Review: Corner Gas Animated “Rum Punch”

Dog River gets fueled by alcohol and violence at the first ever Slap-Punch-palooza!

Overview:

After Hank takes a game of Battleship far too seriously, he accidentally punches Brent in the face.  Manipulated by Wanda, Brent vows to get Hank back when he is least expecting it. Hank tries to rush things along and gets Brent to slap him, but Wanda won’t have it and demands Hank slap him back. With both men owing each other a hit, things get out of hand, especially once Wanda builds them a cage to fight it out in and starts bringing in bets.

Meanwhile, Officers Karen and Davis have come upon an illegal booze still, which Davis begins to sample for “evidence” purposes. After bottling up a full stock of booze, Karen starts to sell the illegal alcohol at the illegal cage fight. Also, Lacey is trying to do the right thing by raising funds for a local widow, but she is the only one that can’t make money.

Our Take:

I guess when people first hear about a show that centres around a rural town in Saskatchewan there are two places it could go.  One it could be based on the bland adventures of a small community- which it is- or, it could be full of rednecks getting drunk- which this episode was.  It is surprising that it took this long for a cage match in a cornfield to take place on Corner Gas.  And, they had to go all out with the homemade moonshine.  It was an ingenious method of reaching some rural stereotypes while still keeping it much in the Corner Gas theme.

The episode was a lot of fun.  We open up to Hank and Brent being pirates, something the original show could not have managed due to budget, and a reason why the animation works so well.  Sometimes I wish they would do more of these outlandish themes, but there is a healthy balance with how the series has gone this far.  Except I am still concerned with how many main characters are getting screen time per episode.  This story, in particular, could have worked with the exclusion of three or four players.

I do have a bone to pick, which may not make sense to an American audience, but it will bug Canadians like me.  This episode involved a lot of money trading hands, and I was shocked to see that all the bills were colored green!  And, I mean US green, not a Canadian twenty.  In the great white north, we are proud of our blue and red bills.  We pride ourselves on the fact we’re wise enough to color-code our money.  A show that is taking place right in our backyard should have the foresight to make Canadians proud by showcasing our pride. I have to dock a whole half a point on the score for this incident.

Besides the one unfortunate action by the animators, this episode was great.  I mean, it ended with two main characters in a cage fight- that’s pretty cool. Further, made excellent by donning it with the epic name “Slap-Punch-Palooza.”  By far this was not a story you would have found in the original live-action series, and for that, the Animated Series just gained some major points.  They have taken a show that was widely popular, one of the biggest to come out of Canada, and made it a unique series with the same beloved characters.