TV Show Review: Cars Toons - Mater's Tall Tails

Stars: 3 out of 5

Pros: Some great puns and clever stories

Cons: Short are formulaic if watched back to back

The Bottom Line: 

These shorts are funny

When taken in small doses

Not for one sitting

Mater's Tall Tales - Shorts That are Too Short to Truly Entertain

Being the Pixar fan I am, I took note when they released Mater's Tall Tales, a collection of Cars Toons, late last year.  I kept almost buying it and talking myself out of it.  I recently finally gave in and bought the disc.  While I enjoyed it, I wish I had borrowed it from someone first instead.

Apparently, most of those shorts started out as a series shown on The Disney Channel.  And maybe that was my biggest problem.  We've got 9 shorts for a total running time of 38 minutes.  Yes, if you're doing the math, you realized that each story is only about 4 minutes long.  And considering they are formulaic, if you sit down and watch them all back to back, they begin to get a little repetitive.

Your basic story goes something like this.  Mater and Lightning McQueen are hanging out, sometimes with other characters from the movie Cars around as well (although they rarely speak).  Something happens that reminds Mater of some wild adventure he had.  Just as things are getting their most outrageous, Lightning asks Mater how he dealt with the situation, which prompts Mater to say, "Don't you remember?  You were there, too."  And sure enough, for the remainder of the tale, Lightning is part of the action.  Things end, and Lightning drives off not believing the story, but something always happens that makes us wonder if it was true or not.

So, what kind of tall tales do we get?  I've got to admit that some of them are downright clever.  Once upon a time, Mater was a famous bulldozer fighter in Spain.  He helped a UFO escape from Parking Area 51.  Mater was a wrestler, dare devil, and participated in a drift style race in Tokyo.

Two of the stories are new, created especially for this disc.  They are "Moon Mater" which finds Mater traveling to the Moon to tow a probe who falls into a crater and can't get out.  With my love of mysteries, it's no surprise that I loved "Mater Private Eye" which finds the tow truck on the case of counterfeit tires and a carnapped twin.  It's told in the classic hard boiled style, including black and white animation during the story itself.

Most of these stories are fun on their own.  They are a little short, even by shorts standards, but I can see why they'd be entertaining if sprinkled in to something else you were watching.  Sitting down and watching them back to back takes away some of the freshness, however.  They really all begin to look alike since the formula is so obvious.  These were meant to be enjoyed in very small doses and not for 38 solid minutes.

Another complaint is the voice cast.  Larry the Cable guy comes back to voice Mater, but Owen Wilson wasn't back as Lightning.  They didn't do a good job matching his voice either, and it was obvious every time he spoke it wasn't really Lightning.

The disc has about as many extras as it does content.  You get the typical stuff with the artists talking about the characters or the shorts.  It's interesting if you are a big enough fan, but there is little ground breaking information here.

I got the Blu-Ray version of this release.  It comes as a two pack with a DVD as well.  Best I can tell, the two discs have the same content, so if you want this and are thinking about getting just the DVD, spend the extra two or three bucks and get this set.  You'll get that second disc for not much extra money.

Mater's Tall Tales is fun in the small doses it was originally intended for and not to sit down and watch all at once.  Sit down and watch one or two, and you'll enjoy them.  Otherwise, they'll lose their humor.