TEEN TITANS GO! “Meatball Party” Review


With a title like “Meatball Party“, one can tell that things are going to get weird. But even the title might not prepare you for the very strange experience of the latest Teen Titans Go! episode. Spoilers.

In this segment, Cyborg (Khary Payton) holds a “Meatball Party”, which seems to just be an excuse for him to force the other Titans to eat his favorite food….including Raven (Tara Strong). She doesn’t care for meatballs, but after getting stalked by her teammates, relents and eats a mystery meatball. Unfortunately, this causes an evil demon to be released from her teeth. Yeah. And then this creature begins to eat all the Titans.

So, yup. I never thought I would write that. As a concept, I suppose it could work for a comedy like this. Unfortunately, I didn’t really enjoy it. For one thing, Cyborg and the others act like total jerks. Cyborg especially can be grating. It seems all he can do is talk about meatballs, eat meatballs, force others to eat meatballs, and sometimes even cover people in meatballs from head to toe for no apparent reason.

The moral at the end is a bit much, and it becomes pointless when it gets ignored literally seconds later. Yeah, that was part of the joke, but then why spend so much time on the message?

Anyway, at this point you can probably gather that the plot is….unique. Unfortunately, the plot is almost a bit too eccentric, and with this show, that is saying something. It gets downright bizarre, and not in a fun way.

With that said, there are some funny moments, and an action scene near the end is actually effective. And of course, the voice acting continues to be near perfect. Payton captures Cyborg’s enthusiasm, and Strong still delivers a perfectly deadpan yet subtly emotional Raven.

EAT THE MEATBALL!

Still, even with that last paragraph of positives, this isn’t one that I can easily recommend. I guess watch if you don’t mind off-kilter storylines.