Case Number 13287: Small Claims Court

ZULA PATROL: EXPLORE SPACE

Genius Products // 2008 // 57 Minutes // Not Rated
Reviewed by Judge David Johnson // March 24th, 2008

The Charge

Take a wild ride and learn all about space with the Zula patrol!

The Case

The Zula Patrol is a CGI-animated educational kids show featuring a handful of alien characters zipping around space in their spaceship, going on adventures, learning facts about space all while ear-piercingly irritating big band music blasts in the background.

Four episodes of space mayhem, with the "adventure" and "education" segments highlighted:

* "Three-Ringed Gorga"
ADVENTURE: Multo -- an alien that looks like an upside-down cheddar cheese goldfish with three eyestalks -- tells the origin story about Gorga, the moon pig/dog that rides around with the Patrol. But Gorga wasn't always the subservient pet that we've all come to know and love. No, he was raised in a space circus under the thumb of an ill-tempered carnie, until the Zula Patrol came along to free him and give him a new home!

EDUCATION: OK, repeat after me, because by the time the episode is over, it will have been drilled mercilessly into your head -- the moon doesn't emit its own light, that's just the sunlight we see reflected off of it.

* "Moons Mayhem"
ADVENTURE: The Patrol is blasting around the solar system, inviting the various planetary moons to come to a moon festival. Little does gang Zula know, the evil Dark Truder has a plan to neutralize the patrol so he can take over all the moons for some reason.

EDUCATION: Horrified that one of the Patrol members thinks all moons look alike, Multo teaches them how diverse and unique each moon is, doing his part to combat the scourge of moonism.

* "The Probe Who Came to Dinner "
ADVENTURE: When the Patrol members spot a new planet, they're excited to fly over there to take a look. But Multo warns of the dangers associated with landing on a mysterious planet, and dispatches his awesome probe to investigate it.

EDUCATION: Probes are cool if they don't drive into a canyon or something.

* "Forget-Me-Naut"
ADVENTURE: After a space mission, Bula returns to the Patrol with no memory of who he is. It will fall to his Patrol comrades to jog his memory. Little do they know, Dark Truder has kidnapped the real Bula and sent a fake one in his place.

EDUCATION: Astronauts do cool things like float and collect rocks.

It's simplistic storytelling with even more simplistic computer-generated animation, laden with facts and trivia about space, space travel, astronauts, planetary bodies and so forth. That's Zula Patrol and it's not much more.

Full frame, 5.1 surround, trivia and a sing-along and that's your disc.

Scales of Justice
Judgment: 80

Perp Profile
Studio: Genius Products
Video Formats:
* Full Frame

Audio Formats:
* Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround (English)
* Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo (English)
* Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo (Portuguese)
* Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo (Spanish)

Subtitles:
* English

Running Time: 57 Minutes
Release Year: 2008
MPAA Rating: Not Rated

Distinguishing Marks
* Sing-along
* Trivia

Accomplices
* IMDb
http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0478960/combined