SPRING FOR STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE

Strawberry Shortcake

Season 1 (2003)

We had another obnoxiously early Easter this year, and Mother’s Day is still a ways off (though fast approaching).  This makes for a somewhat tricky time in terms of material for the blog.  The weather is finally starting to turn warm and spring is setting in, but there isn’t an abundance of spring-themed TV episodes and films.  Luckily, years of obsessive research has given me an option for just such an occasion. Hence "Spring for Strawberry Shortcake," the second episode of the 2003 reboot of the greeting card character turned 80s childhood icon.  Previously I watched and somewhat surprisingly very much enjoyed the Christmas episode of this rather short-lived series, so perhaps my hopes were a bit too high going in to this.

We begin in Strawberryland, still coated in winter’s snow, where Strawberry Shortcake is eagerly awaiting the arrival of spring.  She explains to her (I assume baby sister?) Apple Dumplin’ what spring is and how great it is and so on and so forth.  She then assembles her various dessert-themed friends and pets (including the delightfully bitchy cat Custard and braggart horse Honey Pie) to help with the spring planting.  Along the way we’re “treated” to several songs about spring, working together, seeds, etc.

And yet spring still fails to show so Strawberry, in a plot almost indentical to the Christmas episode, sets out to find it.  She’s joined by a couple of her friends along the way, who have their own reasons for wanting spring (it involves a checklist of seasonal items like butterflies, flowers, green grass, baby birds and on and on).  Around this point we get the episode’s best song, a vaguely Calypso number called “Strawberry Jammin.’”  It was also at this point that I paused the TV and was dismayed to see that there was 20 minutes left to go.

Strawberry and her pals cross paths with Old Man Winter, who tells them Spring is an actual person and they have to go the Land of Seasons to find her.  “The Land of Seasons” sounds exactly like the kind of place I’d like to go to, so I perked up a bit at this point.  In short order they get there and meet Spring herself.  If you’ve ever wondered what the embodiment of Spring looks like, she’s around 12 years old and wears a green tutu.  Spring and the Strawberry gang pal around, throwing snowballs, until Spring is convinced to stop having fun and get to goddamn work.  She uses her magic to melt the snow, bring the flowers and trees to life, and at LONG last spring has officially arrived in Strawberryland.

There are several rather jumbled morals presented to us throughout the episode (some through song).  There’s something about teamwork and working together to plant crops, and something else about Spring needing to not be lazy and do her duty—I guess?  This show is definitely aimed at more of a preschool audience, so the plotting is light, the songs are endless, and the animation is pretty iffy.  This episode lacked the charms and clever wordplay of "A Very Berry Christmas," and also suffered from a lack of Custard’s bitchy repartee.  And Strawberry Shortcake media of any form suffers when Sour Grapes, the evil diva herself, fails to make an appearance:

Spring Quotient: A 5, as it doesn’t get much springier than this.

Own It, See It, Skip It?: This one definitely falls into the category of “I watched it so you don’t have to.”  Skip it!