Almost Worthless: The Talking Parcel

This is the second installment of my series on dollar store DVDs. For more information on this project, check out my hub called Almost Worthless: A Look At Very Cheap Cinema.

The Talking Parcel and my last selection, The Figurehead and Other Fairy Tales, come from the same distributor, EastWest Entertainment. Unlike that of The Figurehead, though, the cover of The Talking Parcel doesn't indicate whether it is stop-motion animation, 2-D animation, or live action. In fact, the front cover doesn't say much in general. It's just a little girl with a slight Dora the Explorer resemblance hanging out at the beach with a parcel and a unusually large-headed parrot. That's why it was the back cover that caught my attention.

That's better. A frog wearing a little cap and vest bouncing in front of a dog-faced sea monster. Then there's the grammatically questionable synopsis: "The talking parcel washed up on a beach and discloses a pushy parrot who whisks a small girl off on a perilous adventure to rescue an old wizard from the clutches of the evil cockatrices."

For those who aren't familiar with the cockatrice, it's nothing like a cockroach, which was my first impression. A cockatrice is the answer to a question you've probably never asked: what would happen If a dragon mated with a rooster?

All right, then: we've got evil rooster-dragons, a wizard, a dapper-looking frog, a sea monster-dog, a giant pushy parrot, and a little girl on a magical journey. It sounds like a seaside version of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. I'm not sure if I can take an hour's worth of it, but I'm more than willing to try.

The opening shot shows an abstractly drawn bird becoming more conventional looking as it flies further from the sun and closer into view. It's lovely, but it's quickly spoiled by the addition of a song about "moon carrot pie". Yeah, they mention a mermaid in it, but it still doesn't make sense. Maybe it's an English thing, because it turns out the song is coming from a fine English gentleman parrot who travels in a completely furnished cage. Parrot, as he is called, also carries an umbrella with him at all times. That's not too unusual, considering Disney's cartoon parrot (and fine Brazilian gentleman) Jose does the same.

These things don't faze the little girl, Penelope, at all. She seems to be a very lonely child. It's not really because there's no one looking for her as she follows Parrot through woods and meadows to the magical French (?) train. The absence of parents is a given in this kind of story. No, it's because there's apparently only a few houses in the vicinity, and they all looks like they've been abandoned for a while. There aren't even animals in the woods. No wonder Penelope went with Parrot without a second thought. She's the only non-plant living there.

I won't criticize the mild mind trip that is Penelope's journey to Mythologia. Children's movies are supposed have at least some inexplicable weirdness. This isn't to say that this one would benefit from better animation. The dragon that simultaneously breathes fire and quenches it with her tears, for example, is a nicely absurd concept that deserves a better rendering.

This turned out to be a good movie. It's your average child-on-a-magical-journey story. It rarely goes above average in animation and storytelling (though the toad I mistook for a frog earlier proved to be especially endearing), but for a dollar store movie, that's more than enough.

That's how I would have ended my review if, right after the movie's adorable ending, this hadn't happened:

Goodbye, Penelope! Goodbye new friends! It's been fun...HOLY GOODNESS. What is this? Why is this here? Who decided that the best way to make the DVD an even hour was to add what looks like the late John Candy stuffed into a bad Peter Pan costume? All I'm saying is that a warning would have been nice.

Yet as soon as the jolly piper man says his first line: "Sometimes good fortune comes to us in the most unexpected way," it's easy to think he's talking about himself. Sorry, Penelope, it had been fun, but what comes next is nothing short of wonderful.

This is a treasure trove of awkward animation. Sometimes the animators didn't even bother to finish their drawings:

Not only that, there are three more stories presented by this lovable, red-faced oaf (available at the Almost Worthless YouTube page). The Talking Parcel is completely overshadowed at this point.

I know that's not fair to you, Penelope. You never let me down. It's just that Mr. Piper's badly-drawn fairy tales provide the cheap thrills that dollar store DVDs should have. You're too good for that. You belong in a normal-size DVD case with a proper cover. And let's be honest. It was never meant to be long-term. There will always be another DVD to review.

I never intended to research the movies before watching them because I wanted the element of surprise to be intact. Honestly, I also didn't think it mattered much. However, The Talking Parcel videos on the YouTube page received an almost immediate response of comments thanking me for uploading it. I had no idea that the movie had such popularity and that it was cherished so much. According to IMDB, The Talking Parcel was a TV movie released in the UK and it features the voices of prominent British character actors. "Moon Carrot Pie" is not an unknown song, either.

Additionally, Mr. Piper was a CBC TV series that first aired in 1960. It was only broadcast in Canada and later, the reruns were shown in the UK. Mr. Piper was played by opera star Alan Crofoot, who tragically died in 1979 from suicide.

All of this from a dusty DVD purchased at an American dollar store. In future entries, I'll be sure to include any relevant information I find after watching because it really does add another dimension to what may otherwise look like just another silly movie. I apologize for my ignorance.