WesternAnimation Hilarious Cartoon Slapstick Mixed With Untapped Potential
The Dreamstone is a cult British cartoon from the early nineties. The show's concept is delightfully surreal; it revolves around a unique world where basically dreams are Serious Business. One side is the Land Of Dreams where the Dream Maker makes pleasant dreams for its civilians, the Noops (little green bunny people), the other side is Viltheed, ruled by the monstrous Zordrak, bent on giving Nightmares to the Sleeping World, for that however, he needs his minions the Urpneys (slovenly big nosed humans/lizard hybrids) to steal the Dream Maker's device; The Dreamstone.
This is basically the premise of each episode, the Urpneys being sent to the Land Of Dreams with some goofy invention to nab the stone Wile E Coyote-style, but predictably fail, due to their bumbling, the heroes' efforts or just cruel fate. The Urpneys are a huge draw appeal of the show, being surprisingly complex and sympathetic for kids show villains, along with being witty, funny and distinctly British characters.
This is sadly where most of the show's appeal ends however, since that's near solely where the effort is put. Nothing else really gets developed or properly focused and thus the show often feels lethargic whenever the Urpneys disappear. The heroes are dull and cloying, and often come off as unlikeable due to the Urpneys' pitiful dynamic and higher stakes, while the dream premise itself is undeveloped (only a handful of episodes even show dreams). Even Zordrak, for such a wonderfully demonic villain, mostly sits in his lair uninvolved with the plot.
It feels like the creative team didn't really have a passion for the "good vs evil" elements, preferring more cynical self motivated characters like the Urpneys, a humorous deconstruction could have been made if the other fantasy archetypes meshed with them in a witty way, but usually they're kept one note and out of focus, with the Urpneys holding the show together. As a result most episodes are funny but formulaic and uneven, with much potential wasted. The same setup was evident in works made by the same team, such as Bimble's Bucket, though often better streamlined to their comfort zone while The Dreamstone tries its hardest to emit a sense of grandeur it can't commit to.
It's a shame as the show starts off on a promising high, the pilot is a work of art and, along with lots of Urpney humour, goes out of its way more to develop the show's mythos and give everything proper personality and focus as well. Things gradually recover as the series progresses, leading to some genuinely great episodes, but it's too slow a process, it takes almost the final season to reach the point that key basics (like the good guys looking provoked by the bad guys) are running efficiently.
What we get here is an extremely funny comedy, but Urpneys aside, a rather flawed and grandiose affair that could have made a legendary show with the right effort put into such unique concepts.
WesternAnimation This NEEDS a reboot!
If I had to pick one - just one - show that deserves a reboot, this would win hands down. SERIOUSLY, there are no words to describe how much I love this cartoon. Of course, if they DID reboot it, they'd probably try to make the Urpneys less Unintentionally Sympathetic, unless they chose to downplay the bad things that happened to them.
Either way, this is one show that just begging to be revived, and I for one would LOVE to see it!