Freakazoid Tangles with a Werewolf and Spoofs E.T as My Patron-Funded Exploration of the Cult Classic TV Show Continues
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Steven Spielberg wasn’t just Freakazoid’s Executive Producer. He was a character within in its dazzlingly post-modern universe as well. Our nation’s all-time most successful filmmaker pops up repeatedly in “Next Time Phone Ahead” but his influence on the segment extends far beyond that.
As its title impishly hints, “Next Time Phone Ahead” is Freakazoid’s parody of E.T. Only instead of a kindly, gentle being from another planet who teaches children about the wonder and awe of existence, Freakazoid must contend with an obese, dazzlingly dense man baby previously known as Mo-Ron but renamed Bo-Ron here.
But before Dexter Douglas/Freakazoid’s close encounter of the stupidest kind we’re first treated to an unusually elaborate fake-out. We open with space aliens stopping on Earth for a five minute pit stop.
They visit out planet solely for the sake of taking a leak but one of the aliens does not make it back to the spaceship on time and is stranded on earth, possibly forever.
Eventually the extraterrestrial finds its way to our milquetoast hero’s suburban home, where it devours him whole. Only four minutes into a twenty-two minute episode, we’re informed that the show has ended.
This, understandably, perplexes Steven Spielberg, who is shown in his natural habitat, at a table telling intimidated writers what to do. The E.T director says that the cartoon’s lead character can’t die mere minutes into an episode but the impressively lazy scribes propose filling the remaining time with a rerun of Animaniacs.
Animaniacs was a similarly meta sister show to Freakazoid and part of the Steven Spielberg 1990s animation universe. The shows shared an Executive Producer and many writers and producers. They were so tightly connected and simpatico that overlap seemed not just possible but inevitable.
Freakazoid accordingly runs a brief excerpt from Animaniacs before Spielberg insists they can’t actually do that. We then travel back to Dexter meeting the alien, only this time it’s Bo-Ron.
Boron is like the aliens of Mars Attacks! in essentially being a feral baby in space alien form. But where the aliens of Mars Attacks! are exhilaratingly psychotic, creatures of pure id who live to bring the pain to humanity, Bo-Ron is just kind of dumb.
He’s sloppy. His clothes do not fit. He speaks slowly yet never has anything of value or worth to say. His internal monologue seems stuck at “duh.” It’s great to hear Stan Freberg in action but there’s not a whole lot to Bo-Ron but stupidity and that gets old very quick.
In “Next Time Phone Ahead” we’re introduced to the Freak-A-Zone, which is different than the Freak-A-Lair, Freak’s answer to the Batmobile. The Freak-A-Zone is more analogous to Superman’s Fortress of Solitude.
It is a true Mind Palace, a Happy Place where Freak can reflect upon life’s great mysteries and watch reruns of Rat Patrol. Oh, and it has its own rollercoaster, which is nice.
The Freak-A-Zone is much more inspired than the main plot, which ends on an anti-climax, with Spielberg agreeing to run the aforementioned Animaniacs rerun rather than waste anyone’s time with more Bo-Ron.
The following segment is another irreverent riff on classic 1980s science fiction. This time Freakazoid! gives Predator the business through the story of a dreadlocked alien hunter who is kidnapping nerds as part of a very complicated, poorly thought out plot to take over the world.
The Nerdator is prescient in his understanding that nerds furtively rule pop culture and the world at large, that they dominate politics and movies and business and technology.
The Nerdator kidnaps nerds from across the spectrum. He nabs Tom Snyder and Bill Clinton and, you guessed it, Steven Spielberg, who is directing a sequel to E.T when he’s kidnapped by a monster from beyond.
Freak hips the Nerdator to the myriad downsides of being a nerd, so he decides to kidnap the vacuous hunks of the world instead. “Nerdator” is similarly a little one note. There are laughs and funny ideas in both “Next Time Phone Ahead” and “Nerdator” but they don’t quite live up to the show’s very high standards.
Freakazoid! once again finds inspiration in cinema in “House of Freakazoid.” The segment finds satirical fodder in the Universal Horror classics, most notably the 1941 version of The Wolf Man.
“House of Freakazoid” finds Dexter Douglas being visited at his home by Lonnie Tallbutt, a tormented man with a terrible secret. He was bitten by a werewolf years ago and consequently turns into a beast himself when the moon is full.
Lonnie, who looks exactly like Lon Chaney Jr., the actor who played the Wolf Man in the 1941 film, heard that Dexter Douglas similarly underwent a profound physical transformation and consequently might be able to help him with his little “problem.”
“House of Freakazoid” looks like an old horror comic book. Lonnie Tallbutt/The Wolf Man looks almost photorealistic. The show really nails the look and vibe and sound of old horror movies and comic books.
The segment begins in a surprisingly straightforward manner but takes a predictable turn towards the zany when Dexter freaks out and becomes Freakazoid. Freakazoid! wears its influences on its sleeve when Freakazoid begins shaving the confused lycanthrope and the show briefly turns into Bugs Bunny’s definitive version of “Barber of Seville.”
“House of Freakazoid” ends with the wolf man cured, and consequently just a man. Freak has cured him of his sickness, so he brings over his friends to see if he can work his magic with them as well and they are, of course, the other Universal monsters.
In “Sewer or Later” Freak tangles with another monstrosity in the form of Cobra Queen, an underwater vixen who was once a simple thief in Skokie, Illinois until she took a cream that transformed her into a super villainous snake woman with power over reptiles.
Freakazoid is expected to venture down into the sewers to defeat the colorful super-villain but it just smells too goddam bad down there (like “poo gas”, specifically) for him to want to do his super-heroic duty.
In a nifty gag, Freak vows repeatedly NEVER to go down there or do something he doesn’t want to do, as characters always do in movies and TV shows. This is inevitably followed by a shock cut to them doing EXACTLY what they said they’d never do.
Not this time! We then see Freak chilling in the Freak-A-Zone, bragging that for once, someone said they wouldn’t do something, and then were shown NOT doing it. Freakazoid does go down into the Cobra Queen’s lair immediately afterwards, but Freakazoid! manages to have it both ways, to slyly send up a hokey comic cliche while also using it.
I was similarly amused when Cobra Queen confidently greets Freakazoid as someone named “Atomic Boy”, then apologizes when he corrects her, saying that the lighting in her lair is frustratingly bad.
That’s the beauty of Freakazoid! The good jokes aren’t just funny and original and inspired: they’re memorable. They stand out in your mind. You remember them.
Freakazoid! sets the bar very high but clears it most, if not all, of the time.
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