JAR JAR BINKS: HESA BACK!!

Love him or hate him, that gangly Gungan is back for more comedy shenanigans in tonight's US episode of THE CLONE WARS, showing on CARTOON NETWORK, working with Bail Organa in an adventure titled SUPPLY LINES. I'm personally rather fond of Jar Jar- he reminds me of my late dog, with his big ears and eyes- and I'm intrigued to see what Filoni and co. will do next with the character. I thought in the Prequel films that Lucas bottled out from using Jar Jar more actively in EPISODEs II and III, after such a large involvement for the creature in EPISODE I, presumably due to his first appearance having caused great dismay and controversy from older fans who hated the Buster Keaton always getting into trouble inspired visual comedy character. In EPISODE II, Lucas did, to his credit, cleverly use Jar Jar to help instigate Palpatine's lifetime Supreme Chancellor-ship, which was very nicely done, and I was hoping he'd have a similarly and equally important sequence like that for EPISODE III-perhaps one act of supreme bravery on his part to help Padme and Obi-Wan, perhaps even sacrificing himself to save his friends, a move that might have been very interesting and added to the darkness of the final film of the Prequel Trilogy. Alas, it was not to be-and we still don't know what happened to him in that twenty year gap between sagas (despite the celebration visit to Naboo showing Gungans en masse in the revised version of RETURN OF THE JEDI on DVD in 2004).

Still, despite his on screen movie controversy, Jar Jar works very well in the animated series- Bombad Jedi in THE CLONE WARS first season (one of the earliest to be made in that original run) was a fine example of slapstick comedy, and it's nice to have Ahmed Best back behind the microphone to provide the characters unique voice. Somebody get Ahmed to be a convention guest at a future Celebration. The Jar Jar furore must have eased down by now, and I'm sure he has lots of great behind the scenes stories on the Prequels to tell that will delight fans of all ages!