…well but anyway, this episode marks the triumphant (?) return of Comet Guy, and if he still has the uncontrollable dancing thing, we don't see it here. He shows up to recruit DW for a SPECIAL TASK back on his home planet. It turns out that everyone on Mertz is a square-jawed superhero (shades of Monty Python's Bicycle Repair Man). There's one Ordinary Guy they spend all their time rescuing, but now he's gone missing, so DW's been bought in to sub for him. DW angrily protests that he does too have superpowers, but, of course, he doesn't--though really, I still maintain that there's no way that teleporting thing he does isn't a superpower of some sort.
It's one of these premises that's kind of clever, but in the context of being clever is also kind of facile, if you know what I mean. You sort of expect things like this from DW, and I think as far as these things go, this episode is kind of mediocre. On a number of occasions, we see egregious examples--and I know I've pointed out before how the show does this, but it just keeps doing it and it keeps showing what I think is the fundamental flaw here--of characters remarking how horrific and fatal it would be if something happened, and then the thing happens, and it's not even a tiny bit fatal and, in fact, barely even inconveniencing. Obviously you don't expect people to actually die in this show, but at least in Ducktales there was a sense that the world was such that somebody potentially could.
Anyway, the climax is when the erstwhile Ordinary Guy shows up, having become heartily sick of being "saved" all the time (as well one might), decides to be a supervillain. He and DW keep alternately hitting themselves with his expanding ray, and become giant, eventually to the point where they barely fit on the planet (reminding me of the time when Calvin started to become giant for no clear reason), and they fight by throwing stars at one another and whatnot. And the whole thing just ends with giant DW, having beaten OG, just standing there on the planet (which you would assume at this point must be fucked beyond repair, if not for, you know, DW logic). Not even any kind of conclusion with Comet Guy and company. Kind of an anti-climactic way for the character to bow out of the series, really.
OH WELL! More SOON, and this time I MEAN it!
The scene of two characters who keeps growing to the point their standing on top of a small planet is homage to the Tex Avery cartoon "King-size canary"
ReplyDeleteGlad I did prod, because you're back in gear! Didn't expect such plentiful results. ;)
ReplyDeletequote: It's one of these premises that's kind of clever, but in the context of being clever is also kind of facile, if you know what I mean. You sort of expect things like this from DW, and I think as far as these things go, this episode is kind of mediocre.
I have to admit, that as I've gotten older, my reaction to the show is often something like, "They think they're being SO funny, but they're not." And you've said much the same thing, in various reviews thus far. I agree that the show tended to take a running gag or a "wacky premise" and beat it into the ground. I'm still a fan, and I appreciate what they were going for with the show, but I think there were only certain episodes where they got it just right. ("Beauty and the Beet" and "A Brush with Oblivion" come to mind.)
quote: On a number of occasions, we see egregious examples--and I know I've pointed out before how the show does this, but it just keeps doing it and it keeps showing what I think is the fundamental flaw here--of characters remarking how horrific and fatal it would be if something happened, and then the thing happens, and it's not even a tiny bit fatal and, in fact, barely even inconveniencing.
ReplyDeleteI noticed how the show was self-conflicted for those reasons, even when I was a kid -- they were trying to be Tex Avery and tell a dramatic story at the same time. Shows like Animaniacs, in their longform episodes, were more successful at walking this line, because their world wasn't grounded in one like Darkwing's, which, even with all the squash-and-stretch cartooniness, still had a certain implication of realism to it -- or at least, it made such an implication by two degrees of separation, by way of evoking the pulps and their hardboiled urban crime stories.
As a kid, I really didn't like Comet Guy. The fact that he was humanoid and not a dogface, and that he looked like a "real" superhero (which I had a grudge against, growing up as a Disney comics fan), was really disconcerting and distasteful to me. When this sequel first aired, I gnashed my teeth that they brought him back ... and the fact that the episode eschewed the familiar environs of St. Canard, most of it taking place on Comet Guy's planet, which was infested by more abominations JUST LIKE HIM, made it all the worse.
ReplyDeleteI don't hold anything against them now, though. I'm curious to revisit them. More YouTube use is in order...
I did like the ending, though. And I was gonna point out that it was a Tex Avery homage, but Pam beat me to it.
-- Ryan
Yeah, I like that "they think they're being SO funny, but they're not" formulation. Of course, "funny" is subjective; I remember well what my sense of humor was like when I was small, and I think it matched up pretty well with this show's. But some humor putatively aimed at kids ages well, and some does not...
ReplyDelete