“Pepper Ann” was created by Sue Rose, aired on ABC from 1997 – 2000. It had five seasons totallying 65 episodes. The character of Pepper Ann originated in a comic strip published by YM Magazine.
The intro sequence introduces us to Pepper Ann and gives us a few important bits of information, namely that Pepper Ann is way too cool for seventh grade and also that she’s one in a MILLION! The sequence ends with PA attempting to sneak into class late and hiding under her desk, in each episode she find something different there, similar to the famous couch gag created by The Simpsons.
Each episode centers around the titular Pepper Ann and her two best friends, Milo and Nicki. There is also a moderate supporting cast that come and go as needed.
The episodes are generally broken up into two separate stories each spanning about ten minutes, each half episode will usually introduce a conflict that Pepper Ann must overcome, or in some cases, fail to overcome, resulting in her suffering the consequences and learning a valuable lesson. Reality will step aside for Pepper Ann’s fantasies intermittently providing insight into the way this pre-teen girl views the world.
Today I watched the episode titled The Usual Suspects. This is the second half of season one, episode 12. Pepper Ann’s fantasies manifest noir mystery flashes, the episode parodies detective stories like “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” and of course, “The Usual Suspects.”
Note: About 30 seconds in a kid with perpetual pink eye pulls his oozing socket off of a microscope. I almost threw up my fruity pebbles.
An announcement is made over the school’s intercom system. Principal Hickey calls Pepper Ann, Nicki, Milo, Trinket, and Dieter to his office where he begins interrogating them one by one about the theft of the school’s prized otter statue.
As the Principal interviews the kids individually, everyone one of them implicates PA, even Nicki and Milo, whether they meant to or not.
Just as he’s about to bring the hammer down on PA, his assistant walks in to tell him that she has returned the statue from being cleaned, like he asked.
Hickey apologizes in tears, and Pepper Ann learns that the truth will set you free, as long as you’re innocent.
I’m not sure what it is, but something about this show just appeals to me. I enjoyed it as a kid and have re-watched the series in the last few years, after this morning I’m considering watching it again. Unfortunately, it seems that YouTube has taken down most of the episodes. You can find a box set here for $61.99 and of course, you can watch today’s episode right now.
Saturday Morning Cartoon! Captain N: The Game Master
It’s not often that The U.S. and Canada team up on things. The two nations often disagree about the appropriate course of action to take in any one situation. But sometimes, the way to go is absolutely clear and the whole of North America teams up to give us one of my favorite cartoons from my childhood, “Captain N: The Game Master.”
“Captain N” ran a part of NBC’s Saturday morning cartoon lineup from 1989 to 1991, with a total of 34 episodes. During season two and three, the show was paired up against “The Adventures of Super Mario Bros 3” and “Super Mario World” respectively.
The character of Captain N was created by Randy Studdard and appeared in Nintendo Power magazine. Most of the original core concept was stripped when the character moved to television.
The first episode titled Kevin in Video land opens in video land at the castle of Mother Brain, a rogue Nintendo main computer who’s a mix of Cassandra from “Doctor Who” (Moisturize me) and Little Richie. Let’s stop for a minute and talk about how Mother Brain is maybe one of the creepiest villains ever to grace a children’s cartoon.
The heroes of video land, Kid Icarus, Mega man, Simon (of Castlevania), and Princess Lana stand around a mysterious disembodied voice where they learn about Captain N and the ultimate warp zone opens.
Cut to Kevin playing video games in his room with his dog Duke. He and Duke are pulled into his television via some “Ghostbusters”-esque proton beams just in time to get out of cleaning his room.
There he is equipped with a super power pad (Nintendo controller) and a zapper. Despite immediately falling in love with Princess Lana, Kevin says they’ve found the wrong guy and attempts to go home, but the ultimate warp zone closes.
Mother Brain sends her cronies, King Hippo and a sentient eggplant to go capture the princess and bring her back to Mother Brain’s lair; in an attempt to strike at the heart of video land and insert herself as the new queen (She would look just terrible on the money).
Sidebar- Kid Icarus has a tendencey to add the suffix “icus” to everything he says “The princess is very much upset-icus” It makes everything he says sound like a Harry Potter spell. Hermione casts Upseticus, swish and flick.
The minions arrive looking for the princess. They follow Simon to her chambers then wrap him in a giant sack before throwing him down a warp zone. The princess opens her chamber door and is captured. Kevin arrives as they are rolling her up in a rug.
Kevin uses the zapper to vaporize the door and rescue the princess. He then gets into a fight with an eggplant and gets turned into a banana. By the time he gets out the princess has been taken.
Kevin and Duke enlist Kid Icarus, Mega man, and Simon to search and find the princess. The background music is pulled from Nintendo video games and sets the tone perfectly.
The team hops a warp zone to Metroid to rescue the princess but on Simon’s orders they take the wrong warp zone and end up exiting from a shower head in Kongo Land, the home of Donkey Kong.
DK isn’t happy that his bath is interrupted and begins to do what giant gorillas are good at, smash stuff. DK takes Kid Icarus and climbs up a tree. Kevin is able to use the super power pad to jump an incredible height and rescue Icarus-icus from the oversized ape.
Kevin locates a warp zone inside a volcano in Kongo Land, he pleads with everyone to trust him, the volcano erupts and launches them out of DK’s grasp. They ride volcanic rocks to Metroid and discover the princess in her tower cell.
Sidebar- Simon is insufferable. I mean, who sprays perfume in their mouth, seriously.
Kevin busts through the roof of the tower cell, killing the guard, and rescuing the princess. Or so it seems, before they all get locked inside and Mother Brain’s visage appears dumping Kevin, Duke, and Lana into the corridors of Metroid.
Kevin uses his formidable gaming skills to navigate the corridors and defeat the various villains. Surprisingly, his dog is at least as good as him at games. They get through the corridors and arrive in front of Mother Brain as Kevin’s blaster runs out of power. Just when all hope seems lost, Icarus, Mega man, and Simon arrive and through the power of teamwork they win the day. Sort of redeeming Simon in the process.
Kid Icarus uses an arrow to set Mother Brain rapidly spinning, presumably filling her water chamber with her own vomit. They arrive back at the castle of the princess where she asks Kevin to stay and defend video land. Kevin begins to return home but when the warp zone opens he hears his mother harping on him (as mothers are wont to do) and decides he would rather stay in digital danger than take out the trash.
Saturday Morning Cartoon! ‘The Adventures of the Gummi Bears’
If I had to pick my three favorite cartoons from when I was a kid, they would be “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,” “DuckTales,” and “Gummi Bears.” When I was a teenager, I badgered my Mom into submission to add Tune Disney to our cable package, specifically so I could get up at three in the morning on school days to watch “Gummi Bears.” I love this show.
In my travels, I’ve initiated conversations about “The Adventures of the Gummi Bears” with a myriad of people and learned that most people haven’t the first clue what I’m talking about. “Do you mean the Care Bears?” they’ll say… no, I don’t mean the “Care Bears” I mean the mother lumping “Gummi Bears.” They’re Dashing and daring, courageous and caring, faithful and friendly, with stories to share… They’re bouncing here and there and EVERYWHERE, high adventure that’s beyond compare, they are the Gummi Bears!
For the uninitiated, the “Gummi Bears” were based loosely on the candy of the same name. That is to say that Michael Eisner’s kid once said “Hey Dad, can I have some gummy bears?” and Michael Eisner said “Sure son… hey… gummy bears… GUMMI BEARS.” And he made a show. That’s exactly where the similarities end. This is not, in fact, a show about chewable heroes made primarily of gelatin. Though, bears do have bone marrow, so they are at least partially gelatin.
Instead, the “Gummi Bears” are a mystical race of sentient bears that once held vast knowledge and technology but have since all but disappeared. The only known remnants of this once noble race of cuddly critters are the inhabitants of Gummy Glen.
Zummi Gummi: A wizard with verbal dyslexia. He often mixes up words causing unforeseen problems with the powerful magic he’s wielding. Perhaps this power would be better held by someone who can get a sentence out correctly but we must play the hand we’re dealt.
Sunni Gummi: the stereotypical teenage girl bear.
Grammi Gummi: the loving and loveable matriarch.
Tummi Gummi: As his name suggests, he likes to eat. Anything. He’s not very smart but you can’t help but love him.
Cubbi Gummi: the youngest of the Gummis, he wants nothing more than to be a knight and to have adventures.
Gruffi Gummy: if the gummi’s were dwarves, he’d be Grumpy. Gruffi may be a curmudgeon but he’s got know how and problem solving skills that are often integral to the success of the group.
Gusto Gummi: he comes later, not a member of the original family. He’s an artist.
Gummy Glen resides within Dunwyn forest. The forest is frequented by animals, the kingdom of Dunwyn, and an army of ogres led by Duke Igthorn. There are other villains and characters but these are the central players.
Dunywn castle is led by King Gregor, father of Princess Calla. Calla is friends with Cavin, a squire who also wants to be knight, he and Cubbi become fast friends, while Calla bonds with Sunni.
The castle and the Gummis are under constant threat from Duke Igthorn and his ogres, an army of dunce level buffoons, save for Toadwart (Toadie) who is the shortest and smartest of the ogres. Though being the smartest ogre is tantamount to being the brightest black crayon.
The Gummis try their best to keep to themselves, hiding their existence from both humans and ogres but when a great Gummi medallion appears, the chance at finding the great lost Gummis and reuniting with their kind proves too delicious a carrot, they must make alliances with Cavin and Calla in an attempt to find the truth about themselves.
It’s Game of Thrones for kids, minus all the death and sex, and with more sentient teddy bears.
As I know that one episode won’t be enough, I’ve included the entire first season for you below. Enjoy.
Today I watched the first episode of “Gravedale High,” a series developed as a vehicle for Rick Moranis by NBC. Moranis voices Mr. Maxwell Schneider, a teacher who unwittingly takes a job at a school inhabited entirely by monsters, save for himself, the only human in sight. His class is populated by a variety of monsters, updated versions of every monster you’ve seen in a black and white movie.
There is some notable voice casting including Ricky Lake who plays Cleofatra; an overweight and nerdy mummy, Tim Curry who plays history teacher Mr. Tutner, Jackie Earle Haley who plays Gil Waterman; a lagoon creature and surfer type reminiscent of Spicoli, and of course Moranis himself.
The series only ran for 13 episodes before being cancelled. I had never heard of this show and when I encountered it I was excited, horror cartoons are always welcome in our house but sadly, I was disappointed. I only watched the one episode, which is perhaps not a fair assessment of the show but it was mediocre at best. The episode was a run of monster stereotypes and bad puns which was, of course, expected, but it didn’t have anything terribly exciting or noteworthy to make me want to return.
The episode centers on the school newspaper, the Gravedale Gazette, which has declined in popularity. The paper is turned over to a student called Duzer, a Medusa type with a snake hair pony tail. In an attempt to increase readership, Duzer changes the paper from an honest publication about school happenings to a gossip rag called the Grave Intruder. The readership skyrockets but quickly upsets the entire school when they realize that rumors and lies have been written about all of them.
A subplot involving Mr. Schneider and the Headmistress Crone’s fabricated relationship has Schneider running from Crone as he discovers that she IS actually interested in him and has a desire to make that rumor true.
The students quit the paper after becoming the subject of ridicule and hate from the rest of the student body for the lies they’ve printed. In an effort to show Duzer the error of her ways, they print a special edition with the headline “Duzer Loves Frankentyke” and they all learn a valuable lesson about the importance of an honest press.
Despite my disappointment in this particular episode, I do love Rick Moranis and am always happy to discover previously unknown work of his. It may also be a likeable show for a younger audience with a predilection for monsters. If you’ve got kids, it might be worth a watch. You can check it out below.
This was my first encounter with Fish Police by Hannah Barbera. I don’t remember this show at all from it’s 1992 release. That’s not too surprising considering that it only lasted six episodes.
However, the fact that it only lasted that long is a little surprising. It’s really not a bad show. Featuring John Ritter, Tim Curry, Megan Mullaly, and Buddy Hackett, among others. It was based on a comic book series of the same name by Steve Moncuse.
Ep. 1- The Shell Game
The show opens on a crime scene. A fish corpse is being wrapped in the oceanic version of a body bag, a sardine can. Enter Inspector Gil (John Ritter). The victim is Clams Casino a formerly wealthy casino owner.
You can tell pretty quickly that the show takes itself pretty seriously. It’s not your ordinary nineties cartoon. It took a moment for me to realize what I was dealing with. Despite that, there are a ridiculous number of fish puns.
Gil surveys the scene and discovers some fish prints that he suspects belong to a fifty-five year old female in a green dress. With the help of an assistant the sand is gathered for evidence.
Cut to the police department. An old bitter receptionist takes a call.
“What makes you think your husband is dead? You got into bed and he didn’t move, honey we’re going to need more than that.” “Reach for his wallet, if he doesn’t move, you’re a widow.”
Snarky right? This is a fun watch already.
While at the station reviewing the evidence it’s found that Angel (a former love interest of our friend Inspector Gil) is the primary suspect. Her fin prints are present on all of the many weapons used to kill Clams.
But guess what… Gil isn’t convinced, and it isn’t because he cares about Angel… honest.
Gil suspects Calamari, a crime boss and former partner of Clams, despite the lack of evidence, he’s just a bad guy.
Calamari arrives at the station and waits for his lawyer before answering any questions. Suddenly a slick shark arrives (see what they did there?) and lays down more evidence incriminating Angel. He offers a few more puns about whether or not his client is being “O-fish-ally charged” and letting all of the evidence “float to the surface” before they quickly depart.
Honestly the puns aren’t completely overbearing. You can see they are trying to walk a balance between being silly and developing a vernacular that works in the setting, they might have just overdone it a little bit.
Gil believes someone is “trying to stick it to angel”
The chief responds, “So what else is new?”
Dirty jokes hidden in cartoons are my favorite, and this isn’t the last of them.
Gil requests 24 hours to prove Angel’s innocence and presents evidence of fin prints he found at the scene for someone other than angel.
The chief says no, as far as he’s concerned they’ve hooked their fish.
Gil and partner go to a club where Angel is performing. She’s like a fishy Jessica Rabbit.
Angel maintains she didn’t she didn’t kill Clams. Gil says he wants to help her but he can’t if she ties his fins. she responds “You used to like that.” More dirty fish jokes.
Gil has no choice. He arrests her.
As he puts her in the car she says “Gil, I’m not bad… I just smell that way.”
She IS a fishy Jessica Rabbit. I knew I wasn’t crazy.
As Jessica er… Angel is taken away Gil pursues the only lead he has, the fish prints.
Gil calls a hotel room where widow Casino is staying, impersonating Calamari and says the deal is off and verifies that Angel isn’t responsible for the murder.
“I knew it, Angel didn’t do it!”
“At least not in the last 20 minutes.” Pow!
Gil sneaks into Calamari’s place. The widow Casino arrives at the same time, frothing at the gills over the perceived betrayal.
they have a conversation wherein she confesses to the murder, she isn’t aware that Gil is present and hears it all.
She pulls a gun from her purse, Gil intercedes to stop her.
The police arrive.
The widow Casino is arrested and Angel is released.
Gil walks Angel home and they talk as they walk… or float… upright. She thanks him for believing she was innocent. He says he never believe she was innocent, he just believed she wasn’t guilty. They arrive at her apartment building.
Angel kisses Gil. What a bastard. Then says “This is where I get off” He then turns to the camera and says I’ve been trying to convince these people we’re just friends. She say, I mean we’re here, my apartment. They aren’t even trying to hide this stuff anymore. Come on Hannah Barbera.
She follows this not at all veiled innuendo with “If you’re ever UP for buying a ticket, my BOX OFFICE is always open.” … really? REALLY?
Gil pontificates about women and murder and goes to the diner.
End.
At first I was confused about exactly what this show was aiming at. You can usually find an adult joke or two hidden in kids programming but they didn’t seem to even be trying to hide it with Fish Police.
Upon further inspection I discovered that Fish Police was created as an attempt to create adult animated programming to compete with The Simpsons. It obviously didn’t work and I think that’s sad. It was pretty decent. Check it out.
I vaguely remember watching Mummies Alive in middle school. It was never something that I was in love with but I would catch it whenever it was on. In the days before Netflix and such widespread internet usage you sort of watched what was on. That being said, my revisit to Mummies Alive was pleasant. Aside from some bad puns (which might be required material for most kids cartoons) it was pretty well done and there wasn’t as much to poke fun at as I expected. So this might be a slight departure from the usual “Neverbot’s Make Fun Of Old Cartoons Hour”.
But only slightly.
Mummies Alive aired for one season starting in 1997, there were 42 episodes, which seems like a lot for one season. But they were asleep for 3500 years and apparently had a lot to say.
Ep. 1 Ra. Ra. Ra.
Nutshell: The big bad guy is Scarab a.k.a. Mr. Stone when he needs to appear human and interact with folks. He moved a few truckloads of Egyptian artifacts including mummies and sarcophagi to a museum in order to attract the reincarnated Prince Rapses. Presley (Rapses) is unwittingly drawn to it as he has no memory of his former life. Scarab shows up to capture him and the mummies awaken to defend the prince. There are four mummies in total; Ja-kal, Rath, Armon, and Nefer-Tina.
Oh and Prince Rapses dead cat. Kahti.
Let’s begin.
The setup: two men arrive at a tomb in Egypt. One is an explorer type, the other seems to be a guide. The explore begins to read a warning inscribed on the tomb. “Woe to him who breaks the seal for he-” He’s cut short when the door opens. He steps inside and see a bunch of markings but they aren’t glyps, they are hash marks. As if someone has been counting days. Was someone imprisoned inside? Yes… yes, they were. Suddenly a nefarious looking character appears, makes some ominous noises and then attacks.
Cut to modern day, two kids (Presley and friend) are skateboarding around town. You know how kids love their skateboards. One of them takes off down the street being reckless and such and the other follows. They arrive outside of a giant Sphinx, the museum where Presley’s mom is working on an Egypt exhibit, hence the giant Sphinx (for the slow).
Mom is busy so Presley goes to find a snack. When he hears an ominous sound strangely reminiscent of the big bad guy in the tomb. Is it the same dude? Again yes, we’re dealing with 90’s kids cartoons. If you think something ties together it most probably does. Herman Melville didn’t write Mummies Alive. Sorry.
The ominous tone is followed soon after by a clear voice saying “come back to me my son”. But don’t be fooled. It’s not Presley’s dead dad from eons past. It’s that jerk with Egyptian OCD.
Presley proceeds to wander through the exhibit alone looking for the voice. Cause that’s what you should do when you discover you’re being watched by persons unknown when ancient artifacts are involved. Didn’t this kid see any move ever?
Presley wanders into a room with many Egyptian artifacts, including mummies and sarcophagi. Suddenly he begins to glow. Radiation poisoning? Nope, ancient magic!
A statue comes to life and attacks him. I just knew this was going to happen. I mean, didn’t you? Presley hides in a sarcophagus but it’s thrown open a moment later and standing above him as that OCD jerk with a Vader-esque breathing problem. Though I suppose three thousand years in a tomb is sufficient reason to have severe asthma. Scarab grabs the boy and intends to take his revenge for being entombed for 3500 years by the Presley’s father.
WITH THE STRENGTH OF RA!
Four mummies appear, combine with spirits and become kick ass corpse warriors. Each of the mummies combines powers with an Egyptian god and acquires cool armor enhancements. Ja-kal combines with the falcon, Rath with the snake, Armon with the ram, and Nefer takes the power of the cat. To be clear, the power of the cat gives her sharp claws and the ability to rock a whip, not just the ability to lick her own back and be condescending, which is what my cat does. Armon is missing his right arm but when combining with the ram and with the strength of Ra he gets a gold replacement arm which he proceeds to hit things with.
A fight ensues, you guessed it, good guys win, bad guy runs away. Er… rather, flies away through a newly made hole in the roof. Presley insists they have to get out of there as there is no way he can explain any of this to his mother.
The mummies throw the cat through the hole in the ceiling and use a dangling piece of his wrapping as a rope. I’m not sure exactly how much animal spirit armor enhancements weigh so I couldn’t do an exact calculation but I think it’s safe to say that must be some industrial strength toilet paper they used to wrap the cat.
Once the boy is safe outside they transform back into your every day garden variety mummy. You know, to be less suspicious looking. Just kidding that’s not the reason why. They explain that they use magic to beef up but that the magic gets sleepy or something and they have to rest in their sarcophagi to recharge.
At this point they go back to Presley’s house and realize that Nefer is in fact Nefer-tina. They never knew she was a girl. I don’t know how, it was totally obvious. Eyeball decay… maybe.
Mr Stone arrives at the museum and demands that the artifacts be sent back to Egypt. The museum protests but he offers ten million dollars to settle the dispute. This obviously causes a problem for the mummies. With their sarcophagi sent back to Egypt they won’t be able to recharge their magic and will apparently die… again.
Everything is being loaded into a truck and when the mummies and Presley realize the problem they make chase in a horseless chariot (car… that they steal) powered by magic. Nefer-Tina drives… badly. She almost kills a kid. When she swerves to avoid hitting him she tosses the other three mummies out of the car. They run and catch up and everyone learns a valuable lesson about wearing seatbelts. Safety first kids.
The mummies leap out of the car and onto the truck like four dead James Bond’s. Presley gets out of the car and sees Scarab flying after them. The truck gets stopped by the police who turns out to be a dark magic powered crony. Scarab catches up and demands that the truck be destroyed along with everything inside. That’s when Presley catches up.
Scarab attempts to capture Presley, not knowing his protectors are in the truck.
WITH THE STRENGTH OF RA! Again.
“Let’s kick Tut.” They say this. Because Tut rhymes with butt. Get it!
The bad guys focus their energy on destroying the truck. Destroy the truck and you destroy the mummies. One of the mummies attempts to drive the truck away and the fight moves to the trucks rooftop. After a few moments only Presley and Scarab are left on the roof, it seems like Presley is toast but he’s saved by a low hanging overpass. Thank Ra!
Scarab vows to destroy the mummies even if he has to shatter the world to do it. Standard bad guy stuff. The mummies take Presley home and promise to be close by as it is their duty to protect their prince.
You can watch the first episode below or if you’re sucked in, follow the videos to the YouTube channel and it looks like every episode is there. It’s even put into a playlist that plays automatically so you don’t have to stop eating your snacks.
Hammer Man ran for thirteen episodes in 1991 and tells the story of Stanley (Hammer Man) saving the day with dance, rap, and magic shoes.
One of my favorite things about terrible eighties and nineties cartoons is their terrible eighties and nineties theme songs. There’s a sort of guilty pleasure in these cartoons and the theme songs have it in concentrated form.
Hammerman, Hammer, Hammerman, Hammer. Whenever there’s a crime, Some crooks are gonna do time. They all better beware, ‘Cause the Hammerman will be there.
Here’s how it started, Along time ago. The legend of the Hammer, And how it began to grow.
I’m sorry, I couldn’t help myself. Returning you to your regulary schedule theme song lyrics
He was given magical shoes, From a hip-hop mo-town dude. Together they had power, They stood up for what was right. But Gramps was getting old, And he couldn’t keep up the fight. RIGHT! So Gramps and his granddaughter, They went out on the road To find the man they knew could tell Who was worthy of the load. They met a guy named Stanley Who was dancing every night. He helped the kids play everyday, His heart was out of sight. So Gramps opened up the bag, And took out the magical shoes. He set them on the ground And they soon began to groove. The shoes knew at once, They had finally found their man, They hopped right on his feet, And he became Hammerman, Hammerman, Hammer, Hammerman, Hammer, Hammerman, Hammer, Hammerman, Hammer. Oh Yeah!
Let’s not talk about the terrible animation, it’s bad, and get right into the terrible story and writing.
Disclaimer: While it may seem like I’m hating on this cartoon, in truth I’m not. It’s the thing that makes old cartoons so fun, how terrible they are. Looking back, almost nothing holds up. Nothing looks as good as it did through the beer goggles of bad taste and naivety we had as young children. It’s best just to embrace it for what it was and try to recapture a glimpse of the happiness it brought you when you were a kid. If everyone takes a deep breath and calms down for a minute it’s really not that hard, let’s have some fun.
Usually you expect the first episode of something to be an origin of sorts. Hammer Man takes care of that in the theme song and jumps right into the action.
A little girl, her grandpa, and some neighborhood folks are having a dance party in the street. This is the little girl and grandpa mentioned in the theme song. Grandpa clearly has some dancing skills left over from his days as Soul Man, the original wearer and bearer of the shoes power.
A fire engine flies by on it’s way to a burning library, the little girl (Jodie) and Gramps cut their dance party short to help. Jodie provides the concern while Gramps provides quips like “It’s burning hotter than James Brown on opening night!”
It almost immediately feels like it’s trying to hard, but I can’t tell if that’s just a feature of the nineties.
A woman screams for help from within the burning building and climbs out onto a horizontal flag pole in an attempt to escape the flames.
Suddenly two backup dancers appear. They show up several times throughout the episode in matching nineties hip hop outfits. They provide absolutely no help or public service at all. I’m surprised the townsfolk put up with them.
“We need the Hammer. OooOoooOooo look.” they say… and OooOoooOooo look indeed! Hammer Man is here!
Hammer appears atop a building and floats to the rescue using his trademark parachute pants, and the power of music like some kind of hip hop Mary Poppins. He then begins dancing and rapping in the street.
The power of his music animates a water tower which walks toward the library and puts out the fire. The day is saved by Hammer Man! Or so we think. Cue ominous tones.
Cut to- Jodie working on a painting when a pipe bursts, ruining it. She tries to get the attention of several people including Stanley (Hammer Man) but no one has any time because of the leak. She runs away like an overdramatic little girl, which is appropriate because she is indeed an overdramatic little girl.
Jodie runs into a friend of hers spraying “Joker” on a city wall. He offers to let Jodi try. At first she declines but we all know that as powerful as dance is, the real power is in peer pressure. Jodie’s so called friend taunts her and accuses her of being unable to draw. Jodie just can’t abide that kind of insult so she takes the can and begins a painting of some flames.
Underground a sinister looking man watches the events. He turns to his dimwitted lackey and asks him to start making a batch of Marmisters’s Malicious Multicolored Mayhem Making Paint Potion.
Marmister approaches Jodi and says he’s from the Mayor’s office and they want help beautifying the city with murals. She responds to the positive attention for her painting.
Marmister puts a coat of his Malicious Multicolored Mayhem Making Paint Potion on Jodi’s flame painting and it comes to life. Holy smokes!
Cut to- the shoes playing Go Fish inside a locker. Stanley arrives to retrieve them and become Hammer Man. Stanley mixes up his bag with an identical one and misplaces the shoes. When he reaches for the shoes instead he finds, a sandwich. Whatever will we do!?
Without his shoes and their powers, Stanley is captured by the evil Marmister and chained to the wall where he begins psychoanalyzing the villain.
“Marmister, you’re just doing this because you had an unhappy childhood. Wanna talk about it?” But Marmister doesn’t want to talk about it, he likes being bad.
The giant animate flame painting arrives with a remix of Marmisters paint potion and begins spraying Stanley. The potion begins to slowly change him into a painting.
Marmister leaves and sprays every piece of graffiti he can find, creating a living two dimensional army and instructs them to steal, plunder, and make scary noises.
The kids are running out of paint so Jodi goes to find Marmister and get more. She sees the Joker tag running around in the shape of a dinosaur and knows she was conned by Marmister. Jodi goes to get Grandpa and they begin to search for Stanley.
They find Stanley and restore him to his normal three dimensional self. Oh thank heavens!
Stanley retrieves his bag, jumps into the shoes and becomes Hammer Man
If you thought you were getting out of this episode without hearing Can’t Touch This… you were wrong. It’s the soundtrack to the entire ending fight sequence.
Marmister kidnaps Jodie and threatens to turn her into a painting. While the villain is monologue-ing Jodie paints a police officer on the wall and brings it to life effectively stopping Marmister.
Let’s not even talk about the wanton disregard for the rights and feelings of the many apparently sentient life forms brought in and out of existence by a villain, a child, and a dancing hero. I’m sure it’s all fine.
Hammer appears at the end with a PSA. He tells the kids that tagging other people’s property is illegal and wrong. So next time you want to make some art, do it on a piece of paper. Who knows, some day you may end up drawing a cartoon like Hammer Man….. And in 20 years I’ll write a piece about how terrible it is, and also how wonderful.
If you want to watch this episode of Hammer Man for yourself you can do so by clicking the videos below from top to bottom.
Note: The only video I could find is highly annotated. You’ll want to go into settings and turn off annotations, unless you’re into that sort of thing.
