Even though i feel like he kinda came outta nowhere i do love the absolute crap out of his design
You see Anon, kids shows have a problem with wasting characters because the writers feel like they dont need to develop the absolute masterpiece they have at their hands. Wich is NOT what happens in Batwheels. 97% of the time
I feel like Banebuggy was kinda thrown in here just to be a threat for 1 episode bc i haven't seen him since, but for as far as i know he is an original character. I have never heard of him within the batman fandom so either im blind and deaf or i haven't checked out one particular piece of batman media or im right
I think he was actually really good for as far as villainy goes because he was an actual threat and the batwheels had a very hard time stopping him. He comes over as that one small kid at primary school that acts tough and thinks hes a grown up idk
I think they should have gone in more on the fact that Banebuggy wants to be big and keep growing bc at the start of the episode he was like Redbirds size. Banebuggy wants to be big to be seen as a threat and for others to fear him, but maybe this could hint at an insecurity. Banebuggy feels small and insignificant and he wants be big and he wants to be SEEN. They could have done that aswell even though i like the original plot of the episode aswell
They could have done more with him but the end result was pretty nice. Banebuggy has a dope design too i love it :D
I honestly just want to hear your thoughts about this from @lonleydweller and @artisticdoofusxx You two matter to me <3.
I AM AUTISTIC. I THINK CHARACTERS ARE AUTISTIC. Sorry not sorry about it, but Batwheels has a lot of characters that could be perceived as autistic.
Season 2 introduced a lot of new adaptations of characters, some adapted well, some adapted... not so well (Looking at you Clayface). Here I will talk about the episodes that went well, the ones that did poorly, and the adaptations on characters (Focused on the villains).
I acknowledge that this show is for preschoolers//children, definitely out of my age range, but it's one of my fixations right now so I can't help the fact that I get really passionate about this. I will concede that they have to make things more child friendly, with morals at the end of (almost) every episode. As such, I take this into consideration in my judgement of episodes. I just wanted to put that out there before going into my analysis.
The Good, the Bad, and the Characters! I will discuss the good episodes first, choosing the best three, then the worst, choosing the worst three, and the adaptations.
The best episodes: in order of what I think were the best. 1: Lend Me Your Volunteer. 2: The Bestah Way. 3: Wish Upon a Car.
1: Lend Me Your Volunteer is about Buff going around volunteering, roping Batwing in to help volunteer to help Gotham's needy, when Buff's trailer full of food gets stolen by Jestah and Quizz. After it gets stolen, they go all around Gotham trying to get it back, with the people they volunteered and helped also helping "Batman" get the trailer back. In the end, when it's revealed to be food that the Batwheels were guarding, the two villains then help Buff and Wing volunteer. It's a straightforward episode in terms of plot. Volunteering is good, it makes you feel good and helps out other people who could help you out in the future. So why is the episode so good if it is so basic? Well, having the notorious diva of the group not knowing what volunteering is and having Buff explain it to her partially explains Bat-Light Blow-Out and why she had such a hard time with giving up some of her belongings. (As seen by the photo down below).
She is notoriously selfish and has several episodes about her selfishness!! As seen in: Condiment Chaos! (Made a music video instead of patrol), Air-Show Don't Tell (Went to the Gotham City Air Show instead of patrol), Bat-Light Blow-Out (Doesn't want to get rid of her excessive material possessions), Batwing and the Nets (Wants to keep her old net even at the expense of saving the day), and Flight of the Kitty (Having no patience to listen to what Kitty wants to learn or practice) JUST IN SEASON 2! As such, the plot of volunteering becomes a lot more effective than if it was Redbird or Bibi. By having a selfish character want to do something with such fervor that the villains mistake this action as a top secret mission, it carries how important volunteering is! Having her learn what volunteering is from the most caring Batwheel-
-Highlights how volunteering to help others out is often essential in a city where misfortune can befall others easily! (Jestah and Quizz stealing the food and how often times the help that others need is often not given) and even having the villains themselves help out hammers in to little kids how good and important volunteering is! 9/10 Best episode in season 2 for me. Minus point because the scene where Jestah and Quizz wait for red light doesn't make sense. They are CRIMINALS, they DO NOT care about the traffic laws in previous episodes! WHY ARE THEY WAITING??? Besides that, perfect episode.
2: The Bestah Way. Harley Quinn's pet hyena Giggles (established in a previous episode) goes missing. In Harley's search for Giggles, she runs into Batgirl who promises to help her out if she quits recklessly driving. (Another point as to why Jestah and Quizz stopped?? Their owners don't follow the law of the road, why are they for this specific time??) They then go all over to figure out where Giggles has gone, with Bibi being upset because she thinks that Jestah is playing games when they should be searching for Giggles. It turns out that Jestah is searching her way, and Bibi is searching her way. They then team together to stop Penguin's dirigible that has Harley and Batgirl stuck on the blimp. This episode works because it shows that simply assuming-
-Like Bibi does, is harmful, because Jestah was actually looking for more clues, in her own special way, whereas Bibi simply assumed that Jestah was playing around. Beyond that, the episode works because it shows a new side to the characters. Previously, we had only seen Jestah taunting, fighting, and overall being a menace to Bibi. This episode highlights the complexity of her character, as well teaching Bibi (and the audience of preschool children) that simply assuming that other people are doing something wrong simply because they don't do things your way is not actually a good though process. 7/10, Why does Penguin have something against Harley Quinn? Overall, a pretty good episode though.
3: Wish Upon a Car: This episode starts with Buff and the Batwheels on a trail playing around in the mud, Redbird gets stuck in the mud due to not being meant for this type of terrain, and while Buff is pulling him out, offhandedly mentions that he wishes that the Batwheels were a little more like him, as "it gets lonely being the only truck." They then get an alert that King Tut, a themed villain I will speak of later in this passage, stole the "wish stones" which grant someone's wish, or reverses that wish. Although King Tut gets away, they had gotten the wishing stone, where Buff wishes that all of the Batwheels were monster trucks like him. The episode then continues with them going through and adapting to being monster trucks until they find King Tut's lair and get trapped. Luckily, they got the reversing stone and reverse Buff's wish, then giving them their original bodies. This episode is certainly straightforward with it's meanings, to Buff dealing with body dysmorphia, to the fact that everybody is okay in their own bodies. All this episode does is reaffirm that everybody has their own body, but it's okay to be different. 7/10, the meaning of the episode means a lot to me as it's a struggle I deal with, and I think it would mean a lot to the young children watching this show.
Now the worst three episodes were 1: Clay Date, 2: T-Rexcellent Adventure, and 3: Spiffledipped.
1: Claydate is an actual bad episode in terms of what they were trying to do. Now, I don't mind some of the characters that they adapted to the show, but Clayface is one that actually makes me upset. Besides the adaptation of the character, the plot doesn't make sense! There is no connection to previous episodes with Redbird's supposed dislike of taking a bath, which by itself is a weird concept as they are cars, but whatever, and the whole 'villain song' with Clayface is poorly done. A lot of Batwheels episodes have songs, but Clayface's is always chopped up and doesn't fit any theme within the show. Besides this, his design doesn't make sense, nor does the fact that he can hear the Batwheels and interact with them because he's... part car??? Not even that was clear in the show!
His design isn't bad for what they were trying to do, but his character being dumbed down to "I like mess!" Is annoying and disrespectful to his complex character. His gimmick is that he transforms into other people and objects, and they took that away to make him a character for a plot that isn't developed or good. According to this interview, "Simon J. Smith: That's what was great about the writing, because when I came onboard, Michael had written the first few scripts, and that's what I loved about it. It wasn't bashing people over the head with messages or anything, and it wasn't kiddifying anything. It was just staying authentic, and true, to Batman and Gotham and all the Bat villains, it was fantastic."
"[I]t wasn't kiddifying anything." "It wasn't bashing people over the head with messages or anything,"
Are you sure about that? Because we could have had an episode about Clayface pretending to be someone in the Justice League or something and Redbird notices that Green Arrow (OR somebody else, Batwheels just loves to use Green Arrow though), is acting weird and the big reveal was that Clayface was pretending to be Green Arrow (or somebody else) in order to steal some Bat-Tech. It would have been a great episode within the context of the show and shown off Redbird's mystery solving skills that they ignore.
But no, instead we have:
This is a stupid stupid episode and plotline with a stupid stupid song that is only enhanced by their stupid stupid version of Clayface. 3/10 I skip this episode and only mildly enjoy this because Clayface has stupid lines that actually kind of work for about 2 seconds before fizzling off.
2: T-Rexcellent Adventure. Not a bad episode, lots of egg puns. Not a lot of actual continuation between the episodes, but that's okay because there isn't anything that should be connected (UNLIKE Redbird's ""dislike"" of baths). The episode is bogged down because of this factual discrepancy.
Which doesn't make sense because the episode's plot is solved by them making a dinosaur figure that they have in the batcave "come to life" by robotics and he is scared off by it because he thinks Dinosaurs are alive again... How idiotic. Also, if he's the smartest of all the Batman enemies, then what about Riddler (A character known for being intelligent AND was only in BTAS for a few episodes because they hated making riddles up for him), or Mad Hatter (A character who IS in this universe as he is mentioned by Nightbike several times who works with psychology!), Or Harley Quinn (A PSYCHOLOGIST WITH A DEGREE!), or King Tut (A professor at a college - which you can only be if you have a masters or doctorate). Mr. Freeze is not listed here as they likely went with his original origin story which was just him being a thief with a ice motif, the Dr. Freeze with Nora was only created in BTAS which is why they then retconned the original origin story, but is still a honorable mention. Those mentioned are only the ones who are in Batwheels.
The egg puns were funny for longer than Clayface's story, and he sounds homosexual, 4/10. This scene and factual error pisses me off but not bad episode.
3: Spiffledipped. Boring episode, has nothing really going on with it like a good message, and I actually forgot this episode exists until I remembered there is a black Green Lantern, which is cool. I guess.
4/10, boring but fun to watch because it shows more into the characters that could show up later. I really hope Green Lantern does show up more because it was cool to see more than Green Arrow. I really wish this show would include more than just Green Arrow. (Yes, I know Captain Atom was there too, but he was for one episode, Green Arrow has been in four!).
Now, the new villains that they adapted are
Clayface: 1/10 The voice actor puts a lot of effort into voicing him and that's the one thing that he's got going for him. I've... said a lot about him, so that's it.
Solomon Grundy: 4/10, They keep his motif and gimmick while still making him new and connects back to the cars in the universe and at least makes sense. I just think Solomon Grundy is flavorless though, so that's why it's four instead of 5. Also, his design makes sense with the character, solid design.
Egghead: 5/10 His voice actor really works with what he's got and makes him sound gay, I just wish he had a better episode. His design makes sense with his motif and even at a glance or in a lineup, you wold know what his character is about.
Music Meister + Voice Box (His villain vehicle): Silly silly silly man! My Blorbo along with Toyman. I routinely watch this episode just to see him and Voice box. 10/10 I love him, he has a great design. Voice Box: 8/10 kinda stupid but whatever, he has to be for the plot to progress. It's a good, solid design. Music Meister and his little music notes for his eyes was an interesting choice but I love it! It works really well and I really really hope he is in more episodes.
King Tut: 7/10, Love the name Car-cophagus instead of sarcophagus. He's not a bad design, it's solid and works and looks the same throughout different series' so... Sorry about the bad photo.
Condiment King: 8/10 His design is messy and has a lot of stuff going on with it, but conveys what he's about, and is recognizable as Condiment King.
Banebuggy: HE'S SO SILLY! Blorbo #3*, his design has a lot of different things that work together well, and so does his character. I didn't think he would work but he fits as more than just a one episode character, and they maintain the core things around the character, which is something they didn't do with Clayface, hence why Clayface is flat and boring and can only work in one episode (that didn't even work very well.)
*My Blorbos in this show are Toyman, Music Meister and Banebuggy in that order.
More Fun AU facts about Banebuggy in my AU:
It has been confirmed by Bryson(Banebuggy’s) Parents If their son Absorbed Too Much Growth Gas It could cause their child to go berserk and lose himself into destruction and mayhem. It has also been confirmed Bryson Was Kidnapped And Taken To The Lab 14 years ago When He Was 4 Years Old. That’s Why Banebuggy had the power to turn into a small child. And Banebuggy Started to explore the growth gas when he was 14 but he went too far with it that it caused him to go insane. That’s why most people often Stay away from Bryson(Banebuggy).
Apparently one of the upcoming BW S2 Episodes (source) is called "Banebuggy", and from what it sounds like, Bane will be making an appearance in the show in the future, along with his own Dunebuggy(?), and i was interested in what Banebuggy might look like, but since i am bad at drawing vehicles, i made a human version of them (Which is a concept and may be subject to change once Banebuggy actually appears in the show)
