Shrek the Third

Shrek the Third

Michael Myers, Eddie Murphy

Anytime I hear a child whining about being bored, someone needs to walk up and kick them right in the backside. This is the golden age of being a kid. We are in the era of the cult of the ankle-biter. Granted, they don’t have cool things like lawn darts, chemistry sets, wood burners, playground equipment anchored into concrete, flammable pajamas, and candy cigarettes like when I was a wee one, nor do they get the entertainment of being thrown in the backseat of the station wagon without any seatbelts so that when your mother took sharp corners you rolled around like loose can goods, nor the terror of driving down a dark highway as the driver in front of you flicks his cigarette butt out the window, as it glowing remains bounce towards your vehicle, you know that one of these times it is going to hit the gas tank under your car and boom, but not everything is perfect. Still, children’s entertainment has never been better. Cartoons and kid friendly entertainment is on 24/7. If you cannot find anything on the dozens of cable channels geared towards them, they got a cupboard filled with DVDs and a computer filled with child molesters just waiting to be their friends. I know, I know, this is going to sound like one of those I had to walk up hill in the snow both ways statements, but kiddy entertainment blew when I was a crumb cruncher. If you don’t believe me, I have four words for you, Sid and Marty Krofft. Drugs were big in the 70s and, even if you were too young to 420 some silly smoke, (being three, four, or five years old) you had Sid and Marty Krofft to teach you what trippin’ was. Imagine the Muppets on acid; that was a typical Sid and Marty Krofft kid’s show. Why box sets of this programming are not sold in head shops today, I will never understand. Let me give you a few examples of a Sid & Marty show. Almost every one of their shows centered on a long-haired English youth, which for all practical purposes meant gay. Let me introduce you to a show called HR PuffnStuff, that’s right PuffnStuff. There was this boy named Jimmy who loved to play his magic talking flute. He was almost delirious about it. One day, long-haired Jimmy (Butch Patrick) is prancing around playing his flute (and prancing is the proper word). He spies a beautiful boat that looks strangely like something out of a Georgia O’Keefe painting. The little man climbs in the boat for what he thinks will be a fun voyage. It is really a witch’s boat. She wants his magic flute like all evil women. Young Jimmy is scared, as everything is thrown into chaos. HR PuffnStuff, a large doughy Muppet with red hair and white cowboy boots to the rescue. In the contemporary gay community, he would be known as a bear. HR and Jimmy dance together because he has saved the young lad from Witchipoo. Where was James Dobson when you needed him? You’d think that was an exception. Lidsville. You might as well have called it Dopepolis. Plot, again, long-hairred feminine looking boy goes to the fair to see the “magic man.” When all the other children go away, our hero sneaks into the “magic man’s” room. He touches the magic man’s hat and it grows and grows and grows. Let the wacky adventures begin as he is taken to a world of talking hats and Cheech & Chong dreams. No sadness about not seeing his parents anymore. He has Charles Nelson Reilly to play with.

But that is just two shows. Try on The Bay City Rollers, basically a low-rent Monkeys band with puppets. This time there are five “Scottish” long-haired boys who all slept in the same bed. They also were terrorized by a witch, who strangely was the only female character on the show. Sid & Marty wanted to make sure the girls did not get left out so they gave us Electra Woman & Dyna-Girl, a superhero yarn in tight spandex featuring an older female and a young girl who was not her daughter. (Poor Deidre Hall.) Strangely, several shows opened with Electra Woman standing over the bed of a sleeping Dyna-Girl and staring at her. They were always getting tied up together and this time the baddie was man. Not your taste, try on the Bugaloos. Three long-haired British youths and a girl with fairy wings live in a place called Tranquility Forest; that is right, they all have fairy wings. These peace loving kids sang songs and hung out with a firefly named Sparky (Billy Barty). Who I the baddie? You guessed it, a woman, Benita Bizarre (Martha Raye), who hates their music. It was gayer than Liberace, Rock Hudson, Freddie Mercury, Paul Lynde, Elton John, and Divine in a lifeboat. Do you think John Wayne was letting his children watch this fare? Parents in the 70s did.

I say all of this because it needs to be noted that, sometime in the last two decades, adults got it. No more Sid & Marty Krafft. No more lame Superfriends where Aquaman is always hitching a ride on Wonder Woman’s plane. (Aquaman was the RuPaul of the Superfriends.) No more Donnie and Marie, who seemed way, way, too close for a brother and sister, going Hawaiian. No more lame Disney flicks like Super Dad where prevy Bob Crane seemed way too interested in his daughter’s life or The World’s Greatest Athlete where they go to Africa to find the world’s greatest athlete who is a skinny white Jan-Michael Vincent or even Gus the Field Goal Kicking Mule. Bye Dean Jones. Instead of writing down to children, now, adults write and make stories they enjoy. Guess what, kids like them too. Oh, they try to parade the old awful storytelling, but it doesn’t sell today, not with the likes of Cars, Toy Story, SpongeBob, or any of the DC, Marvel, or Warner Brothers cartoons out there. The king, the granddad, is Shrek. I love Shrek more than an adult male with no children, that I know about, should.

The third installment begins with the frog king, King Harold (John Cleese), about to croak. He informs Shrek and Fiona (Cameron Diaz) that they will take over the throne unless they can find cousin Artie (Justin Timberlake). The etiquette and hygiene of court life is not easy for an ogre who is used to living in a swamp. Shrek, along with his 2 pals, Donkey (Eddie Murphy) and Puss in Boots (Antonio Banderas), go searching for Artie. With Shrek and his two friends away, Prince Charming (Rupert Everett) decides it is time to take the throne back. He finds a few villains hanging out at the Poison Apple Pub, including a Cyclops, Rumpelstilskin, Captain Hook, Little Red Riding Hood, the Ugly Stepsister Mabel (Larry King), and the Wicked Queen. What is the Queen and a pregnant Fiona to do? Call her own band of women warriors to defend the kingdom featuring Snow White, Rapunzel, Sleeping Beauty, and Cinderella. How will the women fare? What will Shrek find with Artie?

While this film is not on the level of the first two films, it is darn good with 5 former Saturday Night Live and 2 Monty Python alumni giving their voices for the thing. It is good enough that I am already looking forward to Shrek 4 in 2010. Everyone can find enjoyment in this film and that is why children’s programming is so brilliant today. Children’s movies and programming is no longer looked down on.

Verdict: Not as Good as the First Two, But Darn Good.