Let's Watch This: An Episode of "The Get Along Gang"

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.

Somebody requested that I review The Get Along Gang, and I am nothing if not a people-pleaser. Unless that person who wants to be pleased is someone who likes Jellystone!, then they're just gonna have to put up with me.

The titular Get Along Gang consisted of six anthropomorphic animal kids: Montgomery Moose (voiced by Sparky Marcus), Dotty Dog (voiced by Bettina "Rainbow Brite" Bush), Bingo Beaver (voiced by a young Scott Menville), Zipper Cat (voiced by Robbie Lee), Woolma Lamb (voiced by Georgi Irene), and Portia Porcupine (voiced by Sherry Lynn). They were first created in 1983 by Tony Byrd, Tom Jacobs, Ralph Shaffer, Linda Edwards, Muriel Fahrion, and Mark Spangler for a series of greeting cards by American Greetings. Loosely inspired by the Our Gang short films, the cards sold well enough for Nelvana to produce a pilot for a cartoon show starring the characters, which aired on Nickelodeon in May 1984. After the pilot, production of the show was handed over to DiC, and the show began airing on CBS. Only thirteen episodes, each one consisting of two segments (making for a total of twenty-six segments in total), were produced before the show was canned and greeting card sales started to decline. Attempts at relaunching the franchise since then have been washes. Sorry, Get Along Gang... we can't all be the Care Bears.

This show was made during that time period in the 1980s when cartoons had to focus mostly on learning valuable life lessons about getting along, working together, group harmony, and things like that. Garfield and Friends writer Mark Evanier talked about this sort of thing on his blog in a post talking about his time working on the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon that premiered a year before (note to self: review that cartoon at some point). Specifically, he said, "There are those our there who attempt to influence the content of childrens' television. We call them 'parents groups', although many are not comprised of parents, or at least not of folks whose primary interest is as parents. Study them and you'll find a wide array of agendum at work... and I suspect that, in some cases, their stated goals are far away from their real goals. Nevertheless, they all seek to make kidvid more enriching and redeeming, at least by their definitions, and at the time, they had enough clout to cause the networks to yield. Consultants were brought in and we, the folks who were writing cartoons, were ordered to include certain 'pro-social' morals in our shows. At the time, the dominant 'pro-social' moral was as follows: the group is always right... the complainer is always wrong. This was the message of way too many eighties' cartoon shows. If all your friends want to go get pizza and you want a burger, you should bow to the will of the majority and go get pizza with them. There was even a show for one season on CBS called The Get-Along Gang, which was dedicated unabashedly to this principle. Each week, whichever member of the gang didn't get along with the gang learned the error of his or her ways." This was what led to the creation of the Buddy Bears in Garfield and Friends, although Mark said that while he did cross swords with Standards and Practices and argued a lot "with one particular lady at ABC", none of this actually inspired the Buddy Bears. "Sometimes when you're a writer and you have strong feelings about something, you just find yourself writing about it," he explained.

So, why is The Get Along Gang so infamous? Why don't we watch an episode of the show and find out? Specifically, we'll be watching the second episode, which consists of the segments "Caboose on the Loose" and "Montgomery's Mechanical Marvel". This is The Get Along Gang.

We start off with Portia and Bingo playing marbles, with Bingo doing some sort of "special super-shot" that sends a marble flying into Zipper's mouth. For some reason, this leads to Zipper nagging Bingo about how betting is "for suckers" - apparently one of Bingo's character traits is that he has a betting problem. Better keep this kid out of Vegas, then.

After that, Montgomery, Dotty, and Woolma show up with some great news: they're having a rowboat race in the park tomorrow, and Montgomery signed up!

It really annoys me that they gave the moose a dog/bear nose. What, a moose can't
be cute if it just has its usual big nose? I believe Disney proved that is false.

Bingo is so sure that Montgomery will win, he tells him that he's gonna get a big surprise ready for after the race. Dotty claims that Montgomery won't win unless he trains, and then Bingo is subjected to WHACKY SHENANIGANS!

"Bingo, what are you doing?"
"Oh, y'know, just hanging around?"
"Boooooooo!"

"How's about you help by not helping, okay, Bungo?" Zipper snaps. Jeez, what is this cat's problem? He's done nothing but chew out Bingo for the smallest of things since the episode started. I know cats in cartoons more often than not have a bad attitude, but Zipper's really starting to annoy me.

We then cut to the show's antagonists, Leland Lizard (Nicky Katt) and Catchum Crocodile (Timothy Gibbs). Catchum is your typical 1980s cartoon bully, the kind who probably would've been the one selling drugs if this show had a "drugs are bad for you" episode. Leland is his wimpy, milquetoast sidekick. You'll notice that they, the bad guys, are reptiles whereas the Get Along Gang, the good guys, consist entirely of mammals. This is because, at this point in the animation industry, reptiles weren't considered cute like mammals are. Unless they were turtles, that is.

I know it's kind of silly to bring realism into a show with talking animals, but why is the
lizard almost as big as the crocodile?

I figured the majority of the episode would be focused on Montgomery training for the race, but instead, we promptly cut to the next day, just as the race is about to begin. Catchum's in the race, too, and because he's a two-dimensional cartoon bully, he's decided that the only way he can win is by cheating - he hides in the water and takes a saw to Montgomery's oar. And believe it or not, he wins the race. I thought cheaters never prospered. Wacky Races lied to me!

And how come nobody noticed Catchum get out of his boat and jump into the water, or the saw sticking out of the water cutting away at Montgomery's oar?

Incidentally, I wrote this review on August 14th - which is World Lizard Day. I swear it's
just a coincidence that I chose to write a review of a cartoon with a lizard in it.

Later, the kids are sitting in their clubhouse moping when Catchum barges in and declares that he's taking over their clubhouse. How does winning a rowboat race give you the right to steal somebody's clubhouse? Well, Bingo made a bet with him that if Montgomery won the race, Catchum would give him ten gallons of "chocolate woodchip ice cream"... but if Montgomery DIDN'T win, Catchum would get their clubhouse.

I think this calls for that clip of multiple people slapping their foreheads in unison...

"Bingo had no right to bet the clubhouse without asking all of us first!" Dotty complains. Can't they just, I don't know, refuse to give Catchum their clubhouse? Somehow, I doubt Catchum would've actually given Bingo the ten gallons of ice cream if Montgomery had won. But according to Montgomery, Bingo's word is the club's word, and so long as there wasn't any cheating, it's a fair bet. "You heard him, Get Along Gang! So GET ALONG!" Catchum snaps.

After the Get Along Gang leaves, Catchum whips out a birthday cake and party hats. I didn't know it was his birthday. Or maybe it isn't and he doesn't know that you're only supposed to put candles on a cake when it's somebody's birthday. Oh, wait, it could be his UNbirthday. In that case, it's fine.

"A very merry unbirthday to me!"

Zipper finds Bingo moping at the dock and points out to him how stupid it was for him to bet the clubhouse. He also reveals that he found Montgomery's oar floating in the water, and Bingo notices that it's been sawed through. Clearly, this must mean that Catchum cheated. Uh, small problem, guys... while we, the audience, know that Catchum is a cheating cheater from Cheatanooga, you don't have any proof that he's the one who sawed through the oar yet. How do you know it wasn't, say, a mischevious trout?

Bingo runs back to the clubhouse and confronts Catchum, who promptly throws the cake at his head... way to waste food, Catchum. Bingo ducks, so the cake hits Leland instead, sending him flying over to the caboose's steering wheel. This somehow causes the caboose to start rolling downhill. Cartoon logic, just go with it...

Meanwhile, Zipper finds Montgomery, Portia, Woolma, and Dotty at the ice cream shop and tells them that Catchum tricked them. That means they have the clubhouse back! That is, if they can stop it from rolling down the track.

"I don't know how, but something tells me this is Bingo's fault..."

The caboose eventually flies off the track and onto a conveniently-placed raft, which travels down the river towards a waterfall - remember, rivers in animation ALWAYS lead to waterfalls. Montgomery manages to polevault aboard, and Catchum tells him that he can have the clubhouse back if he just saves them... then does a 180 and decides to jump off via pogostick. Long story short, the other members of the Get Along Gang manage to save Montgomery and Bingo with a rope.

Now, how will they get the caboose out of the water? Easy - the tracks aren't far, Montgomery points out, so they can just push it there. So, we're supposed to believe that these kids can lift a caboose off a raft and onto dry land, then push it all the way back to the train tracks? Unless all six of these kids are on steroids, I'm calling shenanigans. Especially since the segment ends before we can even see them attempt it.

"Montgomery's Mechanical Marvel" begins with the Bingo, Zipper, Dotty, Woolma, and Portia waiting to see Montgomery's creation for the science fair - apparently, he wins the science fair every year.

"In hindsight, maybe we shouldn't have mounted Montgomery's head to the outside of
the clubhouse."
"But he looks so good up there!"

So what does Montgomery's project turn out to be? A robot. Yes, he actually managed to build a robot. Usually, in cartoons, kids who enter science fairs make paper-mache volcanoes and small stuff like that. This young moose somehow managed to build a ROBOT. A robot who even seems to have artificial intelligence. Forget winning the science fair, Montgomery should be getting a Nobel Prize or something!

He also named the robot "Hermey", presumably after his favorite Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer character.

If he's named Hermey, shouldn't he have an "H" on his sweater instead of an "M"?

Everyone is very impressed by Montgomery's robot. Unbeknownst to them, who should be slithering over to take a peek at his project but Catchum and Leland. Yes, Catchum is entering the science fair too, and once again he's going to cheat. Clearly he learned nothing from the events of the previous segment.

Catchum and Leland spot the Get Along Gang playing baseball with Hermey, and upon discovering that Montgomery built, y'know, a ROBOT, Catchum gets an idea: he'll disguise Leland as a robot. Apparently he's hoping that the judges at the science fair either need glasses or are very, very stupid.

"Doro armigoto, Mr. Roboto!"

Meanwhile, the Get Along Gang take their mechanical marvel into town to get some ice cream, but upon seeing it, an old lady rabbit panics and calls up Officer Growler (Don Messick) about the strange "monster" walking around. He doesn't see Hermey, but he DOES see Leland in his robot costume and thinks that HE'S the monster he was called about. And then he... does nothing about it? Uh, okay then...

We then cut to the science fair. Portia talks to Woolma about all the funny inventions on display there, but we don't actually get to see any of them because I guess there just wasn't enough time in the episode for that. The judges announce that they've narrowed it down to Hermey and Catchum's "robot". Portia and Dotty recognize Leland in that metal getup because, unlike the judges, they're not idiots. But just to make sure he wins, Catchum sneaks backstage and starts sabotaging Hermey, pulling wires out of his back. It's futile, Dotty manages to make Leland sneeze, revealing to everyone that he is not, in fact, a robot. And here's something else that might surprise you: the White House is painted WHITE.

The judges apparently didn't see this, or Catchum and Leland promptly running off. Wow, these guys are even dumber than Bingo. Instead, they just say they'll see Hermey perform first. Since Catchum sabotaged Hermey, this results in WHACKY SHENANIGANS!

Insert reference to that scene from The Exorcist here.

"Hermey's circuits are overloading! There's no telling WHAT he might do!" Montgomery exclaims. Eventually, Hermey starts chasing after Catchum and Leland, cornering them in the ice cream shop, but the Get Along Gang manage to catch him in a snare trap. Portia presses the red button in Hermey's back, shutting the robot off. The day is saved, and Catchum and Leland are punished by being forced to clean up the town. Huzzah.

What's the Verdict?

Y'know, I've said this before, but the hardest reviews to write are the ones of things that are mediocre. It's difficult to make saying "this isn't the worst thing ever but it's not particularly good either" funny.

This is one of those examples. If I could sum up The Get Along Gang in one sentence, I would say this: it doesn't stand out at all. There's nothing here we haven't seen in other 1980s cartoons. Cute animals? Lotta other cartoons starring cute animals from the 1980s. A gang of kids learning life lessons? Potato Head Kids might not have been anything spectacular but it was at least slightly more interesting than this. The characters are dull, the animation is fine but nothing to write home about, and the jokes aren't funny at all. I wouldn't say this show is awful, but unless you're under the age of seven, I would not recommend watching it. There are better cartoons worth your time.

I will say this, though... I didn't notice any of the "complainer is always wrong" thing people say this show was obsessed with in this episode at all. The closest they came was Montgomery saying that the gang would fix whatever problem they had by "working together" or whatever in both segments. Granted, this was an early episode, so maybe it got more prominent as the show went on...

Let's Watch This... Again: An Episode of "Mighty Max"

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.

Wow, it's been a while since I've done a re-review, hasn't it? I wonder why that is. Let's fix it...

Mighty Max, created by Mark Zaslove and Rob Hudnut, was based on a toyline that was kind of like Polly Pocket but for boys. It premiered in September 1993 as part of a syndicated children's block called "Amazing Adventures" and received two seasons and a total of forty episodes. The premise? I'm going to be lazy and copy-paste the description from my first review: a kid named Max, voiced by Rob Paulsen, gets a small statue of a bird one day in the mail. It's inscribed with Egyptian hieroglyphs that translates to, essentially, "Congratulations, kid. You're the Chosen One. Go to the mini-mall and wait for a sign." Max is so shocked that he drops the statue, and inside as it turns out was a magic baseball cap that allows Max to travel through space and time. Long story short, he winds up meeting a magic fowl named Virgil (voiced by Tony Jay) and a Viking named Norman (voiced by Richard Moll). They travel around the world defending it from such foes as brain-sucking aliens, werewolves, a giant octopus, crazy scientists, etc.

I previously reviewed the twenty-fifth episode of the show, "Tar Wars", in which Max and his compadres ventured into the La Brea tar pits and encountered a caveman and a saber-toothed tiger. I found the episode just okay. That was back in 2019, so today I'm going to review another episode of the show, this one part of the first season: the sixth episode, "Rumble in the Jungle". Will I like this one more? Let's find out!

We start off in the jungles of Africa - somewhere in the Congo, I believe - where Max's mother (Tress MacNeille) is being chased by what appear to be members of Tarzan's fan club. Eventually, they corner her in front of a large rock and carry her off, as per the orders of this gorilla watching from nearby. Who IS this strange ape?

Marvin the Martian called, he wants that thing from the top of his helmet back.

Then we cut to Max, lounging in a hammock in his backyard. So apparently Max's mother just left him at home, by himself, while she went off to Africa? I don't know how old Max is supposed to be, but even if he's a teenager, I don't think leaving him at home alone while you go to ANOTHER CONTINENT is a good idea - his father is never seen or mentioned, so apparently his mother is all he's got. Great parenting, Max's mom!

Suddenly, Max sees an airplane doing some skywriting aimed directly at him. It tells him to go to the library and "turn left at Shakespeare". I assume that somewhere in Max's town there's a street named after William Shakespeare and that's what they mean. Either that or there's a section of the library exclusively for Shakespeare's works and he has to turn left when he finds it.

"Oh, crap, I was supposed to write 'SURRENDER DOROTHY', wasn't I? Ah well,
I'm sure the Wicked Witch will understand..."

We never actually see Max at the library, however, we just cut to him being spit out of a portal in the middle of a Roman colosseum. Virgil and Norman are there too, and Virgil tells Max that his mother is in a "great deal of jeopardy"... according to some scrolls he's reading, that is.

"This scroll says that our show is going to fall into obscurity after it's taken off the air
in 1994. We won't even get a DVD release!"

So off Max, Virgil, and Norman head to the Congo, which is apparently very close to Rome seeing as they're able to get there pretty quickly. Unfortunately, the path they're crossing gives way and they fall into the brush below. After that, they find an abandoned jeep, with a tank still full of gas AND the keys still in the ignition. "This reeks of foul play," Virgil claims. Seeing as you're a bird, shouldn't that actually be "FOWL play"?

Please laugh. I'm trying so hard...

Sorry, Max, you're too young to have a driver's license. I think. I still have no idea
what age you're supposed to be.

Then those George of the Jungle cosplayers we saw chasing Max's mother before show up again and give chase. Max momentarily calms them down with the power of rock 'n' roll (good thing he brought his handheld radio), but then that gorilla in Roman duds shows up again in a zebra-pulled chariot and says in the voice of Dr. Claw that rock 'n' roll is the work of evil spirits. "Must prefer Sinatra," Max mutters. Actually, I think a gorilla's favorite genre of music is swing. Get it? 'Cause they're always swinging on vines? At least in cartoons?

...that was at least sort of funny, right?

A screencap from that cult classic, King Kong vs. Emperor Nero.

Fortunately, my jokes aren't the worst ones here: Norman then randomly chuckles and says, "Monkey see, monkey DO." Apparently, he needs to read up on his primate facts, because as we all know, gorillas are APES, not monkeys. Max, Virgil, and Norman make a run for it, the gorillas and cavemen in hot pursuit, eventually diving into a river to get away. But because it's a river in something animated, it leads to... let's see if you can guess. Is it..

A) A waterfall

B) A gift shop

OR C) The house of Max's weird uncle who collects dirt in jars?

If you guessed B or C, I think you need to watch more cartoons...

And why don't people ever put signs in front of rivers reading "WARNING: THIS RIVER LEADS
TO A WATERFALL. DO NOT SWIM IN IT" or something like that?

Over the falls they go, pleasing the Dr. Claw-voiced gorilla. Of course, as soon as the simians leave they emerge from the water, and Virgil suggests that perhaps Max's mother had the misfortune of running into the gorillas as well. "Let's make like an ape and follow them before they get away!" Max says, and they wind up following them to this charming place:

"This is AMAZING! A whole alternate gorilla civilization!" Virgil clucks. "How extraordinary!" Sneaking inside, they discover that the caveman are the gorillas' slaves, forcing them to build things and tying them to posts when they do things to make them mad.

Wait a minute... intelligent anthropomorphic gorillas enslaving primitive humans? I think it's pretty obvious what science fiction movie this episode was inspired by...

Spoiler alert, Max: it was Earth all along! Those maniacs, they blew up the Statue of Liberty! Darn them! Darn them all to Heck!

"I wanna know...
Can you show me?
I wanna know about these strangers like me..."

One of the cavemen shows Max where his mother is - locked in a cell, having to deal with mosquitos. But before they can get them out, the gorillas show up and the leader is all "OH NO YOU DON'T!".

Considering how many pop culture references Max made in "Tar Wars", I fully expect
him to make a Planet of the Apes reference himself at some point.

The gorillas take them to the alpha male of the pack, voiced by Jim Cummings, who does not believe their claims that they come from "beyond the valley". The one in Roman gladiator garb insists that Max and his crew "bring evil thoughts" and that they must be eliminated. "Might doesn't always make right, Bonzo!" Max snaps (for those unaware, this is a reference to the 1950s film about a chimpanzee Bedtime For Bonzo). "We can do things in our world you guys never even DREAMED OF!" For example, they have telephones and laws and airplanes. On the other hand, the gorillas don't have Twitter. Or Discord. So who's better off?

"They bring evil sorcery! They must be destroyed before their words and deeds harm us!" the roman gladiator gorilla declares. The alpha male, however, isn't sure what to think, so he tells them to just lock Max, his mom, Virgil, and Norman up until he makes his decision.

So when does he start singing "I Wanna Be Like You"?

The good guys are able to escape their cell with ease, then Norman gets to quench his thirst for violence by attacking the gorilla guarding it. Then they run into that caveman who helped them before. He gives Max a rock, which as Maxine can tell you make great gifts. In return, Max gives the caveman a comb. "Gee, I hope this doesn't mean we're engaged or anything..." he says, the first line out of his mouth that I actually find funny.

But as they're trying to escape, a gorilla spots them and sounds the alarm. It seems like the gorillas have them trapped... even though one of them is a big, strong Viking who effortlessly plowed through a bunch of the apes just a few seconds ago, but seeing them gives the primitive human slaves the determination to rise up against their gorilla captors, pelting them with rocks and stuff. Is this what they call "gorilla warfare"? Ba-dum kssssh.

"If you have any poo, fling it NOW!"

Eventually, Norman manages to topple over the giant stone gorilla head on top of the temple they're standing on, sending it falling down onto the apes, but even THAT isn't enough to take them out. Geez, I know gorillas are strong, but they're not made of iron. Fortunately, the alpha male shows up and tells everyone to knock it off - but he's still going to have the good guys executed. Max insists that if they just let them leave, they'll never return to the Kingdom of the Apes, but the roman gladiator gorilla... y'know what, since they never mentioned this guy's name, I'm going to call him Larry... doesn't believe there is anywhere outside the kingdom for them to go. "It was only twenty to one! You wouldn't be so tough by yourself!" Max tells him. "Fair enough!" Larry snaps. "I'll fight YOU!" Dang it, Max, what have you gotten yourself into?

"C'mon, couldn't we settle this over a tall frothy glass of Um Bongo? They drink it in the
Congo, don't they?

Max knows that he's no match for, as Virgil puts it, a bloodthirsty eight-hundred-pound gorilla wanting to tear him limb from limb, but don't worry, he has a plan. He asks Virgil for their "portal map", and as soon as Virgil hands it to him, he... makes a run for it. Did he really need the portal map to do that? Well, anyway, he finds the jeep from before and drives off in it, but Larry still manages to catch up. Fortunately, the portal map tells him where to find a portal he can send Larry through.

When Max returns, the alpha male offers to let him take the throne, but Max says he just wants to head home and get a pizza. And for the gorillas to treat the cavemen as equals. The alpha male agrees. Huzzah!

Oh, and in case you're wondering where the portal send Larry to... well, it's SOMEWHERE in the middle of the desert, we know THAT. My headcanon is that it's what eventually became the actual Planet of the Apes. This was a prequel the whole time.

"Dang it, I forgot to TiVo my soap operas..."

When Max gets home, he tells the audience about gorillas and how they're the largest primates on earth. Did you know that there are only 50,000 lowland gorillas and only 320 mountain gorillas left in the whole world... not counting his Aunt Matilda, of course (I hope his mom didn't hear him say that)? "Always do what you can to help the world's wildlife," he tells us. Unless they're anthropomorphic warriors who enslave cavemen and want to have you executed, of course.

What's the Verdict?

I personally liked this episode of Mighty Max better than "Tar Wars". Max was a lot less annoying (I actually found a couple of his quips funny!) and there were a lot less pop culture references. I'm shocked they resisted the urge to make a Planet of the Apes joke. Plus, this episode has Jim Cummings lending his voice to it, and you know what a big fan of him I am. I do wish Virgil had a bit more to do, because he's pretty awesome, and I would've liked some sort of explanation as to how this tribe of anthropomorphic gorillas actually got started... why did these gorillas evolve but seemingly no other jungle animals did? Why are the humans still primitive cavemen?

If you'd like to watch Mighty Max for yourself, you can find episodes on YouTube in varying quality. Apparently, there wasn't ever a DVD release and I don't think it's on any streaming platforms, so that's the only way you can watch it right now. Enjoy.

This review was brought to you by...

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Let's Watch This: An Episode of "The Replacements"

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.

Do you remember that episode of Class of 3000 I reviewed? The one where the kids have their teachers replaced with unqualified celebrities? Well, I have another question for you - what if there was an entire SHOW based on the idea of replacing people with unqualified celebrities? Actually, there IS. And it's called The Replacements!

Created by children's book illustrator Dan Santat, this show focuses on two siblings, the eleven-year-old Todd (voiced by Nancy Cartwright) and the thirteen-year-old Riley (voiced by Grey DeLisle-Griffin). While cleaning the floors of the orphanage where they lived, they found a comic book with an ad for a corporation called Fleemco and their "replacement service". They mail the ad back and get two new parents, a British secret agent named Agent K (Kath Souice) and a dimwitted daredevil named Dick Daring (Daran Norris). They also get Fleemco cell phones that allow them to call up the company's CEO, Conrad Fleem (Jeff Bennett), and request for whatever person or animal they don't like to be replaced with someone cooler. This usually leads to WHACKY SHENANIGANS and the kids learning a valuable lesson about appreciating what you already have or whatever. I wish I had a Fleemco phone, I would use it to replace Donald Trump with somebody who would actually do a good job of running this country.

The Replacements premiered on Disney Channel in July 2006. Two seasons were produced, the first one having twenty-one episodes and the second one having thirty-two, making for a total of fifty-two (though all but two of the first season's episodes consisted of two shorts, so technically it's actually seventy-one in all if my math is correct). I remember hearing about the show when it was on (mostly, I saw ads and comics based on it in Disney Adventures magazine), but I never actually watched it. Now that I think of it, I didn't really watch much of Disney Channel's cartoons - not the stuff they were airing as part of their Playhouse Disney block, the other cartoons - AT ALL during this time period. I remember watching Lilo and Stitch: The Series, The Emperor's New School, and at least one episode of The Buzz on Maggie... oh, and Phineas and Ferb, of course... but aside from that? I think I mostly watched Toon Disney as opposed to Disney Channel during the 2000s. I knew about Kim Possible, The Proud Family, Dave the Barbarian etc., but I don't think I ever watched a single episode of them until long after they were off the air. I wonder why that is. Nonetheless, the show seems pretty well-liked online. According to TV Tropes, the second season is better than the first, but the second season isn't on Disney Plus whereas the first season is (I have no idea why that is), so I'm going to review an episode of the first season. Why don't we watch the twenty-first episode of the show, which consists of the segments "Clue-Less" and "Conrad's Day Off"?

"Clue-Less" begins with Riley setting up for her mystery dinner party. Todd is miffed that he wasn't invited, Riley's justification being that they're going to use "logic and reasoning and other big words [he] wouldn't understand", but he's got better things to do with his time anyway - like hanging out with his new Robo-Cat, named the year's Most Obnoxious Toy by three different magazines. This episode aired in 2007, which means that the Robo-Cat managed to beat out such toys as the Elmo Giggle and Shake Chair (it was a chair with Elmo's face on it that giggled. Not sure where the appeal is in that) and Floam (remember that stuff? It looked so fun in the ads but was disgusting when you actually put your hands in it!).

It can do everything a real cat does... except eat your lasagna, since it's a robot and
doesn't have a digestive tract.

Just then, it starts to rain, even though the weather forecast yesterday called for a sunny day. The reason? Todd apparently replaced the TV weatherman with a Jerry Seinfeld parody. Don't judge him.

Then the doorbell rings, and Dick opens the door and lets everybody in. First to enter are Riley's friend Abbey Wilson (Erica Hubbard) and Todd's best pal Jacobo Jacobo (Candi Milo), then the Japanese-American Robocop cosplayer Tasumi (Lauren Tom) and Todd's nemesis Buzz Winters (also Grey DeLisle-Griffin). They're all playing characters with names based on the characters in Clue. Because that's what this episode is a parody of. The board game, not the 1985 movie.

Dang it, Dick, don't you know that it's a bad idea to put a watermelon in front of
somebody holding a mallet? You're just ASKING for it to get smashed.

Even though all the invited guests have arrived, the doorbell rings again, and when Dick answers it, who should be at the door but... an alien?

Nope, it's not an alien. It's Shelton (Jeff Bennett doing a Jerry Lewis impression), the character whose entire shtick is that they're a gigantic nerd. Remember, this was made in the 2000s, when everyone thought it was okay to make fun of nerds. It's the same mindset that gave us The Big Bang Theory.

Even My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic made fun of nerds in one episode.

The dinner party gets started, but before Riley can tell anyone what heinous crime that someone in the room committed, the robot cat zips into the room and starts wreaking havoc. Todd can't shut it off because it's stuck on the highest level of obnoxiousness, as seen here:

You'd think the highest level of obnoxiousness would be "Chris Rock" or "People Who
Hate Hanna-Barbera But Consider Jellystone To Be The Funniest Thing Ever". I'd take a
game show host over either of them any day.

While the robot cat is running amok, the lights go out. Riley gets a lantern, revealing that someone took advantage of the power outage (that's why the lights went out, right? It's raining, after all) to smash the robot cat to pieces! Horror of horrors!

Tell me, do YOU know who done it? I was gonna say I think it was Buzz, since he has a mallet and is Todd's nemesis, but then I realized he was too obvious of a suspect. The writers of this show probably have a lot more respect for our intelligence than THAT.

Don't worry, robot cats have nine lives.

Todd sobs over the smashed remains of his robot cat, and then Jacobo enters the room and asks what's going on... okay, I think it's pretty safe to say that HE'S the culprit. If somebody apparently wasn't in the room when the heinous crime was committed, they're usually the one who did it.

Riley is annoyed that her dinner party has been hijacked by Todd's toy getting destroyed, but considering that HER idea of an engaging mystery was somebody stealing a hanky, I'd say this is for the best. Everybody starts arguing over who did it. Todd says that it must be Buzz, but Jacobo urges them not to jump to conclusions. Taking out a magnifying glass, he finds out that the robot cat wasn't smashed by a mallet, but rather STEPPED ON.

Okay, I don't know much about robotics, but I'm pretty sure that robotic toys are pretty sturdy. Simply stepping on one would likely not destroy it. Even if the person who stepped on it was wearing size six shoes.

"Riley, why do we all have to do the Hokey Pokey?"
"Hey, it's MY dinner party..."

After inspecting everyone's shoes, Riley discovers that the only one NOT wearing a size six shoe is Buzz (he has dainty feet) - ergo, he couldn't have been the smasher. Called it.

Now, who had a motive for destroying the robot cat? When everyone arrives, Tasumi recoiled at the sight of it and told it to stay away from her, so clearly it must have been HER, right? Nope, the exoskeleton of Tasumi's Robocop getup and the exoskeleton of the robot cat have the same magnetic polarizations, ergo they repel each other. She explains this to everyone in her stereotypical fake Japanese accent. I know this was the 2000s, but I can't help but find it problematic that the show cast Lauren Tom, who is Chinese-American, as a Japanese character, the mindset apparently being "Well, Chinese and Japanese are both Asian, so it's all the same thing, right?". Was the actually Japanese-American voice actress Janice Kawaye too busy or something?

Come to think of it, is it also problematic to have the Asian character dressed up
like a Power Ranger?

Dick shows up with a pizza, and Jacobo suggests that maybe HE did it. After all, the butler always does it in mystery novels. Then Riley points out that he couldn't have done it because he was out getting pizza. Then Buzz and Tasumi decide that it must have been Jacobo, who left the room to get a screwdriver yet came back without one. This is the cue for Agent K to appear - she was in the garage trying out her new video spyglasses, and she saw Jacobo enter the garage and do... um, this...

Jacobo has some weird hobbies...

After whatever that was, Riley says that it couldn't have been Shelton either because he's a wimp (he can't even smash an egg, let alone a robot cat!), so clearly it must have been Abbey. Before the lights went out, the robot cat spilled grape juice on her dress, so clearly she must have smashed it in revenge. But Abbey insists that if she wanted to get back at someone, she wouldn't commit robocide, she'd just make fun of them behind their backs.

That only leaves one suspect: Riley. And oh look, Jacobo just found a single strand of red hair in the robot cat's smashed remains...

Isn't it kind of funny that what we call "red hair" is actually orange?

Why did Riley supposedly do it? Because she'd been planning her stupid mystery dinner party for weeks, and when the robot cat stole her thunder, she got MAD! So, when the power went out, she seized the opportunity to smash the robot cat with her size six shoes, and then spent the night grilling them to cover up her crime. The others start beating the crap out of her... wait, so Shelton's too wimpy to smash an egg but he can help deliver a beatdown to somebody? Odd... tie her up, and hoist her over their heads, presumably with plans to throw her into a volcano. Assuming they can find a volcano nearby, of course.

But then Todd reveals that Riley didn't do it, HE did. He used a screwdriver to set the robot cat to its highest annoyance setting, then left the room claiming that he'd get the manual only to shut off the power, run back in, smash the robot cat, and sneak back out before Riley lit her lantern. Why? Because he was mad at Riley for claiming that a mystery dinner party is "not [his] thing". Congratulations, Todd, you destroyed your own toy just to prove a point to your annoying big sister.

Of course, this backfires on Todd spectacularly. Riley praises him for proving her wrong and then suggests that the turn off the lights and smash ANOTHER one of his toys. To Todd's dismay, everyone is on board with that. Next segment...

So how does "Conrad's Day Off" begin? Todd calls up Conrad to complain that his math homework is dull and boring, he needs a math teacher who can make math FUN. In that case, what Todd needs is for the characters from Schoolhouse Rock to show up in his house. Now THAT show made math fun!

"Let me just pick someone from my Wall of Cartoon Stereotypes... how about the
opera singer? I'm sure SHE knows a lot about algebra..."

Thus, Todd's math teacher winds up being visited by a Discount Zapp Brannigan who's traveling to the center of the earth. He is accompanied by a highly attractive assistant and... a monkey. Presumably, the monkey is only there because, as we've established, the animation industry is convinced that monkeys are the funniest thing ever. They are not.

And why would somebody who's traveling to the center of the earth even NEED a monkey?
Wouldn't an animal that's known for digging tunnels very well, like a mole, make more sense?

The math teacher heads off with them to journey to the center of the earth and stop the earth's core from overheating ("It's a statistically impossible dream come true!" he says) and Todd's math class is now being taught by a rodeo clown - complete with a bull to chase him around the classroom. I sure hope none of the students in that class are afraid of clowns like I am. Now Todd is learning about fractions! Somehow.

Todd is very happy, but Conrad admits that he's been on call 24/7 since he gave Todd and Riley their phones. So he decides to take the next two days off. Which means no replacements for the next forty-eight hours. As for the rodeo clown, the bull chases him into the hallway, then starts chasing after Riley, who runs right into her teacher, Mr. Vanderbosh (Rob Paulsen)... which causes him to split his pants? Riley must be very strong if her just running into somebody's backside creates a hole in their trousers.

No student should have to see their principal's underwear.




I just realized that sounds much creepier than I intended for it to.

Mr. Vanderbosh promptly gives Riley a "double-detention" for running in the halls and then going "But... but... but..." (which he assumes is her making fun of his underwear being revealed to the world). Since she doesn't know that Conrad is taking time off, she considers calling FleemCo to replace her teacher with a leprechaun or something, but eventually decides that it's the coward's way out and that they can't rely on Conrad to solve all of their problems.

Riley heads down the stairs to the detention room, and as soon as she does, Jacobo shows up to tell Todd about the horrors of double-detention: deep within the earth's crust where the sun's rays have never reached lies a pit of despair and the people either evolved from frogs or eat them. Todd decides that he must help Riley... and then remembers that Riley has always been a total wet blanket who never supports him and decides against it. So what if she has to travel the River Styx?

I think I was only ever in detention once. It did not involve me going below the earth's crust.

So what is detention like? As it turns out, students who get detention are forced to do the school's laundry. That's right, apparently this school participates in child labor. I believe that's frowned upon. And Riley can't even tell the principal because he's in on it, forcing Buzz to make "My Child is an Honor Student" bumper stickers. As for Riley, she's on furnace duty and must spend her double-detention shoveling coal.

Suddenly relying on Conrad to solve all your problems doesn't seem so bad anymore,
does it, Riley?

"Mr. Vanderbosh, I'm not serving double-detention!" Riley says. "Because... this is unfair! And YOU'RE unfair! Your glasses that match your shoes AREN'T AS HIP AS YOU THINK THEY ARE!" But does Mr. Vanderbosh listen? Nope. He tells Riley that now she has triple-detention, which means she's going to be locked in a cage and forced to act like a hamster. No, really. What kind of school IS this?

I think even the teachers at Wayside would be weirded-out by this...

Not wanting to be treated like a literal guinea pig, Riley dives into a laundry basket and calls up FleemCo... only to wind up listening to an answering machine. Looks like she's stuck in detention... or IS she? Mr. Vanderbosh suddenly gets a call from Todd, who tells him that he's won a sweepstakes and that he must leave detention to claim his prize. When Mr. Vanderbosh says that he's never entered a sweepstakes in his life, Todd says that actually, he won a cruise around the world, to which Mr. Vanderbosh reveals that he's not a big fan of cruises. But he DOES decide to take the week off from his teaching job to track this mysterious prank caller down. Mission accomplished, I guess?

After Mr. Vanderbosh leaves, Todd arrives at the detention room in disguise (he's standing on Jacobo's shoulders and wearing a trenchcoat), only for Mr. Vanderbosh to show up again. Todd admits to him that it's his fault she got detention (kind of - Conrad didn't HAVE to send the bull with the rodeo clown, did he?) and tells Mr. Vanderbosh to let her go. Mr. Vanderbosh refuses on the grounds that Riley insulted his shoes and glasses, which Todd and Jacobo do as well, resulting in all three of them - and the bull - getting QUADRUPLE-DETENTION!

QUADRUPLE-DETENTION!

QUADRUPLE-DETENTION!

QUADRUPLE-DETENTION!

And how will they be serving their QUADRUPLE-DETENTION, QUADRUPLE-DETENTION, QUADRUPLE-DETENTION, QUADRUPLE-DETENTION? By GRADING HIS POP QUIZZES!

None of this would have happened if Conrad had just sent the cast of Schoolhouse Rock
to replace Todd's math teacher like I suggested...

During the credits, Tashumi gives a lecture about composure. Which means we have to listen to her stereotypical fake Japanese accent again. I still find it problematic.

What's the Verdict?

The Replacements is a mixed bag. I didn't care much for "Clue-less", but I thought "Conrad's Day Off" was better. It was a lot funnier. I think the main problem with the show, or at least this episode, is that the really interesting characters - Dick and Agent K - aren't given much to do. Instead we have to focus on Todd and Riley, who aren't as engaging, but I stomach them fine. Their friends are just obnoxious stereotypes, particularly Tashumi (Lauren Tom is a great actress, but this is not one of her better roles). Still, the animation is fine, the voice actors all do a pretty good job with what they're given, and there isn't anything straight-up AWFUL about the show. Will I be watching more episodes of it? I'm not sure. Maybe. Like I said, this show apparently gets better in the second season. For now, I'm giving it three and a half stars out of five.

Fun fact: apparently, Will Arnett was originally cast as the voice of Dick (the showrunners were also hoping to get his then-wife Amy Poehler to voice Agent K, but she turned them down). When the show got picked up, Will became too busy, and they replaced him with Bryan Cranston, who in turn was for some reason replaced by Daran Norris. In hindsight, maybe it was for the best... seems kind of pointless to cast a celebrity as Dick when he's basically a supporting character.

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