122: Remote Control (prod 121)

Original airdate: August 2, 2005

Story by Magnus Scheving

Written by Noah Zachary, Cole Louie, Magnus Scheving

Directed by Magnus Scheving, Raymond P. Le Gue

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, Sarah Burgess

There was a time in history where this was my favourite episode of the show. It was also my mother’s. No, I totally wasn’t agreeing with her just because she is my mom, hehehe!!!! There was ALSO a time where I made a crappy YTP of this episode, but we will get into that latur (or never!!).

So, anyways, the episode begins with, whaddya know, a recycled cold open. This is the fourth time in Season 1 I’ve seen this cold open. Frankly it’s just getting annoying. It’s not even worth noting.

Stephanie runs into Milford’s house telling him that she is gonna play football with her friends, and she is eating breakfast while Milford is talking about how he was so good at football, they called him Maddog Meanswell. Classic ‘cooler-when-younger’ trope in almost every show I’ve watched. Stephanie is drinking some orange juice (the new Badland Chugs??!!).

Then she exits so fast we barely see her. To practice, she throws a ball around and is running, and Robbie is watching her in disgust. Sportacus is of course, cartwheeling around town and sees her, to his excitement.

 

Just look at this dude. How can’t you like him? So, Sportacus flippity flops over to her, and she asks if he can teach him to play football. And Robbie gasps and gags.. in a reused shot.. from the first ever episode they filmed of the show “Sports Day”.. what is going on?

This. Is. Not. What. They. Meant. By. Recycling. Reusing. Or. Reducing. So, Stephanie goes to get Ziggy and Pixel. They run over to him, and Pixel trips over his shoelaces. And Stephanie.. is annoyed. “Oh, you just fell flat on your face? Don’t care, blue kangaroo wants to play sports with us.” What a kind soul!

Sportacus explains how to play and Pixel has to run for the touchdown. When they start the game, it’s going well until Pixel trips AGAIN. So the ball flies and hits Robbie’s spying thing and he falls over the railing. XD LOL ROFL!!!!

So, it seems that in the span of .. however long that was, Pixel totally disappeared and went home.. and he suddenly has a shoe-tying gadget. The guy has a HOARD of electronic devices. He could’ve just searched up a video on how to tie them with your hands. This is 2004. (And YouTube was made in 2005, but you get my point..)

Then he returns, telling them he had to go tie his shoes. They say he could have done that on the field, but he says he’d have to bring his Shoe Tier 6000. Dude, I don’t think this is the 6000th shoe tier you’ve made.. So they all leave Sportacus (the jerks!) without telling him (the even bigger jerks) all alone. But I don’t think he really cared.

Meanwhile, Robbie is in his lair, demonstrating how much useless sports there are, basketball, baseball, football, and he cracks his posterior and arm bones in the process. Robbie wishes there was a way to control Sportacus. 4SHADOEEENGGUHHH!!

Everyone is impressed by his gagdet until Stephanie speaks up and says that it’d be easier to just learn how to tie them. But it wouldn’t. But, then again, you’d have to bring it everywhere if your shoes untied. So she has a point. Pixel says that he doesn’t have to memorize it this way because he already has a machine that does it for him, then he brings up the RIDICULOUS, STUPID idea to make a machine that does everything for him.

Stephanie doesn’t like the idea, but the one time Lover Boy doesn’t listen to Stephanie JUST has to be this one. So they perform Gizmo Guy, a new, updated down- I mean UPgrade from Easy Way, which was rejected by Nickelodeon because of the word 'thingy’.. sometimes.. I just don’t even know. I think it’d have been cool if Easy Way was in 117 and Gizmo Guy stayed in this episode, like they did with 'No one’s Lazy’ & 'Take a Vacation’. By the end of the song, Pixel has finished crafting the one and only Remote Controller 6000.

This time the Remote Controller 6000 can tie your shoes (oh, so solution, use the remote control because it’s more lightweight!), untie your shoes, reverse, turn off all TVs, turn ON all TVs, freeze, do your homework, basically anything! Ziggy drops the lollipop on the floor, and Pixel rewinds it. They do the trick another time.. and Ziggy LICKS the lollipop the second time, because of the three second rule. MY GUY, THAT WAS NOT THREE SECONDS. Even Steph is disgusted.

But she kinda looks like a vampire in the above screenshot for some reason. So, Stephanie decides to go tell Sportacus the news of Pixel’s invention.. then runs away because the remote control is gonna do her homework. But Sportacus is doing some practice and warmups. So the gang are hanging out, and the remote control does Stephanie’s homework in 4 seconds. HOMEWORK IN FOUR SECONDS WOULD BE HEAVENLY.

For a while, Pixel is totally obsessed with his remote control, and he even plays football, baseball and basketball using it. But Stephanie and Ziggy get bored. In fact, Steph is so bored she starts checking her nails. You have to be the most bored person on the universe to do that unironically.

So, they get mad at Pixel, and they go away to do something like a real game until Ziggy starts yapping. AND PIXEL TURNS HIS VOLUME DOWN. THAT IS SUCH A CRAPPY THING TO DO, REMOTE CONTROL OR NOT. So, then Stephanie tells him to put his volume up, but then we see Ziggy angry moment (!!!!!!!!!!) about how you can’t do that to people.

So once they try to leave, Pixel.. freezes Ziggy solid like a popsicle (in his own words). What a little french fry hair boy. This just makes me mad, personally if I was ice cream hair boy I wouldn’t take that kind of disrespect.. but they are too mad to talk to Pixel, but another problem has arised - Robbie heard it and saw it all.

He has the idea to remote control Sportacus FOREVER!! Meanwhile, Pixel gets kinda bored and he throws away the remote control. Unfortunately, Robbie has been busting his butt off finding this thing, and it lands in a bin he’s carrying after riding a skateboard on accident.

REEMOOOTEEE CONTROOOOLLL!!! XD, Stefan was hilarious. RIP. So, anyways, he dances of happiness, and then Milford walks into town. Robbie makes the skateboard go forward and Milford steps onto it.

Depending on what he crashes into, he could be injured seriously hard if Sportacus wasn’t in town. So Robbie is a really devious man. But Sportacus is on the rescue and he gets him off by spinning the puppet around which looks funnier then it is. Sportacus stops the skateboard by doing an astonishing flip and landing on it.

After Sportacus makes sure that Milford is okay, Robbie realizes that the problem is Sportacus, so Robbie freezes him mid frontflip. Genuinely surprised that he managed to do that.

So, anyways, Milford is asking him if he’s sleeping, and he whispers that he likes taking naps too. XD! But Robbie isn’t amused and he freezes Milford too. So, Stephanie and Ziggy see the freeze victims and ask themselves why Pixel did it, then Robbie reveals he did it (villians always lie but not this softie..) and mutes them.. then he freezes them while Stephanie proves she could have a career as a poser for YouTube clickbaiting thumbnails.

Meanwhile, Robbie decides to have a little fun with Sportacus. (This scene is exactly why my mum declares this her favourite episode.) He makes him run in fast forward, freezes him, makes him run backwards, and.. makes him do.. the cha cha cha. Cha cha, real sporty.

Then he makes him do a spinning flip.. for fifteen seconds. Then he throws a ball at him and freezes him as he catches it in mid-air. Frozeacus. XD. Pixel walks in and tries to run to save them, but trips over his shoelaces, and he TIES THEM HIMSELF. AFTER ALL THAT COMMOTION. MY. GOD. So, Robbie calls for a truck to run Sportacus over, but he clicks the Wildlife Channel instead.

XD. The truck is only like 2 seconds away from riding Sportacus over, but then Robbie fumbles it up. He tries pressing the fast forward button.. but he FACES IT AT HIMSELF. And he throws the control into the air, and Pixel catches it, playing Sportacus, when he shoulda been run over like 30 seconds ago..

So Sportacus kicks the ball away, uses the digger of the truck as a launching pad, frontflips into the driver’s seat and stops the truck. Then Pixel unfreezes everyone, and he says he found a better gadget, his own body. Then they perform Bing Bang. Pixel plays with Robbie, then he unfreezes him and he falls into his lair, flopping on the floor.

He stands up and walks off camera then the episode ends.

It was kinda good, actually.

8/10