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

Here's a question for you to sink your teeth into - what do you get when you cross Futurama with The Flintstones? The answer is Cro. You get Cro.

It's always fun to set something animated in prehistoric times. As none of us know what it was like back then, you can have a lot of fun with it. You can have cavemen be basically like people nowadays with leopard-skin shirts and unibrows, or you could have them be hulking brutes with the combined IQ of Donald Trump and a toilet brush. You could have the main character be a woolly mammoth, a saber-toothed tiger, or a stegosaurus. You could have the characters live in caves or stone houses. The possibilities are endless here.

But I'll be honest, the main thing that draws me in isn't the fact that it takes place in prehistoric times. No, no, the thing that interests me in this show is that Jim Cummings voices a woolly mammoth. How cool is THAT?

Anyhow, here's the show's premise from what I can gather: one day, a scientist and this kid that lives with her for whatever reason found a woolly mammoth in a glacier and thawed him out. That woolly mammoth is named Phil, and as I've said before he's voiced by Jim Cummings. Every episode has him telling stories about his adventures in the prehistoric valley of Woollyville with his friend, Cro - an eleven-year-old Cro-Magnon boy voiced by Max Casella. Honestly, I would've been perfectly happy with the show just being about the wacky adventures that a woolly mammoth gets into in modern times, but having him tell stories about a kid from the stone age works too.

Cro was inspired by a 1988 children's book called The Way Things Work by David Macaulay. The show's production companies were Film Roman and, believe it or not, the Children's Television Workshop - or, as you know it today, Sesame Workshop. Yes, the same company that gave us Sesame Street. It premiered on ABC in 1993 and twenty episodes were aired before it was for whatever reason cancelled. Some episodes were released on VHS. But enough about the history of the show, you're here because you want to see me review an episode and tell you if it's worth watching. So let's dive in, shall we?

The episode that we'll be watching is called "Let Me Help".

So the episode begins with the scientist (April Oritz) yelling for the kid (Jussie Smollett) and Phil to help her out with her garden. Said garden is full of enormous crops and weeds tall as a skyscraper.

You have a woolly mammoth and you're using him for GARDENING.
Isn't that like owning a dragon and using it to cook for no other reason
than because you're too cheap to get an oven?

"I think that I shall never see a thing as intimidating as a weed," Phil says as they get to work. Getting rid of the weeds is trickier than they expected, due to how incredibly big they are. This reminds Prehistoric Tantor of a similar experience that he's had "in which technology was needed to overcome an immovable object." Ya know, now that I think of it, it actually makes sense for a woolly mammoth to be the one telling these stories... after all, woolly mammoths are pretty much just big furry elephants, and elephants never forget.

After the theme song, we cut to... a prehistoric junkyard?

Why is there a giant toothbrush in the back?

We hear two female voices talking among the rubble, then Phil offers his assistance. One of the female voices tells Phil not to mix "phenonium nitron" (or something like that) with "those pickles", and then we get an enormous explosion. When the dust clears, we see Phil with two other mammoths looking like they just stepped out of an audition for Dumbo's Pink Elephants on Parade sequence.

"A Heffalump or Woozle... is very confusel..."

"Science may be fun, but it is NOT a game!" the green mammoth (Tress MacNeille) snaps. Yes, apparently mammoths in prehistoric times are doing science experiments. Say, haven't scientists actually FOUND woolly mammoths frozen in ice? If they manage to thaw them out, will said woolly mammoths help us make major breakthroughs in science?

"Don't get your tusks in a tizzy, Esmeralda!" Phil says with a smile. "We can try the experiment again! After all, we have all eons!" The green mammoth chews out Phil some more, and he decides to shashay off.

Then we cut to Cro and some other cavemen. To be honest, most of the other cavemen in this show look more like apes than they do cavemen.  I mean, just look at the guy on the left here - that's for all intents and purposes a monkey!

Super-intelligent mammoths, cavemen that look like gorillas...
Maybe this is a prequel to Planet of the Apes? A place where
apes evolved from man? Maybe?

Cro is trying to teach the three other cavemen math, but they're idiots, so he's pretty much just wasting his time. Then they hear a cavewoman (Ruth Buzzi) wailing because her plant is all dried out. Cro says that the plant needs a little light - it doesn't look like it's seen the sun in, as he puts it, "forever".

One of the cavemen, named Ogg (also voiced by Jim Cummings), suggests putting another door in the roof of the cave to let some sun in. "Ogg OCCASIONALLY not as dumb as he look," he says proudly. Thus, they go outside, where Cro draws an "X" where they want the "door" to go, and then the three other cavemen start whacking the "X" with their clubs. "This isn't working," Cro says. "We need something harder to punch a hole in the wall."

"No, I do NOT look like a girl!"

So then the Three Prehistoric Stooges (the other two cavemen are voiced by Frank Welker, by the way) try BANGING THEIR HEADS AGAINST THE "X" - "Woodpecker make hole this way," Ogg points out. "Good enough for stupid bird, good enough for stupid neanderthal!" Uh, were there woodpeckers in prehistoric times? Aren't birds descended from dinosaurs? Weren't the only birds in prehistoric times kind of like big feathery pterodactyls? I know, I know, it's just a cartoon, it's not supposed to be super-accurate...

Then Cro gets an idea. He has Ogg and the other two cavemen tie sharpened pieces of wood to their heads, resulting in the caveman that looks like a monkey claiming that he's growing feathers in sensitive areas. Too much information, pal!

The three cavemen practice their woodpecker-ing on a tree, and they manage to chop it down. Alas, when they try it on the cave where they want to put the door, it doesn't work as well. Fortunately, Phil then shows up and asks what's going on. Cro explains that they're trying to make a hole in the wall and that they need help. "Well, you've come to the right mammoth!" Phil announces. "Help is my middle name!"

Phil tells them that wood is too soft to break through the wall of the cave. "At the risk of sounding trendy," the mammoth says as he picks up a rock with his trunk, "How about using a rock? After all, not only is this the Ice Age, it's the Stone Age as well, you know! Besides, it's harder than wood in the cave wall!"

So the Three Prehistoric Stooges use rocks, and it's working. Phil has another idea to get the hole in that wall faster - get a giant boulder and use THAT. "Just slam THIS into the wall and you'll crack a hole in it in no time!" he says. If mammoths were seriously that smart, scientists should really get started on thawing them out - who knows, maybe a mammoth will be able to solve world hunger as well.

The one problem with this plan is that Cro and the three other cavemen can't run fast enough for their makeshift battering-ram to make that much of a dent. "We need more momentum!" Phil tells them. And he has a method that's guaranteed to be easier.

"I meant what I said and I said what I meant. A mammoth is faithful,
one hundred percent!"

Specifically, he has the cavemen carry the rock up to the top of a hill, then tells them to push it down the hill and send it flying into the cave wall. I'm pretty sure that would result not in a hole being made but rather in the entire cave being destroyed, but this mammoth is clearly much smarter than I am so who am I to question him?

So they push it down the hill, but Phil didn't realize that the boulder wouldn't roll straight, so that plan is a failure too. Cro and the other cavemen are ticked-off, but Phil has another idea.

Phil invents the first wrecking ball.

This way, they can control where the boulder hits. And it works! "You see?" Phil says. "Technology in action!"

Then we cut back to Phil in modern times with the kid and the garden. The kid has an idea to get rid of those pesky weeds, but Phil finds his plan ridiculous.

My suggestion would be to listen to the super-intelligent mammoth, kid.
He knows what he's talking about.

"I'm a thinker, not a hired hand!" the mammoth protests. "It's not your HANDS we need here! Giddyup!" the kid replies. The plan doesn't work - they need something bigger. Fortunately, the scientist has a bulldozer, even though A) I'm not sure I trust a kid at the controls of a bulldozer and B) Phil doesn't have fingers, so how is HE going to work the controls?

Back to Phil's story. The cavewoman is nearly smashed by the boulder, but Cro saves her just in time. Cro now thinks that the swinging rock plan is too dangerous, but Phil says, "Nonsense! Just a miscalculation, that's all, nothing to worry about. Why, look at how well we're progressing!" And now Phil has another idea - eliminating rocks altogether and taking Cro to that junkyard place from before.

He explains to Cro - and the audience - that this is where the mammoths dump all their scientific technology when they're done with them. Cro finds a big pile of that carbon-phenonium-nitron-whatever from before and asks what it does. Phil explains that it makes things "KABOOM", and that gives him the idea to use THAT to make that hole. Alas, it doesn't work. Phil forgot that you have to contain the powder. "You know, pack it together like soda in a shaken-up soda can!" he explains. "What's a soda can?" Cro replies. That's a good question - how does Phil know about soda and soda cans? Did mammoths invent soda too? To heck with chimpanzees, clearly MAMMOTHS are the most intelligent animals out there!

So they pack the hole with the phenonium-nitron stuff. "Ogg have big kaboom yesterday after lunch," Ogg boasts (again, TOO MUCH INFORMATION!). Then they pack moss over the phenonium-whatever to keep it in there. Phil announces, "Okay, fellow sapients! This is it! The Big Bang!"

Insert some sort of reference to The Big Bang Theory here, I've got nothing.

They light the fuse and cause the phenoniblahblahblah to go "KABOOM". Ogg assumes that he farted (classy, fellas). They manage to get deeper into the cave wall, but it's not quite a hole yet. Phil suggests that they just need one big blast to get a hole in there. Cro isn't so sure, but Phil says, "Trust me, Cro. I'm just trying to help." Yeah, and clearly mammoths are the smartest animals in this time period, so I would recommend listening to him.

Thus, Cro and Phil head back to the junkyard to get more of the phenonimum-crap. Once they have enough, Phil says that mammoths are naturally-helpful creatures. "And I am as helpful as they come!" he adds. "Ever hear of being TOO helpful?" Cro asks in an ungrateful matter. "Bite your tongue, Cro! There's no such thing!" Phil insists. "Well, at least not often. It's not something mammoths like to talk about, but even WE can make mistakes."

For example, there once was a species known as the Web-Nosed Bush-Burping Frog. Here's a picture of one:

A frog, a pig, and a turkey walk into that teleporter thing from
The Fly...

The mammoths, as it turns out, kept accidentally stepping on them. So one day, the mammoths all got together and came up with a plan to save the frogs - they moved them all to a nice new home far from where the mammoths roamed. A place of beautiful ponds and frequent rains. Little did they know that the Web-Nosed Bush-Burping Frogs were misnamed... they were, in fact, TOADS. Not frogs. And not very good swimmers. Oops. To be fair, though, maybe this is the fault of whoever NAMED the Web-Nosed Bush-Burping Frogs as opposed to the mammoths? Maybe? Or was it a mammoth that named them?

The cavewoman, as it turns out, has decided to cook the phenomi... you know what? I'm just gonna call it "the dark grey crap"... for dinner. Uh oh, I smell a problem!

The neanderthals - they're just like us modern-day humans, only
even dumber. And that's saying a LOT!

Cro and Phil arrive back at the cave just in time to see the cavewoman cooking the dark grey crap. Fortunately, they manage to put the fire out. "Cro, do you think maybe I took this hole thing a bit too far?" Phil asks. No, Phil, your plan probably would've worked if the neanderthals hadn't been massive idiots and tried to cook the dark grey crap. But, OH NO! The fuse to the dark grey crap has been lit! Everyone evacuates, but the cavewoman - her name is Nandy, by the way - runs back into the cave to get her plant. She's rescued by Phil and then KABOOM!

Now the cave looks like this:

Not a bad place to live, if you don't mind the fact that it looks
like Swiss Cheese.

The plant looks like someone left it in the oven too long, but Nandy's surprisingly not too upset - she was planning on eating it anyway. Phil feels bummed that he came up with such stupid plans - even though, again, I think the idiot neanderthals are more to blame than he is, even if he wasn't really thinking his plans through - but Nandy and Cro reassure him that he was in fact a very big help.

Back in modern times, Phil attempts to use the bulldozer and just winds up making a mess of the garden. The scientists saves them and chews out Phil for being so irresponsible. The end.

So what have we learned today? Well, we learned that neanderthals looked very much like apes with slightly less body hair. We also learned that mammoths were THE SMARTEST ANIMALS IN THE ENTIRE STONE AGE. Seriously, if there are any scientists reading this, get thawing out those mammoths you might have found!

I honestly liked this episode. It wasn't a laugh riot, but there were some kinda funny moments. I really liked Phil - I like his design, his personality, and Jim Cummings' performance. And I love woolly mammoths, too, so there's that. Cro and the other neanderthals were okay, but I could take or leave them, honestly. Like I said before, I would've been perfectly happy with the show just being about Phil.

If you'd like to watch Cro, you can find a good chunk of its episodes on YouTube. It may not be as iconic as The Flintstones, but it's still a good time.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to go find a glacier with a woolly mammoth in it. Don't ask me how I plan on thawing it out. I'll think of a way.

NEXT REVIEW: An episode of "Lloyd in Space"