Bucky O'Hare - 04

"Home, Swampy, Home"
On some advice from his mysterious old mentor on Warren, Bucky O'Hare gets himself "captured" in order to locate and infiltrate a toad factory where a great many of his people are enslaved. Along the way, we're introduced to the toad Captain Smada (a foppish guy with a bit of a lisp who doesn't have much respect for Bucky's personal space when he's holding him captive; fans with any perverse suspicions about him may draw their own conclusions) and the brave vulpine leader of an underground resistance movement among the slaves named Mimi LaFloo. This episode also marks the UAC's commissioning of a third ship for its fleet with LaFloo as its captain, the S.S. Screaming Mimi.Show more

Points of interest:
4:15 Counterpoint concerning Captain Smada's sexuality: he has an attractive—by toad standards—female attending to him on the bridge of his ship when we first see him.
4:16 Point: Captain Smada dresses rather fancily and speaks with a bit of a lisp.
4:20 Further point: Captain Smada shows a notable lack of respect for Bucky O'Hare's personal space when he cups his chin while taunting him.
6:16 Curious that while the anthropomorphic animals never heard of humans before they met Willy DuWitt, they do have minotaurs (which are half-human, half-bull).
6:17 Further counterpoint: Captain Smada relishes the thought of how years of slavery will ruin Bucky's physical appearance and orders his troops to get him out of his sight.
6:45 That anthropomorphic bovine (hugging a female hare) among the slaves in this scene might be considered a minotaur.
7:43 Apparently, Mimi LaFloo is the only fox among the slaves.
8:02 It's a bit odd that the hares didn't already know what they were building, as Bucky O'Hare later immediately recognizes the climate converter the moment he sees it, but on the other hand, I suppose it's possible these hares weren't all on the same part of the planet during the toad invasion and didn't see the climate converter being installed; also that they haven't been assigned to all parts of the factory and therefore haven't been where they could get a good view of the whole thing the way Bucky does.
8:22 Notice that for all of Captain Smada's obsequiousness and deference to Komplex's alleged omniscience here, Komplex neither affirms nor denies the assertion outright.
8:44 Further counterpoint: Captain Smada isn't particularly upset over having to yield custody of his prisoner to any of his superiors, just about the ones higher up in the chain of command taking a greater interest in his captive than he'd anticipated.
10:50 Originally, I thought he said "Angus McChump" rather than "Angus McJump" here; of course, either alias fits the character he's playing here.
11:19 To make reference to another somewhat famous bunny, don't fling him in that briar patch!
11:34 While I can see how the victims would find the commercial pretty revolting (especially the rather lurid close-up on the toad model's tongue at 11:57), it still seems like this would be less stressful than working.
18:32 Script doctoring: while it's entirely plausible that the hares have seen enough of how the toads operate to believe the Air Marshal isn't bluffing, it would have made more sense to have the hare here claim that in his experience toads always build self-destruct mechanisms into their more important structures rather than that he merely *suspects* the place to be rigged with explosives.
18:45 While—like nearly all space operas—this show obviously has universal translators, Willy (and other mammals, such as Mimi earlier) being able to figure out how to operate the toads' consoles so quickly requires something more sophisticated than mere verbal translation; while all species' electronic circuitry might be inherently the same with only cosmetic differences in the packaging, every species would necessarily have its own distinct alphabets and keyboard configurations. This is why I suspect Jenny's feline species—who established that telepathy exists as a natural phenomenon in this dimension—are the ones who invented and propagated universal translators: telepathy might allow not only for the transmission of thoughts (in a language the recipient would understand), but also of memories—possibly including even muscle memory; which explains how Willy can figure out so quickly how to order the climate converter to whip up a storm for him.
19:10 So why didn't the Air Marshal and Frix die in this fiery explosion? Well, remember: the "bubbles" in those "Double Bubble" fighters double as ejection seats and escape pods that have been shown to be tough enough to survive the fighter's explosive destruction, shield against cosmic radiation, and retain atmospheric pressure in the vacuum of outer space; so those two toads were doubtless a bit worse for wear after the escape pods were thrown clear of the crash, but should otherwise be all right.
19:52 A lot of fans take Jenny's reaction here to be from jealousy, but considering she's been Bucky's first mate for years and is never shown making any passes at him—and that she conversely wasn't the least bit shy about flirting with Willy at every opportunity—it's a fair bet she really is just expressing her disgust at Mimi LaFloo's public display of affection. Of course, she's being a bit hypocritical, since she certainly didn't mind kissing Willy square on the lips in full view of everyone else near the end of the previous episode!