Day three and we're taking a look at Halloween with the KND, as Numbuh 4 faces pirates in his attempt to win a trick-or-treating bet! Numbuh 1's voice kicks things off, robotically saying he's searching for Numbuh 4 to "joinify" him, with a scanner eye that turns things red. He locks onto Numbuh 4 playing video games, and the boy frantically crawls back in fear as we see the black-clad Numbuh 1 stomping toward him. Numbuh 4 backs into Numbuh 5, whose brain is visible above her hat with a spoon sticking out of it, and her suggestion he join them causes him to scream in terror. They and the now-revealed Numbuh 2, dressed as some kind of Batman character, begin laughing at him. Numbuh 2 doesn't understand why Numbuh 4 doesn't come with him, and the latter claims it's for little babies who like dressing up as "girly butterflies" to beg for candy. This angers Numbuh 3, who is dressed as a butterfly, so he back pedals, and Numbuh 5 says he probably doesn't even know how to trick-or-treat. He claims he could easily get more than them, so they bet that whoever gets more candy by the end of the night wins. He gets a bit more mockery when Numbuh 3 puts butterfly antennae on him, and says he won't even wear a costume as they head out. Alone, he trots up to a house, with cardboard around his neck that says "gimee," and inside are an overly enthusiastic couple who pretend he is terrifying, and to "get rid of him" they hand over a single bit of butterscotch. Despite the low turnout, he becomes excited after getting candy and heads to another house, only to find Stickybeard and his crew at the door. They take his bag and, with a slam of the door, ignore his demands for it back. Things zoom out and we see the house is attached to their land-bound ship, which sails off. Numbuh 4 falls while giving chase, and sees the others, whom he tells he is just getting started. Things cut to Stickybeard, excited about the chance to take candy from kids all throughout town. One pirate, Dumbjohn Silver, says he's also excited because you can wear a costume, like his pirate outfit, and Stickybeard saddens him by pointing out he already is one. Stickybeard rifles through Numbuh 4's bag, and after finding only the single piece of candy, declares the boy the worst trick-or-treater ever and has his men toss the bag with the rest of their haul. He tells Dumbjohn to park in a cul-de-sac, and the latter demands an apology first, annoying the captain by saying his feelings were hurt. They park just in time for someone dressed as a ghost, and Stickybeard gives Dumbjohn a smack for running around in fear of a costume. Inside the costume, Numbuh 4 has set up something to wheel himself to the door and rings the bell, hidden in the candy bag. The pirates toss him into their candy loot room, where he looks out over a sea of candy and pumpkin buckets. Oddly enough, Numbuh 4 doesn't exactly register his opportunity: he decides to wade through the candy to find just his bag.
Once he does, he hops from the ship, only to quickly realize his mistake as he runs off stating that he just needs a huge heap of candy before the others finish up. He heads to the pirate ship again, now dressed as a pirate and with an enormous bag, saying he has so much candy he can hardly carry it and even a horde of candy pirates couldn't finish the whole thing. As his new plan unfolds, Numbuh 4 finds himself unexpectedly facing some resistance and a while ship ride as he tries to win the bet. Like the other shows we took a look at so far, the KND is good at fixing things up to work as a Halloween special. As the show centers around this organization of kids, it's easy to have a place to start as kids are bound to be excited about Halloween. Heck, one of their first episodes focused on them first encountering their foe Nightbrace, a candy store owner who only ran the shop because it was passed to him, when he really wanted to be a dentist and hates candy. In a way this does make it odd that Numbuh 4 would dislike the holiday, as you would think he'd like the opportunity to get candy just by going door-to-door. It seems as though it's mostly a pride thing, though, as he doesn't want to beg adults for something, and of course he's always against anything he considers to be for babies and/or girls. Despite Nightbrace having been a thing before, I'm glad it's Stickybeard who was used for this episode, as using the former would likely feel like a retread of his debut. Using Stickybeard also allows for such jokes as Dumbjohn not realizing his costume's problem, and for the ridiculous plot of using their land-based ship to sail through the neighborhood and take candy from kids who walked up. It's ludicrous for this to happen of course, but in this world it's genius in a way, because kids wouldn't expect the house they're walking up to to actually have the pirates, even if above the house is an enormous ship. We'll chalk that up to tunnel vision for candy. With these kids, you also have their creative ingenuity, making things throughout the series like laser blasters with simple two-by-fours and glass bottles. We see that exemplified in their costumes, as although Numbuh 5 goes simple and Numbuh 3 takes it cute, Numbuhs 1 and 2 both have outfits they seemingly made from scratch but work perfectly. Even Numbuh 4, who was always the brawn rather than brains, makes a way to trick the pirates with a costume and later makes a creative pirate costume pretty quickly. I do have to admit, as dumb as he always was, it does seem rather odd that he wouldn't immediately decide to take all the candy around him. This feels like the result of something that often happens in shows, where characters are expended but in such a way that they become a specific kind of trope. We've seen this elsewhere with Fairly Odd Parents, where Wanda became a nag and Cosmo became much dumber over time. The lapse in judgment does result in the climax, however, and results in a pretty entertaining finish to the episode. As this episode was treated as a normal one paired with another, it's not very long, and unlike a few other episodes, doesn't really have horror aspects other than the scare at the beginning. Despite that, it fits well with the spirit of KND and does a great job at capturing the spirit of Halloween as well.
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AuthorI love the entertainment side of things. Video games, tv shows, superheroes and movies are my passion and I'd love to get the news out for things I enjoy. My contact page has links to my social media, so if you enjoy what I have to say, likes, shares, comments, and follows are always greatly appreciated! Archives
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