Thursday, May 26, 2005

Jedi of the Suburbs

I was talking with someone online today who told me of a magnificent feat of extreme Star Wars-geekdom: He saw all six movies in succession yesterday! That's right, he watched Episodes I and II on DVD, then drove to a theatre to see Episode III, then came back home to watch IV-VI on DVD again. Oh, and he won the light-saber fight he had with his friends in the theatre. There should be a medal for that or something...

Remembering a grrrreeaat voice: The name Thurl Ravenscroft probably doesn't ring a bell with you, but I promise you've heard his work; he sang "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" in the famous animated special How the Grinch Stole Christmas, voiced a variety of Disney movie and theme park characters, and was best known as the voice of Tony the Tiger in the Kellogg's Frosted Flakes commercials. He passed away on Sunday, and in yesterday's Bleat, James Lileks posted an audio clip of Thurl singing an old big-band song from way back in the day (it's a duet with a female vocalist, who's heard first on the recording; that threw me at first, but no, he didn't have "mad falsetto skillz" or anything). Sure, the song's pretty hokey, but I challenge you to listen to it and not picture Tony the Tiger doing the singing. (More music clips are available at this site.)

UPDATE: That song, in all its corniness (Frosted Flakes pun only slightly intended, heh), has been going through my head for three. straight. days.

1 comment:

Eric Grubbs said...

I tried to do the full six Star Wars marathon, but I couldn't do it. As much as I love the movies, I couldn't watch them back to back in one day. There is a lot of information to process . . .