When Mindy asks a simple favor, Irwin's Halloween takes a disastrous and world-changing turn that brings together an unlikely team of heroes.
Irwin (Vanessa Marshall), Billy (Richard Horvitz), Mandy (Grey Griffin), and Grim (Greg Eagles) are trick-or-treating, but after Dracula (Phil Lamarr) gives them insults and pennies, only Irwin is still in the Halloween spirit.
Visits to an out-of-shape Hoss Delgado (Diedrich Bader), wacky and gross Jeff the Spider (Maxwell Atoms) and Fred Fredburger (C. H. Greenblatt), grouchy shut-in General Skarr (Armin Shimerman), and Mindy (Rachael MacFarlane) dishearten him. To his surprise, however, Mindy requests his house, claiming she's too scared to trick-or-treat at a nearby house she thinks is haunted. Hoping to impress her, Irwin rings the strange doorbell, opening an enormous green portal and allow in a marshmallow bunny, Bun Bun (Dave Wittenberg) and his army of chocolate bar soldiers. Bun Bun declares his intent to have candy eat people on Halloween for once, so Hoss Delgado steps in, as one soldier was on a watch his mother gifted him. Though overweight and with his mommy interrupting, Hoss uses his mechanical weapon arm and new chainsaw foot to mow down soldiers. They gain the upper hand with soda machines, but end up on Skarr's lawn, provoking the general into joining the fray with a mech suit. Hoss returns and says he'll have to fight naked since they made his clothes sticky, which causes the soldiers to run in fear. Bun Bun calls for reinforcements while kidnapping Mindy, but Skarr takes out his peanut butter cup ninjas and Hoss destroys chocolate soldiers and their tank. Irwin thinks things are hopeless when Skarr and Hoss go down, but Jeff and Fred, having realized these events aren't normal for Halloween, decide to help. They defeat the remaining soldiers and decide to go back to their business, only for Irwin to beg them for help as more portals open. The group agrees to head into a portal to find Mindy, with Hoss calling forth his "car," a massive tank with a fist on the front matching Hoss' robot hand. The candy army has captured Mindy and the newly sworn-in president, so it's up to the just-formed Underfist to stop them.
Admittedly, I'm not as big a fan of this special as I am of the previous, mainly because it's about the side characters, not Billy and Mandy.
This movie came out late in the series, at a point where Irwin often just annoyed me with how he tried and failed to be cool. I can really enjoy an out-of-touch character trying to be hip. Take the 12th Doctor, for example, who is my favorite and constantly tries to act young. In Irwin's case, I often find it annoying, especially with how he randomly says "yo." Just count how many times he says it in the beginning and you'll want to smack him. It's essentially the same problem I had with Cookie by the end of Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide, where a lame, annoying character made himself more obnoxious by constantly trying to be cool and thinking he was amazing. For this special, I do however enjoy the path they take with Irwin, who is struggling to accept his nature as part vampire, part mummy. Initially, he seems proud of it when dealing with Dracula, and it sounds pretty amazing, doesn't it? Later, however, Irwin feels shame with his situation, and of course he can't just tell Hoss he's part monster, since the man frequently expresses hatred for monsters. Because of this, he's also in a terrible position thanks to it being Halloween and all the monstrous stuff going on, because his other sides are coming out. He notices early on that his reflection has disappeared from some surfaces, and Bun Bun explains that his monstrous sides are growing stronger. The rage Hoss expresses against monsters is bound to come out against the boy, and is one of the biggest parts of this special, though we don't know why at first. Eventually we learn there is a connection between Hoss and Bun Bun, and the rabbit has actually played a large part in the lives of many characters in the show. Even without knowing anything, it's easy to see why Irwin wouldn't want to tell Hoss, who is a sort of reference to Ash Williams with that mechanized hand, but with the madness of Maxwell Atoms, changeable wrist weapons, and now a chainsaw leg.
Another theme in this movie is growing older, especially for the more childish characters of Irwin, Jeff, and Fred, though the first signs are from Hoss and Skarr.
Skarr has the least-noticeable change of the group, still a curmudgeon who wants to be left alone but now sporting a mustache and slight beard. Then there's Hoss, who certainly has the biggest physical change, having gained weight, gray streaks in his hair, and a chainsaw replacing his right foot. Honestly this was one of the changes that, for me as a kid, made me enjoy this one less than the previous special, because I struggled with change growing up. It felt strange to me seeing Hoss, who spent the series an action hero, suddenly packing a gut, gray hair, and another missing limb. Hoss has really had a rough go of it recently, though, as he has apparently been in a sort of depression since Eris left him, and of course he's getting older. It's honestly a pretty good way of showing depression that Hoss, formerly so fit, has lost a bit of his touch, but he still has what it takes. Despite his rough patch, the hero has still found a way to keep fighting monsters, not even letting his lost leg get him down. Irwin faces some difficulties because of having to accept the change of his manifesting powers, and is also feeling lonely. At the start of the movie, it seems like one bad house is all it takes to get Billy and Mandy done with trick-or-treating, a typical sign of growing up. With his friends no longer interested in the same things as him, Irwin is stuck by himself, a problem many face as their friends branch into new interests. The two who most face internal changes are Fred and Jeff, especially the latter, since he's more intelligent than the former. Fred agrees at one point that they should probably grow up, but doesn't comprehend what this truly means, and still hangs onto his childish attitude. Jeff, on the other hand, tries his hardest throughout the movie to stop behaving like a kid, a typical trope for movies but this time done with an enormous spider. Just like Jeff says at one point in the movie, it can be tough transitioning to adulthood, when it seems you can no longer do the fun, silly things you once enjoyed. With responsibilities and the need to be mature, it can seem like you have to become a stick in the mud like General Skarr. Within the lessons he's learning, however, Jeff actually starts to realize he's taking things too far, and in reality you can just "not grow up" by retaining the right things from your childhood in correct doses.
Despite being from a later point of the show I liked less, this movie has all the wackiness and strange twists you would expect from the original series.
Irwin manifesting powers of both a vampire and mummy, the villain being a marshmallow bunny, and the new president and their assistants are just a few. At one point, the group is disgused as trick-or-treaters to take on their foes, and while most get typical costumes, Irwin ends up dressed as Little Bo Peep. Along with the strange jokes, there are also plenty of meta references and jokes for fans to pick out, like how I mentioned Hoss is like Ash Williams. One of the easily noticeable ones comes from Skarr, as when the group wears their trick-or-treater costumes, our grumpy general is dressed as Freddy Krueger. In what is now a pretty common self-deprecating joke, the writers also take a jab at themselves during a song from Jeff and Fred. The two are singing about what it's like growing up, and Jeff mentions he'll have a job he hates, clearly set up as a a cartoon animator. As mentioned near the start, Jeff is voiced by Maxwell Atoms, the creator of The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, so he obviously doesn't hate his job, but in the end, jobs can often be summed up as "work is work," and it's funny to see his humor. There are also a few Star Wars references, with Irwin getting the offer to join his foes and rule, only to respond with "I'll never join you!" Later on there's a less-obvious one, with a captured Hoss walked along a plank jutting off a floating ship, similar to the Sarlacc Pit scene in Return of the Jedi. Not all the jokes in the movie stick a perfect landing; as mentioned, Irwin can be pretty irritating with how he tries so hard to be cool. One moment I felt dragged way too long was a repeated joke from Fred Fredburger's introduction, in which he spells his name. In his debut episode, "Keeper of the Reaper," he comedically annoys a fellow juror during a case about if Billy or Mandy should have custody of Grim. He tries to impress the man by saying he can spell his name, and painstakingly reads out the whole thing as he writes it on a sheet. While it's sort of random he decides to do that, if makes sense in the context that as he has to write his name, he thinks spelling it properly is impressive. In this movie, however, it completely comes out of nowhere in a rather unfunny way, as he just decides to tell Jeff he can spell it; the spider even seems confused. To make it worse, the joke drags out way longer, with Fred taking his time spelling and each letter followed by a shot of Hoss or Skarr in battle.
Underfist certainly has its entertaining moments as a spinoff of Billy and Mandy, but it also has its flaws, with even a huge series fan, me, taking issue with parts.
Some of the jokes fall flat on their faces, and I feel like plenty of viewers won't be interested in a movie following side characters from the original show. Despite this, it still has plenty of good jokes and references to keep you laughing, and is certainly and interesting concept. Who would've though macho monster hunter Hoss Delgado would end up on a team with sourpuss General Skarr, wuss and part-monster Irwin, and the monstrous and silly Fred Fredburger and Jeff the Spider? There is a lot of obvious effort that went into this special, with a good amount of impressive art and voice work. In particular, Diedrich Bader shines as always playing the oddball Hoss, with plenty of strange one-liners and bravado in the face of horror. I was surprised to learn Bun Bun's voice actor was Dave Wittenberg, whom I learned played Numbuh One's dad in KND and, to my shock, Naruto's own Kakashi Hatake. With a strange story and a lot of effort, fans of the series will likely enjoy this movie, though there are plenty of moments that don't work 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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