Posts tagged children

by Tim May

There were sing-a-long tapes for almost everything in the early ’90s. I’m sure you all remember those hideous troll dolls (they still ironically litter most twentysomething ex-sorority beer sluts’ desks in offices across America), and at some point, one of the many companies who produced those dolls decided it was time to make them into puppets and do a sing-a-long tape.

Trollies Radio Show Sing-a-long takes on the format of a radio program on the cleverly named station WTROLL. The show’s DJ is literally named Rock ‘n’ Troll. He’s a doofus with the dumbest sunglasses ever who cracks lots of “jokes” or at least sentences with the cadence of jokes.

There’s also Rock ‘n’ Troll’s oafish sidekick Olaf who looks suspiciously like famed fat film critic Harry Knowles!!!!!! (!)

Much like, say, Turtle Tunes, Trollies Radio Show is mostly a series of music videos. ’80s and ’90s chidren’s entertainment did more to ravage the memory of ’50s rock ‘n’ roll than any other amount of public domain overuse, and this tape adds horrible renditions of “Wooly Bully” and “Doo Wah Diddy” to that tradition. WTROLL’s worst musical crime, however, is their performance of The Beach Boys’ “Kokomo.”

Two things piss me off about this: 1.) The Muppets already did about the best thing you could possibly do with “Kokomo” and 2.) “Kokomo” is a huge pile of shit.

Seriously, I have no idea how “Kokomo” became one of the Beach Boys’ (one of the greatest gifts to popular music) most iconic songs. Its simplistic, dopey melody and sacharrine, manufactured lyrics make me want to punch Mike Love in his smug face.

Look at him. Fuck that guy.

The tape almost commits a greater sin by making me sit through “Trollie” McFerin’s “Don’t Worry, Be Happy,” one of the few songs almost as insipid as “Kokomo.” This song grates the first time you hear it, but it reached a new level of scum when it was used as one of the songs that stupid singing trout novelty item sang. If you’re nostalgic for that piece of shit, kill yourself.

This program’s writers are happy to find as many ways to insert the word “troll” into everyday language, kind of like “smurf,” but without all the fun sexual tension between Smurfette and everyone else. One of the last songs performed on Rock ‘n’ Troll’s show is Troll Seeger’s “Old Time Rock ‘n’ Troll,” one of the hosts “favorites,” because he’s a self-involved dick.

Trollies Radio Show Sing-a-long was released by Peter Pan Industries, who put out lots of dancing videos like Dance to Fitness and Livedancin’ USA, in addition to other Trollies tapes like Trollies Christmas Sing-a-long and Trollies All New Musical Adventure.

Sing-a-long tapes were always kind of lame, but they were especially lame when they had ugly puppets chirping bad covers of over-covered standards and tepid originals, all with the sole purpose of selling cheap toys out of the quarter machines in the K-Mart lobby.

The entire video is available on YouTube, starting above.

by Tim May

After the massive success of Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers, Saban Entertainment quickly tried to expand their brand by producing new shows in a similar fashion; simply shoot cheap new footage and edit it around already existing action scenes from Japanese tokusatsu shows and you’ve got an instant new toy line to shove down the throats of American boys, ages 6-11.

Originally, VR Troopers, Saban’s first post-Power Rangers endeavor was called Cybertron, and was to star Jason David Frank, who had been popular as the green ranger in the classic “Green With Evil” arc in MMPR. A pilot presentation was produced with Frank in the lead, but his Power Rangers character Tommy Oliver had been proven too popular to give away to a new series, so he returned to his rightful home and went on to define that show into its second and third seasons. Clips from the Cybertron pilot (the entirety of which is online here) were still used to promote the VR Troopers in trailers that appear on some of the second and third wave Power Rangers VHS releases. Imagine the disappointment, expecting Tommy to star in his own new show, and when you watch it on TV, this block of wood shows up instead.

This is Ryan Steele, the main protagonist of VR Troopers. His father has been missing for a long time. Much like the Power Rangers, he and his friends Kaitlin Star (rogue reporter for Underground News Daily) and J.B. Reese (computer wiz) are martial arts instructors, and one day while hanging out after classes, they find a laboratory which is all but abandoned, aside from a floating digitized head on a computer monitor who happens to be Professor Horation Hart, a friend of Ryan’s father. Professor Hart informs him that that his father has been trapped in the “VR” (virtual reality) which is ruled by the evil Grimlord, who can transport himself into the real world and live as billionaire industrialist Karl Ziktor. Professor Hart offers Ryan, Kaitlin, and J.B. the power to battle Grimlord and his army of skugs (the equivalent of Rita Repulsa’s puddies in Power Rangers). Being the bland archetypes they are, they immediately accept, and the show begins its incredibly obvious formula:

1. Something goes wrong in the real world.

2. It is immediately assumed Grimlord is behind the problem, no matter how innocuous.

3. The VR Troopers battle one of Grimlord’s minions.

4. Repeat.

The episode featured on this tape, the series’ fifth, is “Lost Memories,” in which a woman wanders into the dojo Ryan works for claiming she has amnesia. Kaitlin aims to put her picture in the Underground News Daily and J.B. checks out the internet (in 1994—dork!). Meanwhile, Karl Ziktor is informed of this mysterious woman, who had apparently lived in one of his apartment buildings and whose memory may have been erased through his alter ego Grimlord’s virtual tampering. The actor who plays Ziktor seems to be doing an earnest impression of Dennis Hopper’s performance as King Koopa in the 1993 Super Mario Bros. movie, but he soon transforms into stock footage.

The stock footage on this show is used somewhat more creatively than it was in Power Rangers, most of it appearing in the “virtual world,” while the majority of events in the real world is original material. Anyway, you can basically guess where this episode goes. Ryan is given a new “VR Trooper Bike” (all it’s ever called), and basically immediately crashes it, conveniently losing his own memory as well. J.B. and Kaitlin come to his rescue and return him to the lab, where Professor Hart will restore Ryan’s memory through virtual reality, however that works, and they must go defeat Grimlord’s goon Laserbot alone. J.B. defeats Laserbot with his awesome double-sided lightsaber (five years before Darth Maul!), and the woman from the beginning of the episode regains her memory by meeting her daughter via the story printed in Kaitlin’s paper.

There are two supporting characters of note. The first is Woody Stocker, Kaitlin’s editor at the paper, who seems like the lovechild of Richard Karn and Billy Mays.

Then there’s Jeb, Ryan’s dog who somehow gained the ability to talk after an accident in the first episode. On the back of the box you can see Jeb proclaiming, “Virtual reality is cool!” This is made even more ridiculous by Jeb’s even-worse-than-Christian-Slater Jack Nicholson impression.

Like most of Saban Home Entertainment’s VHS releases for their shows, “Lost Memories” includes an extra feature. Unfortunately, unlike Power Rangers, which would often feature cast interviews, this tape just includes a shitty music video for “Skugs,” a song by Ron Wasserman, the main musical force for Saban’s shows. Some of his work, like the Mighty Morhphin’ theme or “Go Green Ranger” is classic cheese, but songs like “Shape It Up, Bulk and Skull” and this one are nigh-unlistenable.

VR Troopers was trying to be a more “serious” show than Power Rangers, what with Ryan’s missing father and the older age of its protagonists. That’s kind of thrown out the window with the talking dog, though. Like all of Saban’s non-Power Rangers offerings (Masked Rider, Big Bad Beetleborgs, Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation, Mystic Knights of Tir Na Nog), VR Troopers isn’t quite goofy enough to overcome its awfulness and become fun.

Though never released on DVD in America (three discs with scattered episodes were released in the UK), the entire series is available on Netflix.

by Tim May

Welcome to Camelot Studios weekend! This interesting Michigan based studio released six movies in the mid-to-late eighties including The Earhunter (1985), Black River Magic (1985), The Black River Horse Capades (year unknown), and The Hackers (1988). The company still exists, though they no longer produce features; these days, they prefer to focus on commercials and industrial videos. Later this weekend, Dan will review The Hackers, but let’s start things off with the bizarre shot on video kids’ movie, Black River Monster.

Now, Black River Monster is most definitely the rarest movie we’ve ever reviewed. It had one of the smallest print runs of any of the Camelot releases, it has no IMDb page, and there are no other reviews anywhere on the internet. What makes it even more of an oddity is its affiliation with the Black River Farm and Ranch, a summer camp for girls based in Croswell, Michigan. It’s about halfway between a movie and a promotional video for the camp.

As the movie begins, one of the campers is scared off by a “monster,” who looks like your average sasquatch/big foot/skunkape. She runs off to get “Mr. D,” presumably the owner of the ranch (in the movie, and probably in real life, at least at the time the movie was made), to look into it for her. Of course, there’s no sign of the monster, but he did leave a giant footprint in the barn.

Despite being called Black River Monster, this movie is really about a fat guy named Leroy who lives with his mother (who looks exactly like him). Leroy’s mom is sick of his lazing about, so she gets him a summer job at the Black River Ranch. Now, Leroy is a miserable asshole who can’t accept this kindness. He just wishes he could “get something more in his line of work,” which seems to be eating a lot of Little Debbie’s.

Leroy is too fat and lazy to walk to the ranch, so he hitchhikes. He’s picked up by a couple of ridiculous creatures literally named Louie and Sleaze.

These guys make him sit in the bed of their pick-up truck and drive so fast he tumbles around for the whole ride. Watch the clip below and tell me you can’t hear the Dukes of Hazard theme kick in as soon as they hit the gas pedal.

Black River Monster is all over the place, tonally. It often feels like a kids’ movie, but then it goes and makes a bunch of mean-spirited fat jokes about Leroy. Even the kindly Mr. D berates Leroy for being lazy and for sleeping on the job. I thought this was mean at first, but Leroy is constantly complaining about everything. Just do your job, fatass. You’re not an air traffic controller, you’re a ranch hand. Scoop cow shit, motherfucker.

The monster almost always feels like an afterthought until the film’s climax, in which Louie and Sleaze return to try to steal some of the ranch’s horses in order to sell them and make a “quick buck.” Here is where the monster has his greatest moment. He picks Louie and Sleaze up by the throats and chokes them for a full minute. Crime doesn’t pay when the Black River Monster is afoot.

Leroy and Mr. D find Louie and Sleaze passed out in the barn and turn them in to the police. All of the campers (portrayed by actual campers from the summer the movie was shot) rally around Leroy. Sadly, one of these poor little girls was forced to say Leroy was “kinda cute.” Yuck. Anyway, Mr. D gives Leroy the rest of the day off, but asks if he could close the barn door first. Leroy obviously can’t appreciate Mr. D’s kindness and must complain that there’s “always one more thing to do.” You can’t get through life this way, Leroy. Do some work, lose some weight, and avoid a heart attack. When he goes to close the door, the monster appears and Leroy goes running like a little bitch. Credits.

At a brisk 50 minutes, Black River Monster is light, stupid fun. You can buy a DVD copy directly from Camelot Studios at their website. Camelot still produces promotional videos for Black River Farm and Ranch, but this obscurity is a charming time capsule for an incredibly specific and elite group (campers and councilors who were at the ranch the summer the movie was made). Basically, it’s an elaborate yearbook with a lot of fat jokes and a dopey ape costume.

Most of the images in this review were provided by our boy, Grant Cornelison.

(Source: vhshitfest.com)

by Tim May

Merry Christmas, ‘shitheads! To celebrate this, the greatest of all holidays, let’s look back on the understandably overlooked “Alpha’s Magical Christmas,” one of two original direct-to-video holiday themed Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers programs.

As I’m sure most of you know, Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers was a wildly successful children’s action show in which five “teenagers with attitude” were called by the giant head in a jar Zordon to battle Japanese stock footage. It’s mostly remembered for having one of the dopest theme songs ever, but it’s perhaps the greatest camp the 1990s ever produced, and it occasionally teetered on being genuinely decent. The one element that never came close to decent, however, was Alpha 5, Zordon’s whiny, effeminate robot assistant. His shrill catchphrase, always wailed whenever there was even the slightest sign of danger, is the nails-on-chalkboard howl of “AYE YAI YAI!!!”

Saban Entertainment, the producers of Power Rangers, apparently thought Alpha didn’t get enough big storylines on the show, so he needed his own Christmas special. “Alpha’s Magical Christmas” was produced during season two, a transitional period for the show with multiple cast changes and an ever expanding scope. Here’s where this special gets into some continuity trouble. By the time the biggest cast change had occurred, in which the original red, black, and yellow rangers Jason, Zack, and Trini were sent off to a “peace conference” and replaced by Rocky, Adam, and Aisha, Tommy’s green ranger powers had been depleted in the two part episode “White Light,” in which Tommy took up the mantle of the white ranger. However, in this video, Tommy appears as the green ranger, along with all his new replacement buddies. There seems to be no reason for this whatsoever, especially since there are a few montages in which we see him as the white ranger.

With that out of the way, let’s get on to the actual content of the special. Sadly, there’s not much to say. It’s Christmas Eve and the rangers are away helping Santa Claus deliver presents, leaving Alpha lonely at the Command Center. In order to cheer him up, Zordon, sporting a completely different voice actor than the one on the show, abducts a bunch of children from around the world to sing Christmas carols with them.

Most of the video is taken up with Alpha and the choir of kidnapped children singing a variety of holiday standards, ranging from “Silent Night” to “Here We Come A-Caroling.” This is about as boring as it sounds. After they release the kids, Alpha proclaims it to be the best Christmas ever (after all, “Christmas is all about children”), but he spoke too soon! Tommy, Billy, and Kimberly (white, blue, and pink, for all the cretins out there) return from the North Pole to spend the rest of their holiday with the “people they love,” a group which apparently doesn’t include their own families. Rocky, Adam, and Aisha suck, so they fittingly only appear via viewing globe (ugh). So, the rangers join Alpha in a rendition of “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” set to a montage of clips from the series. Despite the tonal clash of such a garish song being used in what is intended to be a touching, nostalgic look back, it did remind me of some of my favorite moments from the first couple seasons of MMPR, most notably Tommy and Kimberly’s first kiss, still a classic TV moment, despite the bad writing, production, and acting.

The worst thing about “Alpha’s Magical Christmas” is what a rip off it is. It probably retailed for at least $14.95, already a ridiculous cost for what amounts to one episode of television, but there is pretty much nothing of interest here for anyone, including Power Rangers die-hards. Everybody hates Alpha (aside from that one time Zack taught him how to break dance) and nobody wants to spend a half hour with him. If anything, this special, a completely original American production, shows how reliant the show was on the Japanese stock footage. At least at this point, Saban seemed incapable of doing anything more than a very basic fight scene, and “Alpha’s Magical Christmas” doesn’t even attempt that. This is literally a half hour of Alpha singing Christmas carols. Bah. This is hardly a holiday treat for Power Rangers fans. It’s more like a lump of coal (poo) from Lord Zedd.

You can watch the whole thing starting above and continuing here.

(Source: vhshitfest.com)

by Tim May

Adventures in Dinosaur City is one of the approximately 5,000,000 dinosaur related kids movies made in the early ‘90s. The three main characters, Timmy (played by Eerie, Indiana’s Omri Katz), Mick, and Jamie, are all completely obsessed with dinosaurs, especially a terrible cartoon called… well, Dinosaurs, which has a fucking awful theme song. Timmy’s parents are scientific researchers, who go out of town for the weekend, leaving their son and his two friends alone.

They discover a big screen TV in Timmy’s garage, and attempt to watch Dinosaurs on it. Little did they know that it was one of his parents’ crackpot inventions, and they get sucked into the world of the cartoon. This would be pretty cool if the world were still animated, but instead it looks like a Legends of the Hidden Temple obstacle. They meet up with an annoying dinosaur called Forey, and travel to “Saur City” to find Rex, the main character of the cartoon, so they can alert him to a threat from the “Rockies,” a group of villainous cavemen. The back of the box explains it better:

What kind of dino-dork wrote this? I count no less than 12 stupid dinosaur/prehistoric themed puns. See how many you can spot! This movie is absolutely filled with these sorts of idiotic puns (“Gimme claw!” to indicate the desire for a high five). Oh, and that “dinomite” rap theme? Not so out of this era.

Timmy soon figures out that he can control the world with the remote control to the television, and starts rewinding to send the Rockies away from him, and zapping cavemen to make them disappear (that one doesn’t make much sense). They are able to escape the world by pressing eject. I love this aspect of the film, but I wish they had used it more. Being trapped in a VHS tape and being able to control it with the remote is a really cool idea, and they only utilized it in the last third of the film.

Another obsession of early ‘90s children’s cinema promotion was trying to convince all the kids that their shitty product was better than Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Like the Street Sharks’ conscious hatred of pizza, the marketing team behind Adventures in Dinosaur City fucking hated the heroes in a half shell, as evidenced by the film’s tagline, “Long before there were turtles, the world was ruled by dinosaurs.” Your movie has dinosaurs! There’s no need to diss Ninja Turltes (a franchise already on the wane by 1992) in order to convince kids to check it out.

The film’s director, Brett Thompson didn’t do much after this, other than a documentary about Ed Wood in 1995 to capitalize on his film school friend Tim Burton’s narrative feature on the same subject. That’s kind of a shame. While Adventures in Dinosaur City is drenched in melted Colby Jack cheese, it’s a solid family adventure. With dinosaurs who look like Yoshi in the Super Mario Bros. movie and the kid from Hocus Pocus, how can you go wrong?

(Source: vhshitfest)