Little Witch review

Last time I covered one of Porchlight's many obscure animated films. Now let's go into their far northern equivalent in a little number called Little Witch.

Background

Little Witch is an animated film that was released in 1999 through Sony Wonder, who you may recognize as the distributor for Sesame Street videos (post Random House) and pre-Paramount Nickelodeon tapes. The film was produced by Studio B Productions, who you may not recognize by name, but you've probably seen a show by them and you just didn't know it.

Studio B was a Vancouver studio who was behind Yvon of the Yukon, Savage Dragon (one of the few good offerings in terms of cartoons on USA Network) and What About Mimi, brought Edgar and Ellen to television through a series of pilot shorts and have produced earlier episodes of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, only to be done in by the fact that they're a Canadian studio, hence they'd be folded into DHX Media. Apparently this was intended to serve as a pilot to a series that never took off, which makes sense given that it doesn't run any longer than half an hour. I think it could've worked as a series if enough was put into it.

Studio B's talent lies not within their own abilities, but who they commission. The animation, according to the credits, was handled by two studios. The first was Philippines Animation Studio, a former go-to for Nelvana when their deal with Hong Ying Animation fizzled out. Their resume isn't as known, unless you heard of Bob and Margret, Moville Mysteries and Committed. The second was Mercury Filmworks, who is perhaps better known for producing the animated portions of the 2004 Fat Albert movie, one of the few aspects that people don't complain about.

The film has a 7.0 on IMDb, so even as by stand-alone property that isn't as well known standards, we could be heading into some good shit.

Premise

The film centers on the eponymous Little Witch, a girl in a family of witches born the day after Halloween. As a result, she is unable to fall in line with the rest of her family, electing to follow a life of good and seeks fellowship, especially since her birthday's approaching and she'd have little company then. I can't say this aspect is that unoriginal, but the framework isn't as lucky. While Little Witch is more freewilled, she's still bound by the customs practiced by her elders, which would lead to comedic instances, par the course.

Our hero, for your convenience.

Speaking of not so original, Little Witch, Liddy for convenience, immediately develops an interest in one of her neighbors, Marcus, a somewhat awkward kid, so awkward he immediately hits the deck when Liddy tries to introduce herself. This leads to an opportunity for her to test her magic powers, which actually help Marcus become more agile, but this doesn't prevent him from bailing once he gets a load of Liddy's family. To be fair, they're hellbent into forcing her to be like them, if this happened today they'd probably force Marcus to vote for the Democrats, less he wants to get Kavanaughed.

A majority of this movie details Liddy's interactions with the other kids, notably where she manages to impress some through a free broomstick ride. The remainder of the plot involves Liddy rounding up her new friends for her birthday party while contending with the habitual rituals her elders put her through every birthday, but given what kind of movie this is, expect a happy ending, because I already spoiled enough for you.

Animation

You could easily recognize Studio B's animation whenever you see a relatively cheap flash show. This is apparent in shows like Yakkity Yak, Being Ian and George of the Jungle. Their better shows come from joint operations, where the animation is typically outsourced to another studio, namely Class of the Titans, What About Mimi?, Yvon of the Yukon and The Legend of Frosty the Snowman (which wasn't as pissworthy as the original Frosty the Snowman). This is obviously of the latter extreme. The special contains slightly above average background, along with smooth animation and relatively decent character design. Given that the design in this special is mostly shared in What About Mimi? and Yvon of the Yukon, I take it Studio B worked on the character designs before outsourcing the animation.

Acting

One of the most interesting aspects about the acting is that the main protagonist shares the same actress as Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy from MLP:FiM. Aside from Ian James Corlett, who a lot of you should know about by now, that's the end of actors I personally know about, but near as I could tell they're all based in Vancouver, where Studio B is.

Overall

I wouldn't call this a definite Halloween classic, I won't even say it's that great. Like The Haunted Pumpkin of Sleepy Hollow, it's forgettable, but harmless in the long run. The only complaint people would try and bring up against this special is that the characters look ugly. Well obviously they never watched more than one episode of Regular Show and really took a deep look into the overall design.

As an unsold pilot, I think this could've worked as a full series. The characters have some layers, the protagonist is tolerable, it has a good design, and Studio B is more than capable of producing full series, even landing a three-season deal with What About Mimi? which had the same kind of animation.

Little Witch isn't going to be a Halloween classic, but it sure as hell isn't going to be review fodder either. You only know about it because I brought up its very existence. You're welcome.

The Haunted Pumpkin of Sleepy Hollow review

Okay, it was between this and The Night of the Headless Horseman. I haven't seen the latter (in full), but I hope to do so at some point. To give you an idea on what you'd be in for, imagine Foodfight if dated animation was its greatest flaw. But we're not here to talk about that, obviously. Instead I'm going to talk about an animated film I managed to catch as a kid, managed to rediscover, and actually kinda enjoyed.

Personal Background

Most of you probably caught this film when it aired on Cartoon Network in the early to mid 2000s, that was my situation. CN stopped airing the film after a few years, but it still remained fresh in my mind, like I could remember exact details from it rather than embellish them and surprise myself when I go to see it and wind up seeing something different (Spider-Man, Arachnophobia, you won me with your apparent cheesiness). The only problem was at the time it was hard to find the movie online, but luckily someone was generous enough to upload the movie onto YouTube (in 2015 though, long after I gave up trying to find it.)

Film Background

Little information exists on this film, at least as far as casual research goes. It seems to have been a direct-to-video release that wound up on television one way or another (I knew Cartoon Network had nothing to do with the special because if it was, Warner Bros. would've had involvement in it (WB and Cartoon Network are managed by the same parent company). So who spearheaded this film? Porchlight Entertainment.

Porchlight primarily produced direct-to-video movies, but you may recognize them best for their television efforts. They were the principal producers of The Secret Saturdays and have done work centered on LeapFrog (remember that?), though some may better remember them for Tutenstein, one of the few cartoons that aired on Discovery Kids (who's cartoons apparently exploited loopholes to avoid becoming generic educational shows.) Or if you want some better perspective on how good the show was, it was nominated for three Daytime Emmy awards and won two of them. Impressive for a mid to average budget company from Southern California.

The film was directed by Vong Zeven, who hasn't done anything else apparently. I would say he worked at Porchlight, but any other project he would've worked on for them would surely be credited.

Plot

If you didn't get enough clues early on, the film is an adaptation of the famous legend of the Headless Horseman. Given that multiple ones exist, a little differentiation would be beneficial, and yes, there is enough to make the film stand on its own. This time it focuses on the pumpkin atop the Headless Horseman. It may seem silly, but given the creepy possibilities of pumpkin carving, along with, ahem, aimed at a young audience, I think they made the right call.

Given that murder was a focal point of the original story (Ichabod Crane), and who this movie is catered toward, you'd think they'd shy away from showing his death, right?

Well not exactly.

We get the implication that he died, along with a sorta graphic depiction of the Headless Horseman killing Ichabod by tossing the titular pumpkin at him. They say he was never heard from again, but we all know the dirty implications. I'll give that a pass.

We have a full telling of the climax of the Headless Horseman, summarized within the beginning within two minutes. If they had just given a beat-for-beat retelling of the original story while abiding to what they consider to be good enough for children, this would've been a hell of a lot more forgettable, but this isn't are prime focus.

Like many of animated films from the time, our focus goes to the present day, centered on two average kids. For better or worse, it keeps with the connection to the original story by having one of the kids, Nick, be a descendant of Ichabod Crane (not entirely confirmed, but strongly suggested due to both being cowards.) Points for using a common trait and one that's more or less easy to connect to. But that isn't all there is to him, Nick also has a fascination with technology, though this isn't explored beyond designing a Halloween prop and a scene where he's more fascinated with a prop case that holds the manuscript (aka the igniting aspect of the plot device)

Our heroes ladies and gentlemen, two of three anyways.

Nick's friend is Kate, and obviously she'd not only be the beaver of the two, but kind enough to put up with a boy who'd be destined to be ostracized for such a domineering character flaw. Also she helps to put aside any adaptational inconstancies by bringing up crucial aspects, including the fact that the story is based on mostly true happenings.

He's not integral to the plot, but this character is interesting enough for me to bring up. Like many real life settings, you gotta have a bully, and this film delivers. Tucker, the bully, is not like any stereotypical bully, he's actually pretty entertaining. He mainly picks on Nick to exploit his cowardly nature, but obviously the bully is also somewhat easy to spook come the right circumstances. Basically, it's a character stereotype done proper.

Onto the remainder of the film, the plot gets going when two thieves (and like many films that involve thieves, it's a bumbling idiot paired with a short-tempered intelligent one) steal the manuscript. They decide to hide the manuscript in a pumpkin patch, to return to it once they evaded the authorities. That makes sense, but the following doesn't, just the fact that the manuscript is magical. But, unless they intend to bring satanic rituals into a kids film, I guess this made the most sense.

Nick and Kate discover the pumpkin containing the manuscript while searching for the right kind of pumpkin for a pumpkin carving contest. Little happened between this that was worth mentioning for the record. It's there that things begin to get weird. The pumpkin they retrieve appears to be already carved, and out of it comes a bumbling non-human sidekick that compliments any cheesy kids movie. Their stand in for this is a ghost named Nathaniel. When I first saw this, I thought Nathaniel was a cowardly ghost, but it turns out he's just a typical right place wrong time kind of character. Harmless, but at the same time nothing special. He also relays more info on the original story, right down to the fact that the Headless Horseman was a Hessian soldier (they would've called it a regular soldier, but the fact that they mention the specific type used really gives me the idea they actually looked over the original story to score some additional brownie points.)

The Headless Horseman is summoned and it pursues the pumpkin to complete its visage and to become fully formed, but, hitting more trope notes, it has to be done by midnight. But again, it still makes sense because it would be at the end of Halloween, and since when do monsters belong in a Thanksgiving-centric holiday? Nick, Kate and Nathaniel take place in Castle Von Tassel, a notorious ancient castle which is haunted by ghosts. They don't play that much of a role beyond headlining a song (which we'll get to later) and briefly serving as obstacles for our heroes. The Headless Horseman gains the pumpkin, seemingly at the stroke of midnight, but the big bad winds up failing thanks to convenience (or if you want to be more specific, the clock on the castle was apparently off by a minute.)

It's neither a silly ending, nor is it that creative, though I will say that it felt like Nick garnered the courage to test what turned out to be an effective way of defeating the Headless Horseman.

The film has a basic premise with otherwise silly moments in between, but that isn't always a bad thing. It's harmless and by family friendly tellings of grim stories standards, it didn't feel too botched.

Animation

Porchlight's animation could be summed up like this. Near average character designs, slightly better backgrounds and an ultra-smooth frame rate. When watching this, I could tell they really wanted to try their best, and here it wasn't in vain. The characters here look fine, they're easily 

identifiable from a visual standpoint and the action looks decent. By direct-to-video/TV movie standards it's pretty good. I also saw some more ambitious animation techniques, and they pulled it off fine.

Such as one of those artsy perspective shots.

It looks cartoony, but that's what they were going for, either that or they knew they had to cut corners and sought a shortcut that wouldn't undermine their work.

Acting

The film doesn't contain familiar voice actors, at least not highly recognized ones. Nick is voiced by Joanna Ruiz, who's only other recognized role was in the Horrid Henry cartoon series. Eric Meyers and Tom Clarke Hill who voiced Nathaniel and Tucker and the two thieves respectively both appeared in an English dub for a Spanish CGI movie called Spirit of the Forrest. Meyers did have some additional roles, such as being the first voice Daisuke Jigen in Lupin the 3rd. The rest have appeared in Thomas and Friends of all things. I half expected Porchlight to outsource acting duties to Vancouver, but it turns out that most of the actors are based in the United Kingdom (Nick's and Kate's anyways.)

But I'm just droning on at this point. The actors did a good job here, even the actors voicing two characters at once. Some of them even sound like more familiar actors. If you could pull off a convincing Dee Bradley Baker (Ichabod Crane in the start) and a convincing Ash Ketchum (Nick), you're destined to go beyond work for hire.

Music

To round off the common aspects of family films, this movie has songs in it. Two anyways. The first can be heard while Nick and Kate are preparing a halloween prop. It's a pop rock tune. It's sorta catchy, not grating on the ears and it sorta reminds me of a lighter version of Terror Time Again from Scooby Doo on Zombie Island. The other song is a generic haunted house affair. It fits and, like the previous one, it's also pretty harmless, but the previous song is better.

Overall

I'd normally be against watered down adaptations of otherwise dark material, but honestly, they handled it pretty well. Nothing worth stressing over, the characters are likable, the animation is decent and it gives decent Halloween vibe. It's kinda like a less cheesy Scary Godmother, but it still stands on its own. I think you'll like it.

Casper: A Spirited Beginning Activity Center Review

Games based on movies are common. People are always aching for just a little extra dosh, with no mind to potential consequences. But what about games based on things made for a quick buck? As in direct-to-video sequels or TV movies? Those are scarce, but they do exist. For example, did you know they made a video game based on one of those direct-to-video Scooby-Doo movies from the late-90s? Spoiler alert, it sucks, and the movie it's based on wasn't all that hot either.

But that's not what we're here for. I want to talk about a game based on a movie that I had no idea existed until I saw someone else talk about it (coincidentally, that's how I got more details on that Scooby-Doo game I told you about.), a game that works, but as you get older, you could tell how desperate they were for some extra money (I take it rentals weren't as good as the distributor had hoped.)

Personal Background

This was one of many games I used to play when I had access to the family desktop. I didn't think much of it at the time, same with the other games I had, it was just a time waster. I also wasn't that familiar with Casper at the time. My earliest exposure to the character was through the 1995 movie of all things (which for the record isn't as bad as people may lead you to believe.) When I saw one of the game's niches, it left me confused, because I had no idea that another Casper movie existed, and that the game was based on that.

Game History

The game is based on the 1997 direct-to-video film Casper: A Spirited Beginning. It was developed by WayForward Technologies, who you may recognize as a developer for many of SpongeBob games for the Game Boy Advance post SuperSponge, also Shantae. It was also published by SoundSource Interactive, a former protege for TDK Mediactive, one of the more shameless license publishers out there. It came out a year after the movie and basically fell into obscurity soon after.

Is it deserved? Kinda, but that isn't a dealbreaker I assure you.

Gameplay

Feel excited?

As it's said in the title, the game is a mini game collection. You could select from five different mini games, with a sixth remaining locked until you collect fifteen casper coins. To get the coins, obviously you'd have to play the other games, the amount you receive depends on what difficulty you play (easy gets you one, hard gets you three and if you want to play these games in a perfect order, play them all on hard.) Here's what you'd be in for.

Casper's Spinning Squares

Basically a slider puzzle, without the luxury of you having the desire to skip them because you hate those damn things. You have to click on certain squares to fix the image, and for your reward you get to see a clip from Casper: A Spirited Beginning. I would say that it isn't ideal to include spoilers, but as far as I know it only shows clips from the first half, so they got me there. The challenge comes in the fact that you'd have more squares to flip depending on what difficulty you choose, otherwise you could just flip one or two squares, repeat that fifteen times and you'd have unlocked that secret game before your mouse could grace over the other game icons.

All I have to do is click the middle row and I'm done.

Fatso's Kitchen

Basically a brain teaser, where you have to drag the right ingredients into Fatso's bowl. The right ingredients are the answers to riddles you have to solve, which range from simple (add the color of grape soda) to difficult by kid standards (this is obviously aimed at much younger people, not going to lose my shit over that.) This is one of the better games in the collection since there is a stronger sense of challenge than the previous game.

Basically if you don't know your foods, you're screwed.

Snivel's Mix and Match

Imagine the possibilities.

As it says, it's a mix and match game. A ghost comes up and you have to switch its head, torso and legs so it matches a picture Snivel is holding. Only difficulty changes are that you'd have to change all three in the hardest difficulty, while in the easy mode it's down to one or two. There is one cool aspect about this though, you could mix up your own image and print it out. 

Stinkie's Goo-Toss

No game is complete without a target practice game. As Stinkie, you throw goo balls at ghosts (which are actually cameos for characters that appeared early on in the movie the game's based on, interesting factoid.) Beyond the casper coin reward, you also get ranked depending on your accuracy. This is another one of the stronger games in the collection, thanks to its replayability.

Ready for a GOOd time?

Stretch's Memory Game

I take it the face is there to throw off your concentration?

Back then I sucked at memory games, and this is no exception. The point of this game is to memorize a pattern and keep it up until the game ends. On easy, you only have four spots to contend with, but it doubles for every difficulty spike, with the highest pinning you against a complete clock face. As you'd expect, this is another highpoint in the game, there is some genuine challenge in the game (human error helps this too.)

Kibosh's Magic Puzzle

Alright, have you got enough casper coins? Did you buck up and go all hard difficulty on all five games? Did you just grind in Casper's Spinning Squares? If so, a grand reward awaits you.

And by grand, I mean you get to see this lovely face which you'll cover with puzzle tiles.

The name tells you everything, it's a jigsaw puzzle. What's so magic about it? Once you complete it, you get to see a movie clip from the game's source movie. Let me tell ya, as an adult, I feel fucked. First up, the puzzle is piss easy, so easy that you could (mostly) see the outlines of the puzzle. There's no thought process needed, just follow the pattern and you're done. Not to mention, the magic is kinda meaningless when you could just go to Casper's Spinning Squares to take advantage of the movie clip niche. I'd normally be lenient to this game, but the fact that it's the only thing in the game you have to unlock and that it's promoted before you could even play the rest of the game, it feels like a ripoff.

Rankings

1. Stinkie's Goo-Toss: One of the more fun games in the collection. It's higher up because of the ranking system. It encourages people to play again to top their previous score.
2. Stretch's Memory Game: Actually a good way to test your memory. Doesn't feel like a total waste of time.
3. Fatso's Kitchen: A fun little brain teaser, non-offensive.
4. Snivel's Mix and Match: It's kinda boring and lacking in difficulty, but the printable feature's a very nice touch. Too bad you'd be limited on what you could put in your design.
5. Kibosh's Magic Puzzle: It may be a rip, but it has a little more weight to it.
6. Casper's Spinning Squares: You just click squares, sometimes just two.

Design

Basically, the overall design is a mixed bag. The background look kinda cheap, electing to use real life photos which clash heavily with an otherwise cartoony design. Ironically the best looking levels are the ones with the least detail. The characters are hand-drawn and, I'm not kidding, they look a lot better than they did in the movie the game's based off of. They're more fluid and expressive, and they're a bit easier on the eyes.

Music

You wouldn't think it, but the game has a decent soundtrack. The songs fit the themes of the levels and the characters, but at least one sounds like a ripoff of the other. An organ-laden theme compliments Kibosh's level, a cartoonishly clumsy theme compliments Snivel's level, we have a carnival-type theme that blends perfectly with Stinkie's level and a slovenly theme compliments Fatso's level (though it sounds a bit like Casper's theme.) Stretch's level has absolutely no music, but then again how could you concentrate on the patterns if you have music blaring in your ears. That's actually a very nice touch.

Overall

For a game that was intended to be a cash grab on a movie that not many people would wind up seeing, it does have plenty to show for it. Obviously they'd have to cut corners, such as using those putrid backgrounds, but there is a level of effort that outshines even the most harmless of licensed cash grabs. You'd think that the success WayForward would find later on would be a redemption tale, but it's more like an underdog story. From a developer for hire with a dream to one of the more respected developers in the industry (okay not by much, but people are willing to refer to them by name for praise, also Shantae)

Whatever the case, I could say there's more to this game than the movie it's based on (it doesn't include a generic father son tale, that speaks numbers.) But if that's not enough for you, it's more sound than those PS2 Casper games. Think about it.