Let's Watch This - An Episode of "Spliced"

Ladies and gentlemen, do I have a lousy cartoon for you today.

Spliced is another show from the folks at Nelvana - for those unaware, that's the same company that spawned Little Bear, Rolie Polie Olie, and Franklin. In Canada, it aired on Teletoon and Cartoon Network, but here in America, it aired on Qubo alongside shows like Veggietales and another show that I've taken a look at on this blog, Ned's Newt. It's sort of a comedic take on The Island of Dr. Moreau.

The extremely catchy theme song gives the show's plot:

"On a tiny little island in the ocean called Pacific
There's a mixed-up group of creatures who are really quite horrific
Mixed together with whatever crap was found or could be grabbed
Reinvented in the bowels of a lab!"

Yes, the song actually has the word "crap" in it. Don't ask me how they were able to get away with THAT.

Anyhow, the song also explains that the "spliced" animals were created by some crazy doctor who got taken away by the authorities, leaving his creations to... do whatever it is that they do. The main characters are some sort of rodent/squid-hybrid thing named Peri and a cow/pig/chicken/shrimp-hybrid named Entree. They're the stereotypical "skinny idiot and fat idiot" duo a la Ren and Stimpy or Fanboy and Chum-Chum.

So, is Spliced any good? Spoiler alert: not really, no. Why isn't it any good? I think the best way to explain why is through a review of one episode...

The first segment of this episode is a Peri and Entree cartoon called "Amazon".

It's a beautiful day on the island. The only "normal" animal there, a platypus named Patricia (Katie Crown), is thinking of taking a vacation - but it's so perfect there, so she doesn't think she should leave. Then Peri (Rob Stefaniuk) and Entree (Joe Pingue) show up. And they're, uh, giants.

Okay...

I can't even think of a joke here. Honestly, I think the screencap just speaks
for itself...

Patricia asks if Giant Skinny Idiot and Giant Fat Idiot were playing in the doctor's lab again, and Entree eats the mayor of the town, Two-Legs Joe (Pat McKenna). For some reason. Peri and Entree go off on their destructive rampage, and Patricia decides that maybe she SHOULD take a vacation.

She asks this little furry creature named Fuzzy (Julie Lemieux) if he can watch her house while she's away, but as it turns out Fuzzy's going on a trip too.

Fuzzy, as you can see, kind of looks like if you spliced Sam-I-Am and Wander.

Patricia goes around asking everybody if they can watch her house, and then Peri and Entree, now back to normal size, say that THEY can do it. Patricia is understandably reluctant to let them, but Peri is all "Come on, let us do it!" So she does, and tells them to A) let air in, B) water the plants, and C) feed her little mole/hamster-hybrid things - who are just as afraid of Peri and Entree as I am.

Patricia goes off on her vacation, where she meets... this guy.

He looks like the mascot of some sort of Frosted Flakes knockoff you find
at grocery stores...

Meanwhile, Peri and Entree are doing a really lousy job of taking care of her house, and are mainly just making a mess of things. Like, at one point Entree does THIS.

I think even Homer Simpson would be baffled at just how much of an idiot
this guy is...

Entree pours a truckload of Goldfish Crackers into the mole/hamster-hybrids' cage. Peri tells him that it's a bit too much, but Entree says, "Wouldn't you love it if someone poured delicious food all over YOU?" In addition, he also floods the house in order to keep the plants hydrated and turns up the thermostat "so it'll be nice and toasty for Patricia when she comes home". Now they don't have to do anything for a week!

Hear that? It's the sound of Stimpy, Patrick, and Heffer facepalming in unison. And likely also preparing to sue Entree for ripping them off.

Well, anyway, one week goes by and Peri and Entree decide to check on Patricia's house. Which now looks like this.

"Was all this here before?" Peri asks, to which Entree (who sounds like a bad impression of Muppeteer David Rudman, for what it's worth) replies, "Yeah." Upon noticing that the house now has a WATERFALL in it, Peri asks when Patricia gets back. "In a week," Entree reassures him. "At least that's what she said a week ago." Okay, can we just get to the part where she comes back and gets ticked off at them already? We all know that's what's going to happen, so why are you dragging it out?

Peri and Entree find Patricia arriving back in town and tackle her. "Why don't you take some more time off, like another day?" Entree suggests. Patricia, being the sane one here, demands to know what Peri and Entree did. Upon seeing what happened to her house, she's pretty ticked off.

I swear that I've seen that exact same face in a hundred different cartoons before...

Peri hears some drumming and starts dancing like an idiot. As it turns out, the mole/hamster things are now a native tribe a la the pigs from Muppet Treasure Island who promptly chase after Peri, Entree and Patricia. Tweedledee and Tweedledum escape, but the platypus winds up getting captured. Entree is perfectly willing to just let the mole/hamsters carry her off, but Peri is all, "Dude, we've gotta save her!"

After dressing up in... army duds, I guess? They go in to save Patricia... and promptly get knocked out by poison darts.

When they wake up, the mole/hamster guys have carried them to the top of a giant toilet and plan on giving them the Flushed Away treatment. They knock Entree in, and as they're about to throw in Peri he's all, "Pleaaaaaaaaaaaase give us another chance! We'll take care of you properly this time, I promise!" Patricia, who is now the leader of the mole/hamster tribe apparently, says that's all she needed to hear. Entree is rescued.

Peri and Entree say that the mole/hamster guys can stay with Entree until Patricia's able to get her house fixed up. Exactly six minutes later, the mole/hamster guys have tied up Peri and are roasting Entree over an open fire. The end.

Then we get... uh, a rap song performed by the lion guy (who sounds like a bad impression of Benjamin Bratt, by the way) Patricia met earlier in the episode? What?

The second segment of the show is... another Peri and Entree cartoon. Yaaaaaaaaaaaay. This one is called "Juice".

The episode begins with Entree having a dream in which he wins the title of "Most Popular Mutant Ever" and then starts playing the cello. Peri wakes him up by zapping him with a cattle prod (great friend you've got there, Entree).

Entree asks Peri if people like him. Peri's all, "Sure! I like you! Of course, I AM a massive idiot..." Entree really wants to be liked, so Peri announces that he will not sleep until his best friend is super-popular.

Several failed attempts at getting people to like Entree later, Entree comes up with a new plan. He dresses Peri up like an alien (which isn't too hard, since Peri already kinda looks like one) and tells Peri that he's going to "save the town" from Peri's "attack" and be a hero.

Boy, this E.T. remake is a lot stranger than the original...

Instead, the townsfolk all beat Peri up in an honestly pretty brutal scene while Entree falls asleep. Peri wants to throw in the towel after that, and to be honest I really don't blame him, but Entree is all, "NOOOOOOOO I MUST BECOME POPULAR!" and comes up with a new plan involving tight pants.

Don't ask me why Entree thinks looking like this will make him more popular.

The pants wind up falling apart, and as a result some milk shoots out of Entree's udders and lands on Peri. The rejected Foster's Home For Imaginary Friends character tells his Patrick ripoff friend that the milk tastes delicious (or as he puts it "like a warm summer's day"). As it turns out, Entree named all of his udders. If you thought Barnyard's giving male cows udders was disturbing, I invite you to give this episode a watch.

So Peri gets the idea to set up a stand and sell Entree's "udder juice", but nobody wants to drink anything that came out of Entree (for obvious reasons). Entree says, "It's just like milk from the store. The ENTREE Store." Patricia ends up trying some and likes it, and then everybody suddenly wants to try some of Entree's "udder juice". Soon Entree is super-popular and we get this.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUGH!

However, now Entree is so popular that he's not hanging out with Peri anymore. In fact, when Peri comes by and asks if he'd like to do something fun, Entree ASKS WHO HE IS, hands the poor guy a carton, and leaves. I take back what I said earlier about Peri not being a good friend - Entree is definitely the bad friend here. I know that's probably supposed to be the point, but still...

So now everybody is straight-up ADDICTED to Entree's "udder juice" (ughhhhhh...). And to make matters worse, Entree's udder that makes the good milk runs dry! He makes a run for it, his insane fans in hot pursuit, but Peri comes to his rescue. Wow, even after Entree was a jerk to him, Peri still wants to help the guy out. He's super-forgiving.

Peri suggests that Entree give them milk from one of his OTHER udders. Entree says that the milk from those udders doesn't taste good, and Peri says, "THAT'S THE POINT!" and then Entree whines that if he does that he won't be popular anymore.

Blah blah blah, Entree's other udders shoot milk into the other mutants' mouths and they think it tastes awful. Entree has learned a valuable lesson about how popularity isn't everything.

Look at Peri's expression here. You can just tell that he's about to snap like a
twig. I mean, if I had THAT thing as my best friend, I sure would.

And wouldn't you know it? The udder that makes the GOOD milk is running again, and Entree squirts some milk into Peri's mouth. As a result of this, Peri becomes addicted to the stuff as well.

See? What did I tell ya? Having Entree as a best friend has caused Peri to go
insane.

Entree tells his udder to run for it. The udder suddenly gains a mouth and screams, and the episode ends right there.

Oh yeah, and then we get a quick sketch starring "Compuhorse", but you know what? I'm skipping over it. Though it includes Entree getting kicked, which is admittedly pretty satisfying.

Spliced, in my opinion, is not a good show. The animation is typical Flash, all fidgety and flat (heck, the THEME SONG has more fluid animation!). Peri and Entree are both annoying, but I found Peri a lot more likable than Entree in that at least Peri's not a massive jerk. Entree is literally just Patrick except he's not funny at all. Patricia is boring - she's literally just there to be "the girl" of the show and that's it. The other characters barely leave an impression. I didn't laugh ONCE. Like most bad cartoons, the show throws every 2000s-2010s cartoon cliche at the screen in the hopes that it'll make the audience like it - time cards! Random sound effects! Gross close-up shots! Weirdness for the sake of being weird! It's all there, and it results in an obnoxious mess of a show. Much like Entree, this show doesn't have any legs to stand on.

Thank you for joining me for my review of Spliced. In the next edition of "Let's Watch This", we'll be taking a look at one of the lesser-known animated films released in 2010 - Crest Animation Productions' Alpha and Omega. Hope you like Justin Long-voiced wolves.

Let's Watch This - An Episode of "Yakkity Yak"

It's funny how memory works. Every single time I've had to do a division problem, I have no idea how to do it despite the fact that I've done it before. And yet, I remember a whole bunch of things that didn't involve subjects I learned in school. For example, I remember that at least one advertisement for this show began with the announcer exclaiming, "Nickelodeon is getting stupid!"

Now chances are that you're thinking, "What show is he referring to?" Well, I'll give you a hint: it's named after a song. And I was introduced to this show before the song, so I thought that the song came from the show as opposed to the show being based on the song.












Okay, I'm just gonna come out and say it: the show that we're reviewing today is Yakkity Yak.

Yakkity Yak is an Australian-Canadian cartoon that premiered on Teletoon and Nickelodeon (only in Australia, apparently, but it must've aired on the US Nickelodeon at SOME point if I remember watching episodes of it) in 2002. One season was produced before it got the ax, then banished to Nicktoons Network for a few years before winding up in the Pit of Obscure Nickelodeon Shows alongside shows like The Xs and The Brothers Flub. Apparently, kids looked at a show about a talking yak whose best friend is a kid with a pineapple for a head and thought, "This looks stupid." I'm guessing that straight-up saying in the ads that by airing this show Nickelodeon was "getting stupid" probably didn't help make the show look watchable.

Does Yakkity Yak hold up? Let's find out! Today we'll be taking a look at the episode... hmmm, let's see, which episode do I watch today? Maybe the one where Yakkity becomes an accurate weather forecaster... due to his grandmother's weather-predicting bunions*? Uh, no thank you... how about "The Yak and the Hat"?

Okay, so "The Yak and the Hat" begins with Yakkity (Lee Tockar) and his pineapple-headed best friend, Keo (Brian Drummond) at school. Keo, who kind of sounds like Cartman by the way, keeps answering the teacher's questions while Yakkity takes a nap. He starts drooling (ugh) and we get a look inside of his dreams.

I know this might be considered a nitpick, but why does Yakkity have antlers?
He's a yak, not a moose. Yaks don't have antlers. They have horns. Horns
that look nothing like antlers.

In his dream, Yakkity is a big movie star walking the red carpet. A reporter asks him a question - the very same question that the teacher called on him to answer, waking him up. Before Yakkity can think of the answer, Keo answers it, which makes the teacher ask, "Yakkity, why can't you be more like Keo?" Well, for one thing, Mr. Teacher, he doesn't have a pineapple for a head.

No, seriously, what exactly is the deal with  Keo having a pineapple for a head? Is he a mutant? Did he eat a pineapple-flavored Fruit Gusher? Is he a human with a pineapple for a head or a pineapple with a body or WHAT? How did they even come up with this idea? Did somebody say, "Hey, let's give this one character a pineapple for a head!" "Why?" "Well, SpongeBob lives in a pineapple, and everybody loves SpongeBob. Maybe if we include a pineapple somewhere in OUR show, it'll become as popular as SpongeBob!" "My God, it's GENIUS!"

Okay, moving on... we then cut to that night at Yakkity's house. Apparently, Yakkity and his grandmother invited Keo and his dad over. Keo's dad, as it turns out, is a pineapple with a face - no body, just a face. This just raises further questions.

So anyway, Yakkity's grandmother is knitting a hat, and Keo's dad (who sounds like Homer Simpson) is watching a game show called Who Wants to Win a Bunch of Money. Keo manages to correctly guess the answers even when the contestants can't, showing once again just how smart he is. And then we get a demonstration of just how dumb Yakkity is. Nyuck nyuck nyuck nyuck nyuck...

He also has a stereotypical dumb-sounding voice, just in case you didn't get
that he was supposed to be one of those cartoon characters that is also a
massive idiot.

After Keo gets him unstuck, Yakkity suggests that Keo try out for that game show, but Keo says that he can't because the TV studio is too far away. But then the show's host tells the audience that the show will be coming to their home town, Onion Falls, next week. Ze odds, vhat are zhey?

Alas, Keo is too nervous to do it - doesn't Yakkity remember what happened when Keo won the school history contest? Apparently, he was too afraid to go onstage and accept the award due to stage fright, so Yakkity had to accept it for him. Then Yakkity announced that he'd be thanking the audience on Keo's behalf with a little "rock-em sock-em stand-up comedy"... and promptly got pelted with fruit. Hopefully none of that fruit was a relative of Keo's.

"If only there was a way to combine your know-it-all-noggin with my complete inability to feel shame in front of others!" Yakkity says. Then Keo gets an idea involving the hat Yakkity's grandmother was knitting...

Cut to the game show. The host introduces Contestant Number One, a candy store owner by the name of Mr. HighPants.

His pants have sleeves. Wouldn't that technically make it some sort of bodysuit?

Then he introduces the next contestant, Yakkity. The plan, apparently, is having Keo hide inside the hat, and Yakkity wear the hat, so that Keo can give Yakkity all the answers to the questions that the host asks him. There's a word for this in game shows... what's it called again? Oh yeah, cheating.

"I sure hope the Cat in the Hat doesn't sue us for copyright infringement..."

The host asks Yakkity what the story is with his hat. Yakkity replies that sometimes, his hat sneezes. Uh, okay. "Well," the host says, "I've heard of a THINKING cap, but never a SNEEZING cap!" The audience starts laughing. I, on the other hand, am just sitting here unamused. In fact, at no point thus far has this show gotten a laugh out of me.

I figured that I should include a screencap of the host, so here he is.
Nice hairstyle, eh?

So the game begins. Yakkity keeps getting each question right due to Keo's giving him the answers, and soon the host is declaring him their new champion. Of course, he'll have to come back tomorrow for ROUND 2 of Who Wants to Win a Lot of Money.

At school the next day, Yakkity is talking to Keo about how great it is that they're going to win a whole lot of money and do cool things with it. For example, maybe he could buy himself an actual personality so he won't just have "idiot who sucks at stand-up comedy" as a character trait. The other kids are really impressed by Yakkity's smarts, to the point that they dub him even smarter than Keo. This, of course, does not make Keo happy.

Keo's lips are freaking me out.

After Round 2, which Yakkity wins, Keo volunteers Yakkity to answer the teacher's question of "What is the meaning of life?" in order to prove to the class that Yakkity is not, in fact, essentially Albert Einstein and Issac Newton combined.

Don't we all, Zoidberg. Don't we all...

So anyway, Yakkity admits that he doesn't know the answer, which pleases the teacher, as "a true genius is always willing to admit what he doesn't know." "In that case, I am one brainy dude!" Yakkity exclaims, which makes Keo understandably quite frustrated. I mean, Yakkity calling himself "one brainy dude" is like having Leonard Hofstader call himself the coolest person in the world.

After school, Yakkity comes by Keo's house in a truck to drop off Keo's share of the winnings. Keo is excited - that is, until he finds out that the truck isn't full of money. It's full of...  get ready for this... CHEESE. And not just any cheese... INCREDIBLY SMELLY cheese. Because as we all know, just like monkeys, farting, and shouting at the top of your lungs, cheese and things being smelly are automatically hilarious.

Cheese: winning it is only exciting if you're a cartoon mouse.

You see, as Yakkity was leaving the bank with the money that he and Keo won from the game show, he ran into some guy who had a lot of cheese and gave him all of the money in exchange for the cheese. Because as we've established, he's an idiot. "How could you blow all of our winnings without consulting me?!" a rightfully angry Keo demands. "I'M THE BRAINS!" "Well, I'M the personality! And maybe I don't NEED brains!" Yakkity replies stubbornly. Yeah, maybe you don't need brains, Yakkity... after all, you got along just fine before the game show WITHOUT brains.

Apparently, there's one more round of Who Wants to Win a Lot of Money that Yakkity needs to win tomorrow, and Keo tells him that he's not going to help Yakkity cheat his way to victory anymore. So, in the next round, Yakkity has cheese under his hat (for some reason) instead of Keo, and his opponent is... let's make a game out of it, shall we?

Is Yakkity's opponent...
A) Keo
B) Somebody other than Keo
OR C) Somebody other than somebody other than Keo who still isn't Keo

If you guessed A, congratulations! Apparently, wanting to stick it to Yakkity trumps stage fright for Keo.

I don't know why, but I love Keo's expression here. You can tell that he's just
as fed up with Yakkity's bullcrap (or should that be YAKcrap?) as I am.

Alas, Keo's stage fright prevents him from answering any of the questions (unless "Ummm..." qualifies as an answer in your book). Meanwhile, Mr. Idiot Yak answers every question with "Cheese?" When the show pauses for a commercial break, Yakkity angrily says that Keo is making him look like a fool. "You're wearing a hat made of cheese. You ARE a fool," Keo replies. I was gonna say "You don't need Keo to make you look like a fool", but I like Keo's comment better. Then, unaware that a cameraman is recording him at the moment, Keo points out that Yakkity would've never won all those previous rounds in the first place if it weren't for the fact that he was hiding in his hat and giving him all of the answers. Uh oh...

The host demands that Yakkity and Keo give them all the money that they won back. Too bad Yakkity stupidly blew it all on cheese.

Then we, um, cut to a different game show, this one a Survivor parody called Survival of the Grossest. The host tells us that tonight on the show, Yakkity and Keo will eat a hat full of cheese in order to win a big cash prize. Apparently, they're planning on giving the prize money to the people in charge of Who Wants to Win a Bunch of Money. The end.

A yak who looks more like a purple moose in a fur coat than a yak and a kid
with a pineapple for a head and incredibly red lips eating melted cheese out of a
knitted hat on a tropical island. I should be weirded-out by this, but eh, I watched
Squirrel Boy so this sort of thing really doesn't surprise me anymore.

I gotta admit, I was expecting Yakkity Yak to suck. It certainly didn't LOOK like a particularly good show. But it was actually better than I thought it would be. I mean, don't get me wrong, it's not a GOOD show. It's not funny, Yakkity is really annoying and not endearing in the slightest, and all the cheese grosses me out. But it's not a BAD show, it's just... mediocre. I wouldn't recommend watching it, but I've seen far worse cartoons.

Boy, most of my reviews are starting to sound the same, aren't they? Squirrel Boy, Corneil and Bernie, Ned's Newt, Class of 3000, this... I review way too many cartoons that are just mediocre. And mediocre cartoons don't really make for particularly funny reviews. Ah well, maybe I'll get more joke material out of the next cartoon that I review... what's next on the list?

Ummmmmmmm...

* I did not make that up. That was an actual episode.