Let's Watch This: An Episode of "The Mr. Peabody and Sherman 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.

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

All right, I know this is an unpopular opinion, so get ready to type insults in the comments section... I don't like DreamWorks' 2014 Mr. Peabody and Sherman movie.

Do I hate it? No! Do I think it's worth watching at least ONCE? Sure. Are there things I like about it? Of course. But there's a lot that keeps me from being a fan. I've already talked about how little I like Ty Burrell as Mr. Peabody (every time he talked, all I could hear was Phil Dunphy), but my main problem is that it takes itself very seriously, which I'm not sure something based on a segment from Rocky and Bullwinkle should do. You're taking a cartoon about a genius dog and his pet boy traveling through time and helping historical figures and playing it for drama? I don't think that EVER could have worked. Just so we're clear, I'm not saying that the film should be non-stop jokes and zany antics - the George of the Jungle movie is a goofy comedy that doesn't take itself seriously, but it still has heart. Mr. Peabody and Sherman prioritizes emotion over humor. And I'm honestly not sure what Mr. Peabody's character arc in the movie was even supposed to be... is it that he should be more open with affection or less overprotective of Sherman?

But I know a lot of people love the movie. The critics, in particular, were thrilled by it... which didn't stop the film from underperforming at the box office. But DreamWorks wasn't done with Mr. Peabody yet. Like most of DreamWorks' films in the 2010s, it got a Netflix show.

Serving as both a reboot of the original "Peabody's Improbable History" segments and a spin-off of the movie, the show was developed by David P. Smith and premiered on Netflix on October 9th, 2015. Unlike the movie, this show was 2D, with DHX Media providing the animation. Mr. Peabody was now voiced by Chris Parnell, but Max Charles reprised his role as Sherman. Most of the characters created for the movie that weren't in the original segments (Sherman's girlfriend, her parents, the evil social worker) don't show up. Like the original segments, Mr. Peabody and Sherman traveled through time and met historical figures, but now they also hosted a variety show with other historical figures serving as the guests.

Four seasons and a total of fifty-two episodes were produced. The show managed to snag two Annie Awards and a couple of Emmys as well. It has since been removed from Netflix, so if you want to watch it you either need a streaming service called Kidoodle.TV or go to the Internet Archive. I'll be using the latter. I know the chances of me liking a TV show based on a movie I don't like are pretty slim, but I can name several times I've liked a movie but hated the TV show it spawned (see also Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness), so who knows? We're going to watch the third episode of the show. This is The Mr. Peabody and Sherman Show.

The episode starts off with Mr. Peabody and Sherman figure skating. They've invited the father of modern figure skating, Jackson Haines, to judge their routine.

Hey, Sherman, Elton John called. He wants his glasses back.

They do their fancy figure-skating routine, which culminates in Mr. Peabody falling through the ice because Sherman was taking care of his Tamagotchi instead of catching him. Remember the Tamagotchi? I think it's still a thing, but it's not quite as popular nowadays. I guess everyone realized that digital pets aren't as much fun as real pets. Even if digital pets don't poop on your carpet.

I never had a Tamagotchi. I think my older sister had one at some point, but I could
be wrong.

"Sherman, we've been over this. Having a pet is a HUGE responsibility," Mr. Peabody says. Plus, Sherman is already Mr. Peabody's pet... oh, wait, that was the ORIGINAL version of these characters, where the joke was that instead of a boy having a pet dog, it was a dog having a pet boy. The DreamWorks version of Mr. Peabody is Sherman's adopted father. How else would they be able to throw manufactured drama over Mr. Peabody not being a good father in our faces?

Next, it's time for the portion of the show where Mr. Peabody and Sherman actually do the time-traveling. But first, an appearance from Mrs. Hughes, their... secretary or whatever, who emerges from a giant venus flytrap with a portal in it? Yeah, I don't know either.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but could we please go back to the figure skating?

After that, Mr. Peabody tells us via flashback how he and Sherman met the explorer Marco Polo (voiced by Nolan North). You know who Marco Polo is, right? Venetian mechant and explorer, traveled the Silk Road in China, namesake of the popular pool game? THIS version of Marco Polo has a Brooklyn accent for some reason and is wandering around eating food from street vendors. You see, there's a legend that Marco Polo is the guy who brought noodles to Italy from China, so he's the reason we have spaghetti. This, from what I've read, is false - pasta already existed in the Mediterranean before he came around. I suppose I should complain about this show's not being historically accurate, but that seems kind of pointless for a show where a dog can talk and travel through time.

Eugh, those armpit hairs.

Instead of noodles, however, Marco Polo plans on bringing back... bok choy. Y'know, that food that's basically just cabbage. He doesn't even know what a noodle is. So Mr. Peabody and Sherman bring him to the most famous noodle shop in all of China. "Marco Polo don't put nothin' in his face that ain't got a face," Marco Polo claims. Even though about five minutes ago he was talking about how great bok choy is, and bok choy doesn't have a face either.

Will Mr. Peabody and Sherman get Marco Polo to eat noodles? We'll have to find out later, because Mr. Peabody interrupts the flashback to introduce the audience to Charles Darwin. He's brought with him a dodo bird, a quagga, and a woolly mammoth that looks more like Sidney the elephant from Terrytoons (if you don't know who that character is, look it up).

I've heard that scientists are actually trying to bring back the woolly mammoth.
You think they'll ever accomplish that?

Charles Darwin explains that these animals became extinct because they were all dumb as a rock. I'm doubtful. If being incredibly stupid is all it takes for an animal to go extinct, how come humans are still alive? Charles Darwin is also kind of a jerk, because he tosses the dodo into the air just to let it fall on its face (y'know, because he can't just say the dodo can't fly, nobody's gonna believe THE FATHER OF EVOLUTION on that). AND he wheels in an inflatable pool full of hot tar for the woolly mammoth to drown in. Fortunately, Sherman has taken a liking to the mammoth and he advises it not to take a dip. Ha! In your face, Darwin!

Did you know that woolly mammoths used their curved tusks to dig up the ground? Hey,
if I can't be funny, I think I should at least try to be educational.

Sherman begs Mr. Peabody to let him keep the mammoth, but Mr. Peabody says no. For one thing, it's hard to house-train a mammoth and he doesn't want to wake up one morning and find a mountain of crap on the living room rug. But also Mr. Peabody thinks HE'LL be the one walking him and feeding him and getting him chew toys. And those are all things SHERMAN should be doing for HIM. Y'know, since he's a dog.

"I tried, boy! But my... FATHER... doesn't approve of our LOVE!" Sherman tells the mammoth. Mr. Peabody, how could you be so cruel? Separating your son and the enormous prehistoric pachyderm that he's clearly formed a bond with? But Sherman is clever and simply HIDES the mammoth behind the set. And Mr. Peabody doesn't notice the mammoth's trunk peeking out from over the wall. So much for being the world's smartest dog.

I think Mr. Peabody needs new glasses if he can't see the literal elephant in the room.

It isn't until Sherman starts listing pet names that Mr. Peabody notices the mammoth's trunk and reveals the whole thing to the audience. And now, back to the Marco Polo story!

Apparently, Marco Polo's finickyness reminds Mr. Peabody of when Sherman was a baby and wouldn't eat his vegetables. He would simply read him a book about another finicky eater and Sherman would inhale the broccoli. For legal reasons, he can't read the book on this show, so he wrote his own: a parody of Green Eggs and Ham. Long story short, Marco Polo eats the noodles and loves 'em.

"And I will eat them on the go.
And I will eat them in the snow.
And I will eat them 'neath the sky.
And I will eat them in Shanghai.
And I will eat them in Beijing.
They are a most delicious thing!
And I will eat them with a yak.
And I will eat them as a snack.
And I'll eat them with grated cheese.
And with marinara sauce, please.
I'll take them back to Italy!
I like them, Mr. Peabody!"

So they go back to the noodle shop so Marco Polo can get the recipe, but the Chinese stereotype who runs the shop will only give it to them if they compete in three challenges. What are these three challenges? We'll have to find out later, because we cut back to Sherman and Mr. Peabody arguing over the mammoth. Their argument is interrupted by their downstairs neighbor and resident stereotypical sassy black woman, Christine (Da'Vine Joy Randolph), barging in and doing this with her dog:

"The mammoth needs to be in his own environment with the proper climate, the right kind of food, and familiar animals! The Ice Age!" Mr. Peabody says. After all, if they don't return him to the Ice Age, how will Disney be able to continue milking the franchise, even after they shut down the studio that made the films? Why, no, I'm not still bitter about that at all.

Then who should show up but ANOTHER stereotype. This time, it's an Indian swami riding a magic carpet.

Meanwhile, Christine is still French-kissing her dog.

Mr. Peabody tells the swami to help Sherman return the Woolly Mammoth to the Ice Age. Instead, Sherman turns the apartment into a winter wonderland, with saber-toothed tigers and giant beavers and even neandrethals walking around. How did he accomplish this? I don't know. I guess the implication is that the swami has some sort of mystical genie-like powers and can grant wishes.

All it needs is for Elsa to show up and start singing "Let It Go".

After that, we continue with the flashback. Everything turns into one of those martial arts movies where the lip-sync doesn't match up (which Sherman points out). Their first challenge is to walk across a floor comprised of the tops of large swaying noodles, holding a cup of water. And also the noodles are being boiled, but they're being cooked al dente which makes them both hard and soft... I'm just gonna take Mr. Peabody's word for it, I'm not a culinary expert. They manage to get across when Mr. Peabody uses one of the noodles to swing across the room.

The next challenge is for them to, while holding an egg and preventing it from cracking, fight "noodle warriors" wielding fortune cookies and eggroll nunchucks. I can't help but find this offensive. Did I turn on an episode of Chop Socky Chooks by mistake?

And why do the "noodle warriors" have purple skin? Did they eat Willy Wonka's gum
or something?

Sherman defeats the "noodle warriors" by eating their weapons. Challenge number three is for them to take a measuring cup full of flour to the middle of the room - after they've been spun around and the room is filled with flour. To solve THIS challenge, they invent the game "Marco Polo".

"Each challenge was a secret ingredient!" Mr. Peabody says, and thus Marco Polo learns how to make noodles, preventing the world from not knowing what rigatoni is. After the flashback, we see Mr. Peabody use his skating skillz from the beginning of the episode to save Sherman from a saber-toothed tiger cub. Or, rather, its mother.

Diego's girlfriend from the fourth and fifth Ice Age movies is mad she wasn't invited back
for Ice Age 6.

The mammoth saves them, and Mr. Peabody decides to let Sherman keep him after all. I'm guessing the mammoth doesn't show up in any of the following episodes. Which is too bad, because having a woolly mammoth around would make this show a lot cooler.

What's the Verdict?

This is a mixed bag of a show. On the one hand, it manages to avoid most of the problems that the movie has... namely, it doesn't take itself so seriously. The focus is entirely on the jokes. Downside: most of the jokes aren't funny. This is what the show considers a funny joke:

Being disgusting is not the same thing as being funny.

It doesn't help that Sherman is extremely Flanderized here. In the film, and the original segments, he was a normal little kid. He was not loud, obnoxious, and stupid - three words that I think best describe him here. Basically, he's been turned into Chowder (right down to the large appetite!). They even both frequently make over-the-top bizarre expressions for the sake of WACKINESS. I considered making screencaps of each one, but I didn't, so you'll just have to take my word for it.

The animation is pretty good, every so often there's a chuckle-worthy moment, and I much prefer Chris Parnell as Mr. Peabody to Ty Burrell (even if he still doesn't sound much like Bill Scott). If you enjoyed the movie, I'd say give the show a watch. If you liked the original segments but didn't care for the movie, I'd avoid it. It's hardly the WORST reboot of a Jay Ward cartoon, though. I think we all know what show THAT honor goes to...

Rating: Two and a half woolly mammoths out of five. You'll wish you could travel back in time and warn yourself not to watch it.

Let's Watch This: An Episode of "Mucha Lucha!"

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.

This is one of those cartoons that I've probably taken waaaaaaaaaaaaay too long to do a review of. Like, really? I got to Super Duper Sumos before this one?

Mucha Lucha! is the creation of Eddie Mort and Lili Chin for Warner Bros. Animation. It aired on The WB's Kids WB block from August 17th, 2002 to February 26th, 2005, receiving three seasons and fifty-two episodes in all. There was also a direct-to-video film made in-between the second and third seasons. Perhaps the show's biggest claim to fame is that it was one of the first cartoons to be made using Flash.

The show takes place in Luchaville, a town in California (not an actual place, obviously) where everyone is obsessed with the sport... at least I think it's a sport... known as lucha libre. For those unaware, lucha libre is basically the Mexican version of professional wrestling, the main difference being that everybody wears a colorful costume. Our main characters - Rikochet (voiced by Carlos Alazraqui for the first two seasons, with Jason Marsden taking over in Season 3 because Carlos was too busy working on Reno 911), Buena Girl (voiced by Kimberly Brooks), and The Flea (voiced by Candi Milo) - attend the Foremost World-Renowned International School of Lucha, where they study to become Luchadores.

I remember hearing about Mucha Lucha!, I'm pretty sure I saw a few ads for it, but I never actually watched the show. I never watched much Kids' WB in general, I can only remember watching it ONCE and that was at my cousins' beach house. It does have a cult following, though, so who knows? Maybe I'll like it.

We're going to watch the show's sixteenth episode (the third episode of the second season). This is Mucha Lucha!.

The first segment, "Nightmare on Lucha Street", begins on a dark, spooky night. Rikochet has found himself in a strange neighborhood where the sky is crimson, the sidewalk has a mind of its own, and a bizarre genie-like monster won't leave him alone.

There are even pop-up ads for Camp Lazlo appearing at random!

The green-skinned being desperately in need of a manicure introduces himself as Misterioso Grande, lucha lord of the dream world. He wants Rikochet's mask for his collection. I hope the indication here is that he just STEALS other lucha wrestlers' masks instead of, like, EATING them and just having the masks as a trophy. Rikochet won't hand his mask over without a fight, but someone who can shapeshift into anything like Misterioso makes for a very difficult foe.

"Perhaps you'd like to see how ssssssssssssssssssssSNAKE-LIKE I CAN BEEEEEEEEEE!"

Only one thing can defeat Misterioso - an alarm clock! Rikochet wakes up and is relieved that the whole experience was just a dream. His sentient action figure El Rey (Michael Donovan)... yes, there's a toy that's alive in this world, just go with it... tells him to get up so he can use his bed to test out his new wrestling move, the Flaming Garbage Toss.

He sleeps with his mask on? I know lucha is a way of life in this show, but that seems
kind of strange...

At the Foremost World-Renowned International School of Lucha, Rikochet learns from the Headmistress (also Candi Milo) that another student, Penny Plutonium (Tabitha St. Germain), has not been in school for two days. So she sends Rikochet, Buena Girl, and The Flea to see why that is.

The Headmistress is disturbing to look at. I'll be honest, I don't like when cartoon characters have exposed brains. There's a reason why Mojo Jojo always wears a helmet.

I know in this case it's not actually her brain showing, it's just a mask... at
least I think it's just a mask, I could be wrong... but it still grosses me out.

So, why has Penny been absent? It's not because her Uncle Gadget needs her help, but rather, because she had a nightmare about Misterioso Grande, and when she woke up, her mask was missing. The Flea has also heard of Misterioso - "He rules the Realm of Dreams! Which is next to the Land of Napping, and Slumberland-adjacient," he explains. If Misterioso Grande takes your mask in the dream world, you don't have it in the real world.

Fortunately, Penny's dad has been working on a dream machine that can send someone into the Realm of Dreams. Rikochet declares that he will use it to save Penny's mask. How does the machine work? Well, you sit in it, and it gives you a stuffed animal, a nightcap, a mobile, and a glass of warm milk. Then it hypnotizes you with a wheel of spinning sheep. So, really, Rikochet could've just waited until he fell asleep that night to get Penny's mask back, but eh...

"Repeat after me: you will not buy a Serta mattress. You will not put us sheep out of
a job..."

Penny's father also has a monitor that allows them to see and speak to Rikochet in the Realm of Dreams. Rikochet runs into Misterioso Grande rather quickly and demands that he return Penny's mask or face his wrath. But Misterioso, again, is a shapeshifter, and defeating a shapeshifter isn't easy. As I recall, Puss in Boots managed to defeat that shapeshifting ogre by getting him to turn into a mouse and then eating him. Perhaps Rikochet just has to trick Misterioso into turning into a taco or something.

In hindsight, maybe somebody else should've entered the Dream Realm WITH Rikochet?

"You're in a dream! You can do anything you want!" Buena Girl points out to Rikochet. "Let your imagination run free, and your subconsious will find a way to defeat Misterioso Grande!" So Rikochet dreams himself some Plastic Man powers...

"Hammer time!"

Using his imagination, Rikochet battles Misterioso, eventually defeating him by turning into a giant tidal wave (everybody knows that water is a dream-controlling monster's only weakness). Penny gets her mask back, and Misterioso is banished to the Netheregions. Upon leaving the Dream Realm, Rikochet gives a speech about how he defeated Misterioso by turning the nightmare into a sweet dream, and there's nothing as sweet as victory. Penny gives him a smooch on the forehead...

Do we ever see Rikochet without his mask on? I'm imagining that his forehead is
incredibly large. Like, as big as Megamind's.

The segment ends with The Flea being scared off by Penny's dog, who has either been possessed by Misterioso or decided to dress like him for the fun of it. Next segment!

It's the first day of school... just ignore the fact that the characters were shown in school in the previous episode... and unlike every other student on the planet, Buena Girl is very happy. She LOVES the first day of school because everything is so clean and shiny and new. I don't recall everything being clean and shiny on any of MY first days of school. Maybe I was too annoyed by summer vacation being over to notice?

And what is The Flea doing on the first day of school? Eating garbage. As one does.

Ew, has somebody been using the garbage can as a toilet? What else could that brown
glop be?

The garbage doesn't agree with The Flea's digestive system, and he quickly has to go to the bathroom. Problem is, ever since he fought a character called the Masked Toilet in a previous episode, The Flea has been afraid of bathrooms. Have you ever been in a school bathroom? I really don't blame him. I mean, they're not port-a-potty levels of disgusting, but they can be pretty gross.

But while he's in the bathroom, before he can take a dump, The Flea is suddenly ambushed by the Masked Toilet! Of course, as soon as Rikochet and Buena Girl run in, the Masked Toilet has vanished, so they don't believe The Flea when he tells them. Oh boy, it's one of THOSE episodes. Y'know, where one character keeps seeing something spooky but nobody else sees it whenever they try to show them, so the other characters just think the one character who does see it is crazy? Every cartoon needs to do an episode like that at SOME point, I guess...

I gotta say, it was very bold of that kid on the right to base his lucha persona off of
Keo from Yakkity Yak.

But then another student, this one dressed as a scarecrow, encounters the Masked Toilet in the bathroom as well! The Flea ISN'T crazy after all!

Well, maybe he still is. But he was right about the Masked Toilet!

All the other students in the school try to fight the Masked Toilet, but get their clocks cleaned. Wow, these kids must really suck at being lucha fighters if they're getting clobbered by a sentient urinal. What on Earth is this school teaching them? Eventually, the Masked Toilet gives The Flea a message challenging him to a "Full Flush Elimination Match". How does the toilet write without hands? The world may never know.

"P.S.: Your costume makes you look more like a bunny rabbit than a flea."

"A true luchador never runs from a challenge!" Buena Girl tells The Flea. "So LET US GET TRAINING!" First, she shows The Flea and Rikochet a new move she's created allowing her to turn into a plunger. So she has shapeshifting powers now too? And so does Rikochet, it seems, because he turns into a spring. What sort of witchcraft IS this?

"Noooooooooooooo springs! Hee hee hee hee hee!"

Training doesn't go so well (among other things, The Flea winds up with his head stuck in the training dummy toilet!), so I'm not filled with confidence regarding The Flea's ability to fight the Masked Toilet. Maybe he should call a plumber. Are the Mario Brothers avaliable?

And, sure enough...

So, just a recap, everybody: scissors cuts paper, paper covers rock, rock smashes scissors, toilet pummels flea, and tidal wave clobbers green-skinned shapeshifter.

Eventually, however, The Flea finds the key to victory: his bowel movements! He... well, it's not shown what he does, but whatever it is, it's pretty disgusting. He wins the fight, but the episode ends with him making another enemy: the Masked Pencil Sharpener!

What's the Verdict?

Mucha Lucha! is kind of like El Tigre in that the fun mostly comes from how over-the-top it is. Sure, the characters aren't super-interesting, but they're likeable enough. The animation is... well, typical 2000s Flash, but I've seen far worse. The jokes... every so often there's a chuckle-worthy moment, but a lot of them fall flat. I think my biggest complaint is that we don't get enough time in the first segment to watch Rikochet deal with the dream realm, so his fight with Misterioso feels rushed. By contrast, the second segment with the Masked Toilet seems longer than it should be - you could've trimmed the training stuff, at least. Still, it's a show where a recurring villain is a SENTIENT TOILET WEARING A LUCHADORE MASK. It's just so out there that it's hard not to be charmed by it.

So all in all, it's not a GREAT show, but I found it fine for what it was. You don't even have to be a fan of lucha libre to enjoy it.

Rating: Three and a half masks out of five. Mucha entertaining.

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Let's Watch This: An Episode (or Two) of "Little Shop"

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.

I have never seen Little Shop of Horrors - either the original movie from 1960, the musical it was adapted from, or the movie adaptation with Rick Moranis based on the musical. But I do know that it's a pretty spooky movie about a giant Venus flytrap who eats people. And yet, for some reason, the folks at Marvel Productions and Saban Entertainment thought such a film would be PERFECT for a kids' cartoon show!

How exactly do you make a show for kids based on a horror movie (okay, technically it's a horror-comedy, but you know what I mean)? Well, the show's developers, Mark Edward Edens and Ellen Levy, found a way. First, they made the main characters from the film, Seymour and Audrey, into kids, presumably so the audience could identify with them. Next, they reinvented the giant human-eating plant, Audrey II, as a friendly plant named Junior (voiced by Roland Buddy Lewis, with Terry McGee doing his singing voice) who originated from a fossilized seed rather than from outer space. Thirteen episodes were produced and aired on FOX Kids from September to November of 1991. You can currently find episodes of the show on YouTube.

I'm not sure what the mindset here was. I doubt a lot of kids in 1991 were Little Shop of Horrors fans, and fans of the movie were probably turned off by all the changes and the fact that Seymour and Audrey looked nothing like Rick Moranis and Ellen Greene (even Junior doesn't look much like Audrey II). But since, again, I've never watched any of the actual Little Shop of Horrors adaptations, I'll simply have to judge this cartoon on its own merits... or lack thereof. This is the eleventh episode of the show, "Walk Like a Nerd".

The episode starts off with Seymour (Marlow Vella, with Lisa Michelson doing his singing voice) and Junior on the subway, which is filled with all sorts of strange people. Frankenstein's Monster, a guy eating a flower, Igor, a biker with weird flesh-colored spikes sticking out the top of his head...

Is that his hair?

As the train pulls into the station, Seymour sees Audrey (Tamar Lee) walk by and attempts to make small talk with her. She's a sportswriter now, apparently. I didn't know kids could get jobs as sportswriters.

By the way, take a look at the subway train behind them. I guess it's supposed to look like it's covered with graffiti, but it looks more like Jackson Pollock gave it a paint job.

I'm digging Seymour's elephant hat, too.

After Audrey walks off, Seymour realizes that he left Junior on the train and has to follow it all the way to the end of the line. Junior is none too pleased.

The next day, Mr. Mushnik (Harvey Atkin) walks into the shop and finds Seymour begging Junior not to be mad at him. Well, one thing HASN'T changed from the original movie - Seymour works at Mr. Mushnik's flower shop. Even though he's, what, thirteen?

"Why does a nerd like you get to walk around free as a bud when I have to drag a flower pot around everywhere I go?!" Junior complains. He's so aggravated that he launches into a rap song. Why? Because this cartoon was made during the 1990s, of course! And cartoon characters had a habit of rapping in the 1990s to prove that they were hip and cool with the kids, yo!

Is it at least a GOOD rap song? I think you know the answer.

In an attempt to cheer Junior up, Seymour invites him to sleep over at his house. But Junior doesn't do any sleeping. Instead, while Seymour snoozes he reads about altering your molecular structure. Then he grabs a bunch of household appliances - a broom, a washing machine, a toaster - and combines them into some sort of strange device that even Rube Goldberg would be confused by.

If this thing actually alters his molecular structure, I'll eat my hat with a side of hashed browns.

Does the machine work? Well, not exactly. It doesn't give Junior feet. Instead, it sucks him up, puts him through the rinse cycle, sprays Seymour with water, and then... um... somehow puts him inside Seymour's legs? I have no idea how that happened. None of this makes any sense. I'm not a scientist, but I'm pretty sure this is not how molecular structure altering works!

But whatever, Junior is now in control of Seymour's legs. He's so happy to have feet that he launches into another rap song. This time, Seymour does some rapping too. It's just as cringe-worthy as it sounds.

"Hey, you know what they say, Seymour: two heads are better than one!"

So now Seymour and Junior share a body. And that gives Junior the ability to have Junior take control of Seymour's brain and have him say things like "Where do you think books come from?! Trees! They come from poor, helpless trees! Murdered in cold sap!" While everyone else in his class thinks that Seymour has been posessed by the Lorax, Junior forces Seymour to pull books out of the bookshelf and drive the other students into a frenzy. I will say this, for a kids' show this is just as disturbing as the movie likely is. Having a giant carnivorous plant controlling somebody's body isn't exactly much better than a giant carnivorous plant eating people.

However, there are benefits to having a sassy Venus flytrap sharing your body. For example, Junior manages to save Seymour from a thrashing by school bully Paine Driller (David Huband). TWICE! He also winds up as part of the track team, and starts imagining what winning the track meet would mean. I would now like to show you the funniest thing in the entire episode:

Come on, just LOOK at it and tell me it's not hilarious. I think what really makes it is the fact that his head is way too small for his body. Alas, that hilarious image is promptly followed by another awful song.

After that, with Junior's help Seymour manages to break the school's pole-vaulting record and pulls off the shotput so well that an entire building crumbles. But when they try to throw an incredibly heavy weight, Junior is somehow pulled out of Seymour's body. This might make winning the hundred yard dash difficult. Junior tells him that he didn't need him to win the other events, he just needed confidence. Then he uses his vines to tie the other runners' shoelaces together, torpedoeing the "you just need confidence" moral that they were presumably going for.

Despite that, Seymour winds up tripping over his own feet and then getting trampled by the now-barefoot other runners. As for Junior, he doesn't care that he doesn't have feet anymore. He might not have feet, but at least he's got soul.

"You sure you don't want me to eat that Driller kid? He's pretty obnoxious."

"Nah, we'd never get away with that in a kids' show..."

Nothing about this episode made sense. How did combining a bunch of household appliances put Junior in Seymour's body? Why did it allow him to take control of his brain? Why was the "Junior wants feet" plotline pretty much forgotten about halfway through? What exactly was the moral here?

Now, this is normally the part of the review where I give my thoughts on the show as a whole. But as I was posting it, I realized, hey, this review is incredibly short. I don't like my posts on this blog to be incredibly short. And you know what THAT means, don't you? It means I'm gonna have to look at ANOTHER episode of this show. Because I'm a glutton for punishment.

So, let's watch the SIXTH episode of the show, "Pulp Fiction". A reference to ANOTHER movie that I've never seen.

Seymour and Junior are going to the Skid Row National Forest, home of the oldest living tree in the world. And here I thought the oldest tree in the world was the Methuselah, located in eastern California. Oh, wait, I didn't, because I had to look it up. Don't say I never do my research!

When they get to the forest... I know I already made a reference to The Lorax, but it looks like the Once-Ler has been here. On the bright side, the oldest living tree in the world is still standing. Junior apparently worships it and tries to strike up a conversation. Silly Junior, trees don't talk. Except the ones in Oz, of course.

"All hail the redwood! King of trees! I shall do your bidding, my liege!"

This leads to ANOTHER LOUSY RAP SONG. Y'know, Junior, just speaking fast to a hip-hop beat does not a good rap make. I obviously agree with what you're saying about how pollution is bad, but there are better ways to get people to wise up than this. You could, for example, make a cartoon or write a book about the dangers of pollution. It worked for the producers of FernGully.

I'm sorry, but you can not in any way make rapping squirrels cool.

A few seconds after Junior's totally hip and fly rap song, yo, the tree is cut down. This makes Junior MAD! As it's being driven off to a sawmill, Junior grabs ahold of the tree with one of his vines, dragging Seymour along as well. When they get to the sawmill, Junior is very nearly burned alive. Fortunately, since the sawmill is entirely automated, there aren't any workers around to crap their pants at the sight of a talking venus flytrap.

All sawmills have a portal to Hades in them. Did you know that?

Whatever Junior's plan to save the tree was, it's a failure. Seymour tries to cheer him up by saying maybe the tree was recycled into a great book. Maybe, but there's also a fifty-percent chance it was used to make another one of those crappy Twilight novels.

Seymour then sings another song that sounds like it's trying to be Schoolhouse Rock but doesn't understand why the songs in Schoolhouse Rock work (for one thing, those songs are well-sung). Then he runs afoul of Pained and his dog, who are delivering newspapers. Upon reading the paper, Junior is enraged by the crap featured in it: a guy faces off against a hundred-pound grasshopper? A prehistoric dishwasher found in Egypt? Heck, the front page story is "SUN RISES". Yeah, and here's something else you might not have known: the grass is green!

"And the guys they've got reviewing movies in here don't know what they're talking about!
No way they actually made a film starring Vanilla Ice! That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard!"

"What kind of twisted mind would cut down thousand-year-old trees to print root rot like this?!" Junior demands. "I just made a tree-mendous decision! We're gonna find all the newspapers and take them back to the forest where they belong!" I guess his mindset is that if they plant the newspapers, they'll grow new trees or something? At this point, I'd say ANYTHING is possible in the bizarre world that Seymour and Junior live in.

When people are done with newspapers, they usually throw them out. So it's off to the landfill for Seymour and his amazing talking plant, where Junior... I'll give you three guesses what he does.

Yep! It's another rap song!

Even the dog from that animated Titanic movie is a better rapper than this plant.

Junior's awful rap apparently has the power to control paper, because the newspapers rise into the air and rain down on him and Seymour. Then they actually leave the dump, folding themselves into paper airplanes and inching along like a caterpillar. Instead of going back to the forest, however, the papers all go back to Skid Row. You see, Junior just told them to "go home" - in their minds, "home" is where they were delivered.

Now Skid Row is full of paper - enough paper, as Mr. Mushnik puts it, to "house-train an elephant". Seymour suggests that they all recycle the paper, but apparently everyone in this town is an idiot because they don't know what recycling paper actually is. They use the newspaper as toothpicks, they eat it, they use it as ankle weights, Orson Welles even appears to suggest using it as a napkin.

"No frozen peas jokes, please."

Then the people of Skid Row decide to plant new trees in the national forest. "It's amazing what people can do when they work together," Seymour tells us. Well, I will say this: "Pulp Fiction" was at least better than "Walk Like a Nerd", if for no other reason than because it was less boring and made slightly more sense.

What's the Verdict?

Again, why did anyone think doing a kids' cartoon based on Little Shop of Horrors was a good idea? Even if you try to separate the cartoon from the movie, you're left with very little of substance. The characters are flat, the animation isn't anything to write home about, the jokes aren't funny, and the songs are mostly incredibly lame raps that were probably just as embarassing back in 1991 as they are now. Little Shop has nothing going for it.

TV Tropes compares the show to the 1989 Beetlejuice cartoon, which also aired on FOX Kids and was based off a horror-comedy probably not safe for kids to watch but had the main antagonist from the film as a good guy. I've never seen a single episode of that cartoon, nor have I seen the Beetlejuice movie, so if you're wondering why that show succeeded where Little Shop failed (it had four seasons, was released on DVD, and seems to be looked at more fondly than THIS show was), I couldn't tell you.

Rating: One and a half flowers out of five. Leave the door to this Little Shop closed.