July ended with a rare bit of good news for 2020 - Alan Menken finally won his Emmy and became one of only sixteen people in the world to be an EGOT winner (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony) for Tangled's Waiting in the Wings with Glenn Slater. Technically it's his second Emmy as he was already awarded an honorary Emmy in 1990. He's also, as D23 pointed out, a LEGOT as he is an official Disney Legend, and, as Menken himself points out, a REGOT as he won a Razzie for Newsies. I'm not sure which order you'd put all those letters in (LEGOTR? REGOTL?) but I'm pretty sure Alan Menken is the only one in the world to win them all!
Hot on the heels of that tremendous award, last night Alan took part in a special charity event for the Walt Disney Family Museum, playing his incredible song book for a virtual fundraiser in support of the museum's At-Promise Youth Animation Academy.
And what a performance it was! Two incredible medleys encompassing almost off of Alan's work for Disney, plus a few extra gems like Little Shop and Galavant thrown in for good measure. This was literally the soundtrack of my life. And I could listen to Alan and Lin-Manuel Miranda talk about musicals in animation all day. That was just a delightful discussion and some great advice from two masters.
And, yes I did tear up when he started singing Proud of Your Boy. Every time I hear Alan sing it, it just gets me. No one sings it quite like he does.
If you missed the performance last night you can watch it now on YouTube and donations for the fundraiser will be open for the next week if you're able to support it.
And if you haven't seen the incredible Tangled: The Series (and if not check it out on Disney+, it's Disney's best animated series in years and even features Aladdin's own James Monroe Iglehart!) here's the song that finally won Alan his competitive Emmy Award!
I just want to say a massive thank you to the Disney Family Museum for hosting this event (living in the UK I never get to see Alan in concert so this was the opportunity of a life time for me) and a massive congratulations to Alan on his EGOT!
