Personally know this story best prior to watching this Rabbit Ears Productions adaptation from Joel Chandler Harris' Uncle Remus stories, which were influential in his day but are quite polarising now and not always easy to find. And through Disney's 'Song of the South', liked that film very much as a kid actually and still think it has a lot of merits and not deserving of its relatively obscure status when there are far more offensive films out there that have not only not banned but in a couple of cases considered revolutionary.
Anyway, it's this Rabbit Ears Productions adaptation that is under review. And it is a worthy effort for the series and for this particular story, with a good deal of merits such as the entertainment value, the narration and the music. For me though, there are adaptations in the series that are quite a lot better (especially in regard to the drawing style) and are more accessible in terms of how the original story's prose is adapted. As cliched as this sounds, even the series' lesser work has so much to recommend and is much better than most non-Disney animated adaptations for children's literature.
Will start off with the good things. First and foremost, Danny Glover's narration with Glover doing better here than he did in his previous Rabbit Ears Productions outing 'How the Leopard Got His Spots'. Again he voices with a lot of energetic excitement and character, he shows no signs of fatigue here and absolutely loved all the different colours and inflections he brought to the characters, giving individual personalities for all the characters without being samey. The other brilliant aspect is the music, once again another highly effective, characterful and nuanced use of solo guitar. Which had a lot of both energy and tranquility, while giving a sense of time and place in an authentic way. Loved too how it had a nice mix of calm mood and wild action and stayed true to the story's roots.
Furthermore, the script generally has entertainment value and liked that there was more of an interactive feel to it. The story is both calm and wild in the right places, and is full of charm. Didn't find anything objectionable about it, then again getting older there has actually been a real effort to not getting too upset over everything. All the characters are well characterised and faithfully so, the titular character especially.
Usually, the drawing in a Rabbit Ears Production is one of the best aspects. Unfortunately, the visuals were not to my taste here and didn't gel with the story's mood. Found it too rough and over-wild in the character drawing, which made it look by the series' standards uncharacteristically awkward, and the colours lack the usual vibrancy and visual invention. The tar baby especially looks weird.
Although the prose is entertaining on the whole, there are some parts where the vocabulary is a little too complicated for younger audiences unfamiliar with the heavy use of of the time slang to completely comprehend. That is not meant to sound patronising in any way and this is not applicable to all younger viewers, but if anybody found it not always easy to follow they shouldn't be judged.
In summary, worthy but not great so a slight disappointment by the series' exceptionally high standards. 7/10.
