OK Dendy! Let's Be K.O. (OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes Season 1 Episode 46) - 'Toon Reviews 19

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OK Dendy! Let’s Be K.O.

In most cartoons, K.O.’s best friend Dendy has starred alongside him or popped up randomly to advance the plot, but now she’s the star of one.  Through doing a simple task, she makes it stand out with her likable quirks and charm as a technical analytical genius. 

When K.O. realizes he’s scheduled to visit his grandma and can’t work, Dendy fills in for him.  Her interesting approach to what’s basically doing K.O.’s bodega work are shown through an analytical checklist of everything he does.  True, it brings some stalker implications, but given what’s known about Dendy, this reveal seems fitting. 

It’s also amusing to how strictly Dendy follows her data on K.O.’s routine.   There’s something funny about characters of certain personalities trying to perform traits they’re not accustomed to but can never fully step out of what suits them.  Dendy’s feeble attempts to mimic K.O.’s enthusiasm filtered by her intellectual tone have a charm that’s all hers.  It brings cuteness not often expected from a genius character.  Keeping what Dendy’s trying to do interesting, she breaks from the charade when it gets too uncomfortable or hard.  Instances include keeping her shoes on even though K.O. doesn’t wear them, and awesomely working her technical skills while cleaning the store. 

She may be posing as K.O., but you can’t deny it’s really Dendy.  This is especially true when she calls out an evil robot attack before anyone else.  The attack gives light to a robot frequently seen in the background at Boxmore, but has never been fully explored, named Ernesto. 

Since much of what he’s been seen doing was business work, the fight at first ties into that. Ernesto gets so tied up with reading flashcards of his entrance speech, Rad and Enid take him on without trouble.  It’s during this robot battle where we get a humorous jab at the need for family shows to have life lessons.  Dendy, still striving to be K.O. as much as possible, happens to list learning a life lesson after the section on the evil robot attack.  She responds by openly stating a lesson about the importance of being oneself.  This move plays with the life lesson convention through showing why they’re always saved for the end.  Ernesto becomes a much more brutal fighter because of what Dendy said.  It shows that the convention of lessons coming at the end exists so that no antagonist can take advice to heart and the story can safely end which is what happens with Ernesto. 

Dendy bluntly stating the lesson plays on how characters learning things often feel like they’re going through motions of a formula and don’t mean anything.  This contrasts greatly with how she’s able to help defeat Ernesto.  Through analyzing the fight, she herself genuinely learns to be herself by becoming K.O. in her own way instead of acting exactly like him.  Since her true personality was constantly shown in her few attempts, it’s a fitting lesson for the story. It's topped off with a nice display of her primary technical skills as she mans a K.O. hologram to defeat Ernesto. 

Despite one line suggesting Dendy fill in for K.O. every day from his close co-workers, this scene is just the perfect turning point for Dendy’s role in the cartoon. It builds up to the truly crowing moment of winning a fight all by herself.  It shows how capable she is of starring in a cartoon of her own as she subverts expectations and plays to her own strengths, making the experience adorable in a scientific way. 

A

The Ranking

1. Face Your Fears
2. Let’s Take a Moment
3. Mystery Science Fair 201X
4. You Have to Care
5. T.K.O.
6. Back in Red Action
7. No More Pow Cards
8. Glory Days
9. Legends of Mr. Gar
10. We’ve Got Pests
11. I Am Dendy
12. Let’s Have a Stakeout
13. You Get Me
14. Let’s Be Heroes
15. You’re Everybody’s Sidekick
16. We Got Hacked
17. K.O.’s Video Channel
18. Jethro’s All Yours
19. Know Your Mom
20. Everybody Likes Rad?
21. OK Dendy! Let’s Be K.O.
22. Villains Night In
23. Lad & Logic
24. A Hero’s Fate
25. Plaza Prom
26. We’re Captured
27. My Dad Can Beat up Your Dad
28. Let’s Be Friends
29. We Messed Up
30. Parents Day
31. Plazalympics
32. Presenting Joe Cuppa
33. Sibling Rivalry
34. RMS and Brandon’s First Episode
35. Second First Date
36. Stop Attacking the Plaza
37. Just Be a Pebble
38. The Power is Yours
39. Do You Have Any More in the Back?
40. Let’s Watch the Pilot
41. Villains Night Out
42. You’re Level 100
43. You Are Rad
44. We’ve Got Fleas
45. Rad Likes Robots
46. One Last Score

The next OK K.O. review features a collection of Plaza Shorts.

Next time on MC Toon Reviews is Episode 43 of Animaniacs.

If you would like to check out other OK K.O.! reviews on this blog, click here for the guide made especially for them.

Mystery Science Fair 201X (OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes Season 1 Episode 43) - 'Toon Reviews 19

If you like this review and want to stay updated for what else I have in store, become a follower of this blog, click here to like the official Facebook page, and click here to follow me on Twitter. Now on with today's review:

Mystery Science Fair 201X

Among many great things about this show are the interesting world building and the charming character relationships.  You can only imagine how strong a cartoon focusing on both elements together ends up.  K.O. and Dendy continue to bring enjoyable chemistry from his innocence working off her intellect, and their bond is enhanced by the world building. 

For an upcoming science fair, Dendy’s interest in K.O.’s turbonic form, i.e. T.K.O., gives her a perfect idea for their project.  She'll perform experiments to see how T.K.O. unleashes such a strong power on his own.  From a normal standpoint, this seems like a good thing to explore since other characters have been shown to need glorbs to obtain turbonic power.  With T.K.O.’s destruction in mind, it’s fitting that K.O. doesn’t want to do the experiments.  He is, however, convinced to go along with the plan when Dendy promises they’ll be safe in a closed environment, a secret lab. 

The lab itself is actually an interesting place for the action to unfold, paying great tribute to one the of most influential Cartoon Network shows Dexter’s Laboratory.  Right down to the smallest detail, respect for the series is apparent.  You can tell from the overall look at the lab, some of the background music, K.O. wanting to press a button on Dendy’s prized experiment, and even the how they walk.  It’s an interesting way to show off who's the scientist and who's the test subject.  The great thing about these references is that they’re solely here to establish the setting and don’t detract from the story. 

The focus remains being on the experiments to let loose T.K.O.  They’re mostly very hard on K.O. through treadmill laps over sharp objects, swimming with a big robot shark, and having him fight a monkey for a banana.  They make Dendy realize that the more negative K.O. gets, the closer he gets to turbo power.  Her attempts get harsher when she initiates a scenario to make K.O. feel weak and helpless on purpose.  He watches his employees get trapped in a fire, and he can’t save them, giving him great emotional pain. 

Dendy’s experiments do get the results she was after with T.K.O. finally appearing due to the negativity, but what unfolds shows that what you want isn’t always good.  T.K.O. goes on a destructive rampage which stands as he constantly remarks how Dendy’s been using the real K.O. as nothing but a test subject.  On a side note, as T.K.O. destroys Dendy’s lab, there are more nicely staged Dexter references of Dendy freaking out over wrecked inventions and T.K.O.'s laugh. 

Speaking of Dendy, during T.K.O.’s rampage, there’s a big moment when she reflects upon how bad she treated K.O. during the experiments.  In fact, she's kind of done that a lot throughout their friendship, especially when they first met.  It says a lot about character growth when the character in question discovers flaws on his/her own, and this happening with Dendy makes her a stronger character.  K.O. also comes out strong when he hears Dendy admit her faults as a friend and he gets more control over T.K.O. as a result.  From his move here, there's promise for him getting a full hold of his turbonic form and closer to becoming a great hero. 

In the end, they may not get a winning science fair project, but K.O. and Dendy are left with something intriguing to keep studying while also becoming stronger as friends.  That alone is endearing enough.  Promise for the future, great character relationships at the center, and references that add to the experience don’t just make the cartoon a success. They make it one of the show’s most winning entries.

A+

The Ranking

1. Face Your Fears
2. Let’s Take a Moment
3. Mystery Science Fair 201X
4. You Have to Care
5. T.K.O.
6. Back in Red Action
7. No More Pow Cards
8. Glory Days
9. Legends of Mr. Gar
10. We’ve Got Pests
11. I Am Dendy
12. Let’s Have a Stakeout
13. You Get Me
14. Let’s Be Heroes
15. You’re Everybody’s Sidekick
16. We Got Hacked
17. K.O.’s Video Channel
18. Jethro’s All Yours
19. Know Your Mom
20. Everybody Likes Rad?
21. Villains Night In
22. A Hero’s Fate
23. Plaza Prom
24. We’re Captured
25. My Dad Can Beat up Your Dad
26. Let’s Be Friends
27. We Messed Up
28. Parents Day
29. Plazalympics
30. Presenting Joe Cuppa
31. Sibling Rivalry
32. Second First Date
33. Stop Attacking the Plaza
34. Just Be a Pebble
35. The Power is Yours
36. Do You Have Any More in the Back?
37. Let’s Watch the Pilot
38. Villains Night Out
39. You’re Level 100
40. You Are Rad
41. We’ve Got Fleas
42. Rad Likes Robots
43. One Last Score

The next OK K.O. review develops even more side characters around Lakewood Plaza Turbo, Brandon and A Real Magic Skeleton.

Next time on MC Toon Reviews is Episode 38 of Animaniacs featuring Pinky and the Brain all the way through.

If you would like to check out other OK K.O.! reviews on this blog, click here for the guide made especially for them.

'Toon Reviews 19: OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes Season 1 Episode 37: We Got Hacked

If you like this review and want to stay updated for what else I have in store, become a follower of this blog, click here to like the official Facebook page, and click here to follow me on Twitter. Now on with today's review:

We Got Hacked

This may just be another cartoon about a mishap at Gar’s Bodega, but even with a typical subject, it still leaves an impact with a creative aesthetic. 

K.O. sets up a specialized mop to clean the store, but it gets out of control and wrecks everything.  With repairs desperately needed, Dendy comes to make it so the bodega won’t have to be closed.  As usual, Dendy impresses through her combination of intellect with childlike charm through manning her technical skills to get the mop under control. 

Through her work, there’s subtext of how dangerous going online can be.  When bringing up windows of the mop’s inner workings via her hackpack, one of them has an enticing popup ad.  K.O. childishly ignores Dendy’s warning against clicking it, and bad things happen when he does.  If anyone’s been on the computer, I’m sure they’ve done something that unleashed a virus on the system at some point, usually all from a single innocent click on a popup ad. 

This idea is creatively portrayed when K.O. pressing the popup ad unleashes a virus on the mop which is crafted like a human virus.  It explodes with pink puddles of harmful electrical data everywhere and they infect everything and everyone.  When the virus puddles touch an object, it turns pink as if the virus was a bunch of germs latching onto a hard surface.  When people touch the puddles, how they get the virus has a nice interpretation.  They turn into mindlessly functioning beings shaking around and done in limited CGI common in video games of the early 90s.  Different circumstances lead to many people getting infected leading to an army of glitching CGI characters like a zombie apocalypse.  This becomes so serious that the survivors have to hide in the break room.  It’s a creative occurrence with an interesting aesthetic, and the legit dangers to how it spreads add to its magnitude. 

It’s constantly bogged down by K.O. insisting he didn’t click the popup ad that started the mess when he usually does own up to his mistakes, but at least he comes to his senses later.  There’s also a heartwarming scene where he and Dendy decide to endure the inevitable through making sure the last things they see are each other. The emotions feel so real.  The only break in the emotion is when K.O. and Dendy notice everyone glitching so much, they can go out into the store and get Dendy’s hackpack to reset the system and cure the virus. It's honestly a pretty funny realization. 

After that, the suspense kicks up again when K.O. and Dendy rush to connect the infected to the hackpack.  In the process, K.O. does an impressive amount of the work considering he caused the problem in the first place.  All seems well afterwards, even coming with a creative interpretation of the reset process from everything disappearing and reappearing.  However, the last scene of K.O. getting glitched is a little concerning.  It does feel appropriate for the disaster movie feel the cartoon is going for.  All the same, this being the ending doesn’t feel satisfying with him suffering after learning his lesson and doing a lot to fix everything.  Fortunately, the strengths are so strong, the sting of the ending doesn’t cause much harm. 

This is still a simple concept turned into a creative escapade with relatable topics, and stakes that make what happens feel real and relatable.

A

The Ranking

1. Face Your Fears
2. You Have to Care
3. T.K.O.
4. No More Pow Cards
5. Glory Days
6. Legends of Mr. Gar
7. We’ve Got Pests
8. I Am Dendy
9. Let’s Have a Stakeout
10. You Get Me
11. Let’s Be Heroes
12. You’re Everybody’s Sidekick
13. We Got Hacked
14. K.O.’s Video Channel
15. Jethro’s All Yours
16. Know Your Mom
17. Everybody Likes Rad?
18. A Hero’s Fate
19. Plaza Prom
20. We’re Captured
21. My Dad Can Beat up Your Dad
22. Let’s Be Friends
23. We Messed Up
24. Parents Day
25. Plazalympics
26. Presenting Joe Cuppa
27. Sibling Rivalry
28. Second First Date
29. Stop Attacking the Plaza
30. Just Be a Pebble
31. The Power is Yours
32. Do You Have Any More in the Back?
33. You’re Level 100
34. You Are Rad
35. We’ve Got Fleas
36. Rad Likes Robots
37. One Last Score

The next OK K.O. review explores the background of Red Action and starts a charming friendship between her and Enid.

Next time on MC Toon Reviews is Animaniacs Episode 33 featuring cartoons in Wakko's body.

 If you would like to check out other OK K.O.! reviews on this blog, click here for the guide made especially for them.