Superman on Television

Krypto The Superdog: Episode Reviews

Season 1 - Episode 4: Diaper Madness/Feline Fatale

Reviewed by: Felix Vasquez

Actors & Roles this episode:
Samuel Vincent - Krypto
Alberto Ghisi - Kevin
Nicole Oliver - Kevin's Mom
Brian Drummond - Streaky the Cat
Tabitha St. Germain - Andrea/Melanie

Diaper Madness

Written by: Alan Burnett and Paul Dini
Directed by: Scott Jeralds

Kevin and Krypto face quite a conundrum this time out. While sitting in his house, Krypto decides to help Kevin, who is forced to baby sit his little sister while his mom goes to a protest in downtown Metropolis to protest the construction of a new building headed by Lex Luthor, who, we learn, is not only an enemy of Superman, but also of the people. In this episode we learn that she is one of the only select few people who know Krypto's secret superhero alter-ego along with Kevin, Superman, and Streaky. Far away in STAR Labs, a bunch of scientists have created a teleportation ray, to beat Superman! Why? Who knows, regardless, a bunch of lab rats are released from their cages, creating havoc in the lab. A loose rat steps on the handheld ray and accidentally warps into the countryside near Kevin's house. The rat appears on Kevin's doorstep with the teleportation ray, and Kevin begins playing with it, zapping back and forth testing its various uses. Ending up zapping into the sky, the laser falls out of Kevin's pocket lands in his sister Melanie's possession. Things immediately go awry when she begins zapping in different places high and low, while Kevin and Krypto struggle to keep her from getting them into trouble... which will be any minute if people discover what the ray can do. You think weird things happened in Smallville? Well, Metropolis is just as weird.

Kevin and Krypto race around town to keep Melanie from getting herself hurt as she teleports from high trees, to tops of busses and into trucks, warps into the grouchy next door neighbor's house while he's attempting to get some sleep and ends up teleporting him atop the roof in a hilarious scene where he crashes into a big flower bush much to the horror of his wife. I really liked this episode, despite the fact it's been done a million times before and reminded me more of Tom and Jerry than anything else. This episode ended up being really cute in many sequences and pretty freaky, especially when, in one really scary sequence, Kevin and Melanie end up teleporting atop the Daily Planet. Things go from bad to worse when Melanie warps only feet away from Kevin's mom and now Kevin must get her home before his mom discovers what trouble they've sunk in to. In a weird twist of fate, Lex's building construction is teleported into the water in a funny scene, but Krypto and Kevin decide it best to keep the ray in safety and hand it over to the Man of Steel.

Feline Fatale

Written by: Tim Cahill and Julie McNally Cahill
Directed by: Scott Jeralds

A white female cat happens upon Andrea's house as she playfully dresses up Streaky, who endures her torture. Streaky is a really fun supporting character for Krypto, becoming a basic polar opposite, turning into comic relief to Krypto's heroism. In this episode, as Streaky endures the torture and makes a break for it, the white female cat gets into the house and begins wooing Andrea. While Streaky and Krypto finish their patrolling over the city, Streaky comes back home to see the feline Delilah being coddled by his master Andrea, and he doesn't really take it to heart, but the problem is she intends on staying there and aggressively taking over his territory, despite Streaky's jealousy and will do anything to get him out of the way. She even starts framing him to get him kicked out of the house. Upset that the cat is trying to replace him, Streaky is clueless as to what to do. It's clear the cat has less than noble intentions. I really liked the running gag of Streaky being repeatedly kicked out of the house on his butt despite the fact that Delilah's intentions are never really all that fleshed out to begin with.

We learn halfway that she is a minion of the evil Mekanikat, who planted Delilah to zap Krypto with a gigantic ray. The problem with this plot is that we never really learned what he was planning to do once that was accomplished. Perhaps we're being set up to further learn his intentions later on, but it's broad plots and villains that keep this cartoon from really becoming adventurous. Regardless, while it wasn't one of the good episodes focusing on Streaky, he does continue with his goofy antics after deciding to take her on and finish her once and for all, even carrying her giant laser on his back running from her as they fight. I liked the climax where Krypto thwarts her plans and even the last gag where Andrea dresses Streaky as Puss in Boots, but I want to see more villain focus and more adventures with them, which in my opinion will make this a better show. Even terrible cartoons like "Atomic Betty" have focus on the villains without being violent, so I'd like to see more Krypto focused villains, otherwise this was a decent episode all around.



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