Let's Watch This: An Episode of "The Lionhearts"

Welcome to the first edition of what I like to call "Let's Watch This". These will be reviews of television show episodes, specials, or movies - animated ones, that is. For my first review, I decided to look at an obscure cartoon show from 1998 featuring a certain lion.

One of the most iconic studio logos of all time is the one for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. You know the one. The one with the lion roaring at us. That being said, however, I'm not sure that anyone at any point in time saw that logo and said, "I wonder what that lion's personal life is like?"

But that didn't stop the folks at MGM from deciding to make a cartoon show about the company's lion mascot, Leo. And so, in 1998 a show by the name of The Lionhearts began airing on Saturday mornings, and children all over the United States got to learn a little about the life of the mascot of  a movie studio. Apparently, however, kids weren't exactly interested in the personal lives of Leo, his wife, or their kids, because only thirteen episodes of the show was made. It also doesn't have a DVD release.

Please just ignore the fact that the lion on the show and the lion in the actual logo look nothing alike.

I'm guessing the fact that this show didn't really take off is why there haven't been more shows about studio mascots. Who knows, maybe if it had become a success we would've gotten The TriStar Pictures Pegasus Show or something.

And here's an interesting fact for you - the cartoon version of Leo and his family made their debut before this show, in a series of sing-along children's videos released by MGM a year before (this, apparently, was MGM's attempt at cashing in on the success of the Disney Sing-Along Songs videos).

This, of course, begs the question - did The Lionhearts flop for a reason, or is it actually much better than you'd think a show about a lion whose claim to fame is roaring at the camera at the beginning of films would be? Let's find out. The episode we'll be watching is called "Family Circus" (no, it's not a crossover with the comic strip).

"Those guys that paint the billboards... They just can't get my nose right!"

After the theme song (a catchy little ditty called "Roar" performed by Randy Creshaw), the episode begins with Leo doing his thing and roaring inside the MGM logo. They're trying to do a bait-and-switch here - we see Leo in silhouette, and his silhouette just so happens to look like that of a non-anthropomorphic lion, so I guess we're supposed to think at first that the show is about a non-anthropomorphic lion. The one problem with this is that anybody who's seen the intro knows that Leo isn't a normal lion but rather a lion who wears a sweater, walks around on his hind legs, and speaks with the voice of William H. Macy. Nice try, though.

"WHAT DOES A LION GOTTA DO TO GET AN ESPRESSO AROUND HERE?!"

After that, we cut to Leo in his dressing room. His makeup lady (who's voiced by Betty White and kind of looks like Yzma) is ticked off that the director (voiced by Joe Pantoliano) made Leo roar multiple times until he "got it right" or whatever.

I gotta admit, so far this show has been pretty blah. I like the way Leo is designed and William H. Macy does a good job as the voice, but so far, it doesn't feel like anything is really happening.

But maybe things will pick up when we cut to Leo's family back at his house. He has three cubs: Kate (voiced by Natasha Slayton), Spencer (voiced by Cameron Finley), and Judy (voiced by Nicolette Little), who establish their personalities for the audience. Kate likes to talk on the phone and dresses like a jockey, Spencer likes rock and roll music (so he's essentially Luna from The Loud House except he's male, younger and covered with fur), and Judy is, well, a typical four-year-old. Kate and Spencer start arguing about how annoying they think each other's personalities are, and then Judy notices a spider on the ceiling. Their mother, Lana (voiced by Peri Gilpin) comes in and explains to the terrified kids that the spider is named Larry and that he's a friend of Uncle Marvin.

How could anybody be scared of this guy? He looks like he just crawled out of Monsters Inc.

Lana gets Larry down while the kids give some exposition about how Lana used to be a circus performer, and then Leo comes home. Jeez, we're four minutes and twenty-five seconds into the episode and I'm having difficulty trying to make funny material out of this. It's not a bad show, but nothing's really happening.

Leo sits down in his easy chair for a nap, and then Lana reminds him that he promised to do some bonding with Spencer. "You said you want to show him that there's more to life than his guitar," she says. "But his entire personality is that he likes rock and roll! No way I'm going to convince him that there's more to life than his guitar!" Leo replies (okay, obviously he doesn't really say that. That was just my attempt at a joke).

Leo says that he will indeed do some bonding with Spencer and that he knows just how to do it. Then it cuts to them both taking a nap. Okay, that's kinda funny. Not a laugh riot, but still.
Lana comes in and wakes them both up by blowing a whistle, then tells Leo that she's sure that he can think of something more exciting to do with Spencer. Leo thinks for a second, then decides that they should do a puzzle. Specifically, a puzzle with his image on it. Spencer isn't too fond of that, so they decide to do some kite-flying instead. But then a bird tears through the kite, which falls onto Leo's face.

Meanwhile, Kate got invited to a party that weekend. After she tells her mom, Lana suggests that maybe she invite some of her friends to THEIR house the next day while Leo and Spencer are doing their thing. Kate tells her that, uh, her friends will be, uh, busy because, uh, they're all going to, uh, the dentist. "Strange that they would all have dentist appointments on the same day," Lana replies.

You know what I just realized? There's no reason that this show needs to star the lion from the MGM logo. Seriously, just cut out the first scene with Leo at the studio and the joke about Leo and Spencer doing a puzzle with the MGM logo on it and you'd just have a sitcom that happens to star lions. I suppose they just thought that a sitcom that happens to star lions needing something else to draw people in, and that's why it's established that Leo is the same lion from the MGM logo.

Anyway, Leo admits to Lana that his attempt at bonding with Spencer is a miserable failure. "I can't seem to find anything that Spencer wants to do!" he admits. "He's not interested in anything that doesn't involve rock and roll! That's his entire personality!" (Again, he doesn't actually say that, that was yet another of my admittedly lousy attempts at jokes). Spencer, meanwhile, is surprisingly enough NOT playing his electric guitar in his room, but rather hiding in Kate's room. They admit that their parents are driving them crazy - Kate doesn't want her friends to meet her mom because she's afraid she'll embarrass her by doing some of her circus things. Kate really thinks her friends will think her mom's acrobatics and stuff are uncool? I mean, I personally don't think it's as cool as, say, Test Track at Walt Disney World, but I don't see what's so UNcool about it.

Do you know what this reminds me of, actually? Father of the Pride. Remember that show? The DreamWorks show about the lions who live in Siegfried and Roy's private zoo or whatever? This is kinda like that, only it's kid-friendly and in 2D. They even both only had one season!

On a side note, at one point during this episode Leo mentions Monopoly. It's kind of weird that they mentioned Monopoly by name - usually, in cartoons, if you have a character playing a board game you have to make one up instead of using an existing one so you don't get sued for copyright infringement. I guess the writers of this show weren't afraid of getting sued. Props to them.

Also, quick question: are Kate's friends lions as well, or are they humans? Or are they, I don't know, snow leopards or something? Are there other anthropomorphic animals in this world, or is it just the Lionhearts (and Larry, too, I guess)? Do we see other anthropomorphic animals in other episodes?

Okay, back to the episode - I was expecting Leo to overhear the kids talking about how much they dislike spending time with their parents and become all bummed out and stuff, but they actually don't go that route.  Instead, Leo's father (voiced by Harve Presnell) shows up. And his chauffeur (voiced by Carlos Alazraqui) needs to get his eyes checked... even though he's already wearing glasses.

Apparently, whoever picks out Leo's father's outfit needs to get THEIR eyes checked, too.

Leo's dad is shocked that his son acts less like a celebrity and more like every other sitcom dad from the '90s. Leo, meanwhile, is hoping that his dad will give him a little advice about the Spencer situation. In response, Leo's dad reminds him of the time that he took him golfing when he was a wee lad. Leo wasn't particular good at it, but his dad learned a valuable lesson that day: a father shouldn't force his son to like the same things that HE likes.

Then Leo gets an idea, and we finally get back to the whole "this lion is the lion in the MGM logo!" thing that the show is built off of. Leo takes his kid to a recording booth at the MGM lot, where there's an electric guitar waiting for him. And so Leo's problems with bonding with his son are solved! All it took was for him to do something that related to his kid's one personality trait: liking rock and roll.

Anyhow, Spencer tells Leo about Kate's problem, and to solve THAT, Leo tells Kate about how when he was a cub, his friends belonged to a country club, but they wouldn't let him join because they looked down on "movie people" for some reason. Why would you look down on "movie people"? They're people that star in MOVIES!

As a result of his friends' idiotic hatred of movie people, Leo became ashamed to have a studio mascot for a dad, but then he learned that it's wrong to judge people by what they do rather than who they are. And I guess he convinced his friends of that, because they all kicked the club to the curb and decided to hang with him in the neighborhood park and they're all still friends today. That's good. Meanwhile, I'm still wondering if said friends are fellow lions or humans or alpacas or WHAT.

Kate gets the hint and decides to introduce her mom to her friends. And as it turns out, her friends are indeed humans. Which doesn't answer whether or not there are other anthropomorphic animals in this world or if it's just the Lionhearts and Larry, but hey.

So, after watching one episode, what do I think of The Lionhearts? Well, you obviously can't judge a whole show just from one episode - after all, every show has its good episodes and its not-so-good episodes. So perhaps a better question is, what did I think of this episode?

Honestly, I found it pretty dull. I mean, don't get me wrong, it wasn't bad. There's a lot of things to like - the animation's good, William H. Macy gives a good performance, the moral is a good one - but I just found the whole thing so BLAH. It felt like nothing really happened. And what was the purpose of getting Joe Pantolino and Betty White to voice characters who only have one scene?

Would I recommend watching this show? Well, I see no reason why one SHOULDN'T watch it. It's not offensive or anything. But when it comes to cartoons from MGM, I think I'll stick with the Pink Panther.