(The Disneycember logo is shown, before showing clips from all the sequels to The Love Bug)
Doug (vo): Okay, so I said I would talk about the sequels and remakes to a lot of these movies, and with Herbie, oh, my God, there are so many. It's funny when you think of Disney and all the sequels and characters that they use that Herbie is usually not mentioned among them, but he has a ton of sequels and remakes. There's Herbie Rides Again, Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo, Herbie Goes Bananas, there's a remake with Lindsay Lohan (Herbie: Fully Loaded), and, yes. There is even a remake with Bruce Campbell. Bruce Campbell drove Herbie! It's so frigging weird.
Stories and reviews of all the sequels[]
Doug (vo): And pretty much all these movies range from "eh" to weird and surreal "eh". I don't know. It's hard for me to think of a movie that was downright painful, like, it was so bad, I just wanted to turn it off. But at the same time, none of these really grabbed me that much. Some of them have some really surreal moments, like in Herbie Rides Again. I remember the villain has a dream that a bunch of evil Herbies are chasing him and trying to eat him. Yeah, it's pretty out there. But after that, they all kind of gel together. It's somebody discovering the car's alive, trying to convince themselves it's not alive, but coming around to realizing it is alive, and trying to convince other people that it's alive, them not believing and then coming around, winning some races, hijinks ensue. I don't know. In all honesty, the idea only had possibility for one movie, and even then, it wasn't really that much possibility, they just kind of got lucky in how goofy it was, and how much passion they put into it. But then again, there is sort of this weird funny charm to some of them as well in just the idea. Again, Bruce Campbell driving Herbie. Just watching him talk to the car is kind of funny. But really, that's just kind of a kitsch thing, like, "Oh, isn't it funny if you know who Bruce Campbell is and know what Herbie is, to see them together, talking." But, yeah, that's not really enough to make it last throughout an entire movie.
[Clips from the recent sequel, Herbie: Fully Loaded, are shown]
Doug (vo): There's one with Lindsay Lohan and Michael Keaton, and...yeah, what really annoys me about this one is, remember how I was saying how great it was before that Herbie never really had any eyes or he didn't talk or anything like that? Well, here, they try to give Herbie a face. Yeah, it'll roll its eyes, it'll kind of smile, and...it really doesn't work. I don't know. Just something about talking cars. [The poster for Cars is shown] They never work for Disney. I think it's more fun if you just kind of guess what the car is feeling, and you kind of put your own emotions onto it. But when you actually see it react to something, yeah, it's pretty dumb.
Final thought[]
Doug (vo): I guess I'd give it credit that the series apparently had enough steam for so many movies and remakes, but, again, I don't know how many people really talk about it or remember them. They're kind of like the Disney Direct-to-DVD sequels, you just kind of go, "Oh, that existed." And again, I don't recall any that were, like, "a sin against nature" bad, but I don't think any really require that much of a viewing. If you're gonna check them out, I'd say do it just for mere curiosity. Don't expect to get anything that great out of it. If you do have that curiosity, go and find out for yourself.
[The ending scene of one of the sequels is shown]