Chikage’s 3rd flair (the usual fanservice minichat one) has him talk about how the Spring troupe is trying to get information out of him, and yet that way he learns more about them and he enjoys getting to know more abut them, and then he turns to Izumi like “do you want to hear more about me? okay. lean me your ear” and then he gets EXTREMELY CLOSE TO THE CAMERA TO REALLY TRANSLATE THAT HE IS WHISPERING DIRECTLY TO HER EAR

and it’s to say how he prefers to eat his curry. he’s CLOWNING ME.

and then he ends up being all teasy because :) yeah it’s still learning about me! and it’s implied Izumi gets pouty because he replies something that a friend of mine translated "Well, there's no need to know in hurry. We'll be getting along for a long time, right?” but google translate translated the “getting along” part as “we’ll be in a long relationship after all”

and i’m

i’m having a moment. 

Carl Barks: Back to the Klondike Review: Blinkus of the Thinkus

Welcome one and all! If your a longtime reader of this blog, you know I love a good birthday celebration, having started with my first year reviewing animation last year with Donald’s and deciding to do Mickey and Scrooge’s later that year. But since I misseda  LOT of disney birthdays, and found several Non-disney birthdays and anniversaries I just gotta celebrate, this year i’m making it up and style and have a whole calender set up to tack these big milestones to the wall. So over the year expect tributes to the greats of disney, looney tunes, and mgm both behind and in front of the scenes, as well as to various shows I like. It’s gonna be a good time. 

So to start us off, it’s only fitting my first duck birthday since Scrooge, is for the love of his life and the stealer of his wallet, Glittering Goldie O Gilt! And I felt the best way to celebrate this storied day was to go back to her very FIRST apperance, one of earliest Scrooge headlined comics and a forever fan faviorite, Back to the Klondike!

But before we get into that, a little history on our gal in gold. Goldie was created for this story by comics god, the late great Carl Barks. Barks ended up just using her once, which is a shame but understandable as he probably only thought of her for that one adventure. While some characters like Gyro ended up being used again and again he probably just didn’t have any more stories in mind for her and figured Scrooge would return to her one day or he wouldn’t, but it wasn’t up to him.  Fans however loved the character, her feisty dynamic with scrooge, and the fact she brought out his good side, so naturally other writers would bring her back. In paticular Barks Superfan Don Rosa cemented her as the love of his life and wrote several more stories with her, fleshing out their backstory and saying that at least in his personal canon, Scrooge retired to spend his final years with her. And while his fanboy was clearly showing, and that can end nasitly just ask Dan “Hates Wally West because he’s not barry allen” DiDio, glad he’s gone.. Rosa’s work with goldie is an example of what happens when it’s done right. Less DiDio or Bendis and more Al Ewing. Using the continuity and what’s there to build on a character who deserved better.. to me that’s one of the BEST things you can do in comics and Rosa’s work is proof of that, ironing out the.. questionable elements we’ll get to and leaving the gold in.  So Rosa’s work combined with Ducktales not only adapting this story but bringing Goldie back a few times after that has elevated the character to a storied and permenat part of the duck canon, with her excellent heavily revamped Reboot counterpart currently carrying the torch with the help of the wonderful Allison Janey, perfect casting there. So with a legacy of gold behind her, let’s take a look at where it’s started and see if it still glitters after all these years under the cut. 

We begin our story at the Money Bin. Scrooge has been counting his money.. but has already forgotten, and forgot where he put the slip he wrote the number on and even forgets who Donald is when he shows up until Donald, while having some fun with him as Scrooge is trying to phone him while he’s right there. As for how he got into the most secure place in the bin.. the story actually answers that both worringly and hilariously: Scrooge left the door unlocked.  Naturally he’s not happy about this and Donald states the simple solution: Go see a doctor something’s CLEARLY very wrong, and the fact this could possibly be something like Demntia is VERY bad for someone who runs a zillion dollar company. Scrooge of course scoffs at “wasting his precious money” But Donald not only points out the obvious, that two bucks now saves him from having someone rob EVERYTHING, but Scrooge’s attempt to tie a string around his finger.. instead triggers a trap. And this entire sequence is decent with some good gags.. it’s just hampered a bit by making light of something that’s kinda bad. Not old people forgetting things.. but an old person with a disease as we find out forgetting things. Not helping is I laughed at first at the gags.. till I remembered a kind, old, friend of the family who had it and forgot me entirely by the end. So yeah, not the worst gags and the boxing glove and donald bits aren’t terrible, but it hurts now my brain’s made that connection. 

Our heroes head to the doctor’s office where Scrooge is diagnosed with... 

That.. might be the best name for a fictional illness i’ve ever heard in my life.. just inching out “Brain Cloud” and “Whale Cancer”. Still not the most SENSITIVE gag.. but it was the 50′s and mental issues weren’t given a lot of respect. IT’s why the above sequence and this whole part of the plot dosen’t scuttle things: It’s not the most repsectful.. but it wasn’t a time where these things were givne proper respect, treatment or knowledge, so barks wasn’t being an insentive douche on purpose, he just didn’t know. It dosen’t make it 100% okay btu it dosen’t wreck the story like say his blatant racist caractures in Voodoo Hoodoo. Seriously that’s.. not okay, and given he’s the kind of guy who researched locations he used, unlike with mental illness i expect BETTER of him than most men at the time. Still respect the guy, but it dosen’t mean i’ll overlook the fact he made some pretty bad mistakes. Same way while I love and miss Stan Lee I won’t ignore his blatant sexisim or racisim towards Chinese and Vitamise people. You CAN like a creator even if their work has some questionable and unjustifable elements, times do change and people do mamke mistakes when their young. It just depends on exactly WHAT they did or wrote that makes that distinctoin.  So on that bombshell, Scrooge is given medication after a needle gag. He needs to take his pills every 12 hours. It’s then he starts to remember something, mubling abotu skagway, goldie and dawson and telling Donald to get the boys, their going to Alaska! Once they get on the boat Scrooge explains: he remembered thanks to the medcince he left a stash of gold nuggets there from his prospecting days.. and part of why this story ended up being one of the single most important to Scrooge’s character. While it establishes some character traits, something I dind’t realize till wikipedia pointed it out, it also establishes Scrooge’s days as a prospector. While other things made him what he was and got him to that point as Don Rosa would later flesh out, it was his days in the yukon that, for better or worse defined who he is now and shaped him into the man he is today: Tough, fair, badass as all hell, mean as the devil and richer than god.  This time would be used a lot to set up stories, which made sense as it was the cleast and most agreed upon part of his past by all writers, and him at his abosltuely peak physically and mentally and the gold rush motif of the time perfectly fits someone defined by being rich. It’s also honestly nice that the Yukon is used, as Canada sometimes gets lost in the shuffle wise and hell until reading life and times I gneuinely had no idea what the Yukon was or where Calvin was headed when he and hobbes ran away from home. 

Scrooge also first mentions Goldie and while clearly remembering her fondly.. goes into a rant about her howing him a thousand dollars which has compounded to a billion the second the boys catch on he was sweet on her with Donald assuming he’s just not a good person. But this is really just setting up another vital part of his character and the other thing: his heart. Before he’d been show as a pretty heartless, greedy asshole. While the previous story, Only a Poor Old Man, had softened him up a bit, this is the first to show that beneath the pile of greed and mean lurks a decent human being. Just don’t tell anyone or he’ll throw his money at you.. then tell you to bring it back to him. It’s what makes the character who he is: he’s cruel, onrey and selfish.. but he CAN care when the chips are down and can do the right thing.. as we’ll see later. 

God I love the little poems Bill Watterson would put in the books. I didn’t as much as a kid, but god I do now. Anyways before our heroes can get going Yukon Ho, they stop in Skagway for suplies before heading out, Scrooge softing at taking a plane as “Soft” and him and the nephews hiking a week.. before running into the same flying service again, and finding out Scrooge OWNS it and forgot, because being scrooge he forgot to take his meds. Something I can relate to and i’m not proud of as staying on them is important to my well being. Seriously always take your meds. Unless their not working for you then talk with your doctor to get new ones. 

So we arrive in Dawson, as our heroes will have to walk rest of the day Scrooge takes the boys to the Black Jack Ballroom, which used to be a hot spot and was where he met Goldie for the first time. After another covering for his reminscing with greedy bollocks, he tells the boys the story.. one that was cut from the original printing despite introducing goldie and something the editors dind’t bother to tell carl till they berated him over trying to sneak a blackjack saloon and a kidnapping in there... and to them, or their long dead skeletons probably, I say. 

Yeah not wanting that in a kids story, while bollocks, tha’ts their perogative.. not having him send in replacement pages to keep story flow.. is dickish and underestimates kids intellegence as Don Rosa, while loving the story felt something was off till he saw the missing pages years later thanks to a fellow fan. So yeah kids, and adults, into the work noticed. Nice job. Again I can’t BLAME them for not wanting Scrooge to be a kidnapper as we’ll see and Don Rosa had to massage the hell out of that, but I can blame them for not caring enough to fix the obvious hole int he story. Though it’s now complete and unabriged and has been since the 80′s so there's that. 

So in a nutshell Scrooge came to town for a coffee, and while the bartender ignored him he didn’t once he plunked down his goose egg nugget, what made his fortune and one of Scrooge’s most treasured possessions. It’s here we meet Goldie. 

Yup.. just in case you thought her being a thief and greedy as hell was a new thing, and I kinda forgot how much, she dirves for the nugget, has Coffee with scrooge.. and drugs it, but makes the mistake of NOT clearing town, so Scrooge fights his way through the ballroom to her, gets the nugget back, forces her to sign the money for the iou he spent.. and then uh.. kindaps her to force her to work on his claim for 50 cents to try and teach her how to work honestly. 

Yeahhhh as I said Don Rosa tried his best to fix this , and did so in his final story, which we’ll get to some day, revealing Goldie had a shot gun on her the whole time and was going along entirely to find out where Scrooge’s claim was. That.. actually makes more sense with the character and is far less horrifying and Scrooge finds this out fairly quick, so them forming an attraction out of this becomes 100% more plausable. So yeah good on Don Rosa for fixing the implications here. I may give out on him from time to time.. but he is a genuinely talented writer and did what a good comic book writer in an established continuity should do: update elements so they aren’t so... eugguuhhh after they become horrifingly outdated. And look YES she did do horrible shit to him.. but you still can’t kidnap someone over that. just put her in jail. What was any of that. 

Anyways Scrooge HAS been taking his medicine, and proves it by showing the boys his pills and the next day they head to Scrooge’s old claim.. only someone’s living there and using it, and his old cabin.. and a shot gun. Yeah so they aren’t getting through in the day what about the night.. well they get attacked by Blackjack, who turns out to be owned by the claim jumper.. and is also you know a bear> And Donald left his back in new quackmore so their outmatched. 

So outgunned and outplanned, if not outnumbered or outmanned, our heroes make a camp fire and whiel Donald again suggests the obvious, call the police.. Scrooge can’t. He didn’t pay taxes on the claim so he’s technically jumping his own claim and techincally she has a right to it. So techncially.. Scrooge is the bad guy here as he left the money here, didn’t pay his taxes and didn’t ever come back for it. Still beats trying to terrify your nephews or deny orphans a train because your an asshole buffet. 

So the next morning Scrooge dosen’t want to rush her because “We Daren’t Get Rough with an old woman”. Two things.. 1... think before you put images in my head scrooge.. brrrrrrrrr. I mean Goldie. is not in the best shape in thie story as you’ll see and neither are you. In the reboot sure you two kept up a lot better but here.

And it’s not even an old people thing. Ann Margret was still fine so fine by the time of Grumpy Old Men, not to get creepy jut to prove i’m not being ageist. For a still alive example Keith David is also still a smokeshow at the tender age of 64. So yeah, not an age thing just not these paticular old people. 

But they need a plan so the boy suggest luring the bear into a trap with honey. Donald and Scrooge build the cage while the boys.. find the jar of honey. 

Regardless since the boys won’t do it for what Scrooge pays and neither will donald Scrooge goes to lure the bear with the honey. Once that’s done, and Scrooge is being covered with honey and licked by a bear...

So while he washes that off, the boys come up with another plan: they run around back while Donald makes noise to draw Goldie’s fire, with that being Dewey’s plan to meet her since he’s figured this out already. But Goldie has a backup plan and when she figures out they disabled Blackjack unleashes mosquitos... ugh. Having been stung like hornets about 50 times in animal crossing I feel you boys. So while Scrooge and Donald run off naked... troy if you will. 

Thank you Troy, the boys confront Goldie who reveals her identity... and that she’s broke, her dance hall having failed with the rush and this claim being all she has.. and her suspecting scrooge woudl gladly take it. The boys vow not to tell scrooge.. but he’s on his way so they kinda have to and he primps to go visit and Donald starts to see through his BS about collecting the debt. Sure enough despite being taken aback by her putting on her old dress , he takes her for all she has and is.. genuinely suprised as she thought she’d have more and she’d actually changed since the old days, donating her profits to orphans from mining disasters. Scrooge.. is clearly rattled by this. Whiel it turns out to my shock he was clealry after the money, though givne who we’re dealing with I shoudln’t of been really, he still cares and still realizes he’s being kind of a dick. So he challengers her to a gold digging race, and if she wins the claim is hers and any gold she finds.. and naturally, while he seemingly puts her soemwhere where there isn’t she finds the claim and Scrooge bemoans not taking his pill.. but while the boys boo him for it, Goldie who fondly waves them off and Donald know better: Donald points out he counted the pills this morning.. and recently. SCrooge DID take one today... he’s just has his cane shoved firmly up his ass with pride so he coudln’t ADMIT he was wrong and instead simply staged that whole thing with the full knowledge Goldie would win. It, again, sets up one of his defniing traits; how he keeps people at arms length. How he’s just so proud and full of himself he can’t bear to admit anything resembling weakness.. but WILl find a way to do the right thing without that or forgoe it as a last resort. He may project being a stingy cretionus old man.. because he is.. but he’s got a heart as big as that nugget.. it’s just locked tight in it’s own bin... his body is complicated and weird that way Final Thoughts:

This story is a classic with a decent setup, great backstory for scrooge, and a great guest character and unquestionable impact on the character. However.. it does have it’s problem; As Don Rosa, who as i’ll remind you is both a huge barks fanboy and huge scoldie shipper, himself pointed out he wrote his final story, and had planned to for years ENTIRELY because this one never quite explains how Scrooge and Goldie went from old enmies to lovers.It did lead to one of his best stories and one of the first I read post life and times so, props to that. And of course as I pointed out some things have just.. not aged well, especially the kidnapping so their relationship kinda comes off like stockholm syndrom as a result of both of these. 

That being said.. warts and all.. it’s still a really damn good story and a good one to try if your intrested in barks work or where Goldie came from: it has adventure, some really good jokes and if you can get past the dated bits the plot is solid. And while it goes without saying i’ll say it anyway Barks art is goregous as always ESPECIALLY in the flashback sequence. Overall not the best AGED Scrooge story, though not the worst either see Voodoo Hoodoo, good god, but defintely a classic for a reason.  If you liked this review, follow me for more, and for more duck content as I still have more of the three cablleros to work through, another chapter of life and times coming up this week befor ewe break again for feburary, and some other fun stuff. Until the next rainbow, it’s been a pleasure. 

Vesperia, abyss, symphonia, the second symphonia if you have experienced that one, star wars?, and .... eh, big bang? Can you do alll those fandoms? Sorry for the extensive request

Thanks for the fandoms, this will be fun! :D I already did Vesperia so I’ll skip that.  And I don’t think my answers for the second symphonia would change much because all my fave relationships in that game are still the original cast.  I don’t know Big Bang though, sorry!

Abyss:

My favorite parent-child relationship: I have a lot of feelings about Natalia and the King of Kimlasca and like how devastated they were to learn they weren’t related but how the king came around and got over his shock and realized that the relationship he has with Natalia is more significant than blood ties and accepted her as his daughter.

My favorite sibling relationship: Van and Tear and the way that they loved each other and he was such a huge influence on her but then she realized that the only way to save the world was to kill her beloved brother, and that her beloved brother has become so callous and cruel… ah that’s good angst.

My favorite family relationship (other): I adore the way Guy like adopted Luke and he was all set to kill him but then he ended up becoming a brother to him and was so integral to raising him to be the good guy that he is.  Guy set out to avenge his family, and instead he found a new one

My favorite friendship between two people: Gotta love the way Anise and Jade are these snarky assholes who get along great even though he’s a grown man and she’s a little girl.  It’s ok, Anise has an adult’s cynicism and cunning, she and Jade can be asshole bffs.

My favorite friendship between a group: I like the way the God Generals are like, you know, villains, but you can real feel for them sometimes.  The’re the bad guys, but like the way Largo carries Arietta away after she’s killed is just… they’ve all been cast aside by the world in one way or another and they found friendship with each other even though they’re doign awfult hings.

My favorite mentorship: So this isn’t a healthy thing but I think Luke’s relationship with Van is really interesting.  Van’s an abusive dickbag but the way Luke continues to call him ‘Master’ all through the end of the game, and how long it takes him to accept that he has to kill him, it really shows how much Van means to him and that makes it so much mroe tragic that Van was just using him all along and betrayed him so horribly.

My favorite rivalry: Arietta and Anise, like what happened to Arietta really sucks. 

My favorite hatred/antipathy: Asch and Luke, and how Asch is just so angry all the time and like it’s understandable that he hates Luke because Luke is the reason his life was ruined.  But also it’s not Luke’s fault.  And Luke doesn’t share Asch’s hatred, which probably just makes it worse for Asch because he can’t just have a healthy mutual hatred here.  And they end up as… not friends but like accepting each other.  

My favorite potential relationship between characters who never talk in canon: They don’t quite never talk, but I would have been really interested to see Asch survive and go back to Baticul and rebuild his relationship with his parents.  

Symphonia:

My favorite parent-child relationship: This isn’t a hard question and anyone who knew me in my ToS days knows the answer lol.  Complicated parent-child relationships are my jam and Kratos and Lloyd give me feelings like nothing else in this game.

My favorite sibling relationship: It doesn’t get much focus in the game but I’m really interested in the relationship between Zelos and Seles.  Something I think about so often is the way she says “come back safe” but then denies it and Zelos doesn’t hear and she doesn’t really say a proper goodbye to him.  And then if you do the Kratos path, and he doesn’t come back safe… who goes to the abbey to tell her Zelos is dead and how is she going to react to that?  

My favorite family relationship (other):  Another sibling relationship, but Raine is a good big sister and the fact that she raised Genis, alone, from the age of 12 is really impressive.

My favorite friendship between two people: I love Zelos and Lloys and I also ship them but also just love their friendhship in canon, like how whether or not Zelos betrays the group entirely comes down to whether Lloyd trusts him.  Lloyd is like the first person to actually be a good friend to Zelos and the fact that Lloyd trusts him means so much to him that he can’t bring himself to betray that trust.  I love it.  

My favorite friendship between a group: The Iselia trio of Lloyd, Colette, and Genis are so cute and I love them.

My favorite mentorship: I really like to think abotu Kratos being like a mentor to Mithos before everything went to shit and I wish we saw more of that.  

My favorite rivalry: Not exactly direct rivals but the vitriolic friendship between Sheena and Zelos is great.

My favorite hatred/antipathy: Mmm give me more of that Kratos/Kvar hatred like I want to see Kvar being a dick and Kratos with his righteous hatred all the time. I love the Asgard arc.  

My favorite potential relationship between characters who never talk in canon: I’d like to see Martel and Colette have a chat. 

Star Wars:

My favorite parent-child relationship: Gotta go with the class Vader and Luke.  Vader turning against the Emperor to save Luke is what I live for.  

My favorite sibling relationship: There’s only one sibling relationship int he movies lol but Luke and Lei’s awkward accidental incest to strong friendship is great.

My favorite family relationship (other): Han and Chewbacca are basically family, right?  I love them.  They’re bros for life.  I like how Han clearly understands Wookieese so fluently.  

My favorite friendship between two people: Han and Luke become pretty good friends over the course of the films and I find it sweet.  

My favorite friendship between a group: The original Han/Luke/Leia trio but I already answered almost every question with them lol so I also rather like Rey/Finn/Poe, even if it isn’t quite established yet as a trio.  

My favorite mentorship: Qui-Gon to Obi-wan is the best.  I read a whole series of mid-grade novels about Obi-wan’s apprenticeship and they may not be canon but they’ll always be canon in my heart.  I love Qui-Gon a lot.  

My favorite rivalry:  I want to see more of Han and Lando’s competitive asshole friendship.  

My favorite hatred/antipathy: Haaa I love when Finn shouted at Phasma like “I’M IN CHARGE NOW”.  I’ve said before I love love love the character trope of a character overcoming being used as a pawn and establishing themselves so his fighting back against the woman who manipulated and controlled him is great.

My favorite potential relationship between characters who never talk in canon:  I want an actual scene between Leia and Bail Organa.  What we’ve seen of Bail in the prequels is interesting and I want more of him and I want to see his actual relationship with Leia but that’s not going to happen now ;_;

House of Mouse review: “The Three Caballeros” or State of Your Outfit Donald

The Ride of the Three Caballeros continues, and with reviewed paid for up until legend, we’re fueled up and ready to ride on for some time now. This admittedly has taken a bit longer than I like to get back on the ride, due to a  number of reasons, but i’m back on the ride and these next two were both a pleasure to get to and cover a show that was LONG overdue to show up here: It’s the House of Mouse! For those of you who haven’t heard of it House of Mouse was a Disney show in 2000 that ran on it’s one Saturday morning block, the follow up to the Disney afternoon. It also holds a close place in my heart as these are the versions of Mickey and Co I grew up with, as I had Disney Channel as a kid and they reaired it a LOT, so the show is sorta soaked into my DNA, and is likely the reason why I like Donald and Goofy so much, as their shorts here and their personalities outside them really drew me in. I’ll still be objective mind, but the show means a lot to me and i’m not going to hide that. 

The show has a really amazing setup: Mickey and Co run a club for Disney characters. While no tv characters showed up, anyone who had been in the movies was fair game, and everyone from Hades to both forms of Simba somehow to the horned freaking king showed up. The only exceptions were as I said Tv characters, though Pepper Ann makes a cameo in the pilot, and the Pixar characters.. which is more fair than you think. Keep in mind at the time of this series, there were only three Pixar Movies: Toy Story, a Bug’s LIfe and Toy Story 2, which came out the same year as house of mouse. Not only that Pixar wasn’t owned by Disney at the time, so there was likely a fear they could loose the rights to use the characters at some point and thus didn’t want to chance it.  But yeah this setting is used for great jokes, it’s the source of the “No one does X like gaston!” meme and it’s funny every time they do that gag. Though the main stars of the show are still mickey and co with each having a fitting position in the club’s hierachy: MIckey and Donald, being equal stars, co-own the club, though Donald sometimes feels overshadowed. Mickey, with his people skills and cheer is the MC and host. Donald, given his jack of all trades nature and butt monkey status, is guest services, in charge of taking care of the club’s featured guests and naturally having it backfire, as well as sometimes envying Mickey’s spot and trying to take it over. Minnie, being level headed, keeps things running, planning the show and managing finaces as well as calming Mickey when he gets panicky. Daisy runs guest services while trying to break out on her own and is somewhat of a ditz in this series, though not overly dumb or incompetent, just a bit of an air head is all, and her sweet bubbly nature makes her very likeable. That and outside the shorts at least, she’s very nice to Donald here and their realtionship is very sweet, hence it being one of the four versions of it I like.  Goofy is head waiter, which fits him because.. I dunno they needed one. But he does the job well even if he naturally screws up a bunch because Goofy. Pluto is also around as a personal assitant because eh why not.  But what really stood out abotu the show to me, even more so as an adult, was  the supporting cast. As a kid, I was introduced to a lot of the disney side characters i’d never heard of before, all of whom get a decent amount of screen time over the series, while as an adult, I find it heartwarming they brought these characters back and fleshed them out after not being used on screen for so long, with one big exception that was still nice of them to use and helps bridge the generation gap. 

The rest of the HOM crew consisted of Hoarce, Mickey’s friend who was used a lot early on and who works as the club’s engineer and handyman, Clarabelle, also often forgotten but thoroughly defined here as a loveable gossip and acted wonderfully by the incomparable April Winchell. I credit this show for making me love both characters especially Clarabelle and wanting to see them more. 

We also have Gus, a far more obscure on screen character. Gus is Donald’s Cousin, and as of this writing is the ONLY one of Donald’s three majorly used Cousins to have not shown up in the Ducktales reboot. Gus is also the only one whose not a comics original, to my shock, instead showing up in the short “Donald’s Cousin Gus”, communicating only through honks and eating all of Donald’s food. He was naturally adapted for the comics, where while still having a huge appetite became more bossed with being a lazy while working with Grandma Duck, his and Donald’s Grandma. He’s so different between mediums I genuinely forgot he was in this show and didn’t realize he and the chef from this show were the same person. Still it’s nice to see him and hopefully he’ll make the reboot before it ends.  Finally rounding out the supporitng cast we have Huey Dewey and Louie, who mostly show up as the quackstreet boys to dance and are kind of inbetween their classic designs and their quack pack versions: They have the hair from quack pack, but seem more like their 12-13, a bit older than standard, but sitll not as old as they are in Quack Pack. They also don’t talk which is a vast improvement over Quack Pack. And finally, and more prominently, we have Max, who as I said bridges the gap between generations and I think was an amazing inclusion. He not only gave younger viewers like me a character they knew better, but allowed the character’s story to continue a bit, clearly taking place after xtreme but having him actually go on a date with Roxanne. Thank you House of Mouse Writers. your doing Golb’s work.  Antagonist wise we have Pete, as usual trying to muck things up and presumibly flush with post divorce cash. He’s the club landlord, and wants Mickey out for reasons that are never explained, but as long as the show goes on and Mickey pays rent on time, the show goes on. Being Pete, he naturally tries to sabotage things. It’s a good device. The other is Mortimer, probably the series deepest cut alongside Gus as he only shwoed up in one short but the series easily made him one of my faviorites: A Sleazy asshole who tries to pick up on Minnie (who thankfully this go round is not at all receiptve), tries to get on the card, and constnatly says Ha-Cha-Cha. Maurice LaMarche, this show had a REALLY talented voice cast can you tell?, really owned the character and has been his voice since and really took him from a one dimensional douche to a LOVEABLE asshole. 

Granted most of this.. really isn’t relevant as only the main cast show up, but it’s an aspect of the show I like so I went into it anyway. Plus i’ll defintely be coverng the show again so this saves me time for later.  Back on point though, the show’s format was a problem of the week, ranging from guest troubles to pete shenigans to internal strife in the club to just general sitcom shenanigans, going on at the club, with shorts inserted in from a previous Mickey Show, Mickey MouseWorks. MouseWorks was a short lived, pun intended, show that didn’t do so good, so they had a bunch of these shorts sitting around including some that never aired on the show, and thus inserted them as cartoons being played for the club patrons. It was a great device and the shorts, while varying in quality , are mostly pretty good and were the first Disney Shorts I saw. It was a good format, allowing the main stories to have plenty of time, but not have to overpad them or anything and with so many shorts on hand they could simply write the story to be as long as they needed and then insert however many shorts were needed. It worked well. 

So yeah as you can tell I truly love this show and it introduced a lot of stuff to me. And naturally.. that includes the Three Caballeros here, with their song here being stuck in my head for years and this being the first time they’d shown up in decades... which is ironically how long it took for me to see their movie but regardless. The boys were back, and you can see how the show did with them, under the cut. 

Something to note, No Disney Plus this time.. because BAFFLINGNLY the show is not on there, despite no rights issues holding it up I’m aware of, and the show having every other mouse and duck related animated series on there. I know, I’ve talked about this before, even in this very retrospective.. but I keep bringing it up because it’s something you easily forget about. Something that may slip away. But don’t let it. Let them know, and get our shows on there already. Christ.  Anyways, due to the show’s format of sliding the shorts in, and to make thing easier on me for house of mouse reviews i’m simply going to do the shorts first, then the main plot. Good? Good. 

This one only had two, though it varied on how many they used, and some were just super short shorts anyway, so it all balances out and as I said, i’ts better they just told as much story as was there than tried to rush it. So without further adue...

Donald’s Fish Fry: Poor Poor Humphrey  Yeah I didn’t like this one. The premise is using the old character Humphrey the Bear.. only here instead of being the antagonist the ranger present basically bullies the poor bear, while the other bears constnatly get more fish than him when it’s their registered time to fish. It’s just agrvating.. and when the poor boy finally GETS a fish, Donald snatches it.  Donald isn’t unsympathetic here, he found the fish fairly.. but it’s hard to tell who we’re supposed to root for here. Humphrey, who just wants what’s his, or Donald whose oblivious but technically in the wrong. This kind of slapstick just.. dosen’t work as well with both sides being sympathetic. It can work with say bugs and daffy, because both are equal, but there’s clearly an antagonistc force in elmer fudd. But this type of shenanigan just dosen’t work when neither side deserves the punishment, and Humphrey did nothing wrong. I felt like this for supporting him the whole time. 

And it ends with the ranger getting the fish. Because he wasn’t unlikeable enough clearly. Though Humphrey does get some beans so yay? Also the house segment after has Ranger Dickhead stealing Humphrey’s dinner, which given he’s at the club he CLEARLY paid for because it’s too fatty. Fuck you dude. I hope Goofy threw you out for that one. Just not a fun sit. I’ve seen this kind of shenanigan done better, in disney classic shorts even. I’ve seen Don as the villian better, See Trick or Treat for a good example> There’s just.. nothing here and it goes on forever. This is a good chunk of the episode! Lordy! Just a genuinely bad short. Thankfully the next one while not as word inducing is also not as headache inducing How to Be Smart: Now THESE were my faviorites as a kid. I loved goofy, so shorts about him were no brainer but even now.. these are still funny. Basically a narrator would follow Goofy around while he tries to learn how to do something, in this case how to get smarter after loosing on a gameshow .. and owing the show three milion dollars. There’s not much ot go into, it’s basically a series of jokes about Goofy going to school from elementary to college and learning his way up while Dealing with Ludvig’s bratty nephew and his own stupidity. It’s a funny short and really well done and these are easily some of the show’s best shorts and this is no exception. Unlike  the Humphrey short, where this essentially happened. 

My soul and I gladly enjoyed How to Be Smart. Dare to NOT be stupid and check this short out. 

The Wraparound: And I”m Donald Duck! As for the main segment it’s pretty good. We open with Mickey hyping up tonight’s act, which is naturally the Three Caballeros! But trouble sets in as Donald, while proud at first, is rightfully annoyed that a man on the street segment shows NO ONE remembers he was in the group. Including his best friend goofy. Only Pumba does, somehow. I dunno maybe he dated Panchito once before meating timon. Point is Donald dosen’t take this well, even if we get a nice moment of Daisy swooning over the fact.. even if being  HOM Daisy, she can’t get the name right. But given i’ve had trouble spelling it right, I’m one to talk. 

So being Donald he overreacts, which I like as.. well it’s Donald. Of course when given a very resonable reason to get upset he takes it a step too far. In this case he’s gotten an army of lawers, refuses to speak to mickey and has put ... THIS on. I showed it at the top of the page but.. well it bears repeating. 

It’s like every bad thing about the early 2000′s, from the douchey shades, to the rings, to the golden knuckles, to the hat that looks like a penis, to the no donald logo. There should be all the donalds, ALL OF THEM. He also has an army of lawyers, and naturally resorts to hot doggin and grandstanding: Signing autographs during the show, putting a giant poster of himself up. It works okay, as it makes him unsympathetic for the next part to work and is really funny which is the point. Even if again he looks like the feces that’s produced when shame eats too much stupidity. 

Instead of just getting Dale Gribble in there, Mickey is at a loss for a solution till the boys show up and.. it’s a mixed bag. Carlos  Alazraqui is excellent as Panchito, slipping into the roll well. Unlike last time the character showed up, they did NOT get a mexican actor, but Carols is still Latino, so it’s still better than what they did for Jose, and still big of them to actually bother to get a Latino actor to play a latino role.  Jose on the other hand.. is played, and not very good, by Rob Paulson. And before anyone throws stuff at me, I love Rob. I will  be gushing about him when I get around to reviewing the animaniacs reboot. He’s a god among voice actors and I love him. But his voice, at least in this ep dosen’t really .. FIT Jose, and he dosen’t really match the characters energy which is VERY weird given Animaniacs was right before this. The guy can DO energy and it’s one of his best talents. He STILL can as evidenced by both TMNT 2012 and the Animaniacs revival. It’s just not one of his better performances. I love the guy but even gods have off days.  And of course there’s the bigger issue of the very white Rob shouldn’t be playing the very Brazilian Jose. Not matching nationatlies is one thing, it sucks, but The Three Cablleros had a much bigger budget than HOM likely did. HOWEVER, it couldn’t of been that hard to find two latino voice actors in 2000, especially when you found at least one. I get this wasn’t as big a thing but when the 1940′s did better than you, you know you screwed up. 

But it probably dosen’t help the two.. barely do anything. Despite the episode being named after them, they only show up towards the end and just sorta say hi to mickey, get cool entrances, and then seeing Donald being a dick and Mickeya sking for their help, humble him with their musical number.  And the Musical Number IS really good, it’s been in my head for years and is just as catchy as the classic “Three Cabllero’s Song”.. why they didn’t sing that I don’t know, but this original one, a light knockoff of la bamba is still really fun and bouncy and the gags are good. It’s a really good climax and Donald deserves his punishment.  The only really issue is the ending, as.. no one leaned anything. No one acknowledges how forgotten Donald felt, Mickey dosen’t seem to get the issue as his “promoting Donald” at the end to make sure he’s not forgotten.. just has a bunch of jabs at his expense, and Donald dosen’t apologize..t hougH daisy is really sweet to him so we got some Donsy at least. It’s just a weak ending to an otherwise excellent wraparound.  Final Thoughts: This one was.. okay. Shorts aside, i’ve said my peace about them, the wraparound is a lot of fun, as is the musical number, even if the “artist formerly known as” joke was played out even in 2000. I mean yeas Prince changing his name to a symbol was insane, I get that.. but by then everyone had clowned on that decision and given he did so in a bizarre act of defiance towards his label, at a time where we now know how scummy record labels can be, it hasn’t aged well. It’s just the weak climax, song not included, really drags things down. The Cabs are just.. a cameo in their own damn episode, even with the full musical number and could’ve been around more. They don’t get to show off personalities or really do anything but teach Donald a lesson and are basically one indivdiual here. It sticks out even more because Rosa had both be utterly distinct and showed the utmost care while here.. their just sorta tossed in so they could have Donald be a primadona.. which itself is funny but on the whole this episode was just.. disappointing to revisit. It was disheartening to learn one of my favorite episodes as a kid wasn’t that good. It is worth checking out if you like Donald or the cabs, provided you skip the first short. Trust me, trust me, but is far from the best the house of mouse has to offer and hopefully the next one will show that.  Next time when the Ride continues, my gig at the house of mouse gets held over another night as Jose teaches Goofy manners and Panchito helps deprogram him from that. Before that I hope to get to the next chapter of life and times and some other stuff i’ve had hanging, including the next loud house and the next part of the tomtropsective, as well as some new things that have come up like said review of the animaniacs reboot and a review of Adventure Time: Distant Lands, Obsidan. Until then if you liked this review, please check out my other pages for more, follow me to see them, and if you’d like to comission your own, just hit me up in my ask box for my discord or personal message me here on tumblr. Until then, ther’es always another rainbow. I’m out. 

Toons for Our Times: The Casagrandes: Four Course Catchup

A

I take some time to catch up with everyone’s faviorite mexican-american family with a four course meal of shenanigans. 

Mexican Makeover: The thorny issue of racial identity erasure is handled via a lot of costumes, spicy food and a second Sergio, which suprisingly isn’t my own personal hell. Then again giving rusty a brother wasn’t either so there’s a precident.  Uptown Funk: Carl goes full Zach Morris, minus the white privlage, and marries Adelaide to get a free train ride, then let’s his hallucinations talk him into nearly killing everyone. At least the Leprechaun in the sandbox isn’t telling him to burn things anymore.  Bo-Bo Business: Hector won’t respect Bobby’s genius new ideas so Bobby sets shop at the near by hong’s market and procedes to nearly get murdered by bunnies. Dear god Anya was right.  Blunder Party: Ronnie Anne and Sid host their first event as a couple, a sleepover campout on the roof with their running crew. Adilade and Carl crash it causing their sibling and cousin to send the two on a dangerous scavenger hunt. As you do.  Context for what’s going on the page image under the cut. 

So yeah I originally wasn’t going to add the Casagrandes to regular coverage.... but what can I say. I had way more to talk about with the recent crop of episodes than I thought, the show often airs with loud house so it increases my coverage output and most importantly.. i’ts just damn good. While still having some kinks to work out, like forgetting to use CJ, the show is just really charming and uses i’ts premise well. So yeah when the show, at least according to the wiki, so expect full coverage of both this years halloween special and the show in full when it comes back in november... and with bobby being hypnotized into thinking he’s a cat apparently.. so yeah i’d be watching anyway, so why not go all in.  .So with that out of the way we’ve got a lot of ground to cover so, Golpeteo de pitter, which is spanish for pitter patter... maybe. If google translate mangled that I apologize. 

Mexican Makeover: 

Like with our last bit of loud house coverage, we start with the least of the episodes first. That being said this one isn’t TERRIBLE, just a waste of a good concept and something intresting to explore. It’s also a real shame given this episode is written by Lalo Alcaraz, the writer of the comic strip La Cucaracha who works as a consultant on the show and previously wrote my favorite episode of the season, Croaked!, which we’ll be talking about soon. But he seems like a great guy, but everyone dosen’t bat a thousand.  This episode centers around Rosa, whose mother Mama Lupe, and her parrot sidekick Paco, coming to visit. Paco is a recolor of sergio which actually explains a LOT honestly, as I now feel Sergio is the Quaks to Paco’s Squaks. 

As in the crappy recolor who dosen’t have as many skills. As you can tell I don’t like Sergio much. He’s annoying, not very funny and only rarely has his moments and also spent one episode constnatly being obnoxious to Bobby, who as we’ve discussed and will soon discuss some more, is my boy. My precious baby boy. So bullying him is the equilvent of slapping me with a dueling glove. So yeah Paco is better than Sergio, being more laid back, less obnoxious.. and voiced by, of all people, legendary cartonist and the namesake of the parrot sergio, Sergio Aragones. I grew up with the guy in middle and high school as he frequently, and I belivie still does, work for parody magazine MAD Magazine, and while I haven’t read it also did 80′s indie comic Groo the Wanderer with Mark Evainer of Garfield and Friends Fame. The guy’s really damn funny and it was a real treat to find out he’s involved here, especailly since the namesakes for the loud pets have all sadly passed, so it’s nice at least one pet namesake between shows gets to guest star.  But my fanboying aside, Rosa is worried she hasn’t been making her family Mexican enough and thus goes a bit absolutley nuts. She steals the kids clothes and replaces them with various traditional mexican outfits, which is a bit psycotic, and gives us a shot of carl’s ass when he compalins about his underwear being replaced, which...

Yes thank you wayne. I’m sure even some of the 7 year old’s watching this don’t want to see a fellow 7 year old’s butt. Stop that. There’s a reason the parent show stopped the gag of having Lincoln in his underwear all the time and it wasn’t just because only chris savino thought it was funny. It’s especially creepy given after Savino’s sexual harassment, John K’s reveal of being a pedophile and whatever Dan Schinder did they refuse to talk about to the public but has ciruclated around, you TIHNK the’yd be more congizant of not showing borderline child porn. I mean it’s one thing to have a kid in underpants for a gag it’s another to have a close up of his butt. Just stop. Stop.  So the episode goes as you’d expect, Rosa keeps pushing things harder without explaining herself, including trying to force the kids to speak in spanish, feeding them extra spicy food and againt eh whole replacing their clothes thing.. which\ do look nice though and we do get that blessed image of bobby up top. The kids eventually confront Rosa who reveals she just dosent’ want to give her mom a heart attack, they go along with it with Sergio feeding ronnie anne spanish, which is nice continuity as her not knowing i’ts come up before, and everyone putting on a show.. which goes horribly wrong with super spicy food understandably not being built for a 80-100 year old woman, and while i’ts nice Bobby’s buddy par, we’ll cover their episode at some point too, shows up he also heavy metals so hard it knocks her over and destroys the painting, which yeah of course. Rosa comes clean and Lupe.. is entirely fine with it and feels that culture is more in values than in what you know about it, though she will teach them a few things because knowing where you came from is still important. Also Paco returns and.. why coudln’t both he and Lupe stay. For all my issues with the episode besides Carl’s butt shot, which we’ll get to in a second, I do really like Lupe and Paco is better than sergio in every way shape and form apart from the name. just color him read and have him smother sergio in his sleep and we’re up a better parot. 

Final Thoughts for Mexican Makeover:  This one was eh. I saved my thoughts on the main plot for here because it IS a topic worth talking about: loss of cultural idetntity,  especailly for first or second generation, as our main kids and their parents are, kids, how to ballance the cultures, what really matters.. it’s all good, deep really senstiive topics that i’m in no way qulaified to entirley judge because i’m very much white and am not going to whitesplain topics that I have no personal experince with.  But I can at least say they could’ve done MORE with this. For one thing Maria was absent, and it would’ve been REALLY intresting to get her take on it since Croaked! established she didn’t really give Ronnie Anne at the very least much of a lesson in their heritage. You can’t really BLAME HER: She works a demanding job, ended up having to raise them alone, and is tired a lot. As I said i’ts a VERY complex topic that’s created some VERY brilliant works around the subject, and while i’m not asking for “Moonlight... for Kids!” I am asking you to explore something like this. How aclimated the kids are to white culture is a topic worth exploring and could’ve been a special and while yes I know, it probably would’ve been “A Very Special Episode”..sometimes you need to tackle complex topics for kids. The Proud Family was also a screwball comedy, but it tackled the civil rights movement, xenophobia and other heavy subjects from time to time.. it also thought music piracy was the root of all evil but as I said no one bats a thousand. And it wouldn’t lack jokes as Alcaraz’s career is in satire: He knows how to write jokes about heavily charged topics and be clever about it on the freaking comics page, and given The Casagrandes like it’s sister show is basically a comic strip in animated form, he has the right format tow ork with it just ultimately becomes instead the cliche “person is coming time to hide everything we’ve been doing plot”, which has never been that good and is even worse on top of a more interesting idea. I don’t expect the show to be super deep all the time but I expect better than broaching a clearly difficult subject and not really giving it any weight. 

Uptown Funk: Now we’re past the one I was eh on because I knew how it’d turn out, and somehow got even less on board as it wasted a good concept and good ideas, and to the one out of the four I was most pumped for. And of all things it was a CARL episode.  I passingly mentioned last time I didn’t like Carl, and that opinon’s started to change. I’m still not a huge fan, his voice is grating and he STILL hasn’t given  up on Lori seasons later after Clyde long has and the other show long regonized this was a bad idea. Buuut i’ve come to realize he has his moments, with Monster Cash, which i’ll cover very soon for Halloween Havoc, and this very episdoe which is utterly fantastic. Though part of that is also the supporting cast, who were the reason I was pumped.  I talked abotu the Changs Breifly in my Operation Dad review but since Adalaide and Stanley are more promenent here and Becca will be, if not in person, in Croaked!, i’ll gladly dive into them. The Changs are the Casagrandes next door neighbors and EASILY one of the best parts of the show. A lovely interacial nuclear family, the four are all really likeable and distinct. I’ve talked about Sid before, so we’ll save more of that for in a bit. Stanley her dorky dad voiced by Kim Jeong who works as the subway conductor for Great Lakes City. He’s just a treat, in both sense of hte word, and really sweet interacting with his daughter and has a tendency to make small apperances due to Ronnie Anne and Sid riding the subway wherever they need to go. As i’ve said it’s nice to see Ken Jeong get to play a goofy, normal-ish dad and be funny without having to either play an over the top lunatic, weirdo or asshole. I love community but Chang could be a lot but this Chang is alright.. and probably dosen’t speak to his community college student brother that often for his family’s saftey. He does have Rabi Chang, his other brother over a lot though. Look if Teen Titans go can be jammed into the same multiverse as ok ko and steven universe, this show can take place in the same unvierse as community. 

Becca is stan’s wife and the head zookeeper at the zoo as well as the runner of their various shows, voiced by melissa joan hart and while not around as mcuh as her husband, is still a delight and it’s a delight to have clarissa back. Also together with her husband they make one hell of a couple to get sandiwthced between.. and no shame there, and yes i’m aware they have kids, i’d be happy to help raise them. I”m no asshole. 

Anyways speaking of those kids, we lastly have Adalaide, the star of this show and an adorable 6 year old and as Sid calls her “A sass bucket” which is accurate both for 6 year olds in general, and for this one, though like most kids her age she flips from being adorable to entirely blunt when warranted. She also has a Frog, named Froggy II. We’ll get into what happened to Froggy I and how she met Froggy II in October. 

So yeah two of my faviorite side characters, I consider sid main, PLUS one of my other faviorites Vito in a supporting roll. What’s not to love? As for the plot Carl brushes off Adalaide, because he’s a little jerk festival, but changes his tune when he overhears Stanley offering to have Adilaide join him on the train even see the control. Carl being a fanboy for trains among many other things which I shall list now: Things Carl’s a Fanboy For: 1. Money 2. Petty Schemes 3. Zack Morris 4. The Ladies 5. AC Slater 6. Luchadores 7. Trains. 

He naturally has his eyes light up like a christler buliding and given numbers 2 and 3 on the list quickly comes up with a scheme to get that train ride, since Stanely offered her a plus one. Granted he could’ve PROBABLY just asked Stanley for a ride and being the upstanding guy he is, and given Carl’s also a train nerd and stanley is their king, he would’ve said yes, but this is the same boy who thought his adult cousin’s same aged girlfriend would want to go out with him when said girlfriend lives in a house with at least 3 girls close to his age instead she could set him up with. The boy is more of a short term planner, like most schemers in fiction really, he sees the dollar signs like eddy from ed edd n eddy and has some good ideas, but not the more obvious solutions that aren’t as scheme based around him. I swear if this kid didn’t have a moral center this would be him in 50 years

I mean the only reason the boy hasn’t used sharks or explosives is because his parents and grandparents won’t’t let him.

Anyways Addie is skepteical for about 5 seconds and my one real complaint about the episode is it felt like she was genuinely skeptical, and playing him slightly with their games.. but it turns out nope she just genuinely bought it. But as smart as she is she’s also only 6, and her being adorably trusting works just as well.  So they play games. They have a tea party, with carl wearing a truly glorious peacock that I guarnatee sid has worn both for playing with her sister and just to feel fancy. They then play with Froggy.. which gets uncomfotable as Adaladie forces Carl to kiss him, and then basically goes full on “NOW KISS” when it fails to turn froggy into a prince and Froggy runs because he wisely dosen’t want to make out with Carl, and is omly passable and not disturbing instead because she’s 6 and dosen’t know better. They then play chase froggy, which Carl wins but gets flies thrown at him in hte process so does he really?  They get to their final game superheroes, with carly playing his faviorite el falcone.. but also being the hostage while Adalaide saves him because this is 2020, she don’t need to be no damsel in distress. And this to me is why the episode works.. Carl IS a huge jerk here, manipulating a younger child who just wants to be his friend to get a train ride he could’ve gotten just by asking her.. but he gets put through the ringer, and most of his “humilation” is stuff that isn’t that bad: Tea is alright, there’s no shame in wearing makeup or a veil, and being rescued by a woman is awesome. It’s just Carl’s own baby’s first toxic masuclinity that makes these situations minus kissing froggy uncomfortable, so it adds to it as Addy’s doing nothing wrong really and any pain on carl’s part is an accident on hers. She’s just an imaginatiee little lady and he’s jsut a jerk. But they pair well together his underserved ego with her adorablility and creativity and as we’ll see smarts. Part of the reason I was so excited is their one real scene togehter in monster cash, when Carl is throiwng everyon’es money back at them which is also the best bit of the episode and we’ll get to that when we cover it her response is a stern “Don’t you even dare” and he hands it back to her because you don’t mess with Addy. 

Addy then brings up pretend marriage and while Carl has his first , and probably not last, panic attack over comitment he does realilze this can be used and gets his train ride over it, with the two taking Froggy along as their baby. But being Carl, he’s not ready for marriage to a strong judge on the supreme court who makes him change the diapers and humilaties him in public, whcih i’d be more upset about if again he didn’t deserve it. We also have VITO! Local itallian, the Mercado’s best customer and Hector’s only friend. He also has his two winer dogs with him which.. yes. Just yes. And they have matching hats and sweaters because Vito is the best.  Hedecides to toss froggy and book it for the train car. Adalaide realizes she’s been played and is understandably pissed but sadly, needing to find her friend her husband threw, dosen’t storm into Stanley’s conductor car and throw him off the train.

Instead Carl geeks out with Stanley over the train, which means he probably is meant to marry into this family, and Stanley’s glart awards. When Stanley’s called away to deal with the frog fracas, Carl is left told not to touch anything. So the obvious happens.. Carl hallunciates a bunch of pre school level choo choos who tell him to press the button. I love .. everything about this. It’s just pure hilarity and insanity and I’m here for it and a really creative, and insane gag and a nice take on the shoulder devil trope. 

Naturally Carl, being Carl, presses the big button which turns on the ac and then blasts Stan’s train mix. Which sadly isn’t just this over and over and over and over again. 

With Carl possibly banned from trains for life he naturally turns to his wife for help, who is none to happy with his bullshit, and not willing to help him because why would she? But Carl.. genuinely apologizes. It’s why I mentioned he has a moral center. Unlike say Zack morris 80% of hte time or Eddy from Ed Edd N Eddy at his worst, Carl can FEEL human emotions like guilt, and while he does need Addy’s help to not get in massive trouble, you can tell he genuinely feels bad about hurting her and is only asking because she’s his only hope and for the sake of the various passengers who if she dosen’t step in will go off the rails on a crazy train, she agrees.  Turns out though Addy is pretty badass on top of being adorable, and uses Froggy II as a grappling hook, then turns out to have inherited her dad’s knowledge of trains, which was foreshadowed earlier as she said she’s gone with him a lot and was bored at his offer and won two time junior glart awards.. which given that likely includes teens and tweens, is Valeria Richards levels of acomplished. God damn kid. Kudos. Stanley gets understandably mad at carl But Addy covers for him and since she saved her dad’s awards, Carl can live.. and come back sometimes. Carl, first through his action figure then himself apologizes for being a jerk toa ddy and manipulating her.. a genuine one that shows he means it and finds she’s pretty cool. Gues this marriage CAN be saved. And so we end this episode as you’d expect. 

No.. for one thing i’td be leprechaun-train monstrosity. For another the happy couple team up as superheros and thwart froggy being hit by a train , who greatfully smooches carl who, having grown, takes it in stride. Happy end

Final Thoughts: I love this one. It was funny, intresting and had carl develop as a character while fleshing addy out and giving us some great stanley stuff. It made having a jerk as the protagnist here work and made me go from begrudgingly liking carl to actuallyl iking him. while he’s pretty terrible here he suffers for most of his actions and learns from it, and he and Adelade ahve a great dynamic that we thankfully do indeed see again this very marathon. But first. IT’S BOBBY TIME. 

Bo-Bo Buisness It’s my first episode starring Bobby on this blog and i’ts been TOO long and there will be more to come I promise. As i’ve made no secret of Bobby is my faviorite character here, and as you can tell that’s a tight race, and is just.. great here. The move to the city fleshed him out by giving him drive with his desire to run the mercado, franchise it, and go to buisness school to do all of it properly, while keeping his loveable sweetness, stupidity and relationship with Lori which has gone from deeply unhealthy to awwwwwwwww. 

So naturally I was on board for another Bobby Bonaza, and this one like most of his eps is pretty good: This time around it focuses on Bobby’s hard work ethic and youthful energy..and it leading him AWAY from the mercado.  Bobby tries setting up free wifi and a table like a cafe in the Mercado, but Hector flatly refuses and refuses anthing Bobby comes up with, citing his 30 years running the place sucessfully, while Bobby cites his less than a year of it and his book of ideas, though Hector refuses to budge. And what I like here is that while hector IS still the bad guy here, it’s not in a one dimensional “Jerk for the episode’ way this show’s sister episode tends to fall into. Or treating a character being a jerk like their the wronged party, or.. you get the idea. Point is hector has SOME points: He has run a small buisness in a huge city for 30 years, beating out gentrification, racisim, big buisness and other threats to run at thriving mercado, even with another market across the street. He also owns a sizeable apartment with room for two diffrent families, 5 adults, 6 kids, a dog and an asshole, and his wife is super for the building as a whole. He’s done MARVELOUSLY for himself and deserves to be proud and his stubborness likely comes from just how much he’s been able to acomplish while others fell around him.  However.. Bobby is still sympathetic. It’s very clear working here is his dream job: His plan for his life is to expland the place into a franchise and run it himself one day, he’s the clear sucessor and Hector wont’ be around forever.. probably for a LONNNG time still, and his ghost will probably haunt the place with Rosa’s scolding him, but since ghosts can’t own property probably, someone has to take over. Bobby is his clear sucessor and his ideas aren’t bad.. poorly exceuted in this case, but not bad. As we’ll see in a bit the table idea can work, bobby just didn’t think it through and Hector could’ve HELPED HIM with it and as we’ll see most of the ideas Bobby ends up doing elsehwere are just common sense for this day and age and the one that isn’t is the one that does him in. But Hector, likely seeing any change as a threat to his bottom line and his legacy, rejects him out of hand. H’es likely scared that his protege can do BETTER, or worried that one wrong move could cost him his life’s work. I also find this ironic since a few episodes ago, though I still need to see it, Bobby himself had the same problem letting go and letting someone else control the buisness with his sister and cousins running the place while he had his anniversary with Lori. Bobby DESERVES to be given his shot.. and so when he decides to quit the mercado in a huff and take his table and his ideas with him.. you agree with him. Sure he’s leaving the family legacy.. but if Hector wont let him make it his own or appricate how much fucking work he does or love he has for the place, then what legacy is there? That got heavy. We get a great joke next as bobby makes a metaphor about the dinosaurs.. then wonders what happened to them and like me on any given day stops to google it.. and since he uses a laptop unlike me and my desktop computer or phone, and his table, he inadveratly sets up a table outside.. which fixes the problems with his idea, if by accident and impresses Mr.Hong the owner of a nearbye market who could use a fresh faced go getter like bobby and hires him right on sight and agrees to start putting his ideas in. 

And the wifi table.. is a huge sucess and putting it outside gave the customers more room, so it fixes the one flaw in his plan, and serving out cafe and snacks I can’t prounounce or spell properly, bobby shows his idea WOULD have worked: instead of creating loiterers it simply gives customers like Vito, who pretty much lives at the Mercado anyway so why not, a place to sit, eat and check their email and stuff, and bobby’s a good enough salesman he can convince them to eat and given the mercado already has a customers only policy on toilets.. they could’ve just made the table purchase only, and once per hour, and their regulars would’ve lapepd it up. Hector refuses to accept this though and stews and drives sergio and carl away.. which yeah if you can out asshole Sergio, you may be the bad guy here.  The two feud over dinner to their family’s confusion, and to Rosa’s annoyance and dope slaps when she spills her hard worked on food over their petty sniping but bobby’ sstar continues to rise with a music video for hongs including that bit seen above, rapping and just.. whatever the fuck that video was it was the third best rap in nick history behind that “nnnnnnick” rap and this. 

So yeah with the comeerical, Hongs has tons of customers, and Hector stews more. However things can’t be good forever, as the last 4 years have proven they can be bad for an especially long time but good? Sadly no, as Bobby gets what he always wanted: The keys to the store.. maybe not the store he wanted but still and gets to run hongs solo.  Sadly though Bobby ends up fucking up, letting people bring their pets which wrecks the place, and ends up with bobby getting swarmed by an ever multiplying batch of bunnies. 

As Bobby is cuddled to death, his exact words, Hector finally relents and saves the boy from literally drowning, and the two get the rabbits out.. but well with social media and all that hong knows what happen and bobby’s fired. But back at the Mercado, Hector rehires bobby, and genuinely apologizes. I do feel it comes a bit quick.. but I guess after your grandson almost got bunnied to death, you rethink your life choices. Bobby admits he was in over his head while Hector genuinely admits Bobby has good ideas and he was being a stubborn jackass and decides he can use them after all. Starting with the commerical where the two perform a nice mexican song, the whole family adorably dresses up like various mercado items as seen at the veyr top and we also get this. 

Yes, yes to all of this. And we’re out.. for a moment then back in but you get it. 

Final Thoughts for Bo Bo Buisness: While not the best Bobby episode, that would be the one that introduces Par and again i’ll get to that one, this one is still pretty good. While I do feel Hector turns around a bit quick, otherwise it’s funny enough and has enough character stuff with bobbby, even if i’ts mostly just from knowing him in this series to work out. I”m not ANTI-nonsense episodes, I just don’t want them there when ther’es clearly a way heavier issue your steping around. This wasn’t the BEST the series has done comedy wise but it was fun enough. Alright one more...

Blunder Party: 

And we end on another pretty good one. And oddly for this show it’s the only Ronnie Anne focused one of the four. Usually she’s dead center but it seems the series is getting comfortable enough, much like it’s parent show, to ease out of focusing on just one character as the viewpoint and letting the others breathe. Still this was a good un and let’s talk about it. 

It’s Party Time and Ronnie and Sid are having a sleepover on the roof. Their first party of a couple.. i’m so proud of by baby gays.. or gabies as I call them. I mean.. yes i’m not subtle with my shipping but they act less like close friends and more like two tiny lebisan awww factories.  Anywho the whole crew’s here, which as with a lot of things this episode let’s talk about them: Casey, Nikki and Sameeer were introduced in a loud house I haven’t seen and naturally carried over to the show proper, showing up when Lincoln visted in an episode I will defintely cover at some point, and accepting Ronnie Anne wasn’t a born city kid. They have neat designs, are nicely diverse, and while lthey do need some fleshing out, given that like Lincoln’s own friend team squad they show up in a good chunk of ronnie anne episodes, we got time for that so we’re good. There’s also new addition Laird, the school’s own screech powers, and your standard awkward dork whose not that great. So yes even this group has a waste of a character, though he’s not AS bad as rusty or useless as Liam, just feeling a bit less essentail than Ronnie Anne’s running crew, who match her general vibne, and Sid whose her soulmate. 

But as the pizza arrives via Sergio, because he has to be useful at least once, our heroes soon find the party crashed by Great Lakes City’s newest power couple: Carl and Adelaide! Looking like their fucking team rocket. Seriously I had other options for this episode, including bobby sliding around on his back comically, so it says something just how great that iamge is and how fucking gloriously smug yet awesome they look. 

The two want to join and even outdo the big kids at stretcing and flinging pizza, but as many little siblings like myself know all too well, the big siblings don’t want you there. I can’t count the number of times I wanted to hang with my brothers friends, but he refused frome lementary all the way up to high school. It was maddening. SO I sympathize with them, but i’ve grown tor ealize grown up kids want to have their own time and fun so I sympathize with both parties: Carl and Addy just want pizza and games and to hang with the big kids and Ronnie Anne and Sid just want to host a party as a couple without watching their siblings. 

However Carl forces a compromise.. by using his special mood.. whining loudly and summoning Rosa.. whos eriously just.. teleports behind the kids. I thought only Lucy could do that in this unvierse. Respect. 

Rosa however is resonable. While she dosen’t want the kids to be excluded, and it’s understandable and nice of her: The kids just wan’t to feel included and Rosa is resonable enough to say they will have to leave eventually wehn it’s time for bed. A fair compromise. Also i’d wonder why Adelaide is here but I assume the Chang Parents had her come over there, which Rosa being the lovely person she is agreed to. I didn’t get into her above but I do like Rosa a lot as a character as she’s a resonable authority figure.. but liable to slip into her own foibles, and is kind and loving with her family if strong and strict when she needs to lower the boom. Mostly on Hector who i’m amazed survived last episode and getting his own grandson to leave in one piece. 

But yeah I mean I can only imagine what’s going on there...

Also  sex obviously, but since I obviously can’t and won’t show you that, have this video to jodeci’s freak n you instead and let your imagination fill the blanks if you want. 

I will use this song any time I can. Anyway, Sid being the peach she is tries to convince Ronnie anne all is not lost. Earlier she used a metaphor saying how they had all the perfect ingredents like a smore, and now adds pizzza.. which ot be fair a pizza smore, but using bagles or something sounds great, but pizza on a smore sounds like my own personal hell.. though Sid likes it so i’ll let it live.. for now. That’s also why Sergio is alive. FOr now. 

But even sid has a limit and the power couple soon break those: An attempted scary ghost story session goes bad as they break poor sameer by predicting eveyr story he has even the one the poor kid wings, and he and his prehinsile hair are sad. Cheer up kid at least you can probably go live on Krakoa at some point. Free health care, free housing, living on a giant  paradise. Good stuff.

The two then ruin an attempted dance party, which unlike the above which was just bad timing, this time their just obnoxious as addy wnats to ballet, and Carl wants to... put it to his butt whle playing fart noises. Okay for starters. 

Secondly if he wanted to do that he could’ve got a cd of Nickleback cheaper and no one would’ve noticed.. then again they might of thought the poor boy had Dihera.  Somehow this isn’t the last draw. Nikki, being a real one, holds a gross drink contest which carl spits out on the crowd.. which really WHAT DID YOU ALL EXPECT. This is how those things end. WIth spit up and fury. 

Anyways enough is enough, so our ambigiously gay duo hatch a plan and send the little kids on a scavanger hunt. So while the Ronnie’s Running Crew have fun, and spot bobby and his best buddy par and bobby flop on some mangos and slide around on mango juice all episode as a result, the dream team work on getting that list done. From getting one of Hector’s nosehairs to Mr. Nakamura’s faviorite sweatervest (which takes a while) , to Carlota’s diary they do it with flair. Of note is the two having to steal Sergio’s crackes.. and nearly getting murdeered by the parot who seriously looks like he’s about to skin a child.. thankfully when HE does a shining by crashing through the door, he just gets stuck so no child murder tonight. Horay! Well until Carlota finds out her diary missing then this happens. 

But things get dire when the kids think they see the smaller kids get stuck in par’s truck. Thankfully bobby knows where his best friend is at all times, because he’s consdierate and knows where he’s headed next, and the kids end up following him, while Sameer stays behind to distract with his hair puppets since Rosa wants to little ones to go to bed. 

Sid and Ronnie anne and co head to the dump , shenagins insue and they think they lost their sibling and cousin.. only to find them, the two having gotten a mango that looks like Vito and won.. and Sid and Ronnie apologizing and admitting their scam. In a nice bit though while Carl gets upset, Addy quickly points out they DID ruin their fun, and crash the party, and Carl begrudingly admits he’s wrong. Again, keep them married show. Carl needs Addy to keep him honest and Addy needs carl to hide the bodies of her enmies. They make a good pair, just like their big sis and cousin. 

Anyways, Ronnie Anne and Sid ask to have the kids for just a bit longer to repair them and again this is why I repsect Rosa. She finds out the kids disobeyed her or at least found a loophole but isn’t mad and gets both sides learned from it. Our kidlets get a giant ass smore for their heroic efforrts, Nikki returns Carlota’s diary in secret to avoid their deaths while Sergio is arrested for attempted murder of two minors. A good night all around. Bobby joins in to close out, which isn’t met with any resitance because who dosen’t love bobby, while Hector wakes up to the vito mango and wonders what happened to him.. okay apparently Vito’s been turned into a non-sapient piece of fruit before and I want details show.  Final Thoughts Finally: A pretty good one. Carly and Adleadie continue to prove to  a hell of a combo, whie the proven dream team of Sid and Ronnie Anne work well off their younger counterparts. It overall leads to a fun episode with lots of great gags.. and also bobby sliding around on his back comically like he’s a goddamn roomba and I am hear for it. Just overally really good stuff and a really fun plot. This really feels like stife of the party done right. Both sides screw up but make up instead of one just getting their way because protaganist. And overall this batch of episodes was really damn good and I look forward to watching the series reguarlly from now on. Until then, just one more day then this blog gets all spooky! SO stay tuned, stay safe and go team venture! Play us out nickleback! WAIT WHY DID i SAY THAT NO NO NO NO NOOOOOOO