#zokie of planet ruby | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

popculturebuffet · 5 months ago

Text

Black Hair-Story Month Special: Black Hair in Animation

Happy black history month all you happy people ! Every year, often with an idea from my patron weirdkev, I try to do something for black history month. Black lives, history and culture matter and I should dive into them more than once a year.

Still Kev pitched and paid for an excellent idea spotlighting a tredn in animation recently: episodes on black hair.

Now i'll be upfront: i'm a white middle aged balding man. I do not know much about hair let alone the proud history of black hair and the far more shameful history of what white assholes either shaming it as casual racisim or outright coopting it.

I do know I LIKE that we're getting stories like this, to learn something from my children's cartoons. That kids have something they can relate to and other kids can learn about without asking awkward questions that make their freinds deeply uncomfortable.. or in the case of one of these episodes learning that very lesson. It's why diversity in animation matters: personal experience adds that much more to a work, and we shouldn't try to homogenize shit to appeal to everyone. In a time when DEI is being treated as some sort of boogey man by the right, it's good to say "no inclusivity rips". So I will be covering these as they are: pretty good to truly excellent episodes of television and a wonderful short that woudln't be possible at all if we didn't let black creators say what they want and didn't hyperfixate on bein "relatable" to everyone.. aka white cis assholes and no one else.

So join me under the cut for five excellent tales of black hair maintence, casual prejudice, living hair, oblivoius men, heroism, and goblins.

Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow (Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur) MGADD was one of Disney's best shows and the beginning of it's marvel renisance in animation. After a hiatus following that spider-man animated series everyone forgot happened, it was a bold welcome return.... that disney canceled after 2 seasons while also shelving a trans rights episode so "parents can have those discussions when their ready"

Yeah this show came out in 2023.. and is already over. It's sobering to realize how short a lifespan that was.. long enough to still have a decent run but way shorter for a show that had the praise, style and Laurence fishburne this show had. It took a solid concept from the comics that had a weak execution and made it something special. This episode highlights that. The premise is your standard kid genius plot: to get around a problem in their everyday life our science hero invents something that seemingly solves the problem but really just makes it worse till they confront the actual issue. To the series credit and my suprise it happens way less often than I thought: out of the series only 8/40. And in half of those the chaos isn't entirely her fault: in half of those it's someone else asking and in both cases things going wrong are the subjects fault: Devil took too much potion and Pops apparently does a mad science instead of being honest with his wife about his insecurities.

In the other half, Lunella dosen't use her creation: She creates a date for the dance, but it dosen't turn out well (Though I still count it as she intended to.. and also count the time she remolds said clone later in the season), and decides NOT to use a mind reading gadget for a sleepover. It only ends up an issue because Pops (Who unlike the above example didn't know about the superhero thing yet) mistook it for a remote because pops is good at many things but technology, respecting personal space and telling a dog apart from scottish david tenant alien dog are not among those things.

It also helps most of those cases that do happen.. are grounded in her insecurities in classic cartoon fashion: in this case a combination of being annoyed at her mom's instiance she take hair maintence seriously and a classmate calling her hair "messy" who Casey, Lunella's best friend, tells to go to her office. Which is code for "beat your head into the girls room stall till you learn your manners bitch", lead lunella to make a straightner.

There's also a reason why she can't just buy some her mom's terrified of it. literally. It's a fantastic cuataway as she throws the thing across the store like it's got a mummies curse. Let's be fair though: I'ts the marvel universe. That's absolutely possible.

I also like that Casey is supportive but repedeately emphasies Lunella's hair's fine: she just gets her friend needs to experiment. She helps her style and when the experiment goes wrong offers her a wig from her vault. I love that for some reason this child has a wig vault including a dolly parton and a punk look, thigns she'd never wear but hey you never know when you need to do cosplay.

Or just want to for funsies when you find it in a dying Party City. Whatever works.

Things going wrong in this case is "Lunella's hair falls out" or so she thinks. It instead gains sapience and commits a mass wig murder, killing both Sheba, Lunella's wig and all of Casey's other wigs to teach her a lesson. And to homage fatal attraction as all children's cartoons do.

Turns out Lunella's hair's sentient, and has become Mane, who is mad she never appricated her: didn't use the right comb, a hair bonnet, nothing. And she.. has a point. While trying to take over the world over it is a bit much even that's standard marvel buisness. I mean we wouldn't have paste pot pete if some guy hadn't decided to use his adhesive to do treason. And what kinda world would that be?

I also love the resolution: First Lunella admits her screw up to her mom.. not the living hair monster part, but everything else.. and despite being pretty militant about the hair thing and appricating it.. Adria and Mimi, her mom and grandma, are both sympathetic. Both get the pressures of the world's white nonsense: that her hair is too "messy" or "Unkempt" and both went to lengths to fit into that shit: Mimi tried hot combs, which sounds like pure hell and set her hair on fire and adria had a straightner accident. They both get it just happen and help her learn to appricate what she had: that yes hair takes effort.. but it's a part of her worth celebrating and it's something Lunella realizes: She liked it's bounce, it's look, how it fit in her helmet. You don't appreciate something like that till it's gone

Thankfully what took her hair wasn't neglect and male pattern baldness so unlike me she has a shot at getting it back. She first plans to use a relaxer, what both she and her mom goofed on using it.. but fighting it dosen't go well> While Devil easily ko's the hair dryer Mane uses as a sidekick mane morphs into a doppleganger and this mirror match is too much.. so Lunella instead.. apologizes. Is sincer and honest.. and thus gets her hair back. NO idea if her hair is somehow still sentient she just can't move but she's content, Lunella's content and in a nice bit of continuity Lunella uses a hair bonet the rest of the show.

Hair Today Gone Tommorow is an excellent episode. It set a high bar that only one other episode and the short cleared, covering a subject well, the prejudice one faces, in a fun way. The jokes are on point, including Casey's 40 wig funerals and Lunella's well meaning gym/science teacher's lesson boiling down to "robots amirite". It's excellent stuff and a good intro to the show if your curious to try it.

Hair Comes Trouble (Karma's World) Karma's World is one of two shows in this pile I hadn't seen before. It's also the weakest of all 5, though this episode's still great. It's just clear Karma's World is aimed at a younger audience without anything really there for adults. It was also produced and created by Ludracris.

Karma's World is your standard aseop of the week show from what I can gather, about a middle schooler named Karma who wants to be a rapper and raps. And... not very well at times. The intro rap is painful and the ending rap is not better. Now is it the dumbest rap i've encountered in a cartoon? Not by a mile. I mean it dosen't have the human torch talking about how a girl has gone on to another while he sings his funky song. It's just eh.

That said the rap Karma has about her crisis and her hair is REALLY damn good with a nice beat and some excellent flow. The show could do better and I get this is for kids.. but making music for kids is no excuse. It's not a remote one. If Phineas and Ferb can make a good song an episode, so can you.

Plotwise the episode works as it touches on accidental microagressions: Karma has a sleepover with her friends which goes well.. till they play a fashion game on tablet and don't want to just.. do Karma's hair feeling it's too messy. And when Karma prepares to use her hair bonet, a device used to keep hair safe and curly, her friends baragge her with questions about her hair and thent ouch it without her permission, all acting like she's over reacting. Even newly minted bestie and main character Switch thinks she over reacted.. when Karma.. didn't. Her friends didn't MEAN bad, they were juts curious. It's a nicely nuanced conflict; Karma is absolutely right to both feel uncomfortable and to set boundries. Having someone randomly touch you is not okay in any context. But you get her friends didn't realize they were being offensive. their just kids. Kids say stupid shit.

So like Lunella karma wants to change though unlke Lunella Karma LIKED her hair at first... it's just insecurity creeping in. Thankfully a talk with her mom gets her to see her hair is fine, it's part of her etc... and that it's okay to set boundries. That's a lesson just to this episode but a valuable one in general and especailly in this context: It's okay to be honest about something you thought was uncomfortable and just because someone else thinks you overeacted does not mean you did. Your autonomy matters at any age. And a talk with Switch making things clear gets an apology and Karma.. is fine answering questions at lunch. But it's now on her terms instead of being barraged and made to cry. There's a line between curosity and taking honest questions, and making someone feel bad.

This episode was decent. I didn't really vibe with the show but again it's just.. not made for me. It's made well even if some of the raps were weak, but it's for small children and unlike say BLuey isn't built to go beyond that. It is what it is.

Trial and Hair-Or (Fairly Odd Parents: A New Wish)

I'm so happy to get to talk about A New Wish. From what i've seen of it, I fell behind quickly and will watch it in fully with my friend @jess-the-vampire one of these days (I've been busy and we've had other stuff take priority when we do have time to watch stuff), but what i've seen is excellent, with nice Peanuts Movie style animation that's pure gorgeous and is how you do a reboot: everything happened but it uses a fresh angle to bring it back in this case the simpliest way: Timmy naturally moved on, Cosmo and Wanda find a kid who needs them in the kind and enthuastic Hazel whose struggling at first with a new city, her brother moving to college, and slowly making friends.

A New Wish freshens up everything that's badly aged about the original: Hazel's parents are loving and simply work a lot, but still make time for her compared to Timmy's mostly absent and neglectful at best parents. The cruetly of the world is toned down to realistic levels, and Cosmo and Wanda are scaled back to earlier season levels and the time between series clearly helped their marriage. Gone are jokes about Wanda being a nag, Cosmo being miserable and Cosmo is still stupid, as he should be, but not callously so. He simply needs to, as hazel puts it in the episodes best gag "work on his active listening skills".

Hazel herself is a nice pivot from timmy: She has diffrent intrests such as french fries, scary movies and shojo manga, and tends to be less Selfish. Not that timmy was lacking in giving, he'd often help his family, but Hazel is way more warm hearted. She still has the same short sightness most kids do, but unlike Timmy tries to learn from past wishes. A simple character change and a shift forward in time make everything feel new and combind with the animation and humor, it's easily one of the best reboots i've seen and hopefully will come back for season 2

All this praise said Trial and Hair-Orr is weak plot wise. Joke wise i'ts fucking phenominal as Hazel wishing for special hair gets her sentient hair whose offended she wants to pizzaz it up with something other than a bow. Hazel's various hyjinmks trying to trap her hair, from a war style look to the old west are pure fun and her father's obession with bows is adorable: Her mom was SUPPOSED to help her but got called away and while he mans well.. the man knows nothing.

My problem is the episode tries to frame it like Hazel was ungreatful or didn't appreciate her hair like Lunella.. but she does. She loves her hair. She just wants to jazz it up a little. Unlike Mane her hair diana is just.. a massive dick whose very fussy. The jokes in this one work VERY well but the attempted heart just dosen't. It's an episode that could've worked better, but is okay at least as is. If nothing else it'll always have this

I missed this dipshit.

The Great Tangle (Zookie of Planet Ruby)

Before this I had never heard of this show.. and there's a reason for that. Once again Nick devalued one of it's shows.. but even for nick the way this show was treated is bafflingly. So this show was a co production with Nelvana that seemingly aired normally for it's canadian airings.. but over here rather than air it themselves nick sold it off to Amazon... who did no advertising for it. They gave not one iota of a shit about this series and it pisses me off. I expect that from Viacom, nick is riddled with shows the network threw away for stupid reasons despite being a success by anyone elses metric. But while Amazon Prime used to be wonky with their animated shows they've treated most decently. I mean invincible's budget could use a boost, stop that shit it's making you enough money to buy the moon, but animated shows generally aren't in horrifying danger of being canceled after one season which i'm aware is a bar so low James Cameron's gonna have to fish it out and raise it again, but that's where we are with animation right now.

I'm glad it came up though as Zookie of Planet ruby has vibrant as hell animation and a fun sweet silly tone. The short of the premise is Zookie, a gerbile like alien with magic powers, escaped his tyrinical world and king after watching the videos of Ruby, a young content creator. We've gotten to the point where "characters making videos' Isn't painfully cringy as a premise again, and the two's friendship is nice and wholesome. It's mostly an excuse for a galaxy hamster to learn life lessons and outwit a tyrannical dog king and a tween nightmare. Also he makes a squirrel able to talk.

This episode is one of the series few half hour episodes and it's excellent. It tackles thing from a similar but still distinct angle from Moon girl. Like Lunella ruby sees her hair as just.. hair and her weekly wash day as something that takes 80 years and isn't worth it. So she decides to solo it. Rubu's Mom well meaningly TRIES to stay out of it.. but is panicky the whole time and understandably concerned when her daughter just.. dumps all the product in her hair and is okay with it.

It's a nicely done conflict: Ruby like any kid dosen't understand why something takes forever. As a kid I HATED clothes shopping.. and I still do unless i'ts a t-shirt, but I get it takes forever for a reason and you need new clothes and kids grow out of them constantly. But her mom should've just been honest or at least insisted on teaching her everything first. It's nice to let your kid be intendent but you have to make sure they CAN do something they want to do themselves.

So while making a video Ruby jams a whole ass ginger bread house in there and can't get it out. Her Grandma.. just wants to use the hot comb and it's a nice show of how good a mom her mom is: While Ruby's Mom won't intervene, simply telling her daughter her hair needs TLC... she doesn't let her grandma use the hot comb aka traumatize the shit out of her. It's a low bar sure, most people shouldn't let their parents torture their children, but not every person can clear it.

This being the show that it is, Ruby's solution is to have her best friend use his magic butt sparkles, techincally tale but semantics, to make her hair okay. I also love the quick cutaway that shows Zokie just uses a painful machine for style and only dosen't for Ruby because her bones aren't built that way.

Instead he magics the hair which makes it grow, and grow and eventually envelop the town, fred and her house, leaving the two alone in a gingerbread house with a mysterious hair creature.

Said creature is the tangle in her hair that caused all this whose happy... and mildly upset Ruby wont' take over her. She also tries the creepy stalker route to that planning to keep her forever when Ruby understandably plans to RUN, RUN, RUNNNNN.

The solution naturally sin't that as her hair has smothered the town.. but to finally ask for help. It's only with her mom, more sparkle sparkle magic, and fred's grumbling can they start to fix the tangle.. and actually help her. It's only with love, understanding and patience that this works. Tangle goes away but she'll be back in like.. a week.

The Great Tangle is a fun story that tackles the issue from a very simple idea of "Why does hair care take so dang long". Because it's necessary to make hair good and simply takes a while. It also has a good joke for two, a lot of great animation. Admitely ZOPR isn't the funniest show to me personally.. but it does have great animation, fun characters and a lot of creative energy. This was the third show in this batch to do living hair.. but none of them had the hair take over the whole town and unlike the last two where the hair was kind of a jerk tangle was obesessive and went a bit too far.. but wasn't outright EVIL she simply didn't understand that kidnapping a child forever is frowned upon. She's more a sympathetic monster than a sympahtetic monster who goes right to taking over the world or just a dick.

Hair Love

No celebration of black hair in animatoin would be complete without the wonderful academy award winning short. I have not seen i'ts spinoff series young love. I intend to and feel bad as it seemed to just.. stop at one season. Then again it's hard to tell if it's a viewership problem or David Zaslav just decided fuck it.

At any rate Hair Love is a truly excellent short following a little girl as she tries to get her hair ready using a hair blog... one revealed towards the end to be her mothers. It's a nice reveal as you can possibly figure it out... but it helps add a punch. She wants her hair nice for some reason... and that being part of it really helps explain it.

She tries but being a small children, that dosen't go well. She also has a cat but he's mostly there to meow disaprovingly at her dad, who tries his best or just a big bow but is clearly NOT the one who does this. He also gets into a boxing match with hair.

Hair Love is a sweet short about celebrating your hair, and about effort. The dad basically give sup but once he gets WHY his daughter is so determined, doubles down, uses his wife's videos and gets it done. It also has a truly incredible nad heartbreaking twist: the wife/mother.. is coming out of cancer treatment. The short implies and the series seems to confirm she's fine, it's at the very least in remission and her hair slowly grows back over the credits.. but it's the final button on the short that makes it all tie together. Hair Love is beautiful, worth watching.

Honestly.. all these episodes are worth your time. Moon Girl easily won with Hair Love a close second, The Great Tangle RIght behind it, the karma's groove ep after that and fop at the bottom.. but none of the episodes are bad and all tackle diffrent sides of black hair: Learning to apricate it, the challenges of accidental well meaning racism from your friends, proper matience, making sure your hair isn't an asshole, and that the time and effort is worth it for those you love. This is a wonderful collection of episodes and I was happy to review them. Thanks for reading and i'm pulling for you, we're all in this together.

#black history month #moon girl and devil dinosaur #karma's world #zokie of planet ruby #fairly oddparents #a new wish #hair love #young love

16 notes · View notes