George and Martha (1999)
First episode title: The Dance Recital / The Tooth
How familiar with the show am I?: I hadn't heard of it before.
Based on a series of children's books from the 70s, George and Martha is about two anthropomorphic hippopotamuses who are best friends!
In the opening sequence, the only thing that distinguishes George from Martha other than their clothing and accessories is the fact that one of George's two teeth is golden, whereas both of Martha's are white. Once the episode actually starts, they both have two white teeth, which I originally took as an inconsistency, but it turns out it actually gives away something about this episode! Anyway, other than this, they wear a variety of outfits, but most of the time Martha has a flower on her head, so that's the most obvious way to tell them apart. Other than their voices, of course.
As implied by the episode title, there are two shorts per episode here, so we start with "The Dance Recital". It opens with a path, perhaps through a park judging by the surroundings, which has a telephone box beside it. It's 1999 - people still use those. And there are four seagulls perched on top of it.
The seagulls look around, as if to make sure no-one is coming. For some reason, in one of the directions they look, they see Mt Fuji. I think we should assume this is just a random visual gag and not take it to mean the whole show is set in Japan! Anyway, once they don't see anyone, two of the birds fly into the booth - one of them lifts the receiver and the other sticks its head in the coin slot and starts messing with it. For a second I thought they were trying to use the phone without paying by making it think a coin was inserted or something like that, but then one of the gulls on top of the phone box starts trying to tear off the "Telephone" sign, so I think they are just messing with it for their own fun!
George approaches, wearing a hat and cane, and the seagulls notice and stop what they're doing. George is humming the Mexican Hat Dance song as he walks by. Surprisingly, that's going to be relevant later! Then the phone rings and that scares the seagulls away, and George turns around, confused by the ringing phone. He tries to walk in to answer it, but he's too big. You would think a world of anthropomorphic animals would be more considerate about variations in size! And the (non-anthropomorphic) seagulls laugh from a nearby tree, to rub it in.
George is just about able to remove the phone from its hook using his cane, and then squeezes as hard as he can into the box to finally pick it up and answer it. Somehow, it's Martha! He's confused at how she knew he would be by that phone box, and she says a best friend will always know where you are. Somehow. They both have kind of New York-ish accents, so maybe that's where it's set, I say as we get another shot with Fuji popping up in the background.
Martha wants to check that George is coming to her dance recital, and George... bluntly says no. He says that dancing is dumb. Wow, way to talk to your best friend! Martha is angry and tells him to come anyway, and slams the phone down. Then George can't get out of the box and rocks it back and forth, and one of the seagulls lands back on it and makes it overbalance. We don't get to see how he actually gets out!
Later, in just a tie, George shows up at "Miss Sweetheart's School of Dance", still grumbling about dancing being dumb. There are all sorts of animals in the audience inside, including a pair of hyenas that seem to be finding everything hilarious, as per the stereotype. A couple of crocodiles compliment George's tie and he grumpily thanks them. In another little "hippos are big" joke that I didn't even notice the first time, George takes up two seats in the audience!
The lights go down and the spotlight comes on the stage - a frog in a beret plays the piano to accompany a poodle in a bow and a dress taking the stage and doing a bit of ballet, getting applause from everyone except George. Then the poodle speaks in an over-the-top posh voice. Apparently, this is the Miss Sweetheart who gives the school its name, and tonight's production is her own work, "The Happy Butterfly".. In fact she's very eager to credit herself for every part of it! It reminds me of when I was a kid and tried to make my own cartoons, and I would put every conceivable credit to my own name.
The curtains part and immediately parts of the set start coming down. The curtains themself look pretty shabby too. I think this poodle thinks of her establishment as much more high-class than it actually is. She also thinks she's more original than she is - the frog starts playing the music for the actual production, and it's just the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy from The Nutcracker!
Sweetheart narrates the story, about how there was once an ugly caterpillar. This is represented on stage by four animals in a joint "caterpillar" costume, who must surely be disappointed that they don't get to do any proper dancing in this dance recital! The caterpillar crawls along a branch, and there seem to be some collisions occurring within the costume, causing laughter in the audience. The caterpillar then builds a cocoon, which is represented by a cat in a ballet dress coming onto the stage and covering the caterpillar in toilet paper. When Sweetheart says that the caterpillar fell asleep in its cocoon, George yawns in the audience. To be honest, I'm getting kind of bored by this part too!
Then the caterpillar-in-cocoon is quite conspicuously pushed off stage and replaced with a separate pile of toilet paper, which is of course the one the butterfly is going to burst out of. It does so, and, if you hadn't guessed, it's Martha! She's wearing a stripy dress and big spotty wings, and George, for once, looks impressed by her appearance.
Martha dances around the stage as Sweetheart tells us how happy the butterfly is. Hence "The Happy Butterfly". It's hard to tell how elegant her dance steps are meant to be, since she still moves like a hippo, but then she whirls around repeatedly at the end and it's obviously meant to be very impressive, as even George is amazed, and has a tear in his eye!
Then everyone is outside the school afterwards, and people are coming up to Martha to congratulate her - Sweetheart says that Martha is the best Happy Butterfly since herself. How many productions of this work by the owner of a small school have there been, anyway? When it's George's turn, he admits he was wrong about dancing being dumb... and now he wants to try it himself!
So then we cut to later and George has indeed turned up to the dancing school, in a leotard, amongst all the other different kinds of animals in the class. When Martha shows up for the class, she's shocked to see George and doesn't go in. Hey, just get in there and encourage your friend, Martha! Sweetheart tells everyone to take in "positive air" and release "negative air", which they do by taking a big deep breath and then letting it out again - when George exhales, it messes up the fur of a small orange monkey standing in front of him. To me this feels more like preparation for yoga than dancing!
Sweetheart says they will start with a bit of Swan Lake, and cues the pianist frog, who starts playing something jazzy until she yells at him and he switches to the right piece. The students start dancing, George apparently just following everyone else's lead but crashing about as he does so, ending up with him stepping hard on the monkey's tail! The monkey screams, and George staggers backwards and knocks an ostrich over. Martha, still at the door for some reason, is worried for George.
I've made comments about the weird differences between speaking and non-speaking animals in previous posts, but this show has a particularly weird one - the monkey only ever makes monkey noises, no actual speech, even though he's clearly a sentient being capable of signing up for dancing lessons. Yes, there are real life human beings that can't speak, but this doesn't feel like that.
Then Sweetheart tells everyone to take a partner, and the monkey looks around desperately but everyone else is already taken - the monkey is stuck with George. Sweetheart gets each of the pairs to have one partner spin the other around, and so the monkey tries to spin George and ends up holding on for dear life as George whirls around, knocking over all the other dancers. A similar exercise for lifting up your partner results in George crushing the monkey, and all the other dancers end up laughing at George, upsetting him and upsetting Martha too. Now, what's this scene saying? That some people shouldn't do some kinds of activities, or that the people running/teaching those activities need to be more accommodating of different kinds of people? Because I'd hope for the latter.
So then George and Martha are at what seems to be George's house, sitting together, George with his feet in a bowl of hot water, and George has gone back to thinking that dancing is dumb. He also says he feels sorry for "the monkey", so I guess he never even bothered to learn the name of the one he crushed! One random little detail in the background of this scene is that there is a picture of Mt Fuji hanging over the fireplace - what is this show's obsession with Fuji?!
Martha decides to prove that George actually does like dancing. She gets out a sombrero, saying "Remember this?", and puts it on the floor, then starts playing a record of the Mexican Hat Dance song. See, I told you it would come back! Martha starts dancing around the hat, and George says she isn't doing it right and gets up to show her the right way. And of course, once he's at it, it's obvious how much fun he's having! He isn't annoyed at being tricked and says how much of a good friend Martha is to him. Aww.
You might think that's the end of the segment, but there's one more scene, with George and Martha walking along the path from the start of the episode. A gorilla and a dog are delivering a new phone booth, and Martha wonders what happened to the old one while George coughs nervously. Once the workers have left, the phone starts ringing, and Martha wonders if they should answer it, but George says he'd rather dance and leads Martha along while singing the Mexican Hat Dance, getting as far away from that phone box as he can! I'm not surprised. The gulls resume their earlier behaviour as we fade to black.
The second segment is "The Tooth". It starts out on a similar looking path to in the first segment, although there's no phone box in sight. Martha is sitting on a seat by a tree to put some roller skates on. She's also wearing sunglasses this time around - although, since the hippos' eyes are so close together, the sunglasses aren't exactly the right shape for her.
In front of her are the same two hyenas from the other segment. One of them wears shorts and the other wears a skirt - neither wears any more clothes than that. Their names will come up later: Bud and Valerie. Right now, they're laughing constantly (as always) and playing a game involving tossing a pebble and jumping around. And they're being watched by a cat in a black and white top that I would take to be a referee's top, if it wasn't for the fact that nothing about this game looks like something officially organised!
Anyway, Martha says to George that she's glad they're both taking up roller skating, and we see George for the first time. He's wearing a helmet, and shin pads, and pads on his arms, and another pair of helmets/pads... on his buttocks. I know it's obviously trying to make George look over-cautious here, but Martha doesn't appear to be wearing any safety equipment, which feels much worse! This is the wrong message to be sending to children! Oh, and for a bit of extra comic effect, George is wearing his hat on top of his helmet.
The hyenas interrupt to explain, through incessant laughter, the game they're playing. It's hopscotch... but without any of the lines or numbers on the ground. In other words, just throwing a rock and jumping! They claim that this is "pure freedom". Well, good on them! George suggests that's kind of like playing tennis without a net, and the hyenas are just as amused by that idea. And then they push the cat over onto its head for no obvious reason.
So the two hippos set off roller skating. Martha proceeds confidently, but George is much more nervous and tentative. Still, after a few steps he seems to get the hang of it, even when they start heading downhill. At the bottom of the hill he almost gets caught out by a corner, as he doesn't seem to be able to turn, but at that moment a crocodile conveniently pops out from a manhole and George ricochets off it and around the corner! I don't think it's either of the crocodiles from the recital. Different hat.
Just as George steadies himself he finds a bunch of obstacles in his way, like a sheep pushing a pram with two lambs in it, a skunk on a skateboard, and a zebra riding a penny-farthing, like they've all gathered specifically to be in his way! He manages to dodge them all and catches up to Martha on another downhill section, at which point Martha boops his nose and flies backwards ahead of him. Bad idea - she crashes into the backside of a giraffe with a toucan riding on it. The giraffe has a quiet English voice and he drily comments on what's happening, whereas the toucan has a sarcastic American voice. The giraffe calls the toucan "Duke"; the toucan calls the giraffe "Stretch" and "Sparky" at separate points, and those all sound like nicknames, so I'm not sure what anyone here is actually named!
Martha: Why, aren't you tall, spotted, and handsome!
Giraffe: Apparently not quite tall enough.
You see, because otherwise she'd have just gone between his legs instead of crashing, if you needed the explanation. At that moment, George catches up and an ice cream van passes, going the other way. George is excited to see it, and so are... both the hyenas? Have George and Martha gone in a big circle and reached where they started, or are the hyenas just fast? Everyone starts racing after the ice cream van.
The van goes down a hill (it seems like this place is composed only of downhill and no uphill!), and the elephant who owns it comes out of the van, eating an ice cream. Everyone rushes down the hill... and George realises he can't stop, and whacks straight into the van! We see him lying splayed out on the ground, and a tooth flying up into the air. Yes, if you hadn't guessed already, he loses a tooth. Everyone gathers around George to check he's alright, while the tooth still carries on slowly flying through the air like it's in space... and it lands in the ice cream held by the elephant, who eats it without noticing. It's a big tooth! It seems hard not to notice you're eating it!
George, down to one tooth, says that that was his favourite tooth. Why? We'll never know.
So it cuts to a door labelled "Buck McTooth, Dentist". Nominative determinism? Martha reassures George that McTooth is the best dentist in Happy Palms, which I guess is where they live, and George points out he's the only dentist in Happy Palms, so I guess it's pretty small! They open the door to a waiting room where all sorts of animals are waiting. A bulldog pulls out its false teeth to scare a small child pig, as seen below. In a nice call back to the first segment of the episode, the music playing in the waiting room is a Muzak-style version of the Mexican Hat Dance.
George and Martha sit down in the waiting room, and a little girl crocodile sitting next to George shows off her brace-covered teeth to him. And then he sees a walrus with bandages around one tusk walk out of the exam room. All this seems to make him pretty worried. Then a stork nurse with a ridiculously high-pitched voice tells George that the doctor is ready to see him. We briefly see that George has somehow hopped up into the room's chandelier in fright, while he insists to Martha that he's not scared!
The exam room has a weird warped tile pattern on the floor that makes it look like the ground is being swallowed up by a sinkhole. It also has a poster of a big toothy shark, telling you to trust your dentist. Are sharks as sentient as the land creatures in this show? We should know by now from other cartoons that this sort of thing is not a given!
George sits down while the stork tells him the doctor will be right with him. As well as having a really high-pitched voice, she also seems to emphasise words randomly, so she actually says "will be right with you". Then the doctor comes in, and he's another hippo, looking exactly like George and Martha apart from his clothes. He kind of hangs a lampshade on this by remarking on how handsome George is. He addresses George as "guy", which George seems to take as the name "Guy" because he corrects him on it.
McTooth wants to see inside George's mouth, but George is reluctant to open it. When he does, it's clear that his visible tooth is his only tooth, so he only had two to begin with! This is consistent with some shots in the first segment, like when he yawned at the recital. Interestingly, it's not true of Martha as we sometimes get glimpses of more teeth on her, so this isn't a general trait of hippos in this universe.
The doctor tells George he can't be going around with just one tooth, and the stork agrees that "we must have all our teeth for that perfect smile", talking as if she has teeth herself even though she obviously doesn't. The doctor gets to work on George and it's over pretty quickly, but we don't get to see the result - George is shown what he looks like in a mirror but things keep getting in the way to obstruct our view! And then he walks out holding his hat over this mouth, looking annoyed, like he doesn't like what the doctor has done. Martha asks to see and he just says "no" and walks out of there...
So the next thing we see is George sitting on his chair at home, but we still don't get to see what the dentist has done. He's facing away from us, and even the shots where he isn't are carefully staged to avoid the reveal. Pretty pointlessly, since, as I already mentioned, the opening sequence gives this away! Martha phones him asking if he wants to run through the sprinklers with her, but he doesn't want to and hangs up.
Martha: George, you're gonna have to come out sooner or later!
George: Alright then, later.
She calls him up a couple more times with more suggestions for what they could do:
But he rejects every suggestion. As he hangs up for the final time, there's a very brief slip-up where you can see his new tooth for a split second. I wouldn't have ever noticed it if I wasn't pausing the video to write these words!
So some time has passed and Martha is heading towards George's house with a pizza box and a fishing rod. That's the next logical step from phoning him, of course. She puts the pizza box in front of the door, rings the doorbell, and hides. George comes out with his mouth tightly closed, sniffing the pizza, but when he tries to grab it, it moves away. Obviously Martha is moving it using the fishing rod, although she's standing in the opposite direction from where it's going, which must make controlling the movement difficult. Each time George moves towards the pizza, it gets further away again.
Once George has been lured all the way to the end of his front garden, Martha stands in front of the entrance to the house, and George finally notices her, just as she goes inside and reels the pizza in with her. While George stands outside pleading for pizza (still not fully opening his mouth), the hyenas Bud and Valerie walk by. Their cat friend is holding two tennis rackets and some tennis balls - apparently they've taken up the suggestion of playing tennis without a net! This is the part where Bud and Valerie's names are actually mentioned, by the way, as Martha points them out.
George relents, saying he'll show Martha the tooth if she lets him in. She lets him in, and he shows her. As we already know, the replacement tooth is gold. Martha can't believe this is all he was hiding from her - he thinks he looks ridiculous, but she thinks it makes him look handsome! A hint of something developing between them? Well, to be fair, that dentist also called him handsome.
George is cheered up, and the pizza is all his favourites. Pepperoni, mushroom, and anchovy. Yum.
Overall, not a bad show at all. The characters were fun, the gags were good, and there were a lot of neat little things about the art too.