Thursday, December 16, 2004

Swinging from bell towers

This latest Alley Oop series seems almost promising despite the bumpy send off. We began with Oop and Oola about to use the time machine to transport to modern Paris for a romantic vacation when suddenly a mysterious floating shelf appears above the time machine controls and drops a Coke can that somehow manages to reset the time coordinates to 1482 just as the characters are shipping off.
At first I couldn’t figure out why the writers were shipping them off to that time period when nothing particularly historical or noteworthy was taking place. But as it turns out the point was not historical, but literary and we are soon introduced to Quasimodo, i.e. The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
Meanwhile, back at the time lab Doc Wonmug gets jumped by two hoods who were sneaking around outside and watching everything from a window. They tie him up and announce that they are going to use the time machine to travel back to ancient Moo with plans to lure a bunch of dinosaurs into a pit so that it will turn into a rich oil field by modern times. It is an odd get-rich scheme for someone with a time machine at their disposal, but it is workable.
Back in Paris we see that the shapely Oola has attracted the jealous ire of the local women who accuse her of being a sorceress after she stops them from throwing tomatoes at Quasi as part of their annual Festival of Fools. So she is carted off to prison while Oop stands around with his hands in his pockets. Oop does note that he could easily take out the two guards who are carting her away but chooses to do nothing because Doc told him that he can’t change history. Of course, this has never stopped him before, but for now we are supposed to accept this sudden adherence to some kind of time travel prime directive.
But then Oop changes his mind when he learns a little bit later that they are planning to burn Oola at the stake.
Up until this point, at least, the storty has seemed somewhat plausible. But now Oop has decided that the best way to rescue Oola is to disguise himself as Quasimodo, climb up to the top of the bell tower and swing down on a rope at the last moment. I can’t even see Spider Man pulling this one off.