Chet

Name of show that this character is from: Littlest Pet Shop
Title of Episode:

Original Air date: Fall/Winter 1995 (NETWORK: Syndication)
Where can I find this episode now?: VHS Treasure of Sierra Pet Shop

EPISODE TYPE: Growth Ray (Potion)
(see Common Themes section for more on this category)

WHAT IS CHET?: An anthro, furry, tiny sized horse

IS HE MACRO ORIGINALLY?: No

HOW DID HE BECOME MACRO?: Kisses Scottish Wishing Stone and wishes to be big

WHAT DOES HE BECOME AFTER HE GREW?: Larger version of himself.

IS GROWTH SHOWN?: Yes

HOW MUCH OF GROWTH IS SHOWN?: All of his early stages of growth seen

MACRO NAME: --SAME AS BEFORE--

QUOTE: "Things sure do look different from this perspective."

SEX: Male

LOCATIONS: Suburbs where Pet Shop is located, city street, top of planet

MACRO SIZE (Approx or Average ): Winds up as big as the planet at the end

NATURE: Good Natured

DESTRUCTION LEVEL DONE: Low - Roof of Pet Shop

SYNOPSIS OF EPISODE: Chet walks into the writer of the tv show he works on, Littlest Pet Shop to talk to him about the script he is about to perform on today's episode. The writer at first doesn't even know who he is and continues to call him Chester while the horse just wants to be called Chet. The writer doesn't let Chet get a word in at all and continues to throw things down on him giving the horse ideas for what will be in future scripts. So after cattle, pianos and small jets fall down on Chet, Chet finally explains that there is a part in the script he wants to talk about. The writer assumes he doesn't want to work with the other pets but Chet explains that he just wants a bigger part. The writer starts to type at super speed taking the horse a bit seriously saying he will make him really big. The horse steps in again saying it's just a line in the script that he wanted changed. The writer just throws his computer at the small horse telling him to fix it himself if he knows how to make scripts so well. Chet quickly runs out taking the computer that is much bigger then him out of the room while the writer throws his phone at the door to close it complaining about actors.

Now the episode starts for real with Chet inside the pet shop trying to reach a button for a mini elevator. Before the jumping horse can reach the button a huge bird cage (which is the elevator for the mini pets) crashes down on top of Chet flattening him. Stu (his dog friend at the pet shop) hops out of the elevator asking why Chet is under the elevator. He is less then amused and tells him to see what happens when a form of transportation flattens him. Just like that a car crashes down on top of Stu. Elwood the owner of the pet shop picks up the die cast car he dropped before opening another box. It contains a small rock of some sort that his mother sent him. His mother calls on the view screen phone just at that moment explaining that the rock is a Scottish Wishing Stone and it works. All you have to do is make a wish while doing a scottish jig and kiss the stone and your wish will come true. She has a new husband, a Scottish Earl, next to her to prove that it worked. Elwood does a jig and kisses the stone just as he trips, wishing he hadn't done that. He instantly goes backwards leaping back up to where he previously was as if it never happened. Not realizing the stone just worked he tosses it away. Chet quickly picks up it realizing that it just worked. He kisses the stone while doing a jig and wishes that he were big. He glows for a moment but nothing happens. He tosses the stone away figuring it just didn't work but before he can blink again he suddenly grows bigger then even a regular horse would be. Stu walks back in shocked at what he sees and as they are talking Chet grows again as his head pushes right through the ceiling. Chet tells Stu to find the stone he threw away and get him back down as he's getting too big. Chet has the very roof balanced on his head as a man walks by freaked out by the huge Chet barely fitting into the pet shop. Chet leaps out of the shop as the man runs away and looks about at the city getting used to his new perspective on things.

Stu back in the shop starts to look for the stone that Chet threw away. Stu wanders onto a huge table and sees a stone with half of it sticking out of a small glass of water. Stu figures that must be the wishing stone and kisses it while dancing badly. Elwood walks up to the glass and picks it up noting that he got his Gall Stone back from the hospital and Stu looks like he is about to be sick from kissing that. Chet meanwhile is causing a huge traffic jam just by standing there in the street. A helicopter flies by that Chet snorts at before he has another growth spurt and grows past a row of clouds above him. Stu still looks and finally sees a rock on the floor in the corner. He starts to run for it just as a delivery of gravel comes in. Elwood tells the guy to dump the rocks over where Stu happens to be covering both Stu and the Wishing Stone in a new pile of gravel.

In a military base meanwhile an army general notices the gigantic horse sitting on top of the planet as he starts to yell at his private. That it's not just a horse, it is a weapon that the enemies of the free world have set loose and he has to stop it. Stu continue to kiss rock after rock now in the shop getting no where fast. Chet is now sitting atop the world hoping that Stu finds the wishing stone to reverse the effects. He does seem to like the view just as a satellite hits him in his huge head. The General meanwhile is flying in from outer space towards the horse. He tries to drop a bomb atop Chet's head but the door gets stuck. The General hops on the bomb to get the door open only to wind up falling through the hole with the bomb landing atop the huge horses head. Stu finds the right stone and wishes Chet back to normal just as the General lands on the head of Chet. Chet and the General as well as the planet Chet was sitting on all disappear with Chet suddenly reappearing outside the pet shop at his own size again. He vows never to complain about being small again just as a newspaper lands atop him. The General also reappears now at a shrunken size and finds a house fly asking him for a ride back to headquarters.

REVIEW OF EPISODE: The best thing I can say about this episode is that it was good to see a giant horse situation. Those seem rare and few between which is too bad as I think the idea of a giant horse is a cool one. Already a powerful and strong animal, getting more size and power, yet not being known to be dangerous or ferocious as some other animals can be seen to be. If anyone has seen the Littlest Pet Shop prior, they would know that Chet out of all the characters seemed to be the most disturbed with the fact that he is a tiny sized pet. The rest of the characters seem to be able to deal with it and make the best of it, but he always wished that he were a regular sized horse. So logically if you had to pick a character to make macro out of the five regular's in the show, he was the most obvious one. And as stated before it is good to see a giant horse situation, but the episode just wasn't as good as it tried to be. It was full of filler, weird situations and was just down right confusing and rushed overall. It tried to use a little of everything but this is a case of good idea, less then average episode.

I was most disappointed by the way this episode started out. I didn't get it and still wonder why he went this path rather then just adding more of the macro situation or at least a good build up then with the way he went to start here. We see Chet walking through the hallways of the company that makes the Littlest Pet Shop cartoon that he is supposed to be a character on, as if he's just an actor or something. He walks into the writers room and then for two minutes we have him talking to a writer of the show (who they don't really show, he is mostly seen as a silhouette covered in black rather then just seeing him fully) about how he has a problem with one of the lines in the script. We then have the writer saying "You want to be big I'll make you really big!" and then Chet explains that it was just a line he had trouble with. Only for the writer to hand him the computer telling him to do it. While all that was going on we had random things being dropped down on Chet (Like a bull and tractor and mini airplane). It was just random nonsense that wasn't cute or creative. After that scene ended the episode just started as if that all didn't happen. Was it the writer making Chet big or Chet making this strange episode that followed? And most of all.. why would anyone even care about this stuff? Lets see the situation build up as if it were a regular episode. Instead of all that nonsense lets have some substance to the episode. What about some more Chet in the city or some more Chet and the military going on there. How about explaining how Chet got into the various situations he found himself into or more going on then just 5 quick growth spurts and that's it. An episode like this really makes you wonder what could have happened that caused them to have to use filler at the beginning. Couldn't come up with any good macro situations? Wanted to be funny at the beginning somehow? Wanted to make a character big on the show but couldn't think of a logical way to do it without having that opening before hand? I don't know. But all I do know is, it really stunk that we had to sit through that and then get something really rushed to follow it.

That wasn't the only problems here. The end was just as confusing as the beginning. Chet is (I think) supposed to be sitting atop the planet Earth as if he grew so big he now sat on the very planet. Thetas fine and a good idea but it isn't understood if that really is what the case was. First of all what he is sitting on doesn't look anything like Earth. Just some purplish rock or something. Secondly the military general is coming from somewhere in outer space away from the planet heading towards it meaning that maybe it isn't Earth after all. Also if a big horse was sitting on the very planet, wouldn't it have been more noticeable then it was? It took a satellite feed to alert one general in the military to realize that something big was going on? The only reason we are to believe that it is actually the Earth are the fact that he said "If I grow any bigger I'm going to need to move to a bigger planet" and the fact that a satellite orbiting the planet hits him in the head. But it was still very poorly done as were many points in the episode. We have Chet out growing the pet shop at one point with his head bursting through the ceiling. The next moment he has the whole roof balanced on his head in perfect shape just jumping out with no damage done. We have the general in his space ship being swatted at by a huge Chet hoof hand then we have the general landing on a head that should have been much bigger if a horse that big was just swatting at a space ship the size of a fly. Gall Stones that just sit in a cup on a table and lots of other wacky out there stuff. It just wasn't that creative or funny as much as the writer perhaps hoped it was. Maybe he was limited as this is supposed to be for a much younger audience then most cartoons target, but either way it should have all been executed much better.

This episode isn't a total loss though. There are some great situations and even some good one liners that fill it. Some of Chet's expressions were interesting to note. Like he gives a horse snort to a helicopter that flies by his huge face as he is looming over traffic blocking the street. And when Chet is growing he has these surprised "what's going on?" type of looks. Overall though it turned into your typical, good guy wanting to be big badly only to want to be small again moments later episode. Been done before and many times after. The growth situations, which unfortunately were only limited to about 3 times were not to bad. He grows first in the shop. Then grows again through the ceiling and then through the clouds. We don't see his growth when he winds up sitting atop Earth or whatever that planet type thing he was on was supposed to be. But it does turn out to be a mega macro moment due to him sitting on the planet and I don't think too many would have a problem with a huge horse sitting on the planet like that.

The general that was in this was ok. It was an attempt to spoof the ol' cliché army officer who will do what it takes to stop said monster. But he had some slight chuckle type of lines. But again his whole involvement didn't make much sense either and it just seemed like writer was grasping here for good ideas rather then really thinking out what would make a good situation to have a giant Chet in. Still it's better then a lot of things that are just really bad and while this isn't really great it is really average and that's not so horrible considering how hard it is to find good macro horses. So it's sort of a take it or leave it situation. It has lots of silly and confusing moments and you will wish they had done more then they did and written this better but it's not so horrible that it's unwatchable either. Take it for what it is and enjoy it for what it is and that's about all you can do here. Maybe one day there will be a really cool giant horse situation but this wasn't it.

RATING: C+

MEMORABLE QUOTES AND MOMENTS IN EPISODE:

(A writer for the episode Chet will be in today answers Chet's complaints of the script for todays show)
Unnamed Writer: "Oh you want to be a big star? I'll make you big. Really big!! Ha ha ha ha!"

****************

(Chet picks up the Scottish Wishing Stone that Elwood throws away and kisses it while doing a dance)
Chet: "I wish.. I was.. big.."
(Chet glows in a blue aura but nothing happens)
Chet: "I mighta known.."
(Chet tosses the stone away but now starts to glow and shake about)
Chet: "Huh? Either I'm real hungry, or I threw that thing away too soon.."
(Chet grows in size becoming the size of a regular sized anthro horse)
Chet: "I really popped my weasel that time."
(Stu walks back towards Chet noticing how big he is almost choking on a sandwich he was eating)
Stu: "Chet!? What happened to you?!"
Chet: "You know that there wishing stone? It really worked!"
Stu: "You expect me to believe that?"
(Chet grows again, his head pushes through the ceiling to the outside of the store)
Stu: "Ok! I believe it! I believe it!"

*****************

(Elwood walks out of the door to the stock room only to see a huge hoof of Chet blocking the path. Elwood quickly dials the phone next to him)
Elwood: "Hello! Miracle Growth Feed Company? I'm a paying customer and I got a complaint!"

*****************

(A helicopter flies about noticing a huge traffic jam that Chet has caused just by standing there)
News Helicopter Reporter: "The east bound lanes of Main Street are completely blocked by.. a gigantic horse!?"
(Chet just snorts at the helicopter that flies by his huge head)
Chet: "Hey my ears finally popped!"

******************

(A military general and his private notice a gigantic Chet through a view screen)
Military General: "What in the name of Sir Ike Eisenhower's under drawers is that!?"
Private: "Satellite feed general. It appears to be a uh..er..."
Military General: "A big horse? Is that what you are trying to say?"
Private: "Well sir.. it's just a guess.."
Military General: "It looks like a horse, it sounds like a horse, heck it probably even smells like a horse. And do you know why?"
Private: "Because it is a horse sir?"
Military General: "That's just what they want you to think son!"
Private: "They sir?
Military General: "The sworn enemies of the free world. But if they think they can pull the spandex over the eyes of Brigadier General Sandy, Six-Shootin, Sidewinder, Sebastian the Second, they got another thing coming! Saddle up the big weapon! I'm going for a ride!!"

******************
Chet: "I wish ol' Stu would hurry up. If I grow much more I'm gonna have to move to a bigger planet. Nice view from up here though."
(An orbiting satellite hits him in the head)
Chet: "Just a might crowded."

FINAL NOTES:

*At the beginning of the episode when Chet is talking to the writer of the show, the writer actually mentions real episodes he is working on while Chet is complaining of the script. One episode is about Chet working at a ranch and another is Chet winning the Kentucky Durby. Both episodes would appear later on in the season.

* Chet made a lot of references to his size and the situation he was in all through out. when he said "Hey my ears finally popped" that was a reference to the fact that your ears get clocked up with pressure when you go high up into the air, like when you are on an airplane.

*This would be the only real macro episode in the show as far as this page goes, but not the only macro situations to be found in the show. One episode had Delilah the pet lizard who was normal sized and always trying to get the little pets, stomping through a model city chasing the pets in the store as if it were a Godzilla situation but turned out to be just a model set that she destroyed. Another episode had a witches cat named Bones who was left at the pet shop and tormented the little pets with his magic powers. He winds up being able to grow using magic of some sort towards the end of the episode but he only became about 10 or so feet and it was a short moment. Lastly there was an inflation episode where Stu filled up with air and ballooned up in size but again it was still under 12 feet in size and was also short lived.

*Only 3 of the usual small pets appeared in this episode and Squeeks (The monkey) was only in two quick clips playing the music that everyone would dance to when doing the jig for the wish on the rock. So overall this was basically a Chet and Stu episode with a few moments by Elwood mixed in.

*The tittle bumpers in the video version and original broadcast version are different. They are both the same in that they just have text over the episode already starting with no separate bumper before we get into the episode. The different part is that In the original broadcast the opening title bumper listed "Really Big" with the names of the writer and the name of who adapted it under it. In the video version it just had the title "Really Big" listed with no writer or adapter information listed just the title in block text.

Errors--

Factual -- Elwood holds up a huge glass full of a rock like object in it that is mistaken for the Scottish Wishing Stone by Stu. Elwood reveals that it was just a Gall Stone that the hospital had sent him. This is wrong for a few reasons. First the stone was way to big to be a Gall Stone. It was the size of a kidney at least. Next the hospital wouldn't just send it in a glass and put it in a glass that wasn't even big enough to hold the whole stone. Lastly the hospital wouldn't give it to a patient period. Maybe to a doctor to analyze but not just give it back to a patient like that.

Factual -- When Chet shrinks down at the end the General does as well just because he is on the head of the giant Chet at the time. This shouldn't have shrunk the general too as the wish was just to make Chet small and anything touching him shouldn't have been shrunken down as well. The planet that Chet is sitting on does shrink down or disappear as well but it is not clear if it was Earth or some other object in outer space that he was sitting atop.

Continuity -- When Chet first grows, the second growth spurt he has causes him to grow so big his head pushes right through the ceiling as rubble crashes down on the floor. In the next moment Chet has the roof balanced on his head with no hole in the roof or ceiling and no other growth spurt having taken place.

Continuity -- Stu is looking on the table for the stone that Chet tossed and comments "If I remember right Elwood had that stone somewhere around here" but he knows full well that it was Chet that just tossed it away on the floor and Elwood didn't have it anymore.

Continuity -- It is never clearly stated where exactly Chet is sitting on towards the end. It is supposed to be the Planet Earth but it is colored in some purplish color and the General is coming from a direction away from Earth when he is in outer space. Also when Chet shrinks back down the planet he was sitting on also disappears with him.

Continuity -- The space jet that the General is in is seen circling around the huge Chet looking real tiny in comparison to Chet as Chet swats it as if it were a horse fly. When the General lands on Chet's head he easily sits atop his mane covered head with the bomb which contradicts the size that the jet and Chet were only moments before. The General should have gotten lost in chet's hair if the size was still the same as he was only in the jet that was tiny in comparison to Chet moments before he was ejected out with the bomb.

+ :Good growth moments at beginning. Some good one liners by a lot of the characters in this episode. Hard to find a giant horse situation in macro episodes so this gives us that at least.

- :Pointless opening moments with him talking to the writer of the episode. Jokes and moments that just aren't funny even though they are supposed to be. Confusing moments and poorly executed plot.

PICTURES OF CHET

I could write a better script and I don't even have hands

Being small sucks. Espeicaly when buttons are put up to high

Stu and Chet both watch the wishing stone in action

Either he's making a wish, or working out

Chet doesn't look pleased due to not growing

Time to zoom the camera back from this big hoss

Only the size of a regular horse? we can get bigger then this.

Chet gets a good view of the weather outside

That building was too small to hold this horse

What you looking at? haven't you never seen a huge hoss before!?

There's something you don't see on TV everyday

Does this glow mean he is growing again?

AVI: