# 5 - YOU'RE BEAUTIFUL BABY - THUMBELINA
In Don Bluth's sad attempt to be Disney film Thumbelina, our Heroine runs into a Beetle. (played by Gilbert Gottfried) it's been a while since I watched this movie so please bear with me if I get anything wrong. Like everyone else in the movie, the Beetle totally wants to hit that. Thumbelina needs help and the Beetle agrees to give it to her if she sings at his ... "Beetle Ball." Yes, it's really called that. So she agrees and what do we get? A song number sung by Gilbert Gottfried. Who in their right minds thought having Gilbert FUCKING Gottfried SING was a good idea? The song itself isn't horrible, hence why it's only number five but gets on the list solely because they tease us with the possibility of a song by Jodi Benson and instead we get... Gilbert Gottfried. That's right. We're teased with Ariel and end up with Iago! If you don't know, the music was written by Barry Manilow. I want to go back in time to the premier of this just to see poor Mr. Manilow's face when he found out one of his songs got totally BOTCHED by Gilbert Gottfried!
Now, I know what you're thinking. "Why don't you have Marry the Mole up here? That got a Razzie after all!" Well, as lame a song it is, it's still tolerable. After all, Marry the Mole got sung by Carol Channing. A well known and talented Broadway star. But a man you can barely tolerate when he TALKS has no business SINGING!! Don't believe me? Have a listen for yourself.
#4 NO MORE MR. NICE GUY - SWAN PRINCESS
In yet another sad attempt to be Disney, (though not by Don Bluth this time) Swan Princess is pretty much the story of Swan Lake. In it, the villain Lord Rothbart gets an ingenious plan to take over the kingdom
"OF COURSE!"
So what does he do about? Well, they're trying to be Disney so HE SINGS!
Not only is Jack Palance while a good actor (he is freakin' bad ass in City Slickers) he's just not a great singer. But my REAL issues with this is the lyrics and visuals. More the visuals though. See, a good villain song should show why the villain is a threat and must be stopped and it doesn't hurt if the visuals try to look just as threatening as the villain singing it. This little number does NONE of that. First off, the lyrics just seem silly. Here are some of my... favorites.
"Up 'till now, I'll pulled my punches, but I intend to eat their lunches!"
"Good behaviour is so much duller Time to show my one true color"
"Up to no good, I love plottin' (he loves plottin')Yeah, I'm so good when I'm rotten"
Seriously, is it just me, or do these lyrics sound less like they belong to an epic fantasy villain and more like they belong to a Care Bear villain!
Then there's the images accompanying this little diddy. Through out the whole thing the visuals feel less like he wants to actually be evil and more like he wants to just pull pranks on everyone.
I could take screenshots for you but here's the whole scene for your viewing pleasure
Okay, they DO get points for the Jack Palance's push up reference
#3 RUBER'S SONG - QUEST FOR CAMELOT
Most of the songs in this movie in my opinion are actually pretty decent. But the Ruber's song is just... bad. It's so bad, they didn't even bother to actually give it a real title. it's just... Ruber's song.
Look, even Ruber can tell how bad this song is as he sings it!
So, what's wrong with this song? Well, for starters Gary Oldman just can't sing. He tries god bless him, and he starts off okay but when the song really starts, he just can't. Second, the whole thing just feels made up on the spot. Like they didn't even write lyrics until the last minute
Gary Oldman: Uh... there's no lyrics here
voice director: Yeah... we couldn't think of anything just... just sing the plot
and no villain song should use the words "Now this chicken can kill!" Although that DOES sound like a good tag line for KFC's Double Down sandwich
Oh, and this gesture he makes is just... weird
Seriously. He makes that gesture you do when you're commenting on a woman's figure while saying "I have a plan. It includes YOU!" Dude, whatever plan you have, I doubt you can do it in a G rated family film.
It's not a total failure though. The background music is pretty epic and I love the chanting his minions make near the end.
"We are the darkness, we are the Doom. We are the Army of Glory and Gloom!"
OH MY GOD! IT'S THE TEA PARTY!!
#2 THE GRAND DUKE'S SONGS - ROCKADOODLE
Back to Don Bluth. The villain of this movie is The Grand Duke. I like the background music of his first song "We hate the sun." It has a very gothic and old school horror sound to it and fitting for the opposite of Chanticleer and his rock music and heck, I actually don't really mind that he talks through most of "We hate the sun." Some complain that Sure, he rarely attempts to sing in the whole movie but I've never heard Christopher Plummer sing. He might've done us a favor. It works for the mood of the song in my opinion. The problem with this and the rest of the songs are the lyrics. First off, the lyrics just REEK of exposition and the background singers.... just suck. In "We hate the sun" they do nothing but either say pointless things or make stupid "Who" jokes. Yeah, you're owls. Owls say WHO! WE GET IT!!!!
Then there's their next song. Their thing about Batteries. It's pointless, it's stupid, but tries to do that errie gothic sound again which just makes it sillier. That if you truly want to be a bad ass villain, avoid words like "Twiddle dee dee." But on the upside, it WAS short
But the REAL asshat of a song in this movie is "the Owl's picnic." It starts with those lameass background singers making more "Who Who Whos" and proceed their lame singing with more lame lyrics. Lyrics that do NOT compliment the old style horror music.
Oh, and one more lesson in being a bad ass villain, make sure your songs don't use; "Falalalalala"
though I must say, The Duke's "Now's the time to say your prayers... times up!" thing is kinda funny
One other issue I have with this is that The Grand Duke REALLY likes getting his face up in the camera. I've never liked it when characters do this. Ever since I was little it feels like a massive invasion of my personal space and it just bugs me. I suppose you could argue that this is part of the point and it I suppose if you only did it once or twice it could work but the thing is in most of his songs, The Grand Duke is CONSTANTLY doing this.
In his "We hate the sun" sequence alone, he does this three times. You might think the last two are the same scene but trust me, they're not
Now unfortunately the actual clips of these songs were not put up on Youtube. So enjoy the soundtrack
Now then, what could POSSIBLY top those songs in lame ass stupidity? What villain song could be worse than any of those?
#1 WE'RE THE TITANS - HERCULES AND XENA
see this shot? This is as badass as they're ever going to look
this makes that Owl picnic song sound like "Hellfire" from Hunchback of Notre Dame! I don't know what made these people think we needed an animated Hercules and Xena movie (other than the fact that Disney's Hercules had just come out and sorry but there was a profit to be made) but they made it and it has the WORSE villain song ever. I don't know where to begin with this. First off, the animation looks like it came from an BAD Adult Swim series and it repeats CONSTANTLY! I don't know what made them think we constantly want to watch them do this three times in one song;
"But they were wrong, wrong, wrong!"
Finally, these are the WORSE lyrics I have ever heard in a villains song.
"We romped on them; we stomped on them,
We blew them to their knees."
Wait... what?
Were the Titans; were the worst.
Were meaner and were so much more perversed.
WAIT, WHAT?
And my final advice for being a badass villain? Never, I mean NEVER let your villain song have the lyrics Boom, Shaka-laka-laka. it's just... it's just... I have no words to describe how BAD you are at this if you think Boom, Shaka-laka-laka, should be in a villain song! Can't believe how bad this is? Well, see for yourself but remember... you were warned!
Those are my picks for the top five worst villain songs ever. So bad, they're scary. Happy Halloween!!
My inspiration for this countdown was this series of videos. The Top 13 worst songs
I swear, two seconds into The Beetle's song, I stopped the video and died. That's an unbelievably-horrible bit of casting there.
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