Just as I went through the evolution of LarryBoy, I figured I would give Dr. Blowhole the same treatment! Now I know I talked about him in my recent editorial: Why Should Dr. Blowhole Make A Comeback? However, here, I will be mainly focusing on the three installments: their story and their quality. Nonetheless, since I'm a die-hard Dr. Blowhole fan, I will talk about him.
So sit back and enjoy what I like to call... The Evolution of Dr. Blowhole!
For the first time on Nickelodeon, we had a legit supervillain that was way cooler than Plankton from Spongebob Squarepants and way less of a lunatic than any of the Fairly OddParents villains... and he was way cooler than any of the Kim Possible villains. Yeah, this villain was bad-ass with all the gadgets and minions. He had his successes in specials; but in one of them... not so much.
So what's a big entrance without going over a little background.
Once upon a time, the show Penguins of Madagascar made its TV debut on November 29, 2008.
During its first season, if you listen to the dialogue, the character Skipper, the leader of the Penguins, would mention Dr. Blowhole, whether something strange happens either at the zoo or in their town.
He was mentioned in the episode "Eclipsed," when the entire zoo experienced a solar eclipse during the day; and Skipper accused him of finding out how to extinguish the sun.
He was also mentioned in the episode "Roomies," when the sea otter Marlene gets a walrus for a roommate; and Skipper has suspicions that the walrus was in cahoots with Dr. Blowhole.
It wasn't until February of 2010 that Nickelodeon announced that the Penguins would fight an enemy in a half-hour special. Enter Dr. Blowhole's Revenge.
This was the first full appearance of Dr. Blowhole. For those of you who were not so lucky on passing this special up, I'll give you the story.
The special centered around lemur King Julien being kidnapped by the infamous dolphin supervillain. So Team Penguin has to rescue Julien and stop Dr. Blowhole from destroying the world.
-Little known fact: This was the very first review that I did since Day 1 of this blog.
Now, I know I criticized some of this special on my Dr. Blowhole's Revenge review, but I'll bring them up again here.
The first problem with this special was the villain's over-the-top theatrical-ness. This led to me pointing out so many bad guy cliches like how the evil plan is explained, the bragging, the motives, etc. I also pointed out the many times Dr. Blowhole would look directly into the camera and/or mug the camera.
-I always thought that he was photogenic.
Another problem I had with this special was the plot holes. For example, at the beginning, there was a scene with Dr. Blowhole escaping his lair and leaving the Penguins to die during the self-destruction of the place. But then seconds later, the scene shifts to Private telling the other zoosters about the adventure.
This begs the question: How did the Penguins escape Dr. Blowhole's self-destructing lair? That's never explained. In fact, the show does this again near the end after they foiled Dr. Blowhole's Ring-of-Fire project, but this time with Julien telling the story.
-Again, those were never explained.
I especially found most of the plot holes in Dr. Blowhole's backstory, when he's explaining his Ring-of-Fire contraption and why he built the device in the first place.
-But to be fair, the special had a hour-hour time slot to follow. But hey. Why not make Dr. Blowhole more presentable?
Despite its minor flaws, it was still a good special. It wasn't meant to be perfect, even though it was a 30-minute long special.
However, some people thought that the special could've been a little longer. But that's okay. We had The Return of the Revenge of Dr. Blowhole for that.
Now this is the fun part! Seeing Dr. Blowhole in his bad-ass awesomeness in a one-hour TV movie!
The movie is about Dr. Blowhole up to no good again.
He steals Skipper's memories, leaves Skipper to die (Harsh!), and uses the memories to locate the other Penguins, so that he can turn them into his monster slaves.
And plus, a mutant MP3 player comes into the mix, and Blowhole takes advantage by using the iPod to take over the zoo and town;
but the Penguins race to the rescue to stop him.
This was where the villain was taken more seriously. This was where he ventured out of his lair (or at least, we see him venture out of his lair) to bring the fight to the Penguins!
So, how would one describe this movie? Well, I did a review on this one, and I had mixed reviews on it. I loved the premise, but I questioned the storyline (I spotted some plot holes). I praised the action and suspense, but I didn't like the problem-solving skills of some of the characters.
As far as the payoffs go, they were decent... but to an extent. For example, remember that scene where the Penguins are deciding who would be the best singer to go up against Dr. Blowhole (seeing that the dolphin has the voice of Neil Patrick Harris, and also has the singing voice of Neil Patrick Harris)? They end up choosing King Julien.
-This was the choice that I didn't like, because earlier, Kowalski was singing with Dr. Blowhole, which was really fun. Kowalski should've been the person to challenge Dr. Blowhole in a sing-off! What's wrong with these people?! Did Julien just want more screen time?
Another problem I had with this movie were the cameos. What was with the drive-by cameos on some of these characters? I mean, seriously?
1. I saw Hans the Puffin in the opening scene, because it turned out he was part of Dr. Blowhole's plan to ambush Skipper and take his memories.
After that, he makes one more quick cameo in Blowhole's submarine, and never shows up again.
2. I saw Rockgut for a second.
3. I saw a snow monkey, who claims to have known Skipper as a Buddhist-whatever...
4. I saw Alex the Lion make an appearance (Okay, I won't count him, because he's in the movie more than the other cameos.)
5. I saw Max the Squirrel for a second...
6. The taxi driver... who's also the dolphin trainer at a Seaworld knock-off...(?) (I don't think he counts, do you?)
Most of the cameos don't even fit into the story well. Most of them do nothing, and take a backseat to what the story is really trying to get to.
Anyway, despite its flaws, it was still amazing. This was the Dr. Blowhole special that I made sure not to miss on its TV premiere.
But sadly, as many great characters/icons do, they slip up. And plus, they had to take a backseat to a poorly-written, childish, unoriginal story. Yeah, I'm talking about The Penguin Who Loved Me.
It's obvious that the show wanted to spoof the James Bond movie The Spy Who Loved Me. However, look at how they've executed the parody!
It's about Kowalski wanting to get back with his ex-girlfriend Doris,
who's with a platypus named Parker...
-Tell me if Parker reminds you of anything...
...
...Doris needs Kowalski to free her brother from a Seaworld knock-off; but it turns out that Dr. Blowhole is Doris' brother...
and it turns out that Parker works for Dr. Blowhole and turns on his girlfriend.
So the Penguins and Doris race to stop Parker from getting Dr. Blowhole back to normal from the Mind-Jacker incident, only to be attacked by Parker... and only to be too late to stop Dr. Blowhole from returning to his evil self.
And (get a load of this), Dr. Blowhole was already working on a new project on how to destroy the world (Hi, how did he come up with that), and the Penguins, including Kowalski, must stop him and save the day.
-And all of that was your first problem:
How can a romance story segway itself something action-packed and suspenseful as a Dr. Blowhole story? It doesn't add up.
-Another problem is... it barely has Dr. Blowhole's true character in it. You'd think that he would've gotten his memories back during the first half of the special. But no!
The show had to wait until the second half to do so! I'm not saying that the performing-dolphin side of Dr. Blowhole was lame; it's just that I'm used to seeing his evil self, which is far more interesting.
-Another problem I had with his special is that the relationship between Kowalski and Doris wasn't all that interesting.
All it is is just bickering, but then making amends at the end (I won't tell you how that happens). To make matters worse, no matter what scene Doris is in, she's always getting the short end of the stick depending on a situation.
-To make matters worse for the audience, this special only aired in other countries... except for the U.S. What the hell?! Why didn't this special air in the U.S.? What, did Nickelodeon have a dispute with a cable/satellite provider? Well, screw it. It wouldn't make a different anyway, whether it was aired in the U.S. or not.
Yeah, I could tell that this special was the most forgettable of all the Dr. Blowhole specials.
It was something that I'd like to call: Diet-Dr. Blowhole.
Now that we've gone through the evolution of Dr. Blowhole, we can now summarize and maybe come up with a remedy.
Summary:
Dr. Blowhole, overall, is one of the most underrated bad guys that I really enjoyed watching. Why doesn't everyone else love this bad guy? What's wrong with this villain? Sure, he may be flawed in some ways, but at least he's not simply running around like a psychotic, jackass terrorist. And yes, he had his stardom, along with his screw-ups, but he's still a decent villain.
Remedy:
I keep hearing that there's going to be a Penguins of Madagascar movie (as mentioned in my Why Should Dr. Blowhole Make A Comeback? editorial) some time in November 2014. Here's what I'm hoping for: I'm hoping that Dr. Blowhole will be the villain of the movie, that way he can have the comeback that he truly deserves. That would be the cure for this villain.
However, even if he isn't the villain of the new movie, Dr. Blowhole will still have his admirers and supports from his die-hard fans, even when he's no longer on Nickelodeon.
Whatsoever Critic
Source:
Penguins of Madagascar
Phineas and Ferb
Courtesy: DreamWorks Animation and Disney.
