Spell-Bound (Animaniacs Vol 2 Part 13) - 'Toon Reviews 22

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Episode 38

Spell-bound

Many people know that Pinky and the Brain have their own spinoff.  Having seen that show before getting into Animaniacs, I agree that they work well as series headliners.  Their formula is winning enough to work in any scenario.  It appears that the Animaniacs crew felt the same way.  This episode is a full-length Pinky and the Brain segment seemingly testing if they really could work in a spinoff.  The final result is fun and entertaining with the mice and their winning chemistry, but it’s not their best performance. 

The setting is Camelot, centuries ago.  Pinky and the Brain are pets of Merlin who has a book of spells including one for world domination.  Right away, the setup defines itself with a comedic edge. The spells are just names of pop culture figures and Merlin uses them to make pies of all things.  Brain seizes opportunity and goes for the apparent Take Over the World spell.  Among all the humorously convenient ingredients, a red dragon’s toenail is missing so the mice have to face an actual red dragon to get one. 

The journey has a lot of laughs, though their appeal mostly lie in cameos from most of the core cast members.  More clever cameos are of obscure Warner Bros. characters outside this show like Witch Hazel and Hansel and Gretel from 1954 Looney Tunes short, “Bewitched Bunny.”  It’s at least fitting for the setting.  Even if the gags are mostly cameos, they work through Pinky and the Brain’s approach to them.  Sometimes there’s clever banter through the interactions.  Others build up Brain’s ego as some cameos are outwitted by his own shrinking spell, until one comically crushes him. 

Humor aside, the climax when the mice face the red dragon is a noteworthy highlight.  There’s a lot of silence as they try to lull the dragon to sleep as they clip his toenail.  When the dragon’s woken up, it’s nonstop action as he chases them through the way they came.  It’s epically staged and scored, and also funny that it’s over a toenail.  Back at the castle, the dragon flying around as Brain performs the spell spices things up by making the scene feel more intense. 

With all this said, you might be wondering why I don’t consider this one of Pinky and the Brain’s best works.  It’s because of how it perceives Pinky and the Brain’s personal dynamic.  They usually subvert expectations with Pinky having common sense despite being simple-minded, and Brain’s genius being their true undoing.  Here, it plays out just as you’d expect.  Throughout the segment, Brain does all the competent work while Pinky messes around, offering very little good.  He’s constantly playing his own version of “Greensleeves” and getting stuck for a rhyme, which gets old fast.  His fumbling is also why he and Brain need to get the toenail in the first place. 

The worst of it is during the actual scheme.  When Brain is about to say the spell, he specifically tells Pinky he needs absolute silence.  Despite always respecting his friend’s wishes, Pinky plays his song again anyway.  This distracts Brain as he finishes the rhyme, and instead of taking over the world, his head becomes a “Big Cheese.”  In other words, this is one of those times where the world domination truly fails because of Pinky’s unintelligence.  It’s disappointing considering how often these cartoons avoid the obvious cause for failure.  At least Brain as a Big Cheese is a memorably funny image and him smashing Pinky’s loot in the end feels appropriate. 

Even if their dynamic is not at their strongest here, Pinky and the Brain still work off each other and face their quest well enough to prove their worth as stars.

A-

Cartoon Ranking

1. Chairman of the Bored
2. Hot Bothered and Bedeviled
3. Bubba Bo Bob Brain
4. Baghdad Café
5. In the Garden of Mindy
6. Critical Condition
7. O Silly Mio
8. Phranken-Runt
9. The Three Muska-Warners
10. Clown and Out
11. Jockey For Position
12. Sir Yaksalot
13. Potty Emergency
14. General Boo-Regard
15. Puttin’ on the Blitz
16. Dough Dough Boys
17. The Big Kiss
18. Draculee Draculaa
19. Babblin’ Bijou
20. No Place Like Homeless
21. I Got Yer Can
22. Spell-bound
23. Astro-Buttons
24. Boot Camping
25. Moby or Not Moby
26. Noah’s Lark
27. Skullhead Boneyhands
28. The Good, the Boo, and the Ugly
29. Hiccup
30. Moon Over Minerva
31. Katie Ka-Boo
32. Mesozoic Mindy

Miscellaneous Ranking

1. Animaniacs Stew
2. Testimonials
3. Cartoons in Wakko’s Body
4. You Risk Your Life
5. The Great Wakkorotti: The Summer Concert

Song Ranking

1. The Planets

The next Animaniacs review puts Rita at a conflict when kittens claim her as their Mama, the Warners do Shakespeare again, and Wakko's gloves come alive.

Next time on MC Toon Reviews is the Steven Universe episode "Steven Floats."

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

'Toon Reviews 20: Star vs the Forces of Evil Season 2 Episode 13: Page Turner/Naysaya

If you like this review and want to stay updated for what else I have in store, become a follower of this blog, click here to like the official Facebook page, and click here to follow me on Twitter. Now on with today's review:

Page Turner

As Star’s trainer, Glossaryck often uses riddles or vague statements to teach her how work her wand.  Confusing as they are, there’s a certain charm to his teachings, and he mostly knows what he’s doing. This is the case in this episode when Star is interested in learning a forbidden spell, and Glossaryck is hesitant to let her do it.  He then becomes the episode’s main focus when he’s called to meet with a major group of Mewni known as the Magic High Commission. 

Learning about them takes a while when Glossaryck is told by Sean, the security guard, that magic isn’t allowed.  Glossaryck has to go to the top floor on foot while being tailed by Sean to make sure he sticks to the rule.  Although the moments of him getting up to the top floor aren’t exciting, it is interesting to see Glossaryck constantly get messed with by Sean.  He’s putting up with vague information, like what Star puts up with from him.  Sean sends him through a magic detector which detects lots of magical stuff on him and none on someone clearly carrying that stuff.  Then he messes with Glossaryck by acting like he forgot where he’s going.  Finally, he makes the elevator stop at every floor.  While this behavior takes away time to see the Magic High Commission, Glossaryck dealing with his own difficult person after being one himself makes these scenes bearable. 

Eventually, Glossaryck snaps and uses magic anyway to get to the top of the building, and there don't seem to be any negative consequences.  Then we finally meet the Magic High Commission, consisting of some creatively designed creatures. There's a goat man, a living scull inside a sphere, a princess with a flame over her head, and a crystal shooting creature with snakes for hands called Rhombulus.   The biggest factor to the Magic High Commission is that Queen Moon is in charge.  It’s big new information to expand on Moon’s role.  Even bigger is a mention of something setting an interesting plot point in motion. Someone is draining magic from the universe, the Magic High Commission is investigating it, and it means Star has to master her wand faster. 

During this time, while frustrated with what he had to put up with, Glossaryck reveals how Eclipsa was the only queen who let him teach his way.  He also says that Eclipsa is the writer of the spell that intrigued Star so much, making the promise of what’s to come even vaster.  As for Star’s interest in that spell, it connects to the final point where Glossaryck reveals that he teaches the way he does because it’s what’s right for Star.  This is an endearing way to show that for all the frustration he brings, deep down he gets his pupil.  On a side note, it’s nice to see Moon understand what Glossaryck is laying down agreeing she should be more trusting of her daughter training to become a queen. 

Although more time could’ve been spent on the big reveal, this is still a strong starring role for Glossaryck. There's development for how he works as a mentor, and uncovering interesting facts of Mewni’s inner workings.

A-

Naysaya

Starting in an early part of Season 1, much of Marco’s character has been defined by his crush on Jackie Lynn Thomas. As is the case with most crush plot threads in shows, he’s too nervous to confess his love.  Even after he admitted his crush earlier this season, he’s still very nervous around her.  In fact, it gets to the point where he's saying uncomfortable remarks to her. As the episode goes on, Marco saying such disturbing things while talking to Jackie seem to go beyond nervousness.  He starts writing such things too. 

All this awkward talk reaches its freaky point when Marco sprouts a little growth on his neck. This growth is the source of the inappropriate comments.  Just as the growth’s existence looks like a plot hole, the supernatural specialist of the cast, Janna, looks into it. She deduces that it’s called a naysaya, a demon curse that appears whenever someone’s trying to win over a lover and proceeds to reveal its victim’s darkest secrets.  It’s pretty commendable that the episode explains why the naysaya is here, and even adds to the background.  Marco interrogates the only demon he knows , Tom, who cursed him with it.  It was all in the name of making Marco not ask out Star.  The naysaya will also last last until it says all of Marco’s secrets. 

All this information makes Marco’s problem a creative highlight of the episode, and the subsequent scenes of Marco meeting its demands to keep it silent are funny.  You’d think a demon growth would want Marco to do something embarrassing or even evil against his will.  It turns out to want frivolous things like eating cereal.  As for whether or not the naysaya holds up its end of the bargain, it does seem loyal at first.  Marco and Jackie finally have a normal, civil conversation and become more like a couple worth supporting.  Then, in an ultimate jerk move, the naysaya goes back on its promise and keeps spilling dark secrets.  The only reason we have for this is that it doesn’t know what a promise is, and I suppose that makes sense. 

Marco comes clean about the cursed growth to Jackie. While many other kids are realistically weirded out, Jackie listens to Marco and understand where he’s coming from.  What’s more, Marco beats the naysaya to the punch by revealing all his darkest secrets on his own, leaving the naysaya with nothing more to say.  As for Jackie, she continues to be one of the most open-minded love interests.  She accepts Marco’s secrets, and even describes one of them as deep.  Marco gets a movie date set with her, and it actually feels nice to see the naysaya come along with them as a last request. 

At the end of the day, even if the secrets it revealed were embarrassing and annoying, the naysaya was still doing what’s part of its nature.  It was mostly an innocent being with reasonable requests, so it feels like it warrants a happy ending just as much as Marco does.  On the whole, this episode is a creative escapade with strong character moments to officially win Marco his dream crush.

A

The Ranking

1. Ludo in the Wild
2. Into the Wand
3. Hungry Larry
4. Game of Flags
5. On the Job
6. Sleepover
7. Is Mystery
8. Naysaya
9. Mr. Candle Cares
10. Wand to Wand
11. Page Turner
12. Starstruck
13. Girls’ Day Out
14. By the Book
15. Friendenemies
16. Gift of the Card
17. Starsitting
18. Star on Wheels
19. Camping Trip
20. My New Wand
21. Red Belt
22. Spider with a Top Hat
23. Star vs Echo Creek
24. Fetch
25. Goblin Dogs
26. Pizza Thing

The next Star vs the Forces of Evil review is on a double-length episode where Star finds it hard to accept the new Marco and Jackie pairing while awaiting Bon Bon the Birthday Clown.

Next time on MC Toon Reviews, you have to care that "You Have to Care" from OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes will be reviewed.

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.

'Toon Reviews 13: The Loud House Season 2 Episode 15: Back Out There/Spell it Out

Back Out There

This cartoon combines two of the weaker types of cartoons for this series which are the misunderstanding plot and the Lincoln and Clyde misadventure, though to be fair, the latter type has an interesting addition of Lincoln’s other friends, Rusty, Liam, and Zach.  At the very least with this one, we get a strong sense of characterization, and the way it’s executed makes the experience thoroughly entertaining.  What Lincoln’s friends get up to is that they worry about him on account that he hasn’t hung out with them in a while.  They find that he’s been spending a lot of his time at Ronnie Anne’s old house long after she moved away. Coming to the conclusion that he has post break-up blues over her (even though Lincoln has a different love interest and “Relative Chaos” has several moments where he and Ronnie Anne agree they’re not a couple), they set out to try and “cure” him.  This is where the whole plot becomes problematic and a little unengaging.  As is common with misunderstanding plots, everything that happens is based on wild assumptions, and no one thinks to directly ask said person what really goes on.  Actually, the other friends do suggest respecting Lincoln’s privacy or talking with him about the issue, the smart option, but Clyde flat out insists on spying on Lincoln and going along with the assumption.  These guys following their belief instead of taking a chance and finding out the truth just makes them look dumb and not that well suited for being leads.  However, they seem just fine as leads anyway for how great these guys value Lincoln as a friend.  They treat Lincoln to a legitimately fun and thoughtful boy’s day out filled with things they love to do like trips to the arcade, rock-climbing, go-carting, and going to the pier all in stylish white suits.  Even when they follow an assumption for all they know could be completely wrong, their subsequent attempts to get Lincoln a new girlfriend are thoughtful given their mindset.  They even make for a few humorous encounters between Lincoln and some of the girls, even though a few encounters don’t work as well.  There’s also fun personality quirks from all of Lincoln’s friends working off of each other.  We have Clyde as the overconfident brains, Rusty is both boastful as a ladies man but also hilariously nervous about something happening to the white suits, Liam adds in a unique country feel with his mannerisms, and Zach…honestly doesn’t add that much apart from going with the plan.  Going back to the misunderstanding plot guidelines, you can easily predict that the guys find out the real reason why Lincoln was constantly at Ronnie Anne’s old house, which was to look out for a package that was sent there. While they look like total fools, it’s great that Lincoln understands their motivation, though it is disappointing that we never see how they stopped a bus they sent Lincoln on.  Also, as the cartoon ends, we see that the guys’ actions weren’t completely pointless when Lincoln feels like he does miss Ronnie Anne a bit after all, opening up possibilities for how he’ll truly cope with her not being around in the future.  While this cartoon is fueled on a dumb plot thread that lessens the engagement factor, the fact that Clyde and the gang still come off as likeable and devoted friends as well as some noticeable effect of their efforts help what we see to come out good.  9/10

Spell it Out

When a cartoon character has their own unique way of going about life, chances are that character is one of my favorites, and Lucy probably has the most unique way of life out of all the Loud siblings.  Her fascination with darkness shapes practically everything she does, like how she dresses in black, always has her hair cover her eyes, hangs out in a coffin, goes for night walks with her pet bat, has a dark monotone voice, and her tendency to scare people.  These are all examples of how Lucy stands out as a character, but like “Back in Black,” she’s made even better for how endearing she is through her unusual ways.  The opening to this cartoon consists of several ways Lucy’s siblings seemingly ignoring her.  They turn down her disdain towards certain decisions, never listen to her when she says something, and overall don’t notice she’s not around.  It’s quite impressive that someone as dark as Lucy can be so sympathetic through it all.  It genuinely feels like everyone keeps ignoring her existence and never acknowledges that she has feelings too.  Well, since Lucy has a habit of scaring people, it makes a little sense why this keeps happening.  Fortunately, Lucy comes up with a plan to get back at her siblings.  In previous cartoons, she’s mentioned a distant relative named Great-Grandma Harriet, who’s revealed to look just like her via an old photo.  Her role is in the form of the reveal of an old trunk Lucy finds in the attic which contains an old book of spells.  You can imagine all the fun Lucy has with this book as she uses it to work all kinds of spells on her siblings like killing Lori’s phone, making Lana’s butt itch, and making Lisa’s entire body sticky.  While you wouldn’t expect these spells to work given the down-to-Earth nature of this show, they’re executed to be perfectly convincing and lead to funny reactions from the siblings which also feels cathartic after what they put Lucy through.  However, it’s also fascinating how they work around the supposed spells.  Since they continue to walk all over Lucy and she’s still highly sympathetic, we’re lead into the most drastic and convincing spell of all.  Lucy takes extreme measures to cast a spell that makes all her siblings unable to speak, and the following montage of everything going Lucy’s way while the other Loud kids are forced to go along with her requests while they’re mute is extremely satisfying with Lucy being happy while everyone else endures what she did.  However, time is also taken to get Lucy to regret becoming to her siblings what they were to her, and how she feels is easy to buy as is the nobleness of her decision to undo the spell through potentially making herself mute.  Then, in an entertainingly staged scene where Lucy’s monotone voice is all that’s heard as the other siblings pantomime their words, we get creative reasons for what really caused the spells. The biggest reveal is for everyone else’s inability to speak coming from losing their voices by cheering for Pop-Pop at a shuffleboard match.  It’s all nicely capped off by everyone realizing their fault in the matter and they all give a genuine apology, showing that even with their less than pleasing qualities, all the siblings truly do have a heart.  Through effective comedy, creativity from the spells and the reveal of how they seemed real, and Lucy’s genuinely crafted sympathy, like her and the siblings coming together, this cartoon is a pretty magical result. 9.5/10

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. Spell it Out
13. Baby Steps
14. Shell Shock
15. Suite and Sour
16. Back in Black
17. Patching Things Up
18. The Whole Picture
19. Back Out There
20. The Old and the Restless
21. Kick the Bucket List
22. Intern for the Worse
23. Cheater by the Dozen
24. Pets Peeved
25. Making the Grade
26. Vantastic Voyage
27. No Such Luck
28. Brawl in the Family

Be sure to stay tuned for the review of the next episode which is our April Fool's Day kick for Season 2, "Fool's Paradise," and the Loud kids once again show consideration of the world around them as they try to get a good new job for Dad in "Job Insecurity."

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.