Pokemon Episode 62 Analysis: Clefairy Tales

CotD(s): Oswald – He’s not Seymour the Scientist ™.

Reappear?: No. Also, he’s not Seymour the Scientist ™.

Pokemon: None.

……And he’s still not Seymour the Scientist ™.

Plot: As Jigglypuff happily wanders along singing its song (and putting passersby to sleep, of course) it’s suddenly bonked on the head by a teapot that seemingly fell from a crashing spaceship. It investigates further to find it is indeed a spaceship – filled with…Clefairy?

Meanwhile, Ash, Misty and Brock stop by a local city for some ice cream as they continue their journey to Viridian City. As they enjoy their treats, a Clefairy suddenly appears, but quickly runs off. Misty gives chase, intent on capturing it, and Ash and Brock chase after her to stop them from getting separated. Their unsupervised bags (and ice cream) are snatched by an unseen thief.

Some time later, the trio returns to their table to find their bags and ice cream are gone. They head to the police station to report the crime to Officer Jenny, but they’ll have to wait in line behind dozens of other people who have had random items stolen, much to the confusion of both the police and the victims.

A strange man named Oswald offers a theory – Aliens. While Misty thinks it’s ridiculous, Oswald is able to convince the group of the alien culprits by showing them a picture of an alien space craft. The chef states that he saw that ship on the outskirts of town three days ago, which is when the thefts started.

Alongside Oswald, who is somehow tracking the ‘aliens’ with some sort of device, Ash, Misty and Brock go searching for the ship in order to get their bags back. They, shockingly, seem to find it as a spaceship descends from the sky right in front of them. Two ‘aliens’ emerge, kidnap Pikachu and leave. Turns out, it was Team Rocket using a fake ship hung by a crane on a building above. Pikachu has been placed in a glass case to protect them from his electricity.

Back on the ground, Ash uses Pidgeotto to cut the cable and send the ship crashing down.

As the group and Team Rocket face off, they’re suddenly approached by the same Clefairy from earlier. Jigglypuff also shows up out of nowhere. Before anyone can make heads or tails of what’s going on, Clefairy makes off with the still-imprisoned Pikachu. Team Rocket tries to chase it, but they’re stopped by Clefairy’s Light Screen.

Ash and the others take chase next, but Clefairy escapes down an alleyway. When they arrive at the alley, they find that Clefairy has disappeared. Jigglypuff points out that the sewer is the only way Clefairy could have escaped. They all hop down in the manhole and wind up in a cave.

Much to their surprise, the Clefairy has built a new rocket and spaceship using the items that they’ve stolen around town. They spot the Clefairy who stole Pikachu bringing him into the ship, intending on using him as a power source for the ship.

A countdown to the launch commences. Brock runs off to inform Officer Jenny while Ash, Misty and Oswald infiltrate the ship to rescue Pikachu. When they find him, they’re met with a slue of Clefairy who vehemently guard Pikachu. Jigglypuff walks in and challenges the whole lot of them, shockingly Pounding and Double-Slapping them all into submission.

Jigglypuff enters the control room where the Clefairy who stole its microphone is sitting in wait. The two have yet another slap-down until they’re interrupted by Oswald. He plays with the control panel and accidentally breaks off the ‘joystick’ which turns out to be Jigglypuff’s missing microphone. Jigglypuff immediately snatches the microphone and starts singing over the PA system, causing everyone to fall asleep. As usual, Jigglypuff huffs, draws on their faces and leaves.

When the launch begins, Pikachu is prompted to use a powerful electric attack, powering up the ship enough to take off. The rocket shoots through the launch tunnel and pops up under the road in the city above. Using the street as a runway and a building as a ramp, the spaceship launches into the sky.

Pikachu’s electricity breaks him out of the pod, and Ash and Misty wake up just in time to grab their backpacks and escape. However, they’re much too high up to jump out of the ship. They have one chance – jump down onto a nearby skyscraper as they fly by it. With the help of Bulbasaur, they’re able to land on the skyscraper safely.

Ash and Misty watch the spaceship fly off over the horizon, bidding the Clefairy farewell as they head towards their destination……Little do they know that the Clefairy’s ship cannot make the journey and crash lands at a campsite several miles away. The Clefairy (and Oswald) emerge from the ship and once again begin stealing things to make repairs.

Later, Ash, Misty and Brock meet back up with Officer Jenny and the victims of the thefts. Everyone somehow recovered their stolen items and they express their gratitude to the three before they head off once more towards Viridian City and Ash’s eighth, and final, Gym Badge.

—————————————————-

– Before I even got to the title screen, I remembered why I didn’t like this episode. It is just a cornucopia of stupid and confusion.

– Also, it’s a friggin’ crime, a CRIME I say, that Seymour the Scientist ™ is not in this episode.

– I absolutely hate that the ice cream place they stop at is called ‘Soft Cream.’ That’s just eugh no.

– I know that I tend to not give Ash some slack in areas when he should because he is a kid, but even at ten years old he shouldn’t be double-fisting ice cream cones, getting it all over his face (even on his nose and under his eyes) and slurping it like a thirsty dog. Apparently Delia was too busy teaching her son proper underwear changing habits and never got around to teaching him manners.

– Why does the ice cream box say ‘Lucky’ on the side?

– This perspective is really, really weird. It makes Clefairy look only a few inches tall.

– Misty: “I can’t let this one get away!” Is my memory garbo or did Misty ever try to catch a Clefairy before? I don’t remember her trying it in Clefairy and the Moon Stone.

– Not a single one of them thought to grab their bags before leaving the table? All of their money, clothes, food, emergency supplies etc. are in those bags. Why are they even chasing her anyway? Do they want to fight her for Clefairy’s capture rights or are they worried she’ll never find her way back? She’s not a dog, guys.

– Now THIS perspective is weird. It makes it look like the table and chairs are teeny tiny.

– Ash: *crying* “I never got to taste the chocolate!” Yes, you did. You had chocolate ice cream on your face, you liar. Unless you somehow got chocolate ice cream on your face without tasting it, which is sad and impressive at the same time.

Also, while they definitely should report their bags being stolen, depending on how long they were gone, it’s perfectly reasonable to assume their ice cream cones were just cleaned up by the busboys.

– Chef: “I turned my back and my pot disappeared! My chicken too!” Okay…..So….Why are you still holding the ladle and whisk? What were you making that involved a whisk and a ladle at the same time, for that matter?…..Are you seriously going to the COPS for a stolen chicken and pot?

– Mother: “My baby’s favorite bottle was stolen!” *baby starts crying* Yes, and instead of going to the store to buy another, I decided to stand in this ridiculously long line for however long until I could report this crime to the cops, who will inevitably do nothing because it’s a frickin’ baby bottle.

– Baseball Player: “My lucky bat is gone, and now I’ll never hit another home run.” Again, the cops would do nothing about this.

– Man: “The buttons on my coat are gone!” Are you friggin’ kidding me?

– Woman: “Someone stole the candles off my birthday cake.” You people are insane.

– Kid: “What about my bike horn!?” They stole the horn but not the bike?

– Brock: “I mean, who’d want to steal somebody’s bike horn or the buttons from a coat or the candles off a birthday cake?”

Oswald: “Aliens!”

….

Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce you to discount low-calorie no-sugar knock-off Seymour the Scientist™ – Oswald. And I’m not kidding – they have Oswald do Seymour’s over the top shtick and make him obsessed with Clefairy. The major differences are Seymour was awesome and entertaining and this guy is an annoying kook. Perfect opportunity to bring Seymour back, but nope. Bastards.

– Ash: “How do these guys find us?…..” *snort* Alright, that was pretty funny.

– How and why is there such a clear picture of the Clefairys’ space craft in that book? How long have these things been toting that ship around earth? Also, the chef saw this thing, seemingly on the ground, and didn’t do anything?

– I love how Officer Jenny is doing absolutely nothing about Oswald viciously shaking the chef and shouting at him for information on the space craft. Meanwhile, Ash, the ten-year-old boy, has to stop him. She’s certainly a crime fighter for the ages….

– This is a town where the citizens will rush to the police station (instead of doing what most normal people would do and call) for incredibly minor ‘crimes’ and will actually believe a nutjob who claims aliens stole the items. Then the cops will have a trio of children follow the nutjob, alone, and investigate the crashed space craft, also alone, while following a blinky doodad.……Ash, Misty, Brock….call your folks, have them send new stuff, and walk away.

– Speaking of which, what even is that stupid gadget? What is it actually detecting? Because as far as I see it just goes off randomly, even detecting Misty and Jigglypuff as ‘aliens.’

– Misty: “I don’t understand why we have to be part of this stupid spaceman search party.” Misty, the also ten-year-old, is the only one with sense here.

– Fun Fact: The ‘alien language’ Jessie and James are speaking when they kidnap Pikachu is ‘Nomekop’ or ‘Pokemon’ spelled backwards. No clue whose idea that was, but it’s pretty clever and works well because the word does sound odd yet still like a real language.

– I am willing to give a pass to them for being too in shock of the ‘aliens’ that they accidentally let them make off with Pikachu, but I will not give them one for being too blind to not see the cable attached to the ‘space ship’ and the giant crane on the building overhead. Granted, because they wanted to fool the audience too, this wasn’t visible to us until they were already leaving (the cable on top isn’t even visible in a wide shot – that one was flatout cheating.) but surely the characters should have noticed. At least Misty, the skeptic, should have.

– Ash: “Hey, that’s a crane.” Very good, Ash. Hindsight and post-Pika-napping is 20/20.

– Hey, Ash, Pikachu was in that ship you just made crash probably 50 feet into the pavement below….Oh, also, the frickin’ thing was in a GLASS case, which means he’s probably filleted ‘chu right now. Good job.

– Oswald: “You mean they’re not aliens?” Oswald, goddammit.

– Oswald may be an idiot, but Misty should at least apologize for breaking his dumb useless scanner.

– Oswald: “It took me weeks to assemble that scanner! What will I do if I can’t find the comic book I ordered it from!?” I at least appreciate that the show recognizes what a doof Oswald is, and it’s funny that his scanner came from a comic book ad…..but….it took him weeks to assemble it? It’s a little gizmo the size of a cell phone. Why wouldn’t it be sold already assembled? And even if they were that cheap, how much assembly could that thing need? Did you need to solder all of the electronics and everything? What the heck?

– So this little Clefairy had the time and strength to put down Pikachu, remove the manhole cover, grab Pikachu, head down the sewer and (mostly) replace the manhole cover (with Pikachu still in its hands) all before Ash and co., who were like three seconds behind, caught up?

– Okay, it’s crazy for Jigglypuff to just jump down this manhole, especially when Brock said they can’t even see the bottom, but it’s the Balloon Pokemon. It will probably be alright. However, it’d be ultra dumb if the humans, who are not small pink sentient balloon animals, jumped down this hole that almost certainly leads to either a quick death or horrible life-changing injuries. Good thing that would never happen, right?

Right guys?

…..Rig–

So, Ash and the others jump down after Jigglypuff.

Because they’re all just….so dumb.

So….

Unreasonably….

Dumb.

Again, even ten-year-olds should know that this is insanely dangerous. Not to mention the fact that this can be mimicked by their younger audience. Yeah, kids. If you see an open manhole, hop right in! You’ll find a spaceship and Clefairy and you certainly won’t wind up in a wheelchair, coma or dead because you fell however far onto solid concrete!

-What the hell is happening here?

Did they find a portal to purgatory?

– Okay, I’m not a sewer expert or anything, but 1) Pretty sure you wouldn’t end up falling through a series of pipes if you fell down a manhole. Again, you’d probably just crash into the concrete below and die. 2) Even if you did, I doubt you’d be able to survive the hit into the pipe as you fell, and they smack into the pipes hard several times. 3) Why would the sewer empty out into a random cave? 4) Why would the random cave they wind up in have no water at the end? There’s no water in any of this equation. It’s a real sewer line, we see the various pipes. Unless the Clefairy built this sewer system themselves, this is somehow a sewer system without water or, ya know, sewage.

– Misty: *seconds after landing in the cave* “Pikachu’s gone. Let’s go.” Nice, Misty. Also, why would you be brave enough to dive into an open, dark manhole but you don’t have the balls to weather being in a random cave to find Pikachu?

Ash: “Very funny.” Was she joking? That didn’t come across.

– *sigh* And now the cous de gras of stupidness…..the Clefairy’s new spaceship. I’m working under the assumption that everything down in this cave was built by the Clefairy and not the theory that, somehow, the Clefairy found an abandoned but working secret rocket launching facility made by humans because that somehow makes less sense to me.

So……all of this…the spaceship, the rocket, the extendable and movable staircase, the launchpad, the giant countdown thinger that descends from the ceiling, everything…….was built….using the most random garbage they could get their little pink fingers on. Baby bottle….pot….chicken….baseball bat…bike horn….birthday candles…..coat buttons….We’re also later shown a golf club, a tennis racket, a radio and a ball. How is ANY of this helping them build ALL OF THIS? I would understand if they were stealing stuff like arc welders, scrap metal, fuel etc. but ice cream? Whatever the hell is in Ash, Misty and Brock’s backpacks?…..Oh yeah, holy crap, Misty, you just got all your Pokemon stolen again. Your bag safety practices have not improved at all since the Farfetch’d episode, young lady.

This plot is probably the most nonsensical in the series so far, and it pretty much just expects to be brushed off with ‘They’re aliens, so they can make whatever with whatever.’

I am perfectly willing to accept that maybe the spaceship itself wasn’t made from junk. But it’s clearly repaired by it, and the rocket still had to have been built from the ground up by junk.

– Brock: “I’ll go tell Officer Jenny.” How? You got here via a sewage pipe that you can’t climb, and considering how long the ride took, I can bet you’re fairly far away. Is there an exit I’m not seeing?

– They have a gear system working with a soccer ball as one of the cogs, spinning on the missing pot….How is that staying there? Either something is piercing it, meaning it would be deflated, or it’s purely friction, which shouldn’t keep it there indefinitely, especially once the ship starts moving. I love how they show a few things here and there to ‘prove’ that they are indeed using the stolen garbage, but you can’t explain away the other 99.99% of the stuff around here. Like the glass power pod thing they’re storing Pikachu in. What is that made from? How did it get made?

– Oh god, the animation on Ash and the others when they run in after seeing Pikachu. This is definitely a budget episode.

– Where did all the Clefairy randomly pop in from? There’s only one entrance to the room and they kinda appeared in front of the pod.

– There is clearly power being fed into this ship somehow. Machines are running and the lights are on. Not to mention, they have tons of power if they can use that huge stadium-level countdown indicator outside. They have to have some substantial source of electricity. Why is Pikachu so vital?

– Before I rewatched this, I thought the Clefairy and Jigglypuff stuff was the worst part of the episode, but now I realize it’s actually the saving grace because their fight is hilarious. Don’t think we need to add fancy attack labels to what is essentially a bitchslap fight, but still entertaining.

– And then Jigglypuff’s curbstomping the other Clefairy because it wants its microphone back is just the icing on the cake.

– Oswald: “I wonder what this joystick does. *breaks it* Oops. I broke it.” Oswald, goddammit.

– I love that Jigglypuff immediately starts singing when it gets its microphone back.

– Ash: *hearing Jigglypuff’s song* “What’s that?”

– Misty: “It’s Jigglypuff’s song!”

Ash: “That’s a song I always get tired of.” And yet you never remember it.

– Jigglypuff sure has gotten lazy with its face scribbles. It used to actually doodle funny pictures. Now it’s just random black squiggles.

– It’s very cute that they used a little plastic hammer to boop Pikachu on the nose to make him attack.

– The Clefairy also built a tunnel system and tracks for the rocket to travel through, somehow broke up the road in secret and turned a massive section of the road into a panel that could be remotely turned into a ramp for the rocket to use. All with garbage.

– Also, all the stolen stuff just falls from the rocket as it’s leaving the hanger. I’m sure it was so vital….or maybe it was vital and the Clefairy are just shoddy mechanics.

– Chef: “Now I can cook my chicken!” You’re a professional chef who only owns one pot? Also, your stolen chicken didn’t fall out. Guess you have to buy a new one….or, if it did fall out off-screen….uh….you’re gonna cook that now?….Ew.

– All of the streets in this massive city are surprisingly void of literally any cars.

– Their runway leads straight for a massive building that, conveniently, has sloped sides.

Also, I know cartoon logic is in play here, but

….screw you.

– Why would they have it set up so that the rocket separates from the spaceship before it’s even cleared the buildings?

– I find it funny that, for a change, Team Rocket is actually blasting off in a rocket.

….It’s at least funny until that thing kills dozens of people because it not only doesn’t have a parachute, but it’s the middle of a densely populated city with no way to control it.

– They’re doing the questioning for me here in regards to Pikachu breaking itself free, but it actually kinda makes the situation worse.

Ash: “I wonder how it cracked open.”

Misty: “Pikachu’s electric attack must’ve been too much for it.”

Ash: “Like when a balloon pops because there’s too much air inside.”

Mmph.

I’m not expecting ten-year-olds with no education to know how this would happen….especially because it probably wouldn’t.

Glass can shatter because of electricity, but, considering the situation, it’s unlikely it would have happened in this circumstance. The speed and heat of a sudden BOLT of lightning, plus the shockwave of the thunder, can shatter glass. However, in the case of Pikachu, he was delivering an even stream of electricity for about a minute. This application of electricity should have heated and melted the glass, at most, not broken it.

Also, it should be noted that Pikachu’s supposed maximum amperage is 1000, while the average lightning bolt is around 30,000 amps.

Ash is right in that air pressure can break glass, but that’s not what they’re implying here. They’re making the claim that Pikachu was just too powerful for the glass to handle, which I sincerely doubt. Even if air pressure was a factor here, I doubt that pod is air tight (unless they wanted to murder Pikachu) like a balloon would be.

I’m no scientist, again, researching as I go, so if you think this is feasible then comment below. I’m actually very interested in this.

– So their bags were just….sitting there….in the same room Pikachu was being held?….Nothing missing from them? Surely, out of all the stuff the Clefairy stole, their backpacks had to have had things that they could have used in the ship. They found uses for a microphone and a soccer ball but nothing in the backpacks?

Why, it’s almost like the missing backpacks were just a flimsy plot device….and, really, that’s what they were because not only did the Clefairy not use anything in the backpacks, but how many times has Ash and co. just stumbled upon the problem of the week and just volunteered to help? The episode could have easily started with them walking down the street and wondering why there’s a huge crowd outside the police station and then they help the investigation.

– Bulbasaur landing on Ash was very cute.

– I commend the Clefairy for being able to make even a slightly working spaceship out of random crap, but it’s hard to be impressed when the thing keeps crashing and then they steal more crap to make another. How many times have they done this?

– It’s pretty dumb of those people to run from Oswald when he’s clearly wearing a cardboard box, a pot and a desk lamp. He’s also speaking clear English and has visible human hands and feet.

– Officer Jenny: “On behalf of everyone, I’d like to say ‘Thank you.’”

Ash: “Thanks!”

No, Ash, SHE wanted to say thanks, silly.

– Ash: “We’re glad you got everything back.” What the….what…..what the…..wha…..How is that even remotely possible?! Some stuff fell from the ship, sure, but if the ship was made entirely from random stolen crap then surely a good chunk of it has to be gone for good. You can’t tie up that bow, Pokemon. It’s impossible.

– I love how absolutely no one is concerned about Oswald.

——————————————

Well, that certainly was an episode.

It’s a massive overload of stupid, even for this show, but it never made me really angry or anything. Mostly, I just feel like my intelligence was insulted. Even for kids, this is some insane stretching they’re doing here. You could say it’s…..astronomical. 😀

…..Yeah, I’m sorry.

Also, it’s kinda weird that this group of Clefairy is a super-smart group of seemingly legit aliens when the last ones we saw just lived like normal Pokemon with the implications of being extraterrestrial.

Don’t even talk to me about Oswald. He’s not making my blood boil or anything, but he is one of more annoying CotDs we’ve had, and he took up Seymour the Scientist’s ™ role and that’s just blasphemy.

Even the art and animation were low grade today.

The one saving grace of this episode, like I mentioned, was the Jigglypuff vs. Clefairy stuff…and even that got a little old by the time the main Clefairy showed up.

This episode wasn’t terrible to sit through, but it definitely did not deserve to be the lead up to the final (Indigo) badge episode.

Speaking of which, holy crap, guys, next time we cover the final (Indigo) badge episode! It’s also the first and only time (that I know of anyway. Much later movies might do this more. I’m not as familiar.) where the movies have interjected with the main series.

That’s right! We’ve got Viridian City! We’ve got Earth Badge! We’ve got Gio-frickin’-vanni! We’ve got Gary in a Gym match! We’ve got MEWTWO, bitches!

And…..and………we have one of the most wasted badge episodes, let alone final badge episodes, to ever grace Pokemon because they spent too much time and energy tying into the movie that they didn’t bother making a good story for the main plot of the series. We’ve got a lot to go over, folks.

……Previous Episode

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