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popculturebuffet · 1 year ago

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Pirate Week: Jack of All Trades Floundering Father and Shark Bait Reviews: Bizzaro Blackbeard (Comissoned by Weirdkev27)

Ahoy me hearties and welcome back to Pirate.. two consecutive days. Today we look at one of the most infamous scourges to ever sail the seven seas, Blackbeard!

No not that one.

Sadly not him either. I gotta get back to that series sometime. Maybe next month. No instead of talking about the good blackbeards we're talking about the version from Jack of All Trades.

Before we can get into this disapointment, let's talk about the show itself.

Jack of All Trades was syndicated show in 2000, lasting for two seasons (one 16 episodes the other 8) and part of the back2back action hour with Cleopatra 2525, about an exotic dancer who gets put in cryo sleep and winds up leading a revolution against robots.

Like Cleopatra 2525, Jack of All Trades likely would've been lost ot the sands of time were it not for one man, it's star, your surrogate uncle and mine, the man the myth the chin BRUCE MOTHERFUCKING CAMPBELL. Kev seems determined to one day have me review everything bruce has been in.. which will probably include mchale's navy by the end

For now though this is the good stuff, as jack was also executive produced by Bruce's ride or die best buddies Robert Tapert and Sam Rami.

Jack follows Jack Styles, america revolutionary war hero and either ash williams great great great great great grandpa.. or possibly a time lost Ash Williams who became his own grandpa Phillip J Fry style. The world will never know.. until Dynamite FINALLY does a crossover for it. Come on guys. It's fish in a barrel. Kev even pitched the crossover to me: Ash goes back in time and has to team up with Jack to stop Napoleon from getting his hands on the necronomicon.

Anyways back to the premise: Jack is tapped by president jefferson to go to the french ruled island of Pualu-Pualu in the east indies and stop the various plots of the french. His contact, partner and object of romantic tension is british scientest Emilia Rothschild, played by Angela Dotchin. Jack masquerades as Emilia's houseboy, then goes into actoin as the Darring Dragoon. Yes folks this is also basically a superhero show. The two frequently foil the local Govenor Croque, ocasionally napoleon himself.. and hilariously enough often also scheme to keep Croque in power as his incompetence makes their jobs easier than if Napoleon sent people with actual talent. It's both a great setup and a purposfully thin one: within this the duo can do just about any nonsense the writers want. This includes, just from wikipedia episode blurbs: Jack having to beat Napoleon in poker to keep the louisana purchase, help croque fuck his wife better, get cathrine the great her horse back so she dosen't blow up the island, and get amnesia via a pig. The show is really just an excuse for slapstick nonsense, wordplay, our two leads to banter, and for every man on the island to hit on amelia to remind you this show was made in 2000 and everybody was super extra triple horned up those days. So how did my first round of getting to know jack pan out? Why does this blackbeard suck so much? How does leonardo divinci factor into all of this? Join me under the cut to find out.

The Floundering Father: This episode SHOULD have been an easy slam dunk. I mean look at the image I chose. Really look at it. It has Bruce Campbell in an old timey sleeping outfit. Bruce Campbell, already in his pajamas. That visual gag alone should've won this 29 emmys.

But.. the rest of the episode simply dosen't live up to that glorious image you see. It's main problem is it's running gag for the episode: Jack and Emilia bicker about which is better, America or England. Which is laughable today as while I love my country, we've got a dumptruck load of problems.. and so does the uk. It dosen't work character wise because while I get this show is over the top and what not, I do... it dosen't paint the best picture of emilia that she's overdefnding a country that till very recently opressed Jack's country. I get it's her homeland and the man later says he wishes he could put her boobs on a teddy bear

But it's still pretty tone deaf to tell your partner "Golly the people who opressed yours you had to fight to get away from sure are great". I'd be able to overlook it.. if it was funny. Instead it's just every two minutes or so "AMERICA GREAT" "NO BRITAN" "AMERICA" "BRITANNNN" "AMERICAAAAAAA FUCK YEAH " "BRITAN FUCK YEAH " "mericamericaMERICACAAAAA" "BRITANBRITANJOLLYGOODPIPIPBRITAN"

It drags down the episode every. fucking time. And this being the first jack of all trades I saw had me worried their like this EVERY TIME. Thankfully the next ep, which we'll get to shortly, settled more into the two just bantering and nicely complimenting each other as a team: emilia is the brains and creates vehicles and inventions and such to help them, while jack is the more wordly brawn, able to use his fists and spycraft while loudly complaning and making puns and what not. They have way more chemistry there then here where it just gives me a migraine.

That said it's not ALL their fault the episodes a bit of a slog. Mostly but still Blackbeard dosen't help. Blackbeard is played by Hori Aphene here and credit to the show for casting a POC actor. I didn't even know historical blackbeard wasn't white till our flag means death. The character himself is just .. mostly shouting and being gross.

God bless HOri he's trying really hard, it's the writing that lets him down. I will give this version points for breathing fire

but all the shouting in the world can't make this character funny, threatning or remotely intresting and it only gets worse next episode.

The combo of the lackluster guest star and bickering just makes this one a chore to get through but there are SOME bright spots of light. Croque and his minon, Brogard, pull a clever plan, having Brogard take Benjamin's franklin's place as hostage.

The main saving grace of this episode though is Benjy himself: for starters he's kindapped for the most gloriously stupid reason imaginable: Napoleon wants to force him to build a super weapon to destroy the white house. That itself would be good.. but what takes it over the top and really told me what this show true form is.... the weapon is a GIANT KITE. Yes they took the one thing any person knows about ben franklin and made it into a doomsday device. I fucking love everything about this. This alone got my interest back.

Ben Himself is just a lot of fun. While some of the jokes are just him eating a lot aka

Outside of that he's great, and his little mentorship with elizabeth, both being in awe of her designs and helping her figure out why her sub's engine's not working is genius. Elizabeth's submarine itself looks great. The climax.. is also a lot of fun. The Dragoon battles blackbeard while as Jack he eventually has to hold two wires together and gets after effects lightninged all over. It's wonderfully dumb.

All in all this episode is just..

Has some highlights towards the end but most of the first two acts are a slog. Thankfully the next one's MOSTLY better.

Shark Bait

This one is better... though just to get it out of the way blackbeard is far worse. While he wasn't great in the first, the pirate ship was at least fun for a climax and he had the delightfully insane quirk of breathing fire. Here it just takes all his traits that made him hard to watch the constant shouting, the poor hygine jokes him creeping on elizabeth.. and..

I have to adress this in a bit more detail. The show is REALLY creepy with elizabeth at times, both with the fanservicy outfits (which are less to show off her sexuality and indepnednce and more LOOK EVERYONE BOOBS), the whole teddy bear joke but especially blackbeard who JUST WON'T STOP hitting on her and the show treats it like a wacky joke. I get this is the 2000s, it's why it dosen't destroy the episode for me but it's still just gross and I suspect something i'll have to deal with all series long. We even get a morning wood joke with jack which comes off as HAHA GET IT HE ASSAULTED HER. Her sexual indginities are treated as one big joke and it's VERY hard to stomach. Thankfully the show has a rapid fire pace to iron it out but I just.. woudln't feel right never adressing this.

But combinging with that with just "ISN'T THIS GUY GROSS JOKES" makes blackbeard fucking intolerable. Someone having pooor hygine.. just isn't funny. It wasn't funny when I was 10 and it's not funny now. Now you can MAKE someone's horrible hygine funny. Observe

Here the jokes are.. jokes. He's dirty, but they find ways to play with the joke. Someone being gross isn't funny unless you find a way to give it character. Blackbeard just shouts and smells bad. That's it. That's what they did with the character.

While BLackbeard dosen't help the episode the episode itself.. is a LOT of fun thankfully. Jack and elizabeth's banter is thankfully way more varied here, with jack being annoyed at her modes of transportation. A standout is jack preparing to fist fight the crew of the sub they've ended up on.. before Amelia points their outnumbered and they both hide. This seems more like what the series is actually like: two very diffrent people bickering and bantering and complementing each other. Jack even points out the obvious issue of using blackbeard to help them get around the ship: that he could recognize them from last time and it adds some nice tension. And ironically , if naturally it's jack who accidently blows it by mentoining her sub.

The plot itself is delightfully nuts: it starts out simple enougH: a mysterious sea monster is sinking ships going into palu-palu, and Elizzabeth ropes jack into helping it. We also get some classic bruce campbell wordplay as jack isn't pro pro bono. I swear no one else could pull that line off.

So our heroes use the sub, a nice call back, and it ends up swallowed by the monster.. which turns out to be a giant hammerhead shark shaped sub itself. That would be bonkers enough... but then we get to whose behind it: Nardo DaVinci, descendant of Leonardo Divinci. Nardo is a hell of a lot of fun, mostly berating his minons for being absolute morons, assuming a ping on the radar is just a fish, not bothering to search the sub for people and in my faviorite moment of the episode when the heroes later baricade themselves, trying to break down the door WITH A TORPEDO.

Said torpedo is the crux of Nardo's naturally over the top and hilariously stupid plan: he's invented the first, a nice little use of real world stuff before it's time. That'd be neat and all but the bonkers spice is his target: the annual founding father's father son boat cruise, where the founding families all take a trip out to sea. Just the.. concept alone is funny. Nardo helps his case by also being compitent: he repeadtely plans to have his men just shoot our heroes and ONLY gets sidetracked when Jack baits his ego.. and even then he plans to have them all shot to death right after and only looses them because Blackbeard can breathe fire. And let's face it "this pirate we're facing can breathe fire" isn't exactly something you can plan for. If your curious Nardo's crew shanghied blackbeard (and the previous ships) for his loot and have been making him swab the deck. It's also why the heroes use him at all as he ALLGEDLY knows his way around.

Our heroes escape is even more bonkers: our heroes have to SHOOT THEMSELVES OUT OF A TORPEDO TUBE. And jack has to make the lever swing since no one can pull it for him. And all of this is complete with hilariously cheap greenscreen.

Our finale is a fuckton of fun. Our heroes can't persue them in the sub since, unlike last time, it gives them no element of suprise and a boat is worse than useless. So how do they stop this dastardly da vinci?

So eliza has a hot air balloon they plan to use to huck stuff at the sub. They do end up dislodging the torpedo but have to hang loose from blackbeards farts. I.. I wish that wasn't a plot point. He figures out who they are.. but in TRYING TO MANUALLY PICK UP A TORPEDO HE FALLS DOWN AND APPARENTLY DIES DESTROYING THE SUB.. which somehow survivies fine as blackbeard is back aboard. Either way it's an awesome climax.

Overall Shark Bait is a solid episode with a fun guest star. It's brougth down because their version of blackbeard just plain sucks, but since future episodes i'll be covering don't have him, i'm happy to cover the series again. It's got a lot of fun qualiteis and let's face it i'll watch anything with bruce campbell in it, paid or not. Thanks for reading

#bruce campbell #jack of all trades #blackbeard #benjamin franklin #pirate month #pirates #sam rami #robert tapert

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silvermoon-scrolls · 2 years ago

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I think it’s kind of funny how Angela plays the love interest of both young Iolaus (from his perspective anyway 😅) and adult (alternative universe) Iolaus. I was surprised now that I checked and saw that she’s only two years older than Dean. I always imagined Kora as quite a few years older. Not that she looks old. She’s just so much more mature and sophisticated than the boys. 😂

And though she is much younger than Michael Hurst, that couple still kinda works for me because Iolaus II is such an innocent soul when it comes to love so they are probably on the same wavelength relationship-wise. And the poor guy definitely deserves some happiness. 💙

DFP Actors August: Angela Dotchin

NZ actors tend to end up in a lot of the same shows over the years it seems. I have a lot of fun spotting familiar faces, so I thought this would be a fun and silly little project, seeing which actors have repeatedly been in things that Deano was also in (not necessarily alongside). Just a bit of trivia. Enjoy!

Shortland Street (1996/1992-1998)

Dean played Nurse Harry Martin in 1996. Angela played Kirsty Knight from 1992-1998.

I haven't seen all the episodes either of them are in, but there's a whole plot where Harry is into Kirsty and she gets upset because she thought they were friends... and then later she suffers from amnesia and it seems like Harry is trying to convince her that she wanted to leave her partner (possibly to open her up to him?)... This showww. Very very soapy soap opera at least back in the late 90's clips I watched haha.

Xena: Warrior Princess (1996, 2000/1998)

Dean played two roles: Homer/Orion - S1E13 "Athens City Academy of the Performing Bards" Wiglaf - S6E9 "Return of the Valkyrie"

Angela played Soraya in S3E19 "Tsunami".

Young Hercules (1998-1999)

Dean played Young Iolaus in 46 of the 50 episodes. Angela played Kora in 18 episodes.

This was the first thing I saw each of them in, and I was super into Iolaus (and Hercules) and I remember thinking Kora was sooo cool and pretty (I was like 10 omg). Kora owning her own business and holding her own against all the weird and rowdy customers really makes me like her. We also learn at some point that she is a powerful (virgin) devotee of Artemis! She can transform into the huntress form pictured on the right above.

Hercules: The Legendary Journeys (1995-1998/1999)

Dean played a few different characters on this show: Iloran - S1E12 "The Gauntlet" Young Iolaus - S4E3 "Regrets... I've Had a Few", S4E11 "Medea Culpa" and S4E20 "Twilight". Ruun - S4E7 "Prodigal Sister"

Angela played Nautica in two episodes, S5E18 "Love on the Rocks" & S5E21 "My Best Girl's Wedding". Nautica is a mermaid who falls in love with, and marries, Iolaus 2 (I haven't seen the episodes, but it's an Iolaus from another reality. Aphrodite turns him into a merman so he can stay with Nautica).

Lawless: Beyond Justice (2001)

Dean played Nat Joseph. Angela played Jodie Keane.

I haven't watched this yet, but I have it.

Serial Killers (2004)

Dean played Andrew, an actor on the in-universe soap opera 'Heart of Hearts' in all 7 episodes. Angela played Chrissy in episode 5.

And that's what I have for these two! Did I miss anything?

#angela dotchin #dean o'gorman #young hercules #hercules the legendary journeys

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