Review: Bunsen is a Beast! “Bunsen Is a Beast!; Body and the Beast”

THIS is more like it.

Spoilers Below

Bunsen Is a Beast!

Bunsen attends his first day of school, and it’s here where we meet all the principle characters of the series. First up, Mikey, who introduces himself to Bunsen and agrees to give him a tour of the school and help him settle in. We’ve got Amanda, an evil kid who wants to see monsters forever banned from mingling with kids. Next up we’ve got Ms. Flap our teacher, and Sophie Saunders, our crush.

Amanda decides to feed Bunsen beats which causes the little beast to become a big huge monster that terrorizes downtown and causes Amanda to summon the army. Fortunately, Mikey is able to get Bunsen to his mother’s house before any real harm is done and as such the monster is fed “Beast Yeast” which sets him back to normal Bunsen. Amanda gets arrested for causing a scene, and Mikey’s invited over to check out the house.

Body and the Beast

Bunsen loses his head and he’s got to get it back on for two main reasons: 1) It’s picture day at school and 2) the new head will cause mass hysteria. With the help of Mikey and new/home-schooled friend D’arcy, we’re able to get Bunsen’s head reattached to his body, no thanks to Amanda who tries again to intervene.

Our Take

I don’t know why Nickelodeon didn’t decide to air these episodes back in January as the sneak peek instead of the two episodes we got because now this show just got a lot better. For starters, we got to further expand on Bunsen’s monster abilities that we really didn’t get the first-time around and we got a way better introduction to the main characters.

In terms of the main characters, for the most part, they are really good. Mikey seems WAY more fun in these episodes and Amanda is a bit more straightforward in terms of why exactly she wants to see Bunsen gone. I think my favorite character/actor is by far Cheri Oteri’s take on Ms. Flap with a close second being Jeremy Rowley as Bunsen. Both have been in the business for a long time and need to be in more TV shows/movies. I wasn’t crazy about India Ennenga’s take on “Sophie Saunders”, not so much because of the actor, but because of the direction of the voice. I think we have PLENTY of animated characters that do the stereotypical high school girl/mall rat chic and I think we could’ve done with something a bit more on sweet side to help soften the constant barrage that is Bunsen and Mikey.