What They Say:
Legendary Sandwich; Pie Bros.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
While a lot of fans have written off Cartoon Network after its treatment of Young Justice and Green Lantern, I’m not about to miss a show I may enjoy because other shows were canceled. Frankly, I go into every series at this point expecting them to be canceled before their time so there’s already a layer of disappointment dealt with. With Teen Titans Go, I have to admit that I never saw the previous series, though I grew up in the early 80’s reading the comics and enjoying the characters for many years in that form. When the first promos hit, I was pretty keen on the idea of what is essentially extended DC animated shorts full of gags and simple flash animation with familiar characters. And Teen Titans Go delivers what I wanted out of it.
The series gives us humor based stories with the five primary characters of the team that deal with things between their bigger adventures, so it’s all about the comedy. Designs are kept simple but there’s some good little quirks and bits in the background, from the pictures on the walls to some of the stickers they have. And other quirks such as writing on the monitors and seeing Bat-O’s cereal in the supermarket. It’s little things like that which make me grin and enjoy it all the more. The first half of the show, entitled Legendary Sandwich, involves Raven wanting privacy in the Tower so she can watch Pretty Pretty Pegasus. Because everyone else is one annoying pill, she comes up with a legend of a sandwich in order to entice them to find the ingredients that are spread all over the place. She figures there’s no merit to it, but we see them go through their individual adventures and bring it all together. Each of them has their moments, from Beast Boy’s “Dig Dug” moment to the really comical bits involving Robin going to the supermarket.
The second story, Pie Bros, is a bit more central in focus as it has the gang hanging out at a really great pie bakery as they all love love love pie. It’s a bit heavy handed, but the whole thing pushes the relationship between Cyborg and Beast Boy with how well they know each other. Except that there’s a twist when it comes to Cyborg’s upcoming birthday and Beast Boy feels like he’s going to disappoint him. It involves a fun montage of jobs he takes in order to make some money (because being a Titan doesn’t pay) and that just spirals in so many ways. A lot of it is about the kind of friendship they have and there’s a lot of fun to the way they interact. Everyone else gets in on the act in different ways as well so it continues to be an ensemble piece, but it knows how to break it into different groups as well.
In Summary:
I can completely understand why some fans of the previous Teen Titans series won’t get into this, but I quite enjoyed the show. The bigger test for me was to see how my daughters, age ten and thirteen, enjoyed the show. Based on the comedy and silliness here, it’s a real winner for them as they were laughing regularly throughout it. I enjoyed it for the simple comedy of it and the tweaks of the characters that I’ve known for decades as it’s going for a very basic approach. I’ve enjoyed the shorts we’ve had before and getting longer and more varied pieces like this is right up my alley. I enjoy the serious shows to be sure and lament the loss of them, but I’m excited to see what else Teen Titans Go has in store for its season. I may not have any faith at all in Cartoon Network, but I’ll enjoy what’s out there while I can.
Grade: B
