"Bunny Raven... or ...How to Make A Titananimal Disappear" is the eleventh episode of season three and the overall 37th episode of the Teen Titans series.
Plot[]
Mumbo robbing the bank.
The "Amazing" Mumbo is in the process of robbing the Bank of Pérez. When the Titans arrive to intervene, Raven in particular is anything but impressed with Mumbo's magic, so Mumbo decides to draw her into his hat to teach her a lesson. The other Titans try to hold her back, but they are yanked in as well; Raven gets separated from the others...and she gets turned into a blue-cloaked bunny, as a sign for being kidnapped.
Mumbo reveals that he has decided to make Raven his (highly unwilling) assistant for his grand show, in which he intends to get rid of the Titans once and for all. Despite evidence to the contrary, Raven still insists that all this is just an illusion, but Mumbo refuses to tell how he accomplishes all this under the motto: "A magician never reveals his secrets."
The other Titans quickly find Raven inside the hat dimension, but are all the more quicker overpowered by Mumbo, who turns them into circus animals as well: Robin into a monkey, Starfire into a tiger, and Cyborg into a tutu-clad bear. The exception is Beast Boy, whose shape-changing powers Mumbo restricts to inanimate objects only. In addition, the Titans are forced to find out that inside the hat dimension their powers and weapons are turned into circus-themed parodies of themselves: Robin throws bananas instead of birdarangs, Starfire coughs up hairballs instead of shooting Starbolts, Cyborg's sonic cannon unfurls a flag reading “BANG”, and Raven can only do classic magic tricks with stock magician sayings. Despite their best efforts, the Titans are restrained and locked into cages.
The Titanimals
Finally, Mumbo opens his show, yanking the Titans onto the stage one by one for his introductory acts and humiliating them in front of a massive audience of Mumbo look-alikes before the grand finale, in which he will make the Titans disappear forever. The Titans try to think of a way to escape, but with the restrictions Mumbo has placed on them, it appears to be a futile task. Raven finally concedes that Mumbo’s magic is real, even if it’s a trick. However, this gives Raven an idea to beat Mumbo, an idea involving several nearby cans of paint and Beast Boy as a paintbrush.
Raven's magical moment
Mumbo is finally ready for the finale, and he has the Titanimals' cages lifted onto the stage - to find them all seemingly empty! Baffled, he opens the door to Raven's cage, but it is then revealed that Raven used the paint to blend the Titans with the stage background. Raven uses the element of surprise and kicks Mumbo in the face; this evicts the villain from the hat, thus breaking his spell, and subsequently expels the Titans and the loot back into the real world. As he is arrested, Mumbo eagerly asks Raven about how she managed to pull off her trick, but Raven smugly responds, "A magician never reveals her secrets."
Characters[]
Main characters[]
Villains[]
Trivia[]
- One of the Mumbo look-alikes called Raven’s trick "old hat", a phrase meaning old-fashioned. Referring to the fact that Raven‘s trick is merely pulling herself out of a hat. Which is one of the oldest magician tricks, commonly done with rabbits no less.
- The secret to the trick Raven used to kick Mumbo in the face from his hat seems to be that she took advantage of her circus themed magical powers. Meaning, she pulled reverse-psychology on the bizarre laws of physics that make Mumbo's world possible - the rules he created in his attempt to render all the Titans powerless.
- This is the only episode in the Teen Titans series with a musical number sung by one of the actual voice actors. The other instance of a musical number with an actual voice actor appears in the series finale movie, Teen Titans: Trouble in Tokyo.
- When Robin is turned into a monkey, his cape is yellow instead of its usual black resembling that of other Robins' from the comics.
- Starfire was turned into a cat, which ironically that she and her race happened to descend from felines in the early comics.
- Raven putting Mumbo's hat makes her resemble fellow DC Comics heroine Zatanna, who was a stage magician who could create magic spells by speaking backwards. Amusingly, in the comics, when Raven sought refuge with the Justice League, Zatanna vetoed the request because she saw Raven's demonic lineage, which resulted in Raven forming the Teen Titans again in order to properly face her father.
- The giant cruise is named 'S.S. Youngberg', which may be named after Matt Youngberg, credited for the episode's storyboard.
- This episode's title song is sung in Japanese.
- This was the first episode to premiere in 2005.
Title[]
- The term "Titananimal" is a combination of "Titan" and "animal". Despite this, the transformed Titans were referred as "Titanimals" (less a set of "an" letters).
Continuity[]
- This was the first episode to air in 2005.
- This episode has the longest title out of any other episode in the series, with a total of 54 characters.
- The Titanimals and Mumbo are featured again in the New Teen Titans short "Titanimal Kingdom".
- This is the second time Beast Boy displays a brain-themed sight gag in reference to a logic-induced headache, the first time being "Fractured".
Cultural references[]
- The premise of this episode might be a reference to the television show Lidsville, as both feature the main character(s) going into a magician's hat and ending up in a surreal world. Plus, Mumbo's similarity to Lidsville's the Great HooDoo is also noteworthy.
- Mumbo has similar mannerisms to Jafar from Aladdin. In addition, the song number Master Of Your Fate is similar to "You Are Only Second Rate" from the Direct-to-video sequel "The Return of Jafar". The use of the Magic hands as well as some of the tricks he does during the song, are a reference to "Friend Like Me".
- The two elderly Mumbos in the loge making puns on the show are an obvious reference to The Muppet Show characters Statler and Waldorf, who likewise keep heckling with sarcastic puns in their show.
- The Mumbo stage manager is also an obvious reference to Scooter from The Muppet Show.
- When Mumbo appears as a fortune teller machine, it is a reference to the Zoltar machine from the movie Big.
- Starfire's quote about being a cat in a hat is an obvious reference to Dr. Seuss' "Cat in the Hat".
- During his musical number, Mumbo plays his nose like a snake charmer's flute, alluding to ending of the theme song of SpongeBob SquarePants, where the title character plays his nose like a flute, because both characters are voiced by Tom Kenny.
- The way that Mumbo smiles at the end of his music number is similar to how the Cheshire Cat smiles in Alice in Wonderland.
- When Mumbo is trying to turn Beast Boy into an animal (but failing due to his powers), he turns him into a mouse, a duck and a dog, a possible reference to Disney's famous trio of Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and Goofy.
- The Maestro at the piano is modeled after the entertainer Liberace.
- Beast-Boy's line at the end 'Yes! You have no bananas!' is a reference to the famous comedy song Yes! We Have No Bananas written by Frank Silver and Irving Cohn.
- Mumbo telling Raven "Silly rabbit" references the Trix cereal commercials, with the catchphrase "Silly rabbit, Trix are for kids!"
- When Mumbo’s head goes to space during his musical number, we see the moon which looks like Mumbo with a rocket in its eye. This is a reference to the classic 1902 Georges Méliès film, A Trip to the Moon.
Goofs[]
- The penny that was pulled out from the bank teller does not show the motto 'In God We Trust'.
- When Robin (as a monkey) fling bananas towards giant gloves, his hands and feet were the same color as the rest of his body.
- There are several instances where the cages holding the Titans did not have metal grills that were facing away the camera.
- When Robin says "We don't have much time before the finale", his hands were shown to have 5 fingers (instead of 4 as a monkey).
- When Raven asked Beast Boy to turn into a paintbrush, the cage between them (including Cyborg) was not seen.
- The bank booths seen in the beginning of the episode appeared to have shrunk significantly at the end of the episode.
- When Cyborg falls on the chair in "Master Of Your Fate", it disappears for a split second.
Gallery[]
Click here to view the gallery.
Transcript[]
Click here to view the episode transcript.
See also[]
- "Master Of Your Fate", the song featured in this episode.