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Dave The Barbarian: Here There Be Dragons/Pipe Down!
Reviewed: 07/29/2014
Here There Be Pipes!!
Well; when I read the summaries for these, I wasn't impressed by this. One involves Dave having to find a nightlight and using Flappy to cover his ass basically after Dave caused the kingdom to suffer a heatwave from a bunch of rednecks. The second one is worse in a way because it's Dave playing bagpipes to get revenge on Candy for no reason that I can think of; and his playing causes Quosmir to come back from the dead; despite the fact that in Shrink Rap, he was with his mother crushing another world. This is a bad sign for this cartoon right off the bat. Let's rant on shall we...?!
Here There Be Dragons is written and story edited by Doug Langdale. Pipe Down! is written and story edited by Larry Spencer. This has to be a ghost writer since Larry stopped doing television since 2001 with One World. His credits: The Home Court, Pride & Joy, The Second Half, Valerie, 227, Head Of The Class, Muddling Through, Jennifer Slept Here, The Gong Show, He's The Mayor, Teacher Only, and Taxi!! Dave the Barbarian would be his DTVA debut, only appearance and most recent credit if true. The animation is done by...wait for it....S.O.B. Animation. I'm not making this up. Whomever thought this was a great name for a company doing kids cartoons needs to be hung upside down from a tree by his legs; joining the television director of TNA.
Opening Moment #1: Fairly Odd-Parents rip off of the day image: The babyfaces are in the mouth of a green dragon when the castle crumbles. Sadly; this dragon is too stupid to close his jaws and eat them.
Here There Be Dragons: We begin this one with a closeup of the sign that sezs Urdogoth in black letters. Yeah. So we zoom out to show the castle and then jump cut to a bunch of rednecks coming out from their wagon loaded with crap, including a pink colored CHEST OF DEMONS and purple flag with a goldfish image in the middle. The back of wagon appears to have trim that looks like musical notes. The narrator claims that they are nomads; which is a nice way of saying redneck. After all; they are playing banjo music in the background as we get a goldfish with candles on it; with purple icing saying Happy Birthday. The narrator calls this a fish cake, HAR HAR HAR! Then we have swiss cheese coats to match this cheesy show. And the last image is a frog on gears with a spring in the back acting like a king; in which the narrator claims that it's toad accessories. Yawn. So we cut back to the back of the wagon as the narrator tells us that the rednecks...ERR...nomads are notorious for being touchy and thin skinned when it came to criticism. Yip; they are implying these nomads as being rednecks. So Dave and Fang show up; as they question the freshness of the out of nowhere smelly fish of doom; in which the rednecks are gravely offended by this slur. They cannot believe that they would be questioned on the quality of their smelly fish. So they do this CURSE OF DOOM which is basically to speed up global warming to burn Udrogoth to ashes until a day star appears in the sky; and then they do the universal spot for "neener neener" while making funny faces. Which were not funny. Whatever as Fang is pissed off and Flappy burns Dave's face into a burnt match again; only it's much fatter than usual. So yes; we are supposed to believe that these redneck are magical and can do curses. Okay; I'll play along as we head back to the castle as the dead tree with a best contains fried eggs. Pfft; whatever. We pan down to see the flowers in the foreground start to die; and then head inside the kitchen as Oswidge is reading, everyone is fanning and Dave is drinking gallons and gallons of lemonade with ice cubes from a pitcher. Yes; that is what he is doing.
Lula of course is blowing him off for critcizing a Nomad which makes Scientalogists look thick-skinned in comparison. Dave whines about this "not believable" curse as Oswidge is looking in his book (which has not been burned to ashes yet; so some heatwave...) as apparently; the day star is a jewel hidden deep in the cave of peril. Which of course Dave groans because he hates pain and anyway that causes peril. He is truely the Moral Guardian Barbarian. AHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Of course; everyone yells at Dave because he caused this curse to happen. Dave no sells because it might be filled with monsters and dragons; to which I reply: Of course. Of course; Dave should be forced to go. Not because he mocked a Nomad (because those rednecks are thin-skinned wimps who think they are so magical or something); but on the general principle of "Dave as a bump machine equals ratings". Candy's hair goes from normal to looking like her mother's hair; which is so much cooler. Sadly; Candy is a whining, thin-skinned boring diva; so Dave has to go to the cave of peril. So Candy squishes Dave's head into his body; proclaims that you don't mess with a princess (geez; and we accuse the rednecks of such horrible spots?) and storms off. Fang jumps onto Dave's shoulders and asks if she can come along. Dave tells her that she can to which I reply: Of course! So we do the "Bullwinkle tries to pull rabbit out of the hat" spot; and Fang actually succeeds in pulling a pink rabbit out of the hat first! This is stupid because if you are going to do this spot; the second to last pull from Fang should be the bunny rabbit, and then the last one should be Dave's head. So we scene change without Dave getting his head back as we see Oswidge with an ice block on his head (Ah; the old Pizza Pie In The Sky trick) as Candy is in an ice cubed filled wooden barrel looking miserable. So we see Fang, Dave and Flappy are outside the castle walking like they are heading for their execution; which the narrator proclaims that they set out and had wonderful adventures...
...and then we get a classic modern cartoon moment: The action stops as we cut to Dave putting a torch underneath a projector and we are getting slides of them fighting monsters which we know doesn't exist. What was the point of this...Oh wait; it's to show Dave in a green ballerina outfit for a recital; which was cute, so I'll forgive them for that stupid spot. Anyhow; we head to the cave barely three and a half minutes in. The sign sezs: "Cave Of Peril: Here, There Be Dragynns!" in red letters against the yellow sign. Dave is not liking this at spell because it provides a lethal combination of flesh eating monsters and bad spelling. So we get growling off-screen which means that we need more windbags on this show. Dave tries to bail; but Fang grabs the rope attached to Dave's body; which comes out of nowhere and goes the same place. Fang proclaims that they must go in; or Udrogoth is extra-crispy. Dave doesn't wanna because DRAWYNNS~! Fang blows this off because Flappy is a dragon (and Flappy is popping his head out of a knot in the tree after the windbags made Flappy fly out of the cave); and he's not scary. So Dave proclaims that they will send Flappy into the cave to get the "Night Star" jewel. Sure; why not? Even though FANG is RIGHT there for use as well. See; Flappy can talk to the dragons to tell them not to eat them. Flappy has no idea what he is talking about; but gets thrown into the cave anyway. Flappy is confused as he does the spray in the mouth to annoy me as the narrator is just ruining the pathos by talking over this talking about the dragons not liking him and calling him Jasper. Who cares?! So they show an out of nowhere x-ray machine which shows that his brain is the size of a blueberry; which means that he is stupider than George The Animal Steele in 1988. Flappy panics and we see a bunch of dragons as the cave of peril is really just a frathouse with dragons dressed up as band members. The middle fat one is purple, the left one is green and the right one is blue who is the girl of the outfit.
The green dragon is wearing a red censor on his shirt; for no reason. I guess that is the censor: "No Reason". That should be the band name; it'll be perfect for Christian bands. The blue dragon is voiced by Tress MacNeillie; the green one is voiced by Lars Ulrich and according to Wikipedia (DANGER! DANGER!): Later in 1981, Ulrich met James Hetfield in Downey, California and they formed the heavy metal band Metallica. He got the name "Metallica" from a friend, Ron Quintana, who was brainstorming names for a heavy metal fanzine he was creating, and Metallica was one of the options, the other being "Metal Mania". Lars encouraged him to choose Metal Mania, and used the name Metallica for himself.[citation needed] He became known as a pioneer of fast thrash drum beats, featured on many of Metallica's early songs, such as "Metal Militia" from Kill 'Em All, "Fight Fire with Fire" from Ride the Lightning, "Battery" and "Damage Inc." from Master of Puppets and "Dyers Eve" from ...And Justice for All. He has since been considerably influential due to both the popularity of his band, as well as his drum techniques, such as the double bass drum in the song "One" (...And Justice for All) and the opening of "Enter Sandman" (Metallica). Since the release of Metallica, Ulrich adopted a less focused and simplified style of drumming, and reduced his kit from a 9-piece to a 7-piece. Ulrich's voice can be heard in the opening seconds of "Leper Messiah" and he also counts to four in his native Danish on the "St. Anger" music video. He made his acting debut in the HBO original film Hemingway & Gellhorn, which began filming in March 2011 and was released on May 28, 2012.[4] Ulrich made a brief cameo appearance as himself in the film Get Him to the Greek, as the partner of the character Jackie Q.[5] In 2012, Ulrich was the focus of the documentary film, "Mission to Lars".
The film by Kate and Will Spicer concerns their journey with their brother Tom, who lives in a care home in Devon, England and who has Fragile X syndrome, to try to meet Lars at one of Metallica's 2009 gigs in California.[6] Ulrich was also ranked #5 on the top 5 metal drummers from That Metal Show. He began his career basically as a member of Metallica in the 1980's and has over 45 soundtrack credits for various movies and wrestling promotions. Dave The Barbarian is his DTVA debut and only appearance. Howard Stern On Demand is his most recent acting credit. He has 7 acting credits, two production credits, 90 Self credits, one writing credit, and two music credits to his resume. I have no idea who voiced the purple dragon though. Flappy faints dead as the dragons poke on him for a while and then laugh their asses off. So the green dragon grabs Flappy by the arms and legs; threatening to rack him if he doesn't talk. And still racks him anyway! Anyhow; Flappy talks and I cannot understand why they are saying; but the dragons do for some reason. The dragons blow him off because dragons don't work for the man, dig. Well; that leaves Dave and Fang out; since Fang is a monkey (Fang: NOT A MONKEY! Greg: Then stop doing monkey spots!) and Dave is not a man see. So basically; the dragons try the hard sell of buttering Flappy up as a dragon who breathes fire and Flappy takes offense. The green dragon claims that they are not bigots; despite the clear implication that they hates humans; so they are bigots. So they whisper into Flappy's ear and wants them to do this favor for them as we cut back to outside with Fang and Dave waiting. Of course they have stopped selling the heat as Fang has the Gruffi pose on. Well; I should have expected this; since this era has no idea how to perform psychology properly to make it convincing and/or funny. So Flappy comes out looking really, really guilty as it stammers and Dave takes it as they have accepted them; and they can take the Night Star jewel.
Anyone with an IQ of 7 would have noticed the non-verbal cues and realize something was wrong. But Dave and Fang have a combined IQ of 5; and it's time to never buy, let alone sell. So Dave and Fang run into the cave; Lula is already not liking this idea at all. Or more accurately; she thinks the place is more tacky than dangerous. Then Fang points to a hook on the wall with a cardboard package contains the Star Of Night which is basically a night light shaped like a star. Dave claims that he doesn't see any dragons; and then the dragons show up pounding their fists in their hands in the universal sign of wanting to kick Dave's ass. I'm perfectly fine with this because RATINGS!! Flappy shows up and does nothing as Fang blows him off as a creep who set them up. So Dave and Fang ask if they are going to be eaten; and the dragons say no. Why? Because they are fire breathing dragons and eat various food containing coal like coal burgers; which in our world; that means well done BBQ burgers. Anyhow; the dragons do have plans for them anyway as Dave and Fang look frightful. Then we get the flip-flop scene changer and see Fang and Dave in neck and arm chain restraints digging coal out of some mine inside the cave. Fang proclaims that this could be worse; which Lula asks how. Fang claims that Dave could be allergic to coal; and if you cannot guess what happens next, you have no reason to watch this era of cartoons. Yip; Dave is allergic to coal complete with swollen head. Damn; he IS allergic to everything, including talent. AHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Dave drops dead as the narrator decides to cut to Flappy dressed up like a member of a hair band complete with punk purple hair and a spike collar with black leather jacket. So we HIT THE MONTAGE as they try to teach him the basics of dragon kind; and Flappy is so wimpy that he fails badly at it. He needs a spray called Essence Of Roar in his mouth; just to roar properly complete with the mouth so wide, I swear I'm watching Fanboy guzzling down FFF this way. The green dragon does have some class as he is brushing Flappy's wings to get out stubborn ketchup stains. That was cute.
So the montage is over; and other than the ketchup stains, I didn't care about them teaching Flappy how to be a dragon. Flappy is then shown torn because he feels guilty that he turned on Dave and Fang. Really? Why should I care? When Kit did the heel turn to save his new family; it meant something because (1) If Kit did what Baloo told him to do; everyone dies and Don gets the stone and destroys Cape Suzette, (2) This was the first time in at least a year where Kit actually had people loving him instead of abusing him, (3) It leads to part four where Kit turns on Don Karnage again in a move where Kit knew he would die if he did double-cross Don a second time and (4) it teased a bad ending to the show; even though it would be useless since that would end the show. Heck; Dan Green wrote several fanfics on the possible booking options this would have caused. Here; Flappy is an idiot, Dave and Fang are unlikable for the most part. They have been a family for a long-ass time; and they do not get along. And finally; it's all because Dave is an idiot who cannot keep his big mouth shut. Again; why should I care? And of course; these pathos are farted on as Flappy forgets. I'm not shocked at this at all; kids cannot stands pathos and they'll change the channel the moment they see it, amirite? Never mind that in order to have pathos; you must have likable characters to begin with. So Flappy has a one digit IQ; who cares?! So we head to outside Uodrogoth as the castle has done the splits; thus it's more likable than the entire series itself. And yes folks; in this time period; there is a ice rink (which drowns a man trying to open the door to said skating rink), a house of wax which melts; and a museum that contains stuff that explodes when hot. What a bunch of idiots?! So we cut back to the castle doing the splits; and the narrator claims that Candy is heroically trying to avert crisis by...sitting in a lawn chair and pouring a bucket of suntan lotion on her; as she is working on her tan. The absolute worst time to be out there to boot! I hope she gets skin cancer and dies; because this is so stupid, it's not funny! So Oswidge comes out with his book containing the COLD spell.
Yes folks; Oswidge is actually trying to save Uodorgoth with magic that makes sense. The useless load is actually trying to do something useful and heroic. So he does his magic and an iceberg containing penguins squashes him like a bug; then he turns into a soft serve ice cream cone, then a couple of polar bears sharing chocolate milkshakes; toasting each other. This is the funniest part of the episode and that is not saying much. So we head back to the cave of peril as the dragons are filing nails and listening to Flappy's BS stories; basically channeling Monty and Zipper in the same character. So after some more farting; it's time to torture Dave and Fang. So Fang is running a hamster wheel while Dave is dressed up like a clown; being used for the blue dragon's perverse pleasure as a marionette, and making Dave kick his own ass. This was legit funny! Why? Because; just before they tormented the humans; the blue dragon thought this would be a kick in the pants (which is a nice way of saying ass) to torment the humans. So the payoff is Dave becomes a clown/puppet and the blue dragon forces Dave to kick his own ass. See; that's funny! Flappy looks gulity; still not buying this as Dave calls Flappy a disappointment; which is outright projection, and he is made to slap himself in the face. HAHA! The dragons laugh their asses off as Flappy stares at this torment and then we HIT THE FLASHBACK~! Basically; it's Dave and Flappy being owner and dog as Flappy fails at doing stuff like catching a frisbee and a stick; and then it ends with Dave pouring a can of Dragon Yum into the doggie bowl and Flappy simply dives into the bowl to eat up; face first I might add. I did not care. We return to reality (no, not at all) and he wimpers like a baby. A tear drops from his eye; and then he gets angry. I'm sorry; I cannot take this seriously even I tried. He sprays Essence of Roar into his mouth; and then roars causing the dragons to turn around. They instantly think that he hates them for tormenting Dave and Fang. How? I don't know.
The green dragon is not amused; and then we get an annoying moment as the purple dragon sezs "Yeah" and then repeats everything the green dragon said. He claims that he does it to stop conforming to the world. I wish some kid would try that tact instead of saying why everytime an order is given; because it's so false. The reason why you do it Mr. Purple Dragon is that you are a child who thinks that you just outwited the adult giving the order; by annoying them to no end. Which of course; you didn't outwit, you just defied them; making you look like an idiot and the parent look like a totally smarty pants despite the fact that he/she as a parent is not a smarty pants. More like laffy pants; or crappy pants. See; I can joke like a child too, it's not that hard. So green dragon gets in Flappy's face; prompting Flappy to grab his brown whiskers and he PUTS OUT THE DRAGON! This has to be a rib on Darkwing Duck getting this spot from Steggmutt; because the green dragon is Drake and Flappy is Steggmutt in this role. So he throws him into the other dragons as they are lying in a heap as we go outside the cave to please the FCC as Flappy beats the holy crap out of them as the narrator just extends the joke too far about Flappy's strength. I cannot take any of this seriously; but that is the finish everyone, so live with it I guess. So the female blue dragon is on bottom (probably the only time they have done that) as the dragons all surrender on cue from the smallest babyface in the show. Okay. So Flappy releases Fang from the hamster cage; and Fang doesn't like him for turning on her, but forgives him anyway because he clobbered all three heels by himself. Dave is freed as well as Flappy grabs the Night Star as his spoils as the green dragon whines since he got that from his mother on Arbor Day; prompting Flappy to turn around and roar at them. Green dragon then begs for mercy and tells him that he can take the night light. Flappy walks out as Dave and Fang praise him; prompting Flappy to spray lighting breath into Dave's face turning his head into a burnt match. Why? Because it's in the contract that Dave must say "Kajabbers" at least once per episode.
So this whole thing was dumb; but at least it wasn't all pointless...and then Dave, Fang and Flappy come home; and Odrogoth is back to normal as if no curse ever existed. WHAT? The babyfaces enter as we see Candy in a huge dark tan inform us that she simply talked to the rednecks and they undid the spell because they love dark skinned girls. Oh my god. OH MY GOD! That is absolutely horrible as an ending! Here's why: They love dark skinned woman because these rednecks are racist, sexist morons. That's bad enough. Number two: They undid the curse and are still considered magical which is so stupid on so many levels since most rednecks either don't believe in magic; or they are basically have the curse power of Jesus basically. In other words; it's racist, sexist, dumb and renders Flappy's heoric moment (which wasn't much to begin with) absolutely pointless. If they wanted to book the ending like this: Why not just have Candy say: Well; I discovered that everything is fine; because all the Nomads did was predict a heatwave coming, and it ended, so everything's fine?! Because doing that would mean Dave is completely off the hook for his dumbassery even if it renders Flappy's heroism completely pointless; and it doesn't come off as Family Guy-equse. Yes folks; she got the curse lifted by working on her tan. Dave is pissed off at this as he slams the castle doors open; and this leads to the rednecks getting squashed by the door. Of course; Dave realizes that they are screwed up (although this was unintentional on Dave's part this time) and the rednecks pop flat from the wall (which they impacted when the door was slammed in his face) which was amusing to me. Fang yells at Dave as the rednecks declare that they will put a curse on him; and they cast this spell while cross-legged; and they invoke the curse known as Fade To Black; and we fade to black with just the eyes showing as Fang asks if this means the show is over; which Dave replies yes. That is a clear cut lie; since there is another short to come; as this ends the episode at 10:26. What a pointless episode this was?! There were a few funny moments from Oswidge and Flappy of all characters; and seeing Dave as a puppet was funny; most of this was unlikable, Flappy came off as second rate and none of this was believable. Plus; that ending really, really sucked outside of the fade to black curse which was fine. * 1/2 (30%).
Pipe Down!: We begin this one with a castle shot as we zoom in with the narrator telling us that Dave was involved in a misadventure of sharp pointy things. So we cut to the door and Dave comes out looking only half roughed as Candace after trying to bust Phineas & Ferb; but failing. Apparently; Dave pissed off Lula, which is weird since Lula usually zaps him instead of cutting him. We see Candy asks if he got it as Dave goes into the most contrived melodramatics in a long ass time as he is going on about fighting fire demons and vampire goats. So he was cosplaying a Castlevania game from the Gameboy Advance era? Okay. So Dave produces a sparkling red rose which is called the Mystic Rose Of Yourlove. Which is a neat booking name I might add. So Candy takes the rose and then proceeds to destroy it by rubbing them into her armpits and thanking Dave. Dave is PISSED off because he almost got himself killed over getting a rose just to use as a one time deodrant. Candy just sits there on a stool filing her nails saying yes he did. What an asshole?! Dan is so mad that he screams right into Candy's face proclaiming that he will never take orders from her ever again; because he is sick of Candy bossing her around. Candy orders him to get a lemonade for her; and the spot should be that Dave gets the lemonade; gives it to Candy, she drinks it and Dave realizes that he screwed himself. That's what makes it funny. Nope; this writer has no idea how to write a spot properly because Dave recoils and then gets pissed off again. This is not rocket science writer! He hates taking orders; Candy orders him to get a drink, Dave should be obeying and getting the drink and then catch himself and be pissed off. Not catching himself and just being pissed makes this completely not funny because Dave is supposed to be an idiot anyway. Fang arrives to inform us that mother and father are on the crystal ball; as we see them waving hello inside the crystal ball. They ask about the presents they were sent; and the babyfaces are all confused; asking if they came from mail.
Father claims that they have come from catapult; and the second after he said this, Dave gets squashed like a grape from a big wooden box. That was funny; I'll grant this writer that at least. Somehow; Candy knew that the presents came despite not turning around to see Dave; implying that this spot has been done to death in this world. Still; Dave as a bump machine equals ratings; so I'm perfectly fine with this. So the box is split open to reveal various objects that I don't care about; as we discover from Father that the objects are spoils from them killing evil. Those spoils are apparently from people they consider evil since Fang is showing off a kid's almond shirt which is basically one of those shirts where "They were doing X; and all I got was a lousy t-shirt"; which is never funny even to kids. Oswidge has a snow globe of a castle which is basically from Jolly Molly Christmas; except this will be forgotten, instead of being the setup to a kick ass story. There is another snow globe in the background as Candy is looking with a diamond cutter's eye on the necklace with is what seems to be a sparkling emerald; but Father proclaims that it's made from a monster's mucus, which Candy doesn't care because it's shiny. Thus evidence that Candy loves shiny things even if it's basically polishing a turd. So Dave recover and he finds...weird bagpipes which Candy calls Garglepipes; which create the loudest, most annoying music on the planet. I take offense to that. I thought the Jonas Brothers were the loudest, most annoying music on the planet. The Anti-Disney Movement said this in doublespeak; so it must be true. I think we all know where this is going now. So Dave acts all evil as Candy orders him not to play the bagpipes; which Dave takes as being bossed around like a victim; and he plays the bagpipes. You call that annoying music guys? It sounds like a tuba with a tuning fork stuck in it which makes Candy cringe. So Mother and Father wave goodbye as Fang asks if they are coming back; and the parents claim that it will be as soon as they kill all the evil in the world. They also want someone to clean Flappy's litterbox; and Dave realizes that he forgot. My reply: You guessed it.
So we head to a table with a litterbox filled with gray matter as Flappy looks at it. Flappy then drops on his ass scared because his litterbox grew purple legs like a spider and glasses like eyes with red white and black pupils; and I was hoping that it would just walk away, and Dave comes out as Flappy explains what happened. This would prompt Dave to yell: "I'm so disappointed in you Flappy. You expect me to believe that the litter box just have legs and walked away". This would be funny on SO MANY LEVELS! However; this show doesn't care about being funny because the narrator sezs no one cares and we head back to a shot of Fang feeling bad about Mother and Father not coming home. Yes; they did a pathos scene instead of paying off the comedy angle. STUPID! Yes; for once, I did not want to see pathos on this show. Candy reassures her that they will come home; which is a big fat lie. We know they'll "never" come home, wink, wink. nudge, nudge. It's too bad because Dave wants to serenade them with Garglemusic and plays the bagpipes causing Candy to scream and cover her ears. HAHA! I like this evil Dave because he has realized that he is being used and abused by Candy, who just acts like an asshole who doesn't care. So Dave plays the bagpipes while the narrator is narrating; and I was hoping the narrator would be completely drowned out during the montage; but that is not the case. So basically he blows and everyone is cringing and covering their ears; as his music breaks the nose of a sphinx; and causes the earth to separate into a 1980's world from a 65 million years ago world. It makes no sense; but that was cute at least. So he is bringing down the castle as Candy comes in and she screams; but no words come out of her mouth. Normally; I would call this a Chargeman Ken moment; but Dave did in fact drown the noise out except for the narrator, so it was funny. So Candy grabs Dave's lips; which is always amusing to watch and demands that he stop playing this music now. Dave no sells because she is bossing him around; causing Candy to whine that he is waking up the dead with this, to which Dave blows her off for being silly. HAHA!
I love it when someone points out how stupid it is to say "You are waking up the dead"; and it came from Dave THE CLEANING BARBARIAN OF LAUGHS of all people. So Dave continues to blow (on so many levels; but evil Dave does make him likable for at least this short) and then we pan down to underground as we see the tomb from Shrink Rap; and cue Brian Alvarez from his UWF Thug Assassins reviews from F4W.com:
Brian Alvarez: I'm like: no......No........NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!
Yes folks; Quosmir returns for his second appearance, and they book it as if nothing had happened to Quosmir because if you recall from Shrink Rap: When we last saw him; he left with his mother to kill the northern half of the contienent. These writers are clearly writing from descriptions of the characters; because when Karl Geurs and Jymn Magon were working on the show, they book it so that if they brought back the characters for the second time, any logic holes could be easily explained away. For example: Bullethead Baloo didn't have Oscar Vandersnoot in it despite becoming honorably president of the Jungle Aces Secret Midnight Club. That can be explained by saying: He is the honor member of the club; so he can appear whenever he wanted. Or this happened before Captains Outrageous in storyline. That makes sense. Even if Wang Films looked like an idiot with the Oscar Vandersnoot like platypus in Sheepskin Deep; it can be explained away by saying that it's another dork who Kit likes and respects. Also; it's character development in that Kit is finally making new friends after all the years of being alone with no friends and being abused by evil, heartless, poor excuses of furry beings. I hope that they explain how Quosmir got back into his coffin because if they don't, I'll be pissed! So we get the spot where Candy yells without sound as the sound is drowned out by Dave blowing (in more ways than one); and then when Dave stops blowing, Candy stops talking. That annoyed me; and then Quo rises up from the floor, and I was expecting Dave to say: "Hey; you're the guy who was with your mother destroying the northern half of the contienet; what brings you here?". Nope; he acts like he saw him once before in some place away from Udrogoth or some book or some BS. Anyway; he acts as if he saw him in a movie; and not face-to-face like in Shrink Rap. Now; I'm going to give this writer the benefit of the doubt for now, and hope he books the finish properly: The babyfaces seal him back into the coffin; and that would be that. Why? Because then I can say: "Oh! This came before Shrink Rap! This makes sense at least."
So Quo cuts his promo about wrecking havoc; and then wants to use the bathroom because he has been holding it in since 8000 BC. He bails and Candy blows off Dave for not listening to her. I betcha he sezs: "It's your fault for bossing me around all the time!". But no; she blames Dave for unleashing a monster onto the world; and Dave responds by pointing out that she left hair in the drain. Yes; this is so random and no one cares. The punchline is supposed to be "You bossed me into playing these bagpipes"; and we all say "Checkmate!". Because it makes sense. No one cares about random humor; kids are not total idiots and execs should notice this more instead of counting money. So we head out into the streets of the village near Udrogoth as Quo busts out of someone's house who apparently; has the only working toilet in the entire region. Quo is wiping his hands; making Dave look like a total moron for not realizing how heelish his gimmick is when he's the #1 babyface of the show. Quo goes into his awesome promo about making everyone love him; and then we get the gimmick of moronic moments as he is distracted by a dime; because he loves shiny things. I have seen this with Gunther in Kick Buttowski, and it wasn't funny there, and it isn't funny here. It's worse in Quo's case because he looks like a moron way too soon and thus the heel is buried again. So Quo tries to get the words out that they will suffer the consequences; but he's too dumb to do that. So the villagers foolishly help him, including one of saying that they will suffer with a bowl of chicken broth; which is funny. Quo falls for it; and then catches himself, as the other villager sezs consequences. What a dumbass?! Quo finally squashes a human on-screen and a house with someone off-screen. The human on-screen sezs the instant he is squashed that he is alive; while the one in the house off-screen states that he's not despite speaking. This is clearly a rib on BS&P; and no one cares. Then he spits the flame mucus of doom onto a house and sets it on fire. That is enough for the villagers to kneel down and do the "I'm not worthy" spot. Okay; that makes sense at least.
So Quo drops a scroll that squashes the dumb villagers and it's clearly a rib because they are alive and with legs; but they say nothing as they bail stage left. So we get a montage of basically Quo's vision of a religion which looks slightly less cool than my "religion". Carrot peelers, pizza, earwax models, houses made of skin of chocolate pudding when it sits too long gets involved in rituals and such, and a guy dressed like Fred and Barney when they go to the Water Buffalo meetings; only there are slabs of ham involved. Quo is kind of cool; and this turns him babyface actually. Most of this stuff is pretty cool; except for the carrot peeler of course. So we flip-flip scene change to Dave cleaning his bagpipes with Lula watching on. Here's a suggestion to make him reconsider his position Candy: Order Lula to zap him into a burnt match. Of Flappy; doing the same thing. So Fang and Candy come in as Fang demands that Dave put a stop to this because Quo is making a monkey out of the village. Dave thinks this is hyperbole; and it turns out that everyone is in fact a monkey as a Frank Welker voiced reads out rule number six which is everyone must dress like a monkey to priase Quo and use the proper accessories which means a banana shaped purse. See; make the joke and then pay it off. Fang blames Dave for playing the pipes; to which Dave blames Candy for bossing him around. For once; Dave passing the buck onto someone makes perfect sense because this all started because Candy made Dave nearly kill himself for a rose to use in her armpits. She deserves everything she gets for this; as Candy stammers like a complete idiot trying to pass the buck onto Dave. What was Dad and Mom thinking assigning her the kingdom? Even Flappy would be a better ruler than Candy Ass-hole. AHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! POW! OUCH! Ummmmm.... Yeah; that was a horrible thing to say; even if it was true. So of course Candy doesn't admit her guilt causing Dave to play the bagpipes again; as the wall crumbles and he gets squashed by the Jolly Green Naga. HAHA! Even when he's not at fault; he is still amusing when he gets murdered. And he sezs Kajabbers as per his contract.
So Quo notices Candy and grabs her; proclaiming that he will use her as a statement for the denizens to bow before him and praise him. Okay; I'm digging this episode now even if I have a bad feeling that they'll screw up the finish anyway. Quo leaves with Candy as Dave is hiding underneath...I cannot believe I am typing this...Fred Flintstone's car. I'm not joking. Fang demands that Dave stop Quo from destroying Candy (yes; you cannot say kill in 2004.); but he wants Fang to give him one reason why he should save her bossy sister, and Fang has got the Gruffi pose on saying that he knows the reason. Dave then grabs the Flintstone Car and gets up saying that she is right because Candy is her sister and he does love her in spite of her bossy nature. I would believe this a lot more with Baloo and Rebecca; but whatever, I've seen worse. Fang proclaims that he likes his reason better than having her rip his head off and use the head as a volleyball. Fang is wrong! Dave's head being used as a volleyball would be a million times better. So we head to the square on stage with Candy tied up to a pole as we pan up to Quo proclaiming that this is a demonstration of what happens when they defy Quo; in which we get a logic break: The Frank Welker voice states that it's consequences again; and he was the same guy who dressed up like a monkey. Instead of making sure that they were in monkey suits before this demonstration: they just reused a spot from earlier in the episode. STUPID! So Quo announces that he'll use his magical powers to destroy Candy. Which means; he'll probably just steal her crown and boot her out of the kingdom. Sadly; he is more concerned about bringing out a top hat and pulling out a rabbit, which he does on the first try. He rubs his face and then talks Japanese to say goodbye. In comes Dave and Fang; Dave calls him a fiendish fiendy fiend, which tells me who was scripting Bartz's lines in Final Fantasy V Advance. Dave proclaims that he would stop him from killing Candy if Candy apologizes. Which is a reasonable thing to say. Candy does the worst non-apology in history; and does it in such a sarcastic manner that Quo is not buying this at all. Ninja, please!
Dave agrees with Quo as Candy finally apologizes and promises to try to not boss him around as much as she used to. In any other universe; she's hosed, but Quo proclaims that this is the best he is going to get. So Dave accepts it like an idiot. Oh well; Candy cannot be killed for obvious reason, but she is still unlikable. So Dave brings out Lula and she uses the Wii Blue Zap of Doom on Quo; Quo no sells the shot. HAHA! So Lula is offended and does a system check on her sword (Yeah right); and Dave gets zapped in the head turning into a burnt match. HA! So Dave gets squashed and sezs Kajabbers again. Fang cuts a promo and bites Quo's tail; and Quo no sells it. He grabs his tail and flicks Fang off of the tail (What is this "no male on female contact" BS&P crap Nightflight keeps talking about?) and she goes flying a lot. Then she does the round of world spot which they don't bother showing the globe; they just did a scene changer. Weak! Fang takes a MAN-SIZED bump into the ground and tells Dave that she soften him up. Sure you did Fang; and then Oswidge shows up. He cuts a promo; and this is the first time he has spoken since turning himself into an ice-cream cone eight minutes into the first episode of this segment. Oswidge claims that he got a bikini wax and Dave is repulsed. Why him? I thought he loved this sort of thing? Shouldn't Fang be the one repulsed? God; this is stupid. Oswidge gets out the wand and chants a magic spell. The wand beam hits Quo in the kisser and he now has Circus Afro before that became an item on some CGI movie I don't care about. So Quo loves it because it cured his male pattern baldness; and Oswidge is not amused at all. So they get grabbed as he proclaims that he'll destroy them and Candy. Then he sees the shiny mucus object around her neck ansd grabs it because he is distracted by shiny object. So of course this is going to play into the finish with; which is fine now because they set up the joke and they are going to pay it off. That's good booking actually.
So here's the finish: The babyfaces except Dave distract Quo after he stammers on what he is going to do after he kills them; which includes training circus animals. Dave slips out and grabs the bag of trinkets Mother and Father gave them. He taunts Quo and does the "leave a trail of shiny things" on the ground as Dave walks Quo back to the castle and into the room where the hole is where Quo has entered. This is the point where I said: "YES! They are going to book the finish properly! Sort of.". So Dave needs one more shiny object to drive Quo into the hole; but he has run out of shiny objects and panics. Then Fang arrives with the bagpipes which horrifys Dave; but he can do nothing to stop it as Fang throws the pipes into the hole. Quo is an idiot and he dives into the hole after it. And I'm perfectly fine with this finish because at least I can say that it happened before Shrink Rap; although there are a number of quotes that bring that into question, but at least they didn't redo the finish from Shrink Rap which I was fearing this show would do. There is one really horrible moment in this: Oswidge arrives with a cement mixer and pours cement into the hole. That in itself is stupid; but it sealed up the hole; but it should have also crushed Quo since even quick dry cement would have fallen onto the ground in which Quo was standing underneath the hole. I blame that more on BS&P than the writer in this case. Quo protest this outrage and then stammers like an idiot; proceeding to finally become a circus trainer after teasing inventing the Dewey Decimal System. That would have been funnier actually. Of course we have a small lion going through the hoops; and that is that. So Oswidge gets inbetween Dave and Candy as he demands them to stop ruining this castle and behave like civilized barbarians. BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! That is the defintion of oxymoron. Dave of course promises to stop having a fight with Candy; and Candy simply proclaims that they will be fighting again, like an asshole. What a shock?! So they exchange playground level insults; which is in this time, average adult level insults. So we end the episode at 10:02 with Dave looking pissed off. Then we cut away with the litterbox monster grabbing Flappy and dragging him into the litterbox while being choked out which would be cut in Digimon and WWE content after 2007. Narrator proclaims that this story might be told now; and then sezs the end causing Flappy's eyes to go wide in horror. Well; this episode was better than it had any right to be; so ** 1/2 (50%).
THE REVIEW LINE
Well; we have a whiplash of shorts this time around. Pipe Down was a lot better than I thought it would. I thought that they would redo every spot in Shrink Rap and make everyone look like an idiot. Now granted; there was a lot of stupid booking in explaining this; but at least the finish made sort of sense even if they screwed it up quite a bit. With that all said; the middle of this episode was really good and I actually sympathized with Dave because the setup for this made Candy look like the worst human being on the planet who didn't give a damn about Dave's well being. Quo was actually really good; even if his love for shiny objects was moronic in it's own way. So in the end; I was perfectly fine with this episode and Oswidge's civilized barbarian line was a riot to hear. Here, There Be Dragons was actually the bad episode in this set. Oswidge and Flappy had some good moments; and the storyline was fine until the ending when it was rendered completely pointless when Candy simply convince them to uncurse them. On the other hand; it did make the opening scene in Pipe Down look apporos as a setup; so there was something good out of it. As a standalone episode; it was pointless. It also didn't help that it took a tan to convince the Nomads (who are basically redneck stereotypes in this episode) to uncurse the kingdom; implying that they like black woman basically and was used as a plot device. Didn't like it at all. So Dragons was a ** 1/2 episode with a -* ending basically. So I have finally finished 10 shorts of Dave The Barbarian and I can safely say that this show is better than Kick Buttowski in it's first run (I mean two **** episodes back to back is saying something about Dave); but it is below the standards of Fish Hooks and Phineas & Ferb. So far anyway. Next weekend is Natal long weekend as I'll be doing FIVE half hour segments; which is basically the same amount I have done in the last month or so. So....
Thumbs down for Here, There Be Dragons and thumbs in the middle for Pipe Down and I'll see you all next time.