You guys get two blog entries tonight. Exciting, eh?

I was recently comparing notes with some of my friends about the cartoons we watched when we were kids, and I found an anomaly or two that are definitely worth talking about. The one that concerns us this go-around is Unico. What is Unico, you ask?


This is the eponymous Unico, star of three movies and some unknown quantity of manga. The first two of these movies were dubbed and shown on the Disney channel in the early days of the network. The first one, which I’ll only touch upon briefly, involved little orphan Unico meeting up with Beezle (the demonic child of the Devil of Solitude, who stole Unico’s horn to put upon himself), Katy the Kitty Witch (a drunken cat whom Unico transformed into a human) and the Baron DeGhost (a suspicious nobleman who turns out to be Satan). At the end of the movie, I think the Baron transforms into a giant terrifying black demon, cracks the ground open, scorching the entire land with lava, and flies around trying to kill Unico. Right.

But what I really want to talk about is the second movie. The movie starts out with us meeting young Toby:

Toby dresses like a blue meanie and rides tree trunks like land speeders:

He also has a cat and is an adept flute-player.

The problem is that his flute playing turns people into blocks.

And makes them march into the ocean and get on a ship.

He does this because he has sold his soul to the devil.

The devil in question is Lord Kuruku, whose existence is the basis of most of my childhood nightmares.

Kuruku did not walk, you see. Nor did he run. He instead either rolled about, like a ball, or flew around at high speeds, shrieking in laughter, in this shrill, high pitched voice. Usually he was looking for Toby, so he would start screeching, “TOOOOOOBBYYYYYYYYY…..!” Like this:

Oh, and did I mention that he was using these new lego people to build a castle for himself? Well, he was.

His deal was that he was an old puppet that wasn’t ever loved by his master, so he gained magical powers and decided to play with everyone else instead. Except he was horrifically, terrifyingly insane. Watching him play with people as toys was a truly harrowing experience. Hell, even when he was turned back into a doll at the end, he wasn’t any less frightening.

So yes. While some people had their David the Gnomes and their My Little Ponies, I had Toy Story from Hell. I watched that tape into the ground, and will carry that thing’s voice to the grave. I almost want to get a copy, just so I can better remember how uniquely macabre it was.