The Mighty B!

Episode(s): #101a: "So Happy Together" &
#101b: "Sweet Sixteenth"

Premiere Air Date: Sat., April 26th, 2008 at 10:30am (ET)
Regular Air Date(s): Saturdays thereafter at 10:30am

Official Website: www.Nick.com/MightyB
A.I. News Link: Nickelodeon Upfront 2008

Images: Click to Enlarge [all].

Bessie Higgenbottom has 4,584 badges to go.

The fact that there are still so many areas of Honeybee Scouts badge-gathering left uncharted for the nine-year-old -- the Young Entrepreneurs badge, the Mad Scientist badge, the Toot Toot badge (for flatulence) -- does little to deter the most hyperactive and aggressively sociable scout that the Honeybee organization have ever seen. Bessie's journey for friendship, justice, roller coaster rides, and merit badges, all find their way into The Mighty B!, one little girl's colorful (and clumsy) exploration of her youth.

Bessie has gapped teeth, bad depth perception, absolutely terrible coordination and balance, an unending and slobbering lisp, and an overactive imagination… but everyone she meets unquestionably loves her. The star of The Mighty B!, Bessie is at the top of her game right now; she's ambitious, full of life and is determined to let nothing get in her way of earning every single one of her Bee Scout badges, thus becoming "The Mighty B" (which as it turns out, is sort of a fictional super heroine Bessie imagines herself to be at times).

In any case, the little girl lives in San Francisco with her raggedy-eared dog, little brother Ben, and presumably single-parent mother, Hilary. Bessie isn't very sharp, but considering that she's nine and three-quarters years old and is as curious as ever, she doesn't really need to be. Visually charming but ultimately a bit rough around the edges, The Mighty B! is an animated comedy that should do well for Saturday morning audiences. Tracking Bessie's adventures through youth with friends and family that often results in her hilarious over-thinking, over-imagining or over-elucidating a situation; The Mighty B! is all about taking the world by storm.

Although Bessie frequently imagines herself as an ultra-muscular, superhero type of gal, she's often content with being the awkward if not frighteningly annoying person that she is. Bessie Higgenbottom is fully dedicated to her duties as a Honeybee (she wears her scout uniform everywhere). But apart from that, she spends the majority of her time trying to outsmart someone or something in order to get that last one-sixteenth of an inch out of a task that makes life all the more worth living for. Whether it's through harassing her opinionated dog (who bears the unsympathetic and ironic name "Happy"), brushing off her clingy younger brother or gauging the honesty of resident snotty girl Portia, little Bessie often makes things harder than they need to be, but nevertheless always manages to come out on top.

There's nothing particularly fascinating about Bessie's story and there's nothing distinctly remarkable about the way she performs her day-to-day debates of fantastical heroism in search of good deed after good deed; but The Mighty B! succeeds, if ever so slightly, in simply being a fun program to watch. Because the show does little to go beyond what a hyperactive child does in any type of social environment, the predictable and simplistic nature of this animated series is uncomplicated entertainment, and not so much original, creative or worth a double-take.