FOLLOW THAT BIRD DVD review

We at Pater’s Potpourri are the first ones to admit when we make a mistake, so it is with shame in our hearts that we must admit we have been remiss. In the nearly 6 months we have been in existence we have yet to mention anything related to the mother of all children’s shows, Sesame Street. And for a site pertaining to all things children, this is inexcusable. But we at Pater’s Potpourri stand ready to correct our short comings, and are proud to announce our SESAME STREET extravaganza. That’s right, three consecutive posts related to all things Sesame Street! And what better way to start off this extravaganza than with a classic like, Follow That Bird. Sure, these days Sesame Street has taken a serious blow at the hands of a little red shit named Elmo and political correctness, but when I was a kid it was golden; and this movie represents one of the high points in it’s history.
Now FTB gotta a crappy (non-anamorphic widescreen) DVD release a few years ago, but the new 25th Anniversary DVD is given a proper anamorphic transfer, and the picture quality is considerably better, too. The colors are reasonably bright and vivid throughout, and this is the first time since the movies release that one has been able to watch it in widescreen. But let’s get on with the plot.

"You wanna put that thing where??"
Follow That Bird is a road movie starring one of Sesame Street's best known residents, the perpetually six year-old Big Bird. It follows his attempts to find his way back home, after a nosy social worker (named Miss Finch), convinces him to move in with a family of Dodo birds in Oceanview, Illinois. Miss Finch assumes since Big Bird is surrounded by a bunch of Puerto Ricans, Blacks, number loving vampires, wooly mammoths, furry blue cookie addicts, and homos named Ernie and Bert; instead of other birds, there is no possible way he could be happy. The only problem is the Dodo family (whose two children happen to be aptly named Donnie and Marie), turn out to be a bunch fucking morons, who are ten times worse than any of the freaks you might encounter on Sesame Street. And despite trying his best to enjoy his new surroundings, Big Bird quickly becomes homesick and decides to hitch a ride on the midnight express and find his way home. Upon hearing this, all his friends band together and head out across America to find their beloved Big Bird; of course hijinks ensue.
There are also plenty of cameos along the way, Dave Thomas and Joe Flaherty (of SCTV fame) play the Brothers Sleaze; two bumbling grifters who exploit children and run a third-rate carnival. Chevy Chase also makes and appearance as a idiotic news anchor and Sandra Bernhard as a bitchy waitress in a grouch diner. John Candy (also of SCTV fame) shows up to play a policeman, and we are also treated to a song from cocaine, country superstar Waylon Jennings.
Now, adults may not find Follow That Bird as entertaining as they did when they were children, but if you now have little ones of your own, they’re assured to love it. And the absolute best thing about this DVD is, although Elmo is featured prominently on the cover, that annoying little menstrual rag is almost completely absent from the movie (he’s only seen once in the background) and for that reason alone, FTB deserves 5 out 5 beers!

UP, a real let down

I know there is currently a lot of Oscar buzz centered around Pixar’s Up, and people have been treating it like the second coming of Christ, even going as far as saying it may take best picture, but to tell you the truth I can’t see why. The film centers around a curmudgeony old widower named Carl, and a young overeager "wilderness explorer" named Russell, who fly to South America in a house suspended from balloons. The story is your typical young kid brings old hermit out of their shell story, except this time it’s in a floating house--wow! Oh, how could I forget, there is also a talking dog, and he gets pretty annoying too.
Sure it looks really nice, but I can’t say I see any vast improvement in this movie (visually) from Wall-e or Cars. In my opinion Pixar phoned this one in. Aside from Wall-e, I really feel the company has been on a slight downward spiral. What could we expect though with the imperialistic Disney Satanists now at the helm (Disney purchased Pixar in 2006). They ruined their own animation empire, so I guess they figured it was time they ruin someone else’s. Undoubtedly, your children will love it, but as parents (who inadvertenly have to watch these movies anyway) we deserve more.

"I swear, my penis is this big!"

Thankfully, in a mid-December surprise, both the New York Film Critics Circle and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association named “Fantastic Mr. Fox” the best animated movie of 2009. But, the Oscar race is far from over. Nominations will be announced on Feb. 2 and the awards given on March 7. And despite UP’s many shortcomings, I would be very surprised if it didn’t walk away with at least one of those little gold, art-deco, knights. Two out of five beers.

SECRET OF NIMH DVD review

If you have been following, I’ve been in a “theme” mood lately. I had a couple of posts revolving around baby shit, and since my last post featured an eco-friendly book about the dangers of deforestation, I figured I’d stay in that vein, and write a review on a movie about the unsavory world of animal-testing. I know neither of these things sound like kid friendly material, but you’d be surprised what sources people can mine for children’s books and movies (I’m still holding out for that very special Curios George, where the man in the big yellow hat, contracts ebola from George and bleeds through his eyes and nipples). At any rate, this post is about the animated classic, The Secret of NIMH.
This is one of my favorite movies (children’s or otherwise), and is the brainchild of Don Bluth (one of the truly great animators, as far as I’m concerned). It saddens my heart to know there is a whole generation out their right now, completely unaware of this great visionary. Bluth was originally an artist at Disney (his mark is evident in films like Disney’s Robin Hood and The Sword in The Stone) and he is also the creative force behind the arcade classic Dragon’s Lair, which you are likely familiar with if you ever spent anytime in an arcade during the early eighties (if not, you probably occupy a cave in Afghanistan).

This movie is based on Robert C. O'Brien's award-winning book, Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of N.I.M.H. It centers on Mrs. Brisby (a timid widowed mouse) seeking the aid of a colony of super-intelligent rats (that she unknowingly has ties to), to help relocate the Brisby family's home, under emergency conditions when her son Timmy is too ill to move. The movie is suspenseful and somewhat dark, but the in my opinion, the best children’s books often are; including intense scenes of animal cruelty and experimentation. It’s not the often sugar-coated world of a Disney movie princess, but instead a more realistic painting of a person (or mouse rather), dealing with real problems, made even more poignant (in my eyes at least) by our country’s current state of affairs. I think the story is more than capable of standing on its own as a classic, but it’s the animation that makes this movie truly great.

This was Don Bluth’s first movie (and what many consider his great masterpiece) and as such he set out with the explicit goal of returning feature animation to its “golden era”, concentrating on strong characters and story, and experimenting with unusual and often more labor-intensive animation techniques. Among the techniques experimented with on The Secret of NIMH were multiple passes on the camera to achieve transparent shadows, and backlit animation (where animated mattes are shot with light shining through color gels to produce glowing areas for artificial light and fire effects), multiple color palettes for characters to fit in different lighting situations, from daylight, to night, to warm environments to underwater. Mrs. Brisby had 46 different lighting situations, therefore there were 46 different color palettes for her, giving the animation a lush quality lacking in most animation.
If you or your child are unfamiliar with Don Bluth and his work, I feel it’s high time you become acquainted, and what better place to start than The Secret of NIMH. Five out of five beers.

BY THE POWER OF GAYSKULL!: THE BEST OF HE-MAN AND THE MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE DVD review

Watching these shows as a kid I never realized how gay they were. I mean they’re REALLY gay (not that there’s anything wrong with that, who ever you wanna suck and fuck is your business, so don’t send me your cry-baby letters calling me a homophobe). But let me break it down, first off you have Price Adam, your typical closet case. I mean, the guy wears a pink vest and lilac colored tights, for Christ’s sake. Not to mention he has a big green kitty for a pet and his best friend (Man-At-Arms) sports a porno moustache and wears a helmet that looks like the tip of my dick. And if your not convinced yet, check this out, when shit gets too heavy for the prissy Prince Adam; what does he do? He raises aloft his mighty “sword” and morphs into a beefy, tanned-out, leather fag! Just when you think his outfit couldn’t get any gayer, this dude comes out in a pair of furry panties, boots and a harness! And riddle me this, who is his number one enemy? A skeleton; as in I am fighting the skeleton in my closet. And never once did I see him try to put the moves on that fine-ass Teela or the Sorceress. Those hoes were begging for cock, dressing like that.
"Who wants a moustache ride?"

But homosexual undertones aside, this show managed to meld two of my favorite genres together seamlessly, sword & sorcery with Star Wars-esque sci-fi. The only other show to successfully do this would be Thundarr the Barbarian (which unfortunately, at this time, has still yet to be released to DVD). Another interesting fact is, both of these shows only lasted two seasons. Although Masters of the Universe had a highly prolific run consisting of two seasons of 65 episodes each, Thundarr only boasted a paltry 21 episodes total. Perhaps it was a right-wing conspiracy, like Jerry Falwell’s persecution of the gender-bending Tinky Winky. But I digress. At any rate, I was totally obsessed with He-Man as a kid. I had all the toys. And I was thrilled when they released the show on DVD.
He-Man originally aired in 1983, and was created by Filmation (the same guys to bring us Fat Albert and Star Trek The Animated Series). It was a daily syndicated series based on the line of toys from Mattel. Many critics have put He-Man on blast for being nothing more than 30-minute toy commercials, with cheap animation. I happen to disagree, I think He-man has pretty good stories for an 80’s cartoon (you ever seen a episode of Care Bears, now that’s a bunch of crap) and the synth score is hella tight. Sure, Filmation may have cut corners by rotoscoping and re-using the same animated sequences over and over again, but you would have to be blinder than the bastard child of Helen Keller and Ray Charles, not to appreciate those long establishing shots in which the camera would slowly pan across a wide, extremely detailed, background painting. Those paintings were sick and you know it! They’d make Frazetta proud.


“Filmation also pioneered other animation technologies, including backlighting effects for the first time in American animation (they were already in use in Japan), including moiré effects to represent energy fields; a technique that was later used in He-Man. They also pioneered a unique method of generating 3-D vehicle animation by filming white-outlined black miniatures against black backgrounds using a computerized motion-control camera and high-contrast film, then printing the negatives onto acetate frame-by-frame to create animation cells which were then hand-painted. This produced a dynamic, three-dimensional effect which had never been seen in cell animation before and predated the modern use of 3-D computer animation for vehicles in 2-D animated productions (although it had a distinctive "flicker" to it as some of the painted lines went in and out of visibility as the miniatures moved).”
"Ouch, these tights are riding!"

I feel He-Man is pretty timeless (well, maybe not timeless, but it’s held up pretty well to this point), and even though I have yet to watch it with my own daughter, I have watched with my niece and nephew (9 and 4 respectively) and they both loved it. The stories also feature a moral lesson at he end of ever episode (something that was very prevalent during the eighties), I suppose in an attempt to tone down the rabid homosexuality that persists throughout, and keep the Christians at bay. And what kid couldn’t use a little morality these days. And for those of you pussies out there that think He-Man is too violent, that was just some nonsense cooked up by bored housewives in the 80’s, who had nothing better to do with their time when they ran out of cooking sherry to drink. The average Sponge-Bob episode has more violence than a He-Man cartoon. And I picked up The Best of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe at Walmart for 5 bucks. It features five of the best episodes from season one, five of the best episodes from season two, and all-new documentary featurettes that shed some light on the making of this classic animated series. So, all in all (even though this show is gayer than cum on a sailors moustache), I have to give The Best of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, five out of five beers.

BETTY BOOP: AN ORIGINAL MAX FLEISCHER CARTOON DVD review

One of the great things about this blog is, I get to act like a fucking fanboy, and talk about the shit I’m really into. Hopefully, in the process I turn people onto some new stuff, broaden their horizons, and help to promote the crap that influenced the person I am today. Not to mention, I help people find things to watch with their kids (that they might also find entertaining), besides Dora and Barney. So, it’s with great pleasure that I now review the DVD; BETTY BOOP: AN ORIGINAL MAX FLEISCHER CARTOON.
This two disc collection not only has some of the greatest Betty Boop cartoons, but what many would consider the greatest cartoons, ever (Betty Boop or otherwise)! These of course are Betty’s, pre-Hays code, cartoons. Filled with jazz, drug references, surreal images and sexual overtones. After the Hays code (a lame-ass code created in the mid-30’s to censor movies and cartoons) Betty went from a free spirited, scantily clad, Jazz Baby, to a frock toting hausfrau-secretary type. The later cartoons are absent of Koko the Clown and Bimbo (Betty’s sometimes doggy boyfriend and confidant), and are instead filled with sorry-ass characters like Grampy the stupid inventor and Pudgy the annoying dog. If I had to pick the highlights from this collection, I would stick with:

• I’ll Be Glad When You’re Dead, You Rascal You


• Snow White


• Betty Boop’s Bamboo Isle


• The Old Man Of The Mountain


• Minnie The Moocher

But for the sake of brevity, I will focus mainly on Snow White for this review. In my opinion this is the best of the Betty Boop cartoons (and it came out 4 years before Disney's version). It’s far reaching influence can be seen in creations as diverse as The Nightmare Before Christmas to Ren & Stimpy. From it’s beautifully rendered ink wash backgrounds (in the mystery cave) to it’s smooth as silk rotoscoping this cartoon has much to offer. It wields rotoscope (a technique invented by Max Fleischer) with Jedi like precision. Via it we can see Koko the Clown moon walking, a la Cab Calloway, numerous years before Mike (may he rest in peace) was even a money hungry twinkle in papa Joe Jackson’s eye.

You wanna talk street cred? As far as I know, this is the only cartoon that features a song (St. James Infirmary Blues) about a girl who died of a cocaine overdose. The film has even been deemed "culturally significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry. Not to mention Betty was the first cartoon to be drawn in a truly female fashion (titts, hips, ass and curvy legs); before this female characters were basically carbon copies of their male counter parts with eyelashes and a skirt (e.g. Minnie Mouse). I suppose I could go on and on with how great this cartoon is, and why you should watch it, but I prefer to let it talk for itself. So, here is a link without further adieu, Snow White. And of course it gets 5 beers!

BABY MOZART DVD review

Disney / Release 1998 / Minutes / NR /

This mind numbing DVD, with it’s bargain basement production value and schlocky Mozart renditions, had absolutely nothing appealing to an adult’s sensibilities (unless perhaps you watched it when you were really stoned). It is completely devoid of plot or storyline, and consists mainly of random images set poorly to music.

This is the type of grade A crap they should force detainees to watch, because I’d rather have a G.I. drag his sack across my face, while his hick buddy snaps a photo, than watch this shit again. Seriously, it looks like it was thrown together with shit you would find at a yard sale. Where’s the top notch animation? The CGI? This is owned by Disney you know.
But despite this DVD’s may faults, surprisingly it will be on heavy rotation in my house, for the simple fact that it kept my 3 month old daughter’s attention for 25 minutes straight. And as any new father knows, that it a god sent in itself. I guess this video is something only a child’s mind could appreciate--how though, I’m not quite sure. And as such I give it three beers.

PINOCCHIO: 70th ANNIVERSARY BD review

REVIEW ONE

Disney / Release 1940 / 88 Minutes / G /

First of all, I just wanna say this movie looks fucking awesome on blue-ray. The boys at Disney out did themselves. It makes the old DVD version look like grandma’s incoherent scribblings at the nursing home. The new picture is now sharper than a ginsu knife. Having said that, I’m not gonna waste a lot of time setting up the plot, because I’m pretty sure we all know it (wooden boy lies, nose grows, cricket, whale, blah blah blah). And if you don’t know the plot; you must be a communist or something.
So, lets get to the good stuff. This is a great flick for fathers to watch with their youngsters. There is plenty for both to love. Not only is there the obligatory sappy songs ("When You Wish Upon A Star" give me a fucking break!) and lame characters (e.g. Geppetto) that drive kids wild, but there are some really dark themes running through this film that a miscreant like me can appreciate. First of all, off the top of my head, I would have to say this movie has more villains than any other Disney movie to date. It’s a virtual rogues’ gallery, we got:
Honest John and Gideon--Two shit bags that find pleasure in wearing capes and selling kids into slavery, repeatedly.
Strombolli--This walking stereotype and child labor lawbreaker would be more at home on the Sopranos eating gabagool.
The Coach driver--He’s by far the worst, he looks like Santa’s evil brother, not to mention he gives me the willies.

And last, but not least.
Monstro the Whale--Think jaws sans the charm.
What is that? Five bad guys? Not to mention, the cuckoo clock that promotes child abuse (pay attention early in the movie when all the clocks go off in Geppetto’s workshop) and children violently morphing into donkeys. That’s gotta be some kind of record.
Which brings me to my favorite part of the movie, Pleasure Island! Does this place exist? If so, where can I buy tickets? It’s gotta carnival, smokes, booze, billiards, even a house you can bust up when you go into a drunken rage. Sounds like Madi Gras. It’s my nirvana. So, overall I would have to give this movie Pater’s highest honor, five beers!