Review: SuperMansion “The League of Cheesedom”

Mmmm….cheeese.

Spoilers Below

With this third episode of season two, Jewbot seems solidified as my favorite SuperMansion character. I may have a penchant for non-human characters under trial to interact with such a complicated species. It gives them a superior ability to reflect the most human of emotions. In this episode, Jewbot’s struggle for acceptance brings him through an emo phase. It starts when Rex reveals that Jewbot was a defective military robot, disposed of at the mansion when no one else wanted him. However, at the moment, the League of Freedom is in the same boat. They’re still in desperate need for public approval, and Portia offers up the solution.

Based on years of audience development experience (and help from boyfriend, Courtney), Portia presents the League of Cheesedom. It’s a Chuck E Cheese style restaurant meant to rebrand the League as a youth cultural icon. (The place looks fun and I would totally go there, but I may not be the best marker of popularity.) Just like Jewbot, it’s hard for the League to fit in anywhere these days.

Speaking of my new best bud, Jewbot, can I take this time to point out the details on the fabric of the characters’ clothes? I’ve certainly noticed them before, on the bumps of American Ranger’s suit or Cooch’s fleece crop top. Jewbot’s new emo sweater and slouchy knit hat are just beautiful additions. The dolls are made by 3D printer but that hat looks like someone personally took out a tiny pair of size 1 knitting needles. For me, it’s one of the things that makes this show a joy to watch.

Anyway, predictably, League of Cheesedom is equipped with its own animatronic house band designed to look like Rex, Cooch, and Ranger. The team is rightfully horrified, except for Jewbot, who feels a connection to the trio. As a robot, he’s still lacking in facial expressions, but his identity of the week allows for overblown body language, signaling his willingness to open up through music.

The show goes on, despite the team’s misgivings. This restaurant doesn’t seem to be oozing appeal.

“Kids are dumb, Rex,” Portia explains. Obviously, it’s a joke, but it’s one worth pointing out within an animated format. This is a sentiment that I feel a lot of kids’ entertainment studio execs share. Luckily animation is somewhat exempt and is still creating some of the highest quality children’s entertainment. Unlike the League of Cheesedom.

Black Saturn and Groaner are engaged in a live theatre performance gone terribly outside their audience demographic. Jewbot, providing the live music with his new band, discovers the animatronics are built by Robotheon, same as him, making them brothers. In an attempt to bring them even closer together, Jewbot fixes their empathy scores, the very feature that renders him a “defective unit”.

Obviously, this goes badly. The band starts to feel, but primitively. Not knowing how to deal with these new emotions, their threat detection goes into overdrive and their military protocols kick in. Cheesedom is a madhouse of kids and protective parents, caught in the crossfire of raging bots and incompetent superheroes. Once again, Portia has to transform and save the day, although this time it’s kind of her fault they got into this mess in the first place. The League of Cheesedom is obliterated in the process.

Finally, Rex has been touched by seeing Jewbot interact with his “brothers”, and probably feeling guilty for admitting that Jewbot was essentially discarded trash. He brings in Jewbot’s creator, or mom, as she’s referred to. She’s the woman who gave him his Jewish heritage. Except she isn’t, as Jewbot learns. Goldstein isn’t her given name, but the last name of her ex-husband. He’s back to the drawing board on the identity front.

Jewbot carried this episode through, and I really enjoyed it. He needs to stay relegated to the sidekick role, like all sidekicks do, in order to not get too annoying. But season two has felt more fun and enjoyable because of his development, and hopefully it continues on.