Saturday, February 18, 2017

Top 10 Best and Worst Teen Titans Go! Episodes

These lists demonstrate both my tolerance of and my annoyance with spoof/spin-off series Teen Titans Go! Spoiler warning: Many of the entries on the "best" list will be Raven-centric episodes. This should come as no surprise since my favorite episodes of Teen Titans are mostly Raven episodes as well. As for worst, there may be some worse ones, but these are the ones I chose at a glance by visceral reaction.

Best:
Honorable Mention: Colors of Raven - I liked the callback to the original episode plus the addition of the purple-cloaked Raven as her libido.

10. Driver's Ed - Because they make fun of Robin for crashing the Batmobile. This episode did the most to remind me of those Teen Titans short cartoons that ran a few years ago.

9. Campfire Stories - The best parts were the bear showing up to maul Robin and Raven's story with her turning into the monster at the end. The monster is her and it's adorable, even if she has to kill everyone for annoying her (in the story; in reality she scares everyone back into the Tower because she kept complaining that she wanted to go home).

8. Dog Hand - The first appearance of Trigon. For such a terrifying villain, you'd think this would belittle the very real struggle they had against him, but I find it hilarious because Kevin Michael Richardson plays that role so well either as a serious threat or an out-of-touch dad. It's written well for the most part.

7. The True Meaning of Christmas - The Titans go to the North Pole to try to get off the Naughty list. Hijinks ensue. This is probably one of the better holiday episodes before their feud with Santa got even worse.

6. Legendary Sandwich - The first episode had me convinced that this show wasn't going to be all bad, despite later episodes. I liked the nod to My Little Pony since Tara strong voices Twilight in that. This episode also establishes the trend of Raven getting annoyed with the rest of the Titans and that she alone is the voice of reason on a normal day.

5. Friendship - Control Freak puts the Titans in an episode of Pretty Pretty Pegasus, of which both he and Raven are fans. At one point the two of them try to one-up each other with their knowledge of the show (Raven wins, obviously). I like how it delves deeper into being a My Little Pony parody other than in name only.

4. Nean - This is the other Trigon episode that was done really well. He's always trying to push her over the edge to be evil, but this time he takes the opposite approach and forces her to be genuinely nice rather than mean for the good of everyone else (who in this show are usually being idiots). He immediately regrets this decision and gets his just desserts.

3. Operation Dude Rescue - I love it when Ashley Johnson has to be evil, especially since this time they're modeling Terra's behavior after her comic counterpart (who was always evil) rather than the one this show is based off of. The boys don't appreciate or even acknowledge the rescue, so the girls just leave them for dead.

2. 40%, 40%, 20% - This episode has the best 80s nostalgic feel. "The Night Begins to Shine" was likely made up for the show, but it sounds like it came straight out of the 80s. And it gives Cyborg power! The 80s music video visuals made it even better. It's cool that they made Cyborg an 80s/early 90s fan.

1. Sidekick - Robin is put in charge of the Batcave while Batman is out, and the rest of the Titans tag along. This is just as good as the Teen Titans episode where Robin is out and the rest of them dress up in his spare costumes. I especially like Raven befriending the bats and Starfire dressed as Batgirl. Also the revelation that makes Robin no longer afraid of Batman.

Worst:
Honorable Mention: Dreams - It just seemed like a pointless episode, and I don't know how to feel about Robin's dream consisting solely of scenes from the original cartoon dubbed over.

10. Finally a Lesson - I found this one to be criminally boring, and that's coming from an adult. The Aesop episodes were good because they were hilariously subversive, but the housing market and how to adult aren't topics that I tune in for.

9. Pyramid Scheme - This was dumb, as the characters tried to eat money. The "ancient Egypt is the source of all evil" part I can accept, but that was the only interesting part.

8. Two Bumble Bees and a Wasp - When I saw the title, I got excited because I thought the characte Bumble Bee would be in it, but I was wrong (and Wasp is Marvel, right?). I don't like bees and I wouldn't want them as currency.

7. Dignity of Teeth - This was a really gross one. First of all it's stupid to pull out all your teeth to get money from the tooth fairy (though I could've sworn another cartoon did this before as well). The fact that the tooth fairy eats the teeth (and the disgusting sound effect it makes) really put me off this one.

6. Head Fruit - Previous entries on this list had Beast Boy doing stupid things, but the crux of this episode is that Beast Boy is stupid and needs to use his head. Nothing gets accomplished, nothing is learned.

5. Let's Get Serious! - The Titans try to be like Young Justice, which is a show that fans like better and want to get another season of (rather than this garbage). The Titans try to go back to their roots and have complex emotions and backstories, but instead it feels like they're almost mocking their source material.

4. The Fourth Wall - The first of several episodes where the show throws a hissy fit about fans complaining about its quality. Control Freak tells them to fix these problems or he'll be forced to reboot them. They try to address the complaints, but their efforts fail as they just keep missing the point. Even they had to admit the old show was better, though. Beast Boy trying to charge through the fourth wall and failing was a little funny, but it was too little, too late at this point.

3. TTG v PPG - This episode had to be a slap in the face to Tara Strong, but at least as Raven she got to say she didn't care about it. While the new Powerpuff Girls show is probably better by comparison, it's also not better than the original show, something both groups have in common.

2. The Cape - They made an abridged episode using footage from the first episode of the original cartoon. It's as bad as you'd think one would be, except the well-known abridged shows on YouTube are actually good. Teen Titans Go! is already a parody of the original; it didn't need to do this. No production company should (unless it's a recap and not completely re-scripted to be funny).

1. Gorilla - This is the episode that made me want to stop watching. I've only continued because I've convinced myself that it would never be this bad again. Everyone is acting completely stupid and out-of-character. There's no excuse for it like there would be in a theme episode. It's just Beast Boy being a jackass and the girls practically going feral for him. It's bad enough that Robin isn't respected as a leader in the other episodes either, but Beast Boy taking over as an alpha male gorilla was too stupid.

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