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Episode 61
Baloney and Kids
When you’re a little kid, you’re often
exposed to educational shows that parents think is the most harmless stuff you
can watch. Plenty of them put so much
emphasis on being saccharine and overly-simplified. It’s the kind of material that makes it seem
like children have no intelligence or free will for themselves, and will like
whatever happy and colorful thing is put in front of them.
Take Barney and Friends for example. I’m sure
many of us have grown up with that show at some point in our lives, and given
how anti-Barney humor and rants against the show are big in media, the majority
regrets that. As my critical skills have
grown a lot over the years, I understand what makes Barney not hold up so well. Not only is he very annoying with his laugh
and emphasis on imagination, but from what I remember, there’s no real
emotional range. It’s just a bunch of
kids happily doing a random activity at school, singing incessant pointless
songs, and making strange things happen just by imagining. The latter part makes the tone confusing
where it seems down to Earth, but whatever they imagine always turns out real.
That goes in line with the overall phoniness of how happy everything is. With so many detracting factors surrounding
Barney and his show, they’re just begging for a parody from this show, and it really
delivers.
Here, the Barney stand-in is
called Baloney and colored orange, but his portrayal is very spot-on. Introduced by kids who over-act and sound too
old, he’s constantly happy giving mindless giggles, singing short pointless
songs, and forcing kids into any game he things of. The Warners are roped into starring on this
show, and are the only ones to point out how dumb and creepy their situation
is. Then again, those two kids leave
shortly after they arrive, so there’s a chance they know more than they seem
to. The Warners don’t seem to be allowed
to leave and are at the mercy of this dementedly happy orange dinosaur. The thing is, Baloney’s overly-happy ways
makes him impervious to the kids’ brand of antics. Every time they talk about leaving by taking
a cab, going to planet reality, or saying to “imagine [their] delight” Baloney
sees them as a cue to start playing pretend, or sing about it. Even when he’s obsessed with his pretend,
he’s on top of everything, such as deciding to stop pretending when he imagines
he’s an astronaut, and the Warners say he’s lost oxygen. This is one of those times where retaliation
really works against them, and it’s kind of funny that one of their biggest
enemies turn out to be a Barney parody of all things. Still, the experience is kept funny through
witty remarks to their bad situation and the kids remaining nonchalant against
a creepily happy creature.
The best hold they have against Baloney is singing a
random song called “The Anvil Song” which unsurprisingly gets him knocked on
the head with anvils. They don’t finish
off Baloney or even hurt him, but they have enough fun dropping them on him
anyway. In a way this can go both ways
for both sides of the Barney argument.
Little kids who like him don’t see him permanently destroyed, while older people who
don’t like him can see this as cathartic. Plus, the Warners get to leave as soon as the
show’s over, and even get with the Prince and Princesses of Props when all is
over. I guess that message at the end of
“Fair Game” has some accuracy to it.
With a spot-on reference to Barney and how big a nuisance he is along
with solid comedy, this is easily one of the show’s best constructed parody
cartoons.
A+
Super Buttons
It really doesn’t matter what the
backdrop for Mindy and Buttons cartoons is.
You can almost always expect the exact same formula every time, although
the setting can make the difference every now and then. With this superhero-themed escapade, some of
their antics stand out because of how the cartoon unfolds, but also features
some of Buttons’ most unfair pain gags.
The superhero tone starts off strong with a background narration talking
about how amazing he is as a superhero called Super Buttons. Aside from one or two funny bits, they mostly
feature him getting clobbered and beaten up by meaner animals. That’s really not in line with the amazing
hero figure that’s being built up, and I don’t see how that’s supposed to be
funny. He’s already shown in a bunch of
bandages by the end of the intro, and the proper chase hasn’t even started
yet.
Speaking of that, the moment that
starts, it hardly even matters that Buttons is a superhero, or Mindy and her
family for that matter. The way Mindy is
distracted by a baby bird and flies out of the yard is very in line with how
she escapes on a usual basis. There are
a few solid laughs during the chase like when Mindy’s pursuit for the bird lead
her to a bank robbery resulting in her usual “why” conversations with random
people. Out of it is one solitary shred
of weight to the actions of any robber like they do what they do maybe because
their mothers didn’t hug them when they were kids. Really that can be said for any criminal and
is reflective of any bad upbringing. If
the jokes were more self-aware like this, the cartoon would be a lot
better.
However, most of its other
passes for humor aren’t nearly as strong.
There’s an appropriate use of superhero conventions like sudden
lightning storms and Mindy using super strength on a bus. The appeal is significantly lightened by how
hurt Buttons ends up getting from getting charred by lightning and believably
hurt when crushed by that bus. Some of
them are just unnecessary like when a police car backs up and runs him over
before pulling away. What was even the
point of that? There’s also one other
direct tie to the superhero tone as Buttons runs into a villainous spider
person that the mayor has never seen even when she’s just above him. Buttons
has a good idea to attack her with bug spray, but then she gets a giant fly
swatter and she’s immediately forgotten about.
Is the cartoon seriously going to let the bad guy get away? What humor is there to come from Buttons
losing to her? Plus it doesn’t have the
slightest connection to protecting Mindy.
Speaking of which after she arrives home on her own and Buttons follows,
he’s called out for going out of the yard.
I can take Buttons ending up breaking a single rule as a result of the
chases, but this scolding over leaving the yard is uncalled for. He wouldn’t have done it if Mindy didn’t go
out of the yard first, so for a superhero cartoon, there’s really no
justice. Even Mindy’s hug means nothing
as the ending superhero tag shows her go off to chase something again meaning
Buttons will have to chase her again.
This cartoon is merely decent if you’re into the subject of superheroes,
but the Mindy and Buttons formula being more frustrating than ever really works
against the fun.
C-
Katie Ka-Boom: The Driving Lesson
Considering we haven’t seen Katie
Ka-Boom since Episode 35, and even then heard nothing of her prior to that,
this is pretty telling of how little was allowed to be done with her. With this in mind, her cartoons are perhaps
the show’s least pleasant. I understand
the creativity of a teenage girl starting nice and then turning into a monster
as she slowly gets angry, but the execution isn’t very funny. In fact, there’s such a small emphasis on
humor that you end up feeling sorry for her family who are almost always
powerless against her. It’s practically
an exercise of torture they have to go through every time she’s in the
spotlight.
While humor or appealing
creativity isn’t present here, I do have to give this cartoon credit for at
least being more exciting than usual. It
follows the teenager element where Katie, who has a learner’s permit, is
allowed to drive part of the way home for the first time. As is the usual case, she starts off all
bubbly and happy at the idea of driving.
Slowly though, Katie’s temper rises as her parents, who are far more
experienced drives by the way, give her pointers she claims she already
knows. You can feel something coming
just from shots of her glaring eyes in the car mirrors.
Then when she finally snaps and turns into a
green nightmarish monster with a siren on her head, her anger is at the point
of no return. The ride home is now a
dangerous drive through the neighborhood fueled by teenage hormones and the
entire family is roped along for all of it.
It’s honestly a really fun watch if only out of context. You never know what’s coming next as Katie
drives into literally anything in her path, even going off the road. The energy is kept high too with constant
cuts to people in the neighborhood running for cover. If only it was more enjoyable without so much
emphasis on how tortured her family is during the whole thing. That just makes it impossible to find what’s
going on to be funny. At least
destruction coming up in an energetic drive is more pleasing entertainment-wise
than the family just standing around at the mercy of it.
Ultimately, this is one of the better Katie
Ka-Boom cartoons, but given how low the bar for them is, it’s really not saying
much. This cartoon about a crazily
intense car drive is pretty much a calm before the storm compared to what we’re
really in for with her.
B-
Cartoon Ranking
1. Baloney and Kids
2. Ragamuffins
3. Frontier Slappy
4. Woodstock Slappy
5. Wakko’s Gizmo
6. The Warners and the Beanstalk
7. Brain Meets Brawn
8. Meet John Brain
9. Yes, Always
10. Drive Insane
11. Karaoke Dokie
12. Of Course, You Know This Means Warners
13. Meet Minerva
14. The Chicken Who Loved Me
15. Smell Ya Later
16. A Gift of Gold
17. Ups and Downs
18. The Helpinki Formula
19. Les Boutons et le Ballon
20. Gold Rush
21. Up a Tree
22. Cranial Crusader
23. Katie Ka-Boom: The Driving Lesson
24. Kung Boo
25. The Brave Little Trailer
26. Girlfeathers
27. Super Buttons
Song Ranking
1. Schnitzelbank
2. I’m Cute
3. Dot’s Quiet Time
Miscellaneous Ranking
1. Branimaniacs
2. Oh, Oh, Ethel
3. Spike
Be sure to stay tuned for the review of the next episode, a late Halloween episode. There's Slappy and Skippy trick-or-treating their enemies, the final Rita and Runt cartoon ever which is witch-themed, and a Shakespeare translation of the witch scene from Macbeth.
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