- Title: Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness – The Maltese Mantis
- tv.com: link
Against his better judgement Mantis (Max Koch) agrees to accompany Po (Mick Wingert) to a fan festival even after Shifu (Fred Tatasciore) expressively forbids the Dragon Warrior to attend while taking the opportunity to secretively show up for his first Fest. Mantis soon regrets his decision once Po’s crazed fanboy excitement quickly gets out of control.
Accidentally paralyzing Mantis to prove a point to a fan, Po then looses his friend in the middle of the convention. With only an hour to find Mantis before the palatalization becomes permanent, Po and Shifu frantically search through the Mantis action figures but the real paralyzed hero ends up in the hands of Taotie (Wallace Shawn) who attends the Fest with his son (Simon Helberg) to sell some of his own action figures.
To save his friend Po will have to punch his way through his fans and organize them into stopping Taotie from leaving the Fest with the paralyzed Kung Fu master. The episode ends with both Mantis and Shifu making peace with their inner-Geek. “The Maltese Mantis” is pretty goofy, especially Shifu taking time out for action figure battles, but it has some fun moments and a nice message for younger fans. It also has one of the crocodile bandits dressed for the entire episode in a pair of bunny ears. Yeah, that’s pretty awesome.
