Chicken Ran
I hate how much nostalgia bait is being used for my generation. I hate how everyone from musicians to filmmakers to…well, every corporation, basically…has decided to use nostalgia to get money from Millennials.
I know we’re not uniquely targeted by this tactic, but the tail end of Gen X and us Millennials seem to be the ones who are most highly targeted by the “hey, remember [insert thing here] from your childhood? Well, it’s back! NOW GIVE ME ALL YOUR MONEY!” ploy.
And I hate even more how so many people seem oblivious to it and blindly play into the manipulative game.
I mean, it’s like all those damn Disney remakes. “Hey, you! Yes, you in that generation that’s either got young kids or is in the process of crapping out spawn! Remember The Lion King? Remember how much you loved that as a child? Well, here it is again, except with all the CGI and none of the emotion or heart! You’d better buy $60 movie tickets for the family so that your spawn can have the same warm fuzzies that you associate with the original!”
And so many people shell out for it without giving it a critical thought!
Sequels are just as bad, too. We did not need Toy Story 4. WE CERTAINLY DO NOT NEED TOY STORY 5.
UGH. Stop feeding the nostalgia-baiters money, you fools!
Anyway.
This whole rant was inspired by this:
Chicken Run is a fantastic movie. Does it need a sequel TWENTY YEARS LATER? I don’t think so. Though I have more faith in Aardman than I do in, say, Disney when it comes to quality control.
But still.
Nostalgia!
We’re getting into temperatures where I need to bring my radio on my runs because my on-ear headphones keep my ears from freezing.
The radio station I listen to, C97.7, does a “90s at Nine” every day at 9 AM. This involves the playing of three songs that have something in common. Often it’s a word in the song title or a genre or an artist.
This morning, the theme was “Disney songs” and the first song up was “A Whole New World” from Aladdin.
I cannot express the MASSIVE nostalgia hit I took when that song started. I hadn’t heard it in so long and it instantly took me back to when my mom and I would watch Aladdin back when I was in elementary school and we lived in our old house in Troy.
It just…it felt good.
What the dink is that noise?
I’m sorry, but this is the only acceptable “The Little Mermaid” remake that will ever exist.
I say “seven vaganyas” in my head more than I care to admit.
Popular Opinion:
Toy Story is a trilogy. The story was wrapped up perfectly in three movies. I refuse to watch the fourth one out of principle and I’m so GODDAMN PISSED that Disney is destroying Toy Story further by making a fifth one.
Leave it be. It was perfection.
UGHHHHHHHH.
Golden Books
Did any of you have Little Golden Books when you were a kid?
I had a TON of these at my dad’s condo. Like everything else he ever bought, he liked to collect them.
And I loved to read them.
I remember I used to pick six or seven of them at night, bring them up to my bed (I slept on the top of a bunk bed…not sure why I had a bunk bed because I was an ONLY CHILD but whatevs), and would read them while a Classic Disney CD would play gently over my CD player.
Childhood, yo.
Totoro
I completely forgot to mention this, but on my birthday, Nate and I watched My Neighbor Totoro because it was one of those movies that I watched repeatedly as a kid and he had never seen it before.
The “original” one with the first set of English-dub voice actors is, I guess, ridiculously hard to find now; the only English-dub version you can find now is the Disney dub version.
It makes a huge difference. It’s not nearly as enjoyable in my opinion. That might just be because I’m *that person* who memorizes every inflection, pause, and emphasis in dialogue because my brain has decided that’s more important information than, say, remembering to shower every once and a while—but the only thing I could focus on for the whole movie were all of the differences in the dialogue and the way it was spoken.
I hope Nate found it okay (he probably did because he hadn’t seen the original?), but it was super distracting for me and detracted from the amazingness that is My Neighbor Totoro.
Edit: this was the best comparison I could find. It’s hard to tell what’s what if you haven’t heard both of them; maybe try with earbuds and listen to the original through the left ear only and the new one through the right ear only.
KICKS
YES.
YES.
OH MY GOD.
Why do people keep watching these? Can’t people see they’re just money grabs? You know they’re not going to be as good as the originals. You will come away disappointed. And yet they perpetuate because people keep spending money to go see them.
Stop, you turds.
Favorite Disney Songs
Have a list of my favorite Disney songs/animated sequences, ‘cause now that the thesis nonsense is over, I don’t know what to do with my time other than provide crappy blogs.
OH WAIT I WAS DOING THAT BEFORE, TOO.
Let’s do it.
5. Be Our Guest (Beauty and the Beast)
Lumiere, man.
4. The Bells of Notre Dame (The Hunchback of Notre Dame)
That high note at 5:01, holy hell. Gives me the chills.
3. Just Around the River Bend (Pocahontas)
I don’t know why, but I’ve always just really liked this song. It’s my favorite Pocahontas song.
2. Hellfire (The Hunchback of Notre Dame)
Frollo is great, man. I love that he’s a villain not because he’s got that “I know I’m doing something wrong but I’m going to do it anyway because it benefits me” thing that so many Disney villains have, but because he really thinks he’s in the right and doing things according to his religious beliefs.
1. I’ll Make a Man out of You (Mulan)
Does this one need an explanation? Really?
Let it Blog
OOPS I DISCOVERED “LET IT GO.”
Can you believe I’ve never actually listened to that song until now? And that I still haven’t seen Frozen? You’ll notice, once I get my November music posted, that I now have like 7 versions of the song though, haha.
Though this one’s my fave, because the Piano Guys are awesome and that white cello is super beautiful.
HAVE SOME POOP
YouTube poop, that is.
I love YouTube poop and you can’t stop me. It’s an art form.
HAIR HAIR HAIR HAIR HAIR
HAHAHAHA oh my god. Drop what you’re doing and listen to this. Just when you thought the Gaston Song couldn’t be improved upon.
At 0:50 I almost fell out of my chair.
Are Trivial Jackets just Petticoats?
FREAKING TUMBLR, MAN
Watch this.
Just do it.
The guy who sings “I Can Go the Distance” is amazing and the guy who does the Gaston Song sounds JUST LIKE HIM.
Holy crap, The Hunchback of Notre Dame is on Netflix?
I know what I’m watching tonight.
I pretty much grew up on Disney movies and this one used to scare the living crap out of me for some reason, but now it’s definitely my favorite. I don’t know if it was the whole “going to Catholic school for six years” thing or what, but I really find myself enjoying books/movies/entertainment with religion as a main source of struggle or conflict. Such themes have always stricken me as being very honest and very impactful. Hunchback was one such book and movie; The Crucible was another. There is a bunch more, too, but for whatever reason I’m totally blanking on everything else I’ve ever read/watched right now. Probably ‘cause it’s like 5 AM and I had Red Bull and I’m feeling really antsy tonight.
Also, tell me this isn’t the best opening ever (I know I’ve posted this on here before, but screw it):
Zazz
DUDES, did anybody else ever watch these?
YouTube is single-handedly making me relive my childhood. Freaking awesome.
All Quiet on the Western Font
Sigh.
You know what’s a big deal to me? Fonts.
Has anyone reading this ever seen the old Disney Silly Symphony cartoon called Music Land?
If you don’t have 9 minutes to watch: the story’s about two warring lands in the world of music: the Isle of Jazz, populated by anthropomorphic jazz instruments such as saxophones, trumpets, and guitars, and the Land of Symphony, populated by anthropomorphic—you guessed it—symphonic instruments such as violins, violas, cellos, etc. The princess of Symphony, a young violin, falls in love with the prince of Jazz, a little saxophone. They’re caught canoodling in Symphony, the prince is thrown into jail, and the two lands go to war over the whole thing. The prince escapes and the two lovers row out into the Sea of Discord (haha) separating the two lands and almost drown, causing the parents (Queen of Symphony and King of Jazz) to row out to rescue them. In the end, the queen and king fall in love and the two lands reconcile, creating a Bridge of Harmony across the Sea of Discord (d’awwwww). Seriously, watch the cartoon if you’ve got time, it’s pretty awesome.
Wow, tangent.
Anyway, to bring that back around, that’s kind of the relationship I see when I think of fonts. There’s like a Serif Land and a Sans Serif Land, with Times New Roman and Arial the two respective leaders. They absolutely hate each other and the serif fonts stay well out of the way of the sans serifs. And there’s like this half-breed group of wild semi-serifs that roam outside the boundaries of either land and eat the fonts that stray out of the protection of their respective areas.*
I’ll say it again: fonts are a big deal to me.
Anyway. The main reason I keep redoing my heading for this blog is because I have yet to identify a font as my particular signature font. Times New Roman is certainly my favorite font (serifs > sans serifs, I don’t care what anyone else says), but it’s not MY font. At least not for this blog. I keep jumping around with a few fonts (right now I’m using Metro, which is pretty great but isn’t just right), but every time I check for more to download I either download like 90 different ones and thus consequently have to delete yet another program from Vaio (hard drive = 99.9% full or something like that) while still not getting the right font or I get distracted reading about typography on Wiki.
So yeah, I know it doesn’t matter to anyone else and it’s probably just more annoying than anything else, but just to explain why that little header above keeps changing like every month/week/hour: I am searching for the right font. I know someday it will come.
The end.
Oh, also this, which I’ve posted before but am posting again because it’s hilarious and relevant.
*Do you see what goes on in my head? DO YOU? This is why I can’t take myself seriously.
Villains Get the Best Songs
I remember Fern Gully as being one of my favorite movies when I was a child. My friend George and I would sit and watch the video over and over and, each time, vehemently criticize the loggers responsible for destroying the forest of Mount Warning (which, FYI, is an actual place…didn’t know that until today. Thanks, Wikipedia).
Anyway.
I would watch this movie a lot on my own, too. And when I did, there was always one part that I had to rewind and watch again at least twice: the song Hexxus sings when he is freed and is feeding on the oil of The Leveler.
This worried my mom. “You know that’s the villain, right?” She’d asked me that at least once, I remember. I think she thought I really liked Hexxus when in truth I was just in love with his song.
To quote one of the commenters on YouTube, “somehow, a big patch of oil singing about destroying the environment is one of the sexiest songs ever written. HOW IS THAT EVEN POSSIBLE?!?!?! >.<”
As I continued to grow older, I noticed this common theme throughout almost every animated movie I watched: the villains get the best damn songs.
Governor Ratcliffe, for example, sings a wonderful little ditty about digging up Virginia cleverly entitled Mine, Mine Mine! This was a song on a mixed Disney CD my dad had when I was a kid and I always used to listen to it before going to bed at night. Not Colors of the Wind, not Be Our Guest, not A Whole New World, but Mine, Mine Mine! Odd child.
The rat version (excuse me, the mouse version) of Governor Ratcliffe (at least in my opinion–seriously they’re similar!), Ratigan, amuses us with a song about how awesome he is.
Not to be outdone in the egomaniac category, Gaston from Beauty and the Beast has, in my opinion, the most hilarious villain song ever created.
As a specimen, yes, he IS intiiiiiimidating. I’d marry him just for the chance that these guys would break into songs like this when we’re at home.
Me: How’d you sleep last night, dear?
Lefou (singing): nooooooo oooooooooooone SLEEPS like Gaston, COUNTS HIS SHEEP like Gaston, no one suppresses Freudian urges as DEEP as Gaston!
Gaston: when in REM sleep my PGO waaaaaaaaaves are greatest!
Lefou: which helps YOU remember you’re Gaston!
Me: …that’s nice, dear.
Also, you know, he’s roughly the size of a barge.
And let’s not forget Scar from The Lion King. Creepiness is exasperated when you listen to the German version.
For some reason, German-speaking hyenas are inherently funny to me.
Finally, for the best villain song EVER, we’ve got the good old Claude Frollo from The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
Tony Jay’s voice is fantastic in this. I just really like The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is like a bad drug trip
I have honestly not watched this movie since I was about seven. It’s SO FREAKING FUNNY. I think I laughed hard enough to give myself a nosebleed when I get up tomorrow morning (this has happened several times before).
Snow White: “We’ll clean the house and surprise them! Then maybe they’ll let me stay!”
Yeah, that’ll do it. Though I must admit, as a kid I freaking LOVED the cleaning scene. There’s just something about synchronized cleaning, I guess.
Side note: no animated animal labor laws were violated in the making of this movie.
And Doc’s great. He really reminds me of someone, but I can’t think of the person. And Bashful’s adorable, but GRUMPY HAS NO TIME FOR HIS NONSENSE!
Snow White totally mocks Grumpy when she firsts meets him. “OOOOOOOOH, you must be GWUMPY!”
They jab at each other through almost the whole thing. If this were a romantic comedy today, they’d be making out at the end of the movie.
Also, why are they so afraid in the beginning? There are seven of them and they have pickaxes.
Happy: “What is it?”
Doc: “It’s a girl!”
Happy: “She’s waking up!”
Sneezy: “What’ll we do?!”
Doc: “HIDE!”
Hahaha, it’s like a frat house the morning after a BAD party.
Also:
Doc: “You might be cold and wet when you’re done, but you gotta admit, it’s good clean fun.”
I think scrubbing Dopey’s butt was what he was referring to here.
Or this.
“GET THE SOAP.”
I love you, Doc.
Happy can really move his hips, but Doc’s the lady’s man.
More perversion:
The scene in which they’re chasing the queen is pretty epic. You don’t want to make Happy angry. And does her death ring of “Wile E. Coyote” to anyone else aside from me (she’s on a cliff, tries to push a boulder onto the little gang, and the cliff on which she’s standing gets split from the mountain and the boulder falls after her)?
Random side note: after Disney’s first few movies, notice how black hair is almost strictly reserved for villains.
Also, one of you needs to tell Rebeca that it’s very hard sitting straight-faced in front of 200 students proctoring an exam when you’ve got “SCREW THE VAGINA, I HAVE A VAGINA!” going through your head.
Today’s song: We Used to be Friends by The Dandy Warhols
Blog #1121: Disney Insanity
TODAY I will give you my top 5 Disney movies, mainly because I’ve been watching way too many of them on YouTube. Also, this is based more than what Disney considers their “masterpieces,” which excludes, unfortunately, things like Toy Story and Anastasia. Anyway.
1. The Hunchback of Notre Dame
This movie is EPIC. Love the animation, love the music, love the evil Claude Frollo. He’s badass.
2. Hercules
Another epic movie with great animation and great music. There’s also quite a bit of humor in this one that I missed when I was little.
3. The Great Mouse Detective
Basil’s hot. Don’t care if he’s a mouse.
4. Toy Story
FREAKING LOVED THIS in elementary school. We quoted it as often as possible. I also think the idea of Tom Hanks voicing a cowboy is automatically funny.
5. Anastasia
Another movie we were obsessed with in elementary school. I was also probably biased towards this one because of my friend Anastasia.
“I use antlers in all of my deeeeeeecoraaaating!”
So I was browsing old Disney videos uploaded to YouTube tonight and I decided to watch Beauty and the Beast. I got as far as the Gaston Song and stopped, ‘cause I had to watch that song like five times.
I forgot how freaking hilarious it is! Observe:
“As a specimen, yes, I’m inTIIIIIImidating!”
Genius.
Why can’t I be Jasmine?
So what’s up with this? I have a thing for Jafar. A real thing. Not an “OMFG hes my favrite move villan lol” thing, a real thing.
Much love for evil Jafar.
Sex.
“Part of your world”
Ahahahaha…I loved this. Sounds like something I’d write. I’m bored, so I’m posting the link here. Deal with it.
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