DR. BELCH
11-24-2001, 05:00 PM
Not much to review today, as nearly everything was reruns. The interstitial material was The Cryptkeeper, doing his usual pun-laden take on the holidays (though what a rotten reanimated corpse has to do with Christmas is beyond me; I suppose the execs felt they needed to make up for leaving him out of the Halloween festivities).
On The Jackie Chan Adventures, "Tale of the Demon Tail", the episode opens in media res with the Chans about to seal the sky demon's portal at a baseball stadium. (It didn't say which one--I don't know if they were still in California or over on the East Coast...though Captain Black was there in an "unofficial" capacity, so I guess it was a short commute and was either paid for out of his own pocket or entered into the books in such a way so as not to raise his superiors' eyebrows).
Of all the strange places to open, the door appears right in the entryway to the ladies' room, where Jade is conveniently using the facilities after eating her weight in hot dogs and root beer ("I do not know where she puts it all," says Tohru almost admiringly.)
When the Dark Hand shows up and opens the door, Jade comes face-to...well, not face...with the wind demon--and slams his tail in the bathroom door. Trapped, the demons breaks off his caudal appendage like a skink and flies off before the chi spell can be fully cast with Jackie's enchanted flute. This struck me odd at first until I recall that horror movie monsters do that kind of thing all the time--they always lose a hand or a head or something, which then comes to life and continues killing.
The piece of tail is kept in an enchanted box, and a spell is cast so that evil cannot enter the shop unless invited (cf. Angel and the rule about vampires). Meanwhile Jade's school is holding a dance, and she wants to go but doesn't have an escort. The wind demon, disguised as a normal boy, aproaches her, beguiles and befriends Jade, and eventually gains admittance into the shop. He steals the box, revealing his true self (and breaking Jade's heart), and flies off with Uncle in his claws. Jade, using the levitation and speed talismans for flight and the yin-yang as a tracking device, follows. Jackie and Chandu/Valmont both meet the wind demon atop a water tower and battle. The demon opens the box and reattaches his tail, which has had a chi spell cast on it that incapacitates him while Jackie plays the flute, whisking him back to hell.
Did anyone else think the plot of this episode would be something different--i.e. Jade exits the ladies' room and unwittingly walks through the back of the demon door into Chandu's word, cf. My Pet Monster? It was probably a typo at the scheduling page that led me to that conclusion (the title is given as "Demon Trail" rather than "Tail").
Fav line: "Uncle! Run!" Uncle, seated atop the tower with nowhere to go, looks about blandly and asks, "To where?"
Another: "Just becuase you're in a dress, Valmont, doesn't give you a right to use the little girls' room."
DYN that Hok Fu is absent from this episode?
DYN that Jade's little friend can dish insults but can't take them? Or maybe "Wojohowitz" is more right that he realizes about who the boy's date will be.
Apparently unlike lizards, demon's tails don't regenerate, which is where the whole plot hinged.
The bit with shariing pieces of a broken locket between friends was reminiscent of the Pokemon ep "Ignorance is Blissey"; it amy also be a subtle movie reference, maybe even one of Chan's.
Very nice ending, where we see how close Jade and Tohru are ("...big and small, yin and yang..."). Though I don't know if she's planning to invite him to her little school function--I don't see the big fellow as much of a dancer. Not to mention he'd seriously deplete the refreshment table.
On The Jackie Chan Adventures, "Tale of the Demon Tail", the episode opens in media res with the Chans about to seal the sky demon's portal at a baseball stadium. (It didn't say which one--I don't know if they were still in California or over on the East Coast...though Captain Black was there in an "unofficial" capacity, so I guess it was a short commute and was either paid for out of his own pocket or entered into the books in such a way so as not to raise his superiors' eyebrows).
Of all the strange places to open, the door appears right in the entryway to the ladies' room, where Jade is conveniently using the facilities after eating her weight in hot dogs and root beer ("I do not know where she puts it all," says Tohru almost admiringly.)
When the Dark Hand shows up and opens the door, Jade comes face-to...well, not face...with the wind demon--and slams his tail in the bathroom door. Trapped, the demons breaks off his caudal appendage like a skink and flies off before the chi spell can be fully cast with Jackie's enchanted flute. This struck me odd at first until I recall that horror movie monsters do that kind of thing all the time--they always lose a hand or a head or something, which then comes to life and continues killing.
The piece of tail is kept in an enchanted box, and a spell is cast so that evil cannot enter the shop unless invited (cf. Angel and the rule about vampires). Meanwhile Jade's school is holding a dance, and she wants to go but doesn't have an escort. The wind demon, disguised as a normal boy, aproaches her, beguiles and befriends Jade, and eventually gains admittance into the shop. He steals the box, revealing his true self (and breaking Jade's heart), and flies off with Uncle in his claws. Jade, using the levitation and speed talismans for flight and the yin-yang as a tracking device, follows. Jackie and Chandu/Valmont both meet the wind demon atop a water tower and battle. The demon opens the box and reattaches his tail, which has had a chi spell cast on it that incapacitates him while Jackie plays the flute, whisking him back to hell.
Did anyone else think the plot of this episode would be something different--i.e. Jade exits the ladies' room and unwittingly walks through the back of the demon door into Chandu's word, cf. My Pet Monster? It was probably a typo at the scheduling page that led me to that conclusion (the title is given as "Demon Trail" rather than "Tail").
Fav line: "Uncle! Run!" Uncle, seated atop the tower with nowhere to go, looks about blandly and asks, "To where?"
Another: "Just becuase you're in a dress, Valmont, doesn't give you a right to use the little girls' room."
DYN that Hok Fu is absent from this episode?
DYN that Jade's little friend can dish insults but can't take them? Or maybe "Wojohowitz" is more right that he realizes about who the boy's date will be.
Apparently unlike lizards, demon's tails don't regenerate, which is where the whole plot hinged.
The bit with shariing pieces of a broken locket between friends was reminiscent of the Pokemon ep "Ignorance is Blissey"; it amy also be a subtle movie reference, maybe even one of Chan's.
Very nice ending, where we see how close Jade and Tohru are ("...big and small, yin and yang..."). Though I don't know if she's planning to invite him to her little school function--I don't see the big fellow as much of a dancer. Not to mention he'd seriously deplete the refreshment table.