Of all the shorts so far, ‘Party of Three!’ could likely be my favorite one…if it wasn’t for the ending. I’ll get to my issues with the last half a minute when I get there, but as for the rest of it, it’s a very enjoyable comedy.
With Timmy now being trusted to stay home by himself, Vicky finds herself without a night’s pay, and so she takes it upon herself to catch Timmy getting in trouble so she can get her job back. What results is great comedic timing and pacing for most of the runtime.
Timmy’s parents coming back home immediately while Vicky is calling them, Timmy’s attempts to throw them off his track and Vicky’s confusion to it all make this short fun. Pretty much all of it got a good laugh out of me, and as a result, the majority of the short is gold.
One notable thing I really appreciated in this one is how it develops Timmy’s parents. They trust him enough to stay at home by himself, yet they’re also protective enough where they’ll run back home at the first hint of something happening to him. It’s a great mixture of traits that really succeed in making his parents loving and supportive, yet not neglectful or cocky at all. Honestly, it’s kind of a breath of fresh air when it comes to these characters.
Sadly, though, the ending does rear its ugly head.
So, basically, it looks like Vicky is about to get fired since Timmy has shown his parents that he’s capable of taking care of himself. But because he has a pepperoni stuck in his teeth, they decide that if he can’t even take care of his dental hygiene, he needs Vicky. Essentially, this is one of those bad-ending episodes, which in and of itself isn’t a bad thing. It’s possible to make an ending where the protagonist loses and make it work. But the way it occurs here is very contrived, and could have been fixed with an animation tweak. The pepperoni in Timmy’s teeth doesn’t appear there until the shot where it has to be acknowledged. Until then, it’s never visible, and it’s a frickin’ huge pepperoni, too. It’s the inconsistency of it that bugs me more than anything.
That being said, though, I really do like this short. I wouldn’t say it’s my favorite so far, but its comedy is solid, and even though the ending is a cop-out for the sake of the status quo, everything before it was very nice.
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