Hey ho, come on let's go to Nowhere Land!

 I don't think there's any better way to spend the four-day Easter weekend than in watching my way through the first season of Maggie and the Ferocious Beast.

Someone asked me to recommend some non-serialised cartoons they could watch random episodes of on shuffle, and Maggie was one of the first that came to mind - there are no continuing storylines, after all. But after a moment's thought, I remembered that it actually works much better if you watch the whole series in sequence - new recurring characters are introduced along the way, and passing references are occasionally made to previous episodes.

And more importantly, it's fascinating to look at the three seasons (13 triple-episodes in each, making a grand total of 117 seven-minute self-contained stories) and pick up on the generally different feel of each one. Most cartoons that run to multiple seasons have one (often the second, funnily enough) that stands out as the best of the bunch, but Maggie doesn't really do that - it's consistently great all the way through, with some excellent episodes in each season.

But the first, which more than any other is made up mostly just of stories with the three central characters, provides the first real statements of what the whole series is about. No other show gives you such masterpieces as "The Lemonade Stand" (in which they set up a lemonade stand and sit around hoping a customer will come by, while the Beast keeps pretending to fall over and hurt himself because he wants a plaster on his knee like Maggie), or "Pack Up Your Troubles" (in which they decide to send all their troubles away down the river in paper boats, and end up concluding that they don't have any troubles after all, so just sail the boats), or perhaps the greatest of the first season, "Say Cheese" (in which Hamilton is upset because Maggie has a photo of herself and the Beast and she has to eventually persuade him to tell her what's wrong). These are stories where literally nothing happens, but it's absolutely riveting! And when there is some kind of conflict or happening, like in "The Push-Me Popper", when the Beast accidentally breaks Hamilton's new toy and they have a furious argument about it, things sort themselves out quickly enough when Maggie just puts it back together and everything's all right.

And that's just the first season! When we get into the second and third, with bigger roles for the wonderfully amoral Nedley, experimentation like "Morning in Nowhere Land" (no dialogue, and no Maggie, just Hamilton and the Beast getting ready for the day to musical accompaniment) and the amazing series-ending "Where's Maggie?" which raises the possibility that Maggie might not be coming back... well, you should really go and watch the entire series if you haven't already. You won't regret it!

And do watch the UK dubbed version - the voice acting is just so much better.