‘Tiny Toon Adventures: How I Spent My Vacation’ DVD Review

Posted 8 years ago by Movies

Tiny Toon Adventures: How I Spent My Vacation

There were a few VHS tapes that I had as a kid that got watched all the time. Rock-a-Doodle, We’re Back!, and Fievel Goes West come to mind, as well as a direct-to-video movie tied to one of my favorite cartoons of the early 90s, Tiny Toons.

Tiny Toon Adventures: How I Spent My Vacation came out in 1992 and for some reason is just now coming out on DVD, years after all my other favorite VHS tapes have made the jump. I was excited to watch this again and add it to my media center, but I wasn’t sure how it was going to hold up. Is it still watchable?

Not really. Tiny Toons and Animaniacs were two of my favorite cartoons growing up, but they’re also two shows that I haven’t been able to enjoy as an adult. This movie is super nostalgic for me, but that was the only thing keeping me going through all 80 minutes.

The story is very similar to Disney’s A Goofy Movie that would come out three years later. The characters you already knew from TV are on summer break in between seasons (just like you!) and go on a crazy adventure in the form of a road trip complete with musical numbers, waterfalls, and redneck possums. Actually, it’s weird how much these two movies have in common, except for the fact that I still love watching A Goofy Movie.

The thing I always loved about movie versions of my favorite cartoons, whether they were theatrical releases or just direct-to-video, was the improvements you could expect. Ducktales: The Treasure of the Lost Lamp and A Goofy Movie had much better animation than their TV counterparts, and overall it just felt like a bigger deal. How I Spent My Vacation just feels like the same shoddy animation as Tiny Toons, the same jokes, and the same spazziness.

Granted, there is a Superman cameo.

I know I’m probably being too hard on this now-twenty-year-old direct-to-video animated movie, but there are plenty of movies in the same category that I still enjoy watching. I was happy to get to watch Plucky suffer in the backseat with Hampton’s crazy family one more time, but it’s not a movie I can really enjoy anymore. Plus, I don’t know what took Warner Bros. so long to release a bare-bones DVD where the subtitles and trailers can count as bonus features.

If you’re more nostalgic than me, you can pick up this movie on Amazon.

Disclaimer: This review was based on a free review copy. Read my blog disclosure statement for more.

  • I’ve actually never seen this, which is surprising to me since I loved Tiny Toons and used to watch it every day after school. I think it came on right before Animaniacs, which I also love. Of the two shows, I think Animaniacs still holds up watching it as an adult. It’s full of all kinds of political jokes and innuendos that probably went right over my head back then.

    • Alistair Carlyle

      The fact that you think political jokes make a show adult shows that you are a child. Sad.

  • Alistair Carlyle

    Sounds like you just don’t like looney tunes style with your comment about spazziness. I find this fast paced, inventive, dynamic, and ultimately more entertaining and sophisticated than disney’s pathetic, paint by numbers, overly sentimental crap fests, ( don bluth is even worse) but to each his own.