Post by Scrooge MacDuck on Dec 29, 2017 23:19:54 GMT
It recently came to my attention (as I have created a number of Neverland-related pages on the Wiki as of late) that in the mid-fifties, Disney, fresh off the success of their Peter Pan animated feature film, struck a deal with the makers of the Peter Pan peanut butter to animate and air a series of commercials for their product, featuring their now-iconic versions of the Peter Pan cast.
How many there were, I could not tell you for sure, but I have managed to track down eight separate shorts (the links and summaries of which can be found on the Wiki), plus two other animated spots also advertising the selfsame Peter Pan peanut butter, but no longer starring the classic characters.
The first short in the series is really quite unrelated to the seven (?) others, as it is the only one to have an actual narrative set in Neverland, and feature other characters than Tinker Bell herself. Although the short is narrated by Bill Thompson, Mr Smee's voice actor (among many other cartoon stars he voiced, who also include the White Rabbit and Droopy Dog), Smee does not appear in the short, unlike Captain Hook, Peter Pan, and a very funny appearance by an unusually anthropomorphic version of the Tick-Tock Crocodile. You can find the link to it over here, but here's a sweet bit of concept art by Tom Oreb. (Unless I'm missing a short, the pirate crew design was never used.)
All other shorts featured a pantomiming Tinker Bell interacting with live-action jars of Peter Pan; according to the man's autobiography, Bill Peet was the one who animated these (having been relegated to this mean task by Disney as "punishment" for butting helds with Walt himself in the making of Sleeping Beauty), and it does show that it's such a legendary animator at the wheel.
Some of these spots are narrated by Cliff Edwards (voice of Jiminy Cricket) or the legendary Sterling Holloway (voice of Mr Stork, Kaa, the Cheshire Cat, Winnie the Pooh and many more), although a couple are narrated by a more average commercial-voice-guy whose name I could find no records of.
Now here's the thing — the Disney Wiki and Wikipedia both contain several mentions that "in commercials for the Peter Pan peanut butter, Tinker Bell was voiced by Gloria Wood". This is peculiar, as Tinker Bell otherwise remained a mute character until the 2008 Tinker Bell animated film and gives no signs of talking in any of the shorts I've located.
On the other hand, a couple of the shorts do feature some female high-pitched singing on a diabolically catchy corporate tune. I don't know Gloria Wood (or, rather, not well enough to know her voice, since she apparently did incidental voices for A Symposium on Popular Songs, which I watched), but I think this very well could be her, and someone saw her name in the cast list of the commercials, noticed the only female character was Tinker Bell, and jumped to conclusions.
On the other hand, maybe I'm the one jumping to conclusions and overlooking the fact that there may be some lost ninth short where Tinker Bell does, indeed, talk.
What are your thoughts on this matter, and on the commercials in general?
How many there were, I could not tell you for sure, but I have managed to track down eight separate shorts (the links and summaries of which can be found on the Wiki), plus two other animated spots also advertising the selfsame Peter Pan peanut butter, but no longer starring the classic characters.
The first short in the series is really quite unrelated to the seven (?) others, as it is the only one to have an actual narrative set in Neverland, and feature other characters than Tinker Bell herself. Although the short is narrated by Bill Thompson, Mr Smee's voice actor (among many other cartoon stars he voiced, who also include the White Rabbit and Droopy Dog), Smee does not appear in the short, unlike Captain Hook, Peter Pan, and a very funny appearance by an unusually anthropomorphic version of the Tick-Tock Crocodile. You can find the link to it over here, but here's a sweet bit of concept art by Tom Oreb. (Unless I'm missing a short, the pirate crew design was never used.)
All other shorts featured a pantomiming Tinker Bell interacting with live-action jars of Peter Pan; according to the man's autobiography, Bill Peet was the one who animated these (having been relegated to this mean task by Disney as "punishment" for butting helds with Walt himself in the making of Sleeping Beauty), and it does show that it's such a legendary animator at the wheel.
Some of these spots are narrated by Cliff Edwards (voice of Jiminy Cricket) or the legendary Sterling Holloway (voice of Mr Stork, Kaa, the Cheshire Cat, Winnie the Pooh and many more), although a couple are narrated by a more average commercial-voice-guy whose name I could find no records of.
Now here's the thing — the Disney Wiki and Wikipedia both contain several mentions that "in commercials for the Peter Pan peanut butter, Tinker Bell was voiced by Gloria Wood". This is peculiar, as Tinker Bell otherwise remained a mute character until the 2008 Tinker Bell animated film and gives no signs of talking in any of the shorts I've located.
On the other hand, a couple of the shorts do feature some female high-pitched singing on a diabolically catchy corporate tune. I don't know Gloria Wood (or, rather, not well enough to know her voice, since she apparently did incidental voices for A Symposium on Popular Songs, which I watched), but I think this very well could be her, and someone saw her name in the cast list of the commercials, noticed the only female character was Tinker Bell, and jumped to conclusions.
On the other hand, maybe I'm the one jumping to conclusions and overlooking the fact that there may be some lost ninth short where Tinker Bell does, indeed, talk.
What are your thoughts on this matter, and on the commercials in general?
