Let's Watch This - An Episode of "Loonatics Unleashed"

Hoo boy. Readers, do I have a review for you today. Today I am doing a review of a show that is not exactly looked fondly upon.

Let me set the stage for you: it's the 2000s. Warner Bros. believes that the Looney Tunes aren't popular anymore (don't ask). Kids' WB is mainly focusing on action shows at the moment. And you know what cartoon is really popular? That Teen Titans show. Apparently, somebody said, "I know! What if we make the Looney Tunes popular again by making a Teen Titans knockoff starring the most popular Looney Tunes characters?"

And so, in 2005 a show called Loonatics Unleashed premiered. Even before the show came out, it had to put up with criticism, but that didn't stop Warner Bros. from crapping out two seasons of episodes starring the Loonatics. This is not a very well-liked show. There ARE fans of it, of course, but for the most part, it gets a lot of hate. So why am I sitting down to watch it? I don't know. Probably the same reason why I watched those awful Looney Tunes shorts that Larry Doyle produced a few years prior despite almost everybody online saying that they were awful (word of advice - do not watch those shorts. They suck).

The show's premise is this: it's the future, and a meteor strikes the planet of Acmetropolis (yeah...), releasing waves of supernatural energy that cause six teenagers to gain superpowers. These teenagers are the descendants of the most popular Looney Tunes characters. We have Bugs Bunny's descendant Ace Bunny (voiced by Charlie Schlatter), the leader of the team. Then there's Lola Bunny's descendant Lexi Bunny (voiced by Jessica DiCicco), whose purpose is to be Lola Bunny's descendant because Warner Bros. hadn't figured out by now that Lola Bunny does not need to be in everything Looney Tunes-related. There's Danger Duck (voiced by Jason Marsden), Daffy Duck's descendant who's basically just Daffy Duck in all but name. Slam Tasmanian (Kevin Michael Richardson) is the Tasmanian Devil of the group... and that's pretty much all there is to him. He's just Taz except he's purple. Wile E. Coyote's descendant, Tech E. Coyote (Kevin Michael Richardson as well) is the smartest member of the bunch. And then there's Rev Runner (Rob Paulsen), the Road Runner's descendant and the eccentric spazz of the team. Their boss is an alien named Zadavia (voiced by Candi Milo).

And on a side note, a recurring character is a guy named Mr. Leghorn, who I guess (I could be wrong, though) is supposed to be Foghorn Leghorn's descendant. Don't ask me why a rooster has a human for a descendant.

So, today I will be watching the first episode of the show - "Loonatics On Ice". Who knows, maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised...

The episode starts off with Acmetropolis suffering from a heatwave. Then a giant iceberg appears out of nowhere and freezes everything. After that, we cut to the Loonatics in their, uh, giant scepter-shaped tower thing.

What the heck is that thing even supposed to be?

Inside, Tech is eating frozen pizza. He asks Rev where he got it, and Rev reveals that his shtick is that he talks very, very fast. Fortunately, Bugs... I'm sorry, Ace heats up the pizza with his heat vision. Then Tech offers Daffy - uh, I mean, Danger some, but Danger doesn't want to become fat. After Lola, er, Lexi and Slam show up, Zadavia appears and tells the Loonatics that they've got a problem. I'll say they do - their show isn't funny or interesting in the slightest thus far.

I know he's supposed to be Daffy's descendant, but that doesn't mean they
simply HAD to just make him Daffy in all but name...

Here's a question: Ace is Bugs' descendant, while Lexi is Lola's. With that in mind, shouldn't they be siblings? Did Bugs and Lola just reproduce asexually or something? Maybe Lexi is actually descended from Buster and Babs, but I'm pretty sure she's supposed to be Lola's descendant.

"I think there's something wrong with the satellite dish..."

So, Ace (whose Brooklyn accent sounds most like a bad Australian accent than anything) asks Zadavia what the heck is going on. Zadavia informs them that the planet is facing a NEW Ice Age - as a matter of fact, it was, as this came out before Ice Age 2 was released. We get some unfunny jokes (Daffy... uh, I mean, Danger is worried that they'll lose cable, while Lola... I mean, Lexi complains that winter sweaters make her look fat. Nice to see your priorities are in check), and then Bugs... I mean, Ace tells Tech that they're gonna need some of his inventions. Tech gives them all these fire gun things.

"I don't know how this thing works, but I'm not afraid to use it!"

I suppose now is a good time to talk about the voice work in this show. I gotta hand it to Kevin Michael Richardson, because he's pretty unrecognizable as Tech. Jessica DiCicco and Rob Paulsen are pretty much just doing their usual thing, but I'm okay with that. Jason Marsden's voice for Danger sounds like a cross between Daffy and Max Goof. The only voice here I don't care for is Ace's - I swear that Charlie Schlatter was told to do an impression of Billy West's Bugs, and it sounds really awkward.

Anyhow, they fly over to the iceberg and try to thaw it but it doesn't work. So then they just have Slam fly around the thing multiple times and that melts it down and unfreezes everything. Daffy... I'm sorry, DANGER claims that he can do better and ends up stuck in the ice. Somehow. I don't know.

This is why most birds fly south for the winter.

Oh, and did I mention the one-liners? Because there are a lot of them. Tech says, "What wise guy moved Mount Everest?", then when they're about to thaw the iceberg Ace says, "Snow Cones for everyone!" And after Slam melts the iceberg, Ace says, "Heroes one, Mother Nature nothing!" If you thought Captain Planet and Rover Dangerfield's one-liners were annoying...

From out of the iceberg emerges... some kind of rocket ship, I think? And then from out of the ship emerge these, uh, robot vikings?

Because THIS is what I think of when I think of Looney Tunes.

So because Ace is Bugs minus all the charm, he asks the leader of the robot vikings, "What's up, doc?" The leader of the vikings (voiced by Tom Kenny) introduces himself as Gunnar, and Ace says ANOTHER one-liner: "Gunnar what, go to a vikings convention at the Pacific Center?" Gunnar is all, "NO, YOU IDIOT! WE'RE GONNA TAKE OVER YOUR WORLD!" and Ace just stands there smirking and continuing to make wisecracks, calling them "Frosted Flakes" and that "this is a no-invasion zone." At one point, he even pulls the "Duck season! Rabbit season! Rabbit season!" trick on Gunnar. I am not kidding. They're clearly trying to make Ace an "updated" Bugs, but instead he just comes across as a pale imitation. He's like one of those Sonic the Hedgehog knockoffs from the 1990s.

He even LOOKS like one of those Sonic the Hedgehog knockoffs from
the 1990s...

Anyhow, Bugs Minus All the Charm and Gunnar get into a swordfight, then Bugs Minus All Charm battles Gunnar's ice powers with his heat vision. But the robot vikings have ice hammers that magically create ice. Tech blathers on about how their weapons have some sort of science thing that can create ice or whatever (I honestly couldn't figure out what he was saying during this part) and the Loonatics end up getting frozen.

You know, if the real Bugs Bunny were up against evil robot vikings with ice-generating hammers, I bet he would have been able to outwit them no problem without getting frozen at any point. Just saying.

Gunnar, because he enjoys making annoying one-liners as well, announces, "LET'S PUT THIS CITY ON ICE!" and then he and the robot vikings start freezing up the city again. Fortunately, Daffy... I'm sorry, DANGER... manages to escape... somehow... I think he has teleportation powers... and then Slam manages to break them all out. Danger claims that he would've gotten them out himself if they'd just given him some time to think, to which Ace says, "We had SECONDS, not HOURS, Duck."

Soooooooo... seriously, if Ace and Lexi are descended from Bugs and Lola
respectively, why aren't they siblings?

So they walk around the city making MORE lousy one-liners ("I love what they've done with the place!" Ace says). They get a call from Zadavia, who tells them that these aren't NORMAL vikings - well, DUH - they came here from an inter-dimensional portal and blah-blah-blah. I know this is a nitpick, but isn't it kind of weird that an alien from outer space has a British accent?

Oh, and the robot vikings also have a GIANT ROBOT VIKING DRAGON SHIP with ice-breathing powers, too. Because OF COURSE they do.

And yet, this is STILL less cringe-worthy than My Generation G-G-Gap...

The team's jetpacks have been short-circuited by the ice, so Tech whips out his motorcycles for them to ride. His FLYING motorcycles, that is. They fly around the giant dragon viking ship robot thing allowing it to shoot ice at them until they run out of ammo, then go after them with a ship of their own. "You can say it. I'm a genius!" Tech tells Ace. Yes, but are you a SUPER-genius like Wile E. is? All signs point to "YES". In fact, I think Tech might be my favorite character here.

They try to shoot a torpedo at the vikings, but their ship can FLY, too (so, is this ship the rocket that they came in on?). Fortunately, Tech's ship can fly too. Yeah, I think it's pretty safe to say that this coyote is indeed a super-genius. Slam emulates Donkey Kong and throws Tech's gravity disk things at the Vikings, finally and I mean FINALLY taking them down.

Why do I get the feeling that the only reason the writers gave the Loonatics
motorcycles is that they think kids were still riding motorcycles in the 2000s?

So, as it turns out the vikings' power comes from the horns on their helmets. But apparently these aren't the real vikings, just... I don't know, duplicates of them or something? I honestly have no idea what the heck is going on...

"First we see 'em, now we DON'T! Dis game of Battleship has all been a big distraction!" Ace complains. Fortunately, Rev is somehow able to locate the actual vikings, who are heading for the planetary power grid. If they reach the power core, the planet gets frozen like an ice pop.

As the vikings approach the power core, Gunnar (couldn't you have at least made this guy act like the sort of villain that you'd actually, you know, FIND in a Looney Tunes cartoon?) announces, "LET THE ICE AGE BEGIN!" Apparently this guy got lessons in bad pun-making from Mr. Freeze.

"I AM GENERIC ICE-THEMED CARTOON SUPER-VILLAIN! I WILL
FREEZE THE ENTIRE PLANET BECAUSE THAT IS THE GOAL OF ALL
GENERIC ICE-THEMED CARTOON SUPER-VILLAINS!"

So they use their ice hammer things to freeze the power core. You'd think with how fast Rev is, he would've gotten there before they got the chance to do that, but ah well, the Loonatics show up and fight them while making MORE unfunny one-liners while Tech re-configures the vikings' machine thing to set the vikings on fire, unfreeze everything, and recharge the power core.

Y'know what I just realized? Has there ever been a cartoon short where Bugs
faced off against vikings? Did they ever make a cartoon like that?
If not, they should totally make a cartoon like that.

Back at the Titans' Tower... I mean, the Loonatics' tower thing, Zadavia praises Ace, Lexi, Rev, Tech and Slam for saving the day. Daffy... I mean, Danger is miffed that Zadavia praised everyone but him and complains about this to her, only for her to tell him that he can't change his name. And I will admit, the expression that he makes here IS kind of funny:

Danger realizes that he's in a lousy cartoon.

The end, thank goodness.

Is this show worse than Museum Scream and Cock-a-Doodle Duel? Well, I can't judge a show based on one episode (though I doubt that I'll be watching any of the other episodes since I didn't enjoy this one), so I can't answer that. But was this EPISODE worse than those shorts? Well, no. At least this didn't have a poop joke (I'm serious. Museum Scream had a poop joke. IN A LOONEY TUNE). But was it still bad? Yes, yes it was.

First problem - this show is a Looney Tunes show, and yet it's not funny. The only jokes here are all the painfully unfunny one-liners. Second problem - the characters are not interesting. The voice actors are all doing their best, but the characters themselves are just so BLAH. Their entire personalities can essentially be summed up as "They're Looney Tunes characters except they're also Teen Titans-esque superheroes". Ace is Bugs minus the charm, Lexi is Lola and there's nothing else to her, Danger is blatantly just Daffy except Daffy is funny whereas Danger is not, Slam is Taz in all but name... I admittedly kinda liked Tech, but I think that was mainly because of Kevin Michael Richardson's performance. And Rev is pretty much just there, he doesn't have much in the way of lines or do anything outside of fighting the villains (nice use of Rob Paulsen, guys!). Third problem - at its core, it's just a Teen Titans knockoff. And it's not even a very good one at that. There's no sense of FUN or WHIMSY or ANYTHING that made the Looney Tunes entertaining to watch. It's not the worst Looney Tunes-related thing that I've ever seen, but it's still pretty bad.

And just so we're clear - if you like this show, THAT IS FINE. Go ahead and like it! I'm not judging you! Just because I dislike it doesn't mean that I'm going to give people a hard time about liking it.

To close off this review, here's a picture that perfectly summarizes my reaction to this show:

Back to the Drawing Board - Disney Sequels That We Very Nearly Got

Okay, I know that in my most recent post I said that my next review would be of Loonatics Unleashed. But I didn't say that my next POST would be a review of Loonatics Unleashed. The review is coming, but first, here's another edition of Back to the Drawing Board, where we look at things that didn't even get a bit of test animation.

If you're a child of the 2000s, you're probably familiar with Disney's batch of direct-to-video sequels. From 1994's Aladdin 2: The Return of Jafar to 2008's The Little Mermaid 3: Ariel's Beginning, Disney released a ton of straight-to-DVD follow-ups to a good chunk of their animated films. Some of them even made it into theaters. Who cares if a film didn't need a sequel? It got one anyway. Now, some of these genuinely were pretty good...

But the ones that aren't good really are not good.

With all of the direct-to-video sequels that we DID get, it's interesting to look at a list of the ones that didn't get off the ground. And guess what we're going to be doing today?

Now, I'm perfectly aware that there are a few articles on other sites about this already. But hey, when has being unoriginal ever stopped me before?

Chicken Little 2

I found this on the Disney Wiki. I'm pretty sure it's fanmade, but here it is anyway.

Chicken Little is widely-regarded as one of the weakest entries of the Disney Animated Canon, but I myself do not hate it. I mean, yeah, it's by no means a MASTERPIECE, but I like Chicken Little, Abby, Runt, and Fish as characters and several of the jokes genuinely ARE pretty funny ("CURSE THESE GENETICALLY TINY LEGS!").

That being said, I don't think we really need to see the further adventures of Chicken Little and his friends. Which of course didn't stop the folks at Disney from coming very, very close to making a sequel. I've heard that it was going to be called either Chicken Little 2: Mission to Mars or Chicken Little 2: The Ugly Duckling Story. Judging by the name, I'm guessing that this would've been about Chicken Little and his friends going to Mars. I guess their mindset was, "Well, hey, if it worked for the Brave Little Toaster..."

Oh, and apparently there was also going to be a love triangle between Chicken Little, Abby, and a French sheep. Abby would've felt that she was at a disadvantage and given herself a makeover. I think it's pretty obvious how this would've worked out: Chicken Little would've chosen Abby over the sheep and Abby would've learned that it's best to be yourself and blah-blah-blah... NEXT SEQUEL!

The Jungle Book 3

I couldn't find any concept art for The Jungle Book 3, but I figured I had to
put at least ONE picture in this section, so have this.

I plan on making a more detailed review of The Jungle Book 2 at some point, so I'll just say right now that I don't think that it's particularly good. That being said, their planned thirdquel (is that a word?) does sound like it might've been pretty interesting.

See, they were gonna have Baloo and Shere Khan get captured by poachers and taken to a Russian circus or something. Mowgli and the gang would've rescued them, and Shere Khan would've pulled a Heel-Face Turn and become a good guy. If nothing else, this one DOES sound like it'd be a little more engaging than The Jungle Book 2.

Ironically enough, the plot of this is kind of similar to what the plot of The Jungle Book 2 was originally going to be... specifically, it would've focused on Baloo falling in love with a female bear and having to rescue her from poachers.

On a somewhat related note, I distinctively remember reading another early synopsis for The Jungle Book 2 about Baloo meeting Mowgli's daughter or something. I don't remember the name of the website, but I'm pretty sure I didn't imagine it...

The AristoCats 2

When it comes to Disney movies from the 1970s, The AristoCats was never one of its more popular ones. Heck, even nowadays it seems as though a lot of people regard it as one of Disney's weaker efforts (not to the same extent as Chicken Little, but still). But one thing is keeping the film from being part of the "films Disney doesn't care about even if they aren't even bad films" pile that Robin Hood, The Black Cauldron, and Brother Bear are currently sitting on - Marie (who's not even the main character of the film) is incredibly popular in Japan. I'm not sure how popular she is in America, but Disney seems to think she is. Hence, she gets tons of merchandise while the film's other characters get jack-squat. Personally, I've always preferred Berlioz myself.

How come Berlioz doesn't get as much merchandise as Marie
does? Just look at how cute he is!

So surprise, surprise, this planned sequel to The AristoCats would have focused on Marie. Specifically, she and her brothers were to face off against a jewel thief on a luxury cruise ship. She also would've gotten a love interest (to be honest, I've always liked the fan-couple of Marie and Oliver from Oliver and Company - what do you think the odds are that they would've just used him?*).

Interesting fact - at one point in development of The AristoCats, Thomas O'Malley
had stripes. Is it just a coincidence that they gave him stripes in the concept art?

According to Tod Carter, "This film went through multiple scripts and different incarnations and probably didn't really have a clear vision in the beginning. Our goal was to create that vision and tell a solid story. With the exception of retaining the main characters, we were given a good deal of freedom to create original story." He also said that the ship would've had a cast of characters from places like France, Scotland, England, Spain, places like that to give the film a "European flair".

Now, this one was actually VERY CLOSE to being made. I've heard that voices were being recorded for it - John Goodman was apparently going to voice Thomas O'Malley, and I think Jack Black was going to voice Scat Cat. If that's true, I hope they at least received paychecks. I don't know who the other voices were.

Ah yes, and originally the film was going to be traditionally-animated, but somewhere in production it became a CGI production - and if it sounds weird that they were going to make a CGI sequel to a hand drawn-animated movie, remember that Michael Eisner, who was the CEO of Disney at the time, also wanted to remake classic Disney films like Pinocchio and Dumbo in CGI in order to prove that it was "better" than hand drawn animation** (hmmm, a CGI remake of a hand-drawn Disney film? Doesn't that sound familiar?). Tod Carter admitted that he's not a fan of converting characters to CGI (unlike Disney, who LOVES IT) because "there is an importance in designing for your target medium." According to Tod, had they gone this route the characters wouldn't have had the same softness, which is essential to the characters' charm. Judging by this thing I found online, I'm gonna have to agree - characters from The AristoCats look kind of iffy in CGI:

 

Some characters should really just stay hand-drawn.

Dumbo II

This is another "we were THIS CLOSE to getting it!" project. You probably know that the 2001 Dumbo: 60th Anniversary Edition DVD features a sneak peak of the film. And then the project (obviously) got cancelled, meaning that Disney probably feels pretty stupid for putting that sneak peak on the DVD now.

Dumbo, nobody wants to see your rear end.

Apparently, the film would've taken place ONE DAY after the events of the first film. The circus would've received more baby animals - two bear cubs, a zebra, a hippo, and an ostrich - and they, along with Dumbo and Timothy, would've gotten stuck in New York and having to find their way back to the circus.

I can smell the plush toy sales already!

According to his resume, Broadway performer Danny Rutigliano (whose other connection to Disney is performing Timon in the Broadway adaptation of The Lion King) was to provide the voice of Timothy. I wonder if they were planning on having Dumbo talk in the movie like that Dumbo's Circus show did. Probably not, but I wonder how people would've reacted if they had.

Hercules II: The Trojan War

I was under the impression that Hercules (while a film that I personally like) wasn't exactly looked at positively by Disney. It under-performed at the box office (but to be fair, so did Fantasia), Greeks hated it for playing fast and loose with their mythology, and they don't acknowledge it that much today. Of course, it DID get a TV series (which amusingly enough did indeed have an episode called "Hercules and the Trojan War"), so what do I know?

Anyhow, Hercules II would've focused on Hercules and Meg living in Athens with their daughter, Hebe. When Hercules discovers that his old friend Helen was kidnapped by Paris of Troy, he would've rallied the Greek Army to go and saved her. I don't know how far into production this got before it was cancelled.

It is worth noting, however, that Disney DID get to make a direct-to-video sequel to Hercules in 1998, though. This was Hercules: Zero to Hero, which was just a compilation of episodes from the show bridged by segments featuring Hercules and Meg looking through Herc's yearbook. Just like how Tarzan and Jane was literally just three episodes of the Tarzan TV show bridged by a story about Jane trying to figure out what to get Tarzan for their anniversary. Kind of makes you wonder if they were considering making that a trend.

This was the only home media release of any episode(s)
of the TV series. Fortunately, the whole show is on Disney+.

Pinocchio 2

There have actually been non-Disney sequels to Disney's Pinocchio - specifically, there's Filmation's Pinocchio and the Emperor of the Night (which featured the voices of Scott Grimes, Ed Asner, and Frank Welker... and got Filmation sued by Disney, too)...

And Belvision Studios' Pinocchio in Outer Space (which focused on Pinocchio and a "twurtle" named Nurtle going to outer space to defeat a giant space whale. I am not kidding).

Could Disney's own Pinocchio sequel have topped those? Well, it got cancelled, so we'll never know. In fact, all we DO know about this one is that the story would've had Pinocchio question why life is unfair sometimes. Which is incredibly vague. Who knows, maybe it would've been about Pinocchio and Jiminy Cricket going to Japan and joining a group of ninjas, then fighting a giant catfish voiced by Brad Pitt or something. And now somebody's probably going to write that fanfiction.

Or maybe they would've just taken the lazy route and remade Pinocchio and the Emperor of the Night. Filmation had closed by this point, and the movie's still kind of obscure, so who was gonna complain?

The Seven Dwarfs

Okay, so this is technically a prequel, not a sequel, but eh...

"The Seven Dwarfs" was to be directed by Mike D'lsa (who worked as an animator on films like Hercules and Home on the Range) and written by Evan Spilotopoulos (who actually helped write many of the other direct-to-video Disney sequels). The film would've explained how the Seven Dwarfs met (Dopey and Grumpy would've begun the movie living in a village full of dwarves, and then they would've gone on an adventure and met the other dwarves from there) and how the Evil Queen (whose name would've been revealed to be Narcissa) would've taken the throne from Snow White's father. Ah, yes, and it would've been CGI. Here's a piece of concept art featuring CGI Dopey.

Kind of creepy, isn't it?

As production went on, the film became focused on Dopey, because he and Grumpy are the only dwarves that Disney seems to care about (and even then, they might care about Dopey a little more than Grumpy - notice how Dopey's kid showed up in that Descendants film, but Grumpy's kid did not?***). Eventually Mike D'las left the project, and eventually Disney decided to cancel it. However, we did eventually get to see what the lives of the Seven Dwarfs were like before Snow White came along - Disney's television series The 7D, which I have not seen a single full episode of. But I've heard great things about it!

For those of you too lazy to read all that, here's a summary: Disney almost had its own direct-to-video version of Lord of the Rings starring the Seven Dwarfs.

UPDATE: I have found an animation test for the film! Give it a watch, it's pretty funny.

Say whatever you want about John Lasseter, but if he did thing one thing right, it was putting a stop to the direct-to-video sequels (otherwise, we probably would've had The Jungle Book 7 or The Princess and the Frog 3 or something by now). It is a shame that Disneytoon Studios had to close a few years afterward, because it could've been used for bigger and better things. But hey, at least Disney's days of making awful sequels is behind them!

Uh, okay, let me rephrase that... Disney's days of making awful ANIMATED sequels is behind them...

Never mind.

* Probably not very likely, but hey, they were originally gonna have Cruella DeVille be the villain of The Rescuers, and Penny from that movie was originally going to be the girl that adopts Oliver in Oliver and Company, so...

** Plus, there are at least two CGI direct-to-video sequels to TV specials that were stop-motion. So there's that...

*** While I'm on the subject of that... even if we can accept that somebody had a kid with Dopey, why is the son of Dopey, who's a dwarf, human? Did Dopey marry a human? Who is Dopey's wife?

Let's Watch This - An Episode of "Fish Hooks"

Pop quiz: what do the folks that run Disney Channel love? The answer is SHOWS THAT TAKE PLACE IN HIGH SCHOOL. Ever since the way beginning of the 2000s, Disney Channel's programming has been at least ninety-two percent shows that take place in high school or star kids that go to high school. I think the only tweencom of theirs that DIDN'T focus on some kid in high school was The Suite Life of Zack and Cody (I could be wrong, it's been years since I've watched that show). And most of the cartoons that they showed focused on kids in high school, too. Let's see... The Emperor's New School had Kuzco going to a high school, I'm pretty sure Jake Long went to a high school, Kim Possible is a high school student... it's actually kind of incredible that they were willing to greenlight a show that A) starred kids who were obviously not in high school yet and B) took place over summer vacation which means that they couldn't show the school that they went to at all (Phineas and Ferb).

Which brings us to today's cartoon, Fish Hooks.

Fish Hook revolves around one main joke - they're fish. In high school. That's pretty much it. Episodes focus on such subjects as...

- The girl fish wants to get a perfect picture in the yearbook

- Final exams are approaching, and the main male fish's grades are crappy

- The main male fish's brother becomes a goth

- An Equestria Girls knockoff episode where the characters become humans (or something like that)

- An episode about a school musical

Personally, I've never watched an episode of this show because I always thought that it looked kind of lousy. But I know that there are folks who like it, so I figured "What the heck? I'll give it a watch." Who knows, maybe I'll like it. MAYBE.

The episode that we'll be watching is called "Underwater Boy".

One thing that I do like is that they list the voice talents at the beginning of the episode right after the title card. That's pretty neat - I can't think of any other show that does that...

The episode begins - where else? - at Fishwater High School, where the main male fish Milo (voiced by Kyle "Cory of In The House fame" Massey) is dressed like a magician for some reason. Then the football team comes into the building, led by their coach Richard Simmons Fish. Everybody loves the football team, especially their "MVP", Jocktopus (John DiMaggio).

"Make way for the cliched 'football-playing jock who's also the school bully'
character!"

Much of this scene consists of the characters squealing, yelling, or just SHOUTING REALLY LOUD. It's pretty grating.

Eventually, Milo's brother Oscar (voiced by Rick and Morty creator Justin Roiland) shows up, and Milo says that he's just had a "major life-changing realization". "Please don't tell me that this has anything to do with joining the football team," Oscar begs. But wouldn't you know it, it DOES. They go to see the girl fish Bea (Chelsea Staub), who as it turns out is ALSO totally into football. Oscar tells her that Milo wants to join the football team, but he doesn't know how to play. "I'm just in it for the GA-LO-REEEEEEEEEEEEEY!" Milo says in a rather annoying fashion.

Bea's all "I'll help. What DO you know about football thus far, Milo?" As it turns out, all Milo knows about football is that it involves getting the football over the goalpost. Then you dance. And then he starts dancing. It should be pretty obvious to you my know that Milo's not exactly the smartest fish in the tank.

Also, I know this might be considered a nitpick, but why do Oscar and Bea have hair?
They're fish. Fish don't have hair.

Bea correctly says that this is likely going to be a lot more work than she initially thought, but Milo's all, "Nah, I'm a quick learner!" Four hours later, Bea's tank looks like this:

Regardless, Milo apparently knows how to play football now. He heads off to the tryouts, and there's a funny gag where he initially thinks that he's not the smallest guy trying out - only for it to turn out that the tiny fish next to him is in fact a pufferfish.

Richard Simmons Fish (no, that's not his name, but it's just Richard Simmons as a fish, so I'm just gonna call him that) tells Milo to show them what he's got. Milo then proceeds to dribble the ball, whack it with a tennis racket, and, um, surf on it. What the heck did Bea teach him?

"I'M A LUNATIC! CAN YOU TELL?!"

"THAT'S NOT HOW YOU PLAY FOOTBALL!" Jocktopus points out, but Richard Simmons Fish doesn't care and just cheers Milo on. Milo gets out a catcher's mitt and catches the football, then hikes it and starts dancing. Richard Simmons Fish likes what he sees, even though Jocktopus says that what Milo did is not football. I hate to agree with the school bully, but what Milo did shows that indeed he does not know how to play football.

Richard Simmons Fish announces that Milo is on the team... as their waterboy. "FINALLY, SOME JOCKTO-JUSTICE!" Jocktopus shouts as he slithers off. "Now wait just a minute!" Milo protests... right before he and Richard Simmons Fish just stand there making blank expressions (I guess that's supposed to be them "waiting a minute"). Then Milo complains, "Waterboy doesn't even have to do with anything! I mean, we're already underwater!" But Richard Simmons Fish claims that being waterboy is Milo's "destiny". Then Milo makes this face:

Yeeeeeeeeeeesh...

Milo says that he's quitting the team, and we cut to him at home playing video games. I don't know how video games work underwater. Anyhow, Milo complains that if he stayed as the waterboy he never would've gotten the attention that he wants. Oscar's all "It's not about the ATTENTION! Even if you're just the waterboy, you're still part of the team!" To demonstrate just how important Milo is to the team, in fact, Oscar made a pie chart. And if you take a piece - Milo's piece - away from the pie, it's not a pie anymore. It's just a Pac-Man shape. Milo realizes that he's right - he must embrace his role as waterboy! And then he eats the pie chart because he's an idiot and he doesn't understand that it's not a real pie.

Milo shows up at the field, only to discover that the team's not there - they're playing at the Gecko tank (insert some sort of GEICO reference here). And it's burning hot in the Gecko tank, which means that Milo and the water that he has with him are going to be very, very important to the team today. The geckos look like this:

They also have accents of some sort. I think they're French accents, but I could
be wrong... and no, I don't know why a gecko would be French.

The team is struggling without Milo and his water, and as a result the geckos are clobbering them. The geckos, as it turns out, have water, but they'll only give it to them if they forfeit the game. Thankfully, Milo makes it there just in time and rehydrates the team. Long story short, they win and the Gecko Coach (Dave Wittenberg) - or rather, the Geckoach (ha ha ha ha ha that's not funny), as the credits call him - shouts, "I WILL INVENT A TIME MACHINE AND MAKE YOU SORRY, FRESHWATER HIGH SCHOOL!"

I like the design of that one fish on the right of Jocktopus.

Milo is a hero, and he says that he couldn't have done it without his team - and Richard Simmons Fish, who he promptly dumps water on. Then Bea points out that the water that Milo just used to soak Richard Simmons Fish was the last of the water. Uh-oh...

And then we cut back to Oscar, who's playing a video game. He tells us that he doesn't do football. The end.

I'll admit, that wasn't as bad as I expected it to be, but I wouldn't go so far as to call it a GOOD show. It suffers from many of the same problems show like My Gym Partner's a Monkey have - throwing things popular in other cartoons at the viewer in the hopes that it'll get a laugh. Randomness, characters shouting near-constantly, characters acting like idiots... Milo in particular can get pretty grating. The only character I honestly kinda liked is Oscar. He was okay. Aside from that, there really isn't much going for Fish Hooks.

My apologies for this not being a very funny review. I'll have to review something REALLY bad next time to really get the funny side of my brain going. Let's see, what can I review next time?

That'll do.

Let's Watch This - An Episode of "Father of the Pride"

How was I introduced to Father of the Pride? Well, one time I was in a Wal-Mart or a Target (I can't remember which) and I was in the DVD section and I saw a DVD of the show. Due to the art style and the DreamWorks logo being on it, I assumed that it was some sort of Madagascar spinoff and went on my way. Since that little anecdote is out of the way, let's talk about what Father of the Pride actually IS.

Father of the Pride was DreamWorks Animation's attempt at creating the next Simpsons. Jeffrey Katzenberg thought up the idea on a visit to Siegfried and Roy's Secret Garden in Las Vegas. It stars a family of white lions: the bumbling dad Larry (voiced by John Goodman), the closer to Earth wife Kate (voiced by Cheryl Hines), the teenage daughter Sierra (Danielle Harris), the young son Hunter (Daryl Sabara), and Larry's father-in-law Sarmoti (Carl Reiner). Larry is part of Siegfried and Roy's show. So it's kind of like The Lionhearts, but for adults - right down to only getting one season. And this was the 2000s pre-Kung Fu Panda DreamWorks Animation, which had a habit of being pretty hit-or-miss... sometimes you'd get the first two Shrek movies, other times you'd get Shark Tale or Bee Movie. So there's a red flag right there.

The series debuted on NBC in the August of 2004 after heavy promotion during NBC's coverage of the Summer Olympics. DreamWorks had high hopes for it, but it failed for a couple of different reasons...

1) There had been so much advertising for the show that by the time it actually aired, audiences were tired of it.

2) Before the premiere, Roy was attacked by one of his tigers, which made DreamWorks and NBC reluctant to go through with the show, but Roy and Siegfried urged them to go for it. Despite that, after what had happened audiences weren't very comfortable with watching a cartoon about Siegfried and Roy's lions.

3) Many airings of the show's episodes were interrupted by updates on the 2004 presidential election.

4) The show was very expensive and time-consuming to make. Each episode cost an estimated minimum of $2 million to produce.

5) The Parents Television Council launched a campaign against the show. Why? Well, even if the show was intended for adults, it was still a DreamWorks Animation production and advertised as being "from the creators of Shrek", which could've resulted in parents assuming the show was family-friendly and letting their kids watch it.

6) The show itself got negative reviews besides all of this.

So the show wound up getting cancelled after one season. A few years back, I decided like an idiot that I would watch the show and see if it was any good. I watched two episodes: one focused on Larry and Kate assuming that their daughter was taking catnip, which was apparently a drug for lions. The other had Donkey from Shrek showing up for some reason (and yet, as far as animation studios participating in self-promotion goes, it still doesn't make me cringe as much as Ralph Breaks the Internet). I was tempted to do a review of the latter episode, but instead today we'll be watching the episode "And the Revolution Continues".

The episode begins with Larry watching home movies of Sierra when she was a cub, much to Sierra's embarrassment. After demonstrating for first-time viewers that her personality is that of every other teenage girl on TV, Larry mentions that Siegfried and Roy are taking him, Sierra, and her mother out to dinner that night.

I'm not comfortable with the fact that they made the daughter lion so curvy.
Did they really want adults to be attracted to a character that A) is a lion
and B) is a teenager?

Meanwhile, little Hunter is playing with his Lord of the Rings action figures. Because it wouldn't be a 2000s DreamWorks production that isn't Kung Fu Panda or a traditionally animated film without some pop culture references! Sarmoti is bummed because he had to give up a date with a "sure thing" in order to watch Hunter while the others go out to dinner. "This gal's easier to get into than Florida State!" he says.

Uh... I don't get it. Florida State... that's a college, right? Is it known for being easy to get into? Huh?

Boy, Kimba the White Lion has really let himself go...

Cut to that night at the restaurant. Apparently, Siegfried and Roy can just bring ferocious carnivores into a public restaurant without freaking anybody out. I know the lions aren't going to eat any of the other customers, but I'm pretty sure bringing a man-eating beast like a lion into a public restaurant is frowned upon. Anyway, Sierra goes over to a lobster tank and makes small-talk with one lobster voiced by Danny DeVito. I like Danny DeVito, so maybe this won't be so bad after all...

Then again, I like John Goodman too but even he couldn't keep people watching
this show...

As Larry and Kate talk about how Sierra doesn't like Larry anymore, the lobster, whose name is Emerson, tells Sierra that he's not afraid of being eaten - he's afraid of being silenced. What he means by this is that he's a political prisoner, "FBI File #16324". "The liberal media won't touch me!" he says. "This face won't sell ties!" Then he gives Sierra some newsletters in a bottle and asks her to deliver them for him.

Once they're seated, Miguel and Tulio... I mean, Siegfried and Roy tell the lions that Barbara Streisand is coming to town, and they're going to put on a private magic show for her. To celebrate, they have ordered for the lions a bust of Barbara Streisand's head made out of salami. From what I can gather, the main joke of this scene - and pretty much every scene with Siegfried and Roy in it - is that Siegfried and Roy act like idiots and have funny accents. So if you don't find either of those things funny, my advice for you is not to watch this show.

By the way, despite how involved they were in the show Siegfried and Roy didn't voice their animated counterparts. Instead, Siegfried is voiced by Julian Holloway and Roy is voiced by Futurama voice actor David Herman (he's the voice of, as Professor Farnsworth would say, WEEEEEEEEEEEEEERNSTROM!).

Look at this. It looks like a mannequin you'd find in a Las Vegas gift shop
or something...

Meanwhile, Sarmoti  has decided to take Hunter to a bar. Get it? 'Cause Hunter's just a kid, and a bar is totally inappropriate for a kid! Ha ha ha!

No, I don't know why Hunter has a Cone of Shame. Maybe they explained that
in the first episode.

Sarmoti leaves Hunter with some darts to establish what an unfit babysitter he is while he goes over to the bar and flirts with a lioness (voiced by Jennifer Coolidge). After she claims that they can't date because he's afraid of commitment, he decides to do some lying and claim that he's raising his grandson all by himself. It works.

As Larry, Kate, and Sierra leave the restaurant, Sierra reads some of the newsletters and realizes that the FDA is indeed in the pocket of the pharmaceutical industry. Larry sees her desire to save Emerson as an opportunity to make Sierra like him again and sneaks back into the restaurant to save Emerson.

Once Emerson is safe and sound at the lions' place, he dubs Larry an idiot for buying beer that comes in a six-pack because the plastic rings are dangerous to sea life. "We need to engineer a campaign to cut these plastic rings before they're disposed of!" he says.

Suddenly, I have a craving for seafood...

By morning, Sierra has whipped up posters for arctic drilling, medicare, cloning, and other issues like that. "You know, kid, you've got a SPARK!" Emerson tells her. "You can really change the world!" As Larry comes over and picks up the TV remote, he says, "You know how I heal the world? With laughter!" Well, that's great and all, but how about actually SUPPLYING THAT LAUGHTER? Because so far, I haven't laughed at this show ONCE.

Anyhow, Larry tries to turn on the TV so he can watch some George Lopez, but it won't turn on. He asks what's wrong with the TV, to which Emerson replies, "You mean the mind control box? I cut the cord! Your mind is a vase! Fill it with FLOWERS, not with LIES!" Larry is not pleased by this, but he knows that if he boils Emerson in a pot and eats him with a side of butter Sierra will be mad, so he just has to shut up and take the lobster's rambling about politics and the issues and crap like that.

Please eat him. Please. Do it, Larry!

Meanwhile, Siegfried and Roy get an unwelcome visit from their annoying friend Dick Cheney. Yeah, he's in this show too. Don't ask why, I have no idea. And much like with Siegfried and Roy, he's voiced NOT by the actual Dick Cheney but rather by the great Mark Moseley. I guess either the actual Dick Cheney read the script and didn't want to be involved or (far more likely) they didn't even ask him if he was okay with them using his likeness. I wonder if he ever even saw this episode.

They also mention Al Gore at one point. That's not really interesting, but I
couldn't think of a funny comment to make here, so...

Cut to the whole lion family, plus Emerson, at the bar. Emerson complains that there's no "aquatic access" so sea creatures can get around the place. We also get TWO - count 'em - TWO jokes about how Sarmoti taught Hunter inappropriate expressions. Get it? It's funny because a kid just used the phrase "that time of the month". Why don't you just have him start cursing while you're at it?

That night, Larry is woken up by Emerson and Sierra holding some sort of rally against the bar and its not having any aquatic access or whatever. There's a zebra who sounds like Bender from Futurama, and he suggests that they torch the place.

I was gonna make a joke about Marty from Madagascar here, but the zebra sounds
so much like Bender that I couldn't resist making this joke...

"BITE MY FURRY BLACK-AND-WHITE [CENSORED]!"

Larry tells the Bender-voiced zebra and the other animals that they all need a hobby and to get the heck out of his house. Then Sierra reveals that she's not going to school anymore because blah-blah-blah political crap. Larry tells her that she has to go to school because, in his own words, "Trying to stay awake while the teacher says boring stuff builds character! END OF DISCUSSION!"

Larry is just as fed up with Emerson as I am and decides to kick him out. Alas, Sierra won't let him. Meanwhile, Sarmoti is chilling with the lioness he met at the bar, but Hunter keeps distracting him, so he distracts the kid with a bottle of alcohol and some cigarettes. Grandpa of the year, everybody!

As for Larry, he's decided to take Emerson to the Mirage Aquarium.

Meh. I prefer the Living Seas at EPCOT.

He tosses Emerson into the tank. Siegfried and Roy, meanwhile, are hanging out with Barbara Streisand... and apparently the Mirage Aquarium doubles as the restaurant from before's lobster tank or whatever, because she spots the lobster and announces that she wants him for dinner. And no, they didn't get the actual Barbara Streisand to voice herself either (Jeannie Elias does her voice here).

What exactly is the point of having a celebrity appear on your show "as themselves"
if you're not going to actually ask the celebrity if they'd like to voice their caricatures?
What, did they just pick Barbara Streisand's name out of a hat or something?
And weren't they at all afraid that she might see the show, get offended, and sue them?

Back at the house, Sierra chews Larry out for what happened to Emerson and storms off, then Larry's best friend, a gopher named Snack (voiced by Orlando Jones)... yes, that's really his name... shows up and gives Larry some good news: Emerson hasn't been eaten yet! Barbara plans on eating him tonight at the villa! And coincidentally enough, Siegfried and Roy are taking Larry to the villa tonight, so he can save Emerson!

I'm not even going to tell you how the rest of this scene goes, because
there's no way that I can keep this blog PG if I tell you about the joke that comes next.

Oh, and then Kate finally finds out about Sarmoti's using Hunter to hook up with a girl. Alas, Sarmoti takes off before she can read him the riot act. Darn, I was really hoping she and/or Larry would beat the crap out of him.

Siegfried and Roy arrive with Larry at the villa where Barbara is staying, and Larry puts his plan to save Emerson into motion. He signals Snack to cut the power, resulting in another appearance from Dick Cheney. While Siegfried and Roy are (what else?) acting like idiots, Larry frees Emerson, who promptly battles a hungry Barbara. Blah blah blah, stuff happens and Sierra thinks that her dad is awesome for saving Emerson. Emerson, by contrast, isn't grateful at all, and this makes Sierra realize how much of a jerk Emerson is. She throws him into a storm drain and that's the end of that plotline. I hope Danny DeVito at least got a nice paycheck.

Then we cut to Hunter and his friends playing with the Lord of the Rings action figures. Kate has forced Sarmoti  to dress as Gandalf. He offers to buy the kids some beer, but Hunter tells him that there's no alcohol in Middle Earth. Sarmoti says, "Crap." And then the episode ends.

I had no idea that Sarmoti auditioned for Gandalf!









Clearly, they made the right choice in casting Ian McKellen over him.

This sucked. For one thing, there's no reason for this to star animals - my best guess is that we're supposed to find it funny that a lobster of all things is arguing about politics, but it's not. It's just stupid. Siegfried and Roy are not funny, they're ungodly annoying. Grandpa Lion is not funny, he's an unlikable jerk. I can tolerate the other characters fine, even if they're just blatant stereotypes. The animation is blah. Every joke falls flat. The cliches are blatant. John Goodman and Danny DeVito are clearly trying their hardest but they can't make anything good with this script. It's just... who was this supposed to appeal to? I don't think an adult would want to watch a computer-animated lion make raunchy jokes, and it's certainly not appropriate for kids. Even if the show hadn't been protested, I don't think it would've become as popular as something like The Simpsons or Family Guy. I guess it was an interesting experiment for DreamWorks, but it's unappealing, unfunny, and just unpleasant.

Side note, apparently DreamWorks Animation and Jeffery Katzenberg really want to forget that this show ever happened, at least if TV Tropes is to be believed. So even they don't feel any pride over Father of the Pride.

On the bright side, the theme song is an awesome cover of "Viva Las Vegas" by John Goodman. So there's that.