Lots of people love the ‘90s Batman Beyond cartoon, set in a future the place an aged Bruce Wayne trains teen Terry McGillis to be the brand new Darkish Knight of the long run. I assume these individuals have forgotten concerning the episode “Terry’s Buddy Dates a Robotic,” a title that ought to point out how a lot creativity and thought went into making it. Though it’s not an correct title; that will have been “Nerd Buys a Murderous Sex Robot.”
The perfect factor about “Terry’s Buddy Dates a Robotic” is that it’s 20 minutes lengthy with the opening credit, so the ache is over quickly. The episode begins with Terry’s Batman combating basic villains Riddler, Two-Face, and Killer Croc. It’s shortly made clear how that is potential when Terry decapitates Croc—the unhealthy guys are robots outdated Bruce is utilizing to coach his protégé. However with one “synthoid” out of fee, Bruce tells Terry to choose up a brand new head on the synthoid manufacturing unit.
First, nonetheless, Terry has to go to highschool, the place he watches his “buddy”—and I’ll dispute this, the character was only in five of 52 Batman Past episodes and I’m fairly positive Terry’s simply being pleasant as an alternative of a buddy—Howard Groote try to fail to ask standard guys and attractive, standard women to a celebration he’s throwing. Howard is a loser who will get shunned by all of them, but when that have been someway imprecise, Past helpfully makes Howard fats and quick, then provides him glasses, excessive pants, and massive, worryingly problematic buck tooth.
Howard believes having a sizzling, cool girlfriend will all of a sudden make him standard. “It’s an indication that you just’re any individual,” he says. “Someone fairly shallow,” Terry blessedly replies. “Shallow however standard,” Howard counters, then he spies Terry’s fancy automobile (provided by Wayne, in fact). “If I had wheels like these, I’d get extra women than a rock star!” he says, in case you weren’t positive he thinks of ladies as totems to convey him the eye of others.
Howard convinces Terry to provide him a experience dwelling, however they should cease by the synthoid manufacturing unit first, the place the Fifties visible caricature of a pornographer is making unlawful intercourse robots in full view of anyone who enters the manufacturing unit. Whereas Terry does his enterprise, Howard overhears the sleazeball telling two purchasers, “You possibly can cease worrying about these lonely weekends. Your customized order’s prepared.” Howard ogles the attractive feminine synthoid within the tank (?), shortly places sexy two and pervy two collectively, and pulls out a bank card to purchase one for himself.
Howard’s request: “Persona-wise, she’s obtained to be utterly dedicated to me. One-hundred % loyal. Bodily, round five-seven. Pink hair, medium size, and the best inexperienced eyes.”
Clearly, Howard doesn’t know what a character is. Though it doesn’t a lot matter, as a result of the episode doesn’t know what “devoted” means both; on this case, its definition appears to be “sexy and murderously jealous.” When “Cynthia,” as Howard dubs her, involves highschool the following day, she overhears the jock Nelson’s plan to beat the nerd up for the crime of getting a sizzling girlfriend. Later, she sneaks into the boys’ locker room and pushes a couple of dozen large racks of lockers onto Nelson, one thing that’s confirmed would have killed him had he not been carrying his hockey pads.
If I needed to choose the factor that sucks most about this episode, it’s that Howard seems to be proper. Having a horny girlfriend draped over him instantly makes him cool and standard, and scores of youngsters plan to go to his get together later that evening. Moreover, different attractive women begin flirting with Howard as an alternative of shunning him, as a result of apparently attractive women solely need what they will’t have, which is simply restricted to issues possessed by different attractive women.
When that attractive woman flirts, Cynthia turns into so offended she crushes Howard’s pocket book in her secretly robotic fingers, and Terry begins to assume one thing’s amiss. Terry follows Cynthia and prevents her from murdering the non-robot attractive woman in a jealous rage, however then she punches him off a constructing. He’s advantageous, realizes he’s coping with an especially jealous, murder-happy synthoid, and goes to catch the ‘50s pornographer. He has to battle a bunch of standard, non-horny robots first, however it’s not a difficulty.
Now, it’s get together time! Cynthia will get violent with the attractive woman when she flirts once more, then pushes Terry’s buddy Max to the bottom when she tries to get Cynthia to cease. An upset Howard leads Cynthia as much as his bed room to speak to her privately, and in case you have any doubt she was created for having intercourse versus simply being a recognition magnet, Cynthia heads straight for Howard’s mattress. When he tries to name the robotic maker to rejigger her programming, she comes as much as him and caresses his face and higher torso. It’s horrible.
“I’m what you made me to be, Howard.” Cynthia says, which once more, relies on a completely fictitious definition of “loyal.” “We may be collectively without end.” This obsession utterly freaks Howard out, who tells his intercourse robotic he desires to see different women. How does Cynthia take this? The way in which any utterly reductive stereotype of a lady would possibly: by going right into a homicidal rage. Ladies be jealous, amirite?
Because the party-goers scatter, Cynthia stalks Howard. When Max tries to cease her, Cynthia is about to crush her with a sofa when Batman crashes by means of the window and tackles her. The 2 proceed to have a battle that wrecks a great deal of the Groote family. Ultimately, Howard tries to cease the destruction by telling Cynthia they will nonetheless be buddies, which prompts two notable reactions:
1) Terry winces.
2) Cynthia fairly actually explodes in incandescent rage, destroying Howard’s home.
Fortunately, the rock-stupid highschool college students assume it’s cool that Howard blew up his own residence as a part of the get together, indicating he’ll nonetheless be standard. Unhappily, his mother and father return from a trip to find they not have a home and yell at their son for maxing out their bank card, which can imply they’ll be now dwelling in poverty. The episode fortunately ends earlier than we discover out.
Batman Past is hardly the one good cartoon to have an absolute stinker of an episode at times; even the universally beloved Batman: The Animated Collection had its low points. However even then, the debacle of “Terry’s Buddy Dates a Robotic” appears egregious. The ethical right here, I imagine, is that this: if you end up making an attempt to determine find out how to make a narrative a couple of murderous intercourse robotic kid-friendly, it’s higher to simply consider one thing else.
Assorted Musings:
- At one level, Max calls Cynthia a “robo-bim,” which is clearly future slang for “robotic bimbo.” It’s simply terrible, however it’s additionally one other instance that the cartoon is aware of it is a story a couple of intercourse robotic.
- Talking of future slang, I forgot Batman Past’s future model of “cool” is “shway.” I assume it’s as a result of I hated the episode, however each time somebody uttered it I felt a knife in my soul.
- It appears to take about 30 seconds to make a intercourse robotic, which should make it a troublesome crime to police.
- Terry and Max briefly examine the locker room, however when the boys are available in from Future Sports activities observe, Max hides in one of many lockers, and Terry abandons her there. It’s tremendous cool.
- Batman investigates the porn man whereas he takes an order over the telephone: “Yeah, all six can appear to be keno women.” So somebody could also be ordering sufficient intercourse robots, for an orgy, who will all appear to be Las Vegas on line casino women. It’s a completely worthwhile line of dialogue as Batman Past’s younger viewers would have positively understood the ladies in skimpy clothes who attempt to persuade gamblers to play the lottery.
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