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| Filming in March 2004. I bet Sportacus is thinking: 'Oh, time to flip over that lazily covered trap and potentially fall inside instead of just fricking ignoring it!' |
Original airdate: August 18, 2004
Story by Magnus Scheving, Mani Svavarrson
Written by Noah Zachary, Micheal Rabb, Magnus Scheving
Directed by Magnus Scheving, Steve Feldman
Executive producers - Magnus Scheving, Ragnheidur Melsted, Raymond P. Le Gue, Mark Read, Brown Johnson, Kay Wilson Stallings
Starring Magnus Scheving, Stefan Karl Steffanson, Julianna Rose Mauriello
Puppeteers - Ronald Binion, Gudmondor Thor Karason, Jodi Eichelberger, David Matthew Feldman, Julie Westwood, Amanda Maddock
Crystal Caper is the fourth episode of LazyTown. Sportacus’ crystal gets swiped and everyone in LazyTown is looking for it. With plot twists, you’ll never believe who took it, and you’ll never believe who “found” it!
The episode begins with Sportacus flipping his water bottle around then chugging it all up in two seconds. What a promising start. Anyways, after drinking it, Sportacus’ crystal beeps. That dang cat is up on the tree again. Sportacus saves him like usual, but what’s the best part is that he does a frontflip up in the air and grabs the tree branch, holds the cat with one hand then jumps off. Couldn’t he just have used a ladder..?
Ziggy has seen the whole thing and is talking to it about his friends while trying to imitate Sportacus. Sportacus is right behind him, though. This also happened with Piper in the Power Play Summer promo, so it’s not very funny anymore. Anyways, everyone wonders how he did it, and he shows them the crystal.
Everyone’s amazed by it, especially Stingy.. a bit too amazed. He asks Sportacus to keep it, but he says the following “You want it, but I need it.” Stingy is for no reason at all offended then he starts going on and on about how he’s going to look at HIS stuff and drive HIS car. All in all a very funny performance from Jodi Eichelberger (voice and puppeteer of Stingy). Stephanie tells Stingy not to be mad, but Trixie calls him a big baby. Stingy drives on a road that had a hole on the middle of it and Sportacus has to save him.. by covering up the hole with his body himself, resulting in Stingy driving over Sportacus. Many like to re-edit this scene to their liking, but I think it’s funny just the way it is.
Sportacus’ crystal falls off, and he doesn’t notice, but Stingy does. He decides to tell Sportacus about it, but he instead ends up thanking him. “Oh, Sportacus needs this to save the lives of the citizens of our town? Meh, imma steal it!” Stingy considers keeping it for a few seconds, minutes, then hours.
In the lair, Robbie recieves a letter from a library saying he needs to pay $600.03 for an overdue book. He doesn’t even read the whole thing and throws it away. I think we’ve all wanted to do that at one point. Oh, the life of being a villain.
In the airship, Sportacus jumps and flips into the airpod (for the record, the editors reused clips in which he OBVIOUSLY HAS THE CRYSTAL ON) and then realises the crystal is gone.
He goes to the town hall where Bessie and Milford are and asks Milford to see if anything about him his different. His guesses are - “You’ve grown a mustache”, “Your muscles are bigger”, and “Your crystal is missing”. Sometimes I wonder how a man as dumb as Milford got to be the mayor of a town. But, in all honestly, it doesn’t take a genius to manage a town with only eight citizens.. well, nine, if you count the cat.
Milford announces a reward for anyone who finds the crystal, being one wish. Then proceeds a montage. Bessie rings up the phone of every single person in town (including people who live out of town, and Robbie), and Pixel makes some posters. We now know that everyone in LazyTown has a phone. Everyone looks for the crystal, including Sportacus.. and for some reason, a new shot looking over for the (tiny) crystal on his ladder that wasn’t seen in any other episodes has him WITH THE CRYSTAL.
Robbie isn’t looking for the crystal and is enjoying every second that the crystal is lost. He finds a poster over the telescope and has the idea that if he wins the reward, he will get a wish, and he will use it to make Sportacus leave town FOREVER! (ever, ever, ever, ever..) Anyways, we’re now with Stingy and he is in his car. He worries that they will notice he has the crystal, then he becomes too confident and decides to have it for a whole month. That whole month could bring LazyTown to shambles. Robbie is in his lair and has a lot of shiny things, which he uses to make a fake crystal that doesn’t do anything. Stingy is now using the crystal as a hood ornament. Let’s just hope he doesn’t get into a car crash. While the gang are looking for it, he comes to town to show everyone the “crystal” he “found”. Honestly, a pretty good plan.
Stephanie’s suspicious of the whole thing, but then she realises that if Robbie Rotten can change then anything can happen. Then they do a whole song-and-dance routine about it, with multiple shots that would become iconic and recognized with the online fandom. Once it ends, Robbie just wants his wish, but Stephanie is getting ahead of herself, wanting to host a party (which they do, but she’s going crazy on details) See, if any of the kids did it, nobody would care. Once a good person does something good, nobody cares. Once a bad person does something good, they’re suddenly the most amazing person in history. Anyways, Sportacus says they have to tell Milford. He puts the stage up (last seen in Defeeted) but Robbie is annoyed. He just wanted the prize.
However, during his monologue, he falls into the hole that almost killed Stingy. How did that get there? Did he dig it? Nobody has fixed that since 3 episodes? Anyways, while climbing back up, he looks up only to see Stingy driving his car on the road. He then notices the real crystal on Stingy’s hood. Ka-ching! They make a deal - Stingy gives Robbie the crystal, and Robbie in exchange gives him something expensive. They organize a meeting at the treehouse.
Robbie is still in the hole, and he starts talking about his smartness and how he scares himself. However, he screams because the cat at the beginning of the episode was crawling on his legs. LOL!
Sportacus is sitting on a bench and Stephanie comes up to him. Sportacus looks a bit concerned, he reveals to Stephanie that he has a feeling. Sportacus says it’s nothing.
Stingy is glorifying the crystal in his treehouse alone. Robbie comes up to him with a stack of comic books, coins all over the world “including Iceland!”, and a coffee cup with the map of Texas on it.
While it’s tempting (I’d have accepted at the word ‘comic’), Stingy says he can’t do it. Robbie tells Stingy he’ll snitch about the crystal, but he declines. Robbie says he’s in deep trouble. (foreshadowing much..??) Money, comics and a cup! It woulda taken me all my strength to decline. Robbie throws the ladder away after he leaves the treehouse.
The real crystal beeps, and Stingy realizes that he is in trouble. He yells for help as loud as he can. At the award ceremony, Robbie is trying to grant his wish for Sportacus to leave town, but Stephanie hears the yells of Stingy and Sportacus’ crystal doesn’t beep, he then realises the one Robbie gave him was fake! It wouldn’t have taken a genius, it didn’t have the same glow as the real one. He confronts Robbie and goes to save Stingy.
Stingy is waving his underpants on a stick around hoping someone will notice, and then Sportacus comes to the rescue! Sportacus puts the ladder back and carries Stingy out. The footage of Stingy thanking Sportacus has actually been taken from Welcome to LazyTown after Sportacus saves him from flying off the seesaw. However, this episode was filmed before that one, meaning that Welcome to LazyTown is the episode that re-used footage. Now we know that the seesaw is right next to the treehouse… pretty bad placing if you ask me.
Sportacus takes Stingy to the ceremony to give the crystal back and he also tells Stingy that what you’re doing affect others as well. Stingy says that his wish is to never take anything that doesn’t belong to him.. and to own that stack of comic books Robbie bribed him with. Nah, just kidding. But if I was Stingy I would say that. Anyways, they celebrate by performing Bing Bang (the footage in this episode’s Bing Bang was reused multiple times throughout Season 1), and Trixie kisses Stingy (on the neck) I never liked that bit. Not because I’m an immature boy who thinks romance is icky and stuff, but because it doesn’t really fit in a show like LazyTown, and with eight year old characters.
In Robbie’s lair, he is sent flying in his chair, along with the comics, coins and mug. He takes a sip of the mug and gags. In the uncut version (which has not been found), he says that it 'Tastes like oil’! It was cut out by Bush Administration because it was accused of propaganda against the US (the elections were going on at the time of filming).
I really liked this episode a lot! It offers the spotlight on a character other then Stephanie or Sportacus, and it does it pretty well. Funny dialogue, good song, but using reused shots that had the crystal in it in an episode that was centered about Sportacus losing the crystal is just a mind numbing move. It’s ridiculous.
If you have the time, watch it. It’s pretty good.
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