Friday, July 1, 2022

New Wartwood / Friend or Frobo? - (Amphibia Season 2 Episode 15) - 'Toon Reviews 49

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New Wartwood

When a season introduces a promising new character, it’s natural for the audience to want to see more of them or be considered in the same regard as the main protagonists.  Since Marcy has been starring alongside Anne and the Plantars frequently and is a very likable personality, it’s welcome that she’s now as prominent as they are.  

To prove this further, the cartoon featured here is all about her first day in Wartwood, and her excited repetition of declaring this first thing in the morning makes it clear.  However, things don’t go as well for her as she hoped, for when the citizens of Wartwood first meet her, they’re not exactly warm and welcoming.  They’re taken aback by her different appearance, her constant talking, and overall strangeness.  It even gets to the point where they feel she’s worthy of being mobbed against.  There could be a deeper reason for this disdain after their bad experience with Anne’s other friend Sasha; that was the reason for Sprig’s initial distrust of Marcy after all.  Without a cause for the attitude towards Marcy however, what she gets from the Wartwood citizens feels very shallow without giving her a fair chance.  

At least they’re not too stubborn, for when Marcy acts fast to fix up a blunder in the town’s infrastructure, they can see their appeal and potential.  Fixing things is something Marcy clearly enjoys and is very talented at.  Anne informs her of anything wrong with Wartwood, and Marcy can solve them all in a manner of seconds.  Even when she gets the acceptance of the citizens from what she does though, she feels that she needs to go bigger.  Slowly this reveals hidden depths to Marcy’s character.  It’s like she feels she constantly has to do things in order to find true connections, and her willingly overworking herself like this feels necessary.  Never mind ever forming true bonds based on how she is.  Plus, it comes with several implications to exactly how and why she’s so loved back in Newtopia.  

As for her idea of going bigger, it comes when Mayor Toadstool arrives on the scene, and he’s so impressed with her work on the town.  They team up for the biggest renovation of all that will boost both their morale.  By replacing the small homes with big two story buildings made of marble and adding lots of accessories, they practically transform Wartwood into a frog replica of Disneyland.  While it looks impressive, there turn out to be major drawbacks to the new construction of the town.  Everything is just too heavy for the ground Wartwood was built on top of, so everything starts sinking.  This is a slight point of concern because Marcy already knew the town shouldn’t be too heavy, and even brings it up again.  It just doesn’t make sense that she would just forget it.  Still, she does know exactly how to fix everything by getting rid of all the heavy accessories while the mayor laments the loss of them and refuses to learn anything from this.  

As for Marcy’s reputation among Wartwood, they still turn out to accept her after all, if only because they remind her so much of Anne whom they’ve grown to love.  It’s still somewhat baseless that their judgement of her is as basic as this and they only accept her because of familiarity, but at least Marcy is quick to own up to all mistakes.  That shows that she is at least worthy of acceptance despite some implications for why she’s desperate for it.  As far as first days in Wartwood and the first starring role for Marcy in the main setting of the series go, this one is solidly enjoyable.

B+

Friend or Frobo?


A big sign of how big a story is involves how it changes the status quo, develops major characters in a significant way, or both.  This is one of those instances where a work from this show stands as something big for both reasons.  Several past cartoons have had instances, mostly at the end of them, of a frog robot built in the old ruins following the Plantars to and from Newtopia.  Granted there were also long stretches between cartoons that didn’t look into the robot, but its presence was still peculiar enough to feel like it would lead to something.  That moment is now, and it’s surprising who it connects with the most.  

Over in Wartwood, it’s just another average day for Anne and the Plantars with Marcy in tow.  However, almost all of them are all about being responsible and conscious about what’s around them, meaning no rambunctious mischief.  The only one up for that sort of thing is Polly, and she’s very deliberate in saying that wacky destructive mischief is her intention.  Since everyone is being responsible, including Anne and Sprig needing to clean up a mess she makes, Polly is left to commit mischief by herself, except that’s just no fun alone.  

Lucky for her, she soon finds a companion who can join her in all sorts of wacky shenanigans.  In a nearby trash pile, Polly finds that frog robot, it finally meeting someone from the Plantar family.  As it’s built to look like a frog and bears resemblance to robots Anne showed on her phone earlier, Polly gives the robot the name, Frobo.  For a machine, Frobo shows a lot of endearment in how he repeats Polly’s name and shows a limited vocabulary.  This has Polly instantly recognize that despite Frobo’s big metallic structure, deep down, he’s an innocent child looking for an older authority to follow.  

So, following Polly’s lead, she and Frobo do all the mischief Polly wanted to do and more.  With Frobo’s strength, they lift up buildings to big heights, craftily steal a pie off a window, swing from tops of buildings, and dive into the fountain in the center of town.  Now tomfoolery from a little tadpole is relatively harmless, but that’s not the case with a huge frog robot joining in, and there’s a lot of destruction to the town property.  If there’s anything endearing out of this, it’s the extent of Frobo’s loyalty to Polly.  When a mob of Wartwood citizens rightfully enraged by the destruction gang up on Polly, Frobo enacts weapons and goes after them, seeing them as threats to Polly’s safety.  

As more destruction unfolds, there’s an air of maturity in Polly. It would be easy for her to blame the robot, but instead, she admits that Frobo wouldn’t be causing trouble if she didn’t ask him to.  She takes responsibility for his actions to both Frobo and the Wartwood citizens, and it proves effective as Frobo does back down when she asks him to stop.  As for getting Wartwood to back down, it’s achieved through a combination of Polly taking responsibility and Anne and Sprig standing up for her perceptions.  In the end, Frobo’s introduction changes the status quo somewhat, and Polly grows in a most worthwhile way. Someone so rambunctious and excitable around destruction should learn of responsibility and knowing there’s a time and place for everything.  For that, this cartoon was simply made for Polly as its lesson really seems to stick with her, further shown as she enhances the status quo by getting Frobo permission to stay.  

In a basic slice-of-life day in Wartwood, there turns out to be a lot to walk away with.

A

Fan Art

Series Ranking

1.      Hopping Mall

2.      Reunion

3.      Marcy at the Gates

4.      Toad Tax

5.      The First Temple

6.      Anne vs Wild

7.      The Domino Effect

8.      Toadcatcher

9.      Prison Break

10.  A Day at the Aquarium

11.  Anne of the Year

12.  Contagi-Anne

13.  The Shut-In

14.  Best Fronds

15.  After the Rain

16.  Family Shrub

17.  Hop-Popular

18.  Anne Hunter

19.  Wally and Anne

20.  Children of the Spore

21.  Friend or Frobo

22.  A Night at the Inn

23.  Handy Anne

24.  Scavenger Hunt

25.  Lily Pad Thai

26.  Dating Season

27.  Anne or Beast?

28.  Combat Camp

29.  Little Frogtown

30.  Cursed!

31.  Snow Day

32.  Civil Wart

33.  Stakeout

34.  Croak and Punishment

35.  Taking Charge

36.  Flood, Sweat, and Tears

37.  Bizarre Bazaar

38.  The Plantars Check In

39.  The Sleepover to End All Sleepovers

40.  Wax Museum

41.  Return to Wartwood

42.  Sprig Gets Schooled

43.  Swamp and Sensibility

44.  Trip to the Archives

45.  Anne Theft Auto

46.  Hop Luck

47.  New Wartwood

48.  Ivy on the Run

49.  Night Drivers

50.  Quarreler’s Pass

51.  Hop Pop and Lock

52.  Plantar’s Last Stand

53.  Fort in the Road

54.  A Caravan Named Desire

55.  The Big Bugball Game

56.  Fiddle Me This

57.  Truck Stop Polly

58.  Family Fishing Trip

59.  The Ballad of Hoppediah Plantar

60.  Girl Time

61.  Breakout Star

62.  Grubhog Day

63.  Cane Crazy

64.  Lost in Newtopia

65.  Sprig vs Hop Pop

66.  Cracking Mrs. Croaker

The next Amphibia review has cartoons that develop Mayor Toadstool and Maddie Flour and her sisters.
Next time on MC Toon Reviews is "Hollow Mind" from The Owl House.
If you would like to check out other Amphibia reviews on this blog, click here for the guide made especially for them.

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