Mouse Madness

The time has finally come!  Over this past week, we've been holding polls to see whether the champion from Mouse Madness could hold its own over the champion from PIXAR Panic!  That's right: The Emperor's New Groove vs. The Incredibles ultimate matchup has finally concluded, and we now have a definitive answer to the question of what Disney animated movie is truly the greatest masterpiece!  Now, obviously we can't stretch out a two-film matchup discussion to a full two hours, so the bulk of this video is dedicated to one of my personal favorite pastimes: list time!  That's right!  Wesley, Carrick, Jackson and I take this opportunity to count down and explain which 5 PIXAR movies are our absolute favorites.  We even talk about things that haven't been touched upon in any of the previous podcasts, so I recommend listening to the whole thing if you want to get our whole thoughts.  Don't worry, I've included timestamps in case you need multiple listens to get through; it is a two-hour podcast, after all!  Thank you everyone who participated in this tournament over the past two months!  It's always fun to talk about movies that we love, and PIXAR certainly has no shortage of those.  And it's always fun to see so many people engaged in this style of showdown.  Funnily enough, Mouse Madness was originally created to fill in the gap that COVID created when March Madness was cancelled.  And at the time of recording and upload, the actual March Madness 2021 tournament is close to starting!  I love it when things come full circle!  We're gonna take a much-needed break from the tournaments for a while, so stay tuned for whatever content comes your way in the future.  Take care!

Let me get this out of the way first: I'M SO SORRY ABOUT THE AUDIO ISSUES IN THIS ONE!!  For whatever reason, my mic was barely picking up, which is why for so much of this podcast my voice is barely audible.  I did make a point in editing to match my volume to my friends/partners during long sections where I was the only one talking.  So basically my intro and the stats section of this podcast are the only significant parts where I can be heard at all.  There are some other parts scattered here and there where I boosted my audio, but for the most part I am close to unintelligible, and I deeply apologize for that.  At the very least, I didn't have to scrap this episode like I did in Season 1.  One lost episode was enough, thank you very much!  Alright, enough feeling sorry for myself.  We've got work to do!  So spoilers for people who haven't listened 5 minutes in yet, but The Incredibles wound up winning PIXAR Panic.  And as we planned from the very beginning, now that the PIXAR tournament has concluded, we're holding one final competition to truly determine the greatest animated film that Disney has to offer.  That's right: it's the Mouse Madness champion The Emperor's New Groove, facing off against the PIXAR Panic champion The Incredibles!  Emperor vs. Superhero!  Pacha vs. Parr!  Wendie Malick vs. Samuel L. Jackson!  Good god, how the hell do we choose?!  Well, we did choose.  And now it's your turn to choose as well.  As always, voting ends this Sunday at 5 PM EST.  Twitter polls can be found pinned on Wesley's Twitter page, and the Strawpoll is in the link at the bottom of the description.  Have fun!

WALL-E vs. Incredibles

Fun geography fact: there's a lake in Antarctica called Don Juan Pond that is so salty, it never freezes, even in temperatures well below 0 degrees.  Scientists have declared it the saltiest place in the world.  But in reality, it's only number 2.  The actual saltiest place in the world? Me, upon watching "Inside Out" get completely curbstomped last round!  What were you people thinking?!  What possessed you to commit such an atrocity?!  Well, as upset as I am by that upset, we've still got a tournament to complete.  This week, I'm joined by Wesley and Jackson as we discuss the Final Four round of PIXAR Panic.  The public has apparently decided that these films are the best that PIXAR had to offer, and honestly, I can see someone make a case for any of these.  Unlike Mouse Madness, where the winners seemed obvious even in the later rounds, it feels like anything goes at this point.  I legitimately have no idea which film is going to win, but I'm beyond excited to see what happens!  So join us as we talk about space robots, blue-collar monsters, and the Battle of the Bird!  Twitter polls can be found on the front page of Wesley's Twitter, and Strawpoll links are provided at the bottom of the description.  See you next week for the finals!

Hey all!  As mentioned last time, we're talking a little break from the main tournament and instead spending this Valentine's Day talking about the myriad of short films produced by Pixar.  Specifically, the theatrical shorts, feature-related shorts, and SparkShorts (going through everything else would have been way too time-consuming, lol).  It was fun going through these shorts, even if I myself haven't seen a good number of them (I had a busy week).  Next week, we'll return to form with the PIXAR Panic Final Four, where we'll discuss the winners of last week's matchups.

This week's podcast is dedicated to the late great actor Christopher Plummer, who sadly passed away last Friday at the ripe old age of 91.  Given that he voiced a major character in one of this week's films ("Up"), it's only fitting to give him this tribute.  His career was long, eventful, and fruitful.  His accomplishments will always be appreciated, and his legacy never forgotten.  Rest in peace, Mr. Plummer, and may you continue to rip up Nazi flags in the great beyond.  RIP Christopher Plummer 12/13/1929 - 2/5/2021  ___________________________________________________________________________  Well folks, here we are!  The Elite Eight, the beginning of the end, the moment where the truly best of the best reveal themselves!  This week, Wesley and I are joined by our usual posse along with one or two special guests.  We talk about films we've already discussed before and try to make arguments for which ones should move on to the Final Four.  Something worth noting is that, of the 8 films remaining, 7 of them came out before 2010.  I guess recency bias won't be playing a part in this tournament.  Not much else to say except enjoy the show!  One last thing: we'll be taking a break from the tournament next week as we enter the Final Four, continuing the tradition started by me with Mouse Madness.  Instead, we'll be doing a special episode next week.  What kind of special episode?  Watch this video to find out, or stay tuned for next week! Strawpolls:  WALL-E vs. Up: https://strawpoll.com/qzwsoxfrx​Monsters Inc. vs. Inside Out: https://strawpoll.com/4wc1yyvzf​Toy Story vs. The Incredibles: https://strawpoll.com/gx8ae341s​Ratatouille vs. Finding Nemo: https://strawpoll.com/vxd7wabsf

Original Airdate: February 3, 2021 (I was just lazy with the upload, and the file itself was so massive)  I'm just sitting here looking at the numbers from last week with my jaw dropped and my eyes wide.  I never could have expected this kind of turnout!  Seeing so much participation in this tournament is such a delight, and I couldn't be happier!  Let's keep that momentum going forward!  Once again, we've got quite the set of matchups this week.  Almost every movie this week was a massive critical, audience, and financial success, so much so that it was hard predicting which ones will move on.  But of course, that's for you to decide!  I'm joined once again by the usual posse (with Wesley in charge!) as we discuss fish, rats, superheroes, Mexican culture, and arguably the most influential film of the past 50 years!  As always, links to the polls can be found on the home page of Wesley's Twitter, or at the Strawpoll links down at the bottom.  See you next week for the Elite Eight!

It's time for the tournament proper!  Now that all the preliminary matchups are over, we can finally get into the meat of this thing.  At the time of upload, every matchup this week has already gotten well over 100 votes between Twitter and Strawpoll, far more than we've seen before; and I hope that as the tournament progresses, that upward trend continues!   Today Wesley and I are joined by the usual posse (Carrick and Jackson) as we discuss some of Pixar's more acclaimed films.  We're talking their best-animated films, their best-written films, their most emotional films, and a lot of Toy Story films!  As you can imagine, we had a lot of ground to cover this week, and we didn't even cover half of what we could have talked about, on account of half of these movies will be returning in Round 2.  So if you want to hear our thoughts, please sit back and enjoy the podcast!   And as always, if you want to vote, polls can be found at the bottom of the description or on the pinned comment chain of Wesley's Twitter page.  Remember: only vote on one of these platforms, not both!  We don't want any insurrection here!  One last thing: my mic was significantly quieter than my partners', so the parts where I'm talking may be a bit harder to hear.  If you want a clearer explanation of where I stand on these films, don't hesitate to ask.  Thanks for your patience. WALL-E vs. A Bug's Life: https://strawpoll.com/wg3j2oar6​ Up vs. Toy Story 2: https://strawpoll.com/bxj46qvgq​ Toy Story 3 vs. Monsters Inc.: https://strawpoll.com/ycaaa2gs4​ Inside Out vs. Toy Story 4: https://strawpoll.com/badesqyzx

Original Airdate: January 18, 2021 (Distributor's note: I was just lazy with this one. I have no excuse) Well, if the numbers from last week's polls are anything to go by, it seems that the Mouse Madness formula has some staying power.  Either that, or people are more enthusiastic to vote for movies whose expected quality is much higher.  I mean let's face it, there's a reason why people get disappointed if a Pixar movie is anything short of a masterpiece!  Anyway, this week Wesley and I are joined once again by Carrick and Jackson as we discuss the second half of the preliminary round of this tournament.  We talk about sequels, prequels, and lots and lots of cars!  The winners of these matchups will determine how the main tournament is set up; that is, how the preliminary winners will be matched up against the top dogs.  The results from last week weren't exactly surprising, and I don't expect this week's to be any different.  But hey, anything is possible.  As of the time of uploading this podcast, Cars 2 already has at least one vote!

Ladies, gentlemen, and everybody in between!  We are back with more movie-based tournament podcast action!  It's been more than two months since the conclusion of Mouse Madness.  And while I'd love to say we spent that entire time gushing about The Emperor's New Groove nonstop, we had other business to attend to.  See, during the middle of that tournament, Wesley and I were talking about what this tournament would look like if we ranked all the Pixar movies.  And seeing how much fun we had with the Disney Animated Canon, we decided that at the conclusion of that tournament, we would do the same thing with Pixar, with Wesley taking on hosting duties!  The reason we had to wait so long after Season 1's conclusion was so that we could include "Soul" in the tournament.  Bit of a pain to have to extend the wait, but here we are now!  Because Pixar only has 23 feature films, we had to structure the bracket a bit differently.  Here's a breakdown of how it works:  -Instead of being split across four classes, all the movies were given a rank from 1 to 23, based on the average of their IMDb and Metacritic scores.  -The top 9 seeded movies automatically enter the tournament.  The other 14 will face each other in a preliminary round.  The preliminary matchups are determined by seed, where higher seeds compete against lower seeds (so #10 faces #23, #11 faces #22, and so on).  -Once the preliminary round is completed, the winners will be reseeded by relative rank.  This means that the highest-seeded winner will be the #10 seed for the main tournament, second-highest will be the #11 seed, and so on.  -Finally, the reseeded films will enter the main tournament, and their primary opponents will follow the standard March Madness bracket formula (see the following link for the layout: https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/im... ).  The rest should follow naturally.   Since there are 14 films in the preliminary round, we'll be covering it in two sessions: 6 films this week and the other 8 next week.  This week, the normal posse and I are joined by a newcomer to the server, from the UK no less.  That's right, Mouse Madness is going international!  (Granted this isn't the first time we've done this, we've had non-American guests before, but it's still really cool!)   The 6 films we talk about this week are as follows:  -A Bug's Life (#16) vs. Cars (#17) -Monsters Inc. (#13) vs. Onward (#20) -Toy Story 4 (#12) vs. The Good Dinosaur (#21)

CROSSOVER SPECIAL!  It's been well over a month since Mouse Madness ended, and I still can't believe that The Emperor's New Groove was the overall winner!  By all accounts, it doesn't make sense!  ...or does it?     In this special episode, we're joined by Micah Hirsh from The Emperor's New Podcast to discuss the movie's success, critical re-evaluation, and legacy in celebration of the film's 20th anniversary.  We talk about the film, the spinoff TV show, the production, the actors, and just about anything we can related to this movie.  Feel free to leave any opinions about the movie down in the comments below.  Once again, thank you for joining us on this incredible tournament!  I'm IrishHuskie, and I'll see you when I feel like it! Happy 20th Anniversary Emperor's New Groove

Original Airdate: October 21, 2020  Ladies, gentlemen, and everybody in between!  We're approaching the endgame here!  We've only got two more rounds to go before Mouse Madness officially ends, and we determine which Disney Animated film is objectively the best (in the public's opinion)!   We've already talked about all of these movies at length several times throughout this tournament, so I won't repeat myself here.  All I can say is that the Final Four selection is about as ideal as I could have imagined.  That doesn't mean that these are my favorite Disney movies (in fact, none of them are in my top 10), but it does mean that I'm having a hard time thinking of a better representation of Disney animation as a whole.  We've got an old-school masterpiece with "Fantasia," perhaps the company's most ambitious artistic endeavor and often considered to be Walt's magnum opus.  We've got "The Lion King," which was a mega blockbuster in 1994 and was the final step in re-establishing Disney's prominence as a pop culture icon.  We've got "The Emperor's New Groove," which shows Disney's ability to take risks with new styles and genres, taking the company in a direction it hadn't really been before.  And then we've got "Aladdin," which is the only thing I'd change for the perfect Final Four.  It basically did what "The Lion King" would do just a couple years later but even more so.  Looking at the other films in Class C, the obvious replacement would be either "Frozen" or "Zootopia," because they represent Disney's greatest successes after making the shift to 3-D animation.  Plus, they're just better movies than "Aladdin." #sorrynotsorry  The matchups for the semifinals are as follows: we've got the Class A champion "The Emperor's New Groove" going up against the Class B champion "Fantasia."  Then we have the Class C champion "Aladdin" facing off against the Class D champion "The Lion King."  Voting ends on Sunday, October 25 at 5 PM EST.  I'd really like to see a large turnout for these final movies, so if you know anyone who loves Disney movies, feel free to link them to the polls.  Good luck, and happy voting!

Original Airdate: October 8, 2020 In the beginning, there were 58 movies.  58 films that had the wonderful honor of being part of the Disney Animated Canon.  58 wonderful feature-length motion pictures of varying style, tone, and quality.  But about four-and-a-half months ago, these films decided to answer the centuries-old question: which Disney film is truly the best?  Which one stands above the rest as the pinnacle of Disney's feature-length animated projects?  So to answer this eternal mystery, they entered a single-elimination bracket-style tournament, and for each matchup they allowed the people to vote on which one was objectively superior (in their opinion).  This has been an ongoing process for many months now, and as of now, a whopping 50 Disney movies have taken the walk of shame, because they know deep down that they can never be the best.  But even though 50 have been eliminated, there are still a few films left vying for that incredible honor.  These films will continue to be judged on popular opinion for at least one more round, and will continue to fight to be named the greatest Disney Animated film of all time.  They are: the Elite Eight!  As always, voting ends on Sunday at 5 PM EST.  Links to the strawpolls can be found at the bottom of the description.  Happy voting! Matchups:  Mulan vs. The Emperor's New Groove Fantasia vs. Cinderella  Aladdin vs. The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh  The Lion King vs. Lilo and Stitch

Original Airdate: September 15, 2020 Welcome back to Mouse Madness, everyone!  I hope you enjoyed the hiatus as much as I did, but alas, we still have quite a bit of the tournament left.  In this podcast, I and several regulars discuss the first set of matchups in the Sweet Sixteen; specifically, the ones from Class A and Class B.  We talk about which Renaissance-era Disney Princess is truly the best, whether The Emperor's New Groove will continue its streak of dominance, and why you shouldn't bother with the new Mulan remake! This Week's Matchups:  Moana vs. The Emperor's New Groove The Little Mermaid vs. Mulan Fantasia vs. 101 Dalmatians  Cinderella vs. Dumbo

Original Airdate: August 31, 2020  While the host is on vacation, the results of Class 2D are disclosed. Plus information on the Final Four prediction contest. 

Original Airdate: August 3, 2020 First of all, I would like to apologize for the lack of a Part 8 for Round 1.  I go more into detail of why in the video, but the gist of it was that the audio was basically unusable, and I was the only one recording, so there were no backups.  In any case, if you saw which films were going up against each other in Week 8, you probably had an idea of which films were going to win. This Week's Matchup: Beauty and the Beast vs. Emperor's New Groove The Little Mermaid vs. Wreck-it Ralph  Moana vs. Big Hero 6 Mulan vs. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

Once again, I was joined by my good friends Wes and Carrick, along with Carrick's friend Raf.  Together, we went over the films designated for the penultimate week of the first round.  We're almost at the halfway point of the tournament, and things are about to get wild!  But how did this week's matchups turn out?  And is there any love to be had for Disney's black sheep?  Listen in and find out for yourself! Original Airdate: July 31, 2020. Recorded July 11, 2020.  This Week's matchups:  Hunchback of Notre Dame vs. The Jungle Book Peter Pan vs. Meet the Robinsons Tarzan vs. The Black Cauldron #1 seeded Lion King got a bye.  NOTE: This is the last episode of Round 1. An eighth week was recorded, but the audio was unusable. As such, we skip straight to Round 2 after this one. 

In this podcast, Wesley, Carrick and I were joined by one of Carrick's friends to discuss the Week 6 matchups.  This time around, we had 8 films to discuss instead of 6.  How did this week turn out?  The results may surprise you!  ...yeah, no they won't.  Not even remotely.  But listen to us discuss them anyway! This Week's Matchups:  Tangled vs. Robin Hood Zootopia vs. Atlantis The Lost Empire Great Mouse Detective vs. The Aristocats Aladdin vs. Chicken Little Original Airdate: July 30, 2020. Recorded July 5, 2020. 

The great thing about the first round is that the obvious losers and more obscure/unknown films get weeded out really quick.  And folks, we've got quite a few of those this week.  I'm surprised this podcast ended up being as long as it did, since on the surface it doesn't seem like there's a lot to cover for many of these movies.  As always, enjoy as Wesley, Carrick and I talk about inferior prequels, inferior sequels, and lots and lots of anthology films! This week's matchups:  The Rescuers vs. Ralph Breaks the Internet  The Three Caballeros vs. Fantasia 2000 The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh vs. Make Mine Music  #1 seeded Pinocchio got a bye. 

As we reach the halfway point for Round 1, Wesley, Carrick and I talk about old Disney Princesses, cold Disney Princesses, and weird-looking anthropomorphic reptiles, among other things.  What did we think of the movies this time around?  And more importantly, what did the people think?  Listen to this edition of Mouse Madness and find out!  Or just skip to what you want to hear.  I won't judge. This Week's Matchups:  Frozen vs. Sword in the Stone Cinderella vs. Dinosaur Winnie the Pooh (2011) vs. The Fox and the Hound  #2 seeded Dumbo got a bye.  Original Airdate: July 27, 2020. Recorded June 19, 2020.