Return to 50 Webs
Disclaimer#1: All images, characters and material is (C) 1990/1991 Walt Disney Company and is being used without permission. The webmaster has made sure that no money was made in the creation of this web page and that all material used here is used with the up most affection and respect to the Walt Disney Company and the Tale Spin Team.
Disclaimer#2: The views expressed here are solely the views of the webmaster and no one else. The webmaster has no intentions to change anyone's minds about a particular subject and respects the views of the viewers. Comments about this and other editorial can be E-Mail at gweagle@eastlink.ca or signing the Cloudkicker guest book.
The Adventures Of Teddy Ruxpin: The Ying Zoo
Reviewed: 06/25/2019
More Like A Slave Camp To Me!
Well; it's time to finally bring the beginning of the end of the Teddy Ruxpin: Storybook series and dive into the real meat of this show. So, finally Teddy and Grubby are going to try to rescue their friends from the evil sorcerer Ying who has created basically a slave camp in the guise of a zoo. Will they rescue them? How does this episode fare? So; let's rant on shall we...?
Episode opens with a shot of Quagmire and a modern bridge. Jump cut to Teddy and Grubby in their unique monster disguises (which actually hurts their cause rather than helps) looking at the signs as Grubby and Teddy are shocked and appalled by these signs. One; Gimmick's image looks horrible and two, they cannot believe Tweeg is involved in this as a slave, period. Grubby wonders how they will resuce them and Teddy proclaims that they must go to the slave camp...ERR...I mean zoo as Grubby worries about the dress code. Jump cut to inside with the Airship in the background as Ying is pacing around with Fred #1, BGA and a new troll with blue skin who dresses like the other guards on this show. I'll name him BGT until I get an official name for him, if he has one. Ying is ordering them to do whatever it takes to put WeeGee out of business, which means he's the only one in this show who hates this feud as much as I do. That makes me feels slimy and dirty for some reason. Ying calls his charges, missiles and orders them to charge like missiles before his mood changes. The guards sell and rush out of the zoo and we jump cut to them arriving at the gates of Wizard Land which is still called Wizard World at this point. The three guards rush into Wizard Land, and then stop. They see all the guys and gals playing and having fun and the guards stop and are giddy, basically turning on Ying in the process as we jump cut to Ying's office at the look out as Ying has an hourglass watch on his person as he declares victory already. Jump cut to later as he blows off his hourglass watch being way too slow, or something. Of course, Ying forgets to check the telescope and finally does check as his urge to kill henchmen is now rising to new peaks, because...oh, now they are calling it Wizard World. Why didn't you do that in the previous episode all the time?! So, whomever was writing this arc had no coordination here. Whatever, I don't like this feud, for other reasons. So, one of them is riding the Merry-Go-Round (BGT), one of them is playing a carnival game with a red monster with big lips (Fred #1) as Fred #1 actually wins despite Ying claiming that the wheel is rigged to prevent the number five from coming up. Joke's on you, Ying; I can hear Wee Gee saying it right now. Ying is flustered and we scene change back to the Air Ship portion of the grounds as Ying is ordering Fred #2 to not let anyone leave the premises and Fred #2 salutes him and acts like a proto-Don Karnage.
Yes, Don Karnage stole his "silly bear-type person" mannerisms from Fred #2! No wonder the 1980's were so disrespected! Everyone was stealing from them and those shows were much better in hindsight. Well, not all of them, but many of them. Ying paces around and when he means no one leaves, that is a literal statement as Fred #2 is not happy with that. This is turning into a silly rock song now; but wait! Ying still has his slaves...ERRR...I mean prisoners left and has a Krackpotkin Plan. Scene change as Ying has created a resturant area in front of the Air Ship with seating available. Ying is dressing up an old krinkly troll/bird Wuzzle like creatures (without bright colors) into a waiter's outfit, so he's a WWT now until he gets an official name. Oh; and he's a heel waiter because Ying wants him to learn the fine art of pulling out someone's chair...with them sitting in it. There is a fish tank in the background and yes, Ying pulls the chair out of WWT and WWT has a face that only a killer would love. And Ying. So, next up; serving the food from the trays. So far, this is normal even for a babyface waiter...until he takes the pitcher and puts it on the table as the tray WARNERS itself and lands right on the waiter who makes a mess of himself. That is cleaned off by the magic of a magic action wipe. Next up; Ying throws trays at WWT as we get the dreaded magic balancing act spot. It ends at four trays at once as WWT fails the spot; but Ying don't care because heel waiter. He tastes the purple liquid, likes it and then tells WWT to keep practicing. Oh yeah; I'm loving this Ying guy as a monster heel now. Scene change to the slave cells as Ying lets out Gimmick from one of them and explains the situation involving Wee Gee and Wizard World and orders Gimmick to construct and build the ultimate fun ride. Gimmick likes the challenge, but no sells anyway with Gruffi pose. So Ying decides to do the scummy heel thing which is to throw money at the problem and Gimmick no sells this as well. You know, this is the 59th episode I have ranted on and not once have I seen the dreaded Droolbeast. At this point, I would threaten Gimmick to meet the dreaded Droolbeast so Gimmick gets scared and agrees to do it. That would be evil. Nope! Ying then calls Gimmick out and claims that he cannot do it and thus is a terrible inventor and Gimmick gets the TOING sound and agrees to do it. What a babyface move by Ying?! Made Gimmick look like a complete dork here.
One final note: As Gimmick is countering Ying's babyface promo, Ying towers over Gimmick here and seeing Gimmick mad like this is like Gimmick yelling at a cloud. Gimmick needs helping hands and the Octopede Sailors are right there in prison for this to work. I guess they agree to help Gimmick off-screen and it's probably for the best. The other monsters are probably incompentent and probably wouldn't work with Gimmick anyway; and the Octopede Sailor figure that Gimmick will treat them more equally and fairly then Ying ever could. So, we get the ULTIMATE FUN RIDE MONTAGE + TEDDY RUXPIN SONG OF DOOM~! Of course! Gimmick claim to being naturally scientific is so dumb, it's no wonder he's a dork. He of course is Daddy Pig in the case of doing nothing...AND THE ROCK SAYS NOTHING other than march and sing. Also, where is Zina in all this? So, not only does she not speak anymore, she has been written out by teleport? Keep in mind, Grubby's motivation for saving everyone is because he loves Zina. He claims that he can make Hermes Shoes (Riiiiggggghhhhhttttt), a popcorn kernal that pops quiet (that one is believable) and an igloo big enough to handle any crowd (sort of already done and climate change kills it dead). And then Zina gets written back in by teleport helping the Octopede Sailors. And the audio warping is still in evidence here. It's not a sound glitch from the original; it's the original audio being mishandled and mistreated. Cartoons are not a toy; only professionals should be perserving them. Zina actually sings here; but it's the ADR loop, so it doesn't count. I should note that we are reaching an hour since Zina has spoke during the lie detector angle at the climax of the first episode of this arc. Scene change to the city of Quagmire as Ying has a load of brochures and is stuffing them into mailboxes as he proclaims that this is the key to putting Wizard World out of business. Okay. Oh; and back comes BGT carrying at least five times as many brochures and complaining about it. Ying blows him off because he had to carry some, too. If it wasn't for Wee Gee's involvement, this arc would be bad in a good way. Here it's bad in a bad way. Scene change to BGA painting the Ying Zoo sign with invisible paint as Ying continues to cut promos about how he's taking back his business from that Donald Trumpish WeeGee. Oh geez, that was more accurate than I had intented.
Ying also sneaked in an admission raise; which sounds like a loot box to me. BGT is not impressed by this; so Ying decides to up the ante with BGA stepping back as the sign is now electrified more than the Rock was ten year later. This is enough to get the kids and monsters to reconsider Wizard World and rush in. Believe it or not; that sign actually goes somewhere in the next episode. There is a brown Fuzzy Troll who is also dressed the same way as the rest turning the key of a box that makes power to the sign, like he's trying to open a Jack-In-The-Box. So, we have FGT now. Scene change to Ying in a booth with a carnival hat and cane doing the hard sell; I don't know why, we already know he's a sleazebag without it. So, the gates open and everyone walks in as Teddy and Grubby in monster disguises goes to the gate. I guess the other monsters have lifetime passes, maybe Ying should have cancelled those first and then raised the price of those passes which would be ironic since Tweeg did the same thing with the magazine in the last arc. So Teddy and Grubby have a conversation about tickets with Ying and Ying thinks Grubby is a tough monster. Yeah, I'll bet. Teddy thinks so anyway, then again he lies about liking root stew, so I doubt that he's the ultimate master of truth telling. Teddy calls himself a Slime Puppy while Grubby is an Octoslug. Ying is intrigued by this as he gives them the two tickets and lets them inside the zoo. As they go out of sight, Ying proclaims that he's never seen them before and no one else has; so he snaps his fingers and in comes another troll guard with no name who dresses the same way as the other guards in this zoo. I guess Grubby was to a certain extent about the dress code in this zoo. So, Ying and the troll exchange notes as Ying proclaims that soon, he'll have the ultimate ride and the ultimate attraction. In the end, he didn't know the half of it as the segment ends nine minutes in. This is so much better now that the focus is on the zoo instead of a feud that smells like rotting death.
After the commercial break; we head to MAVO Headquarters for no good reason as we head to the throne room as we discover that the search party for Quellor is the Troll Nephews. Yeah, like they can find anything at this point as Trudge is stammering and then blames Sludge for not finding Tweeg. I would have run at this point because Quellor has the Black Box in front of him in case anyone says no about finding Tweeg, or something. Quellor teases zapping them with the Black Box; but then restrains himself because it might break the Black Box in the process. Way to bury your weapon there, Quellor. No wonder everyone turned on him during the Hate Plague arc. In comes Iggly with the mail call because of Paragraph 17, Subsection 41: The Surpeme Oppressor is required to have 15 minutes of fun everyday. Why would a heel group have babyface rules when they don't respect the rules of law, let alone the rules of this organization? Iggly has some suggestions; but Quellor is not amused, although him throttling the Troll Nephews would be many buys and they are RIGHT THERE to be targeted. Quellor could throttle Iggly instead and that would be enough for him to shut up and give him the darned mail. Iggly finally gets the point and gives Quellor the mail. Apparently, the boring mail is not bills; but conspiracy theories from whackos, that even Quellor hates. Geez, that really turns him babyface in hindsight, maybe keeping him as a heel was a mistake in hindsight. I cannot wait to see how the new Teddy Ruxpin reboot handles this. Trudge wants Monsters Digest and he digests scroll of paper thrown in conveniently placed mouth. Okay, this episode is so much better now. Quellor finally reads the brochure and he's angry because the Troll Nephews are total morons and Quellor has to do everything himself. So, Quellor has found out where Tweeg is and summons the Eclipse because they are going to the Ying Zoo, which Trudge loves. I was hoping Quellor would say: "You love it so much, why don't you become an attraction?" It's a horrible thing to say, but at least it would have gotten Quellor's heel heat back somewhat. Nope; we scene change to outside Elinore's house. Elinore is inside with LB as she has gotten death threats. Yes, actual death threats. Why would anyone want to kill Elinore? She is the only one in this show that makes me feel a lot better as a human being. If she's dead, then I actually feel sorry for her. Come on, man!
So Elinore throws the mail away right where LB is standing, and LB is not impressed. However; LB notices the brochure of the Ying Zoo and proclaims that the tacky brochure has her son, Tweeg, locked in a cage. Elinore looks at the brochure and of course, like the mean spirited bullies that she is, she kind of loves the moment. However; if they want to get the formula for gold, they must rescue him and it's time to go to the Ying Zoo. Speaking of the Ying Zoo, we head to the cages as Teddy and Grubby are walking around with Ying right behind him, so the last troll guard was just there to exchange notes and is gone now. Oooookkkkaaayyyy. The first slave is called an Upside-Downer who looks like one of the monsters we will see in the next episode doing the TEDDY RUXPIN SONG OF DOOM with Teddy. Except this one has the Gruffi pose and is mean and hypotizes Grubby into believing that he's sick and that gets Grubby angry and gives Ying all the laughs. I should note that in the next shot; the cage looks much bigger than it was on the closeup shot of the Upside-Downer. Ying tells Grubby to be careful; acting like a concerned babyface. Why isn't Ying the Surpeme Oppressor? Is it because he's a Perloon and thus Perloons are second class citizens in MAVO? Teddy notices a clam like monster with pole eyes and this is the Gorge Monster, who basically eats itself turning blue in the process. Grubby's not impressed by that; so Ying sings the TEDDY RUXPIN SONG OF DOOM about the Ying Zoo. Why didn't he sing this at the end of the first act with Teddy and Grubby is a mystery to me. I should note that the unnamed monsters in this sequence looks more impressive than the monsters who do have names. More singing as we cut to the electrified sign sparking and then a far shot of the zoo in what appears to be the end of the segment for Non-North American audiences almost 13 minutes in. So, after that we walk some more with Ying, Teddy and Grubby as most of the cages here are empty. Geez; no wonder this zoo is losing money, either the creatures are escaping or the creatures in Grundo are grossly limited. Or Ying has poor tastes in zoo creatures. Anyhow; Ying shows off an attraction that doesn't exist anymore, the Illiop as this does not thrill Teddy one bit. Ying calls the Illiop the most feared creature in all of Ying. Wanna bet the Grand Understander of Legends is behind this obvious gaslighting?
Even more so since the image of the Illiops makes them look like nasty monsters. It's not even subtle, or even an image of a smiling Illiop for irony. Teddy has the Gruffi pose on as Ying explains that the Illiop was the star attraction, pouring in money until the "ingrate" escaped. However, Ying's not worried because once he finds another one, that one will not escape. Oooooo, foreshadowing. Scene change to the Ultimate Ride as the Octopede Sailors are still building it as Gimmick is barking out orders and Captain Zelza has joined Gimmick, despite building along with the Octopede Sailors earlier in the episode. Zelza is not happy with Gimmick's excitement because they are still slaves in this forsaken zoo. Gimmick is reading the blueprints upside down which is every episode of Peppa Pig of Daddy Pig reading a map, and at least Zelza corrected him here, although she only turned the map 90 degrees instead of 180 degrees; but still acted like the map is correct. That was a logic break if I ever saw one. Zelza does the Gruffi pose and blows off inventors. Idiots, all of them! So, we scene change to Ying, Teddy and Grubby walking around and it's clear by now that Ying is preparing himself to put Grubby and Teddy in prison as Grubby stops, turns around and notices Zina working on the ride with the other captured babyfaces. Teddy turns around and notices them as well and they whisper yell about their plan; but Ying cuts them off at the pass and asks what this whispering is about? Grubby stammers like a stupid idiot and Teddy isn't much better at it either. Ying don't care about what they say anyway, which is a clear indication that it's irrelevent since his plan was to capture these two for his zoo anyway, so who cares if they know Gimmick and the Octopede Sailors anyway? Ying is actually doing a great job here as a monster heel and I'm amazed that he has almost gotten through three episodes without messing this up. So, Ying wants to show them something and if you are a babyface, that means that the plan is underway and you should run now. Teddy and Grubby of course walk with him to an open cage and they notice it empty. Ying finally gives away the facade that it's the new home for a Slimepuppy and an OctoSlug. Oh, snap! Sadly, the background is messed up as Teddy and Grubby were supposed to run away from the cage, but the background of the prison cells isn't used when the babyfaces both bail.
Teddy and Grubby bail north; but BGT arrives out of nowhere to grab them, causing a lot of awkward wiggling and more wiggling than you would see on an episode of Wiggle, Wiggle, Wiggle! BGT brings them back as both babyfaces protest this outrage; but instead of doing the sensible thing and throwing them into the prison cell; he drops them in front of the prison cell. Why would you do that? If Ying really expects them to walk into the cell willfully; then he's an idiot. And if the babyfaces do willfully, then they are idiots. Ying is pouring this on thick as Teddy and Grubby claim that they make horrible pets and they both fight a lot. This would have been a lot funnier if Teddy and Grubby actually came to physical blows in this series, but of course not. Also; do these two not realize that they are only buttering up Ying even more to throw them into the cage since I betcha Ying loves horrible pets and fighting. Which would make him a fan of wrestling and old time hockey, which would be modern hockey during the time of this production's release. Grubby tries to go opposite; but Ying's not fooled and orders BGT to lock them up and BGT rushes them and does the leap of faith. Teddy and Grubby duck and BGT lands in the prison cell like a stupid idiot. That's why you throw them in the cell first. Then Teddy and Grubby leap over BGT and escape while Ying is grandstanding. The prison cell locks as Ying tries to grab the babyfaces, the babyfaces dodge Ying and Ying does a really dumb bellyflop in the process. Ying gets up and then tries to throw money at the problem by pleading for them to come back on free room and board as Teddy and Grubby no sell the deal while running; and running causes their costumes to fly off and their cover is blown. Ying is upset that he got decieved...however, one of them is an Illiop and he orders the guards to go after them, including a lizard like guard with green skin. So, the SCOOBY DOO CHASE SEQUENCE THE YING EDITION continues on . The feet coloring stylist is out to lunch again as there is literally no way out as the guards are there at the gate and the walls are too steep to climb. Teddy's idea of hiding until nightfall is totally bogus since there is no night in Ying so far. So, Teddy and Grubby hide in one of the prison cells as Grubby calls this illogical, along with Teddy's circus tricks as Teddy grabs a blanket.
He then stands on his hands, and wants Grubby to grab him by the waist; which means Teddy's feet are going to be in Grubby's face in this attempt to create misdirection. Lovely! I do admit that the creature looks cool; but this is going to fail hard. Ying arrives and now Fred #1, Fred #2, BGT (who was in the prison cell locked mind you) and BGA arrive with him. So, every other guard has been written out by teleport; or is guarding the gate. Teddy's foot gets into Grubby's face and Grubby sneezes so violently that it literally pushes Teddy out of the cage and their cover is blown away. Instead of running away stage left, Grubby says oops in a low tone that Ying shouldn't have heard. And yet, he hears it, turns around and the heels run after the babyfaces stage left. Teddy and Grubby bail and find the ultimate ride and scale up to on top of the tracks. The heels follows with Ying offering perks to those who capture them! Teddy and Grubby are finished now because the track doesn't even come close to making it to the wall for them to jump and they are trapped and falling down probably kills them. So, Grubby is afriad (and rightfully so) as the guards all bring out the LASSO OF BANE TO ALL CARTOON CHARACTERS and use it to tie up Teddy and Grubby; and pull them towards them. Probably the only time Teddy has been in bondage in his entire life and after some struggling and wiggling of his feet, Teddy and Grubby are locked in their own cells and that is that. Oh wait, it's not that. I almost forgot: During this entire sequence: Teddy is singing through out this entire thing...and none of the monsters shut him up about that. Today, that is a babyface move. Also, the music in the background is way too upbeat to work. This needed a really depressing song and this show is too scared to do such a thing. It's basically the Land of Ying song, only the monsters sing as well and it's considered high praise. I wish they created a unique song for this because the song they are singing makes this a lot less depressing than it should be. So, I thought the song would end the episode; but there is one more segment left as Ying is laughing in Teddy's face and enjoying this as he has a key. He throws it and FGT eats it in response as Teddy looks amused by this instead of angry or even depressed. Ying is laughing as we pull up to a sky shot to end the episode at 19:12. Ying is probably the only MAVO member right now who is awesome and hasn't been buried yet. Sadly, that time comes next episode for sure. Despite some logic breaks, this was a much better episode as they focused on Ying being a great heel instead of feuding with Wee Gee. And as I suspected, Teddy cannot win without the crystals and it's obvious after this episode. So, he's even more hapless than I thought. *** 1/2 (70%).
THE REVIEW LINE
Well; this episode was a thousand fold better than the last episode at least and is probably the best episode of the entire arc so far. Ying is a really good scummy sleazebag of a heel and some of his antics I legit laughed at and I wanted so much to see Ying get his at the end of the day as he outsmarted the babyfaces successfully and has gotten his star attraction in the process. There was some animation errors and logic breaks; but this show cannot help itself as most of them were par for the course. I did however like that the focus was on the Ying Zoo and not the feud between Wee Gee and Ying; which I felt was a horrible angle in hindsight and took away a lot of Ying's heel heat. Also, it's clear now that Teddy is hapless without the crystals because he looked like an idiot with no bearings here. I was disappointed when Teddy finally got captured because they used the Land of Ying song, which is not a depressing song (and more of a comedy song) and have Teddy sing a unique song with depressing music that would have accented the helplessness of the situation. I hope this gets addressed when the reboot is made because a depressing song would have helped that scene a lot. Overall, a much better episode that could have been so much better as well. So, last up for this arc is the escape as now Teddy is hapless to do anything and Quellor is coming to fetch Tweeg and Teddy better hope Quellor doesn't see him at all; or there is going to be trouble. So...
Thumbs in the middle for this episode and I'll see you all next time.