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Episode 93
Cute First
(Ask Questions Later)
The
pieces are in place for a solid fairy tale parody in this cartoon, but it’s
debatable if everything all comes together. Its purpose is to build upon the events of the story of Snow White with
the opening rushing through the beats of the original story. After the business with the wicked queen, the
poisoned apple, the prince and two dwarves (fabulously cheap cartoon), and the queen’s demise, the story
really begins.
Driving the conflict is
how Snow White herself is really no different from the queen. As she and the others settle into the queen’s
castle, she’s enthralled by the magic mirror saying she’s the cutest. What’s more, once it’s revealed someone else
is cuter than her, she loses all things likable and becomes crazed to retain
her title. That right there makes things
feel really off. The idea of Snow White is that
she’s not just the cutest (or fairest one of all) from her appearance. The real source of her beauty is her kindness
and compassion, allowing for healthy relationships with literally all walks of
life that bring out the best in herself and others.
In making her vain of her cuteness, it’s hard to accept this take on Snow
White as true to nature. You can argue this
is just a parody that twists things around, but in this show, there’s always
been some hint of what they’re really like.
Maybe her excessive kindness could have made for some solid humor
instead of a flat out unlikable diva.
At
least there’s solid entertainment considering the very Warner sibling who
prides in cuteness, Dot. While the
background of her capture is problematic, Dot never makes a huge fuss over how
bad everything is. She’s thrown in a
dungeon for being cuter than Snow White, but is more concerned about the
ongoing narration. Best of all, when
dealing with her captors, in typical Warner fashion, she knows how to handle
everything. When escaping the dungeon,
she easily works her charms on the guard into letting her out, even if it does
blatantly copy what she did in “Hearts of Twilight.”
However, her shining moments come from how
she deals with the shrill and annoyingly egotistical excuse for Snow
White. Dot points out wrinkles
developing on her face when she gets mad, annoys her with getting a butterfly
on her finger, and giving her a faux makeover.
Dot’s also capable of saving herself.
Yakko and Wakko show up seemingly to save her, but their diversion of
creating something called a ‘chunnel’ goes nowhere. In fact they seem more involved with that than saving
their sister. If the cartoon just cut to
the prince knocking Dot and Snow White out just as the dwarves are about to
throw Dot from a tower the first time, things would go smoother.
Either way, Dot solves her own problem by convincing
everyone to vote on whether Snow White is the cutest as they both dangle off an
edge. Snow White votes for herself, and
she falls to her doom, and I mean doom as sound effects show she’s eaten by a
gator. Legit death is just too dark and
realistic an outcome for a comedy show, and this being the resolution also
doesn’t sit well with me. It’s at least
still a good showing of Dot’s character, as is blocking out the magic mirror to
not hear of who’s cuter now though.
She’s practically more of an exaggerated version of Snow White already,
in spite of not being nearly as kind, than the actual Snow White. For that, this is a fine cartoon if you’re
looking for material with a Warner sibling solving a problem in their own fashion. With a misguided portrayal of
a fairy tale icon and compromising humor for grim implications, it
unfortunately doesn’t stand as strong as it could be.
B
Acquaintances
The
last stretch of material for this show seems to have been really interested in
modeling cartoons off of pop culture icons.
Continuing this trend is a cartoon placing the Warners in an animated
interpretation of the popular 90s teen sitcom Friends. In fact, I may be
largely unfamiliar with that show, but even I suspect that the animated
interpretations of that show’s main characters basically ARE the main
characters.
The whole thing starts with
the Warners making an unpredictable entrance as immigrants sailing to Ellis
Island. There’s a solid comedic take on
the concept of immigrants changing long foreign names to easier shorter ones, but it goes on for far too long. That’s
an issue considering that the Ellis Island direction is never utilized elsewhere. Really, the focus is on the Warners looking
for a place to stay in New York before the Emmys, and the best place they can
think of is with some acquaintances Yakko knows. That said, the ‘acquaintances’ are really the
cast of Friends and are introduced
with a parody of such a theme song.
However, while the real things says that friends will be there for each
other, the Warners’ version promises they’ll never leave them. The issue is that they’re so annoying that
the group wants to kick them out.
From
here, the cartoon is basically an episode of the parodied sitcom, but with the
Warners as guest stars. All throughout, it’s
hard to really know what to make of everything.
A lot of it comes from whether or not it’s ok to try and find something
funny out of the Warners basically pushing themselves into the lives of these
people. It’s nothing new for them to pop
up in certain places unwanted, but their antics are always in the name of
harmless fun, and often give jerks what they have coming to them. Their antics here like riding on hair dryers,
surprisingly showing up in the shower, kicking the group out when they try to
throw them out are solidly funny and true to their ways. At the
same time, they’re painfully honest about their analyses of their lives
claiming them to get up to nothing of major importance. This would be fine if they did so in a
comedic way, but flat out saying their lives are boring is far harsher than
appropriate for their nature. Then
again, from my experience, I can get behind this considering this seems to be
the case for teen sitcoms in general, and not just Friends.
There’s not even much of the stand-ins for the cast aside
from basic traits. One is a ditz who
plays guitar, one has a pet monkey, one has a running gag of starting thin but
then gets fatter, and so on. Other than
that, they do nothing but complain about the Warners’ presence and get kicked
out. They talk about doing something
major with themselves, but that goes mostly nowhere as they end up doing
nothing comparable to the Warners’ manic behaviors and actions. Then the Warners turn their show into The Brady Bunch for a few seconds, but
before they go somewhere with this, they get thrown out very easily. Ultimately, the Warners just interacted with
the cast of Friends for a while, and
nothing came of it. Even when they end
the cartoon by deciding to hang with the cast of Seinfeld at a coffee shop instead, it still feels empty. I wouldn’t be surprised if the same thing
happened with them interacting with this cast.
Maybe something can be said of
its jab at sitcom blandness, but the cartoon is ultimately a thing that
happens, and unless you’re into 90s TV period pieces, no impact is left.
C-
Here Comes
Attila
In
an episode where many segments are majorly substandard, I’m sorry to say the featured
song isn’t too good either. It follows
the educational format of many well-known songs, but doesn’t do that good a job
at executing everything.
From the title,
you can tell that it’s going to teach about Attila the Hun, and the focus is on
that for the most part. The music is
also quite catchy and the Warners give a solid performance too. While it’s overall fun to listen to, it’s the
educational content that makes the song so lacking. Instead of devoting comprehensible verses to
Attila’s conquests, they’re basically just breezed through without leaving much
of an impact. In fact, there’s more
comprehensive details to Attila’s death than his accomplishments. Like the first cartoon of the episode, emphasis
on that feels much too gruesome. They
don’t even add any sort of humor to the subject as you clearly see Attila’s
body covered in a tarp and thrown into a grave.
It’s a far cry from Magellan’s ghost watching over the place he failed
to reach just after his demise. Attila
gets the real deal death portrayal with no attempt at light-heartedness. What’s more, the cause of his death is a
debatable topic, so it seems cocky of the song to say that it happened when he
overate a bunch of ox.
To further make
the song fall flat on an informative scale, the Warners just add in random
things in the name of finding rhymes for Attila. They make up that he stole socks and pillows
and bring in random things about him like wearing a fleece made of
chinchilla. Even the rhyming fails with
a mention that his favorite ice cream was strawberry which has nothing to do
with anything. Then the one thing people
will remember the cartoon for is a mention of Hanna-Barbera character, Magilla
Gorilla since that’s how the song ends.
All the songs of this show are written for fun, but when they teach
something, the information easily sticks with the audience. This song feels haphazardly put together and
leaves next to nothing. It can still be
enjoyed as a catchy work by itself, but it’s disappointing that it’s so far
below the show’s usual standards.
C
Boo Wonder
The
Warners may not have gotten the best material, but it’s nice to know that
Chicken Boo is able to end this episode on a good note. This time his gimmick puts him in the role of
Robin, sidekick of Batman, the Adam West incarnation to be precise.
Making this cartoon further stand out from
the giant chickens other works is how the world around Batman seems to be much
smarter and more self-aware. Tying into
Chicken Boo’s typical formula, everyone except for the Caped Crusader himself sees that the sidekick is actually a giant chicken. There’s his butler, a reporter, and of course
his arch-enemy, a parody of the Joker called Punchline with a diabolical plan full of bad jokes. Every
time someone brings this up, Batman is quick to rush to Chicken Boo’s aid,
giving him all the credibility he deserves.
I may not know much about Batman, but this is pretty generous than his
canon treatment of Robin.
This in turn
makes it easy to take in the fun of the usual superhero tropes like suiting up,
taking off in the Batmobile, and onomatopoeias appearing when fighting
Punchline. It should also be noted that to really make Batman’s support of
sidekick genuine, it’s Punchline’s insults to Chicken Boo that unleashes all he
has.
The day is saved ultimately, but in
keeping with what always happens with Chicken Boo, the disguise comes off and
he’s revealed to be a chicken. Batman is
quick devalue their bond and immediately kick him out because of this, which
from what I remember is more in line with his feelings towards the real Robin
albeit harsher.
As usual, the downer
ending prevents this Chicken Boo cartoon from being a total win, but with its
good spirits with the likes of superheroes, it’s still solid entertainment.
A
Cartoon Ranking
1. This Pun for Hire
2. Bully for Skippy
3. Wakko’s 2-Note Song
4. Go Fish
5. From Burbank with Love
6. A Very, Very, Very, Very Special Show
7. Valuable Lesson
8. The Sound of Warners
9. Night of the Living Buttons
10. Dot’s Entertainment
11. Pitter Patter of Little Feet
12. Boo Happens
13. Buttons in Ows
14. Cutie and the Beast
15. Boo Wonder
16. Star Truck
17. Boids on the Hood
18. Back in Style
19. Our Final Space Cartoon We Promise
20. Yabba Dabba Boo
21. The Boo Network
22. The Party
23. The Girl with the Googily Goop
24. Mindy in Wonderland
25. Jokahontas
26. Gimme the Works
27. Ten Short Films About Wakko
28. Papers for Papa
29. My Mother the Squirrel
30. One Flew Over the Cuckoo Clock
31. Amazing Gladiators
32. Cute First (Ask Questions Later)
33. Soda Jerk
34. Hercules Unwound
35. Belly Button Blues
36. No Time For Love
37. Acquaintances
38. Oh Say Can You See
39. Soccer Coach Slappy
40. Anchors A-Warners
Song Ranking
1. Dot – The Macadamia Nut
2. The Ballad of Magellan
3. Hello Nurse
4. Bones in the Body
5. Noel
6. The Big Wrap Party Tonight
7. When You’re Traveling from Nantucket
8. Panama Canal
9. Multiplication
10. Here Comes Attila
Miscellaneous Ranking
1. It
2. Gunga Dot
3. Mighty Wakko at the Bat
4. Ralph’s Wedding
5. End Credits
6. Moosege in a Bottle
7. Rugrats Parody
8. The 12 Days of Christmas
9. Flavio Commercials
10. The Return of the Great Wakkorotti
11. Pinky and the Ralph
"The music is catchy" ... well, popular old folk songs generally are. Do you seriously not recognize the tune?
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