in these things and since I'm someone who--in addition to loving cartoons--also really enjoys musical theatre, I thought I'd share with you my top ten list of animated musical numbers.

This became a little more daunting than I thought it'd be because there are a lot of great musical numbers on television cartoons. Like this one from Animaniacs.

Then there are also musical sequences, but not necessarily musical numbers like "Pink Elephants on Parade" in Dumbo. Or anything from Yellow Submarine. So I decided to set some ground rules. First, these are songs from animated features only. And secondly, they are musical numbers sung by characters in the film, not music over an animated sequence. Is that confusing enough? Good. Here we go.

10 - "Oh, Ratigan" from The Great Mouse Detective.
This one is just really fun, and we've got Vincent Price singing lead. What's not to like?

9 - "Let's make Music Together" from All Dogs Go To Heaven
Another great number that is just a fun good time. And while there are several great songs from this movie, I've got to say that this is my favorite. I love the New Orleansy feel of it and the big soulful gay alligator.

8 - "Zip-a-dee-doo-dah" from Song of the South
Yes, the film is not racially sensitive, but this song and this number are iconic. Even has an attraction at Disneyland based on it.

7 - "An Actor's Life for Me" from Pinocchio
This is one of my favorite musical numbers, not for the song necessarily, but for the animation. Watch the way the multi-plane camera let's you move around and through the buildings on the street. You wouldn't notice it if it wasn't there, but because it is, it gives the scene this little touch of believability.

6 - "Why Don't You Do Right" from Who Framed Roger Rabbit
I don't really need to explain this one, do I?

5 - "Prince Ali" - from Aladdin
Really fun 11 o'clock number. Great performance by Robin Williams here. A huge crowd with animals, people, and a market to animate. Nice work all around from all artists involved with this one.

4 - "Jolly Holiday" from Mary Poppins
What can I say? I'd feel dumb if I didn't have a scene from Mary Poppins on here. And anytime there's people and cartoons performing together, I think that's cool.

3 - "Part of Your World" from The Little Mermaid
A lot of animators I know aren't really fans of this movie, but I think it's gorgeous. Ariel is one of the princess who saved the Disney company. Snow White, Cinderella, and Ariel all saved the Walt Disney Studios at one point or another. I think this movie is gorgeous. And while it's, again, not my favorite song from the movie, it illustrates the beauty of this film magnificently. Also, as you watch I want you to look for something. Glenn Keane gave a speech once where he talked about drawing that little wrinkle under her eye. That little line under her eye makes her so much more expressive. I think this movie and this number are both beautiful.

2 - "Help Yourself" from Anchors Aweigh
True, it's not an animated feature, but I made the rules, so I can break them. Ken Muse in this scene is able to make Jerry dance like Gene Kelly in perfect step. I think it's truly amazing. I've watched this scene dozens of times in my life, and I still can't wrap my brain around how it was done.

1 - "Belle" from Beauty and the Beast
I could easily have filled this entire list with numbers from Beauty and the Beast. Not only is it a great animated movie. Not only is it a great movie in general. It is a really well constructed musical. It's one of my favorite musicals of all time, in fact. Solid, fun songs. Really well constructed, and this opening number is just amazing.

And there you have it: The Cartoon Guru's top ten list of musical numbers in animated features. You're welcome. Any missing from this list that you think should be on here? I'd love your thoughts as well.

CG