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House of
Lies
Oftentimes in family shows, a moral you’ll tend to see is how lies always lead to trouble and that it’s always good to be honest. Don’t get me wrong, there’s always a place for honesty, and if problems arise when you do something wrong, it’s best to come clean about it as soon as possible. However, in real life, there are times when wrong things don’t cause any problems, meaning it’s ok to keep them secret with white lies. In fact, in some cases it’s better to keep them secret to not make things unnecessarily tense when everything’s fine without the truth being known. To hear the majority of family shows talk though, you’d think that all lies lead to chaos no matter what. This can put so much pressure on the audience to be honest for all missteps. This particular show has taught that lies only lead to trouble quite a lot even though most of the time, the lies backfired because of a bad decision made while keeping it secret. For this reason, a big thing working in this cartoon’s favor is how it starts balancing the honesty angle out by showing how stretching the truth can be harmless.
Lisa notices her family telling a few white lies to back out of doing
things they don’t want to do or say they like something when they don’t. This is an example of harmless lies, but
Lisa, reflective of the usual morals, feels that all honesty is the only way to
keep the house in order. Deciding to fix
something that honestly isn’t broken, she invents lie detecting glasses to make
sure everyone tells the truth at all times. Right off the bat, they start doing the
opposite of what Lisa intended them to do by tearing the family apart instead
of bringing them closer together. It’s a
clear support to my point that sometimes there are a few truths that are better
off not knowing and can honestly cause more harm than peace. It’s kind of concerning that Lisa is
oblivious to the family becoming annoyed with her lie detecting when they
confront her, but at least they all know who’s really to blame for this.
Even so, things are still difficult for them
when even after they destroy the glasses, Lisa installs truth detecting cameras
around the house too. They’re all forced
into honesty they’re not comfortable with sharing, and if you think their
relationship was messed up now, the cameras make it even worse. Everyone has to open up about how they feel
about everyone’s usual hobbies, interests, styles, and even voices which hurts
the whole family’s feelings. A big gripe
with this is that each Loud, including the parents, blames each other for the
truth when they know the cameras are to blame.
Shouldn’t they understand that they’re unable to tell them what they
want to hear? Also, with honest opinions
about things like Dad’s cooking and Leni’s haircut, couldn’t everyone use them
as constructive criticisms to improve?
Still, they don’t exactly get nice responses, and it gets Lisa to
understand that strictly adhering to honesty is not the best way to go. After her being so dense, this is very
refreshing, as is her leading the family to tell a bunch of lies at once to
overload the cameras and make them shut down.
They do so with false information that I don’t think really counts as a
lie, but that’s just me.
On the whole,
this cartoon is refreshing for anyone who’s ever felt pressured to be honest
all the time. There are some
questionable story beats here and there, but that doesn’t make the main lesson
any less prominent.
A-
Game Boys
Mileages may vary on this concept, but I’m personally not too
into stories where the main character is paranoid over every little thing. They can work if there’s strong comedy to
their paranoia, but it usually just leads to unfunny awkward moments that could
be avoided if the fearful one would just come clean. Usually there’s no good reason to not be open
with feelings.
In this cartoon, we have
Clyde, well known for being well organized and detailed with his life, right down
to making healthy decisions of when to take breaks from certain things. He has a new fun video game system that he
clearly treasures, and it gets the attention of his best friend Lincoln. With a day of the week coming up where he and
his family usually don’t use any technology, Lincoln sees this as a good
opportunity to borrow the video game system then. Clyde lets him use it, but that leads him to
spend the cartoon freaking out over something bad happening to it. It’s true that it makes sense that something
bad could happen to his prized possession since Lincoln lives in a big family
that gets chaotic and his sisters often fight over stuff. That being said, with how much Lincoln has
shown to know about getting around in a big family, you’d think Clyde would
feel like he truly knows how to keep it safe.
Despite this, Clyde is still very fearful of something happening to his
video game system that he goes to spend the day at Lincoln’s house just to look
out for its well-being. From there, the
cartoon becomes particularly awkward with the ways Clyde tries watching over
his property without letting Lincoln know why he’s here. It starts off with feeble excuses why he’s
even here and overreacting over little spills just so he can clean them
up. Not to mention, Lincoln should be
suspicious over Clyde getting the game system out of a bunch of suitcases. It’s practically a clear giveaway that he’s
worried something might happen to it. Lincoln does call Clyde out for his
strange behavior, but responds by putting him out to resist temptation of
playing with the system when he’s not supposed to. Even so, awkwardness persists as Clyde gets
back in the house to watch over his thing without anyone knowing. There’s a long sequence of any potentially
messy thing getting close to it like paint, kale juice, or pizza dough, or
rough things that could destroy it like Lynn playing hockey. Clyde pulls off many undercover stunts to
keep them from laying a spot of anything on his system, but it leaves everyone
confused as to what goes on, yet they don’t look into them.
I admit that Clyde’s stunts start off as
mildly amusing, but they still go on a bit too long, and I end up wishing a
more mature direction was taken. He
could have told Lincoln how he wanted him to protect the system, or just say he
simply wasn’t ready for him to let anyone else have it. Better yet, he should just realize it’s only
a video game system and he can’t protect it forever. Clearly it’s the message the cartoon is going
for and they stick with it in the end, so that’s nice. Both Clyde and Lincoln become understanding
of their feelings, though I would have preferred there not being a panic when
the system gets one tiny red sauce spot on it.
This is still a decent cartoon as it is, but it does get a little too
ridiculous and awkward for my tastes. I
can watch it fine, but it’s not a huge favorite.
B-
The Ranking
1. Really Loud Music
2. Head Poet’s Anxiety
3. Roadie to Nowhere
4. Shop Girl
5. Breaking Dad
6. Gown and Out
7. Fandom Pains
8. Insta-Gran
9. Selfie Improvement
10. Scales of Justice
11. Net Gains
12. Crimes of Fashion
13. The Spies Who Loved Me
14. No Place Like Homeschool
15. House of Lies
16. The Mad Scientist
17. City Slickers
18. Missed Connection
19. Fool Me Twice
20. Deal Me Out
21. Teachers’ Union
22. Tripped!
23. White Hare
24. A Fridge Too Far
25. Sitting Bull
26. Game Boys
27. Pasture Bedtime
28. Absent Minded
29. What Wood Lincoln Do?
30. Friendzy
31. Pipe Dreams
32. Be Stella My Heart
33. Rita Her Rights
34. Ruthless People
The next Loud House review has Leni deal with two groups of friends who refuse to get along with each other, and Lynn shows genuine attempts to help her brother and his friend as they explore middle school.
Next time on MC Toon Reviews is a Steven Universe episode that dares to ask "Are You My Dad?".
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