This "movie" (and it barely qualifies as such) is incredibly and unbearably incompetent in its animation. Do you know RubberFruit? It's a Youtube Channel that makes animated shorts using sets and character models from video games like Team Fortress 2. Go look them up. Watch like one or two. Yes, now. I'll be waiting.
Oh, you're back? Good. Now, I can honestly say that the animation behind Rapsittie Street Kids: Believe in Santa is about 5% as good as RubberFruit. This animation is appallingly horrendous. This TV movie came out 6 whole years after Beast Wars, and manages to look about 40 times worse than that show. The character movements are all uncanny, and there are a ton of animation errors.
I wish I could say that the animation was the only problem, unfortunately, we've only just begun. The writing in this short is absolutely horrendous. The dialogue is on-the-nose, the morals are ham- fisted, and the jokes are all awful.
How about the characters? Nope, they're all awful, too. All of them have cookie-cutter personalities, and they all seem to have the depth of a half-drained kiddie pool. The story? Don't make me laugh. The story is so generic it wouldn't even make it onto Full House. The songs were likewise bland and uninspired. The pacing, the editing, the design, all of it was awful. And how about simple spelling errors? The elementary school board literally reads 'Striving for Excelence (sic)." How can you mess that up?! And the title, Rapsittie Street Kids - why?! It's revealed that they live on Rhapsody Street. Why would you change it to a bizarre spelling? Is it because the main character "raps?" Why not call it Rapsody Street?
I haven't mentioned the voice cast yet, and that's for good reason. This short has a star-studded voice cast, featuring five especially big stars: Jodi Benson (Ariel from The Little Mermaid), Grey DeLisle (Mandy from Grim Adventures), Paige O'Hara (Belle from Beauty and the Beast), Nancy Cartwright (Bart Simpson), and Mark Hamill (The Joker from Batman the Animated Series). These voice-acting giants seem to sleep-walk their way through this movie, and though they weren't bad per se, they didn't do anything to elevate the short.
So, what happened? How does someone manage to make such a horrible piece of junk? I can only assume that the director committed almost all of his budget to his voice cast and was left with no money for animators, writers, editors, or any kind of crew at all, so he went down to the local orphanage and promised some kid that he would adopt him if the kid could help him make a movie. That's what I'm guessing happened.
Can I advise everyone to steer clear of this? Actually, I can't. This film is so hilariously bad. It is honestly a total riot. I could not stop laughing during this short. Oh, and the memes? Yeah, this movie totally deserves meme status. Who could forget Great-Grandma's famous monologue at about the 20-minute mark?
Great-Grandma: "eokkvvaskidoriiaskdvfornevudit,"
Black Rapper Kid: "Isn't that what Santa does? It was from my heart"
GG: "tch, uh, tchtchtchsee uh uh wdelei eisideiflabskpoeeinow,"
BRK: "She doesn't get it!"
GG: "Oh, seefadgtnodnfgChristmasss ohoho!"
Yeah, as terrible as this movie is, it's hysterical. So, yeah, I'd recommend it.
