Superman on Television

Krypto The Superdog: Episode Reviews

Season 1 - Episode 8: Old Dog, New Tricks/Talk to the Animals

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

Old Dog, New Tricks

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

Smokey is an old Dalmation who is the beloved dog at the firehouse. Smokey isn't as frisky as he used to be when it comes to his job and the firefighters have noticed. He gets word that there is a new Dalmatian who is set to come into the firehouse and is saddened to discover he's going to be replaced very soon. While flying over the firehouse, Krypto and Streaky see Smokey sulking and fly in to discover his problem. Streaky decides to help Smokey by having Krypto masquerade as him so they will re-think replacing him. They manage to pull it off very well, Krypto doesn't think he'll be replaced because he's a friend, but Streaky warns that they'll bring in the puppy and replace Smokey leaving him at the old folk's home with all the other old Dalmatians whom have been put out to pasture. Everything seems to go well at first as there's a fire in downtown Metropolis and Krypto comes to the rescue opening a fire hydrant and stops the fire, while the firefighters look on in amazement. Krypto goes all around town helping them save people and stop fires. But Krypto finds a real challenge when he goes to help fight a fire in the natural history museum, he knocks over a rock which happens to be Kryptonite and is weakened, unable to fight the fires as they consume the building. Now it's up to Smokey to rescue him and Krypto learns what other heroes do to help the city besides him. And Smokey learns that he's not being replaced after all. As for this episode I enjoyed it because it had the theme of presenting firefighters as real superheroes who tend to go unappreciated, and Streaky co-stars which is always a plus, serving as good comedic relief for Krypto.

Talk to the Animals

Written by: John Loy
Directed by: Scott Jeralds

I declared how the lack of continuity has affected the show due to Kevin not having a hearing device and "Talk to the Animals" clarifies my error. In this fun episode, Kevin and Krypto are flying all around town and performing tricks and as they dash around, Kevin accidentally loses his communicator which falls into the city of Metropolis somewhere, and now he can't understand what Krypto is saying to him.

Now it's up to Krypto, who can't communicate with his friend, to find the communicator. The problem is the communicator has fallen into the Metropolis zoo. As a person who once was heavily involved in art, I can understand why the animators have chosen not to include refernce to Kevin's communicator in every episode as it would be pretty tedious to do so, but "Talk to the Animals" cuts that which I considered a plot hole and makes it the focus of the episode, having the communicator fall into the wrong hands of a zoo keeper who is being mistreated by the animals he takes care of. He discovers the communicator and puts it on, discovering he can now communicate with all the animals in his zoo, one of whom is a monkey who convinces him to let him free. The zookeeper does so and the monkey traps him in a cage and releases all the animals.

While Krypto is flying across the sky searching for the communicator, he discovers the animals are now on the loose and are basically running amok in Metropolis. It's up to Krypto and the zookeeper to put all of them back in their cages. The animals were a good addition for the show since they're often very funny and the dialogue was cute as they argued back and forth in their cages, especially from the lion who had a voice like Woody Allen, which I found pretty funny. I also liked the mis-communications between Kevin and Krypto as they scramble to find the communicator. This was a very nice episode with some good animation and a nice establishing shot at the opener, and of course, it establishes the importance of the communicator and its importance to Kevin and Krypto's communication and dialogue.



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