Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue

Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue is a 1990 American animated drug-abuse prevention television special featuring animated characters from then-current animated series. The special is written by Duane Poole and Tom Swale, directed by Milton Gray, Marsh Lamore, Bob Shellhorn, and Mike Svayko with Karen Peterson supervising, and produced by The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Foundation and Southern Star Productions. It saw airtime on April 21, 1990, on all four major television networks. The cartoons represented in the special are The Smurfs, ALF: The Animated Series, Garfield and Friends, Alvin and the Chipmunks, The New Adventures of Winnie-the-Pooh, Muppet Babies, The Real Ghostbusters, Looney Tunes, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and DuckTales.

Plot
Michael is a teenager who is nearing rock bottom, having a strong addiction to marijuana and doing things like stealing money just to pay for drugs. The subsequent changes to his behavior are not lost upon the rest of his family, especially his little sister Corey, who expresses concern at the kind of person he's becoming. One night, when Corey’s piggy bank disappears, her cartoon merchandise comes to life to search for the piggy bank. Once the toons find it in Michael's room next to a stash of his drugs, they decide that they must intervene on Michael's problem.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) The elephant in the room: wasted potential. The idea of having multiple cartoon characters who were famous at the time cross over is a fairly promising premise that, unfortunately, the special decided to ignore in favor of pushing against drugs. Exacerbating the issue is that commercials for the special largely downplayed the anti-drug agenda.
 * 2) Speaking of which, the way the special goes about its intended moral (which essentially amounts to "drugs are bad") is about as subtle as a sledgehammer. President Bush's introduction and the fact that the topic of drug abuse is being discussed by well-known cartoon characters who are mostly meant to appeal to kids don't help one bit.
 * 3) Everything was animated in a time frame of only 6 weeks, and it shows. There are various instances of off-model to be found throughout the special, more so than the cartoons represented. Examples:
 * 4) * In general, the characters not animated by Wang Film Productions (such as the original characters made for the special) don't fare as well animation-wise as the ones that are animated by Wang (such as the Disney and WB characters),
 * 5) * ALF's eyes alternate between their usual coloration (black with white pupils) and the standard coloration for cartoon characters (white with black pupils) in a couple of shots.
 * 6) * The scene featuring Michelangelo has the special's main antagonist Smoke say an entire line of dialogue without moving his mouth.
 * 7) * Garfield moves his mouth when everyone says "Right!" near the end, even though his dialogue usually occurs without him moving his mouth.
 * 8) * When ALF shows Michael "the man in charge" of his addiction, Smoke briefly resembles a storyboard sketch (ie a crude drawing) once the chair he's sitting in does a full-180.
 * 9) Some of the imagery the special paints about the consequences of drug addiction ranges between weird and just plain disturbing. According to the cartoon, if you do drugs you will have lightning in your head and turn into a grotesque zombie.
 * 10) * The surrealism of it all is also rather extreme for such a simple message to the point where you'd be wondering if the producers themselves were high when they made such sequences as Michael nearly getting killed by the Cartoon All-Stars in a carnival toward the end.
 * 11) Several facts about drugs and addiction are ridiculously exaggerated. For instance:
 * 12) * The only two drugs talked about are marijuana and crack cocaine. While it is somewhat acknowledged that the latter is stronger than the former, the special instead chooses to imply that all drugs have the same effects as marijuana when that's not entirely the case for drugs like tobacco.
 * 13) ** In general, the cartoon seems to indicate that just one instance of using drugs leads to addiction. In reality, addiction begins over a while rather than right away.
 * 14) * The villain, Smoke, is portrayed as a drug dealer who uses aggressive tactics such as coaxing to try and attract people to drugs. No drug dealer in real life would do something as conspicuous as this. They behave more discreetly to avoid attracting the attention of authorities.
 * 15) Several members of the Cartoon All-Stars are heavily underutilized. Characters like the Smurfs, Garfield, the Chipmunks, and Slimer are only prominent when they are part of the search party for Corey's piggy bank and are mostly rendered unimportant afterward, while characters like Huey, Dewey, Louie, and Tigger are only present to be part of "Wonderful Ways to Say No" and mostly remain in the background.
 * 16) Likewise, the characters created for the special aren't all that interesting themselves.
 * 17) * Michael is practically defined by what his addiction is doing to him rather than having a discernible personality. The closest we get to learning of his personality is a line from Corey stating that he tells her everything, but that's it.
 * 18) * Corey also has little personality other than to be a "concerned family member."
 * 19) * Smoke is an obvious means for the writers to hammer the anti-drug stance into the viewers' heads, what with being a cloud of smoke resembling a businessman, keeping Michael addicted, and trying to get Corey to do drugs as well.
 * 20) * The nameless characters such as Michael and Corey's parents and Michael's friends all fall under one archetype, which are clueless adults and peer-pressuring stoners respectively.
 * 21) "Wonderful Ways To Say No," aside from being too direct in its message, is a grating song thanks to the singing voices clashing with one another. On one hand, there's the raspy DuckTales cast and the squeaky-voiced Miss Piggy, and on the other, there's the calm-voiced Garfield, all displaying poor chemistry with their singing.
 * 22) * The end credits reprise is overly saccharine in its point of always remembering to reject drugs even after abandoning the cartoons that taught the moral.
 * 23) There is some questionable logic when it comes to the depiction of teenagers. Aside from the aforementioned falsehoods about drug use, the special also demonstrates a weird dress code that teens back then didn't adhere to, like a girl wearing a kangol hat and a flashback showing teens wearing shirts with the first letter of their names on them.
 * 24) False advertising: Smurfette is depicted on the cover of the VHS, but does not appear in the special itself.
 * 25) * Oddly enough, Michelangelo of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles isn't on the VHS cover despite appearing in the special itself.

Good Qualities

 * 1) As previously stated, the concept of cartoon characters from the Renaissance and Golden Ages of cartoons crossing over is a promising prospect that ultimately and unfortunately got bogged down by a focus on heavy-handed morals.
 * 2) If there is one takeaway from all the heavy-handedness of the special, it's that it makes a strong point about confronting issues like drug addiction directly to maintain a strong family unit. Thankfully this is one of the less blatant messages of the entire ordeal.
 * 3) There is some legitimately funny humor amidst its serious (yet clueless) message, like ALF threatening to eat Garfield to get the latter to help find the piggy bank and the parts featuring Bugs Bunny.
 * 4) The friendship between Corey and Pooh, wherein the latter tries to convince the former to tell her parents about Michael, is heartwarming in its own right.
 * 5) Superb voice acting from all the actors who reprised their roles from the cartoons represented. Even the actors for the original characters muster great performances like Jason Marsden as Michael.
 * 6) While "Wonderful Ways to Say No" is rather blunt with its message and may sound grating to some, it is also undeniably catchy too. In fact, the entire score is somewhat decent and adapts to each scene well, like the calm morning score of the opening scene and the intense rock tune during the carnival scene.

Reception
The special received mixed reviews from critics and viewers alike. It holds a 5.9/10 on IMDb. Raymond Gallant of Game Show Garbage dissects why the special didn't work here.

Trivia

 * The special is preceded by an address from then-president George H. W. Bush alongside First Lady Barbara. International releases replace this introduction with one from the political leader of whatever country the special was released in.
 * For a time, it was rumored that the special was forbidden from airing again due to Garfield creator Jim Davis threatening to sue if it did due to it using his character without permission. However, head Garfield and Friends writer Mark Evanier debunked this on Facebook, stating that Davis knew about the special and approved of Garfield's participation since the cartoon would see limited airtime.
 * Despite calling for a limited broadcast, Disney Channel scheduled a few repeat airings of the special.
 * Brazilian kids host Angélica (who hosted the Rede Manchete's children's program Clube da Criança, which coincidentally aired this special, being the only channel in Brazil to air on Brazilian TV) voiced Michael's sister Corey in the Brazilian dub.
 * Before the special's official airing, future US president Joe Biden gave out his praises, calling it "the single most ambitious and important drug education program ever attempted anywhere".
 * Alan Menken received an Emmy in 1990 for writing "Wonderful Ways to Say No".

The Special
lwDTB7yVN9I