By Chris Sawin
| Published 32 seconds ago

Pom Poko is an animated fantasy film from 1994 written and directed by Isao Takahata (Grave of the Fireflies, Only Yesterday). The English dub of the film refers to the animals as raccoons, but they’re actually based on Japanese raccoon dogs, also known as tanuki. The tanuki are popular in Japanese folklore and are believed to be magical creatures with shape-shifting abilities, able to pass themselves off as just about any inanimate object, any other animal, or even human beings. The Tanooki suit in Super Mario Bros. 3 boasts a similar concept.

In Search Of A New Home

The film follows a group of raccoons (I watched the dub, so we’ll still call them raccoons from here on out) as they try to save their home in Tama Hills from deforestation and housing construction with the intent of a new suburban community meant to house up to 300,000. Up to that point, the raccoons had still lived near humans, but not to feast on their scraps. They had access to farm animals, crops, and other various forms of food that weren’t readily available in the city. They lived in an abandoned farmhouse in the country for a year, until it was demolished, and construction began on what is now referred to as New Tama.

The raccoons hunt and search for a new home, but all of the territories are already occupied by other raccoons. So naturally, they battle over who gets to stay. The raccoons have three forms in the film: the normal, most realistic version that just looks like a normal raccoon, a more caricatured version that walks on two legs and speaks, and a final, minimally detailed version that isn’t seen as often and also resembles rubber hose animation. The raccoons hide the fact that they can walk on two legs, speak, and shape-shift into humans. Their final form is reminiscent of the T-1000’s chrome form in Terminator 2: Judgment Day, when it’s between forms. It’s like it only comes out when they’re overstimulated; a combination of that and someone who tried to draw The Berenstain Bears from memory.

A Big Bag Of Tricks

While the raccoons in the film are based on Japanese raccoon dogs and Japanese folklore, why their testicles are featured so prominently isn’t really explained. Even when the raccoons transform into something with clothes that isn’t human (a lot of the raccoons wear samurai-like attire in battle), the males still have their balls hanging out. Halfway into the film, a 103-year-old raccoon named Osho asks all the male raccoons to meet up in the garden.

Once gathered, he’s all like, “Isn’t this red blanket we’re all sitting on so soft and nice? Just kidding, it’s my raccoon scrote.” They refer to it as a “raccoon pouch” in the film, but this thing is 150 sq ft and somebody (or a team of somebodies. Can you imagine if there was like a “coon junk animation team” in the credits?) had to animate this giant red blanket turning back into a massive, wrinkled gray-ish brown elder scrotum that reverts back to normal size.

Raccoon nutsack physics get more intricate as the film bounces on. Its first form may be stretched into a blanket, but the pouches eventually evolve into becoming a huge bullfrog, a hot air balloon, a parachute, an Indiana Jones-sized boulder, and a ship chock full of treasure. To be fair, the last one involves a 999-year-old raccoon that goes senile, and transforms his ballsack into a big enough boat to house a bunch of fake treasure (these are all illusions powered by magic scrotums; nutsack ghosts, if you will) and dozens of raccoons sailing off to their deaths.

Song, Dance, And Sack-Driven Logic

Pom Poko has this crazy sack-driven concept that makes it seem as if raccoons should rule the forest and anything they set their eyes on. But the film is quick to point out how lazy they are and that they don’t take anything seriously. After every small accomplishment, they want to throw a party. Even if one of them is passionate about getting revenge on the humans destroying their homes, they’re quick to drop it at the thought of tempura or any other delicious food.

They’re also distracted by this particular song about raccoons. If someone sings it at them, they have to finish it. The Pom Poko title comes from the sound it makes when they drum on their bellies. Every Spring, they have to fight the urge to screw themselves stupid and make a hundred babies. For a film that prioritizes the prominent showcasing of raccoon balls, it may mention sex and being frisky in spring, but it never shows anything graphic. There’s suddenly a raccoon with nipples hanging out in the last half hour, though, which is crazy to think about.

The original plan in the film involves the raccoons researching humans over the next five years. This involves scrounging up a working TV from the dump to monitor humans, which the raccoons drop all forms of productivity in order to watch TV all day, and reviving the ancient raccoon art of transformation. There are elder transformation masters located far away that the raccoons have to search for in the film to teach the raccoons of Tama Hills, specifically the ones who know nothing about altering their form or how to transform.

Transformations Take A Toll

The way the film addresses transformation and holding forms is intriguing, as well. Chameleons may be able to change color, but in this world, foxes, raccoons (and some cats) are the only ones who can physically transform. I feel like Pom Poko wants to introduce the idea that some of the humans that walk among us may actually be raccoons, and that’s cool to think about, not so much that someone we know may actually be a raccoon. But some of the people we see every day aren’t what they present themselves to be. Maybe some are hiding this extravagant other life with magical creatures we can only dream about.

It takes a lot of energy to maintain transformations for a long time. Multiple raccoons often have to take the same human form and switch out when they get tired if they’re out in public. The bags under their eyes are symbols of their fatigue, and things like energy drinks are hinted at being invented because so many raccoons are out there pretending to be human and getting exhausted, so there’s this crazy demand for them.

What’s wild is that the war between raccoons and humans starts as mild vandalism and escalates into full-blown insanity. At one point, the raccoons force vehicles off the road and end up killing three people. Back at Tama Hills, they all want to celebrate but are convinced to have a moment of silence. The eulogy and gathering last maybe two sentences before the raccoons laugh about death and start partying.

Could Have Reached Further Into Its Bag Of Tricks

The film plays out like a mash-up of Beetlejuice and Fantastic Mr. Fox. The raccoons use their shape-shifting powers to try to scare the humans away. There’s a whole sequence where they scare a police officer while trying to be human, but they all pretend not to have a face and scare him repeatedly until he passes out. The deforestation storyline, combined with extreme measures to save their home, feels like a direct inspiration for the Wes Anderson stop-motion film because it’s so similar.

The crown jewel of shape-shifting in Pom Poko is Operation Spectre, a parade where they all turn into demons, monsters, and ghosts to try to scare the residents of New Tama away. But a lot of the creatures are famous yokai from Japanese folklore, and Totoro even makes a brief cameo. It’s an extraordinary sequence that ultimately fails its intended purpose, but it is so visually creative and memorable.

Up until these recent viewings of Pom Poko (I watched it twice for this article), I had always felt it was a lackluster effort from Studio Ghibli. I think I originally felt like they should have done more with their balls. I thought, “They bounce around on these things for two hours and do everything but their intended purpose. That’s dumb. This is dumb.” These raccoons have 101 uses for their balls. They treat their sacks like Martha Stewart does crafts. One of them jumps onto a moving vehicle and stretches their pouch across the entire windshield, causing the driver to lose control and drive off the road.

Pom Poko is one of the more unique Studio Ghibli films, with a ton of unpredictable WTF moments without straying too far from its mostly family-friendly reputation as an animated film. Seek it out, embrace the ridiculousness, and witness a bunch of raccoons adapt to life’s hardships by folding and stretching their teabags like a master origamist.

Pom Poko (as well as 21 of the 23 core Studio Ghibli films) is currently streaming on Max.

By Robert Scucci
| Published 14 seconds ago

2006’s Little Big Top is one of those movies you’ve probably never heard of unless you’re a fan of both Sid Haig and Richard Riehle. It’s a movie about clowning around, literally, and I can’t think of a better actor to portray a retired, drunken, down-on-his-luck circus clown than Haig. Think of it as a Captain Spaulding side quest. One where he’s not in hot pursuit of a bunch of sexy teenagers he can drop off at Dr. Satan’s place to be disemboweled, but instead getting absolutely hammered in his old, abandoned childhood home while reluctantly reentering the circus life he left behind so many years ago.

At its heart, Little Big Top is a film about putting your ego and personal demons aside for the greater good of the community. Here we have a sad clown who’s perfectly content drinking the rest of his days away, but rediscovers his passion for pieing people in the face when tasked with whipping the next generation of circus folk into shape. At first, he only does it for the money, but it becomes about something more by the time the story wraps.

This Movie Wouldn’t Work Without Sid Haig

Sid Haig totally understood the assignment, which makes perfect sense because he had just wrapped production on The Devil’s Rejects before working on Little Big Top. The way I see it, he got the manic killer clown energy out of his system with that movie, as well as 2003’s House of 1000 Corpses, and what we get here is a much more subdued performance. In my head, I kept calling the movie Captain Spaulding’s Last Ride. What a way to go out.

We first catch a glimpse of this character, known only as Seymour, through his opening sequences. He arrives in town, hits up the liquor store without hesitation, heads to his old boarded-up house, realizes it has no electricity or plumbing, cooks bacon over a fire while getting wasted, steps outside to relieve himself, and then crashes in preparation for the inevitable hangover.

Shortly after arriving, Seymour is approached by Bob (Richard Riehle), who’s organizing a circus event for the company Seymour’s grandfather founded. Wanting nothing to do with the lights, pies, and spectacle, but desperate for cash, Seymour agrees to coach the next generation under Bob’s supervision, but not for free. Bob, the gullible sap that he is, pays him out of his own pocket, which he immediately regrets when Seymour blows it all on booze and keeps living in his own filth.

Realizing how much faith Bob has in him, even though he’s 100 percent a lost cause, Seymour eventually comes around, and his passion for the circus slowly reignites. Think of it as a slow smolder, where our hero comes to terms with the fact that the only thing he’s good at is entertaining, even if his passion for it is long gone.

Inspiring, But Not Really, But That’s The Point

Little Big Top tells an ugly truth that most of us don’t want to admit. Sometimes the things you’re good at aren’t necessarily the things you want to do with your life. Maybe you don’t want to take over the family business because it doesn’t feel like your calling. Or maybe you just lost your way and need to be reminded that you were once not only great at what you do, but passionate about it. Little Big Top is about begrudgingly rediscovering that passion, not for your own sake, but for the sake of those around you.

Watching Seymour fight off yet another violent hangover while criticizing the new troupe’s clown car etiquette perfectly sums up this feeling because you can practically feel the pounding headache and smell the disdain early in the film. He’s stepping out of his comfort zone, which for him means getting completely assfaced and passing out in his own mess, because the next generation desperately needs guidance, and he’s the only one even capable of giving it.

Watching Seymour figure out where he belongs in all of this is half the fun that Little Big Top has to offer. The other half is watching Richard Riehle’s Bob realize just how screwed he is after spending his savings bankrolling Seymour’s disastrous return to the circus.

Little Big Top is currently streaming for free on Tubi.

Six years ago, we featured a taste test of dark chocolate bars, and one reader commented: “The best dark chocolate is milk chocolate.” A hot take, and one with which I happen to agree! So, we thought it was time for another experiment…

We couldn’t have asked for a better panel of judges: five seventh graders, with sweet teeth and strong opinions. Anton’s friends came over after school, and we challenged them to rate 11 popular milk chocolate brands in a blind taste test.

The Contenders:
Only plain milk chocolate varieties were included (no nuts, fillings, or flavors).

The Methodology:
Following Jenny’s finely tuned protocol, I served as master of ceremonies, with Joanna joining as my hype woman. I set up the samples ahead of time, “blinding” the brands as much as possible (those engraved with logos were turned upside down), along with sparkling water and unsalted crackers for cleansing the palate between samples. Each sample was numbered, and only I had the key to the corresponding brands.

I instructed the testers — Nick, Anton, Sienna, Juliet, and Ella — to taste each sample at the same time and weigh in on attributes like sweetness, bite, creaminess, and flavor. Then I asked them to privately rank each sample on a scale of 1-5 (5 being the best). I also asked them to refrain from making guesses on the chocolate brands, to avoid influencing each other. Did they follow these last two instructions? No, not even for a second. (Future scientists, take note: middle schoolers cannot not talk to each other). But did they take the task of scrutinizing and ranking these chocolates extremely seriously? Yes, 100%.

When testing was complete, I gathered their score sheets and averaged the rankings of each sample. In retrospect, I also should have instructed them to round their decimals, so as to avoid rankings like 4.12595982484636456467. But again, this was a flaw in my own procedure, and I cannot fault the children for being precise.

In the end, it didn’t matter anyway. After running the numbers and reviewing their observations, the results were very clear. Here are our findings — and scroll down to the bottom for the overall winner:

The Creamiest
Lindt Classic Recipe & Cadbury Dairy Milk: 4.8
These two scored high across the board (our only samples with tied scores), and both were noted for their exceptionally smooth, creamy texture. One tester described the Cadbury as having a “pure milk” flavor, and several agreed it was the “milkiest” milk chocolate. Everyone also liked the thin-but-not-too-thin shape of the Lindt bar.

Best Flavor
MilkBoy: 4.44
Chocolove: 4.3468
These two were also overall crowdpleasers (and the least recognizable by taste — no one had any idea what brand they might be). MilkBoy elicited the biggest response, flavor-wise, and testers said they tasted notes of raspberry, almond, and even mint. Chocolove was noted for its fruity sweetness — pleasant, but not overpowering. And everyone REALLY liked the domed shape of the squares.

Best Shape & Texture
Dove: 4.5
Ritter Sport Fine Milk Chocolate: 4.38
Whole Foods 365: 4.182
One definite takeaway from this taste test? Shape matters. Like Chocolove, the Dove bar is portioned into small, domed squares. That alone nudged its score up, and it was one of the surprise favorites (though some found it a little too sweet). Another surprise was the Whole Foods 365 bar, which was praised for its texture. One described it as “waxy and SO good.” (I have to agree, the “waxiness” yields a satisfying bite.) Ritter Sport, with its chunky squares, also got high marks on shape, texture, and its pleasant dissolve. And it’s worth noting that, although the official testers weren’t blown away, Ritter Sport was the grown-up favorite by far (Joanna and I tried them before the kids arrived, and kept our lips zipped during testing).

The Outliers
Trader Joe’s: 4.2682
Endangered Species: 3.84
One tester declared the Trader Joe’s sample a 5/5, right off the bat — no notes, loved everything about it. The rest of the testers responded with a resounding meh. A similar thing happened with Endangered Species, which many testers thought was an accidental dark-chocolate addition (it has a higher cocoa content and definitely could be confused for dark). One tester LOVED it, while everyone else (myself included) found it too hard, too bitter, and just too intense. No one wanted a second bite.

The Least Favorite
Hershey’s Symphony Bar: 3.8
Ouch! Remember when Symphony Bars were the fancy chocolate? Times have changed. These kids were NOT impressed. “It just tastes like a s’more.”

The Big Winner
Tony’s Chocolonely: 4.98
It wasn’t even close, y’all. Tony’s was the winner, beloved by all. While it wasn’t deemed the most anything — not the creamiest, sweetest, etc. — I actually think that worked in its favor. The balance was just right. Another big plus was size and shape: Tony’s is a decidedly chonky bar of chocolate, and it breaks apart into a bunch of uneven hunks, which is oddly satisfying. The brand recognition was definitely a factor here (“I got the lucky part!” one tester said, taking the little coin-shaped piece in the center), but I suspect this would have been the winner either way. Tony’s is both good chocolate and fun chocolate. And, really, what more can you ask for?

A big thanks to our wonderful judges, Anton, Nick, Juliet, Ella, and Sienna! Any other milk chocolate fans out there? Do you have a favorite?

P.S. More taste tests, including the best vanilla ice cream and our favorite pasta sauce.