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popculturebuffet · 3 months

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The Kablammiest Retrospective Finale: Odds and Ends (Comission for Cory Bryant)

The end is nigh all you happy people. After several months, and 4 aricles covering every season it's time to say Goodnight to KaBlam. I enjoyed this retrospective.. almost no one read it, but it had me exploring a show I only occasionally thought about and see the wonders it had to offer. I truly enjoyed this show

So in making my way out I got Cory to extend the retrosepctive as when it was comissioned I hadn't realized there's a bunch of neat extras on the fringes of KaBlam history: Pilots, shorts not aired on the show, a spinoff attempt, all sorts of intresting pieces of media I wanted to dive into. If I was going to do this I wanted it to be complete and I thank Cory dearly for both this retrospective and allowing me to give it a proper sendoff.

So today's final entry is a bit diffrent: every little KaBlam loose end I could find, reviewed as they go, and one final kablammy awards to cap it all off. So put your heiner in the recliner one last time as we take a look at everything that coudln't be cartoon crammed into the series proper.

We start with one of the last KaBlam things, the Henry and June Show. Nick had this weird thing where they really didn't care about KaBlam as a whole by the end.. but DID really like Action League Now! and Henry and June. The former got a test with an exclusive short we'll talk about in a bit and the latter got a pilot for a spinoff that, like the show itself, Mark Marek thankfully put up on his webstie.. if relutcantly. Marek really wasn't a fan of this and it didn't go to series, with the characters moving on to other things post kablam we'll get to soon enough.

I get why this pilot happened: The Henry and June Shorts were the longest out of the kablam segments as the wraparound, taking up a decent chunk of each episode, had an established supporting cast and had potetial. Not only that there was the potteial to expand on the two's day to day lives, which we only saw glimpses of. The potetial was there.

It was not reached though. The first segment suffers from feeling like reheatd KaBlam leftovers: The duo's first show goes offf the rails due to the Oleson Twins not coperating, Stockadle screwing up and mr foot not being back with henry's breath mints so he accidently kills a hamster/ There's some good bits: I love how they introduce their annimal trainer as "that guy with all the animals", that the olseon twins won't come out because of how their drawn and our duo having a fight scene early on due to Henry embezzling both their paychecks to buy a sports car that goes through the WWF and actual genie al roker's sets. I also like that for whatever reason they got the REO Speedwagon song "Roll with the Changes" which I didn't know by name but did recognize by ear. It's just fun to hear it as Mr Foot gets into an OJ Simpson style high speed chase that ends up saving the show. It has good bits.. but it also feels like iv'e seen "henry and june's show go's off the rails" in way more intresting ways like their parents getting into a fist fight or mr stockdale having a war flashback. I do get this is the pilot, trying to set the tone.. but it dosen't work when you've already seen this.

The second half has the two prepared to bask in their fame.. only to find no one watched the show. I do like finding out June has other friends, but otherwise the first half of this short is pretty boring. it's also not helped by a very unwanted return. For somehow, Ryan returned.

Yes Ryan the Annoying fanboy is alive and just as annoying and one note as last time. And the fact he's arround twice means for the final time this retrospecitve, and the SECOND time in so many months... i'm adding one to the wall.

I swear this thing just gets bigger every time. And I"m not padding it: I geninely hate the fuckers added and if the hate goes down, they will be dropped. I only had TWO in mind.. then I remembered "Didn't let his son rescue him from a torando to teach him a shitty lesson" and "Cut his ex-girlfriend's breaks and acts like their still together".

Anyways Ryan is still the worst though thankfully isn't around a ton. I also think he might of debuted here first as this aired during Kablam's final season. Either way he sucks and we go on to the two going to a performing arts academy and getting sick of it because they hype them up too much.. but the two classes don't really show it? Another wannabe star kicks june during dance class (leading to a funny piano gag) and Henry's trainer gives up on him doing reps. The only really funny bit is what gets them to leave.. after admitting the issues the entire school, including mary kate and ashley, break into a motivational song.. and our heroes slink away to obscurity and sick ryan on the school. It's just bland: parodying fame wasn't fresh in 1999. Underated film though, check it out. It just feels like two weaker kablam wraparounds and while I wish Mark Marek would make another full show, I can understand why he was glad this didn't get picked up.

The rest of wha ti found for the duo is various other apperances. First is something I found while writing this article, a short comic done for nick magazine where the two parody various comics. It's short, breezy fun and can be found here if your intrested.

The rest is a variety of hosting gigs: they hosted a summer marathon where June assumed a bunch of small babies ate sausage when talking about the rugrats, a halloween marathoon, and upick friday, a segment where voters called in to get the cartoons they wanted I vaguely remember. Not bad stuff, just not meant to be watched in one go. There's also 101% whizbang a cartoon block they hosted which there were only a few segments of floating around. I watched em all, but the lost media wiki clocked a handful that simply dont' exist and I may cover if they ever surface. I did what I could.

Finally we have Nicktoon News, where the two reported on various news stories. It's.. weird to here Henry and June talk abotu the fairly odd parents or anyone talk about Butch Hartman without calling him some form of asshole. Simplier times. Also Henry wants to bea new pokemon. Keep at it henroid, i'm sure you'll be in the next game. you just gotta belivie. Overall this pile was intresting stuff you can find on youtube.. but not really entertaining nowadays. Fun for one look, neve ragain.

Next up we have the Sniz and Fondue Pilot, Psyched for Snuppa. Why is Snuppa named? Well it could be because he's played by Meatloaf. Yes... Meatloaf. He will do anything for love... but he won't play a cat. A ferret's okay though. I also like his outfit and wish it hadn't been changed to a more generic one. I love the high collars on him and sniz.

This one's also notable for being directed by John R Dilworth of COurage the Cowardly Dog Fame, who didn't direct any following episodes because that masterpiece got picked up and who Brandon was apparently unsastisfed with his work anyway.

Psyched For Snuppa is a lot of fun, having our three protaganists get into shenanigans after Bianca calls them mid seance to summon Jimmi Hendrix to help her with two hilaroius brats sh'es babysitting. The episode is really just our main duo and ocasoinally snuppa getting into weird shenanigans with two children. It works really well, ti's charming and dilworth's expertise at timing and facial expression relaly elevate this one. it's one of the best sniz and fondue shorts and a really excellent pilot despite the two being on the side.

Now we've come to Action League NOW! which has two pilots that aired on all that that were never resued and a short for a one off special that never aired on kablam but I think aired in the spinoff.

First up are the pilots and they.. aren't great. one has the gang being stalked by the mayor with a train which isn't as funny as it sounds and the other has them stuck in the fridge. Both good concpets btu the comedic timing and slapstick just aren't there yet. Which isn't suprising: I wasn't the biggest fan of action league now season 1 and it took the series till season 2 to really hit it's stride.

In the Whine of Fire is a decent extra sized episode. Meltman flees during a case and to get his rep back agrees to guard pop star blandee, while the league looks out for him as the Mayor has been targeting pop stars with a giant robot to promote his album. And I swear to god if the Mayor's va Jim Krenn ever reads this, please give me that album. Or at least a track. I'd love to hear the pisstake that would be the mayor singing.. or rapping. Oh god... have him rap. Pleassseee.

At any rate Meltman naturally chickens out and is pissed after the league beats the robot as he thinks they were trying to make hi mlook good, and ends up in a realtionship with blandee, not happy that she thinks he's a hero and feels wrong for deciving her. It's honestly some of the most sympathetic we've seen him: he still sucks, but he dosen't take credit for something he didn't do on purpose and dosen't want ot hurt her.

It all climaxes at a concert, with another giant robot, meltman bein ga hero and blandee being crushed so he can avoid concsequences. It's.. okay. Not the best they've done, but it has the mayor in a giant robot and a hilaroius parody of late 90's pop stars, not the best i've seen but still spot on enough for this to be decent.

We Are the Shrimpskins is a weird one. It was done by Life With Loopy creator Stephan Holman as one of Nick's many intertitle shorts, ala The Adventures of Pete and Pete. Part of the contract included an animated short, the network wanted more, and thus Life with Loopy became the series but since i'ts from the same creator, I figured this one should be included. Holman and his company would go on to create the short lived WB series phantom investgators in the same style as loopy, and is something I hope to cover someday but like some of the series that broke out it's too long at 13 episodes to justify putting in here.

As for We Are the Shrimpskins it's delightful absurdity as two weird beings , the titluar shrimpskins, enter a contest at a local sofa store to win a weekend with the weirdest people in the world. What follows is chainsaws, sofas and madness, and it's great ending with the revelation they are the wierdest.. and them just boarding up the door at the people who did one. This short is silly, delightfully fun, and worth a look if you like Holman's other work or just like wacky nonsense in general. Do I completely get it? Not really and i'm 40% wacky nonsense. But it's fun nonetheless

The Life with Loopy Birthday Galabration is something I almost didn't include: it's a repackage of several Life with Loopy Shorts, along with one that hadn't aired yet, Send in the Clones It's not bad and a good collection if you want to try the shorts. It's clear the series was popular and i'm shocked it didn't get a full series order at some point or at least had the shorts repackaged ala action league now!

That said the galabration is fun, with members of the action league there along with Prometheus.. whose dating Brad Pitt. Which is awesome> Good for you man, both of you. Sadly didn't last but hey. There's also A LOT of celebrity gags from Patrick Stewart being loopy's mentor, to Henry creepily hitting on Kate WInslet, to Ben Franklin dating Alyssa milayno. The man can still get it.

The wraparound is animated by Mark Marek, so we get to see some characters in the Henry and June style, including loopy and family themselves as you can see, though theys till neatly mimick the cardboard cutout style. I myself coudln't cut it, but respect to meshing the two styles.

The wraparounds decent enough, the short package is some of the best of the series and overall the special's worth a look and like I said a good place to start if this series peaks your intrest. I really cannot recommend these shorts enough.

Like Sniz and Fondue I was so happy to see the off beats again. Starting off we have three shorts that aired between shows that never made it to KaBlam! All this talk about intertitle shorts make me want to review the adventures of pete and pete.

The first has August solo as he tries to impress the populars by saying his dog can talk.. which of course september can but the punchline is great as he says bow.. because he wants them all to bow to him. Nice and simple. The second has the Populars pull "your shoes untied" and it only work on Rapunzil. Finally we have The Twig, the weakest of the three but still not bad as Betty Anne tries to save a twig. The ending is great though August and September play fetch... and naturally August is the one fetching.

The main event though is naturally

Fun Fact I found out.. despite seeing this as a kid, this was lost media for a while> Thankfully like most of kablam's content it hasn't been for some time, and can be found on youtube as can almost all of this. I'll point out the exception later. Why Nick hasn't put this up on paramount I dont' know.. then again they haven't put Catscratch ont here and took YEARS to put el tigre on there so

The Valentine's Special is fun, and while I was mildly worried if the show could keep it's nice mellow energy for so long it does, resluting in what's both easily the best Off-Beats cartoon and one of the best things related to KaBlam. It's a shame Willems didn't want to tkae this to series or make more specails, but I can respect he had other things he wanted to do.

The Special is great though as a finale, ending these shorts on a high as the kids deal with valentine's shenanigans: Tommy falls in love with a popular, Beth, the one with frizzy hair, and they go to hilaroius lengths to keep it secret like him calling her.. while disguised or pretending to be a statue while she visits at night while the rest of the populars, still glued to her hip, are all there asleep. IT's a lot of fun stuff.

It's also a lot of painful stuff as while the shorts themselves had a bit of pathos, this specail really digs into it, something I feared would happened but figured wouldn't.. and was proven wrong. When planning to reveal their relationship at the valentine's dance.. Beth backs out at the last second and Tommy learns the hard lesson talking to her that you have to find someone who cares about you more than their status or themself. She likes him.. but not enough to actually risk anything or be seen with him. It's a sad ending.. but it's realistic, has a ncie punch to it, and still ends on the note of Tommy realizing that having friends is still good. Looped in is Repunzil planning to ask out Tommy , not knowing he's in a relationship and him taking the cowards way out of avoiding her. Betty Anne has to be the one to tell her (having found out earlier). That said we get my faviorite gag of the special, Tommy holding up a sign that says i'm not tommy and it working. Stupid? Yes. Glorious? Also yes. It works on character as I do buy Repunzil would take the sign that literally and Tommy knows this> I also like that they don't go for the obvious ending of the two ending up together: tommy isn't intrested even when he's publicly humiliated, but accepts her as a friend and she accepts that. Even after finding out he's in a relationship earlier on, she rebounds fine and still goes to the dance.

Betty Anne Bongo also gets a subplot and it's eh: She claims to be over valentine's and only need friends, changes her toon when she meets groovy gru's nephew and passes out in front of the guy falining. It's funny, from her growling he's mine in the same voice tommy uses when yelling when Repunzil compliments him to her passing out, but it's something i've seen a lot that the off beats dosen't spin well.

We then have August. August's plot is.. there. It feels like they came up with everyone elses plots and then scrambled to include august, who does factor into things, he asks out Tina the headpopular and his rejection makes Beth nervous enough to back out of accepting Tommy' s invitation to dance, but it's just kinda .. eh. He breaks from his reliance on tech to try being natural then prances around in his underwear. It just kinda happens.

I saved the best for last though as September gets a dedicated plot and easily the biggest one of the special outside of the main plot with Tommy: September belays his tragic backstory to Tommmy, how he once dated a cat named febuary, whose design I love as do her real cat meow. She disappeared, he was left broken but enourages Tommy to move on. He also is super depressed when DJing due to the memory, which would be the best depressed valentine's dj gag ever, but sadly parks and rec came along. It's not BAD but it's no Chris Trager playing sad monk durges before looking longingly at jerry

God I miss this show. The Off Beats Valentine's day is a can't miss and was easily the best of the stuff I watched for this odds and ends, and given Psyched for Snuppa was pretty dang good, that does say something. but this peanuts style holiday special just can't be beat in charm or technique.

So now we've come to the suprising shorts, three of which had other shorts that simply never made KaBlam.. and the first is the one I dreaded the most, to the point I saved it till towards the end. I wasn't a big fan of the louie and louie show, finding it overly cruel and depressing.

So i'm shocked that the second short.. works better. our main duo are still neglected pets but they dont' seem to be as miserable, and the anatagonist,s instead of thier terrible owners are the cat and dog that get more attention and act like thugs. It's still not amazing, but it has good gags, a nice payoff and the bad guys actually pay for being dickheads this go round. Not a bad short all things considered. Still don't think there was enough for a series and i'm glad they went and made Teacher's Pet instead, but far better than I expected and it deserves credit for that.

Patchead had three more shorts outside of KaBlam. Why they didn't use them, I have no idea. They needed to fill the space and it woudl've been anothe rrecurring segment. Whatever the case, we got three more to look at and given I liked the first two, I was excited for this The first Hook Line and Sinker is one of two shorts overall that dosen't have Nick Offerman

Thankfully it's not as dire as it seems, as the short's still good. Patchead has a junk fishign contest with a rich kid. It's not as good as the gold one, and honestly neither was the racing one, but it's still some good fun and a nice change of pace. While I love nick offerman playing a large ham in a work this weird and this early in his career, it's not bad to break from it.

That said it was a DELIGHT to have him back for the next one where Patchead is a porkchop delivery boy, but no one wants them they want possum pops, which Offerman cheerfully delivers in a sleeveless white shirt in his run down shack

Eventually though Patchead is able to use the porkchops to stop a wave of bbq sauce and the town embraces the porkchops now with more flavor. It's a fun short and a nice break from the compettition stuff in the first three shorts, and look i'll take Nick Offerman looking exactly like lenny while promoting eating possum any day. The guy got what the shorts were going for and went for it. One of the best comedic actors out there.

Almost forgot the last one.. which has a genie emerge from a mudflap and try ot kill people. You'd think it'd be more intresting.

Cards on the table: our final shorts today are the reason why I did this. Finding out there was more of what was easily one of my faviorite surprising short was too tempting not to look into. I already had built up a decent pile of possible stuff to cover, but this... this was the goat. And the shorts.. were decent. Their not bad , their simply only a minute or two: they still have the utterly unique abstract art style and the down to earth tone that plays off, but the KaBlam short had more room to breathe. I still highly recommend watching these three as their still intresting: Alice recounts getting some new boots after deciding people are their shoes

Has her cat die, something that was entirely hard to stomach as I lost my cat Stewie last year, and a trip to the planterium where a plan for the class to all wear glow in the dark goes sideways thanks to Alice's horrible best friend suki, who shit talks another girl in alice's name and previously said she didn't like cats to her best friend's cat dying

Not bad just not a lot to talk about as their so short.

Overall i'm glad I went to look into these extras: it was an intresting ride: it was also a lot of "this was pretty good" i'll admit but outside of the henry and june show and the action league now pilots, there really wasn't anything BAD and even then both are intresting. The H and J show has some good bits and it's neat to see how Action League Now evolved into what it became. It was nice to have one last lap with this property. While this has been far from my most successful project, it's one of my faviorites: it got me to really think about it and I wouldn't be oppsoed to doing another retrospective for cory down the line.

For now though there's one FINAL piece of buisness:

It's the FINAL Kablammy Awards! For this one i'm picking out the best shorts PERIOD from each recurring series and the best of the MANY startling shorts. Also to be fair to today's batch a few awards, if not nearly as many as usual since it's a small pile of shorts and all

Best Patchead Segment Post KaBlam: The Porkchop one. Look it was fine to experiment without Nick Offerman.... but his hammy southern performance adds a lot to the charm of these segments.

Best Girl WIth Her HEad Falling Off: The Boots. I mean again I relate to a cat death... "Sigh", but I like the concept of an inner name and her buying some kickin boots nicely. That feeling of a kid of wanting something bad your parents just hate.

Best Off Beats Pilot: My Dog Can Talk. It's simple, hilaroius and sets up the dynamic of the show beautifully.

Best Overall: The Off-Beats Valentine's Day. A full 22 minutes of what's probably tied for my faviorite KaBlam Segment with Life with Loopy (Though Sniz and Fondue is close). What's not to love?

So with that our grand finale.. the best of the best. First up the best episodes from each season. It' ssomething I should've done all along but decided to save for this finale.

Season 1: What the Astronauts Drink. This ep mostly gets it on novelty, as it's I belivie the only ep where the various segments and the wraparound all have the same theme.. SPACCCCEEEEEE. But for these consicancy is also a factor: some of the best segments can have mediocre episodes. But the segements here are all classics: The mayor trying to launch the action league's dog into space to be a dick, Loopy lassoing the moon, Sniz getting kidnapped by aliens, and the only short not themed around the space stuff, Anemoia and Iodine, which charmed me so much Anemoia is in the page image for this artcle. It's a solid episode with a lot of fun segments and a nice themeing no other episode matches.

Season 2: This one has a weak wraparound, i'll admit, the 3d stuff being mildly amusing at best.. but it clicnches the win with it's segments. We have Flesh getting naked and ruining diplomacy, Bob not getting how chairs work (One of the few pre season 4 p an db segments I love), the delightful bat infested upside down loopy and the iconic off beats where Tommy has lost his coat. All bangers, all make up for a weak wraparound.

Season 3: This one's.. okay. Season 3 had some great stuff.. but I found it wasn't very constient in it's episodes. So You'll Love OUr Selection wins. Granted the Mayor's football murder and Race Rabbi'ts debut are spectacular, but Loopy's whale adventure and whatever promethus and bob did aren't anything amazing. Not bad, but it really wins this award for the mr foot wraparound and the two good segments more than anything.

Season 4: Now With More Flava, which is more on par with what the astronauts drink: it dosen't have the neat gimmick but every segement is great: The wraparound about our heroes trying to stay relevant, while depressing in hindsight, is full of great gags and John Stamos. It also has two of the series best segments period, spoilers for coming up, which helps boost it's rating.

Finally we have the best. I picked these mostly from my best episodes, but there's at least one outside it that got in as I changed my mind between reviews. It happens. So without further ado the best of the best KaBlam has to offer and if your this late in and STILL haven't tried the show, these are the shorts to sell you on it.

Henry and June's Best Segment: Won't Stick to Most Dental Work, the Studio Tour is one of their most inspired, every joke lands, and the ending with the off beats stunt show is my kind of bonkers in the conkers. It has the wraprounds meta flava while applying it to something rediculous and fun and it works oh so well. Great theme park satire, great jokes, simply the best.

Best Sniz and Fondue: Stuntbike Sniz. The Hose one did have a decent shot... but Stuntbike Sniz is just the most consitantly good, has a lot of great jokes and a stuntacular and injurrrifc finale.

Action League NOW!: Grief for the Chief the concept of a bunch of flashbacks where they keep ruining his life with thier stupidity despite TRYING to do something nice for a change, his rage typhoon at the end.. it's perfect. I shoudl've picked this one for the season 4 list and it's winning now.

Best Prometheus and Bob: Tape One. A wonderful origin story that shows whY Bob and Prometheus stick with each other with lots of neat gags and reveals all wrapped into it. Probably shoudl've eaten that monkey tho.

Best LIfe with Loopy: This one was hard, not helped by the Galabration reminding me how good the ballon one was. It was down to that one, the Trouble with Inflation or my faviorite of season 4, Rock N Roll Loopy. It was a REALLY tough choice... but I'm going with The Trouble with Inflaction, which lost it's season 1 thing.. but in hindsight.. is really the most represnetive of the series. It has a great premise in Loopy simply wanting to stop the bills from stressing her dad, a real perfect kid dilemma not getting WHY bills piss him off so much and blaming the stone faced mail man. To be fair the dude does come off like a dick, but at the end of the day dick or not he's only doing his job and Loopy's solution, sending her dad a letter to help and his smile.. it kills me. It has the series heart, insanity and humor all in one place. Had to pick this one.

The Off-Beats: The Valentine's Special. Tommy's Song was close.. but it's hard for the regular shorts to beat a whole, expertly crafted episode that expands the show wonderfully.

Startling Shorts: The Girl With Her Head Coming Off. The animation style is truly unique and the story relatable and well done. Truly wish we had more.

So with that we say adeu to KaBlam! This project has been a lot of fun, a lot of work, and I want to thank anyo f you who read it, thank cory for pitching it and thank the creators of these wondreful cartoons. There was truly nothing like this... there may of been oh yeah cartoons and what a cartoon after it.. but there was never anything quite like this wonderful exploration of animation, creativity and nonsense. See ya when I see ya

#kablam #henry and june #action league now #sniz and fondue #life with loopy #patchhead #nickelodeon #90's #2000s #cartoons #animation

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