Cows, pigs, chickens, ferrets. What do all of these have in common? Why, “Back at the Barnyard,” of course! “Back at the Barnyard” is one of those shows that I forget about, and it feels like every time I see it, it feels like deja vu. It seems that a lot of older 3D-animated Nickelodeon cartoons do that to me. This ‘old’ TV show first came out as a 2006 movie titled “Barnyard,” and later turned into a series. The series ran from 2007-2011 with two seasons in total. Well, this cartoon about farm animals is no petting zoo. These guys go on some weird and crazy adventures while their farmer is away.
To make things easy, I’ll use the first episode to prove my point: “The Good the Bad, and the Snotty.” Starting off the episode, it looks like the story starts right away, but it turns out to be the title theme explaining what goes on every time the farmer leaves. It shows clips from episodes to show the chaos these barn animals go through with a country-style song. I’m not a big fan of country, but it’s a catchy theme song.
Starting the episode, Otis, the main cow, is yelling at some of the other barn animals to make sure that everything is ready for their plan to get the farmer away. After gathering everything up, they wake the farmer and air a commercial on his TV. The commercial shows Otis in a straw hat and a straw mustache, telling their farmer to go to Turnip Con, along with the turnip queen, the world’s ugliest turnip, and “registered trademark Tippy the turnip to tell [him] how to get there.”
He finally leaves and all the animals celebrate that the plan worked. Now for the birthday party for Otis, the reason they sent him away. Except, someone else arrives to later ruin their fun.
In the next scene, the main antagonist, Eugene, gets sent to take care of the farmer’s animals while he is away. This ruins the animals’ plans for the best party ever. Eugene comes in with a duffel bag of spicy pizza and calls them “Stupid Stinkies.” The animals freak out as it’s too hot for them, so the kid hoses them down with freezing-cold water. Otis and the gang start shivering, because of course they would. Eugene then covers them in glue to let them “[huddle] together for warmth.” After this, he runs away after calling them “stupid stinkies” again, and the animals eventually break free from each other. Everyone other than Otis gets mad at him for making the farmer go away, because if he didn’t, the kid wouldn’t have been there causing trouble, but Otis comes up with a plan to get rid of him. I have a little pet peeve with the animals in this show, because they have gotten mad at Otis and then he fixes it and they get mad at him and it repeats. Otis didn’t do anything wrong, except for tricking the farmer. He didn’t know that the farmer would get someone to watch the farm. They have gotten mad at him, like, 3 times in this whole episode and forgive him a second later.
Next, Eugene is shown sleeping on the farmer’s chair and notices a corndog that got thrown through the open window. He chases it and ends up in the dark barn where they get hens to shoot their eggs at him and drop honey on the ground, which causes him to slip and fall into mousetraps. After that, he gets hit by a wagon and is wheeled out of the barn and launched into a hay bale maker. Again, the corndog shows up, but this time it’s on a catapult which he bounces over to, only to get launched once again. I think that the animation of the bouncing is really funny. The old 3D animation style is so hilarious to me, because of how the characters move and just how it looks.
The animals celebrate their victory with the continuation of the party after getting mad at Otis and forgiving him right away. After the party gets started, the farmer comes back and wonders what was going on. However, he gets distracted by the leftover corn dog and gets launched, too. The ending of the episode finishes with Eugene’s aunt trying to get him out of the hay bale with tongs, while his uncle attempts to get him out with a chainsaw.
To be honest, I completely forgot about this show, but I remembered how funny it is when I came back to it. Yes, of course, some things will make you roll your eyes, but sometimes it’s so unfunny that it’s funny. Anyway, I love this show and all of the characters’ antics and, well, I’m going to watch the movie, now.