'Toon Reviews 20: Star vs the Forces of Evil Season 2 Episode 6: Starsitting/On the Job

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:

Starsitting

When Buff Frog, one of Ludo’s original henchmen, received a sack full of tadpoles as a bribe in the Season 1 finale, it would be hard for one to assume that he’d take to being a father of them so seriously.  As this episode shows, he really does take to fatherhood with extreme pride and devotion, giving him receiving the tadpoles much more weight and value. 

Also nice to see is that the events of that finale have given him a lot of respect for Star.  He entrusts her and Marco to look after the tadpoles while he takes care of some interdimensional business complete with a binder of rules to follow and special notice that one of them, Katrina, is especially delicate. 

From there, the episode is all about babysitting antics where the caretakers assume that the job will be easy but slowly realize that it’s a lot harder than it seems.  This is one of the more common plot threads that many of us have seen in other shows, but here it stands out a bit for how babysitting becomes difficult for Star and Marco.  They both have vastly different ideas to do it which don’t mesh well.  Marco aims to take care of the kids by sticking to the binder while Star straight-up ignores the rules and does what she can to let the babies have fun. 

At first, Marco seems like the one to side with the most since Buff Frog’s rules are clearly there for a reason, and it would be foolish and reckless of Star to just ignore them.  Sure enough, when she pokes one of the babies’ heads, though this act was mostly due to her giving into temptation since she did try to hold herself back, all of them go on a wild croaking spree.  Star also makes things worse by replacing their muddy lunches with cake, ignorant of the fact that these babies have a much different diet from her, thus resulting in an even bigger mess. 

Fortunately, out of all this, Star’s caretaking methods do prove to have some value.  It seems that all the activity she allowed the babies to do got all of them except Katrina to mature a bit by growing legs.  Granted, this just allows the babies to go out of control by running around the house with Star and Marco bearing the brunt of it all, so Marco’s methods still have value.  However, when all the babies are lost, it’s Star’s sense of fun that tracks them down when an earlier scene of playing music gets relevance when she does it again and all of them except Katrina come out to dance.  To further make a point of her advocacy for fun, Star gets to Katrina by throwing the binder at a floor full of bear traps.  The binder itself is fine though. 

The episode ends with both Star and Marco seeing the benefits of both their caretaking methods and Buff Frog coming back saddened that he missed his babies growing legs, but happy for at least being there to watch Katrina get hers.  This makes this babysitting episode stand out more for showing that there’s no set way of taking care of kids and having a lot of heart from the care and admiration everyone has for the tadpoles.  Star’s attempts at making the job fun can be a little much at first, but it all comes together as something enjoyable and cute despite everything.

A-

On the Job

It’s always a nice idea to merge two segments of one episode together into one cohesive plot.  This one highlights the events that occur before and during Star and Marco babysitting Buff Frog’s tadpoles. 

The start of the episode features a montage of Buff Frog reveling in the joys of fatherhood as he takes care of and has fun with his babies.  However, he also encounters some hardships as a father when he doesn’t have any food to give them.  Like many of us, Buff Frog proceeds to get around this problem by getting a job. 

Considering that Buff Frog once had a job as a villain's henchman, he’s determined to relive the same villainous image he had before even though his coworkers claim he’s gone soft now that he has kids.  This is kind of harsh as if it’s shaming the idea of having kids.  Fortunately, this mindset between Buff Frog and his coworkers doesn’t last long when Buff Frog finds a way to get his babies food.  The group spots rats trading corn, a food exclusive to Mewni, suggesting something odd about that kingdom’s security practices.  They try to capture one of the rats to demand them to tell them where they got the corn, and Buff Frog seems to have retained a lot of his henchmen skills as he leads attacks and interrogations of any rat who passes by. 

However, he’s constantly held back by everything he does reminding him of taking care of his babies.  It’s an interesting and somewhat relatable conflict of struggling to balance the tough and soft part of one’s character after having children which is nice to see at play.  It makes the team’s prior judgements of him going soft have more weight to them, but the scorn is balanced somewhat by the boss, a talking fly named Boo Fly, standing up for Buff Frog and thinking of good reasons for his actions even though he sees what Buff Frog is doing as a problem.  Also worth noting is that Buff Frog doesn’t get too caught up in thinking of his babies and knows he has to try and restrain himself when interrogating the rats. 

Unfortunately, one last slip-up involving accidentally bringing out baby toys ruins the team’s element of surprise and costs Buff Frog the best job he had.  It’s moments like this that surprise you with how sympathetic Buff Frog, someone who started out as a common henchman to an antagonist, has truly become through his development shown since the second half of Season 1.  His sympathy is shown even more through a text message from the previous episode originally shown as a comedic cover-up get much more emotional weight for Buff Frog to continue on with getting his babies corn. 

Ultimately, Buff Frog and the rest of the monsters end up not getting corn, but they do discover that there’s a hole in the force field surrounding Mewni’s cornfields, thus leading to something to look forward to from them in the future as is the ending shot revealing that the rats were bringing the corn to Ludo the whole time.  In addition, Buff Frog shows some benefits to his fatherly actions by saving the team who fired him when they get attacked by King River for invading, and they don’t go unnoticed which nicely makes up for everyone else treating his parenting like it was a problem. 

This episode has a lot of benefits overall with strong character development showing how far Buff Frog has come since the beginning, interesting plot points with promise for the future, and while attitudes towards having children can be too harsh at times, they genuinely improve in the end.  After this, I look forward to cover what Buff Frog gets up to next.

A

The Ranking

1. Ludo in the Wild
2. On the Job
3. Mr. Candle Cares
4. Wand to Wand
5. Starstruck
6. Starsitting
7. Star on Wheels
8. Camping Trip
9. My New Wand
10. Red Belt
11. Star vs Echo Creek
12. Fetch

The next Star vs the Forces of Evil review features Star, Marco, and friends go out for Goblin Dogs, and Glossaryk locking himself in a donut box after one bad wand training session.

Next time on MC Toon Reviews from Rocko's Modern Life it's "Who's For Dinner?" and "Love Spanked."

If you would like to check out other Star vs the Forces of Evil reviews on this blog, click here for the guide made especially for them.

'Toon Reviews 20: Star vs the Forces of Evil Season 2 Episode 4: Star vs Echo Creek/Wand to Wand

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:

Star vs Echo Creek

As most people can see, Star’s eccentric personality and reliance on her wand often gets her into trouble, but most of the time, there’s always a good laugh to get out of these situation.  Here, there’s a lot of memorable fun encounters and moments from the havoc she causes, but exactly what she does makes the story a little concerning. 

When she gives herself a sugar high after eating a burrito with sugar, she goes crazy with casting spells and ends up crushing a police car.  Marco explains the unbelievable magnitude of what Star just did will get her sent to jail prompting Star to run away.  It’s understandable that Star is afraid of going to jail, but of all the misdeeds she committed, damage to a police vehicle is the biggest one of all, yet she actively chooses to do nothing about it.  She even ignores Marco when he tries to talk her out of it despite him having a good track record when it comes to advice.  As a result, Star is somewhat irrational and irresponsible for ignoring her own felonies.  This may be in line with her character, but it also goes to show how underdeveloped she is.  For all the trouble her magic got her into and all the times Marco’s advice saved her, you’d think she’d learn to be less reckless. by now 

While this is a prevalent feeling, there’s still some mild entertainment from who Star runs into while on the run.  For one of them, while she’s on the Echo Creek riverfront, she meets an woman who specializes in making pancakes and has a particular fondness for hair.  There’s suspense when her fondness of hair leads you to believe she’s going to take it from Star before the truth is revealed that she uses used hair to craft things.  However, even when this place is confirmed safe, Star becomes irrational again when the idea of letting her loved ones know she’s safe is brought up. You have to wonder why she wouldn’t want to do that since this doesn’t even involve the police. 

As for another encounter, it’s far more insightful since it’s clearly in Star’s imagination.  She passes out after hiding in the river and gets a vision of a happy pink sea serpent inviting her to live in an underwater hideout where she can do “anything [she wants] to,” which even comes with a lively musical number.  However, Star frequently suggests letting Marco know she’s ok, but the serpent keeps talking her out of it, eventually saying he’s just a visualization of her mind trying to convince her she’s doing the right thing laying low.  In other words, Star is thinking of doing the right thing, but keeps holding herself back, and this portrayal of her is the most relatable she’s been this whole time.  The encounter is basically a creative interpretation of an internal conflict which is always great to see in animation.  It’s also the one to finally convince her to do the right thing and confess her felony to the cops who then take her to Marco. 

As for the police car, it’s a bit of a cop-out from real consequences that the car was going to be smashed anyway and all Star has to do is wash the car, despite still opting to use magic to get it done.  The episode is still charming and likable with character moments and creative scenarios, but Star’s questionable morality at the forefront holds back the appeal.  It doesn’t ruin the experience at all, but this big a display of her flaws is hard to ignore. 

C

Wand to Wand

We see more of Ludo trying to make it on his own in the wild in this episode, which is great to see after what “Ludo in the Wild” showed how well he braved the elements before reaching a suitable position of well-being right down to finding the missing piece of Star’s wand. 

The start of the episode features him attempt to use it to get some decent food at a bar run by rats, but there’s a major challenge in using it to keep up with survival and his boost in power because he can’t get the wand to work.  Out of his attempts to get it to work, there’s an interesting look at how well he works with his bird and spider comrades when they both do something to make him mad which in turn powers the wand. 

Of course, Ludo actually working the wand turns out to be more complicated than that when he tries to purposefully make the bar rats mad enough to beat him up to power it.  He does eventually produce the same magic beam as before which knocks all the rats away, but it takes a long while and a big beating from rodents to make it happen, and he quickly loses control when the beam is shot.  Ludo may not be a master of the wand by any means, but the power he unlocks with it is still really effective even with only half of its power. 

As for the other half, the episode also focuses on Star’s problems with her own wand when she attempts to use it to do a task as simple, yet boring as taking out the garbage.  I have to say that for how much of a big deal it was that the wand lost its power in the Season 1 finale, it’s kind of inconsistent that the wand goes from being faulty to as functional as ever from episode to episode.  This episode highlights its newly established weaknesses when Star creates a talking cloud to take out the garbage for her, and the cloud doesn’t listen instead making a bigger mess in Marco’s house being completely condescending all the way. 

Things only get worse when Star becomes so fed up with the cloud that she tries blasting at it, and it gets filled with so much rage that it creates a huge violent storm.  The following literal battle through the storm is a particular highlight for the episode where Star feels the only way to stop the cloud is to keep blasting at it, but that only makes the cloud want to suck up even more things including Marco.  However, during the battle, Star realizes the only way to quell the green and enraged cloud is to give it a friendlier spell instead of a destructive one, so she casts a friendlier spell which makes the cloud pink and happy.  This indicates that even with her wand in a cleaved state, Star can still learn to find a way to control it as well as be more mindful of what she casts.  There’s even some believable growth to her character when she decides to clean up the mess the cloud made without magic, though I have to admit that it would’ve been more impactful if it came before the events of “Red Belt” then there’d be a more believable reason for her opting to not use magic there. 

Ultimately though, this episode offers a nice look at how both the main protagonist and antagonist unlock control of their cleaved weapons leaving one to wonder who has the better control.  

A-

The Ranking

1. Ludo in the Wild
2. Mr. Candle Cares
3. Wand to Wand
4. Star on Wheels
5. My New Wand
6. Red Belt
7. Star vs Echo Creek
8. Fetch

The next Star vs the Forces of Evil review introduces the completely crazy Mina Loveberry, and features a camping trip with King River.

Next time on MC Toon Reviews is a Rocko's Modern Life review on "Cabin Fever" and "Rinse and Spit."

If you would like to check out other Star vs the Forces of Evil reviews on this blog, click here for the guide made especially for them.

'Toon Reviews 7: Hey Arnold Season 2 Episode 11

Steely Phil

Arnold’s Grandpa has always been one of the most entertaining parts of this show from the beginning.  Not only is it unique for the main protagonist of a show to be brought up by grandparents, but Grandpa has quickly proven to be one of the greatest grandparent characters in animation.  He has his own style of giving his grandson advice, can easily relate to him when it comes to his pastimes despite his old age, and is skilled in a lot more things than one might expect.  With all these entertaining layers to Grandpa, it’s great that we start getting cartoons focused on him with this one.  Arnold learns that his Grandpa used to be a master of Chinese checkers under the nickname of Steely Phil.  However, despite all his skills, he let the pressures of winning get to him while playing against another Chinese checker master called Robbie Fisher and blew a perfect chance to tie the game.  Now that he’s come across Robbie Fisher again, Grandpa gets the opportunity to try and beat him in an upcoming Chinese checkers championship.  During the time preparing for the championship, we’re introduced to a relatable insecure side to Grandpa.  We’re so used to seeing him be so confident and laid-back when looking after and spending time with Arnold that it turns out to be such a big deal to hear how unconfident he is to try Chinese checkers again.  However, with a good, determined grandson like Arnold, he slowly fights through his anxieties.  It’s especially felt through an exciting training montage where he falters a lot at first through basic exercises, but as the montage continues, he starts making some significant improvements just as the scene’s music ends with a triumphant note.  It may not be much different from other training montages TV shows and movies tend to use, but it’s a favorite common convention that’s always welcomed in telling a story.  Even with the progress, Grandpa still doesn’t have enough confidence to compete going on to talk to Arnold in the middle of the night.  This scene also shows that his lack of confidence doesn’t just apply to Chinese checkers when he tells Arnold that his confidence that he could do certain things given to his grandson was on the off chance everyone else would lose.  Even with this reveal, Arnold still is all for encouraging his Grandpa to compete and conquer his fears.  All this training proves to pay off when the Chinese checker tournament comes, Grandpa makes it to Robbie Fisher, and just when it looks like he’s about to lose the same way he did all those years ago, he remembers to have the game end in a tie.  It’s a well-deserved victory that pays off Grandpa’s relatable conflict making this cartoon a solid start to his many starring roles.  It’s an instance where a character’s old age makes him all the more engaging. 9.5/10

Quantity Time

This cartoon is a prime example of how bad Helga has it at home.  Being raised by a fortune-obsessed dad and a drug addict mom both of whom clearly show more favor to her perfect older sister, it’s no surprise that this lifestyle is the source of her meanness.  Unfortunately for her in this cartoon, everything bad about her family infringes on her spring break from school.  It all happens when her break as well as her dad, Big Bob’s, break from running his beeper emporium become known to her mom, Miriam.  Miriam takes the initiative to get out of the house infringing on her alone time for a whole week under the guise of taking care of her sick mother, suggesting that Helga and Big Bob bond while she’s gone.  Not only are her actions a clear sign of neglect, albeit one she tries to keep subtle, but Big Bob is a major detracting factor to his time with his daughter turning out good.  He expresses clear disdain towards spending quality time with her and treats it like a chore instead of something genuine.  In fact, in all his actions, there’s nothing genuine at all in his attempts to bond with Helga.  He purchases foods she either hates or can’t eat when grocery shopping, drags Helga along for his monotonous errands against her will, and when she complains that they’re just doing things he wants to do, he ropes her into activities she’s long grown out of.  Big Bob just goes through the motions of his life, thinking that he and Helga can bond just because she’s with him when he’s doing his things, showing no believable love for her in the slightest.  It’s mean and uncaring of him, but it makes the life Helga lives somewhat fascinating as it’s a fine example of how dysfunctional some families can be.  True, it’s common to see some dysfunction in most TV shows, but what Helga has to put up with goes beyond the usual standards given what we see of Big Bob here.  Also, we also see that while Big Bob truly is a bad parent, he’s not one-dimensional.  When Helga’s complaints of him failing at bonding don’t get to him, her lamenting to Phoebe of how she can’t see the one thing she wanted to see the most during her break does.  Big Bob actually shows regret for his daughter’s misery and takes it upon himself to get her tickets for the event.  In an interesting turn of events, the tickets he gets are for a stage musical advertised on the back of the ad of what Helga really wanted to see, a wrestling match.  Despite the mess-up, it finally gets Helga and Big Bob to bond while riffing on how stupid the musical is.  It’s both a hilarious and heartwarming way of showing that even the worst events in life have something good to them.  While Big Bob may turn some people off, the look at Helga’s less-than-ideal life and the charm of the ending bond are considerably worth watching. 9/10

The Ranking

1. Harold’s Kitty
2. Helga’s Love Potion
3. Monkey Business
4. Eugene’s Pet
5. Freeze Frame
6. Steely Phil
7. Gerald’s Secret
8. Save the Tree
9. Phoebe Cheats
10. Gerald Moves Out
11. New Teacher
12. Mudbowl
13. Quantity Time
14. Ms. Perfect
15. Big Caesar
16. Ransom
17. The Big Scoop
18. Best Friends
19. The High Life
20. Hooky
21. Arnold Saves Sid
22. Longest Monday

Be sure to stay tuned for the review of the next episode where Arnold enters an "Eating Contest," and we see an interesting take on one of the most famous civil rights acts in history in "Rhonda's Glasses."

If you would like to check out other Hey Arnold reviews on this blog, click here for the guide made especially for them.