1001 Animations: I. Architect

Show: I Am Weasel
Episode: S1 E13
Year: 1997

Writer(s): Richard Pursel (Storyboard)
Director(s): Robert Alvarez, David Feiss

This is one of the funnier examples of the body swap story you'll see. I am Weasel is one of the most low key of the original Cartoon Cartoons, not helped by the fact that it originally aired alongside Cow & Chicken which was way more popular. So let's see how this show does its body swap shall we:

The plot gets off the ground really quickly as Weasel is getting yet another award in New York for remodeling the Empre State Building, as Baboon is washing windows uptop condescending Weasel. Baboon falls off the scaffolding and crashes into Weasel HEAD FIRST causing their brains to shoot out of their skulls and onto the concrete (Baboon's is roughly walnut sized, weasel's is roughly 3-4 times that size). As they're rushed to the hospital the doctors use logic and think "the little brain goes into the little skull", thus setting up the plot in roughly 1 1/2 minutes. However it takes to the 3 minute mark, roughly 1/2 the episode for at least Weasel to figure out what happened.

What I find interesting about this plot here is that not only do they avert the Voices are Mental Trope, the actors actually do impressions of each other to get the correct inflections of the respective voices. That is indeed Charlie Adler as Weasel in Baboon, it actually sounds really close to his real voice, and yes, that's Michael Dorn doing a super funny impression of I. R. Baboon in Weasel's body, so at least it's in the Unique aspect of 1001 animations. The biggest problem with this episode is the pacing, at almost 7 minutes they really don't do much with the plot sans some really funny gags, and it goes too fast from others trusting Weasel as usual to forcing him to retire, with "I Am Baboon" as the new King of New York. One important thing Body Swao episodes also need is to know how to use their length and how to properly pace the episode, since it goes at a very fast one, which is really good for jokes but not so much for plot in the vein of Amethyst Princess of Gem World. It may seem weird that the people of New York don't suspect anything strange with Weasel, but given he's a purity sue with a godlike reputation (seriously he once walked on water) I can excuse this.

My final verdict: This episode is very funny but not much else, while it gets a lot right with the body swap plot it's length doesn't really give it time to do much with the plot itself. The pacing is also a problem here, to put it in perspective, The Meteor is 11 minutes and change long and it was able to pace itself just fine, maybe if the episode just had a few more minutes and better pacing it could match up, but it would also need to be just a tad more creative. It's good, but I wouldn't go out of my way to see it again.

I Am Weasel is owned by Cartoon Network and Turner Broadcasting.

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