The Worst CGI Kid Films In Recent Memory

[mr3urious]

So many questions about this. Why did they need for the token black kid to bust out random raps? Why does his grandmother stutter like a stroke victim? Why is that rendition of "Good King Wenceslas" so hauntingly off-key? And what station felt the need to air this not-broadcast-quality-at-all abomination on TV? Public access?

 

[cuppajoe95]

Holy mackerel. I was expecting bad, but not this!

At least the characters resemble the concept art more so than the showreel and the end credits song is actually not half bad. As for the voice acting, most of them give that "I wish I was doing something else right now" type of performance. Not to mention that Paige O'Hara and Jodi Benson's singing voices are somewhat dodgy when their singing as Belle and Ariel respectively were quite good.

Oh yeah, and any Balto fan who didn't like Wolf Quest ought to know that this abomination is the worst thing with the voices of Jodi Benson and Mark Hamill.

And what station felt the need to air this not-broadcast-quality-at-all abomination on TV? Public access?

According to some sources, including forums where people expressed their disbelief at it, it was actually aired on The WB and an ABC station in New York. How they could possibly look at this and think it was fit to air is beyond me.

By the way, I'm a user on TV Tropes. I can put it on the "So Bad, It's Horrible" page for Western Animation. Perhaps I should mention Wolf Tracer Studios and Dinosaur Island too.

 

[Drtooth]

According to some sources, including forums where people expressed their disbelief at it, it was actually aired on The WB and an ABC station in New York. How they could possibly look at this and think it was fit to air is beyond me.

Being someone who actually watched it the whole way through back when it mysteriously aired on my UPN channel (yeah, mine was on UPN), I have to admit that's the most accurate way to describe it. Disbelief and confusion. TV CGI at the time was at least Jimmy Neutron or Beast Machines quality or slightly under. Why would something that looks lower quality than "Money for Nothing" almost 20 years later be cleared for air on American TV? Even local furniture ads looked better than that.

I didn't know what to make of it at the time. I almost thought (and I'm not kidding) this show was actually made by kids (at least the writing) as some sort of charity awareness of some kind. And as a result of me wandering on that conclusion, I still thought it was beyond terrible, but felt a little bad about it. The special never appearing ever again was pretty suspicious. Then I forgot about it. Because it was forgettable because of how lousy it was. That is until I read about it on the Lost Media wiki and memories of it flooded back. And watching it on a clear computer screen and not on a fuzzy analog broadcast that just barely came in with a LOT of fuzz made it look even worse.

But it is true to the character designs. Too bad the character designs are terrible to begin with. Half the characters are like leaning at 75 degree angles.

By the way, I'm a user on TV Tropes. I can put it on the "So Bad, It's Horrible" page for Western Animation. Perhaps I should mention Wolf Tracer Studios and Dinosaur Island too.

I'd put the whole studio down there, not just the one movie.

Honestly, I'm not kidding. I want to see someone like Nostalgia Critic, Mr. Enter, Rebel Taxi or someone else tackle this. I really should have made an animation blog back when I wanted to, come to think about it. This needs to be as big a joke on the internet as the Titanic animated movies from Italy And side note: remember, the one that's actually the equivalent of an Enchanted Tales DVD (the one with the Rapping Dog) is actually more tame and grounded in reality than the actual "blockbuster" film that has dog faced octopi and sharks trying to sink the Titanic.

 

[cuppajoe95]

I'd put the whole studio down there, not just the one movie.

Well, I've added them to the page on TV Tropes.

I still suspect that Colin Slater engineered a "get-rich-quick" scheme rather than telling a heartfelt story, but TV stations doing the bare minimum of effort to broadcast it (i.e. with little to no advertising beforehand and at random times of the day), the involvement of a no-name TV distributor and all the overwhelmingly negative reception it got prevented such a thing from happening.

 

[Drtooth]

I can try and respect a home grown, grassroots animation studio just trying to make a name for itself somewhere. I just can't respect this. One of the most famous examples of a bunch of guys coming together to make a great piece of indie animation is of course, this beauty.

Made just for a convention with a handful of people. That should make every aspiring animator feel small as heck. Like I said in another thread about the difference between the Roger Corman Fantastic Four movie and the current one, at least the RC version has nothing but love coming out of it. To even just draw every character, Western and Japanese possible in the span of a few seconds (something not even Disney and all their animators could do with that Roger Rabbit short, the Roller Coaster one) is just... wow. And those guys went on to become an animation studio. Gainax, I believe. Now, here's the comparison of whyu I bring this up.

Now we look at this studio. By all means, it's a small studio of a few people, probably just working off not that state of the art computers. And it looks like someone even tried (and failed) to make their own animation software (or at least copyrighted a flismy name for it). The "Puppet-o-Vision" or whatever. And it's just as home made looking as anything. But with time and effort, they probably could have made something of at least just under Beast Wars/Reboot quality (after several years of advancement). Instead we have some ugly cross between the aforementioned Dire Straights video and the Australian Nintendo "You cannot beat us" ad, sans whimsy. And I could easily overlook the terrible animation (Rocky and Bullwinkle fan and all) it the writing wasn't so terrible. I mean, oh! Look how progressive the portrayals are. The black kid loves to talk in Hip Hop. That's not so much as racist as much as what an out of touch white guy would come up with as "hip." It's the equivalent of the characters from Rocket Power, actually. And the guy was deluded to think this would be a hit series.

All and all, I'm sure the obvious comparison here, especially the fact that random talented celebrities were sadly roped into this, is with Oogieloves. But I say the delusions of grandeur here are more reminiscent of The Cheetah Men. Certainly has the same amount of technical knowhow behind it.

 

[cuppajoe95]

All and all, I'm sure the obvious comparison here, especially the fact that random talented celebrities were sadly roped into this, is with Oogieloves. But I say the delusions of grandeur here are more reminiscent of The Cheetah Men. Certainly has the same amount of technical knowhow behind it.

Now that you mention it, those comparisons seem to make sense. To quote what TV Tropes' "So Bad, It's Horrible" page said about Action 52...

"Well, they weren't "plans" so much as "pie-in-the-sky dreaming with absolutely no grounding in what we call reality"

In fact, Active Enterprises had a similar disregard for the tastes and intelligence of children, much less human beings in general, when it came to designing and marketing Action 52. Those people had to have been really deluded if they thought people would want to buy more of their (planned but cancelled) products after spending nearly $200 on a poorly-designed cartridge with crappy games (including some that don't work).

Similarly, Colin Slater obviously had to have no knowledge whatsoever of animation if he thought his half-***** CGI would appeal to anybody. At least he didn't charge TV audiences an insane amount of money to see his work (aside from the subscription bills, that is).

I wouldn't be surprised at all if Wolf Tracer had sweatshop conditions much like Active Enterprises did.

 

[cuppajoe95]

Around this time, the CGI film Rock Dog was supposed to come out in China (where it was partly made) but it was delayed until next year. And who should be responsible for that but, once again...

..the Weinstein Company! *insert APM dun-dun-dun!*

I think that's even more proof that when it comes to CGI animation (or certain other films), they just cannot be trusted.

 

[D'Snowth]

So. . . . THE SECRET LIFE OF PETS, eh? Ehh. . . . so, it's THE SECRET LIFE OF TOYS, but with pets? I smell an Oscar. Not.

On a related note, is there some kind of unwritten rule now that says all animated movies have to have at least two or more SNL castmembers doing the voices?

 

[Drtooth]

That's the next non-Minion related thing from Illumitoon studios and Universal, isn't it?

Can't say I even know much about the project to make a real decision to like it or not. Don't even think I saw a trailer yet. Illumitoon is pretty much touch and go. Other than the Despicable Me/Minions movies, the only other thing they released was the half good/half not that great Lorax. It's pretty telling that the film didn't have enough to go on to make the real story of the film just that. A story inside a film. The Onceler stuff was pretty inspired (loosely speaking) and fun (How Bad Can I Be is catchier than it needs to be, and the song they cut to make for that one was even better), but the wraparound padding was ...bleh. Seems that if it was all Onceler, the thing would have been an expensive TV special.

Now, I loved all three of the DM/M movies, with the understanding that the second 2 movies wouldn't have the huge emotional punch the first had. I mean, bad guy adopting girls for an evil plan and growing to love them can only be done once, right? As long as the follow up films didn't take away the sweetness of the original ending, I think they did pretty well. But the thing is, those are their signature characters and their best films. And they have the highest sequel ratio, mainly due to their low output.

Conceptually, I don't really think I'd dig a "what pets do when humans aren't looking" film because... well... that's not a very fresh trope, now isn't it? Lady and The Tramp already did it decades ago. Then there's Secret Files of the SpyDogs and Cats and Dogs (which I swear whoever made that one saw Spydogs and said "yeah, no one watched this cartoon so we can rip it off and no one will be the wiser")... all and all, I almost think it's their attempt to "Antz" Disney's Zootopia. 'cept Zootopia seems to be some deconstruction of anthro animal cartoons.

 

[Luke kun]

Eh, the stupid pet movie is going to become the next cash cow. But I DID like the death metal poodle gag in the trailer.