The Final Episode #8: Beast Wars: Transformers (1996 - 1999)

 

Does it surprise you that I put out the Transformers original series "Final Episode" discussion out there so that I could end up doing this one? If it wasn't obvious it really was the reason. I had not remembered those three final episodes being so bad but I felt like doing this stuff in some kind of order,  Feels weird to just jump ahead, despite when I was getting into horror movies as a kid I rented every series out of order. I dunno, it feels better to do stuff in order now as  an adult. This is a very bad opening paragraph but that's something you must come to expect from my work.

Beast Wars: Transformers or Beasties: Transformers (as known in Canada) was a TV program that ran from September 16th, 1996 to March 7th, 1999. It's weird how memory can play tricks on you because I would have sworn to God himself that this show was longer lived AND took like a year between the third and fourth seasons, but there's no fourth season! This is Mandela Effect! I'M IN A DIFFERENT UNIVERSE! It has NOTHING to do with the fact that the smoothest liar of them all is memory. I loved this show so much as a kid this was MY Transformers. I'm sure I had seen Transformers Generation 2 episodes and enjoyed them but it wasn't something I just HAD to see. Beast Wars however was a must. This was something I would have been genuinely upset had I missed an episode of.

I'm pretty sure the last time I had seen this show was probably in 2007 or around about. They would show it sometime later at night and I would keep it on as background noise, sometimes even leaving the internet to watch an episode. I think it was this and Dragon Ball Z, but I'll probably be shown tomorrow that the show was last shown in 2004 and it was in the middle of the afternoon shown after Care Bears. What I'm saying is try to find a source other than your memory for something. Had you asked me yesterday I would have told you the animation was 100% dated instead of I dunno, 50%? I think the designs of the characters work pretty well in CGI still 21 years later. It's just the backgrounds and stuff like that don't. I guess they were given instructions to get the characters as good as possible because they needed to sell toys. Weirder still is that I don't even remember trying to get any of the toys at like 11 years old but man I'd love to have them now at 35. Christ I'm sad.

like Transformers and oddly enough, Full House, Beast Wars: Transformers last episode was a multi parter intitled Nemesis Part 1 and Nemesis Part 2. Megatron and the Predacons are without a base thanks to something that happened in a previous episode and Optimal Optimus (yes at this point that is what he was called) and the Maximals are trying to capture them and bring them back to Cybertron. However they find Trantulaus' lair and the big assed Nemesis ship that the original Decepitcons had and crashed there way back when (they ended up on earth 65 million years ago because of some time warp shinanagians) and well Depth Charge is the one and old Maximal that can go after them. He ends up in a fight with his hated foe Rampage and they end up blowing the shit out of each other. This somehow gives the Dinobot clone that Megatron had created using a sliver of Rampage's spark his original memories and thoughts and ideals about honor back. I'm amazed at how much of this I can still remember. It's very sad. Of course Dinobot II ends up giving the Maximals information about a ship within the ark which Rhinox then uses to CRASH INTO FUCKING NEMESIS AND WRECK MEGATRON (who for some reason had become a dragon)'S SHIT. That was fucking cool as hell to see. They get megatron tied up to the ship and fly on back to Cybertron. The past AND future are safe.

Final Verdict:  This was definitely a lot of fun to watch and Larry DiTillio (co-creator of She-Ra!) Bob Forward and Simon Furman tied a pretty nice bow to the end of this series. It's just this is a show that you kinda have to know some stuff before you went into seeing the last episode. The show built on previous stuff and all that. I had a lot of fun watching both episodes earlier (and one of them was a VHSrip, how cool was that?) and I'm excited to re-watch the entire show. However, I'd probably just recommend someone else start at the beginning. I guess those weird childhood habits of watching shit outta order are hard to break.

The Final Episode #7: Dinosaurs (1991 - 1994)

 Most sitcom endings were positive and enjoyable. I mean I say most because some end on cliffhangers that will never be resolved (I still pine for the second part of the season four finale of Duckman) and others go out of their way to be dark as hell just to make a point. Dinosaurs went dark as hell for it's final episode. Dinosaurs for those who do not know was the final thing Jim Henson really worked on before he died, having coming up with the original idea in 1988 (and people say this was a The Simpsons ripoff, and yeah they had the shorts on the Tracy Ulman Show but we all know no one cared about the Simpsons until they had their own tv show and the only thing these shows had in common were they were about a family. So If thats all that makes something a ripoff the Simpsons ripped off the Jeffersons. Yeah I'm saying it! Plus Dinosaurs didn't have 84 seasons of absolute shit that ruins the legacy of the 9 or so seasons of actually great stuff.) 

Dinosaurs may have been an idea from Jim Henson but when it finally came to TV it was created by Michael Jacobs and Bob Young. If the name Michael Jacobs sounds familiar, it's because he created Boy Meets World also for the TGIF lineup. Bob Young worked on shows of all kinds of varying quality. Working on both Family Ties and Who's the Boss?. Michael Gross is great and Tony Danza is not. I will probably end up talking about both of those shows final episodes though because why not. Anyway Dinosaurs ran from April 16, 1991 to October 19th, 1994. Despite being pretty popular the puppetry was too expensive and that's pretty much why it was cancelled. This show was very entertaining and funny. It did all kinds of comedy. Silly, slapsticky, even satire on all kinds of issues of that day. The final episode was also an issue episode. This one is about progress vs nature and how progress is not a bad thing but it shouldn't fuck nature over. They make this point by killing every member of the cast. Yes. This show ends with every character waiting to die. 

The plot of the episode is as follows, The Bunch Beetle are coming to mate so they can have children who will eat these poppy flowers that grow incredibly fast. The problem is that WeSaySo the main corporation in the Dinosaurs world that Earl works for has paved over the swamp where they mate and has been killing every Bunch Beetle they can find. So without the Bunch Beetles, The Poppy Flowers won't stop growing. Thanks to a TV interview by Charlene (who I found out today was voiced by Sally Struthers from All in the Family, wild huh. Fran's voice actor also went on to work on Arrested Development) Earl talks about how great progress is (and the joke about Microwave Toast is probably my favorite one in the episode) and is put on the head of a task force to find a way out of the poppy seeds, pretty much as a fall guy for the big corporation WeSaySo (voiced by George Jefferson, himself. Also I don't know where else to put this but Commandant Lassard also voiced a Dinosaur! Isn't that cool?)  They end up trying to posion the poppy seeds and just end up poisoning all plant life. Trying to create clouds they literally blow up volcanos and create the dark clouds that well cover up the sun. WeSaySo is happy because everyone is buying stuff to keep themselves warm. Earl ends off the episode with a poignant apology for everything. I dunno if everyone will buy it Earl but it was worth a try.

Final Verdict: I gotta hand it to any show that ends up with all the cast, main and supporting waiting to die but still actually being pretty amusing throughout is pretty great. It's very melancholy but it's definitely my favorite Final Episode that I've talked about thus far. I cannot wait to watch the rest of this show and to do a review of the entire thing.

TV Review #4: The Wacky World of Tex Avery (1997)

 

I should discuss with you how I review TV shows for this blog, some lucky shows will get me to watch and discuss the entire thing and some terrible shows will get me to view a few episodes. I've been working on watching every episode of Tiny Toon Adventures for a later blog entry to this blog because well I loved that show as a kid and I'm curious how it holds up in the long run. Other shows I hear aren't as good I will watch one or two or three episodes of and get a minor view of how the whole show was. This blog is for silly fun and I'm not being paid for it. Unless you are giving me money, comic books, or other fine things I really do not want to sit down and watch all the episodes of something like The Wacky World of Tex Avery. It's even harder when some of the episodes are considered lost media. If I do enjoy a show that gets  a bad rap I will actually end up putting it on "the list of stuff to watch every episode of" so I'm not going to go along with the crowd unless I happen to agree with them. 

The Wacky World of Tex Avery was a DIC cartoon of the 1990s. From the mid 1990s. You know the DIC DARK PERIOD. It wasn't the highest of the high (like the 1980s/early 90s stuff) it was a lot of bad mixed in with admittedly some good but out of the 30 shows they made between 1994 and 2009, 20 of them sound like stuff I don't want to touch with a 30 foot pole and two of them sound amazingly weird/bad that I have to discuss them. I'm sure these TEN INTERESTING LATE ERA DIC shows will get touched on throughout this blog existence because I'm the type of person who wants to talk about Sherlock Holmes and the 22nd Century. 

Tex Avery was a cartoonist who worked with pretty much every major studio that was around between the 1930s too the 1950s. He created Droopy Dog and the Wolf guy and Daffy Duck and the RAID bugs and the Frito Bandito and all kindsa stuff. His animation was very vibrant and fun to watch, along with being funny. The Wild World of Tex Avery does not do his legacy justice in any way shape or form. First off the animation is cheap. Like very cheap looking. It cannot pull off the kind of jokes Tex Avery did in the very nice looking animation of the past. Secondly the characters they created for this show just feel like they were rushed and were like eh fuck it ones a fly and ones a cowboy. I mean the weird Italian guy from Pompeii showed a little bit of creativity but the rest not really. Thirdly a lot of the jokes carry on way too long, a lot of what made the old cartoons great were they went to the next joke at a rapid pace. Finally the show feels confused, there were several gross out jokes in one cartoon but not many in another. It's like it wants to be Tex Avery AND 1990s Nickelodeon cartoons and doesn't really know how to do either.

FINAL VERDICT:  Before watching this I watched a Droopy cartoon from 1943, Dumb-Hounded and was thoroughly amused throughout. I think I was like "you know that would have been a good joke with better animation" once throughout the one and a half episodes of this I watched. I remember seeing this for the first time in a video of "EVERY 90S CARTOON INTRO EVER" on YouTube and being amazed at how bad it was. This doesn't even have nostalgia behind it. At least I can go to my sister and say "Hey remember how awful Monster by Mistake was?" and still get a weird nostalgic kick off it. I can't even do this with that. I can't even say usually good voice actors did a good job here because they didn't. It felt like they were cashing in. I mean I ain't blaming them but still. The only thing that's even remotely interesting about this show was before they made it they went too Nancy Avery to get her okay and give her some money for using her fathers name. She wanted a bit more just so she could send her two kids to college and they were like "You know we don't actually have to give you anything" so she went to Chuck Jones who was still alive at the time and well I hope he raised hell because the people behind this trash deserved it, and you know I like to try to be positive about even the less then wonderful stuff I talk about but this doesn't deserve any positivity. 

TV Review #3: Saved By The Bell (2020)

 

In 2018, NBC created a streaming service that will probably never get shown in Canada because of some dumb reasons or something. It was called Peacock because of the NBC Peacock mascot thing. And uh they decided to make a sequel series to Saved by the Bell because we will never stop making sequels or reboots or remakes now. Get used to it. We will revamp or sequelize literally every single thing you ever loved, no matter what it is. Seriously there will be an Indiana Jones 5 coming out in 2022, when Harrison Ford will be 80. They are cheap and easy and everything. 

This opening honestly makes me sound like I hated this thing and I hate all remakes/reboots/sequels or whatever. I'm just saying that corporations don't want to make new things when they can wring every single bit of dough from something but that doesn't mean every single one of these will be bad. I just think some of these will end up being good because someone cared about the original show. I mean they did get Peter Engel the creator of the original show to be one of the Executive Producers. I dunno how much work he's doing on the show but he's 84 but I guess at least trying to get him to do something is something? I don't even know where I'm going with this.

I haven't seen the original Saved by the Bell in a very long time. Whenever TBS stopped being TBS and became Peachtree TV and I don't even think I get the channel anymore. TBS would show 82 episodes a day. Like you could seriously just sit there and watch the entire show, it's sequel series, the two tv movies, and maybe even The New Class in about one week. That's gotta be like several hundred episodes. Saved by the Bell the New Class was one for like six or seven years.  I just wanted to talk about this reboot because honestly I'm just interested in how stuff from the past will work in this future of ours that I've got weird mixed opinions that only make sense to me. I guess that's a part of being an adult.

Uh, so yeah. The tv show that ended in 1993 (not counting the College Years and The New Class) is different than 2020. The Hollywood culture is different and hell culture in general is different. This show starts with an underprovided school getting shut down and the students going to the more priviliaged  Bayside. The new kids are all mostly pretty entertaining. Daisy, Aisha, Devante, Mac Morris, Jamie and Lexi. We also get to see Jessie Spano, AC Slater, Zack Morris, Kelly Morris and one episode with Lisa, whos now a fashion pioneer in gay old Paree! I really like AC Slater now being a pretty big loser. Daisy is Hispanic and I guess the main character of the show, it's hard to say with a ensamble show like this. She's trying to make the world a better place. She's like the new Jessie Spano for this show I guess.  Aisha is a black lady. DeVante is a black dude. Lexi is a transgender cheerleader. It's definitely more diverse and all that, and they all feel like more than just stereotypes. Lexi gets to be a bit of a mean bitch at times.

That's also one of the shows main problem. Mac Morris and Lexi are kinda dickheads who go to becoming a bit nicer a bit too quick. I really think it should have been longer than 10 episodes before they became more empathetic. They needed to spend more time before they became a bit nicer. It feels very quick in the last few episodes because the show needed them to be nicer. I dunno. They could have also done the oh shit some shitty racist lady wants to shove the Douglas kids out of Bayside again. They could have let that story breathe for more than the few episodes it had. They could have also let Aisha and Jamie stay dating for more than 5 seconds. I guess when you have 10 episodes you gotta get the stories going quicker? I guess keep the people binge watching to keep on seeing what else happens. Oh and they are apparently going to take on the corona virus in season two. I don't think I want to see this show take on that mess. 

FINAL VERDICT: A few positives in this final paragraph first. I did actually laugh quite a bit watching these episodes and I really did enjoy the first few. I just think they shoved a lot of plot that could have been done better in the last few episodes ya know? Some of the comedy is mixed bag too though. The Principal guy can be funny but also tries too hard in some scenes. I would have also liked to see Mr. Belding and Screech and even that biker chick Tori show up (even if two of these get mentioned in the shows episodes). It's definitely trying a bit more than some remakes and I do think that if you get Peacock you really should give this show a shot and to check it out. It's not perfect but it was a fun enough watch over the past two days. I'm actually kinda exicted to re-watch Saved by the Bell the original series again too. I wonder how I'll feel about that now as an adult. I do hope they let the subplots breathe a bit more in season two but I think people want bingeable "oh man what's gonna happen next" stuff these days.

TV Review #2: Monster By Mistake (1999 - 2003)

 

About a week ago I stopped watching some YouTube channel. I won't mention the name because I've forgotten it. It was because they did a review of the movie House (1986), and it wasn't positive, just because of the name, and since this guy plays a character for his youtube channel and when a person plays a character on YouTube they usually go so in on how bad something is. Usually even overplaying it. I didn't even watch the video and it kinda annoys me how he compared it to Evil Dead 2 (1987) when honestly the only thing both movies have in common is that they are horror comedy films. Well that and they take place in a dwelling of some sort. That's about it. I'm just sick of the HEY LET'S MAKE SOMETHING LOOK EVEN WORSE THAN IT IS THROUGH WACKY CHARACTER YOUTUBE SHIT. I don't even know if the video was some kind of swerve but I don't care because it's grown old. Hell even the AVGN honestly has way way way more misses than hits these days and I only watch his videos because of nostalgia for really early YouTube. Let's not even bring the Nostalgia Critic into it... even if I do still watch him shamefully, but that's because I like to have something running in the background. I've started to make it better videos than Nostalgia Critic. Like Nick Knacks. I should write about that series so I can get him an entire zero new viewers!

You may be thinking "Why the jelly Jesus fuck are you on about YouTube people being goofy?" Well person I created wholesale to make a dumb joke I will answer this here. I did it because I wanted to see if I could write a more positive review of something I feel is bad. Not like praise it but at least make comedy (usually about how bad of a blog this is) and weird comments only I would find funny while trying to discuss something I don't like. Maybe I just want to try something new, or try to turn the tables even though It's not possible with a blog. Maybe I just thought the YouTube beginning sounded nicer before I really thought about it and I don't want to scrap it because I'm very lazy. The main point being I want to try to do a serious look at something I did not like as a child. Like really really REALLY did not like. 

Monster By Mistake was probably the show I disliked the most as a child. It was an incredible dislike. As people who are members of a discord I am also a member of know that I disliked Casper as a child, but I would still at least watch a Casper cartoon. Not many but I can at least say I've seen them. I don't think I ever saw more than the theme song (which is probably positive note #1, it's a pretty jazzy tune that I still kinda like to this day) I didn't like the characters or the stories the show told from what very very little I did see. I was also apparently 14 when this show came out. I could have sworn it came out earlier and I needed a bit more from my cartoons. At least some fun comedy or very interesting plots. This was a show clearly made for like kids that were 5-6 years old, and not the smarter 5-6 years old. 

You might be asking yourself, what in the jelly jumping Jellybeans is Monster By Mistake? Well dear friend of mine, Monster By Mistake is a Canadian CGI cartoon and if you know about Canada animation or co-animation products, It's either really good (The Raccoons, Reboot, Beast Wars) or will make you want to vomit profusely until you pass out (Yvon of the Yukon, What's With Andy?) and my feelings as a child were this show was incredibly ugly looking and that Reboot and Beast Wars were much better. This show was created by Mark Mayerson who I don't think has done anything else and I don't think he even has a Wikipedia page. Everyone whos done a single thing has one of them. Catapult Productions, CCI Entertainment and Studio 365 were the people who wrote the stories and CGI'd them very badly. 

Now for a few positives because I've gone over how the stories weren't interesting to me as a child and really still aren't as adult. I will say that the entire premise DOES have some promise. Maybe better writers and maybe not awful CGI and this show would have been something I would have left on in the background instead of instantly turning to literally anything else, including informercials and Color Bars. Remember those?! The premise is that an evil troll looking thing has tricked a boy named Warren with a spell book and whenever he sneezes he becomes well a Monster. His sister Tracy gets the spellbook and they routinely try to turn Warren back to normal during their adventures. Oh and there's a jazz playing Ghost because I guess they wanted a jazz playing Ghost in this cartoon. It's not an amazing stone cold wholly original premise but if made differently I could see this entertaining me, at least as a child.

I also must say that giving Len Carlson, Susan Roman and Alyson Court work is always a good thing. Bert Raccoon, Sailor Jupiter and Jubilee from X-Men deserve work. I must also say that watching some episode today to discuss this show that it's a lot more boring now then repulsive looking, and being bored as much better than being disgusted, right? It's hard to even talk about this any more because what made it really bad back then was the CGI animation, and if I'm being fair the animation from the studio Mainframe that did Beast Wars and Reboot hasn't aged amazingly either (still no matter what year 1999 or 2020, always looked nicer than Monster by Mistake.) I also can't even say this show was popular because stations like YTV and such needed to have a certain amount of Canadian content on their channels so that's probably the reason the show lasted forever. I do have a lot of questions about this cartoon that I'd love to talk to someone at YTV during this time about.

FINAL VERDICT: I think my attempt to review something I didn't like in a more thoughtful serious manner worked sort of. I guess I'm a perfectionist at heart but still want to just blather on into the ether. I'm also glad that YouTube entertainment has gone farther than LOL I POOPED MY PANTS AND VOMITED IN RAGE AND JUMPED AROUND LIKE A SPASTIC MONKEY BECAUSE THIS MEDIA WAS SO BAD and instead try to discuss anything in a more thoughtful way, like Nick Knacks. I may not agree with everything he says but the man does his homework and puts out a good video. Much better than most of the AVGN videos made by Screenwave.

TV Review #1: Clue Club (1976)

 

It's time to stop talking about December Holiday specials and talk about something even less interesting to most of the people who read this blog (Hi Port). I've decided to start reviewing an entire show giving it a full several paragraphs cobbled together instead of just one paragraph in a group. I probably won't do this for every Disney Afternoon show (I said what I said about some of them and I don't care to discuss any further. Unless you pay me, that's the only way I'm ever watching every single episode of Quack Pack). What fine television program gets the initial spot? Why a obscure Hanna-Barbera cartoon from the 1970s, of course.

I fucking love Hanna-Barbera. OK, I may honestly not care that much for the Flintstones or the Jetsons (despite enjoying the NES games), but give me Huckleberry Hound or Yogi Bear or Snagglepuss, or Scooby Doo and day of the week and I'll be happy. Nothing reminds me of the sweet days of yore more than those rascals. For those not in the know, I mean I don't know maybe you were born in 2001 and are wondering what this old man who enjoys run on sentences is talking about. Hanna-Barbera was an animation company/partnership/friendship that started up in 1937. You know, when your grandfather was being born you fucking young whippersnapper! Man why am I yelling at these imaginary people? Joseph Barbera and William Hanna created Tom and Jerry for MGM Pictures in the 1940s, and then on July 7th, 1957 they created a animation studio that lasted for about 44 years. That's some wild shit. Say what you want about them but you cant deny their longevity.

The detractors of the sweet old men who brought us wonderful cartoons (Hi again, Port) was that they were cheap and if they found something that was popular they would ripoff their own works and create several dozen cash-ins. I can't really deny this but I also can't deny that a lot of these cartoons make me laugh and that's all I'm really asking for when I watch something like Clue Club.  It's like comfort food, I know what it is and what I'm getting and I'm perfectly fine with that. So like two sentences ago I said they'd create cash ins, well you know Scooby Doo right? Yeah I'm gonna just assume that yes you do. Well Clue Club is literally Scooby Doo with a different coat of paint and an extra dog. This was before Scrappy Doo and probably even Scooby Dumb. Who is clearly the best character in the Scooby Doo Universe.

See Scooby Doo was fucking popular as shit in the 1970s. So Hanna-Barbera decided to make about 30 cash-ins or ripoffs. I'm pretty sure every one of these featured a dog. Hanna-Barbera fucking loved dogs. Since this is my blog and it exictes me to see large articles full of purty words on my screen I will attempt to name every single mystery show they made! Let's go! Josie and the Pussycats, Josie and the Pussycats in Space (a lot different than the original show), Inch High Private Eye, Captain Caveman and the Teenage Angels, Goober and the Ghost Chasers, Speed Buggy, Jabberjaw, The Funky Phantom (this one featured a gay ghost with Snagglepuss' voice!), Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kids,  Buford and the Galloping Ghosts, The New Shmoo (with the Shmoo from Al Capp's Lil' Abner comic strip!), Charlie Chan and the Chan Clan, hell even Ruby Spears (who worked at Hanna-Barbera) got in on the action with Fangface and yes I'm sure I will end up making terrible blog posts on every single one of them because I have nothing better to do with the God given gift of life. 

Now let's finally get to the television show Clue Club, which lasted for not even an entire year. It started on September 4th, 1976 and ended on December 11, 1976. It stared a group of teenagers (and one very smart kid) and TWO dogs. Clearly way different than Scooby Doo. The two dogs were Woofer and Wimper. One was a saucy rascal and the other one thought he was the smartest creature alive (and well wasn't). That's pretty much where all the comedy comes from. I think this show was pretty funny and that's why I like to watch old cartoons. So yeah that's about it. I'm amazed that the review portion of this blog post is "this cartoon makes me laugh so I like it" but it is. I do want to try something where I give a top ten list of best episodes of the show, but it's kinda hard to do that with this one because only sixteen episodes ever existed. I mean Hanna Barbera being the cheap rascals they were they did edit this into something called The Skatebirds (apparently a live action / animation show) where they called it Woofer and Wimper: Dog Detectives. I don't know how that version is. Oh, and Woofer and Wimper: Dog Detectives also appeared on the Robonic Stooges. Yes the Three Stooges were robots in a cartoon. I'm sure you are asking why and I'm saying cocaine is the reason. I don't know who did the cocaine but someone did because you don't come up with an idea like that without some sweet sweet cocaine.

FINAL VERDICT: If Hanna-Barbera cartoons bother you for whatever reason, well this is not the one that will change your mind. If you enjoy Hanna Barbera cartoons you might have some fun with this series. I enjoyed this series and even I'm amazed that I could bullshit an entire article about it. I'm pretty great with being a wordy fucker.

Obscure Holiday Specials #4: It's Christmastime Again, Charlie Brown.

 

As you are all well aware of, I am a fan of Peanuts despite never actually calling it Peanuts. No one ever called it that because Charles Shulz hated the name. It was forced on him by the newspapers. That's why just about every Charlie Brown comic strip collection book was like "Holy Hot Fuck, Charlie Brown" or "Stop shitting on the Carpet, Snoopy!" I don't know why I always have to use curse words to try to get comedy out of something but I do. Anyway, It's Christmastime Again, Charlie Brown and it was the 36th animated special and the last one to air on CBS which it did on November 27th, 1992. The next one would air on NBC, and several others would go direct to video. I didn't even know about them until today, so expect reviews of them.

Anyway, I liked this special a lot more as a child, even going so far as to say that I liked it more than the 1965 A Charlie Brown Christmas which goes to prove how rock stupid I was as a kid. Anyway, this does not hold up to adult scrutiny mostly because I've now read most of the Peanuts backlog of comic strips and plan to talk about them when I read the rest. The problem with that is that well all of the material in this story was taken pretty much verbatim from the comic strips. Plus going back to the well of Christmas when the first special was so well known. Not exactly the greatest idea. Plus I was curious about the Harold Angel character and wanted to see if he had appeared before and he had appeared on The Charlie Brown and Snoopy Show, in a segment called The Play. I know some of the material I'm sure popped in from the comic strip to the animated specials but Charles Shulz tried to make them mostly new material. I don't know if he was busy in 1992 or what but the majority of this special is from the strips and that just feels lazy.

Another really big problem is that the special doesn't feel like it gets to the ACTUAL plot until the last 10 or so minutes, the actual plot being a play that several of the characters have to perform in (Peppermint Patty is a sheep, Marcie is Mary, Franklin is the Angel Gabriel which I'm sure bothered some racists so I'm glad it was done and that sorta thing). Not to say that some of the vignettes weren't cute or funny, just that I think they needed to spread the full plot out ya know. It's not terrible but it certainly isn't better than A Charlie Brown Christmas like I thought at eleven.

FINAL VERDICT: Admittedly this is still a fun special and I wasn't bored during the 23 minute run time but man, they could have done better. Maybe spread out the jokes about the play through the entire run time or something. The whole vignettes thing just doesn't seem to work for the specials, and I don't know if it works for The Charlie Brown and Snoopy Show because it's been decades since I've seen that show. I'm just amazed that a guy who was a stickler for quality didn't want something better. Anyway, It's Christmastime Charlie Brown is a C+ special.

Elseworlds Eroticism #2: Lobo sucks. You know it to be true.

 

Well, apparently part one of this article is one of the most viewed posts I've made....with two whole views! So I've decided why not let read and discuss another three Elseworlds. For everyone except those two views Elseworlds was a subsection of DC Comics stories that took place in other eras or places or mashed up two characters or stuff like that. Like Batman would become a western type guy in 1883 or get mashed up to become Wonder Batwoman. Now I kinda want to see that one. Most of them were pretty fun and I enjoy them. Think of them as kind of like DC Comics What If... Anyway we have another 3 ones to talk about.

Boy howdy I'm not into this. I like Alan Grant's Batman stories for the most part, but hoo boy this was not a fun time in the old town tonight. I don't know how popular this Simon Bisley guy is but for the most part I do not like this art (I do like how he draws the Penguin and bird-like and Scarface as a really old wooden dummy but thats about it) the story is The Joker hires Lobo to fight Batman and that's about it. I find Lobo to be annoying and not funny, like Deadpool. Comedy in comics isn't hard man. Justice League International, Ambush Bug, Howard the Duck. That stuff is fun! and funny! this entire thing just felt forced and I'm not into it. Sorry Lobo fans but I'm gonna have to give this one a Not Recommended, but I feel if you like the Main Man you've already read this one. Not Recommended.

 This one was HOG FUCKING WILD. Holy moly did Bob Layton and Dick Giordano make an insanely fun little comic 3 parter here. Ok so there's a guy named Bryon Wyatt who plays Batman in the movie serials and has the license for Gotham Pictures. Jack "The Joker" Napier of Arkham Pictures wants that license and is willing to do anything to get it. Jack Napier gets his mob connections to literally shoot everyone that works for Gotham Pictures INCLUDING Bryon Wyatt right in the dang head but he doesn't take that easily and is saved by Al Penny who is this universe's version of Alfred Pennyworth who has a silver mine because he's trying to make it rich. So Bryon Wyatt because of his injury believes he is NOW the Batman and man they have fun with this. It's all very over the top but clearly these two were having fun, and this Batman IS the Batman of the late 30s and early 40s where he'd shoot your ass or throw you out of a building if you were being a naughty criminal. Of course the Joker and the mob get taken down but you'll have a lot of fun reading this one. The guy who plays Robin is going bald and has to wear a hairpiece. If that doesn't make you want to read this then we are very different people. Highly Recommended.

Batman as Eliot Ness of the Untouchables. You know the group of Feds that went after Al Capone. Now that's a pretty wild idea by Max Allan Collins, whos written a lot of comics and novels and stuff over the years. He's even done Batman before this in the 1980s, but I don't really remember those issues well enough to say if they were good or bad. Anyway, this comic was pretty enjoyable. It was a brisk easy read full of Gangsters and we all want Al Capone to get his ass kicked. The only real problem is some of the characters feel pretty samey but other than that I enjoyed this. It was a fun mash up of a famous historical figure and a famous fictional character and I was actually pretty surprised when it turned out that Batman in this story was Eliot Ness, I had a feeling it would be one of those Fed guys but not the top fella. Anyway this was worth a read. Recommended.

Now it's time for me to read three where Batman fights Dracula and becomes a Vampire. These ones are gonna be either amazing or straight up terrible shit. I can't wait to see which is which!

The Final Episode #6: Full House (1987 - 1995)

 

It's time to tackle one of the shows I disliked the most as a kid. Up to this point in this series I had enjoyed all of the other shows as a kid/teen/whatever and was curious about how the last episodes of each had worked out. Full House however I loathed with a deep angry hatred which was weird because I loved every other show on TGIF. Family Matters? Urkel is my fucking hero. Boy Meets World? The guy who plays Eric is an underrated comedy genius. Dinosaurs? Hook that shit into my fucking veins. Point was I had no problem watching goofball sitcoms. Hell I watched Step By Step and that was fucking Full House with Patrick Duffy in it!

Full House started on September 22nd, 1987 and ended on May 23rd, 1995 for a total of 8 seasons. It was apart of a sub genre of sitcoms that I like to affectionately call "Boy There's A Lot of Fucking People in This Damn House, Jesus Christ" which includes The Brady Bunch, Step by Step and probably a lot more shit I can't think of right now. The last episode is a two parter. It involves a bunch of stories that pretty much lead no where but this ain't fucking Breaking Bad or something. One involves DJ trying to get a date for the Prom. One involves Stephanie trying to get a boy to notice her. One involves Uncle Joey and his best friend who just lives in the house with them because WHY THE FUCK NOT!? doing some tv show thing about weird jobs. The first episode would be about wrestling. So they have to pretend wrestle for some reason. I thought they would just ask questions about the weird job said person has not do the job with them! Damn weirdos.

The main plot really involves Michelle being a fan of horse-riding. She wants to do a contest, but Danny doesn't want her to do it until a bitchy rich woman comes by and pretty much makes him so angry that he puts her in the contest. Horse jumping or some shit. When the time comes Danny and the rich mom ruined their fun so they just decide to go off riding on some trail, which is where Michelle hits her head and you know what happens! She gets amnesia, because that's what happens when anyone in a sitcom gets hit on the head. Except they really don't try to get comedy out of it, everyone is feeling bad about this happening until she just randomly gets her memory back in a weirdo scene involving both the Olsen twins. Remember how creepy it was when gross old dudes were getting excited about them being of age? God damn that was freaky.

Final Verdict: This feels kinda lazy and thrown together but I honestly remembered the second part being a clip show and I was relieved that it wasn't so good on them for that. Of course this probably came about because they thought they were going to get a ninth season for the show but ABC stopped at the end because apparently each episode cost 1.3 million. Yet the show looked cheap as fuck. Weird. Anyway, to be honest I actually laughed at a few things in these two episodes. Not really enough to look forward to the day when I end up watching all 192 episodes to write an blog review of the show, but it was certainly a better time than either The Drew Carey Show or Transformers.

Obscure Holiday Specials #3: Inspector Gadget Saves Christmas (1992)

 

You know since the other Inspector Gadget piece about the Final Episode of his show was taken off of another blog I had, this is the first time I've talked about DiC Animation so I get to blather on about them for the majority of this opening paragraph. They were created in 1971 by Jean Chapolin and for the majority of their first decade they made stuff  in France. In 1981 they teamed up with those rascals in Japan and created Ulysses 31 which literally has the greatest theme song in television history. Nothing will ever top it. He then teamed up with Andy Heyward and Bruno Bianchi and they created Inspector Gadget, the show that would put them on the map. The came Heathcliff and M.A.S.K. and The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin and the Sailor Moon dub, all things that I will blab about on my blog soon enough. DiC was even bought out by Disney! Sadly in 2008 DiC was made a part of Cookie Jar Entertainment and stopped being the  DiC we all love and know. They will live on in our memories.

Inspector Gadget Saves Christmas is a decent enough piece of Gadget related entertainment. It's not as good as most episodes from the first season of the original series, but it's certainly better looking then all of the stuff they've done with the character since. Some of that shit is really ugly. Also the Matthew Broderick and French Stewart movies. Yikes and double yikes. No one deserves that double team punch. Inspector Gadget Saves Christmas came out on December 4th, 1992 and faded into obscurity. I know someone will maybe one day find this blog and go NUH UH I SAW THIS FOURTY THREE THOUSAND TIMES AS A CHILD and I'll make fun of them for watching Christmas specials outside of Christmas. That's weird you weird-o. Anyway I would watch Inspector Gadget a fucking lot as a child. It was one of my favorite shows. It would come on NTV (rumor has it the weirdo who owned NTV, Geoff Stirling made them put on an episode during the middle of the news one day. It appeared picture in picture. What a weird man.) YTV, and just about every Canadian owned channel mostly because Nelvana a Canadian animation studio helped animate some of the episodes and most of the voice actors were Canadian, like Cree Summer. Every channel needed some Canadian content. Isn't that a wild factoid to know? Yeah I know it isn't. I'm sure it even showed on some of the American channels we got. Point is I loved this show

Since I loved the original series so much it's just kinda weird with the animation here. For an 80s cartoon the show was pretty well animated and pretty consistant with that animation. It just feels a bit off like not completely the same and that's weird coming from the company that owned Gadget. I dunno, I guess I just like the way they made the characters look in the original series over this. Oh, and this special has terrible terrible songs. Terrible. I don't want to hear Maurice LaMarche sing in a Don Adamsy kinda voice. Don Adams had a great voice for comedy and all that. He did not have a great voice for music. The other song by the elves is just annoying.

The plot is well your usual Inspector Gadget plot. Dr. Claw wants REVENGE on Santa Claus because he didn't bring him a Dirty Trick Sled when he was a child so now he's out on a RAMPAGE on the North Pole! Gadget comes in and does his dopey idiot schtick and Penny and Brain save the day and all like usual. Gadget was not the most plot heavy show. What I liked were the goofy ass gags and jokes and this special delievers them. A lot of very amusing jokes within this one, at least I thought so. It did end on a weird note with Dr. Claw's car being stuck and he was almost captured when Santa has the reindeer create a ice floe for him to escape.  I guess they didn't want to reveal who he was just yet because they were putting out those action figures. Man I remember seeing them on vacation and almost shitting my pants and trying to get my poor old mother to buy them and yes this happened when I was 8, not 28. I promise.

I said in my last review that I would rate this between Ernest Saves Christmas and Elmo Saves Christmas. This is not as good as Ernest Saves Christmas because it has very little Vern or Bobby action within. Despite never seeing it this is clearly better than Elmo Saves Christmas because Elmo is the worst Muppet out of the 28,000 Muppets created. That's right, I say the things we are all thinking but are too afraid to say! ELMO SUCKS! RISE UP PEOPLE!

Next Time: Let's go back to Charlie Brown and his second time at Christmas fun! Yes, I said second time...

Obscure Holiday Specials #2: Happy New Year, Charlie Brown

 

I know you're all like OBSCURE, CHARLIE BROWN! Charlie Browns not obscure! Yeah you're right but when is the last time you've heard anyone ever mention this holiday special? That's right, probably the day after it aired on January 1st, 1986. Happy New Year, Charlie Brown is pretty obscure for the whole Peanuts thing ya know. At least I think so and it's my blog so you can kindly eat my sweaty asshole. Anyway the first time I saw this was probably sometime in the 1990s on YTV. YTV would show all of the specials (which had to be at least 30 at that point) along with the tv series that was made in the 1980s, The Charlie Brown and Snoopy Show. They would also show three of the four movies (Race for Your Life, Charlie Brown, Snoopy Come Home, and Bon Voyage Charlie Brown (and Don't Come Back) which were pretty enjoyable and I'm glad that they were made so I can eek out a few more words into this article.

It's literally ONE minute before Christmas Holidays and Charlie Brown is thinking how the teacher hasn't given any work to do over the holidays and BAM, she tells them to read and then write an book report on War and Peace.  Yes, the depressing old Russian story that's like 8,000 pages and is way over the reading level of fourth grades. What I'm saying is the teacher is a fucking sadist. So Charlie Brown goes home and starts trying to read this insanely long, insanely depressing story about war. Linus comes in and tells Charlie Brown about how Leo whatever's wife Sonya had to re-write the book seven times with a dip pen and to stop whining and read the damn book. Except nicer and not realizing he's being a doof. 

To make things worse Peppermint Patty is having a boys asking girls dance party on New Years Eve and wants Charlie Brown to ask her out, and Charlie Brown is oblivious to the fact that Peppermint Patty wants him to ask her out. I don't get the Peppermint Patty and Marcie are lesbians joke. The CANON of Peanuts show that they have crushes on Charlie Brown. Plus are all weirdo children gay? Plus the joke has been done about four thousand nine hundred and eight three times and really needs to die. Please. 

Anyway Charlie Brown FINALLY asks out the Little Red Head Girl (who is apparently named Heather) and did you know that Charles Shulz had a unrequited love who was also a Redhead. Wild. Anyway you know he gets his hand stuck in the mail letter thing doors used to have. Do doors even have them any more? Anyway guess what happens she actually SHOWS up to the party but Charlie Brown is sleeping out side in the backyard. Poor Charlie Brown never wins, but he never gives up. Gotta respect that. Oh, he finally reads and writes the report at 3am the night before and gets a D- and the teacher decides that he or she loves being a sadist and has them read Crime and Punishment another long ass depressing Russian book.

This was actually a pretty fun special, I laughed several times. I liked the one scene with Rerun the best, where he blows square balloons and Linus keeps trying to get him to blow a correct balloon. Shit if my little sister blew a square balloon I'd have freaked my ass out and made her never stop. Uh, the music in this is pretty good too. I like the depressing Russian sounding music that plays every time Charlie Brown tries to read the book. I also like the one song from the special about musical chairs. It's very catchy. The music isn't as good as the Vince Guaraldi stuff, but Ed Bogas and Desiree Goyette who did the music for a lot of the other specials. This one isn't as good as the A Charlie Brown Christmas  or  It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown but it's certainly better than It's Arbor Day, Charlie Brown. Can you believe they made Arbor Day into a special before New Years? That's absurd. Who the fuck gives a shit about Arbor Day? Not me. Fuck Arbor Day.

Next Time: I'm not watching It's Arbor Day, Charlie Brown. I don't even know when Arbor Day even is. No we are going to watch Inspector Gadget Save Christmas. How many people Saved Christmas? I know Ernest did it. So did Elmo. Where will Inspector Gadget fall on that scale?!? Find out next time!

Obscure Holiday Specials #1: Rudolph's Shiny New Year (1976)

 

Ah yes, Rankin Bass. Now this is the good shit! Started on September 14th, 1960 as Videocraft International, Ltd and became Rankin/Bass Inc. sometime after because Incorporated is a better word than Limited. Sadly ended in 1987 when they were closed down by Lorimar Pictures. They were an company that made a whole hell of a lot of stuff, like Lord of the Rings animated movies, and helped make that Last Unicorn movie people talk about but I've never seen. Oh and Thunder Cats! Is ThunderCats one or two words? It looks weird written either way. Man I ask the important questions! Anyway what they are probably most famous for is their Christmas specials which they made all the way between 1964 and 2001 (I didn't even know about this last one called Santa Baby that has Eartha Kitt in it! Everyone talks about how she was one of the like 82 women to play Catwoman in the Batman 1966 TV show but she'll always be the old lady in Ernest Scared Stupid to me) and that's what we are going to talk about today. Not the most popular stuff, because really what can I say about Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer or Santa Claus is Coming to Town that most people haven't already said? Nothing. You come to me to talk about the weirdo shit no one remembers! 

This brings me to our first special and usually I babble on about my memories of these things from my youth and how I loved it then! Well, uh... I had no idea Rudolph's Shiny New Year (1976) even existed until I found a VHS tape of it at Value Village sometime in the past seven years or so? I don't know. I can remember dumb shit from my childhood but the adulthood is a blur. A sad boring depressing bore. Anyway I hope I still own that VHS tape because really I'm kinda tempted to start a new VHS tape collection and a VHS tape of this would be a great weird-o thing to own. I like weird-o things. Anyway this first appeared on December 10th, 1976 and was apparently a co-production with Japan's TV Asahi, with the special finally appearing there on December 24th, 1979. Now if that isn't a way to end the 1970s than I don't know what is! Also Japan likes Rudolph and American animation like that so SUCK IT ANIME FANS!!! (if any anime fans actually read this blog I'm sure they will mention this when I talk about how I like some animes later on in this stupid blogs future because they are dweebs who don't get my great comedy) (EDITORS NOTE: Apparently most of their 1960s stop motion stuff was done in Tokyo Japan by a guy named Tadahito Mochinaga who was credited as Tad Mochinaga, and there's nothing more in this world than I love then Japanese names.)

So this is clearly a sequel to Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and I know some dweeb on the internet has seriously and geniunely complained that Rudolph was an adult at the end of that special and in this one that he's somewhere between a kid and an adult. The only reason I'm probably even going to mention that is because well I just want to make fun of people who get really angry about plotholes. My favorite horror franchise is Friday the 13th after all so I care about plotholes about as much as I care about I dunno something lame like comics made by Micah Curtis. I just care about having a fun time with something and it's gotta be an insanly impossible to ignore plothole for me to really care and that really isn't it.

This is a very goofy and weird little sequel though. The plot involves Happy who is the Baby New Year who has ran away because everyone laughs at his big ears (I would probably laugh at his big ears too just because of the goofy sound effect that comes along with them) and he went off to see the Archipelago of Lost Years. Archipelago is apparently a word for a bunch of islands near one another. What a cool word I just learned. The Islands are were Last Years go. So there's islands with Dinosaurs on them. A quick way to get me to enjoy anything is to put a dinosaur in it. An even quicker way is to put a cute stop motion dinosaur in it. I'm a simple man who enjoys simple things. Anyway this is bad because if Happy isn't around on December 31st to ring in the new year then DECEMBER NEVER ENDS! Oh shit son. To make things EVEN worse a giant ass vulture named Eon The Terrible (named because he lives for an Eon) wants to make it so that December 31st never ends because if he does he will turn into ice and snow. It's up to Rudolph and his new pals (including a Caveman, Ben Franklin and a giant whale with a clock on its tail!) to stop his evil plan...of not dying. I mean the Dude's apparently been a jerk for an Eon but I can't really blame him for not wanting to die.

The best part of these specials is the old timey stars that they get to narrate them. They always seem so happy to do it. One of them was Fred Astaire. Another was Burl Ives. This special has Mr. Red Skeleton. My old man likes Red Skeleton so you know he's an old timey kinda guy. The other members of the voice cast are Paul Frees (who did just as much work as Mel Blanc and people need to give the man more credit, damnit), Don Messick, Frank Gorshin (who voices probably my favorite character in the story, the Camel, and my least favorite, the Knight from the year all the Fairy Tales apparently took place in.) and the lady who wrote the novel Beaches. You know it was turned into some sappy movie with Bette Midler....not that I've ever seen it. The songs in this special are also pretty good but not as memorable or good as the ones in Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer or Santa Claus Is Coming to Town. Of course those probably have the best songs in any Holiday special so it's not exactly fair to compare them to this.

The Rankin/Bass specials are fun wholesome Christmas specials... even when they are doing other Holidays. It's weird to explain but they all feel very Christmassy. Although it's hard to really not connect Christmas and New Years. This has a lot of fun animation and puppets and I enjoyed watching it. Also he's not in the special but remember fuck Burgermeister Meisterburger. Nothing makes me happier to see his dumb ass portrait fall into the trash where it belongs. Fucker getting into Santa's shit.

Next Time: I think I'll stay with New Years and review the only other New Years special I can think of, staring the Peanuts gang! From the 1980s!

Comicsgate can suck the shit out of my asshole, same with Youtube Grifters.

 This isn't going to be a fun little article about Pound Puppies or the 1986 motion picture House or the Batman comics that came out in 1987 or something I'd rather talk about, no this is going to be me yelling and screaming about something that has been annoying the shit out of me the past 3, going on 4 years now. This isn't going to be a place for you to discuss anything about this. In fact if you respond to this my response will be "Go fuck yourself" I don't care if you agree 100% with what I'm saying or you wrote a 22 page essay saying that I'm wrong for some reason. Not that I have to really worry because no one ever is going to see this, but that's what will happen if you respond. I do not want to discuss this in any way shape or form. I just want to put my thoughts out here and get it out of my fucking head so maybe I can worry about other stupid things because my brain hates me. That's it.

What is this whole thing going to be about, well mostly two things, Comicsgate and Youtube Grifters, because really these are connected honestly, and they fucking bring my piss to a fucking boil. This will be the angriest I get because it's taking a messy old shit on all the things I love in this cruel stupid heartless world of ours. I guess we start at the beginning of this thing for me at least. There's been mentions of Comicsgate ever since that fucking Gamergate shit happened (and no I'm not ever going to talk about that because it's somehow a bigger shit show than Comicsgate if you can believe that and it would take 10,000 articles like this one to talk about everything that went on there) but in 2017 I sadly, sadly came across a youtube channel by the name of Diversity and Comics who is possibly the dumbest person I've ever come across online and I've met my share of doozies.

Diversity and Comics would review recent comics and complain about the "SJW-ness" of them. I'm of this opinion... SJWs don't fucking exist in that large of a fashion. Yep. I'm taking that hard stance right there and now. It's literally a term to paint every single person who's ever had anything resembling a progressive thought. Say something like "Transgender people should be treated well" and then you're the biggest monster in history. Are there left wing people that go too far on things? Sure, but theres so few of them. Okay I'll give you an example, in 2018 when Mr. Stanley Lee passed on into the afterlife, two people said things that were unflattering about him. Every stupid asshole with a grifting platform about SJWs and shit went wild over this. Over two fucking people. Do you see how dumb this shit is yet?

Anyway he didn't know diddly fucking shit about comics period. I'm pretty sure he just looked at the Rob Liefeld (did I mention he had a hard on for this guy, because he fucking did to an insane degree) and never read any of the words. Like conservative people, I'm sorry but The X-Men has been a fucking allegory for bigotry and civil rights and all that stuff since 196fucking4. (oh and one very dumb comicsgate guy said it was just for all outsiders, yeah, I'd consider myself an outsider my entire life and I don't have hate groups coming after me like the Friends of Humanity or that shit).

I'd have left him alone if it wasn't for him getting a insane following, mostly from angry people who never ever touched a comic in their lives (one guy on twitter would go on and on about how great 80s comics were but never had heard of Secret Wars II and if you read 80s Marvel Comics there's no fucking way you wouldn't have known about Secret Wars II because that fucking thing was in every issue)  and these people were riling him up and he was riling them up and well he finally got a twitter account. This is when he'd harass (yes I'm sorry he would harass) people who wrote comics. Mostly any non-white/lady-type/lbgt-type. I don't give a hog fuck if you love or hate that Iceman loves frosty dicks in his mouth now. Whatever decision you feel is right is fine. I don't care, but you don't get to yell at Sina Grace because he happened to write those comics. I'm sorry but you don't. The pros would yell at the trolls/assholes/Diversity and Comics and this somehow became "the pros yelling at costumers". Well yes, if you are harassing someone in a Grocery story you should be told to go fuck yourself too!

Meanwhile a man who had very little talent who somehow got to draw Green Lantern (his art is stiff boring shit and has no heart too it) decided to get in on this action by saying any person that voted Republican wasn't respect or even allowed in the new SJW comics and that he was being ousted by DC comics for voting for that orange bag of shit (would it surprise you that it came out that long before any of this stuff very few people were willing to work with him because he was a dishonest person willing to throw anyone under the bus if it suits him??? no doesn't surprise me either) and he and other people starting yelling about Star Wars and shit. Then new people came in (one of them named Doomcock, and yes he's the guy who believed rumors about Star Trek from 4chan) and started calling every new thing SJW. New She-Ra SJW (for looking like shes 15 and not a stacked grown woman) New Star Trek, SJW. (Yes, fucking Star Trek the thing that was progressive in the fucking 1960s) Thinking anime voice actor man who has been accused of sexual assault not get to keep his job, SJW (this was another shit show that I will never mention again ever because somehow it was even worse than Comicsgate).  Literally at this point anything that they don't like is called SJW for some reason. It's literally to make youtube bucks, which is why they are all grifters, just yelling SJW at the clouds.

I don't care if you think new Marvel Comics are great, bad, terrible, best ever written, worst ever written. I don't care what you think of New She-Ra, new Star Trek, New Doctor Who,  New Star Wars or any of this shit, just realize these people don't give a shit about you and just want your sweet sweet cash. Seriously the Doomcock guy just took rumors from 4chan to lie to you and get youtube bucks. This also makes discussing politics even fucking harder too as if thats a mine field you wanted to jump into. All I want to say is look at these things and make up your own mind, don't let a youtube weirdo do that for you and don't yell tranny at people on the internet who are trans. Even if you are angry at their existence. It just makes you look like a dickhead.

That's it. Maybe I'll stop watching these videos and getting mad when they literally lie to my fucking face about so many things, but it probably won't happen.

If I ever get angry enough to talk about these dopes again, maybe I will talk about Diversity and Comics' comics which are literally worse than anything I've ever seen in any entertainment format. Literal tv shows that lasted 3 episodes before being pulled off the air for being terrible had better stories than his. Night of Horror is literally the worst movie I've ever seen and it still has a better story structure then his garbage.

Oh, and one thing for the 32 SJWs that actually exist on twitter, you can easily ignore them. Wild.

Hopefully tomorrow I'll talk about the Legion of Superheroes, or the weird Chuckie Cheese movie from the late 90s, or DIC cartoons or the many other more fun things to talk about.

The Final Episode #5: Transformers (1984)

 

Show Title: Transformers

Show Length: September 17, 1984 to  November 11, 1987

Channel: Syndication

Creator: A whole hell of a lot of dudes.

Ah yes, The Transforming Formers....Okay that was a terrible joke. Let's start over.

Ah yes, The Transformers. I remember them well. I'm pretty sure I watched reruns of this series as a child, but I did not love them as much as other children. My love was for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and DiC cartoons, but I did enjoy whatever I caught of them. I didn't really get into loving these transforming robots (that transform into cars, then robot gorillas, then into what the hell Beast Machines was) until Beast Wars came out in 1996. Did you know that in The Great White North we called Beast Wars, Beasties? We are really fucking weird up here in Canada. Beast Wars was what made me a Transformers fan and I will definitely talk about it on this blog. Not Beast Machines though. Never Beast Machines. Ever.

Now we get to the last 3 episodes of the show. It's an epic send off to the original Transformers. Or is it just really badly done!? FIND OUT............RIGHT NOW. These episodes were entitled Rebirth Parts 1, 2 and 3. They aired I guess in November of 1987, right when I was two years old. See I'm pretty sure I saw the Generation 1 episodes all jumbled up and edited and had weird graphical shit inserted into them to make Generation 2 (yes they went the Silent Night Deadly Night Part 2 route in just editing shit and being like HEY KIDS THIS IS TOTALLY NEW)

So this story starts out with Optimus Prime and some Transformer that probably had their first appearance within this episode (Seriously this three parter shoved in so much stuff to make the kiddies go OOO I WANT THAT) and I'm pretty sure they were told to just jam as much stuff as they can into these last 3 episodes. I'm not trying to say that the Transformers cartoon wasn't like a way to sell the toys because it always was. I'm just saying that for the majority of it's run it was also a fun cartoon to watch, this is just a final quick cash grab and it's not even all that fun. It's boring as hell. 

They then steal this key that opens up the VAULT OF FORMER TRANSFORMERS. i call it that because I've already forgotten what the real name was. The Autobots steal back the Key and are chased or shot or something to another planet where these green assholes who hate all machines live (because something called the Hive controls robots that fuck with them) and they become THE HEADMASTERS, which was the lamest thing related to the Transformers. Well besides Beast Machines. The Headmasters were people who work with the Transformers by being in their heads. I'm pretty sure the guy who thought it up was high and somehow DIDN'T get fired. I don't even know where to begin with this but I watched the Transformers for the Transformers not the people. 

Then the bad green hive jerks team up with The Decepticons and Optimus Prime learns about Nebulon and where the Key is and I just can't bring myself to care. It's feels so "hey we need that Transformers script by Tomorrow" and the writer went "oh shit I forgot" and just wrote down some nonsense. I don't want to say that about David Wise of all people. Dude did some great stuff with the 1980s animation that's still fun to this day but man it fees very "oh shit I'll write this essay in homeroom before History class" to me and believe me I was bummed when I heard he had passed away earlier in March of this year.

Zaric the green hive asshole creates Scorpiknox or however you spell that name. I really don't care enough to look it up right now. This crap put me in a bad mood. Galvatron gets the key and decides to blow up the sun with plasma energy or something.  Maybe it's just my dislike of the whole Headmasters thing and all that. I really don't know but I find this to be dreadfully dull and really feels like a whole "hey we can ring 3 more episodes of this out right?" to me. They should have left it with the episode where Optimus Prime comes back at least I remember that one being enjoyable. I don't remember anything about this one. Spike does some crap and throws together something and Cybertron gets its energy back. Woo.

FINAL VERDICT:  I've only done five of these as of right now but man this has to be the worst of the shows final episdoes. Blossom was fun, so was Captain Planet. Inspector Gadget was at best okay but the problems involving that finale were problems that involved the entirety of season two. Drew Carey Show wasn't funny but the plot felt like there was a beginning, middle and end. This just feels like something that should have been worked on more, like a first draft, and maybe beg the people making you put in the Headmasters to know that they sucked and a final set of episodes shouldn't have to shoehorn them in there. Whatever problems I had with the other four shows endings at least they didn't feel like a complete and utter slog to get through. F-.

The Final Episode #4: Blossom

 

Apparently they made Blossom toys. And yes I want to own this. I am a cool guy.

Show Title: Blossom

How Long Show Ran: January 3rd, 1991 to May 22nd, 1995

Channel: NBC

Creator: Don Reo

Ahh, yes another Sitcom. Yes, this is the television sitcom probably mostly aimed around teenage girls that I enjoyed as a child. It was Blossom. A show that ran for 5 seasons between 1991 and 1995. It started off as a mid-season replacement for some show I'm too lazy to look up so we will just say Cop Rock because really what this blog needs is more mentions of Cop Rock. Anyway Blossom was the weekly adventures of a teenage girl named Blossom, her best friend Six (whats up with all these hippie names for girls in this show?) and the trials and tribulations that her, her friend and family go through. Joey Lawrence plays Joey and goes Woah a lot. I would have been yelled at if I did not mention that.

As mentioned above May 22nd, 1995 was the last episode of Blossom entitled "Goodbye". In this episode Blossom must come to terms with the fact that her dad is selling the house. He had gotten re-married sometime during the series run (Blossom's mother left) and he wants a fresh start in a fresh house. Blossom not wanting to lose the house devices A SITCOM SCHEME! She, Joey and Six try to keep the people from buying the house. They act like totally lunatics and Blossom even kisses the realtor. Six pretends to be a prostitute and we are all glad they are 18! It's amazing what you could do in 1995. 

It turns out like most SITCOM SCHEMES this one doesn't work. The people still put in a bid and Blossom's dad keeps going to look for other houses. In the end there's a really nice scene between Blossom and her dad, and another with her and Six promising to be friends 4eva!  The Show ends with a nice montage of moments from the show. 

FINAL VERDICT: The only problem is that I kinda wish Tony and the Grandfather character (unless he died in an episdoe I don't remember) could have had a role or at least be mentioned. It doesn't really feel complete because of that but other than that this is a pretty good finale. I laughed out loud several times and actually am excited to do a full review on the entire series, which I can't say for Drew Carey Show because wow those last seasons are gonna be rough. A fun episode to end off a fun series. I recommend it.

Disney's One Saturday Morning Look Back Part 1 (of who the hell knows)

 

Ahh... One Saturday Morning. These (along with Pokémon and Dragon Ball Z) were the last cartoons I was really into as a kid. (Yes I called Pokémon and Dragon Ball Z cartoons, get over it.) I have a lot of fondness and nostalgia for these shows, even if I was like 17 by the time the block had ended in 2002. To be fair this isn't exactly just a One Saturday Morning thing, I'm also going to talk some shows made after it, and including some newer stuff. Just because the shows interest me and I'd like to watch them. This blog gives me a reason. I remember we'd watch One Saturday Morning for about an hour and a half (like Doug, Pepper Ann and Recess) before we'd usually go out to the Mall. I remember buying NES games around this time too starting up my collection (which is gone now because those games go for too much to keep now) I'm sure I got Adventures of Bayou Billy and Adventures of 3-D World Runner mere hours after watching Pepper Ann. I don't know why I'm mentioning this shit but it's my blog and I can do whatever I want.

This was a cartoon I thought was great as a kid and is still pretty enjoyable these days. It's very wholesome for the most part which is probably from creator Jim Jinkins, you know the Doug guy, and yes I'm sure Portnoyd if he's even reading this will go NO DOUG WAS LAME IM A BIG TURD SNIFFING JERKHOLE. but Doug was good and so was this show. Like all 101 Dalmations material, Cruella De Ville and her henchmen are the best part. Weird how a woman who wants to turn the Dalmatians into a coat is the best part of this show but she's hilarious. Horace and Jasper are voiced by Lenny and Squiggy from Laverne and Shirley! How cool is that?! Recommended.

This might be the best Disney show in the One Saturday Morning set. Period. And not even that it's definitely the funniest one. It's about a bunch of school kids and the adventures they get into at Recess. Literally every character is a gem. My personal favorite is Gus Griswald, but every character, even the adults get in some great jokes and moments. A true masterpiece that will never stop being great. Recommended.

People really seem to love or hate Doug. Like in general, me I thought it was a fine show as a kid. Not one of my favorites but I've seem to come to enjoy it much more as an adult. It's very wholesome and I guess in a world where everyone is yelling and screaming at each other I need that. Disney's Doug was well the sequel to Doug. Most people seem to not like it but I think it's still pretty good honestly. It's definitely wackier and they definitely changed things from the original series (no Honkerburger, Roger being rich, The Beets breaking up) but It's still fun. A little too much reliance on Quailman tho, it was much more fun when those episodes were spaced out.

PEPPER ANN PEPPER ANN MUCH TOO COOL FOR SEVENTH GRADE! PEPPER ANN PEPPER ANN SHE'S ONE IN A MILL-YUN PEPPER ANN PEPPER ANN MUCH TOO COOL FOR SEVENTH GRADE PEPPER ANN PEPPER ANN SHES HER OWN BIGGEST FAN! CATCH HER IF YOU CAN PEPPER ANN!!!!! Yeah, I'm sorry I just had to sing the theme song. Even the worst Disney songs were catchy.  Anyway Pepper Ann was a pretty great little show about a teenage girl and her wild antics. I liked the characters and her friends. It was funny stuff. It even had Don Adams in it. Any show that has Inspector Smart in it is good in my book. It's a shame that this show is kinda lost media as in some episodes are lost and haven't been seen in years. It's also a shame that on the old Jump the Shark website some crazy weirdos were freaking out over Pepper Ann's mom and aunt telling her about feminism. Not even radical feminism or anything. Just women are not trash kinda shit. Very weird. I don't even know why I remember them after seeing 594020429094 people get angry over stuff like that. The internet was a mistake. 

Well wasn't that fun! Well no it wasn't but let's get over that hurdle and talk about some more shows. It seems most of the shows are still pretty good, Disney Afternoon had the better shows but One Saturday Morning had the better ratio of shows being good. If that makes any sense? Of course it doesn't. Nothing I ever say makes sense. Anyway, till next time!

The Final Episode #3: The Drew Carey Show

 

Yes! this segment has returned and I'm gonna talk about something that ISN'T a DIC cartoon! What?! Yes that's right we are heading into situational comedy territory. Something I loved as a child and still enjoy today. New ones (at the time) old ones (just getting older) and such. Family shows, gimmick shows, it didn't matter I was on it. I was all about them and I couldn't get enough!

The Drew Carey Show was probably one of my favorites. I don't know when I became a loyal viewer but according to wikipedia I stopped watching somewhere in season 6 because what happens in the end of that season does not sound like I watched it (Drew ends up in a mental hospital), but I enjoyed the banter between the characters a lot, especially Lewis and Oswald (played by Ryan Stiles and Dietrich Bader).

The show started off as a group of friends, Drew, Kate, Oswald, and Lewis. Despite being different ages all of the characters felt like friends. Drew had a job at Winfred-Louder and his very own sitcom "enemy" Mimi who was a delightful character on her own. She even dated his crossdressing brother Steve! Man this show was pretty weird very early on wasn't it?

Now we finally get to the Finale of this show....entitled Finale which appeared on September 8th, 2004. Yep, you can tell they really put effort into that episode's title. During the last two seasons of the show, the ratings were pretty low and Drew had gotten a woman named Kellie pregnant. This lady is not very funny or talented sadly, at least in this persons opinion. Kate was a lot more spunky and fun to watch. This episode is them finally trying to get married so that their son won't end up being a bastard or born out of wedlock to put it in a more TV friendly way (isn't it weird that 16 years later I doubt most people would be all that into a plot like that. I don't even know if the people of 2004 would have cared. I would have been like eh whatever bro marry her when you want this aint 1952 no more son.

So they have a wedding reception and Michael Gross shows up as Kellie's dad. You know the dad from Family Ties and also Burt Gummer from Tremors. It's weird how he's probably had 400 other roles but I'll only remember him from those two and he tries but sadly isn't great as Kellie's dad whos angry at her mom (whos now having sex with Lewis!?) I don't know anymore. So a big old fight breaks out and Drew and Kellie leave to just go to the court room and get the whole thing done with. Some old black guy who may or may not have appeared in the later seasons drives them there (but then complains when a clearly very pregnant woman's water breaks and ruins his car. I don't think these jokes are being set up very well anymore.) 

So they go to the hospital and they try to find a priest.... only one in the building is there giving the last rights to some old guy and he promised the old guy he wouldn't leave. This scene is the only scene that got a laugh out of me if I'm being honest. A few  smiles and chuckles but only one laugh. Not great for a sitcom series finale. They then bring everyone into the room, including Kellie who's labor just goes faster and has to be brought back upstairs. The priest comes in at the very last second and marries them. Woohoo. We then get a scene of the backstage cast and crew and also people getting autographs from the cast. Kinda interesting I guess. This whole episode was only 20 minutes. Wild huh.

I'd been saving this fact for a while so here it is. All 26 episodes of the final season were released between June 4th, 2004 and September 8th, 2004. That's how much faith ABC had in the program then. I wasn't even a big TV watcher at that point, preferring to play my NES games and watch weird B-movies but it's kinda hard to enjoy 26 episodes when they are just plopped in at any old time just to burn them off, but if we are going by the quality of this episode maybe I don't want to see the rest.

Final Rating: This was not a very good final episode, but how many sitcoms can you name that were still as good in their ninth season. I'd name the Simpsons but only barely and holy hell did it get bad afterwards but thats an entirely different article. I knew I wasn't going to be loving this episode when it started with a breast cancer joke. Not exactly the greatest comedy to be trying to pull. Still it made me laugh once so I'll give it a D-