Out of the Games Cupboard

A random assortment of reflections, musings and a running commentary on life.

Tuesday, May 08, 2007

Top tip for parents

I have found a fantastic site for kids who like Disney movies (I suppose that's most kids!). Here you can print off cards and calendars featuring all your favourite Disney characters. You can even print them out in black and white to colour in yourself. There's even dress up characters you can print and cut out..... which I'm sure Ellie will love in a year or so. Great fun and it's all free!

Go on, go and have a look.... you know you want to:http://disney.go.com/magicartist/coloring/index.html

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Thursday, April 26, 2007

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....

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