Westor Lowbrood

Originally Aired: March 2nd, 1974
Written by: George Newall
Performed by: Blossom Dearie

Shel's Review

Music: 🎵🎵🎵
Animation: 📺📺📺
Pedagogy: 🎓🎓🎓🎓
Accuracy: 🎯🎯🎯🎯
Yikes Factor: 😬😬

Blossom Dearie is back, and we have our first George Newall song, who will become another regular in the writing team. Unfortunately for them, this is truly one of the most middling of all songs. The animation is... fine... the song is... fine... This poor girl had a miserable camping trip. I think the turtle friend is cute. The park ranger is body horror to me, real heebie jeebies. I think the rhyming works. There's a particularly egregious example of spoken exposition that really doesn't fit into the song. I do think the animation and music do a good job of teaching about what adjectives are and how to use them. However, and maybe this is because I'm Autistic, but as a kid the "unpack" metaphor confused me a little. What they're going for is "when you go on a trip, save lots of adjectives as souvenirs so you can unpack them and share them with family and friends when you get home" but instead I thought it was something you're supposed to do to adjectives grammatically. Also, while it's useful teaching that nouns often have adjective forms, it does not discuss that nouns have specific adjective forms. "Idiot" becomes "Idiotic" but it cannot become "Indiotary." Nor can someone have a "Boyic" face.

Speaking of inaccuracies, a small boy probably won't get smaller unless he has pediatric osteoporosis which would be really unfortu—wait, oh g-d, what, what is happening, holy fucking shit, did that girl just grow into a giantess and then squish a microscopic boy beneath her sandaled feet? I'm starting to think someone on the animation team might actually have a foot fetish and if that's the case it's very uncomfortable that they are inserting it into a scene meant to teach children about how adjectives can be comparatives like "taller" and "smaller" using the bodies of children. Also, this song in general is just really fixated on teaching us about the gender binary and how boys and girls are; as well as a "dumb/brainy" binary. For once I'm grateful everyone in this one is white because they might have gone some really racist places with this song about teaching kids how to describe other people.

June's Review

Music 🎵🎵

This is pretty middling as far as music goes. I like the lyrics, but the song is kinda boring, especially compared to some of the real good ones we've heard recently.

Animation 📺📺📺📺

When I was a kid I thought this one was kind of boring, but now I actually really love the weird watercolor aesthetic it has for some of the art. A lot of it is kind of boring and black and white, but the scenes with more color really pop here, I like them a lot. I just wish the whole cartoon did it, instead of just doing it every once in a while for effect.

Pedagogy 🎓🎓🎓

I mean, it teaches how adjectives work? Sort of? Why are all the adjectives so negative, was the trip that bad? I dunno, it mostly works, but it doesn't really teach like I feel like some of them could.

Accuracy 🎯🎯🎯🎯

Yeah the whole "wait why do some nouns get ish and others get ic or such" really confused me as a kid.

Yikes 😬

Okay, I don't think someone on the crew actually has a foot fetish. I do think this may have done some things to some kids, as this looks like art I see on my timeline daily. I don't know, the vibes of this one are just weird to me. Lots of the jokes feel a bit mean.

Up Next: Bob returns for the season finale with what I think is one of the most annoying songs he's written yet.