My son is three, so I grant him a lot of leeway when it comes to his choices of video. However, I was shocked, appalled, and disturbed when my wife mentioned he was totally in love with the Care Bears: Big Wish Movie. Naturally I beat the crap out of him. Many times. But he still likes that god-forsaken video.
So one day he asked me to watch it with him. When a three-year-old asks you to do something, man, let me tell you, you’d better think real hard before refusing. Unless you really need to teach the kid that what he’s asking for is not allowed or bad for him, you obey. So anyway, I sat down and watched a fair amount of the movie.
I was once again totally shocked about midway through the movie when they made a reference to Dr. Sbaitso:
Funshine Bear: [dons Groucho Marx glasses and imitates Sigmund Freud] Hmm, interesting. Tell me about “caring.”
Wish Bear: I can’t. I feel all empty inside.
Funshine Bear: Interesting. Tell me about “empty inside.”
Okay, to be fair it could have been any Eliza like algorithm, but the point is clear – the designers of the Care Bears CGI movie (or script writer I suppose) have a geeky background, and actually put in a reference that probably one in a thousand people watching the movie would ever get.
I don’t claim to like the Care Bears all of a sudden, but I can’t help but laugh every time I see or hear that scene. Whoever decided to put that into the movie KICKS ASS.