Treasure: We Love Animals/Nightmare on Oxford St. (2002)

Yes, this is the book,
not the animation.
There are things even
the internet can't find.

This was another interesting find on the cartoon compilation DVD we bought this year. Treasure is a show from the UK, based on a popular newspaper column in which a woman wrote about the troubles of raising a teenage daughter. I found the show rather endearing, although at first it wasn’t clear whether it was really a holiday episode.

The episode is broken up into sequential subplots in which Treasure and her mother clash, including fighting over her friends and whether she has time for a part-time job. It culminates in an ill-fated shopping trip in which the daughter’s desire for the newest best things and her mother’s desire to just finish the holiday shopping both crash against Treasure’s sudden awareness of social injustice, in the person of a person begging for change outside the department store.

The dialogue is snappy and snarky, and the emotional relationships are complicated and touching. In short, I really enjoyed this show. It was a confusing choice for this DVD, though, because it’s clearly aimed at a teen and older crowd. It’s not that kids couldn’t watch it, but they probably wouldn’t get it.

This was a nice way to break up the cloying feeling of watching too many holiday episodes, although it doesn’t go on a must-see list. If you have a chance to see any Treasure, though, give it a chance.

Incidentally, this is loosely based on a true story, and the troublesome teen known as Treasure? She grew up to found a charity: http://www.smallstepsproject.org