Let's Watch This - An Episode of "Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness"

Who would've thought that a movie called "Kung Fu Panda" would've wound up as one of the most beloved animated films of all time? When it came out in 2008, it was a huge hit. And when a DreamWorks animated movie is a huge hit, there's a very good chance that it'll become a franchise. Case in point, Kung Fu Panda got two sequels and, in 2011, a TV show.

Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness premiered on Nickelodeon in 2011. It was developed by Animaniacs writer Peter Hastings and ran for three seasons. Is the show any good? Well, in the past I've watched a couple episodes but wasn't impressed by what I saw. Today, we'll be watching an episode that WASN'T one of those episodes I watched. Who knows, maybe those other episodes were just the show's weaker ones...

Before we get to the episode, however, I need to talk about the animation. I understand that a TV show isn't going to have as high a budget as a movie, so it's understandable if the animation isn't as good. But the characters really do not translate well into this new, lower budget CGI style. What happened to their fur? It looks like they're all made out of clay. You couldn't at least afford the technology to give the characters fur? All Hail King Julien - which I'm guessing didn't have that high of a budget either what with it being produced for Netflix - could afford it, but a show produced for TV couldn't? Honestly, if they couldn't afford higher-quality CGI, I think they would've been better off just making the show hand-drawn or Flash (like Turbo: F.A.S.T. or that Home show did).

Today, we'll be watching the episode "Sticky Situation".

"Sticky Situation" begins with Mantis (Max Koch) being bummed out that his girlfriend dumped him. "She was the most beautiful butterfly you'd ever saw," he moans, "And then one day, poof! She becomes a butterfly and it's like I don't even know her."

Po (Mick Wingert) is all "I bet I can cook something to cheer you up!" and whips up some of his "famous sticky dumplings".

It looks like his eyeballs are struggling to stay in his head...

He feeds a dumpling to Mantis, who just winds up getting his face stuck to it. Po tries to help him get unstuck, resulting in WACKY SHENANIGANS!

Then Shifu (Fred Tatasciore) comes in. You know how I said the characters don't translate very well into the lower budget CGI style? Well, take a look at Shifu:

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUGH!

He barely even looks like the character from the movie! This is how Shifu looks in the movies:

Now, let's compare that to how Shifu looks in the show...

Just... UGH.

Anyway, Shifu says "Eating time is over. Now we train!" But first, Po eats a few dumplings off the floor. Which is disgusting. And the joke just goes on and on, too. It's like "Okay, we get it. He's so hungry that he's eating dumplings on the floor. Can we get to the next scene already?"

So the Furious Five do their training and Po just sits there eating dumplings (thankfully out of a bowl this time). Shifu is so enraged by this that he tells Po to clean the entire training hall. By sunset. Po is all "But I don't wanna!" and Shifu's all "Sucks to be you, then. Now get busy!"

Let me guess, that training hall's not gonna get cleaned. Po's gonna be derailed into a lazy idiot. More WACKY SHENANIGANS are gonna ensue.

Before he gets cleaning, Po decides to do some training of his own. He winds up getting stuck to one of those... spiked things hanging from the ceiling, whatever they're called, because of the sticky sauce from the dumplings. Long story short, hijinks ensue and Po winds up destroying the entire training hall. He attempts to fix it, but fails and then spots a dumpling. "I hope you're happy, sticky dumpling! This is all YOUR fault!" he tells it. Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't Po much less of an idiot in the movies?

Po is having none of your crap, dumpling!

Then Po sees a picture of Shifu and a warthog named "Taotie" or something. "I'll get HIM to fix the hall!" he says. So he goes over to Taotie's place and we get another Overly Long Gag consisting of him getting the crap beaten out of him by booby traps. Nyuck nyuck nyuck.

Finally, we get to meet this Taotie guy (Wallace Shawn) and his son (Simon "Howard Wolowitz" Helberg). "What is the meaning of this?!" he demands.

"They call me... MR. PIIIIIIIIIIIIIIG!"

Taotie whacks Po with a stick a couple times, then threatens to slice him to pieces with these blades that come out of the stick (yeah, I don't know either). Po tells him that Shifu needs his help, and that the training hall they build has been destroyed. "What?! That equipment was built to last for centuries!" Taotie complains. "How could it be broken?! Why, this is INCONCEIVABLE!"

Yeah, yeah, I know, it's an obvious joke, but come on, he's voiced by Wallace Shawn. I HAD to do it.

So... is he a warthog, a boar, or just a pig with tusks? Not sure
which one he's supposed to be...

So Po's all "Shifu needs your help and can you fix it before anyone finds out?" and Taotie's son is all "Everything is lame!" Taotie agrees to help, and then tricks Po into getting knocked out (again). "This is too perfect, my son!" he tells his son. "Escorted into the Jade Palace by the Dragon Warrior, right under that moron Shifu's pointy nose?! Ha ha ha!" "I thought you said Shifu was your friend," his son says. Taotie explains that many years ago, he and Shifu were buddies working together at the Jade Palace. But he wasn't as good as Shifu, and they thought better training would help him so they built the training hall. It helped Shifu improved, but Taotie still sucked. To compensate for his sucking at kung fu, Taotie started inventing things. But his inventions horrified Shifu and Oogway - his machines had "sullied the purity of kung fu". "Well, I have news for YOU," he snarls, "Kung fu is outdated and useless! With machinery comes POWER!"

A lot of episodes of this show feature a flashback sequence
in 2D animation. That's a nice touch.

Taotie's plan is that after he defeats Shifu with his machinery, the villagers will see "what true power is" and worship Taotie like a god. Be careful, Taotie... as we learned in another DreamWorks production, it's tough to be a god.

Say, didn't Wallace Shawn previously voice a pig in that Happily N'Ever After movie? Munk, I think his name was? New theory - Taotie IS Munk, and sometime after Happily N'Ever After 2 he went crazy, had a kid, and went to go live in China. Stranger things have happened.

Po sneaks Taotie into the palace in a crate, then Crane (Amir Talai) and Viper (Lucy Liu reprising her role from the films) show up. He claims that the crate is full of giant sponges that will help him clean the training hall and he's got to go so adios.

Taotie is horrified when he sees what happened to the training hall. He then tells Po that to fix it, he's going to need "special tools" - specifically, an orb of infinite power that's made of jade. Po says that, yes, they do indeed have that. It's called the Jade Orb of Infinite Power. Yeah, apparently they had an orb of infinite power hanging around the Jade Palace and nobody ever brought to bring it up in the first movie. Forget the Dragon Scroll, shouldn't Tai Lung have been trying to steal THAT?

Well, anyhow, Po says that the Jade Orb of Infinite Power is sacred and must only be used in emergencies. Taotie is all, "I don't give a rat's tail, give it to me!" So Po runs off to get it, and Taotie's son still doesn't care about his dad's plans to become a god.

"Dad, I don't wanna go into the family business of fighting angry birds..."

Po steals the orb (which looks like a bowling ball, by the way) and then Mantis shows up. He wants to drown his sorrows in a good workout, despite the fact that Crane said earlier the training hall was closed until Po finished cleaning it. Po suggests that instead, Mantis talk about his troubles, which Mantis promptly does. We get a few seconds of Mantis moaning about his girlfriend, and then - OH, NO! - Po sees Tigress (Kari Wahlgren) walking towards the training hall. Did Shifu seriously only tell Crane and Viper that the hall was closed?

Po pounces on Tigress, then proceeds to provoke her into chasing him away from the training hall via acting like an annoying tool.

"This tiger-skin rug is ten-percent off?! I'm buyin' it!"

But then Po sees SHIFU approaching the training hall. "I want to see how the training hall is coming along," he tells Po. "I want it to be a surprise!" Po claims. "I  don't like surprises," Shifu replies, then figures out that Po is hiding something from him. Then the Furious Five show up. They're all suspicious as well. Mantis asks if Po is dating his girlfriend, which I know is supposed to be funny but just makes me cringe at the thought of a panda dating a butterfly. Then again, that sort of thing isn't new for DreamWorks... I mean, they once did a film where a human woman starts dating a bee.

Then Taotie emerges from the Jade Palace in... this thing.

"You like it? Some guy named Dr. Robotnik just sold it to me for ten bucks!

Shifu's all "How did he get here?!" and Taotie says, "Po showed us in! He's such an idiot!" Uh oh, it would seem that Po has some explaining to do!

Oh hey, ANOTHER screencap that I can use as a meme.

Shifu is understandably enraged by Po's stupidity and then Taotie pummels Po with a giant hammer. Shifu considers that enough karma for Po. So now it's time to make bacon outta Taotie, however, Shifu will not let Po help with the battle. "I gave you a broom and THIS HAPPENED! You think I'm going to let you fight?!" he says. Tigress, Crane, Mantis and Monkey all tell Po to bug off and Po runs off all sad. So how long until they get their rear ends handed to them by Taotie and Po comes in to save them all?

Spoiler alert: that's exactly what happens. Taotie clobbers Shifu and the Furious Five (some kung fu masters you guys are!) and then Po comes in and destroys Taotie's machine with the power of sticky dumplings. The warthogs try to fly away with Taotie's... blade-stick thing, but the blades weren't oiled and they wind up falling to the ground.

Yes, this guy is a recurring villain.

Po apologizes to Shifu for his stupidity, and Shifu rewards him for saving the day by forcing him to clean everything up. Way to be ungrateful, Shifu. Also, isn't the training hall still destroyed? Just sayin'.

That night, Po and Mantis dine on sticky dumplings. It turns out that Mantis and his girlfriend got back together. Yaaay. And then the episode ends.

What's the Verdict?

Well, that was... not god-awful, but still bad. Po is turned into a massive idiot, the other characters are just there to slap their foreheads and chew him out for being a massive idiot, the jokes aren't funny, the villain is a bore (insert some sort of "ha ha, bore sounds like boar and the villain is a pig" joke here, I've got nothing), and did I mention how bad the animation is? The Penguins of Madagascar had crappy animation too, but at least that show had good writing. This? All it's got going for it is Mick Wingert's spot-on Jack Black impression and Wallace Shawn doing the voice of the bad guy. Aside from that, I don't think this show is worth your time, even if you're a fan of the movies. Maybe that Kung Fu Panda: Paws of Destiny thing on Amazon Prime is better...

P.S. Yes, I had to look up how to spell Taotie's name.