Sunday, August 24, 2008

The King Is Gone, Or Has...


Thirty years ago today, Louis Prima, the voice of King Louie in the "Jungle Book" passed away at the far too young age of 67. He was a famous singer, composer, trumpeter and bandleader well before being immortalized as the endearing character in Walt's last film. I'm sure when he crossed the pearly gates, the angel Gabriel got some competition playing his horn...

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm all ofr remembering sorrowful and happy dates, but how about a blue sky alert about a disney theme park.

Anonymous said...

We got three blue sky updates last month. I think when Honor has another one it'll be when he has more info. Don't nag him about it. I'm sure when there's news he'll share it with us. Bugging him isn't going to make him do one any quicker.

Anonymous said...

Blue Sky Alerts aside (and I think we've had plenty--gotta have some time for the news to come), there are two things that made Jungle Book a classic Disney film in my mind. First, the performance of Phil Harris (man, was he brilliant) as Baloo the bear, and second was Louis Prima as King Louie. And, of course, they got all the songs, so that helped.

Of course, Sebastian Cabot and George Sanders were great. But without Phil Harris or Louis Prima, The Jungle Book II just didn't work for me. Wasn't the story or the animation, but I just couldn't get over the lack of Phil and Louis.

I have a hard time thinking of another Disney film where that's as true, for me. Voice work on Peter Pan II was fine. The Cinderalla DTVs were all bad, but not due to the voice work. Maybe some of the modern films, like Little Mermaid. Still, Jungle Book was King Louie and Baloo. I'm taking a little moment of silence for them both.