The Disney Song Encyclopedia - fieldi

“TRANSFORMATION” 205
As the jester Clopin (voice of Paul Kandel) sings about Topsy Turvy Day, in
which everything is backward and upside down, the Paris crowd sings and
celebrates the riotous holiday. When they hold a contest to see who has the
ugliest mask, the hunchback Quasimodo (Tom Hulce) is pushed onto the
platform and wins. But when the people realize it is not a mask and that
Quasimodo is a deformed creature, they turn on him. Alan Menken composed
the vigorous music and Stephen Schwartz wrote the ribald lyric.
“The Torkelsons Theme Song” is the pleasing gospel number Ray Colcord
wrote for the 1991 television series about a single mother with five
children. The flowing title song, sung by a choir over the opening credits,
finds comfort in the sun coming out and each day having the possibility of
things being all right. After the first season, the series was re-titled Almost
Home, but it retained the same theme song.
“Town Meeting” is the sinister and ironic patter song written by Danny
Elfman for the stop-motion film The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993).
The Pumpkin King Jack Skellington (singing voice of Elfman) gathers the
citizens of Halloween Town and tries to explain to them the concept of
Christmas. They do not comprehend the spirit of the holiday, thinking, for
instance, that a stocking ought to have a severed foot in it. The more Jack
tries to illustrate the Christmas traditions, the more the villagers inflict their
ghoulish Halloween sensibilities on the holiday.
“Toys” is the exuberant and insightful song that illustrates how children and
their parents are often uncomfortably alike, written by Stephen Schwartz
for the live-action television musical Geppetto (2000). In the village toy
shop of Geppetto (Drew Carey), obnoxious children and their equally
obnoxious parents make demands and fight over purchases, while lonely,
childless Geppetto wonders why the wrong people have children. Later in
the musical, after Pinocchio has run away, Geppetto and the bungling Magician
(Wayne Brady) sing a quieter duet version of the song, reflecting on
the delicate nature of the relationship between parents and children.
“Transformation” is the mystical, hymn-like song by Phil Collins that is
used effectively in a pivotal moment in the animated movie Brother Bear
(2003). After the Native American Kenai kills the bear who clawed his
brother to death, the Great Spirits turn Kenai into a bear so that he will
see nature with a new point of view. While images of different animals are
conjured up before Kenai, the Bulgarian Women’s Choir sings the ritualistic