At the time Kids WB expired
-- May 17, 2008 -- I hadn't paid much attention
to it in years. Today's kid-toons lack the punch
and hilarity of the older ones. You might say
that's irrational old-man nostalgia speaking, but
look at the overwhelming support in favor of
live-action these days and judge for yourself. I
think today's kids are with me on this one. Their
cartoons R lame.
Nothing lasts forever (except
for things that really suck, like taxes
and hurricanes). What is created must return to
dust, and compared to every other children's
block attempted in the last 20 years, Kids WB was
a centenarian. Fox Kids lasted ten years, The
Disney Afternoon eight, One Saturday Morning
four. Kids WB clung to life for THIRTEEN years.
It's an incredible feat when you consider the
reason a block cannot hold the interest of
children for long: they grow up and new children
replace them, who want something different. The
Disney Channel may be high and mighty NOW, but
just wait. Their slice of humble pie is
inevitable.
One thing I've observed about
these blocks is that whenever they're on the
verge of expiring, they put out the strangest
stuff. Fox Kids's last offering was "Mon
Colie Knights," some kind of twisted, loud,
confusing Pokemon ripoff where two munchkins
named "Mondo" and "Rockna"
ventured into Mon-World to keep the peace every
episode. "Mon Colie Knights" was last
seen at around 4 AM on Toon Disney in 2007. If I
could have taped it, I would have. I like good
cartoons, but I'm also amused by those that are
so bad they were a colossal waste of investors'
time.
I have my limits, however.
I didn't have high hopes for
the final day's first offering, Will and
Dewitt, to begin with: the fact that
it's on this early means the network wants to do
as much as they can to hide it. This also usually
means the show is educational. This show's name
is pronounced "Will and Do It," as
in...."the will to do it," and I'm
serious because the theme song repeats this.
These days, all you have to do is put some vague
self-esteem-boosting message into a series and
the E/I brand is yours. Most producers go for
this technique now, even those working for PBS. I
haven't seen a TRULY educational program exist in
a long time.
Today's episode is "The
Long March." Will rushes onscreen and says
he's late for something and his mom is hot and
she says she won't take him until she finishes
feeding his sister. "But we have to go
NOW!" he insists, and then asks if he can
walk there himself.
His hot mom gives in. She
throws a heavy coat on him, sticks a Go-Gurt into
his pocket, drenches his face in bug spray, gives
him an umbrella as an anti-child-predator weapon
and says, "You can never be too
prepared!" Then the screen wipes to the next
scene, where Will is packing even more junk into
a large backpack and singing about the importance
of being prepared for stuff. Keep in mind: he's
going to walk less than the length of a block.
This is true. What kind of twisted overprotective
lesson is this?
So Will and Dewitt start
walking, and they walk into a jungle (I'm
assuming it's an imaginary one, but the show
never indicates this). After a long hike of a few
centimeters, they stop to rest and eat
snacks--"Fruit Gooies," little colored
pieces of coiled dog poo. "We shouldn't
leave these out for long; they might attract
ants!" says Dewitt. Before you think that
was a lesson, a FIFTY-FOOT ant comes charging
through the bushes and TALKS to them: "ALL
ANTS LOVE FRUIT GOOIES! HAHAHAHAHA!"
They run from the ants and
fall off a hill into a pile of mud, which turns
out to be quicksand. Dewitt asks a passing
alligator for help, but the gator starts setting
down plates and silverware, which isn't a good
sign. They have a long conversation with the
gator, trying to convince him their Fruit Dog Poo
is better-tasting than they are (and meanwhile
they've quit sinking, but neither seems to
notice). They get away (the details are too
boring to type) but the alligator is chasing
them.
While running for his life,
Dewitt loudly throws in that alligators can run
at speeds up to thirty miles an hour. The pair
reach another cliche--a rickety bridge. Naturally
that breaks, but thanks to Will's hot mother's
umbrella, they float down safe and sound.
Remember, kids, all umbrellas double as
parachutes.
There's a river below, but
Dewitt turns himself into a raft (what? I dunno,
does it really matter?) That solves things for
about three seconds before they run into Cliche
#3--a waterfall. Falling off seems to hurt
neither of them, but now they realize they're
lost. "There's only one thing left to
do--we'll just have to go back the way we
came!" sighs Will. But.....if Will knows the
way he came, then he's NOT LOST YET. Ow, my head.
Dewitt says to Will, "No
way, man! We've come all this way, and did so
well preparing ourselves, we have to have the
WILL to DO IT!!" Full of renewed confidence,
Will continues his forward trek--and eventually
reaches his goal, the backyard next door. In only
eight hours!
If that wasn't enough
excitement for you, there's a second Will and
Dewitt: "Small Potatoes." Will runs
afoul of a gang of sadistic criminals, who
viciously torture him and blast his limbs off
while laughing maniacally. Will blacks out, but
wakes up to discover the government has chosen
him for a special experiment and replaced his
severely damaged organs with robotic weapons.
He'll now be joining the police force as part
man, part robot, ALL COP. Or basically their Kill
Everything Guy. He then spends the rest of the
cartoon in violent shootouts with bad guys while
trying to hold onto the bits of humanity he has
left. From this, I learned to share.
I haven't been around many
little kids lately, and I haven't seen many
preschool programs, so perhaps the shock would
have been less if I had...but....I'll say what's
on my mind anyway. Whoever made this should serve
time. God forbid I ever find myself in a
situation where a child's healthy development
depends on me, but at least I'd know never to
show them this. Garbage in, garbage out. I grew
up around a lot of creative and funny influences.
If you surround yourself with bad material,
you'll WRITE bad material. The watchers of Will
and Dewitt today are the gross-out frat-boy
comedy producers of tomorrow.
The first cartoon to air on
Kids WB's first morning was Animaniacs. The first
cartoon to air on Kids WB's last morning was
THIS. I think I'm gonna cry.
Next up was Magi
Nation. I already knew this show
existed, but I don't know why. Or rather, why
it's existing NOW instead of in 1999. Magi Nation
was a video game/card game/you know the drill,
and was most known for its excellent Game Boy
Color game--but the brand didn't catch on as well
as they'd hoped, and the TV series never
happened. Until suddenly now, nine years later,
for some reason.
The production values seem
rather high on this one. Are they really
expecting to rejuvenate a forgotten franchise
that didn't work the first time at 7:30 in the
morning, next to Will and Dewitt? Talk about an
odd pairing. But then again....
Oh wait...no. No they don't.
Today's adventure begins with
our three heroes floating through a dank cavern
on a mushroom attached to a crude boat in midair.
"How's Strag holding up?" says the kid
with the black hair.
"I'm not sure. How would you feel if your
former best friend turned into a Shadow
Magi?" says the female who badly needs a
haircut.
"I don't think she's here; I think she
doubled back on us! Strag, the place where the
underneath Dreamstone is hidden?"
"Kairopterus Lair? Few Magi know its exact
location."
"But Inara does! Why?"
"Like all Shadow Magi, she has scoured her
own realm looking for the Dreamstone to give to
Agrim. She must have discovered Kairopterus Lair
during her travels!"
"But she didn't know the Dreamstone was
there for certain....until she heard the Pillar
Hiren tell us!"
Uhhhhhhh......I think I
walked in too late.
Inara comes up from behind
them for an ambush. "SHADOW TROKOVO,
PIERCING GAZE!" The thing she's riding
shoots a beam from its eyes. The mushroom starts
losing altitude! The black-haired boy pulls out a
glowing stone and shouts "BLAH BLAH BLAH
INCOMPREHENSIBLE BLAH BLAH BLAH!!" A big
furry thing appears in a flash of light!
"Let the FUR FLY!" the thing boldly
pronounces. It shoots an energy blast from its
forehead and Inara retreats.
"CATCH ME IF YOU CAN,
STRAG! BUT YOU PROBABLY CAN'T!" Inara taunts
as she leaves. "You probably CAN'T! You
probably CAN'T! You probably CAN'T!" echoes
in Strag's mind as he goes into a flashback
sequence. His flashback lasts ten seconds and
consists of a smaller version of him and Inara
standing still facing each other and laughing
with joy. "Hahahaha! Hahahaha!" But
there's no time to establish the
obvious--Orangehead wakes him up and says,
"We have a problem!" They're heading
for some spiked plants!
You probably have a weird
name for those too, don't you, guys? Sure enough,
Strag shouts "SNAPPER-OATS!" and tries
his best to avoid them, but unlike most plants,
they can move and slap the mushship around.
"HAHAHAHA!" laughs Inara. The solution
to this is to pull another glowing stone out and
yell something that conjures a monster. In fact,
this is the solution to everything that happens
in this cave from this point on, and unlike
Pokemon, these guys are as disposable as can
be--they all follow the same formula of
appearing, saying something they think is clever
but really isn't, saving the kids, and then
disappearing. The creature who saves them from
the plants says "How do ya like that? I'M
the boss 'a YOU!" Get it? Because I don't.
Doesn't this one look
familiar? It's only natural that this should be
mimicking Pokemon, as it originally hit the
market when Pokemon was white-hot. His quip is
"WHOSE NOGGIN NEEDS KNOCKIN'??"
Bulbasquirtle succeeds in stopping Inara, but a
little too well. She plummets toward the ground,
but is rescued by the mushship, which is holding
up well considering the holes that she put into
it in the previous scenes.
"I can't believe you rescued me!"
"Hey, everyone deserves a second
chance!"
"Yes, a second chance....TO KNOCK YOU
DOWN!!" Darn it, she's still evil!
She throws a small cube with
the letter S written on it, which blows a bigger
hole in the ship, then escapes on her blue thing.
That does the ship in for good, but the heroes
survive by--how else--summoning a giant orange
manatee that puffs up like a balloon.
They follow Inara's
footprints to the lair they mentioned earlier in
the show. Inara is there, and not too happy about
seeing them still around. Just as they're about
to butt heads, she accidentally activates a booby
trap and the ceiling starts raining sharp rocks.
They stop this by figuring out that all the
statues in the room are hollow and have to be hit
in a certain order to make the tune that some
bats were humming earlier. A secret entrance
opens and Inara rushes down it, followed by the
gang. But they're almost too late, as Inara is
about to touch the Dreamstone!
Time for a Deux Ex Machina!
"YOU SPEAK TOO SOON!" shouts a
disembodied voice. The platform the Dreamstone is
on sinks into the ground, and a big pink bat
rises in its place! "THE DREAMSTONE MUST BE
EARNED! I WILL ONLY OFFER IT TO THE STRONGEST
WARRIOR FROM THE UNDERNEATH!"
"I gues Pyruffo wants us to stick to
cheerleading!" says the black-haired kid in
his strangest statement yet.
Some roots rise and form an
enclosure around Strag and Inara. Inara brings
out a creature with spots, and Strag counters
with the Bulbasquirtle again, who actually says
"NOGGIN KNOCKIN' IS MY BUSINESS, AND
BUSINESS IS GOOD!" The show plagiarizes a
typical Pokemon battle, then Strag throws
something metal into the middle of the ring that
starts shooting out white energy circles around
Inara. Orangehead explains that "if the
Obedience Relic is used on a Shadow Magi, it'll
extract all their void energy! But it's too
risky! If she refuses, the Relic will turn Strag
into a Shadow Magi as well!" ...Oh, so
THAT'S what's going on!
Inara refuses and the circles
start shooting around Strag instead and start
making him look evil! "Help meee!" he
cries out, and his cries for help make Inara have
a flashback of her own to when they were friends.
She accepts the Relic and stops being evil and
her red hair turns blue. Then a talking bathtub
appears and says "We must aerate the Power
Noodles, Patrick!" Then everyone dances the
Funky Chicken until the sun turns into cheese and
Gene Simmons discovers his secret power to fly.
A lot of adults said Pokemon
was confusing, but it really wasn't. Perhaps it
was more complicated than The Smurfs, but it
wasn't that hard to understand.
Whoever's in charge of the Magi Nation show
thought Pokemon was popular because it didn't
make sense, and set out to make a show that was
confusing on PURPOSE. Now I know why it's stuck
at 7:30. And that E/I mark? I have no idea. They
do mention bats see through sound waves, but on a
show where all the rules are made up, kids might
think they fibbed about that too.
Now here's Skunk Fu.
This is the one I keep hearing about whenever
cranky people congregate on a message board to
complain about Kids WB. I think it just gets free
word of mouth because it's about a karate-kicking
skunk, and boy howdy, how do you get worse than
that? But I don't think most of the people
keyboard-kvetching about Skunk Fu have even seen
it. A premise alone doesn't tell you everything.
If all you knew about Foster's was that it was
about a bunch of imaginary friends, would you
want to watch that?
I'm not suggesting Skunk Fu
is good. I'm just making a point.
Is his name actually Skunk
Fu? I don't know, but his pig friend's name is
Pig. It didn't take me long to guess what Pig was
all about--he's the dumb one. Maybe a little too
dumb.
"LET'S PLAY DARE!"
"Daaaa, okay! I dare you to...count to
one!"
"Okay......one. I dare YOU to....CLIMB TO
THE TOP OF DEVIL'S PEAK! Nah, I'm just kidding,
Panda says that area's off-limits!"
It's too late, though, Pig is already off and
Skunk has to chase him. So his sensei's name is
Panda....they could be clever and make Panda a
yellow-bellied sapsucker or something, but they
probably didn't.
"Phew! Glad I caught you
before you got to the top of Devil's Peak!"
says Skunk--then the camera pulls back to reveal
that's exactly where they are. This did
get a chuckle out of me, I'll admit.
The top breaks off and they
fall onto a cliff overlooking a top-secret base
full of ninja monkeys, whose names are most
likely all "Monkey." "Now I know
why Panda said not to come here!" Skunk says
nervously. Pig's dumbness comes into play again
and he falls off the cliff, where he lies
unconscious surrounded by the enemy!
"Oh no, I'll be in huge
trouble if Panda finds out about this!"
frets Skunk. He'll just have to get some other
help, and hope Kids WB can still afford a
Standards and Practices Division so Pig isn't
slaughtered. He turns to a mantis named Mantis
and a rabbit whose name is either Rabbit, Bunny
or Hare. The rabbit's up to the challenge and
agrees to help Skunk.
Meanwhile, the fall caused
Pig to develop amnesia, and he now thinks he's a
Ninja Monkey. When Skunk's posse comes to
retrieve him, he fights back and snout-butts them
across the area. Skunk reasons that if a bump on
the head made Pig believe he's a monkey, another
whack will make him think he's a pig again.
Causing Bump #2 is easier
said than done. Somehow, despite his obvious
intelligence impairment, Pig has become a master
ninja. He never turns into a thousand clones or a
naked lady, but he can still dish out some real
faux-Japanese punishment. Frantically dodging his
blows, Skunk tries to get Pig to remember who he
is by challenging him to another dare.
"Remember what we used to do, Pig? I dare
you to...recite poetry!"
"What? That's ridiculous! Monkeys don't
talk!" Pig says.
"Well, uh, I dare you to...JUMP REAL
HIGH!"
"Ah! Monkeys can do that!"
The bump restores Pig to his
dim self, but it's not over yet--they have to
evade the Ninja Monkeys and escape. Pig attempts
to communicate with them by speaking monkey, with
subtitles:
"The cookies are
overcooked my Kids WB Logo!" he says. While
they're trying to figure that one out, the gang
beats a path away. The ending consists of this:
"I'm glad that's over!"
"Me too. Okay, next game: first one home
wins!"
"Wait up!"
Kind of abrupt, isn't it?
Skunk Fu reminds me a lot of
all those CGI films about talking animals that
aren't done by Pixar. The potential for humor is
there, but the jokes just aren't connecting. If
you want to watch Bee Movie every week, then
Skunk Fu is your show...but it's not mine.
From here, the shows start
getting better. Up to this point every single
thing has been a Canadian import animated with
cheap Flash shortcuts. On its last day, the WB
initials barely meant anything anymore. This is
the only 'toon left in the lineup that bears the
WB shield before it begins, and to be honest I'm
surprised they still make something. Warners'
animation division, once synonymous with the
company itself, has once again shrunk to the
miniscule size it was in the 70's and 80's. In
fact, TimeWarner as a whole has been imploding
for the last few years (ask Jeff Harris for more details;
he could go on all day about this).
Tom and Jerry Tales
actually bears the quality I've come NOT to
expect from Kids WB. When you watch this, you
don't get badly-drawn superheroes who are the
descendants of Tom and Jerry, or Tom and Jerry as
babies, or Jerry wearing a bow tie and becoming
friends with Tom....you get TOM AND JERRY, and
all that classically implies. All the fluid
animation, quick timing and wanton violence and
destruction are untouched. They don't talk,
either.
The only bad thing about this
version is that the music score is very obviously
synth trying to mimic an orchestra, and the sound
makes me cringe. But otherwise, this is a rare
example of someone using computers to make a
cartoon better instead of merely taking
advantage of all the shortcuts. Look at how
beautiful some of these background paintings are.
That's the nice thing about our modern
age--anyone can have an unlimited color palette
at a fraction of the former cost and mess. No one
seems to really use it (outside of Japan),
though.
As for the stories? One
clever cartoon entitled "Game of Mouse and
Cat" has Jerry as the adored pampered mouse
of the house and Tom as the intruding pest. An
alley cat outside remarks to Tom, "Doesn't
this whole setup seem a little off to you?"
Tom shakes his head. "Yeah, me neither, I'm
just making conversation." The short after
this one has Jerry saddled with taking care of a
baby mouse, who wanders off into Tom's territory.
Just when you think you've predicted the rest of
the cartoon, the doorbell rings and TOM is
suddenly stuck babysitting a baby CAT. A rather
large one.
One nitpick: if this is a
MAN-eating plant, why did it eat a cat?
As for The
Spectacular Spider-Man? Haven't you
heard about it yet? It's heaven on a stick. Only
nine episodes have aired as of this writing, but
so far, it's the best Spider-Man cartoon series
ever created. This is what gave me a reason to
watch Kids WB again, but unfortunately Kids WB
did not exist for long.
You know the problem here?
Writing about shows I LIKE is less funny then
writing about shows I HATE. So instead of
discussing today's Spider-Man episode, let's take
an interlude and discuss some of Kids WB's final
commercials. If you want to know what happened
with Spider-Man, watch the show. You should've
been doing that anyway.
Skechers still gets the Being
Weird award. At Skechers Amusement Park an
innocent group of teenagers are on a
rollercoaster headed for a break in the track! A
girl below sees the imminent catastrophe, puts on
her Skechers, says "This looks like a job
for ELASTICA!" and transforms into a
superheroine with rubber shoelaces coming out of
her hair. She starts beating up internet
emoticons with legs, as they were the ones
breaking up the rollercoaster. No, it's exactly
as I'm describing. Maybe I shouldn't have wasted
my one screenshot on the singing bear in the tub.
The award for Most Repetitive
Appearance goes to Nintendo for putting this ad
for the new Pokemon Mystery Dungeon DS game into
every break of every show this morning. For the
first day I gave this award to Flower Magic Mary,
and that's the kind of product you don't see
anymore. I thought sugary baby dolls were the
kind of thing that was timeless, and would always
sell no matter what decade it was. But now it's
been years since I've seen a single baby doll on
TV. I've heard it argued that today's
hyperaccelerated girls blossom at age seven and
have better odds being stuck with a REAL child.
Those stupid Bratz have destroyed America.
Gone, too, are most traces of
junk food commercials. Around springtime we used
to get hocked popsicles and candy galore, but not
anymore. The only fast food company who made
their presence known this morning was Subway.
Lucky the Leprechaun's rainbow magic was no match
for the angry parents that finally subdued him,
and the Trix Rabbit has apparently learned to
control himself and found another interest.
I was VERY shocked to see
Fruity Pebbles alive and kicking. Not only will
today's overprotective moms forbid any cereal
with a bright-colored box and a cartoon character
mascot, but how's a kid today supposed to know
who the Flintstones are? It was on syndication
all the time when I was growing up, but
syndication is the domain of
trailer-trash-targeted-talk-shows now, not 60's
repeats. Alas, Barney has finally given up
tricking Fred out of his cereal. The way
characters are worked into this ad is weird: a
boy and a girl sit down at a table, eat Fruity
Pebbles, and then the girl unzips her head to
reveal she's turned INTO Pebbles. Then the boy
pulls a zipper on HIS head to reveal he's become
Bamm-Bamm, and he takes his club and bamm-bamms
the table in half. If this is what keeps the
cereal alive, I'm not one to argue.
At least Apple Jacks still
don't taste like apples, right? For a few years
now, a stop-motion cinnamon stick has been
outwitting a stop-motion apple, hammering home
the idea that they're supposed to taste like
cinnamon. I guess this is an improvement over how
they sold it in the 90's. While those ads were
hip and cynical, they were very lacking in a
piece of vital information. If it doesn't taste
like apples then what DOES it taste like? Pie?
Cats?
Aww, Spider-Man's over, time
to go back to the cheap Canadian stuff. I will,
however, admit that I have watched World
of Quest before. And I have to warn you
-- it opens with one of the catchiest theme songs
in all of television history. I'm serious; do NOT
activate this video unless you want to keep
catching yourself going "Oot oot oot oot oot
oot oot!" for the next year.
So...remember Nester? Now he's back, with
a new hairdo, and he's the prince of the land of
Odyssia. This isn't as sweet a gig as it used to
be now that the castle has fallen and his parents
are missing. Good thing Nester has the surly,
burly Quest to watch his back, albeit
reluctantly.
Quest, who sounds exactly
like Patrick Warburton yet somehow isn't, would
like nothing better than to throw Nester down a
ditch and go off somewhere else, but he's bound
to help him via a spell of obedience. Quest
actually doesn't care for most things, and
usually expresses this by narrowing his brow,
glaring as the camera closes up on his face in
letterbox, and growling "______. I HATE
_____."
You know what? This show
actually works. It's not trying to sell you a
card game, it's not trying to teach you any
pro-social lessons, it doesn't contain any forced
quotes like "NOGGIN KNOCKIN," and it
doesn't take place in school with artwork stolen
from Butch Hartman. The bratty Nester and the
bitter, sarcastic Quest make a great odd couple.
The humor comes from the characters'
personalities and not from fart jokes (though
there are plenty of fart jokes...no one's
perfect).
But they're not alone! I will
now attempt to read this squished credits screen
and tell you the names of the others in Quest's
party:
(To those who are about to
write Emails: Yes, I'm fully aware Nester's name
is actually spelled "Nestor." It's
pronounced the same way and I wanted to make a
joke.)
First you have
"Graer," and I couldn't tell what
animal he was supposed to be until this week's
episode identified him as a griffin. Anna
(pronounced "On-uh") is a spunky
sorceress who joined the team because she
absolutely idolizes Quest. Quest, of course,
hates all his fans and wasn't happy about that.
Then there's Cyborg from Teen Titans, who had to
find whatever work he could. Rounding out the
team is something called "Way" that's
some kind of sentient GPS, yet only talks in
cryptic riddles.
This week's episode is
"The Fall of Odyssia," and it's kind of
false advertising because Odyssia doesn't fall
anywhere in it. Our explorers mistakenly wander
into a canyon known as the Cavern of Sorrow,
which you can only leave by facing your worst
memories. A strange green fog creeps into the
area, and by breathing it the gang starts
hallucinating one by one. Except for Quest, who
was off doing something else and will catch up
later.
Nester's bad memory comes
from middle school, when he was getting harrassed
by bullies. One particularly nasty one with bad
teeth gives him a "Hertz Donut," then
forces him to dress as Bo Peep. Nester retaliates
by reporting him, and since he's a Royal
Highness, the bully gets the maximum punishment.
Several guards burst into his class, point at the
bully and yell "YOU! BULLY! COME WITH
US!"
"My name's BILLY."
"You're under arrest for Excessive Billying
Without A Permit! Bullying! Whatever! Take him
away!"
"A permit?? I didn't know!"
"And NOW you DO! Take Bully away!"
"BILLY!!"
Later on, Nester is taking a
stroll when he spies Billy shoveling hay. Billy
whines, "How much longer?"
"Oh, I'd say about...twenty more
years," answers the guard.
"But my parents get upset if I'm not home by
seven!"
"Not to worry! THIS is your new home! Your
parents have already found a new son!"
Hah, wow, that's pretty dark humor for a kiddie
show.
Nester's struck with guilt.
"NO, I DIDN'T MEAN IT! I'M SORRY! I'M
SORRY!" the current Nester weeps as he's
stuck in the haze.
Graer's worst memory is of
that time he pickpocketed the fool who was
carrying jewels in his pocket for some
reason. The theft is reported to the royal
police, who start looking for the guilty one.
Graer panicks when he sees the fuzz approaching
and quickly hugs some guy, then stashes the
jewels in his pocket. The next thing he knows,
that guy has been forced into a career as a
gladiator -- and he gets the news from his
weeping son!
That doesn't look fair at
all, and neither does the name of the tournament:
"The Championship of Pain." What a
barbaric age. A guilt-stricken Graer is about to
confess, but then pictures himself in that
uncomfortable position, and holds his tongue. He
then has to watch the guy get pummelled. Yeesh.
That's even darker than what Nester saw. I don't
think I can forgive Flatulent Griffin for this
one.
"Cyborg" relives
the time he rescued a princess from a giant green
cyclops by tackling him down a cliff.
"HEY, WHAT WAS THAT
FOR??"
"You can talk? You were just growling
before--"
"I WAS EATING A PEANUT BUTTER
SANDWICH!" Some soldiers haul the cyclops
away.
"HOW COULD YOU?? HE WAS MY HUSBAND!!"
shouts the princess.
"Uh---"
"Good work, kind sir!" says her bigoted
father who comes up from behind and hands him a
sack of gold. "Can you imagine HIM as a
son-in-law?"
"NOW YOU'VE RUINED MY LIFE!!" the
princess screams. I think this one's my favorite.
Anna's horrible remembering
is from when she was in Odyssia's version of
Hogwarts, trying to get a spell right. The
incantation she yells turns her classmates into
frogs, and she panicks and quickly casts
something else. That turns them back to normal,
but makes everybody else in the entire village
start ribbiting and zapping their tongues at
flies. I guess it's kind of bad, but this one's
not on purpose and hardly her fault. She's got
nothing compared to Graer.
While all this has been going
on, Quest has been sneaking around trying to find
a way to get everyone out of there without being
affected by the fog himself. Unfortunately his
best idea seems to be walking directly through
the canyon while ranting "Memories. I hate
memories." Though he tries his mightiest not
to succumb to the will of the haze, it eventually
overtakes him. What could QUEST possibly be
hiding? Something so big it takes the entire
second half of the episode to tell. It turns out
that Quest and Nester go father back than Nester
is aware....
Quest's story begins with him
falling out of some thundering clouds into a
river just outside of Odyssia Castle. He doesn't
remember where he came from and he barely has any
clothes on save a pair of orange boxers. But he
DOES see the kingdom under siege from the
monstrous army of a nasty villain, and the
one-year-old heir to the throne crawling around
in direct peril. "SOMEBODY PROTECT THE
PRINCE!!" the queen cries out. The royal
army's general, Ogun, rushes as fast as he can,
but Quest gets there first and socks the monsters
over the horizon. Baby Nester thanks Quest by
spitting up all over his face.
The king is very grateful to
Quest and summons him before the throne. The
queen, however, has an even worse attitude than
Quest, if that's possible. They clash
immediately.
"Are you foolish enough
to believe he doesn't remember who he is?"
Queen yells at King.
"Hey, I forget stuff all the time! In one
ear, out the other!" says Graer, who
apparently was a member of the royal court, which
explains his connection to Nester.
"I SAVED YOUR BUTTS," Quest growls.
"My BUTT, as you so eloquently put it, was
not in need of saving!" the queen tartfully
touts.
"Yeah. I guess that's because it's big
enough to take care of ITSELF!" blasts
Quest.
She storms out of the room.
The king apologizes, "She hasn't been the
same ever since her father became the villainous
Shadow Seed, and turned to the Dark Side."
THAT Dark Side? The copyrighted Dark Side?
"You saved my son, and
as a reward, I grant you the greatest gift of
all."
"A PONY??" shouts Graer.
"Better!" The king taps Quest's
shoulder with a sword. "I dub thee QUEST,
Nester's nanny! FOR LIFE!"
A horrified Quest stammers,
"But--but your highness, I...don't deserve
such an honor!"
"I'm royalty, and you have to accept my
gifts and that is that!"
"....Must be my lucky day."
Quest is now shown changing
diapers, getting more vomit in the face, and
nursing Nester with a baby bottle chest-strap
device that lets a male breast-feed. If anyone's
angrier than Quest about this, it's General Ogun.
Eternal nanny was the position HE was gunning
for, and now that the king has shown preference
to Quest, he feels betrayed. So betrayed, in
fact, that he switches sides and pledges loyalty
to the previously mentioned Shadow Seed, who
bestows upon him the dark powers that transform
him into the MAIN VILLAIN OF THE SERIES!!
Quest has just put Nester
down for a nap, and walks off to prepare more
formula. "Can I have what's left over?"
asks Graer. The transformed Ogun seizes the
opportunity, slips in and snatches Nester away,
leaving a little hologram device.
"I HAVE JOINED WITH
SHADOW SEED, AND SOON...SO WILL THE PRINCE! HA HA
HA! Now how do I turn this thing off?"
"We have to tell the
king!" says Graer.
"No way," says Quest. He knows the
queen will take any excuse she can to get him
banished or worse. He, Graer and Cyborg (who was
the commander of the Royal Guard back then) set
off on a private rescue mission.
Within Shadow Seed's lair,
S.S. and Ogun are having about as much fun with
Nester as Quest had. Ogun is struggling over
changing a diaper, and Mr. Seed gets a new
spit-up hairdo.
"PREPARE ANOTHER BATH FOR ME," growls
Shadow Seed, and he and Ogun leave. Quest and
company drop in. Nester takes this opportunity to
wail like a siren. Ogun finds out, but this time
Quest has a secret weapon. He takes a torch from
the wall, holds it up to Nester's rear end, and a
blast of flaming methane roasts Ogun to a crisp.
"YOU MAY HAVE WON THIS
BATTLE, QUEST, BUT NOT THE WARRR!" Ogun
yells for lack of an original statement. He
throws a glowing ball, a cloud of dust envelops
everything, he and his lair disappear and our
heroes find themselves back at the gates of the
castle again. Unfortunately, the queen is there
waiting for them, and she looks cheesed.
"I DEMAND YOUR HEAD! And
any other parts of you that can be chopped
off!" the queen yells at Quest. The king
suggests a lighter punishment, like eternal
banishment. "NUH-UH! GOO GOO!" says
Nester with his thumb down.
The decision ends up with Cyborg, who must cast
the tiebreaker vote. He goes with banishment, and
Quest leaves Nester--and the kingdom--forever. Or
maybe not forever.
The fog is gone, but Quest is
the last one to snap out of it. He refuses to
answer all questions about what he saw.
"Come on, we have a quest to finish!"
he snarls, changing the subject, and they all
head off.
"You know, it's funny,
but I'm craving milk right now," says
Nester.
"Hey, me too!" adds Graer.
"Forget it, my nursing days are over,"
says Quest.
World of Quest bears the
distinction of being Kids WB's last new program,
debuting one week after Spider-Man. If you're
familiar with television at all you know being
the last show on a sinking ship is never a good
thing. This show WILL only have 13 episodes and
will vanish off the face of the earth next
September, until it appears on Toon Disney at 3
in the morning in the year 2014.
I feel the same attachment to
this as I do to Mon Colie Knights, but for
different reasons. I give World of Quest a solid
B -- it's a lot of fun. It's too bad only three
people in the entire US will ever know that.
What came next? I dunno...you
tell me. Guess what? History repeated itself.
Remember when I said I don't have the last
half-hour of the first day of Kids WB because the
tape stopped? I don't use tape anymore, but I had
to switch DVDs four hours in and the last hour
was recorded on a disc that finalized wrong,
resulting in no menu and no way to get what I
saved out of it. HOORAAAAY!
Johnny Test
was what would have come next here, running on
its third and final season. Johnny Test used to
be produced in-house as an authentic Warner Bros.
show, but it changed to a cheap Canadian show
midway through. Johnny Test is Dexter's Lab in
reverse -- Johnny's sisters are the smart ones
and he is the guinea pig. Also, his dad is a
homemaker and his mom is a corporate
overachiever. And there's someone named
"Bling Bling Boy" whose presence alone
usually means hilarity. I've enjoyed Johnny Test,
but season 3 has kind of sagged in places.
The final episode of JT,
which ran last March, involved Johnny once again
becoming his superhero alter-ego Johnny X. The
majority of Johnny X's villains joined forces to
beat him, but failed. Then some aliens who'd
appeared earlier in the season arrived and
started stealing all of Earth's trees and water,
and the villains had to join forces with Johnny
to save the world. They reasoned that if they all
farted at the same time, the aliens' spaceship
would be destroyed--but Johnny X might perish in
the blast. Johnny pondered on this, but
ultimately decided it was his superheroic duty to
use his superfarts to save the day, even if it
meant sacrificing himself. The others ran to
escape pods, Johnny farted, and the ship blew up,
and everyone was sad because they thought he was
dead...but then he returned safe and sound.
So it was basically like the
final season of Charmed all over again.
Or the entirety of Charmed
all over again.
The last show of the morning
was Eon Kid. Based on the promos, it looked
terrible, and if I'm not going to be reviewing
it, then I see no need to ever watch it. I'm not
going to even bother bolding its name.
People were struck by
disbelief when they heard who was taking over in
Kids WB's place: 4Kids. "Doesn't 4Kids
already have Fox? Haven't they had it since
2002?" Nay, 4Kids won't be satisfied until
it has everything. They're now calling the block
"CW4Kids," for as long as the CW will
last. They might as well call it
"CW4PoorKids," no adolescent with cable
would be caught dead watching their stuff.
(Except for the new TMNT, hopefully.) 4Kids is a
cancer. 4Kids is a cancer, and I am
the....uh....what cures cancer?
