Episode 19
Meatballs
or Consequences
Cartoons starring the Warners are always sure to be hilarious
and feature great portrayals of the siblings.
This particular Warners cartoon is as great as it is because of a rarely
seen moment of heart between the siblings amidst their funny ways.
Wakko, who’s always been known to “pack away
the snacks,” ends up eating too many meatballs, even for him, and that’s enough
to call upon Death himself. When he comes
to take Wakko with him, both Yakko and Dot quickly insist he take them too so
the siblings can stay together. Through
it all, they’re loud and whiny which could make them annoying and hard to
sympathize with. However, through their
tone making all their whining highly exaggerated, and that they often break to
crack a one-liner, they’re entertaining, and can engage you in
their conflict. You’re sympathizing with
the Warners to find a way to stay together and laughing your head off at the
same time, which is a special cartoon viewing experience. Plus, it’s just astounding to see the Warners
face something as big and threatening as death itself like it’s nothing and
never let up on humor. Through
expressing excitement of going to a never-ending plain of death and casually
talking with Death, it’s once again a different approach to a situation with
their lives on the line, in which most people would be scared or angry, brought
to life, and you just can’t get enough of it.
Death himself is also a major highlight.
While we do see a bit of what we’d expect from him such as him
personified as a skeleton in a black robe and summoning dark magic to scare
people, he’s mainly portrayed as someone not uncommon to real life. He treats his job of taking the
living-impaired away like a businessman striking a deal with a client,
referring to the rules and clauses that go along with the job and getting
annoyed at those who don’t get it. It’s
all the more interesting that it’s a side of him most people wouldn’t see since
they’re not as brave to face Death as the Warners.
The dynamic traits of the Warners and Death
are further shown when Yakko and Dot fight to get Wakko back by
challenging Death to a game of checkers.
The kids work their usual antics on Death to trick their way to beating
a being who’s never lost a game of checkers since time began. However, Death, in his by-the-rules fashion
twists things around to make it so that all three Warners are dead instead of
just Wakko. Still, it’s the humor of the
Warners that wins in the end when they all continue to approach Death with
extreme happiness and wit of being with him as a family. The following scene of them treating Death as
their dad as he’s led through many painful obstacles is both exciting and funny
considering that three mere kids are putting the ultimate threat towards life
through torture.
This great show of
character reverts back to the status quo where the Warners are alive once
again. Going back to the cartoon’s heart
mentioned earlier, it’s meaningful that even with all this hilarity literally
in the face of Death, all that happens is part of the effort for the Warners to
stay together as siblings. It really
shows that there’s an undeniable sense of family love between them, and that in
addition to being incurable pranksters, these kids are just as endearing as any
good person. For that, along with the
top-notch entertainment in general, it’s one of this show’s most masterful
cartoons. 10/10
A Moving
Experience
This is the cartoon that was meant to officially introduce us
to the Hip Hippos, even if it didn’t air first.
As an introduction, it’s all right and does what it needs to do, but
like Flavio and Marita themselves, there’s very little to it that makes it
stand out as a one of this show’s best works.
Speaking of the hippos, right from their first moments, we get a taste
of them as a loving married hippo couple who want to live by the latest trends. The catch, however, is that
apart from Marita being the vocal one about what she wants with Flavio doing
the work of making it happen, they’re both very identical personality-wise. They’re both soft-spoken, laid-back, and
completely oblivious to the destruction their heavy hippo weight causes, and the destruction is mostly all
there is to humor with these characters.
While it can be amusing to watch things dent or buildings and piles fall
over, the fact that moments like this are as interesting as these characters
get really sells just how weak they are amongst the cast’s other characters
with far more impactful layers and humor styles. Instead of a large variety of humor like a
combination of witty lines, surprise physical gags, or over-the-top reactions,
all we follow throughout the cartoon’s plot is the many messes of two oblivious
hippos which really gets old.
The plot mainly continues to set up the premise for cartoons starring
these characters by showing how Flavio and Marita move to the city to keep up
with the trends while, in the process, they’re tailed by a zoologist named Gina
Embryo who wants to keep them from moving to the city to save them from
extinction. What we get out of the plot
is solid enough and flows at a good pace, but since it mostly consists of the
hippos not knowing that they're causing destruction to all potential homes Gina,
disguised as a housing specialist, plans to make them want to go back to the
jungle, it’s not as entertaining as they could be. The destruction scenes themselves are fine,
but they don’t stand out as anything special or filled with creative setups. Maybe if it was done as an overdramatic opera
like "La Behemoth" it would be more memorable and have more appeal.
There’s also a
frequent occurrence of Gina getting injured by the hippos’
obliviousness. I get why it’s in place
since she does need to be brought down a peg for wanting to direct the hippos
away from their move to the city even though they can clearly take care of
themselves, but the cartoon goes too far with how she’s treated. The injuries she bears come not just from
getting knocked into things while hanging onto the hippos’ helicopter or
getting crushed by buildings and junk, but also from outside sources like
getting strangled by a snake or hit by a truck.
I can at least give credit that they don’t make her pain too realistic
for the most part, except for ending up in a cast at one point, so it doesn’t
ruin the experience despite it being not all that special to begin with. As for how the cartoon wraps up, the hippos
conclude that the best way to move to the city is to bring their old jungle
house too, but they’re still unaware of the presence and the pain they’re
bringing Gina as she continues to trail them.
Overall, this is simply a cartoon that’s way too mundane for this show
that specializes in the great things that can be done through animation. It’s relatively harmless though for its
well-told story, the likable moments of Flavio and Marita together, and
some light laughs from the destruction their huge weight brings, even if they can get
boring put together. You can watch it
fine and mildly enjoy it, but there’s no reason you NEED to. 7/10
Cartoon Ranking
- King Yakko
- Hello Nice Warners
- Meatballs or Consequences
- Slappy Goes Walnuts
- H.M.S. Yakko
- Hooked on a Ceiling
- Temporary Insanity
- Bumbie’s Mom
- Les Miseranimals
- Space Probed
- West Side Pigeons
- Battle for the Planet
- When Rita Met Runt
- De-zanitized
- Win Big
- Taming of the Screwy
- Chalkboard Bungle
- La La Law
- Nothing but the Tooth
- Piano Rag
- Pavlov’s Mice
- Cookies for Einstein
- The Big Candy Store
- Garage Sale of the Century
- Wally Llama
- Where Rodents Dare
- Roll Over Beethoven
- Hurray for Slappy
- Cat on a Hot Steel Beam
- Operation: Lollipop
- No Pain No Painting
- Chicken Boo-Ryshnikov
- Goodfeathers: The Beginning
- The Cat and the Fiddle
- La Behemoth
- A Moving Experience
Song Ranking
- Yakko’s Universe
- Yakko’s World
- The Monkey Song
- What Are We?
- Little Old Slappy from Pasadena
Miscellaneous Ranking
- The Great Wakkorotti: The Master and His Music
- Gilligan’s Island Parody
- Nighty-Night Toon
- Flipper Parody
Be sure to stay tuned for the review of the next episode in which the Warners take an Apocalypse Now approach as they attempt to stop an over-budget film from being completed, and the Goodfeathers' attempts at stardom in a parody of The Birds bring them constant pain.
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