CatDog - "Dog the Mighty"

Now, I'm going to review and recap a certain episode of CatDog that I adore very much, but not as much as Larry-Boy! And the Fib from Outer Space!, "Dog the Mighty!" Dawn your superhero capes and let's gets started.

In downtown Nearburg, Mayor Rancid Rabbit is proud to be here for the unveiling of the world's biggest burger. And then CatDog come in for the festivities, when all of a sudden, there was a malfunction with the machine bringing in the burger and it falls and is about to hit Rancid Rabbit and crush him. Luckily, Dog, without knowing how saves Rancid by eating a piece of that giant burger.

And with that, Dog was given a medal for his courage, bravery, hunger, and loyalty of rescuing Rancid from certain doom. Heck, even his picture was on the front page that Cat reads later on.

Back home, Dog explains what happened to Winslow, ten times according to Dog, and Winslow thinks Dog is more than a hero, kind of like a superhero! But not like squid man, or The Powerpuff Girls, or Jenny Wakeman, or even Batman. But Dog decides it's a super-idea! Pun intended.

Dog's alter ego fantasy

Later that afternoon, Dog dawns his superhero gear, with a cape, his dog food bowl, and the medal intact, and refers to himself as Dog the Mighty! And even makes Cat his sidekick, Cat-Boy, much to his chagrin.

Dog the Mighty does various superhero related things outside their yard. Like find a helpless create-ture stuck in a tree, when in reality, it was a fat bird. And when Dog attempts to save the fat bird, it just catapults them off the tree, making Cat and Dog fly into the sky and crash into their chimney, complete with Dog's fanfare, "DOG THE MIGHTY!"

Sometime later, Dog takes Cat underground to show him the fortress of Doggy Two! Cat thinks Dog's superhero bit is getting a bit out of hand, but Dog on the other hand smells trouble, that's his superhero catchphrase by the way. Using giant binoculars, he sees something downtown Nearburg, and he and Cat-Boy jump into the Mighty Mobile and head for town.

In the alley ways, Dog finds a young girl trying to help a old lady cross the street, and mistakes them for ciriminals. After walking pass some criminals and a broken airplane, Dog pins the girl down and decides that  their work is done, cause he is Dog the Mighty!

At the laundromat, Cat was threatening to burn Dog's cape just as soon as it gets dry, but then a fresh honey comes walking by, Cat's eyes catch on her and tries to seduce her. Dog's cape gets dried enough for his nose to sniff around and declares and he smells trouble. The girl wonders who is the weirdo in the costume? and Cat replies, "I don't know, I don't know the guy. Never met him before in my life.

Dog looks outside and sees the bank and thinks it's being robbed. So, he and Cat catapult themselves out the laundromat and crash into the bank, after a little acrobat trick, Dog knocks down one of the people who work for the bank. This time, Dog has gone WAY to far, in fact he's so "Mighty ridiculous" and he's not a superhero, he's a super zero! Which causes Dog to get really depressed and everybody just laughs at him.

As evening approaches, Dog throws away his hero medal, no longer in the superhero spirit. That is until a conveniently placed news flash appears on the screen announcing that a rescue team has been called forth for a deadly gum leak at the Nearburg Bubblegum Plant, two workers are trapped deep in the goo. Cat wants Dog to watch.

Unfortunately, the rescue team was unable to locate the workers, Cat, realizing the errors of his ways, now knows this is a real crime and this is a job for Dog the Mighty! But Dog refuses, simply because Cat said he is a super zero. Cat doesn't give up encouraging him however. He dons his Cat-Boy outfit and shows himself to Dog and................

"I SMELL TROUBLE!" Dog finally gets his crime fighting spirit back and he and Cat go out to save the day. For real, this time.

The ball glows pink and the reporter, who for some reason sounds like narrator from The Powerpuff Girls, panics over this, constantly sweating and saying it's all over, but then Dog the Mighty and Cat-Boy arrive and head straight for the factory and rescue the workers just before the building blows up! And gum gets everywhere.

The Powerpuff Reporter declares that Dog the Mighty has saved the day. And Rancid Rabbit arrives in his limo to give Dog the Mighty more medals as an award for a job well done. The episode ends with Rancid's limo driver driving recklessly I might add into the sunset. The end.

This episode was a heck of a lot of fun. It knows how to satire superheroes, the comedy was spot-on, the moral was also put in perfectly well, don't go too far with your superhero gig, otherwise you'll get into a lot of trouble. When I was a kid, I thought this was from Season 1, when obviously it was in Season 2. Why did I think this? I don't know, maybe it was made early in Season 2 or something.

If you have the complete series of CatDog on DVD from Shout Factory, please, at least check this episode out, it really is worth your time.

VeggieTales on TV - "The Gourds Must Be Crazy"

I know it seems unfair for me to talk about a TV airing of a VeggieTales story, but I thought I'd do it anyway because it's rather interesting. You see, since the third season of the TV adaptation never aired on NBC and moved to COZI-TV, I've noticed according to some fans that the house segments have gotten a little lazy, and while it is true, I can see they were clearly TRYING!

Let's start with the House segments. Mr. Lunt as Paco comes over to Bob's house to inform him that Jimmy Gourd doesn't have a letter for them today. And so, to help them get on with the show, he tells Bob and Larry to show them a story about loving their neighbors. So, that's what they did. Let's go in order shall we.

"THE GOURDS MUST BE CRAZY"

The story was originally from "Are You My Neighbor?" The plot of the episode is that Junior Asparagus is not sure if whether or not he should invite the new kid Fernando to his birthday party. And while his dad leaves him alone to think about it, Bob and Larry come into the house in their small spaceship, with an exciting and dangerous mission! The thing is the U.S.S. Applepies is about get smashed by a giant popcorn, and a much bigger problem is that the spaceship's electricity is not working! So, Junior comes on board and comes across three new characters, Scooter and Jimmy and Jerry Gourd. Jimmy Gourd teaches Junior that differences can be good if we just take the time to know each other, which, it's pretty much a true fact. And when Junior overhears Jimmy say "Sometimes I can eat a WHOLE PLANET!" this gives Jimmy and Jerry the opportunity to help save the U.S.S. Applepies, and how do they stop the popcorn ball meteor? By EATING IT! What a triumph. The episode also has a nice song, "I Can Be Your Friend," teaching us about being friends with everybody. This episode also served as a clever parody to Star Trek. The only things missing were William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy references.

But, that's not where the show ends, there's more.

"THE FORGIVE-O-MATIC"

Apparently, there was plenty of time left, considering that the story was only about 11 minutes long. So, what to do? Add in two more segments. This one is from the second show, "God Wants Me to Forgive Them?!?" where Scallion #1 presents to the viewers the Ronco Forgive-O-Matic that slices dices and erases your sins away. Junior comes up to the stage and corrects him that they don't need a Forgive-O-Matic to be forgiven, and that if we ask got to forgive us, then we can all be forgiven. So, Scallion #1 changes his commercial to making the machine into a french fry maker. Now, I wish I had something like that. And then, Scallion #1 presents a chia Forgive-O-Matic. The one thing that baffles me is the fact that they cut the George Burns "Good night, Gracie" gag, THEY CUT THE GOOD NIGHT, GRACIE GAG FOR PETE SAKE!

Whew. Okay, calm down, keep it together. One more to go.

"HIS CHEESEBURGER"

The final segment is one from "Madame Blueberry." Except, this time, instead of the reason being the Song of the Cebu incident since it never aired on the syndicated series, it was The Blues with Larry incident from the Dave and the Giant Pickle TV airing. While I'm not that fond of the Madame Blueberry episode, this song was one of the only few things that was remotely entertaining about the episode. What I did like for the TV airing of His Cheeseburger is that they cut out the part where Archibald says that Silly Songs is canceled until further notice. Instead, it cuts to the song immediately after Larry says "So what are you saying? Which was pretty clever, making the audience believe they're just going under a little hiatus from Silly Songs. Still the song is pretty good, My mom loves this song. Almost as much as Mr. Lunt loves his song.

The ending segment has Bob explain to the viewers that they should show everyone the same love we want them to show us. And Larry asks if Mr. Lunt loving that cheeseburger was okay then, and Bob replies that it was a funny kind of love but good.

That part was where it was true that they've gotten lazy here, because they didn't bother animating a few new things or anything. But at least they did their best for the characters to lip sync to the new lines.

All I can say is even though the Bob's House segments are rather lazy, please, at least check the episode out, it really is worth your time.

Here's the links:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulyimHzt6YM (Part 1)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdLYiQq2ZzM (Part 2, complete with the cheeseburger song)