My Pet Monster (1986) Movie Review

 Hey everyone! Happy Friday! How're you all doing today? I'm pretty good. As promised I'm back with my review of the 1986 direct-to-video movie, My Pet Monster since I watched it on Wednesday night with Katie and Nat for the VHS Club monthly movie watch party. I don't really have a whole lot to say other than, this was the first time I'd ever watched it. I'd heard of this movie and heard some fairly negative things about it, so I was a bit prepared for it to be bad. It was actually pretty good. I'll get into that more in the review. So, let's get into it!

Like The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin the year before, My Pet Monster was produced as the pilot for a live action TV show. Unlike The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin, there doesn't seem to be a reason for why the series remained unproduced. The movie didn't air on TV, as far as I'm aware, but it was released on VHS in lieu of airing on TV. Instead, a 13 episode cartoon series was produced by Canadian animation studio, Nelvana Limited and aired on Global TV here in Canada and on ABC in the U.S.

The cast for this movie is great. We've got Sunny Besen Thrasher as Max/Monster, he also voiced Max, who was a separate character from Monster in the cartoon, Alyson Court as Max's sister, Melanie, Colin Fox as Dr. Snyder, the antagonist, Yannick Bisson as Max and Melanie's older brother, Rod, and Kelly Rowan as Rod's girlfriend, Stephanie. Aside from voicing Max in the cartoon, Thrasher was in a bunch of cartoons as various voices, including the Care Bears, Alyson Court voiced Max's sister, Jill in the cartoon, but she is also very well known as Loonette the Clown on The Big Comfy Couch and a girl named Ruthie that Big Bird encounters on a farm in the 1985 movie Sesame Street Presents: Follow That Bird, as well as tons of cartoons. Colin Fox played the storekeeper in the first episode of the 1995 Goosebumps TV series, Yannick Bisson played Agent Jack Hudson on Sue Thomas: F.B. Eye, and Detective William Murdoch on Murdoch Mysteries, and Kelly Rowan is very well known as Kirsten Cohen on The O.C. So this movie has a pretty stacked cast.

The plot of the movie is that Max and his sister go on a field trip to a museum, where Max gets turned into a monster by a statue, which he transforms into whenever he's hungry. Meanwhile, the scientist who theorized about the monster's existence while studying the statues discovers what happened to Max and wants to use him to gain fame and fortune for his work.

I loved this movie. Like I said earlier, I'd only heard bad things about it, but it's actually pretty good. It's definitely different from what the cartoon series is, but that doesn't automatically make it bad. Sure, the production quality isn't great, but it was made with a low budget because it was supposed to be the pilot episode for a TV series that never got produced, and it was released direct-to-video. 

What makes this movie fun is that there's the mundane aspect of Rod trying to get on his girlfriend's good side by taking care of her dog for her, to get her ready for a dog show. Of course, he tries to take the cheap way out and the greedy dog groomers end up kidnapping the dog, so it's up to Max as the Monster, Melanie, and Rod to get the dog back.

This sounds like the craziest '80s movie plot, and yet it works so well. Dr. Snyder is a typical '80s kids show antagonist that isn't a supervillain. He's greedy and a glory hound, and Colin Fox plays him really well. Max and Melanie are my favourite characters though. Of course I grew up watching Alyson Court on The Big Comfy Couch and in Follow That Bird, but the character of Melanie is pretty great and was always willing to help Max when he turned into Monster. 

Overall this was a really fun movie. It's nothing spectacular, but it was a great watch for a Wednesday night virtual movie night with friends. I had a great time watching it.

Alright my friends, that's it for me for this week. I'll be back soon with another blog post. I have an idea of what I want to talk about next. Until then have a great weekend and I will talk to you all later. Take care.

The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin (1985) TV Movie Review

 Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing pretty well. So last night was the monthly VHS Club Watch Party that Katie, Nat, and I do and we watched a double feature of mid-80s non-theatrical films. The first was the made for TV movie, The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin, which aired on the ABC Weekend Special on November 30th and December 7th 1985, then got released on VHS in 1986, and the second was the 1986 direct-to-video movie based on the My Pet Monster toyline. So today I'm going to review The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin and then tomorrow I'll come back and review My Pet Monster. Let's get into it.

The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin is the first VHS tape my parents ever rented for me when I was a little kid. I was 3 years old when they first rented it for me in 1990. I watched it endlessly. The first time we rented it they had gotten it from West Coast Video, and then everytime after that it was from Rogers Video. Eventually, Rogers discontinued the tape, and we ended up buying it and I watched it numerous times after that.

This was originally meant to be the pilot episode for a full live action/animatronic TV series, and it aired in two parts on ABC in the U.S. I don't actually know what channel it aired on here in Canada, if it even aired here in Canada. It may have only been direct-to-video here, I don't know. Regardless, I wasn't born yet when the special aired on ABC, so all of my memories of it come from the VHS.

The reason this pilot never went to series is because the animatronics would've been too expensive for a weekly or daily series, and the network didn't want to spend that much money. In the '80s ABC wasn't owned by Disney yet, and Disney didn't have any involvement with AlchemyII's work on the show (unlike with Welcome to Pooh Corner only a couple of years earlier). Basically the special cost $1.5 million dollars, which was a much higher cost than most TV specials on ABC at the time. Which is why for the The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin TV show that aired in 1987, they went with an animated series in first run syndication.

The voice cast for this special is pretty much everybody who voiced the various characters in the original Teddy Ruxpin book and tape stories that were produced to go with the toy. Phil Baron voiced Teddy, Will Ryan voiced Grubby, Tweeg, Prince Arin, Wooly, and Louie the Grunge (the Wizard's cameraman), Tony Pope voiced Gimmick, Katie Leigh voiced Princess Aruzia, and Russi Taylor voiced Leota.

The special is an adaptation of the first two book and tape stories, The Airship and The Missing Princess. Tweeg and L.B. weren't in the original book and tape stories, most likely because the Child Safety PSA at the end of The Missing Princess took up enough time that there wasn't time to include the two characters in the story, as a result they were removed from The Airship. At least that's the prevaling theory in the Teddy Ruxpin fandom, as it's never been talked about why Tweeg and L.B. weren't included in the first two book and tape stories even though they were part of the original story that Teddy Ruxpin creator, Ken Forsse, wrote for the book and tapes.

I love this special. It's not only nostalgic for me, but it actually holds up pretty well for something that's over 40 years old. The animatronic suits and model work are really good. For the time obviously. But it's all practical effects. Which is really cool.

Overall this is a very good special. Both Katie and Nat enjoyed it when we watched it last night, and of course, I love it because it's so comforting. You might appreciate it more if you have some history with Teddy Ruxpin, be it through the animated series or the original toy in the '80s, but I think it's enjoyable on its own.

That's gonna be it for me for today, but I'll be back tomorrow with my review of My Pet Monster. Until then have a great evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care.

Star Wars: Maul - Shadow Lord (2026) Season 1 Review

 Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing pretty well. The season finale of Star Wars: Maul - Shadow Lord dropped on Monday, and I watched both episodes that night, but I wanted to give it a day to simmer in my brain before I wrote about it. So, here's my review of the first season of Maul: Shadow Lord. There will be some spoilers for the end of the season, so if you've been watching the show and haven't watched episodes 9 and 10 yet, this is your warning. Let's get into it.

I'll admit that I was a bit on the fence about this show when it was announced, and even as the marketing campaign for the show started up and trailers came out. Mostly because, as you all know by now, I'm not a fan of shows or movies about villain characters. This comes from the fact that I was born in an era where villains were evil, without any kind of redemption or morally grey elements to them or anything like that. Nobody was writing them or portraying them as sympathetic. Especially in animation. However, I was also interested because, of course, it was produced by the same team at Lucasfilm Animation who did The Clone Wars, Rebels, and The Bad Batch, and I knew they'd do Maul justice in a show focused on him. Plus, I love Sam Witwer as an actor, particularly as the voice of Maul. Even then, I didn't start watching the show as soon as the episodes started coming out, mostly because I kinda wanted the hype for the show within the Star Wars fandom to die down a bit before I started watching it.

It was a really good show. I liked the characters, especially the characters of Devon (a Twi'lek), Two-Boots (a Tactical Defense Droid), and Brander Lawson (a human). Devon and her master, Eeko-Dio Daki (a Mosyk, an alien race new to this show) are survivors of Order 66, and have been in hiding from the Empire for the last however many years since the end of the Clone Wars. Lawson is a law enforcement officer on the planet Janix, which is a new planet to this show. They all become embroiled in Maul's schemes to take out local crime lords so he can use Crimson Dawn's resources to take out Palpatine and Vader. It doesn't happen obviously being that this takes place years before Maul's appearance in Rebels, but at least he has a goal in mind for revenge against Sidious.

I haven't seen any of Maul's appearances in The Clone Wars, so I don't really have any context for where Maul is at this point in the timeline. But, that didn't diminish my enjoyment of the show, because like so much of Star Wars, you don't need to have seen a previous show or movie to enjoy the current one. Having said that though, I'm sure there are some nods to The Clone Wars that I didn't pick up on since I haven't seen anything past the halfway mark of season 2, but they weren't all that obvious.

With a show like this it's difficult to talk about individual episodes because they all lead into one another, however, my only real complaint is that the last two or three episodes of the season was basically just one long lightsaber duel between various characters. Not that that's a bad thing necessarily, because it was Maul, Devon, and Daki against two Inquisitors, First Brother and Eleventh Brother for some of it. But, then Darth Vader shows up, and without a single word he attacks Maul and the two Jedi survivors. And when I say Vader doesn't speak, I mean doesn't speak AT ALL, like no lines of dialogue. Not even to taunt Maul. Both Lawson and Daki are killed by the Imperials and Vader, but that's not why I have a problem with this lightsaber duel. My problem with it is that Vader showed up at all.

I get it, Vader was Palpatine's enforcer, but I kinda feel like he was unnecessary in this show. The two Inquisitors were more than a match for Maul and the two Jedi, as was shown in earlier episodes of this season, so Vader just made them a bit too overpowered. Plus, it just feels like the story people were just repeating what was done in the season 2 finale of Rebels, right down to Maul trying to turn Devon to the Dark Side, much as he tried to do with Ezra in Rebels. Or would try to do with Ezra in Rebels depending on whether you wanna look at it from the real world perspective, where Rebels in 2018, or look at it from the in-universe perspective where the events of Rebels haven't happened yet. And not in the "it's like poetry. It rhymes" way that George Lucas crafted elements of the Prequel Trilogy either. It's more like Filoni has wanted to see Maul and Vader duel each other for the past 27 years, even though there was a story where Vader and Maul dueled in a comic book story called "Resurrection", which was published in Star Wars Tales #9 back in 2001.

My favourite part was the dynamic that Lawson had with his son, Riley, as well as with Two-Boots. I'm not a huge fan of police procedurals, the fact that Lawson's storyline feels like a police procedural, where the cop or detective is also a single father, it makes the Lawsons more relatable and makes their story more familiar for the audience. Well, except for the fact that his ex-wife, Riley's mom, works directly for and with the Empire, believing strongly in its ideals and policies. Which makes me really wonder what kind of person the former Mrs. Lawson is, given what kind of entity the Empire actually is.

Overall, this was a great season of television. Despite the singular problem that I have with the season finale, it was really fun. I thought Maul's status at this point in time was interesting because it gives a bit more context for his appearance in Solo: A Star Wars Story, since he was the head of Crimson Dawn, with Dryden Vos as his lieutenant. I loved all the new characters though and am excited to see where Devon and Riley go in season 2 since of all the new characters, they're the only ones, besides Two-Boots, to survive the season.

That's going to be it for me for today. I'll be back soon with another review. Until then have a great evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care.