Does anyone else remember this show? Because I do, and it was actually pretty good. In fact I’d go so far to say The Weekenders was the most underrated show in the entire One Saturday Morning line-up. I think it may have been glossed over because while its contemporary shows were very energetic, The Weekenders was incredibly mellow. It’s animation style was also not always the most pleasing to look at. But in lieu of that, the show was surprisingly funny and clever.
It was about four twelve year old kids hanging out and getting into morality tales on the weekends in a beachfront California town called Bahia Bay. Much like Recess represented its own eponymous period as a freedom during school, this show portrayed weekends to much the same effect, but restricting each episode to the time frame of a weekend, beginning on Friday and ending on Sunday. Thus it’s the rare thing in a kids sitcom in that we never see the characters in school. The characters are as follows: Tino, the goofy and neurotic de facto lead, Carver, the wannabe cool doofus, Lor, the athletic and impulsive tomboy, and Tish the artistic, intelligent daughter of immigrants. Again, while they are stereotypes, the show breaks the mould with them once in a while. Lor’s tomboyishness doesn’t keep her from hiding her crush on a popular boy, and Tish certainly has an aversion to overly pretentious art. Phil LaMarr is great as always, Grey DeLisle is pretty good in one of her earliest voice acting roles, and Kath Soucie suits Tish so well, she’s probably my favourite character, certainly of Soucie’s. Jason Marsden is perfect here, and despite major roles in A Goofy Movie and Spirited Away, Tino is strangely the part I remember him most for. Tino often goes to his mum for advice and in addition to being one of the few cool parents in cartoon shows back then, the show uses her from time to time to give nice insight into single-parent households, and her relationship with Tino is one of the show’s best. Additionally it’s worth noting one unique feature of the show in how the characters actually had a rotating six or seven outfits. It’s a neat detail you don’t usually see animated shows go the extra mile for.
The humour is what I remember most from The Weekenders and while there were a number of duds and jokes that didn’t really go anywhere, the writing felt smarter than it needed to be. Each main character had funny personality quirks, but there were also funny side characters, including a needlessly creepy girl, an older version of Ralph Wiggum, and a pizza guy who changes the theme of his restaurant each week. There are genuinely good one-liners in this show, a lot of sarcasm, and a degree of wit not always present in other series. I think because the animation style doesn’t lend itself to much physical humour, it prompted greater effort in this department. But that’s not to say there aren’t physical jokes. For instance Tish’s method of attracting a man in one episode is absolutely hilarious. The occasional surreal joke really stuck with me too, like Martin Van Buren repeatedly riding a toy train in Tino’s dreams, Carver improvising a bad family holiday, or how creepy Tish’s parents are when she’s not around.
The humour of this show definitely stood in contrast though to some of its structural problems. For one thing, Tino almost always opens and closes the episode by talking to the audience, setting up the dilemma and then reiterating the lesson, which makes absolutely no sense in the episodes where he’s not the focus. You could also argue the three-day format is a bit limiting. And kind of like Doug, the stories are never that interesting on their own. Thankfully, this series has much funnier characters.
In fact The Weekenders is probably the most flawed of the good shows from the early era of One Saturday Morning, but I still enjoy it. Even without the nostalgia, it’s a decent show that’s smarter than it needs to be and took a few chances. Also, it’s theme song was sung by Wayne Brady -isn’t that cool?
Buzz Lightyear of Star Command:
In terms of TV shows based off Disney movies, Buzz Lightyear of Star Command kind of makes sense. Even in his own universe, Buzz is a fictional character, and you get the impression throughout Toy Story that he does belong to a very popular kids TV series. So, it’s kind of natural to show fans what that series would be. What is a space ranger? What’s Star Command and the Galactic Alliance? And most importantly, what makes Buzz Lightyear so popular a character, that other toys would be threatened by him?
Well, this show doesn’t quite answer that last one, but it does try to be different from the average kid sitcom nature of a lot of its One Saturday Morning predecessors. The series was set up through a direct-to-video movie subtitled The Adventure Begins, which is actually a good pilot even if it’s pretty clichéd. Buzz Lightyear is a space ranger working for the very Starfleet inspired Star Command, with his crew going on adventures and foiling the plans of the Evil Emperor Zurg (what exactly is he emperor of?). Though Tim Allen reprised his role for the pilot, he was too expensive for the series itself so we got Patrick Warburton instead. Patrick Warburton is awesome, but he’s not really right for Buzz. He does his best and the character isn’t ruined or anything, but Warburton’s presence definitely gives him a largely comedic tone, which I don’t think accurately represents who the figure of Buzz Lightyear is supposed to be. That doesn’t matter a whole lot though, because his crew is much more interesting. Mira is an alien princess who actually left royalty to be a space ranger. She’s voiced by Nicole Sullivan and she has cool ghosting powers. Booster, voiced by Stephen Furst, is an over-excited janitor turned ranger. But the best is easily XR, a robot who starts as just the typical hyper-intelligent AI, but after the little green men reprogram him, he becomes a wisecracking foil to the rest of the crew. He’s voiced by Larry Miller and he’s great! Another surprisingly terrific character is Zurg played wonderfully over-the-top by Wayne Knight as an in-joke to Toy Story 2. This Zurg is way better than the Darth Vader clone from that movie, and he’s often hilarious in how cartoonishly evil he is.
For what it is, a sci-fi adventure comedy series, this is a perfectly decent show that’s fun and has a good sense of humour. I feel like it should have tried to take itself a little more seriously given the grander universe and all, but it does touch on a few of those points, like in an obvious addiction metaphor episode. Maybe the direct-to-video movie just set it up to be something a little more than what it turned out to be. But the humour does work. XR and Zurg are frequently hilarious, I love the subtle joke that we never see Buzz outside of that purple full-head cap he wears, even when he’s doing something as trivial as hosting a barbecue. I also like how the show is cast with a lot of Seinfeld secondary players: Warburton, Knight, Miller, and John O’Hurley in a recurring role as Mira’s father. The opening also gets a laugh out of me as it always includes the characters from Toy Story watching the show, and Woody’s uninterested expression as Buzz turns on the TV cracks me up every time.
Buzz Lightyear of Star Command doesn’t quite portray the great kids’ icon Buzz supposedly is, but it does its job well and was a good change of style for One Saturday Morning. It’s a very good gateway for shows like Futurama and the Star Trek franchise. More importantly, it may have started a shift in content for One Saturday Morning, expanding beyond the typical kid sitcom formula. Beginning next week, we’ll see if that persisted and how well it paid off.
Comments
Post a Comment