Oh, boy, a stupid episode!
We begin with Tiff cheerfully writing about how great the sheltered,
technologically inept town of Cappies is.
But then, trouble comes over the horizon. King Dedede is about to introduce them to the horrors of…
PUBLIC TELEVISION.
Tiff’s too good for what these normie sheeple Cappies are excited for though.
Okay, so there’s these Waddle Dees and the singular Waddle Doo,
who sounds like Lt. Surge for some reason.
"Let's go, guys! Speed it up!"
"We gotta get a TV set to every house in town!"
[basically the same voice] "Hey, look at 'dis. Baby brought along a baby Pokemon!"
Which is strange because original Waddle Doo was squeaky and cute,
But um, I am physically unable to dislike any voice Maddie Blaustein did.
Anyway, they give out the TVs to the sheeple Cappies.
Tiff geniusly comes to the conclusion that Dedede is up to something.
Tuff wonders if their family will get free TV too.
Tiff’s all “Who cares! I stopped watching TV! I don’t even own a TV anymore!"
"I just spend 16 hours a day on the internet where the real intellectuals are!”
So, TV starts, and Dedede uses his platform mostly to slander,
like all good… leaders of countries.
[small sigh of despair]
But also pumped out a lot of parodies of popular TV shows with varying levels of quality in their pun titles.
"At 10, the crew of the S.S. Dedeprise deals with some very intense motion sickness on Dededeep Space Nine!"
I would totally watch that. Oh my God.
Please tell me Marx is Q.
But no, we don’t get to watch a Kirby based parody of Star Trek,
we get more of Tiff’s self-righteous rage at new tech.
Kirby knows what’s up though,
he knows he does nothing most of the day and TV is great way to keep your brain somewhat stimulated
so you don’t fully slip into a dissociative depressive episode that you stay in for days at a time,
causing you to forget most of what happened to you in the month of December and about half of January.
TO BE FAAAAIIRR
Tiff does have a bit of a point that TV shows created by the show's villain is probably a bad idea,
he is kind of spying on people.
But she doesn’t really put it that way.
She just shouts about how TV in general is bad.
"Maybe some people wanna waste their lives watching this TV junk!"
"But we have better things to do!"
This could have been a good message about being careful of what kind of media you consume
and being conscious of who exactly is making the thing that you like
and what they are trying to communicate to you with their thing.
Like, maybe this could have been improved with Tiff hearing that the village is getting TV, and she’s like,
“Yay, I get to watch the Discovery Channel!” or something,
but then it’s the Dedede-scovery Channel,
and Tiff’s just against Dedede run TV shows.
But no, it’s just kind of a generic “TV bad” argument.
Which is weird for a TV show to preach, but… alright.
So, Tiff wanders around town judging and yelling at the adults
who can make their own choices about the media they consume.
"WE USED TO HAVE LIVES BEFORE TELEVISION!"
First of all, Tiff, it has been an entire 20 minutes since they went on air.
Second: What lives?
The activities you described earlier were fishing for nothing and getting water while gossiping.
It’s not like they were learning anything important or putting their time to good use.
They’re kind of a backwater town with nothing to do,
maybe a form of entertainment that requires you to do nothing but look at it is a welcome addition.
So, Tiff then goes to judge and yell at her brother and parents and whatever Lolo and Lala count as
about them enjoying something that seems to just be mindless entertainment
and hasn’t really started in with the obvious anti-Kirby propaganda that is absolutely coming.
How dare a family be brought together by entertainment?!
She tells her dad that this is his job to look into this,
even though this is appears to be an absolute monarchy,
and Dedede is a tyrant who would shut down the investigation before it even started.
And then she goes and yells at Meta Knight, of all people!
[Meta Knight laughing]
[me, as Meta Knight] "Well, if it isn't Tiff. The answer to the question that nobody asked."
Tiff. Meta Knight fought in a damn war.
Probably has a lot of night terrors and horrible dreams about the time he had to slit his best friend’s throat.
About that woman who was forced to sacrifice her life for him.
About watching everyone he knew and loved die before his very eyes.
Meta Knight is a good blueberry man,
he helps you out constantly, tells you about Kirby,
he has made sure you didn’t die on a number of occasions.
You do not get to tell Meta Knight how to live if it isn’t hurting anyone.
He just wants to watch his boss make a jackass of himself on live TV.
Just let him him live, Tiff.
And eat his inordinately large jar of candy.
And I looked into the original, to see if it still had this angle,
and there, Fumu, the name of Tiff in the original,
kind of only develops the “TV bad” attitude because all the programming is Dedede related.
But she does think it’s a passing fad, and does still yell at people for liking it, so it is still there.
Oh, then shock of all shocks, Dedede is using his platform for bad things!
Claiming a monster is coming towards Cappy Town because it’s looking for Kirby!
A thing Meta Knight and Sword Knight, and I GUESS Blade Knight
[incoherent noises]
are able to realize is weird within seconds.
Because they all actually have two brain cells to rub together,
and realize when they’re being obviously lied to, so just let them watch their damn show, Tiff.
Of course, Tiff goes outside and there’s no monster to be seen.
Dedede says that Kirby’s to blame for the monster being here, so obviously that makes Kirby bad.
Because that’s a sense making reaction.
Be mad at Kirby because a giant monster wants him dead.
This is like a new level of victim blaming I can’t say I’ve ever seen.
But Dedede hypnotizes them, see.
Because that works on people that have less than two brain cells.
So, break out the torches and pitchforks,
because here comes the angry mob!
Tiff here hides Kirby, and prides herself on being uninformed since she does not watch the public television.
"I haven't been watching, 'cause I think TV's stupid."
They go back to Kirby’s house,
because hiding at your house is a great idea if you’re being hunted and everyone knows where you live.
Tokkori is cheering on Dedede despite not being hypnotized,
because he is a disgusting Dedede supporter
that probably yells at people on Twitter that he doesn’t even follow in the first place.
Tiff does punch him, but considering how much I hate her in this episode, it’s a hollow victory at best.
So, they all learn the valuable lesson of not believing everything you see on the TV.
Meta Knight just… materializes,
to help the children at home learn, and confirm that there is, in fact, no monster,
and tells them to come with him back to the castle.
I guess they get separated or something, or he dematerialized,
because there’s this scene where Tiff and Kirby go back up to where her family lives,
and then Meta Knight shows back up.
And Tiff is shocked, like they didn’t see each other ten minutes ago.
Then he tells them something is up in the dungeon where the King’s studio is.
Because if his studio is there and this is all fake, then…
yeah, that sure is where something would be up, huh.
The plan is that Tiff, Tuff, and Kirby will go down the the dungeon, while Meta Knight says he’ll create a diversion
so they can get passed the guards.
"I will create a diversion to distract the guards."
"You three go investigate."
We do not see what this diversion is, because this wasn’t his line in the original,
instead he had relieved the guards of their duties, since he is a high ranking knight and can do that.
I assume the diversion line was added in to make an attempt to justify
why the adult in the room wasn’t going with them and just disappears from the plot,
but if you’re going to add that line, I need to know what the diversion is.
Was it something basic?
Like throwing something and making a lot of noise, forcing them to investigate?
Or was it like, a stupid diversion, like a magic trick,
and the Waddle Dees are just, like, amazed by those.
I’m picturing either that or him chugging an entire bottle of wine and trying to pick fights with them,
and then crying about how lonely he is, even in a room full of people.
And they all have to, like, comfort him, like, really awkwardly.
And Tiff, Tuff, and Kirby just, like, slip by.
So, Tiff and the gang go downstairs to the studio, and are shocked to see exactly what they expected!
It’s all just set!I The monster was Escargoon in a costume
smashing a miniature model of Cappy Town, as well as other elaborate deceptions.
They want to go about stopping this carefully, but Kirby’s just like NOPE,
and jumps onto the miniature set while they’re filming.
Prompting a very odd line for 4Kids to write.
"Looks like somebody's been feedin' Kirby steroids."
And it was delivered in such a blasé way too.
Dedede cages them, despite their whole little operation just being completely exposed.
But again, Cappy Town is a backwater hellhole highly susceptible to suggestion.
Tiff, being so royally pissed at this point, tells Kirby to just eat it. Eat the set.
He’s like, “YOU GOT IT.”
After everything is destroyed, Tiff does her own little news report further proving
that Dedede is truly the known dick they all thought he was, and Kirby is a Good Boy.
Then they cut off the feed.
So, the next morning, all the Cappies appear to
still all be crammed in Chief Bookem’s station like they were last night.
Like, I think the implication is that they’ve just been standing there for about 10 hours.
Tiff has hopes that Dedede will provide quality entertainment in the future,
despite the fact that she knows better.
And Kirby and Tokkori have learned basically nothing.
The end!
While I usually enjoy the silliness of these episodes,
and can tolerate their admittedly poorly handled morals sometimes,
this episode is just exceedingly unlikable.
Tiff is the worst offender here,
and her holier-than-thou attitude is grating and condescending,
which wouldn’t be so bad if she wasn’t…
kind of proven right.
While the issue just could have easily just been the fear of what Dedede
would do with his publicly broadcasted platform
with very little change to the content or plot,
it’s just “TV bad.”
Which, since this is a TV show... KIND OF a weird message.
But they all still have TVs in future episodes
and seem to enjoy Dedede’s shtick just fine while also still acknowledging that he is a bad king.
So, that's...a thing.
I guess?
Next time on Kirby: A deeply unpleasant episode
where less than impressive early 2000s CGI Dyna Blade with a head that is much, much too small
thinks a toddler ate her unborn baby.
He doesn't, but like...
It’s frustrating and about as unlikable as this one,
and, like, I actually enjoy watching it less.
And I don’t feel like trudging through two unpleasant episode in a row,
so we're skipping it!
Next time on Kirby: Dedede goes to great lengths for validation.
♪ You're gonna ♪
♪ Lose your mind watchin' TV they told me ♪
♪ They scold me, but I still tune in every show ♪