A Bash on The Littlest Pet Shop Cartoon (1995)

Hello there, now normally on my blog I never tend to rant on anything because I want to have a positive outlook on life, but whenever I see crap like "Jungle Junction" or "Bobinogs" I just have to address why they should be avoided at all costs. Now I have memories of watching badly written, badly animated tv shows as a kid, however, I'm forever grateful I never saw the utter embarrassment that is "The Littlest Pet Shop". Now how could I hate such an innocent kid's cartoon, I have a million reasons so there, but before we could get into detail to why it's a such a mess lets go over a bit of history.

During the 80s and early 90s, toy companies thought it was a good idea to adapt their toys to animated tv shows, most of these shows were more like 30 minute adverts than stories and while shows like "My Little Pony" and "Transformers" were a success there were some that were forgotten (for good reasons) like Rubix the Amazing Cube and Pacman. I never really cared for these shows nor did I ever buy most of the toys, so how is the show I'm about to talk about gonna change my mind? But I'm getting ahead of myself. Like many of those show The Littlest Pet Shop started as off as a toy line in the 1990s, these were basically plastic miniature versions of pets you could adopt from a shop (but without the poop). Then 5 years later Sunbow Entertainment (the company that would later produce the much superior cartoon The Cramp Twins) thought it was a "good idea" to give these toys their own animated tv show; the result was this festering sell out I show before you. But just how bad this show is, let's find out.


The series is about a pet shop owned by Elwood P Harvey, and it's really small animals, thus the name "littlest pet shop". However, the pets have their own "personality" and each episode would revolve around them and their "quote on quote" adventures. Now, most shows that have "meh" premises aren't as bad as you think but here it's far worse than you can ever imagine. Not that we expect high quality writing from a show that has a mediocre story arc but this has to be the worst writing I've seen in a show to date. Most of it consists of bad jokes and poorly done slapstick, nothing seems consistent or creative in any way shape or form. It's like the writers didn't care so they pasted together basic ideas and add random slapstick for filler, because they knew only kids would watch it and as long as they're ignorant they had the excuse to put as little effort into each episode. I mean the humour is just a poor attempt at something that gets really annoying. For example in the episode "Encino Mammoth" there's a scene with 2 naked people in the jungle.......and it's not even developed from a comedic standpoint, it's because they had their home and possessions destroyed by a tiny mammoth. Did the writers really think they were writing good comedy.....I mean......WTF.

I don't know anyone who finds this funny, it's simply being silly for the sake of being silly. Aside from bad jokes, I can't find anything that makes these stories the least bit interesting. Every episode has the character in a situation whether in the pet shop or if they are adopted by a one-off character, the rest of the plot tries so hard to like a looney tune cartoon it comes off as stupid and over the top. The plots aren't even that interesting because all there is just lame slapstick combined with pretentious storylines.

If you think the poor jokes and slapstick was the worst part of the show than you haven't seen the animation, which is both choppy and cheap looking. Well, the original "My Little Pony" and "The Garbage Pail Kids cartoon" had bad animation so I'm probably just nitpicking. But my god just look at it! this makes Scooby Doo look like Sylvain Chomet by comparison. The character designs are so odd and uninspired it makes me feel awkward inside, it doesn't help that the movements either looks rushed or stiff most of the time. Oh come on! is this the best 90s animation they could do, yes people this was made in the 90s. I could forgive them for the fact that it didn't have a high budget, but seriously before this show came out there was Ren and Stimpy, Tom and Jerry Kids and Animaniacs. The animation on those 3 shows looked new and zany at their time but this, the animation style was stale before it was even conceived. I mean just look at this image.

HOLY SMOKES! WHAT IS WITH THAT CLOSEUP! could you honestly say with a straight face that this is well animated! Sweet Christ All Mighty!!! I mean I don't have a problem with wide angle shots but with the way it's animated, Who Would Find that Particular image Funny? If you don't believe how un-appealing the animation is, just.....just look at that image and tell me if that doesn't look awkward!!!
Naughty Naughty Pets isn't an excellent show but it's animation looked more original and colourful, even if you don't like it at least that had a better art style, unlike this garbage.

As much as I don't really want to talk about this show any longer, I'm afraid I have to talk about the characters. The "so-called glue that keeps this show together" but really they're what make this show even less bearable......... First, there's the first character I mentioned Elwood P Harvey, the owner of the shop who makes Johnny Test's dad a more fully dimensional character, Mumsy Elwood's British mum an explorer who helps bring in the tiny animals. Because I don't give a crap about the human characters, let's move to the tiny animal characters, first there's Stu, the dog main character who encourages his friends to go on adventures he also has a big appetite, there's nothing much to talk about him so next! Chloe the intelligent cat who seems like she's a fan of the arts and literature so that pretty much makes her the only descent character with any common sense (but that's not saying much) Viv, a bunny who has a passion for music and is not funny. Chet a muscle-bound horse who's like Buck from "Disney's Home on the Range" (minus any once of charm) Squeaks, a hyperactive monkey who doesn't speak, I also don't care about so moving...There's also the side characters like Delilah, Sarge, Harriet and the rest who I don't give a crap about because they're so bland.

So now ladies and gentlemen it's time I shared with you the episodes I was brave enough to sit through, so you don't have to watch them yourself.

The first episode I watched was "Chet the Dream Horse" Chet is trying to get away from his crazy obsessed pony stalker Sabrina, just like I do with this show. I know it was intentional but Sabrina is just plain unlikeable and not well designed, she makes the G1 My Little Pony character look like G4 by comparison (where's Minerva Mink when you need her) But all comparison aside a little girl named Merline and adopts Chet for her "stable" which Chet in turn thinks is a real one, but little
does he know the horrors that await him!

No no, not that! But he does suffer something much more terrifying, as he is tortured by the show's targeted audience! So after being tortured by the Barbie obsessed demons Chet goes ape and nearly wrecks the house which results in what Chet should have done in the first place by exchanging himself for Sabrina. This episode was not funny and unbearable, to say the least.


Another bad episode I watched was "Bunny Beat" ok this is the last episode because I'm gonna talk about because I don't know how much I could take! Viv is singing horribly to her favourite rock song when an old rock singer Willy Van Aldan comes in. The singer turns out to be Viv's idol so she plays a song for him on the piano, Willy is impressed so he plays it on an ad (with a bad actress btw) even so that he calls Viv over to write more songs. It's not long till Willy's manager comes to the picture and is also impressed by Viv's music and WOULD YOU STOP SHOWING THAT IMAGE PLEASE!

Oh and this the episode where you see that face so don't bother trying to find it, IT'S STILL NOT FUNNY!

Anyway, he's so impressed by Viv's music that he hires her to be play on tour with Willy. So yeah it's one of those "character becomes famous" plots but don't worry folks, this one has blatant pop culture references and gags that show that the writers are trying too hard to be funny!  references that the younger audiences won't get like ripping off Robert Palmer or 2 boys that sound like Beavis and Butthead. With all that said there was a scene that showed a map with carrots growing, now you would think that would represent Viv's popularity, but actually, there were giant carrots literally growing out of nowhere. Okay, I'll give them credit for trying to attempt an unexpected joke, but it's not enough to save this episode.
 Also they actually had the nerve to add a fake censor bleep....okay writers listen, if you think you can appeal to an older audience than you're mistaken because your show isn't good enough to appeal to an older audience, and it's obvious you're desperate to put in those types of jokes without any thought or effort. In other words you're taking what is adult humour and not using properly at all.

All those gags aside it appears Viv has over-shadowed Willy as she becomes a world-wide musical sensation, well the 90s had stranger pop stars just look at Vanilla Ice. This frustrates Willy as tries to destroy Viv in an act of jealousy resulting in his contest literally becoming a smash hit while also leaving his reputation as a star in the dust.

 Huahahahaha ruining people's careers is funny 

There is it so hard to make a Beavis and Butthead reference 

So Viv gets back to the shop and is greeted to the spirit of doing chores, oh thank the lord we're done because I felt dumber watching these episodes.

Bottom line The Littlest Pet Shop is an awful cartoon that has "sellout" written all over it!

The animation is subpar, the jokes are just terrible, the writing is corny and obnoxious and the characters are just copy-pasted and lacklustre. I never saw this as a kid and I'm glad I didn't because I hate this show in every way. If you seriously like this then I guess I have nothing against you but please, please tell me in great detail why you like it. If you haven't seen it then don't, even if you like crap like "Pound Puppies The Movie" I wouldn't recommend this to you.

I can kind of see where it could have been a hilarious series, but as it stands it's a 30 min toy advert made by hacks. The fact that the people behind this had high hopes for this really blows my mind, granted this looks like it had the budget of a turkey sandwich but still. As far as shows based on toy lines go this is really the worst, I couldn't find anything redeemable about this show and was just felt underwhelmed by how corny it was. One thing is I promised myself is that I would never watch this ever again, the only reason I saw these episodes again was for research purposes and I found it even less entertaining than before. But despite this being a failure, Hasbro decided to create a new animated tv show based on this toy line, why? I would much prefer My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic over this. Final score: 1/5 I'm gonna wrap this up before I get a headache pass off this off and buy your kid a goldfish, I bet they would find more enjoyment from that than this litter box of wasted paper.

 SWEET JESUS! Let it haunt your nightmares!