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Description
Episode: 13a
Year: 1999
Writer(s): David Pitlik
Director(s): Doug Masters
I sincerely hope that the writers last name is a pseudonym... Seriously, what kind of last name is Pitlik? But in all seriousness, I did NOT want to have to resort to doing Angela Anaconda! Out of EVERY SHOW that KaBlam! had, why did this get a full series? I can understand Action League Now! because despite its limited stop-motion or "chuckimation", it was a genuinely funny and entertaining show; hell, I'd take Sniz & Fondue over this! The really funny thing about this show is that the pilot skits actually looked better than the finished product! This show was made using black and white photographs as the stop-motion, which actually would've given the show a unique edge as that style could actually be used rather efficiently if done right. Yeah, one thing Mr. Enter got wrong in his Animated Atrocities review on the episode "The Substitute" is that the photos used were naturally black and white as opposed to having the color removed. There's also the fact that this show had a Christmas episode that would've been perfect for ripping into!
Beyond the stiff and REALLY UNCANNY stop-motion paper puppets, the dialogue of this show is some of the most redundant and stupid I've ever heard in any cartoon. All of the characters will use the full names of each other every time they talk to. Miss Anaconda here sounds like a female Steve Urkel! And did I forget to mention her voice actress was not just the show’s co-creator, but also the creator of Pepper Ann? On some level, I'm supposed to feel for her as the average kid who gets crapped on by the world, but I can't give a shit for any of these characters just because they're so ugly! There's also the fact that their personalities are about as vibrant as a hunk of driftwood. This kind of clip art style would work great if this was more in-line with Monty Python's Flying Circus, but for that to work, you need a lot of energy and pep for it to be funny! This show is a slog and actually pretty damn scary.
Anyways back to the characters: another mistake Mr. Enter made is that he obviously only watched one episode to get a grasp of the characters’ personalities, and saw Angela herself as a sociopath purely for having death fantasies about her nemesis Nanette Manoir. Yes, Angela does have weird fantasies and flashbacks like the title character of Doug, and yes, they can involve Nanette getting killed, but she's a fucking CHILD! We as kids sometimes wish that one person we don't like would just jump off a bridge, and that's what those fantasies represent; then again, they're kind of twisted even for that. Nanette is a genuine alpha-bitch who more often than not sucks up to their teacher to get away with being a spiteful bully to everyone, especially Angela. But even then, Angela is still a fucking brat that would make BOTH Bart Simpson and Dennis the Menace look like angels! She's done it all: bribed her best friends into doing what she wants, broken into her nemesis’ diary, and even spied on her teacher for suspicion of her being a nudist.... I'm going to be sick... Ok, Mr. Enter, I think I see your point.
This kind of character worked with the title character from Daria because her attitude was something her audience could relate to, and that show was geared towards teenagers and adults. In Angela’s case, she's just a little bratty creep! She thinks the WHOLE WORLD should revolve around her and can't handle being unpopular! In many cases, she's actually more conceited than Nanette, a character we AREN’T supposed to like! Most of the time, Nanette doesn't actively go after Angela unless she starts shit, and we are supposed to see her as the villain. Yeah, she's a bitch, but who gives a fuck? She ain't bothering you! So why not have a Christmas episode wherein Angela and Nanette try to out-gift the other out of spite? Or rather Angela out-gifts Nanette out of spite!
In this episode, Angela Anaconda wants to get her "friend" Gina Lash as her Secret Santa for school so she can tell her to get what she wants, ignoring the fact that Secret Santa deals suck ass that pretty much ruins the point of it being SECRET! So instead, she gets Nanette Manoir as her Secret Santa! I'd say it's karmic on her end of things, but I can't care about either her or Nanette because they both unpleasant for different reasons. Even her own parrot friends don't like shopping for her! Nanette does have a point that a 5-dollar limit for Secret Santa gifts is a bit chintzy, but she still comes off as a nasty greedy bitch even without doing anything bitchy. Angela is just extremely selfish and wants to trade her place with someone else, even though the teacher Mrs. Ephegenia Brinks said that was against the rules. Remind me again why I'm supposed to like this girl?
Just because Nanette is a bitchy rich girl doesn't make Angela look better by default whatsoever. Characters like Nanette and Angela only work when their personalities AND moralities juxtapose each other, and you want to see the underdog beat the popular chick in the end. With someone like Nanette, the best course of action for an attention whore is to IGNORE HER! Don't try to think of a horrible gift just to humiliate her and paint your picture any better than hers, just give her like, I don’t know, cheap candy and move on! If I was Angela, I'd give the little frog a pack of GUMBALLS and grin and bear whatever she gives me. And in a STARTLING turn of events, Nanette goes over budget and gets Angela an expensive scarf that she was going to manipulate her friend into getting her! And she was going to give her literal toilet water perfume... So, who’s the villain here? BOTH OF THEM!
Nanette didn't get the scarf because she cared, she did it because she didn't want to look cheap and wanted to stand out! So instead of just getting her nothing in return, Angela feels the need to outdo Nanette with something big and expensive to compensate, amounting in a dick measuring contest. By the way, "anaconda" is a euphemism for a guy’s dick, so maybe that name was intentional on the character’s part of her personality. I get they didn't want a typical goody-goody protagonist and all, but on some level, the character, no matter how rotten, has to have something redeeming about them to make them if not likable than relatable, entertaining and understandable!
Instead of trying to make us like Angela, they tried to make us hate her enemies worse. We got all the stereotypes: the cruel teacher, the rich bitch, the stupid brothers, I've seen it all before! I can't tell whether the antagonists’ negativity is naturally upped to cartoonish villain levels just to make Angela's mirror look clearer compared to their reflections or this is just how Angela sees everyone through cynical glasses. For fucks sake, LUCY VAN PELT pulls this type of deal off better than most of Angela's adversaries! They tried to make Angela a rebel like Bart Simpson, but completely missed the point of why he was a good character to start with! To add to that, this episode ends with Angela getting the "Eau de Toilette" she was going to give Nanette, but instead got her a toaster which she didn't like either way, and her precious scarf was in fact given to one of Nanette's parrot friends. So, of course, Angela trades the toilet perfume for the toaster she bought anyways, and it's a happy ending... I don't care... Both these girls are just the worst bitches.
What baffles me even more is how badly Fox Kids was shilling this show, going so far as to re-edit an episode into a short played before the dub of Digimon: The Movie! Even as someone who doesn't watch Digimon, I know not even the fans liked this! Shit, I think that short is why Digimon: The Movie basically fell into obscurity in America! Next to Mega Babies, I'd be willing to call this the worst Canadian cartoon ever made, and the fact that it was owned by Disney after they bought out the Fox Kids lineup didn't help its reputation one bit. I like to pretend Phantom Investigators was a spiritual successor to Life with Loopy, and that Angela Anaconda was a bad fever dream I had; either way, I'd have taken that or any other KaBlam! cartoon over this in a heartbeat!
Cringe-Inducing Audio: 4
Cringe-Inducing Visuals: 6
Lackluster Writing: 8
Annoyance: 5
Disturbing Content: 5
Rancid Morality: 5
Low Production Values: 8
Unfortunate Implications: 0
Character Derailment: 0
Final Score: 41/100
Angela Anaconda is owned by Teletoon and DHX Media.
Animated Atrocities is from
Regulas314
This show is like a crack dream, although I happen to like Nanette for some reason.
Also this line of yours “By the way, "anaconda" is a euphemism for a guy’s dick, so maybe that name was intentional on the character’s part of her personality.” was a slam dunk. 