'Toon Reviews 19: OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes Season 1 Episode 24: One Last Score

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One Last Score

To broaden the appeal of the series, there are cartoons that develop side characters.  This one gives such development to one of the students at the Fitness Dojo. They usually work out and going nuts over how cute K.O., the son of their instructor, is.  However, while what we see is enjoyable, it’s hard to figure out how to feel about the direction that’s taken with the featured characters. 

The elderly student at the Fitness Dojo, Ginger, reveals to K.O. that she was once a candy thief. This came with committing obvious theft whose magnitude went far beyond the usual snagging of treats from purses and cupboards.  Heck, her sidekick ended up getting arrested because of her.  Now in the present, Ginger wants to relive her glory days by performing a heist at a literal candy museum holding a special candy, the Ponce.  The Ponce can temporarily make her young again with just one lick. 

It’s believable that she’d want to do this since reliving youth is a common thing for the elderly to do. The fact that she’s going so far as to rob a candy being used as a museum piece is going too far.  Because of this, it’s disturbing that she guilt-trips the ever moral K.O. into doing this despite him clearly being uncomfortable about the prospect of stealing.  It’s at least nice that he’s willing to comply with his morals through it all though.  Also, when you take out the moral compass of the whole ordeal, the heist is legitimately fun to watch. There are enjoyable interactions between K.O. and Ginger and the fact that they’re going through so much trouble in the name of a candy is something to laugh at. 

Still, there’s something unsettling about Ginger’s motives, especially when she brings up how there’s always a double-cross at the end of a heist.  Even though she says that she won’t do that to K.O., it’s not entirely convincing, though K.O. is far too innocent and trusting to consider that.  From here, we get more enjoyable teamwork from K.O. and Ginger. They disarm to the Ponce’s alarm system, work in candy themed gags to take out the guards, and the attempted getaway makes for a fun climax. 

However, it takes a slight miscalculation on Ginger’s part to get that gets them caught.  After which, her shady move is revealed when she does double-cross K.O. after all.  She claims that he was the mastermind behind the heist when he really wanted nothing to do with it.  This leads into a very confusing ending when K.O. reveals to have double-crossed.  He switched the candies, and he and Ginger somehow were disguised as each other the whole time.  The disguises are especially confusing since there were never any earlier scenes to suggest such a thing or an exclamation of how they figure this out.  Then there’s the fact that other members of the Fitness Dojo were in on the heist. This is disturbing that all these moral people, even K.O.’s moralistic mommy, were in on this crime.  There is some endearment to this reveal that K.O. arranged all this to help Ginger, but it’s hard to shake off that no one considers that this move is going too far.  The payoff isn’t even worth it all that much since all the Ponce does is make Ginger’s hair red. 

While a couple moments are very off-putting and at times confusing, the cartoon is still a harmless one about the relatable desire of reliving one’s youth.

C-

The Ranking

1. Face Your Fears
2. You Have to Care
3. Legends of Mr. Gar
4. We’ve Got Pests
5. I Am Dendy
6. You Get Me
7. Let’s Be Heroes
8. You’re Everybody’s Sidekick
9. Jethro’s All Yours
10. Know Your Mom
11. Everybody Likes Rad?
12. Plaza Prom
13. We’re Captured
14. My Dad Can Beat up Your Dad
15. Let’s Be Friends
16. We Messed Up
17. Presenting Joe Cuppa
18. Sibling Rivalry
19. Second First Date
20. Just Be a Pebble
21. Do You Have Any More in the Back?
22. You’re Level 100
23. You Are Rad
24. One Last Score

The next OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes episode introduces us to K.O.'s alter ego built on negative emotions and turbo power, T.K.O.

Next time on MC Toon Reviews is the Star vs the Forces of Evil episode featuring "Baby" and "Running with Scissors."

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 12: DuckTales Vol. 2 Part 18: Raiders of the Lost Harp

Raiders of the Lost Harp

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A lot of entertaining and creative things happen in this episode, and they’re all made engaging by the characters we follow.  The treasure Scrooge is after this time around are the artifacts of the lost city of Troy which he plans to put in his museum.  There turns out to be a lot of ancient artifacts in what appears to be a dark cavern that used to hold Troy, but as the title implies, the artifact that Scrooge sees the most value in is a magic harp that belonged to Helen of Troy held in a stone box that’s in the arms of a Minotaur statue.  The reason why the harp is so special to Scrooge occurs when he finds that it has the ability to detect when people fib in an operatic voice that’s set up to be grating but turns out to be hilarious and gets even more so the more it does its thing.  Scrooge being who he is uses the harp’s trait to his advantage from small things like finding out if the boys cleaned their room and are doing well in school, to big things like striking deals, and with the established humorous effects of the lie-detecting harp it, the episode is always entertaining.  It’s not just Scrooge and the harp that make the episode such a joy though.  We also factor in the antagonist of the episode, Magica de Spell in her first appearance in a long time (which is even longer if you follow the DVD arrangement of the series).  She continues to delight in her scenes through her eccentricity and magic powers as she plots to one-up Scrooge and steal the harp knowing how powerful it made Helen of Troy.  She’s just a full show of character which makes her a great addition to the cast.  Even when she’s completely oblivious to the reason for the harp’s power, making it easy for Scrooge to detect her when the harp points out her lies, Magica is still able to put up a good fight to get what she wants.  One particular instance of this is when Scrooge locks the harp in his desk and Magica turns into a wrestler to try and beat it out.  These two highly entertaining characters on the opposite ends of the morality scale have a great sense of banter with each other and that’s all it takes to make for a great fight sequence that sends Scrooge sliding through Duckburg on his desk into a bunch of road hazards with big comedic effect.  However, even with Scrooge having a major benefit with the harp and others growing to live with it, Scrooge still comes through with doing the mature thing.  Throughout the episode, we’ve seen bits of the Minotaur statue from Troy coming to life as a result of Scrooge taking the harp it was holding.  We witness how huge of a threat it is when the forces are unable to stop it, and all of Duckburg has to evacuate leading to a vacant museum opening for Scrooge.  Finally, when the Minotaur reaches the museum and Scrooge has to resort to bubble gum of all things to temporarily stop it, he eventually figures out what it really wants, and he willingly sacrifices his handy harp for the protection of the innocent.  We’re left with Scrooge as not just an entertaining character who’s amusingly great with benefits, but also one who’s smart enough with decisions, making this episode a great example of a great character he is.  His performance along with many others and the humor from the harp and the ways the story grows in engagement make this another noteworthy episode for this show and highlight of this DVD set. 10/10

The Ranking:

1.      The Treasure of the Golden Suns Part 5: Too Much of a Gold Thing

2.      Catch as Cash Can Part 2: A Whale of a Bad Time

3.      Catch as Cash Can Part 1: A Drain on the Economy

4.      Back to the Klondike

5.      Raiders of the Lost Harp

6.      The Treasure of the Golden Suns Part 2: Wronguay in Ronguay

7.      The Treasure of the Golden Suns Part 4: Cold Duck

8.      Time Teasers

9.      The Treasure of the Golden Suns Part 1: Don’t Give up the Ship

10.  Catch as Cash Can Part 4: Working for Scales

11.  Ducks of the West

12.  The Treasure of the Golden Suns Part 3: Three Ducks of the Condor

13.  Merit-Time Adventure

14.  Back Out in the Outback

15.  Catch as Cash Can Part 3: Aqua Ducks

16.  Scrooge’s Pet

17.  Horse Scents

18.  The Golden Fleecing

 

Be sure to stay tuned for the review of the next episode where Launchpad's lack of intelligence shows off its strengths and weaknesses in "The Right Duck."

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