TV Review #2: Monster By Mistake (1999 - 2003)

 

About a week ago I stopped watching some YouTube channel. I won't mention the name because I've forgotten it. It was because they did a review of the movie House (1986), and it wasn't positive, just because of the name, and since this guy plays a character for his youtube channel and when a person plays a character on YouTube they usually go so in on how bad something is. Usually even overplaying it. I didn't even watch the video and it kinda annoys me how he compared it to Evil Dead 2 (1987) when honestly the only thing both movies have in common is that they are horror comedy films. Well that and they take place in a dwelling of some sort. That's about it. I'm just sick of the HEY LET'S MAKE SOMETHING LOOK EVEN WORSE THAN IT IS THROUGH WACKY CHARACTER YOUTUBE SHIT. I don't even know if the video was some kind of swerve but I don't care because it's grown old. Hell even the AVGN honestly has way way way more misses than hits these days and I only watch his videos because of nostalgia for really early YouTube. Let's not even bring the Nostalgia Critic into it... even if I do still watch him shamefully, but that's because I like to have something running in the background. I've started to make it better videos than Nostalgia Critic. Like Nick Knacks. I should write about that series so I can get him an entire zero new viewers!

You may be thinking "Why the jelly Jesus fuck are you on about YouTube people being goofy?" Well person I created wholesale to make a dumb joke I will answer this here. I did it because I wanted to see if I could write a more positive review of something I feel is bad. Not like praise it but at least make comedy (usually about how bad of a blog this is) and weird comments only I would find funny while trying to discuss something I don't like. Maybe I just want to try something new, or try to turn the tables even though It's not possible with a blog. Maybe I just thought the YouTube beginning sounded nicer before I really thought about it and I don't want to scrap it because I'm very lazy. The main point being I want to try to do a serious look at something I did not like as a child. Like really really REALLY did not like. 

Monster By Mistake was probably the show I disliked the most as a child. It was an incredible dislike. As people who are members of a discord I am also a member of know that I disliked Casper as a child, but I would still at least watch a Casper cartoon. Not many but I can at least say I've seen them. I don't think I ever saw more than the theme song (which is probably positive note #1, it's a pretty jazzy tune that I still kinda like to this day) I didn't like the characters or the stories the show told from what very very little I did see. I was also apparently 14 when this show came out. I could have sworn it came out earlier and I needed a bit more from my cartoons. At least some fun comedy or very interesting plots. This was a show clearly made for like kids that were 5-6 years old, and not the smarter 5-6 years old. 

You might be asking yourself, what in the jelly jumping Jellybeans is Monster By Mistake? Well dear friend of mine, Monster By Mistake is a Canadian CGI cartoon and if you know about Canada animation or co-animation products, It's either really good (The Raccoons, Reboot, Beast Wars) or will make you want to vomit profusely until you pass out (Yvon of the Yukon, What's With Andy?) and my feelings as a child were this show was incredibly ugly looking and that Reboot and Beast Wars were much better. This show was created by Mark Mayerson who I don't think has done anything else and I don't think he even has a Wikipedia page. Everyone whos done a single thing has one of them. Catapult Productions, CCI Entertainment and Studio 365 were the people who wrote the stories and CGI'd them very badly. 

Now for a few positives because I've gone over how the stories weren't interesting to me as a child and really still aren't as adult. I will say that the entire premise DOES have some promise. Maybe better writers and maybe not awful CGI and this show would have been something I would have left on in the background instead of instantly turning to literally anything else, including informercials and Color Bars. Remember those?! The premise is that an evil troll looking thing has tricked a boy named Warren with a spell book and whenever he sneezes he becomes well a Monster. His sister Tracy gets the spellbook and they routinely try to turn Warren back to normal during their adventures. Oh and there's a jazz playing Ghost because I guess they wanted a jazz playing Ghost in this cartoon. It's not an amazing stone cold wholly original premise but if made differently I could see this entertaining me, at least as a child.

I also must say that giving Len Carlson, Susan Roman and Alyson Court work is always a good thing. Bert Raccoon, Sailor Jupiter and Jubilee from X-Men deserve work. I must also say that watching some episode today to discuss this show that it's a lot more boring now then repulsive looking, and being bored as much better than being disgusted, right? It's hard to even talk about this any more because what made it really bad back then was the CGI animation, and if I'm being fair the animation from the studio Mainframe that did Beast Wars and Reboot hasn't aged amazingly either (still no matter what year 1999 or 2020, always looked nicer than Monster by Mistake.) I also can't even say this show was popular because stations like YTV and such needed to have a certain amount of Canadian content on their channels so that's probably the reason the show lasted forever. I do have a lot of questions about this cartoon that I'd love to talk to someone at YTV during this time about.

FINAL VERDICT: I think my attempt to review something I didn't like in a more thoughtful serious manner worked sort of. I guess I'm a perfectionist at heart but still want to just blather on into the ether. I'm also glad that YouTube entertainment has gone farther than LOL I POOPED MY PANTS AND VOMITED IN RAGE AND JUMPED AROUND LIKE A SPASTIC MONKEY BECAUSE THIS MEDIA WAS SO BAD and instead try to discuss anything in a more thoughtful way, like Nick Knacks. I may not agree with everything he says but the man does his homework and puts out a good video. Much better than most of the AVGN videos made by Screenwave.