The Ultimate Walt Disney Company Performances Bracket -- Round One, Day Twenty-Eight

P-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-please!

Can you believe it’s almost February? Where has the month gone? But almost-February means it’s almost time for pitchers and catchers to report for the 2023 baseball season. (I am still not entirely ready to talk about the nonsense surrounding the New York Mets and the brief period around the holidays when they nearly signed Carlos Correa. I’m not ready!)

But today is still a day in January, and it’s still a day for you to vote in matchups in the first round of the Ultimate Walt Disney Company Performances bracket. So let’s go!

(5) Charles Fleischer, Who Framed Roger Rabbit vs. (60) John Travolta, Bolt: Bolt is one of the oddest Disney movies of recent memory to me. Have you watched Bolt recently? There’s an easy way to reductively explain what this movie is — it’s Buzz Lightyear’s arc from the first Toy Story, if Buzz Lightyear was Lassie. But we spend the first 15 minutes inside the show featuring Bolt (and that means we don’t hear him speak), before eventually realizing it’s all an elaborate ruse and not as real as the dog thinks.

Just a strange movie, and one I don’t particularly love. And Charles Fleischer as Roger Rabbit is as foundational to that film’s success as Bob Hoskins is. He gets the vote here.

(28) Richard Dreyfuss, Mr. Holland’s Opus vs. (37) Paul Winchell, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh: Here’s the thing. I like Mr. Holland’s Opus well enough, even though I know it is shamelessly manipulative and more than mildly overwrought. (And yes, I realize that the eponymous piece of music is not that great.) I say all of this to say that Richard Dreyfuss’ performance as Mr. Holland is very good. …But I also think that Paul Winchell as Tigger is just a little bit better. This one could be close, though, and it would not disappoint me if it was.

How do you vote?

(12) Hans Conried, Peter Pan vs. (53) Scarlett Johansson, The Avengers: Scarlett Johansson is a very talented actress, and if you have not seen her in the haunting 2014 science-fiction film Under the Skin, you are missing one of the best performances in one of the best films of the last decade. But Hans Conried as Captain Hook is one of the great villain performances in Disney history, and he should win this in a walk (off the plank).

(21) Lindsay Lohan, The Parent Trap vs. (44) Diane Keaton, Father of the Bride: Two leading ladies from Nancy Meyers movies go head to head! But for me, there’s not much to debate — I will give this vote to Lindsay Lohan in her breakout dual performance. There’s a lot to put on her shoulders in this 1998 remake of The Parent Trap, and she handles it with impressive aplomb. An easy vote for me. What about you?