'Toon Reviews 4: The Loud House Season 1 Episode 14

Toads and Tiaras

 

 

 

 

This is another nice cartoon designed to emphasize the show’s theme of appreciating your family for who they are.  At the same time, it stresses the brotherly nature of Lincoln towards the twins, Lola and Lana.  With tickets to Dairyland as an incentive, Lincoln makes himself open to coaching Lola for an upcoming pageant which involves learning all the ins and outs of looking beautiful.  Things become complicated when Lola ends up getting hurt and is unable to compete in the pageant.  Determined to get the Dairyland tickets, Lincoln discovers that he has no choice but to have Lana take Lola’s place.  The challenge is that Lana, who’s open to getting her hands dirty complete with having the hobbies of playing in mud and carrying tools around, not to mention calling a dress a sparkly towel, is the complete opposite of Lola which makes Lincoln struggle to make her pageant material.  Through it all, we get a lot of admirable qualities from Lana.  Throughout this season, she’s always livened up her scenes with how she goes about playing dirty without hesitation, but here, she really tries hard to put all that aside to please her brother coming off as a sibling who truly values her family.  The thing is though, despite managing to pull off good pageant behavior in training, when taking part in the actual pageant, she just can’t escape who she really is.  While Lincoln doesn’t accept that at first, we eventually get a really sweet big brother moment from him when, after seeing Lana upset about not living up to his expectations, he comes to the conclusion that Lana should just be who she really is and show it off in front of the audience of the pageant, even if it means no Dairyland tickets.  Lana ends up winning them the tickets anyway though by just being herself which is a really nice moment for her, and while I don’t think the victory makes sense since what Lana does still isn’t appropriate for a pageant, considering the ending of “In Tents Debate” it’s extremely satisfying that she and Lincoln made it to Dairyland at all in the end.  On a side note, Lola gets a lot of enjoyable moments to, mostly showing off her monstrous side when she finds out what’s going on, and more of her nice side when she ultimately lets Lincoln and Lana keep what they rightfully won even if Lana got them by doing things she would never do.  Ultimately, the characters involved in this cartoon get a lot of nice sweet moments that show off their appeal which in the end, make you feel glad that everyone winds up being comfortable with who they really are. 9.5/10

Two Boys and a Baby

 

 

 

 

Sadly, we’ve got another flop to look at.  The worst part about this cartoon is that Lincoln is punished for doing nothing wrong.  The cartoon is all about him getting out of joining the rest of the family in visiting their literally unpleasing Aunt Ruth by agreeing to stay home and look after Lily which is something Dad usually does.  From there we’re treated with a collection of scenes involving Lincoln and Clyde, who comes over to help him, discovering how hard it is to take care of Lily.  I honestly find it hard to believe that Lincoln would have this much of a hard time with this.  He’s known what to do with Lily before, and they even legitimately bonded back in “Changing the Baby.”  To be fair, some of the moments of him and Clyde carrying out the task are fairly entertaining such as how they manage to get Lily to eat her lunch and an exciting chase scene through the park to find her after accidentally picking up the wrong baby.  Other moments though, are pretty cringe-worthy like when they yell in response to a zombie movie just after putting Lily down for a nap, and an uncomfortable amount of gross-out moments when they’re changing her including a scene where sh*t literally hits the fan.  I know they don’t show it, but the implications still make me sick.  However, what moves this cartoon into bad territory is the ending where after all those hardships Lincoln and Clyde went through, they end up being exposed to a baby with chicken pox and they and Lily have to stay at Aunt Ruth’s until they recover, and she really is as unpleasant as Lincoln described her.  The fact that Lincoln is forced to suffer in the end after suffering through the whole cartoon make what we see a complete pain which never makes for a good watch.  Perhaps things could have been better if Aunt Ruth’s turned out a lot better than what Lincoln constantly described, but them being accurate to what he said doomed the cartoon to fail.  Not to mention, that means Lincoln’s sisters had to suffer despite doing nothing to deserve it too, making the cartoon worse in that regard.  This cartoon could have come off as passable if it wasn’t for the ending, but since the ending is in place, it’s going near the bottom of the cartoon rankings of the season.  At least it wasn’t immediately doomed to fail like “The Green House” was. 4.5/10

The Ranking

1.      For Bros About to Rock

2.      Undie Pressure

3.      Project Loud House

4.      Space Invader

5.      Driving Miss Hazy

6.      Left in the Dark

7.      Toads and Tiaras

8.      Picture Perfect

9.      Sleuth or Consequences

10.  Hand-Me-Downer

11.  No Guts No Glori

12.  Changing the Baby

13.  Along Came A Sister

14.  Sound of Silence

15.  Butterfly Effect

16.  A Tale of Two Tables

17.  It’s A Loud, Loud, Loud, Loud House

18.  Overnight Success

19.  In Tents Debate

20.  Linc or Swim

21.  The Sweet Spot

22.  Heavy Meddle

23.  Get the Message

24.  Ties that Bind

25.  Making the Case

26.  Chore and Peace

27.  Two Boys and a Baby

28.  The Green House

Be sure to stay tuned for the review of the next episode including a fun cartoon with a concerning ending with "Cover Girls" and a cartoon sure to please the Lincoln and Ronnie Anne shippers, "Save the Date."

'Toon Reviews 1: Hey Arnold Season 1 Episode 16

Abner Come Home

 

 

 

 

One of Arnold’s many unique aspects is that he has a pet pig.  However, as this cartoon shows, it’s one thing to have a certain animal for a pet that most people don’t, but it’s another to do something different with the animal from ones commonly kept as pets.  The thing about Arnold’s pet pig, Abner, is that he doesn’t seem to behave differently from other pets, namely dogs.  He begs and pants like a dog, enjoys playing fetch, and even has his own doggie door set up for him.  Basically, Abner may be a pig, but at heart, he’s no different from your average pet.  Still, the opening sequence of him and Arnold enjoying being together is very nice and it really demonstrates their strong bond which in turn gets you to feel for Arnold when Abner gets lost.  Then again, the way Abner gets lost is based around a pretty stupid move on the pig’s part.  Given that Abner behaves like a dog, he gets the urge to chase a cat in the middle of the night, resulting in him getting out of the boarding house and into the real world where he could easily be caught and made into food or a football.  All this because he felt that getting a cat was more important than his family.  This not only gives dogs a bad name, but it also builds the cartoon’s entire conflict on a dumb decision lowering the appeal.  Still, it’s got a lot of strong heartfelt parts throughout the duration.  Since the bond between Arnold and Abner has been established to be a strong one, there’s a genuine feel of despair and sympathy when Arnold realizes Abner is gone and is nowhere to be seen.  As more time is spent focusing on Arnold trying everything he can to find him akin to ways anyone would try to find a lost pet, it’s easy to get invested and hope he finds him.  There’s even a nice moment between Arnold and Grandpa where Arnold is given some nice strong advice on getting over his loss by remembering all the good times he had with Abner which inspires an admittedly clever idea to get Abner home involving creating a scent of his favorite things to follow.  Plus, Abner himself gets a nice moment of heart when he’s reminded of home after catching sight of one of Arnold’s “lost pig” signs.  These moments lead to a joyous conclusion where Abner finally follows the garbage scent back home and he and Arnold reunite while rolling around in garbage, which is an appropriate way of showing the happiness of them being back together with a touch of funny pig mannerisms.  This cartoon is pretty standard when it comes to lost pet plots, but it’s worth a watch for being told well and showing off why Abner coming home is worth hoping for. 8/10

The Sewer King

Here’s another cartoon that explores the out-of-the-ordinary yet highly creative and imaginative lives of the strange inhabitants of Arnold’s city, major emphasis on creative which is just what I like to see in an animated product.  The story gets off to a nice and simple start with Arnold being tasked by Grandpa to get a special pocket watch for him, which is a task he hardly entrusts to anyone.  After Arnold purchases the watch, the creative angle really starts to take effect.  It starts when Arnold and the kids come across a demolition team blowing a hole in the road, resulting in a long way down to the sewers of the city, which is something you certainly don’t come across every day.  Anyway, the watch falls down the hole into the depths of the sewer prompting Arnold and Gerald to venture down to try and retrieve it no matter what happens.  We’re treated to some impressive designs of the sewer which consists of pipe formations, waterfalls, and rats crawling throughout the darkness, all the makings of an adventure that takes you to places you could only imagine going to, in this case the sewers.  Then, we meet the titular Sewer King.  He has a rather interesting way of life, living in the sewers, having only rats for friends, and considers anything from the surface world his rats find to be a “royal icon.”  It’s because of these ways of life that the Sewer King doesn’t just give up the watch to Arnold and Gerald.  Then, of all things, the boys find that the only way to get the watch back is to beat the Sewer King in a game of chess.  Arnold does win every time, but the catch is that the Sewer King keeps making them play until he wins.  Eventually, Arnold catches on to the act and just up and grabs the watch from the Sewer King, resulting in an entertaining chase through the sewers culminating in an escape that reveals another interesting trait about the Sewer King.  He fears the light of the surface world, which could possibly be the reason why he lives the way he does.  So, our heroes escape with the watch that’s rightfully theirs.  Unfortunately, the story ends on way too strong of a downer note.  After all that trouble Arnold went through to get the watch, Grandpa accidentally drops it down the drain and it ends up back with the Sewer King making the plot of getting the watch back from him completely pointless.  Even more pointless is the plot of this cartoon in general as Grandpa later reveals a bunch of backup watches meaning there was really no reason for Arnold to do what he spent the entire cartoon doing.  Then, for his troubles, Grandpa gives him another task to do which really doesn’t seem appropriate.  Still, as much as a major downer the ending is, this is still a highly enjoyable cartoon for its creativity and likable characters. 9/10

The Rankings

1.      Pigeon Man

2.      Haunted Train

3.      Stoop Kid

4.      Arnold’s Hat

5.      Wheezin’ Ed

6.      Spelling Bee

7.      Helga’s Makeover

8.      Mugged

9.      Tutoring Torvald

10.  The Baseball

11.  Olga Comes Home

12.  The List

13.  Das Subway

14.  The Vacant Lot

15.  Downtown as Fruits

16.  The Old Building

17.  Field Trip

18.  The Sewer King

19.  Sally’s Comet

20.  Roughin’ It

21.  Gerald Comes Over

22.  6^th Grade Girls

23.  The Little Pink Book

24.  Abner Come Home

25.  Arnold as Cupid

26.  Snow

27.  Eugene’s Bike

28.  Door #16

29.  Heat

30.  Benchwarmer

31.  Operation Ruthless

32.  Cool Jerk

Be sure to stay tuned for the review of the 17th episode of this season: "False Alarm/World Records."