The Monkey's Paw

The Monkey's Paw (1-30)

Written by: Jan Strand

Storyboard by: Rossen Varbanov

Directed by: Timothy Björklund

Date of airdate: October 29th 2004

Synopsis: After to be hit by a surfboard accident (The surfboard is actually Ed), Whiskers, Brandy and Ed came together on a temple cave until to discovering a secret box that hide a magical monkey's paw, which it grant them wishes, even if their proper use is overall neglected.

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!

A rare homerun for the series! And a good one on this Spooky month!

This is overall the earlier of the past ten airing firsts half-hours that I haven't reviewing on this blog yet. The cartoon's production that is also leaning with the blander The Curse of the Vampire Bat were rushed to be airing just rightly for Halloween 2004, letting the remaining episodes in production from One of a Kind/Belive in the Bunny to Bad Hare Day/Paw and Oder to wait months and months before any official North American airing, considering that elsewhere in the world, the half-hours were already showed while it was new, by always ran them on the correct production's show order.

The begins is nothing special - just Brandy enjoying her life on a raft and drinking a coconut milk. This rare moment of peace is sadly wasted by a very eering Whiskers shout while practicing surfboard when Ed does the surfboard by himself. Whiskers still poke his finger on his big nose but it was saved by a rare moment of the rabbit's prison-suit to went inflated, but as usual, crash ensues until the trio fallen to the temple cave that started to be a sticky point for adventurous thematics, and that the mere idea of it for a shopping center wasn't made yet!

You can't believe how refreshing to seen an episode that don't looked to you at contrived, bland or gross, which proving that sometimes, the TV crew was able to delivering a real Tour-de-Force on an animated series that need some. Even the temple experience went improved to the very dismal Lame Boy, but the exterior of the structure was also seen in the soon-to-be-seen The Big Game, though the latter episode was already in production before this.

The chit-chat of Brandy, Whiskers and Ed make it like a very fun and humourous trio, on the likes of a modern-day Three Stooges team that the crew from The Ren & Stimpy Show has fully lacked.

On the cave, our "heroes" discovering a weird little box that ressembled like an antiquated replicate of the temple. Whiskers was easily excited to it when Brandy trying to call him down and control his temper. This is there they soon discovered what is hidden there -- A magical monkey's paw that grant them any wishes they want to.

Whiskers was pleased to it. Ed was rather cautious to that. And Brandy... well, she weren't thrilled to it, but when she learn where comes the magical paw's powers, she utilized it for getting her back home, but this is not exactly what she may thinking... by be back first, at the treehouse, and later, in the airplane when the nature of the show actually begun.

The first wish fails. Ed, took his turn to getting, fish! Well, it expose the three friends to be ating by piranhas, that were regularly appeared in the show on some occasions. The familiarty of the series is more evident here as long the series evolved by keep to surviving on this age of mid-00s mediocre entertainment.

Love how their expressions make them at very frightening! Look at the rabbit's and doggie's ears!

The Mr. Whiskers' wish is about getting a chocolate pudding, but, it seems to be that this set on a volcano with lava and pull them on a giant rock, until that the lava causes an outburst that made all the three in the air until Brandy took the Monkey's Paw and actually getting back at home, but the magical item is very sadistic to her request that it's called like a bitter message about greed.

For those who are enough familiar with the series, the first cartoon started out on an airplane, until a clumsy mistake of the rabbit (By opened the door gate instead of the switch for the Brandy's needs to have some light) encapsulated the pair off the plane until to reach the Amazon Rainforest. The comical duo has really started there and nothing was the same since.

Brandy, Whiskers and Ed returning to the plane. The magical paw is the conductor of this and Whiskers decided to be part of it by do a irreversible flight until to Florida, of what Brandy asked for since the show is made. There is a visually fun exposure to the contraption that driven crazy the jungle animals, (By also fall apart Lola Boa's skin. Is it something that was done before?) and that end where the trio collapsed off the plane and then, on a somewhat illogical homage to the climax of Warren Foster/Friz Freleng's outing Hare Lift, the point of the plane reach their sides, but that time, the plane crushed them down! (But not flattened.)

I would ask if they given credits to Warren Foster for this.

Arguably one of the most memorables one-liners out there is where Brandy speaking to the camera "Sorry, something have to says" about the curse, which it appear to a point where the show's nature started to be spoiled, that maybe the main characters are just actors and not survivalists. It's a neat homage of the 4th Wall-Breaking gag of old that date of Vaudeville, but feels rather pointless on a show where you want to trust them at people at opposed to actors.

Brandy saying to Whiskers "I wish I wouldn't know you" makes some words-less funnier expressions of the rabbit, that maybe her best friend don't want to known him anymore.

When back to the treehouse, the rabbit felt really disappointed that the girl doggie don't longer known him, or at least, it was his impressions to her. By a very long montage of past episodes, (Like in the just-produced Paw and Order) Mr. Whiskers and Ed trying with a very conplicated paper chart that maybe his friend have to appreciate things in different directions or something he saying. It given a pretty effective and hilarious face of Brandy with her own brain (Why is the crew has such of a fetish for brain?) been in motion, which meant perhaps that the blonde doggie is not better than her supposed rabbit friend... and the chase is on again when the two boys took the monkey curse for themselves, and for get away of her naughty impulses.

And sadly, there was a very Gore joke that have to do of how the rabbit wished his otter friend to be a brain... litterally! Whiskers yelled (Off-screen) while Brandy wasn't away of him, and the two others (Or rather, the rabbit!) run away for their life until a mishap push Ed's brain to the river and be aten by the same piranhas from minutes ago, which make it at Gore for some, but not at truly gruesome. The conflict ended where the remaining of the trio vie for the Monkey's Paw curse until on a Poof! - Brandy and Whiskers disappeared forever... And that was it, or that was rather a dream.

It's since many years that I haven't seen the cartoon by myself, and watching it for the need of this blog made me known of what the title looked like on its own context. The show almost ended like if that curse never happening by ended after the surfboard accident. But for some reason, Whiskers' adjust to returning to the lake by have the monkey word filling to the script. Is it actually, the curse is a real thing? Mayyy-be!

The true climax revealed that the paw has digging a hole in the ground until to be outside which maybe proven that the prophecy is accurate. When discovered this, Lola Boa just expressed some attachments to this thing, without known her practical use. When she make a wish or something, the female boa went with a very hysterical yelling, and that is exactly what makes end one of the most fast-paced and funnier episodes on the series, even by share many times some familiarity.

Critique:

Fast-paced and frantic outing that perfectly works, muchly helped by the series' familiarity tropes and the episode that were for once free of that crass, gross and ill-fitting sets of gags that was very often populated. Rushed to production for be airing in Halloween 2004, the cartoon proven to be a better "Spooky" effort than was for The Curse of the Vampire Bat, and the inclusion of Ed the Otter in the prophecy of the magical monkey paw curse is not without forgetting when he almost stealed the show in The Big Game. Many things works in there -- The surfboard ordeal, Brandy's reponse to the camera about the curse, (A trait that will soon losing what makes the series and characters unique at first place.) the absurd wishes that respect the own's nature of the series we'll know and love, the airplane retrospective from Mr. Whiskers' First Friend, Brandy wish to never known the rabbit at all or her to been dazzled when a visual of her own brain is been in execution. If there is a major flaw in there is how familiar the plot were, and that Mr. Whiskers wished that his otter friend became a brain (And then, be ating by piranhas) is a rare creepy moment of gore and cannibalism. (Who wanna seen an antagonist friend be eating like a prey?) The climax that reveal that it was just a dream was a neat touch to ended the curse's calamity, but it was a little spoiled right when the paw has digging a passage in the ground out of the temple until Lola Boa discovered it. Even by its neglected use, The Monkey's Paw has given to the TV crew a rare chance to earn an Daytime Emmy Award nomination. They losing it -- but it's nevertheless the perfect Spooky episode on the series, even if the Halloween holiday is still not attached onto its name.