Monday, November 28, 2011

Darkwing Duck, Season One, Episode Thirteen: "A Revolution in Home Appliances"

Now, we return to the sort of genial battiness that I can get behind. The idea is that Megavolt accidentally zaps himself and gets the ability to bring appliances to life. In short order, he has a refrigerator, a television, Honker's guitar (not an appliance per se, but it's an electric guitar, so I guess it counts), and a salon chair working for him. They all have really broad accents, too, which adds to the fun. The refrigerator is a working-class New Yorker, the guitar is a seventies-British-punk-rocker, the chair is…huh. I don't quite know what descriptor to use, aside from "the stylist who always calls you 'hon.' I also don't know about the TV; it keeps doing different impressions--is it supposed to be some sort of Robin Williams thing? Never mind; it's all batty enough to be funny.

And then the usual; DW has to save the day. But there's a twist! The appliances go rogue, turning on Megavolt! Oh Em Gee! Also, there's a li'l subplot with Gosalyn and Honker trying to figure out what became of his guitar. Okay.

It's fun stuff, though I do with the episode let us see some of the chaos erupting when appliances city-wide temporarily gain sentience. Show don't tell, dammit!

Stray Observations

-There's a story that appeared in some issue or other of Gemstone's WDC where furniture starts gaining intelligence. You'd remember it if you'd read it. This sort of makes me think of that.

-As I noted in my entry on the Ducktales movie, I question the morality of granting life to inanimate objects only to kill them off again. Only more so here, since the things that come to life are actually sentient. Not that I feel especially strongly about the matter as it applies here, but I'm not sure what logical reason there would be for this to be okay if killing off regular people is frowned upon.

-"Gee, if you're really bored, DW, you might try starting a button collection, like mine! It's pretty darn exciting!"

1 comment:

  1. Yeah... it's not like they couldn't show scenes of carnage because they had budgetary issues. It costs just as much to animate a scene of the characters playing pinochle as it does to animate them running for their lives from deranged mutant killer monster toasters.

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