Published on Aug 17, 2000
Any time I have to review a CD from Walt Disney, I have to
become six years old again.
It doesn’t matter that I’m within sniffing distance of 30, with
a wife and child to take care of, car and house payments to make
and two sites that eat up almost all my free time. For forty
minutes or so, I have to forget all of that stuff, sit back and
remember a simpler time. It’s not always easy to do, and it
sometimes is a real downer to return to adult life, but there’s no
way I could approach some of these discs as a grown man.
Take
Tigger Mania, for example. If I reviewed this with the
mindset of an adult, I’d probably be ripping it to shreds for its
songwriting and the way that poor Paul Winchell, the original voice
of Tigger (until Disney fired him for – land sakes! – being too old
and shaky in the voice… baloney), has his movie lines inserted
willy-nilly. Memo to Disney: Would it have killed you to have
swallowed your pride, brought Winchell back into the studio and
asked him to contribute a few new Tigger-isms to this project? I’d
be criticizing the rewrite of Peter Frampton’s classic song “Show
Me The Way” to fit the Tigger theme.
No, that’s too easy – and, besides, the target market for this
disc isn’t old fuddy-duddies like myself. No, as the cover art
clearly states, this is a disc for six- to 12-year-olds (though my
four-year-old will probably love this disc, since she’s advanced
for her age). And for the kiddies, this is sure to be a real
humdinger.
You really have something for almost every occasion (except for
times when your child is sad – remember, Tigger is almost always
happy). You’ve got your dance numbers (“The Tigger Bop,” featuring
Frampton on guitar and vocals, “Tigger Is Gonna Hop”), you’ve got
your workout music (“The Tigger-cize Song”), you’ve got your party
music (“Tiggerific Birthday Party”), your educational moment
(“Tigger’s ABCs”)… you even have a rap song (“Gently, Tigger
Dear”) which… well… okay, forget it. I gotta look at this one
as an adult and say that I don’t think it was a great number.
Sorry.
Add into the mix the occasional vocal delivery from Tigger
himself, and you have a disc that should keep the kids occupied, at
least until school starts in a few weeks. And, in all fairness, it
is kind of a fun disc to pop into the player – though, as an adult,
I am disappointed that “The Wonderful Thing About Tiggers” isn’t
either the original version from the Winnie-The-Pooh cartoon shorts
or the expanded version from
The Tigger Movie, but is a rerecording featuring anyone but
Tigger.
Tigger Mania is the kind of disc that will keep your kids
bouncing around the floor (and off the walls), and may even inspire
a smile or two on Mom and Dad’s face. For a kids’ album, your kids
could do a whole lot worse.