Update: "A Second Opinion" and Abroad

Well, it's finally my summer, and you know what that means: the guy that writes things that you read every once in a while's gonna write something you'll never read. At the very least, this is sort of relevant to the aim of the blog: diversifying.

Cartoon Splurge: Star vs. the Forces of Evil: Season 1

Hey. If you're new here, let me do a quick introduction: I'm Matt, and I write bits of analysis that are so pedantic that all fun is lost. (Riveting, I know.) I'm not a massive cartoon fan, though I'm currently infatuated with The Amazing World of Gumball; it is for that reason that I'm doing this right now, indebted to Mr. Anonim. So, uh... hello. Hope everybody's doing okay.

As you probably know, his grand idea was to hop between communities and spread word of other cartoons to establish a sort of "Community Watching" and give some shows some new fans. Since so few people seemed to be playing along with it, I decided I had nothing to lose and that I was diving straight in. Though he planned out a few episodes of Star vs. the Forces of Evil, I saw the first episode, recognized its potential, and decided to stick around for the whole first season. That's what this is: a so-called "Cartoon Splurge," where I go all in on a cartoon and review a season of it at a time. At the very least, I can offer an outsider's opinion, and that's good, right?

Oh, and as a disclaimer: I apologize for any anachronisms or technically incorrect assumptions: I haven't seen Season 2 and know basically nothing about it, so my views of the show might be slightly incorrect as I lack the complete image.

First things first, though: one of the things that Anonim repeatedly tried to warn me of was that Star was an insanely plot-heavy cartoon, but it's really not, at least not yet. (I've endured HIMYM - this isn't that, thankfully.) Yes, there's some chronology to it all, but it's still light. You can tell that the show is slowly building up, what with Toffee and the Headmistress (?) of the Reform School, but the show doesn't ever let that detract from simple character interplay and quirky ideas. It's a lot like Wander Over Yonder's approach in Season 2, where four, plot-heavy, 22-minute episodes were punctuated by interludes of 12, lighter, 11-minute ones; through it, the story could build up without compromising on any light fun. For Season 1, at least, Star seems to be following a similar course of action. (The two's similarities may or may not be intentional as per Craig McCracken's post discussing Disney's more rigid views towards serialization.)

The Amazing World of Gumball Review: The Heist (and the Gumbomb)

"Kapoosh?"
Okay, so yesterday was rough. I'm going to move right along, ignore that, and say that I really enjoyed this episode. (Also, I'll be talking about the Gumbomb in general at the bottom- double feature, yo.)

Realistically, "The Heist" is very similar to "The Box" in trying to take the same general format as "The Check," and while it once again falls short of that level of excellence, that doesn't mean this episode was bad. In fact, this is probably my favorite episode to come out of this week, believe that or not. For all of its complexities, it was probably one of the simpler episodes this week- it didn't try to push at anything new, instead offering more delightful takes on the Watterson family and how they think.

First of all, I'm going to say that I honestly didn't mind Richard's ignorance of the situation as a catalyst, at least partially because his helmet was the real issue. Even if he made some poor decisions, it wasn't out of his stupidity alone so much as a series of honest mistakes. The plot is set up so that it makes sense why Richard would use the sign to confuse the bank for a Joyful Burger and, with Larry at the helm of the bank, it makes sense that he wouldn't assume anything was wrong. Admittedly, there were some stupid twists, like Richard telling everybody to put their hands in the air because he believes it to be someone's birthday, but I at least like that Richard retains that joyous, loving character. It's just that the message is misconstrued.

The Amazing World of Gumball Review: The Weirdo

"I think we've seen enough, thank you."
Let's get this out of the way so as to help deflect that which will follow: I'm cold-hearted, I'm cynical, I'm a terrible human being and a waste of the air supply. We good? Good. You ready for this? I don't think you are. Okay. We can do this. It'll be fine. All I have to say is that this episode was boring. And I get that everybody else thought this episode was phenomenal and y'all are all teary-eyed messes, but this episode just didn't work for me.

You don't know how long I debated just lying and saying that I loved this episode, because me finding this to be tedious is a solid dent in my reputation. After all, this is definitely my second most polarizing opinion for the show (the first shall, for the time being, remain undisclosed. It'll surface in time). It's much easier to just join the crowd of admirers, but I don't want to be dishonest. I already view the series with probably abnormally high prestige, so if I find that something doesn't work, there's actually a legitimate bone worth picking. So... let the ostracism begin.

A big part of the issue is that I just don't like Sussie as a character. There's nothing interesting about her. She's realistically one of the few links the show still has to Season 1 because of her unchanging nature in the show, and that can really drag stuff down.

The only times that I think Sussie was used successfully were in "The Night" (for the meta sequence) and "The Question," where she spurred an unexpectedly complex personal philosophy. Those occasions worked because a new angle was taken in understanding the character and exploring something different. Here, we get stuck in the inevitable rut of Sussie being Sussie, a character without anything to prod at, and a clear message that didn't warrant 11 minutes to understand.

The Amazing World of Gumball Review: The Uncle

"How did this situation escalate so quickly?! I was literally two steps behind you!"
I'm going to preface this article by saying that, above all, I'm really just excited to see Ocho get another role in the spotlight. I always thought he was one of the more interesting characters, both in design and demeanor (however one-note he can be at times), and considering that he hasn't had a main role since Season 2 and only two speaking roles since then, this episode was long overdue.

The premise is that Gumball finds out that Ocho's uncle may or may not be Mario and he sets out to befriend Ocho and prove his worth for the sake of meeting him, though along the way, he endures trauma after trauma. That's what was most exciting about the episode- it was almost a reverse-Saint. Ocho keeps forcing Gumball to do terrible things or otherwise traumatizes him (as in the hazing prank, which literally gave Gumball PTSD), with Gumball nevertheless determined just to meet Mario, but when he finally does, it's the not exactly who Gumball envisioned. Whomp freaking whomp.

As much as I enjoyed the episode, though, I still found a few issues.

The Amazing World of Gumball Review: The Menu

"I'll give you twenty bucks if you do it." "Wow, you've reached a whole new level of laziness. You've invented the reverse job."
Spoiler alert: this week gon' be gud.
I'm sure there's going to be a lot of mixed opinions about this episode because it really circles back to Richard's lack of constraint and obsession with food, but at the very least, it executes the formula in the greatest way possible. The premise itself of finding a secret menu item seems fairly tame and standard, but the show was able to elevate it with a lot of smart choices- something they couldn't figure out how to do for a lot of last week.

Again, the premise is simple. Richard hears of a secret menu item from Joyful Burger and sets out to obtain it. However, getting to the point of obtaining the wisely-named M'Guffin is what makes the episode truly stand out.

First of all, there's Richard's demand that the kids infiltrate Joyful Burger to find out about the legendary burger, but instead, we get a super-extended cut of Gumball and Darwin coming to dominate the industry as corrupt business moguls. (I mean, they literally have their hearts removed for the sake of business.) It's only when they contemplate in their mansion about how they got to where they are that they get thrown back into reality. You could easily argue that it's filler, but it's simply brilliant as it is, with the kids getting so distracted in their indulgent lifestyle to remember what they were set out to do in the first place.

The Amazing World of Gumball Review: The Sorcerer

"But I brought all sorts of witching stuff! Eye of newt, toe of frog, wool of bat..." "They'll never let us back in the zoo after this..."
At the heart of this episode was another Internet joke- don't feed the trolls.

And man, even when the episode is fine, I get frustrated with stupid "Look, we use the Internet! This is a hip joke" plots. It's not even that it was executed that badly, it's just that the general idea just feels tired. Sure, the show can easily revitalize even the drollest of plots, I get that, but I feel like this episode, while fine, didn't really push hard enough to make this something distinct, instead feeling largely like yet another rendition of the same old joke.

Basically, Gumball realizes that he is completely talentless, despite several attempts to prove the contrary, but eventually, he becomes inspired upon seeing Mrs. Jötunheim using her witchery. After a fair bit of deliberation, she takes him in as an apprentice- kind of. Realistically, she takes advantage of Gumball's ignorance to make him to do chores, the classic anti-Karate Kid, but at the very least, it leads to a dope song.