The Powerpuff Girls - "Uh Oh Dynamo"

Now, tonight, I'm going to review one of my other favorite episodes of The Powerpuff Girls, which coincidentally, is the last episode of the first season, "Uh Oh Dynamo," One day, when I was streaming with Shadow Streak, I asked him if he liked this episode and he said he did, it's one of his favorite season one episodes too. Go check out his reviews of the PPG reboot if you haven't already, if you like my stuff, you're gonna love his. Now, onto the review.

The plot of this 22 minute episode is that after an encounter with a fish balloon, desperate to protect the girls, Professor Utonium creates the Dynamic Nano-Techronic Monobot, or DYNAMO for short. While the girls are unsure on whether or not they want to use it, one Saturday in Bonsai Garden's Park, during an evening paper boat race, the Fish Balloon comes back, but only with a much bigger companion who's too big to even beat up. How will the girls stop him? Well, I'm not telling! You just have to watch and see for yourself. Because I'm going to say what I like about this episode now.

The episode as a lot of cool action scenes, especially with the big battle with that seven-eyed fish balloon. Of course, this show had a lot of violence and comedy, as the Powerpuff Girls usually do.. This kind of reminds me of that Pokemon episode, "Tentacool and Tentacruel," and yes, I will review that one at some point, also, it reminds me of the Dexter's Laboratory episode, "Last But Not Beast," where Dexter and his family use a giant battle robot to stop Badaxtra, the evil giant monster from Japan, but the major difference here is that in "Last But Not Beast," there was no cheering crowd when the monster was defeated, but here, there was. So, if I had to choose between those two episodes, I'd probably pick this one. The irony is that both Craig McCracken and Genndy Tartakovsky who worked on "Last But Not Beast," directed this episode, like all of the other episodes that Don Shank storyboarded.

The final verdict, it's an awesome episode, and it really helped put the first season to the end and gear everyone up for the second season that would air a month later in 1999. It's exciting, full of action and danger, it's funny, has great visuals, and has fun with a monster battle! If you haven't seen or heard of this, please, at least check this one episode out, it really is worth your time. But, I'll bet you to watch Dog the Mighty first before this one.

Allegra's Window - "When is Reed Coming Home?"

I'm pretty sure a lot of you don't remember Allegra's Window, but it was a good show. It centered around a little girl named Allegra who witnesses what goes on in the world around her in Hummingbird Alley. Now, with that out of the way, let's review one of my favorite episodes, "When is Reed Coming Home?" And no, that's not a question, that's the title of the episode.

The plot of the story is that Reed, played by Bob Stillman, has to go on a business trip, and Lindi isn't sure about when he'll be coming home, Reed assures her that he'll be back late tonight after she and her friends have gone asleep, followed by a nice song written by Jeff Kindley called "He Has to Go Away, He'll Be Back Soon." Meanwhile, Riff constantly listens to music, unaware of what's going on. When he stops at Reed's for some tuna tiddly-widdlies, he notices that Reed has already left, leaving him to believe that Reed had moved out of Hummingbird Alley. But his friends reassure him that Reed loves both him and Lindi, and after all, he is his number one alley cat.

The episode is pretty good, it's cute, and has a lot of good musical numbers. Especially the one with the birds singing about how their mother bird who had left them to find them worms, and even Riff himself had a good number that was written by theme song writer, Barry Harman, called "He's Gone!" where he laments about Reed leaving despite the fact that he would eventually return. Fun facts I should mention is that Martin P. Robinson, the voice of Riff, also served as Muppet coordinator for the show, and Emily Squires, a veteran Sesame Street director, directed this episode, heck even Dick Weiss, who was the lighting director for several Nickelodeon shows that were taped in Florida, also served as one of the many lighting directors for Sesame Street during the 80's. It's like Nick Jr.'s own version of Sesame Street if you ask me. Another factoid I should mention is that Jim Jinkins, the creator of Doug, served as one of the creators of the shows, Allegra's Window aired after Nickelodeon's version of Doug ended, so, it was possible for him to work on both shows.

So, bottom line, this was a cute show, too bad it never had a DVD release, mostly due the fact that Cartoon Pizza (formerly known as Jumbo Pictures) closed operations, it's also because of the fact that Disney acquired Jumbo Pictures, much to the execs at Nick's chagrin. So, there's no chance of there being a DVD release any time soon. And even if it did, it would be from Amazon's Creative Space Made on Demand stuff, and you know how much I had those kinds of DVDs, it's hard for you to play them on your computer. All I can say is go watch it on Kimcartoon or at least buy the first season on iTunes.

Well, that's all the time I have today, good night.

Magic Trixie Review

No, I don't mean the Great and Powerful Trixie from MLP: Friendship is Magic, but that was a good guess. No, I'm talking about this 1998 short from Oh Yeah! Cartoons. The plot of this story is that a young girl while trying to practice magic, she comes across Migmar Magma, voiced by Bob Joles, and eventually, she outshines him like a real magician would.

This is a pretty interesting short. It doesn't have much dialogue,minus Migmar's lines, but, this short taught me that it didn't need a lot of talking to make it look interesting, it just had to be VISUALLY interesting, it felt like a short from the Disney films Fantasia and Fantasia 2000. I like the clerk, who was voiced by Gregg Berger, who has a deadpanned sounding voice in his system, but the highlight of the short has to go with Migmar Magma, now, he is one magical bad guy, he will stop at nothing to be better than Trixie, but, since it's a magic-related short, fat chance.

This short was a stroke a genius. It was visually interesting, it had humor, it had minimal dialogue, but it didn't bother me much, all it taught me was that sometimes, silence is golden, Samurai Jack and a few Nelvana shows have done that as well, it also taught us that magic doesn't come from a store, but from the heart, all you need is some natural talent, and Trixie had to learn that the hard way. If you haven't seen or heard of this short yet, check it out, in my opinion, it's six minutes of talent you won't soon be forgetting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3XJiqxCdTg

Rugrats - "Opposites Attract"

Now, I'm going to review "Opposites Attract" one of my favorite episodes from the sixth season of Rugrats. Not much to say except let's get started, shall we.

The basic premise of the episode is that Tommy wants to go jump on rocks, but Chuckie on the other hand wants to go pick dandelions. This results to your typical Rugrats episode where a main character's best friend gets stuck in a quarrel that they can't get out of until the very end. That said, Tommy goes find somebody else to play with, and he comes across Samantha, an energetic bandage filled young girl, voiced by Noelle North, famous for her roles on The Adventures of Gummi Bears, Jem, and The Smurfs, here, she plays her biggest role as the energetic girl who has the same personality as Tommy. Meanwhile, Chuckie comes across Freddy, who is afraid of everything like Chuckie, and he is voiced by Hynden Walch in one of her earliest voice roles. She's more famous for her roles as Penny Sanchez in ChalkZone and Starfire on Teen Titans. Meanwhile, Phil and Lil collect ants and Didi and Betty play cards.

Much like "He Saw, She Saw," this episode is pretty cute and funny at the same time. I especially like Samantha's voice that Noelle North pulled on her, her energetic voice makes her sound so unique, and Hynden Walch puts a worrywart sounding voice for Freddy on this innocent young kid. One thing that really confuses me is that Freddy is more of a scaredy cat than Chuckie is, in fact, it goes so far that Chuckie even calls him out on it. But the one thing that baffles me is that when Chuckie is yelling a Freddy, Freddy just stands there, just flinching, not even bothering to leave and call for his mommy, I get that Chuckie's mad at Freddy for making all that stuff up, but that shouldn't keep her from running away; Sorry, just had to get that off my chest.

The highlight of the episode is when Sam jumps into a mud puddle and says "Geronimo, YEOW!" and also trying to go over the bar, like most kids would. The weirdest imagery I've seen is that from Freddy's point of view when Sam is "trying" to pull him up, is that Freddy thinks Samantha is an ant pulling her hair, that is weird, but funny at the same time when you think about it. In the end, as usual, Chuckie and Tommy cooperate to stop all this, and then they reconcile. Why am I not surprised? Anyways, this episode is pretty good, it's cute, funny, and it's got a good moral, don't always be afraid. Take note of that Professor Proofed you can actually make the Professor call out on the Girls for over protecting him and not make him go along with it. Go watch this episode if you come across it, okay? Good.

Rugrats - "He Saw, She Saw"

And now, a Rugrats review of an episode that doesn't feature Angelica. Here's one episode I like from 1997, it's called, "He Saw, She Saw."

The story is that while at the park with his friends, Chuckie Finster befriends a girl named Emma, no relation to the actress who was in a rehash of a certain Disney Classic, Emma Watson, no relation to her, okay? And they find a lot in common, being afraid of ants, and heck, being afraid of everything! Much like Cradle Attraction, it's your typical, Chuckie falls in love with a cute and one-shot character./ Unbeknownst to Chuckie, Emma is the younger sister of the bully, Big Binky (voiced by Joanna Rubiner) who is over-protective of his younger sister, so Chuckie has to do all he can to keep Emma away from her big brother.

This episode is quite cute. I especially find it cute when both Chuckie and Emma get ants stuck on them and they scatter until they fell off of the sandbox, it was funny as well. Interesting fact: Emma was voiced by none other than Philece Sampler, if you don't know who that is, well, it's obviously Mimi herself from Digimon, so, it goes to show you that Mimi does voices for Rugrats, that shows how cute the character of Emma is. One thing that grinds my gears is what is the origins of Big Binky? Where did he come from? Why are the kids so afraid of him more than his sister? Is he like Angelica's doppelganger? So many questions, that I'm afraid we'll never know.

Final verdict? Aside from those problems, this episode is pretty cute and funny. The parts with Didi and Stu are kind of interesting too, I felt bad for Stu because he got a black eye from one of the activities they've played. And it has a few nice morals, like don't be so overprotective of your younger brother or sister, as well as the one Stu says at the end saying, "Sometimes it's difficult being a kid," which sadly is quite true.

Fun fact: A clip of this episode can be seen in the Nickelodeon 5 to 8 promo from 1998, look for it here.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ponYisBDEHM

The Magic School Bus Gets Lost in Space

Now, I'm going to review an episode from the award-winning animated television series, The Magic School Bus, starring the voice of Lily Tomlin as Miss Valerie Frizzle. Today, I'm reviewing my favorite episode of the show, which is also the first episode of the series, "The Magic School Bus Gets Lost in Space."

The plot of this story is that Arnold's know-it-all cousin, Janet comes to visit their school. And Miss Frizzle decides to take the class on a 3, 2, 1, field trip! No big shock there. When the space museum is closed, Arnold proves to Janet that nobody is better than Miss Frizzle by asking her to send him and their friends into Outer Space as their field trip, And that's exactly what she did, and Janet remarks "Highly unusual." Most of the episode is them traveling to other planets and Janet finding stuff from those planets to prove she was in outer space, heck, she even goes to far as to make Arnold do the chores for her, this is overkill and then some. It wasn't until the asteroid Janet was trying to bring back accidentally sends Miss Frizzle and Liz flying, and so, the rest of the cast, with the help of Janet's know-it-all experience, figure out where she is by passing Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, and finally, Pluto, where the Frizzle is. But. enough of that, what do I think of the episode?

This episode is great! It taught us a lot of outer space stuff, like the nine planets in particular, not counting the sun, It's educational, funny, and interesting at the same time. The highlight of the episode has to be the part where while on Mars, Miss Frizzle and her class jump off the top of the ice cliff shouting "ICE CREAM!" and landing into the red dust, no wonder why it was called a red planet, and Ralphie mistaking Arnold's silhouette for an alien. If you ask me, I think most of the humor comes from Ralphie and Carlos, whom for some reason didn't get called out for his lame puns like Meteor-wrong.

Interesting fact I should mention is that in the original PBS broadcasts of the Magic School Bus, the show usually ends with the Producer, voiced by Malcolm-Jamal Warner, getting phone calls from fans about the show. These segments were both funny and interesting. Unfortunately, when Scholastic sold this show off to syndication rights, when the show reran on TLC and Qubo, they cut off the Producer segments, to make way for commercial breaks, THEY CUT THE PRODUCER SEGMENTS FOR PETE SAKE! So, the only way to really see them uncut are on DVD, if you have the complete series of The Magic School Bus on Newvideo, you can watch those segments any time you want. This segment had an alien calling about the pile of litter on Pluto.

Okay, final thought, this episode is a whole lot of fun. It's exciting, weird, funny, educational, visually interesting, and has a lot of fun traveling in outer space and giving the kids an adventure. Being someone who's interested in space, I should know. You can watch the episode on Video and DVD any time you want. One more thing I forgot to mention is that this show was actually animated by Nelvana up in Canada. Isn't that ironic? Nelvana producing an American project with American voice actors, I guess it makes sense since Susan Blu, the show's voice director is from America and all that sort of stuff, and Erica Luttrell, the voice of Keesha, would later go on to do voices in America for shows like Dave the Barbarian as Candy as well as Steven Universe.

Okay so, oh, THAT'S THE END!

What is Blue Afraid Of?

You scared, bro? You should be, because I'm going to review the Halloween episode for the first season of Blue's Clues, "What is Blue Afraid Of?" Although technically, Halloween is not mentioned, it has a bit of Halloween atmosphere to it. Like for example, the dark sky in the background indicated it might be early evening, and the skidoo sketch into the haunted house. Okay, let's begin.

The plot of the episode is that Blue is (as the title suggests) afraid of something, and we play Blue's Clues to figure out what she's afraid of. Along the way, we look at shadows with Shovel and Pail, look at close-up pictures of food with Mr. Salt and Mrs. Pepper, get a video letter about shadow puppets, and finally, investigate the spooky sounds in Boo's haunted house. If you've watched the episode already, you will know that the answer to Blue's Clues was that Blue was afraid of an owl. Can you believe that? What's next? Blue being afraid of Sesame Street's Hoots the Owl? Anyways, my review.

What's really good about this episode is that unlike "Blue's Sad Day," Blue was really up to playing Blue's Clues in this episode, she was also up for it in other episodes about feelings like "Shy," and "Blue is Frustrated." But those are different stories. This episode had a lot of shrieks of terror and laughter! The funny parts of the episode are the scene were Steve pretends to be a vampire casting a shadow in the backyard and going "Bleh." Who is he, Count Dracula?, also, Mrs. Pepper's over the top screams are good, and Mailbox's knock-knock joke was quite clever, and Boo's over-the-top screams whenever Steve says his name are just priceless. JUST PRICELESS. I even like the phone call during the third clue, where the caller constantly says ?Who?" and Steve was like "No, I'm asking you who." Insert Abbott and Costello joke here, please.

Okay, let's wrap things up with my final thought. This episode was funny, with terror, and since it aired on October of 1997, it only airs around Halloween for Nickelodeon and Nick Jr. Hence a rerun of this episode on October 29, 1999 after the episode I wasn't crazy for, "Hide and Seek." In production order, it was episode 18, but in airing order, it was episode 19, and it was the last new episode from the first season until October 1998, when "What Story Does Blue Want to Play?" came along. Like I said, very strange airing order, folks. Pretty eerie.

You can find this episode on the 2010 DVD, Happy Halloween, with all of the other Nick Jr. related Halloween episodes. If you have the DVD, go ahead and check it out if you haven't already.