Let's Watch This - An Episode of "Channel Umptee-3"

In 1995, Warner Bros. launched a channel called "The WB".

And with The WB came a kids' block known as (natch) Kids' WB.

The purpose of this block was to have a place for all of the cartoons that Warner Bros. Animation was whipping out at the time. Beloved shows like Animaniacs, Tiny Toon Adventures, and Freakazoid! aired on the block, alongside some lesser-known cartoons that nowadays tend to be brought up only when talking about incredibly underrated cartoons. I've already talked about Road Rovers, Loonatics Unleashed, and Histeria! on this blog, but let me name a few other cartoons that aired on this block for you: Invasion America? World of Quest? Waynehead? Any of these shows ringing a bell?

How about Channel Umptee-3? Remember THAT show?

Channel Umptee-3 first aired on the channel in 1997, a show designed to teach children "the wonders of everyday things". It focused on an ostrich voiced by Rob Paulsen, a mole, and a snail driving around in a van and broadcasting their very own television station. Thirteen episodes were made until The WB gave the show the axe. Since then only FOUR EPISODES of the show have been found online, and if you want to watch them you have to go to the Internet Archive. It didn't even get any VHS or DVD releases.

What did the show do to deserve this? Well, rumor has it that executives at The WB were enraged by the show's depicting TV executives as villains - and since it was produced by Columbia Tristar Television as opposed to Warner Bros. Animation, if they cancelled the show there was no risk of ticking off Warner Bros. Animation and as a result them refusing to make any more cartoons for the network, so... yeah.

Today, we're going to watch an episode of Channel Umptee-3 - "The Weather Show" - and see if it's any good. Let's begin!

The episode begins with Ogden the Ostrich (Rob Paulsen, as I've previously mentioned) welcoming the viewers to Channel Umptee-3. He looks less like an ostrich and more like somebody put the head of the Road Runner on the body of Foghorn Leghorn. I know, I know, it's a cartoon, I can't expect the ostrich to look super-realistic, but still...

Ogden exclaims that today, they're going to do a whole show about... KITES. Yeah. Methinks this will be a pretty boring episode.

"Channel Umptee-3 is brought to you by General Mills' Cocoa Puffs. I'm cuckoo
for Cocoa Puffs!"

Then Sheldon the snail (David Paymer) appears and comments that it's great how Ogden is actually sticking to the topic that they've prepared for the show instead of randomly switching to another one as he usually does. "I mean, we start out with something like kites, and that reminds you of TIGHTS, and pretty soon we're doing a whole show about JAPAN!" he complains.

Please don't question why Sheldon has arms despite being a snail.

He's also rather big for a snail. Maybe he's a mutant or something?

Suddenly, it starts to rain, and for whatever reason Sheldon assumes that Ogden caused it despite the fact that Ogden is not to my knowledge some sort of wizard who can change the weather with his mystical powers and starts chasing him around. Then we get the show's unbelievably catchy theme song, where Ogden provides some backstory for the show: "I used to keep my head in the cold, dark ground, until I pulled it out and took a look around, you know, it's unbelievable the stuff I found, because it's right there in front of your face! The world is a magical place!" Thus, he suggested to Sheldon that they start a TV station. However, they have an enemy in the form of an old dude named Stickley (Jonathan Harris) who's the president of a corporation that produces boxes. He hates Channel Umptee-3 because it encourages people to take things out of boxes and look at them in a new way. And that's a threat to his business, so in typical cartoon villain fashion he near-constantly comes up with schemes to take down Ogden, Sheldon, and the aforementioned mole, Holey Moley.

After that, we cut back to our heroes in the rain. Ogden says that rain is like Mother Nature playing in the sprinklers, while Sheldon complains that now they can't do a show about kites because kite-flying as we all know is rather difficult in the rain. Then we cut to that Stickley guy acting all grouchy and uptight because his grandkids are watching Channel Umptee-3.

Ogden tries to fly a kite in the rain, but doesn't have much luck. Then decides, hey, weather is awesome, so why not do the show about weather instead? After all, a kite needs wind to fly, and wind is weather, so it's not straying TOO too far from the original topic, right?

Then we cut to some British guy talking about origami before Ogden, Sheldon and Holey Moley interrupt him. Ogden asks the British guy, whose name is Professor Edwin I. Relevant (voiced by Greg "Mr. DNA" Burson), what he knows about weather.

My apologies for how the really low quality of these screencaps. Like I said,
this show has never gotten a VHS or DVD release, so this is the best we can do.

"Well, Ogden," Professor Relevant says, "Simply stated, weather is whatever conditions affect our atmosphere." Ogden doesn't know what an atmosphere is, so Professor Relevant explains it for him - "An atmosphere is a layer of gas, almost like an ocean of air, that surrounds the earth like a blanket. The sun moves this blanket of air, but more so in the middle than the top and bottom." And this causes the "blanket" to move around the earth.

Hey, look, it's Spin from Really Wild Animals (anybody remember that?).

This movement of air is what is known as "wind", and when the earth moves around, the winds are twisted. This constantly-changing wind pattern is responsible for weather. There. Now you can't say that I've never taught you anything (even if I'm just recapping what a cartoon character says).

Then we cut back to Stickley ranting about how much he hates kites. And fun. And children singing. And all things that generic cartoon villains hate.

I wish this guy would just go back to The Ren and Stimpy Show, where I'm guessing
he came from judging from the character design.

But then Stickley hears Sheldon say that they can't do their show about kites in this weather, which makes him thrilled... he's hoping that now's his chance to trap Ogden, Holey Moley, and Sheldon in a box and take them off the air!

So in other words, I think we've found the man responsible for this show only getting thirteen episodes.

Ogden is still acting all thrilled about the weather, but Sheldon isn't as happy. "The only weather I want is in a nice, sunny place with no rain where we can fly our kites!" he complains. Be careful what you wish for, Sheldon - we then cut to him and Ogden in the desert. He says that they could use some wind - and we then cut to them in a sandstorm. "Okay, okay, not so much wind!" he shouts. "And can we make it a little cooler?!" We then cut to them in, uh... in front of the ocean? In the snow? I honestly can't tell here...

Can anyone else tell where they're supposed to be?

Sheldon concedes - they can do Ogden's show about weather instead of flying kites. Once they're back where they started, Ogden asks Professor Relevant about rain. "Well, Ogden," he says, "Remember those twisting winds? Well, those winds, plus the changes in temperature, cause differences in air pressure. If more air is forced into the same space, the air is under more pressure." And like me, air doesn't like being under pressure. Thus, when it's under pressure, it tries to get to a place where there is lower pressure. It will move violently, in a split-second if it can - or, if it's released more slowly, you get wind.

We then cut to Stickley's two idiot henchmen (because cartoon villains ALWAYS have two idiot henchmen, it's just common knowledge) driving around in a pickup truck with a large crate in the back before cutting back to Ogden and the Professor. Professor Relevant says that when enough moisture builds up in the air, usually around an area of low air pressure, clouds form. As the air begins to cool, the water in some form or another begins to fall. And you get snow, or rain, or hail, or some other form of precipitation. Then... oy, we cut back to Stickley for a second. Fortunately, then we cut back to Ogden recapping everything for the audience. But then Professor Relevant reminds Ogden that not ALL clouds create rain.

I haven't mentioned this before, but Holey Moley here doesn't talk. He's sort of like
the Dopey of the show.

Holey Moley uses a portable hole (Roger Rabbit would be proud) to transport himself to a cloud. A sentient cloud that starts up a musical number. Well, this show took a weird turn all of a sudden...

Then again, it's a show where one of the main characters is a giant snail with arms.
It wasn't exactly the most... for lack of a better adjective, not-weird show before.

The clouds sing about different types of clouds. For example, cirrus clouds "take on a feathery form" and "often arrive just ahead of a storm". Stratus clouds are "shaped like a stripe" and "bring the drizzle". And cumulus clouds look like cotton and "the dark ones are wet and the light ones are dry". We're learning so much, aren't we now?

Boy, this is the weirdest Boo Berry commercial that I've ever seen.

We cut back to Professor Relevant, who says that those are only the three main types of clouds - there are many more. Then there's a knock on the door. Ogden answers it, and it's Stickley's two idiot henchmen with a crate disguised as a "portable rain shelter". Ogden says that he didn't order any "portable rain shelter", but Sheldon loves the idea of getting out of the rain and encourages everyone to get in the crate. I thought Sheldon was supposed to be smarter than Ogden.

Stickley is thrilled that he's finally gotten rid of those pesky Channel Umptee-3 guys, but now his grandkids won't stop whining about how they want to watch Channel Umptee-3. And their whining drives Stickley so crazy that he calls up his idiot henchmen and tells them to let the Channel Umptee-3 guys out of the box. They do, and as an added bonus, it's stopped raining, so they can do their show about kites! Huzzah! But now it's getting really, really windy. After Holey Moley shows up again, a tornado forms.

Insert some sort of reference to that 1996 Twister movie here.

Instead of making a run for it, Ogden asks Professor Relevant to explain tornadoes. "Well, in most thunderstorms, warm air near the ground begins rising through the colder air up high, like a hot air balloon," the Professor explains. And in some cases, the rising warm air and falling colder air becomes unstable - as if it's fighting itself - and it begins pulling into a tighter and tighter spiral, and it starts spinning and presto! We get a tornado.

Sheldon urges everybody to get into the van, and they make a run (er, drive) for it. And in case you're wondering, yes, we do get the mandatory reference to The Wizard of Oz.

Here's a question: why does Stickley consider Channel Umptee-3 a threat to
his business simply because it "encourages people to take things out of boxes
and look at them in a new way"? The theme song states that he got rich already,
so why does he care? Even if people don't keep buying his boxes, he's still rich.

Eventually, the Channel Umptee-3 gang manages to get away, and soon they find a spot with perfect weather for kite-flying. All's well that ends well.

The rainbow is a nice touch.

Well, that's Channel Umptee-3, and, honestly, it's another one I'm gonna put in the "meh, it's okay" pile. It's kind of like science class, only more fun. Ogden can get a tad annoying, but I can stomach him fine. I think his being voiced by Rob Paulsen helps with that. The only thing I really don't like about the show is Stickley (I know, he's the villain, I'm not supposed to like him, but still...). His grandkids can get really grating too. On the flip side, it's got good voice acting, and the educational bits work much better than those of Histeria!, mainly because the show isn't as disjointed. Too bad the show got screwed over because the executives couldn't handle a bit of humor directed at their profession. Side note, the theme song is now stuck in my head. Here it is if you want to listen to it for yourself.

Thanks for joining me for another me for another edition for "Let's Watch This". Next time, we take a look at the penultimate movie in the Stuart Little trilogy - and the only animated one - Stuart Little 3: Call of the Wild.