Let's Watch This: An Episode of "Scaredy Squirrel"

NOTE: Please do not take any of the little nitpicks in this review (or any of my other reviews, for that matter) seriously. I write these reviews in the hopes of making people laugh. Those nitpicks are really just dumb little observations that I'm attempting to make jokes out of, not complaints that add to whether or not I like something.

NOTE #2: No disrespect is meant towards anyone who worked on the show I am reviewing today. I'm sure they are all very nice and talented people.

NOTE #3: If you like this show, that is great. Go ahead and like it. I'm not judging you.

Have you ever heard of a children's book series called Scaredy Squirrel? The first book featuring this character was released in 2006, focusing on a nervous squirrel named Scaredy who is afraid of everything and lives his life according to a routine. I've only read one of these books, but according to Wikipedia they all follow a specific formula: Scaredy identifies his fears, develops a plan to avoid them, winds up facing them, and eventually learns that they're not as bad as he imagined they would be. Sounds simple enough, right?

In 2011, Nelvana decided to adapt Scaredy Squirrel into a cartoon show. And that cartoon show is what we'll be looking at today!

Scaredy Squirrel premiered on April 1st, 2011 and received three seasons. The show isn't very much like the books. For one thing, Scaredy (voiced by Terry McGurrin) looks NOTHING like his literary counterpart. He works at a supermarket, which he did not do in the books, and lives in the city of Balsa City. He's still a neuronic germaphobe, though. There are also a bunch of characters that weren't in the books, such as his dimwitted best friend Dave the Skunk (Jonathan Gould), his grouchy boss Nestor (Patrick McKenna), and a trout named Sally (Linda Kash) who has a crush on him. The show aired on YTV in Canada and on Cartoon Network in the United States.

Is the show any good? I think I watched one episode years ago, but I don't remember much of it. Admittedly, Nelvana's track record on this blog so far (especially their 2010s output) hasn't been all that great, ranging from crap like Spliced and Hotel Transylvania: The Series to mediocre stuff like Birdz. But it's unfair to say that EVERYTHING Nelvana is responsible is bad - I mean, they gave us Rolie Polie Olie and Little Bear, after all. So what say we watch the show's thirtieth episode and see if Scaredy Squirrel is worth going crazy (you were expecting me to say "going nuts" since the show is about a squirrel, weren't you?) for or not?

This show is one of those "each episode is two segments in one" cartoons. Our first segment is called "I Think Therefore I Clean".

The episode begins with Scaredy and Dave in Scaredy's house. Scaredy shows off a rocket that he got a store called Huey's House of High-Tech Cleaning Supplies. You put trash in the rocket, and then it launches the garbage into space. I'm guessing this is what led to the creation of that garbage monster in the episode of Rocket Monkeys I looked at.

Honestly, this seems like a lot of trouble to go through just to get rid of trash. Doesn't Balsa City have garbage trucks?

And wouldn't sending trash into outer space result in the air becoming a lot smellier?

Then Scaredy gets a call from Huey, who tells him that they've got a new vacuum cleaner in stock. So he and Dave head over to buy it. "Behold, the Suckmaster 3000! A top of the line computer and a state of the art vacuum!" Huey tells them. It's so advanced that it sucks up Dave. I guess it really hates Patrick Star wannabes.

"And don't worry! Unlike other technologically-advanced machines in cartoons, there is little
to no chance of this vacuum cleaner going berserk and causing whacky shenanigans to ensue!"

I initially thought the vacuum was kind of a downgrade from the other things we saw on sale at Huey's - the aforementioned rocket, helicopter sponges, a battery-operated sink polisher, a solar-powered toilet brush... but when Scaredy brings it home, it turns out that it can do more than just suck up dirt. It can also clean windows, complete with jet-powered squeegees. It can sort socks, which Scaredy has no reason to own since he walks around barefoot all the time. It can even clean eggs off the ceiling (it makes sense in context).

Scaredy seems to be convinced that his vaccuum is a sentient being. He names it "Kath-kleen" and starts walking it around on a leash like a dog. Even Dave points out how strange that is, and when the idiot sidekick is weirded-out by your behavior, you've got a problem.

Is this going to wind up like those Swiffer commercials where the broom/mop/other cleaning
instrument acts all depressed over its owner "dumping it" for a Swiffer? I hope not. Those ads always
kind of bummed me out...

Then again, Dave's not exactly one to talk. He's walking a cuckoo clock on a leash.

He's a skunk... he's got a cuckoo clock on a leash... yeah, sorry, I can't think of
a funny joke to make here.

Scaredy takes his vacuum cleaner to do things like swing on the swing set, use a photo booth, go to an amusement park, go shopping, and even bring it to work with him. I swear, the further we get into the episode, the more I'm expecting him to straight-up MARRY this thing.

Suddenly, Scaredy hears Sally calling for help. Rushing outside, he discovers that her pet cat is stuck in a tree. It's kind of weird that non-sentient cats that can be kept as pets exist in a world full of anthropomorphic animals, but we haven't seen any anthropomorphic cats so far so I guess it's not that big of a deal?

While I'm asking questions, how is Sally - a fish - surviving out of water? I know, I know, it's a cartoon, I shouldn't take it too seriously, but still...

Maybe she's a mudskipper?

The vacuum cleaner rescues the cat and is rewarded for its heroism with a medal. Dave gets jealous of all the attention that the vacuum cleaner is getting - if you ask me, if you're jealous of a VACUUM CLEANER you really need to rethink your life - and dumps his mud slushy on it. Dave, you fool. Getting the high-tech appliance/robot/what have you wet ALWAYS results in it going berserk.

Oh, look. Its eye is glowing red. When the high-tech appliance/robot/what have you's eyes glow red, you should run for the hills.

Five bucks says that at one point Scaredy is going to ask it to clean something and it'll say
"I'm afraid I can't do that, Scaredy."

That night, the vacuum cleaner disguises itself as Scaredy, heads to Huey's House of High-Tech Cleaning Supplies, and demands that Huey give it all of the vacuum cleaners it has in stock. Because Huey is an idiot, he says "Nothing suspicious about that! I just got a big shipment in!". Thus, when Scaredy wakes up in the morning he is greeted by a horde of high-tech vacuum cleaners outside his window.

You never have this sort of problem with Roombas...

But believe it or not, Scaredy is actually EXCITED by the fact that there are a million high-tech vacuum cleaners running amok. And what are the vacuum cleaners doing? Well, they're... cleaning stuff. Yes, apparently "Kath-kleen"'s evil plan was to... clean the entire town. How diabolical.

Unfortunately, this leads to the mayor of Balsa City telling everyone that with the vacuum cleaners doing all the cleaning for them, they are free to be gigantic slobs, much to Scaredy's horror. Oh, and it turns out that Balsa City DOES have garbage trucks after all - one shows up to dump garbage on Scaredy.

Was this Dave's plan all along? To make everyone in Balsa City just as big of a slob
as him?

The citizens' dumping their garbage everywhere creates a new problem. The vacuum cleaners decide that since the citizens are responsible for all the garbage, they must eliminate the citizens. And the best way for the vacuum cleaners to eliminate the citizens, they decide, is by going all Transformers and merging into a giant robot. Considering what idiots the residents of Balsa City are, nothing of value will be lost.

"Transformers! More than meets the eye!"

The giant vacuum cleaner robot sucks up the townsfolk... wait, did they really need to form a giant robot to do this? We saw "Kath-kleen" - ONE vacuum cleaner - suck up Dave earlier no problem. Well, anyway, Scaredy and Dave hide out in Dave's trailer, then Scaredy remembers that Huey told him there's a reverse button on the top of the vacuum cleaner. To accomplish this, Scaredy tells Dave to roll him up in all the dust that is gathered on his floor. And then Dave farts. Ha ha ha, farting is automatically funny.

After being rolled up in the dust, Scaredy becomes a giant dust bunny.

My allergies are acting up just by looking at him...

One not particularly interesting fight scene later, Scaredy pushes the reverse button and frees all the townsfolk. The robot falls apart, and Scaredy stuffs all the vacuum cleaners into a rocket ship and blasts them into outer space. They all wind up on the moon. Nobody gets mad at Dave for causing this mess (no pun intended) in the first place.

The next segment is called "Soup or Nova".

We begin with Dave visiting Scaredy at work to complain that a tornado (or rather, a "tor-o-nado" as he calls it) sucked up his lunch and trailer. Now Dave is homeless. But because he's an idiot, it takes him a few seconds to figure that out.

I'm just now noticing that Scaredy always has bags under his eyes. Poor guy, having Dave
for a best friend sure is wearing him out.

Scaredy is about to say that Dave can come live with him, but then he remembers that Dave is a slob, an idiot, incompetent, and would probably make for an even worse roommate than Leonard from The Big Bang Theory (yeah, I said Leonard. I'm a Sheldon fan). Unfortunately, Dave comes up with that very same idea, and Scaredy is too nice a guy to say no.

When they arrive back at Scaredy's house, Scaredy tells Dave that to avoid any possible conflicts that arise when best friends in a cartoon live together, Dave must be, you know, clean. Dave assures him that he will be the best roommate ever. And now, make your own reference to The Odd Couple here, I've never seen a single episode of that show. Well, the original, that is. I think I saw one episode of the reboot with Thomas Lennon...

"I call dibs on being the Ernie in this situation!"
"Aw, does that make me the Bert?"

As soon as Dave walks in, he starts causing stress in Scaredy's life. He wipes his feet on the wall. And the floors. And Scaredy's COUCH. And his ENTIRE HOUSE.

Okay, seriously, Dave. This isn't even you being too stupid to realize you're stressing Scaredy out. This is intentionally being a jerk. Nobody, no matter how stupid they are, wipes their feet on the floor of their friend's house.

I'm beginning to really not like Dave.

"For the sake of our friendship, we have got to not live together!" Scaredy tells Dave. But Dave begs him to reconsider and Scaredy, of course, tells him he has one more chance... which Dave promptly blows by wiping his chocolate-covered face on Scaredy's shirt. Scaredy puts his foot down and tells Dave he's living somewhere else. Good on you, Scaredy.

Scaredy and Dave run into a beaver named Buck, who just so happens to have room in his house for Dave to live. Hooray for pawning your problem off on somebody else! Now Scaredy can just relax and home and finish building a delicate house of cards. I do hope nothing happens to knock that house of cards down...

I genuinely do like how Scaredy straight-up calls the house of cards "delicate". It feels like
the writers are acknowledging that it's an obvious joke but they're still trying to have a little fun with it.

About one second later, Dave barges into Scaredy's house, letting in a huge gust of wind that blows the cards away. Living with Buck didn't work out, as beavers live underwater and skunks do not. So Scaredy takes Dave back to the supermarket, hoping that they can find somebody there willing to take him in. Immediately, they run into Nestor's mother (Jayne Eastwood), who says that she has a spare room, so Dave can stay with her. They go back to her house and... whoa.

Who has that many framed photos of themselves hanging up around their house? Is Nestor's mother just a huge narcissist? I think even Zapp Brannigan would be rolling his eyes at that.

The problem with Nestor's mother's house, aside from the multiple framed photos of herself on the wall, is that her "spare room" is actually Nestor's room. She was hoping to rent it out without him knowing. Wow, that's pretty cruel...

No, seriously, who has THAT MANY FRAMED PHOTOS OF THEMSELVES?

Next it's off to Sally's house, where Sally makes no attempt to hide how much she has the hots for Scaredy. Why does a fish have the hots for a squirrel? I don't know. I'm still trying to figure out why a fish has hair. And legs, for that matter.

Her fins also randomly become normal hands when she's playing the piano. What kind of
fish IS this?

After making Scaredy - and me - incredibly uncomfortable, Sally refuses to let Dave stay with her. Fortunately, Scaredy has an idea to get Sally to take Dave in. He disguises him as a cat. And it works, Sally doesn't realize that the cat on her doorstep is actually Dave in a cat costume and brings him inside.

I hate Dave, but even he doesn't deserve this.

Sally forces Dave to dance while she plays the piano, as cat owners are known to do with their cats. Scaredy thinks that he's free from having Dave as a roommate, but when he gets home and tries to pour himself some whole grain cereal, Dave materializes. Apparently, he left because he didn't want to eat cat food.

We get a montage of Scaredy trying to find Dave somewhere to live, but for obvious reasons, nobody wants Dave in their house. Then they come across a creepy-looking mansion up on a hill, and according to a ZOMBIE RABBIT - yes, there's a zombie rabbit now, just go with it - nobody lives there.

"Welcome, foolish mortals..."

Dave is all "FREE HOUSE!" and Scaredy initially tries to stop him since there's a preeeeeeeeeetty good chance the house is haunted, but then he realizes that it's either this or having Dave live with HIM. So he lets Dave move in, even after the zombie rabbit tells him that rumor has it the house is indeed haunted.

That night, Scaredy can't sleep because he's worried about Dave, and when he gets a phone call that sounds like it's from Dave getting attacked by ghosts, he rushes to the rescue, but when he gets to the house he discovers that the "ghosts" are actually friendly goats. So it seems that Dave finally has a new home, right?

Whatever floats Dave's GOAT, I guess. Get it? It's like "whatever floats your boat", but...
yeah, sorry, I couldn't think of anything funnier.

Alas, no. All Scaredy has to do is sit in a chair and the whole house falls apart. So now Scaredy has Dave AND the goats taking up space in his house - at least until the replacement trailer and replacement creepy mansion he ordered arrive.

What's the Verdict?

This is ANOTHER cartoon I'm gonna have to put in the "mediocre" category. I think the books could've hypothetically made for a decent cartoon... maybe something intended more for a younger audience (the Disney Junior/Nick Jr. crowd, I mean). Every book follows the same formula: Scaredy is afraid of something. He faces his fear. He learns a lesson. There. You can get a season or two out of that. It wouldn't be anything Shakespeare-level, but it would entertain kids.

Instead, we get this. Scaredy is basically turned into a more neuronic SpongeBob, complete with a fat moron for a best friend. Speaking of which, Dave. I do not like Dave. Much like Entree from Spliced, he's literally just Patrick minus all redeeming qualities. Instead of laughing at his stupidity, I just felt sorry for Scaredy and wanted him to kick Dave to the curb. The jokes are hit or miss. Some of them I thought were pretty funny, others (mostly the ones involving Dave) not so much. The animation is typical Adobe Flash, not great but decent enough. As a whole, the show doesn't have much going for it. It just feels like somebody wanted to make another SpongeBob but didn't understand why SpongeBob works as a show. TV Tropes claims that the show gets better as it goes on, but this was the thirtieth episode of the show. The THIRTIETH. So I'm pretty skeptical of that claim.

But hey, if you like it, that's fine. Everyone's entitled to their own opinion. As for me, I don't think I'll be watching any more episodes of Scaredy Squirrel. Maybe if I find one of the books in the library I'll give it a read, though...