Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey

Image via Amazon.com

The ballots are in and the votes have been tabulated. It's official: children love talking animals. There's just something special about anthropomorphic house pets that really drives them wild. And who can blame them? They're undeniably adorable.

The Disney Corporation is well-aware of this fact and has been milking it since its humble steamboat-driving mouse beginnings. Disney's 1993 remake of its own 1963 movie (The Incredible Journey) was no exception. Based on the novel of the same name by Sheila Burnford, the 1963 version featured our furry friends sporting the somewhat less-appealing monikers assigned to them by Burnford: Bodger, Luath, and Tao. Disney must have recognized that the ever-shortening attention spans of 90s children would likely oppose these unfamiliar names and thus replaced them with the snappier Shadow, Chance, and Sassy.

Poster from the original 1963 film. Image via movieposter.com

People of all ages seem to have an uncharacteristic response of sympathy to animals in movies. We could all carelessly watch hundreds of people getting blown to bits in some form of super-advanced special effect explosion and never bat an eye or miss a beat on the popcorn-gobbling. Portray a dog in any form of mild discomfort, on the other hand, and the crowd will weep uncontrollably.

Homeward Bound was no exception. It had a distinctly heartstring-tugging cuteness that made us collectively "awww" over our motley crew of four-legged protagonists. We willingly oblige to completely abandon our usual veneer of disbelief and briefly believe that these animals are feeling what the voice actors claim. It was both easy and enjoyable to get caught up in the magic of the film and root for these pets the whole way through.

The movie begins with a voiceover by Chance, describing his hard-luck life: abandoned, sleeping on the streets, and scavenging in garbage cans. We learn that eventually, this lifestyle led to his imprisonment. You sort of feel bad for this voice, until the camera pans over the voice's source: a hearty American Bulldog. Surprise! Chance is a dog! I never would have guessed it from all of those movie posters and cinematic previews. That voice-over had me fooled. Then again, I was eight, so I'm willing to legitimately plead ignorance.

Chance (voiced by Michael J. Fox) was adopted by a loving family who already has two pets in tow: Sassy the Himalayan cat (Sally Fields) and Shadow the golden retriever (Don Ameche). Chance describes the family's children as belonging to Sassy and Shadow respectively, cementing our understanding of the film's pet-centric view. I spent much of the opening scenes deliberating over why little girl Hope had chosen to name her beloved cat after a teen magazine.



Shadow and Sassy are well-behaved, but Chance is somewhat of a rebel and a bit rough around the edges. The family leaves the pets under the care of a neighbor as they make their exit to San Francisco. They say their goodbyes and are off on their happy, petless way. The pets aren't about to stand for this sort of abadonment, though. Shadow immediately begins to worry about his owner, and convinces the whole gang that they should hightail it it out of there and go find their now-absent human companions.



Here's where our promised Incredible Journey begins. Shadow, Chance, and Sassy make their way into the wide wilderness, embarking on a scenic trip through a stretch of Pacific Northwestern national forest. They navigate their wild, unfamiliar surroundings and weather the less-than-hospitable outdoor conditions. They continue to do adorable animal things, like scoop for fish in the river and cower in the presence of truly terrifying grizzly bears. Really, cute stuff. Here's where I learned some of my most valued childhood lessons, namely that "Cats rule and dogs drool." Or at least it provided me with a mantra of self-reassurance when my parents brought me a cat in lieu of the dog I begged for.

The movie takes a tear-jerking turn when our pal Sassy is swept away by the river and thrust into the pounding falls. Even as a child, this scene made me cry. Shadow and Chance, how could you? You just let your prissy feline friend be smushed by 10,000 pounds of beating water. For shame. Luckily, Sassy is rescued by some class of forest ranger and is quickly nursed back to pre-waterfalling health. She hears her friends barking and scurries off to meet them. Sure, this chance encounter is unlikely, but we're talking about a gang of domesticated animals off on a wilderness adventure. We can concede the smaller improbable situations when we accept the larger one.

As you can imagine, innumerable hilarious hijinks ensue, such as the see-saw style catapulting of a rogue mountain lion. Pure wildlife comedy gold, I tell you. But then, the unthinkable: Chance is attacked by a pesky porcupine. I will forever remember the sage Shadow instructing him, "Whatever you do, don't lick yourself!" Despite being all quilly, Chance soldiers on and the group continues on their way. They somehow manage to rescue a lost child, but in the midst of the celebratory reunion are sent to an animal shelter.

Image via EW.com

Long (incredible, really) story short, Sassy escapes and frees her canine companions. Just when everything seems to be looking up, Shadow falls into a pit. Despite valiant rescue efforts, Shadow is resigned and asks the others to go on without him. By this point, of course, the whole audience is sniffling. A dog dying on film is like onion-chopping for moviegoers: you can pretend all you want that it doesn't effect you, but your eyes are going to water uncontrollably whether you like it or not.

The pets' family is back home and very down about the loss of their furry friends. Then suddenly, like magic, they hear a bark in the distance. Chance come rollicking in, followed by littleSassy. The oldest son is dejected, realizing his dog isn't coming home. In a moment of admittedly corny by nonetheless heartwarming movie magic, Shadow slowly limps over the hill and is reunited with his beloved owner. All is well in the world.

What can I say? I'm a sucker for happy endings. It just goes to show you: if you really love your animals, you'll leave them with irresponsible neighbors with questionable pet-sitting credentials, the pets will escape and embark on a quest into the abyss, they'll encounter hilarious and dangerous obstacles, and will then come prancing on back to you full of wisdom and experience.

At least that's the way I understood it.

LFO

In honor of yesterday being the first day of summer, I thought I'd kick of this sweltering season with a refreshing burst of non sequitor boy band absurdity. The 90s were a heyday for boy bands and girl groups; teenyboppers fell over themselves and swarmed the TRL studios in droves to catch a glimpse of these highly calculated, well-managed, overly-primped and coiffed ensemble acts. One of the greatest mysteries of the 90s is how a decade that began as so musically rebellious so quickly morphed into a veritable bubblegum pop teenage circus*.

Not all boy bands were assembled by sleazy record producers at open casting calls seeking "The Bad Boy" and "The Sensitive One." Sometimes, for reasons probably better left unexplained, these types of musical groups saw fit to form organically. LFO (short for Lyte Funky Ones, if that's any clue to the secret of their long lost street credibility) was one of these bands. The group formed in 1995, which meant they spent a good 4 years failing to crack the ever-enigmatic fortress of formulaic pop music. It's hard to say which is worse: that they never had a doubt about the self-perceived brilliance of their musical output, or that they suffered tumultuous periods of uncertainty but managed to persevere for the sake of the greater good.

After their years of wandering parched in the proverbial music desert, music markets inexplicably decided to offer these boy bandits (boy banders?) a nice cool drink. Sure, they had encountered marginal success on the UK Billboard charts, but they could at best be classified in the late stages of obscurity. By the late 90s, they had finally managed to garner some attention with the accidental leak of their inane demo song, "Summer Girls."


Summer Girls is clearly a very polarizing song. If you zip on over to Amazon.com, you'll see most reviewers give the single either one or five (out of five) stars. These dispensers of judgment speak passionately on both sides of the energy-and-time-wasting debate. One five star reviewer enthusiastically writes, "THE BEST SONG FOR A&F LOVERS!!!!!!!" The liberal use of both all-caps and generous exclamatory punctuation certainly expresses their support for both LFO's single and the bitchin' Abercrombie-wearing lifestyle. Well played, reviewer.

On the other side of the Summer Girls battle, a verbose and angry anti-LFOer contends, "I mean, it would be one thing for this song to simply exist in it's own suicidal dimension, not dragging anyone to the hungry abyss with it; but it insists on pressing itself upon our nation, seizing the nubile minds of our youth in its evil maw and condemning them to a lukewarm existence with candy-coated ideas of life." (And I thought I wrote tirelessly long sentences. That one boasts an incredible 59 words. That's a fourth of an eighth grade book report, right there. Congratulations, Captain Spare Time, for this landmark achievement in wordiness.)

So perhaps that dark, angry reviewer took it a tiny bit too far in demonizing the song's "evil maw" and its captivating trance over the young and impressionable, but the sentiment is clear. A lot of people really, really, did not like this song. It represented all that was empty and vapid about teenage pop music in the late 90s. On the other hand, in some sort of colossal teenybopper inside joke, a serious contingency of people swore this song was brilliant. The jury's still out on this one, so I'll leave it to you to be presiding judge:



It goes a little something like this:

Yeah, I like it when the girls stop by
In the summer
Do you remember?
Do you remember
When we met that summer...

What can I say, I like the way this is going already. rhyming words with themselves is an art form, I tell you. An art form!


New Kids on the Block had a bunch of hits
Chinese food makes me sick
And I think its fly when girls stop by for the
Summer, for the summer

I like girls that wear Abercrombie and Fitch
Id take her if I had one wish
But shes been gone since that summer,
Since that summer

In case you have yet to notice, the song uses completely unrelated examples and reads like a poorly-written advertisement for Abercrombie and Fitch. We get it, you like the store's women's clothing selection and its consumer base. Was this love really worth penning a song over?


Hip-hop mama laid spic and span
Met you one summer and it all began
You're the best girl that I ever did see
The great Larry Bird, jersey 33

When you take a sip, you buzz like a hornet
Billy Shakespeare wrote a whole bunch of sonnets
Call me willy whistle cause I cant speak baby
Somethin' in your eyes went and drove me crazy

When we get past the chorus, we get to see just how nonsensical the song really is. I don't know about you, but I'm fairly certain that "hornet" and sonnet" do not rhyme. A travesty, indeed. If you're going to use completely non-related lines, why not at least make them rhyme properly. Is that so much to ask?


Now I cant forget you and it makes me mad
Left one day and never came back
Stayed all summer then went back home
Macaulay Culkin was in Home Alone
Fell deep in love, but now we ain't speakin'
Michael J. Fox was Alex P. Keaton

When I met you I said my name was Rich
You look like a girl from Abercrombie and Fitch

Alright, I like the way this is going. Hello, 80s and 90s randomly inserted pop culture references! It is nice the way this Rich fellow occasionally intersperses it with something marginally relevant to the song.

New kids on the block had a bunch of hits
Chinese food makes me sick
And I think its fly when girls stop by for the
Summer, for the summer

I like girls that wear Abercrombie and Fitch
I'd take her if I had one wish
But she's been gone since that summer,
Since that summer

The chorus obviously needs no further editorialization. I'm pretty sure it speaks for itself.

Cherry Pez, Coke, Crush Rock, Stud Boogie
Used to hate school, so I had to play hooky
Always been hip to the b-boy style
Known to act wild and make a girl smile
Love New Edition and the candy girl
Remind me of you because you rock my world

You come from Georgia where the peaches grow
They drink lemonade and speak real slow
You love hip-hop and rock & roll
Dad took off when you were 4 years old
There was a good man named Paul Revere
I feel much better baby when youre near

You love fun dip and Cherry Coke
I like the way you laugh when
I tell a joke when I met
You I said my name was Rich
You look like a girl from Abercrombie and Fitch

At least in this one we get a brief history lesson. If ever asked who went from town to town on horseback announcing that the English were coming, you can just hum through Summer Girls to recall the answer. This Rich also really, really likes Cherry flavoring. Cherry Pez and Cherry Coke? Surely you jest, Rich. How could one handle such intense sugary fruitiness?

Chorus (let's skip this one, for all of our sanity)


In the summertime girls got it goin on
Shake and wiggle to a hip-hop song
Summertime girls are the kind I like
Ill steal your honey like I stole your bike

Boogaloo shrimp and pogo sticks
My mind takes me back there oh so quick
Let you off the hook like my man Mr. Limpet
Think about that summer and I bug cause I miss it

Like the color purple, macaroni and cheese
Ruby red slippers and a bunch of trees
Call you up, but whats the use
I like Kevin Bacon, but I hate Footloose

You came in the door I said it before
I think Im over you, but Im really not sure
When I met you I said my name was Rich
You look like a girl from Abercrombie and Fitch

I was about to write this one off completely until they made that Mr. Limpet reference. Sold!

Also, I may have to disagree with you on Footloose, Rich. Respectfully, of course.


Okay, so perhaps that's all we can take of that, but you must admit there's a certain...charm to their inanity. Sure, it's a gimmick, but sometimes gimmicks sell. Indeed, this was not the last we saw of LFO. They also brought us the equally intelligent "Girl on TV":



And yes, the Girl on TV in the video is Jennifer Love Hewitt. This song was somewhat less tangential, but it was still definitely pushing our boundaries of lyrical tolerance. I'll admit, in a moment of middle school weakness, I did possibly have a soft sport for this song. A small one, though. Cross my heart. Tiny.

Regardless of their apparently controversial music (on Amazon, that is), they had more staying power than you may have assumed. After all, whenever Summer Girls comes up on shuffle on my iPod in the car, all the passengers miraculously seem to know all the words.

Don't judge.




*And yes, I recognize that there was plenty of high quality alternative music that was popular in the late 90s. We're talking a shift in th etrends of mainstream youth culture, and is thus not meant to be a judgment of quality in any way. (obviously)

Captain Planet and the Planeteers

For some reason, magic rings are pretty common cartoon motif. I suppose the appeal is pretty universal: you wear on your hand not only the irrepressible power to do your magic bidding but also your membership card to an exclusive superhero club. Unfortunately there's got to be some sort of superhero hierarchy out there, meaning not all superheroes are created equal. Magic ring or not, it's pretty safe to say that Protector of the Environment doesn't quite rank up there with the coolness factor of Batman or Superman. Hell, even Mighty Mouse may have had something on these guys.

Captain Planet was the animated response to an increasing push for social relevance and educational programming in children's television programming. This brand of thinly-veiled cartoon education, dubbed "edutainment", was pretty forthcoming in its attempts to teach us all sorts of pertinent facts and figures regarding the environment and our role as informed citizens of Earth. Think of it as an animated superhero version of An Inconvenient Truth, but with fewer powerpoint presentations and more mystical Earth spirits.

In the true spirit of the 90s, Captain Planet and the Planeteers were painfully multicultural. As emphasis of the inherent value of diversity grew in the American cultural marketplace, TV producers became more and more eager to appear politically correct in their entertainment undertakings. It was no longer enough to abide by the time-honored principle of tokenness. No, children today needed not just a vaguely ethnic friend here and there but rather a full gang of worldly companions. In an painstaking effort to make it even more realistic, the American one is by far the most ignorant and least informed. Who says cartoons aren't a mirror to society?

It all starts when the spirit embodiment of the Earth, Gaia, wakes up and is pissed to see the horrible squandering of resources and pollutive tendencies of contemporary man. There's pretty much only one thing she can do: conjure up a slew of magic rings, send them to some kids around the world, and hope for the best. Gaia's convenient Planet Vision alerts these youths as to the most devastating pollutants and disasters cropping up around the world, to which they must mobilize and act. Each Planeteer controls an element: Earth, Wind, Fire, Water, and...Heart?

These kids, while marginally powerful, are not altogether qualified to confront the worlds' mounting environmental crisis. Just as the Mouseketeers could always call on Mickey for reinforcement, so too could the Planeteers summon their more powerful and well-known pal. With the power of their rings combined and and a rousing cheer of "Go Planet!", the meager Planeteers could conjure up their leader, Captain Planet.



If you think I come up with some groan-inducing puns, you should go back and take a gander at some of the god-awful punnery that Captain Planet emits. Perhaps it's smog related, but something is clearly clouding his judgment with these cheesy jokes (Clouding? Smog? Come on, throw me a line here.) Captain Planet is pretty powerful, as far as superheroes go, but he's got his limitations. Just as Superman had Kryptonite, our man CP has pollution. Scary, isn't it?

The Planeteers, while less powerful, had a few tricks up their respective natural-fibered sleeves. In the intro, we find that we too can be Planeteers. As a child, this was so exciting for me I practically tripped over own burgeoning compost heap in a maniacally frantic effort to sort my recycling or purchase a sweatshirt made out of used water bottles. Just imagine, me, a Planeteer! It's almost too much to bear. As my role as a Planeteer was not sufficiently well-documented in the series (I blame my lack of multicultural qualities for this obvious snub for camera time), our more prominent ring-bearing Planeteers got quite a bit of airtime:

Kwame

Played by Lavar Burton, host of Reading Rainbow and star of the Roots miniseries. Talk about socially conscious, Burton was edutaining us from all fronts. Kwame possesses the power of Earth, which allowed him to create earthquakes, mountains, and other not-so-exciting plate-tectonic and topographic landforms. From Africa, Kwame came across his magic ring while planting trees in the Savannah. He acts as sort of an unofficial leader to the group, and always gets to be the one who shouts, "With our powers combined...!" Which when you think about it, was probably one of the best jobs on the show.

Linka


Voiced by Kath Soucie, another 90s voice actor extraordinaire. With voice acting credits like Phil and Lil of Rugrats, Lola Bunny from Space Jam, and Futurama's Cubert Farnsworth, Soucie was a veritable voice chameleon. In this case, she voiced Linka, our communist Soviet Planeteer, later replaced by the vaguer "Eastern European" Planeteer following the USSR's demise. She is incredibly stereotyped to the early-90s mounting fear of Soviet education surpassing that of the US, with superior math and computer hacking skills. Cute, no? Linka has the power of Wind, allowing her to create gusty breezes, tornadoes, and to some extent, offers her the power to levitate.

Ma-Ti


Our South American Planeteer did not boast quite as well-known voice acting credentials, but Scott Menville did play Kimmy Gibbler's boyfriend Duane on Full House which certainly gives him points in my book. Ma-Ti lives in the rainforest with his grandfather, a local Shaman. In case you had yet to notice, the Planeteers' creator took great pains in making the diversity as painstakingly obvious as possible. It was never acceptable for a South American to live in a major city, or an Asian to be scientifically non-inclined. These Planeteers took their embodied stereotypes highly seriously. Ma-Ti had the power of Heart, which was clearly the crappiest element. It wasn't an element at all, if you want to get technical. He could converse with animals, occasionally read minds, and affect others emotionally, but you have to admit that when compared to the other Planetary (Planeteery?) powers this one seemed a bit consolatory.

Wheeler


Voiced by Joey Dedio, who earns my seal of 90s credibility for voicing the over-the-top drug dealer in Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue! Wheeler was our American friend, and in typical typecasting fashion he is a salty, short-tempered Brooklynite. He wielded the power of Fire, which was admittedly cooler and more useful than many of the other elements. In retrospect Wheeler's role as an American was a bit insulting to actual Americans, though not altogether untrue. He came across as overly privileged and ignorant, and was forced to serve as comic relief to his smarter, more able global counterpars.

Gi



The Southeast Asian member of the group, Gi was voiced by Janice Kawaye. Proving my American ignorance in a manner not unlike that of my Planeteer pal Wheeler, I must admit I'm pretty clueless about Kawaye's other voice credits, which include such
shows as Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi. Gi is an aspiring marine biologist, and hence posesses the power of Water. She can control water to do her bidding, unless of course it is (gasp!) polluted. Gi is also unsurprisingly highly knowledgeable in science, which is not so shocking in this realm of absolute, unerring stereotyping.

With their powers combined, they could summon the reliable Captain Planet, a blue-faced, green-mulleted muscular superhero.



His intentionally hazy powers mean that he can pretty much perform whatever sort of magic necessary to fit the situation. Convenient, indeed. I always sort of thought he had something going on with Gaia, too.

Captain Planet's tagline, "The Power is Yours!" emphasized a worthwhile if cheesy take on personal responsibility to global environmental issues. Things certainly got a little (read: overtly) PSA, and by a little, I mean a lot. Observe, a call against joining gangs, vandalism, graffiti, littering, and pretty much anything else you can think of:



Obviously, the intentions were good but the edutainment factor often came off as more skewed toward the educational than the entertainment. Regardless, it was entertaining, if a bit corny. In his constant reminders that the Power is indeed ours, at least we got to feel marginally powerful, albeit in an environmentally conscious, distinctly unsuperhero type of way. At least we got to hear his never-ending pollution puns. For however ignorant the Planeteers assumed us to be, they worked tirelessly with Captain Planet to clear the air for us on all things environmental.

(insert groan here)



Check it out:
Captain Planet's TV Tropes