Friday, July 28, 2017

'Toon Reviews 4: The Loud House Season 1 Episode 14

Toads and Tiaras


 
 
 
 
This is another nice cartoon designed to emphasize the show’s theme of appreciating your family for who they are.  At the same time, it stresses the brotherly nature of Lincoln towards the twins, Lola and Lana.  With tickets to Dairyland as an incentive, Lincoln makes himself open to coaching Lola for an upcoming pageant which involves learning all the ins and outs of looking beautiful.  Things become complicated when Lola ends up getting hurt and is unable to compete in the pageant.  Determined to get the Dairyland tickets, Lincoln discovers that he has no choice but to have Lana take Lola’s place.  The challenge is that Lana, who’s open to getting her hands dirty complete with having the hobbies of playing in mud and carrying tools around, not to mention calling a dress a sparkly towel, is the complete opposite of Lola which makes Lincoln struggle to make her pageant material.  Through it all, we get a lot of admirable qualities from Lana.  Throughout this season, she’s always livened up her scenes with how she goes about playing dirty without hesitation, but here, she really tries hard to put all that aside to please her brother coming off as a sibling who truly values her family.  The thing is though, despite managing to pull off good pageant behavior in training, when taking part in the actual pageant, she just can’t escape who she really is.  While Lincoln doesn’t accept that at first, we eventually get a really sweet big brother moment from him when, after seeing Lana upset about not living up to his expectations, he comes to the conclusion that Lana should just be who she really is and show it off in front of the audience of the pageant, even if it means no Dairyland tickets.  Lana ends up winning them the tickets anyway though by just being herself which is a really nice moment for her, and while I don’t think the victory makes sense since what Lana does still isn’t appropriate for a pageant, considering the ending of “In Tents Debate” it’s extremely satisfying that she and Lincoln made it to Dairyland at all in the end.  On a side note, Lola gets a lot of enjoyable moments to, mostly showing off her monstrous side when she finds out what’s going on, and more of her nice side when she ultimately lets Lincoln and Lana keep what they rightfully won even if Lana got them by doing things she would never do.  Ultimately, the characters involved in this cartoon get a lot of nice sweet moments that show off their appeal which in the end, make you feel glad that everyone winds up being comfortable with who they really are. 9.5/10
Two Boys and a Baby

 
 
 
 
Sadly, we’ve got another flop to look at.  The worst part about this cartoon is that Lincoln is punished for doing nothing wrong.  The cartoon is all about him getting out of joining the rest of the family in visiting their literally unpleasing Aunt Ruth by agreeing to stay home and look after Lily which is something Dad usually does.  From there we’re treated with a collection of scenes involving Lincoln and Clyde, who comes over to help him, discovering how hard it is to take care of Lily.  I honestly find it hard to believe that Lincoln would have this much of a hard time with this.  He’s known what to do with Lily before, and they even legitimately bonded back in “Changing the Baby.”  To be fair, some of the moments of him and Clyde carrying out the task are fairly entertaining such as how they manage to get Lily to eat her lunch and an exciting chase scene through the park to find her after accidentally picking up the wrong baby.  Other moments though, are pretty cringe-worthy like when they yell in response to a zombie movie just after putting Lily down for a nap, and an uncomfortable amount of gross-out moments when they’re changing her including a scene where sh*t literally hits the fan.  I know they don’t show it, but the implications still make me sick.  However, what moves this cartoon into bad territory is the ending where after all those hardships Lincoln and Clyde went through, they end up being exposed to a baby with chicken pox and they and Lily have to stay at Aunt Ruth’s until they recover, and she really is as unpleasant as Lincoln described her.  The fact that Lincoln is forced to suffer in the end after suffering through the whole cartoon make what we see a complete pain which never makes for a good watch.  Perhaps things could have been better if Aunt Ruth’s turned out a lot better than what Lincoln constantly described, but them being accurate to what he said doomed the cartoon to fail.  Not to mention, that means Lincoln’s sisters had to suffer despite doing nothing to deserve it too, making the cartoon worse in that regard.  This cartoon could have come off as passable if it wasn’t for the ending, but since the ending is in place, it’s going near the bottom of the cartoon rankings of the season.  At least it wasn’t immediately doomed to fail like “The Green House” was. 4.5/10
The Ranking
1.      For Bros About to Rock
2.      Undie Pressure
3.      Project Loud House
4.      Space Invader
5.      Driving Miss Hazy
6.      Left in the Dark
7.      Toads and Tiaras
8.      Picture Perfect
9.      Sleuth or Consequences
10.  Hand-Me-Downer
11.  No Guts No Glori
12.  Changing the Baby
13.  Along Came A Sister
14.  Sound of Silence
15.  Butterfly Effect
16.  A Tale of Two Tables
17.  It’s A Loud, Loud, Loud, Loud House
18.  Overnight Success
19.  In Tents Debate
20.  Linc or Swim
21.  The Sweet Spot
22.  Heavy Meddle
23.  Get the Message
24.  Ties that Bind
25.  Making the Case
26.  Chore and Peace
27.  Two Boys and a Baby
28.  The Green House
Be sure to stay tuned for the review of the next episode including a fun cartoon with a concerning ending with "Cover Girls" and a cartoon sure to please the Lincoln and Ronnie Anne shippers, "Save the Date."

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