What would a fairy tale musical be without some �critters� to pepper the landscape? �The Princess and the Frog� offers up two such delicious denizens in the swampy backwaters of the Big Easy. First up is the happy return of ERIC GOLDBERG, supervising the character of Louis, a bayou dwelling, jazz aficionado alligator. Okay, so, let�s review � Eric Goldberg as a jazz playing alligator. Is it Christmas?!!! Well, actually, from the look of things, that�s exactly the day that �Princess and the Frog� hits theatres, so what better way to celebrate than to watch the man who brought us the Genie and a Yo-Yo wielding flamingo, as he fingers a trumpet in the moonlight of Louisiana. Goldberg co-directed the stirring �Pocahontas� alongside Oscar Nominated director Mike Gabriel. Goldberg moves comfortably from the directors chair to the supervising animator�s role, never grinding gears or stepping on toes. He is one of the most respected, admired and loved professionals in the industry, and he practically bleeds graphite. Eric Goldberg�s genius seems to flow from a never ending wellspring of inspired insanity, with his feet firmly planted in the best of traditional �cartoon� animation. Goldberg plus pencils mixed with a Jazz-age Alligator equals animated dreams come true.

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Finally, a personal favorite of this writer, and arguably the most underrated talent that ever flipped a stack of peg-punched paper � MIKE SURREY. The return of this outrageously talented animator to the Disney fold is cause enough for Mardi Gras in Toon Town. Surrey has turned in some of the most consistently high-energy work of any of the second-generation animators. The energy and focus and dedication he pours into a performance is consistent. Surrey has taken lesser roles and made hay with them, making it look simple. However, if you frame through and watch what he does, and how he does it, it can take your breath away. He is, in short, an amazing actor. The greatest crime of �Home on the Range� having been felled by critics may be the too easily forgotten Annie caliber work Surrey did on Buck, the nut-job in horseshoes who has dreams of becoming a great hero. It�s a terrible shame that this performance didn�t get the attention it deserved. Horses are notoriously difficult to animate, and equally as easy to suffer from being little more than a vessel for eye-rolling takes and goofy facial expressions. Almost every great Disney horse has been a stand still mute mugging for the camera. Seizing on Joe Moshier�s terrific character design, and milking every last scenery chewing syllable of Cuba Gooding�s vocal performance, Surrey made hamburger out of the mostly bovine cast to whom he acted in a supporting role, and sound up or sound off, the animation on Buck is some of the most wildly inventive, knock-your-socks off funny and fine-tuned hand drawn animation of the past ten years. It cannot be December of 2009 soon enough, as Surrey�s love sick Cajun firefly, Ray, promises to be the stuff of cartoon legend. The unapologetically broad caricature of a dirt-poor backwater Cajun stereotype is so ideal a counterpoint to the other comings and goings of this lush-looking feature, that the near-toothless bug is already a welcome relief in the sixty-second teaser trailer circulating in theatres and on the web. Buzzing about the Quarter with lazy limbs and tattered wings, Ray already deserves an endorsement deal with Tabasco or Zatarain�s rice, as he�s the best ambassador for New Orleans in many a decade.

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So there you have it, an all-star line up of top tier talent, in whose capable hands this promising return to traditional animation now lies. What it will all add up to has yet to be determined, as there is at least another full year of production before we can expect to get much more than a carefully leaked image or two. Until December of 2009, there�s a lot of dreams to dream about the possibilities that such a stellar crew could deliver. It�s enough to make you believe in magic.

Welcome home, guys. Here�s wishing you great things in these next months, and a vote of trust and faith in your individual talent and collective integrity.

-- Posted August 8, 2008