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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
- 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
- The Three Muska-Warners
- Clown and Out
- Jockey For Position
- Sir Yaksalot
- Potty Emergency
- General Boo-Regard
- Puttin’ on the Blitz
- Dough Dough Boys
- The Big Kiss
- Draculee Draculaa
- Babblin’ Bijou
- 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
- White Gloves
- Katie Ka-Boo
- Mesozoic Mindy
Miscellaneous Ranking
- Animaniacs Stew
- Testimonials
- Alas Poor Skullhead
- Cartoons in Wakko’s Body
- You Risk Your Life
- The Great Wakkorotti: The Summer Concert
Song Ranking
- 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.
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