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.
This is another one of those shows were just the name was enough to make me say "no thank you". Well, that and the character designs. Animals tend to be a lot less appealing-looking when they're hairless. Unless they're a species that's not known for having hair, like reptiles and amphibians, I mean.
Almost Naked Animals is the creation of Noah Z. Jones, and if that name sounds familiar, it's because he is also the creator of a cartoon that I've previously reviewed on my blog, Fish Hooks. THIS show, produced by 9 Story Media Group, premiered on YTV in January 2011, then started airing on Cartoon Network here in the U.S. a few months later.
The premise? A bunch of animals have their fur shaved off for whatever reason, and the only clothes they wear are their undergarments. I suppose we should give them credit for wearing something at all, seeing as most animals walk around au naturel. Led by a cheery, not particularly intelligent dog named Howie (voiced by Robert Tinkler), the animals run a hotel called the Banana Cabana. WHACKY SHENANIGANS ensue from there.
Almost Naked Animals is generally regarded as being one of the worst - if not THE worst - Canadian imports to air on Cartoon Network in the 2010s. However, the show did receive praise from People Magazine and Common Sense Media, as well as a Gemmy Award nomination and pretty high ratings. There was merchandise, up to and including toys in Taco Bell kids' meals. And do you know how many seasons were produced? THREE - that might not seem like much, but most of the cartoons that I've reviewed on this site are lucky enough to even get TWO (The Buzz on Maggie deserved better!).
So what was it about Almost Naked Animals that made it such a hit (sort of)? Why don't we watch the show and find out? We'll be watching the twelfth episode of the show, which consists of the segments "Cool Paw Howie" and "S.S. Banana Cabana". Against my better judgment, this is Almost Naked Animals.
It's a beautiful day at the Banana Cabana, but instead of having fun in the sun, Howie and his friends Octo the Octopus (voiced by Howard Jerome) and Bunny the creatively named bunny (voiced by Emilie-Claire Barlow) are watching TV. Octo is the overly cautious desk clerk of the hotel, whereas Bunny is the activity planner who has mood swings. Neither of them share Howie's enthusiasm for watching the Open Fridge Network (even though it's "Mustard Week").
 |
| Odd that Bunny can't be bothered to put on any clothes other than her underwear, but can be bothered to put on makeup. Is she an escapee from one of those places that tests makeup on rabbits? |
Eventually, Howie comes across an ad that encourages viewers to turn their home or business into a prison. Because who WOULDN'T want to run a prison? Surely that's not an absolutely soul-crushing job.
This ad gives us the first genuinely funny joke in the episode: they show a snake in prison, complaining that he wants to talk to his lawyer... and then he just slips through the bars with ease, because A) he doesn't have limbs and B) the bars are pretty widely-spaced (apparently whoever built this prison didn't count on a snake being thrown in there at some point) and leaves.
 |
| I didn't know snakes had belly buttons (or little hairs sticking out, for that matter). |
Howie practically wets his underpants at the thought of turning the Banana Cabana into a prison. He could call it the "Banana Slamma" - actually, maybe not. That could earn him a phone call from Donkey Kong's lawyers. But before he can actually make it a prison, he needs to get it inspected by a chicken who I guess acts as some sort of prison building inspector. Even though he claims that there are too many "escape areas", curiously NOT mentioning that Howie's stupidity would make him a lousy prison warden, they DO have a group of prisoners that need housing. In they walk, and...
...these guys are prisoners? They look more like tourists. Well, I guess the badger's a little shifty-looking. Maybe he robbed a bank or two at some point.
 |
| Why do ALL of the animals have little hairs sticking out after being shaved? Shouldn't the penguin have little feathers sticking out instead? Actually, CAN you shave something that's covered with feathers? Wouldn't that actually be, like, plucking the feathers off one by one? |
Anyway, Howie doesn't seem to quite understand how a prison works, because he still describes it as though it were a hotel. I suppose now it's just a hotel that you need to have committed a crime to get reservations for? And these prisoners seem a lot less like tough criminals and more like massive trolls. In fact, according to the chicken, they were thrown in prison for being super annoying. That's against the law? I guess Pinkie Pie, Newton from Ned's Newt, and Monkeybone all have to do jail time, then...
 |
| I really don't like looking at the characters' exposed belly buttons. |
After gluing Octo to his desk and listening to Howie recite a list of rules that turn out to actually be his to-do list (are you laughing yet? I'm not), the prisoners walk off. Howie assigns everyone their roles and starts doing "warden stuff". One montage later, everyone except Howie is fed up with the criminals... particularly the anteater's shtick of gluing people to things... and want to go back to running a hotel. Howie insists that they just need to give it a chance... until he finds out that the anteater glued him to his sandwich. Then he agrees that the prisoners have got to go.
 |
| Did you know that anteaters don't have teeth? I guess this guy must be wearing dentures. |
So they call up the chicken and ask him how they can close the jail is if all of the prisoners escape. Well, that shouldn't be too hard, right? Between Howie being an idiot, the anteater's habit of gluing people to things, the badger probably being able to distract them all by being annoying while the others make a run for it, and the fact that security in this "jail" seems to be nil, they could probably escape without a problem. Oh, wait, there is ONE problem - the anteater, cow, badger, and penguin don't want to escape. They like it at the Banana Cabana. Howie assumes that this is because he's been too good of a warden. Clearly he must get himself thrown into his own "prison" and then lead the escape himself if he wants the prisoners to escape!
Makes sense to ME, I don't know why YOU'RE confused...
 |
| "Maybe you should change the wi-fi password. They'd probably leave if they didn't have free wi-fi." "Nah, they probably have cellular data..." |
So how is Howie going to get himself thrown in his own jail? Simple - he'll do what the cow, badger, anteater, and penguin did and act tremendously annoying. There are many ways he can do that: make that irritating tongue-clicking sound that really gets on my nerves, sing at the top of his lungs, go online and badmouth Hanna-Barbera while gushing over how Jellystone! is such a fantastic "love letter" to it and a "perfect modernization" of the characters, be Adam Devine, drive very slowly on the highway when there's a lot of other cars behind him, go see Disney's newest live action remake in theaters and increase the chances of it becoming a hit at the box office (encouraging Disney to make even MORE of them), get a Twitter account, mindlessly parrot Mr. Enter's opinions about cartoons... but instead, he decides to pelt Bunny with chocolate pudding. Bunny claims that this isn't as annoying as you'd think. Really? If somebody walked up to ME and threw chocolate pudding in my face, I'd probably find it irritating. But what do I know? Nobody's ever actually done that to me.
Side note, it's a good thing that Howie didn't EAT the pudding. Chocolate is toxic to dogs.
 |
| It's toxic to rabbits, too, which means Howie is essentially trying to murder Bunny. Now THAT should get him thrown in prison for sure. |
"If anyone knows how to be annoying, it's YOU," Bunny tells Howie. I do love when the characters in the show that I'm reviewing make the jokes for me. Despite this, none of the annoying things that Howie does - shouting out spoilers, tripping people, letting the air out of somebody's pool raft - are apparently considered annoying enough to get him thrown in the slammer. The solution? Howie goes HYPER-ANNOYING, pulling such mischief as replacing everyone's dinner with garbage (except for a raccoon and a rat... he replaces the garbage THEY were going to eat with actual food) and picking up a mole and shoves him into the cow's pie. But apparently THAT'S not jail time-worthy either. It isn't until he makes the anteater drip his glue that he does something so annoying he gets thrown in his own jail.
Now to lead the escape, right? Nope. He doesn't have to: the cow, penguin, anteater, and badger are leaving on their own accord. Mission accomplished, I suppose.
 |
| I notice that there's a washing machine outside the hotel. Maybe that's why nobody wears actual clothes - they're all in the wash! |
Well, that was weak. Next segment!
This episode starts off with... the badger being back? This time he's a toilet salesman. I know this is probably meant to be a different character, but it sure LOOKS LIKE the badger from the previous segment. If so, nice to see that he cleaned up his act.
 |
| Judging from the hat he has on, he might also be a member of the OWCA from Phineas and Ferb. I didn't know they sold toilets. |
The badger suggests that Howie swap out his boring toilet for the Flushinator, the most advanced, powerful, and expensive on the planet. Howie buys all one hundred and eighty-seven units - one for each room at the hotel, presumably. And probably also one for himself - after all, he's a dog, and you know how much dogs love drinking out of the toilet...
 |
| Apparently, Howie also likes drinking the ink from pens. |
After installing all of the toilets, Howie brushes off Octo's suggestion that they read the Flushinator's manual, which is full of warnings. By now, it should be obvious that Howie isn't exactly the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree. He presses a big red button and wouldn't you know it? Things go wrong. The toilet starts sucking up almost everything in the room - what is it, a toilet or a vacuum cleaner?
Octo is terrified, but Howie is thrilled by the toilet's ability to suck up anything not tied down and keeps pressing that button over and over again. And that does a lot of damage to the pipes, which leads to this...
 |
| "I told you building a hotel on top of Old Faithful was an awful idea!" |
The hotel is launched into the air and lands on top of the badger's rowboat. This, Mr. Badger, is why you do not give powerful things to complete idiots. Letting Howie have the Flushinator would be like giving nuclear missiles to Donald Trump.
Needless to say, everyone is quite surprised to discover the next morning that their hotel is floating in the ocean. Howie assumes that this is some sort of Waterworld-esque situation and all land on the planet has vanished. He's wrong, of course, but considering that the Flushinator has EXHAUST PIPES and that he bought one hundred and eighty-seven of them, I wouldn't be surprised if they contributed to global warming at all. Nice going, Howie, you've melted the polar ice caps!
Oh, and by the way, say hello to Sloth (voiced by Linda Kash). Her shtick is that she has the hots for Howie. Because, y'know, he's SUCH a catch.
 |
| What would the children look like?! |
In Howie's mind, the Banana Cabana is now a cruise ship - or rather, a BOAT-tel. That lousy pun is from the episode, I swear I didn't make it up myself (I don't blame you for thinking that, though). Downside: the hotel's being tossed and turned by the waves makes everything slide around and makes everybody seasick... even the narwhal, which is ironic because he's a sea mammal. "We're a hotel, not a boat! This is unnatural!" Octo tells Howie, and besides, what if something goes wrong? Just as Howie is declaring that nothing could possibly go wrong, guess what happens? Something goes wrong. The house winds up shipwrecked on an island.
Well, this doesn't seem so bad. The hotel was already built on an island paradise, so all it really did was move. Downside Number Two promptly rears its ugly head, however, as Octo points out the nearby volcano.
 |
| If the Volcano Gods demand a sacrifice, I think I know who the others are going to choose... (HINT: he's the only character in this screencap) |
After the initial "oh crap, we're stranded on a deserted island" reactions, everyone seems to settle into their new surroundings pretty well. But if you're in a cartoon and you've been stranded on a deserted island, what is the one thing you're likely to run into? I'll give you three guesses. Is it...
A) A tribe of natives wielding spears and wearing grass skirts
B) A dragon with five heads
OR C) Mike Myers?
For those of you who guessed A, congratulations!
I was about to complain about the crabs having those little hairs sticking out as well (and yes, I know it's really stupid to bring realism into a show with talking dogs and octopi in it, but still) but then I did some research and I found out that while crabs don't have HAIR, they DO have hair-like structures called setae (extensions of their exoskeleton) so maybe that's what those little "hairs" actually are? However, crabs do NOT, in fact, have NIPPLES.
The crabs, who like to channel the Yip-Yip Martians from Sesame Street, carry Octo off to be sacrificed to the volcano. They explain to Howie that if the volcano isn't happy, it'll erupt, and the only way to make it happy is by feeding it something with many legs. Now it's up to the others to rescue Octo with a foolproof plan: they will disguise themselves as a creature with even MORE legs than Octo has.
 |
| "Please don't question why all of my legs look different! I'm a freak of nature, herp-a-derp!" |
He claims that he has fourteen legs, but as you can see, he only "has" nine legs, which is still more than Octo but not by much. Unless you count the tailfin (does that qualify as a pair of legs?), in which case he has eleven. Either way, the narwhal clearly isn't very good at math...
It works, the crabs release Octo... and then the others mess up their whole plan by revealing themselves under the grass skirt. As they make their escape, Howie tells Octo to do that thing octopuses are known to do - spray ink, of course.
I recall the crew of SpongeBob SquarePants stating in an interview that they were initially going to have Squidward spray ink, but it looked more like he was farting (Squidward did eventually wind up squirting ink in the Season 6 episode "Giant Squidward"). Looking at this... honestly, I can see their point.
 |
| "I really shouldn't have eaten at Arby's!" |
Now they all just need to get off the island before the volcano erupts. They manage to get the hotel unstuck with the help of the Flushinator and "flush [their] way home", leaving the crabs to their fates on the island. I know they tried to sacrifice Octo and all, but you're not gonna let them escape with you? That's pretty cold.
Long story short, they get the hotel back home... just in time for Howie to install the new showerheads he bought and launch the roof back to the island. Huzzah.
What's the Verdict?
Y'know, it's not easy to review something bad that's desperately trying to make you laugh. There's only so many times you can say "This is not funny" before the review starts to get repetitive.
I'm gonna get right to the point: this show is bad. I will say in its defense that "S.S. Banana Cabana" was slightly better than "Cool Paw Howie"... it was still bad, but at least it was less boring. Every so often there's a funny joke, but they can't make up for the multiple other unfunny jokes the show throws at us. The characters? The only one with a personality to speak of is Howie, who isn't funny or charming at all. He's dumb and excitable, huzzah, never seen a cartoon dog like THAT before...
 |
| Just so we're clear, I'm not saying that Howie is a Dudley Puppy knockoff, I just find them rather similar personality-wise (and species-wise, of course). |
The other characters are just there to either slap their foreheads in response to Howie's stupidity or be even more obnoxious. And this is just a personal thing, but I really don't like the show's art style: staring at the characters' naked bodies (why do they all have nipples?!) is just gross. But even if it had been Fully Clothed Animals, I doubt the show would have worked. It's another cartoon that's mediocre at best, and I really don't think it's worth your time. Consider this my Hotels.com review for the Banana Cabana.
Oh, by the way... after this, Noah Z. Jones went on to create another show for Disney, Pickle and Peanut. I don't know if I'll be doing a review of that. It looked lousy to me, but I don't want to make it look like I'm picking on the guy. He did work on The 7D, which I personally think is pretty good, maybe I'll review THAT instead...
