Let's Watch This: An Episode of "Will and Dewitt"

What's the only thing weirder than a cartoon starring a studio logo? Well, for one thing, a two-headed rhinoceros playing an accordion while balancing on a gumball machine. Obviously. But another thing that's pretty weird is a cartoon series starring the mascot of WIPES. Are you familiar with Kandoo?

Kandoo is a line of children's personal care products - wipes, body wash, shampoo, hand soap... all of it featuring this green frog, on the packaging. In the 2000s, somebody said "Hey, what if we gave this character his own cartoon show?". I guess the mindset was that giving the frog a cartoon show would increase sales of the wipes? I don't know if it did, but they made that cartoon show.

Produced by Cookie Jar Entertainment (or, as it's called nowadays, WildBrain) and Two Presidents Productions, Will and Dewitt aired on Kids' WB in the United States and YTV in Canada starting in September 2007. It starred the frog, now given the name of Dewitt, and paired him up with an eight-year-old boy named Will. The show only received one season, and according to TV Tropes that's because...

1) It was a preschool show made for Kids' WB, a block consisting mainly of comedy or action-based shows (such as Loonatics Unleashed, Xiaolin Showdown, and Krypto the Superdog). The target audience wasn't there - especially since the show aired at 7:00, when most kids would still be asleep.

2) This was during the time period where Kids' WB was just limping along until shutting down in 2008.

Does any of this mean that the show is bad? Of course not. Maybe it was a good show that was just the victim of bad circumstances. So, let's watch an episode of Will and Dewitt to see just how good or bad it is. You can find a couple episodes on YouTube, among them the first episode, which consists of the segments "Things That Go Flump in the Night" and "My New Boots". That's the one we'll be looking at today. Let's hop to it! Y'know, since the show's about a frog...

"Things That Go Flump in the Night" starts off NOT with Will and Dewitt, but rather a purple frog with hair who sounds like an Elvis impersonator, flirting with a bunch of girl frogs who ALSO have hair (and makeup) for some reason. Apparently he's the emcee of a frog nightclub where Will is a singer. And already I've got a lot of questions.

Since this show aired on The WB, I suppose I should make at least one Michigan J. Frog
joke. Maybe he's the one who greenlit the show?

Will (voiced by Connor Price) starts singing, with Dewitt (voiced by Richard Ian Cox) and a turtle getting a verse as well, and the girl frogs all swoon over him... which is disturbing, seeing as he's A) a human being and B) a kid. The song isn't particularly good - sorry, Will, but you're not much of a lounge singer.

After the song, Will returns home to find his dad (Richard Binsley) cleaning out the garage. Apparently, they're going to turn the garage into Will's new bedroom. Why anybody would want to sleep in their garage, I don't know (I've always preferred having a bedroom on the second floor myself. Just feels safer to me). From my experience, garages are usually hot and dirty. Unless you're Oscar the Grouch, I don't think a garage would make a particularly nice bedroom.

Will's older brother, Fred (Billy Rosemberg), decides to be Mr. Mischevious and tells him that he's gonna hear creepy "alone noises", but he doesn't give any indication as to what those "noises" will be.

"Hey, Will, guess what? Your show's been given a lousy time slot. We're only gonna get
one season, tops!"

As soon as Fred leaves, Dewitt pops out of Will's clothing like that creature from Alien and expresses excitement over him and Will having their own room. I wonder if Dewitt considers himself a pet - he can talk and seems pretty anthropomorphic, though he doesn't wear clothes, so it's kind of a grey area.

No, Dewitt isn't picking his nose.

Once the garage has been converted into a bedroom for Will, it's bedtime for him and Dewitt. Unfortunately, Dewitt decides to get in on the "scare Will" game too and suggests that the house has "boogely-sharks" in it. What the heck is a "boogely-shark"? Dewitt decides to show us.

Ah, yes, I should mention that Dewitt has the ability to shapeshift. How did he get this power? I don't know. Maybe there's another episode that explains it. Maybe he ate a fairy because he thought it was a bug. Maybe Will fed him some Zippo Newt Food.

"I don't get no respect! Nyuck nyuck nyuck!"

Will's apparently not the sharpest tool in the shed, because he actually buys Dewitt's claim of "boogely sharks" being a thing. The main sign that your house is infested with "boogely sharks", Dewitt says, is creaking in the floor - made by them trying to burst through the floor and eat your toenails!

Suddenly, what looks like a shark fin pops out of the floorboards. Could Dewitt be telling the truth about "boogely sharks" being a thing?

Cue the Jaws music.

Will frantically starts banging the floor with what looks like a washboard (maybe he's hoping to join a jug band?), causing his dad to come in and ask him what he's doing. He claims that there was, uh, some dust on the floor, and he was trying to flatten it out so he doesn't trip on it. I guess he doesn't think his dad will believe that there are sharks in the floorboards.

Later, when Will starts hearing different noises, Dewitt claims that the cupboards are filled with "cupboard monkeys". I don't know if Dewitt actually believes these strange creatures exist or if he's just messing with Will, but he claims that "cupboard monkeys" sneak out of the cupboards while you're asleep and sing in your ear until you go bananas. Then they eat you. And sure enough, some "cupboard monkeys" appear - NOT in the cupboard, but rather in Will's chest of drawers. So shouldn't they actually be called "chest of drawers monkeys"?

If any of those monkeys are voiced by John Tuturro, I'm ending the review.

Dewitt advises Will to put on a pair of headphones - that way, he'll only go NUTS, and monkeys don't like nuts as much as they like bananas (actually, monkeys DO like nuts, I looked it up, but maybe "cupboard monkeys" are the exception). But he'll still have to worry about "Madagascar swooping lamp-shrimp" trying to eat his bellybutton. "How come everything in a bedroom at night is so hungry?" Will laments. All of these weird creatures actually DO appear in his room, so maybe Dewitt is on to something. Or maybe Will's just hallucinating. Must be caused by the weird smells you usually find in your garage - another reason why sleeping in your garage is a bad idea.

Will goes to see his parents, who suggest that he sleep with Fred for a couple more nights. But Will fears that Fred will mock him for being a coward, so he decides to head back to his room. He still doesn't say anything to his parents about the "boogely-sharks" and "cupboard monkeys" in his room. I would ask why, but he probably thinks that if he does he'll wind up with a one-way ticket to a mental asylum. Oh, and Dewitt STILL isn't through freaking Will out - now he's claiming that "pillow woodpeckers" are coming in to eat Will's ears. Fortunately, Will finally realizes that Dewitt is full of crap.

I know I've already made a Ned's Newt reference, but Dewitt is giving me huge Newton vibes.

Oddly, though, I don't find Dewitt as obnoxious as Newton.

"I've got an idea that'll solve both our problems!" Will declares. It's not feeding Dewitt to the "boogely-sharks" so they'll leave him alone, but rather giving Dewitt a helmet and some headphones. Thus, Will and Dewitt get a good night's sleep and we end with another musical number. Next segment!

"My New Shoes" starts with - what else? - another musical number, this one about bare feet. Who wrote this song, Mort from Madagascar?

The song is interrupted by Fred calling out to Will about how he has something that Will doesn't - new boots! Boots that Will can't have because they have zippers and straps and all sorts of things like that. Way too complicated for a little kid like Will. To be honest, I've always found shoes with LACES to be the most complicated... I still have difficulty tying them.

Also, I've never found getting new shoes to be all that exciting. Make of that what you will.

Will has his mom take him to the shoe store to get him some cool new shoes like Fred's. He and Dewitt find another pair... which turn out to be sentient. They can talk and everything. Will isn't too fazed by this, for some reason. Maybe it's because he hangs out with a shapeshifting talking frog.

I don't think I could bring myself to wear talking shoes. It'd be like wearing tiny people
on your feet.

Dewitt does an Albert Einstein impression for some reason, then describes the boots as being "like video games for your feet". So they get the talking boots, but Will has difficulty putting them on and working the buckles. Dewitt's not helping matters at all.

What does being a football coach have to do with putting boots on?





Dunno.

After some more of Dewitt's WHACKY SHENANIGANS, Will winds up having to get instructions from Fred on working the boots, which frustrates him so much that he takes off the boots and leaves them in a puddle. To prove that he doesn't need them, he's going to jump into a puddle in his socks. Makes sense to me, I don't know why YOU'RE confused...

But then he decides not to jump in the puddle after all and that he just needs patience. Again, I don't know why. He finds the boots on a bench, waiting for the bus to take them back to the store, but he convinces them to let him try them again. Using PATIENCE (apparently this episode's moral was about being patient), he manages to put them on correctly and it's time for a fourth musical number!

And that's about it.

What's the Verdict?

I can see why Will and Dewitt didn't catch on. This isn't an AWFUL show, but I would hesitate to call it good. The characters aren't very engaging, with Will being your typical kid protagonist and Dewitt honestly being kind of annoying. The animation is pretty bad, typical bad 2000s Flash animation that moves in a herky-jerky fashion... it legitimately looks like something made with GoAnimate. Most of the jokes fall flat. The songs are lousy. And the show, quite frankly, is too weird for its own good - just because it's a cartoon doesn't mean you can throw anything at the wall and see what sticks. WHY does Dewitt shapeshift? What does that add to the show? The voice actors all do a good job, with Richard Ian Cox clearly making the best of the weak material he's been given, but as a whole the show doesn't have much going for it. I'm sure little kids would like it, but there are better preschool shows out there.

And in case you're wondering, yes, they're still using Dewitt on Kandoo packaging today. I doubt anyone who sees those wipes in stores know that the frog on the packaging once had his own cartoon show.