Animation Monday: Wander Over Yonder

By Nathan Young on August 19, 2013

Time to talk about another great animated show that premiered on Disney Channel after the special Phineas and Ferb: Mission Marvel event! Wander Over Yonder is created by Craig McCracken, the creative mind behind The Powerpuff Girls and Foster’s Home For Imaginary Friends. Also, wife Lauren Faust, the creative mind behind My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, serves as co-producer and story editor. To be honest, I knew how Mission Marvel would turn out and I was much more interested to see this new show! Here is the intro to Wander Over Yonder, the intro has a lot of fast paced music which I kind of like!

The preview episode was titled The Picnic. And Wander (voiced by Jack McBrayer) did everything he could to annoy the evil Lord Hater. The episode had Lord Hater and his army of Watchdogs battling Emperor Awesome for the ultimate cosmic power. While Lord Hater was preparing for battle with his annoying speech, Wander was yelling at him to invite Lord Hater to a picnic, how sweet! The breaks in the speech having Wander yelling at Lord Hater was perfect, Wander does have some great smiles by the way! Wander’s pal Sylvia was in the bathroom during the entire episode as Zbornak’s only go to the bathroom every five months, yep, don’t go blabbing to everyone Wander.

Wander was never focused on the battle between Lord Hater and Emperor Awesome, in fact Wander was sitting on the sidelines enjoying his picnic. During the battle, I enjoyed the battle scenes and the music that featured the lyrics “let’s get awesome!” In fact at times, Lord Hater was focused on Wander who was carefully going down the hill to get the perfect picnic spot. Lord Hater was hoping that Wander would undo the latch to open the picnic basket, but it was a struggle. The battle featured human hands fighting eyeballs, yep, human hands fighting eyeballs. Meanwhile, Wander was using his camera to document the battle while enjoying his picnic!

Wander even offered Lord Hater a sandwich with mustard or mayo, which drove him crazy. I wondered if Wander was acting the way he did to help Emperor Awesome win against Lord Hater. When Lord Hater put up his force field, Wander was stuck inside the force field with Lord Hater while eating and spitting popcorn at Lord Hater. When Lord Hater’s sidekick Peepers and Wander traded some talk with a force field in between them, that was genius! No, Peepers does not want popcorn, he wants Lord Hater to have galactic domination! Eventually, Lord Hater gets tired of Wander’s crazy shenanigans, and the chase begins to destroy Wander!

Wander finds the perfect spot to watch the planets align, and when Wander reminds Lord Hater that Emperor Awesome, who is a shark, is about to receive a special cosmic power, a perfect slow motion chase to stop the emperor begins! Yep, Lord Hater punches the dinosaur and Emperor Awesome out to another galaxy and he gloats his victory! When the portal opens up to grant Lord Hater his one wish, Wander continues to annoy Lord Hater and the wish is to have Wander leave Lord Hater alone for five seconds. Yep, the portal featuring a voice of a dude from the 1970’s closes up and Wander is frozen and unfrozen five seconds later. Too bad Lord Hater, you will have to wait 1000 years before you can get another wish! Having Peepers count down the time before Wander is unfrozen was funny!

Lord Hater and Peepers have a horrible photo taken by Wander which annoys their eyes, and Sylvia finally comes out of the bathroom. Wander did take some great photos! I also liked the ending credits which shows the viewers the storyboards/animatic and first drafts before everything is animated. Remember kids, it takes a lot of work and time to make a cartoon! Yes, the episode did not reveal the characters too much but the animation and visuals were great! The show featured some cool space background designs and it did have some goofy comedy. Wander would be someone anyone would love to hangout with if he was real!

This show is not your average good guy fighting bad guy scenario. The show features Wander, who uses goofy antics to stop Lord Hater and yes, the pair has some good chemistry. You will find Wander Over Yonder as a very funny show with great animation, a great voice cast, and plenty of laughter. I was smiling and laughing all throughout the first episode. Some people are worried about the show after one episode because yes, the first episode almost had one joke happening throughout the entire episode. But don’t judge the show after one episode. I think Wander Over Yonder is going to do great for Disney! I look forward to seeing more episodes!

Images copyright from Disney Channel