[the obnoxious gummy bear song]
[intro music]
The Gummy Bear movie is gloriously dreadful.
Or, if we want to be technical and use the proper title, it would be
Gummy Bear: The Yummy Gummy Search for Santa.
Just rolls off the tongue, doesn't it?
Manx?
Go on.
Shove this in your gob...
In it goes.
There we are, right where it belongs.
Good boy.
Oh, you want some too?
But we can take turns.
I never expected to cover a movie that has 'gummy' in the title not only once, but twice.
We're really spoiled today, kids!
Unless you've been living under a disgusting gelatin filled rock shaped gummy for the last ten years,
you probably have seen "The Gummy Bear Song" by YouTube uploader
icanrockyourworld
Does anyone else think that name "icanrockyourworld"
combined with a close-up of a gummy bear's asshole is a little bit inappropriate?
No?
I guess it's just me, then.
My mummy always did say I was a sensitive soul.
From well over a decade ago,
YouTube was flooded with hundreds of very popular Gummy-Bear-Song-like videos.
This includes things like Crazy Frog,
The Duck Song,
B-Clux,
Peanut Butter Jelly Time...
As long as it was either animated and/or had an animal in it,
it was a hit on early Youtube.
I'm glad Youtube has really evolved into a more adult and mature entertainment platform now...
"What's Gucci?"
"Today is gonna be EPIC!"
Oh, wait.
But out of all of these different god-awful mascots,
The Gummy Bear Song shined to the top, and now has well over 1 billion views.
Which I guess means it inherits a certain level of value,
at least in...
theory.
Let's play a little game.
What does The Yummy Gummy Search for Santa have in common with the following 5 films?
Divergent,
The Hunger Games,
The Expendables,
The Last Witch Hunter,
Good Luck Chuck;
No, it's not the fact that they're all terrible.
It's that they were all produced by Lionsgate.
So when I switched on The Yummy Gummy Search for Santa,
and the highly produced, expensive-looking, slick Lionsgate animation played,
I was both surprised...
and confused.
The only thing I can think of as to explain
why Lionsgate got involved with this,
is that they probably invested into one or two rising and popular internet properties
just in case it's where all media started booming from
when YouTube started really pumping out valuable celebrities and gummy bear type...
things.
Not the worst investment, I guess, when you're looking at the business side of things.
The problems start to arise, though
when you're a property that has no right
being anything other than a 2 minute and 43 second on YouTube video,
and you've been thrown a budget, a team of animators,
voice actors, and a deadline,
and you're expected to make a movie out of it.
Now, I don't have to tell you how brilliant an idea it is
to make a feature-length film about a Gummy Bear YouTube video.
That obviously goes without saying.
I know that when I first saw the Gummy Bear Song,
the first thought that popped into my head was
Think about all the interesting themes and endless narrative paths this inspires in one's mind.
No, but seriously, I actually did some digging
and found a secret recording of the writing team of the Gummy Bear movie receiving the news
that they had to write a movie about a gummy bear.
"The fuck are we gonna do now?"
"WHAT ARE WE GONNA DO?"
"Maybe we could build a fire, sing a couple of songs, huh?"
"Why don't we try that?"
"We're in some real pretty shit now, man!"
"Are you finished?"
Ultimately because the Gummy Bear is...
nothing?
It's a gummy bear?
So the film is also about...
NOTHING.
I'd say it doesn't have an original bone in its body, but gummy bears don't have bones,
so they get a pass with that one.
Honestly, what-- what do you want and expect from me here?
I'm about to nitpick and criticize a film literally called "Gummy Bear: The Yummy Gummy Search for Santa".
This film was 5 years too late to even being remotely relevant when it was released in...
2012.
For comparison's sake, other animated movies released in 2012 were
Wreck-It Ralph, Brave, and Hotel Transylvania.
So once this film opens and you see how cheap and poorly rendered everything is,
it comes as a bit of a shock.
Well, as much as a shock that a movie about a gummy bear can be.
"Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse!"
There's a Christmas narrator who introduces the movie, that never shows up again,
and we're briefly introduced to the four main characters.
Gummy Bear,
a chameleon,
a scrapped Star Fox pilot design,
and a bat.
From the moment I saw these different characters displayed on the back of the DVD, I knew....
I just knew that this was going to be a befuddling one.
I can't believe I just used the word befuddling in one of my videos.
What do these random characters have to do with the Gummy Bear...
...exactly?
What a bizarre mix of character designs and art styles.
Perceptive viewers in the audience may have also noticed that there's an alien on the cover as well
So along with the Gummy Bear, these random sidekick animals, Santa and...
aliens...
I have only one explanation I can think of for this hodgepodge of seemingly aimless ideas.
I think it's most likely that whatever company or studio animated this film
already had a Santa character model
alongside a bunch of random animals
and an alien,
and just kind of made do with whatever took the least time and resources.
Why isn't every character just a different colored gummy bear or something?
Or would that detract from the importance of the titular gummy?
Ugh, every time I start trying to think about this movie and break it down,
I really have to remind myself that we're talking about the Gummy Bear movie.
None of this really matters because it's a movie about a singing gummy bear.
The Gummy Bear doesn't actually do anything in the movie for the first 4 and half minutes
Instead you have to waste your time staring at poorly animated and choreographed Christmas shenanigans
with Santa and some reindeer.
Gummy Bear: Huh?
Gummy Bear: What the?
We can't go any longer without addressing the character design of the Gummy Bear.
Much like the gross design of the Crazy Frog,
the Gummy Bear is kind of designed to be gross and unpleasant
which, as a result, equates to something I do not enjoy using my globular organs to peek at.
If I wanted to look at an overweight shirtless blubbery gummy bear,
I'd just look at John Travolta's holiday pictures.
While I guess it was the artist's very intentional vision to make the Gummy Bear look like my 35 year old cousin
who's a crippled, defeated alcoholic...
But seeing a five o' clock shadowed, plump, bulging gummy bear jiggle around the screen...
makes me want to be sick.
Something about the Gummy Bear has always made me feel weird
Kind of that same feeling you get as if you accidentally see some gore on 4chan,
or walk in on your parents having sex.
Point is, the animators went out of their way to show us
every single roll of fat and how kinetic movement makes every one of those fat rolls wiggle and shake.
This is really bizarre...
[IHE laughing]
And let's not forget about the Gummy Bear's fat ass as well.
Look at the ass physics, haha!
It can barely fit into its tight underwear
Something about this being a children's movie with a U for "universal"
...doesn't sit right with me.
The Gummy Bear finds Santa Claus, who has been crushed by a tree and died.
Then he screams, and it's revealed that it was all a dream.
It was all...
...just a dream.
This means that the first five minutes are completely pointless and nothing but filler
Remember that this movie is so devoid of ideas that on IMDb it has only one piece of trivia that reads
"This is the first film of Gummy Bear"
When that is your movie's one and only piece of trivia
I think that kind of says it all really doesn't it?
The Gummy Bear's wretched screams wake the entire house, then for some reason
Santa is flying around in the sky and an alien chases him
Notice the animation is so lazy that this cut directly uses the same background as the next,
so the moon awkwardly appears and it looks terrible.
The chameleon receives a call from Gummy Bear's dad which informs them that Santa has been kidnapped.
But gummy bear won't listen because he has a song to sing first
[Obnoxious song starts playing]
The song doesn't even last fifty seconds before the fever dream ends
Then they switch on the TV where a reporter is being attacked by elves despite him having no involvement with the kidnapping
Reporter: --Poll have been, let's just say an incomplete success.
IHE: Don't really understand this.
The bat character has this unusual joke where he's obsessed with juice for some reason
Vamp Bat: Look Kala, your favorite tooty fruity.
It's never funny and the only justification I have for it is that this was made by Europeans
Vamp Bat: Juice, my dear!
IHE: ...and they're usually quite good at making weird shit like this.
Vamp Bat: Yikes! Let's take the plane.
Gummy Bear: Good idea Vam
IHE: The gang flies the specially made Gummy Bear plane (that I guess they have) all the way to the North Pole
In a hilarious scene the chameleon makes the plane plummet towards the ground
and Gummy breaks the fourth wall for a really...
REALLY funny and hilarious joke.
Gummy Bear: Kids, don't ever try to single-handedly land a jet plane in the North Pole!
At least not without your parent's permission.
Uh, now where were we? Oh yeah.
IHE: I don't understand this joke because no part of it is even remotely funny or even a little bit humorous
They somehow miraculously land the plane and bully the native elves into not being upset about the irresponsible landing that nearly killed one of them
I have a feeling that some of you watching might be getting fed up with how much I'm criticizing this movie
that's clearly aimed for little babies
But there are so many jokes that make absolutely no sense for a "baby movie"
This includes strange references no child would ever understand
and continuous self-aware jokes that almost seem to be aiming for the internet crowd of people who...
like? or maybe not like, I guess have just seen the original Gummy Bear YouTube video.
[Elf]: Is he dead?
[Vamp]: No, but I figured I might have a crack at an oscar if I really lay it on thick
IHE: What are you talking about?
Do those juice boxes have e in them or something?
[Gummy Bear]: Kala, hit it!
[Gummy Bear Song starts playing]
Finally, we get it.
The Gummy Bear Song.
Honestly I would have been fine with more of these awful songs
but they're so short and few and far between
that they must make about four or five minutes of total screen time
If I have to watch a movie about a gummy bear
But at least make most of the running time about what the little cunt is famous for
Look at this truly dreadful edit between shots
It's computer-generated.
How would this not be an easy thing to fix?
[Gummy Bear]: We need you to fill that barn with toys
[Elf]: But without Santa, where will we find the motivation?
Elf: Yeah? We're method elves
IHE: Who is this for?
Gummy Bear: Bring out the wheels, Harry
IHE: This scene is incredibly peculiar because it's just fanservice.
It's fanservice....
For a YouTube video.
They're referencing the car
the Gummy Bear bounces around
in the original Gummy Bear Song video.
They don't do anything with it, they just drive around for a bit.
Then they fly to Christmas Island and search for Santa.
It's just an island.
A normal island.
Not very Christmasy is it?
They crash the plane, and the way the sand reacts looks strangely well done for this movie.
But everything else continues to look awful, so whatever. Probably did it by accident.
[Vamp]: (sigh) no luck, guys.
IHE: Do you enjoy how they only animated half of this shot and just reversed it instead of completing it?
Look at it again, I haven't altered this at all.
[Vamp]: (sigh) no luck, guys.
IHE: They find Santa's reindeer drinking beer and playing poker, and it's unfunny and boring
[Kala]: Guys, I think we got off on the wrong hoof!
[character laughing followed by generic laughter sound effect]
IHE: Actually that's a lie.
There's one kind of half decent joke that would work in anything but the Gummy Bear Movie
[Kala]: Don't waste your time playing dumb
I've spent enough time with my buddy Vampiro here, and I've heard every done thing that's ever been said
IHE: The reindeer explain that an alien with a magic wand
showed up and said that if he can beat them a game of cards
he's allowed to take Santa into space, and he cheated and won, so he took Santa
Wait hang on
I didn't think consumption of alcohol and gambling was allowed in children's movies
Out of nowhere The Gummy Bear explains that reindeer have a radar in their nose
and that they can use that to find Santa
Whatever.
Gummy Bear: Go help him out!
[Vamp]: Ok ok, I'll help!
I found it! I found it!
Gummy Bear: You found Santa?
[Vamp]: No, I found my juicebox!
[Reindeer]: I think I got somethin'!
IHE: What in God's name is going on?
They find Santa and some dumb shit about fishing happens
God that looked fucking awful
Allen the alien appears.
Allen the alien: But you can call me Allen for short
Gummy Bear: Well that's a relief, otherwise this story would be longer than Lord of the Onion Rings
IHE: What a ham-fisted and strange way of making a reference
Gummy Bear: Then I challenge you to a dance-off!
Winner keeps Santa!
(alien starts laughing)
IHE: I think you know where this is going.
[Song] Nooky nooky nooky, sweeter than a cookie. I'll share it if you are my friend.
To really prove how out of date this movie is, the alien uses his Magic wand to spawn in a DDR board
and goes to town on it.
At the 34 minute mark, there's a sequence of shots that are literally in the complete wrong place in the movie
[Kala]: DDR? Seriously?
[Harry]: Eh, he's obviously an amateur.
[Vamp]: Green rules! (at least that's what I think he said, I don't really care anymore)
Santa: The green bear can dance!
[Kala]: This kitty is beat.
[Harry]: Go, gummy, go!
IHE: I guess they just didn't expect anyone to notice that this makes no sense in this order
maybe they just banked on no one making it through this far
[Allen]: You just got schooled, boiiii! (the cringe is real)
IHE: What?
Am I missing.. something.. here?
[Kala]: Shake hands and assume your position!
IHE: Wait what?
Why did they shake like that?
He readied and approached with his other hand, but then he used both
What the hell is going on?
That looks good.
They all dance and sing or whatever who fucking cares at this point
They just tell the alien to piss off and make himself Santa with his magic wand
Then they save Christmas for one kid on this weird-looking island that I guess is supposed to be France because the Eiffel Tower is randomly there?
But... you know what, I'm not even gonna finish that sentence, fuck it.
[Gummy Bear]: Aww!
[Elf giggles]
Well that was creepy... that was the total opposite effect of what they were going for
Look, they did the thing with the background again, Jesus this one looks even worse
There's a really nice shot in the plane when they're flying back home where the camera clips through the model
for about two whole frames. The level of care and love that has been poured into this...
Brings a tear to my eye.
This bullshit is nearly over, but there are two more shots
you simply *have* to see
The first is the final shot of Gummy wishing everyone a happy Christmas.
See if you notice anything weird about this.
Gummy Bear: Merry Gummy Christmas everybody!
IHE: Why does the camera do that?
Like what? And finally, check out the final shot of the movie.
Alan: And now, in Robots 2!
[annoying Gummy bear "Christmas is comin' song]
IHE: I'll tell you what, these guys have balls to put their name on this bullshit.
The Gummy Bear Movie is like sitting for 42 minutes with that feeling you
get right before you're about to be sick
Yeah, you know the one.
It's interesting to me because it never reaches the same level of bad as something like Car's Life
but at the same time it doesn't have the
of something like Norm of the North either
if you understand what I mean
and Norm of the North is fucking dreadful
So that's not a compliment
It's stuck in between two levels of atrocious
The point is, I didn't want to die when watching this one
Clocking in at only 50 minutes,
it was over before it ever really began, and I found the baffling laziness to actually be quite funny at times
I find it hilarious that the team behind this movie was so
deficient in ideas on how to make a movie about the
Gummy Bear Youtube video that they didn't even make a movie about the Gummy Bear in the end
It's just a terrible Christmas animation that rips off The Nightmare Before Christmas
with a gummy bear as the main character.
Also there's an alien, who cares?
If you want a good laugh
I have to recommend the official Gummy Bear Twitter
@imagummybear
It's full of embarrassing pictures of the gummy bear
photoshopped in front of things and failed attempts at trying to interact with people
One of the tweets asks "on a scale of 1 to 10 how funny is Gummy?"
There are only two replies, and they both say 1/10.
Need I say more?
[outro music]
[IHE felt the need to edit in the "you just got schooled boiii" thing again]
[also doing these subtitles made me want to die]