Large Ham/Film/Disney Animated Canon

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Chewing the Disney animated-feature scenery...

Let's see if we can't refresh that rusty old memory of yours. Is she on SATAN'S RIDGE? Or NIGHTMARE CANYON? What do you think Joanna? Yeah that's it. Right smack dab in the MIDDLE, at CROC FALLS!

  • The Wicked Queen in Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs is the first in that canon and a particularly wonderfully nightmarish example. (This may have a lot to do with her being voiced by Lucille LaVerne, a stage and silent film actress. She's also visually based on Kate Hepburn.)
    • Actually, although she has a few drips of ham, the Queen is one of the more subtle villains out there. When she turns herself into the hag on the other hand, all bets are off, and she chews the scenery wonderfully.
  • Scar, from The Lion King.
  • Cruella de Vil is another example. Specially as played by Glenn Close in the Live Action Adaptation.
  • Who can forget the enormous ham from hell, Hades?
  • No one hams like Gaston. It helps that he bears an uncanny resemblance to Bruce Campbell.
  • Except maybe Pat Carroll's Ursula the Sea-Witch from The Little Mermaid, who actually turns herself into a very large...octopus...for the finale. She may be the first and only Disney villain to actually shake her moneymakers for the camera.
    • "And don't underestimate the importance of...BODY LANGUAGE!"
    • Well, the only one until Alameda Slim, who not only dances, but can "YODEL ADLE ELDE IDLE OOOOOO!" No ham is complete without a Las Vegas performer-esque shiny outfit.
    • In poker terms, Marina Del Rey from Ariel's Beginning will see you that outfit, and raise you a time-space wormhole from Bob Mackie's warehouse that leads directly into her underwater armoire.
  • All we gotta do is build an act. Make ya a star. A headliner! Dumbo the Great!
    • Timothy Mouse from Dumbo is a non-villainous example of a Large Ham. Who knew a circus mouse impersonating Nosferatu in one scene would take hamminess to extremes!
  • For pure, unadulterated, lean Grade A ham, nothing beats a thick, juicy slab of Jafar.
  • Let's not forget Mechanicles, "THE GREATEST OF THE GREAT GREEK GENIUSES!"
  • Clayton from Tarzan, as played by Brian Blessed.
  • Kazar the wildebeest from The Wild, voiced by William Shatner. Also Nigel to some extent.
  • Maleficent. Even the name screams "Ham!"
  • Zurg from Toy Story 2. Even more hammy in the spinoff series Buzz Lightyear of Star Command.
  • Behold the shadowy ham that is The Phantom Blot.

"MUHUHUHUHAHAHAHAHA! I'M MEAN!"

Timon: "When he was a young warthog..."
Pumbaa: "WHEN I WAS A YOUNG WARTHOOOOOOG!"
Timon: [cleaning his ear] "Very nice."
Pumbaa: "Thanks!"

    • And of course, who could forget Banzai's biggest mistake...

Pumbaa: Are you talkin' to me?
Timon: (to Shenzi) Uh-oh, he called him a pig...
Pumbaa: Are you talking to ME?
Timon: Ya shouldn't have done that!
Pumbaa: ARE YOU TALKING TO ME!?
Timon: NOW they're in for it!

Pumbaa: They CALL me, MIIIIIISTERRRR PIIIIIG!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH--
—*insert one hellacious off-screen thrashing here, with the normally goofballed Ed staring on in absolute terror*
      • And of course, his partner Timon is voiced by scenery connoisseur Nathan Lane.
  • Jumba. "I prefer to be called... EEVIL GEN-EE-OUS!!"
  • The Queen of Hearts: OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!!!
  • AND WHEN IT ARRIVES, (AH HA HA HA!) I'LL SMASH IT WIF A HAMMAH!! You can tell Eartha Kitt had fun playing the aptly named Yzma!
  • Who else but Shere Khan could eclipse every other song in a film with Just. One. Line.
  • Besides Zurg, Toy Story has Jessie ("YEE-HAW") and an obvious one in Hamm the piggy bank ("PIG PILE!"). Buzz dabbles in it sometimes, specially in the third film when he's reset and starts speaking in Spanish.
  • Does Chernabog from Fantasia count? He manages to be a Large Ham without ever even SPEAKING A WORD.
  • Bolt has both Bolt the dog and Rhino the hamster as somewhat hammy characters, but the director of the Show Within a Show as easily the hammiest character in the movie.

The Director: Let me ask you, Mindy from the network, what do you see here?
Mindy Parker: Uhh... the dog?
The Director: "The dog" she says. Oh, Mindy. Poor, poor Mindy.
Mindy Parker: ... am I missing something?
The Director: You're missing everything, Mindy. You see a dog. I see an animal that believes, with every fiber of his being; EVERY FIBER; that the girl he loves is in mortal danger! I see a depth of emotion on the face of that canine, the likes of which has never been captured on screen before. NEVER, Mindy from the network. We jump through hoops to make sure Bolt believes everything is real. It's why we don't miss marks. It's why we don't reshoot. It's CERTAINLY why we do NOT allow the dog to see BOOM MIKES... because, Mindy from the network... if "the dog" believes it... then "the audience" believes it.

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