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Episode 80
Dot’s Entertainment
It’s
always great to get a cartoon that’s not only great fun, but also offers a
solid message on what it takes to make good material. Through going after yet another famous pop
culture icon, this cartoon easily fits this criteria.
It takes place on opening night of a Broadway
production from Andy Lloyd Webby, an obvious spoof on Andrew Lloyd Webber. Mr. Webby doesn’t take long to set himself up
as a pretentious jerk begging to be taken down a peg. During rehearsal, the actors for his newest
play put their all into their performances, but for one reason or another, Mr.
Webby sees no value in their talent. He
doesn’t cease to berate them for being what he believes to be this play’s weak
point and eventually fires them. Needing
a new leading lady, he just so happens to randomly pick Dot from out of the
chorus line. Her excitement for fame is
made perfectly clear by an accompanying montage parodying That Girl complete with her standing in for Marlo Thomas’
character.
What follows is the most
creatively staged blow to Mr. Webby’s ego that he can possibly get. Dot plays along with his half-hearted compliments
to her acting potential so that he doesn’t suspect a thing. Then a comeback of some sort is foreshadowed
when sandbags are dropped on two random men intended to be Dot’s co-stars and
are replaced by Yakko and Wakko.
With
all three Warners in place, the play is all set to get a comedic rework. Allowing the play to go in a totally new
direction, the Warners turn what Mr. Webby has in mind into a collection of
silly parodies of Andrew Lloyd Webber songs.
The theme from “Sunset Boulevard” is turned into an overly dramatic song
about Dot getting a root canal at the dentist.
The passionate “Music in the Night” number from Phantom of the Opera turns into a song describing how boring it is
and how it puts the audience to sleep.
Wakko performs a soulful number about snack time while working off of
another passionate song, “Memory” from Cats. There is one song parody that feels out of
place here which is the Warners’ take on “Do Re Mi” from The Sound of Music. Mr.
Webby even says that’s not even his song, and you can tell. This is a parody of Rogers and Hammerstein,
not Andrew Lloyd Webber. My guess is that
this song is here because there wasn’t a good way to incorporate it into “The Sound of Warners.” It’s still a fun song
though, and they all build up to a grand finale consisting of the point the
Warners are trying to make with these parodies.
Playing off of “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina” from Evita, they tell Mr. Webby the real cause for failure in his
plays. It’s not about the performances
of the actors. The real reason his plays
don’t work are because of other factors, mainly the lackluster script. That’s a solid lesson for people going into
the arts. You can push for the best
performances, but it’s the writing quality that will truly determine if what you
have is truly great. In the end, it’s not clear if Mr. Webby truly learns all
this, but it certainly goes out well for the Warners.
Marked with great parodies of some of
Broadway’s most soulful numbers and a meaningful show business lesson, there’s
a lot to take from this classy cartoon.
A+
The Girl
with the Googily Goop
For
another cartoon said to be made when the Warners were first created, it’s
surprising how it doesn’t totally embrace the supposedly overly zany
aesthetic. I mean, it’s got a lot of
merit going for it as a take on the cartooning styles of one of the biggest
animation powerhouses of the early 1930s, the Fleischer Brothers. There’s a much looser motion to the animation
of everything, and it’s populated by innumerable anthropomorphic animals and
sentient objects. In addition,
everything everyone says and does is perfectly timed to the background music as
everyone proceeds to break into song on any moment’s notice. Honestly, this is the great old school
cartoon vibe one should expect to get from here.
It’s unfortunately compromised somewhat when
the Warners show up. The story behind
their presence in this cartoon, as stated in the opening prologue, is that the
Warner Bros Studio needed extra cash. To
get it, they sold them out to parodies of the Fleischer Brothers working in New
York at the time. I’m not so sure if
this ever happened with the actual Warner Bros Studio at the time, but either
way it’s a plausible reason for the Warners to be in this cartoon. The problem with their inclusion though is
that they don’t exactly blend in with the zany overly-animated nature of the
cartoon’s world. They come in commenting
on how creeped out they are over how everything’s alive and the erratic way the
characters move. I suppose there isn’t anything too far-fetched about them
responding to the world around them like this.
Even at the time, their style of comedy was different from something from
a Fleischer character. However, for
cartoon characters said to go totally out of control at the time, they seem
very restrained considering that all they do is talk about their
surroundings.
It’s not even just the
world they comment on. Their assigned
plot is to accompany a parody of Betty Boop, called Googy Goop, to her grandma’s
house and protect her from a wolf, i.e. your basic “Red Riding Hood”
story. Now Googy herself is certainly
charming and likable, but not exactly interesting or funny as a character. Her gimmick is being a target for the censors
since the way she’s dressed and the black and white filming make her look like
she’s wearing nothing. Maybe the censor
thing is applicable for modern times, but if I remember correctly, Betty Boop
was portrayed like this in all her original cartoons, and no one complained
then. Yes, the Hayes Code was in place
around the time, but that didn’t stop the cartoons from being made the way they were
intended to. Seeing the Warners sing
about the censors complaining about Googy’s design is another thing to take the
audience out of the classic cartoon feel.
Thankfully, it’s fully realized when a harassing censor turns out to be
the wolf who abducts Googy. There’s a
fun cartoonish antic-fueled climax where they chase them onto a sentient train,
somehow crash into a cafeteria, and beat the wolf with a food fight. Then, Googy, her grandma, and Dot, are free
to express themselves with their own black dresses without any censor telling
them otherwise. It’s overall a solid
take on how censorship can go too far by cutting out things that are actually
harmless. I just wish that the actual
cartoon felt more like an actual classic Fleisher Brothers cartoon than a 90s
riff on one. Maybe it could be realized
if it wasn’t presented as a long lost Warners cartoon. Other than that, it’s a very fun and solid
tribute to classic animation as it is.
A-
Gunga Dot
Now
this short segment is where the show’s creative aesthetic makes itself known.
It’s a take on an old poem by Rudyard Kipling, “Gunga Din” with Dot
taking up the titular role. However, the
only true similarity this short and that poem have in common is that they both center
on India and both titular characters job is to bring water to people. The catch is that both elements are utilized
for different contexts. The original
Gunga Din poem is about a soldier who brings water to the armed forces and is disrespected by everyone until he's shot dead. Dot is a water server in a much more modern
setting of an Indian oasis. In fact, the
short brings a comedic contrast through dramatic narration of intense Indian
desert heat from ages ago clashing with modern resort problems.
Dot has to deal with complaints from everyone
there about no tropical drinks, no ice to cool off, no water to bathe with,
and even no water in the pool. All
throughout, the people of the resort demand some water and berate Dot for not
coming to serve them when they want her, inconsiderate that she’s the only one doing
all the work. It’s one of the boldest
visualizations of the pains of customer service I’ve seen for sure. I’m just grateful Dot’s mistreatment isn’t in
line with any racist undertones seen in the original poem.
Adding to the intrigue of the segment, the
resort is filled with cameos from just about all the major players in the
cast. Dot, her brothers, and the Warner
Bros Studio staff are a given, but that’s not all. Even some characters now exclusive to the
show have notable roles here that play to their well-known personalities. Slappy’s frustrations with the service is
among the most believable series of complaints in the sequence. Bobby, Squit, and Pesto of the Goodfeathers
have an edge to their demands while lounging in a dry birdbath. Mindy is innocently patient through the whole
affair, going with the flow of things while obliviously knocking Buttons into a
dry pool. Even Rita and Runt get a
notable sequence as well as some dialog, which is huge at a time when they
literally have no starring roles all to themselves anymore.
That said, no side characters stand out more
than Pinky and the Brain whose plan to take over the world by sucking up water
in a remote river is also worked into the poem.
I do have to question how sucking up the water with that sponge was
supposed to get them anywhere though.
With an intriguing setup and a huge variety in the featured characters,
it becomes especially fun to watch them keep up with the rhyme scheme. Every bit of narration, complaint about the
service, and even Pinky and the Brain’s subplot matches the beat perfectly
despite all randomness of the lines.
That’s impressive writing as well as good fun. It’s one of the key factors in place where
Dot snaps and resolves the customer service problems by unleashing all the
water in the tower she lives in. I
don’t know about you, but this action forming the Indian Ocean feels more true
to Kipling than his own poem. I
seem to know his work for giving creative reasons for natural occurrences, but
don’t really get that in a story of a mistreated water boy working in the army.
With solid comedy and relatable conflicts
working off of a classic literary work, this short segment is among the best
constructed from this stretch of episodes.
A+
Cartoon Ranking
1. This Pun for Hire
2. Go Fish
3. The Sound of Warners
4. Dot’s Entertainment
5. Buttons in Ows
6. Star Truck
7. Yabba Dabba Boo
8. The Party
9. The Girl with the Googily Goop
10. Gimme the Works
11. My Mother the Squirrel
12. Hercules Unwound
13. Oh Say Can You See
Song Ranking
1. Multiplication
Miscellaneous Ranking
1. Gunga Dot
2. The 12 Days of Christmas
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