Mike K reviews the Loyal Order of Corn

[froodle]

I’ve decided that as a kid I must have stopped regularly watching this series about halfway through it’s run, then picked back up again for the last few episodes - this was the first one I’ve watched in a while that I can say I remember seeing before.

I’m actually kind of surprised the show didn’t have an episode revolving around a moose-lodge-esque organization sooner - such a thing is sort of the male equivalent of the tupperware parties that the very first episode dealt with, after all. This particular group of adults turn out to have much less sinister goals though - sure, everyone in the order is being brainwashed to do it’s true leader’s bidding, but said leader is just temporarily using them so he can get to his home planet.

Even though Dash-X has been a prominent part of the cast ever since his introduction, they’ve only been doling out development of his character pretty slowly, and this is the episode where we get at least the slightest bit closer to finding out about his origins: It turns out Dash’s distinctive hand-markings allow him to open up a secret compartment within the lodge, and more importantly, that Ned, the unassuming old bartender who secretly runs the lodge, has the same markings. Both of these sort of turn out to be dead ends, because Ned doesn’t really know why he or Dash have the markings either, but it’s clearly the set-up for something.

Side Notes:

It’s sort of silly that they attempted to make a commercial-break-cliffhanger-worthy twist of the fact that Dash-X is doing security for the Loyal Order Of Corn - we hear his voice before we see him, but few if any other people on this show could sound so much like Jack Nicholson with a sore throat.

On the other hand (no pun intended), it’s actually fairly clever that Ned has a bellboy-like uniform, and therefor his hands are concealed without it seeming too suspicious.

In the “hey it’s that guy” department, Ned is played by Ray Walston - the obvious gag is that we have the star of My Favorite Martian playing an interplanetary traveler…. But now I’m wondering if it was also intentional that his character’s hands are a plot point and his other most famous role was Mr. Hand.