Be REAL careful what you wish for.
For Those Who Were Wishing Cartoon Network Would Make More Teen Titans
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Cartoon Country: Johnny Test in “Johnny’s Big Snow Job”
Today Cartoon Country looks at the season 1 Johnny Test episode, “Johnny’s Big Snow Job”. The plot: it’s winter time in Porkbelly, and Johnny, being the Totally Rad Dude (TM) that he is, wants a snow day so he can snowboard and slack off from school, but the town is instead in the midst of an unseasonable heat wave. So as always he turns to his much more appealing and interesting genius twin sisters, Susan and Mary, to whip up a snow making machine. They do, Johnny overdoes it as usual, and wackiness ensues.
OK, time for the nitpicks:
1. In the middle of the story, after the machine goes haywire, Johnny remarks that he and his family have been trapped indoors for a month. A month?? Yeah, even by cartoon logic I have to call BS on that. I live on the East Coast and I’ve unfortunately been snowed in during my share of winters; most people are climbing the walls after 2 days, but these guys are just nonchalantly chillaxing at home after being trapped inside for a month? No. By Day 30 it should be like Lord of the Flies in there.
2. Notice anything missing in that scene? Where the smeg was their mom, Lila? Yeah, I know part of her character’s shtick is that she’s “super busy” and all that, but come on. They’ve all been buried under several feet of snow. The dad Hugh said that the entire town had run out of food. If that were truly the case, then all non-essential businesses would be closed. No way would Lila be off having a normal day at work in the middle of a Snowpocalypse. And if she somehow were able to tunnel her way out to go to work, then they could just travel to the next nearby town and get some freaking food! How hard would it have been for the artists to simply draw Lila at the table with the rest of the family? Even if Kathleen Barr wasn’t available to voice the character, the writers could have acknowledged her existence, given the extraordinary circumstances. That was just lazy. (Unless the family resorted to cannibalism and ate Lila somewhere around day 15, and I can’t believe that for a second; if they really were going to resort to that, then Johnny would logically be the first one to go into the pot.)
That aside, “Johnny’s Big Snow Job” was fairly entertaining, by Johnny Test standards, anyway. Some of the gags were pretty amusing, like the weatherman plugging a sports drink in the middle of his broadcast or the montage where Johnny and Dukey are begging the twins to make it snow (the fact that you got to see Susan and Mary in swimsuits didn’t hurt either), and this was a season 1 episode, back when the show was still a co-production between Teletoon and Warner Bros., so the animation was pretty decent.
And it was all downhill from there.
Ad Nausea: Can’t Stop the Music…But We’re Trying
You know what’s been grinding my gears lately?
This ad for the 2016 Honda Pilot:
As you may know, this ad is actually a follow-up to a spot Honda did about 2 years earlier, but it’s the same basic premise: take a once cool rock song and all but ruin it by having a really cornball suburban family belt it out like the sort of bastardized version you’d hear over the PA system of a department store. First it was Black Sabbath’s “Crazy Train”, now it’s Weezer’s “Buddy Holly”. Who’s next? let me just say this: Stay away from Metallica. That’s the line.
I mean, come on, Honda. That youngest daughter looks to be about 6 and the younger son looks about 8, and we’re supposed to believe that these 2 and Gramps even know who Weezer is, let alone know the lyrics to a Weezer song that came out in 1995? I call baloney on that. Maybe the 2 teen kids might have heard the song once or twice as toddlers, but it’s really a stretch to imagine that little Mason and Chelsea are familiar with this novelty alternative rock song which came out at least 2 decades before they were even born, and there’s absolutely no frelling way that Peepop knows the lyrics to “Buddy Holly” unless he’s a retired roadie for the band. Also, how did the young 20-somethings in the other car hear the family singing when their windows were rolled up all the way?
Getting back to this ad’s 2012 predecessor for a second…
…As with the “Buddy Holly” spot, the ad makers went overboard with the casting, placing 7 family members into the Honda in order to show how many people it can seat; when the original spot came out, folks on YouTube went double-live gonzo over the fact that there was a black child riding along with this otherwise all-Caucasian family (guess which one’s adopted??), hitting cyberspace with such zingers as these:
“They probably kidnapped the black kid!”
-Yeah, suburban white families abduct African American kids and force them to accompany them on leisurely jaunts on the road all the time. So…
And,
“It’s racist that the black kid is riding in the back!”
To which I say, Yes, he’s riding in the back of the car…
He’s a KID. He’s riding in the back seat of the car with all of the other KIDS. Would it have made you feel better if they had instead stuffed him inside of the glove compartment or bungee corded him to the roof?
-On top of everything else, the “Buddy Holly” family isn’t even doing the song right. They’re singing it too fast and completely ignoring the beat.
I’ll let the original artists show these folks how it’s done.
And that’s the name of that tune.
Cartoon Country: Meet the Robinsons, Act 2
Today Cartoon Country looks at Disney’s Meet the Robinsons (a very underrated film in my opinion), specifically the movie’s second act, where junior time traveler Wilbur Robinson takes boy inventor Lewis to the distant year 2037, where he meets Wilbur’s kooky family and is flung headlong into wacky antics.
Several folks I’ve talked to think that act 2 of the movie dragged a bit, but personally it was one of my favorite parts of the movie. It was one of the few times that Disney has attempted Looney Tunes style humor and it went off effectively.
Casa Del Robinson, complete with gold-plated robot servant!
Incidentally, act 2 of the movie is the scene which most closely resembles the children’s book ‘A Day with Wilbur Robinson’, which the movie was loosely based on. In it, a boy (Lewis) visits an unusual family and their home. While spending the day in his best friend Wilbur Robinson’s household, Lewis joins in the search for Grandfather Robinson’s missing false teeth and meets one wacky relative after another. There’s no time-travel or sci-fi elements in the book, just searching for teeth and wackiness.
The Robinson clan is a unique bunch to be sure, and there are a LOT of relatives present, who flit by quickly, so it’s admittedly hard to keep track of them all.
I can’t not love a family who employs a purple octopus as a butler.
Trivia Time: In the book, Tallulah was Wilbur’s sister, not his cousin like in the movie.
Heck, I’ll just let Lewis himself count them off. Just don’t ask about the hat.
Got that? Good, ’cause I’m not gonna repeat it. Now more shenanigans:
And…
(Is it just me, or is Franny kind of hot? Aaaaaaaaanyway….)
I can’t be the only one who thinks that this would make a cool TV series. It’d basically be Futurama meets The Banana Splits. Sure, a few things would have to be tweaked here and there: there are too many extraneous Robinson relatives floating around; an easy solution to that would be to no longer have the extended relatives reside in the mansion, just have them come visit whenever a plot or a gag calls for them. Also, Lewis couldn’t be a regular on a hypothetical Meet the Robinsons series for obvious reasons (which I won’t spoil for those who haven’t seen the film), but I have a solution for that as well: to fill in the role of Wilbur’s best friend…
Just have the family adopt an alien kid. It’s the future, after all.
I’d definitely watch a cartoon like this, as long as the fruit hat stays in the picture.
Fruit hats are just naturally funny.
Talkin’ Nerdy: How Deep Are Polly’s Pockets?
For a moment, let’s talk about Polly Pocket.
For those who don’t know, Polly Pocket is a toy line of dolls and accessories. The name comes from the fact that many of the original Polly Pocket dolls came in pocket-size cases. The current Fashion Polly dolls sold by Mattel differ significantly from those originally sold by Bluebird Toys. The original Bluebird dolls were less than one inch tall and made of hard plastic. Mattel’s versions are two to three inches tall and are composed of a pliable plastic with soft rubberized clothing and fashion accessories.
Currently, Polly Pocket has been re-designed by Mattel 1998. The new doll is larger and has a more lifelike appearance than the original dolls. That same year, Mattel also introduced Fashion Polly!, which used the same characters from the new Polly Pocket (Polly, Lea, Shani, Lila, etc.), but they came in the form of 3 3⁄4 inches (9.5 cm) plastic jointed dolls. Since then, Fashion Polly has appeared in a number of webtoons. Incidentally, if you plan to “binge watch” these Fashion Polly! shorts, I don’t recommend having a drinking game where you take a shot whenever a character says “Best. Day. Ever.”; you’ll be too drunk to find the floor with both hands.
This got me thinking: Is Polly Pocket rich?
Dolla Dolla Bill, y’all!
Her official bio only describes the character as being “very confident, cool, friendly, optimistic, adventurous, resourceful, and loyal. She loves having fun, adventures, and, importantly, friends. She has many hobbies, such as roller-skating, water-skiing, snowboarding, shopping, playing music, and singing. Polly has a fun-and-cool fashion style.” But think about it, Polly has a lot of stuff (including a huge house with her initial printed all over it) and indulges in a lot of different hobbies. How is she paying for all of her nifty things? Plus, the name of the town in which Polly and her friends reside is named “Pollyville”. I doubt that’s a coincidence. I have a personal theory about the current Polly Pocket. That means that it’s time for some…
GROUNDLESS. VIEWER. SPECULATION.
My theory is that Polly Pocket is an heiress. Her parents/family are incredibly wealthy land owners, hence why Polly has a town named after her and doesn’t need to work. She gets bored easily, so she frequently indulges on whatever hobby or interest that she’s grooving on at that particular moment, and she’s able to do all of this on a whim due to her having near unlimited money and resources at her disposal. Think Richie Rich but with a cute chick. This has been…
GROUNDLESS. VIEWER. SPECULATION.
In any case, the Polly Pocket toys seems to still be selling very well under Mattel’s moniker, and the franchise isn’t showing signs of slowing down. The Polly Pocket toys seem to be popular with girls.
“Yeah, that’s right, ‘girls’, but not us boys! We dudes have better things to do than collect and play with tiny dollies that come in their own little containers.”
“Uh…never mind.”
Twin Images 
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