'Toon Review 14: Animaniacs Vol 1 Part 23: Be Careful What You Eat/Up the Crazy River/Ta Da Dump, Ta Da Dump, Ta Da Dump Dump Dump

Episode 23

Be Careful What You Eat

It’s common to be more conscious of having a good balanced diet as you get older, but as a kid, you’d most likely want something that tastes the best, regardless if it’s healthy.  With cartoon characters like the Warners however, given their overly-hyper zaniness that makes up the bulk of their personalities, junk food is obviously the most important part of their diet. 

So, when doing shopping at the supermarket, they’re speeding through the aisles getting as much of it as possible.  Scenes of this lead into the song, this time teaching about the chemicals, elements, fats, and sugars that go into junk food as the Warners read their featured ingredients on the labels and boxes.  Like all the other educational songs of the series, the impressiveness comes from how well it takes the long complicated names for the junk food ingredients and puts them to music which in this case is a fast-paced rendition of the Can-can, resulting in a particularly catchy number.  There’s even some nice visual cues to help you to remember the names of the ingredients when the scene is taken up by the ingredient label as the Warners point to them and hop across them as they sing, at least in the first part of the song.  The rest of it is set to scenes of them simply observing the actual ingredients and making their own junk food.  It’s not as fun as singing on the actual label, but it’s fitting for what they’re going for. 

That said, as good as the song is for teaching what NOT to want when searching for healthy food depicted with the Warners getting fat and claiming that they’re insides are rotting at the end of the song, I think the educational aspect could’ve been stronger with brief explanations of what many of the ingredients listed are.  I mean, which ones are sugars, fats, chemicals etc. and how exactly are they bad for you?  That would be a lot more effective in saying why we should be careful of those things as well as why the Warners love junk food so much. 

Regardless, this is still an enormously fun song that continues to remain catchy while educating on somewhat complex elements of life. 9.5/10

Up the Crazy River

This is yet another cartoon starring the formulaic escapades of Mindy and Buttons, but there are a few elements to make it stand out amongst their other cartoons. 

For one thing, the setting for the action is more exotic and clever than the mundane suburban home most Mindy and Buttons chases start at.  It all begins on a ferry going through the Amazon rainforest that Mindy and her family are taking.  We still have Mindy harnessed and Buttons being given a specific order, but starting with the family together for a boat ride through a jungle as opposed to them just doing their thing at home is a pretty significant difference anyway. 

Speaking of sticking to the formula, the chase begins the moment Mindy is distracted by a passing butterfly which prompts her to follow it off the boat and Buttons to keep her safe.  The chase provides many rainforest-related gags for Buttons to endure while keeping Mindy safe, and most of them aren’t too harsh to him.  When he gets caught on the ferry’s paddlewheel, all that happens is that he’s frequently dunked in the water a few times without any real pain.  When piranhas chew on him as he climbs out of the water, he just shrugs and flicks them off.  Even when he’s given a sinister glare by a mother alligator after he knocks away her babies, she’s not that hard on him.  For that, it’s easy to enjoy what happens, predictable as it is. 

Another interesting thing about this particular cartoon is how it can stand as a guide on how to effectively inform the audience about a major issue, in this case deforestation in major rainforests like the Amazon.  Before the chase even starts, during the ferry ride, there’s a monotone announcement on a PA system talking about the rainforest losing a lot of trees and many animals are losing their home.  All the while, both Mindy and Buttons give very bored expressions.  In fact you could argue that this gives a believable reason for Mindy to want to go after a butterfly.  Basically, this is an example of a weak way to get across a social message.  The announcement spelling out the effects of deforestation is both preachy for how it hammers the negativity of the issue, and boring for how it’s just there to make a point of the issue and nothing more. 

However, the following chase addresses the issue by showing the effects.  Shots of men cutting down trees, homeless animals fleeing, and the wood being taken to a factory speak wonders of the harsh effects of deforestation with very little dialog.  It’s easier to feel the emotional effects of the issue and you get more of what it’s all about than you could in a long restrained lecture.  Also, since the issue becomes a backdrop for Mindy and Buttons’ chase through the rainforest and even the factory, you learn a lot about deforestation while watching a fun, entertaining cartoon in the process which is always a plus.  The depiction of deforestation also shows some hope to end it when the chase gets the factory destroyed much to the animals’ delight.  Sure, it may cost some people their jobs, but it shows that for the good of the planet, we could use less factories. 

So, there’s a good amount of standout moments to make this one of the better Mindy and Buttons cartoons.  Even Buttons’ obligatory scolding, which to be fair was partially brought on by himself since he DID get Mindy wet, is lightened by a hug from Mindy at the end, and this wouldn’t be the last time this would happen. 

For a unique setting and effectively showing an environmental issue instead of telling it, this is a cartoon with these characters worth coming back to. 9/10

Ta Da Dump, Ta Da Dump, Ta Da Dump Dump Dump

For this cartoon starring the Goodfeathers, the focus is on the simple comedic hijinks stemming from the pigeons’ daily tasks such as trying to find food.  It’s nothing particularly special, but the simplistic setup is made entertaining by the solid comedy and character dynamics, and that's good considering that most of the Goodfeathers’ cartoons mostly feature them getting mercilessly hurt over said dynamics. 

Even the violence we do get at the start of the cartoon, especially with Pesto crushed by a hotdog cart that does honestly look too realistic to be truly funny, works because it has a point to show just how much of a challenge getting food is.  The challenging part of this task also does its part to get the plot moving when the Goodfeathers travel to a garbage barge to obtain good food scraps.  There, the focus of entertainment is the Goodfeathers' chemistry with clashes of Squit’s innocence with Pesto’s temper while Bobby breaks up the tensions, as well as them putting up with the irritating seagulls who claim the garbage.  It’s not long before the a conflict arises when Pesto gets stuck in plastic soda rings. 

One thing to appreciate about this setup for the plot is a believable thing to happen to pigeons in the city, and it’s pleasing to see that to represent an honest look at what those creatures can encounter in the city as opposed to getting hit or knocked away by humans.  Like the previous cartoon, it’s an environmental awareness moment without flat-out stating it, so more time is devoted to countless attempts to remove the rings while Pesto’s temper helps liven up things up comedy-wise.  How he finds a way to make a big deal out of every minute thing that happens to him is his usual entertaining trait, but given his predicament, his attitude turns out to be a perfect fit. 

As for the attempts to free Pesto, they’re basic attempts that boil down to tugging on the rings whether its simply by the Goodfeathers themselves or taken to extreme measures by relying on taxis to pull them off.  However, these simple gags bring on even more great personality clashes such as from how Pesto’s temper is only quelled by Bobby’s threatening, but still sounding laid-back, attitude.  There’s also some creativity to how the plastic finally does come off.  Pesto’s temper ends up getting all the Goodfeathers stuck, but they find a way around this by posing as soda cans, shape and all, just as a woman buys hotdogs.  It gives us a cute visual gag, and they don’t even feature the woman beating them up after finding out she was offered pigeons. 

It really is amazing how easy this cartoon is on the Goodfeathers pain-wise, for even if what happens does prevent them from getting food like they had planned, this is a cartoon starring them that’s easy to enjoy.  It allows for the main trio’s personalities to show themselves off significantly, bring them together for great interactions, and overall specializes in their strengths.  The story isn’t the most interesting from the show, but it’s still greatly entertaining. 9/10

Cartoon Ranking

1. King Yakko
2. Hello Nice Warners
3. Meatballs or Consequences
4. Plane Pals
5. Slappy Goes Walnuts
6. H.M.S. Yakko
7. Hooked on a Ceiling
8. Temporary Insanity
9. Bumbie’s Mom
10. Les Miseranimals
11. Hearts of Twilight
12. Space Probed
13. West Side Pigeons
14. Battle for the Planet
15. Four Score and Seven Migraines Ago
16. When Rita Met Runt
17. De-zanitized
18. Win Big
19. Guardin’ the Garden
20. Taming of the Screwy
21. Chalkboard Bungle
22. La La Law
23. Nothing but the Tooth
24. Piano Rag
25. Pavlov’s Mice
26. Cookies for Einstein
27. The Big Candy Store
28. Ta Da Dump, Ta Da Dump, Ta Da Dump Dump Dump
29. Davy Omelette
30. Garage Sale of the Century
31. Wally Llama
32. Up the Crazy River
33. Where Rodents Dare
34. The Flame
35. Roll Over Beethoven
36. Hurray for Slappy
37. Cat on a Hot Steel Beam
38. Operation: Lollipop
39. No Pain No Painting
40. Chicken Boo-Ryshnikov
41. Goodfeathers: The Beginning
42. The Cat and the Fiddle
43. La Behemoth
44. A Moving Experience
45. The Boids

Song Ranking

1. Yakko’s Universe
2. Yakko’s World
3. The Monkey Song
4. Wakko’s America
5. What Are We?
6. Be Careful What You Eat
7. Little Old Slappy from Pasadena

Miscellaneous Ranking

1. The Great Wakkorotti: The Master and His Music
2. Hitchcock Parody
3. Gilligan’s Island Parody
4. Nighty-Night Toon
5. Flipper Parody

Be sure to stay tuned for the review of the next episode which features a commercial for Yakko's World of Baldness, Pinky and the Brain plotting to steal the gold from Fort Knox, and a one-off short about a moth falling for a butterfly told through music.
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