I was first tipped off to this by the Youtuber Brutalmoose (Ian), and I was immediately drawn in by the clumsy acting, amateurish sets, and corny songs that were straight out of a generic knockoff of Wee Sings or Barney the Dinosaur. Something about it told me I was in for something special if I ever found a copy, and I was right.
Right off the bat, if you've seen Ian's review, the first thing you'll notice is the lack of incidental music that isn't the song numbers. There's absolutely nothing going on in the background at any point - not even minor sound effects you'd expect to hear. It can feel awkward and outright uncomfortable at times with how silent it is. Also, there seems to be quite a bit of reverb at some points - adding to the cheapness of the obvious sound stage they're filming on, which isn't helped by the very daycare-esque set designs.
The most glaring issue with DBiDL, if I had to pick one, is the lack of continuity; but whether this is a problem with the writing, the editing, or both is hard to tell - as they could have shot numerous alternate scenes or the writers just forgot. For example, there are moments where characters talk about how "bright and colorful" Dream Land is or how they told their friends they were right about Dream Bunny being real, despite them already knowing or finding out about this earlier on.
The acting on behalf of both the adult and child actors is awkward, but whether it's due to the writing, direction, or it being all natural is hard to pinpoint as well. While the song numbers aren't horribly done because some of the actors aren't that bad, it's just weird to watch and it feels like watching a cheesy school play in some of the worst ways. The choreography for the musical numbers is fairly clumsy, and the delivery is just terrible at times; especially on behalf of the child actors and Dream Bunny, whom many people joked about being dead inside with the latter.
This was the only thing to date that we know of that Childhood Memories Inc have produced, and it's clear they were trying to follow in the footsteps of Barney and Friends to become a full on series; which is further implied that all kids could have their very own Dream Bunny, much akin to the Barney Fan Club in the 90s. Since it's been over twenty years since this came out, we can say it's safe to assume that there's little to no chance of CMI making a comeback and not many people have memories of this.
If you're a fan of weird or obscure media, chances are you might get a kick out of this. It treads the lines of being so bad it's good, and I suspect that in a few years, it will reach a cult classic status in the vain of other VHS oddities like Bicycle Safety Camp (1989), You on Kazoo (1989) and Mr. T's Be Somebody or Be Somebody's Fool (1984).
Right off the bat, if you've seen Ian's review, the first thing you'll notice is the lack of incidental music that isn't the song numbers. There's absolutely nothing going on in the background at any point - not even minor sound effects you'd expect to hear. It can feel awkward and outright uncomfortable at times with how silent it is. Also, there seems to be quite a bit of reverb at some points - adding to the cheapness of the obvious sound stage they're filming on, which isn't helped by the very daycare-esque set designs.
The most glaring issue with DBiDL, if I had to pick one, is the lack of continuity; but whether this is a problem with the writing, the editing, or both is hard to tell - as they could have shot numerous alternate scenes or the writers just forgot. For example, there are moments where characters talk about how "bright and colorful" Dream Land is or how they told their friends they were right about Dream Bunny being real, despite them already knowing or finding out about this earlier on.
The acting on behalf of both the adult and child actors is awkward, but whether it's due to the writing, direction, or it being all natural is hard to pinpoint as well. While the song numbers aren't horribly done because some of the actors aren't that bad, it's just weird to watch and it feels like watching a cheesy school play in some of the worst ways. The choreography for the musical numbers is fairly clumsy, and the delivery is just terrible at times; especially on behalf of the child actors and Dream Bunny, whom many people joked about being dead inside with the latter.
This was the only thing to date that we know of that Childhood Memories Inc have produced, and it's clear they were trying to follow in the footsteps of Barney and Friends to become a full on series; which is further implied that all kids could have their very own Dream Bunny, much akin to the Barney Fan Club in the 90s. Since it's been over twenty years since this came out, we can say it's safe to assume that there's little to no chance of CMI making a comeback and not many people have memories of this.
If you're a fan of weird or obscure media, chances are you might get a kick out of this. It treads the lines of being so bad it's good, and I suspect that in a few years, it will reach a cult classic status in the vain of other VHS oddities like Bicycle Safety Camp (1989), You on Kazoo (1989) and Mr. T's Be Somebody or Be Somebody's Fool (1984).
