Arthur - Where is the Show Going?

[mr3urious]

In every cartoon and drawing I've ever seen, juggling is represented by things being thrown in a stable round arc with the hands outstretched to the side. I.e. completely unrealistic.

I think it's because it's easier to animate that it's done in the "shower" method.

 

[D'Snowth]

I didn't think today's episode was too awful bad... I think "Adventures in Budylon" at least makes an attempt to encourage children to use their imagination, which is something a lot of kids seem to lack these days since they're getting hooked on video games and cellphones and the internet at such early ages. One thing I did notice, however, was that D.W. sounds like she was losing her voice the whole time, does she have another voice actor?

"Ladonna Compson: Party Animal" seemed to scream, "SCRAPPY!!!" at first, but it was kind of interesting... some observations I made were
1. Gee whiz, Ladonna's bedroom is HUGE... is her family rich or something? And why does she have two beds in her bedroom? I thought she might share her room with Bud, but apparently he has his own room.
2. Uh, people from the south don't pronounce "either" as "eye-ther", we say, "ee-ther".
3. Is it just me, or did Binky's voice sound a little deeper than usual? I don't quite mean like it did in the first season, but rather like perhaps Bruce Dinsmore probably go quite that high anymore.
This whole new, "Which Arthur character are you?" segment at the end... uh... if it were a little more interactive, it could probably work, otherwise, did nothing for me.

The episode as a whole was pretty good, again, I don't really think it's quite as bad as Drtooth said, but then again, we're all entitled to our own opinions.

One more thing I do have to bring up... maybe it's just me, but I kept getting a shiptease vibe between Arthur and Ladonna throughout the whole show... anyone else?

 

[Drtooth]

The episode as a whole was pretty good, again, I don't really think it's quite as bad as Drtooth said, but then again, we're all entitled to our own opinions.

One more thing I do have to bring up... maybe it's just me, but I kept getting a shiptease vibe between Arthur and Ladonna throughout the whole show... anyone else?

The episode was too safe. There wasn't any dramatic tension aside from losing a half sandwich and it raining for 2 minutes. And somehow, it wasn't so much exploring as wandering. I dunno... it seemed that there was some potential for a decent episode. They could have found things in the yard and imagined they were something, or got into big imaginary trouble until Arthur or Ladonna broke it up (ala Jon Arbuckle in Garfield's Feline Fantasies)... but they basically just camped out and pretended things were other things. And I still don't understand why Ladonna and Arthur had to be the parents. That must be what bothered me. Of course, I didn't expect much out of this episode, but it wasn't even interesting. There's the title screen where they encounter an imaginary stone idol. That never happened at all (unless it was in a montage and I blinked).

It would have been a decent episode if they did something, anyway. I at least expected some sort of adventure, not a gentle stroll and a leaky tent. Heck, they didn't even react to the raccoon that could have been rabid. In any other episode of Arthur, Mrs. Read would have rushed right out there to tell them to come in at least.

Still, I'm very much looking forward to tomorrow's Buster Flops episode.

 

[D'Snowth]

There's the title screen where they encounter an imaginary stone idol. That never happened at all (unless it was in a montage and I blinked).

You must have blinked, 'cause yeah, it was there. D.W. and Bud come upon it, and make remarks about it being ancient and all, but it turns out to be Ladonna who was sitting in a lawn chair, and breaks them from their imagine spot with, "You know, just because you're imagining doesn't mean I can't hear you", to which Bud makes a joke about the wind blowing so hard he thought the statue was talking.

 

[Drtooth]

Hey! I missed the only thing slightly interesting in the episode. Why couldn't they have more of that and less of Ladonna getting bored and watching something else?

Wait. Even Ladonna was bored with the episode.

 

[D'Snowth]

Today's episode was good, better than I expected it to be.

"Molina's Mulligan" turned out to be rather relatable: the way Mr. Molina was always so enthusiastic and proud over everything Alberto got himself involved in reminds me a lot of my mom, she's the same way, she often times will bring me up in a conversation for the sake of talking about me, "Oh, by the way, my son runs his own production company, he's a puppeteer, you should look at his work, he's on YouTube!" while I do all I can to keep my eyes from rolling, because nobody cares, lol. One thing I couldn't help but notice was that it would seem both Mr. Molina and Alberto have new voices; Alberto's new voice sounds almost identical to his original voice, but just a little more wooden, while Mr. Molina's voice sounds a tad deeper than usual, and a little heavier on the accent. But it was a good entry, like I said, very relatable, I enjoyed it.

"Buster Bombs" was great. Stories that focus on Buster seem to always be good, and it was actually fun to see how desperate he grew in trying to stay funny, and the more he tried and the more desperate he grew, the more pathetic he became... I actually couldn't help but chuckle at how he was covered in almost every kind of pie filling you could imagine by the time he was finished with that "experiment" (I kind of wish I knew what it was like for a pie in the face to actually be funny like it was in the olden days of comedy). Vince Ruckles didn't seem to be too much of a ringer of Don Rickles, but at least he left Buster with some pearls of wisdom that came in handy: Buster really did genuinely stop trying to be funny, and he became his naturally funny self again (though at the same time, the fact that Mrs. MacGrady and the others were still expecting him to try to be funny kind of defeated the purpose just a tad).

The "Which Arthur character are you?" segment made a little more sense today, but I still think it would be a good idea if the segment was actually interactive, like say, offer a choice of three different characters, ask a few multiple choice questions, and if they answered mostly As, they're one character, mostly Bs another, mostly Cs another... but, that's just me.

 

[Drtooth]

This was a very good episode today, I agree. I didn't expect Molina's Mulligan to be that good, but it really had a lot more organic Arthur style heart than some of the more recent episodes. In fact, this seems like one of the first episodes that centers specifically on Alberto. Sure, there have been episodes involving Alberto, or where he holds a specific plot point, but you never saw him get a "Day in the Limelight" episode until now. I also like that just now they decided to have Bionic Bunny host the episode's cold opening.

Buster Bombs was amazing. I have to admit this, not only did it feel like an older episode, I'm actually completely curious as to why it took them this long to do a "Buster doesn't think he's funny" episode. Sure, there was that episode where the Brain doubted his intelligence and tried to become a comedian, and the episode where Buster wasn't funny because Binky stole his joke and he got all passive aggressive about it. But an episode featuring the joking friend losing his touch seems... I dunno... pretty much a season 1 idea. I mean, Muppet Babies did one season 2 episode 3 (16 episodes into the series)... it took them 17 years to get to this episode. In all the friend of a friend of a relative focused episodes they've done recently, you'd think this episode was a no-brainer. And it was good without needing a gimmick! This is an anomaly. Between this and the Bionic Bunny opening of the first episode, that's 2 things that really shouldn't have to wait for season 17.

Anyway, I too was confused why they didn't make the Don Rickles expy sound like Don, especially since they had a dead on impersonation of him with the turtle in "D.W. Queen of the Comeback." But it didn't affect the enjoyment of the episode.

 

[D'Snowth]

I ended up missing the beginning of "Opposites Distract" and the end of "Just the Ticket", so I'm afraid I can't really invest a whole lot of into the entire episode, but based on what I have seen, while both entries were enjoyable, as predicted, they were both rather cliched. As far as "Opposites Distract" go, I did like the whole reference/shout out to THE ODD COUPLE (and I guess they intended this episode to air yesterday, because the announcer in the Imagine Spot said Arthur left his house on November 13, which was yesterday), and I love D.W.'s little Bond villain/Dr. Evil thing she had going on when Buster came to see her (but what was with the whole, "MOM! BUSTER'S LOOKING AT ME!" thing?) "Just the Ticket" was just as I predicted it, because... well, the story's been done before. I knew all of Arthur's friends were basically going to badger him into picking them to go to the concert with him, and I kind of figured he would try to look for ways to get rid of the tickets to get himself out of the situation.

Still not used to Sue Ellen's new voice (this time, she sounded like Francine wearing jock straps too tight), and Francine and Muffy's eyes being too close together.

 

[Drtooth]

Since you missed it earlier, Arthur tried studying in D.W.'s room and D.W. yelled "MOM! ARTHUR'S LOOKING AT ME!" So that was a call back.

 

[D'Snowth]

"All Thumbs" was pretty bad... I figured it would be. Arthur was a little harsh in being critical on Buster for sucking his thumb, of course I noticed that Dietrich Smith was the writer, and most people say he's one of the worst writers on the show. But yeah, this was pretty bad. And the way Francine and Muffy kept harping on Arthur, non-stop, trying to get him to tell them what's up with Buster, even I was feeling frustrated and just wanted to tell them to shut the eff up already. And... do they really have "potions" to put on your thumb to get you to stop sucking on it? Other than that, one thing that stood out about this episode that rang true to me is how Buster was trying to eavesdrop on others whispering, and everything but his own name was indistinguishable... have you ever noticed that? You try to listen to people whispering about you, and the only thing you can make out is your name, nothing else.

I ended up missing practically all of "Kidonia", mainly because I coincidentally had to help my mom shop (well, she's old, and can't do a lot for herself these days). One thing really cracked me up though, when Brain was talking about having to "de-fray-g" his parents' computer. Seriously, Canadians have the funniest pronunciations of certain words.