Channel Chasers

Having not seen the first 'Fairly Odd Parents' TV movie - 'Abra-Castatrophe - I caught 'Channel Chasers' on Nickelodeon. I really enjoy the 'Fairly Odd Parents' TV series, so I was keen on checking out 'Channel Chasers'. For those who haven't seen 'Fairly Odd Parents': the show is about ten-year old Timmy Turner, and his fairly odd fairy-god parents. Only the word 'awesomeness' can describe this second TV movie.

Twenty years into the 'Fairly Odd Parents' future, Chester and AJ (friends of Timmy) are chased through the streets of Dimmsdale by a masked ninja, an agent of the evil-dictator who now rules the world. In no surprise, the evil-dictator is actually Vicky - Timmy's evil-babysitter from the present. In 'Terminator' style, Vicky sends a ninja back in time to destroy Timmy once he has wished for the magical-TV remote.

Back in the present, Timmy has destroyed a house that his mother was trying to sell, and caused his father to lose his "Cleanest Office Award" to his arch-rival and neighbour, Dinkleburg. Timmy is grounded, and framed by Vicky for trashing the Turner home. With TV banned, Timmy wishes for a magic-remote that allows him to travel through the universe of television. When Vicky gets hold the remote, the race is on to stop Vicky from reaching Channel 298 - the biography channel - and learning how to conquer the world from the Channel's special 'dictator week'.

Two-hours of 'Fairly Odd Parents' is one of the greatest things I've ever experience. The movie is just as funny as the series, with the same sense of humour that should appeal to both adults and kids. In fact, most of the shows Timmy visits in 'Channel Chasers' should be recognizable to most adults, while kids should get more kicks out of the zany humour.

'Channel Chasers' feels like a finale, but I'm holding out for a 'Fairly Odd Parents' movie to hit the cinema - it is just as deserving as Spongebob Squarepants - 8/10

Since I had to go to Borders on the night this special premiered, I first only saw the first 3-5 minutes of THE FAIRLY ODDPARENTS: CHANNEL CHASERS (the second 90-minute TV movie, the first being ABRA-CATASTROPHE), and was forced to leave my VCR taping the rest. Upon my return home, I watched the rest of the film.

My review?

[long, amazed pause]

WOW! This is quite possibly the darkest FOP movie/episode ever! It's also incredibly poignant, especially in the conclusion (which, of course, I won't give away, save that it ambiguously had the feel of a "final episode")! But that doesn't stop the usual FOP wackiness, and there's TONS of references to TV shows, especially tokusatsu and anime (look carefully for an SD version of Masked [Kamen] Rider V3 while Timmy flips channels to scroll through the characters on his favorite program)! Look for hilarious parodies of A CHARLIE BROWN CHIRSTMAS, SESAME STREET, RUDOLPH THE RED-NOSED REINDEER and SPEED RACER, to name just a few! But this is somewhat different from the average, even the best FOP episode/special!

The plot: 20 years into future, Chester and AJ (now macho grown-ups) are chased through Dimmsdale (now a dystopia) by a ruthless masked ninja spy (volced by Alec Baldwin, who did a good job!), who works for the evil dictator Vicky (yep, Timmy Turner's evil babysitter!). With the two men captured, Vicky sends the spy to the present, using a time-traveling device, to destroy Timmy Turner. But things take a turn for the worst when a popular new anime program called MAHOMUSHI (Japanese for "magic bugs"; Should be "Mahoumushi") influences kids to behave violently (a parody of the infamous POKEMON "epileptic seizure" incident in Japan), especially Timmy, whose reenacting the program with his fairy godparents Cosmo and Wanda destroy his parents' jobs! They ground him, and leave him with Vicky (as usual), but this is where things really start to go bottom-of-the-barrel for poor Timmy! When he wishes for a TV set in his room, Vicky finds out about this and frames Timmy by destroying much of the house. To get away from his troubles, Timmy wishes for a magic remote control, and he, Cosmo and Wanda have fun actually traveling through the TV universe, living his favorite TV shows! Meanwhile, the spy from the future spies on Timmy as the return of his enraged parents (thanks to Vicky) forces him to return to the real world for a while, and inadvertently takes with him a super-weapon (from a JONNY QUEST-type show), which Timmy accidentally destroys his roof with! With Timmy in serious trouble, his parents snatch his magic remote control from him, and give it to Vicky, who leaves the room. His parents leave also, not believing Timmy that "Vicky is evil!" Timmy becomes bitterly cynical of his parents and all adults (and possibly even of himself, as he, Cosmo and Wanda reflect on the tragic truth about kids forsaking their fairy godparents when they get older), and when wishing for a new magic remote control, the misanthropic Timmy runs away into the TV universe with his fairy godparents, and the mysterious spy follows suit. But while Timmy, Cosmo and Wanda are surfing through their favorite shows trying to evade the spy (who eventually reveals a shocking secret), Vicky begins to discover the power of the other magic remote control in her custody, and all hell breaks loose! Will Timmy avert this ominous crisis, which could affect even the real world?

Overall, this special is just as good as, perhaps even better than the wonderful ABRA-CATASTROPHE. The subplot with the other regular characters is very intriguing, and the chase through the TV universe is a real laugh-riot, as it should be! But you won't come out feeling the same way you do with FOP when this movie is finished. The surprisingly dark & depressing undertones make this special a real standout! Sort of like the mega-depressing A BOY NAMED CHARLIE BROWN (the ultimate of the four Peanuts movies), except with a happy yet poignant ending. This special is still highly recommendable!

The movie starts in a dystopian future reminiscent of THE TERMINATOR(or at the very least the first Kim Possible TV-Movie), then upon returning to the present, stirs up the debate over the effect of television on kids' behavior with Chet Ubetcha(Jim Ward)echoing the party line from anti-media zealots. Of course when you've got fairy godparents, you can imitate things on television that other kids can't. You can also get in trouble for them, like other kids do, and Timmy Turner(Tara Strong) does. Anyone who's familiar with FOP knows Timmy just wants the enjoyable childhood he thinks other kids are having, rather than the down-trodden one he has, which would've made me want to grow up as quickly as possible, and smash some mean adults and bullies along the way. Speaking of growing up, during his punishment, Cosmo & Wanda end up revealing that when Timmy does so, he'll not only not need them anymore, he'll forget they even existed. Since not even Cosmo and Wanda can keep him from suffering through the torment of Vicki without his wishes backfiring on him, he decides he's better off using a magical remote control and running away to television, where he thinks adult and adolescent supervision aren't an issue. While hiding in an imitation of "Jonny Quest," Vicki trashes the Turner household and blames Timmy for her evil deeds knowing his parents will punish him. When he tries and fails to prove his innocence, and Vicky's evil ways, they don't believe him, and make the fatal mistake of giving her his magic remote. At this point he decides that television is the place to stay for life, and wishes for another magic remote so he can do just that. In the meantime a mysterious figure from that opening future scene does everything he can to try to convince Timmy to surrender his magic remote control. And once he realizes this mysterious stranger isn't just another mean adult who wants to boss him around, he learns that he shares a common cause with this stranger... they both need to defeat Vicky so she can't take over the world, and they're both the same person.

Along the way, Timmy's yet-to-be-named parents try to find him, and find out that Vicky IS evil, but aren't entirely sure what they can do about her. We also get to see the continuing plot line of Vicky's nerdy little sister Tootie, who feels exactly the opposite way about Timmy, and takes direct action to expose her big sis to vindicate the boy she loves, by imitating a much more mysterious character from "All the President's Men"(1977). Besides the romantic angle of Tootie's mad crush on Timmy, one of the things that make this so great is that the non-stop parodies cover material for both kids and adults that span at least four generations. Watching this movie, I got a sense that Butch Hartman grew up watching the same television that I did, including cartoons that were made before I was born, and thus before Nickelodeon's core audience was born. The shows being spoofed are so obvious, a ten-year-old could write them, which is fine since it's target audience is around the same age as the main character. They even step into live-action a couple of times. Be sure to listen to the dialogue during the Tom & Jerry parody which revives the subject of cartoons influencing kid's behavior in a way that Action for Children's Television and similar groups may not want to hear.

Two important lessons can be found here; 1)The adults on television are probably not as cool as they look, and 2)Do NOT get an angst-filled ten-year-old with fairy godparents mad at you, or else you'll know how those who tormented Carrie White felt before she made them regret it! I've got to admit, I really felt Timmy's pain when he lost the adult version of himself he thought was so cool. I can barely keep myself from choking up when I read the memorable quotes section on this very page. And the ending(which I won't reveal), while not entirely identical to "Abra-Catastrophe," is just as touching, and just as mixed in it's outcome and mood.

Now my review will be absolutely short and sweet. I happened to catch Channel Chasers by accident. My son was watching TV and I was just sitting in my chair flipping through a magazine. I usually don't pay much attention to what cartoon is on but that being said, I actually always enjoyed the Fairly Oddparents. It ranks up there in the top three cartoons I enjoy. This episode didn't get my attention until I started to see the cartoon throwbacks. So for me, I found it well written and quite funny. I loved the way the writers incorporated so many older movies and cartoons. Now I will watch it whenever they replay it on Nickelodeon. It's enjoyable for kids and adults alike.

Fairly Oddparents was a show I grew up with. And ever since, this was my favorite episode from it. Everything here is awesome: The parodies, the story, the characters, so many things I love about it. Watch it yourself if you haven't yet.