For the love of Jerry Orbach!

Ellie has developed quite a taste for Disney movies, particularly ones about princesses....which is a surprisingly high percentage! For a few weeks her clear favourite was 'Beauty and the Beast'. I was happy to watch this repeatedly with her as I found that I really like it too; how can you not like a film featuring a song containing the lines "I use antlers in all of my decorating" and "Im particularly good at expectorating"?

One of the characters is a talking candlestick, Lumiere, who has this ludicrous, over the top, mock French accent. One evening, when Ellie had chosen to watch part of the movie rather than read stories, I voiced a thought: "Lumiere sounds just how Jerry Orbach would sound if he did a French accent". Now, I didn't really mean to say this out loud but I was tired. Lisa asked "who's Jerry Orbach?" - "you know Lenny Briscoe in Law and Order, the dad in Dirty Dancing" - "oh him! Don't be silly, of course it's not!"

Lisa proceeded to tease and ridicule me for the rest of the movie... something she rarely does! Still I had the last laugh. The end credits said that Lumiere was voiced by one Jerry Orbach. Ha ha ha!

Actually, my favourite Disney movie is 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame'. I think its funny that a kids movie has songs about redemption and burning in hell! It also has the good song line "Becuase your shape, like a croissant is..." genius! Judge Claude Frollo is one of the best Disney villains ever.... from fetishistically sniffing Esmeralda's gypsy hair to instructing a torturer how to inflict more pain.... a real villain! I have a book explaining all the research the artists did about gothic buildings and the church of Notre Dame inparticular. A staggering amount of work was involved in just the planning stage. Well worth a look if any one is interested....