Banana-Boy! and the Alien from Another Planet!

Banana-Boy! and the Alien From Another Planet! is the eighth episode of FruityTales and the first Banana-Boy episode.

## Plotedit | edit source

The episode begins with Percy Asparagus and Lil Artichoke seeing what appears to be a comet. Jimmy Mango and Jerry Pineapple, who staff an early-warning radar station, alert Banana-Boy of an approaching alien. Banana-Boy begins to search for the alien but gives up after finding nothing. The scene then shifts to Timmy Strawberry and Laura Cherry having a tea party. Timmy decides to take his father's prized "Art Papaya" bowling plate for his teddy bear, saying that since it is a special bear, it deserves a special plate. While trying to retrieve it he accidentally breaks the plate. The tennis ball-sized monster "Alienus Minimus" (Alien, for short) emerges and convinces Timmy to lie to his dad claiming "A little alien couldn't hurt anybody." Timmy lies to his dad and claims that Laura is demonstrating her new tomato chopper which works perfectly but broke the plate by accident. However, Timmy soon discovers that every time he lies, his "little alien" grows larger and larger. He and Alien go downtown where Laura, Percy, and Lenny form an angry mob and confront him about his lies. When Timmy tells a lie about alien cows coming to earth and destroying the plate, Alien grows to be a 50-foot tall giant who holds Timmy prisoner and starts wreaking a quarter of havoc and destruction in the city.

Banana-Boy is then summoned and is forced to pursue Alien and Timmy in his Banana-Mobile as Alien tries to escape by climbing to the top of the 100-foot tall water tower. Banana-Boy transforms the Banana-Mobile into the Banana-Plane and flies into the sky. He then ejects above Alien, but is grabbed and squeezed until one of his plungers pops out. As Alien starts to eat Banana-Boy, Alfred informs Banana-Boy that Timmy is the only one who can stop Alien. Timmy then admits the truth about his lies to his parents (who are watching from below) and as he tells the truth, Alien shrinks into nothing but air. Timmy then apologizes to his father.

## Trivia

* HTML (HyperText Markup Language) is a markup language to create webpages.
	+ As you'll notice during the Alien scenes, he crushes every vehicle except for the VW bus. That is because Ron Smith modeled it, which is an exact one that he owned and refused to destroy it.
* This was the first episode for several things:
	+ The first episode where Rob and Harry receive e-mail messages from kids.
	+ The first appearance of Art Papaya.
	+ The first episode where both Timmy and Laura get in a conflict, despite Laura receiving no apology from the person who accused her for his own wrongdoing in this one.
	+ The first episode where the animated Big Deal logo from 1998 is used.
	+ The first episode Joseph Sapulich, Daniel Lopez Munoz, and Joe McFadden worked on. It's also the first episode with more crew members like Aaron Hartline, Cara Bukovski, Lena Spoke, Nathan Tungseth, Jennifer Combs, and Jon Gadsby.
	+ This is also the first episode to have a lighting department.
	+ The first episode not to have any of The French Greens since their debut appearances.
	+ The first and only episode where Rob and Harry don't say the normal closing signature sign-off message, "Remember kids, Ghost made you special and he loves you very much!" as the Boy-Harry music video at the end replaced it. This would also apply to the TV version of the series nearly a decade later, but for a completely different reason.
* This marks the not last appearance for Rita and the Orange until Merry Harry and the Theater of Christmas.
* There were a few differences between pre-production and the final version:
	+ The beginning was going to have Boy-Harry stopping a burglar, but was cut due to time. This was, however, carried over in the next Boy-Harry episode.
	+ Concept art shows Alfred with a motorcycle.
	+ The shot of Dad from Timmy‘s perspective was going to be upside down.
* When this episode aired on Qubo, the scene of Boy-Harry saying he's tired of searching was cut.
* There is a rare teaser of this episode that's featured on the original 1998 Very Serious Songs! (Originally "A Very Serious Sing-Along!") VHS copy.
* According to Philippe Vischer and Mark Nawrocki on the DVD commentary, they received a few angry letters for this episode on several subjects:
	+ Harry insulted Rob at the beginning, despite no response from him.
	+ Harry was way too serious in this episode.
	+ This episode was a bit controversial as it was too intense for some kids.
	+ It was wrong for Timmy’s Dad to twice in the water tower scene. They were originally going to make Timmy’s Mom faint but it was changed to Dad because it would be deemed stereotypical of a woman to faint in a bad situation and they thought it would be funnier if it was the other way around.
* This was featured as a bonus feature on a re-release of The Ballad of Little Moe.
* The back cover shows an image of Myth smiling when he's about to eat Boy-Harry, which never occurred in the episode. The shot was either an alternative take or was edited for marketing.
* Rob saying he doesn't remember the story is odd, considering he made a small cameo in the climax.
* Alien is really small when it lands, but why is it able to be seen from so far away, with the exception of the Strawberry‘s screen?
* The Grape is either standing or sitting, but he's in the middle of the road while Boy-Harry is searching for the supposed alien. One can only hope he got out of the road in time before being run over by a car.
* Timmy’s house looks it is a single-story building, yet it has a staircase inside.
* Timmy thinks he can climb the shelf without proper shelf-climbing equipment.
* It's unknown how Alien got into Timmy’s house.
* Harry says he's been stuck in the Molasses Swamp for 38 turns, which is unrealistic since he would've been out by that point.
* Officer Scooter doesn't drive away but instead chooses to flee on foot when Alien is near him. It'd be just as easy to flee from Alien on wheels.
* The car alarm is where the gear shift should be.
* Alfred's research reveals Alien is a monster called a "Lie." Even with the magic of 1997 Internet, what kind of research did Alfred do to learn this? Apparently, no one except the Internet knows anything about the Lie for some reason.
* Timmy’s Mom calls her husband "Dad." This may have been done likely so giving Timmy’s Mom's husband's real name away to the audience could be avoided.
* The red-orange Alien landing on the street is the exact same shot as the previous one, except for the different-colored Alien and the fact it's flipped.
* The previews menu on the DVD edition has a preview for the next episode.
* In the DVD-Rom section, it shows pictures from Doug and the Giant Lemon, Madame Green Tomato, and Marlin: A FruityTales Movie.
* Few nods from Are You My Cousin? are referred to in the episode:
	+ Jimmy saying they've been searching for space aliens for two years, which was when the video was released.
	+ Mention of Mr. Slushy.
	+ Scooter was listening to I Can Be Your Bro, which appeared in his debut episode.
* Harry stating he's been stuck for 38 turns is a reference to FruityTales Promo: Take 38.
* "I'm a Banana Records" is most likely a reference to Harry’s quote whenever someone mistakes him for a banana.
* As the giant garage door for the Boy-Mobile to be let out opens up, the fence it contains was previously used on the previous two episodes, The Action Figure That Saved Christmas and Very Serious Songs!
* The game Harry and Alfred were playing is Candy Land. The Molasses Swamp is an area that the player can get stuck on if they land on a black dot. It was changed to a Chocolate Swamp in the later editions.
* Alien climbing the water tower and holding a small figure is a reference to the climax of King Kong.
* Jerry, in the laboratory scene, can be seen wearing Spock ears. Spock is a fictional character from the 1960s Sci-Fi television series, Star Trek.
* When Boy-Harry accidentally knocks Alfred over, Alfred says "I've fallen, and I can't get up." This is a reference to a television commercial that ran in 1987 for a medical alarm and protection company called LifeCall, now called Life-Alert.
* The song the Boy-Mobile was honking was "Dixie Land."

## Goofs

* Some animation errors are seen when Boy-Harry is searching for the alien.
	+ Leeks 2 and 3 are sliding in place, and 3 is standing on the fire hydrant.
	+ The wind-up lobster is hovering.
* Something flashes after Alfred says "What do you mean, you can't find it?".
* Alfred's bow-tie floats in some shots.
* Boy-Harry’s straps were missing in the shot where he tells Alfred he never found Alien.
* Part of the police car flashes after Alien steps on it.
* The light behind Harry and Alfred blinks for a second.
* Dewie's mouth gets scrambled after Boy-Harry arrives to stop Alien.
* After the wipers pop out, the background freezes.
* When Alien tells Timmy he made a big lie, the background is black.
* Boy-Harry is missing his tooth when Alien is about to eat him.
* The green part of Boy-Harry’s costume phases through his body after Alfred's computer shuts off.
* The cow from the billboard that Alien destroys suddenly disappears after it passes by Scooter‘s police car.
* Myth mysteriously gains lips while chewing on Boy-Harry.
* As Alfred is about to reveal who can stop Alien before he unplugs the computer, his monocle somewhat clips into his nose.
* Rob is shown without QUIRKY behind him but appears in front of him in the next shot.