Reviews

Rugrats is most likely a favorite show for children during the 90's. And who can blame them? This was one of the first "Nicktoons" made and one of the most creative and well-written ones too.

Debuting in 1991, this show had a bit of a slow start, featuring low quality animation, quiet voice acting, simple plots, and so on. Yet this show had quite a charm to get people an idea on how babies that talk to each other live in their lives. The characters were well made, with the cast featuring Tommy, Chuckie, Phil and Lil, and Angelica as "the kids." Then we have their parents, which are also well made and humorous for both kids and adults. Some of the episodes have 2 story lines, one lead by the babies and one led by the adults, and they are created in such a great twist.

Due to the shows increasing audience, Rugrats was picked up for a few more seasons, featuring better animation and better jokes. Many of the episodes were so enjoyable with the mishaps and humorous references that appeared. But then Rugrats got canceled in 1994 by Nickelodeon. It was probably canceled in favor of AHH! Real Monsters that was released by the same production company that gave us Rugrats. However, re-runs stayed on the channel and gave the network high ratings. So the show was brought back to life in 1997.

But when it was brought back, disasters would follow...

The first disaster was when the show was brought back, some of the writers from the first series never returned for the revival. This made a huge difference on how the writing of the future episodes turned out. Now the episodes made featured more gross-out humor and lamer dialog then before.

The second disaster was when David Doyle, the voice of Grandpa Lou, died in 1997. So they hired a replacement, Joe Alaskey. While his voice is okay, it just was not the same, in terms of vocal tone and delivery, as what David brought to Grandpa.

The third disaster was what gave the Rugrats franchise a fatal wound. They released a movie in 1998, introducing one of the most annoying and stupid characters on the show, Dil, Tommy's new brother. While creating a new character is not a terrible idea, Dil ruined the future episodes of Rugrats. All he did is cry, wail, ABUSE the babies, and drool. What's worse is that the babies always take him on their mishaps and adventures, with Dil ruining them by ether getting lost or causing havoc for others. He also took the already gross humor the show was getting to a whole new level.

Then, with Nickelodeon not getting the message, they released another movie for 2000, introducing another character, Kimi, the daughter of Chuckie's new stepmother. The addition of this character is not bad, but not really good ether. She's basically a generic, one dimensional baby that doesn't add much personality for the babies' adventures, but at least she's not as horrible as Dil. Oh, and Spike, the dog that belongs to the Pickles, gets a random girlfriend dog too, Fifi, who also doesn't add much to the show.

After all this, the show basically got more lamer and more uncreative. The last disaster occurred in 2001, the 10 year anniversary of the show. We get a one-hour episode featuring the babies 10 years older, which would later spawn into a side-series in 2003 called "All Grown Up". It's not a terrible concept in of itself, but this episode changed everything about the Rugrats we didn't know before. All the babies now act like wanna-be teenagers. After this, the voice actress of Chuckie, Christine Cavanaugh, retires. I'll respect her for the retirement, but the replacement voice for Chuckie is inexcusable and not how he used to be. Then we saw more movies being made that didn't do much good ether.

Rugrats FINALLY ceased production in 2003, but a couple remaining episodes would air in a year or 2. Finally, no more of this nightmare of a show. But Nickelodeon was SUPPOSED to have left it alone after it was canceled the first time back in 1994. Bringing The Rugrats back has done anything positive for the show's legacy. Towards the end, many people considered it one of the worst shows airing on any children's network channel.

If you are looking for a great, entertaining children's show that adults could also enjoy with their kids, watch the first three seasons of Rugrats (made between 1991-1994). They were the best. If possible, avoid the seasons featuring Dil and Kimi. Nickelodeon cared about quality back in the early 90's when they started making their own shows. But today, they don't.

Teen movies were a very special kind in the 1980's. Sure the best, and most well known, teen movies were from John Hughes, but there are some Teen movies that don't get much appreciation. This is one of them.

The story is predictable and corny. Young Scott (Micheal J. Fox) is going through some difficult times and struggles from being an average guy. But then, on a full moon night, he turns into a werewolf. Sure the wolf costume is cheap, but hey, its the 80's.

The cast does a great job for the parts that are portrayed here. We all basically know what the movie will turn out to be, but who cares? It's enjoyable and charming (at least that's what I find Teen Wolf.) Bottom Line: If you're hunting for good Teen movies, I recommend you checking this out. It might be cheesy at first, but hopefully you'll grow to like it.

Oh, and avoid that terrible sequel.

Honestly, I sometimes wonder why IMDb members are sometimes harsh on family/kids movies. No, I did not watch Cop & 1/2 as a kid, but I still enjoyed it. What can I say, I'm a sucker for this kind of humor.

Yeah, this movie was low budget with unknown actors (with the exception of Burt Reynolds), but I enjoyed this. Why? Because I found this movie to have clever humor, especially for a kids movie.

So I ask you this, members, don't rate this movie if you hate it and never seen it as a child. You have to keep in mind that this movie was designed for the younger audience. If you don't like movies like this in general, then please don't rate it so low.

Anyways, I found this movie to be overall decent with some good laughs.

Starting off on "Oh Yeah Cartoons!", Fairly Oddparents is about a 10 year old boy named Timmy Turner. His life is miserable, especially when he gets babysat by Vicky ("Icky" with a V), who is very cruel to him by giving him chores. Then after breaking a magic 8-ball, Timmy is immediately granted fairy godparents, named Cosmo and Wanda. And here on, Timmy gives wishes to them, and they become granted, though some of his wishes are mistakes and may make other people feel worse. Timmy has a couple friends, named Chester and AJ. Chester is a brace-faced kid that mostly hangs out with Timmy and AJ. AJ is a genius and sometimes may annoy Timmy with his smartness, but both of them eventually resolve their differences and get along fine. And then there's Denzel Crocker, who is a mean, yet insane teacher that always suspects that Timmy has godparents, so he's sometimes stalking him. All the other characters don't affect Timmy life so much, but they do serve a purpose in certain episodes. If Cosmo and Wanda are punished, or if Timmy and his godparents needed help, Fairy World is there where all the other fairies are. And the storyline goes on...

When this became a show in 2001, it became popular right away. This show seemed to try to mimic some of the constant stupid humor that Nick's other popular show, Spongebob, shows, but it managed to be unique in its own way. The 1st and 2nd seasons were pretty entertaining and humorous at times. Cosmo was always a brainless idiot, and same goes for Timmy's parents, primary his dad. Then Wanda is the wise one and offers advise to Timmy many times. Though some of the humor was childish and stupid, there are sometimes hints of adult humor thrown in.

However, at the start of Season 3, Fairly Oddparents seemed to have changed, in a bad way. First off, Frankie Muniz and Ibrahim Muhammad, both which voiced Chester and AJ in the first 2 seasons of the show, were replaced with different voice actors, and even kids can tell the difference. This change was not for the better in my opinion, because now the 2 characters feel like different kids. 2nd off, the show started to become unfunny and repetitive from there. While Season 3 was tolerable with some okay episodes, Season 4 just made the show even worse. By Season 4, Cosmo was mostly unfunny with his stupidity, and many of the other characters don't help much in making the show funny ether. So, Fairly Oddparents was good in its first couple of seasons, it started going downhill later. Fairly Oddparents also happened to have a handful of made-for-TV movies, mostly released late in the series, which were pretty okay, and made up for some of the dull episodes.

I hear that here in 2006, the show stopped production of new episodes. I think it's a good decision, because its last seasons sucked for the most part, and it's been on air for long enough (5 years, with 6 seasons). It's been fun at first, but now it's a good time to put it aside and move on. At least there are DVD releases that we can remember it with.

Overall, Fairly Oddparents was pretty cool, unique, funny and addictive at first, but then declined into a mediocre show when it ended.

In 2004, I decided that I had it with Nickelodeon, so I retired myself from watching it further. The reason? It's because ever since we entered in the 21st century in 2000, Nick has usually released shows with quality that ranged from mediocre (Danny Phantom, Jimmy Neutron, As Told by Ginger, a lot of the Teenick shows, etc.) or very bad (Butt-Ugly Martians, Chalkzone, and the extremely short-lived Action League Now). Once in a blue moon, however, a decent, or even good, show appears such as Fairly Oddparents and Invader Zim (I never loved Zim, but at least it was better then some of the crap Nickelodeon viewers get today. Shame on Nick for canceling it unfairly!). So when "My Life as a Teenage Robot", or MLAATR for short, was first introduced in 2003, I found myself enjoying much of what it had to offer.

The story involves a robot created by Dr. Wakeman to help protect earth from disaster and/or crime (yes, this concept has been used several times before), but this robot has the personality of a female teenager. So, while the robot's codename is XJ9, she prefers to be called "Jenny." She's willing to do her job in keeping the world safe, but she also wants to live a normal teenage life in high school and hang out with friends. This is where she meets Brad and Tuck, two human brothers who live within Jenny's neighborhood. Brad is a fellow classmate of Jenny's in high school, while Tuck is more around elementary school aged. Brad tries being cool to fit in with the crowd while Tuck is immature, silly and obnoxious at times. But hey, that's how brothers are with their different behaviors. They both eventually get along with Jenny very well. Later on in the series, Jenny meets more friends such as Sheldon, a nerdy geek who develops a crush on her, and some rivals like Brit and Tiff, AKA "The Krust Cousins," as well as villains that interrupt her daily life. And that's the basic plot of most episodes.

When it comes to the characters I mentioned above, they all have a purpose and are pretty likable, except for Brit and Tiff, who always try to find ways to humiliate Jenny and hurt her feelings. Some of the episodes I've seen through the entire series were fairly enjoyable to watch. They were usually filled with interesting humorous moments, action-filled scenes, and even brief bits of suitable character development/drama. The comedy is sometimes a little childish, but it usually does not make you cringe and it can get a laugh out of everyone at times. The plots and themes presented in the show seem to capture many people's different interests as well.

The animation and art style of MLAATR is pretty unique. It makes use of old-school character design elements from the 1930's, but makes them fresh and appealing with colorful technology we have today. A similar amount of praise can be said about the sound work. The music isn't too memorable, but it does get the job done with upbeat, catchy music for the standard scenes, and trance music for the fighting/action scenes. The voice acting in this show doesn't disappoint, and a few voices may sound familiar to cartoon fanatics. A shout out must be given to Janice Kawaye for her cute, appealing, and fun performance as Jenny.

I haven't really watched this show ever since I gave up on Nickelodeon in 2004. From time to time, I check in on the channel to see what they do these days. As of this writing in 2006, they haven't changed too much. There are a couple of new shows being made, but they don't look special to me (The upcoming Mr. Meaty, for instance, looks terrible and retarded). Unfortunately, it looks like Nickelodeon canceled MLAATR at some point. I'm somewhat disappointed in this. Viacom, the parent company of Nickelodeon, always seems to cancel their good shows prematurely if they do not meet the sky-high profits of shows like Spongebob Squarepants.

"My Life as a Teenage Robot" may not have the same level of appeal like the great Nicktoons of the 90's (Rocko's Modern Life, Doug, early Rugrats, Hey Arnold, Catdog, etc.) did, and there are a couple aspects of the overall show that I don't care much for, it was still enjoyable for what it was and I feel it's better then many of the Nickelodeon shows being aired today. I hope it gets a good DVD release someday.

Sorry if anyone actually liked this, but no. Just no. This is such a pathetic excuse of an action-packed cartoon. It also felt out of place (Meaning, the shouldn't have ever aired on Nick). Even if this was aired somewhere else, this would still be a pretty mediocre show. 3 Martians come to earth and become friends with ugly-looking corny kids. The other cast members are also so bland and boring. Whenever the martians go into their "BKM Mode", they just get suits, which aren't very creative.

I consider this piece of trash a pathetic combination of Invader Zim (Martians sent to take over the world) and Jimmy Neutron (It's computer generated and the martians have a Goddard rip-off.)It seems as though this show was scraped together after Invader Zim was released and when Jimmy Neutron was in production back in 2001.

At least Nick is still smart enough to know when they need to cancel shows. And thank God this show only lasted one season. But, as other reviews say, this should never have been aired on Nickelodeon, or probably on any other TV Channel.

So, PLEASE, never watch this show if you do happen to find it on TV or if you see a DVD for sale in stores. Nickelodeon fans saw this, and suffered through it when it aired. If Nickelodeon actually makes more shows like this, then they are screwing up the minds of the next-generation of kids. Nickelodeon used to have great shows most of the time (mostly during the 90's), but then all that changed with Butt Ugly Martians appeared. Stay away from this lame and stupid show.

There are rarely any animated movies out there, or I've seen, that actually has something for everyone. An American Tale manages to combine many elements that make a great movie and does so successfully.

A family called the Mousekewitzs apparently is struggling in their lives with terrifying cats. So they immigrate to America like many Russians did back in the late 1800's. But, unfortunately, Fievel (A touching character) gets lost and separated from the Mousekewitz during a storm. So Feivel tries his best to find his family.

As said before, An American Tale has many elements that will appeal to anyone. There's sweet touching moments, such as the song "Somewhere Out There" that's sung by Fievel and his sister Tanya, dark and depressing moments, such as when Fievel gets separated from the storm, and some humorous stuff as well (The Honest John scenes and some lines said by Tiger (voiced by the awesome Dom Deluise)). So this film has become a strong favorite of mine when it comes to animated movies.

Don Bluth was a genius when he made animated movies in the 80's, but when he got into the 90's, he started losing his charm. I really hope he makes more movies like this. Because films like these are very uncommon. The whole family will love this, I assure you.

I 'm a huge fan of Garfield. When I first saw an ad about the Garfield movie, was a little disappointed. Because I noticed this Garfield is different then the one most people know.

Garfield (voiced by Bill Muarry) is, as everyone knows, a lazy fat cat for does some things his own way. One day, however, his things are ruined because Jon Arbukle (Breckin Meyer) brings home a dog named Odie. So, from then, twists, yet predictable, come along for everyone to enjoy.

This movie takes it on the kiddie/family side of Garfield. This isn't a bad thing of course, because Garfield was always something for everyone. But his humor and personality seems to be a bit more directed to kids more than the Garfield in the comic strip and the cartoon series. I was disappointed to see the direction of the movie.

First off, everyone here knows that this Garfield is computer-generated in a live action world. I find that very corny, because all of the other characters (aside from John and Liz) are live-action animals with obvious special effects. I find it sad that they went with one thing, but not use it throughout the movie.

Also, the characters that came from the comic strip have a different personality here. Garfield's humor is pretty much the same, but for some reason, it's sometimes not funny. Jon was a complete dork in the comics, now he just acts like friendly person with a couple social problems. Liz (Jennifer Love Hewitt)acts more like a friendly vet then a boring, yet smart mouthed vet, who also mostly turns down Jon's date offers, from the comics. Other characters, such as Nermal and the mice, have also a different personality change. This change isn't so bad it will make you shut the movie off, but it seems sad that they were changed around for this kiddie/family movie.

It's too bad the late great Lorenzo Music couldn't live for this movie, as he had the best Garfield voice of all time, and not even Bill Muarry can beat it.

Anyway, to end this review, I just have to say that this Garfield is not like the comic strips or the cartoon series. So fans that liked the old Garfield will not be satisfied with this movie. However, this movie is mildly fun for kids, so I recommend this as a family movie.

6/10

Back when I watched Nickelodeon, I saw some commercials of CatDog way back in early 1998, it was quite interesting. As I saw more advertisement for CatDog later on, I grew more interested in the show. Finally, when it was set on air, I watched a couple of its episodes and they were good. I've been watching Catdog episodes all the way to its bitter end, when the show got canceled in 2001. Today, (as far as I know) It only appears on Nick every once in a while. I wish they released a DVD set for CatDog fans, like myself. Instead, they only released 2 VHS tapes of 5 episodes back in 1999. I will try to look for them as best I can.

Generally speaking, CatDog involves a cat and dog attached to each other. They encounter funny moments and stupid adventures. CatDog wasn't strong on humor, but it was good on voice acting, and the character presentation.

This was a very good show, in my opinion. I consider it a nice follow up the Nick classic, Rocko's Modern Life. Many people don't think so, but I believe it sort of does.

Not to mention, the music in the show is pretty good.

This movie is just cool.

Dr. Robotnik, Sonic's enemy, says that the generator in Robotropolis is acting very werid. And if it isn't stopped by sunrise the next day, it will explode and destroy their world. Sonic agrees to take the task. Although, when he arrives down there, there's some trouble waiting for Sonic...

This movie definitely worth watching to fans of Sonic the Hedgehog, or anime. This movie has slightly below average voice acting, but it isn't bad enough to disturb you while watching. The humor is funny, and the battle scenes are super action packed. This is worth watching.

9/10

This is a great Video Game if you like games with a lot of action and such. The game features missions to walk through and figure out things. Though this is a short game, the levels are marvelous. The voice acting is done right and there are not too many mistakes. The Music for the game is mostly dramatic and action packed, so it'd want you to keep on playing. The storyline is great in my opinion. Beware though, that you might get bored with the game quickly, because there's not too much reply value. If you're one of the few people that own a Sega Saturn, then try to get this game. This is one of Sonic Team's (Creator of Sonic games) legendary games.

7/10