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The Adventures Of Teddy Ruxpin: Captured
Reviewed: 02/02/2019
The Death Of Innocence As The Gaslighter Gets Its Way...Sort Of...
Well; it is now time for all the light hearted moments to end as we now come to the main event of the first half of this show and how fitting that it's at the halfway point of this series (although for rant purposes, this would be episode #43). Teddy Ruxpin and his friends have absoutely zero idea what is going to hit them as MAVO now has an Airship and their mission is to steal the crystals and basically capture or kill anyone who opposes them. Oh; and someone is going to tease a Disney death on this show and it's not going to be Wooly. How does this episode fare? So; let's rant on shall we...?
Episode opens at the Grunge's Jungle village as butterflies and other insect fly around while the Jungle Grunges are dancing and eating Grunge Gumbo. So, there is a lot of repeated animation here; which is still an inprovement from most cartoons where there is no animation whatsoever. Treena goes over to the trios (Teddy, Grubby and Gimmick as one trio; This, That & The Other as the other trio; so the remaining Anythings went home; probably as punishment for not speaking up sooner in the previous episode) whom are the ones eating soup and not being animated. Of course; the continuity is shot as on the far shot; Grubby is only having one bowl; while on the close up, he's having two bowls at the same time. So, the entire party is for saving the Anythings and saving the Grunge Gumbo, so they make new friends in the process. Because, why not?! But wait; Treena claims that the trio needs a change of image, because the image present doesn't clash well with the Jungle Grunges style, you see. Teddy is questionning this of course. So, we do the scene changer of doom as Treena is waiting for the trio to come out of the hut. Teddy and Grubby come out. Grubby is wearing a biege like shirt with pockets; like Baloo in TaleSpin. Teddy is wearing a green vest with blue pants. Nothing really special about this and I don't see how this improves their image to PAR-TIE with the Grunges. Finally; after some shyness; out comes Gimmick wearing an orange tunic, orange shorts and bare legs. He looks like Link when he gets to be aged to 65 years old. Treena approves of the legs and Gimmick giggles. Apparently; dressing up like 1987 Link leads to dancing as Treena offers them a walk to the big bash and bails. Teddy goes back into the hut and puts the crystal belt underneath his clothes for safe keeping, because he's clearly insecure in the Grunges taking them; although this might be a sign that Teddy is taking the MAVO threat seriously for the first time in this arc. He's going to get a rude awakening in about five minutes from now, I assure thee. Grubby and Gimmick agree with Teddy and then all three of them walk back to the village for the party.
Scene change to center square as all the Anythings have since returned from their time out to demonstrate their shape shifting skills to the Jungle Grunges; which instantly amuses them. Somehow; This changes back without a sound as he addresses the crowd. Treena asks how they do it and the Anythings don't know. The creators know; it involes watching The Popples on a regular basis. This of course refuses to turn into vegatables and the Grunges laugh on that one. I don't think he was trying to be funny. So, the grand finale is all six shapeshift into Treena, Topper and the Grunge Chef perfectly and the doppelgangers get to hang out with the real characters. Even Gimmick is shocked at that one as stated in the background ADR. Sadly; the Anythings cannot mimic their voices and change back, because no one can take their place. And when it comes to some people; that's a good thing. The crowd pops for this and stops dead cold as we scene change back to the Airship. Treena offers them to come back anytime as the two trios, minus Teddy are in the Airship. Grubby offers to come back at supper time tonight and everyone laughs at his expense. Teddy gets back into the Airship and we get some waving as Gimmick wants to return to the Mushroom Forest. So, in order to waste some more time; it's time for the recurring song of "Let's Sail Away Today" and how apporo given that this is basically the last scene before certain main event doom. "Let us put out worries away" is basically inviting death to cut their heads out at this point! So, the Airship gets caught up in a bunch of clouds. Which leads to another continuity error as they are sailing above the clouds rather than in them. Teddy then hears another sound and thinks the Airship is having problems, and Gimmick claims that the Airship is fine. Uh-oh! Grubby thinks it's Gutangs and he's already putting firewood in the stove to whip up the batch of Root Stew aka the secret weapon in making Teddy Ruxpin lie for no good reason. I added that because later on; Teddy Ruxpin is going to lie a lot and with good reason, sort of. Teddy then notices his worst nightmare and more so Gimmick's: Here comes the Eclipse~!
And everyone from MAVO is here: Quellor, the Troll Nephews, most of the MAVO guys when the Troll Nephews are not around, GUOL, Tweeg and LB; with 90% of them wearing pirate costumes. I realize that this was three years before TaleSpin occured; but the Air Pirates make these clowns extremely low rent. Granted; Tweeg being low rent is uber funny; but it does nothing for the rest of MAVO to dress up like idiots. Kit's outfit in Captains Outrageous destroys their outfits as well. So, Tweeg has the telescope as is in delight claiming that there are three babyfaces to pick on; even though there are clearly NINE of them! Sure; MAVO outnumbers them, but it's not the domination Tweeg is expecting. Tweeg is so happy as he calls for Iggly and still cannot get his name right as he asks for the secret orders from Quellor in order to prove how mean he is. LB don't care and neither does Iggly as Iggly has new orders: Swab the deck as he produces the bucket of water and the SHANE DOUGLAS MOP OF DOOM to boot. Now that's being mean and Tweeg is offended by this and stands up to Iggly, blowing him off and refusing to do the job. I guess he has jobberitits of the knee like Kevin Nash often does. Quellor (with is parrot wearing an eye patch and has a peg leg, whom the parrot is perched on the shoulder of Quellor) breaks it up and orders Tweeg to do the job or else. Or else meaning the parrot is going to cut generic parrot promos of repeating the words multiple times in a row. I was hoping it would say at the end that it's a noisy parrot, just so I can get a cheapshot in on Peppa Pig again. Tweeg thinks doing the job involves luring the Illiop over to the Eclipse, which shows that Iggly was right all along and therefore should swab the deck and do a real job. The parrot is annoying me to no end! Tweeg begs for mercy; including hanging on Quellor's legs; which pretty much seals the deal. As in, Quellor decides to let Tweeg lure the trio into the trap. That is so dumb that only Tweeg could pull it off. Tweeg claims that he makes laughing stocks out of the babyfaces. LB: Sure; he makes them laugh their heads off.
Jump cut back to the ship as the Eclipse front artwork and animation looks horrible as Grubby decides to whip up even more stew as Teddy nicely blows it off because this will not work. Grubby of course is nervous; so he wants to eat more Root Stew. Yeah; I mean, this could be his last meal. And then we get the high point of the first act as Tweeg is literally doing the sweet talk routine on the babyfaces and this creates the iconic shot of the babyfaces looking shocked and appalled. It was so darn good; I laughed my head off hearing this! Teddy has the Gruffi pose on full blast and is angry for the first time in this series, and asks what Tweeg wants. Tweeg wants to have a tea party and Teddy no sells the deal; which annoys Grubby for no reason. WHAT?! Quellor is not thrilled about this; but Tweeg is delluisonal as usual. So, the airships are closer to each other as That suggests tricking them. I don't think this is going to work as Teddy decides to "accept" the tea party, but Grubby completely blows it because he wants cucumber sandwiches; which causes Tweeg to ask Iggly about it and Iggly violently blows it off and effectively blows their cover. The Eclipse's back end looks like it's animated in an awkward manner as the two airship are teasing to collide with each other; but then Gimmick gives the signal and it's full gear up over the Eclipse with ease. Teddy was at the propeller this time, Grubby at the stove and the Anythings pumping air into said stove. After all this; LB asks about the cucumbers and cue the Vinny laugh. That was also funny. Quellor blows off Tweeg for being a stupid idiot; and orders all men to prepare to catch up and board. Quellor then threatens Tweeg with tortures not invented yet. Waterboarding? The Thumb Screws? Watching every Chargeman Ken episode a thousand times? So, Gimmick is pleased as the Anythings and Gimmick load more wood into the stove, as we get the Scooby Doo Chase Sequence the Total Eclipse edition~! Oh; and here comes Louie on his helicopter bicycle, because someone has to relay what is going on to Teddy's friends in the next episode, because innocence is dead, you see. Louie calls this news. I love real comments that aren't supposed to be real comments. Louie follows the airships. So, the Eclipse is gaining on them as Gimmick claims that he has a trick up his sleeve and they proceed to do the "Hide in the clouds" spots. In TaleSpin; that trick always backfires.
Except this time; it works as the Eclipse sails through the cloud and the Airship is "gone". Jump cut back to the cloud as the Airship rises and then flies west....and then unintentionally blows its cover because LOUIE is bicycling after them. The press is not an enemy of the people; but this press member is so stupid. Doesn't he realize that he also risks being captured by MAVO?! The orange hog who is clearly dressed like Don Karnage (although he is wearing a captain's hat); clearly notices Louie and the Airship. Quellor turns around and notices the escaping Airship as he yells at them to go faster, FASTER, FASTER, FASTER~! They turn around and now the trio is done for; because they cannot keep this up much longer. I realize that they are more concerned about getting out of this; but not once has Gimmick wondered how they build the Eclipse in the first place. The audience knows; but the trio has never been back home since pretty much the end of the last arc. So, we finally see Drudge swinging a grappling hook over to latch onto the AirShip. Considering the clothes, Drudge seems to be the leader of the Troll Nephews, even though in later episode, Sludge is usually the leader. And so far; the show still continues to not name them. The MAVO Sky Pirate cheer like they won the Wrestlemania main event. Then we get a really stupid spot: Teddy is telling Grubby to get rid of the hook. Grubby manages to get the anchor out; and then gives up. WHAT?! Then Teddy pulls up a wooden board and brings out the crystal belt. Wait; wasn't the belt inside Teddy's clothes in the last scene? Never mind; Teddy's Krackpotkin plan is to surrender right now. Even Grubby thinks this is dumb as Teddy claims it's to save the crystals. Another continuity error: Grubby and Gimmick respond to Teddy, without the Airship present, as if they are standing on thin air. Knack Animation would have laughed this out of the building. Teddy's plan is to have Grubby and Gimmick to run interference while he hides the crystals somewhere; the Anythings can hide anywhere they want. The Anythings transform into cargo as Teddy goes over and announces that they will have the tea party after all. Within seconds the Eclipse bumps against the Airship and that ends the segment 12 minutes in. This has not hold up well in the face of Plunder and Lightning; but it's pretty good anyway. I swear that there was a two minute song featuring the MAVO Pirates preparing the Eclipse to sail on it's maiden voyage. Maybe I mistake the Hate Plague arc's version which did give rise to the Eclipse again with this episode; although that would've helped this episode a lot more than the one later on. I'm confused.
After the commercial break; we get a front shot of Quellor ordering them to grab the Illiop, Ruxpin and bring him to me. Now; this is where MAVO looks incredibly stupid because Teddy's plan to hide the crystal is to put the Crystal Belt into the demon's mouth of the Eclipse because he knows Quellor is going to search the Airship for them. So, how does Teddy get on board that ship? Well; Grubby and Gimmick bail stage right on command from Quellor and Teddy just stands there and gets grabbed by the Don Karnage orc member and thrown to Drudge and Sludge. Now; do you see the problem? If I was a monster and I grabbed Teddy Ruxpin; I would be holding him, pull him down and start frisking him because the Crystal Belt is in his clothes! Which they never do. What a bunch of idiots?! You had Teddy Ruxpin right there. FRISK HIM, YOU MORONS~! Even funnier; the DK Orc swung his sword and should have slashed Teddy's clothes; but it's like no contact was made. What was the point of swinging the sword at Teddy? This is just a trainwreck of a sequence. Grubby makes funny faces and that causes Drudge to drop Teddy on the ship like a complete moron and Drudge gets onboard and chases Grubby. Then Gimmick pops up from the barrel for more taunting. And since pirates are involved; the barrel is used for the bowling pin spot. Back on the Eclipse, Sludge and another MAVO pirate run past; not even noticing Teddy right beside them like complete morons. Hey Quellor; Teddy is on the ship. Grab him and frisk him! Teddy grabs the Crystal Belt and puts it in the demon's mouth on the front of the Eclipse and now MAVO is done. Grubby swings like Tarzan and it means nothing now. These pirates act like stereotypical pirates; even more so than the Sky Pirates in Ducktales 2018 as Gimmick dodges sword swipes better than Teddy; making the sword swinging on Teddy even worse now. Somehow; Gimmick has an out of nowhere short club of doom (with the color matching the sword color of Sludge's (which changes back to metal later on) in the beginning of the scene) and he bonks the yellow doo-gag pirate out of it's wits. The pirates assumed Gimmick surrended and Gimmick's response is high comedy as he blows the cover AND claims TEDDY surrendered, without stating what they were hiding. The green globin pirate gets on the mast of the Airship; cuts the rope and Grubby falls like a dying seagull and no one notices Louie filming all this and loving it. Gimmicks and the Anything Props are surrounded by the pirates and Gimmick finally drops the club and surrenders. Sadly; we never got to see Teddy actually being caught by anyone until the next scene changer.
So we head onto the Eclipse as the three babyfaces are driven down to the wooden floor. Quellor demands the crystals and Teddy basically says they don't have them and even Drudge admits that they did in fact frisk him, a good ten minutes too late. Quellor then orders the pirates to search the AirShip; which is the signal that we need to kill some time. So, we scene change as the MAVO pirates search the ship, and cannot find the crystals. The only thing of note here is DK Orc continuing to be a meanie by stepping on the Anything Rope; causing the Anything to squeal in pain. The doo-rag pirate grabs a barrel and shakes it, causing one of the Anythings to say that it tickles. This confuses the pirates and they think it's haunted now. Doo-rag guy drops the barrel like a meanie and the Anything sells pain of course. DK Orc sells this haunting stuff, by having his nose broken down. Quellor is not amused by this and decides to fasten a cable to the Airship (which they already did earlier, so that was redundant) and tow it to headquarters to destroy it board by board. And then we scene change to towing the Airship without a single response from Newton Gimmick; because that is his creation! WHAT?! So, This (I figured out that he was the rope due to his knotted face) notices that the Pirates are gone and the Anythings return to normal. Apparently; Teddy's orders were for them to escape, which is reasonable at this point, but The Other notices the tow rope is a huge problem. Now we get to the best part of the episode: Jump cut back to Quellor threatening Teddy again and claims that Teddy Ruxpin is completely unreasonable. Ummm; you first Quellor. That's not the best part. Teddy's reaction to this was just high, high comedy.
Teddy: You can't put a price on the Crystals. They represent riches of the spirit, and you want to use them for evil!
BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! First of all; as I mentioned in Father's Day when I did the Cleveland Notes summary on the show; I pointed out that there is a price on the Crystals because it's clear MAVO wants them. The second line is even funnier because it's like Teddy already knows why MAVO wants them. Even though; GOUL thinks Teddy Ruxpin is a threat to them, as if Teddy is the bad guy here. If I was in Teddy's position; I would have said "Why do you want the crystals?!" That would put the heels on defense and they either say it's none of his business or they blirt out the entire plan that they want everyone in Grundo to hate each other. Then Teddy can refuse either way and make the heels look stupid; which that is what they are supposed to be in the end. This line alone was so utterly good that I was laughing my rear end so much; I almost broke my back in the process. That was comedy diamond. And Phil Baron's deliver was so laughably bad that I couldn't take Teddy Ruxpin nor his Gruffi pose seriously. Hey, Quellor; it's time to reveal those unknown tortures you were going to use on Tweeg and apply them to Teddy Ruxpin! TICKLE HIM FOR GOODNESS SAKES~! And before someone says torture isn't allowed on this show; Teddy and company tickled the Wooly Whatsit in the Rainbow Falls arc earlier. Tickling is perfectly fine on this show. The trio no sells the final offer, Quellor claims that they will regret this and the parrot annoys him. Heck; Quellor has a set of feathers from that very parrot. But of course they don't go for the obvious way to make Teddy Ruxpin talk because it's so much more amusing to (Spoiler Alert!) make him walk the plank. So, the monsters grab Teddy and put him on this unsafe looking plank of wood. So, the Anythings on the Airship look around and they found an out of nowhere sword hidden underneath a yellow cloth. Wait; what? The Anythings drag the sword up the stairs as we jump cut to the Eclipse with Teddy on the plank with the hair whipping in the wind. Quellor gives him one more chance to give up the crystals, while Grubby and Gimmick are in the hold position. Teddy don't say a word and Gimmick claims that Quellor wouldn't dare and Grubby blows him off for that. Quellor starts his count and they are avoiding the word death like crazy here. I wish Quellor would say: Goes on a long walk off the short plank. That would have been money. After the count of two; Gimmick asks what happens if they tell him where the crystals are and Teddy panics like crazy. I would agree with Teddy here; because these thugs are gaslighted now, there is no turning back.
Gimmick backs off after being told that MAVO would bring evil to the world. HOW?! I know that we find out in the Hate Plague Arc and Teddy was totally justified here, but for goodness sakes, Teddy still looks like the bad guy here because of GOUL's gaslighting. Teddy is backed up by a spear and now the pirates are simply poking at him to jump off. I realize that they did this with the Rescue Rangers at Disney; but it's difficult for me to love this when I saw Plunder and Lightning and having Dumptruck throwing Kit off the Iron Vulture with no breaking of the fall to help him. Heck; Don Karnage pretty much implied that he wanted to kill Kit with the Lightning Gun or worse and Kit throwing the pieces of the Air Foil saved him from that at least. BS&P and all; but it's so dumb. Meanwhile; the Anythings cut the tow rope with a lot of sawing. Back to the dumb plank walking as Grubby somehow gets free and throws the conveniently place rope inside the Eclipse down as Teddy bounces off the plank and starts to free fall. Teddy grabs the rope and Teddy breathes a sigh of relief despite HANGING ON FOR DEAR LIFE~! The pirates notice Teddy and instead of pulling him up onto the ship; or even cutting the rope to make him freefall; they notice that the Airship is gone and runs around in a disorganized fashion, bumping into each other like complete fools! Meanwhile; the Anythings want to either go home, follow the Eclipse or find out where they are. Sadly; they cannot do any of those things and they cannot even fly this thing. Yeah; that's a total drag. Back to the Eclipse for more panicking from the pirates. Wow; the Air Pirates really are much better than these clowns. Quellor finally breaks it up and blows them off for being stupid idiots. So, he orders the green troll pirate to pull up Teddy Ruxpin, which was a good two minutes too late; but there is no sign of Teddy on the rope. The monsters are not amused; but the green troll pirate called Teddy couragous; as if THAT was an insult. Don Karnage would have hung him by his pinkies if any of his pirates ever used that insult. This causes Gimmick and Grubby to think that Teddy's dead and they cannot even say he's dead. Well; techincally, he's not since he's hanging onto the back of the ship. At least this moment got a reaction and it really doesn't matter because Teddy is literally scratching the Eclipse, just to hang on for dear life. Jump cut back to the Airship as the Anything have somehow escaped the cloud as This walks in with binoculars and notices that they bring things in close. So, This points it and finds the Eclipse as Teddy cannot hold on for any longer. This panics on cue and Teddy finally takes the free fall towards the river and that ends the episode at 19:12. I know Teddy Ruxpin fans called this the best episode of the series, and while it's still a really good episode; time has not been kind to it. There was a lot of funny stuff; but some of it cracked me up for all the wrong reasons. *** 3/4 (75%).
THE REVIEW LINE
Well; I finally got off my sickbed to finally do this episode and it just doesn't hold up well. There were a number of continuity errors in the episode; although the animation was really great all things considered. The booking of this was the episode's downfall (sort of) mainly due to time and TaleSpin. I'm sure back in the day; this would be been a huge shock, especially considering Teddy Ruxpin as a children's storybook; but they already did the death scene with Wooly, so we know Teddy is going to be all right in the end, even if it takes an entire episode before he recovers, unlike Wooly. MAVO's Air Pirates are the dumbest (although they had to be in order for the booking to work out) and this did nothing for them. Tweeg and LB were practically written out by teleport just before MAVO boarded and the attempt of serious booking took over. Teddy practically handed MAVO the chance to get the Crystal Belt, even a chance to make him talk; and they were more interested in being stereotypical pirates instead of actually making Teddy talk like monster heels. The Tweeg/LB segment was amusing as well and despite the slow start; the show really got good the moment the Eclipse arrived. Overall; this was a good, but not great episode at best, TaleSpin made this and Teddy Ruxpin look second rate. So...
Thumbs in the middle, pointing up for this episode and I'll see you all next time.