Wee Singdom is the Worst (Part 2 of 2)

Strap the fuck in, boys and girls. Wee Singdom has come at last.

Yeeeeah, sorry for the Tuesday post. I needed extra time to write this because I assumed that I would just watch it, love it, and relay that joy to you, as per last week’s joyous romp through the same franchise. But holy fuck, Wee Singdom has desecrated my childhood. Call it overambition, call it a soulless cash-grab, whatever. But my soul is bruised that it’s so the opposite of what I remember it to be. Also, I refuse to re-write what little I already had written before actually watching it, so let’s go back in time to watch my joy fade in real time:

Last week, I described the beautifully charming children’s musical movie series known as Wee Sing. And I cannot state enough how much of a presence this series has had in my life. The thing about Wee Sing’s many premises all being centered around children playing make-believe is that any real-life attempt by me and my sister to play make-believe was informed by Wee Sing. All jungle gym tube slides led to the Big Rock Candy Mountains. All train sets were the train from Wee Sing Train.

And all board games were Wee Singdom.

Okay no, let me explain.

One time, a cat was left abandoned in a cardboard box on the steps of the church my parents ran in Walla Walla. My sister and I, 3 and 2 respectively, were enthralled and begged our parents to let us keep it. I mean, we didn’t necessarily adore cats. We hadn’t grown up around them. But we wanted to keep it. Because it was a dead-ringer for Staccato. The cat. From Wee Singdom.

Obviously, it was a no, as my mom is allergic to cats. But they did let us play with the cat in the nursery until animal rescue services came to collect it. So what did we do? We played Wee Singdom with it. We laid out the Candy-Land play board, riled the cat up with a ball, and then knocked the ball around the room in such a way as to make the cat chase it across the game board, knocking pieces everywhere. The game would end with us exasperatingly shouting “STACCATO!”

Okay, okay, sorry. I’m really bad at explaining. Let me take ANOTHER step back.

You know that amazing THX sound effect that used to play before every movie?

Well, it ain’t got shit on the spine-tingles that the opening to Wee Singdom gives you. (found 30 seconds in)

There is no adequate way to lead into the synopsis of Wee Singdom: Land of Music and Color. It’s just: magic. I gave a tongue-in-cheek effort a few years ago to describe it to friends, but after a second thought it seems like there’s no better way to say it; Wee Singdom: Land of Music and Fun, is the finale crossover to the franchise wherein every protagonist from past adventures discover that reality is a board game and that their god is a rainbow.

Okay yeah, so I think you’re up to speed now. Oh, also the kids playing said boardgame in our reality have a cat named Staccato who keeps chasing his ball of yarn across their board, wrecking everything. So that’s where we got that. And it eventually knocks over the board pieces, which opens a magical portal that allows the kids to witness the returning Wee Sing characters in their full form. You know, standard fare.

And my sister and I were always on the lookout for this board game. I mean just look at it.

Honestly, all these years later and I’d still play it. The way the kids go at it, it seems like Candy Land in essence, except whenever you get to the next location you pick up a little facsimile of the character from that location. So, you have these cute little board game pieces of Punchinello…

Little Bunny Foo Foo, Sillywhim…

And Snoodle Doodle.

Plus some other characters like a penguin named Weeber or something, I don’t know, I never saw his respective movie so fuck him. But oh lord, I’d play this game so hard. And the character piece that you move every turn is the anthropomorphic train from Wee Sing Train.

And once the cat knocks into the board game and rips a hole in time and space, and that glorious train drifts in from stage-up, and you just see Snoodle Doodle and Punchinello riding it, it’s just so nostalgically delicious.

Um, except I have a problem with this as an adult. A big one.

That’s not. Fucking. Punchinello.

NO. Nuh-uh. The review is over. Who even is that? He’s not even on IMDb, that’s how awful this replacement actor is. He doesn’t even get the voice right. Stupid piece of shit clown.

Ugh, okay, fine. The show must go on. But, like, this was one of the few Wee Sing entries that wasn’t purchased in the great California migration of 2002, so I have no allegiance to it. So here’s the nickel and dime tour of the basic premise. There are these two new characters that look so low budget it hurts. There’s Singaling, a yellow Barney-looking fucker, and a green bird named Warble. And they’re hosting a get-together talent show of all the Wee Sing protagonists. I’m not really sure what they were going for with the design of these guys. But they suck. I always assumed as a kid that these guys were also from some previous special, from before the budgets were as good as they were for Sillyville and Big Rock Candy Mountain. Like, their set-piece is awful, and they’re essentially sports mascots. But nope. The budget for this special is clearly greatly reduced. Interestingly, Singaling is performed by Julie Dolan, who voices Princess Leia in Star Wars Rebels and some of the recent video games. So that’s neat. But yeah, not even that can redeem Singaling’s awful presence in this movie. And they really lean into that branding. The cartoon Singaling on the cover banner, the animated opening seen in the above video... is that where the budget got sucked away? Branding? It doesn't pay off.

But I’m going to be honest, forget them and the movie is FANTASTIC. I know I started this blog with a disclaimer that this movie is trash, and it kind of is. And it’s true that I stopped writing this on Sunday because I was so annoyed that it wasn’t as good as I remembered. And Punchinello isn’t the same actor so all of his scenes are puke as well. But I’m kind of sad that this movie doesn’t have easy to relay YouTube clips… because of the talent show. You see, the plot is that these characters have gathered together to basically take turns going on a stage and doing a bit. Little Bunny Foo Foo does “Going on a Bunny Hunt,” and its art. It just is. It’s magnificent. (55 seconds in)

This is going to sound so needlessly in depth, but despite Sillywhim’s kind of forgettable song and dance routine, it’s so satisfying seeing her reprise her role, especially in her full-color outfit from the Sillyville finale. She even has colored hair scrunchies added in, and her performance is the least phoned in of all of the returning cast. 10/10. She is like the purified spirit of an elementary school librarian. I’ve never yearned for a celebrity’s autograph, but I want a tattoo of her face on my forehead. But just when you start actually kind of enjoying yourself…

AAAH. Stop. See, these guys embody what’s wrong with this movie. The sing-along songs being used here aren’t plot related. I know some of the examples I gave last week were pretty shaky, but these guys can’t just show up and sing “Frere Jaque,” that’s not okay. And let’s just fast forward through Warble’s rendition of “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” shall we?

Okay, real talk, I am constantly drastically switching from “Why did I ever think this movie was good?” to “Why did I ever doubt this movie?” And this is why:

It’s so fucking beautiful. I totally forgot about the Sirius Cloud. Oh, fuck me. The plot of the train’s side-quest is that they’re off looking for this anthropomorphic rainbow who’s going to do the closing number for the talent show, but they can’t find her so they go ask her cloud friends. Here’s the vid (18 seconds in):

Unfortunately, that’s followed by numerous boring bits and fake-ass Punchinello’s lame juggling routine. Actually, I can’t tell if Snoodle Doodle are different actors because the acting is a bit phone in, but their performance is trite regardless. But at least after that, we get to meet the daddy of all clouds: the Cumulous cloud. And, like, okay I bagged on the new original characters, and to be fair the singing bugs are stupid and useless. But this guy delivers a great performance:

But yeah, the movie keeps ruining everything by reminding you of its stupid plot. The kids realize that the missing rainbow being spoken of is actually a game board piece that the cat knocked off of the board at the beginning. Once placed back on the board, she reappears in Singalingaland and is immediately like “yo there are these dope kids that set me straight, let’s suck them into Magic Land.” And they do. And it’s epic.

And that’s effectively Wee Singdom. You know, watching it was tough. It was poorly made, poorly acted, poorly re-cast with certain characters, and way too ambitious for its clearly reduced budget. But that tiny bit of overambition that embraced the audacity of Wee Sing’s original glory and passion that had clearly been forgotten by whoever directed this, such as the awesome cloud guy and the two returning actors for Sillywhim and Bunny Foo Foo actually giving it their all, still managed to warm my heart. But I still don’t ever want to re-experience this movie in my life. No thank you.

Fast forward to a few years ago, and there was a fan movement to get all the Wee Sing movies onto DVD, and it was actually successful, and these movies are all still for sale on the official Wee Sing website to this day. Wee Singdom, however, was never digitized. But that didn’t stop me from shopping around a change.org petition that someone else had put together. I was determined to see this movie brought to glorious HD remastered status. Forget DVD, I wanted Blu Ray. Not many people signed it. Eventually, the small hubbub of fans that did sign it got an official response from Wee Sing that the reason they effectively ignored Wee Singdom, and would continue to ignore it for the foreseeable future, was that they were convinced no one would buy it. And I was distraught.

But now I see. And I’m sorry. I was wrong. It deserves to be lost to time. Not because it’s bad, but because we remembered it as so much more than it truly is. We remembered it as good, and it deserves to go out that way. In the spirit of Wee Sing’s motif of embracing the power of make-believe, let’s all join hands, close our eyes, and think back to our childhoods when magic was a possibility, and let’s make-believe that this movie isn’t terrible. Because that’s what it would want for us.