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Good afternoon and happy Monday! Welcome to a brand new week of the Daily Cartoon on Car JoeMez! Before we get started, make sure you check out the latest episode of our show,
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Let’s get started. I shouldn’t have to do a lot of background on Thundercats. It was a massive hit, had an incredible toy line and is one of the most memorable series of the 80s. The coloring and early use of anime-like animation sequences made it attractive and exciting to kids of all ages and having a fucking kick-ass theme song just cemented the whole deal.
Welcome back to the beginning of Week 4! Still a long way to go in the series, but we inch closer to being able to start on a better show soon enough. Hopefully.
For now, we’re about a third of the way through this series, however, and I’ll be doing my best to get us to the finish line.
Also, a thank you to those of you actually reading these reviews. There’s been a nice uptick in the website traffic and that is much appreciated.
And with that said, welcome to Ep. 22: “The Secret of Life”!
Plot:
Welcome to Egypt. At this point, Matt and Scott Trakker have had to get a massive amount of page refills for their passports. It’s absurd. Unless they’re breaking international law which I wouldn’t put past them because of how effortless they make it seem when calling in other MASK agents and their vehicles at the drop of a hat.
But, yeah, today we’re in Egypt where local english-speaking scientists are trying to decipher ancient hierogylphics on a tablet that will lead to the tomb of King Tuttibon where the secret of life can be found.
After the scientists feel they’ve reached an impasse for the evening, they decide to call it a night and continue later as they have a busy day ahead of them. Upon closing up for the night, a mummy emerges from a carcophogus (a word I always love using because it reminds me of Thundercats playset that was Mumm-Ra’s tomb), steals the tablet and leaves through the window like my favorite Something Corporate album.
I don’t know how many of you had that, but this was seriously one of my favorite playsets as a kid.
Back at the ranch, the Trakkers are on an archeology excavation with the scientitsts from the night before when word comes down that the tablet has been stolen. Matt runs off to help and leaves Scott and T-Bob to dig as he calls in the MASK agents best suited for this mission.
Once again, we’re left without Brad who may have finally told Matt Trakker to go fuck himself and that his music comes first and Matt can’t tell him what to do because he’s not his dad.
Turns out that VENOM are behind the theft of the ancient tablet and bring it to a local bad guy who will translate the markings and then split the fee 50/50 for whatever it is that the secret of life turns out becoming.
MASK is able to track them down and we get a battle through the tourist section of Egypt which includes VENOM blowing up a pyramid. I’m sure that went over well with the locals. No matter, VENOM has the translation and has left the local Egyptian bad guy to be collared by MASK.
They arrive at the tomb of King Tuttibon where they recover what looks to be some kind of green fucking broach. Apparently, that’s what this entire episode has been built around. A goddamn broach. MASK comes by and is like, “Oy! Give us that fucking broach!” VENOM is all like, “Eyy! This is our fucking broach! Bugger off!” So MASK knocks them over and takes the fucking broach. The bring it to local Egyptian english-speaking scientist who is able to find the secret of life from this fucking thing.
The secret of life…is Love.
Honestly, VENOM wouldn’t have been able to sell that for fucking beans.
Thoughts:
Look, I’m shitting all over the goddamn broach, but, for the most part, this episode was OK. Nothing too great, but I did enjoy the mummy and blowing up the pyramid. Not an awful lot here to get invested in, but that’s par for the course in MASK to this point.
PSA:
Be careful dumpster diving. You never know what kind of hazardous things can be in there. Solid advice. And yes, this is actually a real thing.
Final Grade:
**. There’s been better, there’s been worse. This wasn’t one of the worse ones. At least you were able to have some fun with this one.
So that’s today’s episode. We come back tomorrow with more MASK fun.
❤ Joe
Welcome back to another episode of MASK. Two full weeks into this with plenty more to go, but you know how things end up going by quicker than you imagined.
Today’s episode is titled, “Assault on Liberty” which is another really intense title for an episode. Like I said before, some of these titles are just really great and it’s a shame that the writing doesn’t live up to them in a lot of cases.
That seems to be the case in a lot of older cartoons, however. There wasn’t a lot of episodic storytelling as most shows featured one and done storylines. Multi-parters, such as the initial five-episode debut of “The Adventures Of Teddy Ruxpin” or the multi-episode arc in “Thundercats” where they discovered that there were more Thunderans who had lived were awesome in the way they kept you wanting more simply because it was so different from the standard fare being presented at the time.
I’m very vocal about my love of “The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes” and the reason for that has a lot to do with the episodic storytelling of the first season. It also served as my introduction to almost all things Avengers since I was never a big comic guy, but the writing was awesome and, as the story progressed, you couldn’t help but want the next episode right away.
We’ll see if we get any multi-part arcs as we go (I genuinely don’t know whether we do or don’t) with MASK, but for now, here we are finishing out our second week!
Plot:
Matt, Scott and T-Bob are at a live magic show at the Statue of Liberty where Wondro, the magician, will attempt to make the Statue disappear. He does indeed make it vanish, but when he attempts to bring it back, the Statue is gone and his magic proves futile.
Trakker begins talking with government officials to figure out a way to find the statue when it is shown on the news in the middle of a cornfield in Iowa.
MASK is dispatched to Iowa, but it becomes immediately evident that it’s a well-disguised trap by VENOM. It’s not a real statue, but a hologram and the area is rigged with explosives to try to put an end to MASK foiling VENOM’s plans over and over again.
Gloria is able to use her mask to provide a force shield to protect MASK from the explosion, but Miles Mayhem is demanding $3 billion in ransom money in a three-hour timeframe which gives MASK almost no time to get back to NYC from Iowa.
Oh, I’m sorry, did someone say “Ransom”?
Somehow, MASK is able to get back to NY in time to try to thwart VENOM, and are able to find that the Statue is being hidden underground in an unfinished subway tunnel. MASK heads there to find it, but Matt finds an energy signal in a building in Manhattan that he follows up with.
The subway tunnel is rigged with traps and explosives designed to keep MASK away, but they’re able to soldier on only to find the Statue rigged with explosives and an antenna that suggests that it will be detonated remotely. Matt traces the energy signature and surprises Miles and Vanessa in a control room.
MASK is trying desperately to deactivate the bombs attached to the Statue and Gloria is using her mask to try to scramble the radio frequencies from allowing the remote detonator to work. MASK barely beats the clock as they are able to use Lifter to throw the final bomb harmlessly into the sky just before the time runs out.
Thoughts:
Easily the best episode to date. There were genuine stakes and VENOM, ON MULTIPLE OCCASIONS, tries to kill MASK with bombs! MASK is able to pull through with teamwork and ingenuity, but not before having to overcome what appeared to be a stacked deck against them. A very nice roller coaster of emotions in these 22 minutes.
PSA:
Matt and Scott recall an earlier PSA about crossing the street from the corner, but add that wearing bright clothing makes you more visible to drivers, especially when it’s dark out. Solid advice.
Final Grade:
**** on the Meltzer! Like I said, easily the best episode. Had a heat, babyface fire, a hope spot and a comeback. Great elements in a great episode.
Tomorrow we begin Week 3 as we continue the march to 65! This was a great way to close out the week and hopefully, we get a lot more like this one. See you tomorrow.
❤ Joe
Car JoeMeZ 