Thursday, October 29, 2009

Big Review- Scary Godmother

scary godmother Pictures, Images and Photos

referring back to holiday specials lets take a look at one of my all time, if not my very favorite specials, scary godmother: halloween spooktacular. the special is a cell shaded animated one hour long program that runs every halloween season during its withering days. now i feel a bit bad for this year because i missed the entire beginning and caught the ending (as well as narrowly avoiding getting the chowder theme stuck in my head as it blared right after the special) hopefully this special will air again either tomorrow or saturday (halloween). i missed my ritual. so lets talk about the special in detail. scary godmother is an hour long with commercial breaks meaning it actually clocks in at about 45-50 minutes which in my books its a little short but hey its longer than monsters vs aliens MPFOS. the special looks and feels like no other program because of the animation style. who you can give visionary credit to Jill Thompson responsible for amazing sandman related books like "death at deaths door" and "dead boy detectives". she also wrote a childrens book based off of neil gaimans sandman series entitled the "little endless storybook" reading this for the first time was coincidentally the first time i had a nerdgasm. she is very visionary and that special style could have been left to regular animation, but i think they went one more step out of the way just to appeal to the creativity within the source material. oh, by the way apparently there was a line of "scary godmother" childrens graphic novels before this movie, making this a comic book movie review (OH WHAT FUN!). so the special starts off promising by introducing you to some obnoxious kids and the most adorable animated little girl in the world, hannah. Hannah is like a bratz doll on crack (crackz) her eyes are like 80 % of her head and her voice is so cute it beats edward's from "rock-a-doodle".

Scary Godmother Pictures, Images and Photos

the kids are out trick-or-treating when the lead kid jimmy decides to be a dickhole and makes hannah go into this haunted house, once hannah is in this house she discovers the fantastic world known as the "fright side". inside the fright side are all sorts of crazy quirky characters for hannah to meet. i'll give you the rundown:

scary godmother: the titular character is a fun loving at times motherly acting person. she enjoys all the simpler things in life like, carving pumpkins, dancing, and... well thats pretty much her range. sometimes she freaks me out. like in the scene where she gets mad at harry for eating all the desserts, she almost was like a really angry mother. and really angry mothers are scary. if momma aint happy, no ones happy.
Mr scully pettibone: the gay stereotype of this movie, mr scully is the chef, he sings showtunes, he acts really flamery and then the special just kind of ends. he is a skeleton and a rather boring one at that since nothing he really does pushes plot points. but in this special i dont think anyone pushes anything of a plot point. and also why are most skeletons gay in pop culture? its weird... definetly something to look into.


bug-a-boo:
bug-a-boo belongs where the wild things are no questions. he looks like a Maurice Sendak creature. he has a bunch of eyes, a mouth that goes from ear to ear, and horns. bug is an under the bed monster. sort of like monsters inc only all he does is scare kids and theres no real benefit from it. i think he gets off on it.
harry: screw harry because whenever he is on screen i want to shut the special off and never watch it again, he is an over dramatic werewolf who is an attention grabbing jerk. also for some reason he is always hungry, and i dont know if thats because he is a werewolf or just because its stupid.
the vampires: i have nothing to say about the vampires because i hate them. orson especially who almost becomes hannah's love interest or something. its dumb, an hour long special does not need a love interest between to little kids... this isnt my girl. still i have to admit the design on them is okay, i like their twisted bodies which almost remind me of nosferatu.

scary godmother Pictures, Images and Photos

so thats the "broomates" as godmother calls them. each has their own perk and each is pretty watered down, but that doesent mean its still not a great special. actually, a witch, a skeleton, a werewolf, a monster and some vampires... why not add a ghost cat? oh... they have one. thats like hitting two birds with one stone. this special is so ridiculously Cliche' they should have called it; "scaryotypical cliche' halloween Schlocktacular" that would have at least readied me for the large amounts of halloween myth that was to be stereotyped. and its not parody, i mean not all of it. throwing aside the cliche elements and the somewhat annoying characters the special has a lot of meat and superb humor. there is one scene for instance where the bullies are deciding on a new leader, when they vote they all vote for themselves (with exception to the boy and girl who vote for each other and dont vote for themselves as well) so then they play rock paper scissors but all keep choosing rock. the humor in this special is appealing in the sense that its awkward and tongue in cheek. it seems to have its own visual take on halloween and i like that. it doesent try to be the next best thing but rather becomes its own special kind magic. its one i watch yearly, from 2003 to now. i hope it becomes a tradition with cartoon network to air every year (hasn't stopped'em yet) forever but you never know.

there was a sequel special entitled "scary godmother 2: revenge of jimmy" but it sucked so i wont talk about it. maybe next year if i catch it i will do a full review but i just dont remember it well enough to care. anyways, have a great halloween, i will be back tomorrow to review one more movie, and then again on halloween to do a full "halloween retrospective" based on 2009's season'o'scares until next time (tomorrow) this is leatherman signing off!

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