Previously, too age old enemies continue their fight [here]
#36.1 Hobart: The Weedkeeper
Season 1, Episode 3c
Hobart is another two short series, so I will be covering both in this post. This also happens to be another Bill Burnett affair this time co-made with Greg Emison whom you also will remember worked together in Jelly's Day . So these two seem to be pitching machines. (Can they play for the Rockies?) Anyway, let's start with "Hobart: The WeedKeeper"
Hobart is voiced by John Kassir who has a very long list of voicing credits He was the voice of the Cryptkeeper in the HBO series. For Nickelodeon he was Winston on "As Told by Ginger", Ray on "Rocket Power" and again he does alot.
Hobart is going to his girlfriend, Okra's, place to give her a puppy as a gift. So that she won't have to walk her toaster anymore. If that doesn't tell you what kind of short you're getting then nothing else will. Also, Hobart does kind of look like an adult Eugene from "Hey Arnold". He tries to put a ribbon the pup, but the dog wants to play and then flushes himself down the toilet. Then Hobart jumps down to help save the dog.
We meet the weedkeeper and who really wants a puppy and guess what falls on him? (a hamster?) The puppy falls down on him and he's happy, but then Hobart falls on him. They get into a fight over the puppy as he gets away. This cause the two of them to go on the chase.
The Weedkeeper has some interesting tools and ends up being able to cage the puppy but has to work to capture the dog, but Hobart stops him and ends up chasing the dog. Eventually he's able to give his girlfriend the puppy and she punctuates the ending asking where do you put the toast.
More after the jump
#36.2 Hobart: Deep Sea Diva
Season 1, Episode 8b
Hobart and Okra are dancing his trailer and then they both end up falling down his toilet (there's a strange theme going on here). Meanwhile there a ship captain whose crew has deserted him and he really wants a new one to catch a merman. Guess who falls down?
Anyway, the merman shows up and the captain gets away. The merman also happens to be a singer. Also, somebody really thought Ethel Merman and then went said yes, a merman named Ethel. That's a joke that goes very odd. Ethel wants to put on a show and ends up taking Okra with him. Now, Hobart has to get her back. There's some really funny gags in this one, so the Ethel Merman joke gets to stay.
Okra is also annoyed to be in Ethel's lair and wants to leave. (The real Ethel Merman would never take people hostage) Ethel is both annoying but more to the characters and not the viewer, well balanced and like how he's conceded. He gets annoyed that Okra isn't impressed by any of his songs. Then there's some dancing.
Hobart's hard time of finding her finally works and he's able to find Okra and get get back to the surface, their surface. Then they go back to dancing.
There were pretty fun shorts, I like that Hobart is well balanced where he's not too dumb to function but not overly smart either. He's a fun character. I could kind of see this working as a series, where Hobart ends up in different worlds via toilet. It's strange but a fun kind of strange. I think the second one worked even better, though we get more Hobart in the first one. It was able to make an Ethel Merman reference weird and not bad.
I like the animation style. it's pretty charming. These shorts are good.
That's it for now, tune in next time when we call a plumber.
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