Review: Penn Zero: Part-Time Hero ”Totally Into Your Body; Fish and Chips”

Spoilers Below

Totally Into Your Body

Boone and Penn switch spots on the zap platform as they get transported to a world where Boone and Sashi are small doctors living inside Penn’s body so that they can find and cure a disease. Rippen and Larry try to stop Boone and Sashi along the way, and soon Boone is left to his own devices. After studying up, Boone finds a cure for Penn which means now he has to find Penn’s heart which is exactly what the syringe is telling Boone NOT to do. Thankfully, Boone knows better and is able to save Penn all by himself, even with Sashi just now waking up.

Our Take

I hope you guys weren’t looking for an action-packed Penn Zero because you weren’t getting it with the opening bit. I did like a few things about the episode, so I’m not here to completely slam. For starters, and this may be my OCD kicking in, I liked some of the behind-the-head shots of Penn as it was something I really hadn’t seen a lot of before this episode. It was also very interesting that we got a decent amount of time at school before we headed off to our mission because we don’t get a lot of that and I kind of like seeing the different characters the producers come up with.

In any case, I’ve seen one too many cartoons that have ‘in the body’ settings. Osmosis Jones, Rick and Morty, Futurama, and a slew of others have done variants of this deal, so I guess I’m a little tired of it. Even the novelty of having Boone the star of the mission more or less wears off after the obligatory montage.

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Fish and Chips

Boone, Penn, and Sashi return to an underwater world so that they can find a fish named Ruffus. No one else likes Ruffus, but Penn is supposed to care so now he has a mission. Larry and Rippen have pretty much the same mission, so off they go. We come to find out that this underwater setting is NOT an ocean, rather it’s a fish tank that houses fish that could, and probably will, be on a restaurant menu. Penn decides to change the mission so that it’s all about getting these fish out of the tank. Boone and Penn end up in a soup bowl, but Boone gets sent back and Penn finds Ruffus and an open window that leads to the ocean. With the help of Sashi, the entire civilization is able to knock the aquarium into the ocean, thus freeing all of the fish.

Our Take

For fans of Finding Nemo, this one’s for you! That’s because the episode seems very, very inspired by Nemo’s contribution to that movie, in that he and his aquarium friends make a break for freedom. Having a cat chef was pretty cool, and very different and I hope that’s a trend that continues for Penn Zero which can have its bouts of monotony at times.

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