Little Shop is a 1991 American/French animated fantasy comedy television series that aired on Saturday mornings on the Fox Kids TV network, about a teenager and a giant talking plant. Little Shop was based on the 1960 Roger Corman film The Little Shop of Horrors; Corman served as a consultant. The concept of the adaptation is credited to Ellen Levy and Mark Edward Edens, and the series was produced by Tom Tataranowicz. 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.
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. Episodes focus on the pubescent exploits of the leads and frequently feature a moral. They also feature a couple of 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
The young human characters are 13-years-old, and there are musical segments in each episode. Junior is a kind-hearted plant, rather than a man-eating alien; and hatched from a prehistoric Earth plant that has been dormant for over 200 million years. Although Junior does have a voracious appetite, this version of him does not feast on human blood. The plant retains its ability to hypnotize people, as it did 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. However, he does insult Seymour from time to time, for example, calling him a "meathead" or "pest", and saying he'd "rather be talking to a termite". Brace-faced neighborhood bully Paine Driller replaces the character of Orin Scrivello, the dentist. 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 the daughter of Mr. Mushnik in this version.
