#and a series of 17 episodes straight where a guy is trapped in a room & the audience is just psychoanalyzing him. hghj.. Maybe I find all
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Hey, Felix! - A Review of The Twisted Tales of Felix the Cat - Guardian Idiot
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Viewing the series as a whole, we could say that Twisted Tales is a mixed bag: not only in the sense of “the ratio of good to bad episodes is like a 50/50″, but, since it suffered from too many cooks in the kitchen during its production, we can see episodes taking entirely different directions.
The current plan is to review the three first episodes of the series: these were the very first ones I’ve watched and the ones that made me fall in love with the series, and we’re going to attempt to pinpoint exactly why. At first, I wanted to approach all three at once, but I think it will be better if I tackle them one by one. Still, I’ll keep this video that has all three because it’s got the best quality I could find.
GUARDIAN IDIOT
- 1:09-2:17 - We start not with Felix himself, but with the villain of this episode! And a pretty memorable one to boot! You just can’t go wrong with the morbidity of the meat industry, especially in a setting where animals are sapient.
Highlights of the Butcher’s presentation are:
(1:09-1:17) introduces us to the main subject and the place the villain operates in: a fast food restaurant where people are chowing down burgers in a rather gross and even brutal manner (pay close attention to the background lady)
One of my personal highlights of the Butcher’s presentation is the dialogue with the lady who asked for salad (1:17-1:31). I’m not an expert on comedic timing, but I like how he politely follows her request with “And what kind would you like?”, to prompt her to say “What kind do you have?”, only to deliver that brief, explosive “NONE!”.
Look at his face. He was trying to lead the conversation to that point all along. Whoever was acting his voice was having a blast.
(1:31-2:02) L I S T E N T O M E N O W
Ok we get to the Butcher’s proper musical number, which give us a taste (HAH) of what to expect from Twisted Tales:
Things appearing where they don’t belong (like the beefed-up steer (HAAH) inside the banana)
Objects coming to life (I know, it’s weird to classify meat as an “object”)
And a tinge of the disturbing (animals being turned into pies/sausages yet still singing, a roast pork being fed to a family of pigs)
- 2:02-2:17 Somehow, the Butcher has run out of supplies. I like how the guy spends 5 good seconds pondering until he reaches the conclusion he has to get more meat. The cricket providing the sounds to signal an “empty” room is a nice touch, and so is the Butcher noticing it, picking it up and just chucking it aside like “naah that won’t do”
- 2:18- 2:28 And here he is, the star of the show! I love Felix as a street artist here, and how everyone runs away when he removes the top of his head as a hat to ask for tips. Yes, it could be interpreted as nobody wanting to pony up some pennies for the poor cat, but I really prefer the “body horror” route better (we’ll see a more extreme case of this in a later episode). This, coupled with Felix’s main issue (”Man, am I hungry”), portrays him as someone who tends to get the shorter stick in life, which makes him especially sympathetic to the audience and especially vulnerable to the villain.
- 2:28-3:04 These next scenes are brief, and the purpose of that is to take us to the kicker of the episode: Felix meets Butcher, Butcher lures Felix inside his restaurant/slaughterhouse with the promise of free food.
Seems that the Butcher is making things up as he continues with his plan, at least as I see it when he says “I’ve... got something for you!”. Observe how he looks up, thinking, and then, when he comes up with the rest of the sentence, his face stretches up in a smile and rolls his eyes, denoting his weirdo mannerism. It’s the small details like these what makes this character so fun to watch. And Felix’s enthusiastic “Oh boy!” while the Butcher prepares a cleaver behind his back!
We get some more old school cartoon weirdness with the Butcher sniffing Felix with his elongated eyes, what I assume is a string of meat-related puns (I’m sorry, my hearing is not that good) and some more subtle silliness, such as the Butcher giving Felix the menu in the shape of a playing card.
I really like the Butcher’s joyous glee he takes in murdering innocent animals. You know, the kind of stuff you could really enjoy in fiction. Or maybe it’s just me and my love for cackling, over-the-top maniacs.
-3:04-3:29 So this is the situation: our MC is about to be slaughtered alive by a sentient meat grinder (which by the way it’s a pretty good reflection of our villain’s cruelty). It’s interesting to put Felix in such a helpless situation right at the start of the series, but it’s pretty much done for the purpose to give way to the real meat (HAAAH) of this episode. Felix’s scream for help takes over the whole screen and reaches heaven...
- 3:29-3:46 ...and a guardian angel apprentice is tasked to help him. I’d like to point out the queue of taller, more muscular, arguably more handsome angels: they are there to contrast with and underline the goofiness of the one Felix gets assigned to (complete with buttwings and straight up falling from heaven hollering). It’s nice to also get a motivation for him (”If I do good, I can get rid of these... training wings”)
We’re mostly focusing on scenes and how they work in these reviews, but I’d like to point out the background for heaven. I like sunset-like gradients that much.
- 3:47-4:16 The eponymous Guardian Idiot presents himself to Felix (not before getting a reminder of the trouble the cat is facing) and tells him he can take him anywhere he wants. This is where you realize the whole Butcher plot’s purpose is to take Felix to wacky places and have mini-adventures in them. Here is also where we can see better that Felix’s guardian angel might be... somewhat incompetent, with his ”Uh-oh, I’m thinking, but I’m not hearing anything!!” bit and him checking on a tourist guide, taking his sweet time while Felix inches closer to the meat grinder. But he finally does his magic and...
- 4:16-5:21 The reveal of Felix being underwater is done like the following: First, Felix takes some time to chill on a hammock and lazily gaze at a fish swimming above him... then he realizes something’s fishy (HAAAAH) and then it zooms out to reveal that he’s on a sunken ship! And he’s not alone: there’s a crew of skeleton pirates who also want to make mincemeat (HAAAAAH) out of him! Look at that wild take Felix does (4:31), that’s another tinge of the disturbing I like so much.
We also get the first instance of Felix using his tail as a tool or a weapon, in this case a sabre to fend himself off the pirates. We get some more lovely cartoon shenanigans as Felix finishes his confrontation with the skelepirates (like the bone unicycle and the gossipy ship figures), but it abruptly ends when Felix gets trapped inside a clam and asks for help again. This, in turn, makes his guardian angel appear again. Felix is not happy at all with his wish and asks him to put him “on dry land”
- 5:21-6:35 “...It sure is dry”. The water joke falls a bit flat to me, and I don’t quite get what’s going on with the snowing log cabin (is it a reference? or just for the sake of randomness?).
And because you can’t be a Toon and not be in the desert without seeing some mirages, here we have Felix suffering from double vision and dancing cacti. I really like the gag of his pupils multiplying because he’s seeing double, as well as the “deserty” version of the can-can.
(5:58-6:19) Is our boy Felix learning from a certain someone or what
Again, Felix gets in another life threatening situation and happens to stumble across his angel again, who is building a sandcastle in the desert. I really like it when Toons engage into casual activities in life-threatening environments. Felix requests to be put somewhere else (not before getting a shot of the vultures chasing him) and...
- 6:35-6:58 We get a short string of sequences of Felix being put in increasingly ludicrous scenarios (seriously, what’s going on with the cult and the clown chase). Fed up, Felix asks the angel to put him back where he was, even if he’s supposed to save him. Reluctantly, the eponymous Guardian Idiot does so, and comes to watch Felix’s fate
- 6:58-7:35 Back to the slaughter house, the guardian angel mourns Felix beforehand, feeling bad that his incompetence did not help him at all. We get a shot of Felix on the edge of death and then the Butcher enters the scene, eager to get some fresh meat for the restaurant. I really like how he notices the “fairy” weeping and straight up goes like “GRANT ME A WISH”. He’s so unfazed, like screw it, awe is for weenies. And yes, the angel is so heartbroken he’s willing to serve the bad guy, but then...
Well, it goes as well as you expect with a wish such as “make me that fattest, greasiest sausage in the world””. Was it incompetence or that the Angel finally realized this is his chance to save Felix? You decide.
- 7:35-7:55 So we get a happy ending with Felix congratulating his guardian angel (”What do you know? You’ve saved me, after all!”) and we even get to see him getting his new wings (airplane wings because of course we gotta crank up the silliness whenever possible). And just in case the villain being turned into a sausage wasn’t disturbing enough for you, as the iris closes out on Felix, he pulls out a burger that might or might not be made out of the Butcher...
And that’s it for now! I’m glad I started this review because it made me notice things I haven’t noticed about my favourite series before, what makes it what it is, and what makes me love it so much. I think the two next episodes follow the same formula, so we’ll check on them sometime. Stay tooned!
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