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The Adventures Of Teddy Ruxpin: The Treasure Of Grundo
Reviewed: 06/13/2015
The Beginning Of It All; Including All The Setups!
So; we are back with the next installment of the Father's Day specials and that means, more Teddy Ruxpin and friends! YAY! So far, I have been reviewing the Nogbert Arc and the Reunion Arc (which was the original basis of ranting on this series since Teddy was reuniting with his father at the end of the series); however, all things must begin somewhere. You have see some of it in the opening with Teddy and Grubby finding the map inside a chest in his house. So now the beginning of it all must be told now as we begin with the pilot episodes which I have dubbed "The Treasure Of Grundo" arc; hence the title. This is the story of Teddy and Grubby starting their big adventure to find the treasure of Grundo in the Hard To Find City. I think this arc was also a television movie like Plunder and Lightning, only it's in five parts like the first Ducktales episodes "Treasure Of The Golden Suns"; although Teddy did the treasure thing first by about two years in the Jim Henson version of this pilot (and the fact that the only thing in common is the treasure part.) This version is the DVD version; but I have no idea if the television movie version was edited in anyway because I don't think anyone has released that version on Youtube and it looks unlikely that it will ever happen. So we begin this series with the introductions of the trio and the main heels as the babyfaces are beginning their adventure to get treasure. So let's rant on shall we...?
We officially begin the series with a zoom in shot with a lot of rocks which have various faces on them. So we get the title card and then we get Teddy telling Grubby to hurry up and Grubby is complaining that his feet are sore. I am sort of playing this in jest; but, how can Grubby's feet are sore, when the gimmicks is that his hands are feet? Also something: Rillonia is an island; so Grundo must have a lot of rocks because it appears that Teddy and Grubby are just in the jungle now at this point. Teddy and Grubby walk a lot and I realize some are going to scream "logic break" here; but there is a scene changer in between this so it's not nearly as bad as some shows I know. Grubby proclaims that they have seen it all and wants to go back now, because you see; Grubby has lobster courage (as later on with the goat during the Nogbert Kingdom arc.) which Teddy politely in his own way calls him out on it. Teddy states that they have waited years to get the treasure of Grundo; which means Teddy is rounding up his friendship with Grubby. I point this out because Teddy and Grubby were the same age now as they were when they met in the episode "The Day Teddy Met Grubby". No; I am not fooled by Phil Baron's laughable attempt to make Teddy's voice sound younger. Couldn't you just redub the line to say that they waited a long time for this moment? Grubby then changes his mind, sort of as Teddy looks at the map. The map shows Rillonia as a mountain, even though during the final arc; it was mostly flat land with lots of forests and one beach and town. That amused me. The rest of the map is barren except for the Hard To Find City; which is a good booking name as a pun until you bring in the glorious history angle at the end of the series. Then it becomes dumb. I should note that at this point; the right half of the medallion Teddy wears. Right now it says "Spirit Treasure Ledge"; but over the next five episodes, we will discover what the full message is. Apparently; according to Teddy, the right attitude is everything. He's right of course.
Then we cut to the bushes where both colors of Fuzz pop from the bushes. The Fobs are basically bird like furry creatures with tails and talons. They are also mascot like in appearance. Then a second purple Fuzz comes out along with an orange one as Grubby panics as dangerous creatures are approaching. If this were today, that statement would be more justified in a Super Smash Brothers game. The Fobs surround Teddy and Grubby and proceed to do absolutely nothing. I guess the green one's name is Luigi. Even Teddy realizes this even though he's in the defensive position like Grubby. One of the purple Fobs nuzzles on Teddy's right left saying that they are cute. No, you don't have to remind me Fuzz; I see it and believe that you are cute. The second purple Fob is using Grubby's legs...ERRR..arms as a back scratcher. Then suddenly, they all bail looking scared. Teddy points that there is absolutely nothing to worry about. BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! I'm sorry Teddy, I think you need to see all the horrible things the public has said and done to you since 1987. It's not pretty and no; I do not agree with most of it. Grubby claims that he cannot help it if he's nervous. Teddy then proclaims that Grubby will soon be the first Octopede to have an adventure. BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! So Grubby has to pretend that his past with the Octopede Sailors never happened? This is just drole; for all the wrong reasons of course. So Grubby realizes how silly this is and goes back to complaining about his feet; and at least Grubby is smart enough to divide the orders of magnitude. So Grubby does the "democracy" spot and uses all of his arms to raise them up to rig up the process. Yeah. Sadly; he raises all eight of his arms up even though all he had to do was raise half of his legs; and he lands on his underside (because his rear end is way back there on the body). Teddy decides to give Grubby what he wants and sounds a little disappointed in him for some reason; even though the face expression don't match with the voice.
Again; this is the difference between everyone else and Ginny McSwain: Ginny focus on the "acting" part; everyone else just focuses on the "voice" and miss the "acting" part altogether. Scene changer as Teddy and Grubby are sitting down on rocks in front of a campfire in between some hills. We see LB hiding behind some rocks as Grubby is telling us about cooking up his infamous "root stew"; and now you're going to see why I call this the secret weapon in making Teddy Ruxpin lie (although to be honest; Teddy has lied at least three times in the last two minutes of this episode alone.). So Grubby's mouth is moving; but nothing else is as Teddy has to eat the root stew and somehow go out of his way of claiming that he likes it when it's clear that he absolutely hates it. I actually had a pay off to all this (AeroCross of course) at the end with Kit Cloudkicker tasting the root stew and not being disgusted at all which shocks everyone, even Grubby to a certain extent. Only to find out later that the reason he likes the root stew is that Kit is so used to eating far worse stuff when he was an orphan and a hobo that his tastes have dulled so much that even root stew doesn't faze him. He tells this to Grubby by the way; and the two cook up a way to make the root stew taste better. I realize that Grubby's root beer is sort of like this; but mine strikes at the heart of the stew itself. Grubby of course cannot read non-verbal cues and takes him at his word; because you see, the gimmick is that Teddy Ruxpin cannot tell a lie, which this would be the fourth one he has said in this episode alone. No wonder a lot of people hate him. So out bounce the radish like creatures with only a horn and no hands barking like dogs and I think that somehow, there are two Bounders (as they are called) that look exactly the same on opposite sides of the cliff. Not a big deal; but still amusing. Then we get a laughable spot: The Bounder with the hair over it's eyes comes out from a spot where he was no where near a jungle and somehow, they look like they are in a jungle when the sky shot indicated nothing as such.
That's a bad logic break; but it's even more laughable as he jumps. Grubby ducks and the Bounder jumps over him. However; the Bounders misses him so much that the Bounder would have completely missed Grubby even if Grubby had not ducked. This leads to the Bounders having a meeting of the minds; and it wasn't at Tweeg's tower. This leads to LB jumping up and his horn head hits a tree branch with a concussion style bump like the others even though the horn should have padded the damage and not cause a concussion. What an idiot; both ways?! The hairless Bounder stalks Teddy Ruxpin (I can't believe I just said that!) and somehow; LB manages to get behind Teddy even though he's stuck on the tree branch literally seconds ago. Geez; even in this "animation bump" arc; the shot continuity is screwed up. Hairless and LB (Lead Bounder of course. Just to remind all of you old farts when you complain about Sway Sway and Chum Chum.) jump up and again, Teddy didn't have to duck and they still would have hit each other easily. Also; they staged it to make it seem that Teddy didn't move away from the scene; but on the far shot, you can see that Teddy is standing in front of his rock near the campfire as if nothing had happened, even though he was running past that area during the fight. Listen; I'm okay with Teddy not throwing punches and doing any sort of violence because that is part of the gimmick (no pun intended Newton); but the shot continuity here is terrible! Then we get another gaping logic break as I discover that the real LB is on top of the cliff blowing off his kind for incompetence. In a way; he's right, but I do feel bad for the Bounders since it's not their fault the animators cannot animate scene properly. It's even less excusable at this point since Gummi Bears was released several years ago. The Bounders complain and LB blows them off as everyone stops selling and LB comes down to ground level. Teddy grabs his backpack and he and Grubby bail out. Of course, Grubby conveniently says that his feet are fine now.
So the chase goes on and we jump cut to Newton Gimmick in the forest picking up sticks. He picks up one as Grubby is yelling for help and both Teddy and Grubby simply run past him. Gimmick goes to his bag of branches takes out his sticks and in a span of thirty seconds or so; he lodges one vertically into LB's mouth and throws a couple that magically land in the rest of the Bounders mouths; somehow. One of them bounces off the Hair Over Eyes Bounder as Gimmick wipes his hands clean of any consequences of jaw breaking these Bounders would have suffered. The Bounders bounce around like complete fools and then they bail as LB stares at Gimmick while Teddy and Grubby return to thank him. LB finally bails as we meet and greet. I don't consider what Gimmick did as a brave act, Grubby; because these Bounders hit rate is about the same as Tweeg's. So Gimmick is humble and would do this for friendly guests in Gimmick's Valley, implying that he owns the entire valley. So Gimmick and Teddy introduce themselves and invokes the closeup handshake which looks out of sync. Gimmick states that he's an inventor; cannot forget that. Gimmick has apparently never seen an octopede nor an Illiop before, which is odd considering what he said during LB's Wedding. So Gimmick shakes his hand as Grubby points out that it's nice to meet him; but that right hand of his is just another foot. Okay; I'm confused: his two arms are feet; and his remaining six feet are hands?! Can someone please explain this to me because I'm having trouble keeping this straight. So Gimmick offers the two babyfaces (in Teddy's case, almost in every sense of the word. Almost.) a bite of lunch and they walk off. Wait; didn't they already have lunch? So what was the point of the root stew thing? To make it clear that this Teddy is not the same Teddy as in the storybooks? LB is spying from the bushes as Gimmick and Teddy are exchanging notes and the color stylist even in this still have problems with Teddy's feet as they switch from white to brown depending on the shot. TaleSpin didn't have this big of a problem with Baloo nor Kit.
Teddy takes out his map claiming that this is how it all got started. They look at each other and then walk away stage left for no reason. Great job in leaving us and Gimmick hanging there Teddy?! So LB sort of follows them until they walk off camera and then LB turns to the hard camera and does the Vinny laugh just for me even while the stick is in his mouth. That was great. So we head to Gimmick's house and sadly; they sort of spoil Tweeg's tower here as it's far into the background. We see the trio walking to the house and they look transparent as this song is playing and it is completely out of sync with the scene. Zoom into Tweeg's tower and head inside with Tweeg showing the Gruffi pose looking stern at LB bouncing around. Now the song makes sense as Tweeg blows off LB for not driving Gimmick out of his valley. I realize that he's doing this because he is mean and evil; but I would love to see them play this up, just to see how many logic holes they can cook up. Tweeg continues to berate LB and then notices the stick in his mouth even though it's clearly shown; so Tweeg is an idiot. Tweeg pops the stick from his mouth and flies back first into the stove as there is a cauldron of buttermilk on the stove which teeters as LB blows off Tweeg because he is projecting on LB basically; and the cauldron lands on Tweeg's head. See; Tweeg has failed to steal Gimmick's Valley from Gimmick because, he's evil. Or suppose to be anyway. Anyhow; Tweeg reveals his spelling which is pointless because LB is purposely saying his name wrong. Although this trait seems to be with everyone. Who is this Teddy Dustbin fellow? Is he that bully from A Baloo Switcheroo trying to win a spot on the track team away from Kit? LB informs him that Gimmick has visitor's and one of them is an Illiop. Tweeg is confused and then he rushes out to his telescope as he informs us that Illiops apparently are trying to steal some formula of making buttermilk into gold. I've seen some wacky alchemist angles before; but this one takes the buttermilk cake if you know what I mean; in terms of wackiness.
He looks in the telescope as we get a screw up here: Tweeg is already talking about them forming an army to steal his formula during the telescope pan. In order for this scene to make sense with the dialogue; Tweeg should not be saying it until the telescope is stopped at the area where the trio is at the table exchanging notes. Tweeg orders LB to go down there and check out what they are saying. LB hops down the spiral stone stair case looking angry because he has to do all the work while Tweeg gets all the glory. Sounds a lot like Darkwing Duck; only Darkwing whines a lot less. By the way; LB is hopping down literally ten steps per hop here. Scene change to a shot of the upper part of a cannon as Tweeg has lit a match off screen. If this aired on Toon Disney; this scene gets snipped under the "match" rule that TaleSpin suffered from a lot. Tweeg sounds less like the Tweeg we know and love by the way as he lights the fuse. The cannon moves as it shoots a cannon ball into the air and where it lands, only Tweeg cares. Why? Well; you see, we cut to the front of the house as the trio is having lunch and shooting the breeze (in a G rated way) as Teddy points out that someone has shot a cannon ball. Gimmick calls it nothing but Tweeg shooting his cannon ball. Which I hear is directly related to the amount that shoots out of his mouth. LB would be proud of that one; I assure ye. Anyhow; Grubby is worried, but Gimmick tells him not to worry because you see; Tweeg's cannon has a ZERO percent hit rate so the best place to go is staying at the house. I also hear that the hit rate is also directly related to the hit rate of turning buttermilk into gold. So the cannon ball misses the house by at least 100 meters as it simply rolls onto the ground. The cannon balls also say "Return To Tweeg". Now; if Teddy's gimmick was accurate, he would simply grab the cannon ball and return it to Tweeg. It's cheap heat, costs the babyfaces nothing and makes Tweeg look like a big loser; which is supposed to be his character by the way. Gimmick is drinking from a soup spoon for no reason as Teddy shows off the map to him.
LB is watching on as we have a telescope shot which has no animation whatsoever. Tweeg giggles at it; which made me laugh for the wrong reasons, but whatever. So we go back to the lovely conversation as Teddy shows Gimmick the medallion which Gimmick calls half of it and now the broken edges of it are sparkly. So Gimmick folds the map as nothing new was really said, other than the Hard To Find City being at the Tretchorous Mountains; or something. Gimmick claims that he has an invention just for this problem as we scene change to a field and see the main transportation of this series which is Gimmick's airship. Kind of like the SeaDuck in TaleSpin; only not steampunked in any way with the Iron Vulture. It appears that the bag for the airship is underneath the ship for some reason. Gimmick calls it an airship which is lame; and Grubby claims that it's a boat which should have been it's name: Air Boat. Cut to Tweeg at his tower looking in the telescope again. Tweeg's mouthflaps are horrible by the way as he claims that Gimmick is now forming a navy. No Tweeg; you mean Air Force! Whomever is writing this script needs to get a clue. So we cut to far shot of the tower as Tweeg fires another shot from the cannon. This one actually lands about 25 meters from the trio this time in a decent sky shot at least. Teddy sums this one up nicely. They laugh; which is not a good idea since this shot was much closer than the first one. Tweeg is not loving this at all as we scene change to on the airship as Gimmick either has the map or the blueprints for the airship. I cannot tell which. Pan over to Teddy and Grubby manning the stove and pump which is a squeeze pump; which is perfect for Grubby here. Gimmick basically explains what the airship is going to do (which anyone with an IQ of 12 and above can figure out in ten seconds.) as Teddy offers to let Gimmick have his share of the treasure. Gimmick tells them to get more wood into the fire as he bails to get some supplies. All which involve some forms of technology as Gimmick goes on and on while LB stands there on a rock as he opens his mouth wide like he wants to bite someone's head off. Like the lions in Looney Tunes.
So Gimmick simply puts the map into LB's mouth like a stick and then walks off not even noticing LB. By the way; he names about a dozen inventions; but the last thing is Grundleberry Muffins. Okay. LB hops away and then looks into the camera and laughs for me again. Cut back to the tower as Tweeg proclaims that he'll get him this time. In the immortal words of Rocket J. Squirrel: But that NEVER works! So Tweeg pulls the cannon up to a 60 degree angle which make it point straight at Tweeg's head. This is not going to end well for Jack W. Tweeg. Tweeg bails in a cloud of dust and then returns with a barrel of gunpowder and pours the gunpowder into the cannon as he complains that LB never mixes the gunpowder right. So; why are you using the gunpowder now Tweeg?! That sounds so stupid. Tweeg finds a cannon ball out of nowhere and stuffs it into the cannon. Tweeg then kicks the cannon into the proper position as another match is struck on screen (SNIP!) and lights the fuse. Now; here is where Chargeman Ken was better than this show. The fuse lights completely and we hear an explosion but do not see it. However; we do see Tweeg flying backwards with the cannon following by. Here's where the EXPLOSION PAINTING OF DEATH would have been a good thing. Then we get a massive logic break. If the cannon had pushed Tweeg back; then they should have smashed against the top of the tower walls into the tower itself. Instead; the cannon somehow manages to bounce Tweeg down the spiral staircase.
Worse; as the cannon comes down, LB hops right straight into the cannon's path and when the cannon makes contact with LB's face; there is a clear explosion like impact star like overlay to cover it up. I'm guessing that this was done when DiC Enterprises got the rights to the show. So why didn't they add one when the cannon exploded to push Tweeg backwards? That would at least make sense. Tweeg is dizzy and somehow LB is more so as Tweeg accuses him of being at the bottom of this. Wait; so Tweeg is implying that LB has turned on Tweeg? Isn't he suppose to do that near the end of the series? Tweeg is flustered as he notices something in LB's mouth. That map is made of strong fibers of paper to be able to be as strong as a tree branch. Tweeg pulls the map from LB as he blows him off because he's a villain and not a dentist. Somehow; being a dentist sounds better than a villain at this point, Tweeg probably isn't good at it. Tweeg opens the map (and it is the map by the way) as LB tells him that he is going to be a rich villain now. Then we get the funniest "TOING" sound I have ever heard. It sounds like they played it and it glitched out for five seconds. That was great. Tweeg is so happy as the treasure of Grundo is all his, all his. The voice actor is still trying to get the character right and feels kind of tentative. Tweeg walks off as LB realizes that he got screwed and says you're welcome Tink and that ends the segment 11 minutes in. Tink is slang for homosexual by the way, just so we get that out of the way. Considering what happened on Father's Day; there is some evidence to back it up. Anyhow; this took way too long to set up and the animation is not much better than the episodes I ranted on later on.
After the commercial break; we head to a far shot of the tower as Tweeg explains to LB that all he has to do is give a phony map to Gimmick replacing the real map of doom. Okay; that sounds like a good plan at least. Although I don't see why we needed a commercial break here when it could have been set about two minutes ago. So he puts the phony map (I think; it's hard to tell) in LB's mouth and it's horizontal this time as he orders LB to get bounding. I guess bouncing is too violent for this show. Scene changer of doom as we see LB hiding in the bushes while we pan over to the airship. So Gimmick is instructing Teddy and Grubby to tighten the tethers as the balloon is now up to it's full air position. Teddy seems concerned because he cannot find the treasure map for some reason. Gimmick checks himself and then deduces that he left it in the house; which is sort of true, but not for the reasons you might think. Gimmick scratches his head (which has male pattern baldness by the way; and it's white) as LB appears from a tree and proclaims that this is like giving candy to a baby. Shouldn't he had added something like: Candy that contains a wasp! And then laugh before he kicks the phony map to Gimmick. Gimmick is surprised and of course he has to pretend that he didn't see LB despite the fact that he kicked the map right at Gimmick's feet. DUMB! Gimmick picks up the map claiming that he must have dropped it; which is almost as true as it gets. LB laughs like Vinny for fun and my amusement. LB calls him a crackpot brain; which is legit funny and the first funny insult of the episode from LB. At least the voice actor for LB has found his groove now. We fade to black, which means this was probably the spot for the commercials in Non-American markets. We return as the trio is in the airship. So the cast lines are thrown aside as Grubby salutes no one in particular and proclaims that he loves this boat stuff. The airship rises in the sky and the sound it makes is a drone hum with firework sounds. I swear that is what it sounds like.
So we head on ship as Gimmick is reading blueprints as we see shots of the airship flying as Gimmick does the educational line of the episode about this airship; which annoys Grubby so much that he thinks that there is other things rising in hot air. Then a shot of gauges and steam with this sound that sounds like a badly tuned guitar. So Teddy asks if they can steer this thing and of course Gimmick forgot to add that to the airship. What an idiot?! So the airship somehow nosedives down; even though it was in the air in a spot where it would never hit anything. I swear that these animator have zero clue how logic works. So the airship somehow rams into a large tree which is completely different from the rest of the forest and a red Fob like bird flies away into the hard camera. Grubby crosses his fingers before this and even though it rammed like a paper airplane; on the next shot it's like it landed right on the tree straight down. We zoom in to inside the airship with everyone sitting down on the job. That came off weird. Grubby is covering his eyes and he's too big of an idiot to notice that; but Teddy is such a nice guy that he merely points it out. So we have settled on Grubby's two front arms being his legs now. Let's see if they can keep this logic straight. I betcha that they will not. In flies from the west; a fairy with butterfly wings and a pink princess' dress and she might be related to Princess Peach in some way. Yeah; I know it's Leota The Woodsprite, but this is the first episode and most people didn't know that. Leota is not happy at all of course because they have basically assulted her home, which is in fact this tree. I cannot take this seriously even if I tried. Grubby is impressed and asks what it is and Leota addresses herself as a woodsprite. Which prompts Gimmick to proclaim that there is no such thing as a woodsprite. What would convince Gimmick that they are real in this world? Does she need to...? Oh no; not when I'm ranting on this show. That would be crossing a line I shouldn't cross. All I'll say is what a jerk Gimmick is?! I see it took Grubby about 13 minutes to say his catchphrase (you know which one) and Leota is not amused because there is hot air stuck in her tree.
Geez; that came out wrong; although not as wrong as Teddy walking on the airship as his feet seem to blend into the floor when he calls her pretty and concludes that if she claims to be a woodsprite than she is a woodsprite. Oooookkkkkaaayyyyy; whatever you say Mr. Ruxpin. Leota then stops being "angry" (which I cannot take seriously; she sounds stern, but she doesn't look stern.) and admires herself. What a stereotype?! So we get the introductions of doom because we need more talking. This is like watching TNA; only at least this show doesn't pretend to sell itself as Total Non-Stop Action wrestling. Leota forgives the trio because Teddy apologizes to her for damaging the tree and offers to help. Teddy's not all that sure as Leota talks about the basics of aerodymanics (Oh; if only Kit was in this scene, Gimmick would be exposed for the fraud that he is. However; Leota will have to do.) which causes Gimmick to act like know-it-all and calling her a sprout which is an insult for rookie. Gimmick's implying that Leota is an amtuer and he is a professional, which is borderline sexist, and stupid since Leota is a wood sprite and thus should know aerodymanics because she can fly on her own. And she's a teacher as we'll see later on. Leota accepts this as a dare as her theme music plays and tells him to watch this. So she flies around and spins around. Yeah; she decides to waste time by not proving that Gimmick is a jerk or is wrong. Oh; Mrs. Woodsprite, shouldn't you show him how to make the airship fly first; and then show off just to rub it in? Leota asks if she can teach Gimmick how to do it; and Gimmick simply gives up and giggles. Yeah; Leota sure showed him, didn't she? Everyone laughs and we scene change to everyone modifying the airship to include a propeller to steer in order to propel in a different direction. So the airship needs a new mast and shorter straps. Sadly; it also needs a cut of Grubby murdering himself with the hammer to the head; causing the cartoon lump. Why in heaven's name would you do that?! It's wasn't funny then; and it's even more cringeworthy now with all the science on concussions and their deletorous effects on the brain.
So Leota flies around asking if they know everything she taught them and they all agree. Teddy offers Leota to join them and Grubby offers to carry her share home; but Leota refuses because she has all the treasures she needs in that tree; and she doesn't want to embarrass Gimmick in exposing him as the fraud scientist that he is. HA! Gimmick acts all dumbfounded and stammers like an idiot causing everyone to laugh. It's getting more and more difficult to accept this as great entertainment when TaleSpin does this so much better. So we scene change to in the air with the airship and you know what, this episode has been missing something all this time. Now what is it?! Huh.....Oh; I know. It's missing the TEDDY RUXPIN SONG OF DOOM~! We went 15 minutes straight without Teddy singing; which is Phil Baron's major strength in this show. So here we go with the song "Come Discover The World With Me". I think he sings this song multiple times throughout the series like with "Together Again" near the end of the series. Gimmick looks at instruments and Grubby cleans the deck with a pink sponge. So yeah; Gimmick and Grubby are doing something useful while Teddy is doing absolutely nothing. Teddy's on the mast and there is no animation from him as he keeps this pose on for too long. And of course they do a scene changer in the middle of the song because they cannot animate Teddy jumping down onto the deck to continue the song. That is so sloppy as the airship flies away and the song grinds to a halt as we fade to black to end the segment 17 minutes in. Just a mess of a start so far.
After the commercial break; we return with a shot of the jungle as Tweeg is so full of himself, he might as well change his name to Drake Mallard Tweeg. We do a western pan shot; which is kind of useless when they are coming from the west to the east. We see LB pulling Tweeg's wagon because Tweeg is a cowardly, sleazy, whiny heel who hates getting his hands dirty. LB of course points out that the treasure of Grundo is mostly for Tweeg. I wonder why since Tweeg clearly hesistated like in those RBC commercials that I hear on the radio recently. They are the ones where they claim that you can get a discount by marrying an employee at RBC. It's so absurd that I refuse to comment on it anymore. Tweeg blows him off for complaining and calls him an ungrateful lout. The projection in this character is so ingrained that Tweeg is going to turn babyface in the eyes of the fans if he doesn't watch it. Tweeg claims that they are equal partners which LB calls him out on; in which Tweeg end arounds him. See; LB does all the pulling because he's the brawn of the group while Tweeg is the brains of the group and thus sits down to rest his brain to scheme up something. Yeah; this is so an equal partnership. Not. Cut to sky shot of the airship in the sky as Grubby asks if they are there yet and Gimmick says no because they are barely over Boggly Woods. So we see a crack in the earth which Teddy asks Gimmick about and Gimmick addresses it as Tremblely Falls; and then he panics right on cue as he goes to the map to look because they should have been over the Moss Forest. Teddy looks at the map and realizes that there is something different about it. Judging by the map; Tweeg mirrored the map it seems. Gimmick declares the map a counterfeit and blames Tweeg right away; because someone has to play the role of paranoid person who thinks his made up enemy is responsible for every bad thing that has happened to him. So we scene change as the Fobs are hiding in the bushes and giggling at Tweeg and LB with their wagon. Why? Why not?!
Then they shuffle out from the bushes and giggle. What is the point of this other than to waste more time? This first act would have been 10 minutes or less if this was rewritten today. Although the song Teddy sang would have been doubled in running time. So then we find out why this scene was shown: LB stops and jumps into Tweeg's lap the instant he sees them; because you see, LB hates Fobs because they are too cute and sugary. This angle has been done a lot in modern cartoons; but LB at least is subtle about it compared to modern cartoons. Today; LB would die from diabetes because kids hate subtley you see. That's why every non-threatening substance in cartoons today is forced to make everyone sell like battery acid was thrown on their faces. That is the story of today's animation. This causes the wagon to drive backwards of course and it ends with them driving off a cliff and they freefall and crash into the ground causing the wagon to be destroyed of course. Okay; this was legit funny actually. Even more laughable is the fact that they replayed the footage of them panicking and looking at the tree at least three times before crashing. Yeah; this is so Chargeman Ken-equse. All this needed is no sound effects and it is Chargeman Ken. So I'm so disappointed in you sound effects people! The crashing sound ends with a cuckoo bird sound. I swear that this was the final sound they used in the crash scene. Tweeg protests this outrage and at least Tweeg's blow off is justified this time. He demands answers to this outrage and since I've already explained the gimmick of LB with the Fobs, let's move on and see Tweeg being flustered before the final scene changer. So we have the airship flying over the Great Desert which Gimmick points out and of course Grubby cannot figure out the difference between a desert and a dessert so he has to be corrected again. Teddy calls a desert a big empty place. Kind of like Tweeg's head now that I think about it.
So Grubby talks about his empty stomach some more as Teddy asks if they will make it out safely and Gimmick assures him that they will as long as their firewood holds out. Teddy looks at this one log and hopes that it's a slow burning one because it's the last one. He throws it into the stove and it lights up. Then we get a confusing series of shots: The airship starts to come down and then we scene change back to the sky shot as they replay that footage; then they go to the stove shot where the log instantly burns itself out into cinders. You couldn't move the shot when the airship was starting to descend to after the log was burned?! So the airship is out of control as it is coming down and in one of the shots where the trio is swaying, I swear that Teddy is holding a log of firewood in his hand. So there is bushes everywhere; but the airship's haul bumps onto the top of a rock pillar and then bounces up for some unknown reason. Grubby is still turning the propeller for no reason as he proclaims that he has a secret, which is that he hates adventures. This is despite the fact that he basically said that at the beginning of the episode! It is not a secret, Grubby. Get over it. The closing shots is the sky shot of the ground below and then a shot of the airship descending into the hard camera as Gimmick yells that they are going to crash. The final shot is a jump cut of Teddy as they zoom into his mouth literally. Yeah; what a lovely way to end the episode at 19:10. Can you smell the excitement?! Or is it just Grubby's root stew going rancid? This was a clustermuck of an episode that's plotline was all right, had good artwork in spite of the differences in styles between the early arcs and the later arcs; but it still suffers from way too much talking, scenes that take forever to set up and logic breaks. Tweeg hasn't got into his groove yet and he needs to do so soon because this episode was a mess. Call it ** 1/2 (50%). If they would have better animation; better spot timing and better writing; this could have been good. The next episode preview is Teddy narrating a lot of stuff about adventures and the monsters made of mud complete with earthquakes and walking. I should also note that whomever did the editing for the DVD sets of this series did a poor job because they failed to completely edit out the "Protect Yourself" segments since you can hear several notes of the music before going to the ED. Also one final note; the ED in this one has different credits, and the end of it has Teddy informing us that his series is officially coming out next year. Yes; the show got green lighted for more episodes, but we have to wait a year to see them.
THE REVIEW LINE
Well; this was a disappointing first episode because I was expecting this to be a step above the other arcs that I have ranted on. Here; it's more of the same problems that plagued this series: It takes forever to set up anything, there is too much talking, the pacing is very slow, the shot continuity is still bad and there is a number of Z-grade like spots shown here. It's 1987 guys; I realize that Canada is not rich, but even Canada can do good animation at this point. Anyhow; the storyline is perfectly fine for the most part, but Tweeg needs to get into his groove quickly because LB is the only guy who is giving me all the entertainment in this arc so far. Overall; a middling episode, which is not exactly a good start for the animation series, more so when it'll be compared to the Jim Henson version shown earlier. So next up in this arc is the debut of the Mudbulps and the red haired wonder and posterboy for gingers the world over; Prince Arin. I know you all cannot wait for that. Before I leave; I would like to apologize for this rant being very late since I went to the barber early because the previous shop is soon going to close down (for safety reasons I am told) and I won't know where they are going to relocate until later. I do know that the haircut is long overdue. I was also distracted by the Smash Brothers again; only this is the DLC data mining from the Wii U version instead of the 3DS version. I'll talk about it probably tomorrow after the next rant is completed. So...
Thumbs in the middle for this episode and I'll see you all next time.