Episode Review: Hail to the Chief

This is my, what, my fourth Fairly Odd Parents related post? Believe me, I wanted it to die after the last one, but its a-segment's stuck on the brain. Someone needs to talk about it, and I just want to get my head cleared of FOP so I can go back into reviewing obscurities.

Last time I talked about a FOP episode that was actually sorta banned for a while. When that episode was taken down, its a-segment was taken along with it. Due to that, it wasn't as easy to find the episode on the air, it didn't get as much exposure as the rest of the show. If it did, someone would've covered either episode. Someone could've covered either episode. Someone should've covered either episode. I talked about Twistory, it's time I talk about Hail to the Chief.

In my Twistory review, I brought up how this and Hail to the Chief would've made my worst FOP episode list. I had made that before I saw these episodes again, and honestly I should've seen them first to make a more even list. If you want an idea on where those would've landed, Twistory would've been at number four, and Hail to the Chief would've probably made it to number one.

Keeping with a certain theme, this episode is centered on politics, and going the way of any Nick show that touches upon this topic, stop me if you've heard this one before. A boy on the lower end of the social hierarchy (the main protagonist for example) tires of getting the short end of the stick when it comes to getting certain luxuries had by the class president (the most popular student in school). So runs for class president. Hijinks ensue.

Okay, for context, Timmy gets mad that he doesn't get cake during a contrived lunch special due to the class presidents, the popular boys, Tad and Chad, having perks that allow them direct access. And Timmy decides to run for class president, getting into office due to an incident preventing everyone else from getting to class before the voting process. Since this was due to the popular kids giving out free cake and everyone got sick from it, I imagine this would lead to a sense of mistrust and would lead to a conflict where Timmy would veer down the same path and see how difficult it is to oversee the world at-

Nah, Timmy wins through one vote he made himself. Ed, Edd n' Eddy did this much better and I hate that episode. Come to think of it, I hate that show more than I hate FOP. But there is some conflict that's holding Timmy back from honoring his position. Aside from one idiotic secret service joke where Chester and AJ go into the same bathroom stall as Timmy, the one thing keeping Timmy from honoring his role... he's unable to talk to Trixie Tang.

To those coming in, that's it. That's the central conflict. This is where the three writers threw their hands up. A petty, petty, oh so petty conflict. Timmy's willing to give up his presidency and stand up to the popular kids just so he could talk to Trixie. But maybe I'm just overreacting. Didn't you know? Watergate happened because Richard Nixon wanted to talk to a girl but his agents wouldn't let him, quite a clever reference from the same show who couldn't do justice to I Love Lucy, Seinfeld, Oprah or even the weather channel.

Now you may be thinking, "Oh, you see though there's no chance they could've come up with something better." Akshully... They could have some conflict between Timmy and his friends. He could fire them due to their intrusive nature and it could lead to a massive falling out, or perhaps the seeds for a revenge plan with them aiding Tad and Chad in taking Timmy down. Or if you wanna play it safe, go the obvious power to the head route. It would've been predictable but it would've worked on a moral teaching basis. I don't trust this show to do allusions to political scandals, I imagine they would've made Nixon Hitler incarnate or Andrew Jackson a Hannibal Lecter-type whack-job.

The payoff isn't any better either. Timmy loses his position due to him siding with an uncool school club, he doesn't even get to have that talk with Trixie (and I don't mean a talk, I mean that talk. The kind of talk I'd sell my family out to. Why else would he drop everything for that?), and then it ends with Timmy getting an affectionate dogpile from Elmer and the phlegm brigade, and naturally, since it's close to the end of the episode, Cosmo and Wanda don't give a shit and laugh it off. Come to think of it, that has happened quite a bit in the previous seasons.

This episode, in political terms, was a big nothing burger. It had nothing to say about politics in general and it had no good conflict (petty conflict doesn't count unless it leads to something more interesting.) It reeks of the kind of episode that's made to pad out the two-segment requirement. I'm the kind of person who gets more angry over predictable crap and middle-of-the-road tripe than what other critics get angry over, and this is up there.

I'd rather watch one of each episode of Days Like These and That 80s Show, talk about both and determine which show was better. Don't count on this coming to fruition, even I'm doubtful.