Review: Paranormal Action Squad “From Tusk til Dawn”

That’s what I call a show!

Spoilers Below

Happy Thanksgiving, readers! As you all sit down to turkey dinner in a possibly divided household and try to resist throwing the closest cutlery at your aunt’s head, why not watch a Ghostbusters knock-off show? But seriously, now that I only have one episode a week to deal with here, I can write more fleshed out thoughts about the show, which so far have been pretty positive (aside from the art and some of the voices…and some of the writing, but let’s keep going!).

The gang (sans Vanoss) walks around a pet cemetery in the middle of the night, with Paul leading them. It’s here we see why Paul is “the smart one” of the group because he says words like “imperative” instead of talking like a human being. Turns out the reason they’re here is finding the grave of Paul’s dead puppy, Cinder. Now that is a name tempting being burned to death, (or, in the case of RWBY, getting your face scarred like Prince Zuko without any of the meaningful character) but that’s not actually what happened. In a gaze into the past, we see young Paul throw a ball to Cinder, which goes into the streets, leading to him to be run over by an approaching car. Now that Paul has finished an invention, he knows how to bring Cinder back from the beyond in order to apologize and get closure. At least, ideally, because the invention doesn’t do shit, and a freezing Eddie decides to throw it into the darkness so they can go the hell home. But since this is the cold open, that just means this is the set up to the episode’s greater problem: namely that the invention DID work, and is reviving a recently dead elephant named Bonzo.

And seeing how this leads into the theme music, I might as well talk about that, especially since I didn’t get a chance to do that last week. Now, usually, the opening theme animation of a show looks like it has the most animation into it. This is not one of those times since it looks about as much like it was made by GoAnimate (bad thing) as everything else. It does, however, summarize the show’s premise and characters well enough within its thirty seconds. It shows Eddie, Paul, and Vanoss fighting monsters, Pad makes an alert, Orb flies around, they give a few seconds to Eddie’s malicious relationship with sasquatch, and one other thing that MIGHT be setting something up in future episodes, so I will hold off on talking about it until then. And if it turns out to be nothing, I’ll bring it up in the season review! Win-win. Then the three guys stare down a giant troll thing and drive towards it, ending with the titles as their car drives across the sunset in the desert. The music chosen is also pretty decent, being both tepid and eerie, which makes sense for the show’s usual laid back tone along with its more serious moments when the supernatural tension sets in. It’s not something that I’d spend free time listening to on a loop like some better themes, but it does make getting through the first few minutes of the show a bit easier and smoother.

After the titles, we return to the base as Eddie trains Vanoss in fighting. How Eddie knows anything about that is anyone’s guess, but it doesn’t matter anyway because Vanoss is a terrible student. After he leaves, Paul talks to Eddie about the new invention, called the Spirit Resurrector, and how he can make a new one to bring his dog back. Eddie is saved from this by Pad, who detects a new disturbance at Cactus Grove fairgrounds, which I guess is a circus of some kind. The newly reanimated elephant has shown up there and is wreaking havoc. Eddie is ready to blow it back to hell, but Paul stops him so they can study it. Suddenly, a random ring leader shows up out of nowhere and starts whipping the elephant. Not sure if this is self-defense or this guy is just a dick, but this causes the elephant to flee into the desert. Paul finds it nearby, cowering in fear, and takes mercy on it.

Using Pad to read and translate its thoughts, he finds out that the elephant is voiced by Ben Diskin, who is known for many roles such as Numbah 1 and 2 from Codename Kids Next Door and Shoutmon from the most recent season of Digimon. But he’s pretty apprehensive to trusting Paul or any human until Paul calms him down with a teary speech that he meant to give to his dog. Just as the two reconcile, Eddie kills it but doesn’t end the problem. Several tiny zombie elephants pop out of the newly re-dead-ed elephant and decide to pick up where he (she? Was she pregnant?) left off and destroy the circus, before soon moving on into the town. Paul decides the only way to stop this is to finally bring back his dead dog to finally give that apology about killing it and get that desired closure, as well as use him to round up all the elephants…somehow. Pad re-engages telepathic translation, helping to understand that the thing the elephants want in order to move on is just kill one human, but they instead go with just messing with and whipping that guy who whipped them earlier on. Unsure if I feel bad for him since he might have just doing that to stay alive or not feel bad because he was just being a dick, but that’s that. And that’s not all, since the only way for them to truly pass on is to get blown to smithereens, which is traumatizing for an animal lover like Paul, and even more so when it comes to putting down Cinder for the last time (this time deliberately).

While this episode didn’t really bring in the pathos or humor as it might have intended, the plot was an interesting one. In a world of ghosts and demons, the idea of wanting to see a loved one, even a pet, is understandable. It adds a sympathetic angle to Paul just as the Sasquatch/dead wife stuff did for Eddie, which certainly makes them more tolerable as characters. Looking forward to seeing if the rest of the main cast gets the same treatment. Though it is odd that Vanoss is billed as one of the main three when he seems like mostly an annoyance in the three appearances he’s made. Incidentally, there is an animated short about him on his voice actor’s channel that chronicles his job hunts which all end with him being fired. It wouldn’t be worth the few extra bucks I’d get reviewing it, so just check it out if you’re so inclined. But as for the rest of the show, there does seem to be some legitimate thought being put into this, which I can’t say for shows I’m covering concurrently. So, this holiday, when you’re hanging around your less than perfect relatives, be sure to tell them you love them. Or just wait until you can resurrect them from the dead and tell them then.