D Is for Disaster: Series Review

As many of us 80s kids know, the animated Little Rascals series did enjoy a two-year run on ABC.  And with that said, here is my review on each season of the series.

Season 1 was pretty darn good.  The episodes were far better quality, and more fun to watch.  Among what Season 1 had to offer, i enjoyed "Darla's Dream Dance", "Cap'n Spanky's Showboat", "Rock & Roll Rascals" and "The Irate Pirates" the most.  All in all, the first season deserves a grade of C+.

Then, Season 2 came, it all went downhill.  The show being reduced to one half hour, only one 11-minute cartoon per episode, and only nine new episodes produced, meaning four previously aired episodes from season 1 were rebroadcast at scattered times, most likely selected based on ratings.  The one good thing they did was adding a Latina character, Maria, to the cast, but that could have been done in the wake of the launch of the series Rubik the Amazing Cube, which lasted only one season, and was the first cartoon series to feature a cast of Latino characters.  It was good to add some diversity to Saturday mornings in 1983-84 after all.

But, in my opinion, while Season 2 was still watchable, the only thing i enjoyed about season 2 was the rebroadcast oF "Cap'n Spanky's Showboat" on the second-last episode oF that season.   In fact, the final three episodes of the season all had something in common.  They all had a dramatic rescue scene where at least one of the main characters' lives was in danger.  This may have been done as an attempt to reboost viewership in hopes of getting renewed for a third season, but to no avail.  Of the second season episodes, while they were not as good as any of the first season's episodes, i liked "The Zero Hero" the most.  For the first eleven weeks of that second season, my grade was a solid F.  When "Cap'n Spanky's Showboat" was rebroadcast during the 12th week, my grade did boost, even if only to a D.  But my grade did drop by the final week, but down to a well-deserved D-.

All in all, "D" meant disaster for Season 2, and it's no wonder the show went off the air in 1984.  At least my grade of D- was just me being nice, especially since Episode 12 was my all-time favorite.