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The Adventures Of Teddy Ruxpin: Gimmick's Gizmos & Gadgets
Reviewed: 09/23/2017
More Triple G Fun!
Well; it's time to finish up on the Holidays arc of Teddy Ruxpin as we have this story where Gimmick is slipping and needs to get his confidence, while Tweeg and LB steal Grubby's root beer recipe. Ooooooo. So, let's rant on shall we...?
We begin this one at the coffee table with food, drink, butter and chest shots of Teddy, Grubby and Gimmick. Teddy has already eaten a sandwich as he states that they taste different as Grubby admits that the sandwiches were supposed to have roots in them, so he had to use honey and peanut butter. Gimmick nearly admits that he doesn't like roots in the sandwiches before recoiling and the recoil is so dishonest since he and Teddy are smiling. Anyone with the two clicks in the making of a clue would have realized by now that these two don't like most of Grubby's cooking and be called out on. Teddy's wink makes the lie even more obvious. We get a knock on the door and the babyfaces walk towards the window as Teddy notices that Mr. Old Beanly has arrived and they let him in. Beanly walks in and sits down on the sofa as Gimmick asks why he is here as Beanly eats a sandwich and likes it; but he wants some roots in it. Yes folks; someone in Grundo likes roots and even Grubby is shrugging his shoulders on that one. Beanly goes into the mailbag and brings out a letter with the royal seal and he asks what is a gimmick. HAHA! Because you see; Gimmick's name is on the thing even though Gimmick's first name is Newton. Always label your mail with the full name! Gimmick claims it's for him, I guess; and Beanly has already forgotten where the letter came from even though he's King Nogburt's messenger. Like I said before, it's time to retire him. So we open the letter and basically, King Nogburt is now King Nogbur for some reason; as he invites all inventors to come to some sort of logic fair to show off their inventions and discoveries. Beanly eats a sandwich and needs to leave to do something, but he forgets and Grubby has to remind him. 1:1 odds that he'll forget to invite Wooly to this logic fair. Beanly gets so confused and then blows everyone off and storms out; basically calling them stupid. The trio laughs at his own expense as Teddy grabs the letter and calls it great. Now come on Teddy; there's nothing funny about outwitting a nitwitty old...Oh wait; he's talking about the fair, my mistake. So we talk for a while as Grubby asks about Gimmick's inventions to choose.
Gimmick ponders it over and decides to go upstairs to consult his files as we scene change to upstairs at the table as Gimmick has test tubes of boiling liquid boiling while Gimmick is holding a test tube with the giant metal holder under a burner complete with eye dropper filled with what appears to be Grubby's root beer. Gimmick is putting the brown liquid in the test tube proclaiming that he knows what he is doing. Cut to a sky shot of Teddy and Grubby watching from the ground floor as Grubby asks if Gimmick knows what he is doing; so the answer is Gimmick does not know what he is doing and before Grubby can finish his sentence, the second floor blows up causing Teddy and Grubby to jump over the sofa again. Gimmick gets up as the explosion nearly destroys everything on the table, including Gimmick's glasses. It also causes him ash grey spots as Gimmick ponders the potentancy of the liquid as Teddy rises and asks if he's all right. Gimmick claims that he's fine and on the right track; as Grubby gleefully retorts that one for me. First major logic break: The bunsen burner somehow magically appears on the table; just so Gimmick can heat up the test tube of root beer liquid which somehow is still intact. He inserts more liquid from the eye drop and we get a lot of smoke and panic spells from Gimmick. Rumbling sounds ensue and Teddy and Grubby run into the kitchen as the entire house explodes. Somehow; this doesn't destroy the house and almost everything is perfectly intact. I've seen explosions in Chargeman Ken that did more destruction than this one. That explosion was so fake! Somehow; the explosion managed to make Gimmick land on the sofa when the smoke cleared and Gimmick admits that it's too potent. Grubby sarcastically asks if he has anymore ideas and Teddy blows him off for being rude. Peppa Pig needs that blow off a lot more than Grubby does as Gimmick is moping around because you see, the story of this episode is that Gimmick is slipping to the point where he is even calling himself a complete failure. Even Grubby thinks that is inaccurate and Teddy calls him the best inventor in Grundo. He's the only one in Grundo! Please!
Grubby suggests bringing root beer to the fair; but he claims he didn't really invent it. I do remember this; this occured during the Medicine Wagon and I think he may have invented this outright, although that was not explained. So; I'll give Grubby the benefit of the doubt here as Gimmick claims that it's a new discovery in Grundo; so it's fine. Grubby likes this and goes into the kitchen to make an extra batch of it. So we head into the kitchen with Grubby at the stove mixing up stuff in a pot on the stove. He tastes it with the spoon, and it's perfect for him, hoo-hoo. Then we hear LB's voice saying it smells good too and Grubby wants answers to this outrage as we see LB bouncing outside trying to look up into the house window like a child who isn't quite tall enough to see what is going on inside. Grubby asks if he's thristy and LB claims that he's Friday. Well; I'm thirsty and Friday at the same time. That came off wrong. So Grubby lets LB have a glass of root beer and LB likes it. Grubby tells LB to not tell anyone until the fair, because it's a secret. LB agrees to it, cross his horn and hope to die. Considering the early episodes of the Hate Plague Arc; he almost died. He giggles, so he's going to tell Tweeg of course. Scene change and that is exactly what he does in the Tweeg Tower, and calls him Twest as Tweeg is reading the newspaper known as Wizard Week (so the event in the Wizard Week arc also involved changing the name of the Grundo Gazzette to Wizard Week? I'm guessing it failed, since the name changed back to Grundo Gazette during the Reunion arc.) and he blows off LB because he don't care about how good Grubby's root beer is. I wouldn't be shocked if Tweeg likes Root Stew either. Tweeg throws the newspaper on LB's horn as Tweeg is trying to find a terrible product to clean up and cheat people at the Logic Fair. LB claims that the root beer is the biggest main event since...Wizard Week. Well played, LB; well played. Tweeg blows him off for that and then goes to the window and gets inspired because that root beer...Hmmmm...Scene change to Gimmick Valley with Tweeg and LB hiding behind a rock pillar...
Okay; the animation was awful as Tweeg and LB disappeared three frames before they entered and LB looks like he's white in color. So Tweeg changes his costume, wearing a cyan blue suit, black bow tie, carnival barker flat hat, glasses, black mustache, golden chain, has a cane and is wearing sandals. He looks 100% different from his usual disguises and he wants to be addressed as Jackson Twiddle. LB has two jobs to do: Stay out of sight and not to call him Tweeg; although the second part looks promising. LB calls him Tweeg anyway; just to troll him (ironic since Tweeg is half troll in storyline) and Tweeg blows him off. Jackson walks over to the window and addresses himself to Grubby. So Grubby turns around and we exchanges notes and business cards, figrually speaking of course. Sadly; Jackson cannot even get his gimmick name right. Oh wait; Jackson gave out his business card, so it's literally speaking of course. What a fool I've been?! Lots of talking from Jackson as he tries out the root beer Grubby poured out of the pitcher into a glass. Jackson drops the glass and it shatters off-screen as he claims that the root beer shows promise; but it isn't enough to woo the goers at the fair and none of his friends are experts like Jackson, so what do they know about the fine art of tasting? Grubby looks around sulking as he asks what he is going to do as Jackson pokes Grubby's belly with the cane; and gives him an offer: Give him the root beer recipe and he'll see what he can do in improving it. As you can summarize; Grubby sells it hook, line and sinker and gives Tweeg the recipe as Jackson promises him to return the recipe by morning. I betcha that will not happen. Jackson of course slams the thing down on LB's horn, like a bill from Miss Maggotheart and the two heels run off as LB does the Vinny laugh of course. So; we head back upstairs with Teddy telling Grubby that the root beer was perfectly fine to him, but Grubby insists that they don't have any expertise like Jackson Twiddle. Why does Grubby have a stick on his person? This seemly makes Gimmick sad as he sighs, as Teddy asks what is wrong. Ummm; Gimmick is slipping, Teddy. That's what is wrong.
Gimmick is in one of those things we all have: He's in a rut where he's trying to come up with something, but nothing is coming out of the wash. Gimmick is upset because none of his invention ever work properly as Grubby sort of proves his point with the airship being a boat. But science isn't about bending the will of the inventions to you, it's about seeking the facts of reality and adjusting to them. So Gimmick is worked up over nothing, because he's in a rut since nothing is working at all, instead of working differently, like the airship. Teddy rummages through a box and finds some of Gimmick's shoes, which produce blue footprints on the table; causing Teddy to call this a great invention. Gimmick claims that it's not enough and we discover that Gimmick is trying to impress Eunice (the doctor from Nogburt as seen during the Nogburt story arc), so he needs a AAA-rated invention. This kind of thing bankrupts video game businesses, ask Midway Entertainment about it. Teddy suggests inventions powered by the Crystals; but Gimmick claims that the Crystals were found, thus DQ'ed. Wait; isn't that a discovery? So why don't the Crystals count? Grubby sees a giant computer mainframe with buttons in the background, and asks Gimmick about it. Gimmick calls it a music box as he comes over and cranks it up and pushes a green button (that is invisible in the first couple of frames), as it plays the worst public domain bagpipe music with cymbals I have ever heard. Of course, the music is so loud that they do the "can't hear you" spot and of course, the music cannot be stopped for at least one to two hours. Everyone covers their ears and Teddy wants to take a nice long walk. Gimmick calls it a great idea and they walk out of the house as we sing the Gimmick introduction song for a while. He's a thinker and dreamer of mechanism and schemes. He's thinking POT~! POW! OUCH! Ummmmm... And popping up from it, too in a pif hat. Lots of calculations ensue on the chalkboard and one of my favorite lines:
Gimmick: If a formula is faulty, then I'm not upset for long. For if the answer isn't right, then the question must be err...wrong.
So Gimmick is at the table fixing up a sunbeam like device to make a plant grow as the song ends. They make it sound like Gimmick is a schemer like Tweeg; which Gimmick is supposed to be a babyface. So the song ends with Gimmick taking some yellow flowers out of the pot and sniffing them. Precisely, indeed. Strangely; this does not end the segment as we head to the airship as a pulley system is used to bring in an iron safe onto the airship. I should note that at this point of the storyline, Teddy and company have found a submarine called the Subwater Boat which was found in the first arc after the Death of Innocence arc; and five of the six original crystals have been discovered; plus, we have a good idea of half of what crystal number seven does. However; this happened before the Christmas episodes I reviewed ten months ago. Oh; and the iron safe is in fact the giant music box, as Grubby wanted a smaller music box. Teddy gets in and doesn't blow off Grubby again as Gimmick proclaims that the new airbag for the airship is strong enough to carry anything, including the Wooly Whatsit now. Cut to Teddy with the furance open, shoveling coal into the furance as Grubby comes over to the side of the airship as Twiddle hasn't come back with his recipe yet. Yeah; this should be a clue that he has stolen your root beer recipe and is probably a hack named Jack...W...Tweeg. So the airship lifts into the sky with the submarine as Teddy tells him not to worry because his root detector will take first prize. Wait; what?! This ends the segment eleven minutes in. The pacing is better in this episode and the animation is better than expected, but the story is whatever.
After the commercial break; we head to the dessert as we see Mr. (Frank) and Mrs. Fob (Faye) with their children in a carriage (From Uncle Grubby; an episode I have not reviewed yet), as Frank talks about his Fobulator, the standard in child Fob safety. See; Doofen isn't the first guy to use the "-lator" motif in his invention. The children fobs don't care because they are hungry, tired and wondering when the fun begins. Then we get rumbling as it's earthquake time. Oh; I knew those Terrafirmains would have their games in Grundo sooner or later. Faye (The pink one with the green hood) invokes the "TOING!" sound as the ground is bringing out rock spikes that look like stone ribs as Frank (the blue one with glasses as the ground is beginning to crack and the fobs all bail stage left as rocks are falling near and almost on them. The exit gets cut off by a cave in (outside no less) as the ground cracking is getting worse. Frank's tail un sticks from the carriage and the carriage with the kids and the growups gets split up. Somehow; Frank and Faye are hopping on top of a stone like pedstal in the middle of the abyss; while the carriage is hanging onto the cliff as the fobs scream in the most unconvincing manner possible. It's like they were reading from their script; as we head up to the airship as Grubby hears the yelling as I discover that they are near Trembley Falls. Gimmick does his heavens to Grundo swear and states the obvious as the babyfaces notice the fob children, and the airship lands. At least Teddy gets who to save first in this situation since the fob babies are in the most danger at the moment. If this were Chargeman Ken, Ken would have saved the parents first, who are not in the most danger. So Grubby causually walks in, grabs the babies and walks back as the carriage falls down into the abyss. Just like that! Of course; the children call him "Uncle Grubby" again, although Grubby is no longer insecure about it, so it is fine. They want their parents saved; but Teddy and Gimmick have problems since ropes won't work and that pillar looks completely unstable right now.
Teddy suggests a bridge and Gimmick gets inspired as he demands Grubby and Teddy to bring the music box out of the airship. Grubby asks if he is going to play that thing again. The scariest part about that music is that it's still better than the Barican March. Ponder that for a moment. Gimmick has other plans for it which involve taking the music box appart. So we scene change to the ground as a squeeze box, banjo, violin, drum and some grey container which is open. So Gimmick tells Grubby and Teddy to tie the string of the violin around a drumstick and squeeze box in that order, then we scene change to the cliff where Gimmick shoots the drumstick off the violin like a bow and arrow. The drumstick lands on the pillar and Frank and Faye grab it with their tail and pull the rope back to allow the squeeze box to expand into a makeshift bridge. So Gimmick grabs a drum and a horn in order to balance himself as he gets on the squeeze box. Here's a suggestion: Have one of the babyfaces hold on to the another side of the squeeze box so it doesn't fly over the side while Gimmick is walking and balancing himself. His weight is enough to force Frank and Faye onto the edge of the cliff; but the squeeze box sort of blocks that. Gimmick gets to the other side and sticks the drumstick into the ground as Frank and Faye jump into the drum off-screen. Gimmick walks and nearly loses his balance, and Grubby does what I said he should do here, so good for him. Logic break: The ground below is supposed to be brown since the carriage is shattered into many pieces, but they colored it blue instead. Very rinky-dink moment there as it gets tense as the squeeze box is annoying me now; but it takes about twenty steps to make two steps as Teddy helps him off the squeeze box and everyone's safe. So; why did Gimmick bring a horn with him? And it disappeared and we never saw it again. That's kind of stupid. Grubby drops onto his underbelly, tired. The children hop in giggling as everyone cheers because the day is saved, thanks to Gimmick's Rube Goldbergish bridge made from a squeeze box. And we even got a sort of answer to how long the accordin is in this episode, too! GREAT~!
Scene change to near the kingdom of Nogburt as the airship flies towards Nogburt castle and they drop the Subwater Boat in the moat. Then the airship lands right in front of the Logic Fair; and if there was any logic in this show, this would be the judge's reaction. So after landing, Eunice, Prince Erin and Princess Aruzia arrive to greet them along with about five denizens of Nogburt. One of them in a spotted doo rag in the foreground just walks away from them stage right, not even bothering to look. She don't care at all about this as we exchange notes on the situation, because they were late for the Logic Fair. The children's cheer for Gimmick was so awkward that it's sounds like they were trying to ad-lib the lines and they failed. Eunice is charmed by this and wants Gimmick to spill the beans, as she leads Gimmick away as Gimmick stammers, because he's more awkward than me. Grubby then asks Teddy about discovering a discovery and Teddy proclaims that he already did. And then we cut away to the babyfaces, the Fobs, Eunice and two Illipers watching the green haired female Grunge (I'm guessing it's Jody; but I cannot get their names straight) demonstrating a sun tanning box designed like a toaster. Jethro pops from the toaster; looking completely like a dark person because he's sun burnt to the gill. I think you meant five seconds Jody. Jody shows Jethro a mirror and despite probably getting skin cancer for the rest of his life, he loves the sunburn tan. Stupid idiot! Scene change to Letoa and her demonstration of paper airplane flying, which Gimmick calls scientific. Yeah; that DNA Splitter to make all those clones of her flying the airplanes is awesome! It's official, Gimmick is in trouble in this Logic Fair and it's not over, ladies and gentlemen! So Gimmick bails to set up his demonstration and Teddy wishes him good luck. Grubby walks over and notices Jackson Twiddle at the medicine wagon addressing the crowd which includes Prince Arin and Princess Aruzia. Jackson calls the brew Villian Up (a parody of 7-Up); just to put the screws to Grubby. Jackson does his hard sell and it's clear that he stole it from Grubby since he's selling it as his own.
I don't know what Nogburt's copyright laws are (if any), but I always assumed that if the formula is modified; Jackson could claim copyright on it and Grubby can keep the copyright of his root beer. Again; I am not a lawyer (in Nogburt law, much less the real world's); but I think Grubby is out of luck here. Jackson's hard sell is clear as Sony water: If you like it, buy it; if you don't, get lost! Sounds like every person who hates critics hating on their favorite shows in a nutshell. LB calls this the best racket Tweeze has come up with. HAHA! So everyone pays up and drinks the root beer from the glass. Grubby assumes Jackson didn't have time to fix the formula and was working on his own as Grubby takes a glass of root beer and drinks it. Grubby then is shocked and appalled by this; because you see, it really is Grubby's root beer! Yip; Jackson infringed on Grubby's copyright. Well played Twiddle, Jackson; well played, indeed. Arin and Aruzia love the root beer as Grubby protests this outrage as Jackson Twiddle proclaims that it has health benefits. Hmmm; the wagon in the background looks like the Medicine Wagon, and he's talking like the barker from The Medicine Wagon. If it talks like Tweeg, walks like Tweeg and copyright infringes like Tweeg, then it must be Tweeg. Grubby claims that he sold the recipe to Tweeg; Tweeg sticks his cane in his nose to tell him to shut up; claiming that he never saw him before. Nice to see Tweeg know the first rule of insurance liability: Never admit to it. Jethro's loving this drink; but he and Jody think there is not enough fizz in this drink, and Jackson is offended by this. So Jackson grabs a barrel of root beer and lifts it above his head as he addresses the crowd again. He shakes the barrel as root beer fizzes out as this will have twenty percent more fizz. Remember the times I have said that customer rights must come with customer responsibilies? Well; this is the sort of thing you want to see as LB is questioning this; but Tweeg is listening to the customers, which is very unheelish of him. LB points out that it is shook enough and calls him Tweek; which Tweeg blows him off because it's Tweeg.
Now; remember all those times where we would hear the heels yell out their plan in a normal volume for everyone to hear and the babyfaces never hear it despite that making no sense at all? Here; Tweeg actually talks in a much lower tone of voice, and Grubby actually HEARS him! WHAT?! After all the times you ignored their normal volume voices, NOW; you hear someone in a lower volume. STUPID! Tweeg shakes the barrel too much, it explodes, root beer is poured on everyone and everyone demands their money back. Why?! The sales were for the root beer that you loved that weren't shaken up; so I agree with Tweeg here. Hey; with customer rights come customer responsibilies. Customers protest anyway as Tweeg uses the metal circles to defend himself and he calls for LB's help as Teddy proclaims that Tweeg is out of business now; but everyone still loves Grubby's root beer. Grubby admits that he should have believed in himself and not listen to Jackson Tweegiddle causing his shaking his confidence, nor his own root beer. HEE HEE! So we head to Gimmick's demonstration of the Port-A-Bridge which is an accordin with violin string and spikes as railings attached to two grey boxes. One of the denizens is a doctor (I'm guessing he's the judge), who looks awfully devilish in his doctor clothes, wink, wink, nudge, nudge! Lots of orange hair too. The guy next to him has a French bread nose and black top hat and speaks about the future of modern bridge. So the orange haired doctor has a really subdued German accent as he is impressed with the port-a-bridge and it's over, it's over ladies and gentlemen! So yeah, Gimmick wins the Logic Fair and the crowd cheers at a stage despite the demonstration not being on one. Gimmick is humble as Teddy congradulates him for a job well done. Eunice walks in with Grubby as Gimmick proclaims that he loves his new invention because it went off perfectly, thus Gimmick is back in mid-season form. So the orange haired judge goes over to Teddy and asks him about his discovery. So what is Teddy's discovery, you ask?
Well, Teddy simply says that it doesn't matter what others think of you, as long as you believe in yourself. Everyone claps in unison about and that ends the episode at 19:10. Okay; I need to get this off my chest: That's a stupid discovery! It often does matter what others think of you because without them, you really cannot better yourself. Sure; you need to believe in yourself, without it; you're basically paralyzed. You still need to do the work anyway. However; when you believe in yourself too much; that is where bigotry and mistakes are often made as demonstrated throughout the episode. I realize that this is a children's cartoon, but naunce in world views must be taught because when you make them too simple, it causes bigtory and mistakes. Life is far too complex to try to do it in simple terms; so the thing Teddy says comes off as too problematic. Sure; there is a limit you can go before you fry a child's brain, however; you cannot say "I believe in myself" and think that alone solves the problem. It often doesn't. I would have said "My discovery is that sometimes people can have a slip up. It's all right, it happens to all of us; until it poisons your mind and makes you think you cannot do anything. Don't give up to that poison; you can find a way. It might take time and work; but don't quit like that. You can turn it around, if you know what made you, you." Just something I wanted to address. Episode was pretty good outside of the usual botchery. *** 1/2 (70%).
THE REVIEW LINE
Well; that ending deflated a prefectly acceptable episode. Tweeg was great as always and the story of the episode was well told, had some suspense in the middle, had a finish where Tweeg gets cocky and fails at life, which will never get old for me and the pacing was good. The only things that bothered me were several animation mistakes and logic breaks; but that goes with this show's motif. I just thought Teddy's finishing speech was not naunced enough and it hurt the entire point of the episode; but overall, this was a decent episode. So next up is the Harvest Feast and an appearance of the Gutangs, a payoff to the Grundo drought angle that should have been paid off months ago, and a cameo by Ken Frosse himself, sort of. So...
Thumbs in the middle for this episode and I'll see you all next time.