Littlest Pet Shop: A World of Our Own
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Yeah, we come from near and far, to celebrate who we are!
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Littlest Pet Shop: A World of Our Own is an Irish-American animated children's television series based on the 2018 relaunch of the American toy franchise Littlest Pet Shop. It is the third television series, following the 2012 TV series and the 1995 TV series, to be based on the franchise overall.
The series revolves around a group of pets who use a magical portal to enter the world of Paw-Tucket. It premiered on Discovery Family in the United States on April 14, 2018. The last episode aired on January 26, 2019. The show was cancelled after only one season.
Plot
Littlest Pet Shop: A World of Our Own focuses on a group of six pets (Roxie, Jade, Trip, Quincy, Edie, and Bev) who exit the human world they live in often to go through a magical portal that is used only by them. The portal sends them to the world of Paw-Tucket, a community made for and by pets, where they can have adventures, throw parties, make new friendships, and be themselves.
Why It Has a World of Its Very Own
- While the 2012 series isn't bad in the slightest, this show is seen by many as a more accurate portrayal of what one would imagine a "Littlest Pet Shop" series to be like, with less focus on humans, and the pet shop of the show being the hangout location for the main characters. Though at least both portrayals aren't like the 90's series.
- The concept of a world for pets made completely by pets is pretty awesome.
- The show itself is compared a lot to Whisker Haven, which isn't a bad thing since both shows have been praised for being good.
- The abbreviation of the series' subtitle itself, "AWOO", is also the sound that a dog can make. It is also cleverly used in the theme song itself as to nod to the pun.
- The cleverness doesn't end there: the world of Paw-Tucket was named after Hasbro's headquarters, Pawtucket, Rhode Island.
- Outstanding character/location designs and animation, as to be expected from Boulder Media, who also animated Wander Over Yonder and The Amazing World of Gumball.
- Great, clever writing.
- Perfect Canadian voice work, especially from Diana Kaarina who voiced Roxie McTerrier and Petula Woolwright, two drastically different sounding characters. She also provided Edie Von Keet's wonderful singing voice since Lili Beaudoin provides her speaking voice.
- Catchy theme song.
- Some of the other songs are good too, like "Step It Up".
- Savannah Cheetaby is a really awesome character who has a beautiful singing voice. Her actress, Bethany Brown, also sings the theme song.
- A great handful of good episodes, such as:
- "The Big Sleep-Over": A classic episode where Roxie invites her friends over to a sleep-over. For once, Petula shows up to it and she doesn't assume the role of a villain (besides suspicions that she might have mal intentions from Roxie), and willingly joins in on the party. It also introduces Millie McMallard, who is a great character.
- "Homesick as a Dog": A wonderfully tear-jerking episode about Roxie not being able to enter back to the Human World because she's lost her key. She feels very homesick and even sings a sad song about missing her owner, Tessa. At the end, Jade helps her find her key and cheers up, delighted she can see her human again. Despite the fact we never hear about Tessa before or after this episode, you end up sympathizing for Roxie and her bond with her human so much, that you want to see her find a way to get home again.
- "Sleepless in Paw-Tucket": A really funny episode with Edie betting Jade that she can't go one day without napping. But since she's a cat, she goes crazy and sleep deprived, and the consequences of her not napping are hilarious. At the end, Edie realizes that a cat really does need her daily nap.
Bad Qualities
- Trip Hamston can be an annoying character sometimes.
- Petula Woolwright and her posse (Sweetie Pom Pom, Gavin Chamelle, and Mitchell Snailford) can be really mean to Roxie and her friends sometimes.
- On the bright side, at least Petula gets her comeuppance whenever she acts like a jerk, and the show doesn't applaud her for being mean.
- Speaking of her posse, Mitchell Snailford is just the dumb character archetype who literally does nothing for the entire series after the first episode.
- While focusing less on humans is good, we never get to really see who any of the pets are owned by, which would've been great material. One possible exception is Tessa, Roxie's African-American owner who we get to see a doll of, and Roxie immensely misses her in one episode.
- Some bad episodes, like "Paw It Forward", which was terrible. It's basically a Jade Catkin torture episode where Roxie, Jade's best friend and roommate by the way, doesn't believe her when she says that Sherwin is faking being sick only to gain Roxie's affection and care. At the end, she still isn't aware of what Sherwin did and he gets away with all of it scot-free!
- The series was screwed over badly by Discovery Family, especially towards the middle which caused tons of episodes to air in other countries before the US, and even the world premiere of the series happened first in France. Thus, the show was cancelled and never got a Season 2.
Reception
It has a score of 6.8/10 on IMDb. However, it was rated 2/5 stars on Common Sense Media by Emily Ashby, stating that the show "does little to challenge the notion that it's an extended commercial for the brand". She also claimed that the stories are formulaic, and the characters are mostly one-dimensional.
Trivia
- This show was developed by Tim Maile and Douglas Tuber, who created Phil of the Future, and worked on other sitcoms such as Lizzie McGuire.
- Director Gillian Comerford is also known for being an animation director for Randy Cunningham: 9th Grade Ninja and animator for The Amazing World of Gumball.
- It was originally going to be called Littlest Pet Shop: UNLeashed.
- Roxie, Jade, Austin, Quincy, and Clicks were originally going to be named Pixie, Jinx, Duke, Clarence, and Peanut respectively.
- Paw-Tucket was named after Pawtucket, Rhode Island, in which Hasbro HQ was located in.
- Shannon Chan-Kent (Youngmee Song and the Biskit Twins), Kyle Rideout (Vinnie Terrio), and Tabitha St. Germain (Pepper Clark) were the only voice actors that worked on this show after the 2012 series.