| Flight as a Feather | |
|---|---|
| Season 2, Episode 3 | |
| |
| Air date | 5. September, 1996 |
| Written by | Julia Lewald |
| Episode guide | |
| Previous Goin' for the Green |
Next The Good, the Bad and the Fish Guy |
Flight as a Feather is the eighteenth episode of The Mask: The Animated Series.
Summary[]
Hours before a Swedish karaoke contest at the Coco Bongo, The Mask loses his lucky fedora feather and races through Edge City to get it, all the while trying to avoid Kellaway and Doyle and a string of eccentric characters, including Mayor Tilton's vengeful ex-girlfriend, a performance artist, an eagle, and Walter.
Plot[]
The Mask is getting ready for karaoke night over at the Coco Bongo. Although Milo and Mrs Peenman don’t appreciate his singing, the Mask is sure he will win, thanks to his lucky feather. Right after playing a prank on Mrs. Peenman by blasting loud music, the Mask is about depart for the Coco Bongo, until a gust of wind dislodges his feather from his hat. Shocked, the Mask attempts to catch the feather, which floats all the way to a pizza parlor and gets stuck to one of the pizzas. Just when he buys the pizza to retrieve his feather, a child on a skateboard crashes into him and the feather flies off into the city's streets.
Meanwhile, Lt. Kellaway gets a call from an annoyed citizen (who The Mask grossed out before at the pizza place by showing his internal organs), that the Mask is causing trouble again, just as Mrs. Peenman is talking with Doyle about the Mask playing a prank on her. The Mask's feather flies down to a ceremony hosted by the Mayor, who needs a pen to sign an important document. Since the Mayor's office no longer has enough money to afford basic office supplies, the Mayor improvises by using the feather as a quill to sign the document, just in time for the Mask to arrive at the ceremony.
Things take a turn for the worse, however, when Cookie BaBoom, an exotic dancer who previously dated the Mayor, barges into the ceremony. Angry that the Mayor dumped her just to preserve his wholesome image, she threatens to kill the Mayor and commit suicide with a series of explosives strapped to her body in the style of a bikini. Thinking quickly, the Mask, impersonating an Cockney-accented bartender, takes Cookie's explosives, puts them in a blender, and blends them into a harmless beverage, which he calls a “Bikini Cocktail”, while Cookie herself is naked and exposed in front of Kellaway and Doyle, who had arrived at the ceremony to arrest the Mask, only to be gobsmacked at the sight of her.
The feather flies into a truck driving into a pillow factory, and when the Mask goes inside, he finds the feather has been collected among many others for an art project by artist Crisco, who has covered himself in tar and feathers. The Mask furiously removes the feathers on Crisco's body to find his feather, which suddenly gets stuck to a passing bird and then a duck, but as the Mask is about to get the feather back, he collides with an airplane and the feather is taken by a gust of wind above the ocean. Just as the Mask recovers the feather, he is swallowed up by a whale, and deep in its stomach, he comes across Walter. The confrontation doesn't last long, however, as the Mask accidentally tickles the whale from the inside, causing it to sneeze and throw both the Mask and Walter into different sides of the world.
The Mask winds up crashing on the side of a cliff, where a mother bald eagle steals his feather and wears it on her head. As the eagle’s eggs hatch however, the Mask sneaks into the nest by pretending to be one of the eagle’s babies and takes his feather back.
The Mask, having recovered his feather, accidentally causes an avalanche that covers an entire village in snow, an event that grabs the attention of Kellaway and all of the people the Mask has annoyed throughout his little adventure. Fortunately, the Mask is able to placate them with a pack of chocolate marshmallows, and the Mask's pursuers are left to fight amongst themselves while the Mask finally returns to the Coco Bongo, just in time to win the singing contest. Just like the Mask had said, his feather is indeed lucky.
Characters[]
- Stanley Ipkiss (as The Mask full-time)
- Milo
- Agnes Peenman
- Mitch Kellaway
- Doyle
- Mayor Mitchell Tilton
- Cookie BaBoom
- Crisco
- Walter
Censorship[]
- This episode has become notorious in recent years due to the sequence into which Mayor Tilton signs a deal between Edge City and Bavariaville, which it includes content that, these days, would be considered too strong for the TV-Y7 rating it had at the time. The scene in question centers on Cookie BaBoom, an exotic dancer (which the Mayor's aide, Smedley, nearly calls a "stripper") rushing the stage to attack Mayor Tilton. Smedley tries to stop her, but Cookie opens her trenchcoat, revealing strategically-placed dynamite around her bust and hips. Because The Mayor used to date her (then dumped her to keep up his wholesome image), Cookie is now plotting to assassinate the Mayor and commit suicide. As the crowd flees in terror and the Mayor's aide refuses to disarm her because he doesn't get paid enough to go through dangerous situations, the Mask (only interested in retrieving his feather) thwarts Cookie's plan by impersonating a Cockney British bartender who creates a drink called, 'The Bikini Cocktail', by using the dynamite strapped to Cookie's body as the main ingredient. Before Kellaway and Doyle can capture the Mask, he distracts them by turning Cookie (who had been spinning around in a blur after The Mask ripped the dynamite off her body) around so her naked front (which the spectator's unable to see) faces them, causing them react sexually and then they fall down, then Cookie runs off the stage in anger when The Mask foiled her plan. Then, the Mask asks Cookie if he knows her from traffic school, but the rest of the line cuts immediately to a Bavarian Village woman freaking out over The Mask harassing Mayor Tilton (but it isn't known whether the jump cut's a sign that a suggestive punchline has been edited, but some of the fans have theorized that it is) and then Cookie (now clad in her trenchcoat) runs off the stage in anger. This episode has been seen in syndication (namely on local affiliates for The WB and UPN and part of Amazin' Adventures, a syndicated line-up of cartoons from the late 1990s) and on international broadcasts in both English and non-English speaking countries (particularly in Mexico, the UK, Australia, and Eastern Europe), but when the show was brought over to FOX Family, Cartoon Network and Boomerang (American feed only), this episode was skipped over due to content. CBS also didn't air this episode, though this was because CBS only aired episodes from the first and third season of the show while the second season was put into syndication on cable and free-to-air TV.
Notes[]
- This is one of the few episodes where the Mask appears the whole time and where Stanley does not appear at all pretty much giving him a day in the limelight and showing what he does when he does not take his face off.
- In this episode, Mask insults the eagle when it steals his feather, saying, “Hey Worm breath! Give that back!”. However, real life bald eagles don’t eat worms, but their diet instead consists of mainly fish and small mammals.