ChalkZone - "Chip of Fools"

Whoa, I guess it's been a while since I've talked about my last time I've reviewed a ChalkZone episode. Now, I'm going to get back on track. Today, I'm reviewing, "Chip of Fools."

While exploring ChalkZone, Penny, Snap, and Rudy come across the Chocolate Chip Cookie Tree, I can say that that's the kind of tree that Cookie Monster would go do. While collecting a lot of cookies, Rudy and Penny see the bubble forest and leave Snap into keeping an eye on it. But Snap eats all the cookies before they could come back to inspect the chip to crumb aspect ratio. Snap becomes tired and falls asleep and gets a very eerie nightmare about talking cookies kidnapping Snap and turning him into a chocolate chip cookie too.

I know a lot of people have not followed ChalkZone, but I have. I like ChalkZone. I especially like this episode. I like how Snap is so cookie hungry and the nightmare he had is just visually interesting. I can understand to Rudy and Penny that chalk food would still taste like chalk. And I understand. The thing that kind of bugs me is the cookie snorfeler, if that's how you spell its name. It's like a vacuum cleaner, a vacuum that only like cookies. It's easily frightened though whenever people come across the tree. That's a good sign.

Bottom line, I like the episode and it was much better than the Halloween episode that aired before this one, which although I have nothing against Tim Curry, that Halloween episode was just a weak, weak, episode. But this, this just a better episode! Too bad it only airs on Halloween, kind of like "What is Blue Afraid Of?" and "I Was a Teenage Gary."

Go ahead and watch it online, if you're a true fan of ChalkZone or any of the Frederator stuff.

Hey Arnold! - "Big Bob's Crisis"

Let's take a look at an interesting episode of the fifth season of Hey Arnold!, "Big Bob's Crisis." Oh, man, where do I even start?

After having a heart attack/gas attack from eating so many lambs. Yuck! Big Bob Pataki has a vision of his past anger issues with orphans, birthday presents, firing employees from his beeper emporium, and ticking off a happy sunshine guy. This results him waking up in the hospital, and leaving to start a new life. and it's just so crazy! He gives away all of the houses prized possessions, and even Olga and Miriam's dignity. Helga's the only child who isn't affected by this, and she tires so desperately to get her same father back.

What can I say about this episode. All I can say is that well, it's pretty much promising, we see what happens when Big Bob's anger goes so out of hand and tries desperately to gain a new life and generosity. The only thing that kind of bugged me was that Helga just calls Arnold a creep when he was just trying to help out a friend. Yeah sure, she has a secret crush on Arnold, but that's no excuse to call him a creep. Need I remind you by the way that this was Arnold's only scene in the episode, by the way? I did find some parts that were funny however. Like Big Bob having a chest pain and mistaking Helga for Olga, which Big Bob was unaware that Olga's back at their house, speaking of which, I like Olga's line

"DADDY'S GONE COMPLETELY CRAZY!" That's Nika Futterman at her finest here. She may be from New York, but she has a strange foreign accent for Olga, kind of makes you wonder how that happened.

What;'s the final thought here? The episode may have it's problems, like Big Bob speaking in third person a few times as well as trying to make his family (including Olga) to move away to Oregon, barefoot, and Helga being mad at Arnold for no good reason, but all those problems aside, this is an okay episode. It's not great, but it's good. All I can say is that Olga is pretty lucky to keep the hut. It's pretty much a mid-life crisis episode, kind of like SpongeBob's "Mid-Life Crustacean," and The Fairly OddParents, "Engine Blocked."

If you like those stories, then you may like this one.

SpongeBob - "Jellyfish Jam" Review

Now, I'm going to review a SpongeBob episode, not a current season, but an episode from the first three seasons. This is one of them. It's my favorite episode of the first season, it's called, "Jellyfish Jam." Y'all ready for this? What's the story?

After making a jelly sandwich from a jellyfish, after trying so desperately to get rid of the jellyfish, SpongeBob gives in to his own instincts and decides to take the jellyfish home with him because the jellyfish has feelings for SpongeBob. They spent almost the entire day dancing to rave music that was composed for Mark Governor and Glenn Nishida, much to Squidward's chagrin. It gets so out of hand when the jellyfish invite all of the entire jellyfish fields residence for a dance party unlike any other. How can SpongeBob handle this? Watch to find out. Now, onto the review.

This episode is a heck of a lot of fun, it has such cool music to dance to, and it has a good moral, wild animals can throw very wild parties. Squidward's appearance was also impressive and well-balanced. And it was one of the FEW, and I do mean the FEW episodes where the french narrator concludes the episode. I also like how they use SpongeBob as a Disco ball. And for the rave music, it's a little bit like the Bunny Song just in the sense of you know, everything else fades to black and you've got colorful spotlights all over the characters. I especially like the animation of the house jumping up and down as we pan to Squidward's house. What's there to not like here? Seriously?

So, what's the bottom line? Well, it's just so much fun. I mean, hey, it was written by the same people who wrote Plankton! Ennio Torresan Jr. and Erik Wiese. Mr. Lawrence didn't write this episode though with the duo, original story editor Peter Burns co-wrote this episode, but just because Mr. Doug Lawrence didn't write this episode doesn't mean it's not good. I should also mention that this episode only has two voice actors. Tom Kenny and Rodger Bumpass. Just two, that's okay, we don't need more. If you have your SpongeBob spirits back up since Stephen Hillenburg's return, go ahead and watch this episode.

Also, go ahead and check out the rave music, right here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5glkFSCuMI

Johnny Bravo - "Cookie Crisis"

Well, just like I promised, I am now reviewing my favorite Season One episode of Johnny Bravo. It's called, "Cookie Crisis," it was written and directed by Butch Hartman. Now, let's begin.

The plot centers around Little Suzy, Johnny Bravo's next door neighbor and friend trying desperately to sell her girl scout cookies, but Johnny Bravo simply just refuses. And then, hilarious hijinks ensue, with rhyming and foxes, cookies, and so much more. Little Suzy will stop at nothing to get Johnny to buy her cookies.

What I admire about this episode so much is that, it's a satire on the ever popular. Dr. Seuss classic, "Green Eggs and Ham," where Sam I Am tries desperately to get his friend to try his green eggs and ham, but his friend just simply refuses, until the very end. This episode does this kind of format, except with more than 50 words like in the original book. I especially like Johnny's self-awareness, saying things like "Man, this rhyming stuff really hurts my tongue," and "I'm a poet, and I don't know it. I'll make a rhyme every time." I should also mention that this was the first episode where Little Suzy actually cries, and Johnny takes pity on her by buying her cookies.

Okay, lets wrap things up with my final thoughts. This episode is a clever satire, it's funny, witty, self-aware, and the rhyming never gets old or feel out of place. The moral of this story is that you should please buy the cookies from your friends otherwise they might cry. This is just big-time Hanna-Barbera comedy here.

If you have the first season DVD on Johnny Bravo, you can watch it anytime.

Or if you want to see the adaptation of Green Eggs and Ham which features the voice of Paul Winchell, click here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KRkR8HaR9c

Dexter's Laboratory - "911"

Huh, I really don't have much to say about this episode. Except, it's a pretty cute episode. All right, all right, I'll give you the basic premise, my opinions, and my final thoughts. afterwards, this will be my last review until this Thursday night. So,, let's uh, let's begin.

While watching an episode of Action Hank, Dexter gets interrupted by the Emergency Broadcast System. This results into Dexter solving emergency after emergency, but the signal doesn't stop going off. By the end of the episode, it was revealed that it was just a test, and if it was an ACTUAL emergency, the signal you would have heard would've been followed by information. The test took so long, it skipped over to the end of the Action Hank episode. Poor Dexter, okay, enough with that. Let's talk about my opinions.

What I do like about this episode is that it's cute, very cute. I especially like Dee-Dee's appearance here, She has quite an overactive imagination. For example, laughing for no reason at the TV as if it were a comedy, Dee-Dee becoming scared as if she was watching a horror movie, and even getting up to the point to where Dee-Dee is offended by someone named Jeffrey doing something to Marsha. Even Dexter thinks this is just crazy. Heck, she even thinks the ending of the test of the Emergency Broadcast System was a sad ending. She's not stupid, she's just energetic and quite ditsy, for Dexter's taste at least.

Okay, let's wrap things up with my final thoughts. Even though the beeping on the Emergency Broadcast System got annoying at times, I must say, it is pretty much a good episode. The comedy is cute, especially Dexter mistaking boy babies for girls, as well as Dee-Dee's overactive imagination. It's pretty much just a cute, cute episode.

Not much else to say except, join me Thursday night when I'll review the Johnny Bravo episode, "Cookie Crisis."

Kids Next Door Review - Operation: TRAINING

Since it's still winter, let's review my favorite episode of the Kids Next Door from the third season, "Operation: TRAINING." But before we begin, I want to give a shout out to Arthurengtine's Review Jungle for reviewing this episode along with the episode it was paired with "Operation: BUTT." Here's the link the his review.

http://arthurenginereviews.blogspot.com/2015/12/codename-knd-s3e05-operation-butt.html

Okay, let's get started.

The plot is that Numbuh 2's little brother, Tommy Gilligan is part of the Cadets Next Door, or CND for short. And during some training in the Arctic Base, an emergency mission has been called forth because of Father. Once they leave, the cadets, Tommy, Sonia, and the soft-spoken Lee try the simulation anyway despite the orders not to touch anything. And, here comes the big shocker, on Level 3, it was revealed that Father, voiced by Maurice LaMarche, made the entire mission for the KND just a false alarm, and by the time the real operatives realized they've been fooled, it'll be too late, because Father plans to steal the code module. So, it's up to the cadets to save the day.

The funny thing is usually whenever none of the main characters appear in this episode, it would usually make it not a good episode, a good example being The Powerpuff Girls episode, "Custody Battle," where those girls don't appear at all. But, this episode does the exact opposite. Instead of doing an episode without the main characters that would disappoint me, they instead brought me an episode that really good, and hey, it features other Kids Next Door operatives, so, there's no need for me to complain. My favorite character in this episode has to be of course, Sonia, who would later become Numbuh 83 after the events of Operation: GRADUATES. For those who don't know, Sonia is voiced by Janice Kawaye, who's been featured in several other cartoons like Captain Planet, Dorothy Meets Osma of Oz, Invader Zim, HiHi Puffy AmiYumi, and the voice of Jenny Wakeman on My Life a s a Teenage Robot. I think Sonia was one of Janice's cutest characters. She is just so afraid of everything, the cuteness even goes so far when she winds up in the darkness, shaking with fear, proving to me that Sonia is a nyctophobic. In fact, Father threatens to throw the three, including Sonia into a "terrible, scary," dark little room, which caused Sonia to freak out, and she beats up some of Father's minions to the point of them surrendering, Sonia then says, "What? I don't like the dark." This expects me to believe me that Father probably knew about Sonia's weakness. But aside from all that, this is pretty much a Tommy story.

So, the bottom line, this episode is so awesome, it never tried to disappoint me at least once. A nice slice of life episode, It gives us more information about other operatives outside of Sector V, and it also has an interesting story. All I know is that the Kids Next Door never ceases to amaze me. You could find this episode on the second volume, Codename: Kids Next Door Super Hugest Missions File 2 DVD. I'm not sure if you would find it on Amazon, but you'd probably find it on eBay by now. But don't find a copy that's TOO pricey. You have been warned. Anyway, enjoy the episode all you want. It's perhaps one of the best.

VeggieTales - "Daniel and the Lions' Den" Review

Let's start off the New Year with a another VeggieTales review. Only this time, we're going to go way back into 1993, 25 years it's been since the show first started. But Big Idea's not doing anything to celebrate is as far as I know due to VeggieTales in the House existing. This review is for "Daniel and the Lions' Den," from their very first show, "Where's God When I'm S-Scared?" Let's begin the review, shall we?

The story is pretty basic. Daniel, played by Larry the Cucumber, tells King Darius, played by Archibald, about what his dream was, and thus, he was granted the second in command, thus, making the Scallions very unhappy and jealous. Of course, they decide to trick the king into making the city of Babylon pray to only him, and if they wouldn't, some of them would be thrown into the lion's den. So, of course, Daniel is the victim of this sort of thing and gets thrown into the lions' den. But the angel of the lord told him that God is always there with him, so Daniel praised the lord and slept through the night, heck, he even got pizza from the lions. King Darius gave thanks to God on that very day, and decides to try to punish the Scallions, but eventually, the Scallions ran away to Egypt, probably for good, but Darius and Daniel give chase. The end.

What's so cool about this story is that the CGI animation on this is very simple, it's so simple in fact that it almost looks like a traditional hand-drawn animated cartoon. I guess that would explain why they only had four people on staff working on the first show at the time. My favorite thing about the story is the Scallions, I don't call them villains. I know, technically, they did a bad thing by changing the King's rules and throwing Daniel into the Lions' Den, but I never would call them villains. What I'm trying to say is that the Scallions were more comical villains, unlike Lasombra from my Hey Arnold! The Jungle Movie review. They also were kind of dopes, remember they were like, "Better not be a lion!" and "Those lions are gonna, um, lie on you!" I also like the song after Daniel was granted the second in command, called "Oh, No!" where the Scallions try to figure out what to do with Daniel. I don't call it a villain song, though.

So, bottom line, the story is interesting, funny, visually interesting, has great music, has super simple animation that I think PIXAR experimented with back in the 80's, and it has a nice moral, that even in the bottom of the lions' den, you are in God's hand. For those of you who are big fans of VeggieTales, go ahead and watch this super simple masterpiece. Right here.

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