Old School Lane's Nickelodeon Tribute: Back at the Barnyard

To conclude 2007, the next show to review is the 2nd adaptation based on a Nickelodeon movie. The first one was The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius. The second one was Barnyard. As you recall from our Barnyard review, the movie made over $116 million dollars in the box office despite the negative reviews from both the critics and the viewers. But as this point, Nickelodeon saw a profit in this and decided to get Steve Oedekerk to give us Back at the Barnyard which debuted on September 29, 2007.

The show takes place after the movie in which Otis (voiced by Chris Hardwick) goofs around and has crazy adventures with his friends while he's supposed to watch over the farm from danger. Most of the animals from Barnyard appear in the show such as the mouse Pip, the dog Duke, the pig Pig, the rooster Peck, the weasel Freddie, and the cow Bessie. Most of the humans from the movie come back as well such as the farmer, Mr. and Mrs. Beady, and Snotty Boy. However, a new female cow appears in the show who replaced Daisy from the movie. Abby is a tomboy who loves adventure and has a little crush on Otis. The main plot of the show involves with wacky adventures involving the barn animals such as Otis and Pip saving the world as Cowman and Ratboy, the animals trying to find a wife for the farmer, competing in a Olympics-like event at the barn, and mostly pulling pranks on Mrs. Beady while she tries to tell everyone that the animals talk with no one believing her.

The show lasted for 2 seasons ending its run on November 12, 2011. The show went through a hiatus to prepare for a spinoff of The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius. Then eventually, they released the last episodes of the show with little to no advertisement. Despite this being an adaptation from the movie, you don't have to see the movie to watch the show. Even when watching the show, it focuses on a lot of pop culture references and parodies popular movies and TV shows. While I will say that Back at the Barnyard is a lot better than the movie, that's not really saying a lot considering on how awful the movie was. Many cartoons do this style of humor as well, but there are some that use this as to entertain the older viewers while having clever jokes, memorable characters, or fun songs for the younger kids such as Looney Tunes. Back at the Barnyard's isn't very clever or funny with it. It's pretty mediocre. Besides the lackluster jokes, there are major flaws with the show. The one thing I cannot forgive is removing Daisy from the show. While Daisy wasn't an interesting character in the slightest, she was important to the plot of the movie. She was Otis' love interest who helped him when Otis had doubts of running the farm after his dad was killed by the coyotes. Instead, the series gave us Abby, who is not that interesting as a character. Plus, Daisy had a son whom Otis swore to protect while making a promise to the barn to watch over it. It seemed that the writers wanted to retcon Daisy so that Otis would be more freerer to goof around and have wacky adventures with his friends, which means that he's acting the same way as he did in the movie. 

I'm sorry, but this is a glaring issue. Otis' father Ben died protecting the farm and Otis had a change of heart learning that he can't act immature anymore. He has a job to being a leader of the barn protecting the other animals from harm. So basically, according to the way Otis acts in Back at the Barnyard, Ben pretty much died in vain. His death is never even mentioned in the show at all. That's very stupid on the writers' part. They should be ashamed of themselves for forgetting the only things that made the movie good. 

Another glaring issue in this show is that there's no sense of danger whatsoever. As previously mentioned, the main antagonists in the movie were a group of coyotes that stole chicks for food. While they were defeated at the end, they never came back in the TV series. King Goobot and Ooblar from Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius came back in The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius a few times over, so why not the coyotes? In fact, there are no villains in the series at all. No evil creatures stealing farm animals, no humans trying the threaten the farm, absolutely nothing comes and give conflict to the show. While you can say that Mrs. Beady would since she would give the secrets of the animals talking, that's pretty weak. The show relies too much on humor. Now if the humor was good, I can overlook that. But as I just stated earlier, it's not.

The only saving grace for me when watching this show was Chris Hardwick's portrayal of Otis. Kevin James' portrayal of Otis in the movie was incredibly bland and forgettable. Otis in the TV show had some funny lines from time to time and kept me slightly entertained. But then again, this is Chris Hardwick we're talking about. Anything from him is always going to be funny. Other than that, this show shouldn't have been made. As an adaptation from Barnyard, it pretty much retcons the characters and plot from the movie that made it decent and kept in everything that made it unfunny and uninteresting. As a standalone show, it's very boring and mediocre with bland characters and jokes that fall flat on their face more than make you laugh. I don't recommend checking it out.

That's all for now. Tune in next time as we go into the year 2008 with a movie review of The Spiderwick Chronicles. 

Hope to see you around Old School Lane soon. Thanks for reading.

-Patricia

Movie Review: Barnyard

2006 on Nickelodeon continues with another movie review. The 2nd movie to feature for Nickelodeon Movies was Barnyard. Barnyard was written, produced, and directed by Steve Oedekerk. Steve Oedekerk previously founded O Entertainment, the same production company that released The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius with him being the executive producer of the show. A few months before The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius ended, Barnyard debuted in theaters on August 4, 2006. Does the movie bring in good crops or has it dried out? This is Barnyard. 



 The movie begins early in the morning with a farmer checking on his animals. Having to do his morning routines, he gets into his car and leaves. When the farmer is gone, the animals get up on two legs talking and gathering together for a meeting led by a male cow named Ben. Meanwhile, Ben's son Otis and his friends Pig the pig, Pip the mouse, Freddy the weasel, and Peck the rooster goof up riding on a ironboard with two large icecubes on a large hill. While riding, they hit the top of an oil rig and a chicken coop and make it to the barnyard where the meeting was taking place covered with oil and feathers. While the meeting was going on, Ben warns the farm animals about coyotes wandering in different farms stealing chickens and staying away from human technology, Otis' cell phone rings interrupting the conversation. The meeting ends with Ben approaching Otis to grow up from his wild antics and learn to be a man. However, Otis shrugs Ben's advise and immediately falls in love with a pregnant cow named Daisy who had just moved into the barn alongside her friend Bessie. He stumbles on discussing a conversation with her being a bit awkward. Daisy tells Otis to go away since she's not interested in her. We then cut to a montage of Otis doing human activities such as playing golf and making fun of the mailman without him knowing.


 That night, the barn has a huge party while the farmer's asleep involving with singing, dancing, playing pool, playing cards, and riding on a mechanical man. Otis wants to join in on the party, but he's forced by Ben to watch over the fence to prevent coyotes led by Dag from entering. Ben tells Otis about the day that he found him on the barn and learning to become a leader for the barnyard. Otis wasn't interested in being a leader just like him and leaves Ben disappointed. Later on, the coyotes sneak into their barnyard and almost steal the chickens, but Ben makes it on time to fight them. Ben defeats them, but lost his life in the process. With that, Otis is proclaimed as the new leader of the barn. The animals use Otis as an excuse to party all night long. He decides to give the position of watching over the chicken coop to Peck and Freddy, which is difficult since Freddy has a craving to eat the chickens. Otis hangs out with a group of cows known as the Jersey cows, whom Ben originally didn't want Otis to be around with. While hanging around, a group of young boys led by a fat kid named Snotty Boy decide to go cow tipping. Otis and the Jersey cows decide to have revenge on Snotty Boy by tipping them over. Later that night, Otis and the Jersey cows sneak into their next door neighbor's garage to steal their car. Mrs. Beady saw the cows stealing the car and warns her husband about it, but assumes that she's making things up. The cows drive up to Snotty Boy's house and sneak up to his room and tip him off of his bed. Snotty Boy screams and the cows get away driving. They celebrate until a cop car goes behind them. They act like real cows and get away from trouble.



When Otis returns home from the barn, he sees Daisy sitting alone. Otis approaches her and talks to her about himself while Daisy talks about life before she came over to their barn. Apparently, she was living a normal, happy life with her husband cow until one day a huge tornado hit their farm killing all the animals, except for her and Bessie. While they talk, Otis overhears Dag and the coyotes chasing a rabbit and heading towards the barn. Otis leaves Bessie and heads towards the coyotes to take them down to avenge his father. He meets up with Dag and tells them to leave the barn or else, but Dag laughs and orders his coyotes to attack him. With Otis injured and defeated, Dag threatens Otis that he doesn't let them take one animal a night, he'll come by and kill all of them. Otis, disappointed about his loss, decides to leave the barn. Daisy sees Otis packing his things and is concerned about what happened the night before and Otis confesses his problem involving with the coyotes and not feeling like a competent leader. Daisy tells him that Otis doesn't have to be brave to be a leader, he has to stick with his friends. Otis thanks Daisy, but leaves anyway. While he leaves, he learns that one of his friends Maddy, a baby chick, was kidnapped by the coyotes. Otis decides to face the coyotes to retrieve Maddy back. Otis heads over to the junkyard, where the coyotes live, to take down Dag. Dag laughs and sends his coyotes to take him down again and Otis is defeated. But luckily, his friends consisting of Pig, Freddy, Peck, Pip, the Jersey cows, and others help him out. Working together, they defeat the coyotes and Otis defeats Dag by hitting him far away with a golf club. The movie concludes with Otis and the animals finding out that Daisy is about to give birth so they use motorcycles to get back home. They arrive just in time with Daisy giving birth to a baby calf whom she named Little Ben. Otis promises to take of Daisy, Little Ben, and the barn and heading outside to see the stars.

 

When the film first came out, it received negative reviews by critics and viewers despite being a huge commercial success of making over $116 million dollars. In my opinion, this movie is mediocrity at its finest. It has a terrible, predictable storyline with bland characters, outdated animation, and horrible jokes. However, around the end of the film started to get interesting with the last fight with Otis and Dag, the struggle with being a competent leader just like his father, and the back stories of Otis and Daisy. If the movie would've had a tighter script, more dimensional characters, and similar to the drama that appears towards the end, it would've been a lot more decent. Maybe not as comparable to a Pixar or Dreamworks movie, but something more better than the movie we ended up with. I don't recommend checking it out.

That's all for now. Hope to see you around Old School Lane soon. Thanks for reading.

-Patricia