House of Mouse : Season 2 Episode 3
"Clarabelle's Big Secret"

Air Date October 6, 2001

Synopsis

Clarabelle Cow's "Main Street Gossip" are boring old news, so she promises to reveal a really BIG secret -- which makes everyone in the club worried that the BIG secret might be about them.

Credits

Directors

Robert Gannaway

Tony Craig

Shorts Shown

How to Be a Spy

Double Date Donald

Comments

From Juan F. Lara : Max, the only Television Animation character to have a recurring role in this series, got the focus for the first time in this so-so episode.

The plot was familiar. Max thought his dad's job was easy, and we all knew he'd get swamped by the job and apologize to Goofy by the ep's end. Max came off a little like a jerk in his first scenes. The ep's gag scenes felt old. Hades and Timon/Pumbaa have made so many appearances already, and most punchlines were just more of the show's trademark obvious puns ("There's a hare in my soup. This must be the diet burrito.") The gag scenes also seemed poorly staged: the faux-pas Max committed in front of Hades was funny, but Hades sounded so detached that I thought they were reusing a stock recording of his voice. And Max's itching from the beetle burrito looked faked because we never saw the beetles actually on him.

Nonetheless I liked Goofy and Max's repartee with each other. They had a lot of the personality traits they had in "A Goofy Movie". Max got easily embarrassed when his dad put him on the spot ("Like father like son" "Please don't say that.") But he still hyucked like his dad when he wasn't paying attention, like in the movie. Goofy kept interfering with Max's job to try to keep him from screwing up, but that just showed how much Goofy cared about his son.

And the penguins were funny supporting characters. Subtley, they got as much spotlight as Max did, because of that scene with Minnie and the song the Goofs performed ("Soup or salad, fries or bisquit, extra olives, doughnuts..."). I loved the artwork for their "brought to you by" scene, which looked like painted storyboards. (Also, along with Aurora we got cameos from Barks/"Duck Tales" characters Scrooge and Gladstone.)

From Lee Suggs : I've decided I'm not fond of the Clarabelle Cow character. She was originally just an extra (in the early shorts) and she had no real personality. This episode features her as the HOM's Gossip Queen. Her gossip is a bit outdated, (Mickey and Minnie are dating, news when Herbert Hoover was President) so she promises to reveal a "big secret" that will prevent a popular "Toon" from ever working again. All of the HOM characters are very upset about this and begin telling Clarabelle their secrets, in order to beg here not to share them. (The best one is Chernobog admitting he is afraid of the dark.) I like the idea of this frame, but I guess I just don't like Clarabelle's voice or something. This episode featured a cartoon with (a non-speaking) Clarabelle.

The episode ends with Clarabelle deciding not to hurt anyone with all her "new" secrets, and instead she quits being a Gossip Queen. Of course this is just a way to save all her juicy gossip for her new book "Tales of the Toons", which is amusingly advertised at the end of the show. I have to say this episode had some great gags, and the new cartoon was fun. I just wish I could get used to the Cow's voice. Still....