"Pinky, Elmyra & the Brain" Gee, Your Hair Spells Terrific (TV Episode 1998) Poster

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4/10
A long way from terrific
TheLittleSongbird4 October 2021
It is pretty much the complete opposite. Despite loving Pinky and the Brain as characters in 'Pinky and the Brain', and Brain was the character that this show actually did well with in spite of its many failures, Elmyra was always take or leave with me in 'Tiny Toon Adventures'. She was always completely obnoxious in 'Pinky, Elmyra and the Brain', especially when she had a large role. And anybody else that hates that are likely to watch "Gee Your Hair Spells Terrific" with dread.

"Gee Your Hair Spells Terrific" is sadly not a good episode, though marginally better than the previous episode "Patty Ann", and everything that is poor about the show in general is here. There are a few things that the episode does well in (luckily big enough to stop it from being unwatchable), but the flaws are so many and so distractingly huge that they really take over. Is it one of the worst episodes to have Elmyra in a big role? No, not quite considering that two characters fare strongly and are amusing.

They being Brain and Judge Baloney. Brain is very entertaining and wonderfully deadpan, the show on the most part was a disaster when it came to character writing and interaction but somehow managed to get Brain spot on. It was a genius move having Maurice LaMarche back and he voices Brain perfectly.

Judge Baloney has an amusing goofy charm in a scenario that plays to his personality well, despite deserving better and wittier material. The shouting out the answers aloud part was quite fun.

Sadly, that is pretty much it with the praise. While the animation was never terrible on 'Pinky, Elmyra and the Brain', it did always lack the polish and vibrancy as well as the imagination seen in the visuals of 'Animaniacs', 'Pinky and the Brain' and 'Tiny Toon Adventures' and that is the case in "Patty Ann". There is nothing dynamic or infectious about the music and the theme song has always grated.

Brain and Judge Baloney come over very well as characters, but Pinky still disappoints. Here he is pretty bland as the show did dull down his personality while taking his dim-witted-ness to "bang head on the wall" extremes. In this episode, he doesn't register and is pretty pointless and his previously dynamite chemistry with Brain is disconnected and underused here. Once again, Elmyra's negative character traits are exaggerated to childish and mean-spirited effect so once again she's intolerable. Her chemistry with the rest of the characters doesn't work, as it doesn't fully connect and doesn't make sense. It has moments with Brain but it doesn't entirely succeed because her childishness and immaturity are taken to extreme levels at times that one roots for Brain to leave her alone.

Furthermore, the writing is not sophisticated, funny or witty and it may have been marginally better if there was more of Judge Baloney's goofiness. If anything, it is too simple and too cutesy with Elmyra's cutesy talk, which the episode is too reliant on, getting on the nerves fast. The shouting out the answers part is the only time where it shows any cleverness, while the references will go over younger audiences' heads and target audience is called into question as a few aren't appropriate as well. The story, while not near as ridiculous as that for "Patty Ann", goes well overboard on the silliness and is simplistic with no surprises at all. The ending doesn't make sense even when putting it in context. While LeMarche is excellent, everybody else did much better elsewhere before and since as there was a sense of the voice actors struggling to make the writing work.

All in all, very mediocre though there were definitely worse episodes. 4/10.
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