Friday, July 5, 2013

The Oogieloves in the Big Balloon Adventure



Runtime: 88 minutes

Directed by: Matthew Diamond

Starring: Creepy human-sized costumed things, plus embarrassed guest stars Cloris Leachman, Chazz Palminteri, Toni Braxton, Cary Elwes, Jaime Pressly, and Christopher Lloyd

From: Kenn Viselman

Yes, I watched a G-rated movie on Netflix Instant tonight. But, this is a movie that became infamous for having the worst box office gross of all time for a film released on at least 2,000 screens, earning barely above one million dollars in total, and that was with it being advertised well enough for me to have seen ads for it on TV before it came out. It was a bizarre-looking thing with some famous faces in the cast who apparently needed the money, and it was made in '09 before coming out late August of last year. The guy who was responsible for this was one of the people who brought The Teletubbies & Thomas the Tank Engine to the United States. With such a story behind it, I was too damn curious and I watched it. WOW

The best way to describe this (basically, it's like Barney mixed with Pee Wee's Playhouse, only really bad) is to describe what I saw, so here you go:

The movie starts off with the three annoying-ass “heroes” we're supposed to follow, which are creepy as hell people in goofy costumes named Goobie, Zoozie, and Toofie. What an annoying A-hole Toofie was! He had blonde hair and always yelled as if he was some sort of surfer or a similar “dude”. Plus, he never wore a belt so several times his pants would fall down. Yeah, he was basically the Theodore Rex of the group.

Anyhow, they have a surprise birthday party for their pink-pillowed friend Schuluufy (yes, literally a pink pillow who sleeps all the time) but their Hoover vacuum pal named J. Edgar loses the 5 magical balloons and the Oogieloves have to go track down all the balloons, but not before singing about pancakes; they get helped by Windy Window, a chick with a Southern accent who has her face in the window and J. Edgar would love it for her... oh wait, I mean he enjoys Ms. Willow. The three go out on their tricycles to get all balloons, and for some reason they bring about a grumpy goldfish named Ruffy, who actually was the highlight of the movie. Think about that.

They visit a giant tree where a valleygirl and her circle-obsessed grandmother (Leachman) live. They teach a lesson that it's OK for a kid to jump out of a tree, as long the balloon they have is “magical”. Somehow, I think that's not a good lesson to teach.

They visit Marvin Milkshake's restaurant; Marvin is poor Palminteri, who acts like Andrew Dice Clay! Well, he goes “oooh!” often. He actually sings about milkshakes. The fish wins the milkshake drinking competition so they get that balloon. Oh, and there's also breakdancing in this scene. Yes.

They then visit a singer played by Toni Braxton. A good actress she is not. They get the third balloon from her.

They then visit a garishly dressed cowboy trucker named Bobby Wobbly (Elwes! I don't know if I've ever felt so sorry for a man) to get the fourth balloon. He is bubble-obsessed; don't ask. He's basically a white Cowboy Curtis, only not as cool as that may sound.

Finally, they visit a pair of flamenco dancers (Pressly and Lloyd; but of course...) who ride around in a giant flying sombrero. No, I am not on drugs, this actually happened, although I think that by this point the scriptwriters were on drugs! Lloyd mainly communicates via striking a bongo. I don't know why either. Anyway, a giant tulip helps get the last balloon down from a windmill. Lloyd threatens the goldfish after Pressly kisses it. Yes.

After that, a contrived thing happened that isn't worth going in-depth on, so the narcoleptic pillow wakes up and the party happens; it enjoyed the balloons and the presents that each guest star gave to a talking narcoleptic pillow. The end.

Overall... despite some of the wacky things I said about the strange shit present in this motion picture, don't watch it and please don't show it to even your youngest kids. I have twin nephews who as of tonight are 6 ½ months old and I wouldn't want them to watch this crap at any age. The story is insulting even to toddlers, the situations are eye-rolling and there are plenty of songs, none of them any good. Your children should watch better programming... how about tracking down old Looney Tunes or Disney cartoons? That's what I watched and loved as a kid and they'd still be great in 2013. Don't show your youngsters this sort of garbage.


I'll be back Monday night.

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