Intern for
the Worse
Much of the cartoons we’re going to get in this season follow
the antics of Lincoln and his best friend, Clyde as they do activities best
suited for 11-year-olds complete with an 11-year-old mindset. Cartoons on this subject aren’t always
interesting especially when the mindset of their age makes them look dumb,
decreasing the universal appeal and making it hard to relate to them. Still, they can be good for what they are
when effort and heart is put into them, and that’s the case with this one. Here, their school is having an internship
fair, and, in a move to make them look unintellectual, the one Lincoln and Clyde
go for is for Flip’s Food and Fuel, the gas station/convenience store just so
they can get a soft drink called a Flippee.
While their aspirations of this internship are very petty and childish
for older viewers, especially those who apply for much smarter jobs for better
reasons, one thing anyone can enjoy from what we see is Lincoln and Clyde’s friendship. Throughout their internship, they follow the
rule of the gas station’s owner Flip who clearly doesn’t care about the poor
conditions of his job facility and will do anything to sell his supplies, no
matter how unsanitary he is. He also
doesn’t care what his interns are like as he constantly bribes them with
Flippees and a novelty cup for whoever gets promoted to the highest
position. Regarding Lincoln and Clyde’s
friendship, it’s great that they’re smart enough not to let something as small
as that interfere with their friendship, at least at first. While their time serving customers at the gas
station does eventually tear them apart, their petty tensions with each other
don’t come off as annoying to the audience, mainly because there’s gradual
buildup to their rift. Every new service to customers gets bigger and Flip is
clearly messing with them by making it so one can easily outrank the
other. Plus, the ways Lincoln and Clyde
have to serve customers are entertaining enough to not get you up too much in
their fights, especially when they involve moments from some of Lincoln’s
sisters like Lola and Lana getting gas (yes REAL gas) for Lola’s princess car,
and Lynn and her baseball team putting up a massive order before their big
game. Also, even at odds, Lincoln and
Clyde don’t get to hurtful towards each other, and their fight doesn’t even
last long. They discover that Flip was
simply using them for gross manual labor so he can goof off and they put their
new high-ranking positions to get back at Flip.
This makes the cartoon’s conclusion a satisfying one where the
characters we root for learn their lesson and are at peace, while the true bad
guy and instigator of their rift gets the punishment he deserves. This cartoon is overall nothing special, but
it’s still very good for how it portrays Lincoln and Clyde’s friendship and how
it mines entertainment and good moments from the characters involved. 9/10
The Old and
the Restless
I’ve met a lot
of elderly people throughout my life.
Some are as sickly and senile as you’d expect old people to be who need
help, but there are also others who manage to keep their wits about them at an
old age and are capable of a lot of activities.
It is an interesting fact of life that not all old people are helpless
and incapable, and it’s great that this cartoon about Lincoln visiting his
grandpa, Pop-Pop, emphasizes this idea.
Pop-Pop has just moved into a nursing home, and he, along with other
elderly people who live there, is shown to be very active and capable of doing
a lot of things despite his age.
However, their lives are constantly monitored by the head nurse,
Sue. I have to admit that Sue really
does not give nursing home caretakers a good name. From my experiences, people at nursing homes
should be encouraging of seniors to be more independent when they know
they can be. Sue on the other hand is
constantly belittling everyone just because they’re old, making them feel like
they can’t do anything, including Pop-Pop.
That’s not even mentioning how she always seems to make it so the
residents get kicked out and be left homeless if they miss curfew and how her
voice is annoying and unpleasing.
Fortunately, like with the last cartoon, the big strength to get through
any weak points present is Lincoln’s relationship with a figure in his life,
Pop-Pop in this case. He’s always
encouraging Pop-Pop to live up to his true potential when they go out for a day
of fun. Every time he feels like he’s
too old to live it up due to Sue’s control over him, Lincoln reminds him of how
he’s still got a lot of energy in him even at his age, and Pop-Pop finds it
easy to join in on the fun when he gives it a try. In fact, he becomes so good at being true to
himself that it’s hard for Lincoln to keep up with him and have him under
control as shown in an exciting chase for him around town. Through it all, you can’t help but feel proud
for Pop-Pop giving a good name for old people everywhere, stressing that not
all of them require extreme needs. Then,
when it seems like Pop-Pop is going to be late for curfew, we get a nice scene
of all his friends at the nursing home helping to get him to his room in time
without Sue knowing filled with a good amount of intensity and humorous moments. Even when they fail, they all defend their
friend which leads Sue to begrudgingly let Pop-Pop stay, and a potential
downer ending is successfully avoided.
With
solid character development for Pop-Pop and a good sense of energy, this
cartoon is another good one for this season. 9/10
The Ranking
- 11 Louds a Leapin’
- The Old and the Restless
- Intern for the Worse
Be sure to stay tuned for the review of the next episode where Clyde gets some character development to truly call his own in "Baby Steps" and the show hits a whole new low with a bothersome "Brawl in the Family."
