It’s technically a break from the norm to have
Bubba the caveduck in the spotlight again after a number of Gizmoduck and
nephew starring roles.However, his lack
of real intrigue as a lead still persists as this episode features problems
that arise regardless of whether or not something is done with his boisterous caveduck
ways.
The conflict starts with everyone
wanting to do something about Bubba’s recent string of bad grades which already
begs a lot of questions.Since he’s from
the Stone Age and not as evolved as people in modern times, it’s a given a
school in this age wouldn’t be a good fit for him.In fact, why is he even a classmate?This is even brought up later on, but nothing
comes of this claim.
Anyway, Bubba is
given an invention by Gyro Gearloose called a thinking cap, and it instantly
works in making him smarter.This makes
his entire persona change, not only having a larger intellect for his studies,
but also speaking with a more sophisticated tone and vocabulary.It’s effective in lowering his more scrappy tendencies and guarantees him better grades, but there’s also a
mixed perception on this new Bubba.He
easily fulfills his goal of better grades up to the point of getting the
teacher to quit and go back to college.However, Huey, Dewey, and Louie see Bubba’s lack of rambunctiousness as
a problem despite the fact that he’s much less destructive to others now.It’s hard to really agree with them that this
is a problem.At the same time, it seems
that being smart inherently gives Bubba major attitude issues as he ends up
majorly boastful with what he knows and talks down to everyone else.Both personas of Bubba are clearly
problematic, yet the setup presents one as good and one as bad with no mention
of a compromise.In some cases, it’s
debatable which is seen as good or bad.From Scrooge’s perspective, he thinks nothing of the old Bubba, but sees
nothing but value in the new Bubba, particularly how his new intellect can help
increase his fortune.This mindset shows
a lack of consideration, but it does at least get better later on.
Anyway, Bubba’s newfound genius ways lead
Scrooge and the nephews to a treasure that belonged to an ancient civilization
of geniuses called the Ancient Thinkas.The stereotypically depicted natives of this tribe ambush them and trap
them in their temple for trespassing, but this actually poses as an opportunity
to find the treasure.Bubba deduces that
the Ancient Thinkas stored their treasure in the temple, and the way to
uncover it is to make their way through.There are some close calls when getting through the temple’s obstacles,
but Bubba continues to prove effective whether he’s decoding a rhythmic alarm
on a door; using an equation to find a correct direction; or guessing simple
riddles.
His intellect is productive,
but it shows a continuous lack of consideration for the well-being of
others.This is especially apparent when
Huey, Dewey, and Louie are attacked by a monster and Bubba thinks nothing of
it.This marks a welcome turning point
to Scrooge’s way of thinking where after seeing merit in the new Bubba, he
claims the caveduck is now all brain and no heart.In other words, he’d rather have the old
Bubba back, which ultimately proves that the appeal of his character is still
present.For that, Bubba gives up the
thinking cap, allowing his old intelligence and caveduck mannerisms to return
and save the boys with a simple whack with a club and brute force to the monster.
After this productive example of the old
Bubba, the treasure of the Ancient Thinkas is revealed to be a collection of
books on the natives’ history.As a
notable yet not too subtle tie to Bubba, they became so smart that they forgot
their survival skills, though that seems hard to believe for the current
generation of Thinkas.Amidst the
confusion of how all this works, everything is resolved with Scrooge aiming to
profit off the treasure by selling the books, and the boys happy to have the
old Bubba back.
That said, the story
could have been stronger if the conclusion involved Bubba finding a balance
between his old caveduck ways, and his useful knowledge.They both clearly have good and bad points,
but painting one side as all good and the other as all bad, the appeal is
noticeably weakened.This means the
episode doesn’t go all out with its concept, but for the good points it still makes
and moral value winning out, it’s overall a work with enough brain and heart.
B
The Ranking
1.My Mother the Psychic
2.Allowance Day
3.The Land of Trala La
4.The Good Muddahs
5.Dough Ray Me
6.Bubba’s Big Brainstorm
7.Metal Attraction
8.Bubbeo and Juliet
The next review returns us to Fenton who comes up with a new business idea full of Pep.
Next time on MC Toon Reviews, we turn to the reboot to look into "The Living Mummies of Toth-Ra."
If you would like to check out other DuckTales reviews on this blog, click here for the guide made especially for them.
It’s true that this show does not have the nicest atmosphere;
honestly that’s been apparent right from the start.However, it’s almost always managed to work
through being successfully entertaining and having any repercussion feel
deserved.In the case of this cartoon,
the way the story plays out and the harsh effects on the featured character do
not follow these guidelines.The result
is a huge contender for one of the most unpleasant experiences of the entire
series.
A major example of how unfair
this cartoon begins surprisingly with the failure of the Eds’ scam.Usually, it’s not until much later in the
cartoon when the whole thing backfires for a good reason.Here though, they have a very creative and
well-executed money-making idea of crafting wax figures of the neighborhood
kids that’s actually positively received.It goes to show that while they are scams, the things they do have a lot
of effort put into them that deserves some credit.
Then things really go downhill once Kevin
finds an empty wallet.The issue isn’t
that it belongs to Eddy, but inside it is an ID card that features his middle
name, Skipper.The moment Eddy hears
Kevin mention this, he’s instantly embarrassed and terrified, clearly ashamed
of what he was named which is just sad.Really, there’s nothing bad about a middle name like Skipper, yet Eddy
still feels tortured by the mere thought of it being known, and the rest of the
cartoon supports this mindset.To keep
from even more people knowing his middle name, he agrees to do whatever Kevin
says so he’ll keep it between them.Among those things is sabotaging the scam that was going so well and
spending the money it did earn on what Kevin wants.Again, all this is over something as minor as
finding out Eddy’s middle name without the Eds actually doing anything wrong.
Then things only get more relentless as Eddy
is faced with paranoia and humiliation.He’s constantly seeing Kevin talk to other kids as if he broke their
deal, only to realize that wasn’t the case after making a fool of himself
trying to hide it.There are also
particularly embarrassing acts Kevin has him take part in, such as actually
kissing Double D (take that as you will) and acting as a performing seal.The latter really starts crossing some
boundaries with how he’s given a raw fish to eat and has to get shot with a
water gun right in the lower area.Eddy
may be a regular con artist, but this kind of treatment in this case feels very
wrong.
Finally, after all that Eddy
willingly agreed to put himself through, in one moment, he suddenly finds
everyone making joking remarks with the word ‘skip.’The more intense these condescending
statements get, the more obvious it becomes that Kevin went ahead and told
everyone Eddy’s middle name anyway.His
flimsy excuse is that he forgot, but that’s very difficult to buy as true, and
it’s certainly not worth the internal torment Eddy is now unjustly enduring.It’s just downright cruel and wrong, even for
this show.
Only a satisfying conclusion
can ease any pain, and for a moment, one seems set up.Double D has been taking note of Eddy’s
strange behavior, and like a good friend should, he tries to get to the bottom
of it.After learning of Eddy’s
resentment for his middle name and the embarrassment of everyone now knowing,
Double D reveals his own middle name, Marian.Then for all that kindness, even Eddy instantly loses his sympathy by
blurting out this middle name to the others, now making Double D suffer
humiliation.Instead of easing the
earlier pain, this ending scene just makes it worse and near impossible to
sympathize with anyone.Furthermore, it
features everyone as shallow for being so relentless over a middle name; for
goodness sake, what makes it worth all this ridicule?
As stated before, this show has never had the
nicest atmosphere, but there was almost always some procedure in place to make everything work.This isn’t the case here
with an unfair story and a careless sense to go too far with all meanness,
resulting in a true low point for the series.
F
The Good
Ol’ Ed
Creating new ideas for any series cannot be easy, especially
when they go on for so long.Often,
shows take a simplistic approach to coming up with ideas by composing an
episode entirely of older material; this is what’s called a clip show.Understandably, these types of stories are
frowned upon for just being reiterations of what audiences already know with
next to nothing fresh or new.While this
may be the approach this cartoon seems to take at first, it actually puts an
interesting twist on the whole experience.
It’s about the Eds making a time capsule of memorabilia of all their
past adventures to bury and later dig up again in the future.As they look over things to put in the time
capsule, one might expect there to be a cut to a past cartoon, but there’s
actual restraint to not go into clip show mode.Whenever they come across things like the Canadian squirt gun,the hypnotizing wheel, or their “Fad Freaky” suits, they simply talk about the fun
they had with them.It brings a more
believable and engaging way to get behind past events instead of showing an
outright clip of them.The thing is that
these are all events that have indeed happened in the show and what devoted
fans are sure to already remember.There’s no need to show another clip from that time; they can just watch
the real thing again.
However, the
really clever part of this setup is the past events that are depicted, at
least alleged past events.At some
points, one of the Eds finds a random object that no one can recall where it
was from, except one of them relates them to event that was not seen before.Double D finds a remote control said to go to
a time machine; Eddy finds a water pitcher from when Double D had the hiccups;
and Ed finds a spatula from when they made a giant pancake.It’s these objects that actually do lead to a
past memory being shown, except they’re newly created scenes instead of reused
clips from past cartoons.Just getting
new clips to represent these supposed memories brings an impression that
they’re all ideas for cartoons that fell to the wayside for not being
substantial enough.
Truth be told, the
memories themselves do seem to vary in quality.The time machine recap is a pretty fun escapade with the Eds having
Jimmy and Jonny believe they traveled back to the dinosaur age; the many
cardboard figures of the creatures and atmospheric effects continue to impress
with the effort gone into what’s said to be scams.Double D having the hiccups is mostly the
standard procedure of plots centered on getting rid of them which usually
results in being monotonous and uninteresting.The water pitcher isn’t even too huge a factor in this memory.It’s not without some memorable funny bits
such as Ed’s attempt at scaring the hiccups.
The giant pancake is probably the most amusing concept in these memories
not just with the idea itself, but how it’s executed.The Eds set up cooking oil in the cul-de-sac,
the other kids mistake it for a skating rink, and they get some comeuppance for
not getting all the facts when the batter is let loose on the oil.This is amusing, but morally, it’s not too
fair since all the kids take what happened out on Eddy despite Ed pouring the
batter and the whole thing being their own fault anyway.
Going back to the main center of the cartoon,
the best thing about them is how these memories are not based on pre-existing
material and exist in something set up as a clip show.There’s awareness to how they didn’t actually
happen, and things that did happen are merely discussed as potential guesses
and through other random things the Eds find.In fact, it’s ironic that the one time the cartoon truly resembles a
clip show is at the end when Ed recalls the very beginning of this.Then to close everything off is a good
reminder of the constant occurrence of Eddy chasing his friends in anger.
The most notable thing to this cartoon is how
it takes the expected clip show elements and makes the experience somewhat
interesting.It might not be the best of
the series, but for a work meant to highlight memorable moments of the past,
this is a very solid way of going about that.
A-
Series Ranking
1.An Ed is Born
2.One
+ One = Ed
3.The Day the Ed Stood Still
4.A Glass of Warm
Ed
5.It Came from Outer Ed
6.Rent-A-Ed
7.Once Upon an Ed
8.Fa
La La La Ed
9.Urban
Ed
10.Ed…Pass it On
11.One
of Those Eds
12.Laugh
Ed Laugh
13.Dawn
of the Eds
14.Don’t
Rain on My Ed
15.Wish You Were Ed
16.Dueling Eds
17.Mirror,
Mirror On the Ed
18.Gimme, Gimme Never Ed
19.Ed-N-Seek
20.Keeping
Up With the Eds
21.Who
Let the Ed In
22.Avast
Ye Eds
23.Flea
Bitten Ed
24.Fool
on the Ed
25.Ready
Set Ed
26.The
Ed-Touchables
27.Who
What Where Ed
28.Dear
Ed
29.Momma’s Little Ed
30.Brother, Can You Spare an Ed?
31.Hot
Buttered Ed
32.Ed or Tails
33.Stop
Look and Ed
34.See No Ed
35.Shoo
Ed
36.Rock-a-Bye Ed
37.Little
Ed Blue
38.Ed
in a Halfshell
39.Scrambled
Ed
40.Pain
in the Ed
41.O-Ed Eleven
42.Vert
Ed Go
43.Ed
Overboard
44.Oath
to an Ed
45.Ed, Ed, and Away
46.Button
Yer Ed
47.An Ed in the Bush
48.Read
All About Ed
49.Rambling
Ed
50.Home
Cooked Ed
51.Honor
Thy Ed
52.Floss
Your Ed
53.Quick
Shot Ed
54.Look
Into My Eds
55.The Luck of the Ed
56.The
Good Ol’ Ed
57.Is There An Ed in the House?
58.Knock,
Knock Who’s Ed
59.A
Boy and His Ed
60.Eds-Aggerate
61.Three Squares and an Ed
62.One
Size Fits Ed
63.Will Work for Ed
64.Boys Will Be Eds
65.High
Heeled Ed
66.Know-it-All
Ed
67.For Your Ed Only
68.Dim Lit Ed
69.Cry
Ed
70.Eeny
Meeny Miney Ed
71.A
Pinch to Grow an Ed
72.Pop
Goes the Ed
73.Hands
Across Ed
74.They
Call Him Mr. Ed
75.An
Ed Too Many
76.Sir
Ed-a-Lot
77.For
the Ed By the Ed
78.Over
Your Ed
79.From Here to Ed
80.A
Key to My Ed
81.Once
Bitten Twice Ed
82.X Marks the Ed
83.It’s
Way Ed
84.In
Like Ed
85.A
Twist of Ed
86.My Fair Ed
87.To
Sir With Ed
88.Nagged
to Ed
89.Tag
Yer Ed
90.If
it Smells Like an Ed
91.Your
Ed Here
The next review shows off the nuisances that come from Ed's especially stinky jacket, and Eddy is tormented by a cursed telephone.
Next time is more DuckTales reviews with "Bubba's Big Brainstorm" from the original series.
If you would like to check out other Ed Edd n Eddy reviews on this blog, click here for the guide made especially for them.
