Monday, November 5, 2018

Smitten With Kittens/Alas Poor Skullhead/White Gloves (Animaniacs Vol 2 Part 14) - 'Toon Reviews 22


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Episode 39

Smitten With Kittens

Simple plots often offer more than most would think when they have interesting characters going through them.  Those featuring the most soulful characters in the cast, Rita and Runt, have potential to make any basic story emotionally impactful.  That’s something you rarely get from cartoons with other characters. 
As for this cartoon about the two of them finding stray kittens, while it is heavily reliant on simple cutesy scenes, it stands out for how it works as a character study.  The way to the cartoon’s principle elements has significant merit as well. 
It starts with Rita and Runt seeming to find the perfect person to take them in, an old woman who stands for animal rights.  Short moments of her berating restaurant workers for wanting to throw the strays out bring her most entertaining moments.  The very image of a scrawny elderly woman going up against society being one of the few decent humans Rita and Runt meet has a lot of spunk to it.  Rita and Runt themselves also have some amusing banter as the old woman feeds them scraps of food.  However, Runt’s unintelligence proves problematic when he decides to play chew-tug with a tablecloth.  In spite of getting an exciting chase through the restaurant out of this, this act ends badly for them when they’re kicked out. 
While this is very unfortunate for Runt who’s usually productive despite being dumb, as soon as they find the kittens, his earlier actions are balanced out.  The kittens themselves mostly exist to be cute and nothing more which isn’t very interesting or substantial.  The cartoon tries to get creative with them by having them sing in unison to ask for food, but it comes off as a little unsettling.  The character study angle is what makes their moments work.  Runt is instantly won over by the kittens, of course thinking they’re puppies, showing that for all the times he blows it, he means well and genuinely tries to be a good friend. 
The real standout character though is Rita.  She’s always had a complicated relationship with humans yet knows how she and Runt desperately need a home.  After failing to get one from that old woman, the presence of the kittens makes her pursuit for one complicated.  They treat her like their mama, and while she seems to warm up to them, she’s also quick to turn down the idea of being a mama.  After all, she’s a stray with her own needs to deal with, and dealing with kittens could get in the way.  It’s a relatable instance that I feel many people encounter, especially when the matter of having or adopting children is brought up. 
Putting Rita’s conflicting feelings about motherhood to music certainly helps them stand out.  It effectively lays down her pros and cons of being a mother to the kittens, and the soothing melody and Bernadette Peters’ impeccable singing nicely elevate it. 
Ultimately, instead of adopting the kittens, Rita decides to leave them in the care of that same old woman.  This decision takes the maternal pressures off her while also showing that she knows they need a home more than she and Runt do at the moment.  It’s a fitting conclusion for her and them.  Plus, while Runt is clearly more saddened by the kittens going away, one tear from Rita is enough to show that for how much she rejected being a mother, she’ll miss them too. 
While this is a comedy show, it can pull off emotional works very well which is impressive.  Some may find this too sappy for its emphasis on cuteness, but through how Rita and Runt approach the setup, it’s made engaging and even somewhat relatable.
A-
Alas Poor Skullhead



The last time an episode featured a miscellaneous segment of a Shakespeare translation, it was both hilarious and surprisingly accurate.  That’s the similar case here where Yakko, holding Mr. Skullhead, recites the famous “Alas, poor Yorick” monologue from Hamlet while Dot once again translates. 
It further shows how funny and insightful these types of skits are with what each Shakespearean quote amounts to.  While the original passage was written in old English speech, it’s instantly brought to modern day with believable translations, silly as some might sound.  In fact, the translation of the opening line, while modernized, is exactly in line with what someone would say when finding a skeleton, or skull in the original play’s case.  “He hath bore me on his back” equates to giving piggyback rides.  “My gorge rises” is translated as the speaker about to blow chunks.  A long statement about what happened to all of Mr. Skullhead’s gibes and gambols boils down to a simple question of why he’s not funny now. 
While the delivery of Dot’s translations are funny enough, the humor builds upon itself in a few notable ways.  One factors into the nature of Mr. Skullhead as a pile of bones.  Fitting for what’s often done with him in the “Good Idea Bad Idea” segments as well as an earlier starring role, his tendencies to fall apart sells his humor.  It makes the fact that an actual skeleton is treated as a person absurd yet appealing.  Plus, his bones falling apart ties right into the line of being chop-fallen. 
Another funny aside is Wakko digging up random objects in the background.  It even goes beyond being a background gag when he digs up Cher who runs away.  The accompanying Shakespeare translation isn’t the most accurate though. The original line referred to getting a dead guy to the speakers’ mother’s chamber while the translation is for Mr. Skullhead to follow Cher.  Still the rest of the line translation is accurate yet hilarious as ever. 
The only true drawback is that this segment doesn’t really feel like its own thing.  At the end, the Warners look down the hole Wakko dug that leads to the next cartoon.  It’s basically a transition when this whole time it felt like its own thing.  No matter what it is though, it’s so entertaining, it becomes clear that this show and Shakespeare go together exceptionally.
A
White Gloves



Being a series that gets creative with animation, cartoons with bizarre yet amusing concepts are welcome.  The one introduced in this cartoon has a lot of potential to be entertaining. 
It opens with a soothing melody where the camera beautifully pans through inner workings of a piano to Wakko performing.  The creative catch involves his gloves.  As part of the performance, Wakko’s gloves come alive and perform the rest of the piece and a few random tricks.  Instead of a gag for just the performance, the gloves being sentient lasts for the whole cartoon.  They escape from Wakko and go out on the town. 
From this opening, it shows that the gloves are best suited for musical entertainment.  At first at least, the cartoon appears to go in that direction.  The gloves take on the local dance hall and give a lively performance.  Their dancing nicely matches the music and given their background, this is the best way to have fun with the concept.  Applause from by the people in shadows with only their white gloves visible adds to the fun.  With a setup this crazy, it feels like the cartoon would be at its best if it were just about the gloves dancing the night away.  After all, this show has proven that great animation doesn’t always need a plot.  Sometimes, creative ideas used to their full extent are all that’s needed. 
Despite working great as elaborate dancers, the cartoon is about more than the gloves putting on a show.  There are dramatic details of the consequences of abandoning Wakko which unfortunately means the dance hall moments end just as they start getting great.  The new direction is too serious for this ridiculous concept.  The things the gloves endure are not expected to be seen as jokes and the audience is expected to feel sympathetic.  They’re run over by a streetcleaner, denied desperate work because they’re not work gloves, and one of them is sent to jail after being framed for stealing a TV.  It’s not that these plot points are badly told.  They’re decent ways to teach there’s no place like home.  However, the fact that it’s a pair of sentient gloves going through these realistically-portrayed hardships makes it hard to buy into what happens.  A ridiculous concept like white gloves coming to life just doesn’t work for drama. 
Plus, it brings up something about the concept that doesn’t make sense.  It makes sense for these white gloves to come alive since they belong to a wacky cartoon character.  However, taking place in the real world makes it hard to buy into all gloves being alive as the white gloves encounter several of them in their travels.  Heck, the dance hall sequence even implied that the clapping gloves were worn by people who were just filtered out of view.  More sentient gloves make the serious tone all the more frustrating.  This is the kind of concept that’s better off just existing for fun and music. The cartoon would’ve been better if it was just the gloves performing at the dance hall for seven minutes before deciding to go home.  At least the cartoon stands out for minimal dialog allowing the animation to tell the story, and the gloves finally returning to Wakko is a nice ending. 
I’m all for creative concepts but they’re not always executed well.  This one starts off fine with an approach fitting the fun of the setup, but it goes downhill when it introduces a serious plot which just doesn't work.  I don’t dislike the cartoon and feel that the story itself is fine, but if there wasn’t such a big emphasis on drama for something so silly, I would’ve liked it a lot more.
B


Cartoon Ranking
  1. Chairman of the Bored
  2. Hot Bothered and Bedeviled
  3. Bubba Bo Bob Brain
  4. Baghdad Café
  5. In the Garden of Mindy
  6. Critical Condition
  7. O Silly Mio
  8. Phranken-Runt
  9. The Three Muska-Warners
  10. Clown and Out
  11. Jockey For Position
  12. Sir Yaksalot
  13. Potty Emergency
  14. General Boo-Regard
  15. Puttin’ on the Blitz
  16. Dough Dough Boys
  17. The Big Kiss
  18. Draculee Draculaa
  19. Babblin’ Bijou
  20. No Place Like Homeless
  21. I Got Yer Can
  22. Spell-bound
  23. Smitten With Kittens
  24. Astro-Buttons
  25. Boot Camping
  26. Moby or Not Moby
  27. Noah’s Lark
  28. Skullhead Boneyhands
  29. The Good, the Boo, and the Ugly
  30. Hiccup
  31. Moon Over Minerva
  32. White Gloves
  33. Katie Ka-Boo
  34. Mesozoic Mindy


Miscellaneous Ranking
  1. Animaniacs Stew
  2. Testimonials
  3. Alas Poor Skullhead
  4. Cartoons in Wakko’s Body
  5. You Risk Your Life
  6. The Great Wakkorotti: The Summer Concert


Song Ranking
  1. The Planets
The next Animaniacs review is modeled after typical TV viewing experiences with the Warners on a game show, Slappy Squirrel doing a commercial, and Pinky and the Brain trying to take over the world through kids' TV.
Next time on MC Toon Reviews is RMS and Brandon's first episode in OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes.
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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