Let's Watch This: An Episode of "TUFF Puppy"

The Fairly OddParents' premiere in 2001 was the start of Nickelodeon's relationship with Butch Hartman. That show, of course, became one of Nickelodeon's most popular, so it's not surprising that the higher-ups at the channel would want Mr. Hartman to create for them MORE shows. So in 2004, they premiered another show from Butch (and perhaps his most beloved), Danny Phantom... but we'll look at that show another time.

In 2010, Butch's THIRD show for Nickelodeon premiered. This one was pitched to them as basically being Get Smart with a dog.

TUFF Puppy's first episode aired on October 2nd, 2010. The show focuses on a dog named Dudley Puppy, voiced by Jerry Trainor (likely only cast because iCarly was popular at the time and also aired on Nickelodeon. Y'know, synergy). Dudley's shtick as a character is that he's an idiot. Like, the 2007 version of George of the Jungle levels of idiot. He's such an idiot, he doesn't even know what a toaster does. In the first episode, he manages to get a job as a spy for an organization called T.U.F.F. (which stands for Turbo Undercover Fighting Force) despite the fact that he's, as we've established, an idiot. His partner is a cat named Kitty Kattswell (voiced by Grey DeLisle-Griffin), who predictably is much smarter than Dudley and is often enraged by his stupidity. Their boss is a flea named Chief Herbert Dumbrowski (voiced by Daran Norris) and another member of T.U.F.F. is a scientist named Keswick (voiced by Jeff Bennett) whose shtick is that nobody knows what kind of animal he is, until one episode where it's creatively (I say that sarcastically) revealed that his species is a "Keswick". They fight the schemes of the evil rat Verminous Snaptrap (voiced by Maddie Taylor)... why are rats in cartoons almost always bad guys? That's unfair towards rats.

Now, one thing to keep in mind is that this show is one of Nick's 2010s cartoons. This was the decade when their new shows were reaaaaaaaaaaally hit-or-miss. Remember Sanjay and Craig? That was from the 2010s and it was pretty lame. Pig Goat Banana Cricket? That was a 2010s Nicktoon. And who could forget the piece of crap that was Planet Sheen? So I think you can see why I'm hesitant about this being a good show. Also, Butch Hartman has become a bit controversial in recent years, for reasons I'd rather not get into. But hey, there are a lot of people that really like it, so I suppose there's a chance it'll be good.

This is one of those "two segments per episode" shows, so we'll be watching the episodes "Big Dog on Campus" and "Dog's Best Friend". This is TUFF Puppy.

I know the quality of the screencaps is really bad. Please just bear with me.

The episode begins with Dudley barging into T.U.F.F. and announcing that he's been invited to his high school reunion. "FINALLY! NOW I GET TO SHOW ALL MY CLASSMATES THAT I'M A TOTALLY COOL SECRET AGENT!" he shouts. Believe it or not, in high school everyone thought Dudley was a loser. In fact, he was voted "most likely to be an assistant to a rodeo clown".

Just then, they get intel that someone is planning on destroying the reunion. Alas, it doesn't say who. "Darn. If it said who, we could just arrest the guy and then go shoe-shopping!" the Chief complains.

From left to right - Loud Idiot, Jerry Lewis Parody and Furry Bait.

So the Chief tells Dudley and Kitty to attend the reunion and thwart the crime. Y'know, it's shown that T.U.F.F. has an incredibly large amount of agents. So with that in mind, why does the Chief always turn to Dudley and Kitty? I mean, aside from "well, they're the main characters".

In addition, Dudley and Kitty will have to be in disguise so as to not tip off the bad guy. Dudley will be going as an assistant to an apprentice rodeo clown... you know, the exact same thing that he was voted most likely to be in high school. Just a coincidence, or does Keswick have a twisted sense of humor? You be the judge.

I'm not lovin' it (ba-da-ba-ba-baaaaaaa). And judging from his expression, neither is Dudley.

And Kitty will be going as "Lulu Stepanski"... who was the prettiest girl in high school, but is now bald. Isn't having Kitty pretend to be someone who actually went to that high school a bad idea? What if the actual Lulu Stepanski shows up? Or is it that there waws never an actual Lulu Stepanski, in which case everyone else at the reunion will be suspicious because they don't remember going to high school with a cat named Lulu?

To further rub salt on the "Dudley is a massive loser" thing, all of his classmates turn out to be the coolest thing since sliced bread. One of them even wound up becoming President of the Entire Universe. The popular kids pelt eggs and chickens at Dudley... as I said in my review of Rocket Monkeys, chickens aren't automatically funny. It also raises the question of why there are non-anthropomorphic chickens in a world populated by anthropomorphic animals.

Then again, if chickens weren't non-anthropomorphic in this world, where would they
be getting the eggs from?

Dudley wants to tell them that he's a super-cool secret agent, but Kitty tells him A) that would be blowing his cover and B) it doesn't matter what the others think of him so long as he has self-confidence or whatever.

Then Dudley notices the school bully, Spike, and assumes that he's the one planning to destroy the reunion. After all, he WAS voted "most likely to destroy the class reunion" in the yearbook. But then the actual bad guy crushes Spike with a disco ball. So, that theory is out the window. Oh, and we also get some unfunny jokes that seem to subscribe to the theory that characters screaming is automatically funny as well. For example, Dudley grabs a bratwurst from the refreshments table and starts shouting about how much he loves bratwurst. "They should be called BratBEST! Or BESTwurst!" And then he starts eating it, and he gets some sauce on Kitty, making her shout that the hot sauce is somehow hurting her skin (isn't she technically covered with fur?). Are you laughing yet? Well, neither am I.

Dudley spots another suspicious-looking character, Ron Suspect (his sister's name is Ima Suspect. The police were always at their house). When they start talking to him, he casually admits that he'd love to demolish the school building so he can put up a mall on the land it sits on, then proceeds to let out an evil laugh. "Well, it's not him, Kitty. Moving on!" Dudley yells, because as we've established Dudley is a few sodas short of a six-pack.

That giraffe is creeping me out...

The class lines up to take a photo, and the hippo taking it doesn't notice that the camera is in fact a bomb despite the multiple stacks of TNT attatched to the wire. Because apparently everyone in this world is as stupid as Dudley. But the bomb doesn't actually kill anyone, so...

Blah-blah-blah, stuff happens and then it's revealed that the evil villain planning to destroy the reunion and everyone that attended it is the lunch lady... oh, I mean, the lunch ladybug. It's a pun.

What a twist!

Apparently, the lunch ladybug was angry that nobody liked her cooking, so she's decided to trap the classmates in a giant colander and drown them all in gravy. Dudley and Kitty reveal that they're secret agents and prevent the gravy from drowning the other students with... get ready for this... a giant wall of mashed potatoes. Dang it, now I'm craving mashed potatoes. And it's only 8:44 in the morning as I'm writing this. Why am I craving mashed potatoes at 8:44 in the morning?

Dudley defeats the lunch ladybug by shooting a roast turkey at her... which brings us back to the "there are non-anthropomorphic animals in a world full of anthropomorphic animals?" thing. At least, I'm ASSUMING that the turkey was non-anthropomorphic. It'd be incredibly dark to have a bunch of anthropomorphic animals murder and cook an anthropomorphic turkey. Also, I'd like to say that all this gravy, mashed potatoes, and turkey is the reason I posted this review during the same week as Thanksgiving, but it's just a coincidence. I'm not nearly that clever.

So everyone thinks that Dudley is awesome, and he gives a speech about how it's not on the outside that counts, but who you are on the INSIDE. And on the inside, he's really craving some mashed potatoes, so he goes over to the mashed potato wall and digs a spoon into it... unleashing all the gravy that it was holding back. Nyuck nyuck nyuck.

The screen goes black... and then Dudley loudly shouts that he has to go to the bathroom, followed by Keswick popping up and realizing that he could've just given them astronaut costumes. We're supposed to assume that Keswick was just being absent-minded, but I dunno, I think he knew what he was doing.

"Ain't I a stinker?"

Okay, next episode...

"Dog's Best Friend" begins with Dudley getting into some WHACKY SHENANIGANS involving traffic, then the camera travels into the sewers so we can be introduced to Verminous Snaptrap and his henchmen. And then Snaptrap starts talking. No disrespect towards Maddie Taylor, but why did the showrunners choose to give Snaptrap a voice that sounds like Yakkity Yak? THAT'S supposed to be a voice we can take seriously coming out of a villain? Even a comedic one?

That purse isn't made of alligator skin, is it? I think that'd be pretty awkward.

Anyhow, let me talk about Snaptrap's henchmen. They consist of a wimpy little shrew named Larry (also voiced by Jeff Bennett), a British opossum who looks nothing like an opossum named Ollie (Jeff Bennett), and a Wally Gator parody named Francisco (Daran Norris). They start talking about how much they suck at being villains. But Snaptrap has a way of getting around that - he bought a super-powerful killer robot! And it looks like this:

Yeah, it's basically just WALL-E but tweaked a little so Nickelodeon won't have to worry about PIXAR's lawyers coming their way.

The robot is about as threatening as a Care Bear eating jelly beans on a sunny day, but fortunately the remote control has a "killer" setting, which turns it into an obviously CGI killing machine. Seeing CGI in Butch Hartman's shows has always felt so weird to me. Like, it's so glaringly out-of-place with this art style.

And because Snaptrap is an idiot, it doesn't occur to him that he can use this robot to destroy T.U.F.F. until Ollie and Larry suggest it. Speaking of which, how are the T.U.F.F. agents doing?

Nice secret headquarters, guys. I'm sure the bad guys will never be able to figure out
that the building with "TUFF" written on the side in humongous letters is where they
can find the agents that keep stopping their plans and destroy them when they least expect
it. Then again, Snaptrap is a moron so there's a pretty good chance he wouldn't think of that.

Snaptrap calls up T.U.F.F. and brags to them about how he's got a big scary weapon that he can use to destroy them. But before they can go beat the crap out of him, Kitty asks the Chief if they can wait for Dudley... who's still getting into WHACKY SHENANIGANS with the traffic.

Meanwhile, Snaptrap is getting into some WHACKY SHENANIGANS of his own. He didn't bother to read the robot's manual, so he randomly starts pressing buttons on the remote control and gets the robot acting up. It starts destroying his lair, launching bees and hot sauce everywhere, and Snaptrap is so enraged that he dubs the robot useless. It sadly leaves.

And who does the robot run into after that? Why, Dudley, of course!

"Holy crap, it's WALL-E! My favorite PIXAR character!"

Dudley and the robot immediately become best buddies, and we get a montage of them doing stuff like going fishing and playing frisbee. Then he introduces the robot to his fellow T.U.F.F. agents, who allow the robot to push the big red button signaling their being on a "red alert". Then we get the exact same joke being told thrice... someone with something for one of the T.U.F.F. agents (a guy with a huge check who tells Keswick that he's won a million dollars, a hunky cat who Kitty has the hots for, the Chief's brother) walks in and the characters assume he's an intruder and zap them with laser guns.

Back to Snaptrap and his gang. They finally find the robot's remote, and it shows them that he's inside T.U.F.F. Ollie has to point out to him that he can now destroy the T.U.F.F. agents, because, again, Snaptrap is just as much of an idiot as Dudley.

Meanwhile, at T.U.F.F., this is going on.

Snaptrap presses the button on the remote that causes the robot to go from a WALL-E knockoff to a killer robot with lots and lots of weapons. Fortunately, Dudley reminds him of the good times they had and how they're best buddies, resulting in the robot doing a Heel-Face Turn. They arrest Snaptrap and his minions, have tacos (great, now I'm craving tacos), and the robot is a member of T.U.F.F. now. I dunno if he shows up in any episodes after this, though.

"NOT THE BEES! NOT THE BEES!"
(Yes, I'm pretty sure that mass of what looks like Cheetos dust is intended
to be a swarm of bees. But with this lousy quality, it's hard to tell)

What's the Verdict?

TUFF Puppy is another show that I'm going to have to put in the "okay" category. Honestly, I expected it to be really bad. And it does have its problems... which I think mainly stem from our lead characters. Dudley and Kitty are not very interesting characters. I've seen cartoon characters whose main shtick is that they're idiots done much better outside of this show (off the top of my head, there's Patrick Star, Phillip J. Fry, Homer Simpson, Bullwinkle...). Kitty, meanwhile, is just there to be the competent one, I don't think she demonstrated one other personality trait in either episode other than "she's much more competent than Dudley". As a result, Grey DeLisle-Griffin's talents are kind of wasted as her (on the bright side, you could always close your eyes and imagine Daphne Blake saying Kitty's lines). Speaking of the voice acting, I remember liking Jerry Trainor as Spencer from iCarly, but he really does not bring anything to Dudley that a professional voice actor couldn't have. Maybe if he hadn't been directed to shout every single line of dialogue that he was given, he could've done better. Snaptrap is obnoxious and one of the worst "comedic villains" in a cartoon that I've ever seen. I think even Dr. Doofenschmirtz would be slapping his forehead at how pathetic he is. I kind of liked Keswick. Too bad he didn't have more screentime in this episode.

Problem number two is that the show isn't very funny. Most of the jokes rely on the fact that characters are shouting. And like I said, shouting all the time is not automatically funny (if it were, then Mr. Enter would be a laugh riot). So, yeah, it's definitely not one of Nickelodeon's best cartoons but it's certainly not one of their worst either. I think it's actually a guilty pleasure of sorts for me.

Oh, and since Thanksgiving is this week, my next review will be Christmas-related. Until then, Happy Thanksgiving!