User Reviews

Strawberry Shortcake: Housewarming Surprise is the fourth Strawberry Shortcake TV special, and the first one produced by Nelvana. In this one, Strawberry Shortcake is moving out of her original Shortcake house from the previous specials, and into a bigger 2-story dollhouse they had to include to increase toy sales. Her friends plan a big surprise housewarming party for her, and invite all her current friends, and the friends she met on her round-the-world travels. Unfortunately, the Purple Pieman's crow, Captain Cackle and his gang, eavesdrop on the plans being made, and report the news back to the Pieman, who plans to steal the recipes the friends bring to the party, with the help of Sour Grapes. However, Strawberry Shortcake figures out the weakness to this plan, and has a surprise of her own in store for the pieman...

I think the first three Strawberry Shortcake specials by Murakami Wold and Swenson & Toei are the best ones, and that the Nelvana ones are the weaker ones; this one does have catchy songs in it which is a staple of all good Strawberry Shortcake specials, particularly the songs "Pack'em up and Move'em out", "Berry Talk", and "International Party", the writing is pretty alright, although the execution of the dialogue could be a bit faster, as the timing seems to be a bit stretched compared to the original 3, especially from Chris Wiggins as Mr Sun, who talks at a slower, less energetic, less gravelly and more bored-sounding tone. The animation seems to be on a bigger budget than the previous specials, as evident in the designs of the characters, and in the movement being more expressive. As I mentioned before, the pacing is noticably slower with this special, with the characters speaking slower, most noticably Mr Sun, Strawberry's friends and Sour Grapes, and scenes being longer and more drawn out. This can be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on your point of view.