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1992-2006, Ages 17 and Up
Gather round and I’ll tell you the tale of what the internet has branded the most infamous animation studio ever to disgrace the screen.
(3/6/26)
Gather round and I’ll tell you the tale of what the internet has branded the most infamous animation studio ever to disgrace the screen.
(3/6/26)
There is a series of animated films so vile, so horrible, so indescribably hideous, that the very name of the studio which created them strikes fear into the hearts of movie-goers and film reviewers ALIKE!
. . . is what I might say if I really wanted to ham this up. In the years leading up to my covering of this story, I’ve watched several YouTubers rip this infamous rip-off studio many a new one. To say such videos are far more entertaining and better made than the reviewed films doesn’t begin to scratch the surface of how objectively bad the latter really are. But rather than just parrot all the exaggerated outrage, I’ve decided to blow my audience’s collective mind and not only try to find a positive nugget of gold or two in this cartoon muck—I mean, besides the iconic “YEE!” meme—but hopefully turn said cartoon muck into a learning opportunity for aspiring children’s animators. Of course, maybe I really am bonkers for stringing this studio’s name and the word “positive” together. I’m the type that enjoyed Lady in the Water and Mother! enough to buy on DVD while once believing that FLCL and Reign: The Conqueror were the ugliest anime I’d ever seen. So. Feel free to take my two cents as you will.
It all began in the early 90’s when--shocker of shockers--Disney lost a lawsuit against Filmation and Good Times Entertainment for copyright infringement, the verdict being that fairy tales and other public domain stories should be fair game for any studio to adapt. Inspired by this legal victory, late husband-and-wife duo, rock musician Ludwig Ickert and children’s writer Roswitha Haas, founded Media Concept within their own home in Friedrichsdorf, Germany. Their earliest films were made in a still-shot “storybook” format, but this was soon phased out in favor of 2-D fare via the Deluxe Paint program for the Amiga computer, with Ickert supplying designs and amination while Hass wrote the scripts. Then in 1996, the company was rebranded with the odd name of Dingo Pictures. Even more odd, along with bargain DVD company East West Entertainment, Dingo’s films were distributed by budget title video game publishers Midas Interactive and Phoenix Games, on the PlayStation 1 and 2 and Nintendo DS, padded with uninspired extras like either pre-50’s public domain cartoon shorts, or activities like coloring books, slide puzzles, and matching card games. That and most of their international box art was textbook false advertisement, not Disney quality by any stretch but much more deceptively attractive than the movies contained within. As well as Disney, Dingo would plagiarize other animation juggernauts like Don Bluth, DreamWorks, and Pixar.
But it wouldn’t be fair for me to judge consumers who might mistake, for example, The Brave Husky and The Prince for Egypt for Balto and The Prince of Egypt. Easy, yes. Fair, no. First, not everyone is a fellow animation aficionado and may have honestly been duped into buying these things for their unsuspecting kids. Second, some consumers may in fact have been aware that these were similar but still different films, but maybe not how different.
The so-called character designs are basically discount tracings, distractingly identical to the timeless characters they’ve ripped off, and yet with all the life ripped out. Names and titles are likewise unoriginal, Aladdin becoming Aladin; the “Tarzan” of Lord of the Jungle being slapped with “Lord”; and The Aristocats becoming—get this--Nice Cats. Basic motions like talking and running are literally five frames or less and shows of emotion like laughing and crying are expressed by heads just vibrating. Narrative identity is watered down even further when character models are recycled not just once between two films spread years apart, but multiple times in many films or even in a single film, often with little more than a tweak in name, voice, color, clothing, even sex and gender, from the “Thomas O’Malley” tabby playing “The Cat on Boots,” among several other cats, to Pierre from The Hunchback of Notre Dame, a.k.a., as YouTuber Phelous puts it, “Esmerelda in drag.”
Then there’s the sound design, which I can only describe as the “Talkie Premiere Disaster” scene from 1952’s Singin’ in the Rain stretched out to full-length. There are more line flubs, awkward silences, acoustic issues, and bland voice acting here than you can shake Jiminy Cricket’s umbrella at! Just as bad are the clashing soundtracks, many of whose songs not only seldom fit a film’s tone or environment but are often played one on top of another at the same time, whether it’s two different ones or even the same ones—sometimes throughout an ENTIRE movie!
But what really baffles me is the cursing. No, I’m not kidding. Jarring, inappropriate, and completely uncalled-for in what are supposed to be family-friendly movies. Was this just a difference in cultural sensibilities at the time? A misguided attempt at edginess to appeal to older viewers? A completely out-of-touch mindset regarding what makes a children’s film “mature”?
Not to mention the ridiculous anachronisms that distort history and context far more than Pocahontas and Anastasia ever did. Dingo illustrates a severe tone-deafness which makes their characters insensitive, apathetic, or dumb; plot points inaccurate, confusing, or empty; and the tone and atmosphere disturbingly frivolous or grim. Riddle me this: Why do “Shenzi,” “Banzai,” and other hyenas live alongside Pocahontas near a Wild West-themed Jamestown? Why are the butchered remains of “Wilber’s” fellow pigs on full uncensored display? How can Meeko—sorry, Wabuu—and the narrator both be so nonchalant about birds labeling the former a “child murderer”? How do “Littlefoot’s” fellow dinosaurs know how to build an earthquake-detection machine? Why are animals like “Mufasa” and “Bagheera” so obsessed with diamonds? Why in God’s name (pun completely intended) is there a “Wah-wah” tune after Moses closes the Red Sea on the Egyptians?
All of which distracts from, YES, the positives to be found here. Or, at the very least, stuff I don’t think is as offensive as people claim. For the most part, the backdrops resemble children’s crayon drawings, simple but innocuous. The same goes for original animal characters that look like they were drawn with the Vtech Video Painter I played with when I was five. So long as they don’t move, they possess a harmless picture book kind of charm. Several songs (when played properly) are kind of catchy, too; at worst, they just sound like old and cheap Yamaha keyboard demos.
And let’s be honest, Dingo is far from the only mockbuster studio to profit from superior animations with inferior results. Just look at Video Brinquedo or Spark Plug Entertainment. Heck, one could say there are superior animations with some crucial faults as well. There’s the vintage anime Speed Racer, with its notoriously poor English dub; Hanna-Barbara, with its stiff limited animation; and The Lion King, the Disney Renaissance’s crown jewel, which many argue to this day is a blatant rip-off of Osamu Tesuka’s beloved anime, Kimba, the White Lion.
But here’s the thing. Despite such supposed flaws, these latter productions provide coherent, entertaining stories with memorable, appealing characters that have withstood the test of time. By contrast, I think what makes Dingo Pictures so especially despised is its presentation that just screams “lazy.” Then again, maybe Ickert and Haas really did just want to entertain families with their own brand of animation but were just delusional about their process and results. Who knows? But their overwhelming rookie mistakes not only leave their few good assets wasted but ruin any story immersion to be had. Even worse, I became what no casual movie-goer should ever be: BORED. That alone might make Dingo Pictures the worst animation studio ever. That said, funny as YouTubers’ exaggerated reactions are, in the end I call them just that, exaggerated. I watched no less than two dozen of these things, no booze, weed, or strait jacket required. But I’ve also known high-quality stories that I found just as mind-numbingly dull. That doesn’t mean I didn’t learn from them. To be clear: I’m not condoning the disguising of cheap cartoon slop as animated masterpieces to make a quick buck off naïve consumers. But since Dingo Pictures is here to stay, like it or not, we might as well make good use of it, as an intriguingly bizarre piece of media history for the morbidly curious, and a monumental failure as educationally valuable as the greatest success stories for animation students. For anyone else, though—especially kids—I concede that it would be wise to seek your cinematic entertainment elsewhere.
CREDITS:
Special thanks to KTWH 99.5 Two Harbors Community Radio. All images, audio, and links belong to their respective owners; no copyright infringement is intended.
MAIN THEME:
“The Call” - Briand Morrison and Roxann Berglund
https://www.briandmorrison.com/
https://www.facebook.com/BriandMorrisonGuitar/
https://www.youtube.com/user/briandmorrison
. . . is what I might say if I really wanted to ham this up. In the years leading up to my covering of this story, I’ve watched several YouTubers rip this infamous rip-off studio many a new one. To say such videos are far more entertaining and better made than the reviewed films doesn’t begin to scratch the surface of how objectively bad the latter really are. But rather than just parrot all the exaggerated outrage, I’ve decided to blow my audience’s collective mind and not only try to find a positive nugget of gold or two in this cartoon muck—I mean, besides the iconic “YEE!” meme—but hopefully turn said cartoon muck into a learning opportunity for aspiring children’s animators. Of course, maybe I really am bonkers for stringing this studio’s name and the word “positive” together. I’m the type that enjoyed Lady in the Water and Mother! enough to buy on DVD while once believing that FLCL and Reign: The Conqueror were the ugliest anime I’d ever seen. So. Feel free to take my two cents as you will.
It all began in the early 90’s when--shocker of shockers--Disney lost a lawsuit against Filmation and Good Times Entertainment for copyright infringement, the verdict being that fairy tales and other public domain stories should be fair game for any studio to adapt. Inspired by this legal victory, late husband-and-wife duo, rock musician Ludwig Ickert and children’s writer Roswitha Haas, founded Media Concept within their own home in Friedrichsdorf, Germany. Their earliest films were made in a still-shot “storybook” format, but this was soon phased out in favor of 2-D fare via the Deluxe Paint program for the Amiga computer, with Ickert supplying designs and amination while Hass wrote the scripts. Then in 1996, the company was rebranded with the odd name of Dingo Pictures. Even more odd, along with bargain DVD company East West Entertainment, Dingo’s films were distributed by budget title video game publishers Midas Interactive and Phoenix Games, on the PlayStation 1 and 2 and Nintendo DS, padded with uninspired extras like either pre-50’s public domain cartoon shorts, or activities like coloring books, slide puzzles, and matching card games. That and most of their international box art was textbook false advertisement, not Disney quality by any stretch but much more deceptively attractive than the movies contained within. As well as Disney, Dingo would plagiarize other animation juggernauts like Don Bluth, DreamWorks, and Pixar.
But it wouldn’t be fair for me to judge consumers who might mistake, for example, The Brave Husky and The Prince for Egypt for Balto and The Prince of Egypt. Easy, yes. Fair, no. First, not everyone is a fellow animation aficionado and may have honestly been duped into buying these things for their unsuspecting kids. Second, some consumers may in fact have been aware that these were similar but still different films, but maybe not how different.
The so-called character designs are basically discount tracings, distractingly identical to the timeless characters they’ve ripped off, and yet with all the life ripped out. Names and titles are likewise unoriginal, Aladdin becoming Aladin; the “Tarzan” of Lord of the Jungle being slapped with “Lord”; and The Aristocats becoming—get this--Nice Cats. Basic motions like talking and running are literally five frames or less and shows of emotion like laughing and crying are expressed by heads just vibrating. Narrative identity is watered down even further when character models are recycled not just once between two films spread years apart, but multiple times in many films or even in a single film, often with little more than a tweak in name, voice, color, clothing, even sex and gender, from the “Thomas O’Malley” tabby playing “The Cat on Boots,” among several other cats, to Pierre from The Hunchback of Notre Dame, a.k.a., as YouTuber Phelous puts it, “Esmerelda in drag.”
Then there’s the sound design, which I can only describe as the “Talkie Premiere Disaster” scene from 1952’s Singin’ in the Rain stretched out to full-length. There are more line flubs, awkward silences, acoustic issues, and bland voice acting here than you can shake Jiminy Cricket’s umbrella at! Just as bad are the clashing soundtracks, many of whose songs not only seldom fit a film’s tone or environment but are often played one on top of another at the same time, whether it’s two different ones or even the same ones—sometimes throughout an ENTIRE movie!
But what really baffles me is the cursing. No, I’m not kidding. Jarring, inappropriate, and completely uncalled-for in what are supposed to be family-friendly movies. Was this just a difference in cultural sensibilities at the time? A misguided attempt at edginess to appeal to older viewers? A completely out-of-touch mindset regarding what makes a children’s film “mature”?
Not to mention the ridiculous anachronisms that distort history and context far more than Pocahontas and Anastasia ever did. Dingo illustrates a severe tone-deafness which makes their characters insensitive, apathetic, or dumb; plot points inaccurate, confusing, or empty; and the tone and atmosphere disturbingly frivolous or grim. Riddle me this: Why do “Shenzi,” “Banzai,” and other hyenas live alongside Pocahontas near a Wild West-themed Jamestown? Why are the butchered remains of “Wilber’s” fellow pigs on full uncensored display? How can Meeko—sorry, Wabuu—and the narrator both be so nonchalant about birds labeling the former a “child murderer”? How do “Littlefoot’s” fellow dinosaurs know how to build an earthquake-detection machine? Why are animals like “Mufasa” and “Bagheera” so obsessed with diamonds? Why in God’s name (pun completely intended) is there a “Wah-wah” tune after Moses closes the Red Sea on the Egyptians?
All of which distracts from, YES, the positives to be found here. Or, at the very least, stuff I don’t think is as offensive as people claim. For the most part, the backdrops resemble children’s crayon drawings, simple but innocuous. The same goes for original animal characters that look like they were drawn with the Vtech Video Painter I played with when I was five. So long as they don’t move, they possess a harmless picture book kind of charm. Several songs (when played properly) are kind of catchy, too; at worst, they just sound like old and cheap Yamaha keyboard demos.
And let’s be honest, Dingo is far from the only mockbuster studio to profit from superior animations with inferior results. Just look at Video Brinquedo or Spark Plug Entertainment. Heck, one could say there are superior animations with some crucial faults as well. There’s the vintage anime Speed Racer, with its notoriously poor English dub; Hanna-Barbara, with its stiff limited animation; and The Lion King, the Disney Renaissance’s crown jewel, which many argue to this day is a blatant rip-off of Osamu Tesuka’s beloved anime, Kimba, the White Lion.
But here’s the thing. Despite such supposed flaws, these latter productions provide coherent, entertaining stories with memorable, appealing characters that have withstood the test of time. By contrast, I think what makes Dingo Pictures so especially despised is its presentation that just screams “lazy.” Then again, maybe Ickert and Haas really did just want to entertain families with their own brand of animation but were just delusional about their process and results. Who knows? But their overwhelming rookie mistakes not only leave their few good assets wasted but ruin any story immersion to be had. Even worse, I became what no casual movie-goer should ever be: BORED. That alone might make Dingo Pictures the worst animation studio ever. That said, funny as YouTubers’ exaggerated reactions are, in the end I call them just that, exaggerated. I watched no less than two dozen of these things, no booze, weed, or strait jacket required. But I’ve also known high-quality stories that I found just as mind-numbingly dull. That doesn’t mean I didn’t learn from them. To be clear: I’m not condoning the disguising of cheap cartoon slop as animated masterpieces to make a quick buck off naïve consumers. But since Dingo Pictures is here to stay, like it or not, we might as well make good use of it, as an intriguingly bizarre piece of media history for the morbidly curious, and a monumental failure as educationally valuable as the greatest success stories for animation students. For anyone else, though—especially kids—I concede that it would be wise to seek your cinematic entertainment elsewhere.
CREDITS:
Special thanks to KTWH 99.5 Two Harbors Community Radio. All images, audio, and links belong to their respective owners; no copyright infringement is intended.
MAIN THEME:
“The Call” - Briand Morrison and Roxann Berglund
https://www.briandmorrison.com/
https://www.facebook.com/BriandMorrisonGuitar/
https://www.youtube.com/user/briandmorrison
EPISODE SONG:
“Mocked and Busted” - George Ellsworth
https://www.facebook.com/GeorgeLEllsworth
“Mocked and Busted” - George Ellsworth
https://www.facebook.com/GeorgeLEllsworth
All other music and sound clips are from the following films by Dingo Pictures:
Aladin (1993)
Lion and the King (1994)
Nice Cats (1995)
Pocahontas (1995)
The Mouse Police (1995)
Toys: The Birthday Present (1996)
Wabuu: The Cheeky Raccoon (1996)
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996)
Janis the Little Pig (1996)
The Cat on Boots (1997)
Balto (1997)
The Musicians of Bremen (1997)
Anastasia (1998)
The Prince for Egypt (1998)
Lord of the Jungle (1999)
Dinosaur Adventure (2000)
Atlantis: The Lost Continent (2001)
Download the full 15-minute episode here!
Dingo Pictures' Official Website
Dingo Pictures on Wikipedia
Dingo Pictures on Fandom
Dingo Pictures on IMDb
Dingo Pictures on Tv Tropes
Fluffy Saffron - All of Dingo Pictures' "movies"
revergo - Yee
Dingo Pictures Documentary's YouTube Channel
Phelous - Dingo Pictures Iceberg Explained
Phelous - Dingo Pictures (Phoenix Games) Movies
Caddicarus - [OLD] THE WORST GAME EVER MADE - Caddicarus
Caddicarus - [OLD] THE NEW WORST GAME EVER MADE - Caddicarus
Saberspark - What the HELL is Dingo Pictures?
Matt Presents - Everything We Know About Dingo Pictures
^^ Back to Movies, Short Films, and Other Works of Cinema
Aladin (1993)
Lion and the King (1994)
Nice Cats (1995)
Pocahontas (1995)
The Mouse Police (1995)
Toys: The Birthday Present (1996)
Wabuu: The Cheeky Raccoon (1996)
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996)
Janis the Little Pig (1996)
The Cat on Boots (1997)
Balto (1997)
The Musicians of Bremen (1997)
Anastasia (1998)
The Prince for Egypt (1998)
Lord of the Jungle (1999)
Dinosaur Adventure (2000)
Atlantis: The Lost Continent (2001)
Download the full 15-minute episode here!
Dingo Pictures' Official Website
Dingo Pictures on Wikipedia
Dingo Pictures on Fandom
Dingo Pictures on IMDb
Dingo Pictures on Tv Tropes
Fluffy Saffron - All of Dingo Pictures' "movies"
revergo - Yee
Dingo Pictures Documentary's YouTube Channel
Phelous - Dingo Pictures Iceberg Explained
Phelous - Dingo Pictures (Phoenix Games) Movies
Caddicarus - [OLD] THE WORST GAME EVER MADE - Caddicarus
Caddicarus - [OLD] THE NEW WORST GAME EVER MADE - Caddicarus
Saberspark - What the HELL is Dingo Pictures?
Matt Presents - Everything We Know About Dingo Pictures
^^ Back to Movies, Short Films, and Other Works of Cinema
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