Life in the Dreamhouse
Feb. 8th, 2014 10:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
calzephyrSo, I saw the weirdest things on YouTube last night and it didn't involve the genre known as YTP or the latest Cyriak animation. Nope, this trip to weirdsville involves the officially sanctioned, poorly animated and illogically written children's cartoon. It's true that we've come a long way from the 80s, where a show featuring Mr. T as a bodyguard to a squad of gymnasts hit the air (it's notable for being Maurice Lamarr's debut voice acting gig). Did I mention they were cross country travelling, crime fighting gymnasts? Am I the only one that remembers this? Thankfully the Internet never forgets:
Fast forward thirty some years and we have Barbie: Life in the Dream House which takes no culture prisoners. The show isn't so much about Barbie as it is about her sisters and her friends. Someone on MetaFilter mentioned that, as a father with little girls, the show was "kind of funny". It's not just funny, it's meta funny and always hyper-aware of itself and it's subject. Kids won't understand a whit of all that's going on in the background, but it's definitely something parents will watch with kids. It's like Mattel said "We need to be hip and cool and make fun of ourselves before others do". And they pulled it off! The dolls are dolls, and their lives are shameless riffs of the self-absorbed, plastic world they inhabit. At least poor Ken finally gets a personality - he's a big nerd who builds Barbie a sentient wardrobe with a curmudgeonly AI who resembles Hal. The episodes are short and sweet, and have no moral at the end.
Some of the episodes seemed cribbed right from seven year olds though, like where Barbie and her sisters have to wash all their pets. They careen around the mansion in a golf cart with Tawny the horse in the driver's seat. Then, I swear, they reenact the ending of Thelma and Louise - hand clasp and ray of light - as they throttle over the mezzanine level - only to land safely in a pool of bubbles. What did I just watch? So far I've noted a "math is hard" joke among other pop culture references. A lot of cartoons for girls are pretty vapid, but Life in the Dreamhouse is not what you would expect from Mattel - Barbie and her sisters assemble their accessories, rebuild Ken's car and outwit their mean neighbour Raquel. There's even TOY COLLECTOR JOKES for cryin' out loud - Barbie's youngest sister Chelsea ("Hey, isn't your name Kelly?") comes down with plastic pox. The trouble with vinyl toys is that they come down with a weird kind of spotting - with MLP's it's dubbed "pony cancer".
Anyway, I was only watching all of this because I was working on a drawing. After an hour, I decided to switch to She-Ra, and came across possibly the weirdest 80s cartoon episode ever. Even weirder than Rubik's Cube (yes, they made a cartoon about that). "Swifty's Baby" is definitely not one of the J. Michael Straczynski episodes. It's actually the last episode ever made and the writers obviously didn't care anymore. OK, so get this, all the time She-Ra and Swift Wind have been together, She-Ra didn't realize that Swift Wind had a lady friend on Unicorn Island. And she's pregnant! Naturally some bad stuff happens and Hordak kidnaps Star for some reason I forget (and don't want to watch again to find out). With no way into Hordak's base on Beast Island, She-Ra uses her sword to drill a hole through the ocean floor and comes up in just the right spot to surprise the baddies. But oh no, Hordak turns on his force field beam and She-Ra is trapped!
Luckily, Swifty is outside with his unicorn buddies. It's important that his baby is born on Unicorn Island, otherwise it will just be a horse. Swifty actually dives into the She-Ra sized hole (because you know he can get his big horsey butt through it, no prob) and swims up into Hordak's lair. There's a reason Filmation cartoons are called "children's old time radio" because the entire time he's swimming underwater, he talks about how he has to hold his breath. Unfortunately there's no time to move Star once Swifty frees She-Ra. Not only did her water break, water is also leaking in! Oh no!
I was telling my husband about the episode up to this point. "But that isn't the most messed up thing that happened," I said as he tried to get dressed. "No! Because then She-Ra gets on the King of the Unicorns and they all fly into space, and use She-Ra's strength to pull Etheria's moon out of orbit because the tides are controlled by the moon! That way the water will recede."
He squinted at me and said "I wish you grew up next door to me."
But oh man, this trainwreck was still rolling the tracks. The big reveal is that the foal is a horse. Swifty proudly tells She-Ra that it doesn't matter that his child is a horse, he loves him just the way he is. But, it's all a fleeting thought, as She-Ra uses the power of Greyskull to turn him into a winged unicorn anyway. I imagine the animation team went on a royal bender after producing that episode.
Fast forward thirty some years and we have Barbie: Life in the Dream House which takes no culture prisoners. The show isn't so much about Barbie as it is about her sisters and her friends. Someone on MetaFilter mentioned that, as a father with little girls, the show was "kind of funny". It's not just funny, it's meta funny and always hyper-aware of itself and it's subject. Kids won't understand a whit of all that's going on in the background, but it's definitely something parents will watch with kids. It's like Mattel said "We need to be hip and cool and make fun of ourselves before others do". And they pulled it off! The dolls are dolls, and their lives are shameless riffs of the self-absorbed, plastic world they inhabit. At least poor Ken finally gets a personality - he's a big nerd who builds Barbie a sentient wardrobe with a curmudgeonly AI who resembles Hal. The episodes are short and sweet, and have no moral at the end.
Some of the episodes seemed cribbed right from seven year olds though, like where Barbie and her sisters have to wash all their pets. They careen around the mansion in a golf cart with Tawny the horse in the driver's seat. Then, I swear, they reenact the ending of Thelma and Louise - hand clasp and ray of light - as they throttle over the mezzanine level - only to land safely in a pool of bubbles. What did I just watch? So far I've noted a "math is hard" joke among other pop culture references. A lot of cartoons for girls are pretty vapid, but Life in the Dreamhouse is not what you would expect from Mattel - Barbie and her sisters assemble their accessories, rebuild Ken's car and outwit their mean neighbour Raquel. There's even TOY COLLECTOR JOKES for cryin' out loud - Barbie's youngest sister Chelsea ("Hey, isn't your name Kelly?") comes down with plastic pox. The trouble with vinyl toys is that they come down with a weird kind of spotting - with MLP's it's dubbed "pony cancer".
Anyway, I was only watching all of this because I was working on a drawing. After an hour, I decided to switch to She-Ra, and came across possibly the weirdest 80s cartoon episode ever. Even weirder than Rubik's Cube (yes, they made a cartoon about that). "Swifty's Baby" is definitely not one of the J. Michael Straczynski episodes. It's actually the last episode ever made and the writers obviously didn't care anymore. OK, so get this, all the time She-Ra and Swift Wind have been together, She-Ra didn't realize that Swift Wind had a lady friend on Unicorn Island. And she's pregnant! Naturally some bad stuff happens and Hordak kidnaps Star for some reason I forget (and don't want to watch again to find out). With no way into Hordak's base on Beast Island, She-Ra uses her sword to drill a hole through the ocean floor and comes up in just the right spot to surprise the baddies. But oh no, Hordak turns on his force field beam and She-Ra is trapped!
Luckily, Swifty is outside with his unicorn buddies. It's important that his baby is born on Unicorn Island, otherwise it will just be a horse. Swifty actually dives into the She-Ra sized hole (because you know he can get his big horsey butt through it, no prob) and swims up into Hordak's lair. There's a reason Filmation cartoons are called "children's old time radio" because the entire time he's swimming underwater, he talks about how he has to hold his breath. Unfortunately there's no time to move Star once Swifty frees She-Ra. Not only did her water break, water is also leaking in! Oh no!
I was telling my husband about the episode up to this point. "But that isn't the most messed up thing that happened," I said as he tried to get dressed. "No! Because then She-Ra gets on the King of the Unicorns and they all fly into space, and use She-Ra's strength to pull Etheria's moon out of orbit because the tides are controlled by the moon! That way the water will recede."
He squinted at me and said "I wish you grew up next door to me."
But oh man, this trainwreck was still rolling the tracks. The big reveal is that the foal is a horse. Swifty proudly tells She-Ra that it doesn't matter that his child is a horse, he loves him just the way he is. But, it's all a fleeting thought, as She-Ra uses the power of Greyskull to turn him into a winged unicorn anyway. I imagine the animation team went on a royal bender after producing that episode.
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no subject
Date: 2014-02-10 01:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-02-10 02:24 am (UTC)The funny thing with She-Ra is so oddly detailed the horses mouths are. I'm not sure why that stuck out. And all the women kind of look the same. Oh, this episode also used Star Trek sounds just for extra WTH.
no subject
Date: 2014-03-09 04:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-03-14 03:49 am (UTC)