Every once and again, a song catches your fancy and forms an earworm.  This duet by Ella Langley and Riley Green has done just that.  “Excuse me…”

Ella Langley:
I was all but 22 / I think at the time / I’d been out on the road / Lonely at night / And it’d been a while / So it was on my mind.

Well, I saw him walk in / With his cowboy hat / And I thought to myself / I could use some of that / His boots like glass on a sawdust floor / Had moves like nothin’ I’d ever seen before.

So I walked right up / And I pulled him to the side / I handed him a beer and looked him right in the eye / And I said Baby, I think you’re gonna wanna hear this / Then I told him …

Chorus:
Excuse me / You look like you love me / You look like you want me / To want you to come on home / And baby, I don’t blame you / For lookin’ me up and down across this room / I’m drunk and I’m ready to leave / And you look like you love me.

Riley Green:
Well, I was down at the local beer joint with a few of the guys / When this cute little country girl caught my eye / And boy, let me tell you / She was the prettiest thing I’d ever seen in a pair of boots / Well, she walked right up to me, handed me a beer / Gave me a look like, let’s get outta here / And that’s when I realized that she was every cowboy’s dream come true / She told me this right here, she said …

Repeat Chorus

Alright, now.

So if you ever see a man in a cowboy hat / And you think to yourself / I could use some of that / Don’t waste your time / Just give ’em this here line / Goes a little like this.

Repeat Chorus

SO many states have the white-tailed deer as their state mammal, and I am not going to repeat the basic facts about them over and over again.  I decided to take a look at BAMBI (a baby white tail deer) and see what we may not have known about the movie.

From Mental Floss:

It’s pretty commonplace for at least one parent to meet a tragic end in a Disney movie, but the death of Bambi’s mother is definitely one of the most heartbreaking, even more than 70 years later. It took Walt Disney and his animators a while to figure out how they wanted to show that pivotal scene; they considered letting viewers see the actual shot before deciding to go with a more subtle approach. That’s just one fact you might not have known about the classic animal film—read on for 12 more.

1 LIKE MANY DISNEY MOVIES, BAMBI WAS BASED ON A BOOK.

The novel, Bambi: A Life in the Woods was intended for adults, not children. If audiences thought the death of Bambi’s mother was a bit harsh, they obviously hadn’t reviewed the source material: Among other things, Bambi’s father shows him the corpse of a man who had been shot by his fellow hunter to show that humans weren’t immortal.

2 BAMBI AUTHOR FELIX SALTEN MADE ALMOST NOTHING FROM THE MOVIE.

Felix Salten sold the American film rights to director Sidney Franklin for a mere $1000. Franklin, in turn, sold it to Disney, writing to him, “I would want it to be one of the greatest things ever attempted and done.” Disney paid homage to Franklin in the credits.

3 THE BOOK WAS BANNED IN GERMANY.

The Nazis believed Salten’s book could be viewed as an allegory for the plight of Jewish people in Europe. They banned it in 1936.

4 THE ANIMATORS STUDIED DEER EXTENSIVELY TO GET THE MOVEMENTS JUST RIGHT.

Artists spoke to animal experts, spent time at the Los Angeles Zoo, and watched nature films. They even got up close and personal with two deer donated to the studio. But animators really showed their dedication to the craft when they observed a deer corpse in various stages of decomposition for several evenings to see how the muscles and tendons really worked. “Unfortunately, each time he contracted or extended any part of the cadaver a rich aroma was pumped into the air,” animators Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston recalled.

5 THE ANIMATION WAS EXTREMELY TEDIOUS.

Artists had to make sure that each spot on Bambi’s back was replicated perfectly in every frame. The attention to detail meant that animators were able to complete less work on a daily basis than they had on previous movies.

“I wouldn’t hurry. I wanted it right. I wanted those animal characters in Bambi to be actors, not just cute things. I wanted acting on a plane with the highest acting in the finest live-action pictures,” Walt later explained. Bambi also used an oil painting technique that previous Disney pictures hadn’t, which also added to the timeline. According to Walt:

“We took some of our top artists who worked in oils for their own enjoyment in their leisure time. They taught their technique to the watercolor men. There’s a vast difference in the two techniques, but I was set on oil painting, because of its quality. I figured oils would give a sheen to the forest and accentuate the depth. It worked, too, but perfecting a technique takes time.”

6 WALT’S OWN DAUGHTER PROTESTED THE DEATH OF BAMBI’S MOTHER.

When Diane Disney complained about the needless death, her dad explained that he was just following the book. She proceeded to point out other instances where his movies had veered off from the original material, and besides, she said, he was Walt Disney and could take whatever liberties he liked.

7 “MAN IS IN THE FOREST” HAD DOUBLE MEANING.

It’s uttered in the movie to warn of approaching humans, of course, but to Disney animators, it also meant something else: Walt was coming down the hallway, and anyone who was slacking needed to shape up immediately.

8 THE MOVIE IS RATHER ECONOMICAL WITH ITS DIALOGUE.

Although the animals in the movie speak, they don’t speak much; there are fewer than 900 words in the whole film.

9 SOME OF BAMBI ‘S ANIMATION SEQUENCES WERE REUSED IN OTHER MOVIES.

Over the years, Disney has often employed an animation technique called “rotoscoping,” where animators trace over the frames of old footage to use it in a different environment. Check out this video for a few examples of how animation from Bambi and other early films ended up in later movies.

10 THE STUDIO CONSIDERED A BAMBI “ROAD SHOW.”

Instead of a standard release, the road show would have placed the movie in theaters specially outfitted with advanced sound systems and limited the number of daily showings. 

11 BAMBI LATER BECAME A CAREER MARINE.

In 1940, six-year-old Donnie Dunagan was picked for the role of a lifetime: Disney hired him to provide the voice for the lead role in his newest animated feature, Bambi. Dunagan retired from acting after that, and became a decorated career Marine—and its youngest-ever drill instructor, in fact. He served in the Vietnam War and was wounded three times.

Dunagan didn’t want to give recruits or commanding officers any extra reason to harass him, so he kept his mouth shut about his child acting past for the duration of his entire career. He says it didn’t come up until he was two months away from retirement, and, swamped with other things, balked at completing a task an officer had asked him to do.

“General, when do you think I’m going to have time to do that?” Dunagan asked. And that’s when the general revealed that he had some very interesting intel:

“He looked at me, pulled his glasses down like some kind of college professor. There’s a big, red, top-secret folder that he got out of some safe somewhere that had my name on it. He pats this folder, looks me in the eye and says, ‘You will audit the auditors. Won’t you, Maj. Bambi?'”

12 THESE DAYS, DUNAGAN EMBRACES THE PAST.

“I love it now,” he has said. “When people realize, ‘This old jerk, he’s still alive and was Bambi.’ And I wouldn’t take anything for it, not a darn thing for it.”

Dunagan says kids still ask him to say some of Bambi’s most famous lines: “At first I had to modify my long developed adult voice and get all the Marine tones out of it, in order to say ‘bird,’ ‘flower,’ and so on. With some practice I have been able to do it!”

SOURCE: MENTALFLOSS.COM

Today is John Travolta’s birthday ( born 1954) and I wanted to showcase a favorite John Travolta movie of mine: Look Who’s Talking.  The movie is a romantic comedy with voice overs done by Bruce Willis.

From: Mental Floss:

In 1989’s Look Who’s Talking, Kirstie Alley played Mollie, a single mother whose love life is manipulated by her newborn son Mikey, so she ends up with a cab driver named James, played by John Travolta. The twist to writer-director Amy Heckerling’s movie is that the audience can hear baby Mikey’s inner monologue, voiced by Bruce Willis. The original film spawned two sequels, and influenced a TV show (plus a popular ad campaign).

1 AMY HECKERLING GOT THE IDEA FROM HER DAUGHTER.

The Fast Times at Ridgemont High and future Clueless director noticed her young daughter, Mollie, constantly look around whenever she was propped up in her baby seat. “My husband and I started to put words in her mouth, what she might be thinking based on her expressions,” Heckerling told the Los Angeles Times.

2 A LAWSUIT CLAIMED THAT HECKERLING STOLE THE IDEA.

A $20 million lawsuit alleged that Heckerling stole the idea from a short story called Special Delivery, a science-fiction tale featuring an unborn infant who can talk to its parents. The terms of the eventual settlement weren’t disclosed.

3 THREE STUDIOS PASSED ON THE FILM.

Warner Bros., Disney, and Orion Pictures all passed on the idea before Tri-Star took a shot.

4 OLYMPIA DUKAKIS GOT AN OSCAR PAY RAISE.

Olympia Dukakis was told that she would be paid $50,000 to play Kirstie Alley’s mother if she won an Academy Award for her work as Rose Castorini in Moonstruck. She did.

5 IT WAS SHOT IN VANCOUVER TO SAVE MONEY.

Producer Jonathan D. Krane, who was also John Travolta’s manager, cut the $13 million budget almost in half by moving the film’s production to Vancouver, instead of shooting on location in New York City.

6 KIRSTIE ALLEY FELL FOR JOHN TRAVOLTA IN REAL LIFE.

The actress recently claimed “it took all the power I had” to not run off with her co-star, whom she called the love of her life. Alley was married at the time; Travolta was single.

7 TRAVOLTA GOT SILLY DURING THE ROMANTIC SCENES.

Whenever Alley and Travolta tried to shoot their first kiss, Travolta kept evoking Barbra Streisand singing “Papa, Can You Hear Me?” from Yentl. 

8 JAMES WAS ORIGINALLY WRITTEN AS A DARKER CHARACTER.

When Travolta came on board, Heckerling changed James. She also added James’ dancing with her new star in mind.

9 ONE SHOT OF THE FETUS TOOK 115 TAKES.

The fetuses were puppets. Twelve puppeteers—some hanging upside down—were required to shoot the scene where Mikey plays with the placenta. The sperm were made of vinyl with tiny fishing weights in front.

10 HECKERLING DIDN’T WANT ALBERT’S HEAD EXPLODING TO LOOK TOO SCARY, LIKE IN SCANNERS.

A fake head was made for George Segal. Weather balloons were stuffed into the fake head’s cheeks.

11 AUDIENCES IN DIFFERENT COUNTRIES HEAR DIFFERENT BABY VOICES.

Foreign countries had their own celebrities voicing baby Mikey. It was Travolta’s idea.

12. TWO OF MOLLIE’S BLIND DATES HAVE NAMES.

They were credited as Mr. Impatience and Mr. Anal.

13 HECKERLING PUT HER FAMILY TO WORK.

Alley’s father was played by Heckerling’s dad, Louis (who is an accountant in real life). She admitted to being skeptical of Louis’ ability to pretend to laugh, but he pulled it off. Writer Neal Israel—who is Heckerling’s ex-husband and the father of Mollie, their daughter who inspired the movie—played Alley’s boss, Mr. Ross. Mollie also has a brief role in the movie.

14 THE STUDIO DELAYED ITS RELEASE FOR SEVEN MONTHS.

Tri-Star changed the movie’s release date from March to October, which led insiders to believe that the studio hated what they saw in the rough cut and it would never be released. Instead, Look Who’s Talking made nearly $300 million worldwide.

15 IT INSPIRED THE TV SHOW BABY TALK AND THE E*TRADE BABY.

ABC’s Baby Talk, featuring Tony Danza as the voice of the little one, wasn’t as successful as the movie; star Scott Baio called it a “nightmare.” The E*Trade baby endorsed the financial company from 2008 to 2014.

16. THERE IS TALK OF A REBOOT.

In 2010, it was reported that Fast & Furious producer Neal H. Moritz had plans to bring the Look Who’s Talking franchise back. Heckerling hopes the reboot does happen: “then I’d make some money!”

SOURCE: MENTALFLOSS.COM