In my continuing pursuit for cartoons that I didn't watch growing up and that I may find appealing, this is yet another discovery I made some months back. I first learned about this through reading up on it on the site, Toonhound. Desperately trying to find something that may be among the better animated material to watch and get into more 'toons from the U.K., I decided to give this a try. It's not one of the series that comes even close to being 100% perfect technically, but despite this, it's still has enough enjoyability to sit through it anyway, going by or based on the premise itself.
It's art imitating life, centering on an artistically gifted, British girl named Penny Crayon. As her surname suggests, she's an aspiring artist who draws with a special crayon that can magically make any illustrations she creates come alive. When they come alive, they also seem to be as genuine as the things that weren't originally doodles. Water is used on them to revert them as they were and a magic eraser is used to rub them out of existence. Penny is often accompanied and assisted by her best friend, and schoolmate, Dennis.
The art style in this has a comic book feel and everything about it is well-colored, but the animation quality isn't the most fluid. While Penny's voice isn't all that bad, the funny but somewhat hard-on-the-ears voices of some of the other characters, such as Dennis, and Cockney accents may take some time for them to grow on listeners. The music, especially the theme song, is alright. The overall plot and the stories may be the best thing about it. In all of the dozen episodes, Penny uses her magic crayon as a problem-solving mechanism, to get out of jams, and for other conveniences. Penny is very clever and resourceful, as she never goes anywhere without carrying her delineative tool or art supply.
In spite of it not being high art or even quite a masterpiece, or the most sophisticated as far as the animation goes, it still should be appealing enough, especially to art fans. As this arrived at the tail end of the '80s, it's still one of my favorites from that decade. However, I wish this had run longer, as it was never explained how Penny found the extraordinary crayon that represents her namesake, which would've been better had there been an episode that revolved around that and should've been among the further episodes, had there been any more. While it may not be the most exquisite, it's still is, in my eyes, as far as storytelling is concerned and nevertheless makes for a fine alternative to all the mindless drivel that would come along later. So that's another reason why anyone should watch this, in addition to curiosity. This may be better, if at least, slightly, than the similarly-themed Chalkzone. Recommended.
