The Donut All-Stars

And now, for something completely different.

That's right, I'm reviewing a live action direct-to-video program. The Donut Man (Rob Evans) in The Donut All-Stars! I know this completely not a cartoon, and don't worry, I'll still keep reviewing cartoons in the future, but at least we have a Duncan puppet. Now, I won't exactly ruin the video for you, so, I'll just give you the basic premise. The first half takes place at the park in Texas, where The Donut Man, Duncan, and the Donut Repair Club practice for a big baseball game against the Mighty Warriors. With all their hearts, and souls, they trained and they trained, until they were all prepared for the big competition! I have no idea how they did it all in one day, but it doesn't matter. The second half has the club battling against the Mighty Warriors at the baseball stadium, ultimately winning. Now for my review.

What I like about this video is that, it's educational, funny, and has puppets performed by Steve Axtell of Axtell Expressions. Steve Axtell was a regular in the Donut Man video series, as the voice of Duncan. I especially found a funny version of their adaptation of David and Goliath, doesn't beat the VeggieTales version, but it's still very good. You have Andy Evans as David, and Steve Axtell's puppets like Lloyd as Goliath, the Lion from Camp Harmony, and a lamb. Complete with a baby lamb plush, it's all really funny! The video also knows how to slow down too, like after all the practicing, Matt Taylor (played by Matt Bell), tells The Donut Man the saddest news ever, his parents got divorced last winter, which would explains why Coach Taylor never showed up, after all, he was Matt's dad. The Donut Man understands about Matt's situation and explains that his parents got divorced when he was Matt's age, and he remembered in Church that there's a father in heaven who would never leave us, that of course, being God, leading to the heart-wrenching song of the video, "In His Arms." But I'm getting ahead of myself.

All that aside, with Matt's courage and confidence, he helped the Donut Repair Club win the championship from The Mighty Warriors! If I were to find some problems, there's only one, having an old man named Rick Randell be the sports announcer! I mean come on, he's too old to be a sports announcer, he's not like Mike O'Malley, Chick Hearn, or even Kirk Fogg. Heck, when he says "What's gotten into these kids?" he wheezes, and coughs, leading em to think "Why did they hire him?" Has he been the announcer for Donut Sports Network for many years:? Again, it's a nitpick, I'm just trying to look fro problems. Anyways, here's a fun fact for you. Bet you didn't know that one of the girls in the Donut Repair Club was actually Pia Manalo, who also portrayed Min on Barney and Friends. Isn't that ironic? Pia Manalo being in a Texas-related project I like that doesn't relate to Barney the Dinosaur. Heck, some of the crew of Barney and Friends worked on this video, like Jay Burney and Victor Sosa the director of photography. Pia Manalo was a part of the Donut Repair Club from 1992 to at least 1995.

So, overall, this video is great! You can really cheer on for the Repair Club in the big battle, and you can also admire the song during the competition called "Don't Be Afraid." It was a great triumph song. It's not like David Glen Eisley's "Sweet Victory," or Queen's "We Are the Champions," but it is still good.

If you want to learn more about the Donut Man, check out the link right here.

http://www.donutman.streamlinenettrial.co.uk/

Or if you wanna learn more about Steve Axtell's puppets, click here.

http://www.axtell.com/ (some of those puppets on that website were also used in the Donut Man videos)

Or if you wanna see the entire video for yourself, here's the link.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfcmVg2U2Do

This video is a production of Integrity Music Just for Kids. Songs that teach, songs that praise, with the Donut Man.

VeggieTales on TV - "The Gourds Must Be Crazy"

I know it seems unfair for me to talk about a TV airing of a VeggieTales story, but I thought I'd do it anyway because it's rather interesting. You see, since the third season of the TV adaptation never aired on NBC and moved to COZI-TV, I've noticed according to some fans that the house segments have gotten a little lazy, and while it is true, I can see they were clearly TRYING!

Let's start with the House segments. Mr. Lunt as Paco comes over to Bob's house to inform him that Jimmy Gourd doesn't have a letter for them today. And so, to help them get on with the show, he tells Bob and Larry to show them a story about loving their neighbors. So, that's what they did. Let's go in order shall we.

"THE GOURDS MUST BE CRAZY"

The story was originally from "Are You My Neighbor?" The plot of the episode is that Junior Asparagus is not sure if whether or not he should invite the new kid Fernando to his birthday party. And while his dad leaves him alone to think about it, Bob and Larry come into the house in their small spaceship, with an exciting and dangerous mission! The thing is the U.S.S. Applepies is about get smashed by a giant popcorn, and a much bigger problem is that the spaceship's electricity is not working! So, Junior comes on board and comes across three new characters, Scooter and Jimmy and Jerry Gourd. Jimmy Gourd teaches Junior that differences can be good if we just take the time to know each other, which, it's pretty much a true fact. And when Junior overhears Jimmy say "Sometimes I can eat a WHOLE PLANET!" this gives Jimmy and Jerry the opportunity to help save the U.S.S. Applepies, and how do they stop the popcorn ball meteor? By EATING IT! What a triumph. The episode also has a nice song, "I Can Be Your Friend," teaching us about being friends with everybody. This episode also served as a clever parody to Star Trek. The only things missing were William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy references.

But, that's not where the show ends, there's more.

"THE FORGIVE-O-MATIC"

Apparently, there was plenty of time left, considering that the story was only about 11 minutes long. So, what to do? Add in two more segments. This one is from the second show, "God Wants Me to Forgive Them?!?" where Scallion #1 presents to the viewers the Ronco Forgive-O-Matic that slices dices and erases your sins away. Junior comes up to the stage and corrects him that they don't need a Forgive-O-Matic to be forgiven, and that if we ask got to forgive us, then we can all be forgiven. So, Scallion #1 changes his commercial to making the machine into a french fry maker. Now, I wish I had something like that. And then, Scallion #1 presents a chia Forgive-O-Matic. The one thing that baffles me is the fact that they cut the George Burns "Good night, Gracie" gag, THEY CUT THE GOOD NIGHT, GRACIE GAG FOR PETE SAKE!

Whew. Okay, calm down, keep it together. One more to go.

"HIS CHEESEBURGER"

The final segment is one from "Madame Blueberry." Except, this time, instead of the reason being the Song of the Cebu incident since it never aired on the syndicated series, it was The Blues with Larry incident from the Dave and the Giant Pickle TV airing. While I'm not that fond of the Madame Blueberry episode, this song was one of the only few things that was remotely entertaining about the episode. What I did like for the TV airing of His Cheeseburger is that they cut out the part where Archibald says that Silly Songs is canceled until further notice. Instead, it cuts to the song immediately after Larry says "So what are you saying? Which was pretty clever, making the audience believe they're just going under a little hiatus from Silly Songs. Still the song is pretty good, My mom loves this song. Almost as much as Mr. Lunt loves his song.

The ending segment has Bob explain to the viewers that they should show everyone the same love we want them to show us. And Larry asks if Mr. Lunt loving that cheeseburger was okay then, and Bob replies that it was a funny kind of love but good.

That part was where it was true that they've gotten lazy here, because they didn't bother animating a few new things or anything. But at least they did their best for the characters to lip sync to the new lines.

All I can say is even though the Bob's House segments are rather lazy, please, at least check the episode out, it really is worth your time.

Here's the links:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulyimHzt6YM (Part 1)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdLYiQq2ZzM (Part 2, complete with the cheeseburger song)