Loonatics Unleashed – Cape Duck (Snark)

The show’s not limiting itself to the A-Listers, as our villain/reinvented character du jour is the Shropshire Slasher/Sagittarius Stomper from “Deduce, You Say” with bionic arms and legs. Because they based the episode title (that is, this episode, and not “Deduce, You Say”) on the kind of movie they did, I’m still calling him Slasher.

Ah yes, about that. The title’s presumably meant to be a reference to the movie Cape Fear, but as usual there’s a problem. The most recent version of the movie was a 1991 remake, while this episode aired in 2006. How many kids in this show’s desired audience would’ve seen that (I haven’t even seen it)? How many kids in general, considering that according to Wikipedia it’s about how “Sam Bowden is a lawyer in the quiet town of New Essex, North Carolina. Max Cady is a former client whom Bowden had defended fourteen years previously when he was working as a public defender in Atlanta. Cady, who was being tried for the rape” okay we’re done talking about that.

Slasher, caught in the act of knocking over a jeweltry store, throws his loot at the cops and starts climbing a building like he’s King Kong or something. To quote a wise card game…

 Oh, and why is a spotlight set up right there?

Fortunately (?) the Loonatics are on the scene, with Bugs demanding he come down with a bullhorn. Not surprisingly, the bad guy just laughs at Bugg’s limp threat, and drops a toilet on Daffy from the top of the building for good measure. And not surprisingly, the show crew forgets Daffy isn't the one with instant healing powers and should be dead from that.

Wile E. promises to bring Slasher down with his new “atomic phase de-particulator.” This can turn solid matter into liquid, and liquid to gas. Just like Taz when he eats beans as Daffy points out, and which Taz is doing right at that very moment for…comic effect?

Then Slasher punches the spire off a building, and as it falls he calls “Ollie Ollie oxen free!” From what I understand usually that’s called when you’re playing hide and seek and people can come out. Everybody already is out, though, and…I don’t get it. That wasn’t supposed to mean “step out and please get underneath this thing I’m throwing down to crush you,” was it? Because that would just be stupid. And we know the Loonatics Unleashed crew are way too professional to fall into that trap.

The only one anywhere near it when it comes down and embeds point-first in the ground (convenient, that) is Daffy anyway, and in the process of teleporting out of the way he bumps into Wile E. and knocks the gun out of his hands, and it fires. In true kid-friendly fashion it hits a car and turns it into water but leaves the driver untouched. But it keeps firing, and…

Oh yeah, remember Dr. Dare, the villain from “Going Underground”? Remember how at the end he was turned to stone then left in a f***ing public park and forgotten? The turn-solid-objects-into-water gun shoots him and returns him to normal. Good one, idiots!!

Oh yeah, and this...

New from Acme: water soluble cell phones!

Daffy tries to run up to the gun, meaning the supposed screw-up character’s the only one a lifting a finger to do anything about it, when it blows up and flings him into the air. A stray blast--from the gun which isn’t actually blown up, somehow--hits the ledge Slasher’s on, liquefying it and making him fall off. Daffy runs into Slasher and they wrestle around in midair, try to force each other to be on the bottom when they land, but Daffy wins by tying Slasher’s stretchy arms together and immediately becomes a media sensation for defeating the villain.

Looks like the last we'd be seeing of that gun to me...

And let’s be honest, he did. What the fnck were the rest of the so-called better heroes among the Loonatics doing back there? I’ll tell you what: nothing. Stammer all you want about how you brought the gun, Wile E., you and the rest of your buddies were just spectating.

Slasher’s mom shows up then, praising what a good boy her son usually is, and showing us a baby picture about how he got bionic appendages after a childhood accident. The cops put the cuffs on Slasher, but he promises he won’t be there for long, and once he’s out he’s coming for Daffy.

And nobody’s noticed the other supervillain. Good one, idiots.

We return from theme song to a press conference for Daffy’s victory over Slasher, and Lexi remarking she thought he was tough to live with before. And I’ll say it one more time, maybe you should’ve gotten off your frigging cottontail and pitched in, then. But she’s not even done.

Daffy: “I can’t even spell the word ‘fear.’ ”

Lexi: “He can’t spell very many words, period.”

He’s still a better superhero than you, Miss Smarty Pants. Which of you needed a pep talk back in that little fiasco with the dolphins, hmmm? Maybe I should start calling this “Attack of theBrain-a-Saurus” Syndrome.

I will admit that Daffy does sound pretty jerky when he starts talking as if the rest of the Loonatics are just his support team. I’m still not sure that warrants Lexi ear laser-ing him in the next scene for it. This would be a lot easier to swallow if the show played the whole team as a bunch of comedic bumblers who usually save the day through dumb luck. I've really never gotten that sense though, not even in this season that tries a little bit to lighten things up. Frankly Daffy is the only character they put any effort into, showing his goofy side but also showing him to be brave and heroic when things really hit the fan. Everyone else they felt lazy with to me, just assuming we would automatically think they were cool, competent and funny, and not bothering to put much effort into the other Loonatics' fights or jokes.

One of the reporters asks how Daffy feels about Slasher’s threat, since he’s made the same threat every other time he’s gone to prison and always made good on it. If he’s so dangerous and been incarcerated so many times, why did it seem like that was the first time the planet’s superheroes have ever become involved with him?

While berating Daffy for his cracks about them afterward, they catch a broadcast and finally learn Dr. Dare’s free again. Good thing they're so up on current events they're only aware of this now.

And Wile E. rides Daffy’s ass for his part in setting Dare free, but whose decision was it to put him in a public park and not somewhere secure, hmmmm? You got an answer for that, show? I don’t think it was Daffy, because they never listen to him.

And once again, he was the only one on the whole team who tried to stop the out-of-control gun that melted anything it shot.  You guys can just shut up.

The team heads to the Museum of Greek History Dare’s just robbed, and an ersatz Jimmy Olsen from the press conference before shows up and asks Daffy how he plans to deal with this new villainous threat. Bugs and Roadrunner are mad about this, but the thing is they’re mad and assume this is Daffy’s doing before he says he invited the reporter. For all they know he was on his way there anyway because he’s a reporter and a supervillain attack is news. Idiots.

What I'm saying is they did this in the wrong order. The other Loonatics immediately come down on Daffy when the media shows up at a crime scene, assuming right away that he called in a reporter just to boost his own ego. After Daffy said he was the one who specifically called the reporter and told him about this robbery, then that would've been fine. Even the reporter focusing his questions on Daffy about what he'll about this new danger really isn't that wrong, since like I went on and on about above the other Loonatics who are mad at Daffy for putting his ego above getting the job done, didn't even try to do their jobs. They just stood around and watched as Wile E.'s gun went out of control, while Daffy tried to stop it and took on Slasher all by himself. Again, they can just shut the hell up.

The only thing Dare took is the Shield of Perseus. Perseus was the guy who beheaded Medusa, and when he was using his shield to find her so he wouldn’t look her in the eye, it apparently absorbed her reflection and can now turn things to stone itself. The show only demonstrates the shield’s power, and not the backstory that explains it.

Right, back to the “heroes.” Flowers came for Daffy while they were gone, and they turn out to be a premature funeral bouquet from Slasher. Right at that minute a washing machine crashes through the roof, and rather than taking any notice of how this means a murderous cyborg’s on the loose again, Wile E. and Lexi are just amused at how Daffy’s fearing for his life

After watching this again I sort of got the feeling that maybe we're supposed to be wondering if this is all in Daffy's head or something. With the way the show constantly assumes it doesn't have to actually demonstrate to me that the other Loonatics are great heroes and that Daffy's just an egotistical jerk (yeah, what happened in the lead-in to this very episode, again?), well, maybe you can see why I thought maybe these guys were just being assholes.

Bugs, Daffy and Jimmy Olsen are next at the prison where Slasher’s locked up. Supposedly. Since Jimmy asks what they’re doing there, I presume Bugs or Daffy invited him along. Since Daffy’s showing signs of fear that Slasher might have busted out after all, he probably wouldn't have done it to make sure he doesn't look bad, following the show's logic of Daffy's rampant ego. So are we left to assume Bugs invited the reporter?

Slasher’s still there, but as they leave Bugs spots a bottle of pills and a pink toothbrush in the malcontent’s cell, and this gets his Batmanesque Detective Skills a-twitchin’.

Nighttime at Asshole Squad HQ. Daffy’s sleeping in a bed covered with oddly low-tech weapons considering this is a Hyper-Advanced Future Time and all. He wakes up to the sound of someone prowling around, and then a cow almost lands on him, making me wish I had my contacts in wrong and was watching Earthworm Jim by mistake.

Daffy screams and the others come running, but somehow the cow’s gone (In fact, so are all Daffy’s weapons, confusing the question of if these are just delusions of his guilty conscience even more) and they think he was having guilt-induced nightmares and tell him not to cry wolf again.

But Dr. Dare chooses now to come back and flies around turning people to stone and making stupid rock puns. The Loonatics are on hand this time, and the weirdest thing happens. Bugs’s eyes glow yellow as he goes on the attack, but all he does is a couple flips off of rocks that Dare’s rock monsters throw at him and chop one of the monsters up with his sword. He doesn’t even use the sword in anything but its regular sword mode to do that. Lexi’s eyes glow as she joins the fray, but she’s firing off ear lasers when she does. Why is Bugs glowing like he was using superpowers back there?

There’s a simple answer to that, of course. They thought it would make his fight look cooler. As far as cool bunny-perpetrated sword fights go, though, this show’s a long way from being Usagi Yojimbo.

Wile E. uses the liquefy-things-gun again, melting Dare’s hover rock so he lands on the shield and is turned to stone again. We don’t see what they do with him this time, but after the idiotic way they disposed of him last time, that’s probably for the best.

Jimmy Olsen shows up yet again and praises Daffy’s latest triumph, but Daffy gives Wile E. all the credit this time. Even going so far as to say he was the one really responsible for Slasher’s capture, too. Yeah, that’s craven of Daffy, but…that’s what Wile E. wanted in the first place. Recognition for a victory he thought belonged to him (but you know my feelings on that already). Why he be lookin’ so uncertain, then? Hell, when they watch the broadcast later, Wile E. even says “all’s right with the world” now.

Right before he gets a funeral bouquet from Slasher too and almost gets squished by a falling refrigerator. Daffy even mocks him like the others mocked him before, until they read the post script that Slasher’s still coming for him too.

And even if we're going with the assumption that these falling objects are actually hallucinations brought on by fear, what sense does it make that two guys are hallucinating the exact same thing at the exact same time? If this doesn't make any kind of sense then it's goofy instead of scary, and that ruins the whole bit.
 

Wile E. and Daffy goes with Bugs to make sure Slasher’s still in jail again, only for his cell to appear empty. Until he gets up from behind the bed, claiming to have been napping. On the floor. And having us believe that that tiny bed could hide a cyborg with shoulders as wide as any three linebackers put together.

Ha ha yeah no.

But the show has to embarrass itself again by having Bugs notice that Slasher’s taken up knitting to kill time during his incarceration. This is supposed to be a clue that something’s up and that Bugs is a master detective, but it really works better as an indicator that Slaher’s tough enough to do this and still be considered a badass.

Daffy and Wile E. are suitably spooked to try to hastily move to another planet under the guise of taking a vacation. Taz asks if he didn’t just take one, and the only thing I think he could be talking about would be the episode I skipped, “Apocalypso.” And that doesn’t really count as a vacation because like I said, they ended up fighting space amazons with plant control powers.

Bugs reminds them they saw Slasher and he was definitely still in jail, even if this completely flies in the face of his Master Detective-ness which was tipped off by the things he noticed during those two check-up visits. Bugs even seems only mildly suspicious despite their story being completely transparent, especially when they run off in a panic when they’re almost creamed by a desk and safe at the same time.

Daffy and Wile E. hide out in the sewers, but if you know anything about superheroes and cartoons you’ll know that’s about the first place a bad guy would look for them, and Slasher shows up almost instantly. Wile E. seems to have been banking on that as he set a trap for Slasher where a big metal box drops on him, but the super genius forgot to lock the door and Slasher just walks right out. He doesn’t even rip it open with super strength.

They run around a corner to get away from Slasher, he grabs Wile E., and Daffy hits him in the face with an egg that does absolutely nothing but surprise him enough to drop Wile E. so they can seriously run around the exact same corner using the exact same animation they just did. Wile E. finally does something relatively smart and reminds Daffy to use his Aqua Dense attack on the sewer water. He batters Slasher with it for a few seconds before Bugs and Lexi suddenly show up and use the liquefy things gun to freeze Slasher solid. And a sheet of ice totally sounds like something that would stop a guy strong enough to weaponize large parts of skyscrapers and throw heavy objects for miles and through the roofs and upper floors of buildings alike. Doesn’t it?

How did the rabbits find them? Lexi’s “sonic hearing” let her hear Slasher’s whistling. That is, the eerie background music that played whenever heavy things were about to land on somebody. Oh isn't that just the epitome of fourth wall humor. Gag.

But how did Slasher bust out of jail, you ask? “He didn’t,” Bugs smugly replies. It was really his mom in a robo-suit the whole time, which she was able to build because she’d also made her son’s bionic appendages. Hence the pills, the knitting and the pink toothbrush. The knitting I’m almost prepared to let go, but this show comes off as pretty shallow for seriously saying the pink toothbrush was a clue.

I mean, seriously? A pink toothbrush was really the giveaway that it had to be Slasher's mom in there??

Oooh aren't you smart?

Jimmy Olsen’s there, even, and gushes over Bugs’s detective prowess at this fantabulous deduction. Daffy tries to claim credit, then freaks out at hearing eerie whistling, evidently thinking someone else was throwing large objects before since Slasher and his mom are both in jail. The others leave him and Jimmy down there to face it by themselves. Dicks.

One disc to go!

Loonatics Unleashed - The Family Business (Snark)

Skipping another bland episode, this one being “Apocalypso,” where Lexi’s befriended by a bunch of plant-controlling space amazons. You can see the problem right there. They based an episode around Lexi, who has nothing to base anything around with one exception: her gender. And the only thing it references about the franchise’s roots is this:

Oh, and maybe it's worth mentioning that the amazon queen was voiced by Serena Williams. What in the hell, am I right?

But don’t worry, that’s the only episode this season has that doesn’t merit coverage.

This time things begin with a frustrated pizza delivery boy shooting his gooey calorie trap into a dumpster to get even with his boss. It lands next to a glowing piece of future garbage. Our young wastrel reacts thusly: “Whoa, dude! That’s some gnarly trash! Far out!” They had to have been trying to make him sound brain dead on purpose, right? The space garbage turns out to be a robot space parasite of some kind that attaches itself to him.

The Loonatics jet out to answer some kind of “food fight” emergency call, and I notice that Roadrunner, who, again, can fly by flapping his arms or something, has the same flame effect around him as the others have with their jetpacks. Is he somehow immune to the heat his speed generates, or were the animators just lazy?

The site of the disturbance proves to be the pizza place the kid was just leaving, and as the Loonatics show up the doors open and tasty but disastrously unhealthy pies start to fly out.

Bugs cuts loose with some of his trademark wit. “Looks like a UFP! Unidentified Flying Pizza!” Oh, that Bugs! Except if you can tell it’s a pizza it’s not exactly “unidentified,” is it?

But wait, it gets better! Bugs does a bunch of his fancy-schmancy acrobatics to dodge the barrage of pseudo-Italian junkfood. “That was a close one!” he remarks as the onslaught ceases.

This actually happens.

“Closer than you think,” says Daffy, who got hit. Does he die? No, because those were fncking pizzas! Taz intercepts another salvo by eating them! All the somersaults and whatnot aren’t that cool when the consequences for taking a hit are getting somewhat messy. And all he had to do to get out of the way was move two feet to the left.

Inside, the owner, who’s kinda the guy from “One Froggy Evening,” is buried underneath more pizzas. Bugs quips again. “Prepare for battle! Looks like a cheese war to me!” How is that even a joke? What does it mean?

The Loonatics recognize the delivery boy, whose parasite-born powers let him telekinetically fling pizzas around, as they’re evidently regulars here. He recognizes Daffy too, as the one who never tips. But if Daffy’s right about him being “the lazy slacker who’s always late with our pizza,” once again the show’s attempts to make the water fowl look like a jerk fall flat. You don’t get rewarded for doing a crappy job, and having a boss you don’t like isn’t an excuse, sorry. Daffy gets smashed with an oven and covered in pizza again before landing in Taz’s arms, and “comedically” nearly eaten.

“You can munch on Duck later!” Bugs interrupts. And what the hell does that mean, Monsieur Bunny? I’m already reminded of how I hate you because you’re stupid and not funny, now you’re just sounding like an asshole, saying he can eat Daffy after they don’t need him to help stop this emergency, even if you don’t mean it.

And pretty freaking lame emergency. One pizza restaurant’s at risk. Seriously.

By the way, the video on my DVDs is already glitching. They came sealed and they aren’t even scratched or smudged. I’m not surprised at all.

Eventually our heroes are able to end the fight (and thank god, because even this show’s never had a lamer villain than one who tries to kill people with pizzas and condiments) when Bugs laser visions the parasite from behind and makes it come loose. I’m not sure he knew that would happen, though, and if you were a jerk like me you could read that as our honorable leader hitting someone while their back’s turned. Again.

The kid pleads innocence, saying he was controlled by the thing. “Let me guess, another accidental supervillain. What’s next, villains with notes from their parents?” See? That’s how you do an amusing quip.

At HQ, Wile E. goes into exposition mode and tells us that the space parasite is, well a space parasite. It gives its host telekinetic powers but at the same time gives their id free rein. Moreover, if it had been attached much longer, it would’ve been entrenched so deeply it would have to want to leave in order to free the host. I don’t know why they’re bothering to tell us this, it obviously won’t have any future bearing on anything.

Lexi rejoices in how their rescue prompted the restaurant owner to give them a ton of free pizzas as a reward. Yeah, that sounds like something the guy who tried to placate the super-powered kid trying to murder him by offering him a fifteen minute break every other week would do. He just dressed up the splattered pizzas from the fight and gave them to the Loonatics to get rid of them. You know it, I know it.

Things are interrupted when they notice Roadrunner zipping around trying to clean up the base because his family’s coming for a visit. And from the look of things, the meteor gave the whole family super-speed powers, except for his overlooked kid brother Rip whose inborn slackerness shielded him.

The really fast way they talk is portrayed as being really grating on everyone else, but…I don’t know, I just didn’t think it was most of the time. Maybe John Moschitta was just too big a part of my childhood between Transformers and Micro Machines commercials, or maybe the Loonatics are just assholes like I might’ve intimated once or twice.

Besides, I don't know, I always got the idea that Roadrunner's fast speech was supposed to be his quirk. The funny/endearing thing that makes him stand out in the group. I never really got the sense that it was supposed to be annoying, unless maybe it was when he wouldn't shut down a long ramble, and even then he was gently quieted down by the others. Daffy's supposed to be the annoying one, after all, right? This feels very out of left field.

Mr. Roadrunner introduces himself to the Loonatics and amuses non-fans like myself when he gets their names wrong. “Dislexy”’s probably the funniest. But then…he proves to be racist toward coyotes. No, really. He immediately thinks of Wile E. as an unwashed animal, if not the other Loonatics’ pet. And this is never resolved.

“Pa,” as I’m going to call him for short, tells his son “you’ve always been the best at whatever you set your sights on.” Like delivering sandwiches late, maybe?

And they don’t mean being a superhero, either. When Ma tries to give him a few bucks to tide him over til his next paycheck, Roadrunner says being a Loonatic isn’t a paying position. Which leads to Pa deriding what he does as “volunteer work” and bringing up the real reason for their visit: to rope him into joining the family business inventing and selling gadgets.

Rip’s largely overlooked by his parents because of not being as great as his brother (whatever), and wanders off, then asks the Loonatics about the parasite. “Just one of those dangerously powerful bio-tech brain parasites from outer space.” Which you’re sitting out on the coffee table, you morons. I remember that kind of crap happening on The Ripping Friends. But that show, being complete and utter whale shit aside, was a full-blown superhero parody and not an actual superhero show with some modest comedic leanings like Loonatics Unleashed.

Roadrunner takes his parents into Wile E.’s lab as part of the tour, a disturbing trend that only gets more disturbing in a few episodes. Pa accidentally activates a molecular reconstructor gun that shrinks him to a few inches tall until Wile E. pushes the same button and changes him back.

Trying to impress his dad, Roadrunner shows off something he’s been trying to invent. Trying being the active word, since it’s a half-finished little doll called a “Robo Amgio.” Pa wants him to come home for a while and they can finish it together, but Roadrunner begs off, citing the fact that he’s a member of a superhero team.

Bugs is supportive. “If any world-ending crises come up, we’ll give you a buzz.” Like a bunch of flying pizzas. That warranted all six of them, remember? And they knew what was going on before they left, judging from Daffy’s “food fight” remark.

At Casa de Roadrunner, Rip suggests his brother market this thing to kids instead of adults, but Pa shuts him up. They do get the Robo Amigo long enough for it to say “I make anything fun” then explode. When Roadrunner repeats Rip’s idea of marketing the Robo Amigo to kids, he eats it up, but attributes it to his crime-fighting progeny. Maybe Pa’s just a good old-fashioned ass. Getting so you can’t swing your dead cat in this show without hitting one.

Roadrunner just isn’t smart enough to have this thing done by Christmas like his dad wants, though, and begs Wile E. to help. They do this on the roof of the Roadrunner family’s house, which is on top of a gigantic butte so that Wile E. can comically fall off several times. At least they’re remembering he’s the one with super-fast healing powers so as to enable this kind of humor, not Daffy.

Oh, and remember how Pa’s coyote racism never gets resolved? Neither does the fact that Roadrunner lied to his family and got help to build something to earn their approval. Needless to say, the finished Robo Amigo becomes the Turbo Man of Acmetropolis.

I love to read COMIC about CHARACTER who has STORYLINE.

A monster shows up on the news, and this show’s so freaking lazy it’s nothing but a slightly modified version of the ones from “Attack of the FuzzBalls.” Roadrunner, of course, leaves to help his buddies corral it.

Even with them being out of focus you can tell!

With his brother out of the house, Rip notices he left a backpack with his keycard to Loonatics HQ sticking out. This is all he needs to get in, not just to the building but Wile E.’s lab and make off with the parasite. Guess they got rid of that facial scanner thingy from “Acmegeddon.” Not a bad move with how easy it was to fake out, but just a swipe card? That’s it? In this hyper-advanced future society, that’s what their security consists of now?

Roadrunner apologizes to his teammates for not showing up sooner to the monster, but they of course wave it off like good friends, not like superheroes who recognize that a delay of seconds or the absence of one guy can make all the difference in terms of damage and body count.

But as they haul the monster away, Roadrunner sees a Robo Amigo tearing the head off a girl’s doll. What he doesn’t see is Robo-Rip floating eight feet above and in front of him, making the robot evil with his new powers.

And Rip doesn’t stop there. Robo Amigos run rampant. And the reporter relaying consumers’ dissatisfaction is Misty Breeze from all the way back in “Weathering Heights,” same VA and everything (and there’s that lady from “Attack of the Fuzz Balls,” “Stop the World I Want to Get Off,” and “I Am Slamacus” again). But they don’t say that’s her, and she was a weather forecaster and not an on-the-spot reporter, so let’s harp on lazy reuse of background character designs one more time.

Roadrunner asks Wile E. for help, asking not to have to beg, and the joke is Wile E. has to point out he already is begging. Wile E. does agree to help, “but only because I want to know how something I designed broke down.”

Roadrunner thanks him and we get this little bit of dialogue:

Roadrunner: “If you weren’t a coyote (and a guy) I’d kiss you!”

Wile E.: “Lucky for me, I’m both.”

Uh…yeah. Right.

The Robo Amigo they examine is perfectly normal, except maybe not the remote control, because when Wile E. tries that it goes flying around like a ballistic missile and knocks him off the roof again. But this time he defies expectations by having brought jet boots so he doesn’t fall. Although if you were paying any amount of attention you already noticed, and probably expected something along those lines. Hilarity, thy name is not Loonatics Unleashed.

They come to the conclusion we already know, that somebody else is controlling the Robo Amigos. Who happens to be right there! Rip brags about how evil he is and how their dad has to acknowledge him after he wrecks Acmetropolis.

Speaking of, in downtown Acmetropolis something throws a car into a building, and Bugs astutely observes, “This can’t be good.” You don’t say, carrot breath.

Rip announces himself. “The rip is on a tear!” Oh man, I should’ve been counting these idiotic quips from the beginning. And only the Loonatics themselves know who this guy is, not the “people of Acmetropolis” he calls out to, so they wouldn’t even get it and would just think he’s an idiot.

Roadrunner again tries to apologize because of all the time he’s been spending with his family (which if you think about it’s what aggravated the issue with his brother that led to this), but again Bugs forgives him. “We all have family problems sometimes.” And it would fill out this show so much if maybe that figured into other plots once in a while. Nope? Didn’t think so.

Wile E. informs the others it’s not just Rip having the ability to control toy robots. He also stole the molecular reconstructor that made Roadrunner’s dad little. “What’s he gonna do? Turn Robo Amigo into Tiny Amigo?” Lexi asks incredulously. Number one, how would either she or Rip know about that? Neither of them was there. Number two, if she does know about that, is she truly so dumb she doesn’t think that something that make someone small and then big again could just make something big in the first place? Its real name is even “the molecular reconstructor,” not the “make things teeny gun.” So saying, Rip does turn a Robo Amigo into a Ginormous Amigo to better work out his daddy issues.

“Little brother, you need to chill! Try some yoga!” Bugs warns, and Rip replies by having his Amigo smash a building to try to bury the Loonatics in rubble. That’s probably how I’d react if he aimed some of his lame-ass banter at me.

Bugs laser visions the parasite while Lexi and Wile E. distract Rip, but this time the parasite doesn’t come off. It’s been on too long to force it anymore. To my immense satisfaction if no-one else’s, Ginormous Amigo punches Bugs out of the air before Rip makes another giant plaything.

But they remember they said the parasite can still disconnect…if it wants to. Roadrunner grabs Rip and then forces him into a nosedive at supersonic speed toward the street, scaring the parasite into separating and forcing the Ginormous Amigos that were pursuing them to crash into what had a second before been a very busy street with no consequence.

Rip apologizes and says he didn’t mean what he said, and Roadrunner corrects him that yeah, he did, and unspoken but still true, everybody harbors thoughts like that of some kind. Roadrunner, meanwhile, apologizes for not listening better before. He kinda did, but their dad attributed the idea Rip did have to him.

That, however, does get resolved. Kind of. Pa shows up and explains “I used Rip’s first edition idea and now the Robo Amigo’s back in business.” First edition? What first edition? The one that does one thing before exploding? Oh yeah, it’d get less bad press than the ones who run around and destroy things, but parents are probably hoping for more from their $600. And how was that Rip’s idea?

Things return to a Misty Breeze newscast outside a toy store, but this time Robo Amigos are awesome again. So awesome a kid steals hers on camera. Okay, that was actually kind of funny. Even Daffy has a Robo Amigo, but he tells it to get back in its box because it’s more valuable to collectors that way.

But forget about that, bet you’re just dying to find out what happened to the parasite. A flying saucer lands and a purple alien kid gets out. The parasite’s some kind of lost pet, it seems, and it sinks its teeth into her head just like her dad’s has done to him. And neither becomes a telekinetic psychopath, the dad instead just giving a “kids will be kids” remark before they fly back off into the great beyond.