House of Mouse : Season 2 Episode 11
"King Larry Swings In"

Air Date February 16, 2002

Synopsis

When King Louie's brother "Larry" visits the House of Mouse he wreaks havoc, but the rules about royalty give him diplomatic immunity.(Includes " I Wanna Be Like You" performed by King Larry.)

Shorts Shown

Mickey and the Seal

Goofy's Extreme Sports : Paracycling

How to Be a Gentleman

Comments

From Lee Suggs : Mickey swings into the House of Mouse with his own "Tarzan" yell. He then announces that tonight King "Larry" will be his special guest. (I'm not sure why King LOUIE's name was changed to Larry. The HOM's explanation is that King Larry is King Louie's twin brother!?) Meanwhile Minnie is backstage preparing everyone for the Royal Visit. She reminds everyone to be careful since they don't want another international incident. (Her statement cues Donald flashing back to an unfortunate incident involving an infant Simba, Pride Rock, and a clumsy Duck.) Just as Minnie finishes King Larry appears and very quickly manages to insult and abuse everyone in the room. It seems he only cares about meeting Mickey and everyone else can just get out of his way. (Seems like kind of a rude monkey.) Mickey, meanwhile, is introducing the first cartoon:

We return to the House of Mouse where King Larry is wreaking havoc. He trashes the musical act, (the Vultures from Jungle Book in fine voice ) messes up Horace's control room, and generally makes a nuisance of himself. Mickey decides to have a talk with Larry while everyone watches the next cartoon:

Mickey has a talk with Larry, and decides to show him anyone can reform. Larry is a reformed monkey, but as Mickey says "it's too little too late." The Vultures fly the coop, (or is it the House? ) and it looks like the show won't go on. (Everyone remembers what happens then?) However, Larry comes up for an idea for an act. This cues what's become the best feature of the House of Mouse: the musical numbers. This particular number has all kinds of Jungle Book and Classic Mickey references. (Larry bowing to a South Asian Mickey Statue, Larry as Steamboat Willie, Spider Monkeys as backup singers, etc.) You can hear the tune on the House of Mouse CD, but the video makes a fun song, hilarious! We end this episode with an ad for "Rafiki's Royal Treatment" for those who "can't wait to be King". (Don't miss the string of sight gags using Rafaki's upraised arms pose.) Despite the usual absence of new cartoons; I enjoyed this episode and I think the House of Mouse material just gets better and better.

From Juan F. Lara : The twin brother of King Louie, who looks exactly like him? Who sings Louie's song and has his mannerisms (sort of), but is NOT King Louie? What was the point of creating this character? Actually I suspect that some legal issue kept them from using King Louie himself, but I don't know for sure. If it was a legal problem this way they got around it was bizarre to watch.

Louie or Larry, this episode was terrible. King Larry wasn't funny, he was rotten and stupid. His monkeying around caused nothing but destruction, and the script made a big deal of how ticked off the staff members got with Larry. (In the case of the vultures he outright started a fight with them.)It's no fun seeing someone act so hurtful to the people around him.

I did like the song, though, or at least Larry's parts of it. Larry's curious hero worship of Mickey is the one interesting quality trait about him. For that they came up with funny lyrics for Larry, and I loved that Mickey idol he worshipped. Mickey's part of the duet didn't work as well, though.