Blowing In the Spring

I slept in this morning and ended up spending most of the day at work. It wasn't even really that exciting. It was on-and-off all day, sometimes busy but never overwhelming. The worst of it was some annoying beginning-of-the-month customers. I had one of those groups of people who buy cartloads of items (three cartloads, in this case) ...then realize, "oops, we don't have enough money to buy all of this, we have to put one cart-full back!" And a quarter of their order was very expensive items like bagged breaded chicken and seafood! Can't they add? Three cartloads of food isn't going to come out to $530! (I think they had more like $700.)

Went straight home after work. It was cloudy, damp, and very windy, the same as yesterday. My porch was wet this morning, but other than a few tiny drops, we never saw either rain or snow. While it was a little colder than yesterday, it's still a lot warmer than it was for most of last month...too warm for snow to stick anywhere but the ground, and maybe even too warm for that.

Watched an animated film I hadn't run in a while, Cats Don't Dance, while eating Poached Flounder with Onions and Mushrooms, broccoli, and brown rice pudding for dinner. Cats is an unusual entry in the "Disney imitation" race of the late 90s. We're in Hollywood in 1939, and talking animated animals face a problem similar to most minorities of the time...i.e, they're ignored, abused, and treated like, well, animals.

Enter Danny, an energetic song-and-dance cat from Indiana who wants to star in the movies. Fat chance, as he discovers the hard way. Most of the animals in town are currently reduced to doing walk-ons for Darla Dimple's newest picture. Darla, despite her reputation as "America's sweetheart, lover of children and animals," hates anything that will take the spotlight from her...animals included. When she sets Danny and the other animals up to tall a fall in front of studio chief LB Mammoth, Danny almost leaves Hollywood in despair...until he comes up with a plan to show off his and his friends' talents at the premiere of Darla's newest movie!

I'm not exactly sure whom Warners/Turner intended the audience for this to be. The music is pure 90s (Randy Newman wrote it), but the setting is 1939. The main villain is a kid...and so downright bizarre, she makes some adult animated villains look like marshmallows by comparison. (Heck, she makes some adult live-action villains look normal.) There's tons of references, to the era and to classic Hollywood films in general, that'll go right over the heads of all but devoted movie buffs.

On the other hand, this is one of my favorite "cult" animated films. Darla Dimple may be a weird character, but you sure as heck can't say she isn't original. She also gets the film's best song and best musical number, the must-be-seen-to-be-believed "Big and Loud." A name vocal cast (including Scott Bakula, Jasmine Guy, Kathy Najimy, and Don Knotts) has a lot of fun with the material. It's also nice to see an animated musical from this time period that tries to blaze it's own path. While there is music, the romance is really a side-plot, and there's no annoying comic sidekicks - all the characters handle the comedy equally, including Darla.