Spider's Web: a Pig's Tale

The morality tale from hell

Spark Plug Entertainment: 2006

We've talked about many a crappy animation company. From Dingo Pictures and their Disney ripping inanity, to "The Asylum of animated movies" Video Brinquedo, and their lack of originality, and their inate hatred of the Chinese. But for as bad as both those companies are, neither come close to the company that's given perhaps some of the most insipid, uninspired, and utterly retarded animated movies. That company is Spark Plug Entertainment.



Unlike Brinquedo and Dingo, this company is actually based out of New York, and was founded by a man by the name of Michael Shelp. A man who's perhaps best known as the executive producer to only the most intelligent, witty, and sopisticated show on television.... MANSwers.


*groans*

However, like Brinquedo and Dingo, this company likes to ride on the coat tails of more successful animated movies, and releases among the worst cartoons ever. These toons run the gamut of horrible. From bad animation, stereotypes aplenty, terrible voice acting, and even some of the worst political satire ever. And in the case of the induction du jour, perhaps one of the most nonsensical, crazy, and all around terrible toons ever assembled. As you would guess from the title, this is "Inspired" by the live action Charlotte's Web movie that was released around the same time. However, farm setting, arachnids, and retarded pig aside, there's not much else that resembles the EB White classic novel, or the movie they're ripping off. Instead we get a morality tale so horrid, you'd think the wheel of morality exploded before it could tell us that "early to rise and early to bed, makes a man healthy, but socially dead."

So, let's dive into this pig sty of a mess as we review this thing.




We start our idiotic opus on a farm as we meet our pork protagonist Walter (cause lord knows that sounds nothing like Wilbur) and the rest of the not-funny farm, which seems to consist of 2 pigs, 2 horses, 2 spiders, and 2 duck/chicken/things. The purple ducken asks for the animals to tell him what they're thankful. Walter, being the youthful douce is thankful for everything, but the one of the horses (affectionately called Mr. Wigglesworth) decides to show his douchiness by picking a fight with the spiders. The main spider tiffany fights back, as her ebonics spouting pal Cristal adds nothing but loving stereotypes.

From there we also get a wasp who speaks in what I can assume is Dexterese. After the thankful sermon, the wasp talks to Walter about not being able to pollinate. Walter tells the deluded insect to just fake it. Another wasp shows up (Who I swear sounds like the Teeny Little Super Guy with a lower pitch) and tries to put some sense into the wasp who thinks he's a bee. This lead's the horse to continue his hate speech towards bugs, and we get more arguing and pointless time wasting.



After that stupidity, Walter's mother asks him where her cherry pie is. Walter, being a terrible liar, feeds her some BS that aliens showed up, mistook the pie for a spaceship, and attacked it. But Tiffany the spider rats him out. And of course, being a spider, the horses don't believe her.

After more inane chatter, and racist horsery, Walter's mother am dissapoint over Walt's constant constant lying. Walt gets pissed at Tiffany for ratting him out, and she reminds him that she's been somewhat his guardian angel. She tells him that she'll tell him why it's wrong to lie, but only after he stops.



But as the pork and arachnids argue, a snake with a cell phone shows up. A cell phone he can use, you know, despite having hands. His name is Gerard, and he's impressed with Walter's bullshittery. Walt breaks his mother's favorite pot, and continues his UFO BS to his mother. From here, we get the exact same scene again with the spiders telling the truth, as the horses don't believe them. After that bit, we see as Walter lies about his homework eating a dog, which I will admit, is an interesting twist on things. And again Walter's mother is dissapointed.

Gerard tells our lying sack of bacon that his skills in the art of fibbery would be much more useful in Viperwood. So, Walter tells his mother he's going to Viperwood, and she sees absolutely no problem with this as long as Tiffany comes with him to chaperone. So, it's off to Viperwood as Gerard, through some unexplained reason, drives a car. But before they make it to the big city, they stop off at the fabulous two star hotel.

Wow, a whole two stars!

At the hotel, they run into...



Whatever the hell that is, as her grandaughter is stuck on a roof. Gerard tells Walter not to help, but Walter, finally showing some good in him after almost 20 minutes of this drek, offers to get her off the roof. They soon learn however, that Gerard has no money, so they can't stay at the fabulous two star hotel.

However, they do lodge at the home of the big green slug/alien/thing they helped earlier. While there, they watch a game show involving a snake being paddled by a flying tennis racket for not knowing where the metric system was invented(I wish I could make that up). And we get a classic line like this.

Game show host: The metric system was invented in France. Blame the French.

So, the French are Spark Plug's equivalent to Brinquedo's Chinese I take it?




But for some reason, the TV comes to life and jumps around angrily. Our merry crew decide to leave the generous slug thing to deal with it herself, as they get the hell out of dodge. As they head to Viperwood, they steal gas, and pick up one of Gerard's snake friends, Venom. And of course, being a field of stereotypes, she's the valley girl of the group.

She informs the group that Walter has a spot in a big Broadway play. However, after spewing BS about being able to breathe underwater, he doesn't get the part. Walter, distraught over being a failure, wants to go home, but Gerard has other plans for his pork protege. He takes him to a tv studio, where Walter is set to compete on Paddle Whackier. The show earlier, with the flying tennis racket, and hatred of the French.



Walter gets the topic of colors, but being color blind, is screwed. Tiffany tries to get him to tell the truth, Gerard wants him to make something up, and the wasp, being French, tells him to run away.


"This overt racism doing anything for ya?"

Walter loses, and gets spanked by the flying tennis racket. Gerard decides that it's time for Walter to show his talent in the movie industry. They BS their way into a Karate film, by saying that Walter knows how to speak Japanese. And like his last two attempts, this leads to instant failure, as the director literally blows up Walter. But sadly, he survives, and this movie has another 10 or so minutes left... Oy.




So, with movies, tv, and Broadway all bust, Gerard decides that Walter's future is in, of course, the rap industry, as he throws shades on Walter, blinding him. However, this is an obvious trap, as he brings Walter to a snake chef, so he can be grinded into pig guts. And of course, Walter, being oblivious to this, just raps while he's unaware of his impending demise. But before the world is rid one retarded pig, Tiffany finally comes to his aid, as the group escape.

Walter says goodbye to Tiffany, who decides to leave him, while giving him the same "tell the truth" speech we've heard a dozen times in this inanity. Back to the Barnyard, with the racist horses, and wasps, and chicken/duck/things, they all decide to watch TV as Tiffany the spider is now the host of Paddle Whackier. The end.

And that's A Spider's Web: a Pig's Tale. What a piece of pip plop. Awful CGI, horrid voice acting, stereotypes aplenty, and a plot that's so random and foolish, that you kinda wish they just stuck with completely ripping off Charlotte's web. Spark Plug Entertainment and Video Brinquedo have so far provided among the worst direct to video shlock that one can imagine, and I got a bad feeling I'm gonna have to deal with them plenty more times in the future.
*Shudders*