Hey everyone! Happy Friday! I hope you all had a great week. I did. Today I'm going to be reviewing the 2000 direct-to-video movie compilation of the first five episodes of The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin, Teddy Ruxpin: The Movie. I'm also going to be talking about the history of shows that had direct-to-video movie compilations of their first few episodes, which is something that goes back to the 80s with shows like The Transformers and G.I. Joe. So let's get into it.
I don't think I could say anything about this movie that I haven't already said about the individual episodes included in this "movie" when I did my Teddy Ruxpin VHS reviews last year. However, what fascinates me about this movie in particular is that there are very few edits to it that could constitute it as a film. If you look at other direct-to-video movie compilations like Gargoyles: The Movie - The Heroes Awaken, most of them have scenes shifted around, fade ins and fade outs removed, and scenes shortened to allow for the movie running time that isn't in the episodic format of the TV show. But here, the episodes are just cut together, with the fade ins and fade outs at the beginning and ending of each episode is removed, along with the title cards for each individual episode.
If you've seen the first five episodes of The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin then you've seen this movie. The story and characters are exactly the same, all of the crazy moments are the same, it's just an easy way to watch these episodes without going through DVD menus. Of course us Teddy Ruxpin fans would watch the episodes both ways because that's how we roll.
As I mentioned in my The Treasure of Grundo VHS review last year, that was very weirdly edited because it had the first two episodes, the scene of everyone meeting Wooly from "Guests of the Grunges" and then cuts right to the group arriving at the Wizard's Fortress from the beginning of "In the Fortress of the Wizard", carrying on with that episode and then having "Guests of the Grunges" and "Escape from the Treacherous Mountain" be on their own individual VHS releases after that. It's like Hi-Tops Video wanted to include all five episodes on a single VHS tape, in movie form, but couldn't so they did a really weird edit for that first volume. With this movie though, there's two weird editing thing. The first is at the very beginning of the movie, which is the start of the episode "The Treasure of Grundo", where they edited in a shot of a stream near to where the Airship landed before going up the Treacherous Mountain to the Hard to Find City in "In the Fortress of the Wizard". Which is fine, but they let the camera pan a little too much and so you see the edge of the Airship's air bag before it cuts to the regular shot of Grundo before panning over to Teddy and Grubby approaching Bounder Pass.
The other weird edit, is that at the end of the second episode, "Beware the Mudblups" after Tweeg and L.B.'s conversation, in the episode it cuts to the Airship where Grubby is serving some root stew to his friends as a thank you for saving him from the Mudblup cave and when his back is turned, Teddy, Gimmick and Prince Arin dump their bowls overboard, where the root stew lands on Tweeg's face before fading out to end the episode. In the movie cut used for the The Treasure of Grundo VHS release, they keep all of that in, except for the fade out at the very end, before transitioning to the group meeting Wooly scene from "Guests of the Grunges". In this version, as it gets to Grubby serving the root stew, a voiceover of Gimmick's first line from "Guests of Grunges" is put in, and then it cuts to the opening of the next episode's footage. So that was weird.
Of course Teddy Ruxpin: The Movie wasn't the first direct-to-video movie compilation of a few episodes of a TV show, be it the first few episodes or some random episodes in the middle of the series. Nor was it the last. The earliest one I could think of is actually the 1977 pilot for the live action Spider-Man series. It aired on TV as a movie and then was released on VHS and Laserdisc as such three years later. And then you have the one for the original Battlestar Galactica and Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. The earliest cartoon one I can think of is The Transformers as Family Home Entertainment released the pilot episode/mini-series "More Than Meets the Eye" in movie form on VHS in the 80s, along with season 1 of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and G.I. Joe. The big one for me in the 90s was of course Gargoyles: The Movie - The Heroes Awaken which was the movie version of the first five episodes of Disney's animated series, Gargoyles. Of course Warner Bros. also released the pilots of Batman Beyond and Superman: The Animated Series in movie form on VHS and DVD in 2003 as Batman Beyond: The Movie and Superman: Last Son of Krypton as well as "Secret Origins", the three part pilot of Justice League that same year. Disney did it as recently as the pilot episode of Star Wars Rebels in 2014. So it's really nothing new. Neither is having a feature-length pilot episode being released theatrically overseas before being released on home video, which Disney has been doing for years. So there was a history to this long before Teddy Ruxpin: The Movie was released in 2000 and a history after it's release too.
What puzzles me about this release is that it didn't get a DVD release like Batman Beyond: The Movie, Superman: Last Son of Krypton, and Justice League: Secret Origins (labeled simply as Justice League on the VHS and DVD cases) did. In fact The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin wouldn't get a DVD release until 2006 when The Journey Begins, which contained these five episodes (in their original episodic forms) on the disc, was released. I guess Entertech Home Entertainment, the company that released this movie on VHS, didn't have the resources to make the movie suitable for a DVD release. Probably why Gargoyles: The Movie also hasn't had a home video release since the original 1995 VHS and Laserdisc release outside of the original episodes being on the Gargoyles: The Complete First Season DVD release.
One thing I'd like to point out here is that before the movie there's a trailer for a movie called Kids World. I've never heard of this movie as it only had a limited theatrical release in the U.S. and I don't think it had one here in Canada. If there was, there was no marketing for it outside of the trailer on the VHS for Teddy Ruxpin: The Movie and I wasn't exactly going to the video store very much by the time it got released on DVD like six years later. It stars Christopher Lloyd interestingly enough, as well as Blake Foster, who kids from the 90s know as Justin, the Blue Ranger in Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie and it's TV show continuation, Power Rangers Turbo. He was also in the 1998 direct-to-video film Casper Meets Wendy.
One negative thing that I've heard about this tape from other fans is that the cover is somewhat misleading. As you can see from the image I have at the start of this review, the cover says, "Get ready for Teddy in his first feature film". I don't really see how that can be misleading. He had a live action TV movie in 1985, which was released on VHS in 1986. That movie is only 44 minutes in length, which is 2 minutes longer than the length of the 1942 Disney package film, Saludos Amigos, but that movie is still considered to be a feature film. But, this is indeed Teddy's first feature length animated film as feature films are defined. Yes, it's a compilation of the first five episodes of the 1987 TV series, but that doesn't make it any less of a feature film than any other direct-to-video or made for TV movie that's been produced over the years.
Overall, this was a fun way to watch these episodes all together without going through the first three VHS volumes or the DVD release I have. Honestly though it's unnecessary to own unless you're a huge Teddy Ruxpin fan or you don't have the DVDs or the other VHS releases. Especially if this is how you watched Teddy Ruxpin as a kid since outside of the Yes! Entertainment releases of the original VHS volumes, which had to be used in tandem with the Yes! Entertainment Teddy Ruxpin toy, this was the only home video release available in the early 2000s. Once again, thanks to Vincent for providing me with a digitized copy of this tape. I'd heard of it of course through the Teddy Ruxpin fandom over the last ten years or so, but I'd never seen it before. So it was fun to just sit and watch it last night.
Alrighty I think that's gonna be it for me for today. I'll be back tomorrow for my review of Raya and the Last Dragon as my sister and I are going to be watching that tonight instead of an episode of The Orville. I'm going to try to have my review out by lunchtime tomorrow, but it's probably going to be closer to dinner before I get it out just because I have a video chat with a friend after lunch tomorrow and I'd like to try to get outside before it gets really hot. But sometime tomorrow I'll have a review of Raya and the Last Dragon. So until then have a great rest of your day and I will talk to you all later. Take care.
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