Super Bowl Pick

Pittsburgh will win. However, I'm picking and rooting for the Cardinals.

And that's that. One of these days I will go back and tally my picks.

Rimmi's Cartoon Intro Challenge #15

The long, long, long overdue finale to this little challenge is the intro to The Funky Phantom. I haven't started it yet and already I think I can see everything wrong with the seventies in it.

We start with three teens in a dune buggy. And not a van. Since it's not a van, you can't help but noticed that the kids are dumb because it's raining heavily. The theme starts. My patience ends. Yikes, that's terrible.

Since I've taken way too long to write this, I can't just shut the intro off. Dammit. The theme is sung from the teens poin of view and tells us that because they're morons, they had to duck inside a spooooky castle to avoid the rain. So they ditch Speedy and ... unbelievable. They have a dog. Even when your "scooby" isn't your mascot, you always include a mascot anyway! It's got to be a rule.

Anyway, our hippies or beatniks or whatever notice that a clock is set wrong. WHICH IS TOTALLY WHAT TEENAGERS WOULD DO IF THEY WERE WET AND TRESPASSING IN AN ABANDONED CASTLE! They set it too midnight and the clock goes haywire. Haywire is a word you need to learn if you make cartoons. Out pops the ghost of the title. He gets his name from the teens. Gotta love such a dumb decade that has instantly dated itself so badly.

Look, I slipped and fell on some steps today. Plus the word "funky" bugs me, ok?

The phantom is dressed like he comes from the Revolutionary period. Aww, crap, he also has a cat. I refuse to watch an episode of this show. He opens his mouth and it turns out that he's voiced by the actor who does Snagglepus. In fact, it's the same character, really. I'm sure he exits stage left even if he's a ghost and he shouldn't have to run. Even.

More singing. Rimmi, are you trying to tell me something? The teens insist that he's a friend. He's a friend. A FRIEND, YOU HEAR?!?! We watch the teens run. I bet Hanna Barbara just swapped heads of the Mystery, Inc. Gang with the ... what do you even call these guys? The funky foursome, if you count the dog? Jeez, this thing only lasts for a minute and I'm skipping the lyrics. Anyway, instead of cowering, the phantom actually helps to defeat a monster. I guess that's a different take on Scooby, but if he's not a coward, that means the gang has an invincible partner that can swoop in and save the day at any poin. Don't bother with the mystery you fools. Just capture the monster as fast as you can.

For some reason the funky phantom and (did I mention he has a) cat disappear before they do something that interacts with people or objects. I'm not sure why. I guess it's a cartoon rule that makes kids understand that something ghostly is happening. "Remember dumbkid, he's a ghost and he does, like, ghost things." At the end of the intro the ghost declares that it's Funky Phantom Time. The teens immediately raise their arms and make "Whoooooooooo" sounds. Anybody who claims that the seventies were cool are invited to explain this scene to me. Charts are recommended.


Good old too much information about useless things wiki gives the date of this show as being aired in 1971. So we can blame the sixties as well. Fine by me. The teens are Skip, April, and Augie. The dog is Elmo and the friggen cat (THEY ALREADY HAVE A DOG!) is Boo. Our title character is Jonathan Wellington "Mudsy" Muddlemore. He hid in a clock from the British and stayed their until his ghost escaped. Which means the clock was wrong for about 200 years or the place has been abandoned for as long.

The villains of the shows are people dressed as monsters, just like Scooby. Their was a comic of this show released about the same time where the villains were actually ghosts and they added a female character that lusted after Mudsy. I'm sure that addition has nothing to do with the fact that the teens are interchangeable Mystery, Inc gang wannabes. Nope, they're all such great characters that they got equal time.

I've seen a lot of silly Hanna Barbara shows, either of the Yogi Bear or Scooby Doo variety. I haven't seen this particular show, though. Good for me.

(I apologize for the lack of pictures. I'll add more later.)

Now, did someone say something about a party?

Rifftrax Reminder

I ran my ustream show counter to the Rifftrax Live show and I declare it to be a success. Despite that, Rifftrax is running another show tomorrow.

I have nothing planned for tomorrow, so I will be there and enjoy the show. I'm not the kind to hold grudges.


The short will be Overcoming Fear. It can be found at the internet archive here. I'm tempted to watch the short first but I think I'll just go into the live show unprepared what to see.

Good luck Mike, Kevin, and Bill! And try not to say too many memes, nerds in the chat room!





By the way, the previous post is number 666. Don't read it!

This Week In Entertainment (1/24/09)

My Pick of the Week is this set of America's Dumbest Criminals episodes. I have no idea when this show aired. In fact, I think there were several different versions of this show. The vhs tape of this show that I saw before was great, so I'm sure this set will be funny too.


Also out on DVD this week is the final season of Cheers. Remember how the show got self-congratulatory towards the end? Well, maybe not the show. I didn't watch it. But remember how NBC treated the show like it was the most important thing ever? And remember how they treated "...where everybody knows your name" as if it was so profound? Yeah. That's why I change the channel if I see a rerun of this show.

I like game shows, so here's a collection of game show episodes. I have no idea if these are public domain or not.

I am sure that these 300 television episodes are public domain. You can download any of these off archive.org if you have a fast computer.

I have yet to watch any of these, but here's another animated Marvel movie. Hulk Vs. sounds like a fighting game.

I've lost track of how many Superfriends shows they made.

Or really depressed.

I watched a couple episodes of this show on FOX and I can't remember why. Except I think one episode was advertised as having MANTIS being forced to fight in MORTAL COMBAT! Totally not trying to lure dumb video game nerds at all.

Usually I ignore the hundreds of bellydancing dvds that Amazon sells but this one caught my eye. Look at that cover! You can dance as Xena or Poison Ivy! I'm sure that this is just a combination of cosplay and bellydancing. The fact that I didn't come up with that idea shows why I only have a blog.



Out on the Wii this week is Rygar: The Battle of Argus. I don't remember much about Rygar from the NES. Something about a guy with a super yoyo as a weapon. Looked neat but I'm never played it.

This Week In Entertainment (1/19/09)

Sorry for the lack of activity lately. Here's my late Monday entry. My Pick of the Week is Magnificent Obsession. It's a silly romance movie known for giving us the god of bad movies, Jabootu.

Also out on DVD you can see the latest Saw movie. See? Saw? I've got nothing.


I don't even know what Bikini Royale is about. I just picked it based off its title.

Video Game Character of 2008!

It was a tough choice.

2008 saw a lot of strong candidates....the Hamburger Helper hand from Super Smash Bros. Brawl proved a major challenge, but in the end, one deserving candidate could not be overlooked, so it is with that, I congratulate.......


THE SUICIDAL BEAR!!!!!!!


Yep. Life is tough in the A.C.

You've got that damn racoon bossing you atound, that annoying gay cat bugging you trying to get your personal info (Probably out to spam our inboxes with ads for half priced viagra), that ghost that wants to play hide and seek when you're just trying to enjoy some night fishing....it's all so much, and Nintendo acknowledged the stresses of life as a video game character, and strong parralels to the life of a modern video gamer, by giving us a hero we can all admire and look up.

Honorable mention once again goes to Sleeping Doc Conners, the sleepingest, most Doc Connery character from 1984's Suestprobe II: The Amazing Spiderman. Doc had a strong year in 2008 after some setbacks in 2007, and he's primed to make a strong comeback in 2009.

Tork's Picks Championship Week

I'll take

Steelers over Baltimore
Arizona over Philadelphia



I know I said that the Cardinals were the least likely to make the Super Bowl, but now I'm rooting for them. Even though the most likely thing to happen is for the AFC winner to paste either of its final opponent.