Hello, Spongey here.
Welcome to another round of Episode Battles. So these keep not getting big views which is a shame as I enjoy doing them. Plus they are quite easy to do which means it’s not hard to fill a blog slot for the month. I’m still having fun comparing TV episodes so you’ll keep getting these. And the intros are easy to write up as well!
Today we got some interesting pairs. One is on the heavy side, one while one is lighter and more unexpected even with the direct connections they have. It’s an interesting round so we should get right into it.
This, is Episode Battles #3: Late Buses
LIVE ACTION:
The Day of the Dot [The Adventures of Pete and Pete[ vs Guide to The Bus [Ned’s Declassified School Survival Guide]
Season 1, Episode 2 (7 if you include the specials)/Season 3, Episode 8a
Writers: Will McRobb & Chris Viscardi & Joe Stillman/Rick Groel
We have a simple but fun one for this one. We have a beloved 90’s live action Nickeldeon show vs a beloved 2000s one. Both of these not only are about the school bus in some way but have the oddly specific connection of the bus driver being too busy mourning over an ex to do their job. Two nickels.
Now, in the Pete episode it’s just the subplot but since the Ned’s episode is 11 minutes I figured it was fair enough. Pete did have a full bus episode where the man returns called Yellow Fever but….I like this one more so there. Both were solid examples of the charm and fun of their shows but let’s see which bus adventure wins out.
I should note that write of the Ned’s episode wrote an episode of Pete and Pete. Not this one but still. He also has another interesting Nick connection. They had a series of shorts called As the Bus Turns and they would later make a pilot for a series based on them. It didn’t take off but that pilot was done by Rick Groel. Yeah, he must be a big fan of buses I guess.
But anyway, let’s start with the earlier episode and we may as well get the non-bus plot out of the way first. Big Pete is in the marching band and the teacher wants them to make a formation where his friend Ellen is the dot in the I in a word. The teacher guy gets too into this, putting a lot of pressure on the kids and that rubs off on Ellen, who starts taking it too seriously.
She even gets help from this one sort of snooty guy who puts the moves on her. Yeah, this episode deals with the blossoming romance between the friends. Yes, even this show had to that trope. It was honestly the least interesting aspect of the show with how standard it is compared to everything else but it could still be charming. It feels too early in the show to go as full force as they did, so they had to pull back to be able to do more with it.
I do like the aspect of Ellen getting to into to hang out with them and all that, that felt stronger character wise. The romance aspect I’m not as crazy about, as again it feels like the sort of standard stuff I see in lesser shows. The love triangle element is a bit annoying and the ending, while nice, again gets a bit too typical with this big gesture.
The best stuff is the general marching band shenigans. The teacher guy is fun with how intense is and the announcer’s comments at the end are pretty great. They just needed to make it more friendship focused, as the romance part feels like too much too soon. Otherwise, the main plot is mostly good.
But onto the main course. Little Pete’s bus driver Stu Benedict is upset because his girlfriend Sally Canorp broke up with him. Stu had a little trouble expressing his true feelings, he’s just like me fr. Instead of going to where they are meant to go, he makes them stop at various places connected to Sally.
Naturally, this calls for a revolution.
I do feel for the guy and the melodrama plus Pete’s attempts are pretty funny. This show was usually more fun/charming than fully comedic but this has some good jokes in both plots. But are they being held off from getting to school or home? If so, you’d think some adults would notice and panic.
I like how it parallels to the main story, with the romance, without being too obvious about it. Okay sure they play a speech from Stu over some of the main plot but it could be worse. Stu and Sally eventually bump into each other and reconnect, with the help of Little Pete. I think that’s nice, it shows him empathy which is a big part of the show.
Stu and Sally reconnecting is quite sweet and honestly it’s the best romance in the story. The subplot doesn’t take up as much as I would have liked but we’ll talk more about that in the comparison. Fun stuff, onto Ned’s.
This one also has some romance outside of the bus driver. Ned put a love note in Susie Crabgrasses’ locker but gets cold feet when Moze says it’s too earlier to have a full love note.
“It’s like picking a wedding cake on the first date”
He wants to get to school before Suzie to take out the note but their bus driver, Mr. Kwest, is held back by being sad that his girlfriend broke up with him. Meanwhile, Moze wants to sit next to Faymen and Cookie misses the bus. Like most episodes, this show does a good job switching between the plots and showing off different aspects of the subject matter.
It stands out with the setting. The show mostly stayed outside and in Season 3 they stepped out a more, which resulted in this one which is almost all outside. It makes it stylistically stand out with some unique camera moments. There isn’t too much to say about the side plots on their own though. Moze can be a bit much with her schemes but it fits her sometimes abrasive nature and there’s good jokes like Martin Qwarley subtweeting her. Cookie’s plot is better with the involvement of Dr. Xavier and the joke about them stealing.
Main plot wise, it turns out Kwest said I Love You too early too (and picked out a wedding cake on their first date) and once he finds out what Ned wants, they team up. After he helps out, he meets Xavier and they hook up, with her even wanting to pick out the wedding cake. Oh and Ned gets the note back but not really, it’s her homework and it’s still there. Wah wah.
The comparison is tricker than I expected. Of course, the shows could not be more different in terms of style, as one is chill and the other is…not. But both are refreshingly unique in their direction, with both having some neat moments with the camera. Pete has it a bit more, like a zoom shot that kinda reminded me of things like The Office.
If we’re talking the full episode, The Bus wins out. Day of the Dot is dragged down a bit by the main plot. It’s pretty fun for most of it and has a good setup with Ellen. But while the ending is emotionally satisfying, it could have been done in a more interesting way. If it was tweaked, I could see it being one of my favorite episodes. As it is, it’s fairly good with some pretty good stuff in it.
But if we mean just the bus driver aspect, that’s closer. My only nitpick with the Pete one is that we could have had more fun Pete’s schemes as it has to drag out the ending a bit. Not a big deal, but it could have taken up a bit more of the episode. I have no beef with The Bus though. Each plot works well and it’s pretty fun.
The handling of the bus driver in the Ned’s one is different in a way that works. They play up his pathetic-ness more but he’s still likable. There’s less emphasis on him here since it’s more about the others. As a result, Pete fleshes their driver out more, leading to that nice ending. Ned’s is more about comedy so it does a gag ending but it’s a good one. Not having him get back with his girlfriend is mature even if it’s obviously done just for this joke ending. Him getting involved with a like minded person is solid as far as joke endings go.
It depends on what you prefer. The nice ending does work well as does the gag ending. Even that doesn’t feel like too big of a cheat so it’s more of a matter of taste. I think both handle this pretty well. But in the end, I pick…Guide to the Bus.
Day of the Dot has a pretty fun bus driver plot alongside the main story but it could do a bit more with the bus antics. Yellow Fever has more of it but the Pete/Ellen bickering hurts it and The Bus still does it better. Dot remains a solid episode but Ned does more with the time it has. It’s not quite an all timer but it stands out and is consistently fun.
I’d recommend both episodes and both shows but here, Ned was just more by speed.
Winner: Guide to The Bus
ANIMATED:
The Devil’s Hands are Idle Playthings vs Meanwhile [Futurama]
Season 4, Episode 18/Season 7, Episode 26
Writer: Ken Keeler
Oh we got a big one. Futurama has had a weird run, with it ending than coming back a few times. It’s had a few finales at this point but the main ones closed out the primary Fox and Comedy Central ones. The show is back baby at Hulu and hopefully when it ends, it can close out on a big note before coming back once again. I haven’t seen the new episodes, so I can’t offer an opinion.
The show struggled on Fox and while it merely had not been renewed when this aired, they had a feeling this would be the end and wrote it as such. It indeed was and it later got picked up for 4 movies than a 2 season run at Comedy Central. But which run had the strong ending? I think both are great in their own way but it has been a while. Do these hold up and which is better?
Let’s start with Devil’s Hands. Fry has been trying his hand at the Holophoner and stinks at it, chasing the high of when he was good at it thanks to worms. 22 minute story, don’t ask. This isn’t helped by Leela having an ex-boyfriend who was good at music despite sucking in every other cateorgy.
Fry’s hands aren’t great so to improve that, they visit the Robot Devil. He spins a wheel to pick random robot hands to swap Fry’s for and lands on him, wah wah. So he gets cool robot hands and becomes the next big thing, getting to the point where he is asked to write an opera. He makes it about Leela and eventually things with him and the Robot Devil come to a head.
It starts out as a typical enough but builds very well to the climax. There’s plenty of good jokes, from Bender’s one liners to the iconic lines I quote all the time. This is where we get “Your music is bad and you should feel bad” as well as “That’s not ironic, that’s just mean!”. I won’t list all the best parts so why, a solid number of laughs in this one and some decent running gags.
I like how Leela eventually gets a more active role by making a deal herself. It almost slides her into just the love interest role like the Pete and Pete episode did and maybe it still kinda does, but she at least gets some agency and a solid role. As I said, the story builds well with the different deals and then the big climax. It goes full force into opera mode and is really well done, using it to carry the emotions.
It leads to that nice ending that caps it off well. But more in the comparison, on to Meanwhile. After a near death incident, Fry decides to propose to Leela before its too late. At the same time, Farnsworth invents a device that sends you back 10 seconds. Naturally, Fry takes it for his own use.
He uses it help his date with Leela and the proposal goes well. They set up a date at the Vampire State Building (well now you’re just stealing from Goosebumps) where Leela doesn’t show up. He used the button to prolong the sunset and his watch keeps running and thus Leela was not actually late. Weird how we forgot that but before this hits him, he attempts to jump off the building. Oh.
Thankfully he has the button but he was falling for more than 10 seconds, so he’s stuck falling in a loop. So first off, this sure works as prep for next month’s groundhog’s day episode post. I only counted full/half day loops so this wasn’t on my list. Still, it has fun with the loop concept. It could have done more in act 1 but once he jumps off the building, they get a lot of it.
Eventually he starts dying and there’s some good dark humor they get out of that. There’s a good tone balance here, mixing the comedy with the other elements pretty well. Both do that but the dark humor makes it more notable here. The start is a bit rushed and maybe the nature of where it goes is a bit similar other times they’d this lovely 3rd act involving time stuff. Although that vague thing is the only thing in common with stuff like The Late Phillip J Fry.
Plenty of good jokes here, from the dark humor to Zoidberg losing money all the time. The highlight is that lovely third act, where we see the two stuck in time basically, growing old together. Futurama really nails these big emotional swings, even in this era. I do wish they kept their memories but it’s not the cheapest way I’ve seen the reset button hit. I hear the new season starts where this left off so maybe they handle that well.
It feels very classic Futurama with how it comes together. We’ll get to the comparison now and it’s harder than I expected. Meanwhile has an unfair advantage, as they it was indeed the full end for now. With Devil’s Hand, they figured but weren’t totally sure. Meanwhile was later when they knew they needed to go out strong and flesh out Fry/Leela further. Their relationship is done well in the former, as we see she likes him as he is.
But it takes a bit for her to have an active role, while Meanwhile gives he more to do, both humor wise and story wise. Their romance gets more screentime especially with that 3rd act. That aspect I can easily say fares better but it had to be, so it’s not too fair to compare. The latter is a bit quicker in pace while the former takes its time and that’ll be more of a preference thing.
I think it makes the latter snappier but the story does feel better paced in Devil’s Hands. Both use the supporting cast well, I think they are about equal there. They say they tired to do that well in the former although I find them a bit more memorable in Meanwhile. I appreciate both of these hyperfocusing on the leads with enough good lines going to the others.
Meanwhile does end up being more finale-y do that advantage, as they even visit the moon from episode 2. I’d say Devil’s Hands is easily the funnier of the two. Sure, Meanwhile has plenty good jokes but the other one has more iconic lines I reference fairly often so that gives it an edge.
I find there’s more that appeals to me in Meanwhile due to the loop concept and that combines with the heart. However, Devil’s Hands being more of a normal episode that happened to work as a finale just in case, gives it a charm of its own. I dig the setup and since I forgot to mention it before, I think Robot Devil is the highlight of it. He’s got some great lines. Oh and it’s funny how Daniel Castellaneta used the voice he did for the mailman in Olive the other Reindeer for Robot Devil.
It’s clear I think both are great in their own way. One is a solid Deal with the Devil plot with an excellent climax and one is a fun time loop story with a lovely 3rd act. The winner is hard to say. I didn’t want to pick the classic one just because I’m more used to it but I wanted to be fair to both. I don’t have many nitpicks with either so it’s not like we have big flaws to use to balance it out.
Meanwhile gets to be more creative and flesh out Leela’s side more while Devil’s Hands is funnier and a bit more awesome with the climax. This is easily the hardest match up we’ve had for sure. But in the end, I pick…The Devil’s Hands are Idle Play Things. Part of me wanted an upset with Comedy Central winning.
But as close it is, that climax and the humor really help it. Meanwhile is funny with a great ending but Devil’s Hands goes hard with that climax. It becomes a musical episode and they nailed it. Meanwhile is more traditional with where it goes which works well but makes it so Devil’s Hands stands out all the more.
I do like how both keep the story fairly simple so it can pack a lot into it as it goes. Both are great and hold up well thankfully, but in this case I feel like that earlier one holds up just a bit better. Meanwhile does nothing wrong, but Devil’s Hands just fits a bit harder for me. Call it nostalgia I guess but there ya go.
WINNER: The Devil’s Hands are Idle Playthings.
And that’s this edition of these battles. Looking back, I noticed romance is a big factor in both pairings. I swear I didn’t intend that. Ned’s doesn’t take it too seriously compared to the rest but otherwise it works. Both of these were more simpler than I expected but I don’t think that’s a bad thing.
It makes my job easier at least lol. In the case of the latter pairing, it shows just how solid these were, as I didn’t have to analyze a ton. The other pairing was simple on purpose but both were hair. Both had some solid episodes and in the end I think I made the right call. I doubt anyone thinks too hard about the first pairing but whatever.
There isn’t too much to say for the wrap-up. These was a simpler one than I expected in one case but that worked out well in the end. As always, suggest me some as I have yet to get any from people. Until next time, hope you still enjoy these.
See ya.
A Taste of Spongey 