Let's Watch This - An Episode of "My Gym Partner's a Monkey"

As I've said before, Cartoon Network was in a strange place during the 2000s. Classic cartoons - the reason why the channel was made in the first place - could only be found on Boomerang, and shows like The Powerpuff Girls and Johnny Bravo had come to an end, to be replaced by a mixed bag of children's programming. Remember Squirrel Boy? That show is from this era. Tickle U? Also from this era. And who can forget their attempt at launching into LIVE ACTION PROGRAMMING?

"Dude, what would happen... if Cartoon Network started airing live action programming?"
"Dude, that's a stupid idea. It's the CARTOON NETWORK. It's supposed to air CARTOONS."
"Dude, I don't care! There's money to be made here! Maybe. I don't know."

This eventually came to an end in 2010 with the premiere of Adventure Time, launching the channel into a new era of quality entertainment... that came to an end just a few years later. After 2013, Cartoon Network entered another "Dork Age". For example, they became obsessed with airing this show...

I admittedly think the hatred for this show is overblown, but yeah, it's pretty bad.

And then they unleashed THIS abomination onto the world...

This show is the reason I spent much of 2015 and 2016 hating Tom Kenny.
Yes, this show actually made me hate Tom Kenny for a while. I am not kidding.

And the shows they were airing that people actually LIKED - Adventure Time, Steven Universe, etc. - barely got any airtime. Boomerang wasn't doing so hot either, it started airing cartoons that were still airing on Cartoon Network (despite the fact that the whole point of Boomerang was for it to air shows that Cartoon Network wasn't airing anymore) and barely even aired much in the way of old cartoons. Remember when Boomerang aired Wally Gator cartoons? Yeah, me too.

But anyhow, back to the 2000s. 2006 (the same year that Squirrel Boy was unleashed onto the world) saw the premiere of a show called My Gym Partner's a Monkey.

I hate having to quote the Nostalgia Critic, but I have to say this: MONKEYS AREN'T FUNNY. Characters like, say, Mason and Phil from the Madagascar movies aren't funny simply because they're primates. And yet, since... I don't know, the 1960s... people have automatically assumed that "Primates = Instant Laughs". I'm guessing that's how this show got made (or at the very least why it's called My Gym Partner's a Monkey as opposed to My Gym Partner's a Wombat or My Gym Partner's a Coati or something like that).

The show's plot is this - Adam Lyon (voiced by Nika Futterman) once went to a perfectly normal middle school with human students, but then one day a spelling error results in people thinking that his surname is "Lion" and he gets sent to a school for animals. He befriends a gorilla named Windsor (Rick Gomez), a python named Slips (also Rick Gomez), a toucan named Lupe (Grey Griffin), a giraffe named Ingrid (also Grey Griffin), and a spidermonkey named Jake (voiced by Tom Kenny, because if it was made by Cartoon Network in the 2000s, there's a very good chance that Tom Kenny's in it. He even lent his voice to bumpers for that Tickle U thing). Episode plotlines include...

- Everyone thinking Slips is spreading a virus after he sheds his skin

- A platypus voiced by Gilbert Gottfried showing up at the school and being revealed to be an alien

- Adam getting scorn because his job requires him to wear a gorilla costume

- Jake getting sent to a school for plants (don't ask)

- And a parody of High School Musical for some reason

Yeah, it's a strange little show with three main sources of humor. In order, they are...

1) "Monkeys = Funny"

2) "Butts = Funny"

AND 3) "Characters Acting Like Idiots = Funny"

Despite all of this, the show was apparently popular enough that it got FOUR SEASONS. Maybe it's actually much better than it looks? Spoiler alert: NO. Why is the show less fun than a barrel of monkeys? Let's find out.

We'll be watching two episodes today: "Chew On This" and "The A Word".

After the theme song (which mainly consists of Adam trying to carry a tune and failing at it and Jake shouting "MONKEY! MONKEY! MONKEY!"), "Chew On This" begins with Adam waiting in line to get lunch from the cafeteria. The lunch lady, an elephant named Mrs. Tusk (Cree Summer), gives him a dirt and worms sandwich, but Adam turns her down. At the cafeteria table, Jake offers Adam some of HIS dirt and worms sandwich, but Adam turns him down too. "This cafeteria never has anything for ME to eat!" he complains.

Is it just me, or does Jake not look anything like an actual spider-monkey?
Honestly, I'm surprised that they even bothered to specify what species of monkey
he was at all...

Then we cut to Gym Class. The coach is a fish whose shtick is that she's a girl very obviously voiced by a man (Brian Doyle-Murray, to be precise). Because that's always funny, right? Though I will admit that Lupe getting hit with the punching bag did get a chuckle out of me, so there's that.

Adam is failing miserably at chin-ups (to be fair, though, chin-ups are HARD). He admits to Coach Bryan Doyle-Murray that he's feeling a bit lightheaded, which gets the coach all worked up. "CODE BLUE! CODE BLUE!" he shouts into a megaphone, and soon Adam is in the nurse's office.

In the Nurse's office, the nurse (Grey Griffin) gets worked up when Adam admits that he didn't eat lunch that day and claims that he has an eating disorder. Then Adam is sent to the office of the school's guidance counselor, Mr. Mandrill (Maurice LaMarche). "I'm just not gonna eat twigs and bugs for lunch!" he tells Mr. Mandrill, which gets Mr. Mandrill all worked up, too. "He's on a hunger strike!" Mr. Mandrill exclaims. Then Adam winds up in the principal's office, where Principal Pixiefrog (also Maurice LaMarche) responds to Adam's saying that he doesn't want to cause any trouble, he just wants to be able to eat SOMETHING at lunch by - of course - getting all worked up because he thinks ADAM IS PLANNING TO SUE THE SCHOOL. I am not making that up.

Soon, the lunch menu in the cafeteria looks like this...

Quick question - are any of the students at this school COWS? If so, I really hope
none of them look into what the hamburgers in the cafeteria are made of...

Adam is ecstatic that the cafeteria is finally serving things that he can eat, but the other students aren't as thrilled. Jake eats his empty tray. Adam is all "How can you know that it's bad if you haven't even tried it?" to which Jake shouts, "OKAY! KNOCK OFF WITH YOUR PEER PRESSURE, MR. PEER PRESSURE MAN!" and tries a bite. After that, he faints... and then yells, "WHOAAAAAAAAA! THAT'S DELICIOUS!" Why must Jake shout everything that he says? SHOUTING EVERYTHING IS NOT FUNNY EITHER.
So the other animals try their food, too, and they love it. Of course, now ADAM doesn't have any food, and when he goes to get more, Mrs. Tusk tells him that they're sold out. Wah wah wah wah wah...

Adam then runs into Principal Pixiefrog. He's all "So you're not going to sue us now, right?" To which Adam says, "Lawsuits? I just want a corn dog." This freaks Principal Pixiefrog out, and he gives Adam HIS corndogs and runs off shouting, "DON'T SUE US!"

"I'm merrily on my way to nowhere in particular!"

In Gym Class, we see that everyone is now very, very fat. The shark looks like Jabba the Hutt, Lupe looks like that boomerang bird from Angry Birds, and Jake burps because this was the 2000s, when we all became convinced that burping was automatically hilarious. Adam is the only student in the school who's not morbidly obese. Chairs are being broken, for crying out loud. Jake even falls through the floor - but he's okay. "The tremendous girth of my massive bottom broke my fall!" he tells Adam.

Then everyone in the school wants some of Adam's potato tots. Thus, we get that whole "everybody marches towards the main character chanting like zombies" cliche. Adam gets an idea - he climbs up a vine and tells the fatties that the first animal to climb up after him can have his tater tots. "EVERYBODY GRAB A VINE! WE'LL PULL THE CEILING DOWN TO GET THOSE TOTS!" Jake yells. So everyone tries that. But then Adam points out that if the ceiling falls, they'll all get hurt, and the school will get sued. This snaps Principal Pixiefrog out of his junk food-addicted craziness and he tells the other animals to stop.

Adam then says that there should be no more human food in the cafeteria. Principal Pixiefrog agrees... but only if Adam gives him his tater tots. Then Adam makes this face:

I'm not going to say that this should be a meme. It's not funny enough to be one.

Soon everyone is outside, running off all that excess fat. Except for Jake, who has enslaved Adam. Ha ha?

I was not expecting to see THIS in that Planet of the Apes reboot...

And the episode ends with a close-up shot of Principal Pixiefrog's giant rear end. Don't worry, I'll spare you the screencap.

Next up, it's "The A Word".

Adam has an autographed poster of some pop star named "Truffles Duvall" and he thinks that Jake is going to "go bananas" (get it?) when he shows it to him. He wins up running into that shark I mentioned before - his name is Bull Sharkowzki, by the way (and he's voiced by Phil LaMarr) - who gets all agitated and prepares to beat the crap out of Adam.

Then we cut to Jake. He sings one of Truffles' songs and then starts flirting with a poster of her. Adam then shows up, and we see that Bull did indeed beat the crap out of him. AND took his poster. "You really need to learn to stand up for yourself, man!" Jake says. Then Jake, because he's an idiot, promptly forgets that Adam just got beaten up and asks Adam what's new with him. "Jake, I got beat-up by Bull Sharkowzki! All I did was accidentally bump into him and he totally went ape on me!" Adam yells.

Jake becomes depressed because Adam used the phrase "went ape". Why does he care? He's a monkey, not an ape. Anyhow, Jake runs off sobbing and then Lupe and Ingrid show up. Lupe explains to Adam that Jake is "muy sensitivo" and Ingrid suggests that Adam apologize to Jake. Thus, Adam goes off to apologize. Then Lupe yells at Ingrid for hogging the conversation or whatever.
Adam finds Jake and apologizes, but Jake is STILL ungodly depressed. And he makes this face:

Seriously, UGHHHHHH...

Jake tells Adam that now he has a NEW best friend. Specifically, a football. "He actually CARES about my feelings!" Jake insists. "You're really starting to freak me out, Jake," Adam replies (well, that makes two of us). Then Jake pelts Adam with the football.

When Adam wakes up, he finds a flyer with Jake's image on it reading "WANNA BE MY NEW BEST FRIEND? ASK ME HOW." In fact, there are flyers like that all over the school grounds. He runs into Ingrid and Lupe, who are standing in line for the audition to be Jake's best friend (apparently things didn't work out with the football). Ingrid tells Adam that he really let Jake down, even though ADAM MADE AN HONEST MISTAKE AND APOLOGIZED TO JAKE, ONLY FOR JAKE TO REJECT HIS APOLOGY. It's not Adam's fault Jake is an over-dramatic lunatic.

Anyhow, Ingrid goes on to say that it's probably just not in Adam's human nature to realize that animals have feelings too. Adam then starts crying even though, again, Jake is being incredibly over-dramatic. Again, I don't even know why Jake cares - he is not an ape. He is a monkey. I mean, yeah, they're both primates, but so are humans, and we don't care if people use the phrase "went ape".

Also auditioning to be Jake's best friend is a zebra who offers him a Truffles DuVall tank top. This gives Adam an idea as to how to become Jake's best friend again. At this point, I'm not sure why Adam even WANTS to be Jake's best friend again.

Wow, Marty from Madagascar was a real dweeb back in middle school...

Adam's plan is to get back that autographed poster from the beginning of the episode. He thinks that Bull took it after beating him up, so he goes to find Bull - and gets beaten up again (offscreen). But he got the poster back! Even though it's now in two pieces. There's just one problem: Bull wrote "I HATE TRUFFLES DUVALL AND GRRRL POWER STINKS" on the poster, and Jake thinks that Adam wrote it. Then Jake makes this face...

Again, I say UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGH...

And then he makes THIS face...

Double UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGH...

Jake announces that he never wants to see Adam again, and then an elephant who sounds exactly like Hermes from Futurama throws Adam out of the line. Lupe tells Adam that he needs to learn to take "No" for an answer. Yeah, or maybe Jake needs to learn to let Adam EXPLAIN and not just jump to conclusions. Ingrid says that she can't think of anything that Adam could POSSIBLY do to make Jake like him again - aside from introducing Jake to Truffles Duvall herself, that is. This gives Adam an idea.

I was expecting Adam to actually find Truffles Duvall and introduce Jake to her, but that's not what he does. Instead, he dresses up like Truffles Duvall. Because I really needed to see Adam in drag. Thank you for that. Adam as Truffles Duvall claims that Adam called her and asked her to tell Jake that he's his best friend and that he's very very very very very sorry and blah-blah-blah. But Jake realizes that Adam doesn't SMELL like Truffles Duvall and attacks him, putting two and two together and realizing that it's, in fact, Adam.

Adam tells Jake to just accept his stupid apology already and that he didn't know that "going ape" was considered an insult. Then Jake tells Adam that he doesn't consider "going ape" to be an insult - it's "the ultimate monkey compliment". He was just jealous that Adam said it about Bull and not him. Why he didn't just EXPLAIN THAT TO ADAM BEFORE, I don't know.

Adam is understandably furious that he went through all that for such an incredibly stupid reason and announces that Jake is no longer HIS best friend. So then the episode ends with Jake groveling to Adam and Adam telling him to go away. OH THE IRONY!

What's the Verdict?

Jeez, was that dull. I can't think of one positive thing about it. The jokes are not funny. The characters range from really annoying to just straight-up boring. Tom Kenny and Grey Griffin sound like they're just going through the motions here. Even Maurice LaMarche isn't bringing anything to his characters. Maybe all three noticed how awful the scripts were and didn't think it was worth the effort?

The show throws every cliché from every other show on Cartoon Network at the time at the viewer in the hopes of getting a laugh out of the viewer, and it doesn't work. It's just a dull, dull show with nothing that helps it stand out from any of the other shows that Cartoon Network was crapping out.

And now, to end this review on a positive note, here's a clip from a Cartoon Network show starring a monkey that's actually, you know, GOOD: