Pokemon S01E25 Review: The Road Runner Show

Pokemon, Season 1, Episode 25: Don't Get Angry, Primeape / Primeape Goes Bananas

This episode is kind of a filler-y episode since it honestly just feels like it comes and goes, being pretty unremarkable other than the Primeape spotlight. We get Ash calling Oak on his huge mansion, which has a gigantic backyard with many Pokemon (presumably belonging to Gary and the other Pallet trainers) wandering around. Ash calls Oak and shows off his four badges, but Oak remarks that everyone else already have five badges, having left the fifth town, Celadon City, and having much, much more than what Ash has. It's kind of unfair considering the fact that Gary has a fucking car and Ash has to walk everywhere, though.

Of course, this prologue only really functions to get Ash be obsessed with catching a Pokemon, and the target for this episode ends up becoming a Mankey that wanders to eat one of Brock's rice balls. Ash's attempts to catch Mankey ends up enraging the little pig monkey monster, causing it to attack Ash and eventually steal his hat... and then we get an adorable moment where Mankey mimics Ash's silly stock footage pose of spinning his hat backwards. Ash gives us a pretty long backstory for his hat, how it's an official Pokemon League limited edition cap that he sent in a thousand (a million in the dub) postcards to get... if it's so valuable, why the hell would you carry it with you through this dangerous and perilous journey, you fool!

Team Rocket shows up to do their usual Pikachu-abducting scheme, but a very curious and happy Mankey investigates them, causing James to punt Mankey, causing it to get so angry that it evolves into Primeape. Does James' foot have some sort of rage-evolution inducing properties? It's the second time that a Pokemon he kicked have evolved into a rage monster.

Primeape is an angry, angry monster, and Primeape straight-up throws Jessie face-first into a rock, causing Team Rocket to change their targets to teach Primeape a lesson. And the subsequent chunk of the episode is just them trying to capture and also run away from Primeape at the same time. It's... it's actually kind of fun, for what it is, with highlights of this including Pikachu's completely terrified sequence as he tries to try and not make eye contact with Primeape, as well as Brock telling everyone that, oh, Primeape's just like a kid looking for attention, only to get beaten the shit up by Primeape anyway. Then we get this pretty fun sequence of Road Runner style comedy as Primeape chases Ash and Misty, Team Rocket chases them, and then Brock and a separated Misty chases after them. Pitfalls are involved at one point.

Ash eventually gets serious, gives a speech about how he's going to be a master yadda yadda, and just pulls out all of the stops -- which is just his starter trio, because Pidgeotto who? Squirtle's water gun doesn't work, and Bulbasaur's razor leaf bounces off him, but turns out it's Charmander that ends up beating down Primeape, using the move Rage to increase his attack's damage while it's being injured. Pikachu rescues the hat before Charmander unleashes flamethrower, and Ash captures Primeape! Primape is sicced on Team Rocket to send them blasting off again, before it shows that it's still as angry as ever by punching Ash in the face. It still obeys Ash enough to get sucked in the ball, though, and our heroes finally reach Celadon City!

Anyway... I tend to treat most filler episodes with "it's entertaining but ultimately throwaway" disdain, but I did enjoy myself through this one. The plot's simple, and I wonder if these filler epiodes would've worked better if it just starred a Pokemon-of-the-week instead of under-developed characters of the week. Primeape is the next "sixth ranger" Pokemon, I guess, to rotate in and out of Ash's party after Butterfree left, although he's not really going to stay with us for too long.  

Pokemon Index:

• Pokemon: Slowpoke, Poliwhirl, Poliwag, Dordio, Bellsprout, Krabby, Pikachu, Mankey, Meowth, Charizard, Blastoise, Primeape, Ekans, Koffing, Squirtle, Bulbasaur, Charmander
• Humans: Ash, Misty, Brock, James, Jessie

Assorted Notes: 

• It's something that's mostly cut out or ignored in the dub, but this is the very first appearance of Professor Oak and his obsession with making Pokemon-themed haikus. I forgot if it was in the Johto or Hoenn season, but one of those has an after-credits sequence of Oak making haikus. 
• The writing in the Pokemon League advertisement has an erroneous romanization of Pokemon as "Pockemon".
• Since Ash only had five Pokemon between releasing Butterfree and capturing Primeape, did he just plain forget about Krabby? 
• Oak says that Gary already has "30 Pokemon" in this episode, but in the lighthouse episode, didn't he say that Gary has like 45 or something? 
• So how did Primeape get straight into fully-healthy condition to pound Team Rocket when it's pretty damn beat up by Charmander? 
• Dub Changes:
• Team Rocket first refers to Ash's group as 'twerps' in this episode! It would continue to be a dub-exclusive little running gag. 
• The start of the dub's pretty embarrassing choice to call rice balls as 'jelly donuts'. Like, call them rice balls or sushi if you don't want to use the term onigiri, but donuts is just a pretty stupid substitution to call them, honestly.