At the risk of having one of the wee folk put the come hither on me and replace my kids with changelings, I’m going to go ahead and declare that Darby O’Gill And The Little People was nothing so much as a lot of potato-breathed blarney that even an Irishman full of cheap stout could not have enjoyed. Continue reading “Darby O’Gill and the Little People (1959)”
Category: Kids
Spellbreaker: Secret of the Leprechauns (1996)
It’s easy to say that Spellbreaker: The Secret of the Leprechauns is like some kind of mediocre wish granted for having endured its puny predecessor, Leapin’ Leprechauns!
If you recall, that film followed an old man and his stowaway leprechaun and fairy friends as he visited his douche son and family in Denver. Douche dad was trying to scam old man into letting him build the Irelandland theme park on Fairy Hill. No one believed old man about the existence of the wee folk at first, but everyone came around eventually.
If you don’t recall any of that, don’t worry because Spellbreaker wastes its first two minutes having douche dad’s creepy son, Mikey, narrate it all, accompanied by flashbacks. This is easily the worst part of Spellbreaker. That’s not really a compliment toward Spellbreaker so much as a reminder of what a pile of pooka droppings Leapin’ Leprechauns! was. Continue reading “Spellbreaker: Secret of the Leprechauns (1996)”
The Last Leprechaun (1998)
“I should have trusted my children, you are a witch,” the formerly bewitched rich guy played by Jack Scalia (Endless Descent) blandly announces as he watches his fiancee levitate with electricity periodically sparking around her. And just like that the water banshee’s plan to flood the valley begins to unravel. Continue reading “The Last Leprechaun (1998)”
Leapin’ Leprechauns! (1995)
I want to tell you a tale about a guy who didn’t believe in the wee folk. He was given to lying to his pops, patronizing his family and worst of all possessing a douchey countenance and haircut.
He heard stories that his immortal soul was bound to be hauled off by some evil cloud-monster-banshee thing to whatever hell the wee folk think up for non-believers (lots of soccer and Riverdance, but I’m just guessing), but he what did he care because these little turds weren’t real, right?
But then, like in all other major religions, these pesky pipsqueaks started giving him signs like causing food to get shoved in his face! And magic markers to fly around! And a vase full of water tipping over on his plans for the moronically named Irelandland! (I like to think King Kevin was just trying to save this dope from himself with that trick.) Continue reading “Leapin’ Leprechauns! (1995)”
In Search of the Castaways (1962)
Jules Verne plus Walt Disney equals really bad special effects and a disjointedly confusing story. Most of the blame surely rests with Disney since I doubt very much that Verne’s novel included an aged and slumming Maurice Chevalier sitting on a fake horse and singing about climbing mountains. Continue reading “In Search of the Castaways (1962)”
The Strange Monster of Strawberry Cove (1971)
I suppose that when a TV show runs something like 35 years, you’re bound to run into some episodes that feel like they were just thrown on the air to fulfill whatever commitment the production company had to the network for original programming. Disneyland, after all, couldn’t exactly run Pinocchio, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea or Pollyanna once a month. Sometimes you had to rely on that tried and true variation of kids getting mixed up in small time crime that could be resolved in two one hour long episodes. Continue reading “The Strange Monster of Strawberry Cove (1971)”
The Wacky Zoo of Morgan City (1970)
You can have Dr. Seuss’s If I Ran the Zoo with its totally made up monsters, exotic lands, and that praise-craving brat Gerald McGrew. If I ran a freaking zoo, I’d do it just like Mitch Collins (Hal Holbrook) did in Wacky Zoo of Morgan City with its run down and surely dangerous and inhumane cages, toothless lion that has low blood pressure and eats oatmeal, camel who can only eat a couple of carrots at a time due to digestive issues, and penguin who demands to swim in warm water. Continue reading “The Wacky Zoo of Morgan City (1970)”