Episodes 21-30:
21) TITLE: The Badtzpoleonic Wars
SYNOPSIS: A riveting account of the rise in power of Badtz-Maru, from military general to war conqueror, and eventually to Emperor of all of the playgrounds of Giant Park. Starting on his side of the playground, he begins planning for his conquests and training his group of Sanrio kids to be strong, tough-fighting soldiers. Then Badtzpoleon (as he later names himself) dressed up as Napoleon, leads his soldiers on a long and enduring conquest adventure, fighting kids in various playground lands, and conquering them, their playground, and their land. For every piece of land that they conquer, Badtzpoleon sticks a French flag with an outlined light blue/gray/light red image of himself on it on the land.
(I'll add more to this plot later as I come up with the second half of this story...)
NOTES:
---Badtz-Maru plays the famous French war general/emperor Napoleon, and Pandaba parallels Napoleon's wife (and later empress) Josephine. The story makes many references to the Napoleonic Wars.
-----------------------------------
22) TITLE: Penguin-Watching
SYNOPSIS: In a small forest area near a country club house, a group of ladies with binoculars and guidebooks are bird-watching. There are many different kinds of birds in the forest that the ladies are studying and admiring. While they are bird-watching, they do not notice that high up in one of the trees sit three kids who are watching over them---Badtz-Maru and his two cohorts Pandaba and Hana-Maru. Badtz-Maru doesn't see what all the hubbub is about with these birds that the ladies are fawning over. He knows that he is cuter and better than these other birds, and he wants to set out to prove that. But how? It soon hits him---he should have the ladies watch HIM! So he slides down the tree, and stars heading toward them in an area where they will notice him. He struts and poses about, showing himself off proudly. One of the ladies soon catches him through her binoculars, and is really surprised to see him! Who is he? What type of bird is he? And where did he come from? The lady alerts her friends about her find, and soon all of the ladies are studying and admiring Badtz- Maru! They are happy to have such a unique opportunity to find a penguin in the forest---and a cute one at that! Another of the ladies has been studying Badtz-Maru for some time, finding something very familiar about him. For a while she can't quite put her finger on it. But soon, it hits her---it's Badtz-Maru, the Sanrio character! She tells the other ladies about Badtz-Maru---how he's one of Hello Kitty's friends and from the same company as she is, and how she (the lady) recognized him because she has two nieces back in Virginia who are Sanrio fans, and collect a lot of merchandise---Badtz-Maru stuff included. After doing lots of posing and strutting about, Badtz-Maru finally approaches the ladies (at this time Pandaba and Hana-Maru follow up on him) and introduces himself and his cohorts to them. Then he explains to them his intentions of wanting to show them that he is cuter and better than all the other birds they were looking at---that's why he did what he did. The ladies laugh delightfully at this, finding Badtz-Maru's reasoning very cute. They tell him that they do indeed find him to be a very cute and handsome penguin, which of course is music to Badtz-Maru's ears (a full- blown symphony, to put it more accurately). The ladies then invite Badtz- Maru and his friends to lunch, which they agree upon very much. Badtz-Maru also offers many XO gifts to the ladies for liking him.
-----------------------------------
23) TITLE: Brethren Voyages
SYNOPSIS: A group of many Sanrio kids are in the library one day at the kids' section, reading books. At one table, Badtz-Maru and his two cohorts are reading their books. Pandaba is looking through a picture cookbook, Hana-Maru is reading a baby book on the color blue, and Badtz-Maru is reading a book on penguins. He is very intrigued and interested in all of the things he is learning, since he is a penguin himself. Since he is an intelligent, advanced penguin character with human personalities and characteristics, he doesn't know very much about his ancient, primitive penguin ancestors. At the end of the book is an ad for the video version of the penguin book. A grand idea soon brews in Badtz-Maru's head. He tells his cohorts that this grand idea of his is one that they will not be able to participate in...because they are not penguins. Badtz-Maru then goes over to the front desk, checks out the penguin book, and asks the librarian if they have the corresponding penguin video in the library. The librarian finds out they do, and gets the video for him. Badtz-Maru then goes over to other areas of the kids' section, finding Tuxedo Sam, (the Okigaru Penguin), and (I think there's one more mainline penguin character from Sanrio---I have to find out who that character is), and asking them to come with him to the film room. They watch the 45-min penguin video in the film room, and then Badtz-Maru reveals his grand idea to them: to travel to the South Pole and spend two weeks there living with their penguin ancestors. It would be a great opportunity for them to study and live their fellow brethren's primitive ways of life, and rediscover their penguin roots. The other Sanrio penguins really like this idea, and agree to go with Badtz- Maru on this ancestral journey. So they spend the next few days getting ready for their special journey (food, water, winter clothes, emergency medical supplies, a map of the South Pole, and other important tools and supplies). Badtz-Maru rents a mini-plane for the trip as well. When the special day comes, the group of Sanrio penguins load all their things into the mini-plane and fly down to the South Pole. They spend the next two weeks down there in the vast, frozen snow land with the primitive penguins, living like they do. It is a very moving and enriching experience for them.
NOTES:
---During the Sanrio penguins' interactions with the real-life penguins, a tribal type of music plays in the background, to emphasize the "primitive" atmosphere of these South Pole penguins.
---During the scenes where the Sanrio penguins go swimming underwater with the real-life penguins, the "Dire Dire Docks" theme from Super Mario 64 plays.
-----------------------------------
24) TITLE: The Dog Days of Leap Year
SYNOPSIS: Pochacco is a Leap Dog. His birthday is on February 29th---Leap Year Day. For this year, he and his Sanrio friends will get to celebrate his birthday on its actual day of February 29th---since this year is a leap year. As they wait for his special day to come, Pochacco shares with his friends (particularly Monkichi, the Twin Stars, and Purin because they were not there when the event happened) about the time that he didn't think his birthday was special at all (in fact he thought it was a curse!), because Badtz-Maru told him that he would only get one birthday every four years. As he shares his story, a flashback sequence begins. The core group of 11 Sanrio kids (mentioned in the INTRODUCTION page) are babies, and they are taken care of by Ume (an elderly Japanese woman Sanrio character) in Ume's daycare (the building is actually part daycare and part Umeya Zakkaten (that means "Umeya Variety Store" in Japanese)). Baby Pochacco is playing toys with Baby Keroppi, Baby Chococat, and Baby Pekkle. Baby Pochacco is talking excitedly about his upcoming birthday to them, because it will be his first birthday. Sitting near them, in their own group, is Baby Badtz- Maru and his two friends Baby Pandaba and Baby Hana-Maru. They are getting annoyed by all of Baby Pochacco's birthday hype. As Baby Badtz-Maru is bouncing his little ball, it accidentally slips away from him and rolls under a clothed table. As he crawls under the table to retrieve his ball, he overhears Ume talking quietly to a gardener in the hallway. He peeps his eyes out from underneath the cloth as Ume mentions to the gardener that she has hidden a bag of candy for Baby Pochacco's birthday in her stationery basket in the closet of her room. This perks Baby Badtz-Maru's "ears" up, and he quickly (but quietly, so as not to be heard) rushes back to his two friends and tells them about the hidden stash of candy. They wait for Ume and the gardener to leave, and then they secretly make their way over to Ume's bedroom. They go into her closet, open up her stationery basket, grab the bag of candy, and eat the contents delightfully. Baby Badtz-Maru wants to see if maybe there are other bags of candy hidden inside the basket. As he digs through the stuff in the basket, he finds a desk calendar. Baby Badtz-Maru can't read words yet, but he does know his alphabet. He sees that the title of the month on the calendar starts with "F." It must be the month of February that he's looking at! He looks at the very last day of February, expecting to find the number "2-9" in the upper right-hand corner of the box (since that's what Baby Pochacco's been telling everybody---that his birthday is on February "2-9," the last day of February). But instead, the last box reads "2-8." "2-8"? What? Where's the "2-9" box? It's not there! Wondering if maybe the people who made the calendar forgot to add the February "2-9" box, Baby Badtz-Maru sifts through the rest of the calendar pages until he comes to the calendar pages for the next three years (each year's page has all the 12 months compressed onto one page). He checks the February month for the next year...no February "2-9!" Then the February month for the year after that...no February "2-9!!" Then the February month for the year after that...and February "2-9" IS THERE! What?? Baby Badtz-Maru discusses his strange findings with his two cohorts. What in the world was going on? Perhaps the calendar people were getting very sloppy at making calendars. Or...perhaps Baby Pochacco wasn't going to have a birthday this year AT ALL! Maybe...for some weird reason...he was going to have to wait THREE MORE YEARS to turn only ONE year old!! This possibility delights Baby Badtz-Maru and his two cohorts a whole lot, and they waste no time in taunting Baby Pochacco with the news. Baby Pochacco and the other Sanrio kids cannot believe their ears at this news...what in the world was Baby Badtz-Maru talking about?! Baby Badtz-Maru shows the kids how he figured it out by showing them everything on the desk calendar. Baby Pochacco is extremely shocked, and it is hurting the other kids to see him so devastated...especially Baby Kitty and Baby Mimmy. The two sisters are wondering whether this isn't just another one of Baby Badtz-Maru's tricks. They decide to do their own investigation...a deeper investigation. They go into Ume's bedroom closet, dig through the stationery basket, find a thick calendar booklet that has the next 20 years in it, and go through it. Meanwhile, in the daycare, the kids are going through many speculations of why Baby Pochacco's birthday is the way it is. Baby Pochacco is wondering why Ume never told him about any of this. Baby Badtz-Maru teasingly replies that Ume just wants to be nice to him and not hurt his feelings with the truth about his birthday. So she pretends that he has a birthday every year, thinking that he will be too dumb to figure out the truth for himself. No way, Baby Pochacco thinks...Ume would never lie like that!
(Baahh...I have to leave for now. I'll finish this summary later.)
-----------------------------------
(More episodes coming soon...)
21) TITLE: The Badtzpoleonic Wars
SYNOPSIS: A riveting account of the rise in power of Badtz-Maru, from military general to war conqueror, and eventually to Emperor of all of the playgrounds of Giant Park. Starting on his side of the playground, he begins planning for his conquests and training his group of Sanrio kids to be strong, tough-fighting soldiers. Then Badtzpoleon (as he later names himself) dressed up as Napoleon, leads his soldiers on a long and enduring conquest adventure, fighting kids in various playground lands, and conquering them, their playground, and their land. For every piece of land that they conquer, Badtzpoleon sticks a French flag with an outlined light blue/gray/light red image of himself on it on the land.
(I'll add more to this plot later as I come up with the second half of this story...)
NOTES:
---Badtz-Maru plays the famous French war general/emperor Napoleon, and Pandaba parallels Napoleon's wife (and later empress) Josephine. The story makes many references to the Napoleonic Wars.
-----------------------------------
22) TITLE: Penguin-Watching
SYNOPSIS: In a small forest area near a country club house, a group of ladies with binoculars and guidebooks are bird-watching. There are many different kinds of birds in the forest that the ladies are studying and admiring. While they are bird-watching, they do not notice that high up in one of the trees sit three kids who are watching over them---Badtz-Maru and his two cohorts Pandaba and Hana-Maru. Badtz-Maru doesn't see what all the hubbub is about with these birds that the ladies are fawning over. He knows that he is cuter and better than these other birds, and he wants to set out to prove that. But how? It soon hits him---he should have the ladies watch HIM! So he slides down the tree, and stars heading toward them in an area where they will notice him. He struts and poses about, showing himself off proudly. One of the ladies soon catches him through her binoculars, and is really surprised to see him! Who is he? What type of bird is he? And where did he come from? The lady alerts her friends about her find, and soon all of the ladies are studying and admiring Badtz- Maru! They are happy to have such a unique opportunity to find a penguin in the forest---and a cute one at that! Another of the ladies has been studying Badtz-Maru for some time, finding something very familiar about him. For a while she can't quite put her finger on it. But soon, it hits her---it's Badtz-Maru, the Sanrio character! She tells the other ladies about Badtz-Maru---how he's one of Hello Kitty's friends and from the same company as she is, and how she (the lady) recognized him because she has two nieces back in Virginia who are Sanrio fans, and collect a lot of merchandise---Badtz-Maru stuff included. After doing lots of posing and strutting about, Badtz-Maru finally approaches the ladies (at this time Pandaba and Hana-Maru follow up on him) and introduces himself and his cohorts to them. Then he explains to them his intentions of wanting to show them that he is cuter and better than all the other birds they were looking at---that's why he did what he did. The ladies laugh delightfully at this, finding Badtz-Maru's reasoning very cute. They tell him that they do indeed find him to be a very cute and handsome penguin, which of course is music to Badtz-Maru's ears (a full- blown symphony, to put it more accurately). The ladies then invite Badtz- Maru and his friends to lunch, which they agree upon very much. Badtz-Maru also offers many XO gifts to the ladies for liking him.
-----------------------------------
23) TITLE: Brethren Voyages
SYNOPSIS: A group of many Sanrio kids are in the library one day at the kids' section, reading books. At one table, Badtz-Maru and his two cohorts are reading their books. Pandaba is looking through a picture cookbook, Hana-Maru is reading a baby book on the color blue, and Badtz-Maru is reading a book on penguins. He is very intrigued and interested in all of the things he is learning, since he is a penguin himself. Since he is an intelligent, advanced penguin character with human personalities and characteristics, he doesn't know very much about his ancient, primitive penguin ancestors. At the end of the book is an ad for the video version of the penguin book. A grand idea soon brews in Badtz-Maru's head. He tells his cohorts that this grand idea of his is one that they will not be able to participate in...because they are not penguins. Badtz-Maru then goes over to the front desk, checks out the penguin book, and asks the librarian if they have the corresponding penguin video in the library. The librarian finds out they do, and gets the video for him. Badtz-Maru then goes over to other areas of the kids' section, finding Tuxedo Sam, (the Okigaru Penguin), and (I think there's one more mainline penguin character from Sanrio---I have to find out who that character is), and asking them to come with him to the film room. They watch the 45-min penguin video in the film room, and then Badtz-Maru reveals his grand idea to them: to travel to the South Pole and spend two weeks there living with their penguin ancestors. It would be a great opportunity for them to study and live their fellow brethren's primitive ways of life, and rediscover their penguin roots. The other Sanrio penguins really like this idea, and agree to go with Badtz- Maru on this ancestral journey. So they spend the next few days getting ready for their special journey (food, water, winter clothes, emergency medical supplies, a map of the South Pole, and other important tools and supplies). Badtz-Maru rents a mini-plane for the trip as well. When the special day comes, the group of Sanrio penguins load all their things into the mini-plane and fly down to the South Pole. They spend the next two weeks down there in the vast, frozen snow land with the primitive penguins, living like they do. It is a very moving and enriching experience for them.
NOTES:
---During the Sanrio penguins' interactions with the real-life penguins, a tribal type of music plays in the background, to emphasize the "primitive" atmosphere of these South Pole penguins.
---During the scenes where the Sanrio penguins go swimming underwater with the real-life penguins, the "Dire Dire Docks" theme from Super Mario 64 plays.
-----------------------------------
24) TITLE: The Dog Days of Leap Year
SYNOPSIS: Pochacco is a Leap Dog. His birthday is on February 29th---Leap Year Day. For this year, he and his Sanrio friends will get to celebrate his birthday on its actual day of February 29th---since this year is a leap year. As they wait for his special day to come, Pochacco shares with his friends (particularly Monkichi, the Twin Stars, and Purin because they were not there when the event happened) about the time that he didn't think his birthday was special at all (in fact he thought it was a curse!), because Badtz-Maru told him that he would only get one birthday every four years. As he shares his story, a flashback sequence begins. The core group of 11 Sanrio kids (mentioned in the INTRODUCTION page) are babies, and they are taken care of by Ume (an elderly Japanese woman Sanrio character) in Ume's daycare (the building is actually part daycare and part Umeya Zakkaten (that means "Umeya Variety Store" in Japanese)). Baby Pochacco is playing toys with Baby Keroppi, Baby Chococat, and Baby Pekkle. Baby Pochacco is talking excitedly about his upcoming birthday to them, because it will be his first birthday. Sitting near them, in their own group, is Baby Badtz- Maru and his two friends Baby Pandaba and Baby Hana-Maru. They are getting annoyed by all of Baby Pochacco's birthday hype. As Baby Badtz-Maru is bouncing his little ball, it accidentally slips away from him and rolls under a clothed table. As he crawls under the table to retrieve his ball, he overhears Ume talking quietly to a gardener in the hallway. He peeps his eyes out from underneath the cloth as Ume mentions to the gardener that she has hidden a bag of candy for Baby Pochacco's birthday in her stationery basket in the closet of her room. This perks Baby Badtz-Maru's "ears" up, and he quickly (but quietly, so as not to be heard) rushes back to his two friends and tells them about the hidden stash of candy. They wait for Ume and the gardener to leave, and then they secretly make their way over to Ume's bedroom. They go into her closet, open up her stationery basket, grab the bag of candy, and eat the contents delightfully. Baby Badtz-Maru wants to see if maybe there are other bags of candy hidden inside the basket. As he digs through the stuff in the basket, he finds a desk calendar. Baby Badtz-Maru can't read words yet, but he does know his alphabet. He sees that the title of the month on the calendar starts with "F." It must be the month of February that he's looking at! He looks at the very last day of February, expecting to find the number "2-9" in the upper right-hand corner of the box (since that's what Baby Pochacco's been telling everybody---that his birthday is on February "2-9," the last day of February). But instead, the last box reads "2-8." "2-8"? What? Where's the "2-9" box? It's not there! Wondering if maybe the people who made the calendar forgot to add the February "2-9" box, Baby Badtz-Maru sifts through the rest of the calendar pages until he comes to the calendar pages for the next three years (each year's page has all the 12 months compressed onto one page). He checks the February month for the next year...no February "2-9!" Then the February month for the year after that...no February "2-9!!" Then the February month for the year after that...and February "2-9" IS THERE! What?? Baby Badtz-Maru discusses his strange findings with his two cohorts. What in the world was going on? Perhaps the calendar people were getting very sloppy at making calendars. Or...perhaps Baby Pochacco wasn't going to have a birthday this year AT ALL! Maybe...for some weird reason...he was going to have to wait THREE MORE YEARS to turn only ONE year old!! This possibility delights Baby Badtz-Maru and his two cohorts a whole lot, and they waste no time in taunting Baby Pochacco with the news. Baby Pochacco and the other Sanrio kids cannot believe their ears at this news...what in the world was Baby Badtz-Maru talking about?! Baby Badtz-Maru shows the kids how he figured it out by showing them everything on the desk calendar. Baby Pochacco is extremely shocked, and it is hurting the other kids to see him so devastated...especially Baby Kitty and Baby Mimmy. The two sisters are wondering whether this isn't just another one of Baby Badtz-Maru's tricks. They decide to do their own investigation...a deeper investigation. They go into Ume's bedroom closet, dig through the stationery basket, find a thick calendar booklet that has the next 20 years in it, and go through it. Meanwhile, in the daycare, the kids are going through many speculations of why Baby Pochacco's birthday is the way it is. Baby Pochacco is wondering why Ume never told him about any of this. Baby Badtz-Maru teasingly replies that Ume just wants to be nice to him and not hurt his feelings with the truth about his birthday. So she pretends that he has a birthday every year, thinking that he will be too dumb to figure out the truth for himself. No way, Baby Pochacco thinks...Ume would never lie like that!
(Baahh...I have to leave for now. I'll finish this summary later.)
-----------------------------------
(More episodes coming soon...)