A Bullshit Cartoon Review: Max and Ruby

If you are a parent, you are oft required, FORCED, to watch television programming that you wouldn't watch with someone else's eyes.  But, It's part of the job description.  You would probably rather be kicked in the dick repeatedly by a roided up kangaroo then watch some of the crap they put on TV for kids today.  The cartoons of today are so horrible, that if He-Man, Lion-O, Snake Eyes and M.A.S.K. decided to team up and clean house on the cartoon characters of today, every TV in the world would explode in awesomeness. But, alas, it is what it is.  Our kids enjoy this shit.  So, today here's a review about a rather popular TV show: Max and Ruby.

The Plot

Max and Ruby is a show based on the Max and Ruby children's books written by Rosemary Wells.  It's Canadian.  In Korea it's called Maegseuwa Lubi.  There are two main characters: Max and Ruby.  Max is an instigating fuck 3 year old bunny who can only speak in one or two word phrases (which he repeats the whole damn episode) and Ruby is his older 7 year old, "responsible" sister.  Episodes usually revolve around her trying to accomplish some sort of goal or project and Max (seemingly) doing everything he can to show her otherwise.  By the end of the story a 3 year old has a) usually outsmarted his older, more "intelligent" sister REPEATEDLY as she attempts to get him to cut his shit out and; b) manages to HELP her accomplish her goal with all of his seemingly counterproductive activities. And that word he repeats OVER AND OVER throughout the episode... Well, if you have at least the intelligence of a pubic hair, you would know that the word(s) he repeats over and over reveal that he knew what was going down all along.

Max

Fucking Instigator.

One thing of note about Max (voiced by Tyler Stevenson) is that he has a huge selection of toys. Actually, they are more like his minions, rather than his toys. In some cases, they are the pointless focus of an episode.  Like his firetruck that he seems to lose every other frigging episode.  And his toys all appear to have minds of their own. Which is terrifying.  One toy that appears in most episodes is his red lobster, which is so smart that he was actually fucking TERRIFIED of it at first. It actually chased him around the house feeding on his fear and horror.  I could swear he was dropping "bunny pebbles" from his trademark overalls as he ran from this thing for most of the episode.  This toy teaches children the meaning of fear. It's also his most "intelligent" toy.  In one episode, this damn thing can climb up the leg of a table to the table top to steal a muffin ON FUCKING COMMAND. If any of my kids had a toy that could steal on command I'd be both RICH and pretty damn nervous.  He also has wind up robots that walk around robotically repeating shit like "RED ALERT!" for an annoyingly long period of time and are usually used by Max to destroy any hopes Ruby has of ever accomplishing anything ever. As an aside, the kid who does his voice acting probably has the easiest job in all of television because he just says the same one or two words over and over the whole damn episode. My 3 year old son speaks in full sentences (most of the time) and this kind of leads me to believe that Max is autistic. He has impaired social interaction and communication (he is constantly trying to screw Ruby up and can only speak one or two word sentences), and he exhibits restricted and repetitive behavior (he constantly repeats the same fucking one or two word phrases over and over). Yup, this sunuvabitch is autistic.

Ruby 

Uptight Bitch.

Ruby (voiced by Rebecca Peters) is usually trying to accomplish some activity or goal, like creating a poster for her Bunny Scout meeting (which was almost fucked by the Max's robots) or collecting berries for her grandmother (which Max consistently ate, to her dismay. Just smack the fucking kid already) or some other trivial task.  And, thanks to this Rebecca Peters lady, speaks with a VARIETY of speech impediments.  She puts the emPHASIS on the wrong sylLABLE of words, strings words together in one long run on or just straight up mispronounces shit.  It's almost like she's in the sound booth of the studio trying to lip read someone saying her lines TO HER instead of reading them from a script.  Kids may not notice this, but as an adult I question the credibility of the casting director for this cartoon.  She's also extremely bossy and uptight and basically acts like a cunt to Max the whole episode (probably because he's autistic, he's always trying to fuck her over, and her grandmother always sides with Max).  Which leaves no wonder as to why he's always meddling in her shit.  One episode in particular stands out when they went to the mall to buy Max some new overalls and he spotted a dragon shirt he wanted instead.  She refused to acknowledge his desire for said shirt, was insistent on getting him some more overalls, and at the same time was trying on various dresses that SHE WANTED.  Bullshit.  Get the kid the dragon shirt.  He would probably take care of it a lot better than he does his shitty overalls.  Those things get jacked up every episode.  But, in typical Max fashion he slips away while Ruby is trying on dresses, finds himself a dragon shirt, gets himself on ice cream and ends up spilling ice cream on the dragon shirt, therefore, requiring that they buy it.  Well played.  Well played.  Ruby also has an OCD with saying the entire brand name of Max's toys such as "your Rescue Ranger Emergency Ambulance" instead of just calling the fucking thing "your ambulance".  Overall, she is probably in the top 3 most ANNOYING CARTOON CHARACTERS OF ALL TIME. EVER.

Grandma

The only authority figure Max and Ruby have is a schizo grandma.

Another thing of note is that Max and Ruby's parents are completely absent and basically never even mentioned in the cartoon.  We are led to believe a 7 year old and a 3 year old live in a house ALONE with no parents and are fending for themselves successfully. It's Ruby who feeds, clothes, and bathes Max. My theory on this is that this is the terrifying end result of the Peter Cottontail story: the parents luck ran the fuck out and they were finally killed raiding one too many farmer's gardens, and the kids are living in the house hiding out so as to stay out of the bunny orphanage. Luckily the parent's had money, which the kids are now using to live.

Basically, the only authority figure they ever reference is their Grandmother, who appears in a few episodes.  Max is often her cohort when she is planning something and even though Ruby believes that Grandma won't like Max's ideas, she usually sides with Max when he dupes Ruby and when Ruby assumes Grandma will dig her ideas better than Max's.  To me, that is straight up choosing sides.  It appears as though the two don't have parents at all and the only authority figure they have chooses favorites (probably because he is autistic).  Ruby is going to end up with serious issues as an adult and will most likely end up abusing all of her future boyfriends both mentally and physically.  That's if she doesn't end up a lesbian so that she can take her anger issues out on another woman (most likely her friend Louise. More on that in a minute).  PICTURING HER GRANDMOTHER THE WHOLE TIME.  Anyway, one thing about the grandmother is that she gets excited over trivial shit at the wrong possible times.  For instance, the episode where her and Max STOLE Ruby's favorite toy duck Mrs. Quack so that she could  knit it a sweater or some shit.  Max and Ruby were supposed to go hang at her house but Ruby decided before they could go she had to establish an impromptu detective agency to find the toy.  Max was repeating "Grandma" the whole fucking episode while Ruby searched for clues.  Grandma got tired of waiting and decided to bring the duck back while exclaiming "RUBY YOU DID IT! YOU SOLVED THE CASE OF THE MISSING DUCK!" NO. She the fuck didn't.  You got tired of her incompetence and brought the fucking duck back.  And it was supposed to be a secret and your partner in crime was giving you up the whole episode.

Louise

Future Lesbian.

Louise is Ruby's best friend who frequently appears in the show and quite possibly a future lesbian and love interest for Ruby. She has a cousin named Morris who also appears in the show and is friends Max. Consequently, these two 3 year olds manage to outsmart the fuck out of Ruby and Louise on a constant basis.  She also kisses Ruby's ass every chance she gets, often at her own expense.  

In Conclusion

All in all, I have to say that this show is pretty "interesting".  But not interesting in the literal sense, like it holds my interest.  Interesting in the sense that as a parent I see it for what it really is: the dysfunctional relationship between an autistic brother and an uptight bitch of a sister who have no parental figures (save for the schizophrenic grandmother who chooses sides) and their struggle to survive.  Would this be something I watched at their age? No.  Hell no. I was busy watching shit like He-Man and Thundercats and G.I. Joe and Ninja Turtles and Transformers.  Awesome shows about ass kicking and kicking ass.  Shows that still endure in our memories even today.  Shows they are remaking into NEW shows and movies and shit. But with the crap cartoons that are on TV today this is about what they are left with and this probably wouldn't be a show that would EVER be remade into ANYTHING.  But, for now they seem to enjoy it.  And in the end, that's all that matters.