Let's Watch This: An Episode of "Fievel's American Tails"

Why has it taken me this long to look at something made by Don Bluth? I don't know. It probably stems from the fact that most of his stuff has already been looked at by other reviewers. There's only so much you can say about stuff like Rock-a-Doodle or A Troll In Central Park that hasn't been said already. I do plan on reviewing Titan AE at some point, though.

Anyway, Don Bluth. He's one of those animators you can't help but like no matter how much crap has his name on it. Why? Because for every bad movie he made, he made a good movie as well. If you asked somebody to name an animated movie released in the 1980s that wasn't made by Disney, chances are they'd name something that Don was involved in - The Secret of NIMH, An American Tail, The Land Before Time, what have you. His work, while still relatively obscure nowadays, has a fan following because Don knew what does and what doesn't make an animated film work.

Don is such a respected figure online that I was honestly shocked to find out a lot of animators really, really didn't like working with him. I'd never heard any indication that he's an unpleasant person or anything, but there are several animators who clearly had some sort of axe to grind with Don. Here's what Steve Moore (whose work includes Olive the Other Reindeer, several of Illumination's films, and A Goofy Movie) said about him:

"In the '90s, you couldn't say hello to a former Bluth artist without them going off on a tirade about the studio and how they were screwed by it. This is not an exaggeration. While in their presence, try as you might to steer the conversation to anything but work, a Bluthie would pull out that axe and grind away. Say 'Hey how about them Dodgers?' and they'd reply, 'I'm gonna cut off Bluth's head and [CENSORED] down his neck!!' So what was Don Bluth's crime? Bluth sold himself as the second coming of Walt. Gary Goldman liked to lay this [CENSORED] on too. They played the role of animation saviors and asked artists to work long hours for [CENSORED] wages for the love of the medium. They would be part of a great and lasting legacy and young artists lapped it up. Years later, after following their messiahs to Ireland to animate trolls, they realized they'd been had. And like leaving a cult, it did not end well at all. I can't count how many friends went through that studio and left with a bad head."

…dang.

But what's that? You need more proof that several people in the animation industry have a bone to pick with Don? Well, here's what Ken Cope (an animator who worked with Don on The Secret of NIMH and with Disney on Beauty and the Beast) claimed:

"The difference between Ralph Bakshi and Don Bluth is that Bakshi was an independent iconoclast, while the other was a predator who burned through artists like any other disposable commodity, in order to live out his Walt Disney successor fantasies."

Need more still? Take a listen to what Robin Steele (who worked as a storyboard artist on episodes of Garfield and Friends and The Twisted Tales of Felix the Cat) had to say about Don:

"He hijacked the Irish animation industry, opening Phoenix in Dublin. Somehow, he got back-handed legislation passed in the late 1980's to the effect that if you left one animation studio (e.g., Murakami/Wolf), you couldn't be hired at another for two years. It was an obvious threat to the people who'd signed on with Phoenix (Sullivan/Bluth) to stick with the program or perish — but conversely, also prevented a lot of good artists from making the most of careers they had worked and trained hard for. Art, meet commerce."

One more quote. Toniko Pantoja (who's done some work for DreamWorks on films like Trolls and How To Train Your Dragon 3) wasn't quite as hard on Don as the other three animators I've mentioned, but I guess he still warrants a mention (incidentally, this made a lot of people on Twitter mad, which should give you an idea of just how respected Don is):

"What's funny is that when I was still attending Cal Arts, Don Bluth was always considered a joke for cheesy outdated overflowy animation. When his name is mentioned among other classmates or teachers, it starts with a roll of eyes, a sigh, then a rant. There's a lot of reasons really. Some of them aren't just his animation style, which I'd get into why sometime. He also has a lot of history with people he's worked with, some being former mentors of mine. That's not to say he isn't appreciated for what he's done though."

It's so jarring to see such a respected figure online get so much flack from his peers. I mean, it's not like EVERYONE hates Don Bluth. An animator named Jonathan Lyons, who worked with Don on Rock-a-Doodle, said on Twitter that "I worked for Don Bluth. He's a very nice guy." As for me, I personally have nothing against Don, I just find all of this bile from animators thrown his way pretty shocking.

Anyhow, one area that Don surprisingly didn't dip his feet into was cartoon shows for television. I guess he was too focused on movies to try his hand at a television show. That isn't to say there's never been a cartoon show based on his characters - after all, there was a Land Before Time show at some point in the 2000s. But in the 1990s, there was another show based on a Don Bluth film. And that show was Fievel's American Tails.

First of all, to my knowledge Don Bluth himself had no actual involvement with this show (which in hindsight makes this post's big, long introduction about Don Bluth kind of pointless, but eh). It was, however, the creation of David Kirschner, who was the executive producer and writer of An American Tail. Instead of An American Tail, it was based on the recently-released sequel, An American Tail: Fievel Goes West. So instead of taking place in New York, the show had Fievel and his friends going on adventures in the western town of Green River, having to deal with the plans of the evil Cat R. Waul.

The show aired on CBS for one season in 1992, and since then has basically gained a reputation for being one of the crummiest cartoon shows based on an animated movie ever made. Another reviewer, the Hardcore Kid, looked at one episode of the show based on The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, complete with a "Headless Horsecat". I'll be looking at another episode, one that I personally feel that of the thirteen episodes made has the most potential to make jokes out of. That episode is "A Case of the Hiccups".

Yes, this episode focuses on... hiccups. Riveting!

By the way, I should mention that I haven't actually seen An American Tail in years, and I don't think I've ever watched Fievel Goes West in full. Does that matter?

You can tell this character is shady because he's wearing an abnormally large hat. All shady
characters in westerns wear abnormally large hats.

Okay, so the episode begins with a chubby mouse arriving in town on a stagecoach. He unfurls a banner reading "TRAVIS T. HIPPOCRATES: PROVEYOR OF MIRACLE WONDERS AND CURES". He might as well have just added "AND TOTALLY ALSO NOT A SNAKE OIL SALESMOUSE" to that banner while he was at it.

Nearby, inside the general store, Fievel (voiced by Phillip Glasser once again) is reading a comic book about a cowboy named Montana Mouse, who he idiolizes. This should give you a good idea as to what Fievel's main character trait in this show is: he's obsessed with cowboys, and it seems to be driving Mama Mouskewitz  (Susan Silo) bananas. Didn't Fievel become a gunslinger and save the day in Fievel Goes West? With that in mind, you'd think Mama would be a bit more tolerant of his cowboy obsession...

So is Travis just really short (even for a mouse), or is Mama just really tall?

Travis T. Hippocrates shows up and flatters Fievel and Mama, then once Mama heads out to finish her errands tells Fievel that he could use a great cowboy (or would that be cowMOUSE? Nah, probably not... that sounds more like a rejected Wuzzle to me) like him in his business. And Fievel, who's apparently now an idiot, is hooked.

Didn't Fievel's parents teach him about stranger danger? I'm pretty sure "don't talk to strangers" is something kids learn pretty early on. And just to make things even more uncomfortable, Travis gives Fievel a bag of free candy and tells him to give it to everyone in town. Seriously, "if a stranger tries to lure you over with candy, run like heck" is something most parents teach their kids!

Maybe it's time for a Sonic Sez...

Travis also makes it very clear that he wants every mouse in town but Fievel to eat the candy. Now that TOTALLY isn't suspicious, is it?

What next, is Travis gonna convince Fievel to come with him to a place called "Pleasure Island"?

So Fievel gives candy to the stereotypical French baker in town, then comes across my personal favorite character from An American Tail, Tiger. Alas, Tiger has been Flanderized into a massive idiot. Not Yakkity Yak levels of idiot, but still an idiot nonetheless. On the bright side, they got Dom DeLuise back to voice him.

You ever notice that Tiger looks a bit like the Lorax? Orange fur, yellow mustache, kinda
chubby...

Next Fievel gives some candy to his sister Tanya (Cathy Cavadini) and two other mouse kids at play, one of which is Australian, talks about dingoes and wallabies, and is named Jack (as in Kangaroo... that's a teaser for a later review). There are a lot of Ethnic stereotypes in Green Valley, aren't there?

He also looks like the mouse from Once Upon a Forest.

Papa Mouskewitz (Lloyd Battista) seems to be the only sane one in this episode, as he seems concerned that, y'know, a total stranger is having Fievel give out candy to everyone in town. But Mama is all "Oh, he's such a charming and trustworthy fellow!", which seems to convince Papa. So much for him being the same one.

Then Tanya gets the hiccups. Gee, I wonder if this has anything to do with that candy Fievel gave her earlier...

"Papa, just once, can't we have something other than cheese for dinner?"

"Nyet, Tanya! We are cartoon mice, and cartoon mice always eat cheese for every meal!
It's just common knowledge!"

Tanya's hiccups prevent her from going to school the next day... wait, does having the hiccups really mean you don't have to go to school? Maybe rules for mouse schools are different than those for human schools... and wouldn't you know it? One of Fievel's classmates has the hiccups too.

And here's an example of just how clumsy the animation is. Here's what the classmate looks like:

And after she hiccups, we cut to the rest of the class laughing at her. Notice anything?

Yeah, that very same classmate (well, half of her, anyway) is on the left. I guess SpongeBob is right - we DO all have to laugh at ourselves sometimes...

Then the fat mole teacher starts hiccupping as well. Wait a minute, Fievel didn't give HIM any of the candy! Or maybe he just gave it to him off-screen? Even so, wouldn't it make more sense if that stereotypical Australian mouse started hiccupping instead, since we actually saw Fievel give HIM the candy?

After school, Fievel runs into Tiger again, who - to paraphrase the Strangeloves - wants candy (boy, remember when Aaron Carter's version of that song was everywhere? Good times...). But Fievel says the candy is only for mice. Upon returning home, he decides that surely Dr. Travis will be able to help Tanya with her hiccups. Yeah, he still apparently hasn't put two and two together and figured out that the candy is the reason for the hiccups. Methinks Fievel is a bit of a dope.

Meanwhile, in another plot...

"Y'know, boss, this show isn't half-bad..."

"You're right, Chula. It's ALL bad!"

"D'OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH-HO-HO-HO-HO!"

I'm not one hundred percent sure why the writers felt the need to include Cat R. Waul in this episode, seeing how we already have a bad guy in the form of the obvious con artist Travis T. Hippocrates. I guess their mindset was that since he's the show's main antagonist, they had to include him in every single episode?

Well, anyway, Cat R. Waul (voiced not by John Cleese like in the film but rather by Gerrit Graham) and his hench-spider T.R. Chula (voiced not by Jon Lovitz like in the film but rather by Dan Castellaneta, so as a result he sounds a lot like Krusty the Clown) overhear Tanya's hiccups and decide that it would be a great idea to eat her and Fievel.

I'd be freaked out too if I suddenly ran into a spider that was around the same size as me. Even
if that spider had a mustache and sounded like a character from The Simpsons.

So how do Fievel and Tanya get away from Cat R. Waul? Easy - he gets a door slammed on him. That was remarkably easy, wasn't it?

They make it to Dr. Travis, and he says that he just so happens to have a tonic that can cure the hiccups. Zhe odds, vhat are zhey? However, it's not quite ready yet... which gives Fievel and Tanya plenty of time to help Dr. Travis by spreading the word about the cure.

This guy reminds me a lot of the Child Catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

Thus, Fievel goes back to the general store to tell the shopkeeper... who also has the hiccups, even though we never saw Fievel give HIM any of the candy either. They couldn't have at least thrown in a montage of Fievel giving candy to everyone in town? Oh, and just to make things even more complicated, Chula overheard everything because he was hiding in a nearby pickle barrel.

…what the heck was he doing in there? Did he know Fievel was going to be there? Is bathing in pickle brine just a regular thing that he does?

"Don't knock it. It's good for my complexion!"

Fievel then runs into Tiger again, who's still all "I want candy!" and then Fievel just leaves the bag of candy with Tiger as he walks away. For some reason. Which gives Tiger the perfect opportunity to have a piece. And then seven more pieces.

It's a good thing Fievel told everyone in town about the cure, because everyone in town except him and Yasha has the hiccups now. And that includes Tiger, who in addition to the eight pieces he had already polished the whole bag off.

How exactly DID Dr. Travis make candy that gives people hiccups, anyhow? What did he put in it?

"Holy crap, there are people out there watching us right now!"

So Fievel finally puts two and two together and realizes that candy + digestive system = hiccups, and goes to confront Dr. Travis. And what is Dr. Travis' reasoning for doing it? Well...

But does Dr. Travis at least have a cure? Well, apparently the hiccups just go away on their own... but as far as the folks of Green River know, the only cure is the placebo that he's whipped up. And he tells Fievel not to tell anyone or else they'll think he's in cahoots with Dr. Travis. "I won't do it!" Fievel exclaims. Dr. Travis' response is to grab Fievel and say, "Fievel, my boy, I'm afraid that was the wrong answer..."

See, this is why you should teach your kids never to talk to strangers. Especially when those strangers have candy.

This screencap looks even worse out of context.

Dr. Travis traps Fievel in a glass jar and then goes to sell his fake hiccup cure to all the mice in town. But the little gathering is suddenly interrupted by Cat R. Waul, who says that they're all welcome to join him for dinner... HIS dinner, that is, mwah-ha-ha-ha-HAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

"I have officially become a vampire! And not one of those friendly chocolate-eating ones
like in the cereal commercials!"

As the mice scatter for their lives, only for Cat R. Waul and Chula to trap them all, Dr. Travis escapes back into his wagon and frees Fievel, declaring that it's every mouse for himself. Fievel insists that they have to save the others, but Dr. Travis is too much of a coward to go save them. So it's all up to Fievel.

Fortunately, Cat R. Waul has decided that instead of eating the mice, he's going to auction them all off to another cat who makes the highest bid. Apparently he's not that hungry after all.

"I have an announcement! They're doing a sequel to The Secret of NIMH!"

"HOORAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!"

"But it's going to be a direct-to-video sequel and star Mrs. Brisby's son while she only has
a handful of lines!"

"BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

"But Eric Idle is in it!"

"YAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!"

"And he's voicing Mrs. Brisby's other son, who's been brainwashed into being evil and wants
to take over Thorn Valley!"

"...WHAT?"

But then Dr. Travis decides not to be such a coward and shows up to warn the cats against eating hiccupping mice, lest they get the hiccups as well... unless, of course, they buy some of his patented anti-hiccup lozenges. Cat R. Waul tells the other cats to ignore him and makes a horrible pun... and then hands out the lozenges to the other cats anyway. But Dr. Travis' distracting the cats allows Fievel to save the trapped mice.

Now, I'll give you one guess what's going to happen next. Will it be that...

A) The lozenges are actually the same candy Dr. Travis tricked the rest of the mice into eating, resulting in the cats getting hiccups?

B) The lozenges are actually the same candy Dr. Travis tricked the rest of the mice into eating, resulting in the cats getting hiccups?

OR C) The lozenges are actually the same candy Dr. Travis tricked the rest of the mice into eating, resulting in the cats getting hiccups?

For those of you who picked A, B, or C, congratulations! You guessed correctly! You get nothing!

And then Tiger shows up, assumes the cats are having a party, and starts dancing. I assume that
this is supposed to be humorous.

As he hops aboard a train out of town, Dr. Travis tells Fievel that he's turned over a new leaf. Or has he? He tries to give one of the hiccup-causing candies to a flute-playing mouse on the train, only to realize that Fievel swiped the bag from him. Fin.

What's the Verdict?

Yeah, this is definitely not the greatest installment of the American Tail franchise. I will say that the voice actors all do a fine job with the script they've been given (Gerrit Graham is actually a pretty good replacement for John Cleese in particular). Aside from that, though, the show suffers from mediocre animation, unfunny jokes, weak plots, and an overall lack of interest. The whole episode runs on the fact that everybody in Green River is apparently a massive idiot - it really takes Fievel until the third act to realize the candy is what's causing the hiccups? Don't get me wrong, it's hardly the worst show based on an animated film that I've ever seen, but I really don't think it's worth your time. You'd be better off re-watching the movies again. But, if you want to watch this show for yourself, you can find it on Universal's streaming service Peacock.

Amusingly, according to the third American Tail, the events of Fievel Goes West and this series were all just a dream. That makes it much easier for fans of the film ignore the series.

Let's Watch This... Again: An Episode of "My Gym Partner's a Monkey"

Something I've been wondering for a while: is it fair to judge a show based on one episode? On the one hand, for most of the shows I watch, each episode is actually two segments, so technically I'm reviewing two episodes... but is it fair to judge a show based on TWO episodes? However, generally, I find that one episode of a show is enough to make me decide whether or not I want to watch more episodes... for example, I liked the episode of Bonkers that I watched, so I decided to watch more episodes. I didn't like the episode of Loonatics Unleashed that I watched, so I didn't seek out any more episodes.

Here's the best way I can put it... let's say you just bought a bag of chips. You eat one or two chips. They taste lousy. Are you going to scarf down the rest of the bag, or are you going to toss 'em? Well, okay, I wouldn't recommend tossing them, that wastes food... but if you don't like what you've had so far, why eat MORE?

But, in the interest of fairness, I've decided I should watch at least ONE more episode of each show I gave a negative review for to see if the first time around I just happened to watch one of the weaker episodes. And first on the "Let's Watch This... Again" list is My Gym Partner's a Monkey.

For those of you who haven't read my previous review of the show, My Gym Partner's a Monkey premiered on Cartoon Network in 2006. It focused on the adventures of Adam Lyon, a human boy (voiced by Nika Futterman) who gets transferred to a school for anthropomorphic animals because a spelling error caused people to assume that his last name was "Lion" and, as a result, that he was a lion despite the fact that he looks absolutely nothing like one. His best friend is Jake, a spider monkey voiced by Tom Kenny. I think Cartoon Network believed that Jake's being a monkey voiced by Tom Kenny would automatically make him hysterical, but it doesn't.

Previously, I watched and reviewed an episode that consisted of the segments "Chew On This" and "The A Word". The first segment focused on the animals trying human food for the first time and becoming addicted. The second had Jake throw a fit because Adam used the expression "go ape". Neither episode was particularly good. The weird thing is, I actually liked this show when it was on. But hey, I liked Foster's Home For Imaginary Friends when it was on too, so make of that what you will.

But like I said, maybe the episode of the show I reviewed before was just one of the weaker ones. Who knows? Maybe the show is better than I initially thought. We'll be watching the fifteenth episode, "Poop Scoop" and "Leaf of Absence" to see if the show is worth giving another chance.

Don't worry, this episode actually doesn't have much in the way of toilet humor.

We start off with Adam and his friends hard at work on the school newspaper. Well, except for Jake. He's bossing Adam around. I don't know who put him in charge of the newspaper or why they would, but I guess the writers just wanted an excuse to have Tom Kenny shout his dialogue.

Shouldn't Jake be the one at the typewriter? I've heard that if you put a bunch of monkeys
at typewriters, they'll eventually write the entire works of Shakespeare.

Once the newspaper is done, Jake grabs one and rushes into the bathroom with it. Adam protests that there's no time to take a dump because their readers are waiting. Windsor (the gorilla voiced by Rick Gomez), Slips (the python also voiced by Rick Gomez), and Lupe (the loud and obnoxious Spanish-accented toucan voiced by Grey DeLisle-Griffin) inform Adam that nobody actually reads the school paper. The only reason they print so many copies, Windsor claims, is because newspapers are the least expensive way of cleaning up their various messes.

Is it weird that I'm wondering why the python has hair?

And just in case you didn't get the joke, Jake then straight-up says that he uses it as toilet paper. Subtlety is for chumps.

Ingrid (the giraffe also voiced by Grey DeLisle-Griffin) swoons that Jake is "so sophisticated". "Well, not everyone is gifted with such a naturally gorgeous posterior!" Jake claims, showing the audience his butt. And yes, I am indeed going to include a screencap of that. If I had to look at it, then so do you. Sorry.

Ignoring the whole "butts aren't funny" thing, real spider monkeys don't even have butts like that. Of course, there's a pretty good chance that they initially just designed Jake as a generic monkey with no specific species in mind and then assigned the name "Spider monkey" to him as an afterthought.

But that's not ALL they use the newspaper for! When shredded, it makes great bedding material, and Slips uses it to make funny hats. Just then, Mr. Mandrill (Maurice LaMarche) shows up and tells the kids that Principal Pixiefrog (also Maurice LaMarche) is cutting the school's journalism program. They'll have to use sawdust to clean up their various messes. Jake shows the audience his butt again (this time I'll spare you the screencap, though).

This is Mr. Mandrill. Unlike Jake, he actually looks like the primate that he's supposed
to be.

Adam suggests that they try to save the paper, maybe by writing some actually interesting articles. "Why would we do that? We get all the news we need from the magic box," Jake claims - of  course, he's referring to the TV, which hypnotizes the animals. Huh, I guess the Danny DeVito-voiced lobster was right... the TV really IS a "mind-control box".

"WE WILL WATCH CARTOON NETWORK. WE WILL NOT SWITCH THE CHANNEL OVER
TO NICKELODEON. WE WILL TELL EVERYONE HOW FUNNY MONKEYS ARE..."

But then Adam accidentally plants the idea of dedicating the paper to gossip in Jake's head. When Adam suggests that maybe the lunch lady, Mrs. Tusk (the Cree Summer-voiced elephant we talked about in "Chew On This"), might be in a relationship, Jake and the others start whipping up a story with zero evidence behind it.

Get it? Instead of "Gazette" it says "Gazelle" because they're animals?

To make things even harder for Adam, the article claims that HE'S the one in love with Mrs. Tusk. When Adam confronts Jake on this, Jake decides to use his words out of context. So now everyone thinks that Adam has a thing for elephants.

"In other news, it has been rumored that Cartoon Network is going to start airing live action
programming. It has been pointed out to them that the name of the channel is 'CARTOON Network',
but they don't care, they think there's money to be made..."

So, yeah. This is one of those "tabloid spreads lies about and embarrasses characters" episodes. I can name several other cartoons that did this exact same plot. Although those episodes didn't claim that their characters get turned on when they watch Dumbo.

How far does Jake plan to take this, anyhow? Is he going to start claiming that Mrs. Tusk "returns Adam's affections" yet? What if she gets branded a pedophile and fired as a result? I mean, sheesh, we've seen how quick the staff at this school are to jump to conclusions.

Adam begs Mr. Mandrill to stop Jake, but he's no help at all - he says that circulation is though the roof, and advertisers are lining up for ad space. Here's a question: are humans, in this world, aware that animals are anthropomorphic? Can an animal go to a store run by a human and buy something? If not, what use do animals have for money?

Then again, they probably use it to "clean up their various messes."

"But Jake's just making stuff up! He's printing LIES about me!" Adam protests. Why, next he'll probably be claiming that Craig McCracken gave the 2016 Powerpuff Girls reboot his blessing! Yes, I'm still miffed at Tom Kenny for spreading that lie. And no, I don't subscribe to the "oh, he was probably just misinformed" claim, I sincerely doubt Tom is that gullible.

Unfortunately, Mr. Mandrill is convinced that Adam DOES have a crush on Mrs. Tusk. Adam tells him that he has about as much a crush on her as he does on Coach Gills (Brian Doyle-Murray), and... you can see where this is going, right?

Okay, I'll admit that the "artist rendering" is kind of funny.

So now everyone thinks that Adam wants to get it on with a fish. And on top of THAT, Jake then decides to print a story about Adam having a thing for Mrs. Warthog (also Grey DeLisle-Griffin). Adam goes to Principal Pixiefrog in the hopes that he'll stop Jake's reign of terror, but of course Principal Pixiefrog is zero help whatsoever. Are we supposed to find Adam's frustration funny? Because I don't.

"I hear you go 'hog-wild' for my assistant, if you know what I mean... wink wink,
nudge nudge..."

Adam declares that if Principal Pixiefrog doesn't do something about Jake's lie-spreading, he'll sue. "Normally, that would frighten me. But I'm afraid constitutional protection regarding freedom of the press supercedes my unnatural fear of lawsuit," the frog replies. "Plus, I love reading this stuff!"

And none of Adam's other friends are doing anything to stop Jake. In fact, they're going along with it - Ingrid (the giraffe also voiced by Grey-DeLisle Griffin) uses the horoscopes to claim that Adam has a crush on even MORE students at the school. Adam demands to know how Jake would like it if HE made up stories about HIM. Jake claims that he wouldn't have a problem with it. "FINE! I'm gonna make up a big fat lie about YOU!" Adam snaps, pushing buttons on his typewriter. And, surprise surprise, that lie turns out to be regarding Jake's butt.

Personally, I would've gone with "LAZLO IS A MORE LIKEABLE CHARACTER". But
that's just ME...

And wouldn't you know it? Despite Jake's claiming earlier that he'd be okay with Adam spreading lies about him, the claim that he has cheek implants makes him start crying. "That's not made up, Adam! It's my most precious secret!" he sobs. We get another close up of Jake's butt (because I really needed to see that again. Thanks a lot), then Adam tries to save face by saying he was taking about the cheeks on Jake's face, not his butt. "Oh, great! Now everyone knows about THOSE, too!" Jake laments.

Everyone else is mad at Adam now, too. Apparently it's A-OKAY to print lies about somebody, but printing a lie that unbenknownst to whoever printed it is actually true? Get out the torches and pitchforks. Principal Pixiefrog complains that now they're going to get sued for defamation of character. Adam agrees with me and asks what happened to "constitutional protection regarding freedom of the press supercedes my unnatural fear of lawsuit", to which Mr. Mandrill claims that when you print something that's true, ethical standards can kick in. Fortunately, Jake has agreed to let the school bribe him into not sueing - specifically, by giving him toilet paper with dollar signs on it.

Oh, jeez, they DO use money for "cleaning up their various messes". It's hard to make jokes
about a show that makes all the jokes for me.

Jake tells Adam that he'd be happy to share the wealth with him... provided Adam doesn't write any more stories about his butt. Now, what Adam SHOULD do is tell Jake to go jump off a flagpole, but instead he agrees, but only if Jake stops telling lies about how Adam is madly in love with every female teacher at the school.

Unsurprisingly, Jake weasels his way around that by going on the school's news show and claiming that Adam is in love with every female teacher at the school. And presumably nobody who read Adam the riot act for revealing Jake's cheek implants to everyone is going to stop Jake.

Say what you will about Bloo, and I'll agree, but I think even HE would look at this
and go "Wow, Jake's a lousy friend."

To make things even MORE uncomfortable, now all of the female teachers at the school have the hots for Adam. So apparently half the staff at Charles Darwin Middle School are pedophiles. And are into humans. Also, I remember another episode revealed that Mrs. Tusk is married.

I have one word for you, Adam: TRANSFER. Or at the very least follow through on that threat to sue the school.

And we're supposed to LAUGH at this?

Okay, next segment..

We start "Leaf of Absence" off in... a courtroom. An elephant is sueing Principal Pixiefrog, but everyone else in the courtroom is a human. This just raises further questions as to how this world of humans co-existing with anthropomorphic animals works.

Maybe that elephant is Mrs. Trunk's husband, and he's suing Principal Pixiefrog for allowing
one of his students to spread rumors about his wife being a pedophile.

Why is the elephant sueing the school? Because there isn't enough elephant grass growing on campus, meaning that he was forced to attend classes in a hostile environment. The judge orders Principal Pixiefrog to pay him one hundred cashew nuts (I guess the writers thought peanuts was too obvious). "NOT CASHEW NUTS!" Principal Pixiefrog exclaims. "THOSE ARE THE MOST EXPENSIVE!"

Oh, wait, never mind. It was all just a dream.

"I just had a horrible dream where I was the mascot of a failing TV channel!"

He begs a nearby gigantic bag of money to promise him it'll never leave. And it actually talks to him. Yes, there's a talking bag of money. Just go with it.

Oh, wait. It was a dream within a dream. Principal Pixiefrog IS getting sued. And the judge declares that he will not be getting any bail. Serves him right for not doing anything to stop Jake.

"But your honor, I swear I didn't put a hit out on the Rainforest Café frog! That was my
twin brother! Honest!"

Upon arriving at school, Principal Pixiefrog tells Mrs. Warthog that they have to pay the elephant a truckload of cashews. Then he heads home to watch cable programming.

Then we cut to Jake, as per usual, being incredibly annoying.

"LAUGH AT ME! I'M A MONKEY, AND THAT AUTOMATICALLY MAKES ME FUNNY!"

Adam tells Jake to knock it off, and then they come across the new substitute principal, Principal Wolverine (Chris Edgerly).

Now, this is what an actual wolverine looks like:

And this  is what Principal Wolverine looks like:

That's supposed to be a wolverine? Jake at least looks like SOME kind of monkey even if he doesn't look like a spider monkey. If his name wasn't "Principal Wolverine", I wouldn't be able to tell WHAT this character was supposed to be.

Jake recognizes Principal "Wolverine" as the meanest substitute principal in the entire school district. And seeing as the first thing he does upon seeing Adam and Jake is threaten to bite them on the buttocks, I'd say Jake's not too far off.

The thing that's supposed to be a wolverine forbids Lupe from flying in the halls, a bull from having a nose ring, and Bull Sharkowzki (Phil LaMarr) from wearing those water-filled headphones that keep him hydrated. And he keeps threatening to bite students' buttocks, too. Okay, somebody on this show's writing staff clearly thought that butts were automatically hysterical. They are not.

And the shark can't just eat the tiny little animal claiming to be a wolverine BECAAAAAAAAAUSE?

Adam, Jake, and Mrs. Warthog decide that they must get rid of Principal Generic Animal of Nondescript Species (I refuse to call that thing a wolverine) - not only is he being a jerk to the students, but he's making Mrs. Warthog WORK. Horror of horrors.

It's kind of funny how Cartoon Network had two shows on at the same time starring a monkey that
also had a surly female warthog as a supporting character. I guess they thought surly female warthogs
were hysterical too?

Adam and Jake go to Principal Pixiefrog's lily pad and find him sitting in an armchair eating "Cheese Bugs" and watching TV. They beg him to come back and stop Substitute Principal Not a Wolverine, but he refuses, even after he finds out that he's making Mrs. Warthog WORK. "There's just no place in education for a principal that can't dodge a lawsuit," he moans.

Why don't they just pick him up and CARRY him back to school? He's much smaller
than they are...

So then Adam and Jake go to Mr. Mandrill for help. He deduces that the lawsuit made Principal Pixiefrog question who he is, so they have to figure out how to snap him out of his funk and return him to his regular lawsuit-avoiding self. That gives Adam an idea...

Principal Pixiefrog sees a live report on TV about how dense patches of elephant grass have sprung up all over Charles Darwin Middle School, making it impossible to go inside. Substitute Principal Doesn't Resemble Any Sort of Real Animal At All Much Less a Wolverine is powerless against it. Jake says that he's considering filing a lawsuit against the school. This snaps Principal Pixiefrog out of his funk and head to the school to solve the problem.

And how is he going to solve it? By having every herbivore at the school and has them eat the grass.

Huzzah.

Once the grass is cleared out, Principal Pixiefrog tells Substitute Principal Perhaps Some Sort of Rodent to buzz off. So he does, hoping to find a school where the students are more compliant. Then in the credits, there's a scene of him flying to England with an umbrella and getting sucked into a jet turbine. It is also not funny in the least. The end.

What's the Verdict?

Yeah, My Gym Partner's a Monkey is still a pretty weak show. I don't like the art style, it's way too angular and most of the characters are just ugly to look at. And I really don't like Jake. He's not funny, he's unlikable, and Tom Kenny gives a really obnoxious performance as his voice. Attention, Cartoon Network - Tom Kenny is talented, but his presence won't automatically make a cartoon funnier. Especially if you have him scream every other line. The other characters range from annoying (Adam and Jake's friends are basically just a hive mind, stupidly agreeing with Jake on everything no matter how ridiculous he's being) to boring, and watching Adam get put through the wringer just frustrated the heck out of me. There's nothing here we haven't already seen in better cartoons like SpongeBob SquarePants or Camp Lazlo.

I'm not going to be seeking out any more episodes of My Gym Partner's a Monkey. If you want to watch the show for yourself, good luck - only one episode has been released on DVD in America (there are two DVD volumes, but they're region-locked), so you'll need either iTunes or the Boomerang app. Does ANYBODY have the Boomerang app, actually?

Let's Watch This: An Episode of "Pound Puppies"

In the 1980s, Tonka (the toy truck guys) came out with a toyline called "Pound Puppies". They were basically just plush dogs, but each one came with a cardboard case shaped like a doghouse and an "adoption" certificate. The idea was that anyone who bought a Pound Puppy was saving them from the pound (hence the name "Pound Puppies"). It was a big success, which I hope inspired more people to actually adopt real dogs from real pounds, assuming Lady and the Tramp didn't do that already.

And as we all know, a toyline from the 1980s wouldn't be... well, a toyline from the 1980s without some sort of animated adaptation. So in 1985, Hanna-Barbera released a TV special based on the toyline, which was also a big success, resulting in an entire TV series starring the Pound Puppies.

Pound Puppies premiered on September 13th, 1986 and received two seasons. The show focused on a group of dogs living at the pound - leader Cooler (voiced by Dan Gilvezan), Southern-accented Nose Marie (Ruth Buzzi), red-headed Bright Eyes (Nancy Cartwright), Harpo Marx lookalike Howler (originally Robert Morse, then Frank Welker), and diaper-clad Whopper (B.J. Ward). They help puppies at the pound find good homes, cared for by a girl named Holly (Ami Foster). But Holly's evil aunt Katrina Stoneheart (Pat Carroll), her daughter Brattina (Adrienne Alexander), and their cat Catgut (Frank Welker) are constantly cooking up evil schemes to making things harder for Holly and the dogs.

The show aired on ABC for twenty-six episodes. There were some VHS releases in the 1980s, but at no point was it ever released on DVD. Fortunately, you can find episodes on YouTube. Is the show any good? Why don't we find out? The episode we'll be watching today is the fifth - "The Fairy Dogmother". This is Pound Puppies.

The episode begins with millions of poorly-animated puppies barking at us, then Cooler pushes a few aside and comments that they're up to their eyeballs in puppies. This results in Bright Eyes and Howler singing a song that's just "Camptown Races" with new lyrics. Are they filming a commercial for the pound or something?

Somebody working on this show actually said "You know what the world needs? A dog
that looks like Harpo Marx."

Meanwhile, Nose Marie is helping Holly with her "extremely strange little ballgown". Whopper stands nearby, wearing a beret and speaking in a bad French accent.

Okay, the episode just started and I have no idea what's going on. There are puppies everywhere, two of the dogs are singing "Camptown Races', and Whopper is suddenly French. Maybe I should've reviewed the first episode instead.

"Hoh hoh hoh! I am Stereotypical French Pound Puppy! Sacre bleu, mon ami, bonjour,
other stereotypical French sayings!"

So apparently Holly is going to a dance, but there's just one problem - she doesn't have a date. But apparently there's a boy named Mervin who she thinks will ask her to go with him. So... problem solved, I guess?

Alas, Problem Number Two rears its ugly head. Some construction workers are doing road work just outside the pound. "Oh, great! Now how are we gonna get these pups adopted if nobody can get here?!" Cooler asks, continuing to sound like a bad impression of John Travolta.

It's hard to take a dog who sounds like John Travolta and looks like Snoopy trying to be
the Fonz seriously.

Then we cut to the mansion where Katrina, Brattina, and Catgut live. Katrina gives us some exposition about how she's the reason they're doing road work and blocking off the pound - the three of them put potholes all over the street. But this, she declares, is only the first step in her battle against the pound.

Did they ever actually explain why Katrina hates the pound so much? Seriously, what is her deal? Does she just hate dogs so much that the idea of a place where people can adopt them disgusts her? Did a dog once mistake her for a fire hydrant and urinate on her leg? Or is she just evil because it's how she gets her kicks?

Seriously, she's actually declared WAR on a dog pound. At some point, Katrina's gonna have to take a good, long look at herself and wonder what the heck she's doing with her life.

Also, was she intended to be a caricature of Phyllis Diller?

Katrina declares that she will demolish the pound, then tells Catgut that he will go undercover in the neighborhood dressed as a Pound Puppy and make sure that everyone in town hates the Pound Puppies. He will accomplish this by making a movie about them called Pound Puppies and the Legend of Big Paw. It will be a flop, and the critics will tear it apart, putting the franchise out of commission until a 2010 reboot of the cartoon featuring none of the original characters.

Actually, it's kind of odd that they made the one cat in this cartoon evil, seeing as how there was also a line of plush cats called "Pound Pur-r-ies". I guess it's because if your cartoon stars dogs, you have to make cats the bad guys since dogs and cats hate each other.

"Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to make people want to buy goldfish at their
local pet shop instead."

"Request permission to do the Muttley laugh, Sarge?"

"Permission granted. It's a Hanna-Barbera cartoon, after all..."

But that's not all - Katrina also plans on having Brattina ruin Holly's chances with Mervin. Because... I guess she just likes seeing Holly miserable.

Meanwhile, outside the pound, Holly runs into Mervin. It's here that we see that the pound is named "Holly's Puppy Pound", which makes me wonder why a fifth-grader is running a dog pound all by herself. I mean, I know the sentient dogs are helping her too, but it's supposed to be a secret in this show that the dogs can talk. Why isn't anybody raising an eyebrow?

Were kids in the 1980s really dressing like this?

Holly and Mervin do some awkward flirting, but before Mervin can invite Holly to the dance, Brattina shows up and she's all "Go to the dance with ME!" while Holly and the dogs look ticked-off.

By the way, Brattina's voice is incredibly annoying.

So Brattina basically forces Mervin to go to the dance with her, and Holly is upset. And then Cooler spots Catgut dressing up in a dog costume so he can cause trouble and make everyone think Pound Puppies are the scum of the earth. Believe it or not, it's actually working.

Katrina watches this all go down from her mansion window, cackling about how soon the citizens will demand that the pound be shut down. That, or they'll demand that the pound do what it does to all dogs that don't find owners and give 'em the gas (which is why you should really consider adopting a dog from your local pound - just FYI). Either or.

"Look at all those people down there, standing in the middle of the street! Don't they know
that's dangerous?!"

Then Katrina gives Holly a million chores so that she won't be able to clear the Pound Puppies' names. The dogs watch this from their television set... because I guess they set up spy cameras all over Katrina's house? If they did, wouldn't they have seen her making plans to destroy Holly's happiness earlier? And if they did, why didn't they stop her?

Meh, I guess they were too busy singing and making a dress to do that.

"Where's the remote? Maybe Rainbow Brite is on another channel..."

I was going to point out how similar this was to Cinderella, but Cooler does it for me. Then Whopper brings up how in the movie, Cinderella had a fairy godmother who saved the day by... turning a pumpkin into a dragon who eats the castle and marries Prince Charming. Yeah, I'm pretty sure that didn't happen in Cinderella, but if it had, it would've been a far more interesting movie. If this episode doesn't end with a dragon hooking up with Mervin, I'm going to be very disappointed.

Meh, still a better love story than Bee Movie...

Bright Eyes suggests that they call upon "the Fairy Dogmother" to save Holly. Who is the Fairy Dogmother? Well, apparently she's a magical fairy dog who comes to help dogs in need when they wish upon the Dog Star. Predictably, everyone believes that Bright Eyes is crazy. Even crazier than Whopper, the dog who claimed that Cinderella features a dragon marrying Prince Charming.

Side note, Bright Eyes looks and sounds a lot like Elmyra Duff. I know this show came out before Tiny Toon Adventures, but still...

Also, her pupils are freaking me out.

Despite Cooler and Nose Marie's being skeptical, Bright Eyes makes a wish upon the Dog Star and the Fairy Dogmother appears... in her bathtub. Never fails - you get in the bath, and there's a wish upon the Dog Star. And apparently Fairy Dogmothers like to take their baths fully-clothed, too.

"EEEEEEEEEEEK! PEEPING TOMS!"

Fade to black... and then we're once again greeted by a screen full of barking puppies, and then Cooler pops out and comments on how many puppies they've got around. For a second, I was worried that the episode was starting over again. But it doesn't. We DO, however, get Bright Eyes and Howler singing "Camptown Races" again.

After the song, the dogs tells the Fairy Dogmother… whose name is apparently "Zazu" (insert reference to The Lion King here)… that Holly needs her help. So she flies into the mansion and we get countless unfunny jokes about how the Fairy Dogmother is a moron. She says that she'll help Holly by... cleaning up everything. Not exactly turning a pumpkin into a carriage, is it?

We cut to the next day, where Holly is still doing all her chores and Zazu laments that she's useless. But then Whopper notices that Mervin is approaching the mansion. Cooler suggests that Zazu give Mervin the nerve he needs to ask Holly to the dance. Wait, wasn't the dance the night before? And didn't Brattina already call dibs on going there with Mervin? I'm confused.

Zazu shoots Mervin with some magic love dust that'll make him fall in love with the first person he sees. There's no way that THIS can backfire on them, is there?

"Did I just hear somebody say that the boy Holly likes has been doused with magic love dust
that'll make him fall in love with the first person he sees?! I must make sure that I'M the first
person he sees!"

Yep, there is indeed a way. Brattina sends Holly flying into the bushes and as soon as Mervin sees her his eyes turn into hearts and he floats over to her.

You had ONE JOB, Zazu!

Okay, so the dance is apparently on Saturday Night, it was not in fact the night before, and Mervin asks Brattina if she'll go with him. So far Zazu hasn't been accomplishing much in the helping Holly department. Well, maybe she can do something to stop Catgut from causing mischief in his Pound Puppy costume.

Or maybe she won't have to. Three tough guy cats seem to have the situation under control.

Hey, how come these cats can talk but Catgut can't?

Catgut manages to get the cats off his tail by ditching the suit, then Cooler gives Zazu the idea to clean up the mess Catgut made before the neighbors come out, see it, and blame the Pound Puppies for it. And she can fix all the potholes, too.

Alas, when it comes to casting spells, Zazu forgets, it helps to be specific. She tells the street to return to the way it was "way back when" and suddenly the city is replaced by a prehistoric valley.

Well, on the bright side, the dogs could just have the dinosaur step on Katrina, Brattina,
and Catgut. Problem solved.

Zazu dubs herself a "fairy dog-failure", fade to black... and once again we get the barking puppies filling up the screen and Cooler pointing it out. Is this just going to happen after every fade to black?

And then guess what? We get another performance of "Camptown Races". After that, Bright Eyes manages to convince Zazu not to leave by saying that if she does, she's just a big fat fake. Zazu then turns the swamp back into a city - minus the potholes - and then cleans up Catgut's mess.

"Wow! You're NOT such an incompetent idiot after all!"

Next, Zazu casts a spell that makes the zipper on Catgut's dog suit stuck, meaning that he can't take it off when those cats show up again to beat the stuffing out of him. "Looks like Catgut has really gone to the dogs!" Cooler quips.

We are then treated to... oy gevalt... Katrina and Brattina screeching out a version of "I've Been Working on the Railroad" about how they're making Holly suffer. Mervin shows up to take Brattina to the dance, and the three of them (Katrina is chaperoning) head off, leaving Holly to wallow in her misery. That is, until the dogs show up.

Zazu whips Holly up a fancy dress, then teleports them all to the dance. There, she gets rid of the love spell she cast on Mervin earlier, snapping him out of it and freeing him up to dance with Holly. Now the only problem is figuring out how to get all those puppies at the pound adopted. Fortunately, Cooler has an idea...

I'm just now noticing that Whopper has an abnormally-large head.

Zazu casts a spell that teleports all the puppies to the dance, which not only causes Katrina and Brattina to flee but makes all the kids at the dance instantly want to adopt one. Then Katrina, Brattina, and Catgut get mauled by those three cats.

And then we get a reprise of "Camptown Races". The end, right? Not quite - we get a short where Nose Marie talks about the importance of feeding schedules for your pet dog. And then it ends, hoping that it's convinced the kids watching it at home to go to their local toy store and buy their own Pound Puppy.

What's the Verdict?

Pound Puppies is mediocre. Most of the characters are annoying, the songs are bad, and it's not quite My Little Pony levels of sappy but still pretty sappy. But I wouldn't go so far as to say it's AWFUL. I've seen far worse shows. It's basically just your typical "cartoon from the 1980s made to sell toys" sort of shows. Y'know, like Care Bears or, again, My Little Pony. If you're a fan of the toy line, go ahead and watch an episode. If not, there are better cartoons worth your time.

As for me, I'll stick with THESE Hanna-Barbera dogs...