The Voice-Over Bracket, Round 3 -- Day 1

Well, friends, we have a Sweet Sixteen of the Disney/Pixar voice performance bracket. Take a look.

Now that we’re down to 16 competitors, there will only be two matchups per day, quickly followed by one per day in the next round.

Let’s go over today’s battles.

(1) Robin Williams, Aladdin vs. (5) Tom Hanks, Toy Story

Two Academy Award winners going head to head. Two icons. It’s matches like these that I was hoping for as the bracket winnowed down, and the voters have not disappointed. Now, in the last round, we said goodbye to one of the top-seeded performances, and that surprised me a bit. Cliff Edwards isn’t as big a name as John Goodman, and Monsters, Inc. is more recent, but I was expecting the latent awareness and adoration for Pinocchio to send him to victory. (Maybe said latent awareness just doesn’t exist the way I thought it did. Such is life.)

The point is, if I have my way — and I don’t, no matter how much you may think that this daily missive puts a thumb on the scale — we will be saying goodbye to another top-seeded performer today. I don’t need to spend a lot of time talking up the legend and brilliance of Robin Williams. But the Genie, as I hinted at in the last round, is a fairly one-note character. A funny character, with references that inexplicably still work for me now as they did in 1992 (when I frankly understood fewer of them but, as Perd Hapley would say, I understood they had the cadence of a joke). But Tom Hanks as Sheriff Woody is a wonderfully nuanced performance full of life that goes beyond an improvised riff or two. Williams gets two very good songs to sing, and Hanks gets none. That’s true. The rest of his performance, though, is mammoth.

I vote for Tom Hanks.

(11) Patrick Warburton, The Emperor’s New Groove vs. (2) Phil Harris, The Jungle Book

I write these words a day before the poll goes up, so we’ll see if I’m prescient or just full of it. I feel like Patrick Warburton is heading to the next round, because while there aren’t a billion fans of Kronk and The Emperor’s New Groove, those fans of his are very passionate.

I, on the other hand, would say goodbye to Kronk and his culinary talent today, in favor of Phil Harris as Baloo. As mentioned in the last round (and the last vote here), I am less prone to vote for one-note performances unless that note is hit exceptionally well. And such is the case with Baloo. It’s not just that this is easily Harris’ best performance, and that “The Bare Necessities” is one of the five best Disney songs ever written and performed. But boy, that helps. Baloo is a supporting character, yet Harris makes each of his moments onscreen so indelible that it’s fully earned that the walking-into-the-sunset shot is his, not Mowgli’s (y’know, the lead of the movie). Warburton’s voice is unforgettably distinct and funny, but I’m going with Harris.