Form of...An Ice Toboggan!

Some time ago, I watched one of those fantastic Super Friends cartoon shorts starring everyone's favorite junior super hero duo (or trio) the Wonder Twins (and their blue space monkey, Gleek). For those unaware (and you are the fortunate ones), the Twins consist of a girl and a boy, Jayna and Zan, with the abilities to change into any animal and any form of water, respectively. I know what you're saying, Jayna seems to have made out pretty well with the wide variety of options she has, while Zan really must be useless. After all, what more could Zan possibly do other than change into water, ice, or water vapor? Oh, be patient! You'll see!

Now the title of this particular episode in question was "Tiger on the Loose." As you might guess from the title of the episode, a tiger had escaped from the zoo and was now on the loose. Now I saw this long enough ago that my memory of the episode is not perfect. However, I do recall what I think are the key points. After the tiger had escaped, the zoo kingpin decided that it was only right to fire the girl that was the tiger's trainer/handler or something along those lines. Since I can't remember what her name was, I'll call her Girl. A little bit later on, a teacher leads a class of students that were evidently on a school field trip to the zoo back toward their school bus. Who can say how many students made it to that field trip that day, but one after another they all boarded the bus, and it was not until the teacher herself had boarded that anyone noticed the 500-600 pound tiger in the back section of the bus. And this makes sense to me. After watching this episode, I think back to the days when I rode a school bus to school and wonder how many tigers might have been hiding out in the back seats, with their orange and black fur blending perfectly with the green seats of the bus, but I digress.

But as is usually the case when there is a minor problem like an escaped tiger on the loose, there is only one thing to do: Get the Wonder Twins via the Teen Trouble Alert! So the Wonder Twins hear about the problem and go into action. They arrive at the bus to find the tiger on board with the frightened children easily within striking distance. So what do the Wonder Twins do? Does Jayna turn into some equally formidable animal to keep the tiger at bay? No, try again. Does Zan turn into the form of...ice to keep the tiger penned up until the children can escape the bus? Good try, but no. Did the twins sacrifice the space monkey Gleek so that the tiger would have something to eat other than one of the children until they could get the children off of the bus? Nope - this is likely the best possible solution, but the twins opted for something else. If you guessed that the twins left the bus to go get Girl, then you would be 100% correct!

And when I say the twins left the bus, I do mean both twins. They did not have a discussion and say, "Maybe one of us should stay here at the bus, you know, just in case the tiger decides to show some non-vegetarian tendencies." And there was no discussion like, "Maybe we should at least leave Gleek here to keep the tiger distracted. You know, because he could start doing his jumping rope thing with his tail or his trick where he holds six ping pong paddles with the tail. At least the tiger's focus will be on Gleek and if he needs to eat anything, Gleek's his man, err, monkey - space monkey." No, it's, "Let us, Wonder Twins, who have powers - although fairly crappy powers - leave these helpless children and go get help from Girl, who has no powers."

And so it was done, the twins and Gleek secured girls help, Zan turned into an ice toboggan, Jayna turned into a donkey, or some other pulling animal (I think), and with Girl's help, they were able to coax the tiger off the bus and back into his cage. Girl was hired back by the zoo after it was clear that she was not at fault for the tiger escape. Of course there was some moral in the story about jumping to conclusions or something like that and everyone lived happily ever after...except for the seven children that the tiger ate on the bus. I know it was seven because I counted the children both before they got on the bus and after all were off. (Okay, so maybe I'm lying about this last part, but it is what should have happened considering how insanely retarded this plot is with the twins leaving the children on a bus with a tiger to go find some "help.")

This was one of the stupidest plots that I've ever seen in a cartoon...