Review: The Casagrande’s “The Kid Plays in the Picture; Achy Breaky Art”

Overview

“The Kid Plays in the Picture”

Carl’s love for toys gets him caught up in a toy reviewer career. At least until a specific Toy Company, that’s sending their products to him begins to make some uncompromising and soul-crushing demands…


“Achy Breaky Art”
When Frida’s art gets a bad review from a pretentious critic, the kids proceed with an elaborate scheme to get her art auctioned off in an effort to lift her spirits.


Our Take

While most of the episodes often came across as “Ronnie-focused” much in the same way half of the Loud House episodes were at one point Lincoln-focused, this takes priority on the rest of her family members. For the former episode, Carl goes through the modern take of a sitcom scenario when he dips his proverbial toes into becoming a social media influencer for the sake of free toys which at first goes well for him until he impulsively signs a contract with soul-crushing consequences. In some ways this felt like a satirical jab at internet-video influencers from a child’s perspective which makes you wonder if child labor laws even apply to kid-influencers? Or do they sign iron-clad contracts that allow companies to legally work their asses to the bone?

For the latter episode, things take an interesting direction when a pint-sized pretentious art-critic, who frequently rides a segway, publishes a bad review on Frida’s art, and fearing that his harsh words would crush her spirits, the kids resort to extreme measures to make sure she doesn’t see it, but things don’t go the way the kids or even the critic imagined…

As a whole, both episodes did their job giving some unique lessons most cartoons wouldn’t dare think about. You could make the argument that there are child celebrities out there who actually do stuff like this on Youtube, but when you’re bending to the will of a company that puts you on a tight leash to the point that they won’t even let a kid have breakfast, let alone be a kid for a couple of hours, that’s when it becomes soul-crushing and borderline unhealthy. The art episode had a positive message that I wish I took to heart years ago about having “thicker skin”. When you’re an artist, you’re going to fuck up, and sometimes you’re going to have haters diss your work, but what matters is having the courage to go on and having the number of people caring about you outweigh the ones who don’t are inspiring things traits to have.