Hey, it's Jae. I have a mild fascination
with DcoMs, due to loving the Teen Beach and Descendants movies ironically/unironically,
and have consumed a lot of content about them, because there's something about the kitchiness of
it all that I like. I like a lot of kitchy stuff, it's fun, I've always been queer, etc. I don't
like them enough to actually watch them, but I do have a history with the Disney Channel, just
not what was typical. Because I watched the Disney Channel in the late 80's,
and boy it had not yet
gotten an identity yet. They were not running a child actor destruction engine for entertainment,
they were trying to find anything to fill the schedule for their premium channel that they
were taking their time getting off the ground. And I saw a lot of weird movies from it,
over and over again in basic child's fashion, because we had a VCR. I will not be explaining
VCRs. I trust you to figure out media evolves over time and look it up if you care. And frankly
I'm
glad I've seen them, because the eclectic collection of any old garbage that anyone will
license for cheap has cultivated my taste for just any old weirdness I can find, a unique view of the
world and media. Anything can be good, anything, so always give new things a chance. That's
the logline of the channel, really, to share some weird thing I found. Like a fun comic relief
creature in a cartoon might or a robot sidekick or something. Should I get an avatar? I don't know,
picking a single
identity is hard. Let's move on. I have three movies I've never spoken
to anyone about besides family, because I assume they didn't see it. Why would
they? They did not have my exact experience, only about 3 million people subscribed in
those early days, that's like 2% of the population at the time, not a lot of people. So
I'm going to tell you about them. Those movies are Mother Goose Rock n Rhyme, The Twelve
Tasks of Asterix, and the American Rabbit. For completeness, I am including
a co
uple of other weird movies I saw on Disney Channel that were good
enough to stick in people's memories, and for this reason I've got little
to say that hasn't been said. Animalympics was rad at hell, stunning animation
by some of the best animators of the day, and just some real bangers in the soundtrack. But there's
been a lot of coverage of it by other creators, and also most of the jokes are racist, fatphobic,
and just kinda mean, and it is way too horny. When it's not trying to be funny
it's alright
though, check out the album, it is some good shit. Another in the great soundtrack, odd plot category
is the Brave Little Toaster, whose obscurity is more due to it being tied up in rights hell so
it's not streaming anywhere, but it's fairly well known for traumatizing several children.
I think about the junkyard song all the time. The Chipmunk Adventure is a fever dream of a film
that has already been thoroughly roasted by the System Mastery Boys, Jeff and John, link in the
description, it's a really fun two hours, although maybe you need to have seen the film first
so you can picture it properly. Check it out! I probably saw the Hobbit and other Rankin/Bass
on this channel. They aired a lot of old stuff, like I said, anything to fit the schedule,
old Disney cartoons, old Disney films, lot of overseas animation, a
ton of Westerns from the 50's, Benji movies, that kinda stuff. Nothing I
care about enough to highlight right now, but you never know what the old m
emory
sink will pull up. Let's get specific. I don't have nearly enough to say
about Mother Goose Rock n Rhyme, that's why you're getting three movies in this
one. It's definitely fascinating and it's got just enough kitchiness to it that it stuck
with me for so long, but after a rewatch it is kinda garbage. This isn't a movie so
much as a opportunity for various guest stars to show up in a wacky costume and do some
brickwall comedy club level schtick. There are a lot of interesting facts
about this movie, so
we're going to fast facts our way through this. Mother Goose Rock n Rhyme is the story of Gordon
Goose, the son of Mother Goose who hates living in Rhyme Land, everyone here is a weirdo, but
then his mother goes missing and he teams up with Little Bo Peep to try and find her, and we meet
wacky versions of every nursery rhyme character. It's frequently both boring and weird, it looks
cheap as hell, and has only one and a half bops, and somehow it isn't the song written b
y the
writer of the Brave Little Toaster soundtrack. No, the good songs are the work of the Breakfast Club,
the lead man of which also stars as Gordon, and there's a reason he quits showbusiness after this.
Two, actually, but that's a secret for later. We have Hop to It, a repetitive zany number
performed for us by the Del Rubio triplets, obviously, and then this half-baked metal song
that has a nice grunge to it. Catchy but nothing fantastic, it's weird the songs suck because
there's a lo
t of musicians in this but the only one who does any work is Little Richard. Little
Richard can do this all day, baby. What a fit. I don't know, the visual design is just another
example of that weird impulse in the 90's to make old-timey stuff urban and hip, I like a lot
of the outfits, but it's all very confused. The jokes are all bad, sitcom-level comedy,
let's make Mary and her Little Lamb a toxic relationship, that kinda thing. All in all
a boring watch, just a couple more things: Ever
yone in this movie is famous, but I was
happy to see Harry Anderson, Katy Sagal, Garry Shandling, Pia Zadora, and ZZ Top.
This was how I found out who ZZ Top is, they are the Three Men in a Tub to me. Apparently a famous Australian comedy duo
gets two scenes in this? They aren't funny. The kid who kidnapped Mother Goose
is young Alexander from Star Trek. Shelley Duvall was a key part of making this
happen and she shines as Little Bo Peep in this, great look, great performance, fun to
watch
. Also she and the other lead fell in love and are apparently still
together to this day. Which must have been awkward for this scene,
in which her ex-partner Paul Simon, yes that one, plays third wheel on their
romantic adventure for a few minutes. Alright, enough Mother Goose Rock n Rhyme. I'm
just glad that this was the 1990 movie produced by the Disney Channel that I imprinted onto and
not the other one, Aladdin, no, not that Aladdin, Barry Bostwick Aladdin. There was no budget for
ori
ginal content, apparently. That looks awful. This is odd little gem from 1976, as it is
the only Asterix film based on an original screenplay. You know who Asterix is, right? That
silly little Gaul man, the most popular French comic book character, there have been at least two
dozen video games about him, this guy! Yeah, okay, you probably don't know who this guy is, but I
do! Because I watched this movie a lot, and I love this movie, it's basically an hour and a half
Bugs Bunny cartoon, in
cluding the casual racism. The story follows the famous rebel village in
Gaul, full of all those zany characters that you are fully aware of, you love Cochophonix,
right? The movie makes a joke about you having never heard of these characters famous in
exactly one country, but you get it immediately, these are very broad caricatures, all you
need to know is that everyone in the village has access to a magic potion that makes them
invincible. It makes every situation they are put in trivial,
they are unbeatable. It's a
Win Button that makes conflict nonexistent, the fun is watching what this pack of goofballs
will do, it's probably going to be very silly. This invulnerability makes them the solitary
holdout against the Roman Empire, which has been trying and failing to overtake them. It's
suggested that it's possible the village is full of gods, and they aren't wrong? In the sense
that they are simple, unkillable characters whose stories are used to teach and entertain,
then
sure. Hell, Mickey Moose and Looney Tunes are gods in that case. But Caesar remains
unconvinced, and decides to settle it with a test. He goes to the village and proposes a deal; if
you can complete all 12 tasks he has devised, then Caesar will concede defeat and step down.
Otherwise they must surrender. This is a bad deal, you have no idea what the tasks are and he
could easily rig any of them. But the rebel village is functionally undefeatable, so they
say yes. They send their cleverest w
arrior, Asterix, and his constant companion, Obelix,
who fell in the magic potion as a baby so is always impossibly strong, they
should be able to handle it. And guess what, they do. Fairly easily.
I'm not going to tell you all 12 tasks, a lot of them are just going up to a broad ethnic
stereotype and humiliating them, like I mentioned, pretty racist. Like, they thought enough to
make the German nice because they felt bad about making them all assholes before, but were
apparently just fine
with these. Not excusing it, I acknowledge these all suck, but the varied
character design is neat. It's neat racism. I like this chef guy's scene, where we are
presented with just grotesquely huge dinner platters, which Obelix easily devours,
because he's a big fat guy, you see? Ug, I said I was skipping Animalympics because of all
the awful shit in it, let's maybe skirt along. The other tasks are more interesting, although
some are just boring sight gags, but a couple in particular I wan
t to discuss more. The first
is when the boys are tasked to row across a lake, simple as that. But it turns out there's an
island of sexy ladies who lure men in to trap them forever. I'm going to assume it's magic
and the presence of a woman or queer person would not have prevented this, because it seems
like mostly all they do on the island is frolic to my favorite song of all time. Okay, maybe an
exaggeration, but I could never be sad listening to this. A real disco bop. Anyway, they get
out of there because Obelix would rather eat than fuck, so they kick him out and Asterix
overcomes his horniness and also escapes. They also visit an extended comedy bit that
I will never forget, the Place That Drives You Mad. I do not know why this place exists,
this place is huge, and has several employees, and all of it is a joke about bureaucracy
as Asterix tries to get a form. The entire segment is 10 minutes long, so it feels like
you're also trapped in this goddamn building, and the
solution is pretty clever. I
think it's a good bit. Strangely this scene is referenced in The Witcher 3, of
course those weirdos have seen this movie. Okay, that's about all there is to say, I
like Asterix, he's a charming fellow. But it's of its time, the entire franchise
is not known for its progressive takes, and I wouldn't suggest watching it unless
it looks fun. It's got some good jokes, and also a lot of bad ones. I just like
the 70's too much, it's my problem. If, aethethically, ev
erything on this list
represented a specific decade, than I guess this is the 80's one, but not, like, cool 80's.
This is the lame style of the 80's, all patriotism and kitchy plastic feeling animation, the stuff
that got stamped out in 65-episode blocks to fill up a syndication schedule. I can't believe
this was a theatrical release, unacceptable. I know the 80's was rough for animation but Secret
of Nimh was two years before this. Anyway, as you might have guessed, I identify with
this m
ovie a lot. But it is very stupid. So we start with a dam, a crack has slowly
formed and is ready to burst, but not to worry, some rabbit in glasses is on the way and
transforms into the American Rabbit, able to left heavy things and fly and has a pair of
rollerblades stapled to his feet. Not sure why, he flies literally everywhere, isn't really part of
his thing, he just kinda has them. So he fixes the dam and I guess we're jumping right in, character
established, this is a Superman, no or
igin needed. Anyway it's time for the origin
story, some number of years ago, there's a new addition to a rabbit family in
this quaint mountain village that we have all over America. Just a normal American town. This
baby is being stalked by a wizard, who keeps visiting people in the kid's life to discover
he's a good kid, good sense of sportsmanship, can play the piano, it's very important he knows
how to play the piano. So Rob, this kid is Rob, Rob is apparently destined to wield the
pow
er of the American Rabbit, and activates it unconsciously to save his parents from a
rockslide, and the wizard appears and informs the family that there's a Legacy in this town
that forces some kid to become a superhero. Rob now has to go out and do unspecified justice,
it's making his mom cry, he's so young. Actually, can we nail down an age for this kid?
Is he...a teenager, a young adult, 12? They never specify. I'm going to assume due
to interactions later in the movie he is at least 18.
His parents sure seem pretty upset this needs
to happen this way, making it seems he's younger, but we gotta assume he's old enough to live on his
own and have a job and nobody thinks it's weird. Anyway he's off, doesn't even get to
bring supplies, he walks down the road and teleports to the middle of nowhere, where he
figures out how to become the American Rabbit, he has to run real fast. This was a huge
influenced on my early creative work, like from ages 6-9 I made a lot of speedsters,
not because of Sonic, but because of this dork. He flies around until he sees the Golden Gate
Bridge, and a pack of holligans find him and threaten to kill and eat him for no reason. Just a
bunch of assholes. At least they are leaving town. Rob walks into the first place he sees and asks
for a job, and despite botching his audition, he picks up the basics pretty quick and gets
hired immediately, because who else is going to do it? This place is dead. Hire the first
naked child who wanders
in off the street, great plan. But then the bikers show
up again, apparently this is the Jets, and they break a bunch of shit demanding
money. Our weird panda owner declines, so the Jets come back and trash the entire place,
several casualties, and everyone just kinda sulks about it. I guess there aren't any cops in
this world, because they just want to give up, but Miss Bunny O'Hare, her name is two
puns, wants to hold a rally about it. So this is kinda weird, they just have a rally
about
how bad it is that these jackals are moving in to their neighborhood and causing crime
and ruining society and it's real bad vibes. I don't care if these jackals are working
for an evil guy named Valtor who sends his bird to murder dozens of people by destroying
the Golden Gate bridge, you probably shouldn't have a hate rally about it. Maybe call an
authority of some kind, it is six guys, their weird boss and a vulture. The panda whose
nightclub got destroyed promises he's going to rebuild
his livelihood and the crowd asks with
what money, and he announces a countrywide tour to raise awareness or something about this local
biker gang. Again, seems like a lot of work, probably easier to just open a GoFundMe
or something, did you not have insurance? But that's the plan, and the bad guys are
real pissed their mass murder got stopped by the American Rabbit and they think it's time to
recruit the toughest guy, which is Ping Pong, the strongest guy around. They kidnap him in a stu
pid
scheme he should have easily avoided, and try to recruit him to their side by slowly drowning him
in this little water tube, and he's real bummed about it. Meanwhile the band has started its tour
in a single vehicle, and can't find the place they booked. It's happening at the Trap Door,
the biggest new nightclub at the Grand Canyon. So this place doesn't exist, it's the
jackals doing a trick to...I guess, murder them all. But Rob catches wise and suggests
the best course of action to f
ind this nonexistent nightclub is to float a raft down the river.
Great plan, he immediately gets jumped by the jackals he saw and taken to their secret lair. But
they are easily distracted by tapdancing and Rob gets away and turns into the American Rabbit and
saves Ping Pong, who I guess is right there, and somehow floods this entire cave system, where did
all of this water come from? But oh no, the band is going to go over a waterfall, again, fantastic
idea Rob, really keeping everyone ou
t of danger. He saves them all, obviously, and they take it
all in stride and head to New Orleans to their next gig, but the club they were going to play
burned down, and everyone is trying so hard not to be racist that they just blindly fall for another
scheme to trap them all on a boat and set them on fire. The flags could not have redder this entire
time, there are no other guests on this boat, these jackals are very clearly the same guys
who tried to murder you before, it is not racist
to refuse an extremely sketchy job from
them. Have some basic preservation instincts. American Rabbit saves everyone again,
it sure is convenient that the American Rabbit is just always around and also
Rob is never around when he shows up, these characters are the dumbest people on
Earth. But the American Rabbit figures out the motives behind the people who have been
nothing but hostile to him. “We're evil” Oh, okay, this guy is just evil. Great,
cool, glad that's cleared up. Anyway they a
re off to New York, but
they also lost their car, somehow, so they have to hoof it. Oh, the wizard gave them
a ride...to 50 miles away. Thanks wizard. No, you see, they needed to meet these chocolate
moose, haha, because they will be important to the plot later...I think. So they are in New
York, and need some instruments to do anything, so they visit these annoying penguins who
refuse to help them because they are slick business men. So our heroes leave to go die on
the street, I guess, t
hey are thousands of miles from home with no money, and the bad guy walks
in to rent the Statue of Liberty. Did not know it could be rented out, especially if you are going
to then line it with dynamite and invite people to it for free ice cream in an attempt
to perform a wide-scale terror attack. American Rabbit stops it, of course, and
finally confronts this evil man but OH NO it's an empty suit, the vulture was remote
controlling him all along. Seems...unnecessary, the vulture is always
also there, just a
pointless misdirect, but the vulture gives our hero an ultimatum. Do what he says or he
throws the doomsday switch and kills everyone. What...what's the Doomsday Switch? Is that related
to the dynamite that our hero has already defused? Oh it's something else? Okay. Well our hero
acquiences and announces to the city that they are now in a dictatorship. The vulture's in charge
now, of all of America I guess, and everyone who plays along will get some chocolate, otherwise,
he's flipping that switch and it'll do something! Fascism is here now, the bad guys are roaming the
streets and just walking into the police station, I guess there were in fact police, but they are
powerless against these six guys, it's a dark time indeed. Until the people suddenly realize, oh,
wait, it is literally just a small biker gang, we can just yell and throw things at them and
they will instantly crumble. The vulture's ego is out of control because he doesn't understand
why his fl
awless plan isn't working, and Rob needs another pep talk from the wizard, who tells
him that, hey, it's one guy, just go get him. The American Rabbit returns and in order to
stop the threat of the Doomsday Switch, he uses his lightning powers (?) to stop the Niagara
Falls, which causes a blackout in New York City, so the vulture can't throw the switch. That's
definitely where New York gets its power from, Niagara Falls. The vulture shows up to fuck
with everyone and endanger those mooses a
gain, but the American Rabbit chases him
into a snowfield and he just...dies, I guess. Evil has been conquered, and Rob returns
to his friends to get a smooch from the girl rabbit and everyone points to the horizon claiming
they see the American Rabbit flying away. Yep, these idiots never figure out their good friend
who is constantly disappearing when the superhero arrives is actually that superhero. Or it's
a wink and nod that they know but I doubt it. Oof, that aged a lot more poorly tha
n
I expected. The story is non-sensical, the drama is poor, while I have an affection
for all these characters, it is 100% nostalgia, none of them are fully realized, none of the
jokes are good, everyone is such a gullible moron, just a real....wait, a minute, run the tape
back. I've heard this bridge before. Where did I? Did...did these guys steal this lick from
Animalypics? I mean, perfectly understandable from the studio that gave us Dirty Duck. If
you know you know, I'm not touching th
at one. So those are three movies I watch as a
stupid child. I'm definitely glad I've seen them and love them all dearly,
but they're not good movies. Please don't seek them out, there are so many
better things to watch. Like Columbo! Okay, time for a swerve, let's finally cross
the millennium line and talk about something modern. Ish. Because it's definitely a show
about a very specific time that I'm glad is over and I pray to god is never coming
back. Let's talk about the Good Wife, spec
ifically The Good Fight, a really
bold series that you know no one watched because people would have lost their mind
if they knew this was on TV. 'Til next time.
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