Little Shop (found Fox Kids animated series based on horror comedy film; 1991)
Little Shop title card, featuring "Junior".
Status: Found
Date found: Nov 2012-Jan 2, 2017
Found by: Betamax King, Comixbear, VHS Land of Videos, The Little Shop Archive
Little Shop was a French-American Television Series that aired on Fox and La Cinq (a now-defunct French television network) in 1991, inspired by the 1982 off-Broadway musical Little Shop of Horrors (and it's 1986 film musical adaptation of the same name) as well as the original 1960 film The Little Shop of Horrors.
Premise
The show was about Seymour Krelborn, an adolescent, a self-proclaimed nerd who works in a little flower shop owned by Mr Mushnik. His daughter, Audrey, is the love of Seymour's life, yet she doesn't seem to notice, or even understand his affections. Also, there's a bully named Paine Driller who constantly targets Seymour in his bullying. Seymour also has a pet flytrap named Junior. Junior was once a 200 million-year-old seed until he was found by Seymour in a junkyard. Once he was cared for by Seymour, he sprouted into a Venus Flytrap that raps and talks in hip-hop dialect. Unlike the musical, he's on Seymour's side.
The horror elements that were in the previous musical and films were cut, in favor of a more child-friendly tone.
Staff
While the credit for the concept for this adaptation is given to Ellen Levy and Mark Edward Edens, the show was created by Jean Chalopin (best known as the founder of DIC Entertainment and the co-creator of Inspector Gadget), and was produced by animator Tom Tataranowicz (who first did animation for He-Man and the Masters of the Universe) and producer Hain Saban (who would later go on to create Mighty Morphin Power Rangers). The music for the series was written by Haim Saban and Shuki Levy.
Roger Corman, the writer and director of the original 1960 film, is also credited as a creative consultant for the series.
Availability
Little Shop first ran for only 13 half-hour episodes, until it ended two months after its premiere in September of 1991. It was rerun until September 5, 1992.
In January of 2015, only three episodes of the show (the pilot episode, titled "Bad Seed", the fourth episode "Unfair Science", and the sixth episode "I Loathe a Parade") were known to be publicly available, due to VHS recordings that were subsequently uploaded to YouTube.
On September 19th, 2015, YouTube user Joey Bridgehouse uploaded a VHS quality rip of the German dub of episode nine, "It's a Wonderful Leaf" (re-titled "Ein schlimmer Traum," translated into English as "A Bad Dream"). The premise is a typical spoof of Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life. Nearly a week afterwards, the Youtube channel VHS Land of Videos uploaded an incomplete VHS quality rip of "Air Junior", including some of the original commercial breaks. An Italian video can be found here.
More recently, in late-December 2016, three additional episodes (the second episode "Real Men Aren't Made Of Quiche", the third episode "Back to the Fuchsia" and the fifth episode "Stage Blight") were uploaded by The Little Shop Archive YouTube account. This was closely followed on January 1, 2017 by the entirety of "Air Junior" and the eighth episode "Untitled Halloween Story". The remaining episodes were uploaded on January 2, 2017. The only episode not uploaded was the English version "It's a Wonderful Leaf", as the DVD copy given to the The Little Shop Archive YouTube account was damaged. A mirror upload of the German dub of this episode was uploaded in its place.
Episodes
1 | Bad Seed | FOUND 1 2 3, Alt, Alt 2 |
2 | Real Men Aren't Made Of Quiche | FOUND |
3 | Back to the Fuchsia | FOUND |
4 | Unfair Science | FOUND |
5 | Stage Blight | FOUND |
6 | I Loathe a Parade | FOUND |
7 | Air Junior | FOUND |
8 | Untitled Halloween Story | FOUND |
9 | It's a Wonderful Leaf | FOUND (German) |
10 | Tooth or Consequences | FOUND |
11 | Walk Like a Nerd | FOUND |
12 | Pulp Fiction | FOUND |
13 | Married to the Mush | FOUND |