Less Than Hero

Less Than Hero (1-18)

Written by: Brandyon Swayer

Storyboard by: Mrs. Tina Kugler

Directed by: Timothy Björklund

Synopsis: By proven to Brandy his utility, Mr. Whiskers became a superhero (Captain Fruity), then an evil villain and then, himself after a comic-book floating to his face, by using all the stories' tropes at his advantage.

P.S.: In the moment you tent to read this article, let me remind you a thing-- I haven't known anything about the "Brandy & Mr. Whiskers" 11-minutes segments before I tent to reviewing these. I haven't fully watched the show in years, but instead of the original english voice-cast, all I do remembered from the series was from the 2008s YouTube featuring the Spanish-dubbing cast version of the show. And albeit the series was finally remastered in HD and that did looked out better than before, the presentation was another victim of the rampant "Photoshopped" titles, those that are typical from most foreign newer prints of past shows like the way in 2020, a Post-production house has remastered the remaining of the Warner Bros. cartoons library with such dreaded results like this. For the need of this blog, we're fully compelling the show with the older, Standard version of the series, like the way it was originally created and made by what we have to do. Thank you!

The story begins when Brandy opened a "Food Drive" for the jungle denizens for getting some fresh fruits, like any Foods Service that would come out. This is probably the first time that we'll see Brandy not to be on her usual selfish greed mode in the show. That would be only great if the series' keep to developped that more.

In the next scene, Whiskers ran to his friend when all his face is covered of raisins, when he tried his best to be usual to the the Brandy's Food Drive community, but Brandy commented him to how useless he is, by also be annoying for that matter. Unless other episodes like Funky Bunny, Lame Boy or the just seen Dear Diary, the pooch girl didn't trying to evicted the rabbit out of her shell life, but his clumsiness and awkwardness put the worst of her.

Remember when Whiskers doing up the same face when he encountered Brandy for the first time? Well, we'll see it again!

 

After a very long and drag introduction, here's that a comic-book floating away in the sky and this is there the real adventure may start. Whiskers flipping pages of the comic and looked with still-life images featuring a damsel in distress by three gangsters thugs... until in the next shot, we'll seen the shadow of a superhero for saving the day. A fun idea perhaps, at least, the cut-out still frames of the comic is even better executed than the limited animation joke like seen on Invansion of the Bunny Snatchers, a Bugs Bunny cartoon from 1992 released by the team director of Terry Lennon and Greg Ford. That would be one of their final finishing works for Warner Bros.

By reading this, it gives to the rabbit a pretty effective idea: He become... Captain Fruity! By even pull lots of fruits to anyone who make troubles. And it's there the real problems started! With a pineapple as his mask, bananas as weapons and colts (Because guns in cartoons are still a big no-no for American kids' Television.) and an underwear buckled by a belt, he'll put the heck by pretending to do the well-being thing for the population. Brandy been concerned of Whiskers' addiction of his persona hero by trying to tell him what wrong are his own motives.

Sadly, it's all marred to the fact that this is just frustratingly average, typical of what the series had to offered. Sawyer's writing is good enough. The animation studios team does a excellent job to carrying lives to the Amazon Rainforest environment and Björklund's direction is still effective, but really, that would be any others characters and results would be the same. It's not at ingenious as was the Super Cow shtik from Cow & Chicken, when it's all that obvious that this is Cow in this digsuise.

Realizing that his heroic nature comes to an end, Whiskers took again the same comic and decide... to become a villain. Why don't he ever gets advises to Gaspard before to be evil first? Oh yeah, he is not even featuring in this segment.

The comic-books stills at least are pretty elegant and frankly, more natural to a comic story than any actual comic-book stories that were made in the past quarter-century. It reminds a lot Rocket Robin Hood on its context. Just one year before Christopher Nolan will renewed the central focus of superheroes movies to a dark, realistic and a much serious tone with his trilogy of Batman movies, we'll got a very appealing satire of the genre. This is what superheroes stories have to be about, at a parody of politic and topical issues than took seriously such monochrome guys with capes!

A hysterical evil laugh that help Charlie Adler's vocal sense of timing.

Then, the same game is done again while Whiskers... err... Captain Evil Fruity thrown the mess in the jungle by pull lots of fruits in the face of the same jungle animals, but then, Brandy, Ed, Cheryl, Meryl and Lola are in the top of the treehouse, by found a solution to get it stop. The usual friend cast is on disguises for stop Whiskers' evil schemes and Brandy... well, see by yourself!

Brandy's line "I'm Brandy. Not Super Brandy, not Wonder Brandy, not Brandy Laughs. Just Brandy." would be perhaps one of the most memorable one-liners even intented in this show. And she stays calm to his evil glory for once.

Unfortunately for Brandy and gang, evil Whiskers having already planned that they would be trapped by a giant net. Brandy tried to help him of his violent problem, when the rabbit tried to explain them that he wanna be useful for all the community all around. That clashes the fact that Mr. Whiskers is an outsider by his own clumsiness, and it's by that he will "save" the day when a herd of leopards going to ate Brandy and her friends and that Whiskers doing up... well, see by yourself.

Whiskers became himself by finally abandonning his status of superhero/villain and by his own awkwardness, he finally avoid the leopards to ate his best friends. This is there it started to come out like an Inspector Gadget formulaic episode, where the detective's clumsiness is by that the MAD agents fears for their life and that angered Dr. Claw to their incompetence.

When everyone be saved by Mr. Whiskers' naivety, an unnecessary, but recognizing hug would be pretty enough for a definite end, but it's not the case. And the actual ending forced me to recalculate my opinions for the shorts's critique.

Back to Treehouse, Mr. Whikers grab all his superhero outfits in a box under his bed and never touch it again. The next shot is cut to Brandy doing a manucure by singing an annoying song. The rabbit thought that "something is very wrong" there by thrown fruits to the Brandy's face. These off-screen violent reactions are there that ruin what would be otherwise a neat satire about the Good Vs. Evil formula.

For once, there wasn't any embarassing cloying message like others episodes have to the ending. But that don't excuse the sadistic callback that results why Brandy & Mr. Whiskers still gains a pretty low reception to the animation community all around. To think Disney Animation don't doing up better now when the only succesful animated TV show of now is name Big City Greens and that most of their biggest movie hits are sequels of ideas we've seen before.

Critique:

One year before filmmaker Christopher Nolan refocused the superhero movie genre like anew and long years before the movie's industry only let novel ideas purposely thrown away for more DC or MCU characters' films, Less Than Hero is a cute and well-done effort to what the superheroes genre have to be about first- a parody of politic pundit than telling about actual topical issues. Seeing Brandy be in the Front Lines by give foods to the Amazon Rainforest denizens a la Foods Service is a refreshing change of the usual selfish, spoiled and greed mode that most Disney Channel's females characters seems to suffered. But this is sadly a Mr. Whiskers episode, when most of the episode's writing is related to him, not for be a superhero, but to be usual for his friends. The still-images frames of the comic-books that floated through the rabbit's face are inventive and also, are better supported than the out-of-nowhere and clunkier limited animation shtik from Invansion of the Bunny Snatchers. It's such odd that there wasn't any reference to Mighty Mouse if this is by that it was based the whole story at first place. Cuoko's one-liner to a calm, down-to-Earth Brandy "I'm Brandy. Not Super Brandy. Not Wonder Brandy. No Brandy Laughs. Just Brandy." is easily one of the most memorable and timeless lines of the series as late. But what pains the final cartoon's result is its ending: When Mr. Whiskers pull all his Captain Fruity outfit on a box by shelved it underneath his bed, the next shot is about Brandy singing a very annoying song by doing manucure for get sleep. He then, take the "initiative" to thrown fruits to Brandy and that clashes to a very (off-screen) violent reaction on the Treehouse. This is unfortunately one another example of resolution from the series that don't work. Like from Lack of Brains Vs. Brawns, a big hug from Brandy and gang to Mr. Whiskers after be saved by a herd of leopard who wanna ate them would be a much satisfying ending, if only that wasn't about the rabbit's obliviouseness or how "useless" he still was even by all these complains.