Friday, September 23, 2011

Family Toons: Seven Little Monsters (2000)

There was a time not long ago when PBS had a Saturday morning block. In fact, a former PBS series, Danger Rangers, has shifted over to CBS this season, and there will be a review of that series down the road, trust me.

Anyway, in 2000, PBS experimented by putting together a 2 1/2 hour block of cartoons, most, if not all, of which were produced by Canada's Nelvana, which has also provided series to the broadcast networks over the years. We've previously reviewed the adaptation of Redwall, the medieval fantasy created by the late author, Brian Jacques. Turns out it wasn't the only series based on a book.

Seven Little Monsters, which aired directly in front of Redwall in some places, including my area, came from the pen of award-winning author Maurice Sendak (Where The Wild Things Are). The cast includes comic Colin Mochrie (Whose Line Is It Anyway?), and, as you'll see in the following clip, the producers secured comics & TV writer Jeph Loeb (Heroes) as one of the staff writers. Here's part one of "Good Morning", the series opener:



The series lasted just two seasons of original episodes on PBS, but lingered around a while in reruns. It aired in Canada on YTV from 2003-07, and presently is airing on Qubo (check local listings). It's just too bad PBS didn't promote their block as heavily as the other networks did theirs, because this rumbled under the radar.

Rating: A.

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