OMG! Sunday is Valentine’s Day. While there is strong temptation to tell all you guys, “Suck it up, already. Romance is good for you,” I won’t. Real men already know that romance is good for them. Besides, Disney XD has a real guy-friendly cartoon premiering this weekend, anyway.
Kick Buttowski – Suburban Daredevil
Safety Rating: Not for kids who think cartoons are real.
Friendly Rating: Surprisingly broad.
Quality Rating: I couldn’t help liking it.
Disney XD, 8:30 a.m. – as in morning (worth noting since a lot of stuff here is on at night).
Kick Buttowski may be short on stature but he’s big on determination as he tackles any ridiculous stunt that comes his way with the aid of his trusty skateboard and buddy Gunther. He has a borderline abusive older brother Brad and a pageant princess younger sister Brianna, but they are merely jumps to be conquered as he tries like anything to become the world’s greatest daredevil – and sometimes succeeds.
Obviously, the very title of the show implies a less than delicate expression guaranteed to illicit snickers from your 8-year-old. I say let the little stinker think he or she is getting away with something. Yes, there are a lot of pratfalls and dangerous situations. Well, they’d be dangerous if this were real life, but it’s a cartoon, for cripes sakes. Under 5-year-olds, who haven’t quite gotten the difference between fantasy and reality, there might be some issues. But by the time a kid is 6, he should have figured out if you fall, it hurts.
You see, while the parent part of me sees all sorts of reasons to say, “Tut, tut,” the kid in me really got a kick out of the show. Yes, Brad is a total jerk and the brothers engage in some nasty physical fighting. But again, this is a cartoon and there is some room to express that which we wouldn’t do in real life, but would really like to. And besides, as my dear late friend Dave used to say, you can get away with a lot when it’s funny. And Kick Buttowski is pretty funny.
Elevator Girl
Safety Rating: Mostly safe.
Friendly Rating: For girls, 10 and older. Guys, suck it up and give it a chance.
Quality Rating: Quietly wonderful.
Hallmark Channel, Saturday (2/13) at 8 p.m.
Liberty Taylor (Lacey Chabert) is a free spirit who has some issues with staying with things. Jonathan MacIntyre (Ryan Merriman) is a corporate lawyer who enjoys the structure of his life, but needs to loosen up a little. The two meet cute in a broken elevator, but make their way to true love.
I’m not giving anything away. Issue-wise, there’s a fair amount of social alcohol consumption going on, but not to drunkeness. And lots of kissing, but it’s a romance, so you have to give them that, and it’s not even suggestive. The only bed scenes involve Libby by herself.
While I concede that the secondary characters are pretty much cardboard stereotypes, what drew me in about this gentle little flick is that everything else about Libby and Jonathan’s romance felt really organic. In spite of script writer Jennifer R. Notas’ attempt to create turbulence from outside the couple, most of the conflict came from them, which really worked. And while you know darned well where this one is headed – after all, if they weren’t going to happily ever after, what would be the point – the getting there was surprisingly fun.
StarStruck
Safety Rating: It’s Disney Channel, come on.
Friendly Rating: See Elevator Girl, only younger girls.
Quality Rating: Decidedly okay.
Disney Channel, Sunday (2/14) at 8 p.m. – night-time. See Kick Buttowski.
Jessica Olson (Danielle Campbell) is a small-town Michigan kid with an obnoxious older sister Sarah (Maggie Castle) who is obsessed with teen sensation Christopher Wilde (Sterling Knight). When the family goes to visit Grandma in L.A., Sarah is set on meeting her dream guy. Only Jessica literally bumps into him first.
Jessica being the kind of cynic who speaks truth, she doesn’t initially buy into Chris’ charm. But, well, you know what happens. Again, you know where this one is going, it’s the getting there that’s the point. And getting there, in this case, has more good moments than bad.
Chris ends up taking Jessica on a tour of L.A., which I kind of enjoyed, although in focusing on the beach and Hollywood, Chris definitely missed some of Los Angeles’ more interesting spots. And in the scenes where they end up in some of our brush land, they didn’t quite work for me because I know that the Santa Monica “mountains” are nowhere near the Griffith Park Observatory, and I don’t care if it’s spring (it would have to be – no teen from the Midwest is going to be wearing long pants in the summer), there isn’t enough water in the Santa Monicas to sink a car or even a stream to swim in. Hello? Los Angeles is a desert.
But beyond that, the movie is definitely a lesson in irony. Disney Channel has manufactured many stars like Christopher Wilde, and the movie pokes some serious fun at the whole celebrity culture thing. Which the channel feeds, supports and creates. So there. But how far your kids get into that, up to you and them.