Monkey Pants and Pirates

I said at the beginning of my blogging career that the next blog would concern monkey pants and how Xander should always be a pirate. I'm sorry, I lied, its taken me longer than that. So here is the promised ramble on those subjects.

In the Season 2 Episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer entitled "What's My Line, Part 2" Oz and Willow have a conversation that revolves around Animal Crackers, animal shaped biscuits with one half covered in chocolate (or at least that's what they are in England, I don't know about America). This is one of the couple's first conversations, and it is quite possibly the cutest (with the witch pez/bowling one from Season 3 being second). You see according to Oz, the monkeys are the only animal crackers who wear clothes, and the monkeys all "I mock you with my monkey pants" (in a french accent of course), and all monkeys are french, didn'tcha know that? And the hippos all "I have my hippo dignity" (I don't think this is in the right order, I'm sorry).

I am a bit of an Oz fanatic. I mean not that I don't appreciate the wonders of Angel (who is really quite wondrous, although lately I am more attached to Seeley Booth), and of course Spike, and for brief moments even Xander, but Oz is most certainly probably the best. This is because he is a werewolf. And werewolves are COOL (although please note that at this moment he is not a werewolf, just a guitar playing extremely cute and witty type person).

This conversation, heck the whole episode and its preceding part, is a perfect example of the genius of both the Buffy writers and Joss Whedon (who is my second favourite genius, after Jim Butcher). The Oz and Willow relationship (that begins with this conversation about monkey pants) lasts through to Season 4 (with a slight hiccup in the middle for the Xander affair), at which point Oz leaves to try and control his werewolf situation (why he must do this I don't understand, I mean yeah so it made him like Veruca, but we can forgive him for that, can't we?). Oz's departure was a very sad moment for me, but at least he ended well: "My whole life... I've never loved anything else." (in reply to Willow asking if he loves her).

I'm trying to remember the point of this post now, I think I got side-tracked in my Oz ramble. Oh yes, now to mention why Xander should always be a Pirate. Well, I'm not really sure why I mentioned this. Oh yes, because he looks like a Pirate when he has had one eye poked out by Caleb (the evil preacher man from Season 7), because he is the one who sees. Xander has had some of the most loveliest speeches in Buffy history, and his coolness sometimes just sneaks up on you, see:

"I'm not joking. I know you're in pain. I can't imagine the pain you're in. And I know you're about to do something apocolyptically evil and stupid and hey, I still wanna hang. You're Willow.... The first day of kindergarten you cried because you broke the yellow crayon and you were too afraid to tell anyone. You've come pretty far - ending the world not a terrific notion - but the thing is, yeah, I love you. I love crayon-breaky Willow, and I love scary veiny Willow so if I'm going out, it's here. If you want to kill the world.. then start with me. I've earned that. (Willow: You think I won't?) It doesn't matter. I'll still love you." (From Season 6's "Grave")

And so Xander saves the world with his wonderful kooky Xander-ness. And makes every girl in the whole world wish they had someone that loved them enough to stop them from destroying the world with their magical powers and a demon goddess type person.

Later on, in Season 7, Xander shows his specialness all over again:

"They'll never know how tough it is, Dawnie, to be the one who isn't chosen. To live so near to the spotlight and never step in it. But I know. I see more than anybody realizes because nobody's watching me. I saw you last night. I see you working here today. You're not special. You're extraordinary." (From Season 7's "Potential")

That's just beautiful. And that's why he gets his eye poked out. Which is just mean.

I was worried that when I was writing about Buffy, that I would just ramble incoherently. That was probably a sensible worry. I fear I may have just rambled for a very long time about things that probably don't interest most of you. But you see (I really need to stop saying that), I am a Buffy Geek. Have been for about 12 years now, and I don't see it stopping anytime soon. I now have to ration my Buffy watching, or else it's all I would watch (that and Gilmore Girls, cos that's an awesome show).

I will watch anything made by Joss Whedon religiously, because he has proved, over and over again, that he is a TV genius, which is not necessarily evident to most people, but is obvious if you watch what he makes. Recently a friend told me to watch Dollhouse, which I hadn't watched yet, for some reason (don't ask me why, I can't remember), and after the first couple of episodes I was hooked. Having restrained myself through Season 1 I then watched most of Season 2 in one day and went a little bit crazy from it.

So to all you people (which probably isn't that many) reading this, who have never watched anything by Joss Whedon, watch Buffy, then watch Angel (but not Season 4), then watch Firefly, then watch Dollhouse and I promise, it will be awesome.