Day 18 - Something you wish the show had elaborated on

There is so much! Like I said for Day 17, I wish there was more character development in Rainbow Brite. There was some, for Brian, Murky Dismal, Red Butler, Twink; most characters didn’t get any development, and were just there, and flat.

I love character development. I would love to know more about Indigo, whom I personally feel was the least developed Color Kid.

Would have also liked to see how extensive Rainbow Land was. We, the viewers, know of one border, the one that is shared with the Pits. But what is beyond the others? Murky’s mother lives beyond Rainbow Land, somewhere that isn’t the Pits, so where does she live?

Speaking of Mrs. Dismal, is there a Mr. Dismal? What are the Dismals?

I would have also liked to get to know more about Brian, his family, town, ect. There is so much they could have done. 

Day 17 - Something you wish had happened in the show

More then anything, I think I would have liked more episodes like the first ones, “Peril in the Pits,” and “The Mighty Monstromurk Menace.” Excellent two-parters that had nice character development, and interaction, as well as solid story telling. Mostly for the character development. First for Brian in “Peril”, then Red Butler through his interactions with Brian in “Monstromurk”.

Would have been fantastic if they had an episode for each Color Kid, Brian teaming up with them being a common theme. It would have been fantastic. We, through Brian, could have learned about each color kid individually, with Brian learning some subtle life lesson by the end. 

That probably isn’t what the creator of this challenge meant, but it’s what I want.

Day 16 - Favorite outfit

Woo! Fashion! I love the clothes in Rainbow Brite! Look at all those fun outfits! But I must say that my favorite one is Rainbow Brite’s.

So awesome!

Runner up? Umm, Indigo, then Lala Orange, then Canary Yellow, maybe? I know my least favorite is Shy Violet. So boring. Poor thing.

Day 14 - Favorite location

Tough choice, but I think I’ll go with that special little place where the Pits transitions into Rainbow Land. Where one emerges out of the darkness and into the light…

… and then rises up over that final hill and Rainbow Land comes into glorious view. From that spot, emerging out of the Pits and looking down onto Rainbow Land, there seems to be endless possibility for the future. A future full of color, hope, joy and laughter. The adventure is just beginning, at this place where despair and gloom are left behind.

Day 13 - Do you prefer the English-speaking Sprites or the Happyspeak-speaking Sprites?

It’s a tough choice, especially since so much emphasis is put on Twink above all other sprites.

However, Romeo got to have a few moments to shine in an episode, and that was nice. It’s tough to give the Happy-speak sprites starring roles when the audience wont know what they are saying, and are likely to be too young to read subtitles.

I sometimes enjoy Twink, but there are instances where he is annoying. Such as when he talks too much, or is too bossy. In both such instances he repeats himself over and over. Likewise, sometimes the Happy-speak sprites babble too much and are a little irritating as well. 

While Twink is the only english-speaking sprite in Rainbow Land, he isn’t the only sprite who can speak English. There are all the sprites who live on the planet Spectra. With the exception of Orin, Spectran sprites are unhelpful, grouchy beings. I think I may have liked them more if they spoke Happy-speak, that way I wouldn’t know how rude and sour they were.

So with all that taken into consideration, and the fact that I’ve already declared Nite Sprite (who speaks Happy-speak) as my favorite sprite, I hereby declare that I prefer happy-speaking sprites as my preferred sprites.

Day 12 - Have you ever heard the Rainbow Brite Christmas music?

I, uh, don’t think I have. *runs off to listen to some*

Alright… I’ve sampled some, and I must say that I don’t much like it, at all. The original song I listened to (ex: A Gift of Love) was annoying, and I couldn’t understand a lot of what the kids singing it were saying. The stuff that included Murky and Lurky (ex: 12 Days of Christmas) were a poor imitation of the voice actors from the cartoon, and that bothered me.

The rest was just Christmas Carols, and if this wasn’t a Rainbow Brite album I might have liked them, except the children singing weren’t all that great. There are other reasons that this album bothers me, but I don’t want to get into it.

In conclusion, this seems to have been a hastily thrown together collection of music, probably rushed to cash in on Rainbow Brite’s popularity. On the bright side, it resulted in some album art, and I collect all the “official” Rainbow Brite pics that I can (no idea how long I’ve had this album art on my computer, but turned out to be handy for this post, yay!)

Day 10 - Favorite episode

It’s a tough choice, but in the end, I think if there was only one episode I could ever watch again it would be “Peril in the Pits.” The second runner up (and near tie) would be “The Mighty Monstromurk Menace” two-parter, and third would be “Mom.”

To me, “Peril in the Pits” is the perfect Rainbow Brite episode.

Rainbow is suitably magical, I love the scene where she, Starlight and Twink materialize. It perfectly conveys how nonhuman/magical and other-worldly Rainbow and friends are. They are something that we mere mortals can’t see, that is, unless they want us too.

There are so many little things I love in this first episode, such as how she makes the rainbow that accidentally colors Brian. The orb she created was so cool, and her blowing the rainbow out of it is a nice bit of animation, she looks so cute. These are samples of things I wish were more consistent throughout the series. She never makes the orb again, rainbows just come straight out of her belt, and I think something is lost with that. 

While her belt is important, I like the orb, and the organic act of bringing a rainbow to life with her breath as opposed to the mechanical, somewhat more sterile act of pushing of the star button on her belt.

As mentioned in a previous post, the scene of Brian walking into the rainbow is brilliant. There is a similar scene in the Monstromurk episodes, but it’s cooler here. It’s the first time it happens on the show, and the one it happens to is a human, on Earth, as opposed to it being Murky and Lurky in Rainbow Land were something like that is much more expected (though still cool).

It’s also the episode where we learn the most about Brian. Things like his really wanting to be on the baseball team, his father being a lawyer, and his almost being eleven. He’s not as free with personal info in later episodes, in fact he hardly makes any appearances after the first three episodes, which I think is a shame.

Murky Dismal was pretty competent in this episode. He captured four Color Kids seemingly effortlessly, making him a legitimate threat. He’s such a threat to color that even his foot steps drain color and life out of flowers! Something that is, again, never repeated in later episodes. But in this episode it’s quite easy to see why the sprites and Color Kids feel threatened by his presence. 

A competent villain, plus real danger and seemingly hopeless odds add a lot to a plot. Even though I knew what was going to happen because I’d seem it a million times, I was always on the edge of my metaphorical seat as a child (Like many, I always sat on the floor, as close to the tv as I could get).

I also think it was a great touch that this episode began on Earth, and ended on Earth. It helped to create a feeling that the viewer was also part of this magical journey to another world, part of the adventure of meeting Rainbow Brite.  It transported me out of my living room, and at the end brought me safely back again.

Later episodes are lacking that. Most of them don’t have Earth or Brian in them at all and take place exclusively in Rainbow Land and the Pits. That takes away some of the magic for me.

So there you have it. My favorite Rainbow Brite episode, the first ever episode aired, “Peril in the Pits.”

Day 9 - Do you ship any of the characters?

Pssh, of course! But not, surprisingly, is it Rainbow and Brian.

Maybe I did see them as together when I was a little kid, but after watching all of the Rainbow cartoons as a grownup, I gotta say that while I do believe that they had a crush on each other for a little bit, I think Rainbow would eventually end up with Krys, if anybody.

Even though Krys seemed more interested in Lala Orange than he did any other girl, and was hostile towards Rainbow throughout the Starstealer movie, he seems a good match for her in the long run.

They are both heroes, and they are both guardians. Rainbow of color, and Krys of light. And look! They have matching sleeves. They were dressing alike before they even met! Destiny, yeah? He just needs to stop being the “typical little boy” who thinks that girls can’t do anything, and stop feeling threatened when a girl is just as competent as he is.

Next up is Buddy Blue and Patty Green. They seem to spend a lot of time together, both in the cartoon and in the books. Buddy seems a good match for Patty, his being the milder mannered of the two Color Kid boys, and a very active outdoors type. Patty also strikes me as a very active, outdoors type (look at her perpetually banged up knees), and she is a prankster. A hot-head like Red would not suit her, but Buddy can take whatever she gives with good humor. And what does Buddy get out of the relationship? Someone who’s willing to go running with him, even when it leaves her huffy and puffy before they’re through. Perfect for a fellow who loves exercise as much as he does.

At look at them here! He’s sneaking that arm around his girl, I tells ya it’s love!

The last couple I ship is Red Butler and Lala Orange. Look there! They are on a ferris wheel together! I always imagined being on a ferris wheel with a fella as a romantic thing (hear that future fella of mine? We have to go on a ferris wheel!). 

Red and Lala seem to be made for each other. Red seems to be trying to be an action-packed prince charming a lot of the time, cape and all.

And I take this valentine card as proof of his romantic side. 

Lala Orange seems to go very well with Red. She also seems to be a romantic (based partially on her somewhat french appearance and name), and seems the most princess-like to go with Red’s heroic knight-in-shining armor persona. She also a bit of a charmer, attracting the fellows easily. Krys had zeroed in on her the moment he landed in Rainbow Land, running up and taking her hand.

Unlike Buddy and Patty, I think Red and Lala would have a bit of tension in their relationship. Red’s already proven himself to be a competitive and jealous sort. I can see Red and Krys, both red-heads of similar temperament, getting into disagreements and competing for Lala. At least until Krys gives up, realizing he’s really meant to be with Rainbow.

Day 8 - Favorite friendship

For favorite friendship I would have to go with Rainbow and Brian. 

I don’t really know what I can say about it though. I think I covered a lot of it when describing why Brian was one of my favorite characters back on “Day 6”.

Brian had personality, CHARACTER, and wasn’t perfect. Very much a human.

Rainbow was like a mythical being, an ageless guardian of the worlds color. Not human, no matter how much she looked like a human child.

Pairing him with Rainbow was great because of this. If the show had been only her and the residents of Rainbow Land, it may have been a very stale show. Her befriending Brian added so much to those first three episodes.

The dynamics of combining the fantastic (Rainbow) with the “mundane” (Brian) really worked. And it was interesting that Brian, who towered over Rainbow and the Color Kids, and looked older, was so much younger. He was the one learning from them, even if he wasn’t aware of the fact.

And it’s Brian and Rainbow’s learning about and helping each other that made them an interesting friendship to watch. With Rainbow and Starlight, Twink, or ANY of the Color Kids, there wasn’t this learning about each other. They’d been together for countless centuries, they knew each other so well.

They’d grown stale in their routines, unable to think of a way out of trouble without the usual standbys (Rainbow’s color belt). Without Brian’s youthful, outside perspective, they would have possibly remained in that rut. (I say possibly, because Rainbow probably would have gotten them out of it, but there is no knowing how it would have gone).

Brian was new, and he kept things interesting.

He encouraged thinking outside the box, something that the Color Kids seemed to have trouble with. They all looked to Rainbow to solve all their problems, and Brian helped Rainbow to show them that with a little spunk, hope, and determination they could do anything.

 And again… Rainbow and Brian were so adorably flirty and bashful, respectively. So cute!  

Day 7 - Did/do you own any Rainbow Brite merchandise other than the tapes/DVDs?

Yes. I had Rainbow Brite and the seven Color Kids dolls. Most of them were second hand from Goodwill, and therefore missing their removable parts of their outfits. I’m no longer certain that my darling Canary Yellow wasn’t second hand as well. Looking at this photo (taken by Ani-Bee on flickr) I see those orange leg-warmers and don’t recall my Canary having those, ever. 

I wish I still had my Rainbow Brite toys, at the very least my Canary Yellow, and maybe Patty O’Green, since I’m sure my Patty still had her dress, and Indigo, because even though she didn’t have her clothes she was so pretty.

I also wish I still had at least one of my sprites. I remember having a good number of them. Some were the larger ones, and some the smaller ones. Was it the smaller ones who made the giggly noise when shaken, or the larger ones? I’m not sure. I’d want my indigo girl sprite, Posie (one of the larger ones). She was my favorite.

Don’t remember if I had any other merchandise. My sister might of had stickers, I know she had a sticker collection of some sort when we were little. I had a neighbor/friend who dressed as Rainbow Brite for Halloween one year. That was awesome.

All in all, I was content with my collection of Rainbow Brite toys when I was little. Rather proud of them actually. I distinctly remember setting them up on my bed when I’d be expecting company when I was little, fussing for a good while with the arrangement. I was sure Rainbow Brite dolls were the best way to make a good impression.