Gidget's TaleSpin Review
The Ransom of Red
Chimp
Rating: 3 out of 5 Krakatoa Specials
Summary
You know this will be a laughfest when the title card is a still picture of
Louie’s amorous Aunt Louise pinning a terrified Karnage to the floor (tidbit: the only other episode with a title card is
Jolly Molly Christmas (Molly’s staring dreamily into a snow globe). Baloo and
Louie are relaxing with junk food, orange fizzies and Tiddly-Winks when they
hear the radio announce the arrival of Louie’s rambunctious Aunt Louise, a
daredevil pilot and five-time winner of the annual Air Race, on her way to this
year’s competition. Loud, pushy,
man-hungry, yet strangely endearing, this old gal is more fun than a barrel of…
never mind.
She proceeds to turn Louie’s
Place upside-down (wild dancing that loosens the floorboards, baseball with
coconuts, to make ‘snow’ for indoor skiing, racing gorilla birds). Everybody in the joint loves her.
Although Louie loves his aunt,
her wild antics (not to mention the fact that she calls him the hated name,
‘Louis’) soon drive the peace-loving ape to the all-time low of tricking her
into leaving his island. He creates a
hoax over the radio, pretending that Jacques Toujour had tauntingly challenged
her to race, if she isn’t ‘chicken’.
Outraged, she sets out to teach him a lesson.
Meanwhile, Don Karnage is
happily sunbathing until his crew informs him that they’re bored and want some
action. He sends them on an errand to
kidnap Aunt Louise and hold her for a $5,000,000 ransom.
When she’s captured, Aunt
Louise manages to: start a food fight, race fighter planes inside the hull,
give ‘pirate’ lessons (the ‘HAR!
Mercy!’ bit), hijack the Iron Vulture and terrorize Don Karnage. When Baloo and Louie set out to save her,
Karnage is so desperate to escape her passionate pursuit that he pays them to take her back (at a big discount!). Our heroes drag the lovelorn woman away,
sobbing, “You don’t understand, Louis!
This is true love!”
Back at Louie’s, Aunt Louise
drowns her sorrows in another one of Louie’s sarsaparillas. Jacques Toujour, a French pilot, stops by
the bar; Aunt Louise is infuriated by his so-called arrogance, then intrigued
by his continental accent. As she
carries him out, he protests, “But I have an air race to attend!”
“Not anymore, my little
croissant!”
Quibbles and Bits
Drives me nuts to watch her carelessly drop money and throw it around (my
personal peeve, not a quibble, because it does suit her character)
The black mole on her face keeps
moving from her upper lip to chin or disappearing altogether
A couple of times, the wonderful Jim
Cummings (voice of both Louie and his aunt, as well as Karnage) slips briefly
out of character when doing Aunt Louise’s voice:
“Play it again, man.” (when drowning her sorrows in the bar at
end, her voice veers from feminine Louise- falsetto to Louie-speak). Who cares?
This is a Cummings show and he’s great.
During Baloo and Louie’s game, the smooth
voice of the radio announcer (Ed Gilbert, voice of Baloo) informs us that the
song was by “Happy Harry Howley and His Hawaiian Boys” (sort of like Baloo’s
fictional rich uncle in Save the
Tiger: ‘Happy Huey Hartley
Hoover’. Thanks to Jeff for that
hard-to-catch bit of trivia.
Aunt Louise’s airplane, the Pink Piranha is
decorated with shark’s teeth (grrrr!); well, it’s feminine yet tough (unlike
the Rebecca’s nightmarish paint job of the Sea Duck in P & L) (brrrr!)
At the party, the song Aunt Louise plays on
jukebox is the swingin’ Sing, Sing,
Sing, Sing!
Karnage wears an old-fashioned bathing
costume… he’s quite buff
After threatening Aunt Louise’s life over the
radio, a seagull lands on Karnage’s head, prompting angry, very-hard-to-hear
muttering: “Sacramento…California…Del
Mar.” Obviously an in-joke. Thanks to Jeff for the translation.
Party
Guest Cameos:
-that dog pilot
from P & L (who gives Baloo the message from ‘Little Britches’)
-partying lady pig (also appeared in Louie’s Last Stand)
-Oscar
Wiggerstomper (from Bearly Alive)
-if
you look quick, a big brown bear dances behind Baloo and Louie at the
party. He’s a burly fellow who wears
the same flight cap (except brown with a burgundy flight jacket and blue
shirt). I swear it’s a brown
Baloo!
The way Aunt Louise feeds the jukebox is cool
– she rapidly feeds a whole roll of coins into the slot
After Karnage locks her in cell, she uses a
hairpin to pick the lock (the way she does it is very subtle… considering how
unsubtle she usually is)
Baloo borrows $5 from Louie (to bet on
gorilla bird race); at end of episode, Louie gets $5 back (Karnage pays him to
reclaim his aunt)
Funny Stuff
Baloo to Louie: “This is the
life. A bag of chips, an orange fizzy and
thou.” They’re playing a game of Tiddly-Winks, using their substantial bellies
as game boards.
Louie (panics) “Run for your
lives! It’s Aunt Louise!” (he and his staff dash around putting up
camouflage, ringing a fire siren and Louie dives behind potted plants wearing a
pith helmet)
Karnage (sunbathing, notices a cloud
blocking the sun): “Something is casting a shadow on the splendor of my radiant
tan. (Mad Dog opens fire with a bunch
of guns built into the cliff wall and blows the cloud away) (to his men): Thank
you. You may turn me over, now. Now, now, now… what is keeping you held
up? Do you want your captain to become
French toast?”
Pirates use huge paddle to turn
Karnage over like a pancake
Karnage calls his men, ‘my lethargic
losers’ and ‘my fierce minions’
When Mad Dog complains that they’re
bored, Dumptruck says, “Yeah, we haven’t done any good pirate stuff lately.”
Aunt Louise (angrily ranting against
Jacques Toujour): “If there’s anything I can’t stand, it’s somebody with a big
mouth! What in the world…!” (beak of
Iron Vulture opens, capturing her plane)
The squawking sounds of Karnage
fighting with a seagull over the radio make Baloo and Louie think he’s
torturing his aunt:
Louie: “Okay, Karnage, you win!”
Karnage (surprised) “I do? Oh, but of course! I always do!
Louie blows his nose on the hem of
Baloo’s flight shirt (ew!)
Louie drops coconuts bombs from the
Sea Duck, provoking Karnage:
“You are supposed to be bringing me $5,000,000, not ruining my
lovely paint job!”
Mad Dog (indignantly): Quiet! You’re supposed to be begging for
mercy. Can’t you see we’ve got you at
bay?
Baloo comforts Aunt Louise: “Aw, now, Aunt Louise, there are other
sharks in the sky!”
Don
Karnage/Aunt Louise exchanges are
very amusing:
-DK: Cyst and disease! You are my
captive! (Karnage-speak for ‘Cease and desist!’)
Aunt Louise: Then captivate
me!
-DK (hears explosion): What in blue
blazes was that?
Aunt Louise: (dreamy sigh): The pounding of my heart.
-DK (in horror, as Aunt Louise pursues
him) Madam! Are you in possession of
all your marbles?
-DK: Madam! Get a grip on yourself!
Aunt Louise: I’d like to get a grip on you!
Aunt Louise’s nicknames for:
Louie - Louis, Baby
Baloo – Kid (when she arrives at Louie’s)
Karnage – Sweet little pirate, my
little passionate fajita
Dumptruck – You big Swedish meatball
-Jacques Toujour – My little croissant
And of course: HAR!
Mercy! HAR! Mercy!
Commentary
Louie’s parties are always fun
to watch. Definitely up there as one of the funniest episodes I’ve seen. Aunt Louise is a wonderful comic character
(and probably the one person that Karnage is afraid of). This is a Jim Cummings tour-de-force… he
voices Karnage, Louis and Aunt Louise, sometimes all at the same time.
March 2000