'Toon Reviews 19: OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes Season 1 Episode 3: You're Everybody's Sidekick

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You’re Everybody’s Sidekick

One admirable thing about K.O. is that while he’s just a little kid, his relatability is very clear.  This is a kid who stops at nothing to achieve his goals, finding advancements through even the minutest task.  

From the start, he understands how helping others is important to being a hero, so even if what he’s assigned to do doesn’t appear to be big or heroic, he has the right idea.  The truth is, anyone has a chance to be helpful, and K.O. putting in a lot of great effort into just cleaning Gar’s Bodega demonstrates this idea.  It’s cute and charming and makes him inspirational.  That’s not always easy to see from a little kid protagonist. 

K.O.’s inspirational qualities are also apparent when he finds a major goal to pursue out of his helpful streak when Enid isn’t into helping due to too much work and not enough payoff, and he vows to “help” her see the value of helping.  He goes beyond the bodega to find any opportunity to be helpful.  In the process, there’s a demonstration of how well this show utilizes animation through K.O.’s interactions with the many different heroes around the Plaza.  There’s a Shaolin monk named Joff and an army guy named Nick who hang out together as friends despite having conflicting feelings on using violence for menial things like opening a pickle jar.  Then we meet Mr. Logic, a robot barber striving for perfection, and giving an emotionless cry when he’s just 20% off.  At a frame store, we have the humorous banter between Brandon, a bear whose words on his t-shirt states how he feels and a magic skeleton named A Real Magic Skeleton (RMS) where the former goofs off while the latter’s trying to work.  While their problems are mostly small, K.O. sees value in doing something about all of them, and his effectiveness in doing so enhances his appeal as a character.  That’s not even mentioning his persistence when he keeps stating the joys of helping very loudly in hopes of getting Enid to take a hint that helping does have value. 

However, Enid’s points about the downsides of helping become relevant when K.O. decides to help a group of teens, Drupe a humanoid strawberry, Gregg a bird creature who chooses to squawk instead of talk, and their leader Red Action, a futuristic warrior with a bad haircut, all of whom are clearly bullies.  They trick K.O. into “helping” them by making him fall into a ditch of magma lava, and when Enid catches the act on social media, instead of being in K.O.’s face about her feelings about helping, she’s gentle with explaining how these outcomes sway her away from attempting to do such a thing. 

K.O. is still up for the challenge upon hearing that the teens’ behavior is stemmed from personal problems, which is a realistic case for bullies, from social media research.  He utilizes the information as well as the heroes he helped and resolves the teens’ personal problems.  This makes it all the more unfortunate that with the exception of Gregg, they’re still total jerks to him without really appreciating his helpfulness.  They do get better in time though, especially Red Action.  Plus, it’s satisfying enough that even though K.O. didn’t improve the teens’ behavior, he still ended up getting Enid to help since she’s the one who gave him the information, and she starts seeing some good in helping as a whole. 

This leaves us with a cartoon centering on the charm of K.O. proving himself as a helpful hero with a great demonstration of the show’s creativity and mostly strong character development.

A

The Ranking

1. Let’s Be Heroes
2. You’re Everybody’s Sidekick
3. Let’s Be Friends

The next OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes review covers some workplace antics of K.O., Rad, and Enid as they sneak into Mr. Gar's office and break a special photo which also brings on an interesting flashback of a sandwich.

Next time on MC Toon Reviews is a review of Star vs the Forces of Evil Season 2 Episode 2 featuring "Mr. Candle Cares" and "Red Belt."

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