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Dave The Barbarian: Fiends & Family/Plunder Ball
Reviewed: 09/13/2014
Plunder The Fiends & Their Family!
Well; I guess we have to do this at some point as we are nearing the end of the road for Dave and his family as Fang has had enough of waiting for her parents and cries a lot while Chuckles is trying to steal a skull that turns you into cheese. Then from there; it's time to play Plunder Ball and the coaches for these teams are Dave The Barbarian and Princess Irmaplotz. I am so loving this later short already. Let's rant on shall we...?!
Fiends & Family is written and story edited by Doug Langdale. Plunder Ball is written and story edited by Evan Gore and Heather Lombard. The animation is done by Wang Films.
Opening Moment #1: Castle crumble shot of the day: a jello fruitcake. The last time I saw that was in the final episode of To The Rescue from Rescue Rangers and I couldn't take that thing seriously even if I tried. Dave, Fang and Oswidge are encased in jello in case you didn't notice. It's also green too.
Fiends & Family: We begin this one inside Udrogoth Castle as the door opens and it's...King Throktar yelling that he's home as Fang is sitting on a chair looking depressed. Of course she is; there is no music playing! So Fang is so happy that she tackles Throktar and as she is about to knock him on his back...the footage stops. The narrator questions this moment and then rewinds the footage to a few days ago to show the Great Indoor Marketplace is perfectly intact after the Evil Souffle of Death destroyed it in Bad Food. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Damn those writers! So we head to Bogmelon's Slightly Defective Trinkets and Notions with Bogmelon at the desk (which looks more like a chair) and Candy. There is a set of purple shoes with fuzzy purple socks in them; with some gold painted on the top of the shoes. The purpose of this scene is that Candy and Bogmelon are haggling over the price of the shoes. Of course Candy is so stupid that she pays 90 Dracos for the shoes even though Bogmelon offered them for 80 Dracos. Ummm; when Goofy does this, it's because he is so dense that chairty comes before ego. Candy has a huge ego without the chairty, thus this makes her look ignorant. Evidence #1: She actually realizes that she was duped; even though she was the one who duped herself. She's more defective in the head than Bogmelon's trinkets and notions. Then we cut to inside the castle as Fang is stomping on a cabbage to make coleslaw...allegedly. She does have good energy here; and then we cut to some room inside the castle as Dave is painting. Not quite actually. He is doing animation; which he calls a Flippy-Doodle. Aw! That sounded so cute that Flappy shoots thunder breath through the animation and burns Dave's head into a match head, causing him to say Kajabbers barely a minute in. The drawing was a crappy drawing of Flappy by the way. Then Oswidge shows up at the door to inform Dave that Throktar and Glimia are on the crystal ball. Dave is sort of happy and then we head to the room with the crystal ball on the table. All the babyfaces are there as Fang is so happy to see them. YAY!
Candy just wants to know if they bought anything for her. BOO! HISS! So we see on the crystal ball that the king and queen (whom I had to go to Wikipedia AGAIN because I forgot their names) are in scuba gear with long pipes coming from their helmets in front of a giant clam. Oooo; I can guess what the next spot is without thinking twice. They are underwater in the Atlantic Ocean and they do in fact have an echoing effect while talking. I mention this because many anime dubs still do not take this into account in certain scenes. So basically they confirm that this is the final area where they need to fight evil. Against a giant clam. Riiiiiggggghhhhhtttttt. Fang is so happy because this means they come home and she can stop being a psychopath. However; the king & queen basically say that they cannot come back because they makes kids change the channel if they do that..ERR.. I mean; evil has popped up in the first location and thus they must fight evil again. BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Is anyone buying this angle? Even kids? Anyhow; Dave misses them and the two absent parents of doom proclaim that they will be back once all the evil is killed off again. Crystal ball dies and everyone is not happy at all; but Fang is hugging the crystal ball and she then goes on a tirade because screw this some day crap; she wants them back NOW! Earth to Fang: You are supposed to be a badass warrior. Why not just look for them yourself? Apparently; she likes it when she is told not to bite the heads off stuff, just to show us the extent of her psychopathy. She demands that they come back NOW; and then she starts crying. Now; there is nothing wrong with crying and if it breaks her from her psychopathic gimmick, I'm all for it. The problem is: Why should I care when she was perfectly capable of finding them herself? If Fang was completely hapless; instead of being hapless for the sake of being a joke (like that episode when Fang tricked Dave into going to a boot camp to become a legit barbarian); then this emotion would be totally understandable.
But she's not hapless. She can fight as long as the writers allow her to. Just join your deadbeat parents and spare the audience the pain of the family having to console her for the next five minutes; which we all know from the summary that this is going to happen. She runs off and Tress's crying is so not believable that I'm shocked. I really am. So we head to the mountains of doom (which shows that yes; these writers somehow have psychic powers and can see my writing style somehow. Or maybe it's because TaleSpin did it so long ago and no one cares.); and pan over to Chuckles The Silly Piggy and a giant green troll on a cliff. The narrator tells us that Chuckles has made a shocking discovery. Anyone who has watched two episodes of this series knows where this is going and knows it's a cheap laugh. Speaking of laughing; thanks Chuckles. Thunderbolts ensue as Chuckles proclaims that he has found the "Emerald Skull Of A Choosing" which is in fact a neon green skull. Yes; for once they didn't turn it into a cheap joke for the kids to laugh at. They have overplayed that hand so much now that no one is taking this seriously, even if we are supposed to take it seriously this time. Chuckles claims that the skull has great power according to legend. Which is giving rock solid abs for only three minutes a day. So this is where Nintendo got the idea for the North American title to Brain Age. Not the stupidest joke in the world; but still not funny. Then Chuckles sniffs the area and then speaks in French which I think he claims that it smells like stinky rancid cheese. Because the next promo; he claims that anyone who touches the green skull turns into solid cheese. So he calls his goblin lackey in to basically touch the skull so he can spring the trap so to speak. You can guess what happens next, and it is actually funny so at least the payoff to this scene did work. Chuckles blows them off for giving them dental coverage, which is also funny. So we head to Chuckle's evil lair with the sign of the day reading: Parking In Rear. HAHA! I actually get the double entrande joke here. When the fart joke is subtle or actually fun, it's funny.
I hate to defend Fanboy & Chum Chum here; but them doing Beethoven's Fifth in armpit farts was legit funny and fun to watch. It was creative and really special because it was the first time that they came off as legit creative; and not annoying assholes like they usually are. So we head inside Chuckle's room (with the Kevin Michael Richardson voiced Mirror of Vision) as he ponders over who will get the skull for him and a green fly flies straight into the lightbulb of bloody clairty; as Chuckles goes over to the mirror asking where to find that skull. So the neon green ghost like fact blows him off and complains about being in a tacky framed mirror with no neck. Chuckles blows him off and the face shows him Udrogoth. Why was this neccessary? It was obvious that Chuckles wants Dave to touch the skull and turn to cheese because he's his enemy in storyline. Even people who are watching this the first time don't have to use their brains to know that it's going to be the main babyfaces. Chuckles wonders how to get want he wants if the babyfaces thwart him at every turn; in which the face appears and blows him off again and then shows Dave trying to cheer Fang up; failing so badly that I need a drink after watching this. So Chuckles then sees Fang leave and he proclaims that he can convince them to get the stone by channeling Chameleon with his ruby amulet as he is going to be Thorktar himself; complete with Chuckle mannerisms of laughing. So we head to the castle as Fang is lying on the dining room table with her head sticking out onto the floor; so yes, she is trying to commit suicide by falling on her head. That is a fools errand. So the narrator explains that the babyfaces are trying to cheer her up; as I realize that this is another media res episode with a dumb flashback. So Twinkle GUNPLAY~ arrives with a really ancient record player as he cuts his usual awesome promo as he turns on the record player and sings. AWESOME! It involves red hot pokers by the way. Fang snaps Twinkle's lip and he gets slingshoted into some wall off-screen with a decent bump that makes no sound AGAIN. This show must be mocking Chargemen Ken; otherwise this is dumb.
So we see Twinkle with his front lip tied in knots; and he cuts a promo about her criticism of his singing. She has no taste in sadist pleasure singing and music. So Dave comes in as he has a special treat for her; and apparently, Twinkle is written out via teleport. Dammit! Lula acts like the cocky prick that she is by claiming that a root canal would be a treat compared to Twinkle singing. F*** YOU LULA! To think; she was growing on me as a character and now she's back to being an asshole again. So Fang is put in a wooden chair as Dave goes over to the orange cover and uncovers it to reveal a giant ass sized easel with paper with Oswidge and Candy playing the drums and what appears to be bagpipes. I betcha this one has real cats in it too; just to up the creepy level of this Flippy-Doodle. Since there are instruments of a musical nature involved with this spot, it's TEDDY RUXPIN SONG OF DOOM time! Or not; because the drums and bagpipes are only for sound effects. So we start the Flippy-Doodle with Fang as Dave of course has her wearing shoes for this doodle. Scene change to a tugboat on the water with a bicycle horn on top. Why? Why not?! So we basically parody Steamboat Willie with humans; which is considered by many to be Mickey Mouse's first appearance. So Pete Oswidge is threatening to murderize Mickey Fang...and keep in mind; that this is the first time in a long time I have heard the word murder in any context. So there is a tiny hole on the ship; and it's Candy doing Mickey Fang's voice by the way as we get visual aids of her staring at the hole. Why? Why not?! Pete Oswidge has a peg leg and runs as if his legs was a normal human leg. Pete gets his pegleg caught into the hole; Mickey jumps him and kicks the living crap out of Pete off-screen and then we see about three or four jump cuts within this scene as Fang is not amused at all. So we see that Pete is broken and in the hospital with a broken arm, and a broken peg leg (I think); as Mickey Fang is going "Haw haw haw!"; and then we jump cut to a shot of The End written in sharpie. This was not amusing and kudos to Fang for not selling it either. Dave and company look dumb as usual.
So Dave no longer knows what to do and then the door opens and in comes Chuckles The Silly Thorktar Mime~! He yells "I'm home" and Fang jumps on him with glee. The only logic break to this was they used Chuckle's voice to mimic Thorktar instead of just giving him Thorktar's voice. I'm guessing that the writers just felt that the kids in the audience won't see the logic break because they already know it's not Thorktar. Memo to writers: Try. Try to make it sound like Thorktar by having Thorktar voice the fake. Even if we already know it's not because then you made the media-res beginning make total scene. It's not that hard to do since both the king and queen were in the same episode and one of them is voiced by the same guy who does Oswidge's voice, WHO WAS IN THE SCENE DURING THIS TIME! So we get the pause of death so the narrator can inform us that indeed; this will be done in the present tense from now on. So we resume the episode as Fang does drop Chuckletar on his ass as Fang asks where Glimia is and Chuckletar claims that she will be back in a couple of days because she's parking. What is she parking? The catapult? That makes no sense; and blows your cover. Of course; the babyfaces are lacking in brain power so much that they accept that answer without question. So then we HIT THE MONTAGE of Chuckletar sitting on the throne while during Chuckles impersonations. Sadly; they are not nearly as funny as when Chuckles is the Silly Piggy rather than the Silly Mime of Throktar. And Chuckles hates meat products related to his anthromorphic image. Again; it's funnier when Chuckles Is The Silly Piggy. Dave brought them in on silver platter in case you wanted to know. So we head back to inside the throne room as Chuckletar demands tha they steal the Emerald Skull Of A Choosing; which Oswidge calls foul on because it was Throktar who hid the skull so no one could get it. Well Oswidge; Throktar isn't a very good hider if Chuckles could easily find it by himself with only two lackies. Chuckletar blows them off and pretty much blows his cover; to which Chuckletar tries to state that he is not an imposter...
Dave then accuses Chuckletar of being an imposter to the king even invoking the POINTY FINGER OF DEATH. Yes; Dave, the dumbest barbarian on the planet (and that is saying something) and he grew a brain and figured out that it's Chuckles in a "You wish you were Chameleon" disguise. So the babyfaces try to rush in to murder Chuckletar; and then Fang invokes the LEGAL HAND OF GOD and shames them into daring to question Chuckletar's intergrity. Fang's IQ is zero now; I should have known. I mean; he talks like Chuckles, he acts like Chuckles, he laughs like Chuckles, he acts evil like Chuckles, Glimia is nowhere to be found, no transportation whatsoever to park. Is Fang treating Kit Cloudkicker's "It cannot be a pig because pigs aren't allowed in this jungle" paraphrase in The Bigger They Are, The Louder They Oink as a documentary? This sounds a lot funnier than I had intended by the way. So the babyfaces protest this outrage and Fang refuses to yield and calls for the guards; who appear with spears and blue ties; but no shirts. Fang orders them to throw them in the dungeon and the guards use the spears to force the babyfaces to walk off stage left to the dungeon. Yeah; she trusts Chuckletar as Chuckletar calls him Claw; so at least Chuckletar isn't calling her a monkey yet. So they will go for the skull; and the babyfaces are in the dungeon as they do the old style digging their way out of prison which is done a million times before and never works. Then Candy gets a great moment by showing off the WCW KEY OF DOOM as she hid it underneath a welcome mat in prison. That was great; and then the joke got ruined when Oswidge and Dave blew it off because their plan was to go to New Zealand and Taiwan and dress up in cactus suits. Sadly; that plan is funnier and Candy is not amused. Yes; it is AFTER HAPPY HOUR (after dark), why do you ask? Cut to the mountains of doom complete with sunset and purple crescent moon. Yeah. We head inside the cave where the emerald skull of a choosing (which means emerald skull of cheese now according to the writers) as Chuckletar is showing off the skull to Fang while cutting a promo.
So Fang and Chuckletar hug (which Chuckletar almost blows his cover again) and then Chuckletar tells her to grab the skull for him. Fang isn't so sure because Oswidge told him that anyone who touches it is turned into cheese. Then Fang waves it off because Chuckletar wouldn't allow her to do anything dangerous. After all the episodes of acting like a psychopath, and doing really stupid and dangerous stuff, NOW we are supposed to take that statement seriously. If I were Fang; I would simply tip the skull off the pillar and let it drop into a basket. That way; she doesn't have to touch it. Of course there is no basket; so Fang is stupid as I expected her to be. So we get an awful long sequence as Fang slowly walks to the skull; Chuckletar then gets a pathos moment as he calls Fang a little girl (which is true) going to her doom for the love of her father. Chuckletar then proclaims that it almost melts his evil heart....but not quite. HAHA! Good one Chuckletar, good one. So Fang is about to touch the skull and then stops because Dave yells at her too. So everyone turns around and we see the family bounce in. Why "bounce in" you ask? Because the family are dressed up in cactus suits which are planted in pots. Only Dave The Barbarian could do this and make it funny. Actually I'm wrong. Darkwing Duck can also make this funny too. However; it's perfectly fine for Dave to do it since the Jim Cornette rule has expired on this planting pot gimmick anyway. Dave yells at her to not touch it; Chuckletar order her to ignore him and grab the skull. So Fang is confused (why? She has already decided to side with Chuckletar, so why?) for a while as we go back and forth with Dave and Chuckletar yelling. Finally Fang picks Chuckletar and goes to touch the statue again. Then Chuckletar laughs and calls Fang a monkey. UH OH! Chuckletar is so going to get his ass kicked, even if Throktar is real here and not Chuckles in a poorly concealed disguise.
Fang stops; turns around and yells "NOT A MONKEY" slowly; and then uses her spear to whack the skull right at Chuckletar. Chuckletar grabs it and his head turns back to normal along with the rest of the body; and then he turns into WUZZLE CHEESE. Half chedder and half swiss; because the animators have no idea what swiss cheese actually looks like. Even in processed cheese slices, Swiss is white in color in real life. So Chuckles claims that this looks good; and then the mice with forks and knives come out causing Fang to panic and run out of the cave with the mice following him in that order. Yeah; it was another joke idol, what a shock?! So Fang doesn't apologize for throwing them in the dungeon; but feels bad. Dave, Oswidge bounce in and try to cheer her up and make it up to her. Dave has a way to do this and it's difficult to take any of this seriously when he is a cactus in a pot. We then segueway to Fang looking glum to suddenly feeling great as they do another Flappy-Doodle featuring Throktar and Glimia as the drawings. It's funny how they still sound like Oswidge and Candy even though the same voice that does Oswidge and Candy also does Throktar and Glimia. So basically they blow off Fang for dirtying his battle axe and heading heads off bugs. Fang apologizes and throws the bug away as we see Wuzzle Chuckles running away from the mice inside the castle for no reason. Why not?! That ends the episode at 10:26. Chuckles carried the entire episode by the way. It was fine; but I cannot care about Fang anymore after this crap. Call it ** 1/2 (50%).
Plunder Ball: We begin this one with the empty streets of Udrogoth and the GIM is empty with only sheets flying. The narrator tells us that it's not due to a curse of a hideous monster eating them; it's because all of Udrogoth watches something called Plunder Ball. Yes; this is Dave The Barbarian's answer to American style football: Make a game look like American style football, using World style footballs (soccer balls without checkered patterns on them), and the rules are that the only rule in Plunder Ball is to sneak into the end zone, grab as many balls as you can and run back to your side without getting killed. Yeah, and the Udrogoth team is wearing a lot of blue, which is used to accent the blue sky that never seems to exist in this series. So anyway; they are in a football stadium; and it's the annual game between Udrogoth and Hydrogoth; which the opposition is a bunch of human hating zombies who can squash you like a bug. These must be friends of Fang then; since when it comes to bug, Fang is a comptemble ghoul. So then we cut to the bench and take one guess who is the top notch coach of this team who are running away from the zombies like a bad Scooby-Doo cartoon. Yeah. Dave's cheer is hilarious along with his banana yellow/cyan hat and golden whistle. Dave is always a giant tool in this series; and he looks even more so this time around. The narrator goes oh dear on this and we HIT THE FLASHBACK~! We see the two original coaches trash talking each other in the village of Udrogoth. One of them has the full mustache/beard combo with a red and black baseball cap; while the other one is wearing the same hat that Dave is wearing only with a blue shirt. Both are wearing golden whistles around their necks. Their trashtalking is so BS&P that I wanted to see them turned into corn chowder by Princess Irmaplotz. And they do turn into bowls of corn chowder. Did I mention that both coaches have pet dogs? The blue shirt coach has a poodle by the way. The red shirt coach get licked by the brown dog and it talks saying that it tastes like coach. This is awkward.
This segment ends with a shot of the tower of the castle in Hydrogoth as the evil Princess Irmaplotz is laughing badly and that laugh has actually improved somewhat. So we slice into the scene changer as we head to the throne room in Uodrogoth with Oswidge reading a scroll while Candy sits in the throne chair in way that she couldn't care less about anything that happens in this episode. Did I mention that one of the players is Fang? Did I mention that Fang is wearing a skirt with the banana yellow/cyan blue colors? Did I mention that Dave thinks Plunderball is a Swedish dish; in which Fang claims that they are doomed? Come on Fang; you cannot be doomed. Only Nintendo is truly doomed. They have said that about that company for ages now; because they can seriously believe that nothing lasts forever and therefore they will win the game in the end. Never mind that it applies to everyone and is serious projection. I will likely die before Nintendo goes out of business officially even without my health issues from diabetes and being very, very big. Candy claims that they were doomed because they never won a game in 500 years. So they are Nintendo in the dark ages? Creepy! Fang claims that it's different this time because this world is basically a barbaric version of the modern age. They have toys which are sold by Bogmelon of course because only Bogmelon would be stupid enough to support a team that hasn't won in 500 years. I should mention this: Oswidge was saying in the scroll that the replacement coach must be the oldest son of the king's family, so it was Dave by default. You know; I would not be upset if Fang was the coach, because then she can kick ass and scream at them for not allowing her to do so. Did I mention that Bogmelon sells noise makers that are ducks, foam fingers made of rocks and t-shirt that completely bury the team before they can get on the field. So Fang accepts Dave as the coach and Dave jumps for joy in a contrived way and calls it plunger ball. Actually; a game where you fire plungers at balls would be perversely entertaining. Fang blows him off and Dave doesn't care because this show sucks sometimes.
So we see that Princess Irmaplotz is in fact spying on them from her cauldron stating that she is coaching the Hydrogoth team and cue contrived evil laugh again. Then cue smoke and in comes Queen Zolthara (another name I had to go to Wikipedia to remember who her name was. I can remember Fanboy & Chum Chum's names, I can remember even some of the Breadwinner names; but I cannot remember three characters from a show I have ranted on for the last three months or so. That's a bad sign right there) demanding answers to this outrage; and she hopes the answer is crappy. That actually makes sense from a heel standpoint. Irma proclaims that she wants to get her revenge on Dave despite the fact that Dave made a quilt with rubber duckies on it. Awwwww! My heart melted. In more ways than one here. Zolt has to approve this plan; I want to see Irma kicking Dave's ass for thinking that he can get away with breaking Irma's heart by sending her hand knitted quilts with rubber duckies on them. She rips the quilt in two (YAY!) as she wants revenge for Dave dumping her because she is evil. How can anyone take her seriously as a heel? I'm taking her seriously; but she is a BABYFACE in my eyes! Dave dumped her because she is evil before she did anything evil to him. That's bigotry! That's a heel move. So we head to the stadium with the Uodrogoth team in their silly banana yellow/cyan blue uniforms and helmets; as this is basically a college football game from the 1930's. This would be perfect in TaleSpin; but not here unless you have it as Plunder Ball. Worse; if Dave was the coach all the time and he selected the style of the uniforms, that would be hilarious; but these colors have been used well before Dave became coach. DUMB! So the team consists of Fang and the entire guard of the castle. No wonder this team sucks so much; only Fang has a fighting chance. So they are running on the spot for a while on grass. They are also wearing elbow and knee pads because BS&P rules. At least this makes sense here (and it's a clone of Hagar The Horrible, so it's fine) unlike American Dragon Jake Long with his helmet on while flying. Dave comes in and blows the whistle. Yeah.
This my friends is going to be fun to watch on both sides of the plunder balls if you catch my drift. Oh; and I am totally wrong because the sky is indeed blue for this event. The training for this is hilarious: They do string knitting with colored shoe laces. Then they walk in a circle around a spear with colored ribbons which the teammates have in their hands while walking in a circle. Dave is playing a tune up guitar like musical instrument. I don't know what it is; but you wind up the thing and this was funny. The teammates selling of this was so fitting that I feel like I'm in a part of Thembria that isn't icy. Then the teammates have to listen to Dave's Spirit Song of Death. This was as hilarious as it sounds. Fang has the Gruffi pose on full blast and is not buying this crap. I cannot believe I'm saying this; but I like Dave The Barbarian, the character now on a regular basis. Sure; he's not the best character in the world; but he is now becoming extremely likable. This is why you don't start the series with him cleaning because you make the kids change the channel too early and they never look back. At this point; it's all right to do a cleaning gimmick because your show is going to be ending soon. The creators have this ass backwards. Dave's motions and singing is so awesomely bad that I cannot help but laugh at it. It ends with him yelling Go Team and then he lands on his ass on the ground and farts. The team has no earthly idea how to sell this. This was great; this was just great. The only way this could be better than the Jungle Aces fight song or at least as good as the Cape Suzette fight song from Sheepskin Deep: Twinkle does this sequence while cutting his usual promo. Why didn't the writers consider it? Because they suck sometimes. The eye blinking sound ruined it somewhat however as Fang stuffs a ball into Dave's mouth and gets in his face because he knows Buttkiss about plunderball. I'm certain it's not Buckus because Mr. Buckus wasn't even born yet and this happened well BEFORE Buckus was even born in the future instead of well into the past! Dave spits the ball out and blows off Fang for being a Debbie Downer basically.
Then Dave brings an out of nowhere platter containing the most colorful frosted cupcakes I have ever seen since Fishing For Compliments: The Albert Glass Story from Fish Hooks. Which is of course seven years into the future, more or less. Dave even remembered to have the cupcakes tops to have the likeness of all the plunderball players. This causes the players to run in and Dave cuts them off and claims that they can only have theirs if they win the game. That was both funny, stupid and creepy at the same time. Dave is really approaching "Disco Inferno WWA Village People's Elbow" levels in this episode. Fang blows it off because it's epic fail coaching; but we see the team mates are suddenly motivated to win the game because they want their cupcake. Now THAT is an effective way to get your team to actually give a damn about this game and actually try to win for the first time in 500 years. That is great booking actually. The one with the golden tooth and missing tooth sounds like Patrick Pinney and Mr. Krabs mixed together. Rimshot! Fang can only say that she hates him so much now. Yeah; because Dave is winning by not using toxic machoism and Fang is failing to win because she is using toxic machoism. The irony is thick in this show as we scene change to a sky shot of the stadium. So we head to the booth with a brown haired guy in a suit doing play by play for this match. Color is provided by an old man with male baldness wearing the most cheesiest cheese color suit he could find and has a serious case of yellow eye. He looks absolutely miserable as the announcer is claiming that the Udrogoth team is doing some unusual training for this match; which leads to the team playing the child's game of paddycake. That made me laugh. So then the announcer uses the wooden binoculars and notices the monster with the bag walking up and giving out body parts for the monsters to put on; including a monster's head. So yes; beheading is still allowed in DTVA. So then the white haired man speaks on the microphone and we get the most absurd moment in history as he claims that this game is marred in controversy because parents outside are protesting...Sounds fine right?
Well; they are protesting outside in a non-violent way because they want MORE violence in Plunderball! Apparently; the monsters squashing the babyfaces is not enough violence for them. The irony of this is so thick that I swear to god that the PTC must have hated this show because it's the only reason why they even did this spot. So we cut to the bench with Candy and Oswidge as Oswidge is trying on the concrete foam finger and yells we're number...and then the cement foam finger screws him and takes a back back into the ground off the bench. Idiot. Dave is standing next to the water bucket as he proclaims that he has confidence in winning this game. Yeah; I'll bet. Lula blows him off and wants him to notice that Princess Irmaplotz is coaching the team. Dave looks and he notices her complete with Martial Arts Zoom In Of Death. This causes Dave to mess up his hair, say Kajabbers and acts as if he wants to impress her. Yes; Dave is trying to convince us that he wasn't a bigot all along for dumping her. Epic failure infinity! Lula's response is that he looks like a shaved baboon stuffed in arms filled with watermelons. Wow; she managed to stuff Larry Z and two racial insults in one sentence. Well done Lula, well done. Not. By the way; one of the players on Irmaplotz's team is a pale white version of her with U style hair and a green dress. Seriously! Where this would be constructed as cheap drawing; this actually looks like artistic irony. The narrator then proves my point because Dave should fear them because Irmaplotz is whispering into her friends' ear (according to the narrator); and then they point and laugh at him, like Ed Brayton does with hundreds of right wingers; mostly Larry Klayman. This causes Dave to go into the fetal position and shake like a leaf. He is basically a timid bunny rabbit; like in that TMNT 1987 episode where Shredder took over the city by turning everyone into people who act scared all the time. That was great. Even better; as Dave drops down; there is a banner of Chuckles selling hotdogs. That was funny as I thought it would be.
Since Dave is completely useless (Geez; just now Mr. Weagle?) the Hydrogoth monsters completely murder the living crap out of the Udrogoth players and run straight into the end zone just seconds after the whistle blows. They grab balls and run back towards their end zone. So they score 32 balls within seconds and then we get the monsters doing a double team trip on two Udrogoth players and grabbing balls. One of the ghouls has five balls and Fang runs in to tackle him; but the monster splits in two the second Fang grabs him and goes right through the ghoul and lands flat on her face. Fang is confused as I am as the ghoul makes it into the end zone for 20 balls; thus a 52-0 lead. Bowling ball spot occurs as the monster with the headless head uses his head as a bowling ball to trip one of the babyface players; so this team's defense isn't as great as the score indicates. Cut to the bench with Candy and Oswidge sitting through another monster squash of doom as Oswidge is gasping in horror while Candy couldn't care less and is filing her nails. Oswidge blows off the official claiming that there was an illegal use of the head; in which the referee comes in and demands to know who used the head to two monster in one of them is headless. This referee has really bad vision if he couldn't see this act clear as day. And while I'm on this subject: There are RULES in this game? I thought that the only rule in this game was to go get the balls and come back and this is not illegal. Bogmelon is selling the t-shirts on the field just to bury them further. So then Fang comes up to Dave and asks if he is even watching this game. Dave's complex answer is simply...nope. So Fang takes Dave's left ear and opens it wide in order for Fang to climb inside Dave's eardrum and then screams right into Dave's tiny brain in his head. And worse (for her); she is stuck in his eardrum. What an idiot?! Basically Fang proclaims that if he doesn't win this game; they will hate him and his coaching. Dave no sells because everyone already hates him. I thought that Fang would threaten him with "If we don't win; the barbarian teammates will kill you because they cannot have their cupcakes!". That would make sense.
However; that is not what the writers went for. Fang claims that they will hate his Maple Dance of Doom; and that is enough to piss off Dave The Barbarian. Because you see; the opinion of some stupid dance is more important than a meatball on a pizza and proper english pronounctions. WHAT?! Yeah; that is enough to push Dave over the edge and he runs in on his own with Fang still stuck in his ear. This cooled down the whole joke that they were shooting for. So he goes into the locker room and comes back in football gear. Yes; he is going to enter the game himself. Thankfully; he is not going to play with Fang in his ear as he pops her from his ear. Fang cheers for Dave; and then we get Dave tackling through the frontline with ease with one ball in his hands. Yes; after all the episodes of being a coward and being useless, dissing his favorite dance managed to make him into the bravest guy in the world. Remember that for the offensive spot later on. Irmaplotz is on the sidelines with the Gruffi pose on and with at least two ghould inbetween her. Irmaplotz is pissed off and she enters the game wearing a grey helmet that makes her look like she came in WITHOUT a helmet. So Dave has a dozen balls and in comes Irmaplotz heading right straight for Dave and the hard camera. They have intensity in their eyes as they meet each other; and then we get the funniest moment of the episode: Dave stops selling and sezs "ladies first". Irma pulls the helmet over his eyes; steals the balls and puts them in the end zone causing Udrogoth to be down 146-0. AWESOME! Irmaplotz's dance after she scored was awesome too. So Dave turns around and now he's PISSED off. So Dave goes through the monsters and lays them out into a heap of body parts. He goes into the end and steals about two dozen balls. He runs toward Irmaplotz as she tries to defend Dave; but Dave cannot see her and runs into her causing Irma to do the whirlwind spot and be in worse shape than Candace after trying to bust the boys in Phineas & Ferb. Dave runs towards the end zone and throws the balls into the air and then punches them into the end zone goal several at a time as the scoreboard lights up. The shutout is gone, the lead is reduced to double digits, then single digits, and then the score is tied 146 all. Dave then lightly hits the final ball into the end zone (which hasn't filled up at all; so the balls disappears via teleport). HE WON!
He won because the buzzer rings to indicate that the game is over. I think. There is still three minutes left as Dave does the ballet dancing of doom (and the balls reappear in the end zone. How about that for a logic break?!). Now I realize that there is no way he could have scored 147 goals on 147 balls because he could only carry about 36 of them. However; at least they booked it correctly to have Dave win by the skin of his teeth, as they should do. Still; they should have it 35-0 like a football game and then have Dave score 36 balls to win the game because that makes more sense even with the wonky storyline physics. So the referee blows the whistle and we cut to the announcers as the play by play guy reads from his note that Dave single-handly won the game and it's the first win in 500 years. Dave waves to the crowd who weakly pops this because on the one hand; history was made. On the other hand; they are still only won once in 500 years. This means nothing and they knew it. Dave doesn't care as he yells that punch and cupcakes are at the castle as the team mates run off the field. Dave is about to do the same and then Irmaplotz shows up and somehow managed to change back into her regular clothes thirty seconds after Dave won. Irma and Dave look at each other in a pathos moment that no one is buying; as they just want to shake hands. Irmaplotz shakes hands with Dave and then orders the monsters to destroy Udrogoth as they run off. Dave thought that there were no hard feelings; and Irmaplotz claims that she was talking about the game; but now she wants revenge on Dave for dumping her! That's how to heel on him Irma! Then she snaps her fingers and disappears in a puff of smoke. The snapping fingers got a sound effect, the smoke didn't for some reason. That was awkward. Dave doesn't seem to care that this episode just got CDS'ed. So we head to Uodrogoth Castle for the party and the zombie monsters are crashing the party by destroying everything except the table of cupcakes and the family on another wooden table cowering in fear. Dave runs in and is shocked and appalled as Fang gets in his face and demands a stop to this nonsense. Okay.
So Dave stammers like an idiot and then Fang points out that he must stop this in order to save the cupcakes on the table; because those innocent cupcakes are more important than his family. What an asshole?! So Dave blows the whistle and calls the players in for a huddle as Dave has laser focus as we spend another minute or so showing them knitting macamine (I think that is the spelling of it) and doing the maple dance; so yes I got the dance right at least. So they use the macamine to tie up the monsters into submission as they grumble causing Dave to go Soup Nazi on them. A bad idea if there ever was one. So Dave offers the babyfaces their cupcake and Dave takes one when suddenly, Princess Irmaplotz and Queen Zolt arrive out of nowhere as Irma wants to forfeit the cupcake. She uses her red zapping beam from her hands and she nails the cupcake out of Dave's hands and destroys it. This all happens in slow motion as Dave screams NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! I don't care. So Dave cries as he treats the cupcake like a human being as Irmaplotz is about to kill Dave and then stops and feels like a sh*thead. Yeah; she had him in position to kick his ass and turn him into a statue for the pool area and Irmaplotz goes into Bea overdramatics and proclaims that she cannot because her good side is still there. Way to go writers! You effectively killed off a lot of heel heat from her and stunned her character development as a heel. Irmaplotz's teleports out with a spin of her body; and Zolt follows her lead. Why? Zolt had a chance to do it herself and she didn't take it?! I realize that she wants her daughter to do the deed; but still. You want the statue? Then murder that cleaning barbarian of laughs then; like a good heel would. Dave then proclaims that he would rather die than let a cupcake suffer death itself causing Candy to call Dave a freak; prompting Bogmelon to arrive with t-shirts that read "Dave Is A Freak"! Please tell me less! So he's how the episode ends: We head outside in the sky as Queen Zolthara and Irmaplotz flying like Superman as Zolt is blowing off Irma for not getting the job done. Irma claims that she brainfarted when Dave loved that cupcake. Then she curses Dave for having male feelings in a barbarian age which results in her crashing into the tower wall of her castle and sticking there. Zolt flies over and claims that this is all sorts of pain as Irma agrees with her to end the episode at 10:26. That ending was really good; but the CDS'ing of the episode after Dave won on his own killed a lot of heat as a result. I believe this is the last episode involving Irmaplotz in this series; but still, I would still book her strong, because you never know if the show would be renewed. Oh wait; what am I saying? This was an awesome episode until that moment; so *** 3/4 (75%).
THE REVIEW LINE
So we had a mixed bag of shorts this time as I expected it to be. Plunder Ball was another episode that I would pay good money to see and for almost 80% of the episode; it was one of the best episodes in the series. I mean; nothing makes me laugh, cry and happy like the Princess Irmaplotz/Dave The Barbarian feud as they paid off the feud nicely with Dave winning the big game. Plunderball is a really good sport and I'm shocked no one has decided to try this in real life. It's no more violence than most contact sports and it has an objective that anyone could see as compelling television, so why not? I'm sure it would have a lot more rules than the version we saw on television; but it would translate well. Sadly; once Dave won, this show had to channel Darkwing Duck in Cartoon Duck Syndrome. Irmaplotz killing Dave's cupcake was awesome; but her follow up was the first crappy thing she has ever done and was seriously making her weak. The ending with her cursing Dave was very amusing when she slammed into the tower wall; but I was surprised by the fact that Dave was allowed to get away with man-on-women violence, although BS&P did a great job in making it look like Dave never saw her, so kudos to them for that. There were several logic breaks; but everyting was great until the finish when they overbooked themselves into a corner. Fiends & Family was completely average; and I have nothing bad to say about it; nor anything good about it. I didn't care about Fang at all here. I realize that this was the payoff to the teasing of Fang hating her parents leaving to slay evil, but the kids wouldn't care and the adults would say "You can clearly defend yourself; why not just search for them if you want them back? Disney doesn't want the parents back because it kills rating in their tiny little minds!" Chuckles was the big reason for the rating even though he did slightly screw up the media res moment; although I have seen much worse in other shows. All in all; a fine set of shorts. Next up will be the second last 22 minute segment of the series; and then it's off to the I believe is the short that offended me a long time ago. So....
Thumbs in the middle for both shorts (pointing up for Plunderball) and I'll see you all next time.