Let's Watch This: An Episode of "Invasion America"

This has been on my "to review" list for a long time. When you think of DreamWorks shows, you probably think of the ones spun-off from their animated movies, don't you? The Penguins of Madagascar, the various Kung Fu Panda shows, Turbo F.A.S.T., etc.? But, before DreamWorks made a name for themselves doing CGI animated movies with pop culture references and celebrity voices, they dipped their toes into cartoon series. Their first cartoon, Toonsylvania, aired on Fox Kids. Their second cartoon is the one that we'll be looking at today: a little show called Invasion America.

This show was created by Harve Bennett (of Star Trek fame) and Steven Spielberg himself, who also served as executive producers, and served as a way for The WB to cash in on the success of The X-Files. Television executives, it would seem, agreed with that pigeon from Bolt...

The show's plot? In the 1980s, an alien named Cale-Oosha (voiced by Lorenzo Lamas), the ruler of a planet called Tyrus, believes that his uncle the Dragit (Tony Jay) wants to establish contact with the people of Earth. But the Dragit actually wants to invade Earth and conquer those puny Earthlings because of course he does. Cale refuses to do that, and a civil war gets started. Eventually Cale and his bodyguard Rafe (Edward Albert) escape to the Utah desert and meet a human woman named Rita (Kath Souice). After living on Earth for a few years, Cale returns to Tyrus. In the present day, the Dragit finds Rita and her young son David (Mikey Kelley) and all sorts of chaos ensues.

The original plan was for Invasion America to air on Kids' WB, but it was deemed too dark and violent for kids, so The WB aired it in prime-time. It premiered on June 8th, 1998... and promptly got cancelled after thirteen episodes because most people were going on vacation in the summer instead of watching television. To this day, the show hasn't gotten a single home video release, nor is it available on any streaming services.

Did Invasion America deserve to fail? Let's find out, shall we? Since this show has an overarching plot, I figured I should probably review the first episode, "The Legend", so I have some sort of idea what's going on. This is Invasion America!

The episode starts off in the scenic Utah Badlands. Just as the sun sets and night falls on the Beehive State (nicknamed that because the early pioneers that lived there considered themselves as hardworking as bees... hey, if I can't be funny, I should at least try to be educational), a helicopter appears, taking photos of random animal bones it can find. Eventually, it lands in front of a cave, and out step Major Phillip Stark (Greg Eagles) and Sergeant Angie Romar (Kristy McNichol), who meet up with a guy voiced by Jim Cummings (which automatically makes the show more awesome) who's checking out a dinosaur skeleton... or at least what LOOKS LIKE a dinosaur skeleton. I think the indication is that it's actually the skeleton of an alien that resembles a dinosaur. Say, wasn't there an episode of Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers with dinosaurs that were actually aliens? Maybe this fossil is of a dinosaur from that planet.

Before we can get any more information about this mysterious fossil, we cut to Glenport, Massachusetts. It's here that we meet our main character, David. As he does some nifty gymnastics, his inner monologue tells us that he's always been a loner, different from the other kids, and he doesn't know why. Probably because main characters of cartoons that happen to be teenagers are social outcasts more often than not. It's kind of a rule.

Maybe the other kids are just jealous of his epic gymnastics skills.

David's pal Jim (Rider Strong) enters and after some banter between them, they go for a motorcycle ride through the country. David's driving, even though five seconds ago he claimed that he isn't allowed to take Driver's Ed. Isn't that illegal?

"Getcha motor runnin', head out on the highway..."

Apparently it is, because a police car starts chasing after them, and David pulls over. Nah, I'm just kidding, he keeps going and we get a chase sequence. Because David is COOOOOOOOOOL, and COOOOOOOOOOOOL teenagers have no respect for the law. Just ask Jim Hawkins from Treasure Planet.

Of course, Sheriff Oozes Awesomeness here doesn't agree.

"My large forehead does not approve of this situation."

David reveals that this sheriff's name is Rafe... say, isn't Rafe also the name of Cale-Oosha's aforementioned bodyguard? I wonder if this guy is secretly an alien. Considering that after his little confrontation with David he wonders how long he can keep "this secret" from him, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say "yes".

It's flashback time! Seventeen years earlier, we see a spaceship painted the same colors as a Coca-Cola advertisement flying through space. Inside the spaceship are all these humanoid figures speaking in a weird made-up language. Fortunately, there are subtitles. Unfortunately, they're in Spanish, so I still have no idea what the humanoids are saying.

I'll have to make up my own translations. I'm going to assume that "Dragit, prepardos
para lanzamiento a Tierra." is Spanish for "Dragit, I look like a girl."

Actually, according to Google Translate, it's Spanish for "Dragit, ready for launch to Earth."

The spaceship unleashes these smaller red spaceships that head for Earth. Then it's revealed that the aliens CAN speak English... or, as they call it, "Earth-Speak". Two of the aliens are Cale-Oosha and the Dragit, and they're talking about how they're going to visit the Dragit's Earth facility. Rafe is there, too, and he gives Cale a magic glowing glove "to remind [his] uncle that [he] is the ruler".

"I love the Power Glove. It's so bad."

At that very moment, a blonde-haired woman is driving around the Utah Badlands in a Jeep, and she winds up being a front-row spectator of one spaceship's landing at the Earth facility. The aliens on board are greeted by Tyrusian air force general Colonel Konrad (Leonard "Mr. Spock" Nimoy), who takes Cale on a tour of the place... and promptly lets it slip that they're getting ready for "the invasion" and that the Dragit (not just ANY Dragit, THE Dragit) gave them the order to do that.

Why does the Dragit want to invade the Earth? Because he thinks Earthlings are a threat to the Tyrusians. "Earth is a war-like planet with weapons of mass destruction," he claims. "Most of which are in this place called 'America'. The only thing Americans respect is superior force. We will use this place to support such a force."

Honestly, Cale should've known that the Dragit was evil. Those eyebrows totally
give it away.

The Dragit goes all Mark Zuckerberg and insists that they need to expand, but Cale declares, "There will be no invasion." But the Dragit and his minions aren't going to just abandon those invasion plans so easily, and if that means committing treason, they're okay with that. It's not even treason, the Dragit claims, it's revolution. Totally different.

"For the revolution!"

"For the revolution!"

"For the revolution!"

"For the revolution!"

"For the revolution!"

"For the revolution!"

"For the revolution!"

"For the evolution! Uh, I mean, revolution..."

"Dang it, Steve, we rehearsed this ten times!"

The laser guns start a-blasting and eventually Cale and some other invasion-hating Tyrusians make a run for it. Cale and Rafe manage to escape in one of the smaller ships (which repeatedly switched back and forth between 2D and early 1990s CGI, distractingly enough), but they're not out of the woods yet. They still have to deal with... pausing for dramatic effect... the MANGLERS!

What are the Manglers? Well, if you stuck the Xenomorph from Alien and the velociraptors from Jurassic Park in a blender, a Mangler is probably what you'd get. I imagine that the Dragit wanted to use them are part of his invasion plan - Earthlings are probably powerless against these ferocious sharp-toothed beasts. Then again, if we could domesticate wolves and make dogs, maybe we could domesticate these guys too?

They really don't like being compared to Xenomorphs, as Cale and Reif learned the
hard way.

Cale is rescued by the blonde-haired woman in the Jeep, whereas Rafe is cornered on the top of a building by the Manglers - at least until he jumps off and blows the place sky-high. As for Cale and the blonde-haired woman, they wind up making a helicopter explode. The Dragit and Konrad believe that they destroyed Cale. I bet when he eventually ruins their plans for invasion, they're gonna feel really stupid.

Cale and the blonde-haired woman take refuge in a cave, where Cale reveals to her that he's an alien... and the blonde woman reveals that her name is Rita. Romantic music starts up... oh jeez, is this going where I think it's going? Is Cale actually David's father?

"Fun fact: Mars isn't the only planet that needs women..."

Well, before any Tyrusian mating rituals can get started, a Mangler shows up and attacks Cale. This is where that magic glove Rafe gave Cale earlier comes in handy (no pun intended). It has some sort of weird Mangler-KOing powers.

And guess what? Rafe is alive!

Rafe's voice informs us that in the days ahead, Rita would become a guide to Cale... and a friend... and much more. Yes, it turns out that Cale and Rita DID wind up having a kid together. I was initially disappointed that they made the main aliens in the show just look like humans, but honestly, if they were going to have one of them marry a human being I think that might've been for the best.

I mean, could you imagine if Rita wound up marrying and having a kid with, I dunno,
Roger from American Dad? THERE'S a creepy mental image...

Alas, Cale is eventually needed back on Tyrus, which means he must leave his wife and son - otherwise, when the Dragit finds them, they'll be in great danger. We end on two creepy guys watching them from the shadows as the words "To Be Continued..." appear on the screen. Maybe I'll review the second episode of the show, maybe I won't. For now, I'll have to leave the review on a cliffhanger. Sorry...

What's the Verdict?

This was good. I legitimately thought this was good. Decent animation, great voice acting, genuine suspense and drama... this show had the potential to be a big hit!

So why wasn't it a big hit? Well, for one thing, airing it during the summer was probably a bad idea. There's a reason why new seasons of TV shows start up in autumn - people are more likely to be home and watching television regularly when the weather gets chillier (though apparently this began because it helped automobile advertisers promote their new car models). Of course, there are a lot of cartoons that premiered BEFORE fall and were huge hits - Futurama first premiered in March, SpongeBob SquarePants and Family Guy in May, and Cow and Chicken in July - so there had to be another reason. My theory? Maybe the world just wasn't ready for a serious animated show yet. Look at most of the cartoons that aired in prime time during the 1990s: most if not all of them were comedic. Everyone wanted to cash in on the success of The Simpsons, which was a comedy, so they made comedic cartoon shows. This didn't always work either (see also Capitol Critters), but most cartoon shows in the 1990s as a whole were humorous by nature. The only cartoon shows from the 1990s I can think of that took themselves seriously were superhero cartoons, which I imagine became popular because people already knew and loved the main characters from comic books and movies.

If Invasion America premiered nowadays, where more serious cartoons are beloved BECAUSE they take themselves so seriously, I think it would be a bigger hit. But alas, as is it's just a cartoon that could've been something great if people just gave it a chance. Who knows? If the show had been more successful, maybe it could've had a big impact on animated shows as a whole. Food for thought.

Let's Watch This: An Episode (or Two) of "The Twisted Whiskers Show"

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.

NOTE #2: No disrespect is meant towards anyone who worked on the show I am reviewing today. I'm sure they are all very nice and talented people.

Did your school ever have one of those school supply sales? Y'know, where they'd set out a table and put a bunch of folders, notebooks, erasers, that sort of thing on it for you to buy? If not, maybe you went to a Target or a WalMart or wherever during their "Back to School" sales (which would usually start up in July, annoyingly enough... we're just trying to enjoy our summer vacation!). Either way, there's a very good chance that at some point in the 2000s, you saw something like this:

These warped, nightmare-inducing pets are part of the Twisted Whiskers franchise. Created by Terrill Bohlar for American Greetings and Corus Entertainment in 2001, all you had to do to create a Twisted Whiskers character was digitally modify a photo of an animal. Then you slap the result on a greeting card, a notepad, a sheet of wrapping paper... they even made Twisted Whiskers Valentines. Because nothing says "I love you" like a cat with eyes as big as dinner plates and a giant mouth full of creepy human-esque teeth!

I don't know how much money the Twisted Whiskers franchise has made as a whole, but they did well enough for The Hub (now Discovery Family) to greenlight a show about 'em. In fact, this was apparently the first program that The Hub aired - as in, BEFORE their more popular stuff like My Little Pony or Transformers: Prime.

The show received one season of fifty-two episodes, all of them focusing on the WHACKY SHENANIGANS that these various cats and dogs get themselves into. Two of the co-producers, Bill Kopp and Savage Steve Holland, are also responsible for Eek! The Cat, fittingly enough. I tried to do a review of Eek! The Cat, but I wound up deleting the review because it wasn't very funny (the funniest moment was me talking about airplane toilets and where the waste you put in them goes. That should tell you a lot), which is the same reason I canned my review of another one of Bill Kopp's shows, Mad Jack the Pirate. Maybe I'll have better luck with this one...

We're gonna watch the thirtieth episode of the show, "Dine and Dash: For the Birds". Why that episode in particular? Because it's the first one I could find on YouTube. This is The Twisted Whiskers Show.

The episode stars two cats named Dine (voiced by Peter Kelamis) and Dash (voiced by Lee Tockar), who with their striped pelts that resemble prison uniforms are your typical "streetwise leader and dimwitted sidekick" duo. They're hungry, and there just so happens to be a flock of blue jays perched on the fence nearby...

Dash is the one with blue eyes, Dine is the one with yellow eyes. Remember that now.

But, since this is a cartoon, actually getting to EAT the birds will be much harder than Dash and Dine anticipated. First, they set up a birdhouse. But when a bird (Scott McNeil) tries to move in, they're promptly kicked out by... a squirrel?

Okay, um, Comedy 101, guys: setups are a thing in jokes for a reason. What the heck is a squirrel doing in the birdhouse? We never saw him go in the birdhouse, so him just being in there feels very random if the cats' goal was to trap the birds inside.

"I am a crazy rabid squirrel! Also, I can burp my ABCs!"

The squirrel's purpose, it would seem, is to make things harder for the cats. It throws pies at them... oh, I get it. This is one of THOSE cartoons. The ones that try to emulate the classic cartoon shorts from Warner Brothers and Tex Avery but don't quite understand what made those shorts funny. I expect one of the cats to get clobbered by an anvil at some point too.

Well, problem solved: if the cats are hungry, they can just eat the pie.

"If we don't get rid of that rodent immediately, say goodbye to delicious bird dinner!" Dine tells Dash. I mean, surely there's some other way you can catch the birds, isn't there? Or some other way you can get food? Heck, why don't you just eat the squirrel? Cats can eat squirrels.

Spoiler alert: the cats wind up making total Sylvesters out of themselves. The squirrel effortlessly thwarts each of their attempts at getting him out of the birdhouse. For example, at one point they're hanging from a telephone wire. I was expecting them to wind up getting electrocuted since that's what usually happens when cartoon characters hang from telephone wires, but nope. The squirrel's got something else planned for them. Something involving a can of oil.

You're gonna give that back to the Tin Man when you're done with it, aren't you?

Offbrand Screwy Squirrel uses the oil to make the wires all slippery, resulting in the cats sliding down the wire and into a telephone pole. Nyuck nyuck nyuck.

Next, the cats try to flood the squirrel out of the birdhouse using a hose. But wouldn't you know it? The squirrel tied the other end of the hose to a car's bumper. Okay, seriously? How is this squirrel able to predict all of the cats' plans in advance? All I can think of is that he saw the cats working the hose before they climbed up to the birdhouse, but even then, how did he get down from there without them noticing? Has Jammet been supplying him with Pep-Ups? I know the answer to this is "it's just cartoon logic", but it feels very jarring. Also, I'm just gonna say it right now - I do not like this squirrel. You have to be very careful when writing characters who are in control of everything and effortlessly outwit everyone. When done wrong, it results in a very frustratingly obnoxious character. Bugs Bunny this squirrel is not.

The creepy design they gave him isn't doing the little rodent any favors either.

The cats then hoist large air fresheners up into the air so that they're directly in front of and behind the birdhouse. Once the air fresheners are turned on, they make things very, very chilly at the birdhouse. I have to give them credit for their determination, but once again, I have to ask if it's really worth it. Aren't there other ways you can get food?

So how long until the air fresheners land on the cats, crushing them in a joke that should
be funny but instead just comes across as needlessly brutal?

Then the cats start shaking the pole that the birdhouse is sitting atop, and the squirrel retaliates by pelting them with snowballs, icicles, and - of course - the air fresheners. Incidentally, do you know what this squirrel's name is? According to the credits, it's "Sinister Squirrel". Honestly a pretty fitting name, although I think "Sadistic Squirrel" would be more fitting.

Look, the cats have been crushed by the air fresheners. That's funny, right?

I generally feel sorry for Sylvester when I'm watching a Sylvester and Tweety short, but at least
I never actually rooted against Tweety. I'm actively rooting against the squirrel right now.

Dine snaps like a twig and decides to just chop the pole with the birdhouse on it down - I guess he finally figured out that it's not worth having to put up with that squirrel just to eat some birds. Speaking of birds, the bird who tried to move into the birdhouse before shows up again and tells them that HE'LL take care of the little pest. Yes. Please beat him up, Bird. I want to see that squirrel get what's coming to him.

Oh, who am I kidding? The squirrel's probably gonna effortlessly take down the bird, too.

"I'm gonna peck out those bulbous red eyes of his!"

What's this? The bird actually KOs the seemingly invincible squirrel?

I think this GIF summarizes my thoughts on the matter:

After kicking out the squirrel, the bird sends the cats fleeing with a mighty roar... hey, he IS descended from the dinosaurs. But when he heads back into the birdhouse, he finds out that somebody else has moved in. Specifically, a BEAR.

I'll be honest, I was half-expecting the squirrel to return and steal the birdhouse back. I'll
gladly take this over THAT.

Here's a question: why was this episode called "For the Birds" if we barely saw any birds in it? I mean, I know it focuses on a birdhouse, but still...

Okay, so that wasn't very good. But, since the episode was pretty short, I think I'll watch another episode to make the blog post a bit longer and see if I didn't just watch one of the weaker ones. The nineteenth episode, "Quiet Time With Tiny Head", is on YouTube, and the person who uploaded it dubbed it the best episode of the show, so let's see if they're right about that...

The episode starts off with a dog named Von Ripper (also Scott McNeil) - best described as Scud from Toy Story if he were part-shark - at the veterinarian's office. The vet tells his owner that Von Ripper's got high blood pressure, and if he doesn't calm down, he'll die. Wow, this episode's off to a dark start. The solution? Von Ripper needs a cat. His owner is all "No, he HATES cats!", but the vet insists that cats lower blood pressure.

No, I didn't crop out the humans' heads. This is one of those Muppet Babies-esque
shows where we don't see the humans' faces.

The Pet Therapy Center loans them a cat to help calm Von Ripper's nerves. That cat is the titular Tiny Head (Colin Murdock), whose shtick is that he has a very very very small head. I smell a one-joke character!

His head is as small as Megamind's head is big.

I know I've been making a lot of Looney Tunes comparisons here, but as soon as Tiny Head starts talking, it becomes clear that he's NOT just a one-joke character after all: in addition to having a tiny head, he's also sort of a Foghorn Leghorn wannabe in that he talks a lot. He even has a similar body shape AND a southern accent (though his voice sounds more like Bing Crosby's on helium than Foghorn's).

"Unfunny jokes, unfunny jokes everywhere..."

Tiny Head puts Von Ripper in a massage chair, and it seems to calm the dog down. Why Von Ripper's owner has a massage chair outside, I don't know. But it's working... until Tiny Head turns the dial too high, causing the chair to go haywire. Next, he wraps Von Ripper's head in steaming hot towels, which just winds up shrinking it.

Y'know what? Tiny Head might be a bit of a Foghorn Leghorn knockoff, but he's the only character on the show I kinda like thus far. He's a little funny, at least, if only because of his high-pitched voice. Plus, he's actually trying to be helpful, whereas Foghorn is pretty much just a troll. Foghorn might be more fun, but Tiny Head's more pleasant.

Picking one's nose must be very hard for Tiny Head.

Since the hot towels didn't work, Tiny Head places Von Ripper in a hammock and, after a lullaby, tries to rock the dog to sleep... and accidentally sends Von Ripper flying into a tree. His next attempt at calming the shark-like pooch down results in Von Ripper getting clobbered by a falling tree. Finally, meditation seems to do the trick... or at least cause Von Ripper to have a nervous breakdown, particularly when the Pet Therapy Center tells them that they can keep Tiny Head.

What's the Verdict?

Well, I watched two episodes of this show, and for once I had the opposite reaction to each one.

"For the Birds" was pretty bad. It tried way too hard to be like a Warner Brothers cartoon and failed miserably at it. The squirrel was way too repulsive and nasty to be likeable, I just felt sorry for the cats. The jokes (aside from the ending with the bear) weren't funny at all - lots of poor attempts at slapstick reminiscent of those Larry Doyle-produced shorts from the 2000s. On the flip side, "Quiet Time With Tiny Head" was surprisingly pretty good. Nothing spectacular, but I found it kind of funny and liked Tiny Head even if he was a bit too much like Foghorn Leghorn. The animation is fine as far as 2000s television CGI goes, the voice actors all do a good job... so if I had to sum up The Twisted Whiskers Show as a whole, I'd call it a mixed bag. Will I be watching any more episodes? Probably not, unless Tiny Head has a big role in them. In fact, maybe the show should've been all about him.

If you want to watch The Twisted Whiskers Show for yourself, you can find episodes on YouTube. It's also on Amazon Prime, but apparently it's "currently unavailable to watch in [my] location", you might have the same problem. And now, a teaser for my next review:

The Animation and All Things Related House of Horrors, Part 2: Museum of the Weird Mascot Costumes

If you understood the reference in the name of the post, you're clearly as big of a Disney fan as I am. Congratulations.

Previously, our trek through the Animation and All Things Related House of Horrors took us through the Lair of the Creepy Toys, filled to the brim with disturbing-looking dolls, plushes, and figurines (didn't know it was possible to make a Mickey Mouse doll look terrifying? Guess what, it IS). Today, I'll be showing you even MORE horrifying creatures masquerading as beloved cartoon characters. Ones that will repulse you. Ones that will make you cringe...

No, I'm not doing a review of Jellystone!. This section of the Animation and All Things Related House of Horrors is packed with costumed versions of cartoon characters. You know, the kind you see at theme parks, or at movie premieres, or at birthday parties or whatever. I know some people are afraid of "mascot costumes", but I don't think I've ever had a problem with them. With some exceptions... one time my family went to Perkins and they were having a "Character Night", which meant there was somebody in a Tweety Bird costume wandering around the tables. I remember finding that giant Tweety off-putting.

The art of designing a mascot costume is one that's been covered in great detail by several YouTubers, notably Disney Dan and Nathan Spies (if you haven't watched any of their videos, I highly recommend it). Most of the time, you'll get something appealing-looking. For example, here's the Porky Pig they have wandering around Six Flags:

That looks great, doesn't it? Exactly like the animated character it's based on (well, maybe not EXACTLY, but you know what I mean). Or how about these Yogi Bear and Boo-Boo costumes?

Those are fantastic! But sometimes, you get a mascot costume that's supposed to be a beloved cartoon character but is more likely to make fans of the character run away screaming than run up to give them a hug. Some of these are official mascot costumes, others are bootlegs you can find on Etsy or running amok in Times Square. Enter, if you dare...

These Disney Character Costumes From the Ice Capades

Let's start off with an obvious one - at some point before Disneyland opened, several Disney characters appeared in one of the Ice Capades shows. They looked horrifying. For some reason, they couldn't get better-looking Mickey, Minnie, Pluto etc. costumes made in time for the grand opening of Disneyland in 1955, so they had these nightmare-inducing things run around the park. Mickey and Minnie, in particular, looked horrific. Eventually, they had those weird slices in their faces filled in, but given the addition of angry eyebrows:

This did not help at all.

These Early Mickey and Minnie Mouse Costumes

...and before the Ice Capades, THIS was how Mickey and Minnie were brought into the real world. Even that kid in the photo looks creeped-out.

The Costumes Used in That Live Phineas and Ferb Show

This is another relatively well-known one. I guess Ferb doesn't look TOO bad, but the others... yeesh. Not quite human, not quite cartoon character... isn't this what the plot of Cool World originally going to be? A human/cartoon character hybrid viewing herself as a freak and revolting against her human father?

For more information about this show, please watch Disney Dan's video about it. Apologies in advance for the nightmares!

Pretty Much Every Single Lola Bunny (Looney Tunes) Costume Ever Made

I can't think of a single cartoon character that's had more awful-looking mascot costumes than Lola Bunny. I don't know what it is about her design (maybe the fact that they tried to make her "hot", or the permanent DreamWorks Face she sports), but they still have yet to make a Lola Bunny costume that actually looks decent. And putting her next to a good-looking Bugs costume just makes her look even worse.

This Hyacinth Hippo (Fantasia) Costume

You know Hyacinth Hippo, don't you? The leader of the cheery dancing hippos in Fantasia, likely the reason why people think hippos are kindhearted souls until they go to Africa and discover that they're actually incredibly aggressive and one of the most dangerous animals in all of Africa? Well, this is what she looks like on those rare occasions when they bring her into the theme parks. It's always bothered me that they made her pink (she's not pink in the movie. She's brown!), but honestly, that's the least of this costume's worries. If somebody wore this on a trip to Africa, I bet actual hippos would take one look at it and run away screaming.

These Cosmo and Wanda (The Fairly OddParents!) Costumes

I don't think Butch Hartman's art style translates that well into three dimensions.

This Bootleg Sid the Sloth (Ice Age) Costume

The coloring is wrong. The face shape is wrong. The hair is wrong. The hands and feet are wrong. Everything about this costume is wrong. But I'm sure it'll come in handy when Ice Age enters the public domain and somebody inevitably decides to make a horror movie based on it.

These Timon, Pumbaa, and Rafiki (The Lion King) Costumes

For some inexplicable reason, Disney decided to use these in one of the Disney On Ice shows. I think Pumbaa's making that face because he just saw himself in a mirror.

This Ursula (The Little Mermaid) Costume

That poor unfortunate soul they forced to dressed like this...

This Porky Pig Costume From the 1940s

I'm a member of the Cartoon Research Facebook group, and recently fellow member Devon Baxter shared this photo with us dubbing it "Pure nightmare fuel from 1940." And that's a great way of describing it. I don't know which is freakier, that Porky costume or the dolls in the background.

These Bootleg Cat in the Hat Costumes

What makes these costumes horrifying is that they seem to specifically be based on the Mike Myers version of the Cat in the Hat. Let's be honest, the Mike Myers version of the Cat in the Hat was already pretty creepy-looking, so I have no idea why anyone would model their Cat in the Hat suit after it. At least this one doesn't curse...

This Captain Caveman Costume

Did they even have a reference picture when they were making this? Why the black beady eyes with the weird white mask around it? Why the oversized tongue sticking out? Maybe Captain Caveman is just hard to translate to a walkaround costume, but surely they could've made something more on-model than THIS.

The Big Hero 6 Character Costumes Used at Disneyland Paris

When Hiro, the main character from Disney's 2014 release Big Hero 6, did meet-and-greets in the American parks, they used a "face" character - as in, a character without a mask. That's what they usually do for human characters in the parks (such as the Disney princes and princesses, Peter Pan, Alice, what have you). For whatever reason, in Disneyland Paris they decided to make Hiro and his friends "fur" characters - the kind with masks. And... yeah. Suddenly it becomes pretty obvious why the American parks used a face character...

This Jessica Rabbit (Who Framed Roger Rabbit) Costume

And speaking of Disneyland Paris, this is what they did when they decided to do a Jessica Rabbit meet and greet. She's not bad, she's just... actually, yeah, she's bad.

This Genie (Aladdin) Costume They Use at Disneyland Paris

I dare say this is on par with the CGI blue Will Smith version of the Genie from the 2019 remake.

This Shrek Costume they used at Universal Studios in 2001

Just so we're clear, I'm obviously not trying to say that the guy WEARING the costume has an ugly face or anything. It's just... there's a lot of Uncanny Valley going on with this costume. Fortunately, they didn't stick with this costume - at some point they started using a "fur character" Shrek instead of painting somebody's face green. It worked for Brian D'Arcy James, but it's not working for this guy.

This Dino (The Flintstones) Costume

Judging by the presence of Elizabeth Perkins and Rosie O'Donnell lookalikes, I believe this Dino is intended to look like the one from the live action movie adaptation of The Flintstones. That live action puppet/CGI Dino already looked a little creepy, but when you make it gigantic, suddenly it's terrifying. I think it's mainly those eyes...

These Hotel Transylvania Character Costumes

Yeah, they're monsters, they're SUPPOSED to be scary, but still...

This Bo Peep (Toy Story) Costume

I get what they were trying to do here, but... those EYES. Those LIPS. That weird plastic mask. Somebody tell this creature that its sheep wandered off so it'll go away.

This Bootleg Woody (Toy Story) Costume

There's something about the needlessly shiny face and his vacant expression that creeps me out. The shirt looks good, though, I'll give it that...

Incidentally, the same company that made this also made a Buzz Lightyear costume. Yes, it looks just as creepy.

This Fairy Godmother (Cinderella) Costume They Use at Tokyo Disneyland

Okay, there's a reason why the Fairy Godmother they use in the American parks is a face character. This is that reason.

This Doug Funnie (Doug) Costume

Say what you will about the Disney version of Doug - at least it led to a better-looking Doug walkaround than this one.

This Tommy Pickles (Rugrats) Costume

This is actually a pretty nice recreation of the cruder, more off-putting art style of the first season of Rugrats. Still, and I know this is an obvious joke, but... I've heard of fame going to your head, but this is ridiculous...

This Gadget (Chip 'n' Dale Rescue Rangers) Costume

This one isn't TOO bad. It's mainly the eyes. She looks stoned.

This Mildew Wolf Costume

Not even the somewhat-obscure Hanna-Barbera characters are safe from having creepy costumes made of them. Now THIS is a Big Bad Wolf that I, for one, AM afraid of.

This Shaggy Rogers (Scooby-Doo) Costume

I also found out about this one via Facebook. All I can say is, zoinks...

This Abby Mallard (Chicken Little) Costume

Abby Mallard is the "Ugly Duckling", sure, but she isn't THAT ugly. In the movie, she's at least "Ugly Cute". This is just straight-up HIDEOUS.

This Bootleg SpongeBob SquarePants Costume

That poor kid. I think just looking at that thing is enough to scar her for life.

These Lumiere (Beauty and the Beast) Costumes

Okay, Disney Dan already talked about these costumes in his "Top 10 Creepiest Costume Characters at Disney Parks" video (I'm not limiting myself to just Disney characters, so this post is totally different!), but they're still worth bringing up. They have a perfectly good Lumiere costume they use in the Disney parks for stuff like the Beauty and the Beast live show at Disney's Hollywood Studios, so why on Earth would they create these disturbing half-face character/half-fur character hybrid things? Nobody looked at these and thought "Gee, these look utterly horrifying"? That bottom one in particular looks less like Lumiere and more like a demonic clown.

I... think this thing is supposed to be a bootleg Donald Duck Costume

I think this one speaks for itself, really...

The good news is, these creepy-looking mascot costumes tend to be the exception, not the rule. Companies like Olympus Mascots, Loonie Times, and International Mascots are able to translate iconic cartoon characters into walkaround costumes quite well, and Disney has been getting better and better at making great-looking costumes. So if you encounter a mascot costume in the wild, chances are it won't wind up in your nightmares.

Thus concludes our trip through the Animation and All Things Related House of Horrors. Now I will raise the safety bar and a creepy Tommy Pickles will follow you home!

Hurry back... hurry baaaaaaa-aaaaaaaack...