DVD Review: Happily Ever After
Fox Home Video, American Greetings Strawberry Shortcake DVD
Feb 27, 2009
In a recent interview, acclaimed children's author Neil Gaiman (Coraline, The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish) blasted the Disney Channel's storytelling team for presenting an unrealistic vision of childhood.
". . . somebody thinks that everybody’s forgotten their birthday," Gaiman said about a typical plot for the channel's kid-directed programming. "But they haven’t because they were planning a surprise party all along! And everybody loves everybody and then they hug . . . It presents this vision of an impossibly hospitable world which children know doesn’t exist."
Gaiman's rant can be perfectly applied to DiC Entertainment/Fox Home Video's Strawberry Shortcake: Happily Ever After, which updates the classic American Greetings icon. The DVD presents a perfect world where everyone is good, nothing is scary, and all misunderstandings are cleared up with a slice of cake, a song and a hug.
DiC Entertainment/Fox Home Video's Strawberry Shortcake: Happily Ever After
The DVD combines two stories: "Sleeping Beauty" and "A Princess Named Rap," both of which originally aired on (surprise, surprise) the Disney Channel. The stories are watered-down versions of the classic tales by the Brothers Grimm, and are framed by a sleep-over at Strawberry's house. The sleep-over is disrupted by a misunderstanding (there's that word again) between Angel Cake and Rainbow Sherbet, which causes Strawberry to narrate the two tales.
In "Sleeping Beauty," magical Brambleberry is insulted by the fact that she didn't get an invitation to Strawberry Rose's christening. In retaliation, she gives Strawberry a curse: if she gets pricked by a bramble, she will disappear forever. However, friendly fairy Apple Blossom modifies the curse so that Strawberry only falls into a deep sleep.
"A Princess Named Rap" takes on the "Rapunzel" tale. But this time, it's an overzealous schoolmistress named Professor Grapes who decides that Rapunzel must be locked in a tower so that she will learn to be a proper princess. However, Rapunzel - who prefers to call herself "Rap" - has different interests which conflict with Grapes' narrow-minded attitudes about how a princess should act.
Certainly the plots are about as inoffensive as they can possibly be: the villains aren't really all that villainous, and everyone eventually learns the virtues of friendship, forgiveness, being yourself and getting along with each other.
However, Strawberry Shortcake seems to have missed the virtues of healthy eating. since she and her pals continuously munch on sugary snacks throughout the DVD. Given the levels of childhood obesity and Type 2 diabetes going around these days - and the fact that DiC and Fox have removed everything else potentially objectionable from the storylines - depicting Strawberry Shortcake and pals chowing down on the occasional celery stick might be a good idea.
DVD Extra Features
Other than the inevitable previews for other Strawberry Shortcake DVD titles, there are only two extra features of note. The "Character Gallery Memory Book" is essentially a multi-media listing of all the various characters in the Strawberry Shortcake universe.
Popping the DVD into the DVD-ROM drive on your computer allows you to print out several colouring pages for your child to scribble on.
The Final Analysis
Although there are far worse product-endorsing children's DVDs out there, Strawberry Shortcake: Happily Ever After commits the same mistake as all the others. It presents an impossibly happy vision of childhood that kids will either know is false, or feel badly because their own lives don't measure up.
In addition, its sweets-consuming cast doesn't present a good example of healthy eating. The DVD gets a 3/10.
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