Theater Thursday

Theater Thursday

Theater Thursday, because Mark Prior can go out and pitch three hit ball, strike out sixteen and own the Reds, their families AND their pets, but NOBODY on the team can resist the urge to swing at anything from the nose to the toes, even against the ham n' eggers the Reds threw out there, so the Cubs lose again....

Yeah, we're doing Disney tonight, because those fucking Cubs piss me off so bad I can't even think straight. We're going softball with the Disney....

Everyone can commence to be jealous - Barry & la famille are going to Walt Disney World this weekend! Hopefully the rides will be more exciting than the weather....

This week we have a Mickey Mouse Movie Meme - all about Disney films.

1) What is your favorite Disney film? If it's animated, what's your favorite live action film?

I think Robin Hood's probably my favorite Disney animated flick. It was always my favorite growing up. I've watched it a few times since then. I feel like it holds a mood better than most of the Disney stuff. It still makes me smile.

Of the live action stuff, I think Flight of the Navigator is my favorite. My dad and I went to see it when I was nine, or so. I don't think I've ever seen my Dad laugh as hard as I did when Max, voiced by Pee Wee Herman his own self Paul Reubens, sticks his head out of the spacecraft and calls the fat guy Porky. Plus, it's got a young Sarah Jessica Parker, and you can't beat that.

2) What Disney character is your favorite, and why? Which character do you think is overrated and/or overused? (they don't have to be animated characters)

Donald Duck, yo. Donald's psycho. He's barely got it together. He's a seething pile of rage, and he's gonna pop at any time. I mean, the guy regularly tries to kill his own nephews, and over little shit. Yeah. That's when cartoons were good. When Donald Duck loses a snowball fight and decides to destroy his nephews' ice castle with a cannon? That's good clean fun.

I think of Donald as just a step higher than myself on the rage-o-meter.

And if I walked around wearing only a sailor top and a sailor hat, with no britches to hide the junk, I'd probably be right up there with Donald in the whirling tempest of red rage.

As for overrated or overused?

That there Mickey Mouse rubs me the wrong way. What with his face being plastered everywhere, with his big flower face at the front of Disneyland and his Mickey Mouse Turn Over Choo Choo and his very own club where everybody sings his name.

Annette Funicello shoulda been singing about Donald Duck, yo.

3) Why do you think the Disney appeal has endured so long and been so influential in American film and culture?

They had a good idea at first, and then the money and leverage to buy out or shove most other competitors off to the side.

It's big business. We've got this whole deal where we've got this ridiculously short attention span as a society. Add to that this whole lazy brand name thing we've got going on, where we'll take the brand name entity over the no-name even if that no-name is many times more creative, nine times out of ten. Because it's easier, and we know what we're getting.

BONUS) If you were Walt Disney and you suddenly came back from the dead (or got unfrozen, or had your head reattached, or whatever), what would be your impressions of what the company has made since you "died" (in 1966)?

I never knew the man, nor have I read enough about him to know all that much about him.

But as much as I'd like to think he'd be unimpressed with the softball quality of everything Disney's put out in the past thirty years, I'd say he'd probably be pretty happy at all the cash. I mean, he'd have his own Scrooge McDuck vault of money to swim around in. He did start the whole business, and while he did do innovative things entertainment-wise, and as much edification as he got from that whole entertainment thing, I'm sure the whole dollar thing was an even bigger factor he did all he did.

That's twice I've referred to a Scrooge McDuck vault of swimming money in less than a fortnight.