Cursed!
The mostly simple slice-of-life tone of the series has been nice and wholesome for sure, but this cartoon comes as a welcome change of pace. While it is still self-contained as an overall story, it works in its unique brand of fantasy elements to have it stand out from the usual setup. In addition, the actual plot also gives insight to previous events, making it much less self-contained than it could have been.
It’s a romance-related matter connecting to the instance where Sprig was engaged to the local creepy frog child, Maddie Flour. Since instances have given him a love interest he’s clearly more comfortable around, he wishes he could just break off this one engagement, only he’s scared to do so. With a reputation of breaking up for her friends back home, which clearly isn’t too healthy, Anne steps in to do it for Sprig via the closest thing she has to texting in Wartwood. The matter seems easily done, but an accompanying clip of someone putting their hair into a brew suggests major repercussions to these sudden actions.
In the morning the results of that brew are known with Sprig becoming all hairy, and Anne slowly sprouting feathers and eventually looking like a total bird. As it turns out, along with all the other supernatural occurrences in this world, one of the most common ones is the dark arts, which people are humorously nonchalant about. In fact, levity is a big thing in making this bad situation enjoyable. There are humorous designs to Anne and Sprig in their cursed forms as well as gestures of them adjusting to their curses before bluntly saying they hate it, mainly from Anne. Funny as all this is, the matter is still on finding a way to lift the curse as it should be.
The only way that can happen is for the frog who cast it to settle matters, and for understandable reasons, it’s believed that Maddie is the one. While Sprig is still too nervous to talk to her and tries to fix the curse himself to no avail, Anne actually steps in as the mature one and knows what must be done. Maddie just happens to show up at the Plantars’ house by chance and everything falls into place. She’s actually not that upset by how Sprig broke up with her, so she never cursed him and Anne, and agrees to help find who did enact the curse. Along the way, she points out the pretty obvious message of how even though she looks creepy, she’s good, caring, and uses her dark arts to help. Making it work is how self-aware Anne and Sprig are of the obviousness, as well as how it leads to something bigger.
The frog who really cursed them was a seemingly jolly candy vendor called Barrie. Earlier in the cartoon, Anne and Sprig accidentally dropped a supply of special berries he collected, and he seemed fine with it. As he flat out says, he’s petty and vengeful, and cursed them both as a result of the mistake. Maddie engages him in a battle of all kinds of curses resulting in a variety of wild outcomes, driven by rage in Barrie abusing magic like this. It all concludes as well as you’d expect it. Maddie comes out on top, the curse is lifted, things are well between her and Sprig, and there's one last gag of Anne using her curse’s mannerisms despite it all being over.
As unceremonious as this conclusion is, it’s
still a fitting end to this story, and nicely caps off this mix of relatable
life conflicts with a hint of promising fantasy elements.
A
Fiddle Me
This
A thing that makes Hop Pop-centered cartoons so appealing is how they have him deal with believable mature challenges of adulthood. He’s a low-class elderly frog serving as the parental guardian of two younger frogs and an honorary human member of the family all while running a meager vegetable stand and farm. These factors of his background speak for themselves as a struggling adult figure with a lot or responsibilities to bear and a lot working against him to fulfill them. In this sense, this is all strong background for this cartoon about how Hop Pop fears not being able to provide for his family as well as he thinks he should.
Upon hearing of how other frogs are moving up in life, Hop Pop understandably feels bad that he can’t do anything to help his own kin rise above poverty. There’s a chance around this though with the arrival of a touring talent show, Amphibia’s Got Talent. Sprig is eager to try out and show off the talent he enjoys the most, playing his fiddle. To Hop Pop, the big takeaway from this announcement is major fame and fortune should Sprig win. A fantasy future of Sprig in a big mansion from his fiddle talents sells these ambitions, as well as laughs from how it points out holes of Polly not having legs and Anne still being present.
From here, Hop Pop is determined to make the possibility of Sprig winning a reality, turning all instances of practicing the fiddle into total drills. They’re a sure thing to take the fun out of Sprig’s pastime and go too far real quick particularly through how much Hop Pop points out mistakes and enforces physical challenges. The background of Hop Pop clearly wanting a good life for Sprig keeps it somewhat commendable, but how hard he’s taking it still lowers the appeal.
Then comes the actual talent show and it’s presented with great atmosphere and bravado to make it stand as a grand event. The goal of Sprig winning even seems to be in the realm of possibility. Dressed in a simple moth costume, he pulls off a legitimately catchy fiddle tune, and it’s believable that this act wins over the crowd. However, while it would count as a great piece normally, Sprig’s performance attracts a giant bat aiming to eat him. Apparently, this particular moth piece is to blame for this, and considering how knowledgeable on mythology Hop Pop is, it’s hard to believe he didn’t know this beforehand. There’s a fun sequence of the family saving Sprig out of this which also puts to good use Polly’s earlier demonstrated talent of singing loudly.
Still, Sprig is left frustrated by what happened and rightfully calls Hop Pop out for pushing him to do something that put him in legit danger. Through apologizing, Hop Pop lets all his adult fears of raising his family and not giving the best life possible be known. While the audience could tell all this prior, flat out saying it is still demonstrative of the mature undertones of the story. Sprig sees where Hop Pop has come from, and assures that he’s giving him a good life already. That’s a fine concluding point, but the audience still can’t help but think what would happen if Sprig did accept the talent show’s offer to fame since he wins despite everything. I mean, the issues of poverty still exist.
In any case, this cartoon isn’t a
total winner, but when its heart shows, it really gets you to think in ways you
wouldn’t usually expect to.
A-
The Ranking
1. Toad Tax
2. Anne vs
Wild
3. The Domino
Effect
4. Prison
Break
5. Contagi-Anne
6. Best Fronds
7. Family
Shrub
8. Hop-Popular
9. Wally and
Anne
10. A Night at
the Inn
11. Lily Pad
Thai
12. Dating
Season
13. Anne or
Beast?
14. Cursed!
15. Snow Day
16. Civil Wart
17. Stakeout
18. Croak and
Punishment
19. Taking
Charge
20. Flood,
Sweat, and Tears
21. Bizarre
Bazaar
22. Trip to the
Archives
23. Anne Theft
Auto
24. Hop Luck
25. Hop Pop and
Lock
26. Plantar’s
Last Stand
27. Fiddle Me
This
28. Family
Fishing Trip
29. Girl Time
30. Breakout
Star
31. Grubhog Day
32. Cane Crazy
33. Sprig vs
Hop Pop
34. Cracking
Mrs. Croaker
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