Review: The Great North “The Great Punkin’ Adventure”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

A punk band invites Ham to audition after hearing him scream. Meanwhile, Honeybee and Wolf get their first directing gig.

Our Take:

If you want to be in a punk band, you got to have a punk-like attitude and some strong lungs. Luckily for Ham, he only has one of those things. The Great North is continuing its music-filled extravaganza this season with an episode that focuses less on the “breaking into song” scenario and more on the “let’s scream until our lungs gave out” type of music.

The episode centers solely on Ham, who accidentally spills his food on himself, causing him to scream like every other punk band lead singer. This caught the attention of Quay (Reggie Watts), who chose Ham to be a part of his rock band, Messengers of Chaos, where they held auditions in their manager’s parents’ house. While hanging out with the band, Ham discovers that the members don’t get along with their parents, causing him to do the same towards Beef. This lead to him creating a song about parents being jerks. Ham later regrets it when the band gets to play at the Lone Moose Moose banquet. More importantly, he worries what Beef would think of him if he sang that song in front of him at the banquet.

It also had a side plot involving Wolf and Honeybee making a movie for the Moose banquet, and everyone in the family is a part of it. Unfortunately, Wolf is having a difficult time figuring out which scenes to keep and which ones to edit out. It’s an average mini-story that does feel unnecessarily padded out to fit its 30-minute runtime. Aside from that, the episode offered another round of tender-hearted moments, plus a rocking solo from Ham.

The episode saw Ham changing his personality to fit his punk band attitude as he’s always the friendliest member of the family. It works in reflecting the character going out of his comfort zone, even though it can lead him into trouble. While not a perfect portrayal of the situation, it’s pretty amusing to see Ham trying miserably to act tough towards Beef and hear Beef’s punk rock song at the end.

Overall, “The Great Punkin’ Adventure” is another solid episode that features some decent comedy (including Judy’s creepy ballerina dance) and a heartfelt family moment or two. The story fell a bit flat in emphasizing its lesson, and the side plot involving Wolf’s movie wasn’t as interesting as Ham’s scenario. However, it did give Ham a new side of himself in an amusing and punky way. Rock on!