The Twelve Days of Christmas

Let’s finish this year with The Twelve Days of Christmas; The Bear version, not the human version that came out 2 years later. No, this is not something from Gummi Bears. Yes I know this was released after Christmas, but my time is limited.

Carol Boomer (voiced by Larry “myinfamousmomentatretrocon” Kenney) has sent his squire Holly Berry (voiced by Phil Hartman) to find out what the melancholy, yet sassy and hostile Princess Silverbell loves for Christmas. Holly got the princess’ list, but little did he know it was the king’s list for a big crossword puzzle. (Hmmm, 7 words across of a synonym for stupid). The king’s list is the different nouns we know from the songs 12 Days of Christmas. On the first 4 Days of Christmas, it reveals the princess is allergic to feathers, but she likes the other gifts as she grows interest, but for who?

Look on the bright side, Holly. At least no one wished for Christmas every day, or used Mr. Burns’ 40 Days of Christmas, or Peter Griffin’s version with all 8 days are Maids of Milking.

Phil Hartman was one of the finest actors we lost. He does his high range voice he would use later in Kiki’s Delivery Service and his last vocal appearance in Silent Night. This film was the very last thing Romeo Muller wrote before he died. Some may point an error in what he wrote on certain days.

I love the princess’ design and “expression”. Story arc could have been unique, if it didn’t came out 1 year after Aladdin's Jasmine; a princess who don’t want to be marry. Silverbell is probably more defensive at the time before Jasmine throws a punch at the thief. Her timing reminds me of the King of Swamp Castle from Monty Python and the Holy Grail whenever she interrupts the entire 12 Days of Christmas lyrics by various dated singers that wouldn’t fit in the timeline, yet never said when it took place at.

Elvis Pawsley:  “Six Geese are Laying, Five Golden Rings…”

Princess Silverbell: Oh shut up!

King of Swamp Castlle: And no singing! Oh go get yourself some water.

I say expression loosely since the copy of Twelve Days of Christmas has yet to be remastered as it’s very bright to see the line work. Just like Noel, it first aired on NBC, but unlike Noel, it was reaired years later. I watched Twelve Days of Christmas on Fox Family in the same line-up with the Warner Bros’ Rankin Bass’ films. Yes, I now have to call the later Rankin Bass films that since recently AMC got them all from Freeform, all except for The Stingiest Man In Town, since no one got that.

Twelve Days of Christmas is the better latest Muller film than Noel. If Noel was to be realistic and depressing, then this film was unrealistic and uplifting. It’s a charming film I would return to in the next 12 months.

That’s it for this year for I, Retahensid to review. It’s interesting to know what other people did before and after Rankin Bass, but some of the films and westerns were a chore to go through. Now I would like to have an attention from the viewers. I’m putting up a task to you all. Should I continue reviewing here? You have until January 15 2019 to decide, and need more than two people of comments to judge. The reviewing show is in your hand.

Noel

Love birds is Noel, the angel.... wait, this is a review blog, not a music blog. Anyway, Noel.

Noel is an ornament built by a glass maker with a secret ingredient to everyone and even himself; a tear of happiness unintentionally by the glass maker. He was packaged with other ornaments including an Ice maiden, as they were bought along with a tree, lights, and tinsel by a family. Well that was a simple story at 10 and half minutes. Wait, there’s more?

As time moved on while all the Christmas decoration are forgotten in the attic, it reached to December to used once more on a new tree. Rinse and repeat throughout the years until Noel noticed the children are as big as the adults were.

More years went on, all the kids grown lives on their own, as the parents gave up on Christmas. The ornaments were left abandoned as part of the house. Things can do up for the film, but not for me.

This was written by Romeo Muller, the writer for most of the Rankin Bass. Though I swear the train is Chugs from The Easter Bunny Coming To Town. Both this film and the next film to review first aired on NBC. Seriously, NBC, why do you keep discarding mostly silver shorts and shows? Your current shows are worthless. Only It’s A Wonderful Life and How the Grinch Stole Christmas is the only films you have of worth. OK, Noel wouldn’t be one to reaired than the other film, but still. The animation was done by Pacific Animation Corporation, Rankin Bass’ go to for Thundercats and Silverhawk. The designs are overall neat. This was part of the Muller-Stratford Production trilogy, though it started with Peppermint Rose.

The first half gives a good feeling of Christmas. The rest of the film is very depressing and “realistic”, which I don’t need at need at this time or any time. I thought I was going to hate Noel the ornament, but in comparing to the entire nuisance I dealt with daily, he’s not that bad, much. I like more of the Ice Maiden ornament more, but it was more on the voice and design, which is all she can be. Charleston “I want that bear!” Heston is a nice narrator. I don’t want to bet he was warming to narrate to the big screen about a demigod.  While Noel is a decent and unique film, I can’t recommend this to anyone who has depression. Now if you’re wondering “Shouldn’t a film that gives emotion reaction always be worth it to be good?” Normally, yes, but on Christmas, the tear jerking moments usually happen at the 3^rd act such as The Snowman, How The Grinch Stole Christmas, or Christmas Carols. Now there’s rare exception when an opening warms up the emotion, but that’s very rare. How strange, a film that can do right at the right time of day, but feels wrong at the wrong time. This is one of the Christmas films I don’t intend to revisit much. Best watch Noel when you’re as happy as Noel, or you’re better off watching the next film to review.

Nutcracker Fantasy

Let’s watch a Christmas traditional story where the music is better, and this is one of them; The Nutcracker Fantasy. 

This was film that leads me to do the theme of the review of the year. The story is told by a grown up Clara (voiced by Cousin Mel from Grandma Got Ran Over By A Reindeer)

Lil Clare has a visit from her Uncle Drosselmeyer (voiced by Christopher Lee). Clare got the Nutcracker from her Uncle, which was rejected by others. On the same night, her Nutcracker was stolen by mice, led by the Two Headed Mouse Queen, Morphia (voiced by Jo Anne Worley, who later voiced the Wardrobe in Beauty and Beast. The good one, not the soul eating one) She goes through the Father Clock Hole to The Kingdom of Dolls. The kingdom was awakening by the present of Clara, including the Chamberlain (voiced by G1 Hound, Ken Sansom) and the King (voiced by Dick Van Patten, who would later voice another King.)

King Roland: Yes, my dear. Would I lie…too you?

Clara is finding a way to bring the princess back from a deep sleep. (You sure we didn’t stumble into the other Tchaikovsky film).  The meeting fails with all the nationalities’ wisemen….

Yogurt: Wisemen. Wise Guys more like it!

Clara got the advice from the live action puppet of the Queen of Time (voiced by Ava Gabor). The advice is to use the Pearl Sword of Light to destroy the Giant Shell of Darkness to free the Princess’ curse. (Pearl from Steven Universe was nowhere to be found) Clare tells this to Fritz..I mean Franz about the Shell of Darkness as they go onward to war with the Mice Kingdom. (Not Disneyland, the other one. Franz is voiced by Roddy McDowall.)  

This was the last stop-motion to be done by Rudolph’s animator, Tadahito Mochinga. This film kinda goes full circle in both good and bad. The good is leading him to full circle with his stop motion career from Rudolph to Daydreamer to Mad Monster Party, especially working with other stop motion artists that precede him such as Ichiro Komuro, and Frosty’s Animator, Sadao Miyamoto. It has definitely more life than the other Nutcracker stop-motion film from Bura and Hardwick. The shots of traveling through the clock are amazing. The bad is the pacing. It’s shown from Tadahito’s earliest work of Sea Eagle with scenes to go on too long to go nowhere and there’s plenty in this film, but that’s often the price for some Stop Motion movies at the time. It does create a haunting atmosphere during the quiet moment since the beginning by the pointless character, the Ragman. Granted, Tadahito wasn’t the director of either film. Nutcracker Fantasy was directed by Santa Claus Is Comin’ To Town’s animator, Takeo Nakamura. Maybe it’s the writers as this film has 3 others with E.T.A Hoffman’s Nutcracker story. Though there’s no point as it can be purely coincidence.

Most of the characters are decent. Christopher Lee is an enjoyable Uncle, and his songs are nice to listen. Shame we’ll never have the metal version of his song. Roddy McDowall is a good actor, but he doesn’t have much to work with, but he may got stuck in the same tone as he was voicing the robot in Black Hole on the same year. It doesn’t help the voice and design of Franz/ Fritz looks way too old for Clara, where Clara looks like she 8, as he looks 18-24. I really love the design and voice of the Mouse Queen; creepy and menacing.

I’ve seen many other Nutcracker films. The majority loves is the Nutcracker-less version, aka the Nutcracker Suite from Disney’s Fantasia. In terms of 2D animated Nutcracker film, the best got is the 1973 Russian silent version with an extent of Nutcracker Prince and Saban’s Funky Fable of the Nutcracker with Ninjor as the Nutcracker (A film I remember watching in Elementary School). In term of live-action, that’s tricky than to find the live play version. Nutcracker and the Four Realm (or as I would call, Clara in Undernaria. Featuring Godfather Morgan Freeman, Snow Miser, Micetron and the stupid surprise villain that suffer any Disney film) will never be one good live action films, but it’ll be a step up to Legend of Nutcracker. In terms of stop-motion, the Nutcracker Fantasy is the closest best we got. If you want the best version with the equal focus and music and the best in terms of CGI, then look no further than Barbie’s Nutcracker, featuring Tim Curry as the Mouse King.

Some may find it boring, but unless you suffered from watching Legend of Nutcracker and the Nuttiest Nutcracker, you’ll find the quiet moments endearing. As for me, it’s a neat version of the Nutcracker. I just wish we can have a better version with the Nutcracker.  

Tukiki and his search for a Merry Christmas

How often do you see a Christmas film starring an Eskimo? Not much from the top of the head. So we got Tukiki and His Search For a Merry Christmas.

Tukiki is a little Eskimo who lives in the tundra with the talking animals of a greedy walrus, a lonely polar bear, a depressed generic reindeer, and gossiping yaks. Suddenly, Tukiki got the plot in the form of a card that said "Merry Christmas". No one knows what Christmas is in assuming the North Pole or the empty part of Alaska. Tukiki met a magical elder named the North Wind, voiced by Sterling Holloway. (Yes. That Sterling Holloway! The same guy who voiced Cheshire Cat and Winnie Pooh. Man, I’m keep getting reviews involving Disney Voice Actors.)

                                                                        

The North Wind shows Tukiki what Christmas is all around the world. They start with assuming Germany, where they see toys come to life, and yet Tukiki is human.

“Eerie, human must never see toys come to life. Those are the rules.”

-                                                     -Toy Elephant from Cricket on the Hearth, voiced by Paul Frees.

Afterwards, Tukiki and the North Wind went to Africa to see how they celebrate Christmas from a living flute. They went to assuming Sweden to meet the Nordics elves as Tomtars. Last, they went to Mexico to meet a Chameleon.

Will Tukiki learn the meaning of Christmas?

The minor choices and words they said or show wouldn’t work well in this PC world. Reason I said “assuming Germany” because the Dutch Girl doll thought Tukiki when he was covered in soot was Black Peter aka Zwarte Piet. *tugging collar* I don’t want to touch any further detail with a 39 ½ pole. Not even the timing or the next scene I put in the summary helps make it easier for most of us. Upon realizing, one of the toys when they went to Germany is a teddy bear…

“Come dream with me tonight..”

-         -Teddy Ruxpin as he said creepily in your nightmares.

Fitting the company who did this film later did the animated series of Teddy Ruxpin.

There's a wonderful moment where Tukiki and the North Wind are flying through the landscapes of winter Christmas. At first I thought this was ripping off the flying scene from The Snowman, but it turns out both this film and The Snowman animation on this scene was done by Robin White, and surprisingly Tukiki did it first. Nice trivia, but more people grew up with The Snowman than Tukiki. If you can something beautiful, but people haven’t seen it, do it again with "We're Walking In The Air."

This is the last voice recording by Bernard Cowan. Though with research, he did the voice directing for the Tomtars. The rest was done by two other voice directors. Sterling is mostly good as the North Wind. I prefer him over the North Leno Wind in Miser Bros. Christmas and the Southwest Wind in Peter Cottontail: The Movie. While on the subject of Sterling, this is fitting callback to his earlier film, Three Caballeros and the second time I have to regretfully mention them in my review. In Three Caballeros, Panchito tells story of the Los Pasada. Despite that film wasn’t a Christmas film; it was edited down to be on for TV as Donald’s Present and the ending was used in the Sing Along Song. The piñata in Tukiki does look similar in design to the other film. Who knows if it was intentional or not?

There's one question about the film. "Where's Tukiki's parent? Are they not around, are they dead, is the polar bear his guardian, or is Tukiki the last Eskimo on Earth as he's close to a myth.

"Lisa, Vampires aren't real. They're like elves, gremlins, and Eskimo."

-         -Homer Simpsons from Simpsons Treehouse of Horror 4.

Overall, this is a cute Christmas film and education to little kids who wants to learn what Christmas is as much as Tukiki without explaining harshly. Just be aware it’s dated with some minor uncomfortable scenes as much as films in the 30s and 40s. Now that I use a scene from Cricket on the Hearth, and brought up someone from Rudolph, it’s time to review the next film to go nuts over. 

The Little Christmas Burro

 Once again, it’s December, and it’s time to review Christmas Films. However, unlike last year, I’m running out of Rankin Bass Christmas films, and with limited time and lack of interest outside of a theme, I decided to review Christmas done partly by the same people who did some of the Rankin Bass. Let’s start this month’s review with *sigh* another Christmas Donkey film called The Little Christmas Burro. 

Why was a Christmas Donkey so common at the late 70’s? This was released after Nestor the Long Eared Donkey, but was released the same month and year as Don Bluth’s Small One. No confirm on the day when it was released assuming on TV, but let’s get on topic.  

A donkey named freelance Burro, who feels worthless. (I was assuming she, but summary said it was he. The eyelash and voice threw me off.) He can’t help the people for more than a day. One day, Burro found a caravan where he meets the rat named Omar (voiced by Paul Soles. Yes, Hermy the Elf from Rudolph, as he plays another short friend) Burro has finally got a job to be with a different caravan, but was traded to a crooked man. The crooked man took Burro to the market to be sold. You can guess what happens afterward.

The voice recording was done by the same guy who recorded Rudolph, Bernard Cowan. While on the Rudolph subject, Carl Banas who voiced the Spotted Elephant and the Head Elf voiced some of the background characters in this film. The voice acting overall is decent. The animation for the time period is really good, as most of the Omar’s animation is really energized.

It’s weird how similar Burro is to Nestor. The difference is Nestor was born and raised in a farm and was on his own with a little angel to guide. Burro has been wondering in the desert for what could be days or a month. The rat wasn’t much a guide, but a friend that often split out of their control. Though the story went on does stick close to the original tale.

It’s distracting to see modern things in Biblical Times such as Ants have scuba suits before submarines were made, or Omar singing ragtime. I’ll take those details over twerking and sassy Dove in Sony’s The Star any day.

BTW, did George Lucas get inspiration of tied up camels for Empire Strike Back from this film?

It may not have a heartbreaking moments such as Small One, or a heart such as Nestor, but The Little Christmas Burro has charm as much as the previous two mentioned and more thought than The Star and Donkey Ollie’s Christmas In Heaven. If you’re interested, it’s a cute film as it won’t cost more than silver coin prop.

I guess I’ll review the next Christmas film which is also directed by Vic Atkinson, and it’s not Rankin Bass’ Return To Oz.

Yakari

Just in time for Thanksgiving, so let’s review the last western film for the year, Yakari as part of DEMO OF SERIES’ COLLECTION! It’s Pronounced as Ya-care-ee, not Ya-car-ree. This is when I review in this case of the arc of the series. There was an original series of Yakari in the 80’s, but I couldn’t find it in English.

The first episode, Yakari & The Great Eagle, Yakari has a dream to be to a man and capture a horse named Little Thunder. After he got saved by the Great Eagle, the Eagle gave Yakari his feather as he gained the ability to talk to selective animals for the episode. So Yakari has Wild Thornberry or Dr. Dolittle powers.

“If I can walk with the animals, talk with the animals, run, and sleep, flock with the animals...”

-         Chief Wiggum disguise as Dr. Dolittle.

The second episode, Yakari & Little Thunder, Yakari finally getting to Little Thunder after saving a cougar kitten. The third episode, The First Gallop, Yakari is connecting to Little Thunder, but lost him due to his ego. Yakari has more connection to nature than Pocahontas, but not as much in terms of elements with Moanna.

It’s rare to see a TV show starring a Native American. Anytime there are Native Americans in TV shows, they’re usually the supporting cast, as far as I recall aside from Hiawatha. Please name any animated TV show starring a Native America in the comment.  The cast mostly consist of those who voiced in Arthur. I’ll assume Yakari is voiced by the same actress who voiced Arthur Reed’s Mom. Please don’t point out the race thing, unless they have the Johnny Depp excuse of revealing or process of being 1/ 16^th. Some would say the series would go deep with the history with them. Where in history of America do you need to go to Fantasia with Atryu?

“Gesundheit!” 

-         Falkor dubbed by Chester A. Bum

Yakari is a likable kid, but kinda too happy with little to no range, though this is judging the 1^st 3 episodes. Hopefully there’s more conflict that could make him as human as Steven Universe and less robotic as a Stepford Wives or any stoic actor. The others characters are forgettable at most. I really like Little Thunder. Maybe it’s the G4 Brony in me, or maybe he’s more human than Yakari. Little Thunder has survived as a wild horse, and his experience is interesting. If you want a series to see the rider and horse close to equally human, then go watch Dreamwork’s She-Ra with the extent of Gumby and Pokey. Not counting Lucky Luke with his horse since one was mostly lazy and the other one only nag.

What I can’t like about the series is the Comic Paneling. Yes, this is based on a comic, but much like Ang Lee’s Hulk and Revision Power Rangers; the paneling mostly happened on non-engaging scene as it’s pointless. Yakari is less of an action comic and more of an atmospheric adventure. Think of it as the Bone comic, or something rare like that.

Yakari is an interesting series. For a 15 minute show, it runs in the right pace. Though I think episode 2 and 3 would be better together if you cut out the cougars and waiting scenes. Yes, patience and test of kindness are a virtue, but fillers/ padding are often feels like a sin. If you have the time, check out Yakari mostly on youtube. It’s a little spiritual quest to take. Speaking of quest, I’m getting ready to talk about some Christmas films.

Lucky Luke: The Daltons on the Run

I was going to review West and Soda, but it was purely Spanish and never went to English, as the same thing with Bolek I Lolek from Poland, and My Mommy is in America and She Met Buffalo Bill from France. So the western reviews are going to be a lot shorter than I thought. Instead we gallop to the next Western animated film.

Hanna Barbara went and did their western series with Lucky Luke. Despite it’s a TV series with serviceable animation at the time, but not as cheap as Bolek I Lolek, as they did a movie comprise of three episodes. They are “The Daltons In The Blizzard”, “Ma Dalton”, and “The Daltons Redeem Themselves”. So it counts for me to review it as movie or best of the show, or not. So this is the first on this review as the segment of “DEMO OF SERIES’ COLLECTION”! This is the new segment with me reviewing either a collection provided by the series in the original VHS/ DVD or the arcs of series or the first episode if it’s a standalone.

The story of the series is Lucky Luke has an arrest onto the four identical yet size variant Dalton Brothers. In “The Daltons In The Blizzard”, Lucky Luke searches for the The Daltons close to Canada. (I assure you, this is not going to be a crossover with Dudley Do-Right). In “Ma Dalton”, the Daltons’ mom has broken out her 4 sons. The third one I couldn’t find a English version of “The Daltons Redeem Themselves”, but I have a wild guess the Daltons become good, but will go bad at the end. Luke does it for justice and follows the Code of the West. No connection to C.O.W.Boys of Moo Mesa. BTW, IMDB, why don’t you list that show in the western listing? It’s an obscure western!

What do we know about the Daltons? The tall one is dumb, as the short is smart leader. The middles are forgettable. Personalities are more manchilds yet organized. This is more shown the result of Ma Dalton how overbearing and neglectful she is.  Interesting how the Daltons have their own movie and spin-off show. Lucky Luke got rebooted by Xilan, the French Company who did Space Goof, who is one of those few people who can capture the Hanna Barbara spirit, yet can’t get close with Oggy & The Cockroaches. I’m not going to review the reboot, as it would review almost the same thing.  This might work since the original show is focused more on them than anyone else. The characters are more engaging than A Man From Button Willow. Yes, a Hanna Barbara upstaged Detige. Granted, Lucky Luke is calm and bland, but he’s more proactive than Justin Eagle. The horse nags as much as the prehistoric creatures in Flintstones, yet fitting. The dog is Clumsy Smurf dumb; barely get anything right, constantly saved, and will eventually do right at the end. Unlike Clumsy Smurf and Brainy Smurf, the dog is useful sniffing out the Daltons.

The music was by Claude Bolling, and lyric by Shuki Levy, and Haim Saban. Yes, you read that right, the creator of the music of Inspector and showrunner of Power Rangers. It’s not their strongest music, but a step up from Detige’s sister or wife’s music in The Man From Button Willow. This makes me wonder if Saban reused the Lucky Luke’s music into their later TV shows similar to how the music from their Little Mermaid series, to Masked Rider, to Spiderman, to Richie Rich Christmas, and into Digimon.

Just like The Dragon That Wasn’t, I wish to mention the voice actor, but they only credit the original foreign actors. Maybe it’s an early 80’s thing when they don’t have the budget to redo the end credits. I swear the leader Daltons is voiced by Frank Welker in his Mr. Plotz range.

Overall, Lucky Luke is an interesting western animated TV show. I don’t think I would rewatch this show, but I’ll watch this show more times than Man From Button Willow. The next show to review is first arc of Yakari, the reboot series, not the original series, somehow. Hopefully I can finish some of the westerns films before I get to the Christmas films.

Man from Button Willow

Sorry it took a long time for this review to be made. We had moving issues. I don’t recommend going to North Carolina, except for a specific Taco Bell and Animall. I was on a long vacation which got longer with Hurricane Florence, and suffered from two funerals, but now I’m back.

Let’s start with the western animated films with Man from Button Willow. Before this film, we had the Lone Rangers serial series, most of the original western films are mostly live-action, and any westerns that are animated were mostly spoofing popular western films. The closest was Disney’s Pecos Bill, but that wasn’t feature length and it was a package film to Melody Time. Same situation with Willy McBean and the Magic Machine when they met Buffalo Bill, and it came out on the same year.

What’s the story? Good question. Justin Eagle is the sheriff to Paramount’s Western Town…I mean who cares, it’s Button Willow. He has his closest friend named Sorry and adopted daughter named Stormy. Justin has a ranch of Eagle’s Ranch with a full chance his vote count than anyone else. Justin’s horse’s wife gave birth to a baby. The rest is the life on the ranch to the animal, until Justin leaves for a secret mission for noteworthy, it would be spoiling to those who haven’t seen it if you watched the supercut version of this film featuring Justin, which lacking from the film.

The obvious title character!! The Man from Button Willow is barely the focus, and it’s mostly on the animals and his friends. If anything, Sorry is the Man from Button Willow since he has more focus than the other. However, he owns Button Willow, so they might as well show the life there for 1.5/3^rd of the film, but the live action opener said specifically its Justin.

Dale Robertson: This is the story of Justin Eagle. Wait, no, this story about his horse. Hold on, it’s about his human friends. Now it’s to his furry friends.

Stinky Whizzleteats: This is a song about a whale….No! This is a song about being happy!

This focus issue is right up there with The Ballad of Smokey The Bear, Jason Take Manhattan, and most of Raja Gosnell and Richard Rich films such as The Smurfs, Swan Princess, and the animated King and I. Speaking of which, Stormy’s voice actress would be in the King and I TV series.

The animation is decent at most. Though get uses to Justin riding his horse, because they reused it a lot as much as Superman flying scene in Superman 4. I wouldn’t complain much, but this was 1965 and was a weak point to MGM when they’re not using Chuck Jones.

The director and writer was David Detiege, the guy who would doom the Looney Tunes but gave life to Pink Panther by using Bugs Bunny’s body. One of the animator is Don Luske, who helped with Disney’s Pinocchio. These explain why Jeremiah look likes Ghepetto and some connections to get some of the Disney’s voice actors, including their next film, Shinbone Alley aka Pinocchio directed by Gideon. This was the last time Ukulele Idle (the voice for Jiminy Cricket) voice acted, but only for two or three lines from two supposedly villains who disappeared in the middle of the film. Either Idle was difficult to work with to the point they booted him out, he was starting to lose his voice, or he needed the job to pay for retirement at the home. I would lean more on the ladder since it was said Idle went to the Retirement Home, but died and no one in his home town recalled him. Instead, the villain goes to this forgettable sailor.

I swear this was originally a short film, but it was too long for a short cartoon, or too short to be a TV series. So they padded it with pointless scenes and bad musical number with the exception of the opening sung by Howard Keel. This is a dull start to animated Western film as it feels like a chore to rewatch. Here’s hoping animated Western Animated Films go uphill from here!

The Dragon That Wasn’t (Or Is He?)

With Easter upon us…

“But Easter’s over!”

-Mike Teevee from Willy Wonka

Shhh, they don’t know that, future wrestler I met at 2011-2012 New York Comic Con and recent Jeopardy Members!

I was going to review an Easter film. Many of the writers and directors may not do another Easter film, so I’ll review a film that was involved in the production of Rankin Bass Easter films. However, due to work, controversy that’s best ignored, animation to finish, writing an episode for a series, and lack of better things in North Carolina, this review had a month delay.

Luckily I found a film by the The First Easter Rabbit’s animator, Kazuyuki Kobayashi and Tadakatsu Yoshida, and may have Irontail’s voice actor, Vincent Price in the cast. This is Dexter the Dragon & Bumble the Bear, or the English title of The Dragon That Wasn’t (Or Is He? Yes, that’s part of the title except for this statement.)

At a castle, the servant Yost tells his master Ollie about the book of dragons. Ollie pulls an Ernest Scared Stupid by reading the cursed book out loud to see if Yost is wrong. Yost gets second opinion from his friend, Kit Kat (break me a piece) as they found what Ollie thinks is a green beach ball, when in reality it’s a green dragon egg.

“…a real greeny green all the way through! The shells were green, the yolks were green, even the whites were green.”

-         Mr. Sassafras from Here Comes Peter Cottontail, voiced by Danny Kaye.

Eventually the green egg hatches a baby green dragon that Ollie named Dexter. Ollie would want to spread the word about the baby dragon for his party tonight. Going through the town with the mayor, his girlfriend, Chanticleer (No, this is not a prequel or inspiration to Rock-A-Doodle!), and to name a few.  Meanwhile, a bulldog named Bul Super sends his plan to rob Ollie’s place with an inside as the party server with a goose named Mr. Waddle (who we’re hoping his first name isn’t Uncle Waldo).

The party goes on, but Kit Kat read the Yost’s book to reveal the Dexter’s ability. When a dragon sees shiny objects, it grows greedy, ages rapidly, and grows tall. (So that’s where My Little Ponies: Friendship Is Magic got that plotpoint for Spike’s Birthday episode came from.)

Can Ollie control Dexter without scaring the town without leading to a riot of pitchforks and torches, and is there a point with Bul Super and Mr. Waddle involved Dexter?

Weird enough, the very first Animated film in the Netherland. Thus is part of the film has reason why some of the lip-sync went off a bit. The voice acting is decent, though I wish I knew who’s voicing who. The film doesn’t credit the voice actors yet credit the animator. So there’s the connection on how we’re here with the animator. Wikipedia doesn’t have any information, and IMDB has the voice actors credited, but are borrowed from G.I Joe Movie and Sparky’s Magic Piano; the film both Vincent Price and Mel Blanc were in. Speaking of animation, the director, Bjorn Frank Jensen animated Smurf’s Magic Flute in 1976; a film I’ve known a long time and it wouldn’t be dubbed into English in the same year as this film at 1983.  Thankfully the English Title is more accurate than the original Netherland title, though changing the name for one character should be too easy. Seriously, Dexter the Dragon & Ollie the Bear is simple?

Ollie is a rich idiot, but not a major idiot to raise the dragon as his own son without killing him. If Ollie had a different personality as someone such as Homer Simpsons of season 1 to 8, the film would end in 2 minutes.

Yost: Master Ollie, look what I discovered in this magical book?

Ollie: Hmmm…

*Ollie throws the book in the fireplace in his quarters*

Yost: I knew I shouldn’t install the fireplace in the bedroom.

Same thing should apply to Inkheart.

I almost thought Kit Kat was voiced by a young Mona Marshall as I have an Izzy from Digimon feel. The timeline could add up given her career. That’s up for debates. To those who complain how they Kit Kat’s gender is switched from male to female, I don’t have a problem. I watched both the English and Netherlands version, and sound pretty close. If Kit Kat was female, then I’m OK and confused on how Kit kat is the only character not wearing clothes while everyone else in town does, but how all the females wear dresses and has huge tracks of land.  If you want to complain on the worst of the subject of gender voice, go to Andy Rictor voicing a cute Scottish Fold Kitty in The Cat Return.

It’s a cute, decent film that could need more attentions onto kids than family. Now I’ll need to break the mood and do something completely different.

Fuku-chan’s Submarine 1944, Uriko-Hime to Amanojaku 1956, & Beer Mukashi Mukashi 1956

Let’s review three of Tadahito’s films that I can find on youtube. One is 2D animated, and the other is the first two stop motion films in Japan, Uriko-Hime to Amanojaku as his second directed, and Beer Mukashi Mukashi as his first stop-motion animator.

Let’s start with Fuku-chan’s Submarine in 1944. It’s…basically the complete human version of Momotaru’s Sea Eagle. A navy goes out to sea to stop the enemy.

The editing is bad; most of the actions are broken, though the excuse is this film was recovered with scenes missing. Thankfully they don’t show the enemy’s face much this time, though their ships have a big star and one ship literally has a face. Eh, Disney did that too with “How to Sail A Boat”. You can say “Their ship funded by Texaco” or “It’s a Texan Ship”, at least for the first wave of fleet. The second wave is American, so no denying. It was later reveal that there are 13 battleships to represent the 13 Colonies. Umm…Subtle? I don’t know, I might not be a fan of a war genre or have the army as the “foreground”, though WW2 Looney Tunes or Power Rangers is one of those rare exceptions.

The next is Japan’s first stop-motion film in 1956, Uriko-Hime to Amanojaku. Uriko-Hime was born from a magic fruit founded by an old couple. She grew up to be a great weaver. Amanojaku is a Yokai or Mountain Demon who wants to have fun and ruins Uriko-hime’s loom. (Compare to Po Kong, the Chinese Mountain Demon with a Panku Box gate found in Japan in Jackie Chan Adventure, Amanojaku is a light mountain demon) Uriko-hime befriends Amanojaku, as he pulls a Rumpelstiltskin by making strings or solid objects with a spinning wheel. There are these three crooks somewhere in the story. They’re not entirely important.

The story was recently remade in 2D animation with the Uriko-hime shown hatching from the Wintermelon, had a childhood than a fruit that looks like an eggplant, and Amanojako was a playful possessing demon or spirit. I recommend the remake than the original.

I’ll save my opinion about the stop-motion at the end. The design and atmosphere is decent though.

The last one is Beer Mukashi Mukashi is about a mug head to tell the history of beer throughout the world from the Stone Age or Mesopotamian to their modern age, specifically the brand, Asahi Lager Beer; A Japanese Beer that still exist, yet unsavorily to critics today.

A Stop-motion commercial was nothing new, as it was kinda started with George Pal with the Puppetoons, as he usually ties them to Phillip Radio or Horlick’s Energy Drink. The commercial tied to a film is new to Japan, as far as I know, but in stop motion is their first. Advertisement Beer in Cartoons might not be the safest, but then again, Screen Gem did that twice with Mr. Magoo with Stag Beer and Flintstones with Busch Beer.

"Oh there's a lot Busch going to be sold!"

-Fred Flintstones, voiced by Alan Reed.  

This might be harsh to say, but Tadahito was meant to be a stop-motion animator than 2D animator. There’s some good animation in 2D in the short, but debatable since short films usually have more than one animator. There seem to be more control to animating the stop motion than having the 2D animation having the scene dragging out too long with pointless or repetitive scenes. While Uriko-Hime to Amanojaku had decent animation in movement, the lip movement are absent in the film. Doing lip movements to the first Japanese stop-motion would have been time consuming with a deadline, or they didn’t want to ruin the dolls. This is where Beer Mukashi kind of made up of having a lip movement for the Mughead, even if they cut corners by cutting less of Mughead’s scenes for some 2D scenes. I can say that Tadahito may have made the staple of the hand gesture and the simple shaped facials for Rankin Bass. Though maybe this is part of the reason why Japan rarely do stop-motion due to being mostly time consuming. Godzilla vs King Kong is one of those example that it was going to stop-motion.

Overall, skip Fuku-Chan’s Submarine, and give a little thought of a step to see Uriko-Hime to Amanojaku & Beer Makashi Makashi as an interest to see the start of Japan’s stop-motion and Tahadito’s stop-motion career to be influential.

Next time, I’ll start with the first of the Animated Western film with The Man From Button Willow. These are due to the fact that the next options in the list are TV series, and I needed this Western film to start with and get it off my chest. However, Easter is coming up, so I going to review a film that no one will suspect me in reviewing, as long it's kinda Easter theme or related to films such as Rankin Bass Easter films.

Ari-Chan 1941 & Momtaro Sea Eagle 1943

Let’s start with one of the relatives and earliest I can find with Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer’s animator, Tadahito Mochinaga. It all starts in Japan 1941, as he started his first animation with a black and white silent short cartoon with Ari-Chan. I do mean short for Ari-chan, meaning it’s never enough to talk anything that’s a short silent black and white film that would past the 450 words limit. So I’ll pair it with Tadahito’s second film he animated with Momotaro’s Sea Eagle, which is mostly silent aside from Momotaro and some grunts.

A little ant named Ari-Chan wants to help the worker ants, but he’s small and weak. He found a violin, as he plays with it, along with other insects, but he stumble a band of grasshoppers all playing violins. Ari-Chan joins the band in harmony, then everything changes when the fire nation attack!

OK, I’m kidding on that. I was a simple human, but judging the hand, it looks like an infant or toddler.

“No! Bad Fire Nation baby!”

-         Sokka said to Tom-Tom from Avatar, the Last Airbender. Episode: Return to Omashu.

That’s mostly about it for Ari-chan. I could say its reverse Grasshopper and Ants, but I never see the Grasshopper dies at the end of any of the animated versions. It’s just a peaceful short kid’s film. Momotaro’s Sea Eagles on the other hand is the opposite tone for Ari-Chan.

A naval ship of bunny, dog, and monkey, woodpecker, rooster, and rats are led by assuming Momotaro. Their allies is the Sea Eagles, and their enemy is (by the sound of the music) Hawaii. Yeah, this won’t fly today! The animals attack the American Navy led by Bluto from Popeye?

Momotaro has one the case of bad lips continuity I’ve seen since that Columbia’s rip-off of Paramount’s Song of the Birds; the lips are either lined lips or detailed lips. Nothing happens for about 15 minutes in a 30 minutes cartoon. Part of the film is damaged, as you can see scenes with the edge of the paper crinkle, scenes really drag out with the animals such as the monkey drags, and Momotaro and the Sea Eagles aren't the main focus. Though Momotaro has more than one appearance as his own series at the time, so I'm mostly judging it on its own. The Sea Eagle are probably on par with J.R.R Tolkien's Eagles in usefulness; always around to save despite they could of used them this entire adventure. It’s Momotaro’s army that’s the focus, more on the monkey and dog, which is happy, yet serious. The target audience can vary, but a little higher than little kids. I could say this is offensive, but America has made many WWII propaganda cartoons aiming at German, Italy, and Japan, so the countries they were fighting against making their own propaganda cartoons is about even, but I’m not touching the issue with a 77 feet pole. The only theory on why this film was made that would make some sense is that they made it in revenge against Popeye’s WWII cartoons that was made at the same time that they actually see somehow. Popeye has done the propaganda, but Bluto was in only one out of 3 or 4 of them. Thus is why Bluto is there in the navy. Made worse if Michael Bay put Bluto there in Pearl Harbor.

Bottom line, neither film has much happening in their film in terms of plot, moments, and emotions. Though this was the limitation for Japan at the time, since their animations wasn’t as up to date as Americans or other countries by that timing. Neither of these films is good. If I had to choose which is better, it’s Ari-Chan with some emotions, atmosphere, and some creative ways for different insects to play the guitar or violin. I could say propaganda films like Momotaro’s Sea Eagle would damage the resume, but if Der Fuhrer’s Face and Looney Tunes’ WW2 cartoon gave their directors a continuing career, surely anything is possible to some accept or overlook the past to give them a chance for the animator to be animation director and then to animate Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. Suddenly the “There’s Always Tomorrow” and the rabbits in that song gave a new meaning relating this review.

“We all pretend the rain would never end, and you’ll be there my friend, someday…”

-         -The rabbits and raccoons in Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.

If you’re interested to see old Japanese cartoons or what previous films Tadahito did before Rudolph, give it a watch. If you want to see something exciting or funny, please register to a different class than this one.

Introduction to Retahensid Review 2018

After I reviewed films from Rankin Bass, I decided to move on the next near step, and that's by reviewing all the films that the people in Rankin Bass production did. There's couple of problems that's interfering with that idea; as I'm writing this, I'm in North Carolina with limited time on the laptop, many of the other films the other people in the production are mostly Christmas as other films are well known where finding them free online is impossible such as the film Joseph E. Levine produced.

     

So from February to November of the year of 2018, I’m going to review all the Rankin Bass ' TV shows or review a genre of films that's kinda rare; the animated Western films. Given each of the production and rare genre, it's best to give them attention for something they did on their merit. Just like last year, there’s going to a catch in reviewing them all.

First, all the non-holiday films will be reviewed in chronological order, while the holidays will be reviewed in order of the holidays. So Easter is first, as Christmas is last.

Second, most of the series will be reviewed in whole, not one episode at of time. As I'll analyzed the theme of the shows through characters. Arcs didn't exist much back then.

Third, my limit of every review will be around 450 words, so my reviews are going to focus and not short. On top of that, I’m busy with life and drawing for others and even draw for this review when possible. So these reviews aren’t going to be pushed out quickly.

Fourth, most of the reviews are released when possible, while Christmas may have multiple releases since there are more than about thirty-one of them.

Fifth, The complete live-action films they as Rankin Bass or the production did is optional.

Sixth, I'm not reviewing American Tail 2 and Home on the Range for Animated Western. One is because the first American Tail is to be reviewed, and I don't want to review the worst Disney has to offer. Yes, I'm aware I was suppose to write something about me vs Disney, but after the recent event with Fox, I just couldn't have the spine to work with it.

Seventh, this is my opinion. If you like those films, great.  

So sit back, and enjoy the year of Retahensid’ blogger of some animated western films and the other works done by the production of Rankin Bass!