Animated Atrocities: BBBDAY!

Show: Teen Titans NO!
Episode: 119
Year: 2015

Writer(s): Ben Gruber
Director(s): Bryan Newton

Yeah, yeah, I realize I should do some Thanksgiving stuff and I will SOON! But this… this pissed me off so much I just couldn't let it wait; it aired last week! Hell, maybe I'll tackle the show's Thanksgiving episode, you never know. I've never really been a big fan of birthday parties, not even when they're my own, but Steven Universe helped slowly change my tune when it aired “So Many Birthdays”, and Regular Show helped me better tolerate ‘Happy Birthday’ with its episode “Happy Birthday Song Contest”. Oh yeah, this is important to me and the episodes plot: I do not like the song “Happy Birthday to You”. I pretty much break down crying whenever it gets sang, even as an adult. It doesn't help now that the song itself is in the public domain, but I'll get to that later.

 

Truth be told, Beast Boy in both versions seems like the type who would overblow his birthdays importance, given his "party animal" personality so to speak. So it is kind of believable for him to think he should be the center of the universe on his special day, only the original Beast Boy wouldn't be such an asshole about it! Mayhaps he could've HELPED his team fight those murderous elephants thinking it was part of the party? But as we all know from the first season episode "Dude Relax", he's too selfish to actually fight crime unless it involves destroying Jump City! With him on the team, it might not have taken the whole day to beat them, just a thought. Anyways, Beast Boy goes “Party of One” and starts to throw his own party with stuffed animals and garbage; it isn't funny, just pathetic. I'd feel more for Beast Boy if he didn't shirk his heroic duties!

 

The biggest problem however is that the Titans KNEW it was Beast Boy’s birthday and they just didn't give a fuck about him to celebrate it! These assholes ARE NOT FRIENDS! They never will be friends in any reality! In their defense though, yes, a lot of birthday parties can be boring; hell, some parties in general are boring as shit! But by the way they point this out, they're actually saying you only have to PRETEND to care about the birthday boy/girl as they open presents and get spit and wax all over perfectly good cake! Why ELSE would you bother going to their party if you didn't care!? Yeah, I don't go to every one of my relatives’ birthdays; that would be ridiculous and take up too much time, maybe I just couldn't find the time! Maybe because I don't actually fucking KNOW THEM! It doesn't mean I don't give a shit about them! It just means I don't connect to them well enough to go through this, even with my more connected relatives.

 

However, we got to make it a case of cosmic bullshit, as Raven says it's IMPORTANT to celebrate EVERY. SINGLE. BIRTHDAY, to do some weird time anchor thing to keep people's ages stable. So Beast Boy is right for being a big baby about not getting a party; hell, for most of the episode, he IS a baby! And the Titans are right to only pretend to care about their teammate if it means he'll be the right age! Apparently, in order to fix Beast Boy, they have to go to the actual center of the universe to celebrate his birthday, which is a birthday planet! This episode is lazy enough to reuse both his baby model from, I think, “Dog Hand” and his old Yoda from “Salty Codgers”, complete with that stupid joke about his watch!

 

What this episode is saying is that if you don't pretend to care about somebody on their birthday, they'll become a big baby that'll be you're burden! Sure, sometimes that's the truth, but not for EVERYBODY! Also, judging from certain musical cues and baby Beast Boy’s babbling, sounding like he's saying “yarmulke” (pronounced ‘yah-muh-kuh’), I think they're implying he's also Jewish in this cartoon, which is bizarre. This episode basically takes Steven Universe’s “So Many Birthdays”, fuses in the drool from SpongeBob’s “Squid Baby” and shits all over it! I seriously hope the staff for this show doesn't seriously believe the stuff their episodes state, because that is just terrible! 

 

Anyways, back to the Birthday song: there's a running gag in the episode where Robin keeps his team from singing “Happy Birthday to You”, claiming they cannot afford the rights to it. And I agree it is stupid for a song written in 1893 to still be under copyright. Here's the thing: a full two months before this episode aired, the Supreme Court legally entered the song into the public domain. Personally, I have no idea how long it takes to actually make an episode of Teen Titans Go!, since they're 11 minute segments like the majority of kid’s cartoons today. I don't think I can equate to them having a budget similar to Family Guy, which takes anywhere from 6 months to a year for a full season to be made. I also don't think this show has the insight of something like South Park where the episodes are made 6 days before the airtime so they're up to date on facts and figures to keep the jokes relevant to the time at hand. If somebody could please give me a little more insight into this show’s creative process, that would be wonderful. Also, there are A LOT of songs you can sing on somebody's birthday other than that one! Take a look at that Regular Show episode “Happy Birthday Song Contest” for example, or The Simpsons episode “Stark Raving Dad”!

Cringe-Inducing Audio: 0
Cringe-Inducing Visuals: 4
Lackluster Writing: 8
Annoyance: 8
Disturbing Content: 0
Unnecessary Cruelty: 0
Rancid Morality: 4
Low Production Values: 4
Unfortunate Implications: 4
Character Derailment: 0

Final Score: 32/100


Teen Titans Go is owned by DC Comics, Warner Brothers and Turner Broadcasting.

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