Lame Boy

Author's Note: Finally, this is it! I've managed to update the blog's name after some current posts were less likely related to the Brandy & Mr. Whiskers animated series. (To what the original premise of the blog was do about.) Reviews and critiques of the series would continue to be made until the bitter end while after it, the remaining of the series would be reviewed and critiqued in the production order at opposed to US airing order. The new header feature my iconic fursona character Christine Livingstone-Jonas in which I keep her as longer than over fifteen years! Such of a legacy for a fan-character destined to be forgotten after it...

Lame Boy (1-11)

Written by John Behnke & Rob Humphrey

Storyboard by Chuck Klein

Directed by Timothy Björklund

Date of airdate: September 4th 2004

Synopsis: Brandy found on a suitcase a 8-Bits like portable videogame for Whiskers until the twos going to seek it in a mysterious Temple full of lava and a fearsome gorilla...

That would be a fan-favorite... for some people though. For anyone else, it remains a dealbreaker and where the series shows its true colors, but not in the right way.

The adventure begins where Brandy yelled and going mad to Mr. Whiskers who just only wanna playing checkers with her. In less than one minute, we are again in a sadistical episode where Brandy want to evicted/killed/eliminated/rid of Whiskers' out of her shell life. Where doing right, it will make it at very memorable, but in these, it's the very polar opposite of what's going on.

Ironically, Brandy is very furious to Whiskers who only want to play games with her as the same the audience could be furious to why these things could exists. Remember that it's an animated comedy that almost none hardcore and down-to-Earth animation fans (and also scholars and historians for that matter) would mentionned its existence. It was done on a very dry year for animation and cartoondom: 2004. I've have not many great memories for that year after witnessed such of a joyful 2003 and a 2005 that would envisionned me at a show's fan and artist too. But it's amazing that is twenty now that we're reached to a kind of year we wanna really rid out of our heads!

It's also there they shown us the "mean" version of Brandy Harrington. While there is no Lola, Ed, Gaspard, Margo or the Toucan Sisters anywhere, this is only Brandy and Whiskers vs. the fate of a portable videogame. Sure, that would work if it was made on a typical fanfiction, but on an actual story, it's as if they'll live on a empty world, so why the matter that the show gets a very solid supporting cast.

On a suitcase, Brandy discovered a strange noise that sounds more like the first-generation of videogames consoles by a portable one. It's a Donkey Kong knock-off that named Monkey Maniacs 6. It given her a bright idea: To offered it to his friend rabbit just for be in peace! But you know what is coming...

Unfortunately, even by be a bright satire of the way people consum literally from their screens long before the condition being widely known by UNESCO, it's instead a cartoon plot that shamelessly steal what makes the Ren & Stimpy's segment "My Shiny Friend" as ingenious and undebatly a classic and timeless effort from the Games seasons days. But instead of Stimpy be stuck to TV, it's Whiskers getting looney for a videogame. You got also a very tiring chase of Brandy trying to running anwyhere in the Jungle like on the Droopy-vs.-Wolf cartoons, but without the novel and humor approach that had intented. Instead, you seen a "mean" and spoiled-brat dog trying to run away to what it's supposed to be the best friend she could ever have.

If these are the most exciting and funniest moments of a cartoon episode to you, you need some therapy help! It's just oft-putting as if the crew having more fun to delivering visual gratuitious pains than give to the audience lasting laughs.

It's just sad that the episode is not at great or memorable than I ever remembered. Probably one of the few ideas that closely saved it of total failure is the looney rabbit searching for a electric eel in order to recharge the console's battery. But then, the next scene, Brandy decide to rid definitely of the videogame and Whiskers become... well... like any of these 2024s screen zombies who just look of their smartphones anywhere they go. Such of tragic that we lost more sense of humanity like this, by pretending to promote kindness like does most random Instagrammers and where codes of civility, manners and respect on society are definitely too elitist with jerks wearing big sunglasses by act like if they were living the life of riley like on a typical Blockbuster film.

On the beach, Brandy only teached the rabbit to enjoyed the simple things of life when he was being like a screen zombie of our era by handling his hands like if he playing videogames but without own one! Suddenly, a frog jump towards them and the rabbit decide to use it as-is. It would ended that way and we would going to finish with this ordeal, but NO! The most embarassing and dismal part of the early series going on: The rabbit's body fall apart limbs by limbs to the ground and then, Brandy realized that there is no turning back. The twos going to rescued this "stupid" videogame. I hope someone was fired for this idea that seems unsuitable for a Disney Channel animated program! 

(And then, it's probably the same guy who ordered more abuses to Oscar in The Proud Family. The original show and the very grating Disney+ version. It's cynical and racist at best and one start to regretting the days where the depiction of black people on screens were one-off experiments, like on the Cosby Show and the Fat Albert animated series. And for your information, skip away of the 2004s dreadful movie that having its latter name!)

Man! Even Horror movies weren't as "gore" than THIS!!

The third act however, feels as someone thrown out of ideas by does lots of tepid jokes and lines that don't made sense at all, like the "Deja Vu" one, especially when all the videogames playings were made off-screen! The one scene where Brandy and Whiskers goes to the Temple by sadly shown only their silhouettes are baffling. This is just pure pointless. The use of silhouettes is for help to created an atmosphere where it's became dark, far away or at night. Clampett did that perfectly in Kitty Kornered, because the whole scene appeared at night and from a time the cartoons' directors figured how to not spoiled the audience's fun. But be set on a day, it's only someone who have none ideas of the basics knowledges of art. Even if it's a work done for Disney!

The Temple scene is one that would create lots of tension for the remaining of the series. In this, it's authentically frightening. The twos are pretty scare for their own lives. Kaley Cuoko and Charlie Adler have to delivering their usual excellent jobs but then, by be forced to bogged down their tones for erratic and corny dialogues to the characters. The "Deja Vu" lines feels too long and repetititious. If you know it the first time, why you have to repeat it not TWO, but THREE TIMES the same sentence?

When a very fearsome gorilla approached our "heroes", it's there the only greatest gem of this episode come along. But then, it's not that funny. The gorilla thrown fire to Whiskers twice while Brandy do anything not only for save the videogame console but the life of her friend and herself as well. When the stones started to fall apart, the gorilla were out of the scene (Nope! He's not dead!) and then, Brandy is stuck to the ravine by demanded the rabbit to save her. The conceit of the show for those who are still unrelated to the series and characters is to learning co-housing and surviving together on a hostile environment. The rabbit does nutty for save the videogame but instead, he finally do the right thing by save Brandy until the Temple and all its stones are worn down. But what about that outrageous gorilla?

Oh, here he is! Even mean guys deserve a happy ending!

And then, we get again the whole "I'm sorry..." another time when Brandy felt bad to Whiskers' impulses to his videogame. That end with lots of arguing and that would be enough for us, but unfortunately, Whiskers made a ironical commentary about screentimes when Brandy ask him if they're on a TV screen or on the real-life jungle. So, are they stars or real-life survivors in this?

I parroted this before and I going to parrot again: Breaking the 4th wall is not a joke anyone and its dog could delivering and make it like iconic! In Bugs Bunny, it do works! It does works for Daffy too! The Marx Brothers excelled on that if they were fully aware of the situations of their proceedings. Wayne's World did excellent uses of this and the Jim Davis' Garfield worked it on a fine form without alienating the audience ("Kids, don't try this at Home! We're professionnals!" as he says). But in this, it's totally random and out of context. As someone was fully ran out of gas for finishing this cartoon and finally delivering this for save time! (and gets his paycheck fast!)

Critique:

Pretty fun idea for a bright comedy plot, but that quickly stall out. This is among the sole title of the series in which only Brandy and Mr. Whiskers are featured them and this is sadly not one of their greatest reigns. The whole plot is another "Brandy trying to evict/murder/eliminate Whiskers out of her shell" story but this time, by also shamelessly steal what makes the Games' Ren & Stimpy segment My Shiny Friend at artistically beautiful and timeless. There is a couple of fun touches thought-- Tim Heintz provide a very effective 8-Bits soundtrack gimmick on the background. The electric eel's use for recharge the portable videogame battery are clever without to be convoluted (But that sour where Whiskers gets electrified to it lots of times!) and the Temple sequence provide lots of tension and menace once the story moved along-- but it's ultimately wasted by hacky jokes like Brandy trying to run away of Whiskers and his videogame without success is like repeated the Droopy formula. A cartoon that tried to satirized the amount of screentimes in our lives before the condition being widely known have NOT to be ruined by lazy writing. Whiskers' limbs fall all apart in the beach is one of the most ugliest moments of the show, or Disney works for that matter, while the presence of the twos on silhouttes while entering to the Temple is unnecessary and don't add any value to what was previously delivered. The gorilla in this title is really fearsome and outrageous without to be malicious (Unlike Lester) and whoever came out to the writing is saddled by a 4th breaking wall ending line that is not that original or fun as it has beginned. Despite that, Lame Boy served as a fine inspiration for future fanfictions projects or the use of that temple at a mall-shop for all the Season 2. But for this very alien execution, there's no words to describe this episode: Lame!