GG Bond: What Did I Just Watch?
Photo Credit: WinSing Animation
In my ongoing effort to fill my free time now that I am no longer caught up in the 1L networking and doctrinal whirlwind, over the weekend I found myself lost down a YouTube rabbit hole. While nights spent in a YouTube fugue state are not uncommon for me, a deep-seated memory hit me that I couldn’t shake, like a That’s So Raven vision without the “seeing into the future” part. An image from my childhood started to surface in my mind (see picture below). Unable to get rid of this persistent vision, I ended up digging through the internet to find a show I spent many hours watching and rewatching long ago. Now, in my other ongoing quest to fill the Law Weekly with the most outlandish articles, please indulge me as I walk you through the plot of my favorite childhood fever dream.
GG Bond (aka Zhu Zhu Xia) is a Chinese cartoon about the titular Bond, a pig who plays various roles from student to martial arts expert. To my surprise, the show is airing its seventeenth season and has been on the air since 2005. Despite its apparent persistence in Chinese entertainment, my only memories were from its second season, “Martial Arts on the Olympics,” which fittingly aired in 2008, during the Beijing Olympics. It turns out this one-off season has no implications or continuity with the rest of the show, but it somehow seared its way into my brain.
The first episode of the season starts in a schoolyard, where GG is being scolded for being a bad student. His principal is upset that he didn't finish his homework and has been lying to his classmates. Across town, a scientist is busy unveiling a diamond that can transcend time and space, when two robbers barge in to steal said diamond. In an epic car chase scene (that has the computer animated graphics of a low-budget 2000s TV show), the diamond ends up falling off the side of a bridge, falling past the pedestrian sidewalk where GG is walking home, into the ocean. He plunges into the water and ends up ~back in time~ in the alternate universe of “Olympia.” GG meets an alternate version of the scientist in charge of creating the diamond, who tells him the only way to get back to his world is to find the diamond again. End credits roll on episode one.
We learn in the very next episode that the diamond is the prize for the annual games held in Olympia (you can probably guess where this is going). GG now must compete against the champion athlete of Olympia to get back to his home world. The rest of the season follows a rule of one sport per episode, and GG learns to perfect everything from horse riding to triathlon. Meanwhile, his scientist friend has been developing a magical lollipop that allows GG to win in almost every single event (not realistic at all; he should be immediately disqualified). All of the sporting events are hosted by the only non-pig in the village: a green parrot whom we never learn the name of. GG becomes rivals with Super Qiang, who is a premier athlete and most definitely at least a decade older than GG. GG also develops a crush on the daughter of the head of the village, because what is a children’s cartoon without a bit of forced romance? Eventually, GG makes it back home after 20 episodes and many sporting events later.
Throughout the entire show, I kept thinking to myself, “I have no recollection of the plot of this show.” The only memories I had were morsels of character designs and the action scenes for certain events. Looking back, dedicating your entire sophomore season of a show to Olympic advertisement seems a little wacky and random, but this show has somehow left a great imprint on me. GG Bond: Martial Arts on the Olympics makes absolutely no sense—and that’s exactly why it rules. It’s got time-traveling pigs, illegal candy-based performance enhancers, nameless parrots, and Olympic sports that absolutely no one trained for properly. It may not be high art, but it’s chaotic, unhinged, and somehow endlessly entertaining. If nothing else, it’s a perfect reminder that children’s TV is sort of a lawless land—and sometimes, that’s exactly the kind of content we need.
And hey—if you’ve got a childhood fever dream of a show buried deep in your brain, let’s talk. I’m on a mission to uncover more forgotten cartoon chaos. Bonus points if it involves definitely drugged-up lollipops. Drop your picks. Let's compare notes.
