Let's Watch This: An Episode of "Lloyd in Space"

Space: it's a fascinating thing, isn't it? It's seemingly endless. It's inky and black. There's a million planets out there. Probably more than just Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, Mercury, Mars, Neptune, Uranus, and Earth... and Pluto, though I'm not sure if that's still considered a planet or not.

Since the motion picture made its debut, people have loved seeing movies and TV shows that take place in space, or feature a character FROM space, or whatever. After all, everybody loves Star Wars and Star Trek. Animators love space, too, which I think mainly stems from the fact that, when it comes to aliens, you can be really creative. No two aliens in animation are alike. They can look like THIS...

Or they can look like THIS...

Or like THIS...

But if they look like THIS, I would recommend making a run for it...

Which brings us to today's cartoon. In 2001, Joe Ansolabehere and Paul Germain decided that, hey, since their show Recess was doing so well, why not make ANOTHER animated show for Disney? The show would be...

About a kid in school. 'Cause it's a Disney cartoon.

But the school is IN SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE!

Lloyd in Space premiered on February 3rd, 2001 as part of ABC's One Saturday Morning block. It focuses on the wacky adventures of a preteen space alien named Lloyd P. Neublon. Among the shenanigans that Lloyd got into over the course of the show are...

- Going to the school dance with a two-headed girl! One head is voiced by Tara Strong and the other has the voice of Amy from The Big Bang Theory.

- Helping his friends when they're picked on by the school bully!

- Babysitting his brat of a sister!

- Getting to know a new kid!

- Going to a girls-only slumber party... DISGUISED AS A GIRL! 'Cause boys dressed as girls = HILARIOUS!

Yeah, it's one of those shows that takes its plotlines from the Big Book of Show Taking Place in a School Cliches.

An impressive four seasons of the show were produced, and you could see reruns of it on Toon Disney until 2006. Alas, nowadays it's yet another cartoon that nobody seems to remember. Why isn't the show as fondly remembered as, say, Buzz Lightyear of Star Command or Recess? Let us find out!

We'll be watching the episode "The Science Project".

It begins with Lloyd (voiced by Courtland Mead) saying, "Imagine, a night like this... your family is sleeping peacefully... suddenly, a fire breaks out on Quadron 3! Flames engulf the corridors! Who will wake us up in time?! Who will guide us to safety?!"

As it turns out, Lloyd is saying all this as part of an attempt to convince his mom to get them a pet... well, actually, he's just practicing for when he DOES ask his mom. He decides that maybe it'd be a better idea to just BEG his mom for a pet. Little does he know, however, that he's being WATCHED!

"I always feel like... somebody's watchin' me..."

Specifically, he's being watched by a robotic eyeball who sounds like C-3PO named "Station" (Brian George). Station asks Lloyd what he's doing, and Lloyd fills him in on what we already know - Lloyd wants a pet. They got these cool new pets at the local pet store, and they look like this:

What alien boy wouldn't want his own pet Purple Gyarardos?

Station recognizes the pet as an "tomochrionian python" or something like that, then suggests that Lloyd simply explain to his mom WHY he wants a pet and she'll SURELY agree to get him one! I smell a Gilligan Cut coming on!

We promptly Gilligan Cut to Lloyd's mom (April Winchell) refusing to get her son a "tomochrionian python". Why? Because he's had pets before and he sucked at taking care of them. As far as she's concerned, Lloyd is just too irresponsible. Lloyd's baby sister (Nicolette Little) then proceeds to insult Lloyd for no reason whatsoever. Methinks that she's the D.W. to Lloyd's Arthur.

LLOYD IS HAVING NONE OF YOUR CRAP.

On the rocket-bus to school, Lloyd tells his friends Eddy the one human being on the show (Justin Shenkarow), Douglas the brain with glasses (Pamela Hayden), and Kurt Blobberts the purple one-eyed giant (Bill Faggerbake) that his mom doesn't think he's responsible enough to get a pet. "Why, I'm the most responsible kid I've ever MET!" he exclaims.

We then get - wouldn't you know it? - ANOTHER Gilligan Cut to Lloyd's teacher (Tress MacNeille) telling the class that their science projects are due Wednesday. Lloyd's all "Oh crap, I forgot we had to do science projects!" GEDDIT?! HE JUST SAID HE WAS RESPONSIBLE AND NOW THIS IS HAPPENING! IT'S IRONIC! AIN'T THAT FUNNY?!

In the cafeteria, Lloyd asks his friends what THEY'RE doing for their science projects. Douglas says that he's created his own white dwarf star. I'd just like to say right now that I love the design of this character - he's a giant brain with glasses. And buck teeth!

He could be the mascot of... I don't know, SOMETHING!

Eddy, meanwhile, has some sort of device that magically levitates salt-shakers, which he apparently bought off a ninth-grader. And Kurt's whipped up a potato clock. Lloyd is all, "WHAT AM I GONNA DO?!" and Douglas suggests "the mold experiment". Lloyd doesn't know what that is, so Douglas explains: "You see, mold comes from spores, which are like seeds floating in the air all around us. Tonight, before you go to bed, simply put out a petri dish containing a nutritious growth of medium - or food, in layman's terms. Then, wait. Soon, a mold spore will land in your dish. In time, that invisible spore will grow into... a visible mold!" Lloyd considers this a lame experiment, but hey, if he can get it done by Wednesday he'll go for it.

So Lloyd sets out a petri dish with a "nutritious growth of medium" before bedtime. Station thinks that it's a fascinating project. While Lloyd is asleep, out in the inky black void of space, a floating space rock is hit by a meteor, which smashes it to pieces, freeing a glowing green... thing which floats all the way to the place where Lloyd lives, through an air vent, and eventually into that petri dish. When Lloyd wakes up the next morning, he finds the petri dish full of mold.

"Now this is one science project that'll really break the mold!"






I know, I know, but that's all I could think of...

After feeding the mold, Lloyd heads off to school, and we cut to him walking home from school (I guess the school day was incredibly uneventful) with Eddy. He's telling Eddy about how easy his project is and how, if he's really lucky, he'll get a B-MINUS. I assume that's supposed to be funny.

I don't really have anything to say here, so instead I'll just
point out that Eddy's hair looks like a sea anemone.

Upon arriving home, Lloyd is greeted by Station, who tells him that something has gone terribly wrong.... specifically, that the mold isn't looking too good. "Perhaps if you gave it more nutrients!" he suggests, which Lloyd promptly does. And I mean a LOT more nutrients. Like, the whole jar. But it's still "all brown and shriveled", as Lloyd puts it. Perhaps a different sort of nutrients - like something from the kitchen - would do the trick, so Lloyd goes into the kitchen and gets out a bunch of food that he hopes will get the mold looking healthy again. Nothing works, but eventually a drop of Lloyd's "Big Glorb" (which is apparently the outer space equivalent of a Slurpee) lands in the mold, and THAT's what does the trick.

Lloyd comes to the conclusion that his mold doesn't like nutritious stuff - maybe it likes junk food. We are then treated to a montage of Lloyd feeding his mold junk food, and eventually the mold starts to grow too big for its petri dish. And then it comes to LIFE.

You might have noticed by now that the captions in this review
are all light shades of green as opposed to white. This is because
Lloyd is green, and as such I thought it would be clever having
the captions be green as well.

So now the mold is alive. And it looks like this:

"I've never seen anything like it. A mold that eats chips!" Lloyd's mom comments. "And it has EYES! I wonder if it can think." Lloyd's sister uses some sort of... psychic powers, I guess?... to check and confirms that, yes, it thinks. And right now, it demands more chips. I'm honestly kind of hoping that this episode turns into a Little Shop of Horrors parody.

Lloyd then proceeds to start dancing because now, he's not looking at a B-Minus anymore... he's looking at an "A"! And as he and his friends walk home from school later, he's STILL dancing and singing about the "A" that he's so gosh-darn sure that he's going to receive. Douglas tells him to knock it off as he's been doing it all day.

As it turns out, now the mold is even bigger.

"Nothing can stop the Smooze!"

"This fungus seems to be forming some sort of primitive attachment to you, Lloyd," Douglas points out. Kurt asks what exactly "Moldy" (which is what Lloyd's calling the mold now) is - "I mean, is he an animal or some kind of fruit?"

I love the expression on Douglas' face here. He has had it up to
HERE with Lloyd's shenanigans.

"Whatever it is, it's UGLY!" Eddy says, which makes Lloyd mad. Then Moldy makes a noise that sounds like he's got an upset stomach. Lloyd assumes that he's hungry, but alas, he's out of chips. Kurt says that he's got chips at HIS house, as does Douglas, so they rush out to get 'em. Lloyd now believes that he's going to "win the whole darn science fair." And guess what? That's what happens!

After the science fair, Lloyd's mom suggests that he get rid of Moldy since he doesn't need it anymore. But Lloyd's all "No way! Moldy's my friend!" So we get another montage, and Moldy's eating more and getting bigger day after day. One night, Moldy is hungry, but he already ate all the junk food, so Lloyd decides to feed him a giant tomato.

Why the heck is that tomato so big?!

In the morning, Lloyd discovers that Moldy now looks like this:

It kind of looks like something the Powerpuff Girls would fight...

This makes Lloyd's mom decide that they must get rid of Moldy, but Moldy has escaped, and now he's going on a rampage! Lloyd tries to stop him, but it's futile, and soon Moldy is on his way to the food court. Because... apparently Lloyd's apartment building is also a mall? Actually, I think it's supposed to be some kind of space station, but I'm not one hundred percent sure...

At the mall, Lloyd runs into Douglas, Eddy, and Kurt, and they learn that Moldy is on a feeding frenzy. Oh yeah, and at one point Moldy throws up on Lloyd. Despite all of this, Lloyd doesn't want his mom and her group of Discount Space Rangers to destroy Moldy. He gives a big speech about how Moldy is like his child and responsibility and blah-blah-blah, and his mom agrees to give him five minutes to reason with Moldy.

Lloyd is able to get Moldy to stop his rampage through another speech, and everybody cheers. But what can they do with Moldy? It can't stay at the mall/apartment building. Fortunately, Douglas has an idea.

Turns out there's a Planet of Trans-Fatty Acids that Moldy's kind originated from.

It's basically a cross between Sugar Rush from Wreck-It Ralph
and McDonaldland.

And so the episode ends with Lloyd setting Moldy free to be with his own kind. The moral of today's story, apparently, is that... uh, you shouldn't feed mold junk food? Or something like that?

This is another one of those shows that's just okay. It's not good. It's not bad. It's just OKAY. If nothing else, I liked Douglas and Station a lot. Kurt's nice, too. As far as science fiction cartoons go, it's no Futurama, but then, what is? I dunno, maybe just I need to watch more episodes of it...

So, why isn't the show as fondly remembered as Recess? I think it's the "just okay" thing, combined with the fact that it didn't have much to make it stand out. I mean, it wasn't the only sci-fi cartoon Disney had at the time - Buzz Lightyear of Star Command was there, after all. And it's, at its core, a show about kids in school. Disney has a million of those. Eventually, they might start to blur together.

Hey, maybe my next review will be on that great Disney Channel cartoon, The Buzz on American Dragon Lloyd the Emperor's New School in Space With Fillmore and Kim Possible. Remember THAT show?