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Episode Number: JBJ-16
Title: ``There's No Heel Like El Eel''
Original Airdate: 18 December 1976
Production Code: 84-15
Plot: The Neptunes try to free Barcelaqua from the tyranny of El Eel and his petrifying Power Ray. To do this Jabberjaw takes on the disguises of legendary ``Masked Avenger'' El Jabbo and the villainous El Suavo.
Locations: El Eel's hacienda; Barcelaqua; Madra Aqua (referenced, not visited).
Guest Characters: El Eel, Minions 1-2, Townsmen 1-3, Mayor, Desk Clerk's Wife, Young Woman, Townsmen 4-5, Minions 3-4, Townsman 6, Rancher.
Songs: ``You've Got To Believe In Love'' (chase); ``I Told You Once'' (performance, fragment; two separate pieces jammed together)
Thoughts:
El Eel opens in a sprawling hacienda under several clearly-marked domes and orders the collection of more ``taxes'' from Barcelaqua. Minions 1 and 2 protest it's been only a week and they may not be able to pay again. El Eel warns they will pay again or they'll feel his Power as he turns them to stone.
To get to his stone-Power room El Eel opens a secret door in the bookshelf; the wall in there dilates open. El Eel reminds himself that no one can defy his Power and soon he'll demand tribute from the entire undersea world.
The Neptunes are in a Mini Aqua Car so tiny the humans have to bend over to fit. Jabberjaw is squashed into the glove compartment. It's all they could afford as they're almost broke again.
The angry villages (three of whom get dialogue to the effect of their anger) refuse to pay ``a single pesaqua more'' to the tyrant el Eel. The Minions pop a screen to the side of their green car, on which El Eel warns no one will defy his Power, and the ray beam (coming from above) turns the mayor to stone. El Eel promises the Mayor will be restored once the taxes are paid.
The villagers seem shocked by the display of this Power; have they not seen it before? The Casey Kasem-voiced villager proclaims there must be someone who can save them from El Eel.
Bubbles is confused by Biff's reference to the place as ``Gigsville''. The Neptunes are staying at the Hotel Hacienda Barcelaqua. Jabberjaw suggests they check in. The desk clerk is stone. Biff says he's been turned to stone, but isn't the horses-not-zebras supposition that someone left a statue behind the desk? His wife explains who did it; another woman (their daughter?) explains who El Eel is. Shelly suggests the people should band together and get rid of this ``El Heel''.
The villagers say no one can fight El Eel as they don't know the source of The Power; the young woman says ``if only the Masked Avenger were around''. The Masked Avenger protected the people in ``the old days''.
Shelly proposes they fight El Eel, with a Masked Avenger, who'll be El Jabbo. ``I might fool them as a flounder from Florida, or an alligator from Decatur, or a trout from Trenton, but a Masked Avenger?'' With the second use of the ``trout from Trenton'' line I think this makes Trenton the most-referred-to above-ground city in the Jabberjaw series.
El Jabbo's costume consists of a red vest, mask, ill-fitting hat, and belt featuring a red J on an orange triangle. The vest has a large slit down most of its length to make way for Jabberjaw's dorsal fin.
Shelly's plan is to make El Eel think they're his enemies, ``then form a beautiful friendship with him'', and find out where the Power is. Bubbles doesn't understand this plot. I'm shaky on it myself.
The Minions go around collecting taxes from townsfolk again in an aquacar that somehow evokes Scooby-Doo's Mystery Machine. El Jabbo interrupts this by swinging down from a balcony on a vine. The Neptunes were very lucky in their choices of balconies and placement of vines.
El Jabbo scoops up the Minions in his tail, and draws a 'J' on their backs before dropping them in the fountain. Jabberjaw swings back to the patio and gets folded between the grates of the balcony.
The Masked Avenger lived ``a century ago'', according to El Eel. (Even allowing for rounding-off so that's not literally 1976, this suggests Barcelaqua was around by the year 2000.) The Minions say he has the strength of a dozen men.
El Jabbo's second feat is saving a somewhat Captain Kangaroo-ish man turning over his ``life savings'' in a little house in the woods, a space sufficiently wide that the dome is in evidence only in that the sky hasn't got clouds, just a lightening color gradient. (Yet why are there mountains in the far background?) Jabberjaw swipes the bag, lures the Minions off to the woods where the Neptunes have laid a false trail of dust clouds, and El Jabbo returns the money. In making his escape he gets wrapped around a tree branch.
An angry El Eel sends the ``whole gang'' --- three Minions --- out in the Mystery Aquamobile.
At the home of the ``wealthiest rancher in Barcelaqua'' El Jabbo makes his third appearance. The ranch is wide enough ther'es no sign of sea beyond. The Minions are captured in hay dropped from the barn. The four minions are turned to stone by El Eel (a misfire of the Power ray?); Jabberjaw runs away, proving ``this El Jabbo is more dangerous than I thought''. He decides to get the people to betray El Jabbo to him.
A reward of 10,000 Pesaquas is offered for El Jabbo; it's ``a fortune'', which the Neptunes see in the hotel lobby. The young woman from earlier wishes she knew where El Jabbo was, that she could give him a great kiss.
There are no takers for the reward. The Neptunes, claiming to be from Madra Aqua, say they're having trouble with El Jabbo, and say they've come to help by hiring an El Jabbo hunter, El Suavo, Jabberjaw in another costume, with feathered hat and purple cape. Shelly says, ``Don't let his --- uhm --- looks fool you. El Suavo never fails.''
They eat; Shelly proposes they say with El Eel while El Suavo hunts El Jabbo. El Eel demands they all hunt El Jabbo. El Suavo says he's insulted by the implication that he needs the help of anyone, and leaves the table. Since Jabberjaw had tucked the tablecloth into the drawstring of his cape this clears the table. El Eel apologizes and says if Shelly will take this ``wrist video'' he'll stand by to give El Jabbo a taste of The Power.
The Neptunes talk up how great they were in the Mystery Aquamachine out of El Eel's place. They put on a show for El Eel of having tracked down El Jabbo and fighting El Suavo. The video is seen from outside a villa which the Neptunes are in; presumably the wrist video is perched on a rock? The ``fight'' consists mostly of Jabberjaw in alternating costumes being tossed out and running back into the building.
The Neptunes run out of the building; Shelly pops up in close foreground of the screen to say El Jabbo has been chased to the barn and will be captured there. She disappears in a moment of static and the Neptunes and Jabberjaw run in the background through the screen. This suggests Shelly can leap from one place to another in fractions of a second.
In the barn, Jabberjaw quickly blows up a balloon (not the inflatable shark seen earlier in the series; why not?) and dresses it as El Jabbo. I'd have taken care of that before starting the transmission to El Eel; surely they could get a duplicate of El Jabbo's costume? The balloon is used as a punching bag as El Suavo and the Neptunes to show his capture.
El Suavo demands the minions lead him and the El Jabbo balloon to a cell. El Suavo puts the balloon in the cell, and they deflate it and hide the costume under the bed. Shelly claims El Jabbo ``knows where your Power is hidden''. El Eel says they can join El Jabbo in the cell.
Shelly says ``you can capture the Masked Avenger yourself'', as he's escaped and he clearly has. El Eel deduces El Jabbo has run for The Power; the Neptunes follow the fleeing El Eel. (I have to admit, this is a pretty cleverly developed plan.)
El Eel's secret door in the bookcase is seen from a different angle; I'm honestly surprised they didn't just reuse the already existing and acceptable background.
The Neptunes have changed back to regular costume for some reason while chasing El Eel back to his library and secret door.
In El Eel's secret cell the Neptunes announce their presence while El Eel is at the controls of The Power.
El Eel calls his minions ``through the wall'', a direction which takes the Minions by surprise. Apparently they were unaware of the secret room.
The chase starts with the Neptunes running through the door to the outside, which seems to defeat the whole point of the secret wall-based access seen earlier.
In the chase Jabberjaw is the first petrified person; two Minions and El Eel catch him. As they try stuffing him into a cell Shelly un-stones him, and makes statues of the Minions.
Bubbles takes control of the Power, accidentally turning Biff and Shelly to stone briefly. She flees the controls.
Jabberjaw takes the controls of the Power and turns El Eel to stone, marking the end of the chase.
At the close of the concert the desk clerk's wife thanks the Neptunes for turning her husband and the Mayor back to normal. She's seated in the audience and the curtains are drawing closed as she does this. I'm not clear who she's addressing other than the audience.
The Mayor wishes to bestow a medeal of bravery on El Jabbo; Jabberjaw swings from a rope atop the proscenium to catch it, and falls into the audience, on bench seating featuring the young woman of before. She kisses him.
I think this is Jabberjaw's only kiss not inspired by mind control for the series.
Trivia: The fourth edition, published 2002, of the International Hydrographic Organization's Special Publication Number S.23, ``Limits of Oceans and Seas'', defining the boundaries and limits of bodies of water, was 24 4pages long. Source: Atlantic: Great Sea Battles, Heroic Discoveries, Titanic Storms, And A Vast Ocean Of A Million Stories, Simon Winchester.
Currently Reading: Masters of Time, A E Van Vogt.
