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the wild thornberrys movie
So Nigel, Marianne and Liza - plus typical teenage daughter Debbie (voiced by 24-year-old Danielle Harris, who based Debbie on her own teenage sister) and four-year-old wild child Donnie (voiced by Flea of the Red Hot Chilli Peppers) - are constantly setting off on adventures in which the underlying theme is the need to protect the world’s wildlife and preserve the environment.
The Wild Thornberrys joined Rugrats, Duckman, Stressed Eric and the rest in the Klasky Csupo pantheon, and is about to follow Rugrats onto the big screen. In a story written by Kate Boutilier (who penned the babies’ Paris outing and has contributed in one capacity or another to 84 episodes of The Wild Thornberrys), the family are filming in Africa when Eliza and her chimpanzee friend, Darwin (voiced by Tom Kane), see poachers kidnap a cheetah cub from its mother (Alfre Woodard).
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“THE TEAM OF KLASKY AND CSUPO
IS, IN A WORD, GENIUS. THEY MANAGE TO EDUCATE AND ENTERTAIN IN
THE SAME MOMENT, AND THEY DO
IT WITH SUCH LIGHT-HEARTED FUN
THAT KIDS AREN’T EVEN AWARE THEY’RE LEARNING SOMETHING” |
Showing her usual disregard for safety, Eliza catches hold of the rope ladder on the poacher’s helicopter and, when the pair (Sloan and Bree Blackburn, voiced by Rupert Everett and Marisa Tomei) cut her loose, is only saved because Nigel and Marianne manage to catch her on the roof of the Commvee.
This is the last straw for grandmumsy Cordelia (Lyn Redgrave), who convinces Eliza’s parents to send her to boarding school in England, where she comes up against the formidable Mrs Fairgood (Brenda Blethyn). The miserable Eliza plots her escape, and discovers in the process that the Blackburns are planning an even more terrible act. During a solar eclipse, thousands of elephants are due to emerge from the safety of the forest, and the Blackburns will be there waiting for them. Well, Eliza asks herself, what else is a girl to do? And she sets off back to Africa to save nature once again from wicked human predators.
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FAMILY FORTUNES: Right, wild child Donnie is at home with baboons, while teenage Debbie would rather be in a mall. |
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“The team of Klasky and Csupo is, in a word, genius,” says Julia Pistor, who is a Nickelodeon veteran (she has been a senior vice-president there since 1994) and is an executive producer on the movie. “They manage to educate and entertain in the same moment, and they do it with such light-hearted fun that kids aren’t even aware they’re learning something. Parents love it, too, not only for that reason, but because all the characters and every storyline is truly engaging.”
What really marks the movie off from the TV series is the expansion of the regular voice-cast members with a whole range of well-known movie actors, including Oscar-nominee and Golden Globe-winner Blethyn and Oscar-winner Tomei. Not that celebrities are any more of an exception in The Wild Thornberrys than they have become in The Simpsons (another gem in the Klasky Csupo portfolio): after all, Dr Jane Goodall, the chimp expert, played herself in an April 2001 episode. But audiences at animated movies have grown used to recognisable voices, and The Wild Thornberrys Movie doesn’t let them down.
“Casting voices is like putting together a bunch of instruments, each with a different resonance, and having them come out with a harmonious melody,” says Barbara Wright, who cast the Rugrats movies as well as every Klasky Csupo production since 1993. “Keep in mind, just because you don’t see the actors on the screen doesn’t mean that the characters they portray shouldn’t have their own distinct sound.”
“If your dialogue is top-notch,” says Tomei, “you don’t need to be in front of the camera. What’s so fabulous about this movie is that not only are the characters very real, but the storyline is extremely compelling.”
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