Movie Review #39: Hobgoblins 2 (2009)

I want to bring this review column back. I still watch movies and I want to discuss some. This might not be the longest column I've written but this is a movie people need to be warned of and to not watch. So a little history, in 1984 there was a movie called Gremlins it made 32,000,000 trillion million zillion dollars. So people decided to cash in and make several Gremlins-like films. First was Ghoulies by Empire Pictures. Then we got Critters. Then we got Munchies which turned into a kid friendly franchise. It's weird. I should discuss all 3 of the Munchies movies.  Then we get to Hobgoblins. It was a weird movie that was even on Mystery Science Theatre 3000. It was a weird mess of a movie that I think was a fun bad movie. 

Hobgoblins 2 is the story of a man named Kevin who has to get his friends to believe Hobgoblins exist. Oh, and the old guy from the first movie is back and now is played by a new guy or something. The Hobgoblins now have something to do with your greatest fear. I don't remember the first movie very well but wasn't it your greatest desire in that one? I really think that was the case. Anyway this movie tries to be the first movie all over again without the weird charm that movie had. This movie feels like it's trying to be bad/weird/cheesy. That rarely works. I'm sure there have been a few movies where they are going in to make something bad and cheesy and they make it work but Hobgoblins 2 is one of the many many times that it does not.

All of the actors in this movie are obnoxious, except maybe the guy they got to replace McCready from the first movie. Every one of them is really bad at the whole art of acting. Like it's almost unbearable. Also all of the comedy in this movie goes on far too long. Oh yeah thanks for repeating that joke 3 times before you let the scene end. I don't remember the other Rick Sloane movies I've seen being like that but again It's been 87 years since I've seen something like Vice Academy. One thing I will give the movie is that I did like one scene involving a fake movie called CHAINSAW CHICKS. That was fun. Oh and the fact this movie actually kinda looks like a sequel that could have come out in like 1990 is neat too. The rest of it just doesn't work.

FINAL VERDICT: I told you guys and gals that this post would not be a long one. There's really not much meat on the bone here but I just had to talk about this movie because it annoyed me that much. If you watch this movie I will punch you in the face.

The Final Episode #78: Spider Man (1994 - 1998)

Well we'eve been doing several Spider-Man shows in the history of this column. We started with the original 1960s show. It ended on a fucking clip show. The worst way to end a show. A cliffhanger might be annoying but at least it showed people cared about the tv show they were creating a little bit. A clip show was like "eh we are throwing this out because we can".  Like I understand why they made clip shows but  I don't think anyone really watched them. It was a cheap tactic to make a episode easily. Clip shows are even worse for silly columns made by weirdos about last episodes of tv shows. There's very little to discuss with a clip show. It's oh hey a quick easy set up to throw clips from old episodes into. That's pretty much what can be said for just about every clip show. So far 2 other tv shows I've done ended on a clip show. It's never fun.

Then I did the 1981 Spider-Man show. It was a show I never saw as a child. It was a buck wild tv series that ended on a hoot and a half of a tv show. Medusa is being controlled by the Wizard to do evil deeds. It was a suitable ending to that series. I then did Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, a series where he teams up with Firestarter and Iceman to fight crime. It's Final Episode was the same damn thing as the Medusa episode except done way worse. First off we don't have a silly obscure villain but some random dickhead SHIELD episode named Buzz. Unless you are a CGI toy voiced by Tim Allen or a military guy from some movie like An Officer and a Gentleman guys named Buzz can fuck off. Secondly they just pull Iceman's sister character right out of their asses. I'm sorry but most of the people worked on the 1981 show and Amazing Friends and we should have gotten a different damn plot for the Final Episode, damnit.

So 11 years later the next Spider-Man show came out. This one was much different than the other two just because they added in continuity, a thing that pretty much started in 90s cartoons. It was less a random adventure of a week. Stuff that happened in one episode would carry over to other episodes. You even had two, three and even five parters. There's fun to be had within random adventures of the week kinda stories of the 1970s and 1980s but I can tell you that I did not want to miss a single episode of this show because I didn't want to be left out. It felt like you had to watch every episode of this show. Sure I would have been sad if I missed an episode of the 1960s series but I would have been PISSED if I missed an episode of this series. Remember this was the 1990s and sometimes the only way to see an episode you missed was to hope it came out on VHS. That's one thing I'm glad doesn't exist these days. The fear of missing out is clearly gone from television these days. 

This Final Episode could easily have been the entire season because it all connects into one. I did not rewatch the entire season but I remember this very well. It starts out with Spider-Man connecting with several old timey Golden Age Heroes to fight some organization. We get to see Electro for the first time in this show in this series if I recall correctly. We even get The Red Skull and Captain America. Then after this series we jump into a 3 part Secret Wars series that brings in all kinds of characters. Like Iron Man, the Fantastic Four, Storm from the X-Men. It's really neat. The only problem is that I like 1980s Beyonder that looks like Bert Convy way more than this shows version of the Beyonder.

It then turns to the Final Episode, which is a two parter. Which involves parrellel dimensions, the attempted destruction of the entire multiverse, Madame Web, The Beyonder, several different Spider-Men, The Hobgoblin and The Green Goblin teaming up, and Spider-Carnage. All Amazing Friends gave us was a dipshit named Buzz. Lame. So yeah it starts out with the Beyonder bringing Spider-Man to this destroyed as FUCK version of New York City. First thing Spider-Man does is freak out about Aunt May. The Beyonder comes to tell him about this version of New York City when BLAM The Green Goblin and Hobgoblin are seen attacking the Daily Bugle because Spider-Carnage wants some fancy doohickey to amplify the fancy doohicky he has. A lot of fancy doohickies in these last two episodes. They get the Fancy Doohickies and Spider-Man is brought before Madame Web. She and the Beyonder show him the future which is Spider-Carnage blowing up the entire damn multiverse. The Beyonder used his power to turn back time.

They both created the Secret Wars on several different planets to find the Spider-Man worthy of leading this set of Spider-Men to destroy Spider-Carnage before he blows us all the smithereenes.  The Spider-Men include The Scarlet Spider, a powerless Spider Man, a Spider Man with Dr. Ock's arms, A Spider Man in the fancy suit from Web of Spider Man #100, and a Spider Man with several extra arms. They all go to the Kingpin's building to stop Spider-Carnage. He's apparently a clone of The Scarlet Spider or maybe not. It's not really clear but they really were just pokin fun at the Clone Saga that had taken up a good amount of Spider-Man stories from the 1990s. Several of the Spider-Men have to be brought back to Madame Web and the Beyonder. It's down to three and this is where part one ends with the Six Armed Spider-Man turning into the damn Man-Spider that has to be stopped. He's got Spider-Man and The Scarlet Spider in his grasp!

Anyway, it's easily stopped when The Beyonder sends the Powerless Spider-Man into confuse the Kingpin and Spider-Carnage while also using the last of his power to bring the Man Spider back to him and Madame Web. He does this and then disappears I guess back to his original universe with the Man Spider. This is the last we see of the Beyonder in this cartoon. No, Spider-Man did not teach him how to poop in this cartoon unlike in the comic book, and no I am not joking about that. Comic books are fucking weird and silly. Anyway this gives the main Spider-Man and Scarlet Spider time to stop Spider-Carnage but not before he escapes using his fancy doohicky into ANOTHER universe. 

This universe happens to be the universe of the fancy armored Spider-Man. The one thats a big obnoxious jerk. I liked him. It was fun to see a jerky Spider-Man. Anyhoo, he's getting married to Gwen Stacy. Spider-Man even freaks out when seeing an alternative universe Mary Jane before realizing its not her. He's really attempting to ruin this Spider-Man's life but thankfully Armor Spidey has already told everyone he's Peter Parker in this universe so it's no big deal when literally every person Spider-Man knows just pops into this room. It's pretty funny actually. Oh I forgot he even fought a giant Spider-Man robot before this happened. A lot of stuff happened in this two episodes. You can see why you'd hate to miss an episode of this show at like 11 years old. 

Anyway the Kingpin in this universe is Peter Parker's lawyer and he takes him away just to show that yes this version of the Kingpin is evil too and has joined up with SPider-Carnage. You think he'd not listen to a crazy man who somehow has a weird hobo beard on his mask. Seriously look up a picture of Spider-Carnage from this show and tell me that's NOT a hobo beard. It's kind of amazing and I love it. I've really grown to kinda honestly love Carnage man but that's for a different post. So SPider-Man realizes that this is him, even if he's gone crazy and feels lost and angry so he decides to find the one man who could talk to him, the man that might be alive in this universe.

That's right mother fuckers. He brings Uncle Ben to talk to Spider-Carnage and he finally gets him to realize who he is and this causes him to try to remove the Carnage symbiotie. However he has to use the fancy alternative universe doohicky that he fiddled with to make DESTROY universes instead and just jump into it destroying himself. Man I didn't realize how fucking dark cartoons from the 1990s could be. It's pretty messed up man! The powerless Spider-Man brings Spider-Man to HIS universe to meet some old guy by the name of Stanley Lee. What a dopey name. I don't think anything came of that guy AT all.

The episode ends with Madame Web telling Spider-Man that they will find the real Mary Jane Watson who was sent into an alternative universe in a previous season and yep the show ends on a cliffhanger. It always sucks when a show ends on a cliffhanger but it's clearly better than ending on a clip show because it showed that they people clearly cared and wanted to continue doing the show and not like "AW FUCK IT". Still it's very annoying when anything ends on a cliffhanger and I'd have loved to see Season six of this show instead of the Spider-Man cartoon that we did get, however we won't be discussing that right now.

FINAL THOUGHTS: Cliffhanger or not this show ended on a very fun note. You get all kinds of wild and wacky shit to enjoy within these last two episodes. It kept you invested and you clearly wanted to see a season six. That's the way you know that you made a good TV series. Anyway there are many many many more Spider-Man shows made between this show ending in 1998 and 2021, however to be honest there's only two of them I want to discuss. We will get to them soon.

The Final Episode #77: The Flintstones (1960 - 1966)

 

Yeah, it's been about nine days since I updated this blog. No matter how long I write this blog for, it could end next week or in 25 years. I could be writing about this dopey shit to an audience of 10 people for whatever amount of time. I'm just going to not be updating most in August. August around here seems to be the shittiest month of the year, and it's somehow the one I was born in. Every day is humid and muggy and even sitting in a basement it's still annoying. It's pretty much days straight of "fuck I want to sit in the middle of a frozen lake" shitty hot weather. I don't like the heat. I am a fat man. Very fat. It does not sit well with me, but I doubt I'd be loving with weather if I were a skinny man either. I just do not do well with the heat. Every day you get some shitty weather just causing sweat in every part of your body. It makes me not want to talk about anything or do anything and just hope the next day will be tolerable. Not even good just tolerable. Yeah there's warm stuff in June and July but it's August when every day is like "go fuck yourself" weather. Yeah, I've decided to complain about the weather I've truly become an old person at thirty six years old. I will refrain from complaining about climate change and how it will end us all because some rich ghouls decided that having a billion dollars wasn't enough.

Anyway I guess I decided to pick the Flintstones because of a few things. One It feels weird too not talk about The Jetsons and then not talk about The Flintstones at least a few posts later. These two shows are completely connected at the hip now. Is it because one took place in the past and one took place in the future? is it because of the team up movie of the 1980s called The Flintstones Meet the Jetsons? I really don't know but they get connected. It's weird because for decades the Flintstones was one of the money makers and the Jetsons was just kinda forgotten. Like The Flintstones as a program may have ended in 1966 but Fred and Barney were put into all kinds of specials and tv shows after that. They even were in a series called Fred and Barney Meet the Thing. Yes the Thing from Marvel Comics. They had specials in the 1980s and 1990s and everything. I wonder if they had never decided to bring the Jetsons back in the 1980s to some success. Would people even remember the Jetsons these days? I don't know. the two series from the 1980s along with the 1960s stuff gave The Jetsons just enough episodes for YTV to completely rerun forever. And yes they at least to the best of my memory put the Flintstones and the Jetsons together.

Again I don't know if I mentioned it or not in my The Jetsons piece but I was not a fan of the Flintstones but I clearly liked them more than the Jetsons because I would at least watch the Flintstones. I did like Barney and think he has one of the more fun cartoon voices out there. Yeah I enjoy some Hanna-Barbera cartoons but two of the most popular are the ones I never liked. There are also tons of there shows I've never seen and have no real interest in. I like the ones that Michael Maltese had some work on from like 1958 to 1970. Also port you should look up Michael Maltese on Wikipedia or Google before you decide to slag him. It'll be the best idea for you. You probably won't though because you are a lazy bum. I also like Scooby Doo, and you'll probably see the shows I care enough about to talk about when I talk about them. The Flintstones isn't one of the ones I care about but I feel like you still gotta talk about it.

One positive you and I think everyone has to give the Flintstones is the fact that it made animated sitcoms in prime time a viable thing. People working at big TV companies jumped on the Simpsons because they remembered the Flintstones being a hit. You probably wouldn't have about all of the great animated sitcoms that have come across the tube since, and that's really about it when it comes to the Flintstones. Oh, it gave Harvey Korman a job as The Great Gazoo. That's always a good thing. I will point this out that The Flintstones is far from the worst animated sitcom. That award goes to Allan Gregory. In fact every Hanna-Barbera cartoon is better than that. Allan Gregory might just be the worst tv show to ever exist. Well that or The Big Bang Theory. (Don't worry Port your precious Tim and Eric makes the top five.)

Anyway I've shit out several pointless paragraphs so it's time to finally discuss The Final Episode of The Flintstones. Which is the 166th episode and was entitled "The Story of Rocky's Raiders" and came out on April 1st, 1966. This is an interesting episode because it just might be the first time a sitcom does the tell a story from the past but put the characters from the show now in roles. You know like it takes place in the history of the characters grandparents in the wild west or some shit and all that. It happens in live action shows from time to time but animated shows do this a LOT. That's probably the most interesting thing about this episode. The Final Episode starts out with Fred and Barney getting ready for a trip from Grandpa Rockbottom Flintstone. That's a really dumb first name man. Anyway they are putting out all of the gaudy presents he has sent over the years. Like a giant dinosaur head that he killed or some shit. You can really tell how much I'm into this episode.

So Fred finds Grandpa Flintstone's diary and that's where it turns into the episodes story. It starts off in a café and we see Grandpa Flintstone looks exactly like Fred Flintstone. I mean didn't you look exactly like your grandpa? Totally. Uh, Reggie Van Pebble or whatever his Barney's not grandpa's name is. Wouldn't you be freaked out if you saw a guy who wasn't related to you but looked exactly like you just 50 years older? Oh and Betty is here but she has a French accent and slightly different hair. A spy for the CIA tells Grandpa Flintstone that he has to save the spy Mata Hari. Yes they give her a weird name for the show but I forget it and I really don't care enough to look it up. Yes I just watched the episode before writing this and I forgot it. It wasn't a good joke or name anyway. I'm sure I don't have to explain to you that there actually was a spy named Mata Hari. I just thought she was in the second world war and not the first. 

By the way they called it the Stone World War I. Yes, they were clearly not caring any more at this point. Also Mata Hari looks just like Wilma and I think she has a Russian accent, I do not care enough to look this up or try to find what that accent is so I'm just going to say it's Russian. Anyway they easily see the building she's in because she runs out of it. Away from Baron Rock Pun. Anyway Baron Rock Pun's men knock Grandpa Flintstone and Reggie Van Pebble out of the sky. They land on a tree and thankfully a train comes by and they just jump on it. They get off the train and catch up to Baron Rock Pun in the German army base? I think it's German. 

So they pretend to be guards and help out Mata Hari who is being dunked in water. They get her but she yells AMERICAN PILOTS when they explain to them who they are and that well alerts Baron Rock Pun to them. They uh run to a plane and then run out another door on the plane and I think they clearly ran out of steam on this episode right here. I'll talk more in a paragraph or two. They jump off a cliff into a hay barrel connected to a dinosaur and the diary ends right there. I'll ruin the big ending joke which is that Baron Rock Pun is still chasing after Grandpa Flintstone and Old Barney. No discussion of Mata Hari but I guess they didn't have the money to animate her within it.

FINAL THOUGHTS: I think why I didn't like the Flintstones or the Jetsons as much as other Hanna Barbera shows as a kid was because they really didn't have enough plot for an entire 25 minute episode. You could easily make two 12 minute Flintstone stories in a one episode and they would have worked much better. Wacky Races did that. Yogi Bear, Huckleberry Hound, Quick Draw McGraw, etc did that. They were 5-6 minutes and you got some fun slapstick and silly jokes and the plots never felt dragged out. The plot in this episode feels so dragged out. I'm like yeah yeah I get it. They would have been something I probably would have watched if they had two stories per episode. With that said I don't think the Flintstones is far from the worst Final Episode. It's not a clip show. It's not repeating something that another show by the same people did or anything like Spider-Man or Bewitched did. I think after Final Episode #100 I'll do some kind of Tier list because that would be interesting honestly, but yeah this won't be in one of the higher tiers. Now I wait port to blather on about the same boring points he always makes.

Comic Review #59: Secret Origins #43 (1989)

 

Ah yes the Secret Origin. The story of how whatever hero of heroes got their power. Some are great and some are terrible. They had a version of this magazine way back in the 1960s but that was just reprints of the original Secret Origin. You see by the time 1986 rolled around they had done a big old story that changed the DC Universe forever which was called Crisis on Infinite Earths. It pretty much got rid of all the alternative earths (which I think was a terrible idea but whatever) but they also got to recreate heroes and back story for newer stories and audiences which I don't think was a bad idea, but I'm pretty sure they brought back alternative earths since then and all is well. It gave DC a jolt in the arm it needed and a lot of pretty good stuff happened. 

This Secret Origins series that ran from 1986 to 1990 gave writers a chance to re-create some secret origins and even give characters an origin. It was a pretty good series honestly. It was usually like 40 pages long and later on you got several heroes in one book! Now that's a bang for your buck! Anyway I've decided that I want to talk about every Marvel and DC hero and this gives me a chance to write about a few in just one article! I mean I got a few trillion characters to write about so give me a break. I'm sure I'll write about them again in the future anyway because really what the hell else have I got to do? 

Okay that got a little depressing so let's get back on track. I think we have to go through the people who worked on this comic. We get Karl and his wife at the time Barbara Kesel. We've talked about them before. Good peeps who do good work. Now we get to Trevor Von Eeden. A great artist that makes me actually not completely hate one of these stories. The guy helped create Black Lightning in the 1970s when he was still a teenager (if I recall correctly). We get work from John Workman which I kinda like. Cartoony and simple. Maybe a bit too simple but I still like it. Joey "The Squid" Cavalieri is a kind of a middle of the road guy. Some of the stuff he wrote was pretty good and some of it was not.  Bob Wayne is a writer I've never heard of but Timothy Truman is someone I've heard of and he does some really great art in the second segment.

Alright now it's time to dive head first into this comic book. I'm going to let you in on a secret here which is that I picked this book because I wanted to talk about two of the four characters and wanted to get the other two out of the way right now and it felt like this was the best way to do it. The two characters I do not like at all are Hawk and Dove. Every story I've read with these two in it were just "OH MAN HAWK IS ANGRY BECAUSE GET IT HES A HAWK" and "DOVE IS A NICE GUY WHO DOESNT WANT TO HURT ANYONE". These two annoy the SHIT out of me. They have zero personality. Zero. I don't know if that changes during this era with the new lady Dove but I don't really want to find out. I think I liked these characters in one story which I might even review. I liked seeing them on the Justice League cartoon but that's only because the brothers from the Wonder Years Fred Savage and Jason Hervey were voicing them (and they switched voices too! wild!). It's always great to hear the angelic voice of Fred Savage.

So the story starts out with some guy wanting to find out about Hawk and Dove so he goes to his 1980s computer to print out some files. I like how Trevor Von Eeden tries to make them look Ditko-esque. That's the saving grace of this story. The art. Uh yeah he finds out that Hawk and Dove got their super powers for wishing for them. Yeah. Okay there's a bit more too it then that. He talks to some jerk who tried to kill Don Hall and Hank Hall's dad which caused them to wish for the super powers. They get them from Lord Chaos and Lord Order. This is different than the Pre-Crisis Hawk and Dove but I don't remember why because I've forced my self to forget everything about these boring ass annoying turds. So he wants to find out who gave Hawk and Dove their powers and some random dude gives him a weird monster that he touches and it gives him the powers. You can really tell how invested I am in this story. It's a shame because I would have been with this story if had any characters I liked in it. A weird-o creature that tells you the past. That's some trippy shit. Sadly it's wasted in a fucking Hawk and Dove story. He learns about Lord Order and Lord Chaos and I stopped caring. I'm sorry I just can't give a shit about these two in about 99% of their stories. I just find them lame as hell.

Our second adventure in this magazine involves a set of characters I'd love to delve deeper into but I've never been able to find any of the comics with them in it. They are rather obscure and most of their adventures happened 50 years ago. These are the adventures of Cave Carson and his crew. Cave Carson and his crew had a giant machine called the Mole that well would dig under the earth and get into wild adventures with monsters and apparently Nazis. The original stories were written by Bob Haney so they are insane. I can tell you this because every Bob Haney comic is fucking bonkers and I love them.  This story pretty much tells you all about the characters and mentions their first adventure which apparently involved time travel and Hitler. They beat Hitler and blow up some Nazis. This is clearly the best story because it involves dead Nazis. Fuck Nazis. The ending has one of the characters talking about how one of the characters went to Vietnam and maybe died. Also how something happened with Cave Carson and the lady of the group. It ends pretty depressingly but I would still say this was the best story of the three.

The last story is about Chris-KL99 which is a character I know absolutely nothing about. I thought this was gonna be about the guy and his sexy robot. That was apparently Star Hawkins. I wanted a weirdly erotic robot but this story wasn't too bad (although completely different than his original origin from the early 1950s). So this kid Chris becomes the most famous child in the world starting at his damn birth. You could win tickets to his birthdays for crying out loud. So when he's about 9 years old he is kidnapped by some aliens who can talk telepathically but only to a younger mind. He was being trained by these aliens to help them and became to care about them while his actual parents blew up the aliens ship! I would have read more stories involving this version of Chris-KL99 but they never made another appearance since. I think that's a great shame honestly.

FINAL VERDICT: This was a pretty good comic. I wish the two non-Hawk and Dove stories involving characters that aren't shitty had gotten longer stories. Or maybe a different character that wasn't Hawk or Dove. Or  Anything. Either way this is a pretty good comic that could have been so much better if they didn't do anything with Hawk and Dove. I just have to mention that I don't like Hawk or Dove. Fuck them.

The Final Episode #76: Danger Mouse (1981 - 1992)

 

Well I'm finally going to discuss those wild wacky rascals over in England. You know sausage and bangers, Monty Python and stiff upper lips. Yeah that place. The first show I'm talking about is weird because it's a pretty fun show but it's not the one I'd have thought would be the first British show I would have ever talked about. I would think that would have been something like Monty Python (how would you discuss the Final Episode of a sketch comedy show like that? I guess we should try to talk about one of them to see). The biggest reason I'm talking about this show is so that I can talk about it's spinoff later on in October. I'm pretty sure you know what the spinoff is if you know anything about this show. I've decided to do things like that in order. So for example if I want to talk about the new She-Ra series from like 3 years ago I'd have to talk about He-Man original series, the She-Ra original series, New Adventures of He-Man and the He-Man reboot from like 2001 to 2002. I'm doing stuff in order now just to not forget which shows I've done or not. It's easier this way.

I don't want anyone to think that Danger Mouse was a bad cartoon or anything. I think it's a very fun little cartoon, it's just that I like the spinoff much better. I'm really not sure why I'm trying to keep Count Duckula a secret but I'm gonna stop right now. That show started out as a 22 minute cartoon where as Danger Mouse started out as a 11 minute cartoon. Then became a 5 minute cartoon. Then 22 minutes. Then 25. Then 22 minutes again. It's like all over the place. I can't say this for every 22 minute episode but holy piss would this episode worked better and been funnier and more enjoyable if it was 11 minutes and not 22. This is not a bad episode it's just really dragged out. They clearly had an idea that works for 11 minutes but not 22. You get a lot of repeated jokes and a lot of them feel dragged out. I guess I'll get to that when I talk about the Final Episode in full.

So Let's discuss some history of this show. It was created by Cosgrove Hall studios, a British Animation studio that started in 1976. It lasted longer than I thought only being closed in 2009.  It was started by Brian Cosgrove and Mark Hall and the most popular stuff they worked on was Danger Mouse, Count Duckula and a cartoon based on the book series The Wind in the Willows. I think I've seen that Wind in the Willows cartoon. They appeared on ITV when it was known as Thames Television. Thames Television has THE greatest ident in TV history. I just wanted to mention that here. That ident stayed in my damn head for decades. It's that good. The fact they changed or were sold to ITV or whatever makes me angry. You don't end an ident that cool you worthless fucks. 

Anyway Danger Mouse was based around the British Spy action series Danger Man with that rascal Patrick McGoohan. Or however you spell that name. Danger Mouse was a spy (with a eye patch) that would stop villains like Greenback (a frog creature guy) with his friend Penfold (a little mouse guy). There's not much else to the over all plot with this series. Anyway The voice cast of this series was great. David Jason, who was on a British sitcom I've never seen but have heard of called Only Fools and Horses. I hear it's a very good British sitcom and it lasted for quite some time. He does several voices for this cartoon. Another voice actor was Terry Scott who was in several Carry On movies. I love those foolish ass movies so much. Very fun stuff. Edward Kelsey is the last voice actor I'm gonna talk about and his biggest claim to fame was some British radio show which he had been on for 34 years. He was also on Doctor Who but everyone in Britain has been on that show.

This show's history on television has been kinda interesting too. It was on the air from 1981 to 1987 and then a 4 year break until two more series were put out in 1991 and 1992. I don't know why they did it that way. Maybe to work harder on Count Duckula. I don't know. I'd like to know why. Americans know of this show because it was on Nickelodeon, not once but TWICE. It was there from I think 1984 to 1987 and then came back for a few more years once the new episodes came out. I guess they removed it because of no new episodes. I dunno. I can't exactly call up Gerri Laybourne and ask her. Yes I know the names of people who worked at Nickelodeon in the 1980s. I'm that lame. I also lied about the history of this show being interesting. I just wanted to put in another paragraph.

So I guess it's time to finally get to the Final Episode discussion. The cartoon starts out pretty excitingly with a Mars (which is now brown not red) to be knocked out of place by a new white planet. The TV reporter talks about how they are going to have a contest to name. Penfold makes some long joke about naming the planet Whipple. I won't ruin the whole thing here because It's the only amusing part of the episode really. They repeat it several times through out the episode. So Danger Mouse and Penfold go to bed to wake up to see that London is missing.

They drive around in Danger Mouse's cool little spy car and run into some aliens making the area all nice and shiny and easy to hit like they are playing some kind of game. They go on in a bit that starts out midly amusing but ends up going on too long because this episode was too long. Anyway they find about the alien space ship which woah looks like a pool cue (which I found out they call it snooker in Britain. They name things really weirdly in that place) and Danger Mouse has a bit with the chief that is just repeating jokes and not really doing anything even remotely new with them. 

So how does Danger Mouse save the world from being knocked into a black hole that I guess must have been created by the aliens so they could play their pool game (I'm sorry I'm not calling it snooker. It's a dumb name.) Well he got everyone on the planet to jump to the right at the right moment which moves the earth. They then talk about how London is still missing and the episode ends with some jokes about the Narrator having an accent or something. He would argue with someone who would call him. It's a fourth wall breaking joke that's not very good.

FINAL VERDICT: You know I had seen earlier episodes of this show that I liked a lot. I really think this show worked best as a 11 minute cartoon. This 22 minute episode is just way drawn out and not as amusing. If I were making a YouTube video involving a tier list of Final Episodes this one would make it to the second worst tier. Probably high in that tier as there are still a few fun moments it's just that this story could have worked better if it were shorter. That's just my opinion on the manner.

Comic Review #58: Darkhawk #4 (1991)

 

Since portnoyd was being well portnoyd he should know that means something now. Every time he's a saucy boy I will review an issue of Darkhawk. Since portnoyd is always a saucy boy in the comments you will end up seeing a lot of Darkhawk for the next little while. I do review a two parter if it shows up as a two parter. Anyway for the people who don't know that Chris Powell has found the power of Darkhawk via an amulet in an abandoned amusement park. His father was found to be taking money from a gangster. Chris with the power of Darkhawk wants to find out the truth, and to take down Phillipe Bazin the gangster. In Issues 2 and 3 he teamed up with Spider-Man to take down the second Hobgoblin. Kicked his sweet old ass like there was no tomorrow.

We finally get some villains for Darkhawk himself, other than Phillipe Bazin. A hero is only as good as his villains and well Darkhawk's rogue gallery is alright. It's not Spider-Man/Batman/Flash level but you got some decent enough characters for him to fight. We get Savage Steel a big Iron Man like bad guy that a bunch of cops bought from a Stane International guy. Yeah the Iron Monger guy. I like how he looks like Iron Monger but clearly different enough. I like how things connect in the Marvel Universe, but yeah this is Savage Steel's first appearance so rush out and buy 60 copies for when he appears in a MCU movie in 2024 and annoy me because I have to pay more than a dollar for an issue of Darkhawk.

Our issue starts up with Darkhawk at Rykers Prison. That's right he broke into a prison to find the guy who gave his dad the money. He does and finds out that his dad was given the money to get him to keep his mom the D.A. out of Phillipe Bazin's business. He was also to give some of the money to the guys at the Litunaia. or some dumb name like that. I'm not going to try to find the name because really it's not that important. Darkhawk gets fucking SHOT by one of the police after saving another police officer from a guy who had a gun at his head. Kept that criminal in prison and saved someone and all he gets for his trouble is a bullet. However he gets saved by some people in a boat who are obviously scared of him. He does get back to land.

He then turns himself back into Chris and there's no gun wounds or anything. There's some stuff with his family and another note from someone who knows about the power of Darkhawk and his secret.  We get a scene with him and some police officers that worked with his dad, he's still trying to find out if his dad is crooked or if there's more to it. One of the police officers literally gets angry and tries to attack him. I like how they are willing to have crooked cops and just plain assholes as cops in this series.  Anyway Chris is back home in the bathroom and is trying to get himself to look at what Darkhawk looks like under the armor. He is interrupted by his brother who lets him know its 10 o clock so he flies off to find the drug plane that had some dumb name that I forgot. He tries to fight off the drug dealers when Savage Steel comes by and wrecks his shit. They have a pretty great little fight until Savage Steel gets the upper hand and flies off and KILLS THE DRUG DEALERS. Just blows them fuckers right up. Savage Steel is not fucking around.

We then go to a page letting us know about how they got the Savage Steel suit and how they are going to show the criminal scum what's for. They also talk about how they will have to take out the Punisher because he's too much of a wild card to deal with. They also wonder if Darkhawk is a good guy and will clearly let them be murderers or will he also have to be dealt with. Looking at Savage Steel just chilling on a chair is both cool and funny. I like this guy. We then go to Darkhawk to see him finally look at his face under the mask and we get a freak out. It's a great way to end the issue really.

This was a really fun comic. You get some interest on Chris' dad. You see his family drama now that his dad is gone. You get some intrigue in knowing who knows about his secret. You get a new villain that has a neat design and is fun enough to read. You get some pretty decent art and a great little cliffhanger. So yeah, next time we will find out what Darkhawk looks like under the mask AND find out about another one of Darkhawk's foes, this time a guy named Portal. So join me the next time portnoyd says something stupid and incorrect.

FINAL VERDICT: Darkhawk is still doing pretty good. I say pick up all of these issues because they are pretty fun and totally cheap. Most stores should have them in dollar bins. Hell maybe even 25 cent bins. You can't find anything that cheap no more!

Comic Review #57: What if #114 (1998)

 

I really should stop saying I will review this thing next in a review. It never works out well because I'm always changing my mind on what I want to review. At one point reviewing 4 DC annuals in a row sounds like a terrific idea, but then I remember another comic book and I'm like OOO I want to review that. I can't say for certain that but I believe I haven't said I'll review this show next within the Final Episode at any time so why do I do it for the Comic Review? In the week since I finished talking about Superboy Annual #2 I just didn't feel like talking about any of the Legends of the Dead Earth annuals or even Pulp Heroes. It doesn't help that I want to discuss every character I can and even back in the 1990s DC put out 82 Batman books and 68 Superman books and gave each one of them an annual. I didn't want to be like OH YEAH SUPERGIRL IS TECHINALLY A DIFFERENT CHARACTER. I mean yeah she is but you kinda want to discuss other characters and a lot of them didn't seem to get annuals. That's why I guess I decided to go with this final issue of What If?

What If was a alternative history comic created by Marvel Comics all the way back in 1977. It started with "What If Spider-Man Joined the Fantastic Four". It would tell a new story with that idea. I wish there was one called "What If Portnoyd Wasn't A Dumb Jerk?" but it would be the universe were I was wrong about pointless pop culture horse shit and I don't think I want that. Anyway that series ran for 47 issues and was generally pretty good. I've read and enjoyed most issues from that series. I believe I might be missing 5 or 6 to have a complete set. Isn't that cool?? Anyway that series was cancelled in 1984. 5 years later they decided to bring it back. From 1989 to 1998 there were 114 issues of What If? They have had one shots from time to time in the last 23 years but never brought the series back as an ongoing. I think that's a shame because I would buy the fuck out of new What If comics. I'd also buy the fuck out of new Brave and the Bold and Marvel Team Up comics but that stuff doesn't do well anymore. It's a real shame I think.

Anyway I need to discuss a little bit about the event series Secret Wars. It was Marvel's second event after Contest of Champions and was a fun little romp. I know people are all over the place on what they think of the series but I enjoyed it when I read it. Who knows if I will ever read it again for this blog or not. I've already promised 1,000 things that I have not kept track of those things either. I have never read Secret Wars II except for some of the 82 thousand tie in comics. Some of them just had the Beyonder in one panel but still had the SECRET WARS II CONTINUES IN THIS ISSUE on the cover. also Roman numerals are very cool. The plot involved a mysterious space being guy known as the Beyonder who wanted to learn about good and evil. So he takes several heroes from Marvel's backlog and several villains to fight each other. You get a good segment of the most popular heroes and baddies fighting each other. You also get lots of Doctor Doom which is always a great thing. This story is probably most well known for the fact that it brings in the symbiote that would later become Venom. If you haven't read it before I'd say give it a shot.

I had to talk about Secret Wars because the Final What If comic involves itself with it, as you can see from the cover. I'd talk about the people who made this comic but I'm pretty unfamiliar with Jay Faeber or any of the artists. So I guess we should just get into the meat of this comic. The characters have been on Battleworld for 25 years now. Most of the heroes and villains have shacked up and had children all of which are 18 or so now. Some of these are weird mixes but I dig them. I like Captain America's and Rogues daughter. But yes. There's CJ which is She-Hulk and Hawkeye. There's Sarah Rogers which is Captain America and Rogue's daughter. Firefly is the Wasp and The Human Torch. Torrent which is Storm and Wolverine's child. Oh and Thor and the Enchantress had a son named Balder who isn't worthy enough to hold the hammer, yet Sarah Rogers was! The bad guys were Gator, the son of Lizard and someone else. A lady version of the Absorbing Man (and Titania) Volcana and Molecule Man's loser son. Oh and Dr. Doom also got some from the Enchantress and they have a son named Malefactor.

So with that all out of the way let's get into this story. It starts out with Balder trying to pick up his Hammer from a place that  the heroes and villains decided to leave all their weapons down after seeing a fight between Galactus and the Beyonder destroyed them both and also Reed Richards. They have been at peace since. This doesn't work and CJ is a saucy bitch to Balder while Sarah tries to be supportive. They then go home for Balder's 18th birthday. Everyones having a good time and I guess this is the time to point out that Spider-Man has pretty much been eaten by the symbiote. Yep. You even get to see his damn skeleton when Klaw blows him up later on. It's weird how the really good to great What If comics always end up with Spider-Man being dead. Sad. Anyway we see Malefactor talk to his dad and tell him how he's going to take over this place and then earth. He thinks he kills him but really killing Dr. Doom can't be that easy.

Malefactor starts up a gang and well that's when the heroes of the piece come in. They all get ready to assemble and well end up kicking the villains ass. Except when it comes to Malefactor and Balder. Malefactor knows magic and is pretty much wiping the floor with him until ol' Poppa Doom comes in and takes Malefactor away to be spanked by the MIGHTY HAND OF DOOM. which means he's probably dead. Or will wish to be dead. They end up meeting the Hulk which they had just pretended was a boogie man of sorts that their parents had made up. Nope he's real and he's found a way out of here. The Hulk starts talking to everyone about how Thor's hammer can help them out of there. However The Watcher shows up and everyone there takes this as a sign to not do that. However the kids are like NAH THE WATCHER CAN SUCK OUR NADS and they make a doorway and leave. I don't know if they realize they may have just stuck their parents in that dimension. I dunno. Anyway they find themselves in a DAYS OF FUTURE PAST like cinereo with tons of Sentinels. However they beat the PISS out of a Sentinel easily. Like easier than the X-Men ever did. They decide to become a team and fight for peoples rights on this earth. 

This comic is pretty good but honestly I wish they had a bit more space to explore the characters a bit more. Like instead of 35 pages you made the FINAL ISSUE of a comic that ran for more than 100 issues like 60 or 70 pages. I think a bit more time with these characters would have brought this comic from pretty good to great. Still if I were organizing my What If issues by best to worst this would come up pretty high. I think the art is mostly pretty good but I don't like the way the artist draws Rogue. She's supposed to be the sexiest woman ever. A woman that makes heterosexual women go DAMN GURL. She's supposed to make gold star gays go "I might have to sleep with her". She does not look that here and I don't like that. Keep Rogue Sexy damnit!

FINAL VERDICT: A pretty good send-off to What If? A fun little story that would have worked well as an ongoing series. I would have liked to see what kind of stuff happened after this story. Sadly that didn't happen. However if I were in charge it would have.  We'd also have What If back, and team up comics, and EDITOR NOTES. like SEE issue 492 of Avengers! and Thought Balloons! That's the thing I miss the most from new comics. Not a single damn thought balloon! I don't like that at all!

The Final Episode #75: The Jetsons (1962 - 1963)

 I've been a way for a few days for two reasons. The first reason is that I wasn't really feeling up to talking about some silly old tv show or comic. I like to make sure that I'm in the mood to talk about a random issue of the Avengers or Empty Nest or whatever I decide to talk about. It makes for a better piece of reading material than if I'm clearly not into it. So I took a few days off. The second reason is that I was wondering if 75 is anniversary number or not. Like the number you can put in a bigger name show or what. Even though it is for comic books I was still going with not really. I dunno. 50 is something. 100 is something but 75 just feels like midway point between two somethings. This just might be the worst article opening I've ever written. Anyway I was thinking of shows to talk about. I was curious about Dr. Who and another show that I've forgotten about instead. I decided to go with a semi-big show and talk about one of the most famous Hanna-Barbera productions, The Jetsons.

I think I should get this over with first before I talk about anything else. Yes I've professed my love for Hanna-Barbera and their animations. I mean not all of them but I liked a good handful that I would watch as a kid. I enjoyed the majority of their cartoons but I never cared for The Jetsons. I don't know what it was but whenever this show came on it made me go "yep, it's time to actually go outside and catch snails to get money from dad" He used to have a garden and didn't want the snails messing it up. It was worth trying to find snails to get some money than watching The Jetsons. or The Flintstones. I'll give The Flintstones some credit for at least being the first animated sitcom and that helped bring stuff like The Simpsons into our world later on but as an actual television show it wasn't something I liked.

Portnoyd was weird about finding out that I didn't like these shows and was like THERE JUST THE MOST POPULAR SHOWS THEY MADE!!!! Popularity doesn't mean someone has to like a television show. Anyway uh the 1960s was one hell of a decade and a big part of it was the space race. It was a race with those rascals from Russia to the moon. We had mentions of the space race in comic books (like the Fantastic Four) and The Jetsons was like that. These future people live in space and have space related jobs and shit. I don't know why I picked this show. I don't know why I didn't just review the last episode from the 1980s series and pretended that I didn't make some weird rule about shows so I could review Pokemon and Digimon in this series of Final Episodes. I'm sure portnoyd would have mentioned it in 2048 when he gets back to posting argumentive comments. So yeah the Jetsons was a animated sitcom that took place in the future. The family consisted of George Jetsons who seems to get angry a lot. Jane Jetson who is the wife and does wife things. The cool teenage daughter Judy and Elroy. I kinda fucking hate Elroy Jetson.

The best part of The Jetsons is the voice cast. We have several legends of the form in this show. Daws Butler who voiced like 70,000 Hanna-Barbera characters all with wildly different voices. The same thing can be said for Don Messick who's most famous characters are probably Scooby Doo and Hamton from Tiny Toons. Say what you want about the actual cartoons but the talent these two guys had was not something we can argue about. Simple as that. We also have Mel Blanc and well if you are reading this you already know who Mel Blanc is. I don't really know about the other people who voiced like George Jetson or the ladies because I didn't bother to look up their wikipedia pages. I didn't have to do that for the other three guys. I'm sure they were nice people and they were definetly talented but I really kinda now want to get this review over with.

One thing I do remember about the Jetsons from my youth was that we had a VHS tape of the Jetsons. I don't know if my parents bought it for me because I watched other Hanna-Barbera shows or if someone else bought it for us, or how the hell it popped up into our house but all I know is that I think I may have watched that VHS tape once. Weirdly enough it was this episode we are going to talk about I'm pretty sure. I don't have that VHS tape anymore. I'd probably buy it if it was cheap enough just for nostalgia. Yes I am even nostalgic for things I didn't like. I'm weird. Anyway I'm pretty sure I watched An American Tail: Fievel Goes West, a movie I didn't like more than this VHS. That's how little I cared about The Jetsons is the fact I would watch a feature length movie I didn't like over them.

So the Final Episode of The Jetsons was called "Elroy's Mob" and it came to our television screens on March 10, 1963. I think other than Clutch Cargo this is the oldest Final Episode I've talked about. I gotta talk about some show older than Clutch Cargo because that garbage doesn't deserve the honor of being the oldest thing I've talked about. That garbage doesn't deserver any fucking honors. Uh, yeah this episode starts out with Jane sending Elroy and Judy off to school. We see Judy for like 1 minute in this episode so if you are a fan of Judy Jetson then this episode is not for you. George then goes to work but has to drop Astro off at school. School is a very serious thing for the Jetsons parents.

We then go to Elroy Jetson being a smug fuck about being smart and kissing the teachers ass. You know the kinda kid he was. The big suck up. I don't really like Elroy Jetson at all. Hell I don't like any of the Jetsons that much. They are either annoying or bland. I liked Snagglepuss because he was silly and made me laugh. Not much within the Jetsons actually makes me laugh, but yeah he sits back to his seat next to the bad kid whos name I've forgotten. I'm going to call him Wee Willkers because that sounds like the kind of weird name Hanna-Barbera would have used. The robot teacher who is probably Rosey's mom. Rosey and Astro are the only characters in the Jetsons that I like. I like robots and dogs. Bite me. So the teacher is giving out the report cards which are on these talky machines you put into a bigger machine that gives you the grades, because it's the future. The robot teacher talks about how Elroy got all positive grades, and Wee Willkers got a fucking grade of H on some subject. Wee Willkers doesn't want his dad to find out so he swaps with Elroy without Elroy knowing.

Then we get back to the Jetsons house and George is freaking the shit out about theses grades. You think these tapes would have the name of the student on them wouldn't you? Or at least speak the name of the student on the actual tape. I dunno. Anyway George sends Elroy and also Astro to their room without supper pills. Then like 22 seconds later it's Wee Willkers dad calling to let George know that something was up. I'm glad Wee Willkers dad thought about the whole situation for like 2 seconds and decided to call George who I guess he knew was a complete and utter moron. Anyway Wee Willkers confesses and I can stop writing the name Wee Willkers. They decide to go to Elroy's room to find out that he has run away. Oh shit man! This is why I'm pretty sure this was the episode I had on VHS because I remember an episode of this show where Elroy ran away and I doubt they would have used that episode idea twice in only 24 episodes. Yeah the original Jetsons only ran for one season of like 24 episodes. This was back in the 1960s when every show had like 36 episodes a season too.

So two police officers come across Elroy and Astro and don't ask themselves why these two are out so late at night but just to let them know that Muggsy Megaton, a gangster type has escaped from prison. You don't even have to say he's a gangster because anyone with the name Muggsy is a gangster. So we go to Muggsy and his gang, a short guy named Microbe and a Gorilla named Chuckles. These guys are  the only somewhat amusing part of this episode. They are trying to rob a jewelry store or something and Microbe can't get in the grate. They see Elroy and pretend to be making a TV show and get him to do it. They get some money and the police are coming so they run off with Elroy and Astro. We get a section with George and Jane in the Police Station. The police end up thinking Elroy joind the gang willingly and puts his picture up on the most wanted board. This was an amusing image that If I cared more I would have put right above this paragraph but I don't care enough about The Jetsons to do that.

So they learn that Elroy's house is close to where they are so Muggsy and the gang decide to break into the Jetsons house to hide out. So when George and Jane return they get tied up. I don't know where the hell Judy is at this moment but she's not here. I guess animation budget reasons is why she's not here. Uh I mean she's at a friends and Hanna-Barbera animation is flawless. Yeah that's the ticket. Anyway Astro escapes and is able to go to the police. Muggsy and his gang take their sweet ass time deciding if they will leave now knowing that Astro has escaped. They had to have a big old discussion about it instead of gettign the hell out of dodge. Or they just wanted to end this episode so they decided to have Muggsy just stay to get arrested. We end the episode with them being arrested and Astro doing some silly shit. That's it. I can't believe I'm going to end up talking about the 1980s version of this show sometime soon.

FINAL VERDICT: I found this show very boring and unamusing as a child. It didn't have silly characters like Yogi Bear or Huckleberry Hound that made me laugh or great action that kept me enthralled like I dunno Beast Wars or Sailor Moon. It was a show that made me go "yeah It's time to go do something else". My rewatch of it has not changed my opinions on this show one iota. I am still not a fan of The Jetsons and am amazed that it's somehow #3 behind Scooby Doo and The Flintstones as the most popular Hanna-Barbera show. Anyway It'll be quite some time before I talk about The 1980s version.