Tooncrap #2 - Little & Big Monsters


Crap Comes In All Sizes
Video Brinquedo: 2009

Written by: Raymond Gallant

Since Tooncrap is now moving over here to Game Show Garbage, it seems only fitting that some old frienemies make the trip along with me. That's right. Not only will my induction series see a bust of "new, fresh content", but I will be taking a trip back into the heaps of horrid that I've reviewed since my inception back in 2008. And I can think of no better way to start than with perhaps my greatest foe. The arrogant, racist, idiotic excuse for a "professor", one Dr. Crumb.



Yeah, this dink.

But before I can get into the real meat of what makes Dr. Crumb and his posse of peons so infamous, I have to first get to where the bad doctor comes from.

Now I assume most people are aware of The Asylum, the movie company known for taking hit blockbuster films and ripping them off with infamously asinine versions, usually on DVD to an unsuspecting audience expecting it to be at least as good as the official version, only to end up disappointed. Well, this mindset is no different in the world of animation. In fact, it's far worse.

Since the age of home video really began there have been knockoff animated films that have no doubt been foolishly picked up by unsuspecting parents/grandparents/that one uncle no one likes, and given to kids who were hoping for something like Up, or Ratatouille, or Kung Fu Panda. But instead of animated blockbusters, they instead were given some crockbusters like What's Up: Balloon to the Rescue, Ratatoing, or The Little Panda Fighter. And more often than not they came from a little company in Brazil called Video Brinquedo.

These contain awful CGI, poor flash animation, and usually a ton of racism, most notably heavy mocking of the Chinese for some reason. What makes this even funnier in a sad sort of way is that the film are dubbed using the 4Kids voice cast. So, you're not tripping if you hear Amy Rose of Luffy in this crud.

And with all of the introductions out of the way, let's look at one of the more infamously bad Video Brinquedo Crockbusters. It's Little and Big Monsters AKA Video Brinquedo's attempt to cash in on the DreamWorks film Monsters Vs. Aliens. So, was this a little and big disaster? Hold your nose. We're jumping into some classic crap.



We open our tale of woe in the home of Dr. Crumb. He's awakened by his Rube Goldberg-esque alarm clock/breakfast robot. This robot also doubles as giver of world news. This is all well and good, until... this...



Yeah, nothing says "kid friendly entertainment" like a weird robot head alarm clock thing spouting out "Chan bu chin ba chang". Dr. Crumb claims that this must be a virus, as he's sure that he's not subscribed to "that darn Chinese channel". That's some good old fashioned family racism.



From there we get an epic countdown of a boiled egg being ready to serve. Crumb tries to use a ray gun to put salt on the egg, but it's unresponsive. Maybe you should've just, I dunno, USED A SALT SHAKER! You know, there have been some particularly pointless inventions in the world, but salt shaker gun takes the prize.



Then we meet the unholy hell spawns, AKA Dr. Crumb's nephew and niece Guto and Amanda. And yes, we'll soon see just how stupid they can be. Through exposition, AKA veering the conversation away from the great salt gun failure of '09, Amanda explains that today's the inauguration of the intergalactic transmission antenna. It's a tool that can talk to other interplanetary life forms.

When Amanda and Guto offer to help, Crumb throws a hissy fit, and says "you can't trust machines, especially for your own safety". This coming from a guy who has the job of an inventor. You know, whose job is to pretty much trust machines. He tells them that they're the most important things in his life, which is such BS it's almost hilarious. Also, we're constantly reminded that Dr. Crumb and his assistant Dr. Zooks fought off aliens in the "Invasion of '54".

And all of this dialogue just takes forever to get through. One of the bajillion flaws of Video Brinquedo's work is that they're way too dialogue heavy. And most of it is either bland exposition, or nonsensical chatter.



At the inauguration, Crumb and Zooks activate the antenna (Which looks more like a telescope than an antenna). And, being the good uncle he is, Crumb sends Amanda to give the first test. So, after a BS conversation about how the kids are the most important thing to him, he puts them in charge of a possibly dangerous tool? What was that you said about "You can't trust machines, especially for your own safety?"



Whatever. Clearly you know what you're doing Dr. Crumb. Whadda prick!



Guto gets all butthurt that he wasn't the one to turn on the antenna, and heads home, however he notices a comet crash landing into Earth. The comet is actually a glowing green ball, which Guto has no problem just taking. He tries to tell Dr. Crumb, but being his douchey self, Dr. Crumb doesn't really believe him. We get more mentions of the invasion of '54, and Dr. Crumb seems to want to change the subject.

Later at the lab, Zooks and Crumb mention that Amanda may eventually learn the truth about "the invasion of '54". This concerns Crumb, who fears he'll lose Amanda's respect if she learns the truth. Nah, don't worry, she's a big enough idiot that she'll look right past years of straightforward deceit.



Meanwhile, the antenna finally gets a message. The scrambled message talks about junk food, and Dr. Crumb takes yet another fit of the hissy variety. Crumb and Zooks then do the logical thing. Instead of trying to decipher the first alien message right there and then, they decide to go to bed instead. Our heroes ladies and gents. The next day, the green ball that Guto found turns into slime and escapes out of his window. Apparently there's aliens attacking. You know what that means? Only a brave, moronic, racist, thoughtless scientist can save the day.

Well, we're boned.



And while we're still in Guto's room, look at the big ol' "Poster" for another Video Brinquedo rip-off "The little cars". Yeah, this company is notorious for shamelessly shilling their other notable crockbusters.

Dr. Crumb actually makes some scientific deduction (by tasting the green glop) that the green ball was an egg, and hatched three alien creatures. Amanda and Guto tell Dr. Crumb that it's time for him to save the world again, you know, like in the invasion of '54 that no one wants to shut the hell up about. Dr. Crumb once again tries to change the subject, as if he has something to hide.

Also, the story can't even stay consistent on where the green ball fell. Guto keeps saying that the ball hit the antenna and landed in front of the lab, but we never see that happen. We see the ball crash right in front of Guto who is out in front of the house, nowhere near this stupid antenna.



Amanda deduces that there's 3 monsters, and they came out of the glowing ball, which Dr. Crumb deduces was an egg. At the lab, Guto turns on a radio to which we hear in gory detail the aliens tearing apart animals at the zoo. Amanda wants him to turn it off, but he decides to pick his nose and ears instead. Either Guto is...

A. Just trying to annoy her.
B. Suddenly suffering from a bout of random deafness
C. Getting off on animals being slaughtered.

Amanda asks her uncle to get the weapons and get ready to fight like in "The battle of '54", but Crumb again tries to feed her that delicious BS. He also doesn't believe that there are any monsters, despite the reporter just talking about animals being destroyed.

 Maybe the reporter was Chinese, that would explain why he doesn't believe her.

When Amanda and Guto are gone, finally soon learn the truth about the battle The only reason he made up "The battle of 54" is so he could trick the government to fund their antenna. And this is supposed to be one of our heroes, ladies and gentlemen. Make up a completely bullshit alien invasion, and lie to the government for your crappy antenna that you don't even think works correctly. He also worries that once Amanda finds out, she won't respect him anymore. I wouldn't blame her. You straight up lied to her all her life that you were some brave hero, but in the end you just proved that you're a horrible human being. Dr. Zooks tells him to pep up, instead of, you know, calling him out on his BS.



While Guto tries to talk to what appears to be a deaf popcorn vendor (no literally, Guto has to yell at him to get some popcorn), , we finally see the first monster of this movie. Dr. Crumb picks up the kids in his red convertible, but leaves the popcorn vendor to fend for himself. It's because he's black isn't it? Then again, we've seen some of Dr. Crumbs notorious racism in motion, so it's nothing shocking.

He also finally confesses to Amanda that he lied about the entire invasion of '54, and that he's been making a fool of her for so long with all the tales of him fighting off an alien invasion and saving the world. Now, if this was a logical film, which it sure as hell ain't, she'd be pretty pissed about being deceived all her life. But no. She forgives him. Yeah, she forgives the liar for making a fool of her for all these years.

These characters deserve worse than death.



They get caught by an alien for a second, but manage to escape into a movie theater. The monster (who a minute ago was bigger than the building), busts through the movie screen. But a burst of salt from Guto's salt shaker, shrinks it down and makes it harmless. With more monsters on the attack, Amanda wants them to go out and fight. But again, Dr. Crumb complains that it's too dangerous, despite them now knowing how to stop the monsters. But despite his advice to stay home, Amanda leaves instead with Guto to put a stop to the monsters. They quickly dispose of the monsters with salted peanuts. So they've saved the world, and the movie can finally....



Oh right, we still have this crap to deal with.

The three aliens mentioned earlier capture Amanda and Guto with their laser. They introduce themselves as the Green and Friendly (despite being beige) E.T's. The monsters we've seen in the film were their pets that fell out of their space ship. They let the kids go, but are still missing one monster, who at that exact time is in an ice cream shop. It scares off the customers, and fills itself with Ice Cream until it grows. The kids and the not green E.T's are unable to stop it, until Dr. Crumb comes and saves the day, blasting it with a giant salt bomb. Hey look, Dr. Crumb did something useful.

The aliens leave with their pets in tow, and Crumb and company decide that they now have a new calling to stop monsters. They become the Monster Chasers. But thankfully we'll never have to see them again.

I wish I was joking. I really do.

What a monstrous piece of garbage! From horrible, reprehensible characters, some of the worst CGI I've ever seen, and even though it clocks in at a blissfully short but painful 45 minutes, this is an animated abomination. But then again, that's Video Brinquedo in a nutshell. But sadly, we still have to deal with the monster chasers one more time as we endure What's Up? Balloon to the Rescue.