All Rise...

Aaaaaahh! Judge David Johnson has to review another terrible kids show from the '90s!

The Charge

Aaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!

The Case

And that's not "Aaaaaaaaaahhhh!" as in "Aaaaaahhh! Real monsters!" That's "Aaaaahhhhh!" as in "Aaaaaaahhhhh this crap is unbearable!"

Congratulations 17-year-old Nickelodeon programming maven: you've managed to dropkick a few more of my brain cells into oblivion. Though part of me can't believe that this show was on nearly twenty years ago, a bigger part of me can't believe that there was an audience out there that could stomach this ear-splitting twaddle.

The 4-1-1: Aaahh!!! Real Monsters (writing that out is getting old very fast) focuses on three young freaks: Ickis, Oblina and Krumm. They're going to school and learning how to scare humans while also getting into a variety of kooky misadventures. You might recognize that one little douchebag who totes around his eyeballs in his fists, the lone memorable element in this entire series.

Each episode is broken down into two shorter 12-minute stories. Season One delivers five hours of small monsters screaming in snot-filled guttural voices:

Disc One
"The Switching Hour"
"Monsters, Get Real / Snorched If You Do, Snorched If You Don't"
"Curse Of The Krumm / Krumm Goes Hollywood"
"Monstrous Make-Over / A Wing And A Scare"
"Krumm's Pimple / Monster Hunter"
"Monsters Don't Dance / Gone Shopp'n"
"Old Monster / Mother, May I"

Disc Two
"Don't Just Do It / Joined At The Hip"
"Smile And Say Oblina / The Great Wave"
"Cold Hard Toenails / Attack Of The Blobs"
"Chip Off The Old Beast / The War's Over"
"Where Have All The Monsters Gone?"
"Simon Strikes Back / The Ickis Box"

This show is just lost on me. I'll give you this much: the creature designs are colorful and there's some semblance of imagination going on, but Holy Cow is this crap annoying. There are lame attempts at gross-out humor, which come across as super-contrived seeing this is Nickelodeon, and the rest of the non-potty jokes are shrill. Take this for a spin only if you are feeling crushed under the weight of your own nostalgia.

The no frills DVD delivers soft full-frame transfers, 2.0 stereo audio and no extras.

The Verdict

Guilty. These monsters need to be eradicated by those Attack the Block kids pronto.

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Did we give Aaahh!!! Real Monsters: Season 1 a fair trial? yes / no

What's "fair"? Whether positive or negative, our reviews should be unbiased, informative, and critique the material on its own merits.

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