Mr. CC's Edge of Apathy: Steppin' Into Spring Part 1: Sing me a story with Belle

Woo! Happy Spring Everyone! Hot Damn! This was a BEAST of a winter! Yep. I hope this spring is a real BEAUTY! Okay, enough of this segue. Today, we're going to talk about an old show I watched a few times called "sing me a story with Belle" What does this have to do with spring? Just about as much as the show had to do with the movie. Other than a few similar characters and "borrowed" animations, the show is stand alone from the animated film.

Feel free to watch along here

The plot is simple enough. Belle from Beauty and the Beast owns a bookstore now and sings stories to kids to teach lessons. The show starts with a live action Belle walking through her cartoon hometown from the movie.

Just another day in France.

I always felt bad for this guy and wondered why he was in the stockade. For the show, he was probably the only person in the animated town to refuse to go along with a live action belle because it's witchcraft. He was summarily stockaded.

So Bell goes through town singing along (like she did in the movie, but the song isn't nearly as catchy.) This goes on until she reaches her bookstore. This is where the horror begins.

BURN IT BURN IT BURN IT BURN IT.

This is "Big Book" Voice by Jim Cummings who did pretty much every awesome voice known to man whether it be a movie or video game. To me he'll always be the Super Mutant Master from the original fallout.

The other horrors of Belle's bookstore include:

I normally like cats, but NO.

This is "Harmony" the singing cat. Harmony sounds like Herbert the pervert from Family Guy. That's all I'm saying for now.

Lewis and Carol, The bookworms.

These fraggle rock extras are Lewis and Carol (Get it? Lewis Carroll, who wrote Alice in Wonderland?) 2 bookworms that live in the bookstore, presumably eating away at Belle's profits.

Lewis is voiced by Jim Cummings (Awesome!) and Carol is voiced by the late Christine Cavanaugh who voiced characters like Dexter from Dexter's lab and Chuckie from Rugrats.

The episode starts with the bookworms reading "BQ" magazine (Bookworm Quarterly) Where they ogle the ads inside wishing they could look like the buff muppet on the cover. Belle tells them that they have "Inner Beauty" and they shouldn't worry about what they look like.

The next thing that happens is the kids that frequent the bookstore say that they're putting on a magic show but no one will come... But why is this?

NO ONE RETURNS FROM THE DEAD UNSCATHED LIKE GASTON!

Yep. Gaston is alive and well and seemingly cool with Belle blowing him off to hang out with a talking book, cat and kids. In fact, Gaston has a strange tic where he constantly laughs.

Anyways, He's having a party for himself at THE SAME TIME OF THE MAGIC SHOW AND EVERYONE'S INVITED.

oh no... what a tragedy...

The kids start splitting up, Picking sides of who wants to go to Gaston's party and who wants to go to the magic show. The situation reminds Belle of a story which she starts to sing about. We then get into the meat and potatoes of the show.

Basically, the premise was to take old Disney cartoons that the studio had rights to and dub music and voices over the cartoon. The show took the Mickey mouse cartoon "Mickey's Rival" and tried to have a loose association with the show's plot.

Because I'm lazy, here's the rundown of the cartoon: Mickey and Minnie go have a picnic that gets interrupted by Minnie's Ex, Mortimer.

Mortimer tries to show off to Minnie by pissing off a bull. Mickey saves Minnie after Mortimer runs off like a coward. The end.

So the kids decide that maybe they should go to their friend's magic show because inner beauty trumps Gaston (I guess.)

Gaston goes on about his party and starts talking about the food that will be there. This makes the cat switch sides.

Me-oww.

This is the look of a man acknowledging the fact he just invited a cat puppet to a party.

Bell explains that as nice as the party sounds, it's still what's inside that counts and the kids should side with their friends.

Gaston laughs like an idiot and Belle yells out "He's impossible!"

I think she was talking to the film crew, not the kids...

So it goes on, Gaston talks about his party some more. He brings up his trophy room full of animals he's killed so the cat switches sides. He then pulls out all the stops to get everyone to go to his party:

A mirror covered with rhinestones...

Gaston makes a big deal that he needs someone important to hold the mirror for him during his party. A kid volunteers to be the mirror holder and brushes off the magic show.

Belle then tells the cat to sing about the "cookie carnival" to make another lesson. The story is about a cookie man who finds a sad cookie girl and she becomes cookie queen.
This is where things get X-rated, based on context.

Umm.

Y-You're not helping.

Any angry e-mails can be sent to: ihadnoideathiswouldhappen@pleasedontblameme.com

So, the cookie boy that squirted his cream donut on the cookie girl became king. (I swear, it's what really happened!)

We're taken back to the bookshop where the kid that volunteered the mirror job takes it back to work with his friend. They perform a garden variety magic trick and Gaston is dumbfounded.

The last part of the story, Gaston comes back and announced that he cancelled his party and is instead taking everyone to the magic show. He then asks the bookworms how to get inner beauty. End of Show. ....

Okay, not quite. The cat shows up again and gives a list of books to read so you can feel better about yourself or something.