'Toon Reviews 19: OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes Season 1 Episode 10: My Dad Can Beat Up Your Dad

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My Dad Can Beat up Your Dad

Characters with single parents always beg a question on what happened to the other parent, and it can get believably uncomfortable when that character is mocked for missing a parent.  Only having a mother, it makes perfect sense for K.O. to go through something like this, and that’s what happens in this cartoon. 

While purchasing burritos, K.O. is bullied by a kid lizard named Chameleon Jr for taking too long.  Once again taking bad advice from Rad, K.O. escalates the confrontation with his own harsh words, the whole scene offering a clever interpretation of the idea of words hurting others with the words appearing huge out of the kids’ mouths and knocking them about.  Soon, the tensions escalate even more when Chameleon Jr says his dad can beat up K.O.’s dad, although K.O. doesn’t have a dad, making him feel uncomfortable.  K.O. then goes for the next best option of having his mom take on Chameleon Jr’s dad. 

When Carol finds out about what happened, Rad’s bad conflict-handling advice is counteracted immediately as she does the responsible thing for a parent to do by firmly lecturing her son for escalating the conflict.  At the same time, she also shows concern for K.O. lamenting about being put down for not having a dad.  This already portrays Carol as one of the best moms in TV animation, and it grows even more when she sets out to not tell K.O. how to deescalate bad situations, but show him how it’s done. 

She shows up to the fight, but instead of getting physical, she intends to get civil with Chameleon Jr’s dad, Chameleon Sr.  The whole scene is set up as a great opportunity to further portray Carol as a great mom as she tries to talk things over with the hulking monstrous Chameleon Sr. for the sole intent of teaching her son a lesson.  Even if she intends to talk things over, it’s not easy to do that since Chameleon Sr. wants to fight, and Carol even begins to understand her son’s side of things when Chameleon Sr. insults K.O.  The fact that she decides to fight Chameleon Sr. anyway does devalue her legit virtuous side from earlier, even if it is still admirable that she’s willing to fight for her offspring’s well-being, showing that her actions do come from a place of love. 

Plus, even if Chameleon Sr. does put up a strong fight, Carol’s a worthy opponent too, taking on his harsh blows easily, and K.O. becomes wise enough to point out that this fight isn’t deescalating anything.  He starts taking his mom’s advice to heart even while the fight goes on, and uses the burritos from earlier to make peace with Chameleon Sr.  However, it’s Chameleon Sr.’s being unreasonable that keeps the fight going, although a humorous scene of K.O. dropping the burritos while stuck in Chameleon Sr.’s mouth which set it on fire does bring it to a creative end and is a shining moment for the aspiring hero.  K.O. ends up pulling a zipper on Chameleon Sr. as he falls, out of the mouth revealing him to be a hairless man, making Chameleon Jr. realize his dad isn’t who he seems. 

This ends the fight with a wholesome scene to give a timeless reminder that bullies have hidden character depths too as well as a nice scene from the chameleon family, and the cartoon has the pleasure of ending with yet another wholesome scene of Carol and K.O.’s great mother-son bond.  Moralities may get confused in the crossfires, but strong character moments, insightful messages, and creative twists make this an entertainingly meaningful family-oriented cartoon.

A-

The Ranking

1. I Am Dendy
2. Let’s Be Heroes
3. You’re Everybody’s Sidekick
4. Jethro’s All Yours
5. My Dad Can Beat up Your Dad
6. Let’s Be Friends
7. We Messed Up
8. Sibling Rivalry
9. Do You Have Any More in the Back?
10. You’re Level 100

Be sure to stay tuned for the review of the next episode where Enid demonstrates a relatable behavior to people in customer service and an unsatisfied customer responds to this by turning her to stone.

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 16: Hey Arnold Season 3 Episode 8: Arnold's Room/Helga vs Big Patty

Arnold’s Room

Most fan groups for Hey Arnold and old Nickelodeon shows in general often post memes saying how most kids of the 90s wanted a room like Arnold’s, and I really can’t blame them.  The big space, well-organized shelves, perfect sky view, and that flip-down couch make for the most creative yet believable bedroom ever put to media.  You can easily be impressed by its features and picture yourself actually having a room like that.  Such a nice room could naturally make anyone feel envious in the audience and in the world of this show, and that’s the subject of this cartoon. 

Although Arnold’s name is in the title, the story is way more about Sid. The class is assigned a history project and, in one of his extremely few major roles, Lorenzo is picked as Sid’s partner.  Some of the work on the project is done at Lorenzo’s big lavish mansion which includes his big room that Sid is easily impressed by, most likely because this is a rich kid’s place.  However, the project requires some of the work to be done in Sid’s room, thus making Sid feel intimidated.  Just from the sights of his small, messy, and not very special room, Sid’s feelings are understandable since it’s not only uncool, but also not very pleasing, so nothing’s stopping him deciding to borrow Arnold’s room for the day from investing the audience, at first anyway. 

It is a believable scenario for Sid to want Lorenzo to think he’s cool from what he has, and this is shown right down to the lengths he goes through to convince Lorenzo that this is his room and not someone else’s like changing pictures of Arnold with pictures of him and putting a sign saying “Sid’s Room” on the door.  However, it’s through these lengths that bring out the worst of Sid’s character.  He’s known to be very obsessive on even the littlest of things and it typically gets so overbearing that he stops being entertaining.  That’s what happens here, especially when you consider that there’s no possible way he can keep up with the act.  Even the first session in Arnold’s room has a lot of suspicion that Sid’s “room” belongs to someone else.  It builds from there with Sid claiming Arnold’s Grandpa as his own, calling out Arnold for supposedly leaving behind his top secret journal, and even wrecking Arnold’s personalized alarm clock, indicating clear signs that the lie can’t be kept forever, and the ensuing awkwardness doesn’t help.  As a result, whenever Sid pushes Arnold to get out of the room or pesters Grandpa by claiming to be his grandson, it makes the viewing experience a hindrance as you just wait for the plan to backfire.  Heck, even Arnold is confident that Sid can’t keep up the charade. 

Unsurprisingly, Sid can’t, when Lorenzo suggests an impromptu visit to his room, Arnold and his friends are already there, Sid tries the usual excuse, but is unable to lie any longer.  Naturally, Lorenzo is miffed about being lied to for fair reason, but the fact that Sid getting caught was so easy to see coming makes it frustrating because it could’ve been avoided if Sid realized he couldn’t keep it up forever.  Thankfully, no one holds a grudge for Sid’s actions when he shows genuine regret and all’s well, so for all his faults, the ending shows that Sid really isn’t a bad guy on the whole. 

The cartoon is still held back by being driven by awkwardness from pathetic attempts to cover an obvious lie, but the underlying relatability and how it explores the great appeal of Arnold’s room make it enjoyable enough. 8/10

Helga vs. Big Patty

Writing bully characters is a lot harder than one may think.  It’s easy to write them with any mean trait imaginable, but that would make the character very unpleasant and unnatural.  I find it hard to believe that anyone would be a brute for the sake of it.  For bully characters to work, it’s best to provide reasons for malice, maybe because they don’t know any better, or because of certain turmoil that lead them to act up.  You can’t justify their actions but you can understand them. Despite what they do, they’re still human beings trying to get through life.  It’s too bad that a couple things I reviewed, even of cartoons of this show, feature bully characters who are thugs for no reason yet this show is good at writing bully characters with Helga.  We continuously see what fuels her mean behavior and what she’s really like.  This cartoon proves that these standards can apply to other bully characters, with the bully in question being more threatening than she is. 


Big Patty is a larger than average 6^th grader who showed up before in a few short scenes of beating up Helga after ending up as the target of pranks meant for someone else.  Since those moments were meant to depict a backfiring, they didn’t show what Big Patty was really like, so it’s nice that this cartoon does justice for her.  Helga makes jokes about Big Patty to her friends, which honestly seems foolish of her since making fun of someone bigger and stronger than you will certainly make them mad.  Sure enough, that’s what happens when Big Patty threatens to beat her up.  One admirable thing is that Big Patty doesn’t go around being mean, especially since she tries to civilly offer Arnold the last of a dessert earlier.  She acts when provoked which anyone, no matter how good they are would do (though maybe not always to the beating-up extent). 


Out of this, we get a more vulnerable side of Helga, which is especially big considering how much authority she usually has over all the other kids.  Now, someone more threatening is out to get her and she’s scared, right down to resorting to her parents for advice who, as you’d probably expect, do not offer anything meaningful or helpful whatsoever. 


Helga’s problem does bring a sincere moment for her and Arnold’s relationship.  This season is where we see a lot of Arnold showing concern for Helga’s well-being more often then before despite her being rude around him which is a huge step in making them feel like a good pairing.  Here, when he shows concern over Helga facing Big Patty, he advises her to apologize to her so to get off the hook and maybe even be friends.  However, while Big Patty accepts Helga’s apology, she still plans on beating her up because of her reputation which is a believable reason for people to act like bullies.  Even better is that Arnold sees Big Patty at fault for opting to beat Helga despite everything.  He even drops a hint that he knows Helga for who she really is, which becomes more apparent as the show goes on. 


For this cartoon, it’s a point strong enough to get through to Big Patty as she instead pretends to beat up Helga unbeknownst to everyone and have Helga only act like she’s hurt.  It seals the deal on this show’s talents of writing bully characters.  Big Patty’s approach to the situation and Arnold’s views on the real Helga show that even if they act like it, at the end of the day, bullies are decent human beings too. 


As a result, this is a thought-provoking cartoon built on strong characterizations. 9.5/10

The Ranking

1. Helga Blabs it All
2. Harold the Butcher
3. Crabby Author
4. Mr. Hyunh Goes Country
5. Helga Vs. Big Patty
6. Curly Snaps
7. The Aptitude Test
8. Pre-Teen Scream
9. Olga Gets Engaged
10. Oskar Gets a Job
11. Rich Kid
12. Dangerous Lumber
13. Arnold’s Room
14. Helga and the Nanny
15. Stinky Goes Hollywood
16. Arnold Betrays Iggy

The next Hey Arnold review sends Arnold's class out for career day and Arnold's time with the Jolly Olly Man isn't as fun as it sounds.  In addition, Harold further shows how deep he really is when he gets to know Big Patty.
The next post on MC Toon Reviews will cover the ninth episode of Steven Universe Season 2, "We Need to Talk."

If you want to stay updated for more reviews, become a follower of this blog, click here to like the official Facebook page, and click here to follow me on Twitter.

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

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

The Sweet Spot

 

 

 

 

 

 

At first, this cartoon seems perfectly enjoyable as it follows Lincoln plot to get the best seat in the family car he calls the sweet spot in preparation for a family road trip the following morning.  To back up his reasons, we get a series of amusing moments of what the Loud siblings do during a family drive.  The humor factor doesn’t even stop there; we also get a lot of laughs through a set of moments of the siblings’ car habits as Lincoln thinks of who to sit next to him, behind him, etc.  It’s a great display of the Loud siblings’ entertaining qualities and it’s very relatable to anyone who has had to go on a long car trip, especially with a lot of siblings.  However, the cartoon begins to take a turn for the worse when all the sisters find out what Lincoln is up to and plot to get the sweet spot for themselves.  From then on, we’re exposed to all the siblings fighting over something that only one of them can have.  The thing is, so much fighting from a bunch of characters who are so close, especially siblings, does not bring about a lot of entertainment, and it can also be a bit frustrating since who would want to be exposed to a cartoon with nothing but fighting?  However, the fighting isn’t the problem, especially since we do get some entertaining angry faces and even a humorous battle cry from Lisa.  The real problem is that it goes on so long that nothing is accomplished.  The car gets destroyed, the road trip is cancelled, and worst of all, none of the siblings learn anything.  This is especially proven when Lincoln points out that there’s a sweet spot in the living room, foreshadowing that the exact same thing will happen again in literally the last seconds of the cartoon.  Clearly, this is not the best display of the Loud siblings’ bonds, which really hurts the cartoon by making it hard to get behind what they’re going through.  Still, there’s still some really good entertaining moments here, so while this cartoon is far from one of the best, it’s not one of the worst. 7/10

A Tale of Two Tables

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s a natural part of life to want to prove that you’re all grown up to do certain things.  That concept is nicely interpreted in this cartoon in which Lincoln gets tired of having dinner at the kiddie table with his 5 younger sisters and wants to prove himself ready to have dinner at the grown-up table with his 5 older sisters and parents.  The lengths Lincoln goes through to prove himself as mature enough have a certain childlike charm to them through moments like him needing advice on how to act like a grown-up from Clyde, an only child who’s always had dinner with his parents, trying out grown-up pastimes without really understanding them, and stumbling with proper table etiquette.  You can just look at Lincoln in all these situations and see yourself in those situations.  I feel this way because I have a philosophy that’s all about how we all try to act like grown-ups, but the truth is we’re all kids at heart.  While we’re on that subject, the cartoon just grows in appeal when Lincoln finally does get to the grown-up table, and discovers that sitting there involves customs that he’s really not up for.  Now, while some of the customs are believable, others seem a little too far-fetched, especially how those who sit at the grown-up table don’t get dessert (I’m 22, and I’ve always had dessert), what Lincoln experiences does start to bring to light a message that goes on to serve as a theme for the series.  It’s all about learning to appreciate what you have in life, and never let it go if you don’t feel ready, which is shown in several different ways in other cartoons as we’ll soon discover.  Following that first night at the grown-up table, and even a nightmare with creepy colors and appropriately surreal animation, Lincoln does just that by getting himself sent back to the kiddie table by acting hilariously childish the next night.  Not only that, but the point I made about how we all may grow up, but are really kids on the inside is really enhanced when all of Lincoln’s older sisters willingly ask to join the kiddie table too.  As you can see, this is a simple, charming, relatable cartoon that offers a lot of strong life lessons to ponder. 9/10

The Ranking

1.      Driving Miss Hazy

2.      Left in the Dark

3.      No Guts No Glori

4.      A Tale of Two Tables

5.      The Sweet Spot

6.      Heavy Meddle

7.      Get the Message

8.      Making the Case

 

Be sure to stay tuned for the review of the next episode where we get a really good look at a typical day in the Loud House with "Project Loud House," and watch what happens when a discussion on where the Louds should go for a vacation turns into an "In Tents Debate."

  

'Toon Reviews 1: Hey Arnold Season 1 Episode 19

Part Time Friends
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This cartoon follows one of those plots that involve characters who are close end up spending a lot of time fighting with each other, eventually deciding to end their friendship over frivolous means.  It’s a plot that’s not always pleasing to watch mostly because it’s hard to see such good friends at odds with each other especially when they’re both hard to get behind in their conflict.  About this cartoon specifically, Arnold and Gerald get part time jobs at Mrs. Vitello’s flower shop in order to gain money to buy certain things to have fun.  When Mrs. Vitello throws out her back, she has the boys manage the store alone with Gerald getting the higher authority.  Then we’re treated the two friends becoming at odds with each other with Gerald driving Arnold to work faster and not spend so much time on the quality of certain flower orders and Arnold carelessly getting flower orders wrong.  They both complain about each other’s flaws so much that the cartoon becomes significantly less entertaining to watch than it should be.  Arnold and Gerald have been shown to be a very loyal team sticking together no matter how the other acted.  Seeing them become the worst of enemies just because of this job environment just isn’t like them.  It gets even worse when Arnold decides to quit working for the shop under Gerald’s leadership and what follows is a series of dragged out scenes of the two former friends going out of their way to not speak with each other making their senseless bickering even more painful.  The conflict between them does get more engaging when Grandpa gets involved.  He shares Arnold a story about how he used to be friends with a kid named Jimmy Kafka, but like Arnold and Gerald, they broke their friendship while doing a part time job.  The catch is that they never spoke again, which is a pretty sad yet clever twist to the story.  As for the present matter, Grandpa’s story gets Arnold to see sense when he has a dream of him and Gerald similarly not being friends straight through senior ages which also includes this memorable piece of nightmare fuel to many longtime fans of this show:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Anyway, we end with Gerald being unable to run the shop alone and Arnold stepping in to make up with him which is nice, but the cartoon ends before they can use their friendship to fix everything at the shop.  They just set up a problem to solve, and they end without getting to it.  That’s sloppy storytelling, but at least Arnold and Gerald’s fight is over.  This really isn’t the worst cartoon of the show, but its fighting moments among other things grant it a low recommendation from me. 7/10

Biosquare

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Unlike Arnold and Gerald who are best friends, Arnold and Helga are a pairing who we rarely see get along mostly due to how much of a bully Helga can be to Arnold.  Yes, she has that crush on him, but for her own reasons, she keeps it secret by covering her love with mean-spirited nature.  So, when they’re assigned to do a science project that requires them to spend 24 hours together in a greenhouse, it’s easy to predict that things are bound to get tense between them.  Through it all, we see a clash of the personalities of these two people who rarely get along at work.  Arnold is easily prepared for the experiment and approaches each part of it such as one involving a potato and another involving a red ant and black ant living together in the same ant farm with great enthusiasm.  Helga on the other hand is not at all thrilled with Arnold’s recent football-headed scheme.  She eats all her food instead of saving it for the coming 24 hours, complains about the lack of electricity, messes with Arnold’s side experiments, and demands the greenhouse be divided even though she and Arnold are supposed to be living together in the environment.  It’s a dynamic we’ve come to expect and it does have its moments, but most of the time, the entertainment of the situation is Helga’s constant complaining and irrationality.  I understand that she feels the need to be mean to Arnold instead of show him the real her, but this much of it can get somewhat annoying and I just wish she’d realize that things in the greenhouse are the way they are because that’s how the experiment is supposed to work.  However, the beauty of this plot is that it shows that while they are constantly at odds with each other, Arnold and Helga do care about each other enough to work together when the moment calls for it.  The moment does call for it when we reach the climax.  Helga becomes so bothered by a leaky faucet that she goes on to break it which causes a flood.  It only gets worse when Grandpa and Oskar humorously mistake the cries for help for wanting to add more water.  As the flood in the greenhouse gets worse, Helga actually takes initiative by blowing a raft and saving Arnold from drowning by pulling him aboard just as the greenhouse door bursts open.  Then they both show concern for each other’s safety and then share a passionate smile.  For all their bickering, this moment shows that Arnold and Helga can work as a pair if their hearts are really in it.  So, while some of Helga’s moments don’t make this cartoon particularly strong, this cartoon is still appreciative for its portrayal of her and Arnold’s dynamic. 8/10

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.      False Alarm

10.  Magic Show

11.  Tutoring Torvald

12.  The Baseball

13.  Olga Comes Home

14.  The List

15.  Das Subway

16.  The Vacant Lot

17.  Downtown as Fruits

18.  The Old Building

19.  Field Trip

20.  The Sewer King

21.  Sally’s Comet

22.  Roughin’ It

23.  Gerald Comes Over

24.  6^th Grade Girls

25.  The Little Pink Book

26.  24 Hours to Live

27.  Abner Come Home

28.  Arnold as Cupid

29.  Snow

30.  Eugene’s Bike

31.  Biosquare

32.  Door #16

33.  Heat

34.  Part Time Friends

35.  Benchwarmer

36.  Operation Ruthless

37.  World Records

38.  Cool Jerk

Be sure to stay tuned for the review of the 20th episode of the season: "Arnold's Christmas."