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The Adventures Of Teddy Ruxpin: Take A Good Look
Reviewed: 09/15/2018
...It's Not In A Book...Oh, Wait...
Well; it's time to begin the main event part of Teddy Ruxpin, which covers the arcs of the first crystal, third crystal and fourth crystal, along with the debut of the seventh. It's also where most of the MAVO stuff is covered, although the real MAVO stuff won't be covered for another two episodes. Today's plot is discovering what the first crystal does and it's basically a template for every shrinking episode ever done. How does this episode fare? So; let's rant on shall we...?
We begin this one with a drum banging shot of Gimmick Valley as we zoom towards Tweeg's Tower and it's time once again for Tweeg's favorite sport: failing at life. Especially the villain lifestyle type of life. He fires the cannon of course and misses; of course. And he takes credits for LB's suggestion, of course. LB is no longer sure of this past time as Tweeg calls it perfect. Well; his failing at life is still batting a thousand, so I guess that would be perfect as Tweeg bails to look for cannon balls; but tragedy strikes because he's out of cannon balls. Of course, a top heel never gets his hands dirty, so he orders LB to get his cannon balls that he couldn't hit any side of Gimmick's house even if Tweeg would be murdered in cold blood if he failed. LB accepts and blows off Tweeg on the way out as we jump cut to a shot of Gimmick Valley being zoomed out and head inside as we get a logic break: Gimmick is at the second floor of his house doing inventing stuff as Teddy and Grubby walk in from the front door, even though we never see them outside at all. They cannot even do them walking from the foreground in. Of course! I should note that at this point, the producers were still fleshing out the minor characters, so much so that Fuzz is purple instead of green. Normally this isn't a problem as The Faded Fobs would provide a good storyline reason for the change; but someone forgot to remind the color stylist of this for the final episode of the series that Fuzz was originally purple in the flashback instead of green. Grubby and Teddy greet Gimmick, who is giddy because he discovered something amazing, which in term, confuses Grubby. Speaking of stupid; somehow Gimmick was on the second floor and came down, but the actual invention is on the first floor. That's kind of redudant. So, Gimmick shows off the invention; which is a giant version of the Portable Reducing Machine, which has evolved about ten times since this episode aired, into the portable system we would have at the end of the series. Grubby puts the basket of strawberries down and knocks over an out of nowhere salt shaker; basically to stage the scene for the rest of the episode.
Teddy and Gimmick exchange notes and man, the animation is even more off model than usual. It's even more obvious when we see Gimmick on the closeup. Sigh. Gimmick explains that while Teddy and Grubby were gathering stuff, he was researching the crystals and discovered that one of them reduced stuff and Grubby just had to make a weight loss joke on Gimmick. Fat shamer! Gimmick explains that it's not that kind of reducing in the same way Super Smash Brothers is not an ordinary fighting game. Since these rants aren't long; I might as well get this out of the way: There are a lot of people upset about Waluigi not being a fighter in Smash; but the wording they use is "I want Waluigi in Smash!" even though Waluigi is in Smash Ultimate as an Assist Trophy. I have figured out that most of these fans are still subscribing to the argument that Smash is a typical fighting game and in the genre, the most important aspect is the fighters and no cares about anything else. Because what goes on in those fights is ordinary in most fighting games. ARMS would be a typical fighting game even though it has some wacky rules; but most of it's strength is the fighters and the control of the fight. Super Smash Brothers has really never been a typical fighting game and I'm going to bring sales into this: ARMS sold about 2 million units while Smash sells 5-13 million units. Street Fighter II on SNES was one of the few third party games on any platform to sell over five million units; however, that was back when the genre got over. Nowadays; unless you are Smash, if your fighting game sells over two million units, it is considered a success. The question is: What do people see in Smash that they don't see in other fighting games if the fighters are the most important aspect of the genre? If the fighters were the most important aspect of Smash; it would not sell 13 million like Brawl did. The reason Smash has sold so well is the fighters are in fact secondary to the chaos and mayhem in said games.
Assist Trophies, items, Pokeball Pokemon, even the stages have stuff happening that directly impact the player. That's why a lot of esport tournaments ban most stages in Smash because the chaos and mayhem would be unfair to them (and they are purists in the fighting genre; but that's fine.). Without the other elements, Smash is just another two million unit selling fighting game. Now; if Waluigi was cut in Smash altogether in any role; I can fully understand the anger of it's fans. Otherwise; this whole thing is a joke and it only makes it's fans look like whiners. And this is all before you factor in the death threats to Sakurai. It's not worth it anymore and it's time for people to stop applying the fighting genre mentality to Smash; simply because Smash never follows it. To Smash, the stuff around the fighters is as imporant, or even more important than the fighters themselves. Also; the first Smash game was more towards fighters, but it was played off as babyfaces hating each other. Once you add heel characters to the mix like in Melee, the implication is gone and you have to do other things to get the game monster over. That's why it references Nintendo's history so much and in different and unusual ways, because that is something that makes it more than just another fighting game. So Gimmick explains the rules of engagement for the first crystal and apparently, certain metals and alloys have no effect. We also see upstairs next to Fuzz, various wooden objects being made small. How much do you want to bet that either (a) Gimmick tweaked the system to allow all stuff to be reduced, or (b) the writers completely forget this episode and it applies to everything? Personally; I would prefer (a); but knowing the episodic nature of cartooning; I betcha it's (b). Fuzz jumps down the stairs and the sound effects sounds like suction cups and even that was dubbed poorly. Gimmick wants to test this on living creatures and Grubby is already protesting this outrage. Grubby tries to bail because he has lobster courage and Teddy grabs him by the two tails on his rear end as Gimmick tells him not to worry. This is a #metoo moment that is just daring to happen. Even more so: 32.5% chance of death.
Since Grubby doesn't realize that those odds are still risky; he stops and accepts the offer. Of course! Teddy is giddy about being small and Gimmick explains the remote for us and pushes the red button. This create a long sequence that is strictly designed to tell the critics to buzz off about the lack of animation. It failed. Fuzz is shocked as the trio is shrunk to the size while being blinded by the light. The remote didn't shrink; because it's made of copper, bronze and other alloys, probably defective by design. So, Fuzz's giant shadow appears and the trio doesn't turn around, but sells it anyway. That's a logic break as the trio panics and scatters. Something tells me, Fuzz has been mistreated by Gimmick in the past and now that Gimmick is small, he can get his payback on him. Because otherwise, what is the point of being so hostile towards the trio? So we do some Scooby-Doo Chase Sequence The Giant Fob Edition to waste time. Then some really bad hiding as Grubby and Gimmick are completely clueless on the reality of being shrunk and assume Fuzz grew big. Of course; like in every episode, there has to be one scene where the soles of Teddy's feet have to change color and they picked now to do it. Now; there was a tease that Fuzz was going to attack the trio; but then they jump cut to underneath the sofa with the trio standing on a piece of the structure after being under it. Wait, what?! It's not like Fuzz couldn't go underneath the sofa or anything. That was a dumb logic break there. Then I notice that it's the red book of doom that they are standing on, which is completely out of nowhere and goes about the same place. So, Teddy wants to get in the sofa to keep Fuzz from attacking them as a giant spring lashes out. Teddy and company use it as a step ladder and climb up. So we scene change to Tweeg Tower as Tweeg is prepping the cannon so that he can fail at life...AGAIN! So, apparently, Tweeg has bought cannon balls that expand when used, because this cannon ball somehow cannot fit into the cannon. LB calls him Tweed and Tweeg blows him off; but LB is still right about the cannon ball. Tweeg needs to buy normal cannon balls; because these ones aren't useful now.
Tweeg does shoulder blocks on the cannon ball; followed by the cannon poker to the cannon ball and then kicks the cannon to the opposite side. Donald Duck might have the worst luck; but Tweeg isn't all that far behind, meaning Tweeg fails even in having the worst luck. Tweeg is probably the only heel on earth dumb enough to have a "Thank You For Not Smoking" board to be used to strike a match. I betcha the cannon blows up and Tweeg literally turns into an ash and soot shadow. I check the video...Yip. He is posed like he just surrendered. Also funny. Tweeg turns around and only half of his body is covered in a rare attention to detail moment and he walks into his tower, and LB takes forever before he does the Vinny laugh. And Tweeg doesn't forget to slam the door as well. Scene change back to inside the sofa as the trio is looking for a rip of sunlight as Grubby doesn't call this helpful. Teddy finds it as there is a conveniently placed coil which the babyfaces slide down on and Teddy takes a MAN-SIZED bump with his rear end; and might have hurt his tailbone in the process. Grubby not so much and we never see Gimmick land because we jump cut to the babyfaces at the rip where the sunlight is. Teddy climbs on a nail and they look outside (and apparently they had to climb up to see this) to the coffee table filled with fruits and other assorted stuff that appears out of nowhere on the table. Continuity is shot as usual. Boy, Grundo must be extremely small if this house is to scale from Teddy's prespective. Anyhow; it's time to climb down onto the coffee table and look around and sing the TEDDY RUXPIN SONG OF DOOM, which is the episode title. Yeah; it's part of the storybook series, but those stories take less than 10 minutes and so they have to stretch this out to waste time. The music is a really sad piano playing piece as we get strawberry eating and the singing literally makes the red ant shake it's head and walk down. When even the animators are ribbing you, you know this song is BS. Teddy and Grubby play leap frog and Grubby was suppose to jump, and slip on the butter and slide; but he missed it by six milimetres.
Grubby has a concussion because he bumped into a vase. So, the trio looks around as we see mushrooms, salt cubes (which Gimmick knows due to science and Grubby doesn't). Teddy is sitting on a pencil and is loving this adventure, which is kind of boring and heatless thus far. This is going to be a common theme for this show: The babyface segments are kind of boring; but the Tweeg/LB segments are the best part of this show even if it's in a rinse, lather, repeat sort of way. Grubby of course does a thank you like a notpology and Gimmick of course is giddy to get any praise that he doesn't see where he is going and slips on the butter. Gimmick slides and catches the green thread on a spool and slides over the edge of the coffee table causing Teddy and Grubby to panic. Now; here is a reason why the timing of this episode is shot: If I were a director: I would end the segment ten minutes in with Gimmick falling over the edge and then fade to black. That way, I maximize the suspense and then after the break; Gimmick would catch the thread (even repeating the scene before hand in case people were just tuning in right there). How does this scene end: Gimmick falls over the edge and then grabs the thread and we go to break right there, killing whatever suspense this scene had. If this is a BS&P spot; book a different spot then. The whole point is to have the tease of danger of Gimmick being dead if he doesn't grab the thread. When he grabbed the thread before the break; the tease was gone and I don't care about his safety because he's pretty much safe for the moment. DUMB! Anyhow; this is a typical Teddy Ruxpin episode.
After the commercial break; We continue the downward drop of Gimmick as they show the spool of thread winding down; which would have made this more threatening if they showed it rolling during the sequence before the commercial break. Teddy has to duck because he was nearly spiked with the needle and Grubby is spool rolling and the running sound effects are dubbed in poorly. I think the company at the time didn't have access to the public domain sound effects and had to make their own and their own is extremely haphazard at best. The animation of Teddy running to grab the spool was also haphazard at best as Gimmick is hanging onto the thread literally two inches from the floor; which is six feet in small terms. Grubby is dizzy and laying on the spool claiming that Gimmick was threading on thin ice. HAHA! That was legit funny; a rare moment for the trio. Teddy tells Grubby to get some tape and Grubby bails; and so we jump cut back to Tweeg Tower for fail at life attempt number three; which usually is the most charming one of the set. Tweeg is fire arcing the cannon with a welder tool because he needs to fix the cannon after it exploded in the previous segment. Maybe you should sell your cannon balls, Tweeg. These one seem to enjoy inflation so much. Of course, Tweeg sets the welding arc near an out of nowhere trail of gunpowder and the flame touches the gunpowder and heads to a barrel filled with gunpowder. Tweeg and LB turn around and panic. They run into the tower and slam the door. The barrel explodes off-screen as the heels pant and then the concussion of the blow sends them flying head first into the stove and oven complete with cuckoo bird sound effects, and really the best sounds thus far. Meaning that they got a good recording of a cuckoo clock, which only requires turning the hands of time. Scene back to the coffee table as it's Grubby's turn to have some bad luck in what I dub as "Grubby VS The Masking Tape". This sadly isn't as funny as Lex Lugar VS. the NWA Cyberspace T-Shirt. Gimmick notices that Fuzz is asleep as Grubby makes it to the spool looking like a mummy. Teddy tries to help him; but we hear humming sounds, which is the virtue signal for "Here comes the heelish house fly!"
Teddy and Grubby run and Grubby has no sense of irony because he only has two working feet. Of course! Grubby slips on the butter and goes sliding and this somehow causes the fly to bump into the apple and get a concussion of his own. Jump cut to a sky shot of Gimmick sitting on his own book and sulking about not finding it. The house fly recovers and that's when Gimmick realizes that the open book is his encyclopedia. DUMB! Even dumber, he even announces this to his friends; as Teddy is running with Grubby in tow as we are now doing the old "Run left off-screen, turn around, run right off-screen, turn around, rinse, lather, repeat" spot that defines cheap television animation. Sometimes; there are spots where this is effective. It's not here. So, Grubby is blowing off Gimmick as Gimmick has to check the red book of doom and finds the section for Mosca Domestica, the fly everyone. Apparently; sugar is it's weakness as Teddy and Grubby head to the sugar bowl. Teddy gets on Grubby's shoulders and tells Teddy to get out from under him and duck as he lifts the sugar bowl lid up with a spoon. The fly gets the dreaded "TOING!" sound nearly fourteen minutes in and drops into the sugar bowl as the two babyfaces bail to allow the fly to eat the sugar. Well; that sugar bowl is going to have to be replaced with new sugar and probably disinfected to prevent infection, if you know what I mean. So, we go back to the edge where the spool is and Teddy needs some tape; so instead of going to the tape depenser; he simply takes the tape off of Grubby, causing Grubby to be tickled. Of course! Of course, he's faking because there's no way to turn down the volume once someone is legit tickled. Grubby then gets rolled down the coffee table and takes a couple of bumps into the floor and book. Well; Teddy took a tailbone bump better; so there you go. Teddy comes down via the scene changer of doom as the trio exchange notes on the situation. So, the trio walks off and the animators could only bother to show the top half of their bodies. Sigh. Grubby is ready to be bored again because while adventures are interesting, they can be dangerous. Okay; that sounds reasonable enough.
So, they are basically walking to find the remote again as we scene change back to Tweeg's Tower for attempt number four at failing life. At this point; this is getting way past overkill now. Lots of measuring and oiling ensue and checking accurancy on a cannon that has a zero percent hit rate. Tweeg strikes the match on the board sign again and lights the fuse. Tweeg and LB cover their ears and of course, the cannon basically turns towards the door of Tweeg Tower because Tweeg is only second to Donald in having the worst luck. Then we get the funniest tease of a spot ever: The cannon points upwards and fires. Tweeg clears the smoke and the cannon ball rises into the sky; and it hyperboles and comes down. Tweeg and LB panic and run into Tweeg Tower; making me assume that the cannon ball was going to drop outside...Nope! It fell through the roof and exploded right onto Tweeg inside the tower because there is the bump WITH CHEESE AND BACON on the floor inside the tower. Now THAT was great! And people wonder why these segments were funny and the babyface segments are so boring? LB calls him Tweeze and declares that he did in fact hit something before doing the Vinny laugh. So we head back to the remote and because Gimmick and company are so small; they cannot get the remote to work. Ooops. Gimmick sounds like he has the hiccups. Grubby of course does nothing but climb as Gimmick tells him to find the wooden spoon on the floor. Grubby finds the spoon and drags it stage right as Gimmick does his "calculations are correct" catchphrase; one of the few catchphrases I use from this show. Gimmick goes all science on us, and Teddy basically implies that Grubby is going to get catapulted onto the button; which Grubby calls a bad idea. Is it any worse than getting tickled? It's the only way, says Gimmick; showing his lack of nuance and well being for his fellow friend. Because everyone knows that catapults/slingshots always land in a chair. It's cartoon logic, people! Grubby sits on the handle of the spoon and does the Gruffi pose; while accepting the terms. Idiot! Teddy and Gimmick jump down and Grubby gets slingshot high into the air and where he lands, does Gimmick have a clue? Of course, this fails as Grubby lands in Fuzz's water bowl; so yes, Fobs are the dogs of this world. That's highly disrespectful of Gimmick there, considering that Fobs are clearly sentient. Grubby climbs out of the bowl and bails and this makes Fuzz mad.
Hilariously; when Grubby makes it onto the remote control, they use a shot of Fuzz bouncing that clearly implies that it was meant for Giant Fuzz and this completely gives away the next spot. Wow; this episode is better animated than The Incredible Shrinking Molly, but the story is much more exciting in The Incredible Shrinking Molly. More on that later. So, Fuzz jumps and the babyfaces all bail; allowing Fuzz to push the green button and that turns on the Portable Reducing Machine and it returns everyone to normal...Or does it? The trio is relieved that this is over; but Gimmick makes the foolish error of turning around because the machine also turned Fuzz into a giant. Of course! Grubby is clueless because you would think that the green button would imply that it would turn stuff big; but I guess I should expect illogical thoughts from these babyface. Apparently; being little makes his cuddly. Bigot. So Fuzz is sitting on the remote device and the babyfaces have to lift the Fob somewhat off the ground to find it as Teddy finally finds the remote control; but Grubby makes the fatal error of fat shaming Fuzz, by saying that he needs to go on a diet. This angers Fuzz and Teddy, like a stupid idiot says in position to allow Fuzz to head butt his back and cause the remote control to go flying. These babyface deserve to get squashed after that obvious gaffe. The babyfaces all scatter to no music and the coffee table gets upended like Miyamoto's tea table as we look at Gimmick's house and the roof is really wacky as we get shaking to make the scene work without having to animate a thing. Somehow, there is a lampshade on Teddy's head and Grubby is being chased by Giant Fuzz as Teddy has a Krackpotkin plan for this. Why not? He's the only one who hasn't messed up a thing since this episode started. Teddy runs in, grabs the remote and then gets in position for Fuzz to see him. Teddy then bails, Fuzz follows him, Teddy rolls like log out of the circle which we never see, pushes the red button, turns on the machine and Fuzz returns to normal barely touching the inside of the circle. Yeah; I don't know why I considered this episode better than the one TaleSpin did. Gimmick grabs Fuzz as this was an exciting day, I guess. Well; the mystery of the first crystal is solved and Teddy cannot wait for the other one. Grubby wants to wait until tomorrow because he's tired and everyone laughs anyway. Not funny. The next crystal won't be until Double Grubbys which is at least 13 episodes away. So, we head outside as Tweeg grabs a cannon ball and runs in; and throws the cannon ball and it bounces off Gimmick's door. Tweeg celebrates like he just won the Wrestlemania Main Event and I could not stop laughing at it. That is probably the reason why I perfer this over The Incredible Shrinking Molly and I look like a numbskull saying that. Tweeg says gotcha, laughs and bails to end the episode at 19:11. Outside of a few logic breaks; this was your typical Teddy Ruxpin episode as it was designed to get the first crystal over and little else. ** 1/2 (50%).
THE REVIEW LINE
Well; we finally got into the meat of Teddy Ruxpin with the discovery of the first crystal and this wasn't as great as I thought it was. Mostly because the Tweeg/LB segments were the best part of the show as usual. This episode was basically a "shrinking/expanding" plotline prototype that was for the most part, was fine. I will say that despite the animation errors and continuity mistakes in this episode; it was still animated better than The Incredible Shrinking Molly and it did lead to the payoff that would be used in many episodes to come, so in that sense, it was better than TISM. However; TISM was funnier, had a better story to tell and even had an awesome ending; as much as Tweeg's ending was great in it's own right. I cannot buy Fuzz as a threatening creature even with the size difference. Ditto with the house fly compared to the bees in TISM. Gimmick is no match for Doctor Zibaldo in every single way and Baloo and company make a better trio than Gimmick, Teddy and Grubby anyway. Chuck's Tately's story has some fatal flaws; but it's much better than this episode storyline wise. Yeah; TaleSpin is a episodic show; but it never tries to be a serial show. Teddy Ruxpin is a serial show made by episodic thinking and that will always be trouble. Overall; this was all right, but very disappointing as the storybook product isn't exactly translating well to television due to the massive amount of filler required. So...
Thumbs in the middle for this episode and I'll see you all next time.