Let's Watch This: An Episode (or Two) of "The Wacky World of Tex Avery"

NOTE: Please do not take any of the little nitpicks in this review (or any of my other reviews, for that matter) seriously. I write these reviews in the hopes of making people laugh. Those nitpicks are really just dumb little observations that I'm attempting to make jokes out of, not complaints that add to whether or not I like something.

NOTE #2: No disrespect is meant towards anyone who worked on the show I am reviewing today. I'm sure they are all very nice and talented people.

NOTE #3: If you like this show, that is great. Go ahead and like it. I'm not judging you.

You know who Tex Avery is, right?

If you're a big fan of animation, you should. Tex is one of the most influential animators who ever lived. His cartoons were known for how absolutely deranged and bizarre they were: lots of surrealist humor, fourth wall shattering, sight gags, that sort of thing. He helped create characters like Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and Porky Pig for Warner Brothers, and also created characters like Droopy, Red Hot Riding Hood, and Screwy Squirrel for MGM. A lot of cartoons made since the Golden Age of Animation owe a lot to Tex.

Now, in the 1990s, Tex's influence was still present in animated MOVIES (Aladdin and Hercules, for example, both have gags that wouldn't be out of place in Tex's cartoons), television shows not so much. All the new Looney Tunes productions at the time based their styles of humor and takes on the characters from Chuck Jones' shorts, and a lot of comedic cartoons were either following the Animaniacs mindset of "pop culture references and risque humor = instant laughs" (The Spooktacular Adventures of Casper, for instance), trying too hard to be hip and cool with the kids, yo (coughcoughQuack Packcoughcough) or just doing their own thing (The Angry Beavers is a hilarious show, but I would hesitate to say it's similar to Tex's work). So doing a cartoon that reminds the world of what Mr. Avery brought to the table sounds like a good idea on paper, right?

A few things made The Wacky World of Tex Avery, created by the good folks at DiC Entertainment, doomed from the start. Most notably, this show had absolutely nothing to do with Tex or his characters - there's no Droopy, no Screwy Squirrel, certainly no Looney Tunes characters. Apparently, they originally wanted to use his characters, but they couldn't get the rights. Their solution? Make a bunch of new characters inspired by characters from Tex's cartoon shorts, name one of them after Tex, and rely mostly on aping Tex's style. The show premiered in France on September 3rd, 1997 and then aired in syndication in the United States in November. One season of sixty-five episodes was produced.

Each episode of The Wacky World of Tex Avery featured three segments. You had...

- Tex Avery, a cowboy loosely based on a character created NOT by Tex Avery but rather by Bob Clampett - Red Hot Ryder from Buckaroo Bugs. Voiced by the great Billy West, Tex repeatedly faces off against the villainous Sagebrush Sid (also Billy West).

- Pompeii Pete (voiced by Ian James Corlett), a diminuitive Roman centurion who survived a volcano's eruption by being preserved in lava and now lives in the modern world. He doesn't seem to have any trouble adapting and mostly just serves as an way to put a guy named Dan (Alec Willows) through the wringer, whether he deserves it or not.

- Einstone (also Ian James Corlett), an inexplicably German-accented caveman and the world's first inventor. Whenever he tries to teach the other cavemen how to use his inventions, "hilarity" ensues.

- Genghis (Lee Tockar) and Khannie (Cree Summer using her Elmyra Duff voice), a lion and panda cub respectively. Genghis is a warlord trying to conquer places, but wherever he goes, he runs into Khannie, who always manages to foil his plans.

- Freddy the Fly (Billy West again), a hobo fly whose very presence ticks off a fat short-tempered billionaire named Amanda Banshee (Scott McNeil).

- Maurice (Terry Klassen) and Mooch (Maurice LaMarche), a chick and a fox respectively. They're basically just Tweety and Sylvester except they're a chick and a fox instead of a canary and a cat. And also Maurice has a Swedish accent. And also they're not funny. By the way, Tex Avery didn't even create Sylvester or Tweety, I don't think he even directed any Sylvester and Tweety cartoons.

- Power Pooch (Phil Hayes), a dog who gains superpowers after licking a superhero's shoe and fights the forces of evil with his kitten sidekick, Little Buddy (also Lee Tockar).

The Wacky World of Tex Avery is generally regarded as being crap by everyone who's watched it. Apparently it did better outside of the U.S., in places where Tex isn't quite as well-known. Currently, you can find it on Tubi, and I believe it's also airing on the channel MeTV Toons. For years, it's been sitting there begging for me to do a review of it, but I was afraid to. Not just because of how bad I've heard it was, but because I feared that maybe I'd actually wind up LIKING it, or finding it just okay, and that would mean I have weird taste in cartoons. It doesn't help that TV Tropes claims that most people have said it's not that bad. But, regardless, I knew that I would have to do it EVENTUALLY, and after so many reviews in a row of things that I found either okay (Robotboy, The Replacements) or mediocre (The Get-Along Gang), which I've found don't make for particularly funny reviews, I decided that I needed to review something that was supposedly really, really bad, if only to make my blog less monotonous.

Did I enjoy The Wacky World of Tex Avery? Spoiler alert: NO. I mean, for crying out loud, just look at the intro:

I think that summed it up, but today, I did something a little different. I've decided to review TWO episodes, not one, the second one consisting of three different segments than the first. I think this'll help me judge the show better. Or maybe I'm just a glutton for punishment, either or. We'll be watching the fourth episode first, then the tenth episode after that. This is The Wacky World of Tex Avery.

Our first segment, starring Tex Avery, is "Bottleneck Bear".

We start off with Tex strolling along, playing a guitar and singing "Oh My Darling Clementine". Before Huckleberry Hound can show up and sue him for copying his shtick, Tex realizes that he's near the house of his much hotter girlfriend Chasity Knott (Kathleen Barr), and he's not gonna pass up the chance to suck face with her.

The 1990s: the decade that told us it was okay to be attracted to a cartoon character.
See also Lola Bunny, Hello Nurse, Jasmine, Esmeralda...

There's just one problem - to get to Chasity's house, he has to walk past the cave of a bear. A bear with an attitude problem.

"I'm surlier than the a-ver-age bear!"

The bear beats the crap out of Tex, then crumples him up into a ball and sends him flying. He lands in a hole occupied by a rabbit who is clearly meant to be Bugs Bunny but he isn't Bugs Bunny because he's owned by another company.

See, he's PURPLE, not grey. That makes him a totally different character!

"I'd like to see him try that again!" Tex claims as he tries to walk by the bear's cave once again. And the bear... well, he doesn't quite try it again. He just EATS Tex. Well, cartoon over. Eh-buh-dee-eh-buh-dee-that's all, folks.

Oh, of COURSE Tex is alive - he's a cartoon character, after all. He's sitting in the bear's stomach, waiting to be digested. Take a look at what the bear's been eating. Yogi Bear just eats the food inside pic-a-nic baskets, this bear has eaten the whole basket, the picnic blanket, an umbrella... dear lord, I wonder if he ate the picnickers too, and we just don't see them because they've already been digested.

And why am I making so many Hanna-Barbera jokes in a show based on Tex Avery's
work?

Tex starts a fire and then escapes through a convenient door in the bear's stomach. I gotta say it, there's an episode of Timon and Pumbaa that did the "bear has a door in his stomach" joke better. Then he fills the bear's stomach with gasoline, causing an explosion. The bear's pretty mad now, but before he can pound Tex, a whistle goes off, prompting Tex to announce a "union break". Then another bear shows up, gives him demerits for not taking a union break, and puts him on probation. Are you laughing yet? I'm not.

We get a chase scene that culminates in Tex getting tossed into the rabbit's hole again, and then Tex decides to dress up like Goldilocks. Apparently, the Bear Union states that if you're a bear, you can't hurt Goldilocks unless she's in your house. Before the bear can even do anything to Tex, his cave gets taken away by the Bear Union. Okay, now I'm honestly on the bear's side. Becoming homeless seems like a pretty harsh punishment.

After that, the bear grabs what he thinks is Tex and shoves a pot of honey on his head. And then a beehive. And then three bowls of porridge. And then he starts hitting him with a club... which Tex hands to him. Uh oh, if THAT'S Tex, then who's he attacking?

"Bamm! Bamm! Bamm! Bamm! Bamm!"

(Look, ANOTHER Hanna-Barbera joke. Why AM I making so many of them?)

As you probably could have guessed, it's that bear from the union who kept giving him demerits. As a result, he has to... become Chasity's maid? I don't get the joke here...

Remember, all you folks unlucky in love: if Tex can get a significant other, one much hotter
than him at that, ANYONE can!

Okay, next segment...

"Sitter Jitters" stars Maurice and Mooch. Maurice's parents are going out for the evening, and they've hired a babysitter for their son. Mooch, eavesdropping, sees this as an opportunity to have him for dinner. So he kidnaps the babysitter and takes her place. Which involves dressing in drag.

If that's a lady, I'm a Vermicious Knid.

After Maurice's parents leave, Mooch heads into the kitchen to get Maurice some ice cream... and also prepare a nice soup to eat the chick in. There are exactly two jokes in this scene: cutting onions makes Mooch tear up, and the chickens' freezer for some reason has a penguin in it. Neither one is funny.

Next, Mooch attempts to whack Maurice with a giant mallet, but fails at it. Maurice assumes that this means his babysitter wants to play "War". I genuinely don't know if he's aware that Mooch wants to eat him and is just playing along so he can subject him to WHACKY SHENANIGANS or if he's genuinely this dumb. I'm guessing it's the first one, that's usually how it goes in cartoons like this.

I don't think I've ever owned a Super Soaker. That's not particularly interesting, but
I couldn't think of anything else to say here.

It's eight o'clock, which means it's time for Maurice's bath. Mooch pours the contents of the soup pot he prepared earlier into the tub, but when Maurice jumps into the hot broth, he's perfectly fine. When a confused Mooch sticks his finger in there, we get a joke that was probably meant to be funny but instead just comes off as painful:

Ouch. And, also, ew.

Question: is it even legal for Mooch to eat Maurice when they're both anthropomorphic? Like, Sylvester and Tweety were still pretty anthropomorphic too, but they were still essentially a cat and a bird. They didn't wear clothes, they were kept by Granny as pets instead of living in houses that they owned themselves, Sylvester's trying to eat Tweety was clearly just cat instinct more than anything. But Maurice and Mooch are clearly just as anthropomorphic as, say, Porky Pig is. Wouldn't Mooch be charged for infantcide? And if he's a legal citizen in a world full of other anthropomorphic animals, isn't there some other way he can get food? Can't he just go to a supermarket or something?

Mooch's next attempt to eat Maurice results in the whole bathroom being flooded, and we get one of those Scooby-Doo-esque gags where the characters run in and out of doors on opposite sides of each other. Long story short, Maurice eventually manages to trap Mooch in his own crock pot, shrinking him down to the size of a Barbie doll.

Declaring that Maurice's parents will be hearing from his lawyer, Mooch storms out of the house... and is promptly attacked by the babysitter he mugged earlier. The end. Let's see what Freddy the Fly is up to...

"Flychiatry" begins with Amanda doing much damage to her dollar sign-shaped house in an attempt to kill Freddy. She really hates flies, more so than anybody probably should. Eventually, some guys in an ambulance show up and drag her out of her house in a straightjacket. I feel like we're being given the punchline to a cartoon without being shown the setup first.

The ambulance also looks like a limousine for some reason? I guess it's supposed to
be a joke about how Amanda is rich? Maybe?

At the mental asylum, a psychiatrist with the voice of the Brain has to listen to Amanda rant for what seems like an eternity about Freddy. He eventually deduces that this fly is nothing more than a figment of her imagination, a manifestation of whatever is bugging her (ba dum kssssh). She dubs herself cured and goes back to her mansion, where she sees Freddy again and thinks that she's relapsing. Thus begins a few minutes of the same joke being told over and over again: she sees the fly, she pinches herself and says that there is no fly, the fly vanishes and she thinks she's just imagining him, lather, rinse, repeat.

I guess this qualifies as a "fly in my soup" gag. They probably felt required to do it
at least ONCE.

Eventually, Freddy calls up the psychiatrist, and when he shows up he realizes that if he can see Freddy too, the fly must be real after all. Amanda does not take that well, and chases him around the house hungry for psychiatrist blood. Fin.

Well, that sucked. Let's watch the tenth episode, which begins with the Genghis and Khannie segment "Greek-a-Boo":

Genghis is a barbarian, crossing the Mediterranean Sea. His crew consists of Attila the Hun lookalikes, and they're planning to conquer Greece.

Apparently, Genghis is inspired by the lion from Tex's 1947 cartoon Slap Happy Lion. I don't
care much for that short - it's one of those cartoons where a smug jerk torments someone
for the heck of it, is always one step ahead of them, is unescapable no matter how hard the
tormentee tries, and winds up getting off scott-free.

Upon arriving in Greece, Genghis proclaims that he'll conquer it using a trick he learned while conquering Troy. He'll use a Trojan Horse... or rather, a Trojan PIG. Pigs are funnier than horses, I guess?

Well, at least it's not a Trojan MONKEY. You know how funny everyone thinks monkeys are...

His plan is to give the pig to the Greeks as a gift, with them hiding inside it, then they'll jump out and conquer 'em. Who answers the door when they attempt it? Khannie, who declares that she'll burn it as a sacrifice to the gods of Olympus. Haven't her parents taught her not to play with matches?

I know Maurice is the Tweety Bird knockoff here, but I can't help but wonder if Khannie
was inspired by him too. They have the exact same head shape.

So she sets it aflame and sends it tumbling down the hill. Greeks: one, Genghis: nada. Next, he builds a Trojan PUPPY, because who could turn down a puppy? Problem is, Khannie says she can't let the giant puppy in until it "does its duty" - or rather, its DOODY. Yes, this show that desperately wants to be Tex Avery's work has toilet humor in it. Nyuck nyuck nyuck.

After emerging from the Trojan Dog's rear end, Genghis and his crew are surrounded by Greek guards, wrapped up in newspaper like fish, and tossed over a cliff. Genghis' next plan is to hide in a giant wooden Statue of Liberty. Khannie puts the statue... where the actual Statue of Liberty is located. Okay, I guess that's... KIND OF funny?

Well, maybe Genghis can conquer New York instead. Or at least see a Broadway show
(I bet he'd love The Lion King).

Upon returning to Greece, Genghis discovers that they can get in simply by finding the key under the welcome mat. They head inside and run into Khannie, who somehow drags them into taking part in her play. After more unfunny jokes, we cut to this fat guy who I'm guessing is supposed to be Zeus, who's watching the play on TV. He dubs the lion an awful actor and cancels the show. The end.

"Ugh, they call THIS a tribute to Tex Avery? I'm watching something else. Maybe
Cow and Chicken is on..."

Next segment...

"Toothpaste Pete" casts Dan as a bank robber, who hides out from the cops in a dentist's office. He tells the receptionist that he has a toothache, so she calls for the dentist's assistant. I'll give you five guesses who that assistant is.

The dentist's waiting room has a potted cactus in it. I'm not sure what the joke there
is, but I'll admit it's sort of funny too, if only for how "out there" it is.

Let's be honest, going to the dentist is awful enough already, but all this short does is demonstrate how much Pete should not be a dentist's assistant, which begs the question as to how he got the job in the first place. He burns a hole in Dan's head, plays his teeth like a xylophone, and while attempting to clean them SCRUBS DAN'S FACE OFF. Congratulations, cartoon, you are making me feel sorry for a BANK ROBBER.

Eventually, Pete manages to remove all of Dan's teeth, and when he complains that he wants them back fills his mouth up with cement and sculpts replacement teeth out of it. Dan runs away screaming, Pete continues to babble in Italian, and I'm still not laughing.

Our third segment stars Einstone.

It's a rainy day in Not-Bedrock. While Einstone is attempting to invent an electric whoopie cushion (I don't know either), the other cavemen are bothered by a leak in their cave's roof. He tells the cavemen to get a lot of tar and meet him on the cave's roof - they'll use the car to cover the leak. But the cavemen just pour the tar all over themselves, and eventually create an even BIGGER hole in the roof out of stupidity. "Zhese morons have zhe I.Q. of a ROCK!" Einstone complains. "On second thought, I doubt zhey're zhat evolved!"

They make Patrick Star, Linda Belcher, Dudley Puppy, Pinkie Pie, Peter Griffin, Ralph Wiggum,
Zapp Brannigan, Stimpy, and Cosmo from The Fairly OddParents look like members of MENSA.

So they try again. First, he puts some sticks, palm fronds, and bricks over the hole. Then he tells the cavemen to pour the tar over it. Instead, they pour it over themselves again. Honestly, Einstone, why did you even bother enlisting their help?

Enraged, Einstone glues the three dimwitted tar-covered cavemen to the cave's roof. Problem solved... oh, wait, there's another leak. Well, no time to worry about that now, Einstone decides to invent the microwave, the dishwasher, and the toilet.

Pictured: where this show belongs.

Blah blah blah, it takes a few minutes to get the cavemen to understand how using a toilet works, and eventually Einstone makes a decent amount of money by making it a pay toilet. "Zhere's no business like BUSINESS business!" he tells us. The end.

What's the Verdict? (Finally!)

Y'know, if this show weren't meant to be a tribute to Tex Avery, I'd probably just brush it off as one of those cartoons that's bad, but not the worst thing I've ever seen. But the fact that it was meant to be a tribute to one of the most influental animators of all time makes it so much worse than it really is.

Ignoring that, as previously stated, it really has nothing to do with Tex aside from one of the characters being named after him, this show feels nothing like Tex's work. It doesn't LOOK like Tex's work - most of that is probably because they used digital ink and paint over the original cartoons' hand-painted backgrounds, but the characters look more like they jumped out of The Ren and Stimpy Show than anything. Second, the jokes suck. There aren't any of the clever sight gags. The dialogue isn't witty at all. Every so often we get a wild take, but they feel very restrained compared to the ones in a Droopy or Red Hot Riding Hood cartoon. Every single attempt at slapstick falls flat. There's barely even any squash-and-stretch! The characters? I can't think of one I actually liked. They're all either dull and unfunny (Tex Avery himself), incredibly annoying (Pompeii Pete), unpleasant (Amanda), or knockoffs (Maurice). The voice actors are trying their best, but even they can't make the characters more fun to watch.

Do you know what this is? Remember those crappy Larry Doyle-produced Looney Tunes shorts Warner Bros. made in the 2000s? Y'know, Museum Scream and Cock-a-Doodle-Duel and the other four? Those shorts that were so bad Warner Bros. cancelled the ones that hadn't been completed yet and decided not to release them in theaters like they'd been planning? Imagine if Larry Doyle and his crew somehow got to be in charge of an Animaniacs reboot. That's The Wacky World of Tex Avery. My suggestion: seek out the cartoons actually made by Tex Avery instead. You can find most of them online (a few are on Dailymotion, some of them are on Vimeo). You'll have far more fun watching shorts like Happy-Go-Nutty, Dumb-Hounded, and Magician Maestro than you will watching this garbage.

To end this review, I looked up the writers of these episodes to see what else they've worked on. They've got pretty impressive resumes... Drew Daywalt wrote for Timon and Pumbaa and Buzz Lightyear of Star Command. Henry Gilroy wrote episodes of 2 Stupid Dogs, Taz-Mania, Jackie Chan Adventures, Kim Possible, El Tigre, and even a lot of Marvel cartoons. Jeffrey Scott worked on DuckTales, TaleSpin, Muppet Babies, Goof Troop, the 1980s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, The Save-Ums!, and Dragon Tales. As for Mike Fontanelli, he seems to be more of an animator than a writer, doing character designs for shows like Tiny Toon Adventures and SpongeBob SquarePants (though he did write two cartoons for House of Mouse). All four of these guys (I couldn't find any information about Michael Patrick Dobbins, he's likely done better work elsewhere too) clearly have talent, so what on Earth happened here?

Further reading:
- A 2011 review of the show by a Mr. Martianinvader
- The Terror of Tiny Toon's 2014 review of the show

And no, I'm not doing a re-review of the show, so don't even ask.

Let's Watch This: An Episode of "Robotboy"

NOTE: Please do not take any of the little nitpicks in this review (or any of my other reviews, for that matter) seriously. I write these reviews in the hopes of making people laugh. Those nitpicks are really just dumb little observations that I'm attempting to make jokes out of, not complaints that add to whether or not I like something.

NOTE #2: No disrespect is meant towards anyone who worked on the show I am reviewing today. I'm sure they are all very nice and talented people.

NOTE #3: If you like this show, that is great. Go ahead and like it. I'm not judging you.

When it comes to cartoon shows starring a robot from the 2000s, I was always more of a My Life as a Teenage Robot fan. But I do recall seeing bits and pieces of Robotboy as well.

This show premiered on Cartoon Network in the United Kingdom on the first of November 2005, then on Cartoon Network in the United States in January 2006 (after a sneak peak in December 2005). Created by Belgian designer Jan Van Rijsselberge, the show received two seasons, making for a total of fifty-two episodes. Nowadays, it seems to have a bit of a cult following but is (and I know I say this about a LOT of cartoons) mostly a footnote in Cartoon Network history.

The titular Robotboy (voiced by Laurence Bouvard) is the creation of the world-renowned scientist Professor Moshimo (voiced by Togo Igawa). But Moshimo fears that Robotboy could fall into the hands of his arch-rival Dr. Kamikazi (Eiji Kusuhara) and his henchman Constantine (Rupert Degas) so they can use him to take over the world. So instead of, I dunno, upping the security at his place or something, he entrusts Robotboy to his biggest fan, ten-year-old Tommy Turnbull (Lorraine Pilkington). With the help of Tommy and his friends Gus (also Rupert Degas) and Lola (also Laurence Bouvard), Robotboy learns how to act like a real boy. I feel like there's an Astro Boy comparison I can make here, but I haven't watched much of Astro Boy so I won't.

Currently, you can find episodes of the show on YouTube, so today we're going to take a look at the seventeenth episode of the show, which consists of the segments "Bambi-Bot" and "Double Tommy". Is the show deserving of its Cult Classic status, or does Robotboy deserve to be sent to the scrap heap? Remember, this was 2000s Cartoon Network, when their programming was extremely hit-or-miss (sometimes you'd get Camp Lazlo, other times you'd get Squirrel Boy). Let's find out!

We start off at Tommy's school, where we learn something about Tommy: he has a classmate named Bambi (ALSO Laurence Bouvard) who he's hopelessly in love with. Isn't it kind of weird that so many cartoon shows starring kids have them hopelessly in love with somebody? Timmy Turner from The Fairly OddParents had the hots for Trixie Tang, Arnold from Hey Arnold has had at least three crushes, Dipper from Gravity Falls had a thing for Wendy... isn't this usually the age where boys think girls have cooties?

And who names their kid "Bambi"? Is that just her parents' favorite Disney movie?

Also, what ten-year-old (they don't specify in this episode what her age is, but
Tommy is ten so I'm guessing Bambi is too) wears EYESHADOW?

Little does Tommy know that he's being spied on. Specifically, Dr. Kamikazi and Constantine have sent a tiny drone to follow Tommy around. I assume they think this'll help them get their hands on Robotboy. Or maybe they plan on sending footage of Tommy to America's Funniest Home Videos or something?

Fun fact: Constantine's voice actor also did the voice of Bubba in Chop Socky Chooks.
I guess he likes playing the bumbling henchmen of crazy cartoon villains.

Dr. Kamikazi realizes that he can use Tommy's feelings for Bambi to his advantage. He slips a card into Bambi's mail slot telling her family that they won an all-expenses-paid trip to a place called Klub Kazi. Now, because real beach resorts rarely if ever give free trips to people at random, you'd think that Bambi, or her mother, would find this suspicious. But they don't. They have stereotypical valley girl voices, so I'm going to assume they're not very bright.

"Hey, what does it say on the bottom? 'P.S., this is definitely not a trap.' Hmmmm, I wonder
why they'd put that there..."

So off Bambi and her mother head to Klub Kazi, and as soon as their car drives off, it's revealed that Dr. Kamikazi has made a robotic duplicate of Bambi - the titular Bambi-Bot. "You know what to do," he tells it. And then, after two minutes, we finally get to see the main character of the show, Robotboy. He and his chums are playing croquet - and Robotboy hits the ball so hard that it flies into OUTER SPACE, and upon falling back down knocks Gus to the ground. I've never played croquet, but I'm going to assume that this isn't against the rules.

I love the cheery smile on Tommy's face. He clearly finds Gus' pain amusing.

Who should interrupt their game but the Bambi-Bot. "Gree-tings. Tommy. How. Pleasing. You appear. In your. Breet-ches. And. Wal-king. Shoes," it says in a very stilted robotic tone not unlike somebody attempting to do a Christopher Walken impression. This should probably raise some red flags, but I guess Tommy is too excited over his crush talking to him to notice.

It's also revealed that everything the Bambi-Bot says is actually the result of Dr. Kamikazi speaking into a microphone. Which means that he's flirting with a ten-year-old boy. I'm not going to say "pedophile", but there's something extremely creepy about this...

If a cartoon is making me think about Herbert from Family Guy, it's doing something wrong.

Since Dr. Kamikazi's child-wooing skills aren't great, he has Constantine take over. Slightly less creepy, but still extremely creepy. Constantine has the Bambi-Bot mention that she's starring in a play (as the village idiot). "I sure hope you can come to the performance," the Bambi-Bot says. "I think you and I should see... more of each other." Y'know what? I AM going to say "pedophile". I can't get my mind off the fact that Constantine is saying that to a boy that he is much older than. Even Gus looks concerned about this, and he doesn't even know who's controlling the Bambi-Bot!

Tommy, you're looking a little red in the face. I think you've been out in the sun for too long.

Dr. Kamikazi orders Constantine to have the Bambi-Bot steal Robotboy, but that's probably not a good idea since she'd be doing it in front of Tommy and his friends, who would obviously attempt to stop her. Constantine doesn't, not because of the reason I just said, but because "You don't understand how romance works, boss. You have to maintain an air of mystery."

You might or might not have been wondering where the actual Bambi and her mother are. Well, they're in Dr. Kamikazi's lair, and they STILL think that they're at a beach resort. Yeah, these two make Patrick Star look like a rocket scientist. And Bambi, a ten-year-old girl, is standing in front of Dr. Kamikazi in a two-piece bathing suit. The pedophile jokes are starting to write themselves...

Meanwhile, Tommy and the Bambi-Bot are going for a hot air balloon ride. "Tommy thinks he's soooooooo cool just because he has a girlfriend, I could get one easily," Gus complains in his annoying Eric Cartman-esque voice. Then he starts making the moves on Lola and kisses her, prompting her to teach him a valuable lesson about consent:

"No means NO, Tubby!"

You know who we haven't seen enough of in this episode? Robotboy. All he's done aside from just stand around is launch a croquet ball into outer space. Fortunately, after Tommy and the Bambi-Bot finish their hot air balloon ride and she walks off, the title character actually gets another line. "Tommy go Bambi too much. Tommy no go Robotboy," he says. Geez, who taught this robot how to talk? The Hulk?

"Robotboy realized that his show never be as popular as other Cartoon Network show starring
boy with abnormally-large square-shaped head and blue non-human sidekick. Might as well
cancel now."

Tommy points out that he can't tell "Bambi" about Robotboy. I guess this is one of those shows where they have to keep the non-human sidekick a secret. For some reason. Kind of like Ned's Newt, except in that show Newton interacted with non-Ned characters several times and nobody questioned the presence of a giant talking newt, so something tells me that Bambi (the real one, not the robotic duplicate) wouldn't be too phased by a robot.

"Because you don't really love her! If you loved her, you could tell her anything, because lovers are always TRUTHFUL!" Lola snaps. Why do you care, Lola? All I can think of is that she's mad because she has a thing for Tommy, but that's just a wild guess. Let me check the show's TV Tropes page...

...oh, she DOES have a crush on Tommy, but he apparently doesn't notice. That must be why she's got her pigtails in a twist over Tommy liking Bambi. Well, anyway, Tommy decides that Lola is right - he SHOULD tell Bambi about Robotboy.

Is it just me, or does Gus kind of look like a younger Kappa Mikey?

There's something about Bambi that Dr. Kamikazi did not take into account when he built a robot to take her place and woo Tommy - apparently, she has a boyfriend, Kurt, who interrupts her next date with Tommy and is all "Hey, you're two-timing me with this cube-head! What the heck?!" He and his friends, both of whom look like tools, decide to "give him a new face", but the Bambi-Bot channels her inner Powerpuff Girl and gives them a whoopin'.

"Sugar, spice, and everything nice, punk!"

Upon seeing this, Tommy somehow figures out that "Bambi" is actually a robot built by Dr. Kamikazi. Instead of just assuming that "Bambi" has been taking kung fu lessons or something. Or maybe the different eye color gave it away. Unfortunately, his being a master of deduction doesn't stop the Bambi-Bot from just taking Robotboy (currently disguised as Tommy's backpack) from out of Tommy's hands. Fortunately, Tommy manages to activate Robotboy by pressing a button on his watch, which means that it's robot fighting time!

Robotboy and the Bambi-Bot duke it out and we get a fart joke involving Gus (huzzah). Eventually, the Bambi-Bot summons robot cheerleaders to aid her and Robotboy goes all Super Sayain or whatever. Just when it seems like Robotboy is down for the count, he manages to defeat the Bambi-Bot, leaving nothing but the flower she wore in her hair behind. Not only was Dr. Kamikazi's plan a massive failure, but his dog winds up getting run over... jeez, that was needlessly dark. Fortunately, the dog survived. But still... you shouldn't run over a dog to get a laugh out of the audience. I guess whoever wrote this episode was a cat person...

The next segment, "Double Tommy", starts with Dr. Kamikazi revealing to Constantine that he has captured Tommy... or HAS he? He explains that the Tommy he has in his posession is actually Evil 17, the world's sneakiest secret agent. He used plastic surgery to turn him into a lookalike of Tommy.

Yes, Dr. Kamikazi is basically doing the EXACT SAME PLAN he did in the previous episode: create a duplicate of somebody, have them take that somebody's place, and have them attempt to capture Robotboy. Because it worked soooooooo well the first time, right? What, is he going to create duplicates of Lola and Gus next if THIS doesn't work out?

"YOU WERE WATCHING ME SLEEP?! Dear lord, you guys ARE pedophiles!"

So Tommy gets abducted by Dr. Kamikazi and Evil 17 swoops in to take his place. When Tommy learns about Dr. Kamikazi's evil plan, he insists that nobody will believe the imposter is him. Tommy, haven't you seen Muppets Most Wanted? Or the episode of Fish Police that did this plotline? Or the TWO episodes of SpongeBob SquarePants that did this plotline? Or the multiple other cartoons that did this plotline? When somebody steals someone else's identity, no matter how obvious of an imposter they are, everyone ALWAYS falls for it because they're suddenly massive idiots.

When Evil 17 gets to Tommy's house and finds Robotboy, he doesn't even bother trying to trick him - he just straight-up TELLS HIM that he's an evil imposter created by Dr. Kamikazi. Apparently Evil 17 is a few sodas short of a six-pack. As is Robotboy, who believes that Evil 17 is just joking and that he really IS Tommy. Y'know what, I'm bringing this back...

Since he doesn't want Robotboy to "get confused", Dr. Kamikazi takes Tommy back to his lair, ties him up, and prepares to give him plastic surgery to turn him into this:

Part warthog, part alligator, part giraffe, part baboon, all ugly.

Before he can go all Dr. Moreau on Tommy, Dr. Kamikazi calls up Evil 17 and tells him to give Robotboy his world-domination orders. But Evil 17 doesn't want to. He LIKES having Tommy's life, comparing it to being on vacation. He's also taken a liking to Tommy's mother (also Lorianne Pilkington)... disturbingly enough, especially since he previously mentioned that he has a wife. I wonder what her reaction was to the whole "husband being turned into a ten year old" thing.

"I wonder if SHE'S a pedophile, too..."

"WE'LL TEACH THAT TURNCOAT!" Dr. Kamikazi snaps. After he and Constantine head off to punish Evil 17, Tommy manages to free himself and sneak aboard their ship. They arrive just as Evil 17 is tricking Robotboy into stealing somebody's dog, and Dr. Kamikazi sics his fish-like minions on him. Since the minions can turn invisible, fighting them is pretty hard for Robotboy, at least until he squirts ink on them.

Eventually, the fight is interrupted by Tommy running out of the ship and confronting his imposter.

No, I will not make a reference to that Muppets Most Wanted meme. This episode is reminding
me too much of that film already.

And OF COURSE Robotboy comes to the conclusion that the real Tommy is the imposter. Dang it, Robotboy. I'm just as frustrated with you as I was with SpongeBob when I watched "Imitation Krabs".

Fortunately, then Robotboy notices that Evil 17 has gained a five o'clock shadow, making him realize that HE'S the imposter, and he sends Evil 17 flying. "I'll be back, Tommy Turnbull! And next time, I'll come for MORE THAN JUST YOUR FACE!" Dr. Kamikazi shouts. Tommy doesn't seem to hold the fact that Robotboy didn't notice he'd had his identity stolen (even after the imposter STRAIGHT-UP TOLD HIM THAT) against him. The end.

What's the Verdict?

I found Robotboy to be a mixed bag. Yeah, this is yet another cartoon I have to put in the "meh, it's okay" category. Of the two episodes, I much preferred "Bambi-Bot" to "Double Tommy", mostly because the latter used one of the most annoying cliches ever.

The best thing I can say about this show is that I like the art style - I think it does a much better job of aping the UPA art style than Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi does - it helps that it's not animated in Adobe Flash, so the character designs look a lot less "stiff". Unfortunately, the show really doesn't have much else going for it. The main character, Robotboy, is basically an afterthought - he doesn't actually do much of anything in either episode, except make me want to slap him in the face for being such an idiot in the second. Maybe I'd forgive that if Tommy and his friends were interesting, but they're not. Why am I watching them when I could be watching a SUPER-POWERED ROBOT? That's one thing My Life as a Teenage Robot certainly did much better. Problem number two: most of the jokes aren't funny. The only one I kind of liked was Lola's reaction to Gus hitting on her. I know I'm making it sound like I hated Robotboy, but I didn't. Like I said, I just found it okay. Maybe I just chose two of the weaker episodes to review. But, no, I won't be seeking out more episodes of it.

Also, my apologies for the multiple pedophile jokes in this review. I know it's nothing to laugh at but the show was giving me way too much material.

Let's Watch This: "Elephant Kingdom" (2016)

NOTE: Please do not take any of the little nitpicks in this review (or any of my other reviews, for that matter) seriously. I write these reviews in the hopes of making people laugh. Those nitpicks are really just dumb little observations that I'm attempting to make jokes out of, not complaints that add to whether or not I like something.

NOTE #2: No disrespect is meant towards anyone who worked on the movie I am reviewing today. I'm sure they are all very nice and talented people.

NOTE #3: If you like this movie, that is great. Go ahead and like it. I'm not judging you.

I wasn't sure if I was going to do a review of this, but then I saw somebody claim on Letterboxd that it was really weird and I thought "Okay, yeah, I gotta take a look at it."

So, like its predecessor, The Blue Elephant, this film got its start in its home of Thailand as a sequel to Khan Kluay, simply called Khaun Kluay 2. It was directed by Taweelap Srivuthivong. Since the Weinstein Company had previously done an English dub of the first film, an English dub of this one was released here... by Lionsgate and Simka Entertainment. Even the Weinsteins didn't want this one, it would seem.

The really strange thing about Elephant Kingdom is that it lacks basically any ties to The Blue Elephant. The characters' names were changed and none of the original voice actors came back (and the lack of Martin Short immediately puts this one at a disadvantage compared to the first). Maybe we should just ignore the first film and treat this one as its own thing? Maybe? Whatever, it's free to watch on YouTube so we're gonna review it. This is Elephant Kingdom.

The movie starts off with Jai... oh, I'm sorry, Wingman... y'know what, I'm just gonna keep calling him Jai... perching in front of us and shouting "Let me hear some LOVE! ...no? Oh, typical. I'll just get on with the story." And here we run into our first problem: you can not go from Martin Short to Garrett Clayton. They sound nothing alike. It's tremendously jarring.

Like, this is on par with the Monsters vs. Aliens TV show's replacing Reese Witherspoon
as the voice of Ginormica with Riki Lindhome.

Many years ago, Jai tells us, there was a great and powerful kingdom with a king who wanted to be even greater and more powerful. Usually, that results in them taking over another kingdom. If Jai saying that this is "when all the trouble started" is any indication, this king might've had the same idea...

But before we can get any more information, we see Jai flying around through Asia, fluttering by elephants, deer, monkeys, etc. before arriving at a village filled with creepy CGI humans. Just as jarring as the film's replacement of Martin Short with Garrett Clayton is the sudden replacement of the orchestral music with a generic pop song performed by the Not-Jonas Brothers.

Lift those legs, fellas!

He eventually arrives at a bunch of elephants having an aerobics class, led by the Blue Elephant himself, Khaun Kluay... or, as he's called now, Rok (voiced by Cary Elwes as opposed to Jeremy Redleaf). "'Sup, Wingman? What's the word, bird?" he asks, to which Jai replies, "Bird's the word!" and I resist the urge to make a "Surfin' Bird" joke.

"Rok's the best," Jai tells us. "He's like the bravest, toughest elephant ever, but with that sensitive boy band 'I've got you, girl' side, too." Okay, does EVERY line in this movie sound like it was written by a 2010s teenager? Was anyone actually saying "I've got you, girl" or "Let me hear some LOVE!" in 2016?

"Do you know how long it took me to train those lightning bugs to swarm in the shape
of a heart? Like, three days. But it was totally worth it."

Rok's mate, Kon Suay... or, as she's called now, Melody (voiced by Alexa PenaVega as opposed to Miranda Cosgrove), has something really exciting she needs to tell him, but he's too busy fighting in wars for her to tell him. There's always a battle going on, so I guess there are a lot of nations in this time period who have a bone to pick with Siam.

"When do we have time to be a family, Rok?" Melody asks him. Oh, jeez, is this one of those "the father is always at work and never has time for his family" movies?

"And why are you suddenly British?"

Melody does finally manage to tell Rok that she's going to have a calf or two, then continues to complain about how he's always at work. "I should've married a circus elephant. They're always around," she laments. Sure, they're always around, but how financially stable would you be? Circus elephants work for peanuts.

After Rok and Melody patch things up, Jai shows up to tell them that the king made a law: no more families. Yes, he apparently wants people to stop getting married and having kids. That's like making a law to stop people from breathing air. Why would he do this? Because families "take too much time" and he wants everyone to focus on TAKING OVER THE WORLD. Wasn't the king of Siam a good guy in the first movie? When did he go all "MUST ACHIEVE WORLD DOMINATION"?

Apparently, a lot of families are hiding in the jungle so they can continue to live their lives, but Rok says he can't hide because he's the general's elephant. But maybe Melody and his mother, Nuan... sorry, NANNA... can still hide until he figures something out.

"No, seriously, why ARE you suddenly British?"

"All the elephants love you. Talk to them, Rok," Nanna urges him. "Maybe humans are okay without families. But for elephants, families are the most important thing in the world." Maybe the elephants will listen to Rok, but the king probably won't... and not just because the humans can't understand what the elephants are saying (or can they?). He's banned any and all family activity - playtime, hugs, family dinners, vacations, bedtime stories, parks, what have you. Anyone who disobeys is thrown in the dungeon.

The elephants are not happy about this, but King Patrick Warburton is convinced that they'll eventually forget about their families. "Without families distracting them, they'll be the most fearless battle beasts ever," he declares. Doubtful, seeing as elephants are known for never forgetting anything. Fortunately, he has the help of some sort of sorcerer guy named Hemlock who's whipping up a magic potion to erase their memories. Yeah, y'know how the first movie was pretty realistic outside of the whole "talking animals" thing? Now we have a sorcerer. Okay then...

I'm just going to assume this king isn't the same king from the first movie but an entirely
new character. Maybe they'll explain where the original king went, maybe they won't,
we'll just have to wait and see...

After the sorceror completes his potion, we cut to a bunch of elephant calves playing. Two of them are Rok and Melody's kids, Mojo and Magic, and the others are orphans, presumably because of the whole "no families" thing.

Guess which one is the girl. (Hint: what color is usually associated with girls?)

Jai catches up with Rok to tell him that his calves are doing great. That night, three of the young elephants attempt to scare Nanna by disguising themselves as a Christmas tree with elephant ears (it makes sense in context. Sort of. Not really), and she is not amused by it. "She looked like she was gonna pee her pants!" one of them, Pugsley (Mikey Bolts) says... even though the elephants don't wear pants. As for the girl elephant...

"She's pink, so that probably means she tastes like a pig. We're eatin' bacon tonight!"

The king's warriors are laying siege to this small village and placing all of its residents under arrest. The elephants try to fight back, but it's no use, and Nanna actually winds up dying. Holy Toledo, it's only been twenty-three minutes and they've already offed a character? Well, I guess is Dehli Safari can do it...

So after that incredibly dark scene, what do we cut to? A dance party, of course! Elephants and ugly CGI humans are getting their groove on. One ugly CGI human mentions Chuck E. Cheese... what time period does this movie take place in? According to Wikipedia, it's set during the war between Ayutthaya and Hanthawaddy. I didn't know they had Chuck E. Cheeses back then.

He's a pretty smooth dancer for an animal that usually weighs about 8,800 lbs.

Just then, Rok notices Jai sitting on the branch of a nearby tree and asks him about Melody, Nanna and the twins. "Rok, the king's soldiers... they found Melody's village..." Jai says regretfully. "I'm sorry... I'm so sorry, there's nothing I could do..." Thunder clouds and sad violin music show up to add ambiance as Rok cries out in fury.

"DARN YOU, KING PATRICK WARBURTOOOOOOOOOOOON!"

Rok pays a visit to the Hall of Heroes, where his father's remains are kept. "I don't want to disobey an order, Papa," he says, "But I'm going to get my family back. You see, they need me. And more importantly, I need THEM." In other words, he's going AWOL.

The soldiers and Tian, the Carl Reiner-voiced elephant trainer from the first movie (NOT voiced by Carl Reiner this time, but whoever did his voice isn't mentioned in the credits so I don't know who it is) find out the next morning that Rok has made like Dumbo and flown the coop. Under the king's orders, the soldiers throw Tian in a jail cell. We get a montage of Rok and Jai traveling to the city, but King Patrick Warburton already knows about Rok, and thus the city is heavily guarded so the "rebel elephant" doesn't get in. What to do? He decides to knock out a guard elephant and steal his armor. A perfect disguise, assuming that the king didn't mention to the guards that the "rebel elephant" was BLUE.

Rok's color scheme is making me hungry for blueberries.

Melody and the twins are in the city, too, and Melody manages to break free of the ropes that bind her and go all Mama Bear to save her kids. Before Hemlock (the sorceror) and the soldiers can do anything to her, the queen of... I'm assuming this is still Siam, Diane, shows up and says, "You must know, no matter what you do, you can not steal the love from an elephant's heart." Alas, that doesn't stop Hemlock from zapping Melody with the "forget all relatives" potion.

Okay, so it seems like Hemlock is the one responsible for all of this going on - like, he's putting these "keep expanding, conquer other nations and take over the world" ideas in the king's head. Considering how obviously evil he is, why did the king and queen even hire him in the first place? Didn't they do a background check first?

Maybe he had really good credentials?

The potion makes Melody go unconsious, but she wakes up that night in a safe place where Queen Diane and what appears to be a female sumo wrestler have taken her. "I'm no fan of the king's laws," Queen Diane admits. Okay, then why don't you DO SOMETHING ABOUT THEM? You're the queen. His WIFE. His EQUAL. Don't you get a veto or something?

Meanwhile, the elephant calves attempt to escape their imprisonment, which leads to fart jokes because of course it does. "Smells like Fart Knox in here!" one of them moans... even though Fort Knox was established in 1918, long after this film supposedly takes place. And I thought the mouse in The Scarecrow mentioning the Titanic was out of place. Then another elephant calf named Rally shows up and offers them his assistance in his weird Fonzie-esque voice.

"Ayyyyyyyy!"

Rally helps the kids escape and then they meet up with Rok and Jai. Rally mentions that he knows where to find the dungeon where Mojo and Magic are being held, but it seems like the twins don't need to be rescued - they manage to escape their cell, and the guards chasing after them are promptly beaten up by Rok. Score one for the good guys.

They kind of look like Littlest Pet Shop toys, don't they?

Downside: since Rok has been absent for the first chunk of their lives, the twins don't recognize their father. To make matters worse, the sorcerer shows up and magically conjures up a cell for Rok to be trapped in.

Queen Diane enlists the help of some three guys who make unfunny jokes, and then somebody shows up and tells her that the King is having a ceremony that night to make everyone forget their families forever. "Tell the rebels the queen is on their side!" Queen Diane exclaims. Then Jai finds Melody and tells her that the King captured Rok and the twins. Oh, and I should also mention that the King has a son. Because of the "no families" law, Queen Diane isn't allowed to see him. And when he gives his father a gift, the King says he's "breaking the law". Jeez, this guy is cold. He makes Judge Frollo look like a loving father.

Queen Diane sends the three guys to rescue as many prisoners as they can. All the soldiers and elephants are lined up at the ceremony in front of the king. "Soldiers of Darklandia!" he says... apparently, this isn't Siam after all? Well, that explains a lot... although it also raises further questions. "Ask not what you can do for your parents! Or your brothers or sisters! Or CHILDREN! Seriously... don't even ask those things EVER! Seriously. Just DON'T! Ask only how your country can take over the world... and all the wealth WITHIIIIIIIIIIIIIN!"

"And nobody make fun of me for wearing makeup! Or say that I sound like the wolf
from Hoodwinked, for that matter!"

Melody, Jai, and the elephant calves attempt to save Rok and the twins, but suddenly the platforms that they're chained to are lifted up to where the ceremony is going on. Hemlock plans to blast them with the potion too... speaking of which, why didn't the potion work on Melody earlier?

The king tells his son that you can't run a country when you don't respect the law. "But fortunately, I'll soon forget you're my son and you'll never be the king! HA!" he adds. Dear lord, this guy is vile. I think we all owe Buck Cluck some apologies. While this is going on, Melody, Jai, Rally, and Pugsley wind up in what Jai describes as an "employees only" area, surrounded by bad guys. How will they ever escape? We'll have to find out later, because we cut to Hemlock about to unleash his magic spell. "Release the magic mist!" he snarls, but before anyone can get brainwashed, the rebels start releasing giant lanterns into the air and Rok remembers that he's, y'know, an ELEPHANT and easily breaks out of his cell. But he still has to fight Drago, the fiercest elephant under the sorceror's command. He is evil. He is nothing but pure hatred and an urge to fight. So basically, he's the same character as the Black Elephant from the first one.

Fun fact: we only now reached teh halfway point. Yes, it took this long for the movie
to be half-over!

Who emerges victorious? Well, Rok manages to send Drago flying into a giant podium, but just as he gets to his kids, a giant statue falls on top of them. Bombs start going off. The king announces that he's going to throw Hemlock in the dungeon and finish the job myself. Fortunately, Rok and his kids survived the statue falling on them - I guess there are benefits to having thick skin. Unfortunately, the king uses his son to make his wife reveal that she's with the rebels. "You both betray your king! I needed to see it with my own eyes," he snaps. "You'll pay for this, dearly! Soon, I'll be king of everything! And you two won't have ANYTHING! HA!"

"You're the one who has nothing! Without love, there's nothing worth having and nothing worth fighting for at all," Queen Diane replies. The king dubs her ungrateful - he gave her China, he gave her Egypt, he practically gave her the whole entire world, but she insists that he doesn't know how to give. You need to CARE to give. Quick question, Queen Diane - why did you marry this guy?

Rok, Jai, and the twins save Melody, Pugsly, and Rally from the bad guys, and one of the rebels manages to set the entire place aflame as they escape. In case you're wondering about the other elephant calves, they've spent the entire climax in one of the floating lanterns. We get another fart joke, which leads to the lantern going up in flames too. Eventually, they all wind up on a bridge, and it's soldier-fighting time... or rather, soldier-blowing-up time.

Meanwhile, Tian is still rotting in a jail cell.

The rebels have succeeded in defeating the bad guys, which means they can be families in public again. Happy ending time, right? Nope, the general says that Rok has to face charges for deserting the army. The queen and prince went into hiding, so until they return, the general's in charge, and he's not happy. Apparently he was on board with the whole "no families" thing?

So they all go to see the general, who tells his men to keep Rok locked up and they'll decide his fate in the morning. But then in the morning, guess who shows up again?

"Does anyone have any Clear Eyes? I hear for dry red eyes, it's awesome."

And who did Hemlock bring with him? An army of ZOMBIES! Yes, we have ZOMBIES now. I feel sorry for any kids who bought this film on DVD expecting a cute movie about candy-colored elephants in a kingdom and being scared out of their wits by the evil king putting those elephants in peril and the ZOMBIES.

Zombies are great at archery, did you know that?

Everyone either runs for their lives or fights the zombies, and when Rok saves the general he realizes that maybe what Rok did wasn't so dishonorable after all. They head up to the mountain where the sorceror is standing to beat him up, but he's got an elephant with him too - Drago, now ALSO a zombie! We get more fighting and eventually they wind up underwater. Rok and the general escape to the surface while Drago is crushed by rocks and presumably drowns. The elephant calves, meanwhile, have to deal with the sorceror's pet snake.

"Let's see, which order to eat them in?"

Oh, false alarm on Drago drowning - he just emerges from the rocks and arrives back on the surface. I guess zombie elephants can hold their breath for a really long time. "Drago! Stop playing coochie-coochie in the doochie and finish him!" Hemlock snaps... what exactly did he think Drago was DOING down there? The good guys are still fighting the zombies, and eventually they figure out that they can melt the zombies with fire. But Hemlock doesn't give up there - next, he summons GHOSTS and has them posess the zombies. It looks like this guy is unstoppable... until the general throws his sword at his staff, destroying it. The zombies all go bye-bye, the snake shrinks down to the size of an earthworm, and the ghosts all beat the crap out of the sorcerer and he... explodes or something, I don't know.

All's well that ends well, right? Nope. Drago did a number on Rok, and he actually dies. It's not one of those "oh, everyone thinks they died but then they wake up" things, we actually see Rok arriving in the afterlife. But he decides to go back - he's got a wife and kids, after all. I can't believe they actually killed the main character, even briefly.

"You did the right thing," the general tells Rok. "I thought honor was everything. The truth is, love and honor, they're the same thing. Thank you for teaching us that... you honorable elephant."

And Tian is still in that jail cell. Just saying.

The movie ends with Jai, who was knocked into the water during the climax, emerging. "Typical," he moans. Then we get another song by the Not-Jonas Brothers over the credits. What happened to the king? I don't know, they never tell us.

What's the Verdict?

Well, that was... something, I'll give it that.

As a sequel, it's basically ruined by the lack of ties to the first one. But you can't just take it as its own thing because it still requires you to have seen the first one to understand who these characters are, and why Rok works as a war elephant. But, then, why change the names? Why do they live in Darklandia instead of Siam now? Who is this new evil king?

Even ignoring that, most of the film is pretty blah. You have lots of unfunny jokes, most of them cringe-worthy attempts at toilet humor with the occasional pop culture reference sprinkled in. The new characters are incredibly uninteresting - Rok's kids are basically given nothing to do, the other young elephants are just there to make bad jokes, even the over-the-top villains aren't fun to watch. Martin Short's absence is certainly felt, this new version of Jai is far more annoying. The animation? It's about on par with the original - the animals look fine, though some of the young elephants' character designs are off-putting, the humans just look ugly. And dear lord, is it DARK. The zombies during the climax at least made things more interesting, but having so much of the film be the bad guys talking about how much families suck and the king emotionally abusing his kid just felt WRONG. And that's not even getting into how Rok briefly dies. It takes guts to kill the lead, but there's a reason why more animated movies don't do it.

Good things about it? Cary Elwes, Patrick Warburton and Alexa PenaVega are doing their best, but that's about all the good stuff I can say about Elephant Kingdom. Even if you like the first one, I wouldn't recommend watching it.

This review is brought to you by...

Do you, like, hate meeces to pieces? Got 'em, y'know, living in your walls, eating all your food and keeping you from taking catnaps? Well, we have the solution: call up Mr. Jinks' Pest Control!

We specialize in mice, but we'll rid your house of just about any unwanted critter: rats, bats, spiders, ants, cockroaches, squirrels, opossums, Fraggles, you name it. And don't worry, like, we're humane. We won't kill the little fellas - we'll just smack 'em with a broom or chase 'em around the room a while.

Our founder, like, Mr. Jinks.

Mr. Jinks' Pest Control: because you should never send a human to do a cat's job.