atomius
I usually welcome another to the great tribe of time travel shows, but this one is failing a few essential initiation rituals! Firstly, to the plot. Three boys and -surprise- their granddaughters, also three, go through time (and although it seems unmentioned that much, space as well) to distinct and extremely stereotyped locations and settings, filled with equally exxagerated cartoon characters. It seems the producers will never learn that both quantity and quality are needed in a good cartoon. What made the early animated films so great was their ability to entertain in amazing manners. Now that we are all over the fact that cartoons can turn invisible by removing a sheet, i think it's time we got some good quality, yet entertaining shows. Unfortunately this one is neither. Lacking not only in any historical accuracy that would pass as real in a four year old forger's market, or the futuristic glorious visions of Futurama, it is very barren indeed, kept alive by the life support system known as weak humour. In an age where meeting one's own grandchildren at our age isn't really that huge a thing, perhaps we should try to make the show a little better and go for the authenticity target next time?- three stars only because of effort, and i say this picturing a dog rolling over.
margreta4
Time Warp Trio Episode Guide Season OneEpisode One: 2105 A class trip to the Natural History Museum ends up zapping the guys one hundred years into the future. The Trio run into ray gun-toting robots and meet three mysterious girls who turn out to be their own great-granddaughters! Episode Two: You Can't, but Genghis Khan Fred, Joe and Sam travel back to experience life and culture in Mongolia, circa 1220. Their partner in adventure is 9-year-old Temüjin the future Genghis Khan. Can the boys survive another meal of mutton?Episode Three: Tut Tut The Trio accidentally warps to ancient Egypt where they meet the young Pharoah Thutmose and thanks to his evil minister Hatsnat get a little too up close and personal with the mummification process.Episode Four: Sam Samurai An accidental haiku sends Sam, Joe and Fred back to the beginnings of the Tokugawa Shogunate, in 1600 Japan. Swords, samurai, and poetry contests challenge their talents.Episode Five: See You Later, Gladiator! The Book transports Joe, Sam, and Fred back to ancient Rome A.D. 120 and face-to-face with one big ol' Gladiator. They've seen plenty of professional wrestling on TV but will the smackdown body slam be enough to save them at the Coliseum?Episode Six: Lewis and Clark...and Jodie, Freddi, and Samantha The girls' wish for a camping trip transports them back to join Lewis and Clark on the first U.S. overland expedition to the Pacific Coast. Even with Sacagawea's help, will Jodie, Samantha and Freddi survive life in the snow-covered, bear-populated great outdoors?Episode Seven: Viking It and Liking It The boys want to play Vikings Football Smashfest, but instead find themselves in A.D. 1001 with a bunch of real Vikings! It's one wild ride with Leif Ericson as they sail on his voyage of discovery to North America.Episode Eight: Hey Kid, Want to Buy a Bridge? There's no place like home a hundred years ago?! Joe, Fred and Sam warp back to the brawling, sprawling city of New York at the end of the 19th century to witness the building of the Brooklyn Bridge and help to inspire Thomas Edison in his Menlo Park lab.Episode Nine: Me Oh Maya A basketball game gets interrupted and the boys find themselves in Chichen Itza, Mexico in the middle of a Maya ringball court a thousand years ago! Of course in this game, the stakes are a little higher because if they lose, they lose their heads!Episode Ten: The Good, the Bad, and the Goofy The Trio discovers the hard way that life in the Old West is nothing like a cowboy movie. They need all of their tricks and wits to survive a stampede, a band of Cheyenne, and a full-blown charge of Custer's Seventh Cavalry.Episode Eleven: Able Was I Ere I Saw Elba Fred finds out firsthand what it means to have a "Napoleon Complex" when he and Joe warp back to 1815 Paris and meet Napoleon Bonaparte. Luckily, Samantha is also there with pioneering aeronaut Sophie Blanchard, and the three of them experience the ride of their lives.Episode Twelve: The Seven Blunders of the World Joe, Fred and Sam warp to Babylon to figure out who stole The Book and meet King Nebuchadnezzar II and Queen Amyitis, the creators of the Famous Hanging Gardens. Can they recover the book before all of Babylon is destroyed, and Joe's evil uncle Mad Jack takes over the world?Episode Thirteen: Jinga All the Way Jodie, Sam and Fred land in 17th century Angola and encounter African royalty, customs and treachery! They join the fierce Queen Jinga and battle warring tribes in a trek along the Kwanza River on their way to a historic meeting with the Portuguese governor.
jonathan_k80
My favorite film genre is time travel, so I don't know if I can write an objective review of this series. What I will say is I think this show is great.Based on the Time Warp Trio book series by Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith, the adventures center around Joe, a magician wannabe and his friends Fred, the sports fanatic, and Sam, a timid intellectual. On his tenth birthday, Joe receives an unusual book from an enigmatic uncle. The book, which is known simply as "The Book," turns out to be a time-travel device. The boys don't really understand how The Book works, the result of which is that they can find themselves anywhere in time, past or future.This is where the "educational" aspect of the show kicks in. The boys always encounter some historical figure, whom they help out while trying to locate The Book and get back home. Enough facts are inserted into the story to make this a fun history lesson.POSSIBLE SPOILERSJoe, Fred and Sam do not appear together in all of the episodes. The Trio could actually be described as a Septet. They are sometimes accompanied by their future great-granddaughters: Jodie, the complainer and heir to The Book, Freddi, the worrywart, and Samantha, the eccentric one. Joe's younger sister Anna, who might just know more about The Book than anyone, pops in on occasion. The episodes can contain any combination of these seven characters.END OF POSSIBLE SPOILERSProduction-wise, the show combines limited-animation characters with computer-generated effects over sometimes detailed backgrounds. The theme song by punk band Riddlin' Kids is catchy and infectious. The dialog is witty and includes enough "gross-out" humor to appeal to a wide range of viewers. One flaw I noticed is that the historical facts are not always accurate; one example is the episode with Leonardo Da Vinci: his grocery list from 1503 includes tomatoes, a New World plant not cultivated in Europe until the 1540's.In my opinion, the strongest point of Time Warp Trio is in the selection of historic personages. A figure from any era or continent may be featured. It is refreshing to learn new facts about rarely-mentioned Asian, African, South Pacific or pre-Columbian American cultures.If you like history, time travel and clever banter, most likely you will enjoy Time Warp Trio. You'll laugh. You'll learn.