This post was last modified: Jan 27, 2020 at 11:13 PM by Stirling.

Original air date:
February 8, 1999

Ah, yes, a small penis gag to start off the episode and then a prune visual gag over Dilbert's naked body. We REALLY get a lot of naked Dilbert in this show.

Characters:

There's a Xena, warrior princess reference character this episode focuses on and we have it literally explained to us - great for you zoomers out there, but it kills the entire joke of the name. The tough antagonist Lena has an accent of vaguely eastern european who is willing to kill her opposition in the company and literally bags their heads for lunch and has an SS derivative team logo. Wally is established very much as the utter loser who sees what oppurtunities he can to avoid accomplishing work, which is slightly more incompetent than his comic counterpart being deeply jaded and thus wanting to game the system, from my memory of reading the comics at least. My favourite character is introduced: the philosophical garbage man. His technically-correct, concerned, very intelligent, and totally flat tone sells the existence of someone like that while also being plenty amusing. Alice is set as the mean, by legitimately intelligent character she is in one of my favourite parts of the episode regarding the poem.


Humour:

A good bit of the little gags fell flat for me on this episode; either disconnected temporally (women want to lose weight) or legitimately not understood by me (albany is cold) or just basic "Dilbert is a supernerd" type content. I really didn't understand the whole Nazi reference this episode had going for it when I was a kid, and I think I could only have enjoyed it for a few years before the whole alt-right movement but after I learned about Hitler more solidly. You may have different views on it, but it really feels dated and naive as all sin. The whole "nerd enamoured with a danger" is also not handled interestingly, though pretty well performed by the VA of Dilbert - especially when he has chills. This show had the talking severed heads just months before Futurama did, and as a building gag it didn't really clench until there was a decapitate button on the titular object that I noticed before its use by Alice later.


Likely a good mass appeal episode, but really uninteresting and while not a slog - the show never sits on one poor joke too long - I really don't want to watch this episode ever again.


Favourite joke:

Tied between Dilbert's tie is his dick and Deluxe editioning.

We REALLY get a lot of naked Dilbert in this show.

do you really want it any other way?

i liked this review more than yesterday's. and yeah, i think wally is pretty flanderized, but i think utter loser wally is funnier for a cartoon so its acceptable. and now that you mention it, this show does remind me of futurama in a lot of ways

Much improved review, you're doing good now. Funnily enough I've barely read any of the real strips so the show is my only lens into the characters, interesting to see that they changed at least one.