Hollywood's Most Abominable Live-Action Talking Animals (Part II)

We all know Hollywood is largely comprised of money-grubbing pimps and hos, looking to spread the creative equivalent of VD to the moviegoing community like they had a stake in a pharmaceutical company.

These crass execs peddle not in flesh but in green, and exploit human weakness, and perhaps no human failing is quite so egregious as their prediliction for watching movies featuring things that have no earthly business speaking, most commonly animals. In the age of CGI, verbose wildlife is not limited to animated films, but can be brought into, in some sense, "the real world" through live-action films. This is arguably Hollywood's most crass and cruel form of tortu-tainment and a borderline crime against humanity.

Here then, are some of the worst instances of Hollywood's fascination with talking animals (with perhaps the stray baby or inanimate object or two).

Joe's Apartment (1996)

The film based on a series of shorts on MTV, "Joe's Apartment" is, go figure, about a guy named Joe and the talking cockroaches who live in his apartment with him. It's actually it's worse than it sounds.

Are We There Yet? (2005)

It's bad enough "There" was the official castration of Ice Cube, who once rapped about living in South Central and killing cops but now is reduced to escorting around a couple of bratty kids and conversing to a bobblehead doll in his Escalade. Yes, you heard that right: one of the members of NWA talked to, and was spoken to by a Satchel Paige bobblehead doll in perhaps the most surreal movie moment since Ben Stiller fondled Robert DeNiro's breast in "Meet the Fockers."

Underdog (2007)

Like many of the films on this list, "Underdog" need not be such a canine. It could have provided a fun, cute and even sharply satirical take on the superhero movie genre. Instead we get this live-action mess, which loses Underdog's iconic look and makes him just another CGI animal.

Kangaroo Jack (2003)

Jerry O'Connell repeats previous career missteps by signing up for "Kangaroo Jack," about two slackers (O'Connell and Anthony Anderson) who are assigned to deliver $50,000 to a man in Australia. The duo lose the money when they leave it in a sweatshirt they put on a kangaroo, who proceeds to take off on them. Yes, the kangaroo only talks in one scene, which is in O'Connell's hallucination, but that's enough. Arguably the worst film Christopher Walken ever made, and that's saying something.

Look Who's Talking (1989, 1990, 1993)

While not a "talking baby" in the strictest sense, in many ways this series, even as it revitalized John Travolta's sagging career may have inadvertently brought about this new genre. The first film was a surprise hit, and is at its worst annoying and dated, but at least has some charm and a sense of fun. The second again proves that more is less Roseanne Barr joined the fray for "Look Who's Talking Too" only a year later, then the dogs joined in (and the wheels fell off) for '93's "Look Who's Talking Now."