The Voice-Over Bracket, Round 2 -- Day 1

Well, the first round of the Disney/Pixar voice performance bracket has wrapped up, and so too have my personal picks. Some of them made it to the second round (including, tease, my personal choices for the Top Two), but quite a few others didn’t. Alas.

Anyway, it’s time to talk about today’s quartet of matchups and my preferences. Let’s go.

(1) Robin Williams, Aladdin vs. (9) Eddie Murphy, Mulan

Funny thing about this matchup is that we have two comedians playing arguably very similar characters. The Genie and Mushu each serve as the main comic relief in two Disney Renaissance films set in non-White cultures, and each is voiced by an irrepressible comic voice so unique and distinctive that it’s hard to imagine anyone else stepping in. (Have you ever seen the short film playing in front of the old Magic of Disney Animation show at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, with another actor voicing Mushu? It’s…uh…Not Great, Bob.) Mushu is a less interesting character, in part because the script tries to flesh out his emotional motivation as opposed to just letting Eddie Murphy be Eddie Murphy.

Robin Williams, in a functionally similar role, is of course brilliant. This has always been the case — it’s not a retroactive way to appreciate the man after his untimely passing six years ago. The Genie is a brilliantly conceived character in every possible way; that Eric Goldberg was able to keep up with Williams’ impossibly speedy train of thought, as an animator, is as much a reason to champion the role as it is for Williams’ performance. But that’s all we’re judging here, and…come on. I vote for the Genie. For now.

(5) Tom Hanks, Toy Story vs. (4) Angela Lansbury, Beauty and the Beast

An interesting thing happened in the last round that I would not have predicted: Dame Angela Lansbury won over Joan Cusack for her work in Toy Story 2. “Josh, you put her as the fourth seed. You must have assumed she was the favorite,” I hear you asking. Well, in some respects, sure. But I guess that matchup was a reminder to me that each of us votes for different reasons. I will be voting against Dame Lansbury once again today because there’s so much more to a voice performance than just a song. Is “Beauty and the Beast” a great song? Is Dame Angela Lansbury an untoppable legend? Is the Pope Catholic?

But all of that aside, I have to pose the question, both to myself and to you: what sets Mrs. Potts apart from Sheriff Woody aside from the song she sings? Yes, Lansbury’s work is excellent throughout, but I argue that it is one-dimensional; not because the performance is bad but because Mrs. Potts, a character in a film I adore, is not perhaps the most multi-faceted supporting character. Tom Hanks is called upon to do a lot of vocal heavy lifting in the original Toy Story; it’s a hilarious performance, but also bursting with bitterness and resentment, with desperation and kindness. Dame Angela Lansbury is an icon. I do not question it.

But I vote for Tom Hanks.

(11) Patrick Warburton, The Emperor’s New Groove vs. (3) Jerry Orbach, Beauty and the Beast

I may have given Jessica Fletcher the shaft, but I won’t be doing the same for Harry McGraw. (Is that a reference for literally anyone reading this? I’m watching Murder, She Wrote, off and on throughout the pandemic, and before he was Lumiere, before he was Detective Lennie Briscoe, hell, before he was the dad in Dirty Dancing, Jerry Orbach appeared on the crime procedural as a cohort of Jessica’s. I digress.) Jerry Orbach and Patrick Warburton are, I think you could argue, both playing fairly one-note roles. Kronk may be more than just a dumb henchman, but Warburton is deliberately playing every possible line in the same basic tenor.

So why am I voting for Jerry Orbach? Well, the same reason you may have voted for Angela Lansbury in the first round. “Be Our Guest” is an incredible piece of music, and Jerry Orbach never once disappoints in his exuberant performance. It’s the kind of work that basically blew my mind as a kid, and here’s why. At some point as a kid, while watching reruns of Murder, She Wrote on A&E, I grasped that Mrs. Potts and Jessica Fletcher were the same person. It made sense. At the same point, I would watch Law and Order on A&E, and to realize that Lumiere and Lennie Briscoe were the same person was — to a very silly 8- or 9-year old, however old I was — a brief and effective explanation of the power of good acting.

I vote for Jerry Orbach.

(10) Ed Asner, Up vs. (2) Phil Harris, The Jungle Book

My prediction: Phil Harris will win this round. My harrumph: he should not. Yes, Phil Harris is very entertaining as Baloo, and it helps that he has one of the all-time great Disney songs to sing in “The Bare Necessities”. Baloo, though, is extremely one-note, to the point where Harris would essentially play the same laid-back, lazy character in the next two Disney movies. Even though I’m not really taking those two films into account, I do think it’s worth noting that there is deliberately not much there there. He’s very good — I put him as a two-seed on purpose — but no.

No, I stick with Ed Asner for the second time, and here’s where you may get a clue into my thinking throughout these brackets. As I type these words, I am sure that I’m going to see one or two people on Twitter signal-boost this poll — as I hope you all do — and imply that voting for Ed Asner may be unfair because the most memorably emotional scene in Up is one without dialogue. While it’s entirely true to point this out, I strongly disagree that Asner’s not doing a lot of very important and complex work aside from just sounding like a gruff old dude. The line reading that sticks with me still — “I’m going to get to Paradise Falls if it kills me!” — is packed with sadness and self-loathing that doesn’t get too heavily acknowledged. I know. The “Married Life” scene is a gut-punch and it’s silent. But Ed Asner’s doing a lot of work outside of that scene.

I vote for Ed Asner.