The Living Tinkerbell
Tuesday, April 12th, 2011
Perhaps you’re wondering how a real life actress can get the credit as playing Tinkerbell in the 1953 Walt Disney animated classic Peter Pan, especially since Tinkerbell didn’t talk in the film. Well here’s how: In the early days of Disney animation, live actors were hired to pantomime the movements of their on-screen counterparts. Margaret Kerry was the actress who was tapped to be old Tink. But to solidify her presence in the actual film, she also provided the voice of one of the red-headed mermaid in the Neverland lagoon. But when I first met Margaret Kerry, I didn’t really know much about her involvement with Peter Pan. Read the rest of this entry »
Fred Dryer had an illustrious career as a football player with the NFL, starting in 166 games and recording 104 career sacks with the New York Giants and the Los Angeles Rams. He also had a distinguished career as an actor, starring in the popular police drama series Hunter, portraying the title character Sgt. Rick Hunter. But I think I am always going to think of him as the biggest almost-casting-mistake in history. He was in fact a strong candidate to portray Sam Malone in one of my all-time favorite TV sitcoms Cheers. Thankfully, the role went to Ted Danson, who helped make the show what it was. 
My Mom, Bob, and I had seen some busy days. We had toured Miami, Key West, and Cozumel. I had even more frenetic traveling coming up at the end of the trip. So it was nice to have one nice, full day to spend dripping around the Imagination cruise ship and doing little to expend much energy on our final day at sea: Thursday, February 10, 2011. I started off the day about as leisurely as possible, by sleeping in, grabbing breakfast, and lazing around the cabin for a few hours, then summoning the energy to shower and get into my swim trunks and make my way to the pool area for two hours of laying out, catching some serious rays, and listening to the iPod. 
It’s a lesser celebrity encounter, I’ll admit, but somehow I think it’s a rather cool one. For those who remember the cartoon series The Archie Show and got a kick out of their song Sugar, Sugar– which actually climbed all the way to Billboard’s #1 spot for four consecutive weeks – you might think it’s cool too. I know President George W. Bush would, because he professes that Sugar, Sugar is one of his very favorite songs. So who exactly is Ron Dante? His name is surely not commonly known in conjunction with The Archies – because as far as anyone knew, they were merely a fictional, cartoon band. But there was a definite and distinct voice behind them and it belonged to Ron Dante. 
Good news for those who love the Disney park postings: here’s another two-parter. And good news for those who don’t: this will likely be the last Disney park posting of the year. Even though we were still in the first quarter of 2011, I had already spent some time at Disneyland in