Now there are tons of Disney+ original content available to view out there. My husband and I happened to stumble on Timmy Failure: Mistakes Were Made the other day after spending the last few months exhausting our Disney Movie options. He thought “the kid with the mullet” was adorable. After some research, I found out the movie is based on a children’s book series with the same name by Stephan Pastis. I’ll be honest, the first thirty minutes grabbed our attention, but by the hour mark, we both looked at each other and said, “What the hell is going on?” It wasn’t long after that we turned it off completely.
Timmy Failure follows the story of a unique boy being raised by a single mom in Portland, Oregon. It’s like Young Sheldon except Timmy is not super smart. This fifth grader runs his own detective agency though with an imaginary polar bear. Yes, only he can see the polar bear. His imagination is quite expansive and intense. It was cute at moments but by the hour mark, it was complete overkill. Plus there is this weird obsession with Russians throughout. Timmy is forced to take care of the class pet by his teacher played by Wallace Shawn. So he goes to pick up the class hamster, Hammy Ham, from a classmate’s house only to find it dead during Animal Appreciation month. He deems it his mission to figure out what happened to the hamster. We meet some of his friends or “associates” as he likes to call them. His buddy Rollo who is constantly making deals with Timmy that he will help ONLY if Timmy does his homework or studies. Molly Moskins is an enthusiastic little girl who smells like tangerine and is clearly in love with Timmy. The of them attempt to help him crack the who killed the hamster mystery. During this process, he loses his mom’s prized segway and she starts dating a meter maid. Timmy Failure seems to just have a lot of his plate for a fifth-grader. The only suspect is a girl who sits at his table that he refers to “The Nameless One”. At first, it’s assumed that he may like her or the opposite she did something horrible to him. I never did find out why he called her that, because Timmy finds out she is part Russian therefore she may have killed the hamster. This was the point where we stopped. I don’t know how this got past parent’ screening at Disney without someone screaming this is offensive. I tried to get over the whole “Russians” but then the polar bear insanity just got in the way. It went from super cute to just weird and offensive fast. I highly suggest skipping this movie and rewatch The Mandalorian.
