Disney in your Day readers have been voting for the month of March. (by the way, I feel like I need a better way to address my audience with a cool name or something, but I’ve got nothing. “Disney in your Day-ers” is definitely not it!). I am not totally surprised by our final two, though there were other choices I thought could have been here as well.
Without a doubt the sidekicks from the Disney renaissance in the 1990s were the most popular. It became clear after round 1 that the older films just didn’t have as interesting or well developed sidekicks. While there are some well loved sidekicks that are a bit more modern, like Pascal from Tangled and of course Olaf from Frozen, they just couldn’t beat out favorites from movies like Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, the Little Mermaid, and Mulan.
And now we are down to two: the Genie from Aladdin vs. Mushu from Mulan. I’ve noticed Disney sidekicks tend to fall into one of three groups. They are humorous (Heihei), adorable (Pascal), or wise (Jiminy Cricket). Of course not all of them are in these categories and some may fall into more than one. But our final two are definitely more on the humorous end, which shows that the voters seem to enjoy the comic relief sidekicks! And while they are both funny and voiced by comedians, they also have a lot of heart and personality. So which one of these two sidekicks was the favorite amongst Disney in your Day voters?
The winner is…
The Genie!
This is pretty much what I expected when I started the tournament, so I am definitely not surprised by this. And it’s hard to argue that the Genie isn’t one of, if not the, best Disney sidekick. I mean, he has genie power after all! Who wouldn’t want a sidekick who could perform all sorts of magic and grant wishes? But that aside, the Genie is of course a favorite because of the incredible voicework of Robin Williams.
To be honest, the only reason why I personally struggled about voting for him or including him is that he’s such a huge part of the movie (really, he steals the show) that it’s hard for me to think of him as a “sidekick.” I will say I was impressed that Mushu put up a good fight against him!
Did you vote for the genie? Who is your favorite Disney sidekick?
I’m not at all surprised that the Genie won.
Genie winning is completely expected, since he is so cool and powerful! I tend to prefer the silent animal sidekicks like the crew from Pocahontas and Pascal from Tangled. I’m a little surprised Pumbaa didn’t make it further, but coming up against Abu was probably a tight battle.
I had fun following along! I’m not surprised the Genie won, but I was really rooting for Mushu!
I didn’t vote for Genie…pascal is still my favorite! Maybe he will win next time (: