Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers: Yeah I'm just gonna talk about Gadget the whole time.

12:51 PM · Dec 11, 2020 "the three genders: guys, gals, and dudes"

When I got to Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers in the Disney Watch back in 2020, I did enjoy it quite a bit... save uh... One Major Thing...

11:20 PM · Nov 30, 2020 "this show is a very.... auditorily bad... like sound effects make me feel uncomfortable"
5:53 PM · Dec 2, 2020 "i hate the audio in this show but the theme fucks"

However, the quality of Rescue Rangers episodes I watched was admittedly not the best. Maybe that was why I hated every noise coming from it save Gadget and the theme song. Say what you will about Disney+, but it has done a lot for high quality rips, and if I'm not paying for it, I'll gladly use it. Big shout out to my mom for letting me leech off her account from another country lmfao.

That being said, I figured maybe some high quality episodes will set aside my feelings of the audio being said. And it certainly didn't bother me near as much, but... it still did.

Rescue Rangers was a bit different from the rest of the shows in the Disney Watch, because in particular, I watched this show while working out, and ultimately I was pretty entertained by it. It's probably one of the cuter Disney Afternoon shows. Naturally, since it's about silly cartoon rodents doing silly cartoon rodent things and sometimes they save the day.

11:09 PM · Nov 30, 2020 "these pi-rats have been finding the same treasure for years. idrk what's going on but that part is cute"

A lot of crimes take place in the animal world, so they're lower stakes, but still fun.  

11:22 PM · Nov 30, 2020 "rodents in this show are a metaphor for the lgbt community" 

I don't know what I meant there, but I was right. 

Ultimately the weak point of the show is its characters. You can sense a bit of the 2010s kid show dynamic in this one, except there's four of them, and Chip is picking up any slack from the other three.

11:03 PM · Nov 30, 2020 "i used to be able to differentiate chip and dale but i dont know if i can now..... apparently aloha shirt is dale.... he's a jerk."

I eventually gained a bit more respect for Monterey Jack, though Chip and Dale. Less so. The villains in the show are really underwhelming too.

But there was one character I adored.

11:50 PM · Nov 30, 2020 "Gadget is like a perfect combination of Girl and Weirdgirl."
5:37 PM · Dec 3, 2020 "rescue rangers is such a show because i hate everyone in it that isn't gadget but i love gadget sooooo much i like how neurodivergent coded she is and it feels really natural...."

Gadget Hackwrench, at her best, is a peppy scientist who speaks like a little boy in a 1950s sitcom. She's somewhat oblivious to any romantic advances towards her, and really, really, really likes to talk about science. One episode "Out to Launch" is essentially her just infodumping about space facts. Any time she gets a love interest, she's mostly just talking about science in a way that can be seen as platonic. Basically, she's autistic as all hell. It's something I really enjoyed about the show. She's just neurodivergent and vibing which makes the show feel really comfortable to me, as a science lover who is also neurodivergent and vibing. (Albeit, she's more of an engineer while I dabble more in neuroscience.)

Gadget at her best really does improve the quality of Rescue Rangers, though at her worst, she falls into the girl archetype and a love interest. Gadget being a love interest does add a layer of comedy, especially considering that she hardly cares, but her as the girl role is tired as hell. But it varies so much that I guess it depends on the writer. 

I never really looked at who wrote the episodes but Mark Edens seems to have done a ton I like, including "Out to Launch." He was on some Talespin and Disney Doug and apparently wrote the teleplay for Luck of the Irish if you're a DCOM fan. I've never seen Luck of the Irish though so maybe let me know if that's good.

I don't really have a bunch to say about Rescue Rangers. Originally, I was going to watch the movie coming out next month, but I kept hearing worse and worse things about it and the quality seems more and more lousy. Once you get to a certain point, you gotta ask yourself: "Am I actually going to enjoy this movie?" Turns out the answer is no and I don't really want to give Disney money for a dogshit product. So yeah, quick post for today. 

I do have a lot to say for the duck properties though, they're coming soon!

Overall Rating For Rescue Rangers: C Tier

The Lion King Televised Universe (It's Another Double Feature Guys!)

9:01 AM · Jun 3, 2021 "apparently timon and pumbaa adopted bunga as their son.
this means 2 things
1. a loss for the lgbt community
2. these two characters could potentially know each other (absolutely rancid)"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So lately a lot of the shows we've been discussing in this era are wannabe edgy cartoon shorts of the 1990s or cartoon adaptations of various movies. So you're probably thinking: "Wait a moment! What if Disney made something that was both those things at once?"

Well first of all, they did, but Sebastian the Crab is considered lost media. However, Timon and Pumbaa also exists.

The show ultimately gives what it advertises: Timon and Pumbaa.

5:43 PM · Dec 19, 2020 "one ep in and this show sure is... timon and pumba"
8:51 AM · Dec 20, 2020 "ok the more i think about it the angrier it gets me because disney is really well known for being on that shit now. delivering exactly what they say and that's why they get so little flack for what they make. that's why the live action remakes do well isnt it?"
8:53 AM · Dec 20, 2020 "like every prior show has surprised me in some way. shnookums and meat surprised me with it's christian dogma. gargoyles surprised me with broadway almost killing someone. shows like 7d,"
8:54 AM · Dec 20, 2020 "tweet sent 2 soon oops. 7d, gummi bears, bonkers, motorcity had their share of surprises but i feel like i know what's gonna happen in this one"

This isn't entirely true. Timon and Pumbaa did have some surprises for me, but I want to talk about those later. It's a pretty acceptable show, but the show, and the other show we'll be discussing today, rely on one assumption for audience enjoyment.

The person watching this series must have enjoyed The Lion King.

I personally found The Lion King overrated and overplayed when I was a kid. I didn't really have the big laughs or cries watching this film that a lot of my friends did. Also people are often insistent that I have aliased myself after the Jeremy Irons lion when that is... my actual name that even my dear family refers to me with.

9:40 AM · Dec 20, 2020 "i HATE the trope of the villain is the same ugly guy every time with different times..... but i think it's funny that the villain is named quint....."

Fortunately, I am also a huge hypocrite and think it's funny when the names of people I know are in shows I watch during the Disney Watch. Sorry Quint!

But yeah. Wasn't super huge on Lion King, so Timon and Pumbaa got grating the more I watched it. I watched a lot of these shows in a day or two, usually 13 episodes or so. I think it's worth pointing out that humans were not meant to watch 13 episodes of these shows in a day.

Timon and Pumbaa also travel the world a lot, so it does get a bit racist.

5:34 PM · Dec 19, 2020 "the native stereotypes turn out to be... college kids...."

Said episode (Boara Boara) does have a content warning on Disney Plus, which I think is unique to it.

I would look through where they've been that I've also been in detail, but I think Louisiana and Florida are the main places I've lived where they've been.

Also I think Timon is gay and heterophobic.

5:37 PM · Dec 19, 2020 "AAAAAAAAAAAAa"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

5:41 PM · Dec 19, 2020 "timon is heterophobic"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

10:45 AM · Dec 20, 2020 "i think timon is gay and pumbaa is straight and this is like tragic gay rep"

Take all this as you will.

Also our world travelers Timon and Pumbaa are Christian now. My assumption is they picked it up somewhere.

9:12 AM · Dec 20, 2020 "i change my mind a gator just asked why timon is godless"
9:13 AM · Dec 20, 2020 ""why doesn't uncle timon say grace" hiiiiii?"

Why is this important? Well, The Lion Guard has a Christmas episode. 

 

3:51 PM · Jun 3, 2021 "maybe colonizers is strong but they're DEFINITELY missionaries"
3:53 PM · Jun 3, 2021 "ok apparently they learned about it thru hearsay but imagine hearing that timon and pumbaa introduced christmas to the pridelands and NOT thinking that."

Assuming Timon and Pumbaa and Lion Guard take place in the same universe (there is nothing I saw in either show that suggests otherwise), it's very likely that Timon and Pumbaa converted to Christianity during their travels and want to make all of their friends, like Simba and Bunga who they cherish most of all, see the light of Christ.

Or it's a cartoon and no one thought this through at all, as Christian is the default. 

It's also important to notice that a lot of what I said about Timon and Pumbaa fits Lion Guard as well.

5:08 PM · Jun 2, 2021 "ok lion guard would be great if it did not lean on the assumption that i care about the lion king. as is it is kinda sucks"
4:08 PM · Jun 3, 2021 "the thing about the lion guard is that if an ep isnt lore heavy it feels like a very special episode. which frankly i believe to be a good thing but it is irritating that these same characters are learning the same lesson every epsode"

The themes in the Lion Guard, especially the first two season, are about compromise and learning to accept people who are different from you. One episode introduces a female Hyena, who Kion befriends for example, and she turns out the be the best character and helps everyone realize that Hyenas are not bad and part of the circle of life.

1:30 PM · Jun 1, 2021 "jasiri is great. she never comes back does she."
1:34 PM · Jun 1, 2021 "she does!"

Which! Is great! But they do this several times over.

Also, speaking of Timon being gay several paragraphs ago, they adopt a new child, just like they did with Simba. This one is named Bunga and boy oh boy is he Timon and Pumbaa's kid.

1:06 PM · Jun 1, 2021 "oh i HATE bunga"
3:55 PM · Jun 3, 2021 "bunga has hung mistletoe above his two gay dads and they didnt even kiss ping disney in this when reciting their homophobic actions"

This little child is so full of catchphrases and hubris. I cannot stand him. Also it allows Disney to pretend to be progressive without actually saying Timon and Pumbaa are gay. Yes Bunga has two dads. No, we're not actually going to show anything like romance between the two.

Like all the Disney Junior era shows, this one has lore too. Kion has a death roar that brings in clouds,

3:24 PM · Jun 3, 2021 "clouds go dark like it's about to rain kion could have saved the dry season"

Kiara from Simba's Pride exists and doesn't do much but hang with her friends,

3:58 PM · Jun 3, 2021 "i like that kiara has two inexplicable lesbian lion friends"

They bring back Jeremy Irons lion from the dead, who is now David Oyelowo lion,

And the main characters grow up considerably during the third season and explore the world on a quest to the Tree of Life

4:52 PM · Jun 3, 2021 "the lion guard future here we are"
4:53 PM · Jun 3, 2021 "oh the snow monkey is named yuki..... clever."

It's really hard to incorporate all these tweets. Really I don't have much to say other than I don't like the Lion King, so these two series don't mean all that much to me, but they might share a universe or something.

Overall Rating for Timon and Pumbaa: E Tier

Overall Rating for The Lion Guard: D Tier

Shnookums and Meat: The Weirdest Nothing I've Ever Seen

1:08 PM · Dec 19, 2020 "fanboy and chumchum catch the noid"

 

 

 

  

A consistent theme we've been seeing with a lot of the Disney Afternoon era cartoons that are similar to the typical 90s Saturday morning cartoons, with the primary blueprint coming from Warner Bros. 

But while people were comparing Bonkers to Animaniacs and Gargoyles to Batman, they were comparing Shnookums and Meat to Ren and Stimpy.

My last blog had me discussing Gargoyles and finding more ironic than genuine enjoyment from the show. Let me continue ruining the childhoods of my peers by saying that I always disliked Ren and Stimpy. Refused to watch it as a kid. When I sat through some episodes as a teenager, I was bored or grossed out. Soon, I found that John K. was a particularly unpleasant person and had a negative view of just about every cartoon I liked, so I avoided his show like the plague (such a shame cancel culture was so prevalent in the year of our lord 2009). Then as an adult he was shown to be considerably worse than I thought, which threw all possibilities of me giving Ren and Stimpy another chance. In October 2021, I saw Billy West, and he did what I assume is a really funny Ren and Stimpy covid bit, amongst other thing. Sadly, I did not get the joke.

But this blog isn't about Ren and Stimpy. It's about Shnookums and Meat.

I should specify that this blog isn't about posting reviews or history, but more about posting my own thoughts about the show. Complaining about Shnookums and Meat is nothing new. Every Tom, Dick, and John Rozanski has done that.

Unfortunately I did complain a lot while watching it, so let's get it out of the way.

12:48 PM · Dec 19, 2020 "jeff bennett really said. "let's phone this in""
12:49 PM · Dec 19, 2020 "pith possum and tex tinstar just hahaha wow"
12:49 PM · Dec 19, 2020 "they're very nothing to be fair......"
12:51 PM · Dec 19, 2020 "i do like how friendly this cat and dog are but that means nothing"
12:53 PM · Dec 19, 2020 "man this show really gets almost funny a lot...."

The show lacks any sort of substance. It's nowhere near as gross as stuff like Ren and Stimpy or even Marsupilami, but it's definitely weird to watch.

And rather than complain about the lack of substance, let's talk about why this show is weird.

12:36 PM · Dec 19, 2020 "we are less than 30 seconds into the episode and it has already been revealed that the husband is a furry."

Worth noting, our prior 90s shorts compilation shows usually had separate groups of people doing the shorts, but to my knowledge, Shnookums and Meat, Pith Possum, and Tex Tinstar seem to all be written by Bill Kopp and directed by Jeff DeGrandis. Tex Tinstar I'm not 100% certain of, because the writing and directing credits at the beginning of each episode become twisted from Billy Boy Floyd and Jeffy Boy Floyd to various goofball cowboy names to wild puns to "Directed by Shnookums and Meat."

 

The Tex Tinstar title cards are probably funnier than anything in the three shorts.

Tex Tinstar is also just. Interesting in general. The animated serial short was definitely out of style at this point, going back to the 1960s, and you can absolutely see the inspiration from parodies of the form. Particularly Rocky and Bullwinkle and Dudley Do Right. There's even an outlaw villain played by Corey Burton doing his best Inspector Fenwick.

Tex Tinstar was probably my favorite of the three shorts, though I found myself looking at timestamps often, something you shouldn't do when watching a 4 minute short.

The show as a whole is also.... a lot more god fearing than I expected.

1:26 PM · Dec 19, 2020 "going a little crazy bc the show said gambling is the work of the devil"
1:27 PM · Dec 19, 2020 "like they show two characters gambling and there's no moral they just SAY that"
1:28 PM · Dec 19, 2020 "anyway shnookums and meat just died"
1:29 PM · Dec 19, 2020 "THIS is the hot place"
1:32 PM · Dec 19, 2020 "shnookums and meat want to go to hell because sexy devil girls"
1:51 PM · Dec 19, 2020 "also they called bugs "god's creatures" this isn't out of PLACE for a children's cartoon..... but it's just really weird...."

Religion isn't an avoided topic in kids media, especially if it's older, but usually Christian religion is taken as some serious thing. Episodes where a character goes to hell is probably the silliest it gets, and Shnookums and Meat does have that (in an episode that ends with Shnookums and Meat embracing their fate because they want some devil girls carnally), but not before making plenty of jokes about sin and god out of left field.

mood tbh 

One of the next shows I'm gonna talk about has some surprisingly Christian undertones, but I don't think anything from the Disney watch even comes close to these religious jokes.

I don't have anything to say about Pith Possum. It was the worst one, so just take the damn tweets.

12:55 PM · Dec 19, 2020 "they play super sexy music whenever this woman is on screen to remind you she is sexy"

 

 

 

 

 

 

1:50 PM · Dec 19, 2020 "pith possum kins spock."

 Overall Rating for Shnookums and Meat: F Tier

Gargoyles: Is it bad most of my enjoyment for this one was ironic?

11:39 AM · Dec 19, 2020 "gargoyles is steven universe for people whose adventure time was batman the animated series"

The first time I watched Gargoyles was around autumn of 2016. If you were online at this time and talked about cartoons, you may have noticed a lot of people getting really angry at Steven Universe, and this time, I think it's justified. We just met one of the original crystal gems, Bismuth, who was mysteriously bubbled inside lion's mane. We found out that this was because Bismuth created something called the breaking point, intended to shatter the diamonds. Rose Quartz is very against this and so is Steven, because killing is bad, no matter who it is done to.

I'm older now and I do agree with Steven in this regard. I've grown rather naive with age and I want to think that people can be good no matter what, if they just make the decision to be better. It's a philosophy that gets me through a lot of things, mental health wise.

But it's also important to note that they were in the middle of a war. The diamonds were killing and corrupting various crystal gems and you would assume the crystal gems were doing the same, but no. It makes them "just as bad."

This Just-As-Bad-ism is seen in the multipart first episode of Gargoyles.

Back in the olden days and in the present day of... 1994, gargoyles seem to play a protector role to the humans who inhabit their land. Humans, then and now, while some are kind, others are quite thankless, with a considerable amount of gargoyles in the past being smashed to bits.

Despite all this, Goliath continues serving his role because he would not want to be just as bad as the humans.

Demona, as Goliath's foil, is set up as a straw woman, someone who hates all humans and destroys all humans, yet is working with a human, the villain of the show, David Xanatos. Demona is willing to kill to get what she wants, but Goliath, who tries to kill Xanatos, is told he'd be just as bad as Demona.

I know that without something like that there wouldn't be much of a show to begin with, but it really did make my skin crawl watching it. As I continued four years later, I found myself liking the show more, but hating Goliath just as much.

5:37 PM · Dec 18, 2020 "i cannot stand goliath......."
5:39 PM · Dec 18, 2020 "this show really just goliath is always right i hate it"
8:38 PM · Dec 18, 2020 "gargoyles would be SO GOOD if goliath wasn't such a steven universe"
8:38 PM · Dec 18, 2020 "quiet liberal"

 

 

 

 

9:01 PM · Dec 18, 2020 "cartoons feel more liberal now than when i first watched gargoyles, but there's a lot of aspects i dont like. you can argue demona's hating humans and means to ends deal is complex but it does from a political standpoint feel a little strawmany...."
9:02 PM · Dec 18, 2020 "we got in the last episode a pretty interesting middle ground with brooklyn who thinks some humans are okay but knows humans will beat him up for being different, and i wanna see more of that, but i feel like it's been wrapped up!"
9:05 PM · Dec 18, 2020 "from what i remember of the pilot tho goliath was quick to toss demona aside for her distrust of humans which.... WAS justified.... anyway if i were going the gay thread still i think goliath would be lgbt friendly but if a gay person yelled at a straight person he'd tone police"
9:06 PM · Dec 18, 2020 "all that being said. i'm liking gargoyles more than i remember."

Though we do get some varying thoughts on humans from the hero team. Particularly Brooklyn, who grew to become my favorite character. I really like when shows give the snarky character more to them besides snark. The episode "Temptation" has Brooklyn getting hatecrimed for being a gargoyle, and saved by Demona, who tries to lure him to her side, and he points out that she has a lot of points. Ultimately, he sticks to saving people because there are good humans and bad, but he stays pretty nuanced throughout the rest of the show. Or at least, the first season, which was all I watched.

Unfortunately, a lot of interest in Gargoyles was ironic... I think back to old black and white movies I used to enjoy and how corny they are. But these things used to be scary and intriguing for people. I guess that just means the culture has changed.

11:07 AM · Dec 19, 2020 "me: maybe gargoyles is a show i can take seriously gargoyles: fuck you. quack pack."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

8:36 AM · Dec 20, 2020 "I kind of find it sad that I was expecting more ironic enjoyment of these shows but the one I got it from the most was gargoyles"

I guess I oughta feel bad for not enjoying Gargoyles in "the right" way, but it simply did not age well. That's usually something people say when a show has gotten more offensive with age, but for me, it didn't age well due to the oversaturation of neoliberal cartoons in the past 5-10 years. Goliath hating his brother, play us out I guess.

12:08 PM · Dec 19, 2020 "goliath: family is the most important thing ever
goliath when he sees his brother: you are an abomination."
12:08 PM · Dec 19, 2020 "i really hate goliath..... sm....."

 Overall Rating for Gargoyles: B Tier

Aladdin: We're just gonna ignore Genie having a girlfriend for this one.

10:30 AM · Dec 18, 2020 "[abu voice] hewwo"

I'm gonna level with you. I thought this show was going to be boring, and maybe it's watching it after Marsupilami, but I had a surprising amount of fun with this one.

9:14 AM · Dec 18, 2020 "okay so the first episode of aladdin.... it's good....... i'm actually liking it. will the vibe stay the same though?"
9:46 AM · Dec 18, 2020 "man was not expecting the aladdin cartoon to be good but tad stones is there so like."
11:58 AM · Dec 18, 2020 "sometimes the show is cheesy and poorly done but the ep i just watched where jasmine got kidnapped by a plant monster has a lot of beauty in it..... it really worked with what it had and i understand why i liked it so much as a kid!"

Sadly Tad Stones does not necessarily a good show make, but we'll learn more about that down the line.

Like The Little Mermaid, I watched this show as a child, but I have more vague memories than nostalgic connections to the show. Also Mirage may have been the imprint that lead to me being a gay furry. Sadly I don't think I saw her in the 13 episodes I watched. Abis Mal, Haroud Hazi Bin and Mechanicles were the ones who usually showed up. Which, not complaining because they're all really fun villains too.

12:58 PM · Dec 18, 2020 "i think the worst part about the aladdin cartoon is the fact that this guy is fucking kin bait."

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'd also watched The Return of Jafar rather recently... Er... Sometime in the decade of my 20's. For work I was handed Return of Jafar and Antz and had to have kids vote on them. Overwhelmingly the kids picked Return of Jafar, which is great because I did not get paid enough to watch Woody Allen movies. (And I still don't!)

Everyone talks about how lousy the Disney Sequels are, and Return of Jafar, being one of the first, probably makes it prime for mocking.

But it was good? There's some fun songs. Iago gets a redemption arc. Maybe it's not cinematic level animation, but for what it is, it's very enjoyable.

10:25 AM · Dec 18, 2020 "iago is bald"

Iago joining the team is something I really enjoyed about the series on its own. Perhaps it was an excuse to get Gilbert Gottfried back (Rest in Peace), but it was worth it. He brought a lot of attitude to the series, and worked as great comic relief.

Speaking of, the series has four comic relief characters. Some may argue that is overkill, but ultimately, each one brings different comedy. Iago's brand of comic relief comes from being the black sheep character. Since Aladdin is basically rich now, his one morally ethical trait is essentially gone and he's a good royal person. Meanwhile Iago, who was drenched in being a nasty little thing is slowly learning about kindness, so he still gets to be snarky as hell. 

Then we have Genie, with his improvisational referential comedy. A lot of jokes for adults and older kids come from Genie, but he's also wacky and silly enough for younger kids to enjoy too. He's also overwhelmingly Homer, due to being voiced by Dan Castlevania. No Robin Williams of course, but he is serviceable. 

Carpet and Abu bring a certain silent humor to the series, with Carpet being more of a silent type like Snoopy, and Abu being partially able to speak like Rufus. These two are more subtle, which I think allows them to get away with having more joke characters. Not that I'm complaining I love joke characters.

However, I do think some jokes the series uses are questionable. Most notably, the series sticks to "As Long As It Sounds Foreign" pun names for some of its characters. Though Abis is an Arabic name, the family name Mal, is would be German, if anything. Haroud meanwhile isn't a name at all. One episode features a child king who controls the weather (yes. like encanto.) named Mahmoud, which is an Arabic name, but it is pronounced incorrectly.

Also a bit of a tangent but Mahmoud canonically is for prison emancipation, but since we can't have radical beliefs at Disney, Aladdin and Jasmine tell him to tone it down a bit.

9:27 AM · Dec 18, 2020 "GOING A LITTLE CAZY OVER THIS KID WHOSE IMMEDIATE THOUGHT WHEN DOING GOOD THINGS IS PRISON EMANCIPATION. HE GETS IT."
9:45 AM · Dec 18, 2020 "he gets it because he is in a political position of power and is aware the prison system exists to punish instead of reform, and that is its intended purpose"

Though back to the racism, I think the animated series still deals with a lot of the racism that 90s film did. Worth noting that while Aladdin the series is not on Disney plus, Aladdin and both its sequel movies have the racism disclaimer on them (something I discovered was a thing when my pal and I watched Peter Pan). I think there's a lot of writings on these. Primary concerns are of Arabic writing being essentially scribble scrabble, and Aladdin and Jasmine having European features while the more villainous characters are stereotypical. I do know for a fact that the latter is true for this series.

Also Abis Mal is voiced by Jason Alexander, who is, in my mind at least, the exemplar white boy.

Overall Rating for Aladdin: B Tier

Kim Possible: Two of A Kind?!?!?!?!??!

4:47 PM · Jan 16, 2021 "drakken got himself a man"

 

 

 

 

 

 

In my last blogpost I talked about Spirou et Fantasio, a Franco Belgian comic series about a super tough young red haired hero, a doofy blond best friend who gives into vice easily, and their sometimes talking animal sidekick.

Today, I'm gonna talk about Kim Possible, an American animated series about a super tough young red haired hero, a doofy blond best friend who gives into vice easily, and their sometimes talking animal sidekick.

3:51 PM · Jan 16, 2021 "i think kim possible is a spirou et fantasio adaptation..."

I did a lot of research on whether or not Kim Possible was at all inspired by Spirou, and came up pretty emptyhanded. From what I can tell, Kim Possible's inspirations are characters such and James Bond, James Kirk, and various Marvel superheroes. From what little I know about these topics, this seems to make sense. In addition, Kim Possible was also inspired by the can-do attitude of the creators' daughters.

Spirou is a bit of an ouroboros of the self, so finding inspiration is a bit harder. Artists tend to put their own modern touches on Spirou, though they're usually inspired by political climate (Fournier) or the rising popularity of manga (Morvan and Munuera). If you go all the way back to Rob-Vel, the inspiration for Spirou is somewhat autobiographical, going back to his work on transatlantic liners.

Ultimately, the similarities between Kim and Spirou are the fault of convergent evolution. Some aspects like Rufus weren't even added to Kim Possible til later in production. BUT. Let's ask ourselves a question:

How good of a Spirou et Fantasio animated adaptation is Kim Possible? Is it better than, say, 2006's Spirou et Fantasio: Two of a Kind?

Measuring the quality of an adaptation is one thing, but comparing two different shows is another. We'll need an episode with a similar plot to measure how well each adaptation does its thing. So let's go with a basic, but modern enough for the 2000s prompt: Fantasio gets sucked into a video game. 

So the episodes we're going to be testing the waters with are "Game Plan" and "Virtu-Ron."

In the Spirou 2006 episode "Game Plan," we start out with the gang hanging out at the beach when Fantasio and Zaoki go inside. Zaoki tells Fantasio about the new VR helmet she got from a friend that literally sucks you into the game. Fantasio, being a lover of modern tech, is eager to try it out. A good starter for our friend Fantasio. As for Zaoki, she's a new character created by the show, and is the daughter of Zorglub, one of the villains. After this series, another Zorglub daughter, Zandra, would appear in the Zorglub spinoff comic. Zaoki is a fun character. I don't have any problems with her.

"Virtu-Ron" takes a little longer to get us into the video game world. We see Ron, the Fantasio for this series, trying to impress Zita, who could really be any random woman character who strikes Fantasio's fancy. (While I do wish Zita played a more prominent role in the show, as far as a Spirou adaptation, this treatment does track.) 

Kim, our Spirou, spends a considerable amount of time complaining about eating gross food with the family and all the nerdy MMO stuff going on. Making Spirou a teenager with a family is a very questionable move, as the comics tended to keep Spirou's parents a secret. Worth noting they completely ditched the bellhop motif, something that came about with Yoann and Vehlmann's comics. These details add little to the show, so changing them doesn't affect my enjoyment. However, Spirou's patience is usually a lot more worn by these sorts of flights of fancy of his friend Fantasio, going from acceptance to annoyance, while Kim maintains a mild annoyance throughout. It's still nice to see our Spirou show emotions though. It's something I enjoyed from the Franquin era. 

Wade also helps Ron with the game. I guess the best comparison for Wade would be Count de Champignac: The team's smart guy and considerably older rather than younger. Wade is also big on tech rather than mushrooms. Overall, I would say Wade is the weakest of the adapted Spirou characters.

Back to "Game Plan," Spirou and the Count try to communicate with Fantasio and Zaoki in game, now joined by Zaoki's friend Eliza (a one off character). Spirou shows a lot of concern for his friend and needs him back, despite the fact that they were basically just making a home for a turtle. However, he's not as emotive as he ought to be, at most laughing whenever Fantasio does something silly. Champignac mostly serves to be the techie smart guy, in a matter almost identical to Wade. The main difference is the Count's interest in mushrooms has been brought up once (as a minor detail). Fantasio on the other hand spends most of his time complaining, which is funny.

Then to Virtu-Ron, we get Rufus yelling at Kim to enter the game as well. Rufus, is our team's Spip, and the most noticeable difference about him is that he is Ron's pet, while Spip in the series is Spirou's pet. This leads to a less than perfect friendship between our Spip and our Spirou, which is instead given to Spip and Fantasio. Rufus is also more willing to jump to action than Spip, who wishes he had a normal owner.

Spip in "Game Plan" is pretty typical of Spip from the comics. A goofy squirrel, who, in this adaptation does not speak, but it is evident that he does not want to be here as our players make it through the levels.

Rufus played a stronger role in "Virtu-Ron" revealing himself to be the tunnel lord. This is pretty cartoony for a Spip and honestly seems more like a Marsupilami move, though it is entertaining.

In terms of actual sticking to the characters, Two of a Kind has Kim Possible beat. However, I would say Ron is a better Fantasio adaptation than Fantasio, and characters like Kim and Wade come pretty close to Spirou and Champignac. Kim Possible's characters are also a lot more well-rounded, and the show itself is pretty entertaining, so despite the differences, it's pretty up in the air for me still

Off the most insane tangent I've been on on this blog to date, let's actually talk about Kim Possible as its own show.

6:44 PM · Jan 14, 2021 "KP was one of my favorite shows when i was a kid and i dressed up as her one halloween"

This wasn't the first show on the Disney Watch I had enjoyed as a kid. I've already mentioned Bonkers and The Little Mermaid, but it was special for me. Kim feels like this prime girl power character. I'm not sure if it's the nostalgia goggles, but instead of being #girlboss like a lot of modern female leads, she just feels like a hero. Maybe it's the inspiration from male heroes creating what is ultimately this teen girl hero who feels right.

Though honestly, I don't think I would like her if she were a real person.

Watching Kim Possible as an adult made me think back on my own high school years, and how Kim and Ron would fit in them. I could see myself taking a lot of the same classes as Kim, especially if she was in AP classes like myself, and I could see her getting on my nerves with her type A personality and impatience toward uncool things. Just a little.

I feel like I discussed Ron a lot in my Spirou analysis; however, I do have a bit of a hot take about Kim x Ron. I think them dating is fine, but they're ultimately going to break up, once the realization that Ron has gender envy toward Kim hits. This is mostly based on the body swap episode.

Drakken and Shego are the villains who show up the most, and they're really good.

4:59 PM · Jan 16, 2021 "shego is so funny im gonna end up wifing her at some point huh?"
5:40 PM · Jan 17, 2021 "idk if i wife shego yet. i might if i watch more tho"
3:56 PM · Jan 17, 2021 "shego being the disabled ally of the show was not something i was expecting but good on her..."

I continued to watch past my 13 episode rule, and I ultimately came to the conclusion that yeah, Shego is kind of... yeah.

Drakken's funny on his own, and not to continue my trans coding characters in this show, but I do get a bit of a nonbinary vibe from him, considering the reaction from when his birthname is thrown around. Maybe a bit of an any pronouns guy? What do you think?

Though I guess I have some evidence against it.

4:58 PM · Jan 17, 2021 "drakken's on queer eye????????????????//"

THIS IS SO SAD!!!

When I watched it way back when I always assumed other villains showed up more. Especially DNAmy, who was only in 3-4 episodes. It was pretty weird how absent villains were.

10:38 PM · Apr 3, 2022 "he wants to be goku"

 

 

 

 

 

Also Monkey Fist is the worst one.

I think something Kim Possible lends itself to well is the use of tropes. I know I and many others complain about shows being too tropey, but Kim does it very well. Various concepts of the show such as "Girl who advertises herself for odd jobs gets a distress signal" and "The villain has a rival who is another villain and the two get confused often" have been rotating in my mind for such a long time.

It sticks to its continuity too, which I respect for an episodic cartoon!

I think all of my problems with Kim Possible come about around season 4, and it's not horrible, but it is really weird.

The first thing I notice is that everyone is more present. This isn't a bad thing. There's a lot of characters I love to see! Monique is here more. Wade is here more. Team Go is here more. Yori is here more. I love all those guys.

But Barkin is also here more... Barkin is here so incredibly often.

Though it may disappoint the Patrick Warburton fanboys and also my mother, I don't like Barkin. He's unpleasant to be around, and his dynamic with Ron, especially in the fourth season, makes me feel sorry for the both of them.

Season 4 Ron is also pretty bad. Watching Virtu-Ron felt like such a breath of fresh air... Heck, even the 2019 movie felt like a breath of fresh air. Season 4 Ron comes off as very immature, very unready for a relationship, and kind of a very unhealthy person in every regard.

Also season 4 is just like really fatphobic and transphobic and keeps pushing this joke that Brick Flagg is four years older than the main cast (which was pretty outta left field).

There were a lot of good episodes, including the finale. I'm really happy with how KP ended, both in So The Drama and Graduation. Both gave conclusions but kept things up in the air.

2:17 PM · Jan 17, 2021 "kim possible 2020 jim and tim get vinyl"

I also watched the movie, and while this has no bearing on my ratings, I thought it'd be nice to talk about too. (Season 4 hardly did as I realized the other three seasons were even greater than I had though.)

It's a pretty good movie. A bit anachronistic in the way only loser nerds, care about, but I enjoyed it. Ron and Shego were kept pretty in character, which is all I can ask for!

The Kim of this movie is a bit more emotionally vulnerable, which I like and dislike. On one hand it adds to Kim's character, but on the other, it feels so counter intuitive to this hero character girls have. But on the other hand she's like 14 here so I can't complain too much.

Also wasn't the biggest on the change from cheerleading to soccer, not because I care deeply about Kim's cheerleading skills or anything (some of the cheer scenes in Kim Possible are the most poorly animated scenes of the show), but because I've never seen American high schoolers get pumped about soccer. Usually lacrosse, basketball, and volleyball were the go-tos. Softball too I guess, but you can't do cool tricks in softball.

There was also no Monique. Which sucks. Though Monique was the new girl, so maybe she'll show up in a sequel? Maybe this adaptation will show us the light and make everyone Kim x Monique shippers, which I'm still convinced will be post endgame after Kim and Ron break up.

Ultimately my biggest beef with the movie is how absolutely wrong they got Dr. Ann Possible. In the film, she teams up with Kim and kicks butt, which, while it is a girlboss moment, Ann Possible in my mind is characterized by being a brilliant neurosurgeon, but never wanting to do anything else ever. Speaking as someone in the neuroscience field myself this is a mood and a half and we the lazy neuroscientists are being silenced.

Anyway I got to talk about a show I like, so you don't get to complain about my complaining anymore

Overall Rating for Kim Possible: S Tier

Marsupilami: Continuing the Edgy 90s Cartoon Saga and An Introduction to Spirou

8:01 AM · Dec 18, 2020 "things to call your significant other: -"my little houba""

This blog post and the next one are going to focused in particular on the Franco-Belgian comic series "Spirou et Fantasio."

For those of you who don't know about Spirou, he's a young red-haired journalist who goes on adventures, getting caught amongst gangs, drug deals, and the like, and very often, saving the day. If this sounds familiar to you, then you might know about Tintin, which has a similar premise. Though I usually like to call Spirou the Bugs Bunny to Tintin's Mickey Mouse, as Tintin is seen more as a goody two-shoes while Spirou has a little bit more of a comedic edge.

He also wears a bellhop uniform but that is neither here nor there.

On Spirou's adventures, he's joined by his best friend and sidekick Fantasio: A goofball blond man who is quick to temptation and trend following, with varying levels of capability from story to story.

He's also joined by his funny little rodent, a squirrel named Spip. Sometimes Spip can talk to the extent that the blond and redhead can understand him. Sometimes he's just a cutesy mascot character.

Now, if this seems familiar to you. Don't worry about it. That's tomorrow's topic.

Today, we're going to talk about the other of Spirou's funny animal sidekicks. In the jungles of Palombia exists a rare and incredibly OP animal: The Marsupilami.

10:00 PM · Dec 17, 2020 "im certain BD fans and marsupilami haters were looking forward to this. as you all know, i fucking hate the marsupilami. it is an OP creature and i cannot stand him. interesting from a historical standpoint because spirou 93 aired in the same time as this"

The marsupilami appears for the first time in a comic translated as "Spirou and the Heirs," in which Fantasio and his cousin Zantafio battle it out to receive their uncle's fortune in three tasks: Creating an invention, doing well in a race, and finally capturing the marsupilami, a rare creature found only in a fictitious South American country called Palombia.

They succeed, naturally, and Zantafio drops out of the competition on seemingly friendly terms. However, it introduces us to animal that will stay in the comics for quite some time.

Now let me tell you a bit about this species.

Marsupilamis are relatively rare and have no natural predators. They have around 3-6 children at a time that come from eggs shaped like shmoos. They likely have no trouble in combative situations because of their long tails they can shape into weapons. Marsupilamis also have uncannily good parroting abilities. Also they can breathe underwater.

Naturally, such an OP creature is perfect for Disney's 90s "try to be like edgy like Warner Bros" method.

7:49 AM · Dec 18, 2020 "the problem with the marsupilami show is they keep his op traits....... it makes for a very prototypical cartoon it's bad tho"

But maybe I'm biased. I don't like the marsupilami anyway. Surely it's not that bad.

7:41 AM · Dec 18, 2020 "this is viscerally disgusting"
7:57 AM · Dec 18, 2020 "i keep thinking im exaggerating how gross this show is but NO IT'S ACTUALLY DISGUSTING.... like bonkers sure was high energy but it didn't have grossout and the humor was never too offensive which is why i didnt put it in f tier"

Surprisingly, it's not Mars, as he's called that makes the marsupilami show so bad. It's a lot of the supporting cast. In particular, Maurice, Marsupilami's drooling best friend who is in charge of a lot of the grossout, and I cannot say he does a bad job of it. Quite the opposite. I could barely look at the screen during most of his scenes. And he's in a lot of scenes.

In addition, there's Norman, who I keep wanting to call Quint, because he's the same character archetype as Quint from Timon and Pumbaa, which is the same character archetype as, say, Elmer Fudd from Looney Tunes. So, the hunter who sometimes takes on different careers who is tormented by their funny animal characters.

But he's not the only enemy of Marsupilami. There is also a jaguar who wants to eat him in... not necessarily the most homoerotic way I have ever seen in a cartoon but it's definitely up there.

7:53 AM · Dec 18, 2020 "the marsupilami has no natural predators but there's an ep about this guy about to eat him they're an op species so i wonder what happened to make them so rare"
7:53 AM · Dec 18, 2020 "do marsupilamis go to war?"

In typical cartoon protagonist way, Marsupilami takes on all his enemies with ease. Nothing bugs him. Except an annoying elephant named Stuart. Naturally he's my favorite.

8:03 AM · Dec 18, 2020 "ok i finally laughed. marsupilami has visceral hatred toward this young elephant...... it's funny"
8:04 AM · Dec 18, 2020 "homer elephant"

Also sometimes the Beatles show up? Idk I guess it's funny to put a British band in your cartoon based on a French slash Belgian mascot character.

7:43 AM · Dec 18, 2020 "why do they keep putting in beatles parodies"
7:48 AM · Dec 18, 2020 "i guess they are recurring characters. i love how the only thing here that's consistent is the marsupilami nest"
7:52 AM · Dec 18, 2020 "it's worth noting that marsupilami is from the jungles of south america but we've only seen white people. considering this show though huhhhhh"

I don't think this 90s Marsupilami is bastardized in relation to his comic self. But that's because I never liked the comic character. I honestly can't imagine how a show about the Marsupilami could be good, which is why I haven't watched the 2000s cartoon. (But if you want to discuss why it's so good to me, be my guest.) However, the addition of various unpleasant new characters are what makes it an absolute no for me.

I guess I should talk about the other shorts. Sebastian the Crab is the main one, and there's a lot of lost media of it. It follows the similar edgy 90s short pattern a lot of the others have done. It's not nearly as disgusting as the Marsupilami shorts, but there's nothing really being added there.

Also the make Louie the Elmer Fudd archetype which is crazy, because I always forget he exists.

As for Shnookums and Meat: That will come another day.

Overall Rating For Marsupilami: F Tier