'Tangled' is Coming to Disney Channel

By Tim Callaway

Wait, isn't Rapunzel's hair
supposed to be short?

Rapunzel and Eugene...ahem...I mean Flynn Rider...are getting their own show on Disney Channel.

Tangled, a new animated series based on the 2010 Disney animated film, will premiere worldwide on Disney Channel sometime in 2017. Returning will be the original voices of Rapunzel (Mandy Moore) and Eugene (Zachary Levi) as well as the film's original songwriters, Alan Menken and Glenn Slater. Animation veterans Chris Sonnenburg and Shane Prigmore are developing the show for Disney Television Animation.

The series will take place during the period following the feature film, after Rapunzel returned to her parents in the kingdom of Corona, but before her wedding to Flynn in the 2012 short Tangled Ever After. Episodes will follow Rapunzel's adventures as she tries to adjust to royal life after being locked away in her tower for so long.

Most of the supporting characters from the film will appear in the series including Pascal, Maximus and the Snuggly Duckling Pub Thugs. New to the show will be Cassandra, Rapunzel's no-nonsense handmaiden.

'Galavant' is a Humorless Send-Up of Fairy Tale Legends

Joshua Sasse is Galavant.

I can honestly say I'm looking forward to seeing Agent Carter tonight on ABC. And it's not just because of the Marvel connection or my obsession with Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. It's also because, as mid-season replacements go, anything has to be better than Galavant.

I caught the first two episodes of ABC's new musical comedy series Sunday night. No, make that endured. Galavant fancies itself a medieval fairy tale send-up in the gleeful spirit of Spamalot, Shrek, The Princess Bride and Enchanted. Instead, it's just a humorless ripoff--and a tepid one at that.

Our hero, Galavant (Joshua Sasse), is a noble knight who has it all: looks, charm, strength, the admiration of the common folk and the passionate devotion of his lovely lady love Madalena (Mallory Jansen). That is, until the smarmy, evil King Richard (Timothy Omundson) takes a liking to Madalena, kidnaps her and forces her to marry him. Galavant races to her rescue only to be dumbstruck at the alter. It seems his would-be soulmate is also greedy and power-hungry. She's had a change of heart. Marrying the King won't be such a bad gig after all.

Time passes and the heartbroken Galavant has sunk to the bottom of a wine barrel when he is approached by Isabella (Karen David), a princess from a neighboring kingdom with an ax to grind against Richard. Or not. She says she wants to enlist Galavant's help to wreak vengeance on the King, but she may just be a pawn to lure the besotted knight back to Richard, who has plans to kill Galavant.

The plot sounds engaging and complex enough on paper, but it's really just a wisp of an idea to get Galavant to the next joke or the next musical number. And that wouldn't be so bad if the jokes weren't so flat and the music so annoying. One of the great disappointments of Galavant is the song score of no less a talent than the great Alan Menken (The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast). He composed the songs along with Glenn Slater (Tangled) and acts as one of the show's executive producers. And while there is some clever wordplay, there's little noteworthy or memorable about the songs. Menken could use more of the inspiration that allowed him to merrily skewer animated musical conventions in Enchanted.

Galavant will continue to run two episodes each Sunday night starting at 8:00/7:00 Central through January 25th.

Please, Agent Carter, be better.

The D23 Expo Starts Today and Alan Menken and Richard Sherman are in The Lounge

Day one of the D23 Expo kicks off today as tens of thousands of crazed, over-caffeinated Disney fans from 48 states and 21 countries descend upon the Anaheim Convention Center. Yes, I am one of them.

Alan Menken

There's going to be a lot to see this weekend, especially on a sold-out Saturday when Billy Crystal, John Goodman, Tony Baxter, Glen Keane and others will be named Disney Legends and where musical legends Richard Sherman and Alan Menken will put on a highly-anticipated concert.

Earlier this week, I had a chance to take part in a conference call with Sherman and Menken. You can hear the best of it in the latest episode of The Mouse Castle Lounge. It's a wonderful conversation with two extremely talented and gracious men who will perform songs from a Disney songbook that spans over 50 years.

Richard Sherman

For today, I'll be checking out the latest from Disney animation in a presentation that will include appearances by Bob Iger, John Lasseter, Kristen Bell and Idina Menzel from Frozen, and Dane Cook from Planes. I'm also going to find out what's up with the 40-foot tall Waffle-inator that's taking up space in front of the Convention Center. Evil Dr. Doofenshmirtz is up to something. I hope Phineas & Ferb and Agent P can do something about it.  Or, maybe we'll all just have some waffles.

I'll be doing updates on Facebook and Twitter all weekend, so if you're not following me already, it's high time you did. You don't want to miss out.

The D23 Expo is always crazy, crowded and exhausting, but it's also a lot of fun. I'll see you on the show floor. Enjoy!

The Mouse Castle Lounge can also be heard on iTunes and Stitcher.

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Remembering Howard Ashman

Today would have been the 63rd birthday of the late writer, lyricist and director Howard Ashman. With composer Alan Menken, Ashman wrote the great songs of Disney's animation renaissance during the 1980s and 90s: "Part of Your World" and "Under the Sea" from The Little Mermaid; "Be Our Guest" and "Belle" from Beauty and the Beast; "Friend Like Me" and "Prince Ali" from Aladdin--among so many others.

Ashman had a passion for musical theater and a gift for clever wordplay that coalesced brilliantly during his time at Disney. In this clip from the 2009 documentary Waking Sleeping Beauty, we see Ashman in action, coaching Jodi Benson, the voice of Ariel, through a recording of "Part of Your World." He goes on to explain why that song and others like it are critical in theater and film to make audiences "fall in love" with the leading lady.

With Menken, Ashman won two Academy Awards for "Under the Sea" and "Beauty and the Beast." In 1991, Ashman died far too young at the age of 40 from complications arising from AIDS. Both he and Menken were named Disney Legends in 2001.

Recently, I had the pleasure of speaking with Ashman's sister, Sarah Ashman Gillespie, about her brother's life and legacy. Sarah manages the website Part of His World, a labor-of-love tribute to Howard, full of history and fond remembrances from Sarah and some of the people who knew and worked with Howard, including Alan Menken, Jodi Benson and John Musker. I'll post part one of my conversation with Sarah this weekend in The Mouse Castle Lounge.

Happy Birthday, Howard.  You are missed.

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'Pocahontas' Twin Bill on Blu-ray

Today, it's my pleasure to welcome my good friend, Heather Antonio, as a guest columnist. Heather is a lifelong Disney fan with a particular fondness for Tinker Bell. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, just a stone's throw away from the Walt Disney Family Museum. This week, she's helping me catch up on some reviews of Disney's most recent Blu-ray releases. If you like her, we just may ask her to stick around. :-) Thanks Heather! -- Tim

Until I sat down to watch Pocahontas with my children, I hadn't seen it in about 10 years. My daughter loved the Disney princesses when she was small so it was part of the rotation in our home for a long time and a well-loved movie. My boys, however, had never seen it, so I was curious to see what their reactions would be.

When my 13-year old boy was little he was all about everything Buzz Lightyear and had no time for princesses, but when we watched Pocahontas, he was enchanted particularly by the music, songs he had grown up listening to. My almost 3-year old son has now asked to watch it three times since his first viewing. I take that as a very good sign.

We were all enjoying the movie in our own ways--watching Pocahontas (voiced by Irene Bedard; singing voice by Judy Kuhn) and John Smith (Mel Gibson) navigate a forbidden friendship, laughing at the comic antics of Pocahontas' critter friends Meeko and Flit, embracing the wise guidance of Grandmother Willow (Linda Hunt)--when I noticed a common thread. All four of us were charmed by the music. The heart of the story may be about bringing two cultures together, but it's the music that matters. My oldest son put it simply, “The music was magical.”

There are certain Disney songs that become a part of our personal history. They speak to us in ways that stand out and move us. The songs of Pocahontas have always done that for me. I had forgotten how "Steady as a Beating Drum," sung over the opening credits, could send a chill through me. And you can be sure I'll be belting out "Just Around the River Bend" and "Colors of the Wind" off-key as I drive down the freeway this week.

Composer Alan Menken and lyricist Stephen Schwartz made magic together with the soundtrack for Pocahontas. Released in 1995, it went on to win Academy Awards for Original Score and Best Song ("Colors of the Wind"). "Colors of the Wind" was also honored with a Grammy for Best Song Written Specifically for a Motion Picture or Television. I'm glad I’m not the only one who loves the music of Pocahontas. It will always stir up such a range of feelings and emotions for me.

I also appreciate what a unique Disney film this is. Pocahontas was the first Disney animated
feature based on characters that really existed--and one of the few features to not have a happily-ever-after. Historians dispute how much of the Pocahontas-John Smith legend is actually true, and Disney took plenty of artistic license with the legend, but the movie works musically, visually and emotionally.

Pocahontas II: Journey to a New World

Included in the new Pocahontas Two-Movie Collection Blu-ray Combo Pack is the 1998 direct-to-video sequel Pocahontas II: Journey to a New World. Admittedly, it's not my favorite Disney film, but it's still an amusing movie to watch.

In Journey to a New World, Pocahontas goes to England as an envoy of her people to try to prevent war with the British. She must ultimately convince King James to stop his armada from searching for gold and attacking the Powhatan nation. The decision to leave home is not easy for her and she consults with Grandmother Willow for advice:

Once in England, Pocahontas is escorted by her host, John Rolfe (Billy Zane), while accompanied by Uttamatomakkin, sent by Chief Powhaten to act as her protector. Uttamatomakkin is
virtually silent, but is very expressive and provides welcome comic relief. In fact, he became my favorite character in the movie.

Pocahontas must prove to the King that she and her people are worthy of respect without compromising who she is. In the process, she struggles to fit in with the culture and customs of England. She is invited to a hunt ball and must don an elegant gown (complete with hoop skirt and high heels) to show just how civilized she is.

Throughout the evening, she is confronted with challenges meant to show her as an uncivilized savage. When her nemesis, Ratcliffe (David Ogden Stiers), arranges for entertainment at the ball designed to offend and incite a reaction from her, she finds the strength within herself to throw aside the silly trappings of so-called civilized society. She'll listen to her heart and discover there just might be a way to help her people and to find the love that has been missing since John Smith sailed away.

I have to admit, Pocahontas II surprised me. It was a very entertaining movie to watch with my children.

~Heather Antonio

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Susan Egan: Belle, Meg, Glamour and Goop - Part 2

This is part two of my conversation with Susan Egan, the original Belle in Broadway's Beauty and the Beast and the voice of Meg in Disney's Hercules. Hate walking into the middle of a conversation? Click here for part one.

A Real Slice

Susan Egan records the voice of Meg in Hercules.

While Susan was still in New York with Beauty and the Beast, Disney was looking for an actress with Broadway chops to voice Megara in Hercules. At first, Susan was very interested, but Disney was not. "They wouldn't let me audition for it. Because, I was Belle. And they're like, 'You're not right for Meg at all.'"

Susan persisted. "I just kept begging and begging and begging. Literally, to shut me up, they let me go in and audition."

At the audition, she was relieved to see familiar faces from Beauty and the Beast, including composer Alan Menken and musical director Michael Kosarin. But, despite the friendly atmosphere, Susan still found the experience disconcerting. "You're standing in front of a microphone and they say, 'We're going to tape your audition.' And then, they all put their heads down." Their heads were down because they were looking at drawings of Meg to see if they worked with the voice they were hearing. It made sense, but it wasn't the type of audition Susan was used to or was even expecting.

Susan drew her inspiration for Meg from 1930s and 40s Hollywood actresses. "I've seen every Bette Davis (film), every Joan Crawford, every Barbara Stanwyck, every Lauren Bacall. I've seen them all. There's a cadence to those 30s movies. It's that mid-Atlantic accent, but it's got this sing-songy cadence.

"I don't know why it made sense to me, but probably because I was single and living in New York. The peak of my day was at 10:30 at night, so I was up until three or four in the morning. And then I'd sleep 'til 11 and all that was on TV were all these old movies [laughs]. And I watched them every night."

So, Susan channeled her favorite femme fatales and the audition went very well. "All these heads that were looking down at the table, one by one they popped up. And they went, 'Ohhh.'"

And then the waiting began. "There's no callback," said Susan, "because the callback is the tape--this is how long ago it was--it was actually a cassette tape that then goes through all the callbacks and it took about nine months."

Every now and then, Susan would hear from Kosarin that she was still in the running for Meg. Finally, when she was in Los Angeles, she made the breakthrough. "I am now at the Shubert Theater doing Beauty and the Beast and Eisner is walking down the hallway and he's like, 'Hey, great audition for Hercules!" And I'm like, 'I've made it as far as Eisner! Good, okay.'"

By then, test animation had been done with Susan's voice. It was a good fit. Later that week, she got the job.

When recording at the studio started, Susan learned quickly that directors John Musker and Ron Clements were after more than just her voice. To assist the animators with her character, all her body movements and facial expressions were filmed. "I don't look anything like Meg, " said Susan, "but when the movie came out eighteen months later, my friend Laura said, 'It's the first time I ever recognized you in a performance.' She's like, 'Belle, you're acting. I forget it's you. Meg is so you.'"

Susan recalled early in production going over the storyboard for Hercules. One particular drawing showed Meg saying, "Thanks for everything, Herc. It's been a real slice" while she sliced the air with her hand. Looking at the drawing, Susan commented to producer Alice Dewey, "That is so weird. I did that at my audition." Dewey replied, "Where do you think we got it from?"

That "real slice" line would turn out to be problematic. Musker and Clements really loved how Susan delivered the line at her audition; so much so, that they went to great lengths to get her to recreate it in the recording studio. "They couldn't use (the audition tape) because there was ambient noise," said Susan. "I mean, it was an audition space in New York City. You could hear the traffic."

Over and over again, Susan repeated the line. "Thanks for everything, Herc. It's been a real slice." She would get close to what the directors wanted, but the audition always sounded better. She said, "They paid me for an entire session fee for me to go in and say the line exactly as I had. And they were never satisfied."

The solution after all that work: digitally clean up the audio on the original recording. The line you hear in the movie is Susan's audition.

Hercules is a fun, freewheeling film based as loosely as you could imagine on Greek mythology. The son of Zeus, Hercules, must prove himself to be a true hero in order to take his place among the gods on Mount Olympus. On this quest, he battles all manner of evil beasties, matches wits with the god of the underworld, Hades, and falls for the saucy Meg, who may or may not be in cahoots with Hades and who may or may not be the girl of Hercules' dreams.

The film is full of smartly anachonistic pop culture references with an inspired song score by composer Menken and lyricist David Zippel. The movie may be set in ancient Greece, but the soundtrack is right out of Motown. Meg's signature song, "I Won't Say I'm in Love," is a '60s-style doo-wop number with solid backup vocals by the Muses, "goddesses of the arts and proclaimers of heroes" who serve as the ad hoc narrators of the film. Susan knew the ladies who voiced the Muses from Broadway, so in the recording studio, she was equal parts appreciation and intimidation about their talents, especially when it came to running off some gospel-tinged musical riffs. "I've never felt so white and square in a room as the day we recorded that song," explained Susan with a laugh. "Alan would say, 'Okay Lillias (White), just do a riff over there and LaChanze, you do a little something over here and Susan, just at the end, get from this note to this note and just do a riff.' I raise my hand and I'm like, 'Umm, can you plunk it out on the piano?' He looks at me like, 'Are you kidding?'"

A half hour later, Susan got it down. Meanwhile, her Muses were peeling off one amazing riff after another. "They gave him twenty brilliant takes all different. It was terrible. It was so humbling."

Working with her fellow voice actors was a bit less intimidating. Of course, Susan didn't spend a whole lot of time with them. Recording lines for an animated feature can be lonely work. Actors will lay down most of their voice tracks without other actors present so the directors and animators can more easily work with the material. On-screen conversations are often assembled from the best takes from the individual recording sessions. On the rare times actors do record together, the process can be pretty methodical. As Susan explained, "When you're doing the scripted scenes, you can't actually do it like you normally would, because they don't want any overlap. Because they want to be able to edit everything out. And then, once they get it that way, the way they like it, then the reason you're actually there is to then overlap like normal conversation.

"I had a handful of sessions with Tate (Donovan, the adult Hercules) and a handful of sessions with James Woods (Hades). I actually never had a session with Danny DeVito (Herc's excitable trainer, Phil). I've still never met him."

Susan tries to get a word in edgewise with James Woods.

Once the scripted lines were done, Susan was given some leeway to improvise with her fellow actors. "With James Woods, that was hard," she recalled with a laugh, "because he never stopped talking." She had an easier time with Tate Donovan, not that everything she did made it into the final film. "(Hercules and Meg) had just seen Oedipus and Tate says, 'Boy, I thought I had problems.' I go, 'Yeah, there's a boy who loves his mother.' You know, kids would not have gotten it, but the parents would have. And, I think it would've been hilarious. It was so sad they wouldn't put it in there."

Hercules premiered on June 15, 1997 and went into wide release on June 27. Critics were mostly enthusiastic. Owen Gleiberman with Entertainment Weekly gave Hercules an A-minus rating, calling it "delightful...a Disney fable savvy enough not to let its sincerity get in the way of its zippy multimedia charm." He called Susan's Meg "a refreshingly saucy maiden with big hair and a voice of suave huskiness."

Refreshing, and definitely a departure from Disney's pantheon of damsels in distress, Meg is a complex and conflicted character that defies classification. "She's her own category," said Susan. "She's the only Disney heroine that starts off as Cruella de Vil and then becomes Belle. She's the only one that makes a change. She starts off on the evil side and then becomes the good side. So, where do you classify her? She's not a villain and she's not the heroine. And she's not a princess and she doesn't even get to be a goddess.

"I love her. I wouldn't trade her for the world."

Coming Friday: The conclusion of our story. Susan's played a princess and has been immortalized in Disney animation. Her daughter doesn't care.

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'Newsies' Quietly Debuts on Blu-ray

Christian Bale (center) and cast
seize the day.

Without a lot of fanfare, Disney released its 1992 musical Newsies on Blu-ray this week. That's a bit of a surprise considering the current success of Newsies on Broadway (eight Tony nominations, two wins and a hugely popular open-ended run at the Nederlander Theater). Plus, it was home video that years ago gave the film new life and somewhat of a cult following after it failed miserably at the box office. You'd think Disney would be making a bigger deal about this 20th anniversary hi-def release.


Newsies is a fun, if hit-and-miss, affair about a celebrated 1899 New York newsboys strike against lions of publishing Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst. It's noteworthy for its cast of established actors and up-and-coming stars (Christian Bale, Bill Pullman, Robert Duvall, Ann-Margret, Michael Lerner). It also was the feature film directorial debut of Kenny Ortega, who would use his stagy, but energetic, let's-put-on-a-show musical approach to better use in Disney's High School Musical franchise.

While it's every bit the family-friendly film it sets out to be, Newsies comes off as a bit too cleaned and polished for its own good. Cookie-cutter back lot sets and stereotypical street urchins right out of the Dead End Kids take the edge off what could have otherwise been a gritty big city tale of idealistic youth versus the greedy, corrupt establishment. Like Ortega's HSM movies, Newsies exists in an idyllic white bread vacuum that the real world wouldn't dare penetrate.

Still, it boasts a catchy musical score by Alan Menken (with lyrics by Jack Feldman), who was smack-dab in the middle of his incredible run at Disney that included music for The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin. "King of New York" and especially "Seize the Day" are two of the more under-appreciated uplifting tunes in the Disney canon.

Watching the film, it's easy to see why Newsies was meant for the stage. It's full-screen choreography, complete with a plethora of jumps, high-kicks and flips, is crowd-pleasing fodder for a live audience. I was certainly entertained revisiting Newsies the movie after all these years, but it just made me want to travel to Broadway even more.

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Thirty Days of Disney Movies, Day Twelve - Favorite Love Story

As I compiled this list of Disney movies, many of the categories required me to do my homework: re-watch films I hadn't seen in ages and even see a few I'd never seen before and knew only by reputation. It's been fun to do side-by-side comparisons and see how these great movies have held up over time.

A few categories needed no research at all, because the choices were so obvious. Disney's best love story is one of them. It's the "tale as old as time" and the finest feature film of Disney's third "golden age" of animation.

Beauty and the Beast.

Tale as old as time;
Song as old as rhyme.

The movie often gets categorized as just another Disney princess film (particularly for Disney merchandising purposes), but it's important to understand how much Beauty and the Beast breaks the mold of the typical fairy tale story. Our heroine, Belle (Paige O'Hara), isn't some waifish ingenue waiting for her prince to come. Quite the contrary. She's intelligent, literate and responsible, looking after her eccentric inventor father, Maurice (Rex Everhart), and fending off the advances of the ruggedly handsome, but exceedingly vain and arrogant, Gaston (Richard White). Belle is also incredibly beautiful, but probably doesn't realize it. She's too busy losing herself in books and pondering what adventures await in the outside world. This isn't normal for the residents of the provincial French village where she lives. They happily follow their same routines day after day--and think Belle is a bit odd.

When Maurice loses his way in the woods and is held captive inside a remote castle lorded over by a monstrous beast, Belle selflessly offers to take his place. In doing so, she sets the stage for one of the greatest romances in movie--let alone Disney--history.

The beast of the castle was once a selfish young prince, now cursed by an enchantress as punishment for his cold-hearted ways. He will remain a monster until someone can see through his ugliness and fall in love with him. But, this must happen before a magical rose, kept under glass inside the castle, loses its petals. If the last petal drops without true love being found, the prince will remain a beast forever.

We can sing, we can dance;
After all, miss, this is France.

Also under the spell of the enchantress are the beast's house servants, who have been turned into all manner of household objects. They include the butler/candelabra Lumiere (Jerry Orbach), the head-of-staff/clock Cogsworth (David Ogden Stiers) and the kitchen maid/teapot Mrs. Potts (Angela Lansbury). All see the presence of Belle in the castle--even under these dire circumstances--as an opportunity for the spell to be broken, so they set about to make her as welcome as they can and try to push her and the beast together. They know there is good in their master that belies his appearance and actions. He just needs the right person to bring it out.

Beauty and the Beast tells its story using a classic musical theater structure (small wonder it would become the first Disney feature adapted to the Broadway stage). The opening number, "Belle", is fun and energetic as it introduces us to the main characters of the village. In a matter of minutes, we learn everything we need to know about them (Belle is a "funny girl," Gaston is a pompous jerk). All the songs, penned by composer Alan Menken and lyricist Howard Ashman, are memorable, from the endearing title tune to the exhilarating production number "Be Our Guest."

Both audiences and critics responded enthusiastically to Beauty and the Beast. It was nominated for four Oscars, including Best Picture, the first animated feature film ever to be so honored. In an era when Best Picture nominations were limited to five films (instead of the current ten) and when there was no Best Animated Film consolation prize, this was an amazing achievement and a testament to the timeless quality of the film.

Beauty and the Beast (along with its predecessor The Little Mermaid), was Disney's triumphant return to quality feature animation after a fallow period of more than 25 years. With beautiful animation, classic tunes and a love story for the ages, it ranks as one of Disney's all-time bests.

The 30-Day (or so) Movie Challenge continues tomorrow with the best Disney chick flick. No, really.

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