Thursday, April 5, 2018

'Toon Reviews 14: Animaniacs Vol 1 Part 12: Garage Sale of the Century/West Side Pigeons


Episode 12
Garage Sale of the Century







This Warners cartoon is the wacky hijinks abounding escapade of the kids faced off against a total jerk mixed with a simple slice-of-life plotline.  Slice-of-life means the whole story revolves around an occurrence common to everyday life which includes, in this particular cartoon's case, garage sales. 
The garage sale in this cartoon is staged as one that wouldn’t seem out of place in reality with random objects for sale and bystanders looking for something to buy.  The catch is that it’s held by a bear named Vern who pulls out all the stops to make a quick buck out of all the junk in his garage whether it’s making up a name and purpose for a useless knick-knack or denying claims that something he sold is defective.  He’s basically a greedy jerk putting money ahead of customer satisfaction just begging to be taken down a peg.  With that in mind, it’s perfectly fitting that the Warners enter the garage sale ensuring that they’ll get up to something zany that will give Vern his comeuppance. 
While that is ultimately what happens, there’s something about the role of the Warners that’s a bit off-putting.  It’s not that they go too far with their treatment of Vern, but the whole reason they’re at the garage sale in the first place doesn’t seem to be in line with their characters.  Since this is a garage sale, they believe that this means Vern’s whole garage, building and all, is for sale and intend to buy it for the top of their water tower.  Yes, the Warners are zany joke-driven characters with oddball mindsets, but it’s hard to believe that they’d actually be this naïve.  They take buying Vern’s garage seriously when a mention of wanting to do it would be better as a one-and-done joke. 
Even if it’s hard to buy the Warners’ portrayal, they still work in a lot of great comedy suited to their cartoony nature. It includes them treating buying Vern’s garage as an auction with a lot of fast-talking for potential deals, and their attempts leading Wakko to get a hold of the garage door opener which works on opening everything except the garage thus resulting in many great well-timed physical gags.  When all is said and done though, we once again end with another instance of the Warners becoming overpowered by their target when Vern has enough of their antics and someone else, in this case a mob of his earlier customers who told the police, finish him off.  Though even if they don’t do as much work, their earlier garage door opener gag does expose the money Vern scammed the people out of.  Still, it’s satisfying enough that Vern gets appropriate punishments for his scam, and the Warners still get the last laugh when they end up buying his garage for the reasonable price of 26 cents. 
While this isn’t the best cartoon for characterization, the comedy and great sense of justice make it a very solid one to check out. 9/10

West Side Pigeons









Like in the last episode, we have a cartoon that’s a parody of a famous musical.  This time the Goodfeathers star in a parody of the street-smart romantic tragedy West Side Story, and it’s a great take on the musical with respect for the source material and likable characters at the lead. 
The whole plot is pretty much a simplified, to-the-point retelling of the original musical.  Even technical things like bits of cinematography and especially the songs feel directly inspired.  This could be a problem if they were all exactly the same as the real movie because it could leave very little reason for the cartoon to be viewed when you can just watch the source material.  However, the story, music, and so on are distinct enough to exist as their own thing. 
The Goodfeathers themselves and many of their ways of life make what happens feel like something that would fit in their own world and not just an homage to a popular musical.  As they protect their turf of a statue of Martin Scorsese from the sparrows like the Jets protected their street from the Sharks, the roles of certain members of Jets feel like perfect fits for certain Goodfeathers.  The best example of this is naïve and innocent Squit wanting to find love while street-smart and tough Bobby and Pesto keeping their main focus on their rivalry with the sparrows, akin to the main character of West Side Story, Tony and his gang of Jets respectively.  These three characters fitting so well into the roles has them to shine as their true selves, making for some interesting chemistry.  This is an especially pleasing break from the usual routine of the pigeons frequently getting hit by things for the whole duration of most of their cartoons. 
Their main traits are still felt as they go through the motions of West Side Story. Squit instantly falls in love with Carloota, the sister of the sparrow leader, and plans to migrate with her, the sparrows show dissatisfaction with living on a rooftop instead of Scorsese’s head, and the Goodfeathers get caught in a rumble with the sparrows and Squit appears to “beak” the sparrow leader.  Following established characters who fit the source material’s roles and a few bird mannerisms like getting eaten by a cop cat and performing a high note to get out and wanting to be at the statue for food humans drop give the cartoon a unique feel. 
The cartoon also stands out for certain alterations to the source material.  Some examples include poking fun at its questionable moments like how Squit and Carloota fall in love and decide to migrate without question like the main couple in West Side Story do, how the sparrows immediately go against the no weapons rule in the rumble, and how fast Squit believes that Carloota got beaked.  The self-awareness not only continues to help the cartoon stand as its own, but allows it to feel at home in this show.  Speaking of which, it also gets away of not showing any dying like in the original with everything simply wrapping up with Carloota getting back together with her apparent original sparrow boyfriend, so to avoid getting too heavy.  Plus, there are good moments of heart like when Carloota genuinely lets Squit down gently, and a heartwarming musical number to further establish the bonds of the Goodfeathers that literally bring the statue down. 
In the end, we’re left with a respectful parody that, while modeling its plot heavily on the source, stands on its own with great use of characters, pokes at the source’s weak points, and great use of music and heart.  Given what Goodfeathers cartoons are mostly like, this is one of their more amazing works. 10/10

Cartoon Ranking
  1. King Yakko
  2. Slappy Goes Walnuts
  3. H.M.S. Yakko
  4. Hooked on a Ceiling
  5. Temporary Insanity
  6. Bumbie’s Mom
  7. Les Miseranimals
  8. West Side Pigeons
  9. When Rita Met Runt
  10. De-zanitized
  11. Win Big
  12. Taming of the Screwy
  13. Piano Rag
  14. Cookies for Einstein
  15. The Big Candy Store
  16. Garage Sale of the Century
  17. Wally Llama
  18. Where Rodents Dare
  19. Operation: Lollipop
  20. No Pain No Painting
  21. Goodfeathers: The Beginning

Song Ranking
  1. Yakko’s Universe
  2. Yakko’s World
  3. The Monkey Song
  4. What Are We?

Miscellaneous Ranking
  1. Gilligan’s Island Parody
  2. Nighty-Night Toon
  3. Flipper Parody
This blog is going on a 10-day hiatus and will resume operation on 4/15 when the next episode will be reviewed featuring the Warners meeting a supposed comedy "genius" modeled after the late Jerry Lewis, the first Hip Hippos cartoon with an operatic feel, and Slappy Squirrel going for a wild drive set to the Dan and Jean song, "Little Old Lady from Pasadena."
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