REVIEW: An ABC Night Of Disney
Tonight, ABC aired two hours of Disney magic. First, they aired the Disney Family Singalong Volume 2 and then the first hour of American Idol was devoted to Disney songs. Tonight was filled with the same kind of homemade videos that have become big during this time where COVID-19 has us social distancing and, honestly, it shows that entertainment doesn't necessarily always need the glitz and glamor for it to be fun. What these specials have done is made the entertainment more personal.
In the case of the Disney Family Singalong Volume 2, we feel like celebrities like Idina Menzel, Keke Palmer, Christina Aguilera, Josh Gad, Seth Rogan, Billy Eichner, Danny Glover, John Legend, Jennifer Hudson and others have let you into their homes. Different than the last volume, they did use a little more special effects, putting backgrounds in back of several performers which I honestly thought was unnecessary. But, at the same time, it didn't detract either.
My favorite performances from the Disney Family Singalong Volume 2 included the opening where they refitting The Muppet Show theme song to be the theme song for the Singalong. It was fun seeing the Muppets get their due!
I also enjoyed Keke Palmer along with the Dancing With The Stars dancers singing "Zero to Hero" from Hercules. It's such a joyous and underrated song and Keke Palmer brought a great life to her cover.
Speaking of underrated songs, I loved the version of "You'll Be In My Heart" from Tarzan performed by the Disney Broadway stars.
And, finally, I thought that Katy Perry's version of "Baby Mine" from Dumbo was very sweet. Her dog dressed up as Dumbo was as cute as can be.
Moving on to American Idol, we saw the contestants reduced down from ten to seven. This year, also thanks to COVID-19, American Idol had to refit itself to allow the competition to go on. The contestants were given a ring light and an iPhone to perform their songs from home. While the performances probably lack the energy of having a full audiences, I'm impressed with what they've been able to do from home.
The best performance of the night really went to Arthur Gunn who gave us a quite different version of "Kiss The Girl" from The Little Mermaid. I'm actually not a big fan of that song, but I loved his version. He put a fun Jimmy Buffet spin on it.
Another spin of a song I loved was Johnny West's version of "Almost There" from The Princess and the Frog. He gave it a Billy Joel kind of sound.
And I had to put in votes for my fellow Filipino American Francisco Martin who sang "You'll Be In My Heart" from Tarzan. His version was fairly straight forward, but very well done.
Overall, I thought that it was a fun night of Disney on ABC. While Disney night on American Idol is only once a year, I hope ABC will continue to do more of these singalong shows and find other ways to bring the magic of Disney into our homes while we wait out COVID-19. We need this kind of entertainment to get us through these blue times.