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Episode 41
Buttermilk
It Makes a Body Bitter
Some of the best remembered commercials are those featuring a
little kid ignored by an older hunkier person only to get bigger and stronger
through drinking milk. They’re marked by
the tagline: “Milk It Does a Body Good.”
Despite being products of the 80s and 90s, I don’t remember actually
seeing them, though I have heard about them in recent years. It’s an intriguing setup for a milk ad, and I
applaud it as a basis for this parody bumper.
Slappy goes through the motions of the commercials starting off small
and cute against a self-centered hunk who looks down on her, only this time
through drinking buttermilk. Drinking
buttermilk means instead of getting hunkier as she ages with every sip, she
comments on how indigestible the stuff is.
This is an effective way of having Slappy go from innocent and
childlike, to the bitter old squirrel she is now. It can be implied that it’s all in the taste
of the buttermilk, with her crankiness making itself known as she throws a bomb
at the hunk who stood her up as well as the announcer.
All this makes for an ingenious commercial
parody with an interesting play on the product and how it fits right
at home with the featured character.
A+
Broadcast
Nuisance
A key factor to the success of a Warners cartoon is that the
people they annoy is deserving of what they get. This is usually the case with their victims almost
always deserving to be put at their antics’ receiving end. For here, though their victim is a jerk, he’s
honestly doesn’t seem that hostile.
He’s
newsman, Dan Anchorman and a few scenes establish him as a jerk, belittling his
crew and being completely full of himself.
Moments like these open Dan up to be brought down a peg, though he is
very charismatic and entertaining anyhow.
The Warners enter as sandwich delivery people with lunch for the
crew. It’s here where there’s a huge
detriment to their role. Dan Achorman
may be a jerk, but the Warners seem even more out of line. Not only do they arrive late with the food,
but they have the audacity to bite into Dan’s sandwich and show him a chewed up
disgusting glob of it. This service is
unacceptable no matter how you look at it, yet the Warners genuinely think they
deserve a tip.
That alone is the only
reason they have to retaliate against Dan.
He doesn’t belittle them or humiliate them on the air. The Warners annoy Dan because he didn’t give
them something they honestly don’t deserve.
This direction is not a very good one for the cartoon to take. As bad as Dan Anchorman is, the Warners don’t
seem much better. Their reason for
annoyance isn’t brushed off either as they frequently point out Dan not tipping
them. As a result, as they perform their
antics, they don’t feel appropriate and Dan’s refusal to tip feels justified to
the service he got.
In spite of not
being totally warranted, the antics themselves are still very hilarious. There’s a fun bouncy sequence of the Warners
protesting with picket signs over not getting a tip. Yakko does a humorous intellectual talk show
host impersonation as he insults Dan and has a funny back and forward with him
after suddenly appearing on a monitor.
The antics build in hilarity when Dan locks the Warners in the control
room. What happens is brought on by
himself as they report on his stress lines as a weather report, and place him
in a wide variety of channels. By the
time the kids are through, Dan does look uncomfortably beaten up, though his
pain seems disproportionate to what he got.
This is because what we see on this DVD is an edited version of this
cartoon. Apparently, when it first aired
on TV, even the crew felt the Warners’ treatment of Dan Anchorman was too
harsh, so they cut things out and redubbed some lines. However, the original version did air
overseas revealing even more antics the Warners did to Dan, who was originally
given a more creative name Slam Fondleson.
They included Dot giving him a makeover that electrocutes him in a clown
mask, Yakko calling him a big fat stinky dope instead of cheap, and all three
Warners getting him beaten in a few more channels. Like the others, these acts are funny on
their own and being cut from the original product makes them interesting to
see.
In fact, you can see a portion of what was cut from American airings of this cartoon right here:
However, given the Warners poor and
unwarranted motivation, I think cutting them was for the best. It’s really a shame that the Warners are
portrayed as they are because this cartoon could be a solid funny work if that
wasn’t the case. What we have is still
quite funny and entertaining, but if the kids had a better reason for messing
with an anchorman, it would’ve been much better.
B
Raging Bird
It’s impressive how good cartoons starring the Goodfeathers
can be when they break from their usual pain-based nature. It begs the question why the show barely got
creative with them and mostly used them to see how much they could hurt
them. As was the case with the previously discussed Goodfeathers cartoon, this one makes any pain they get
appropriate to where the action takes place.
There’s a creative look at what the city birds do in their down time as
they watch a rooftop wrestling match.
The Goodfeathers see no reason to take part in the sport, but Bobby is
led to do such a thing when he feels the champ, Pretty Boy Robin, is winning
over his girlfriend, Lana. Right there
are two noteworthy points of interest for this Goodfeathers cartoon. There’s a look at a pastime they and many
other city birds take part in, and character reveals with Bobby’s love life. Both these elements are the heart of the cartoon
as opposed to the usual case of all the Goodfeathers put in a situation that
gets them mauled repeatedly.
Out of it
is an engaging story of Bobby worrying if he can beat Pretty Boy in the ring. Not even beating the naïve Squit with Pesto
is enough to prove his worth. Suddenly,
he gets a trainer, a little owl named Max, who’s desperate to find a bird to
beat Pretty Boy who’s apparently the reason Max is so short. Max’s role gives the cartoon the feel of
standard wrestling movies like Rocky
right down to constantly calling Bobby a bum.
It should be noted that I’ve never seen Rocky, but I am familiar with its tropes. Relentless as Max’s training exercises and
attitude are, they have noticeable enjoyable elements to them. Some of them are comedic reactions and
outcomes like Bobby running away from a huge pelican opponent and freezing up
in a meat locker while using a sausage as a punching bag. Although another exercise has an all too
believable reaction to getting stepped on, it’s interesting that the man who
stepped on Bobby is a caricature of Rocky
star, Sylvester Stallone.
Considering the story direction, it makes sense that Max’s trainings
ultimately do no help for Bobby and that he’d rather call Bobby a bum than even
try to help him. This is because when
the night of the match comes, Pretty Boy repeatedly beats the feathers out of
Bobby. The cartoon is about to come off
as a disappointing work that goes nowhere when Bobby catches Pretty Boy laying
the moves on Lana or as he says, cooing with his bird.
After all his lack of progress, the power of love allows Bobby to beat
Pretty Boy to pieces with just one punch.
This is easily one of the most rewarding moments in a Goodfeathers
cartoon, the best things have worked out for the main players at the end.
It’s not as satisfying as it could be when
the Godpigeon appears and eats all the seed Bobby won except for one kernel and
leaves with Lana. The latter is
especially a sting since Bobby can’t exactly retaliate against his boss over
this. It also feels wrong since the
Godpigeon is clearly too old for Lana.
The good news is that she’s back to being Bobby’s girlfriend in a later
cartoon featuring girlfriends for all the Goodfeathers. Also, Bobby is still perfectly content,
especially since he finds more enjoyment from Pesto beating Squit than being in
the ring.
If you’re looking for a
Goodfeathers cartoon that succeeds as a story and makes its reliance on pain
gags work, this is a champ for you.
A
Cartoon Ranking
- Chairman of the Bored
- Hot Bothered and Bedeviled
- Bubba Bo Bob Brain
- Baghdad Café
- In the Garden of Mindy
- Critical Condition
- O Silly Mio
- Phranken-Runt
- Puppet Rulers
- The Three Muska-Warners
- Clown and Out
- Jockey For Position
- Sir Yaksalot
- Potty Emergency
- General Boo-Regard
- Puttin’ on the Blitz
- Raging Bird
- Dough Dough Boys
- The Big Kiss
- Draculee Draculaa
- Babblin’ Bijou
- Fair Game
- No Place Like Homeless
- I Got Yer Can
- Spell-bound
- Smitten With Kittens
- Astro-Buttons
- Boot Camping
- Moby or Not Moby
- Noah’s Lark
- Skullhead Boneyhands
- The Good, the Boo, and the Ugly
- Hiccup
- Moon Over Minerva
- Broadcast Nuisance
- White Gloves
- Katie Ka-Boo
- Mesozoic Mindy
Miscellaneous Ranking
- Animaniacs Stew
- Testimonials
- Buttermilk It Makes a Body Bitter
- Alas Poor Skullhead
- Cartoons in Wakko’s Body
- You Risk Your Life
- Casablanca Opening
- The Slapper
- The Great Wakkorotti: The Summer Concert
Song Ranking
- The Planets
The next Animaniacs review sees the Warners in a boring interview with a senior Warner Bros animator, and zoning out for a Hip Hippos cartoon and a sadistic one featuring Charlton Woodchuck.
Next time on MC Toon Reviews is the ever amazing Steven Universe episode, "Mr. Greg."
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