CODY’S TALESPIN REVIEW
All’s Whale That Ends
Whale
Rating: 2 out of 5 Krakatoa Specials
Summary
Cody: I don’t know about you, but I felt like I’d
entered the Twilight Zone or something.
Baloo’s saving money and wanting to work? And Kit’s wanting a whale for a pet?
Gidget: And Kit’s such a
cheapskate here --- one measly coin?
What about another hundred smackers like in Double or Nothing?
(as Baloo):
Heh-heh… thanks, kid. But I don’t
think your bottle cap collection will help.
(as Kit):
Hey, you’re the one with the bottle cap collection! (Pizza Pie
in the Sky ref.)
Cody: Hey!
After all they went through in that episode, would you honestly be
willing to loan Baloo more money?
Gidget as Baloo: Please, Kit! If ya lend me the dough, I'll be
able to send for a kit that grows real live sea monkeys!
At Higher for Hire, Rebecca’s booked
the afternoon solid with people who want to fly around and look for Moby
Dimple, a whale that escaped from Seymour’s See More Seaquarium. Our boys hear that there’s a big reward and
decide to go after it themselves.
Gidget: Baloo falls in the
water and the people go crazy, attacking him with their nets and harpoons. “No!
Not me!”
They find the sleazy park owner,
Seymour, in a bad mood—until he hears their news. Upon learning that they can take him to Moby Dimple, Seymour
readies his plane, which includes an illegal Smith and Wesson Oil double barrel
harpoon gun, and follows our boys back to the cove. Seymour uses the harpoon to snag the whale (C: Don’t worry ya’ll—this is Disney so no
animals were hurt in the making of this scene. ;P)
Gidget: Frankly, I'm
surprised the harpoon isn't armed with a rubber toilet plunger.
In gratitude for Baloo and Kit’s
service, he gives them a couple of tickets to the afternoon show so they can
get their reward. But their eagerness
is short-lived when they see the show and Seymour’s shoddy treatment of
animals. Baloo offers to buy Dimple
with the reward money, plus and the money he’d saved up for the Sea Duck. Seymour scoffs at them, saying, “That whale
brings in fifty times that every day.”
That, however, is not the end of things. Baloo and Kit leave and return with Inspector Burrough from
ACHOO—the Association Concerned with the Happiness of Oceanic Oddities. Seymour’s flunkies race ahead of the group
and fix things up so that Burrough is completely fooled.
A perplexed Baloo says, “I don’t get
it. Seymour must be runnin’ some kind
of scam.”
Burrough sniffs. “If ‘scam’ stands for Super Clean And
Marvelous --- then you’re right.”
Having failed to get Seymour shut down
legally, our boys decide to do something just a little illegal: Steal
Dimple.
They buy an Acme Whale Catcher with
their stashed cash, Wildcat installs it, and they go back to Seymour’s where
Kit, dressed as a seal, makes for the whale tank. Along the way, Seymour catches him and makes him take part in the
seal show. Kit is not a team player and he ruins the act. Just as Seymour figures out that Kit’s not a seal, Baloo comes to
the rescue. Kit races to the whale
tank and tells Dimple to jump, --- the whale obeys and lands on the whale
catcher. Seymour gets in his plane and
gives chase. Baloo flies through Cape
Suzette and past Inspector Burrough’s place, where the otter is enjoying a cup
of tea. As Seymour goes by, Burrough
gets a load of the illegal Smith and Wesson Oil double barrel harpoon gun and
calls the cops, telling him smugly, “I knew from the start there was something fishy
about you.”
Gidget:
Not bloody likely. After all,
you overlooked Seymour’s bribe and were fooled by those cheap props during the
inspection. You were totally snowed.
Cody:
Not real bright is he?
Gidget: You
gotta get up awfully early in the afternoon to fool that Seymour!
Meanwhile, Baloo and Kit have taken
Moby Dimple back to the cove where they found him, stuck a palm tree in his
blowhole (Dimple: It's just
not the same...), and are
pretending to fish. A seriously steamed
Seymour lands and demands that they hand over the whale. Before things can get uglier, the cops
arrive and arrest Seymour. After they
leave, Baloo and Kit bid farewell to Dimple and head home.
Gidget: When
Baloo says that his stash isn’t quite enough to buy back the Sea Duck, but it will
be, he winks, then the winking eye does this weird eye roll, like he’s Marty
Feldman (the British wall-eyed actor in ‘Young Frankenstein’ and ‘Blazing
Saddles’).
Cody: LOL! I didn’t even notice that! But, yeah, that whole scene was really weird
for me. I’m trying to block it out of
my mind. ;P
Gidget:
When Kit takes a small fish out of the sardine can to dip it into peanut
butter, the dead fish look like they’re sleeping peacefully with little smiles
on their faces. Real fish cannot blink
or close their eyes at all.
Cody: What is Kit’s problem? He wants a whale for a pet? He’s been
brainwashed!
Gidget:
And what the heck on those weird little bumps on Dimple’s head? I suppose they’re barnacles, but they make
him look deformed.
Cody:
Disney’s token try at realism? I
dunno. Maybe he has cancer.
Gidget:
How can Baloo lie in a hammock sipping a drink in one hand and fly-fish
with the other? You need to be standing
up to cast the rod properly --- not to mention have clear space behind
you. He could so easily have caught Kit
in the eye with the hook. I remember
being taken fly-fishing with my dad when I was about twelve. I cast the line backwards, tugged and felt a
sharp pain in my side. Yep, I’d hooked myself.
Cody:
LOL! Well, at least you didn’t
have to throw yourself back.
Gidget: It would have been cruel to the fish. ;-)
Cody: Since when is Baloo model employee of
the month? He’s saving money and
showing up for work a whole five minutes early? He’s been brainwashed, too!
Gidget (as
Wildcat): At least his dirty mind is clean, man.
Cody: Baloo has a mind?! ;)
Gidget (as Baloo):
Hey, I represent that! I ain’t
just a pretty face, y’know.
Cody:
Suuuure. ;)
Cody: When Seymour goes by helicopter to
catch Moby Dimple, he uses the Smith and Wesson Oil double barrel harpoon
gun—with a spear. How come the spear
didn’t go through the whale’s tail?
Instead, the rope attached to the spear loops around his fin underwater.
Gidget:
And why didn’t Dimple just drag him and the helicopter underwater? Dumb whale.
And how can anyone find a whale in five lousy minutes?
Cody: And when Seymour gives them free
tickets to the afternoon’s show so they can square up the reward, he throws
them in the water. Wouldn’t they be
ruined?
Gidget:
I suppose they can blow-dry them with the Duck’s propeller. Frankly, it wouldn’t surprise me if they
did.
Cody: Nope. (as Baloo): Stand clear,
kid! I’m firin’ up the props!
Gidget:
Baloo and Kit were dumb
to climb on a high diving board to say good-bye to Dimple. Why not do as the inspector did when he
asked the whale if he was happy? Stay
on the ground, you morons! And don’t
sharks eat whales? Dimple is
obviously a baleen-eating mammal… they would have eaten him and those
bears. And why isn’t Dimple pissed off
that the bears captured him for Seymour in the first place? Why
didn’t he didn't just say, 'the hell with it' and let Baloo and Kit get eaten
by the sharks? And why would three sharks with razor-sharp teeth
be afraid of Dimple --- sure, he's big, but they could easily have chowed down
on whale meat. Sharks are notoriously vicious and do attack whales. I’d have let them get eaten.
(as Dimple): “Mwahahaha! This time… it’s personal!”
Gidget:
When Baloo decides to spend the money he and Kit saved for the Sea Duck
on Dimple, he says, “And I can’t think of a better way to spend it.” As much as
I care about humane treatment to animals, I’d still spend it on a house or
something.
Cody:
As much as he gripes about that stupid plane, I’d definitely have
thought he’d spend the money on that.
But this is the “everybody act completely out of character” episode,
remember?
Gidget: When Dimple lands onto the Whale Catcher, his weight should
have crashed the Sea Duck. And he’s
lying a little too close to the twin propellers too.
Cody:
Maybe they shaved those barnacles off.
Gidget (as Dimple): Look at me! I can go to the prom after all!
Neat Little Details
Cody: ACHOO stands for Association Concerned with the Happiness
of Oceanic Oddities.
Gidget:
Nice anagram (rolls eyes)
Kit:
“Yuck! Bait in my peanut
butter!”
Baloo:
“Yuck! You got peanut butter in
my bait! What a waste of perfectly good
Triple-Action twisted wrigglies!”
Gidget:
Wow… Trojan does it again.
Cody:
Huh. Is that what Baloo takes on
the honeymoon?
Gidget (as Rebecca, standing in her bridal
finery, yelling at the departing Sea Plane): “You dumb bear! What
about me?”
Cody:
It’ll be more fun for him without you, sugar. ;)
Gidget:
When Seymour drags Kit-as-a-seal away for the act, he says, “Come
on, Roland, it’s show time.”
Cody: Kit has an
allergic reaction to raw fish—the clock swims before his eyes. J
Louie: Man, I know the
feeling. Anchovies… brrr!
Cody: Ahh… TaleSpin and running gags.
I think the Mouse has something against seafood—both Louie and Kit are
allergic to some form of it—and then there’s that whole fertilizer thing.
Cody: Echoes of Stormy Weather—Moby Dimple has to jump through the flaming Hoop of
Doom. Ya think Kit was having
flashbacks? J
And Baloo sounds an awful lot like Daring Dan when he says, “It’s all
part of the act.”
Gidget:
Speaking of which, the scene of Baloo and Kit at the whale show opens,
with a very creepy flag --- a deformed-looking fish with the words ‘See More’
on its side. It’s like the artist
painted it while it was still waving in the breeze. And when Dimple jumped through Seymour’s flaming ‘Hoop of Doom’,
I was reminded of the ‘Flaming Tunnel of Fear’ in Stormy Weather. Seymour and Daring Dan are very similar
characters, I think.
Cody:
The Smith and
Wesson Oil double barrel harpoon is a play on Smith and Wesson guns.
Gidget:
And Wesson cooking oil.
When Moby Dimple makes his big appearance, Kit says the dumbest thing:
“Hi there, whaley!”
Cody: Arrrgghhhh! What is he --- five?
Gidget: When Dimple first jumps out of the water,
why aren’t the guys scared? I sure
would be!
Kit falls into the ocean after Moby Dimple rams the Sea Duck. Then, he comes up on the whale’s back and
says, “Can I keep him, Papa Bear? Please?”
Gidget: Keep
him? We're not even sure we want to keep you. :-)
Baloo laughs. “Keep him? You’d need a fishbowl the size of Thembria!”
“But he’d make a great pet!”
Kit says defensively.
Cody: Stop your whining, kid. *searches for whatever Disney used to
brainwash Kit*
Baloo: “Say, that guppy’s as friendly as a puppy!”
Kit bids the whale farewell. “Bye, big
guy.”
Gidget as Baloo:
“Whadda ya mean, kid? I ain’t goin’ anywhere.”
Cody (as Kit):
Gee, I wish you would. Then
maybe I could actually find food in the refrigerator.
Gidget (as Baloo):
Aw, sorry, kid! (rummages in
shirt pocket) Here, have a tic-tac.
Baloo lands at the Higher for Hire docks and he and Kit step onto the
dock to find Rebecca waiting for them.
“Kit ‘n Baloo reportin’ for duty, Miz Cunningham. Spit-shined, lookin’ fine, and back a whole
five minutes early!” Baloo is obviously
proud of himself.
Rebecca (unenthusiastically): Big
whoop. And wash that spit off.
Baloo: So does that mean I get a
raise?
Rebecca (purrs): As soon as I slip into something more
comfortable, Butterball.
Baloo: Hot diggity!
Upon learning that the people lined up at the dock are looking for a
missing whale from Seymour’s See More seaquarium, our boys use their “four
minutes of free time” to go investigate.
Seymour is delighted that they’ve found the missing whale and explains,
“Moby Dimple is just too young to understand that a tame whale can’t survive in
the wild.”
Kit frowns a little. “I don’t
know. He looked okay to me.”
“Which are you going to believe—me or your own eyes?” Seymour asks smoothly as he prepares his
helicopter.
Gidget: LOL! That’s my favorite line!
Kit notices an oddity on the nose.
“What’s this doing here? A Smith and Wesson Oil double barrel
harpoon? Those things are illegal!”
“Yeah, and they’re against the law, too,” Baloo says.
Rebecca: No, but I never wanted him for his
mind, anyway. Yoo-hoo! Butterball! Come to Honey Lips!
Cody: Not the brightest, is he?
(pauses) Wait a minute, I’ve already
made this comment. Nobody’s
really bright in this episode.
Not missing a beat, Seymour replies,
“Only if you hunt with them.
Y’see, this is a museum piece from the seaquarium’s collection.”
Cody: (as Seymour) And if you buy that, I’ve got a great deal on this
diamond mine in Timbukthree.
Gidget: What I don’t get is, if he claims it’s a
museum piece, why do they believe him? You don’t bring a museum piece for
nothing --- you leave it in the museum.
Cody:
Seymour hypnotized them. That’s
it.
As Seymour’s showing them around the park, Kit and Baloo can’t help but
notice that it isn’t an animal friendly environment.
Kit steps over to the seal pool and looks at them worriedly. “Golly, you could fry an egg on those
seals. They could use some shade.”
“Shade costs money, kid,” Seymour snaps.
Gidget
as Baloo (steps in front of the seals, casting
a huge shadow. He holds out his hand): All right, I’ll do it. How much do ya pay?
Cody: LOL! (as Seymour): All the anchovies you can eat. ;)
Gidget as Baloo:
And how about them eggs? I’m
hungry!
Gidget: I liked it when he said, “Shade doesn’t grow
on trees, y’know.”
They pass a disgusting fish tank—it’s so dirty that the fish has to
hold his nose—and Baloo delivers a gem.
“That tank’s dirtier than last week’s laundry. You ever clean these things, Seymour?”
Cody: That’s a little rich coming from Baloo, don’t you think?
Gidget: Yeah, I thought so, too. And when Seymour bans the pair from the
park, Baloo says, “Whew! That guy’s about as pleasant as a pair of sandpaper
underpants.”
Hey, maybe that’s why he doesn’t wear pants.
He’s been traumatized by the one time he tried wearing them!
Cody (as Baloo):
These things chafe my willy. (Robin Hood: Men in Tights ref)
Gidget (as Rebecca): Oh, poor Baloo! I’ll get the ointment!
Baloo and Kit return to the park with an inspector, who Seymour
promptly tries to bribe.
The inspector, a squirrel, briskly introduces himself. ”My name’s Burrough.”
”Rhymes with ‘thorough’!” Baloo adds.
The inspector returns the money wordlessly and the group takes a tour of the
park. As they near the seal pool, Baloo
and Kit are baffled.
“I like a man who shades his seals, Seymour,” Inspector Burrough says.
“An hour ago, this place was in worse shape than Wildcat’s lunchbox.”
Baloo peers at the shade, which has suddenly appeared, thanks to Seymour’s
goons.
“Fast growing tropical hybrids, sir.
I have special fertilizer,” Seymour says smugly.
“That I believe,” Baloo
mutters.
Gidget: I’m surprised that Baloo is disgusted.
This is the guy who eats week-old sandwiches he finds in the cockpit. And what is
it with TS and fertilizer? Baloo’s
smelly friend Fred tries to get Becky to agree to shi---um, ship it in A Touch of Glass.
When they look at the tank —which is suddenly squeaky clean—Baloo
voices his confusion.
“In my business, we call that clean, not to be confused with
dirty.” Burrough chuckles. “But I don’t want to give away too many
trade secrets.”
Gidget: LOL! I love that one too. It’s
almost a throwaway line, said very casually. When I think
about it, though, I start to choke.
Cody: Yep. It’s one of the best lines in this episode. *grumbles at Disney’s
treatment of Kit*
Gidget:
Seymour tried to save a dying seal show by having Kit, disguised as seal
perform a number on the horns:
“How about a little classical music?”
Of course, Kit’s song is very off-key…
Seymour is incensed. ”That was
classical, all right --- classically bad!”
Baloo and Kit have bought an Acme Whale Lift and Baloo is getting out the money
to pay for it when Wildcat and Kit come in, brandishing a bill.
“There’s a guy out there with a really big package and a really
big bill!” Wildcat says.
Gidget
as Baloo (glumly holding a bill): “Hey, my package ain’t that big!”
Cody as
Rebecca:
“C’mere, big boy. Let’s measure
it and find out.”
“Wildcat, tell the deliveryman we’ll be there in a minute,” Baloo says.
After Wildcat has assembled the Whale Lift, he calls excitedly, “Hey,
guys! I did it! So --- exactly what did I do?”
“That, old buddy, is the Acme Portable Whale Lift,” Baloo says.
Gidget: Acme Whale Lift --- how very Warner
Bros.
“Gee, all we need now is a whale,” Wildcat observes.
“You can leave that to us, Wildcat.”
Baloo starts for the plane.
Kit follows him. “Yeah, we know
just the spot to catch one.”
“Just so I don’t have to throw ‘em back!” Wildcat yells over the sound of the engines. More quietly, he adds, “’Cause they’re
heavy.”
Gidget: I love Wildcat. J
Cody: Only one with any
sense in this whole episode. And that’s
saying something.
Cody: All I can think of when I see this episode
is “Free Willy.” It’s not particularly
memorable, Kit acts like a nitwit, and I have an awfully hard time seeing Baloo saving money. The only reason I gave it two Krackatoas is
because Kit’s in it (even if he’s acting goody-goody) and it does promote
humane treatment of animals. Hmmm…can’t
think of much else to say about it. It
was a definite “fluff” episode.
Gidget: I’d give it two
Krackatoas too. Not that I enjoy
‘message’ shows at all, but Seymour and Inspector Burrough are great one-shot
characters. Kit acts as goofy as Molly
did in Mommy for a Day, falling for
an improbable pet.
Cody: I think the writers got together and said,
‘Okay, let’s see how we can make these guys act completely out of character.’
Gidget:
I liked the ending, though. When
Kit says, “Now he has the whole ocean to play in” the Sea Duck flies into the
horizon, it’s a typical lovely sunset (like Old Man and the Sea Duck,
Macadamia or Stormy Weather).
It was definitely mediocre,
although not quite as bad as the worst of them all... maybe Flying Dupes.
Cody:
Yeah…but the
pretty ending doesn’t make up for the crappiness of the rest of it!
January 2003