Only In One Of Its Songs Does A Land Before Time Sequel Rise To The Level Of Watchable

Welcome to a new edition of my bi-weekly column called When Good Songs Happen To Bad Movies, in which I look at pretty well done songs that just so happened to debut in more subpar features.

Remember in my write-up for Quest For Camelot for this column how I discussed how Disneys success in the world of animation bred imitators? Well, Disney wasn't ahead of the curve on everything, as the same year they debuted their first direct-to-video follow up to a theatrical animated movie, Universal was unveiling their first sequel to The Land Before Time, a 1988 Don Bluth effort that the studio hoped to squeeze more cash out of by creating a cheap follow up.

What would ensue was 13 part saga lasting 13 whole years after the first sequel landed in the marketplace. Except for 1999 and 2004, each year brought a new chapter in the life of Littlefoot and his gang of prehistoric pals. I was the right age to obsess over these as a kid as they came out, but as one might imagine, as a much older viewer, these sequels pretty much falter on any level. The animations clunky, the plots are meandering and a number of the characters (namely Cera) are grating.

If there's anything of redeeming value to be found in these adventures is the music, an aspect that's absent in the original movie and clearly around solely for the purpose of aping the musical showstoppers that Disneys animated efforts of the time like Aladdin and Beauty & The Beast were creating. Many of the tunes these Land Before Time sequels delivered were laughably simplistic; there's one from a bully dinosaur entitled "When You're Big" that has all the lyrical depth of something written by a group of kindergartners.

Still, there's a few diamonds in the rough, namely a tune that the Land Before Time wiki notes is simply titled Eggs. Rob Paulson and Jeff Bennett voice the two dinosaurs (belonging to the species struthiomimus) that deliver the piece, with Bennetts character declaring his desire for eggs while Paulson interjects his friend (and forlorn lover if the momentarily homoerotic, by Land Before Time standards, lyrics are to believed) constantly throughout his musical number.

The lyrics, at best, are diverting, since there's at least some sporadically fun wordplay in certain passages, while a sense of escalation that occurs towards the conclusion of the song is surprisingly well executed. It helps that Bennett and Paulson are good enough voice actors that they can wring momentary entertainment even out of the most banal characters, which they manage to do quite frequently throughout The Land Before Time 2: Electric Boogaloo. There's very little of actual worth to be found in the countless Land Before Time sequels, but at least the occasional musical number like Eggs makes use of the voice talent on hand to create something both cretaceous and creative.