Plot summary: Superman discovers Titano, the long lost chimp astronaut, and brings him back to Metropolis… where he proceeds to grow giant and yadda yadda yadda. BAD EPISODE.
Notes and Trivia
Episode: 26 (S2.E13)
Original Air Date: September 27th, 1997
Directed: Curt Geda (8)
Written:Evan Dorkin (2) & Sarah Dyer (2)
Animation: Koko Enterprise Co., LTD & Dong Yang Animation Co., LTD. (17)
Music: Lolita Ritmanis (6)
So I am absolutely going to be that guy and point out Titano is clearly an ape, not a monkey.
Beppo the toy monkey is named after ‘Super-Monkey’, part of the Legion of Super Pets in the 60s. Comics are wild.
Lois is confirmed to be 28 years old, making her somewhat anomalous in the generally nebulous chronology of the DCAU.
The only appearances of Sam and Lucy Lane in the DCAU, which is kind of wild given how ubiquitous Sam in particular is throughout wider DC continuity.
A rare parent/child double-act as Pat Musick and her young daughter Mae Whitman appear together.
Recap
Twenty years ago Sam Lane’s military career demanded he foster a chimp called Titano ahead of its use as a test pilot in a space mission. Cartoons!
Naturally the launch goes horribly wrong and Titano is lost in space, devastating a young Lois who bonded with the lil guy.
In the present Superman saves a space station from a meteor storm, discovering the dormant shuttle with Titano aboard embedded in one of the meteors!
Somehow our furry friend is absolutely fine despite spending 20 years strapped to a chair without food, water etc., but does seem a little depressed… until Lois walks in the two are reunited. Aww.
Forced to take him in, Lois is so stressed about the mess that she fails to notice he occasionally glows blue, which can only be good!
Even better, while studying gas pockets from the meteors, STAR Labs is overrun by giant mutant bacteria, growing so large due to exposure to our atmosphere. I’m sure that won’t mean Titano is going to grow King Kong sized or anything.
You’re not going to believe this…
Titano rampages here, he rampages there. There are escaped zoo animals, Bibbo gets thrown onto a garbage barge, the police fail to take him down with knockout darts and he’s stronger than Superman! Oh my!
Sam Lane speeds into town once he hears of Titano’s return, bringing with him Beppo the toy monkey, which always had a calming effect on Titano twenty years earlier.
Lois plays its song over a speaker system, the cops drop knockout gas from helicopters, Superman saves civilians, and they later relocate Titano to an island where he can run free.
Best Performance
Frank Welker is eternally the man for his incredible gift for animal mimicry (alongside being a great voice actor in his own right), so lets just go ahead and honour the absolute legend for his contributions to the industry. Oh, and I guess his work as Titano.
Dana Delany does come close as she’s incapable of being anything but good, but some of the dialogue they lumber her with knocks her down a peg or two.
I have chosen to believe Brad Garrett improvised calling Titano “cheetah” for unknown reasons that end up being bizarrely charming.
Episode Ranking
I guess this is the price we must pay for how good last episode was, because BIG YIKES.
I’ll give them this: “Why can’t you send Lucy into space instead?” is a really good line. Likewise Lucy actually wanting to do that. Writing children well can be tricky but the short, broadly ridiculous opening scene managed that part at least. Also I’m not sure if they intended it to be funny, but I laughed when they smash-cut from Sam’s promise Titano was going to be fine… to Titano freaking the fuck out during takeoff.
In a show that’s generally been good at ensuring you know Superman is also incredibly smart rather than just powerful, they sure did make him look dumb and irresponsible as he almost made the meteor storm way worse by punching it into dozens of fast moving chunks ricocheting off everything. I know it was a very short scene and all ended up okay, but it struck me as uncharacteristic of their vision. I do like that he stops Titano’s head from smacking into the floor at the end though I suppose.
Lolita Ritmanis also understood what was being asked of her, particularly the big percussion during Titano’s rampage.
Finally there is always a certain degree of fun to seeing Superman facing gargantuan opponents that can toss him around with ease.
But the rest of this thing alternates between painfully childish and powerfully boring. I’m aware of the hypocrisy of coming after an episode for being juvenile given I’ve stressed time and again all of these shows are primarily aimed at children, but there are levels to it. This episode is trying to squeeze as much mileage as possible out of ‘you won’t believe what this chimp is doing now!’ with the worst accompanying dialogue in the entire show. There’s nothing inventive, clever or particularly fun about it, unless you really love King Kong or something. It’s perfectly fine to look at and everything but I challenge anybody to care about anything happening. Obviously they’re not going to actually hurt Titano, so even that basic animal rights angle doesn’t do anything.
The entire thing feels like it was written by network request or by guests with no familiarity with the show… which isn’t even true because Dorkin & Dyer wrote ‘Livewire‘ for goodness sakes!
DCAU batting 0.000% on animal episodes so far!
- Brave New Metropolis
- Livewire
- Double Dose
- Fun and Games
- The Last Son of Krypton
- Stolen Memories
- Action Figures
- The Prometheon
- Tools of the Trade
- The Main Man
- Mxzypixilated
- Blasts from the Past
- Target
- The Way of All Flesh
- Solar Power
- My Girl
- A Little Piece of Home
- Feeding Time
- Speed Demons
- Two’s a Crowd
- Identity Crisis
- Monkey Fun (NEW ENTRY)
Rogues Roundup
Titano (Frank Welker) (first appearance)
I mean. Not a villain. An innocent ape made giant due to American military incompetence via sci-fi mumbo-jumbo. He doesn’t really hurt anybody, though almost does near the end when the fairground rocket triggers him into a rampage, but yeah, broadly I don’t think we can really call him a rogue.
Buuuut the Titano of the comics is an infrequently recurring villain, so I guess I have to honour that and rank him. Below Darkseid, above Bowman and Weather Wizard. There, I did it, okay???
- Livewire
- Toyman
- Lex Luthor
- Metallo
- Parasite
- Brainiac
- Mr. Mxyzptlk
- Lobo
- Luminus
- The Preserver
- Bruno Mannheim (and Intergang!)
- Kanto
- Mala & Jax-Ur
- The Prometheon
- Bizarro
- Mercy Graves
- Earl Garver
- Darkseid
- Titano (NEW ENTRY)
- Detective Bowman
- Weather Wizard
The Matt Signal 
Leave a comment