Wayne Newton is golden harp in animated ‘Hoodwinked Too!’

Veteran Las Vegas headliner Wayne Newton plays more than a dozen musical instruments.

But he's never played a harp -- until now.

Mind you, Newton still doesn't play the harp.

But he does play a harp -- a singing, talking golden harp named Jimmy Ten-Strings -- in the new animated sequel "Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil," now playing at a theater near you.

Jimmy Ten-Strings is the star attraction at the swank Beanstalk Club in Big City -- the storybook metropolis where "Hoodwinked" heroine Red Riding Hood (along with the formerly Bad, but still Big, Wolf) are on the prowl, trying to track down the missing Hansel and Gretel.

Younger members of the "Hoodwinked Too!" audience may not recognize Jimmy Ten-Strings.

Visually, he's inspired by a singing golden harp in "Mickey and the Beanstalk," half of Disney's 1947 "Fun & Fancy Free."

Vocally, however, he's nothing but Newton, singing a smooth romantic ballad (titled "Fairytale With You") and bidding a fond farewell to applauding audiences in several languages -- including "my personal favorite, 'Danke Schoen.' "

The resemblance is hardly coincidental, because director Mike Disa and his co-writers "wrote the part for me," Newton says.

Disa first approached Newton "about two years ago" to "see if I would be interested" in a role in the "Hoodwinked" sequel, the performer recalls.

Although Newton hadn't seen the first "Hoodwinked" when it debuted in 2004 (his 9-year-old daughter "was a little young" to see it at the time), Disa "talked me through it," Newton explains. And talked him into giving voice to Jimmy Ten-Strings.

It took four days for Newton to record Jimmy's dialogue and songs at Las Vegas' MG Studios and Henderson's Odds On Records and Studio.

And the process proved more challenging than expected, Newton acknowledges.

Although he's done numerous movies and TV shows (mostly playing himself), from "Here's Lucy" and "Bonanza" to "Vegas Vacation" and the more recent "Las Vegas," recording his "Hoodwinked Too!" vocal role alone, without other performers to provide "live vibration," turned out to be "no walk in the park."

Although director Disa was there to react (with such comments as " 'Wayne, that was a little too head-on,' " or " 'Give him a different attitude' "), the recording process "was purely by sound," Newton explains.

In the process, Newton "had to capture the character and give him a personality that was Wayne Newton -- but wasn't Wayne Newton," he adds.

Before giving voice to Jimmy Ten-Strings, the man known as "Mr. Las Vegas" provided the voice for the video game "Fallout: New Vegas," portraying Mr. New Vegas, "a Las Vegas radio show announcer -- after the A-bomb" hit, Newton says. "It was enormous fun."

But playing Jimmy Ten-Strings was even more fun, in part because "the character was written for me," he points out, so "there were a lot more things that were more Wayne Newton."

And while Jimmy's Beanstalk Club hangout was inspired by old-time Hollywood haunts (as Disa noted in a recent online interview), "that lounge feel, that nightclub feel" also reminded Newton of the old Vegas days, he says.

"That's what really built the town," the singer remembers. "After your show, you would go down to the Sahara and hang out with Louis (Prima) and Keely (Smith) or Shecky (Greene)." As a result, Las Vegas "kind of became a late-night town."

Las Vegas isn't what it once was, of course. (As exemplified by the Sahara's shutdown later this month.)

Yet while Newton's most recent showroom stint, at the Tropicana, was titled "Once Before I Go," he still has plans to return as a Strip headliner -- possibly at the MGM Grand.

And when he does, he may even incorporate some of Jimmy Ten-Strings' repertoire in his own act.

When Newton finished recording his "Hoodwinked Too!" role, he discovered Jimmy's "songs were very catchy," he comments -- so catchy that "these are songs I found myself singing for the next two weeks."

And while Newton's still singing -- he recently performed aboard a trans-Atlantic cruise -- he's also busy overseeing the transformation of his Sunset Road ranch, Casa de Shenandoah, into a tourist attraction, with a theater and museum across the street.

"It's really coming along great," Newton says. "We're hoping and shooting for either late December, maybe for the Christmas holidays, or certainly January" as the attraction's debut.

As for the negative reaction from some of his neighbors regarding the development, "I've had no problems at all with the neighbors" since the Clark County Commission approved the project last November.

Beyond playing host at Casa de Shenandoah, however, Newton hopes he'll also have the chance to play another role: Jimmy Ten-Strings.

"They want to bring me back if they do" a second "Hoodwinked" sequel, he notes.

Which is just fine by Jimmy Ten-Strings' alter ego.

"I really love doing something that kind of stretches my imagination," Newton says. "The character would be missed if he was not in the third one."

Contact movie critic Carol Cling at ccling@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0272.