Star Fairies - Animated Pilot Review (Part 1)

It's about time I actually review something with the word "fairies" in the title.

This is, like, what? My third review blog and NOW I'm reviewing something that blatantly has bluntly-stated fairies actually in it? Not magical flower sprites that vaguely resemble and act as fairies like Rose Petal Place, but honest-to-godmother fairies. As a fairy myself, I am highly fascinated by human representation of my culture. You tend to come up with some wildly imaginative ideas full of unique worlds, interesting character designs, and interesting interpretations of fairy lore... or you litter your productions full of offensive stereotypes that border on the juvenile, misogynistic, or downright dumb. Those generic fairies you see with tiaras living in pink palaces? The ones that are just humans in traditional fairy gowns without any respect for the cultures they came from? My culture is not your costume! Not all us fairies are wealthy, and it's disgusting dollar stores would ignore the plight of thousands of fairies living in poverty out of stumps and mushroom caps across the magical world just to sell a plastic piece of junk to some brat named MacKenzleigh. ...But when humans get it right, you get it right. From Brian Froud's meticulous recounting of fairy epics, to the beautiful floral artwork of Cicely Mary Barker, to the video game representation with Shigeru Miyamoto's The Legend of Zelda or Michel Ancel's Rayman, there's many humans out there with a deep respect for fairy lore and history- or at the very least a charming if slightly inaccurate tribute to fairydom. And today, we're finding out how Star Fairies fairs in terms of fae-inspired media.

 

Star Fairies was made back in 1985, and with that information alone, you know it was originally a toy line. The series of fairy dolls was created by Tonka- yes, the toy truck manufacturers. The molds used for the dolls were actually from Hornby's Flower Fairies line (inspired by the literary and artistic works by Cicely Mary Barker), which had ceased production due to falling sales. The Star Fairies had six different fashion outfits which included a pair of color coordinating wings to match their new clothes. The six fashions produced were also originally by Hornby, but repackaged by Tonka for the Star Fairies. With a few animal sidekicks, a playset or two, and the obligatory unicorn, the next thing to do with the fairies was produce an animated pilot for a potential TV series.

 

Star Fairies would soon gain a half-hour animated special produced by the iconic animation studio Hanna-Barbera, whose infinitely-looping backgrounds, wacky races, and Tom and Jerry comically-brutal violence live on nowadays as Cartoon Network Studios. Intended as a pilot to be sold to networks as a fully-animated TV series, the special, while finding life in syndication, wasn't a big hit. Aside from your standard VHS release (released by Family Home Entertainment in 1986), its only other preservation that's not from online archiving were its DVD and Blu-Ray releases as part of the Warner Archive series. The toy line didn't last very long either, as Star Fairies was quickly discontinued and Tonka folded into Hasbro in the 1990s.

The backstory of this one is unfortunately not very interesting, unlike the history of dolls like David Krischner’s Rose Petal Place or Johnny Gruelle's Raggedy Ann, there's no credited sole-creator or even group involved in making these toys. It really seems like some toy company out there just popped these into existence. But that's okay for me, because it means we can get to the animated stuff faster!

Well the concept is anxious at first, being a hyperfemme 40-minute toy commercial, I am happy to learn that the special was written by Mark Seidenberg and Rich Fogel. Rich Fogel being an American Emmy Award-winning animation writer, working on series such as The Smurfs, Batman Beyond, Justice League, Transformers: Animated, DuckTales, Young Justice, and Pinky and the Brain. However, this appears to be his first ever writing role (next to Super Friends: The Legendary Super Powers Show.) Meanwhile, the specialwas directed by the late animator and producer Ray Patterson, whose animation career goes all the way back to the 1940s. Animating on Disney masterpieces such as Fantasia, Hanna-Barbera classics such as Charlotte's Web, and cartoon specials for Yogi Bear, The Smurfs, Scooby-Doo, and The Flintstones. (He was also the younger brother of Don Patterson, famous Disney animator.) The talent behind this is pretty impressive, if not astounding, and that's not even touching some of the cast, consisting of both Hollywood talent and prime-grade professional animation voice actors. So maybe this twinkling star will be a hidden gem after all!

As per usual on this review blog, I've linked the full special down below (other quality rips of this special can be found on YouTube). Feel free to watch it first, watch it as you read, or watch it afterwards.

The special sadly begins badly over the credits, with one of the worst songs I’ve heard in a while. The tweed, shrieky melody is bad enough. But the wistful singing voice sounds like it's falling asleep, which doesn’t help the practically incomprehensible lyrics. And when you do comprehend the lyrics, they’re as dull and basic as you can imagine. The visuals don’t help either. They try to do interesting things with the visuals, but it's not super effective. It’s just the fairies flying around for a little bit before we get a shot of a pegasus-drawn carriage to a castle and a few shots of them relaxing on a crescent moon. It’s whimsical, but not very inspiring otherwise. While the animation itself isn't terrible in these opening credits, it doesn’t bode as well as I hoped for. 

The story begins at an average house in the dead of night, where we meet our point-of-view protagonist, a little girl named Hillary. And remember when I said this special had a shockingly high-budget cast? Well, I hope you’re interested to learn that Hillary herself is voiced by a young Drew Barrymore. Drew Barrymore was only 10 years old when this special was released. First Nicole Eggert in Rose Petal Place, now her? Why do celebrities always appear as little girls in the weird fairy media I review? This is like the second time it’s happened. Anyway, Hillary is up late watching television, and quite literally out of nowhere, Hillary begins to cry that her life is miserable.

 

Hilary is sad that the only things to watch on TV are foot fetish commercials, Dan Schneiderer productions, and Quinten Tarantino movies. She goes from being bored watching television to crying and wishing upon stars because she hates her life. Amazing how the writers can make the most unrelatable and spoiled character in the first 40 seconds of their cartoon. Bravo! Anyway, Hillary wishes with the classic line: “Starlight, star bright. First star I see tonight. I wish I may, I wish I might. Have the wish I wish tonight.” As she rhymes, we see a montage of other kids and even a teenager wishing upon stars with the same rhyme. These wishes are sent up to the starry skies and into the magical kingdom of Wishcometrue. The names don’t get better from here, as the wishes are heard up in the castle by Princess Sparkle. (Save your My Little Pony jokes for later.)

The Princess wonders to herself, “Why are humans wishing so loud? I am literally above them.” And we learn that she's in charge of granting every wish made upon a star. Princess Sparkle herself is voiced by Betty Jean “B. J.” Ward, a very famous voice actress whose fame is owed to Hanna-Barbera. Her famous roles include:

• Velma Dinkley in Scooby-Doo (from 1997 to 2002) 
• Jana in Jana of the Jungle
• Wonderwoman in Superfriends and The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians 
• Betty Rubble in A Flintstone Family Christmas, I Yabba-Dabba Do!, and Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law

With more and more wishes coming to her kingdom every day, Sparkle feels up to her tiara in impossible dreams to come true and bemoans that she hasn’t slept in a week. She decides to teleport away to find a magical wishing well and have a wish granted for herself for a change, dreaming of a helper to assist in granting human wishes, one who can be paid in exposure and Bitcoin. (All the wishes are stored in the blockchain.)

But we cut to a dark and gloomy castle, where three evil little elves await, feeling just as bored as our main… let’s call Hillary a “heroine” for now. (Man, the dwarves weren’t the same after the Fellowship disbanded. They fell for the faeries’ Ethereum stock scam.) The blonde one is Frunk, voiced by the original Scooby-Doo and Papa Smurf himself Don Messick; the brownhaired one is Snickerbee, voiced by Jerry Houser; and the ginger one who acts as the two idiot elves’ crabby leader is Bungle Boss, voiced by Michael Bell. Put Snap, Crackle, and Pop into a blender with Mr. Beastly and these three abominations are what you get. Anway, Bungle Boss wants to have his wishes granted, so plans to bug Princess Sparkle. Speaking of, Sparkle makes her way to The Wishing Well, who is not only sentient, but finds himself voiced by the late Jonathan Winters. Told you this cast was stacked! The Wishing Well instructs her to go to Mount Wishmore and wish on a shooting star. She gets there in a blink and wishes for a new assistant… luckily, she gets five.

Princess Sparkle: “My helper must have a touch of spice, a whisper of joy, the beauty of night, lots of true love, and a pinch of jazz just for good measure!”

We finally meet our main group of fairies, literally marveling at their own newfound existence and fittingly having names that all match Sparkle’s desires. There’s Spice, the impulsive one voiced by Raggedy Ann herself, Didi Conn; Whisper, the gentle one voiced by Noelle North; Night Song, the singer voiced by Ta-Tanisha; True Love, the dreamer voiced by Casey Kasem’s widow Jean Kasem; and Jazz, the energetic one voiced by industry golden girl Susan Blu. And honestly? I kind of love how the girls just squeal and blush over themselves coming to life. There’s something charmingly naive yet also pretty whimsical about it. They’re so enthusiastic about existing that they completely ignore Sparkle’s cries for attention. Their character designs are fine too, though True Love and Spice are both too similar for comfort. I love all the different outfits, but wish there could’ve been more hair and skin diversity. But they’re not terrible for toycentric 1980s character designs.

Which should let me transition into talking about the animation overall. Hanna-Barbera animation is notoriously cheap, and this is not an exception. It’s definitely not ugly, but the character animation is a bit stiff. The faces are well-drawn, but the posing between keyframes can be a bit robotic, but otherwise everyone moves as naturally as they can on this budget. While the human designs aren’t very good with their lack of detail and flat designs, the designs for the fairies themselves, again, are perfectly fine. And there are some cool creatures in this special, but they range from actually fun and unique to utterly ridiculous and not in a good way. I do like the elves and their sketchy beard and giant heads, but some characters like the dragon they fight look flat-out stupid. The animation itself is quite the mixed-bag, though I do tend to lower my standards for older cartoons like this.

The backgrounds are fairly simple, but again, not poorly-drawn. I do enjoy the pastel colors, with the night shots especially looking very nice with the painterly clouds. And when they are drawing a fantastical location, like the princess’s bedroom or the top of Mount Wishmore, it can look quite good. But many locations are extremely generic and look like they belong in dozens of other cartoons, almost feeling like reused assets from other Hanna-Barbera cartoons. The kingdom of Wishcometrue looks pretty unimaginative with lots of boring grassy plains and rocky mountains. Despite being a location of literal wish-granting, I feel the kingdom could be a lot more fantastical, even on a cheaper budget. The backgrounds are just very bland, despite clearly having talented artists on board. I think that’s a good summary of the visual style: cute, but bland. It’s perfectly fine for what it is, but I feel its “perfectly fine” status wastes the creative premises presented with the concept of a kingdom of wishes and fairies. It’s a bit disappointing.

Anyway, Princess Sparkle played God and created five sentient magical beings just for a nap- both very irresponsible and very relatable. The princess tells the girls all about why they were made and their new destiny as wishgranters, with the princess dubbing them Star Fairies. They grant wishes to children for the low, low price of an investment in FairyCoin. The girls are elated about granting wishes of children all across the globe, teleporting away to the castle before Sparkle can even tell them how to grant wishes. Sparkle gives the fairies a gift: a flying unicorn named Lavender, whose whinnies are provided by “I’m every animal in every cartoon ever made” Frank Welker. But as the Star Fairies go down to Earth on a unicorn-drawn carriage, Sparkle finds the elves at her door before she can lay down for her nap.

 

The elves arrive and want access to the fairies’ crypto currency directly, or else they'll send fairy skulls in the mail. These hairy inbred cousins of the Smurfs have apparently bugged Sparkle before for wishes multiple times, to which she says she doesn’t have time for their nonsense like Snickerbee’s wish for a mountain made of ice cream and Frunk’s wish for a million jellybeans- which are awesome wishes, Sparkle, you idiot. I’d wish for those too! As the elves bicker with the classic “Who made you in charge?” shtick, Sparkle gives a sassy look and dismisses them all.

Finally, the Star Fairies make it to Earth, where Spice is unfairly sent to Hillary’s house, clearly as some sort of punishment from a previous life where she sold twinkling cigarettes to underaged gnomes. Hillary stops whining about her life being boring when Spice arrives, who then complains that fairies can’t be real after one literally arrives in her hand the moment she says nothing ever happens in her life. Did I mention I hate Hillary already? Spice, having more tolerance than me, turns Hillary’s bed into a race car… neither of whom know how to control it. They make a mess of the bedroom because of Spice’s overenthusiasm, and sadly Hillary doesn’t die in a car crash.

Meanwhile, True Love visits a red-pigtailed girl down the road named Michelle (also voiced by B. J. Ward), who's upset that she’s just moved away from her friends. So True Love magics up a creature that the cartoon says is a puppy, but I buy it more as a bowling pin/Captain Caveman cross with fur. (To be fair, it is still adorable.) Anyway, I’m sure that won’t cause her parents any surprise and will certainly not keep Michelle busy from making friends with training an energetic dog. I’ve raised a puppy before, and it’s as adorable as it is horrific on any social life you may have had. Anyway, so not only can Sparkle make life, but so can all the other fairies. These girls are literal Gods. (But if I personally was a God, yeah, I'd use my divine power to make puppies too.)

It’s adorable, but be honest, does this look like a dog?

As this is going on, Whisper helps a little boy named Harvey (played by a young Shavar Ross) who dreams of flying. It goes as well as you expect when Harvey flies out the window, into his family’s laundry rack, and into oncoming city traffic while blinded by a shirt. At this rate, aside from True Love, the Star Fairies are going to get most of these kids killed. Harvey survives multiple encounters with telephone poles and planes, crashing into a bush. Whisper compensates and gives Harvey a toy plane instead, which makes Whisper the most sensible and insensible fairy at the same time. 

Night Song meets a toddler named Benjamin, who uses the Ocarina of Time to send him to sleep (and hopefully not into the bad timeline). She didn’t use any magic, which is kind of nice for a change and shows that these girls can be more than their magic and use their natural talents to save the day, but the message is weakened because these characters have very little personality regardless. Night Song is a musician and literally nothing else, and her fairy friends fare no better.

And lastly, Jazz visits a teenager named Jennifer who's obsessed with the stupidest-looking rock star I’ve ever seen named Freddy Flawless (no girl is going to be crushing on him with a name like that). She can't go to his concert in town, so Jazz flies after his limo and spawns detour signs, causing him and his driver to stop and ask for directions at this random girl’s house (because that’s not creepy). Jennifer faints on sight, and so does Jazz, with Freddy being too stupid to realize there’s a fairy right in front of him and his concert will likely be highly delayed if not cancelled. Thanks, Jazz and Jennifer!

“A hunk” according to this special. Oh, wow. Be still my beating vagina.

Back at Wishcometrue, the elves make an evil plan to steal the princess’s magic wand while she sleeps. The stupid elves naturally bicker, babble, and make a racket. But they get the wand, and without any knowledge on how it works, end up turning the princess’s vanity into a monster. It starts chasing after them for only a moment before breaking itself into a wall, finally waking up Sparkle. But the idiot squad escapes with the wand by trapping the princess in a pathetically small wall of vines that any sane person could easily walk around.

Back on Earth, spoiled brat Hillary is not pleased with any of the wishes Spice has wasted her time giving her, like new clothes or parades (the living marching band is literally stuffed in her closet for the rest of the special, under the assumption they died in there or vanished into the ethereal realm). Hillary says that she wants her life itself to change, so the fairies decide to send her to Wishcometrue. They shrink the girl to the size of her gratitude, and whisk her away to the magical realm in the sky. But the castle is now covered in vines… until the fairies literally poof it away with their wands. A big problem with a show about magic or where the characters have magical powers is that conflicts tend to be solved very quickly without tension, and Star Fairies doesn’t do this writing pitfall any favors. 

The Star Fairies learn that the princess’s wand has been stolen, but stupid Hillary just wants everything to be about her and literally hog the attention away from this fairly major problem. Sparkle can’t grant her wish without her wand, not that Hillary deserves it, and offers the defenseless child to tag along on this dangerous mission in a realm of monsters and unstable magic (great idea, Sparkle). But even with the idea of a magical adventure, all Hillary can do is go, “Sure, whatever.”

Is this really our point-of-view (POV) character? Someone who doesn’t bat an eye being whisked away to a land of fairies? Someone who doesn’t give thanks or show the lightest amount of wonder for everything the fairies have done for her? I know the story is setting up a character arc for Hillary, but she remains so unlikable for the majority of the special. When she doesn’t come across as lazy or spoiled, she comes across as bored and disinterested with everything around her. Not in a funny, cynical, or contrastingly-sarcastic sort of way either, but in an effort-lacking way. And when she isn’t bored or spoiled, who else is Hillary? Nothing at all. Aside from her future celebrity voice actress, she’s a terrible POV protagonist, because no one in their right mind and heart would relate to this wooden plank. For someone who “wants her life to change”, she does nothing but rely on the Star Fairies to magically fix her problems for the majority of the script.

And it’s been quite a night reviewing this special, so why don’t we continue with the dawn of next Saturday? I’m Your Clairy Godmother, and I’ll be wishing to see you next time.