In 1995, Disney released their new Animated movie “A Goofy Movie” based on the Mickey Mouse character Goofy!
With this movie, Disney tackled the popularity of pop musicians to follow the trend of those artists and to do that, they created a new character called “Powerline” which was purposely inspired by Michael Jackson and represent an international superstar.
To the point that Disney called Tevin Campbell, an American singer, songwriter who’s voice is very similar to Michael Jackson.
But this is not it, Campbell already collaborated with Quincy Jones performing lead vocals for the song “Tomorrow” on Jones’ album “Back On The Block” in 1989.
He also worked with Boyz II Men, Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis but also was opening act for Janet Jackson’s “Janet World Tour” in 1995!
The movie included two major singles “Stand Out” and “I2I” including few moves that were inspired by Michael Jackson, Prince and Bobby Brown. The songs were already written by Disney Studios and they really wanted those songs to enter the charts worldwide (did not really happen).
In a recent interview for Forbes, Campbell recall that Disney recorded the songs within 2 days and told him to be in front of a green screen to do some dance moves that will inspire how his character Powerline will be dancing.
“I think they sort of took [inspiration] from a lot of people: Michael Jackson, you got Bobby Brown, you got all kinds of people that they took away from as far as dances, because I really wasn’t a [professional] dancer. But yeah, I did some dance moves at the green screen, they just had me move around and just be myself.”
“I have a lot of Powerline fans, but they have no idea who I am [in the real world] as Tevin Campbell … They’ll listen to the song and say, ‘Oh, he sounds like Michael Jackson.’ … A lot of my fans who listen to my R&B music have no idea about ‘I-2-I’ and ‘Stand Out,’ they don’t know that that’s me singing it. “
Watching back the scenes of Poweline singing and dancing, it is clear that Disney was hugely inspired by Michael Jackson with some foot kicks and a moonwalk, and even if the movie did relatively ok at the time, it seems a cult for Powerline has increased with time. In 2020, Powerline appeared in the video game Disney Heroes: Battle Mode as a playable character. On April 10, 2020, in celebration of the film’s 25th anniversary, DCappella released a cover of “I2I”, and D23 hosted an online reunion and virtual viewing party.
SOURCE: Forbes
