The Oogieloves in the Big Balloon Adventure is one of those movies that you are pretty sure you won’t like as an adult. You go in, look it over for about five minutes, and then you are certain that you won’t like it. There are those movies/television shows/characters that kids go crazy over and we as parents are forced to watch them. You know the types….Barney, Teletubbies, Dora, SpongeBob….(Okay, so SpongeBob rocks but you get my point)  The Oogieloves fit right into that category, but with one more strike against them…the kids don’t care too much for them either. At least the kids that attended the movie with me didn’t.

In fairness, the movie is not all that bad. I think it is more about the delivery and the increments in which we are fed this child-like fantasy. It is fed to us in large chunks of cutesy and it goes on about an hour too long. Truthfully, the Oogieloves could have been a decent television show, and knowing the way these things go it likely will be. In shorter increments, it might be a hit with kids. The kids that came with me loved it until they got bored about forty minutes in or so. Then it was all about wanting candy and popcorn and wanting to know why the dude next to us smelled so bad.

The point is, director Matthew Diamond and writer Scott Stabile seemed to have no clue about how long the Oogieloves could hold a kid’s attention.

The details are fairly kidcentric and typical of this type of child’s show. An Oogielove is a nonhuman species that is supposed to be cute, colorful and full of zest and lessons for life. They are only found in a town called Lovelyloveville, and no, I didn’t mistype that name. They share their existence with several odd characters like J. Edgar the vacuum (clears throat), a pillow named Schluufy that spends lots of time sleeping, and a window named Windy.

The Oogieloves apparently have three representatives. They are Toofie (a purple boy), Zoozie, (a yellow gal) and Goobie (a green boy that is obviously the brains of the outfit).

This show is produced by Kenn Viselman and those that are versed in this sort of thing know that he is the guy that brought the Teletubbies to America back in the nineties. I had not even forgiven him for the Teletubbies yet, and he brings these guys into my life.

All kidding aside, the show is not all that bad. It is filled with all the typical things that kids like to see, and it even encourages them to get up and dance, move and wobble around. The premise behind the show is good and it would be a fairly good introduction for most kids to experience a theater. The problem is that most kids will not be able to focus long enough to sit through the whole thing, and those that are old enough to do so will be embarrassed and unable to admit it.

The Oogieloves is a show that will likely be made into a television show, find its audience and become another reason I want to throw things at the television when my six year old is around. Like I said, I don’t mind sacrificing my brain cells if it will do anything to help out my kids. Most parents feel the same way, so the Oogieloves will probably do quite well in the long run.

The show stars some pretty big names for voices such as Toni Braxton, Cloris Leachman and others.