"The Traveling Baboon Show" Season 2 Ep. 3

[Panpardus]

Just saw the episode; it was okay, not a lot actually happened so there's really not too much to go over. There's a lot of humorous sight gags and genuinely funny one-liners, and comedian Sinbad voices the leader of the baboon troupe (who actually look like baboons) and sings the episode's song, which was entertaining enough mostly because of the antics, though nothing great as a song. (From a musical standpoint it sounds like an up-tempo gospel bit with a touch of traditional circus music. Not a bad combination, I just wasn't feeling it this time around. The lyrics were kinda lacking and there were a lot more musical breaks where they filled the void with instrumental solos/riffs and sight gags, which I actually do think the show needs more of for its musical numbers.)

Like I said, there's not too much going on from a story perspective, and the pacing is actually kind of weird; it was mostly just long stretches of antics and otherwise standing around in disagreement, and the whole thing just went by pretty quickly to me. I will commend the animators though; they're really flexing their chops with the facial expressions and the characters' movements here - even the walk cycles look a lot more realistic than they usually do for this show. I noticed a lot more subtle movements and angles that worked really well on the main cast, particularly Kion and Fuli, and as with "Babysitter Bunga", this episode's very brief fight scene felt more realistic and appropriately physical than most of the Season 1 stuff, so that's a plus.

Overall, minor filler pieces are still going to be a thing, and this was by far the weakest episode (to me) compared to last week's, but it was at least an entertaining enough 20 minutes.

[JackStover]

Janja was well within his rights to eat the baboons. Kion was right - it wasn't his business - and Fuli was correct that it was what they deserved. Still, the Lion Guard once again interfered and made the hyenas starve. The baboons also reformed far too quickly. Inviting them back, and having them give out food, rubbed me the wrong way. Fuli's random tolerance of them also bothered me - I know she overcame some of her baboon racism in season one, but still, these baboons were crooks. That whole ending sequence was a mistake.

[SimbasGuard]

Basically The Lion Guard did what they did more or less out of a guilty conscious. However I guess the catch 22 is that the baboons weren't denizens of The Outlands. I think that gave The Lion Guard a legal gray area to operate in. As for The how the episode ended. Well it is only right to make the baboons return what they stole...Sort of.

[zerodix]

i just saw it. the song was amazing and is in my top 5 for sure! i loved also the way the baboons were designed. but they acted like how gipsies act in the view of racist people. travel, entertain, steal.
i liked how the 3 characters were made.
Bunga, who was a bit "better" at the previous 2 episodes, made me cringe more than ever. come on...don't re-bunga Bunga.. he was so developed last 2 episodes
what i didnt understand or like was kion interfering in janja vs baboons. it wasnt kions right to do that and the baboons deserved what was coming. and the "furbrains" the helpers of janja... make them less stupid or stupid in a funnier way..
and why did kion let the baboons slip out the pridelands to save 2 gazelles? priorities man..

after all, i liked this interesting episode for the song and baboon designs, but bunga and kions actions were weirs imho.

[Solar]

A very cute episode. Fuli's interactions with the Baboo-oo-oo-oooooons always makes me smile and that was a highlight for me. Sure maybe not a lot happened plot wise (as far as we know?? :0) but I still liked it!

[PridelandsPhantom]

This episode had it's cute moments. I especially like seeing Fuli play around with the baboons at the end. There probably should have been more ramifications for the baboons stealing food from the other animals. I think the Guard should have had the baboons leave the Pridelands. Someone said Bunga was annoying and I would have to agree that his irritating factor was not that great in this episode.

I felt bad for Ono being used as a prop in the show. He should have told them he was uncomfortable with it and the baboons should have respected his personal space.

[Elton John]

Out of every single character in this show, I can relate to Ono the most.

Disbelief in the absurdity of a situation is communicated via dry snark and sarcasm.

[Kallo]

I finally got around to watching all three episodes of S2 so far. I enjoyed them, but they also weren't exactly up to my expectations (be it the fault of too high expectations on my part, or the episodes themselves). Especially "The Savannah Summit". I enjoyed Makuu's development, but at the same time when I heard about this episode, I was hoping there'd be some real plot against the giraffes or something. That'd have been a cool episode. So far, things I've noticed about S2 I was hoping for, but not exactly expecting to be there: 1) New intro. Was hoping there'd be one, and slightly disappointed there's not one. 2) The animation hasn't improved as much as I'd hoped. The walking animation still often looks... bad. It's still improving slowly, but the animation quality is basically exactly where it was at the end of S1. 3) Background music is improving and it was already great, which is awesome! 4) Simba's VA seems to be improving, though his voice still doesn't really fit the character super well, I feel. But at least his acting is getting better. 5) Mufasa's appearance is still lame as ever. The music and the visuals just aren't impressive enough when he appears. It's not supposed to feel like an "everyday thing", which it does now. I hope they'll at least handle Scar's appearance better. 6) Still too many songs and catchphrases being thrown around. Not a fan. At least the catchphrases this time seemed to be limited to one or two per episode, instead of like.... five. 7) Still no sight of Simba's pride, even though there was a perfect chance to show some background lionesses. 8) The dry season is already being mentioned in at least two episodes, so I'm glad they seem to be making that a theme. Hopefully it will lead to some awesome situations later in the season. I wasn't expecting the show to suddenly get way darker, but I am hoping as the season goes on, it'll slowly build and get more serious and dark. The dry season theme could help that a lot.

The episodes themselves felt pretty average and predictable to me. Not bad, but I can certainly name quite a few better ones from Season 1. They were a nice start to a second season, but not a super strong one. Didn't really care for any of the songs, either. "Babysitter Bunga" was good, but it felt like the most "childish" and "educational" episode to-date. A bit too much so for me. But it was nice to see Reirei again. I marked out when the season started with a scene of her. She's probably my favourite villain this show has introduced. And the girl jackal puppy was cute, but we didn't see enough of her. They also completely destroyed the credibility of the jackals' threat, by making them such wimps, which I didn't like. The show is pretty bad at that. It doesn't really have too many serious villains that feel like an actual threat (and even the serious ones always get destroyed by the Roar), so I feel they can't afford to do that. "The Savannah Summit", for what it was, is probably my favourite of the three episodes. As said, Makuu's development was nice, but there's not really much else I can say about it. "The Travelling Baboon Show" was the weakest of the episodes, but it was nice to see Janja and his clan again. It was also the funniest episode. I felt like the first two episodes kinda reverted back to early S1 episodes humour and dialogue -wise, which this episode corrected. The funniest moment this season so far for me is when Bunga mocked the thought of different animals working together, and then Ono was like "Hello" and Bunga just replied "Hi". I wasn't expecting that. xD

[Squeely]

[quote="zerodix"]and why did kion let the baboons slip out the pridelands to save 2 gazelles? priorities man..[/quote]
Those gazalles were struggling to stay afloat and likely would have died. Kion's priorities are right where they should be imo - stealing the food and leaving with it is bad, sure, but you can't just let people die. Though, the more I think about it, Ono and Bunga probably could have followed the baboons, as the other three were probably enough to handle saving the gazelles. In fairness, only just now did I consider that, and you don't have much time for strategizing when lives are at stake.

Anywho, decent filler episode was decent filler episode. The song was definitely a step above most of the songs on the show imo, and Sinbad is always fun as a voice actor. But the only thing that really grabbed me was the animation; the baboons looked really good by TLG standards, and their "magic" show lent itself well to a lot of fun and expression. Other than that, it didn't really strike me as a standout episode, but was far from bad.