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Attack of the Living Brain Puppets

Episode #21 (385-608) - Attack of the Living Brain Puppets
Original Airdate - April 6th, 2002

Virgil inadvertently pledges his vote to MADELYN SPAULDING, the bratty, unpopular candidate for freshman class President. But when Virgil switches allegiance to Richie, an angry Madelyn uses her metahuman powers of mind control to turn the entire school, and Virgil's own family, against him.

Media by Bird Boy
Review by Matt Zimmer		 Credits:
Supervising Producer Alan Burnett
Producer Scott Jeralds
Associate Producer Kathryn Page
Written by Len Uhley
Directed by Dave Chlystek
Music by Richard "Wolfie" Wolf
Animation by Tama Production Co., LTD. (assistance from Hong Ying Universe Co., LTD.)

Voices:
Phil LaMarr as Virgil Hawkins/Static
Jason Marsden as Richie Foley
Kevin Michael Richardson as Robert Hawkins
Michele Morgan as Sharon Hawkins
Kimberly Brooks as Madelyn
Daniga McKellar as Frieda
Mgiquel Sandovla as Principal
Crystal Scales as Coed #1
Philip Tanzini as Joey

Screen Grabs






Pans
Review

Static must fight zombie versions of his friends in this intentionally stupid episode.

A girl named Madelyn Spaulding REALLY wants to get elected class president. Richie does too and begins a campaign based on fixing the vending machines in the cafeteria. Madelyn soon discovers she has the ability to turn people into zombies and control their minds. She uses the power to make the campaign frontrunner drop out and Richie witnesses this. She then reads his mind and learns that Virgil Hawkins is Static.

Richie tries to warn Virgil about his suspicions of Madelyn but Virgil has a hard time believing it until he sees his classmates acting like "Brain Puppets". Later that night Virgil is awoken to find out Robert and Sharon have been taken a hold of and everyone in Dakota is moving towards to school. Even Richie is a mindless Brain Puppet now. At the school Madelyn tells Static that even though she can't take over his mind because of his electrostatic powers she will tell the world he is Virgil Hawkins if he continues to fight her and says she will have everyone under her control. Static goads her by saying she doesn't have him so she tries to take over his mind by force and winds up getting her brain fried. Everyone wakes up from their trances and Madelyn falls into a vegetative state.

This is a stupid episode. REALLY stupid. And yet I can't help feeling that any episode this incompetently written and directed must have been done that way on purpose. This is stupidity at its most masterful and is written with complete conviction in its own idiocy. The jokes are bad and unfunny in the extreme but you can't help shaking the feeling that the writer's dumbed down the writing significantly just to see if the audience would accept it. I have to say I admire people with that much gall.

Madelyn was an annoying character but in the same entertaining way as Election's Tracy Flick. Her second appearance in She-Back was much better. But as this whole episode was rather annoying she fits in quite well here, I think.

The only really good thing about the episode was the animation. Virgil's nightmare was funky and I noticed that the Brain Puppets were animated so that they moved like the stock animation of the gang walking in Scooby Doo. Come to think of it it was also cool to see Ragtag's origin as well. But I'm not going to say that an episode this intentionally bad is ACTUALLY bad. It just feels that way.

Story: **
Animation: ***1/2
Average: **1/2
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