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The Great Jungle Gym Standoff

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"The Great Jungle Gym Standoff" is the fourth episode of the first season of Recess, which was first broadcast on September 20th, 1997.

Plot[]

 Spoiler Warning: Plot twists, ending details, etc. are included in the plot. You have been warned.

Summary[]

Principal Prickly wants to replace the school jungle gym, Old Rusty. When it is about to be torn down to put up a new jungle gym, T.J. and the rest of the gang plan to stop that from happening. He soon involves the whole school and beyond.

Main Story[]

How the Recess Gang Met

Old Rusty was where The Recess Gang first met.

It is another day at Third Street Elementary School as the students happily play on their favorite jungle gym Old Rusty who is starting to show its age. They are suddenly stopped by Principal Prickly who announces that they are finally tearing down Old Rusty and replacing it with a newer jungle gym. The Gang all voice their disappointment and reminisce on Old Rusty, making the unusual claim that it has been around since the beginning of time. Everyone heads back inside for class, but T.J. decides to stay behind to have one final look at the jungle gym.

Construction workers arrive to see T.J. still sitting atop the jungle gym and despite the threat of tearing it down with him on it, he refuses to budge and they leave. Miss Finster comes out to try and get T.J. out, but he still will not move. T.J.'s friends and the rest of the students come out and join him in defending Old Rusty, singing "Kumbaya". Prickly is angered, especially when T.J. gives an impassioned speech that deters all the adults away. Prickly tells the faculty that they are moving to "Plan P": calling the parents.

Prickly brings the parents to see what their children are doing, but when they hear that he plans to tear down Old Rusty, they too balk at the idea as they also have fond memories of the jungle gym. They join with the kids in singing "We Shall Not Be Moved" with them and even Miss Finster admits that Prickly is incapable doing anything about it. However, just as Prickly gives up and storms off in defeat with Miss Finster, the jungle gym suddenly collapses under the weight of everyone on it as its aged condition could not handle the stress. The construction workers however recognize the pieces and tell everyone that they can put it back together. T.J. happily announces New Rusty as all the students play on their rebuilt friend.

Timeline[]

Goofs[]

  • Continuity/animation error: When the kids are singing "We Shall Not Be Moved", Miss Grotke was sitting next to one of the kids' parents. After Principal Prickly tells everyone that they can keep it, she is sitting next to a construction worker.
  • Animation/consistency error: When the kids are singing "Kumbaya" on Old Rusty, some of the students are not moving their mouths.
  • Animation/continuity error: When Judy got on Old Rusty, she is on the top, but when Prickly tells the parents that he was going to replace it, she is on the bottom.
  • Animation/continuity error: When Randall says, "Hey! That's my job!", his eyebrows are thicker than usual.

Trivia[]

Regular[]

  • This episode was adapted as a children's tie-in picture book, along with episodes of the other two shows on One Saturday Morning, Doug and Pepper Ann, which got their own books.
  • A different version of "We Shall Not Be Moved" was included on the One Saturday Morning audio cassette along with the theme song.
  • T.J. mentions having an older brother in this episode---however, he is never seen or mentioned ever again after this episode. It is implied that during production, "he" was changed to a "she," making "him" T.J.'s older sister, Becky Detweiler.
    • Or if not, T.J. and Becky's brother could have gone to college and moved out, or he was a deleted character.
    • When mentioning him it was implied the older brother was older than Becky. Stating how long Old Rusty was around.
  • Old Rusty is replaced with New Rusty at the end of the episode; however, the jungle gym is still referred to as Old Rusty later on.
  • Even though this is Episode 2B of Season 1, Gus Griswald fails to appear at all in this episode despite his first appearance in Episode 1B of Season 1. It could be possible that this episode takes place before he moved to town. The tie-in picture book wrote him back into the story.
  • The protest chants used by T.J. and the kids are more well-known as the protest chants used by protesters during the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights Movement.
  • The men appearing with Principal Prickly in the beginning of the episode were made to resemble series creators Paul Germain and Joe Ansolabehere.

Continuity[]

  • This was the only episode to be written by Joseph Purdy.
  • This was the final episode Paul Tibbitt worked on.
  • This is Principal Prickly's second appearance onscreen; he was previously mentioned in "The Break In", and first seen, albeit unnamed, in the theme song.

International Information[]

  • This episode was skipped in the Czech dub.

Foreign Dub Titles[]

Note - Some dubs leave the title in English

  • Dutch: "Het klimrek" ("The Jungle Gym")
  • French: "L'union Fait La Force" ("Unity is Strength")
  • German: "Wir wollen unseren Schrotti!" ("We Want Our Scrappy!")
  • Italian: "Il Vecchio Arruginito" ("Old Rusty")
  • Japanese: "オンボロ・ジムは誰のもの？" ("Who Took Away the Jungle Gym?")
  • Polish: "Pat" ("Stalemate")
  • Latin Spanish: "La Vieja Ruina" ("The Old Ruin")
  • Spanish: "El gran enfrentamiento en el parque infantil" ("The great confrontation in the playground")

Cast[]

Transcript[]

The Great Jungle Gym Standoff/Transcript

Gallery[]

The Recess Wiki has a collection of images about The Great Jungle Gym Standoff
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