Monday, October 13, 2008

Adventures in Care-a-lot Episode 17

Surprise Day - "Oopsy, put the tires back."
On a bright Tuesday morning, Harmony heads out to Rainshine Meadows, intending to pick some bumbleberries.  She sees Surprise along the way, who does not do anything surprising.  Turns out she was acting as a decoy for Share to come out and surprise Harmony, who is not pleased to learn that it's a Care Bear Holiday, Surprise Day.  She manages to wriggle out of going to Care Square and beats a hasty retreat back home, much to Share and Surprise's, well, surprise.
While Harmony evidently doesn't like Surprise Day, everyone else enjoys it.  Oopsy and Wingnut try to surprise Grumpy, only to be surprised by him instead, thanks to his robot body double.  While he crows about never being surprised on Surprise Day, his robot breaks down, and he heads back to his garage to fix it.  Meanwhile, Funshine shows up and instantly notices that Harmony is not around, as does Cheer, who is really working that bush costume.  They decide to go see what Harmony's up to.
And she's up to hiding at home.  Surprise Day makes her so nervous that she starts talking to herself just to let the viewers know why she hates the holiday.  Just as she assures herself that staying home will keep any and all surprises away, there's a knock on the door.  She manages to convince Funshine and Cheer that she's just working on something for Surprise Day, and they let her off the hook.  As they leave, they run into Share, who is bringing some kind of musical flower to Harmony as a surprise.  Harmony is initially glad to see her friend, until Share loudly yells, "Surprise!"  Her last nerve snapped, Harmony finally stops dancing around the fact that she hates Surprise Day and takes it out on Share, rejecting her gift.
Later, Share cries by the fountain in Care Square, until a sparkly breeze blows by and sets the fountain spouting, with Surprise right in the middle.  Surprise notices Share's tears and asks what's wrong; Share spouts out verbatim what Harmony told her.  Over at Grumpy's garage, he and Funshine and Cheer muse over what to do about Harmony.  Cheer and Funshine go to talk to her, and Grumpy wards off another surprise attack by Oopsy and Wingnut.  Back at Harmony's, her friends' pleas for her to come out fall on unsympathetic ears, but the sight of a teary-eyed Share melts Harmony's heart (or at least placates her paranoia).  The two explain their POVs on the issue and make up.  Funshine asks for some clarification, and Harmony expands on her dislike of surprises, i.e. there might be a bad one coming her way.  Cheer understands her concern, but points out that she herself has yet to have a bad surprise.  In the background, Oopsy and Wingnut, having given up on surprising Grumpy, take turns surprising each other.  This reminds Harmony of the Surprise Day's potential for fun, and Funshine recommends she try being the surpriser instead of the surprisee.  Harmony still isn't sure, but Share suggests they collaborate on a surprise to make it easier.
To get an idea for the kind of surprise they should do, Share and Harmony observe other surprises in action.  They watch Funshine surprise Cheer with a book full of butterflies, and Harmony starts to get the idea of surprises being fun because they're unexpected.  She's still nervous, though, so Share suggests picking someone to surprise to give them a goal.  Harmony picks Grumpy, despite Share's warnings that he's the hardest bear to surprise.  After all, she has a plan...
Later that they, Share and Harmony wait behind a bench to put their surprise in action.  Harmony has finally gotten into the swing of things, and is excited rather than nervous.  Once Grumpy reaches the singing flower they set out, Harmony and Share jump out and surprise him, then fall prey to his robot body double, as Oopsy and Wingnut did before.  Harmony falls over from the surprise, and Grumpy immediately starts backtracking ("I didn't know it was you that I surprised!").  His contrite babbling is interrupted by Share and Harmony laughing at him and surprising him for real this time.  Share reveals that they got the scoop on his robot body double from Oopsy, and Grumpy congratulates them for actually surprising him.  Harmony admits to still being leery of surprises, but at least now she can see how they could be fun.  Grumpy thanks her for getting the jump on him for a change, and the two resolve to come up with even better surprises for next year.

This episode was all kinds of cute.  Mostly due to some very good expressions in the animation.  I can understand where Harmony is coming from, though.  I'm assuming that Surprise Day is the Care-a-lot equivalent of April Fool's Day, and I always worry about people trying to trick me.  Most people don't bother, though.  

Tempus Fugits - "Wingnut, I'm not a window!"
Over in Care Square, everyone is busy cleaning and gardening, and painting and all other kinds of work (Champ is apparently scrubbing the grass.  Wonder what happened there?).  Funshine tries to get out of painting by claiming his bucket of paint is already empty, but Share just uses her sharing power to duplicate her bucket, which still has plenty of paint.  Sadly, this episode is not about Funshine trying to get out of work, but something much more sinister.  The Nimbits are back (much groaning occurred during this episode), and they try to entice the Care Bears into playing with them, but are continually rebuffed by all the work that has to be done.  Cheer gives them false hope by telling them that they can play with them once all the work is done.  But when the day is over and there's still work to be done, the Nimbits despair.  Until the pink one gets an idea to fiddle with the clock so that the day will go faster and thus the Care Bears will work faster, finishing their jobs in the process.
The next day dawns, and it seems that the Nimbits' gamble has worked: with a seemingly shorter day, the Care Bears work faster, but their work is more erratic: Wingnut accidently wipes down Grumpy instead of a window, and Cheer loses control of a rainbow and tints the porch that Funshine and Share just finished painting, creating more work for them.  And things just get worse from there.  Finally the clock chimes the end of the day and shows a moon, although it's still daytime.  The bears converge at the Gathering Tree, completely worn out.  Cheer points out that at least their work is done, only to get a good look at the chaos caused by their crazy schedule.  At this point, Funshine realizes that the sun is still out, and Grumpy notices the clock has been compromised.  Just as they wonder who could have done such a thing, the Nimbits show up, ready to play.  They expect praise for speeding up the clock, but get a lecture on how clock-time doesn't equal real-time and tricking your friends is bad instead.  Not contrite in the least, the pink one insists that if time really had sped up, they (the Nimbits) could handle everything easy-peasy.  So they get set to try to accomplish all the tasks, with Funshine and Bedtime making it day and night in turn via their belly badges.
Suffice to say, they fail and fail miserably.  Which is kind of amusing to watch.  Fortunately for everyone involved, they learn their lesson.  Grumpy fixes the clock, the Nimbits help everyone else work, and the whole next day can be devoted to playing.  Huzzah.

The only consolation I can take in these Nimbits episodes (of which I really hope this is the last) is that I'm 89% sure that Garry Chalk does the larger one, and thus I can imagine Grounder (from The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog) in his place.  It really does help, in an odd way.

Screenshots

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I loved seeing three of the purple bears togethetr in the first part, it really was too cute~! If only Best Friend had been there, too!