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Original Air Date: November 20, 1987 Review completed September 24, 2007 "Tangled Web" Punky is having an ongoing debate with Henry - she thinks she's old enough to see the R-rated "Slime Wars in Space", but Henry doesn't agree and won't take her. Cherie and Margaux (who've seen it twice each) don't agree with him and hatch a plan to get Punky there during school hours. She claims illness at the end of lunch and goes to the theater in disguise while Henry is working. The problems: Henry gets called in the middle of a job about Punky's illness, Punky's poor disguise gets a ticket taker fired when he buys it, and Cherie's attempts to lie for Punky almost get Henry to start a police search when she doesn't make it back before him. Needless to say, Punky gets in a lot of trouble. Hearing Punky and Henry arguing over something like this is nothing new, so I'll turn attention to the gag of Brandon getting peanut butter toast stuck to the roof of his mouth. Looked more like he just didn't want to swallow. I got time to figure out what was going on, though, because that bit went on for like two minutes. Okay, that was a blown joke. For something more interesting, there's Cherie and Margaux getting along again to help Punky get to the movie. They've teamed up before, but not since Margaux's "more of a prick" makeover in Season Three. That's sort of interesting... but since it won't get played up in future episodes in this season, that leaves me scratching my head a bit. Maybe it's set-up for Season Four. Another thing that gets introduced for the last time here: That mall is the Simpson house! (Or the Futurama ship.) It looked one way in the first season, looked different in "Changes", and has changed again. Now it's smaller and has a movie theater across from Henry's studio. That has to be a major renovation, since the last time we got a good look at that spot, it was some clothing stores and an appliance place. Don't theaters need a lot of space? (Does it only have one screen?) Also, in the vein of ridiculous supporting characters, that ticket taker looks like Simon from The Chipmunks. It's funny that I brought up The Simpsons last paragraph, because this is definitely the live-action version of that squeaky-voiced kid that mans every minimum-wage job in Springfield. But why, why, why is he not wearing pants?! Do I really want to know where the writing room got that one from? Blah, these things are starting to look like stream-of-consciousness. Alright, one more and we'll get to a point. Why is Cherie lying when Henry is about to call the police?! That would probably be the time to drop the act right about there. Gah, Cherie really comes off as dumb as a post sometimes in this season, and all indications are that it's not going to get any better... That's enough play-by-play. Let's get to a real point. The problem with this episode is, really, not quite the episode's fault. A lot of the bits in this episode could be funny had this aired in Season One, back when they were fresh. But now it's near the end of Season Three, and we've seen it all before. And strangely enough, I just can't blame the writers. The series had already been through a cancellation scare once, and was just surviving in syndication. Under the circumstances, and noting that even home VHS was a new thing, who'd think that anyone would notice recycled gags from three years ago? If anything, it exposes the main problem with the reviews, since I have to take the episodes out of their original context and tie them together in ways they never were intended to fit. So, taken on its own terms, the episode is just ridiculous. It's the kind of ridiculousness that goes around to being really good. It's the kind of ridiculousness that defined shows like Masters of the Universe and later episodes of Family Guy, where you know that it stunk sometimes but had to keep watching to see what they were going to pull out of their butts. That's the same thing here: You can groan with about two minutes of Brandon trying to eat a piece of toast, but get a big "?!" look on your face later on when the ticket taker inexplicably reveals that he has no pants on in the booth. You have Henry taking on a hammy old magician in ways too familiar for the fanboys, but then laugh like heck at Punky trying to pass herself off as having fought in the French Revolution. So do I pass the episode or rag on it? Well, the opening moments gave us an apple-eyed forum avatar and one of the glibbest ad-libs (?) from Henry in ever. That's enough for a pass, I guess. It's too late in the run to be really funny otherwise, but it's okay. Good enough. So-so. [white noise out] - Jimmy Vibes PS: I just realized, looking at the last review when I was plifering its HTML to frame this one, that I took a big shot at this episode in last time's intro. I'll take that back now, because I guess it wasn't that bad. There's episodes later that'll make me questions my sanity, but I can't count this one in for any big shots. Not that anyone's really offended. In fact, who's reading this far after seeing "oh, he's just covering his butt for that crack from last time"? Hedorubakudan, Fushigibana. Hedorubakudan. |