Norman Normal (2000; animated cartoon) Episode: "Das Schrumpf-Fahrzeug" ("The shrink-vehicle") Chances are you´ve never heard of this cartoon series before, which is not really a surprise, considering that it´s a German-French co-production, having aired for the first time on German based channel SuperRTL. So perhaps our German based members of this website (like myself...^^) are familiar with this one, and if not, here´s a short summary of the show´s premise: the story revolves around the 13 year old boy Norman Normal who happens to be - as his last name already suggests - a fairly normal boy. However, one day, as his family has gathered in the kitchen in order to start the day in a - you guessed right - normal fashion, their microwave oven goes haywire, and being exposed to the microwaves, every family member - except for Norman - suddenly gains super powers: Norman´s father has become some sort of a Superman-wannabe with incredible strength, his mother (now called "Lady Fantastic") now has the ability to fly and to use telekinesis, his 4-year old sister Suzie suddenly is a genius able to come up with masterful plans...well, and their dog George can even talk now due to this incident, being the wisecracking comic relief of the show. Each episode practically revolves around the battle of the superhero family against the forces of evil in all its wacky incarnations (like the evil and completely ridiculous professor "Zehnmalklug"...), while Norman has to struggle with the fact that he is the only normal member of the family now, which he sometimes regrets (after all, who wouldn´t want to be a superhero himself?). Anyway, being a humorous cartoon in every single respect, it´s not even a surprise that there has also been an endosomatophilia based episode, which of course involes Norman as the "host", so to speak... In this episode, Suzie once again proves herself to be an amazingly talented little genius by inventing a shrink ray, and of course, the family immediately wants to test the device. Shrinking themselves down to microscopic size and entering a submarine-like vehicle (does that sound familiar? ^^), they want to surprise Norman (who´s still asleep in his room) by waking him up in a rather unusual way. Suzie flies the sub close to his ear, and his mother uses the external speakers in order to tell him to wake up in a rather harsh way (being a mother and all...). Eventually, Norman awakes, sitting upright in his bed now, but he thinks that the voice of his mother was part of a nightmare. Unfortunately, the submarine ends up in front of Norman´s face, and as he begins to yawn, he accidentally sucks the submarine into his mouth and down his throat, with his family eventually landing inside his stomach - and at first, he of course has no idea what just happened. What follows is the usual stuff, with his family trying to get out of his body again, for example by getting in contact with him and seeking his help. Unfortunately, I´ve never seen the entire episode, but you can find a nice short clip of the swallowing sequence on youtube.com. As for the show itself, whoever can understand German might want to give it a try, since it´s pretty similar to the concept of the terrific movie "The Incredibles" - only wackier and more humorous.
by UltimateBananaDX » Sun Jul 11, 2010 11:28 pm 
