Review: Bunsen is a Beast “Hair Today Gone Tomorrow” ; “Ice Dream”

Sweet dreams are made of ice cream.

Overview (Spoilers Below)

“Hair Today Gone Tomorrow” 

Bunsen and Mikey get a hold of a peanut butter sandwich mixed with Boodles’ hair that allows them to turn invisible and haunt the neighborhood. The mayor strikes a deal with Amanda for her to catch the “ghosts” until she becomes one as well thanks to Beverly. Everyone turns back to normal when they realize the trouble they’ve caused.

“Ice Dream“

Commander Cone wants to do anything else but sell ice cream, but after trying out a few things, Bunsen and Mikey take Cone down Memory Lane (literally) and show the ice cream man all the joy that he brings to peoples’ lives. This inspires Commander Cone to keep being an ice cream man…presumably because this is the series finale.

Our Take

As bad as this show has been, the series finale was actually an uptick in quality. More so with “Ice Dream” as we were able to spend more time with Commander Cone, a seldom used character, instead of having another run-of-the-mill caper featuring Amanda trying to ruin shit for Mikey and Bunsen. This is, in fact, the series finale and quite deservedly so.

From what I hear show creator Butch Hartman is a good man. He’s a family man, a Christian, and he gives a lot to charity. Quite honestly though, between Bunsen is a Beast and The Fairly OddParents, he creates programming that sets itself up for bored to tears-cliched plots that just make its intended audience dumber. Yes, it’s cool that the underlying premise is that everyone should accept everyone, and that’s something we need today more than ever. But in this day and age, these kids aren’t looking for the same old shit every episode. Similar to the reason why Phineas and Ferb were pulled, kids are looking for jucier content like Steven Universe that gives them something to chew on with substance.

In fairness, this is more of a Nickelodeon issue, a network that airs 80 hours a week of Spongebob Squarepants and their lone newer hit, The Loud House, and doesn’t do a very good job of picking great content for their networks. And when they do, in the case of Harvey Beaks, they don’t promote it. It’s an issue that’s rife in the Viacom nets including Comedy Central and MTV. All of these networks are picking up animated pilots and series, but really don’t do a good job of moving their product. Instead, they select Bunsen is a Beast because mass-produced content like this is easier for them to air once every three months, instead of content that might actually get viewers interested to watch. And no, I don’t think 2018 looks that great for this network.