Drop Everything & Watch Wander Over Yonder!

thank you [Music] do you know what the best thing touching on one or two shows per decade has done for me throw me for a loop Disney hasn't been very kind to me this year Brady and Mr Whiskers wasn't horrible and Quack pack but I've been waiting for a home run from them for a little longer than I usually would thankfully I'm starting to hit up 2010's cartoons on a more regular basis it's an old enough time to be partly historical now and it said that this was a mostly good ERA for Disney television animation and if this isn't the peak I'm elated Wander Over Yonder is one of the most beloved cartoons of the past 10 years but not one of the most popular for some it's severely underrated but others get the feeling it could have been even better if it got some attention and went on longer I entered the cartoon Community just a little too late to get into this show and it looked extremely weird and creative to me but I was hurting a bit too much from Phineas and Ferb's cancellation to watch much Disney at the time but I'm over that now and ready to see what sort of Mayhem it helped usher in Wanda was conceived at a glorious time in history when Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends was ending all Jabs aside the show had been pretty popular for good reason and it seemed everyone involved was moving on to bright pastures including Creator Craig McCracken he had a sketch of a scraggly Yokel creature ready to bloom into a big adventure but you could arguably trace it back to this beard imaginary friend on Fosters too same color scheme at least but before it could be its own series Craig was appointed co-executive producer on Cartoon Network's new showcase series the cartoon statute before leaving the network altogether in 2009 burned by their neglectiverse he moved to Disney soon after forming Wander Over Yonder into a Sci-Fi epic but the real battle was to fit in line with Disney's sensibilities it couldn't be too dark or violent and many jokes and ideas were rejected but hype was building Craig was already selling Wander Over Yonder merchandise at conventions getting his fans familiar with the fact this would be his third show and perhaps the most different yet and that's saying something given how his Cartoon Network Creations were a world apart Wander Over Yonder premiered on Disney Channel on August 16 2013 and I saw it as like a companion show to the Paul rudish Mickey Mouse series both were sort of Animation Throwbacks baked in modernized puppet-rigged Mayhem but I kept up with the Mickey Mouse series on and off due to Brand familiarity I hope this isn't a common story because from what I've seen heard and read Wanda was loved if you were a fan of it you are a really huge one despite it not staying very popular with the general public you can blame Disney for that as they moved it to their less popular sister Network Disney XD a couple months into its run the trouble this always caused is that while XD had a more specific demographic it didn't have the subscriber base in pop culture foothold Disney Channel had spent decades building up it's a miracle then that Wander Over Yonder stayed popular enough to get a second season with fairly strong promotion which ended on June 27 2016. since Craig has since moved back to Cartoon Network to produce Powerpuff and Foster's revivals chances of a third season are very slim but if there's anything to gain from this show it's a positive frame of mind I am the greatest in all the Galaxy wow congratulations that's amazing have you ever done this [Music] far out in space there's a galaxy of innocent and colorful planets ready for a shake-up lord hater and his Legion of eyes want to take over them and become a galaxy-wide dictatorship but stopping them is wander and as trusty Steed Sylvia they just want to spread joy and freedom so often come into altercations with Lord hater's entirely different plans but through one means or another Freedom prevails and the wandering weirdo lives to explore the planets another day it's not complicated it's not pretentious it's just a simple good versus evil narrative that's easy to get on board with and that's just if this was a book when you add animation to the mix you get a wild good time the story and visuals always work in unity to make this a Galaxy worth exploring it wouldn't be impossible to adapt this into a non-visual medium but with those visuals those chances for vibrant shots in memorable locations it's a splendid fit for the cartoon medium all also this could be my gamer side speaking but a hashed Helper and a steed travel across planetoids helping cute alien creatures from a tyrannical villain it almost sounds like they wanted to make a Super Mario Galaxy cartoon when you put it that way and those are my favorites in the series so this personally satisfies an appetite for a genuinely great Mario cartoon I've had since childhood I'm already excited to share my love for this cartoon and I haven't even gotten to the characters yet [Music] wonder is this mix of wise and innocent his life goal being to befriend everyone he runs into his enthusiasm rubs off on you because he's got no edges at most he's excitable a completely well-meaning little guy by his very existence making the universe a happier place usually the biggest tests his character faces are when the others aren't on board with his plans not that it ever stops him I love characters like this that were created to spread Good Vibes because I just know them being on screen is comforting to someone his ride and traveling companion Sylvia is a space dinosaur but you best use the more accepted terms bornak she's a lot stronger and smarter than Wanda but less eager to jump to the most extreme ideas you can see her as the same one in the duo the one who's had more experience with bad people and difficulty understanding Wanda's worldview at the same time she's his best friend they both just want Justice to be sprayed and everyone to have a good time they're both thrill able to explore the cosmos and Sylvia can definitely knock some sense into wander once in a while favorite character right here because for such a loopy show it was necessary to have someone more grounded and rational in the spotlight the main antagonist is Lord hater a power-hungry dictator with the mind of a Teenage Punk he hates sunshine and rainbows and all that friendly junk and just wants everyone to worship him for how awesome he thinks he is for as strong as his army of Watchdogs is and as massive as his shippers it was for the best he quickly became a joke villain someone Wanda can easily defeat with kindness on a daily basis it just makes his boastfulness more ironic that he sees himself as this villainous Superstar but really has no idea what he's doing his second in command is Commander peepers who's madly in love with his job whenever there's a big authoritative force in an animated show I end up liking their assistant more because there's more layers to their personality and more them to prove and people's nails that not that is that much more fun to watch than hater but because even he has more passion for being an actual villain it's weird how you kind of want to root for him to take charge sometimes just so a fair fight can commence I'll save a new villain from season 2 for later so onto the side characters the trouble with going through them is that they're mostly one-offs so I would feel like I'm unfairly picking some over others if I were to go through like five of them and not the other 50. so I'll only go through select ones that had two or more noteworthy roles most of them being villains the most recurring side character is Emperor awesome a party animal who loves flexing his wealth often depicted as hater's main rival what I find funny is that awesome isn't actually that different from Haida in terms of function and goals you're just putting a mirror to hater whenever they interact Captain Tim is an alien menace that completely wrecked spaceship in this sort of alien send-up who soon becomes Lord hater's pet they do a couple things with him to underline his owner's personality but I wouldn't exactly call him a cute pet sir Brad's Starlight is probably my least favorite character but still kind of useful he proves that not all fairy tale princes are nice but I've seen this done better before I do like the Black Cube though a soul-sucking anomaly that's actually quite lonely and sympathetic you can call him a villain but you can't exactly say he's soulless there's also delza a cat that wander adopts at one point who's actually a bounty hunter trying to sucker people into her plans as a dog person I approve of this villain and yeah most of these pseudo secondaries are villains they wanted to bring back for more evil but there are tons of friends and allies who only make a few comebacks towards the end of the show not that they're worse characters or anything but it wouldn't be right if Wanda kept going back to their planets after everything all fixed that wouldn't be as exciting as what we got just just stand me [Music] if you absolutely need a refresher of my opinion on Craig's previous show Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends well I found the standard episodes to be a mixed bag that leaned more into bad over time the TV movies were very impressive the latter two specifically good Wilt hunting and Destination Imagination the form of being about a kindly creature roaming the world and helping people along the way the Lasher being a highly varied work of fantasy with Wander Over Yonder it's like they took the most unique aspects of Foster's best episodes and made them their own show and I couldn't be happier with that decision looking at Wander Over Yonder as its own thing again it's just awesome to see with the two leads in particular that the goal of the show is to spread hope and optimism a lot of sci-fi is all about taking issues we've dealt with across history and throwing them into outer space and Wanda does that on a massive scale many of the places they visit are dealing with the kind danger or sadness that can be relatable to us and psychologically just showing that your feelings can be dealt with anywhere else out there and that there are people willing to work through those problems with you which is uplifting at its very core this is a very pleasant show to experience but what are some good vibes without a good story to go along with them and something I see and wonder that I wish could apply to as many shows as possible is this any episode could be your favorite there is so much on offer here they didn't even last very long but they used the time they had to let a whole slew of creative ideas Bloom every episode feels a little different like it has a different secondary goal Story character or animation wise but with a few exceptions it's not about trying out gimmicks and format Benders the location offers something unique the music offers something unique the art Direction offers something unique the comedy offers some something unique it's a show you can never get tired of because if you've ever got this perfect image of while you're over Yonder in your head get rid of it because no episode is exactly like another and I have to stress that's a great thing for an animated show where you can do whatever you want Craig was still fond of using Adobe Flash to animate still getting help from Boulder media to bring it all to life and they worked miracles we tend to think of puppet rig animation as typically safe and rigid but Wander Over Yonder is stretchy fluid exaggerated and as mesmerizing as a lava lamp that could tell stories you could be able to notice that aesthetically it takes plenty of influence from 60s media like Yellow Submarine and the works of Dr Seuss a good base of reference for something that's going to be so drenched in fantasy and a round of applause for every director on this show for making sure it's always pushing the art of Television animation it would be in possible to think of Disney making a show this beautiful in the 1980s not to say their older stuff looked bad but it's clear that with TV animation there's always new styles to claim and hone one's craft at and because every episode caps off with an unused storyboard sequence I will too this is a very crafty way to give us more time with the show and use scenes that could have been cut from start to finish they want your interest and that speaks for itself [Music] foreign [Music] despite the show only running for two seasons both of them have their own strengths and identities with season 1 being relatively more episodic and explorative wander and Sylvia's current goal isn't to thwart-hater it's to see new things and meet new people that's a way to get us used to their grind into this galaxy whether they're trying to escape a dangerous city or going on an Epic Quest you're gonna get the bright side from Wander and the realest side from Sylvia two relatable perspectives nearly all the time they're separated once in a while but they're figuratively Inseparable so you'll want to see them both do anything the crew can think of just because it's episodic doesn't mean you get hard resets or anything like that it's eventually made clear that the characters are learning lessons from their travels basic things about patience and dependence and stuff that build up over time and make them stronger especially Commander peep is funnily enough he's probably the character who changes the most drastically across the first season in which is clearly done to demonstrate his Superior villainy skills over hater whose big bad facade is peeled away rather quickly wander and Sylvia's development is more incremental compared to the villains it encourages you to spend time with them knowing they'll trust each other more just as much as you can trust they'll keep being good characters and that's all I can say about season one sorry it's brief but it speaks for itself it's the strangely effective mix of breezy and crazy within episodes your soul that they can do almost anything well and will have the right characters locations sense of humor and message for the job season one set the bar so high that I was actually worried heading into season two I was sure there'd be a dip but I was gladly mistaken welcome to the Galaxy we hope you will accept our humble gift [Music] third season two immediately opens with a statement that they're going to do something different a larger narrative which forms around this new villain in the Galaxy called lord Dominator who seems too powerful to be real when others are around Dominator appears to be a cold humorless machine of pure threat and hate but when she takes her battle suit off she's actually a sprightly young lady with a lot of evil on her mind The Season's Arc revolves around the other characters slowly finding out more about her real personality with Wanda just wanting to turn her good Sylvia wanting to stop her and hate her wanting to marry her and Dominator will do nothing to give into their desires we never get a good idea of where she came from why she's so evil and how she got such a destructive ship and set of robots so there's always this enigmatic quality to her she's not going to consider going to the good side just because some orange hippie guy wants to befriend her she's not gonna back down from her galactic Conquest just because some sabornet can put up a good fight and she hasn't got the time or heart for any romance with this Skeletor cosplayer she's gonna be the main antagonist now whether you like it or not and she's gonna have fun with her growing array of powers with such a massive threat Wanda has a tough pill to swallow here that some people are just bad and can't be changed but he doesn't swallow it for as long as he can he continues trying to see the good and Dominator and even concocts a plan to get her and hater together so they can be more loving it doesn't work and there are a million signs pointing that out and there is the possibility that through this plan they could team up and become completely Unstoppable but Wanda's doing the wrong thing for the right reasons which I believe is a good thing to shovel onto your optimistic protagonist give them an ethical dilemma and see if they overcome it but not every story is about dominator's Conquest some of them are about haters waning spot on the villain leaderboard and searching for ways to reclaim his dignity and others are about Sylvia trying to find people out there that can help in defeating Dominator even though the amount of safe planets is steadily shrinking that's one recurring plot you can giggle at and another that gradually raises the stakes even if some of their Last Resorts include planet of the butts which I could imagine gave the Disney sensors many a sleepless night in these ways and many others season 2 is a major step up from the first it gives you incentive to keep watching after season one pull you in and off offers more for these characters to accomplish even if they may never reach set accomplishments Wander Over Yonder had a series finale but there are a few teasers and a cliffhanger that they were going to introduce a new Simeon villain if they got to a third season sadly Disney told them they weren't getting one a bit too late so they had to rush to give the second season finale more of a send-off Vibe Craig McCracken has since left Disney for Netflix and then Cartoon Network but if he can go back there there's nothing telling me he'll never return to Disney in complete Wander Over Yonder someday cliffhanger's can be annoying sometimes but I'm too thrilled by season 2 to be salty about it they ended with a bang and that's all I can ask for I think I know a little too much about this world anyway because one of the last episodes is this thing called the sky Guy where some nerd has a tiny planet in his store of collectible artifacts it's a fine romp where Wanda ends up missing with the planet but is this how planets are formed in this universe are they grown like plants with all the people on them wandalore is strange but I've gone off topic time to break some hearts because here's a list of my favorite episodes if yours aren't well represented on here just remember what I said about any episode potentially being someone's favorite those speak to you and these ones speak to me I on the skull ship sees our lovable Underdog Andy try to get an interview with Haida for his Vlog series I'm sure if I ever tried to get a show Creator on board for some questions the struggle would be real it's got cute dogs in it too so it makes the list regardless the gift serves as the second closest thing we'll ever get to an alien Christmas as wander and Sylvia deliver gifts to as many of the people they've met along the way as they can but it isn't just fan service it leads into a darker and edgier part 2 the gifting it's part of the same story but the context is completely flipped with the gifts now infecting the Watchdogs with love horrifying hater and peepers if you didn't know the CIA did first for Halloween you do now and you're kinda happy about it the heebie-jeebies has one knock against it being a very cheap jump scare at the end but otherwise this was a super clever horror Adventure that takes pride in focusing on what wander and Sylvia are most afraid of well I don't find the fandoms that scary you might just go back to the building bed forts the matchmaker is a borderline meta episode where Wanda tries to send a love letter from hater to Dominator but fearing the end of the universe Sylvia keeps trying to change the topic of the episode there's a great Montage at the end that gets various gimmicky episode ideas off their chest and I should hate the ending but I have to be honest it made me laugh at myself it was so well executed my fear Haiti is the a big musical episode all about hater finally asking for dominators affection it ends an icy misery but not before the best song where Lord dominators sings about being the bad guy Billy eilish eat your heart out it was a pretty good idea to mix and match genres too to give this musical showcase a very varied sound the catastrophe could be written off as another out of touch kids today with their phones vinned but there's a lot holding it up for me namely the stunning tokyo-esque location they're in which I can get lost in having been to Tokyo earlier this year and the clever return of a great villain it used meme culture to tell a great story how many cartoons from this time can you say that about the Time Bomb is almost entirely sit during a race which I find pretty unique a lot of cartoons do episodes about races but aren't in them for ninety percent of the run time cutting straight to the start line immediately perks you up and tells you this is going to be an action-packed ride while giving Sylvia something to hone her temper on the track now the waste of time gets a little wibbly wobbly wander and Sylvia get the wrong orb soap and start time traveling and it keeps getting harder to land back in the present we learn so much about them in an episode that ultimately ends up being a total fast it'll hurt you inside that the title has a double meaning but hopefully you got a heartwarming story out of it the family reunion was one I was waiting for a look at Sylvia's family specifically we get to meet her Meathead brothers and nagging mother and watch them all fight not the most fun episode when you say it like that but the ending is a huge reward for getting through it much like it usually is with dysfunctional families we still never learned exactly how much Wanda could bench in pounds but that's what fanfiction.net is for the box is one of the first times we see Wanda lose his mind all about a box that could have anything inside it it's another one of those plots that you definitely feel like you've seen before but it's proven reliable over the years and they put some neat twists on it Wanda's manic dreams being the most interesting twist keeping the action immersive for what could have been something more contemplative and sedentary the cartoon is one humongous dig at the 80s shows many of these writers were forced to grow up with as kids I've already made the skeletal comparison so it was amazing to get hater to make his own He-Man rip-off amazing that this started off as the work of a villain too given hell especially at the time many of these toy based cartoons were accused of being greedy commercials but as much as they try to make the animation as bad as possible they're trying their best to give off that effect and hater is right about one thing animation is so hard people who do this for a living deserve more credit and respect the wanders as one more clone episode to make this video worthless it's a doozy a cave splits wander into dozens and dozens of facets of his personality which is already a lot for Sylvia to deal with in one body it's her duty to Wrangle them up and put them back in the cave before it's too late but there's one aspect to wander that she can't stand that keeps evading her it's a part of him that's caused a lot of trouble in the series so far but he wouldn't be wander without us the void is a classic it's only nine years old but I already feel it earns that label wander and Sylvia land another void of nothingness but Wanda somehow has some control over what can happen in it it's a paradise for him a place where all his wildest thoughts can become some kind of reality but at the end of it all it's still a pretty spooky place that they could have been stuck in forever I think what would make this episode so appealing to other animators is that this is how all cartoons start as a blank canvas for the create of mine to add something onto so there's a distinct irony to the fact that it's got the potential to be the center of hell for Sylvia the Lonely Planet is one of the most interesting ones they ever land on probably the most interesting Janet the planet is a living sphere that starts to fill with activity as Wanda befriends her but she gradually turns into a clingy girlfriend if you were to view this as a serious relationship then it gets pretty unhealthy but it's all to show that relationships are built on how much stuff you can give someone it's about doing friendly and helpful things for the recipient it's also incredible how they use the elements here Janet eventually becomes the most Earthly Planet they ever visit but she's filled with all the possible disasters except politics that make our planet such a nightmare going with the theme of nature my favorite episode would be the flower the penultimate episode all about Sylvia trying to protect one lone plant so Wanda doesn't feel hopeless I don't know why I find it funny when something goes wrong and he starts welling up again because I want him to retain his hope for the Galaxy there's a bit of a Wally thing going on here the idea that a single plant is enough to make the universe a place where life and love can flourish and now for four episodes that aren't bad per se but have glaring flaws in my opinion the search for Captain Tim takes us to the planet hater's beloved pet was born on and for as dramatic as Tim's debut was this episode lifted a bit too much of the mystery surrounding him and scary to find excuses to render the others useless the big jobs are Heist episodes starring a bunch of characters we've never met before and won't have time to get invested in it's got a predictable conflict too Wanda has to stay outside but oh no he doesn't stay outside not that a predictable plot is always bad but this one makes it even less engaging the hero is our ROM throw fairy tale land a cool unique World weighed down significantly by the unlikable and one-dimensional Sir Brad I get us the point but I don't remember this episode for the classic tropes it plays around with I just remember it for how whiny the antagonist is and my least favorite episode is the loose screw featuring an old lady who makes this thing as boring and stuffy as a full vacuum cleaner bag the message is nice that elderly people can eventually show some strength and this isn't the worst old people cartoon Craig has his name on but still something has to go at the bottom and for me this is one I'm not in any mood to revisit but looking at the overall body of work this has to be one of my new favorite cartoons of all time a firm top 10 Contender and my favorite series by Craig McCracken and his team yet even the Powerpuff Girls in its prime had some episodes that make me say no thank you but Wander Over Yonder is filled with wall-to-wall greatness if you like cartoony cartoons this is your destination if you want characters you can get attached to this is your destination if you're looking for a grab bag show where any episode will be something new and refreshing this is your destination but if you're looking for something with harsh pathos and just a lot of warmth that can brighten up the worst day of your life I can't recommend Wander Over Yonder enough take it from me I have an anxiety disorder and just thinking about this show about wander and Sylvia calms me down they aren't real but their quest to brighten up the universes so it doesn't matter how old you are where you come from or what you believe in if you need cheering up there's a Wandering weirdo up there that'll get the job done foreign [Music]

Channel: EmployeeAMillion

Views: 9,665

Keywords: Wander Over Yonder, 2010s, Disney, Disney Television Animation, Disney Channel, Disney XD

Id: q0i3ChTpotA

Length: 28min 14sec (1694 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 09 2023