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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
- Chairman of the Bored
- Hot Bothered and Bedeviled
- Bubba Bo Bob Brain
- Baghdad Café
- In the Garden of Mindy
- Video Review
- Critical Condition
- O Silly Mio
- Phranken-Runt
- Puppet Rulers
- The Three Muska-Warners
- Clown and Out
- …And Justice for Slappy
- Jockey For Position
- Sir Yaksalot
- Potty Emergency
- Turkey Jerky
- Survey Ladies
- General Boo-Regard
- Puttin’ on the Blitz
- Raging Bird
- Windsor Hassle
- Of Nice and Men
- Wild Blue Yonder
- Dough Dough Boys
- The Big Kiss
- Draculee Draculaa
- Babblin’ Bijou
- Fair Game
- When Mice Ruled the Earth
- No Place Like Homeless
- I Got Yer Can
- Spell-bound
- Smitten With Kittens
- Astro-Buttons
- Boot Camping
- Moby or Not Moby
- The World Can Wait
- 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
- Hollywoodchuck
- Kiki’s Kitten
- Can’t Buy a Thrill
- What a Dump
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
- Carol Burnett Show Parody
- Mary Tyler Dot
- The Slapper
- The Great Wakkorotti: The Summer Concert
- Animator’s Alley
- Useless Facts
Song Ranking
- The Senses Song
- 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."
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