The Voice-Over Bracket, Round 4

Today, we enter the Elite Eight stage of the Disney/Pixar voice performance bracket, and I’ll avoid cluttering your inbox too much, by revealing my personal preferences for all four matchups within the round. (That’s even though we’ll be doing just one matchup per day for the rest of the bracket.)

Ready? Let’s go.

(1) Robin Williams, Aladdin vs. (11) Patrick Warburton, The Emperor’s New Groove

I say it’s the Disney/Pixar voice performance bracket, but it’s really a Disney bracket at this point. I would’ve expected a couple of the Pixar performances to make it this far, but voters like you have proven me wrong.

What does not surprise me, if I really acknowledge it, is that Robin Williams has made it this far. As you know from the last round, I’d hoped that Tom Hanks would have moved forward for his emotional, physically taxing work as Sheriff Woody. Alas, the irrepressible Williams survived to live another day. And while I know that there are many, many, MANY passionate fans of The Emperor’s New Groove out there, I have to imagine that Williams is headed to the Final Four.

He’s where I’m voting today. Both Williams and Warburton are very funny, the latter working with material that’s weird and unexpected and off-kilter in ways that most Disney comic writing isn’t (at least in the features). But Robin Williams has rarely found a better outlet for his personality than the dexterous animation courtesy of Eric Goldberg and others; the entirety of the character is brilliant, and so too is his voice work.

I vote for Williams.

(1) Jeremy Irons, The Lion King vs. (2) Pat Carroll, The Little Mermaid

Of the overall Elite Eight, there’s only one matchup where the top two seeds are duking it out. And here we are. I know some of you are quite passionate about Pat Carroll, and there are plenty of reasons to prefer her work to Jeremy Irons’. (A couple voters have noted that he only partially sings “Be Prepared”, replaced midway through by Jim Cummings. Just listen to the last verse and chorus, if you’ve never noticed the difference before.)

But I am voting for Jeremy Irons. Part of what helps is that the animators and filmmakers shifted the way Scar acted to better fit with the Oscar winner. (I am sure you already know that the “You’re so weird” / “You have no idea” exchange is a reference to Irons’ award-winning work as Claus von Bulow. But if you didn’t know, well, now you know.) Part of it is that Irons’ silkiness lends itself to explaining why Simba finds Scar strangely charming as a kid, and how he’s able to shift into pure villainy midway through.

It will not disappoint me if Pat Carroll wins here. She’s great. But I vote for Jeremy Irons.

(1) Sterling Holloway, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh vs. (7) Auli’i Cravalho, Moana

Well, here’s a matchup that surprises me on both sides. I was not expecting either Holloway or Cravalho to make it this far — instead, I was expecting that this would be a true Sophie’s Choice for me, pitting Amy Poehler against Anika Noni Rose. Sadly, it wasn’t to be.

Not that I dislike either of these performances. Sterling Holloway is a true Disney Legend, a voice as inimitable and associative with Disney animation as anyone else’s. I placed him as a top seed in part because of his overall legendary status and in part because Winnie the Pooh is so iconic in Western popular culture. But truth be told, I expected him out a while ago.

The same is true of Auli’i Cravalho, who’s quite passionate and fierce as Moana, both when talking and when singing. I’m siding with her on this one. I adore Winnie the Pooh, both as a character and as an overall part of the Disney canon. There are few worlds as inviting to little children and adults alike, and Holloway — who’s just as capable at playing bad guys — finds the right modulation and pitch to make Pooh a wonderful hero. But the entirety of his character is slight, where Cravalho has a lot more on her plate. The greatness of the music helps, as does the overall characterization of Moana. She just has more to do, and does it well.

So I vote for Auli’i Cravalho.

(4) Jodi Benson, The Little Mermaid vs. (10) Clarence Nash, The Three Caballeros

The two matchups that led to Benson and Nash both surprised me. Now, I did expect Jodi Benson to win, and you know from the previous round that I would’ve wanted Nash too. But going into the last part of Round Three, I had a grim thought: “It’s going to be Robin Williams against James Earl Jones in the finale, huh?” Nothing against Jones, but while I think he’s quite good as Mufasa, I don’t think it’s Top Two material.

That said: Jodi Benson barely won her matchup to get here, and when I say barely, I mean that she won by only a few handfuls of votes. I wasn’t expecting her to lose. But I also wasn’t expecting her to barely win.

I say all of this because while I have what I think are decent guesses as to who’s going to win the other matchups in this round, this one’s a toss-up. I know who I’m voting for — I’ll stick with Benson again. But I could see Clarence Nash winning, if only because people have a latent affection for the original Donald Duck. (I will note here — I can’t force you to vote in a specific way, but please note that you’re not meant to vote for Clarence Nash for all of the times he played Donald Duck, just this one 1944 movie.) While the physical taxation involved in portraying Donald is undeniable, the fact of the matter is, “Part of Your World” is a world-beater that Nash’s work can’t begin to match.

I vote for Jodi Benson.