TV Review #4: The Wacky World of Tex Avery (1997)

 

I should discuss with you how I review TV shows for this blog, some lucky shows will get me to watch and discuss the entire thing and some terrible shows will get me to view a few episodes. I've been working on watching every episode of Tiny Toon Adventures for a later blog entry to this blog because well I loved that show as a kid and I'm curious how it holds up in the long run. Other shows I hear aren't as good I will watch one or two or three episodes of and get a minor view of how the whole show was. This blog is for silly fun and I'm not being paid for it. Unless you are giving me money, comic books, or other fine things I really do not want to sit down and watch all the episodes of something like The Wacky World of Tex Avery. It's even harder when some of the episodes are considered lost media. If I do enjoy a show that gets  a bad rap I will actually end up putting it on "the list of stuff to watch every episode of" so I'm not going to go along with the crowd unless I happen to agree with them. 

The Wacky World of Tex Avery was a DIC cartoon of the 1990s. From the mid 1990s. You know the DIC DARK PERIOD. It wasn't the highest of the high (like the 1980s/early 90s stuff) it was a lot of bad mixed in with admittedly some good but out of the 30 shows they made between 1994 and 2009, 20 of them sound like stuff I don't want to touch with a 30 foot pole and two of them sound amazingly weird/bad that I have to discuss them. I'm sure these TEN INTERESTING LATE ERA DIC shows will get touched on throughout this blog existence because I'm the type of person who wants to talk about Sherlock Holmes and the 22nd Century. 

Tex Avery was a cartoonist who worked with pretty much every major studio that was around between the 1930s too the 1950s. He created Droopy Dog and the Wolf guy and Daffy Duck and the RAID bugs and the Frito Bandito and all kindsa stuff. His animation was very vibrant and fun to watch, along with being funny. The Wild World of Tex Avery does not do his legacy justice in any way shape or form. First off the animation is cheap. Like very cheap looking. It cannot pull off the kind of jokes Tex Avery did in the very nice looking animation of the past. Secondly the characters they created for this show just feel like they were rushed and were like eh fuck it ones a fly and ones a cowboy. I mean the weird Italian guy from Pompeii showed a little bit of creativity but the rest not really. Thirdly a lot of the jokes carry on way too long, a lot of what made the old cartoons great were they went to the next joke at a rapid pace. Finally the show feels confused, there were several gross out jokes in one cartoon but not many in another. It's like it wants to be Tex Avery AND 1990s Nickelodeon cartoons and doesn't really know how to do either.

FINAL VERDICT:  Before watching this I watched a Droopy cartoon from 1943, Dumb-Hounded and was thoroughly amused throughout. I think I was like "you know that would have been a good joke with better animation" once throughout the one and a half episodes of this I watched. I remember seeing this for the first time in a video of "EVERY 90S CARTOON INTRO EVER" on YouTube and being amazed at how bad it was. This doesn't even have nostalgia behind it. At least I can go to my sister and say "Hey remember how awful Monster by Mistake was?" and still get a weird nostalgic kick off it. I can't even do this with that. I can't even say usually good voice actors did a good job here because they didn't. It felt like they were cashing in. I mean I ain't blaming them but still. The only thing that's even remotely interesting about this show was before they made it they went too Nancy Avery to get her okay and give her some money for using her fathers name. She wanted a bit more just so she could send her two kids to college and they were like "You know we don't actually have to give you anything" so she went to Chuck Jones who was still alive at the time and well I hope he raised hell because the people behind this trash deserved it, and you know I like to try to be positive about even the less then wonderful stuff I talk about but this doesn't deserve any positivity. 

Obscure Holiday Specials #3: Inspector Gadget Saves Christmas (1992)

 

You know since the other Inspector Gadget piece about the Final Episode of his show was taken off of another blog I had, this is the first time I've talked about DiC Animation so I get to blather on about them for the majority of this opening paragraph. They were created in 1971 by Jean Chapolin and for the majority of their first decade they made stuff  in France. In 1981 they teamed up with those rascals in Japan and created Ulysses 31 which literally has the greatest theme song in television history. Nothing will ever top it. He then teamed up with Andy Heyward and Bruno Bianchi and they created Inspector Gadget, the show that would put them on the map. The came Heathcliff and M.A.S.K. and The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin and the Sailor Moon dub, all things that I will blab about on my blog soon enough. DiC was even bought out by Disney! Sadly in 2008 DiC was made a part of Cookie Jar Entertainment and stopped being the  DiC we all love and know. They will live on in our memories.

Inspector Gadget Saves Christmas is a decent enough piece of Gadget related entertainment. It's not as good as most episodes from the first season of the original series, but it's certainly better looking then all of the stuff they've done with the character since. Some of that shit is really ugly. Also the Matthew Broderick and French Stewart movies. Yikes and double yikes. No one deserves that double team punch. Inspector Gadget Saves Christmas came out on December 4th, 1992 and faded into obscurity. I know someone will maybe one day find this blog and go NUH UH I SAW THIS FOURTY THREE THOUSAND TIMES AS A CHILD and I'll make fun of them for watching Christmas specials outside of Christmas. That's weird you weird-o. Anyway I would watch Inspector Gadget a fucking lot as a child. It was one of my favorite shows. It would come on NTV (rumor has it the weirdo who owned NTV, Geoff Stirling made them put on an episode during the middle of the news one day. It appeared picture in picture. What a weird man.) YTV, and just about every Canadian owned channel mostly because Nelvana a Canadian animation studio helped animate some of the episodes and most of the voice actors were Canadian, like Cree Summer. Every channel needed some Canadian content. Isn't that a wild factoid to know? Yeah I know it isn't. I'm sure it even showed on some of the American channels we got. Point is I loved this show

Since I loved the original series so much it's just kinda weird with the animation here. For an 80s cartoon the show was pretty well animated and pretty consistant with that animation. It just feels a bit off like not completely the same and that's weird coming from the company that owned Gadget. I dunno, I guess I just like the way they made the characters look in the original series over this. Oh, and this special has terrible terrible songs. Terrible. I don't want to hear Maurice LaMarche sing in a Don Adamsy kinda voice. Don Adams had a great voice for comedy and all that. He did not have a great voice for music. The other song by the elves is just annoying.

The plot is well your usual Inspector Gadget plot. Dr. Claw wants REVENGE on Santa Claus because he didn't bring him a Dirty Trick Sled when he was a child so now he's out on a RAMPAGE on the North Pole! Gadget comes in and does his dopey idiot schtick and Penny and Brain save the day and all like usual. Gadget was not the most plot heavy show. What I liked were the goofy ass gags and jokes and this special delievers them. A lot of very amusing jokes within this one, at least I thought so. It did end on a weird note with Dr. Claw's car being stuck and he was almost captured when Santa has the reindeer create a ice floe for him to escape.  I guess they didn't want to reveal who he was just yet because they were putting out those action figures. Man I remember seeing them on vacation and almost shitting my pants and trying to get my poor old mother to buy them and yes this happened when I was 8, not 28. I promise.

I said in my last review that I would rate this between Ernest Saves Christmas and Elmo Saves Christmas. This is not as good as Ernest Saves Christmas because it has very little Vern or Bobby action within. Despite never seeing it this is clearly better than Elmo Saves Christmas because Elmo is the worst Muppet out of the 28,000 Muppets created. That's right, I say the things we are all thinking but are too afraid to say! ELMO SUCKS! RISE UP PEOPLE!

Next Time: Let's go back to Charlie Brown and his second time at Christmas fun! Yes, I said second time...

The Final Episode #2: Inspector Gadget (Gadget and the Red Rose - February 1st, 1986)

 The Final Episode #2: Inspector Gadget (Gadget and the Red Rose - February 1st, 1986)

Inspector Gadget was one of my favorite cartoons as a kid. I watched the absolute hell out of it. Like I don't want to even know how many times I watched every episode. It had to be at LEAST 50 times each. It was mostly because for the first season Nelvana, a Canadian corporation helped with the animation. So season 1 would be shown in Canada about 5820 times a day on several different channels. I still find the show to be very amusing. At least the first season. The stories of a dumbass cyborg (would you consider Gadget a cyborg?) with all kinds of well gadgets installed in his body and his niece and dog (who actually solve all the crimes) IS great fun to me!

As a kid I never knew there was a second season with 21 extra episodes... and I'm glad I never did because it would have been an incredible disappointment to me to have to watch these episodes. They aren't objectively the worst I've ever seen they just aren't as well animated, well voiced (several voice changes), have pointless new characters (we will get to him in a second) and are just not as enjoyable. Like everything was done worse for the second season which ran from 1985 to 1986.

I do remember the first time I ever saw a second season episode, it was years after I did find out there even was one... and I was excited to find said episode... I had heard from a now defunct website known as Jump the Shark (where people discuss when any random TV show Jumped the Shark) and several people within that site said the introduction of Corporal Capeman (pictured above) was when the show jumped the shark... and yeah I can't disagree with them on that. This fucker is completely useless and not funny in the slightest, just like everyone on that site said... thankfully Townsend Coleman who voiced him went on to do much better work in a lot of much better cartoons.

Anyway, this episode is really nothing to write home about. It involves Inspector Gadget actually creating a seemingly worthwhile invention (which is weird in itself because the guy is a moron, like it's the whole show!) and Dr. Claw finds out about it so he gets this old gangster out of retirement to stop Gadget's new invention with his old invention a Tommy Gun that shoots out rotten potatoes and yes the gangster has a potato pun name (it's Spuds Malone... they should have just went and called him O'Riely and had him be an Irish gangster or something), anyway this episode has Gadget chase after Brain who leads him to the real Spuds Malone and it's done in a pretty uninteresting manner. No real jokes or crazy hijinx really.

FINAL THOUGHTS: It's not going to be the worst thing I'll watch for this blog but honestly, I can't really write much more about this episode cuz it's boring, so I'll just reiterate they should have gotten more money for better animation, made some actual jokes (the gun Gadget makes runs on acidic Sour Cream and when it hits Chief Quimby he goes "Needs chives, Gadget" which WAS pretty funny I thought.. but the rest of the episode wasn't) and not had made that stupid fucking Corporal Capeman at all.

The Final Episode #1: Captain Planet (101 Mutations, May 1st 1996)

 

The Final Episode #1: Captain Planet and the Planeteers (101 Mutations - May 11, 1996)

 The Final Episode #1: Captain Planet, 101 Mutations (May 11, 1996)

Captain Planet was created by Ted Turner in 1990... an environmentalist superhero! I must say that as a kid I quite liked this show. I thought the heroes were a bunch of likable scallywags and that the villains were incredibly entertaining! and I'm glad to say that I still do! Being positive rules!

Anyway, Captain Planet ran from September 15, 1990 to May 11, 1996 for a 6 season run... I don't think I was watching during the last season because well, I found out that Captain Planet has TWO theme songs. For the final season they came out with a new theme song and it is incredibly bad. like painfully bad. I don't even know where to begin to describe it so I will link to a youtube video of it here. It will change your life, for the worse.

CAPTAIN PLANET SEASON 6 THEME CLICK AT YOUR OWN PERIL

Hopefully you haven't gouged out your eyes and can read the rest of my writing (you will probably wish you had gouged your eyes out after reading this!) We can finally get into dicussing the Final Episode of Captain Planet intitled 101 Mutations.

If you couldn't tell by that title, 101 Mutations is about Dogs! Puppy mills in fact! That's right the eco-villains (which is what they were called in the show) finally stop trying to destroy the entire planet and just try to make some money via some cruel means. Dr. Blight is the eco villain of today.

Who in the first three seasons was voiced by Meg Ryan! Yep! Ted Turner threw his weight around at the beginning of the show... then he said okay to that terrible theme song (no I will never get over it. Stop asking)

The episode starts up with Dr. Blight talking to MAL about her evil Puppy Mill scheme! MAL in the later seasons was voiced by Tim Curry! always a pleasure to hear that angelic voice of his! I like exclamation points! It then turns over to Wheeler's 10 year old cousin Joey mourning his dog Skippy at a funeral (yes a very jolly point of the episode) and Wheeler decides to bring him to get a new dog. I know that 1.) he means well and 2.) they have to get the episode on the way but who the hell decides yeah I'll go get them a NEW dog RIGHT after the old one dies. Dick move, Wheeler.

Joey then finds out where the Pet Store is getting their dogs from... DR. BLIGHTS EVIL FARM OF DEATH. No it's called Puppy by the MILLions... that's a pretty good name for something as awful as a puppy mill. Anyway he goes there, gets captured, meets a new dog friend (and befriends Dr. Blights evil dogs!) He gives them chocolate. I guess these are dogs that can have chocolate, because he gives them a lot. 

The Planeteers then find a Humane Society guy working under cover in another puppy mill (Jesus a lot of them in this one area) AND they come across Dr. Blights puppy mill and of course stop her plot. (I don't really want to end up discussing EVERY second of these episodes. I do want you all to go and check them out.) 

FINAL THOUGHTS: This was actually a pretty fun episode. Lots of nice back and forths between the charters. The bad guys are incredibly deliciously, I don't give a shit, EVIL, and it was a lot of fun to watch. It didn't end with a big epic 3 parter where all the villains come together and bring back Captain Pollution or anything but I dunno if every show needs that. This was just a regular old run of the mill adventure for the Planeteers. I kinda like how that happens sometimes (mostly because they didn't know this was the final season, probably.) Anyway, I'd check this one out!