'Toon Reviews 19: OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes Season 1 Episode 37: We Got Hacked

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We Got Hacked

This may just be another cartoon about a mishap at Gar’s Bodega, but even with a typical subject, it still leaves an impact with a creative aesthetic. 

K.O. sets up a specialized mop to clean the store, but it gets out of control and wrecks everything.  With repairs desperately needed, Dendy comes to make it so the bodega won’t have to be closed.  As usual, Dendy impresses through her combination of intellect with childlike charm through manning her technical skills to get the mop under control. 

Through her work, there’s subtext of how dangerous going online can be.  When bringing up windows of the mop’s inner workings via her hackpack, one of them has an enticing popup ad.  K.O. childishly ignores Dendy’s warning against clicking it, and bad things happen when he does.  If anyone’s been on the computer, I’m sure they’ve done something that unleashed a virus on the system at some point, usually all from a single innocent click on a popup ad. 

This idea is creatively portrayed when K.O. pressing the popup ad unleashes a virus on the mop which is crafted like a human virus.  It explodes with pink puddles of harmful electrical data everywhere and they infect everything and everyone.  When the virus puddles touch an object, it turns pink as if the virus was a bunch of germs latching onto a hard surface.  When people touch the puddles, how they get the virus has a nice interpretation.  They turn into mindlessly functioning beings shaking around and done in limited CGI common in video games of the early 90s.  Different circumstances lead to many people getting infected leading to an army of glitching CGI characters like a zombie apocalypse.  This becomes so serious that the survivors have to hide in the break room.  It’s a creative occurrence with an interesting aesthetic, and the legit dangers to how it spreads add to its magnitude. 

It’s constantly bogged down by K.O. insisting he didn’t click the popup ad that started the mess when he usually does own up to his mistakes, but at least he comes to his senses later.  There’s also a heartwarming scene where he and Dendy decide to endure the inevitable through making sure the last things they see are each other. The emotions feel so real.  The only break in the emotion is when K.O. and Dendy notice everyone glitching so much, they can go out into the store and get Dendy’s hackpack to reset the system and cure the virus. It's honestly a pretty funny realization. 

After that, the suspense kicks up again when K.O. and Dendy rush to connect the infected to the hackpack.  In the process, K.O. does an impressive amount of the work considering he caused the problem in the first place.  All seems well afterwards, even coming with a creative interpretation of the reset process from everything disappearing and reappearing.  However, the last scene of K.O. getting glitched is a little concerning.  It does feel appropriate for the disaster movie feel the cartoon is going for.  All the same, this being the ending doesn’t feel satisfying with him suffering after learning his lesson and doing a lot to fix everything.  Fortunately, the strengths are so strong, the sting of the ending doesn’t cause much harm. 

This is still a simple concept turned into a creative escapade with relatable topics, and stakes that make what happens feel real and relatable.

A

The Ranking

1. Face Your Fears
2. You Have to Care
3. T.K.O.
4. No More Pow Cards
5. Glory Days
6. Legends of Mr. Gar
7. We’ve Got Pests
8. I Am Dendy
9. Let’s Have a Stakeout
10. You Get Me
11. Let’s Be Heroes
12. You’re Everybody’s Sidekick
13. We Got Hacked
14. K.O.’s Video Channel
15. Jethro’s All Yours
16. Know Your Mom
17. Everybody Likes Rad?
18. A Hero’s Fate
19. Plaza Prom
20. We’re Captured
21. My Dad Can Beat up Your Dad
22. Let’s Be Friends
23. We Messed Up
24. Parents Day
25. Plazalympics
26. Presenting Joe Cuppa
27. Sibling Rivalry
28. Second First Date
29. Stop Attacking the Plaza
30. Just Be a Pebble
31. The Power is Yours
32. Do You Have Any More in the Back?
33. You’re Level 100
34. You Are Rad
35. We’ve Got Fleas
36. Rad Likes Robots
37. One Last Score

The next OK K.O. review explores the background of Red Action and starts a charming friendship between her and Enid.

Next time on MC Toon Reviews is Animaniacs Episode 33 featuring cartoons in Wakko's body.

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