The internet is overflowing with lists! You've all seen them. "4 Delicious Quinoa Recipes You Have To Try Before You Die" or… "17 Things That Will Make Every Mother of Three Who Also Likes Cats Roll On The Floor With Laughter!" They're everywhere you look invading your social media like "The 5 Most Tactical Invasions in Recorded History!" They're ridiculous, pointless, and absolutely impossible NOT to click on! Well, now it's my turn!
I
haven't met that many famous people in my life. There are a few people out
there, however, that I would love to meet so badly that doing so would lock me
up into a silent wide-eyed grin like I was just hit with Joker gas! I’m not
going to go into detail on each and every one of the people capable of doing
this to me, but without a doubt, the person at the top of that list would have
to be Voice-Acting Legend Jim Cummings!
Sure, if
ever I were to meet the great Mr. Cummings, I could probably try to start a conversation with him.
You know, like adults do? But instead, I feel that meeting him would probably
go down more like this: I'd make a couple of squeaky starstruck noises and
manage to say "hello" right before I accidentally introduce myself as
Jim, …which, of course, is not my name.
Maybe it
wouldn’t happen like this. I might surprise myself. Who knows? One thing’s for
sure though, I would be awestruck! As far as why, well, that’s where my list
comes in. In case there’s anyone out there that cares, I thought I’d try to
explain my fanboy fascination with the voice-actor while listing out some of my
favorite Jim characters that he’s voiced. Of course, there are already several
lists out there of Jim Cummings characters, and they’d probably closely
resemble mine. Therefore, to change it up a bit, I thought I’d tackle each
character in the list with my own artistic spin. This’ll hopefully show how
much I love these characters of his in ways that I might not be capable of
expressing with words.
Wow! That sounds weird. Whatever! Let’s begin!
First up:
Dumbo's
Buddy Lionel
Although
I didn't know it at the time, I've been a fan of Jim Cummings throughout his
entire voice-acting career! One of the very first television shows that I
remember enjoying was Dumbo's Circus,
which aired on The Disney Channel back in 1985. In the film Dumbo, Dumbo's best friend was a small
mouse named Timothy. In Dumbo's Circus,
the role of the elephant's best buddy went to a lion named Lionel. Dumbo's Circus was a live-action show
with actors in costumes, so I'm guessing the character was changed to a lion
because it was more believable than a human-size mouse. Not that a human-size
lion walking around with a human-size koala and a flying elephant is any more
believable, but hey… it’s children’s television!
The
voice of Lionel was Jim Cummings' first acting gig, and he played it pretty
close to the voice of Timothy, sounding almost identical! The show is pretty
crude compared to today's standards, but even when I watch some of the clips
online and see Lionel bobbing around, his mouth barely moving, and hear that
lovable Brooklyn accent of his, a small part of me can't help but want to be
best buddies with him also… despite the fact that he's the only character on
the show who is, technically, a man-eater.
Again,… it’s children’s television!
Ed the
Hyena
I
first took notice of Jim Cummings while watching The Lion King on VHS one day. In the film, he plays the voice of
Ed, the exceptionally dim-witted hyena who brilliantly grunts and giggles
opposite Whoopi Goldberg's Shenzi and Cheech Marin's Banzai. I must have said
to myself, "Hmmm. I really like the way that dim-witted hyena grunts and
giggles. I wonder who plays him." So, I checked the end credits. I knew I
had heard the name Jim Cummings before, but couldn't, for the life of me, place
a face with the name. This was because I'd never even seen his face. I had yet
to wrap my mind around the concept of voice artists. I recognized Whoopi
Goldberg from The Color Purple, and I
knew Cheech Marin from Nash Bridges (yeah…
I was a weird kid) but Jim Cummings, as brilliant as I was starting to think he
was, was a total mystery!
This was
in the late 90's, so I couldn't really look him up on IMDB, or go and Ask
Jeeves, "Hey, Jeeves? Who is this Jim Cummings guy?" There was,
however, such a thing as a cable channel called Toon Disney, which I was
watching some time later and spotted this!
Of
course! These are the end credits to some of the shows on The Disney Afternoon, the lineup of programming that not only
instilled in me my profound love for animation, but practically shaped who I am
as a human being! Well… okay. Maybe that's a stretch. On second thought,… No!
It’s not a stretch! My entire life's goals are aimed towards actually BEING Scrooge
McDuck! I loved these shows! A LOT! And Jim Cummings happened to be in every
single one of them!
For example:
El Capitán
By
far, my favorite show on The Disney Afternoon was Ducktales. While Mr. Cummings didn't play any of the main cast, one
of his characters has always stood out to me as a favorite. It's the sinister
old conquistador known simply as El Capitán! Obsessed with reclaiming his lost city of gold,
El Capitán
manages to stay alive for 400 years from, as he puts it, "sheer will
power!" It's a pretty far-fetched concept when you think about it, but
then again, so is EVERYTHING on Ducktales!
That's part of the fun! CHILDREN’S TELEVISION!
Jim Cummings
gives El Capitán
this asthmatic wheeze mixed with a Peter Lorre type of madness that I love! In
my opinion, it's iconic! There’s so much there crammed into (in terms of the
entire series) such a small part! I kind of wish El Capitán would have reappeared
a couple more times, but I guess there wasn't much reason for him to.
Fat Cat
And
then there's Fat Cat, a delightful villain from Chip n Dale Rescue Rangers that, much to my enjoyment, would
reappear several times. Fat Cat had the ability to make me laugh while slightly
terrifying me at the same time. I once heard Jim Cummings say in an interview
that Fat Cat's voice is sort of a mix between Zero Mostel and Dom Deluise. How
does he come up with this stuff? Deciding which impersonations of random people
to merge into a completely different character is one thing, but then to
actually have the ability to do it? And have it sound like something completely
original? It's brilliant!
Don
Karnage
But
as far as Jim Cummings villains go, there is none better, in my opinion, than
Don Karnage! The scourge of the skies, Captain Karnage was a debonair pirate
with a King of Siam-like way of always speaking incorrectly. No one dared
correct him, of course, which only ensured that Karnage's mistaken way of doing
things would continue. I don't know if Mr. Cummings had anything to do with
this, or not, but I love how Don Karnage doesn't speak with your typical
British pirate-like accent. I'm not sure what the accent is, exactly (Sometimes
he sounds a little French. Other times he sounds a little Italian) but he
definitely doesn't sound British. I think this is refreshingly unique and just
another way that Jim Cummings is able to subtly give one of his characters a
little more depth.
Darkwing
Duck
As excellent as he was at playing the villain,
probably the most famous Jim Cummings character from The Disney Afternoon, (or arguably his whole career) was a hero.
I'm, of course, talking about The Terror that Flaps in the Night! The
Something-Something that… does… Something! That's right... Darkwing Duck!
Darkwing was a character that had a lot of range. He was a dark and shadowy
crime fighter, a clumsy goofball, and a loving single father. Not only was Mr.
Cummings able to develop a voice that unexplainably sounds like a talking duck,
but he was able to take that voice and seamlessly transition back and forth
through the different aspects of Darkwing's character! I think this is the
perfect example of how voice-artists aren't just people that can talk funny and
do really good impressions, but are genuine actors of the highest caliber!
Bonkers
D. Bobcat
I can't
talk about Jim Cummings and The Disney
Afternoon and not talk about Bonkers!
The show followed the adventures of a once famous cartoon star who teams up
with a grizzled detective. It was basically the plot of Who Framed Roger Rabbit and isn't really a favorite of mine, but it
is worth mentioning because Mr. Cummings played both of the show's main
characters: Bonkers D. Bobcat and Detective Lucky Piquel! As was the case with
the great Mel Blanc and Looney Tunes,
almost every episode of Bonkers involved
Jim Cummings talking to… himself! I find that mind-bogglingly impressive!
The Tasmanian Devil
Speaking
of Looney Tunes, the man doesn't just
play Disney characters! Since the passing of voice-acting legend Mel Blanc, the
role of the Tasmanian Devil has bounced around to a couple of different artists
before sticking with Jim Cummings in 1991 on the series, Taz-Mania. Yes! An entire series devoted to the Looney Tunes character that did nothing
but spin, snarl, and spit… and also spin! Thinking back, Taz’s similarly
dim-witted grunts and giggles was probably what endeared me so much to Ed the
Hyena.
I loved Taz-Mania, and it's serves as just one
example of how I not only followed the career of Jim Cummings every day after
school, but on Saturday mornings as well.
Oh yeah! I'm still going!
I also
followed the man on cable! In The
Powerpuff Girls, Jim Cummings played the voice of Fuzzy Lumpkins, a meat-loving
hillbilly and foil to the three titular super heroes. I don't really have
anything to say about this particular performance of Mr. Cummings'. It was
great, of course, as always! To be honest, I just wanted to draw Fuzzy
Lumpkins, and so I added him to the list.
Winnie
the Pooh and Tigger Too
I began
noticing Jim Cummings show up more and more in interviews and at conventions
ever since the release of Winnie the Pooh.
The film came out in 2011, but Jim Cummings has been playing the bear of very little
brain ever since the 1980's. I think he plays the part incredibly true to the
original slow yet sweet performance of Sterling Holloway. Not only that, but shortly
after Jim Cummings started playing Pooh, he also took over for actor Paul
Winchell as the boisterous and fun-loving Tigger! This is just another example
of the superb job Mr. Cummings does at playing two very different characters
opposite one another in the same project.
Plus, playing
the most popular characters from the juggernaut that is the Winnie the Pooh franchise, the work of Mr.
Cummings not only appears in film and television, but all across the board!
There's Pooh and Tigger merchandise! Theme park attractions! Disney even went
and reedited some of the classic Winnie
the Pooh bits with Jim Cummings’ voice! That last one was something that
the cartoon snob in me wasn't really cool with, but nevertheless, the guy is
all over the place! And, he can probably still walk into a 7-11 and not get
hassled. I'm not a performer in any sense of the word, but I can imagine that
that would be every actor's dream.
Ray
Last
but definitely not least, is my favorite Jim Cummings character!… so far. In 2009’s The
Princess and The Frog, it’s the lovable firefly sidekick Ray that, I think,
completely steals the show! In Disney films, I’ve always been more taken with
the sidekicks than with the leads. They’re just more fun. Whether they’re the
sidekick of the hero or the villain, their main purpose is to make us laugh. We
all like to laugh, right? Ray, however, provides so much more! He gives the
movie its heart. He cracks us up with his Cajun slapstick, he charms us while
singing about his belle, Evangeline, and I’d be lying if I said he doesn’t
incite a tear or two, as well. Yes, the
film’s writing has something to do with this but it’s Mr. Cummings’ performance,
I think, that takes the character of Ray to the next level. It’s one of the
only times I can think of where I felt a voice-actor was deserving of an
Academy Award!
I
suppose the main reason I would theoretically break down upon meeting the
talented Jim Cummings is because, in a sense, it would be like actually meeting every
one of these characters that I enjoy so much. Whether it’s a slightly smaller part,
like El Capitán
or a more famous one like Winnie the Pooh, Jim Cummings has played the gamut of
animated all-stars and, in my book, will always be up there with the best of the Hollywood
legends! If I ever do meet the man, I'll hopefully at least be able to muster up a 'thank you' for the huge inspiration he's been for me.
Now this list, of course, is just a small sample of the great many characters that Mr.
Cummings has performed. Who are some of your favorites that I might have neglected to mention? I was going to list them all but then I might end up as one of the "14 Bloggers Who Don’t Know When To Shut Up."
See how
I came around and tied it all back together? Nice, right?
