Some times the
combination of a man and a dummy is awesome entertainment. Ventriloquist
dummies, mannequins, marionettes and puppets can all get away with saying
things and doing things that flesh and blood humans could never get away with.
In 1903, Edgar Bergen
was born in Chicago, Illinois. Edgar Bergen was not the best technical
ventriloquist in the world but he had that certain something that is just
magic. Edgar worked with Charlie McCarthy and Mortimer Snerd and his act was
gold. Bergen was hilarious even though he usually didn’t get credit for being
funny, the dummies did, which is the trick, getting people to forget you are
the comic and the straight man the puppet and the puppeteer. Bergen appeared on
a couple of Disney TV shows and the movie, Fun
and Fancy Free. Conversely, Walt appeared on Bergen’s radio show. The last
thing that Bergen performed in was 1979’s The
Muppet Movie. To honor Edgar Bergen, let’s go to the Muppet 3D show in
Hollywood Studios.
James Baskett was the
first live actor ever hired by Disney to play in a feature film and you can’t
watch the movie in the USA (at least not a legal copy). Baskett was born in
1904 and in 1945 he auditioned for a voice part in a Disney feature based on
the Uncle Remus stories. Walt liked him so much that he hired him on the spot
to play Uncle Remus in Song of the South.
Baskett shined as Uncle Remus and received an honorary Academy Award in 1948
making him the first black male to win an Oscar and the first actor to win an
Academy Award for a performance in a Walt Disney film. You know where to go:
Magic Kingdom: Splash Mountain. It’s a zipadeedoodah day.
Loading for a Southern Mountain Excursion.
Brer Fox
Everybody sing.
Remember, your best excuse is always: waiting for your dreams to come
true.
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