Today I watched “Earthworm Jim” episode six- Upholstered Peril. I usually watch the first episode of a show for these reviews but decided to watch the sixth of this series instead. The reason for this decision was necessary and well thought out involving… reasons. Namely, that every other episode I found had messed up videos and I didn’t want to ask all of you to watch something irritating with a half green screen. So here we are.
“Earthworm Jim” is an animated series that began in 1995 and is based on a video game of the same name. It centers around, you guessed it, an earthworm named Jim who becomes a superhero after acquiring a robotic super suit.
Each episode opens with Jim and his sidekick Peter Puppy in some sort of serious predicament. This predicament has nothing to do with the plot of the episode and no explanation is provided for the situation. The two of them will fight their way out and return to their normal lives where the actual episode arc will begin.
This time we find Jim and Peter prisoners of Bob the killer goldfish. Bob fills the room with water and releases a shark. Jim makes a shark skin suit out of it and frees Peter before flushing Bob down the toilet.
We then turn to an ordinary day with ordinary people. A stock broker screams into a phone to buy or sell… this is where I was reminded how loud, outrageous, and over the top this show is. It’s always fun to watch these shows through adult eyes and finally understand why a parent may not have liked it… it’s seriously almost too much at times, my frustration held back only by the power of nostalgia.
Suddenly identical couches begin appearing all over the world; anyone who sits in them is hypnotized and turned into couch potato zombies. One arrives at Jim and Peter’s secret lair, Peter takes a seat and becomes effectively worthless for the majority of the episode.
Grayson, boy genius and head of the Earthworm Jim fan club arrives with microscope in hand, showing Jim that the couch is in fact alive and receiving a signal that controls it. Suddenly an end table arrives wielding laser swords. Jim bull fights it, tricking it with into running into a wall with a piece of cloth.
The entire show is very tongue in cheek, poking fun at the genre it is a part of. Every minute or so a cliché is acknowledged and exploited, including the tendency of a villain to always attack the hero’s home town an the tendency of a hero to always come up with a day saving plan at the last minute, among others.
Jim goes from place to place fighting living furniture while trying to find their origin and stop them for good. Tracing the signal leads them to the North Pole where they find Professor Monkey-for-a-head… who quite literally has a monkey for a head. Not a monkey’s head. An entire monkey. For a head. Don’t believe me…
Two coat racks come to life, pinning Jim to a wall. A giant weaponized chair moves out to take over the world and Jim is helpless to stop it.
Luckily Peter Puppy runs out of munchies and his sub-conscious appeals to him to break the spell and save Jim. He turns into an evil purple Hulkish version of himself and attacks, then he de-Hulk’s and he and Jim go off to stop the chair.
Professor Monkey-for-a-head takes his weaponized chair to Jim’s home town and begins destruction.
Jim broadcasts a signal that will attract cats from miles around, the mortal enemy of upholstered furniture. Despite the brilliantly simple nature of this plan, it doesn’t work and they have to stop the professor and his angry upholstery the old fashioned way, through sheer brute force.
In short, “Earthworm Jim” is everything that a nineties cartoon should be. It’s loud and silly, irreverent and over the top, it’s completely ridiculous in such a way that you don’t care that none of it makes any sense at all. All the while, it pokes fun at itself immediately disarming any complaints you may have had. It’s about a worm, perhaps the most worthless creature that could ever be a super hero, given ultimate power via a robotic suit. It’s the super hero you’d get if it were dreamed up by a genius 12 year old with ADD. It’s a hell of a lot of fun.
Surgeon Generals Warning: Only patients with a high degree of tolerance for outrageousness and screaming should attempt to watch this show. Please contact your doctor to see if “Earthworm Jim” is right for you.
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