Episode Review: Rhonda's Glasses

Whenever I do a review on television shows, I tend to focus on the show itself rather than certain episodes. If I judge an entire show based on what occurs in one episode, it wouldn't be fair to the show. I normally don't cover single episodes because few exist that get to me. But trust me, some do, and I'm going to focus on one that really gets to me. Consider this an experiment, I want to see how well I could do with episode reviews, I won't give a summary of every plot point unless I need to provide context, there will be spoilers, and I'm bound to strike nerves with people who have nothing against it.

Preface

Not too long ago, I made a brief essay regarding a Hey Arnold! character I didn't like, it being Rhonda. Let's face it, episodes centered around her are predictable once you figure out the patterns in them, she doesn't really learn anything and I question why she associates with the main gang when she is quick to make complaints about personal hinderances. This has been in the back of my mind for a while, and I've debated what Rhonda-centric episode I wanted to cover. After some consideration and honing in on the more positive aspects of many episodes, I found the perfect candidate.

Rhonda's Glasses is a blend between the typical rotten behavior of the character, mixed with a social political slant. The episode is a homage to Rosa Parks, and if you know the story behind it, save for race being the focal point, it's practically beat for beat. Personally, I'd consider this a hybrid of Rosa Parks and Melvin Van Peebles' Watermelon Man (basically about a racist white man becoming black and going through the turmoil African Americans experience.)

The stand-in for race is social status. Basically, if you're geeky (bonus points if you wear glasses), you're not allowed up front. Yeah, wasn't kidding about how obvious of a node to Rosa Parks this was. I'll give it this, our stand in for Parks is no better. I'd normally make a joke about how someone like Sheena or Eugene would be Parks, but the title pretty much gave it away. Apparently Rosa Parks was a snobbish pain in the ass who woke up black and decided to get some social cred back by starting an argument on the bus, why else would we get someone as suited as Rhonda? All else I could say about this scene is that it introduces animation's first transsexual (seriously, I don't know if it's a boy or a girl, has a skirt but a lack of feminine features.), or maybe it's non-binary? 

We got the Rosa Parks allegory out of the way, so what about the Watermelon Man one? Well, P.S. 118 is hosting an eye exam, Rhonda fails and has to wear glasses. It's a more realistic take on Watermelon Man, hold the racial slant. As you'd expect, Rhonda takes this incredibly poorly, and I take it we're supposed to feel sorry for her? Yeah I get it, it's hard being at the top, one time I had to wait an extra few to get my soy latte because the cashier had to break open a coin roll. My life partner had to talk me out of cutting vertically.

The next day, Rhonda gets a taste of her own medicine, and we're introduced to someone I'd like to dub, Strawma'am. I call her that not because she's forgettable, but because she was never given an actual name, at least to my knowledge. I'm referring to her as a strawman because the few times she speaks is when the writers want to make Rhonda look better by comparison. To better explain, she only spoke in this episode and Polishing Rhonda, both times when Rhonda was in eyeshot. Personally, I'm rooting for Strawma'am, for one she has better taste in shoes and goes about the social order better than Rhonda could ever hope to achieve.

Naturally, Rhonda goes through what the geeks go through, which include sitting at a table with a wobbly leg, getting routinely teased, not getting good quality kickballs and losing play areas. Rhonda also goes through some inconsistency. Apparently she was able to see fine in previous episodes, but now she can't do it as well. What is this? Karma? After a whole day (mind you, it was a rough day from the eyes of the snoot.), Rhonda decides to rally against the upper class and everyone laughs at the blatant irony- I mean they join her side. I have so much to say about this, but we're almost home, and we need as much context as we could.

It culminates in another exchange between Rhonda and the ma'am of straw. Throughout this, the strawma'am tries to keep things rational, heck, she implies that she didn't make the rule, she just followed what's established. Yada yada yada, Rhonda virtue signals her way into the hearts of the ignorant, nobody brings up her hypocrisy (come on, she's a regular character and nobody knows shit?) and Strawma'am probably got harassed to the point she had to switch schools or return under a new identity (hence her going from blonde to brunette for future appearances.)

But wait, it gets even better. The next day, Rhonda re-encounters the non-binary kid and glamorizes wearing glasses. Perhaps now she's sending the good looking to the back, she's already reverted back to her old self, to the delight of people who only saw the surface of the previous scene, and I hope next time she gets zits and freckles. But no, she just got contacts and resumed her reign of raping the snob trope, because like many bad renditions of this archetype, they have no self-awareness.

===============

I could live with Rhonda reverting to her old self even before the episode ends, but when you make an episode where she fights for equality, it's pretty damn ignorant. Having someone like Rhonda lecture someone on the treatment of lower social classes is like Rage Against the Machine lecturing people on corporate dominance (pro-tip, never sign to a major label if you want to follow in the footsteps of Rage, and don't originate out of Southern California either.), or if you want to be more in tune, think of an African American lecturing rich white people on the treatment of blacks in the ghetto, even though said lecturer lives in a gated community with a Rolls Royce, a Bentley and a Lamborghini in her garage. Why act like you care about the lower people when you're either not nor were you ever one of them.

You want to teach people about equal treatment? You want to allude to key historical moments? That's perfectly fine, its been done in the past and it's been done well, but it all comes crashing down when you use the wrong character to push your message. Rhonda was the worst possible character to use as our protagonist, all she did was whine and well, be herself. Come to think of it, I wouldn't be shocked if Rhonda implemented that geek check in the first place. She's the epitome of a safe-spacer (inviting people that never opposed you to a party.), she's selfish (caring more about her outfit even though she was playing a contact sport and sucking ass at bowling because, oh dear, nails will be broken), she sees most people as a means to an end (using Patty to help her graduate first at a polishing school because your own hubris led to a lie saying so.), among many other overlooked sins. You're probably wondering, well who else could've been the focus in this episode if Rhonda was apparently so awful?

Well, what about Eugene? In spite of his jinx and social standing, he's still confident and very extroverted. He could've killed the racial tension with kindness, showing that we're all human deep down (yeah I know, the inside that counts is becoming overdone.) Or what about Sheena? Her aunt was the nurse that caused Rhonda's internal suffering in the first place. Perhaps Sheena could show that even with glasses, people can still be cool and generally good people. Oh, excuse me, forgot the football-headed elephant in the room. Arnold had little to no presence in this episode. He could've set the record straight on the whole thing, and I mean get Rhonda to get off her high horse and actually try to improve and stick with it, while also putting an end to that asinine fashion rule.

You may be thinking that Rhonda was the sole reason this episode wasn't very good, but, I do have some other reason. It missed a good opportunity to properly talk about racism. People tend to herald Hey Arnold! as one of the few kids shows to touch upon real world issues, but at its core, it didn't reach that far. I don't know if it was because of network interference or pressure from activists, but many issues are narrowed down to issues that only vaguely resemble legitimate ones. They could've just as easily made an episode about racism, Static Shock did it and that came out not long after this.

I hate this episode because it watered down a legitimate social issue and put the focus on someone who instigated the issue in the first place. It's like a 4Kids dub in how ridiculous it is. Or hell, if we got all races to go to the back of the bus for wearing glasses or what not it may be even worse than basic racism, it'd be racism with a hint of bourgeoisie.  

Obviously I'm not against nerdy people, heck I'm a bit of a nerd when it comes to many things. For the physical appearances, sometimes things happen to our eyes and faces that are beyond our control. If we judge anyone based on looks alone, we might as well be alone for the rest of our lives. Heck, if I were in that episode I'd just go to the back of the bus on my own volition, no way would I give someone like Rhonda the satisfaction of silent support (then again, they may have issues with neckbeards and pedo-stashes.)

TL;DR, they had the wrong person stress a message of equality, and Hey Arnold! really chickened out on talking about a legitimate issue full stop.

Spotlight Australia II: The Canadian Joints

A while back, I touched upon a few Australian cartoons that peaked my interest. I mainly did that because I didn't see myself making a full review of any of those shows. I've decided to make a sequel to the list because there're shows I've been hoping to cover, but I feel a long review is unjustified for each. Also, these shows happen to be Canadian/Australian co-productions.

The most interesting aspect about these shows is that they're prime examples of programs that receive funding from their respective governments. This is best represented in the closing credits where you see credits for financial units and government organizations like Film Victoria or the Canadian Film Fund. I’d say that’s tax payer money put to good use.

So, let's begin.

Yakkity Yak

I'm just gonna get this out of the way. Few people like this show, I do. Yakkity Yak lasted for twenty six episodes between 2002 and 2003, two segmented episodes of course. You might've caught this show on Nickelodeon years ago, possibly on Nicktoons Network during their golden age. Forgettable nature aside, I don't hate this show.

Yakkity Yak aired on Teletoon in Canada and Nickelodeon's Australian channel, airing on the former's home base in the US. The show was created by Mark Gravas, one of two of his only major television efforts. I covered the other one, CJ the DJ, in the first Spotlight Australia. He also directed Casper's Scare School, which as of now is the second best Casper movie thanks to the sheer shit factor of Casper's Haunted Christmas. Gravas was based in Australia and produced the show through his Kapow Pictures label.

From Canada, the show received assistance from Studio B Productions. I bring them up because it was at this point they transitioned into their flash phase. Their previous productions were known for their simplistic character designs and fluid animation, while from here through to their demise, their shows had floaty flash animation, where the characters looked like they were 2D models pasted onto three-dimensional storyboards. For a general idea on what I'm talking about, key examples of the style lie in here, Being Ian, George of the Jungle, Ricky Sprocket: Showbiz Boy and those early Edgar and Ellen shorts.

Well by motion anyways.

One of the more interesting facts about the show is that it's based on the song Yakety Yak by The Coasters. Obviously, the first time I heard the song was on this show, so when I heard the actual song while watching The Great Outdoors, it was a bit of a mindfuck. One one hand, they took the yak portion quite literally and sorta threw everything they could onto the storyboard. On the other hand, yakety is a metaphor for the talkative nature of our protagonist, and both could represent daily life from the eyes of a youth.

Basically, the show centers on Yakkity Yak, an aspiring comedian who either causes trouble through his nativity, or is along for the ride. He lives in a world where anthropomorphic creatures and humans co-exist with one another. There's a bit of variety with each of them, notably Yakkity's friends which consist of a human girl named Lemony and an anthropomorphic pineapple named Keo. They fall under the wacky leader, straight man, abrasive girl archetypes, though admittedly, it's done well enough to the point I could at least get through the plot. There's also an occasionally seen fourth character, a robot named Penelope. This came out before My Life as a Teenage Robot, and given how polluted that fandom has become, I view episodes with her (and by extension, Whatever Happened to... Robot Jones) as an outlet for machine on human interactions. Other than that, it's a basic collection of comedic episodes, verbatim when compared to other shows with this format. 

So what's keeping me from lumping this in with the likes of Squirrel Boy? Well, it's quite easy on the eyes. They went for a 60s aesthetic with the design, which is ironically harder to pull off than a basic modern day setting. It's almost like a storybook in some areas, helps to make the show pop out more. Plus, given the influx of bizarre character choices, I could give Gravas the benefit of the doubt and say he wanted to try his hardest to make something original.

Since this is a Canadian joint, by nature I'm going to discuss the actors. Lee Tokar stars as Yakkity. He gives an intentionally obnoxious flair to Yakkity, but it is fairly easy on the ears. Plus it compliments the yak aesthetic (big noses, stuffy voice), Brian Drummond, aka one of the earliest voices of Knuckles the Echidna, voices Keo, and I dunno, the voice fits. Andrea Libman voices Lemony, and bear in mind this was years before she found her stride in voicing Pinkie Pie. As this is a Vancouver production, we have some verbatim actors like Scot McNeil and Tabitha St. Germain, but keeping their range in mind, they do their roles well.

There's little for me to hate about this series, then again I'm not one of those wannabes who hold the mentality that everything unknown is bad.

Moving on.

Zeke's Pad

I imagine this was discovered in some vault and was intended to be released in the early-2000s. I'll let this teaser image speak for itself.

Zeke's Pad is like a hybrid between Chalkzone and Penny Crayon. Aka, it's one of those drawings come to life affairs. How differently does this do the concept? Well it's limited to a specialized pad in the possession of our titular protagonist. Per airings, this turned up on YTV in Canada and Seven Network in Australia.

The series centers on Zeke using his art pad to try and get his way on something, only for it to gradually backfire and leading to him learning a lesson. He has to put up with his militaristic tidy mother Ida, the classical music lover and violinist Alvin, the aspiring actor Rachel and the jock-like Ike. Before you think of it, these characters aren't entirely confined to their stereotypes, there's still some noticeable dimensions you could find in most episodes.

For instance, Zeke isn't a trouble seeker, and he typically only acts when provoked. He's more than willing to throw away his aspirations to do the right thing after his plans go awry, and he feels more genuine than most other characters that fall under this trope. The show does a good job at presenting moral lessons, but maybe that's where it went wrong, and why it fell under the cracks.

Okay, now let's address the neo-punk elephant in the room. The animation is... something. It's cel-shaded CGI, which amounts to 3D animation with a 2D aesthetic. Not to mention, everyone has weird hair colors. This wouldn't look out of place in a skatepark or a nu metal music video. The animation was produced by Bardel Entertainment, better known for Viva Piñata. Their shows vary, whether they be straight-up CGI or cheap as hell 2D efforts like Mother Up and Edgar and Ellen. Two other companies are credited to this, but I don't know the full extent of their contributions to the show.

The show stars Michael Adamthwaite, who voiced a character in Firehouse Tales, a show I briefly covered in my Tickle U retrospective. You see why I talk about Canadian actors a great deal? You never know who you'd find in these shows. Tabitha St. Germain returns again, as the voice of Ida, once more putting those chops to good use. The only other main actors are Chiara Zanni, who voiced the lead character in What About Mimi? and Trevor Devall, the second voice of Dukey from Johnny Test.

This is like the 3D counterpart to Yakkity Yak, where the show is forgettable, but at least it has a style that can stick in your head. Plus it serves its purpose to teach basic morals in an interesting way.

John Callahan's Quads

I mention the creator by name because, aside from it actually being the full title, this was by the same guy who created Pelswick. One obvious tell between both is that they centered on crippled men, though this one hits closer to the home of the creator.

To get you up to speed, Callahan's focus on crippled characters is based on the fact that he himself is a quadriplegic. Happened in a car accident years before he got into animation (and if you want to know what that was like for him, he drew the characters by planting the pencil between both hands. It's hard to poke fun at the art style of his shows, because you'd literally be picking on a handicapped person. This one stands out from Pelswick, in that it shows off Callahan's more twisted side.

Callahan was never the most politically correct person out there. His works were often derided for their taboo subject matter, but that didn't stop him from dabbling in kids programming. Callahan died in 2010, and sadly his legacy has worn thin. But luckily I'm around to pick up the pieces. As for this show, it aired on Teletoon in Canada and SBS in Australia. Supposedly, it turned up on Adult Swim and HBO at some point, but I'm going to take that with a grain of salt until I get more evidence. The show was produced by Media World Features (who also produced Dogstar, covered in SA 1) and Nelvana Limited.

I wasn't kidding when I said this was closer to the life of the creator. Callahan got crippled in a car accident, perpetuated by drinking, he had to fight to quit alcoholism, the main character goes through the same thing here, with Callahan's macabre wit to boot. Reilly O'Reilly is crippled and is given a mansion by the man who ran him over to avoid legal litigation, and takes in his big breasted Earthly girlfriend Franny, a blind black man, a handless masseur and one who's just a head on a table. I'm stopping here because this is one of those edge before substance shows. It fits the creator, sure, and I don't mind it, but I guess people'd find a way to bitch about it. It's still better than Drawn Together.

A preface

One interesting aspect of this show is that it's one of the first television shows to be animated in flash. Mucha Lucha was given this honor, but that came out in 2002, this came out in 2001. Seemingly this came about to maintain connections between the Australian and Canadian units behind this, budgetary issues may be the tell here. This leads to what looks to be unfinished animation, with basic backgrounds and the like. I kinda like it, it takes balls to have something like that air.

The show has few actors I recognize. The few I know are Terri Hawkes, aka the original voice of Sailor Moon as Fanny and Linda Kash as a recurring character. I know Kash from Almost Naked Animals and Scaredy Squirrel, though she also appeared on Seinfeld at some point. This is the first Canadian-Australian show on this list to include an Australian actor, Matthew King. I know him from Dogstar as well, okay I saw he voiced a character on it via IMDb.

View at your own risk.

Pixel Pinkie

Here's something a bit more infamous. If you followed Mr. Enter during the Where's the Fair Use fiasco, you'd know about a debacle he had with the production company behind Pixel Pinkie, where they took down a review of an episode he covered. The result of this is that now every episode has a strong dislike ratio for the episodes posted onto YouTube, and it's sitting at a miserable 2 out of 10 on IMDb.

Apparently this did air on television, on the Nine Network and ABC Me. This show is not just a Canadian/Australian joint, but the United Kingdom threw their hat into this as well, though the extent is up in the air. In spite of Canada supposedly aiding in production, they wouldn't get this show until around 2014, where it aired on Teletoon (proof needed.)

The plot is out there. It seems simple enough, but that's only if you don't bother summing up the characters. To sum up, Nina, a girl with hippie parents moves to a new school, befriends the average nerdy sidekick and rams horns with the popular clique. What's special about it? Well there's a fixation on cellphones, and Nina gets one that contains a digitized genie. Ah it's on the tip of my tongue, ah, the wishes go horribly wrong and Nina attempts to resolve them, every episode.

I'm going to be honest, I only skimmed through a few episodes, I never caught the parts with the titular Pixel Pinkie, but maybe I'm doing myself a favor. None of the characters are interesting, and when it goes to the main characters, that's bad. If I find myself favoring the clique, that's worse. Speaking of the clique, they're not stereotypically obnoxious. They're like more calculating versions of Courtney Grippling of As Told by Ginger, seemingly less intent on making Nina miserable, and more or less just curious about her.

Nun gud

Let's just get this out of the way, for something out of 2009, it's one of the lowest offerings flash cartoons have to offer. The irised eyes remind me of Atomic Betty, and I absolutely hate that show. The movements are rather choppy and the backgrounds are rather simple. If this was something posted on Newgrounds or YouTube, I'd forgive this for sure, but as a television series, Australia doesn't have its priorities as high as other countries. You can make something good with flash animation, there're plenty of enjoyable flash shows, but for here, it hits the black area outside of the dartboard.

Overall, had it not been for the flagging fiasco, this would've fallen under my radar. It is certainly the worst show covered on this entry, but ironically, I'd go back to this before I go back to I Got a Rocket.

Channel Umptee-3 review

I dunno how to preface this, so bear with me. Norman Lear worked on a cartoon a while back. I don't mean an animated adaptation of one of his shows, no, an original production, a show that is certainly not within the range presented in his previous works. At first I was confused, but after realizing what network it aired on, it honestly made a lot more sense.

History

Okay, to say Lear created this show is a stretch. He didn't create it per-say, but he did produce it, his company, Act III Productions, is within the credits. I don't know how Lear got involved in this, but for all I know he wanted to experiment with new show possibilities after a number of productions that didn't live up to his more famous works. Given that many of you probably never heard of this show, it's safe to say this was in vein, so much so that Lear didn't do anything until nearly a decade later with a reboot of One Day at a Time.

Aside from the creator's vanity card, the only other studio involved with this was Adelaide Productions, Sony's flagship television animation studio. Basically, Sony, then Columbia Tristar Television, was a third-party distributor, meaning that they could work with any network at any time. The show aired on Kids WB! and I stated this made sense because, looking back, Kids WB! had a lot more creative freedom, this went for any non-major network, which is why the more out-there and underrated series are found on networks like those. This is obviously one of those shows.

This show is also notable, mainly due to its obscurity. To this day, only four episodes have surfaced, and apparently their survival is so dire that people uploaded episodes onto the Internet Archive for safety.

Structure

Something tells me Lear, or whoever headlined this, had E/I compliance on the mind. This is an educational show, let's be clear. The series centers on an ostrich named Ogden who creates a television network to showcase the wonders of the world, well, wonders from the eyes of someone who had his head in the ground for a prolonged period of time. Episodes work like this, something mundane is brought up, and the episode is panned out with schtick, the occasional musical number, some informative bits and a subplot featuring the most hackneyed antagonist in existence.

The antagonist is Stickley Rickets, his schtick is that he believes everything should be kept in a box, and the sole reason he hates Ogden and co. is that they encourage people to take things out of boxes. Okay, on the surface this sounds like total crap, but I think I get the idea behind this. Rickets' fixation on keeping things in boxes is a metaphor for closed-mindedness, where he hates when people want to be curious over the world around them. Pity he's pinned as a generic tycoon who's possibly senile. A modern day example would be Ruth Ginsburg, Nancy Pelosi and Maxine Waters.

Going by the episode, it seems to owe a bit to Animaniacs, skit wise, but it lacks the wit of that show, so is the way with every comedy ever, though it does work in a different way. It found a way to blend entertainment with fun. Everything happens for the sake of humor, but nothing is made up for the sake of convenience, with general facts presented throughout. There does seem to be some blatant framework, where the episode begins with a debate over discussing a certain topic before Ogden forgets about it and tackles something that interests him. Fortunately, he is ignorant to the world around him, so I could easily chalk this up to genuine awe and curiosity on his part.

Before I forget, there's another interesting aspect. Interspersed with the cartoon is stock footage, relevant to what's said or the topic of the day. This does help give it its own identity among the more forgettable educational shows.

Animation

The quality of a Sony show depends on who they outsource it too. The more out-there shows owe their visage to Everett Peck (Jumanji and Sammy), some shows commissioned Mook Animation, behind those D2V Scooby-Doo flicks and Men in Black: The Series (possibly Extreme Ghostbusters), the rest are up in the air. This one is special.

In that it stands out from its repitore.

The overall design looks simplistic, seemingly owing to the visual sensibilities of classic Warner Bros. cartoons. I forgive this, because I think people would remember this for a whole other reason if it had the same visuals as Extreme Ghostbusters.

Acting

The show features a mix between live-action actors and known American voice actors. One of the most notable ones is Rob Paulson as Ogden. Admittedly, the character is very bearable, which made the show more of the same. I bring him up because Paulson would return to voice the main character in another Kids WB! show nearly eight years later. You might've heard of it, might have it seared into your brain if you caught it when it was new. Coconut Fred's Fruit Salad Island.

Overall

Would this show be responsible for derailing Norman Lear's career for nearly a decade? Is this the lowest Kids WB! sank for the sake of creative freedom? Does this deserve to be practically lost? Maybe, no, and no. For an educational show, it's actually quite bearable. It's simple, it's about opening your mind to the world around you and not boxing yourself away from it, and they carried out in a unique way. This is another example of a show that properly mended education with fun, as it can work in educational bits without derailing the plot. Ogden is also bearable in this, and I bring this up because by law the main character can make or break a show.

So why did this bomb? Well, maybe Kids WB! was the wrong choice to air an educational show. A network dedicated to action and Pokemon wouldn't mend well with a show where education is a prime principal. Personally, I'd rather have more of this than Teen Titans, which would come out about 6-7 years later.

And what of Stickley none of you asked? Well he got his wish to put those Umptee guys in a box, a metaphorical box by keeping this off the internet the best he could. To that I say, if he dies, I think he should be cremated.

Casper's Haunted Christmas review

I know what you're thinking, it's too soon for me to cover a Christmas film. I wanted to save this for the holiday season, believe me I did, but after looking into the day it was released, and believe me it's batshit, as well as the fact that I didn't want to sit on this for too long since I want to clear my conscious of everything Casper related, better it be sooner than later. I need to take a shit.

I'm just gonna say right off the bat that this Christmas won't be so haunted. May this round off the Casper movies that I gave a shit about. Like Casper's Scare School, I caught this on Cartoon Network, and what really drove me to talking about this was the sudden animosity it got for its animation, and that gets to me because complaints like those overshadow more fundamental issues with the cartoon itself.

History

Following a steady decline with three live action adaptations, starting with the okay 1995 film, going down with 1997's Casper: A Spirited Beginning and I'm getting some mixed signals on Casper Meets Wendy, Harvey Comics, or whoever, decided to go for a different route for the next Casper movie.

Casper's Haunted Christmas was released in 2000, not in December, not even November, but on Halloween, because nothing says Christmas like Halloween. Okay to each their own, but if you intend to release anything on Halloween, at least give it a true semblance of horror, not the syrupy horror Casper is known for.

The animation was produced by Mainframe Entertainment, a company that has steadily become a resident punching bag due to the poor aging of their older works, but for another time.

Speaking of a Canadian studio heading this, a majority of the cast in this is Canadian. I ragged on American voice actors for wearing out their roles, but here I have a lot more to talk about. The movie was recorded in Vancouver, a prime stop for cheaper filming, and hence, a roster of immediately available actors

Casper is surprisingly voiced by an American actor, Brendon Ryan Barrett, a man who has had twelve roles in a career spanning from 1995 to 2001, though that's really because he doubled as an acting coach. Tegan Moss co-stars as the obligatory human friend that cements Casper's status as the friendly ghost. Moss had some very small roles in cartoons recorded in Vancouver, though she is mostly known for her live action works, appearing in Are You Afraid of the Dark?, The X-Files, Degrassi and Fringe, and that's just going by what I know.

But don't get me wrong, Vancouver does have its share of repetitive actors, namely Scott McNeil, Terry Klassen, Samuel Vincent, Tabitha St. Germain, Kathleen Barr, Ian James Corlett, but here's the thing... they have serious range. They make low budget shows easier to get through because they actually try to give unique voices to a bulk of their characters. Oh yeah, McNeil voices Stretch andTerry Klassen voices Stinkie. Fatso is left in the hands of Graeme Kingston, an actor who has only had two voice over roles, Fatso included. His live action roster is no better, as he had appeared in only seven productions altogether, and had disappeared after this movie. Lastly, we have Colin Murdock as Kibosh, who has a much wider filmography, especially in shows I know about. He's no James Earl Jones, which sadly means that A Spirited Beginning has an objective advantage.

There is one more interesting tidbit, to promote the film, Baskin Robbins had an ice-cream flavor made available. It says it's Casper-themed, so I don't know what they did with it, maybe it's just a fancy way of saying plain vanilla. Apparently for most VHS copies you could get a coupon for a free ice cream sundae. Perfect for kids who're smart enough to read between the lines of a verbatim family movie involving a verbatim protagonist living a verbatim life.

Premise

Looking at this and Casper's Scare School, I realized something. They recycled the same core aesthetics, as I go along, I'll point out connections to Scare School.

Casper's uncles haunt a drive-in movie theatre, and Casper winds up failing to show up due to his nice nature. Sorta like Casper's uncles going on a scare route around town and Casper missing it due to helping his human friend with soccer practice. For here, it's because Casper was kind enough to let the ticket vendor know he needed to be in there. There's being kind for the sake of helping people out, then there's being kind enough to being a bitch to humanity.

Not going unnoticed, Snivel, the house bitch for Kibosh arrives for the obligatory reprimand, and due to the stupidity of the uncles, summons Kibosh, who instills a stricter punishment. If Casper doesn't scare anyone before Christmas Day, he will be banished to the Valley of the Sh- I mean The Dark. It wasn't enough that Casper had to go to a rehabilitation program with the Valley being an alternative that would be the ultimate punishment if Casper didn't comply, no, he needs to scare someone, with an emphasis on it happening before Christmas. They say Casper needs to scare at least one person a year, but my point stands because if it really was one person a year, the deadline would be New Years Eve.

Before I go further, and trust me, not much is worth talking about, I'd like to point out the ultimate strike against holiday movies. In the long run, a stark majority of these movies are either too sappy, or ad nauseam. We know we have to deal with an antagonist who either sees the error of his ways or greatly suffers by the end, we know of the corny songs in between, and we especially know of the sap where the action isn't. This can be applied to my views on Holiday specials in general, though this movie practically goes hard on the latter. Remember, it's Casper the Friendly AF Ghost.

Hope you have your insulin shots ready, because things are about to get more syrupy. Casper and his uncles are sent to Kriss... Massachusetts. Massachusetts. Massachusetts? Really? Points for not going with California and New York, but Massachusetts? That state is ass, you could've easily set it in, I dunno, Minnesota? Michigan? Heck Wisconsin could use some love, but Massachusetts? Oh wait, excuse me, it's all for the sake of a pun. If you take the first four letters and put it with Kriss, you can figure out the rest from here.

Keep those shots ready, Casper's human friend of the hour is... Holly Jollimore. Can you smell the creative bankruptcy? Just the fact that they went with that validates my point on the syrupy aspects of this movie. It's so syrupy that Vermont is looking like a more suitable location for this movie. But hold up, for this checks off another cliche in these specials. Holly is the Debbie Downer who's against her parents' borderline creepy fixation on Christmas, as is the way with many Christmas specials. I wonder if they'd obsess about Trump to the same extent they do with Christmas. For Holly, I would say she's a personal highlight... had it not been for the fact that she's moping because she had to move out of town/state. How many times?

You'd think there'd be a lot to cover in this movie, but trust me, all you need to know is that it involves Casper trying to balance his friendly side with having to be scary, going for the former every time. Casper obviously befriends Holly, and this doesn't bode well with the uncles who had lost their haunting licenses (forced plot device FTW) in order to motivate them into getting Casper to pull off that scare, so, they have to call on a relative for help.

The relative is named Spooky, and he has a girlfriend named Poil. Seems like he's a Brooklyn stereotype, now as a New York native, let me tell ya, times have changed. Spooky is poised as Casper and he scares Holly. If I had my way, there'd be a falling out between Casper and Holly, Casper would be hurt by this, but he'd see it as a personal sacrifice, sometimes not everything's meant to last. Casper's uncles would take pity on him and try to cheer him up somehow, but Casper would be happy knowing he could live in freedom once again.

Well, they did the first aspect, but Casper sets out to clear his name and yada yada yada, everything's the way it is meant to be, plus the uncles suffer in the end. They were obnoxious throughout.

Animation

Let's not beat around the bush, CGI animation in this era never holds up, especially if it's by a mid-budget company. Mainframe in later years utilized a mix of CG and some hand-drawn elements, but until then, we got more of this.

Yeah

What more could I say on it? It's a CGI movie from 2000, of course it won't hold up.

Overall

This is where I'd end things, but looking back over the plot of this movie, I couldn't help but think of Scare School. It really did borrow a lot of elements from this. Let's count the ways, namely where it's similar and where one does it better than the other.

• It begins with Casper and his uncles going on a scare route. Applies for both movies.
• Casper can't make it because he needs permission from a ticket vendor in this movie. In Scare School he's busy helping out his human friend with soccer practice.
• Casper gets in trouble because there needed to be a Holiday related conflict. Casper gets in trouble because he got scared by his human friend.
• Casper is immediately told about getting sent to a negative dimension if he fails. Casper is also told of the dimension in Scare School, but that's just an alternative and an ultimate punishment if Casper doesn't go through what amounts to a rehabilitation program.
• Casper's uncles seem to care more about how the punishment would affect them in this movie, along with being over-the-top assholes throughout. Casper's uncles actually give a damn about him in Scare School.
• The effect of Spooky scaring Holly has an actual emotional effect to it, though it mainly affects Holly, admittedly the fact that she's another move-away girl helps and harms this. In Scare School, the human friend seems to be more disappointed, and it affects Casper more since he actually did the scare, and it leads to a chain of events where he ultimately saves the day.
• The relative in this is a stereotype at best. The relative in Scare School, while not super important, gave Casper a personal idea on the seriousness of his punishment if he didn't comply and it helped him get to know the world he wound up in.
• We end on a sappy and borderline rushed note. In Scare School, everything's tied up well and we even get some development on Kibosh of all people.
• Scare School had an actual message, seemingly, while this is just some cheap holiday fodder.

Basically, Scare School, in spite of coming after, is a much better film compared to this. If I were to be so bold, I'd say it's the best animated Casper film, bar none. This felt painful just thinking about it, and to be honest, I went by memory for this one, and even then I feel I summed up the more crucial aspects. This movie is barren, and covered in syrup. Not to mention it has the luxury of being a Christmas film released on Halloween.

I'm Channeleven, and this was the best shit I've taken in years.