Nostalgia

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Disney’s Robin Hoood:Animalspeak Volume 2- The Unspoken Rules of Disney Law- Featuring Robin Hood

 

I have learned to accept the Top Five Unspoken Rules of Disney Animals:

1) Without explanation, animals can speak to each other in English. (Even when they are native Africans: The Lion King).
2) Humans can talk to animals and vice versa.
3) Goofy can walk upright and talk, but Pluto is just a normal dog.
4) When Donald Duck gets out of the shower, he is embarrassed by his nakedness, covering himself up with a towel. However, he never wears pants.
5) As a cartoon, Mickey Mouse is pretty much the size of a real mouse. But at Disney World, he is around 6 feet tall.

It’s all fine as long as these rules are consistent which each other within the Disney Universe. However, I have recently been made aware of a rare exception. A hole in the Disney Theory.

This exception to the rules involves one of my favorite Disney cartoon movies, Robin Hood. I’m referring to the 1973 version where Robin Hood is a fox. It contains an ever-addictive whistling theme which I can’t describe in words and the melancholy ballad “Not in Nottingham”. The movie is full of adventure, action, and romance.
The weird thing about it, though, is that it’s the only animated Disney movie I can think of where there are no humans AND the animals assume the role of humans (in other words the animals are anthropomorphic).

For example, in The Lion King there are no humans, but all the animals act like normal animals (other than the fact they can talk and sing). They live out in the wild and kill and eat other animals. The characters are beasts, not mutants.

 

But in Robin Hood, the animals wear clothes, eat food at a table, and walk upright, to name a few distinguished human traits. While this in no way discredits the greatness of the film, there’s not an animated Disney movie I can think of before or after its release that follows this formula.

 

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Animalspeak Volume 1: Why are Animals Able to Talk in Cartoons?

One of my pleasures in my life is pointing out the universally accepted concepts that surprisingly no one ever questions. The majority of children’s animated TV shows and movies involve talking animals. We have simply accepted this as “make believe”. Okay. But what I can’t accept is that fact there is no explanation as to how the animals gained the ability to talk.

Was it a magic spell? Extreme intelligence? Possession? And did the same thing that made the cast of the Lion King able to speak also enable the cast of Looney Tunes to speak as well? And sometimes animals interact through speech with humans like it’s no big deal. If I found a talking animal I would definitely exploit it for all it’s worth.

There has to be a physical explanation for this. But I just can’t see it. Even if an animal had the intelligence to speak, most animals don’t have the physical features necessary to do so. For example, how could a cat say the word “brother” since cats don’t really have lips? It would sound like “rother”.

Also, the other hole I have found in this concept of talking animals is that their voices would sound nothing like they do on Disney movies. By doing a quick search on “talking cat” on YouTube, I can watch a cat saying “I love you” but it sounds more like “rye row yoo-oo-ow”. And its voice has the same sound and tone as when a cat meows. It doesn’t sound like a man or woman’s voice.

Life can be disappointing sometimes.

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School Lunch Pizza

 

School lunches weren’t always awful. In fact, sometimes what they were serving in the lunchroom ended up being the highlight of the school day. I always loved “Chef Salad Day” because that was a larger than average meal, plus it was guaranteed we would get a good dessert to offset the healthiness of the salad. And “Chicken Finger Day” was good because they served the chicken with mashed potatoes which I used as dipping sauce. So good.

But of course, there was one legendary favorite lunch, which has become immortalized along with other fond memories of elementary school like Oregon Trail in the computer lab, or that miraculous loudspeaker announcement that we would be getting out of two hours of class because the local community college was promoting their newest play in the auditorium. I am referring to, of course, the always-satisfying “school lunch pizza”.

A simple 4×6 inch flat pizza consisting of a crust reminiscent of Saltine crackers, brushed with tangy red sauce consisting of one sole herb (oregano), and covered in magical government cheese. Of course, I would do my best to scrounge up enough spare change to afford an extra “slice” of rectangle pizza for a dollar.

 

Every once in a while, I would get lucky because the first 15 minutes of lunch went by and the girl sitting diagonally across from me still hadn’t touched her pizza (or had only taken a small bite out of the corner). At that point, I would softly and nonchalantly ask the famous question, “Do you want your pizza?”

The weird thing is, just recently I realized that our school lunch pizzas didn’t even have any toppings. No meat! How did I just now realize that? As a 9 year-old boy, I would completely devour Burger King’s Double Whopper Combo Meal. Yet I never realized that those pizzas were just dough, sauce, and cheese.

And one more thing… Now that you’ve read my take on this, why not read my perspective on being a dad?  That’s right- parenting from a dad’s point of view.  I have been documenting my thoughts as a dad since the week we found out my wife was pregnant.  I formally invite you now to read my “dad blog” by clicking on the link below:

dad from day one

 

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Karaoke is Funny: I’m Turning Japanese, I Really Think So

For the last 10 years, I believed the urban legend that “karaoke” is Japanese for “tone deaf”. I wanted that to be true. Because that would be funny. Instead the word just means “empty orchestra”. Thanks Wikipedia, for bursting my bubble.

I am hardly ever exposed to social events that include karaoke. But in the back of my mind, I am constantly juggling around songs that would be good ones in case I suddenly had to participate in a karaoke contest. There is an art to choosing a good karaoke song.

 

The point of singing karaoke is not to show off a person’s singing talent, but instead their ability to entertain. There should be a rule that no serious songs can be sung while participating in karaoke. No Celine Dion. Nothing by Whitney Houston. And definitely not “Bridge over Troubled Water” by Simon & Garfunkel. Too sappy and too difficult to pull off for an amateur.

It’s okay for a person to sing horribly if they know they are not an awesome vocalist. But when a person thinks they’re pretty decent and actually tries to sing well, but then falls flat on several parts of a Josh Groban song, or hits the notes too sharply and loudly, “clipping the mic”, that kills the mood.

That can make things awkward, causing the audience to hope that the next performer will perform an obviously stupid song like “I Wish” by one-hit wonder Skee-Lo (“I wish I was a little bit taller, I wish I was a baller…) or “Peaches” by The Presidents of the United States of America (“Millions of peaches, peaches for me…”).

 

An ideal karaoke song also should be one in which the singer can incorporate stupid dance moves during the lead guitar solo and fade-out. I am set on “Dancing in the Dark” by Bruce Springsteen. Or “That’s All” by Genesis. Or maybe best of all, “The Heart of Rock & Roll” by Huey Lewis and the News. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZFqA8JJQj0

Surely I couldn’t go wrong with those songs. Because I couldn’t go right. And that’s what truly defines karaoke.

 

 

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Manspeak, Volume -1: Boyspeak

During the summer of 2000 I was a camp counselor in Florida. I didn’t have a clue what I was doing but I had to make my campers think that I did. Each week I teamed up with a different co-counselor and ruled over a new cabin full of 16 boys, ready for action and trouble. Every group of boys had a natural leader, a natural rebel, followers of both, and occasionally, what I call the Boy Wonder.

He was the most misunderstood. He had the hardest time fitting in with the rest. He was in his own world. And he really didn’t mind. Because I am convinced he didn’t realize any of this.

Of course most boys encounter these traits at some point in their boyhood; some just take longer to grow out of it, if ever.

It was camp policy that every counselor had at least one of his campers with him at all times (like Sonic the Hedgehog and his rings). The Boy Wonder of the group usually ended up being the one I spent the most time with. There was something in it for both of us: I would be his faithful friend and he would be my camper-at-all-times.

The most memorable Boy Wonder was an 8 year-old named Daniel, complete with a pasty white complexion and perfectly straight bangs running across his forehead. Everyone learned his name on the second day of camp, when he threw up his corndog and tater tots inside the cabin after lunch. As the other counselor cleaned up the mess, I watched all the boys outside.

The easier job would to have been to clean up the puke. Because outside the cabin as I tried to stabilize the situation, Daniel chased all the other boys. They were afraid to get near him because of the vomit all over his clothes and face.

But ultimately, Daniel wanted to be the comedian of the group. And in a way he was: There were times he made the other boys laugh, but they were always laughing at him, not with him. His jokes were too familiar and too predictable (knock-knock’s and chickens crossing the street). It’s like he began realizing that by the end of the week, so he decided to start making up his own jokes:

Q: “What did the anteater say to the ant?”
A: “May I eat you or may I lick you?”

I remember what happened as soon as that joke was delivered. A few seconds of silence passed as this non-logical riddle fell flat. Then, it hit us all at once. The entire cabin roared up in a session of uncontrollable laughter. The joke made no sense: Why would a talking anteater politely ask his victim if he would prefer to be eaten (and die) or licked (and survive)? And why would being licked even be an option anyway? And that’s why it was inevitably hilarious.

Somewhere out in central Florida today is a high school senior named Daniel. Maybe his jokes got better. Maybe he started fitting in with the other boys. But if I know Daniel, he still hasn’t grown out of his Boy Wonder phase.

He would be far from the first. Classically, I’m referring to Gary Busey. But more recently, any man featured on a “celebrity” reality show on VH1.  And even it weren’t for the recent MTV Video Music Awards incident, I would still say it.

Kayne West.

All pictures with the “JHP” logo were taken by Joe Hendricks Photography:

Blog- www.photojoeblog.com

Website- www.joehendricks.com