Booty Scooty (Teen Titans Go!)

"Booty Scooty (Teen Titans Go!)"
This episode poorly attempts to keep parents' sus alarms from going off.
Part of Season: 3 Air Date: September 5, 2016 Writer: Ben Gruber Director: Peter Rida Michail Previous episode: The Titans Show Next episode: Who's Laughing Now

Booty Scooty is the 46th episode of the 3rd season of Teen Titans Go!.

Synopsis

In order to save the Titans Tower from some wealthy land developers, the Titans search for pirate treasure, but when the treasure leads to something buried, they have to stop it in a race against time, before it runs out. Can the Titans have the lost treasure, or will they be stuck with 67 months of starving? Well, there is only one way to find out!

Why It Should Scoot It's Butt Away

1. As stated below, this episode is heavily memed on TikTok due to the main theme being about twerking (called "booty scooty" to "hide it), this episode has also been frowned upon because of the said twerking.
2. The main issue about this episode is that it's a parody of the 1985's movie "The Goonies", however, it's far from being a good parody of this one and resembles more like a cheap carbon copy of it, because it copies 80% of the Spielberg's movie plot. For this reason alone, many original parts are lazily copied and pasted here without being changed so much. Examples include:
   • The episode begins with someone entering the base, but he must wait until a complex mechanism allows him to cross.
   • The Titans are threatened by the rich companies that could easily buy Titan's tower.
   • The Titans find an old map that leads to a treasure in the attic.
   • The Titans use bikes to travel.
   • The episode features a mutant-like creature held captive in dungeons until our protagonists save him.
   • There's a bone piano in which every time it's played in a wrong way, it summons a trap.
   • At a certain point the Titans could easily escape by an improvised emergency exit in the middle of the path, but they're forced to continue to find the treasure.
   • The treasure is located in a hidden bay with pirate ships and skeletons.
   • For kindness reasons, one of the protagonists gives the captain's skeleton a gem instead of stealing it, and then something bad happens.
     • The only brand new things the episode features are a giant octopus and a captain ghost, but they are implemented so badly. The first is just a useless end-plot expedient and the latter is a bland and not intimidating antagonist with nonsensical reasons.
     • Not to mention that making a cross-over between Teen Titans Go! and The Goonies feels pretty awkward, 'cause both genres are too different from each other. So, on one side we have superheroes fighting crime, and the other one is about kids trying to find a treasure that permits them to save their city. How could they work together?
3. Many parts of the episode feel forced, because they're trying to be more similar to the original movies, but they're missing any connection with the Titans or the earlier/after scenes, they become disjointed and sometimes allow to plot-holes or simply don't have any sense. For example:
   • The episode never tells us why some rich companies are buying the Titans' terrain plot for making a shopping mall in it. Aren't Titans the same people who save Jump City every day? And is it too difficult to find any other plot around Jump City or in the suburb?
   • Why Titans simply don't sell their belongings in the attic?
   • Why should the Titans' Tower have a dungeon? And what about the pirate bay? Why didn't they find it all this time?
   • The monster who was caged by Robin (because yes, we all now know how rude he is), after he was released by the Titans, instead of helping them as Sloth did in the movie, decides to attack them. Was it Robin caging him? No, simply Beast Boy finished the vegetables that the monster ate.
   • At a certain point, Robin burns a ladder that they could use to come back to base, despite the other Titans didn't want to continue the searching. They at least could have flown away and left Robin to find the treasure, considering he's the only one that doesn't have the ability to raise himself up (yes, he can use the grappling hook, but still, it doesn't make any sense).
   • The captain's ghost punishes the Titans not for stealing his treasure... but for Robin's kindness of handing him a gem to his defunct body.
   • After being defeated, the Titans surrender, when they can go back into the bay, defeat the ghost and hold the treasure.
   • Robin discovers that he can sell the old map and save the tower. Yes, because an old and worn piece of paper could cover an enormous money budget that the millionaire companies need.
4. The "Booty Scooty" (where the title comes from) is just another failed attempt of the show to be cool and relevant among children, in which it is just twerking, but with a sweetened name and an annoying song playing in the background. It's as if they hired Nicki Minaj for writing this. It is offensive to the original movie.
   • It was called "Booty Scooty" in a failed attempt to sugarcoat twerking to prevent parental suspension.
   • Not to mention, Booty Scooty is a terrible name and it sounds like a toddler named the dance.
5. The spectators have to assist this song two times in the beginning (as Robin) and at the end (as the monster).
6. The Booty Scooty isn't being mentioned in the rest of the plot, making the title misleading.
7. The characters aren't any better:
   • Talking about Robin, he has one of the worst characterization in the series along with "Hot Salad Water" and "Serious Business", acting like a sadic brat who forces the Titans to find the treasure, cages a poor monster for no reasons and burns a ladder just because he's the leader of everybody. And when he tries to forgive the captain, it's shown as a moving scene but comes as forced and directly from nowhere, forgetting all the atrocious things he did.
   • The other Titans, while they're better than Robin himself, they feel more like plot expedients than main characters. They don't make anything important, just assist or press a random button. They were actually unpleasant at the beginning when they forced Robin to dance "Booty Scooty" and at the end when the monster (also Beast Boy, the monster's best pal), joined the crew in that scene.
   • The monster who was caged by Robin is a blatant rip-off of Sloth, yet without all the charm its original counterpart had. It's more stupid because he attacks the Titans for a nonsensical reason and in the end, redeems itself sloppily. Worst of all, it never turns into a "super version" of itself (you know, one of the reasons why the original movie was beloved).
     • Talking about its design, it's changed from a seriously deformed man into an ugly and generic fish-man who's dressed like a military.
   • The captain's ghost is an awful antagonist and a shameless rip-off of Lord Poltergeist from Spongebob SquarePants' episode "Ghoul Fools" (beyond being a rip-off of the Flying Dutchman itself) in terms of design. Not only he's not intimidatory, but his reasons to punish Titans are ridiculous and don't make any sense. He Defeats Titans too easier and too fast has no memorable events/dialogues and he's forgotten at the end and in the most part of the series.
   • The giant octopus only helped the captain get rid of the Titans.
8. The Titans suddenly knowing how to play the piano feels rather forced.
9. The Animation while decent is also bad at the same time, in particular when the Titans are chased by the monster.
10. Bad soundtrack, with "Booty Scooty" being the worst example.
11. The episode's sequel, "The Curse of Booty Scooty", isn't any better.

Redeeming Qualities

1. There are a few funny scenes here and there:
   • While annoying, seeing Robin bothered while twerking is pretty hilarious.
   • The mechanism scene, in particular the Batman's cameo.
2. The main idea of making an episode that is a parody of The Goonies could work, but if only TTG's assets would mixed with the movie's ones.
   • Despite it recycled the movie's plot, at least we can say it's faithful to the original material.
3. The piano scene is awesome and faithful to the original movie's one, despite being forced.
4. Like the other bad songs in the shows, "Booty Scooty" can be quite catchy.
5. Beast Boy is surprisely good here, while giving turnips to the monster and trying to make friendship with him, making a decent counterpart of Chunk.
   • Starfire was cute while forgiving the octopus.
6. The ending at least is good (thank god).

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