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Episode 60
Karaoke Dokie
On the surface this is a simple
cartoon of the Warners going off and doing a thing, but another really cleverly
utilized reference makes it stand out from normal standards. They hear music coming from the Warner Bros.
Studio commissary, and find out that there’s a karaoke event where people
perform simple children’s songs. They
take an immediate interest in joining which isn’t too far from the norm of how
most people would approach a special activity.
That’s when the catch comes in as the Warners discover that before they
can take part, someone else has beaten them to the spotlight. The main thing about this person is who he’s
meant to be a caricature of. It’s
William Shatner, here called William Slakmer, whose gimmick is taking long
dramatic pauses whenever he’s saying one single sentence. This is a kind of pronunciation that’s
begging to be imitated, and while it’s fun enough to do it yourself, the way
the Warners mock the way Slakmer talks is a particular highlight. If that’s not enough, he’s booked way more
than one song to sing, which hardly seems fair. He’s allowed to make the
audience endure his entirely emotionless singing for a long time.
Now, Slakmer being the featured singer is in
line with a real life instance of William Shatner giving a musical
performance. He has an infamous cover of
the Elton John song “Rocket Man” that’s quite unenthused and hardly even
sung. Since he can’t pull off a
well-known pop song, it’s not surprising that he probably wouldn’t be able to
pull off simple verses and nursey rhymes.
That idea is humorously brought to life as he gives such tunes
a dry emotionless cover. Given that the
performance is intentionally bad though, you can easily forget the idea of a
truly top notch performance and laugh at what’s given.
Plus, the inherent soullessness of the
singing is greatly counteracted by the Warners who spend the cartoon riffing on
how talentless and sickening the whole thing is. They don’t just sit in the audience as they go
on to state their opinions vocally. They
show no fear in going up on stage to say that Slakmer really needs to stop
singing, mocking his verbal patterns all the way. It’s a light-hearted measure to show frustration
with the show as they try to get their way and a good way to build up to real
strategy.
Turning to the music handler,
a more competent than average Ralph the Guard, the Warners eventually get to
the machine and speed up the rest of Slakmer’s songs. The resulting performance is a funny
combination of unenthused singing with fast lively tempos he has to keep up
with. Even when Slakmer is finally
beaten, the typical outcome is shaken a bit when the Warners still don’t get
what they want. Ralph finds them out and
informs the kids that another former Star
Trek actor, a parody of Leonard Nimoy, is up next with another big serving
of karaoke songs. He teleports in like
Mr. Spock and everything. This is
tolerable enough since it was wrong for the Warners to hijack a performance
despite how bad it is, and there’s a good suggestion that they’ll get to sing
anyway.
On an even better note, the
strong mining of humor out of a not-often talked about pop culture event brings
another genius work of comedy.
A
Cranial Crusader
We’ve already had a cartoon of Brain
trying to take over the world by running for president, so it only figures that
this time he’d try by acting as a superhero.
With Pinky and himself posing as pet mice to resident hero, the Caped
Opossum, Brain notices how great affection superheroes have it.
Going off of the Caped Opossum, all he has to
do is take out a bad guy and leave a mark to let the public know of the heroic
deed. At the same time, I have to
question how Brain could possibly think that being a hero means being able to
take over the world. The whole point of
heroes is to make sure that rightful rulers don’t lose their positions of power
from outside forces. Plus, the Caped
Opossum has captured all his enemies except for one foe named Johnny Badnote,
and he still has no access to rule over the world. Brain plans on catching that evasive bad guy
before the Caped Opossum does, but how would one victory compare to the other
guys many? I know Brain usually
overlooks certain things in his plans, but this is just ridiculous.
At least his chemistry with Pinky through
their attempt to reach Johnny Badnote before the Caped Opossum is solidly
entertaining. We have Brain relishing in
his position of power as usual while Pinky just goes along with the fun. He has a nice side goal along the ride by
writing up a comic book for the Brain, and it’s amusing to see him focus on
that while Brain’s all set on his mission.
Given how out of line and logic the mission is, Pinky’s comic book
actually has more weight to it. Even
when unrelated to the main mission, there are a few solid laughs from the
mice’s compatibility. It mostly comes
from Pinky not understanding what the buttons do since Brain doesn’t bother to
properly explain them resulting in humorous car crashes.
Then, we come to Johnny Badnote himself, who
seems like a comedic take on villains, but doesn’t do anything terribly funny
or interesting. His motivation to want
to blow up the world is because the public didn’t like his songs, which as you
can tell, is very weak and petty. This
wouldn’t be such a big deal if he was actually funny or a parody of serious
villains. However, unlike other villains
with an overdramatic flare, quirky catchphrases, and funny reactions to
physical gags, Johnny doesn’t have any of those things. He acts all sinister and threatening,
expecting to be taken seriously which doesn’t work given his shallow
motives. It also doesn’t make for a
compelling reason why the caped opossum had such a hard time beating him. Pinky and Brain easily get out of the trap
Johnny puts them in from Pinky reaching for his comic underneath their grenade
and blow up his lair.
This impressively
means the plan was truly all thought out, and what makes it fail is completely
unprecedented on both characters’ accounts.
During the explosion, ink falls out of a bottle and onto Brain’s hero
mark, making it look like the Caped Opossum caught Johnny Badnote. It could be argued that Pinky is to blame
given his drive for his comic, but it still feels quite contrived that the ink
would fall and mess up the mark that intricately. Also, the Caped Opossum getting credit for someone
else’s work is honestly just as shallow an outcome as Johnny Badnote’s
motivation.
This still isn’t a bad
cartoon thanks to Pinky and the Brain’s compatibility you can never go wrong
with, but many directions make this one of their most problematic cartoon.
B
The Chicken Who Loved Me
Of all the Chicken Boo cartoons we’ve
gotten so far, this is easily the most grand-scale performance. It’s the same basic formula, but from a spy
angle bringing to mind the likes of James Bond, what he gets up to is at its
freshest.
The usual convention of
Chicken Boo being praised by two people except for one who calls him out for
being the giant chicken he is gets out of the way quickly at the start. This makes for some solid fun to be had as a
spy parody. For one thing, there’s a
light-hearted approach to the spy gadgets.
The biggest one is what looks like a pen seeming like it could be a
disguise for a much bigger and more creative purpose, but is really just a
pen. The most effective thing that pen
does is squirt ink in the face of the main villain’s face, like an actual one
would do. It’s an instance of so much
bravado built up, only for it to turn out to be very simple and rather
ineffective in terms of combat. Other
gadgets are much more creative as they play to Chicken Boo’s status as a
chicken. There’s an egg-beater that
turns into a gyro helicopter, and eggs functioning as grenades although some of
them are just actual eggs.
However, even
though Chicken Boo seems to put up a decent fight at first, the status he’s
built up ends up not entirely deserved.
The moment he knocks into the villain’s rocket, he’s immediately taken
out and open to be attacked by pet sharks.
I will say that it’s a welcome move that when the sharks take off his
disguise and reveal that he’s actually a chicken, his typical betrayal makes
more sense. It starts in a manner that
would have been the case if the disguise didn’t come off with Chicken Boo being
launched into space by that villains.
The rocket flight through space is an unusual change of pace from just
being kicked out or pelted with things, making for an exciting flight from
people you’d expect to make it happen.
It just doesn’t feel right that nothing is said of the villains’ fate
afterwards. They’re still off to conquer
the world, so shouldn’t they still be stopped?
The cartoon can still be satisfying that way. Also, do we really know for sure if Chicken
Boo is just going to be able to fly back to Earth from the moon? I know I
shouldn’t think much of continuity with this show, but these measures still
feel kind of extreme. At least one other
good thing makes this cartoon stand out.
One of Chicken Boo’s former fans, a woman who showed affection to him,
shows some sympathy to him instead of just outright scorn. That shows here is some appreciation for the
chicken’s efforts. It really accompanies
the fun take on spy tropes and the grand scale some of the usual beats
take.
Just accept nothing being done
with the bad guys, and this is sure to be a Chicken Boo cartoon more exciting
than most through a big action angle.
A
Cartoon Ranking
1. Ragamuffins
2. Frontier
Slappy
3. Woodstock
Slappy
4. Wakko’s
Gizmo
5. The Warners
and the Beanstalk
6. Brain Meets
Brawn
7. Meet John
Brain
8. Yes, Always
9. Drive
Insane
10. Karaoke
Dokie
11. Of Course,
You Know This Means Warners
12. Meet
Minerva
13. The Chicken
Who Loved Me
14. Smell Ya
Later
15. A Gift of
Gold
16. Ups and
Downs
17. The
Helpinki Formula
18. Les Boutons
et le Ballon
19. Gold Rush
20. Up a Tree
21. The Cranial
Crusader
22. Kung Boo
23. The Brave
Little Trailer
24. Girlfeathers
Song Ranking
1. Schnitzelbank
2. I’m Cute
3. Dot’s Quiet
Time
Miscellaneous Ranking
1. Branimaniacs
2. Oh, Oh,
Ethel
3. Spike
Disc 2 of this Vol 3 DVD is officially clear. Disc 3 now kicks off with
this episode of Barney parodies, more
superheroes, and the return of Katie Ka-Boom. The latter element isn’t really
something to be excited about.
Next time on MC Toon Reviews meet "Sadie Killer" from Steven Universe.
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