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Description
Because I'm probably not going to upload a scorecard until May or so, I thought I'd fill in this void with a cartoon next to no one cares. I also thought I'd mention that from now on, if a show gets a score in the Poor-Okay, then there will be no approval stamp. Only exception to this would be Steven Universe since that was my first scorecard, and I have a lot of nostalgia for it.

HISTORY: I used to watch this show a lot during the years of 2015-2016 since Nickelodeon would air it a lot, and it allowed me to see at least 90% of this show, and whenever I was studying or doing work, I'd put this show on in the background. That isn't to say I ever liked Breadwinners, in fact, I've always disliked this show, but not to the point where I would turn my back on it and berate it. If anything, I've always found this show at the very least fascinating because it'd always leave me coming back for more. Maybe that's because this was the weirdest show I've ever seen up until that point. During 2016 though, I did notice how the show got better in quality, particularly the second half of season 2, which I liked... and somehow still do.

ANIMATION: I honestly have no idea what to even make of the animation, but it's a mess. It tries to incorporate at least three different animation styles and they end up clashing with one another. They try to go for a retro video game aesthetic, but at the same time they use flash animation and stock images, and it ends up looking really cheap. The problem with the animation is that 75% of the time, it looks wrong. You mean to tell me that Sway Sway and Buhdeuce are both ducks? They're not, they look like frogs. This could've been easily rectified if they gave them at least one feature of a duck: feathers, an actual beak instead of hot dog lips, a tail feather (which Ketta for some reason has but the two main characters do not), webbed feet, body shape, but they have almost none of these when the show isn't shoving grotesque closeups in your face. And as for the stock images, it makes the show look lazy-- a lot of the background characters are Google images that have animated eyes slapped on top of them to make them look original, but they end up looking uncanny as hell. This is further exacerbated by the fact that most of them use stock quacking sounds, and you're going to hear the same ones over and over again, meaning this part also becomes annoying. They also reuse the same explosion effects a lot and I see it as nothing more than a way to cut corners on what already is cheap animation. The only true positive in the animation department is the backgrounds, I really like the 8-bit touch they added onto them along with the usage of pretty greens and blues.

tl;dr version:: I get what the animation was trying to do, but it's absolutely ruined by the fact that the show has cheap flash animation, stock images, stock sounds, and main character designs that don't even look like ducks, but the backgrounds are pretty cool.

GENERAL THOUGHTS ON THE SHOW: If there's anything I could describe Breadwinners as, it'd be a mediocre web cartoon that somehow made its way to primetime television-- which is literally how this show got its airtime by the way. The sad part is that, whilst making the transition from Internet to primetime, the show forgot to upgrade its writing. Seriously, the writing on this show could only be described as amateurish, as most episodes do virtually nothing with the premises-- they'll either repeat jokes ad nauseum like Weekend at Furfle's, where they shove in thousands of horrendous grossout closeups on Ms. Furfle because HAHAHA OLD PEOPLE ARE GROSS or Buhdeuce Goes Berserks, except this episode doesn't have any jokes unless you consider Buhdeuce destroying everything like a maniac to be peak comedy, or they'll completely throw out an actually decent premise in favor of pure fluff. Birds of a Feather feels like it was written in one draft, if you really wanted to do a backstory, there needs to be some form of development in the characters. I cannot tell the difference between either Sway Sway and Buhdeuce in the past compared to the present, there's no obstacle or struggle either of these two face, and the emotions they exhibit back then compared to the present is no different either, meaning there is no development and this episode is a waste of time.

This extends to the humor as well which can only be described as banal, juvenile, unfunny, and repetitive. This show has such a weird obsession with asses and farting that at certain points I was questioning if someone on this show had a fart or ass fetish, either that or they're trying way too hard to pander to kids, so much so that several characters have extremely lame catchphrases like Mr. Pumper's constant "Boom yummy!"... seriously what does that even mean? The humor becomes absolutely predictable and eyeroll worthy as a result, and appeals to no one. If you're going to do toilet humor, you need to have an element of surprise, simply mentioning "butts" or "farts" or having character stick out their asses and/or fart isn't comedy. And even if we're talking about comedy that isn't any of these things, they're also among the most predictable things you could imagine. From Bad to Nurse is the worst example of this since this episode is a blatant ripoff of Jellyfishing from SpongeBob and is 11 minutes of one of the characters giving the Breadwinners a task, and then they do the opposite. Not only that, but this episode is also a blatant copy of the ep before it, Lost at Pond.

Have you ever seen an "old pet gets mistreated because owners favor new pet" plot before? Then you've seen PB & J, the only new element this episode adds is the fact that the characters defeat the antagonists with... farts. How fucking subversive. Have you ever seen a life debt plot in any other cartoon ever made? Then you've seen Oonski the Greatful. Character thinks movies are their calling and they turn into an arrogant ass? Then you've seen Big Screen Buhdeuce. I could go on, but this show doesn't even try most of the time with their premises, and the biggest elephant in the room is that THEY HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH BREAD. AT ALL. The show gets me interested whenever they abandon this cliche junk and focus on the unique elements this show does have-- aka the breadmine. The better episodes of this show are ones that have supernatural themes, meaning they either involve the bread mines or the magical loaves that Sway Sway and Buhdeuce use. Those episodes open up so much potential for adventures and jokes, and I'd say most of the ones that focus on these do use up at least 50% of their potential, which is good enough I suppose.

I forgot to mention this too, but the characters on this show are all extremely one-note and boring. Sway Sway and Buhdeuce are the two idiot friends that wildly vary in episodes-- sometimes they're both morons, sometimes only one of them is, sometimes both of them are tolerable, it really depends on which cliche plot type the writers want to tap in to. Even characters that are supposed to be the straightman to these two end up being just as bad, if not worse. There's Rambamboo, the police officer who will scold and ticket the Breadwinners at any opportunity, the problem is that THAT'S ALL SHE EVER DOES, there are absolutely no other layers or functions she has other than that. They had a chance to make her somewhat interesting as early on, it's suggested she has a crush on Buhdeuce, but this is completely neglected outside of two episodes (Buhdeuce Goes Berserks and Driver's Breaducation). There's Mr. Pumpers, who's Mr. Krabs but a lot worse. He's greedy, and that's all there is to him. He spawned one of the stupidest episodes of the show, Eat at Pumpers, where he's SOMEHOW SURPRISED that he's losing business because he INFLATED THE PRICES HIMSELF. Next. There's T-Midi, who is the rich guy that likes to collect bread. There is nothing interesting about this character other than being the butt monkey of bad jokes. I mean... they did try to show a different side to him in Bros' Night Out? But guess what? That episode is cliche as fuck. Of course the obedient one is going to get a taste of freedom and fun and go wild. Of course he takes it too far. Of course he learns his lesson. IT'S BEEN DONE A THOUSAND TIMES.. What about Ketta? She's the mechanic, that's it. Oonski? He's the loud obnoxious viking that speaks in third person. He's annoying and stupid most of the time, and the only tolerable appearance he had was in The Princess Frog Bride. The only character that has any kind of worth to him is the Bread Maker, but he's cast to the side most of the time, though when he does come out, he does deliver some of the better moments of the show, like when he revealed his backstory in A Crustmas Story. That was actually a solid backstory, and the ep itself is solid too.

Are there any positives to Breadwinners? Surprisingly yes, there are. In spite of the fact that most of this show is derivative, something that caught me offguard was that I actually liked the stretch from Roboloafie - Freaky Finger Bread since the show abandoned many of the problems that I listed above, and tried something new. The juvenile humor vanished, a lot of the boring side characters got cast away, and the show focused more on the magical breads and the bread mines, this lead to really fun episodes like Great White Shark Bread, Freaky Finger Bread, Buhdouble Trouble (Breadwinners took a cloning premise and actually made it hilarious. Unbelievable.), Nightmare on Swamp Pad Lane, Sneeze the Day, and on some level Unlucky Duckies. Even the more slice-of-life episodes got a lot more creative and fast-paced insistent on telling actual jokes, such as Roboloafie. Despite Lil' Loafie being a piece of trash that feels like someone high wrote it, this was a good follow-up because the conflict had actual stakes, the jokes it told were funny, and there was a fast energy to it that most Breadwinners episodes simply lacked. Unfortunately, this improvement happened far too late and it didn't redeem most of whatever season 1 was. It allowed season 2 to end up being a mixed bag. I also find several of the video game references this show does to be neat callbacks, but that's really where the positives end.

tl;dr version: This show is derivative and stale, a lot of its ideas have been done before and done way better. The characters are boring as hell too, and ones that I feel like I should like I end up not caring for because they're the epitome of one-note. There's a lot of missed potential with this show as the bread mines and the breads themselves are interesting, and particularly in the latter half of season 2 show off their potential, but this improvement was too late

CONCLUSION: What do you want me to say? This is a cartoon that lost relevance long ago, and although I do have some memories with it, and on some level maybe even kind of enjoy it, I cannot deny that this show has more bad to it than good. The animation is messy, the characters are one-note and bland, the plots this show uses have been done to death and have nothing new to offer other than farts and butts... though there was an improvement to be seen towards the final stretch of the show, alleviating it from being bad and instead being POOR. Seriously, just go watch any other cartoon, they've done most of these premises way better.

Description
Because I'm probably not going to upload a scorecard until May or so, I thought I'd fill in this void with a cartoon next to no one cares. I also thought I'd mention that from now on, if a show gets a score in the Poor-Okay, then there will be no approval stamp. Only exception to this would be Steven Universe since that was my first scorecard, and I have a lot of nostalgia for it.

HISTORY: I used to watch this show a lot during the years of 2015-2016 since Nickelodeon would air it a lot, and it allowed me to see at least 90% of this show, and whenever I was studying or doing work, I'd put this show on in the background. That isn't to say I ever liked Breadwinners, in fact, I've always disliked this show, but not to the point where I would turn my back on it and berate it. If anything, I've always found this show at the very least fascinating because it'd always leave me coming back for more. Maybe that's because this was the weirdest show I've ever seen up until that point. During 2016 though, I did notice how the show got better in quality, particularly the second half of season 2, which I liked... and somehow still do.

ANIMATION: I honestly have no idea what to even make of the animation, but it's a mess. It tries to incorporate at least three different animation styles and they end up clashing with one another. They try to go for a retro video game aesthetic, but at the same time they use flash animation and stock images, and it ends up looking really cheap. The problem with the animation is that 75% of the time, it looks wrong. You mean to tell me that Sway Sway and Buhdeuce are both ducks? They're not, they look like frogs. This could've been easily rectified if they gave them at least one feature of a duck: feathers, an actual beak instead of hot dog lips, a tail feather (which Ketta for some reason has but the two main characters do not), webbed feet, body shape, but they have almost none of these when the show isn't shoving grotesque closeups in your face. And as for the stock images, it makes the show look lazy-- a lot of the background characters are Google images that have animated eyes slapped on top of them to make them look original, but they end up looking uncanny as hell. This is further exacerbated by the fact that most of them use stock quacking sounds, and you're going to hear the same ones over and over again, meaning this part also becomes annoying. They also reuse the same explosion effects a lot and I see it as nothing more than a way to cut corners on what already is cheap animation. The only true positive in the animation department is the backgrounds, I really like the 8-bit touch they added onto them along with the usage of pretty greens and blues.

tl;dr version:: I get what the animation was trying to do, but it's absolutely ruined by the fact that the show has cheap flash animation, stock images, stock sounds, and main character designs that don't even look like ducks, but the backgrounds are pretty cool.

GENERAL THOUGHTS ON THE SHOW: If there's anything I could describe Breadwinners as, it'd be a mediocre web cartoon that somehow made its way to primetime television-- which is literally how this show got its airtime by the way. The sad part is that, whilst making the transition from Internet to primetime, the show forgot to upgrade its writing. Seriously, the writing on this show could only be described as amateurish, as most episodes do virtually nothing with the premises-- they'll either repeat jokes ad nauseum like Weekend at Furfle's, where they shove in thousands of horrendous grossout closeups on Ms. Furfle because HAHAHA OLD PEOPLE ARE GROSS or Buhdeuce Goes Berserks, except this episode doesn't have any jokes unless you consider Buhdeuce destroying everything like a maniac to be peak comedy, or they'll completely throw out an actually decent premise in favor of pure fluff. Birds of a Feather feels like it was written in one draft, if you really wanted to do a backstory, there needs to be some form of development in the characters. I cannot tell the difference between either Sway Sway and Buhdeuce in the past compared to the present, there's no obstacle or struggle either of these two face, and the emotions they exhibit back then compared to the present is no different either, meaning there is no development and this episode is a waste of time.

This extends to the humor as well which can only be described as banal, juvenile, unfunny, and repetitive. This show has such a weird obsession with asses and farting that at certain points I was questioning if someone on this show had a fart or ass fetish, either that or they're trying way too hard to pander to kids, so much so that several characters have extremely lame catchphrases like Mr. Pumper's constant "Boom yummy!"... seriously what does that even mean? The humor becomes absolutely predictable and eyeroll worthy as a result, and appeals to no one. If you're going to do toilet humor, you need to have an element of surprise, simply mentioning "butts" or "farts" or having character stick out their asses and/or fart isn't comedy. And even if we're talking about comedy that isn't any of these things, they're also among the most predictable things you could imagine. From Bad to Nurse is the worst example of this since this episode is a blatant ripoff of Jellyfishing from SpongeBob and is 11 minutes of one of the characters giving the Breadwinners a task, and then they do the opposite. Not only that, but this episode is also a blatant copy of the ep before it, Lost at Pond.

Have you ever seen an "old pet gets mistreated because owners favor new pet" plot before? Then you've seen PB & J, the only new element this episode adds is the fact that the characters defeat the antagonists with... farts. How fucking subversive. Have you ever seen a life debt plot in any other cartoon ever made? Then you've seen Oonski the Greatful. Character thinks movies are their calling and they turn into an arrogant ass? Then you've seen Big Screen Buhdeuce. I could go on, but this show doesn't even try most of the time with their premises, and the biggest elephant in the room is that THEY HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH BREAD. AT ALL. The show gets me interested whenever they abandon this cliche junk and focus on the unique elements this show does have-- aka the breadmine. The better episodes of this show are ones that have supernatural themes, meaning they either involve the bread mines or the magical loaves that Sway Sway and Buhdeuce use. Those episodes open up so much potential for adventures and jokes, and I'd say most of the ones that focus on these do use up at least 50% of their potential, which is good enough I suppose.

I forgot to mention this too, but the characters on this show are all extremely one-note and boring. Sway Sway and Buhdeuce are the two idiot friends that wildly vary in episodes-- sometimes they're both morons, sometimes only one of them is, sometimes both of them are tolerable, it really depends on which cliche plot type the writers want to tap in to. Even characters that are supposed to be the straightman to these two end up being just as bad, if not worse. There's Rambamboo, the police officer who will scold and ticket the Breadwinners at any opportunity, the problem is that THAT'S ALL SHE EVER DOES, there are absolutely no other layers or functions she has other than that. They had a chance to make her somewhat interesting as early on, it's suggested she has a crush on Buhdeuce, but this is completely neglected outside of two episodes (Buhdeuce Goes Berserks and Driver's Breaducation). There's Mr. Pumpers, who's Mr. Krabs but a lot worse. He's greedy, and that's all there is to him. He spawned one of the stupidest episodes of the show, Eat at Pumpers, where he's SOMEHOW SURPRISED that he's losing business because he INFLATED THE PRICES HIMSELF. Next. There's T-Midi, who is the rich guy that likes to collect bread. There is nothing interesting about this character other than being the butt monkey of bad jokes. I mean... they did try to show a different side to him in Bros' Night Out? But guess what? That episode is cliche as fuck. Of course the obedient one is going to get a taste of freedom and fun and go wild. Of course he takes it too far. Of course he learns his lesson. IT'S BEEN DONE A THOUSAND TIMES.. What about Ketta? She's the mechanic, that's it. Oonski? He's the loud obnoxious viking that speaks in third person. He's annoying and stupid most of the time, and the only tolerable appearance he had was in The Princess Frog Bride. The only character that has any kind of worth to him is the Bread Maker, but he's cast to the side most of the time, though when he does come out, he does deliver some of the better moments of the show, like when he revealed his backstory in A Crustmas Story. That was actually a solid backstory, and the ep itself is solid too.

Are there any positives to Breadwinners? Surprisingly yes, there are. In spite of the fact that most of this show is derivative, something that caught me offguard was that I actually liked the stretch from Roboloafie - Freaky Finger Bread since the show abandoned many of the problems that I listed above, and tried something new. The juvenile humor vanished, a lot of the boring side characters got cast away, and the show focused more on the magical breads and the bread mines, this lead to really fun episodes like Great White Shark Bread, Freaky Finger Bread, Buhdouble Trouble (Breadwinners took a cloning premise and actually made it hilarious. Unbelievable.), Nightmare on Swamp Pad Lane, Sneeze the Day, and on some level Unlucky Duckies. Even the more slice-of-life episodes got a lot more creative and fast-paced insistent on telling actual jokes, such as Roboloafie. Despite Lil' Loafie being a piece of trash that feels like someone high wrote it, this was a good follow-up because the conflict had actual stakes, the jokes it told were funny, and there was a fast energy to it that most Breadwinners episodes simply lacked. Unfortunately, this improvement happened far too late and it didn't redeem most of whatever season 1 was. It allowed season 2 to end up being a mixed bag. I also find several of the video game references this show does to be neat callbacks, but that's really where the positives end.

tl;dr version: This show is derivative and stale, a lot of its ideas have been done before and done way better. The characters are boring as hell too, and ones that I feel like I should like I end up not caring for because they're the epitome of one-note. There's a lot of missed potential with this show as the bread mines and the breads themselves are interesting, and particularly in the latter half of season 2 show off their potential, but this improvement was too late

CONCLUSION: What do you want me to say? This is a cartoon that lost relevance long ago, and although I do have some memories with it, and on some level maybe even kind of enjoy it, I cannot deny that this show has more bad to it than good. The animation is messy, the characters are one-note and bland, the plots this show uses have been done to death and have nothing new to offer other than farts and butts... though there was an improvement to be seen towards the final stretch of the show, alleviating it from being bad and instead being POOR. Seriously, just go watch any other cartoon, they've done most of these premises way better.