GIDGET’S TALESPIN REVIEW
The Road to Macadamia
Rating: 4 out of 5 Krakatoa Specials
Summary
Baloo and Louie stop
at Macadamia (a small “Arabian” desert kingdom) to deliver a shipment of ten
sacks of chocolate-covered nuts to a run-down kingdom. After several
attempts to collect their pay, they are constantly turned away without pay by
the royal chancellor --- Trample and his goon-guards --- so they sneak through
the gates and into the palace disguised as fortunetellers.
Gidget: Shades of the gypsy routine in
Disney's Robin Hood?
They overhear him arguing that since the tax money is missing, that the
villagers are ready to revolt. Of course it's just a scam into
order to convince King Amuck that he's too incompetent to rule Macadamia.
They go gaga over Princess Lotta Lamore and use their guise as mediums to use
their mystical 'powers' to find the treasure and are welcomed as guests of the
King. And they get the best suite in the place --- Trample’s room!
Gidget (as Trample):
Don't you dare touch my Legos! Leggo my Legos!
Despite their cozy
digs, best friends can be ruthless --- especially when it comes to a pretty
face. As in For Whom the Bell Klangs, the guys fight over the
lovely Princess Lotta and engage in several humorous hijinks when they're not
trying to find the treasure. She's very diplomatic in the face of what is
really sexual harassment, IMO. Unfortunately, this only fans the fires of
animal lust ---in a very funny scene that you have to see to believe (see Funny
Stuff).
Gidget: What is it with these
guys and their attraction to vixens?
Louie: Well, you
don't expect me to go for my own species, do you? We orangutans are
pretty darn fugly!
Baloo:
Self-acceptance is the first step to enlightenment.
Louie: Hey, I'm the
seer with the pearls of wisdom, not you, Hairy!
Lotta
detaches herself from their eager hands and begs them, "Don't fight!
You see, I'm very fond of you both. You're so brave! (To Louie)
You're so strong! (to Baloo)"
Gidget: Oh, aren't we
feminine! (*gags*)
"You're so right!" both chorus.
"But you don't work together, you'll never find the treasure!"
"You can count on us!"
"Thank you." She kisses Louie on the cheek, then Baloo making
them melt into puddles of goo. "and you!" With a flirty
sigh, she leaves them alone in their suite.
Baloo starts primping in the mirror, parting his hair in the middle.
"Looks like I'm just her type!"
"Yeah, dumb, dark and hairy! I'm the one with the
magic."
"Good! Then why don't you just disappear?" (he jams Louie's
turban over his eyes)
Two notes are slipped under the door, both from Lotta, inviting them to meet
her for a romantic rendez-vous in the garden. The lovestruck louts walk
right into an ambush and find themselves dodging arrows and falling
statues. The assassins in the garden block the door, but our heroes
finally escape to their room, terrified for their lives, shivering in each
other's arms. Lotta enters, asking, "Uh, am I interrupting?"
They quickly disengage themselves and turn on her.
“Now back off, Lotta
Hari!" Baloo thrusts the note in
front of her accusingly. " You set
us up.”
"But that isn't my handwriting. Please, you have to believe
me!"
Gidget: A weak defense, considering how they just
met her. How can she expect them to know
her handwriting from someone else’s?
She pleads for them to stay and search for the treasure, but they've had enough
and start to pack. Quite by accident, an encounter with a snake
exposes Trample as the thief.
Later
they discover that Trample plots to take over the throne and marry Lotta.
The missing tax money is found cleverly hidden in his room and his plot
revealed: He stole the tax money to force King Amuck to step down and to
pay for his reign as king.
Lotta is elated. “I don’t know what I can do to thank you!”
Louie puts arm around
her. “Well, I’d be happy to prepare a
short list.”
Baloo nudges Louie
out of the way: “And when it comes to
‘short’, he’s an expert!”
Louie jerks Baloo’s
hat over his eyes. “Isn’t it time for
you to hibernate?”
King Amuck says,
“Well, I have a way to thank them.”
Trample and two former rhino guards in convict stripes carry in a big
‘Ark’-like chest.
Baloo and Louie’s
eyes pop. “What do you think? Gold?
Jewels? Or stupid amounts of
money?”
Gidget (as Amuck): My daughter! Go
with the nice men, sweetie. Don't forget your sweater.
Baloo and Louie are barely contain their glee.
“Stupid money!”
Louie sucks in his breath. “It’s---!”
Baloo finishes, disappointed, “…exactly
$192.12 and ten sacks of nuts. King
Amuck wasn’t as crazy as we thought.”
"Want to go back to Macadamia?”
Baloo snorts. “Aw, no. I’ve had my fill of those nuts!”
“We going out on that joke?”
The pilot shrugs. “Looks like it.”
Gidget: That last scene kind of took me out of the story --- it's like
they're aware that they're in a show and know we're watching. Otherwise known as the Fourth Wall.
Quibbles and Bits
Gidget: I get the feeling that there’s only three
subjects (not counting the chicken) in Macadamia. That town is dead. There’s
nobody to rule. Trample wouldn’t get a
kingdom, he’d get a bridge club.
Gidget: A vixen is the offspring of a rabbit?! If Lotta’s mother was a vixen herself, why
didn’t she eat King Amuck after they were done? Like a black widow spider, you know?
Cody: Maybe
she tried and he ate her instead. And here’s a quibble: Why would they go through so much trouble
for ten measly little sacks of nuts?
Baloo wanting his money, I could understand, but Louie making a big fuss
over such a paltry shipment, even if he did
pay for it, was a little odd.
Gidget: Maybe they were really hungry? Seriously,
Rebecca would give the Big Guy grief if he returned empty-handed... unless this
adventure took place before Baloo lost his business to her. What
about Louie's hair? If it's fuller (as in For Whom the Bell Klangs)
then it was probably in the pre-Becky days.
Baloo and Louie’s creative attempts to enter the kingdom walls, disguised as Floss-o-matic toothbrush salesmen.
Louie chimes in, “Can we see the monarch of the house?”
As they’re thrown over the walls, they halt in mid-air in time for the
longsuffering camel to step out of the way --- just like a Warner Bros.
cartoon.
Gidget: Is it me, or does
Trample remind anyone else of Jafar? (Aladdin).
Cody: It’s just you. ;) Naw, he really does. Especially with the whole ‘marry the
princess and take over the kingdom’ scheme.
Gidget: At least he didn't hold the world ransom for... (pinky
smirk)... one million dollars!
Louie and Baloo
mistake the guards as concierges and Baloo’s first words to Trample, all robes,
turban and self-importance: “What are
you, the doorman?”
Running gag —
starving villagers chasing a chicken brandishing cutlery.
Louie’s mystical ‘powers’ (eg: guessing the card Baloo is holding and
predicting the distance to Macadamia by peeking at the gas gauge).
Louie to Baloo,
proving his ‘powers’: “Okay, I’ll prove
there’s no hanky in my panky --- blindfold me, man!”
Psychotic guard roars
in Baloo’s face, nearly taking it off.
Louie: “Has he had his shots?”
Louie and Baloo’s seer identities: The
Amazing Louie and his assistant Babaloo!
Cody:
Nice I Love Lucy ref, wasn’t it?
Gidget: Don't you mean I Love Louie?
The guys
scramble into position when Lotta knocks on their door.
Baloo and Louie: Battle stations! (when Lotta enters, she
finds Louie sitting cross-legged on a pillow and Baloo (what’s he doing again?)
Lotta, perplexed by
Louie’s communing with the spirits --- namely, moaning over his crystal balls…
um, ball --- asks Baloo:
“What is he doing?”
Baloo: “An out-of-body experience. And no wonder --- with a body like his.”
Louie deliberately
aims his crystal ball at the light, shining it into Baloo’s eyes, blinding him
and singsongs: “Better out of my body
than out of your mind!”
Baloo and Louie
mooning over identical notes from Lotta to meet her in the garden.
Baloo: “Oh, a note to me… from Lotta!”
Lotta walks in on
Baloo and Louie in quivering in each other’s arms after they’re nearly killed
in the garden.
“Um, am I… interrupting?”
Baloo and Louie’s
rivalry over Lotta – especially bouncing on the couch!
The guys primping for
a date with Lotta. Baloo combing his
hair and Louie squirting perfume under his armpit like deodorant.
Louie inhales the
perfumed paper mightily, snorting like a bull.
“I got one too!”
Snake is crushed by
the chicken and villagers.
Quotes
Baloo to guards: “Handle with care,
guys. I’ve been known to tip heavily.”
Louie (mutters): “Not in my
lifetime, man.”
Gidget: I think he means the
scales, Louie.
Baloo: After being bounced from the walls of
Macadamia: “Oh, I must be alive,
‘cause I hurt too much to be dead.”
Lotta’s reaction to
Chancellor Trample’s proposal of marriage (to save the kingdom):
Lotta: “He’s a loathsome, festering
carbuncle on the face of our beloved kingdom!”
Trample:
“What are you really trying to
say?”
Lotta: “Touch me and you’re dust, buster!”
Schroeder: Note "dust
buster" pun...
Baloo: “I like that gal’s spunk!”
Louie: “The rest of her ain’t bad either, man.”
Gidget: I hope he didn’t mean ‘spunk’ in the ‘Sex in the City’ sense of
the word.
Cody:
Hmmm…makes you
wonder, doesn’t it?
Gidget: A riddle for the ages...
Trample:
“But your majesty, the people are ready to revolt!” (tugs string
attached to a hidden record player, activating it to play, “Down with the
king! Down with the king!”
Baloo:
“The only thing revoltin’ around here is that cheesy chancellor!”
Louie’s magic incantations:
“Mumbo-jumbo and a side of gumbo!
I can see it in the stars!”
Louie: “I predict you can’t do this to me! I’m a famous medium!”
Trample:
“Good. I like my mediums rare.”
Trample to rhino guards:
“Fetch!”
Baloo and Louie: “This is us --- leaving!”
Gidget as Snagglepuss: Heavens to Mergatroid! Exit, stage right!
Louie: "Let's
make like a nose and blow!"
Louie: “There’s guards behind us, guards ahead of
us…”
Baloo: “Sounds like we’re about to become a hero
sandwich.”
Gidget: Awww… without Lotta?
Cody: If only Katie had been
there…;)
Gidget (as Baloo): Yeah, don't forget the tomatoes!
Joanna: I think those melons would roll out onto the floor.
Louie: “C-can’t you charm a snake with
music?”
Baloo:
“Yeah! I’ll sing!”
Louie:
“I’ll take my chances with the snake.”
Baloo:
“….half-gainer
hike. You be the bait.”
Louie:
“How come I’m always the bait?”
Baloo:
“’Cause ‘bait’ rhymes with ‘ape’.”
Louie:
“Can’t beat your logic.”
Louie’s habit of
riding piggyback in both ‘Klang’ and this one:
Louie: “That sand is mighty hot, and my tootsies
are mighty particular.”
Gidget (as Baloo): “Imagine taking him on a
camping trip!”
Gidget: Same reason why Baloo’s always the taxi --- ‘cause he’s got the
biggest spare tire! (Klang ref)
Schroeder: And he's better upholstered. :D
(Louie, eyeing the
swords): “Whoa! Mama didn’t raise me to be no cold cuts!”
While the boys
prepare an ambush, Lotta plays the decoy.
Reclining on the divan, she looks up at the guards and purrs
seductively, “Looking for me?”
King Amuck: “Ooh!
Is the circus in town?”
Cody:
Did you see that
indulgent look Lotta gave her father?
I’m beginning to think that she’s
the one who really runs things.
Gidget:
I think so too. She's the smartest one in the show.
King Amuck: “Well… anything to say, Trample?”
Trample:
“Convict me! Jail me! Torture me!”
Baloo, Louie and Lotta: “Sounds fair!”
Commentary
Gidget:
The dialogue sparkles here, especially Louie’s (eg: “Circle the wagon! Retreat to fleet! I almost
got turned into a Louie-kabob!” My
favorite scene is the one where Baloo and Louie and Lotta are bouncing all over
the couch while the guys fight over her. Their rivalry nearly turns
into a ménage a trois!
Cody: Thank goodness they’re clothed.
;) But I agree with you. Dialogue is wonderful, as is Louie’s cheesy medium act. And, surprisingly, this isn’t bad for a
non-Kit episode. I’d give it a three. J
Gidget: It’s basically a comedy of errors, but I
give it a four because it’s one of the best episodes showcasing Baloo and
Louie’s friendship. The other is For
Whom the Bell Klangs. These guys
are forced to deal with a foreign element --- namely females. When women are absent, things are rosy, but
throw in bombshells like Lotta Lamour, Katie Dodd, and even the evil Kitten
Kaboodle, and all hell breaks loose.
The episodes A Touch of Glass and For a Fuel Dollars More
are somewhat darker; but the problem remains the same --- in both, Rebecca is
the catalyst for the disharmony.
Although Baloo and Louie don’t fight over her, they are put in the
position of taking sides. When it comes
to business (Louie’s Place or Higher for Hire), it becomes a bone of contention
between them. Both have competitive
natures over the women who cross their paths, even though they subconsciously
know that it’s a just a game. I really
don’t think Baloo and Louie think beyond the present, so planning a future with
Katie or Lotta doesn’t even enter their minds --- they just want to take them
dancing and maybe steal a goodnight kiss.
February 2003