Tag Littlest Pet Shop

Why Blythe Baxter is Awesome!

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  1. She’s cute.
  2. She has a large head, and you know what they say about people with large heads…they have a hard time shopping for hats.
  3. She was originally a fashion doll from the 1970’s. Incredibly well-preserved, don’t you think?
  4. She’s voiced by Ashleigh Ball. Anyone who shares a voice with Rainbow Dash has got to be cool.
  5. She’s cute.
  6. She can talk to animals. I can talk to animals too, but they don’t talk back.
  7. She has a seemingly never-ending assortment of hairstyles and outfits. Most cartoon characters only get 1 outfit, or all of their clothes just look the same.
  8. She’s cute.
  9. She has a dumb waiter in her bedroom, whereas most of us just have dumb waiters at our local Chili’s.
  10. How many other people can pull off a polka dotted scooter?
  11. Did I mention she’s cute??

Talkin’ Nerdy: Hub Needs Moms

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Today on Talkin’ Nerdy I’d like to discuss something which has getting up my craw for some time now, and is really just part of a darker, more disturbing trend that’s been grinding my gears for much of my creative life:  namely, the trend of leaving mother characters out of the fun in fiction, specifically the curious lack of mothers on notable Hub shows.

For instance, take Transformers Rescue Bots….please. OK, that was kind of a cheap shot, but when I first heard about this show and it was compared to the likes of Marvel’s Super Hero Squad Show, I actually thought TRB was going to be lighthearted wacky spoof show a la SHS or Batman: The Brave and the Bold. Instead, we get this somewhat stale show meant to teach kids about safety and clearly and very visibly intended to sell a new wave of Transformers toys to prepubescent boys. Look, I have nothing against safety and lessons about safety; heck, as a kid I received an Officer Friendly coloring book and I liked it well enough, and I understand that it’s show business and many of The Hub’s shows are designed to sell toys, but I have a greater appreciation for the ones that at least try to entertain me a bit in the process of pounding lessons into my head and coaxing me to buy stuff. Rescue Bots‘ biggest crime is that it’s just dull.

It’s second biggest crime is the point of this discussion: OK, the premise of TRB is that these 4 Transformers land on an island town somewhere in Maine called Griffin Rock, where a group of Autobots named Heatwave, Boulder, Blades and Chase respond to Optimus Prime’s message for any active Autobots in space to arrive to Earth. Coming out of a long stasis, learning what became of Cybertron and that they are the only Rescue-Bot team remaining, they are partnered with the Burns family composed of first response rescuers. Together, they learn teamwork and heroism alongside their human friends as they deal with various disasters. Each bot is paired with a different family member relating to what type of vehicle they are: Chase turns into a police car and so is partnered with dad Chief Charlie Burns, Heatwave turns into a fire engine and is partnered with firefighting son Kade Burns, Boulder turns into bulldozer and is partnered with construction engineer son Graham Burns, and Blades turns into a rescue helicopter and is partnered with helicopter pilot daughter Dani Burns. The youngest member of the family, the very blond Cody Burns, is the bland kid protagonist of the show. What’s wrong with this picture? Where’s Mama Burns? Forget where is she, who is she? They never mention a mother or her whereabouts. If Charlie’s a widower or a divorcee, then it must have just happened, since Cody doesn’t appear to be any older than 10. But why does the Burns family not have a mother? Would it have killed the show’s writers to include a mom as part of the team? Actually, from a marketing standpoint, I think I know why: Transformers Rescue Bots is aimed primarily at young boys, who by and large think “girls are icky”, and only a boy with mountain-sized self-esteem would be willing to own a Rescue Bot piloted by a mom. I think the only reason they have a daughter character is to avoid pressure from women’s groups. This show is so overtly boy-centric that the only 2 female characters of any importance on TRB have the androgynous names Dani and Frankie. So while I can see why there’s no Mom Burns, I still think it’s bullocks. If you’re going to put a daughter on the team, then you might as well have a mom. And for anyone who says that moms don’t make good action heroes, Helen Parr/Elastigirl from The Incredibles and Drew Saturday from The Secret Saturdays say hi. Heck, even the Bionic Six had a mom, and she was actually one of the heroes, she didn’t just stay home and bake cookies while the rest of the family was out saving the world.

 

The Transformers Rescue Bots family. But where’s Mom? Is she vacationing on Cyberton or did she just sample some of Sam Witwicky’s college roommate’s brownies??

But, wait: Cody’s platonic little friend Francine “Frankie” Greene doesn’t have a mother either. She has a dad, Doc Greene, but again, no sight, sign or mention of a mom. What the what, Hub? Do the producers of this show have some kind of mother-phobia or something? I could probably see 1 motherless family on the show, but 2? Really?? To add insult to injury, one episode featured a lady scientist whom Doc Greene seemed to have a thing for, and those feelings seemed to be mutual. OK, so it’s all right to have potential girlfriends dangled before the audience’s eyes, but moms are a big no-no? WTH? If the writers are going to give Doc a potential girlfriend, they could’ve just given him a wife to start with, and been done with it.

The Hub’s “Moms are kryptonite” mentality unfortunately isn’t restricted to 1 show on the network. Another guilty party in this alarming trend is Littlest Pet Shop. I actually like LPS so it pains to have to put this show on my hit list, but they’re guilty of the same crime: its’ protagonist, Blythe Baxter, lives with her dad, your typical goofball father Roger Baxter, but Mrs. Baxter is nowhere to be seen and is never mentioned, not even in passing. Even during a series of flashbacks in the “So You Skink You Can Dance”, we see little Blythe and her dad interacting, but still no mom to be seen or heard from anywhere. So was Blythe grown in a test tube or what?? I can at least understand why the Burns family on TRB doesn’t have a mother, though its one of the things I hate most about the show, but I at least get why from a marketing standpoint. Littlest Pet Shop, by contrast, is based on a toy line aimed squarely, if not exclusively, at girls, so I really don’t get why Blythe couldn’t have 2 parents on the show. Part of the reason why Roger is so frequently annoying is that there’s no contrast; the household needs a somewhat more competent parent to provide a counterbalance to Roger’s goofiness. It’s like having the Odd Couple with only Oscar. Heck, I would even take a goofy embarrassing mom over no mom at all. And what’s more, the show’s rivals/frenemy characters, Whitney and Britney Biskit, likewise don’t have a mother. They’re constantly mentioning their father, Fisher Biskit, whose even made a couple of appearances on the show, but again no mother. At first I though maybe Mrs. Biskit was just perpetually off-camera, but then the episode “Bakers and Flakers” aired, and the only parent to show up at the school bake-off was Fisher, basically confirming that the Biskits are likewise motherless.*

The closest thing Littlest Pet Shop has to a mother figure is the character of Blythe’s friend Youngmee Song’s Aunt Christie, but as her title implies, Christie is Youngmee’s aunt, not her mother. Though given her quasi-maternal relationship with her niece and also how so far we have yet to see any of Youngmee’s other adult relatives, the LPS writers could have easily made Christie Youngmee’s mom and it wouldn’t have altered the stories in any way. But apparently protagonists on Hub shows can’t have moms or else it would split the Earth in two. Even an upcoming Hub acquisition, Wizards VS Aliens, features a lead character who lives with his dad and grandma. So grandmothers are OK, but mothers? That’s the line, right? Got it, Hub.

 

Roger Baxter and his daughter Blythe, who was sculpted from magical clay on the island of Themyscira. Hey, show me where Blythe’s mom is and I’ll take it back.

I’m just going to say this right now, if you haven’t guessed already: I hate single fathers in fiction. The Dead/Missing Mom trope is one of my least favorite cliches in fiction, and it’s one I’ve vowed to never employ as a writer. Why, you may ask? I can’t provide a better answer than Jason, who when asked the same question, responded with this: “Because I like marriage humor and MILFs, and with single dads, you don’t get either.” I can’t speak for Transformers Rescue Bots, as I don’t proactively follow that show nor do I regularly converse with its’ fans, but I know that I’m not the only one who’s been asking about the identity or whereabouts of Blythe’s mother. It’s probably a subject that the show’s writers have no plans of ever addressing unless they’re pressured to by fans, similar to the question of whatever happened to Chuckie’s mother on Rugrats; the producers largely ignored this question but fans persisted in asking about it, so the producers were finally forced to acknowledge it and change the status quo accordingly, first with a Mother’s Day special, then by making it the plot of the 3rd movie. I don’t know if LPS needs to go that far, but it wouldn’t kill them to address it at least once, like, say, have Blythe lament “I miss Mom” in some given scene. Of course, if they had given Blythe a mom in the first place, they wouldn’t have to do anything.

Finally, I’d like to give an honorable mention to Dreamworks’ The Croods. It remains to be seen how well this movie will perform at the box office, but I’ll give Dreamworks one iota of credit in regards to the mother of the cave family, Ugga, namely, that they actually have a mother! In far too many animated family movies of this ilk, the mother is just straight-up dead before the movie even starts, but Dreamworks avoided that cliche here, and for that, I’m grateful. If we can see this tired old trope continue to get snuffed out over time, I’ll be a happier camper.

*ADDENDUM: In the subsequent seasons since this article was written, Hasbro has since rectified their ‘no mother’ situation on Littlest Pet Shop at least. Season 4 featured the first ever on-camera mention of Blythe’s mom Betty, and in an admittedly clever bit of comedy, in this same season it was also revealed that Whittany and Brittany Biskit also indeed have a mother. Furthermore, the writers turned the Biskits’ mom Eliza’s sudden appearance into an in-universe joke, implying that Eliza Biskit had been there all along and we the audience had simply never seen her before. Jason plans on doing a full retrospective on LPS’ 4th (and evidently, final) season sometime after season 4 is complete, but in the meantime…

Eliza_Biskit

Good on ya, Hasbro. Well played.

LPS Progress Report (Plus Other Assorted Hub Ramblings)

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We’ve been doing a lot of Hub entries lately, haven’t we? Guess the network’s climbing up there.

Just thought I’d blow off a little steam about some of The Hub’s recent doings as of late. First, a little follow-up to my earlier entry on Littlest Pet Shop.

LPS Title Card

I still contend that so far I’m enjoying LPS’s debut season more than the 3rd season of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (and on a side note, I’m getting a wee bit tired of folks putting MLP on a pedestal; it’s a decent show, undoubtedly the first time there’s ever really been anything Pony related worth giving a frak about, but really, the show just won the lottery, there are other decent shows on the shows on the network which are just as good as MLP, if not better, so it’s really time for folks to stop acting like MLP: FiM is the single greatest show on The Hub and the best thing to happen since Jiffy-Pop), but for all of its’ strengths, the show still seems unable to escape MLP’s shadow, which is unfortunate. Maybe some tweaks need to be made to LPS in order to give it more breakout potential. If I may make a few suggestions:

Perhaps every show need not consist of a single 22-minute episode like MLP does. People tend to overlook the fact that LPS is actually a mash-up of 2 separate franchises, Blythe and Littlest Pet Shop; perhaps the show’s stories should reflect this. Maybe instead of a single half-hour story each week, they could do two 10-minute shorts or three 7-minute shorts: say, 1 short which focuses on both Blythe and the Pets in tandem, 1 short which focuses squarely on the Pets with little or no participation from Blythe or the humans and 1 short which focuses largely if not exclusively on Blythe and her human co-stars. Sort of like the old Linus the Lionhearted show for those of you who are fossils like me and are old enough to remember (or even know of) that.

Another thing regarding LPS: the characters need to be strengthened and given more to do generally. I realize this is no easy task, since the show’s cast is relatively large, which is one reason why I feel the show should at least consider breaking the stories into segments as opposed to a single half-hour episode each week. The Pets’ characters are fine, they just need more to do and more air time to do it in. (Another side-note: it’s obvious that the recent addition of the Sweet Shop next door and the new characters attached to that are clearly a marketing tool to have another wave of toys to sell, but since LPS is a toy-driven show, it’s to be expected.) The human characters are the ones which really need more polishing and fleshing out. Out of the human characters, Youngmee has probably flourished the most, though that’s not saying much. She’s gotten more camera time than any of Blythe’s other friends, and she’s tied to the Sweet Shop, which gives her more opportunities to stand out than anyone else. She still needs some more defining traits other than being cute and a good friend to Blythe; she’s on the Mathletes team, so we can assume she’s smart, why not expand on that? Sue hasn’t had any standout roles since “Russel Up Some Fun”, and so far Jasper hasn’t had any real plots or subplots devoted to him. If I can make a suggestion, writers, whatever you decide to do with Jasper, please DON’T ship him with one of the girls. I like that he’s a boy and one of Blythe’s friends, but not a boyfriend to any of them, I say keep it that way. (Sue hit Jasper twice in “Topped with Buttercream”, and the 2 of them entered the story together, so I’m sure somewhere in cyberspace some shippertard is already typing fanfics pairing those 2 characters off, but I really hope nothing like that ever actually happens on the show.)

Speaking of relationships, please, please, PLEASE, writers, hook Blythe’s dad Roger up with somebody! Reveal Blythe’s mother or give her a stepmother. Something. Anything! I have no problem with dumb dads generally, they’re OK in small doses, but the recent episode “Helicopter Dad” proves that a little Roger goes a LONG way, and I think one reason why he’s so unbearable is that he has no one to counterbalance his goofiness. It’s like having the Odd Couple with only Oscar. the fact that Blythe’s mom is MIA is indeed one of the things I hate most about this show, especially since there doesn’t seem to be any reason for it, and I’d really like to see that rectified. Here’s a crazy suggestion: why not have Roger and Youngmee’s aunt Christie hook up? Not only would Roger get a romantic partner and Blythe get a much-needed mother figure, but that would technically make Blythe and Youngmee cousins, which could make for some interesting story ideas. Just a thought.

Another recent event on The Hub is the addition of Huckleberry Pie to Strawberry Shortcake’s Berry Bitty Adventures. As has been the case since the 5th TV special back in the ancient 1980’s, Huck is the only major male character in a predominantly girl-populated franchise, so as such there was a lot of hulabaloo surrounding his debut, not to mention his Justin Bieber-inspired look, viz:

huckleberry-pie

Oh, you were expecting a “Bieber sucks!” joke here, right? Sorry, not gonna happen. I’ve personally never heard any of Bieber’s music and couldn’t tell you the name of a single one of his songs, so while some folks tear their hair out at the very mention of the kid’s name, I can go about my life unaffected by Biebermania, so I honestly don’t care about the Biebs-inspired design. From an artistic standpoint, it’s an OK design, so no complaints from me about that. Whatever works. No, my issue with this version of Huckleberry Pie isn’t that he’s got the Bieb’s hairstyle or even that he’s a boy on a girls’ show, it’s that he’s, well…kind of boring. Huck here has no standout traits or attributes other than possessing a Y chromosome and being a nice kid who’s eager to please (assuming he is a kid; age-wise, it’s hard to know what to make of the Berry Bitty Gang: they look like children yet they have jobs, operate vehicles and live on their own without adults. Perhaps they just stop aging physically after a certain age, like the elves in Lord of the Rings), but to be fair, the girls are equally kind of dull and interchangeable. I actually prefer the 2003 version of Huck, pictured here:
…’cause he had an actual character, not to mention a boss board.
Finally, the Hub recently announced a “big event” coming to Thursday nights said to tie in with the recent Oscars. It turned out to be a fake awards show devoted to their old broadcasting sitcom showings: Happy Days, Mork & Mindy, Family Ties, et al, and kicking off something called “You Rule Thursdays”, in which viewers get to choose shows they watch on the network during the Thursday primetime hours of 9 p.m. – midnight ET. This week, following a special programming block featuring past Academy Awards® winners in popular Hub sitcoms, viewers will go to http://hubworld.com/YouRule to vote on the shows that will air Thursday, March 7. Each week will be themed with a different common element that links Hub shows, including “Mork and Mindy,” “Happy Days,” “The Facts of Life,” and “Family Ties.”
Oh, joy.
Well, I have to say, that’s disappointing. Here I was hoping that The Hub was finally going to spread their chops and expand their nighttime schedule beyond this sitcom rerun stuff. Before I get ambushed by Retro fans, I have nothing against Retro (though I’ve never been a nostalgic person and only about 10% of the old shows I grew up watching have any replay value to me, especially the stuff from the broadcast networks), but I don’t think I’m out of line for thinking that the Hub could be doing so much more at night than just airing reruns of old broadcast TV shows from the 70’s and 80’s. If this is working for The Hub, I can’t argue with success, but if you’re really going to try and be early 90’s Nick at Nite during the prime time hours, can’t we at least get some better shows? Just offer something a little more off the beaten path besides generic family sitcoms. The Adam West Batman show was a good start, why not expand upon that? How about showing The Monkees, Lancelot Link: Secret Chimp, Pee-Wee’s Playhouse, The Super Mario Brothers Super Show!, H.R. Pufenstuf, Lidsville, The Bugaloos, Land of the Lost, The Krofft Supershow, Far Out Space Nuts, Saved by the Bell, Parker Lewis Can’t Lose, The Muppet Show/MuppeTelevision/Muppets Tonight, The Tick, Get Smart!, Weird Science, Police Squad!, My Hero, Fawlty Towers, Fernwood 2-Nite, The Best of Saturday Night Live, SCTV, The Red Green Show, Monty Python’s Flying Circus, WKRP in Cincinnati, Night Court, heck, even Candid Camera, Carol Burnett and Friends or TV’s Blooper and Practical Jokes would be a nice alternative to the nonstop domcoms. If The Hub’s PM schedule really must consist of old shows, can’t they at least be good, eclectic old shows?
And I know some people will disagree with me, but I still contend that Mystery Science Theater 3000 would be a great fit for The Hub’s nighttime lineup.

 

Pets Over Ponies (You Heard Me Right)

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Brace yourselves, Bronies, I have an announcement that may just shake the very foundation of the world you live on. Here it is:

I think there’s another show on The Hub that I like more than My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.

T’is true.
Of course, anybody who regularly follows this blog or my posts on either if the 2 message boards I’m currently on already knows that MLP: FiM wasn’t my favorite Hub show to start with–The Aquabats! Super Show! currently holds that title (it’s supposed to be starting its’ 2nd season sometime this spring–can’t wait!) and I also enjoy Dan VS. to a point, though I think it tends to get a little Pinky & The Brain repetitive and the characters aren’t especially likable (and don’t get me started on the horrible scheduling). The Ponies’ show used to be a close third, but recently another show has risen to challenge MLP for its’ bronze medal. The show in question? Littlest Pet Shop.
First, a brief history lesson (a.k.a., the boring stuff you need to know):
Hasbro manages the intellectual properties of both Blythe (a fashion doll originally released in 1972) and the Littlest Pet Shop toy line (introduced in 1992). Originally held by Kenner Products, both were transferred to Hasbro, years after acquiring most of Kenner’s assets.
As of November 2012, two modern incarnations of Blythe are on sale: One, introduced in 2001 as a standalone toy line, is managed by Tomy (after merging with the original licensee Takara in 2006) and CWC (both companies licensed from Hasbro), sold in parts of Asia, and marketed towards collectors. The other, marketed towards children that was released in 2010, is managed by Hasbro as a part of their 2004 incarnation of Littlest Pet Shop, known as Blythe Loves Littlest Pet Shop.
The series was first green-lit in 2011. During production, Blythe Loves the Littlest Pet Shop was also used by Hasbro as the working title of the TV series. The production staff of the series includes developers Timothy Cahill and Julie McNally Cahill of My Gym Partner’s a Monkey fame, along with Dallas Parker and Joel Dickie. Writers M. A. Larson and Cindy Morrow, who previously wrote episodes of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, also wrote the scripts for the episodes of this series. The songs and music of the entire series were composed by Daniel Ingram and Steffan Andrews.
-OK, with that out of the way, here’s an overview of the show.
Blythe Baxter is a teen/tweenage (her exact age has yet to be revealed, but I presume she’s somewhere around 12 to 14) aspiring fashion designer (you can tell she’s a little fashionista because she sports a different hairstyle and outfit in each show, she is a fashion doll, after all) who’s cheerful, loyal, always tries her best, is cute, sweet and always willing to help others, though she’s a little mishap and comical misadventure-prone. Blythe and her requisite oblivious and embarrassing goofball father, airline pilot Roger Baxter (Blythe’s mother is MIA, but more on that later) move from their home in the suburbs to an apartment in Downtown City, a fictionalized version of New York City, only much cozier and without the crime, poverty, graffiti, gang violence and urban blight. Said apartment just happens to be located above a small pet shop, called appropriately enough, Littlest Pet Shop, a day camp for pets of all kinds. After hitting her head after riding down a dumbwaiter in one of those aforementioned wacky escapades, Blythe discovers she has somehow broken the communication barrier between man and animal, meaning that she can now communicate with animals and when the pets talk to her, it comes out as perfectly understandable English instead of unintelligible critter-speak which is how it sounds to everyone else. Blythe gets a part-time job working in the shop and assisting the shop’s owner, the delightfully dotty Mrs.Twombly. This newly forged alliance leads to all sorts of crazy fun. The pets themselves are a unique and colorful (as in not always typically found in nature) bunch; each one has their own quirk, talent, passion or obsession that he/she specializes in:
pet1
  • Zoe Trent is a purple Cavalier King Charles Spaniel (of course she’s no mere dog) whose passions are singing and looking fabulous. She’s a full-tilt diva (she even wears a hat).
  • Vinnie Terrio is a deep-voiced and somewhat thick Northland Green Gecko whose passion is dancing. He’s got some moves, though his routines often end with him flat on his face. (Give yourself a gold star if you noticed how Vinnie shares a surname with 70’s Dance Fever host Denny Terrio, the man who supposedly taught John Travolta how to dance.
  • Penny Ling is a small, super-cute, somewhat shy and very girly female white and purple Giant Panda who is a rhythmic gymnast. She is talented with twirling ribbons but is hyper-sensitive, falling to pieces so fast that onlookers risk getting hit by the shrapnel.
  • Minka Mark is a hyper and somewhat spazzy pink Spider Monkey talented in abstract art, which mainly involves splattering paint all over the canvas (hey, it worked for Jackson Pollock). She’s easily distracted by shiny objects, food and pretty much anything else.
  • Pepper Clark is a fast talking and shtick loving grey-and-white skunk whose passion is comedy, largely of the custard pie and floppy shoe variety. She also has the unique ability to alter her scents from pleasant to repugnant, depending on what the situation calls for and/or how funny it is.
  • Sunil Nevla is a timid and neurotic Indian accented teal-blue colored banded mongoose whose aspirations are parlor magic and psychic abilities, which he practices with more enthusiasm than polish. (He reminds me a bit of Raj from The Big Bang Theory, only Sunil’s able to talk to girls).
  • Russel Ferguson is an intelligent and organized orange-brown hedgehog (no, he’s not the fastest thing alive!) who’s the brains of the group. He’s a little uptight and overly meticulous, but lets loose once in a while.
In addition to her adventures with the Pets, Blythe also has her own stories revolving around her trio of friends from her new school: Sue Patterson, the jock, Youngmee Song, the brain, and Jasper Jones, the boy. She also has to contend with the requisite snooty rivals, twin sisters Whitney and Britney Biskit, your garden variety rich shallow preps obsessed with fashion and who punctuate their sentences with “like”s, whose dad own the city’s rival pet store, Largest Ever Pet Shop. The Biskits are easily the most cliched and tiresome characters on the show, but thankfully, they don’t appear every week.
Each episode typically consists of an A plot and a B plot running simultaneously, and the 2 plots occasionally intersect. The designs on both the pet and human characters alike are big on cute, with all of the characters sporting huge eyeballs and large heads, and the show is also peppered with pop songs.
OK, I know what you’re thinking: you like THIS more than the Ponies? Well, I have to say yes, I do. Why? For one thing, LPS actually has people in it. I know that’s superficial, but I tend to gravitate more towards shows with human protagonists and all or mostly human casts. On that note, another reason I like LPS is because the animals act like and are treated like, well, animals. The Pets talk (to Blythe, anyway) and occasionally walk like humans, but for the most part they remain close to the real animals they supposedly represent. The Pets occasionally don scraps of clothing and the like, but the anthropomorphism is never carried to the creepy extremes like it is on shows like Arthur. This works for someone like me, who’s not a huge fan of anthropomorphism, at least not when it’s overdone. Another reason why I favor  LPS is because it has no pretense or delusions of grandeur; it doesn’t try to be anything more than what it is: a cute little toyetic comedy cartoon. It never tries to do anything grand or epic like MLP frequently does, particularly at the beginning and ending of each season. There are no magic kingdoms on LPS, but there’s plenty of slapstick to be had. For anyone who wonders or wants there to be some deep analysis behind Blythe’s newfound power or some major ramifications thereof, I would refer you to the last verse of the Mystery Science Theater 3000 theme song: “Just repeat to yourself ‘It’s just a show, I should really just relax’.”
While most of the characters on LPS are appealing and the stories cute and entertaining (and Mrs. Twombly gives the performance of a lifetime), it’s not all gravy. I do have some gripes with the show. For one thing, the Pets flit around the screen so rapidly that it’s hard to keep track of them all at times, though this is becoming less of a problem as episodes progress. Also, I’d like to see Blythe’s friends do a little more; as things stand currently they’re little more than props for the most part. And it’s clear to me that the writers don’t really know what to do with the Biskit Twins. Aside from how their characters generally don’t make any sense (they’re more super-rich kids who slum it with the ‘regulars’ in public school for no logical reason), they don’t work as antagonists for the simple reason that they have no reason to antagonize Blythe other than they’ve been designated as the show’s villains. Yeah, their dad owns the rival shop, but this is barely touched upon in the show and since the Twins don’t give a wet slap about work anyway, it makes no difference. Since they’re ineffective as baddies and it’s clear that the writers don’t want them to be buds with Blythe and company, they just have these characters around but really don’t know what do with them. I know it’ll never happen, but I’d like to see them transfer to a private school or otherwise pull a Houdini at the end of the season.
But by far my biggest complaint about the show concerns Blythe’s mother, namely she has none. Is she alive? Is she dead? Divorced? Where is she? There’s absolutely no reason for Blythe’s mom to be a no-show. While I hate that they also employ the Missing Mom trope on Transformers Rescue Bots, I at least understand why they do it on that show: because it’s aimed primarily at young boys, and few boys would willing buy a Transformers toy piloted by a mom; they probably only have girls on TRB because they’d get in trouble with feminist groups if they didn’t. (It’s also worth mentioning that Cody’s friend Frankie on the show doesn’t have a mother either. So what’s your beef with moms anyway, Hub, you mother-hating pricks?!)
But those little nitpicks aside, I can still enjoy Littlest Pet Shop. It is my hope that the show will thrive, find its’ own audience and finally break out of My Little Pony‘s shadow. Just let it do what it does, and wash over you like a warm mist. It won’t change your life, but it’ll keep you entertained for a half-hour.