The Babysitter's Flub

The Babysitter's Flub (1-2)

Written by: Russel Marcus

Storyboard by: Shawn Björkland

Directed by: Timothy Björkland

Date of release: August 21th 2004

Synopsis: Mama Croc agreed Brandy to babysit her eggs, but Mr. Whiskers is on his way to do this duty, until he missing all of them while on walk.

While I reviewed the first earlier episode this week, I weren't at that sure that I would keep pictured a sincere representation to one of the most overlooked animated series of this first quarter of century. One that is loved a lot by fans on the past but for others, it was a dealbreaker. This is not the '30s Animation Influence that bothers the show a lot, either the artstyle which the Amazon Rainforest is pretty decent and lovely on visuals. It's on the writing that came the biggest flaws. Through the course of this series, we will experienced the excellents, the good ones, the averages and also the dreadful ones that we must forget it if possible.

Once Mr. Whiskers First Friend introduced us to the new comedy friends, this follow-up establish that we are already familiar with their environment. At a point there is none off-screen narrations on this show, even not narrated by Kaley Cuoko (Who ever need that?). I think the visuals speaks for itself and it's why the first sequence of this episode, we'll see Brandy lay on the jungle beach while keep an eye to Whiskers when a monkey walk in her. The monkey with a black beard and eyelashes in his eyes (He's not gay!) speaks on a fractured French accent that make it more palatable than any modern-day F***ing Frenchs who skip their syllables, sped-up while talking and most offensive at all, are crazy to english. The others monkeys perched in the tree, thrown tons of coconuts to Brandy's head, which gives us the impression that Brandy is not your stereotypical feminist-BS that most Disney Channel protagonists of this time were trapped.

In the next scene, Whiskers weren't exactly sure if the water is safe. Clueless, Brandy disagreed while reading one of her usual teens magazines. Mr. Whiskers touched the water and then, a female crocodile eat him like manic and Brandy comes to the rescue to save him... until Mama Croc made an agreement to the pooch to babysit her newborn eggs.

As usual, Brandy introducing herself as "Brandy Harrington of the Florida Harrington" while the next picture show us a still-life Florida picture with Brandy in there. If it was made a decade later, this frame will be considered at a unbeatable social media Meme which makes it all the more hilarious. Whiskers introduce himself to the new crocodile mother while the next scene, we see him be crushed by a real-life rhino. Already, the crew have fun with these characters despite the oft-blatant and absurd quality of most of the scripts.

While another mischief of Whiskers came in, Brandy says to Mama Croc:

Brandy: "On second though, EAT HIM!"

And Whiskers run away! Fade Out to the next scene.

The next scene follow the pair on their Treehouse while Mr. Whiskers been volunteer to guard Mama Croc eggs when we are introducing to the twin sisters Toucans Cherryl and Merryl with Lola Boa like featuring on their first adventure. Unfortunately for the audience who have to watch this ordeal, the toucan sisters are easily the most forgettable characters ever pictured on this show. Them, can't even agree on anything by goes always on a fight. Without just make it a mere rip-off, it's the same reason why I loathe the character of Lanolin on the U.S. Acres series and why the female sheep (And Bo's sister) were rarely featuring on the segment. She's obnoxious, negative on anything and speak and think loudly without we ever getting any pay-off. It's a kind of character that tried to be funny, but it wasn't. Much like Cherryl and Merryl as reason why we can't seen them in all of these cartoons.

A fun part of this cartoon is that Lola Boa invited Brandy to discovering an authentical Jungle Mall when actually, it was revealed later to be a Waterfall. It's an element that will be re-introducing many times in the series, not only on a infomercial spoof from Blind Ambition, but also the impulse shopping problems from Trouble In Store and then, the entire Season 2 with the actual Jungle Mall-shop.

Meanwhile, Whiskers is still on the job to keep an eye to the newborn eggs. Despite the absurdity of the character, he keep his silly job very seriously, by keep them an eye by binoculars, reading them a storybook in reverse or plays rodeo with the eggs. While sleeping, Whiskers doing what will be the most unpredictable kind of irresponsibility thus far: While snoring, he grab the eggs and then, spit them to Brandy's bed (Which it's a bra!), one by one. When Ed (Voiced by Tom Kenny) makes his first and fine introduction, Whiskers realized awake they were all missing by done such of a crazy face that looks like the way Stimpy been harmed while wrestling in Mad Dog Hoëk.

Oh, this is not meritless, though it looks to be close. To tell you we are not on a ordinary Disney production, Whiskers makes another wild take while he realized how unresponsible he is to missing the eggs until he finally found them, courtsey of Ed the Otter.

The next scene features the bunny rabbit on a walk by a stroller carrying the Mama Croc's eggs while some female jungle animals been in admiration to his father duty. The rabbit will doing another thing that will hung the backstory all over: He showed his muscles and strenghts to the girls while he hang on the stroller that ran away. Whiskers have to act fast and saved everything of them, until all of these eggs would stop to a slate of varied jungle animals, which he was sure to recuperate them despite his clumsiness, but in vain.

In same time, Brandy and her girlfriends were in the Waterfall, drinking some limonade while the Twin Sisters Toucans fight again. 

How revolting if there was a spin-off featuring them and their disagreements on anything. You would thinking a revival of Heckle and Jeckle will be ten times much sophisticated and better written than these! 

Back at the Treehouse, Brandy just admired Whiskers' sense of responsbilities and maturity but soon, discovering that all the eggs going to be hatched are from varied animals featuring in. The Canine girl's uproar is uptight, but appropriate, when Brandy didn't want to punish or shown his hatred to Whiskers, but that the rabbit learn from his own mistakes. He have to explain her everything but then, a flashback of what happening was seen in sped-up and with much blurry backgrounds than on the original sequences. Sometimes, you can't just make Illustrated Radio to things we already seen or know, and reason why I have quit with comics-books for decades if they love to explain everything to what people can just seen besides to made authors at horrible lecturers who can't do the same by themselves.

Now, it's up to Whiskers and Brandy to bring the babies to their main owners, and it goes by a very quirky chase, something that will be back for a way to another in the series. But when Mama Croc came back to eat them (Lola Boa told her while on Waterfall she's an animal eater), Brandy tried to convince her to not eat her friend, that he do his own best to be a perfect babysitter. The show will not be the same if Mr. Whiskers was a self-confident, kind of observer and pseudo-Intellectual bunny and Brandy well.... to be Brandy alright. But it's a kind of fun dynamic that the series' will lose as fast as the first season evolved.

In the final scenes, Mama Croc attempted to eat the rabbit but she instead was impressed of his efforts to babysit her eggs by make it like a great father, even by his own incompetence. Unlike Dudley Puppy or worse, the Bagel character from The Bagel & Becky Show from years back (Another show that shamelessly rip-off its dyanmic), Mr. Whiskers weren't look at a mere idiot just for the sake of it, but one that is excited about his new environment that in another life, he would be certainly killed or slaughtered on a zoo. The scene finale shown a Father crocodile rambling about his babies. Such an ending that find echo through the Art Davis' final WB cartoon Quackodile Tears when the actual baby crocodile was shifted to a baby black duck. Because it was originally a Daffy Duck cartoon idea for started!

And here's my own critique of this cartoon:

Critique:

 After Mr. Whisker's First Friend introducing Brandy, Mr. Whiskers and a part of the main Jungle cast to the world, the follow-up delivers to what would be the basics of the series we know and love. Like on the first cartoon, Russel Marcus was credited at the episode's writer, and thankfully for us, he gives us a good balance between absurd comedy and comic tension, especially in the daffy chase to find the Mama Croc's eggs Mr. Whiskers have lose it while on a walk just before they came hatch. Mama Croc makes a very fearsome introduction by eating wildly Whiskers like manic, which one may think the Jungle wanna rid of the crazy rabbit of this place. It gives some finest touchs tough-- A still-life picture with Brandy on Florida after introducing herself to the new mother appear at one of the most hilarious Meme before Memes comes to life, Whiskers' very creepy face while losing the eggs after sleeping, etc. But everything here looks done with logic and not by that forced, contrived Porn-Humor the show was often populated. The otter Ed (Voiced by Tom Kenny of the Spongebob Squarepants fame) makes a brief, but very fun introduction, though one has to wonder why Kenny carrying a WBs Sam Cat kind of voice to this character. On the other spectrum, the twin sisters toucans Cherryl and Merryl are some of the most forgettable parts of the show, which they only bicking each other and never be agreed. To think a female version of magpies Heckle & Jeckle with their sophisticated vocals and humor will be ten times better than this. When Brandy discovering the conspiracy behind the variety of hatching animals in the Treehouse that Whiskers grab it at mistake, it's up to the duo to carry them to their respective families. Unlike in First Friend, Whiskers weren't described at a one-dimensional dimwit, but one precocious rabbit that have to hide his own incompetence by take his silly duty to babysit the Mama Croc eggs seriously. We also get some presentation of what would be a Mall-shopping center on the Jungle when it was actually a waterfall, but it was long before the actual Jungle Mall-Shop will came to life in Season 2. The two Björklund (Timothy in direction and Shawn on the storyboard) does a very admirable to invoking the jungle settings to what the former wouldn't and while Mama Croc posed at a threat while she soon notice some of her own eggs are missing, we gotten at least, a nice ending, but one that deserve more meat than this lame repeat to Art Davis' Quackodile Tears with the duckling onto a family of crocodiles. Despite the weak ending, it's all of what makes the show so fun to watch. It's silly, energetic and rightfully a destined classic.