Angela Anaconda

My anaconda don't want none

Decode Entertainment: 1999

Sometimes you come across a show that just annoys you. It may not be the worst written, or the worst looking, but everything about it just annoys you. Johnny Test is currently that show that really annoys me because of its inane, awful writing, and its never ending airplay. Well, over a decade ago, the honor of annoying cartoon went solely to that of Angela Anaconda.

Some of you may actually remember that Angela Anaconda first made her presence to the world on an episode of the Nickelodeon show Kablam!, back in the late 90's. Most probably remember Angela Anaconda from that segment at the beginning of the Digimon movie. Yeah, even to this day I have zero clue who thought that Digmon fans were going to be able to tolerate an opening skit with a nasally voiced girl and her revenge fantasies with creepy-as-all hell clip art designs. No wonder Fox Family Channel tanked.

But if you're a Canuck like me, you remember this show from Teletoon. The same Teletoon that currently thinks that Johnny Test needs 40 airings a week. It lasted for a while here, but was actually canned quite quick in the states. Perhaps a lot of that had to be the fact that despite episodes having different settings at times, the biggest problem with this show, other than the creepy art style, was that it literally felt like every episode was the same thing. So, what is the essential plot of every episode, with very little that made you want to come back for more. So, what is this show about?

Angela Anaconda is this tomboy girl with a voice that sounds like a female Urkel. She and her friends, who run the stereotypical gamut of geeky weak boy, overly nice fat girl, and the other kid who's just really dumb, usually try to do something, but are constantly bothered, or impeded in their efforts of fun by Nanette Manoir, a valley girl who acts French, and often kisses up to the show's other antagonist, mean teacher Mrs. Brinks. The episode eventually wraps up with Angela imagining getting revenge on those who wronged her in annoying ways, often making Angela look more petty than in the right.

So, let's get to the design of the show. It's creepy. I don't generally mind the design being clip art, as if done right, it can look pretty cool. But the issue I have is that the people are all gray, and dead looking. Like weird walking corpses that lack any sign of life. Sure some of the world has color, but it feels weird to see in a world with gray, dead looking people. All in all, it's not a pretty sight to look at.

So let's get to the show itself, and see what's wrong with this show. Let's review this thing.

Let's start with the intro. Surely it can't be that...

Well, I'm done. Review over. You don't have to go home but you can't stay here.

Dear god I hate this intro. I get that we're supposed to sell the show on the main character and the conflict, but it could be done far better than without this nasally voiced girl singing somewhat off key about how Nanette is such a stuck up jerk face. It makes it come off less like "Ninny Poo" as Angela refers her to is less the villain as it comes off that she's just really jealous and spiteful.

"Starring me, and not starring Nanette Manoir". Thanks, I was worried it would be about Nanette when they named the show Angela Anaconda.

So, let's look at a couple episodes, starting with what most people remember, the infamous Digimon short. So, if you've seen the Digimon movie, be it either theatrically, or on VHS or DVD, then you've sat through the previews, were ready for big adventure with your favorite digital monsters who are the champions, and then, you get...

This.

Yeah, you thought you were going to jump right in to Digimon, but Fox is all like "screw that, choke down some crappy show on that Family channel of ours you don't watch". And the sad thing is, this wasn't chopped into an extra on the DVD. When you start the movie, you get this first. Why? This has nothing to do with the actual movie. This holds no bearing to anything that actually involves itself in the film. It's not like each of the three stories in the movie will be segued by interstitials hosted by Angela and her friends. This is just them going to see the movie. Because apparently you needed to be reminded that this is a movie. Despite it saying "THE MOVIE" in the title. So let's get into this. It's only about four minutes long, so far less the length of an actual episode.

So we see that Angela and her friends are first in line to see Digimon the Movie, and it's almost time for the show. However, their plans for the best seats in theater get impeded as Nanette Manoir and her rich friends have VIP passes. So, Angela and crew race into the theaters, only to find themselves blocked by Nanette, her friends, and their teacher Mrs. Brinks. So, instead of trying their best to find other seats, Angela begins to imagine.

Oh boy, it's THIS part. The part that really makes me hate Angela. In every episode, she imagines getting really over the top revenge on either Mrs. Brinks, Nanette, or whoever is the antagonist. This time around, she's digivolves to...

Shitty cosplayer-mon?

So, this just leads to a giant fight with Angelamon (I feel like a tool for even writing that), fighting Nanette inside a Mrs. Brinks robot, and her friends beating them down. Yes, they blocked your seats, but considering you had all the time in the world to have chosen those seats before Nanette blocked you, this is more on your end, and your petty dreams of abusing your teacher and some snot kids comes off more as you just being an idiot. And the episode ends with a far more idiotic payoff that, hey, all of the kids went into the wrong theater, and are watching some French film. Ha. It's funny because they were all in a rush and clearly weren't paying attention.

Now that that's out of the way, let's look at an episode from the show, in this case being "Diving Miss Angela"

We open the episode with the class taking a field trip to the knock off Sea World, as Mrs. Brinks scolds Johnny Abotti (the dumb kid I mentioned earlier) for horseplay, as she is more vested in the majestic whales. Hopefully this is more just admiring the creature, and not some Troy McClure ocean creature fetish thing. Due to a contest where whoever catches the ball gets to be whale assistant, Angela lucks out, and gets her opportunity. This turns out successful for Angela.

While Mrs. Brinks and Nanette get soaked because they're the antagonists, so laugh dammit.

Her experience with whale being a success, Angela is now unable to shut the hell up about it, on account of (and for some reason she says "on account of" more than any human being imaginable. Seriously, it's like some really random catchphrase) she now wants to study creatures in the ocean. Well, at least she has a goal, and clearly this won't just be a contrived plot device that will not have any importance by episode's end.

So after receiving some stuff from her Grandma Lou, she goes to the lake and looks around for underwater life, but only finds Nanette Manoir, who is part of a scuba diving class. Since she has experience despite being under 13, she has the right to be here, while Angela can essentially go screw I guess. So, are we supposed to hate Nanette yet? I mean other than petty insults, technically she hasn't done anything monstrous. And in the case of the whole scuba thing, she at least set out to get experience beforehand. Yeah, that has a lot to do with her being rich, but still.

So what follows is a montage of Angela trying to practice scuba diving. From walking underwater, to whatever the hell she's doing in the kitchen of her house, to swimming on a table. But despite training herself, and still sucking hard at it, she's surprisingly still not given a chance to snorkel. Nanette mocks Angela about not having a pool to dive in. Angela pines over this to her grandma, who goes into some segue about holding a manatee wedding. What? When Grandma Lou gives her a diving helmet, Angela suggests the lake, to which Grandma Lou says would be too dangerous. So the best way to do this is, of course...

Sneak into Nanette's place and dive in her pool. Yeah, our heroes ladies and germs. Oh that Nanette is so catty and mean, but since we're in the moral right, we can just try to get away with BREAKING AND ENTERING. The swim practice is cut short as the two are caught by Nanette and her family, and told to leave. But before they can, Angela begins to imagine. Oh boy, I'm sure this couldn't possibly be a very unbalanced punishment she's going to imagine.

In this case, she imagines being a deep sea diver finding the elusive Ninnyfish. With the help of Grandma Lou and the manatees mentioned earlier (I guess there was a point to that), they've captured the Ninnyfish, saving the day, I guess. So, I guess we can just move on with the story, and...

No, of course it couldn't end there. No, she wants to take the Ninnyfish to Oceanland to abuse it, not feed it treats, and force it to marry a shark. And all of this, because she said some bitchy comments and didn't want you swimming in HER POOL? I'm sorry, but this is unbalanced revenge. If Nanette did anything in this episode deserving of any form of retaliation to this degree, then okay, that would make sense. But it doesn't, and it makes Angela look extremely petty, and even more cruel than Nanette. Somehow I think when Angela gets older, it will be less cutesy imagery of what she wants to do to her enemies, and more just extremely violent.

Also, like Doug, does no one notice that Angela kind of goes all silent and still, wondering what she could be thinking of? These imagination flashbacks for the most part always seem like they come off terrible.

So, it turns out that she finds some jewel that fell off Nanette's mother's bracelet, and both Angela and her grandmother are off the hook for, you know, invasion of private property and all. But, when now given the chance to dive, Angela has now decided that she no longer wants to be a scuba diver, or to study undersea life. Nah, she'd rather study geology, making this entire experience all the more pointless.


And that's Angela Anaconda. It's... yeah. The writing is for the most part boring and bland, the animation looks more freaky and ugly than it was intended, and the main character feels more obnoxious than endearing. And my god her imagination is awful, often wanting to dole out a surprisingly unwarranted amount of revenge on someone, coming off more cruel and spiteful than the actual villains of the show. Is Nanette a  bitch? Yes, that can't be disputed. But barely anything she does is often deserving of the punishment Angela wants her to have. So, yeah, it's probably not a show that will drive me insane thinking about it, but it's definitely crap.