Friday, November 23, 2018

Video Review/When Mice Ruled the Earth/Carol Burnett Show Parody (Animaniacs Vol 2 Part 22) - 'Toon Reviews 22


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Episode 47

Video Review

Huge classic cartoon buffs may know a Bob Clampett short called Book Revue.  It’s an absurd concept brought to life with characters on book covers giving jokes or visual gags of their titles.  Personally, I find it to be fun and entertaining, but it mostly feels like a concert with the people on the covers performing music and fawning over the singers.  Some decades later, we’d get an updated version of this short with a broader form of entertainment than books, videotapes. 
Right away this catches my interest since I always enjoy a good movie and have mainly enjoyed seeing them on videotapes for most of my life.  I always enjoy looking at the tape covers and observing how they stand out with their different designs.  With that in mind, I find myself instantly drawn to a cartoon entirely taking place on the shelves of a video store where the covers come alive. 
For the most part, it adheres to the premise of the aforementioned older cartoon with visual gags to the movie titles or an iconic movie of all featured movies.  However, it’s done better here with each cover standing out with their own joke as opposed to most of them listening to someone on one cover singing.  Adding to the stronger sense of fun is how the Warners approach their surroundings as they pop off the cover of an Animaniacs tape onto the store shelves.  Rather than trying to one-up another cover, they take in their surroundings through many observations of different covers at a flowing pace, mostly through song.  It’s a vast collection of intertextual references brought in a comedic and entertaining manner.  Throwing in a few cameos from actors, Looney Tunes characters, and even Tiny Toons characters is a nice touch. 
Jokes and references from the covers aren’t just in the name of fun.  Just like how Book Revue used the book gags to help Daffy Duck beat the Big Bad Wolf, this cartoon does the same when the Warners meet a dinosaur from a Jurassic Park tape.  While the Warners do work their typical antics to beat the dinosaur back at first, they’re not enough.  From there, their best option to beat him is to do one of their best tactics, running all over the place.  Their primary trait combines with a large number of visual gags that work towards the common goal of beating the dinosaur.  The kids just using props on the covers is fine as it is, but even more creative gags are worked in such as dropping bombs on the dinosaur…tapes of box office bombs that is.  Although leading the dinosaur to the tapes with the right visual gags is what ultimately dispatches him, it’s still a creative and fitting resolution to the atmosphere. 
After the dinosaur is gone, there’s one last group number of the Warners and all the covers working as a unique visualization of how diverse video stores and collections can be.  It kind of makes it sad that those stores, and videotapes in general aren’t around anymore.  Anyhow, this is a great update to a classic cartoon that not only appeals to a long gone yet charming generation, but also stands as one of this show’s creatively humorous works.
A+
When Mice Ruled the Earth



This time, Pinky and the Brain’s attempts at world domination involves time travel.  It’s a concept that fits well with the characters making it interesting that they never utilized it before. 
This take on it does have some class through relating to an H.G. Wells novel called The Time Machine.  In fact, this cartoon features the mice as pets to H.G. Wells.  Lucky for them, in addition to writing the book, he also has a full scale time machine ready to use.  This just begs the question, why would H.G. Wells even want to make a time machine?  The opening shows that he knows time travel is science fiction and not science fact, so there’d be no point to try it.  It could be argued that he was trying to make science fiction science fact, but that also begs the question of how he can possibly not realize it works.  Brain puts in a paper clip as a key and the machine is fully functional.  Surely putting in an actual key would have worked for Wells. 
Sloppy and contrived as the opening is, what it leads to is fairly solid.  Brain uses the time machine to travel back in time to prehistoric eras to alter history so that mice rule the earth and dominate all humans.  This is an interesting way to go when it comes to time travel to deliberately mess with evolution.  It’s made all the more enjoyable from Pinky and Brain’s amusing banter on full display.  Brain is all intelligent and egotistical thinking that all mice will automatically follow him because he’s “very likable.”  Pinky as usual is along for the ride trying to breathe in fun to everything that happens while being surprisingly quick to question Brain’s decisions. 
The attempts at altering history come with their own amusing failures.  They try to teach prehistoric mice to obtain fruit before humans, but early man ends up flinging them to get fruit, putting all mice in a worse place than they are now for all time.  They get close to teaching prehistoric mice to hunt, but that’s humorously backfired with one club blow to the head by a caveman.  Surprisingly, their only success through having mice beat man to discovering fire comes from Pinky.  Brain gives an intellectual tutorial they don’t get, but they easily latch on to Pinky’s basic teachings while he’s off saving Brain from larger prehistoric creatures. 
As for the outcome to this success, there’s some creative changes to the world with the whole world evolving as small enough for mice.  An even bigger creative change relates to Pinky being the one teaching fire with all the world’s population looking and acting like him.  In a funny turn of events, even if Brain can rule a world of mice exactly like Pinky, he doesn’t have the patience to, so that’s a cause to turn time back to normal.  Considering another cartoon, I admire this series has some idea that antics of certain characters are best in moderation.  That said, it’s a little lacking that the cartoon just ends with Pinky and Brain leaving to fix history.  It doesn’t feel like a proper conclusion.  The whole plan didn’t even have a chance to really fail.  All they had to do was have Brain teach about fire after all and see what happens. For that matter, they could've gone back to any time to try again and successfully take over the world. The direction we have feels like they’re admitting defeat without actually being defeated.   
While issues with the beginning and end prevent it from being Pinky and the Brain’s best cartoon, it’s plenty of fun through the chemistry and creative occurrences.
A-
Carol Burnett Show Parody

 
As a change of events, a parody of a famous old TV show closes the episode instead of opens it like normal.  It’s also feels right at home with the nature of frequent short scenes of the Warners running from and outwitting Ralph the Guard seen in many episodes. 
Here, their chase leads them onto a soundstage where the Warners sing an end tune parodying the signoff song from The Carol Burnett Show.  The catch is that they add an extra layer of silliness as they add in cartoonish antics on Ralph with anvils, dynamite, and a rhino to the signoff.  This even applies to their take on Ms. Burnett’s noteworthy ear pull.  They do so as they say good-bye while Yakko adds a nonsensical message for the kids to spoil their dinner. 
In the end, we close the episode with nice respect to what this sketch is targeting and mixing it well with the show’s trademark humor.
A


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. Video Review
  7. Critical Condition
  8. O Silly Mio
  9. Phranken-Runt
  10. Puppet Rulers
  11. The Three Muska-Warners
  12. Clown and Out
  13. …And Justice for Slappy
  14. Jockey For Position
  15. Sir Yaksalot
  16. Potty Emergency
  17. Turkey Jerky
  18. Survey Ladies
  19. General Boo-Regard
  20. Puttin’ on the Blitz
  21. Raging Bird
  22. Windsor Hassle
  23. Of Nice and Men
  24. Wild Blue Yonder
  25. Dough Dough Boys
  26. The Big Kiss
  27. Draculee Draculaa
  28. Babblin’ Bijou
  29. Fair Game
  30. When Mice Ruled the Earth
  31. No Place Like Homeless
  32. I Got Yer Can
  33. Spell-bound
  34. Smitten With Kittens
  35. Astro-Buttons
  36. Boot Camping
  37. Moby or Not Moby
  38. The World Can Wait
  39. Noah’s Lark
  40. Skullhead Boneyhands
  41. The Good, the Boo, and the Ugly
  42. Hiccup
  43. Moon Over Minerva
  44. Broadcast Nuisance
  45. White Gloves
  46. Katie Ka-Boo
  47. Mesozoic Mindy
  48. Hollywoodchuck
  49. Kiki’s Kitten
  50. Can’t Buy a Thrill
  51. What a Dump


Miscellaneous Ranking
  1. Animaniacs Stew
  2. Testimonials
  3. Buttermilk It Makes a Body Bitter
  4. Alas Poor Skullhead
  5. Cartoons in Wakko’s Body
  6. You Risk Your Life
  7. Casablanca Opening
  8. Carol Burnett Show Parody
  9. Mary Tyler Dot
  10. The Slapper
  11. The Great Wakkorotti: The Summer Concert
  12. Animator’s Alley
  13. Useless Facts


Song Ranking
  1. The Senses Song
  2. The Planets
The next Animaniacs review puts the Warners up against the Godfather claiming a restaurant booth, a silly song about Lake Titicaca, and Rita and Runt wind up in Alaska where Ross Perot is looking for a mush dog.
Next time on MC Toon Reviews is the Steven Universe episode "Restaurant Wars."
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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