Mini Whiskers

Mini Whiskers (1-34)

Written by: Katherine Green

Storyboard by: Rosen Varbanon

Directed by: Timothy Björklund

Date of airdate: 2005 (Dates may vary from any locations)

Synopsis: After a picnic was been failed by the rabbit, Brandy and Whiskers have discovered that a baby warthog named Pancho is missing, and then, guard him until his own parents find him.

For many years that I looked of the show as thrilling, engaging, fun and a refreshing change of the Action/Wannabe-Western-Anime style of animation they used to ran on, now, we came to the point when the series were just as, bad! I mean, what do you think by this? (See below)

Mini Whiskers sadly embodied like a newer era for the show and crew, though. Where the vulgar side of the cartoon is there just for fill the runtime than actually delivering a purpose. And many bits were repeated twice by the first minutes of the segment. Green seems to has drink too much Kool-Aid by wrote this script.

In there, the opening has nothing out of ordinary. The duo makes a together picnic, but they can't argued each other correctly. What have they learned since the first ever episode of it? Adler and especially, Cuoko are been very conniving in this. When Brandy quit the camera by guard Whiskers to their picnic, Gaspard and a herd of wild animals munching all this when the rabbit is away of the scene by suspected someone's gets approcahed. Sadly, it were repeated twice, by be like a bad running gag that has ceased to exists since over a mid-century.

The episode is sadly representative that the show itself is lost cause. It didn't have the same kind of empowerment than Kim Possible has, neither the funniest anachronic comedy bits from Dave the Barbarian or the same marketing-wide appeal from the original Lilo & Stitch movie. There, this is likely that those dreaded Screen Gems cartoons were came to life, and things is became to getting worse when Season 2 come close to be distributed.

Brandy in there, is more grouchy and even Whiskers is not better there. When randomly, a baby warthog came in by the bushes, they have none ideas of what kind of species he looked like. Its named Pancho in there, but the writer can't ask herself if its trying to be a slapstick comedy bit or exemplify the good parent role, so Green tried both of them and that didn't work.

When the girly pooch says to the rabbit that "Babies come from parents", we given some flash sequences of a baby rhino with his mother, a mother chicken with her hen and then, a father with... a big baby? Is we watch Histeria! or something?

Someone seems to have watched too much Walter Lantz cartoons before to pitched the cartoon and think it at the more relevant things ever, even more so than the intelligent and clever nature of the well-know Warner Bros. cartoons. In brief, the Lantz filmography having a highly-aimed fanbase in Brazil or something, even more than in their native country. Watching some of them when it hit DVD for the first time were kinda a dealbreaker. They really took lots of the artificial elements of gags structure or writing and pasted it to such uneven animation outcomes. The one bits that make these shorts remarkable is the variety of the opening titles, notably in the early-'40s. They feels likely special attraction, as that were meant to be locked back in the Vaults after its theatrical release (or re-release), long before Television and any platforms turns it at profitable to audience and historians to studying and appreciated it.

 The first act is likely a bad repeat of the "Grouchy-Fred-Flintstone-to-get-a-baby-at-home" in The Surprise, a pre-Peebles-Flintstone episode. This time, it's Whiskers to getting upset about having a baby in the same place. Brandy act strangely like Wilma in this episode, but more agressive and unfunny. That came from one of the earlier produced episode, The Babysitters, where Fred and Barney having to babysit a baby while watching a wrestling show on TV, but had missing him by ended the two cavemens in jail in this episode (Like Fred in The Swimming Pool).

When the rabbit and Pancho is stuck in the same roof, Brandy pull to the tree a "FOUND" paper on a tree that the baby warthog was finded by them. Ed even greetings her to be a mother by shake her hand (Maybe the only funniest thing in this title). And meanwhile, Whiskers is getting angry to Pancho, by even imitate any of his bits like picking his nose and arm farts, but what kind of good role Whiskers is for Pancho?

When Brandy arrived with tons of bags of foods with her at home, a predictable chaos went to the whole treehouse when Whiskers and Pancho (With the same orange prison jumpsuit) ran around the house. The canine girl went both terribly annoyed and recognized to the rabbit to plays his own part of parent, well, if that are the case.

And there goes the meal test. Brandy pull a bowl of salads to the twos at an experience for the rabbit to teach his newer baby to share and ate the same food than him. I am sure that you have kids who were picky eaters and constantly shown faces of anger and disgust to such healthy vegetables.

You know what is worse there? Remember Lame Boy at a segment featuring the duo at stand-alone? But then, we having a pretty good example later with Private Antics, Major Problems. Well, we are in the reversal way. The next couple of scene is about the two fellows may thinking that Brandy is mean, but the rabbit tell the warthog that she wasn't. For some reason, the same leopard from The No-Sleep Over ate Whiskers like a rollercoaster but its nowhere at original or ingenious like he do the same in the original episode. There, it's only for act at fillers. Yeah, great!

After it, we got a very long scene of Pancho pushed Brandy to the cliff and Whiskers felt saddened to this by even arguing against Pancho for a rare time. Then, the scene is even repeated twice by move backwards the sequence as the audience have not seen this. It's only make the main protagonist (Brandy) be fail.

And for once, Whiskers save her by even drown him too on some occasions. He even use his rabbit ears to save his friend, went they are evolved to a raft-like chase to the river, only until to be cornered by a herd of alligators to the ground that went close to ate them. (Remember! They are in the Amazon Rainforest. Not somewhere else!)

A growl from Pancho made fear the alligators, by saved our two friends of their fate. And finally, we came from probably the most tiresome and questionnable revelation featuring in the show.

(The Brandy and Mr. Whiskers series is about actors surviving on the Amazon Rainforest. Not to be survivalists. Got It?)

This particular scene encapsulate what went wrong with the cartoon show. The show don't even trying to hide the fact that it merely copying some Garfield and Friends segments about that 4th-Wall-Breaking structure that has quit to be memorable or original for too long. The writers have certainly forgot that the era of characters at "stars" is about made the animation art at mature, intelligent and forward. There, this is another way to fill time to someting that will be cute or lovely to watch instead. I have explained this almost two years ago by here.

Finally, the other resolution, even if it's weak, is that the warthog parents have found their Pancho baby by salute the rabbit/pooch duo to keep close of him. It would be only great if that ended that way, but Björklund can't stop himself to thrown the arm farts gag back Whiskers has done previously in the same episode. It's not funny when it had started. This is a kind of high-school habit that has worn its welcome when we reach adulthood and its sadly the debut of a long and painful challenge by reviewing the series in its whole.

Critique:

Disappointing and overly-talky episode that can't decide if its trying to be a comedy of errors or testing the audience about to be the best parents at possible. Katherine Green have trying to pull such of a "feminine" presence in a TV cartoon largely dominated by a males crew, but this is wasted by sequences that are repeated twice (The picnic munching by Gaspard, Whiskers' arm farts, Brandy's horrific fail) and they serve no points except for fill times to such of a pretty long 11 minutes, that is about the limits of what we can tolerated with these characters. Brandy is there, at the extreme to be really conniving while Whiskers is much dumb until to be very pushy, especially in the Pancho warthog sequences. Its as if they trying to repeated the different tempers of Fred Flintstone when he came close to have a baby, few episodes before Peebles came there, but this is not at sincere by be instead more offensive and vulgar without the funniest bits that will came along. Speaking of which, even if it's very short, Ed who shake Brandy's hand by thinking that she is a mother after pin a FOUND paper to a tree is one of the more charming moments out of this, but that's not says much. And the raft race after the Brandy's horrific fall to the cliff by the baby warthog is well-staged with animation that were back-and-forth by respected the sport conventions, but that don't excuse the fact that these deemed a little unnecessary. For those who don't get, we having not one, but TWO resolutions in this episode: The first is about Brandy and Whiskers are no longer Amazon Rainforest survialists, but actors in this show (Where the rabbit flipped the show's script for no rhyme or reason in the jungle) that looked like a bad cookie-cutter Disney Channel segment where a main live-action actress speaking to the camera at a "Reality TV sorta-way" and then, Pancho finding his own parents. But to the fans who loved the show and environment while they came first, this is a long and painful era that would beginning and things will be more inconsistant when John McIntyre will took the director's chair later in the same year.