'Toon Reviews 19: OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes Season 1 Episode 4: We Messed Up

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We Messed Up

It’s interesting that this show gets K.O. closer to becoming a hero through every little thing he does in almost every cartoon, even when he’s just messing around at work with Rad and Enid.  This cartoon features this instance while also providing some interesting background on their boss, Mr. Gar, setting up an ongoing arc. 

The beginning is just a typical day at the bodega where the employees are assigned at random to test their powers in a simple drill of helping an old lady buy something and get to her car, the humor coming from Mr. Gar not even trying to act like an old lady.  Even as heroes in training, the main story reminds that these guys are still youths who are prone to messing around with potentially harmless rule-breaking as they proceed to sneak into Mr. Gar’s office while he’s away and attempt to not do anything to “disappoint” him.  In addition to cameras he uses to keep an eye on everything in the bodega, which is almost excessive since it’s so small, and photos of his heroic accomplishment, the employees discover that Mr. Gar also has a picture of K.O.’s mom, Carol when she was young and hot.  This is only the first part of the arc fueled by the legit sense of mystery of why Mr. Gar even has a picture of Carol in the first place. 

However, when Rad’s super-powered fingers accidentally destroy the picture, instead of finding the meaning of the photo, the focus is on the gang trying to hide what they did so Mr. Gar won’t be disappointed with Rad and Enid feebly distracting him from going into his office and K.O. getting Carol to pose for a new photo.  Honestly, their fantasies of their boss screaming at them to death don’t feel too far off considering his drill sergeant mannerisms, so their actions are understandable. 

In the process, K.O. takes initiative to find out about Carol’s past with Mr. Gar, helping the cartoon to stand out more than characters simply hiding the problem they caused from their authority normally would.  The past is illustrated by a single scene of an explosion at a donut shop while a sandwich is dropped in the rain while two figures run toward the crime scene.  It’s purposefully left vague and written off as “grown-up stuff” to K.O. leaving an even bigger mystery to the featured relationship, or as K.O. puts it, “just gives [him] further questions.” 

Apart from that though, the cartoon mostly stands as a simple gag fest from everyone’s attempts for Mr. Gar to not find out what happened to the picture of Carol from silly stunts Rad and Enid pull, Mr. Gar handling their petty problems, and K.O. ending up wearing Carol’s old jumpsuit when it doesn’t fit her anymore.  It’s funny, but also par for the course when it comes to plots like this.  However, when Mr. Gar does find out what his employees did, their fears turn out justified when he is just as mad and “disappointed” as they imagined.  It’s only an appearance of Carol with another copy of the original photo that eliminates the tenseness.  While some could argue that the resolution is anti-climactic, it does show how much Mr. Gar values Carol since it’s her appearance that calmed him down, and it helps that many more cartoons explore the relationship. 

This is ultimately a pretty basically structured cartoon, but the interesting ways it develops the characters' backgrounds and powers and its strong entertainment help it to stand as its own thing.

A-

The Ranking

1. Let’s Be Heroes
2. You’re Everybody’s Sidekick
3. Let’s Be Friends
4. We Messed Up

Be sure to stay tuned for the review of the next episode where K.O. wonders if at least one of the Boxmore robots really is just like him.

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 13: The Loud House Season 2 Episode 14: Out of the Picture/Room with a Feud

Out of the Picture

I always love it when a plot that doesn’t sound all that interesting turns out to be something great that you weren’t expecting.  That’s just what happens with this cartoon, and the final result isn’t just great, but also one of the most heartwarming through character bonds and developments.  At its core, this cartoon is just another Lincoln and Clyde misadventure this time featuring the boys trying to get themselves in yearbook group photos so that they won’t be forgotten.  At first glance, it doesn’t really sound that interesting since it’s hard to think of what noteworthy things can be done with this setup, not to mention they both have family and friends who will always remember them.  Admittedly, in execution, this part of the cartoon turns out to be the least interesting and a little stupid since Lincoln and Clyde’s attempts to put themselves in group photos are filled with obvious drawbacks that are easy to see coming.  When they first sneak into the photos in disguise, you can easily see that their attempt will fail because they obviously don’t have the right grasp on the groups they're sneaking into, except for the morticians club whose failure is beyond their control.  Stupidity also abounds when they get jobs on the yearbook staff and Photoshop themselves in all groups, even ones that don’t make sense to have members, which could clearly get students and staff to notice something’s not quite right.  The cartoon may have the boys look very dumb which isn’t the best impression of them to leave on the audience, but that’s where the true greatness of the cartoon comes in.  There’s also a subplot of Lola getting extremely angered by the yearbook’s mediator, Coach Pacowski, taking a bad yearbook photo of her, putting her pageant reputation at great risk.  You’d think it would be hard to sympathize with someone vain, bratty, and overactive like Lola, but through exaggerations of her anger spurts, she’s honestly pretty hilarious, and worth following as she tries to switch out her photo.  This leads to entertaining interactions with the sisters who have different ideas of photographing her, ending with Lily, of all Louds, taking the best one.  Also when she finds out that Lincoln and Clyde are on the yearbook staff, there’s a lot of genuine sweetness from her as she entrusts them to switch out her bad yearbook photo with the improved one.  Of course, the boys intend to add in the group photos with them included, but as Lincoln is doing so, he listens in on Clyde’s mock therapy session for Coach Pacowski.  In an interesting move that develops the coach beyond a standard gym teacher, he reveals that he gets stressed due to being forced to move away from his hopes, dreams, and reason to live by his parents. This isn’t only relatable to most people who feel stress, but Lincoln also finds it relatable to Lola, which brings on one of his most noble deeds of deciding to forget adding the staged group photos (which really wouldn’t have worked anyway) and switching Lola’s picture instead.  In the end, the boys’ sacrifice for the good of one of Lincoln’s sisters is greatly rewarding for everyone.  Lola gets a good photo in the yearbook and has one of her nicest moments with her brother and his friend, Lincoln and Clyde end up as part of the staff photo, which they honestly joined, in the yearbook, and even Coach Pacowski gets to live out his true passion of Irish step-dancing for a while.  This cartoon would’ve been dumb and drab if it wasn’t for the funny, heartwarming, and insightful subplots.  As a result, we’re left with one strong cartoon most wouldn’t see coming. 9.5/10

Room with a Feud

Most fans of this show, including me, have made it perfectly clear that the cartoon, “Brawl in the Family” is a major failure of this show.  It rewards a protocol that creates major hardships for everyone that only Lincoln notices, makes Lincoln look like an idiot when he’s supposed to be a brotherly, man with the plan, and gets really unpleasant by throwing in needless insults that don’t relate to the main conflict.  I can’t say for sure if the crew behind this show intended for this to happen, but this cartoon, with a very similar subject of fights, greatly gets right what “Brawl in the Family” got wrong.  Lincoln’s sisters are constantly having roommate issues which gets out of hand, leading Lincoln to step in to help them. He gives them a compatibility test to have them find better roommates, and unlike in “Brawl in the Family,” the sisters are open to letting him try to solve their issues, as if they appreciate that he wants to help and get his talent of problem-solving.  As for the sisters’ fights, they never harshly affect the lifestyle of the house and the sisters' fighting stays on point, never getting worse through adding on extraneous, unrelated insults.  Plus, the fights are leveled out by several nice moments that make up the cartoon.  It’s well-known that the sisters have their own entertaining quirks which is what makes life in the Loud House fun to watch most of the time, so to see two sisters who normally wouldn’t be roommates together is great to see.  Lynn and Lana bond over playing dirty, Luna and Lisa enjoy being loud, Leni seems to find Luan’s jokes funny, Lola and Lucy nicely socialize over a tea party, and even Lori and Lily, the oldest and youngest Loud together, bond over their love of using the phone.  Unfortunately, while the new team-ups work well at first, the sisters still find something to fight about, though the fights greatly continue to stay on topic.  Also, even if Lincoln’s compatibility test failed, the reveal for the failure makes him look misguided due to following something from a comic he understandably wouldn’t know would be a good option for anyone not a fan of the comic in real life, as opposed to the careless idiot he was in “Brawl in the Family.”  Also, the sisters continue to try and settle the fighting roommate issue with Lisa’s more scientific measures directing everyone where to go, including Lincoln who ends up paired with Lily.  It turns out that even though he’s had a good relationship with Lily before, her baby habits don’t make her an ideal roommate.  However, everyone else gets along splendidly as shown through even more nice interactions between different sisters.  In fact, the new pairings are so nice to watch, from ones with shared interests like Luna and Lana, Lori and Lola, and Luan and Lucy to unexpected good teams like Lynn and Leni, that Lincoln can’t bring himself to protest this and willingly puts up with his problematic roommate.  This is made even better by what happens next. Like in the previous cartoon, Lincoln’s generous actions are appropriately rewarded with him being moved back to his own room.  The sisters even decide to go back to their old rooms too, even if they don’t have to, saying that they can all get along if they change their attitudes.  Not only does this continue to completely trump the last fight-centered cartoon’s idea of settling conflicts, but it nicely wraps up everyone’s hardships with a great display of family love this show can’t live without.  Everything here amounts to a great little cartoon with pleasing character interactions, proof that the siblings do care for each other, and best of all, presenting the sibling fights in a respectable and considerate manner. 10/10

The Ranking

1. 11 Louds a Leapin’
2. L is for Love
3. Pulp Friction
4. Frog Wild
5. Party Down
6. Room with a Feud
7. Lock n Loud
8. Fed Up
9. Out of the Picture
10. Potty Mouth
11. The Loudest Mission: Relative Chaos
12. Baby Steps
13. Shell Shock
14. Suite and Sour
15. Back in Black
16. Patching Things Up
17. The Whole Picture
18. The Old and the Restless
19. Kick the Bucket List
20. Intern for the Worse
21. Cheater by the Dozen
22. Pets Peeved
23. Making the Grade
24. Vantastic Voyage
25. No Such Luck
26. Brawl in the Family

Be sure to stay tuned for the review of the next episode where it really shows that Lincoln has great friends as well as a great family as Clyde and the others get him "Back Out There," and Lucy has some fun with an ancient book of spells in "Spell it Out."

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 Loud House reviews on this blog, click here for the guide made especially for them.