Little Shop


Little Shop is a 1991 animated musical fantasy comedy television series that aired on Saturday mornings on the Fox Kids TV network, about a teenage boy and his giant talking plant. Based on Roger Corman's 1960 comedy horror film The Little Shop of Horrors as well as incorporating elements of the [Little Shop of Horrors (musical)|Off-Broadway musical of the same name], the concept is credited to Ellen Levy and Mark Edward Edens, and the series was produced by Tom Tataranowicz, with Corman as a consultant. The horror elements in previous versions of the story, in which characters are eaten by the plant, are toned down for children in this series.
Ownership of the series passed to Disney in 2001 when Disney acquired Fox Kids Worldwide, which also includes Marvel Productions.

Synopsis

Self-proclaimed nerd Seymour Krelborn, an adolescent boy who works in a flower shop, is friends with a talking Venus flytrap named Junior. Junior sprouts from a 200-million-year-old seed and has the ability to talk and hypnotize people. Only Seymour is aware of Junior's abilities. The flower shop is owned by stodgy Mr. Mushnik, whose daughter Audrey is the object of Seymour's affections. Audrey, however, is unaware of Seymour's feelings towards her. Buck-toothed Paine Driller, a neighborhood bully, continuously targets Seymour. Contemporary news sources suggest that a character named "Dr. Toxic” was meant to be a main antagonist, but the character does not appear in any episodes.
Episodes focus on the pubescent exploits of the leads and frequently feature a moral. They also feature at least two musical numbers per episode. Consistent with the "urban" persona of the plant in the musical, Audrey Junior raps in the series during his numbers, and speaks in a hip-hop dialect. Also featured are a trio of singing flowers reminiscent of Crystal, Ronette, and Chiffon.

Differences between the film and series

Each episode features a musical segment. The young human characters are thirteen years old and in junior high. Junior is significantly more friendly and well-intentioned than his counterparts in either the 1960 movie or the musical, and was reanimated from a prehistoric Earth seed that was dormant for over 200 million years, rather than being extraterrestrial in origin. Although Junior maintains a voracious appetite, this iteration very rarely feasts on human blood. Junior retains his ability to hypnotize people, as in the film, as well as the ability to telekinetically manipulate plants and objects made from plant-based materials. Junior sometimes aids Seymour without his knowledge, sometimes by using his hypnotic abilities, and will occasionally insult Seymour.
Audrey, Seymour's love interest, is a bow-wearing brunette who is always thinking about what job she wants when she grows up. She is Mr. Mushnik's daughter in this adaptation. Brace-faced neighborhood bully Paine Driller replaces the character of Orin Scrivello, the sadistic dentist from the musical.

Cast

  • Marlow Vella as Seymour Krelborn
  • * Lisa Paulette and Jana Lexxa as Seymour's singing voice
  • Tamar Lee as Audrey Mushnik
  • * Jennie Kwan as Audrey's singing voice
  • Harvey Atkin as Mr. Mushnik
  • * Michael Rawl as Mr. Mushnik's singing voice
  • Buddy Lewis as Junior
  • * Terry "Proffet" McGee as Junior's singing voice
  • David Huband as Paine Driller
  • * Mark Ryan-Martin as Paine's singing voice

Additional voices

Crew