Scenes I Misremembered

A long time ago, I talked about movie scenes that occurred differently than I remembered, but a lot of you probably never heard of that. Nuff said, I'm gonna go over stuff from cartoons that I remembered differently, whether I didn't focus on the finer details or something else. These are gonna go by quick, some at least.

Spoiler warning

Mucha Lucha: Chinche

Remember this show? Mucha Lucha is considered to be the first television cartoon show animated in flash, by people who never heard of John Callahan's Quads. Anyway, I used to watch this show a lot when I was younger on Cartoon Network, and it's pretty good. This episode was released in the show's first season. I remember watching it for the first time, I had to leave the room for a few seconds, and from then all I got from this episode was that The Flea was a jerk to his cousin, and he hated him for plot's sake.

But when I returned to this episode years later, it was the exact opposite. I left the room around the time The Flea went through a prank where an elephant was released from a gift Chinche gave him. At first I thought it was just something that was in The Flea's imagination, but no, it was real. In fact, I completely spaced on Chinche intentionally icing out The Flea and attempting to steal his friends.

And then the climax. I did see the flashback to Chinche's birthday where The Flea gave him diapers. Hear me out, Chinche had worn diapers back then, but that was a secret, and because The Flea made it known to people accidentally, Chinche held it against him ever since, and of course they make peace. Looking back at this episode, it really made the show much better than I remembered it, and gave me some grander respect for what would be a more comedic character, The Flea cares deeply for his friends and family, he was the heart and the humor of the group, Buena Girl was the brains and the conscious and Ricochet was the brawn and the mouth.

CatDog: Dem Bones

This one's gonna be brief. This episode centers on Dog stealing the bones from a T-Rex exhibit while sleepwalking, and CatDog needs to return it lest they want to face museum jail time. During the climax where CatDog confront the museum guard while puppeting the fossil. I remembered it differently, in that I thought Cat was more into scaring the guard as payback for hassling them, but really, he was just trying to avoid getting caught and wanted to do a brief scare.

Hey Arnold!: Helga and the Nanny

In a review I did of this episode, I alluded to a false memory I had with this episode. I remember Helga arguing with a haggard old woman, and I assumed it was this episode, but obviously that wasn't the case. There was crossed wires between this and Crabby Author, best I can say.

King of the Hill: Hanky Panky

Now, I think a lot of people know how this went, but just to get you on track, Buck Strickland faces scrutiny from his wife, things are thrown out of wack and Buck's piece of ass Debbie wants to seduce Hank, and she dies at the end. What could this be leading to? Well, I thought Luanne died at the end. Both she and Debbie were blondes... and this seems embarrassing.

The only other Debbie I knew was the one from Wild Thornberries, so younger me assumed all cartoon blondes were named Debbie, so I was like, shit, they killed off "Debbie" (Luanne), if this actually happened, that would've made King of the Hill interesting, in that they jumped the shark higher than The Simpsons did.

But obviously, this didn't happen, hence my shock that Luanne was alive and well. If she could survive a propane explosion, she could survive anything, but to be fair... rest in peace Brittney Murphy.

Invader Zim: First Episode

I never saw much of Invader Zim growing up, so naturally I wasn't able to really soak in the show's humor, wherever it applied. This is one of two episodes I will go over. For the first episode, when Dib lost at the end I assumed he was hauled away by Zim's Roboparents. But chances are I mixed this up with the conclusion of that one episode of Teen Titans where Robin goes to the mountains to train with an old master.

For the actual ending, Dib's weapon of choice was destroyed, and he just gave up. It was funny, and established the show's firm balance between darkness and hilarity. To be fair, I didn't see this episode as much when it was new.

Invader Zim: Dark Harvest

Yep, the big one, depending on who you ask. There were a couple of things I didn't remember correctly. Firstly, what happened to Torque. I had assume Dib was gonna try and find a secret contact, but Zim murdered him. Then I thought, wait a second, nobody except Gretchen likes Dib. Nope, turns out Dib lost an otherwise apathetic Torque and Dib's realization was more comedic given the circumstances. It also didn't dawn on me why there were feathers, then lol, pigeon head.

Then the ending. I had assumed Zim took away Dib's vocal cords and made him sound like a cow... past me was not very bright. I didn't know the theme of the episode but Zim was stealing organs to clear a physical due to his anatomy being a giveaway he wasn't human. But, here's the actual thing. Lungs were the last thing Zim needed, he took one of Torque's, and he took one of Dib's, having replaced everyone's organs with random items, and for Dib, a tipping cow toy was the replacement for him.

I assumed Dib couldn't speak, but it turns out, yes he could, the only reason he made the cow noise was because, lungs are needed to breathe, and the cow toy was it. Once more, it was funnier than I remembered it, and I love the show for it.

Odd SpongeBob Nightmare

I have weird dreams, some of which involving cartoons, otherwise standard dream weirdness. I had one where SpongeBob and Patrick travel to Rock Bottom for some reason, and as they descend, their faces become more distorted. Well it turns out this was built on a forgotten memory. This was actually me remembering an episode of Rocko's Modern Life, Carnival Knowledge, where Rocko and Heffer ride a roller coaster and the g-force leads to the faces I saw in my nightmare.

I rarely ever saw Rocko's Modern Life back then, have mercy how times do change.

Bonus: The Simpsons: Various Scenes

This wasn't substantial enough to justify a full section, and a lot of them are the same. To sum up, I thought most scenes in The Simpsons were shorter than they actually were. Some examples include the climax of the hockey game in that episode, Marge's flashbacks in the aerophobia episode and the fate of Ozzie Smith in Homer at the Bat.

Obviously, these were longer than I recall, and that sums that up.

The Worst Classic Simpsons Episode

So, long ago I have made a few posts giving some choice words to particular classic episodes of The Simpsons. Now, I'm sick to the back teeth of people complaining about the newer seasons, but I didn't just single those episodes out spitefully. Though looking back, I was incredibly out of line. I'm sorry The Cartridge Family, I should've known the moral was that Homer Simpson was the kind of person who shouldn't own a gun. I'm sorry Bart Gets Hit By a Car, I misconstrued the climax and assumed Marge willingly bungled a settlement. I'm sorry Moaning Lisa, the a segment was the best thing while the b segment was incredibly underwhelming. I'm sorry There's No Disgrace Like Home, you were only the tip of the ice burg when it came to favoritism toward dysfunctional families, thank you Casa Paradisio and Malcolm in the Middle.

And I just hate A Car in Every Garage, Three Eyes on Every Fish on the grounds of being too on the nose with political sentiments, of course it would err toward one direction over the other.

In truth, there is only one truly detestable episode of The Simpsons during its peak years. One that still pisses me off to this day, and every time I think about it, it gets worse. And that episode, is War of the Simpsons. It was written by John Swartzwelder, one of the more heralded writers of The Simpsons. I'm sure I've seen some of his other episodes at some point, but because of his reputation, I need to hold him to that standard, and John, I am disappointment.

Right off the bat, this episode is off. The premise is that Homer and Marge go to a marriage conselor retreat after Homer gets drunk and makes an advance on Maude Flanders. Does that seem like something Homer Simpson would do? After the events of Homer Badman later on, I'd say the woman who never heard of Homer Simpson had a hell of a time ghost writing this episode, after going back in time of course.

This has the same level of off as There's No Disgrace Like Home, in terms of established personalities that would radically change over the years, but that had the excuse of being made in the first season, when the writers were trying to lay the foundation. Even the visuals seem off, too many dynamic angles that make this feel like a retelling of a Creepypasta. I found a scene from this episode online, and I had to pull out after four seconds because my gut sank for how quickly things escalated.

If you want a good Homer drunk flashback, Homer's Night Out is the superior choice for some hilarious absurdity.

After that, it's all fluff. There's an uncomfortable scene with Marge venting her fustrations, wow, and this was only within the second season, it's almost as if it was just forced in for the sake of having a conflict, and if I don't like the person I am supposed to be siding with, you have a horribly executed episode. Homer decides to go fishing and catch an elusive catfish, oh gee, I wonder if this episode is gonna end with Homer giving up the catfish to please his cunt of a wife- that's exactly what happened.

You know, for a show that built itself on smart humor and subversion, this is as by the numbers as you can get, in terms of conflict and resolution. It would've been much better if Homer got rid of the fish and he didn't have to.

"Okay, I would rather get rid of the fish, and so goes that problem!"

"I actually wanted you to be open to resolve our problems and save our marriage."

"D'oh!"

Or perhaps the fish could talk and give them both advice to better fix their marriage. Or perhaps Homer could twist it to Marge driving him to drink and both would realize they're both destructive to one another, and would work to fix things.

What we got here was just hollow. Keep in mind, both had faced trouble with their relationship before. Not once. Not twice. Not thrice. Some Enchanted Evening, The Mysterious Voyage of Our Homer, possibly more before or after. The fact that there is more marital dysfunction that occurs after this, the fact that Homer's alcoholism is played for comedy more often and rarely shows the same results as what occurred earlier in the episode, and the fact that the only time Homer would ever go as far as sexual assault was through a pure coincidence, it shows how worthless this episode is. What can we take away from this? Well, I guess this episode reflected the show's misandry. The show has always been liberal.

Lisa the Simpson has more worth than this episode, at least there it reflected Lisa's degradation, and at most just served as an ego boost. Every time I go back to this episode, it is more and more painful, and if it were up to me, at least I'm entitled to half of her shit. Just because such attitudes are justified that doesn't make it any more pleasent. I had more fun watching most of the newer episodes of The Simpsons than this, I knew where I stood with those, and I'm referring to pre-season 20 stuff definitely, but some later season stuff applies as well.

I was gonna show some select quotes from a blog that reviewed this episode, but I decided not to, so there's my explanation, the end. It sucks.

Teen Titans Review: Movie Night One

 This episode is interesting to me, in that when I decided to seek out the show on the internet, this was the first episode I looked for. Although I was opposed to horror back in the day, I actually remember really liking this episode, as if it predicted my growing development of like for the horror genre. Is there anything actually wrong with this episode? Well, let's go over it piece by piece.

Episode Transition

The episode starts with Toon4Thought terrorizing a video store, this was before Twitter became as much as a twinkle in Jack Dorsey's eye. Okay, poor joke, but I really don't like the guy, anyone in the cartoon community frankly, and Control Freak is the perfect caricature of how overly passionate fanboys can be.

The titans go to stop him, obviously do, the Cyborg eating enemy gag was a highlight for me because he's the most entertaining character in the show IMO and for their efforts they are given a free copy of a horror movie, and it's the ever typical so scary we don't even see what's happening on screen, but take our word for it. Not that it has any consequence to episodes that have these, I mean The Bernie Mac Show did something like this, and it was one of my favorite episodes of the show.

Anyway, the stoic Raven is pushed into a corner when she is accused of being afraid of the movie, and the crux behind what happens next is a spoiler so I'm not saying anything on it yet. I will say however that shit begins to turn weird, gradually, for instance, how does a cymbal crashing monkey activate, by itself? And keep in mind I'm questioning something that is actually realistic. I mean to be fair this monkey looks far less freaky than what they would normally look like, nice subversion I guess.

So anyway, we get our plot, the titans begin disappearing one by one, and one thing I kinda like is that if you pay close enough attention when seeing it a second time, you can get a better understanding of the twist, and I guess I'll say it now. Raven is the source of all of this, she has her anxiety pent up and it is coming all out, and the order in white the titans get taken away actually makes sense when you think about it.

Beast Boy is taken away first because he is otherwise the most annoying and Raven was annoyed he would accuse her of being scared. Robin was taken next only because he came close to cracking the code, and I guess Starfire's annoying enough that Raven would take any opportunity. It's actually kinda clever when you think about it, and at least compared to the initial part of the Trigon saga, the visuals in this episode are genuinely creepy, although the resolution, while making sense, seems a little predictable, like no shit she should confront her fear and admit to being afraid to take down the menace.

And though the show falls into a common web of things being resolved almost completely, the fact Raven was behind this actually makes it feel more logical, if she were behind all of this, of course the Titans wouldn't be taken far.

Final Thoughts

This is honestly one of my more tolerable episodes, it had an interesting idea or at least executed itself as good as it should've, along with some genuinely creepy moments. I want to favor episodes otherwise in a vacuum, because the show doesn't force any weight onto you and thus you would question things the more you think about more serious episodes.

For a little bonus, the episode got me thinking about Beast Boy being taken first. One time, I saw a tweet claiming Beast Boy was African American, basing it solely off of the Teen Titans cartoon, and there was Titans that made Starfire African American. It's ironic how Starfire was used in an episode allegorizing racism, while Beast Boy being taken out first reminds me of the "black guy always dies first" trope in horror. Maybe that's why, or maybe I'm hung up on Troq, who knows?

Teen Titans Review: Russian Captain America

 Before I get into this, I want to make something clear. I'm well aware Red Star is an actual character in the DC universe, but whether or not his backstory in the show is consistent with that in the comics is something I'm not too sure about. I will view the episode in a vacuum as a result.

One thing I have noticed about many of Teen Titans' characters is that many are... derivative, to say the least. Now sure, they are their own characters, but for some you gotta wonder. Aqua Lad? Any connection to Aqua Man? Bumble Bee, kinda reminds me of Wasp. Mala, I was gonna say he was just an edgy clone of Gorilla Grodd, but holy shit, both are their own characters in the comics. They even have their own human torch, who I have a feeling was favored so heavily by 20th Century Fox, they contacted Michael B. Jordan then and there.

Now I'm not saying DC was begging for a lawsuit, but it's fair to question how far inspiration can be stretched. Now you're probably wondering why I'm starting out with this. Simply put, there was an episode that had a Russian Captain America. He's known as Red Star, but previously Starfire until he had to change his name due to the known Starfire already having the title.

They have an entire episode dedicated to him basically, so let's get into it, or more into the character because little else of the episode sticks with me.

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The titans travel to Russia to take on a threat, but we first get introduced to a gentle creature, who we know we'll get to know more of later on.

At some point, the titans get separated and Starfire is rescued by Red Star, where we get some backstory. Tell me if this is familiar.

The weakest link in the army is selected to take part in a super soldier program, and is transformed into the greatest Ameri- I mean Russian soldier. They were reeeeeeeeeal subtle here. Something about incorporating elements of Captain America into a character from a country that has not only been at odds with the US since World War II and has laid seeds for further conflict with their attacks on Ukraine, I dunno does this seem wrong to anyone?

Look, Russia has lost any opportunity for sympathy these days, so perhaps this episode just aged like milk in terms of sympathizing with Russians.

Although, I'll give them some credit, they do something different with Red Star. He confines himself in his base due to his energy being unstable. He has to drain himself every now and again to keep himself from going nuclear. I mean you could say Russia tried to compete with the US, who had turned their loss in the space race against the Russians, and they wound up making a super soldier program that proved to hold consequences.

Red Star is an interesting character in principle, but it's hard not to see where the Captain America comparisons lie. And that's really all I can get out of this episode, everything else I forgot about. They deal with a big threat and Red Star opts to sacrifice himself by using all of his energy, then he flies up into space and becomes... his name.

And that's It

Red Star overshadowed the episode for me, there was nothing about it I recalled other than scenes with him, and that's a bad thing because he overshadows the main roster for me in terms of interest. I would've written him off as a Captain America rip-off here, but I can see where it would work given the tension between the US and Russia. Heck, if they were not opposed to crossovers, perhaps we could've got a good comic book where the Russians create their own Captain America and both super soldiers spar.

I'm not even gonna say that this is a bad episode, because I don't remember enough of it to judge it. Aside from one thing, we get a typical gross food gag, and that seems to be a common takeaway for the show when it comes to anime tropisisms, food, and over the top expressions. 

Teen Titans Review: Puberty(?) One

It's been ages since I did a cartoon review. I want to do this to show I'm not dead and because I want to relive some old memories, and what better way to do that than by taking the piss out of Teen Titans again?

I had stopped reviewing episodes of the show because I wore out my choices more egregious episodes, and thus I could not offer any meaningful feedback to episodes I simply didn't have any connection to.  But the more I thought about it, some came back into my conscious, so this may not be the only new episode review you'll see.

So I don't forget, I may cover the Red Star episode next time, and perhaps the movie night episode and the Atlas episode.

Today, I'm gonna cover that one episode where Starfire got these bizarre changes, I'm pretty sure it's supposed to be an allegory for puberty, but let's find out, while I also throw shade at Starfire some.

Episode

The structure of this episode is unique, in that it is carried out in a storybook fashion; a narrator provides the details, well mostly. The story behind this is that Starfire gets a big ass pimple, and true to her character, she is flagrantly unaware of human customs and thus would not understand that everyone gets pimples... although to be fair that is fucking gargantuan. So, maybe I'm just an asshole.

There is one weird thing I noticed about this episode, even as a kid. In some scenes, characters' eyes are weird. This is noticeable on Beast Boy and Raven, where their eyes are less like the anime-type, and more like the Timmverse type (for reference, Alfred Pennyworth in Batman TAS and that one episode of Static Shock)

It wasn't for a sight gag, and as far as I know never happened anywhere else. I don't know what happened with this and why they did it, but it was weird. The first time I watched it, I cut out after the bathroom scene, and it always felt like some kind of fever dream to me, moreso than Whatever Happened to Robot Jones.

So to be fair, Starfire confides with Raven over the growth and she basically shares my impulse sentiment, that it's no big deal. But for the sake of a plot, things get worse. They always get worse, as more stuff happens to Starfire and she tries to hide it. As it happens, I'm like, what is the angle here? Is it just in a vaccum? I mean to be fair, why not have it where each Titan goes through a weird scenario and it is all just in a vaccum, it'd make for some good diversions from the action.

During a fight with Plasmus, who if you didn't know, would get his redesign in this episode after getting exposed to more toxic waste, and even in spite of this, he is still able to turn back to normal when he is not awake, and this has never been explained in the show, do I look like the kind of guy who reads comic books? It's clear this show has a certain niche in mind, but if we have to read comics just to understand the characters, though many of them were changed for the show, you'd be hung up on a lot of confusing details.

But to this show's credit, as I saw the new Plasmus first, it was a good thing I saw this episode after that so I wasn't caught off too much.

Anyway, the fight, and Starfire winds up getting exposed and in a bizarre twist... her fears are well founded as she is laughed at by everyone. Okay, I have always felt the show takes the obvious routes when it comes to most things and rarely ever tries to subvert expectations, because when they do, it leaves me confused or agitated.

The reason they did this was to give justification for Starfire leaving the planet with no reservations, but because they needed to fill more time, they had to include that scene, and drag it out a bit, lest they wanted to subliminally voice their contempt for Starfire. And yeah... she's a mess. I hate to know what she was like in the comics, because it seems here she was lobotomized considerably and I cannot take the character seriously. It is especially a problem when we get to episodes like Troq, where the emotional weight lies on her shoulders, and yeah, as someone who understood The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, the racism allegory flew right over my head, but to be fair the greater implications of Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle also did.

I bring up Troq, because I feel like this episode might've also served as an allegory for a real world occurrence. Puberty. The mutations Starfire goes through occur for no particular reason, at least that's how it would seem at first, but when we get there. Starfire travels to a distant planet for solitude, and comes across a mysterious woman whose eyes suggest she has something to hide, and we go into a favored trope in action shows.

An exposition dump.

The puberty theory comes into play when the woman goes into a Tamaranian phase, one that is completely normal, but oh shit, we still have a few minutes of run time, let's have this woman turn out to be a cannibal and up the anti on the phase by having Starfire rendered helpless in a cocoon. I know they needed something to push the plot along, but it feels kinda... rough. As if the writers were backed into a corner multiple times in desperate need of pushing things along.

Starfire leaving earth? Make everyone laugh at her and not feel welcome. The cause? Relegated to an info dump on a growth cycle related to her planet we didn't know about until now. The climax? Have Starfire immobilized as we get a twist antagonist that happens to eat her kind. With the weird storybook framework and the sudden crash into a standard episode format, it feels as though it's two concepts tacked onto one another. At first it wants to be an oddity, another it wants to not be, and I'm complaining because it just wasn't implemented well, they had to commit to one idea or another to get something to work.

Starfire makes it through the phase and is rid of her new features, save for the ability to shoot beams from her eyes, if they debuted here. One thing I'll give the episode credit for is that the seeds for the enemy's demise here is handled well. We kew there was a venus fly trap in this episode, that's what kills her, and everyone returns home with one last attempt at a joke. Chicken pox.

Final Thoughts

Compared to other episodes I covered, I kinda prefer this. It has an interesting idea that wasn't considered, to have a brief anthology where each Titan goes through something weird, perhaps have it themed around elements of teen life or growing up. While I probably wouldn't have liked what they came up with, it would've been interesting at least.

That said, the entire episode felt off... for the first act at least before normalcy was re-established. I feel like the writers gave up at some point, either that, or they included the weird stuff in order to help bolster the run time. You can tell when something is bolstered by how inconsequential most of its elements are. Now, did they actually bolster? Probably not.

I just feel like they could've gone about the puberty element better, like this is setting up for a longterm change, but Starfire returns almost entirely to normal physically, ignoring the eye lasers. It's as if the writers wanted to keep things from changing way too much, as if they would lose audiences over any inconsistencies. The fact things return to some shred of normality by the end of many episodes and arcs lend heavy credence to this. Now look, even Danny Phantom implemented changes in character designs, lest they feared Starfire's design would kill or strengthen- not gonna finish.

For the first time, I'm really just mildly disappointed with an episode of the show. And that's all I really have to say. See ya.