The Littles: Here Come The Littles; Swamp Thing: Fallen Star

The latest entries in the Saturday morning cartoon video avalanche are The Littles and Swamp Thing. Interestingly, The Littles: Here Come the Littles is an edited-for-TV version of the 1985 feature film Here Come the Littles. Even edited, this dour tale of a group of little rodent people's mission to rescue 12-year-old Henry Biggs from the clutches of his evil uncle Augustine, seems to drag on forever, as Henry and the Littles make one failed attempt after another to escape. To make matters worse, the video distributors haven't even bothered to clean up the tape. Spanning three episodes on TV, the video version retains the summaries at the end of the first two episodes for no good reason.Swamp Thing was first a DC Comics' character, then the subject of Wes Craven's 1982 feature film, and is now the superhero star of a mediocre cartoon show. In the "Fallen Star" episode, the affectionately dubbed "Swampy" must try to rescue a radioactive satellite before the Dr. Arcane and his henchcreatures get hold of it and use the radioactive material for (gasp!) evil purposes. Needless to say, Arcane does reach the satellite first, and spends about half of the program being king of the mountain before the minute hand, inching ominously toward the half hour mark , says that Dr. Arcane has to get his butt waxed now. Uninspired animation and uninspired writing make these very uninspired choices for a video collection. Not recommended. (Available from most distributors.)