Let's Watch This: An Episode of "Weird-Ohs"

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.

NOTE #3: If you like this show, that is great. Go ahead and like it. I'm not judging you.

Let me take you back in time to the tail end of the 1990s. CGI animation was still in its infancy, more or less, at the time, ESPECIALLY in television. 1994's Reboot was the first half-hour CGI cartoon to be made for television (VeggieTales came first but was a direct-to-video series), and it was successful enough for the studio responsible for it, Vancouver-based Mainframe Entertainment, to produce more CGI shows. Some of them did well... and then you have Weird-Ohs.

Never heard of Weird-Ohs? Well, this thing got its start as a series of assemble-and-paint model kits by the Hawk Model Company, called "Weird-Ohs Car-icky-Tures". You bought one and then built yourself a little bizarre-looking half-human-half-monster thing driving a hot rod. These were thought up by an artist named Bill Campbell, who thought model builders were fed up with having "just another car or plane kit". He made some prototypes, a group of distributors found out about them and loved them, and the Hawk Model Company rushed them into production. You can read more about the model kits here.

There was also a Weird-Ohs board game.

I guess in the 1990s these were still really popular, so Mainframe Entertainment teamed up with Decode Entertainment to unleash a Weird-Ohs cartoon show onto the world in September 1999. The show took place in a town just off Route 66 called Weirdsville, populated by car-obsessed anthropomorphic creatures a la the ones from the model kits. Thirteen episodes were produced, each one consisting of two segments, and the show aired on FOX Family (now Freeform) in the United States and on YTV in Canada. And now... honestly, I don't even know if this thing has a cult following.

You can find episodes of the show on YouTube and the Internet Archive. Is it any good? Spoiler alert: NO. And why is that? Allow me to elucidate while we watch what was apparently the eleventh episode of the show, which consists of the segments "The Cycle of No Escape" and "Head Gasket of the Class" (I say "what was apparently" because Wikipedia doesn't have a full list of episodes, so I have to go off of what Google says). This is Weird-Ohs.

"The Cycle of No Escape" begins with, unsurprisingly, an automobile race. Purple-skinned Portia (voiced by Tabitha St. Germain) is racing against Baby Chassis (voiced by Ian James Corlett), who drives a turbo-charged motorized pram. And I'm just going to get this out of the way, no, I have no idea what species any of these characters are. Are they supposed to be human, or monsters, or aliens, or mutants, or WHAT?

"I'm the baby, gotta love me!"

Baby Chassis wins the race, and then a car falls out of the sky. In that car are her little brother Digger (Kathleen Barr) and his frog-like friend Eddie (Cusse Mankuma), who were testing out the latter's "car launcher". Think of how much they'll save on gas!

Is Eddie the evolved form of a Battletoad?

Digger admits to Portia that he's having car problems - specifically, they need a car before the big auto track meet tomorrow after school. And apparently Portia has ESP because she refuses to let him borrow her car before he even asks her. Just then, another "Weird-Oh" rides up on his motorcycle. His name is Davey (Scott McNeil), and Portia totally has the hots for him. Alas, because of the puddle of oil leaking out of Digger and Eddie's car, Portia winds up making a fool of herself in front of him. Though she probably didn't have much of a chance with him anyway - his true love seems to be his motorcycle, which he calls "Stella" (he's a fan of A Streetcar Named Desire, I guess).

Rule #1 of writing for a teenage girl in a cartoon show: they have to be obsessed with
some hunky guy who they frequently make a fool out of themselves around. See also
Candace from Phineas and Ferb, Trina from Grojband, Susan and Mary from Johnny Test...

After Davey drives off, Portia yells at Eddie and Digger for ruining her love life and says that she would have to blow a "brain gasket" before she lets them borrow her car. This gives Digger an idea...

We then cut to Eddie and Digger getting the blueprints for Davey's motorcycle from Baby Chassis' father (also Scott McNeil)... I'm not sure why he has them. I'm guessing he's the one who built the motorcycle? Anyway, once they have the blueprints, they're able to build a perfect replica of "Stella". The only difference? It's totally under THEIR control. I gotta say, it's pretty impressive that they were able to build something like this. I doubt I could build a motorcycle like that. I don't think I've ever even gotten the hang of making paper airplanes...

I'm just now noticing that the flowers in the garden are actually street signs.
That's a pretty clever sight gag.

"What if Portia thinks that Stella is ALIVE and OUT TO GET HER?" Digger claims. "WHAT? She might be CONFUSED. She might think her MENTAL GEAR PLATE is SLIPPING! She might let us BORROW HER CAR. Heh, heh, heh..." So, yeah. Our protagonist is going to play mind games on somebody. I don't want to make it sound like I'm on Team Portia here, she doesn't seem like a particularly likeable character herself, but... what the heck, Digger?

"I'll be seeing you in your nightmares tonight, kids..."

Eddie then brings up a very good point: he could've just fixed his car in the time they spent building this motorcycle. But he isn't allowed to make sense, so he and Digger just ignore that.

Oh, and then Baby Chassis' father shows up and reveals that Digger and Eddie told them they were building the motorcycle to raise money for orphans. As opposed to, y'know, using it to give Digger's sister a mental breakdown. Wow, these two are VILE, aren't they? And people say that Maggie Pesky is unlikable?

...actually, why is it so important that they borrow PORTIA'S car? Doesn't, like, EVERYBODY in Weirdsville have some sort of vehicle? Can't they just borrow somebody else's?

Digger, please stop with the evil grins. You're really freaking me out.

That night, while hanging out at the local diner, Portia hears the motorcycle revving up outside the window and thinks that Davey is there. But when she runs to the window, she doesn't see anybody. Then she catches a glimpse of "Stella" in another window and wonders if she's seeing things.

I've noticed that ugly characters become even uglier with just the addition of makeup.
Case in point - Portia here. Ugh...

Upon leaving the diner, Portia's life turns into a horror movie as she finds herself stalked by "Stella", who she's convinced is after her even though it's a non-sentient motorcycle. Something tells me Portia is a few sodas short of a six-pack.

The motorcycle eventually "corners" Portia in an alleyway, but she jumps out of her car and actually RUNS THROUGH A BRICK WALL LIKE THE KOOL-AID MAN to get away. Wow, Portia's stronger than she looks. Then Digger and Eddie are subjected to WHACKY SHENANIGANS and wind up being dragged along for the ride as the motorcycle goes on "auto pilot". Portia sees the real "Stella" parked in front of a store and decides to stop running and confront it. When Davey emerges from the store, she tells him that his motorcycle is alive and that it's been stalking her all night, and instead of having her thrown in a mental asylum he tells her that his bike has been with him all day. Upon seeing Eddie and Digger being dragged around by the fake "Stella", Davey (who previously found the remote control after Digger dropped it) puts two and two together.

Digger, you've got some 'splainin' to doooooooooo!

(Fun fact: Ricky never actually said that in I Love Lucy)

Portia promptly sics the fake "Stella" on Digger and Eddie. Even though they deserve it, I'm oddly not very satsified by this. I've noticed that it doesn't feel good watching an unlikable character get their comeuppance when the character triumphing over them is just as (if not more) unlikable, but most cartoons don't seem to realize that.

And that wraps up "The Cycle of No Escape". Next segment...

We start off with Portia dragging Digger to class. Since everyone in Weirdsville is obsessed with fast cars, they don't learn about math or language arts, but rather about how to build automobiles. Even the desks kind of look like hot rods.

Suddenly, class is interrupted by the arrival of this guy who looks like Bluto from Popeye gained the Hulk's powers.

After The WB shut down, Michigan J. Frog started taking steroids. This was the result.

Say hello to Leaky Boat Louie (Mark Acheson), who somehow became the school's vice principal and wants to see the essays for the school's "Principal For a Day" contest. As you'll recall, one of the episodes of Wayside that I reviewed did this exact same plotline. As did an episode of Recess, too, I believe. I don't recall any of my schools ever having one of these contests. Must just be something that happens in cartoons. Like when you skip school and it just so happens that they had a surprise carnival on that day for some reason.

In this case, the principal is out on business, so whichever kid wrote the best essay is going to become Principal for the day. Apparently, Portia is the only student who actually submitted an essay. But Digger, who didn't even know about the contest until now, is all "I MUST BE PRINCIPAL FOR A DAY!" and hastily writes an essay to enter. Regardless as to how crappy his entry turns out, Portia's essay documenting how she would "reshape the bloated school bureaucracy into a more effective system" is rejected by Leaky Boat Louie (can't say I feel sorry for her). But Digger manages to clinch the victory by writing "I can sum up what makes Weirdsville High so great in one word: Louie." Remember, everyone, you can get whatever you want just by playing to somebody's ego.

I wonder why nobody else submitted an entry. Maybe they didn't know about the contest
either?

So Digger is now Principal For a Day, and Portia is MAD! His first order of business is to give all the teachers the day off and appoint Eddie as his right-hand man. Portia protests that Digger will destroy the entire school, but Baby Chassis' dad, who's their teacher, says, "It's only for one day. How much harm could he do?" Methinks this guy isn't very genre-savvy.

"I DECLARE WEIRDSVILLE HIGH... A FUN ZONE!" Digger shouts. Suddenly the kids are riding around the school in bumper cars, toilet paper is hanging from the ceiling, and all Digger has to do to keep Louie from blowing his stack is by sucking up to him. And when Portia tries to protest, she gets a detention for yelling at the principal. "THERE'S NO YELLING ALLOOOOOOOOOOOWED!" Louie roars.

I'm just now realizing who Digger reminds me of: Crazy Frog. Do you remember Crazy
Frog? He always gave me the willies...

Next, Digger extends lunch hour and makes food fights mandatory, and Portia is still getting bent out of shape over it. Like I said before, I can't really side with either character here - even if Portia is technically in the right, she's incredibly unpleasant and there's no indication that she would've been a better Principal For a Day than Digger would.

So how does Portia plan to dethrone Digger? According to the "school by-laws", the principal must maintain the school's academic standards. But once again, Digger flatters Louie into letting him do whatever he wants, and besides, he tells Portia he's going to teach a class himself. Specifically, he and Eddie took the motor Baby Chassis' father was showing off earlier and removed all the "boring safety features" - including the steering wheel - to turn it into a "super souped-up masterpiece". The result: WHACKY SHENANIGANS!

I think I know why my school never did a "Principal For a Day" contest. To prevent things
like THIS from happening...

Digger, Eddie, and Portia are eventually saved from the flying desk by a brick wall. Louie announces that Digger will have to stay after school to fix all the damage... or will he? Louie gets a call from the superintendent. Apparently Portia reported a disturbance at their school, and the superintendent is holding Louie responsible. Thus, HE has to stay after school to fix all the damage too. So once again, Portia comes out on top and it's not satisfying at all.

What's the Verdict?

This was bad. Really bad. I can't think of one thing it has going for it. The characters are unlikable, especially Digger and Portia - who, reminder, are two of the leads. The animation is unappealing to look at, much like Pet Alien they're desperately trying to do cartoony squash-and-stretch in CGI but the time and budget just weren't there. Most of the jokes fall flat, I think there was ONE joke I found kind of funny but even then it was done much better in an episode of Jimmy Neutron. It's pretty obvious why this only got thirteen episodes. I would not recommend watching Weird-Ohs, there are far better cartoons out there.

Incidentally, looking at the model kits it seems that most of the characters in this show did indeed originate from them as opposed to being created for the show. But none of them looked anything like they did in the show. Here's what Davey (the "way out cyclist") looked like:

And here's the model kits' version of Eddie:

Even Digger got his start in the model kits, and he looked like this:

I wonder why they reinvented them for the show. Maybe these original designs were just too hard to pull off in CGI or something? Or maybe they were all too similar-looking? Bit of a headscratcher... 

My Top Eleven Best PIXAR Shorts

Ahhh, PIXAR. There once was a time when you were the Kings of Animation. People loved you. You were creating critically-acclaimed film after critically-acclaimed film. Buying you helped Disney get out of their animated "Dork Age". You helped shape a majority of peoples' childhoods... which didn't stop everyone from turning on you after Cars 2 was released. Now everyone seems to be convinced that you can't make a good film ever again. Even your post-Cars 2 films that DID receive critical acclaim, like Coco and Elemental, were met with skepticism before they were released. Their most recent film, Elio, has basically been sabotaged by Disney - I went to see it in theaters, but apparently everyone else either doesn't know that it exists or would rather go see the Lilo and Stitch remake again instead. Shame on those guys.

In addition to their many great animated movies, PIXAR is also known for making many great animated short films. Usually, they'll stick these before their movies in theaters (for example, the short Sanjay's Super Team was shown before The Good Dinosaur) and then can be found on the movie's DVD release. Some of them, however, were made even before the first Toy Story. And then there are some that are based on one of their movies and could be found as a bonus feature on the DVD (like the Incredibles "midquel" short Jack-Jack Attack). I remember back in... 2009, maybe, ABC aired a compilation of PIXAR shorts around the holiday season. That's how I saw some of these shorts for the first time.

Today, I'm going to make a list of my personal favorite PIXAR short films. Specifically, I've narrowed it down to eleven... no Nostalgia Critic comparisons, please. These are in no particular order. I'm obviously not the first person on the internet to do a list like this, but since when has being unoriginal stopped me before? And please don't be mad if a short you really, really like isn't on the list (apologies in advance to all you fans of Red's Dream out there - that terrifying clown guaranteed that it wouldn't be on the list). Let's get started, shall we?

"Luxo Jr." (1986)

Let's start off with this early one. Luxo Jr. introduced the world to the little lamp who would become PIXAR's mascot. It was also PIXAR's first animation after Ed Catmull and John Lasseter left Industrial Light and Magic, and the first CGI film to be nominated for an Academy Award (it received an nomination for Best Animated Short Film).

The plot is very simple: little lamp has a ball. It plays with it. It pops it. Okay, it's not exactly Shakespeare, but who cares? The short is a nice demonstration of how you can give a personality to something that doesn't even have a face. I mean, would YOU look at this...

...and think "Maybe we could make a fun short film out of that?" I doubt you would. But PIXAR did it, and it actually managed to make audiences fall in love with that little lamp. Now, whether or not this short increased sales of actual Luxo lamps, I don't know.

Oh, and here's a fun fact for you - Luxo Jr. inspired WALL-E. Andrew Stanton revealed that in an interview. You can't NOT like a short that inspired WALL-E.

"Mike's New Car" (2002)

Monsters Inc. is my personal favorite PIXAR movie, so I guess it's not too big a surprise that I have a short featuring the characters on the list. Mike's New Car focuses on Mike (voiced once again by Billy Crystal) introducing Sulley (John Goodman) to his new car. What was wrong with his old car? It didn't have six-wheel drive - Mike's new car DOES!

This was the first PIXAR short to A) have dialogue and B) include characters from one of their movies (unless you count those Toy Story Treats shorts they aired on ABC in the 1990s). Just like the movie, this short is hilarious - it's basically five minutes of Mike getting put through the wringer. That scene with Sulley messing around with the adjustable seat alone is funnier than any of the jokes in Modern Family. As co-director Roger Gould put it, "If this were a live action film about two guys in a car, you could do some pretty silly things with the car. But a car in the monster world has greater room for exaggeration. A car seat in the real world - you can adjust it vertically a couple of inches up or down, but because monsters come in so many shapes and sizes, a monster car would have to be able to have a hydraulic lift that could raise or lower the seat five or six feet within the space of the car. Those were the kinds of things we could go berserk with when the car started going crazy and Mike and Sulley started to get slammed around inside it."

Really, Mike is the kind of character that could easily star in a whole series of humorous short films. He's like the PIXAR equivalent of Daffy Duck. So it's kind of weird that of all the shorts PIXAR has made, he's only appeared in two - this and 2014's Party Central, based on Monsters University. Which I have not seen yet. I'll have to get on that...

"La Luna" (2012)

This one was released in front of Brave, PIXAR's 2012 release that had the misfortune of being the first PIXAR film to be released after Cars 2, when "PIXAR sucks now!" claims were in full swing. I haven't seen Brave in years, maybe I should rewatch it at some point...

Basically, La Luna is a children's picture book from the 1960s or 1970s (maybe the 1950s too?) come to life. From the character designs to the gentle tone to the whimsical plot, this feels like it easily could've been adapted from something Maurice Sendak wrote. I mean, the plot is that a boy, his father, and his grandfather sweep stars off the moon. Why are they doing that? Well, I won't give it away. The short's director, Enrico Casarosa, went on to direct Luca in 2021, and in hindsight it's pretty obvious they were made by the same guy. They have very similar vibes, and even similar character designs (the dad in this looks a LOT like the girl's dad in Luca).

According to Enrico Casarosa, "I've always been fascinated by fantastical stories of the moon: is it made of cheese? Milk? A hole in the celestial mantle? I wanted to invent my own fantastical lunar myth. Authors like Antoine de Saint-Exupery and Italo Calvino were a huge influence and a source of inspiration for this story." The short's music was composed by Michael Giacchino, who did the music for several of PIXAR's movies, who was asked to "immerse himself in his Italian roots".

This short, if I could sum it up, is like being wrapped in a warm blanket on a rainy night and drinking a mug of hot chocolate. It just makes you feel good. I've gotta ask, though... aren't the boy, the dad, and the grandfather wreaking havoc on the Earth's tides?

"Your Friend the Rat" (2007)

Poor rats. They get no respect. I don't know how the mindset that rats = evil got started. Yeah, they live in sewers, but so do the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and everybody loves THEM. Ratatouille is one of the few animated... well, ANYTHING that portrays them as anything other than the rodent equivalent of pond scum. So it makes sense to have Remy and Emile (voiced once again by Patton Oswalt and Peter Sohn) star in a short film advocating for people NOT to think so little (no pun intended... y'know, since rats are little) of rats.

Utilizing a number of different animation styles, the short sheds a little light on the positive qualities of the mouse's not-as-popular sibling. I have no official confirmation on this, but I'm almost positive that this short was inspired by the work of Disney animator Ward Kimball - from the art style to the numerous jokes it throws at us. I dare you to watch this short without laughing at least once. We even get cameos from P.T. Flea and WALL-E.

Everything culminates in a wonderful musical number. Who knows, maybe Remy and Emile are on to something... maybe we WOULD have world peace if we just lived in harmony with rats. Just so we're clear, I'm not suggesting that you go out and hug a rat, I'm saying that if you see one you shouldn't, say, poison it. Rats have feelings too.

"The Blue Umbrella" (2013)

Most of PIXAR's films aren't exactly love stories, but there's usually some sort of romance subplot in there, even if it's not the focus. A Bug's Life had Flik and Atta, Cars had Lightning and Sally, Ratatouille had Linguini and Colette, and I'm not quite convinced that Inside Out didn't have something going on between Joy and Bing Bong (I know, I'm weird). This is one of the few PIXAR productions to be a full-on love story, the others being WALL-E and Elemental.

The Blue Umbrella, released in theaters before Monsters University, takes place in a city where everything is sentient: storm drains, mailboxes, buildings, traffic lights, and of course, umbrellas. It's your typical love story: boy meets girl, they hit it off, but they get separated and he struggles to get back to her, but they reunite and live happily ever after. But instead of humans, the main characters are umbrellas, which makes the short a lot better than one of those dull live action romcoms.

Saschka Unseld, the short's director, was inspired to make it when he was walking down a rainy San Francisco road and saw an abandoned umbrella just sitting there getting rained on. "Rain is a magical place," he explained in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter. "I wanted the soul of the film to be a love declaration to the rain, that celebrates the rain." I love the combination of photo-realistic humans (whose faces we never see) with the slightly anthropomorphized buildings, traffic lights, mailboxes etc. and the umbrellas with their black dot eyes and little smiles. I also love how the entire city seems to be helping the titular Blue Umbrella find his love.

Here's an embarrassing story related to the short: I saw Monsters University in theaters twice. The first time I saw it, I didn't see this short because I had to go to the bathroom and was in their for the duration of the short, fortunately making it back before the actual movie started. It wasn't until I saw it the second time that I saw this short, which I'll admit has more of an atmosphere when watched in a dark movie theater as opposed to my house with sunlight pouring through the windows. A lot of PIXAR shorts are like that. My suggestion - wait until night to watch this one.

"Presto" (2008)

How exactly DO magicians pull rabbits out of their hats? We may never know - magicians never reveal their secrets (except the Great Reveal-o. You all got that reference, right?). Presto Digitation, one of the two main characters in this short, pulls it off using two hats, one he might've gotten on loan from Mickey Mouse and a regular ol' top hat. He puts the Mickey hat on the head of his pet bunny, Alec Azam, and then sticks his hand into the top hat to pull him out. But before tonight's performance, Presto has made the mistake of not feeding Alec. And a hungry rabbit is not about to cooperate.

Animating the theater audience that Presto performs for was very expensive. To save time, most of the audience models - shown mostly from the back - were borrowed from Ratatouille (Presto's body from the neck down was also reused from Skinner's lawyer). Originally, the conflict of the short was going to be that the rabbit just had stage fright, but according to director Doug Sweetland, the idea was reworked because it was too complicated. At its core, this is PIXAR channeling Tex Avery and his Looney Tunes work, with other influences being the Marx Brothers, Charlie Chaplin, and Tom and Jerry. So basically, PIXAR made a modern Looney Tunes cartoon far better than anything Larry Doyle and his crew cranked out.

However, the cute little bunny Alec doesn't feel much like Bugs or any of the other Looney Tunes characters. There's a vulnerability to him that makes it easier to feel sorry for the little guy, helped by the fact that (unlike Bugs) he doesn't seem to actually be in control of the situation - he doesn't just stand there and make smug faces just before he messes with Presto. This character probably could have carried a whole movie, but with these PIXAR shorts, less is more.

Oh, and keep an eye out for a cameo appearance from The Muppets' Statler and Waldorf. There are a lot of Muppet fans at PIXAR.

"Boundin'" (2003)

Released in theaters before The Incredibles (though it debuted prior to that via special screenings of the short at the Laemmle Theatres), Boundin' is I believe the first PIXAR short to have dialogue in it. Directed by Bud Luckey, who also voices all of the characters, the short tells the story of a vain sheep very proud of his fluffy white wool. Then one day his wool is sheared off, leaving him, as he puts it "ridiculous, funny and pink". He's humiliated... until a wise Jackalope shows up to give him a pep talk.

Originally, Brad Bird wanted Bud Luckey's character in The Incredibles, Rick Dicker, to appear at the beginning of the short - he'd show up, start playing a banjo, and act as the narrator. Also worth noting, a few models are reused from Finding Nemo - some of the fish who appear are recolored models of Gurgle (y'know, the fish in the tank who shouts "CURSE YOU, AQUASCUUUUUUUUUUUM!"?) and the arm that grabs the lamb is none other than that of Dr. Philip Sherman. Stanley, the founder of Radiator Springs from Cars, also makes an appearance three years before that film's release - as the sheep-shearers' car.

With its western location and cast of cheery desert critters, it's hard not to like Boundin'. It's also one of the only PIXAR shorts to have a genuine moral. As the Jackalope puts it, "Does it matter what color? Well, that gets a 'nope', be it pink, purple, or heliotrope. Now, sometimes you're up, and sometimes you're down. When you find that you're down, well, just look around. You still got a body, good legs and fine feet, get your head in the right place and, hey, you're complete. Now, as for the dancin', well, you can do more. You can reach great heights, in fact, you can soar. You just get a leg up and you slap it on down, and you'll find you're up in what's called 'a bound'." I think we need that Jackalope in today's world more than ever.

"Piper" (2016)

First of all, compare the birds in this one to the birds in a previous PIXAR short, For the Birds. PIXAR's come a long way (not that the birds in For the Birds look bad, it's just that the birds in Piper look a lot better).

I really don't have much to say about this one other than "d'aaaaaaaaaaaaw, the baby bird is soooooooooooo cute!". But I'm okay with that. I'm a sucker for cute baby animals. Plus, the short really does capture the feeling of going to the beach and playing in the water. All that sand and grimy stuff in the water when it washes over the baby bird? So accurate...

Piper was directed by Alan Barillaro, who was inspired to make the short when, on a morning jog in the Bay Area, he saw hordes of sanderlings (that's the species of the bird in this short) scampering away from the water and then scampering back once it receded to eat. He and his crew spent weekends on beaches searching for shorebirds - and encountering hermit crabs, which inspired the hermit crab that appears in the short. And fortunately, he also fought the urge to make the characters more anthropomorphic or have them talk. "It's always fun to show a world we're familiar with but from a different perspective," he said. "We've all been to the beach, but have we ever viewed water from just an inch off the sand? That could be very fearful from a bird's perspective."

The short was released in front of Finding Dory, another PIXAR film that I seem to be in the minority on liking (much like Monsters University, it got mostly positive reviews from critics but is nowadays lumped in with Cars 2 as one of those supposedly so awful PIXAR sequels that they made in the 2010s). Fitting, seeing as they're both focused on water. You could probably insert the baby bird into Finding Dory and it would fit in even among the more cartoony main characters. If you like cute birds, you'll like Piper. What else is there to say, honestly?

"Lou" (2017)

I didn't see this one until much recently. Like, earlier this month. It was released in front of Cars 3, and I didn't see that one in theaters. In fact, I didn't see ANY movies in theaters during 2017.

Lou stars one of the most mesmerizing characters that PIXAR has ever created. He's a being made out of all the items in a school's lost and found box. His eyes are baseballs with black button pupils, his "head" is a red sweater with the neckhole serving as a mouth, and if need be he can literally pull himself together. He likes to help the kids at the school find whatever items they've misplaced - and when he sees one kid stealing things from his classmates, he decides that a lesson must be taught.

I'm not exaggerating when I say that Lou is a mesmerizing character. The way they animate this character, constantly "shapeshifting" as he runs with his "body parts" rearranging themselves, is almost magical - like, remember the Greedy from the Raggedy Ann and Andy movie? Remember how that character was constantly flowing around, shapeshifting, contorting into different shapes? Lou is sort of like the CGI equivalent of the Greedy. If this character were in, say, a horror movie or one of those survival games on the internet, he'd be very creepy... but PIXAR, of course, managed to make him endearing.

Oh, and there's also a lesson about how being nice is nice. And an ending that's honestly pretty bittersweet. But I won't give anything away. You'll have to watch the short for yourself.

"Day and Night" (2010)

How do you personify daytime and nighttime? Leave it to the folks at PIXAR to figure out how.

Here we have these two blob-like characters, one being the personification of day and the other being the personification of night. They aren't sure what to make of each other at first, but soon become friends. This short is unique in that it combines PIXAR's usual CGI with hand-drawn animation (there's clearly some more Ward Kimball influence here), specifically by having hand-drawn characters with CGI bodies. I have no idea how they did it... though there's probably some video on YouTube that explains it.

The combination of two different animation styles is the short's main gimmick, but there are a lot of clever gags in it as well. I love how Day yawning is represented by the crowing of a rooster, and how his going to the bathroom is represented by a rushing waterfall (I know, it's toilet humor, but I still found it funny). The characters, despite being in a black void where cartoon physics run rampant, really do feel "weighed down" so to speak by the scenery inside them, which is a really nice touch. It's one of the most experimental things that PIXAR has ever done. And this is coming from somebody who just watched it on their laptop - I don't know how much more impressive it looked on the big screen (it was released in front of Toy Story 3, which I did not see in theaters... stop judging me!).

Watching this really reminded me of how much I think PIXAR should try their hand at a full-length hand-drawn movie. From my understanding, the PIXAR crew was dismayed when the industry decided to abandon hand-drawn animated films in favor of CGI (their intent when making Toy Story was never to have CGI replace hand-drawn animation). With that in mind, I think they'd be just the studio to help theatrical 2D films make a comeback. Though I'm not sure if Bob Iger would let them do it...

"Burrow" (2020)

Speaking of PIXAR and 2D animation, I believe this was their first fully-2D short film. The original plan was to release it in theaters before Soul, but the Covid-19 pandemic put a dent in that plan, so it wound up released on Disney Plus as part of PIXAR's "SparkShorts" series. When Soul eventually did get a theatrical release in 2024, this was shown in theaters before it.

Like La Luna, Burrow feels like a children's picture book come  to life - in this case, something written by the likes of Beatrix Potter or Arnold Lobel. And like Presto, it stars a rabbit. This one wants to dig a nice burrow, but keeps getting waylaid by encounters with other animals - a mole, a mouse, hedgehogs, frogs, newts, bugs, etc. And like Boundin', it has a moral to it: in this case, that solitude is overrated.

I didn't notice it until I saw it brought up in an interview with the short's director, Madeline Sharafian, but this short actually makes for a pretty good parallel to what was going on during the pandemic. Not to brag, but I think those of us who live with other people had it at least a little better during the pandemic because, even if we were stuck in our homes, we at least weren't alone. And jeez, has it really been four years since the pandemic ended in 2021? Still feels like it was just yesterday...

Combining a cozy atmosphere with cute cartoon animals, Burrow is a short that might not make you laugh, but it'll definitely make you smile.

HONORABLE MENTION: "Mr. Incredible and Pals" (2005)

The idea of this short is that, in the Incredibles universe, Mr. Incredible and Frozone were approached by about having a cartoon show featuring their likenesses (sort of like how celebrities like Chuck Norris, Mr. T, Louie Anderson, and Jackie Chan all had cartoon shows starring them). The show apparently never aired, but a pilot was made - and it is laughably bad. Like, if this were an actual show, I'd probably wind up reviewing an episode of it at some point. For one thing, it features Synchro-Vox. I was born looooooooong after the days of Synchro-Vox being used as an actual animation tool instead of just something used when a cartoon feels like being intentionally creepy. So this was actually my introduction to the technique (well, that and the pirate at the beginning of the SpongeBob theme song).

The short is a fun parody of cartoons from the days of very, very, very small budgets. I particularly love the inclusion of a rabbit named "Mr. Skipperdoo". But, to be honest, the short itself is not the Honorable Mention here. The COMMENTARY is. Yep, the short actually comes with commentary by the actual Mr. Incredible and Frozone. And it is a riot. I would not be surprised if there was no script, they just put Craig T. Nelson and Samuel L. Jackson in the recording booth, had them watch the cartoon, and they just ad-libbed everything. I particularly love Frozone's mockery of the animation style ("Why's everybody got lady lips?! Are those human lips?! Whose lips ARE those?!").

And now I'm wondering... who would win in a fight? Mr. Skipperdoo or Alec from Presto? I'm betting on Alec myself. What do you think?

Further reading:
- BuzzFeed's 2021 ranking of every PIXAR short made at that point
- Screen Rant's 2024 ranking of every PIXAR short made from that point
- Vulture's 2015 ranking of every PIXAR short made from that point

If you'd like to watch these shorts for yourself (which I highly recommend doing), you can find them - and several other PIXAR shorts that aren't on the list - on Disney Plus. Or you could just get out the DVDs of whichever PIXAR movies these were released with and see if they're in the bonus features.

Say, maybe the reason why Elio isn't making more money is because it didn't have a short in front of it... I dunno, just a theory.

The History of "Quest For Camelot"

That post I did about the history of Home on the Range was, for the longest time, just going to be a one-off thing... like I said, it got its start as an edition of Back to the Drawing Board but I wasn't able to find out much about the original version of the movie, Sweating Bullets, while finding a lot of information about the development of the film we wound up getting, so I decided to work with it. But after watching various videos online about the development of certain movies, I started to think, what if I made this a recurring thing? What if I made MORE posts about the troubled productions of animated films infamous online for one reason or another? And thus, I now have a new series on this blog: The History of...

There's a very good chance you've heard of Quest For Camelot even if you haven't actually seen it. It's generally regarded as being one of the worst animated films of all time. Like, on par with Delgo and The Emoji Movie. For the longest time, I believed it was just as bad as everyone made it out to be... mostly because I, embarrassingly enough, was a fan of the Nostalgia Critic, and he did a negative review of the film. In fact, most of the criticisms aimed at the film are clearly because of his review: if you see somebody complaining about how the heroine looks like Belle from Beauty and the Beast (I mean, she DOES, but still) or that it doesn't make sense for the plants in the enchanted forest they go through at one point to move, you can tell they're a Nostalgia Critic fan.

I am no longer a fan of the Nostalgia Critic. Well, not a BIG fan, anyway. I'll admit that his pre-2013 reviews are still pretty funny, and most of the stuff he reviews genuinely ARE pretty bad, but I recognize that he's been an awful influence on the internet and has a habit of overreacting to films that are for the most part harmless. So, in preparation for this post, I decided to give Quest For Camelot a watch for the first time via Sling TV. What did I think of it? Well, it's bad, but it's not as bad as everyone makes it out to be. It's mostly just another generic animated film that wants to be like Disney's (and to a lesser extent Don Bluth's) but just isn't. The best thing about it is Devon and Cornwall, who are genuinely very funny characters and have most of the best lines. Aside from that, I found it to be just mediocre. There are far, far worse animated movies out there.

Have you ever wondered how Quest For Camelot became a thing? Probably not. But I'm going to tell you anyway! It actually has a fascinating history.

Concept art for the film.

Quest For Camelot was announced in 1995. It wasn't called Quest For Camelot at that point, it was called "The Quest For the Grail", and it was slated to be released in 1997 as opposed to 1998. The Los Angeles Times article announcing the film claimed that it would focus on "Susannah, an idealistic, independent young woman living in the days of King Arthur's Court, who goes on a dangerous quest for the Holy Grail to save her sister from a ruthless and powerful knight". Elizabeth Chandler was to be the screenwriter, and the co-directors were to be Bill Kroyer and Frederick DuChau.

What you might not have known is that Quest For Camelot is based on a book - specifically, The King's Damosel, a 1976 fantasy novel written by Vera Chapman.

I've never read the book, but according to Wikipedia it's about a character from the original Arthurian Legend named Lynette. And it's definitely not a book for kids. I won't go into details on why. So why on Earth would you adapt it into a kids' movie? Well, that wasn't the original plan. The film was supposed to be a lot darker, something with a PG-13 rating a la Ralph Bakshi's Wizards. But y'know how Rover Dangerfield was originally gonna be an R-rated comedy, only for the Warner Bros. executives to turn it into a kids' movie in an attempt to compete with the super-successful animated Disney movies of the 1990s? Yeah, the same thing happened here. I'm not sure how well Rover Dangerfield did at the box office, but if it was successful I guess the mindset was "Hey, if it worked the first time..."

According to Frederick DuChau, Warner Bros. had absolutely no clue about making animated movies. Apparently, the executives straight-up told Bill that he was going to make the film that wound up becoming Quest For Camelot and he was going to like it. "I, at the time, had just become a director in development at Warner Bros. Feature Animation, 'cause I'd just sold them two projects, and then one of them, I was attached as a director and that sort of made me get an office as opposed to being in a cubicle, and you are a director trying to push your project forward. And they really liked what I was doing, they liked my projects, they liked ME," Frederick explained. "In hindsight, probably because I was just too... not that I was a doormat, because I was doing the kind of stuff that they LIKED... they liked what they saw, basically. So right before they announced Quest For Camelot, they pulled me off my project that I was developing, and they got me into a room with Bill, we all got along really well... and they said 'Listen, this is how it's gonna go. Bill is gonna direct this movie and you're going to direct it with him. We do understand that Bill is the veteran director here." They didn't use these words, but it was very well understood that he was going to take the lead." He agreed with all of that, despite how skeptical he was that they really needed another King Arthur story.

A team of great animators was compiled. Production on the film started up... and then came to a halt when most of the studio's artists were reassigned to Space Jam. When storyboarding for the film began, the plot was divided up in sequences - Bill had half, and Frederick had the other half, and together they would present their sequences to upper management. "Which is already very wrong," Frederick said, "Because, if you're gonna hire directors to make a movie, let them make the movie. And they weren't, but if you were really good at running a studio, that doesn't mean that you are very good at making an animated movie from a creative point of view... those are completely different things. But, in animation back then, the management set it up that they got to decide everything and everybody else worked for THEM." When the sequences were presented to the higher-ups, they'd give feedback like claiming a sequence was "four minutes too long" - even though at this point it was just storyboards. Frederick was more willing to do what they wanted than Bill was, which led to Bill leaving production and having Frederick be the full director... that is, assuming they didn't find another co-director or replace him altogether.

Concept art by Cynthia Wells. She labeled it "badguyflirtswithsister_gif", so
I'm guessing this is concept art for the original version of the film about Proto-Kayley
saving her sister from a ruthless knight.

Frederick explained, "Bill came to see me... and again, I do not remember the exact words whatsoever... and basically said, 'Dude, we gotta stick together here. We're gonna walk. We should walk. This upper management doesn't know what they're doing. We need to walk... let's walk away.' I went into a panic... in my head, I was like, if I walk away from this, Warner Bros. is gonna go, 'What is this idiot doing? Walking away from an opportunity like this? He's never gonna direct anything in this town again.'" Plus, he had bills to pay. "I wasn't gonna drop the biggest paycheck I'd ever had. I wasn't gonna let that all just slip and fall away at all. There was no plan... there was nothing offered in return. So, no. That was not a good deal for me at all. They were really shocked when I was like 'Uh, no, sorry, I'm gonna keep doing this.' I could tell they were really disappointed when I didn't go, 'Yeah, man! You're right! Let's just walk!' So we both went our own ways. But it was bad... Bill and I, basically, I don't think we talked again. It was painful, it was frustrating, but there also wasn't any time to go 'All right, let's put the brakes on, let's sit down, let's talk about all of this.' On top of that, lots of rumors flew that I would have orchestrated his exit and all of that was one big plan..."

After that, the upper management decided to keep Bill on - they fired him but kept giving him a giant paycheck and had him and his wife just come in when they felt like it and roam the halls complaining to the crew about how much he hated the higher-ups. And in case you're wondering if Frederick ever regretted not walking with Bill, he said "No."

One member of the crew who DID leave production when Bill was fired was animator Darlie Brewster, who was going to be the lead animator of Garrett. He explained, "All of the best parts were the parts he boarded. The producer set us all up letting Bill pull in a crew, board the film and then pretty much stole it from him... what they turned it into was pretty much garbage."

More concept art by Cynthia Wells.

The Holy Grail was replaced as the thing everyone is trying to get their hands on by Arthur's sword Excalibur. Why? Well, for one thing, Warner Bros. was nervous about the inescapable religious connotations associated with it. But according to Max Howard, the president of Warner Bros. Feature Animation, "The symbol of Camelot is the power of Excalibur, and that became a more interesting theme: Whoever held the sword, held the power." There were so many delays during production that the release date was changed from November 1997 to May 1998.

Frederick wanted to hire a lot of "European comic book people" that he knew like Claire Wendeling and Frank Page, and had them design the characters and do visual development - really go back to what the King Arthur story is. It wasn't all just "knights in shining armor with lots of flags", it was the year 4000 and early Britain. He described it as "this whole world that you can tap into". A few months after doing that, the higher-ups rejected all of this because it wasn't anything like they'd seen before. For example, when Frank Page came in, Frederick put him on a sequence in which the characters encounter rat-like trolls. He went full throttle on that, with a very "earthy" feel and a lot of dark humor. This didn't make it into the movie. His designs for the dragons did, but they were "watered-down".

Eventually, the heads of Warner Bros. at the time, Robert Daly and Terry Semel, saw what Frederick's crew was doing and gave a mandate: since Disney already made The Sword in the Stone, an animated movie about a young King Arthur, we should never at any point in the film see a young King Arthur pull the sword from the stone because then you're just begging for comparisons to be made. Their response was, "What? We're doing a King Arthur movie and we can't do the most iconic scene from the story?" This is why, in the movie, when we actually see Arthur pull the sword from the stone near the beginning, it cuts away to the people that are just standing around watching him.

Concept art for Devon and Cornwall.

"I was surrounded by too many people that they assigned... 'Well, these people are gonna do layout, these people are gonna do colors, and backgrounds...' And before you know it, you basically have an old Disney crew, doing something that they weren't comfortable with either," Frederick lamented. "Because, again, the movie wasn't set up from a director's point of view, around he or she with the people they would like to have around to do their vision and so on. It was backwards, it was from the top. Y'know, 'We just get a bunch of people, tell 'em what to do, hire enough people that worked at Disney and hopefully something good will come out.' And so, this is where I failed completely, I had no experience how to get my vision done. Most people probably didn't even know I had a vision." All those European artists were also pretty miffed about their work on the film being either watered down or cut.

In fact, the movie originally wasn't even going to be a musical. That was another decision from the higher-ups: they wanted it to be "Little Mermaid with swords on horses". This was both because of the whole "trying to be Disney" thing - Disney movies have songs, so we should have songs too! - and because the wife of Bob Daly was Carole Bayer Sager, an Oscar-winning songwriter and her group of friends really wanted to write songs for an animated movie. Y'know that really popular song from the movie performed by Celine Dion? "The Prayer"? Y'know how it plays over an unfitting chase sequence between Kayley and Ruber's minions? Apparently, that was delivered and recorded so late into production that the movie was practically finished and they went back in and re-animated a bunch of stuff to find a spot to put it in (Frederick thought it worked really well, but a lot of us beg to differ).

Frederick DuChau admitted that the studio's vision was only "If Disney did it, we should do it too." "They had no vision other than 'Well, when I was a production coordinator at Disney during Aladdin, we did THIS!', which has nothing to do with running a studio..." he claimed. "Lots of studios were starting up. FOX had one, DreamWorks just started... and so everyone who was a production assistant at Disney would become a department head at one of these studios." Even just watering the flowers at Disney could get you a job as president of feature animation, it would seem.

Concept art of Kayley and Ruber.

Quest For Camelot's production had the unintended consequence of another animated film, one that was released before it but while it was in production, being a flop: Cats Don't Dance. That movie was originally in development at Turner Feature Animation when Time Warner purchased the studio just before it came out. Which meant Warner Bros. would have to release Cats Don't Dance. And they really didn't want Cats Don't Dance to outperform and overshadow Quest For Camelot, so they released it on a crowded Easter holiday weekend and barely marketed it (there was ONE POSTER made for the movie, toys in Subway kids' meals, and that's about it).

The film's producer, Frank Gladstone, wound up leaving the project in February 1997 and was replaced by Dalisa Cohen - who, according to animator David Germain, HATED animation for some inexplicable reason and apparently only got put on the project as punishment for a previous film she co-produced, A Little Princess, being a flop. Most of the animation was done at the main Warner Bros. Feature Animation facilities located in Glendale, California and London, England. Yowza! Animation, Heart of Texas Productions, and A. Film A/S also worked on the film. For the CGI effects, Silicon Graphics' Alias Research software was used.

Most of the animators involved in Quest For Camelot hated it. Lauren Faust has admitted that they all knew it was going to bomb and dubbed it worse than Don Bluth's 1990s films. If you go on Facebook, you can find a lot of comments from animators who worked on the film complaining about how much of a pain it was. For example, David Lee Thompson said, "The movie was a bunch of missteps and they switched everyone around after I signed on. I was on the Kayley team. They changed directors, designers, animators, writers, and on and on. Kayley was first Suzanna... then Lynett and finally Kayley... they put the songs in the worst places. Putting the award-winning song over a chase sequence. Kayley's first song where we are supposed to really care for her was farmed out and then crapped out. She floated from rock to rock... I just have post-dramatic stress all these years later... the original artwork and development was stunning and what made me want to be on the production to start with. There were some great animators on the project and people I still hold in high regard to this day. I remember Max Howard standing up in front of us all and saying we were going to do something that Disney couldn't touch. Something uniquely WB and then they say we are doing Quest."

Concept art by Michael Gagne.

Jerome K. Moore, likewise, had this to say: "WB's first mistake (of which there were many) was in trying to emulate the Disney style. I mean, we're talking about a studio that was and still is at the top of the animation game, and WB tries to copy their expertise? Better to have done what they did in the old days, with Looney Tunes' Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and Termite Terrace being the antithesis of Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and the Nine Old Men. Then they lost the Kroyers, the couple that started out designing the whole Quest For Camelot production. They couldn't pick a consistent direction with Kayley, originally making her more heroic and tomboy-ish, then switching to make her more girlish. It was indeed an absolute mess. As I sat up there on the 19th Floor of the building in Glendale, I mostly heard complaints from all the animators and production assistants."

Steve Garcia, meanwhile, said, "I was at Warners at this time. Even though I had an offer from DreamWorks to go help them finish up the project they were doing at the time (I think Prince of Egypt?) and then go onto their next film, I opted to stay because I reeeeeeally wanted to work with Brad Bird on his flick, The Iron Giant. My one stipulation was that I NOT work on Camelot. So... they put me to work in viz 'til Giant was ready to go to animation. Man did they beg for those of us that weren't on to take scenes and help out. It was mired in one terrible problem after another. It was a train wreck. Warners was a company that tempted a lot of talents to come on (including me) because they were saying they wanted to be the non-Disney studio. Doing different types of things. And I can tell you right now... that what we were doing in viz dev... it WAS different. But... that said... it did raise suspicions with us when the first [CENSORED] movie that they were putting out... was nothing more than Disney Lite." No wonder near the end of production, the entire crew bailed to go work on The Prince of Egypt (actually, Warner Bros. lent DreamWorks their crew).

John Alvin's concept art for the film's poster.

Let's talk about the voices. Eric Idle stated on Twitter that he and Don Rickles "ad-libbed for days", but for some reason, the filmmakers "didn't use a single line". Do those recordings still exist? I'd like to hear those ad-libs. Christopher Reeve was originally supposed to voice either King Arthur or Merlin, but eventually was unavailable to record new dialogue. According to Darlie Brewster, Garrett was originally going to be voiced by Jared Harris - his readings were incredible and he fleshed out the character, but for some reason he got replaced by Cary Elwes. As for the voice of Ruber, Gary Oldman... TV Tropes claims that he was drinking alcohol while in the recording booth and would record his lines drunk. Take that with a grain of salt.

How did Warner Bros. promote the film? Boy howdy did they make merchandise: dolls, video games, books, you name it. Toys were included in Wendy's Kids Meals. There were tie-ins with Tyson Chicken, Kraft Foods, Frito-Lay, Kodak, and Act II popcorn. Devon and Cornwall hosted the Kids' WB Saturday morning lineup on May 9th (Eric Idle reprised his role as Devon for it, Maurice LaMarche filled in for Don Rickles as the voice of Cornwall). Six Flags Great Adventure received a live show called Quest For Camelot Nights, which featured live characters, fireworks, pyrotechnics, and water effects.

From left to right: Garrett, Kayley, Devon, Cornwall, Merlin, and...
I'm not sure who that guy in blue behind Kayley is. King Arthur?

When the film was released, it wound up being a flop - the budget was forty million dollars and it only made $38.1 million at the box office. Why? After all, being a poorly-recieved movie isn't enough for a film to flop. Otherwise that live action Smurfs movie from 2011 wouldn't have become a hit. I don't think it was solely because it was such a blatant Disney wannabe either... Don Bluth's Anastasia, which was released the previous year, was also a pretty blatant Disney wannabe and it did pretty well at the box office. Apparently, one of the reasons it didn't do better is because of the tie-in with Wendy's - the toys also gave tickets for adults to pay child admittance fees to see the film, which cut a lot of the profits in half.

And as a result, Warner Bros. completely gave up on the idea of doing theatrical animated films. The three films they still had in production - The Iron Giant, Osmosis Jones, and Looney Tunes: Back in Action - were basically sabotaged like Cats Don't Dance was, given little advertising and crappy release dates. Whatever plans they had for animated films after that were all scrapped: an adaptation of The Snow Queen, King Tut, Arrow, the list goes on. Apparently, there were also plans for sequels to Quest For Camelot, based on Vera Chapman's books The Green Knight and King Arthur's Daughter, but those got scrapped too. Oh, and there was also going to be a touring live production debuting at Six Flags Fiesta Texas and then traveling to different renaissance fairs in the United States, but that got the axe as well. On the bright side, Six Flags Great Adventure's Quest For Camelot Nights stuck around for four years because it was pretty popular.

Presented by Tyson Chick'n Chunks!

So, basically, it's another case of the higher-ups at a movie studio having no idea what they were doing and then refusing to admit they were at fault when the film underperforms. Did Quest For Camelot deserve to bomb? I'm not sure. Even if the movie itself isn't great, I think its flopping did more harm to the theatrical animation industry than good, and I don't think the movie itself is that bad - far worse animated movies have been box office hits (I haven't seen either of the Minions movies, but somehow I doubt they're better than Quest For Camelot). Then again, if it HAD been a success, then Warner Bros. would have basically been "validated" in their meddling with the movie and made sure all of their post-Iron Giant animated films were just like it. Boy, this is a double-edged sword (no pun intended), isn't it?

Ah well. At least Eric Idle had fun working on it.

Sources:
- https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1995-05-26-ca-6143-story.html
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AeCFeEuyzFk
- https://variety.com/1997/film/news/warner-bros-searches-for-boxoffice-grail-111662043/