Movies that Suck/Disney: Lady and the Tramp II: Scamp's Adventure (2001)

Disney direct to video and DVD sequels. I just can't help but question why these things exist, let alone why there's so many of them. In my opinion, the only good ones are the ones to Aladdin, partly because I grew up with both the original and its first sequel, and maybe the sequels to The Lion King. The rest of them tend to be cheaply made cash-ins on the original film's name, marketed towards young kids who, most likely, have never even seen the original and, therefore, have no idea or conception about how mature and well made they are. To that end, the films are produced with as little effort as possible not only in the animation but in the storylines and characters. Knowing what the audience is, they're made to be overtly goofy, silly, and generic, giving young kids the wrong impression of the original films. I just don't get why Disney taints their classics with these sequels that are marketed towards kids who only know the name and nothing else, which will influence how they think of the originals long before they even see them. They're also alienating those who grew up with and love the originals by making these juvenile cash-ins. That's the case with our subject here: Lady and the Tramp II: Scamp's Adventure. As I said in my review of the original, it may not be one of my absolute favorites from Disney but I do see it as a charming, romantic, and very adult film. This thing is nothing of the kind. It's a cheap, generic (prepare to see me repeat those words a lot), rehash of the original's plot with none of that film's maturity or sophistication.

As the title suggests, this movie focuses on Scamp, Lady and Tramp's only son. Scamp is very rambunctious and mischievous, often getting into trouble and breaking the rules of the household. After causing a huge mess that ends with him being chained in the backyard and after a heated argument with his father, Scamp runs away from home to be "wild and free." He meets up with Angel, a stray female pup and later joins the gang of junkyard dogs that she's a part of. The leader, Buster, doesn't like Scamp getting friendly with Angel, whom he considers his girl, and it's later revealed that Buster is an old friend of Tramp's who has never forgiven him for going to live with Lady's family and abandoning him. Once Buster discovers that Scamp is Tramp's son, he uses the rift between the two of them to get revenge on Tramp by steering his son wrong and, ultimately, abandoning him to the dogcatcher, leaving Angel to try to save him with Tramp's help.

The main director is Darrell Rooney, who's actually had a long history in animation. He's been a layout artist on stuff like The Smurfs (the TV show), the basically forgotten Pac-Man cartoon, The Brave Little Toaster, and Once Upon a Forest; a storyboard artist on films like A Goofy Movie, Cats Don't Dance, The Pagemaster, and a couple of the endless Land Before Time sequels; a pre-production script developer on Beauty and the Beast; and an effects animator on Something Wicked This Way Comes and TRON. He actually wrote the story for Aladdin, which surprises me, but directing wise, he's only directed three other films: a 1997 Three Little Pigs short, The Lion King 2: Simba's Pride (which I think is okay), and Mulan II (which I've never seen but I'm sure isn't very good). He hasn't directed anything since Mulan II and that was back in 2004. He's had more directing credits than his co-director, Jeannine Roussel, who hasn't directed anything since this movie. She's mainly been a post-production coordinator and post-production manager on stuff Captain Planet, 2 Stupid Dogs (which, as you know, I thoroughly enjoy), the 1993 animated Addams Family, among others (including being a producer on the first of those Tinkerbell movies). I have to wonder why Disney put these two in charge of making a sequel to one of their classics (I guess I could ask that of all these sequels actually). I think there's a good reason why neither of them have directed in years.

This movie really should either be called just Scamp's Adventure or Angel and the Scamp because Lady and the Tramp are secondary to this movie. Scamp, voiced by Scott Wolf (whom I'd honestly never heard of before this), is pretty much what Tramp was in the original: an adventurous, rambunctious rascal of a dog. The only difference is he was born into a family, unlike his father (again, going back to my thoughts on the original, or so we can possibly deduce), and wants to be wild and free (which he says several different versions of throughout the movie). Once free, he meets up with Angel, a rebellious, street-smart young female dog (voiced by Alyssa Milano) who, of course, becomes his love interest. So basically, the story is the same as the original, only with role reversal: the male dog is the one from a posh, upper class family and the female is the one from the streets. The motivations are also reversed: the dog from the family wants to stay on the streets and the dog from the streets longs for a family. This could make for an interesting story... if the characters were at all interesting. I don't mind the voicing acting from Wolf or Milano (even though it still doesn't blow my mind) or even the characterizations. The problem is that they're just not interesting enough for me to care about them. Again, while I don't hate the characterizations, Scamp's hyper rebelliousness and Angel's tough act that hides a sensitive, hurt girl underneath are still so cliched. The fact that they're reversed rehashes of Lady and Tramp doesn't help. Angel even gives a Scamp a nickname (tenderfoot), the same way that Tramp called Lady "Pige" and "Pigeon" and they both have a spaghetti dinner. Where have I seen this before? Maybe in a movie not connected to Lady and the Tramp, these characters, with better development and changes, might work but here, they're just not compelling in the slightest because they're simply in-verses of characters I already met and grew to care for in the original.

To be fair, one scene with Scamp and Angel that I did like was when Angel discovers that Scamp is the son of Tramp and the two of them look through a window into his home. They see Lady and Tramp, his sisters, Jim Dear and Darling, and especially little junior gathered around the fireplace, missing him deeply. That's when you know that Scamp is beginning to realize how much his family does care for him. Also, Angel admonishes him for running away from such a lovely home and Scamp's reasons for running away don't help his case either. While I may not have found the characters to be that interesting, I did think that scene between the two of them was well done (let it never be said that I'm not completely fair).

The villain in this movie, Buster, is just lame and uninspired. I feel bad for Chazz Palminteri because he does what he can with what he has but what he has isn't much. Let's think of the logistics of this character: Buster says that he was Tramp's friend (and mentor in being a street dog, apparently) but he feels betrayed and hates Tramp for abandoning him to go live with Lady. Where the hell was this character during the events of the original film? Tramp never once mentioned him. To compound things even more, Buster says that he confronted Tramp and said, "It's either her or me." When in the course of the original movie did Buster have an opportunity to do that? When Lady had been put in the pound? Maybe but I doubt Tramp had decided to live with her at that point. After Tramp got out of the crashed dogcatcher wagon? What, did Buster come out of nowhere right before Tramp was about to be invited into Lady's family? Okay, you could make an argument for that since we didn't see what happened between that and the ending scene of the film. But I have to ask again, where was Buster throughout the rest of the film? Tramp must not have thought much of him if he never even mentioned him and to that end, Buster not have thought much about Tramp to begin with to not be around, which makes even less sense for him to throw an off-screen temper tantrum about his "friend" abandoning him. And let's say that was the case, that that supposed scene between the two of them did exist. It still wouldn't matter because Buster is a generic, boring villain. He's not threatening or intimidating in the slightest. He tells Scamp that if he ever runs into a relative of Tramp, he'd be dog food. So does Buster try to do so to Scamp when he discovers that he's Tramp's son? Nope. All he does is trick Scamp into getting caught by the dogcatcher. Some revenge. Buster just comes across as a big baby of a bully who has to have everything his way. There could have been an interesting villain here, like a very embittered dog who decides to kill Scamp for revenge, forcing Tramp to battle his former friend. But Tramp never does confront Buster and Buster's comeuppance is just as lame as he is so it's wasted.

Jodi Benson, best known as the voice of the Little Mermaid herself Ariel, is the voice of Lady in this movie and she's good choice, radiating warmth and love, which keeps with the character now being a mother. Too bad she has crap all to do in this movie. The only reason she's even in the movie is because the title is Lady and the Tramp II and she must make an appearance. Other than worrying about Scamp and maybe feeling much more responsible now that she's a mother, she has literally nothing to do and it's a real shame. (I'm also not sure if I like that she actually calls her beau "Tramp." I know I've called him that but I always felt that he really didn't have a name and that "the Tramp" was just a title that the dogs gave to him.) Tramp has much more to do in this movie. I thought Jeff Bennett did a pretty good job at voicing him and I also thought he complimented Larry Roberts' performance adequately (I also like that he still calls Lady "Pige"). I will admit that I did like Tramp in this movie. He's now a house pet, no longer the wild mongrel he used to be with a new huge sense of responsibility, especially since he's a father. He also has to deal with the fact that his son is the way he used to be and you learn that he never told Scamp that he was once a dog of the streets. He's at first hard on his son about him breaking the rules and tries to make Scamp come home with him when he eventually finds him but he soon realizes that his son needs to learn on his own and he eventually proves to be a great father when he saves his son from the pound. As I said before, though, I really wish that, along with Buster being better developed, there had been a final confrontation between Tramp and Buster at the end but there isn't. But, all in all, I did like Tramp in this movie and wish that he was the focus, not Scamp.

Jeff Bennett also voices Jacques and Trusty. I thought the way he voiced Trusty was fine, if not as refined as Bill Baucom was in the original. But I thought the way he did Jacques was far too over the top with the Scottish accent. The accent Bill Thompson used funny but it sounded natural and wasn't an overdone, Braveheart-like caricature. But the one character in the movie that I really can't stand is the stupid, Don Knotts-like dogcatcher, also voiced by Bennett. This character is so unnecessary, annoying, and overly goofy that it's cringe-inducing. I know there wasn't much focus on the dogcatchers in the original film but at least they acted like normal people and caricatures. This guy is nothing but a bumbling comic relief and even when Scamp is caught by him, there's no tension because the character is so ridiculous. He's a prime example of what I meant earlier when I said that Disney often makes these sequels juvenile and insulting towards their parent films.

There a lot of characters that return from the original because the studio felt obligated to put them in here but they don't do anything with them other than cameos. I thought the performances of Nick Jameson and Barbara Goodson as Jim Dear and Darling were fair and they weren't the biggest part of the original anyway so that didn't bother me (their faces are seen way too much, though, and also, why do they refer to Tramp as such?); Aunt Sarah, voiced by Tress MacNeille, has no reason for popping up here but she does, as do Si and Am, even though they barely do anything. (Note that Si and Am are voiced by Mary Kay Bergman and Tress MacNeille, two different actors, and yet they don't see anything, while Peggy Lee voiced both of them in the original and sang a duet with herself in the process. Weird priorities, huh?) Tony and Joe also make cameo appearances and Tony even makes a spaghetti dinner for Scamp and Angel. What, does he give spaghetti to every couple of dogs that comes around his place? (By the way, while Tony is voiced by Jim Cummings, Joe is voiced by Michael Gough. I don't mean the beloved English actor but a voice actor with the same name. It's a good thing I double-checked on that because I was about to rip Disney a new one for bringing in a great actor for such a minor role.) Kath Soucie and Debi Derryberry voice Scamp's three sisters, Annette, Danielle, and Collette (who are only named in the credits), all of whom look like Lady. They come across as really prissy and aren't worried about Scamp at first but do grow to miss him eventually. Nothing else to say. As for Buster's gang of junkyard dogs, you have Ruby (Cathy Moriarty), an Afghan Hound who seems to like Scamp a little too much to me; Scratchy, a mongrel who has a serious flea problem; Sparky (Mickey Rooney), an Irish Wolfhound who apparently once knew Tramp and tells an exaggerated, false story about him; Francois (Bronson Pinchot), Boston Terrier who has a French Accent; and Mooch (Bill Fagerbakke), a dim-witted and enthusiastic English sheepdog (like the dogcatcher, I really didn't care for how much of a caricature he was).

With any direct to video animated film, you know that they didn't have that big of a budget and therefore, the animation is really going to suffer. Animation-wise, DisneyToon Studios, which handles a good majority of Disney's direct to video releases, is pretty hit and miss. For years, the studio was housed at the now closed Walt Disney Animation Australia, which produced some of their classic 80's and 90's TV shows like Goof Troop, Darkwing Duck, and so on. While the animation for those shows were suitable because they were created for television and the animation for their occasional theatrical releases like The Jungle Book 2 and Return to Neverland, while not top notch, was fair, the animation for the direct to video movies is almost always very poor and Lady and the Tramp II is no exception. It may be better than the animation Hanna-Barbera often cranks out but when compared to Disney's legacy, it doesn't hold up. I usually don't mind the digital coloring technique when it comes to television animation (I actually prefer it in that instance) but here, everything just looks very flat and uninteresting, unlike the inspired production design of the original. The lighting in particular has no character. In the original, the lighting was used to establish a mood, particularly during the fight between Tramp and the rat. Here, it's either bright florescent light during the day or slightly dark at night. That's it. As for the actual animation, while I've seen a lot worse, it's still very generic and nothing to get excited about. I realize that these direct to video films were produced on a budget but they could at least be creative with their restrictions. This is just instantly forgettable.

Speaking of forgettable, the songs in this movie don't fair much better. I'm not even going to talk about the actual score by Danny Troob because, other than some overtly silly music whenever that stupid dogcatcher is on-screen, I can't remember a single note from the entire score. The actual songs, for the most part, are either forgettable or unbearable. The opening song, Welcome Home, performed by a chorus and many of the voice actors, is about independence, which you can say is the theme of the movie, but I remember few of the actual words. World Without Fences, performed by Roger Bart as Scamp's singing voice, is so cliched and generic. Scamp sings about how he wishes to be wild and free. Big deal. Junkyard Society Dog, sung by all of the voice actors playing the junkyard dogs except Chazz Palminteri (Buster's singing voice is Jess Harnell), was the worst for my money. I just couldn't stand how uncreative and run of the mill it was as a song. I Didn't Know That I Could Feel This Way, performed by Roger Bart and Susan Egan (Angel's singing voice), is the love song between Scamp and Angel and it's not memorable either (with the characters thinking the lyrics, it felt like the actual Can You Feel The Love Tonight? between Simba and Nala in The Lion King). The last two songs I don't have a problem with, to be honest. Always There is sung by Scamp, Angel, Lady, and Tramp. It starts when Scamp is caught by the dogcatcher and he wishes he was home. At the same time, Angel is peering into the windows of house and upon seeing dogs playing with their owners, wishing that she had a family too. Lady and Tramp's part of the song comes from their missing Scamp over his decision to stay on the streets. The song wasn't too bad, all things considered, and Roger Bart, Susan Egan, Jeff Bennett, and Jodi Benson's singing was pretty good. The first song to play over the ending credits is a pop arrangement of Bella Notte, sung by Joy Enriquez and Carlos Ponce. I know many purists will probably hate this modern remake of the classic song from the original but I didn't mind it. It had a nice, soothing sound to it. Other than those last two songs, Lady and the Tramp II has some really forgettable music.

Lady and the Tramp II: Scamp's Adventure is the definition of unnecessary. It wasn't needed or wanted and was simply made to placate kids who've probably never even seen the original film and therefore, will get the wrong impression of it from this. It's just a poorly done, in-versed rehash of the plot of the original with low budget, generic animation and design, two uninteresting and cliched lead characters, a lame villain, and songs that are either forgettable or really bad for the most part. I'm sure that there are people who like this movie out there and if you're one of them, that's fine. To me, though, it's just another in a long line of unneeded, lowest common denominator sequels that can potentially hurt the legacy of their classic parent films.