August 2019

Posted: 9 August 2019

Planet Sheen / Nickelodeon / 2010-2013

Watched from: 13 May 2019 to 29 May 2019

Here it is…the long-awaited Planet Sheen review. This review’s been a thorn in my side for too long. This post is what it is.

After watching Jimmy Neutron, I decided to give its inferior spin-off a chance. I watched Planet Sheen so you don’t have to.

I watched some eps when it came out in 2010. They were meh. At times I ask myself why was this show conceived? Of all the Jimmy Neutron characters, why was it Sheen who got the spin-off? Heck, why was it Cleveland (Family Guy) who got the spin-off (I think The Cleveland Show is fine even though I haven’t seen it in years)?

A Quote from Me

After recently watching the pilot:

“OK, so Sheen’s stuck on a planet, he can’t write his grandma, so here we go…TO THE WARM PLACE!”

—Vic, 2019

The more I watch…Aw Crap!

The episodes aren’t as bad as people think. The more I watched, the more the show slightly grew on me. They probably have trouble getting past the pilot or episode 1. Sure there were some times when the writing could potentially shine but they decided to cut corners. When there was a “song,” it was always a rap. The episodes and character guides on the internet aren’t all that content-rich either. Perhaps written by people who haven’t seen the episodes in their entirety. 

Basic Thoughts (mainly the bad and ugly)

Allow these thoughts to be mostly negative in this section. As you may know, by the time “Sheen” came around, DNA Productions was bankrupt so C.O.R.E. Digital Pictures and Bardel Entertainment (both Canadian studios) performed the animation services. Comparing a still scene from Jimmy Neutron and Planet Sheen side-by-side, it seems that the animation is more sophisticated in the latter show. Jimmy Neutron is older and, of course, has older animation but is still very classic. What is inferior to Jimmy Neutron is the boring/annoying transitions (“boing-da boing-da monkey-monkey boing!” (or something like that) (What?)) and boring credit sequences (obviously no moving neutron animation and plain black background/white text credits). 

Thoughts on Characters

What makes up for all the bland stories on this show are the characters. There are some characters that I like. I like the intelligent Mr. Nesmith who wears a beanie like Monkee Mike Nesmith. There’s also Aseefa who has pretty blue hair (I like blue) and yodels (not annoying at all; inspired me to follow YouTube yodeling tutorials to learn to yodel). There’s something about the protagonist, Dorkus, that I really like. It’s probably because he can mix potions and he has a deep voice reminiscent of Johnny Bravo (because they’re both played by Jeff Bennett). Why did they have to make Doppy look like Carl Weezer from Jimmy Neutron? Folks have their theories but…it’s just what the writers decided. My least favorite characters are Princess Oom (her two faces are so annoying/disturbing to me and let’s not forget “Oh Sheeny, Sheeny-Weeny!” Seriously?) and that purple pony guy from one of the episodes (I forget his name). They make the show less watchable the more they are on it. Lastly, throughout the series, some characters were cross-dressing on certain occasions. Interestingly enough, they looked good in the opposite gender’s clothing.

What Do I Think?

This show is honestly mindless trash but still palatable. If I had to watch it again I could but probably not for long periods at a time. This show gets 2 stars. Not the best show Nickelodeon put out during an era of middling shows but this show looks phenomenal on my new HDTV. Such eye candy but not always the best content-wise.

This review was not the easiest to write. I liked the idea of the show but I’d much rather forget it exists. It was mostly empty air space to me. Time to move on…