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.