Top 5 Villain Songs

Disney music has always been a big part of my life. I listen to it all the time. From music from the movies to music from the parks. I have a good collection of Disney music. This is a list of some of my all time favorite Disney Villain songs. They are in no particular order.

Poor Unfortunate Souls (The Little Mermaid)

This song makes Ursula one of the best Villains. I would trade my voice for legs if someone sang this at me (it would be a pretty bad deal too, I already have legs but y'all knew that).

Be Prepared (The Lion King)

Sign me up for your uprising! Nice use of Vocabulary, Scar (Quid pro quo, etc). When I was little I thought it said "A shiny new earring is tiptoeing nearer" so I would sing it as such.

The World's Greatest Criminal Mind (The Great Mouse Detective)

Vincent Price has a set of pipes! Just don't call Ratigan a Rat or you'll be cat food too.

Hellfire (The Hunchback of Notre Dame)

This is one of the most emotionally charged Disney songs ever. It's dark, moody, and reveals so much about Frollo. I love the use of the Latin. This song is pushing it into the kid-unfriendly zone (some mature themes in this one) but for what they had to work with, Disney really made Victor Hugo's very R-rated classic as G as it could be.

The Mob Song (Beauty and the Beast)

Just try learning all the words to this song, it's harder than it seems. Some friends and I have made it our mission. The lyrics are amazing, complex, but fun and altogether very mob-y, allowing the Mob Song to narrowly beat "Friends on the Other Side" and "Mother Knows Best" from my Top 5.

Review: Disney's Enchanted Rose App

This is the first in a series of App reviews focusing on the iPhone and iPad. I chose the Enchanted Rose Beauty and the Beast promotional app for iPad. Released to inspire interest for the Diamond Edition Blu-Ray and DVD release for Beauty and the Beast, this app is cute but there isn't much to it.

 The game is modeled after "he loves me, he loves me not" but uses the Enchanted Rose for the flower. The graphics are nice, definitely modeled after the animation style of the movie. You can drag , simply poke, or shake the petals off (you actively shake to iPad, and you have to do it quite noticeably for it to register). Before you play, you get to select the name of your crush. To do this, you can select a facebook friend, enter a name yourself, or simply skip a name. After that step, you get to designate the gender of your beloved. This is where I had the most trouble. No matter how hard I poked "he", the app would nearly always give me "she" instead. That function should definitely work better.

The game is cute. But once again there is not much to it.My favorite way to take off the petals is by dragging off, it lends some realism to the game. In the end, Belle and the Beast are either united because "They loved you" or they are lonely because "They loved you not".

This is not a game that will occupy a child for very long. My ADD kicked in mid-game then I started to get fancy with my petal removal techniques. It is kind of fun to rapid fire poke at the rose to see how quickly you can destroy it. Shaking it is, once again, not a reliable method but also a dangerous thing to do with an expensive gadget. Especially if a child is the one doing the shaking.


I was excited to see that there was a trailer in the Extras section. Unfortunately, no matter how hard I tried, I could not get any sound from the App. This makes the trailer decidedly less interesting. However, the resolution, even on the iPad, is great. If only I could get the sound to work. Also under the Extras option, there are links that can lead to kids buying the film, either from iTunes or the actual Blu-Ray disc. So beware little fingers making purchases from this app.

Overall, this is not a terrible app. It was free so I can't be angry about wasting any money on an app with some functioning issues. It occupied me for awhile, mostly watching the soundless trailer. It would be a good game for very little ones because there isn't a lot going on and they can learn motor control from the dragging. Also the involvement of Belle and the Beast is a good reward for a little tyke.

Disney has enough money and resources to make an app that works correctly and has sound. They, also, misspell Blu-Ray in the app. It is sad that they allowed this one out with the problems it has.

Pros: Free, good graphics, characters
Cons: not much too it, gender buttons don't work very well, sound won't work, kids could make purchases from the app

Character Training

Disney's Cryptozoo

    I have two seemingly very different passions. Disney is my foremost passion, one that I am very open sharing with the world. My other passion is Cryptozoology, the study of hidden animals. Surprisingly, there are many ways that my two passions overlap.
    You may be asking yourself how the two may be connected but they have been connected for around 50 years. One of the icons of Disneyland is the Matterhorn. Adding another layer of adventure to the already innovative “I’m going to fly out of this bobsled and die” ride is an encounter with an Abominable Snowman, a cryptid. This Yeti has been made into pins and merchandise. He has his own Vinylmation figurine. He is a Disneyland icon. He is not Disney’s only Yeti.
    At Disney’s Animal Kingdom, another mountain is an icon. Expedition Everest stole some if the spotlight from the Tree of Life. Everest is looming presence in DAK that pulls you in with an air of mystery and adventure. Screams emanate from the mountain as it expels a train. The source of this fear and energy is a Yeti. The Yeti or “Abominable Snowman” is a bipedal hominid believed to be a close cousin of the Bigfoot and a descendent of the Gigantopithicus. Interestingly, almost every culture on Earth has Bigfoot-like creature in their folklore and at DAK you can come face to face with one of them.
    The queue is an acting museum to the folklore and investigation surrounding the Yeti. As you wind around the exhibits look around and see how this creature seems to be a perfect blend of the biological and the spiritual. Will the Yeti ever be proved to exist? Probably not There is still much we do not know about the world around us and new species are discovered every day.
You can see many cryptids and former cryptids at DAK. If you are lucky enough to see an Okapi on your next Safari, you are looking at a former cryptid. The Western world scoffed at the idea of big brown horse with striped legs but it was only recognized in 1887. The logo of DAK features the real, the extinct, and the fantasy of the animal world. A parade of animals features a dragon, an elephant, a dinosaur, an antelope, and a unicorn. The next time you pull your car into a spot of the Unicorn Lot, think about the animals that were, are, and could be then look around and may just spot one.


WDW Cryptid Checklist
-    Yeti
-    Okapi
-    Unicorn (Lot)
-    Dragon (hint there are lots)
-    Nessie (hint at DTD)
-    Trolls
-    Ghosts (not a Cryptid but Paranormal)

To One Day Rule the World (Walt Disney World)

As a wee first-year (there are no freshMEN at a Women's College), I knew I would be a Political Science major. However, while perusing the course catalog, something caught my eye. There was a course called "Disneyland in American Culture", a seminar posted by the American Studies and Art History departments. I figured the best way to take this class that, frankly, was made for me, would be to major in one of those two departments. American Studies it was. But I knew I was going to be a PoliSci major.

So there I was, not even through Orientation and I was a double major. The logic? Well, I'll need the political knowledge to run the World and the knowledge of American Culture to get there and guide it along. Plus, I had my mind set to be a PoliSci major and I tend to do the things my mind gets set on.

Now, I am a second-semester senior who is double-majoring in PoliSci and American Studies. This should be the semester that I would be taking my fated "Disneyland" class but, alas, they are no longer offering it. So I picked a major for nothing (even though American Studies is still my favorite major, that's right I said it, PoliSci).

Throughout my years here at Wellesley, I have become known as that Disney Girl. Disney is my identifier (well, that and Republican but that's a different story) and I wouldn't have it any other way.
Girls come to me when they are planning a trip to Disney or Orlando in general. They ask me about the characters, the movies, the music, and the parks. I wouldn't have it any other way. Even though I never got to take my "Disneyland" course, I learned so much about Disney and it's place in American Culture simply by interacting with those around me (Twitter has been a great tool as well).

Not everyone here likes Disney. In fact, many despise it. They believe it teaches kids the wrong thing or undermines the Feminist movement or is just one giant consumeristic marketing ploy to exploit our childhoods for profit. They may all be right in some ways but they have taught me valuable lessons about how people experience and relate to Disney, things I can use to make it better.

However, in a world where women strive to be global leaders, my dreams of working at Disney are often brushed aside. Wellesley is a place for women who will. Women who will be secretary of state. Women who will be high-powered attorneys, innovative doctors, ground-breaking scientists, and world-changing activists. The woman most likely to be President of the United States is a Wellesley Woman.

As a college student, people always ask about my major(s) infer my life goals from that:
Them: So what's your major?
Me: I'm an American Studies and Political Science double major.
Them: Oh, you're going to be a politician?
Me: I'm hoping to work in Tourism, preferably Theme Parks.
Them: So you want to be a lawyer?
Me: I want to work at Walt Disney World.
Them: So you want to be a Politician?

Some wonder why I picked the majors I did if that's what I want to do, but I think I chose correctly. Now, if only I was in that "Disneyland" course right now.