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Disclaimer#1: All images and characters are copyrighted 1990/1991 Walt Disney Company Inc. and are being used without premission. The webmaster has made sure that no money was made in the creation of this page and all material is used with the upmost affection and respect to the Walt Disney Company and the TaleSpin team.
Disclaimer #2: The following is an editorial about TaleSpin. The views expressed here are of my own and does not mean that you actually agree by it. If you have any comments relating to this editorial or any other editorial created by me; then E-Mail me at: gweagle@eastlink.ca
40 Useless Facts of TaleSpin
(2015 Gregory Weagle Says: Hopefully; my new commentary will make these 40 useless facts just a bit more useful, even though knowing me; it might make them even more useless than before. We'll see how it goes...)
(The whole pointless debacle of my old 1995 Compaq computer and bad ISP has been removed because it means nothing now and no one cares about my 1995 computer, not even 2004 Me. My Yahoo! e-mail account is still there; but I'll be dipped if I ever answer said e-mail from mailbox.)
Jim Baylo was not joking when he said that TaleSpin was a very experimental show in an article called "Foiled Again" from "Aces of the Cape". (Don't bother looking for the website; Aces Of The Cape disappeared down the memory hole a long time ago.) TaleSpin is one of only a few animation programs that can please everyone; with its balance of drama, comedy, and adventure. (Well; it didn't please Poisony Britt; so that hurts your argument right there sir.) Just what separates TaleSpin from the rest you might ask? Well; this essay is about facts on TaleSpin. It will not change your life; but it might change your preception on one of the most powerful animated program in the last 15 years. As chance would say: "This program might just be watchable 15 years down the road". (All it needs now is to be watchable 85 years down the road and it may have a shot of being remembered as a work of art. Maybe.) Here are the 40 useless facts of TaleSpin:
(This essay is dumb to say the least.)
[1.] Out of 86 voices; there were 9 who were under the age of 16 at 1990. [Brandon Bluhm, Gabriel Damon, Ben Ganger, Benny Grant, Edan Gross, Whitby Hertford, Janna Micheals, Alan Roberts and R.J. Williams.]
(It's 87 now since Gregory Weisman of Gargoyles fame voiced a minor character in Last Horizons. The ratio of boys to girls: 8:1. Not a good ratio since finding girl voices under 12 shouldn't be all that difficult.)
[2.] The youngest known female voice is Janna Michaels who played the voice of Molly Cunningham. [7 years old]
(Great story: Janna Michaels during recording at B&B Studios on Jolly Molly Christmas suffered a legit broken arm before recording. I have no idea how she broke it and I don't really want to know. The point of this is that Janna could not turn the pages, so Ginny McSwain had Libby Hinson do that for her. In the final line Janna had to read; which is "Merry Christmas Mommy!", Ginny asked for Janna Michael to embrace Libby Hinson and squeeze while cutting the line, and she did it perfectly. It felt like a real legit scene. Everyone in that recording room looked great here. Libby explained this moment via DAFRadio's Christmas 2014 Podcast by the way; and I recommend that one for Magon's work on Goofy Little Christmas, Len Smith doing the Jolly Molly Christmas title card and the Libby Hinson stuff on Jolly Molly Christmas, including finding out that she is married to Rick Hinson, a well known MPSE sound editor. I don't know what has happened to Janna Michaels; other than at last report that she was perfectly fine and well.)
[3.] The youngest known male voice is Whitby Hertford who played the voice of Ernie. [8 years old]
(Whitby Hertford was 12 years old in 1990; not eight years old. He's slightly younger than R.J. Williams by about four months or so. Whit is still around doing acting and some directing and producing. Nothing of note really; but still. He has had some success since being a child actor like R.J. Williams.)
[4.] The oldest known female voice is Susan Tolsky who played the voice of Mrs. Mossiery. [47 years old.]
(I'm positive that the late Joan Gerber is much older than Tolsky; by at least eight years at 55 years old.)
[5.] The oldest known male voices (tie) are Alan Young (Mr. Cooper) and Howard Morris (King Amok). [71 years old].
(Wrong! The late Michael Rye was 72 years old. The late Hal Smith was even older at 74 years old. Only Alan Young who was 71 in 1990 is alive at this point.)
[6.] There are currently zero voices who were between the ages of 17-31.
(That's false. Kath Soucie was 27 years old in 1990. Debi Derryberry was 23 years old. So there are two voices between those ages. Which is the complete opposite of most live action television shows. Because it's not just the voice and the voice acting that is doing the job. I still respect the voice actor more because they usually do the work that most actors in Hollywood wouldn't dream of doing, even if it would increase their creditability over the long haul.)
[7.] There are 23 known actors in TaleSpin over the age of 40. [Reason to print this fact: Today's TV has much fewer people over 40]
(It's now 45/86 known actors over the age of 40 during production; which is more than HALF of the entire voice acting cast!)
[8.] Of those 23 known actors in TaleSpin; 13 of them were over the age of 50.
(It's 27 now.)
[9.] Of those 23 known actors in TaleSpin; 7 of them were over the age of 60.
(It's nine now.)
[10.] Out of the 86 voices in TaleSpin: 22 are female, 64 are male.
(It's about 2.91/1 in favor of males (not including Greg Weisman or the claim credits (which would total an extra two women and three men and a ratio of 2.79/1 in favor of men.).) In a ideal world; it would be 42 male voices and 44 female voices. Not an ideal world though; but you get the point. The crew ratio I'm certain is much more male-centeric than the cast ratio.)
[11.] Jim Cummings did the most male voices for TaleSpin with nearly 40 different voices overall.
(This is the most quoted number when it comes to TaleSpin trivia and I wondered where it came from. So I decided to check the TaleSpin Voice Talent Tribute and discovered that Jim Cummings provided voices for 37 characters in the show. Keep in mind that this was BEFORE I took more copious notes and I think I missed a few voices here and there, so it could be over 40 different characters. And this discounts ADR loops by the way.)
[12.] (tie) Sheryl Berstein, Linda Gary, and Susan Silo each have done the most female voices with three roles.
(If I find out that Sheryl Berstein is a poor person's June Foray, then Sheryl Berstein has the most with four roles, including three in the Time Bandit alone! If not; then Susan Silo and Linda Gary draw with three and Sheryl is reduced to two roles! And June Foray comes off the claims credits.)
[13.] The character Aunt Louise {"Romance of the Red Chimp"} is the only female character voiced by a man in the entire series. (Voiced by Jim Cummings)
[14.] Jim Cummings is the only voice who plays the role of two of the main characters in TaleSpin. (Don Karnage, Louie Lamount)
[15.] Kit Cloudkicker is not the only character to be voiced by two different actors (Alan Roberts and R.J. Williams); Chancellor Trample was also voiced by two actors (Jim Cummings and Michael Rye).
(I have finally decided that Jim Cummings did Trample and Michael Rye did a bit role as part of the ADR somewhere according to my 20 Years Of Spin notes.)
[16.] TaleSpin was the only series to hire an Eastern European writer (Martin Donoff).
(Why should that matter? Disney France hired Zoltan Maros to work on TaleSpin from Hungary. Also you're wrong. Martin worked on Captain Kangeroo and ALF before TaleSpin.)
[17.] Donald Duck Comics writer Don Rosa wrote two episodes for TaleSpin: "I Only Have Ice For You" and "It Came From Beneath the SeaDuck".
[18.] A total of 26 writers wrote episodes for TaleSpin.
[19.] Mark Zaslove did play a minor acting role in Alley Cat in 1982.
(Don't be too sure about that one. I have been accused of making up stuff before.)
[20.] Funny; Mark Zaslove's name has been seen in Google's Usenet section. It is mostly about computers. Hmmmm...
(Well; you paid off the "useless facts" part at least, so well done. One more piece of advice: Don't do bee impersonations unless you are talking about bees.)
[21.] Although Jymn Magon was the supervising producer and co-creator for TaleSpin; he only wrote one episode for the series ["A Bad Reflection On You; Part 2"]
[22.] Mark Zaslove was co-creator and main story editor; he wrote five episodes for TaleSpin. ["Punder and Lightning Part One, Four"; "A Spy in the Oniment" and "For Whom The Bell Klangs Parts One and Two".]
[23] Libby Hinson wrote the most full episodes with seven episodes written. ["Her Chance to Dream", "A Touch of Glass", "Mommy for a Day", "The Balooest of the Bluebloods", "The Old Man and the SeaDuck", "The Old Man and the SeaDuck", "Jolly Molly Christmas" and "The Romance of the Red Chimp"] She also lended a hand in an eighth episode. ["Idol Rich"]
[24.] Mark Zaslove is the son of Alan Zaslove; a co-creator of shows such as Darkwing Duck, Rescue Rangers and Aladdin.
(They are not related in anyway; there is no evidence of them being related outside of their last name and that's not proof as such. Stupid!)
[25.] Alan Burnett was the writer of the Ducktales Movie.
[26.] Jeffrey Scott wrote two episodes for TaleSpin ["Paradise Lost" and "My Fair Baloo"] and is considered the most popular of the writers in animation with shows like: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Dungeons & Dragons and most recently Dragon Tales.
[27.] Ken Koonce is one of the few writers who is still working for Disney.
(Ah! So this was done in 2005; because he was writing Brandy & Mr. Whisker episodes at the time. I believe he retired or did something else that I have no idea of.)
[28.] Christopher L. Stone has written musical scores for Walker Texas Ranger.
[29.] Robert Taylor directed the most full episodes with 17.
[30.] Jamie Mitchell directed 17 episodes; but one of them was a shared episode ["War of the Weirds" with Ed Ghertner.]
[31.] There were a total of five directors in TaleSpin.
[32.] There were a total of just seven story editors for the entire TaleSpin series.
[33.] While Jymn Magon only wrote one episode for the entire series; he did story edit the most episodes with 15.
[34.] On the other hand; Mark Zaslove story edit a total of 10 episodes.
[35.] Voice recording for TaleSpin actually started in October of 1989 and did the equalivant of a five season episode run.
(They actually started production in August of 1989; but yeah. This had rush job written all over it.)
[36.] Mark Zaslove left animation after "The Legend of Calamity Jane".
(Very wrong. Mark has been working on animation and productions like LazyTown (In ICELAND~!), Pink Panther and Pals, World Of Quest, The Secret Show and Happy Tree Friends. Yeah; he's so left animation. Not.)
[37.] Jymn Magon became a freelance writer after Quack Pack was reshuffled. (Jymn Magon and Karl Geurs were replaced as co-creators during production or so the story goes.)
(The Quack Pack debacle didn't just affect Jymn Magon and Karl Geurs. I think Jim Peterson left due to creative differences with Toby Shelton.)
[38.] The computer animation was done using Amiga computers; one year before the CGI series Reboot was born. (Ironically; Reboot and TaleSpin had some (Reboot is still very different from TaleSpin) unusal similaries. I'll write an editorial about that later.)
(That editorial never happened by the way and good thing it didn't. Reboot had weak vibes of Mr. Khan for Megabyte, And Enzo had weak Kit vibes and Rebecca had weak Dot vibes. That was it. Tony Jay and a few TaleSpin writers worked on the production. That's about it.)
[39.] Some members believe that TaleSpin had even more editing done to it than even Gargoyles did. (Card Captors might have been edited for the same reasons TaleSpin's "Plunder and Lightning was: to change the mood of the show.)
(I think the reason was that Plunder and Lightning alone had almost 130 or so edits in syndication. Gargoyles was edited on Toon Disney more than TaleSpin was; but at least Toon Disney had the excuse of violence on their side (which was the reason TaleSpin was edited by Toon Disney). In syndication; yeah, it was to change the mood of the show. That was a mistake; but Disney is Disney after all.)
[40.] I love TaleSpin! Need I say more?
(Now there's a useless fact that everyone can agree on. YEAH! YEAH! YEAH!)
There you have it these are just some of the useless facts of a series that I would keep watching (maybe a bit of Reboot since it's still on the air. (They actually tried to Reboot Reboot and that failed badly; so it's off the air now.). If you like to add more useless facts to this list; please feel free to do so. In the meantime; I know that this would be the shortest essay I have ever written so far in my life; but I cannot go on writing page after page of material when I could say something in less than one-half of a page. I hope that my writer's block doesn't come back since I still have one editorial left to write and that's it. AeroStars has gone well and progress is very smooth. I just don't know what to work on at this point. Ah; forget it! I'll figure out what to do next. (Cancel fanfics and start reviewing shows full time on the Rant Shack? Oh wait; that's in 2007!) That's my opinion; I welcome yours. See you next time.
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