Chowder Satire

Chowder is a show that challenges topics and subjects that people can relate to. The animated cartoon was created by C.H Greenblatt and was aired on Cartoon Network. The show aired from November 2, 2007 to August 7, 2010, and had 49 episodes. The show was critically acclaimed as a fresh breath of air for Cartoon Network and is one of the many fan favorites on the network still to this day. The show is centered on Chowder a purple cat-bear-rabbit who the audience follow on his daily adventures as the apprentice chef in Mung Daal’s kitchen. The creators of the cartoon use animation to challenge topics that people can relate to. Each Episode tells a story and for the most part ends with a message for the audience to take in or learn from. The

creators of the show enhance this audience interaction by incorporating fourth wall breaks in some of the episodes. A fourth wall break in simple terms is the act of someone or something in a show talking to or referencing the audience. Many cartoons and shows use this tactic to allow the audience to be more engaged into what they are watching. For example in the first episode of Chowder which introduces us to the main characters of Mung, Schnitzel, and Truffles, Chowder has made the kitchen a mess where Mung tells Schnitzel to clean all of the mess up. He grabs the entire kitchen background and shakes it which cleans everything. The show does these fourth wall breaks frequently in most episodes. This particular break relate to Kids because the Character of Schnitzel is grumpy when he has to do something like manual labor. Kids don’t like doing chores such as cleaning. Seeing as taking the entire kitchen background and cleaning it is impossible in real life this allows children and maybe even adults to relate to this because people strive for faster ways of cleaning. Another fourth wall break is in the next episode where the gang of Mung Daal’s kitchen are preparing a wedding cake. Mung tells everyone that the cake will take sometime to be prepared. Chowder gets impatient and doesn’t want to wait for the cake to be finish so he hops out of the scene and spins the screen until the cake is finished. This relates to the last fourth wall break as it also has to do with wanting something to go faster. The satire in Chowder ranges from Showing Human Weakness to Dramatic Irony and Parodies of popular events or things. The setting the show is set in is called Marzipan City. Marzipan City is based off the creators experiences in New York City.

The buildings that are present in the city are influenced from Indian Architecture. Most of the food names in Marzipan City are parodies of foods that currently exist in the real world such as Clabbage Cobbler which is a parody of Cabbage Cobbler or Thrice Cream which is obvious parody of Ice Cream. The show just doesn’t parody food names it also parodies popular media such as in episode Ep 24 of the first season Chowder is seen getting measured by two familiar video game characters. These characters would be Mario and Luigi from the Super Mario series of video games. Another popular media that is parodied in Chowder is Sniffleball which is a parody of the well known sport Baseball. The traditional baseball is replaced with a Snotball the game is itself plays like baseball in some aspects, except the baseball bat is replaced with a Spatula, and the players have their Sniffleball Gloves on top of their heads instead of on their hands. The way the characters hit the ball of snot is by having the glove on top of their heads hold the bat. There are also 12 bases rather than 3 in the real sport. These parodies are ways the Creators can show their creative skill by creating something that is original but is based on something that already exists but adding their own creative

image to it. We also see that Chowder doesn’t want to interact with the other kids in town because he’d rather play with his pots and pans which also shows Human Weakness as some kids in the real world would rather stay at home than play outside.

This episode alone as several Satirical Subjects in it. The following episode after shows us Dramatic Irony in the first seconds of the episode. Mung and the Gang are about to go fishing while Truffles is trying to tell Mung that he is forgetting something which tells us that something is important to Truffles that Mung is forgetting. Mung forgot their 450th anniversary which causes her to become angry at Mung. This relates to many people as people forget events like birthdays and anniversaries everyday. Later on in the episode we see Chowder visiting Gazpacho’s food stand for some advice on fixing the situation at hand. Gazpacho ends up giving Chowder some Fizzy river juice fruit which he advises not to shake the can. This is another instance of Dramatic Irony seeing as how Chowder is a young child he can forget thing easily or misinterpret things which in this case he does. Chowder drops the can down a flight of stairs and thinks about what Gazpacho just told him earlier. He ends up thinking that Gazpacho told him to shake the can a lot. We also see Dramatic Irony when the can is shaking before

Truffle’s opens it. When she opens the can it explodes and floods the city. Mung is alerted and takes off on a gigantic slab of fish meat which sinks into the soda. Truffles is the one who saves Mung from drowning using her hat. They both are sitting on a large man and they have picnic on top of him. They both reminisce on the past and Mung pulls out a guitar and starts singing. Halfway throughout the song both Mung and Truffles are “transformed” into their younger selves and kiss. This shows the audience that even through the toughest times of a relationship true love will always prevail which happens at the end of the episode. Mung and Truffles have been married for 450 years and still love each other. Truffles was mad at him for forgetting the anniversary which took a heavy toll on Mung leaving him in a zombie like state for most of the episode. As soon as he saw Truffles in danger he snapped out of it and went to rescue her, Conveying the message of true love.