Animation Celebration Saturday - Babes In Toyland (1997)

MGM, 1997
Starring Lacey Chabert, Joseph Ashton, Charles Nelson Reilly, and Raphael Sbarge
Directed by Charles Grosvenor, Toby Bluth, and Paul Sabella
Music by various

This was MGM's entry into the Disney imitation race of the mid-late 90's. Unlike most of its ilk, it went direct to home media in the United States. Is this Christmas release worthy of a trip to Toyland, or is it the old-fashioned fantasy more than a little crooked? Let's join two children on their way to the famous town of childhood dreams, just in time for the holidays...

The Story: Jack (Ashton) and Jill (Chabert) are on their way to Toyland, where they're hoping their Uncle Barnaby will take care of them. On the train there, they encounter Tom Piper (Sbarge), a toy designer who's coming back with Santa's order, and Humpty Dumpty (Reilly), who runs pretty much everything in Toyland. Humpty takes the kids to Barnaby, the Crooked Man. He's only interested in their money, which will allow him to buy the Toyland Toy Factory. Mary Had a Little Lamb (Cathy Cavadini), who inherited the factory from her father, refuses to sell. It's three days before Christmas, and Mary and Tom have to get the new toy soldiers Santa wants made in time.

The kids escape from his crooked house to help in the factory. Barnaby, determined to destroy the factory and stop toy production, hires Gonzargo (Jim Belushi) and Rodrigo (Bronson Pinchot) to sabotage production. The kids catch them and chase them, but they capture them and take them to the Goblin King (Lindsay Schnebly). Even after Mary and Tom rescue the kids and the thieves, there's still Barnaby and the other goblins to contend with...

The Animation: Par for the course for this era. Everything moves pretty well, but some of the characters, especially Humpty Dumpty, look a little scarier than they probably should. The goblins are a nifty design, though, and the sequence with them is pretty well done.

The Song and Dance: Short and sweet. There's a surprisingly decent cast for a direct-to-home media animated film at this time, including Broadway star Reilly singing "Toyland" in the opening, Belushi as one of the thieves, and TV favorite Chabert as little Jill. Ashton is quite funny as Jill's tougher brother. This is also one of the few adaptations of this story that uses at least a little of the original idea of the "babes" being the ones adopted and abused by Barnaby and rescued by Toylanders.

Favorite Number: The film opens well with Humpty telling the audience what they're about to see on a moon via the title song. It continues on the train, as Jack and Jill travel on everything from balloons to swans to explore their new home. Jack, Jill, Tom, and Mary each discuss what they want from life - the kids want a real family, Tom wants to be a great toymaker, and Mary wants to live up to her father's legacy - to the rather lovely montage "My Dream."

What I Don't Like: It's obvious this is a pretty cheap production. The animation is boring, the music is dull, and most of the characters besides Humpty and Barnaby are even more so. Bland Mary and cocky Tom pretty much fade into the woodwork and are poor imitations of Disney lovers; Mary even looks and acts like a copy of Belle from Beauty and the Beast. And why couldn't they have used slightly revised versions of the rest of the original score to go with the slightly revised version of the original story?

The Big Finale: Cute time-waster for families with younger children who are looking for holiday programming or fans of the 90's animated musical boom.

Home Media: Pretty easy to find on DVD; it's currently streaming on Amazon Prime.

DVD
Amazon Prime