The Gabby's Dollhouse Movie

Being an informed parent and trying to find quality shows and movies for your children to watch in the modern age is hard. Gone are the days of mindless cartoon violence and slapstick comedy; here are the days of culture war and agenda-driven programming. Speaking from personal experience, when you find a show that not only is free and clear of questionable material but that all of your various-aged children are willing to sit and watch together, you breathe a sigh of happy relief. When the show also happens to be witty enough and the music snappy enough that you can sit and enjoy it with them, then you know you've found something special.

Enter Gabby's Dollhouse. This Netflix exclusive series features young girl Gabby using her magical cat ears to shrink down and play with her cat-themed toys in her dollhouse. The dollhouse hosts a colorful cast of cats, from Baby Box the crafty cat to DJ Catnip the musical maestro, from Kitty Fairy in the garden to Mercat in the bathroom to CatRat sneaking around from room to room through secret holes in the walls. The show encourages viewers to never give up, use their imaginations and smarts to solve problems, and try new things. The music is catchy, the visuals clean without being simplistic, and the voice acting excellent.

With a show as universally-enjoyable and popular as Gabby's Dollhouse, a movie seemed inevitable. But how do you take the episodic magic of a 20-minute episode and stretch it to movie length? The movie starts with Gabby and her dollhouse going on a road trip to visit her Grandma Gigi in Cat Francisco, California. Shortly after their arrival, a series of hijinks sees the dollhouse land in the claws of kitty litter spokeswoman Vera. Vera is obsessed with cat collectibles and sees the dollhouse and its toy denizens as nothing more or less than the crown jewel of her collection. It's up to Gabby and her stuffed cat Pandy Paws to rescue their friends and get the dollhouse back.

The main theme of the movie is the concept of growing up and playful imagination. Gabby's imagination is the source of magic that brings her dollhouse to life. Vera, as Gabby's foil, has long since forgotten how to imagine and play as the responsibilities and demands of adulthood took hold of more and more of her life. Gabby, realizing that she is getting older, begins to fear that she will end up like Vera, doomed to eventually lose her spark of imagination and her connections with her toy friends. The dollhouse cats invertedly spread the magic to Vera's old toys, who have become scared and jaded because they have been neglected and discarded for so long that they will do anything to keep from returning to their dormant state again. The physical rescue mission slowly morphs throughout the course of the movie into an emotional one to rescue Vera's sense of childhood wonder as Gabby discovers that growing up doesn't have to mean maturing out of playfulness.

The Gabby's Dollhouse Movie is perfectly aimed at and suited to younger audiences. Just like in the show, Gabby will occasionally address the audience directly, asking them to help sing her little rhyme that activates her cat ears to shrink her down to dollhouse size. At the theater I went to, nearly every child there had some form of cat ears on, whether handmade or store bought. Kids were cheering and shouting in excitement all throughout the showing, my own included. That said, there were a number of moments that were funny even for the adults without being needlessly crass.

Part of the movie is live action, but the majority of it is CGI, similar to the show. The graphics are of a vastly higher quality than the show typically is, with much smoother and more detailed animations and deep and vibrant colors. The music was a mix of originals (most of which were incredibly catchy) and nostalgia-bait for the adults (I honestly would have preferred more original music). I was very disappointed that DJ Catnip did not have so much as an outro song of his own; it seemed like a huge oversight in my book.

The Gabby's Dollhouse Movie is one in a very small list of movies to earn a G rating from the MPAA. There are a handful of somewhat questionable moments, but for the most part, they were relatively tame. For starters, there were some exclamations of, "Oh my gosh!" and "Holy craft!" There were a smattering of butt jokes, from as simple as one character complaining they hurt their "tushy" when they fell, to Cakey the anthropomorphic cupcake cat burning his bare cake butt in front of a fire and exclaiming, "Oops! Looks like Cakey got bakied." One cat toy who wears nothing but a bow tie at one point dances while taking off the bow tie to the chants of, "Naked kitty in the house!" and one cat (who normally wears nothing) claims to feel "underdressed" when seeing Vera (who wears high fashion throughout the movie) and then covers his crotch region with his knapsack.

There were also some semi-spiritualistic moments as well. Vera, being portrayed as high-strung and about as San Franciscan as possible and a "crazy cat lady", turns to things like Eastern meditation, yoga, and sniffing the catnip on her cat's toys to try and relax (none of which actually help her in any way). During the yoga scene, her cat does a number of crazy yoga poses, ending with "The Keanu" which involves the cat "levitating" in the air on its tail cross-legged with an angel choir and a halo of light behind him. Finally, Gigi makes herself a tiny dollhouse-sized margherita at one point and takes a small sip from it. While all these moments together may drag down the movie some, in their individual contexts and the way they were done seemed particularly childish as opposed to blatantly crass or risqué.

The Gabby's Dollhouse Movie is a fantastical movie that builds on the themes and characters from the show and draws young audiences in for the adventure while still being accessible to adults. If you've got small children who love the show, grab your cat ears (or craft your own) and head down to a theater for a magical ride.