Who Watched Cowboy Bebop tonight??

**DerekPowers** · 11-09-2001, 03:05 AM

the second ep was awesome!!! the begining when spike and that psycho guy first fight is so good, and its so awesome that cn didnt edit it., there was alot of violence!!

but i couldnt help noticing that that fat killer kind of remineded me of the penguin, mainly the batman returns peguin. he was fat, had a big coat and top hat, and look at all the weapons he head...he had a cane as a gun, he road on thos big cute theme park characters, alot like the duck peguin rod on. and the whole ending in the theme park created the same bizare feel that was created by having penguin run the red triangle gang circus.

i may be jumping to conclusions, but i definately think that the writers of that ep were slightly influenced by penguin, probably from batman returns. its definately likely, i mean, many american toons were obviously influenced by anime (btas/tnba, bb, ppg, dexter, samurai jack), so it definately is likely.

but that ep still kicked *****. im really enjoying it, even if it is a dub. anyone else catch this ep, it was crazy. the cat part was so shway. peace.

**killercroc** · 11-09-2001, 09:27 AM

Did that come out after Batman Returns? I was under the impression that it was older than that. I have no facts on the subject, though, that's just an assumption.

I have to agree it was one of the best episodes. There have been a few that I liked better like the two part finale of season one, and the one where you learn what happened to the old dude's arm.

**Calhoun07** · 11-09-2001, 10:13 AM

I saw it, too. And I thought the exact same things as you, that it looked alot like the penquin. Either it's a freak coincidence (hey, it happens!) or maybe it was meant as a homage of some sort? I am not sure which one.

**Tim Drake** · 11-09-2001, 10:24 AM

It could be a homage. Cowboy Bebop was made in 1998.

**Leaping Larry Jojo** · 11-09-2001, 11:51 AM

I'm surprised people don't spot more homages. "Toys in the Attic" was pretty much "Aliens," with Spike playing the part of Ripley. And the end of that episode was a play on the Stanley Kubrick film "2001 a Space Odyssey," with the cast floating around asleep and classical music playing in the background.

**Jowy Blight** · 11-09-2001, 11:55 AM

Yes, that was a pretty good episode. I thought the same thing, that he looks alot like the penquin. As always, I like a bad guys insane laugh.

**DR. BELCH** · 11-09-2001, 01:30 PM

He actually struck me as an amalgam of Penguin, Mad Hatter, and The Joker. "He enters smiling...and he leaves smiling." Jet's line especially chilled me: "Really, there is nothing so pure and cruel as a child."
Oh, that ending. I'll never look at cats, calliopes and theme parks the same way again.
Ed in particular gets me--in "Toys in the Attic" she swallows whole a mutated, moldy gob of lobster meat (with no ill effects?), in "Mushroom Samba" (which struck me as both one long drug trip and an homage to blaxplotation) she hitches a ride in a female bounty hunter's trunk, and in "Le Fou", she seems to be inexplicably saying everything twice ("My name is Faye--not Faye-Faye!"). She also appears to be double-jointed--note how she turns on her computer with her toe from the floor while lying on her back. Ah, when the lass gets a little older....

**Fish** · 11-09-2001, 02:07 PM

I didn't for one second think as the insane guy as the Penguin...But that might be because I see anime as a Japanese product, but I realise that they are heavely influenced by western movies too..

I loved the first fight scene and how they used CGI! Very cool!
Ed is my favorite character and since last year when I first saw CB, I have found myself saying "faye faye" and "nya nya" several times just for fun

You know...the dog aint bad either..:P

<>< F I S H ><>

**Lonestarr** · 11-09-2001, 02:22 PM

I also saw CB last night. It was pretty sad when that guy that Spike was fighting (I didn't catch the name) was crying (that's what I heard, at least).

That Ed just gets cuter and cuter; "Faye-Faye".

**Leaping Larry Jojo** · 11-09-2001, 02:30 PM

Mr. Le Fou had regressed to a child because of all the experiments done on him.

Some of you might be wondering why the bullets didn't stop him but the knife did. Well, see, the best explanation is that the shield stops things moving at a certain speed. Since a thrown knife moves at a slower speed than a bullet, it was able to hurt him. If the shield just stopped everything indiscriminately, oxygen wouldn't get in, and he wouldn't be able to breathe.

At least that's the theory I've heard.

**DR. BELCH** · 11-09-2001, 02:48 PM

--I just thought Spike caught him off-guard (he had been distracted by that toy kitty momentarily). He was waiting to be shot in the chest, not knifed in the knee. When he saw the blood, he just wasn't emotionally mature enough to handle it, so he just flopped down like a two-year-old pitching a hissy and bawled. "MOMMY!" I almost pitied the fat little bugger....

**Leaping Larry Jojo** · 11-09-2001, 03:06 PM

That's what I originally thought, too. But since Le Fou was almost made out to be invincible, a more scientific (yeah, right!) explanation needed to be presented as well.

But in the end, he probably just forgot to put up his shield.

As for more homages, "Stray Dog Strut" homaged "Enter the Dragon." The bad guy in that episode, "Hakim," was a riff on the bad guy in the aforementioned Bruce Lee movie. The bad guy was Kareem Abdul Jabbar, the famous NBA centre.

"My Funny Valentine" had a couple of "Breakfast at Tiffany's" homages, especially Faye's dress, which looks a bit like Audrey Hepburn's in that movie.

It also riffs music. All the episode titles are taken from famous songs.

**The Polisher** · 01-03-2002, 07:16 PM

This is one of my favorite episodes in the series! I felt sad after Pierrot kicked the bucket, but doesn't everyone have a soft side for an insane regressee crying "mommy!"?

Josh · 01-03-2002, 10:09 PM

What? I thought it was reruns on Thursdays! When and where is this Penguin episode? Either I'm missing something, or I'm just really confused.

**The Mad Hatter** · 01-04-2002, 07:24 PM

Nope, a newbie decided to ressurect this thread from the dead, for some reason. I'm not sure when the episode will air again.

**Ben** · 01-09-2002, 03:13 PM

Batman: The Animated Series is supposedly quite popular in Japan, enough that it inspired The Big O (I heard that the studio that animated Big O also animated B:TAS -- is this true?). This ep is obviously an homage to B:TAS. The "perpetual night" urban environment, the long helicopter shots, the penguin-esque villain, and the final fight in the amusement park -- it all speaks for itself. They even managed to get in a few jabs at Disney -- shooting the head off the Goofy lookalike must have been quite satisfying...

**The Mad Hatter** · 01-09-2002, 07:37 PM

Yup, the studio that did Big O (along with Cowboy Bebop) did indeed animate a few episodes of B:TAS, notably "On Leather Wings" and "Robin's Reconing," along with a few pickups in Mask of the Phantasm. So they probably did soak up some of the style.