The Dangers Of Television

**The Dangers Of Television** is the sixth Season 1 episode of Leeko: The Beginning trilogy, and the sixth episode overall. This episode introduces King Leonardo's television channel, Channel Lion Out Loud.

## Synopsis

King Leonardo sends his Viruses to Puffy Town to delivery a free television set to everyone, finally bringing televised entertainment to Usapia under the name of Channel Lion Out Loud - even Leeko loves it. What will Milly, the only one who dislikes this new idea, do when everyone in Usapia can't leave their couch?

## Characters

### Primary

* Leeko
* Tommy
* King Leonardo
* Milly

### Secondary

* Aurora Man
* Beatrice
* Chef Peppermint
* Chief Gordy
* Cindy
* Daisy
* Felix
* Gamba
* Helios & Luna
* Hover
* Lady Chanter
* Manny
* Mayor Bay Brittleton
* Moonlight Man
* Professor Antico
* Sir Chanter
* Sir Pathogen (*debut*)
* Snowdrop
* Twilight Man
* Viruses
* Whitehead
* Various Puffies

## Episode summary

The episode begins on the outskirts of Castle Leonardo, where Milly is writing an essay about Puffy Town and its inhabitants. After a moment, Leeko, Manny, and the Puffy children catch up with her and ask what she's doing, so Milly reads them a passage from her essay for their entertainment. From there, Cindy and the children's parents appear, and tell the group that King Leonardo has just given everybody in Puffy Town a television set with regular programming, which the kids react to in shock. In town, Sir Pathogen is instructing the Viruses to install a T.V. set in every home. Seeing this, Manny excitedly runs back to the castle to watch with his parents, while Milly stays behind, befuddled. In the castle, the King, Tommy, and another group of Viruses have set up a studio, and are prepared to start a show that will broadcast to the T.V.s in town. They start a countdown which the rest of the town follows in enthusiasm.

The show begins with a live broadcast from Channel Lion Out Loud, as King Leonardo starts off with a skit where he abuses a crude toy which resembles Leeko, much to the amusement of the villagers and the vexation of Milly. Tommy then rattles off the show line-up before cutting to commercial, with each advertisement being Leonardo-themed. Milly attempts to express her disgust of the programming to Leeko, but he has only moved closer to the TV, now laughing with the Puffies. Back at the castle, King Leonardo and Tommy are spying on every household in Cappy Town using the "two-way TVs" and realize Milly is the only one not watching. Meanwhile, Milly tries to check up on the residents of Puffy Town, only to find everyone glued to their T.V. sets. In particular, she checks on Professor Antico, and is disappointed and furious to find him glued to the TV set as well, as she hoped he would be above that. She returns to the castle only to find her own family absorbed in the shows as well. She scolds them for a moment, but to no avail.

Milly then finds Moonlight Man and his apprentices watching the shows, much to her horror and fury. Before she can finish scolding them as well, Leonardo makes an announcement on the news that a monster has appeared in Puffy Town looking for Leeko. Concerned, Milly runs out of the castle and toward the town, only to find that there was no monster. On the TV, King Leonardo stages the monster destroying Mayor Bay's house, causing the residents of the house to run out despite no monster actually being present. He then initiates a form of hypnosis to cause them to turn against Leeko, blaming him for the monster's arrival. Amusingly, this also affects Leeko, though this does not last long. Leeko soon finds himself chased down by the villagers, but Milly successfully gets them off his heels.

The two flee to Leeko's house and Milly kicks Hover aside, who had also been watching TV. On screen, Leonardo and Tommy appear to be fighting the monster off using their Tank car, continuing to lament that Leeko's presence caused it to show up. The monster then approaches Leeko's house on the screen, causing Hover to panic. To snap him out of it, Milly grabs him and runs out the door to show him there's no monster. At that moment, Moonlight Man appears and explains that he could not find the monster either. He instructs the group to follow him to the castle where they intend to expose Leonardo's sham. At the castle, Milly snaps Manny out of the spell, and Moonlight Man instructs the trio to sneak into the basement to reach the studio.

Milly, Manny, and Leeko quietly open the studio door in the castle basement and find the set. It is revealed that the monster was actually Tommy in a costume. As the production continues broadcasting, Leeko runs carelessly onto the set and starts admiring the monster, making him look giant to the viewers. Before the town can clue in on what's happening, Leonardo and Tommy catch the kids and trap them with Leeko in a cage. An incensed Milly demands Leeko to vacuum-mouth everything in the room, causing the set to crumble and the cage to bust open. Milly turns on the camera and reveals the sham to the town, but in a last-ditch effort, King Leonardo tries to put a disclaimer on the whole thing to avoid responsibility before the feed is lost. The next day, TV scheduling resumes, but the town is no longer interested, and they turn the "news" off. Milly concludes the episode by writing another log in her essay, while Hover and Leeko continue watching the shows and laughing.

## Trivia

* Second episode in a row where Leeko doesn’t use a Copy Ability.
* This is the first episode in the show where the studio under the castle is seen.
* This is the first episode where Moonlight Man is seen smiling.
* Second episode where there is no monster to fight.
* This episode shows a couple references to other TV shows and media. For example, "Wheel of Head Wounds" is a reference to *Wheel of Fortune* and "King Slugmoch vs Lionzilla" is a reference to *Godzilla*. Tommy's line "Sire, the studio's gone with the wind!" references *Gone with the Wind*.
* This is the first episode in the show where Gene is not present.
* This is the first episode to introduce television and Channel Lion Out Loud. This would later become a staple in the show.
* This episode makes a drug reference when Chief Gordy sees Leeko ambush the set, saying that "someone has been feeding Leeko steroids".