Dave the Barbarian Review

This week for the ABC Challenge Review D is for Dave the Barbarian. After last week’s pretty dumb reason for watching a show, you would think I would have a profound reason for watching this one. You would be wrong. I watched this show simply because I remembered the lyrics to the theme song, but didn’t remember what went on in the show. To defend myself, Dave the Barbarian was a very short blip in the television world. In fact, the show didn’t even last a full year. If you didn’t know, Disney is fairly notorious for not being patience with animated shows. It is basically a complete abnormality for a cartoon show on the Disney channel to get more than two seasons. Since 2000 I can only think of two cartoons on the Disney channel that had more than 2 seasons and those are Kim Possible and Phineas and Ferb, which are basically your golden geese.  Now note, Disney did make a network called Toon Disney, that has since been replaced by Disney XD, that continued some of their cartoons passed the 2 season limit. That said even with Toon Disney/Disney XD it’s still not a common occurrence. Dave the Barbarian was one of the ones that got the axe pretty quick. I think Disney found it a little too strange and its ratings weren’t that great. So it was canned. That said I bring you my review of Dave the Barbarian. Potential spoilers ahead.

Characters

Dave the Barbarian- Dave is unique. He is the strongest person in all of Udrogoth, yet is afraid of or allergic to everything. Dave would rather cook, knit, or read bad poetry over being a barbarian. In fact, he became a barbarian because he thought it was librarian that also cut hair. He usually ends up saving the day by doing one of his ‘non-barbariany’ talents. Dave fits into the actual definition of an anti-hero. Most people see anti-hero and think Wolverine or Spawn. Guys that are heroes but do morally ambiguous things like kill. Dave is not one these. However, the actual  definition of an anti-hero is a protagonist that lacks heroic qualities. Heroic qualities include things like idealism and courage. Dave is your anti-hero because he has all of the skills necessary to be your hero, yet can’t get over his personal self-doubt and lack of courage. He does have the Cowardly Lion syndrome in that when push comes to shove he does show his heroism to protect the ones he cares about.

Fang- Fang is Dave’s younger sister and is basically the opposite of him. She is always looking for a fight, but is too tiny to do so in most cases. She is always on Dave for being huge and strong but being a complete ‘weenie’ when it comes to being a barbarian. Their odd couple-type relationship is played for laughs. Also played for laughs is that she wants to be a big bad barbarian and she still has a dolly collection. She also has a berserk button that goes off by being called a monkey. Her catchphrase literally is “NOT A MONKEY!” This being ironic in that she looks just a monkey in the show. In fact, in the last episode of the series she questions it herself on whether she is a monkey, when she meets a group of them and realizes the similarities between them.

Candy- Candy is Dave’s older sister and the acting ruler of Udrogoth. She is your archetype ‘valley girl’. She would rather shop and hang out with her friends than rule the kingdom. She’s also extremely selfish and lazy. Like Fang she has a berserk button, but her’s goes off when her favorite shopping mall is destroyed. She then goes into kick-butt martial arts mode against whatever did the destruction and usually wins.

Uncle Oswidge- he is Candy, Dave, and Fang’s uncle. He is a sorcerer but not a very good one. In fact, in an episode towards the middle of the show it’s revealed he was just a cook at sorcery school. His spells usually end up making things worse for Dave and the gang. He also has a near unquenchable appetite. It’s so bad that his personal dream world is a world where he has all the meat he could ever eat and never gain an ounce.

Faffy and Lula- Faffy is Dave’s pet dragon that looks like a yellow pig with wings and breathes lightning. Lula is Dave’s ‘trusty’ enchanted sword. She is very snarky and sarcastic at Dave’s expense. She, like Fang, calls out Dave’s inadequacies as a barbarian.

Dark Lord Chuckles the Silly Piggy- Chuckles is your main antagonist. He is a pig tying to take over Udrogoth.  He has a mystic amulet that grants him powers like telekinesis or shape-shifting.  The problem for him is that his plans are very idiotic and gimmicky. He literally has an episode where he brings an army of pretzels to defeat Dave and his family. His one victory was because he captured the narrator and had him read the story as if Chuckles won.

Commentary

Every character on this show was written differently in each episode. I cite this specifically because it is hard to gauge who is actually smart on this show. Certain episodes Dave will come up with a brilliant plan to deal with Chuckles and the next he is tricked by Fang to join a traveling boot camp. This occurs for everyone in this show. Oswidge will say something wise and profound then do something really stupid. Candy will spend millions of dreckles on stuff animals and then come up with a brilliant plan to fight invisible invaders. Fang has a pretty good record of tricking Dave, but she herself is shown to be easily tricked as well. Faffy is the most notorious because he is clearly an idiot. They flat-out state his brain is the size of a pea and his IQ is in the single digits. But in his Faffy language, that the main characters understand but we don’t, he apparently says smart and profound things. That’s ignoring Chuckles who created a Mecha Dave and yet thinks a killer inanimate sofa can defeat his enemies. The only one who is fairly consistent in the intelligent department is Lula, who usually calls Dave out for being stupid.

Along with intelligence, strength levels change a lot in this show. Dave is obviously very strong throughout. He’s just afraid to use it. In normal situations, Candy appears strong but not super strong. However, when her shopping is threaten, she appears stronger than even Dave. Then again it could just be she is willing to use her strength and Dave is not. The show never reveals which of them is actually the strongest, and my money would still be on Dave, but it’s close. Fang sometimes fights huge monsters with relative ease and other times she can’t even lift a sword. In one episode, she goes from struggling against an amoeba to bringing down a few giant bugs several times her size by herself.

The humor of this show has a lot to do with both interactions between the characters and the setting of the story. The character interactions work great in this show because all of the main characters are vastly different from one another. They each have their own ideas of what is the right and wrong thing to do. I compare Dave and Fang’s relationship to Laurel and Hardy. Both are great, comedically, separate but together they are basically perfection. They play off each other great. This is probably why while there are episodes with Candy or Oswidge barely in them, you never see an episode without Dave and Fang together. The great interactions between characters even extend to the 4th wall between them and the Narrator. The setting of Dave the Barbarian is in medieval-like times but they have a lot of their version of today’s stuff. It’s similar to The Flintstones where you have a local mall kids hangout at or using ‘the web’ to make purchases even though those things obviously weren’t around then. Other examples being reality TV and trading cards. It’s very funny seeing plush toys and boy bands which were popular when this show was on, being an obsession of Candy or the bootleg versions of their songs coming out and being on cockatoos.

The show had a very good mix of humor for adults and children. They would make a reference clearly a child would never get but an adult would almost immediately. They would then follow with a slapstick joke at Dave’s expense that kids would enjoy. I mean Twinkle the Marvel Horse was basically there for the adults. He looked like a prototypical magical pony but the things he said were just too disturbing for children, but fairly humorous for adults.

Just to make a last commentary. If you were looking for plot development and you watched this show, you barked up the completely wrong tree, my friend. As I have alluded to before the show is very random and disconnected. It’s a show that is trying to rehash different lessons for kids like to acknowledge each others differences, not be selfish, and support each other. The show had a few episodes that were fairly similar in theme because of this. It didn’t really detract knowing the designed audience, but I’m just citing that there is absolutely no plot development. The closest thing to development is acknowledging that Dave had met Chuckles sometime before in the 2nd episode. Problem is they didn’t show that sometime before, until about midway through the season when Chuckles introduces himself which is the show’s actual first episode. As another citation it’s not uncommon for shows to air episodes outside of their production order, but this was the only time an episode makes a reference to another one and it hadn’t aired yet.

Summation

Dave the Barbarian is a show that I personally think was not given it’s just due. Is it a perfect show? No. It had some repetitious plot lines and inconsistent character writing. However, the show as a whole was very underrated. Not only by the people watching but also by the execs that make the keep or can show decisions. I would say if you are looking for family program that Dave the Barbarian is a great option. It has jokes for all ages and pretty intelligent writing overall. I also suggest it for nostalgiaholics like myself because it’s well worth the time watching over 10 years later.