Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue

The first and last spectacular meeting of the biggest stars of animated children’s shows (plus Alf) epitomises pure camp blending hardcore propaganda eliciting feelings of awkwardness, the rigid aesthetic kitsch of the late 1980s and early ’90s, and bizarre psychedelia, which is somewhat counterproductive, given the subject of the project. The stars of DuckTales and Looney Tunes, Winnie the Pooh, the Chipmunks, the Muppet Babies and even the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles joins forces in order to rescue the main hero from the clutches of drugs and to instil in children the knowledge that drugs are bad. Given the fact that most of the creators of the original animated franchises undoubtedly snorted something, the effort seems extremely disingenuous, an impression that is further enhanced by the stiff cautionary monologues and the totally bizarre song about how to turn down offers of drugs. The whole film essentially works as a chain of bizarrely interconnected sequences that resemble what is probably the worst acid trip you can imagine, because once the drugs kick in and all of your favourite animated characters appear to you, then it seems highly schizophrenic when they tell you that you should stop taking drugs. It’s as if the world of absurdity, irrationality and anti-logic is a VIP lounge only for the biggest addicts, where you are not wanted. But just in case anyone thinks this is some frivolous nonsense, the whole thing is introduced with appropriately senile grace by the elder George Bush and his wife. (04/05/2013)