Let's Watch This - An Episode of "Yakkity Yak"

It's funny how memory works. Every single time I've had to do a division problem, I have no idea how to do it despite the fact that I've done it before. And yet, I remember a whole bunch of things that didn't involve subjects I learned in school. For example, I remember that at least one advertisement for this show began with the announcer exclaiming, "Nickelodeon is getting stupid!"

Now chances are that you're thinking, "What show is he referring to?" Well, I'll give you a hint: it's named after a song. And I was introduced to this show before the song, so I thought that the song came from the show as opposed to the show being based on the song.












Okay, I'm just gonna come out and say it: the show that we're reviewing today is Yakkity Yak.

Yakkity Yak is an Australian-Canadian cartoon that premiered on Teletoon and Nickelodeon (only in Australia, apparently, but it must've aired on the US Nickelodeon at SOME point if I remember watching episodes of it) in 2002. One season was produced before it got the ax, then banished to Nicktoons Network for a few years before winding up in the Pit of Obscure Nickelodeon Shows alongside shows like The Xs and The Brothers Flub. Apparently, kids looked at a show about a talking yak whose best friend is a kid with a pineapple for a head and thought, "This looks stupid." I'm guessing that straight-up saying in the ads that by airing this show Nickelodeon was "getting stupid" probably didn't help make the show look watchable.

Does Yakkity Yak hold up? Let's find out! Today we'll be taking a look at the episode... hmmm, let's see, which episode do I watch today? Maybe the one where Yakkity becomes an accurate weather forecaster... due to his grandmother's weather-predicting bunions*? Uh, no thank you... how about "The Yak and the Hat"?

Okay, so "The Yak and the Hat" begins with Yakkity (Lee Tockar) and his pineapple-headed best friend, Keo (Brian Drummond) at school. Keo, who kind of sounds like Cartman by the way, keeps answering the teacher's questions while Yakkity takes a nap. He starts drooling (ugh) and we get a look inside of his dreams.

I know this might be considered a nitpick, but why does Yakkity have antlers?
He's a yak, not a moose. Yaks don't have antlers. They have horns. Horns
that look nothing like antlers.

In his dream, Yakkity is a big movie star walking the red carpet. A reporter asks him a question - the very same question that the teacher called on him to answer, waking him up. Before Yakkity can think of the answer, Keo answers it, which makes the teacher ask, "Yakkity, why can't you be more like Keo?" Well, for one thing, Mr. Teacher, he doesn't have a pineapple for a head.

No, seriously, what exactly is the deal with  Keo having a pineapple for a head? Is he a mutant? Did he eat a pineapple-flavored Fruit Gusher? Is he a human with a pineapple for a head or a pineapple with a body or WHAT? How did they even come up with this idea? Did somebody say, "Hey, let's give this one character a pineapple for a head!" "Why?" "Well, SpongeBob lives in a pineapple, and everybody loves SpongeBob. Maybe if we include a pineapple somewhere in OUR show, it'll become as popular as SpongeBob!" "My God, it's GENIUS!"

Okay, moving on... we then cut to that night at Yakkity's house. Apparently, Yakkity and his grandmother invited Keo and his dad over. Keo's dad, as it turns out, is a pineapple with a face - no body, just a face. This just raises further questions.

So anyway, Yakkity's grandmother is knitting a hat, and Keo's dad (who sounds like Homer Simpson) is watching a game show called Who Wants to Win a Bunch of Money. Keo manages to correctly guess the answers even when the contestants can't, showing once again just how smart he is. And then we get a demonstration of just how dumb Yakkity is. Nyuck nyuck nyuck nyuck nyuck...

He also has a stereotypical dumb-sounding voice, just in case you didn't get
that he was supposed to be one of those cartoon characters that is also a
massive idiot.

After Keo gets him unstuck, Yakkity suggests that Keo try out for that game show, but Keo says that he can't because the TV studio is too far away. But then the show's host tells the audience that the show will be coming to their home town, Onion Falls, next week. Ze odds, vhat are zhey?

Alas, Keo is too nervous to do it - doesn't Yakkity remember what happened when Keo won the school history contest? Apparently, he was too afraid to go onstage and accept the award due to stage fright, so Yakkity had to accept it for him. Then Yakkity announced that he'd be thanking the audience on Keo's behalf with a little "rock-em sock-em stand-up comedy"... and promptly got pelted with fruit. Hopefully none of that fruit was a relative of Keo's.

"If only there was a way to combine your know-it-all-noggin with my complete inability to feel shame in front of others!" Yakkity says. Then Keo gets an idea involving the hat Yakkity's grandmother was knitting...

Cut to the game show. The host introduces Contestant Number One, a candy store owner by the name of Mr. HighPants.

His pants have sleeves. Wouldn't that technically make it some sort of bodysuit?

Then he introduces the next contestant, Yakkity. The plan, apparently, is having Keo hide inside the hat, and Yakkity wear the hat, so that Keo can give Yakkity all the answers to the questions that the host asks him. There's a word for this in game shows... what's it called again? Oh yeah, cheating.

"I sure hope the Cat in the Hat doesn't sue us for copyright infringement..."

The host asks Yakkity what the story is with his hat. Yakkity replies that sometimes, his hat sneezes. Uh, okay. "Well," the host says, "I've heard of a THINKING cap, but never a SNEEZING cap!" The audience starts laughing. I, on the other hand, am just sitting here unamused. In fact, at no point thus far has this show gotten a laugh out of me.

I figured that I should include a screencap of the host, so here he is.
Nice hairstyle, eh?

So the game begins. Yakkity keeps getting each question right due to Keo's giving him the answers, and soon the host is declaring him their new champion. Of course, he'll have to come back tomorrow for ROUND 2 of Who Wants to Win a Lot of Money.

At school the next day, Yakkity is talking to Keo about how great it is that they're going to win a whole lot of money and do cool things with it. For example, maybe he could buy himself an actual personality so he won't just have "idiot who sucks at stand-up comedy" as a character trait. The other kids are really impressed by Yakkity's smarts, to the point that they dub him even smarter than Keo. This, of course, does not make Keo happy.

Keo's lips are freaking me out.

After Round 2, which Yakkity wins, Keo volunteers Yakkity to answer the teacher's question of "What is the meaning of life?" in order to prove to the class that Yakkity is not, in fact, essentially Albert Einstein and Issac Newton combined.

Don't we all, Zoidberg. Don't we all...

So anyway, Yakkity admits that he doesn't know the answer, which pleases the teacher, as "a true genius is always willing to admit what he doesn't know." "In that case, I am one brainy dude!" Yakkity exclaims, which makes Keo understandably quite frustrated. I mean, Yakkity calling himself "one brainy dude" is like having Leonard Hofstader call himself the coolest person in the world.

After school, Yakkity comes by Keo's house in a truck to drop off Keo's share of the winnings. Keo is excited - that is, until he finds out that the truck isn't full of money. It's full of...  get ready for this... CHEESE. And not just any cheese... INCREDIBLY SMELLY cheese. Because as we all know, just like monkeys, farting, and shouting at the top of your lungs, cheese and things being smelly are automatically hilarious.

Cheese: winning it is only exciting if you're a cartoon mouse.

You see, as Yakkity was leaving the bank with the money that he and Keo won from the game show, he ran into some guy who had a lot of cheese and gave him all of the money in exchange for the cheese. Because as we've established, he's an idiot. "How could you blow all of our winnings without consulting me?!" a rightfully angry Keo demands. "I'M THE BRAINS!" "Well, I'M the personality! And maybe I don't NEED brains!" Yakkity replies stubbornly. Yeah, maybe you don't need brains, Yakkity... after all, you got along just fine before the game show WITHOUT brains.

Apparently, there's one more round of Who Wants to Win a Lot of Money that Yakkity needs to win tomorrow, and Keo tells him that he's not going to help Yakkity cheat his way to victory anymore. So, in the next round, Yakkity has cheese under his hat (for some reason) instead of Keo, and his opponent is... let's make a game out of it, shall we?

Is Yakkity's opponent...
A) Keo
B) Somebody other than Keo
OR C) Somebody other than somebody other than Keo who still isn't Keo

If you guessed A, congratulations! Apparently, wanting to stick it to Yakkity trumps stage fright for Keo.

I don't know why, but I love Keo's expression here. You can tell that he's just
as fed up with Yakkity's bullcrap (or should that be YAKcrap?) as I am.

Alas, Keo's stage fright prevents him from answering any of the questions (unless "Ummm..." qualifies as an answer in your book). Meanwhile, Mr. Idiot Yak answers every question with "Cheese?" When the show pauses for a commercial break, Yakkity angrily says that Keo is making him look like a fool. "You're wearing a hat made of cheese. You ARE a fool," Keo replies. I was gonna say "You don't need Keo to make you look like a fool", but I like Keo's comment better. Then, unaware that a cameraman is recording him at the moment, Keo points out that Yakkity would've never won all those previous rounds in the first place if it weren't for the fact that he was hiding in his hat and giving him all of the answers. Uh oh...

The host demands that Yakkity and Keo give them all the money that they won back. Too bad Yakkity stupidly blew it all on cheese.

Then we, um, cut to a different game show, this one a Survivor parody called Survival of the Grossest. The host tells us that tonight on the show, Yakkity and Keo will eat a hat full of cheese in order to win a big cash prize. Apparently, they're planning on giving the prize money to the people in charge of Who Wants to Win a Bunch of Money. The end.

A yak who looks more like a purple moose in a fur coat than a yak and a kid
with a pineapple for a head and incredibly red lips eating melted cheese out of a
knitted hat on a tropical island. I should be weirded-out by this, but eh, I watched
Squirrel Boy so this sort of thing really doesn't surprise me anymore.

I gotta admit, I was expecting Yakkity Yak to suck. It certainly didn't LOOK like a particularly good show. But it was actually better than I thought it would be. I mean, don't get me wrong, it's not a GOOD show. It's not funny, Yakkity is really annoying and not endearing in the slightest, and all the cheese grosses me out. But it's not a BAD show, it's just... mediocre. I wouldn't recommend watching it, but I've seen far worse cartoons.

Boy, most of my reviews are starting to sound the same, aren't they? Squirrel Boy, Corneil and Bernie, Ned's Newt, Class of 3000, this... I review way too many cartoons that are just mediocre. And mediocre cartoons don't really make for particularly funny reviews. Ah well, maybe I'll get more joke material out of the next cartoon that I review... what's next on the list?

Ummmmmmmm...

* I did not make that up. That was an actual episode.