Thursday, June 27, 2019

Jeers for Fear / Tea Tale Heart (The Loud House Season 3 Episode 20) - 'Toon Reviews 30


If you like this review and want to stay updated for what else I have in store, become a follower of this blog, click here to like the official Facebook page, and click here to follow me on Twitter. Now on with today's review:
 
Jeers for Fears
Scary moments in films and TV shows are a good way to build a creative atmosphere, and are key in exercising one’s imagination.  However, sometimes a bunch of frights all at once can make things less impactful.  For that reason, this cartoon meant to feature a lot of scary moments loses a lot of its appeal from how easily terrified the featured characters get. 
Lincoln and Clyde hear that the smug jerky popular kid in the class, Chandler, is going to a haunted house which is said to be the scariest thing in town.  Lincoln and Clyde say they’re going too, which they never planned on.  If other kids besides Chandler and his friends were going, this decision to go would have more weight to them. If they’re the only known kids going, what do Lincoln and Clyde have to lose? 
Anyway, an even bigger red flag is with how they prepare themselves for the haunted house.  It’s not the strategy itself that’s the issue; it’s how Lincoln and Clyde, who are really scared of the prospect of the house, react to it.  They get Lincoln’s sisters to put on a bunch of scary stunts for them.  Their first attempt goes all out with a moodily lit hallway culminating with all the sisters posing as a frightening multi-headed monster making a surprise appearance.  Lincoln and Clyde’s screams of terror are fitting reactions to this moment, but the same can’t be said for other attempts.  They keep getting toned down to the point where it’s obvious that the things used to scare the boys are clearly no more than props or someone in costume.  However, Lincoln and Clyde are scared of them all no matter how tame they are.  It’s at the point where it feels like they’re pathetically scared of everything and have no good sense of judgement which is just sad. 
Then Bobby, who for some reason is back in town, comes to help them prepare for the haunted house by showing them around the place.  It turns out Bobby used to work there, and knows what every scary sight really is and who’s dressed as every surprise monster.  Despite even more overbearing scares from Lincoln and Clyde, they get the message and are much more confident about going to the haunted house that night. 
Then just when they’re about to enter it again, they find all the former employees were fired because of what they learned from Bobby, and the management upped the scariness.  They run in terrified again, but I have to question why they don’t consider that everything is still fake.  I mean there’s no way the people running the haunted house could put together real scares.  However, they end up running all the way through the house while trying to find the bail out door, and impressively end up taking more of it than Chandler and his friends.  Heck, Chandler is even on good terms with them and even invites them to hang out with him. This can show that there was good inside him all along, or this is just praising an apparent feat he’ll probably forget about.  Speaking of being forgotten, Lincoln and Clyde end up thinking nothing of how brave they ended up being. They’re terrified by one last harmless makeshift scare from a squirrel and a crow.  Was it really that hard for them to consider that what they saw wasn’t really what it seemed?
As a scary cartoon, this one can get frustrating with how scared of practically everything our heroes end up being.  Thanks to a well-crafted atmosphere in some scenes and great support from characters in their lives, it all turns out more bearable than one may think.
C





Tea Tale Heart
Now this is a scary cartoon that’s truly impactful featuring a creative story idea that builds upon a stunt that bends the rules for childish satisfaction and soon goes out of control.  Lola, one of the six-year-old Loud twins, is well known for taking an interest in anything cute and beautiful. 
She happens upon Lucy who has found an old doll in the attic and plans to keep it in a small coffin.  Lola really wants to play with the doll, but Lucy insists that it’s for the best she keeps it safe considering how fragile it is.  To Lola’s delight though, the next day Lucy is out of the house, meaning she’s now free to take the doll and spend the day with her.  It’s this rule-breaking that slowly brings the effective fright factor into fruition. 
During a tea party, Lola accidentally spills tea on the doll, and it soaks through to the body.  I could say that what goes on could have been avoided if Lola was more careful with how she poured the tea, but a few things make this direction work.  Lucy did say that chaotic things like that are commonplace in Lola’s room, so it was bound to happen.  Also, Lola’s only 6, so it makes sense that playtime would keep her from being as careful as possible.  She then acts fast to fix the doll, but her attempts make it worse and eventually beyond repair with a red dress and body and a cracked head, both worse than a tea stain.  Luckily, Lola has the money to buy a replacement doll and the skills to make it look like the original so Lucy will never know. 
The only thing left to do now is to get rid of the doll she ruined, and it’s here where the story is at its most frightening.  The first time Lola tries hiding the doll, it somehow finds its way back to her room, freaking her out.  For the rest of the cartoon, she goes to lengths more extreme than the last to lose what she broke once and for all.  She tries burying it, throwing it in the dumpster, and paying Flip to take her to the pond where she can sink it.  It’s at this point where it becomes crazy that the doll keeps finding its way back to her.  In any other case, especially with dropping it in the pond, it would be gone forever.  The fact that the doll always returns with visual reminders of where Lola left it at that leaves one wondering how this can be.  The creepiness of the situation is capitalized by Lola’s terrified reactions to the doll possibly “haunting” her and growing guilt as she lashes out to hide what she did.  Consoling stuffed animals for emotional support through all this is a nice touch to her age as well. 
In the end, Lola breaks down and tells Lucy the truth, and in a refreshing turn of events, Lucy is very forgiving.  She understands that Lola didn’t ruin the original doll on purpose and likes how it looks now that it can haunt people.  About the haunting thing, it’s hard to guess why the doll kept doing that despite what Lucy says about it reacting to being taken away from its owner.  The true answer is revealed in the last minutes that Lana kept returning it to Lola thinking she wanted it back.  Given the frequent sense of uncertainty, this is a clever twist that fits the nature of the characters.  That’s a big reason to why this scary cartoon works so well. 
In addition to being a creative concept that grows up in craziness from one misstep, it’s really enhanced by the approaches to it from the featured characters.  It’s one of the show’s most imaginative and atmospheric works for sure.
A+

The Ranking
  1. Really Loud Music
  2. Head Poet’s Anxiety
  3. Roadie to Nowhere
  4. Tea Tale Heart
  5. Shop Girl
  6. Breaking Dad
  7. Gown and Out
  8. Fandom Pains
  9. Insta-Gran
  10. Selfie Improvement
  11. Scales of Justice
  12. Middle Men
  13. Net Gains
  14. Crimes of Fashion
  15. Everybody Loves Leni
  16. The Spies Who Loved Me
  17. No Place Like Homeschool
  18. House of Lies
  19. The Mad Scientist
  20. City Slickers
  21. Missed Connection
  22. Fool Me Twice
  23. Deal Me Out
  24. Teachers’ Union
  25. Tripped!
  26. White Hare
  27. A Fridge Too Far
  28. Sitting Bull
  29. Game Boys
  30. Pasture Bedtime
  31. Absent Minded
  32. What Wood Lincoln Do?
  33. Jeers for Fears
  34. Friendzy
  35. Pipe Dreams
  36. Be Stella My Heart
  37. Rita Her Rights
  38. Ruthless People
The next Loud House review is a Thanksgiving special where the Louds and Casagrandes try to stay together but end up going savage on each other while trying to prove themselves as the better hosts.
Next time on MC Toon Reviews is "The Trial" 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. 


1 comment:

  1. It's ironic how the latter segment, despite having a standard plot, has more genuine scares than the former.

    ReplyDelete