Let's Watch This: An Episode of "The Mr. Peabody and Sherman Show"

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.

All right, I know this is an unpopular opinion, so get ready to type insults in the comments section... I don't like DreamWorks' 2014 Mr. Peabody and Sherman movie.

Do I hate it? No! Do I think it's worth watching at least ONCE? Sure. Are there things I like about it? Of course. But there's a lot that keeps me from being a fan. I've already talked about how little I like Ty Burrell as Mr. Peabody (every time he talked, all I could hear was Phil Dunphy), but my main problem is that it takes itself very seriously, which I'm not sure something based on a segment from Rocky and Bullwinkle should do. You're taking a cartoon about a genius dog and his pet boy traveling through time and helping historical figures and playing it for drama? I don't think that EVER could have worked. Just so we're clear, I'm not saying that the film should be non-stop jokes and zany antics - the George of the Jungle movie is a goofy comedy that doesn't take itself seriously, but it still has heart. Mr. Peabody and Sherman prioritizes emotion over humor. And I'm honestly not sure what Mr. Peabody's character arc in the movie was even supposed to be... is it that he should be more open with affection or less overprotective of Sherman?

But I know a lot of people love the movie. The critics, in particular, were thrilled by it... which didn't stop the film from underperforming at the box office. But DreamWorks wasn't done with Mr. Peabody yet. Like most of DreamWorks' films in the 2010s, it got a Netflix show.

Serving as both a reboot of the original "Peabody's Improbable History" segments and a spin-off of the movie, the show was developed by David P. Smith and premiered on Netflix on October 9th, 2015. Unlike the movie, this show was 2D, with DHX Media providing the animation. Mr. Peabody was now voiced by Chris Parnell, but Max Charles reprised his role as Sherman. Most of the characters created for the movie that weren't in the original segments (Sherman's girlfriend, her parents, the evil social worker) don't show up. Like the original segments, Mr. Peabody and Sherman traveled through time and met historical figures, but now they also hosted a variety show with other historical figures serving as the guests.

Four seasons and a total of fifty-two episodes were produced. The show managed to snag two Annie Awards and a couple of Emmys as well. It has since been removed from Netflix, so if you want to watch it you either need a streaming service called Kidoodle.TV or go to the Internet Archive. I'll be using the latter. I know the chances of me liking a TV show based on a movie I don't like are pretty slim, but I can name several times I've liked a movie but hated the TV show it spawned (see also Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness), so who knows? We're going to watch the third episode of the show. This is The Mr. Peabody and Sherman Show.

The episode starts off with Mr. Peabody and Sherman figure skating. They've invited the father of modern figure skating, Jackson Haines, to judge their routine.

Hey, Sherman, Elton John called. He wants his glasses back.

They do their fancy figure-skating routine, which culminates in Mr. Peabody falling through the ice because Sherman was taking care of his Tamagotchi instead of catching him. Remember the Tamagotchi? I think it's still a thing, but it's not quite as popular nowadays. I guess everyone realized that digital pets aren't as much fun as real pets. Even if digital pets don't poop on your carpet.

I never had a Tamagotchi. I think my older sister had one at some point, but I could
be wrong.

"Sherman, we've been over this. Having a pet is a HUGE responsibility," Mr. Peabody says. Plus, Sherman is already Mr. Peabody's pet... oh, wait, that was the ORIGINAL version of these characters, where the joke was that instead of a boy having a pet dog, it was a dog having a pet boy. The DreamWorks version of Mr. Peabody is Sherman's adopted father. How else would they be able to throw manufactured drama over Mr. Peabody not being a good father in our faces?

Next, it's time for the portion of the show where Mr. Peabody and Sherman actually do the time-traveling. But first, an appearance from Mrs. Hughes, their... secretary or whatever, who emerges from a giant venus flytrap with a portal in it? Yeah, I don't know either.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but could we please go back to the figure skating?

After that, Mr. Peabody tells us via flashback how he and Sherman met the explorer Marco Polo (voiced by Nolan North). You know who Marco Polo is, right? Venetian mechant and explorer, traveled the Silk Road in China, namesake of the popular pool game? THIS version of Marco Polo has a Brooklyn accent for some reason and is wandering around eating food from street vendors. You see, there's a legend that Marco Polo is the guy who brought noodles to Italy from China, so he's the reason we have spaghetti. This, from what I've read, is false - pasta already existed in the Mediterranean before he came around. I suppose I should complain about this show's not being historically accurate, but that seems kind of pointless for a show where a dog can talk and travel through time.

Eugh, those armpit hairs.

Instead of noodles, however, Marco Polo plans on bringing back... bok choy. Y'know, that food that's basically just cabbage. He doesn't even know what a noodle is. So Mr. Peabody and Sherman bring him to the most famous noodle shop in all of China. "Marco Polo don't put nothin' in his face that ain't got a face," Marco Polo claims. Even though about five minutes ago he was talking about how great bok choy is, and bok choy doesn't have a face either.

Will Mr. Peabody and Sherman get Marco Polo to eat noodles? We'll have to find out later, because Mr. Peabody interrupts the flashback to introduce the audience to Charles Darwin. He's brought with him a dodo bird, a quagga, and a woolly mammoth that looks more like Sidney the elephant from Terrytoons (if you don't know who that character is, look it up).

I've heard that scientists are actually trying to bring back the woolly mammoth.
You think they'll ever accomplish that?

Charles Darwin explains that these animals became extinct because they were all dumb as a rock. I'm doubtful. If being incredibly stupid is all it takes for an animal to go extinct, how come humans are still alive? Charles Darwin is also kind of a jerk, because he tosses the dodo into the air just to let it fall on its face (y'know, because he can't just say the dodo can't fly, nobody's gonna believe THE FATHER OF EVOLUTION on that). AND he wheels in an inflatable pool full of hot tar for the woolly mammoth to drown in. Fortunately, Sherman has taken a liking to the mammoth and he advises it not to take a dip. Ha! In your face, Darwin!

Did you know that woolly mammoths used their curved tusks to dig up the ground? Hey,
if I can't be funny, I think I should at least try to be educational.

Sherman begs Mr. Peabody to let him keep the mammoth, but Mr. Peabody says no. For one thing, it's hard to house-train a mammoth and he doesn't want to wake up one morning and find a mountain of crap on the living room rug. But also Mr. Peabody thinks HE'LL be the one walking him and feeding him and getting him chew toys. And those are all things SHERMAN should be doing for HIM. Y'know, since he's a dog.

"I tried, boy! But my... FATHER... doesn't approve of our LOVE!" Sherman tells the mammoth. Mr. Peabody, how could you be so cruel? Separating your son and the enormous prehistoric pachyderm that he's clearly formed a bond with? But Sherman is clever and simply HIDES the mammoth behind the set. And Mr. Peabody doesn't notice the mammoth's trunk peeking out from over the wall. So much for being the world's smartest dog.

I think Mr. Peabody needs new glasses if he can't see the literal elephant in the room.

It isn't until Sherman starts listing pet names that Mr. Peabody notices the mammoth's trunk and reveals the whole thing to the audience. And now, back to the Marco Polo story!

Apparently, Marco Polo's finickyness reminds Mr. Peabody of when Sherman was a baby and wouldn't eat his vegetables. He would simply read him a book about another finicky eater and Sherman would inhale the broccoli. For legal reasons, he can't read the book on this show, so he wrote his own: a parody of Green Eggs and Ham. Long story short, Marco Polo eats the noodles and loves 'em.

"And I will eat them on the go.
And I will eat them in the snow.
And I will eat them 'neath the sky.
And I will eat them in Shanghai.
And I will eat them in Beijing.
They are a most delicious thing!
And I will eat them with a yak.
And I will eat them as a snack.
And I'll eat them with grated cheese.
And with marinara sauce, please.
I'll take them back to Italy!
I like them, Mr. Peabody!"

So they go back to the noodle shop so Marco Polo can get the recipe, but the Chinese stereotype who runs the shop will only give it to them if they compete in three challenges. What are these three challenges? We'll have to find out later, because we cut back to Sherman and Mr. Peabody arguing over the mammoth. Their argument is interrupted by their downstairs neighbor and resident stereotypical sassy black woman, Christine (Da'Vine Joy Randolph), barging in and doing this with her dog:

"The mammoth needs to be in his own environment with the proper climate, the right kind of food, and familiar animals! The Ice Age!" Mr. Peabody says. After all, if they don't return him to the Ice Age, how will Disney be able to continue milking the franchise, even after they shut down the studio that made the films? Why, no, I'm not still bitter about that at all.

Then who should show up but ANOTHER stereotype. This time, it's an Indian swami riding a magic carpet.

Meanwhile, Christine is still French-kissing her dog.

Mr. Peabody tells the swami to help Sherman return the Woolly Mammoth to the Ice Age. Instead, Sherman turns the apartment into a winter wonderland, with saber-toothed tigers and giant beavers and even neandrethals walking around. How did he accomplish this? I don't know. I guess the implication is that the swami has some sort of mystical genie-like powers and can grant wishes.

All it needs is for Elsa to show up and start singing "Let It Go".

After that, we continue with the flashback. Everything turns into one of those martial arts movies where the lip-sync doesn't match up (which Sherman points out). Their first challenge is to walk across a floor comprised of the tops of large swaying noodles, holding a cup of water. And also the noodles are being boiled, but they're being cooked al dente which makes them both hard and soft... I'm just gonna take Mr. Peabody's word for it, I'm not a culinary expert. They manage to get across when Mr. Peabody uses one of the noodles to swing across the room.

The next challenge is for them to, while holding an egg and preventing it from cracking, fight "noodle warriors" wielding fortune cookies and eggroll nunchucks. I can't help but find this offensive. Did I turn on an episode of Chop Socky Chooks by mistake?

And why do the "noodle warriors" have purple skin? Did they eat Willy Wonka's gum
or something?

Sherman defeats the "noodle warriors" by eating their weapons. Challenge number three is for them to take a measuring cup full of flour to the middle of the room - after they've been spun around and the room is filled with flour. To solve THIS challenge, they invent the game "Marco Polo".

"Each challenge was a secret ingredient!" Mr. Peabody says, and thus Marco Polo learns how to make noodles, preventing the world from not knowing what rigatoni is. After the flashback, we see Mr. Peabody use his skating skillz from the beginning of the episode to save Sherman from a saber-toothed tiger cub. Or, rather, its mother.

Diego's girlfriend from the fourth and fifth Ice Age movies is mad she wasn't invited back
for Ice Age 6.

The mammoth saves them, and Mr. Peabody decides to let Sherman keep him after all. I'm guessing the mammoth doesn't show up in any of the following episodes. Which is too bad, because having a woolly mammoth around would make this show a lot cooler.

What's the Verdict?

This is a mixed bag of a show. On the one hand, it manages to avoid most of the problems that the movie has... namely, it doesn't take itself so seriously. The focus is entirely on the jokes. Downside: most of the jokes aren't funny. This is what the show considers a funny joke:

Being disgusting is not the same thing as being funny.

It doesn't help that Sherman is extremely Flanderized here. In the film, and the original segments, he was a normal little kid. He was not loud, obnoxious, and stupid - three words that I think best describe him here. Basically, he's been turned into Chowder (right down to the large appetite!). They even both frequently make over-the-top bizarre expressions for the sake of WACKINESS. I considered making screencaps of each one, but I didn't, so you'll just have to take my word for it.

The animation is pretty good, every so often there's a chuckle-worthy moment, and I much prefer Chris Parnell as Mr. Peabody to Ty Burrell (even if he still doesn't sound much like Bill Scott). If you enjoyed the movie, I'd say give the show a watch. If you liked the original segments but didn't care for the movie, I'd avoid it. It's hardly the WORST reboot of a Jay Ward cartoon, though. I think we all know what show THAT honor goes to...

Rating: Two and a half woolly mammoths out of five. You'll wish you could travel back in time and warn yourself not to watch it.

Did You Know? - Fun Facts About "Madagascar"

Welcome to another edition of a series that I like to call Did You Know?. Inspired a little by the Nostalgia Critic's "What You Never Knew" series, this series will allow me to share with you some interesting tidbits, behind-the-scenes information, and fun facts about an animated movie or TV series. Because I like sharing new information with people.

I can't believe Madagascar is twenty years old. I remember how I first found out about it - my family went to see Shark Tale in theaters (I don't know what we were thinking either), and at one point during the previews, I had to go to the bathroom. I walked back into the theater just in time to see the end of the teaser for the film. I sought out the teaser online after that.

The first film is a huge guilty pleasure for me. I feel like I should hate it - it's a film made by 2000s DreamWorks, which means that it's filled with celebrities who don't have much if any business doing voice-acting and unfunny pop culture references that have nothing to do with what's going on. And don't get me wrong, it's a very flawed film, but there's still a lot to like about it. The characters, even the ones that aren't given much to do, are great - the Penguins steal the show, of course, but Alex and Marty's friendship is definitely the heart of the film. And when the film is funny, it's genuinely really funny, and the dramatic and heartwarming moments work well too. The two sequels, while also flawed, are in my opinion even better.

The three Madagascar movies (I know there's technically four, I'm focusing on the three main films in this post) have a lot of fun facts about them that I would like to share. You probably already know that there are references to Planet of the Apes and The Twilight Zone (hot take: that "It's a cookbook! IT'S A COOKBOOK!" joke wasn't funny). You might also remember the "Madagascar Mania" tie-in with Denny's (I remember seeing that ad while watching Cartoon Network... or maybe it was Boomerang, I'm not sure). But did you know any of THESE things?

Concept art by Jordi and Carlos Grangel.

1) How did Madagascar come to be? In a recent interview with Animation World Network, co-director Eric Darnell revealed that Jerry Seinfeld had a hand in creating the idea: "I think part of it came from the relationship Jeffrey Katzenberg had with Jerry Seinfeld and this idea of doing something that would involve Manhattan and New York City. Jerry began developing the idea, and then he went on to work on what became Bee Movie. But we really fell in love with the idea: what if you take four New Yorkers, born and bred, rip them out of their New York home, where they've been their entire lives, and drop them into a savage jungle? How would they survive? And what if these New Yorkers were not people, but zoo animals?"

The other co-director, Tom McGrath, added, "It's a classic fish-out-of-water story. New Yorkers going camping. And New Yorkers going camping already feels funny. Originally, the story was about civility versus savagery, which is still a component of it, but it could be a very dark, unrelatable theme. We eventually found a theme that was more like, 'Don't eat your best friend.' Then, as we developed the movie, it became more about not letting the location define who you are. Home is where the heart is. It turned into a friendship story: as long as they were together, it didn't matter where in the world they were. That's why all the movies became kind of a travelogue built around that lesson."

2) Melman was originally going to be an okapi. They decided to make him a giraffe instead because more people know what a giraffe is than an okapi is (apparently, people were more aware of what one is by 2013, because the Valentine's Day special Madly Madagascar features an okapi as a minor character). Also, he was originally named Henry.

Concept art for Melman (then called Henry) by Buck Lewis.

3) The actual Central Park Zoo does not have lions, zebras, giraffes, hippos, or chimpanzees. It does have penguins, though. If you want to see lions, zebras, and giraffes in New York, you'll have to visit the Bronx Zoo (there are no hippos or chimpanzees there either, sorry).

4) The inital plan for the film had the animals being liberated from their cages by an animal rights group.

5) When the film was announced in 2001, Madonna and Jason Alexander were mentioned as being part of the cast (presumably, they were going to voice Gloria and Melman respectively). Ricky Martin, Adam Del Rio, and Mel Gibson were also attached to provide voices at one point. For whatever reason, all five of them wound up leaving the project at some point. Jennifer Lopez was also considered to voice Gloria, then Gwen Stefani was cast... then she left the project in 2002.

6) Melman wearing tissue boxes on his feet at one point in the film is a reference to Howard Hughes, who did it for the same reason as Melman - to keep germs away.

Concept art by Yoriko Ito.

7) King Julien's role was initially very, very small - originally, Maurice was going to be the leader of the lemurs, and it would've been his idea to have Alex help them against the foosa. Julien was just a minor character with only two or three lines who was questioning why they should have a lion help them. Then Sacha Baron Cohen got the part (and in case you're wondering why they brought a celebrity in to voice a character with only two or three lines, need I remind you that Zootopia 2 had Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson voicing a character who just screams and nothing more?) and did a lot of improvising, and the filmmakers liked it so much that they made Julien a more prominent character.

8) Editor Clare Knight was the one responsible for the film's use of "I Like to Move It". According to Eric Darnell, "We had the lemurs a little more cool, kind of loungy, almost like jazzy lounge lizards. Clare brought in this really fun number, and at first your instinct was, 'No, that's not who the lemurs are.' But as we listened to the song and brought it to Sacha, he totally embraced it and wanted to sing it. It completely redefined the character for the better."

9) Tom McGrath and Eric Darnell initially wanted Robert Stack to voice Skipper, but he passed away. Thus, Tom decided to voice Skipper himself because everyone really liked his scratch track for the character. Tom's voice for Skipper is sort of a combination of Robert Stack, Charlton Heston, and "maybe some Peter Graves every once in a while."

Concept art for Marty and Melman (who was still called Henry at this point).

10) Speaking of the penguins, they were very nearly cut from the film because they were only in one scene. Specifically, Jeffrey Katzenberg told them to take the penguins out, so they did, and then they had a test screening where a studio executive asked where the penguins were, resulting in Katzenberg saying that the penguins were "working out pretty good" and telling the filmmakers to put  them back in. According to Tom McGrath, "A way to give them job security was to embed them in the story, so we thought, 'OK, they can inspire the zebra to escape the zoo and then they're forever in the story and they can't be cut!'"

On top of that, the original plan was to have Alex, Marty, Melman, and Gloria's crates fly off the ship during a storm at sea. But a storm at sea is kind of cliched, isn't it? Tom McGrath thought so too, and he said, "I was in a restaurant, thinking about what to do with the storm. I thought it would be great if there was an animal revolt. When we first put them in the film, people were saying, ‘What’s with the penguins?'"

11) Okay, enough about the penguins for now. On the side of the pay phone that Alex uses when Marty escapes the zoo, there's a note reading "Room for rent, EAST Village, $10,000/mo, call Tom & Eric". This, of course, is a reference to Tom McGrath and Eric Darnell.

12) Madagascar is often brought up as one of the first CGI-animated films to have its characters move in a more "cartoony", squash-and-stretch style way. According to Eric Darnell, "We'd talk about animation style in the film, so we set out from the very beginning this very broad style with squash-and-stretch. But its difficult to do in computer graphics because you basically have a virtual puppet that you have to construct before you begin animation. All the controls and capabilities have to be built into this puppet before you start. With hand-drawn animation, if you want to draw a guy thats normally six feet tall and stretch him out to be 12 feet tall, or flatten him on the ground, you just draw it that way. And you're done. To design a puppet with those kinds of capabilities was a big challenge for us, because we wanted to be able to do that, too."

Animator Jason Schleifter said, "I think as a whole our department really started to push smear frames and stretching characters like crazy where it was warranted. We worked really hard to keep the characters on-model when striking a pose, but inbetween poses oh, man, we were going nuts! You'd have fingers stretch five times their normal lengths, eyes bulging all over the place. I even did a shot where a fossa hits the ground and when he does his eyes actually smack into each other, then stretch out so they're 2-1/2 times their normal distance from each other, and then rattle back. It happens so fast it's subtle, but boy does it add a nice punch to the action."

And Tom McGrath claimed, "We wanted to do something, animation-wise, that was more than what youve seen in 3D and to have a 2D sensibility, much like animation in the Forties: Tex Avery, Warner Bros. Because of the advancements we were able to do squash-and-stretch broad animation, and have this in a stylized world thats really believable in 3D."

13) And he does mean "stylized". "There were careful considerations in the design of this world that Kendal Cronkite had worked on with the simplification of things, and caricatured," Tom McGrath explained. "There were no straight angles. Everythings slightly off-skew. We called it Wack Factor. When things got to crazy we pulled it back. On Antz, when they surfaced the environments, they'd do it with photographs. They would photograph textures and use those. In Madagascar, it was all art. It was all hand-painted designs that were stylized that every surface was treated with. As opposed for using photos, the surfacing was all hand-painted."

Concept art for Alex.

"The artists in the surfacing department had a blast," Eric Darnell claimed. "Because they could invent every surface, every texture, for the surface of a leaf, the bark of a tree. Everything then could fit into this design paradigm that Kendal and her team devised. They just had a great time. They felt they had a creative input. What's up there on the screen is theirs. The majority of the plants that you see in the film are actual plants that are from Madagascar. But they're also very designed and stylized and fit in the style of the film. Even their organization and arrangement inside the frame and the environment, it's very different than how they would occur naturally, as we try to create this stylized fantasy of a jungle based on the Malagasy rain forest."

14) Jeffrey Katzenberg contributed to a lot of the film's jokes. For example, Eric Darnell and Tom McGrath thought of having that old lady beat up Alex, and Jeffrey suggested having her also kick Alex in the groin and mace him. And when the scene where the characters were all doing spit-takes ("You don't swallow it. It's just temporary 'till the plumbing's done.") wasn't getting the laughs the filmmakers were expecting in test screenings and they were getting advice that maybe it just wasn't a good gag, Jeffrey claimed, "No, the problem is, you don't have ENOUGH. You need two more big spits." And it worked!

Concept art for Madagascar itself.

15) Dana Carvey turned down a role in the film. I don't know which character they wanted him to voice.

16) The scene where the penguins arrive in Antarctica and discover that it, in Private's words, "sucks" was suggested by Bob Saget (who also voices a mnor character in the film - that one zoo animal who shouts at Alex and Marty to shut up because "WE'RE NOT ALL NOCTURNAL, YOU KNOW!"). It was originally going to be the film's stinger - for those unaware, that means the scene after the end credits. The filmmakers decided that they wanted the penguins to come back into the story, so they moved it.

17) Look closely at the patch on the suit that the ship captain is wearing - apparently, the name of the boat is "S.S. ACT II".

Food tie-ins for the film - maybe you remember seeing the Madgascar fruit snacks?

18) Remember how Mason and Phil escape the zoo because they've heard Tom Wolfe is giving a speech and they want to fling their crap at him? According to a behind-the-scenes bonus feature, the line was originally "I saw in the Times that Donald Trump is speaking at Stony Brook." Ah, remember the days when Donald Trump was just a punchline and not our president? Good times...

In the German dub, Tom Wolfe is replaced with Hilary Clinton. In the Hungarian dub, it's simply a lecture on evolution. In the Russian dub, they want to visit a lecture on "anarchy in the society". Speaking of foreign dubs, in the Hungarian dub Marty wants to go to Miami instead of Connecticut (probably harder to get to via train, unless you live in Florida already), and in the Korean dub, Melman assumes that they've wound up in Hollywood as opposed to San Diego.

19) The look of the jungles on the island was inspired by the paintings of Henri Rousseau.

A billboard for the film.

20) At some point in production, there was a reference to The Lion King in the movie - specifically, Maurice made a comment about the "oval of life". For some reason, this line was removed, but it's still present in the junior novelization.

21) Madagascar was released on May 27th, 2005 - the very same day that The Longest Yard, starring Adam Sandler, was released. Why is that noteworthy? Because both movies feature Chris Rock as a main character.

22) 2010 saw the launch of a live touring stage show adaptation of the first film that I believe is still being performed every so often today. Here are some photos of some productions:

Not exactly Shrek the Musical, is it?

23) Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa was originally going to be called "Madagascar: The Crate Escape". Presumably, somebody pointed out that at no point in the second film do the animals wind up in crates (unlike the first) so they gave it a new name.

24) In the second film, Young Alex is voiced by Ben Stiller's son, Quinn Dempsey Stiller, and Young Gloria is voiced by Jada Pickett Smith's daughter, Willow Smith. According to Eric Darnell, "You can’t coach [Quinn]. Ben was doing most of it, he was trying to get stuff out of his son and the most valuable stuff we got was things like when he didn’t want to sit in a chair and he was like, 'No, I don’t wanna…' and we had the mic on him and could use it when [young Alex] gets thrown into the crate.  So we really weren’t able to coach a performance out of him as much as we were able to follow him around with a mic and get what you would get following any toddler around."

For those wondering, no, Young Marty and Young Melman were not voiced by the kids of Chris Rock and David Schwimmer - Young Marty was voiced by Thomas Stanley and Young Melman was voiced by Zachary Gordon, who would go on to play Greg in the Diary of a Wimpy Kid movies.

25) Once a month during production on Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, the crew would act out scenes. "We put wigs on the layout artists. The animators got involved," Tom McGrath claimed. "We did 60 percent of the film in this high-school play type of video. In the first movie, we locked off the camera to reduce rendering time. It felt a lot like postcard shots. With this one, we had more processors."

Concept art for Alex's father, Zuba.

26) What was the hardest thing to animate in the second film? According to Scott Peterson, the film's effects head, "Grass - that was a big one. The African plains are vast, big vistas, where you can see a couple of miles out. Our challenge was to fill those plains with grass and do it in a way we could manage. We designed a tool for the layout department that would distribute grass by positioning geometric chunks of it in a shot. From there it went to the surfacing department where they handle its density: how it clumps, how scraggly it looks. They add accent grass and come up with the overall texture.

Then it goes to the lighting department. They had to develop tools that would regroup those chunks of grass into layers that make it easier to render large amounts of geometry. The surfacing department had to come up with a way of changing the grass' density -- have it very detailed when it's close to camera and more coarse as it get further away, but do it in such way that the audience doesn't notice the transition. We spent some time implementing that, making it efficient and coming up with intuitive controls for them to set up. On the rendering side, one of the ways we fixed the 'buzzing problem' [between the grasses' differing textures] was from a trick I learned at SIGGRAPH. It was the same one they used to fix King Kong's fur, which was to make the grass transparent as it gets skinnier -- it makes it blend better."

27) A couple of DreamWorks' other films have cameo appearances from the franchise's characters. For example, Roddy's owner in Flushed Away has an Alex doll:

Mason and Phil are seen on a newspaper at one point in Turbo:

And Gloria makes a cameo in How to Train Your Dragon... being carried by a dragon presumably to be eaten:

28) Some early plot summaries for the third film mentioned that Alex, Marty, Melman, Gloria, the Penguins, the Lemurs, and the Chimps would be joined in their quest to get back to New York by a performing llama. There aren't any llamas in the actual film, so I don't know if there WAS a llama in early script drafts or if the plot summaries were inaccurate (probably the latter).

29) Gia was initially going to be an albino jaguar kept in a cage at the Monaco casino. She would've been freed by Alex and joined the zoo animals in the ensuing chase (in the book The Art of Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted, you can find storyboards for the car chase scene featuring Gia among the animals in the car). The filmmakers decided it'd fit the story better if Alex met her in the circus.

Concept art for the third movie by Travis Koller.

30) Look closely at the multiple hunting trophies on Captain DuBois' wall. Among the animals she's hunted down are Nana's dog from the Madagascar Penguins: A Christmas Caper short (released theatrically in front of Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit), a larger version of King Julien's gecko buddy Stevie from the first movie, that fish from the second movie who screamed when the watering hole went dry, and Eggy the duckling from the Penguins of Madagascar TV series.

31) At the end of the third film, when DuBois and her crew are in crates on a ship headed for Madagascar (yeah, sorry about the spoiler), take a look at their crates. Stenciled on them are "Freedom Fries", "Freedom Dressing", "Freedom Toast", and "Freedom Dip Sandwiches". For those unaware, this is a reference to the House of Representatives' decision in 2003 to start calling the French fries served in their cafeteria "Freedom Fries" in response to France refusing to support Iraq.

32) Character designer Craig Kellman modeled Stefano's face after his own.

34) Marty's (in)famous "Afro Circus" song was ad-libbed by Chris Rock - he was originally just supposed to hum that usual circus music, but he made up his own lyrics. So if you hate that song, you now know who to blame for its existence.

Concept art by Samuel Michlap - you can see the albino version of Gia among the characters here.

35) Finally, I found an interesting tidbit in an interview with Eric Darnell for the second film. Now, as you probably know (if not... sorry again about the spoiler), Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted's third act has Alex, Marty, Melman, and Gloria making it back to the zoo... but they realize that they actually prefer being free and traveling the world, and that when they were with the circus, they were already home. So they, the penguins, the lemurs, and the chimps join the circus.

But back in 2008, Eric had this idea for the third (or fourth, I'm not sure if the plan was for three or four films at this point) film's ending: "I have this idea of them back in the zoo and Marty saying something like, 'You know, we never made it to Connecticut,' and so the last shot would be a freeze frame of them jumping over the wall for one more adventure."

Sources:
- https://www.awn.com/animationworld/survival-funnies-lion-zebra-and-wack-factor
- https://www.awn.com/animationworld/madagascar-escape-2-africa-what-next
- https://www.cgw.com/Publications/CGW/2008/Volume-31-Issue-10-Oct-2008-/Home-is-Where-the-Art-is.aspx
- https://www.skwigly.co.uk/behind-the-scenes-of-madagascar/
- http://am.animatedviews.com/Madagascar.html
- http://legacy.aintitcool.com/node/15457
- https://www.razorfine.com/news/film-news/madagascar-2-the-interview/
- https://www.awn.com/animationworld/madagascar-20-qa-tom-mcgrath-and-eric-darnell
- https://animationscoop.com/interview-madagascar-back-in-theaters-for-20th-anniversary/

Seriously, twenty years of Sacha Baron Cohen singing "I Like to Move It Move It". It doesn't feel natural.

Let's Watch This: An Episode of "Dawn of the Croods"

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.

The Croods isn't exactly one of DreamWorks' more popular movies. It was released during that brief time period in the 2010s where DreamWorks' animated films were more often than not box office bombs - however, unlike most of DreamWorks' releases during that time, this one actually did well at the box office. And this was also the same time period where DreamWorks was teaming up with Netflix to do shows based on their animated movies. Shows like Turbo: F.A.S.T., All Hail King Julien, The Mr. Peabody and Sherman Show, even Home got a show for Netflix at one point. You can see where I'm going with this, right?

And so, Dawn of the Croods premiered on Christmas Eve 2015 on Netflix. The show took place before the events of the movie, detailing the adventures of the Crood family in the valley where they lived before they met Ryan Reynolds' character Guy. Fifty-two episodes were produced.

According to the show's producer, Brendan Hay, "I loved how [The Croods] managed to carefully balance a modern, relatable family dynamic between characters with a caveman's point of view. I love The Flintstones, but it was always about transporting the modern world's conveniences into its time period. The Croods took the time to create an experience based on how a cave family would live, which surprisingly hasn't been done that often, at least for comedy. The only condition going in was that Dawn of the Croods had to be a prequel, because the next feature film is going to be a sequel. So my thinking went into what the first family sitcom in history might be like. There's a sentence in The Croods' prologue where Eep explained that they used to have neighbors, which sounded like a fun world, so we decided to build that out. What would be The Croods' version of The Simpsons' Springfield? If we put them into situations that modern families like ours understand and take for granted, how weird, strange, or funny could it be?"

The show differs from the film in a few ways. First of all, it's 2D as opposed to CGI. The crew wanted the show to have a cartoonish look, but it's really hard to do cartoony squash-and-stretch in CGI on a television show's budget. Second, all of the characters have been recast because the celebrities who voiced them in the movie were likely too busy or too expensive to do the show. So, instead of Emma Stone we have Stephanie Lemelin as teenage cavegirl Eep (not the first time - she previously did Eep's voice for a video game), Dan Milano of Robot Chicken fame instead of Nicholas Cage as her father Grug, Cree Summer instead of Catherine Keener as her mother Ugga, AJ LoCascio instead of Clark Duke as her dimwitted younger brother Thunk, Grey DeLisle-Griffin instead of sound designer Randy Thorn as the rambunctious baby of the family Sandy, and Laraine Newman instead of Cloris Leachman as wisecracking grandma Gran.

I've never watched a single episode of this show before, but I did like The Croods (and I thought its 2020 sequel was pretty good too) and find DreamWorks' 2010s Netflix shows to generally be pretty good. So let's take a look at Dawn of the Croods and see if it's a fun show or if it's a blast from the past that should have just stayed in the past. We're reviewing the tenth episode of the second season and the twenty-third episode overall, which consists of the segments "Croodtopia" and "Hands on a Hard Egg". Why an episode of the second season? Because I've noticed that I usually review an episode of a show's FIRST season and I feel like it's becoming a bit repetitive. Let's get started.

"Croodtopia" begins with Eep, like all cartoon teenage girls, whining about how her parents never let her do anything fun. In this case, Grug and Ugga are telling her and Thunk to stop licking rocks - wow, if this is what cavepeople considered to be a fun activity, thank goodness they invented things like bicycles and televisions.

In the movie, Ugga wasn't a redhead, she was a brunette. In hindsight, it's a little
weird that Eep was a redhead when in the movie both of her parents were brunettes...
maybe the colorists thought so too?

The reason why Grug and Ugga don't want their kids licking rocks is because there's a case of something called "the Sneezles" going around. If you get "the Sneezles", your nose leaks out, your stomach does somersaults, and your boogers turn purple. Grug demonstrates all of these symptoms, so I wonder if HE'S been licking rocks too...

"Ugh, there's nothing more disgusting than getting barfed on by Grimace..."

Now that Grug has the Sneezles and Ugga and Gran have been sneezed on by him, there's only one thing for Eep, Thunk and Sandy to do: leave the cave until they've got the Sneezles out of their systems. A few seconds later, they run into their pals Lerk (also Grey DeLisle-Griffin) and Womp (also Dan Milano). All five revel in their newfound freedom - with the parents not around, they can do whatever they want. They can go swimming, watch animals fight like professional wrestlers (complete with a "pro wrestling is fake" joke)...

A scene from the long-awaited WWE/Where the Wild Things Are crossover.

Eventually, the kids come to a disagreement. They're hungry, and Eep and Lerk want to hunt a tasty-looking mosquitoad, one of the many bizarre animals that live in their world... so, is the Croods' valley just a prehistoric version of the Land of Wuz? Is this show a prequel to The Wuzzles? That's my new headcanon.

Since he's part-bug and part-toad, he lives in a constant state of turmoil regarding
whether or not he should eat himself.

"I'm not in the mood for mosquitoad. How about spike-apples?" Thunk suggests. Womp agrees, he's not so much a huntER as a huntEE. "Fine. You do what you want, I'll do what I want, and Sandy... do what Sandy wants," Eep tells them. And what Sandy wants to do is chase after a cross between a chicken and a fish.

Look, it's a literal Chicken of the Sea!

Thunk and Womp head for a tree bearing spikeapples, which are apples with spikes sticking out of them (which sounds dangerous to eat, doesn't it?). Because Thunk is an idiot, he winds up having three of them FALL INTO HIS EYEBALLS. Ouch! That's not funny, that's just painful! Meanwhile, Eep and Lerk's attempt at hunting the mosquitoad (they throw rocks at it) is a total wash too, which Eep blames Thunk for. For some reason. She's so mad that she draws a line in the sand and we do the "This is my side, and that is YOUR side" cliche.

"This side's the best! That side STINKS! You're on the JERSEY side of this cesspool!"

More problems arise. Eep and Lerk are promptly attacked by what looks like a cross between a vulture and a dinosaur, while Thunk and Womp are chased by a moler bear... you can probably guess which animals THAT is a fusion of. Once they're dealt with, Eep and Thunk start arguing again, and then the chicken-fish... or, as the characters call it, a Chickuna... shows up and they get into a tug-of-war over it. Then Sandy appears, grabs the Chickuna in her mouth and runs up a tree with it. Seeing their sister in danger, Eep and Thunk realize that working together is good or whatever and save her through the power of teamwork... and then all three of them fall out of the tree, but it's a cartoon, so of course they survive.

That night, the three Crood kids arrive back at their cave and beg Grug and Ugga to tell them what to do, much to their confusion. Then Sandy sneezes at the camera, covering it with purple glop. Uh oh, she's got the Sneezles!

Our next segment, "Hands on a Hard Egg", begins with Grug, Thunk, and Eep ready to eat. Fortunately, Ugga has something for them to munch on: sticks! Because... I guess she now thinks that they're beavers.

Ugga's homemade "fish sticks" leave a lot to be desired.

Why sticks? Because there's a food shortage going on - the trees aren't growing fruit and prey is scarce. Because there's not enough prey to go around, Eep points out to Grug that he'll probably need some extra help to find it, wink wink, nudge nudge. Grug is all "No, you're too young to help me hunt!" and then goes flying into a pile of rocks, which (since this is a cartoon) does NOT crack his skull open like a coconut but rather sends all the rocks flying, revealing a giant egg. And upon seeing that giant egg, all of the cavepeople in the valley are suddenly craving omelets.

"POACHED!"

"FRIED!"

"SCRAMBLED!"

"SUNNY SIDE UP!"

"OVER EASY!"

Since they all grabbed the egg at the same time, they decide to have a little contest: whoever takes their hand off the egg is disqualified, and whoever's remaining after everyone else has taken their hand - or some other body part - off the egg gets it. I think people actually have contests like this, but it's usually for a new car or something. Not a giant egg. Mostly because giant eggs are very hard to find nowadays (maybe if moas weren't extinct...). And in case you're wondering, no, I have never taken part in any of these contests. I don't even drive, what would I want with a new car?

This isn't as easy as it sounds. First, it gets really hot. Then, when the sun sets, it gets really cold. By morning, the first caveperson has dropped out, and then a Chris Parnell-voiced caveperson decides it's not worth it and walks away while he still has his dignity... off a cliff, where he is promptly mauled by a moler bear.

Meanwhile, back at Casa Del Crood, Thunk and Ugga are trying to get Sandy to eat. But she's not a fan of eating sticks, and Thunk's most recent attempt at feeding her results in her hallucinating that he's a rejected Wuzzle.

"Two kinds of fun, wrapped up and rolled into one..."

Eventually, Eep falls asleep, and when she wakes up, she discovers that she's the only one still holding the egg. Did everyone else leave? Nope - the egg is alive, and it's carnivorous! And now it's going to eat HER! Boy, this episode took a dark turn all of a sudden...

Talk about a rotten egg.

Despite Eep's efforts to gnaw her arm off, she is promptly eaten by the sentient egg. Just kidding - she's just dreaming about the egg being alive. She really needs to stop taking acid if this is what her dreams are like.

When Eep wakes up, Grug advises her to just go home... only for Eep to trick him into taking his hand off the egg. Mind games: they're so easy even a caveman can do them. I'm sure everyone's going to get THAT reference, right? It's not dated at all, is it? Surely everybody reading my blog remembers that ad campaign, don't they?

Now it's down to Eep and her teacher, Squawk (Dee Bradley Baker), who like all teachers (in cartoons, I mean. Most of my teachers were nice) is a master at torture. Can Eep endure his incredibly long spiels about the history of wet dirt? Maybe if she holds the egg over her head and runs around with it, dragging Squawk along for the ride...

Wow, Squawk is much stronger than he looks...

After some WHACKY SHENANIGANS, Eep winds up the winner of the contest and brings the egg home for everyone to eat. They don't cook it, of course - they just crack it open and help themselves to the yolk. Except Sandy. She actually likes eating sticks now, and after hallucinating that Ugga is Groot's sister, she decides to eat HER. The episode ends with her lunging at the camera while Ugga screams. I know Ugga's presence in the movie, with this show being a prequel and all, makes it clear that Sandy did not actually eat her, but that's the indication I'm getting here.

Actually, maybe she DID eat Ugga and the Ugga in the movie is a different caveperson. It would explain the different hair colors...

What's the Verdict?

As far as cartoons based on DreamWorks movies go, this isn't as good as The Penguins of Madagascar or The Adventures of Puss in Boots (note to self: review that show at some point), but it's much better than Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness or that crappy Monsters vs. Aliens show they had on Nickelodeon. I think the main problem is that so much of it is focused on Eep and Thunk, who to be honest aren't super-engaging characters. Eep is your typical rebellious teenage girl, and Thunk is basically just a typical cartoon dumb guy. Regardless, this show is genuinely quite funny, the animation is pretty good, the voice actors are giving it their all, as a whole the show's pros outweigh its cons and I found it enjoyable. If you like the movie, you'll probably like Dawn of the Croods. If you haven't seen the movie, I'd recommend watching it first and THEN checking out the show.

Oh, by the way, another Croods show taking place after the second movie came out in 2021. It's called The Croods: Family Tree. It wasn't on Netflix, it was on Hulu and Peacock. Unlike this show, it was CGI. Once again, they didn't get Nicholas Cage, Emma Stone, Catherine Keener etc. back, but for some reason the only actor to reprise their role from THIS show was AJ LoCascio (Ryan Reynolds didn't reprise his role either, Guy was now voiced by Darin Brooks from Days of Our Lives). I remember watching one episode and finding it mediocre. Maybe I'll do a review of it too, maybe I won't, we'll just have to wait and see. It got eight seasons (same number of episodes, though), so clearly SOMEBODY must have liked it...