Almost Worthless: Little Red Riding Hood and Friends

I sought another Kids Klassics DVD for my next review for a few reasons. The YouTube videos from my previously reviewed Kids Klassic The Little Mermaid and Friends are gaining some popularity. I also liked the grab-bag feeling that the DVD provided. There was no telling what would be inside that garish case. It's a little different now that I have some expectation of what I'll find in this Klassic. The cover is basically the same MS Paint mess as the other one but without a carbon copy of Disney's Ariel. Still, for 99 cents, it's worth a shot.

This is the weirdest version of Little Red Riding Hood I’ve ever seen. That includes Freeway. I don’t even know where to begin with this one. One of the more intriguing parts is the fact that Lil’ Red is friends with a snake. A snake that would probably eat her cute little bunny friends. If venomous snakes were more common in Europe, I’d also wonder why he didn’t take down the wolf for her. Speaking of which, the cuckoo-clock swallowing wolf that miraculously survives getting cut open by a Scottish-ish clown woodsman is really what takes this version over the top. I get the comic relief aspects. I’ll even buy his post-Grandma eating drunkenness because it reminds me of my beloved Templeton from Charlotte’s Web. But do we really have to watch the same frame of him drooling for 14 seconds straight? (Yes, I counted.)

I hope this is what the rest of the DVD is like. The other Kids Klassic had its moments, but this is just sheer ridiculousness mixed with terrible animation. Perfect. It's good to see the footless witch hat girl introduce the stories again, too.

Well, it may not top The Little Mermaid and Friends in terms of cover art, but it definitely tops it in the ridiculousness department. A lot of the animation is interesting in still form, but it's also really lazy. The same shots are used over and over and the motion is stilted. The "Gifts of the North Wind" clip has dubbing issues. The storytelling in the more familiar stories takes some weird turns, like the stepmother in "Hansel and Gretel" getting burned in the eyes at the same time the witch burns to her death. I get that it's supposed to be a parallel, but since the stepmother doesn't die, it's ineffective. The showpiece of the DVD is its version of "King Grizzle Beard". It's has a longer runtime and the animation is better than that of the other shorts, just like "The Little Mermaid" was the best-looking short in The Little Mermaid and Friends. I'd never heard the story of King Grizzle Beard before, but it proved to be a Taming of the Shrew-type tale without the humor. It's okay, but I wasn't missing anything by not knowing it as a child.

Was it worth a dollar? In it's own weird way, yes, but no more than that.