'Toon Reviews 19: OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes Season 1 Episode 8: I Am Dendy

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:

I Am Dendy

A character getting a best friend has potential to add endearment and bring about a new interesting dynamic.  This cartoon introduces us to a potential best friend for K.O., and a whole cartoon spent on them hanging out already feels great and interesting. 

Her name is Dendy, and while K.O. hasn’t known her prior to this cartoon, she falls into a surprisingly relatable category.  She’s not very social and mostly focuses on researching others behind their backs.  Even if not many kids know her personally, she’s still present and it’s always possible to learn about her if they get to know her.  That’s what happens with K.O. when Dendy plays to his desire to help people by asking him to help repair her special backpack she uses to put code on devices called a hackpack. 

Their search for the required parts takes them all around Lakewood Plaza Turbo.  In the process, K.O. and Dendy take part in various activities that strengthen their bond, from getting haircuts from Mr. Logic that give them brief stylized anime appearances, to going to the arcade, to simply playing tag in an ally where all the remains of robots are tossed.  There’s a range of feels from K.O. and Dendy’s time together.  K.O.’s innocence, friendliness, and sense of fun is expected, and Dendy has a lot of likability too.  Her technological knowhow has her point out where all the parts she needs are, and even when she ends up breaking things, she fixes them easily.  Also, while she speaks in a monotone, intellectual tone, Dendy comes off as very charming as it slowly becomes clear that she enjoys K.O.’s company, especially as they play tag.  That’s a nice thing to see from an intellectual who could easily just explain scientific information and nothing more. 

Then when K.O. and Dendy finally get to the alley to retrieve a glowing power orb called a glorb, the final component to fix Dendy’s hackpack, her true feelings for K.O. as a friend are put to the test when he’s eaten by a robot fish.  While K.O. goes about with fruitless attempts to punch his way out, Dendy sits on the sidelines adding to an extensive research file on K.O. showing how interested she is in one common kid who up until now she’s only watched but never gotten to know.  It does get concerning that K.O. remains trapped in the fish when it gets dark, and not only does Dendy become too engrossed in her research to help, but K.O.’s other known allies, including his loving mom, don’t come looking for him.  While the latter characters have little excuse, Dendy’s fixation on research is made better when she’s snapped back into her bonding with K.O. who mentions his Pow card collection while discussing his will. 

Akin to most budding friendships, this turns out to be a common interest that officially brings Dendy and K.O. together as friends.  As a result of their shared interest, Dendy reveals that her hackpack was never broken and uses it to rescue K.O.  This means that for all her interest in research, coding, and being technical, Dendy is fully established as a cute relatable kid just looking for a friend, and her adding her name to K.O.’s list of allies at the end brings great satisfaction that she found one. 

This cartoon is just a fun-loving boy, and a lonely intellectual girl hanging out together as they grow closer, but that’s all it needs to be great.

A

The Ranking

1. I Am Dendy
2. Let’s Be Heroes
3. You’re Everybody’s Sidekick
4. Jethro’s All Yours
5. Let’s Be Friends
6. We Messed Up
7. Sibling Rivalry
8. You’re Level 100

The next OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes review is about Rad striving to prove that he knows everything about everything when the bodega employees are assigned to get something from a labyrinth of a storage room.

Next time on MC Toon Reviews from Star vs. the Forces of Evil is a review of "Starstruck" and "Camping Trip."

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

'Toon Reviews 19: OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes Season 1 Episode 7: Sibling Rivalry

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:

Sibling Rivalry

Being a team doesn’t always mean that everyone who’s a part of it gets along all the time, sometimes for big legit reasons and other times for petty reasons.  This cartoon looks into both types of reasons for tension. 

The petty reasons come from the heroes’ side of the conflict with a lot of their scenes devoted to Rad and Enid fighting over who did the most work during the usual fight with the Boxmore robots.  Being fueled by a disagreement that doesn’t even matter much isn’t very engaging to the audience, and it can get concerning when they just brush off K.O.’s insistence that the most important thing is that they worked as a team.  It does gain appeal points for being hilariously over-the-top though. 

Regarding the villains, the tensions between them are much more legit, which is impressive since it becomes easier to feel sympathy for characters we’re not supposed to like, going for a great angle to flesh out all of the cast no matter what their morality is.  Darrell and Shannon have so far been portrayed as very charismatic and eccentric when it comes to attacking Lakewood Plaza Turbo, but they’re somewhat sympathetic when their father and creator, Lord Boxman, berates and disowns them whenever they're defeated.  He’s ashamed of their failures so much that he creates a new robot named Raymond, who’s charismatic like the other two robots, but also the most competent of the three as he does his assigned acts of villainy with a flair.  Even acts as small as stealing a letter from the Gar’s Bodega sign are ones he treats with utmost importance and enthusiasm, and it pays off because he turns out to be the robot the gang at Gar’s Bodega can’t easily defeat. 

Darrell and Shannon’s feelings on the matter go far beyond simple jealousy and blaming each other for Raymond’s existence.  It’s a really tough thing to deal with a parent flat-out disowning their children and not exaggerating when they love another one more just because the other children failed at something.  This makes their conflict more engaging than the other conflict, and develops Darrell and Shannon past more than just eccentric fighting characters.  The abuse they have to deal with becomes especially prominent when K.O. takes notice of it after they capture him.  He decides to help the regular plaza attackers sabotage Raymond’s success in hopes of making them realize that winning as a team makes everyone a winner. 

They have it look like they captured K.O. as a team, leading to even more Boxman abuse when this one victory leads him to disown Raymond like he did with his other robot children.  However, Darrell and Shannon’s typical robot tactics are still on display when they still won’t let K.O. get the bodega sign back and intend to actually hold him prisoner.  From here, the message on the importance of teamwork becomes botched a bit when K.O. makes Darrell and Shannon fight over who did the most work to escape and get the sign back. 

As for Rad and Enid’s conflict, their conflict stops unnaturally just because they see a beautiful sunset which makes them decide that who did the most work in the fights didn’t matter.  Maybe if we actually saw it happen this concluding point would be stronger.  The ending is still nice at least.  Even if it’s not perfect in execution message-wise, this cartoon is still an interesting comparison between petty conflicts and legit conflicts while also fleshing out the characters, especially the villains.

A-

The Ranking

1. Let’s Be Heroes
2. You’re Everybody’s Sidekick
3. Jethro’s All Yours
4. Let’s Be Friends
5. We Messed Up
6. Sibling Rivalry
7. You’re Level 100

Be sure to stay tuned for the review of the next OK K.O.! episode where we meet K.O.'s best friend Dendy for the first time.

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

'Toon Reviews 18: Rocko's Modern Life Season 1 Episode 11: Rocko's Happy Sack/Flu-In-U-Enza

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:

Rocko’s Happy Sack

This cartoon fits the category of exaggerating challenges that come with life’s common tasks to hilarious effect, in this case going food shopping.  Its strengths to this setup make the cartoon stand out as a shopping trip unlike any other, especially if you get easily overwhelmed by its challenges like Rocko. 

There’s a creative depiction of Rocko’s hunger where his stomach is personified as a walking and talking organ demanding food.  Other depictions show how low Rocko’s food supply is such as a scene of a common house fly making a big deal over finding crumbs and dying of starvation before he can eat any.  It’s absurd dark comedy that brings to light the problem at hand which Rocko really needs to solve, except he doesn’t have enough money for a food order.  Fortunately, there’s a sale at the local supermarket where everything is 99% off, the only price he can afford. 

The cartoon then becomes a mad dash for Rocko and Spunky to get through the shopping with the sale lasting for a few minutes which becomes an even bigger hassle with all the challenges that come with shopping enhanced humorously by exaggerations.  They start when they reach the supermarket and get caught in a demolition derby of a search for a parking space.  Soon, Rocko is off doing his shopping with a cart that’s missing two wheels to carry everything.  From there, the shopping trip is a huge collection of creative gags based on the aisles Rocko passes through.  Lots of stuff gets stuck to Spunky’s elongated tongue after the dog tries to get a lick of ice cream in the freezer section, and Rocko gets his head set on fire while trying a free sample of lava puffs and gets lobsters snapped onto him when he drinks all the water in their tank to cool off. 

Regarding Spunky, this cartoon turns out to be yet another instance where he gets himself into messes that Rocko has to get him out of.  We already discussed the ice cream incident, but Spunky’s real trouble is when he’s caught and packaged by a butcher.  It’s not a huge issue since Rocko freaking out and trying to save him doesn’t take away from the food shopping experience.  Rather than taking up a lot of time, saving Spunky doesn’t become an issue until near the end of the cartoon when Rocko is close to purchasing everything before the sale ends.  Not only that, but there’s a funny scene where he convinces a customer who got Spunky to give him up, and the customer’s rebuttals of Rocko’s claims backfire, particularly how him insulting sea mammals hurts an actual sea mammal in front of him. 

All these hurdles to get through while shopping can be stressful to anyone, and what happens proves that Rocko’s human enough to reach a breaking point too.  When noon passes even after Rocko meets the deadline, the food price goes up to normal which Rocko can’t afford, and he snaps about everything he’s been through which convinces the cashier to let him pay the sales price.  To see that Rocko can succumb to stress too makes this moment work and stand out as a funny scene.  What doesn’t really work is the final scene of Rocko losing the food driving home.  It makes Rocko’s outburst a huge waste, and shows that he and Spunky will be going back to starving, the very thing they were trying to avoid. 

The creative and funny stuff is still effective while relating somewhat to what people like you may run into while shopping.  Ultimately, the cartoon is still very good if you can get past the ending.

A

Flu-In-U-Enza

Knowing from experience, getting sick always feels bad especially when it means you have to miss something you’ve been looking forward to.  In this cartoon where Rocko gets sick, this is the case when he may have to miss is a WWWWF wrestling match. 

There’s a lot of detail to how sick Rocko’s is, but they restrain it enough to not make look too disturbing.  It’s marked by a simple red nose, the first visual sign that he’s sick which includes snot dripping out.  While the snot is a little gross to see trickling out of Rocko’s nose and later ears in liters, it helps that it comes with a nice visual gag of how it feels like water dripping from a faucet, right down to Rocko temporarily stopping it by turning his ears. 

Now, being sick doesn’t keep Rocko from being put through life’s challenges as usual, and getting sick itself is a challenge.  They follow him through getting medicine from a local crazy doctor whose office is a huge mess and whose medical practices are careless.  In fact, it’s implied that he’s not even trustworthy when the nurse tries to keep him strapped to a bed.  Regarding the medicine, it brings an interesting interpretation of finding out how to take medicine when Rocko takes a tablet orally when he wasn’t supposed to. There’s a wild view with distorted and wavy backgrounds as they’d normally appear to people in a daze ending with Rocko throwing up. 

This action brings three personified half-eaten foods called the Enchanted Upchucks appearing out of the toilet Rocko threw up in to cure him once and for all.  I have to admit that like the giant tooth in “Rinse and Spit,” this exaggeration is near impossible to deduce what it relates to unlike most from this show.  The cartoon just decided to have half-eaten food cure Rocko just because, and there’s little to no sense to it.  Even if this is the case, we do get a lot of cute gags out of the Enchanted Upchucks attempts like treating a headache of Rocko’s with a big ice cube or squishing of the brain, and feeding Rocko oranges and an iron to give him Vitamin C and “iron.” The cure that does work is feeding Rocko a really hot soup, meaning that Rocko’s illness wouldn’t have been cured if it wasn’t for the Upchucks’ absurd mannerisms. 

While this is generally nice, their existence not making sense stands out a lot more because of this which is a problem.  Plus, while it’s great that Rocko ends up cured, he still can’t go to the WWWWF match when Spunky catches his cold the next day, so they have to stay home and watch it on TV.  Since they could’ve done this from the start, there was no need to make a big deal of Rocko being sick to begin with.  Also, couldn’t Rocko just give Spunky the soup that cured him?  That means they wouldn’t have to miss the match at all.  Heck, the Enchanted Upchucks are even present, so they can just make the soup again. 

We do end with moments that devalue the whole plot, but you can still enjoy the cartoon. Rocko is content with what happens and what’s entreating still works.  Things do get too random for their own good though.

B

The Ranking

1. Popcorn Pandemonium
2. Cabin Fever
3. Skid Marks
4. The Good the Bad and the Wallaby
5. Canned
6. To Heck and Back
7. Who Gives a Buck?
8. Dirty Dog
9. A Sucker for the Suck-O-Matic
10. Trash-O-Madness
11. Jet Scream
12. Rinse and Spit
13. Carnival Knowledge
14. Keeping Up With the Bigheads
15. Rocko’s Happy Sack
16. Sand in Your Navel
17. Spitballs
18. No Pain No Gain
19. Flu-In-U-Enza
20. Power Trip
21. Bedfellows
22. Leap Frogs

The next Rocko's Modern Life review features the introduction to Heffer's family (even if they technically first appeared in Episode 2), and Rocko learns about the hardships of unrequited love.

Next time on MC Toon Reviews is the OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes episode "Sibling Rivalry."

If you would like to check out other Rocko's Modern Life reviews on this blog, click here for the guide made especially for them.

'Toon Reviews 18: Rocko's Modern Life Season 1 Episode 10: Cabin Fever/Rinse and Spit

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:

Cabin Fever

Sometimes, all you need to make an entertaining cartoon is simply putting a group of distinct characters together in one unique setting.  The characters’ strengths and the wholesomeness of the environment work together to enhance the appeal with strong interactions as well as the possibility for antics.  That’s the main idea of how appealing this cartoon is. 

It’s about the Bigheads renting a cabin in the mountains for a weekend where they expect to have it all to themselves, but Rocko and Heffer have rented the very cabin they’re staying at.  Everything that happens corresponds with everyone’s attitude about the situation, namely how Ed is completely annoyed about how his peaceful weekend away from neighbors is now nonexistent while everyone else goes along with sharing the cabin without trouble, being friendly with each other all throughout. 

The moments in the cabin feel like a perfect fit for everyone’s attitudes about sharing the cabin.  Rocko, Heffer, and Bev being accepting of the harmless team up, get up to several nice scenes of playing in the snow or hanging out around the campfire. Ed, who’s his usual grumpy and unfriendly self, has much less of a good time, and the way he acts and what he does kind of justify this.  Getting crushed by a snowball or punched by a bear after attempting to relentlessly pelt Rocko and Heffer with a snowball barrage are the kind of antics that feel like a good fit for anyone who whines about things not going their way.  Plus, the mountain setting and examples of the show’s talent of exaggerating the challenges of life make them stand out more. 

Even problems that befall the entire group are well-handled when you consider how they happen.  When something as petty as everyone not getting his shadow puppet figures, despite them being really obvious, enrages Ed, he lets out a yell which causes an avalanche that traps everyone inside.  As a result, the stay at the cabin gets worse, and Ed has no one to blame for it but himself.  Even with the all characters now trapped, we still see how things that happen correspond to certain attitudes.  While Ed is the only one thinking about contacting a team of rangers who are looking for them, his attempts become too ridiculous to work, and is unable to make the best of the problem.  You might think there’s nothing the others can do to make being trapped in a cabin work, but Rocko, Heffer, and Bev manage to turn out even more wholesome scenes within the cabin from poker games that win Bev the boys’ clothes between scenes, to telling ghost stories.  These scenes work because of their good attitudes towards being trapped as opposed to Ed’s crazed and bitter attitude. 

In the end, Ed’s bad vibes lead to the ultimate bad outcome where his crazy escape plans skyrocket him to a lonely desert island while everyone else who remained calm and enjoyed themselves finally get rescued.  We’re left with a cute and funny cartoon that greatly demonstrates how good life can go for those that find the positives in everything, and how bad it can be for those refusing to adjust, with the perfect characters to demonstrate both cases.  That right there is the show playing to its strengths.

A+

Rinse and Spit

Unlike the rest of the series, we don’t see a lot of Rocko’s other friend, Filburt the neurotic turtle this season.  This and “Power Trip” are basically Filburt’s only starring roles here, but while that one was held back by occasional overly mean moments, this one is much more engaging and creative, even if the creativity can get a little ridiculous. 

Filburt is looking to become a dentist by passing a dental exam, but he needs someone to be his patient, and Rocko turns out to be the one.  You may think that Filburt is the unreasonable one for coaxing Rocko into going along with this, but Rocko does also seem a bit headstrong by saying he doesn't need to see a dentist, something that’s very essential.  Basically, the conflict that gets Rocko to become Filburt’s patient is a good one where both sides are in the wrong yet have their good points, not to mention Filburt has a flashback of saving Rocko from bullies when they were kids to back up his claims, and a cute one at that. 

Once Rocko agrees to be the patient, the cartoon goes in a creative direction throughout the dental exam.  The exam’s environment, a big stadium, is out-there for dental hygiene, yet it matches Filburt’s extreme nervousness which can feel big for anyone taking a test.  Then there’s his instructor, Dr. Hutchison, one of the show’s most entertaining side characters.  She’s a cat woman with a hook for a hand that may make her threatening, but she’s so bubbly and cheerful about life, even during operations, you can’t help but love her.  This cartoon being her first appearance makes her stand out all the more. 

The following moments play to how a normal dentist would operate backed by Filburt’s distinct nerdy qualities.  Then, he finds a cavity in one of Rocko’s teeth, and giving it an x-ray cause the tooth to escape the mouth, and somehow use the machine to become a giant, monstrous tooth that attacks O-Town. 

I’m all for creativity, but this rampaging tooth scene is pretty far-fetched.  Most antics like this at least have a point in depicting a challenge of life so you can relate to them while also acknowledging they’re not real.  What challenge of life does a tooth attacking the city represent?  Is it for the pain of the treatment?  Is it frustrations with Filburt’s feeble dental work?  It’s just so random, even for this show. 

Even if it’s hard to suspend disbelief with this scenario, that doesn’t mean it’s not entertaining as Filburt awesomely takes on the tooth while dressed like the tooth fairy and approaching it in his usual neurotic mannerisms.  However, it’s when Dr. Hutchison loses her hook when Filburt gets a chance to beat the tooth, and does so by throwing the hook at the tooth’s cavity.  This whole scene is still a fun one that even features some of Filburt’s most awesome moments.  He doesn’t pass his dental exam, but he’s content enough as he reveals that he never really wanted to be a dentist anyway, and even establishes a good connection with Dr. Hutchison, especially considering what happens with them in a later season. 

The show’s brand of antics does go a little too far this time around, but the general creativity and some pleasing moments of Filburt make for a good sense of fun if you’re in the right mood.

A

The Ranking

1. Popcorn Pandemonium
2. Cabin Fever
3. Skid Marks
4. The Good the Bad and the Wallaby
5. Canned
6. To Heck and Back
7. Who Gives a Buck?
8. Dirty Dog
9. A Sucker for the Suck-O-Matic
10. Trash-O-Madness
11. Jet Scream
12. Rinse and Spit
13. Carnival Knowledge
14. Keeping Up With the Bigheads
15. Sand in Your Navel
16. Spitballs
17. No Pain No Gain
18. Power Trip
19. Bedfellows
20. Leap Frogs

Be sure to stay tuned for the review of the next episode where Rocko goes on a dangerous shopping trip where everything is 99% off, and then gets a cold and gets cured by thrown up bits of snacks.

If you would like to check out other Rocko's Modern Life reviews on this blog, click here for the guide made especially for them.