Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Just a reminder...

Is my blog worth reading?

Tork's Big Cartoon Challenge Finale

Time for the third and final set of Cartoon Challenges. The same rules apply. I really hope Tork gives us a 9:15. I miss those. I really do.

Bring it home, Tork!

1. Thundarr the Barbarian
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhAobPugvsk
The world will end in 1994!!!! Oh no!!11!!!111

2. The Original Ghostbusters
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0hCwHTg4mY&feature=related
Not the Ghostbusters you're thinking of.

3. Snorks
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuCq0aZiPT0
You'll never swim again!

4. Delilah and Julius
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoLw9PQOups
En Francais
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQGPAz71sxc&feature=related
In English

5. Funky Phantom
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjbAcU7a41w&feature=related

Stay tuned until after Tork's final Challenge post. We'll have a party!

Monday, September 29, 2008

This Week In Entertainment (9/30/08)


Today's Pick of the Week is a book. Yes, a book. You know how some guys have GIRLFRIENDS? Well I READ BOOKS. Occasionally. This is the paperback edition of Making Money, the latest Discworld book by Terry Pratchett. It stars Moist Von Lipwig who is now printing money for the government.


Also out this week on DVD is The Deadly Bees. This was made in the sixties before the killer bee scare, I think. It's a british movie about a pop singer who is sent to an island on vacation and is faced with...the dogs' meat! Also bees. This was shown on a great episode of MST3k.

I missed Iron Man in theaters, so now I get to watch it on DVD. Hope it's good, because it was one of the more popular blockbusters this summer.

For what it's worth, here's a couple of DVDs about the Olympics. I hope one of the future DVDs show the highlights of that match where the one kickboxer kicked the referee.

Phase IV was a movie about ants shown on MST3k during it's KTMA era. There's a clip from it on the MST3k Scrapbook video.

I hope one of the steps is to not panic. If Resident Evil has taught me anything it's that you have to eventually fight vaginal dentata monsters during zombie holocausts.


In theaters is the film Beverly Hill Chihuahua. Whoever is in charge of Disney? Shame on you.


You know what the world needs? Another Sonic game. This one is an rpg for the DS.

Here's the latest Harvest Moon game for the Wii. I've completely lost track of how many of these games there are.

Sunday, September 28, 2008

Rimmi's Cartoon Challenge #10

Today's cartoon is Talespin. I did watch this cartoon as it aired.



I'm sure I don't need to describe what it's about, but here goes anyway. Talespin was an odd Disney cartoon that took three characters from it's version of Jungle Book and made it into a weird World War 2 era-ish adventure period cartoon. All the characters are anthropomorphized animal characters like all Disney cartoons from that era. Talespin was shown on the Disney Afternoon with shows like Gummy Bears, Rescue Rangers, and DuckTales. I'm not using the f-word, despite the fact that it would fit, because the Internet hadn't ruined everything yet at this poin in history.

I remembered when ABC actually aired the 2 hour premiere of this show, like it had for Rescue Rangers the year before. The movie was generally darker than the show, even though Talespin had episodes with vaguely Soviet(?) countries attempting to shoot Baloo the Bear.



Anyway, the intro starts with Baloo's airplane, a yellow cargo plane that is important to the show. It flies toward a mountain with a small crevasse in between it. In the show, this was wear several armed cannons were placed to fend off air pirates. The main town was hidden here. Many episodes would have Baloo and his crew do their adventure and then rush back into the city.




The intro is fast and shows many scenes from the show. It's hard to poin them out, so I'll jst say that the intro tries to paint the show as fun and adventure filled. At one poin we see the show's most famous image, which is the sidekick's air-gliding surfboard. Kid Cloudkicker would often fly behind the plane as if he was jet skiing. It doesn't make sense but it makes cartoon sense, which is enough for kids.



We get several cast members, including the female boss who hhas to put up with Baloo's lazy attitude. She owns his plane so he has to work despite the fact that he rather party with the monkey. Louie from the Jungle Book apparently meant that he wanted to serve drinks like "you-ou-ou." Shere-Khan was some evil businessman who didn't appear into too many episodes and I was too dumb a kid to know what to make of him. There's also a girl who really liked the radio and some comic relief. He wears a baseball cap backwards, of course.



Other highlights visually is the pineapple trick that somehow takes out the head pirate and Baloo wearing a dress. I still blame you, internet.

The song is lyrically deficient but catchy. It's filled with "Oh-Ee-Oh"s and that's enough. I'll admit that it's not as catchy as the other cartoons I listed.

I apologize to Rimmi for taking so long to write this and for focusing more on the show than the intro. It's hard to describe random scenes sewn together.


These were all great shows. I probably would have picked up the dvd sets except I feel really embarrassed about wanting to own these sets. Not that I haven't done a lot of other things to be embarrassed about. I wouldn't mind watching these series again to see how they've aged.

According to wiki, this show has 65 episodes, which I think is standard for Disney cartoons of this era. It has a late 30s era setting, which makes sense. I always thought it was weird that they made a show for children and they set it before TVs were popular. I was old enough to get it, but I'm sure a lot of kids had to ask their parents about why the Webbigail bear was so into the radio.

There are two episodes of the series that were banned. One was because it was filled with Asian stereotypes, or something. By the way, I like how wiki has to explain this:


The fictitious nation may have been a take on Japan, which attacked the US naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on December 7, 1941. That incident ushered America's entry into the Second World War.


Thanks, I didn't know about that!

The other episode was about terrorism. The weird thing is that this episode, about Baloo delivering a rigged clock to a dictator to start a war, doesn't seem to be that big a deal. Didn't Mickey or Donald have to deliver a bomb in some classic cartoon? And didn't Aladdin have the same "let's start a war between two countries so we can sell amunition to both sides" plot? So why did this episode offend the suits so much? It was the nineties so people forgot about terrorism for the most part. Do I want to know?

The Disney Afternoon went on to make one more good show, an ok show, then a crappy show, then a great show that wasn't like the rest. It also made Aladdin, which I liked but I was getting to old for this stuff at that time. I saw a couple episodes of Quack Pack but I had already lost interest by then (I was a high school senior for frick sakes!) Not that I needed to watch Huey Louey and Dewey ALL EXTREEEEEEMED up.

Nyuk nyuk nyuk

Nyuk nyuk nyuk


t



Nyuk nyuk nyuk...

Parodius Level 5

It's been a while, but I'm back with more Parodius!

Again we spend our time between levels floating through the void of space, dropping whales and shooting enemies. These enemies are different than the random winged creatures and hypodermic needles of past levels, though. These are flying winged Moai heads! You know, the Easter Island dudes?

This introduces this level's theme.

Instead of a traditional level, this time we fight a giant Moai-themed ship! I'm giant, too. You might have noticed that bell in the previous pic. I caught it on green and a green bell is pretty much a Win Game button. It makes you all huge and even though you can't shoot, anything you run into you kill. It's not the most entertaining bell effect in the game, but it's the most useful.

The ship, as you can see, is called Captain Kebab. He shoots rings and bullets out of his nose and mouth, but if you avoid them long enough he'll start to float down and let you fly over the top of him. Usually there are more Moai heads planted on Kebab's back to shoot at you, but I killed them with my huge penguin powers.

Get far enough and you hit this big gold Moai head that, believe it or not, shoots at you. I think it's possible to kill him, though I didn't manage it this time. If you can, it takes a lot of shots.

Right when you think you're nearly done, though, Captain Kebab backs up!

Now you're back at the front and this time the Captain wants to fly over your head!

I like this picture of Kebab, by the way. Look at that smooth bastard right there.

I managed to kill some of the baddies on the underneath of the ship waaaay while I was still embiggened, but these two were unreachable. They're hard to reach now, too, because they're in their little nook there. It would be a bad idea to let them live, though. Kill them!

This is why. Captain Kebab takes it into his head to smoosh you. He sinks down lower than this screenshot shows and the only place you can be is in the tiny little niche where those two green Moai were before you blew them up.

Eventually he lets up and you can move on some more. You can shoot this dude in the back of the head for a while, but it won't do you any good.

Eventually Captain Kebab gives up and you're free to move on!

This looks like one of those space areas between levels, but don't be fooled.

Here comes the level boss and I got my megaphone just in time!

I WILL SUE THIS ESTABRISHMENT.

Very ladylike. That's... not suggestive at all.

So this boss shoots these gigantic Moai statues at you. You can't kill them; you just have to dodge. When you get a chance, shoot the lady Moai in the eye.

It doesn't take too long, but those Moai men can be tough to doge. I almost stavestated myself into oblivion during this boss fight and that would have been really sad. I like my powerups!


Beat her, though, and you get to see the rest of the Moai planet. That's the end of this level. See you next time!

Saturday, September 27, 2008

Robot Master Saturday #12



Today's robot is Flash Man. Despite his silly name, his power is to freeze time momentarily. You're looking at his picture right now.

I always tackled him first. Let's see what I drew.



Despite what I said last week, I may have drew this first. He's huge compared to the other drawings.

His left arm is so disproportional to his right one. And his arm is attached to the wrong place. I'm such a bad drawer that I could become a famous webcomic maker.

His right foot is also disproportional to the left one. I'm tempted to draw it today to see if I could get anything right.

I don't know what is up with the eyes. I think it just shows my unconscious hatred of Asians.

Tork's Picks Week 4

I'll take:

Tennesee over Minnesota
Denver over KC
San Francisco over New Orleans
Arizona over the Jets
Green Bay over Tampa Bay
Carolina over Atlanta
Jacksonville over Houston
Cincinnati over Cleveland
-
San Diego over Oakland
Buffalo over StL
Dallas over Washington
-
Philadelphia over Chicago
-
Pittsburgh over Baltimore


Last week: 11-5
Season: 32-15

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Webcomics I'm now following

Some ironically. Others non-ironically. Your guess to which one is which.


The first one is Life of Ronnie, a chomic about Canada's greatest hero. As far as I know.


Another comic is called Questionable Content, otherwise known as The Hannelore comic with lots of filler.

Finally we have Brawl in the Family, a comic about Super Smash Bros Brawl characters.



Now....Ironic or non-ironic love. Guess for each!

Rimmi's Cartoon Challenge #9


Today's cartoon is Punky Brewster. I did watch this as a kid, but I don't remember much. Despite watching this cartoon I never watched the show it was spun off from. I think I was aware of it but I didn't really watch prime time television back then.

The intro starts with Punky riding her bike while wearing a raincoat. Did anybody ever have any of those things? I had rain coats and rain ponchos but I hated them and would rather get wet then wear them to school. She's wearing the coat because it just rained, as we can see from puddles here and there. Her dog is running along side her. Did she have a dog on the show? I wouldn't be surprised if they added it here.



She sees the end of a rainbow, so she and the pup run to it. Meanwhile some bass singers are singing a catchy tune consisting entirely of "bow." Punky finds the end of the rainbow, and instead of a mischievous Irishman she finds a tiny city. The city is made up of some kind of gophers. Leprechaun gophers. Would I lie to you? The little houses have four leaf clovers on them. One of the gophers runs through the village and meets Punky at the outside of the rainbow. The rainbow has a border like plastic wrap and the gopher, who has a goatee, falls through it. Punky picks him up and hugs him, because she's a girl and stuff.



IN A STUNNING PLOT TWIST, the rainbow disappears! The goatpher is left behind. That's ok for Punky, because she gets to pick him up again. By the way, one of the lyrics describes him as "one of a kind." Did this creature have it's own toy line in stores? Given the time period, and the way they're trying to pump up his uniqueness, it's like they want you to really have one of your own versions of him.



Glomer (I had to look it up but that's the gopher's name) shows off his magical powers. He can fly and he has genie powers, without the nasty rules. Glomer creates a magic slide which Punky and her friends slide on. If I remember correctly, the boy was the doofus character and the blonde was a stuck up friend. The fantasy ends with Punky falling in her room which is now a big mess. She's all alone and her dad makes her clean it up. Glomer appears out of nowhere and cleans it up. Then we see Glomer in various disguises, which would put up a red flag in many cases. Luckily, I don't think he's the type who does many "funny" impressions. The kids push him around in a buggy, then the doofus boy falls down while skiing. I don't know if he was on the live action show, but I'm sure he's here so boy viewers won't be turned off by an all-girl show. The kids play in a band but I don't think that was an important part of the show. I mean, they already have the genie thing, so do they really have to pad the show with songs, too?

One more hug and the intro ends. Glomers were sold in stores in the mid-eighties, right?





I mentioned this before but I can remember two episodes of this show. One of them involved the kids winning money on a game show, and they could win more if they got rid of all the money. Somehow the game show knew that the doofus had two cents left because of change for a candy bar. I bought that as a dumb kid but that plot has a few problems. Do they have game shows like that now where the poin is to get rid of all the money they give you? You could just go online and paypal the contest money away in minutes.

Glomer's voice is done by Frank Welker, who gave us voices like Nibbler on Futurama and Goro in the first Mortal Kombat movie.

This show lasted two seasons and had 26 episodes. I think it's one of the earliest cartoons I watched on Saturdays consistently and was sad to see go. But don't hold me to that.

Monday, September 22, 2008

This Week In Entertainment (9/22/08)


My Pick of the Week is Mega Man 9 for the Virtual Console. I've been waiting for his game for over a decade. I can't wait to shoot Splash Woman. This game is probably 1000 Wii Poins.

Instead of waiting for CBS to show the usual Peanuts specials, just buy the set and watch them whenever you want. By the way, the rumor that It's The Great Pumpkin... was originally a slasher? Not true.

I only poin out Friday the 13th The Series because it has nothing to do with Jason, but it was still made after fifty of those movies were already made.

Man, even Saturday morning cartoons have gotten political.

This video celebrates a stadium that will be torn down for a newer expensive one that will cost taxpayers a lot of money.

Game shows plus bloopers? Sign me up!

On the Wii we have Lego Batman, which would have been my pick during most other weeks. What's the over/under of reviews that say something like "Why so blocky?"?

Also out on the Wii is Wario Land: Shake It! Hopefully this game isn't as short as the Game Cube game that I never got. I think it's 2d.

Samba De Amigo is some maracas shaking game that was originally on the Dreamcast. Weird how it has a perfect set up for the Wii controllers.

I liked the GameCube Pitfall game, but this Wii version looks way too much like it. Let's hope it's a new game and not a repackage.

Finally on the DS is some Kirby game. I'd be more specific, but I haven't paid attention to Kirby for a while. It's hard to tell the regular Kirby games from the side ones.

Sunday, September 21, 2008

Rimmi's Cartoon Challenge #8

Today's cartoon is Kidd Video. I actually watched this show as a kid even if I don't remember too much about it.



This show is about some kids who have a band and end up in a cartoon world. We start in live action as the cast wakes up. The girl, who is the girl character, wakes up. The leader, who is probably named Kidd Video, pumps his fist and yells "YEEAAAAAAAAAH!" The nerd has a monitor that uselessly flashes a message to wake up. He's probably the Professor character. There's a third guy who doesn't stand out, so I'm guessing he's the goofy character. The girl and leader get on a motorcycle and ride to some destination. The nerd and fourth character drive in a truck. Everybody is all happy and full of energy and a happy bouncy unthreatening theme plays.



They arrive at some storage place where they sing the theme. Kidd removes a cover from a mirror in the only attempt to make the place look unused. Kidd also has an intense face. If you saw a teen like that you would immediately decide to hide all knives. Kidd is the lead singer and guitar player, of course. Nerd slaps the keyboard a few times. Girl plays the drum cheerfully. Fourth guy plays bass.

The song, as far as I can tell - and if you've been following this blog you know I'm bad at this - is about some kid who is out of it because he or she listens to too much music or something. Videos and radios are the only thing that keeps them going. Sad, really.

Suddenly, bad stuff happen! The guy who greenlit this project decided it wasn't enough to have a teen band, so an evil fat cartoon character suddenly appears in the mirror. It's a prototype Dilbert boss! He laughs and pushes a button that sucks the band into the "Flipside."



So our heroes are now animated. The girl character shouts "Ay yi yi!", which means she's probably stuck with a terrible catchphrase for the series. They all realize that they're cartoons, which means that when they stare at their hands they disappear. Because cartoons are 2d, you see...awww, forget it. The band floats in crystals so the bad guy can laugh evilly at them. He threatens to make them play music for him....FOREVER! You can almost sense the "forever", say it yourself, and then laugh in disbelief when the cartoon actually says it with you.

However, the band is rescued by the thing I remember most about this cartoon. I mean who. The who in question is the eightiest fairy ever, wearing leg warmers and everything. Her special powers is to sneeze, which served as the deus ex machina for every episode. Her sneeze in the intro rescues the band who float to safety, while their car (CAR?! He stole the car?) turns into a super car. Which also floats.




The intro ends when girl asks what's going on, and the fairy tells them that she'll explain later. And that's it. I'm sure the first episode had the fairy explain what Flipside was about, and what the heck was the fairy doing before this all happened, but the intro stops here. It's as if the fairy has to remind these fools every week.


There's a pretty good nostalgia website called Kidd Video Flipside. I found this website when I was trying to remember what this show was called. Apparently the fairy's name is Glitter. The bad guy's name is Master Blaster. The intro left out the part about his henchmen being some cat characters. They're the Copy Cats and they bring bad vibes to all. Plus they're most likely the goofy kind of henchcats. The rest of the kids have names but if it weren't for the girl, they'd all be interchangeable. What? I'm just saying. You watch a bunch of cartoons and reach a different conclusion!


AND NOW! Rimmi wanted me to put more oomph* into this entry, so I'm going to watch the debut episode and give my thoughts.


* - May not be her actually words.


So the band is in their super car. They're riding around a loopy road as if it's a roller coaster. Glitter tells them that they're just going to luv Neon City. I guess when she said she'll explain later, she meant much later. The nerd complains about going home more than once, so he's obviously the homesick character. Nobody says it, but everybody has a screw you vibe. What the girl character, Carla does basically say is "Shut up and look at all the stuff!" Only more politely. Kidd looks at a volcano that spits out random bleeps and bloops. It's called Music Mountain. They ride around it without getting killed by the erupting notes.

Carla finishes a soda and pushes a button that makes a robot trash can pop out of some place in the car. The car is magic, you see. It eats the soda bottle while the character explain to each other that there's kids at Neon City who like music. So the Flipside is just going to be like real life, except with magic! Whee. The fourth kid is interrupted from his horrible song by an awesome scene where Mayor Leon of Neon City starts charging the car. Sadly, instead of a headbutt, the Mayor stops and the band crashes trying to avoid him.

The car is flipped over and the mayor yells something incoherent at the band. The band tries to ask Glitter to translate, but she's gone. They somehow conclude that she was thrown from the car, which is impossible. However, she has and uses this opportunity to reveal her special power, the sneeze. The first sneeze of the series gives her the ability to lift the Kiddmobile (that's what it's called) and turn it over. Later she explains her powers, and apparently she's allergic to a lot of things. The writers were really hedging their bets with that line. Kidd tells her to kick back while they clean up the mobile, but she takes it literally and spins into another mess.

Nerdy Wiz says that the crash somehow turned on the tape recorder. All the tape recorders I had made you push down two buttons until you felt a click. They slow down the mayor's language and are shocked to see how old he is. (Wait, this is a video recorder too? I guess they're using the cartoon rules of video cameras being everywhere.) On the video he explains that the Master Blaster somehow caused them to accelerate which ages them. The Master Blaster did it because the Neonites didn't want to go to the Copy Cat's concert. Everyone except Wiz decides they have to help, even though they're, you know, just a band. Are band members just naturally inclined to get involved with things they just barely understand?

As they drive off to help, we see the Master Blaster's floating fortress, shaped like a gumdrop. The Copy Cats, who are all (that f word that bugs Lita when I use it), are singing All Night Long by Lionel Ritchie. I think he actually appeared on this show, so they didn't just rip him off here. Somehow the band deduces that the Copy Cats can't sing anything unless the Master Blaster steals a song for them. And here I was going to make fun of Lionel for being linked to the bad guys. The first set of commercials start as they decide to go to Neon City before taking on the Master Blaster.

The commercials end and we see some eighties era video effects as the Kiddmobile drives to Neon City. It made me wonder if youtube gave me the long video. The animators try to give Neon City a Jetsony future look. No Carla, it's not beautiful. They look at several book cases. The books are like the Addam's Family books that have literally meanings when you open them. Carla finds a book with a dancing neon figure. It sings about rocking down electric avenue. BASED ON THAT, they decide to go there. I admire the writers for not having the fairy sneeze to find the right book. Shows restraint.

A poster with the MB's face on it tells anybody listening to go to the concert to stop aging. Wiz says that that's it for the problem and decides to run for it. Kidd decides that the MB is lying. That's pretty cruel for a cartoon character to just make people age and then give them false hope to stop. The poster mentioned the word "higher", and so the band looks up and sees a clock going crazy. Wiz finds some doodad that causes the clock to spin fast, thus aging the population. He's left behind with Glitter while the other three go on to fight MB.

We meet the Copy Cats for the first time. They all have annoying voices, particularly the female. They're the goof-off type henchmen, who are vaguely rebellious but too scared to do anything. The MB sends them to capture the Kidds. His frustrated facepalm makes you wonder why he can't get better henchmen, but writers never have to answer those questions.

An elevator lowers and lets the Kidds into the floating fortress. They enter it and find a crystal ball next to their entrance. Inside is.... a Lionel Ritchie music video!!! This plays for over a minute and must have been the writer's favorite part. An eyeball camera with a speaker voiced by MB taunts them as they decide to break the bubble. Kidd puts on a bandana which gives him unlimited ammo but fails to help him and his friends to rescue Lionel. They are quickly captured by the cats.

Wiz tries to disconnect the whatever, but some more wires plug into it. He freaks out and cries that he's speeding up. Glitter tries to calm him down, but knows that he's a wimp. She says she'll get the others as we hit commercial break number 2.

When we get to the final third of the episode, MB explains his plan. He's going to slow down the Neonians until the stop, so he has a permanent audience for the Copy Cats. The writers leave out the pesky part why, which is why they earn the money and we just watch.

MB evilly watches the suckers enter the stadium for the music concert, but his orwellian machines alert him to Glitter's presence. He tries to get the Copy Cats to get her, even though they're next to useless and they can't fly. Glitter reaches the captured Kidds and they decide that the best plan is for her to go get Wiz. If she's just going to leave, why not get some pepper, too? A goofy chase happens when the eye camera tries to get her but only takes out one of the cats.

Meanwhile, the fourth kidd who has a name but I'm not using it just to be a jerk sings a song based on the musical property of the bars. Somehow this causes Carla and Kidd to decide that JUST THE RIGHT NOTE can shatter the bars. So they trick the Copy Cats into playing All Night Long. This breaks the bars. The cats sorta shrug this off and go to the concert.

So, big finish for the first episode. The trio try to rush the MB, who's got his hand on the switch. He sees them and pushes a button that walls up the place where they're standing. Meanwhile Wiz is aging and rushes to the band's aid with Glitter following. Wiz runs right up to the bubble and shatters it. This causes the magic tubes hooked up to the cats to disappear. No longer sounding like Lionel Ritchie, the crowd boos. MB is annoyed, but still goes for the switch. In rushes Wiz, who (YES!) headbutts the MB's chair. This causes random stuff to explode, and everything is made right. The clock goes back to normal, and so do the Neons. The episode ends with Kidd Video driving off and going to another cool place that Glitter mentioned. The cats escape into the fortress so they can capture the band on a later date.


There's your first episode. The MB is actually kind of menacing, so I guess the Copy Cats are suppose to balance that. The kid's fit into their stereotype roles, except for Ash, who I still can't figure out. I want to say he's the goofy one thanks to his dumb songs, but he doesn't really stand out. The band spends too much time standing around discussing stuff they shouldn't know yet. I guess they didn't want the fairy to spend all her time giving important exposition. I

Unless they get captured every week, I'm betting this is the closest the MB gets to beating the Kidds. That usually happens in the first episode because it tries to grab your attention before the show gets a little more routine as episodes compile. This was also a rather short episode. They didn't even spend that much time establishing much yet not much happened. I'm betting in later episodes the show starts in the middle of the plot so more stuff happens. Or not. They probably just go from town to town beating the MB and his latest scheme.






I hope you enjoyed this little recap.

Saturday, September 20, 2008

Robot Master Saturday #11

Today's robot is Crash Man. He has no hands and throws bombs somehow.



He has some kind of visor that doesn't cover his eyes. Let's see how I did.



Oh wow. This must have been the first picture I drew. It's so simplistic and yet still awful. He has a wobbly drill on his right arm.

He has a huge heal. It looks like the front of the foot is as big as the back.

It almost looks like I drew the left arm first than the rest of his body. It just stands out that way.



By the way, Mega Man 9 comes out this Monday. I can't wait.

Tork's Picks Week 3

I'll take:

Kansas City over Atlanta
Buffalo over Oakland
Tampa Bay over Chicago
Carolina over Minnesota
New England over Miami
New York Giants over Cincinnati
Tennessee over Houston
Washington over Arizona
-
San Francisco over Detroit
Seattle over St. Louis
Denver over New Orleans
Philadelphia over Pittsburgh
Indianapolis over Jacksonville
Baltimore over Cleveland
-
Dallas over Green Bay
-
New York Jets over San Diego




Last week: 11- 4
Season: 21-10

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Rimmi's Cartoon Challenge #7

Today's cartoon is Goldie Gold and Action Jack, am 80s show too old for me. According to the side note, it's a sequel to Richie Rich, and not a show about unimaginative parents.

For some reason, the intro pulls Goldie's head into a box and makes her watch scenes of herself in the show. Watching someone watching television is not a good idea. I'm sure this type of intro was popular at some poin in the seventies or the eighties. The narrator tells us she's the world's richest girl. See, cause the eighties was all about money. Or whatever. Goldie is confused by her adventures until she watches herself defeat a dinosaur with a fire hose. I guess Jurassic Park was a bust for her too.



Action Jack is her love interest. He's a dare-devil reporter. My opinion of journalists would shoot upward if journalism school was about jumping out of planes. Jack's scenes includes a space bubble dome. Rich people get all the fun!




We see various scenes from their adventures. This includes undersea stuff and flying adventures. You didn't have to tell us that. We could have guessed after we saw a freaken STS fly by. We see the Gold Street Journal, the building where Jack works. If the paper isn't made of gold I call shenanigans. We see a ridiculous airplane with a pool on the roof. No, really, and it has tables with umbrellas and plant life. Part of the reason for this is so Goldie can wear a bathing suit, which must have pleased the 12 year olds who tuned into this show.



Even Goldie's title screen looks expensive. Animation doesn't, though.


Somehow, there aren't enough nerds to give this show a wiki entry, so I had to look elsewhere. Here's an entry that talks about the show's premise. Apparently Goldie owns the Gold Street Journal and she and Action Jack investigates their own stories. I wonder if anyone is like that in real life. "Does Senator Kittenkicker REALLY support Bill 1557? To the pool-ane!" They get to have all kinds of cool gadgets. In cartoon terms, this means magic. The dog's name is Nugget and the editor is Sam Gritt. Who named these people?



Also, they're just friends. Jack, you're the lamest person to have the nickname "Action" ever.

Rimmi's Cartoon Challenge #6

Today's cartoon is Kissyfur, a title that fills me with dread. I haven't seen it.



The intro gets to a scary start as circus music plays and two bears with clown make-up on a unicycle get too close to the camera. I never understood the fear of clowns thing but more of this would explain it to me.

Anyway, the circus goes on a train. Before it becomes a Dumbo rip off, the train IMMEDIATELY goes off a broken track. The two bears, now wearing civilian clothing I guess, are thrown clear and end up in a vortex in a lake. This leads them to the shows setting which is in some woods that also has a swamp. The bears get in a Flintstones jet boat while some alligators, probably the shows' villains, watch hungrily.







We see several other characters. There's Flopsy the Bunny. Warty the Hog. Piggity the Pig. Old Man Shelly the Turtle. And Cindy the Bear. Oh wait, the last name is already taken. They all have a jamboree while the alligators watch. Except Warty, the Grumpy Bear of the group.


If I had to guess when this was made, it would have to be the eighties. It must have been made around the time Care Bears was made, because it seems to be a show about friendship and togetherness and other boring things like that. I watched Care Bears, so I didn't need to watch the knock-off.


Wiki doesn't say a lot, but it says that the show was suppose to be a take-off of the south. The characters all have cajun accents, or something. I can see the alligators with accents like that, but the rest of the characters? NotCindy the Bear does seem like a candidate for a southern belle accent.



The amazing thing is the fact that this show ran for 46 episodes. Seriously. I didn't like the school cartoons, but those at least had room for more than 13 episodes (unless the writers were complete morons, of course.) How could they have come up with forty-six separate fifteen minute stories?