'Toon Reviews 19: OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes Season 1 Episode 13: Just Be a Pebble

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Just Be a Pebble

This is a more standard cartoon seen in most family shows, especially those where the main character is short in size.  Typical as the overall plot may be, it can still be entertaining through the strengths of the characters and basic aesthetics of this show’s world.  That’s the case with this cartoon where K.O. feels down for being short. 

The thing that really makes him lament his size is that many heroes he knows are much bigger.  He can’t really live up to those standards like he wants to as long as he’s small which is understandable for his emotional state.  That said, small heroes have been seen in the background frequently.  They may not be as great heroes as the ones K.O. is looking up to, but their existence shouldn’t make him feel this bad about being small.  For cheering himself up, all K.O. has is his mom’s sage advice that a pebble can only travel as a pebble and not a rock.  While it clearly comes from a place of love like everything Carol does for her son, it doesn’t make sense for K.O. forcing him to go through the motions of the cartoon to find it out.  Then again, this is the more relatable route to finding meaning in philosophical statements. 

K.O. later becomes big with the aid of a special candy Rad gives him, but then he goes too far and eats so much of the special candy that he becomes a giant.  This is the part where K.O. being this big starts causing problems when he destroys Gar’s Bodega due to his size.  However, he remains positive through it all by focusing on what’s good about being a giant, such as performing the impressive task of going around the world in a few seconds.  The positives, however mean nothing when K.O. is unable to do his work properly at the bodega and everyone around him says he was always better working his job when he was small. 

While this moment does bring to mind how valuable K.O. is as a helper as himself, it begs the question if this problem would exist if he only had enough candy to make him bigger than his real size but smaller than a giant.  There’s no reason why he had to be gigantic and simply being taller would’ve resolved his anxieties.  It goes to show how commonplace these plots are and how certain things have to play out for them to work, even if they don’t always make for more sensible approaches. 

While this tactic for the plot to be avoided is persistent, the way the cartoon plays out makes it work with K.O. realizing he never needed to change at all when his big size causes him to lose Mr. Gar’s keys down the sewer and he can only get down the sewer if he was the size of a pebble, but he’s the size of a rock.  In other words, he finally understands his mom’s sage advice.  He does become a pebble with the aid of specially enhanced burritos that shrink him down small enough to fit in the sewer.  As a result, there’s a fun climax where K.O. braves the sewage and larger debris and even takes out a rat to get Mr. Gar’s keys back.  It’s impressive that K.O. turns out to be useful and awesome as a hero in training at such a miniscule size that it hardly matters that the cartoon ends before he returns to normal, although it’s clear that he will be back to normal by the next cartoon. 

Thanks to its use of characters and clever takes on sage advice, this cartoon is able to stand out more than its standard plot setup normally would.

B

The Ranking

1. I Am Dendy
2. You Get Me
3. Let’s Be Heroes
4. You’re Everybody’s Sidekick
5. Jethro’s All Yours
6. My Dad Can Beat up Your Dad
7. Let’s Be Friends
8. We Messed Up
9. Sibling Rivalry
10. Just Be a Pebble
11. Do You Have Any More in the Back?
12. You’re Level 100
13. You Are Rad

Be sure to stay tuned for the review of the next episode where everyone's thoughts on a coffee mug-headed comedian shows that everyone has different tastes in comedy.

If you would like to check out other OK K.O.! reviews on this blog, click here for the guide made especially for them.