Spring has arrived and the My Little Ponies are having a gay old time! But after screwing up a dance recital, Baby Lickety-Split feels unwanted and runs away from home. Oh no! While the ponies go in search of her, the evil witch Hydia and her two ne'er-do-well children are determined to destroy the pony's home with a nastiness known as The Smooze.
Many of the cartoons of my childhood are truly awful when I go back and look at them again. This was not one of those. It was a decent story, appropriate for children and decently animated. Granted, the songs were sort of weak and didn't really have the lyrical genius an adult might like. I wonder how much crap my mom had to sit through with me as a child.
But the messages are good. First, we learn that families are important and that parents should love their children and children should love their parents. The evil witch Hydia won't let her kids call her "mom" and makes them do horrible things to those innocent little ponies. Mothers, love your babies, and don't let them grow up to be cowboys. Kids, love your parents, and know they're (probably) doing the best they can. Unless they're like Hydia, then your parents are bad and you should get new ones.
We also learn that running away is not the answer to feeling unwanted. Someone out there probably loves you, unless you're a really awful person. But even then you can probably find someone. Baby Lickety-Split was cute and everyone loved her, she was just too focused on being the star of the show, rather than working as a team. It's important to put in your best effort, but don't step on other people's toes.
I really loved the Smooze... and the song that goes with it, because nothing can stop the Smooze. I really cannot describe this, so you may as well see it. If you get the DVD, you can jump to any song you want. Go ahead and jump to this song before you even watch the movie, it's not going to ruin anything and really sets up the greatness of the film.
Danny DeVito gets top billing for this film. Don't be fooled by that. He doesn't show up until much later and plays a minor character, the Grundle King, with few lines. Those lines, by the way, are in broken English. So he doesn't even really have a full sentence in his script. Mr. DeVito, you lucky man... getting such credit for such little work.
Mike Joens is the director. Joens has done a fair amount of work with the art department of "The Muppet Babies", another great cartoon, so you know this one is in good hands. The writer is George Arthur Bloom, who has been involved in a great many pony projects. If anyone knows the mythology of My Little Pony, it's Bloom.
Whether you have kids or not, I think this is a winner of a film. I don't have my own kids, but still I loved it. If I did, I would show this to them because it's better than much of the current kid stuff out there. Not all, but much of it. (It's hard to beat things like "Shrek", but not so hard to beat many of the television cartoons.) Go to your local Family Video, where kids movies are free, and pick this one up today.
