Cutie and the Beast

"**Cutie and the Beast**" is the second segment of the eighth episode of the first season of *Hamster & Gretel*, and the sixteenth episode overall. It is paired with "I'm Bored" and premiered on Disney Channel on September 24, 2022.

A stray amplification ray accidentally hits a lone sea otter, increasing its size tremendously. As the giant otter ends up in town, Hamster and Gretel must stop it from causing more collateral damage, but they're incapacitated by the otter's cuteness.

Meanwhile, Kevin feels useless after Hamster and Gretel were able to save the day without his help, so he decides to become a superhero as well by building a metal armor suit.

## Plot

Feeling unhelpful after Hamster and Gretel defeat The Amplifier without his assistance, Kevin decides that he must obtain superpowers of his own, which Fred unsuccessfully advises him against. Meanwhile, The Amplifier's growth device causes a sea otter to grow to an enormous size and inadvertently terrorize the city. Hamster and Gretel attempt to save the city, but they cannot bring themselves to attack the otter on the grounds that it is too cute to fight.

When Kevin arrives to the scene of the crime in a metal suit he created at a junkyard, he immediately gets picked up by the otter. After Gretel explains the situation to Kevin, he remembers the TV series, *England but with Dragons* (which he, Gretel, and Fred were watching earlier in the episode), and resolves to cover the otter's face to prevent Hamster and Gretel from being swayed by the otter's adorableness. They then defeat the otter, after which, they learn via Hamster being able to understand fluent otter, that the otter is simply looking for its mother; Hamster returns the otter to the ocean and reunites it with its family, while Kevin prattles on about searching for the aliens and convincing them to give him powers, much to Fred's annoyance.

## Cast and characters

* Meli Povenmire as Gretel Grant-Gomez
* Michael Cimino as Kevin Grant-Gomez
* Beck Bennett as Hamster
* Joey King as Fred Grant
* Khary Payton as Amplifier
* Liza Koshy as Veronica Hill
* Dee Bradley Baker as Otter
* Brock Powell as Tommy
* Brook Chalmers as Manmann Slayer

### Additional voices

* Dee Bradley Baker as Dolphin Interpreter
* Brook Chalmers as Police Officer 1
* Joanna Hausmann as Beach Boy, Old Lady
* Liza Kosky as Medusa, Destroyed House Woman
* Dan Povenmire as TV Announcer
* Khary Payton as Police Officer 2
* Brock Powell as Bathtub Guy

## Songs

* England But With Dragons
* Too Cute to Clobber

## Running gags

### Image scene transitions

Kevin and Fred inside the minivan with a "KM" symbol, dubbed the "Kevinmobile".
(used to transition to Gretel taking photos of Hamster)

## Transcript

*Click here to read the full transcript of **"Cutie and the Beast"**.*

## Background information

### Trivia

* This alongside "I'm Bored" is the first pair of episodes to air out of production order, making this one on its own the second episode of the season and series to do so.
* This episode (along with "I'm Bored") premiered on Disney Channel right after the mid-season 3 premiere of *Big City Greens*.
* The police officer's line explaining why the city needs an interpreter to translate what the otter is saying was added during post-production as a result of an animation error in which the police officer is still holding the megaphone to his mouth during the sequence in which the otter blows up a helicopter despite not saying anything.

### Allusions

* ***Beauty and the Beast*** - The title of this episode is a parody of both the original fairy tale and the Disney animated film adaptation.
	+ ***Animaniacs* and *Garfield and Friends*** - The episode also shares the same title with an episode of both of these cartoons, inspired by *Beauty and the Beast* as well.

### Errors

* On the Disney General Entertainment Content press website, "Cutie and the Beast" is accidentally given the synopsis for "U.F. UH-OH!" Parts I and II, while the actual synopsis for "Cutie and the Beast" has been accidentally merged with that of "I'm Bored". The erroneous synopses match precisely with the synopses for these episode pairs as they appear on Disney+, so it is likely that the error stems from the Disney+ synopses being copied and indiscriminately applied to "I'm Bored" and "Cutie and the Beast" separately (with the fact that the production code for "I'm Bored"/"Cutie and the Beast" is 109 and that of "U.F. UH-OH!" is 110 making this causation more likely).

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 https://www.dgepress.com/disneybrandedtelevision/shows/hamster-gretel/episodes/im-bored-cutie-and-the-beast/
2. ↑ https://itunes.apple.com/us/tv-season/hamster-gretel-vol-1/id1635863430
3. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovTPHAUweRA