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.