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The Mad
Scientist
The concept of Lisa as a four-year-old genius has always been
a creative concept for the show.
However, odd to say, but the four-year-old part of her character seems
to be more enjoyable than the genius part.
As a genius, she just acts intellectual with very little humorous
exaggerations, suggesting she wouldn’t be much different if she wasn’t so
young. For that, Lisa’s more interesting
material is when the focus is on her realizing for all her knowledge, she’s still
only human in need of emotional satisfaction.
This setup works in this particular cartoon’s favor.
It starts with her total engrossment in her
scientific studies and press conferences with a local lab. Doing these activities amidst a big family,
as you’d probably guess, makes for many distractions. It goes to show that the in Loud family you truly
don’t have to be the only boy to endure not always getting personal
space. Lisa then gets a chance to come
down to the lab so she’ll be able to focus on her studies away from her family
and gladly takes it. While her intellect
still has little creative sparks, it’s actually quite nice to see Lisa, a very
young child, be taken seriously by the room of adult scientists. It would be easy to make them closed-minded
and brush off Lisa’s lectures all because of her age, but they know a legitimate
genius when they see it. It’s a
refreshing change of pace.
There’s also
room for charm in Lisa’s new endeavor when she’s shown the actual lab. It’s an experiment environment that fits her
interests perfectly in ways that could never be achieved at home, not to
mention it’s distraction-free. For good
measure, there’s even a fun musical number explaining how much Lisa loves the
lab. There’s so much passion thrown into
it that I actually think the show would benefit from using songs more often.
As for her newfound love for the lab, Lisa
soon gets the opportunity to work there full time, further showing refreshment
from the scientists seeing benefit in her.
Her family agrees to her staying, but are clearly broken up by her
wanting to move out. Even harsher is a
pie chart Lisa pulls out to show how little emotional attachment to her family
makes up her personality. Then again, I
suppose that’s common for people engrossed in certain things, though it does
kind of go too far.
That said, this is
where the cartoon shows that even in a job environment of great opportunity,
emotional satisfaction is still important.
Lisa finds herself not accustomed to certain customs of the lab when it
comes to meals and TV entertainment.
There are also little things like an inability of making a peanut butter
and jelly sandwich, zipping pajamas, and getting comfort from nightmares on her
own. For how smart she is, the
four-year-old part of her character is very intact down to the point of making
her realize she was wrong about her psychological makeup.
You’d think Lisa would just tell the
scientists the truth of all this to go home, but she feels that would hurt her
reputation. Instead, she solves her
problem with time travel. There was
build-up to it throughout the cartoon, but for how relatable the story was up
to this point, something that can never happen in real life isn’t the best
resolution. At least the ending has
plenty of emotional satisfaction for Lisa’s sake. It may be held back by a not so relatable
ending in a mostly relatable story, but as far as Lisa cartoons go, this is
among one of the more endearing ones.
A-
Missed
Connection
Initially, I didn’t think much of Lori and Bobby as a couple,
brushing them off as typical teen romance mostly involving appearances and
little else. As the show goes on, they
turn out to be quite human and endearing together. In addition, the decision for Bobby to move away brings an interesting challenge for them to make the couple work. They may plan to go to college together in
the future, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be issues to work out in between. This cartoon touches upon the difficulties of
long-distance relationships by showing Lori and Bobby how different things
truly are now that they’re apart.
It
starts with their usual phone chat which neither are able to meet each other on
time due to Bobby’s bodega work and Lori dealing with her siblings. The call ends up becoming very awkward and
that’s enough to make them both worry that they’re falling out of touch and out
of love. Now, I have to question if they
truly never had an awkward call before, even when Bobby was still around. It’s one of those things that can happen at
any time. Either way, it’s believably a
bigger deal because of Lori and Bobby’s separation. One thing’s for sure; they still feel like a
good fit together through having the same thoughts on their relationship right
down to using the near-exact words when talking about it. It’s all shown in a creatively-staged
split-screen sequence of talking to their families who also encourage them that
even when apart, love will prevail as long as they show they care.
From there, Lori and Bobby pull off many
desperate attempts at showing affection, but they result in nothing but
backfires. Some of them aren’t huge
surprises like not being able to livestream a movie together due to varying
internet connections. Most of them, however,
are simply due to bad luck. Their
affectionate gifts and headlines end up in the wrong hands and are sabotaged,
sometimes to a disturbing degree with Bobby’s 6-year-old cousin Carl having the
hots for Lori. Bad luck continues to
abound when they get together for a date with less than desirable locales,
being late for special activities, and shoddy maintenance.
These constant mishaps no doubt make for a
lousy date, but it’s at this point where I start wondering why this should
matter. The point of all this is to show
that Lori and Bobby care. Even if
nothing’s going right for them, they still have the best intentions for each
other, and they know it. They don’t even
blame each other for things going wrong, so why would their chemistry be affected?
Thankfully, they realize this when they have
a simple phone conversation while Bobby’s locked in a bathroom and they wait
for the fire department. In the end,
it’s clear that no problems or awkwardness will ever change the way they care
for each other. All the same, I’m still left
wondering if they’ve ever had an awkward phone call in their lives. Again, distance shouldn’t even matter in
this case. Problematic dates and
conversations can happen at any time. It
kind of makes this cartoon look like a bit of an overreaction. I guess you can argue that
overreactions are to be expected when it comes to long distance
relationships.
Ultimately, while some
points are a little conflicting, it’s still commendable that this cartoon
touches upon some legit difficulty with lovers living apart. It does its part to make Lori and Bobby a
respectable and relatable couple for media.
A-
The Ranking
1. Head Poet’s Anxiety
2. Roadie to Nowhere
3. Fandom Pains
4. Insta-Gran
5. Selfie Improvement
6. Net Gains
7. No Place Like Homeschool
8. The Mad Scientist
9. City Slickers
10. Missed Connection
11. Fool Me Twice
12. Teachers’ Union
13. Tripped!
14. White Hare
15. A Fridge Too Far
16. Pipe Dreams
17. Rita Her Rights
The next Loud House review brings Lincoln and Clyde to a phase in life where people think they're too old for what they enjoy, and reasons for the kids to fight even after growing closer as a team lately.
Next time on MC Toon Reviews is "The Zoo" from Steven Universe.If you would like to check out other Loud House reviews on this blog, click here for the guide made especially for them.
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