Bucky O'Hare - 05

"On The Blink"
Having recently conquered Rigel V, the home planet of the anthropomorphic koalas, the Air Marshal, Frix, Frax, Al Negator, and a number of the toad troopers are now using their planet as a kind of spa and recreational resort. When Bucky and his crew figure out that only Blinky can get through the planetary anti-mammalian shield Al Negator constructed around the planet, they send him down to sabotage it from inside. They get in some major trouble when he's caught and reprogrammed and sent back to sabotage their ship instead, however.

Points of interest:
1:42 The singer's claim "As a smoother-skinned toad, you're just a frog!" suggests toads in the Aniverse are actually descended from both amphibious species, or that frogs share (or used to share) their home world with them, but the toads always deemed them an inferior species (so they're either enslaved or extinct). This does—sort of—make sense, since hares and rabbits are actually two distinct species, and yet Bucky's people use the terms quite interchangeably and share some of both species' traits (e.g. hares aren't quite as fond of carrots as rabbits, but Bucky's people cultivate large carrots on their home world nonetheless; also, the world's named Warren, and underground warrens are where rabbits typically live in communal groups, but like hares, Bucky's people tend to pair off with their mates into nuclear families and build their dwellings above the ground).
1:45 Simoleans seem to have undergone some inflation since the last time we heard them mentioned. While the Air Marshal is certainly reluctant to pay Al Negator the 20,000 Simoleans he's demanding for setting up the toads' planetary defense system, he never treats it as an extortionate sum the way he did Al's demand for one quarter as much to help the toads acquire the access codes to shut down an enemy planet's defense system three episodes ago. Al Negator and the Air Marshal are also both willing to gamble this previously allegedly extortionate sum on a single idle bet here.
4:32 Why is the data on the defense system in books? Did the koalas already have a satellite system in place which Al Negator merely reverse-engineered to produce the defense network the toads wanted?
6:42 While it's not clear how Toadborg has "heard about" Blinky (something best left to fan fiction writers to speculate), this is in fact the first time these two have ever met in person, so the line's appropriate.
8:35 The Air Marshal's reaction here does set up some plot points about the toads' instinctive fear of baboons for later, and not just in this episode. Just as Toadborg was able to overcome his fears and face down Willy DuWitt (whom he'd mistaken for a baboon) two episodes ago when he reminded himself he was a nearly invulnerable cyborg, so too is Air Marshal able to rein in his instinctive response when he (rightly or wrongly) believes the baboon to be a mere hologram.
10:32 Should've kept your mouths shut and quietly admired your boss for his genius, Frix and Frax: you walked right into that one.
12:54 The only way what Willy's saying here makes any sense is if Blinky's being an android somehow makes him capable of making the repairs much faster than Willy.
15:23 It's never entirely clear to what extent Jenny's supposed to keep her powers a secret, but notice that while she speaks openly of her extra-sensory "intuition" here, she's also holding a blaster to use in place of those magical energy blasts we've seen her use exclusively where she thinks no living being will see or notice them.
16:39 Notice that while Simoleans were portrayed as strands of beads Al Negator stored in his cheeks two episodes ago, here they're portrayed as coins. I'm thinking the former was a physical storage medium for Simoleans in their digital form, whereas the latter is the currency's physical representation. (Considering that's allegedly some 20,000 Simoleans there, those coins must be made of platinum or something.)
18:49 While Al Negator obviously doesn't share the toads' instinctive fear of baboons, it's worth remembering he's a mercenary spy and confidence artist, not soldier; and even if he were a soldier, the toads aren't paying him enough to be worth taking on Bruiser and company all by himself.
19:06 Al Negator had better either have a space suit handy, or else be able to open up and crawl into the other bubble seat on that fighter.
19:52 The writers aren't so heavy-handed with their moralizing that they won't let Willy get in a little breezy humor at the expense of the big simplistic lesson we viewers are so obviously supposed to learn from this episode.