A strong sign that a show has a lot of effort to it is how its
seemingly small scenes have bigger meaning later.The last episode featured David show fondness
of a small interesting looking rock, and its last scene revealed it to move
around.It was staged as a cute sight
gag to show David getting easily distracted.With this episode, there’s much more weight to that little scene as
shown at the start with a troll frantically looking for something in the area
where David found that rock.Tensions
grow when that troll gets into Trolberg.
Then there’s the main plot as Hilda attends parent-teacher night at her
new school.While she and her mother think
she’s adjusted well to school, there’s an all-too believable counterargument to
that belief.Although Hilda hasn’t
noticed this, she’s been disruptive in class asking off-topic questions,
pointing out flaws in teachings, and giving rambles about subjects even after
class.According to her friends, the
teacher, Ms. Hallgrim, is seriously considering transferring her to a special
needs class due to this.Such a drastic
move makes Hilda seem challenged, when in reality, her behavior should be
expected from her upbringing.With Ms.
Hallgrim being overly strict and closed-minded, what Hilda’s faced with feels
right at home with any kid with a disability like autism regarding school.There’s nothing really wrong with their
approach; they just do things differently.That said, Ms. Hallgrim immediately blaming Hilda for problems during parent-teacher
night is pretty harsh.
Speaking of
problems, Hilda’s unique approach makes itself known when she notices something
off about one of the rocks in David’s rock collection.In addition to looking peculiar, it’s also
grown somewhat since David found it and has come alive.Hilda’s knowledge of such creatures leads her
to see that the rock is actually a baby troll who stays dormant in daylight and
grows in the dark.However, only she,
David, Frida, and Alfur are aware of it and try to keep it secret from
everyone.I understand it’s to not make
Hilda look bad in front of Ms. Hallgrim, but there’s so much awkwardness that
doesn’t help Hilda anyway.She
especially doesn’t help herself as she chases the troll through the classroom
and the hallways making everyone really think she’s crazy.It’s clear they probably would have been better
off telling the truth of what’s going on.At least in the gang’s pursuit of the troll, there’s nice compatibility
from everyone and occasional nice sight gags.
Eventually, Hilda is caught, and she and her mother are called in for a
private talk with Ms. Hallgrim.In a
pleasing turn of events, instead of immediately buying into the teacher’s
claims, Johana vouches in favor of her daughter.Not only does this show she greatly
understands Hilda and how she benefits from her new friends, but it’s a nice
implication that even those in the spectrum deserve a chance.Hilda also shows the benefits of her
mannerisms when the baby troll is discovered and the larger troll from earlier
breaks into the school.She realizes the
large troll was just looking for her baby, she returns him, and they leave the
school in peace.The greatest thing
about this is that after all her strictness, Ms. Hallgrim does see merit in
Hilda from this event, and they both seem to be on good terms in the end.It would have been nice if other episodes after this one
showed more of Hilda’s school life to prove this though.
In spite of some potentially discomforting
plot points, this episode is a great one making the most of little moments and
strong character bonds.
A-
The Ranking
The Bird
Parade
The
Midnight Giant
The Hidden
People
The Troll
Rock
The Sparrow
Scouts
The next Hilda review is an interesting one of how people can get nightmares of the most unlikely things.
Next time on MC Toon Reviews there's noting to fear from a review of "Nothing to Fear" from DuckTales.
If you would like to check out other Hilda reviews on this blog, click here for the guide made especially for them.
This is technically another episode of Star getting in trouble through
recklessness which often vary in quality. However, it has a noticeable distinction
of starting while she’s understandably bummed about her recent huge losses.
While dropping in on Janna’s detention to
pick up trash with a stabby stick, Star rambles on about her problems and doesn’t pay
attention to what she’s picking up.One
of those things is a statue of a popular possum in Echo Creek named Otis.This situation of causing a problem through
not paying attention is a common thing to happen in life, even to people who
are good. In Star's case, it's nice that she has some regret for her careless action
which is an appropriate change of pace from avoiding problems as usual.
However, while Star understands that she
messed up, the episode becomes devoted to the entire school never letting up on
what happened to the statue.It’s
only within the first few minutes of students crying over the statue’s demise
when it feels like everyone is going too far with their grief.Yes, it’s appropriate to feel sad over the
loss of something, but at the same time, they’re mourning an inanimate statue
which is honestly ridiculous.
The thing that pulls the plot through and makes it work though is Star
taking initiative to do something about it, including making a new one to
replace what she broke.Unfortunately,
the students are far too dense to move on, accept change, and get
that Star was only trying to help them feel better.They complain about the statue’s lack of
similarities to the old one even though the differences should be obvious since
this is clearly a replacement statue. This just makes what’s going on even more ridiculous
than it already is.
To be fair, the
episode does attempt to give legit reasons for why everyone is saddened by the
statue’s destruction, and they’re brought about in an interesting way.It’s told through a story illustrated with
still old-world style photographs and narrated by Marco doing a pioneer
accent.It’s about how pioneers of the Bonner party traveling to the new world. They ultimately
decided to settle in the land of Echo Creek instead when they didn’t have
enough resources to get by.However,
they had to fight a herd of possums before they could fully settle down.
At first, the story makes it seem
like the settlers actually hated the possums meaning that the grief everyone
has for the statue is completely unwarranted.Then the story ends by pointing out that even if
it’s of an enemy animal to Echo Creek, the statue still commemorates the only
time the town won anything and give it some identity.It may not be a huge reason to hold the Otis
statue in a high regard, but it does make everyone’s reactions more
understandable.Also, Star’s ultimate
solution to the problem does justice for her character.It's all because she truly gets that losing the Otis statue
caused the school to lose their sense of self. She gives an inspiring
speech to encourage the students to play to their strengths and forge their own
identity, and maybe even be better than a possum.The fact that the speech works along with
another version of that old-world style Marco narration, this ending is very impactful for Star's sake.
While you do have to sit through a lot of
ridiculousness to get there, what it leads to makes it all worth it.
A-
Just
Friends
The
friendship between Star and Marco has always been one of the biggest strengths
of this show. This is what makes this season’s plot point of Star developing a
crush on him work.We’ve gotten a few
hints of this, especially in “Bon Bon the Birthday Clown”, and while could make
Star possessive, she never feels that way.She understands that Marco is with someone else.However, like most people, her true feelings
are unable to be restrained for long, but as this episode shows, she puts in a
good effort to respect her friend’s love life.
As a matter of fact, Star further attempts to stick to this fact by
getting tickets for Marco’s official girlfriend Jackie Lynn Thomas to have her
join them for a concert of their favorite band.She strives to make the concert
experience great for the three of them so to get used to the new dynamic, making her thoughtful.
In the process, the group’s time together
helps develop Jackie’s character.Her
portrayal is a far cry from just being a standard love interest with very few
lines in Season 1.She's laid-back
and open for fun, having a similar idea for concert
accessories to Star’s, and finding pleasures in things that get in the way of
making it to the concert.It’s these traits that have Jackie get along
so well with Star, but she’s considerate of Marco too. She's never hard on him for
any mishaps he causes and quick to let him know that she wants him around.Little moments like these have enough
endearment to this group dynamic.
It’s
put to the test when the three guys finally get to the concert featuring a
performance of the title song, “Just Friends.”It’s a moving rock ballad that can speak out to anyone, especially the
youth.We all have people we’re
particularly fond of in certain stages of life, but it’s a common occurrence
that the person you crush on has someone else who means a lot more to
him/her.Through great synchronization
in singing and the soothing nature of the tune, the song is a nice way to get
the message across.
It stands out even
more with how it speaks to Star, and not just with how she and her concert
companions lip sync to the song.From
early on in the series, she’s been supportive of Marco getting together with
Jackie, and it shows that she knows that accepting this is the right
thing to do. However, given how she herself now feels about Marco, seeing him
get intimate with Jackie makes that hard to do.That’s not even counting shots of other
couples, including some to further represent the LGBTcommunity, kissing as the
song plays. That's enough to make Star feel more left out since now she can only be “just
friends” with practically everyone present.The last scene of Star leaving the true love couple
while taking out her jealousy by blasting a sign is a perfect representation of
her interesting portrayal through. She does what’s right by letting her best
friend be with his girlfriend, but isn't exactly being happy about it.
As a result the episode ends up being just a
friendly watch with great character moments, an effective use
of music, and a mature approach to one of life’s hardest aspects.
A+
The Ranking
Bon Bon the
Birthday Clown
Ludo in the
Wild
Into the
Wand
Just
Friends
The Hard
Way
Hungry
Larry
Raid the
Cave
Running
with Scissors
Game of
Flags
Baby
On the Job
Sleepover
Is Mystery
Naysaya
Mr. Candle
Cares
Wand to
Wand
Page Turner
Starstruck
Girls’ Day
Out
By the Book
Friendenemies
Crystal
Clear
Collateral
Damage
Gift of the
Card
Starsitting
Star on
Wheels
Mathmagic
Camping
Trip
The Bounce
Lounge
My New Wand
Heinous
Red Belt
All Belts
are Off
Spider with
a Top Hat
Star vs
Echo Creek
Fetch
Goblin Dogs
Pizza Thing
Trickstar
The next Star vs the Forces of Evil has Star's life head towards a whole new direction because of a song.
Next time on MC Toon Reviews is one of the last episodes of Xiaolin Showdown Season 1, "Mala Mala Jong."
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.
We all got to get our education somehow, and most of us do
so by going to school.However, it can
be a chore should you end up with a less-than-ideal teacher or professor who
expects so much from you and make the learning experience harder and more grueling
than it already is.You wish you can
retaliate, but you know that you could get in serious trouble if you do.It’s only in the realm of cartoons where it’s
safe to watch what you’d like to say to an overly strict teacher which can be
pretty comforting, and this cartoon features just that with the cartooniest
characters in the cast, the Warners, as the students.
They’re assigned to Ms. Flamiel who’s so
strict that she not only gives Fs for the pettiest of missteps, but does so to
everyone, even those she’s not teaching.Also, when she finally is set up to teach the Warners, she makes the
classroom setting an overly-serious environment restricted of anything remotely
fun with rules of everything her students can’t do and a demanding tone to
everything she says.If you know
anything about the Warners though, they don’t adhere to strictness no matter
what, so when they’re pitted against an unfriendly teacher like Ms. Flamiel,
they don’t hold back with witty comebacks to everything she says.
When she tells them to repeat after her while
reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, they do so starting with the first thing she
says before the Pledge resulting in her growing frustration.Their answers to Ms. Flamiel’s questions are
sharp enough to work as jokes, but also make sense as logical responses like
when Dot is asked to talk about the scientists of the 1800s, she says they’re
all dead, or Wakko saying he’ll define “procrastinate” tomorrow while lounging
in his seat.Other clever jokes include
Yakko interpreting being assigned to “conjugate” as suggestive, and when the
kids are assigned a pop quiz, they utilize a double meaning for pop by tasting
sodas blindfolded and playing a pop number. Jokes like these not only further
sell the masterful hilarity of these characters, but also make possible the
many ways we wish we could fight back against some of our least favorite
teaching authorities.
What’s more,
they’re all capped off when Ms. Flamiel crosses the line and violates the
Warners personal space by writing Fs on their foreheads as she did before, or
on Wakko’s hat in his case.Wakko is
moved into an absolute frenzy of fury when his hat is vandalized and explodes
which apparently gets Ms. Flamiel locked in a crate at the cartoon’s end.This does make for a rare instance of cartoon
humor I can’t suspend disbelief towards because I find it hard to think of a
way Wakko exploding gets Ms. Flamiel in a crate, but that’s just me.We really do get a great collection of bull's-eye-hitting
gags with this cartoon.
It’s just too
bad that it isn’t very nice to look at most of the time being sent to the least
visually compelling animation studio working for the series, Freelance.Characters’ faces are often off-putting
especially at the eyes, there’s an overall blobby look to the motion, and
there’s overall not a lot of charm to the visualization.I know I mostly focus on story, characters,
and comedy in my reviews, but that’s because I feel they matter the most in
determining how good a cartoon is while the animation is hardly worth talking
about to me.However, since all those
things are so strong and the animation is kind of creepy here, the strengths would've stood out more if the cartoon was animated by one of the show’s more profound
studios.
If you can get past the
animation quality, you’re sure to enjoy the top-notch comedy, dynamic
characterizations, and the relatability of certain times in school. 9.5/10
Hurray for
Slappy
To me, Slappy Squirrel cartoons are at their best whenever
the old squirrel demonstrates the greatness of cartoon violence and shares
knowledge of cartoon nature to a younger generation.Since the focus of this cartoon isn’t really
on any of these things, this is one of the duller cartoons starring this
character.It’s still good as it is, but
it's not as interesting as the best cartoons starring this character.
Slappy is invited to a ceremony where she is to get the Lifetime
Achievement Award as a former toon great, while the enemies of her old cartoons
from back in the day plot to ruin the ceremony by clobbering her before she
gets her award.That there is one way
the cartoon stands out since it gives us a formal introduction to Walter Wolf,
Sid the Squid, and Beanie Bison, cartoon enemies we’ve only heard about or seen
in short clips of Slappy’s old cartoons prior to this.We even get a taste of their distinct
personalities at play like Walter as the disgruntled leader, Beanie as
cerebrally challenged guy who can never think straight, and Sid…who really
doesn’t stand out all that much apart from his fun design.These guys are who we mainly focus on
throughout the cartoon as they each try and fail to get the better of their
sworn enemy.
Fortunately, the
last attempted blow at Slappy where Walter gives her the award rigged as a
bomb, just before Slappy blows him and the others up again, there is a nice
moment where she praises her villains for helping to enhance her comedy, and
honestly, it makes perfect sense for her to do so.Any antagonist, regardless if they’re in a
comedy series like this, are the driving force of any conflict a protagonist is
up against, and the way the protagonist finds a way to beat them helps bring
out their admirable qualities.It’s also
a good payoff for Walter and company’s earlier laments about not being
appreciated.They may not ever win, but
it’s great that their true purpose is made clear.
Even with this interesting
perspective on villains and the great comedy in general, this is one of Slappy’s
weaker cartoons for focusing on some of the least interesting characters on the
show who are simply too dumb to do what they set out to do.It’s worth watching, but trust me when I say
there are better Slappy cartoons out there. 8/10
The Great
Wakkorotti: The Master and His Music
Closing the episode is one of the most bizarre yet most
hilarious things to come from the show.It
doesn’t tell a story at all nor does it amount to a song, but rather a
representation of an off-the-wall idea.
We open on a high-class setting of a sophisticated concert about to
begin, then the main performer of the concert appears, and that is Wakko all
dressed up for the event.The concert begins with the classical piece, “The Blue Danube Waltz”
playing on piano. That doesn’t sound too out of the norm for the setting, but
that’s when we see the catch to the whole setup which is to be expected from a
physical comedy-driven character like Wakko.
At certain given notes during the piece, Wakko lets out a big belch to
go along with them.That’s all there is
to it.It’s a low-class action set
against a high-class setting mixing the vulgar with the sophisticated.I would usually be put off by something like
this, but surprisingly, the burps and the classical music mesh together very
well and leave a lot of admirable qualities.The burps themselves are well performed and are in line with the note
they go with.Plus, each burp makes for
a hilarious drawing of Wakko to go along with it.They’re easily some of the best composed for
the character.You could just pause
during burps and find a lot of character in just a still drawing.
It’s also pretty amusing that while Wakko is
doing something against the nature of a classical music concert,
they still treat what he’s doing very seriously like when Dot appears mid-piece
to freshen Wakko up by feeding him a lot of soda so he’ll burp more, and at the
end of the piece while everyone applauds, Wakko formally bows while saying
“Excuse me!”In the end, everything that
goes into this segment results in a one-of-a-kind experience that takes
something rude yet funny and brings it into the fine art foray without making
it feel out of place.
They’d do this
thing a few more times throughout the series, but it would mostly be exactly
the same as the first showing, right down to the same animation on the phases
of the concert except for different music pieces and slightly different belching poses, so that does cost the segment
of specialness.At least those would
still be enjoyable in their own right, but we’ll get into them in
future review sets of the DVD volumes to this show.For now, I give a big goofy belch to the
first of these bizarre yet highly appealing Great Wakkorotti concerts.9.5/10
Cartoon Ranking
King Yakko
Hello Nice
Warners
Slappy Goes
Walnuts
H.M.S.
Yakko
Hooked on a
Ceiling
Temporary
Insanity
Bumbie’s
Mom
Les
Miseranimals
Space
Probed
West Side
Pigeons
Battle for
the Planet
When Rita
Met Runt
De-zanitized
Win Big
Taming of
the Screwy
Chalkboard
Bungle
La La Law
Piano Rag
Cookies for
Einstein
The Big
Candy Store
Garage Sale
of the Century
Wally Llama
Where
Rodents Dare
Hurray for
Slappy
Cat on a
Hot Steel Beam
Operation:
Lollipop
No Pain No
Painting
Goodfeathers:
The Beginning
La Behemoth
Song Ranking
Yakko’s
Universe
Yakko’s
World
The Monkey
Song
What Are
We?
Little Old
Slappy from Pasadena
Miscellaneous Ranking
The Great
Wakkorotti: The Master and His Music
Gilligan’s
Island Parody
Nighty-Night
Toon
Flipper
Parody
Be sure to stay tuned for the review of the next episode where the Warners annoy another historical figure into coming up with a big accomplishment, this one being Beethoven who's writing his 5th Symphony, and Rita and Runt find themselves in the home of an incredibly unsettling interpretation of famous violinmaker, Antonio Stradivarius.
