Monday, April 16, 2018

'Toon Reviews 14: Animaniacs Vol 1 Part 14: La La Law/Cat on a Hot Steel Beam


Episode 14
La La Law








Most of the time, the Warners use their animated antics to face off against someone who’s antagonistic or rude to them, but there are a few times when they use them to help get someone out of trouble.  The endearing thing about them using their zaniness to help here is that it’s for their psychiatrist, Dr. Scratchansniff, someone they love to mostly joke around with. 
He gets a parking ticket even though he put his money in the meter, and when the Warners find out about this, they decide not to stand for this injustice and push Scratchansniff to claim that he doesn’t deserve the ticket in court.  Of course, knowing how out of control they can get with their ways of life, Scratchansniff would rather just pay for the ticket, but the Warners insist on taking action and hilarity ensues. 
Posing as Scratchansniff’s lawyers, the Warners bring an approach to the court case filled with entertaining funny moments with the right fit for a court case setup.  The whole thing is treated as if it were happening as part of a court case TV series with how the case happened appearing as a recap before the story begins, followed by an intro of each of the Warners doing something funny while in an office setting common to most lawyers, mostly hitting on good-looking men or women.  Then the rest of the cartoon unfolds at Scratchansniff’s trial and the Warners, while seeming destined to make everything worse, enter the case confidently and with little worry or care, refuse to let anything stand in the way of proving their client innocent. 
They are on absolute fire when facing off against the judge threatening to sentence Scratchansniff and their opposing witness, the meter maid who gave him the ticket in the first place.  Yakko in particular stands out comedy-wise which is to be expected given that his thing is being a fast-talker and the foreseer of the group’s plans.  He takes whatever the judge or witness say and responds to them with a witty comeback such as using the sound of an intellectual world like “folderol” as a song cue, or taking a threat of being thrown in contempt as a friendly invite.  His biggest comedic moment here though is through another example of the show pushing the envelope of what jokes it could somehow get away with telling in which he takes major offense of the sound of words like “subpoenaed” or “penal code.”  What makes them work is that it’s never spelled out WHY Yakko would be so offended, leading you to think hard about the reason as an adult viewer, thus coming off as subtle and not taking you out of what’s happening. 
As for the case at hand, with another amusing bit of wordplay involving how the meter maid doesn’t wash windows, the Warners bring up the suggestion that the parking meter might have been broken, making the claim that Scrachansniff didn’t pay invalid.  However, aside from this mention, they wrap up the trial not by seeing if this is true, but by getting the judge distracted by having him tango with the meter maid and forgetting about the case.  It’s a clever and humorous outcome and all, but it makes the whole conflict feel empty and unresolved, and it’s frustrating that we’re left without a clear answer if Scratchansniff really did pay. 
Aside from that, this cartoon is still a great success for showing that even in a stiff, serious, and relatively enclosed area, the Warners are sure to bring some great laughs and do something productive in the process thus making them great characters. 9/10
Cat on a Hot Steel Beam









Here’s one of the more exciting Mindy and Buttons chases.  It happens to have a few twists attempting to break from the typical formula which hardly happens in the rest of the series.  For one thing, it doesn’t start with Mindy’s mom putting her in her harness or giving Buttons an order, but rather have them both in their usual places.  That way, the cartoon’s driving force can come in faster and invest the audience in the coming chase. 
A cute little cat draws Mindy’s attention, and she breaks from the harness to follow it while Buttons chases after her.  As for the chase this time around, it’s very appealing with the many close calls to danger Mindy and the cat would run into like being crushed by traffic or a pile driver.  The music and shots of things getting closer to hurting Mindy mixed with Buttons rushing towards her invest you in the seriousness of what might happen if Buttons doesn’t reach her in time.  Fortunately, while Buttons ends up hurt while getting Mindy safe, those moments cap off the suspense in a comical way for how he gets hurt. He gets flattened into a cutout by the traffic, stops the pile driver while getting hardened by cement, and gets flattened into a disk when the cement crumbles.  It keeps you from getting too sympathetic to stop enjoying what goes on, which is good because of the place where most of the chase ends up occurring. 
It goes through a large building under construction.  Design-wise, it’s an interesting place to watch the chase unfold.  The walkways in the form of the steel beams are very narrow without a lot of space, and you never know when a crane will bring up a new beam in case you fall off, so there’s some mild entertainment from watching Mindy chase the cat on the beams or Buttons trying to keep Mindy safe while staying on.  For the latter point, it’s interesting that the focus is more on Buttons keeping Mindy safe than on him falling which makes for a memorable gag of him making a longer floor out of random objects in the building that goes all the way to space as she walks off the beams capped off by a cute Marvin the Martian cameo. 
Going back to how this cartoon stands out a bit from others starring Mindy and Buttons, during Mindy’s cute little “why” conversations with two construction workers on a lunch break, the chase is actually made known instead of going on when no one else bothers to notice.  When the construction workers see Mindy and Buttons on a high floor, the situation is responded realistically with widespread panic.  Backed by sirens wailing, the whole thing being broadcasted on the news to everyone, including Mindy’s parents, and the workers rushing to lower them to safety, it’s an nice change of pace that treats what goes on like the big deal it is making it suspenseful enough to get the audience’s attention.  Buttons even gets one more moment of awesomeness by saving the cat as it falls and giving it to Mindy. 
However, it makes his usual scolding all the more concerning.  While this is par for the course, the scolding here is worse than usual when Mindy’s parents berate Buttons for chasing a cat just as he gives it to Mindy right in front of them right after he saved it.  It’s like they’re blind to the possibility that Mindy wanted the cat and anything good Buttons could’ve been doing before landing, and that makes the payoff to what Buttons went through even harsher than it already is. 
Even with the more stinging than usual scolding, it’s still easy to enjoy the fun, suspense, and rare twists to the Mindy and Buttons formula this cartoon provides. 8/10
Cartoon Ranking
  1. King Yakko
  2. Hello Nice Warners
  3. Slappy Goes Walnuts
  4. H.M.S. Yakko
  5. Hooked on a Ceiling
  6. Temporary Insanity
  7. Bumbie’s Mom
  8. Les Miseranimals
  9. West Side Pigeons
  10. When Rita Met Runt
  11. De-zanitized
  12. Win Big
  13. Taming of the Screwy
  14. La La Law
  15. Piano Rag
  16. Cookies for Einstein
  17. The Big Candy Store
  18. Garage Sale of the Century
  19. Wally Llama
  20. Where Rodents Dare
  21. Cat on a Hot Steel Beam
  22. Operation: Lollipop
  23. No Pain No Painting
  24. Goodfeathers: The Beginning
  25. La Behemoth
Song Ranking
  1. Yakko’s Universe
  2. Yakko’s World
  3. The Monkey Song
  4. What Are We?
  5. Little Old Slappy from Pasadena
Miscellaneous Ranking
  1. Gilligan’s Island Parody
  2. Nighty-Night Toon
  3. Flipper Parody
Be sure to stay tuned for the review of a space-themed episode of the show in which the Warners get abducted by aliens, and Pinky and the Brain do their take on the infamous War of the Worlds broadcast.
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If you would like to check out other Animaniacs reviews on this blog, click here for the guide made especially for them.


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