Captain Planet: Twelve Angry Animals

One Angry Reviewer

Turner: 1995

Ah Captain Planet. The quintessential butt monkey of this blog. When in a state of mental burnout, I always find that our favorite hippie in the red speedo really helps charge that mental battery. Be it a town trying to lynch a kid with HIV, a too dark for its intended audience drug abuse story, or the friggin' fuhrer, it's always fun to see how the captain will up the ante in oddball. And considering that the show ran for a whopping six seasons from 1990 all the way to 1996, there's just so much animated pollution to pull from our favorite captain that makes crap happen. This time, we're looking at "12 Angry Animals" from the "New Adventures" era of the show.

Any time a show adds "New Adventures" to it, you're almost always in for trouble. Other than some slightly different animation, and a lack of as many major guest voices, there really was nothing particularly new to these adventures. I mean, what's really new, the theme song?

Oh dear god, where to start?

I actually forgot to mention this in the "Good Bomb is Hard to Find" review. So, instead of that really awesome opening that tells us about the series in general, the sixth and final season of the show felt that we should have a weird pair of disembodied lips giving us an extremely half hearted rap about how Captain Planet is... and I quote, the "Mega Mac Daddy of Ecology". Yeah, I think whoever thought of this suffered from some "mind pollution". 

At least they didn't end up like Boris.

This was 1995, gangsta rap was massive at this point. So, even for it's time, this type of intro is dated. Not to mention, it's just not pleasant to listen to. Some corporate suit thought "well the kids like rap, and mega mac daddies, so let's scrap that old intro with the good animation, and get hip with the kids, yo!" So we now get this droning voice, and this awful, bland beat. It does nothing to make you feel like you're watching a show about five multicultural do-gooders and their blue friend with the amazing green mullet. Seriously Cap, why didn't you do anything to prevent this ear pollution?

So with that out of the way, let's get into "12 Angry Animals"

We open the episode as the Planeteers are climbing Mount Everest, as Wheeler bothers Linka with his camera. The reason they're climbing the mountain is because Gaia thought it would help restore their spirits. You know, screw spending time with their families, go do something more relaxing, climb a deadly mountain, that'll put the zowzers back in your trousers. Also, what if while they're in the middle of this arduous trek, there was peril caused by say, Hoggish Greedly, or Sy Sludge? Screw that I guess, those teens need to restore their spirits. 

Gaia's a douche.

Wheeler however is more interested in the prospect of filming Bigfoot, which Linka corrects him by calling him the Abominable Snowman

or the Yetay.

Despite Linka's claims of no yeti existing, Wheeler plans to capture him... on video of course. Which, being a planeteer who's job it is to keep animals safe, revealing the whereabouts of a rare creature which hunters or poachers could use to capture the beast would be a rather massive dick move. But, then again, Wheeler always was a bit of a dick. The group make it to the top of the mountain and spot snow leopard tracks. Ma-ti, who's interested in seeing one, tells the group to follow, to which they oblige. 

But their snowy animal hunt is put to a stop as the planeteers begin to freeze, so they seek shelter. Wheeler tries to warm everyone up with his fire ring, not having the foresight to think that the melted ice and snow could cause an avalanche, which almost sends our heroes falling to their deaths. The avalanche causes Ma-Ti's ring to fall. I know that it's needed to summon Captain Planet, but it is the ring of heart, so nothing of value would be lost. 

They eventually find the snow leopard, and give follow, eventually causing them to fall into a hole, which leads them into an icy cave, and face to face with...

The Yetay!

The yeti (voiced by the late Tony Jay) tells them that they're free to go, but they'll surely perish in the snow. So they were brought here by a group of animals to decide their fate for being criminals, as a bird says the totally not dated line of "Book 'em Dano!" Then again, considering the rap intro, that isn't dated at all.

The planeteers are being charged with the murder of innocent species. Despite Wheeler telling the yeti that they're the good guys trying to prevent this stuff, the yeti says that doesn't matter because they're still human. Wow, literally racial profiling on the yeti's part. The court will be held by a jury of 12 angry animals, who will be the ultimate decision on if the planeteers are guilty or innocent.

The yeti calls the first witness, which is a mammoth that grabs Kwame and somehow uses his magic teleporting powers to take him to the ice age, where cave men are attacking several mammoths. Kwame manages to stop the cavemen before the wacky trip comes to an end, and he returns to the cave. The mammoth says that humans hunted his kind, to which Kwame objects by essentially saying "yeah, well so did wolves in their fight to survive", to which the mammoth's best comeback is that humans hunted far better.

Yeah, it was all the humans fault the mammoths died out. Not any help from climate changes, or disease, or a changing world. JUST humans. I'm beginning to think this trial may be a little biased.

Next up is a seal that takes Gi into the sea as the two suddenly get captured by... Christopher Columbus?

Oh no, we've been transported into "The Magic Voyage"! Quick, get us out of here before Corey Feldman begins to talk!

Believing that pinnipeds will last forever, Christopher has no problem with killing innocent seals for their fur and meat. Gi saves the seal from being killed, and Columbus, in a tizzy, wants his crew to continue to pursue the seal. Dude, you just went through a promo about how you think there are plenty of seals to plunder, you can live with one escaping. Gi and the seal leap back into the ice cave, with the charge being that humans want to hunt down seals for trade.

Next up on the planeteer blame game is the thylacine (AKA Tasmanian Tiger)  who targets Ma-Ti for our next lesson. They leap into the days when the animals shared the land with the Aborigines, but then the  ranchers showed up, and started hunting the thylacines down. A rancher points a gun at Ma-Ti, as he tells him that the tasmanian tigers are eating the sheeps, aka their profit. The tasmanian tiger tells them that he never ate any profit, to which the rancher replies that...

wait a sec, how can the rancher understand the animal? I get that this is some sort of world made by the animals to push their point, but wouldn't it base itself more on reality, AKA humans not being able to understand animals?  It's a nitpick, but still. Also, It's kinda fun to see Jim Cummings go from his Italian voice for Columbus, then to his Australian voice for the rancher. Believing the tasmanian tiger will eat his crop, he shoots at him, causing Ma-Ti to leap back.

So next we have Wheeler on the chopping block with some lizard, which is affectionately named Rodney Endagerfield by Wheeler... And now you know why Wheeler is awful.

This time it's a forest with bulldozers knocking the trees down, which would cause the newt creatures to be wiped out of existence. Wheeler aims to stop this, despite, you know, this being both a leap into the past, and also the fact that Wheeler clearly never heard of a time paradox, which would occur if he just saved a species. He stops the bulldozer, as its operator (voiced again by Jim Cummings) yells at him for it. Not taking the arguments of Wheeler with much water, the bulldozers continue to move, dumping Wheeler out of the way. Wheeler almost gets the lizard run over, but not before they leap back to the cave.

Okay, so all that's left in the animal guilt trip brigade is Linka, who is talked to by a butterfly. They leap, and now LInka is flying on the back of the insect. Good thing she's not still on the bliss anymore, or this would be even more of a trip. So, the issue this time is that the flower garden the butterfly lives in is being infected with poisons being sprayed by a crop duster (surprisingly not voiced by Jim Cummings). Linka tries to blow the poison away with her wind ring. So I guess that's all that problem is... oh wait, cities and pollution is another problem for the bug. Well that's... Acid rain too? Jeez. They're just beating the crap out of the butterfly.

So, the charges are now being put on the planeteers, and with all of the damning evidence of the evil humans clearly in front of them, they plead guilty. The yeti's sentence for them is not death, or extinction of the human race, but rather to live with the fact that humans are assholes that wiped species off the planet, and pretty much screwed the pooch for the planet.

So, this whole thing was to just guilt trip the planeteers that humans are destructive and thoughtless? That would be fitting for them to learn IF THEY DIDN'T ALREADY! The whole premise of the show is for them to stop villains who pollute the land, or endanger animals. They've done that for the majority of six seasons. You know, when they aren't dealing with aids, or drugs, or Hitler, or gang violence (please don't tell me I set myself up for that one). They've spent all of this time learning about the worst of humanity, and what they've done. By now, they've had to have retained the knowledge about a lot of what humanity has done to damage the world. It's not really a lesson they needed to learn about from magical talking dead animals and furry Megabyte.

So, the planeteers are thrown back outside, and then back into the cave. Okay. They find Ma-Ti's ring, and have no memory of any trial or yeti.

Wait... So, their memories were wiped too? They don't remember the giant yeti, or the trial, or the Australian Jim Cummings, or acid rain, or... anything?

But the yeti's mind wipe plan has a gaping flaw, as Wheeler's camera (which for some reason Linka has no clue what it's called) still has video of the yeti. But the yeti apparently did have a backup for that situation, as the cave begins to collapse, and the camera falls into an icy chasm.

So, since I almost forgot what this show was called again, they FINALLY summon Captain Planet. After several awful puns (Ice picking on my friends?), Cap whisks them to safety, without Wheeler's camera. After that harrowing situation, the planeteers feel nice and revitalized. And the episode ends with the snow leopard staring at them, telling them to remember their promise. You mean, the promise you seemingly wiped from their memory? Okay then. Will do.



And that was "12 Angry Animals". The episode isn't horrible, definitely a bit better than the other ones I've touched for Tooncrap. The problem is it just doesn't feel like it has a reason to exist. What I mean is that the trial was pointless guilt tripping of the planeteers, who were good people doing good things. Whether the yeti and the animals knew that is beyond me, but if this was a trial for some other random humans, that weren't protectors of the environment like the planeteers, than the moral would hold more weight. For as absurd as this story was, it would have worked better as an educational cartoon, and not a Captain Planet episode.

Plus, despite being the namesake of the show, Captain Planet really felt unnecessary in the grand scheme of things. He only had like a minute and a half of time in the entire series, and barely enough time for amazing puns. I get that the planeteers are the real protagonists, but jeez, give the blue guy some love. So, yeah, in the end, this was crap, but maybe not the worst crap. Just something that wasn't needed from a series that never needed to last six seasons.

But if we learned anything in this whole thing, it's that Jim Cummings is evil. He is the living embodiment of every evil Italian, Australian, and bulldozer operator there is. He probably invented acid rain and cavemen too.

Beware this man, and don't let his evil, twisted words infect the minds of your children. Beware! Beware!

Though he was Darkwing Duck, so I guess I can forgive him. I love you Jim Cummings!

Spongebob Squarepants: A Pal For Gary

Nickelodeon: 2010

I'll make an honest confession. I've never been a major fan of Spongebob in either of its variations. By that I mean not the old classics, or the abysmal newer episodes. Granted, some episodes like "Chocolate With Nuts" and "Graveyard Shift" were hilarious, and had some brilliant writing. I can't say Spongebob was a bad cartoon with some funny episodes, even if it wasn't required viewing for me.

And if the show had bowed out during its stronger days, when creator Stephen Hillenburg was still involved in writing the show, and not just being an executive producer, then things probably wouldn't have been so bad. Spongebob could have ended on a fair 52 episode run like other Nickelodeon classics like Rocko's Modern Life. But because the show is a merchandising success, Nickelodeon keeps it alive, while often cancelling far more entertaining cartoons (*CoughDannyPhantomCough*). And now we've gone from some brilliant writing, where the annoyance and stupidity of Spongebob, Patrick, and the other beloved citizens of Bikini Bottom still had their charm, and were hilariously handled, to a show that feels like it has to up the ante in terms of annoyance and unpleasantness.

And thus we lead to the first of several infamously bad Spongebob episodes to take a look at, and give the treatment of some crap shooting. And like Captain Planet, a show that gave us much to crap about, there are plenty of unfunny fish in the sea that is Spongebob Squarepants. Starting with our first choice in "A Pal For Gary", an episode that even die hard Spongebob fans claim to be one of the worst episodes in the series to date. So, let's find out just what makes this the worst of the worst. Let's review this thing.

We open the episode at Spongebob's house, as the titular square pantsed one is preparing to leave for work. Gary, his pet snail has a leash in his mouth, making Spongebob believe that the snail wants to be walked. Spongebob feels bad since he can't walk Gary right now because he has to go to work. But we see as soon as Spongebob leaves that Gary uses the leash to get his snail food out of the cupboard, as he enjoys his life of Riley. Nothing could possibly spoil such a good thing

Oh right, except for the fact that his master is Spongebob.

At the Krusty Krab, Spongebob begins to feel bad about Gary being alone. His concern of course comes at the expense of the customers, which he annoys. After feeling like crap for not being a "responsible pet owner", he races home after work in hopes that his snail is okay. However, he runs into a cart with an old gypsy fish woman selling weird fish pets. Despite her warnings that the pets are dangerous (even though she sells the damn things, so why would she have any concerns at all?), Spongebob blissfully buys one to ensure that Gary won't be lonely.

Back at home, Spongebob introduces Gary to his new friend "Puffy Fluffy". And as soon as he leaves, you can guess what happens next. Puffy Fluffy roars at him, which looks downright frightening for a kid's cartoon, but we're just getting started on this. Spongebob gets the pet food ready, scolding Gary for planning to eat without sharing, and then leaves. Puffy Fluffy eats the food, while scaring Gary. As Spongebob returns, he sees Gary cowering behind the tv.

Of course, the logical mind would see that perhaps this new pet experiment isn't going too well. Nah, Spongebob thinks that Gary is trying to ignore Puffy Fluffy and tries to get them to play. More scaring of Gary ensues, and of course, Spongebob thinks that Gary is being disrespectful to his new friend.

If you're getting pissed at the yellow moron, don't be. Save your anger for later.

Later in the night, Spongebob decides that Gary and Puffy Fluffy should sleep in the same bed together as he leaves once again. Puffy Fluffy scares Gary again, and Spongebob chastises the snail, again. Gary discovers that Puffy Fluffy seems to have shed his shin, and goes to the kitchen to see...

HOLY CRAP!

You know, I grew up in the era of Ren and Stimpy, which had its share of extremely disturbing imagery. But Spongebob has for the longest time been a show for children, and yeah, I can see how a lot of it can be major nightmare fuel, including our new super demonic Puffy Fluffy.

Gary tries to fight off this monster, as his responsible master sleeps. Yeah, if this is how Spongebob thinks he's responsible, god help us see what he thinks is being negligent.  The battle with Puffy Fluffy eventually causes a fire in Spongebob's house. Yeah, you know how pesky those fires are UNDER THE SEA!

The smell of smoke doesn't wake Spongebob either. Even with the building being almost totally demolished, he maintains his beauty sleep. Good for him. His pet could be murdered by a monster he brought into his home, but at least he got some rest. The morning arrives and Spongebob finally awakes. When he makes it to his library, he sees that his house is destroyed. Of course, it had to have been Gary. Not the stranger you brought in.

He goes into the kitchen to yell at Gary, just as Puffy Fluffy is about to eat him. And, despite seeing the situation at hand, he still yells at Gary, believing this to be all his fault.

Yeah, this is the problem with this episode. I get it. Spongebob's an idiot. He's written to be dumb a lot. But in the older episodes, there was still some logic in him to have the foresight to see what was wrong with this picture. That, hey, maybe the creature he brought was a monster that was causing problems. But no, he thinks that his loyal pet is causing trouble, even when he sees that Puffy Fluffy turned into a gigantic beast and is about to disembowel Gary. That isn't lovable idiocy, that's being blind, and horrible. Spongebob in this one moment becomes more of a monster than the monster in this episode.

Puffy Fluffy grabs Spongebob, and is about to eat him (please), and Spongebob, instead of being in a panic because he's about to be, oh, I don't know, EATEN, still takes the time to yell at Gary instead. Gary manages to lasso the tongue mouths of Puffy Fluffy, saving Spongebob. And as Puffy runs off, Spongebob yells for him to come back, while still being mad at Gary. Because it was a bad thing that he did wasn't it? How dare he save your life? Honestly, I'm rather shocked he did.  And the episode ends with Spongebob deciding that Gary would have much more fun at work with him, away from his life of Riley, because god forbid this end on a happy note.



And that's "A Pal For Gary". And yeah, this may have been one of my reviews with far less jokes and references, but that's for a good reason. This wasn't a so bad it's funny type thing. This was so bad it was uncomfortable to watch. 10 minutes of pure unpleasantness from start to finish. The conflict is moronic, even for Spongebob conflicts. There's enough imagery to traumatize children. Hell, I'd have been scared of Puffy Fluffy as a kid, I'll admit. But the damning thing about it is Spongebob himself.

His actions are mean spirited, cruel, and thoughtless. He's written to be oblivious to what's in front of him for the sake of laughs, and it doesn't make you laugh. It makes you hate this guy for his actions, and especially that he doesn't learn his lesson, and gets no comeuppance. He just goes about his day, not caring about what he's done to someone he claims to love. This is the finest example of what writers think is befitting of modern Spongebob Squarepants. Let's just make him a moron with no consequences to his actions, and that's enough to be funny. In this occasion especially, that doesn't work.

So, in the end, this was crap. Unfunny, unappealing crap from a show that should have been over a decade ago. But hopefully the next time I look at a Spongebob cartoon, it'll at least have some things to mock, and not just make me angry.