Back to the Drawing Board - The DreamWorks Edition

Welcome to the first edition of something that I like to call Back to the Drawing Board, where we look at things from the development process of something animated that ended up being cut - or cancelled entirely. And stuff like that. It's gonna be much more interesting (I hope) than I'm describing it here, trust me. So, what's our first topic?

"I've been sitting on this moon since the 1990s and I STILL haven't caught anything! What the heck?!"

Ah, DreamWorks Animation. You've always been a bit of a mixed bag of an animation studio. When you made a good film (Kung Fu Panda, the first two Shrek movies), you made a good film. When you made a lousy film (Shark Tale, for instance), boy did you make a lousy movie.

One thing I will say about DreamWorks is that they certainly been able to make the most out of some rather strange premises. For instance, a snail wants to race in the Indy 500. Who would've thunk that they could actually make a good movie out of that? However, this didn't always work out in their favor. I don't think there's any way that they could've made a movie about a bee falling in love with a human woman and then suing the entire human race work.

Which leads me into the story of the first film idea we'll be talking about today - in 2005, DreamWorks announced a film called Route 66.

Route 66

What, exactly, was Route 66 supposed to be about?

Well, if you're like me and you haven't been to Route 66, there are all these neat things to see as you're driving down the road. Teepees and dinosaurs and a large blue whale (pictured below).

Insert some sort of Pinocchio-related joke here, I've got nothing.

DreamWorks' film about Route 66 was apparently supposed to be about a giant golf ball statue located on Route 66 named Mulligan voiced by Harland Williams. Would DreamWorks have been able to make audiences care about a giant golf ball the same way it made audiences care about a panda with the voice of Jack Black? Well, Route 66 for whatever reason didn't get made (maybe they thought it would've been too similar to PIXAR's Cars?), so we'll never know. But hey, maybe.

Concept art from the film.

It Came From Earth!

When DreamWorks announced Route 66 in 2005, they also announced a film called It Came From Earth!. This film was described as "a reverse alien invasion story told from the perspective of martians when human astronauts arrive". This, in my opinion, sounds like it would've been a lot more interesting than the DreamWorks movie about aliens that we DID eventually get, Home (seriously, WHY did they cast Rihanna as a character who is supposed to be a little girl?).

Actually, come to think of it, isn't that essentially the plot of Planet 51? Except there's just the one astronaut rather than a whole bunch of them?

I couldn't find any concept art for It Came From Earth!, so here's the DVD cover for Planet 51. I have not seen this movie, but it looked pretty lousy. I like the astronaut's expression and pose, though.

Shrek Goes Fourth

Remember when Shrek was a film beloved by audiences and considered a hilarious spoof of classic fairy tales? Well, it was indeed both of those things... until 2007, when Shrek the Third came out. When everyone saw how awful that movie was, Shrek quickly became a mockery. Nowadays, this franchise is mainly just liked for the multiple memes that it spawned.

Blah blah blah, check yourself before you Shrek yourself, yadda-yadda-yadda...

Well, before Shrek the Third came out, DreamWorks planned on having FIVE Shrek movies. FIVE. The plot for the actual fourth movie starring the Mike Myers-voiced ogre, Shrek Forever After*, was originally going to be the plot of Shrek Five, and Shrek 4 - or Shrek Goes Fourth** - was to be a prequel of sorts about Shrek telling his kids the story of how he found that swamp that they call home in the first place. Or maybe Shrek Forever After always had the plot it was released with and the "Shrek's backstory" thing was to be the plot of Shrek 5, I'm not one hundred percent sure which.

Either way, here's some concept art of a teenaged Shrek. It's very strange seeing Shrek so thin...

And then Shrek the Third came out and got negative reviews. I've seen multiple people refer to it as "Shrek the Turd". DreamWorks got the hint and decided that maybe they were better off just making ONE more Shrek movie as opposed to two (well, technically they DID make two more Shrek movies if we're counting the Puss in Boots spin-off film, but still...).

Thus, Shrek Forever After was released in 2010, didn't get very good reviews either (though its Rotten Tomatoes score is higher than that of Shrek the Third) and Shrek has since then only shown up in television specials and YouTube videos. Then a few years after the fourth film was released it was announced that they were actually making a fifth Shrek movie... or maybe it's going to be a reboot of the whole franchise, once again I'm not sure one hundred percent sure which. If it is indeed a fifth movie, this article is going to be pretty outdated.

Hopefully this at least means that all those Shrek food tie-ins that were everywhere when Shrek 2 and Shrek the Third were in theaters will be back. You know, the Shrek Twinkies, the Shrek M&Ms, the Shrek sundaes at Baskin-Robbins... all that stuff. I probably won't eat any of it, but still, I kind of hope that it'll all back for no other reason than to see people react to it.

Larrikins

Larrikins sounds like it would've been pretty interesting. The film was meant to be released in 2018 and focus on an uptight bilby named Perry (an Australian animal named Perry... where have I seen that before?) who gets kicked out of his burrow and finds himself in the middle of a musical adventure in the Australian outback. Other characters included a hard-edged authority-hating kangaroo named Red and a crocodile named Howard who believes that he is in charge of preventing 'non-native species' from spreading. Peter de Seve, who's done a lot of character designs for the Ice Age franchise, did some concept art for the film, which I have posted below.

Hugh Jackman, Margot Robbie, Ben Mendelsohn, Josh Lawson, and Rose Byrne were just some of the celebrities chosen to voice the film's characters. Alas, in 2017 it was revealed that Larrikins had been cancelled. Tim Minchin, one of the film's directors, was understandably not too thrilled about this.

On a positive note, elements and characters from the film wound up in a recent DreamWorks short called Bilby.

Tortoise vs. Hare

You know the story of "The Tortoise and the Hare", right? If you don't, here's a summary: a hare won't stop bragging about how fast he is, a tortoise says that he can beat him in a race, so they race, the hare takes the lead and then thinks that he can take a nap and the tortoise still won't be able to beat him, but the tortoise takes the lead while the hare is sleeping and wins the race, and the moral is apparently supposed to be that "slow and steady wins the race" but it comes across more as "don't be a cocky idiot and take a nap during a footrace."

"I can beat him... he might be fast, but he's also a lazy idiot!"

Well, in 1999, Aardman announced that they were planning an adaptation of the story with DreamWorks (this was just a year before their first DreamWorks-distributed film, Chicken Run, was released). The project ended up being postponed in 2001 so they could rework the script.

Why didn't we see this film? Well, DreamWorks had a habit of meddling with production of Aardman's third film distributed by them, Flushed Away (which I personally think is a hilarious film and definitely recommend watching). For one thing, it was originally supposed to be about pirates, but DreamWorks claimed that pirate films weren't marketable (this is before the first Pirates of the Caribbean film came out, but I bet they felt pretty stupid when they saw how much money THOSE films were making) and asked them to modernize the idea. They also insisted on more of the film's comic relief slugs.

The entire process was such a migraine for Aardman that they decided to stop letting DreamWorks distribute their films. They went over to Sony Pictures Animation after that, and eventually did indeed make a movie about pirates (which I haven't seen but I've heard great things about). Who knows, maybe someday they'll take another crack at "The Tortoise and the Hare". And by "they" I mean either Aardman or DreamWorks.

Here is a tortoise from an episode of Aardman's Creature Comforts.
I don't know why he's wearing a sweatband. Maybe he just completed a race against a hare?

Tusker

After Antz was released, DreamWorks announced in the December of 1998 that their next film would be Tusker. It would've been directed by the same directors that helmed Antz and focused on a herd of elephants trekking across Southeast Asia. I gotta say, going from a film about bugs to a film about elephants is a pretty big (pun intended) leap.

I love elephants, so I'm obviously pretty disappointing that this didn't get made. I'm not sure why it didn't get made - maybe the CGI department was too busy working on Shrek or something? But if that were the case, why not just make it traditionally-animated?

Here are some storyboards for the film posted by Frans Vischer on his blog:

I don't even have a funny comment here. I just REALLY WISH that this film got made!

While nothing ever came out of the project at DreamWorks, in 2008 it was revealed that the film was now under production at an animation company called Imagi (who also worked with DreamWorks on that Father of the Pride show). But then Imagi closed in 2011, and at no point in-between 2008 and 2011 did they actually release Tusker. In fact, I'm not even sure if they started working on it before the studio closed (they had quite a few other projects going at the time, mind you).

And speaking of cancelled films from DreamWorks' early days...

The Wanderer

This film was to be directed by Paul and Gaetan Brizzi (brothers who worked on a number of projects at Disney, including Tarzan, A Goofy Movie, and Fantasia 2000) and Simon Wells (who also directed We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story and The Time Machine and acted as a story artist on many of DreamWorks' other films). All we know about this one is that it was going to be about a stray bear who joins a group of circus bears and changes their lives. In 2012, Devin Crane uploaded some concept art for the film on his blog.

The project ended up being cancelled after Simon Wells went off to direct The Time Machine and some studio changes. We wouldn't get to see DreamWorks' take on a circus bear until ten years later when Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted came out.

Obviously the bears in The Wanderer were to be much more anthropomorphic than this one.

Truckers

I've never read the 1989 book Truckers or its sequels. When I first heard the name I thought "Is it about trucks? Or truck-drivers? Or something related to trucks at all?" Well, it's not about any of those things. It's about nomes (I didn't misspell that, in the book they're called "nomes" - just look at the book cover that I've posted below), tiny people who live hidden among humans. DreamWorks acquired the film rights in 2001 and began planning a film that combined all three books into one story. Initially, the film was to be directed by Andrew Adamson.

And apparently they have pet rats too.

Then in 2008, Danny Boyle (yes, the director of Slumdog Millionaire) was announced as the film's director, but the project ended up falling apart. Then in 2009 it was announced that Simon Beaufoy (who coincidentally enough ALSO worked on Slumdog Millionaire as the film's screenwriter) had been hired to work on the project, and in 2010 it was announced that the film was to be written by John Orloff (who also wrote Legend of the Guardians) and directed by Anand Tucker.

Long story short, I'm writing this article in 2019 and we still haven't gotten Truckers. I don't even know if DreamWorks still has the film rights.

Okay, now, this is just SOME of the films that DreamWorks planned on doing but didn't get around to completing. I limited this article to only talk about eight films because otherwise we'd have an extremely long article.

Actually, maybe I'm just being lazy by suggesting you look these films up yourselves instead of talking about them in this article, but again, if I actually DID talk about all of them we would have an extremely long article that you probably wouldn't find very fun to read.

And by the way, I didn't talk about Me and My Shadow because I'm honestly not sure if that's still in production or not. Same with that B.O.O. film that was gonna star Bill Murray and Seth Rogen, Madagascar 4, and Puss in Boots 2.

* I didn't realize this until I was writing this article, but... Shrek Forever After is intended to be a reference to the fact that it's the fourth Shrek movie. No, really. Shrek Forever After. Say it out loud if you don't believe me.

** I also just realized that Shrek Goes Fourth was intended to be a pun on Shrek Goes Forth. What do you think they were planning on calling the hypothetical SIXTH movie? Shrek Sics Puss in Boots on Some Hooligans That Won't Stay Out of His Swamp?

Let's Watch This: "Rio" (2011)

I think the reason why most reviewers review things that they don't like is because it's easier to get joke material out of something that's not good. Is it possible to make a funny review of a movie that you like? I don't know, but I'm gonna give it a shot.

First off, let's talk a little about Blue Sky Studios. For a while, they more or less became the animation studio that everyone hates (a title that used to be held by DreamWorks, then was held by Illumination Entertainment, and is now held by Sony Pictures Animation), which I don't think they deserve. Sure, they were way too reliant on Ice Age for a while (we didn't need FOUR SEQUELS TO IT), but it's not like they're incapable of making good films. I personally love the first Ice Age (and kinda like the third - the second and fourth ones are lousy and I haven't seen the fifth and make no plans to [and I'm going to be cautiously optomistic about the television series that'll be featured on the DisneyPlay streaming thing), Horton Hears a Who, and The Peanuts Movie.

Today, we'll be looking at another film of theirs that I personally am a fan of. That film is their 2011 release, Rio.

The movie begins with the sun rising over the city of Rio de Janerio... and a rainforest near the city. A bird flies around, waking up other birds, leading into our first musical number: "Real in Rio". I like the animation during the animation during this scene: the scarlet macaws doing their thing, the toucans dancing... Although (and this is admittedly a nitpick) it's pretty obvious that for the yellow macaws, they simply took the model for Blu, recolored him, and called it a day. I mean, I understand that CGI animation is expensive and all, but come on, couldn't you make it a little less obvious?

"Dude, have you noticed that we look EXACTLY THE SAME?"

The music wakes up an adorable blue macaw chick in a tree, who starts to dance to the music. But then, the musical number is interrupted by poachers... I'm sorry, smugglers, who capture all the birds. In the confusion, the chick falls out of the tree and gets captured as well. Soon he's in a truck in Minnesota, and the crate that he's in falls out of it and gets found by a little girl named Linda, who gently tells the little chick that she'll take care of him.

Years since that faithful day, Linda (voiced by Leslie Mann) now runs a bookstore, with the bird, who she's given the name Blu (voiced by Jesse Eisenberg), as her faithful assistant.

Uh... macaws don't have teeth, do they? What the heck is Blu brushing?

As he enjoys his hot chocolate, Blu is taunted by two geese outside voiced by Wanda Sykes and Jane Lynch. Question: what exactly was the purpose of getting celebrities to voice these characters who only show up in one scene and have very few lines? Not that Wanda and Jane do a bad job, but it's kind of weird, isn't it? You couldn't have just gotten, I dunno, Tress MacNeille to do them?
Granted, this sort of thing isn't new for Blue Sky - Robots had Paula Abdul, Jay Leno, and Randy Jackson as background characters with jack-squat in the way of lines (Jay Leno voices a fire hydrant at the beginning who congratulates Rodney's dad on his new baby, then notices a dog standing nearby and says "Don't even think about it.").

A guy named Tulio (voiced by Rodrigo Santoro) shows up, scaring the geese away. He explains that he's there because he heard that Linda has a rare "blue macaw" (it's actually called a Spix's Macaw) and then starts acting like a crazy person. Blu asks, "Linda, a little help here?" I don't blame you for being freaked out, Blu.

Anyhow, it turns out that they found a female blue macaw, and they want Blu to go to Rio de Janerio so that they can get it on. Linda isn't exactly a huge fan of the idea, she's kind of overprotective of Blu (he doesn't even fly) and let's be honest here, Tulio seems kind of crazy. So she turns him down, but that night Blu tries his hand at flying (and fails miserably), so she decides maybe he wants to go to Rio after all.

So it's off to Rio, where Tulio informs Linda about Carnival, and Blu meets a canary and a cardinal named Nico and Pedro (voiced by Jamie Foxx and will.i.am). They offer to get him out of his cage (Pedro says he'll "pop that cage open like a soda can), and give him some romantic advice when he reveals that he's there to meet a girl.

"Dude, somebody's doing a review of our movie. And it's full of unfunny jokes!"

They arrive at the bird sanctuary place, where Tulio allows birds to eat out of his mouth (which is in my opinion gross) and Blu discovers that the macaw he's there to meet, Jewel, is kind of a free spirit. Tulio makes Blu look "irresistible" - and by "irresistible" I mean stupid. Seriously, look at him.

He really thinks Jewel is going to find that attractive? She'll probably take one look at him and burst out laughing.

Jewel (voiced by Anne Hathaway) tackles Blu, then after Blu introduces himself, she leads him over to a tree (which he climbs up), and Blu assumes that it's time for some "repopulating". But when Blu tries to kiss her, Jewel gets angry - she was enlisting his help to escape the place. "Did you actually think that we were gonna kiss?!" she demands. "We just met!" Blu insists that it's all just a big misunderstanding, but then Tulio decides to set the mood with, uh, a disco ball and Lionel Ritchie music, and Jewel assumes that Blu is responsible for those things (for some reason... I mean, how could he have possibly summoned it?) and starts beating the heck out of him.

Linda is hesitant to leave Blu alone as she and Tulio go out to eat, but Tulio insists that the security guard, Sylvio (voiced by Bernardo De Paula), is super-competent. But then a fierce cockatoo named Nigel attacks him, getting him out of the way so that somebody can sneak in and steal the birds. Also, I did not need to see the guard in that outfit. You couldn't just have him dancing to the music with his normal clothes on?

(I was gonna put a screencap of the guard in the outfit here, but I decided to spare you all)

Meanwhile, Blu is trying to sleep, and Jewel is still trying to escape. "I wouldn't expect a pet to understand," Jewel says. "I am not a pet. I am a companion," Blu insists. Jewel asks why she would want to be with a human over his own kind and claims that you can't trust humans. We don't any explanation as to why Jewel doesn't trust humans, but I guess they thought the implication that she was captured by humans and brought to this place for reasons that she probably doesn't understand was enough. Blu insists that humans are awesome and then Nigel's partner-in-crime sneaks in and nabs them.

Linda obviously isn't thrilled to discover that Blu's been stolen and initially blames herself, then blames Tulio for dragging her into this mess in the first place. Tulio says, "I don't understand! Sylvio is the best guard in the business!" I dunno, I think anyone who dresses like that wouldn't make for a very competent guard.

Meanwhile, the birdnapper is bringing the birds to his employer's lair. Blu is repeating to himself, "There's no place like home, there's no place like home, there's no place like home..." Sorry, Blu, but that only worked for Dorothy because she was dreaming.

It turns out that the birdnapper is a boy named Fernando (voiced by Jake T. Austin), who was sent to nab the blue macaws by an evil guy named Marcel (voiced by Carlos Ponce). Marcel has two idiot henchmen named Tipa (voiced by Jeffery Garcia) and Armando (voiced by Davi Vieira). Remember that gag in the Nostalgia Critic's review of Pound Puppies and the Legend of Big Paw where the villain's two idiot henchmen point out that they're in every single movie ever? The fat guy and the skinny guy who are both thugs? That same joke applies here. Because Marcel's henchmen are that stereotype. Fernando isn't evil, of course - he's only working with the smugglers because... I don't know why he's helping them (apparently he's just really desperate for money?).

Jewel tries to escape (she's not trying to abandon Blu, she just doesn't know he can't fly yet and was expecting him to follow her) but Nigel (voiced by Jermaine Clement) stops her and puts her back in the cage. Then Fernando brings the cage into the room where Mr. Sunglasses and Stupid Haircut keeps all of his OTHER smuggled birds. I like the gag about the bat being among the caged birds.

"You gotta get me outta here! This cage is driving me BATTY!"

(I know, I know, it's an obvious joke...)

So Marcel's all, "We're going to be rich!" and Fernando is bummed because instead of being a normal kid he's stuck working for these three idiots.

Then we cut to Sleazy McSmuggler Guy and his two idiot henchmen. Sleazy is making a deal with some guys to deliver the blue macaws to them, and then it's time for Nigel's feeding. Here we learn that Nigel is a cannibal. Just like Woodstock:

I have this movie to thank for making me a fan of Jermaine Clement. He does a wonderful job as Nigel.

Then Nigel enters the room where the smuggled birds are kept and tells Blu and Jewel (and the audience) his backstory. He used to be the star of a television show, but then they decided to ditch him for a parakeet. He didn't take it well, and decided to get revenge on all pretty birds.

I actually like Nigel's song, though I will admit the rap portion in the middle is kind of cringe-worthy (though the gag about him blaming seagulls for his pooping on people is pretty funny).

Jewel then tries to bust out of the cage, which gets the attention of the smugglers and Nigel. Blu then shows her that they can just pick the lock on the cage, and Jewel decides to fly for it. And it's NOW that Blu reveals that he can't fly, causing them to fly to the ground, slide across a clothesline, and land in a pile of boxes. "Is there anything else I need to know?!" Jewel demands. "Yes!" Blu replies. "I can't fly, I pick my beak, and once in a while I pee in the birdbath!" That's funny, but I have to ask... how is it physically possible for Blu to pick his beak?

And apparently Blu is really heavy, too, because Jewel can't fly when he's
chained to her.

Then it's time for a chase sequence between Blu, Jewel, Nigel, and Sleazy Smuggler Guy's idiot henchmen. There's a cute gag here where Blu barks like a dog to scare off a cat that's in their path, then says that he's bilingual. Long story short, Blu and Jewel get away and escape into the jungle, where Blu is freaking out - for a bird that can't fly, the jungle is a pretty dangerous place. Fortunately, they find some sort of structure where they can sleep.

Meanwhile, Linda and Tulio are searching for Blu, and the next morning Fernando finds one of the posters they put up and informs Linda that he knows where Blu is. And Tulio continues to be incredibly weird.

Everybody has their little quirks.

Then we see Blu and Jewel trying to break the chain, but it backfires on them spectacularly. Then baby toucans show up and attack them, but the father toucan, Rafael (voiced by George Lopez) saves them. This is actually the only voiceover role that George Lopez has had so far that doesn't make me question why he hasn't fired his agent. He also voiced Grouchy Smurf in those live action Smurfs movies (despite the fact that George Lopez's voice does not fit a teeny-tiny Smurf at all), the orange slug alien guy in that Escape From Planet Earth thing (which I haven't seen and I plan to keep it that way) and one of the Chihuahuas in Beverly Hills Chihuahua... ah yes, and he was also going to voice Speedy Gonzales in that live-action/CGI hybrid movie about him that fortunately didn't get off the ground. Yeah...

Anyhow, Rafael says that he knows this guy named Luiz who can get the chain off, but first he must ask permission from his wife (voiced by Bebel Gilberto). His wife's initially suspicious that he just wants to sneak off to Carnaval, but Rafael somehow convinces her that this isn't the case by reminding her of when THEY met at Carnaval. And we find out that Rafael's wife can't sing.

"WHAPAH!"

So anyhow, Smuggling Mr. Sleazy  decides that since his idiot henchmen are morons who are able to get outsmarted by parrots, he is putting Nigel in charge of finding the macaws. Then we cut back to Blu, Jewel, and Rafael. Rafael decides to teach Blu how to fly. His idea is to have Blu and Jewel jump off a mountain, but wouldn't you know it, Blu chickens out as they're running (and as he points out, I'm pretty sure Rafael's whole "one of you flaps their left wing, the other flaps their right wing, together you fly" plan wouldn't have worked anyway) and he and Jewel fall off the cliff and onto a hang-glider. They ride the hang-glider for a minute or so, but then they fall off and WHACKY SHENANIGANS ENSUE.

"Blue Sky Studios' next movie after this is a FOURTH ICE AGE MOVIE?!
AAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

Nigel, meanwhile, enlists the help of some marmosets to find the macaws. Why marmosets? Well, because as the Nostalgia Critic said, Hollywood thinks that monkeys automatically equals funny. Why did I mention the Nostalgia Critic TWICE? Now I'm afraid that I'm just going to come across as a Nostalgia Critic wannabe (though I think that ship has sailed already).

"Make one Flight of the Conchords joke and I'll eat you alive!"

Blu, Jewel, and Rafael run into Nico and Pedro, who as it turns out are buddies of Rafael (Nico's "Baby got beak" joke is pretty awkward). They say that they just missed Luiz, but there's plenty of time before the next cable car shows up to do a little PARTYING and take them to the Tiki Room Rave Party. Actually, now that Disney owns FOX, I wouldn't be surprised if they decide to stick characters from the film in the Enchanted Tiki Room*. I don't think it's necessary for that to happen, but eh, it can't be any worse than when Iago and Zazu ran the place.

Tweety Bird can suck it. NICO is the best cartoon canary.

This leads to the movie's next song, "Hot Wings". Which is awesome. DANG can Jamie Foxx sing. If this song is included, I would be totally fine with a retheme of the Tiki Room based on this movie. Anyhow, this is also the scene where it becomes obvious (as if it wasn't already) that Blu and Jewel have feelings for each other. But before they can get repopulating the species, the marmosets arrive and tell them that they are coming with them. Rafael tries to be the peacemaker, but the lead marmoset insults him, and the other birds say that if they mess with their friends, they mess with THEM. And then it's (as Pedro puts it) BIRDS VS. MONKEYS!

What WOULD happen if a flock of birds went at it with a bunch of marmosets?
Now I'm curious...

Then the cable car arrives, but a spoonbill named Kipo (also voiced by Bernardo De Paula) gives Blu and Jewel a lift. Nico channels Indiana Jones and takes out the marmosets. And Blu says that he and Jewel are like "cheese and sprinkles". Do people actually say that in Minnesota?

So then we cut back to Linda, Tulio and the kid. Fernando admits that he's the one who took them and Tulio makes this face.

He does not approve of this film's use of the "Liar Revealed" cliché. Actually, DOES this qualify as the "Liar Revealed" cliché? Fernando didn't actually lie about being involved with the bird-napping, he just... didn't bring it up.

Then Fat Idiot Henchman and Idiot Thin Henchmen show up dressed in stupid chicken outfits while Linda and Tulio hide. Apparently, they're going to be in Carnival. When they leave, Linda and Tulio decide that they must stop the two idiot henchmen and decide to use a motorcycle to do it. Tulio can't drive it to save his life, but of course Linda can do it with ease (because it's just like riding a snowmobile).

Nigel interrogates a rejected Angry Birds character** on the whereabouts of the "cerulean birds", and then we cut back to our heroes. Blu tries to make the moves on Jewel, but he's not very good at it. And then the others decide to set the mood, which leads to another song - and this is performed by Jamie Foxx, too. Seriously, if Jamie Foxx does any more voiceover work, the projects he lends his voice to better have him sing. Otherwise, that's just a waste. But alas, the romantic mood is ruined by Blu swallowing a petal.

Then they finally arrive at Luiz's garage. Luiz, as it turns out, is a bulldog (voiced by Tracy Morgan). It isn't specified if he actually owns the garage or if he just has an owner that we never see. While I like Luiz, I'm not a fan of the fact that he CONSTANTLY DROOLS (I'm sorry Luiz, I know you can't help it and that it's a medical condition).

Somehow, Luiz has access to dangerous machinery which he plans on using to cut the chain, but Jewel decides to fly for it, resulting in Blu barely missing the whirling blades. Thankfully, the day is saved by Luiz's drool, which allows Blu and Jewel's talons to slip out of the chain.

Did you know that bulldogs got their name from their use in an English sport
called "bullbaiting", which involves tethering a bull to a stake in the ground and encouraging
the dogs to try and bite the bull's nose? Yes, that DOES sound like a really cruel (and stupid) sport.

Then we get the typical "couple has an argument", during which Blu admits that he hates samba, much to everyone's shock. He claims that every song sounds exactly the same (which is my opinion on most modern music today, just FYI). Blu storms off in one direction, Jewel flies off in another, and Rafael, Nico and Pedro know that it's up to them to get them back together.

Ah yes, and Luiz puts on an outfit just like the one the guard wore earlier. What is this movie's fascination with male characters in that outfit? It's not as disturbing as when the guard wore it, but still...

Nico and Pedro decide to catch up with Jewel as she flies off in order to convince her not to give up on Blu, but Nigel shows up. Jewel tries to claw his eyes out, but Nigel grabs her by the legs and announces that she's taking her to a parade. And everyone loves a parade.

Meanwhile, Rafael catches up with Blu and informs him that he's not going to Carnival, he's going home to be with his family - he loves Carnival, but he loves his family more, and that's a decision that he made with his heart, not his head. Then Nico and Pedro show up and inform them that Nigel has Jewel, and Blu is all "NOT ON MY WATCH! WE'RE GONNA GO SAVE HER!". So it's off to Carnival!

Marcel the Sleazy Smuggler Sleaze Guy discovers that the idiot henchmen have made a float that looks like, um, this.

I think even the Great Gonzo would find this float hideous.

Linda and Tulio sneak into the parade dressed as Blu and Jewel, but Linda is mistaken for a dancer and shoved into a float. And then Carnival begins. And nobody likes Marcel and his idiot henchmen's float, where Jewel is in a cage.

When I first saw the movie, I wondered why Jewel didn't just bust out of the cage. I guess maybe she remembered that it didn't work for her when she tried it in the cage she was in back at the smuggers' hideout, but in that case, why doesn't she just pick the lock as soon as Nigel has his back turned? Maybe she knows deep down that Blu will be there to rescue her?

EDIT: My mistake, Blu didn't pick the lock before. He just knew how to open the cage from inside. So Jewel probably just doesn't know how to pick the lock. Or open the cage from inside, for that matter.

Blu and the others show up, and Linda spots Blu among the dancers. Blu has to decide - go back to Linda, or save his love interest? Of course, he chooses to go rescue Jewel.

Imagine having to render and then animate all those individual people. I hope
the animators were paid well...

Blu uses a skateboard to make it to the float and lets Jewel know that he's there. But that's just what Nigel wanted him to do! I like the gag where Blu says that he's got backup, and then we see Rafael, Nico and Pedro in another cage, and Pedro doesn't realize that Blu is referring to them and starts cheering that they're going to be rescued.

So the smugglers are getting away with the birds, but Linda is all "OH, HECK NO!" and steals a Carnival float. It's Sleazy Smugger and Idiot Henchmen Fighting Time!

Well, okay, no it isn't. Instead, the smugglers fly off in their plane. Dang, it would've been awesome seeing Smuggler the Smuggling Sleazebag and his idiot henchmen get their rear ends handed to them by Linda and Tulio.

So, how will our heroes get out of this mess? Easy - Blu pops his cage open like a soda can using a fire hydrant, and then he lets Jewel out, and then they let Rafael, Pedro and Nico out, and they all start freeing the other birds. Then they get the door on the back of the plane open and all the birds except Blu and Jewel fly for it. Jewel says they'll figure out how they can get Blu out of there together.

But then Nigel arrives and tackles Blu. Jewel tries to fight him, but Nigel launches her into a wall, injuring her wing in the process. Nigel is all "Now we have TWO birds who can't fly, BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" But then Blu is all "I don't think so, pal!" and uses the fire hydrant to send Nigel flying. Then Nigel says hello to Mr. Jet Turbine (though we find out during the credits that he survived).

Sleazy and the idiots jump out of the plane (in case you're wondering what happens to them, during the credits we see a photo of them in jail). Jewel falls out of the plane, and Blu jumps out after her. He has no plan here, other than "NOT LETTING GO OF MY LOVE", but then Jewel makes out with Blu, and then the power of love allows Blu to fly. "I'M NOT AN OSTRICH!" he shouts.

Then they make it back to Linda and Tulio. Ah yes, and Fernando, who apparently caught up to them offscreen. Tulio is all "I'll fix Blu's girlfriend's broken wing". Thus Jewel learns to trust humans, and soon she's ready to fly again. And Linda now works at the bird sanctuary (so who's running the bookstore back in Minnesota?), as does Fernando. And we end with a reprise of "Real in Rio", which thankfully means I get to hear Jamie Foxx sing again. During the song, we see that the two macaws have had chicks (who look nothing like they do in the sequel, but to be fair they probably didn't know that they were gonna have a sequel yet).

Oh, and Nigel survived, but he now looks like this.

Suck it up, Nigel. You got sucked into a JET TURBINE, you should consider yourself
lucky to even be alive.

So how does Rio hold up? Well, I personally like it. It's no Ice Age, but that's to be expected. It's got likeable characters, good songs, decent animation, and the voice actors all do a good job. I admittedly don't care all that much about the human characters (the idiot henchmen in particular I can do without), but I can stomach them fine. I'll admit that most of my comments in this review are nitpicks, but they don't take away from my enjoyment of the film, they're just little questions I have.

I would recommend giving it a watch. I haven't seen Rio 2, but I've heard that it's not very good, but who knows? If you liked the first one, maybe you'll like the second one as well. I don't know if they're gonna make a third one.

* Then again, I have heard rumors that they might be adding a Brazil pavilion to EPCOT. Maybe if they do, they can just stick a ride based on the film in there.

** He even throws the bird into a pile of crates (she hits a marmoset, but still).

Let's Watch This: An Episode of "The Lionhearts"

Welcome to the first edition of what I like to call "Let's Watch This". These will be reviews of television show episodes, specials, or movies - animated ones, that is. For my first review, I decided to look at an obscure cartoon show from 1998 featuring a certain lion.

One of the most iconic studio logos of all time is the one for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. You know the one. The one with the lion roaring at us. That being said, however, I'm not sure that anyone at any point in time saw that logo and said, "I wonder what that lion's personal life is like?"

But that didn't stop the folks at MGM from deciding to make a cartoon show about the company's lion mascot, Leo. And so, in 1998 a show by the name of The Lionhearts began airing on Saturday mornings, and children all over the United States got to learn a little about the life of the mascot of  a movie studio. Apparently, however, kids weren't exactly interested in the personal lives of Leo, his wife, or their kids, because only thirteen episodes of the show was made. It also doesn't have a DVD release.

Please just ignore the fact that the lion on the show and the lion in the actual logo look nothing alike.

I'm guessing the fact that this show didn't really take off is why there haven't been more shows about studio mascots. Who knows, maybe if it had become a success we would've gotten The TriStar Pictures Pegasus Show or something.

And here's an interesting fact for you - the cartoon version of Leo and his family made their debut before this show, in a series of sing-along children's videos released by MGM a year before (this, apparently, was MGM's attempt at cashing in on the success of the Disney Sing-Along Songs videos).

This, of course, begs the question - did The Lionhearts flop for a reason, or is it actually much better than you'd think a show about a lion whose claim to fame is roaring at the camera at the beginning of films would be? Let's find out. The episode we'll be watching is called "Family Circus" (no, it's not a crossover with the comic strip).

"Those guys that paint the billboards... They just can't get my nose right!"

After the theme song (a catchy little ditty called "Roar" performed by Randy Creshaw), the episode begins with Leo doing his thing and roaring inside the MGM logo. They're trying to do a bait-and-switch here - we see Leo in silhouette, and his silhouette just so happens to look like that of a non-anthropomorphic lion, so I guess we're supposed to think at first that the show is about a non-anthropomorphic lion. The one problem with this is that anybody who's seen the intro knows that Leo isn't a normal lion but rather a lion who wears a sweater, walks around on his hind legs, and speaks with the voice of William H. Macy. Nice try, though.

"WHAT DOES A LION GOTTA DO TO GET AN ESPRESSO AROUND HERE?!"

After that, we cut to Leo in his dressing room. His makeup lady (who's voiced by Betty White and kind of looks like Yzma) is ticked off that the director (voiced by Joe Pantoliano) made Leo roar multiple times until he "got it right" or whatever.

I gotta admit, so far this show has been pretty blah. I like the way Leo is designed and William H. Macy does a good job as the voice, but so far, it doesn't feel like anything is really happening.

But maybe things will pick up when we cut to Leo's family back at his house. He has three cubs: Kate (voiced by Natasha Slayton), Spencer (voiced by Cameron Finley), and Judy (voiced by Nicolette Little), who establish their personalities for the audience. Kate likes to talk on the phone and dresses like a jockey, Spencer likes rock and roll music (so he's essentially Luna from The Loud House except he's male, younger and covered with fur), and Judy is, well, a typical four-year-old. Kate and Spencer start arguing about how annoying they think each other's personalities are, and then Judy notices a spider on the ceiling. Their mother, Lana (voiced by Peri Gilpin) comes in and explains to the terrified kids that the spider is named Larry and that he's a friend of Uncle Marvin.

How could anybody be scared of this guy? He looks like he just crawled out of Monsters Inc.

Lana gets Larry down while the kids give some exposition about how Lana used to be a circus performer, and then Leo comes home. Jeez, we're four minutes and twenty-five seconds into the episode and I'm having difficulty trying to make funny material out of this. It's not a bad show, but nothing's really happening.

Leo sits down in his easy chair for a nap, and then Lana reminds him that he promised to do some bonding with Spencer. "You said you want to show him that there's more to life than his guitar," she says. "But his entire personality is that he likes rock and roll! No way I'm going to convince him that there's more to life than his guitar!" Leo replies (okay, obviously he doesn't really say that. That was just my attempt at a joke).

Leo says that he will indeed do some bonding with Spencer and that he knows just how to do it. Then it cuts to them both taking a nap. Okay, that's kinda funny. Not a laugh riot, but still.
Lana comes in and wakes them both up by blowing a whistle, then tells Leo that she's sure that he can think of something more exciting to do with Spencer. Leo thinks for a second, then decides that they should do a puzzle. Specifically, a puzzle with his image on it. Spencer isn't too fond of that, so they decide to do some kite-flying instead. But then a bird tears through the kite, which falls onto Leo's face.

Meanwhile, Kate got invited to a party that weekend. After she tells her mom, Lana suggests that maybe she invite some of her friends to THEIR house the next day while Leo and Spencer are doing their thing. Kate tells her that, uh, her friends will be, uh, busy because, uh, they're all going to, uh, the dentist. "Strange that they would all have dentist appointments on the same day," Lana replies.

You know what I just realized? There's no reason that this show needs to star the lion from the MGM logo. Seriously, just cut out the first scene with Leo at the studio and the joke about Leo and Spencer doing a puzzle with the MGM logo on it and you'd just have a sitcom that happens to star lions. I suppose they just thought that a sitcom that happens to star lions needing something else to draw people in, and that's why it's established that Leo is the same lion from the MGM logo.

Anyway, Leo admits to Lana that his attempt at bonding with Spencer is a miserable failure. "I can't seem to find anything that Spencer wants to do!" he admits. "He's not interested in anything that doesn't involve rock and roll! That's his entire personality!" (Again, he doesn't actually say that, that was yet another of my admittedly lousy attempts at jokes). Spencer, meanwhile, is surprisingly enough NOT playing his electric guitar in his room, but rather hiding in Kate's room. They admit that their parents are driving them crazy - Kate doesn't want her friends to meet her mom because she's afraid she'll embarrass her by doing some of her circus things. Kate really thinks her friends will think her mom's acrobatics and stuff are uncool? I mean, I personally don't think it's as cool as, say, Test Track at Walt Disney World, but I don't see what's so UNcool about it.

Do you know what this reminds me of, actually? Father of the Pride. Remember that show? The DreamWorks show about the lions who live in Siegfried and Roy's private zoo or whatever? This is kinda like that, only it's kid-friendly and in 2D. They even both only had one season!

On a side note, at one point during this episode Leo mentions Monopoly. It's kind of weird that they mentioned Monopoly by name - usually, in cartoons, if you have a character playing a board game you have to make one up instead of using an existing one so you don't get sued for copyright infringement. I guess the writers of this show weren't afraid of getting sued. Props to them.

Also, quick question: are Kate's friends lions as well, or are they humans? Or are they, I don't know, snow leopards or something? Are there other anthropomorphic animals in this world, or is it just the Lionhearts (and Larry, too, I guess)? Do we see other anthropomorphic animals in other episodes?

Okay, back to the episode - I was expecting Leo to overhear the kids talking about how much they dislike spending time with their parents and become all bummed out and stuff, but they actually don't go that route.  Instead, Leo's father (voiced by Harve Presnell) shows up. And his chauffeur (voiced by Carlos Alazraqui) needs to get his eyes checked... even though he's already wearing glasses.

Apparently, whoever picks out Leo's father's outfit needs to get THEIR eyes checked, too.

Leo's dad is shocked that his son acts less like a celebrity and more like every other sitcom dad from the '90s. Leo, meanwhile, is hoping that his dad will give him a little advice about the Spencer situation. In response, Leo's dad reminds him of the time that he took him golfing when he was a wee lad. Leo wasn't particular good at it, but his dad learned a valuable lesson that day: a father shouldn't force his son to like the same things that HE likes.

Then Leo gets an idea, and we finally get back to the whole "this lion is the lion in the MGM logo!" thing that the show is built off of. Leo takes his kid to a recording booth at the MGM lot, where there's an electric guitar waiting for him. And so Leo's problems with bonding with his son are solved! All it took was for him to do something that related to his kid's one personality trait: liking rock and roll.

Anyhow, Spencer tells Leo about Kate's problem, and to solve THAT, Leo tells Kate about how when he was a cub, his friends belonged to a country club, but they wouldn't let him join because they looked down on "movie people" for some reason. Why would you look down on "movie people"? They're people that star in MOVIES!

As a result of his friends' idiotic hatred of movie people, Leo became ashamed to have a studio mascot for a dad, but then he learned that it's wrong to judge people by what they do rather than who they are. And I guess he convinced his friends of that, because they all kicked the club to the curb and decided to hang with him in the neighborhood park and they're all still friends today. That's good. Meanwhile, I'm still wondering if said friends are fellow lions or humans or alpacas or WHAT.

Kate gets the hint and decides to introduce her mom to her friends. And as it turns out, her friends are indeed humans. Which doesn't answer whether or not there are other anthropomorphic animals in this world or if it's just the Lionhearts and Larry, but hey.

So, after watching one episode, what do I think of The Lionhearts? Well, you obviously can't judge a whole show just from one episode - after all, every show has its good episodes and its not-so-good episodes. So perhaps a better question is, what did I think of this episode?

Honestly, I found it pretty dull. I mean, don't get me wrong, it wasn't bad. There's a lot of things to like - the animation's good, William H. Macy gives a good performance, the moral is a good one - but I just found the whole thing so BLAH. It felt like nothing really happened. And what was the purpose of getting Joe Pantolino and Betty White to voice characters who only have one scene?

Would I recommend watching this show? Well, I see no reason why one SHOULDN'T watch it. It's not offensive or anything. But when it comes to cartoons from MGM, I think I'll stick with the Pink Panther.

So They’re Making a Live Action Movie About Cruella De Vil...

(Yes, my second post on a blog about animation is about a live action movie. But it’s based on an animated movie, so I think that qualifies as a loophole)

Okay, so before we talk about a certain live action movie Disney has in the works, I think we should talk about Maleficent.

This might be considered a nitpick, but why isn't she green?

 For those unaware, Maleficent was a 2014 Disney movie based on their adaptation of Sleeping Beauty. Specifically, it told the story from the point of view of its main villain, Maleficent (played by Angelina Jolie). And what better way to do that than by turning the self-proclaimed “mistress of all evil” into a merely misunderstood heroic character? And while we’re at it, let’s turn one of the good guys, King Stefan, into the main villain and the main characters, the three Good Fairies, into incompetent morons?

So anyways, the film did pretty well at the box office (about $758.5 million, to be precise). The critics didn’t like it, but Disney didn’t care about that. It made money, and that means a sequel MUST be made. And hey, while we’re at it, let’s make MORE movies about how your favorite Disney villains weren’t actually as bad as you thought they were?

I'm aware that this image of Cruella is not from the first movie, but rather its direct-to-video sequel.

First up is Cruella De Vil, the villain of 1961’s One Hundred and One Dalmatians. Andrew Gunn (whose resume includes 2002’s The Country Bears and 2008’s CollegeRoad Trip) will produce the film. And rumor has it that Emma Stone (the voice of Eep from 2013’s The Croods) will play Cruella.

I suppose I should probably point out that they already made a live action version of One Hundred and One Dalmatians back in 1996. Disney hasn’t forgotten: Glenn Close, who played Cruella in that movie, is apparently an executive producer on this one.

Now, let’s talk about Cruella for a second. She has an obsession with furs. She loves the idea of skinning a bunch of Dalmatian puppies for their furs.

Now, since Maleficent was a success, we can assume that they’ll try to turn PETA’s arch-nemesis here into a sympathetic character. How they plan on making someone who wants to skin Dalmatian puppies sympathetic, I have no idea.

But what about the OTHER characters? Clearly we need to make one of the good guys evil so that Cruella will look more sympathetic by comparison, right? But WHO? The most obvious choice seems to be Roger. How they could turn a mild-mannered songwriter with enough guts to stand up to a crazy woman like Cruella into a villainous character, I also have no idea.

Why are Pongo and Roger angry? Perhaps they just finished watching 102 Dalmatians...

Then there’s the Dalmatians themselves. Now, I’m guessing they won’t talk (because that worked SOOOOOOO well in the 1996 movie, right?), so maybe Disney’s idea is that making them just mindless animals will automatically make them slightly less sympathetic. It doesn’t work that way. It’s still cute little puppies getting skinned for their fur.

And just think: if this movie is a success, there’s a very good chance that we’ll get a movie about how Ursula wasn’t as bad as The Little Mermaid made her out to be and that King Triton was the villain this whole time. Or that all along, Scar from The Lion King wasn’t villainous, RAFIKI was. Or that the true bad guy in Beauty and the Beast was Lumiere, not the actually quite sympathetic Gaston.

Am I looking too far into this?

The Best – and Worst – of Celebrity Voice Acting in Animated Movies

Billy West once mentioned in an interview that at the premiere of Space Jam in 1996, he and the film's other voice actors weren't invited to the big Grauman's Chinese Theater. They were invited to the smaller one next to it. His fellow voice actor Bob "Porky Pig" Bergen asked someone about this, and they said that the party at the big theater was for the actors. His exact words were, "It's like they treat us like we're not actors."

Mr. West is one of the MANY voice actors who isn't a huge fan of a trend that’s been going on since the early 2000s (well, it technically started even earlier than that, but the 2000s were when it was basically a necessity): casting celebrities as the voices of characters in animated movies and only letting professional voice actors play a character that only has, like, one line. And I can’t say I blame them. Nowadays it's far more likely that a YouTube star will play a role in an animated movie (for example, Ricky Dillon in DreamWorks' Trolls and the SMOSH guys in The Angry Birds Movie) than a professional voice actor. It’s not like all celebrity voice acting is bad, but for the most part it’s pretty pointless.

Here is the poster for Blue Sky Studios' Epic. Its cast includes Pitbull and Beyonce as characters that are barely in the movie at all.

I mean, could somebody please explain to me what Kristen Bell brought to Frozen that a professional voice actress wouldn’t have? Was it really that necessary to have Jay Leno as a fire hydrant in Robots (or Paula Abdul as a watch, for that matter)? Would Shark Tale have suffered without the presence of Will Smith and Angelina Jolie?

The main reason I hear for why celebrities always voice characters in animated movies is because people apparently won’t see it unless there’s a big name attached. This is, in my opinion, a load of tripe. Yes, Madagascar made money, but it clearly didn’t simply because you had Ben Stiller and Chris Rock voicing the main characters. Heck, look at Rise of the Guardians or Delgo – those films had celebrities in them up the whazoo and bombed.

Other examples of this: Penguins of Madagascar, Mr. Peabody and Sherman, Turbo... For some reason, most of DreamWorks' recent movies have been flops. Not sure why.

But like I said, not all celebrity voice performances are bad. For every Shark Tale, there’s a Monsters Inc., after all. So today on Animation and All Things Related, we’ll be talking about five cases where a performance by a celebrity worked out in an animated movie’s favor… and five cases where it didn’t.

NOTE: I just want to make it clear that I have nothing against these actors as people or actors. I'm sure they're all very nice people.

Number 10: (Worst)

Anne Hathaway as Red Puckett (Hoodwinked)

Okay, uh, I could be wrong, but isn’t this character supposed to be, uh, a child? I wouldn’t have a problem with Anne Hathaway voicing a child if she actually, you know, tried to make her voice sound younger, but she doesn’t. She just uses her natural voice, and it doesn’t work. That’s not to say Anne Hathaway is a bad actress; I mean, I haven’t seen much of her live action work, but she was pretty good as Jewel from Rio. But I don’t think having her voicing a character that I’m pretty sure is supposed to be a child was such a good idea. For what it’s worth, though, the actress who they got to replace her in the sequel, Hayden Panettiere, doesn’t do that much better.

Number 9: (Best)

Ray Romano as Manny (the Ice Age movies)

The original Ice Age, released all the way back in 2002, is in my opinion quite underrated. How so? Because it’s a genuinely good movie that got overshadowed by its lousy sequels (although I do sort of like the third) and bizarre holiday specials. In particular, Ray Romano does a great job as Manny. Every usually comedic actor, it seems, has at least one role where they get to show just how good of an actor they can be (for example, Kevin James as Otis in the also underrated Barnyard). This is that role for Ray. It’s such a great fit that it’s hard to imagine anyone else pulling off the world’s most famous wooly mammoth. By the way, I’d also like to give a shout-out to John Leguizamo and Denis Leary’s equally quite good performances as Sid and Diego.

Number 8: (Worst)

Everyone from those stupid live action Smurfs movies aside from Jonathan Winters as Papa and Anton Yelchin as Clumsy

Seriously, what was the casting process for this like? Did they just pick the names of celebrities out of a hat? Was it seriously too hard to at least ask Michael Bell and Frank Welker if they wanted to reprise their roles as the Smurfs they played in the original series (I mean, Frank was in the movies as Azarel the cat!)? Smurfs are teeny, tiny characters. They’re supposed to have cute, high-pitched voices that sound natural coming out of teeny, tiny characters. They’re not supposed to sound like George Lopez and Kenan Thompson! And of course, there’s the casting of Katy Perry as Smurfette. Apparently they didn’t know it was her when she auditioned or something and they amazingly DIDN’T just cast her in the film because she was popular at the time. But she doesn’t bring anything to Smurfette that a professional voice actress couldn’t have (to her credit, though, I think she does a better job in The Smurfs 2 than in the first one). These films were so bad that even Sony Pictures Animation seems to regret making them, hence why we’re getting an all-animated Smurfs film in 2017.

Number 7: (Best)

Billy Crystal as Mike Wazowski (Monsters Inc. and Monsters University)

For those unaware, Monsters Inc. is my favorite PIXAR movie, which probably stems from the fact that it is (in my opinion anyway) the FUNNIEST. Much of the film’s humor comes from Mike Wazowski, played by Billy Crystal, who really gives it his all. I mean, what’s NOT funny about Mike screeching out a love ballad to his girlfriend in the lobby of his workplace while everyone in the room stares at him, baffled? Or him telling everyone as he and Sulley are trying to cover up the fact that they have a human child with them that they are rehearsing for the upcoming company play (called Put That Thing Back Where it Came From or So Help Me, no less?). That said, though, like Ray Romano in Ice Age, Billy also does a good job with the film’s more dramatic moments. The same holds true for the 2013 prequel, Monsters University, where it’s really hard not to feel just a LITTLE sorry for Mike when he’s sadly sitting at the bank of a river, lamenting that nobody finds him scary. Though in general the two films have a really great cast (John Goodman, Steve Buscemi, ect.), Billy Crystal is definitely the best part of Monsters Inc.

Number 6: (Worst)

Shakira as Gazelle (Zootopia)

While Zootopia in general has a pretty solid cast, I can not for the life of me figure out what the purpose of Shakira and the character she played in it was. The character is barely in the movie at all, contributing little more than a few lines here and there and a song. She is clearly only here because Disney didn’t think they could sell the movie on the names of Jason Bateman and Ginnifer Goodwin alone (notice how she was the first voice actor after them to be announced for the movie?).

Number 5: (Best)

Justin Timberlake as Boo-Boo Bear (Yogi Bear)

Remember when it was first announced that Dan Aykroyd and Justin Timberlake would be providing the voices of Yogi Bear and Boo-Boo? Remember how that sounded like a horrible idea at the time? Well, as it turns out both of them did a pretty good job. Justin Timberlake in particular was a surprise, I mean, he’s SPOT-ON. Unlike in The Smurfs, where the actors just use their natural voices and call it a day, Justin actually makes an attempt to sound like Boo-Boo, and it works out pretty well. I wonder what the odds are of him becoming the voice of Boo-Boo full time (like how Matthew Lilard became the official voice of Shaggy from Scooby-Doo a few years after playing him in the live action movies)…

 Number 4: (Worst)

Ty Burrell as Mr. Peabody (Mr. Peabody and Sherman)

Let us ignore for a moment that DreamWorks’ adaptation of the Peabody’s Improbable History segments of The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show took what was first and foremost a silly cartoon about a genius dog and his “pet boy” traveling through time and turned it into some sort of drama about how a dog isn’t a good father and how he’s just SO MISJUDGED BY THE WORLD. Ty Burrell suffers from the same problem in this movie as the cast of The Smurfs. Speaking with a British accent does not automatically make you sound like Bill Scott’s Mr. Peabody. In Ty’s case, it makes you sound like Ty Burrell trying to do a British accent. Perhaps even worse is the fact that the director, Rob Minkoff, intentionally chose an actor who DIDN’T sound like the original Mr. Peabody because “there was an opportunity in casting a new voice to modernize the character.” That’s like making a Rocky and Bullwinkle movie and casting David Spade as Rocky and Chris Rock as Bullwinkle to “modernize them”. If you'd like to see good voiceover work from Ty Burrell, watch Finding Dory, where he voices a beluga whale named Bailey (he's also going to be in Warner Brothers' Storks).

Number 3: (Best)

Mike Myers as Shrek

Ah, Shrek. How exactly did this character go from the star of one of DreamWorks’ best movies to little more than a punchline? Despite the fact that the first two Shrek movies absolutely REEK of the 2000s (there’s a better term here I could use), I think they both still hold up, mainly due to how FUNNY they are. And I think a big chunk of that comes from the performances of Mike Myers and Eddie Murphy. Mike’s idea to go with a Scottish accent for this character was pure genius: not only does it give Shrek a recognizable, cartoony voice (in the same way that the voices of Mickey Mouse and SpongeBob SquarePants are recognizable and cartoony), it makes a large percentage of what Shrek says even funnier. It’s too bad Mike hasn’t done much in the way of voice work aside from these movies. Hopefully if that new Austin Powers movie and Shrek 5 are a success, it’ll lead to Mike getting cast in more things. I’d love to hear him in another animated movie.

Number 2: (Worst)

Rihanna as Tip (Home)

I admittedly haven’t seen Home (and I plan to keep it that way). The advertisements looked pretty lousy (every single commercial had that scene where Jim Parsons Alien screams, “MY HANDS ARE IN THE AIR LIKE I JUST DO NOT CARE!”), the storyline didn’t sound interesting, and the fact that ALL FOUR of the characters who have big roles in it put this film on my not-to-watch list (I did watch the prequel short, Almost Home, on YouTube and thought it was decent). While I like Jim Parsons, he wasn’t enough to pull me in. Rihanna here suffers from the same problem as Anne Hathaway did in Hoodwinked: this character is a child (and yes, in this case I know for a fact that she is indeed supposed to be a child). She could've at least ATTEMPTED to sound younger. She doesn’t. She just uses her natural voice. They could’ve gotten Cree Summer to voice Tip for half the cost.

Number 1: (Best)

Robin Williams as the Genie (Aladdin)

It’s an obvious choice, I know, but I had to put him on the list somewhere. Now, Robin Williams was no stranger to voiceover work (in addition to Aladdin, he also gave voice to characters in FernGully: The Last Rainforest, Robots, and the Happy Feet movies). The Genie is undoubtedly his best role. He basically WAS the Genie. Like Billy Crystal and Mike Myers, he clearly plays a big part in what makes the Genie a fun character. What else is there really to say?

Honorable Mentions (as far as good celebrity voice-acting goes)
- Tom Hanks and Tim Allen as Woody and Buzz Lightyear (the Toy Story movies)
- Albert Brooks and Ellen DeGeneres as Marlin and Dory (Finding Nemo and Finding Dory)
- David Hyde Pierce as Slim (A Bug's Life)
- David Spade as Emperor Kuzco (The Emperor's New Groove)
- Bryan Cranston as Vitaly the Tiger (Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted)
- Phil Harris as Baloo (The Jungle Book)
- Jim Carrey as Horton the Elephant (Horton Hears a Who)
- Danny DeVito as the Lorax (take a wild guess)