SithVamp Reviews: Bebe's Kids

Welcome to another episode of SithVamp Reviews… In the 80s, there was a stand-up comedian named Robin Harris. One of Harris’ most famous, if not the most famous comedy acts was called “Bebe’s Kids”. This comedy act was so popular that an animated movie based on it was in the works. Unfortunately Harris died in 1990, two years before the movie was released. That is the movie I’ll be looking at today. Based on Robin Harris’ famous stand-up act, SithVamp Reviews brings you: Bebe’s Kids. Hang on… This is gonna be a bumpy ride…

Bebe’s Kids came out in 1992. The movie opens with our main character, Robin Harris’ animated self, sitting in a bar. The bartender asks Robin what’s wrong, and then Robin starts telling the story.

Then we see a flashback. Robin’s story starts at a funeral. Robin is invited here and he sees a very attractive woman named Jamika. When the funeral after-party is over, Robin sees Jamika walking home and he offers her to accompany her home. When they arrive at Jamika’s place, Robin meets Jamika’s son, Leon. We see that Robin gets along quite well with Leon. Before Robin leaves, he asks Jamika out for a date for the next day, but Jamika says she can’t leave Leon alone, so she suggests that she, Robin and Leon should go to a theme park called Fun World. Robin accepts the invitation, not knowing yet what waits for him…

The next day Robin drives up to Jamika’s house and here’s where he sees Jamika and Leon with three other kids; the title characters: Bebe’s Kids. The three kids belong to Jamika’s friend, Bebe (who never shows up in the movie), and they’re called LaShawn, Kahlil and Pee-Wee. The latter is voiced by Tone Loc, and has a running gag of having his diaper full all the time. Anyway, we see from the minute they’re introduced, that all three of Bebe’s Kids are troublemaking brats. They annoy and pick on Robin and on the way to Fun World, they pick on Leon too and they threaten him not to tell his mom on them and “show them more respect”. Look kids: bullying others does not mean they’ll treat you with respect.

Anyway, after a traffic jam, Robin, Jamika and the kids arrive at Fun World. Here, Robin apparently breaks a rule and a cop confronts him. Luckily, the cop doesn’t arrest Robin. Then, when Robin pays for the tickets, one of the kids, Kahlil is confronted by the supposed “villains” of the movie, the security guards, who come out of nowhere. They suspect that Kahlil is a troublemaker (and they’re right), but let him go by warning him that they’ll be watching them. And on a side note: when one of the guards spoke, for a moment I thought he was voiced by Gregg Berger doing his Cornfed Pig voice, but no: I checked the movie’s voice cast on iMDB and Behindthevoiceactors.com, and Berger isn’t in the cast. Lucky him.

Anyway, when Robin finishes paying for the tickets, he, Jamika and the kids enter Fun World, but the kids already start wreaking havoc: Kahlil and LaShawn enter a gift shop and start making mischief: they lock the doors, trapping the shoppers in the process and they start chasing them. Robin soon notices this, tries to get in the gift shop, but the door is locked, so he climbs in through the ventilation shaft. Robin breaks up the fight and leaves the store with the kids. Robin also gets Pee-Wee out of the House of Glass before Pee-Wee smashes every glass dish in there to pieces.

Then we see Robin, Jamika and the kids about to have lunch, and here’s where the B-plot of the movie starts: Robin is confronted by his ex-wife, Dorothea and her friend, Vivian (who somehow reminds me of Amethyst from Steven Universe). Dorothea’s plan is that she wants to get back together with Robin. Robin refuses and he walks off, but Vivian convinces Dorothea that Robin still loves her, and that’s why we’ll see them later on in the movie.

Anyway, after they finish lunch, Robin and Jamika take the Kids for the rides in the theme park, no, make that the Kids take Robin for rides, and on most of the rides, Robin is the butt monkey. After those shenanigans, Robin decides to spend some time together with Jamika in the Tunnel of Love and they let the Kids go to have fun. BIG MISTAKE. And Dorothea and Vivian decide to follow Robin and Jamika.

We see Robin and Jamika in the Tunnel of Love, bonding. First they chat with each other and then we see a “Pink Elephants” style music video. We see Robin and Jamika having fun, while Dorothea is trying to interfere, but always misses.

Jamika’s son Leon is left alone with Kahlil, LaShawn and Pee-Wee, and we see that he becomes one of them: he starts misbehaving too, because Kahlil told him to. So Bebe’s Kids start wreaking havoc again until they’re captured by the security guards. The guards take the Kids to a ride for misbehaving children. Bebe’s Kids soon break loose and they release the other kids too. They break into a toy store, where they start playing with the toys. That is, until the Security Guards show up again. Luckily Bebe’s Kids, along with all the other kids, get away.

Bebe’s Kids form a gang with the other kids, letting them become Bebe’s Kids too. Then Kahlil, LaShawn and Pee-Wee start rapping about how great they are, all the while wreaking more havoc and attacking some innocent park employers dressed up as Fun World’s mascots. And they rap about wanting respect. Again dudes: making everyone else feel miserable will not make them treat you with respect: it’ll just make them hate you even more! Anyway, the Security Guards show up again and start chasing the Kids. The other kids run for it, while Leon, Kahlil, LaShawn and Pee-Wee hide in a closed ride.

Anyway, we then see Robin and Jamika again, and Jamika says she has to go to the ladies’ room. When she enters, she hears Dorothea and Vivian telling lies about Robin, saying that he invites her to his place every night. As you can imagine, Jamika believes Dorothea’s lies. She storms out of the ladies’ room and demands answers from Robin. Robin first tells Jamika that Dorothea is his landlady. But later, when they’re in a theater of animatronics, he tells her that Dorothea is his ex-wife and she wants to get back together with him. Robin assures Jamika that Dorothea was lying, so they go to set things straight.

Meanwhile Lock, Shock and Barrel… No wait, I take that back: Lock, Shock and Barrel are more likeable than Kahlil, LaShawn and Pee-Wee. So Bebe’s Kids enter a warehouse, where Kahlil gets captured by a Terminator-like robot. Not-Terminator says that Kahlil destroyed one of his fellow robots, the guard robot at the toy store, so he will be put on trial. Not-Terminator puts the rest of the kids on trial too, but luckily they get an attorney: Robot Abraham Lincoln.

Then we see Bebe’s Kids on trial. The Judge is Not-Terminator and the Prosecution attorney is Robot Richard Nixon. And despite Robot Abraham Lincoln giving a defense speech, the Robots still vote that the Kids should be sentenced to death. That is until Leon starts rapping. He raps about how Kahlil and the other Kids are just misunderstood and they need freedom. Wow… wishing freedom for sociopaths… apparently the Bebe’s Kids virus is contagious, Leon. Ditch those kids before they affect you to the point of no return! Anyway, thanks to the song, the trial is dismissed and Bebe’s Kids can go free.

Back at the ladies’ room, Robin enters with Jamika to give Dorothea a piece of his mind. Robin confronts Dorothea, telling her that he’ll never get back together with her, and then the two proceed to go in a “Yo Mama” duel, which ends with Robin winning. Robin and Jamika walk out of the ladies’ room, leaving Dorothea and Vivian.

Meanwhile, Leon, Kahlil, LaShawn and Pee-Wee get out of the Robots’ lair and see that the other kids are still being chased by the Security Guards. The kids run for a Pirate Ship ride, hijack the ship and then proceed to attack another ship sailing, not knowing that Robin and Jamika are aboard that ship. The kids attack the ship and take the passengers hostage, including Dorothea and Vivian, and make them walk the plank.

Robin has had enough of Bebe’s Kids so he decides to leave the theme park with Jamika, leaving the kids there. Robin runs to the parking lot with Jamika, only to find that the Kids already got there. As Robin, Jamika and the Kids leave Fun World, we see that the entire theme park crumbles to ruins. Then Robin sees a cop in the rear-view mirror and we find that the cop is afraid of Bebe’s Kids. Robin has had it with Bebe’s Kids, so he decides to take them home.

Robin drops Bebe’s Kids off at their home, and here’s where he sees that Bebe’s Kids live in poor conditions. This makes Robin feel a little sorry for Bebe’s Kids, so he leaves them some money to buy some food. But I still don’t feel sorry for these little jerks, not after what I’ve seen them doing. Anyway, when he drives home with Jamika and Leon, Robin tells Jamika that he was poor too when he was a kid, but he wasn’t bad as Bebe’s Kids. This upsets Jamika and Robin finishes his story by saying that Jamika didn’t talk to him on the rest of the way.

When Robin walks out of the bar, he sees Jamika. They apologize to each other and kiss. It turns out that Jamika brought the Kids with her. The movie ends with Robin taking Jamika and the Kids to Las Vegas and the people there are terrified of Bebe’s Kids too. Then Pee-Wee pulls a plug, turning off all electricity in Vegas and then the ending credits start rolling.

And that’s Bebe’s Kids, and let me tell you: I didn’t really like it.

Good things:
- What I will give this movie credit for is that it’s the first animated movie to star African-American characters.
- It’s from the same guy who later made the Proud Family.
- Jamika (She’s a hottie AND one of the few likeable characters in the movie).

Bad things:
- These kids… these unlikeable little jerks… What am I supposed to like about them? I mean from the moment they’re introduced they act like assholes and ever since they arrived at the theme park, they did nothing but terrorize everyone there: they’re constantly attacking and threatening people; they corrupt other kids, they love destroying things and yet they never get punished! I’m surprised these brats didn’t end up in juvenile hall by the end of the movie…
- The animation is all over the place. I mean one minute it looks like the animation is fluent like a Don Bluth movie, and in the next it looks like the most poorly animated episodes of Transformers G1 have a better animation budget.
- And at the chase scenes, I couldn’t even tell who was talking!

Favorite character:
- Jamika
- Leon (Even when he started hanging out the three hellspawns, he was still the most likeable kid)
- Vivian (She kind of reminded me of Amethyst)
- Robot Abraham Lincoln
- I also kind of liked Robin

Least favorite character:
- All three of Bebe’s Kids
- Dorothea

So overall, I think Bebe’s Kids is an annoying movie. I’m giving it 3 out of 10. See you next time on SithVamp Reviews.