He can walk and talk and look

[austin_dern]

[ With this episode, Jabberjaw gives its answer to what happened to Atlantis in the Jabberverse. The answer: you know, it's pretty hard to say, even when you see it. ]

Episode Number: JBJ-3
Title: "Atlantis, Get Lost"
Original Airdate: 25 September 1976
Production Code: 84-4
Plot: Atlantis plans to conquer the undersea world under guise of defending itself from invading surface-dwellers. The Neptunes, accidentally ejected from their aqualiner, are sucked up by Atlantis's whirlpool device and are to be thrown to the alligators. After securing recordings of Dorsal's duplicity the Neptunes sneak into the Royal Banquet to reveal the scheme. When the guards prove loyal to Dorsal, the Neptunes disguise themselves as the Queen's loyal Aquateers, capture Dorsal, and destroy his drilling machine.
Locations: Aqualiner, Atlantis.
Guest Characters: Prime Minister Dorsal, Queen Atlanta, Commander, Guards, Royal Food Taster,
Songs: ``There's A Mountain Of Time'' (performance, fragment), ``I'm Coming Back'' (chase)

Thoughts:
The invasion of Atlantis is revealed right away to be faked by the ambitious Prime Minister.

A soda machine stuffs Jabberjaw into a tiny, oddly-shaped bottle.

The Atlantis army has teleporter rays.

Jabberjaw declares himself a Great White Shark for the first time.

Atlantis's ``Alarm'' boxes are labelled in English.

The Neptunes somehow know Dorsal's office on sight; they identify things immediately perhaps thanks to the sign labelled ``INVASION PLAN''. Dorsal goes through a briefing of the plans for the invasion and coup d'etat while sitting on Jabberjaw.

Dorsal gives a very brief briefing of the plan (``Phase one of our plan will begin at down; after we conquer the undersea world we shall return to overthrow the queen, and I shall rule Atlantis'') by inserting what looks like a CD in a vertical slot. Dorsal anticipates the whole plan to take one day.

Atlantis has a French-accented Royal Food Tester; they also have the idea of veiled dancing girls at state affairs.

The Queen immediately believes in the plan after hearing half of Dorsal's recorded plan; but the soldiers are loyal to Dorsal. The Queen had sent her loyal Aquateers off on a mission.

Aquateers? Really? The heck?

Queen Atlanta is basically human, while the others are fish-men. This naturally evokes the grossly inbred Ptolemaic succession of rulers of ancient Egypt.

First episode without one of the Jabberjaw Civilization's cities shown.

Trivia: Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll made their final radio broadcast on 25 November 1960. Source: The Adventures Of Amos 'N' Andy: A Social History of an American Phenomenon, Melvin Patrick Ely.

Currently Reading: Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution, Simon Schama.

Comments

[chefmongoose.livejournal.com]

'Aquateer' is a awesome name. Perhaps they're goofy characters, especially if they're styled after 17th century Frenchmen[*1]... but 'Aquateer'. I like.

--Chi
[*1] I have no idea. But I know what Hanna-Barbera is likely to have done.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

No spotting the actual Aquateers, although Hanna-Barbera did do a Three Musketeers cartoon as segments on The Banana Splits which were played pretty straight. Hanna-Barbera did keep up a small but reliable stream of seriously-played cartoons through the 70s, including a Jonny Quest series nobody remembers. Of course, they were far outnumbered by the goofy or bizarre cartoons being made at the same time.

[chefmongoose.livejournal.com]

I recall said Three Musketeers cartoon, indeed.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Yeah, so I imagine an Aquateers cartoon would have played out kind of like that, only sometimes they'd add that rippling-water filter over the animation, and they'd probably be laser swords, whatever that means.

[moonfires.livejournal.com]

Do the Aquateers wear hats with fish ears on them?

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

We don't see the real Aquateers, but the Neptunes as Aquateers just wear poofy hats over their usual uniforms. There's no fish motif to it at all, unfortunately.