The Asylum gets all the attention (and the lucrative gig filling time for "SyFy") but they're far from the only company out there making "mockbusters," those ultra low budget, direct-to-DVD movies named similar to big Hollywood blockbusters, in the hopes that an inattentive purchaser will buy their movie in the hopes they're getting something better. But The Asylum's not the only ones making them, and a prominent mockbuster subgenre is that of companies making really poor CG movies that resemble Pixar and Dreamworks hits only to the extent that they can maintain plausible, legal deniability, their profit margins relying on clueless grandparents getting something nice for the little ones.
Two of these companies are Video Brinquedo (trailer for their Little & Big Monsters and some clips from its sequel) and Spark Plug Entertainment (trailer for An Ant's Life). Far more of their output, including whole movies, awaits you than you could ever hope to stomach....
Warning: every video link in this post will kill you at least three times.
Previously: #1 - #2. Many of the video links for previously-covered movies have expired, all of these are verified to work as of 2/26/2014.
I. Video Brinquedo (aka Toyland Video)
This Brazilian company specializes in awkward animation, unnatural translation, long pointless waking shots, and pauses you could drive school buses through. Of special note is the lipsync system they use, in which they match character mouths to dialogue apparently using an automatic system that, while it works, has an unusual look to say the least. Some of their movies aren't even listed at the IMDb. 4Kids Entertainment appears to have done some of the dubbing for English releases, so there's the extra amusement of hearing anime voices on some of the characters. Video Brinquedo also does some CG-based 2D animation. Those are outside the scope of this post, but they aren't any better.
Common features: Stiff animation, blank stares, simplistic models, sometimes casual racism.
Corporate site - Wikipedia - TVTropes
The Little Panda Fighter
In which a panda is roped into helping his polar bear boss commit fraud to dethrone boxing champ Fabulous Freak Teddy Thunders. The panda in question isn't little at all, and neither is he much of a fighter.
Full movie - Trailer (in Portuguese)
Things to watch for: The infinite green field. "Sweet Bear," both his Care Bear design and his anime action lines. The movie posters in Polaris' office. The filthy laundry room. Pankata's walk cycle. Freaky polar bear laughter. Mr. Grizzlepuss's nose hanger. Pankata's master's lack of confidence in his pupil's ability. The ending.
Ratatoing
Trailer
About a battle between mouse restaurants, involving the theft of food from the human world. Contains lots of padding. "The city," according to the trailer, is Rio de Janeiro, a fact the narrator distinctly avoids mentioning. The only unmolested copy I could find has intrusive YouTube annotations. Be sure to turn them off (click on the player button with the gear, you'll have to do it anew for each video), they're not going to do you any good.
Part 1: Notice how the characters go out of their way to not name the city. Also notice the paintings on the wall being the restaurant patrons.
Part 2: Contains a time-wasting suiting-up scene in a Matrix-like white field involving CG mice.
Part 3: "Turn this crazy thing off!" "How did you turn that thing on?" "I think I pushed the switch!" "What switch?" "Push the button behind you!" "Did you say 'pull'?" "No! Not pull the button, push the button!" "Are you saying button?" "Yes, button! I mean switch!" "Did you say button, or switch?" "The button is a switch!" "Ah, what switch? Or button?" "AAUUGH!"
Part 4: Video Brinquedo proudly presents the worst-modeled cat of all time.
Part 5: Marcel Toing: in exchange for success in business, he turned traitor to his species.
Note: I started working on this post back in October or so, then got driven off for awhile by the unrelenting tide of crap. When I came back to it, several of Video Brinquedo's movies, a substantial part of the post, had been taken off of YouTube. I'm unwilling to throw away all my work, so in memory of the post that could have been, here is some information on them, and some surviving trailers.
Little & Big Monsters (Monstros e Monstrinhos): Robots from other galaxies come to Earth and cause havoc. Contains a secret conspiracy between two "crazy scientists," a racist robot, a "salt laser," a theater marquee labeled THE KILLER LASANGA, a rotary telephone, and large quantities of WTF. I'm sorry to see this one gone, it's insane and would be worth the whole post by itself. Trailer.
Tiny Robots: While a bit over-narrated at the start, this is the stand-out of Video Brinquedo's library, a somewhat interesting story that works as science fiction. That means it gets a rating of half a star instead of the customary none. There's certain flaws here. For instance, the robots aren't really all that tiny. Watch for R2D2 and C3P0's head in the background. Trailer - Tooncrap review.
Little Bee: A soldier bee wants to make honey, and a honey-making bee wants to be a soldier. Oh, how will they ever work it out? The "bees" are actually humanoid models wearing striped sweaters! Contains a scene where you get to hear the voice actress of Ash from Pokemon express her character's desire to mate: "That's what I'm talkin' 'bout, she will be mine!" You also get to hear a bee failing to do a French accent say "I am such a losér!" Trailer
Little Cars (Os Carrinhos): A bunch of animate cars in the town of Raceopolis/Rodopolis have increasingly generic adventures. Seems to be a repackaged Brazilian cartoon show. The deeper you submurge yourself into the Os Carrinhos phenomenon the stranger it gets, and by the end they're meeting genie trucks and rabbit cars. There appear to be a total of eight of these. Amazon sells all of them in one package for five bucks. World building problems that sort of bothered you in Cars will sit on your head throughout Os Carrinhos.
Little Cars in The Great Race: This is the first of the Little Cars "movies." To save a delivery business, the gang has to win a big race despite the nefarious efforts of an evil car named Wrangler. Trailer
A couple others in the series (all these in Portuguese): Volume 1 - Volume 2
Os Carrinhos – O Musical: A centerpiece of the "Little Cars" phenomenon is this "musical" in which live people wearing car character costumes prance about inanely in front of CG backdrops. Dada is alive and well and living in Brazil!
Teaser: Watch for appearances by a random spider character and what appears to be Daisy Duck for some reason.
Se você está contente - Os Carrinhos – Promo: They sing "If you're happy and you know it" in Portuguese with random noises included (including at multiple points what seem to be screaming). Watch the mouths of the characters long enough and it becomes obvious they don't match the song.
Carrinhos Live on Stage: Twinkle Twinkle Little Star: In which a prancing guy in a car suit sings Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, in Portuguese, to another guy in a star costume. Here it is again on a talk show.
The "ABCs" in English: Sung three times while people in random costumes energetically cavort with blocks. Seriously, you should watch this, it is a portal to the dimension of LULZ. Empty your mind and watch this video and you will be a different person when it's over. Or maybe an end table.
Other Video Brinquedo Trailers:
Barquinhos: Like Little Cars, but with boats. Boring.
Gladiformers: A fairly bland Transformers knock-off.
Gladiformers 2: More bland Transformer-ish robots.
What's Up: Balloon Rescue: This one ISN'T boring. A sequel to Little & Big Monsters, and just as amazing. If you're a fan of pointless and stupid racism from protagonists then boy, are you in for a treat. This actually isn't a trailer as much as a clips reel.
For more proof of man's inhumanity to sense, check out the contents of Video Brinquedo's multiple YouTube accounts:
#1 - #2 - #3
*** *** *** *** *** ***
II. Spark Plug Entertainment
Imagine a world... a world of distant still backgrounds, of stiff, unattractive modeling, where the background radiation of the universe is omnipresent light jazz, where the laws of fate unceasingly punish youth for the deadly sin of disobedience. This world is real, it exists simulated on the computers of Spark Plug Entertainment. Do not visit it for long, your mere human sanity is incompatible with it.
Not as stiff as Video Brinquedo's output, but also somehow less polished. The production company seems to be a proxy for a man named Michael Schelp. All of the following movies are written and directed by him. His Wikipedia page lists a few other movies, including "Frankie Stein."
From what I've heard Michael Schelp isn't a terrible guy, and moviemaking, by whatever means, is challenging. He cast several family members in A Car's Life, and they seem to be having a great time. (One can imagine Julia's single two-second scene being due to them shoehorning a protesting mother into the project.) But it remains that his movies are not generally good, cut corners all over the place, and like all the other movies in this post, are marketed specifically to people who think they're getting something else. You can admire his chutzpah, but that doesn't make these films watchable. And he was the executive producer of Spike's "MANswers," which is difficult to forgive.
Common features: slow animation, distant blurry skybox backgrounds, and omnipresent jazz on the soundtrack.
TVTropes
An Ant's Life
This movie is a lot more naturalistic than A Bug's Life, or indeed most animated fables about the lives of insects like AntZ and A Bee Story. It doesn't have the traditional three-act structure, which ordinarily I would be down with -- Death to the tyranny of Aristotle and Syd Fields! Anarchy! -- but I don't pretend that makes your movie generally watchable. Still, its reasonably experimental structure and sometimes shocking naturalism make it oddly fascinating to watch, and it might be the best of Spark Plug's product. This one is fairly short, barely a full movie at all.
Trailer
Part 1: The world of bugs is filled with terror, savagery and light jazz. That last thing makes it difficult to build up any sense of tension over what happens to the characters. Every time Josephine says something it's with the sly tone that movies use to signify evil to the audience. Hint hint!
Part 2: Salvatore the caterpillar and Gigi the mantis are on a first-name basis, yet openly acknowledge their prey/predator relationship, and that the only reason Gigi isn't eating Sal is because she's already eating someone thing. I'm sure kids will love the scene where Frank's lifeless staring head lies on the ground while his mate devours his flesh! It's like they watched the "Raymond" episode of Space Ghost Coast To Coast and thought, "Let's make a kids movie about this!" Although Gigi is as dangerous to the ants as the villainous geckos their conversation is handled casually, while lizard attacks get tension shots, rapid cuts and threatening music. I suppose I should be grateful, when Josephine is laying eggs, that they didn't model her cloaca; they just appear, extruded from her body.
Part 3: For the huge threat it's built up as being, the army of larva is less than imposing.
A Car's Life: Sparky's Big Adventure
The subtitle is "Sparky's Big Adventure," but really all the spunky little car does is disobey his father and come out the worse for it time and time again. Basically, this is automotive Pinocchio. When characters need to do something their anatomy is incapable of, like hold an object without arms, it's no obstacle, it just immediately grows a robot arm to manipulate it! Once the task is complete it immediately vanishes, not hanging around getting in the way and causing problems in later scenes that depend on cars not having arms. The actress for Speedy deserves an award for most annoying voice. I suggest calling it the Gottfried.
Trailer
Part 1: We get a record scratch sound effect within the first two minutes, and within six we visit a gravesite. Fun! There's a No Smoking sign at the gas station, so whatever their biology we know that cars can light up.
Part 2: How does Speedy clean windshields? By growing a robot arm, natch. If a car's eyes are its headlights, why does it have seats? And why does covering its windshield with oil blind it? There are two main female characters in the movie: Sultry Bad Influence, and Pinkie Pie On Crack. But, how do cars know what gender they are?
Part 3: The design of the gas leeches leaves one wondering what evolutionary pressures there are in this desert Motorama. Hope you like watching cars careening around the desert like lunatics, because we have extra helpings of that! The "races" amount to a finish line and a lonely trophy standing stark amidst the sand like a gold cactus; there are no other competitors, or indeed race staff, at all. Speedy mindlessly laughs and gawks in a way that brings one to mind of dread Azathoth, a vision of madness.
Part 4: I guess only girl cars get robot arms, and only when they're being evil or stupid. Speedy gets beaten up pretty bad here; it's like the director thought the donkey scene from Pinocchio didn't traumatize enough children. Pops shows up to reinforce the deadly conformity that's the movie's theme. Oh, he says he won a Champion's Cup when he was younger, but the movie didn't spend an hour showing awful things happening to him. "Who wants to race to the highway?" For two minutes under the closing credits? Sign me up!
Sequels:
A Car's Life 2 Trailer - Full movie with annoying audio commentary
A Car's Life 3 Trailer
Spider's Web: A Pig's Tale
What could be more heartbreaking than a mockbuster based off of Charlotte's Web? One where a kid pig lies in haiku, mother pigs keep pies in cages, spiders hang from threads extending up into the deep blue sky, snakes try to eat our hero pig because he strayed from his home barnyard mudfield where presumably the same fate awaits him, aliens run hotels, and snakes drive cars. When spider characters are supposed to enter a door, they just coast by it on their inexplicable threads, and they're inside. At the end it's revealed that the snakes were planning on eating the pig all along, but the wait to get to that point is excruciating. This is probably the worst movie of those covered here; I could, and almost did, fill this whole post with a discussion of its flaws. I made many omissions just to get this post finished. It is a mine, if not of gold, then of some substance.
Part 1 - Any real horse named Mr. Wigglesworth would be out for blood. They may grow mud on this farm, but by gum they do it while worshippin' the LORD. When you knock off an E.B. White story, you should have better writing than this.
Part 2 - What does a naturalistic pig burdened with homework write it on? A chicken reacts with horror at news of her eaten relative. A snake needing an arm suddenly sprouts an animate stick.
Part 3 - That's a mean TV. Bugs ride motorcycles and have missiles they can fire, but are still afraid of spiders. We see an anthropomorphic paddle with bug wings. I don't even what the heck go to hell.
Part 4 - The meat grinding machine is anthropomorphic too. Just kill the pig already.
Part 5 - How does stinging a snake stop a grinding machine? The happy ending takes us back to the Elemental Plane of Mud. The ending credits are presented in Comic Sans, and feature the characters bobbing rhythmically to jazz in front of THE COLD BLACK VOID OF DOOM. Be sure to end the video at 6:47, where the annoying host voice-over begins.
Plan Bee
A buncha bees have adventures in Washington D.C. Slightly better rendering than Spider's Web, but the bee models are quite unattractive. Unique character design amounts to a vocal tic, a unique disfigurment and a change in eye and neck ruff color. By animating flying insects, Spark Plug was able to do away with all those pesky walk cycles: the bees pretty much hover and movie their mouths and that's it.
Part 1: I suppose we can't fault the decision to give the bees (somewhat) realistic bee tongues, but their similarity to phalluses is tres disturbing. All the Spark Plug animated movies have a problem with music not matching the action, but it's particularly bad here.
Part 2: The bees' respect for George Washington is sufficient to cause one to suspect a political motivation on the part of the producer. The way their bottom eyelids clip into their faces fascinates me horribly. At the end it seems the bees have electric lighting.
Part 3: Although computer animated, Plan Bee's use of blurry paintings of Washington D.C. as backgrounds is reminiscent of the low-budget sci-fi monster movie Beginning Of The End, which infamously used grasshoppers crawling on postcards of a city to simulate an attack by giant insects. I hope you like organ, maracas and snare drums, because that's all you're gonna hear for nearly a whole minute here.
Part 4: It's easy to mock the animation in these, but the writing is worse. Note that the old queen bee doesn't seem to know how she was deposed, it was just something that seemed to happen, no confrontation or intermediate steps. She was just mysteriously ousted, like she woke up outside with the trash one day.
Part 5: If the voice of the pig from Spider's Web and the main bee of this movie sounds familiar, it's because it's Corinne Orr, long-time voice actress, best known from the English dub of the original Speed Racer and according to her Wikipedia page its last surviving English voice actor, and prominent presence in a number of other anime dubs. She's 77 now. Wherever you can find work Ms. Orr, rock on. Film ends at 3:25.
Piper Penguin And His Fantastic Flying Machines
Or, At The Mountains Of Badness. A penguin has dreams of building a flying contraption out of random junk that washed up on the shores of Antarctica. In the meantime he goes to Penguin School, wrecks the Penguin Prom, and is a subject of interviews with PNN.
Part 1: A penguin named Pepperoni.
Part 2: Whale raid sirens, a disturbingly horny gym coach, and "krill on a shingle." Don't penguins eat fish? No, it turns out, their food is extruded from a big nozzle on the wall.
Part 3: Tetherballs of the antarctic waste, perfectly square ice sheets, an encounter with a deadly villainous whale in a movie where no one swims, the Platonic ideal of the bad W.C. Fields impression, and the secret life of krill.
Part 4: "Penguin curling," the penguin prom, and a walrus singing about the type of females that he personally considers to be sexually arousing.
Part 5: "The toilet made of see-through ice!" If the whale's so evil, why do all the penguins refer to him by a nickname?
Part 6: They actually set up for a sequel. Why are they taking the krill characters with them? Movie ends at 3:06.
Early trailer