Episode 7: The Court of Miracles
Props to the show for the Hunchback reference. It’s always appreciated.
This episode is a François focused episode, Oh joy of joys…
See no one likes François’ poetry except a group of mean thieves who get in François’ good graces by praising his poetry. They only do this so they can rob Notre Dame. GASP! Also in this alternative time-line the Magna Carta is at Notre Dame. I have no words for this. I’m out of words.
The most important thing that the thieves steal is a book of the King’s memoirs which holds state secrets which means the state of France is in jeopardy. So at the near 15 minute mark Frollo’s villain senses tingle and he gets in on the plot. Oh Cartoonishly Evil Magician Frollo-type, you never cease to disappoint. Never.
Anyway the book is retrieved and brought back to Notre Dame and François learns his lesson. Not a lesson in writing decent poetry but trusting people who praise you for nefarious reasons.
A highlight of this episode was as François was returning the book to the office, Quasimodo does a swivel chair reveal this BUT since the show knows that swivel chairs were not a thing there is a chair scraping across the floor sound effect. It just made me smile.
Also here is a handy formula for how an average episode goes, Thieves + Frollo + France or the World in danger x Dennis + François’ bad poetry x Quasimodo is super awesome = An Average Episode of The Magical Adventures of Quasimodo
All in all not a fan of this episode but maybe François is better in smaller doses.
Episode 8: Witches’ Eve
It’s Halloween. It’s pretty much Halloween and if you thought we would get some spooky magical adventures for this episode well then you’re a bigger Fool than the King/Pope of Fools.
No, this episode is a backstory episode on Quasimodo and his super awesome noble parents who could be alive. GASP! And that is not all, Quasimodo’s real name is Jacques.
You see at the Witches’ Eve party, The gang of pals meet a nice lady named Maria, who was Quasimodo’s nurse maid and is the one who saved him from his home burning down. She also left him at Notre Dame but DIDN’T stick around to tell Dennis his real name or lineage out right. But then the plot wouldn’t happen so we can’t blame her for logic. So it’s fine. It’s fine. This is fine. Everything is fine.
She also tells Quasimodo that his parents could be still alive living amongst peasants. So then it’s a race between Frollo and Quasimodo along with the pals to get to the maybe awesome de Bernisacs. They alas get away.
Also Esmeralda is proving really violent. Like she jumps on a guy’s back and later threatens him with a frying pan. No shade, it just an interesting new take on the character. Though Disney’s Esmeralda had her moments.
And an important takeaway from this episode, Horses don’t like bad poetry. They just don’t. So always run a poem by a horse to assess a poem’s quality.
While a spooky magical fun times episode would have been great, a backstory is not bad since the quest for Quasimodo’s origins and parents seems to be the running plot thread of the show. But did they have to lump it with medieval halloween time? It could have been that Art Festival they were planning back in episode 7 or some other festival that they always seems to be having that Dennis is somehow always in charge of organizing. We could have had it all.
Speaking of spooky fun times, as I watched this episode during the spooky season which is complete coincidence, I thought it would be fun to assign Hunchback costumes to the Magical Quasimodo versions of the characters;
Quasimodo is clearly Phoebus,
Esmeralda is Fleur de Lys
and François is Gringoire
{spoiler alert}
This show is really funny to me because the Frollo and Esmerelda thing is really important in every adaptation yet it’s totally cut out of this one. Like the original story runs on that yet it’s gone here. This whole show was basically “hey I have a really cool idea for a kids cartoon.” Director: “No you make hunchback of Notre Dame”