All Rise...

Judge David Johnson has little use for Jimmy Neutron, genius or not.

The Charge

Eight more Nick fan favorites.

The Case

Offering more Nick than you can shake a stick at, Paramount has released its third entry into its "Nick Picks" series. This disc is essentially a sampler of some of the more popular Nickelodeon cartoons, apparently bound by only the theme of "fan favorites," whatever that means. Anywho, here they are:

• All Grown Up
"Dude Where's My Horse?"

This jumbo-sized episode follows the further adventures of the "Rugrats" (now "all grown up," you see) as they head to a dude ranch to enjoy a cowboy escapade. Tommy is psyched to go, despite the pissing and moaning of his cohorts. Unfortunately for him, he learns that, despite his love of ranching about, he doesn't have the knack. But when a cattle drive gets out of hand, Tommy will be forced to cowboy up, if you will. A lot of All Grown Up for your buck, and it's entertaining enough.

• Spongebob Squarepants
"Fear of a Krabby Patty"

Plankton forces Mr. Krabs to keep his restaurant open 24 hours a day, which in turn forces Spongebob and company to operate around the clock without any sleep. Seeing that his nemeses are especially vulnerable to deception, Plankton attempts to trick them into giving up the secret Krabby Patty formula. The result is 12 minutes worth of typical Spongebob lunacy.

• Catscratch
"Bringin' Down the Mouse"

This one's new to me. Apparently there are these cats that live in a mansion and they have adventures. Here, two of the cats are off to the Mousehunters' Ball, which you can only attend if you've captured a mouse. This cat Waffle wants to go but can't, being a mouse-hunting virgin. So he attempts to bag his first, but it is confounded by his rodent prey's psychological mind-games. Soon Waffle and his pals find themselves bound and captured, at the mercy of the mouse! This cartoon was pretty good, sporting some funny moments (the downfall of the mouse due to toilet breath) and some good voice casting (Wayne Knight and Kevin McDonald). It reminded me of Ren and Stimpy.

• The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius
"Brobot"

Jimmy Neutron creates a mechanical brother to play with, but is stunned to fund out his friends and family seem to like it more than him! Of course, Jimmy, that's because you're an annoying $#%$&#@.

• Danny Phantom
"Fright Night"

From the creators of The Fairly Oddparents, this show tells the story of boy superhero Danny Phantom and how he must battle the Fright Night during one particularly hectic Halloween. The characteristic animation and hyper-kinetic imagery is similar to its Oddparents brethren, but the wit is hard to come by.

• My Life as a Teenage Robot
"See No Evil"

Jenny is a robot teenager/crimefighter, who deals with all the usual issues facing a young girl, but also must cope with threats to national security. When she is given some new eyes that will increase her optical powers, she is bummed because they make her look dorky. She gets rid of them, leaving her sightless (?!?), but fortunately, her monster-of-the-week is an invisible man and being able to see wouldn't have helped that much anyway. A bizarre cartoon, a little dark, but, actually pretty enjoyable.

• The Fairly Oddparents
"Hail to the Chief"

Timmy sees that the object of his pining, Trixie Tang, digs political heavyweights. So he wishes that he could be student body president. With a ZAP! and a POOF! Wanda and Cosmo give him what he wants—with all the irritants and responsibilities included with the office. Unwilling to deal with the new headaches, Timmy tries to get himself impeached.

"Twistory"
Timmy wishes for George Washington and Thomas Jefferson to materialize to help with his history project, not realizing that he's taking them away from signing the Declaration of Independence, which will ultimately lead to America reverting back to English control (and, weirdly, set back 150 years in technology). Now he's got to bet the Founding Fathers back in time to set it all straight.

Both of these Oddparents shorts are solid outings for my favorite Nick cartoon, with "Twistory" coming out on top. Favorite scene: when Big Ben appears in Timmy's backyard.

That takes us to the end of another whirlwind Nick tour. This is a large, varied sampling of what the network has to offer, but I have to wonder: is there a market out there for people willing to buy a DVD of cartoons they will most likely see rerun ad infinitum?

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