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Bebe's Kids
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Bébé's Kids | |
|---|---|
 DVD Cover |
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| Directed by | Bruce W. Smith |
| Produced by | Willard Carroll Thomas L. Wilhite |
| Written by | Robin Harris (characters) Reginald Hudlin (screenplay) |
| Starring | Faizon Love Vanessa Bell Calloway Marques Houston Nell Carter Tone-Loc Tom Everett Rich Little Louie Anderson |
| Music by | John Barnes |
| Editing by | Tim Ryder (documentary segment]] Lynne Southerland |
| Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
| Release date(s) | July 31, 1992 (USA) |
| Language | English |
| Budget | Unknown |
| Gross revenue | $8,442,162 (USA) |
| IMDb profile | |
Bébé's Kids (released to VHS and DVD as Robin Harris' Bébé's Kids) is an animated feature produced by the Hudlin Brothers and Hyperion Pictures, directed by Bruce W. Smith, and released on July 31. 1992 by Paramount Pictures. The first ever animated feature to feature an all-Black main cast, the film is based upon comedian Robin Harris' "Bébé's Kids" stand-up comedy act. It features the voices of Faizon Love, Vanessa Bell Calloway, Marques Houston, Nell Carter, and Tone-Loc. Tom Everett, Rich Little and Louie Anderson also lend their voices. The movie plays on BET on occasion as of 2006.
Contents |
In the original act, Robin's prospective girlfriend asks him to take her and her son to Disneyland, but when he agrees, she shows up with four more kids, belonging to her friend Bébé.
As it turns out, Bébé's Kids are extremely rambunctious, misbehaved, ill-tempered, and flat-out bad. They terrorize Mickey Mouse, cut off Donald Duck's feet, try to steal Robin's 8-track/radio (while he's listening to it), and make a general menace of themselves. Their reputation is so bad that even the police refuse to mess with them.
In a second act, the Kids kidnap Robin and make him take them to Las Vegas. He tries to get a lion to eat them, but even the lion has heard of them and refuses to even try.
The name Bébé's Kids (alternately pronounced/spelled Bay-Bay Kids) has come to refer to any group of misbehaved children.
Bébé's Kids was the first animated feature film targeted toward an African-American audience. The film made a few changes to the original story, reducing the number of Bébé's kids from four to three, and moving the location from Disneyland to a generic amusement park named "Fun World", which is totally demolished by the kids' antics.
The plot of the film finds an animated version of Robin Harris (voiced by Love) recounting his disastrous first date with the beautiful Jamika (voiced by Calloway). Tagging along for the date were Jamika's mild-mannered son Leon (voiced by William Collins, Jr.) and her best friend Bébé's three (in the words of Harris) "bad-ass kids": Khalil (voiced by Houston), LeShawn (voiced by Jonell Green), and Pee-Wee (voiced by Tone-Loc). The kids, Harris remarks, are so bad that "even a circus can't train those kids! I thought the devil was through when he made Rosemary's Baby, but ohhhhhhh no! Oh no! Now we got...Bébé's Kids!"
The group decides to take a trip to the Disneyland-esque FunWorld, where they find more trouble than fun. Harris attempts more than once to get rid of the kids so that he and Jamika can be alone, but there is no escaping or besting the kids. "We don't die", says Pee-Wee, "we multiply." Also causing trouble are Harris' alimony-demanding ex-wife Dorthea (voiced by Myra J) and her best friend Vivian (voiced by Carter).
Featuring a hip hop-inspired art style and soundtrack, Bébé's Kids was underpromoted by Paramount and did not do very well until it resurfaced on home video and HBO in 1993. Since then, it has gone on to be a cult classic and was released on DVD on October 5, 2004.