02.06
Billy & Mandy: man, it’s been too long. Back when the show was fresh. I’d catch it as much as I could and revel in the wit and charm that Maxwell Atoms pulled off in the show was great. I loved Billy’s stupidity, Mandy’s dark sass, and Grim’s frequently random mood swings were big turn-ons, but I think the best part of the show were the numerous recurring characters. People like Fred Fredburger, Hoss Delgado, and Dracula could easily brighten a weaker story. Imagine what I thought when I heard that the best of the recurring stars were getting their own spin-off special!
And imagine how distraught I was when I realized how long it’d take for that special to come out. After seeing storyboards on Atom’s blog shortly after announcing the show’s cancellation(in about early ‘07), I knew watching this special would be my destiny, but waiting until Halloween 2008 seemed nearly impossible. Note that this was shortly after Billy & Mandy’s Big Boogey Adventure came out, and I reveled in it’s excellence. In all my life, I don’t think I’ve seen another animated film with comedic timing as perfect as in this movie’s, and further cemented the fact that Maxwell Atom’s needs as much time as he can get to make you laugh. Sad to say that “Wrath of the Spider Queen”, the hour-long series finale, was so disappointing. Not that I’m looking for closure in a show this absurd, but there was much more that could have been done here to of made it a better finale, but didn’t happen. Fortunately I was rightfully award for my patience. After the disappointing “Wrath of the Spider Queen”, I feel that once again Billy & Mandy can prove that despite a hit-or-miss nature, this is one series that with extended time can tickle your funny bone unlike anything else.
The special starts off with Billy, Mandy, Grim, and the ever-lovable geek Irwin trick-or-treating, just like every Halloween. They stop over at Irwin’s grandpop, Dracula’s house along the way for some candy, as well. Now, as much as I loved the show’s Blacula-meets-James Brown approach to the dragon of blood himself, I just have to make a fan-wank note here and mention that it’s somewhat illogical that Dracula is Irwin’s grandfather when I distinctly remember in one three-minute short in which Dracula offered to help Irwin to impress Mandy that he acts as if he’s never seen him before in his life. At the same time, though, it’s also understandable if Dracula’s aging self just forgot about his grandson’s existence that one day. Even if not, then who really cares? If you’re going by continuity in Billy & Mandy, then Mandy would of remained as Billy’s pet cat Milkshakes and clawed the poor boy to death back in the show’s fourth short, “Get Out of My Head!”, and that’d of been the end of that. But hey, let’s not get geeky, now.
Moving on from that, next we get to see Hoss Delgado for what seems like the first time in ages. A cross between Bruce Campbell’s Ash from the Evil Dead trilogy and Kurt Russell’s Snake Plissken from Escape From New York, Hoss was bad to the bone that tickled you to wits end with awesomely random one-liners and a sweet chainsaw arm. Crazy, you say? That’s a good sense of Billy & Mandy then; where the arbitrary rules. I think his best episode is probably “Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner”, where he and the ever-so-undevine Eris, the Goddess of chaos, pretend to be Billy’s parents when his principal comes over expecting to meet his parents to determine whether or not he deserves to go to a school for “geniuses”, which Billy is “one of am”. What sold it for me was Hoss and Eris’ weirdly positive chemistry towards each other. They really seemed to of played off of each other better than you’d expect, which is where part of the laughs came from. In fact, I’ll move more onto chemistry between the cast here in merely a moment.
After getting some Hoss time, we catch up with Jeff the Spider and Fred Fredburger. Jeff is an… interesting character. He initially came to life when Billy randomly sat on his egg for him, unaware of what’s to come, since he hates spiders. Jeff isn’t a very great character at the end of the day, since he’s mostly a wussified pushover that cares too much for an idiot boy who in reality despises him, but he has his moments. One thing I liked from “Wrath of the Spider Queen” was how near the end, the poor spider boy(well, girl, since he did have kids…) was able to step up and defend himself from his finance’s territorial reach on him. For once we got some character growth in the typically shallow-as-the-kiddy-pool B&M. Wonder if we’ll get some tonight as well…
Fred Fredburger is one of the most hit or miss aspects about the show. Some people love how random he is, while others hate him for being an annoying twit. Kids obviously liked him, though, since he and his catchphrase “YES” were the focus for a short-lived series of bumpers on Cartoon Network that focused on the more random side of things on the network. Me? I honestly did not mind him. Next to Big Boogey Adventure, I’d say that his debut ep “Keeper of the Reaper” is one of the best things the show’s ever done, his return “Be a Fred, Be Very a Fred” was also pretty good, if you laugh at how much of a nuisance he is to Grim, Billy, and Mandy rather than how annoying Fred himself is, and even his appearances in Big Boogey Adventure were charming themselves. I’d have to say that at the end of the day, Fred isn’t as bad as people put him out to be, or at least as he could have been. Fred’s creator, C.H Greenblatt, is currently the show runner of the equally-as-brilliant CN hit Chowder, which shines of his creative direction and great storyboarding.
One thing you’ll likely notice right out of the bat is Fred’s new design. When he first debuted, the guy has a big, huggable, green elephant, but here he’s been cut down in size to cut off any extra weight, I‘d like to assume. My verdict? Even cuter than before. Let’s hope if the special does well enough, we can get some plushies, mainly of Fred Fredburger, outside of Atlanta. YES!
And we end the foreshadowing saga with General Scarr, formerly of Evil Con Carne, Atom’s other show. Take Pinky & the Brain’s take-over-the-world recurring plots but subtract the wit and class from that show, and add a leftover talking brain and his companion leftover talking stomach to be in a purple bear’s possession, and you’ve got Con Carne. Scarr was one of Hector Con Carne’s chief assistants in taking over the world, alongside Major Doctor Ghastley, until Con Carne had to drop the funds to do so(I blame that on low ratings due to lack of good writing or creativity, but that’s merely my guess), leaving Scarr to move over to Endsville, where the poor guy is frequently harassed by Billy and whoever else comes his way.
Now that we’re done with introductions, we move in a little later to the story, when after failing to catch up with Grim, Billy, and Mandy, Irwin then feels at an all time low, so cut to end credits! After the editor realizes that we’re only 5 minutes in, our down-and-out lead catches up with the fairly snobbish Mindy who wants him to cross over across the street to get her some chocolates. All of a sudden, marshmallow bunnies attack! Now here’s one fault worth mentioning: the adversaries of the night come out of nowhere. There’s no foreshadowing, no introduction, no reason, nothing. Looking at it now it’s not really that big of a deal, and I’m really just shooting at straws here to come up with negative points.
Anyway, our marshmallow bunny sure can pack a wallop, attacking Endsville to ruins and kidnapping Mindy, which causes our recurring stars to come and save the day, mainly for Hoss to show why I love him so, even if inconsistency rears it‘s ugly head again(48? But in “Irwin Gets a Clue“, Hoss reveals himself to be 33!), but this is when we get some classic Billy & Mandy. During Hoss’ fight, for example, Fred starts spelling his name, ala “Keeper of the Reaper”. If that doesn’t scream “good times”, you need to catch up on some good B&M repeats. Once the group of 5 meet each other and realize what they must do(“We may not be able to save this little boy’s self-respect, but we might just save that little girl!”), this is when the meat of the story comes out of the oven. We get five completely different characters that are able to flow together far better than you’d expect.
Throughout the entire movie, we get to see the cast do just that, flow together like madness on their way to save the day, and even develop as characters. Jeff relents growing up and Fred follows him every step of the way, even coming up with the group’s name and uniform. Irwin discovers about his powers as part mummy-vampire and even sees what he can do as part mummy-vampire. Hoss, who generally is a man of extreme monster and one-eyed-freak prejudice, learns how it’s wrong to judge someone based off the origin of beast they be, and even Scarr gets some time in the light, how so, I will not say.
Also during the film, we get to see even Mindy show compassion. When we catch up with her after capture, she’s been condemned to that of a witch’s presence, causing her to of course take her current state out on the innocent, but near the end, even she regrets the problems she causes and shows an actual human side to her, which is more than we can say for Mandy, who takes things in charge her own way.
In the film, we get two songs; Mindy’s potion recipe done via musical performance, which runs on a weak cross between “I’ll Put a Spell on You” and “Be Prepared”, and indicates that Rachel MacFarlane choose well in not pursuing a recording contract; and Jeff and Fred’s duet about how they dislike growing up, which just runs on borderline awful. Listening to uninspired performances like these make me miss the show’s better musical sequences like “Keeper of the Reaper” and “Scary-O”, and to be honest, even these don’t last well on repeat listening. If there’s any negative side to this movie, these unnecessary songs, which nearly are comparable to that of a bad sequel to a Don Bluth animated movie, are, and I can honestly say that once I get this special on DVD, I’ll be more than likely to skip over both songs, and I‘d advise that first-time watchers do the same. Well, this, and I’d of also liked some more Dracula time, and maybe more of Billy’s dad outside being a watchguard.
Once we get to the end, we get to see the marshmallow bunny’s true evil side, which may just very well shake your thoughts on the whole Billy & Mandy universe. Not spoiling that, and finally ending this overlong review, the day is saved and many more sequels are hinted at. After watching through the top-notch performance of the first Underfist special, I can only hope for many more to come. It seems as if Cartoon Network has finally found a Halloween tradition far more promising than that of annually updating the zombie-like Scooby-Doo franchise, since remember, Warner and CN execs, all dogs DO go to heaven, and the pup that is Underfist is too young to kick the bucket.
Originally posted on Monday, October 13, 2008.