Let's Watch This: An Episode of "The Little Mermaid"

As you know, The Little Mermaid is the film that pulled Disney out of its slump and got the Disney Renaissance up and running. The Great Mouse Detective and Oliver and Company helped as well, but The Little Mermaid - THAT was the film that really got theatrical animated movies seen as something worth doing again. If it weren't for The Little Mermaid, we might not have gotten The Lion King. Or Beauty and the Beast. Or Frozen, or Tangled, or maybe even Toy Story.

So let's go back in time to 1992. The Disney Renaissance is going on, Beauty and the Beast was successful, Aladdin is going to be released in November. Disney knows that people love The Little Mermaid, I'm sure Ariel dolls were still flying off the shelves. Surely there's a way to keep the movie's hype going. And Disney was just dipping its toes into making TV shows based on their animated films - The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh and TaleSpin were both successful. So why NOT make a cartoon show starring Ariel?

And thus was created The Little Mermaid... the TV show. Premiering on CBS in September 1992, the series was a prequel to the movie, taking place before Ariel met Prince Eric (since, y'know, it wouldn't make sense to call the show The Little MERMAID if the main character had legs). Jodi Benson, Pat Carroll, Samuel E. Wright, and Kenneth Mars reprised their roles as Ariel, Ursula, Sebastian, and King Triton for the show. Flounder was now voiced by Edan Gross, then Bradley Pierce (who you might recall as the voice of Chip in Beauty and the Beast), and Scuttle was now voiced by Maurice LaMarche as opposed to Buddy Hackett. There were songs, there were bad guys for Ariel to fight, there were presumably also increased sales of Ariel dolls and Flounder plushies. They even had an episode where Ariel met Hans Christian Anderson, who for those unaware wrote the original Little Mermaid story. Neat, huh?

Three seasons, making for a total of thirty-one episodes, were produced of The Little Mermaid. Since its run on CBS, reruns have aired on Disney Channel, Toon Disney, and Disney Junior. A couple episodes were released on VHS and DVD, and now you can find the whole show, except the pilot movie for some reason, on Disney Plus. I've watched the show before - first via reruns (I recall my older sister loved The Little Mermaid at some point, it might have been her favorite Disney movie but don't quote me on that) then at some point in the 2010s I found episodes of the show on YouTube. From what I recall, it's a pretty good show. Since I'm probably going to be looking at all of these Disney shows adapted from their movies at some point on this blog (I already did Aladdin, 101 Dalmatians, and Hercules, you'll recall), I might as well give this show a review too. I'm tempted to do a review of the episode where Sebastian turns into a giant, or the one where Ariel encounters dinosaurs (this show could get pretty out there), but nah, I'll do the seventeenth episode, "Save the Whale", instead. This is The Little Mermaid!

First of all - no, this episode does not focus on Ariel becoming a member of Greenpeace or trying to prevent whales from beaching themselves. A shame, because the more we can do to spread awareness of whale conservation, the better. To learn more about saving the whales, visit this website.

The episode starts off with Ariel, Flounder and Sebastian on the surface of the water... which, as the movie establishes, is a big no-no for Ariel because her father does not want her to get caught by humans, lest she wind up served as an entree at a Red Lobster or mounted to a plaque on somebody's wall singing novelty songs (you're welcome for that mental image). But then a shark fin pops out of the water and comes their way!

Dah-dun, daaaaaaaah-dun, daaaaaaaaaaah-dun...

Oh, wait. It's not a shark fin. It's the fin of an orca. And not just ANY orca - Spot, the orca who Ariel met in the aforementioned pilot movie. One look at his Casper the Friendly Ghost-shaped head and his weird bulbous human-esque nose (which Flounder also has, have you ever noticed?) and Ariel is overjoyed.

Y'know what this reminds me of? Did anyone else have Brother Bear on DVD? I recall there was a game part of the bonus features where you could put together fossils, and then once the fossil was complete, the narrator would tell you about the animal that fossil came from accompanied by clips of a Disney production featuring that animal. One of those animals was an orca, and the clips you'd receive were of Spot from this show. If you also had that DVD and played that game, well, there's your daily dose of nostalgia for the day.

He reminds me of the octopus from that animated Titanic movie.

King Triton shows up, and he says that he hopes they don't have a repeat of the previous time Spot visited. Ariel assures him that this time, Spot will stay outside the palace. "Good. Better make it outside of Atlantica as well," King Triton suggests. Ariel asks why everyone is so afraid of orcas.

Well, Ariel, orcas might look cute - particularly when they have big round heads and bulbous human noses like Spot does - but they are carnivorous. They are sometimes referred to as "wolves of the sea" because they live and hunt together in pods (which is what a group of whales is called) much like a pack of wolves. Among the things an orca can and will eat include fish, walruses, seals, sea lions, penguins (as Happy Feet showed us), sea turtles, sharks, and even other kinds of whales, and the average-sized orca can eat about five hundred pounds of food a day. There. Now you can't say you've never learned anything from one of my reviews.

I don't think orcas eat human beings, but I imagine Ariel's being half-human half-fish makes things
a bit more complicated. Maybe he'd just eat her tailfin?

"I know Spot wouldn't hurt anyone. I'm just not sure Spot knows it," King Triton tells her. Ariel seems pretty sure, though, and starts teaching Spot how to do fancy leaping-out-of-the-water tricks. After this, Spot went on to star in Free Willy.

Boy, that's the chubbiest orca that I've ever seen. He should really lay off the walruses...

While leaping out of the water, Spot is spotted (see what I did there?) by two sailors, one of whom looks very much like Jasper from One Hundred and One Dalmatians. "Just what I've been looking for," the Jasper lookalike says. "Something to make Pettigrew's Penguin Park a real money-maker." Then he lets out an evil chortle, making it pretty clear who the episode's bad guy is going to be.

Dr. Doofenschmirtz, before he went crazy and devoted his life to fighting a platypus.

Ariel wants to introduce all of Atlantica to Spot, but King Triton isn't sure - most of Atlantica's residents are afraid of orcas (since most of Atlantica's residents are sea creatures, and orcas are also sea creatures, would this be considered some sort of underwater racism?). Ariel says that if everyone sees Spot perform tricks, they'll see that they have nothing to fear. "We'll do it out in the Shallows! Away from Atlantica!" she insists. "Oh, it'll be great!" King Triton agrees to let Ariel have her little undersea carnival, with Flounder as a shark-tamer and Sebastian as the ringmaster.

The carnival... well, technically it's more of a circus, but apparently the writers thought circuses and carnivals were the same thing... begins with a kickline of octopuses.

I wonder if they had any difficulty deciding which tentacle to kick.

A squid juggles sea urchins, Flounder attempts to tame a tiger shark (and fails at it), and Spot performs his leaping-out-of-the-water tricks. I'm trying so hard not to make another Free Willy reference... you know what, I'll make a reference to Moby Lick from Street Sharks instead. In hindsight, isn't it kind of funny that Moby was an orca and yet it was another character on that show, the whale shark mutant, who was named "Slammu"? Wouldn't it have made more sense to name the orca "Slammu"?

The Atlanticans like Spot - they really, really like Spot.

Hey, look, it's that fish from Pinocchio.

But then a b-b-b-b-BOAT shows up overhead. Sebastian tries to stop Spot from getting too close, but they both wind up getting caught. Ariel and Flounder swim off after the boat.

Is it just me, or does the water look really polluted?

The boat, of course, belongs to the Jasper lookalike, Pettigrew, and the other sailor, Tom... who is revealed to be Pettigrew's son. Pettigrew has a son? So somebody actually married this guy? Boy, and I thought Bluto having a wife was hard to wrap my head around...

They bring Spot (and Sebastian) to Pettigrew's Penguin Park, which is kind of like SeaWorld, except it's EEEEEEEEEE-VIL! They've also captured the penguins from Mary Poppins. Good to know they survived when the rain washed away that chalk drawing...

"I told you guys we should've stayed in the chalk drawing. But NOOOOOOOOOO... 'Let's take
a vacation,' you said. 'We could go to Denmark, I hear it's nice this time of year,' you said..."

"Look on the bright side, David. It could be worse."

"Yeah, we could be forced to appear in a direct-to-video sequel with a walrus who's just Pumbaa
from The Lion King in all but name and species."

"...how do you even know who Pumbaa is? This is 1992. The Lion King hasn't been released yet."

"I'm telling you, Tom, once we get this big fella trained, he'll make my penguin park a WHALE of a show!" Pettigrew declares. Tom thinks that Spot is too young to train, but Pettigrew claims that the younger a whale you capture and try to turn into the next Shamu is, the sooner they forget about the ocean and the sooner you get rich, rich, rich. It should be clear by now what Pettigrew's motivation is...

...aaaaaaaaaand now I wish they'd gotten Eric Idle to do this guy's voice. And given him a musical number.

He doesn't have that whip because he's a fan of Devo.

"Dad, don't you care about anything but making money?" Tom asks. "Of course I do! I care about PENGUINS!" Pettigrew insists. And speaking of penguins, they comfort Spot over the whole "stuck in an evil version of SeaWorld" thing. Isn't it kind of funny how in this show, the crabs and fish can talk, but the whales and penguins can't? Of course, in the movie there was a shark who didn't talk... I wonder why some sea animals are capable of speech but others don't seem to be.

Ariel and Flounder make it to Pettigrew's Penguin Park (I'm tempted to start calling it "PPP") by nightfall. Now they just have to figure out how to get by that big wooden fence... the obvious answer is "just swim under it", but for some reason they don't think of that. Maybe it's because they're too distracted by the fireworks...

Wow, Ariel, that's quite a sunburn you've got there. Even mermaids have to use sunscreen,
ya know.

Fortunately, the gate opens up so a boat full of people can enter the park, allowing Ariel and Flounder to swim inside.

Which is good, because apparently swimming under the gate isn't an option after all...

Pettigrew puts on his show, forcing the penguins to do tricks for a cheering crowd. Ariel finds a glum-looking Spot. Where's Sebastian? Pettigrew decided to make him part of the show as well - as Crabby, the ever-so-creatively-named Tap-Dancing Crustacean. Don't worry, Sebastian, this ISN'T the most humiliating moment of your life. You still have two lousy direct-to-video sequels to appear in.

Sebastian's Michigan J. Frog impression is always a crowd pleaser.

Then it's Spot - or, as Pettigrew calls him, "Gargantua" - to perform. Sebastian is horrified to discover that Ariel and Flounder are there, presumably because he believes that if Pettigrew sees them he'll force THEM to be in the show as well. Or maybe he'll sell Ariel off to a circus sideshow or something.

Fortunately, seeing Tom turn the wheel that opens and closes the door to Spot's corral gives Ariel an idea. They'll wait until they open the gate to let the boats out, then Ariel will somehow get the door to Spot's corral open, then Spot - with Sebastian sitting on his back - will make a swim for it, with Ariel and Flounder right behind him. It all goes off without a hitch, but wouldn't you know it, Pettigrew sees this going on and he's all "THE WHALE, IT IS GETTING AWAY!"

"AND HE'S GOT MAH DENTURES!"

And on top of that, Spot can't bear to just leave those poor penguins behind. Fortunately, Tom decides to let the penguins go.

"So long, Pettigrew! We're going back to our chalk drawing!"

But Pettigrew decides to actually do something instead of just standing there looking agitated in his purple suit and closes the gate. Gee, I wonder if Spot will use one of his leaping-out-of-the-water tricks to just jump over the gate... yep, that's exactly what he does. I don't know if an orca can actually jump that high, but it's a cartoon, just go with it.

Is this supposed to be an E.T. reference? Probably not, since nobody's on a bike...

"That was one WHALE of a LEAP!" Sebastian exclaims. The episode did that joke already, Sebastian. And then guess who shows up? King Triton, making a hilarious facial expression.

"I am not amused."

Fortunately, all it takes for him to calm down is for Ariel to say that she had to save Spot to save him the trouble of doing it. Then they find a pod of orcas, meaning that it's time for Spot to go back to his own kind. The penguins go with him... I sure hope none of those other orcas are hungry. And that's about it.

What's the Verdict?

Like with the other Disney cartoons based on their animated movies, I personally think The Little Mermaid holds up quite well. The animation, while obviously a downgrade from the movie, is still pretty good. Everyone is in-character. The voice actors all do a good job. And the Mary Poppins penguins showing up is a nice touch. If I do have one complaint, it's that the villain is kind of a bore, and Tom's arc isn't given much focus. Does Pettigrew even get any sort of comeuppance? Aside from, y'know, his penguins all leaving. Surely he can find MORE penguins, or another orca for that matter. But those are nitpicks. As a whole, I enjoyed this episode.

If you're a fan of the movie, give the series a watch. If you haven't seen the movie, watch it first and then check the series out. And remember - places that force aquatic animals to perform are the scum of the earth. Way to make kids feel bad about visiting the aquarium, Disney.

Let's Watch This: An Episode of "ProStars"

NOTE: Please do not take any of the little nitpicks in this review (or any of my other reviews, for that matter) seriously. I write these reviews in the hopes of making people laugh. Those nitpicks are really just dumb little observations that I'm attempting to make jokes out of, not complaints that add to whether or not I like something.

Where do I even BEGIN with this? A cartoon show about Michael Jordan, Wayne Gretzky, and Bo Jackson - three athletes who don't even play the same sport - fighting crime. What? I get it, these guys were popular in the 1990s, but that doesn't automatically mean you should make a cartoon about them.

But hey, it's not like this sort of thing is anything new. Remember that cartoon in which the Harlem Globetrotters were superheroes? Or that one cartoon starring Chuck Norris where he fought evil? Remember those shows? SOMEBODY must've thought having celebrities fight evil was a good idea for a cartoon show, but after Jackie Chan Adventures, that belief seems to have subsided. Which is good, because imagine what kind of cartoons we'd be getting today if people STILL thought that...

Okay, so ProStars was originally supposed to air on ESPN, but they decided to put it on NBC instead because I guess they realized that no kid goes to ESPN for Saturday morning cartoons. It was created by Andy Heward and Douglas Booth at DIC Entertainment and received one season of thirteen episodes. For whatever reason - presumably either the silly premise or the fact that it was competing against Garfield and Friends airing in the same time slot on CBS - it was a complete flop. But does that mean the show itself is bad? After all, if being lousy was all it takes for a cartoon to be a failure, The Cleveland Show wouldn't have gotten four seasons.

Why don't we take a look at ProStars to see if it's as bad as it sounds or a show that could've been a slam dunk if given a better time slot? We'll be watching the fifth episode, "Valley of the Snow Falcon".

The episode starts off with a weird montage of clips of Michael, Wayne, and Bo in action, neon-colored words appearing at random, and the three athletes talking to the audience about the cartoon we're about to watch. This episode, it would seem, is going to be about saving the environment.

Okay, I get the mindset here... who better to teach kids about saving the environment than Bo Jackson and Wayne Gretzky? Nobody's going to disagree with THEM. Except for stock 1990s cartoon villains, presumably.

I wonder if either of them still have the "ProStars" jacket they're wearing, or if they sold
them to a pawn shop as soon as the show was cancelled.

Then it's time for the animated part to begin, and the show is taken over by the cartoon counterparts of Michael, Wayne, and Bo... who, by the way, are not voiced by the actual Michael Jordan, Wayne Gretzky, and Bo Jackson. I don't know why that is. Maybe they were just too busy playing basketball, hockey, and football to record the dialogue? Or maybe it's because, as Space Jam demonstrates, Michael Jordan isn't much of an actor.

So instead, we've got Dorian Harewood as Michael, Dave Fennoy as Bo, and Townsend Coleman as Wayne. Wayne and Bo are having themselves a race, until Wayne winds up flying off the roof of the building they're racing on. Fortunately, Michael is there with his giant flying machine to save him. Was the intent for the flying machine to look like a giant Nike shoe, or is it just my weird mind? Michael does make a reference to Air Jordan, so make of that what you will...

I assume the real Michael Jordan does not have, nor has he ever had, a giant flying shoe.

"I hate it when this happens. The landings are always so complicated," Wayne laments as he falls, implying that he has fallen off the roof several times before. Wow, Wayne must be quite the klutz. Michael saves him, then tells him that the owner of the gym that serves as the ProStars' headquarters, Mom (voiced by Susan Silo), wants to see them.

"I swear to Walter Brown, if either of you make one more bald joke at my expense-"

"Who's Walter Brown?"

"Look it up, Bo."

Mom is not pleased by Michael's "busting up" the flying shoe, which as it turns out she invented. Fortunately, all it takes is a little flattery from Michael for her to calm down. "I know he's only sweet-talking, but he's so good at it," she admits.

Michael decided after this to stop using online dating websites.

Then in walks Denise (Diana Barrows), Mom's apprentice who Wikipedia describes as being kind of like the ProStars' groupie. She has a video from a girl named Chasay... or at least, that's how I think it's spelled. She lives near a Himalayan village called Terasue... again, I'm just guessing how it's spelled... and she needs the ProStars' help. How did her video get to the ProStars' headquarters? According to Denise, a bird brought it. Wow, and I thought storks only delivered babies. I guess they're branching out.

Actually, according to Michael Jordan, the video must have been delivered by the sacred Snow Falcon, so called that because its feathers are as white as snow.

You know the gym is owned by a girl because the walls are painted pink. If it were owned
by a boy, the walls would be painted blue.

And what's more, Michael knows that Terasue guards the entrance to a super-secret valley. The villagers there have never allowed any outsiders to enter. Bo's heard of it, too. If he and Michael both know about it, I don't think it's so super-secret after all.

Already in the Himalayas is this guy:

I don't know what his name is, but judging by the fact that he talks about how great it is to be away from the ProStars, Mom, and the gadgets that she makes for the ProStars, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that he's a recurring character. He winds up being startled by the flying shoe overhead and slides off the snowy cliff he's been climbing. When he lands at the bottom, he's covered with snow. I sure hope he doesn't get hypothermia.

The ProStars arrive in the Himalayas, where they locate Terasue (every time they say that word, I get hungry for tiramisu) and the entrance to the hidden valley. And what a welcoming committee is waiting for them - the Snow Falcon itself! Alas, it seems to be in a bad mood. I wonder what's got its feathers so ruffled... maybe it just really hates giant flying shoes?

"BRAAAAAAAAWK! I'VE ALWAYS LIKED SHAQUILLE O'NEAL BETTER!"

They manage to dodge the great white bird, but then a snowball comes hurtling towards them. They dodge it too, and Michael decides that the falcon must have been on their side because it saved them from being clobbered by a giant snowball. The source of that giant snowball? This lady and her minions:

Gee, I wonder if this is going to be the episode's main villain...

Say hello to Ice Mancuso (voiced by Tress MacNeille), a Joan Rivers soundalike who wants to get into the hidden valley and do eeeeeeeevil things to it. Specifically, she wants to build a hotel there.

"Bo knows birds, and I think that bird wants us to follow it somewhere!" Bo says, spotting the Snow Falcon again. For those unaware, this is a reference to a 1989 ad campaign for Nike shoes called "Bo Knows". The commercial had Bo doing random sports and people going "Bo knows [INSERT SPORT HERE]." And then Bo Diddley showed up. You're welcome, everyone else born after 1989.

Speaking of pop culture references, there's also an Arnold Schwarzenegger parody for some reason.

Rule of thumb: if it's a 1990s cartoon, chances are that an Arnold Schwarzenegger parody will
show up at one point.

The good guys follow the falcon through a chasm and wind up in what looks like the Ice King's summer home.

There's even a white-bearded dude dressed in blue.

As it turns out, the girl in the video is the Princess of the Valley of the Snow Falcons. Her father, the nameless king of the valley, explains to Michael, Bo and Wayne that Ice Mancuso wants to get into the valley like many have tried before to. Why? Because it's the last untouched spot on Earth - the Ice Volcano (so is that a volcano made of ice or a volcano that spews ice? If it's the former, wouldn't it melt every time lava came raining down on it?) makes it a paradise for the Snow Falcon and the multiple other rare creatures that live there. But Ice doesn't care about that - like most 1990s one-episode cartoon villains, all she thinks about is making money.

They can't destroy this place. If they do, Elsa will be homeless!

"It's game time!" Michael says, and then the three of them put on their rocket-powered skis. Honestly, skiing seems dangerous enough to me without the presence of ROCKETS making your skis go. Fortunately, Wayne has learned how to ski from watching the Olympics. Wow, I didn't know all that was needed for you to become a professional skier was to watch someone do it on TV! Hey, maybe just by watching this, I'LL become the world's best skier too!

Methinks that for Ice Mancuso, her day is all downhill from here. Get it? Downhill? Nyuck
nyuck nyuck nyuck nyuck...

We cut back to Ice and her minions. A kid wearing a parka runs up behind them and starts throwing snowballs at them. "GO AWAY! I WON'T LET YOU DESTROY THE VALLEY!" they snap (so this kid knows about the hidden valley too? I thought it was supposed to be secret). But he didn't count on the Arnold Schwarzenegger parody having a laser gun that traps whatever it zaps in ice. Okay, here's a suggestion for you, Ice: you wanna make money? Leave the valley alone and patent that gun.

Michael, Wayne, and Bo find out that everyone else in the nearby village of Terasue has been frozen in ice too. Dang it, Frozone, there are better ways to vent your frustrations than by taking them out on random civilians...

"I WAS FROZEN TODAY!"

"I WAS ALSO FROZEN TODAY!"

"WE WERE ALL FROZEN TODAY!"

"Could you hurry up and save us?! We're getting frostbite!"

The ProStars had better get started on taking down Ice, because she's finally managed to get into the valley. "IT'S TIME FOR AN OPEN HOUSE!" she shouts, continuing to sound like an evil Joan Rivers. I wonder what made them decide that their villain should sound like Joan Rivers... did she tick off a producer or something?

By the time the ProStars show up, the villains have put up a sign reading "RESORTS UNLIMITED: GIVE US PARADISE AND WE'LL GIVE YOU A PARKING LOT". Then they have to dodge that laser gun that turns things to ice. They use pocket mirrors to deflect the lasers, which promptly zap the bad guys, freezing THEM like ice pops. Now they just have to deal with Ice and the Arnold Schwarzenegger parody. They have discovered diamonds under the frozen pond, and Ice is all "To heck with the resort, let's melt the valley and get those diamonds!".

Fortunately, the ProStars heard everything on Michael's basketball with a radar dish sticking out of it. What the heck did I just type?

"Jeez, what was I thinking when I bought this hideous thing?"

"Bo knows greed, but this lady makes Attilla the Hun look like Santa Claus!" Bo claims. The ProStars can't allow Ice to ruin the valley. They must stop her. Oh, and that guy from before shows up again to get his head stuck in a rock.

How does Ice plan to melt the valley? Apparently, she has heat rockets, which she's having her goons shoot out of a cannon at the ice volcano. It's a direct hit, causing what looks like mud to start leaking out of it.

Ah, so the ice volcano DOESN'T spew lava - it's filled with orange paint!

The king tells the snow falcon to do something to stop the bad guys. Why didn't the falcon do something earlier? It's huge. It's got a sharp beak and sharp talons. It could tear Ice limb from limb! It could carry her off to Alcatraz! It could take a dump on her like a bird on a car's windshield!

Anyhow, the ProStars start fighting the guy working the cannon by launching hockey pucks and baseballs at him (Bo Johnson was a baseball player at one point too, for those wondering why it's not footballs). But it isn't until the falcon shows up that the guy flees. But Ice isn't out of the way yet - she also has a heat bomb that she's placing on the volcano, which will cause it to erupt and melt the entire valley. Wayne tells Michael and Bo to meet him at the volcano in the flying shoe - he's going to fly there on his rocket-powered skis.

"Eat your heart out, Sidney Crosby!"

They manage to carry the car that's carrying the heat bomb off the volcano via grappling hook just before it goes ka-boom. Then Mom and Denise show up so that Mom can beat up Ice and the Schwarzenegger parody, tie them up, and tell them that they're going to jail.

The valley and its people are saved. The king and his daughter thank the ProStars for their help, and the episode ends with a segment where the real Bo, Michael and Wayne answer questions from kids. Thus endeth ProStars.

What's the Verdict?

I'm kind of disappointed that this wasn't worse. I was expecting something really corny and ridiculous, one of those "so bad it's good" kind of shows. But y'know what? I actually thought it was pretty good! Decent animation, good voice acting (although Tress MacNeille's Joan Rivers impression gets grating after a while), and it actually does a good job of getting across the "protect the environment" moral without being too preachy about it. Even the animated versions of Michael, Wayne, and Bo are engaging, and I expected them to just be obnoxious Gary Stus. Too bad this only got thirteen episodes, I feel like it had potential.

If you'd like to watch ProStars for yourself, you can find episodes on YouTube and the Internet Archive. A few episodes were released on VHS in the 1990s, and I think three of 'em were released on DVD as well, but I imagine that DVD is out of print.

I do have one small complaint: it's an episode of a cartoon taking place in the Himalayas, and there wasn't even ONE yeti?! You had ONE JOB, ProStars!

Let's Watch This: An Episode of "Piggsburg Pigs!"

NOTE: Please do not take any of the little nitpicks in this review (or any of my other reviews, for that matter) seriously. I write these reviews in the hopes of making people laugh. Those nitpicks are really just dumb little observations that I'm attempting to make jokes out of, not complaints that add to whether or not I like something.

It took me a few minutes to realize that "Piggsburg" was intended to be a pun on "Pittsburgh". How embarassing is THAT?

Piggsburg Pigs! was the creation of Melissa Silverman at Ruby-Spears Productions. It premiered on FOX Kids in September 1990, receiving thirteen episodes before getting the axe. It took viewers to the town of Piggsburg, populated entirely by anthropomorphic pigs.

Our main characters, the Bacon Brothers - consisting of Bo, Portley, and Pighead - and their pet duck Quackers fight the evil plots of wolf brothers Huff and Puff, who desperately want to eat them for lunch. So at first glance, it seems like a modern take on The Three Little Pigs. But the Bacon Brothers and their pals also had to deal with supernatural danger from the spooky swamp outside of Piggsburg, the Forbidden Zone: swamp monsters, evil spirits, mummy aliens, that sort of thing. TV Tropes' page for the show mainly talks about how jarring it is to have these genuinely creepy monsters in a show with talking pigs.

Seemingly no one remembers this show. There's little to no fan art for it on DeviantArt, no other cartoon reviewers have taken a look at it, there are no articles online talking about it... zilch! It probably doesn't help that Piggsburg Pigs! never received a VHS or DVD release in the U.S. (a couple episodes were released on DVD in the U.K., though). I don't even know if there was any merchandise, aside from some McDonald's toys.

FOX Kids as a whole seems to have been home to a lot of cartoons that went nowhere. Aside from this, it also aired Zazoo U, that Little Shop of Horrors cartoon, Mad Jack the Pirate, Xyber 9: New Dawn, C-Bear and Jamal, Super Dave: Daredevil For Hire, and Cybersix - most of which ALSO only got thirteen episodes made. I don't know why so many of their cartoons didn't become bigger hits. I haven't actually watched most of them, so I have no idea if they were good or bad. It couldn't have just been the station - I mean, FOX Kids also aired stuff like Animaniacs, Where On Earth Is Carmen Sandiego, and The Tick so clearly SOMEBODY was watching the channel.

Why don't we take a look at Piggsburg Pigs! and see if we can figure out why the show was a flop? Fortunately, there are episodes uploaded to YouTube for us to watch.

Just a head's up - there are apparently a LOT of pig puns. In the intro alone, there's a sign reading "Newpork", the welcome sign for Piggsburg has "Porkulation?" written under it, and there's a car wash called "HogWash". We'll be watching the fourth episode, "Pighead's Brain". This is Piggsburg Pigs!.

The episode begins on a dark and stormy night. This charming abode is the castle of Dr. Sargasso, mad scientist. It's just sort of a rule that all mad scientists in cartoons need to live in spooky-looking castles. Since I guess living in normal houses just isn't EEEEEEEEEEEEVIL enough.

Though, to be fair, would YOU turn down the chance to live in a castle? I didn't think so.

Inside the castle, we see that Dr. Sargasso has built himself a Frankenstein's Monster knockoff, which he shall use to inflict pain and devastation on those that he hates the most. We also see that Dr. Sargasso and one of his two minions is human. So this is one of those cartoons where anthropomorphic animals coexist with humans? This raises some questions... if the pigs are anthropomorphic, are they still slaughtered to make pork products? If I lived in this world, I'd probably feel really awkward about eating bacon. 

The other minion, by the way, appears to be a cross between a werewolf and a gargoyle. I want to know this guy's story - was he just born that way, or is his weird appearance because of Dr. Sargasso's handiwork? Is there an entire species of werewolf-gargoyle hybrid beings in this world?

I also wonder what happened to Dr. Sargasso's eye.

They bring the Frankenstein's Monster knockoff to life, and Dr. Sargasso tells it that he wants revenge on the pigs of Piggsburg for banning him from their universities. Why did they ban him? Was it simply because he's not a pig? Gosh, who knew the Piggsburg Pigs were speciesist?

"I don't mean to complain, doc, but couldn't you have given me a full head of hair?"

The monster starts destroying stuff in the lab, so Dr. Sargasso and his minions have to throw a net over him. What's the problem? It's the brain they gave him - it's defective. I would make a joke here, but every joke I'm thinking of feels needlessly mean-spirited to me.

"I must get a NEW brain!" Dr. Sargasso says, and then we cut to two of the Bacon Brothers working on an invention that makes corn juice. The Art Carney-esque one says that he's got the brains for this sort of thing. Gee, I wonder if it'll be HIS brain that Dr. Sargasso attempts to steal. I don't know for sure because I don't know which pig is which. They haven't called any of them by name thus far.

I'm GUESSING this one is Pighead, but I'm not one hundred percent sure.

The Art Carney-esque one calls the fat Curly Howard-esque one "Portly", so that helps out a little. Then the one with the jeans and the red jacket comes in asking if they've seen his bowling ball, only to trip on an ear of corn and have the bowling ball land on his head. OUCH!

He must have a very thick skull if the bowling ball didn't, you know, crack his head open like
an egg. I'm pretty sure that's what would happen if a bowling ball landed on someone's head.

Portly calls the red jacket-wearing one Bo, so by process of elimination, the Art Carney-esque one must indeed be Pighead. Unbeknownst to the pigs, outside their house... which looks like a barn, a nice touch...

I particularly like how the roof is made of hay.

A truck is pulling up. And in that truck are Huff and Puff, who intend to get their paws on the pigs using a cannon. Huff is the one in the cannon, Puff is holding the fuse.

Methinks Huff and Puff have been watching too many Wile E. Coyote cartoons.

When Puff pulls the fuse, the back door of the truck closes, and Huff winds up slamming into it. So no pulled pork sandwiches for Huff and Puff today.

Back inside the house, Portly complains that Pighead is so dumb he can't do anything right. A girl pig named Dottie (voiced by Tara Strong) runs in with proof that Pighead isn't dumb - the results of their school's aptitude test. Pighead got the highest score, which makes him even smarter than Albert Swinestein... wouldn't "Albert EinSWINE" be a better pun?

I gotta ask - did Bo get that jacket from Alvin the Chipmunk?

"With my smarts, we'er sure to win the science fair!" Pighead declares. At their school, Pighead is interviewed by a reporter who I'm sure has some sort of pig pun for a name (Christiane Amanpork? Gloria Swinenem? Please tell me I'm clever). And wouldn't you know it, Dr. Sargasso and his minions just so happen to be watching this on TV. "A genius..." Dr. Sargasso purrs. "His brain could be our answer!"

Y'know, for a show about talking pigs, this cartoon is actually pretty accurate - pigs are generally typecast in cartoons as dim-witted oafs (see also the pigs in Barnyard, Pig Goat Banana Cricket, and Pearls Before Swine), but in real life they're quite intelligent. Studies have found that they're smarter than cats, dogs, and even three year old children. Which begs the question, if they're so smart, why do we eat them? Or is it just the pigs who blow their money on lottery tickets and think Seth MacFarlane is a master impressionist who we send to slaughterhouses?

Dr. Sargasso isn't the only one who wants to get his hands on Pighead - Huff and Puff spy on Pighead as he's leaving the school, and they deduce that if they eat him, they could become smarter too. Then they fall out of the tree and into a canyon, just to demonstrate even further that they are perhaps even more incompetent than Scratch and Grounder.

Is it even legal to eat another anthropomorphic animal in this world?

Pighead is approached by the female human minion of Dr. Sargasso, who introduces herself as Mona. Upon seeing her, the Bacon Brothers go hog-wild. What is it with fictional pigs and humans having the hots for each other? Miss Piggy's had her fair share of human admirers... Porky snagged a human girlfriend in a couple episodes of The Looney Tunes Show... I'm pretty sure there's an episode of the Timon and Pumbaa show where Pumbaa got into a relationship with a human...

Oh, and the duck sounds like Donald Duck. Good thing Disney's lawyers supposedly never watched the show.

So, if the duck in love with her too? I'm really weirded out here...

"I work for a famous university. We've heard about your fantastic brain and we'd like you to join our teaching staff," Mona claims. "Let me show you our campus, hmmm?" The girl pig urges him to say "No", since he has to go home and work on his science project - and also, y'know, kids are taught to stay away from strangers. But Pighead decides to go with Mona. How exactly did this pig get the highest score on the aptitude test again?

"Do you believe in interspecies dating?"

"Well, I've dated a lot of guys who turned out to be real PIGS, if you know what I mean..."

Mona leads Pighead and Quackers to her limo (now he's taking a ride from a stranger... hasn't Pighead been taught about stranger danger yet?)... which is being driven by the werewolf/gargoyle thing. I would not trust this creature behind the wheel.

Who gave this guy a driver's license?!

Upon seeing the freak of nature behind the wheel, Pighead and Quackers realize that, hey, this Mona lady might be evil, leading to a fight between the duck and the werewolf/gargoyle/possibly part gorilla as well beast. Eventually the werewolf/gargoyle thing... y'know what, I'm gonna call him Fangs, seems like a good name for the guy... throws Quackers out of the car, but he grabs onto the antennae... for a while, then he grabs onto the bumper... by the time the limo pulls up to Dr. Sargasso's castle, Quackers has somehow been stripped of his feathers. He is one plucked duck.

Donald... sorry, QUACKERS finds Pighead's friends and tries to fill them in as to what's going on, but a pig who seems to have swiped clothing from Fievel Mouskewitz's wardrobe thinks that he's an imposter so getting their help might be quite difficult.

"Shut up! My Fievel Mouskewitz costume is FANTASTIC!"

After being subject to some WHACKY SHENANIGANS, Quackers makes it into the house and gets the pigs inside to follow him to Dr. Sargasso's castle. I love how during this scene they're talking about how Pighead must be in big, big trouble and yet they have cheery smiles on their faces. Clearly they're mucho concerned about Pighead.

Where's Bo, by the way?

Miss Piggy, Link Hogthrob, and Petunia Pig: the early years.

The blonde girl pig comes up with an idea to rescue Pighead. They'd better hurry, because at the moment he's strapped to a table and about to be put in a "brain transference chamber". Before Dr. Sargasso can do any brain-transferring, in walk Portly, Dottie, Quackers, and the blonde girl pig whose name hasn't been mentioned yet covered in swamp muck. While Portly is distracting Dr. Sargasso, Mona, and Fangs, Dottie and the blonde girl pig wheel Pighead out of the room... and down a stairway.

Whenever Portly speaks, I expect him to go "I don't get no respect! Nyuck nyuck nyuck!".

They all go flying out a window and land in the back of the truck they used to get to the castle. Quackers drives them away, and when they get back to their house, Portly decides to build a harmless copy of Pighead's brain out of clay. That way, if Dr. Sargasso and his gruesome twosome show up, they'll just give them THAT. Then they go see their pal Pigger the Digger.

Or rather, Pig Fester Addams.

Portly asks Pig Fester Adams if they can borrow his genuine plastic pig skeleton so they can make a dummy that looks like Pighead. They put Pighead's clothes on it and presto, they've got a dummy. Dr. Sargasso will never know the difference!

Fun fact: according to Wikipedia, this character is voiced by Keith Knight, the same guy who
voiced Lowly Worm in The Busy World of Richard Scarry. Imagine Lowly doing a Curly
Howard impression and presto, you've got Portly.

They put a pig mask on the skeleton to complete the look, then leave to get Pighead some new clothes. But it's not Dr. Sargasso who shows up once they're out of the room, but rather Huff and Puff. Thinking that it's the real Pighead, they grab the dummy and make a run for it. Pighead, Portly, and Quackers chase the wolves back to their place, finding them reading a cookbook full of pork recipes.

Fortunately, Quackers has a very, very, very, very, very stretchy neck (so he's the Mr. Fantastic of Waterfowl, I guess?), which they use to snatch the dummy and sneak out. They put the dummy in Pighead's bed, so when Mona and Fangs show up to pignap him again, Fangs mistakes the dummy for the actual Pighead and grabs it.

No, seriously, where IS Bo? Heck, where are the Pork Brothers' parents?

And don't the Pork Brothers lock their bedroom doors?

When Dr. Sargasso puts the fake brain in the monster and brings it to life, he discovers that it's still a mindless destruction machine. He realizes that he's been tricked, and he is MAD! I expect Ashton Kutcher to pop out from behind something and yell "You got PUNKED!".

But wait! Why doesn't he send the monster to Piggsburg to get Pighead? Surely the monster won't fail him like Mona and Fangs did! Honestly, though, at this point I can't help but wonder if it's really worth all the trouble. Surely you can find another brain.

We then cut to the Piggsburg Science Fair, where Portly shows off what he claims is an automatic teeth-brushing hair-combing machine. From the looks of it, I wouldn't expect Portly to join MENSA anytime soon.

Huff and Puff are there, too, still trying to grab Pighead and have themselves some "brain food". Bo has invented a wheelbarrow that digs, rakes, plants, AND waters at the same time, which I guess explains why he vanished from the episode for a while. Who will win the science fair? A better question is, who will grab Pighead first - the wolves or the monster, who's just barged in through a wall (since using the door like a normal person isn't EEEEEEEEEEVIL enough)?

That vein in his hand is freaking me out...

Everyone uses their inventions to take out the monster, Dr. Sargasso, Mona, and Fangs. Oh, and it turns out that the guys grading the aptitude test made a mistake - Pighead is not, in fact, a genius. And here's something else that might take you by surprise - the main ingredient in apple pie is APPLES.

What's the Verdict?

Piggsburg Pigs! isn't anything fantastic, but it's not a bad show. The characters aren't unlikeable, just flat. What we know about them (from this episode at least) is that... uh, Bo is the leader, Pighead is dopey, and Portly is fat and sounds like Curly Howard? The animation is fine for the most part, but the coloring is inconsistent - like, one second Huff will be wearing a purple shirt and the next his shirt his suddenly green. The show is also not very funny. But it's decent as a whole, the voice actors all do a good job and there isn't anything awful about it. Heck, there aren't even as many lousy pig puns as I expected there to be! I still don't know why the show only got thirteen episodes. Was it the time slot? Were pigs just not super popular in the 1990s?

Nah, that couldn't have been it...

I've probably said this before, but doing a funny review of something that you find just okay is HARD. It's easy to make jokes about something horrible. I don't know if it's because the show itself doesn't give me enough to work with or because I just stink at writing funny reviews. Probably the latter.

Ah well. Next time we'll be reviewing another 1990s cartoon, ProStars. Maybe I'll get more joke material out of that. Until then, eh-buh-dee-eh-buh-dee-eh-buh-dee-that's all, folks!