I agree that it was a spiritual successor to Roger Rabbit more than anything else.
I found it entertaining but messy, with many many flaws. The script should not have been used as-is IMHO.
I too found that the primary audience for it was not kids but their parents. The fan-girl lead character in the movie must have had her grandma tape the TV-show for her because she (the actor playing her, anyway) was not even born when it had been on.
I laughed very hard at a modern reference ... when he showed up. But a cheap gag stops being funny if you drag it out for too long.
A small detail that irritated me was that it the fake movie touted as an example of a "bootleg" was misrepresenting the copyright in that case. Disney does not own The Little Mermaid!! It is an adaptation of an old story, just as with Pinocchio, Snow White, Cinderella, Robin Hood, etc.
Ah!.... but as someone who is dealing with a Beauty and the Beast flick, you CAN NOT use anything original Disney created in their movies....
I can't use Cogsworth... lemuire... the idea of the rose as a "ticking clock" to end the curse... Can't even use that look of the Beast....
If you're doing Snow White the dwarves can't be called, Happy, Sleepy, Doc, etc...
And for sure if you're making The Little Mermaid you can't have Flounder, Skuttles, Sebastian....
You can only use the original, public domain, story as the IP.
So if you're trying to trick grandmas into buying your bootleg, and you want that similair cover, you gotta switch up those designs enough to not get the Disney hammer... and boy would they love to smash that hammer.