With Disney Plus on the looming horizon, I cannot help but wonder how big the back catalogue of content will be on the site. What gets to be there? What gets cut? Will the "Disney Vault" be opened completely, all the old content released? Or will some things be destined to never be seen again? Well, it is probably safe to say we will never see Song of the South again, but in terms of their shows, that is a tricky one. As with their animated movies, many of Disney's animated shows are still held up with a lot of praise, to the point where many view the live action reimagining’s they have been doing as a disservice to the original shows. Need I say more than that Kim Possible movie they recently aired? After the announcement that Ducktales 2017 is going to become the home of the Disney Afternoon reboots, I figured I would look into some of the animated shows of theirs I grew up with, back when Disney Channel was doing something other than setting up Tween pop-stars for a life of disaster. I've got one planned that has a larger fan base, but for now I want to tackle something more niece, back when a show could star a black guy and a girl and not be called SJW Propaganda. This is Fillmore! (Yes, the exclamation point is in the title, will not be using it for the rest of this review though).
The easiest way to describe Fillmore is "A Middle School's Cop Show". Set mostly in the grounds of X Middle School, the two best members of the Safety Patrol, Cornelius Fillmore and Ingrid Third are tasked to solve crimes that happen in the school. Things like vandalizing property, theft, sabotage, and other things on that nature. With the crime set up, the show follows a predictable, yet entertaining structure, leaving just enough information to let viewers try and solve the case before the cast do (though there are episodes where you can't help but wonder where the hell that answer came from). In a way, it is very similar to Scooby Doo, though I find this cast more interesting when comparing the two. However, a lot of that comes from the nature of one starting life when animation for television was more basic, making the iconic personalities more two dimensional by comparison.
As for the personalities in the show, they are solid for the time. Disney's animation was far more grounded when compared to the cartoons of Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, and even arguably their own Disney Afternoon, with a lot of the cartoon wildness coming from the situations, rather than the characters. With this grounded view in mind, the cast are interesting characters, but not very exciting at the same time, with most of the excitement coming from the chase sequences throughout all the episodes. Fillmore is solid; though it feels like most of his character development happened before the show even started, though you still get moments every now and then revolving around him learning to trust others with shady pasts. Ingrid at times comes off as a Deus Ex device more so then a character, thanks to her intelligence and photographic memory. Many of the minor characters do have their moments, but I found myself being distracted by the voices cast for them, along with the odd line every now and then, especially early on. I still have no idea how a multiple-choice test can give someone a spontaneous French accent, and the Geodude line was confusing in terms of a reference, but that is more because Cartoon Network was airing Pokémon at the time and not Disney. Maybe I have just forgotten that Pokémon back then was the equivalent of doing floss dances in movies now.
The animation is interesting. It is very flat and basic, especially when compared to many shows nowadays, but everything that needs to stand out does so effortlessly. A good comparison would be some of the moment in Star Wars Clone Wars (Not the Clone Wars), where a lot of the backgrounds looked empty, save for key details, but making the characters, ships act stand out hard. It helps make action moments look more impressive. The same cannot be said for the music though; it is an extremely forgettable score.
While very shallow, Fillmore! As a show is quite entertaining to watch. It's aged very well, still holding up very well, with a lot of the time relevant references still being relevant today. Would I like to see it brought back? Kind of? With the advances in animation for to, it could be interesting to see what a reboot of the show could do. Do I think it will happen? Probably not, as I do not think it caught on compared to other shows Disney was making at the time. If you have a few hours to kill, definitely worth a look.
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