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Intrancity — The Complete Penn Zero: Part-Time Hero Scorecard
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Published: 2018-04-13 07:00:02 +0000 UTC; Views: 18489; Favourites: 25; Downloads: 23
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Description
Welcome to Season 3! This season, and so forth, was designed to differentiate from the first 2 seasons. If you were anticipated to view a Season 3 scorecard, then you've probably checked out my scorecards scorecard where it was updated by the time the complete Wishfart and Apple & Onion scorecards were released to the public. If you've been following my scorecards scorecard, then you already know what the Season 3 scorecards would look like. If you're new to Intrancity or wondering what's Season 3 of my scorecards, then I'll give you a list of what has changed from Season 2 to Season 3 starting with the scorecard design:- The size for title cards/screenshots were tweaked this season from "412 x 352" to "464 x 352" for full screen title cards/screenshots and "630 x 352" to "626 x 352" for wide screen title cards/screenshots
- All of the ratings (except Supreme) changed color codes so that they accurately match the rainbow gradient
- The "Epic" rating changed fonts from Comic Sans to Viper Squadron, while the "Off the Scale" (positive) rating also changes this time to Vhia. The aforementioned rating in Vhia is featured in gold text
- The following ratings were renamed: "Epic" to "Elite", "Divine" to "Swell", and "Tolerable" to "Middling"
- The "Uhh..." rating (AKA the mixed bag rating) is used more frequently for now on so that it's easier to determine mixed bags for upcoming Top 10 Best and Worst lists, specifically the honorable mentions portion. Like Season 2, it comes in either the "Meh" or "Middling" rating.
- Blue borders (representing season borders) are added to indicate which season an episode comes out of + be more organized
- Due to the fact that it's hard to see the best and worst symbols besides title cards, effects shall be revoked from these symbols
- Like the previous change, it's pretty hard to determine what the final ratings for seasons look like, so I added letters to indicate their final rating. No percentages next to the seasons because it'll make the text too long.
- Flare is added to the Top 10 Worst list so that it matches the "Notorious" rating's effect. If you're having trouble reading the worst list, zoom in and read it.
- Like how the "Notorious" button looks different from most of the rating buttons (which are used to count the number of episodes rated with that rating), the "Elite" button will look like a gem
- Sometimes, the "history" section feels pointless for a few shows because I have no history regarding that show. It will be kaput in scorecards I have no association with before I reviewed it, but if I have memories watching the type of media, the "history" section will be included. To summarize what I said, the "history" section is now optional
- The first 2 seasons have a rather unorganized structure where there's not much paragraphs and instead have the entire section critiquing on an aspect be part of one whole paragraph. The review will look more organized and easier to find words by highlighting certain aspects, adding dashes to separate a section from another, and more paragraphs
- Season 2's main problem in my opinion is that I was too harsh and too nice on a lot of shows. What I'm trying to achieve here in Season 3 is honesty. Whenever it's a show I feel like I'll go too easy or hard on, I must be honest with the rating, judging if the rating's fair or unfair
- Finally, the first 2 season released the scorecards out of order for some reason. I will fix it this season where the scorecards will release in production order (with a few exceptions if the scorecard is having trouble releasing to DeviantArt or the show hasn't had at least 5 episodes) and because that I may forget other shows that I reviewed after I've finished a scorecard that may seem essential to the review, again, the production order will fix that.
PIE CHART ANALYSIS
This series put new lows to Disney from my cartoon ruler as the current holder of the worst Disney show. Comparing its pie chart to other Disney shows, there's unfortunately 13 good episodes against 10 bad episodes. My Wander Over Yonder scorecard still carry the most bad episodes but barely with 11 bad episodes compared to Penn Zero: Part-Time Hero's 10. Much of the episodes fell in the "meh" and "middling" that aren't even considered mixed bags. Only 3 episodes are given the "Uhh..." rating while the rest don't have that many good qualities in them. Out of all the Disney cartoons I've reviewed from the first 2 seasons, what all of them have in common is that they have a blessed episode. Penn Zero: Part-Time Hero's best episode is only great and it almost made it to supreme. There's just 1 damned episode to outbalance the blessed. Not many episode were that good but not many were that bad either. The reason why I don't consider Penn Zero: Part-Time Hero a mixed bag is not how I judge the pie chart, it's how I judge it from my thoughts on it, determining if it has very good qualities or very bad qualities where they balance adequately.
WRITING
Remember when I thought Penn Zero: Part-Time Hero was swell? I thought it was because of the premise. The premise for this series is:
When young suburbanite Penn Zero unexpectedly inherits a job that most kids could only dream about having -- being a superhero -- he jumps fully into his new, part-time duties. He still has to live his normal, everyday life, which includes going to school, but after school is when the fun begins. Penn teams up with sidekick Sashi and wise man Boone as their adventures take them all over the place, from outer space to the Old West and the biggest challenge of all: suburbia. The ultimate goal for Penn and his team is to defeat evil Rippen and save the world.Before I stepped foot onto this certain Disney show, I was on the popular side. Because it's Disney, I thought I would like it. To be specific, the idea of a trio zapping into dimensions as they save the day is a good idea for a show, especially the "part-time hero" aspect that adds the creativity into the premise.
This series does some things new and something with the premise, such as the team turning into different characters to blend into different dimensions, which tastes glossy and thoughtful because if the team remain in their human counterparts while in the dimension, the natives there may express some horrified reactions. It works for the team, but not anyone else who enters the dimension. Why though? No clue. Plus, the series delivers some solid twists on the way as it tells its story that can reach the levels of chuckle worthy, such as something ironic when someone waves their hand, only to be free thanks to his/her hands waving.
As for the settings, they aren't anything breath-taking or creative, but decent at best. The best settings from Penn Zero: Part-Time Hero is when they're hybrids. They include mixing a tone with a particular thing such as adding a detective atmosphere into plant life. But there's not that many good settings from the series because some of them are either bland, unoriginal or simply a reference. And that's where the show's biggest flaw kicks in; repetition. How does it affect the settings, you may ask? The one setting that gets reused multiple times is the one where fictional characters live in a city based on their characteristics as they're expected to do what the others normally do in that dimension. While the ordinary life of that civilian in a city is creative, it doesn't stand out that much because I feel like I've seen it before in cartoons such as Here Comes the Grump. Also, there are some dimensions that are just pop culture references meant for the wows.
What's also so repetitive about Penn Zero: Part-Time Hero is that aspects would usually be reused from episode to episode where scenes/jokes like these get tiresome as much as I keep seeing them. The aspects include:
- Penn and Boone reacting to Sashi's appearance
- Penn cheering about being something or in a place he dreamed of being or entering
- Character A begging Character B not to do something but Character B does it just for the irony
- The team fighting each other because they can't agree on something, leading to Rippen getting away with the prize
- Boone trying to prove himself that he's a strong attribute to the team (which I keep getting sick of seeing)
- A team falling apart without one member behind their back
- And you guessed it if you were following my reviews, one of the characters pointlessly falling in love
For more dullness, the conflicts the characters must face and solve are pretty generic and bland. The most repetitive one is when the trio must save a city from intruders or Rippen from attacking the city, which isn't a very interesting conflict and was used so many times that it makes almost every episode of the series feel the same. The mission I mentioned is also cliche, which again, the bad aspects swarm through much of the show and this time it's cliches.
How about a taste of the show's supposed humor? Rarely, it gets it right with good irony or solid slapstick, but most of the time it's unfunny with cliched irony that are even treated as running gags. And speaking of running gags, they're quite mean spirited and apparently unfunny at first sight, like the old man's visual/audio gags that are rather cliched and dull. To make the show more immature and a lot kid friendly is the inclusion of butt humor. It's poorly executed here because it's not exaggerated or anything clever, it's just annoying, repetitive, and another contribution to the show's lame irony. I find Penn Zero: Part-Time Hero's humor on the same levels of Welcome to the Wayne mediocre humor because the jokes this show tries to crack are old now and what happens if the series was made around the late 2000's? They'll work decently for that time, but won't necessarily age well with the irony and butt jokes.
There's also some schemes in the series that don't have a specific background, like how did this all happened, where are the victims, why did the opposing side attack the other, etc. Some aspects in a few episodes that left me confused is in the episode Save the Worlds where I was confused with how vortices appeared in every dimension.
Verdict: Turns out that the writing wasn't anything good after all. It looks decent, but I didn't realize that there's a lot of cliches and repetition until now that makes the show plain generic.
QUALITY
The quality is easily the best aspect of the series. I don't consider it blessed, but it has a lot of moments here and there.
First off, the colors are vibrant and colorful. They usually differ in different dimensions to capture the tone and feeling of the setting and does it really well, whether it's a cold place like Plantywood or something that is naive and energetic. It also affects the characters as well in order to capture the shading correctly on the different positions in the characters, which that leads to the glow effect. The glow effects are intriguing to look at, used on objects and again, the gradients and shading on the characters to get the shadows correctly. Because that the shading in Penn Zero: Part-Time Hero is fluent, so is the lighting that also captures the tone and feeling of the settings solidly.
The human character designs normally have an abstract touch to them and good variety usage on them, though it's not anything compared to the designs of the dimensional characters, who are apparently creative swell hybrids of particular things combined with humans and solidly designed. They tend to differ in character animation, and speaking of that, the characters move fluidly here, giving out the feeling of the character animation from Disney films. What's especially fluent about the animation is that the mouth animation runs swiftly where it perfectly syncs with the speech.
There's also some great use of textures that brings out the feeling of some objects very well. The hair texture on some of the characters adds a nice touch to them while keeping the abstractness inside them. The squiggly line is generic for hair design but it doesn't apply to all of the characters. Some of the characters, like the Cow-o-saurs, have very solid details in them such as the said characters having inner details that look like scales. And once again, the glow effect brings out good usage to the objects and characters. But that's not all regarding the glow effect because the CGi also blends fluently into the backgrounds, with the lighting staying in place wherever the object goes.
For the audio aspect of the show's quality, it too have tastes of variety. It would usually start with a sitcom-like tune up to a more dramatic and heroic fanfare whenever the characters take action. The variety is nice and all, but it's not considered variety when the repetition also affects the background music because the opening background music is pretty much used in every episode. Variety vs. repetition aside for a moment to talk about the songs. While Penn Zero: Part-Time Hero isn't anything considered a musical, it still have songs because it's Disney and talking about the songs is interesting to talk about. They aren't anything bland, but what makes it laughable describing the songs is that the obvious auto tune is used for most of the songs and it doesn't run smoothly where it's hard to notice it.
I don't have anything to talk about the sound effects, but now we're back to repetition, this time with an iconic scream reused in many flicks, including Disney ones. What is the iconic movie scream everyone's talking about? That title would go to the Wilhelm scream and what relation does that famous sound effect have to do with Penn Zero: Part-Time Hero? It's used. A lot. There's only a few episodes where the sound effect isn't heard, but I feel like listening to this sound effect countless times in the series is pretty annoying because I feel like the crew can't get enough voice actors to voice the cries of screaming.
Not much stands out in the voice acting aspect either, just typical voice acting, but there is a catch to it; the foreign accents done on some characters are done very well that even having a scent of variety.
Verdict: It has some upsetting aspects that makes it a little lazy, but it feels professional with vibrancy and variety dominating most of this aspect.
CHARACTERS
This is like the writing except I don't think the characters are wasted potential.
What we have here is a weak cast of generic and uninteresting characters. From what I viewed them from first sight is that they seem not only dull but also plain cliched. For example, Boone is just a comic relief who usually does really stupid actions either because it's for the sake of humor or it best suites his character. Because that the humor of Penn Zero: Part-Time Hero isn't funny, so is his idiotic implications that I don't think is supposed to be funny and the majority of ironic jokes he tries to make. He's comparable to Olly Timbers from Welcome to the Wayne where they're both meant to be the comic reliefs of the series, but their jokes miss the mark because the irony jokes lost its luster. Boone is at least a better comic relief than Olly Timbers because he can try something different with the humor like make solid slapstick happen. Sashi is the tough tomboy of the trio with an uninspired amount of sick action moves and why can't I include Penn? I don't really have that much to say about him. He's essentially a fun and excited person. Not only are the characters typical tropes, but Penn and Boone can be annoying sometimes while listening to Sashi trying to describe the background of an ongoing conflict, usually making butt jokes or trying to be relatable (by relatable, I mean enjoy their form whilst ignoring Sashi) and like I said in the writing section, they'd make fun of her appearance.
The character conflicts are equivalent to the writing, meaning they can get as cliched and generic as they want. We have the two aforementioned cliches from the writing section, but also other dull cliches like a character not adapting to a world very well and Character A wanting to do something but Character B refuses. Ironically, most of the development, which is decent here, comes from the cliches like Boone proving himself that he isn't just a comic relief and the characters fighting about something.
How about the villains? Are they worthy of succeeding better than the protagonists? Actually, no. The main antagonists, Rippen and Larry, appear in literally every single episode. Of course, it's the point of the show because they're "part-time villains" but there should've been more noteworthy antagonists supporting Rippen and Larry as they try to take down the part-time heroes and win. How is their character? Rippen is just a maniacal villain. He feels generic and uninteresting as a character who is just like any other villain from other shows; they want the hero annihilated. One of the few redeemable qualities I have regarding Rippen is that he's Penn's art teacher, so that's cool. And his sidekick Larry, who is the witty and naive sidekick ironically hired as a part-time villain all because of Phil. As revealed in the episode Mr. Rippen, he was hired for a very stupid and ironic reason; Phil thinks his looks and evil aspects are maniacal enough to be considered a villain. That's essentially dumb irony and makes Phil look like an idiot who doesn't care if anyone looks bad or not. He hires Larry because irony. Heck, he should've noticed Penn while hiring him as a part-time villain in The Ripple Effect. Not how you portray a character correctly where it makes it look like he's betraying Rippen and Larry.
The backstories from most of the characters, especially the guest starred ones, are usually contrived because how the rivalries started are plain stupid and rushed. Even when the characters realized that what they did was wrong, it still feels rather rushed because it either gets repetitive or it wasn't explained very well, just straight forward. Plus, there were some that could've been important about learning about the characters, therefore not all questions were answered. I was still questioning about when and how did Penn's parents, Vonnie and Brock, became tough heroes.
Also, I feel like Boone and Larry bond too much in the series that it's pretty old seeing the two sides have one character nicely interacting with one another. Otherwise, the character interactions are fine. There's isn't a small amount of relations seen in the series, but not a huge amount where some of them are cool.
Verdict: This cast of characters isn't anything to talk about. They're just typical uses of character tropes who sometimes enter a worse path.
FINAL THOUGHTS
This is a lot like Sym-Bionic Titan where I thought I would really like it judging by the animation and premise, but little do I realize that the show contains typical uses of cliches with no good execution to boost. You know, when you view a cover of a book containing potential, it looks pretty good, but when you read it, the potential you're expecting won't appear that much and instead you'll notice a lot of poor aspects to make the potential fade away. For my main summary:
It feels like a show that isn't Disney standards when it comes to making a cartoon. Even though the animation shines, much of this show is generic and cliched that can also offer a poor sense of humor and sometimes stupid characters. What makes watching this show more tiring is that it's so repetitive with the settings, conflicts, cliches, etc.There's not really a lot of really good aspects besides the animation that could consider Penn Zero: Part-Time Hero a mixed bag as what I keep thinking about is the repetition and rapid use of cliches. So it's a solid MEH (54%), slipping into the low-meh territory of the rating.
Epilogue: As of the scorecard's release, this is the worst Disney cartoon. If there's any other Disney cartoon that can get a lot generic than Penn Zero: Part-Time Hero, then I won't be surprised. That was all from my first thoughts on the show. You know for a second, I should expand my first thoughts further by not only looking at the intro, premise and animation, but also the episode premises as well and see if they're cliched or not. That's it for the 1st scorecard of Season 3. To avoid being repetitive with the channels this season, I will step further into more networks like how the variety succeeds in the animation only such as the Saturday morning cartoons, a few more anime OVAs, and what I've been training for, live action programs.
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Comments: 10
i'll turn that into a future ControChoice for now but I can give you one reason; Sherrif Scaley Briggs doesn't recognize Penn and his team in that episode.
Are you watching the series?
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
well.. certain episodes actually
i get curious easily :T
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
From what I have heard, the creator apparently dislikes expanding much about the characters and the worlds featured and preferring to "let the show speak for itself", which, I realize as I continue to watch the show, is pretty lazy in my opinion. Still like the show, though.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
What’s the word for the worst possible rating? The burgundy is so deep, I can’t read what it says.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Did you try zooming in to read what it says?
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
I just realized it said Odious. Nevermind
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
I still love this show and find it underrated way more than the likes of Steven Universe / Star Vs.; then again, I tend to enjoy what everyone else hates and dislike what everyone else likes.
While I'm sure we disagree heavily on this show, you successfully provided ACTUAL VALID CRITICISM (something I've been waiting for people to do for a long ass time regarding this show and others!) for why this show is so easily bashed (at worst), criminally underrated / OK (at best, IMHO, of course.). In fact, I'm always thinking of ways this should could be better, myself.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Oh damn....from Divine to Meh.
Once again, I can't zoom it again, but nice review.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Hm...so this is Season 3...I am impressed. My only gripe would probably be me not being able to see the Top 10 And Bottom 10 lists on mobile, but that is more of a nitpick than an actual complaint.
Also, I guessed you would not like it, due to my...personal experiences with the show. I was expecting something worse (along the lines of Poor), but the meh makes sense as well.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0