Saturday, August 10, 2019

Miami Mama Mia / Pigeon on the Roof / Coo (Animaniacs Vol 3 Part 17) - 'Toon Reviews 32

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Episode 67
Miami Mama-Mia


To this cartoon’s credit, I admire the change in scenery to the usual Goodfeathers setup and the concept doesn’t sound too bad either.  Unfortunately, the execution makes the final product fall flat and doesn’t do much to properly justify its story decisions. 
We have the Goodfeathers traveling down to Miami Beach to meet Pesto’s mother.  Now, she herself is quite enjoyable when it comes to smothering her son with motherly love.  Then she announces that she’s remarrying to a seagull, Steven Seagull to be precise.  Pesto isn’t happy with the idea, and it’s really hard to find this behavior acceptable.  I mean, I get it’s normal to not be happy about a parent remarrying, but the lengths Pesto goes to in order to prevent the marriage are far too extreme and diabolical.  He actually wants to straight-up get Steven offed so that there will be no marriage.  No acknowledgement of his typical tempers can possibly make this decision work for Pesto’s likability. 
The cartoon then follows Pesto and the others exploring Miami’s sights with Steven, and the experience is just outright dull.  Steven shows off his main personality to the group, and not only is he incredibly bland, he’s also obnoxiously happy.  There’s just no other trait to him that isn’t overly friendly and believing that he’ll immediately be accepted as Pesto’s dad.  His dialog is also repetitive, which is something I don’t expect to see from this show.  Every time, the group comes to a sight in Florida, Steven tells the Goodfeathers about a creature who lives there, and Pesto asks him to grab one for his dark intent.  The kicker is that Steven says the exact same lines about how it’s dangerous, but he’ll do it for his “son.” The writing for this show is usually much more varied than this, and Steven’s overbearing happiness certainly doesn’t help.  Pesto getting eaten or thrown away as a result is at least an enjoyable consequence, if only for a funny visual gag showing where he’s ended up in as he rants. 
In the end, his attempts end up completely pointless as his mother and Steven get married anyway, and Pesto is suddenly ok with it.  Pesto’s change in heart is a welcome conclusion, but nothing prior really prompts it.  You could argue that all his backfires led to this, but he still kept going despite the failures, so you can’t really chalk it up to that.  It ultimately just feels like a waste of a cartoon if it was just going to end with the marriage regardless of what Pesto did.  There are a few good laughs, but this is still a very mundane cartoon that’s sure to make one question its existence.

C-

Pigeon on the Roof


It’s never a bad idea to do a parody of a popular musical, especially this show where parodies are what it regularly does.  Heck, even the Goodfeathers have pulled off a legitimately great musical parody before of West Side Story.  It makes sense that they’d do it again only this time it’s of Fiddler on the Roof. I can’t tell you how faithful the parody is to the source material since I remember very little of that musical though.
In some ways, you can tell that passion was thrown into this particularly from the songs.  They’re all well performed and harmonized, invoking the atmosphere of the source material that I at least have a general idea of.  The opening song gives bravado to something all the pigeons value as part of their lives, the Martin Scorsese statue in the park.  There’s also a strong realization of tone in the song such as fun and ambition as Pesto sings about being the Godpigeon while humorously filling verses with various Italian phrases.  The songs also help bring legit frights like when Pesto describes a nightmare in the graveyard, and romance like when the Goodfeathers and Girlfeathers sing about getting together. 
This is really all the positives there are to this cartoon though.  The story structure holds the entire affair back for its sloppy execution.  It feels like three different plots are going on all at once with very little done to connect them.  First, it’s kind of about the Goodfeathers honoring their Scorsese statue, but it doesn’t have anything to do with what later unfolds.  Then the focus is suddenly on the Girlfeathers wanting to marry the Goodfeathers, and you think that’s what the cartoon is about.  One encounter with the Godpigeon makes the focus shift again as Pesto decides he wants to be the Godpigeon.  Then, after one talk about a dream where he’s said to have murdered the original Godpigeon, he decides he doesn’t want the position anymore.  That just begs the question of why there was even a plot point of Pesto wanting to do that in the first place if it was just going to go nowhere.  Then you’d think the marriage subplot will be the focus again with all the love ballads that follow, but no.  We end with the Scorsese statue taken away and replaced with one of Regis Philbin, and the pigeons sing about how they don’t like it, doing nothing about the marriages.  Again, it’s an entire waste of a plot if they’re not going to do anything about it. 
On another note, while the songs are good, their placement leaves a lot to be desired.  All the characters need to do is say an offhand remark about something like becoming egg-hatchers or being the Godpigeon to start breaking into song.  It’s a weak excuse for a musical number and corny as well if you ask me.  Above all, it further works against an already directionless cartoon.  It has a clear ambition for an entertaining musical parody and is still quite fun for its songs and a few moments, but the execution leaves a lot to be desired.

C+

 Coo



After that jumbled mess of a cartoon, we appropriately lead into this apparently standalone song with Pesto hilariously ranting about what that was all about.  Bobby’s with him and, as usual, tries to calm him down to “coo” it in song. 
The song, honestly, is far below the show’s standards with all the lyrics meaning the same thing, that Pesto should just relax and stay “coo.”  It’s not even very long and only further begs the question what that was all about.  In fact, it would feel more at place to come at the end of “West Side Pigeons” since the song is a parody of one from West Side Story and not Fiddler on the Roof.  Then again, the former musical parody was far more competently made than the one we just got, so I don’t really know what would make sense. 
This song just happens, and there’s nothing more I can say about it.
D+

Cartoon Ranking

1.      The Warners’ 65th Anniversary Special

2.      Baloney and Kids

3.      Ragamuffins

4.      Frontier Slappy

5.      Woodstock Slappy

6.      Wakko’s Gizmo

7.      The Warners and the Beanstalk

8.      Brain Meets Brawn

9.      Morning Malaise

10.  Meet John Brain

11.  Yes, Always

12.  Drive Insane

13.  Lookit the Fuzzy Heads

14.  Take My Siblings Please

15.  Karaoke Dokie

16.  Witch One

17.  Of Course, You Know This Means Warners

18.  No Face Like Home

19.  Meet Minerva

20.  The Chicken Who Loved Me

21.  Scare Happy Slappy

22.  Smell Ya Later

23.  A Gift of Gold

24.  Ups and Downs

25.  The Helpinki Formula

26.  The Mindy 500

27.  Les Boutons et le Ballon

28.  Gold Rush

29.  Up a Tree

30.  Cranial Crusader

31.  Mermaid Mindy

32.  Katie Ka-Boom: The Driving Lesson

33.  With Three You Get Eggroll

34.  Kung Boo

35.  Pigeon on the Roof

36.  The Brave Little Trailer

37.  Girlfeathers

38.  Super Buttons

39.  Miami-Mama Mia

40.  Katie Ka-Boom: Call Waiting

Song Ranking

1.      Schnitzelbank

2.      I’m Cute

3.      Dot’s Quiet Time

4.      Coo

 

Miscellaneous Ranking

1.      Branimaniacs

2.      Macbeth

3.      Oh, Oh, Ethel

4.      Spike

 
Be sure to stay tuned for the review of the next episode with even more mediocrity from the Goodfeathers and Katie Ka-Boom, but also some fun train-related fun with Mindy and Buttons.
If you would like to check out other Animaniacs reviews on this blog, click here for the guide made especially for them.

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