Created by Jeff Goode, American Dragon Jake Long is that other cartoon Donnie Basco is famous for voicing besides Avatar: The Last Airbender. This time he gets to be the hero, the title character of Jake Long, the latest “chosen one” who must protect and sometimes battle the secret magical underground of fantasy and mythological creatures hiding among the residents of New York City. Being an American Dragon in training and a kid it’s not easy. He also has to keep his secret from his friends (though they learn pretty early about his secret and becomes his allies), his crush, and even his jittery dad who doesn’t know he married a dragon and had two magic dragon babies since they can appear human. This last part leads to a lot of questions that will never be answered, and being a kids show doesn’t believe it needs to.
In the first episode, Jake doesn’t understand Grandpa’s rather disgusting training (because of course he doesn’t bother explaining because he’s only Jake’s mentor and grandfather–why do that?), which leads to trouble when the magical creature hunting Huntsman and his girl apprentice go after them. Also there’s a cute new girl at school. Coincidence? Enjoy.
It’s rather annoying that Disney Channel’s YouTube playlists doesn’t have one for American Dragon Jake Long, and given YouTube, in their infinite lack of wisdom, nerfs any channel or video it believes to have child content because it doesn’t understand why the US government went after them for data mining kids, you can’t search for it easily. Give this show a watch. Maybe if you have Disney+ you’ll find it on there.
The show is also confused by the similar concept show The Life & Times Of Juniper Lee from Cartoon Network, but in that show the “chosen one” is just a fighter with magical gifts and her brother is annoying. It was okay but if I were to be asked which was better I didn’t watch much of Juniper’s adventures but enjoyed Jake’s, so make of that what you will.
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