And with that, we’re back in inaction with another never exciting riffing of Animal Soccer World!
Part 4: Lion Kings and Jungle Kings (or, More Pointless Filler!)
(Wanna follow along? Weirdo! But in the interest of enabling bad habits, here’s
where we’re starting.)
The next scene begins as we FADE IN in a group of assorted animals chattering and blinking erratically. (Erratic, guys— the Sexy Duck Narrator is back in Dinosaur Adventure.) OMINOUS JUNGLE MUSIC plays over their meaningless walla. It always does.
“So, everybody knows what’s goin’ on,” says a stoned-sounding man, and we cut from the animals to adult Simba from The Lion King. That’s not even a joke, they evidently just traced Simba off of a cover or a movie still. I can just see the Dingo “animators” watching TLK on cassette, looking for things to steal and pausing to copy poses. The screen flickers as they sketch, so even the direct copy looks wonky, and then after warbling out something that looks like a mop with four legs they call it a day and go out and celebrate with vodka shots. In my mind, Dingo Pictures world is a bit like Dingo Pictures Russia.
Anyway, Simba is standing at the top of some stone steps or on a stone balcony or something. It reminds me a leeeetle bit of a Mayan temple. Is not!adult!Simba their god? If so, do they offer up animal sacrifices? I hope so; a little carnage would liven things up. This movie is so boring.
“I myself… am not playing,” says not!adult!Simba, whose line doesn’t flow naturally from the previous one, but that's alright because if they don’t care, we shouldn't either. “I am too old.” Yeah, you look fucking ancient. At this point, Dingo is flat-out lying to us and hoping we can't use our eyes or that we’ll go along with it. Because I Dingo’s terrible dialogue and awful art have rendered my soul numb- I do.
“But I will train you,” says not!adult!Simba. We cut to some shots of the animals, then back to him. Thanks for the pointless cut, editor! “And everybody has to do Whatever. I. Say.”
… that’s kinda creepy. It sounds like he has some sort of power fetish. But I’ve watched Dinosaur Adventure, with the terrifying Tio-Cree Lolita relationship, so this barely fazes me. Barely.
“Yes… sir,” says Jaggy the jaguar, who, in his eagerness to accept orders, finishes speaking before his mouth can move.
“Yes sir! We will listen to you!” says that raccoon from Pocahontas (the Disney one; haven’t seen the Dingo one). Raccoon is another animal with a gratingly high-pitched voice. Do they neuter in this animal kingdom?
Who is this lion, anyway? Why do they take his orders so, uh, eagerly? Why does he get to stand on the sacrificial alter? Is he the king they were talking about? And the king just happens to be an expert soccer coach? It would be nice to have things like that clarified. Dingo, pro-tip— when you introduce a new character, INTRODUCE THE NEW CHARACTER!
Not!adult!Simba, henceforth Kingo (it’s a pun on multiple levels!), appoints Jaggy (who apparently has an actual name but no one cares) as central forward (needless parenthesis). Kingo does this because apparently the Wild Dogs “fear him the most.”
Jaggy clearly respects his leader, because he imitates him by replying to the statement without actually replying to the statement. “They better be!” he cries. And then he does something very disturbing.
He laughs.
He doesn’t laugh like you or I would laugh (if you do laugh like that, get help). First he just goes, “Heh heh heh heh,” like he’s reading words off a script without understanding what they mean. Then, after a few second of that, he starts genuinely laughing. It’s the terrifying chuckling you’d hear from a Joker victim. It’s disturbing.
And then we pretend like it never happened la la la la la dee dee we’re Dingo Pictures!
“Who else is playin’?” says Kingo in his Dutch/French/German accent.
A gopher says, “Can I play in the defense?”
“Yeah, sure,” says Kingo. Is it just me, or does he seem completely uninterested in soccer now? He was so invested in Jaggy playing CF, but he doesn't give a flying fork about who's playing in the other positions. Worst coach ever! He should lose his kingship over this.
So we cut to a few more animals who claim positions. You may remember this scene from LAST SCENE! I swear to Bob, Dingo, if you pad this movie out any longer, I will hunt you down and burn your camera equipment. Then I’ll steal whatever money you made off this so you can’t buy more equipment, and then I’ll burn the money so you will never abuse it again. Then I’ll burn you. ("Burn" in this sense means insult you while you sink into a corner and cry. Cry, Dingo! Drown your tears in vodka shots!)
Where was I? Right, animals picking positions. The raccoon wants to play “midsection” (I assume this means drum on someone's abdomen). Then some giraffes show up and laugh for no reason. Pointless Animal Shot, everyone!
A seal that sounds like Big Moose appears. “Uuuuhhh, can you also play with your head? Uuuhh, can you also use your head with soccer?“ I don’t think you should be bouncing things off your head anymore, Big Seal, it sounds like you’ve got more than enough brain damage as it is. But because Kingo is the most useless coach in the world, the concussed seal can play.
Come to think, a seal isn’t a jungle animal. And neither is a raccoon. Or a gopher! The Wild Dogs are all dogs, but the Jungle Kings (Kings of the Jungle) aren’t all jungle animals. False advertising! I should sue ‘Arry! What’s next, the soccer game today not happening in two weeks?
Predictably, after the other animals have claimed positions, GOB the lion cub asks, “And I? What can I be?” All that you can be, GOB-y. It’s a good thing he didn’t ask what position he could be— I wouldn't trust the king with that one.
“Yofie is still toosmall!” says Jaggy. Is his name Yofie? That sounds like the name of a date rape drug. Whatever.
“Yovie can do it!” says Kingo, introducing a new name for the cub and sounding even creepier than before. Cut to a shot of Yovie standing on a rock, laughing-but-no-sound-comes-out. “I will practice with him” uuuhhhhh “Otherwise we have too few!” Sure, keep telling yourself that, Kingo, and one day maybe you’ll be able to look at yourself in the mirror again.
Seriously, why are all the relationships in Dingo Pictures so creepy? Have the writers never experienced a functional human relationship before? Or even seen one? It should not be this easy to find sinister undertones in a kid's movie.
Jabber jabber blah blah and Jaggy the jaguar asks, “And who will be the goal keeper?”
A bored elephant answers, “I will, I will.” It blows its trumpet. “I will stop all the balls.”
...fade out.
This is just a jungle full of creepy. I want to comment on other things— on the plotting fail of introducing characters halfway through the movie, on giving all these useless bit characters dialogue like they mattered, on introducing problems and then solving them a second later. I want to criticize the content, but what’s the point when there is SO MUCH ELSE wrong?!
The good news, if you can call it that, is that we now have even more insight into this strange "Animal Soccer World." In addition to the tyrannical Aniaml Farm-esque political system, they also practice a religion with animal sacrifice. Perhaps that is the real reason Growly and Jaggy were fighting at the beginning— the red ball was merely an inciting point, and the soccer match is in fact the culmination of years of religious and racial intolerance among the animals. It's an animal allegory, like Maus or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Deep, Dingo! Deep.
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