Salazar

22 May 2012

Trippy but fun.

"Around the World with Dot" or "Dot & Santa Clause" if you will is thefirst sequel to "Dot & the Kangaroo". Given that the film, as I statedin my title, is very trippy and makes you feel like your on acidsometimes, it's a great, quirky, original Christmas film that covershow different countries celebrate Christmas- including the origin ofthe Christmas tree- and Japan's kite flying tradition.The film starts off in live action: Danny the Swagman (Drew Forsythe)is walking down a deserted road where he comes across a young boy andgirl kicking a ball. He joins in, but sends the ball sailing over thefence of Dot's zoo. Dot & her brother ,Ben, (who has never made anotherappearance in any of the "Dot" films nor is he mentioned) explain theevents of "Dot & the Kangaroo" and how Dot wants to find the Kangaroo'sJoey. Danny, Dot and Ben build a sleigh and Danny becomes Santa Clause;the characters are now cartoons and Ben has mysteriously disappeared.Dot (voiced by Barbara Frawley), Santa (Drew Forsythe of course) andGrumblebones (Ron Haddrick) and Dozyface, two kangaroos pulling thesleigh, take off around the world in search of Joey.The trippy sequences are of course crazy, however some of them donothing for the story and are unnecessary. The two I find to be themost unnecessary are the volcano smoke monsters and the dragon kitefight. The volcano smoke one involves Dot and Santa flying close to asmoking volcano when a growling ghost-like monster with beady red eyesflies up on screen; then sinister music plays while the screen flashesto black with only the monster's eyes showing a few times. The dragonkite fight happens when Dot and Santa Clasue arrive in Japan; a greendragon kite comes at them- they think it's real and Grumblebones startsto punch it They get caught in the dragon: Grumblebones continues topunch- words pop up (think "Batman")- and a series of kaleidescopeeffects. There are numerous other trippy parts, but i won't go intodetail about them; some of them do add to the story, though.Like all of the "Dot" films, "Dot & Santa Clause" has some great music."Are You Going to the Circus?", although short, is my personalhighlight song. It was also used in "Dot & the Smuglers", but thesecond chorus had the second verse the first one did. The music thatplays during Natasha the Russian bear's story of the first Christmastree is sad and beautiful. There are also other sad songs such asJoey's "A Circus is a Prison" and Dot's "It's So Easy to be Lost in aCrowd" and some catchy upbeat song's like "Ingenuity" and "I Love toWalk Around New York".Unfortunately, the ending of "Dot & Santa Clause" is unsatisfying andabrupt. When Dot & Santa finally find Joey in a New York zoo, Dot andSanta end up back at Dot's house and everyone goes back to live action:Santa Clause turns back into Danny; one of the Russian bears turnsinto- as weird and out of place as it is- a dog; the Japanese goldfishturns into a live action goldfish we never see until now; Walter "Walt"Q. Mouse turns into a live action mouse- also unseen till now. Dannywalks away without even saying goodbye to Dot. Dot calls for Danny tocome back but Dot's Cockatoo tells Dot that Danny has to go help otheranimals in need, but he will come back someday. We see Danny walk downthe road one last time and then it cuts to the credits. However, Dannyhas never made another appearance in the "Dot" films ever since."Dot & Santa Clause", despite its insane trippy sequences and its letdown of an ending, is good, rather educational, funny, often sad filmthat is worth getting and watching, especially at Christmas time.