Folks, this isn't easy to look at but I selected to review an episode of the old show, Dumbo's Circus. Now there are two things to get out of the way, Dumbo is the only character to appear in this show from the original film. I guess I could understand why Timothy wasn't included but they could have done a puppet of him, I mean The Muppets has Rizzo and the other thing, he talks. Now I understand the decision made to have him talk was because in the show he is now older. Still, it is rather jarring and if your a fan of Jim Cummings, he appears in this show as well. I believe this was his first role with Disney and I'm so sorry that you have to see this thing.
The Plot
Oh, my goodness where to start. This plot is one of the most cliched and over used in children's television. Strangers are bad and you shouldn't trust them. Seriously for plot, see title. Okay to go more into of the plot, Dumbo, I'm sorry I can't call this puppet Dumbo, so instead from now on I'll refer to him as Davis. Davis and Lionel had just bought a new trike and they love it so much to sing about it. I should clarify that Lionel is one of the circus asstiants and he is basically the Timothy stand-in. They run into our bad guy of the episode, Speedy, named as such because he drives really fast. Speedy wants to trade with them a magic lamp that is a bit faulty for their new trike. Davis thinks this is a bad idea because they don't know him and he's a stranger. Fair enough and I get where they are coming from. They don't trade it but after a while, Barnaby (a dog) goes to get stuff they need for the circus. He runs into Speedy and he ends up trading the trike for the magic lamp and Davis wins it back in a race. So many things about this show make me want to ask why?!
Episode Title
Never Trust A Stranger
There isn't much to say about this title other than it's straight forward.
Characters
I'll be breaking this down into Main, & uh.. Stranger. Yeah, guess that works
Main Characters
This character is meant to be Dumbo but as stated above, I can't bring myself to call him that and instead will refer to him as Davis. There's really not much to say about Davis other than that he's there and he saves the day. That's pretty much it, he is the one that suggests not listening to Speedy because he's a stranger and after they lose everything to Speedy, he beats him in a race. Of course, he won by flying but he still needed his magic feather. Wait, WHAT?!
Conitiunity, What's that? I mean, yeah I get that this came out long after the movie and is loosely and I mean loosely related to the film but if Davis is supposed to be an older version of my favorite elephant from Disney, couldn't they have checked the film? To oh, I don't know see that magic feather isn't real and that the real Dumbo didn't need it at the end of the film anymore.
Lionel voiced by Jim Cummings
As stated above, Lionel is our Timothy stand-in. He's okay character if I didn't see much of personality to him other than being Davis' best friend and second in command of the circus. He sings along with Davis about the trike. By the way, I'm not covering the songs from this show because there is nothing to say. He was probably the most tolerable character because Jim Cummings is awesome and he was the only competent lead out of the new characters and unlike the other character I've talked about, they weren't messing with a classic Disney character. Still if I had one gripe, it would be each time I heard him speak, all I could hear was Darkwing Duck. Wait a minute, why am I complaining? DW in this show would've made it so much better than what it is.
Barnaby voiced by Will Ryan
Barnaby is the one that ends up trading the trike for the faulty magic lamp. Again, he sings about great the trike is. This character is meant to come across as not the smartest and that shows and I also found him to be the most annoying character. He's just annoying and dumb.
Stranger (I guess this works when he's really not a villain)
Speedy voice unknown
Sadly or perhaps Gladly, I couldn't find a picture of Speedy. He is the one that everyone is tricked by to get the trike. Oh, the reason he's called Speedy is because he likes driving really fast and that is only ever seen once in the entire episode. He's probably the smartest character in the whole episode but that's not saying a whole lot. Even with his voice, they try to make him sound like a bad person. There isn't much to say about this character other than he's a bad person who is also a bad driver. Oh in case your wondering, what he looks like, imagine a blue whatnot Muppet driving a car.
My Final Thoughts
Yeah, I think that sums up everything pretty well. This show was bad not as bad as say Too Smart For Strangers but boy oh boy was it bad. Everything from the characters to the editing to well just all of it was bad. But enjoyably bad, it was bad in a way that I could enjoy it's stupidity. If you need a good laugh at something after a bad day, join Davis and his friends at the circus. Join me tomorrow for something I've been wanting to do for the longest time as I re review Dumbo.
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