Song of the Sequel

In the same vein of Disney doing straight-to-video sequels to their classics that were made 50 something years ago and don’t have half of the charm that the originals do, it looks like a company other than Disney is making a spin-off of sorts to a Disney classic.

Follow-Up to Rumored Song of the South "Sequel"

Ah yes, “Song of the South.” I never watched it myself as a child, but that’s only because it was truly hard to get one’s hands on. Depite the fact that it gave birth to the famous "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah" song. That’s because the film has never been released on video in the U.S. You see, the film itself features a large group of black slaves living near a plantation in a southern state. And because the blacks in this film are singing and dancing at night and telling stories to each other, that must mean that this film is racist. There’s no chance that the blacks were singing and dancing to entertain themselves and escape from the hardships of their day, at least in the minds of people who think that this film is racist.

In short, this film has never had a video release in the United States because people think it is racist. And if that’s true, I must be racist for liking it.

Back in May 2004 I received a few reports that actor Wayne Brady was involved in doing some voice acting for the character Brer Bear in what was rumored to be a Song of the South sequel/remake of sorts. This follow-up is long overdue, but better late than never!

Alrighty then! Wayne Brady is involved in this one. I remember when Wayne Brady was in “Whose Line is it Anyway,” the improve show that he starred in with a bunch of other similarly talented comedians before he got too big for his britches and decided he deserved his own crappy talk show. But while he was on “Whose Line,” he never pulled any punches when it came to people of his own race and even some of the stereotypes that Hollywood has historically put on black people. He poked fun at James Brown, Michael Jackson, and Bill Cosby just to name a few. He also did an impression or two of the servant gal from “Gone with the Wind” who said “I don’t know nothin’ ‘bout birthin’ no babies, Miss Scarlett.” It’s interesting to think that the majority of Black U.S. citizens would probably be against this sort of humor, considering it an offensive stereotype. How do they feel about a black man wholeheartedly giving into these stereotypes for the sake of humor? After all, that’s why they created such stereotypes in the first place, for the sake of a laugh. And it was Black Americans who created them in the first place, only now most Black Americans seem to be against them.

As it turns out, Wayne Brady IS involved in vocal acting for a character named Brer Bear, but in a film completely independent from Disney. While the film has some Disney ties (Executive Producer is former Disney artist Tad Stones, Byron Vaughn is the Director, and Mary Thorne is the Line Producer), the film is "strictly through NBC Universal" according to Ruben Chavez, Lead Background Stylist of the Universal Cartoon Studios. The film about Brer Rabbit is going to be a direct-to-video release, the first of its kind for the studio that isn't based off of a feature film.

More in-depth discussion about this work in progress is available in the Tad Stones Interviews, which I highly recommend reading! It sounds very unique and I am looking forward to seeing it when it is released. Thanks to Ruben Chavez and Joe Strike for the additional information on this project!

I’ll only find it interesting if they try to pin someone for racism over this one.

Pigs is Pigs

I guess when you’ve lived long enough, eventually you’ll know somebody who’s experienced police officers abusing their power firsthand. Especially if that person happens to live in the L.A. area. I just visited Long Beach over the weekend and someone I know who lives down there just told me that she’s got a lawyer. Apparently, a police officer arrested her for walking down the street and witnessing a police officer arrest someone. I guess she made the mistake of getting to close to the scene. The police officer arrested her and made up a whole bunch of B.S. excuses to put her in jail. Now she’s got a lawyer and she’s going to court to prove her innocence.

Boy, am I glad to be living in Marin County.

Prize Child

Hokay, it’s beena while since I blogged, but I think I’ve finally found something to blog on that might be of comical interest. Special Thanks goes to my sister for sending me this link:

“ELKHART, Ind. (AP) A crane vending machine can be frustrating enough when you're trying to snatch a little stuffed toy from its steely clutches. Imagine if the prize it's denying you is your own 3-year-old son. James Manges II managed to climb up the chute and inside one of the machines Thursday, swinging around for an hour amid the plush toys he coveted before firefighters freed him. James' mother, Danielle Manges, said they had paid an early morning visit to a Wal-Mart in this northern Indiana city because he had been sick and was sleeping odd hours. After she denied him money to play the vending-machine game, he threw a juice box and climbed into the machine while his mother picked it up. "Within two seconds he had climbed through the hole, into the chute and pushed the door shut so we couldn't get him out," she said. At first, Manges thought it was funny: "He was playing with all the toys and hanging from the bar like a monkey." She even bought a disposable camera to take pictures, as other shoppers did. But she soon became upset when Wal-Mart employees said they did not have a key to let James out. Firefighters removed the back of the machine to free James -- who went home empty-handed. "He definitely didn't get a toy after that," Manges said.”

You know, as crazy as this sounds, this kid might actually have just spawned a revolution without even realizing it. I mean, what if we successfully make medical abortions illegal all throughout the United States? Hypothetically, the people would stop having so much sex for fear that they might not actually be able to kill their child if things screw up and they get pregnant. That would mean (gasp!) taking responsibility for their actions! But say that doesn’t happen and we get huge sums of babies in orphanages all across the country. Someone has to adopt these babies, right? Why not put them in the public’s eyes? We could probably have claw machines with babies crawling around in them in every K-mart you see. Only we’d have to have real strong claws in the machines that are actually strong enough to lift the prize kiddies out of the machine, and not like those crappy claws they put in these machines that make you put 3 bucks into the damn machine before you get anything.

:-) I’m just joking. What, can’t you guys take a joke?