CareBears Adventure in Wonderland: Part 3- Alice, the Test, and the Hunger

The Book of Wonder- Princess Test

Before Alice can be crowned Princess, the Evil Wizard or the E.W. comes into the courtroom and yells,"Stop, she must first pass the Princess test." Dim and Dum stagger in carrying the very heavy Book of Wonder, an enormous book that apparently contains vital information regarding Wonderland tradition. The White Rabbit, being in charge of ceremonial activities for the kingdom and what not, is immediately shocked by this progression of events. Happy with the way things are going, the E.W. demands that he begin to read from the special and hefty tome. In the Book of Wonder states the following for "The Princess Test":

1. The Princess must travel into the Wasteland
2. She must climb Goodbye, Mountain to the very top
3. She must gather water from a well
4. She must use the water to awake the slumbering garden

Goodbye, Mountain and Hello Courage

Once Alice reaches the wastelands of Wonderland, she observes how uninhabitable this area of desolation really is. What Alice doesn't know is that Dim and Dum are plotting to cause environmental hazards for her while Tenderheart and Lotsaheart are watching over her during this dangerous undertaking. Looking down and feeling scared after slipping, Alice slows down her free-solo-climbing and then is refreshed by the Cheshire cat who once again raps his advice. He tells Alice,"while the other CareBears are using their heads you just remember to use your heart." As Alice continues to climb upward with her new sense of confidence because of the rap's energetic vibes, Dim and Dum unleash a huge snowball towards Alice. Lotsaheart and Tenderheart fire up their glowing bellies and create a rainbow trampoline over Alice's head, bounce the snow ball back into the sky, and turn Dim and Dum into snow men. Reaching the tippy-top, Alice sees that the secluded area is beautiful and in the distance the well the book mentions. Dim and Dum see this as another opportunity to thwart Alice by tossing her in the well. Before the two henchmen make it to Alice, once again Tenderheart and Lotsaheart use their rainbow power of care to cause Dim and Dum to run up a rainbow and fall into the well immediately after the rainbow vanishes. Alice gets the cup of water, makes it to the bottom of the mountain and then hears something crying nearby. When the CareBears suspect it's a trap, it turns out to be instead a little unicorn tangled in a patch of thorns. Alice, being a compassionate soul, uses her remaining water to quench the unicorns thirst and carries it back to the palace.

CareBears Adventure in Wonderland: Part 2- The Evil Wizard, The Real Princess, and the Sympathetic Jabberwocky

In the Clutches of the Evil Wizard:

Once Alice is shoved through the doors of the Evil Wizard's tower, she is approached by a tall, eccentric man with pencil thin beard and pitch black hat that resembles his tower. And now my interns we get to hear the E.W.'s perspective on how Wonderland needs fixed during his diddy, "When I'm the King of Wonderland." He says that Wonderland needs placed under a metal dome so everyone could stay locked up at home . . . it's a rather fascist vision. Dim and Dum play ukulele giving it that sing-songy vibe except that this happiness is followed by the E.W.'s bizarre plans and ambient strange music interruptions. The song ends of course with a lightning crash that reveals the E.W.'s twisted awful teeth which could scare the devil out of kids. Maybe that's what they were going for? The E.W. then ascends into total darkness and minimal synthesizers fill the void with hypnotic frequencies. Alice, while observing her surroundings, is suddenly startled by the E.W.'s reappearing in which his shadow begins to mock Alice's shadow from a side view. This of course is concluded with maniacal laughter accompanied by intense music.

Running away with more low self-esteem, because the E.W. is a bully and because he told her that no one would believe her, Alice scuttles into Heart Palace's court room. She is completely surrounded by all the inhabitants of Wonderland. Alice gaining a sense of temporary confidence moves up to the Queen of Hearts' throne where she loses all confidence upon seeing the E.W. hover behind the Queen's back. Right as the E.W. gets ready to call out the imposture, the Queen embraces Alice with a hug and says "My daughter!" then all the citizens cheer. Unlike Lewis Carroll's Queen of Hearts, this character is loving and compassionate. And then there was the White Rabbit. The White Rabbit falls into the guards and yells, "The princess has returned . . . as you can plainly see." Great job, buddy. You almost screwed that up royally ha ha pun intended.

A Real Princess Could Do it:

If Alice wants to be a real princess she must learn to balance books on her head, dress properly, drink tea and drink tea whilst playing Croquet. Next we see a confident Alice go through a visual transition of stillness and complacency to a shaking (the two images flash simultaneously back and forth) Alice drinking tea on top of a flamingo hitting a Croquet balls at the same time. I know it looks crazy but it is Wonderland. Since Alice is kicking butt the E.W. decides to have Dim and Dum rig the course so that it's impossible to win. He says, " A Real Princess could do it." Together as a team the flamingo and Alice nail the last shot by launching the ball up in the air towards the huge heart-capped pole that lights up upon contact from said ball. Once this fails Dim and Dum sign a living will while the E.W. threatens them and demands most angrily that they capture Alice in her sleep. The camera once again has this strange fixation with the E.W. face, deep hollow eyes, and wicked teeth in which this scene once again is creepy. As a Doctor of Cartoon Analysis I have to say that recent Disney has really lost touch with terrifying kids into fearing their villains. It's like they are scared of Parental complaints. At least this Nelvana had some real balls and took some incredible gambles.

Hats, Thorns, Cages, and a Princess:

Meanwhile the other CareBears are still in search for the Real Princess. If you haven't picked up on it yet nobody really has a first name other than Alice. I kind of dig this feature and recommend you incorporate this into your future fantasy films. As the CareBears use the feat of hat possession to lead them in the right direction, they discover a cave entrance in the shape of a strange entity. Upon entering the cavern, the CareBears are surrounded by greenish rock and see a short silly man chasing a carrot attached to his hat by thin stick alone. They start conversing with each other and discover he is in fact the Mad Hatter. The Hatter then proceeds to explain through song that he's, "Mad About Hats." Hatter tells the gang that the Princess was brought to the Jabberwocky's cave and that he knows the way to the entrance. This lair isn't anything scary in fact it resembles a giant's living room which gives some indication of the creature's size. Braveheart Lion, a CareBear Cousin, accidentally launches Grumpy Bear into the air by tripping a mouse trap. 

CareBears Adventure in Wonderland: Part 1- Self Explanatory

ALICE IN AMERICANALAND:

Wonderland needs a princess because she's missing! So what happens? The CareBears go looking for a princess look-alike by travelling all over the world. In this animated classic (We're talking VHS because it has yet to be released to DVD in America yet, only Australia so sorry), Alice is probably an American because she speaks like one and is reading 80s Material girl magazines by her bed. While traversing the globe with the princess' picture, and driving their cloud cars during a lovely tune titled "Has Anybody Seen This Girl," the CareBears check with a mounty which leads me to think she's American because she doesn't have an English accent like Lewis Carrol's Alice. At first the CareBears can't seem to find her. Once in North America somewhere, the CareBears find Alice in her house and use a rainbow beam to fumble into her room. According to Swift Heart Rabbit's uncle, the White Rabbit ('I'm late, I'm late), the "EVIL WIZARD" of Wonderland has kidnapped Wonderland's princess so he can crown himself king because of rules of succession. If Alice can pretend to be the princess until the CareBears find the real one, the kingdom will be saved. This plot becomes complicated REAL quick.

THE JOURNEY TO WONDERLAND:

The easiest way to Wonderland is through Alice's mirror in which the White Rabbit can only open using his magic because apparently White Rabbit's have this ability. As a certain group of the CareBears take Alice through the mirror (an allusion to Alice in the Looking Glass), the EVIL WIZARD or E.W. because that's his name looks through and cracks it with his dark purple magic eventually shattering the mirror into glass shards. To make matters creepier for children, the animators of the film used the same type of voice effect on the CareBears similar to the characters being trapped in the television in "Poltergeist." The White Rabbit tells Alice and her crew to make it to Heart Palace where he will meet up with her. How does a person get to Wonderland if the magical passage way is destroyed? Through a Rabbit Hole, duh!

WHAT A STRANGE JOURNEY THIS HAS BEEN:

As Alice and her gang of CareBears traverse the strange terrain of Wonderland, they are immediately engaged in a psychedelic tune called "Wonderland" sung by a bug playing an organ that shoots off bubbles as each note is played. As they move through what appears to be an acid trippy environment, the E.W. spies on them with his spy glass. The E. W. appears to look very Jafar-esque but Disney's Aladdin didn't appear until 1992 and this film came out in 1987 so keep that in mind. Also the E.W. sends out his troll-like henchmen, Dim and Dum, (Tweetle Dee and Tweetle Dum obviously) to capture Alice. After Alice's group walks on checkerboard-like grass, they are approached by Dim and Dum impersonating cab drivers. The group replies "We don't accept rides from strangers" an obviously built in PSA for kids. Suddenly Dim and Dum disappear but then little red robots appear in the distance in which children probably think they are cute because I too loved robots when I was young. The little red robots start fusing together to form several BIG RED ROTTEN ROBOTS as Dim and Dum would say. As the battle begins, each CareBear uses the power of their glowing bellies, oh yeah, and their shear wit to save the day.

THE QUEST:

Once Alice's group and the second group meet up, they are approached by the Cheshire Cat who, unlike like the original character, raps everything he says with 80s flow splendor. He tells them that the Mad Hatter has information about the princesses whereabouts and they should seek him out. Through the power of rap, he reveals to them to use their heads. One group of CareBears heads out to find the Mad Hatter while the other group escorts Alice to the palace. The group looking for the Mad Hatter suddenly discovers interesting hats along the way. Once a CareBear puts the hat on they become possessed by the spirit of the hat and immediately begin to act like the person who wore either owned the hat or wore the hat (not super clear but also not important for kids). Alice, while doubting her ability to be a princess, sits down to have a pity party because this character really has low self-esteem. Suddenly the CareBears hear a jack-in-the box and, as they are listening to it, Alice is immediately snatched by Dim and Dum to be taken to the E.W.

Stay tuned for Part 2 . . .

Villainy Comes Before a Fall

Some villains are too prideful when it comes to killing off heroes, or in this case, a great mouse detective.

Like the James Bond films of the 1960s, Professor Ratigan, the world's greatest criminal mind in all of Mousedom, decides in the Disney animated classic "The Great Mouse Detective" to kill Basil of Baker Street in the nastiest way he can think of.

After Basil and his side kick Major David Q. Dawson follow the peg legged bat, Fidget, into the under belly sewer pub of the mouse world, they immediately are led into a trap in which Ratigan gets the upper hand.

However, because Ratigan has to use his "superior" intellect to out wit Basil, he cannot kill him in an easy fashion. This is where villainy comes before a fall.

Let's count the number of times Ratigan could have killed Basil my fellow interns:

(1) If he bothered to send a henchman, namely a pegged bat to snatch a toy maker, Fidget could have barged into Basil's house and gutted him with his sharp claws.

(2) Basil and Dawson are ambushed by his entire gang of ruffians and thugs in which there is no escape or way to resist because the ambush was so clever. They should have died right there!

(3) Basil gets put into a mouse trap that is cleverly set off by a string being tightened at the time of the record finishing setting off a chain reaction of nasty axes, guns, crossbows, anvil, and the so predictable mouse trap. [As a side note, cartoons or villains in general that leave the hero unsupervised tend to have their plan of execution fail. Villains please do yourself a favor and just stay put until the protagonist has their demise].

(4) In the Big Ben brawl, he pushes Basil off a cog but fails to check if Basil is actually dead which inevitably leads to his fall, literally.

Conclusion:

SPOILER ALERT: You are only a "real" genius if you can actually kill the hero. Until you do, please save the rest of this world trouble by killing your ego. Ratigan fails to kill Basil and thus he is not a genius after all.

Batman the Animated Series: A Timeless Classic

Holy Cartoons, Batman!

In a world full of crime, fast cars, mysterious ladies, greasy food, politics, and jagged shadows, one animated series shines and still shines as a beacon of hope for animators all around the world: Batman the Animated Series.

With a kick-ass composer like Danny Elfman, the fan-faring trumpets immediately thrust the audience into its arms by quickly transitioning images of the Warner Brother's Studio logo into another image of lights hovering over Gotham City. Elfman was also the musical genius behind Tim Burton's first Batman movie titled, "Batman."

It is my observation that the dark tones Elfman chooses to wield in the intro's musical score was highly influential to Franz Schubert's score for the 2008 film "The Dark Knight." The stunning intro of Season 1 ends with Batman standing firm on a building gazing at the city but never displays the title of the show.

After the music and opening visuals have set the mood, immediately the viewers are engaged by what appears to be a movie title from some Alfred Hitchcock film. Each title to each episode is unique in its own way yet still maintains a movie title-like quality. The title of the episodes having a film-noir presence is incredibly reflective of the show's ability to present visual story telling frame by frame, angle by angle, as if the viewer is watching a movie rather than a silly side scrolling cartoon such as the Looney Tunes that mainly pans from right to left or left to right. Comic nerds and fans alike will notice that angles and frame-like sequences also portray themselves to be similar to that of a graphic novel (such as V for Vendetta.)

Lastly animators and illustrators alike should appreciate the show's lighting. Every block of Gotham City is covered in droves of shadows. By the shadows being so effective for setting the overall tone, the lighting from fire places or flashlights are even more powerful because of the surrounding darkness of the images. My biggest complaint with modern animated shows of today is their lack for detail to these, once again, film-like attributes. Shows like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The New Series (An EXTREMELY important note) are too bright and lack the level of depth that Batman the Animated Series executes.

Final Diagnosis:

- Kick ass intro/ music

- Film-like appreciation

- Lighting effects/ Attention to Detail

Darkwing Duck Season 1: Just Us Justice Ducks Part 1

Just Us Justice Ducks Part 1

Criticisms and highlights of our daring crusader who dares a little too dangerously.

In the beginning, Drake uses his "d-ex appeal" (Duck+Sex) and shear wit on Morgana, a duck we've never met before, who also emulates Morticia Addams from the Addams Family.

[Note to self: Who is Morgana and why is she dating Darkwing of all ducks?]

While fixing Drake's hair with a spell, she turns Drake into a yak. This adds some flashy-child like humor to the mix for the youngster demographic but adults are not so easily amused by this ridiculous act of hocus pocus.

[Never trust an amateur at casting spells on messy hair. The comb is a more effective wand.]

Suddenly the power goes out for the entire city. Who could behind this scheme thinks the audience? We know! Megavolt must be because he's the mastermind behind manipulating electricity in every single episode with electricity as a focal point.

Darkwing starts to over analyze the situation with his "infra-pink ultra scan specs." The forever annoying Gosalyn, his adopted daughter and my least favorite character, asks him "How about the power company, Cosmo?" Next the viewers see that it is definitely Megavolt's doing. Could there be a trap because this is all too obvious?

As Darkwing enters the lighted room to face Megavolt with his quirky lines such as, "I am the career man all single ladies want to date," Quackerjack shows up to aid in the mischief by using his toy teeth to clamp our hero and lead him into an electric chair [the irony]. Morgana tries to get Darkwing out of the chair's grip but once again screws up her spell; this time he turns into Jell-O. Both villains claim an alliance, laugh in unison, and so our adventure into the MEGA-PLOT begins!

Next at the police station, we see Bushroot (a villain we've seen multiple times manipulate plant life similar to Poison Ivy) and the Liquidator, a new villain that appears for the first time in this episode, up to no good [Their intention is not all that clear]. The Liquidator is a dog-like being made out of pure water and has the ability to knock people down by becoming a wave. [I really like this villain because he acts more badass compared to the others with an exception of NegaDuck who is beyond the league of everyone's villainy.]

[This next scene doesn't contribute much at all except hilarious in every way, a Freakazoidian moment]

In this scene we meet Stegmutt, what Darkwing calls a "duck-turned" stegosaurus friend introduced for the first time in the entire series, selling hot dogs to people. Darkwing crashes his bike into him on his way to catch the villains. [Here comes the ridiculous part]. Stegmutt begs Darkwing to buy a hot dog but Darkwing says, "No, I haven't the time." Next Stegmutt follows Darkwing continuously asking him to purchase a hot dog. Darkwing finally decides that he needs to buy a hot dog so he can be on his way.

[The Freakazoidian part commences]. Stegmutt says, "First I pull out the hot dog. Then I put it in a bun." Darkwing at this point is getting upset and says, "Well!" Stegmutt then says, "That'll be seventy-five cents." Darkwing hands him a dollar and runs away because doesn't have time to deal with his slow friend. [This helps enforce Disney's policy of efficiency].

After consulting his professor friend, J. Gander Hooter [which sounds like J. Edgar Hoover, First Director of the FBI) at S.H.U.S.H. (a sneaky parody of marvel's S.H.I.E.L.D.), NegaDuck appears and looks exactly like Darkwing except is SUPER evil not to mention wearing a black mask. He takes S.H.U.S.H. newest gun, which has the ability to produce large amounts of pies, and causes the room to fill up with doe.

Darkwing gets excited after cleaning off the doe. He realizes that with S.H.U.S.H. and the police station out of commission he claims "this is my biggest battle yet." But then the national guard arrives with Gizmo Duck, a Robo Cop like duck from the series Duck Tales.

As the national guard comes to help the city NegaDuck commands Megavolt to use the device that was seen in the beginning during the power surge to create a electronic laser barrier that cuts the bridge in half sending the army into the water. Finally St. Canard gets taken over by the Fearsome Five (NegaDuck, Bushroot, Quackerjack, Megavolt, and the Liquidator).

To Darkwing's command is Gizmo Duck, Morgana, Stegmutt, and then Neptunia shows up. Neptunia is like a female version of aquaman. [Then again aquaman wasn't much of a man]. These five make the "Just Us Ducks" according to Gosalyn even though not all of them are ducks but majority. [Remember Stegmutt was a duck at one point]. Just when every thing was getting good Darkwing pulls one of his "I can take them all alone" and dismisses the entire group.

After using some quick detective skills via microscope, Darkwing heads to the base of the villains and gets pulverized. As he is dropped through a vent he is then shot outside the tall building continuously falling until the audience then sees the words:

To be continued.

Foxy Lady

Robin Hood a Classic or Sexual Fantasy?

Many colleagues of my own heart (Humans) would say that Maid Marian is a "fox." Of course she is a fox to the every day simpleton who only looks with the head connected to his shoulder!

Yeah she has fur all over her body, yes she has a bushy tail, and yes she has a black-balled nose, but the physical and emotional connection she has with Robin Hood makes her even more of a foxy lady.

According to etymology.com the word foxy was used as an American-English slang word for "attractive" in 1895; it wasn't until the 1940s the word was equated with "sexually attracted woman."

Who wouldn't want to cuddle next to Maid Marian in this film? She like many of Disney's other main female characters is 100-percent more attractive than that clucking rooster friend of hers.

This is not a notion of bestiality. No, sir! In fact, because the Disney animators portray the animals in an anthropomorphic way, we are actually viewing them as humans rather than beasts of the field. After all she isn't walking on all four like the average fox.

The love we see between the two is beautiful, sexually passionate (like in the fighting scene when they talk about where they want to go to make babies), and enduring (during the neat sequence of the layered trees at night, one of the most visually stunning scenes in older Disney history.)