Ida's Dance

NeCoHo

Retired Mod
Welcolme to the fourms! I(i think everyone does) like to hear everyone's opinion, that one of the reasons we are better. It was a little brutal with the tart.
 
D

Deleted member 1693

Guest
This episode was slightly disturbing and not as hilarious as the other episodes in this season, what with Malcolm and Dewey with the deafness... and to an extent, Reese and his films (although there were some good points there). I did shriek in laughter at Malcolm's expression when Hal spun around with his knife, though...
 
W

we_dye

Guest
The part where Malcolm gets his first F was thought provoking. It showed us something that is naturalistic to this genius, that nobody can perfect every field.[/php] I was disappointed that the writers let this angle fall at the end when Malcolm actually does appreciate the music. I thought the ending could have been done better. It was important to the show but should have been placed towards the middle. After all, it is supposed to be a comedy (emotional stuff is just fine (even good in fact) as long as it ends with a joke


At first I thought, Dewey's deafness would be a permanent addition to the show[/php] At first, I actually thought he was lying and trying fooling malcolm. But that would have been too similar to the Ida's Boyfried plot.
Question: Did Jamie go deaf too?

What is a php code?
 
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tjpeople

Site Administrator
Staff member
Ignore it, you dont need to worry about it.

PHP is a programming language like HTML. The PHP tags help show the code correctly.
 

yardgames

Retired Administrator
I changed your PHP tags to quote tags. Back on topic, I agree with you. Ida's Dance was entertaining the first time I saw it but the whole dance plot thing was a little boring to me. I did, however, enjoy the deaf plot. My favorite scene in that episode is when Malcolm is trying to exchange his fruit roll-up and Hal pulls a knife on him. Classic!
 

MalcolmFun

New member
I love Cloris Leechman and thought the whole absurd festival plotline was great. Jane's part of the plot was just mediocre but it served as the foundation to reveal the details of IDA's absurd mythical culture. THe dates have to be in the 15th layer because it was the 15th day that the patron saint slaughtered the peacemakers!

AS for the deaf plot, I think this kind of goes in the same category as graduation. I thought it was good someone actually challenged Malcolm on his self destructive issues once in a while rather then let him continue on forever like that. Of course confrontions about your psychological issues will never be pretty:laugh:
 

yardgames

Retired Administrator
That's a really interesting analysis because I would never put Ida's Dance and Graduation in the same realm. Look, the worst MITM episode is still better than everything else on TV, but comparing just MITM eps, I thought Ida's Dance and Graduation were about as far apart as possible. Ida's Dance seemed uninspired, like a filler episode because it had to be there whereas Graduation was full of surprises and heart, just like the early eps.
 

MalcolmFun

New member
I think they have the same theme. Family members confonting MAlcolm and seemingly being being jerks to him. Why? for his own good. They even end the same way. At then end when he can hear the birds and the music he seems to realize Dewey was right and be grateful for what he has. Same in graduation the second he quotes Paul Mcartney he is acknolwging to Lois that she was right. In both cases he learns the point he needs to stop proving how superior he is to everyone and just get on with his life as best he can like everybody else. Lois in the mud scene there is more to the world then proving how smart you are Or as Dewey put it stop trying to 'prove what a creepy little genius you are to everyone' or something similiar.
 

Tomi

New member
Can't you see in Ida's dance there is croatian flag, croatian coat of arms and even picture of zagreb cathedral in the wall?
Why do you americans allways where is something slavic thinks it's from Russia or soviet union?
 

Richiepiep

Administrator
Can't you see in Ida's dance there is croatian flag, croatian coat of arms and even picture of zagreb cathedral in the wall?
Why do you americans allways where is something slavic thinks it's from Russia or soviet union?

Wow, that's quite a find! Are you Croatian by any chance? I believe you are right about Zagreb Cathedral, and indeed it looks most like the Croatian coat of arms (although the chequered pattern looks like yellow-and-red squares to me rather than white (silver)-and-red, but that's not really an issue). I don't see a flag, by the way. Can be my bad eyesight :s (*) The men seem to wear Croatian national dress too: black trilby hats, white lace shirts and pants, black waistcoat and black shoes.

(*) The YouTube video link cited below actually points out the folded flag. So now I know'.

I'm actually really surprised, because 'ethnic comedy' is mostly deliberately kept vague, in other words, politically correct, so as not to offend specific races or nations. Especially when this nation has such cruel, even barbaric customs as Ida's homeland! There's a pattern of that in more recent American comedy, from the toning down of the Mexican stereotype in "Chico and the Man", to the vague ethnicity of Andy Kaufman's character (Latka Gravas) in "Taxi', and the Greek-or-so background of Balki Bartokomous in "Perfect Strangers". That's why I never bothered to look up the ethnic names and customs Ida uses - I assumed they were all deliberately made up.

By the way, I quite like black humour, because it sets MITM apart from all those moralistic feel-good family comedies that we so often get to see. I hadn't noticed the blood dripping out of Dewey's ears yet - I agree that this is borderline permissible. The tone is much like the Simpsons, which still feels funny, and not like the extreme nastiness of South Park for instance. The trouble is, I think, that a little bit of real-life cruelty automatically becomes more graphic and hits home more than ten times the amount in cartoons, where the level of sadism is nearly always laughed off.

Rich
 
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Richiepiep

Administrator
Let me just save these descriptions and comments on Ida's Dance off YouTube before the clips get taken down ;)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQkK5JKf7Bs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFlUPx-liaA

Croatian simbols in the Malcolm episode...
(Hrvatski simboli u epizodi malcolma... )


Malcolms mom and Grandma do their traditional folk dance to celebrate St. Grotus day While they speak with Slavic accents and appear to be from somewhere in Eastern Europe, their exact nationality is never specified, and may be intended to be fictional. However, an episode which centers on a fictitious "St. Grotus Day" feast, appears to take place in a Croatian community center, with a Croatian flag and a poster of Zagreb Cathedral on the wall.

hey, to everyone guessing what Slavic nationality these people are supposed to be - they are no particular nationality, but a mix. just like you NEVER find out what Malcolm's family name is, you never find out if his mom is Croatian or whatever. there is a Croatian flag here, a Croatian coat of arms, but there is also an orthodox icon on the wall and their attire is also not Croatian...
 

Richiepiep

Administrator
The dance may be Slovenian and called 'kladnica' ...

A YouTube user from Slovenia called 'Thindza' recently shed some light on whether the wicked MITM dance has origins in reality or not.

"Actually this is the dance from Slovenia it is called kladnica and in the older days the best dancers used blades instead of wooden poles. I don't know how they mixed us with Croatian, somebody obviously didn't do his homework. If he did that mistake in Slovenia he would be at least beaten very heavily ;)."

Now, interestingly - which makes me often wonder about the animosity between South Slavic peoples (sorry I couldn't help slipping this in) - Kladnica (alternative spellings Kladnitsa, Kladnitza, Cyrillic Кладница) is a village in both Serbia and Bulgaria. I couldn't find any references to this dance though.

Rich
 
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