HOTTEST DISNEY DUDES - Wrap up part 5

Well, I knew that if I was going to make a hottest ladies list, I would have to make a hottest guys list, too. No problem there at all. However, while I can analyze the objective attractiveness of a guy, I lack the important qualification of actually being attracted to them, so I farmed this one out, taking to the social media and asking straight ladies, gay dudes, and bisexuals of all genders which Disney men were the hottest. Since this one was determined by vote, this will be the one list not in chronological order.

There were a number of interesting choices that were voted on by one or two people, which meant they wouldn't make the list. But I did want to acknowledge them, because there's a huge diversity of options out there, and I wanted to celebrate the more unusual choices. Some were very unusual, but hey, no judgments here. So first of all, my "oddball choice" honorable mentions:

Mufasa
Ratigan
Clopin
Dr. Facilier
Dopey
The Tramp

And my "almost made it" honorable mentions, from the folks that came close to getting on the list that just didn't get the votes they needed:

Prince Phillip
Basil of Baker Street
John Smith's little friend Thomas

And finally, my "HOW COULD YOU HURT ME LIKE THIS" award, for the man nobody voted for:

Deems Taylor

But enough bonus awards and door prizes! It's time for the main event. The top 13 hottest Disney men, as determined by you, the readers! And it's technically a top 14, because the bottom two were tied!

HOTTEST DISNEY LADIES - Wrap-up part 4

It is a truth universally acknowledged that cartoons can totally be hot, as Leo Tolstoy probably once said. This makes perfect sense. Whether it's childhood crushes founded on our early emotional attachments to animated characters, or simply being an adult and thinking "My, that is one attractive series of drawings." Everyone knows this to be true. In the interest of fairness, I will also be doing a hottest men list, based on surveys of straight ladies and gay dudes, but first, the ladies, based not on audience votes, but rather on my own personal opinions. You don't like it, get your own blog. The subjects were evaluated on physical attractiveness, of course, but also personality, voice, and quality of writing, because that's the kind of sensitive guy I am. They are placed, as ever, in chronological order. I will be making an effort to avoid being too base or dirty in my commentary, which is why I'll begin with this GIF, to work it out of my system.

Ah, there we go. Okay, let's begin.

BEST VILLAIN SONGS: Wrap-up part three

When I was compiling by Best Songs list, I ran into real trouble in the back half deciding between the villain songs and other songs in several movies. Eventually I decided the reason for this was that villain songs serve a different need for both the story and the audience, and to make things easier on myself, I decided to make a third list. So here you are, the best songs by or about villains! 

WORST DISNEY SONGS. Wrap-up part 2.

To every light, there is a corresponding darkness. I guess? Maybe? Look, I don't know. That seems pretty accurate. But if I'm making a best songs list, I'm definitely making a worst songs list. This one was a bit tricky, to be honest. The good far outweighs the bad, and every one of these movies had a soundtrack that was at least acceptable. But there were still quite a few that just plain annoyed me, whether through poor quality, annoying singers, or lack of artistic merit. Or all 3. So here's the bottom 13, in chronological order. I'm not supplying all the extra info I did last time, though. I'm not out to shame anybody. Also; kind of lazy. You-Tube links are still provided, if you're some kind of a masochist.

BEST DISNEY SONGS! Wrap-up part one

Over the past 20 months, I’ve seen a lot of movies, and heard a lot of music in those movies, so to start off these supplemental posts, it seems only fitting to honor that music. So here’s the first of my seven top 13 lists, celebrating my favorite Disney songs. The next two lists will cover the worst songs, and then a special one for the top 13 villain songs, because let’s be honest, the villains always get the best songs, and it wouldn’t be fair to put them on this list. Why top 13? Because narrowing it down to 10 was too hard and 13 is ¼ of 52. But before we look at the top quartile, a word on my process.

Miss me?

The first thing I did was look through every Disney movie soundtrack on Wikipedia to make sure I wasn’t forgetting anything, and writing down every song that I thought might qualify for the list. I wasn’t very discriminating this time around, just pretty much every song that I particularly liked. This left me with about 80 songs. Then, to maintain fairness, I narrowed it down to one song per movie. This was much more difficult, and based on the quality of the music and lyrics, the song’s catchiness and enjoyableness, and the function of the song to the movie’s plot or tone. Then, using the same criteria, I whittled the list down further until I had my top 13. Random trivia: Three movies, The Great Mouse Detective, Beauty and the Beast, and Winnie-the-Pooh, had their entire soundtracks nominated, but none of them got on the Best Songs List proper. Funny, that.

Anyway, without further ado, here it is, the top 13 Disney songs! Click the titles for a link to a YouTube video!

2011 - Winnie-the-Pooh

For the final entry in the Walt Disney Animation Studios chapter in this blog, we turn to Winnie-the-Pooh. Wait, Brian, you are surely saying, didn’t you already do Winnie-the-Pooh? And, you go on to state, it couldn’t have come out recently, because surely I’d remember it. Yes, you brazenly conclude, you have clearly lost your marbles, and forgotten what movie you are doing.

First of all, shut up, jerk. I don’t know why I imagined you to be so mean. Possibly because I had to engage in some activity to purge my mind of negativity and anger, because this beautiful, wonderful movie will not allow it to exist. Yes, there is a second Winnie-the-Pooh movie, and it did come out in 2011. Why don’t you remember it? Well, for some reason, Disney did everything in their power to sabotage it. They released it in the UK four months before the US, and dumped it stateside with pretty much no advertising in the middle of the summer, rather than the cozy late-fall/early-winter release a movie like this needed. It was, in fact, released the SAME FREAKING DAY as Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows 2, and just a week before Captain America. It was released to near-universal critical acclaim, but got lost in a sea of blockbusters and made a pathetic 3 million dollars over budget. Which is a real stone cold shame, because I’m about to make a bold statement after 52 movies: This is my favorite one. Feeling the towering expectations? So am I. So choose your favorite food from the last 51 reviews, and let’s talk about Winnie-the-Pooh.

2010 - Tangled

At the end of the Princess and the Frog review, I mentioned that the underperformance of that film had led to an unusual change in this one, but the more I think about it, it was really just the most visible aspect of a major tonal shift in the marketing. See, the big and clear thing was that the movie was originally called “Rapunzel”, but after the sarcastic quotes failure sarcastic quotes of The Princess and the Frog, they changed the name to Tangled, and gave the male character far more prominence in the advertising. On the one hand, I can see that this is as much his story as it is hers, but still, can you imagine a studio changing the title and marketing of their big release to de-emphasize a male character? Yeah, didn’t think so. They also shifted Glen Keane from director back down to character animator, and with that, changed the design of the movie from his planned and innovative approach to more typical CGI. In addition, the entire tone of the advertising switched to being very action-oriented and Dreamworks-ish, with the posters even featuring the smug, much-maligned “Dreamworks face”. So was this a case of Disney following the lead of the once-surprise dark hose studio? Or did they have a secret plan up their sleeve? Splitting at the ends? So am I. So legally obtain some apples, and let’s talk about Tangled.