Voice actor and former New Orleans resident Jim Cummings lists Winnie the Pooh and Tigger as two of his favorites among the countless characters he’s brought to life, but right up there with them is Ray the Firefly from Disney’s New Orleans-set “The Princess and the Frog” — a role that he said almost went to another voice that should be familiar to local ears.

“It’s funny because they tend to use a lot of celebrities and this and that, and I went out to do the audition originally for ‘Princess and the Frog’ and my agent said, ‘Well, the casting people really love you, but they’re not going to give you a callback. They’re going to wait until the very end of the audition process until it’s down to you and somebody else,’” Cummings said, calling recently to chat about Disney’s new “Winnie the Pooh,” opening Friday (July 15). “I went, ‘Oh, God, that’s fine. I guess I’ll be running into Harry Connick Jr. pretty soon.’

“And sure enough, like six months later, she comes up and says, ‘Remember what you said?’ I said, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me. Me and Harry Connick Jr.?’ She goes, ‘Yep.’

“But I rolled those dice. I brought my washboard, you know, and I brought my thimbles and I brought it all to the (final audition),” he said before lapsing into his Ray the Firefly voice: “We passed a good time, with that zydeco, yeah.”

“And,” he said, “I ended up getting the job.”

LOL when he shamelessly plugs Ray from The Princess and The Frog.

Also, drink!

It’s a great read and you’ll want to check it out here. 

Jim Cummings has three, count ‘em, three new songs on the CD which just came out today and is available for purchase here.

Of course, all the hip kids prefer to download music today so, of course, you have that option too.

After a few plays, I really love these songs so I recommend giving them a listen. Preview Jim Cummings’ songs below.

Q: I had the pleasure of interviewing Ray’s animator Mike Surrey a few months back. He said Jim Cummings made his job easy. What made you choose him for Ray? 

John Musker: Jim Cummings was a riot to work with. We have worked with him in the past but what we didn’t know was that he had spent years in New Orleans where he worked alongside Cajuns whose speech patterns he picked up.

Q: Being a Louisiana native, it’s eerie and extremely entertaining how well you got the Cajun character down. Was there a lot of research involved in Raymond and the film as a whole?

John Musker: We wanted to do right by Louisiana and the culture there including the great Cajun populace. John Lasseter really wanted authenticity, so we took several trips down there. We met with a number of people including a man named Reggie who was our bayou tour guide. We noted his speech patterns, and picked up more phrases at jazz Fest. We also did research where we read stories written in a “Cajun” voice and found Cajun glossaries online. Best of all though, we cast Jim Cummings as our firefly. When he auditioned, he did a great Cajun accent and we learned he had a home there for several years and had worked with Cajuns in the Merchant marines. He was able to improvise in his Cajun speak, so he added a lot of flavor to our gumbo.