The Day of the Only Child (DuckTales 2017 Season 1 Episode 15) - 'Toon Reviews 51

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The Day of The Only Child

Not every adventure should be expected to be spectacular, but when a show hits a such a consistent good streak, weaker entries end up sticking out a lot more.  That is the case with this episode where the whole conflict and escapades are less engaging than normal.  It’s not bad as it does have a clear goal and structure, but there are notable issues with the overall subject and the logic behind it.  

The premise is the nephews deciding to make today Only Child Day where they all go about acting like they’re the only child in their family.  On investigation, it’s pretty clear that this is mainly at Dewey’s request as he’s the one who hypes it up a lot.  They claim to Webby, who’s disturbed by the idea that the trio would just separate like this, that they need time to be away from each other to do their own thing.  That is a fair point, so there’s not much to complain about here other than it’s just kind of blah as a premise for an episode considering the usual big adventures and creative concepts.  

Unremarkable as this plot may be, one notable thing to it is the format.  Each act of the episode follows a different nephew going about as an only child doing their own goal all coming together in the end.  This is a much more effective way than focusing on each nephew at once, and the audience can better absorb what they each set out to do and how they feel about all this.  In the first act, Huey takes the focus with the most interesting take on Only Child Day.  While the other nephews see it as a positive with chances to fulfill goals to have in mind, Huey questions how it’s truly a good thing, particularly with his own goal.  He’s going after a cookout badge at the Junior Woodchucks, but needs to be part of a trio to be eligible.  If his brothers were here, he could get the badge, but now of course, this is just not possible.  Launchpad gives him the option of two other teammates in his place, but Huey can easily see that they’re two of the Beagle Boys in disguise.  However, his ego easily allows him to choose getting a badge and possibly getting killed over it over the safe option.  In doing so, there’s an amusing setup of taking advantage of the Beagle Boys stupidity.  He acts like their friend telling him how to make a proper pit trap and rope knot, and teaches them moral values like fairness.  At first it seems like he successfully has them on his side as they turn against their far more intelligent leader Bigtime leading to him tied up a tree.  Huey, being very moralistic, won’t have it and opts to get Bigtime down only to land in trouble when the other Beagles start cutting the tree down while Huey’s up there.  There’s a suggestion here that Huey isn’t as clever as he thinks on his own, but then again, he was the least on board with Only Child Day.  As Huey lands in danger, there’s a cut to the next nephew living as an only child.  

What Louie has in mind is not just an attempt to gain great fortune, but is also a reference to an element of the original DuckTales.  Specifically, he’s attending a birthday party of one of the richest residents of Duckburg, Doofus Drake.  The big thing about this is that the character is a callback to one of the original series’ least likable characters.  Doofus back there wasn’t bad, but he certainly had nothing very appealing to him.  He was just short, fat, and overall generic, not to mention seeming very pointless as a kid character when Huey, Dewey, Louie, and Webby were already sufficient.  Nothing about him really stood out as interesting or substantial to the series, and perhaps audiences shared this opinion as he disappeared after the first season.  As for this reboot, considering that Doofus was an unintentionally unsympathetic character, here he’s reworked into a character meant to be disliked.  And disliked is a good way to describe Doofus as the moment he appears, there’s something unsettling.  This feeling grows as Louie introduces himself as his friend while Doofus proceeds to call him a “friend present.”  This seems innocent enough at first as Louie spends much of the party having fun with Doofus.  Eventually, the disturbance grows to extremely noticeable degrees with how he treats his servants, notably noticing they’re not smiling and acting like everything’s normal.  Not only that, but Louie later learns that the servants are actually Doofus’ parents, meaning their child has no discipline, being allowed to order his parents around.  As for the “friend present” claim, Louie soon finds out what it means when an arm brace Doofus gave him clamps him to the floor, making him unable to leave.  This in turn is an effective way of having Louie learn that being an only child isn’t as easy as he thinks.  

Then comes the last act focusing on the nephew most excited to be an only child, Dewey.  At first, one might think he was just looking forward to just having a normal fun day all by himself without any specific plan.  Then it turns out, he does have a plan.  He starts his own talk show called Dewey Dew-Night all about him.  It has all the fitting setup of a show that places well to Dewey’s sense of self promotion, and it’s easy to tell this is why he was so excited about Only Child Day.  However, it’s this show that gives him the most gradual sense of realization that being alone isn’t what it’s cracked up to be.  He soon becomes lonely running the show all by himself right down to the point of getting random props for him to voice to pose as his brothers.  It’s clear he misses his brothers, and something enhances that very directly.  

As a payoff to an earlier setup, offhand remarks about a robot attacking him appears to get the attention of an established security robot.  Dewey then gets into his designated mess as the robot goes after him.  As a twist though, he figures out that it was a ruse by Webby to get him to see that he needs to be with his brothers.  The moral value feels kind of wasted since Dewey already figured this out and doesn’t need to be told that.  The danger isn’t through though as the security robot starts to actually go on a rampage as a result of Webby’s reconfiguring.  The resulting chase soon leads all three nephews back to each other where they’re surrounded by all the Beagle Boys, Doofus Drake, and the robot together.  They decide to be brothers again, and as all their escapades suggested, they’re effective in solving their problems by working together.  This would suggest that the final moral would be that being a family has more benefit than being alone.  It’s here when the entire story gets muddies.  After going through everything, the boys explain to Webby that they do like being together as a family, but need time alone.  In the first place, that’s almost exactly what they explained to her earlier, so that’s just repetition.  Plus, the whole idea of Only Child Day is kind of pointless.  The boys claim that this is the only day they’re their own people, but there have already been plenty of episodes of them doing their own thing away from each other.  Why even make a big day of something they do, and continue to do, on a regular basis?  This is a matter of causing confusion out of such little matters.  

While the overall episode has merit with its structure and set of moments, it’s held back by a less engaging than average subject and confusing logic behind it.

B-

Series Ranking

1.     The House of the Lucky Gander

2.     The Beagle Birthday Breakout

3.     The Impossible Summit of Mt. Neverrest

4.     Terror of the Terra-Firmians

5.     The Missing Links of Moorshire

6.     McMystery at McDuck McManor

7.     The Living Mummies of Toth-Ra

8.     Daytrip of Doom

9.     The Great Dime Chase

10.  Escape To/From Atlantis

11.  Woo-oo

12.  The Spear of Selene

13.  The Infernal Internship of Mark Beaks

14.  Day of the Only Child

The next episode features Launchpad dealing with the rise of technology and introduces the reboot's version of Gizmoduck.

Next time, this blog finally completes Season 4 of Ed Edd n Eddy.

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

Yuppy Ducks - (DuckTales Vol 4 Part 13) - 'Toon Reviews 50

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Yuppy Ducks

The material in this set of episodes that focus on Huey, Dewey, and Louie seem to cover a common theme.  That theme would be having these young boys using business to enhance their desires for fun only to learn that business is far more complex than they let on.  So far, they’ve tried stretching the truth about the day of the week to get more allowance, and doubling their money, both of which resulting in havoc.  The trend continues with this episode where the nephews believe that they can run a successful business only to realize the complexities the hard way.  

A nuisance about the local malt shop having only three milkshake flavors has the boys wish that they had their own business so they can run a shop with all sorts of flavors.  As their uncle Scrooge informs them that they’re too young for that, a series of events put the boys’ desire into motion.  Scrooge suddenly comes down with a case of loot lice as a result of his obsession with maintaining his fortune.  A lot of time is spent on him building up to discovering his condition via a comedic scene of him going to the cheapest clinic and being unable to convince the doctor he’s rich.  Then there’s a long bit of him being placed in the hospital for a week while the lice are fumigated all while sharing a room with one of the Beagle Boys.  The point here is that there’s so much focus on Scrooge that it can easily catch the audience off guard when Huey, Dewey, and Louie eventually take back the spotlight.   

Fortunately, once they do, there’s interesting and well-realized subject matter for the rest of the episode.  The boys (as well as Bubba the caveduck who’s just kind of there) end up answering calls on Scrooge’s private business line since he’s not around to do it.  Their innocence of having a company buy a baseball team and suggest trading baseball cards surprisingly go well.  When they end up coming clean to a bunch of investors and dealers, they’re impressed with how well they handled the deals, and the boys use this as an opportunity.  They claim themselves as the heads of McDuck Enterprises, and with their new power, they set out to make business deals that fit their personal desires for fun.  For one thing, they set up a chain of malt shops that has all sorts of flavors like they wanted which work out well.  Then they take things further with other ideas for products like FM radio earrings and their own car design.  Considering that they pulled off their previous business deals well, it does seem like they know what they’re doing.  They even work the money bin’s security system well when the entire Beagle family tries to rob it.  

However, it turns out for how well the boys seemed to handle things, they still prove that their youth is their own undoing in business deals.  Their product ideas prove too ridiculous to be successful, resulting in many failed deals.  The investors are now in debt after spending so much on making said products, resulting in Scrooge’s money bin being completely emptied.  The boys have the right idea to make money on their own in a day, but it’s still not enough.  Once Scrooge is well enough to come back, the way events play out for the rest of the episode gets pretty messy.  First, the boys’ attempts to keep Scrooge away from the bin go completely wasted when he notices it empty anyway.  Then he's suddenly sent back to the hospital after the emotional shock of the sight.  The boys are with him for a while which looks like they’re going to explain to Scrooge what happened.  Instead, there’s a sudden cut to a scene where they’re running away without anything to establish that’s what they were planning.  

During this plan, they find a way out of the mess when they learn from a policeman that investors can’t make business deals with young kids like them; serving as the business lesson for the episode, this is a matter of breaking child labor laws.  It’s all a clever way of working in a real world issue, but this is where the logic must be questioned.  If child labor laws are a big matter, how could none of the investors have considered them when making those deals with the boys?  Surely, they would have easily been able to tell that they just can’t make deals with literal children just by looking at who they were talking do.  It kind of makes this loophole just a matter of plot convenience with it only being considered at the right time.  On top of that, while it easily solves the problem by getting Scrooge’s fortune back the way it was in an instant, they seem to be absolved from owning up to their mistake.  Scrooge is just happy things are back to normal, and the episode ends with the boys easily moving on with their lives.  Some could say it’s a mixed message for the boys to not face any consequences, but they did still learn and fixed their mistake, and there’s no harm done now.  Overall, unlike things like the investors being too dense to consider child labor laws until it matters, this direction is fine.  

Ultimately, this episode is a solid continuation of the trend of working in interesting business lessons into childhood antics.  It still suffers from sudden shifts in focus and resolutions feeling like conveniences, but it doesn’t make the merits any less notable.

B+

The Ranking

1.     Blue Collar Scrooge

2.     My Mother the Psychic

3.     Allowance Day

4.     The Big Flub

5.     The Land of Trala La

6.     Yuppy Ducks

7.     The Good Muddahs

8.     Dough Ray Me

9.     A Case of Mistaken Identity

10.  Bubba’s Big Brainstorm

11.  Beaglemania

12.  Metal Attraction

13.  Bubbeo and Juliet

The next episode features Scrooge stuck in an arranged marriage with Ma Beagle, but first a look at an episode of the reboot.

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

 

Run For Your Ed / Hand Me Down Ed (Ed Edd n Eddy Season 4 Episode 12) - 'Toon Reviews 52

 If you like this review and want to stay updated for what else I have in store, become a follower of this blog, click here to like the official Facebook page, and click here to follow me on Twitter. Now on with today's review:

Run for Your Ed

Some of this show’s most memorable works have a creative concept that really takes advantage of its potential for quality entertainment.  With this cartoon, its concept is central to the quirks of some of its characters and their reaction to a notable inconvenience.  

The characters in question here are the typically most dreaded in the cast, the Kanker sisters.  They’re awakened one night and discover that their home has been invaded.  Rather than their damaged furniture and appliances, their concern is on a missing ship-in-a-bottle, a family heirloom they clearly have a huge attachment to.  In a way, their ties to the ship-in-a-bottle, shown to their distress of it going missing, does a lot of good for the Kankers as characters.  Giving them a sentimental attachment to something gives them shreds of humanity which is good for them considering their status as relentless harassing thugs who can’t take a hint.  

There isn’t much humanity in how they set out to look for their ship-in-a-bottle which is terrorizing the entire cul-de-sac by breaking into houses and assaulting all the kids.  However, even then, with the context of their actions in mind, some could say that their so devoted to this specific treasure that they’re willing to do anything to get it back.  It is a natural response to forget all logic and common sense in the name of sincere devotion.  Also, as a creative scenario, the Kanker’s wreaking havoc on the cul-de-sac is well-executed.  It’s a somewhat ridiculous setup with the Kankers ready to cause harm over something as simple as a ship-in-a-bottle, but that’s what makes it entertaining and amusing.  It works together with the just how destructive the havoc as a result of their actions looks.  From the moment Rolf’s farm animals react franticly sensing a disturbance and Rolf rushing them to the cellar, danger is clearly imminent.  The danger is well displayed with a threatening red sky, and whenever the Kankers show up, there are earthquakes, immediate house destructions, and all around carnage.  All the other kids are powerless to stop them and are reduced to hiding in fear, all because of what’s known as a “Kanker hissy fit.” Just a name like that for something so seriously dangerous makes what unfolds just as humorous as it is legitimately threatening.  

As for the ship-in-a-bottle itself, this would be where the Eds come in.  In a callback to another very memorable and greatly executed creative concept, Eddy and Double D are called to retrieve Ed from Kevin’s refrigerator.  He’s been eating while sleepwalking again, and in his travels, he got a ship-in-a-bottle stuck on his finger.  Naturally, the Eds’ goal for the cartoon becomes trying to get the ship-in-a-bottle off of Ed’s finger.  There’s a variety of extreme attempts that tend to come from a trio who regularly makes simple tasks more difficult from trying to forcefully pull it off; fighting Ed’s resistance to soap; and Ed insisting they can remove the bottle by using sticky tape while he jumps from a ceiling.  These scenes are fun enough, but they don’t reach the same impact as the Kankers’ destruction.  The funniest part about them is how the Eds are so in tune to their task that they’re oblivious to all the painfully obvious carnage going on around them.  

There is a clever way of how both paths cross.  When getting sticky tape, they come across Sarah who aggressively says she’s hiding, but they don’t care to find out what she’s hiding from.  Then the Kankers show up and attack Sarah, an honestly welcome change of pace for this usual aggressive brat.  Then, Sarah ends up proving resourceful remembering just one brief moment of her encounter with the Eds, proving helpful to the Kankers when they mention their ship-in-a-bottle.  

This leads into the cartoon’s best gag where the Kankers suddenly show up at Double D's doorstep as he and Eddy try another attempt to free Ed’s finger.  There’s total silence as Double D slowly locks the door lasting for a good number of seconds.  Then suddenly, noise goes all out as he freaks out to the other Eds on how the ship-in-a-bottle belongs to the Kankers.  The pace becomes frantic as the Eds hide from the Kankers in fear of the usual harassment, and the audience is right to think that too given their dynamic.  However, a slight subversion of expectation occurs, as the Kankers uncover them from under the sink, simply take the ship-in-a-bottle off Ed’s finger, and leave.  The fact that they just stop their rampage after getting back what’s theirs and don’t even follow through with their lust for the Eds may just present the Kankers at their best here.  It’s best not to expect anything notable to come from this though.  Still, there’s something to appreciate about the Eds not having to suffer too much when all is said and done.  Even Eddy now getting his finger stuck in the sink is a very tame misfortune by comparison to how the Eds usually suffer.  

Overall, this whole cartoon is an impressive ridiculous scenario that stands out not just for how far they go out with tonal effects, but the portrayal of the central characters.

A

Hand Me Down Ed

Creative concepts continue to keep the focus going into the companion to the previous cartoon for this episode.  While character work remains a key element to this featured concept, the overall drive is something especially out there.  

It all unfolds with the emergence of something as simple as a boomerang flying into the scene.  The focus on it is all the indication needed to know that it will have an important role to play here.  

Then comes Jimmy going about his day innocently playing with his toys and running into the usual misfortune with Kevin inadvertently knocking over a mailbox, destroying them.  Jimmy then wants to beat up Kevin for showing no remorse for what he was put through, but laments being a weakling.  This is where the boomerang comes in as it lands near Jimmy and attracts his attention.  Then comes the twist when Jimmy picks it up, and for an inexplicable reason, he’s transformed into his natural opposite.  Instead of a weakling, Jimmy becomes an ultra-buff muscle man and gives Kevin quite a beating.  He doesn’t remain this way though, for when the boomerang is out of his possession, Jimmy is back to his normal frail self.  This ultimately puts the concept in motion that this is no ordinary boomerang; it’s a mystical artifact with supernatural powers to change anyone who touches it.  With all that established, the rest of the cartoon is set up to show more instances of the concept at work.  

At the same time, it further explores the extent of the boomerang’s transformations.  It would be easy to assume that all it does is make everyone act like the opposite versions of their true selves.  

Sarah, who’s usually aggressive and at this point is ready to hit Ed for messing up her room, becomes sweet and friendly when touching the boomerang.  This makes for an amusing moment where the Eds anticipate a hit, go along with Sarah being nice, and get a surprise hit when Sarah loses the boomerang.  

However, the boomerang isn’t just about natural opposites.  When Rolf gets hit with it, he’s transformed into a loud opera singer who doesn’t even sing in proper English.  That’s not too opposite from his usual personality who’s talkative and hard to understand being a foreigner.  And why an opera singer? That slight randomness adds to the mystery and intrigue of this boomerang.  How does it decide what a character should be changed to?  Where did it even come from?  How did its powers come to be?  The remarkable thing is that none of these questions matters.  The main goal is to show the boomerang at work in how in affects the characters it comes into contact.  Any question is just up to interpretation as the audience gets to know the concept.  

With that, it’s set up to bring about the grand finale to the cartoon when it works its magic on the Eds.  For Ed, it goes for a direct opposite by making the nonsensical oaf into a major league intellectual writing a novel.  It brings excitement from his peers (or at least from Double D) that puberty unlocked his intellect, but Ed is back to a buffoon rolling around when he loses the boomerang.  When Eddy gets it, he gets somewhat of an opposite change where instead of being mean and bossy, he’s caring and motherly to a suitcase he’s carrying.  Why a mother though? And how do his clothes and hair drastically change?  

Double D gets the most random change of all that actually plays up his established neurotic side.  He becomes sensitively hot to the point where he needs to strip himself of his clothes.  Even then, being hot was never that big a thing with him, playing into the randomness of the boomerang.  No one can predict what it can do to people.  The spectacle of the ending is how rapid the Eds change from the boomerang’s transformation to their true selves.  Their different personalities and shock at how they look when they’re normal are so sporadic yet blend together well nicely with dramatic performance to enhance all portrayals.  

Then for a grand finish, all the Eds end up in a tree with the boomerang holding them by the neck.  They close the cartoon in the characters the boomerang put themselves in, and they all give a well-defined performance to really sell the work of the forces that compel them.  It also works as a hilarious capper to a well-realized creative concept making for a memorable experience helped by interesting character directions and sheer absurdity.

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.  Hand Me Down Ed

19.  Gimme, Gimme Never Ed

20.  Ed-N-Seek

21.  Keeping Up With the Eds

22.  Who Let the Ed In

23.  Avast Ye Eds

24.  Flea Bitten Ed

25.  Fool on the Ed

26.  Ready Set Ed

27.  The Ed-Touchables

28.  Who What Where Ed

29.  Dear Ed

30.  Momma’s Little Ed

31.  Run For Your Ed

32.  Brother, Can You Spare an Ed?

33.  Hot Buttered Ed

34.  Ed or Tails

35.  Stop Look and Ed

36.  See No Ed

37.  Shoo Ed

38.  Rock-a-Bye Ed

39.  Little Ed Blue

40.  Ed in a Halfshell

41.  Scrambled Ed

42.  Pain in the Ed

43.  O-Ed Eleven

44.  Vert Ed Go

45.  Ed Overboard

46.  Postcards from the Ed

47.  Oath to an Ed

48.  Ed, Ed, and Away

49.  Button Yer Ed

50.  An Ed in the Bush

51.  Read All About Ed

52.  Rambling Ed

53.  Home Cooked Ed

54.  Honor Thy Ed

55.  Stuck in Ed

56.  Floss Your Ed

57.  Robbin’ Ed

58.  Quick Shot Ed

59.  Look Into My Eds

60.  The Luck of the Ed

61.  The Good Ol’ Ed

62.  Is There An Ed in the House?

63.  Knock, Knock Who’s Ed

64.  A Boy and His Ed

65.  Eds-Aggerate

66.  Three Squares and an Ed

67.  One Size Fits Ed

68.  Will Work for Ed

69.  Boys Will Be Eds

70.  High Heeled Ed

71.  Know-it-All Ed

72.  For Your Ed Only

73.  Dim Lit Ed

74.  Cry Ed

75.  Eeny Meeny Miney Ed

76.  A Pinch to Grow an Ed

77.  Pop Goes the Ed

78.  Hands Across Ed

79.  They Call Him Mr. Ed

80.  An Ed Too Many

81.  Sir Ed-a-Lot

82.  For the Ed By the Ed

83.  Over Your Ed

84.  From Here to Ed

85.  A Key to My Ed

86.  Once Bitten Twice Ed

87.  X Marks the Ed

88.  It’s Way Ed

89.  Here’s Mud in Your Ed

90.  In Like Ed

91.  A Twist of Ed

92.  A Case of Ed

93.  Thick as an Ed

94.  My Fair Ed

95.  To Sir With Ed

96.  Nagged to Ed

97.  Tag Yer Ed

98.  Stiff Upper Ed

99.  Sorry Wrong Ed

100. If it Smells Like an Ed

101. Your Ed Here

Ed Edd n Eddy Season 4 will conclude with a review of one more full half hour special on growing up and learning not to take childhood for granted.

Next time, it's more DuckTales reviews.

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.