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heloflor · 2 years

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Giving off my thoughts after watching the first few episodes of Hamster and Gretel (this is gonna be a long one) :

- So far, it’s a very fun show ! I don’t find it as good as PnF or MML, and it definitely feels more “kiddy” than those shows when focusing on Gretel, but it’s still a lot of fun. The writing’s pretty good so far and the jokes especially work well. Being initially part of the sceptic crowd, I was very pleasantly surprised by those episodes.

- Regarding the characters, it’s great so far.

Kevin is probably my favorite character for now. I think my favorite thing about him is how they didn’t try to make him jealous or resentful over his sister having super powers. Like sure, he’s not happy about it at first, but he’s also extremely quick to plan out a system that makes him help Gretel while letting her do her job. I also adore how much he clearly loves his sister and is so quick to jump in to protect her. They really handled his character well on this front !

And aside from that, I’d say he really feels like an older teen from the way he acts, so that’s a plus too. Lastly, I’m glad him looking like a brown-haired Jeremy wearing the Slushy Dogs’ outfit actually isn’t distracting and you very quickly forget about the design similitudes due to Kevin having his own personality that’s incredibly distinct from Jeremy.

Gretel is a pretty sweet character who works perfectly as a child character. You can tell from the way she acts that she’s young, but at the same time she’s not annoying, which is often the trap with children characters acting like children. As for her ADHD, I’m not on the spectrum so I can’t really talk much about it but, from what I know, she seems to be pretty good rep. She struggles to stay attentive with things such as homework or long plans her brother comes up with, and would rather do things her way or in a way that’s fun. Plus she has an active imagination.

And I also really like how this plays into the whole “she needs to learn that she can’t punch all her problems away” situation. Speaking of which, I would say “I hope they won’t ‘cure’ her ADHD by making her more focused, and instead will make her and Kevin able to come up with plans that are both effective and easy/fun for her to do (kinda like how in “Wander Over Yo//nder” Peepers started explaining his plans using toys because it made it easier for Hater to stay attentive)” but given Dan’s ability to make every character he writes neurodivergent, including by mistake, on top of writing Gretel based on his own daughter, I’m not too worried about that.

One criticism I have tho is the voice acting. Am I the only one who really struggles to enjoy her voice ? Like, no offense to Melissa Povenmire but you can tell she’s not a voice actor. Heck, at first I thought my issue with her voice was that she doesn’t sound enough like a child, but thinking a bit more about it, the issue is actually that she doesn’t sound expressive enough, making some moments of excitement or anger sound off. Basically her voice sounding adult is a bit distracting but if the voice acting was more expressive, it would work without issue. But because she’s not expressive enough, her having a more adult voice feels aggravating.

But other than that, really good character and great protagonist !

Hamster is a very fun mostly-silent character. I especially like how at the beginning he was mostly there to “clean up the mess” in a sense, which really makes me wonder if at some point he’ll be incapacitated in a way that will force Gretel to be more careful in her plans. And even in later episodes, he’s mostly there “just in case” so to speak, letting Gretel do most of the work without just abandoning her. Also, him having a deeper voice really works with that “caretaker” vibe he has (again, him stepping up to save the others when needed).

Fred is fucking amazing. Second favorite character right here. She’s an absolute mood and I love her. She also reminds me of characters like Maud Pie from MLP who isn’t as emotionless as people who don’t know them think, they just express their emotions differently. On that note, I really like how her being “inexpressive” isn’t portrayed as a bad thing. Even in the cheerleader’s episode, it was more of a “in this specific situation you need to smile” kind of thing. Kevin and Gretel weren’t judging her for who she is (heck, just look at how their react in understanding when she explains why she quitted gym).

On little thing that bothers me about her character tho is the fact that she’s Kevin cousin, which felt unnecessary. For those wondering what the hell I’m going on about, it’s just that, in the scene introducing her, we meet Himori, aka Kevin’s love interest. And it’s also at that moment that Fred’s introduced as Kevin’s cousin.

Thing is, this is a Disney show, and given how romance-oriented Disney is, I can definitely see the execs have the belief of “a man and a woman can’t have known each other their whole lives without any romance going on between them”, and that’s why the two being cousins bothers me. I’m very likely overinterpreting here, but I can’t help but wonder if them being cousins was done in order to shut down any possible romance between them, as if them being childhood best friends but having other love interests wasn’t enough proof that nothing was going on there…

But yeah, aside from that, amazing support character and I love how they managed to include her into the crime-fighting without taking away from the main siblings !

Bailey is…kinda meh ? The issue is that this character literally has zero personality outside of admiring Gretel. It’s kinda sad honestly given how she’s meant to be Gretel’s best friend. 😕 This girl was done dirty so far and I hope they give her an actual personality at some point.

Hiromi is pretty nice. We haven’t seen that much of her so far aside from being a comic books nerd and not minding seeing Kevin be ridiculous, but she’s still a good character, and I’m sure we’ll get more of her in the future (and I wouldn’t be surprised that she’s sooner or later going to learn about Gretel’s secret).

Carolina and Dave (the parents) are very fun characters, and I really like the scenes they’re included in ! Little fun fact : I usually don’t care about who does the voice-acting in cartoons so didn’t look it up and at first I was convinced that Dave was voiced by Dan. I mean, the actor uses a raspy voice that sounds so much like Dan doing his Doof voice but with his normal tone of voice ! But apparently, Dave is actually voiced by Matt Jones (whoever that is, I don’t know shit about voice actors).

Speaking of which, between Gretel being voiced by Dan’s daughter and having ADHD like her, and the fact that Dave has a design that reminds me a bit of Dan’s own self-insert (aside from the hair color), plus the voice sounding a bit like him as well, I started wondering if Dan took some inspiration from his own family in this show. And looking it up, he apparently did ! According to Wikipedia, Kevin and Gretel are based on his relationship with his younger sister, plus Carolina being Venezuelan is apparently due to Dan’s own wife being Venezuelan.

So yeah, it seems the whole family is inspired by Dan’s home life, which could also explain why this show seemingly focuses more on the family as a whole compared to PnF and MML in which the parents didn’t interact with the kids all that much, at least in comparison 🤔 (I mean Linda Flynn-Fletcher talks to her kids everyday but it’s more about the whole “busted” gimmick and less about them being wholesome or domestic).

The Destructress and FistPuncher (yes I’m including at least those two since they’re introduced like they are important villains) are kind of a mixed bag. On one hand, I like the thought of some random people getting super powers and being told to use them for evil. I also like the idea of one of them being an influencer. But at the same time, I didn’t find them all that interesting as villains so far, and FistPuncher’s gimmick is pretty annoying after a while.

So yeah, for the most part, good cast of main/major characters !

- Probably a bit related to the humor but I love how down-to-earth the villains are so far. For example, you have Professor Exclamation having no issue stopping in his tracks to let the siblings talk, or Thunderpants being completely fine with casually explaining his story to a journalist. And all the other villains are like that ! Idk, it just amuses me a lot.

- It’s pretty impressive how this show is very obviously set in our time while at the same time not feeling cringy about it, at least in my opinion. Like, you get Fred saying “ok boomer”, you have a keyboard cat reference, Gretel and Kevin communicate through their phones and watching the news, The Destructress is an influencer, the characters in general talk and act like you’d expect teens nowadays to act etc. I really like how they manage to make so many modern references without them becoming a pain.

- The songs are very catchy, though I didn’t expect anything less from Povenmire. Also the theme song is a bop and probably my favorite of the three shows Dan made.

- While I’m part of the people who get a bit worried about Dwampyverse crossovers due to the whole “Doof in MML” situation turning out very meh, I still can’t help but wonder if at some point Gretel is going to fight against a LOVEMUFFIN scientist. It would be pretty funny if she did ! (Btw yes I’m aware of Doof being present in the poster)

Now, to conclude with even more rambling, here’s a mini-review of each episode :

- Episode 1 (“Empower Failure”) was pretty good although it has a huge pacing problem. Like, the first 2 minutes are about the kids meeting the aliens and getting the powers, then we jump immediately to “the whole town knows about Hamster and Gretel being heroes”, and the whole conflict of Kevin being worried for his sister is shown through a few lines he says without Gretel around and then the whole thing is resolved in less than a minute.

Honestly, in order to have better pacing in 10-minutes-long episodes, I feel like they should have either pushed this episode to be 20 minutes instead of 15 + a 5 mins ep, or they could’ve done like Ducktales17 did with their pilot and have it last two episodes/40 mins.

Now the good news is, so far, the other episodes don’t have such a pacing problem since everything is already set up by the pilot, so the other eps can focus on their condensed stories more easily.

- Episode 2 ("Oakey Dokey") was short but pretty good. I like how they’re really setting up how Gretel needs to understand that she can’t punch every problem away. Also, when they first started rebuilding the tree I was getting a bit upset, but the ending of the episode actually works very well with that, showing that Gretel still has a long way to go to learn how to use her powers.

- Episode 3 ("Recipe for Disaster") was very wholesome. The joke of Kevin doing stuff he finds embarrassing felt a bit repetitive but at least it wasn’t cringe-worthy, I’ll give them that. And it did give the setup for a wholesome moment with his mom. And the plot with Hamster and Gretel trying to find the food was pretty good as well. Sure the whole fight is a bit ridiculous, but by now it’s pretty clear that this show doesn’t take itself that seriously and is more about fun episodic stories.

Overall, just a wholesome time.

- Episode 4 ("Math Punch") was also a lot of fun. For some reason I really like the whole thing with the dad trying to give the best gift, especially how the episode ends in that regard. The fact that this episode is so focused on the family as a whole is also what started making me wonder if it was based on Dan’s own family.

And going back to the episode, the whole conflict with the villain was fun. It’s also kinda funny to have the citizens complain about social media stuff being lost, as a “people rely too much on their social accounts” joke, given how much time Dan spends on Tiktok. But yeah, fun villain. And I also like how the whole “a train is going from point a to point b…” stuff is used at the end. It’s yet again a good episode setting up how Gretel struggles to stay focused but can slowly learn ways to make it work.

- Episode 5 ("Superhero Sibling Rivalry") was very cute. I really like how it shows that Kevin and Gretel aren’t perfect siblings and, like in all families, get into dumb fights sometimes. And I especially love how, despite those fights, Kevin spends the whole day worried about his little sister and immediately jumps in when she’s in danger. It’s all incredibly sweet. Oh, and again I love how down-to-earth the villains are in the beginning montage. I also like the office joke with the manual, it’s a good example of a completely random repetitive joke that doesn’t overstate its welcome.

Also Fred was very much stoned in this episode and I love it.

- Episode 6 ("Close Shave") is the one that made me laugh the most so far, which is a bit surprising considering the plot. Like, there was this Powerpuff Girls episode that also has the “evil teacher is actually nice” plot and I remember finding it very cringe even as a kid, but here all of Gretel’s suspicions were funny. I think it might be due to the dialogue/writing being handled better.

As for Kevin’s plot, I like the teacher getting more and more tired of the interruptions. The shit Fred was saying when taking over the presentation were great too (and that “ok boomer” at the end tho ! 😆)

As for the villain, first of all the fake teacher guy had such a weird design compared to the rest ! Like, even Gretel doesn’t stand out as much ! This aside, the villain was fun. He was a bit more on the cartoony side with his intent but the idea still worked and the fight was pretty fun ! And the way he figured out who Gretel was is very funny (and kinda fitting given how many Dwampyverse characters are left-handed). Also, the “finally growing facial hair like a normal man !” is such a transmasc mood (except no one told this guy about HRT apparently).

- Not much to say about episode 7 ("Cheer Cheer Bang Bang"), it was a lot of fun with good jokes. Fred is an absolute mood and I love her, and the villain of the episode was a bit weak but worked for what they were going for. Also the ending is making me wonder if Fred’s going to get a girlfriend, but knowing Disney I won’t get my hopes up for now. That being said, looking at duos like Buford and Baljeet from PnF, it seems that Dan would be open to making a gay couple (I mean, you’ve seen the way Dan talks about Doof and Perry), so not all hope might be lost.

- Episode 8 ("La Ballad of La Cebolla") was pretty good. I like the idea of a villain that gets underestimated due to her powers (also the more it goes the more I’m starting to love the journalist character that gets roped in every time), although the ending was a bit anticlimactic. Well, aside from the reveal that the aliens are preparing something bigger, not just giving people powers for shit and giggles/to watch chaos ensue. Also, the villain music slapped.

- Not much to say about episode 9 ("Comic Shop CopyCat") either. Fun action, villain with an interesting gimmick (I especially like the whole “I’m not going to have the same weaknesses ! I’m not an idiot !”) although the implications of his weapon are pretty horrifying.

One thing I would say though is that the relationship between Kevin and Hiromi feels like it’s going a bit too quick, but at the same time I’m kind of fine with it.

Thing is, looking at the Dwampyverse, it’s obvious that Dan isn’t used to write romances in which the characters barely know each other. In his previous works, either the characters were an established couple (the parent characters) or they were longtime friends or at least knew each other for a while (Candace and Jeremy, Phineas and Isabella, Milo and Amanda, Sara and Neil, Melissa and Zack since their relationship came very late into the show, way after they became friends).

But here, while the two know each other’s names, Hiromi didn’t know Gretel apparently and Kevin is constantly afraid of giving off a bad impression of himself to her. And those facts combined really makes you wonder how long they’ve known each other and when and why Kevin likes her if they haven’t interacted enough for Hiromi to know he has a sister.

What I’m getting at here is that, before this episode, you had the impression that they’ve known each other for a while. But here, it feels like they actually barely know each other.

And at the same time, that’s why I’m fine with this relationship actually going fast. The beginning of this episode makes their relationship pretty confusing, but now that we’re past this “awkward” phase, it’s likely their relationship is going to start being portrayed the same way other Dwampyverse relationships are, which is something Dan is likely more comfortable in writing and as a result will work better.

- Episode 10 ("Neigh, It Ain't So!") has to be my least favorite episode so far. The whole “oblivious bestie” gimmick got very old very fast, not helped by Bailey having pretty much no personality. I did enjoy Kevin as per usual tho, with his interactions with Fred but also him getting worried not only for Gretel’s cover but also for Bailey’s safety.

Also the horses party looked absolutely ridiculous and I love it (and at the very beginning of the rap battle, one of the horses kinda has Sunny’s color scheme). The rap battle was an unwelcomed surprise tho…

Overall, a very fun show so far. And looking at the first few episodes, I find it interesting how the main arc seems to be “Gretel needs to learn to think more before she acts”, but it’s presented in a way that shows how this issue can be brought up in several different manners. Then there’s also a few episodes not really focusing on this conflict but that are still very welcome in order to give other characters the spotlight.

#Hamster and Gretel #HnG #HnG spoilers #Cartoons #Other works #Flor talks #long post #I might make a 'cartoon' tag at some point for shows like this for which I don't intend to actively be part of the fandom #Fun fact : this is the first time I write a review right after watching an episode #also I love how I keep saying 'Dwampyverse' in this post; but then again it's shorter than 'Dan's previous works' or 'P//nF and MM//L'#anyways yeah so far I'm enjoying this show #it's better than I expected #though I really hope they really are setting up for Gretel having to find new ways to beat the villains outside of punching #without taking away some parts of her neurodivergence #because so far it feels like this is what they're setting up #plus episodic shows can have a few plot points that give character development

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