Tag The Hub

Cartoon Country: Littlest Pet Shop Update – From "Aaah!" to "Eh"

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This is an addendum to Pets Over Ponies, an article I did back in January 2013. As is the new custom for Reviews on the Run, I’m gonna keep this short and sweet (OK, short).

It is often said that the true test of a cartoon’s (or any piece of artistic work, for that matter)’s quality is if it’s still as good to you upon a re-watching as it was when you first peeped it out. Sadly, for me this doesn’t seem to be entirely the case with The Channel Formerly Known as The Hub’s Littlest Pet Shop, which is reported to be resuming new episode airings this winter. During this extended hiatus for new eps of LPS (after The Hub sank like a lead balloon covered in fat people, Hasbro seems to be focusing primarily on features as opposed to their near-former TV network) I’ve taken some time off to sober up and re-watch the odd episode here and there, and it looks the runner’s high I was on back when LPS first hit the scene seems to have worn off.
Don’t get me wrong; it’s not as though Littlest Pet Shop is terribly bad, the problem is that it’s not terribly good either. It’s falling very firmly into “meh” territory for me. In retrospect, I think I was more enamored of the idea of there being another Hasbro show that wasn’t My Little Pony to glom onto more than the show itself. There are still some specific characters and elements that I’m still into: I still like Blythe and her ever-changing hairstyles and outfits, I still like Youmgmee (I am kind of curious to see what antics these 2 will get into now that Youngmee is in on Blythe’s big secret), I still love Aunt Christie and Sweet Delights, really hope to see more of them (but I’ve already geeked out on that in a Nerdvana so no need to repeat myself here), I still kind of like Emma and Stephanie, wouldn’t mind seeing more of them, Roger is OK in small doses, though I still would like his character more if he had a wife to play off of; you can’t have the Odd Couple with only Oscar, with no contrast to balance things out, it’s just not as funny, Mrs. Twombly, Sue and Jasper have their moments (though it seems like the latter 2 are really only there to fill up the numbers), and the pets’ antics are OK once in a while, though I admit I like the aforementioned human characters more. The Biskit Twins are still my least favorite characters by far. Not a fan of them. At all. I tried to find something redeemable about them, but they just don’t do it for me. I’m just not down with glorifying villains. I like that they’re twins and that they’re rich and I kind of like their designs, but that’s as far as my enthusiasm for them goes.
Am I done with Littlest Pet Shop? Not entirely. I may still check out some of the new episodes when they debut, assuming there’s a premise that sounds interesting to me, but in all honesty I can’t say how much longer I’ll be riding the LPS bandwagon. It’s a short ride, save some money.

The Hub: What Could Have Been

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Well, folks, we’re approaching the final week of The Hub network being called The Hub. Next Monday (October 13) will mark the beginning of The Hub’s rebrand as Discovery Family.

Disc Fam logo

Hasbro will still be in control of the channel from 5 AM to 5 PM, but the rest of the hours will be programmed by Discovery. Yesterday, I came across one of the promos for Discovery Family. Take a look:

That’s it? Just a bunch of educational science, nature and animal documentaries?? Color me underwhelmed. So let’s examine this, shall we? Going by the above promo, Discovery Family’s lineup will have no animated shows (except for the established Hasbro properties such My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic and Transformers Rescue Bots), no scripted shows and no movies. It’s almost as though Discovery wants this channel to fail. DiscFam is probably going to be an even bigger bomb than the XFL. Yeah, The Hub’s airing old sitcom reruns in prime time was a phenomenally stupid programming decision, but does Discovery honestly believe that they can gain a substantial following by running a bunch of educational documentaries and reality programs in their place? What kind of network that wants to attract kids doesn’t have any cartoons on it’s lineup? That’s just dumb! And yes, I know that live action shows are cheaper to produce than animated shows, but even if DiscFam brought back some of their old Discovery Kids shows in reruns, that would be better than having no cartoons on the lineup at all. After I first saw this promo, my initial thought for the future of Discovery Family was this:

I predict that this new schedule is going to go over like a lead balloon covered with fat people. Even the DiscFam logo looks dull, generic and uninspired. Admittedly, I kind of like the tagline “Let’s Go!”, but it’s wasted on this snooze fest of a lineup. It makes me wish that Hasbro had partnered with some other company to launch it’s family oriented family cable channel and Discovery wasn’t involved at all. This leads me to ponder what things may have been like had Hasbro hitched it’s wagon to another company besides Discovery. Here are a few choices. Before I start, I’m going to say that the Big 3 (Disney, Warner Brothers and Viacom) are already off of the table, since they already have active family oriented cable channels, so we don’t have to imagine what their family channels would be like. That said, to borrow DiscFam’s tagline, Let’s go!

HASBRO AND DREAMWORKS

Dreamworks wouldn’t want to do this, and they have no reason to do it, but imagine if Hasbro and DreamWorks had partnered up and launched a family oriented cable channel. Not only would said channel be able to air all of the movies from the Shrek, Madagascar and Kung Fu Panda franchises as well as How To Train Your Dragon, but they’d also be able to air the DreamWorks series such as Monsters VS Aliens, Penguins of Madagascar, Dragons: Riders/Defenders of Berk, Kung-Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness and the upcoming animated series based on The Croods. Also Dreamworks currently owns the Classic Media library, which  includes the UPA TV catalogue, Harvey Entertainment, Big Idea Productions, Filmation and the license rights to Gumby, Voltron and the Jay Ward productions. This means that this hypothetical channel could also air reruns of Rocky & Bullwinkle and Felix the Cat, as well as any new adaptations of said projects.  Add to that My Little Pony:Friendship is Magic, Transformers and Littlest Pet Shop, and it sounds like a winner to me.

ADDENDUM: As it happens, a Hasbro/Dreamworks partnership almost happened, but Dreamworks’ president Jeffry Katzenberg wanted too much money and power, so Hasbro backed out of the deal. And the Greek chorus moans “More’s the pity.”

HASBRO AND 20TH CENTURY FOX

I know that FOX wouldn’t be interested in doing this, since their last attempt at a family friendly cable channel (Fox Family) didn’t end well and they already have a couple of cable channels under their belt, but it would be pretty cool if FOX had a showcase for their Fox Kids library of shows, as well as any new series that the studio would want to produce. Furthermore, there wouldn’t be the issue of what the channel would air at night after the kids have gone to bed, since this channel could air the FOX prime time shows and/or some of the FX or FXX programs. Plus, FOX owns The Simpsons lock, stock and barrel, so there wouldn’t be any issues if they wanted to air reruns of that on this channel.

HASBRO AND NBC/UNIVERSAL

I think that Hasbro and Universal would get along pretty well. Partnered with Universal, this hypothetical channel could air the likes of Woody Woodpecker and some of Universal Studios movies. Plus, Universal owns Qubo and Sprout. ‘ Nuff said.

HASBRO AND COOKIE JAR

Under this partnership, we would have a channel that had access to all of the Hasbro properties as well of all of the shows on Cookie Jar TV and KEWLopolis.

Honestly, any of these partnerships sounds better than what we’re getting. Now, it’s possible that Discovery may surprise us all by pulling something really special out of their collective sleeves, but I’m not counting on that. After seeing that Discovery Family promo and reading what Discovery’s master plan for the channel is, I have only this to say to all of them.