"An Ice Beginning" is the first episode of Animated Inanimate Battle, not counting the pilot. It was released on May 20th, 2020.
Full Recap
The episode begins some time after the Pilot, where a curious Bacon comes up to Oodle and asks about something related to the game show. However, when trying to ask the question, his subtitle is cut off, confusing Oodle at first. However, when Bacon repeats the question, Oodle realizes that he's getting tired of the caption speech and decides it is about time for an upgrade. He levitates to the sky and enables sound by turning himself into a volume mixer. After that, he falls to the ground ungracefully.Oodle happily remarks how he can now hear his thoughts. Bacon inquires about this...but then notices his seemingly inexplicit Southern accent, which confuses him more. Oodle explains that he based the voices on what he thought would fit. Pill complains about having a lisp while Envelope doesn't seem to mind the change as he likes his new voice. Domino, on the other hand, is bothered about his British accent. Pitchfork is also annoyed, saying her voice makes her sound irritated, but after she blows away Glowstick by yelling at him when he tries to flirt, she ends up liking her voice.
Meanwhile, a distressed Chip Bag is confused about her hands. Glove (ironically) seems to be in the same boat, not knowing what hands are. Sock, coming up to the two, asks why neither of the two clothes have them. Nabla scoffs at this and sarcastically tells them that they can at least enjoy having legs. The legless symbol loses balance and falls over. Teabag and Bouncy Ball are a little upset that neither have limbs, when Coconut gleefully snaps the former's string and kicks away the latter.
Can tells Oodle not to tell her the changes are permanent. He agrees, before she asks if they are. His response? "Yep." Cue simplistic show title card followed by the episode title card.
After the drastic upgrade, Oodle tells everyone to gather around. However, only 59 of the objects come to him, making him ask if he counted everyone correctly since he failed math in Doodle School. Ketchup tells them that there were 60 of them before, before Envelope tells him that Album was missing. Knowing she's around somewhere, Oodle stretches his arm around the Blank Slate. Meanwhile, Album (who wasn't affected by the upgrade) was putting some powder over her scratch to cover it up when Oodle laches onto her.
"An Ice Beginning" provides examples of:
- Debut Queue: For a major character, Tivo makes his first appearance on the show. As for minor characters, you have Tumbleweed.
- Early-Installment Weirdness:
- The Teaser opens up with the same weirdness the Pilot has, but when Oodle causes everyone to become Suddenly Voiced just a few seconds into the episode, not only does everyone gain voices, but the contestants also gain Sudden Anatomy.
- Brain's dialogue was mostly questions, as he was originally meant to only speak in questions. However, he's not as inquisitive in later episodes.
- Food as Bribe: Oodle offers Nine a cookie if he lets Tivo decide the teams. It worked, but the doodle was definitely disturbed when Nine wraps his tongue around his arm just to eat the cookie.
- Kill It with Fire: Chip Bag's accidental death, courtesy of Fireball.
- Kill It with Water: Teabag and Fireball's deaths.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Said almost word-for-word when Oodle asks about Bacon's question after he retrieves Album.Oodle: "So Bacon, you had a question you wanted to ask me earlier?"Bacon: "Darn tootin' I did, you grinnin' half wit."Oodle: "Oh no, what have I done?"
- Ninja Prop: Coconut exploits this to Team 1's advantage. After the team discovers the fact that Album still speaks in subtitles (thanks to Oodle forgetting to give her a voice), he makes her talk about metal bands, then uses the large wall of subtitles that formed above her to hit Team 6's ice platform.
- Pun-Based Title: "A nice beginning"
- Shoutout: When the members of Team 2 are chosen, they are revealed in a manner that resembles The Brady Bunch intro
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