Comic Review #73: Sensational She-Hulk #8 (1989)

 

Hey yo! You know we are into the CHRISTMAS HOLIDAY FUN TIME FOR EVERYONE EVER SPECIAL SPECTACULAR on my blog so you know what that means! It's Christmas stuff (for the most part) until December 25th! I got lots that I want to talk about and that includes comics! Christmas and comics have been going together for decades now. They even had Superman Christmas stories going back to the 1940s! That kinda rhymed! Awesome! DC comics even gave Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer his own special once a year comic from 1949 to 1962! They were also put into mini Archie sized digests in the 1970s and 1980s and somehow Rudolph got 2 more digests than Superman! What a crazy damn thing that is! 5 was also the same amount Batman had! I will definitely discuss one of those comics with you fine lovely folk this season 

I've discussed comics from this series before. Issues 6 and 7 if I recall correctly. They were great fun. She-Hulk does this breaking the fourth wall thing. It's got all kinds of goofy jokes. This is Deadpool done correctly and actually fun. She-Hulk should sit on his face. Although no I'll leave those dirty thoughts off this CLEAN AND RESPECTABLE BLOG. So yeah I've already discussed the fact that She-Hulk was created by Stan Lee and John Buscema in 1980. I've also discussed John Byrne many times on this blog. However did I talk about how he got kicked off this book? Or left? Yeah he had a problem with an editor and Tom DeFalco backed his editor and well John Byrne walked. He was still doing Namor for them. I should talk about that series because it was pretty good. He fought weirdo creeps and nazis And made the bad guy The Griffin his pet! Now that's great no matter what crybaby jerknoyd will say.

Boy howdy this was a fun comic book. It starts off right where issue 7 ended with the She-Hulk flying back to earth in some kind of 1970s car. I'm not a car guy. I know Transformers but that's not really the same thing. I just get the feeling its very 1972. I could be wrong. Don't sue me if I am. I just don't know cars. I also like how I alternate very short sentences and very long run on sentences that never end. It's something else. Okay let's get back to the She-Hulk. She finds out that she has a case as a lawyer. It's this Australian man wanted for seven murders. I like how John Byrne has his dialogue be Australian slang and the She-Hulk goes "I can't understand you!"

The lawyer for the other side tells She-Hulk that all the evidence is circumstantial and that his client will sadly walk. She-Hulk however is not a fan of that balderdash! We then get a fun dream sequence that shows that She-Hulk has a thing for Hercules. She should just ask him. Hercules is up for making sweet sweet love to any man or woman. Hercules cares not if you have green skin! He is up for anything! Apparently these dreams are a part of a sub-plot of sorts! Thank you for telling me that She-Hulk! She then gets a phone call from a man named Nick St. Christopher! He's the one on the cover! He and She-Hulk have a nice discussion over brunch. Actually It's probably lunch but I wanted to say brunch. I think people have brunch because it's a fun word to say. Anyway he says he will help her get this guy and tells her to consider it a gift. He also drops some fun hints about his very hard to figure out identify (hint it's Santa Claus)  

She then says she needs half a page of sub plot to make her decision. We then go to some dude talking about how She-Hulk will be his! I don't know where this goes from here because I don't own these issues. I don't own every comic book ever published!!! She then says "The only problem with Sub-plots is when you get back to me I've been talked into doing something foolish!" or something like that. They are on top of a building and She-Hulk is wondering how the hell they are going to get in. Nick St. Christopher says, by the chimney! Then she's down there ready and waiting! Nick St. Christopher says this is the guys apartment but its under another name! She-Hulk can't do anything with this because it's breaking and entering and you can't use any evidence you find that way! So they leave and she calls in the thing.

Another problem is that since the apartment isn't under his name they can't really show that he owns the place. Even though there was evidence there that would probably put him behind the bars of a prison cell for a very long time. Nick St. Christopher though can just pick up She-Hulk and bring her to fuckin Australia and find this guys girlfriend! They talk to her and she agrees to testify. They see all the new evidence at a trial hearing or something. I don't know, I'm not a damn lawyer and the guys bail is set at 7 million dollars! Why thats a million more than the 6 million dollar man! Holy moly!  The issue ends with She-Hulk and Nick St. Christopher talking again and who shows up but Ms. Claus! She even calls She-Hulk a hussy! I could have thought the rest of this issue was no fun but I would still recommend it just for that one part. Oh and she puts reindeer poop in her office. 

FINAL VERDICT: This was a lot of fun to read. The art is great. I love how he draws Nick St. Christopher. One of the characters ends up looking a lot like Captain America when he's not in his outfit but I'll let that slide. The comedy is very amusing and I was with this comic the entire time! This Santa is kinda horny for She-Hulk but then again..........NO LEAVE THOSE THOUGHTS OFF THIS NICE, CLEAN BLOG!

Movie Mini Reviews #4: I'll Be Home For Christmas (1998) & Surviving Christmas (2004)

 

When you see a random picture of Popcorn on this blog you know it's one thing! It's time for Mini-Movie reviews! The favorite of everyone in the land! Mine too! I can easily shit out two mini reviews and not have to worry about figuring out how to turn something into a full article. Some movies just don't have that in them yet you still really want to talk about them. I guess, I dunno. Since this is the Christmas Holiday Fun Time For Everyone Spectacular I felt it time to talk about Christmas movies that are either not talked about a lot or are very bad. Or ones that I assumed would be bad.

Alright we start off with the man every teenaged girl loved in the 1990s. Johnathan Taylor Thomas! I have no real opinions on Johnathan Taylor Thomas and the only thing I remember is that some kid in my class called him Johnathan GAYlor Thomas. You see Tay Rhymes with Gay and it was a real hoot and a half! Anyway I had heard this movie was awful, really unbearable. Like one of the worst Christmas movies ever and I kinda honestly enjoyed it. I like the characters that he meets on the road and I felt that he honestly kinda became a better person between the beginning and end of this movie. It could be that I'm a sucker for Road Trip movies and also a sucker for MICROWAVE MARGE and CHARLIE from Caroline in the City! Those two were great and improved every movie they were in. Even if it was for a few scenes. Also Microwave Marge was a lesbian and therefore the greatest lesbian who ever lived. Sorry but I don't make the rules. I don't have much else to say about this except that I was pleasantly surprised by this.

This movie however, was just as shitty and awful and bad as everyone had said. Ben Affleck can be a great actor in movies but he just does not work in comedy. He does not have that comedic touch. Christina Applegate can be a hoot but she's just the love interest here (and it's one of the many many many romances in film that just don't work) Catherine O'Hara, James Gandalfini, Udo Kier and Stephen Root are all wasted. All of them can be great and they just get these poor thankless roles. Also all of the jokes are either bad or were funny the first time someone did them in 1983 and kinda got ruined by being used 3,000 times. It's a really dumb plot too. A shithead millionaire buys his way into a family for Christmas and dumb shit happens. It turns out he never really got to have a family because his father left him and his mother had to work all the time and we are supposed to care but this guy was such an obnoxious asshole no one cares. This feels like a black comedy film that was watered down (proof is there's a joke about an old lady shoving her head in the oven to kill herself) and yeah I can see that. It could have actually been funny if they let it be full on gallows humor but this halfassed shit can kiss my dickhole.

And that's two more mini movie reviews for you all to enjoy! I love you all and I will show you all so much awful Christmas shit you'll puke!

Movie Review #67: A Christmas Story 2 (2012)

 

Alrighty, you know the deal! It's time for the Christmas Spectacular! I plan to discuss the worst Christmas movies and specials that I can find for us. I will also talk about several Final Episodes. I decided to do this because there have been several really shitty Christmas movies that I've been curious about. I mean shitty in as they look bad they could be good. You can easily tell that this movie won't be. This movie was made by Warner Premiere. They are the company within a company that puts out the DC Animated movies and sequels or spinoffs to every Warner movie you could see even possibly having a sequel. The Get Smart Movie with Steve Carrell got a spinoff from these guys called Lloyd and Joe or some shit. I'm too busy to look it up. Yes I have a copy. Yes I'm sure I will talk about it. They also did  Free Willy sequels a decade after anyone cared about Free FUCKING Willy. So yeah they might have been seen as a good company because the majority of those DC Animated films are good stuff but I can't call any company that brings us A Christmas Story 2 good. You lose the second you put something like that out.

I'll make this a list of things that were just not done well in this motion picture:

1.) The Narrator. Literally a dude trying to pretend to be the Narrator from the original movie and he just doesn't completely sound right. He's almost there yet not. It's actually more off putting to me that he's so close but just doesn't make it. I don't know why either.

2.) This movie brings back everything from the original. You remember a single thing from the first movie you get to see it again here. I know sequels bring back stuff from the original but most of them will add new things AND up the ante with the old stuff. That's not the case here. Enjoy the same thing you got done better decades prior and shut your damn mouth. It also just forces shit into this movie. Remember when the kid would put his lips on the pole in the original movie well he does it again except its one of those pipe things that bring things to other places quickly. You've seen them in cartoons from the 1940s. Yeah he puts his tongue in there and they have to pull it off. No reason why they were just like IT HAPPENED IN THE FIRST MOVIE SO LETS DO IT AGAIN

3.) The characters just don't feel like the characters from the original movies. They feel like weird parodies of them. It just feels like they were going for a weird parody of the original movie but didn't go all the way. I don't know how to put it.

4.) They half ass trying to make it look like its 194whatever. Yeah they get the cars and looks down but I'm sure that they even use new fancy cameras that just don't capture that vibe of 1940s. It's just not good.

5.) Ralphie is a weird pervert. He has this thing for a girl named Drucilla and uh in one scene he sniffs her hair and freaks out over it. That's just not something I want connected to A Christmas Story. It's just weird and off putting and not funny.

6.) Which brings me to this point. This movie is not funny. No the original wasn't a knee slapping laugh riot but it was a funny movie. Kind of a low key kind of funny. Like you'd go awww and have a laugh at a scene. You wouldn't piss yourself laughing but you'd have a good time. This movie just doesn't even try.

7.) The imagination scenes feel so out of place now that Ralphie is a teen. Yeah a kid has a wild imagination and will think he's doing all kinds of things at all kinds of time. Most people try to curb that a little as they grow up so they won't be stuck thinking about how they will kill a nazi but they are in real life standing up and starting to drool. It just doesn't feel right, but nothing about this movie does. It's a mess.

8.) Daniel Stern as the father. It hurts me to put Danny on this list as a reason why this movie doesn't work but it's true. He's not good in the slightest. He plays the character as a parody. It doesn't help that Darren McGavin might have done the best job ever as a stern yet loving father. Another problem is that they take one character trait from the original movie, the dad's cheapness and they ramp it up to like 12 thousand. The character was never as ridiculous as this sequel portrays him.

9.) Drucilla actually falls for this dopey ass version of Ralphie. Yeah. She sees him stand up to a guy in a reindeer outfit and get punched in the gut and that impresses her so much she decides to find out who he is (SHE DIDNT EVEN KNOW THAT) and let this weirdo obsessive version of Ralphie get to date her. It's possibly the worst romance in film history. 

There are more reasons, but honestly I don't want to talk about this wet piece of shit anymore.

FINAL VERDICT: If you watch this garbage I will punch you.

The Final Episode #96: Babar (1989 - 1992)

 

Earlier in this blog's history I had sassed French things saying they were bad and unfunny. I will not take back those opinions because those two shows were bad and unfunny. I will however discuss something made by those wild wine drinkers of Paree. I just think it's fair to show the good things along with the bad from these countries. Babar is a very good French thing. I don't think I read any of the books but I was a fan of the cartoon series from the 1990s. Which is why I'm talking about it today on my blog. This show has been in my head to do since the dang beginning really. So let's get it out of there and discuss The Final Episode of Babar.

So what is Babar you might be asking? Well Babar is a series of children's books that started in 1931. 90 damn years of Elephant Fun! Babar was King of the Elephants and did Kingly things that taught children lessons. I say this because I've never read a Babar book. Babar was created by Jean de Brunhoff, based off a story his wife Celeste would tell their children. I did not know this until today but Peter Ustoniv narrated a Babar cartoon made by the guys who would make every Peanuts cartoon. This is no joke, blowing my fucking mind. I do not know what to do with this information except make sure everyone knows about it. 

So the cartoon I watched as a kid played out like this. Babar was the king of the Elephants in uh Celesteton or something. I know he named the entire city around his wife. I doubt it was Celesteton. I should look these things up but I never do. Babar had several kids, two boys and two girls. He lives in a palace with Cornelius and Pompadour. Cornelius was an old ass elephant who would forget everything and Pompadour was flamboyant. which between 1959 and 2015 meant gay as hell. I love both of these characters and think they were incredibly fun to watch. Babar is a progressive king. I respect that. There was also Lord Rataxas who might be my favorite character. A Rhino king that would sometimes go up against Babar. He and his little pal Basil are the best.

So who created the cartoon huh? It was Nelvana. I'm sure I talked about them before so I will give you a quick run down. They were a animation studio from Canada that did all kinds of cartoons from the 1980s. They did the second Care Bears cartoon. The My Pet Monster cartoon. The Adventures of Tintin. RUPERT! Yeah you'll see me talking about these guys again and again because they made some awesome stuff that I was a big fan of. So expect more of them. Anyway other companies worked on the cartoon but I don't care enough about them to post about them. Some guy named Clifford Ross worked on it. I don't know if he's a big deal or what. He looks like he thinks hes too cool for the room via his Wikipedia article and I don't like that attitude. 

So this is where I talk about watching the show as a kid paragraph. Well, If I recall correctly Babar would come on either before or after Rupert. They would bridge the shows from the morning (mostly for very small children) and the mature intelligent fare that the Zone (a program block on YTV hosted by PJ Phil. THE coolest guy in the world. It would show the 1960s Batman show! It was great!). Those two shows weren't totally for young kids or older kids. It was something that tried to get all eyes on it. I also believe it would show on Sundays too but YTV Sunday's schedule was weird and random. It was not the best day of the week for YTV. I was a fan of this show. I enjoyed watching it, yet I wouldn't be sad if I missed an episode but It wasn't a show I forced myself to watch. It was I guess a B-Tier show of my childhood. Not the best but still pretty darn good. I would say that about this Final Episode. Not the best but still pretty darn good.

Anyway I think it's time to talk about The Final Episode which is called Mango Madness. We start this episode off with Flora being ignored by everyone. Her brother is too sleepy to say anything. Cornelius can't find his glasses. Pompadour talking about wanting to eat all the Mangos he can. Pompadour is so into mangos. No one is listening or paying attention to Flora. It annoys the hell out of her so she gets everyone angry by telling fibs. She tells Pompadour that Cornelius put the mangos from Rhinoland into the cabinet up high causing him to go look for them. She tells Cornelius that Pompadour s tole his glasses to teach him about being forgetful (he IS an elephant they never forget!) and tells her brother Alexander that he only has 5 minutes to get ready for school even though it's Saturday. Oh man, Flora's a jerk.

Anyway this gets her sent to her room and a discussion about telling the truth by her father. She also wants to go on a drive with him but it doesn't work out. We then go to Cornelius and Pompadour telling Babar about the mango shipment from Rhinoland and how Rataxas wants to do the fruit party this year. Yes they have something called a fruit party. What a wild place Celesteton is. Cornelius goes on about tradition this and that but Babar is all like "Eh if it gets us the mangos I'll let Rataxas through the fruit party. Rataxas has all kinds of goofy costumes worked up. He's wearing one of like raspberries and a pineapple for a head? Personally if I had to go to a fruit festival party I would literally dress up like that because its hilarious so good on Rataxas. Basil is dressed up as a banana! Bananas are the funniest fruit.

Rataxas believes these costumes are VERY SERIOUS so he doesn't want anyone calling them silly. Basil even has to say they are great as the banana peel top keeps coming down on his eyes making it very hard to drive. We then get a scene where Flora pretty much tells everyone the truth. You know the truth they don't want to hear. Like how Victor took Pom to the baseball game last week because Alexander gets on his nerves sometimes and how Pompadour thinks Cornelius is getting old and forgetful. Oh and says to her mother "Is that a new dress, it's nice but Father says blue makes you look heavy!" I laughed at that part.  

This brings in another discussion between Babar and his daughter. He's trying to get out that sometimes the truth can hurt peoples feelings and you should try to realize that and not blurt out "YEAH YOUR FRIEND DOESNT LIKE YOU SHITHEAD" or other things like that. He does not do the best job and you know what ends up happening. Yep, during the signing of the fruit accord where the mangos will be delivered (there's a scene where Rataxas and Basil show up and Pompadour is shitting and pissing and jizzing himself over the thought of a mango. I did not expect that to be in this children's show but they had to show he really enjoys mangos.) Everyone is trying to say the costumes are very serious and cool but Flora comes in and is like "LOL YOU DOPEY FUCK THESE COSTUMES ARE HILARIOUSLY GOOFY" except a lot nicer than that. They couldn't say fuck after the Pompadour shitting and jizzing himself scene.

Anyway this causes everyone to be mad at Flora who hides in the car and finally gets that drive with her father. They are going to try to settle things with Rataxas. Rataxas pretends not to be home and Babar is all like "Bitch please I can hear him" when Basil says he's not there. Flora goes in anyway and Rataxas believes she's being sent there by her father, but she wants to genuinely apologize for hurting his feelings and Rataxas is like "IM A MANLY RHINO MAN I HAVE NO FEELINGS" and gets angry at her which causes her to start crying. He then feels bad and makes a balloon elephant figure out of his gloves. She then says when she said his costumes were silly she thought it was a good thing and how they would have a great fun party because she then whispers something to him and he laughs which causes him to let the fruit festival party go on. Isn't a festival already a party?

Anyway the episode ends with everyone having a great time at the Fruit Festival Party. Everyone is dressed in goofy costumes and bobbing for mangos. Pompadour has to wear a diaper because of the last incident but is still allowed to participate. We finally find out what Flora said to Rataxas, it was that the children found the old parties to be boring and stuffy which causes Cornelius to shit himself. A lot of feces in this Final Episode. 

FINAL VERDICT: It's another case of "Good episode but not Good Final Episode" still I believe it does a good job of teaching kids about the truth and all that. I also didn't know where to post this in the article but Gordon Pinset is from Newfoundland and also voiced Babar. If you thought I wasn't going to give one of the two famous Newfoundlanders their due (the other being Shannon Tweed. Yes I'll review one of her movies sooner or later) you'd be nuts. Yep there's two famous Newfoundlanders out there that's more than Idaho can say for itself. Take that Chris Bongowongodongowitz!

The Final Episode #95: Caroline in the City (1995 - 1999)

 

So the order of The Final Episode #94-98 has been picked by my pal COUNT CHOCULA. Yes the real Count Chocula. No he's just some person I know from JOBLO MOVIE FORUMS. Yes, this was the one of two forums I would talk in all the time. Well it was more than one forum for the NES Scene but that's what I would do most of the time as a teenager, a very sad nerdy teenager where I talked about horror movies and NES games. I have now talked about every horror movie and every NES game thanks to those two forums. I am one of two people who have seen Spookies before it became some kind of weird cult hit. The other person was Count Chocula. You can thank me for the shows chosen but thank COUNT CHOCULA for the organization. Organization is very important so I'm glad he worked it out for me.

I didn't talk about COUNT CHOCULA in #94 because I wanted to make a dumb joke about why the hell I was watching Suddenly Susan. From the uproarious laughter I got from my FaceBook group it proved that it worked! I know why I watched this show. It's something that's old as time. It's something that happens to let's say 98% of human beings at least one time in their lives. Ladies, men, people of ambiguous gender identity all end up seeing a person and go HOLY HOT HANNA THAT PERSON IS BEAUTIFUL AND I CANNOT GET ENOUGH OF THEM. the person in this case was Lea Thompson and she is still beautiful. I don't give a dingle darn damn what you think. 

Also Portnoyd commented that Suddenly Susan might be the most forgettable show on the planet but I'm going to go with this one. Despite the fact its even on DVD now. Or was. Or at least one season was. I didn't do much research. I say this is the most forgettable show. I remember Lea Thompson because who doesn't and that she was a cartoonist. That's about it. Not a single memory of any episodes, hell the only thing I remember about this show is that my dad and sister would make fun of me for watching it. They would sing sweet Caroline and then add IN THE CITY. It bothered me. No good hooligans in my family! 

So yeah, I don't think I will be getting as much work out of this show as I did with Suddenly Susan, but like The Flintstones and the Jetsons these two shows are connected in my brain. So to finally slay the demon that is Suddenly Susan, I must also discuss Caroline in the City. I guess like Suddenly Susan I'll talk about several episodes because why not. The first episode I decided to watch was about Caroline hurting her back during a raquet ball match with her boyfriend Del. Her friend Annie gives her pain killers and hilarity insues. This was actually a pretty funny episode watching artsy fartsy Richard and Del try to do the comic strip. She even has a thing against Cathy. It was a lot of fun. It's even got a Fraiser cameo by Niles AND Daphne! That lady in that series was named Daphne right or am I just thinking about Scooby Doo too much?

Anyway we get ourselves another two parter. On the back of a two parter. I'm not reviewing all four of these episodes but after realizing PAT MORITA was in those episodes I really should have. Pat Morita was fucking hilarious. Anyway those two peoples had Richard realizing he LOVES Caroline and has to marry her. So at the end of those episodes he proposes while in some kind of hospital thing. You know the thing you have to be strapped into. A bed like thing. But yes he gives Caroline a handshake because they can't touch each other. A few days later he comes back all healthy and ready to get married right then and there! 

Caroline wants to have some time to have a real wedding. So they set the date for 2 weeks. So Caroline is getting fit for a dress when Richard comes in and says he just got news that he has a son from his ex-wife Julia who now lives in Italy. I'm not buying this, Richard is literally the gayest man on earth. No one could ever reach the height of gayness that Richard has. It's utterly impossible. Seriously watch the show and tell me you can believe that he's not gay. Anyway they decide to get married in Italy. All while this is going on Del is trying to get sexy times with Annie, Caroline's friend. She's like but we're friends! This almost works but Del gets angry when Annie calls him Wide boy. Man Del's a loser.

So they are at a store trying to buy toys for Richards new son. He talks to some guy who at first gives him some help but then it turns out that this guy never sees his son. Richard realizes he's going to turn into his father. He tells Caroline this and says the only way it can work out is if they move it Italy! HOLY MOLY. time for part two!! Part two starts off with Caroline getting off an elevator to a surprise bachelorette party. AND her parents show up! Her dad is played by some schmuck but Edie McClurg plays her mom! That lady is incredibly underrated and should have been given more star time. I will die on this hill and you cannot stop me! 

So yeah Caroline and Richard end up breaking up in the airport because Richard doesn't want kids but Caroline does. At this point I knew they were setting up something which I will bitch about again in another paragraph. So Richard goes to Italy alone and finds that he loves being a father. WOW. WHAT A SHOCKER. While Caroline ends up with Randy. Oh and Del and Annie end up boning each other so that joke wasn't the end. I guess I should watch both parts of the episode before I talk about them but that's no fun. So yeah. Randy was from the other episodes I didn't watch. I really should have. It would have been fun to talk about that sweet beautiful rascal known as Pat Morita. Randy is played by Blossom's dad! Wild! Anyway Richard finds out about the wedding from Charlie, the goofball character of the show.

It's the day of the wedding and everyone's going in and showing up and just as Caroline is about to exchange her vows a baby cries! It's Richard's baby! Can I say that this never works out for me. It's incredibly selfish and wrong to be like OH MAN THIS MAN/WOMAN I LEFT IS GETTING MARRIED NOT ON MY WATCH!!! and show up at the wedding. Jesus. You left her. You don't get to show up at the damn wedding and fuck it up. Yes, that's right this show ends on a Cliffhanger. I don't think ending on a cliffhanger is bad writing like portnoyd does, I DO think it's bad show running NOT TO FIND OUT IF THE PEOPLE WILL EVER SEE THE ENDING. I really don't know what is worse, cliffhangers or clip shows (sans Webster) as a Final Episode. One makes the story incomplete. Reboot, Duckman, Spider-Man 94, Caroline in the City are now incomplete shows. They didn't finish the story. However there at least was a story there and an attempt. Clip shows just show complete laziness. Still would I rather never know how any of these shows end or would I want just lazy garbage. I really don't know.

FINAL VERDICT: One more thing. As I watched the ending I remembered I had seen it before. So I saw this episode first go through. Anyway, it's an incomplete ending because it's a cliffhanger, however this is actually a pretty fun show and had many amusing jokes and moments in it. I still had a good time revisiting this. I do hope we don't see any more cliffhangers before post #100

Comic Review #72: Marville #2 (2002)

 

Yep. I had to come back to this mess of a story because I think it might end up being the worst comic story of all time. I was planning to review an issue of this series every 10 comic reviews or what not before I just said "eh I wanna talk about some goofy thing like NFL SuperPro instead", but I think it's finally time to get back to this series. There's also another series of issues that I plan to get back to too. We gotta hold our noses and fix this awful series. It makes you wanna cry. A whole lot of tears. So you might be asking yourself what is Marville. Well Marville is the story of Kal-AOL who comes back in time from the year 5002 to do something. He wants to be a superhero but he has no powers. It's supposedly a comedy and there are no jokes here. I am not hard to make laugh. I laughed at Suddenly Susan. 

This series also had a interesting behind the scenes thing. Bill Jemas was angry at Peter David's Captain Marvel for having too much back story and continuity and he said that they should have a writing contest. Bill was gonna show Peter how it really was done. You know who lost this little writing contest? It was Bill. This has been considered the worst comic book ever by so many people. So Bill got that. Peter David's work is still remembered fondly and hell he's one of the old guys that still gets work from Marvel Comics. Bill I don't know where the fuck he is but I hope he never shows up again in comics. 

So let's just get this shit over with by talking about this really bad comic book. It starts with Kal-AOL and his new friend Sandy. I don't know her actual name and I do not give a fucking shit either. Her name is Sandy now. Anyway Kal-AOL and Sandy are relaxing in a park talking about how Kal wants to be a hero. He then gives $100 to a man. Or tries too because Rush Limbaugh (who really really really does not look like Rush Limbaugh) tells him not to do it. He says that he shouldn't give that man any money. The man ends up being Peter David (LOL HES A DRUNKEN HOMELESS MAN LOLOLOLOLOLOL) but this gets Kal-AOL to go around giving people $100. Wooie.

So he gives $100 to one guy and then a Batman parody character pops out and then Iron Man and the Black Panther show up and then they start killing these people. Because they don't want poor people getting any money? I think I get that he's trying to show them as real life billionaires but like every other joke in this comic mini series it does not work. Oh and Iron Man almost says the N word before the Black Panther stops him. I'm not joking. Oh and then Rush Limbaugh comes by and uses his unknown until know Super powers to knock these guys out with his golden microphone. What shithole garbage.

I really don't want to talk much more about this thrown together not funny stupid shit ass garbage any longer so I'm going to quickly talk about the other dumb shit that happens in this comic. They help some cops take down a criminal that works for the Kingpin to get shit on him, Matt Murdock is written as totally uncaring Lawyer (when his actual superpower is being one of the few LAWYERS that care!) who just gets the guy out of jail. Spider-Man shows up. The Punisher shows up. They mess up a really easy joke. Oh they totally get into Kingpins office and now he's Spike Lee who now argues that black people can be criminals too. No I'm not joking about this shit either.

The issue finally ends with Kal-AOL parents who happen to be Jane Fonda and Ted Turner sending him back a time machine. What will happen? We will find out the next time I decide I want to get a headache from reading something this fucking bad.

FINAL VERDICT: This is garbage shit from a weasels asshole. I don't want to trash Mark Bright the artist because he's very good most of the time. He's just not good at drawing real people. None of the characters here look like the real people they are supposed to. It's very off putting when you see someone go HEY TED TURNER and you see a guy who barely maybe looks like Ted Turner. Bill Jemas was PRESIDENT of Marvel at this point. He could have found an artist whos strenghts are in this area but he clearly did not care. He just thought he was perfect and great and totally wonderful and could beat a guy who had been doing it at that point for almost two decades. Yeah we'll see how the next issues go but it will be a while. Portnoyd called Identity Crisis hot garbage, I just call it a bad story. THIS is hot fucking garbage.

The Final Episode #94: Suddenly Susan (1996 - 2000)

 

Somethings about myself are baffling. Okay, most things about myself are baffling. However this is one thing about myself that I think is incredibly baffling. It's the fact that I watched Suddenly Susani regularly as a kid. I don't know when during the four year run between 1996 and 2000 that I started watching but I remember the show. Mostly just an episode or episodes that had Hulk Hogan in them. During his Hollywood Hulk Hogan time. You know when he was a bad boy dressed in black who didn't take his vitamins or love America.  During some era of Wrestling I didn't know about because I didn't watch wrestling but some kid in my school named Kevin loved. Kevin was a nice enough kid. I liked him. 

So yeah, let's go back to Suddenly Susan and all I can say is I really really want to see what was on other channels during this time that made me go "YEAH BROOKE SHEILDS IS THE WAY". Like I really want a complete set of Newfoundland Heralds that show what was on during 1996 and 2000. Like during this time it had TWO different time slots. Was nothing else on at this time? Was it because it was a rerun and the other shows were reruns? Was it budding puberty and the need to look at any lady??? I will probably never know but hopefully one day I will be given the answers. I will look onward to the future so I can solve the problems of the past!

So what was Suddenly Susan all about huh? Well Susan, played by Brooke Shields ends up not marrying some man and getting her job back at a magazine writing about being suddenly single again. Yep. Riveting background huh? Still I'd take it over the unending wave of reboots and remakes and movie remakes of tv shows and everything. You know what's on netflix now. A reboot movie of Spenser for Hire called Spenser Confidential. WHO THE HELL EVEN FUCKING REMEMBERS SPENSER FOR HIRE? That's not all. They are bringing back HIGHWAY TO HEAVEN as a series of movies on Lifetime For Women (weirdly enough these episodes I watched were recorded off Lifetime for Women. Wild huh?) This show might not be great or even good but at this point I'll take it over the 82,000 heartless remakes that are coming out. And even the 12 remakes that showed some effort by the producers. Something new please, not a bad attempt at recreating something from the past.

So since I had something of an extensional crisis over if I had even seen this show. Or why or anything. I decided to watch one extra episode just to refresh myself. First off It's been 21 years since I've seen most of this show (the Hulk Hogan one showed up on YouTube and you bet your sweet bippy I watched Kathy Griffin and the Hulkster as an adult) and my memory is bad. Also the comedy on this show is very unmemorable. Yeah I think that's what I'll go for. It kinda reminds me of Veronica's Closet but if I had to pick between the two shows I would pick Suddenly Susan. It had better acting and honestly I did laugh a few times mostly at Eric Idle (who shows up in the fourth season. is it weird that no Monty Python member really got popular in America except maybe John Cleese? Like John Cleese had A Fish Called Wanda and Eric Idle had Suddenly Susan and the  3rd best National Lampoon's Vacation movie (the European one)) and the angry black person in Suddenly Susan was more of a character because she wasn't just ALWAYS ANGRY because that was what black people did in the 1990s. Be angry on television for white peoples laughter.

So the episode was called The Gay Parade and Susan makes fun of the Gay Games, an Olympic games thing for gays. Oh, she wrote it making fun of a guy who thought it was stupid. Of course Eric Idle puts it in the magazine for comedy sakes and oh at least half of the episode is the relationship problems between Susan and some boring asshole who works with her. In fact he's the guy she's making fun of. So that's one problem right there. Susan getting the ire of the gay community is a great hilarious idea and you waste half of it on the boring dipshit and you waste the other half on mostly not very good jokes. Eric Idle does get in drag and that gives me weird erotic feelings I mean good comedic laughs!

I have to say this, the last five? episodes of this series were left unseen for a few months. They just left them there until they ran them off in the summer. I think this is really sad honestly. It doesn't matter how good the damn show is just run all the episodes. Don't shove The Final Episode of any show off into some random night of the week during the summer when people are doing shit. That's really sad. So yeah we start off the TWO PART Finale of this show with Susan and her dipshit boyfriend doing this weird annoying bit that almost causes Kathy Griffin to throw something at you. You know you should stop doing what you are doing when it bothers Kathy Griffin. Then we get the theme song which is very bad. I do not like it.

So Susan got an article in the New Yorker which really freaks out Eric Idle (the character's name is Ian but I'm just going to call him Eric Idle). He even tries to trick her into signing a contract. We then get a big thing about Susan and the office people trying to have a birthday for the dipshit boyfriend. Who is stuck on a plane. This is what causes the problem during the episode. He wants her to move to New York so they can be closer together (This confused me because I thought they WERE in New York because she was in the New Yorker...). Anyway Susan wants to help a person in the office get a job on MSNBC. He fails BUT Susan is picked up because the lady producer freaks out when she sits down with him to help him. She thinks she is perfect! So they do an amusing bit with her interviewing a guy who had 8 mail order brides! 8! 

So now you'd think that the dipshit boyfriend would be happy. Nope he ends up buying a fucking house in San Francisco with a 30 year mortgage so he can be with her. They have an argument and he then gets down on his feet and promises to marry her. She then signs the contract that Eric Idle put out and everyone wins! Wait this is a two parter right? So what the hell is going to happen there when you clearly figured everything out in this episode... Oh thats how. They get her confused about her decision that seemed pretty serious in the last episode right at the beginning of this one. Oh and so that they could do the OH MAN WE GOTTA HAVE THE WEDDING RIGHT AWAY! I'd like to see a Final Episode where the thing WAS the proposal! That would be a little bit of a different take on the Wedding Final Episode! Susan and the dipshit end up fighting in a floral shop about the job.

Oh and the gang from the office give her something new, something old, something borrowed and something blue. It's actually a very sweet scene with a few laughs. We even get in some clips from previous episodes because THAT HAS TO HAPPEN WHY NOT. So yeah Susan almost doesn't marry him because of the job but he then says he sold the house so they get married and fly off to Noo Yawk. Yeah. This show is awkwardly written and this could have been done so much better, but from what it seems like this show was awkwardly written from day one. She gets the job and everyone is happy.  Oh and her friends from the office pop back in. Except the black lady, the dumbass and Eric Idle. This is just proof Susan is racist and hates the British. Not cool!

FINAL VERDICT: This show was kinda weird and awkward. It freaks me out. I know I watched it as a kid because I would just turn in for some random episode with Hulk Hogan yet that's the only thing I remember about the show. Re-watching a few episodes shows that It's not the most memorable thing out there and that the actors really elevate the writing. It's not the jokes that are funny but how the people pull them off. I dunno. I'd still watch it over many other 90s sitcoms and totally would watch it over "Souless reboot of a 1960s/1970s/1980s/1990s/2000s movie/book/tv/comic #1,986" but then again is that really saying much? Well that's it for now.

Comic Review #71: Identity Crisis #1-7 (2004 - 2005)

 

You know I realized that I don't do enough negative comic reviews. I do like to keep it positive but I do feel that I need to from time to time say something negative. I mean it happens within The Final Episode or Movie Reviews here on this blog. I gotta find some more comics to complain and yell about. Like as of this article I think there's about four or five out of the 71 where I was negative. I also don't believe I've ever slagged a DC comic, and there are bad not very well done DC comics out there. I know ports gonna go LOL LIKE ALL OF THEM CUZ IM A DIRTHOLE. but I thought I'd actually look at one I thought I would never read because I know what I like and reading stuff about this comic made me sure I wouldn't like it. Surprise! I didn't really like it!

This is a mystery story on who killed Sue Dibny the wife of the Elongated Man. That's about it. The heroes figuring out this story. Using their powers to figure it out. Oh and they mindwiped Batman and Dr. Light. I'll get into that over why I don't like this story. So yeah, that's it. So here's a bunch of reasons why this story isn't fun, cool or good.

1.) The mystery itself is a big pile of anal shit: First off I'm gonna spoil this 17 year old story, sorry. The killer is Jean Loring, The Atom's wife. She somehow gets rid of every single piece of evidence at the murder scene. To the point that all the damn heroes can't find a thing. Sorry but BATMAN could if this story was written by someone who cared and not some fancy pants mystery writer man who I don't even know was all that popular (Brad Meltzer), but yes Batman could figure out this entire damn mystery in a day. Even if you took out Batman for some reason THE REST OF THEM COULD FIGURE THIS OUT. Yeah shes found out because there were foot prints on Sue Dibny's brain. She tried to burn the body and failed. Another problem is why she did it. She did it to bring Ray Palmer back to her. You know she could have just asked her husband to see if they could try their relationship again. Very dumb. Stupid. I don't like it.

2.) You really should not have sexual assault be a throwaway plot point: I'm not saying that you can't have sexual  assualt be in a story, but I think it has to be the story. To just throw it in there is just very distasteful.  I don't really know what else to point out execept that. Yeah Dr. Light rapes Sue and it's just "yeah that happened let's go fight Deathstroke now!!!!" 

3.) I just don't feel these heroes would mindwipe Dr. Light let alone Batman. They would literally try to work out another way before they fucked up these peoples brains which is not a very heroic thing to do. I don't like when Batman or Green Arrow or any of these big name guys do things that aren't heroic. SORRY IF THAT MAKES ,ME A BIG GAY LAME-O.

4.) This shit is just depressing. You wanna know what happens when Elongated Man finds the dead body of Sue. He finds a fucking positive pregnancy test. Yep. There are some dark stories that I like, mostly X-Men from the 1980s by Chris Claremont, however those still had some positive moments in those story. This story just wants to wallow in misery. They put in all these scenes of Tim Drake (the third Robin) and his dad trying to get over the fact that his dad found that hes Robin. Oh and Captain Boomerang and his son trying to connect after a lifetime of not being around one another, and then they kill the both of them. Yep fun. Oh and Firestorm dies just out of fucking no where which I found to be hilarious and not sad. That's not how you do a death!!!

I'll give a positive to the art. It's really good, it makes these bright colorful characters some of which have silly costumes look real life for this SERIOUS REAL LIFE STORY MANNNNN and that could not have been easy. All of the characters clearly look different from one another and I was a fan of it. Sadly thats about the only thing I liked from this comic.

FINAL VERDICT: I was not a fan of this story. I'll probably do a Marvel comic thats no good to go along with this one. Make it just no fun and miserable for everyone! It'll be great!

Movie Reviews #66: Chicken Little (2005)

 

You know I'm pretty sure the reason I did not even get anywhere with the Disney Reviewing thing was for well two reasons. I'm lazy and I procrastinate like crazy. The second reason is that there were two Disney movies that I really really did not want to watch at all ever. One of them I'll leave for the day I review it (which will be soon enough) and the other was today's motion picture Chicken Little. I didn't want to discuss this because it sounded pretty awful. It's hard to get exicted for a movie where not a single person has ever said they liked it. Like I've seen people at least say they liked say the Michael Bay Transformers but I never heard a single positive word about this movie. So I was not wanting to run out and check it out, and I'm the man who champions so many movies that no one cares about. This however, holy banana mana, yeah I can see why no one talks about this film.

You know those stories where everyone decides to take a shit on the main character? This is one of them. Those stories are already hard to pull off. This one seems to be done by people who clearly wanted to bully someone in their lives and they decided to take it out on animated chicken. It's very very unpleasant to watch. Everyone shits all over Chicken Little because of his little mess up early on in the movie. Even a year later everyone is taking a shit all over him. Including his dad who never believes him and makes his son believe he doesn't care about him. It's awful and I hate this fucker SO much. This guy has now taken Deadpool's spot as my least favorite fictional character. In fact so does his son because he never even bothers to do anything and Zach Braff (that shithead from Scrubs) gives him an awful voice. I can now never go to Portnoyd and be like DURR DEADPOOL'S THE WORST now. Fuck.

The plot just feels like its all over the place. You know the old Chicken Little story of the sky is falling thing. Yeah the sky falls and then for like 30 or 40 minutes nothing happens to that plot. You get the feeling they were just freaking out about what would be falling from the sky. It turns out its from an alien spacecraft that goes to earth each year for.......acorns. Oh and then the aliens kid gets lost on earth and the alien parents and all kinds of aliens comes to blow up earth just because. It's forced and lazy and feels thrown together because it probably was. I feel bad because I like stuff the director worked on before and since but this just feels like something he was forced into.

Another problem this movie has is that they get people with great voices for animation: Don Knotts, Patrick Stewart, Patrick Warburton, Wallace Shawn and Adam West AND WASTES EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM. Okay I'll give them Don Knotts as he passed away a year later and probably wasn't in the best of health for too many scenes but the rest of them were wasted. WASTED. You don't do one scene with these beautiful amazing voices. YOU GIVE THEM THE ENTIRE MOVIE. I don't even remember Wallace Shawn's beautiful voice in this movie. I SHOULD REMEMBER THAT BEAUTIFUL VOICE.

FINAL VERDICT: Ugly ugly, unpleasant movie. I can see why this gets put down as the worst movie they've done. (The other one I didn't want to watch gets put down as worst if it isn't Chicken Little so yeah that's gonna be a lot of fun to watch too.)

The Final Episode #93: Darkwing Duck (1991 - 1992)

 

You know I'm thinking of what I want to be the top 100 shows I review for this thing. I want it to be weird and wild but also have stuff people other than me care(d) about. It can't all just be The Raccoons and Caroline in the City. It's gotta be some mainstream stuff because I liked a lot of that too. I knew that there are two shows (both Disney!) that I want to include in the top 100 so well, you can expect another Disney show (or two!) in the top 100. Where will they show up! You'll have to wait, you impatient asshole. Anyway I knew I had to discuss my favorite Disney Afternoon show as a kid, which would just happen to be Darkwing Duck.

One weird thing I learned just now is that Darkwing Duck somehow started it's life out as a sequel to Rocky and Bullwinke and Friends called The Secret Life of Bullwinkle. One Disney guy thought because they were selling VHS of the show meant that they owned it now. However this wasn't the case and it happened one week before they were going to show it to higher ups. However at the same time a fella by the name of Tad Stones (which might be THE coolest name ever.) was told by Jeffery Katzenberg himself to do something with a DuckTales episode called Double O Duck. Tad didn't think the secret agent stuff was doing well at the time and he was kinda right too. License to Kill had failed in the box office and critically and James Bond would go away for half a decade. He also felt that Launchpad would not work as a main hero, and I think I'd probably agree with him. He was fine for that one episode but it didn't work as a full show.

So he turned it into a superhero parody and Launchpad became Darkwing's partner in crime fighting. GizmoDuck shows up but for whatever reason Tad Stones says this isn't a DuckTales spinoff... even though in a later episode Glomgold and Magica De Spell have cameos. Yeah, sorry Tad but that sounds like spinoff material to me. Or they are all just alternative universe versions of the DuckTales characters which would still kinda make it a spinoff. I don't know why I'm writing this here. I guess I just wanted to get my thoughts on this very important matter out there. Hey it's important to ME! 

Anyway Darkwing Duck  was a superhero spoof. or parody or whatever you want to call it. And I thought and still think it was a pretty funny one. He would even work with a secret agent service involving characters that probably were in the Double O Duck show, like that old bird and the angry bear. I liked that angry bear. Darkwing Duck was not like your regular superheroes. He was selfish, at times pretty stupid and egotistical. He didn't want to help people out of the goodness of his heart but for praise! He ends up getting a foster daughter named Gosayln who was a fun character in her own right. Launchpad was also here as mentioned above. The banter between these guys worked out wonderfully.

All of the regular bad guys were a hoot. Megavolt (voiced by Homer Simpson himself!), Quackerjack, Bushroot, Steelbeak, Liquidator, and many one offs were all a lot of fun to watch. The show could also get weird and dark at times which is always fun for a Disney show. One example that most people bring up is how Darkwing Duck thanks to time travel shinaningans loses Gosayln and becomes a crazed lunatic called Darkwarrior Duck who jails people for even jay walking. There's also an episode where Darkwing Duck is mistaken for a potato vampire (hey its still a cartoon) and is almost staked through the heart. I saw that episode recently and I was like "WHAT THE FUCK" when that scene came up. It's no wonder that at one point at least six of the ninety one episodes were banned. One is still banned. Thankfully I watched this show in reruns in Canada and we aren't WIMPY BABIES like America.

The biggest reason I didn't rewatch The Final Episode of this sooner is that I remember the Final Episode clearly. Some shows I never knew what was the Final Episode or if I had ever seen it before. A lot of these are the first time I'm seeing these episodes. I know this one was the Final Episode because it would rerun on the Family Channel (which is the Disney Channel for Canada. I don't think it exists anymore) and I remember thinking it was lame. Like it was one of the few episodes of the show that I went "well I could have easily played some Super Nintendo instead of watching this".  Unlike Little Michael's feelings on TaleSpin being dumb and incorrect. He was and still is right about this episode. It's very lame.

So what is the Final Episode of Darkwing Duck all about huh? Well it involves time travel using Quackerjack's time top that Darkwing has now, but before that let's mention the writers of this episode. It was written by Tad Stones and Dev Ross. Dev wrote for like every Disney cartoon including stuff like Jungle Cubs that no one remembers except me. She also wrote several Land Before Time sequels but I'm not going to hold that against her. She wrote some great episodes of Chip N Dale Rescue Rangers and Darkwing Duck AND the newest Care Bears show. I'm not going to praise this episode but they've totally done fine work before it's just you don't hit it out of the park every time man. Not even Babe Ruth did that. Actually I don't know and I don't care to look up.

Anyway, "Extinct Possibility" the Final Episode of Darkwing Duck was brought into our world on December 12th, 1992. I'm surprised it wasn't a Christmas episode. (I've mentioned it before but can you believe four shows ended on a Christmas episode.) Anyway Darkwing Duck and the gang are brought to a museum to figure out this problem. The problem is that there's a Darkwing Duck stuck in amber from way way way back in the time of the Dinosaurs. So Darkwing Duck is freaked out and decides to use Quackerjack's Time Top (I did not expect to say that so many times in this post but here we are). They go back to the Dinosaurs age and they find out Dinosaurs can talk!

Woah! Not only that but the Dinosaurs in this universe have captured and apparently killed all ape like creatures. So that's why ducks and other animals apparently rule in this universe. Wild. Anyway one of the Dinosaurs think that Darkwing and the gang are mutants so he goes to show the other smart Dinosaurs and this is the big reason why I think this episode stinks so badly. I really really really do not like these Dinosaurs. Something about their voices and the one joke that they run into the ground of their inventions being the opposite of what you normally see. Like concrete wheels and rubber roads. 

So Darkwing has to sit through some dumb jokes that don't work and he finally mentions that he fights crime in the future. These dinosaurs then talk about Johnny T Rex and his gang of miscreants. Johnny T for some reason is a Greaser. You know like the Fonz, except not fun to watch. Anyway he and his gang fight Darkwing until Gosayln gets the great idea of challenging him to a race. The race pretty much goes well for Darkwing because the two goons get knocked out. Johnny T Rex then smashes the rubber road and stops Darkwing dead in his tracks. However this gets him stuck and Darkwing and the gang just run on foot. Somehow they end up flying because I cannot keep this episode in my head because it's so forgettable and lame. Darkwing wins the race and Johnny T Rex flies off into the distance.

The dumb shitty Dinosaurs with awful annoying voices accidently send Gosayln and Launchpad Back To the Future without Darkwing and well Darkwing gets stuck in a the amber and then we go back ot the museum and Darkwing is saved and then they show that the same thing happened to Johnny T Rex. Woohoo. So happy. 

FINAL VERDICT: I really didn't enjoy this episode 20 years ago as a child and I really don't enjoy it now. It just feels very forced like they were given the mandate to update season 3 to 13 episodes instead of like 12. It feels very last minute and oh man what can we do kinda thing. I don't know, I just know that I would have rather talked about any episode from the last season instead of this one. I really don't like when shows I like or liked end on a bad episode but it's happened before and it will happen again.

The Final Episode #92: TaleSpin (1990 - 1991)

 

It's back to the well of Disney tv shows. Like TGIF it was something I talked about a lot but unlike TGIF I thought I had talked about more of them. You see when it came to Disney I watched the Disney Afternoon and then their followup on Saturday Morning One Saturday Morning. Yet I've only talked about six things from Disney. Ducktales, Disney's Fillmore, The Wuzzles, Pepper Ann, Disney's Gargoyles and the Final Donald Duck cartoon Family Planning. However I'm amazed that that's it. However looking at my Final Episode list there's an insane amount of stuff I'm surprised I still haven't gotten to. It's a tough job but someone's gotta talk about how Caroline in the City ended!

So TaleSpin was the adventures of Baloo the Bear from The Jungle Book learning how to fly a plane and go on adventures. They actually took several other The Jungle Book characters for this show. Share Khan, the tiger was one of the bad guys Baloo would have to go up against and Louie the Orangutan owns a bar. Orangutans are the best monkeys' out there and if you disagree you can eat my entire fat ugly hairy ass. Jerk.  The new added characters were Kit Cloudkicker and that shitty bear lady and her daughter that really annoyed me as a kid (I'll get into that in a bit) and they would just go on adventures fighting crime. IN THE AIR. 

Before I get into anything else can we say that a series that doesn't have the full cast in it's last episode is just weird. Like this episode doesn't have the lady bears shitty annoying daughter or Kit. It feels weird for the entire cast not to get into the Final Episode. I guess when I do my roundup tier list thing of the first 100 Final Episodes I will have to put this in B-Tier just because of that. That's also the tier list where Cliffhangers will have to go because they are technically incomplete.  Also I think I have to mention that this is actually a banned episode and still hasn't been put on Disney Plus. I do not know if they put it on the DVDs. It's banned because this episode involves a bomb on a plane. You know terrorism. Even goofy comedic terrorism is still you know terrorism. I can see why it got on the no-no list.

I mentioned above that I was not a fan of some characters in this show. They were the reason I didn't like to really watch this show as much as every other Disney show. I watched the flip flapping revision of Doug for crying out loud. Not that many people can take that much of Doug but I can apparently. Anyway I didn't like Molly the kid bear. I remember he being very annoying where as say Gosalyn from Darkwing Duck was incredibly funny and entertaining. I also didn't really like her mother Rebecca either. I thought she was a jerk bitch fucker. I also found out that she was voiced by Archie Bunker's daughter. What a weird world we live in. Anyway I did recently rewatch several episodes and I have to say that TaleSpin is very good and very funny and little Claw missed out on a lot of fun because he couldn't look past some lame characters.  

So how does this Final Episode start out. Well it starts out with Baloo talking to Rebecca and a guy in a suit (it literally has a zipper on the back of his head) who wants to send a package to the High Marshall of Timberhia or some weirdo name like that. I'm not looking it up. I am lazy. Eat shit. Anyway this guy turns out to be one of the owners who has a bomb factory and it's not making many bombs anymore because of a peace thingeabob. Yes that is what they actually call them. Shut up. Uh, anyway he gets Baloo to do this by saying he will become Pilot of the Year! This gets Baloo all ready to do this. There's another problem brewing in Timberlimberwimberland where the Colonel of the Air Force cannot fly and if he fails a test of the High Marshall he will be shot. the High Marshall is really into shooting people for a Disney cartoon. 

Anyway Baloo comes by and to get by the gates he gets his friend Dunder who told him about the Colonel's problem, get the Colonel to let him pass by telling him he will teach him how to fly a plane. Also I must point this out that Dunder is voiced by Lorenzo Music. Personally I think we should replace St. Paul at the Pearly Gates with Lorenzo Music. Who would YOU rather see before you enter heaven? You know the answer so don't even try to lie to me. Also now that I'm reading this paragraph I realize how bad my grammar truly is. It's either very short sentences or a large ass beast of a monster of a sentence. I'm sorry I didn't listen in 3rd grade English classes anyone who actually reads this. So yeah, we go through some pretty funny stuff involving the Colonel and his height. They need to put on plungers to get him to even be able to fly.

So the Colonel learns how to fly. Sorta. Kinda. Not very well. Still he wants to go to a club named Ivan's that pilots go to. He wants to see the 3:00 show which isn't good because thats when the bomb is set to go off. The bomb factory guy has realized that Baloo's aeroplane has gotten past the air vectors. So he gets into his own plan. Baloo and Dunder dress up as ladies and we get the classic joke where some dopey guy wants to fuck the shit out of them. I didn't expect to see drag twice in like a week and a half. Anyway he wants to impress the ladies and Baloo and Dunder want to get the package to the High Marshall. To make things worse the bomb factory guy is on their asses AND the army is throwing shit at them because Colonel didn't tell them to turn back on the air vectors! 

Baloo and Dunder end up ON TOP of the plane. I imagine this is something that happened a lot. Baloo is more courageous than me. I would be crying in my drag and it would probably also be soiled if I had to even think about getting out on top of a plane. Thankfully I was not in any danger in my nice pyjamas and all that. Anyway they get back INTO the plane and the only person's plane who gets knocked out of the air is the bomb factory man. He gets saved by a St. Bernard. Now we are at the High Marshall's summer rest house and Baloo gives the Colonel the package to give him. As he and Dunder go back to have a good time flying home a St. Bernard and the bomb guy show up. He tells them about the bomb and they all rush to the house.

The Colonel is about to give the High Marshall the gift and Baloo runs in and throws it out the window. Baloo tells the High Marshall that he was saving him! Everyone starts arguing about who sent the bomb and the bomb guy says he didn't and something about how he wont move from this spot to show how truthful he is. the St. Bernard dog comes by and blows him up. We then end the episode with the Colonel trying to fly the High Marshall back to his barber. Also I assume the bomb guy got shot because the High Marshall is REALLY into that.

FINAL VERDICT: This was actually a really funny episode that I must recommend to you all if you enjoy 1990s cartoons. It was action packed and the characters were memorable. Still weird that Kit wasn't in it.

Comic Review #70: The New Teen Titans Annual #2 (1983)

 

Well a while back I said that I wanted to pick one comic series and end up reviewing every issue over the course of well how long it took. I wanted to pick one series from Marvel and one from DC. I'm already doing Darkhawk for Marvel, so I decided, why not let's pick a series from DC. The DC series I plan to do is Vigilante. The DC version of the Punisher, not the cool western cowboy with the red mask. I'm sure I'll end up discussing his stories sooner or later.  I decided to go with The New Teen Titans Annual #2 as it was his first appearance, plus I haven't talked about the New Teen Titans either! It's a win win in my situation! So let's get ready to rumble!

 So to discuss the Teen Titans we must go all the way back to 1964. Yep, the days when our parents would read comics. We're talkin old school son!. Brave and the Bold #54 had Aqualad, Robin and Kid Flash team up. It would be a hit so several more Brave and the Bold stories and in #60, Wonder Girl joins and we finally get the name of Teen Titans. in 1966 they got their own series and quite some time was a pretty popular book. However that popularity died down in the 1970s and despite some attempts to bring it back the series was cancelled for good in 1978. However because they didn't like some of the things Jim Shooter was doing in 1980, Marv Wolfman and George Perez decided to go to DC and that's where they brought back the Teen Titans and revolutionized the series. If you enjoyed the Teen Titans series from the mid 2000s then you have these comics to thank.

Marv Wolfman had worked on several classic 1970s Marvel stories. He had done stuff on Amazing Spider-Man that I really like at least. He worked on Tomb of Dracula and Werewolf by Night which I'm really sad I didn't get to talk about them during the Great and Cool Halloween Super SPOOKtacular (see what I did there!). The man's biggest claim to fame in comics was probably the 16 years he spent writing Teen Titan stories from 1980 to 1996. The man went from 34 to 50 years old in that time. That's pretty wild. I think he only missed writing one two part story during that time. Now that's dedication! I think the best stuff he did was with his collaborator George Perez. He would help Marv with the stories as along with drawing the best comic art ever.  Well best comic art that wasn't done by Jack Kirby. The man could draw 820 heroes on one page and every single one of them would look awesome and dynamic. Pablo Marcos inks this comic and his art is also cool and good.

This comic starts off with a bang, literally! District Attorney Adrian Chase's house has just been BLOWN THE FUCK UP. He's being brought to hospital, it was mentioned that Robin was there before the explosion happened. The news reporter at the hospital tries to talk to Robin and he freaks the fuck out. Someone he knows is dying. Not the damn time to chat about shit you goober! It's a great little scene. Well who was behind the explosion, well it was a gangster by the name of Anthony Scarapellio or something like that. I'll just be calling him Tony from now on. How many gangsters get the name of Tony out there anyway? It's gotta be like 5200. Anyway he is talking to the Godmother (yes this is a feminist mob, son!) and well she wants his files and he knows that means he's gonna be a dead man. 

Tony ends up contacting the Monitor. He was a part of the Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover. If I ever discuss that series I will talk more about him. He gives Tony some fancy guards AND a bunch of supervillains (more on them later). The New Teen Titans are going through everyone who might even be a little connected to Tony and fucking them up. Tony has his fingers in a lot of pies. He's selling shit to Libya! In the 80s! Anyway this is where the group of supervillains come in. Slasher, Tanker, Scorcher, Spear, Bazooka and Cheshire. Except for  Cheshire I don't think these guys ever appeared in another comic. Not the best group of supervillains that Marv and George ever created but I don't think they were meant to be anything more than a group of losers that get their faces kicked in (after somehow getting one up on the Teen Titans). Marv does give them some character because he's a very good writer but they had two other supervillain teams that were just a lot more fun.

Anyway, Tony now tries to kill the Godmother and the rest of the mob with like several hundred killer guards. It's hard to tell really because George Perez draws so many that at the end of the big swarm that I really didn't want to count. However this doesn't go as he planned. The Teen Titans show up and pretty much make quick work of these guys. Tony runs away like a wussy baby and goes back to his house and talks about how he's running off to Haiti. Honestly that would have been something I would have done days ago but that's just me. Anyway this is when the Vigilante finally shows his face in his awesome costume. Robin is also there and  tries to get Adrian Chase (he's the Vigilante are you shocked! He had also been helping the characters throughout the story unseen which is a neat little story beat I think.) to not shoot Tony but take him in. However seeing as so many fuckers get off so easily because they have money NOT TO MENTION Tony pulling a gun on him. Well we can easily say that it doesn't work out for Robin. Especially seeing as he gets knocked unconscious. 

FINAL VERDICT: This was a great comic book. Lots of action, fun character beats, two new characters that get used a lot. There's a reason Marv Wolfman and George Perez's Teen Titans get like 82 thousand omnibuses and trade paperbacks. It's because the stuff is really damn good. Some of the jokes in this comic I didn't think worked but that's all I can really say negatively about it. I'm excited to get into the Vigilante series!

The Final Episode #91: Step By Step (1991 - 1998)

 

This is my sixth foray into the world of TGIF on ABC. You know the block of situational comedies on Friday. I've done Dinosaurs, Full House, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Family Matters and Boy Meets World. I don't know what else I can do or say for opening paragraphs on shows that appeared on the block. Did I mention the other blocks ABC tried to do like I Love Saturday Night or The Hump (Wednesday is the sexiest night of the year!). I actually don't think that I did because I would remember making a joke that awful. The thing is I don't remember these nights of the week. We would watch TGIF together as a family and I don't think my dad would have taken 2 nights of this stuff. Of course he likes The Big Bang Theory which even portnoyd can't argue is better than anything on TGIF. I know there's a few shows on TGIF that I still want to talk about, but only one big name one left. I really don't care about The Hughley's or whatever the fuck the second Olsen twins show was, but I'm sure I'll cover them because what the hell else do I have to do with the precious God given gift of life but talk about D.L. Hughley.

Step by Step for those not in the know was uh The Brady Bunch for the 1990s. Except they got the guy from Kickboxer 2 to be a big doofy goof in it. And the characters actually had something of a personality. Seriously. They at least made one of the girl characters stupid and vain and one of the boy characters a big old perv. A little bit of effort was put into the show and it makes it better than The Brady Bunch, but really is it a great accomplishment if you are better than what is possibly the worst long running sitcom of the 1960s AND 1970s? Not really but Step by Step did it. (Despite what it sounds like here I do find this show amusing but it's not exactly the most creatively made sitcom.) So yeah, Patrick Duffy marries Suzanne Sommers and everyone moves into one big old house. Suzanne Sommers mom and sister join in but they are forgotten about by the end of the first season. Is this the first time I've mentioned characters they just got rid of in a sitcom? Wow! Step by Step wins the cake! Oh and for some reason because it was the 1990s they had two characters that were real life Beavis and Butthead. Weird.

So I, as a child, would watch TGIF throughout its entire run pretty much. At one point we'd watch it as a family but I think my parents just got too annoyed by Urkel. I even followed this show and Family Matters over to CBS. I had to click the remote control at least several times to do that so you know it was a huge arduous ordeal but I did it! I pretty much enjoyed all of the shows as a kid except for whatever reason Full House. That one just annoyed the piss out of me. I guess it was because my sister made me watch so much of it in reruns. Anyway despite that I have no real hard memories of Step by Step other than I'm sure I watched it. I did however go and watch the vast majority of the series in like 2020 and I have to say that yeah, it's silly and corny but that's TGIF. It's still a lot of fun to watch and I enjoyed myself. I also have a lot of thoughts about some of the weird shit that happens within this show that I gotta talk about because I put the effort into putting them into a text file and letting a text file go to waste is too big a crime.

The first thing mentioned is a joke the character JT makes "OJ WALKS and I get detention!" Clearly I do not have to look any further because that is the most 1990s joke of all time. Step by Step keeps on winning! I also did not realize how absolutely horny this show was. Carol and Frank do all kinds of role play sex. There's an episode where he dresses up as Garfield! Well he only puts on the ears but still who the hell does Garfield role play except furries. I guess Patrick Duffy is a furry. More proof is that Carol has a tattoo that says Wolfy and Frank likes it but only if she calls him wolfy. Wow. I didn't think we'd see stuff like that on here because why not. At least every other episode someone is doing goofy ass shit with a giant prop or wearing a stupid costume. I respect that, this cast was up for EVERYTHING.

I think I'll take a look at the guest stars because that's also in the text file and well this show had some doozies! Michelle Williams when she was just a kid. I don't even know what she's popular for but that name is very familiar so good enough. John Astin from The Addams Family who plays a guy who wants to kill himself until Cody the goofy idiot from Kickboxer 2, 3 and 4. They didn't even have the money to hire him back for 5 thats how bad Kickboxer 5 was. Yeah Cody the goofy idiot of the show not that he was a goofy idiot in Kickboxer. He was a serious man in those films. Yeah he saves the guys life. It was a wild episode. Doris Roberts, Raymonds mom from Everybody Loves Raymond. Urkel appears in several episodes and thus connects Step by Step and the other shows into a TGIF Shared Universe. I can't wait till they make movies out of these shows! Oh and David Graf, better known as Tackleberry from Police Academy, Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment, Police Academy 3: Back in Training, Police Academy 4: Citizen's on Patrol, Police Academy 5: Assignment Miami Beach, Police Academy 6: City Under Siege and finally Police Academy: Mission to Moscow. I did all that by memory alone because I'm the coolest person on this planet.

I guess it's finally time to discuss The Final Episode which graced our television screens on June 26th, 1998. It was called "Movin' On Up" and no they sadly do not crossover with The Jeffersons which I think would have delighted port very much. He's all about that Webster crossover. Well this show gives us the usual family sitcom ending plot of the house is going to be sold. There's a bit of a twist but I'm sure that twist was already done before. Yeah, sitcoms if they are lucky get the big grand ending of either "selling the house the show took place in" or "character gets married". It's kinda sad but so many of the shows I talk about Final Episodes could literally be placed in the middle of the shows run and you'd never know the difference.

This Final Episode was directed by Steve Wittling. He was big in the late 80s for being on the show Valerie. I don't even know what show that was. He apparently was in Batman Returns AND the main actor in a probably shitty Sega CD game called Wirehead. You know one of those full motion games that looked neat but weren't fun to play. You know I'm right and those games were shitty, but yeah apparently he directed the Final Episode of Step by Step. This world of ours is a beautiful and weird place. This episode was written by Merideth Siler who wrote and worked on such shows as Gimmie a Break, and Empty Nest (Richard Mulligan is an underrated treasure). Also something called Dear John. 

As I said before this is a "OH MAN WE MIGHT GET A NEW HOUSE WOO" final episode. It starts with Frank telling the family that he came in under budget and under time for his latest work that his boss says he can build another house and it will be sold to him for what it cost to build it. We see Lily, the new cute child (the original cute child had grown up and was not even really in the show anymore at this point) leave the kitchen because she doesn't want to leave the house. At first Carol (Suzanne Sommers) doesn't want to move either until Frank goes IT'S GOT A FIREPLACE BABY! and she's instantly into it.

Well Lily is now getting into trouble in kindergarten. Even throwing balls on the roof. Carol even asks her if she could have found a better way to fix her problems and she says I COULD HAVE PUNCHED HIM. little kids being violent is good comedy. Uh, anyway Carol sends her to her  room. They then go check out the new house and everyone is into it. Except the little joykilling rugrat named Lily. The Fridge AND Dishwasher appliances TALK to you! It's like living in the damn future! Then we go back to Carol showing two yuppies the house. Do people even still use the word yuppie. That was a fun word. I hope it's still in use somewhere.  They mention swedish meatballs and these people go "We're Vegan! we don't eat meat" and then Frank goes "That's okay theres some Catholics next door and some Jews across the street!" 

So Lilly gets into trouble again and there's a fun scene where they are snarky assholes to each other. That's another reason why this show is better than The Brady Bunch. Snarky asshole comments are way better than OH I LOVE YOU SO MUCH STEP SISTER rubbish. Anyway the Vegan Yuppies (that would be a good band name) come back and they want to pretty much change how EVERYTHING in the house looks! Carol ends up not being able to sleep and is looking at old photo albums. She confesses to Frank about how she doesn't want to leave and he tells her he feels the same way.  Lily comes down and tells them how she also doesn't want to move. They decide they aren't moving and it's time to show the Vegan Yuppies the door!

How do they do this you might ask? Well they have to do their final walkthrough the house and they have everything get screwed up. They have the faucets not work. Mark the nerdy kid comes down and says the toilets back up and they mention how it's not really the toilets but the sewer system and it only happens about.......twice a week. Then they talk about the termites and the bulgarian wood eating worms that are also destroying the house. That still doesn't get them to go so the kids start howling like ghosts. Frank mentions how they lost their sheepdog and THEN they give up and call the house a hellhole. 

The show ends with Frank giving the family gifts because they were all set on moving but it didn't happen. This is a really nice little ending to the episode and the show as a whole.

FINAL VERDICT: Yeah it's the ending that Blossom had, and I'm sure other Family sitcoms have but I think the fact they decide not to sell is a nice little twist and the episode was amusing enough. Maybe I'm just jaded by the fact so many shows either ended on a fucking clip show or a cliffhanger that I'm like "Yeah this was a nice way to end the series" for Step by Step. Oh, the text file also said to mention Cody and the goat. Yeah Cody ended up hanging out with a goat at a frat house. It was sure something!

Movie Review #65: Home Sweet Home Alone (2021)

 

You know, I was going to do this as a mini review along with another probably shitty movie that came out this week. You'll have to wait to see if I even review the other movie because I don't know if I want to review movies or anything ever again. I don't know if I want to watch another thing ever again because I'm afraid that the thing will make me as mad as this fucking pile of shit made me. Yep, Home Sweet Home Alone is by far one of the worst and dumbest thing I've reviewed for this blog, and I talked about how much I loved VR Troopers as a kid and thought it was fun upon a revisit of the Final Episode. You know me I'm lenient, I just want to have fun with this blog and enjoy these things and let the chips fall where they may. I was thinking of doing a top 5 worst things I've reviewed for my blog and this would be right up there.

No I did not go into this movie with high expectations. The reboot or sixth sequel or whatever the fuck they want to call this fucking abomination from hell was not something I wanted to ever see. Home Alone did not need 5 fucking sequels to it. I'm sure there are people who will argue that it didn't even need one, but Home Alone 2 is at least a fun film that won't give you a fucking headache. I'll tell you the two good things about this movie 1.) Buzz has like two fun scenes in it and 2.) I get to add another movie to the Disney/Touchstone Pictures/Hollywood Pictures watch a thon and I like adding things to lists because I'm a very weird person.

So I think I'll get the biggest thing out first, this movie feels like it was just made by a boardroom of old men who probably never even saw the first movie and only sorta know of things kids these days do. Yes, we get the usual hashtag jokes. The people who end up being the burglars are like "OH WE NEED A W" like people do online. These do not work as jokes in a live action movie. We can easily argue if they work as jokes online but at least there THEY MAKE FUCKING SWEET ASS JESUS CHRIST SENSE. Oh there's a remake of the gangster movie from the original movie that's now a space movie like Star Wars and the dad goes and does the WINK WINK NUDGE NUDGE "joke" of MAN THEY SHOULD NEVER REMAKE MOVIES BECAUSE THE ORIGINAL IS ALWAYS BETTER. OH HO HO. yeah, fucking end it with that joke remakes. Stop making cutesy jokes about the original film. If you really have to remake something take the premise and DON'T DO A SINGLE THING THE ORIGINAL DID. Yeah, I'm sick of seeing these jokes and shit. Fuck.

What pisses me off the most is that I think this movies plot is the most contrived thing ever written. They are trying to get this nice Christmas ending but it does not work. I'll get to that when I get there. Okay so there's this family who's having to sell their house and the main Home Alone kid goes to there house. Then they find out that a doll they had was worth 238,000 dollars because only ten of them were made. The husband realizes the doll is missing and believes the kid stole it. They end up going to the kids house and loudly talk about how they are going to steal THE UGLY BOY and the kid believes they are talking about him, not the doll. So these HARD ON THEIR LUCK PEOPLE WHO DON'T WANT TO SELL THEIR HOUSE BECAUSE OF FAMILY OR SOME SHIT try to break in and get the doll back. After some shitty traps (these are the worst in the series.) they realize it wasn't the doll he stole but a soda. He also mentions how he's home alone (they thought he was with his grandma) and they want to invite him to stay with them.

I ain't buying that shit. After you bruise and beat and SET FIRE TO MY FEET i'm not going to be friendly to you and let you come to my house. I'd leave the fucking house and MAYBE just MAYBE call in to the police from a place that wouldn't let the police know who I was. I'd sell my house sadly and then go home. These families would not end up becoming friends because THE HOME ALONE BRITISH FAMILY WOULD WANT THESE PEOPLE WHO COMMITED CRIMES TO GO TO PRISON. sure you can feel bad for them because they had their property stolen from them but they still committed a crime to get it back. It's a shit ending that is poorly trying to manipulate you. Yeah I know I said not to do anything the original did but I'll say this you can easily make the BAD GUYS IN THE MOVIE ACTUAL CRIMINALS.  don't try this shit.

The saddest thing about this movie is despite the awful awful script is that the actors are trying. They are genuinely trying to do their best. Rob Delaney and Ellie Kemper as the bad guys are trying. Kenan Thompson for the 5 minutes of screen time he gets is trying. The kid from JoJo Rabbit is trying. It's just that no one at that board room meeting gave a sweet shit about this movie. They just wanted you to watch it and because I have to see every movie in a stupid franchise I ended up watching this. Home Alone 3 was bad. Home Alone 4 was worse. I did not see Home Alone 5 (but I'm sure I will) but this, this is the fucking bottom of the barrel. No actually this is not even good enough to be considered bottom of the barrel. This is sitting somewhere outside of the fucking barrel. Fuck this movie and fuck you.

FINAL VERDICT: Disney, if you make Home Alone 7 I will kidnap the frozen body of Walt Disney and you will never find it. I am not joking about this. DO NOT TEST ME.