Category: Cartoons

Tron Lives

2012-11-09, 9:35 pm
Categories: Cartoons, Stream of Consciousness

Tron: Uprising is like an amalgamation of all my favorite cartoons from the 1990's.

Like Batman Beyond, it's the story of a familiar character, a shadow of his former self but still formidable, training a brash young successor.

Like Sonic the Hedgehog, it's the story of a small group of rebels waging an asymmetric war against a ubiquitous technocratic dictatorship.

And like Beast Wars, it uses the fact that its characters aren't actually human as an end run around standards and practices in order to be the most violent children's cartoon on television.

Seriously, it turns out that if you change "kill" to "de-res" and change blood to little blue cubes, you can show a dude with half his face cut off and the outline of an eyelid still blinking over an empty eyesocket. Game of Thrones wasn't that graphic when Tyrion took an axe to the face.

Also: Fred Tatasciore's impression of Jeff Bridges is uncanny.

Anyway, in case you haven't caught the show yet, here's the first episode (which thetvdb classifies as a "special" instead of the first episode, thus offsetting the numbering of every single episode by one -- so thanks for that, thetvdb). It's hosted on the official Disney XD channel, so that means it's not liable to be taken down any time soon, but also means it's probably region-locked -- sorry 'bout that.

ParaNorman

2012-10-15, 9:55 pm
Categories: Cartoons, Games, Movies, Status Updates

It was a busy weekend! I had a friend in from out of town, then had my cousins over for cartoons and games, then had more friends out of town and went drinkin' with them.

Caught a couple movies, too, including ParaNorman at the cheap theater. I liked it!

First of all: it's a kids' movie that does shit you're not supposed to do in a kids' movie. My favorite gag involved the rather gruesome image of the ghost of a dog who had been hit by a car. It's funnier than it sounds.

The flick does some fun things with genre conventions, has the usual kids' movie message that it's okay to be different, adds the rather more complex message that bullying is caused by fear and begets more bullying -- but mostly it's just a damn pretty, weird, creepy, funny, unconventional kids' horror movie, from a couple of directors whose resumés include Flushed Away, Coraline, and Corpse Bride.

Playing: Oh so very many things. This weekend we threw down on Scott Pilgrim, Gears of War, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 (purchased used -- my boycott remains unbroken), and most recently Batman: Arkham City, which my cousin loaned me. I was going to buy the PC version to use with my sweet PC graphics card, but on finding out it had SecuROM I decided not to pay for it and just borrow the Xbox version instead -- you listening, Square Enix? Of course you're not.

Doctor Who: Scream of the Shalka

2012-10-08, 8:42 pm
Categories: Cartoons, Comics, Stream of Consciousness, TV

Another old Who review. Originally posted Bronto, 2008-07-11. This is about Scream of the Shalka, starring Richard E Grant -- which is timely, as Grant's set to show up in this year's Christmas special.

Scream of the Shalka is an animated Webcast from '03 that was originally intended to serve as a pilot for a new series.

All in all, the biggest weakness is Richard E Grant's Doctor: bluntly, he's a prick. He's got all of Eccleston's sarcasm and condescension, with none of his whimsy or manic energy.

Now, there's a reason the Doctor is a prick, it's just not a very good or interesting one. The canonical #9 and #10 have done the "guilt and isolation" schtick too, but much better; the Doctor covering up his personal pain with constant wackiness is much more enjoyable than covering it up by simply insulting everyone and brooding all the time.

The most interesting element of the series is the robotic Master -- one of very few hints that Grant's Doctor has a sense of humor, and the only thread I would have liked to see developed had this made it to series. (The one brief nod on the current series: Derek Jacobi appearing as the Master in Utopia.) The serial's writer, Paul Cornell, would go on to use a similar idea years later in his Action Comics run, starring Lex Luthor and a robotic Lois Lane.

Aside from that, it's a generic alien invasion plot. The animation is serviceable -- and, since it's properly-done Flash, vector graphics and all, looks great on an HDTV -- but very low-budget; it would definitely look at home alongside any number of current cartoons on Nickelodeon or CN. Animations are simple, backgrounds are practically nonexistent (but lots of Kirby dots!). The animators' later attempts (the missing eps in The Invasion and The Infinite Quest) look a good deal better.

Anyway. It's worth checking out; the price is right. And I'd like to see more animated Who (either new stuff or more Invasion-style fill-ins of missing episodes). But ultimately, it's like the '96 movie: it's an interesting "What-If" for a series that never was, but the one we got instead is much better.

Powdered Toastman

2012-10-04, 9:54 pm
Categories: Cartoons, Stream of Consciousness, TV

Featuring Frank Zappa as the Pope.

Ren & Stimpy is available for purchase or streaming at Amazon, or on Netflix. Contrary to the title of the DVD set, the episodes are not uncut; most notably the entire Bloody Head Fairy sequence is missing from Haunted House. This episode, however, is intact and is not the cut-up version shown on Nickelodeon.

(I'm not sure about the streaming versions but have no reason to think they'd be any different from the DVD release.)

Anyway. Zappa loved oddball cartoons, so he fits right in here.

And I'm sure one of these days I'll get to Duckman...

Happy Chuck Jones Day!

2012-09-21, 9:37 pm
Categories: Cartoons, Music, TV

Bending the rules on tonight's Frank Zappa post, but probably not as much as that time I used it to talk about Manos.

Per ComicsAlliance, today would have been Chuck Jones's 100th birthday. Click on over there to watch Duck Amuck. As for me, I'm going with Dweezil and Ahmet Zappa performing You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch with the Max Weinberg 7 on Conan O'Brien in 2000:

As Conan notes, that song's featured on Dweezil's excellent album, Automatic.

Great Opening Titles: Gravity Falls

2012-09-12, 8:18 pm
Categories: Announcements, Cartoons, TV

I saw this cartoon getting rave reviews as the latest in the trend of Adventure Time and My Little Pony -- a cartoon for kids with surreal humor that appeals to adults.

It had me at hello.

Hello.

Seriously, it's great. It's funny, it gives an immediate sense of the characters, the atmosphere, and the wacky world. The theme song conveys a sense of mystery and weirdness.

Also: there's a picture of Bat-Boy.

I knew this show was going to be great before the opening titles were over. And that's exactly what opening titles are for.

BTW I've added a little update to the bottom of Monday's Bissette/Ditko post. Bissette's posted a followup which includes some feedback from Craig Yoe, and there's some great insight in the comments besides.

A Reluctant Dukakis Supporter

2012-09-04, 10:03 pm
Categories: Cartoons, Music, Politics, TV

Arsenio Hall interview, 1989.

"The more he campaigned, the less I enjoyed it." I can relate to that.

And okay, he probably hammers Reagan and Bush harder than Dukakis. But I'm still calling it for Democratic Convention Week.

Happily, most of the interview isn't about politics, and there's a rather neat Bruce Bickford claymation toon at the end.

Twinkle Tits

2012-08-03, 7:44 pm
Categories: Cartoons, Music

Decided not to go with another interview after all; continuing the tenuous Olympic connection with a performance from the Olympic Auditorium in LA, March 1970.

Someone in the comments says the animation in the beginning is by David Firth. And he's British, so there's your British/Olympics connection, audience.

Tick and Jayne

2012-07-26, 9:23 pm
Categories: Cartoons, Stream of Consciousness, TV

Watched Jaynestown again last night, and gorrammed if'n it ain't still one of my all-time favorite hours of television.

There's something about the way it all comes together -- it takes the most two-dimensional character on the show, the comic relief, and gives him more depth and humanity than we ever see in any other episode. It asks Big Questions -- and manages to approach those same questions, of the relationship between symbol and reality, in two different subplots, without it ever feeling forced. And while the Inara/Fess subplot is pretty standard Inara Being Wise stuff, the Book/River one has some of my favorite lines from the series and does a great job pairing off two characters who don't usually interact with each other.

It's a great episode -- legitimately funny, with a downer of an ending. If that's not vintage Whedon I don't know what is.

But while it's a Whedon show, the writer credit on this episode is Ben Edlund -- perhaps best known as the creator of The Tick.

And I got to thinking -- you know, there are a lot of ways Jayne and the Tick are similar.

They're simple and childlike, we don't really know anything about them other than their basic personality traits, they provide comedy rather than depth of character, and they seek simple solutions to their problems, usually consisting of violent mayhem.

And then, of course, you get to temperament, and they're polar opposites.

The Tick is pure. He wants to do the right thing, the heroic thing, the thing that helps people. Jayne is pure id; he's not actually evil (I'd say more chaotic neutral, though people with more D&D experience can feel free to correct me on that) but he has no motivations beyond his own immediate and selfish gratification. Jayne's speech to the mudders at the end of Jaynestown is like the inverse of an inspirational Tick speech -- full of anger, despair, frustration, cynicism, nihilism, and self-loathing. It's a bitter pill: "Heroes don't exist and no one is going to help you."

Needless to say, this kind of thinking is anathema to everything the Tick stands for.

I think maybe it comes down to something like this: the Tick is an overgrown 8-year-old, and Jayne is an overgrown 14-year-old.

At any rate. Damn good television, and thought-provoking -- and it's not even my favorite episode. (That'd be the one immediately following, Out of Gas.)

Fucking Fanboys.

2012-07-23, 9:25 pm
Categories: Announcements, Cartoons, TV

Dear guy who found this site searching for avengers assemble tv show sucks,

Man, life must be so much easier when you can form a strong opinion on a TV show based entirely on a single promo image.

(In fairness, yeah, that promo image is pretty bad.)

Also: According to ComicsAlliance, Jeph Loeb finally clarified the status of the two Avengers toons. Yes, Earth's Mightiest Heroes is ending to make way for Avengers Assemble -- but apparently the latter is a continuation of the former. On the whole, I'd say that's good news -- but then, I'm not the kind of guy who has to tell Google how much a show sucks before actually seeing a single frame of it.

...Actually, you know what? I, too, am going to share an opinion on Avengers Assemble based on absolutely no evidence whatsoever.

Avengers Assemble has a much less terrible theme song than Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes.

You heard it here first.

Related: I've gone and updated the favesearches list again, because there is some good stuff in there.