Almost Worthless: The Little Mermaid and Friends

I'm well aware that not only is this the third animated film I've reviewed, it's also the second one with a mermaid theme. This is because I cheated a bit and bought this one not at a dollar store, but on ebay. It was before I reviewed The Figurehead, but it took some time for shipping. You can see why I couldn't pass up this DVD, though, if you look at it:

Ideally, a DVD that tries to pass itself off as Disney should at least put some effort into the cover art. This is either a tracing of Disney's Ariel or a page from a Little Mermaid coloring book. As if that weren't enough, Not-Ariel is Photoshopped next to Noah's ark and a jester drawn with Microsoft Paint. Look at his knee. If that doesn't say "Review me!" I don't know what does.

The back cover's even worse. Not-Ariel appears to be leaning over a chalkboard. That bird on a perch looks like it was actually cut out of magazine and pasted on. And it looks like the MS DOS animals were supposed to have been superimposed over the ark on the front cover. It probably isn't an accident that the misplaced ark animals cover up most of manufacturer's name so that I can't tell who made it.To top it all off, there are random doodles in the background.

Let's hope that DVD lives up to the promise of its packaging.

Before I begin, let me show you the first frame of the DVD. I would pretend that the lady with the witch hat had something to do with Noah's Ark if only it were explained why she has no feet.

Anyway, like the last two DVDs, this is a collection of animated fairy/folk tales. Although Noah's Ark is the first story, I've chosen to look at The Little Mermaid first. Technically, it's a little more than 10 minutes long, but no one should care.

Thankfully, the mermaid isn't a carbon copy of Ariel. So why didn't they just put Anime Mermaid on the cover? It would sell better.

Anyway, the movie already has some strange details. I'm not going to try to guess how the birthday candles work, although I do like how her family reassures her what a horrible experience she's about to have visiting the surface right before she blows out the candles. Happy birthday! Have fun even though we all know you'll hate it!

On the other hand, the shot of brooding, shaggy-haired Prince Jonathan playing his guitar is a brilliant addition. What teenage girl wouldn't fall in love with that?

That sea witch looks really familiar. Where have I seen her before?

Another weird detail is the mermaids' variety of sartorial choices. Depictions of mermaids usually solve the "problem" of showing their breasts in the following five ways: strategically placed seashells/starfish (which, when you think about where a starfish's mouth is, makes that the least family-friendly option); strategically draped hair; the extension of the tail into sort of a strapless top, often with a sweetheart neckline; having the mermaid wear a blouse (the rarest option); or none of these. This version uses four of the five methods, often in the same scene. On second thought, maybe it's not so weird. Maybe mermaids need to be fashionable, too.

Of course, these are superficial oddities. The one that really matters is the plot reduction. Most adaptations of The Little Mermaid aren't entirely faithful to Hans Christian Andersen's story. This is understandable. The more violent elements are usually left out, such as the witch cutting out the mermaid's tongue to remove her voice and the mermaid feeling intense pain both during her transformation and afterwards, when she uses her newly acquired feet. A very powerful moment in the original story and many movie adaptations happens when the mermaid goes into the marriage chamber with the dagger and hears the prince call his new wife's name in his sleep. There truly is no going back at that point. It may have been cut from this version because of an unwanted sexual connotation (the married couple does sleep in separate beds, after all).

What I can't figure out is why this version has the prince already married by the time the mermaid meets him as a human. In my opinion, that eliminates all the suspense. It's not a story. It's a spoiler.

We're supposed to feel the mermaid's emotional journey from eagerly hoping for the prince's love, then knowing she doesn't have much of a chance but still clinging to fairy tale faith, then accepting her position as she watches the prince marry another. By condensing the mermaid's emotional maturation to a dance and a couple of compliments, it loses a lot of significance. The only reason for this that I can think of is for the sake of brevity, and if that's the case, it's unfortunate that such a restriction was in place.

In terms of animation, The Little Mermaid is the highlight of the DVD. Sure, the aging-actress-style soft focus effect on the underwater parts is good in theory but not in practice, but that's nothing compared to the other shorts.

At the same time, though, it is the two stories with the worst animation that are the most visually effective.The majority of the scenes in Noah's Ark are tame, but the still images that depict mankind's descent into sin are frightening. I'm not completely sure what they're illustrating, but they get the message across.

The Pied Piper is a better example. This adaptation spends more time on the actual rat infestation than the ones I remember. According to the voice-over, there were millions of rats. The animation is so bad that the rats just look like black blobs, but it's still suggestive enough and it has enough sound effects to make it completely unsettling. Rats burst through the walls. They carry off and kill cats and dogs. Mercifully, those killings take place offscreen, so we only hear them, but we're not so lucky when the same thing happens to a soldier sent to guard the village.

It should also be noted that the DVD includes two fairy tales that may not be so familiar: South America's The Rainbow Bird and The Pheasant and the Gong from Korea (North or South isn't specified). These, along with The Grasshopper and the Ant, are available on the YouTube page.

The DVD as a whole is not nearly as bad as its cover suggests. It's basically just some good-to-mediocre animated shorts thrown together. I couldn't find any more information on them. There aren't credits listed. I couldn't even find Kids Klassics: Volumes 1-4. Apparently, no one wants to be associated with it. It's like the DVD sprang from the earth and crawled its way to an ebay distributor.

All in all, The Little Mermaid and Friends is definitely not good, but it's not bad enough to have camp value. There's not even a spontaneous piper clown program at the end. After the last subject of my review, I now think all DVDs should have that.

Yeah, I wasted a dollar, but be glad it wasn't yours. Next time: a grown-up movie. I'll do my best.