Wherein - Good Lord, I Do Believe John Hodgman Just "Tweeted" My Web Log!

It has come to my attention via an email from a complete stranger that John Hodgman, a person that I hold in no small esteem has used the social networking site Twitter to share my post about Oscar the Grouch being a TIME LORD. Imagine my current embarrassment. Here my favorite humorist has seen fit to acknowledge my understated brilliance, and I have not posted since April, failing even to complete the epic DISNEY SONG VOTE.
But then I reflect - some of the finest works of art remain incomplete. There's Stuart's portrait of George Washington:

There's Chaucer's Canterbury Tales
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And now there's Willie & Maria's Epic Disney Song Bracket.
It is now for the annals of history to decide upon its brilliance, though I may comment that anything containing a portrait of Jerry Orbach deserves any self-respecting museum's admiration.
I suppose I should offer a more recent glimpse into my life. I have recently applied to be a full-time teacher of History at the Bronx Urban Assembly Studio School for Writers and Artists at Casita Maria. Up to now, after a long and arduous battle with the New York City Department of Education, I have been a substitute teacher at various schools throughout the Mythical Kingdom of Brooklyn and the Bronx, a borough famous only for a steroid-imbued baseball team that has won to this date 937 World's Series championships and six Stanley Cups, though their claims to these hockey accolades are contentious at best.*
God-willing I will succeed in landing this position, as it has been a long-term goal of mine to teach children about the gross omissions in history textbooks, like these:

• General Douglas MacArthur, the celebrated American general that conquered the Pacific Theater, was in fact a cyborg whose main fuel source consisted of corn cob pipes
  
• Bob Dylan was the Second President of the Confederate States of America and penned All Along the Watchtower as a tribute to Abraham Lincoln
  
• Christopher Columbus did not think the world round, but rather shaped like a neatly trimmed mustache

I have such a wealth of historical knowledge that I literally fear over-filling my students' brains with hard facts.
I assure you that given the current circumstances, I will have to update more frequently. And even if I don't, people may still witness Maria's and my culinary BRILLIANCE as we find out how many ways to serve the dozens of heads of lettuce we receive each week from our local Community Supported Agricultural share in Crown Heights.

*The New York [Name Withheld]s, formerly the New York Highlanders, formerly the Baltimore Orioles claimed the Stanley Cup Titles in 1620, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, and 2011 seasons. A little known clause in the team's charter declares them the victor in every Stanley Cup Championship in the immediate following year. And in 1620, well that was just a fluke and the Canadiens' goaltender at the time was a known alcoholic.

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.

The Disney Bracket Abideth - ENTER ROUND II

Exceptional turnout last time - let's see if we can't get even more people to vote this time. Well everyone has voted on all 64 Songs in this Tournament of Disney. I was somewhat surprised with just how heated and close some of these polls were. In fact, we had a BIT of a problem in the contest that pitted The Nightmare Before Christmas' "This is Halloween" and the beloved "Scrooge" from The Muppet Christmas Carol in what can only be called a Christmas Grudge Match.

Since the poll has closed, I don't mind voicing my own opinion, which is that any song containing the line, "No crust of bread for those in need / No cheeses for us meeses" is vastly superior to any other conceivable song. That said, Maria in her unfathomable wisdom came up with what I consider a FAIR & BALANCED™ method for choosing the winner of this deadlocked vote. She entered the name of the movie from which the movie hailed in parentheses followed by the song's title in parentheses (i.e. "Muppet Christmas Carol" "Scrooge") in the Google search engine. The song that produced the most results won - so congratulations to Tim Burton. Cough. Hack. Anyway, this is the method that will be used in the event of another tie in the future. Maria will now provide us with the rest of the recap.

-"It's a Small World" was found superior to the "Mouseketeers" theme, and will meet "Carrying the Banner" in Round 2, which ousted "Now is the Time."
-Pretty much only Willie voted for the Carousel of Progress, so unsurprisingly, "King of New York" will face "Feels Like Christmas" in Round 2, which edged out "Grim Grinning Ghosts."
-"This is Halloween" moves on to Round 2, as we learned above, along with "You Got a Friend in Me," which beat "Seize the Day."
-Finally, "Yo Ho" barely squeezed out "After Today," and will square off against "What's This" in Round 2, which won against "The Sorcerer's Apprentice."

So now we move on to the long-awaited Round 2! Things will move faster from here on out! In Round 2, you will vote on two brackets' worth of match-ups at a time, which will still end up being 8 polls. These will be tougher decisions, friends, but you will still have only 3 days to vote. These next polls will close Friday night (4/16) at 11:59 PM.

As a side note, I realized that due to my (still Maria btw) lack of knowledge about brackets and college basketball, I messed up on the seed numbers, (i.e. the winner of Seed 1 vs. Seed 16 should be paired against the winner of 8 vs. 9 in Round 2. I put it against the winner of 2 vs. 15. Oops.) BUT, since the seeds were randomly assigned anyway, IT DOESN'T MATTER. I APOLOGIZE FOR NOTHING! So yeah, it might look a little weird.

Here are your ROUND TWO match-ups from "The Lion King Bracket":


And here are your match-ups from "The Snow White Bracket":


Some of these are nail-biters! Enjoy!

Disney Song Vote: Part the First. Round the Fourth.

I am somewhat disappointed with voter turnout in this last round. It appeared that people were unfamiliar with the songs and therefore didn't bother to vote, even after Maria's brilliant suggestion that voters actually listen to the songs. THIS WILL NOT ABIDE! Let's take a look at the results with Maria, shall we?

If my happy recap is less than stellar this week, well, it's because I had to go back to work. :(

-"Zip-a-dee doo dah" beat "Feed the Birds and will be pitted against "Supercalifrag..." in round 2, which beat "Happy Little Working Song."
-"How You Know" won over "Let's Get Together" and will face "Substitutiary Locomotion" in round 2, which beat "The Ugly Bug Ball."
-People just didn't appreciate Burl Ives enough to vote for "Summer Magic," so "Portobello Road" will face off against "Spoonful of Sugar" in round 2, which beat "Let's go fly a Kite," in which many agreed was one of the most heart-wrenching match-ups we've had so far.
-Finally, "Step in Time" beat "Laughing Place" and will meet "Chim Chim Cher-ee" in round 2, which beat "The Life I Lead." So much Mary Poppins, so little time.

This week, we present a wholly enigmatic bracket. Due entirely to our inability to place these songs into a single coherent genre, we are calling this the Walter Elias Disney Bracket. These songs include themes from rides at Disney World (including both theme songs from the various incarnations of the Carousel of Progress!), a Jim Henson production, and several selections from films released by Disney's various affiliates and et cetera. We apologize for not having these polls for you yesterday, but life got in the way of our side project. How sad when such a thing happens. Anyhow, here are our new polls. You will have until Sunday at 11:59 PM, so make it count!

Yes, friends! Disney owned the Muppets at this point!

Several people commented on the lack of Fantasia songs to which we responded, "Really, people? That's classical music." However, we found it in our hearts to include "The Sorcerer's Apprentice," as it was our belief that Disney really popularized this piece of music and made it its own, so much so that it was even reprised in Fantasia 2000.


And that's it! Now you've seen all 64 songs! After we get the results of this vote we can move on to ROUND TWO, where we will whittle the results down to 16! For now, enjoy the voting!

Round One, Part Three

First of all, I am very upset with all of you for not voting for Oo-de-lally, which is one of the finest songs ever written regardless of its status as a Disney song. Notwithstanding - and hush Maria who is currently underscoring the magnificence of Oo-de-lally, a song much better than Colors of the Wind - on this Easter Sunday, let us see the results of our latest poll. Here's Maria with the Happy Recap:

-"Heigh Ho" triumphed over "Phony King of England," and will face off against "When You Wish Upon a Star," in Round 2, which came out ahead of "Rescue Aid Society." An epic battle between two timeless Disney classics is sure to ensue!
-"Once Upon a Dream" IS CLEARLY BETTER THAN "Oo-de-lally," and will meet "When I See An Elephant Fly" in Round 2, which beat "Everybody Wants to Be a Cat."
-The Songs from the Jungle Book ousted the songs of Cinderella, which means that Round 2 will see a matchup of "Bear Necessities" and "I Wanna Be Like You." Drama abounds!
-Last but not least, "Cruella De Vil" won UNANIMOUSLY over "A Very Merry Unbirthday," and will be up against "Bella Notte" in Round 2, which won a decisive victory over "You Can Fly."

We come now to a rather mysterious bracket. We're calling it the Mary Poppins bracket as songs from this absolutely brilliant movie account for approximately half of contestants herein. What do you expect from a movie was ranked with the likes of My Fair Lady and Dr. Strangelove in the Best Picture category in 1964? These are generally movies that contain at least half live action. Some of the more obscure motion pictures mentioned in this bracket include Summer Magic, the ORIGINAL Parent Trap, and the ever-hated and censored Song of the South! On the subject of this movie, I have been on a near-constant crusade to see the entirety of this picture, as I have only seen clips from Zip-a-dee-doo-dah and Laughin' Place. It seems almost a crime that one of the most popular amusement park rides in Disney World, Splash Mountain, is based on a movie that almost no one has seen as it has been deemed too racially insensitive. Based on what I have seen of the movie, the storyteller, Uncle Remus, exhibits no more racial stereotypes than the portrayal of foreigners in the Indiana Jones series (KALI MA!, Rolls-Royce Phantom II, chilled monkey's brains, "Feel like fortune cookies, Doctah Jones!"). C'mon! Let us see the movie!

This digression has lasted far too long. Let us to the polls! Tally-ho!

I noticed that in the last batch of voting, some polls had more votes than others. We urge you to search for these songs on youtube or grooveshark if you are unfamiliar with any of the songs, since we want to have as many votes as possible. You will have until April 6 at 11:59 PM.

Now vote! Tell all your friends! (Seriously, tell your friends to vote.)

Also, happy Easter, if that's your thing. It's ours. We are currently full of lamb and traditional Greek treats, and are awaiting dessert. If Easter is not your thing, enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Rock the Vote Results and Next Bracket

Since none of the polls were particularly close races, we decided to close the polls early. We can do things like that. Wanna fight about it? It's like how the news reports an election winner--we're calling this one. The funny thing about our results for The Lion King Bracket is that all of our top (and randomly chosen) seeds came out ahead. I wonder if that will happen for our other brackets?

So, without further ado, here are YOUR WINNERS OF ROUND 1:
-"Be a Man" ousted "Ratigan" and will face off against "Be Our Guest" in Round 2, which defeated "Why Should I Worry." That one is sure to be a nail-biter!
-"Gaston" won over "Out There" and will be pitted against "Be Prepared" which whooped the butt of "I Won't Say I'm in Love" in Round 2. A battle of the villain songs!
-"Hakuna Matata" bumped off "Go the Distance" and will meet "Friend Like Me" in Round 2, which was conclusively victorious over "Colors of the Wind" (much to Maria's dismay).
-Finally, "A Whole New World" earned the best love ballad spot over "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" (sorry, Sir Elton), and will face "Under the Sea" in Round 2, which was deemed to be the best Little Mermaid song over "Part of Your World."

It was a fun race, but WE CAN DO BETTER NEXT TIME! Tell all your friends to help us in our quest. SPEAKING OF WHICH...

"The time has come," the William said,
"To vote on other things;
Of woman after puppy coats,
Of a monkey who's a king
And of a drunken elephant
And seven dwarfs that sing."

Let us prepare ourselves for our next venture into judging the finest Disney song of all time. For the next three days we will explore The Snow White Bracket. These are all those timeless Disney classics that made Walter E. Disney the Emperor of the United States and (by extension) the World. Again, these are his animated films - so for those chomping at the bit for live action, you will have to wait! Shall we? You will have until April 3rd at 11:59 PM for these, so think about it! This is Maria's favorite bracket and since her favorite Disney song is on the line, she wants it to be a good one!

(We tried something new with the spacing, but still can't get it quite right. That's what happens when you don't feel like paying for an account on a poll website.)


Which Disney Song will reign supreme?

April Madness: The Quest to find the Best Disney Song EVAR

Ah March. The cherry trees are blossoming in Washington, D.C., a district so angry and spiteful that they saw fit to stamp "Taxation Without Representation" onto their license plates. Maria and I skipped the final line to enter the Charters of Freedom Rotunda because I was able to correctly identify person #11 in Barry Faulkner's mural.
March also means it's impossible to turn on a television or switch on a radio without hearing Dick Vitale's shouting himself hoarse about college basketball. Well, since UConn hasn't made it to the Big Dance, the hell with it all. And baseball season is just around the corner. To HELL with it all!
While idly gathering the last few things for our trip to Our Nation's Capital, I wondered aloud what my favorite Disney song of all time was. Because of the nature of this entry, I will not share the information, but suddenly Maria was struck - WHAT IN THE WORLD IS HER FAVORITE DISNEY SONG?! How could she possibly judge which Timeless Classic was better than the others? In this bracket-fraught month, a decision was made: Maria and I would team up to create the ULTIMATE BRACKET SHOWDOWN OF ULTIMATE DESTINY and behold - we have compiled a list of SIXTY-FOUR Disney Songs that we will bracket off and have you, YES YOU DEAR READER, vote for to decide: THE BEST DISNEY SONG EVAR!
RVLES AND REGVLATIONS:
1.) Only one vote per person. Vote more than once, and DEATH SQUADS FROM A POST-APOCALYPTIC FUTURE will be sent to separate your reproductive organs from the rest of your body in an extremely unpleasant way.
2.) Polls will be open for THREE DAYS. Use your time wisely. There is no penalty for guessing. Erase mistakes cleanly and make no stray marks on the Scantron.
3.) You may try to sway others' votes in the comments sections, but keep it clean. (Not strictly enforced by hired nuns with knuckle-bruising rulers.) You can also feel free to tell as many others as you'd like to vote in this poll.
4.) We will be presenting match-ups from one bracket at a time. Example: You will vote in 8 match-ups in the first four rounds, 4 match-ups in the next four rounds, &c. until one song is crowned King/Queen.
5.) Seed numbers were chosen randomly in the following fashion: Maria and I got terribly drunk on butterscotch schnapps, stripped to our skivvies, and threw darts around our hotel room, then put all the songs in a computer which randomly selected the seeds.
6.) Don't yell at us if the song names aren't exactly correct. This is already taking a long time without us having to look up every single song.
7.) If you need a visual, we will post a COMPLETE and ACCURATE graphical representation of the brackets once all of the songs have been revealed, but for now, the rest are a surprise.
Is that clear ladies and gentlemen? Very well then... LET US BEGIN! ...man I wish I could have inserted the sound of a horse race gate opening right here. Maria wishes that it was the guy who says LET'S GET READY TO RUMBLE!

ROUND ONE:
Allow us to present you with "The Lion King Bracket." These songs are from the animated films indicative of OUR generation, from 1984 to the present. Sherman Brothers need not apply. Polls will close at 11:59PM on March 31. Choose wisely, my vikings! (We apologize for the space between polls, but we are amateur bloggers after all... keep going 'til you reach the end!)







(A Battle of the Love Ballads!)



We have some tough decisions ahead of us, but what awaits in the other three brackets? Vote well, and find out soon!