Casper's Scare School review

Anyone remember Casper? Anyone give a shit about Casper? Anyone give a shit about the Casper material that has been geared out since the mid-90s? Casper is the kind of property that's so useless that through a first glance you could tell someone was trying to go for the unholy dollar.

In the past I covered a PC game that tied in to a Casper movie I never heard of, and I'm waiting until the Christmas season to tackle another Casper movie (refer to the list on my sidebar for more info on that), so for now, I want to tackle a film that I've seen years ago and sat on reviewing.

History

I've said this countless times before, but when you get right down to it, Cartoon Network became little more than a dumping ground in the mid to late 2000s. You already know that through shows like Pet Alien, half-assed originals at the time like Squirrel Boy, and for some reason, the network became a home for various CGI movies. Cartoon Network aired both Scary Godmother movies on an almost annual basis, they aired that Tony Hawk movie that RebelTaxi talked about and I think they also aired some Hot Wheels project that slipped from my and everyone's consciousness. And to get the obvious out of the way, along with that other Casper movie I mentioned, this is where the following aired, and how I ultimately got to know it.

Onto Casper, Casper is a classic cartoon character that was essentially dead on arrival. Caddicarus summed up the character better than I could ever hope to, but I'll try my best to give my take, while borrowing a bit from the better reviewer. Casper the Friendly Ghost sums up the very character Casper is, a ghost with a dementedly friendly demeanor who exists solely to break the stereotypes associated with ghosts, well, at the cost of any potential characterization. The character had gone through every phase of forced marketing, dabbling with the likes of Hanna Barbera for numerous show attempts and that's just talking television. Don't get me started on the video games. I won't talk about the 1995 movie because trust me, it's not that bad, but from there it was more of the same, and it only got worse.

It went from a half-budget version of the 1995 film, with the added luxury of it being a family film, to a crummy CGI Christmas film, and that's just what I've seen. For all I know there could be more I'm missing, but the most recent adaptation of Casper I've seen growing up was this movie. I didn't think much of it, like any show I've seen growing up, but apparently it was successful enough to get its own TV show, which I not only never saw, but never even heard of. Sorta glad about that because I don't intend to cover any more Casper movies until that Christmas one.

The movie was produced by Moonscoop, and hearing that name alone, it makes perfect sense how this came to fruition. They're on a whole other spectrum of dated CGI compared to the likes of Mainframe Entertainment, but I'll get to that when I could.

Spoiler

The film has a surprisingly decent roster of actors. The special stars Ned Bigby himself, Devon Werkheiser, plus we get Bob Saget voicing one of the characters, as well as the voice of Kim Possible and Ren Stevens of Even Stevens, and unfortunately that covers the only interesting casting choices, I mean of course we'd get the likes of Candi Milo, Nike Futterman, Maurice LaMarche, John DiMaggio, Kevin Michael Richardson, Fred Tatasciore, Billy West, Debbi Derryberry, you're all capable, yes, but you're all too familiar, too easily identifiable. Only other interesting actor I guess is Dan Castellaneta, and that's really only because it's a role outside of The Simpsons. Glad he hasn't gone the route of Karl Wiedergott.

One last thing before I finally get into the movie, this movie was directed by Mark Gravas, an Australian animator who you may recognize for the Nickelodeon cartoon Yakkity Yak. I have nothing against the show, but I wouldn't hold it to as high of a standard as others (though I would gladly take it over the last few shows I talked about). He also did CJ the DJ, which, if you could find, is a more interesting watch.

Premise

The film keeps with the very essence of Casper, in that Casper is far too friendly for his own good. After missing a scare route with his three uncles Stinky, Stretch and Fatso, while also getting caught off guard and scared by the obligatory human friend, Casper is forced to go to Scare School to straighten up and fly right. Nothing leading up to this was important enough to mention, this is an example of a film that tries to stretch beyond its means to cope with a lack of substance. On the upside, Casper's relationship with his uncles is seemingly better than it is in previous installments, or at least it's displayed better.

Upon getting there, he manages to make some friends, and like many shows before and after this, it's two friends for the obligatory trio. These typically feature the eccentric dude, the tough female and the lead encompassing the voice of reason. Where have I seen this before?

There's one

There's another

And another

Well they're interchangeable.

Point is, it's been done, can't say they're above any others, some pairings work better than others, some can act out better, and obviously I'm harping on Casper here for personal consistency. Another obvious, Casper's friends fall in line to the first two pictures above. Casper's friends are Ra, a streetwise mummy who's for all intents and purposes, a wigger. There's also Mantha, a zombie who falls under the tough sarcastic girl who's the most subjectively likable of the three by default.

And here they are for reference.

When Casper boards the school pirate ship, seriously, he's almost immediately outed. I guess they could smell fear. Casper meets Thatch, a vampire kid who immediately establishes what archetype he belongs to in a self-introduction on par with Quinn from Norm of the North 2. At school, things don't fare better for Casper, where due to his friendly nature and hidden apathy, he's faced with three consecutive detentions.

I'm just gonna give a quick warning, I may be jumping around a bit. It takes a while to get to the essential plot points in this film, the rest is padded out with long establishing shots and attempts at comedic dialogue.

Casper decides to sack up in an attempt to pass school, while evading Thatch who monitors him, but after a telltale letter surfaces, Casper is forced to scare his human friend to avoid banishment to the oh-so originally named Valley of the Shadows. At this point, I got to thinking, Casper would've worked better as a one-time deal. Think about it, if Casper was conditioned to be scary, there'd be an interesting premise to be had. Casper would learn that he doesn't need to be scary twenty-four-seven and the dilemma would make a bit more sense. Here, he's just fighting to be his bland friendly self. Lame.

But back to the story, Casper's 180 on his human friend hits him to the point he banishes himself to the Valley, where after an interesting encounter with his more malicious side, it's thrown away to a friendly paradise. This does serve a purpose though, for Casper is reunited with a long gone relative, and the aunt/uncle (Ankle for they're two headed), of the red herring antagonists Alder and Dash. If you don't know, the latter are the headmasters of the school who were driven to hate the friendly ones after Ankle was banished to the Valley by resident Casper antagonist Kibosh.

Basically, Alder and Dash's prime contribution to the plot is that they want to get rid of Kibosh so they could get out of working at the school, and they made a potion that turns things to stone; Casper's lead into this is that he'd be a test subject, though his uncles wind up being around for it. The two wind up succeeding and seek to scare the entire world, and I've held off on this plot point long enough. Throughout the film, we get statements regarding "the balance", which demonizes overly friendly monsters and views overly-scary monsters as problematic. This, in hindsight, holds up in the plot, but for a summary, that's really just a brief plot point to bring up.

We're almost home, the students travel to the human world, turning everyone to stone, and it takes a confrontation from Ankle to Alder and Dash to remind them of their former priorities. In the long run there's no major climax and everything is resolved through some so-so comedy. Like many movies of this style, all ends happily, and no they never reveal how they turned everyone back from stone, that's off-screen.

Animation

As mentioned far ago, Moonscoop was behind this special. If the first image I posted in this review wasn't a tell, the animation is kinda iffy. Everything looks cartoony (which isn't a strike against it, just an observation), and ill-detailed. Environments are flat looking, they really kicked back on the ghosts, where they look more solid than they need to be, plus there's something seriously up with the hair (it's all solid, never moving.) To show you the power of the lack of detail:

And the outside is completely barren.

Basically, it makes the plot more lively.

Overall

I would say this is yet another so mediocre it sucks tier movie, but then I'd have to levy that complaint to every other Casper movie/show/whatever, and admittedly, it did the character some justice. The characters are well realized and they aren't doing shit for the hell of it, Casper is okay in this, even though he relapsed into the "ever endearing" always nice schtick, the animation makes everything else look good, and Mantha has more to her than Olympia in Norm of the North, and I only make that connection because Moonscoop did that film (as Splash Entertainment)

I guess this movie worked at the time, after all it got a TV show with which the one strike against it is that it replaced the Mr. Men Show, and three video games. Yeah, three video games, by a shit publisher and their roster of shit developers. The former, maybe, the latter, I hope Tennings covers them after a year or so.

Mona the Vampire review

Let's face it, Arthur was the only good Cinar cartoon.

Spring is right around the corner, so let's celebrate by talking about a series that I never wanted to return to, but hey, there is a lot for me to talk about, albeit not in the right places.

History

If you grew up watching certain networks, heck if you grew up watching Canadian television, or if you've done your homework on the principal companies behind it, it's hard to ignore the legacy of the latter. Whether you like it or not, it's best I explain the company, and by extension the show for consistency.

Cinar (later Cookie Jar Entertainment) was the principal company behind the following show. After dabbling in some live action productions, the company, for the time, branched out to adaptations based on various children's books. You may recognize them for Arthur, Are You Afraid of the Dark and more infamously Caillou, which interestingly enough is the first original Teletoon series.

What was Cinar's undoing? Well prior to getting rebranded as Cookie Jar, they were caught in an investment scandal where they used and abused funds from numerous banks they were in business with, they lost the company to Nelvana's founders, Micheline Charest, one of the founders, actually died the same year the company toppled over and last I saw, Ronald A. Weinberg, the other founder, is actually serving time in prison.

Essentially Cinar behind the scenes is a very fucked up experience.

The Show (history)

Mona the Vampire began in 1999 and lasted through to 2003, with 65 episodes to fall back on. Interestingly, while this is one of many shows to follow the thirteen episode season quota, the first season has double the amount.

Unlike Pet Alien, where the merchandising behind it and the books its based on is up to speculation, I can confirm that this was in fact based on a book, and that the author of it co-created the show (the other creator worked on other Mona the Vampire books FYI). There's one book I want to focus on though.

It wouldn't be fair to talk about the series without talking about the book first. The book came out in 1990 and frankly, it's more interesting than the show.

Spoiler Warning

The book centers on Mona, a girl who becomes obsessed with vampires after being read a bedtime story about one. Her obsession takes a toll on her personal life, and it comes full circle when the world she built around herself crumbles, and she can't take no more.

Essentially, Mona was wrong and she learned that the hard way. It makes sense because if you let your obsessions get the better of you you lose sight of who you are, at worst reality. You're probably thinking I brought this up because this show defies that moral, right? How many times...

The Show

The continuity of the books seems to be separate from the show, unless the others established her relapse into sheer insanity. This extends to far more than overthinking most things or encountering issues that are metaphoric to what's happening to them now or real world issues, and I wouldn't mind if it wasn't any of those, which it isn't, believe me.

One thing that this series has to its advantage is that Mona isn't the sole force behind every episode. Mona is aided by her friends, Charley, essentially a socially-awkward boy who would just barely fit in with anyone else and Lily, a timid girl who'd side with Mona because she's too frail for the other groups. Like Mona who dresses as a vampire when the time calls for it, Charley and Lily have their own costumes as well, a generic full body costume for the former (complete with a laser gun) and a princess for the latter (she's referred to as Princess Giant, but that hardly went anywhere). I would complain about how it wouldn't affect the plot regardless if they were in costume, but I'll get to that later.

Basically, for many episodes, Mona misconstrues something, imagines that something supernatural is behind it, tries to investigate it with her friends in tow and either directly stops it or the issue resolves itself, and Mona's non the wiser over how little of a supernatural impact it had or she left. Once you find this pattern in every episode, that's it, no reason to have any investment in any of the episodes. Mona does stop legitimate issues, granted, but it's typically fueled by the same principal. There is the in-betweens in the first, most of the middle and third acts, but it's pretty vanilla.

If you know me, you know I tend to side with the more cynical characters, and fortunately, there're plenty here. We have Mona's mother who's the strict foil to her husband who does little to keep Mona in check. We also have Ms. Gotto, Mona's teacher though she's honestly the most patient of the two, even though deep down she's close to becoming the first teacher to carry out a school shooting (beware the nice ones), there's the obligatory no nonsense principal, but I hardly saw much of him, and to round things out, we have the pretentious rich girl Angela and the bully George. They're honestly pretty bearable, Angela isn't annoying like most girls within her archetype and George is really just a typical kid who has his priorities straight, straight as in focusing more on Charley.

Animation

The animation was produced by Alphanim, now Gaumont animation, who I recognize for Robotboy, and who many would recognize nowadays for F is for Family. Although the animation was outsourced to China, done by the ever so cleverly titled Animation Services. Ever heard of them?

Das Nosferatu Mona

Admittedly, the animation isn't too bad. It seems like they were putting more effort into the art style - keeping it as close to the art in the books as possible - and it works. In spite of being a supernatural-oriented show, the animation only captures this in small spouts, and even most of them just look mediocre at best, but whatever, the animation is serviceable, I give it a pass.

Acting

I ooze over Canadian actors, so of course I'd give this its own section. This exists for trivia purposes and you have every right to skip it.

A majority of the actors present on the show hail from Ontario and Quebec. The actors I'm familiar with are mostly from the former or Vancouver, so I'm not entirely familiar with all of them. Emma Taylor-Isherwood stars as Mona, and she has a sparse yet decent acting resume. She appeared in The Never-ending Story and Are You Afraid of the Dark? and is strangely credited as a character on The Kids from Room 402 (Tara Strong voiced the character in question, but I would prefer Isherwood for the sake of not listening to the former). As for her performance as Mona, it's fine. I like it for not making the character annoying, her actions are annoying but her portrayal and voice are the opposite. Kudos.

Since this is a Cinar production, we have actors from their flagship series Arthur. We not only have Justin Bradley as Charley (voice of Buster), but we have the first voice of Arthur, Michael Yarmush. For the former, it's also a fitting role. Heck, all of the voices on the show are good, not one character annoys me and even the intentionally annoying characters are bearable.

Sonja Ball is also a familiar name, and I bring her up because she's also credited for a role in The Kids from Room 402, and this one is also a fluke. Oh, and she voices Arthur's mom. You can't talk about Arthur actors without bringing up their more notable roles.

Overall

Months ago, I would've said I outright hated this show, but looking back at it now... I'm honestly more disappointed. This could've worked as a series, the ingredients are there, I love supernatural shows and the characters are likable enough. It's just that they not only ignored a book that had all loose ends tied, but they had an obvious formula. I wouldn't mind if this just lasted for twenty six episodes, but remember, sixty-five episodes spanning four seasons.

This could've been done a bit better. Maybe mix it up a little bit where Mona's imagination gets her into trouble and she decides to focus more on a finding a realistic solution, maybe have her grow up a bit? Or you could just give all three actual powers and have them face legitimate supernatural foes, foes that are clever enough to remain dark long enough to make Mona and co. look nuts to those unaware.

The characters are decent, the animation's more of the same and there is an interesting premise, but the execution undoes all of that. I don't hate it, but I wouldn't return to it.

King of the Hill PC review

Yep.

King of the Hill stands as one of the most revered shows of all time, and for a good reason. It gets to the point that any semblance of something new and official from the show surfacing can get people to give a few minutes of their life to see it. Unlike something like The Simpsons (several times), Futurama (once) or Beavis and Butthead, we never got any further than the TV show, no video games to speak of. But wait, you mean to tell me that there is a King of the Hill video game?
Yep, there was a King of the Hill game released at some point. It was released on the PC in 2000, and is unable to run on any operating system higher than Windows 2000.

The game was produced by Flying Tiger Development, still active to this day, and it was founded by Johnathan Brandstetter, aka Johnny Turbo, aka the worst gaming-related mascot ever, but I'll make you squirm by not giving a full explanation. Another interesting thing was that this was also produced by Mondo Media, aka Mondo Mini Shows. It sorta adds up since Mondo Media is credited for the game's animation, and they're rooted in flash (the Macromedia era flash before it became overused)

When you put in the game for the first time, you'll get two games. Hootenanny, a block party type game, and Texas Huntin', do the math. As with most CD ROMS, you could either play it straight from the disc or you could install it onto your computer. You also need to make sure you have QuickTime and Shockwave installed. As for the games, I'll talk about the Texas Huntin' first because I have less to say about it.

Texas Huntin' has you take the role of a nameless hunter who joins Hank Hill, Dale, Boomhauer, Bill and Bobby on a five-outing hunting trip. You have to abide to your hunting license and kill everything on it (but in the allowed amount). There is some strategy in the beginning, where you pick areas that have the most game you need to shoot, and you have to pick a specific amount of items to bring on your trip. You may need snacks to keep your morale up and you could use certain animal calls to bring over the game you need.

You'd think that you'd need to bring both rifles (there're two) with you, but you could manage to kill the animals with the right timing. There's also a bogus scoring system where the animals you kill give you a certain amount of points. As far as I know, all that happens is that the dialogue at the end would be different.

Is there any way to lose at this game? If you shoot an animal that isn't on your hunting license, you'd be forced to end the season early, but nobody seems to care, not even Hank, who would probably make a big deal about a deviation from natural rules.
Overall, if it were released on its own, it would probably be a $5 game at best. It's fun for a while, but as with any hunting game it becomes boring fast. You could throw on the Cabela's logo and you'd have a title that'd be geared out by FUN Labs/Activision Value. It has the cheap value of Beavis and Butthead: Weiner Takes All and Little Thingies and is slightly beneath Daria's Inferno and Beavis and Butthead: Bunghole in One.

Then again, it does give a proper depiction of hunting, from the preparation, the long waiting, every detail is accounted for, sso if you enjoy King of the Hill and hunting, this is certainly up your speed.

====================
If hunting's not your game, what's Hootenanny like?

This game assigns you the role of a new neighbor. You're invited by Hank to a block party, where you get to play certain games according to a schedule, and it's in real time, and there's like five or so. How do you kill time up until then? You talk to people, and at this point, the game's poor flash animation comes into play. The animation is sorta choppy, and the faces are nearly static. To shell-nut it, it's like a more stiff version of GoAnimate. I'm making a big deal about this because at least since 1999, decent flash animation has been implemented into PC adventure games, like (again) Daria's Inferno and Beavis and Butthead: Do U.

But onto the gameplay. As I mentioned before, you have to wait for certain events to begin, and you have a very small amount of time wasters. You could talk to people and get a few funny lines, you could venture into the Hill house until you wander into one of the shut rooms and get kicked out, you could try to throw doggie treats toward Ladybird to keep her away from Kahn's grill (or do the same with a beer toward Hank) so the game could mock you for not figuring out the right throwing method.

Rarely, you'll get quick assignments in between events, such as getting ice for the cooler, putting food in the cooler in a certain pattern, retrieving a signed football, possibly more, this game isn't that known enough. No matter how you do, you'd hardly get much flack by the end. All you get for doing the tasks right or wrong is commentary from one of the characters, usually Cotton from the footage I've seen. If he compliments you you've fucked up, and the opposite if you do it right.

Onto the mini-games.

First is a scavenger hunt, set up by Bobby. You follow cryptic hints and find certain items. It's straightforward and doable, I'll admit, good way to ease players into the rest of the game I suppose.

Next is a lawnmower race, where you try to mow as much grass as you could before the other does, all while you tend to a ever-filling bag. They say some mowers are faster than others and one carries more than others, but from what I've noticed, neither hold much of an impact. I didn't mention the different opponents, because all that's different about them is what they say.

After that is mini golf in Bill's lawn. It's small and doable, but every time you land over the par, you get insulted for it. Like a minimalist Bunghole in One.

Then there's a paintball game, not much to say about that.

Then it all ends with Peggy's game, a tic-tac-toe type game where you try to make words. Only tip I have for the game is make sure you get the first word, otherwise you'll never win.
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Articles 11 and 13 have been passed, and we may be fucked

We're screwed, I don't know how this is going to affect online reviews, memes, whatever.

Welcome to the definitive age of corporate dissonance.

Squirrel Boy review

After over a year following the anti-Enter bandwagon, seeing it crumble down to its core, that being that it's a hive of autism on a as big, if not grander scale than what they're against, I bit the bullet and decided to watch some of his reviews. Can't say he's worth a subscription, but he is much better now than he was back then.

Now you're probably thinking, am I bringing him up because of a certain review? Well, he actually did a review of Squirrel Boy a while back and given that I don't like the show I figured it'd be cool to see some coverage of it. Upon seeing it, I was a bit disappointed that it just amounted to covering an single episode and not going into the inner workings on why this show was garbage. I did talk about this show a while back, well before I adopted my go-into-detail style, so let's go into it and hope it doesn't turn out like my Shrek review. 

Background

Squirrel Boy was created by illustrator Everett Peck. Peck had had plenty of experience in the world of animation, primarily serving as a character designer on numerous Klasky-Csupo and Adelaide Productions shows, along with the occasional writing credit. That experience enabled him to branch out and produce his own content, of which came only two shows to his name.

The first was, obviously, Duckman, a much better series quite frankly. All else I could say about it was that the network choice still surprises me (it aired on USA Network, and the only time you saw cartoons on there were during the mornings and afternoon). That lasted until 1997, and until then Peck returned to his roots, at least, for then.

In 2006, Peck decided to give another go at creating something original. He had gone to Cartoon Network, who I guess at the time went for anything to fill airtime, made a pitch and soon after, we got Squirrel Boy.

The show lasted for about a year, with 26 episodes spanning two seasons. I'm beginning to notice a trend of shows with thirteen episode seasons, ending by the second. I guess it's down to contractual obligation or something. One thing I've noticed about this show is that it received assistance from some familiar names in animation. Raymie Muzquiz, who did work for shows like Hey Arnold! (directed The Jungle Movie), The Simpsons and more, Tuck Tucker (who I recognize from SpongeBob and Hey Arnold!) and Joe Purdy. What does this mean? Pssh, nothing. Needed to squeeze out as much trivia as possible I guess.

Only other thing I could say regarding background trivia is that this show had a pilot. No idea when it was made, but nobody's hurrying to find it.

The Sting

If you could sum up a show within a sentence, you'd know for sure how little substance it has. The show centers on the misadventures of a boy and his pet talking squirrel as they venture through the contrived conflict of the day, and that's a prime downfall to this show. The episodes themselves are just the aforementioned plot, padded out with some obnoxious jokes to fill eleven minutes.

I was along for the long haul. I have seen a stark majority of the episodes, they have stuck in my mind for one reason or another. I could remember a majority of the jokes and I revisited most episodes for a refresher. Basically, it wasn't that significant to me (My Gym Partner's a Monkey was far more interesting and seemed to try harder than this show, and there was Camp Lazlo, though honestly I hate that show just a bit more.)

The humor in this show is its achilles heel, as mentioned before. It's kinda special when you think about it, while most shows rely heavily on gross-out humor to keep viewers attention or make up for a lack of a good joke, I'm seeing no effort here. It amounts to one character acting wacky and saying something that seems outrageous, but is just vanilla, and I mean that like that dried out vanilla frosting on a donut.

On the upside, the one who attempts to maintain some humor, attempting and failing but attempting nevertheless is Rodney, the Squirrel Boy of the title. In his efforts, he has dragged down the show heavily. Rodney has the most personality on the show, and said personality is the always classic obnoxious douche. Even the show knows he's the most interesting character, given that the intro is dedicated to spouting his name. I don't give a shit about the other characters, save for one other, because most either take a small part in the plot or only appear to move it along, albeit barely. For that one character, it's the dad character Bob Johnson (and yeah, their surname speaks numbers on how groundbreaking this show was). All you need to know is that he's that stuffy cynical guy, and in shows like these, he's Hitler and we should giggle with glee as he suffers (Camp Lazlo does this to a far worse extent.) To be fair though, Bob has actually come out on top plenty of times or has had a happier ending than Rodney.

The premises are no better. Some follow a basic moral or premise that wouldn't look out of place in something from the late 20th century. If you've seen an episode of a show with this kind of moral, you've essentially seen the Squirrel Boy episodes that show it as well, though they do whatever they could to make it original, as in throw in some comedic squirrel gold. Others are essentially the equivalent of making a house out of a hole in the ground. These amount to making an interesting premise out of going to a flea market (and the only interesting thing about that is the ever exciting hand washing scene) and focusing on curing an allergic reaction.

I can't say the writers are creatively bankrupt, given that a majority of them came from better shows, but I could say they're generally limited. Some of them came from SpongeBob, and it feels like they're trying to recapture the essence of that show. It's down to creative interference, where Cartoon Network wanted something that was both affable and could be completed within every week.

While Everett Peck had experience in both adult and kids animation, I think he was more in tune with the former, because lets face it, with adult-geared cartoons you didn't have to contend with any limits or network demands, that's what made Duckman the high point of his career.

Animation

Everett Peck has a specific art style, this is best shown in Duckman and the Jumanji TV series.

And yes that existed.

Squirrel Boy kept that principle, to an overall mixed personal reception. It's certainly different in comparison to other Cartoon Network shows at the time, and I think that's why I remembered the show so vividly, but let's be real. It's essentially a series of deformed characters against some otherwise bland backgrounds.

Quite a shift.

The opening sequence has a greater level of effort than the overall show, featuring a mix of 2D, 3D and stop motion animation. If the show utilized the methods they used in the intro, it'd essentially be a beautiful mess. But alas, Rodney's all you could think about, and as quickly want to get out of your head because his schtick is as annoying as it is repetitive.

Acting

To add to the show's overall bland atmosphere, we have our typical round of stock actors, but I do have plenty more to talk about. Rodney's voiced by Richard Horvitz. I have nothing against the guy, he has an enduring voice and he did super well in an against-type role in Static Shock (as a mentally unstable school shooter, I shit you not). But here, they give Rich nothing to work with, it's clear they just go by the script and nothing but when nothing is done with a bland scene. The other main pictured above is played by Pamela Aldon, Bobby Hill for those out of the loop (or Tabby from The Loud House, or Milo from The Oblongs). I'm happy it's not Tara Strong, but Pamela's performance is just straight-forward, nothing remarkable, like, at all.

They also got Nancy Sullivan (the mom from Drake and Josh) to voice the mom character, and there're two actors that I rarely hear from nowadays, Rick Gomez and Minica Lee Gradischek. The former also lent his voice to Windsor from My Gym Partner's a Monkey and the latter provided the voice for the title character from Prickles the Cactus (one of many unrealized Cartoon Network pilots, and I bring that up because that would've been a more deserving series than Squirrel Boy). But what I remember them the most from is the voices of Snuppa and Bianca from the Sniz and Fondue segments on Kablam!.

Only one on the main roster that surprises me is Kurtwood Smith, who voices the dad. I'm all for branching out from one medium, but Smith does little with this. It would've been interesting to see him incorporate some of the aspects of his more notable roles (it'd be cool if he brought in some of Red Foreman or Clarence Boddicker), but it's just a typical by the numbers portrayal.

Overall

This could be a case for any Cartoon Network show. If someone complains vehemently about one Cartoon Network show, remind them that it could be as bland and annoying as Squirrel Boy. Trust me, it sucks more to be painfully mediocre than it is to be straight up bad. You could find some enjoyment in how bad something is, but you can't find anything in a mediocre program. Squirrel Boy is nothing, but at least Peck has a better fallback than Jeff Muncy.

Pet Alien review

Before plaguing the Earth with what's considered to be the worst animated film of 2017, seriously, a film geared out by a studio who's work is rooted in television animation pushing for a theatrical release, then repeating the same thing with a film intended to be released direct-to-DVD didn't raise any red flags? Then again it made more sense than a direct-to-video company releasing a Christmas film with its standard animation quality, in October (the former made its money back, think about it), we had an otherwise quiet voice in the crowd of CG animation, and since we're going into yet another series that only a few people remember... fuck it.

Background (company)

The studio behind this, Splash Entertainment, originally began life as Mike Young Productions. A majority of their content ranged from forgettable shows, most of which were international collaborations to desperate attempts at trying to make merch-oriented programs (Butt-Ugly Martians had to have been one of those). They found a niche with producing films based around characters from popular toylines (particularly Polly Pocket and a stark majority of those animated Bratz movies).

To coincide with their acquisition by the now defunct Moonscoop Group, the company was rebranded as the former's American branch. Around that time they helmed Code Lyoko and have worked on numerous forgettable cartoons (a hint, check the production company list on every show and keep an eye out for the name Telegael). After Moonscoop bit the dust, the company was rebranded to Splash Entertainment, and they were at a lower point then anyone would've ever accused them of being back in the day. Of this we got the obvious Norm of the North skid marks, and Splash even did the finishing touches on the Alpha and Omega film series, their additions were somehow worse than previous ones.

I especially bring up the latter film because, for a time, the studio that made Alpha and Omega in the first place actually had some involvement in this series. When you look into the production of any Moonscoop/Mike Young show, it's quite incestuous and as consistent as the average Data Design Interactive game. Crest produced the animation as far as I could tell, but handed it over to Telegael a while later. Moonscoop had their hat in the ring at the time (this was during the Mike Young era), and one of their subsidiaries, Antefilms Productions, aided in production.

Background (show)

I focused on the company more than the show's background because there's little to be said about it.

Pet Alien arrived around the time Cartoon Network became stagnant, it was a while before the more infamous half of the late-2000s and the so-so modern era (fuck Regular Show, fuck Adventure Time, I could live without Steven Universe, Clarence is/was okay, I don't care for the network anymore), so throughout the mid-2000s, Cartoon Network became a bit more adventurous, trying their hand at a preschool block and bringing in some imports as part of their Miguzi block.

The show turned up in January and lasted for exactly five months and three days. Since I had nothing better to do at the time, I was, for better or worse, able to catch most of the episodes. Like many of the company's productions, it's available on Kabillion, who's generous enough to post full episodes on their channel, but not all of them for every series as if even they know when something isn't salvageable (Wild Grinders)

The show was created by Jeff Muncy, and was supposedly based on a toy-line and book series (need more info on that). Something tells me he was desperate to get some form of recognition, so he put his all into bringing his brand to life, which is as effective as reviving wilted flowers with a defibrillator. Beyond another series produced in 2008, Jim Henson's Pajanimals, Muncy hasn't done anything else and is far gone as far as I know, surviving on welfare checks and food made of the unsold stock on the show's supposed line of merchandise.

One last thing to note, on the show's Wikipedia article, they say outright the show was cheap to produce, and exemplify it by bringing up its small roster of actors.

The show itself

One word comes to mind when I think of this show. Stock. I see no attempts at being creative, unique, none of. It's all a series of assignments on a proverbial check list. Straight man who's the butt of many jokes, check, zany side characters that otherwise steal the spotlight, check, a number of quirky yet archetypical recurring characters that come as soon as they go, check, among other things.

To sum up, the show centers on Tommy, a sensible boy who falls victims to numerous misfortunes for the sake of having a plot. He is aided by a group of zany aliens, Dinko, the naive leader, Gumpers, the tough idiot, Swanky, the snobby one, Flip, the gibberish-spouting wild one and Scruffy, the dog. Basically your convenient spattering of those annoying sidekicks in numerous old cartoons. There's also a batshit lovelorn stalker and a diva, and they exist to fulfill archetypes you see in many cartoons.

The show carries no deep plot, just the shenanigan of the day. Something happens to Tommy or the aliens, a majority of the episode is spent giving reactions and some overall silliness. This wears as quickly as you think. But hold on, maybe there'd be enough jokes to keep your interest. Some genuinely funny jokes? No. Some clever satire? Not quite. Commentary on the stereotypes associated with cartoons? I wish. References to alien-centric movies and TV shows? Somehow not even that.

The show is overly reliant on over-the-top dialogue, delivered in a hammy fashion, which is usually a sign that they know they're boned on a creative scale. It's almost as if they reused 70+ old cartoon scripts because they didn't have the talent nor the time to make better scripts. It's like making a meal out of a popcorn kernel. Sad thing is that it doesn't even make the show cheesy in a good way, it's really just bland and forgettable. Better shows exist/have existed that used this template better. It's almost as if they scarified quality to empathize on a toy brand that may or may not have existed years ago.

Animation

If this landed in theaters...

I could conclude that the characters aren't memorable, being embodiments of one solitary trait, and that the episodes are of the kind of calibre that'd be a show watched by characters in a different show, but how was I able to remember this show? Good memory in the worst possible places, and perhaps it's the animation.

How do I explain this? Referring back to Norm of the North, the villain had over the top animation. Pet Alien is essentially Mr. Green's animation a thousand times over. The animation in this show is reminiscent of numerous old-time cartoons (Chuck Jones and Tex Avery without the wit and gall), complete with numerous wild takes and over-the-top motions. While this translated well in hand drawn cartoons, this just comes off as a bit ridiculous.

Plus it goes to show how bland the show is overall. Why bother trying to make something coherent when you could spatter insane imagery for ten minutes? I don't know about you, but had I seen this before knowing about the march, I wouldn't have even bought the supposed toys from the show to burn them.

Also, to address the elephant in the room, the animation quality obviously didn't hold up that well, not as bad as others, but still well in the danger zone. The backgrounds hold more detail than the models, and I believe that the motions exist for aesthetic purposes, i.e. personal proof that they put some kind of effort into the animation. There was one character I noticed that had awkwardly stilted animation. Compared to the other characters, it's extremely noticeable on her.

Girl to the right is what I'm referring to.

Essentially, the animation in the show is okay by television show standards, but somehow that's not good enough. I'd be happier with objectively bad animation because then I'd have more to talk about. But then again, this is also a statement on the company's animation quality. Since this era, they've remained stagnant, little has changed in the overall quality. It's better to suck from the start than to remain painfully mediocre, especially if you're backing something that sucks in every other department.

Acting

Again, this was a low budget series. That means that the show's talent pool would run rather dry and they would have to find a way around it. It led to the show amassing four main actors, Charlie Adler, Jess Harnell, Candi Milo and our lead Charlie Schlatter.

This casting irritates me, hell, American voice actors are starting to wear thin with me. I say this because, let's put it like this. I know what Charlie Adler sounds like. When I hear one of his characters I could easily tell it's him. I know what Candi Milo sounds like, I've heard her far too many times to count. Jess Harnell did surprise me with some roles (mistook him for Tom Kane and got caught off by his tough guy voice). I've grown tired of hearing the same voices in many cartoons. Frankly, I prefer Canadian actors, it's already cheaper to produce stuff there, and a lot of actors have a much wider range.

As for Charlie Schlatter, I think he's the worst actor on the show. At first I thought he was just some live action actor, but it turns out that he had a number of roles in many cartoons since the early-90s, albeit extremely minor ones. He did wind up voicing the main character in Kick Buttowski: Suburban Daredevil, though the performance was iffy IMO. In this show, his dialogue is delivered in a very awkward fashion, like he's giving his all to make the character work, but deep down, he knew that a paycheck wouldn't boost his morale.

Overall

Essentially, Muncy put all of his effort into what amounted to a dead on arrival cow. To say this was doomed from the start would be an understatement. Nobody gave a shit about it then, and nobody would now. It has no reviews on IMDb, and as far as I know it didn't even land itself in an internet review video.

All I know now is that I feel like watching Fanboy and Chum Chum or Fleabag Monkeyface. Yeah.

Naked Bros. Band: Supertastic Six review

Anyone remember the time The Naked Brothers Band had a special animated episode aired? Anyone remember the time The Naked Brothers Band had a TV show? Anyone remember the Naked Brothers Band? No? Well if you've watched Nickelodeon in the late-2000s you had to have at least heard of the show.

Okay, given who the show is based on, it's only fair I give some context, along with an el cheapo history lesson. The Naked Brothers Band was spearheaded by Nickelodeon, centering on the sons of the creator Polly Draper, drafted as a fictional band. It originally began life as a movie released in January of 2007, and apparently it did so well ratings wise that a series came out less than a month after, and lasted until 2009 where it was doomed to become as obscure as Cooper Pillot.

While I could forgive the movie if it was its own thing, the show was ultimately nothing to write home about. Each episode centers on a dilemma faced by those within the 6-11 demographic, but what I ultimately remember was how the lead character, Nat Wolff, probably would've shot up his school if his love interest left him. On the other hand, the episodes also occasionally feature musical numbers, and I'll admit, they're the highlight of the show, the songs are catchy and easy on the ears (it's hard to believe, but I'd take them over Cardi B any day of the week). Frankly though, this would've worked better off national television, this was around the time YouTube was getting traction, and the same year Soulja Boy proved you could get famous via social media.

Now, I have seen plenty of this show when it was out, I remember most episodes, albeit not in great detail, I did catch their cameo in a George Lopez movie, and I realized that Nat Wolff wound up in that garbage Slender Man movie. Basically, I was around for the more significant moments of the show, and that includes the episode I'm talking about today.

All I could get behind the scenes wise was that the animation was produced in-house at Worldwide Biggies, a company headed by Albie Hecht, a former president at Nickelodeon from 1997 to 2003, clearly missing his job and seeking any way to get back into their crosshairs.

Plot

To preface this, it's easier to analyze something complicated, when it comes to something like the Naked Brothers Band, it's hard to go into good detail on this. So instead, I'm going to give a summary on the more important aspects of the plot and then judge it from there.

The special begins with the band performing, this is cut short by our villain, Matt Pinfield, and no I don't mean some fictional guy with a coincidental name, I mean the actual personality himself Matt Pinfield. I shouldn't be surprised because Matt has appeared in a couple of other Naked Bros. Band episodes. Sorta like how Kanye West gave his few non musical appearances to shit like The Cleveland Show.

So, what's Matt's evil plan here? Well aside from being degraded to an uber cartoony villain, he has decided to steal the hair off of everyone's heads. Apparently, the band is able to apprehend Matt because, somehow, they're superheroes (and it's not something that's discovered, it's immediately revealed within the first two minutes.) All else that happens is some forgettable filler involving the dad of the Wolffs, the impression that jazz is apparently worse than nu metal and some gender politics, back before it got raped to the extent it did today.

The plot is a mixed bag for me. On one hand, it's straight-forward, and I do like how they tried to do something original (it's rare to see a plot line involving stealing hair), but on the other hand, I'd appreciate the special more if I was younger, like when I was when I first saw this, so it got me there.)

One thing that kinda bugs me is how quick they are to condemn jazz. I don't mean it like it's a fleeting reference they do for some reason, but like it's common enough to the point it feels like they're trying to make some kind of statement out of it. The ironic thing is that Matt Pinfield had little to no involvement with jazz, him being a radio host who had closer involvement to alternative rock (and Limp Bizkit while I'm on the topic)

Maybe this was just how Matt was portrayed in the show, I haven't seen every episode so maybe I'm horribly wrong. Though personally I think this would've been a bit more interesting if Fred Durst served as the antagonist, because we could all agree that their music is enough to bring hands to ears.

Animation

Given that this is an animated adaptation of a predominately live action show, you'd expect the animation to be incredibly cheap, and that would be furthered by the fact that the animation was produced in-house. But surprisingly, that's not the case, by much, the animation is interesting, to say the least.

A general idea on what the special looks like.

The special employs a mix between 2D and 3D animation. The characters are in 2D and are fluid enough to avoid the el-cheapo dishonor, while most active set-pieces are in 3D. Surprisingly, they mend well together, I'm impressed. Though personally, I like the backgrounds more. Everything is warm-colored and it's pretty easy on the eyes. If the environments suck, you won't find any reason to keep watching whatever you're watching.

I think the reason I was reluctant to go back to this was because this special reminded me of a really shit music video I watched with similar animation. Here it is...

Overall

I guess I have a greater tolerance for stuff like this. I could accept the general stupidity of the plot, namely because of the lack of a major cringe factor, the animation itself is not too bad, and this made for a nice little discussion on something that's just a fleeting memory for many people.