Saturday, April 17, 2010

Wherein We Vote: Part the Second, Round the Second... AND I BOYCOTT!

One of my favorite episodes of Iron Chef took place on May 21, 1999. In a nine-episode stretch, Chairman Kaga's Iron Chefs went 3 and 6. Outraged, the eccentric trillionaire with a penchant for Liberace's hand-me-downs boycotted the next match, leaving "Dr." Yukio Hattori to host the program. Confused and embarrassed, Hattori-san revealed the appalling secret ingredient - SUCKLING PIG. And so, television history was made. Chairman Kaga was found lurking in the shadows, daintily sipping champagne from a crystal flute. Iron Chef Chen Kenichi fried a whole pig head in a wok. And yes, I share this historical event with you dear readers:

Why would I take all this time to recount to you this awesomely powerful story? Frankly, I am outraged. Let me tell you why:
Argument 1: Is no one even cognizant of the fact that JERRY ORBACH (a.k.a. Det. Lenny Briscoe) sang "Be Our Guest" in Beauty and the Beast? Just look at his reaction to your huge mistake, voters!

Argument 2: BE PREPARED IS THE FINEST SONG PENNED BY ANYONE IN THE EMPLOY OF THE WALT DISNEY COMPANY IN THE LAST 20 YEARS! Music by SIR Elton John. Lyrics by SIR Timothy Miles Bindon Rice. British nobility, dear voters! Not only that, the song has so much intensity that Jeremy Irons was rendered unable to finish singing the song and thus Jim Cummings (a.k.a. Darkwing Duck) had to replicate his voice in order to complete it.
In short, I am very upset with all of you and will thus dress like my hero, the enigmatic Chairman Kaga, and lurk in the shadows drinking champagne as you vote on the next round. Here is Maria with the decidedly UN-Happy Recap. Dearest?

Wow, honey. That was...special. Not all of the results in this vote were unhappy, at least not for me, but they were most certainly tense, and will elicit more commentary!

-"Be a Man" barely edged out "Be Our Guest," inciting boos from the rafters, but I sympathize. It was a tough choice, and I'm not sad. I'm just glad that Jerry Orbach isn't around to see the results. (Too soon?) Anyway, "Be a Man" will face "Gaston" in the Sweet 16, which as we know, eliminated Willie's favorite song from the competition. WILL THE DRAMA EVER END?
-"Friend Like Me" won a decisive victory over "Hakuna Matata" and will be matched up with...wait. Another tie? Nobody could determine a winner between "A Whole New World" and "Under the Sea"?! This is the one that made me outraged, but luckily the internet agreed that "A Whole New World" was the better choice, and so it will live to see another round.
-"Heigh Ho" and "When You Wish Upon a Star" were both strong competitors, but it's "Heigh Ho" that will advance to the Sweet 16, against "Once Upon a Dream," which defeated another tough competitor in "When I See an Elephant Fly." It's tough, my friends, but imagine how hard it will be when it's the final 2!
-Finally, "Bear Necessities" proved to be the favorite Jungle Book song over "I Wanna Be Like You," and will meet "Cruella De Vil" in the Sweet 16, which beat out "Bella Notte."

To find the other eight participants in the Sweet 16, we must now continue Round 2 with our remaining brackets, the "Mary Poppins Bracket" and the miscellaneous "Walt Disney Bracket." With our famed announcer Willie lurking in the shadows, unable to provide you with the pomp and circumstance of his bombastic prose, I guess all I can say is "allez cuisine." Or something. So yeah, you'll have until Monday at 11:59 PM to vote on these songs. And here they are now!

From the Mary Poppins Bracket:

And from the Walt Disney Bracket:


Have fun, everybody! Hopefully Willie will stop sulking after this one.

1 comment:

  1. I'm so saddened and appalled, not only that I missed the earlier voting, but also that BE PREPARED lost to GASTON. C'MON that's freaking ridiculous. That's THE BEST disney song, it just is! So.... travesty there. I'm also sulking, and my audible gasp at this realization interrupted Varun's Mad Men watching. Be Prepared? I was not. Sad day in America. I'm voting now, but in the absence of Be Prepared, I must now root for "Be a Man" At least there's hope there.

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