Pingu Quarrels With His Mother (Pingu)

"Pingu Quarrels With His Mother" (also known as, "Pingu Argues With His Mother") is the 9th episode of the 3rd season of mh:besttvshows:Pingu, and is the 61st episode overall. It was broadcasted on August 13, 1995, and it wasn’t received very well by many and gained a lot of infamy within the fans of Pingu.

Plot
Pingu's mom wants him to chop some wood, but he runs off with his friends instead; he hides to escape his mum's wrath, but his sister tells on him.

Why This Episode Slaps Our Face

 * 1) Overall, the entire episode is basically a torture episode for Pingu as he basically is forced by his mother to cut out firewood and cannot do anything else. He cannot even get a break! To add salt to the wound, Pingu is canonically 5 years old, meaning he could get seriously injured or hurt since he wouldn’t be careful at cutting wood at such a young age!
 * 2) Pingu’s mother is heavily out-of-character in this episode. Instead of treating Pingu as the lovely son that he is, she uses him as a slave to cut firewood, refuses to give him very few breaks and the worst part, she straight up slaps Pingu, which is child abuse. Not even Homer Simpson from The Simpsons stoops to that sort of low (despite him strangling Bart a few times) over things that Bart does to get himself into trouble.
 * 3) This episode barely has any happy parts all except for the ending. Even though Pingu manages to escape to play basketball with Pingo, this "happy moment" is very short lived as his mother fetches Pingu and starts forcing him to do the work again with her supervising him.
 * 4) At one moment of the episode, Pingu accidentally gets a sprain on his flipper because of the firewood dropping on it. Instead of his mother helping him, she just shakes her head in disapproval without showing any sympathy and orders him to pick up the dropped firewood.
 * 5) Plot Holes:
 * 6) *It is never explained why Pingu's mother acting like this.
 * 7) *Pingu doesn't even tell his father about his mother's attitude, for no given reason whatsoever.
 * 8) The music is also very glum and unbearable to listen to in this episode. Have a listen to the music by watching the episode alone.
 * 9) In one of the scenes where Pingu brings in the firewood, Pingu’s mother is seen eating some kind of cake batter in a rude way, making her seem very lazy.
 * 10) Pingu's mother never gets her comprehend for her cruel actions against Pingu.
 * 11) Pingu’s mother even smiles without any care as Pingu is forced into doing work sadly and missing Pingo’s game.
 * 12) There is even an error in the episode where Pingu claps his hands to get his mother’s attention, but there is no sound playing for the clap impact.
 * 13) Misleading title: Even though the title would make one think that Pingu and his Mom are arguing/quarreling about something, but eventually they make amends at the end, it isn’t because the whole episode is about Pingu pleading his mother to let him have a break from his strenuous work, but with Pingu's mother refusing because she acts like a total control freak and a major scumbag at worst in this episode.
 * 14) For some buzzer reason, Pingu's father makes no appearances in this episode, he could have appeared and maybe have a chat with Pingu's mother by telling her off for how she's acting towards Pingu.

Redeeming Qualities

 * 1) Happy Ending: Although Pingu runs into his room, and seemingly he goes missing, he eventually is found thanks to his younger sister Pinga, even with the Mother being on good terms with her son.
 * 2) *This should be noted that this and the Basketball game with Pingo are the only happy parts of the episode while the rest of the episode's tone is nothing but a negative tone.
 * 3) Later episodes, thankfully, don’t have Pingu’s mother acting like this.
 * 4) Despite her behavior, Pingu’s mother does in fact feel empathy when she realizes the big mistake she made after slapping Pingu in the face as well as trying to find him when she thought that Pingu ran away.
 * 5) Pingu is still a likable character.
 * 6) Pingu does somewhat get the upper hand in the episode by kicking a table well organized by his mother in revenge for stopping him from having fun.
 * 7) The episode does seem to have great moral as to how you should "Put Work before Play", but it was very poorly executed.

Reception, Controversy and Infamy
Much like "Pingu Runs Away From Home" previously, "Pingu Quarrels With His Mother" received controversial and overwhelmingly negative reviews by fans and critics alike due to the episode's mean-spirited tone, Pingu unfairly getting tortured and mistreated by his mother for no reason what-so-ever, and Pingu's mother acting out-of-character, this is widely considered as one of the worst episodes of season 3, and is often considered as one of the worst episodes of Pingu of all time next to "Pingu Runs Away From Home".

Trivia

 * Because of the episode's mean spirited nature and negative tones, this episode was completely banned from most American airings, while some VHS tapes from the UK contain the episode basically having the scene where Pingu's mother slaps Pingu cut out.