If the Weinstiens new animation venture took a dump with it's debut Hoodwinked - it certainly steps in it with the release of Doogal, a misbegotten remake of a British film version of a 40 year old British tely treasure. In those days it was called the Magical Roundabout or Le Manege Enchante, (evidently a French and Brit collab) a collection of 30 minute stop-motion children's shorts made in the psychedelic 60s right where it should have remained. To have it dredged from the depths suited the British version well enough, but what inspired the Weinsteins to ferry it across for this Americanized run-down is just about as hard to figure out as the film itself.

Given a low-budget cgi treatment (which gives it terrific texture but laughably crude fluidity of motion) and a stultifying Americanized script has resulted in the hardest children's film to sit through since that Barbie Nutcracker deal. An embarassment all around, especially for Jon Stewart (who lends voice to the villainous Zeebad) a spring-bottomed bouncing bad guy accidentally loosed from his cell inside the Magic Rounabout by the hapless title kanine character. It will be interesting to see how Stewart handles this disaster movie at this weeks Oscar telecast. If not contractually prohibited, the smart money is that he'll mercilessly lampoon Zeebad movie with a strafing of self-deprecatory barbs. I certainly hope so. Just to see the steam spewing from those Weinstein ears could make this the most memorable telecast in years.

I'll run the plot down as briefly as I can - you see the spring-loaded Zeebad has designs on turning the entire world to ice (?) by purloining magical diamonds that when inserted into the merry-go-round, in turn brings about the aforementioned Ice Age. What diabolical pleasures this will offer Zeebad are not covered in the narrative - then again few things are. The scenes in Doogle unfold in such a seemingly random fashion that it's as though that rascal mutt got into the storyboards and scrambled them too hopelessly to ever be reassembled in proper sequence.

Fortunately there is a spring-bottomed good-guy, Zebedee (voiced by - of all people - Ian McKellan) who enlists the help of Doogal as well as a rabbit (Jimmy Fallon) a snail (William H. Macy) a cow (Whoopie Goldberg) all of whom hop aboard a magic talking train (Chevy Chase) who greets the heroic Fellowship of the Diamond ring with "I'm a train and you're not." I swear to God I'm not making this up. That's the kind of pop culture winks the adults have to make due with, while the children become confused and beg for Red Vines. The story is so ridiculously unfocused that it reminded me of playing that game Candyland with my toddlers, back before their urge to win by cheating could be ethically discouraged.

The story contains so many just plain stupid sequences that I simply refuse to describe any of it. And goodness the script??? It wants to be hip by dropping the nods in for the grown ups, but not only are these topical winks really unfunny, but random and pointless as well. Doogal suffers from many of the same misapprehensions that plagued Date Movie. The writers merely drop pop culture references without bothering to make them tie into the proceedings in any sort of funny or clever way. Seriously the closest they come is with that I'm Chevy Chase and your're not bit.

It didn't help matters that the Boneman family were collectively and completely unfamiliar with the source material, and it certainly didn't help that the film sucked Abominable Snowman balls. If Doogal were merely innocuous and played straight for the kids (ala Curious George) I could have let it off the hook, but Doogle is just aggressively bad. Not just skip it bad - more like boycott it, bad. I felt truly sorry for Stewart and Kevin Smith, Chevy (not so much Chevy) Whoopie and Fallon, William H. Macy - maybe they were all somehow Hoodwinked into signing on before they got the script. Mostly though I just felt sorry for myself.