Let's Watch This: An Episode of "Galaxy High School"

We're really getting obscure today! We're gonna be looking at a show that was basically a precursor to Lloyd in Space. Sort of. I mean, they both mainly focused on aliens going to school.

Anyhow, Galaxy High School exists.

Found this on IMDB. Oddly, the humans on the poster look nothing like
the humans in the actual show. Maybe this was early concept art?

This show was created by none other than Chris Columbus, who you probably know better as the director of two Harry Potter movies. It aired on CBS in 1986, but for whatever reason only lasted thirteen episodes. Fortunately, all thirteen episodes managed to get a DVD release.

The show's plot is explained via the theme song: there are these two kids in high school. One of them, Doyle Cleverlobe (voiced by Hal Rayle) was a skilled athlete beloved by all. The other, Aimee Brighttower (voiced by Susan Blu), was the smartest girl in school but not very popular. They're chosen (presumably at random) to be transferred to a high school in outer space called Galaxy High School, located on an asteroid named Flutor.

Personally, I wouldn't want to go to a high school in space. I get homesick very easily. Which reminds me, did Doyle and Aimee's parents have any say in this? Do they at least have some way of keeping contact with their kids? Are the kids living in space? If so, where? Or do they have some sort of vehicle or machine that allows them to travel back to their homes on Earth at the end of each school day? What if they get sick or injured? And what if the alien nurse doesn't know how to treat a human? Will the aliens running the school have to abduct a human doctor? How are they even able to breathe in space when they don't have spacesuits on? And most importantly, IS THEIR MAIL BEING FORWARDED TO WHEREVER IT IS THAT THEY'RE LIVING?

Well, anyhow, today we'll be watching the first episode of Galaxy High School to see if the show's any good, or if it deserves to languish in obscurity. Said first episode is fittingly titled "Welcome to Galaxy High" and was written by Chris Columbus himself. Let's get started, shall we?

The episode begins with Doyle and Aimee arriving at Galaxy High. Doyle quickly demonstrates his main character trait - he thinks that he's hot stuff and the greatest thing since sliced bread - by telling Aimee not to follow him around. If she does, she might scare off all the hot alien girls that Doyle thinks will worship the ground he walks on. They wind up getting sucked by one of these transportation tube things...

Boy, only one minute in and already I'm reminded of Futurama...

...and wind up getting spit out in front of this guy. Everyone, say hello to Milo de Venus (David L. Lander).

Peter Griffin after a bite from a radioactive spider.

Milo offers to give them a tour of the school. All over the place there are weird-looking aliens, allowing the character designers to have some fun. Doyle continues to be a jerk to Aimee. A likeable character he is not thus far.

They arrive at their lockers, which as it turns out are sentient (and are both voiced by Henry "Wilbur the Pig" Gibson). Aimee's is friendly, Doyle's has an attitude problem.

Dang, I wish the lockers at MY school were sentient. It would've made trying
to remember a combination much easier.

After that, it's off to the gymnasium, which is also sentient. A girl's gym class is going on at the moment, which gets Doyle excited because he's horny and thinks of himself as hot stuff. But the girls don't give a crap about Doyle - they're excited over Aimee's presence. According to Milo, the male population at Galaxy High outnumbers the females three to one. Must make school dances really difficult.

This is Booey Bubblehead. Get it? She's a literal airhead?

At homeroom, we get to meet the school principal, Ms. Biddy McBrain, voiced by Pat Carroll. You probably know her best as the voice of Ursula from The Little Mermaid, but she also lent her voice to Jon Arbuckle's grandmother in the Garfield TV specials.

You think she's related to Douglas from Lloyd in Space?

Ms. McBrain summons a blackboard that ALSO turns out to be sentient. Boy, this place is a regular Pee-Wee's Playhouse isn't it?

He also talks like a game show host, which automatically makes him awesome.

The blackboard tells Aimee that since she has such good grades, she'll be receiving a Galaxy High School scholarship. And to help her get to her classes, she also gets an awesome car!

Wait, so she's going to drive a car through the school's hallways? I don't know about outer space schools, but in Earth schools I'm preeeeeeeeeeeetty sure that driving a car down the hallways is frowned upon.

I don't have a driver's license and am also absolutely terrified of driving, but if
I did and I wasn't, I would totally want that car.

Doyle, meanwhile, has crappy grades and is irresponsible and lazy, so he'll have to take a part-time job at Luigi's Luna Pizza Parlor to pay for his tuition. So now a human surrounded by aliens and robots works at a pizza place. I gotta admit, I wasn't expecting Doyle to be a precursor to Phillip J. Fry.

He even has a similar hairstyle.

But they're at least willing to give him a scooter. And it's not even a COOL, futuristic scooter like you usually see in these science-fiction shows. It's... well, just LOOK AT IT:

Wah wah wah wah waaaaaaaaaaaaaah...

"I wanna go back to Earth!" Doyle complains, but Ms. McBrain tells him he can't - Galaxy High School is his last chance to graduate. Makes me wonder, if Doyle's grades were so lousy, how did he wind up winning the chance to go to a high school in space? Was it just a random pick, or did his Earth teachers just want to get him out of their hair?

After that, Doyle walks through the halls grumbling about how much he hates this school, then winds up running afoul of this alien dog.

He should carry around one of those "BEWARE OF THE DOG" signs with him.
Y'know, just as a warning.

We get some WACKY SHENANIGANS as the dog chases Doyle around the school - at one point he runs through what looks like an alien kindergarten class... which is weird, seeing as high schools and kindergartens usually don't share the same building - but Milo saves him. Milo explains that the dog, whose name is Sludge (Patrick Fraley), is the school janitor. And he loves Earthlings... if they're properly salted, that is. More WACKY SHENANIGANS ensue after Sludge tries to fix a pipe, then it's off to the school cafeteria, where Aimee meets this guy.

Presumably, he exists so the toy companies have at least one character they can make
plushes of.

He introduces himself as the Creep (voiced by Danny Mann), and he's fallen head over heels for Aimee. Honestly, she could do worse. For example, Doyle.

Speaking of which, Doyle tries to befriend some jocks, but as it turns out they ain't too fond of Earthlings. "Earth STINKS!" the Foghorn Leghorn-esque one barks.

"Now look here, boy, we don't like, I say, we don't like Earthlings at our school! They're
the scum of the Earth!

Heh, scum of the Earth! That's a joke, boy! You missed it! Flew right over your head!

Boy's about as sharp as a sack of wet mice..."

The jocks demonstrate their hatred of Earthlings by launching Doyle into a French fry-making machine. This is the result:

Look on the bright side, Doyle. Now you can star in commercials for McDonald's.

Milo explains to French Fry Doyle that he ran afoul of the Bonk Bunch, led by the brutish Beef Bonk (John Stephenson). Fortunately, he knows someone who can help get Doyle back to normal - Professor Icenstein (Howard Morris doing a Ludwig Von Drake impression, because all cartoon scientists have to be German even if they're aliens), who hails from the planet Frostor and has to keep his classroom cold or else he'll melt.

I like how his beard appears to be made of ice.

It takes a few tries, but Professor Icenstein manages to get Doyle back to normal. Meanwhile, Aimee's new friends take her "style shopping", which is basically her getting a makeover.

Sorry, Aimee, but I don't think the Cheetah Girls are all that popular nowadays.

As that's going on, Doyle heads to the pizza parlor, where he now works as a waiter. There's a gag where he serves anchovy pizza to an anthropomorphic fish who I swear I've seen before in an episode of SpongeBob SquarePants.

"Can you tell us how to get back to Bikini Bottom?"

We also get to meet Doyle's new boss, Luigi La Bounci (also Howard Morris). He has a stereotypical Italian accent and looks like a cross between Mr. Spacely and Phil from Hercules. I think this is where the character designers ran out of ideas for cool-looking aliens, because this guy is for all intents and purposes a human. He doesn't even have a weird skin tone. Maybe he actually IS human?

"I don't take-a kindly to-a Mario jokes!"

One of the tables that Doyle winds up serving is one where Aimee and her friends are sitting. Doyle is all "Wow, you look hot now!" despite the fact that Aimee wasn't all that unattractive before her makeover. She wasn't even particularly NERDY-looking. So I don't know what Doyle's deal is.

Then he runs afoul of Beef Bonk again, who challenges him to a game of "Zuggleball" the next day. Milo explains that Zuggleball is basically hockey, except the puck is alive.

One of Beef's buddies is the referee, which is a pretty good indication that Doyle's
in trouble.

Cut to the next day. Everyone is gathered to watch Doyle and Beef get it on. In an amusing sight gag, not only is the "puck" alive, but so are the "nets" - they're whales!

Whales with a straw in place of a blowhole. And a shark fin.

Eventually Doyle and Beef are tied, but just to ensure his victory Beef smashes Doyle's stick. In response, Doyle picks up the "puck" and throws it into the whale's mouth. Apparently there ain't no rule against that in Zuggleball. Doyle wins, and starts sucking up to Aimee. Aimee introduces him to his new girlfriend - her gossip-obsessed friend with multiple lips! The end.

Still a better love story than Bee Movie.

WHAT'S THE VERDICT?

Honestly, I kind of liked Gravity High School. A nice variety of character designs, creative twists on what would normally be high school clichés, reasonably funny jokes, and some great voice acting. I particularly liked Howard Morris' performance as Professor Icenstien. Too bad this show didn't get another season, because I think it had potential.

One more thing...

I haven't even SEEN that movie, the screencap just reminded me of the meme.

Let's Watch This: An Episode of "World of Quest"

I've talked about Kids' WB on this blog before. It premiered in 1995 as a block on a channel called The WB, basically a place for all of the cartoon shows that Warner Bros. had a hand in at the time. In addition for being a place to watch pre-existing shows like Tiny Toon Adventures and Animaniacs, it spawned such shows as Road Rovers and Loonatics Unleashed. Alas, the block wound up shutting down in 2008 (after moving from The WB, which shut down two years earlier, to The CW). And what was the last show created for it? A little something called World of Quest.

A loose adaptation of a graphic novel series by Jason Kruse, World of Quest premiered in March of 2008 and lasted two seasons. The show is about an arrogant young prince named Nestor (voiced by Landon Norris), son of the King and Queen of Odyssea. Problem is, the king and queen were kidnapped by an evil dude named Lord Spite (James Rankin), so Nestor must find a magic sword called the Shattersoul Sword, which I guess he can use to free his parents and defeat Lord Spite. But he obviously can't do this all by himself, so he enlists the help of a brawny man named Sir Quest (Ron Pardo). They also have the help of a griffin named Graer (also Ron Pardo), a cyborg named Gatling (Kedar Brown), a shape-shifting being named Way (Melissa Altro), and a young sorceress named Anna Maht (Krystal Meadows). The humor, supposedly, comes from the fact that a scrawny, arrogant prince is teamed up with a grouchy muscle-bound dude.

Why does the griffin look so dismayed?

Is the show any good? Heck if I know, I haven't seen a single episode. But that's why we're looking at it today! This show is one of those "each episode is actually two episodes in one" shows, so we'll be watching the fourth episode, which consists of "Croc-a-Doodle-Doo" and "Tournament of Punishment".

But first, we have the show's theme song... which begins with Nestor shouting "YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" as though he's in an episode of CSI. Thanks for startling me, Nestor. The song does a good job of summarizing the two main characters - Nestor is an annoying little twerp and Quest is much stronger and doesn't think too highly of Nestor. Also, Quest sounds like Patrick Warburton. It's not actually Patrick doing the voice (as I've said before, it's Ron Pardo), but it's a pretty good soundalike.

So the episode begins with our heroes and their ankylosaur-esque mount Albert being chased by a group of rhinoceros-like creatures named Grinders. Once they get away from the Grinders, they encounter more monsters named Growls. Quest deduces that Lord Spite is nearby. "He and General Ogun might be watching us right now," Gatling concurs.

Two rejected Avengers.

Also, they've got an "Earth Sword" that, according to Way and Anna, can only be activated when battling a "Croc-a-Doodle-Doo monster". Okay, but what exactly IS a "Croc-a-Doodle-Doo"? I mean, aside from the title of the episode. Can you give us at least a description of what it looks like?

Did I mention that Way looks like one of the aliens that Ben 10 can turn into? Because she does.

"I can grant you three wishes. And ix-nay on the wishing for more wishes.
No substitutions, exchanges, or refunds."

So they just have to find this "Croc-a-Doodle-Doo" and they can activate the sword. They pass through the Forest of Burping Trees... ha ha, burping is automatically funny and not gross in the slightest... and according to Gatling, in order to get through one of them must "out-burp" the trees, which Quest promptly does. After that, they arrive in "Croca-Doodle Ville", home of "the infamous Crocadoodle Doo Monster". Which sort of resembles Las Vegas. Don't tell Doug Walker.

Well, actually, it's kind of like Las Vegas crossed with Pandora from AVATAR.

There are a bunch of salesmen trying to sell their crap. So as a result, we get the same joke FOUR TIMES - some creepy-looking guy warns of the "Croc-a-Doodle-Doo" and its evil ways, then reveals that it's actually a sales pitch for some product they're selling (a flashlight, a hat, hot wings...). If you're gonna repeat a joke, at least spread it out a little so the episode doesn't feel repetitive.

To lure the "Croc-a-Doodle-Doo" out, they'll need some kind of bait. LIVE bait. Nestor will do quite nicely, seeing as he's the least useful of the team.

If he does get eaten, nothing of value will be lost.

Initially, they put him in a giant bear trap, but then a fly lands on his head and sets it off. So then they dress him in drag... because I really needed to see him in drag, thanks for that (don't worry, I'll spare you the screencap). But Quest says that he's "just not pretty enough", so instead they have him lure the monster out by... surfing?

Look at Nestor! He's SURFING! That makes him COOL, right?!

Eventually, they arrive at a cave that belongs to the Croc-a-Doodle. There's a big neon sign above the door saying it and everything. And they hear it growling from inside...

Where are Robin, Raven, and Beast Boy?

But it turns out that the Croc-a-Doodle is actually a big loser. He's purple, he's got a topknot, he sounds like Ed Wynn, he winds up hitting his head on the roof of the cave... it doesn't even look anything like a crocodile OR a chicken, so I don't know why they're calling it a "Croc-a-Doodle-Doo". What, was "Ugly Purple Doofus" just too on-the-nose?

He's like a Pokemon that was rejected by the game developers for being too
stupid-looking. And these are the same game developers that approved of
THIS thing.

Seriously, THIS was what the villagers were all so terrified of? THIS goofy-looking freak that looks like Barney the Dinosaur mated with a Fraggle?  They were really afraid of it?

The big purple Jar-Jar Binks is thrilled that He-Man Wannabe, Discount Johnny Test, Discount Cyborg, Discount Starfire, and the griffin that looks like Magilla Gorilla with wings aren't going to slay him. He laments that he'd love to go back to the sandy beaches of "Terror Island". Nestor asks him if he can activate the Earth Sword, and as a matter of fact, he DOES know how - each of those swords are activated by the element they're named after. "It's the Earth Sword, sooooooooo, you stick it in the earth!" he explains. So Nestor does that.

"I HAVE THE POWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEER!"

"You helped us, so it's only fair that we help you," Anna tells the monster that the villagers were so terrified of despite the fact that it makes the Reluctant Dragon look like Godzilla. So, the monster wants to leave, but the villagers would never let him through. The solution? Pretend that they defeated the monster and are leading him out of the village. But that backfires on them - the townspeople aren't grateful, they're ANGRY. Without the Croc-a-Doodle-Doo around, they can't make mucho moolah (or whatever it is that people in this world use for currency) selling merchandise. They've destroyed the village's economy!

There's a political joke that I could make here, but I can't think of it.

On the bright side, it suddenly makes much more sense why the villagers were
afraid of a monster that's about as scary as a plate of fried beans. They were just
PRETENDING to be scared of it to hock their crap.

Upon seeing this, the bigger version of one of Jeff Dunham's puppets is ecstatic. "They LIKE me! And best of all, they NEED me!" he exclaims. So he pretends to break free and act all ferocious, thrilling the townspeople because now they can go back to selling merchandise in his image. So the moral of today's story is, let people exploit you!

Okay, next episode...

So now our heroes are searching for a "Sword of Fire". Which is inconveniently located inside the Palace of Punishment, which according to Graer is a great place to make friends despite being filled with thieves, rogues, vagabonds, lowlifes, etc.

You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.

"Every year, the master of the palace holds a tournament where only the meanest, toughest, most dastardly, robust criminals get to compete for the grand prize!" he says. Thugs are already lined up outside to take part - like Pumbaa!

"They call me... MISTEEEEEEEEEEEEEEER PIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIG!"

And the grand prize of the tournament? You'll never believe this - it's the Sword of Fire! Zhe odds, vhat are zhey? So they head inside, Nestor determined to get the Sword of Fire before somebody wins it. "Wow! This place is intense!" Anna exclaims, to which Graer replies, "I thought it was in a CASTLE!"

Y'know, I think Graer might be my favorite character in this show.

The master of the palace arrives... and it's revealed that he's, um, a screechy-voiced rat wearing Jafar's hand-me-downs. Ohhhhhhhhh-kaaaaaaaaaaaaay...

Master Splinter's evil twin.

Nestor has a plan to snatch the sword - first, he and Anna will sneak into the room where they've got the sword locked up. He'll distract the guards with his "princely charm" (that's a laugh) while Anna casts a spell to swipe the sword. Then they'll get the heck out of there. "Nothing could POSSIBLY go wrong!" he insists.

Alas, the Gilligan Cut does its thing...

Word of advice, Nestor - never say "nothing could possibly go wrong". If you do,
you're basically guaranteeing that something could indeed possibly go wrong. It's just
common knowledge.

So now Nestor and Anna are slaves, and Quest must enter the tournament to save them. First up in the tournament are an Offbrand Geodude and some guy dressed like he's from the 1800s...

I haven't seen a team-up this weird since Whoopi Goldberg and a dinosaur...

Versus a purple sharp-toothed worm...

Didn't I see this thing in one of the Star Wars films?

And a green blob.

Oh, no, it's another Tasty Paste monster!

Next, Quest and a masked Graer (originally Gatling is the second one, but no metal weapons are allowed, and Gatling is a cyborg, so...) against a smelly foot and a teeny-tiny doberman.

I haven't seen a team-up this weird since... oh, wait, I already used that joke.

Blah blah blah, they keep beating their opponents, who range from tentacle-headed green girls to giant tree monsters...

"I AM GROOT!"

And soon it's time for them to face the grand champion for a shot at the Sword of Fire (as well as cash and prizes). Unfortunately, Graer takes off his mask, and everyone in the place recognizes him. Apparently he's been to the Palace of Punishment before and did something to tick everyone off. What, exactly, did he do? All he says is that he didn't know the grand master's throne was a throne at the time... I think the implication is that he thought it was a toilet.

So now they're ALL captured. Quest must find another partner to win the tournament or forfeit everything. Nestor offers to be his partner. For obvious reasons, this does not fill Quest with confidence.

This is the grand champion, by the way:

Quest dubs this thing a "Siamese Uberilla", and it promptly clobbers Nestor and Quest. Then Quest uses Nestor as a makeshift baseball bat to clobber the Uberilla, and they win! Huzzah!

So, that was World of Quest.

What's the Verdict?

I was expecting this to be pretty bad going in, but it wound up being another "not awful, just mediocre" show. The characters are dull, the jokes aren't particularly funny, and the animation is typical mediocre Flash. But the voice actors do a fine job, and I do give them credit for giving us some creative character designs and monsters... even if one of the monsters is too ridiculous-looking to take seriously. You could do a lot better, but you could also do a lot worse.

Next time on "Let's Watch This", we're going to outer space. Get ready for a trip to Galaxy High.

Let's Watch This: An episode of "Ozzy & Drix"

In 2001, Warner Brothers released a movie called Osmosis Jones.

The film was a combination of live action and animation, telling the story of a guy played by Bill Murray who's an unhygienic slob, unaware of the weird animated world that's featured inside his body. The titular character, a white blood cell cop named Osmosis "Ozzy" Jones voiced by Chris Rock, teams up with a cold pill named Drix voiced by David Hyde Pierce to defeat an evil virus voiced by Laurence Fishburne. It was a box office bomb, it received a fifty-five percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and Chris Rock apparently admitted in a 2017 interview that the film didn't turn out as well as he'd hoped. He would have more success in the animation world as the voice of Marty from Madagascar. I would recommend watching the Cartoon Hero's review of the film, which can be found here. The Nostalgia Critic also did a review of it, but it's less of a review and more of him and his crew attempting to parody Inside Out while comparing that movie to Osmosis Jones, so it's really not worth watching.

Regardless of the film's failure, somebody felt that the film had potential to make a great TV show, and so in 2002 a show called Ozzy & Drix premiered on Kids' WB.

Ozzy & Drix takes place after the movie, but unlike the movie it's entirely animated. The first episode has Ozzy and Drix getting sucked out of Bill Murray's character's body via a mosquito and winding up in the body of a high schooler named Hector Cruz. They still fight crime inside the body. The show was less violent and more family-friendly than the film. Since Chris Rock and David Hyde Pierce were either too busy to reprise their roles or just too expensive for the showrunners to get, Ozzy and Drix were now voiced by Phil LaMarr (who's also filled in for Chris as the voice of Marty from Madagascar in smaller projects like video games and commercials) and Jeff Bennett respectively. While we're on the subject of voices, the show had a very impressive cast, with Jim Cummings, Brad Garrett, Rob Paulsen, Kimberly Brooks, Patrick Fraley, Frank Welker, Kevin Michael Richardson, Billy West, Jess Harnell, Tara Strong, Henry Winkler, Charlie Adler, Cree Summer, and Kath Souice among the folks to lend their voices to it. The show ran for two seasons, making for a total of twenty-six episodes. And the theme song is a horrid rap.

And what better episode of a show about the human body to watch than the show's Very Special Episodetm about smoking? "When There's Smoke" it's called. Now, Very Special Episodes tend to be an easy target for reviewers because of how heavy-handed and/or preachy they can be (remember Captain Planet's episode about AIDS?). But they CAN be done well (Arthur managed to do a surprisingly effective episode about 9/11, for example), so who knows? Maybe this won't be so bad after all...

"When There's Smoke" begins with Hector (Justin Cowden) and his friends playing basketball. Little does Hector know that inside of him, in the City of Hector, everyone is having a fun day at the park. The city's mayor, teenaged Paul Spryman (Alanna Ubach), welcomes everyone to the city's annual "Air Fair", the day where they celebrate air. After all, without air they wouldn't be able to breathe. Why is the mayor a teenager? I don't know, maybe they explain that in a previous episode...

Did you know that in the movie, the mayor was voiced by William Shatner? I know that
doesn't really have to do with anything, I just couldn't think of anything else to say here.

Ozzy, who's seated at a table with Drix, comments that if Paul doesn't stop yakking soon, they're gonna have to rename the festival the "HOT Air Fair". Drix's pet dog germ Dander takes a sip of Ozzy's soda (or whatever the soda equivalent in this place is) and burps in Ozzy's face. Burping: it's automatically funny. Oh, wait, no it isn't. Sorry.

"Eugh, dog breath!"

Actually, considering that Dander was actually formed from the saliva of Hector's pet
dog, would that mean he smells like dog breath ALL the time?

Paul announces that the Air Fair's finale will be a performance by the hottest new band inside of Hector, Metabolica. Get it? It's like Metallica, but... yeah, sorry, I won't explain all the jokes.

In the real world, Hector and his Rob Paulsen-voiced best friend Travis Lum are talking about how Travis hasn't washed his gym clothes in months (he's hoping to beat the record, which is six months). Then their attention is suddenly grabbed by two shady-lookin' ninth graders hiding under the bleachers. I smell the episode's antagonist!

No, Hector, don't fraternize with the ninth graders hiding under the bleachers! They're
ALWAYS the ones that get the main character hooked on drugs or smoking or whatever
in these Very Special Episodes!

Travis encourages Hector to go over and talk to Shady Ninth Grader Who's Totally Going to Get Hector Smoking (his name is Jude, but I'm just going to call him Shady Ninth Grader). Predictably, Shady Ninth Grader (Rino Romano) offers Hector a cigarette. Hector is reluctant to take it, but of course Shady Ninth Grader starts taunting him. Don't give in, Hector!

Back inside the city of Hector, Ozzy smells something strange in the air. Smoke appears above the citizens' heads. Ozzy recognizes it as cigarette smoke, which I guess means Hector decided like an idiot to light one up.

Hector, you moron.

Ozzy runs onto the stage and tells everyone to run for their lives because the smoke is toxic. "In an orderly fashion, of course!" Drix adds. The citizens all start panicking, and as if things couldn't possibly get any worse, this guy shows up.

What is that thing, a Pokémon?

And then this character shows up, too.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that this character has a lot of fanart on the internet.

And then this character.

Nice gut you've got there, buddy.

And then this guy, voiced by Tim Curry with an Australian accent.

Somebody needs a manicure.

Ozzy tells Drix that the four evil dudes are some of the chemicals of cigarette smoke. The Pokémon-looking guy's name is Tar (Frank Welker), the gas girl's name is Carbon Monoxide (Tara Strong), the pinheaded guy with the gut's name is Butane (Jeff Bennett), and the skeletal guy with the long nails and the extremely large forehead is named Nick O'Teen (get it?). They all climb into their car, and Drix tries to freeze them but Butane blocks his ice blast with his fire blast, which not only allows them to get away but means that I can't make an "I WAS FROZEN TODAY!" joke.

Hector arrives back at his house and tries very hard not to let his mom know that he's been smoking. Meanwhile, Butane tells Nick O'Teen that if they're gonna stick around the city of Hector, Nick's gotta get Hector to keep smoking. "All I have to do is figure out who's in charge here," Nick snarls, then Carbon Monoxide shows him a flyer featuring Mayor Paul with Metabolica.

Speaking of the mayor, he's currently messing around with his hair while Ozzy tells him about Nick and his ways of making people addicted to smoking.

Since Ozzy was originally voiced by Chris Rock, I suppose I should make an Oscars joke.
But I won't.

"Remember the time Hector couldn't stop eating Mondo Choco Bars?!" Ozzy tells Paul. "He ate 'em until he hurled and he STILL wanted more!" The Police Chief (Jim Cummings) points out that there's a difference between chocolate bars and cigarettes - namely, chocolate tastes good while cigarettes stink - so is there really a chance of Hector becoming addicted to cigarettes? "Perhaps I can elucidate," Drix pipes up as he begins to draw on a piece of paper. "Tobacco smoke contains nicotine, which causes the release of the neurotransmitter dopamine, signaling the body to experience pleasure."

"No, it's not a piece of cauliflower. You all really stink at Pictionary."

Paul then rudely insults Drix for no reason whatsoever by demanding to know why he's so boring. How the heck DID this kid become the mayor?

"Let me bottom line it for you," Ozzy says. "If Nick gets control of the brain, Hector won't be able to resist smoking and we are FINITO!" "He CAN'T get control of the brain 'cause I control it!" Paul replies. My confidence level is hanging by a thread right now (and presumably Ozzy's is too). The Police Chief then says that he'll put some guys on patrol in the neck just in case any toxins get in. Then Paul heads off to the Metabolica concert.

I still don't get why anybody would elect Green-Skinned Bart Simpson here mayor of their city.
What, was his campaign slogan "YOU COULD DO WORSE" or something like that?

The next day at school, Hector runs into Shady Ninth Grader again. He gives him a bootleg CD of some band's performance at an awards show and says that later they can listen to it after lunch... in some place called the "smoking lounge". Dun dun dun!

Hector still isn't one hundred percent sure if smoking is such a good idea, but Shady Ninth Grader tells him not to be "such a wuss". I was under the impression that "wuss" is a swear. How'd they get away with it here?

The city of Hector is starting to look more like the city of Kool-Aid to me.

Ozzy, Drix, and Dander are driving around the city in search of the toxins. They see a pile of ashes that was presumably at one point a car, and Ozzy puts the pedal to the metal and drives over to ask this girl named Maria (Tasia Valenza) who I'm guessing is supposed to be Ozzy's love interest if she's seen the toxins around.

I actually had to check to see if this was supposed to be the same character as Ozzy's
love interest in the movie. It's not (they don't even look that much alike), but it's pretty clear
that this girl is supposed to be a Suspiciously Similar Substitute.

Dander then picks up the toxins' scent - they went into the South Bound Diaphragm. "Nick's not goin' for the brain! He's goin' for the guy who RUNS the brain - the MAYOR!" Ozzy exclaims. And considering what an idiot Mayor Paul is, corrupting the mayor probably won't be a problem for Nick.

At the Diaphragm, we discover that Nick has the ability to turn people into his gray zombie slaves, which he promptly does to each member of Metabolica. Then he disguises himself, goes on stage and sings (because if you have Tim Curry voicing a villainous character, you've gotta have him sing. It's just common knowledge) about how nicotine is addictive and unstoppable. And as he's singing, smoke seeps into the audience and turns them all grey and mind-controlled like the Metabolica guys. Jeez, this episode took a creepy turn all of a sudden.

Fortunately, Ozzy and Drix show up before Nick can get away.

I'm just now noticing that Ozzy's car has... what are those things on the bottom? Tassels?

"This here's a no-smokin' area!" Ozzy shouts, getting out his gun. Slipping into his car, Nick tells his henchmen to get rid of Ozzy and Drix, then meet him at the brain's "pleasure center". First Butane melts Ozzy's gun with his fire breath (he hates it when that happens), then Tar shoots a tarball at Drix's arm cannon thing, clogging it up and making him peeved. He still tries to fire at them, but it... well, let's just say it backfires.

Oh, good, now I can finally make an "I WAS FROZEN TODAY!" joke.

Ozzy initially finds himself completely outnumbered, but finally manages to blow up Tar, Butane and Carbon with a little help from High Voltage. Drix thaws out, and Ozzy announces that they have to get to the "pleasure center". Alas, Nick and the brainwashed Mayor Paul have gotten there first.

Is it just me, or does "pleasure center" sound incredibly dirty?

When did Nick turn into a Xenomorph?

So, the pleasure center turns out to be this center of the brain where everything that gives Hector pleasure - skateboarding, ice cream, and music for example - are held. "It's time to give him something NEW to crave!" Nick snaps before he turns into, uh, this thing...

"YEEEEEEEEEEEEEES! THE POWEEEEEEEEEEER! THE UNIVERSE IS MINE
TO COMMAAAAAAAAAAAAND! TO CONTROOOOOOOOOOOOOL!"

Say, didn't they initially consider having Tim Curry voice Jafar before Jonathan Freeman
was cast?

He begins to corrupt the pleasure center, but in the real world, Hector runs into another student and HIS love interest (the Maria to Hector's Ozzy, one could say) named Christina (Kimberly Brooks). Christina chews him out for smoking and announces that if he's stupid enough to smoke, she's smart enough to stay away from him. After that, Hector meets back up with Shady Ninth Grader, who invites him into the "smoking lounge"... which is just that area behind the bleachers where this big crazy mess got started.

Ozzy and Drix arrive at the entrance to Hector's brain, which is being guarded by police officers who Nick brainwashed. Drix distracts them by dressing in drag, allowing Nick to sneak inside. Alas, once he gets inside he's restrained by the brainwashed Police Chief. Nick starts bragging about how he's unbeatable.

Okay, let me guess how this is going to end... Shady Ninth Grader is gonna offer Hector another cigarette. Hector realizes that, hey, smoking is bad for you and refuses. This causes Nick to lose his power over Hector or whatever.

Pictured: Ozzy and the face of pure evil. Oh, and Nick.

Eeyup. Hector refuses to smoke another cigarette and walks away, much to Nick's outrage. The cigarette that Nick created inside the pleasure center explodes like a firecracker, Nick starts to shrink down, and the brainwashed Police Chief and Mayor Paul snap out of it. Then Drix shows up.

And he's still dressed like Edna Mode.

Nick continues shrinking until he's the size of a bug. He shouts that he's unbeatable, but Ozzy delivers an epic one-liner: "I don't think so. See, all folks gotta do is put their feet down!" As he says this, he steps on Nick, defeating the diabolical personification of smoking and how awful it is once and for all.

Hector tells Christine that she was right, smoking is awful and does awful things to you. Ozzy is still confused as to how Nick was defeated if he couldn't stop him. "I guess Hector did it himself!" Drix says with a smile. The end.

What's the Verdict?

Y'know, I was actually pleasantly surprised by this episode. I went in expecting to cringe, but it was actually much better than I thought it would be. Not GREAT, but still pretty good. It manages to tell the viewer that smoking is something you should not do without being too heavy-handed about it. The voice actors all do a good job (although Tara Strong is pretty much wasted as Carbon, a character who only has one line). And I'll admit, it actually got pretty creepy there near the end.

I doubt that I'll be watching any more episodes of Ozzy and Drix, but I think most people would like it. If you want to watch it, though, I would recommend checking out the movie first.

And remember - to quote Donatello, drug dealers are dorks. Don't smoke. Seriously, don't do it.