I can’t believe we have already been a year apart, but once again we get back together to battle it out and figure out what our favorite something is. I’m in the same boat as last year, so I’ll just plagiarize myself from last year’s opening post… Once again, it’s been almost a full year since I’ve written anything. Shocking. And I even had some decent ideas! I really need to work on my procrastination issues. Maybe later…

As it is, we are back for our 7th year doing these brackets. Our 6th year bracket found our favorite Holiday movie with Elf coming out victorious. Elf joins our group of champions with 5th year Champ of our favorite fast-food joint in one of our closer finals matchups as Whataburger was crowned. Our fourth-year winner of favorite TV theme song which was won in a rout by The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. This joins our third-year winner for favorite breakfast food: Breakfast Tacos and Burritos. Our second-year bracket crowned The Sandlot as our champions of the Best Sports Movie Bracket. Our first champion was in the music bracket where The Beatles reigned victorious. It’s my pleasure to announce our topic this year: Disney Songs.

This topic started with an argument of which Disney soundtrack is the best. It’s a tough one to tackle and there really isn’t a wrong answer. The original argument was Lion King vs Aladdin – I fall into the Aladdin camp but won’t hate on Lion King for sure. Some of the new entries like the Frozen franchise or Encanto may eventually push for the top spot but time will tell. Like previous years, “scores” will be posted as the percentages from the polls.

I’ll set up polls in each round. To keep from completely swamping everyone’s Facebook and Twitter timelines, I’ll post the polls here and put a link up at the start of each new round on my Facebook and Twitter accounts. *Shameless plug* Give me a follow!

I’m going to be honest with y’all, this year’s bracket was maybe the most difficult one I have had to put together. This bracket lead to a few debates between Mrs. Optimist and I. Folks are serious about their Disney music opinions! I’m sure there are to be quite a few issues taken with how I ended up seeding some of these songs, but I think it’s as good as it was going to get.

Typically we have tried to make our regions have something in common but I couldn’t figure out a good way to make all of that work with this so in the heart of Disney, our regions have the namesakes of the big four: Mickey, Minnie, Donald, and Goofy. If there was a song from a movie that starred one of those characters, it was seeded to that particular region. Also – I did try to not have multiple songs from one movie in any particular region. Other than that, I kept the field to specifically animated or hybrid movies (sorry High School Musical fans!). Seeding is almost entirely based on my biases so if you don’t like it, my bad.

 The first round of voting will start Thursday, March 17 and voting will close Sunday, March 20 at 5pm. The second round will begin on Monday, March 21. New rounds will begin on Mondays and Thursdays. Let’s get to voting! Polls are under the bracket.

---

---

MICKEY REGION

(1) “When You Wish Upon a Star” (Pinocchio) vs (16) “When She Loved Me / Jessie’s Song” (Toy Story 2)

(2) “Be Our Guest” (Beauty and the Beast) vs (15) “Out There” (The Hunchback of Notre Dame)

(3) “Sorcerer’s Apprentice” (Fantasia) vs (14) “Go the Distance” (Hercules)

(4) “Can You Feel the Love Tonight” (The Lion King) vs (13) “Why Should I Worry” (Oliver & Company)

(5) “Under the Sea” (The Little Mermaid) vs (12) “Remember Me” (Coco)

(6) “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” (Mary Poppins) vs (11) “You’re Welcome” (Moana)

(7) “Someday My Prince Will Come (Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs) vs (10) “Do You Want to Build a Snowman?” (Frozen)

(8) “One Jump Ahead” (Aladdin) vs (9) “A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes” (Cinderella)

MINNIE REGION

(1) “Beauty and the Beast” (Beauty and the Beast) vs (16) “Shiny” (Moana)

(2) “Circle of Life” (The Lion King) vs (15) “The Gospel Truth” (Hercules)

(3) “Reflection” (Mulan) vs (14) “Baby Mine” (Dumbo)

(4) “How Far I’ll Go” (Moana) vs (13) “What’s This? (The Nightmare Before Christmas)

(5) “Friend Like Me” (Aladdin) vs (12) “Almost There” (The Princess and the Frog)

(6) “Heigh-Ho” (Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs) vs (11) “A Girl Worth Fighting For” (Mulan)

(7) “Poor Unfortunate Souls” (The Little Mermaid) vs (10) “Just Around the Riverbend” (Pocahontas)

(8) “An Unusual Prince/Once Upon a Dream” (Sleeping Beauty) vs (9) “A Spoonful of Sugar” (Mary Poppins)

DONALD REGION

(1) “Let It Go” (Frozen) vs (16) “Be Prepared” (The Lion King)

(2) “Part of Your World” (The Little Mermaid) vs (15) “In a World of My Own” (Alice in Wonderland)

(3) “Hakuna Matata” (The Lion King) vs (14) “Zero to Hero” (Hercules)

(4) “You’ve Got a Friend in Me” (Toy Story) vs (13) “Friends on the Other Side” (The Princess and the Frog)

(5) “Prince Ali” (Aladdin) vs (12) “Belle” (Beauty and the Beast)

(6) “Whistle While You Work” (Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs) vs (11) “Oo-De-Lally” (Robin Hood)

(7) “Surface Pressure” (Encanto) vs (10) “The Bare Necessities” (The Jungle Book)

(8) “Bibbidi Bobbidi Boo” (Cinderella) vs (9) “Cruella De Vil” (101 Dalmatians)

GOOFY REGION

(1) “A Whole New World” (Aladdin) vs (16) “Two Worlds One Family” (Tarzan)

(2) “Into the Unknown” (Frozen II) vs (15) “Mother Knows Best” (Tangled)

(3) “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” (Encanto) vs (14) “Un Poco Loco” (Coco)

(4) “Eye to Eye (I 2 I)” (A Goofy Movie) vs (13) “I’ll Make a Man Out of You” (Mulan)

(5) “You Can Fly” (Peter Pan) vs (12) “You’ll Be in My Heart” (Tarzan)

(6) “Winnie The Pooh” (The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh) vs (11) “Colors of the Wind” (Pocahontas)

(7) “Kiss the Girl” (The Little Mermaid) vs (10) “Bella Notte” (Lady and the Tramp)

(8) “I Just Can’t Wait to Be King” (The Lion King) vs (9) “I Wanna Be Like You” (The Jungle Book)

---

Well, there it is y’all! I have just a ton to say about these match-ups, but I don’t want to push the vote one way or another. I’m going out of town this weekend and this is typically by far the largest write up I have to do, but I will try my hardest to get the next round up by next Monday. Let’s get to voting and see who gets into the Round of 32!