Am not giving low ratings and negative reviews to the Tijuana Toads cartoons with pleasure. Being actually somebody who likes a good deal of DePatie-Freleng Enterprises' other work (though it is overall a wildly inconsistent output), hates being too critical and who loves animation. On the most part though, this particular series of cartoons doesn't do it for me. The good things that all the cartoons have are similar but pretty much all of them have the same flaws.
While there are definitely worse cartoons in the Tijuana Toads series, 'The Froggy Froggy Duo' to me is not a particularly good, and also not particularly memorable, cartoon and has a lot wrong with it. Also a strong example of why the series never really clicked with me, in terms of the common good things and the common bad things that outweighed the good. Liked the idea of the setting and the concept sounded quite neat, but somehow 'The Froggy Froggy Duo' just didn't do it for me.
'The Froggy Froggy Duo's' best aspect is the music score, which the series had in common in fact. Regular composer for the company Doug Goodwin provides a lot of much needed colour and vim to his score that sadly is not present in nearly everything else. Despite being stereotypical and over the top, the best character here is El Pumo, as at least he had some personality and one that was not annoying or forgettable.
Most of the voice acting was not good, often the case with the series, but Marvin Miller has the right amount of menace for El Pumo. The cartoon started off quite promising.
Sadly it went downhill quite fast. The animation is very flat and nearly-sickly in colour as well as limited in colour scheme. Everything looks as though it was made in a rush, did not get this sense in the Pink Panther, The Inspector and Ant and the Aardvark series (same with most Roland and Rattfink and early Hoot Kloot). El Toro and Pancho are neither interesting or amusing and actually don't have much that is memorable in terms of material, most of their screen time is dedicated to merely hopping around. The hotel chef's character was quite limited too and the personality was bland. Despite El Pumo standing out as a character, and his entrance is also a highlight, he is not in it enough.
Very little is amusing, let alone hilarious, here in 'The Froggy Froggy Duo'. None of the gags stand out, and there were too few of them in the first place. Not to mention they are very reminiscent of Looney Tunes past prime yet done worse (not a good sign). The story is very predictable and paper thin, even when not quite as dull as other cartoons in the series, everything is familiar ground here pretty much and the ending felt very anti-climactic and unfinished somehow. Only Miller as El Pumo stands out of the voice acting, the others are too broad and the stereotyping is not tasteful.
In conclusion, pretty mediocre but there is worse in the series. 4/10.
