DR. BELCH
03-09-2002, 02:44 PM
ST SHK#20: "Pop's Girlfriend"
I went into this with some trepidation, expeting this "girlfriend" to be either (a) a Bang Baby or (b) have a psycho Bang-Baby ex. I was pleasantly surprised to see neither. It was an issue-driven episode, which dealt with a child's feelings on a widowed parent dating again and touched briefly upon the problem of racial profiling.
Virgil is mistaken for a thief when seen coming out of an alley because he fits the profile of one of a couple of thugs who just robbed a passenger on a subway train. Officer Trina Jessup, a pretty but tough lady cop, demands to see the contests of his backpack. His Static costume is in it, and, fearful of being exposed, he creates a aistraction by magnetizing some junk, then running--knowing it's stupid but seeing no alternative.
I realized the moment Pop said his date was due to arrive who it was--Virgil's old friend: Trina. Pop grounds Virgil (a subtle electric pun, ha-ha) when he learns about his brush with the law.
The thugs who committed the crime are fellow students at Virgil's school, and according to Trina they swiped some vials of concentrated chemicals being delivered to a lab that, in in about 24 hours, will vaporize and create a Bang Baby epidemic of massive proportions. Royce, the leader of the two goons and the one "voted...most likely to go upstate", as Richie puts it, has been exposed to the stuff, recalling what "this stuff did for F-Stop", and when we next see him is definitely looking more buff.
There's a scene with a giant spider and a cockroach that are accidentally exposed to the gook--reminiscent of the mutie amoeba in a first-season ep--and a bit with Virgil trapped in a giant spider web. Before Marvel lawyers can scream "trademark infringement", Static manages to contain the behemoths, then--after talking to Royce's weaselly buddy and realizing the chemicals are stashed in his locker and he's been using them--employs his powers to magnetize and wrap several lockers (I never realized those things were in sections or could be seperated like that) around the rapidly-unstabilizing purple goo, before sending it hurtling into space.
Royce has, meantime, mutated into a purple froglike monstrosity, and Static and Trina are forced to work together to put him under wraps. I thought Trina might recognize him in the end, but it seems she didn't--or, if she did, she didn't let on. And, even though his fast thinking in tripping the alarm and getting his fellow classmates out during the invasion of the giant bugs earns him a citaton from the mayor...Virg is still grounded.
It's hinted that Trina may become a regular on the show...so we may see how Virgil and Sharon adapt to having a new mother figure, if she can turn off the "cop" when she's with Mr. Hawkins and the kids, and possibly someone else who will put two and two together on Virg's double life.
Um...isn't Destiny's Child an all-girl's group? Richie somehow doesn't seem too disappointed about possibly going drag in the talent show after Virgil's forced to bow out during his grounding....
JCA #227: "Pleasure Cruise"
A group of thieves try for a priceless dragon statue being shipped to the museum, and Jackie risks his butt trying to stop the robbery ("That's why they call them skyscrapers!") The museum decides to ship it aboard a luxury cruise ship, where the robbers will least expect it. Jackie talks Uncle into going along, though he's reluctant and has never taken a vacation which didn't involve a demon vanquishing...and jade convinces Tohru, who gets sick when he travels by sea. It seems his dislike of fish extends towards anything aquatic--even shrimp.
Tohru brings his mother along, and she and Uncle feud nonstop all through the trip. Recalling his similar verbal jousting with the Inuit elder in a previous ep, I'd say Uncle has a real way with people.
Jade promises a cure for Tohru's seasickness--the horse talisman. I should've known it wasn't Dramamine she had in mind.
The crooks get aboard ship, cleverly trap the passengers inside a laser cage in the dining hall (but Jade, who is hiding in the air ducts, and try to electronically figure out the combination to the safe. The leader, impatient after intercepting Jade's S.O.S. from the radio room, orders them to blast, despite being warned that a blast could rupture the hull. Naturally the explosion does breach the hull, and the passengers, who had been freed earlier, are forced to disembark. Jackie uses the horse talisman--which Jade had earlier used to bluff a goon into letting her escape by luck of fortunate timing; her threat to use magic coincided with the hull blowing out--to mend the ship (which I find odd, as I thought it could only heal living things. Unless there are carbon compounds in the steel, which technically would make it organic. But then why couldn't it permanently get rid of seasickness?)
The statue is saved, Uncle and Tohru's mom get in a game of shuffleboard (never realized those pucks could be used as weapons), and Tohru spends the rest of the trip, holding the talisman, in the safe. Beats riding the rail, I guess.
Couldn't help but note that the golden statue looked like a mini-Chandu. Though the dragon is a common fixture/object of worship in Oriental art, so that shouldn't be much of a surprise that's the form a Fire Demon would choose.
POKJJ#436: "Sick Daze"
From RockItShipper's post of May 3, 2001:
The second ep deals with "Brock" getting sick--shown by what really looks like a blush and makes the part where "Ash" pushes his friend on the bed look wrong. "Brock's" fevered dreams include fruitless attempts to reach these 3 babes who wave at him. "Misty" tries to cook but is unaware that only "Jessie" likes her food.
The high points of this one were Brock's acid-trippy fever dreams, and Misty's ill-fated attempts at cooking. "And now, a teaspoonful of sugar--no, wait--that's salt...Oops, I put in half the bag..." Then she drops in an equal amount of salt to neutralize the too-sweet taste, then loses her mind totally and throws in everything she can think of. Honestly, what that girl does to food should be called a crime of passion.
Ash bows out by saying he filled up on apples (which they got from Team Rocket earlier, after blasting them off again when they caught the three of them raiding an apple orchard, scheming to go into the produce biz). So Misty has to eat her own cooking, making the most awful blue-lined faces while she does it, but she can't let on how bad it is because she's too proud. Ha, ha, ha.
I suspect Brock's delusions are trying to tell him something. Every time he goes after these sirens--two blue-haired ones and a redhead, I noted, which may be his subconscious lust for a certain little suspendered spitfire--something horrible happens to him (eg. a meter hits him, or he nearly drowns) and he winds up waking in a sweaty panic. Every time he tries to get up, either one of the kids or a Pokemon pushes him back into the sack.
The whole thing plays like a "Mommy-gets-sick-and-the kids-try-to-do-the-chores-but-just-make-matters-worse" scenario, right down to the "OAtmeal again?" whining in the open, just before Brock stiffens and collapses a la Weekend at Bernie's. Ash shows how utterly clueless he is when he and Misty polish Brock's rock Pokemon (which has a disturbing Freudian element to it even more than Ash pinning blushing Brock on the bed) and he tries to hose Onyx down with water, which rock Pokemon hate.
This being kid's fare, we don't get to see (a) Ash commanding Tototile to hose Misty's shirtfront down playfully or (b) Brock with his head in the toilet, retching. He gets well pretty fast--24-hour bug?--just in time to stop the Rockets from nabbing Pikachu and sending them blasting off again. The kids are grateful to have "mommy" back up and around again, even if all they're eating is Quakers' oats...and later he returns to his blissful dreams, hoping this time not to wake up. Note the suggestive moan he emits towards the end there....
Jessy reuses a couple of old devices--one of the facsimile robots from an Indigo ep (this time an Ash rather than a Richie) and a voice-distorting megaphone from the Growlithe training school ep. Some good thinking--but her appetite still leaves much to be desired. Jessy's Limburger-Curry Pancakes and Misty Special Surprise, anyone?
This weekend, a couple of treats on Cartoon Network. They're rerunning The Flintstones On the Rocks Saturday at six p.m...and p nSunday's Adult Swim, John K.'s take on the The Jetsons in the ten o'clock hour.
Finally, today's Digimon showed us the first instance of human-'Mon melding--Takato and his dinosaur become one. Even more interesting is seeing two Digimon killed and cannibalized, including Jerri's Leomon. She wasn't quite there to begin with, and this may set her over the edge totally--between the death of her "pet" and seing Takato's darkness revealed, she might go Ventriloquist on us and cease to exist independently. I can see her just going catatonic, talking only through the hand puppet, eyes blank, lips never moving. She may have a lion's heart, but not Rika's tiger mind....
I went into this with some trepidation, expeting this "girlfriend" to be either (a) a Bang Baby or (b) have a psycho Bang-Baby ex. I was pleasantly surprised to see neither. It was an issue-driven episode, which dealt with a child's feelings on a widowed parent dating again and touched briefly upon the problem of racial profiling.
Virgil is mistaken for a thief when seen coming out of an alley because he fits the profile of one of a couple of thugs who just robbed a passenger on a subway train. Officer Trina Jessup, a pretty but tough lady cop, demands to see the contests of his backpack. His Static costume is in it, and, fearful of being exposed, he creates a aistraction by magnetizing some junk, then running--knowing it's stupid but seeing no alternative.
I realized the moment Pop said his date was due to arrive who it was--Virgil's old friend: Trina. Pop grounds Virgil (a subtle electric pun, ha-ha) when he learns about his brush with the law.
The thugs who committed the crime are fellow students at Virgil's school, and according to Trina they swiped some vials of concentrated chemicals being delivered to a lab that, in in about 24 hours, will vaporize and create a Bang Baby epidemic of massive proportions. Royce, the leader of the two goons and the one "voted...most likely to go upstate", as Richie puts it, has been exposed to the stuff, recalling what "this stuff did for F-Stop", and when we next see him is definitely looking more buff.
There's a scene with a giant spider and a cockroach that are accidentally exposed to the gook--reminiscent of the mutie amoeba in a first-season ep--and a bit with Virgil trapped in a giant spider web. Before Marvel lawyers can scream "trademark infringement", Static manages to contain the behemoths, then--after talking to Royce's weaselly buddy and realizing the chemicals are stashed in his locker and he's been using them--employs his powers to magnetize and wrap several lockers (I never realized those things were in sections or could be seperated like that) around the rapidly-unstabilizing purple goo, before sending it hurtling into space.
Royce has, meantime, mutated into a purple froglike monstrosity, and Static and Trina are forced to work together to put him under wraps. I thought Trina might recognize him in the end, but it seems she didn't--or, if she did, she didn't let on. And, even though his fast thinking in tripping the alarm and getting his fellow classmates out during the invasion of the giant bugs earns him a citaton from the mayor...Virg is still grounded.
It's hinted that Trina may become a regular on the show...so we may see how Virgil and Sharon adapt to having a new mother figure, if she can turn off the "cop" when she's with Mr. Hawkins and the kids, and possibly someone else who will put two and two together on Virg's double life.
Um...isn't Destiny's Child an all-girl's group? Richie somehow doesn't seem too disappointed about possibly going drag in the talent show after Virgil's forced to bow out during his grounding....
JCA #227: "Pleasure Cruise"
A group of thieves try for a priceless dragon statue being shipped to the museum, and Jackie risks his butt trying to stop the robbery ("That's why they call them skyscrapers!") The museum decides to ship it aboard a luxury cruise ship, where the robbers will least expect it. Jackie talks Uncle into going along, though he's reluctant and has never taken a vacation which didn't involve a demon vanquishing...and jade convinces Tohru, who gets sick when he travels by sea. It seems his dislike of fish extends towards anything aquatic--even shrimp.
Tohru brings his mother along, and she and Uncle feud nonstop all through the trip. Recalling his similar verbal jousting with the Inuit elder in a previous ep, I'd say Uncle has a real way with people.
Jade promises a cure for Tohru's seasickness--the horse talisman. I should've known it wasn't Dramamine she had in mind.
The crooks get aboard ship, cleverly trap the passengers inside a laser cage in the dining hall (but Jade, who is hiding in the air ducts, and try to electronically figure out the combination to the safe. The leader, impatient after intercepting Jade's S.O.S. from the radio room, orders them to blast, despite being warned that a blast could rupture the hull. Naturally the explosion does breach the hull, and the passengers, who had been freed earlier, are forced to disembark. Jackie uses the horse talisman--which Jade had earlier used to bluff a goon into letting her escape by luck of fortunate timing; her threat to use magic coincided with the hull blowing out--to mend the ship (which I find odd, as I thought it could only heal living things. Unless there are carbon compounds in the steel, which technically would make it organic. But then why couldn't it permanently get rid of seasickness?)
The statue is saved, Uncle and Tohru's mom get in a game of shuffleboard (never realized those pucks could be used as weapons), and Tohru spends the rest of the trip, holding the talisman, in the safe. Beats riding the rail, I guess.
Couldn't help but note that the golden statue looked like a mini-Chandu. Though the dragon is a common fixture/object of worship in Oriental art, so that shouldn't be much of a surprise that's the form a Fire Demon would choose.
POKJJ#436: "Sick Daze"
From RockItShipper's post of May 3, 2001:
The second ep deals with "Brock" getting sick--shown by what really looks like a blush and makes the part where "Ash" pushes his friend on the bed look wrong. "Brock's" fevered dreams include fruitless attempts to reach these 3 babes who wave at him. "Misty" tries to cook but is unaware that only "Jessie" likes her food.
The high points of this one were Brock's acid-trippy fever dreams, and Misty's ill-fated attempts at cooking. "And now, a teaspoonful of sugar--no, wait--that's salt...Oops, I put in half the bag..." Then she drops in an equal amount of salt to neutralize the too-sweet taste, then loses her mind totally and throws in everything she can think of. Honestly, what that girl does to food should be called a crime of passion.
Ash bows out by saying he filled up on apples (which they got from Team Rocket earlier, after blasting them off again when they caught the three of them raiding an apple orchard, scheming to go into the produce biz). So Misty has to eat her own cooking, making the most awful blue-lined faces while she does it, but she can't let on how bad it is because she's too proud. Ha, ha, ha.
I suspect Brock's delusions are trying to tell him something. Every time he goes after these sirens--two blue-haired ones and a redhead, I noted, which may be his subconscious lust for a certain little suspendered spitfire--something horrible happens to him (eg. a meter hits him, or he nearly drowns) and he winds up waking in a sweaty panic. Every time he tries to get up, either one of the kids or a Pokemon pushes him back into the sack.
The whole thing plays like a "Mommy-gets-sick-and-the kids-try-to-do-the-chores-but-just-make-matters-worse" scenario, right down to the "OAtmeal again?" whining in the open, just before Brock stiffens and collapses a la Weekend at Bernie's. Ash shows how utterly clueless he is when he and Misty polish Brock's rock Pokemon (which has a disturbing Freudian element to it even more than Ash pinning blushing Brock on the bed) and he tries to hose Onyx down with water, which rock Pokemon hate.
This being kid's fare, we don't get to see (a) Ash commanding Tototile to hose Misty's shirtfront down playfully or (b) Brock with his head in the toilet, retching. He gets well pretty fast--24-hour bug?--just in time to stop the Rockets from nabbing Pikachu and sending them blasting off again. The kids are grateful to have "mommy" back up and around again, even if all they're eating is Quakers' oats...and later he returns to his blissful dreams, hoping this time not to wake up. Note the suggestive moan he emits towards the end there....
Jessy reuses a couple of old devices--one of the facsimile robots from an Indigo ep (this time an Ash rather than a Richie) and a voice-distorting megaphone from the Growlithe training school ep. Some good thinking--but her appetite still leaves much to be desired. Jessy's Limburger-Curry Pancakes and Misty Special Surprise, anyone?
This weekend, a couple of treats on Cartoon Network. They're rerunning The Flintstones On the Rocks Saturday at six p.m...and p nSunday's Adult Swim, John K.'s take on the The Jetsons in the ten o'clock hour.
Finally, today's Digimon showed us the first instance of human-'Mon melding--Takato and his dinosaur become one. Even more interesting is seeing two Digimon killed and cannibalized, including Jerri's Leomon. She wasn't quite there to begin with, and this may set her over the edge totally--between the death of her "pet" and seing Takato's darkness revealed, she might go Ventriloquist on us and cease to exist independently. I can see her just going catatonic, talking only through the hand puppet, eyes blank, lips never moving. She may have a lion's heart, but not Rika's tiger mind....