#or put into slapstick torment
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Dead Friends Forever Q&A-Style Review
I listen to a movie podcast called The Rewatchables, and they have interesting categories that I want to examine this series through.
Most rewatchable scene: It has to be the last one, because we've been talking about it nonstop since it aired. Plus, it lives in my head, rent-free, like Non is haunting me. Like WE failed him. 😱
But since I'm a BL girlie, who loves a well-crafted sex scene, I also have to include both of Phee and Jin's high-heat moments when Phee's trying to seduce him on the balcony and when they have rough sex in Jin's room. I'm not gonna lie: That was some king shit on Ta's end.
Best quote: "No one could leave this abandoned house — not even one." Come on! It foretold the surreal ending and fulfilled the victim's wishes. Gold.
What aged the best? The way that even the bullies perceived teacher Keng as a groomer, who took advantage of a desperate child — that will most definitely make that subplot still bearable even a decade from now.
What's aged the worst? The unaliving and SA montage in the finale that some have said was insensitive/irresponsible to have included. It was like trigger after trigger after trigger — practically a machine gun of traumatic scenes. The fandom could sincerely organize a class action lawsuit against the writer and director for them to pay for our therapy bills.
Scene-stealing location: The lake. Such a beautiful setting for romance, betrayal, and revenge. 😈
Best shot: Definitely the one of Tan from above when he's successfully drugged all of his victims. Iconic.
Are we sure this person is good at their job? Tee's uncle. The fact that he has so much riding on two teenagers is ridiculous. He didn't just start being a con man / mob boss that week. How does he not have a more stable criminal infrastructure at this point?
Best use of food and drink: Obviously, Tan spiking the beverages, knowing it would be the easiest way to poison everyone.
Was there a better title? Absolutely not. The play on the phrase "Best Friends Forever," an archaic term popularized in the '90s that puts way too much pressure on kids to find their kindred spirit and hold on to them through adolescence and adulthood, was inspired. It truly encompassed the impossibility of it all. There are just so many obstacles ahead of you, like peer pressure, family obligations, love triangles, bullying, ego, insecurity, and cowardice, that it's a lofty promise to make when you've barely finished puberty. Plus, it kind of hints at the ending...
Overacting award: Some could argue Barcode, but part of his performance was meant to be surreal, because it was in the dream state. I, personally, vote Jet (Top). Sometimes I felt like his character was in an entirely different, far more slapstick genre.
The "That Guy" Award: This category is for the actor/famous person you see all the time, but don't know the name of. I noticed a lot of people were excited to see Perth, so I "saw him all the time" on my feed. When I Googled him, that's when I learned that he was on a reality show with other Be On Cloud stars.
Scene-Stealer (with very few scenes): Honestly, whichever extra/stunt double they had wearing that mask, freaking us out. The most memorable of which was when its creepy hand groped Tee.
Recasting couch:
I think Nanon (Bad Buddy) could've been interesting as the tormented Tan, because we would've bought his innocence longer.
It could've added to the mystery if we had the BL twins, AJ and JJ, confuse the narrative.
I would watch Neo in almost anything at this point, and he could've played the morally conflicted Tee as he showcased those skills already in Only Friends.
A younger Mark (Last Twilight) would've fit so well into this cast. He plays lost and guilty quite well.
Picking Nits: This category is for pointing out things that just don't add up.
Why didn't Phee's cop dad have more questions about his son's behavior and activities after he saw who his son was involved with?
What teenager is fine going somewhere that has no wifi or reception? Even I wouldn't do that and I've had wifi as long as these characters have been alive.
Why was Non, a teenager, being medicated for mental health issues, but not being monitored by a mental health professional?
If Tee's uncle didn't want to be at a loss if Non died unexpectedly, then why didn't he let him get his wounds treated and get some rest? Unless the plan was always to harvest his organs, which would still have merited rest. Nobody wants shitty organs.
Unanswerable Questions
If Jin and Phee survived, would they have got back together?
If Non were alive, would Phee have ditched Jin?
What did they do with Non's body?
And, of course, after succeeding: Does Tan recover from his grief and move on with his life? Does he successfully escape arrest? Does he leave behind evidence of what the boys did to his family to further persecute them in death? Is his revenge plot really over...?
That was fun! Tag me if you answer the same Qs.
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Review: Hundreds of Beavers (2022)
Hundreds of Beavers (2022)
Not rated
<Originally posted at https://kevinsreviewcatalogue.blogspot.com/2024/04/review-hundreds-of-beavers-2022.html>
Score: 5 out of 5
Hundreds of Beavers is one of the funniest damn movies I've seen in a long time. A mix of Looney Tunes cartoons, wilderness epics, video games, and old-time silent comedy, it's 108 minutes of non-stop, rapid-fire slapstick with barely any dialogue that gets going in the first five minutes and never lets up until the very end, constantly escalating its jokes into the ridiculous in ways that never failed to put a smile on my face. It's the kind of movie where, at nearly two hours, I should've gotten bored given my distaste for comedies that run overly long, but just as John Wick: Chapter 4 managed to pull off the feat of maintaining non-stop action movie energy for nearly three hours, this movie had me laughing out of my seat constantly. If this movie is playing anywhere near you, be it in theaters or on VOD, you owe it to yourself to seek it out.
The plot is simple. In the rugged forests of 19th century northern North America, applejack maker Jean Kayak loses his farm in a comic mishap and now has to survive in the winter wilderness with his limited wits, whereupon he eventually crosses paths with an army of beavers building... something a bit more elaborate than a dam. The only outpost of civilization for miles around is a fur trading post, where Jean both trades pelts for equipment and sets out to win the heart of the owner's beautiful daughter, who's also the trading post's furrier who skins all the beavers he brings them. From that setup, we get a constantly escalating series of comic mishaps and set pieces as Jean sets out to trap rabbits, beavers, and other woodland critters while they in turn try to outwit him -- not a difficult feat, as it turns out. This is a film that runs on cartoon logic where realism takes a backseat, with holes in the ground serving almost as a portal network in the forest and both Jean and the beavers building increasingly outlandish contraptions to kill each other with. This film doesn't have an MPAA rating, but if I had to give it one, I'd probably give it a PG-13, with some light sex jokes (specifically one involving the trader's daughter) but nothing explicit and all the beaver death presented in an extremely slapstick manner that's more Wile E. Coyote than Red Dead Redemption.
Ryland Brickson Cole Tews, the film's co-writer alongside its director Mike Cheslik, plays Jean, and he is an immediately larger-than-life figure, a parody of a 19th-century outdoorsman and hunter-trapper who starts the film cocky and dimwitted and eventually turns into a cackling madman as it goes on. Working entirely without dialogue, he delivers a phenomenal comic performance purely through his expressions as Jean is subjected to every indignity under the sun in his quest. The entire cast understood the assignment, but this was the guy who had to carry the whole film on his shoulders, and after this, I'd happily pay to see him in other films. No less important, however, were the titular beavers, all of them, together with most of the other animals in the film, played by humans in furry animal suits. If Jean is like Wile E. Coyote or Elmer Fudd in live-action, then they're like Bugs Bunny or the Roadrunner, their obviously human proportions adding to the sense of these creatures as mischievous little critters who seem to be enjoying the torment they put Jean through. The overall aesthetic of the film, shot in black and white with gleeful disregard for realism in its special effects, not only makes the painful slapstick that Jean is constantly subjected to feel, well, more slapstick even as it touched on some surprisingly dark areas (including the funniest scene of an animal getting skinned you'll ever see), it also creates the feel of watching a live-action video game, specifically a mix of an open-world RPG with Jean's quest and accumulation of gear and a Super Nintendo side-scroller with the fantastical environments he goes through in that quest. This was a longer-than-usual comedy, but it was one that, between its non-stop onslaught of jokes and the constant progression of its story, never got old or felt like it was spinning its wheels.
The Bottom Line
Great comedies are hard for me to review without giving away the best parts, and this was a great one. I expect everyone involved with this movie to get a lot of attention going forward, such was the great time I had watching it. This is probably gonna be on my personal "best of 2024" list when the year is up, and I'm telling you now: go see it.
#hundreds of beavers#2022#2022 movies#comedy#comedy movies#survival#survival movies#historical fiction#western#western movies#ryland brickson cole tews#silent film
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Slap-Happy Fun!
Hey there, paisanos. Well, we came to the end of Rainbow Brite way too early, but we sure enjoyed what we got, huh? A little bittersweet. However, it's left me in a bit of a cartoon mood. As such, I got a theme thing I wanna run through for a while. I got two different series, each six issues long, that both use toon physics as a major story feature, in somewhat different ways. And to start with, let's talk a little about the protagonis for our first series~
So, probably the comic would introduce the backstory itself, but why don't we go into detail here, then we won't have to during the comic review! To that end, here's our hero: Steve Harmon, AKA the awesome Slapstick. Steve was the class clown and loved pranks and tasteless jokes. He'd do very well on modern Youtube, but his original series came out in 1992. When he got caught before a prank could go off, he dressed up as a clown to sneak into a nearby carnival for revenge. However, before his plan could come about, he ends up pulled into Dimension X by the evil clowns runing the carnival, and is transformed into a living cartoon!
Now he's Slapstick, a being made of a mysterious substance called electroplasm. Slapstick can be stretched and beaten and suffer any number of horrible torments, but not actually hurt. He also has a pair of gloves that act as a pocket dimension he can pull objects out of, particularly his signature mallet. Slapstick eventually defeats the evil clowns, rescues his kidnapped classmates, and realises he just had a full-on superhero origin. Now he can go and fight crime! Pretty good for a new character in a four-issue miniseries in 1992!
Slapstick had relatively few appearances since then. He became a member of the New Warriors, and despite his cartoony personality, he was particularly loyal to his teammates, as seen in Avengers: The Initiative, which was his next major appearance. This was following Civil War in Marvel, just to put you on the timeline. It was about this time that Steve spent more and more time as Slapstick, and eventually lost the ability to turn back into his human self. Problem is, he's your average high school teenager swimming in hormones, and his cartoon self doesn't have, shall we say, "an outlet" for that. This is a plot point, believe it or not!
So, being frustrated in such a way, conscripted by the military, and all the bullshit he went through in said military, Slapstick became a little bitter and cynical. Not unpleasantly so, he's not dark and gritty or anything, he's just a bit grouchy. This is what leads to his next major appearance: Deadpool and the Mercs for Money. This team included, aside from Deadpool himself, Foolkiller, Solo, Stingray, Terror Inc., Masacre, Negasonic Teenage Warhead, and Hit-Monkey. Not a cheerful group! It was goofy, but they were also shooting people for money. In fact, most of them being unlikeable assholes is why Steve left the group and moved back in with his parents, which is where we find him now~
And after all that, here's the cover:
This cover (which is also the cover of the trade paperback I'm reading from) basically tells you everything you need to know. Here's Slapstick, living cartoon clown, who inhabits an otherwise realistic world. Well, as realistic as the Marvel Universe can be. But that's the best part. Slapstick is drawn with thick black outlines and minimal shading, standing out against all the other characters, who are rendered in a more realistically-drawn and properly shaded style. He really does look like a cartoon interacting with the real world. It's very good! Also, he commits unspeakable violence, as seen here. Like, this book is actually pretty violent and gory, and I will do my best to warn you when that's about to go down.
So we open in Bayonne, New Jersey, where a group of generic thugs are doing a crime down at the docks. It's not even past the first page before Slapstick appears, doing a cartoony violence on them to thwart their intended crimes. And I do mean a violence. You know, they shoot him, he plays like he's dead, then springs right back up and spits the bullets back at them. And he can spit the bullets at a machinegun speed. Or he knocks the teeth out of one guy's mouth, then hits the teeth with his mallet into another guy's eyes. Painful! Like, these first three pages are pretty violent. Use them as a litmus test!
These opening pages have just been a tale Steve (still in his Slapstick guise) has been telling at the dinner table, back in his hometown of Plainfield. His young niece and nephew are super into it, but the adults don't much care for his boasting. His parents don't much care for his non-traditional job, his brother Richard is only interested in his own IT work, and Richard's wife Portia thinks Steve ought to just give up being a mercenary and start a family. Mrs. Harmon tells her to downplay the idea, since Steve's "inability to perform his husbandly duties" is a sore point for him.
Steve leaves the table in disgust, which I think anybody would if their mom started talking about their "downstairs" problems at the dinner table. He storms outside and uses his phone to look for any ongoing merc jobs. Deadpool still hasn't figured out Steve's been using his log-in on MERK (the Uber for mercs!), so Slapstick's been swiping jobs off the system to spite his old boss. And he's found a listing for group of thieves breaking into the Edison Museum in West Orange, which is right nearby! Like, it gives a highway exit number and everything. If you learn nothing else from this comic, at least you'll learn some New Jersey geography!
Upon reaching the museum, Slapstick already finds himself on the right track: there's a sneaky shadow a-sneaking about on the roof! Upon jumping up to take a look, he encounters… the spectacular Spider-Man! Well, West Orange is pretty close to Manhattan, it's not out of the question. This was late 2016, so Spidey had just gotten his body back from Doc Ock and Parker Industries had not yet crashed and burned. He also notes it's been a while since he last teamed up with Slapstick, but Slapstick somehow doesn't recognise him at all. J. Jonah Jameson wishes he could be so lucky~
There's a brief fight, but Spidey easily dodges Slapstick's mallet swings, then trips him with a web-line. Slapstick recognises the move as one a buddy of his named Scarlet Spider used to do. Well, his debut was in the early '90s. Spidey's miffed to be compared to his clone, but both of them hunker down and clam up as the real thieves turn up. Slapstick slips off, pulls one of the goons away, and slips into his uniform, which looks ridiculous on his cartoon body. He then leads the rest of the goons into a nearby warehouse. A well-pulled ruse!
Slapstick begins beating up the goons, using their own gunfire to take out several of them. Spider-Man also soon enters, having heard the sound effects of "GUN GUN GUN GUN". No, I'm dead serious. Spidey's kind of appalled at all the blood, wondering what kind of superhero Slapstick is, acting like that. Slapstick is offended as well, being a "superhero" is a childish concept. Their argument doesn't keep up for much longer, as the goons resume shooting. Spidey goes back to non-lethally restraining them, like a loser non-mercenary, and Slapstick peels off to find the stolen loot he was hired to recover.
Down below, he encounters Quasimodo, a low-rent D-list Fantastic Four villain. Picture MODOK, but instead of a giant floating head, he's a hunchback man with He-Man action figure proportions. Ram-Man. Picture Ram-Man with a monocle, if he was in Tron. He also speaks in an incredibly robotic way, doing both the Elcor thing of stating intention before the sentence and using BASIC syntax. Actual dialogue: "10 DECLARE Soon none will dare mock Quasimodo--instead they will think he is hot stuff! 20 DECLARE Many of the Tinder dates will be mine! 30 LOOP Ha ha ha ha ha."
Slapstick leaps in to fight him, mostly to get him to shut up. He has the upperhand for a bit, but Quasimodo does a molecular scan and determines that Slapstick is made of electroplasm. And with that, he determines a particular frequency, firing a laser at Slapstick. He's at first skeptical, because nothing in this dimension has been able to hurt him thusfar. But then his arm actually begins to destabilise and melt. If he wasn't so cartoony, it'd probably be horrific. As it is, it looks mostly like a paint smear. Disturbing, certainly, but not graphic.
However, his arm doesn't totally slough off and dissolve, and Slapstick realises it can't be destabilised any further than it already is. So he uses his messed-up arm as a shield to get in close, then whacks Quasimodo big over the head with his mallet. Soon enough, Spider-Man comes in, having mopped up all the goons. Everything's good down here, too. Spidey reclaims the equipment for Parker Industries, and he splits, glad the team-up is over. Once he's gone, Slapstick lets the other shoe drop: he kept Quasimodo's involvement secret, stashing the villain before Spidey's arrival.
See, Slapstick's reasoned that if Quas here can find a frequency that destabilises his form a bit, perhaps he can find a way to undo it altogether. He's a little tired of being stuck in this form without access to his privates--plus, he still needs his arm restored anyway. But of course, why should a villain like Quasimodo help him? Why should he help any human? That's easy: since the accident, he ain't human. And besides, he doesn't want to imprison or coerce or trap Quas. No, in fact, what he wants is to hire him…
Next day, in New Brunswick, Slapstick does in fact have his arm back in working condition. No cure yet, but I'm sure he's working on it. This also confirms that Slapstick is indeed in his early 20s or 19 at the earliest--he and his buddy Mike are stated to be out of high school. In fact, they're here for a college football game! It's a fictional "New Jersey University", but given that they're in New Brunswick, it's likely a stand-in for Rutgers. Mike's glad things are looking up for Steve. He's hoping to pitch Slapstick's adventures as a graphic novel, and humorously the brief page he shows is in the style of the original 1992 series. Slapstick isn't impressed~
Mike, Slapstick, and his niece and nephew take a seat to watch the game, and the ref calls for mascots to clear the field. However, the brawny figure marching across the field ignores him, instead loudly declaring himself to be Bro-Man, Master of the Multiverse, and here to fight the Princess' champion. Mike muses that the guy looks kind of like Steve, and indeed, he's drawn in a similar flat-coloured thick-outlined style. The comic ends with the other team's mascot comes to clear the guy out, Bro-Man merely pulls out his sword, and gruesomely cleaves the guy in two. He's just another 3D sack of meat, not the champion he seeks…
Well, this is off to a pretty fun start. It's not like we're doing a gritty, dark reimagining or anything here, like I said. We're just contrasting a very silly character with the more realistic world around him--and frankly, he's a little sick of being the silly character, too. Basically it's Who Framed Roger Rabbit if Eddie Valiant was in Roger's body. Really, you can't blame poor Steve for his surly attitude. He got goofy-ass powers that eventually stopped turning off, got drafted into superhero boot camp where his former teammates' names were dragged through the mud (it was a whole thing), joined a mercenary group and then got kicked out of said group, had to move back in with his judgmental parents, and can't satisfy one of his basic needs as a human being--which he doesn't even resemble anymore. He's frustrated, it's understandable! Relatable, even. The violence and blood are a little high, but again, it's just to contrast him with the real world. Any cartoon would survive those injuries! So we'll see just how well he does against Bro-Man next time~
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asks you abt your bonbon redesign :)
Hope you dont mind bullet points that are only kinda connected cause thats approximately what my thoughts on them are rn
I hit her with the Gender Stick
They’re fine with he/him and it/its but they prefer she/her and they/them
while the animatronic itself is supposedly male, their design is really more androgynous than anything
shes possessed! by a certain goth girl
she and freddy are actually separate animatronics! they still do some performances together, but they also have solo shows as well
this works really well because i decided that the funtimes needed a magician. so I made bonbon one
there used to be a slapstick portion of their joint shows, but bon kept getting really damaged so the mechanics eventually put their feet down and stopped the bonbon bullying
they explained it away to the kids with “The medical bills were getting too expensive for me, so we had to stop”
she’s like 3 feet tall and is constantly tormented by short jokes
she wears a mini black tux with a standard black w/red stripe top hat and a cloak thats red on the outside but black and printed with stars on the inside
one of the tricks she uses in her shows is a twist on the standard “rabbit in a top hat” trick
the lights go out for a second in the room, and when they come back on, bonbon is nowhere to be seen, and only their top hat remains on the stage
you can probably see where this is going
yeah there’s a hatch directly under the hat that they crawl out of
she also tends to use the illusion disc that’s placed in her crescent moon earring more than the other funtimes because she uses it for her tricks
they act like an older sibling figure to both CB and fred when offstage
they’re the only ones possessed so they bonded over that
UCN (yes I made a ucn mechanic and lines)
initially they travel through the vents and can be dealt with like the other vent animatronics
but once she enters the office, she doesn’t kill you, oh no.
she leaves her top hat somewhere in your office
you have to keep an eye on it and click on bonbon when they start to crawl out of their hat
time for the game over quotes!
“You know what they say, a magician never reveals their secrets.”
(Only present when Orville is also selected) “HA! Take that Orville! Who’s the ‘lesser magician’ now?”
“For this next trick, I’ll make this gentleman’s life disappear!”
“Life’s a performance, and it’s closing night for you!”
(Only available if you’ve used the Death Coin on BonBon previously) “What a fool you are, to try and stop me. The show must go on, my friend.”
(Same circumstances as the previous quote) “To quote a fellow rabbit: ‘I always come back’”
I’ll probably make another post like this at some point for other characters (or more bonbon. who knows? certainly not me)
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Marching Out of Time (1993)
Film review #552
Director: Anton Vassil
SYNOPSIS: Fred Johnson is constantly hearing noises from his neighbour’s house, and is determined to find out the cause of them, much to his family’s annoyance. It turns out his neighbour is conducting experiments in teleportation. However, his experiments seem to interfere with a similar Nazi experiment in 1942 to transport troops to England, and instead they emerge in the teleportation device in suburban U.S. Fred and his neighbour must stop the Nazis from returning to 1942 with all the information they have gathered about all the mistakes that cost them the war, and rewriting history to make themselves the victors...
THOUGHTS/ANALYSIS: Marching Out of Time (also known by the debatably better title, Back to the Fuehrer) is a 1993 sci-fi comedy film. The film is set in the suburbs of the U.S., where Fred Johnson is becoming obsessed with noises coming from his neighbours house, much to his family’s annoyance. He breaks into his neighbour’s house and discovers Dr. Memo, his neighbour, is working on a teleportation device made from a pair of fridges. Unfortunately, the experiment goes wrong, and interferes with a similar experiment from 1942, which involved attempting to transport Nazi troops from France to England. The result being that the Nazis, led by von Konst, arrive not in England, but in Dr. Memo’s basement in the 1993 U.S. learning about this, they change their mission, and gather historical information about all the mistakes the Nazis made that cost them the war, and aim to return to 1942 with that information to ensure that they are not made again, ultimately winning the war. The stakes are raised and Frank, Dr. Memo, and a low-level cop must fight to prevent the Nazis changing the course of history. The film is a comedy film so everything is all a bit slapstick and silly. It definitely feels like Back to the Future, but instead of Biff Tannen trying to change history, it’s Nazis. The story is fairly linear and doesn’t really build up to anything, so it’s just an excuse for a bunch of silly scenarios and slapstick violence. There is one scene in the middle of the film in which the serious repercussions of the films events are highlighted, but that’s the only one. There’s other typical scenes like the Nazis “disguising” themselves in tie dye shirts and exploring the local area to “blend in,” but that doesn’t really go anywhere, or provide any funny situations. There’s not much laugh-out-loud comedic moments, I think it’s humour is more situated in the whole ridiculous scenario, and Fred being the last person on earth who should be stopping a Nazi invasion. Also, I guess this is technically a Christmas movie, as Fred is supposed to be going away with his family for the holidays, but stays behind to deal with his neighbour. However, this is the only real reference to Christmas in the film.
In terms of the characters, Fred Johnson is a typical suburban Dad, and a typical comedic lead: one which you’ll feel like you’ve seen in a movie before (but definitely haven’t, because the actor didn’t appear in any films before or after this). His family are tormented by his nosiness and whining, and you do wonder why they put up with him. Dr. Memo is the typical “mad scientist,” and von Konst is portrayed like every nearly every Nazi officer you’ve seen on film before. the acting isn’t bad at all, and the stereotypical characters have a familiarity to them that allows viewers to focus more on the comedic aspect of the film, rather than the characters.
The film, perhaps surprisingly, is made fairly well: it has the look and feel of a low budget film, but actually probably wasn’t: the locations are fairly detailed and full of props and things, and the camerawork is pretty good. There’s even a few stunts and explosions that, while not overly impressive, would still have taken effort to set up. It’s clear the film wants to situate itself in that low-budget parody genre of films, but it has a bit of budget and expertise to make it properly, without making it seem like the film is trying too hard to be a bad film. Marching Out of Time is mostly forgettable, but is made fairly well, and maintains its energy throughout, while exploring the premise of the film well enough. It definitely feels like a film of its time, riffing on Back to The Future a little, with it’s typical characters that are familiar enough so as to not need to dedicate a large amount of time to introducing and developing them. Predictable, but silly and fun enough to not be a waste of time.
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IOTA Reviews: Sole Crusher
Well... It's finally here... the episode introducing the new bee hero. And what do you know? It looks like I was right about how the new character would be portrayed.
It's kind of funny how I made predictions exaggerating what could happen, and they were surprisingly accurate. Isn't that funny?
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Let's just get into the seventh (chronologically the seventh and the seventh episode in the season to air after “Mr. Pigeon 72”) episode of Miraculous Ladybug's fourth season: Sole Crusher. Damn, I hate that a pun this clever was used for the title.
We get to the point pretty quickly with the first scene being Zoe arriving in Paris and getting a tour of the city. She asks to stop at the Dupain-Cheng bakery, where she meets Marinette through some brief Unfunny Marinette Slapstick. The two quickly strike up a conversation.
I mean, it's not like Zoe is the sister of the absolute worst human being in existence, right?
Marinette compliments Zoe's shoes, and she points out that she designed them herself, and wrote every good thing anyone has ever said to her on them. But because she only has one friend, there's only a standard “I <3 U” on the left shoe.
So Zoe leaves the bakery and heads to Le Grand Paris where she meets her mother, Audrey. Unlike how she talked with Marinette, Zoe pretends to be just as snobby as Audrey in order to fit in. She then meets up with Chloe, who criticizes her for having poor person things like a phone without any diamonds embedded in it. And then she sees Zoe's shoes.
Look, that meme was already dated when it was referenced in Black Panther three years ago. Please don't try to reference memes in 2021, Miraculous Ladybug.
Chloe offers some golden heels while saying that those kind of shoes are for winners to wear and crush the losers underneath. This is the only episode to mention this kind of ideology, and believe me, it gets worse when Chloe decides to teach Zoe how to be like her.
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Get used to this. This episode is all about demolishing any semblance of likability in Chloe's character. Now that Astruc doesn't have to bother with writing Chloe with decency since she's not Queen Bee, watch as he turns her into an absolute caricature of her former self.
Yes, Chloe has ordered her father to give her a lot of frivolous things in the past, but she has been shown to care about him, like immediately rushing to hug him after she was safe in “Origins” and showing concern for when he was akumatized into Malediktator while apologizing for causing it. For the love of God, one of the first things she did when she allied with Hawkmoth at the end of Season 3 was to have him unto her parents' akumatization. I guess she only cared about her rich parents for their status and not because she actually loved them right?
Next up on the list of Chloe's positive qualities to ruin is her friendship with Sabrina.
🎶It's seven o'clock in the morning🎶
🎶I can't believe they made this scene🎶
🎶With the writing Astruc's enforcing🎶
🎶It's like he's trying to piss off me🎶
Yep, Chloe doesn't view Sabrina in a twisted view of friendship anymore. Now she's a slave. I'm not exaggerating by the way, he actually said that in a tweet.
THIS IS WHAT THOMAS ASTRUC ACTUALLY BELIEVES
Okay, so I guess all those times we saw Chloe playing superheroes with Sabrina in “Antibug” and “Miraculer” were just a slave driver playing with their property. Actually apologizing to Sabrina for getting her akumatized in those episodes? Protecting her from the Scarlet Akumas in “Ladybug”? She was just interested in keeping her slave around. I think Astruc may have slept through the slavery unit in his history class. Yes, Sabrina was mostly used as a joke to show how controlling Chloe could be, but there were still semblances of an actual friendship between the two.
Chloe arrives at school and introduces Zoe as her half-sister, despite being the same age and having the same mother. Because I guess we can add basic biology to the list of things the writers don't understand. Now that we're at school, Chloe's friendship with Adrien is next up on the chopping block.
Yep, despite being Adrien's only friend and making a big deal about valuing his friendship to the point where she threw a big party just to make sure he wouldn't leave her and risked cooperating with an Akuma to save him, now Chloe just sees Adrien as a rich meal ticket. Two of the earliest episodes to show Chloe had a more compassionate side to her, and they just undid them. Even as much as I hated the episode, “Felix” showed Chloe was willing to cooperate with Marinette and her friends just to find a way to cheer Adrien up on the anniversary of his mother's not-death.
For the love of God, Astruc, 1984 was supposed to warn people about what could happen if they rewrote the past, not encourage people to rewrite the past. He probably finished Animal Farm thinking Snowball really did work alongside the humans, didn't he?
Marinette comes up and Zoe pretends to hate her, leading Marinette to wonder why she did that. She texts Zoe (she gave her number to her earlier) and invites her to a concert on the Liberty, but Chloe finds out. Zoe thinks fast and pretends it's just so she can torment her more. Chloe then takes out a book listing all the ways she can torture Marinette. I wonder if this is a metaphor for the writing process behind most of the episodes last season.
Zoe decides to go outside for some fresh air, and Andre comforts her. Funny how Andre bends over backwards to give Chloe whatever she wants, yet he's willing to actually talk to Zoe like an actual parent. Andre tries to cheer Zoe up, but she talks about her past where she had to put on an act so she would be liked, but (bet you've never heard this before) she just wants to be accepted for who she truly is. The surge of emotions is enough for Shadowmoth to akumatize her into Sole Crusher.
In addition to having one of the most clever puns for an Akuma name, I actually like Sole Crusher's design. Not only is it a good excuse to reuse Chloe's character design, it makes sense thematically, as Chloe was trying to mold Zoe into a copy of herself. The gold and diamonds also make sense given Chloe's love for shiny things. Her powers tie into the bizarre belief Chloe has about stepping on the winners. Whenever Sole Crusher kicks or steps on someone, she absorbs them and gets progressively bigger, making it easier to do so. While it's not cracking my top ten anytime soon, it's still an interesting character design.
Sole Crusher heads to the hotel to get Chloe, and she manages to get away pretty quickly. Maybe in an alternate universe, she's a track star? For some reason, she runs to the Dupain-Cheng bakery and then... Oh my God... pushes Marinette's parents so they get absorbed by Sole Crusher, before trying to do the same with Marinette.
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When has Chloe ever done something like that? Whenever she endangered someone during an Akuma attack, it was unintentional or a result of her naivety. She was only trapped in Pixelator's dimension because Adrien tried diving to save her, she only alerted Rogercop to Ladybug's presence because she eagerly called out for her, and during “Zombizou” she only tried to throw Sabrina towards the horde of kissing zombies once, and that was meant to highlight her growth. The only person to actually do stuff like this consistently is Lila, but I guess she got vaporized by Big Brother offscreen.
This episode is determined to make the audience hate Chloe by retconning everything about her character while portraying her as a complete monster. As bad as Chloe could get, she was never selfish enough to use anyone as a human shield. This kind of behavior honestly could be explained by saying Chloe was lashing out as a result of losing the Bee Miraculous permanently, but the events of the Season 3 finale aren't mentioned ONCE, not even in the next episode that introduces Queen Bee's replacement! How the hell can you set up the next Bee hero without explaining why the original needs to be replaced in the first place?! And trust me, I'm going to talk about Zoe replacing Chloe later.
Sole Crusher grabs Marinette in her hand, so the Horse Kwami, Kaalki, uses her power to teleport over to Adrien's house and inform him Ladybug needs help, meaning once again Adrien did nothing in this episode before becoming Cat Noir.
At the Liberty, Chloe offers more victims to Sole Crusher in the form of the band Kitty Section (consisting of Luka, Juleka, Rose, Ivan, and Mylene) and theatens the giant golden supervillain she can send her back to Paris, even though she's really not in a position to bargain right now. And she STILL continues to insult her. Do you hate Chloe yet? Come on, do you? The writers won't stop until you do.
After we see Sole Crusher's conflicted emotions, Marinette is set free by Cat Noir and transforms into Ladybug, immediately summoning her Lucky Charm, a shoehorn. They only learn Zoe's sneakers were where she were akumatized thanks to Chloe's ranting, so the episode unintentionally made Chloe save the day. Ladybug breaks into Le Grand Paris and breaks the sneakers where Zoe hid them, using the shoehorn to open a door. So Sole Crusher is de-evilized, Ladybug fixes the damage, and gives yet another charm to Zoe.
Afterwards, Zoe goes to the Liberty, apologizes for the act she put on, all while divulging to the audience her “tragic backstory”.
Of course, everyone welcomes her with open arms.
And right here is where the biggest problem I have with Zoe as a character. I normally hesitate to use this term given how often it gets thrown around when criticizing characters these days, but I really can't say anything else.
Zoe... is a Mary Sue.
For those who don't know, the term Mary Sue originated in a Star Trek fanfiction from 1973 satirizing several self-insert stories at the time. Most of these stories showed a beautiful young woman joining the crew of the Enterprise and immediately gaining the attention of the crew. Mary Sue parodied this character archetype by showing how much she was appreciated by Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock, the latter being driven to tears at her funeral despite his species being emotionless normally.
What does this have to do with Zoe? She has the exact same storyline as Mary Sue in the parody fanfiction. Her mere presence is enough to make Chloe act extremely out of character in an attempt to make her look better, and as soon as she apologizes while giving a frankly vague backstory, everyone just accepts her as their friend, and I mean everyone in the entire class. I'm sorry, but it just doesn't feel earned. Why was she bullied at her old school? What did her bullies have against her? What caused her to stop going along with her peers, and why did everyone turn against her? How the hell did the bullies who put cockroaches in another student's locker get no punishment while the victim was forced to transfer schools? It's an intentionally unclear backstory designed to make the audience feel sympathetic towards Zoe without actually doing anything else.
I want to ask anyone reading this who watched the episode a question: Outside of her backstory, what do we actually know about Zoe?
What is her personality like? She's nice? Socially awkward? We've never had a character like that in Miraculous Ladybug before! Sorry Marinette, Adrien, Juleka, Nathaniel, Mylene, and Marc, there's a new character with more personality than all of you combined!
What are her goals? She wants to be an actress? Great, but why? Even though there's no clear answer for why Marinette loves fashion, or why Alya loves journalism, or why Nino loves DJing, you can still see the passion in their lives when they do something related to their goals. Zoe only says she wants to be an actress, connecting it to her people pleaser backstory (and given how it ended, she must be a terrible actress), and in the next episode, she immediately gets the lead role in a student film.
When Mylene got the starring role in the movie in “Horrificator”, we at least got snippets of her acting skills in the same episode that established her desire to be an actress, which is also implied to be because she was inspired by her father in “The Mime”. She didn't just say she wanted to be an actress and got the leading role. She still had problems to overcome like her cowardice, which threw her own self-confidence into doubt. Here, Zoe just says she wants to be an actress, and is rewarded for no reason the very next episode.
Zoe basically exists only to be a foil to Chloe, and the writers had no idea what to do in terms of a personality, so they just dumped a bunch of extremely likable character traits onto her without thinking of how her character could come off. And like I said, she's a Mary Sue.
I'm not the only one who thinks this. I've seen a handful of posts on this very site calling Zoe a Mary Sue. In fact, I even asked another Tumblr user @anxresi to quote their take on Zoe being a Mary Sue, which I couldn't even top in terms of accuracy. They basically listed off five things that made Zoe a Mary Sue.
She has to have a ‘tragic backstory’ so all the other characters will fall in love with her. Usually within minutes, in the very first episode they’re introduced.
She has to have a supercute design so that the audience at home will fall in love with her. And if they don’t, they’re automatically dismissed as ‘haterz’ even if their objections are purely from a writing POV.
Her only flaw will be thinking too little of herself. “What, lil ol’ me as the Bee Miraculous holder? With my shyness, colorful shoes, chic beret and personalized pink strip in my hair? Gosh, who’d have thought it?”
The contrast to her half-sister will be a constant plot point, with Chloe always getting dumped on. “You see, kids? Bad things happen to bad people. But you see this super-sweet girl over here? She gets a free DAD. Instant FRIENDS. To star in her own MOVIE. The chance to be a SUPERHERO, even though she only arrived last week. Who cares if she has no depth, no personality and barely any reason for being in the show, apart from being a massive ‘Up Yours’ to all the Chloe fans out there?”
What about character development, Mr Generic Zag Guy? “Development? What’s that?! Zoe is already perfect as she is. The only ‘development’ she’ll receive is having her hair done in the first episode she’s introduced. Besides, That‘d’ word is banned here at Zag studios. Why do you think we abandoned Chloe’s stillborn arc so quickly? This is a KIDS show, why bother trying to create a complex character with more than one dimension?”
This is essentially who Zoe is. She's perfect, has no character flaws, has a cute design so the audience will love her already, and was designed only to replace Chloe as Queen Bee. That's all she is.
So the episode ends with Zoe feeling happy at all the new friends she made while we get one of the most blatant attempts of symbolism in the ending card I've ever seen.
See, look. While Marinette is happily talking with Zoe with the image of Ladybug next to them, Chloe is to the far left with an EVIL purple aura, showing how bad she is compared to how great Zoe is. Only a braindead moron would actually like Chloe over the super awesome and pretty Zoe!
I'll give my final thoughts on the episode in the next part where I analyze this plotline as a whole.
LINK TO “QUEEN BANANA” REVIEW
#immaturity of thomas astruc#iota#thomas astruc#thomas astruc salt#miraculous ladybug#miraculous ladybug salt#marinette dupain cheng#ladybug#adrien agreste#cat noir#chat noir#chloe bourgeois#queen bee#queen b#zoe lee#vesperia#sabrina raincomprix#andre bourgeois
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Fandom ask for punchout?
Unexpected! But fun!
blorbo (favorite character, character I think about the most)
Tie-up between Mac himself and Bald Bull
scrunkly (my “baby”, character that gives me cuteness aggression, character that is So Shaped)
God that's hard because the art style makes everyone so shaped. Tie between Bear Hugger and Brittle Johnny because I simply cannot pick between them
scrimblo bimblo (underrated/underappreciated fave)
I do not understand how Bald Bull is not more people's favorite. Actually, considering I'll probably never have another time to bring it up, shout-out to youtuber Roland for this awesome video all about Bald Bull that's both adorably funny and also a really neat insight into Punch-Out as a series
glup shitto (obscure fave, character that can appear in the background for 0.2 seconds and I won’t shut up about it for a week)
Could be an odd pick but I actually really like some of the designs from the knockoff Power Punch II game. I think the idea of a boxing game but with aliens has a lot of potential especially in terms of mechanics, kinda sad it was limited to something so unknown and admittedly sorta bad.
Also wish there was more content for the Arm Wrestling characters, feels like there's potential there, too.
poor little meow meow (“problematic”/unpopular/controversial/otherwise pathetic fave)
Bald Bull has done nothing wrong ever. And while I wouldn't necessarily consider myself a fan I'll still get miffed if you say something bad about Gabby Jay. He's just a guy trying to get one last win before retirement and he taunts by saying yay. How can you possibly hate that.
horse plinko (character I would torment for fun, for whatever reason)
Somehow I've made it a running thing in the things I'm writing where Macho Man gets inconvenienced and/or is a victim of slapstick so I'll go with him
Also Opaque Jarvis but less because I enjoy it and more because it's kind of his entire thing.
eeby deeby (character I would send to superhell)
I'd put Aran in but knowing him he'd enjoy it
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Since I, too, was suffering from Kaya withdrawal, I'd like to recommend you a few things: watch a song Nothing Good from Centaurworld and, if you decide to not watch the show itself, Last Lullaby (which is very, very spoiler-y; one of the biggest twists). I haven't watched the whole show, but the tragedy of Mysterious Woman and the story of main antagonist got to me! It also introduced me to The Story of The Phantom by Goosebums (it's a song too!), it's funny but also pulls at heartstrings!
I saw this ask in the morning and I'm only getting around to it now because I've spent the entire day thinking about Elktaur and the Mysterious Woman, wtf did you do by recommending this to me, Anon 😭
Needless to say, thank you for giving me food in this Kaya drought, I think this will hold me over for a month or two. This is seriously some excellent stuff, 10/10, you hit it out of the park
I'm gonna put this under a cut LOL
(Centaurworld spoilers ahead btw)
I went into this by listening to "Nothing Good" (really good and a bop, btw), which left me a little confused because I have never heard of this show before so I had absolutely 0 context.
I decided to look up Centaurworld to see if I would be interested in watching the entire thing. I'm not really a huge fan of that brand of slapstick comedy so I decided to go ahead and listen to "The Last Lullaby" and
Well
I absolutely adore the Nowhere King/Elftaur. Elftaur's hatred of himself and the feeling of not belonging (esp. after becoming the Nowhere King, saying he belongs nowhere), longing to be somewhere else and be someone else to the extent that he split himself in half, believing himself unable to be loved by the Princess as he currently was... Oh man, really struck an emotional chord. Especially with how the MW affirmed that she would have loved him, whole, right before his death is OOOOOF, soooo excellent.
Which brings me to my next point: I love the Last Lullaby as an ending to his character arc (or, rather, their arc). This is what a model tragic villain arc and conclusion is, to me. The last act of acknowledgment of the villain's own pain and suffering as real and, while the pain caused by their actions - in this case, the pain the Nowhere King and the General caused the Princess and the people affected by the war - is given appropriate weight and makes it clear that destruction is too great to end in any outcome but death. But after a lifetime of suffering and hatred, death is a merciful end. I also love how someone of significance to the Elftaur is the one to kill him - with tragic villains like this, having some rando kill them feels empty, in my opinion. Emotional closure is the kind of closure that's needed.
"What a pity to behold
Rest now, tormented soul
Don't you know I would have loved you the way you were? Whole."
"When you leave, I will at last have peace..."
I really, really loathe endings in which this brand of villain is killed off without any sort of acknowledgment of their pain and some semblance of finally finding peace at the moment of their death. "Look what a shitty life this character had, now look at them die still embroiled in their hatred without any closure!" I really appreciate that Centaurworld did his character justice in this way, it’s soo rare to find. Thank you for recommending this to me!!
Elktaur's character and his insecurities about not being loveable actually gave me a few Father thoughts fueled by the Projection Theory and "I am a necessary evil" but I better hold my tongue, lest I make a clown of myself LOL. Either way, I really, really hope Adachitoka will handle his arc and its conclusion with as much grace 😔🙏
About "The Story of the Phantom"... I will be listening to this (and Last Lullaby) on repeat. It’s so catchy and fits them (Father/Kaya and MW/Elftaur) so well!
All his life, he'd been tormented, teased, and taunted
But now his hunters would become the haunted
The world that always made him feel unwanted would hear the toll
The sounds of a tortured soul
Because she fell, and fell hard
He was battered and scarred
But she could see that inside, there was more
Something alluring, she'd find
In the sadness behind
That terrifying mask he wore
Hook me up with that “beautiful and sincere woman falls in love with a monstrous (literally or imagined) sad angsty man” shit all day, every single day. Absolutely obsessed.
Either way, thank you again, this is some GOOD Father/Kaya fuel!!! Fingers crossed for more canon content in the next Noragami chapter hehe~~
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House of Mouse Patreon Reviews: Timon and Pumba or Hakuna Mehtata (patreon review for WeirdKev27
Hello happy people. And it’s that time of the month again: Kev’s monthly review of House of Mouse for it’s 20th anniversary! Still not on Disney Plus... still.
And this one is themed as earlier this week Kev had me review the LIon King for his birthday, so instead of randomly choosing an episode as he usually does he just outright picked this one because the timing was too good and I agree with that choice.
So was this episode the top of pride rock or should it be thrown to the hyena’s? Join me under the cut to find out
Starting with our shorts for the episode...
Pluto’s Magic Paws:
This episode is admittedly at a disadvantage with me. See while i’ve taken an interest in classic disney shorts, I loves watching them and wish Disney would put more hd ones on Plus for all to enjoy, there are two genre’s of them, if you will I avoid: Ones focusing on Mickey’s Dog Pluto, and ones featuring Chip N Dale tormenting Donald. I avoid them if I can and the only way you could get me to watch them is if say you ambushed me with them in the middle of an episode I was doing because one of my patron’s, and the only guy who comissoins my work, say asked for the episode and neither of us bothered to check what the shorts were. So anyways this patron sponsosred episode, you can get a patron episode a month yourself if you join my patreon for five bucks a month and even lower paying members get one free review on signup, hint hint, features a Pluto short followed by Chip N Fucking dale.
So yeah let’s talk about WHY I don’t like Plut shorts> Pluto isn’t a bad character, he’s a dog, a loyal companion. But his shorts tend to lean into either animal abuse, i.e. the poor doggy going through shit for our amusement that isn’t funny, the tired and terrible trope of “pet gets blamed for something new interloper did, or some third thing that I still don’t like anyway.
I don’t HATE Pluto as a character, but he works best as a supliment to Mickey or a partner to him. The Hooch to his Turner. I will never get why he spun off into his own adventures. Goofy and Donald I get. Besides being registered boys with me, both just had oodles of charm, personality and humor that lent themselves to being spun off into their own corners of the world. Pluto.. is just Mickey’s dog.
A pet character CAN be awesome on their own and go off into wild adventures: Snoopy is the greatest example of this, going from Charlie Brown’s dog to an imaginative weirdo who plays doubles tennis with a bully, takes birds on camping trips, goes to see his long lost sister and her gangly nephew in kansas city, has a whispy mustached brother who live sin the desert and gets into his own shenanigans, got trapped under an icicle, had his house burn down, took Peppermint Patty and Marcie on a race around the world, and so , so much more. And he’s not the only one: Garfield was so charming he overshadowed his owner in the strip’s prototypical form and took over as main character, while Opus went from Binkley’s odd but endearing pet to Bloom County’s star and my spirit animal.
It’s just with Pluto.. they don’t expand his character or anything he’s just.. a dog. That’s it. And just being a dog can be a fine character, again to use yet another comic strip Lynn Johnston mined plenty of good slapstick out of the Patterson’s Dog Farley and later Farley’s son Edgar. Here though they either make Pluto sympathetic or give him nothing funny TO do. Most Pluto shorts are just dog tourture porn and that’s just not something I WANT to see and those that aren’t are just boring. He’s boring as a character.
This one is not an exception and the only intresting part is the gimmick itself, two magical gloves from a magician who get swapped with Mickeys and try to escape to get to the show, only for pluto to chase them, then use them. But despite an intresting premise the gag’s are pretty sparse, the only two really memorable ones being the gloves hyjacking a fire truck and a sequence where Pluto uses them to flipi the tv channels, with puns on various disney afternoon and one saturday morning shows, the ones that stood out being Darkwing Dog and Brand Spankin New Dog, complete with similar logos. Otherwise i’ts eh. It’s not as bad as the cupid one, that was insufferable, but it’s just not.. funny. It has a decent premise but the fact I spent more time explaning why pluto dosen’t work than actually descrbing the short should tell you it’s just.. not much of a short. There’s not anything really to mock even it’s just a bunch of stuff that happened. it’s okay but it’s just nothing really worth your time.
Mickey To the Rescue: Cage and Cannons
Ironically the best short of the night is the shortest, as it’s one of the recurring “Mickey to the rescue bits”. Pete kidnaps Minnie, Mickey has to go through some new supervillian lair to get her. I do love these though and this one is fun as Mickey has to outrun a bunch of canons with spring loaded boxing gloves in them.
Yup. It’s fun though and Minnie even gets to help with her own rescue using her bow. it’s really fun nice stuff... anyways now back to my suffering
Back To My Suffering Golf Nut Donald:
Now to clairfy I have nothing against Chip N Dale RESCUE RANGERS.
I haven’t seen much of the show but that’s more due to me procrastinating on watching things rather than actual disinterest. I just forget, things pile up and then boom there’s season two. It happens.
But the show does genuinely intrest me: the idea of two chipmunk detectives and their mouse friends, one a loveable oaf the other his cute genius daughter, solving crimes and fighting a literal fat cat all sounds pretty damn fun. So yeah Chip N Dale as detectives wearing indiana jones and magnum pi’s outfits, very good.
Chip N Dale in the classic shorts though?
The problem is most shorts have someone either slighting the two by accident or MUCH more often the two just.. making someone’s life hell because they want to steal some food. There are ones where Donald is genuinely a Donald Dick, kicking them out of their home or trying to steal their stuff, but for the most part Donald or Mickey or Pluto, because Disney apparently plotted my suffering years in advance, genuinely are just going about their day when the two little shits decide to ruin it.
And once again , like Pluto you CAN make a good story out of this: A lot of great looney tunes come out of animal tries to steal from asshole and the whole premise of Tom and Jerry is Jerry being a loveable scamp to Tom’s sometimes asshole. It doesn't always work and sometimes Tom’s just trying to stay in his fucking home making jerry the asshole, but you get my point: in slapstick the target needs to be unsympathetic so they DESERVE what’s coming. In these shorts it’s often not the case and their just trying to live their lives.
This one however. is uniquely bad in that it TRIES to have Donald be unsympathetic but he dozen’t do enough for it to work and thus his punishment seems excessive. In this one Donald is a janitor at a Golf Course who finds their offering a trophy for best golfer and sets off to do just that.
So he gets a near perfect game and is on the last hole when a tree inhabited by candarian demons ends up in his way. Look you look at those two little bastards and tell me there isn’t a page of the necornomicon just for them. So he does what any resonable person does and whips out a chainsaw to cut the tree down so he can keep golfing. Yes Donald just rendered two creatures homeless so he could win at the most boring, whitest, and most pointless sport, instead of you know just putting around, still probably winning anyway. And yeah I don’t like golf and why yes this dosen’t help. And this is from someone who LIKES Happy Gilmore a hell of a lot and thinks Caddyshack is pretty good. You can make a good golf story. Mini Golf however gets an enteral pass from me: that shit is actually fun no matter your age.
So this makes donald unsypametic enough right?
The thing is while what Donald is unsympathetic and dserves commpuance, chap and dumbass are also unsympathetic, attacking the guy without both confirming Donald felled their home. (Which.. he did but they have no way of knowing that), or trying to TALK to him first. They just go into vengance mode automatically and cost donald his trophy. It just makes the rest of the short a slog because there’s NO ONE to root for. Donald chopped down a tree to win a game he probably woudl’ve won anyway, and Chapped and Dildo attack someone on the assumptinon they did something wrong.
Finally the short is just not really funny, so it dosen’t have anything to paper over this problem resulting in just a real slog to get this episode done with. It was a waste of my time and while not the WORST house of mouse short, it still sucks more than a giant robot made out of vacums that is constantly sucking at a college level.
Timon and Pumba:
Okay onto the reason we’re all here, our wrapround bit concerns everyone’s faviorite disney duo, Worker and Parasite!
But that episode is lost to time so instead we got one about Timon and Pumbaa. The best bit is at the start when Mickey announces the two are tonight’s featured performers.. and we get a cut to an entirely salty simba complaning about how they get all the attention while Nala just looks confused. I love everything about this and have so many questoins: When did Simba start resenting them? Is he mad he didn’t get his own show? Why is Nala suprised by this? How do his dad’s feel about this? Why is their a child versoin of him also running around Young Link Style? And was he also this bitter when his son got a show instead of him decades later?
Anyways, while Mickey does his bit donald TRIES to greet Mushu.. who brushes him off like a jackass for doing his job of greeting people. Donald TRIED getting his revenge decades later by getting Mushu written out of the remake despite the fact it really ddin’t clash at all with the whole magical kung fun narrative, but that ended up backfiring as he got spared being in the remake that was shot near modern concentration camps.
Donald’s day dosen’t get much better as he finds out he has to do goofy’s job and bring Timon and Pumbaa their snacks because Goofy got stuck in the sink. Even though there are plenty of serving penguins, and pluto, and others who coudl do it instead of you know, the co-manager of the club whose already busy working the door.
It dosen’t get better when he actually does the job, through gritted beak, but Timon, being timon is less of a professoinal about it and more gripes about them not being the cream filled kind. Pumbaa naturally eats them all. These two are a PERFECT fit for HOM: they have a great duo act, are hliarious together, are popular with both adults and kids watching and fit well. It’s really fun to see the two transition from two weirdo husbands to two wweirdo husbands who do a live show for people vegas style in a mouse’s night club.
So the idea of the two being a double act is good.. but the show falters from here deciding instead to do something fun with it or play into Donald more instead going with a cliche: two friends have a fight over something stupid , breakup and end up coming back together. I mean in this case it’s two husbands but still, the cliche remains.
And while this is the second time in a row i’ve complained about a plot being predictable I have to stress for the umpeteenth time I DON’T have anything against cliches if you use them creatively. But this episode uses this plot in it’s most basic and boring form. Even the reasons WHY the two fight are stupid and trite instead of character based: Pumbaa wants to do stand up, Timon wants to do magic, they fight over it.
The next step is also predicable. Donald is sent to fix it and while he TRIES to, Pumbaa ends up instead making a long hilaroius speech about how Donald is “happy” being number two and getting none of the credit, while doing more work than mickey despite being co owner. The issue here is this is SUPPOSED to just be Donald being egostistical and thus siding with Pumbaa because he feels mistreated even though he isn’t. But the thing is.. the episode backs this feeling up: Donald works the door but no one cares about his job clearly if M ushu is any occasion and isn’t doing jobs because he’s co owner and feels responsible.. but because everyone else is too busy and piles it on him.
I’m not saying Donald shoudln’t be pitching in on other work ocassionaly but what’s damming is MICKEY is doing Donald’s job. Donald should be comforting the guests, getting them hyped etc, preparing them for their sets while Mickey rests between his own MCing sets. And it’s not slacking off, Mickey took over the duty himself, without telling Donald, then expects donald to do less for no credit. These kind of eps where Donald feels unappricated only work when Mickey is his normal self: being a kind, thoughtful guy who only takes advnatage accidentally and TRULY apricates his best friend and buisness partner. Here he just comes off as a dick especially in the finale which we’ll get to.
For now Donald teams up with Pumba and what COULD’VE been a funny runner.. ends up lasting all of two minutes. Something i’ve noticed is that the season 1 wraparounds.. are really poorly paced, being based more around just filling in space and being fairly simple instead of exploring things and as a result have so far, outside of the first episode, been the weakest ones. They have good setups, but the stories themselves lack heart or character and just come off as basic problems of the week to fill in time.
The resolution is also REALLY weak: Timon does his magic act and bombs horribly, though there is a funny runner of him having kidnapped thumper to be the rabbit in his hat, and PUmbaa saves him turning it into an act. Pumbaa gets the respect he was owed and Timon appricates him, which is cute but not worth the rest of this.. or the final scene where mickey TRIES to apologize to donald only to get pissy when he wants to change it to house of duck.... instead of coming up with a better name that represents both he just says no like he entirely owns the club instead of co owns it with someone else. HAHAHAHA micheal is a real asshole this episode.
Final Thoughts:
This was not a good episode.... the shorts were weak, even taking my hatred of pluto and chip n dale shorts into account they aren’t good even by those low standards, and the main plot has a GREAT setup.. but devolves into a cliche story that resolves absurbtly instead of doing ANYTHING with it. It’s just a really weak episode and one I don’t intend to eve rwatch again if I can help it.
Next Month: King Louie’s legally distinct brother visits the house of mouse! Swingin!
#house of mouse#timon#pumbaa#timon and pumbaa#donald duck#mickey mouse#pluto#minnie mouse#goofy goof#disney channel#2000
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Kane's Court Analysis #1 - Phule
Author’s Note: I don’t know if I’ll make this a full series or not, but I really just thought that the Armada court, and Phule by that extension, was interesting, especially read from a historical and psychological standpoint. Yes, I'm a nerd.
Word Count: 4,205
Tw: Mentions of Mental Illness
Kane’s Court Analysis - Phule
I. Introduction
A lot can be said about Kane’s court and the machines he built to achieve his grandiose ideas of a perfect world, but more can be said about the cogs in his system. Phule is a broken cog — one that stepped out of line, helped us, and saved the day. He’s someone to be cautious of, love, or fear. There's a certain complexity about him that, when put into perspective, adds a fresh layer to Phule.
II. Behind the Design
When talking about a character in any game, film, or media space, it’s important to tackle the significance of their design. Oftentimes, a person can tell a lot about someone from their looks, which is especially true for the Armada Elites. Phule, for example, is obviously based on a court jester, but it’s not all jokes and laughs.
The Meaning Of The Mask
When talking about Phule’s appearance — or any of the Armada Elite’s — it’s important to understand that they’re mainly based on the Venetian Carnival, the Commedia dell’Arte, and Greek theatre (with hints of Roman influence). Phule’s mask is based on four different masks: The Joker Mask, Comedy & Tragedy, the Pantalone Mask, and the Arlecchino Mask.
The most straight-forward element about Phule is the Jester Mask, seeing as he is a jester. Simply put, "The Joker or Jolly Venetian Masks depict the role of the Jester in the Italian Middle Ages...The Jesters... wore brightly colored clothing in a motley pattern and they were known for their incessant laughter" (Venetian Mask Company). The Jester Mask represents someone who is colorful and entertaining to his audience. It's a universally known mask meant to be taken at face value, just like Phule, until one looks at the other key components of his mask.
When looking at Phule, one sees the famous Comedy & Tragedy Mask associated with theatre and the extremes between euphoria and sorrow. But what most don't know is that the mask has a long, rich history associated with emotions and the human psyche. According to The Greek Designers, "The Comedy mask is known as Thalia, who in Greek mythology is the Muse of Comedy and Idyllic Poetry, portrayed as a happy, cheerful young woman crowned with ivy" (The Greek Designers). The Tragedy mask, in turn, is known as Melpomene, the Muse of Tragedy, who's depicted with the mask in one hand and a knife or club in the other.
The historical significance fails to stop there. "People often relate the masks to Dionysus originally. Dionysus is the Greek God of wine. The masks depict the happy and sad emotions that drinking wine can bring. They have also been linked to the Greek God Janus which is known as the two-faced god of beginnings. It is said Janus lent the name to the masks" (OnStage Blog). This detail is important, because Dionysus and Janus are both significant Gods. Commonly known as the God of wine and ecstasy, Dionysus was the God of madness. And as the God of madness, he was often a symbol of liberation and rebellion for the lower class and marginalized of Greek society — namely slaves. Then, there’s Janus, known as the two-faced Roman God, representing the transition between war and peace, and beginnings and endings.
In addition to this two-faced mask, Phule's mask has hints of the Pantalone Mask. The Pantalone Mask's features include: an exaggerated nose, cheekbones, eyebrows, and a mustache. The Pantalone Mask is the best-known Venetian Masks. It arose from the La Commedia dell’ Arte character, Pantalone, who was one of the most powerful characters. But, the mask itself was created before the Commedia dell’Arte theatre began to use it.
The character of Pantalone is described as “An old Venetian merchant, often very rich and highly esteemed by the nobility, Pantalone is originally known simply by his formal title, Magnifico. A self-made man, he has reached his wealth with ruthless tactics and keeps his money close to him" (The Venetian Mask). He is rich, greedy, lustful, and naïve. Pantalone is, “gullible enough for being taken advantage of from his “servant lovers” or male subordinates: servants, doctors, captains, whoever can get money out of him" (Roberto Delpiano).” His lust also leads to him being rejected by the women he pursues, making him an enemy of the youth.
Applying the Pantalone Mask to Phule, it’s easy to see why he and the Pirate — for the majority of the game — were enemies seeing as Pantalone is a natural enemy to the young. However, it also implies that he was taken advantage of by those around him and was a laughing stock. And, of course, his willingness to save himself and betray his father to save himself is 'selfish' in nature — more on that later.
The last mask, of course, is the Arlecchino Mask (which also inspires Phule's general get-up). More commonly known as the Harlequin Mask, the wearer serves a similar purpose to the Jester, which evolved over time. According to one article:
"As one of the lower ranking, lazier, and stupider servants, he [Arlecchino] is often abused by being yelled at or beaten (with slapstick stage combat) by his masters and others or never paid his wages. Yet he does have a certain luck and can be clever enough to grab hold of any seemingly fortunate situation that happens upon him. He might not think up a plan on his own but he can come up with some amazingly complicated and absurd explanations and rationalizations. Later period harlequins were more prone to become clever tricksters and rascally tramps while still often being foolish or stupid" (Commedia Dell'Arte).
On top of being a tragic figure for the entertainment of others, Arlecchino is said to have demonic origins. “One of the demons in the XXIst, XXIInd and XXIIIrd cantos of Dante’s Inferno is, indeed, called Alichino. The name itself seems to be related to the Old French word for “ghost”, i.e. hellequin, which, in turn, comes from the Germanic root for “hell”. Starting from Dante’s Inferno, this demon would therefore develop into a comic character" (CA’ MACANA). In a way, this gives one some insight into Phule not being a monster, but a tormented soul.
What It Means To Be A Court Jester
One can’t analyze Phule without talking about what he is — a court jester. But his role is no laughing matter. In fact, in a historical context, Kingisle did a decent job in portraying him.
To understand fools, it’s important to understand the three different types of fools: the innocent fool (or natural fool), the amateur fool, and the professional jester (or licensed fool). A natural fool was someone with physical or mental deformities that made it hard for them to receive employment as anything else. Typically, “wealthy or noble families also adopted men and women who had mental illnesses or physical deformities, keeping them almost as pets for their amusement or as an act of ‘Christian charity’”(History extra).
A licensed fool, on the other hand, could best be described as someone hired for their wits and talents, normally wearing regular clothes. Lastly, there were Amatuer fools — they usually wore the jester costume we’re associated with. In any case, “..those with physical deformities, such as extreme hunchback, malformed limbs, particularly ugly visages, etc. were prized, as were dwarves…” (TodayIFoundOut). Taking this into account, and the brazen nature of Valencia, it’s apparent Phule served as both a natural fool and a licensed fool, possibly serving as entertainment for King Casimir. But seeing as court jesters had duties other than entertainment, Phule served Kane very differently.
Although we didn’t see the entertainment-based responsibilities of Phule, we, as players, did see part of his militaristic responsibilities. That’s right — court jesters served important roles to their lord during times of war. In fact, they were political advisors. “Because they had no real fear of reprisal, jesters were able to speak their mind and offer advice when others may have feared to give it” (WeirdHistory). Kings and Queens would often go to them for advice on political matters and choices they’d made. On top of that, Court Jesters were expected to be the bearers of bad news for their lords, having to utilize their wit and comedy to tactfully deliver unsavory messages.
In addition to delivering messages to their lords, jesters would also deliver messages to their enemies during times of war. They were theoretically protected, but there were some that would shoot the messenger — from imprisonment to execution. In addition to their messenger duties, jesters would entertain the King’s troops during times of war to raise their morale.
On top of that, they were also masters of mental warfare as well. Some jesters would ride on the front lines, spewing insults at the enemy. They rode in front of troops to make sure the opponent could hear them. And while this may seem ridiculous, "...the idea was for the jester to provoke those enemies who had explosive tempers into breaking ranks and charging prematurely" (Weird History).
Phule did his job, and did it well, despite his apparent shortcomings. He got under our Pirate’s skin by claiming that he could hear our heartbeat, and lead his own squadron of soldiers. He’s just as threatening when we next see him captured in Fort Elena, albeit much friendlier. And of course, he still manages to affect the Pirate, though he has little time on screen, by causing us a few inconveniences.
He may not have been Spymaster, but he was effective in implanting fear and paranoia in his enemies. Take, for example, the Villa Trigante instance in which the Pirate is — presumably —betrayed and sent to the cellars by Don Giovanni. One of the resistance fighters we face, Beniccio Amati, is quick to say: "You're persistent. I'd expect no less... From Phule's spies…” (P101). And although we aren’t one of Phule’s spies, it makes one wonder: Just how many times has this happened?
In addition to his competence, we can presume Phule is powerful. He’s clearly akin to a Witchdoctor, but we don’t know much else about him. We have, however, seen the results of a battle with him. He cleared a path for the Pirate to enter The Machine, in which, there are plenty of Armada soldiers strewn about. It’s possible that his abilities manifested themselves similarly to Bishop’s use of electricity, that he had some mojo capabilities comparable to Kane (meaning that he could possibly teleport), or that he is wholly chaotic and mojo-based like the Player (if they're a Witchdoctor). If the latter is true, it plays into what Phule said about being destroyed due to being imperfect, especially since the Armada banned hoodoo within their sphere of influence. In any case, it is interesting to see how so much can be told from Phule’s character design alone, but there's still more to explore.
III. Character Analysis
Kingisle put a lot of thought into what type of character Phule would be. According to his Rouge’s Gallery video, Phule “seems to operate purely out of whimsy and caprice” (KI) and “speaks in two different voices, shifting back and forth between twin personalities who are as antagonistic toward each other as they are to any enemy…” (KI). Phule isn’t all there, but make no mistake: he is very capable of doing what he does. The video goes on further to elaborate “that Phule shifts allegiances faster and more often than any other court member”(Ki), which makes sense with how his relationship with the Pirate turns out — which will be touched on later — and gives the player a basic idea of who Phule is, though there is more to analyze.
Our Meetings With Phule
Besides a few outside sources, most of what we know about Phule comes from the three times we see him: Granchia, Fort Elina, and at The Machine (with the exception of the Villa Trigante Cellar), in which a lot more can be observed.
When we first meet Phule in the Granchia Catacombs, the Pirate sees him leading a small squadron of soldiers. It is here that we first meet the two sides of Phule (whom I will refer to as Comedy and Tragedy).
Comedy is a mix between welcoming, eccentric, and mischievous. In one breath he says “Don’t bother trying to hide, I can hear your heartbeat” (P101), yet he also claims to want to let us go. Furthermore, he calls the Pirate resourceful, saying that, “you’d be quite a thorn in the side of Deacon, Bishop, or Kane himself…” (P101). Meanwhile, it is Tragedy that orders his captains to attack us, calling for our surrender.
What's interesting about this first meeting, upon reflection, is that Comedy seems to think about helping us. I’m not suggesting that one side of Phule is ‘good’ and the other is ‘evil’, but that Tragedy seems more inclined to be protective of whatever is in Phule’s best interests. Comedy, on the other hand, is Phule’s desires. This may be why the two sides often disagree. One side thinks we’d be useful in his desired goals while the other does what needs to be done.
When the Pirate discovers Phule in Fort Elena, their interaction is short, but something to note: Phule slightly warms up to the Pirate. Tragedy is still hostile, but comes off as though he was attempting to keep up a facade. Comedy, of course, is the opposite, going so far as to ask us about why we weren’t in Cool Ranch messing with Deacon. In fact, Comedy gives us a well done, because “...[you’ve] become quite the thorn after all” (P101), then tells us to run along with our quest.
And then, there’s the final time we see Phule — right before the machine. Instead of arguing, both sides of Phule are working together for a common goal: to oppose Kane. Both sides of Phule were waiting for us at the machine, both of them told us Kane’s plan, and both agreed to give the Pirate the Key.
And why does he do this? Phule is able to recognize that he isn’t perfect as Kane would say, in his own words. As Comedy it’s, “I've grown fond of this world, and would hate to see it destroyed. I've also grown fond of you. But most of all? I'm just curious to see what will happen" (P101). And after Tragedy sends his regards to Kane, this is the last we see of Phule.
Another thing of note, is when Gazpaccio calls Phule a tormented soul, which begs the question: Does Kane see Phule in the same light he sees Gazpaccio? More than likely, yes, which may have influenced the way he treated the Clockwork. Another thing — how well Gazpaccio and Phule knew each other? Sadly, there’s not much to work with to answer this question.
In any case, these events reveal the type of person Phule is: part of him is chaotic and wants freedom, the other side of him is objective, if not spiteful. Together, the two sides of Phule make a being that is neither wholly good, nor bad, but certainly eccentric, which begs the question: What is Phule to us, the Pirate?
Friend Or Foe?
Although it’s safe to say that Phule is on friendly terms, he and the Pirate aren’t exactly friends. He did betray Kane, but had ulterior motives of his own. And while it appears he’s been contemplating his betrayal for some time, there have also been times when he’s antagonized the Pirate. We also know that he’s a jack-of-all-trades with experience in espionage, being a general, and an admiral. And referring back to the Rouge’s Gallery, “the most paranoid Valencian intriguers wonder if Phule’s antics aren’t just a clever act, hiding a method behind the madness” (KI).
The thing is, we may never truly know if we can or cannot trust Phule. While he may not be our friend per se, our goals aligned, and it's been established that Phule’s alliances don't often last long. He may laugh and revel in the failure of his fellow court members, but he isn't there to like us. In fact, we may serve as a form of entertainment to him, because Phule did watch us instead of fighting by our side (which he clearly showed himself capable of doing). But, it's unlikely he’s going to show up as a foe in the future, and it would be a surprise if that were the case. It’s more likely that Phule simply disappeared somewhere, and the player may never know what happened to him.
The State of Phule’s Mind
Before ending this section, it’s critical to talk about Phule in terms of his light and dark side. While in the game, he is described as eccentric or insane, it’s clear that Phule is mentally ill by our standards. And although it’s hard to judge him by human standards, due to the fact that he's a Clockwork, since Clockworks have shown their ability to showcase complex emotions, they can exhibit mental illnesses.
In Phule’s case, he likely has Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), but here are some important things to understand: you cannot be born with DID, an alter is not necessarily a different personality, and the portrayal of Phule is not wholly accurate. Again, Phule isn’t a human, though his backstory does somewhat align with the development of this disorder.
DID usually occurs in children who have undergone immense stress and trauma for long periods of time, and as a result, were not able to develop a unified sense of identity due to the weight of their memories. Due to this, they develop a system of alters in order to cope with day-to-day life. Similarly, Phule was created to be perfect by a narcissistic father who could never admit to being wrong, and as a result, his mind was ‘off', and he was written as 'insane'.
Phule also has two distinct alters: his light side (Comedy) and his dark side (Tragedy). Comedy is whimsical, friendly, and mischievous and may very well serve as the host, as he seems to front the most, talk the most, and has the most lines out of any of the events. While Tragedy may serve as either a protector, seeing himself as a beacon of logic and strength doing what needs to be done; or a prosecutor, who may have protective goals in an attempt to keep the system from reliving the trauma and abuse they’ve faced, but tend to be harmful and have a distorted view of reality.
In any case, understanding the two sides of Phule is essential to understanding him as a character. He is someone who’s been persecuted due to both his appearance and his mind, which he could not control, and it clearly has had an effect on him.
IV. Phule & Kane’s Court
In analyzing who Phule is as a character, it's just as important to ask why he is the way he is. It’s easy to see how he developed, but, due in part to a lack of backstory, the question of why is somewhat hazy. The player is given a few details in the form of implications about Phule, but also information that was info dumped that leaves behind more questions than answers.
What Was Phule’s Role In The Court
Cannonly, nobody really knows Phule’s role in the court. As said by the Rouge’s Gallery:
“He is neither general nor admiral, though he has captained Armada fleets and armies. He is no spymaster, yet he has performed espionage and been involved in the deepest of Bishop’s intrigues. He is the ultimate wild card, appearing in the most unlikely of places from the Great Halls of the Palaces of the Spiral to the humble backwaters of Skull Island” (KI).
As a character with multiple roles, Phule proves himself to be a valuable player and a jack of all trades. Due to this, one can assume that he would have been more sociable than the rest of the court, or at the very least close to it, due to the fact that it’s established that his allegiances are often fleeting. Though, it can be speculated that his strongest relationship may have been with either Bishop, seeing as he worked for him, or Deacon since both of them seemed to be the most active of Kane’s court.
In relation to the historical context within Pirate101, I could also possibly see Phule being a sort of voice of reason for members of Kane’s court — at least those who would listen. We know what Phule thinks of Kane, but have never actually seen Kane interact with Phule on screen, so the details are murky here. On top of speaking with Kane’s court, it’s possible that Phule entertained and advised King Casimir, in addition to Kane.
Aside from military duties, with how festive Phule is — in concept at least — he may have either planned out various events in Valencia, or at the very least been apart of them. After all, Phule is a court jester, and one of the fundamental jobs that comes with being a court jester is making other people laugh.
Phule’s Relationship With Kane
Another important part of who Phule is is his personal relationship with Kane. Kane is many things: a military genius, a diplomatic wonder, and effective in ruling with an iron fist, but he fails as a father — just as his father failed before him. Kane is a narcissist who expects everything he creates to be unquestionably perfect, which is why he looks at Phule with absolute scorn.
Phule is what he would, likely, consider a worthless child. He wasn’t born right in his eyes, yet Kane continues to use and depend on Phule for his missions. It’s likely that Kane wanted to keep Phule in place, as he did with his other court members, but Phule is the only elite who’s not based on a chess piece.
Phule is a wild card who knew he wouldn’t live up to Kane’s expectations, and he decided to save himself. And although this choice may seem selfish, it’s important to remember that many victims tend to stick around for various reasons — sometimes they aren’t mentally capable or able to leave. We, the player, have seen Phule express himself, and learn kindness. And although he may have hurt people in the past, he was willing to make up for it.
He decided to leave behind a father that never loved him, and never would love him or see him as an equal. He had every right to be scornful and bitter, maybe even take after Kane, but he broke free from the cycle and decided to help the Player because he maybe, genuinely, fell in love with the world that never loved him and all its flaws. That is the beauty of Phule’s character. He’s neither here, nor there, but he’s just as human as you or I — ignoring all the cogs, of course.
V. Conclusion
In terms of character design, personality, and backstory speculation, Phule is a great character despite the little screen time he got. He may be one of the strongest members of Kane’s court, is definitely one of the more mysterious ones, and is an interesting, tormented soul. Whether or not he’s friend or foe, Phule illuminates the environment around him.
Works Cited
CA’ MACANA. “The Arlecchino Mask: a Motley History.” The Best Venetian Carnival Masks in Venice: Ca' Macana, www.camacana.com/en-UK/the-arlecchino-mask.php.
Commedia Dell'Arte. “ARLECCHINO.” Mayhem, Madness, Masks and Mimes - Commedia Dell'Arte, mayhemmadnessmasksandmimes-commediadellarte.weebly.com/arlecchino.html#:~:text=Arlecchino's%20costume%20and%20mask%20are,Arte'%20Character%20Analysis%22).
“Drama Masks: Thalia + Melpomene.” The Greek Designers, 6 Nov. 2018, thegreekdesigners.com/2016/03/07/drama-masks-thalia-melpomene/.
“Jester (Jolly or Joker).” Masquerade Masks & Venetian Masks Company, www.italymask.co.nz/shop/Decorative+Masks/Jester+JollyJoker%3Fcat=01108.html#:~:text=The%20Joker%20or%20Jolly%20Venetian,known%20for%20their%20incessant%20laughter.
KingsIsle, director. Pirate101 Rogue's Gallery: Phule. YouTube, YouTube, 3 June 2015, www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VdwBDdeMYo&list=WL&index=69&ab_channel=KingsIsleEntertainment.
“Pantalone Mask.” Kartaruga, 7 Aug. 2017, kartaruga.com/mask/pantalone-the-magnificent/.
“Pantalone Masks.” THE VENETIAN MASKS, 21 Jan. 2021, www.thevenetianmasks.com/pantalone-masks/.
Staff, OnStage Blog. “The Origins of the Comedy and Tragedy Masks of Theatre.” OnStage Blog, OnStage Blog, 21 June 2020, www.onstageblog.com/editorials/comedy-and-tragedy-masks-of-theatre.
TodayIFoundOut, director. What Was It Actually Like to Be a Court Jester in Medieval Times? YouTube, YouTube, 31 Oct. 2019, www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkLZYEIslWM&ab_channel=TodayIFoundOut.
“Welcome to the Pirate101 Wiki.” Pirate101 Wiki :: The Largest and Most Accurate Pirate101 Wiki :: Featuring Guides, Companions, Quests, Pets, Bosses, Creatures, NPCs and Much More!, www.pirate101central.com/wiki/Pirate101_Wiki.
“What Life Was Really Like As A Medieval Jester.” YouTube, YouTube, 3 Apr. 2020, www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7F5ioUQLJc&ab_channel=WeirdHistory.
“What Was Life like for a Court Jester?” HistoryExtra, 26 Nov. 2020, www.historyextra.com/period/medieval/what-was-life-like-for-a-court-jester/.
www.delpiano.com, Roberto Delpiano -. “PANTALONE.” Pantalone | Pantalon De' Bisognosi | Grevembroch Watercolor | Traditional Mask of Venice Carnival, www.delpiano.com/carnival/html/pantalone.html.
#pirate101#p101 fandom#p101#Phule#writing#essay#character analysis#character study#Yes I wrote an academic essay on a clown#no i'm not okay thanks for asking#10/10 would do it again tho#Maybe I'll make it into a series since it'd feel wrong not to do the entire court
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Bluto (Brutus), according to E.C. Segar’s assistant Bud Sagendorf, was inspired by British actor Eric Campbell (1890-1917), who played the recurring “big brute” character in many Chaplin shorts (image 1). Another influence is said to be Tyrone Power’s Red Flack, from THE BIG TRAIL (1930) (image 2). An enthusiastic cinemagoer, Popeye creator E.C. Segar often found inspiration in the movies and actors of his day.
(Paul L. Smith of course played Bluto in the 1980 film—you can definitely see a link I think between his version and Power’s Red Flack.)
In Segar’s original comic, Bluto was a one-off character in a long line of villainous goliaths, not the first and not the last, basically a bully-of-the-month. His storyline (“The Eighth Sea”) ran around the time Fleischer Studios started adapting the Popeye comic into an animated series, which I suppose helped Bluto being picked as Popeye’s main rival. In the comic though, Popeye’s nemesis really is the sinister Sea Hag, who returns time and again to torment him. Her first appearance is the best I think—she’s a kind of nocturnal sea demon, haunting her own ship.
Speaking of which (speaking of “witch”). In one of Segar’s stories Eugene the Jeep appears to have killed the Sea Hag (the Jeep’s a mean little bastard). To pay his respects to his old foe, Popeye places the Hag’s lifeless body in a chair and puts a pillow in her back. It’s a weird, touching moment, played straight, and aeons removed from the later cartoons with their one-joke premise and goofy slapstick. Popeye cares about the Hag, who, like him, is at heart a lonely character, an outcast, forever adrift.
I couldn’t find a scan of the the panel online so I’m uploading my own:
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saccharin pink, aspartame blue (sugar-free) | BTR WIP
Jett opened the door a sliver of a crack wider, just enough for James to accidentally snag his jeans on the doorknob and lurch wildly once more. Perfect, just as he had masterminded. Hey, it was his house getting intruded upon, he was allowed to have some fun. Jett suppressed a smirk as he watched the taller boy flail about with all the grace of an inflatable tube man, before steadying James with a mild bump of the palms to the small of his back.
“Woah there, tiger. Gotcha.”
James gave the actor a grateful nod as he shuffled in more carefully this time, scanning Jett’s place with bloodshot, bewildered eyes. He uncomfortably wedged himself by one of the dining stools, barely managing to keep his balance while he propped his elbows against the kitchen counter, all before instantly skidding downwards and banging his chin on the slippery surface with a sickening crunch and a pained scream.
It was simply too much, and Jett couldn’t hold back his chortles that time. He almost wished he had a hot bowl of butter-free, white cheddar and Himalayan-salted popcorn with him—because like a clumsy puppy chasing around to bite its own tail before tripping over uncoordinated paws, nth-drinks-later James was a truly pathetic sight to behold, and Jett was having the time of his life.
Unable to recover from his pratfall and with nothing much else to do, the out-of-commission singer settled for burying his head in his folded arms and groaning all I was a Teenage Zombie-like instead.
Okay—pranks and giggles over, ‘cause that slapstick act was not-so amusing for Jett. God, James was really killing the positive feng shui up in his business. All that careful furniture arrangement he laboriously had to go through solo over the span of a hundred-degree-forecast weekend, and for what? Some depressed boozehound with a lump of dirt for brains wrecking the serene atmosphere of his home with all the baddest vibes possible?
Jett sighed exasperatedly, though it wasn’t really at the forefront of his concerns. Because this whole situation, as incredibly annoying as it was, was also quite intriguing. So maybe he was going to regret asking—at the very costly price of having to put up with sobbing and whining and ew, human emotions—but the curiosity was burning holes in his rudely-jarred subconscious, and be damned if he wasn’t gonna be a conniving man and pry some potentially-useful information out of James, before the poor sod inevitably blacked out and forgot about the whole affair and wakes up messed-up and mugged-out in some back-alley dumpster.
“Well, if I’m gonna have to deal with your B.S. for a few minutes more, then may as well get some answers,” he casually started. “So tell me, why this whole mess of you, Diamond?”
“It’s nothing,” came the low grumble of a response, muffled from beneath James’ forearms. “Well, no, that’s a big fat lie actually—it’s everything. ‘Cause it’s just that, Lucy, she already left for her European tour, but...I still can’t stop thinking about her. She’s the love of my life, and I—” He darkened. “I really hoped I could’ve been with her by now, but even after all my hardest efforts to try to win her over...she will never be mine. And now everything I wanted is gone. All of it. She was...she is my everything.”
“How...tragic.” Jett’s lips screwed into a half-sympathetic slant as he approached the tormented boy and gave him an awkward pat or two on the back. And maybe even one more, to be sure. Was that enough? Swear to god, he was trying his very best—but even if he didn’t, James was probably way too out of his mind and all the way into deep space nine to notice anyway, so who cared?
Not Jett, for one; but here he was, enduring through the motions of it all the same. It was just the same old bland bullshit, same old girl problems, same old repressed boycase sobbing up a storm on his shoulder and leaving him to get drenched anyway, nothing he hasn’t been bored of before. He really should’ve just taught aqua aerobics at overcrowded state penitentiaries or donated half his future earnings to Save the Koalas, if he was gonna be this uncharacteristically charitable. Those options took a whole lot less effort than this, for sure.
“Would you like...some uh, water?” Jett offered. “Or a Wu Lou mantra bracelet? Heck, a friggin’ hotline number to Dr. Phil?”
Revived with a bolt of frustration, James suddenly rose up and staggered forward, grabbing the surprised actor by his designer seigaiha silk robe and pulling him in close. Jett could now fully smell the reek of alcohol and regret on James, rancid and stale and disgustingly desperate. He gagged as he turned away and tried not to inhale—it was so suffocating and now the anger and loser vibes and negative energy were getting all over him, which was some seriously big bad feng shui!
“Why...why doesn’t she want me, Jett? Why?”
“I don’t know, and I really don’t care a cow’s lick. Now get your rough grubby man-hands off—of—me!”
“I just don’t understand it...every girl I’ve ever met has wanted me. I mean, I’m handsome...and charming...and talented...and very lovable too—not to mention, I’ve got a sensitive side to me, and I kiss amazingly!”
“I think you forgot to mention your superplanet-sized ego, captain asswipe, surely the ladies luuurve that.”
“Oh, ‘cause you’d know, huh?” James scoffed, mirthless breaths falling heavy on Jett’s neck and making him shudder. “Yeah, sure. Whatever. But it’s just like...for all the girls I could ever have in the world, it’s just never Lucy Stone, no. She’s one of a kind, and I want her—need her, so bad, but...why can’t she just love me?”
If Jett really wanted to play therapist, he would’ve accepted that hack role his agent tried to pass him ages ago, some stupid FOX medical show or whatever—but he never looked good in wire-frame dork glasses nor starchy white lab coats, and even trying to read the pilot’s name on the script cover alone was enough to make him reach for the aspirin bottle. For crying out loud, he was good at being a darling soap star superhunk, not at being some clinical desk drone-looking jockey like that Dak Zevon tweenage washout. And even if Jett’s acting chops were versatile enough to pull it off—which, no duh, it is—it still wouldn’t work, since he was never really great at consoling people, either. Like seriously, fuck all that messy melodramatic noise. He’d very much rather just stab someone with a goodnight syringe or something if they were gonna go full straitjacket neurotic on him.
Unfortunately, Jett didn’t have any liquid sedatives on hand, so he had to make do with his most piercing leer instead.
“You’re seriously nuts.”
“Tell me, Jett Stetson...” slurred James, taunting fingertips barely clinging to Jett’s exposed shoulder blades, a shiver of flowing silk against dirty leather, their dagger glares throwing sparks and only inches away from hitting a critical vein. “Why can’t she fucking love this?”
#is.......is this allowed i'm;; 😳#IDIOT HIMBO BFS ANGSTFEST FIC WIP BABYE I HAVE NO BRAINCELLS LEFT#i'm enjoying writing for jett too much and it rlly shows huh like;; mans is too extra for his own good#while james personality is a bit skeeze but on par for season 4#i've just been going insane smashing out this fic it's only been a week and i'm at 14k#and it's not even edited yet#this entire excerpt is literally over 1k and it's not even scratching the surface of the first chapter hrk#also i sent this to keria first but fRICK while i'm still making an embarrassment outta myself yk here#she was super nice to me abt it tho and i just;; am somft <3#i can't ever thank her enough for putting up with my weird rarepair fic bullshit and sleep-deprived shenanigans#(and us yelling abt lucy's superpowered bØØbs HDHdjLKW)#will i ever finish this fic??? or will i get so overambitious and fall apart with reckless abandon???? find out /#btr#big time rush#james diamond#jett stetson#fanfic#fanfiction#writing#wip#ficlet#excerpt#james diamond x jett stetson#stop it forever#big time fics#not in my mirror#the line that starts the whole story
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“If you’ve recently discovered radical feminism and would like to read more about the core issues - prostitution, surrogacy, pornography, misogyny in all its forms - here are some books we’d like to recommend. And to get you started, simply enter code FREEPOST at the website checkout and we’ll throw in free delivery to all Australian addresses. Use the links below to the books, read more about them, and add them to your cart. We’ve also put together a special bundle of all five books. Buy all five and save.
Let’s start your radfem library with the classic Radically Speaking: Feminism Reclaimed edited by Diane Bell and Renate Klein. Since the 1960s radical feminists have worked to articulate a vision of the world in which all women are safe and are acknowledged as human beings in their own right. Their projects include Take Back the Night campaigns, establishing women’s refuges, rape crisis centres, health centres, organising against pornography and developing courses in Women’s Studies. The richness of the practice and the theory of radical feminism is often misrepresented or unknown. Radically Speaking tells this important story. It’s a good starting point and has been described as an ‘incredibly powerful collection of articles by radical feminists about radical feminism.’
Prostitution Narratives: Stories of Survival in the Sex Trade, edited by Caroline Norma and Melinda Tankard Reist, documents the reality of prostitution revealing the cost to the lives of women and girls. For too long the global sex industry and its vested interests have dominated the prostitution debate repeating the same old line that “sex work” is just like any job. In large sections of the media, academia, public policy, Government and the law, the sex industry has had its way. Little is said of the damage, violation, suffering, and torment of prostitution on the body and the mind, nor of the deaths, suicides and murders that are routine in the sex industry. This important book refutes the lies and debunks the myths spread by the industry through the lived experiences of women who have survived prostitution. These disturbing stories give voice to formerly prostituted women who explain why they entered the sex trade. They bravely and courageously recount their intimate experiences of harm and humiliation at the hands of sex buyers, pimps and traffickers and reveal their escape and emergence as survivors. Prostitution Narratives: Stories of Survival in the Sex Trade will strengthen and support the global campaign to abolish prostitution, provide solidarity and solace to those who bear its scars and hopefully help women and girls exit this dehumanising industry. As one reviewer said “these narratives should serve as a rallying cry for action to end this modern-day slave trade.
”Informed and informative, thoughtful and thought-provoking, Prostitution Narratives: Stories of Survival in the Sex Trade is a compelling and exceptional read from beginning to end…— Midwest Book Review
Misogyny Re-loaded is an explosive manifesto against the resurgent sexual fascism of the new world order. By exposing the casual acceptance of snuff pornography in gore culture through to the framing of rape as slapstick, Abigail Bray links the celebration of sexual sadism to the rise of an authoritarian culture of militarised violence. Arguing that a meaningful collective resistance has been scattered by the mass destruction of genuine social and economic security for ordinary women, Misogyny Re-loaded presents a scathing critique of the political drool of mainstream billionaire-friendly feminism.
According to a New Statesman article by Victoria Smith @glosswitch feminists first started to express concerns about the development of reproductive technologies and the associated commoditisation of pregnancy during the 1980s. Spinifex Press speaks out about the multitude of harms caused by the practice of surrogacy around the world. As Robert Jensen asks in an article on Feminist Current how did we get here - an allegedly civilized world which treats a woman’s body as a commodity. And even polite liberal circles find it not only acceptable but a sign of being progressive, and celebrated — not only among many men but also many women, even among some feminists!
Start reading more about surrogacy with Broken Bonds: Surrogate Mothers Speak Out. Who are the faceless, nameless women who nurture and give birth to these babies? These women who are left with empty arms and leaking breasts after delivery? Surrogacy-dealing companies call them ‘special angels’ who ‘make miracles possible’, giving ‘an extraordinary gift’. IVF clinics call them ‘gestational surrogates’. The intended parents have promised them healthcare, full reimbursement, and ongoing contact with the baby. What could possibly go wrong? Everything. Because surrogacy violates the human rights of the women whose bodies are used, and the children who are born. Because it is a fundamentally flawed and misogynist concept to imagine that women are interchangeable. And it is wishful thinking that watertight legal contracts and counselling can fix this.
In Broken Bonds, strong and courageous women from the USA, the UK, Canada, Australia, India, Austria and Russia share their true stories of becoming 'surrogate' mothers out of kindness and compassion (or need for money), only to be deceived, neglected, abused, harassed, or abandoned by ‘baby buyers’, clinics, and lawyers. Their stories are tragic, shocking, and revelatory of a profit-driven industry that preys on desperation and women’s compassion. You won’t look at surrogacy the same way after reading it.
Lastly, your radfem collection requires a book on pornography and we’d recommend Big Porn Inc: Exposing the Harms of the Global Pornography Industry edited by Melinda Tankard Reist and Abigail Bray. With contributions from leading world experts and activists, Big Porn Inc offers a cutting edge exposé of the hidden realities of a multi-billion dollar global industry that promotes itself as a fashionable life-style choice. Unmasking the lies behind the selling of porn as ‘just a bit of fun’ Big Porn Inc reveals the shocking truths of an industry that trades in violence, crime and degradation. This fearless book will change the way you think about pornography forever. Contributors include: (Australia) Maggie Hamilton, Nina Funnell, Christopher Kendall, Susan Hawthorne, Sheila Jeffreys, Caroline Taylor, Meagan Tyler, Robi Sonderegger, Caroline Norma, Renate Klein, Helen Pringle, Betty McLellan, Melinda Tankard Reist, Abigail Bray, Melinda Liszewski. (International) Gail Dines, Catharine A MacKinnon, Melissa Farley, Diana Russell, Robert Jensen, Jeffrey Masson, Chyng Sun, Julia Long, Diane L Rosenfeld, Linda Thompson, Hiroshi Nakasatomi, Anne Mayne, Ruchira Gupta, Asja Armanda, Natalie Nenadic, Anna van Heeswijk, Matt McCormack Evans.
Look out for a future post to highlight the next lot of books for your radfem collection and important books from Renate Klein, Julie Bindel, Rachel Moran, and many more. And if you’re interested in learning more about the books we publish please sign up to our newsletter and follow us on social media. Links in header above.
Spinifex Press books can be ordered directly from this website, from all good bookshops, online booksellers and ebook etailers.
And please ask for them at your library.“
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Just Friends (2005)
When I tell you Just Friends is terrible, it’s not just an attempt to expunge my sorrow; it’s a public service announcement. This profoundly misguided, predictable so-called comedy might actually be harmful.
In high school, Chris (Ryan Reynolds) was an overweight wimp pining for his best friend Jamie (Amy Smart) but got stuck in the friend zone. After leaving town for ten years, losing weight, and becoming handsome, Chris gets stuck in his hometown over the Christmas Holiday while promoting ditzy pop star Samantha James (Anna Faris). He sees this misfortune as an opportunity to get the girl he never had.
If it’s been 10 years and you’re still dreaming of “the one that got away”, you’re not a romantic. You're a creep. It’s time to move on. Either accept the relationship you two have and stay friends, or break it off. Don’t keep putting friendship coins in the machine hoping sex will come out. It’s not going to. Not only are you a bad friend for believing this, but you're also a weasel. Unless you live in the universe in which Just Friends takes place. From the beginning, this film was doomed. The premise is inherently bad. And that’s just the beginning.
Everyone in this picture is an empty-headed moron. No one acts like a human being. Humans communicate with words. The people of Just Friends convey their thoughts with ludicrous slapstick, romantic comedy clichés, and contrived developments. That’s when they’re not destroying their surroundings, hitting another person in the face, or watching Chris receive yet another testicle injury. I sat stone-faced while this picture unfolded. Beneath this abomination of a script, you can kind of make out the comedic talents of Ryan Reynolds and Anna Faris, but they are dog-paddling in the middle of a shark-infested ocean, praying someone will throw them a flotation device.
Just Friends barely feels like a real movie. Here I am, minutes after it’s over and I can’t figure out where my time went. It sure felt longer than an hour and thirty-four minutes but there are only 5 sentences worth of a story in what I saw. Everything else is an improbably assembled comedy of errors that amounts to nothing. It’s all desperation, and you can tell no one thought this was going to sell. Repeatedly, it resorts to one of my most hated and creatively bankrupt wannabe gags, that old schtick where kids swear and say inappropriate things. Someone was paid to write this?
It’s like a checklist of everything bad that can happen in a rom-com. Just Friends makes you want to drown yourself in curdled milk. Bad singing, masturbation jokes, parents who misunderstand masturbation jokes, people being tasered, people falling over, homophobic jokes, fat jokes, bad acne jokes.. and on, and on, and on.
There’s only one scenario in which I could recommend Just Friends. If you ever feel upset, depressed, or downright worthless, like your life doesn’t amount to anything, watch this movie. At any other point in your life, it would destroy you to see these actors wasting their time on-screen. At your lowest, it will be like a homeless beggar spotting a tormented soul, stuck in hell for eternity. You’ll realize that your problems can be overcome. There’s still hope in the world! Otherwise, Just Friends just sucks. (On DVD, June 10, 2015)
#JustFriends#movies#films#reviews#MovieReviews#FilmReviews#RogerKumble#AdamDavis#RyanReynolds#AmySmart#AnnaFaris#ChristopherMarquette#CHrisKlein#2005Movies#2005FIlms
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Poltergeist (1982)
You can tell this is a Spielbergian horror film because the family is together (gasp) and remains so through the course of the narrative. The whole Tobe Hooper/Stephen Spielberg directorship question aside, there are certainly plenty of touches in the blockbuster director’s style. This is Spielberg through a glass darkly. Opening shots take us through another of his trademark California suburbs that could be located just about anywhere. Kids play in the streets, bicycles abound. But there’s an edge in Cuesta Verde even before any spirits come a-calling. The kids we see torment a bicyclist with RC cars, causing him to dump off his ride. There’s a slapstick joke with spraying cans, but it’s beer and not soda. Neighbors engage in a remote control sparring match, casting Mister Rogers as annoying kiddie stuff. As the haunting becomes more and more extreme, children are put in harm’s way in such a fashion that makes the viewer genuinely fear for their lives. It’s even more extreme than the sense of peril in Jurassic Park, lining up more with the likes of War of the Worlds. It’s a rare and precious occasion when Spielberg flexes his talents in this darker, more adult sense (excepting of course adult-centered masterpieces like Minority Report or others).
Poltergeist is incredibly economical in its storytelling. No time is wasted with the usual disbelief and questioning; the spirits have no interest in pussy-footing around with any of that. Diane sees the the chairs rearrange and by afternoon is experimenting with objects sliding across the floor. While reluctant initially about the medium, they don’t dally around with skepticism; they have too much to lose. By the grand finale, hell, the entire neighborhood buys into the supernatural whether they want to or not.
THE RULES
SIP
Someone says ‘light’ or ‘Carol Ann’.
TV static.
Star Wars paraphernalia.
Chair(s) move.
BIG DRINK
The US National Anthem starts to play
E. Buzz eats people food.
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We need to talk about Courage the Cowardly Dog
In what seems like a stream of relentless plagues, wildfires burn around the world, billions of desert locusts swarm and threaten African crops, and of course, COVID-19. How could we forget about COVID-19? The bright side of a world-wide pandemic is that this quarantine has provided ample time to revisit shows the shaped my childhood. When I was a kid, Courage the Cowardly Dog was my absolute favorite, hands down.
The title sequence explains the show perfectly:
“We interrupt this program to bring you… Courage the Cowardly Dog Show, starring Courage, the Cowardly Dog! Abandoned as a pup, he was found by Muriel, who lives in the middle of nowhere with her husband, Eustace Bagge! But creepy stuff happens in Nowhere. It's up to Courage to save his new home!”
And that’s it. Crazy stuff happens, and Courage is left to try and save the day. As I watch it now, I can’t ever picture a show like this being aired today. Many times I’d catch myself thinking, “They let this air??” Some of the episodes are straight-up disturbing or tear jerking
An episode that is both disturbing and tearjerking is “The Mask.” This episode tackles subjects such as same-sex relationships, domestic abuse, and sexual assault. These elements are heavily present within the episode, yet are veiled behind a funny children’s show. The veil is lifted when viewing the episode with adult eyes, and it becomes a realistic animated drama.
The beginning of the episode starts with Courage relaxing outside his home and minding his own business. Suddenly, a frightening masked individual walks onto the scene and beats Courage, all while proclaiming a hatred for dogs. This scene is hilarious as a child for the sheer slapstick humor element.
The masked figure smashes Courage with a sink because “Dogs are evil.”
We later learn that the masked individual is a cat named Kitty. Kitty hates and beats Courage because he is a dog, and she associates all dogs with an evil dog that is keeping her best friend captive in an abusive relationship. Her best friend is a bunny named Bunny, and her abusive boyfriend is called Mad Dog. Mad Dog is a thug.
Courage, being the gentle and kind soul he is, decides that the best way to get Kitty to leave him alone is to save her best friend Bunny and show that not all dogs are like Mad Dog. So, in the dead of night, Courage sneaks out and goes to the rundown industrial zone where Bunny is being held captive. A car with blaring hip-hop music comes to a screeching halt in front of a building with busted and boarded up windows. Courage watches and cowers behind another car while Mad Dog aggressively pulls Bunny out of the car. Her facial expression is empty and sad. They enter the building and Courage spies through the window. Mad Dog is upset that Bunny is visibly unhappy, and suspects that she’s thinking about her best friend, Kitty.
Although we don’t see it, Mad Dog decides to beat Bunny up for thinking about Kitty and not being happy with him. We are only left with this frame:
Bunny is shoved into a pot after being beat by Mad Dog.
As I watched this scene, I was in shock. As a kid, you just assume that he throws her around and roughs her up a bit before throwing her into a giant pot with dirt. Hell, this scene might even be funny to a child. Now, this appears to be an obvious metaphor for feeling dirty or soiled after being sexually assaulted. Bunny was not just being beat up. This episode also does a great job of showing the psychological manipulation that is a part of an abusive relationship. While yelling at Bunny, Mad Dog says “I told you to forget her! I take you from a two-bit joint and make you a class act and you want to make me second rate!” It’s incredible how Mad Dog tries to manipulate Bunny into thinking that this life is the best she could ever get as he screams at her in a dirty, run-down apartment.
The emotional manipulation only continues as Mad Dog tries to comfort her afterwards, asking why things can’t be like the good ol’ days when she still loved him. He makes it seem as if it is her fault for being clearly depressed because of this physically, sexually, and emotionally abusive relationship.
Mad Dog tries to comfort Bunny after lashing out on her for thinking about Kitty.
By the end of the episode, Courage the cowardly dog saves the day and breaks Bunny out of her prison. Kitty and Bunny are reunited and run away together by hopping on a train and never looking back.
Bunny and Kitty embrace each other after finally being reunited
So yes, this series has always maintained a creepy and provocative vibe throughout its duration, and undoubtedly has some dark themes and screwed up moments intertwined. These subverted themes only become more prevalent the older you get. You don’t notice these surreal elements as a child, and I don’t think you’re supposed to. I certainly didn’t see anything wrong with “The Mask” in my youth. Yeah, of course I felt sympathy for Kitty and Bunny, but there was a happy ending and that made it all okay for me. I saw the slapstick humor of it all, which is the kind of humor that really resonates with kids. It is a vital part of most children’s programming. Without it, this show wouldn’t be for kids, that’s for sure.
“The Mask” of course isn’t the only episode that touches on sexual abuse. In “Freaky Fred,” Muriel’s creepy barber nephew comes for a visit. Fred speaks through child-like rhymes and always ends it with how he’s been very “naaaaauuuughty.” Naughty is said in a way that is all too sexual, uncomfortable, and violating, whether you are a child or an adult. The innuendo behind the uttering of “naughty” becomes more apparent to a mature audience.
In this episode, Fred the creepy barber corners Courage in the bathroom and forcibly shaves his pink fur, all while confessing to his compulsive urges to force himself upon others and shave off their hair. He recites a poem about his first victim while doing so: “This dripping here, this droopy curl, unfold sweet memories of a girl, whose tresses, oh they’d twist and twirl, and tempt me to be… naughty.”
To put it bluntly, it seemed like this scene was mirroring sexual assault based on the dialogue and the overall mood portrayed. Fred likes to force his apparent hair shaving fetish onto anyone who is vulnerable that he can get alone. By the end of the episode, we find out that Fred was committed to a mental institution and escaped. The authorities show up to Courage’s home and take him back.
Fred’s character design alone only points to him being up to no good, and the smile never leaves his face.
Fred gazes menacingly at Courage before proceeding to forcibly shave his fur off.
If sexual abuse is on the table for this series, they certainly wouldn’t shy away from covering parental abuse. In the multiple episodes that feature Eustace’s mother, the audience comes to learn why Eustace’s character is a crotchety old man who takes joy in tormenting and scaring Courage. Throughout all of the episodes, Eustace yells “Stupid dog!” at Courage. It’s even a part of the opening title sequence. When Eustace’s mother, Ma Bagge, is introduced, we quickly notice that she is just like Eustace. She constantly yells “Stupid boy!” at Eustace and berates him at any chance she gets. For the first time ever, we feel sympathy for one of the most hated characters on the show. Eustace’s whole shtick comes from being mean and cranky. It all comes together and we see that Eustace is but a product of his mother’s emotional abuse, a cycle that we often see in the real world. Other episodes detail his painful childhood, showing that deep down, a mean and cruel old man is not who he truly is. Episodes show that throughout his entire life, he constantly tried to win the love and affection from his mother, however, she always found fault in him and he was never good enough.
Eustace presents gifts to his mother, Ma Bagge, in hopes of winning her approval.
As said previously, many of the episodes aren’t dark and twisted on the surface from a child’s point of view, but an episode that is heartbreaking whether you are a child or an adult is “Remembrance of Courage Past.” This episode details Courage’s origin story. We see that Courage once had loving dog parents that adored him. Courage’s parents take him to the vet, but in a strange turn of events, his parents are locked in a rocket and blasted into space by the sadistic veterinarian. There isn’t really any rhyme or reason, the vet is just plain evil. The vet asks to speak to the parents in private, and Courage is ushered into the waiting room. He later hears his parents crying out for help and he sees them being carried away in a net by the vet. Baby Courage follows them and sees his parents stuffed into a rocket. Baby Courage is unable to save them because the veterinarian notices that he is in the room and begins to chase him. Baby Courage escapes through a shoot that leads to an alleyway. From here, he watches the rocket blast off and waves goodbye as he cries. This is where Muriel finds him all alone and adopts him as her own.
Left: Courage’s parents cry out for help from inside the rocket.
Right: Muriel finds Courage all alone in the alley and takes him in.
Seriously, this episode is so sad. We learn that Courage wasn’t truly “abandoned as a pup.” Courage deeply fears losing his current family because of how his real parents were ripped away from him. It was a tearjerker then, and it still is now. Now, he simply can’t bear the thought of ever losing his family again. This motivates him throughout the entire series to save his family no matter what the obstacles and no matter how scared he is.
Now all of the episodes that have been covered thus far were terrifying in their own way, yet there is one episode that continues to linger in the minds of its viewers. The episode in question? “King Ramses Curse.” But why this episode?
First, a quick plot overview: Courage finds an ancient artifact in their yard. It turns out to be a cursed slab that was stolen from a museum. The police were hot on the museum robbers trail, so they ditched it in Courage’s yard. A resurrected King Ramses appears at their home to retrieve it. However, Eustace found out earlier that day that the slab is worth millions and won’t let King Ramses have it back, despite King Ramses threatening to send 3 plagues, each worse than the last.
King Ramses first tries to drown them, and for a kids show, I’ll admit that it’s pretty intense, but expected at this point. I audibly uttered “Now that’s a curse” as I rewatched. The next plague is just forcing them to listen to a really bad song, bringing the humor element back in and giving a break from the horror. Back to the horror, the last plague is a swarm of locusts that destroys everything in its path. In the end, Eustace refuses to relinquish the slab as Ramses menacingly looms over him. The episode concludes with Eustace being trapped in a sarcophagus, crying out for help. But the unfolding of these surely traumatic events isn’t what scared me as a youngin’.
So why did this episode scare so many children including myself? Simply put, the visuals.
King Ramses, was a 3D-animation overlayed on a 2D-background. Frankly, late 90s and early 2000s 3D-animation was a little creepy looking in general. The art of 3D-animation was still a work in progress. Hell, Disney and Pixar were still trying to perfect it with Toy Story.
King Ramses stands outside the home of Courage.
Courage the Cowardly Dog had a highly experimental animation style considering the time in which it aired, 1996-2002. The animators didn’t stick to only 2D-animation alone, but instead incorporated elements of live-action, claymation, and 3D-computer animation, amongst other things. The show really had a knack for mixing mediums. What made this show so generally creepy was the way the mixed mediums didn’t fit in with the familiar 2D-animation style. It was unexpected and unsettling.
Left: Example of live-action element
Middle: Example of 3D-computer animation
Right: Example of claymation featured in the show
While revisiting Courage, I can’t help but notice how this series hones in on the feeling of helplessness and life’s unpredictability. These aspects are part of why this show can be a bit traumatizing to young viewers. Yet this series still shows the value of hanging in there no matter what and doing the best you can despite the circumstances, just like Courage the cowardly dog.
At the end of the day, elements like the underlying adult themes and the visuals made Courage the Cowardly Dog stand out when it first aired, and it's a show that continues to stand out against the ever changing social landscape. Comedy and horror aren’t synonymous in most of today’s cartoons. It’s been nearly 18 years since the last episode of Courage aired, and 18 years since Cartoon Network has aired a new horror cartoon. That alone is telling. Courage the Cowardly Dog was truly a product of its time and still sparks debates today with its gloomy narratives on society. Cartoons like this are so special because there may never be anything like it again. Even the creators were surprised that they got the OK to air the show, and I’m grateful that they did.
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