The Final Episode #64: Flying Rhino Junior High (1998 - 2000)

 

I had originally decided to talk about Brand Spanking New Doug to annoy portnoyd, but I realized that I had told him that if he made me laugh in that Doug post I would leave that show for about 50 posts. It's not even 30 Final Episode posts since then. So he gets off the hook for that show at least. Then I decided to watch Mega Man but I wasn't really feeling that one either. No, I felt like discussing some thing weird and obscure so I decided to finally discuss Flying Rhino Junior High. The fact I can remember things like Flying Rhino Junior High is a blessing and a curse and I've decided to show you this cursed thing! 

The animation studio Nelvana was one of the Canadian Animation companies during the 1980s and 1990s. They started up shop on July 30th, 1971. Almost 50 years ago! Insane huh? Yeah I think it's insane at least. They were named after a Golden Age of Comics character called Nelvana of the North. I would review a Nelvana of the North comic if I could but I cannot. They also did live action series including one with Mr. T! It was called T&T and it was not very good. They are probably most famous for Rock N Rule, the second Care Bears cartoon, Babar, My Pet Monster, Rupert and The Adventures of Tintin. they worked together with an French animation company and a Scottish animation company for this series. It was also appeared on CBS of all places. I would watch this show and only this show on the CBS Saturday Morning thing. I thought it was fun.

Yes, I know I've said that French people are not funny but I'm going to assume that the other people working on this series made the comedy part of this series. I've seen Radioactive and The Wacky World of Tex Avery and I know that when it's just French people themselves it makes for some painful attempts at comedy. People who like Jerry Lewis as much as them are not to be trusted in any manner. Okay, enough trashing the sense of humor of French people. It's time to talk about the actual overall plot of this series. There's this kid you see named Earl P. Sidebottom who gets a D in shop class and then decides to go to the school's basement to live there in shame. He creates a machine that can change the school's environment to destroy the school or something I don't know. He now calls himself The Phantom. He is stopped by a group of four kids: Marcus Snarkis, his sister Ruby, Billy O Toole and Lydia Lopez. 

The Final Episode called "Seeing Double" which I think is a weird and not great title for this episode. You'll see in a little while. The episode starts with Marcus complaining about his weird puffy green vest and yeah I can easily see why he would not want to wear it. It looks goofy as fuck. I'm pretty sure everyone in the school would mock him for it but somehow they don't. Except Billy. That hooligan. Anyway Marcus goes to look in the Bathroom mirror and during that he breaks the sink. He runs off like a big turd and leaves Johnny to take the blame from the rhino principal. Yes, the principal of Flying Rhino Junior High is a Rhino. They go to class and learn about fantasy stories. They call Edgar Allan Poe fantasy and I don't think that's a really good classification for that guy but what do I know. I've only seen movies based on his work because I'm lazy. They also bring up Lewis Carroll and his Alice in Wonderland books.

Then we go to The Phantom which is Earl P Sidebottom's alter ego. He gets very angry and decides to send the characters through the looking glass (a mirror) to an alterative universe where everything is a bit different. During there they meet their doubles. They see them for like 5 seconds and all that. I thought with that title you'd see like 5,000 doubles of one person and they'd have to find out which one was the real one and somehow get rid of the rest. I dunno that what comes to mind, not a alternative universe episode. They have to find a way out of the alternative universe after the Rhino Principal with A Beard decides that they should be cryonically frozen like Walt Disney. It's a very weird scene but this is a very weird show. To get even weirder the Rhino Principal With A Beard sends a robotic pig version of the regular pig version 

They get away from him and try to go back via the mirror in the bathroom but they find out they can't. They talk with the smart version of the dumb character of the regular universe and realize it's like a chess board so they create a 3D Chess version of the school with Marcus' little doohickey machine he has. He finds out that the place to escape is in the basement. This is where they find the good version of Earl P Sidebottom and his henchmen Ratticus. Earl sent the bad kids away because they would harrass and beat the shit out of him. He goes absolutely insane for Marcus' shitty vest that I had forgotten about. It's the Chekov's gun of this story people! Marcus gives him the vest and he agrees to send them home and bring back the bad versions of them.

During all of this the regular version of The Phantom is being annoyed by Ratticus trying to celebrate their 10th anniversary together as bad guys. Does this mean The Phantom is only like 20 something years old? Weird. The Phantom gets a damn flying camera smashed into his face and Ratticus just makes a joke. These guys are kinda jerks to each other. Oh, and Marcus finally admits that he broke the sink and it wasn't Johnny and gets in trouble for lying. He has to work with the pig Janitor (who's also a spy). This show was a lot weirder than I remembered.

FINAL VERDICT: I had fun watching this Final Episode but it wasn't anything amazing. It's just a little bit of fluff that I was able to discuss for several paragraphs. I am very good at bullshitting posts about things no one cares about, but not very good at most other things. Oh, and I learned this series was based around a bunch of books. Wild!