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popculturebuffet · 1 year

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CODENAME KIDS NEXT DOOR:OPERATION NAUGHTY REVIEW (comission for WeirdKev27)

Hello all you happy mutants. It's been way too long since i talked something x-men related and given the last time I did was … this

It's been even longer since I talked about something GOOD from the house of X. Thankfully Kev had an idea left over from last X-Mas that I was eager to jump on this X-Mas: Operation N.A.U.G.H.T.Y, Codename :Kids Next Door's classic christmas episode spoofing the strangest heroes of all. And the fantastic four because apparently this episode wasn't personally targeting me enough as is.

For those Krakoans not as familiar with KND, in short KND follows the Kids Next Door, a group of child superspies trying to fight adult tyranny. KND takes place in a world where many adults take up supervillany just to impose their will on kids, from forcing braces on them, to shipping kids to the moon so their parents have no excuse not to work a billion hours, to bras actually being battle ready armor and teens all being douchebags who want to bully kids. In short it's every sterotype about kids and childhood taken up to eleven, and given cool gadgets. The show evolved from our main five kids, super cool british super spy and tightwad Nigel Uno, carefree pilot Hoagie Gilligan, spacey plushie lover Kuki Saban, perpetually angry aussie Wallabe Beatles and cool as a cucumber second in command Abigail Lincoln, Numbahs 1 through 5 respectively.

The show evolved, starting as simply the kids ocasoinally harassing people and fighting weirdos who werne't taken seriously by the rest of the world into a complex epic with the KND becoming a global orginzation and our heroes being one of a large cast of other KND agents, kids and characters. The show had a tight, expansive continuity that I ate up as a kid and even now wish to go back and rewatch some day. IT's a show I deeply loved and still do admiring it' screativity and having a continuity way thicker than most shows at the time, but gloriously so.

The show also LOVED it's pop culture refrences, including an entire episode that was just a parody of a short form the Animatrix, a two parter following empire strikes back, and many more. If the creators could squeeze in something they loved, they would. So it's not a shock that.

So it's not a huge shock the show would one day tackle x-men, which is another franchise about disenfranchised outcasts fighting an unfair system that has a massive cast, mythology and nice dollops of batshit insanity. The fact the storytelling is similar to the claremont run of x-men, i.e. fun one off adventures with ocasoinal bigger multi parters with a tight continuity and clear plans for the arcs, just makes it all the more obvious to me as an adult. Not only that they did it TWICE, though we'll save operation S.A.F.E.T.Y. for another day. The fact they made their x-men shout out a christmas episdoe and based their elves of x more on the comics than the movies, depsite the movies being red hot at the time and rightfully so, is just icing on the cookie. So join me won't you for some KVX as we dive into operation N.A.U.G.H.T.Y.

We open with a Stan Lee style narration which just warms my heart. See back in the 80s Stan Lee did a LOT Of narration for marvel cartoons, including the failed 80's X-Men Pilot, Pryde of the X-Men, which I intend to review eventuallys. And while obviously I wa stoo busy not existing to see most of this, I did get a vhs tape of Firestar's origin episode in spider-man and his amazing friends, and I THINK pryde of the x-men as a kid, so I got to hear it plenty. So seeing someone tribute that and do a pretty good job capturing his energy if not his voice at all.. it really hits me right there.

It's Christmas Eve and the elves are all hard at work. THey even sing their own verison of the rainbow monkey rainbow monkey all very round and super chunky theme song, which is imbeded in my skull on a load bearing lobe. One elf isn't so jolly and that's Elf Logan, codename Wintergreen aka Weapon G. He's just here on santa's orders to keep an eye on things not to sing and dance and make presents.. which is fair. It'd be like asking your CIA assigned body guard to knit for you. That's not what there here for. There's one thing Wintergreen does best and what he does isn't very jolly.

Things quickly get all humbuggy as 5 familiar figures show up.. figures SEEMINGLY matching the KND.. but wearing masks and acting unusual. I mean showing up somewhere and shooting a bunch of adults with tranq dart,s including about 40 for Elf Logan because ti's the only way he sleeps at night. Otherwise he just strokes that picture of Elf Jean Grey longingly. It weirds the rest of the team out.

Still there's clear hints it's not them: besides the makss they dont' talk or yell. While they CAN be quite on a mission, it's usually not fo rlong and usually nigel would at least have to give out some order. Most dammingly.. you have Number 3 in a room full of Rainbow Monkeys and she DOSEN'T react? That.. that's not possibly her.

The elves reactions are also gold as their all holly and jolly even as their getting some mmmmm drugs. Even the one who yells at them for entering the REINDEER room tells them merry christmas. So they enter it and kindap the santy claws as we get our holly jolly credits.

One title explination later, we're back with what's the REAL sector V, though the special does do a good job keeping it ambigious: While most audiences first instnct, even child me, is to say "well of course it's not them" Numbah 4 mentions an icy fortress, and their all returning from somewhere that isn't revaled till later. Given this franchise it could just as easily be that Santa was evil or undre mind control or they stole it to save it from a greater danger. It's not of course but the fact we don't know if they did it and if it wasn't them who adds nicely to the tension and their are hints as to who.. but we'll get to those at the reveal.

Our heroes prepapre to head home, with Numbah 3 being the most excitable and kind of the group, happy to give Numbah 4 his gift. They have a very drawn out will they or won't they thing, though it's a bit more tolerable than most series as their children and Numbah 4 is in DEEP denial. Like jason fox or calvin insertlastname here levels of girls have cooties I don't have feelings YOU HAVE FEELINGS. STOP ASKING QUESTIONS. Their just kids so it works that it dosen't go anywhere and Kuki is empathetic enough I coudl see her patiently waiting for him to finally stop being a butt.

Turns out theres a snag as Wally didn't get her a present. Which is typical for him. What really clearly distresses numbah three.. is that NO ONE did. When she mentions a gift exchange EVERYONE else whitstles nonchanlantly and Nigie tries to change the subject as soon as possible. That makes what she does in the climax more understandable.. whlie Numbah 4's actions are crappy.. their typical for him. She's used to this dance in their relationship by now and for once he seems genuinely regretful till of course Numbah 5 teases him with a predictable response

But NONE of them, including Numbah 5 herself, bothering to get her a gift when she clearly wen tout of her way to get all of them one , especailly given how their one big family? Yeah that's far less forgiveable. She does, to her defense brush it off as it's better to give and receive but the gang has bigger issues. Someone has stolen the treehouse

Yeah this went from the ocasional shocking moment.. to being so common Nigel has a melt down over it and rightfully so. You'd get pissed too if your second home got kidnaped every other week. Though to answer his rhetorical question of "why", simple: it's your base of operations with all your stuff in it. Granted their flying bus thing MIGHT have some weapons stashed.. but given the KND also puts "blow up the engine buttons" on it's vehicles and how numbers 2 3 and 4 can be when it comes to actually doing their jobs at times, it's just as likely the emergency slot has a bunch of candy, broken rocks, comics, and rainbow monkeys instead of weapons. I mean it's still all useful it's just not when the best at what he does and friends come a knocking.

Naturally for wolverine's bootleg, Wintergreen is waiting propped on on one of the plane thingy's wheels with a candycane in mouth. Because if Marvel won't let the man who cannot get cancer and is in no remote danger of it smoke because "drugs are bad mkay" then Cartoon Network sure as heck won't.

I do love how they get Logan down so well though: After seein Garth ennis' attempts at parodying logan which were

That… it's nice to see one done with affection that really GETS the character: his manerisims, his attitude, his competnece, his sideburns, hell even how he looks shirtless. Which may be a weird thing to get down, but it's something that's been hilariously and weirdly consitant. That and the fact he goes shirtless a lot. The movies got some things right and other things horribly wrong, but the one thing they just downright nailed was that logan shows off those canadian abs a LOT. Him being shirtless is about as much of a costume to him as the old yellow and blues or the less used but still awesome browns and slightly lighter browns.

Point is it's very clear the writers of KND REALLY loved the x-men and this parody was done in good fun. The idea of making the X-Men into christmas elves is the weird kind of redressing this show is REALLY good at and it fits the x-men like a glove. As I like to repeat the x-men are REALLY fucking weird and i'm just skippy with it. Cyclops lived on the moon for a whlie, mutantkind as a whole lives on a sentient island that tried to murder them once, death is such a non factor that Mr. Sinsiters advice to seeing if ressurction will fix nightcrawler growing horns is just to shoot him, Storm is queen of mars with Magneto as one of her staunchest allies, and there's also Doop.

And most of that is just recent events. THey've fought demons, been to space so often mutankind is in good with a space empire with Xavier's clone daughter leading them, storm has merged with a space whale, an extradimeisdonal tv exective wants to record them for his shows, and one of them has a space dragon. The X-Men are so inherently gloriously insane that having an elf equivleant isn't the weirdest thing that's happened to them and finding out which one would be near impossible. Like I said though Wintergreen acts like Logan and it's thankfully not early days "will kill you just for looking at him sideways" logan, but later "calm and resonable but will cut a bitch if you cross him" logan. He asks for the REINDEER back civily wanting to avoid a fight. Our heroes are the ones who draw on him and while sure Elf Logan took their treehouse, they didn't bother to try and talk things out.

So we get KVX.. or KVE as the x-men here are Elpha Strike, a nice nod to alpha flight, a candian super team. Their really more like the avengers, down to having their own hulk in sasquatch, but since they started out in X-Men and are old friends of wolverine despite trying to kidnap him a few times, as you do with your buddies, their frequently part of the x-men. It helps they never really QUITE broke out like creator John Byrne was hoping.

So for this parody the team stuck with the classics, the four longest standing x-men who served as the teams core during Chris Claremont's legendary franchise defining run: You've met wintergreen who had peppermintium in his bones, but we also have Nutcracker, based on demonic looking german teleporter and badass preacher Nightcrawler (complete wtih telepoting and being mildly unsettling), Snow Angel, whose primarily based on queen of mars, former queen of wakanda and always survivor storm having her apperance and beign associated with the wather but also has shades of two other x-men; Ice man (having snow powers) and angel (having half the name and the wings), and finally conferous, based on Colosus. Sadly they didn't bring Elf Deadpool, nor an elf cyclops with visons of sugarplums. Maybe he was busy with Elf Madlyn Prior. I dunno.

Point is the fight is fun if mostly one sided: While the KND are good, they only have some chillip peper guns against people as strong as the uncanny x-men's best and just as skilled. The only reason the KND even turns the tied is their trying take the present Numbah 3 got for Numbah 4 thinking it's the reindeer and well.. Kuki may be one of the sweetest kindest people you'll ever meet in fiction but for fucks sake DO NOT. PISS HER. OFF. The fact she juggernaughts Elfa Strike all her own proves that. She even pantses Wintergreen and pushes him off the tree house stump.

Not wanting to do this because Numbah 3 would make a good new child sidekick but out of options Wintergreen calls in their strongest attack, the 12 days of christmas attack. Which is just dropping all those things on her. Including a danny partridge in a pear tree.

Wintergreen gets the present but SUPRISE it's just a special edition rainbow monkey which was where they were: in line at the offical store to get it as you can ONLY get it on christmas eve. Good thing it wasn't a tickle me wiggly. Wintergreen realizes wait something's off and BACK AT THE NORTH POLL, because Elpha Strike didn't think to check the room where the REINDEER you know was or comb it for Santa or the REINDEER itself as Kev pointed out to me because.. I guess they were hungry ? I mean I know how much wolverines love turkey

WE find out who it was: The Delightful Children From Down the Lane, a creepy hive mind of children and our heroes arch enemy. Their so called good children.. who instead bully and harass other children and try to take things from them as they feel entitled to it. Since they all loook similar enough, they easily pulled this off. It's also nice foreshadowing for a twist of just where they came from later. I dont know if this was setup or they just decided on it later and it fit into place but well played.

Naturally their NOT on the nice list being you know, evil little shits, but being ENTITLED evil shits, they've decided to use the REINDEER to get the presents they feel owed while everyone else gets coal.

The REINDEER itself is a clever concept, santaizing another X-Men concept; Cerebro. It's a cool looking metal helmet that telepaths, i.e. Charles Xavier or Jean Grey mainly, can use to find any mutant. It's also now backup for any mutants personality so they can be brought back from the dead.

This is the only part of the parody really taken from the movies as a big metal walkway leading into a giant dome room wasn't really a thing for cerebro till the movies, though its now so iconic it wasn't relaly changed till charles started wearing it full time. And it';s as dope looking as it sounds

It also has a neat grid and is how santa delivers presents: he links up with it and gives presents to any kid he finds nice and giving coal to the naughty. He also warns that like Cerebro it's a LOT. Not everyone can handle it which the Delightfuls naturally ignore.

So as the Delightfuls try to steal christmas, our heroes arrive at the poll, now all on the same page as most superhero team ups go: you fight a bit, realize you were bamboozled and then kick the ass of who made the misunderstanding happen. The Delightfuls just.. shut the door and reveal their contegency: Edna Jucation, a bitter susbtitue teacher whose mad Christmas overshadows substitute teachers day

And who unelashes the faculty four, a teachertastic verison of the fantastic four. WE have mr physically phtiastic, who instead of the skinny and stretchy genius reed richards is a buff gym teacher who can stretch, the unteillgible tutor who instead of the mepahtetic and unstoppable invisble sue storm is an headache inducing branaic, the human text , the human torch but made of paper instead of fire and fuckboy energy, and thesarsus rex… whose a dinosaur made of books instead of a grumpy brooklyn rock man because the pun was too awesome not to use. They were apparently suppsoed to be the secretary squad.. but Cartoon Network didn't think kids would get office jokes. Which sucks.. but is probably right and the faculty four fit the knds rogues better nad honestly i'm shocked they didn't fight our heroes again. They aren't any weirder or less specific than the foes our heroes usually face

Elfa Strike takes them on while Winty has our heroes sneak in. They find the delightfuls… all with grinch face and BEGGING for help. Turns out that's what abusing the REINDEER does, so our heroes yank it away from them with Santa's help and all is well right? Everyone's ready to call it a day, with Santa being greatful and it's a nice touch that Santa is one of the few non-parent adults our heroes fully trust. Even Nigel, who distrusts any adult who isn't a parent on sight, is happy to see the big guy. Even an anti-adult orginization knows Santa is an ally.

Problem is.. Kuki found the reindeer and while she intends to use it for good, to give her friends even more presents.. power corrupts and even the nicest soul has her hate and reseintment over her friends screwing her over take her over, going full Dark Phoenix and preparing to do what the delightfuls did. Santa has only one option: Send Numbah 4 In

We get a nice bit too as Santa outright tells Numbah 4 "You think if I had another option i'd be sending YOU?". And he's right as Wally giving Kuki his french fries is a warm enough gesture, she drops it instantly. Santa thanks the knd, but asks them to get stepping as he only has minutes to undo the damage. We do get a really nice moment with him and Numbah 3 though: she's genuinely sorry, on the verge of tears. .but he forgives her. He gets that the REINDEER is simply THAT powerful, and that she's truly sorry. SHe's a goo done. We also get a nice gag to cap things off as it's reveald Elfa Strike simply used the tree as a christmas tree for ice skating ala time square. Merry Christmas to all and al la good night bub.

This episode is excellent, a true christmas classic that not only combines two great tastes that taste awesome togehter, but is just a fun christmas story. It's not every show that could pull off christmas of x.. but not every show is KND. Thanks for reading.

#x-men #codename kids next door #wolverine #storm #nigel uno #cartoon network #kuki sanban #wallaby beetles #numbah 1 #numbah 2 #numbah 3 #numbah 4 #numbah 5

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