Let's Watch This: "Tom Sawyer" (2000)

I've never actually read the original Tom Sawyer book. My experience with Tom Sawyer-related things basically amounts to Tom Sawyer Island at Disney World and the episodes of Futurama and The Fairly OddParents where he appears. That's it. However, I am pretty sure that in the original book, Tom Sawyer wasn't a cat.

This film was produced by MGM Animation, directed by Paul Sabella and Phil Mendez. Much like Disney's Robin Hood, it turned all of the book's characters into animals - most of them cats, because I guess cats are easy to draw or something. I probably won't be going into how much the film strays from the book because, again, I have never read it. And I know what you're thinking... doesn't my never having read the book make me unqualified to do a review of an adaptation of it? Well, I've never read the original Little Mermaid story either, but that doesn't stop me from liking the movie. And isn't a rule of good adaptations that they should be enjoyable even if whoever's watching it hasn't read the original book? Or am I just making that up?

Well, anyway, this is Tom Sawyer.

We begin by following a dragonfly to a church, where a pig preacher (voiced by Marty Stuart) is leading a gospel number. Did you know that when Robin Hood was in production, they were originally going to have Friar Tuck be a pig, but they made him a badger instead because they were worried that members of the Catholic Church would be offended? With that in mind, it's kind of odd that we have a pig be a preacher in THIS film...

Everybody's havin' themselves a grand ole time, but then the festivities are interrupted by this guy bargin' in:

Have I ever mentioned how much drool grosses me out?

This is Injurin' Joe, a character who was called "Injun Joe" in the original novel but we can't call him that in a kids' movie because it's politically incorrect. Oddly enough, he's voiced by two people - Hank Williams Jr. and Kevin Michael Richardson. And judging from the fact that he swipes the poor box, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that he's the villain.

But surely the town sheriff (Pat Corley) and his deputy (Thom Adcox Hernandez) will stop Injurin' Joe, right? Well, actually, no... the sheriff is too afraid that he might hurt them. On the one hand, Injurin' Joe is a big, ferocious grizzly bear and the sheriff is some sort of dog (a bulldog, maybe?), but on the other hand, it's the sheriff's job to stop people from doing evil things. Surely he knew the job was dangerous when he took it.

Boy, Satchel from Get Fuzzy has really let himself go...

Meanwhile, at Mama Odie's house...

That looks like a precarious place to live, doesn't it?

We finally get to see Tom Sawyer himself, voiced by Rhett Akins. At the moment, he's fast asleep, dreaming about being in a Fleischer Studios cartoon.

Puss in Boots after a visit to Jenny Craig.

In his dream, he's a pirate. And he's fighting pirates. Question, did the original book have anything to do with pirates? Like, at all?

What about knights? Because one second later, he's a knight battling a dragon.

Even the horse has stick arms and legs. Not a fan of this art style.

And then he's a cowboy.

Seriously, it looks like the horse's head is going to pop off its body.

And then he's... Ali Baba, I guess, being seduced by what is presumably the only human character in the movie. This raises all sorts of questions... do humans exist in this world of anthropomorphic animals? If so, do the animals know about them? If not, why is this being in Tom's dream human, or at least has a human face?

And why is it trying to seduce him? Does Tom have a thing for humans, despite being
a cat?

And then he's an Indiana Jones knockoff, swiping a gem from a tribe of African natives. Yes, it's just as racist as it sounds. We swapped out "Injun Joe" for "Injurin' Joe", and yet THIS was allowed in.

I'll spare you a screencap of the natives.

Tom is woken up by his Aunt Polly (Betty White). He lives with her and his half-brother Sid (Dean Haglund). He also has a pet frog named Rebel (Dee Bradley Baker), who Polly and Sid are grossed out by. "I thought you made it perfectly clear that you didn't want wildlife in the house!" Sid whines. So, there are non-anthropomorphic animals in this world of anthropomorphic animals? I suppose it's not too bad since we haven't seen any anthropomorphic frogs yet, but it's still a headscratcher. It can't just be that only the mammals are anthropomorphic like in Zootopia, we see anthropomorphic birds too.

Also, what kind of frog is that supposed to be? The coloring suggests a poison dart, but they're native to South America so I don't know what one would be doing in Missouri, and physically it resembles a bullfrog...

"Binyah binyah!"

Polly throws Rebel out the window, then complains about how he smashed one of her flowerpots despite the fact that it was her own fault for tossing him out the window in the first place. Sid demonstrates that he's a snide little pain in the rear by telling Tom not to be late for school or else he'll tell their aunt. Though, honestly, I think the big round glasses, hairdo, and bow tie made it pretty clear already that he's one of those "nasty little snitch at school" type of characters.

I swear I've seen a character who looks just like him - same hairstyle and all - in another cartoon,
but I can't put my finger on WHERE...

On their way to school, Tom and Sid come across Huckleberry Finn, a fox voiced by Mark Wills who Sid dislikes because he's always loafin' around fishin' all day instead of getting a good education. Tom insists that Huck doesn't even HAVE to go to school because he's already so smart, to which Sid claims that he's gonna tell Aunt Polly about this. "I like being a snitch!" he declares, chuckling to himself as he leaves. Sid's only been on-screen for, like, five minutes and already I find him incredibly annoying. I know I'm supposed to, but still...

"How should we design Tom?"
"I dunno, maybe take the cat from Oliver and Company and give him hair, then stick
some clothes on him..."

Tom decides to spend some time with Huck instead of following Sid to school. We learn that Huck doesn't take baths - he sees them as a waste of water, since no matter how many baths you take you're just gonna have to take another one. I bet he smells really bad then. Tom tells him about his weird dream, which Huck dubs a "premonition" as he's heard that Redbeard the Pirate buried his treasure around these parts. "I betcha it's in the Boneyard!" he says with a smirk. Upon hearing that, Tom wets his pants. What is the Boneyard? Are we going to get any sort of explanation as to what the Boneyard is?

"Don't ask my why I wear overalls but can't be bothered to put on a shirt. We're animals, it's not
like clothin' is a requirement for us anyhow..."

Then two more cats show up. They are Rebecca "Becky" Thatcher, Tom's love interest voiced by Hynden Walch, and her father, Judge Thatcher, voiced by Wayon Jennings. And upon learning that Rebecca will be attending his school starting that very day, Tom is suddenly super eager to get to school because his being head over heels in love trumps his hatred for the place.

Rebecca reminds me a lot of Jenny from the Secret of NIMH sequel. Most of it probably
stems from the fact that they're both voiced by Hynden Walch, but they have the same color scheme
and general role in the movie too. Odd, isn't it?

Tom sneaks into the school building without the teacher, Mr. Dobbins, noticing. Mr. Dobbins is some sort of bird... I'm guessing a turkey, and he's voiced by Richard Kind. Alas, Sid decides to alert Mr. Dobbins of Tom's being late.

Okay, question - if this guy is supposed to be a turkey, why does he have the coloring of a
GOOSE? Turkeys aren't light grey. Of course, they don't talk, have hair, or wear clothes either, so...

Mr. Dobbins punishes Tom by... forcing him to sit with the girls. Horror of horrors. He doesn't mind, because this gives him the chance to put the moves on Becky.

"Are we in the sandbox? 'Cause I'm diggin' you..."

Side note, I always find it really distracting when cartoons give animals human hairstyles. I think it's because animals like cats are already covered with fur, so it makes me wonder which parts are considered "fur" and which parts are considered "hair". That, and it just looks weird. Could be worse, though... at least it's not like Gadget from Chip 'n' Dale Rescue Rangers, where the "fur" parts are skin-colored, which makes it look like they don't have fur at all outside of the hair on their heads...

Incidentally, Tom's flirting with Becky makes him a bit unlikeable seeing as we promptly lean that he's ENGAGED to another student, Amy Lawrence (Clea Lewis). Which is odd, seeing as they're kids... at least I think they're kids. None of the voice actors are making any sort of effort to actually SOUND like kids. If they go to school, they have to be teenagers at the very least.

"TELL ME MOOOOOOOOOOOOORE ABOUT MY EYES!"

Rebel winds up sneaking into the school - probably because Mr. Dobbins left the window open like an idiot - and as a result we get some WHACKY SHENANIGANS involving him jumping into Mr. Dobbins' mouth and down his throat. Get it? He's got a frog in his throat? Nyuck nyuck nyuck.

This is a wonderful screencap because, out of context, it's unclear just WHAT, exactly, is going on.

After the torturing of Mr. Dobbins concludes, Tom and Becky do some more flirting. Reminder: Tom is engaged.

I just realized something. Tom is a cat. As in a TOMcat. I see what they did there. Come to think of it, why didn't they call the movie Tomcat Sawyer? Did they think it was too on the nose or something?

Are you FELINE the romance that's goin' on between these two?

Get it? FELINE? Because they're... yeah, I'll show myself out...

Through a montage, we see that Judge Thatcher don't approve of Tom havin' a thing for his daughter. For some reason. Maybe he knows that Tom's engaged?

The next day, Tom wants to do some fishing, but Aunt Polly has put him in charge of painting her boat while she and Sid go out for the day. The solution - trick some of the other kids (most of whom are clearly voiced by Dee Bradley Baker) into thinking that painting a boat is fun, fun, fun so that they'll ask if THEY can do the painting for him. He does this through song... and by "song", I mean he and the other characters speak in rhyme to some bouncy music.

Why the heck does the turtle have hair? Turtles do not have hair!

Say, wasn't it a FENCE Tom tricked somebody into painting for him in the book?

Eventually, Becky shows up, and she and Tom do some more flirting. His girlfriend who looks like a cat version of Lila from Hey Arnold is, understandably, not pleased. Fortunately, Tom gets his comeuppance for being a two-timer when Becky tricks him into kissing Rebel.

And Rebel didn't even turn into a prince.

That night, Tom and Rebel sneak out to meet up with Huck and do some treasure-huntin'. They go to the Boneyard, which as it turns out is some sort of cemetery. But they're not the only ones there. Injurin' Joe is forcing a dog voiced by Don Knotts to dig for the treasure as well. And guess who else is there? The town deputy! "This here belongs to the county!" he declares upon seeing the treasure chest.

Then the film takes a really dark turn as Injurin' Joe actually kills the deputy. No, he doesn't tear him limb from limb as you'd expect a big ol' grizzly bear to do, he throws him through the air and he slams his head on a tombstone. Still, that's pretty dark. Maybe they should've called this guy Murderin' Joe.

Not only that, but he also leaves the Don Knotts dog... well, okay, his name is Mutt Potter, I suppose I should probably mention that because just calling him "the Don Knotts dog" sounds lazy... in the pit with the deputy's badge so that everyone will think Mutt killed the deputy. Tom and Huck manage to get away, but Rebel isn't so lucky. Don't worry, he's not killed like the deputy was. Still, being the hostage of a ferocious bear doesn't exactly sound like much fun.

Injurin' Joe really needs a manicure.

Tom knows that if Injurin' Joe finds out he and Huck were the ones who saw what he did to the deputy, they will likely suffer the same fate. So they decide not to tell anyone what they saw. Meanwhile, Sheriff Fu Dog is woken up by a note wrapped through a rock flyin' through his window. The note reads "Mutt Potter is out cold in the ol' boneyard. He sure needs help. Unknown friend..."

The sheriff goes to the boneyard and, of course, assumes that Mutt killed the deputy despite his insistence that he doesn't remember anything. "You're gonna HANG, Potter!" he snarls. "You're gonna HANG from the HIGHEST TREE!"

Becky arrives early at school and sneaks a peek at Tom's test paper. As usual, he got an "F". Then she accidentally spills ink all over it. Tom tries to help clean it off with his tail, but winds up smudging it more. Becky's all "I'm in so much trouble!". Tom suggests that she do what he always does - lie. "You mean, not tell the truth?!" Becky gasps. Yes, Becky, that's basically the definition of lying.

"Lie?! As in, MAKE SOMETHING UP?!"

When Mr. Dobbins shows up and sees the spilled ink, Amy tattles on Becky (shouldn't that be Sid's job?), but Tom claims that HE spilled the ink and he has the ink on his tail to prove it. Mr. Dobbins punishes him by whacking him on the behind with a ruler multiple times. Apparently, it was okay to do that when the novel was first released. These days, Mr. Dobbins would be lucky not to get a pink slip.

"Feel the wrath of my ruler, Offbrand Danny from Cats Don't Dance!"

After school, Huck warns Tom that he thinks Injurin' Joe is on to them. This makes Tom very paranoid, and eventually he winds up running right into Becky again. You know what that means - MORE FLIRTING! Oh, and Amy just so happens to be nearby. I don't even get it. If Tom already has Amy, why does he even need to put the moves on Becky? What does Becky have that Amy doesn't?

Then Becky and Amy start singing. For whatever reason, Becky's singing is done by Lee Ann Womack and Amy's singing is done by Alecia Elliott. Did they think that Hynden Walch and Clea Lewis couldn't sing or something? Did they just want to get more country singers into the film somehow?

Well, eventually Becky finds out that Tom is, y'know, engaged and she's pretty mad. That's what you get for being a two-timer, Tom.

That night, Tom and Huck head off to bring a ham to Mutt in the hopes that it'll help him remember what happened the night that Injurin' Joe killed the deputy. Too bad they just so happen to be walkin' by Brer Fox's den...

"That Brer Rabbit won't get away this time. I'm gonna catch him and then I'm gonna eat him
or hang him or skin him or maybe throw him in the briar patch!"

...I mean, Injurin Joe's lair, and he overhears them. As does Rebel, who hops out of the lair to find them, Joe in pursuit.

Wait, if pigs are anthropomorphic in this world, where did they get the ham? Did Tom and Huck...
you know?

After bringing Mutt the ham, Tom, Huck, and Rebel are pursued by Joe through the woods, but they manage to get away via a convenient raft. Presumably, they are swept out to sea, and eventually wash up on an island. When the sun rises, they discover a pile of rocks that just so happens to look a lot like Redbeard's ship...

Boy, this movie is long...

And instead of being concerned that they're stranded on a deserted island with no food or shelter, or that Mutt is still going to get hanged, or that Injurin' Joe is still running free, Tom and Huck have themselves a musical number about friendship, prancing around through a Technicolor landscape where EVERYTHING IS ALIVE. Flowers, clouds, leaves, even the water! THE WATER IS ALIVE. I hate to steal a line from the Nostalgia Critic, but... it's like Pee-Wee's Earth!

Sentient water should not be that terrifying.

Seriously, this whole sequence MUST BE SEEN TO BE BELIEVED. By the time we get to the leaf-breathing dragon showing up, you'd be forgiven for thinking you're on acid.

And why does the dragon have a beak? I know that's hardly the strangest thing in this
musical number, but still...

So after whatever the heck we just watched, we see Aunt Polly, Sid, Becky, the sheriff, Judge Thatcher, and that skunk kid finding the remains of Huck's raft and Tom's boot. They form themselves a search party and, fortunately, eventually drift by the island where Tom and Huck are. Tom and Huck try to get their attention, but are unable to. So, first thing in the morning, Tom says, they're gonna swim back and let them know they're okay... why do they have to wait until morning? Why not try and swim after the rafts right now? Is it just easier to swim in the daylight or something?

But wait, Huck points out. Injurin' Joe is still looking for them, right? Tom says that they'll disguise themselves and live in storm cellars like outlaws. So, wait, hang on... they want to let the townsfolk know they're okay, but they want to disguise themselves and essentially live like outlaws? Why don't they just tell the sheriff "Hey, Injurin' Joe is the one who killed the deputy, and now he's out for us!"?

Well, in the morning, they wind up crashing their wake. So everyone knows that they're still alive. But what about Mutt? He's still gonna get a noose around his neck. Tom wants to clear his name, but Injurin' Joe shows up at the lynching. If he blabs, Injurin' Joe will have his neck. What will Tom do?

Oh, of COURSE he does the right thing. "Injurin' Joe did it!" he shouts. Joe chases after him and Huck, and the sheriff actually decides to do something about it.

I know bears are big, but are they really THAT big? Is Joe just abnormally large? Or are the rest
of the characters just small?

Long story short, Joe winds up falling through a bridge and into the river. And the river leads to a waterfall because of course it does. Tom and Huck are heroes. Tom and Becky sneak away from the party to do some spelunking... jeez, shouldn't the movie be over by now? The bad guy's been defeated, Mutt's been saved, where the heck are the credits?

At one point during this scene, Tom and Becky see a skeleton. A skeleton that looks more
like a human's than an animal's. This just makes things more confusing.

The others eventually notice that Tom and Becky snuck off and head to the cave to rescue them. And then we get another song. Seriously, shouldn't the movie be over? What is the purpose of this scene? Oh, so they can find that treasure Tom was so determined to get his paws on.

And, as it turns out, for the actual climax. You see, Injurin' Joe somehow survived hurtling over a waterfall and just so happened to land in that very same cave.

Seriously, even for a BEAR Joe looks abnormally large...

Blah blah blah, more chasing, Tom and Becky wind up back in the hot springs of Nickelodeon slime, and the others show up just in time. Huck sics a flock of bats on Joe, allowing Tom and Becky to get away. Then water starts rushing in. Water and rocks. Lots and lots of rocks. One of which clobbers Joe. So, he can survive a waterfall but a ROCK takes Joe out. Okay then...

After that, the roof caves in and this is the result:

A skylight. Not sure how that's impressive...

Amy hooks up with Huck, leaving Tom free to hook up with Becky. Sid is punished for the crime of being a snitch. All's well that ends well.

What's the Verdict?

There isn't anything really "bad" about Tom Sawyer. The animation's good, most of the voice actors do a fine job, and the songs are decent. However, the film does have a few problems. For one thing, it's long. Very, very long. There are a couple pointless scenes that could've easily been taken out. Even the trippy musical number with the sentient water. On top of that, Tom, Huck, and Becky are kind of dull. Making the characters animals was a nice touch, but there's not much variety - it's mostly cats and dogs. Why couldn't they have made the Sheriff, I dunno, a raccoon or a weasel or something? Or made Amy a mountain lion or a bobcat?

Still, as a whole I think the film is okay. Like I said, I haven't read the original book so I don't know how many liberties this adaptation took (other than the whole "they're all animals" thing). Maybe somebody who's actually read the book can fill me in.

What are we reviewing next time?

Let's Watch This: An Episode of "Pink Panther and Sons"

It's a common thing in cartoons - you want to give your character a kid sidekick or two, but you don't want to imply that an iconic cartoon character, y'know, did the nasty. What to do, what to do? Then you come up with a solution... don't give them a son, give them a nephew! Yep, you saddle them with a nephew or niece, likely never bothering to explain where exactly said nephew or niece's parents are. Examples of this include (of course) Donald Duck's nephews, Mickey Mouse's nephews, Inspector Gardget's niece, Popeye's nephews, and Woody Woodpecker's nephew and niece.

However, there ARE exceptions to this. Perhaps the most well-known example is Goofy, who starred alongside his son Max in such productions as Goof Troop and A Goofy Movie (though he also has a nephew who appears in a couple comic books). Sylvester the Cat also had a son, Sylvester Jr., and he's... relatively well-known, I guess? But did you know that the Pink Panther also had kids? Two of 'em, in fact.

Pink Panther and Sons was actually NOT made by the Pink Panther's home studio of DePatie-Freling Enterprises (as it existed as an in-name-only enterprise at the time after being absorbed by Marvel Productions), but rather at Hanna-Barbera Productions, with Friz Freling serving as a producer. It premiered on NBC in 1984, then moved to ABC in 1986. The show focused on the Pink Panther's kids, preteened Pinky (voiced by Billy Bowles) and toddler Panky (voiced by B.J. Ward) and their friends the Rainbow Panthers, a gang of technicolor panther cubs. They consist of purple panther Chatta (Sherry Lynn), green panther Murfel (Shane McCobb), yellow sports-obsessed panther Rocko (Frank Welker), orange construction worker panther Annie O'Gizmo (Jeannie Elias) and blue panther Punkin (B.J. Ward). They do stuff, occasionally running afoul of a group of bullying lions known as "the Howl Angels". Episodes include...

- Pinky and one of the bully lion dudes compete in a bike race. Predictably, the lion dudes cheat.

- The panthers and the lions play baseball.

- The panthers explore a house that's apparently haunted.

- The panthers renovate their clubhouse, then, um, Panky is abducted by aliens.

- One of those Prince and the Pauper parody episodes seen in like a million other cartoon shows.

Yeah, just a bunch of stock cartoon plots.

Why exactly does Pink Panther and Sons exist? Well, my best guess is that they felt having a bunch of cute panther cubs running around would result in mucho merchandising sales (noticeably, the panther cubs look more like Care Bears than they do the Pink Panther). Twenty-six episodes of the show were made before the show got cancelled, and the Pink Panther's sons and the Rainbow Panthers were never seen or heard from again. While there are of course people who look back on the show fondly, I've seen the show pop up on a few lists of Hanna-Barbera's worst shows. One such list states that "There’s a few things that make Pink Panther and Sons probably the worst cartoon Hanna-Barbera ever made. The sheer irritation factor of the Rainbow Panther characters cannot be overstated. They all have overstated vocal tics and they all speak in high-pitched simpering voices that could easily be used to cut glass. To help keep the animation cheap, every episode is loaded down with long, rambling dialog sequences that are completely unbearable."

What are MY thoughts on the show? Let's find out! We'll be watching the episode "Take a Hike".

The episode begins with the Pink Panther ditching his sons and their friends on the side of the road. Great parenting, Pink Panther!

Oh, my head. The episode just started and I just said something nasty about one of my favorite cartoon characters. I feel dirty.

Anyhow, the panthers are apparently there to go hiking. And the Pink Panther isn't hiking with them because... I don't know. Maybe he just wanted to get out of this cartoon.

By the way, Rocko sounds like Sheldon from Garfield and Friends. I know they're both
voiced by Frank Welker, but still...

Punkin shows off his camera, which he brought along so he could take pictures for his class project. They head off on their hike, and eventually arrive at a river with a rickety old unsafe bridge. Oh, no. How will they ever cross it? Well, from what I've read some panthers are able to swim. So you could hypothetically just SWIM across the river.

Here's a question, though admittedly it might be considered a nitpick: how come the Pink Panther's sons talk, but the Pink Panther himself (usually) doesn't? And how come they wear clothes, but the Pink Panther himself (again, usually) doesn't?

Whoever built that sign could've used the wood to actually, y'know, FIX
the bridge. Just sayin'.

"Now we can't get to the forest!" Rocko complains. Fortunately, Chatta knows of a sturdier bridge downstream that they can cross. But as the panthers are walking off, Panky is distracted by a grasshopper and runs off in the opposite direction. The good news is, he has a grip on a thread on Pinky's sweater, and thus Pinky notices this and reins him back in.

Who the heck names their kid "Panky" anyway?

Predictably, Panky winds up getting distracted again - first by a butterfly, then by a baby eagle - and winds up wandering off. As Panky is interacting with the baby eagle, Pinky finds out again that his baby brother has vamoosed. "Oh, terrific! I spend half my day looking for that kid!" he complains. So now the hike is on hold until they can find Panky.

Say, I wonder what the Pink Panther is doing right now. It's gotta be much more interesting than this.

Anyhow, we get some WACKY SHENANIGANS involving Chatta shouting through a megaphone and the others getting knocked into a river. Pinky suggests that they split into search parties of two. Meanwhile, a bald eagle - presumably the parent of the chick - notices Panky with its chick and gets MAD.

Here's a tip, eagle - for dry, red eyes, Clear Eyes is AWESOME.

It grabs the chick and places it back in its nest with its other chicks, then places Panky in the nest too so he can hang out with the chicks... this is so boring. I can't think of a single joke to make about this.

Okay, now back to Pinky and his friends. Punkin wanders into a cave and complains that it's too dark in there for him to see anything. I know black panthers can see in the dark, but apparently blue and pink panthers can't. But blue and pink panthers can talk and walk around on their hind legs while black panthers can't, so I guess it kind of evens out?

Pinky suggests that he use the flash on his camera. I guess neither of them thought to bring a flashlight.

I swear they use this exact same animation of Pinky talking at least four times throughout
the episode.

Predictably, the cave winds up being the home of a large bear - and when Punkin uses the flash, it ticks off the bear (because large bears in cartoons that aren't one of the main characters are always ticked off by the main characters somehow. It's just inevitable), and it gives chase. And I'm pretty sure that they just pilfered the character design of Lumpjaw from Fun and Fancy Free for this bear, because... well, this is what Lumpjaw looks like:

And here's what the bear in this episode looks like:

Pinky and Punkin climb up a tree to escape the bear, then Pinky uses the liverwurst and sauerkraut sandwich in Punkin's backpack to get rid of it. Huzzah, the episode actually had a conflict for a few seconds.

I notice that some of the panthers have colored irises and some of them don't. That's not
particularly interesting, but I couldn't think of a funny joke to make about this screencap.

Pinky tells Punkin to go find his dad to help them. Hurray, the Pink Panther's coming back! Oh, wait, never mind. Punkin promptly runs into a tree, then falls into a river. Darn, here I was expecting the Pink Panther to actually appear in the episode again. I mean, his name IS in the title of the show, right?

Meanwhile, Chatta and Annie find Panky in the eagles' nest, and Chatta tells the others. "How will we get him down from THERE?" Rocko asks. Well, you could always just climb up the tree. Even ignoring for a second that real panthers are perfectly capable of climbing trees, we saw Pinky and Punkin climb a tree just a few minutes ago. Then they hear Punkin calling for help. And wouldn't you know it, the river leads to a waterfall. Because rivers in cartoons ALWAYS lead to waterfalls. No exceptions.

The good news is that even if Punkin DOES go down the waterfall, he'll inevitably survive.
After all, he's A) a cartoon character and B) one of the main characters.

Pinky's plan to save Punkin is a bust, but fortunately he's rescued by the eagle. The other panthers start cheering.

"HOORAAAAAAAAY! WE ACCOMPLISHED NOTHIIIIIIIIIIING!"

So everyone is happy, Annie takes a photo of Panky, Punkin and the Eagles, and the episode comes to an end.

What's the Verdict?

This was so incredibly blah. I don't want to sound rude, but there is nothing of substance here. First of all, the Pink Panther? The beloved cartoon character that has his name in the show's title? Yeah, he's barely in it at all. He shows up for, like, five seconds at the beginning. Instead, we have to focus on his sons and their five stupid friends. And none of them are interesting at all. Not one of the jokes made me laugh. None of the things that make the Pink Panther cartoons so great are featured. It's basically just a generic "group of kids" cartoon. There was no reason for them to slap the Pink Panther's name and likeness on it, other than I guess because they thought it would draw people in. Just... watch some Pink Panther cartoons instead, okay? Trust me, it's a much better way to spend your time. Heck, watch the 1993 show where the Pink Panther talked or the 2010 show Pink Panther and Pals instead. Say what you will about them, but they're still much better than THIS.

It's a shame, too, because I love the Pink Panther AND Hanna-Barbera, so you'd think a Pink Panther show produced by Hanna-Barbera would be right up my alley. Ah well...

Let's Watch This: "The Soulmates in the Gift of Light" (1991)

I know Christmas was yesterday, but I don't care. It's still the Christmas season. There's still time for one more Christmas special review.

This special has a very interesting history... at least online. In 2016, an Ottawa resident named Emily Charette posted a screencap from... something that she needed help identifying. This is the screencap:

After ruling out things like a Keebler elves commercial, FernGully, The Littles, The Smurfs, and The Princess and the Dragon, this very year the mystery was finally solved. The Mr. Smee-esque elf character was actually from a 1991 Christmas special called The Soulmates in the Gift of Light (also known as The Christmas Gift of Light).

This very obscure special premiered on November 27nd, 1991, produced by a company called Soulmates Productions... which presumably explains why the title characters are called "the Soulmates". It can now be found on YouTube. And seeing how the special's biggest claim to fame is that nobody knew what it was for years, it seems ripe for reviewing on my blog. Let's take a look at The Soulmates in the Gift of Light.

The special begins on the night before the night before Christmas. And all through the town of... whatever the name of this town is, not a creature is stirring - except for a blue-skinned shady-looking fella and a cigar-smoking kid. Wait, wait, wait, back up. A kid smoking a cigar? WHAT?

On top of that, he's also got a five o'clock shadow. Is he a kid? Or is he just a really short person?

And why does the other guy have blue skin? Maybe he's been out in the cold weather too long...

Anyhow, the blue-skinned guy (voiced by Al Waxman) and the cigar-smoking kid sneak around causing mischief and laughing about how they'll spread negative energy throughout the entire world. Spread negative energy throughout the entire world? Do you suppose these guys invented Twitter*?

As part of their mischief-making, they sneak over to a house that belongs to a girl (Gema Zamprogna) and her dog (John Stocker) who looks almost exactly like Pongo from One Hundred and One Dalmatians minus most of his spots. The blue-skinned guy uses his magic scepter to zap the dog, which creates some evil hands made of smoke that... put the dog in a trance? I'm very confused. Magic scepter? Hands made of smoke? Dog's put in a trance?

"I'm getting veeeeeeeeeeeeeeery sleeeeeeeeeeepy..."

After the blue-skinned guy and the cigar-smoking kid take off in their flying limousine sleigh... yes, they have one of those... it's established that Offbrand Pongo is the girl's guide dog. Not a very good one, it would seem, seeing as the girl very nearly gets turned into roadkill by a car. Perhaps the seeing eye dog needs a seeing eye dog of his own.

Meanwhile, at the North Pole...

Dig that funky architecture.

Santa Claus is watching people do naughty things on his big-screen TV. And when I say "naughty things", I mean things like stealing money from one of those sidewalk Santas. Please get your minds out of the gutter. "Whatever happened to the Christmas spirit?" he laments before setting out in his sleigh... which looks more like a rocket ship. Because this is a high-tech Santa. It bums me out to think of all those poor reindeer who are out of work now that Santa's decided to upgrade...

The Easter Bunny doesn't worry about stuff like this. He gives folks candy whether they're
good OR bad. He's not very judgmental.

Then we cut to the other side of the other side of the universe... okay, can this special choose a plotline to follow? Is this special about the blue-skinned guy and the cigar-smoking kid, the girl and her guide dog, Santa Claus, or... these things?

…did we suddenly enter an episode of Galaxy High School?

So, I'm guessing these two alien Casper-esque guys are the titular Soulmates (Wayne Robson and Shelia McCarthy). A giant floating pink bubble tells them that they're getting a distress call from one of Santa's reindeer. So I guess that rocket sleigh DIDN'T put the reindeer out of work after all...

He says that Santa flew the coop, and without Santa there won't be a Christmas. Oh, sure, people can still spend time with their families, go to the mall to buy gifts to give members of their families, and watch movies like A Christmas Story and Miracle on 34th Street... but without Santa coming down the chimney with presents, it just won't be Christmas!

"Help me, Soulmates. You're my only hope."

Then the bubble turns around, revealing itself to actually be the moon. Which is alive. And incredibly creepy-looking.

Though I know one way it could've been much creepier...

The creepy talking moon turns the Soulmates into balls of light, and then the three of them fly through the galaxy to Earth. Not shown - the moon's flying around wreaking havoc on our planet's tides. "Soulmates to the rescue!" one of the Soulmates shouts as they fly down to Earth.

Meanwhile, the reindeer are setting off to find Santa as Comet and the elves cheer them on. One of the elves just so happens to look exactly like that cigar-smoking kid we previously saw palling around with the blue-skinned guy earlier. Hmmm, I wonder if they could be one in the same?

"Oh, yeah, I'm TOTALLY an elf! Just ignore the fact that I don't have pointy ears."

And now, back to the girl and her Pongo lookalike dog. As the girl sleeps, the dog sadly packs his things and sneaks out because he thinks she'd be better off without him. The moon says that he hopes the Soulmates can help everyone overcome all that negative energy lurking around.

Speaking of the Soulmates, they run into Comet, who does what anyone would do upon seeing tiny aliens who look like Boo Berry had children with Tinker Bell would do - scream.

Who WOULDN'T be making that expression upon seeing those things?

The Soulmates tell Comet to just keep believing that he'll find Santa, and he will. And sure enough, a few seconds later, Comet spots Santa's sleigh. Huzzah!

At the moment, Santa is sitting down on a bench and striking up a conversation with Truman. Yes, apparently Santa can talk to animals. I don't know if he has this ability in any other Christmas specials...

"Don't tell anyone, but I'm really the Sultan of Agrabah. I had to get out of there - our palace
has been invaded by a scary blue CGI Will Smith desperately trying to be Robin Williams and failing!"

Comet and the male Soulmate locate Santa. Christmas is saved, right? Well, no. Santa moans that nobody believes in him or in the Christmas spirit. Mope mope mope mope mope. This entire special has basically just been watching characters mope. First the dog is moping that he's a lousy guide dog, then Santa is moping that nobody believes in him, then Comet is moping that they'll never find Santa and that Christmas is ruined... it's like a Christmas special written by Hardy Harr Harr.

Back at the North Pole, the elf who totally isn't that cigar-smoking kid who's one of the bad guys is telling the other elves that they need to find a new leader. After all, without this gig at the North Pole, the elves would be stuck making shoes, or baking cookies in a tree, or fighting against Orcs. But who could ever replace Santa? Hmmm... how about a blue-skinned shady-looking fella with a stereotypical twirly cartoon bad guy mustache and a Brooklyn accent?

"A runabout! I'll steal it! NO ONE WILL EVER KNOW!"

Shady-Looking here reveals his name to be Angris McBragg (no relation to Commander McBragg) and that the elf who looks like that cigar-smoking kid he was hanging out with earlier is in fact that cigar-smoking kid he was hanging out with earlier. I know, big surprise. Oh, and his name is Thomas. DOUBTING Thomas, that is.

Angris wants to take over Christmas because [REASONS]. He wants the elves to make dolls in Doubting Thomas' likeness. The doll will make the children doubt themselves... somehow. Maybe it casts some sort of spell on them? Oh, and he captured the female Soulmate.

Are we going to get any explanation as to why his skin is blue? Is he secretly half-Smurf
or something?

As the elves get to work under the threat of being exposed to the doll's self-doubting powers themselves, we cut back to Santa, Truman, Comet, and the male Soulmate. The male Soulmate says that he can use his Soulmate powers to contact the female Soulmate, and then their combined powers will "see it, believe it, and make it come true". "It's called 'Magic Imagining'!" he says.

So he contacts the female Soulmate, who uses this "Magic Imagining" stuff to imagine herself helping Santa and Truman believe in themselves. Right after she does that, Angris uses the Doubting Thomas doll on her, allowing us to finally see just HOW, exactly, it makes kids doubt themselves. Apparently it has laser beam eyes that can hypnotize folks into thinking they're hopeless.

"Staring contest! You lose!"

The male Soulmate begs Comet, Santa, and Truman to help them with his "Magic Imagining". So Comet gives it a shot, which sends some pink pixie dust up to the moon, who in turn sends "Soulmate Energy" to where it's needed the most. It hits the female Soulmate, snapping her out of her self-doubting trance. It hits Doubting Thomas, too, turning him all nicey-nicey and removing his five o'clock shadow.

So now it's off to the North Pole to stop Angris, right? Nope, Santa is still in his funk. "I don't belong at the North Pole anymore," he insists. So Comet and the male Soulmate... okay, the Soulmates do indeed have names, the male one is named Orion and the female is named Orillia... head off to the North Pole by themselves. After they leave, the wind sends a letter addressed to Santa his and Truman's way - it's from the girl, asking Santa for her dog back. Only problem is, the girl didn't sign her name... which is Ella, by the way... but Santa's computer at the North Pole has some sort of letter-writer-identifying thing that can help them. But Santa doesn't have his glasses, and without them his eyes aren't that great, so he needs Truman to guide him back to the North Pole.

...wait, he's going to WALK all the way back to the North Pole? On foot? I don't know what state he landed in, but chances are it's not exactly within walking distance of the North Pole. Well, anyway, Truman says that maybe they can find their way back to the North Pole if they really, truly believe.

If the "really, truly believing" stuff doesn't work out, maybe they could hail a taxi or something?

The elves have finished making Angris' eeeeeeeeeeeeevil dolls, and since the reindeer aren't there to pull the sleigh, Angris declares that the ELVES will have to do it. How that's going to work seeing as there's no indication that the elves can fly, I don't know. Fortunately, Orion and Comet show up, followed by Santa and Truman. And Santa uses some "Soulmate Energy" to turn the Doubting Thomas dolls into NICE dolls who talks about how important it is to believe in yourself.

Santa apparently found his glasses offscreen, too.

And now that his evil plot has been foiled, Angris flees. No, really. He just flies off in his flying limo. No comeuppance. They don't even zap HIM with the "Soulmate Energy" and turn him nice. Um, okay then...

Santa sets off in his sleigh to do his rounds, Truman is reunited with Ella, the "believe in yourself" moral is reiterated, and the creepy moon makes another appearance. Now, quick, everybody "see, believe, and make come true" that world hunger has been solved.

Well? Has it?

What's the Verdict?

Honestly, I can see why this special didn't catch on. Is it a BAD special? No. It's perfectly fine for what it is. It's just... generic. There's nothing here that we haven't already seen in other animated Christmas specials. Santa doubting himself? Check. Mustache-twirling Christmas-hating villain? Check. Cutesy magical creatures who wind up saving Christmas? Check. Child with a disability? Check. Look at the Christmas specials on this list, most if not all of them include at least ONE of those things. On top of that, it's not a good sign when most of your special is just watching characters mope and moan about how hopeless everything is. It makes the special a chore to watch.

But like I said, the special isn't BAD. There are just far better Christmas specials out there.

* I'm perfectly aware that Platypus Comix's review of the special also made a joke about the bad guy being the founder of Twitter. I wrote this review before Platypus Comix wrote their (much better-written) review of it - remember, I write these reviews in advance. Just thought I'd make that clear because I don't want people to think I got lazy and stole jokes from Platypus Comix's review.

Animated Commercials Back From When Commercials Were Actually Fun - Part 3: The Christmas Edition

Didn't I say that the next one of these I would do would be a Christmas one? Huh? Didn't I?

One of the numerous great things about the holiday season are the commercials that air during it. Nowadays, you don't see as many animated Christmas commercials - mainly because you don't see as many animated commercials as a whole. I can't remember seeing one new animated Christmas commercial on TV this year. It's very weird.

Actually, most of the Christmas ads this year have been a letdown. Most of them are just needlessly depressing with nothing whimsical or Christmassy about them at all. Half the time when I'm watching TV I just see ads for pharmaceuticals. Because nothing says "Happy Holidays" like pharmaceuticals, am I right?

But I'm not here to complain. I'm here to share with you some great animated Christmas ads from over the years. My one rule for this post is that they have to be FULLY-ANIMATED, or at least MOSTLY-animated. Which, alas, means that I can't include the M&Ms Christmas ad, which is my personal favorite (I figured if I qualified THAT as animation, by that logic I'd have to qualify those POM "Worry Monster" ads as animated because the monsters in them are CGI. Where is the line drawn?).

I had to start with this one. This, along with the aforementioned M&Ms ad, is one of those ads that's been airing around the holiday season for years. It made its debut in 1989, and yet not a holiday season has gone by without it airing at least once. Not only that, but it's also one of the few commercials to have its own Wikipedia page.

This is a simple ad, and some of the best things in life are the simple ones. It was directed by Carl Willat at the animation studio Colossal Pictures. There are actually two versions of this ad - the original stop-motion one, and a 2012 updated version with CGI (that's the version we've seen on TV since then). I think it's scientifically impossible for someone to watch this ad without a smile on their face.

Unless it's the 2020 version of the ad where the kisses are interrupted by live action people. Don't think I wasn't just as upset with that as everyone else was. I still get really annoyed when they air THAT one on TV.

Ah, the Coca-Cola polar bears! How come you don't see them in ads anymore?

Anyway, this ad is one of many featuring the bears produced by Rhythm & Hues. A good chunk of them are Christmas ads - which makes sense, since we tend to associate arctic animals like polar bears with the holidays, what with them being in winter. It was difficult to choose which one to do... there's also one where the polar bears meet penguins, and one where the polar bears watch fireworks. You can find them on YouTube.

The bears were the idea of a Mr. Ken Stewart. First he thought of how people drink Coca-Cola at the movies, then he thought about how much his Labrador retriever looked like a polar bear. Putting those two thoughts together, he came up with the very first Coca-Cola polar bears ad, where the bears drink Coca-Cola while watching the Northern Lights.

Hope these bears make a comeback someday. At least let 'em appear in a Super Bowl commercial for old times' sake.

This 1999 Comcast commercial was directed by Bob Kurtz at Kurtz & Friends, an animation studio that I talked about before in my very first post about animated commercials. This studio has such a great art style that adds a natural charm to anything they produce, and I love how the ad goes from calm and serene to ROCK MUSIC just so suddenly. And this is coming from somebody who knows nothing about satellite dishes or how they work. And the reveal that the ad takes place on the front of a Christmas card is a nice touch.

It's been five years, and it still feels so weird to me that Snoopy isn't the mascot of MetLife anymore. I still associate the company with the character and it's hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that he and the rest of the Peanuts gang aren't appearing in their ads. Maybe a good chunk of it stems from the fact that I don't think I've seen a single MetLife ad on TV since then (was MetLife's mindset "If we don't have a beloved cartoon character as our mascot, why bother making commercials?").

The Peanuts gang is another one of those things a lot of us associate with the holiday season (mainly due to their multiple Christmas specials), so it was only natural that MetLife would have them appear in their Christmas ad. It's here we learn that Charlie Brown and his friends aren't very good at charades.

Y'know, I never thought of Godzilla and King Kong as being the type of characters to star in a Christmas commercial, but clearly someone at Best Buy did, and I am incredibly grateful that they did. This is one of those Christmas ads that focuses more on humor than sentimentality. We don't get a lot of Christmas ads like that nowadays. Maybe because the world is a far less humorous place than it was in the 1990s.

It's not uncommon to see characters from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer in commercials. They've appeared in ads for Aflac, Nissan, Denny's, CBS, Window's phones, Bing, AT&T, and - as seen here - Verizon. I'll admit that this ad does feel very spiteful. Directly mocking your competitors in your ads always does. Maybe Genesis really did what Nintendon't, but still...

Speaking of phone companies making fun of each other around the holidays, here's one of MANY ads that Alltel did in which their spokesperson, Chad, teams up with Santa Claus to stop the eeeeeeeeeeeeeeevil plans of Verizon, Sprint, AT&T, and T-Mobile employees to ruin Christmas. They did at least FOUR ads about this. FOUR. In fact, these characters (minus Santa) also appeared in live action ads! I don't know whether to roll my eyes at how petty this seems or laugh at it. I mean, there's a reason why Kellogg's doesn't do cereal commercials where the Trix Rabbit, Sonny the Cocoa Puffs Bird, and the Honey Nut Cheerios Bee attempt to blow up the Earth only to get beaten up by Tony the Tiger and Toucan Sam.

Okay, back to the feel-good ads. I would make a "how do they celebrate Christmas in prehistoric times" joke, but a million others have done that already. So instead, let's talk about how nice it is to see Fred and Barney actually share the cereal for once. Usually, Fruity Pebbles ads go like this: Barney disguises himself and tries to trick Fred out of his cereal instead of just buying his own box of it. Fred is fooled, but then discovers it's Barney and chases after him. Barney's apparently supposed to be the one we root for. This time? Santa gently urges them to share, and instead of cheering Fred on as he pursues Barney we feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

Interestingly, this ad first came out in the 1980s, but in the 1990s they redubbed it with Frank Welker as Barney and Jim Cummings as Santa. I've included both versions here.

This Kellogg's ad from the 1980s is another one that gives you a warm and fuzzy feeling inside. I always like seeing advertising mascots gather together to have fun (showing us that, y'know, they do have lives outside of hocking their cereal or dealing with kids that want to steal it). The warm color scheme, the peaceful music, and Thurl Ravenscroft's gentle performance as Tony combine to make another ad that you can't watch without smiling. In a perfect world, this would be one of those ads that they air once every holiday season. Problem is, most of these characters haven't appeared in a commercial in decades (because cereal commercials aren't allowed to be fun anymore as a result of people blaming them for their kids becoming fat).

This is a more recent Christmas ad (from around 2018, I think?). Stop-motion and Christmas go together like hot chocolate and marshmallows, so it's only natural that so many Christmas commercials are done in stop-motion. This one features LeBron James, hawking Sprite Cranberry... a drink that I have never tasted. Considering I like Sprite and I also like cranberry juice, I should really try it at some point.

Look at this beautiful hand-drawn animation. This ad, for the British department store John Lewis, features animation by Disney animators Dominic Carola and Aaron Blaise - the latter of whom co-directed Brother Bear, which explains why the ad feels so much like that movie. More than anything, this commercial really makes me wish that Disney would do a hand-drawn animated film again. It helps that the ad tells a very touching, makes you all warm and fuzzy inside story... am I starting to repeat myself?

Side note, I can't hear the song "Somewhere Only We Know" without thinking of the 2011 Winnie the Pooh movie. I remember the trailer for that featured the song.

Okay, I recognize this art style. It took me a second to figure out WHERE, but then it occurred to me - I'd seen characters that looked just like the ones in this ad in issues of Disney Adventures magazine! Is this the same artist? And if so, what is their name?! Could somebody please help me out with this?

Anyhow, Applebee's rarely does animated commercials. This was one of their rare ventures into the world of moving drawings. It encourages you to get somebody an Applebee's gift card for Christmas. Just hope that they don't prefer TGI Friday's.

Speaking of Applebee's, I gotta ask... do they still have all the pennants and posters and stuff hanging on the walls in 'em? What about the carousel horses in between the booths? I haven't been to an Applebee's in years, I legitimately have no idea...

This ad is for Walt Disney World's annual "Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party"... which I don't think I've ever been to. The animation here is by Eric Goldberg, who's one of my favorite animators. So there's no way I wasn't going to include it in this post.

Here's another one by Kurtz & Friends, this one for Milton Bradley games and ALSO featuring Santa Claus and his reindeer. I love the design of the reindeer here (they sort of remind me of Pony from It's Pony, if anyone is familiar with that show). Like I said before, this studio's art style just has a natural charm to it. And no matter what decade you were born in, this ad is bound to make you nostalgic - because who HASN'T played at least ONE of these games at some point?

One company that's really gotten better at their Christmas ads nowadays is Honda... or at least HAD gotten better at their Christmas ads. This year they just did a dull live action ad. But for a few years before 2022, they used stop-motion in their holiday commercials because, as we've established, stop-motion and Christmas go together like hot chocolate and marshmallows (which likely stems from the fact that so many animated Christmas specials are done in stop-motion). I've always liked their ads with iconic toys like Strawberry Shortcake, Gumby, GI Joe, and the Care Bears shilling for cars, but those are live action with stop-motion characters so I couldn't include them in this post. But they've also done plenty of entirely stop-motion ads like this one that I could put on the list. Thus...

Oh, goody, another cereal ad! In the 1990s, Cookie Crisp's mascots were Irish-accented cop Officer Crumb, the cereal-stealing Cookie Crook, and his dog Chip. Their shtick was that Cookie Crook, like many other cereal mascots, would try to steal Cookie Crisp, but Officer Crumb wouldn't allow that. This here ad is similar to the Fruity Pebbles ad we've already looked at, except this time the actual Santa Claus doesn't show up. It's nice to see even the closest thing there's ever been to a villainous cereal mascot can get some happiness around the holidays.

For those wondering, the reason why you don't see these three characters in Cookie Crisp ads nowadays is because... well, for one thing, do they even still DO Cookie Crisp ads? I can't remember the last time I've seen one on TV... but also, around 2000 the folks in charge of the Cookie Crisp ads decided to ditch Cookie Crook and Officer Crumb and just have Chip be the mascot. Then at some point they replaced him with a wolf who basically does the Trix Rabbit's shtick.

Okay, this one does have a bit of live action in it, but the majority of it is animated so I'm putting it on the list.

Who doesn't love Chuck Jones' adaptation of How the Grinch Stole Christmas? This ad, directed by Frank Molieri at Acme Filmworks, apes the special's animation style extremely well. It actually makes me wonder why they haven't done more ads with the Chuck Jones verison of the Grinch - oh, there ARE other ads where the Grinch appears, but they all either use the 2000 live action version of the Grinch or the 2018 Illumination version of the Grinch. Very odd, seeing as he's just as iconic a Christmas character as Rudolph...

So that's a bunch of animated ads that celebrate the holiday season. With any luck, animated Christmas commercials will make a comeback at some point.

Let's Watch This: "Mickey's Once Upon a Christmas" (1999)

Well, I've looked at one Christmas production starring one of the world's two most iconic cartoon characters... guess it's only fair that I look at ANOTHER Christmas production starring the OTHER most iconic cartoon character!

Mickey's Once Upon a Christmas was released on November 9th, 1999, produced by Walt Disney Television Animation. The film features three Christmas stories starring Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy, and their friends. It's a charming little film, and while hardly the most well-known of Disney's direct-to-video output, it's nonetheless well-liked enough for channels like Disney Junior and Freeform to air it around the holidays.

So let's give it a watch!