The Curse of the Vampire Bat

The Curse of the Vampire Bat (1-29)

Written by: Brian Swenlin

Storyboard by: Mrs. Tina Kugler

Directed by: Timothy Björklund

Air of airdate: October 29th 2004 

Synopsis: Brandy and Whiskers gets a new neighbor-- a bat named Vlad, but Mr. Whiskers is convinced that this new neighbor have an agenda.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is one of those half-hours that were recently remastered on HD by be available on YouTube by some users. Thought they never be looked at good and better than it was in years, please, be considering that they have some alterations that confuse its enjoyment, like some dreaded "Photoshopping" in titles and credits. For the purpose of the review, we going to watch the 2024s remaster instead of the original version seen on 2004, by also completed on HD all the half-hours that were originally showed on Disney Channel USA in 2004. Thank you!

Halloween is close in few weeks. And what better, but reviewing the one cartoon that is themed about.

It is perhaps one of the most scary and odd from the entire Brandy & Mr. Whiskers' series. It's in the 15th half-hour to be producing, but a decision was in order to rushing the production for be seen first in Halloween 2004, just two months after its world premiere. Already, the Walt Disney Television Animation company gains none trust to this new assortment, so much that it delayed the likes of One of a Kind, Peedigree, Shemdigree or Paw and Order. But nevertheless, that wasn't a great time to working in the animation artform.

In this, we start to seen some familiar tropes to the show we'll know. Brandy grab some fruits for its newer neighbor, a bat named Vlad (Voiced by Tom Kenny) and when Whiskers followed her to met him. The pampered girl make remind him the last time they gotten a newer neighbor, when the next scene shown us... cooking eggs on a stove!

Later, the audience finally known the newer neighbor, with a pretty stereotyped dialect, Vlad enjoying the company of Whiskers and Brandy by ate the fruits Brandy have pull on its basket. They even got a laugh together. Thankfully, in case this is not just another boring Anthropomorphized thing, (A genre that seems to never left the DeviantArt world now) the bat lived up on a dark cave. While Brandy was flattened to him, Mr. Whiskers is in the opposite... like something wrong with him like the way he was lured by the gentleman leopard in A Bunny On My Back.

Cut to the Treehouse, Whiskers grab himself a comic-book magazine about vampires that probably, the newer Vlad thing become one. That leads to some clichés lines like "Brandy, oh naive you are!". Brandy's replying line "Vampires, don't exists!" is probably a steal from the "Easter Bunny don't Exists"  famous line from Believe in the Bunny. Definitely, the characters are no longer those cookie-cutter Spongebob/Ren & Stimpy clones of old, by become their own thing. Which it's great, for now anyway.

Then, the silly rabbit disguise himself on a caped crusader bat in order to proven her wrong. He even flying? But he was been in trouble like be ate by a giant snake or met a crowd of bats backwards.

Fatigued to be seen in ridicule, Whiskers guess his friends, Cheryl, Meryl, Lola and Ed to shown films (How he was able to pull a camera projector with him is another question) about the proofs that Vlad is eventually... a sucking-blood vampire! By random films of the bat and also a pretty cute picture of the rabbit on the beach with a stuffed crab. The others pals didn't trust any word of it and there was a commentary about Vlad's dialect.

When the projected film was over, Mr. Whiskers wondered where Brandy going on, Ed told him that she was on the bat's cave, making him fear for the life of his best friend. And if he was right all the time?

When the gang showed up, Brandy wasn't impressed to all the schemes Mr. Whiskers wound-up to Vlad by also tested him with a piece of steak, in case if he is a sucking-blood vampire. So, Vlad didn't come on the Amazon Rainforest as a mistake? Brandy started to realize (Again!) that the bunny is right and started to own concerns of his friend's life by also check a list of Vlad's evil plans. Like... kill Mr. Whiskers? Even the very intrusive music score in the background each time Vlad came appear is all the more obvious, thought the spooky theme was never taken fully at its advantage.

While realizing all the conspiracy, Brandy woke up Ed and all her other friends to save Mr. Whiskers out of his fate, by been Vlad's official minion. They grabbed garlic like in the beginning of this adventure when the rabbit munching some. (Then, we gets a very oft-putting visual of him in pains after breaking a heavy mirror on glasses.) But when the gang come out to save him, something went very wrong with that. And that Vlad had to explain anything in words!

The saddled part with all that came out that Vlad wanted a place to be hiding out of everyone's mouth who says him as a "vampire". The caves on the Amazon Rainforest seems a pretty chilling place, but to seen a civilian canine dog girl and a offbeat rabbit that went from zoo to another zoo made him all the more annoying. He even explained that bats don't sucks rabbits or dogs but cows and horses. (We even seen them in a next sequence out of context. But why?) This is an episode that trying too hard to be really scary but in the end, it's all bland and mediocre, at a point the series' most positive arc reached to a tragic downside until the show's end almost two years later.

Like it wasn't enough, there was another part when the characters learning an important lesson and bla bla bla... Really, it didn't save us from ten minutes of nothing, but mere speculations that bats and vampires could be in the same blood. The episode ended with Vlad thrown them all out of his cave. And that ends like that unfortunately.

Critique:

 One of perhaps the most well-known adventures of the series, by its inclusion in Halloween and be rushed onto production to be seen for this period, only two months away of its global premiere. The spooky theme have some decent moments thrown in (Whiskers' projected film. Him eating garlics, etc.) but it lacks any momentum to made the audience be authentically frightening. To say nothing that Vlad, even by the legendary voice of Tom Kenny, is an unpleasant, one-note foe by his ridiculous accent. Some lines and ideas been also stealing from other prior episodes like the Whiskers' conspiracy that Vlad is a vampire (By read a comic-book besides!) is similar to him sneaking the leopard trying to wooiing Brandy on A Bunny On My Back or that Brandy loudly says that vampires don't exists is quite the same as her Easter Bunny inexistence line on Believe in the Bunny. The second-act however, worked mildly better with the rabbit projected films and that the friends cast came in, that otherwise, it will be another "Brandy and Whiskers vs. Bad Guy" thing like from the very dismal Lame Boy. The climax that Vlad had an agenda by also "eliminate" Whiskers is fun, but that went nowhere very fast. There is no points that Vlad known his intrusion in the Jungle before to met them and his arguings about the tropes of vampires and Whiskers' lessons of the day are much cloying than entertaining. And without the Halloween Holiday was attached to this performance. The crew would have a better chance to made a real spooky story in the follow-up of this one: The Monkey's Paw.