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popculturebuffet · 6 months ago

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The KaBlammiest Retrospective: KaBlam! Season 4 Review: See Ya When We See Ya (Comission for Cory Bryant)

Hey there kablammoids, assume the crash position, keep your heiner in the recilner and get ready for more KaBlam! It's been a long ride but we're almost at the end: we're at the show's final season and next time we have some loose ends, some final thoughts, and close out this retrospective proper.

For now though we're looking at Season 4 of KaBlam, the final season, one constantly shuffled and screwed around by the network. The "screwed by the network" part isn't remotely suprising as Nick, for all the warm fuzzies it brought us as kids... has a track record of being absolutely awful in how it treats it's shows. A show is LUCKY if it gets two seasons most of the time, especially nowadays, and even if you do get those two seasons or more, the final season may be shuffled around all hours of the night and day so that you can't actually watch it. KaBlam, Danny Phantom, Hey Arnold, a LOT of nick shows had their final seasons just.. trickeled around. And tha'ts if your lucky: once sister network Nicktoons was established it became Nick's go to to dump off a series when it didn't meet their impossible expectations (I.e. being an overnight success, of which only Loud House has really met those goals in recent years), the third season of My LIfe as a Teenage Robot was left in limbo for years, and currently they just decided to.. not air the rest of big nate season 2 at all and remove the rest from paramount+. Viacom is awful is what i'm getting at and always has been.

So KaBlam getting kicked in the teeth in it's final go round wasn't a suprise. It's also not suprising given the series meta nature that they amped up the shots at the network, creating Mr. Stockdale, the exec running KaBlam this season to clearly vent about how brainless the execs at Nick were/still are.

It's also clear even with a possible spinoff.. they knew they were towards the end. There's episodes about the kids fretting about their future careers, and the ending makes it clear they knew they probably weren't coming back, leaving it OPEN to a return (or a revivial, HINT HINT PARAMOUNT), but knowing it probably won't happen. The end was a comin and this was a last hurrah and the Henry and June shorts made the most of this.

Outside of the host segments, there's a unique feel to the season: Sniz and Fondue are now truly gone, and in their absence we get more pilots than ever. There are a TON more animated shorts this season. This is a mixed blessing as there's a ton of great new shorts and we get not one but TWO music videos for they might be giants as well as a wholly original concept from the same team as the Henry and June segments, Dave Son of Hercules, and some true bangers to go out on.. but also a few misfires that were likely given the space as they needed whta they could get. It feels right though that KaBlam goes out with an influx of original shorts: it came in giving indie animators a shot and goes out giving every last one it had left a shot.

This torch would be picked up by O-Yeah Cartoons at least, but that's a story for maybe another day. For now let's see what KaBlam saved for it's final act.

As I mentoined in the overview , the final season of Henry and June shorts doubles down on the mocking of executives as their now given a character to represent them, Fred Stockdale.

Mr. Stockdale is a spacey old man who is barely aware of anythinmg happening to him, takes naps in his office frequently, and forgets what he's doing. He is a burden to deal with most times our heroes have to and most times he interjects with the show he messes with it. The writers were not subtle.

Stockdale features in about half of the episodes and how entertaining he is largely depends on the joke. Him just saying Henry and June's names wrong or being spotty.. is something i've seen done better by better characters

He works best when he's clearly just off in his own weird world, offering them snacks when they bring up a labor dispute, smashing his cell phone because it annoyed him , not realizing he's lost in the woods, or spending a good chunk of the show's budget on a train because he likes choo choos. He is also decent satire, showing how execs tend to be completely detached from projects they have far too much say in.

Another thing i noticed is the show keeps it's secondary cast around. Henry's mom appears for the third season in a row and gets two apperances, and i'm utterly exastic to report Jimmy , June's sidekick from last season returns.

Stylistically season 4 of Henry and June largely trucks on. While there are more shots at the network, and again not unresonably, it's otherwise a lot like season 3

That being said even with the unfair cancelation.. you can feel fatigue setting in a bit. The first half has a decent ep or two, but as I typed out my thoughts on each episodes I realized a lot of these are just.. meh. Not terrible to watch, but nothing really special like the last two seasons. There's an exception or two but most of these are just passable. Not bad, but probably best the series ended where it did. I do wish Marek would ge tmore work though as his work is great and the art here is as good as ever, and the final episode and his original segment for it show he still had legs. It's just clear they kinda took these two as far as they could.. and makes me dread the spinoff pilot next time. For now though..

Sasquatchersise: Henry and June have put on some weight, which heavily reminds me of a later home movies episode with the same premise, but honestly does it just as good: turns out they have to pass a physical fitness test and there's only one man who can help them

Yes fitness guru Richard Simmons. For those less familiar with him he was a fitness instructor who made a killing via vhs and has currently retreated from the public eye. He's doing fine, he simply decided to live privately and occasionally post on facebook. And honestly given the number of celebrties going the right wing jackass route, it's refresshing that richard simmons isn't ranting into daily wire he's simply.. retired. That's it. That's all. Good fo rhim

He tries his best but ultimately can't help the two loose weight in time.. thankfully in a really nice button it turns out they just have to withstand slapstick. A decent start to the season, mostly because I have a soft spot for Richard due to a combo of my grandma having his tape as a kid and that simpsons bit.

Takes a Knockin and Keeps Tick Tockin: This is a strike episode, as Henry goes on strike after finding out Mr Stockdale is having him injured for money. Given the sheer amount of abuse Henry takes, I can't say I blame him. June naturally only gets involved when she gets hurt and even more naturally they get replaced by robots.. and only get their jobs back because the robots malfunction. This one has a good start but fizzles out in the second half. The robots thing just isn't that funny nor is our heroes begging for their jobs back. It's mehtacular!

In It To Win It: A fantastic one as Henry and June get a today show style window outside their set and quickly the fandom grates on them. From unsettling hairy men to june cosplayers beating June up not realizing it's her, to their attempts to ignore them leading to their viewers looting the set it's a really great time.

The Best of Both Worlds: Our heroes want to go to the real world and try various shenanigans to get there. The first half is fine, but it really gets good in the back half when they casually find out there's just.. a door to the real world and we get real kids in wigs overdubbed playing the two, who decide the pain isn't worth it. My faviorite part is the final joke as it turns out Mr Foot just gets pizza from the real world all the time and our heroes hot doggin and grandstanding quickly deflates. Decent stuff but like Takes a Knockin and Keeps Tick Tockin, a bit lopsided.

A Nut in Every Bite: This one's a tad dervative as "boy gets crush on girl but won't actually talk to her" is a Nickelodeon staple. What works here is unlike some of Nick's own examples, Henry is portrayed as an idiot for not talking to Mr Stockdale's niece dawn, especially since she makes it clear she just wants him to say it himself. Henry doing more slapstick than usual to get her attention and June's utter exapseration make this one work.

Now With More Flava: This one is just.. depressing in hindsight. It's one of the better eps of the season objectveily, but it's VERY hard to seperate from reality. The opening bit is funny as our heroes find John Stamos, who I think is voice dby himself, working security and worry their star is fading. The thing is.. the characters stock DID go down eventually: while they did host segments fo ra while they disappeared and unlike most other nick shows from the era, nick dosen't seem to give one iota of a shit about this one nostalgicly: henry and june are just.. absent form murals, posters, group shot merch, all that good stuff. So this episode was just sadly prophetic, ending with the two working security themselves after trying to cash in.

Timeless: This one is a lot of fun as the two bury a time capsule and our heroes keep pissing off mr foot by forcing him to redig it: We get henry trying to bury his report card, June dumping out the stuff henry wanted for her merch, and a giant capsule getting dumped into some poor guys apartment. It's good stuff. The ending, mr foot stuffing them in , is fine if a bit obvious. Still it's such a fun segment it's hard to complain too long.

The Ka-Blair Witch Project: Another classic. The Ka-Crew have a team building retreat in the woods, with Henry, June and Mr Foot joined by Jimmy, Mr Stockdale and Henry's Mom in her final apperance. Mr Foot abandons them, even if he comes back in the credits, leading to lots of fun hyjinks from our heroes. It's good stuff. I've seen plenty of camping disaster episodes, but this one benefits from using the characters to their fullest.

Going the Extra Mile: This one.. was annoying. Ryan, an annoying kid from their class, wins a fan contest. His voice just.. grates on me on an atomic level and his schtick is something i've seen on a LOT of shows and done better. You know the drill. And given it was almost 2000 by this point, it's late neough in the shows run that I can't give it as much slack for this. The annoying fan plot was done better and would be done even better after this. Spongebob and Flight of the Conchords eat this episodes lunch. As does the film hot rod if only for richardson's sweet moves.

On the bright side Ryan does get shoved in the trunk of Mr. Foot's car, which h'es excited about as he's driven off to dig his own grave.

Under New Managment: This one is okay. Mr Stockdale tasks our duo with firing mr foot, a task made hard by the fact he won't wake up for them to do it. Henry tries twice, mostly because well Mr Foot has pummled him a bunch. The payoff joke, that they get him a new job as an executive is fine, it's just a forgetable plot>L it's a good concept they just don't do much with it apart from June getting him a job as an air traffic controller... so mr foot murdered a LOT more than the three people we've seen thus far on his way out. classic mr foot

Just Chillin: Our grand finale and while the rest of the episodes are mostly ... fine, Just Chillin is an instant classic and a worthy finale for these segments and the show as a whole. It's got a simple meta premise: Henry wants to make KaBlam more exciting as they don't know how much time they have left in the show , a nod that this could be the last episode and ended up being it. This is one of those episodes written as a finale, but not as defntiive in case the show got renewed. It didn't but this serves as a great one.

So they decide to have a KaBlamaganza! Pomp, ninjas and train chases... and the consequences of trying to give the people more than they could ask for results in their budget going away: the actor for the train fight gets fired, with Mr Stockdale hilariously trying to fill in, our heroes are reduced to black and white then cutouts, then learn their lesson and get their animation back.. not because they learned an animation but because Mr. Stockdale likes Choo Choos. They get hit by a train.. and will see us when they see us. It's a fitting end.. a bit of slapstick, some meta jokes, and a goodbye that feels final rather than the usual "see you next time". It hit hard, and i'm REALLY going to miss this show and while it was a releif getting to the end, as this project while fun has also been exausting and gotten delayed at times, it was also deeply sad. I'll miss this show.. and i'll miss you henry and june. Thanks for.. oh right we still have a LOT of ground to cover. My apologizes.

Action League Now!'s final season goes out on a high note, fitting as they'd later get their own show repackaging these segments for people who only liked this show and not the rest of kablam

Or just wanted to rerun the episodes without the league. There is one short specific to a tryout special for said series we'll get to next time.

Season 4 is mostly the same, with the quality going back up to around season 3 with the exception of two episodes. The big diffrence from the other seasons is movie parodies: Outside of the Jaws parody "Incident at Chlorine Lake", Action League now mostly stuck to either broader genre parodies or it's own thing. Even it's parody of aliens landing films was mostly "how badly can our heroes fuck up first contact. For the record it's sonly real tv/comics parody the red ninja being a parody of storm shadow from gi joe and the heroes that upstaged them being based on the challengers of the unknown.

Season 4 on the other hand is half movie parody, half buisness as usual and one literary parody with Flowers for Algernon. We get parodies of Armageddon, Jurassic Park, Face/Off, and for some reason Stephen King's Thinner. It works due to most of the parodies working well with the show, and a nice spread of regular stories. The Face Off Parody in paticular is my faviorite for reasons we'll get to shortly. Otherwise it's one last hurrah for the action loosers as they once again fuck up a bunch, somehow save the day, and go out with a great final season. I started pretty salty on this show but I can't help but love action league now er.. now. It's creative, hilarious, and lasted long enough to do a LOT with the premise and the world , but not so long it wore out it's welcome. I'll miss these idiots.

The Naked and the Dumb: A rare short that shadows the main Henry and June plot. The team is given apptitude tests to stay in the league and everyone passes.. including meltman somehow. Frankly i'm suprised he didn't stab himself iwth a pencil repdeately. The Flesh of course drew a kitty and thus is going to get kicked out, and the team needs him since he's their tank. We get a fun bunch of destructive hyjinks as they try to teach him, the great visual gag of them just.. writing notes on him, and the amazing punchline: he drew a doggy instead. I like both personally but hey it's a decent start to a great season.

Winds of Evil: The Mayor menaces people with a giant fan. At least he's not throwing them into it. It's a simple but amazing premise. At the same time the action league don't want to party at stinky's because he lives in an actual toilet, a joke so simple it's amazing. He refuses to shelter them after feeling snubbed by this, and only saves their lives if they agree to spend a weekend at his beach place, which was a porta potty a joke way better than it has any right to be, just like this episode.

Chickie Chickie Bang Bang: The Mayor tries to black market chicks, played by actual baby chickens, who are adorable.. and also peck out his eyes. The League is forced to calm them. This one was okay. Great premise, somehow not at all memorable.

Armageddon Out Of Here: Great title and a solid armageddon parody. It uses the same framework, our heroes have to blow up a meteor, but uses our heroes stupidity and selfishness well. They only agree to the mission because they get to blow shit up, and end up stranded because Flesh forgot the explosives, though still giving us an explosively good episdoe. I also applaud it for just.. leaving the league stuck there. While their back next episode I like to think there's at least one timeline where Chief is free of this mummy's curse of a team and maybe gets a spinoff in florida with bill the lab guy.

Yurplastic Park: This one is weak. it's a Jurassic Park Parody

That's all they have. I expect better and dumber from this show. It's one good joke is our heroes and the dinosaurs being saved because of sequels. I mean I do like the one where the guy realizes he shoudln't of given his robot dinosaur a penis because like everything with a penis it's gonna want to use it's penis.

Grief for the Chief: Thankfully the episode rebounds with one of the series best. The team's stupidity puts Chief in a coma and they remember all the good times.. and all the times they accidently injured him, either through good nature or stupidity. it's both sweet to see how much they genuinely like the chief.. and hilarous that his rage over their actions wakes him up. Simpsons had a similar gag, but this ones just diffrent enough to be great too. Good stuff.

Hey! Who Stole My Face?: I just read that title while picturing nicholas cage screaming it. Your welcome. Anyways it's a face off parody in that face's get swapped, so it's a loose one.. but ti works: the chief and the mayor get their faces on each others bodies.. and it's both so obvious and so hilarous. Everyone including bill is an idiot about this, so the Cheif has to rely on stormy, the dog I forget's on the team half the time to escape a prison beating, while the Mayor easily traps the league.. and the mayor looses his actual face. One that thrives purely on it's visual gags but what a gag it is

A Flesh of Genius: This one's boosted by a brand new villian, smarty pants, a baby doll dressed up as a neurotic nerd.. aka what I look like as far as you know. Our heroes cram the world's knowledge into face to keep it safe from this know at all, only for this to backfire as the flesh is now a smug jerk who constantly corrects grammar and is a pain to bea round. The Flesh normally kills or injures a LOT of people daily, but he's at least not telling the chief that you and I shit. You and me is just as fine. We get a final chess duel between the two, and the flesh loosing his intellect but winning by pure luck. A solid ep that uses a well worn premise decently.

Tune Up of Terror: Hodge Podge's final hurrah as he hyjacks the action mobile remotely. The premise is clever, he's using an rc remote, but otherwise the ep is just kinda.. eh. Meltman driving is kinda funny, I cant really knock him for taking a while to get a liscnse as I don't have one, but I can mock him for not being funny. He.. he no funny. Dammit. You win this round Meltman

What's Eating the Flesh: This episode has a great premise: the flesh rides a diseased guiena pig

And thus spreads a flesh eating virus to the team. I love how their left as head, how the treesap cure is dish soap and how when bill looks at the virus he sees mrs pac man. It's great. It's big drawback is that it has a racist sterotype bill goes to for help and I can't really FULLY enjoy the ep as a result. It's just bad even by late 90's/year 2000 standards. That Pac Man joke is an all timer though. one of the best in KaBlam as a whole.

Fatter: This one is just.. bad. They make a parody of Stephen King's it, where an old romani woman curses the chief.. only he overeats instead of looses weight.

It's painful, miildly gross and i'ts only redeeming factor is the chief blowing up after the ypop him and even that gets too gross to fully enjoy. A really whimper of an ending for the shows KaBlam run that makes me glad there's one more short to cover.. three actually but two are pilots. more on that next time.

So here's a shocker... I loved this season of Prometheus and Bob. Yes.. really. After three seasons of just absolute abivelence to this segment, just checking out to the point I went into a sleep deprived tangent last time... I loved this season of the show. The segments were funnier, played with the formula well and had more jokes than "caveman don't get it and monkey is asshole". I'm happy I enjoyed at least one batch of these: the premise isn't bad, the claymation is great and the two leads designs are iconic. It just wasn't for me... but i'm happy to say this season was.

Softball: Bob learns to

IQ: Bob takes an IQ test...... it took a second to figure it out because the wikipedia entry for this, which I use as the episode guide for prometheus and bob on the kablam wiki uses the number for the tape instead of the actual episode order. But this one was REALLY funny. Bob is given a test to put blocks in holes.. and puts promethus in a rock nearbye... just makes hims tand in a corner. So not only does bob get the test for once, but it's hilariously done.

Tape One: This was my faviorite as it's one of the most obvious things to do, but it fits they held off till the final batch: we see how Prometheus met bob. Prometheus comes down, and the other caveman understandably run away as they really can't.. comprehind the thin alien man. Bob dosen't.. because his hair is really stupid long and passes out. We do get a geninely nice moment form Prometheus who is usually just.. hung up on his job.. but cuts bob's hair to help him see. It's practical sure but it drives home he's really TRYING to help bob he just dosen't get that maybe bob dosen't need every advancement prometheus tries. We also find out why bob's bald, which isn't info I needed but I love the explination: he got a hold of the clippers and kept going and apparently just.. keeps doing that. He laso defends prometheus from the other cavemen, before prometheus rescues them both. Also they were going to eat the monkey. It's a fun origin story: we didn't NEED these explinations, but they were fun to find out which is how a good origin story should go.

Exercise: I forgot this one so..

Hey I said I liked this season I didn't say I liked every episode.

Dating: Prometheus tries to wingman for bob, which is cute. It dosen't go well, and she ends up falling for Prometheus but he tried. One of the series best.. which coming from me is nothing, but I still really liked this one. I especially liked the monkey for once NOT fucking everything up and instead just comforting bob at the end.

Pet: .. I dont' have anything for this one. Uh... here's wolverine fighting a dinosaur?

Yeah!

Evolution: Okay this one is REALLY fun as Promethus just.. gives up and tries to speed up bob's evolution.. and accidently ends up devolved. So we get a model swap which is a lot of funa nd had to be a lot of effort. I also like the solution: Monkey HYPER evolves and resets everything. This is also the final short and feels like a proper finale. Seriously every recurring segment seems to go out on a high EXCEPT action league now. It's weird. Speaking of which

It's time to bid farewell to Life with Loopy, which was always one of my faviorite segments, but I can say with confidence after four seasons is KaBlam's best. It's the most consistent, creative and fun of the recurring segments and goes out on a high note. Season 3 is a touch better, but Season 4 is still really good. Shorter, like Prometheus and Bob it was in less episodes and thus there's not AS much but what's there of this last batch is pure quality. The show ends well and i'm REALLY sad to see this one go. There may never be another show like you loopy. Thanks for letting me see your life.

Alternative Hamsters: Loopy experiments with Alternative Energy. Huh if I'd known about this one I would've snuck it into the earth day specail. At any rate this naturally leads to her hamster turning into a giant monster and her having to save it from teh military blowing the poor guy up real good. Thankfully she realizes her hamster can run on a wheel to provide energy to the whole town. A pretty standard start to the season, which says a lot about this show and a lot about me that this dosent phase me. It's not a radioactive killer hamster from a planet near mars after all.

Mister Macho: Larry gets bullied at the beach, but chooses to be chill about it. Loopy, is not so chill and uses an old muscle man add in a comic. Larry turns into a hulked up rage monster... which somehow is a very COMMON PLOT: skinny kid gets buff then lets it go to his head. It's done very well here it's just.. weird that for once the stock plot is something this oddly specific. It happens quite a bit but we never really talk about it. even simpsons did it, but we don't talk about that one for a lot of good reasons. Also it was marge instead of bart for some reason. I do like how it's solved; turns out the guy who made it's Zen now and helps larry loose his muscles and his zen attitude scares the guy off. Which is good because Loopy would've torn him assunder. After all where Zen ends, asskicking begins.

Times Up: Loopy beats click by a decade or two by making a fast forwarding remote. Instead of learning a lesson about time, she has to run from the time police. I love how she's entirely flippant to them. It's a common theme honestly. She gives not one iota of a fuck to the powers that be and it's amazing.

I (Don't) Belivie I Can Fly: Dave the Canadian Duck is back!

Dave's migrating again and since his best buddy left the south pole with him to attend to some pressing matters

He's back to get help migrating again. This time Loopy teaches him to fly a plane. It's a cute little episode as Dave is forced to face his fear and I love these two's little friendships and his promise to see her again next year. Sadly we woudln't see that.. but I like to think he just showed up every year to visit.

Good Food Gone Bad; This is a classic loopy premise: she takes a concept literally and turns out to be right. I am glad the show broke out of this formula, finding more weird shit to do, but it's kinda nice to go back to it once in a while. Staying in a formula forever can be draining but you can still find new life in it. And they do as Loopy's mnilk goes bad and she tries to help him on the wrong side of the track, dealing with a bad guy bar for expired food, a literal bad egg and a gang of greaser milk including her old one who she finds new lives for as cheese. It's wholesome, creative and has a lot of fun designs, this show in a nutshell.

Down the Drain: Loopy deals with a clog. This one's fine. Also I just now found out their family's last name is cooper. Huh.

Rock N Roll Loopy: My faviorite of the batch. We finally meet Bugsteak, Larry's faviorite band and I like how they've kept his love of them consistent. They haven't come up in a WHILE, but it's nice that they werne't forgotten. Larry can't afford tickets to their concert so he asks for tickets, since their down with the youth. Now Bugsteak IS within their rights to tell him "no thank you", or to at least make it up. Instead their response is, summed up...

Loopy is naturally pissed and while Larry sleeps at a friends house, she confronts bugsteak at their hotel. She points out their current fancy livin, lalalalala, and stuck up ways have made them loose touch with thier fanbase and dares them to spend one night like a real kid.

So we get a lot of funny bits as Bugsteak is not happy with meatloaf (which I don't get at all as a meatloaf guy), has to listen to dad talk for several years, and mom cuts their hair. They realize they were wrong, make a song about the experince and sing it to Larry. I just love this concept: a bunch of stuck up 90's rockers being put off by having to live like teens again. It's fucking great and the live action actors do a great job as bugsteak.

Bargin Hunters From Beyond the Stars: Is a decent finale. I admit the episode above would've made a better one, but it's still a good note to go out on. Loopy has a yard sale and sells most of the stuff they had.. but accidnetly sells her dad to a pair of aliens and has to find a trade. The gag is once again he goes on too long, which seems to be a trait exclusive to these final two episodes, but it fits the guy well enough that I don't mind nor do I mind it being reused as the contexts are diffrent: with bugsteak it's simply what Larry goes through every night, while here it's the old "annoy the aliens into getting rid of you" chestnut. It's a decent ending to an incredible show.

While our time together was way shorter, I'll also really miss race rabbit. It was a fun segment and it's , like most of kablam, sad ot see it go. But it goes out with both a nice cluster of episodes and on a high note.

Dog/Prince/Ham: Race has to deal with Gold Dingo, a mysterious criminal mastermind whose also a dog, and of course the boolies.. thought his time they pretend to like gold dingo, have kidnapped the prince.. only for the bigger boolie to get beaten up. I also like how he saves the prince: getting him out of the car and letting Gold Dingo go off a cliff a sdog's can't read. I don't know the science on that but ti's a goofy enough gag to get a pass

Robot Rabbit: I prefer Rabbot myself. Race dates a robot rabbit which can relate, but it dosen't work out as it was made by the boolies. How fast he moves is funny as is Max being exasperated for good reason for once.

The Championship: The finale and fittingly the best episode of the shorts. Race has to deliver the secret to strawberry cream, but has to deal with a bunch of pastry chefs all huddled in the same car throwing pies at him, which is just.. it's beautiful man. It's so frickin beautiful. The boolies also have a good plan for once: a heat seeking missle. IT's neat to see race force dup against two threats at once, as the Boolies were sidelined for the gold dingo thing, and I love how he solves it: putting hot chill on the chefs, taking both out, delivering the microfilm and saving the day. That's how it's done old sport.

JetCat's final two shorts are.. a mixed bag. Todd is less annoying in one and still so very punchable in the other. Still a decent superhero work, seen better, movin on.

Lunchtime: Melanie's lunch is interuptted by a mad shark man stealing the cities water and threanting the new wate rpark she and todd want to go to, while Todd guards her mother's cookies

For once he dosen't fuck up, not only not eating them, but also protecting them from said super villian. The series best episode. not a super high bar, but still neat.

I Was a Grade School WereMoth: This one has a great villian in Vicki Von Verman, an insect who hopes to turn JetCat into a hybird bug monster but instead gets Todd because he wans to be a sidekick and drinks strange liquids in hideouts proving why he's not. I mean most human sidekicks to powered heroes do fuck up: Jimmy Olson got transformed once a week and was forcebly married to a gorilla

Ron Stoppable became a super villian and accidently created one. But both these guys are also geninely good dudes who are helpful. Todd is just annoyingly overconfident and stupid. He's a child, and I do give child characters a wide berth for being assholes, but Todd is just so consitently jerkish, selfish and terrible I question why Mellanie hangs out with him. He dragged these shorts down to the depths of hell and while there's good company down there

It still shoudln't be this bad. I've rarely seen a character piss me off this much and that includes the other hall of shamers he's with.

As I mentioned in the intro, the show made up for loosing Sniz and Fondue, as well as what seems to be a dwindling number of Life with Loopy and Prometheus and Bob shorts to use something I only noticed after writing those sections, with a LOT of pilots and a few extra music videos. It's a fair trade off; KaBlam's always featured a ton of unique animation styles and pilots, it's just now spread out instead of an end of or mid season thing.

As usual the shorts are visually diverse, creator driven affairs and really fun to look at. There are more duds than usual, a lot of the weaker one off shorts i've seen from KaBlam reside in this section, but it's counterballanced by all but one of these shorts having great animation and a LOT of great shorts spread throughout. Also we get two They Might Be Giants Music Videos, which is always a good thing to put in your childrens cartoon, so that alone makes this influx of shorts worth it. So let's see what we have

Emmet Freedy: Emmet Freedy has a great art style, using a lot of puppetry to create some fun ugly puppets, and a lot of love and care went into this one and I admire that. The problem is the short itself is pretty stock for nickeldoen, if coked up a bit: Emmet Freedy lies about having lice to avoid a project, only for things to get out of hand. The grossout bits don't help. I wish I liked this one better because it's expertly crafted.. but they used that craft to make something pretty generic by 90's/00's nick standards.

Fuzzball: This one's just genericA tomboy named Fuzzball breaks her dad's bowling trophy when he breaks a promise to take her to the carnival, so she hustles to get a new one. I've seen better tween slice of life shows like As Told by Ginger or All Grown UP after this, and even before this the Girl with her head coming off was way better.

Garbage Boy: After two weak segments, Garbage Boy was a LOT of fun and has a far more intresting premise: Danny's dad works at the local dump, and thus bring shome various pieces of garbage that end up in the basement, and Danny uses them to solve his problems. In this case he dosen't have a pet ,the local bullies snake is eating his friends pets, and his parents won't get him one. His sister is also an abomination of some kind but they don't talk baout it for some reason. So he builds himself a dog that comes to life and wisecracks because the 90's and beats the bully. IT's a fun boy and his dog story with a dash of frankenstien and I like the art style: it's thorughly weird, patching together bits of photos like a ransom note but outsid eof said devil baby it works fantasticly.

The Shizzagee: This one blows. I'd be nice about it, but it wastes a good premise, an extinct creature is brought back and becomes friends with ab oy, on an annoying as hell beast that won't shut the fuck up and awful cg animation. Part of it is age, but even giving it that much, it just looks.. bad. It has a soundtrack by they might be giants but nothing else.

Little Freaks: One of my favorites and a simple premise: a weird supervillian uses moths to eat everyone's clothes so he can make them all dress the same and slowly conquer them, so it's up to the little freaks to stop them, a group of three friends who all look diffrent: Tryla, a three eyed girl with a triangle face, Briangel, a kid with a brain in a jar on his head which melts if he overthinks, and Dubbs, conjoined twins. It's a fun little short with a nice silver age parody flair, something done a lot but done right here. It's cute, fast and a lot of fun.

Doctor Worm: My faviorite segment. It was close, LIttle Freaks and our final indie short are very close. This last batch in the final few eps was really damn good.. but I have to give it to this one. It takes the They Might Be Giants classic and gives us the tail of a little worm who likes to play the drums and tries to get a band looking for a drummer's attention. It takes the song and makes it the tail of a cheery guy who clearly just wants friends. The animation is great, the live action blending is fantastic, and it's sheer fun to watch. Ther'es a reason I made it the title card for this one.

Stewy the Dogboy: This one's.. fine. It's a premise similar to teacher's pet and was actually going to get a full series order before that series got greenlit over at disney. It's not bad, it's fun and I like the payoff of Stewie's chaos getting him seen as a genius by the principal, as well as stewie's voice, it sounds nicely doggish and innocent. It's just Teachers Pet simply did this premise better, and that's not this short's fault. It's still a good boy.

Why Does the Sun Shine?: Another TMBG music video, another banger. I prefer Dr. Worm but this is a one for "The sun is a mass of incadesant gas" and I assume if you grew up after a certain point, you know this one. A boy tries to look at the sun, a sicentst doctor and asun grooves. Really fun stuff.

Dave Son of Hercules: The show's final original short and it' sluckily a banger. It's also unique as it's the only one done by Henry and June animator and creator Mark Marek. It's a really fun premise I wish had got it's own series and it's all in th etitle: Dave is a pretty normal 90's kid whose dad is Hercules. Herc .. really hasn't adjusted to modern life, and thus we get a LOT of fun antics: the guy drives a chariot, slays a serpent ride at the carnival, goes to a greek restraunt to consult the gods, and when realizing he let his boy down, offers to pluck out his eye or liver. Herc is just loveably dramatic: he really wants to be a good dad, he's just out of time. I also like the greek restraunt bhit as the owner, rather than turn herc away, actaully gives him advice, getting Herc genuinely thinks he's the gods and just needs a friend. His advice is good too: quality time. It works.. it ends in the police station for a bit but it works and while Dave is embarassed, he's genuinely impressed and the short ends adorably witht he two skipping rocks. What helps is Dave is embarassed by his dad, but you get he loves the guy.. and unlike a lot of embrarssed kids in children's cartoons you aboslutely get why. A divine finish to KaBLam.

Our Penultimate KaBlammy awards. Next time we'll give out both ones related to our odds an dends.. and overall ones. Best episodes, best segments for series overall. The works. For now, this season

Best Henry and June: Just Chillin. It's not even close. Just Chilin is a fun finale that sends the series out on a high.

Action League Now!: Hey Who Stole My Face? A thorughly stupid, thorughly hilarious face off parody.

Prometheus and Bob: Tape One. A fun origin story and easily the best of these shorts. Sorry to spoil that now but it's true.

Life with Loopy: Rock N Roll Loopy. Beefsteak are too much fun.

Race Rabbit: The Championship, a grand finale for a grandly silly series.

Jetcat: THe one that dosen't ahve todd being a jackass.

Suprising Short: Doctor Worm. They call him doctor worm, good morning to you he's doctor worm.

Next TIme: We finish this. Every little bit of KaBlam I found under the couch cushions. Pilots, shorts KaBlam didn't use the works. ONe last hurrah. See you next week and thanks for reading

#kablam #henry and june #action league now #life with loopy #prometheus and bob #jetcat #race rabbit #they might be giants #animation #nickelodeon #the 90s

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