“Moving” Pictures (Part 7)

As more recent years of television production “move” into our viewing scrutiny, a growing number of films begin to focus upon the trauma of moving, rather than the adventure or action of it. This was probably meant as an appeal to younger audiences and experiences in their personal lives, either giving them something to reflect upon in their recollections, or preparing them emotionally for events that might transpire in their near future. Still, there was occasional chance for pure slapstick and destructive mayhem to carry the day in other instances, with humor rather than pathos being the priority – while others mixed the two extremes together in entertaining ways. Besides those tales intended for the small screen, we also get an action-packed finale to a classic animated franchise’s first feature adventure – a sequence which could be described, to coin a moving pun, as utterly Van-tastic.

A Moving Experience (DIC, Dennis the Menace, 10/6/86) – I told you this title got severely overused. Actually, this may be one of the best episodes of the DIC series – mainly because it is so reminiscent of the classic live-action episode, “Dennis and the Signpost”, episode 2 of the Jay North run.

Dennis and Joey are playing in Dennis’s yard with a football. A pass goes over the hedge, and Dennis runs around into the Wilsons’ yard to catch it, but misses. The ball rebounds out of his hands, and right through the Wilsons’ front window. Wilson is more furious than usual, and won’t even chance letting Denis grab a broom to clean up the glass, for fear he’ll cause more damage. “From now on, Dennis, I want you to think of my house as gone, missing! Not here anymore! When you look over here, I want you to see nothing but a vacant lot!”, storms Wilson. Dennis thinks the idea is silly, but upon trying it, imagines how empty the place looks. Wilson boards over the broken window, then heads for his car. Joey remembers his football is still inside the house, and asks Dennis to see if he can go inside to get it. But Wilson repeats, “I no longer have a house. This is a vacant lot, remember? Now, out of my way. I’m gone!” Joey asks what he means, and Dennis surmises, “I think he means he’s moving his whole house away.”

On cue, up the street rolls a mammoth house-moving truck. The two drivers are totally lost, the street name smudged on their job orders, and the street number torn away. They ask if anyone around here is trying to move his home. Dennis reluctantly states that he knows just the person, and points them to the Wilson abode. In a short time, the whole house has been lifted onto the truck, and Dennis and Joey watch the place roll away down the street. Dennis still can’t get over the fact that Wilson never even said goodbye. “Maybe that’s why he’s coming back”, says Joey, spotting Wilson’s approaching car. Wilson fails to notice the absence of the building, preoccupied with Dennis’s chatter and carrying a fragile pane of replacement window glass (Dennis wondering why Wilson needed a replacement pane, as he always said Dennis was already a pain). Wilson thus blindly climbs the remaining concrete porch steps, and enters – into nothing – falling on his butt. Wilson literally breathes fire, roaring “WHERE’S MY HOUSE????!!!” Dennis informs him of the movers, and Wilson panics, realizing that Martha Wilson was asleep in the bedroom upstairs. Wilson and the boys hop into the car, and speed off after the truck. Martha, meanwhile, is a sound sleeper, and stirs only briefly at the rumblings of the truck, verbally calling for George not to snore.

Wilson’s car pulls up behind the moving truck, and he honks his horn repeatedly, trying to signal the “idiot” drivers to stop. The drivers believe he is nothing but an irritating road hog, and one comments, “Let him honk himself into a nervous breakdown.” Wilson pulls off the road, rolling through front lawns to get alongside the truck. The drivers will still not give his shouts their ear, thinking him some lunatic out of a demolition derby. Finally, Wilson swerves back onto the road ahead of the truck, trying to slow it down. He is too busy looking backwards to notice where he is going, and heads right into the cross-traffic of a long-bed semi-hauler at the next intersection. Everyone ducks, as the car rolls under the hauler’s truck-bed, the car roof being torn away, transforming the car into an unexpected convertible. Now visible to the drivers behind from lack of a roof, Dennis hollers to them, “You’ve got the wrong house.” The drivers recognize Dennis, and finally listen, slamming on the brakes in surprise. Their sudden move is ill-timed, and the support ropes snap on the truck bed behind, sending the house flying over the top of the truck cab, and into a high-speed slide, digging up a trench along one side of the road. Aroused Martha watches helplessly through a window, as the house outraces the Wilson car, veers away from the road, and over a hilly slope. It teeters briefly on a cliff edge, then slides down. Wilson can’t look over the edge, but Dennis does, to a surprising sight. Somehow, the house has reached the bottom unscathed, and Martha has emerged, into a woodland wonderland with a babbling brook a short distance outside their front door, in which she is dipping her toes. Why didn’t George tell her about this surprise – the kind of place she’s always wanted to live. George is tremendously relieved that Martha is safe, and the house still standing – and sees the advantages of this relocation too. No more Dennis next door! Just as it seems there will be a happy ending for the Wilsons, Dennis arrives, having found the movers, who are driving up with a huge derrick. They state they’ll have the place moved back to Elm Street in no time. “No! I don’t want to have it moved back!”, shouts Wilson. “Have to, Mister, or we could lose our jobs”, the movers insist. Wilson thus winds up back at the old lot, essentially no worse off than before except for the torn car roof, but certainly none the better. And another football pass by Joey deflects into the Wilson yard, knocking Wilson down, with the ball rebounding into Dennis’s grip. “Nice catch”, says Martha to an irritated George.

Bobby’s Big Move (Film Roman, Bobby’s World, 9/5/92) – I never followed this show, mainly because it appeared to be aimed at a much younger target audience (though I noticed here at least one double-entendre joke only the adults would get), and because of the whimpery voice provided for the title character by Howie Mandel, which to me was unappealing and difficult to understand. Nonetheless, on a re-assessment, I admit the script is well-written and the animation is competent and within Film Roman standards. Perhaps if they’d had the same level of comedy as Garfield or the Simpsons, I might have gotten past the character’s shortcomings.

Bobby’s father Howard (essentially the real-life persona of Mandel) claims there’s not enough room in the attic, and an obviously-expectant Mom symbolizes the imminent need for more living space. Thus Bobby relates, via flashback, how a new room on his present house came to be. Dad states he has a big announcement to make, and Bobby envisions himself as Goldilocks (make that Bobbilocks), in the house of the Three Announcements – baby, mama, and big size. (The double-entendre appears here, as Bobby presses a button for the Mama announcement, only to hear his Mom’s voice stating “I have a headache”. Bobby dismisses this as nothing – something he hears all the time through the wall between his own room and his parents’ room.) The “Big” announcement, however, shakes Bobby to the core. The family is going to move. Bobby states he could have gotten mad, or could have done nothing – but instead he cries. What do you expect, he asks the audience, as he’s only a kid.

Bobby unexpectedly joins forces with his teenage sister, who also resists moving just as she’s started to move into the “cool” set at school, in attempting to discourage “Looky Loos” from making an offer on the house, by making up stories about rat infestations, the middle brother constantly throwing up in this room, etc. But Mom puts a new thought in Bobby’s brain – that a move opens the possibilities of looking for a house with everything they’ve ever wanted. Bobby imagines a house full of his own special rooms, including an indoor playground and a private elephant room. Thus, he stops helping Sis in the discouragement campaign, with Sis calling him a traitor. Bobby’s uncle finally gets an offer made on the property, by pointing out the amenities of being able to stare through the living room window of the neighbors’ house at their big screen TV, and having a perfect place to dump trash and lawn clippings onto the opposite neighbor’s yard when they’re not looking. Bobby doesn’t get much say, however, in where the new home will be, as Dad announces that he’s found the perfect spot – a location where they will relocate, sight unseen.

Packing begins. Bobby has to temporarily deflate his roly-poly clown punching bag to fit in the boxes. Mom seems to classify everything as important enough to carry with the family in the car instead of trust to the movers – with the result that the moving van, when everything to be moved by them is on board, isn’t even one-sixth full. The kids even play a practical joke on Mom, labeling a box as “Mom’s best stuff”, then pretending to drop it. Inside, all Mom finds is her shatter-proof pots and pans. The moment of departure arrives, and Uncle, staying behind, waves goodbye from the front lawn. But things are not what they seem. The car and van merely make a half-loop around a traffic circle, and stop on the opposite side – at a house virtually identical, except for a squoosh more attic space and an extra room for the baby. And who is there to wave hello, but Uncle, who has simply walked across the street. Bobby hops out, and happily runs to the door of his new neighbors to introduce himself – only to find one of the regular girls from the neighborhood who already knows Bobby too well. No, Bobby doesn’t get his indoor playground and elephant room. But a peaceful status quo is soon regained, and Bobby can still ride his tricycle through the home’s corridors – at least when his parents aren’t watching.

Toy Story (Pixar, 11/22/95) features a memorable climax precisely fitting our trail. The film opens amid the turmoil of the celebration of young boy Andy’s birthday, being moved up ahead of the actual event date, due to his family planning a move that will conflict with Andy’s big day. Andy’s toys lead a secret life when he is not in his room – all quite alive, and proud of their existence to meet Andy’s play needs. Woody, a western sheriff doll, presides over the group, being Andy’s favorite, and holds a “staff meeting” to advise the toys to each select a moving buddy to ensure that no toy gets left behind during the relocation. He also sends a brigade of toy soldiers on a reconnaissance mission to discover what new presents Andy is getting. Many of the toys express concern that some one of the new gifts might compete with them for Andy’s playtime, and render them outmoded and obsolete in Andy’s eyes. Woody assures them that no one is getting replaced – until he himself faces their dilemma, thanks to Andy’s new prize possession – a Buzz Lightyear space ranger action figure, complete with fake lasers, gadgets and gizmos, and extendable plastic wings from his space suit with which he believes he can really fly (though his demonstration, rebounding off inflatable balls, Hot Wheels loops, and other toys in the playroom is what Woody insists is only “falling with style”). Nevertheless, despite Woody’s efforts to prove Buzz is merely another toy like the rest of them, Buzz quickly becomes Andy’s new favorite, leaving Woody stashed in the toy box instead of in his former place of prominence on Andy’s bed.

As moving day draws closer, packing begins. The family plans a break for dinner, and jealous Woody wonders if there is any chance Andy will bring him to the restaurant. A future-predicting 8-ball tells him “Don’t count on it.” Woody tosses the ball away, and it rolls off the top of a chest of drawers and gets stuck behind it. Woody sees an opportunity to get Buzz lost too, coaxing the ranger wanna-be to make a rescue effort for the ball, while setting up a booby-trap to knock Buzz behind the furniture also, with a push from an RC car. The trap misfires in unexpected fashion, resulting in a chain-reaction that knocks Buzz not merely behind the furniture, but out the window. The RC car lets it be known that Buzz was at its controls, and the other toys all assume the worst of Buzz’s intentions due to his jealousy. Woody barely escapes mob retaliation, when Andy, unable to find Buzz, brings along Woody as “another toy” at Mom’s insistence. Buzz, who has survived the fall, hops aboard the rear of the family car as it pulls out, and the cowboy and spaceman have an all-out brawl while their owners are pumping gas at a gas station. The car pulls away without them, leaving them both lost toys – and leading to an extended odyssey in trying to make their way back to Andy before the family moves away forever. Their adventure further sub-climaxes with an escape from the yard of neighbor child Sid – the “toy destroyer” – who leaves Buzz with a large 4th of July skyrocket strapped to his back as the toys make their getaway.

The family car is just pulling out onto the road as Woody and Buzz reach the old home – with the loaded moving van following behind. Buzz runs for the truck’s rear bumper and clambers on, but Woody can’t quite catch up. Buzz extends an arm to Woody, but something is also tugging Woody from the opposite direction. A tough dog has spied the toys in action, and clamps his jaws onto Woody’s foot. Buzz instinctively plays the hero, leaping onto the dog’s muzzle to get him to release his grip. The dog does let go, but begins to toss Buzz around instead, while helpless Woody watches from the van bumper as the vehicle distances itself from the scene. Woody spies Buzz getting tossed, by a shake of the dog’s head, underneath a parked car – and conceives a rescue plan of his own. Succeeding in opening the latch to the rear door of the van, Woody rushes inside, scouring the boxes marked as Andy’s toys, until he again locates the RC car. To the horror of the other toys, Woody pushes the RC car off of the van. “He’s at it again”, shouts the toy dinosaur. But Woody isn’t trying to get toys lost or destroyed – he’s trying to save one. Using the remote control of the car, Woody pilots the RC toy straight to Buzz, then back toward the van as a getaway conveyance from the dog. The dog is left in the dust, in the middle of a busy intersection, encircled by cars he and the RC car have caused to crash together all around him. But the other toys haven’t yet seen Buzz or the whereabouts of the RC car. All they know is that Woody ejected another toy. So, they eject him over the side. Woody narrowly avoids being run over by traffic following the van, then is collided with despite his best efforts – but this time by Buzz atop the RC car. Woody still has the remote, and so the two steer a course under traffic at turbo speed setting, in another desperate effort to catch up with the van.

Inside the van, the other toys finally view Woody and Buzz together on the RC, approaching fast – and realize Woody was telling the truth all the time. Now they know they have to help. A strong-man doll lowers the van tailgate (nearly crushing the RC car underneath it in a shower of sparks against the road bed). Slinky dog’s front end is lowered over the side, while the toys hang on to his hind-quarters in the van. Slinky reaches out to Woody, and tries to haul the three stray toys in – but RC’s batteries begin to give out. The RC slows, and Slinky can’t hold on, springing backwards onto the van again. Buzz, Woody, and the car are left stranded and motionless in the road. Suddenly, a last “ray” of hope presents itself to Woody, as sunlight reflecting through Buzz’s clear helmet concentrates like a beam through a magnifying glass. Use the beam to light the fuse of the skyrocket on Buzz’s back, for jet propulsion. The fuse is lit, and the ignition approaches – when Woody thinks a bit more clearly. “Wait. I just lit a rocket – rockets explode!” Too late to do anything about it, as the flaming jets from the device blast Woody, Buzz, and the car between busy traffic at astounding speed, almost all the way back to the van. Suddenly, the rocket makes a turn upwards. Woody lets go of the RC car just before rising with Buzz, allowing the car to make a crashing but safe re-boarding onto the van. Hundreds of feet in the air, Woody moans to Buzz that this is the part where they blow up. “Not today”, shouts Buzz, triggering the button that extends his plastic wings – which slice through the tape holding the rocket to Buzz’s back. The rocket shoots above them freely for a safe distance, then explodes in a fireworks display of sparks. Woody and Buzz begin to free-fall – still a recipe for disaster. But Buzz confidently finally manages to take control of his toy wings, transforming the fall into a directed glide – truly “falling with style”. To Woody’s surprise, Buzz’s flight overshoots the van entirely – but Buzz replies, “We’re not aiming for the van”. Instead, he precisely soars through the skylight of the family car ahead, landing in a box inside for Andy to find them together – as if he had just mislaid them all along, and they had been with him all the time.

A Moving Experience (CINAR Corporation, The Little Lulu Show, 6/1/96) – Lulu’s kicked back in a hammock in the yard, remaking to herself how she loves her hammock, this yard, this home, and her neighborhood. But Lulu hears the voice of her Dad, Mr. Moppet, from inside the house, speaking to Mom: “When the company says you have to move, all you can do is pack up and move, and you have to accept it. I know moving to a new town is hard…” Move? Not only a shattering prospect, but they haven’t even been kind enough to tell it to Lulu’s own face. Lulu’s eyes well up, and soon she is scurrying about the neighborhood, breaking the bad news to her friends. No one can believe it, except for the fact that it came straight from Mr. Moppet’s lips. Ah, if Lulu had only lingered in the yard a minute longer – she would have heard that Moppet was relating to his wife a conversation he had had to buck up a neighbor who was facing this situation in his own job. Mrs. Moppet remarks that moving is a big adjustment, recalling that their own garage has never been straightened out since the Moppets moved here – prompting a request that Papa do something about it.

Lulu continues to spread the word, and discovers a surprise benefit of the situation – everyone wants to give her going-away presents to remember them by. As Lulu progresses through the neighborhood, she finds herself carrying an armload of parcels and goodies. Only Tubby twists the idea around, thinking Lulu should give him something to remember her by – like maybe her bike. Meanwhile, Tubby is the first to open his big mouth to his Mom that the Moppets are moving away. The news spreads through the gossip chain like wildfire. Neighbors start returning things like the family barbecue, borrowed ages ago. Certainty about the move becomes magnified when Mr. Moppet is spotted removing old items from the garage and spreading them across the lawn – to him, just cleaning up, but to the world, a moving sale! Suddenly, people start showing up in the Moppets’ driveway to stare at the stuff, and one of them starts to wheel-away the just-returned barbecue, claiming he wants to buy it. Mr. and Mrs. Moppet can’t understand what’s gotten into everybody, and while they bicker with the throng that this is not a moving sale, the local realtor arrives to drive a “for sale” sign into the front lawn, claiming the Moppets will need a professional realtor if they want to sell the place. Lulu and the gang finally arrive back at the house, Lulu still upset that the parents are already moving furniture out without breaking the news to her. Moppet demands an explanation, and Lulu reveals what she overheard this morning, and that she’s been telling everybody. The root of the snowballing problem is finally discovered, and Moppet sets to rest that it was a neighbor he was talking about – not them. Lulu, still burdened with her armload of gifts, wonders if she can still keep them, but Dad calmly instructs her that that wouldn’t be fair, since they were given to her by mistake. However, practicing what one preaches isn’t always so easy. A car drives up, and Mr. Moppet’s boss emerges. He falls upon his knees on the lawn, shocked at the news of Moppet’s sudden decision to leave, as Moppet is his best and most trusted employee. The boss pleads for Moppet to reconsider, and before Moppet can explain that it is all a mistake, offers Moppet a hefty raise to stay. Seeing where this is going, Moppet changes his tune, and decides to accept the generous offer. Lulu can see the ethical dilemma here, and begins, “But Dad, shouldn’t you tell him that we’re not…” Mr. Moppet clamps a hand over a frustrated Lulu’s mouth, and completes the sentence for her – “…moving any more?”

The Big Move (Cartoon Network, Cow and Chicken, 4/27/99) – Mom and Dad surprise their offspring (Cow and Chicken – go figure) with the announcement that the family is moving – today. Cow and Chicken immediately go into emotional chaos at the upheaval of the world as they know it. They’ve spent their whole life here, and suddenly it’s all being pulled out from under them – and they don’t even know why. They try to follow the parents upstairs for an explanation, but are run down by a bed being rolled down the stairs. With Mom and Dad apparently too busy to offer any form of consolation, Cow and Chicken begin acting in accordance with their parents’ wishes, packing up their own stuff. Cow dumps a mantel clock into a box with no care taken for its fragility, resulting in a loud crash and a springing forth of gears and mainsprings. Chicken follows this by adding to the box his goldfish bowl, dumping out the water and fish into the box atop the clock, then dropping in the bowl for a shatter of glass. Then Cow starts running across memorabilia, such as their baby pictures, old Christmas ornaments from their first Christmas together, and a trunk full of their miscellaneous junk in the attic. Cow realizes that every square inch of this old house is dripping with memories. She notes a door frame in which Dad used to carve notches with an axe to mark their growth spurts, and, seeing the axe blade still implanted in the tallest notch, remembers how much it used to hurt when Dad missed the wood. Festive occasions are remembered in flashback, including the Christmas that both Cow and Chicken received the identical gift – a electric strap-on udder warmer. And memories of a first puppy, that buried Chicken instead of bones, and forced Chicken to endure 12 days of rabies shots. But enough of reminiscing – as Dad announces the moving van is packed, and it’s time to leave. Teary-eyed last goodbyes are bid to every room of the house (including the John), and the duo climb into the van and watch their old home disappear from view. But what’s this? The van stops immediately, at an absolutely identical tract house right next door! (Who here was watching “Bobby’s World”?) So what was the idea of moving? Dad reveals that their old home had become infested with ants. But even before Cow and Chicken can cross the new threshold, a marching column of ants is discovered parading up the walkway, merely following the family from house #1 to house #2. Cow and Chicken thus see little point in entering just to go through the whole traumatic experience again, and decide to merely wait in the van, to see where they will wind up moving next.

• “The Big Move” is at topcartoons.tv

Mickey’s Mechanical House (Disney, Mickey Mouse Works, 9/11/99) – A tale is told entirely in rhyme, in the manner of a mock Dr. Suess story – some of its meter directly paralleling the “Noise, noise, noise” reads of the Grinch himself. Plot is something of a high-tech upgrade of Betty Boop’s “Stop That Noise”, with Mickey unable to sleep in his old-fashioned house that creaks in the attic, lets gusts of wind in the chimney, clatters and clanks in the furnace, and slams the window shutters. Packing up his clothes drawer full of red pants and white gloves, Mickey heads for a neighborhood a few blocks away, where new homes are offered for sale. He is sold on an all-electric house, of the type seen in Chuck Jones’ “House-Hunting Mice”, where everything responds to Mickey’s commands at the push of a series of buttons on a remote control. Among the modern appliances (including recliner chairs that give massages and provide snack trays with robotic hands, automatic vacuuming machines, and the like) is a distinctive robot, originally designed by Ward Kimball for the Disneyland television episode, “Mars and Beyond”, who serves as master chef in the kitchen. As night falls, Mickey’s chair is transported automatically upstairs, where he passes through a car wash-style unit that automatically bathes him. Then, robotic hands tuck him in bed for the night, while microphones read him a bedtime story – even lowering the book into his lap so he can see the pictures. But Mickey can’t sleep – now for a different reason. All those buttons yet to push! He’d rather have more fun exploring the house’s functions, and decides to stay up the night and sleep the next day. But his path out the bedroom door is blocked by – the robot, who takes upon himself the role of nursemaid, insisting that Mickey go back to bed. Mickey makes several attempts to get past him, but each fails. Mickey shouts “Enough is enough. I’ll stand it no more. If you wanna get tough, get ready for war!” He takes a sock at the robot’s jaw, causing its head to spring upwards, bobbing on a steel extender resembling the bar of an automobile jack – a direct reference to the design of Marx Toys’ “Rock ‘Em, Sock ‘Em Robots”. Mickey next lays an old cartoon trap for the robot – placing a bucket of water atop a door jamb, causing it to drench the robot when he enters the door. The robot short circuits, causing massive power surges throughout the house. This results in the other appliances also going haywire, as Mickey is forced to fight the vacuum, the recliner (whose massage fingers Mickey ties into knots), and then finally escape from the house, just before it demolishes itself in a sputtering electric explosion. Mickey trudges back along the road, and spies his old house, still vacant. Having nowhere else to stay, he decides to go back for the night. To his surprise, he has no trouble at all dropping off to sleep, despite the winds, clanks, creaks and bangs – because he knows he is home.

Meany Side of the Street (Universal, The New Woody Woodpecker Show, 11/13/99) – Woody, currently the tenant of a treehouse in the yard of Ms. Meany, is faced with a startling development. Mrs. Meany has just posted a “For Sale” sign on her residence. She announces that she’s had it with the headaches of being a landowner – especially the headaches brought on by a certain red-headed woodpecker constantly damaging her roof and destroying her lawn. She has decided to seek out the upscale life-style of the Mondo Condo complex across-town, and hopes that with any luck, she will be signed on the dotted line for one by the end of the day. And it appears that Meany will have no problem selling her old place, as Wally Walrus, next-door neighbor and equal-opportunity hater or the woodpecker, is already calling over the fence with an offer to purchase – strictly for the privilege of chopping down the tree Woody calls home. Woody realizes he is suddenly man in the middle – and about to join the ranks of the homeless, unless he can do something to upset Meany’s apple-cart.

We thus encounter a plot which, surprisingly, bears distinct similarity to that of Max Fleischer’s “Little Lambkins”, discussed in an earlier installment of this article series – but with a notable difference. This one is funny! The primary reason is its choice of starring character and one of his established and best comic foils. Woody is well-known as a manipulator you love to hate – so his self-serving deviltry to prevent Meany from achieving her goals is exactly what you expect of the character, and would be disappointed not to see. Meany too is often an overbearing villainess whom we have all grown to sometimes appreciate when taking her lumps, not out of sympathy, but to see the results of sweet revenge. Thus, a destructive excursion into tampering with modern technology seems right up the alley of the woodpecker – while the same general idea utterly failed when Fleischer placed the tampering in the hands of an unestablished toddler brat, who we would have just as soon preferred to see get the paddling of his life for his misdeeds rather than come out on top against his innocent parents. Yes, it’s fun to see the woodpecker get his own just desserts once in a while. But you really don’t want to see him left homeless, to upset the entire future premise of the series, so this time, it simply works to have a well-conceived fiendish master plan be carried out with crafty success before our eyes, preserving the status quo for the next adventure to follow. Sometimes, a stone simply needs to be placed in the proper setting to develop into a gem.

Meany shows up at the Mondo Condo complex, and is escorted by a snooty couple in charge to a demonstrater condo for the day, to accustom herself to the push-button way of modern life, and to allow the couple to see if she measures up to the “kind of people” the complex caters to. Woody follows, slipping in through a window just ahead of Meany. As soon as the couple leaves Meany alone to savor the Condo ambience, Meany observes a control panel of buttons on the wall – the command center for the EZ Pal 9000 computer governing all of the condo’s functions. Woody slips under the sofa, grabbing a newspaper off its cushions, and rolls the paper into a cone to serve as a megaphone, making his voice sound slightly distant and mechanical. “Please step away from the EZ Pal 9000. The automated system has been preset to maximize your living ease.” Thinking this the ultimate in convenience, Meany backs away, and follows instructions to step onto the “automated floor covering” to be escorted into the home of the future. This allows Woody the opportunity to pull a simple floor rug out from under Meany. Meany flies upwards onto a chandelier, pulling it down with her weight, and is caught wearing the fixture like a double hoop-skirt when the couple walks in to invite her to a poolside meet-and-greet. Meany makes feeble excuses about having been caught wearing “this old thing”, and quickly ushers the questioning couple out, saying she’ll whip something up in the kitchen for the poolside event. Woody beats her to the kitchen, setting the oven temperature from 490, to 500, to 5000 degrees. Meany tosses in a turkey for her special turkey souffle. She has no sooner placed it into the oven, then Woody’s “computer voice” alerts her, “Your turkey is done.” It’s done, all right, as in over – burnt to cinders. The smoke rising from the oven activates the fire sprinkler system, filling the apartment with water up to the ceiling – a sight even the couple outdoors at the pool can see through the condo windows, as Meany goes swimming by. The front door of the condo bursts open, deluging the couple in a mini-tidal wave, while an aching Meany inside moans, “Oh, my soaking lumbar.” Woody, coming out of hiding from a kitchen trash can, figures one more modern convenience will have Meany begging to go back home. So, he is ready for Meany when she settles into an easy chair. Pretending again to be the computer in charge, Woody manipulates the chair’s recliner mechanism, sending Meany into a rebounding tennis match between one easy-chair and another, with Meany being the ball. Meany hits a button on the wall panel while being bounced, triggering off the command, “It’s party time”, causing the computer to lower a glittering disco ball and play salsa music, just as the dripping couple enter to view the madness. A final bounce off the chairs sends Meany crashing through a self-made hole in the wall, and outside into the pool. She flounders around in the water, calling for assistance. Woody appears in disguise as a pool cabana boy, tossing her a life preserver on a rope, that first conks her in the head, then reels her in with an automatic rewind, spooling her around the mechanism like a rotating pinwheel. The couple confront her, announcing that she is finished at Mondo Condo, and to come back never. “Now you listen to me, Mr. and Mrs. Snooty Pants!”, shouts a boiling Meany. “Who would stand for this nerve-wracking, hooty-tooty automated living you think is so modern? Not ME! So toodle-oo to YOU!”, as she backs the couple right into the pool.

A moment later, Meany is steering out of the complex in her car. She happens to spot Woody, trying to make his exit back home, and asks what he is doing here. Woody covers, pretending he just got here, to look over the place himself – considering he will also be looking for new living quarters now. Meany grabs him up by the topknot, and places him beside her in the front seat. “Forget it, Woody. I wouldn’t even let you live here!” The car drives off toward home. Woody utters three-quarters of his signature laugh, and a happy Meany responds, “That’s music to my ears, Woodpecker”, and completes the laughing herself.

Piano Movers and Shakers (Disney, Minnie’s Bow-Toons, 11/12/12) – The radio announces that Daisy Duck has just won a prize in the “Musical Mystery Contest”, which will be delivered to her address. However, when asked by her friends what the prize is, all Daisy knows is “It’s a mystery.” It seems it won’t remain a mystery for long, as a delivery truck drops off a piano right on the street corner of Minnie’s Bow-Tique. The two girls rush to wheel the instrument in – but it is way too wide for the front door. Minnie’s pet clock-cuckoo, Cuckoo Loca, tries to help with a squirt of slippery grease between the piano sides and the door frame – but Daisy’s strongest push only succeeds in flipping the piano round and around in place, somewhat in the manner of a revolving door mounted sideways. Minnie spies a balcony on the building just above the Bow-Tique entrance, wide enough to do the trick. Thus, Minnie and Daisy hire a derrick, with Cuckoo Loca attempting to run the controls. The tow rope gets caught around Daisy’s ankle, lifting her along with the piano. Minnie reaches from the balcony in attempt to free Daisy, while Cuckoo-Loca struggles at the derrick controls, causing the crane mechanism to wildly sway. The girls take some dizzying spins, then land on the piano keyboard, accidentally sounding out musical notes that begin to form into a tune. They thus get carried away, and find themselves tap-dancing and finger-walking a rhythm duet upon the piano as it continues to spiral in the air. The piano stops swaying just as they reach the final notes of the number, leaving Daisy standing on the keys but Minnie upside down. Minnie tells Daisy not to move, and Daisy agrees – until her head follows the passing flight of a pretty butterfly. The derrick again goes out of control, performs a final wild swing of the rope, and tosses the piano forcefully through the balcony door. The instrument lands with such force on the second story floor, that it crashes through it, landing the instrument with a thud, but in one piece, on the main floor of the Bow-tique. Well, the repair bill will be something, but at least they got the piano inside. However, a knock at the door brings a surprise. The same delivery man who drove the truck appears – but carrying a small box, which he announces is for Daisy Duck. Daisy opens the unexpected parcel, and finds inside a small kazoo – her actual “mystery” prize from the radio contest! What of the piano? The delivery man instantly recognizes it, and informs them that was intended for delivery across the street. Would the girls mind moving the piano out? Minnie and Daisy faint, while Cuckoo-Loca hums a few wrap-up notes through the kazoo.

Moving Bubble Bass (Nickelodeon, Spongebob Squarepants, 3/16/18) – Bubble Bass, a self-centered fish with a bad attitude, resides in the basement of his mother’s home with a cellar full of shabby furnishings, battered collectibles, and computer monitors. He occupies his otherwise idle time by fantasizing himself as host of an undersea talk show, until his reverie is busted by Mom’s call to take out the trash and walk the family’s pet worm (who is purple and seems to bark like the Flintstones’ Dino). Bubble Bass has had it with being saddled with chores, and swears he will move out – a threat his Mother would welcome, except that she doesn’t believe he can execute it on his own, as he can’t even do his own laundry. What Bass needs is some able-bodied idiots to do the dirty work – but where to find such fools on short notice. Made to order, along come Spongebob and Patrick, playing with an old red wagon. Bass offers them a proposition – move his stuff across town to his grandmother’s basement, and each gets a free bag lunch. Patrick’s mouth pours out a river of drool at the prospect (in one scene, a miniature ocean liner rides the wave). Bass at first pretends he will be there to help, but at the first attempt at moving furniture, Bass secretly snaps in half a wooden stick, claiming it as the sound of his bad back dislocating, and leaves Spongebob and Patrick not only to do all the moving, but his packing too.

The Spongebob packing method can be described in three words – destroy to fit. When Patrick becomes frustrated because a stool won’t fit in a box, he produces a mallet, smashes the stool to bits, then dumps the bits inside the box neatly. Spongebob fits a tall pile of plastic action figures into another box by turning a blowtorch on them, melting the figures into a pliable plastic goo. Patrick compresses a valuable comic book collection by chewing and swallowing it, then regurgitating the shredded mess into a third box. The toilet is uprooted by Patrick, then dropped – so Patrick merely fills its box with unrolled toilet paper. Soon, the boys’ wagon is burdened with a towering bundle of everything, and they wheel away from the home, revealing all that they have left behind is the home’s skeletal framework. As they roll down the sidewalk, they nearly bowl over some child jump-ropers, and an elderly fish in a wheelchair (who has to scurry up a light pole for safety). Then comes a direct homage to Laurel and Hardy’s “The Music Box”, as the boys encounter a snooty female fish of the upper crust (Lady Upton the 333rd), who takes great umbrage at being asked to walk around the boys (just as Professor Billy Gilbert did with Stan and Ollie), and tells out heroes to back it up. Patrick can’t hear the request from behind the wagon, and gets flattened by Spongebob following the lady’s orders, then stomped over by the lady (one of her stiletto-toed shoes lodging like a toothpick between Patrick’s teeth). But the lady is in for a double-dose of her own medicine, as the wagon backs up an incline, then rolls forward over the lady – and back again.

The boys pick up the pace in attempt to gain forward momentum, but another steep hill in their path reverses all their efforts, and causes the bundle to fall of the wagon, bouncing in runaway fashion backwards up the street. Its bounces pick up along the way the old-man fish, the jump-roper, and for good measure, the bundle returns to grab up the two other kids who were swinging the rope. Then, three infant toddlers in walkers appear on the street. Utilizing an outboard motor upon their wagon, Spongebob and Patrick speed to a position just ahead of the toddlers, and “take the bullet”, allowing the bounding bundle to swallow them up instead of the kids. The bundle finally comes to a stop, with Patrick’s head sticking out the top, and Spongebob’s feet out the bottom. Spongebob attempts to carry the whole load himself – but is tripped up by the return of the three toddlers, and drops the load. The bundle goes freely bouncing again, up the side of a small hill, at the summit of which rests a small home. Patrick and Spongebob catch up with the bundle there, then suddenly realize that this home is their intended destination. Bubble Bass emerges from the door, but instead of showing any gratitude, complains at how late the boys were in arriving. In fact, when the boys ask for their free lunches, Bass sadistically responds that he waited so long, he grew hungry – so he ate all the food! Spongebob goes into a tirade about Bass having crossed the line of aquatic decency, and treated them like a couple of bottom-feeders – yet, instead of retaliating, he merely consoles Patrick by offering to make him a free Krabby Patty – for $2.50 plus tax. It appears that Bass has gotten away with it. But upon opening the first crate, he finds that the boys packed into a tightly-crammed box – of all things – Bass’s own mother! She knows nothing of who packed her in, then bounced her all over town, and assumes it was none other than Bass. “See how you like it”, she raves, stuffing Bass inside a box, then wheeling him with a dolly into walls, mailboxes, and every hard obstacle she can encounter on the road home. The painful wails of Bass are heard from within: “I didn’t do it. It was Spongebob and Patrick. I…love you, Mommy!”

There’s been more moves – without so much emphasis on the moving – such as a few
relocations of the Simpsons, and “Despicable Me 4″, where Gru and family move to a safe house in an agent relocation program to avoid the vengeance of an imprisoned-but-escaped mega-villain, crossed with cockroach DNA for super insect powers. Possibly some others in series aimed at a little more juvenile audiences, such as “Arthur” and “Doug”. But time, recent production dates, and sheer patience preclude further discussion of same in this series. As usual, any blogging regarding any notable omissions (which I am frequently prone to make in the later television eras) is always welcome to fill in holes.

NEXT TIME: I’ll move along to a new topic next week. You readers stay rooted until then.