Fluppy Love

Disney is odd. Over the years they've given us a plethora of forgettable stuff. Mostly we ignore it. Occasionally (once every two years or so, maybe less) they'll drum up something good, and we forgive them for most past mistakes. Hiring Michael Eisner, however, we can not forgive... but that's another story.

Can you believe I'm saying all this? I'm a Disneyland junkie. But even I know that some weird stuff has come from that company... but, moving on...

Now, as you probably know, when Disney makes a movie, they go all out. There's the bombardment of Happy Meal toys, stuffed creatures, playsets, clothing... mostly aimed at kids, in the hopes that six-year-old Susie will become a walking ad for the film. (Gotta love Susie.) Mostly, though, these pieces of merchandise serve three main purposes: 1) Merchandise sales = money, 2) To advertise the film, which should = more money/revenue, and 3) As a hope that the Cinderella T-shirt little Susie's wearing remains in hand-me-down circulation for all eternity; thus preventing Cinderella from ever being forgotten. Cuz who'd want that?

But... sometimes the system fails. Sometimes they think a movie is going to rock, and then it doesn't... and suddenly there's a surplus of Pocahontas necklaces. See... Disney had a few theatrical fiascos in the mid-90s. Hunchback, Hercules, and Mulan just weren't quite up to Lion King or Little Mermaid standards. And while Pocahontas was cinematically very good, it was surrounded by such controversy and anger over the fact that it's not historically accurate ("Cuz I like meh films historically ack-yu-rate!") that it doesn't seem to be on many people's favorites list today -- or else they're too scared to admit it. Now, all these movies didn't exactly tank, but... some were kinda lame. Even Disney knew it. Admit it? Never. Try to do better? As surely as Mickey is a mouse, you betcha!

In 1986, Disney put out a line of merchandise for a movie called Fluppy Dogs. Stuffed dogs... lunch boxes... who knows what else. You don't remember this movie? Don't worry. Unless you have a really good memory, or unless your VCR captured this one-Sunday-night special back in '86, you probably aren't going to remember the Fluppies. That's right. It wasn't a feature film. It never made it to video with its very own nifty clamshell box. It was a one hour movie that aired one time. Word on the street known as the internet says that it was supposed to have been a pilot for a TV series. A series that never came to be. But why not? Bad ratings? Darnit, why manufacture stuffed dogs for a shortass TV movie? The sense this situation makes is nonexistent!

Ok, breaking news -- my roommate insists that Fluppy Dogs was also a Saturday morning cartoon show for awhile. She says she never missed an episode. I wish there was more evidence to support this... but oh well. Movie -- or short-lived TV show -- doesn't matter. What matters is that its creator has forsaken it.

Let's talk about the movie. A bright spot on the 1986 TV lineup. A movie that captured this then-six-year-old's attention in an almost incredible way. A little-known flick calledFluppy Dogs. Now I would like to say that I do really like this movie, so don't think for a second that my nitpicks are in an attempt to bash it or anything. Nooo. It's a good movie.

Hehe. So okay, my first problem with the whole thing is this: Fluppies are not dogs. They spend the whole freaking movie telling us that. They may look like dogs but they are, in fact, merely mythical creatures that kind of sort of resemble dogs.

So why call the movie Fluppy Dogs? Beats me.

It is a dark and stormy and cliched night. Five dog-like things are edging along a cliff, scared out of their non-canine wits. They carry a crystal-like key and are searching for a door to another world. Because that's what they do, that's why! Long story short, that door leads to an unfriendly world with a weird creaturey guy, and a door in that world leads into our world -- more specifically, a grocery store run by the Time-to-Make-the-Donuts guy, or, at any rate, his cousin Fred.



Fred is none-too-pleased that there are furry creatures loose in his store (cleverly named "Food Mart"). A chase ensues; the mutts escape -- only to scamper across the path of one J.J. Wagstaff (unforunate name),



a local tycoon/dork who likes to collect exotic creatures. Naturally, once he discovers the "dogs" can talk, he is intrigued. He finds out that they're members of the legendary species Fluppy, and he wants them for his very own.

Meanwhile, the Fluppies -- Stanley (blue), Ozzie (green), Tippi (pink), and Dink and Bink (orange and yellow) -- await their fate in a cage at the local shelter. Yes, alas, they have been captured.



Before J.J. Wagstaff can get to them, however, Stanley is adopted by a freaky-looking woman (whose name is Mrs. Bingham but who I will call Mrs. Bighead, cuz... I mean, well... look at her!) who ends up giving him to her 10-year-old son, Jamie, as a birthday present.



Jamie is less than thrilled. He wanted a big dog. To which I must say, Jamie? Be glad you have a dog and shut up. I mean, honestly. Mrs. Bighead suggests Jamie take the dog for a walk. So he does. Stanley escapes. Jamie chases. Jamie stumbles upon a construction site and, being the moron that he is, decides to climb an old ladder to get a better view. Ladder cracks and Jamie looks to be doomed. Yayyy.

But of course... Stanley has to go and save him.

Sooo long story short once again, Jamie realizes that Stanley is special. Stanley tells Jamie about the other Fluppies. Jamie takes his birthday money and goes to the pound to adopt a dog, cuz, well, apparently in this town they'll let 10-year-old kids adopt pets without parental consent. Jamie only has enough money for one dog, however, so he takes Tippi. Naturally, Mrs. Bighead is unthrilled about the appearance of a pink dog, not to mention a female (yay, puppies!) so she makes Jamie give the dog away to the neighbor, a 16-year-old named Claire. Though the movie never says so, I'm willing to bet there is something going on with Jamie and Claire. I bet now, 16 years later, they're married with 2.4 kids. But moving on...

That night, as Jamie and Stanley are getting ready for bed, a disturbing moment in the film occurs. Stanley uses Jamie's toothbrush.



Jamie doesn't object. But hey, if he wants someone else's bacteria all over his toothbrush, that's his choice. Who am I to judge or object?

So Jamie goes to bed. Stanley gets on the bed too. Jamie scratches Stanley's ears. Suddenly they are flying out the window, bed and all! It's very magical of them. They fly to the shelter and rescue the other Fluppies seconds before J.J. Wagstaff enters the room. Wagstaff witnesses their departure out a skylight. Now Wagstaff is mad. Hoo baby, he's mad.

The next day, the Fluppies tell Jamie they need to start looking for the portal home. A sad goodbye occurs. Cut to Jamie's classroom at school...



Jamie's teacher is scolding him in front of the entire class for having incomplete homework. What kind of of barbaric, evil teacher lambasts students in front of everybody like that? Not including my fourth grade teacher, that is? Well, whatever. At any rate, when Stanley taps on the classroom window to get Jamie's attention, Jamie is all to happy to make his escape.



Outside the school, Jamie encounters all five Fluppies. They need his help. Come with us, they say. Jamie's response? "I can't leave school!" Hello, dummy, you already did.

Jamie helps the Fluppies get to the next potential portal. (I should point out that the Fluppies can tell when a portal is nearby thanks to Ozzie's advanced sniffing skills.) Door opens and... water! Lots of it! The pups nearly drown and Jamie goes home drenched. He enlists the help of Claire [insert sly French-sounding laugh here] to help him dry his clothes. Now they're all in Jamie's basement.



Suddenly, Ozzie smells the existence of another portal. Why, it's in Jamie's basement! They open it and -- in walks a big orange creature... because every kids' movie should have a big orange creature.



They call him a Falumpus. Not sure why. For the next five minutes of the movie, the Falumpus proceeds to Poseidon the house. Then everybody has a pitch-in party to clean up. What a precious movie.

Yeah. So anyway, the movie gets a little weird at this point. Mrs. Bighead yells at Jamie for skipping school -- and for acting weird. Three of the Fluppies go off again to look for the portal home. When they do find it, they don't go through, but, instead, go back to get the others. (At this point, to add some tension to the movie (because a Falumpus just isn't enough), we learn that the magical key the Fluppies possess is about to expire of its magicalness, potentially leaving them trapped in our dimension forever!)

J.J. Wagstaff then proceeds to kidnap Ozzie. Everyone must go save him. In the end, Wagstaff is flattened by the Falumpus (oh, so that was the Falumpus's reason for being!) and all ends well. The Fluppies get back to their homeland, but of course, Jamie and Claire are sad to see their beloved pets go. Yes, the pets they had for 3-odd days. It's sad.



Weeks, maybe months later, Jamie and Claire are sitting in the snow talking about how they miss the Fluppies. Claire, in her miniskirt and unbuttoned jacket, doesn't seem to mind the cold. Suddenly, the Fluppies appear! And not just Stanley and the other four, but hourdes



of Fluppies! Jamie and Claire are delighted because they don't realize the potential for mass destruction that 1,000 Fluppies possess! So young, so naive...

Moral of the story: If your mom gives you a blue dog for your birthday and then proceeds to tell you you're acting weird, ignore her.


(Want to watch the movie? It's now on YouTube!)

---

This article was originally published on my old website AlligatorJuice.com on April 19, 2003.

The kid who voiced Jamie died in 2011. R.I.P.
The movie is still not on DVD.

Good Idea/Bad Idea - Disney-Style

Back when Disney's Beauty and the Beast was being made, a song was written for, but ultimately not included in, the film. When the film was adapted into a Broadway show, the song was included on that program. That song, "Human Again," is a sweeping musical number sung by the castle's enchanted objects. They lament about their current state (as... objects) and sing about how they hope Belle breaks the spell so they can get back to business. The song proved so popular on Broadway that, when the film was re-released for Imax ten years after its initial debut, it now included an all-new scene featuring "Human Again," new animation, and some additional dialogue between Belle and the Beast. When the DVD was released, viewers were given a choice between watching the original version of the film, or the "Special Edition" with "Human Again" seamlessly put in.

I've been a fan of Beauty and the Beast since age 11, and had watched my VHS of it many, many times. I bought that DVD the second it was available. I watched the version with "Human Again" and liked it so much that, now, I nearly always watch the film with that scene included. It's a great song, and it adds an extra -- but not intrusive -- dimension to the film.

Since that seemed to work out for audiences, Disney decided to do something similar when they released Pocahontas on DVD. There was this song, "If I Never Knew You." And it's a really great song. They got pop artists to do a rendition of it to play over the end credits, but the song wasn't in the actual film. While the lyrics fit with the theme of the movie, the scene it was intended for just... didn't work. Test audiences, it seems, didn't go for it. It dragged things down. And so it was cut.

But hey... why not reinstate it, animate a scene for it, and get John Smith and Pocahontas to sing it to each other?

Lord have mercy, that's terrible. Is that really Mel Gibson singing? If so, the man needs vocal training, stat. Even The Poc sounds off. And I'm sorry, guys, but those tent walls aren't soundproof... there are probably two very bewildered guards standing outside of it, covering their ears. STOP. JUST STOP.

So, to summarize:

Human Again, sung in and around the castle by the enchanted objects? Good Idea.

If I Never Knew You, sung inside a tent while a weak-voiced John Smith is tied to a pole? Bad idea.

Very bad idea.

There's A Trope For That - Week Of November 11th

This Week's Trope: Magic Feather

"Alice is given a supposed magic MacGuffin that will give her special/exceptional abilities. She does amazingly well, but then she loses the item. She goes back to her mentors, only to learn that it was just a useless placebo, and "the magic was inside you all along!" Sometimes the audience knows, or at least suspects, that Alice's abilities were her own, but other times The Reveal is just as much a surprise to them as to her.

In comic books, a retooled Super Hero Origin sometimes shifts a character's gimmicky power from artifact-dependent to innate, with the revelation that the famous prop or incantation was simply a focus.

Supertrope to Placebotinum Effect, and of course this is the Placebo Effect. It's also a neat way to subvert the Amulet of Concentrated Awesome. May or may not be a character's Charm Point. Somewhat of a Dead Horse Trope in newer works (a common subversion is that the character throws away her 'feather,' only to discover that she needed it all along).

The key to this trope is in The Reveal, so examples where the feather is never shown to be bogus do not count. If the character (or the audience) believes the feather does nothing, but this is never put to the test, see Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane.

Sister trope of All That Glitters and Motivational Lie. Compare It's the Journey that Counts. Not to be confused with Mario's flying cape item."

---

Well, time to reference Harry Potter again, and I --

Okay, okay, OKAY.

But I just want it to be clear that I could. 

If I wanted to.

Fun fact: Dumbo was one of the first movies I ever had on videotape as a kid. I didn't particularly love it though. It was depressing! There's bullying, cruelty, parent-child separation, and -- the one thing that used to scare the absolutely crap out of me as a kid -- fire.

Yeah, remember how Dumbo has to jump from a "burning" building at the circus? It's probably controlled fire, but still. Terrifying. Come to think of it, a lot of kids' movies back then had fire scenes. Disney's Robin Hood... Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown... The Little Mermaid... Sleeping Beauty....  What were they trying to do to us? (And by us, I mean me.)

Well anyway, you know the story -- it turns out Dumbo doesn't really need the magic feather to fly because apparently his really huge ears will suffice. 

There's a lesson in that for all of us, I think.

Just gotta figure out what it is.

Let down thy golden hair!

It makes me sad that I'm evidently the only one in the world who likes the movie Pocahontas. For me, it's this terrific movie about preserving nature, the importance of peace, being unselfish, and following your heart, but all I ever hear about it is how it's not historically accurate because Pocahontas never loved John Smith in real life and how she really was supposed to be 12 years old and curveless and how in reality she wouldn't have worn such a short skirt -- or any skirt at all, for that matter.

Well fine, but if you ignore all THAT....

Anyway, so Pocahontas -- the movie, not the short-skirted Native American beauty -- is going to be 15 years old this year. Pocahontas happens to be the last Disney movie I ever really got excited about. Beauty and the Beast was my first Disney obsession, and from the time that left theaters until Pocahontas came out, I longed for another movie that I could love as much. Aladdin was okay, but it just didn't give me the same feeling. Maybe because its main protagonist was male? No, no... 2/3 of my other Top 3 movies feature a male protagonist, so scratch that. The Lion King, which came out in 1994, had great music, but I didn't care for the story. Then in 1995, Pocahontas came along. And I went nuts for it. I still don't think it's anywhere near as good as BATB, but back in 1995 I was so excited for it. I got all the Burger King toys. And a crown. And stickers. And a big stuffed Meeko from the Disney Store.

Two main memories from the summer of 1995 stick out in my mind...

1) Watching Lois & Clark repeatedly while playing Tetris on my newly-acquired green Gameboy. (To this day, I still kick ass at Tetris, TYVM.)
2) Sitting in my pool in the backyard and singing the Pocahontas songs while playing with the BK toys. Which is embarrassing in that I was 14 and probably too old for that, and that the neighbors could probably hear me. O_o

One of the last animated (non-Pixar) Disney movies I ever saw in theaters was The Hunchback of Notre Dame in '96, and I actually saw it twice, but the second time was so that my cousin Sarah and I could hunt for Belle, cuz those crazy animators decided to put her in a village scene and that amused us greatly. Hunchback is a visually stunning film, even by today's standards, but the story's a bit dark and it lacks the whimsy of BATB.

And the more I think about it, the more I think what I want to see Disney make is fairy tales. Plain old, by-the-book-but-Disneyfied fairy tales. With talking sidekicks, of course, ones that are cute and brave, but for the love of all things good & pure, not sassy or lunkheaded. Or, hey, screw the sidekicks altogether... I mean, Robin Hood did okay without resorting to the inclusion of "things that talk what should not talk," right? Well, except for the animals... they all talked, but everybody in that movie was an animal (even Friar Tuck, though I'll be darned if I know exactly what he was) so I guess that doesn't count. In conclusion, this paragraph has lost all sense of direction.

I guess the main purpose of this blog entry (besides to defend poor Pocahontas) is to say I'm finally looking forward to another Disney movie. Formerly called Rapunzel, now called Tangled, I am anticipating its release with as much eagerness as a person my age can muster. (Yes, I'm 102, thanks for asking.) This one's been in the works for a few years, and they say it'll finally be out this year. And me? I'm all for it. Boy + girl + hijinks - complications = love. In November, I'll be there.


And Disney? It better be good.