Movie Review #77: Jingle All the Way (1996)

 

Saturday June 10th, 2023. That was the day I posted my final Movie Review. I would write mini reviews from then at random times and hell I still might to mini reviews for movies that I wanna talk about that just don't have enough for a full review. Anyway I mention that because it was on the Phantom Menace. I still think it's a piece of shit but since then I did see Attack of the Clones and I will give you my review right here so you get two reviews in one. It Stinks. I just don't care about Star Wars beyond the original trilogy and I just do not care if I ever see Star Wars Revenge of the Sith. I can live the rest of my life and enter the grave and never see that movie and I'll be happy. I do not know why I'm bringing this shit up but anyway. I decided to bring back the Movie Reviews because I want to try to post AT LEAST 20 times a month on this blog this coming January. If I can pull out more that's great but I want twenty posts that I can look at and go "OK, this is not awful and I think I conveyed my points across very well" and I picked Jingle All the Way because I honestly was not sure If I ever saw the movie before. I mean I probably had. I was alive in the 1990s and the movie was a big thing. I just can't remmeber a single thing about it so I figured that's a good reason to watch or rewatch something. What did I think?

Jingle All the Way is a really really really really really fucking stupid movie. It's incredibly stupid. It's also incredibly entertaining. I like the number of "Oh hey it's that guy" that show up in this movie. There's Arnie. He's not really a that guy. Neither is Sinbad, or Phil Hartman. However just about everyone else really is. First off Robert Conard of Wild Wild West fame (not the movie with WILLARD SMITH, I mean the original TV show) plays a cop that I will bring up later hopefully if I remember. Martin Mull shows up as Radio DJ (who has a ponytail!). Yep Colonel Mustard from the Clue movie just pops up just for the fucking hell of it. Larraine Newman and Harvey Korman play the President and First Lady in a Turbo Man segment that opens up the movie and I just love the fact that despite they don't even say anything someone was still like WE NEED HEDLEY FROM BLAZING SADDLES AND ONE OF THE ORIGINAL SNL CAST FOR THIS SCENE!!! Yeardly Smith hits on Arnold in the movie! WE GET TO HEAR THE SWEET HEAVENLY VOICE OF CURTIS ARMSTRONG. This movie was clearly casted by me. Again tumbling backwards through time. So I guess time travel DOES get invented!

I figure I should talk about the movie's director because he has a really really weird career. The man's name is Brian Levant. He wrote for The Jeffersons, Happy Days and Mork and Mindy. He then directed Problem Child 2 in 1991. Then Beethoven in 1992. Then the Flintstones movie in 1994. Then this movie. Then came a sequel to the Flintstones movie. Snow Dogs.  A  Jackie Chan movie. Two of the five live action Scooby Doo movies (Yes. they made five of them.  No I have not seen all of them.) and A Christmas Story 2. The man's career is the most "what the fuck the same person worked on all of this stuff" of all time. Good job Mr. Levant! 

You know those really big toys of the past. Like Cabbage Patch Dolls or Tickle Me Elmo and how some people got so fucking crazy over them. My dad saw ladies go insane over some Care Bears. He learned how dark and cruel humanity could be in that Zellers in 1984. This movie is about that. So this movie starts on December 23rd and a kid played by that kid from the Phantom Menace shows up and he gets really sad because his dad played by Arnold could not get to his karate belt ceremony in the night. Two days before Christmas and I'm thinking this couldn't be some kind of Christmas play or something else? Like I could probably not be so angry if my dad missed my Karate Belt Ceremony but I would be really angry if he missed me in a play. I didn't overcome my stage fright for you to MISS ME DAD!!!!!  Anyway the kid is angry and Arnold has to get him  back on his side. Arnold learns of Turbo Man today and his wife played by Rita Wilson reminds him that he should have already gotten one for their son. He has not. Turbo Man is the biggest toy of all time, ever

This causes a crazy ruckus of him trying to go to every toy store (just to be laughed at) so that he can find Turbo Man. He runs into another father played by Sinbad who also will do anyrthing to get the doll. He finds a group of Santas selling broken bootleg toys. He even tries to rob his neighbor and punches a damn reindeer right in the face! This movie is god damn bonkers! He ends up getting dressed up as Turbo Man and ends up showing his family that he truly does love them. In the dumbest way possible.

This movie has some of the goofiest weirdest comedy ever. It's all an incredible mess. Okay, Phil Hartman does his Phil Hartman things and is playing a guy who is clearly trying to get with Arnold's lady. His character does not feel like they should be in family friendly film. He just wants to hump Ms. Tom Hanks. Okay another thing about how weird and all over the place the comedy in this movie is. First off Arnold meets up with a cop and the cop makes him do some shit in the beginning of the movie causing him to be late to the karate ceremony (THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IN A CHILD'S LIFE!) . This cop also shows up a few more times. Arnold causing antics to him, like knocking down his bike. In one scene, in the radio station he takes a package from Sinbad who had pretended it was a bomb and it literally blows him up all Looney Tunes like. There are no more wacky cartoonish gags like that in the rest of the movie. I mean except like when Arnie flies around as Turbo Man, but still. I do not know what the comedic tone was going for but it was ALL OVER THE PLACE. It still made me laugh.

The only thing I don't like about this movie is it insisting that kids would not love a pink tiger voiced by Curtis Armstrong and would not want his toy. I would have wanted Turbo Man and all of his friends and enemies. You needed the whole damn set to play with the characters anyway! Anyway I've said enough about this movie. It's very stupid but I still had a lot of fun. It's probably the best Christmas movie I've reviewed and much better than the sequel. I do not know why I've seen more than zero Larry the Cable Guy movies.

NES Game Reviews #40: Flintstones Fists Against Formula One Racing.

 

I kinda don't want to go back to just small openings just yet, so I wanted to post a image of a Nintendo Power cover that had FLINTSTONES for the NES on it. You'd think they would rate a mention on the cover but nope. Neither did any of the other games I will be talking about today so I have to go with this poster from Nintendo Power, which lets me do my literal favorite thing is complain about the shit sucking fuckers who want to nickel and dime every single thing related to nostaliga. I mean I've kinda grown to hate seeing posters on walls because of shitty YouTubers, but here's the real deal. This guy took the poster out to sell it. He even admits it in the damn ebay listing I got this image from. So he can probably sell the magazine later. I'm amazed how much that annoyed me and how I had to mention it. Seriously if I somehow get the power to do so all of this stuff, even shit like fucking Stadium Events and Amazing Fantasy 15 will be at the give me twenty bucks for the whole lot price point. Like these guys wouldn't be able to say anything else. It would be amazing.

Anyway, I feel like talking about Nintendo Power and Video game magazines and I don't really care to make an entire post about them. So I will do it here because IT IS MY BLOG AND I CAN WRITE ALMOST 2,000 WORDS ON WHATEVER THE JESUS FUCKING HELL I WANT. Anyway I never had a subscription to Nintendo Power and I never ever saw any issues when they first came out. Seriously, not a single one, UNTIL issue 100. I remember buying that and letting a kid named Frankie borrow it and yep, I never saw it again. issue 100 is probably the point I would quit collecting Nintendo Powers if it were you know possible. I'm sorry but unless I become a millionaire of some sort would I start spending the prices people want for these magazines. I seriously, do not believe the first issue is now OMG RARE. I just cannot do it. I mean I never had the first isuse but I did have an issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly that talked about Yoshi's Story and that's interesting to me for two reasons. It involves what just might be the most god damn insulting moment of my life that didn't involve Mr. Shithead. Another kid, one of the cool kids. At least I thought he was cool, literally said WHILE I WAS THERE how he was going to get me to let me borrow his magazine and he was just oging to keep it because it had Resident Evil 2 things in it. Yeah, I was a weird kid. Yeah I was in SPECIAL ED but Jesus fucking Harold Christ I deserved at least enough respect for you to not TALK ABOUT HOW YOU WERE GOING TO STEAL MY MAGAZINE IN EAR SHOT. Oh and how Yoshi's Story was so easy and disappointing. You do not need a magazine to beat that game. Hell you do not even need a fucking pulse of any kind. It's really sad.

Anyway I once got like thirty-forty Nintendo Powers for so cheap that it made it worth it to get them all. I don't remember where or when but I just had to have them at that point. I do remember reading them all so much they got torn to shit and I have maybe three of them left. I don't know if I can say I have three. I loved reading them over and over again. It was so cool. NES/SNES era Nintendo Powers. I might actually want to collect Nintendo Power. Not today. I got some Nintendo Powers recently as in a like a year or so ago and I just realized after buying all of them for $10 EACH that one of them had no back cover. Amazing what time does. Now we can finally review some NES games. I promise next time it will be a very short opening.

I made a mistake within the last post in this blog post series. The last game was supposed to be this and not Flight of the Intruder but for whatever reason that game fits better for that post so I'm going to keep it. It's not like I'm going to forget a game. If any games get dropped or forgotten I will go back to them like I will for the Power Pad games. You will see way too many NES reviews. Anyway this is not a very good game but it was made between 1985 and 1987. I mean okay this game was finally brought over in 1989 but it's really a 1987 release and I cannot get to angry at a game that was made that early. For the most part. I'm not going to be too happy with most of the NES Black Box sports games. Anyway this game is probably going to end up in the bad category because it's not good but a lot of people get angry at this game and I really can't. This game has not very good graphics, not very good sound. It can be either really really hard or incredibly easy. It feels like the game's enemies and bosses can either be trapped and beaten easily or they will trap and beat you easily. Anyway you are better off watching the anime or reading the manga instead of playing this game. I know they made a ton of sequels and I never bothered to play any of them.

They made a surprisingly amount of Retro games based around Hanna Barbera things but most of the games made for the NES, SNES and Genesis were made around three properties. The Flintstones, The Jetsons and Scooby Doo. I have mentioned before how I was never a really big fan of two of those shows. They were just kinda bland and this is coming from someone who watched a lot of Hanna Barbera and look upon them fondly. I was never a fan of the Flintstones. It was on the list of "Whatever" Shows. Ones you'd go "whatever" and watch. I don't remember a lot about the Flintstones. However I really like the video game platformer games based around the Flintstones. I really remember playing and renting the SNES game a LOT and think it's still pretty good. I mean addmitetly I have a huge wild ass boner for platformer games in general, regardless of what license you put on it. This is a simple fun game game made by Taito. The game looks like the cartoon. the music is good. and I like how they even put in mini games and everything. I just like platformers and I think this is a well made one. 

Yes, it's another rare game. Yes you know what that means because I will always do this until I am done with every game (I am also thinking about putting in Europe only games too but who knows how old I will be when I am done) and that's complain about how most of these games are not that rare. First off I do not believe this game was a blockbuster only rental thing at this point. For two reasons. Yeah Flintstone had some marquee value in 1994, definitely more than it has now but not enough for Blockbuster to go HOLY SHIT YES WE NEED THIS AND ONLY US. The second reason is look at that date for the games release. 1994 was the final year that licensed games were released for the NES. In 1994 they put out 11 Licensed games and 1 Unlicnesed game (at least according to some website I just found) and no Blockbuster isn't screaming NO ONE OF THESE LAST GAMES MUST BE OURS. I could MAYBE see if the entire internet was saying the SNES Taito Flintstones game was blockbuster only but I will never believe, unless GOD HIMSELF FLIES DOWN FROM THE FUCKING HEAVENS AND TELLS ME HIMSELF that Flintstones Surprise at Dinosaur Peak was a Blockbuster exclusive. Nintendoage can kiss my ass on that one. Also the price for most copies of this game come out to over 1,000 dollars. One entire fucking grand for a old ass Video game based on an even older ass cartoon series.  Seriously you can't spend that money as a normal person. Sorry you are now rich if you can spend that on ONE VIDEO GAME. Like I don't know what my mother would think if I somehow spent that on ONE THING even if I did save up for it. I would never spend this much for a NES game because I hate to break it to the people who want to somehow make this their investment for money making. These games will end up being plastic coasters that will not work. Finally I have finished bitching about shit heads who have ruined collecting everything because they don't want to learn how the fucking god damn stock market works like a fucking actual adult who does investing of things and now I can talk about this game. If you like the original game and I do then this is a new group of levels and characters to play and fight. This game is a bit harder than the original and the last stage is a bitch. I like the inclusion of being to play as Barney as he moves differently than Fred and I just think everything like music, play control, level design, mini games and everything you want in a platformer to be r eally done well in this game. It's not worth over one thousand dollars and people who invest into video games, comics and all kinds of stupid nerd shit should get run over by a sherman tank. Fuck you all you all.

You might be wondering why I put both of these games here and I'm doing ot for one reason and one reason only. I legit forget which of these games is which. They are very similar. One of them is the sequel to the other and I forget which is which. I think Flying Dragon is the original and the sequel is Flying Warriors. I think Flying Dragon was mostly a platformer with a few one on one fights and Flying Warriors was the one with mostly one on one fights. I remember both of them being pretty alright, yeah I spent $10 at the flea market and got two NES games and if I had spent a penny more I would be disappointed. They were literally $5 at the Flea Market good. Just the barest minimum of Good, not okay, not bad. Just barely getting to that Good level. I just remember being like yeah I enjoy playing these games but for whatever reason I don't care enough to put in the time to actually beat them. I really should but who knows. I just put them both here because there's just enough to discuss with both of these very similar games and they are both good enough for one paragraph. Sorry not sorry.

a few posts ago I talked about Ferrari Grand Prix and was actually talking about this game. I got them mixed up. This is a game where you build your car up and changes shit. I really should have noticed something was up when I saw that Ferrari was made by Acclaim and not Seta who made like 5 games for the NES and I don't know if they even did make any more for the Game boy or the SNES. They were like yeah this video game making thing is not for us and just went off to do something else. I really do not know. Anyway this is actually a review of Ferrari Grand Prix which is..........fine. It is clearly one of the racing games they want you to put effort into figuring out how it moves and not just Rad Racer where you plug it in and just race to the end of the stage in the time allotted. I just much prefer the Rad Racer style. Will I one day fix this mistake and put the reviews where they are supposed to be, maybe but that day will not be today because I am EHHHHHHHHHHHH TOO LAZY. 

Another six games down. SEVERAL HUNDRED LEFT TO GO. Anyway here are the rankings of Good, Bad, Okay and WHATEVER THE HELL ELSE

Good Games:115

Bad Games: 82

Okay Games: 29

Impatient baby might be whatever: 3

NES Game Reviews #39: Firey Final Fantasy Origins with Way Too Many Tangents.

 I should use Nintendo Power covers for some posts to keep it different from just all Ads. It also works for when I can't find an ad for any of the six games or whatever. Anyway I'm going to do something a bit different for the time and tell you beautiful scamps a story. This is the story of how I got back into the ol' NES. It was 1996 and I was eleven years of age and I was excited for the Christmas of this year. This was the year the NINTENDO 64 was to come out.  It was going to be AMAZING and FANTASTICAL and all of those things. I remember getting the N64 and Mario 64 (what a shit thing for Nintendo to do at that era and not package that game with the system. Jerks) and that was my big gift for that year. I remember waiting anxiously for my cousin to come down so he could hook up the N64. My parents who my sister and I probably woke up way too early did not feel like hooking up the Nintendo and I guess they were too worried that I would break the TV or the console. Waiting for him to come was still the longest feeling hour or whatever of my life. Like it was agonizing. I HAD to play Mario 64. HAD TOO. My cousin and his family finally showed up (which looking back on it was so weird that they did that as we usually went to THEIR house, wild how you realize how weird something is when you look back on it) and he hooked it up and one of the greatest disappointments in my short life happened. I wasn't really enjoying Mario 64. This got me thinking about all the SNES games I enjoyed and even the Genesis games I got to play and then I ended up thinking of the earliest games I had played in my life which were the NES games. I suddenly wanted a NES again. I wanted to play Mega Man 2 and Adventure Island again. I needed this to happen. The "friend" I mentioned in other posts had a NES (my original NES was fed cheese by my Sister and uh it wasn't working after that. I am still pissed about that JESSICA.) 

Anyway this story is so long that It's gonna take two paragraphs to really get through. The thing is I wanted his NES and MY games (I am not going to say I gave those games away willingly. I am sure he bullied me into giving them to him. I literally have one positive memory with this person. This kid literally did whatever he could to do awful things to every single person he could. If there's a text book defintation of what Anti-Social actually is it was this kid. Literally knowing him was what made me the person I am today. All of my shitty, shitty mental problems go back to him. It's weirdly nice to have this SAFE SPACE (oh no) to talk about these things. I uh will get back to the NES stuff. He wanted $100 for the NES (and the games I am sure he bullied me out of. I would have probably given them all to many other kids I knew instead, or maybe even sold them if none were interested in 1993 or whenever my sister shoved a lot of cheese into my NES. She thought it was hungry. IT'S NOT A LIVING THING JESSICA. Anyway it might have been a weirdly high amount of money then (seriously I get the feeling that if I had offered $25 to any other person they would have jumped on it. I don't even think he really cared that much about the money, I seriously think he liked to watch me squirm as he knew I wanted this stuff.) However my mother was not for it in any way. If I wanted this I would have to save up every nickel and dime I wanted for it. However this was not going to be the end of the story. In fact we apparently need a third paragraph. Holy moly. I promise I will get to some reviews.

Anyway something happened that I do not want to get into that just pushed me over the edge and I stopped spending time with this kid at all. However my mother had finally found someone who had a NES and several horrendous video games. I mean they had Super Mario Brothers and Snow Brothers and GHOSTBUSTERS AND X-MEN. I know portnoyd will go LOL SNOW BROTHERS IS BAD I HATE IT AND YOU SHOULD TOO but seriously compared to the other two Non-Mario games it is a fucking masterpiece. Like those were the four games (and Duck Hunt) that I had for a good amount of time. Like I am seriously amazed I decided to stick with the ol' NES when what I had was fucking X-Men and Ghostbusters. (Sorry to spoil those reviews for you.) I also still find it fucking hysterical (and really annoying) that Snow Brothers was one of the games I got. It shows how little people cared about NES games in the late 1990s. Anyway, I then found out people online were talking about the NES (I had found out about emulation and would play NES games on the computer. Had I not fount NESticle and seen how many actually fun NES games were out there I can guarentee to you that I would not have become a collector because fucking X-Men would have driven me to have thrown the damn NES out the window and been done with it. Anyway, I found people who I still talk to this day. About NES. You'd think by this point I'd have gone to play newer game systems because really at this point I somehow beat X-Men for the NES. You'd think I'd had have my fill of the NES, but nope. Still talking about that silly grey old box. I guess if I went through all this to get it I was REALLY going to have my fill with it. Anyway, let's get to the six game reviews. Sadly this barf of paragraphs is what will be really what will be talked about by port because wow this group of games are not great.

Now we get to an actual game, one of two that I actually really want to talk about. Seriously there's a reason I wrote those four paragraphs, it's about two games out of the six that are really worth discussing. This is the best turn based RPG on the NES. It is really the only one I feel that actually has held up in any way. I remember getting a copy of this (for I think $5) at some random old flea market. I also remember playing it and beating Garland and literally I guess believing I beat it or something because I no joke got rid of it. I had played stuff like Chrono Trigger at this time but I guessed an RPG on the NES was just really really short. Anyway I traded it away to someone in the OLD NES SCENE who lived in the same province as I did. I think I got Castlevania 2 for it. I then bought another copy and realized there was a lot more to this game than I thought, or I actually found out where to go (I ended up finding the Nintendo Power #17 that is pictured way above War and Peace II up there and I had a ball just playing through it and just really enjoying this game. I feel it holds up very well and I like it. I also like that they called it Final Fantasy because this game really was Square's final attempt to make a hit game. Rad Racer didn't really do it. Kings Knight is uh, we will get to that when we get to it, but this game really was a hit and a series with Final in the title really became HUGE. I think there are like 15 games in this franchise now and who knows how many spin offs? It's very funny to me. 

So, remember when I talked about I think Big Bird Hide and Speek and I was like this is a well made well thought out game if you are below the age of six. It set out what you wanted they wanted to do and was well done for pre schoolers/kindergarten age kids. The second you got into the first grade you were like "no I'll play Ninja Turtles instead". There is nothing here for an adult, but I still do not feel right calling this game a piece of hot shit garbage trash poop because it was intended for very small children who were below the age of six whenever this game came out. I cannot say if these would be good for small children today or if they would enjoy them because small children today get really into Ipads and watching shitty videos on Ipads and play shitty games. I really would be the ogre dad that would not let a child today have an Ipad and I did not want to be the IM ANGRY THAT CHILDREN ARE DIFFERENT THAN I WAS A CHILDREN but I don't think it works very well. No matter the quality of the actual tv shows I watched as children were I felt like I learned something or they had some kind of narrative that worked well. I also feel the video games, even the simple ass arcade games at least gave me some kind of hand-eye coordination. Ipad stuff just feels so wrong to me. I don't know why I bothered to bring that up but Jesus Christ it's fucking Fisher Price. What the hell were you expecting? There's only so much any human being can say about fucking Fisher Price.

Most people will say Mega Man II is the best sequel on the NES because of how much it improves on Mega Man. However I disagree. Mega Man II is an improvement on Mega Man but Mega Man is still pretty good. Fire N Ice is however the best sequel on the NES. Fire N Ice improves on Solomon's Key so much better. The game's character controls so much better and faster and honestly the puzzles you do just work SO much better in this game. I guess people just forget about Solomon's Key or that this game is a sequel to Solomon's Key because this is a OMG RARE!!!! RARE!!!! THIS IS A RARE GAME AND I HAVE TO TALK ABOUT ITS RARITY AND NOT HOW ITS ACTUALLY WELL MADE AND FUN AND A GREAT SEQUEL! Well, I'm going to piss on Youtubers who just seem to pick up collector stuff so that they can be a success on YouTube instead of actually really being into this crap and say this game was found by me IN NEWFOUNDLAND. In FACT I am pretty sure I RAN ACROSS SEVERAL COPIES OF THIS GAME IN NEWFOUNDLAND. The second something is found in Newfoundland it no longer can be considered Rare, just Uncommon. Sorry, YouTube jerks I used to watch before I realized none of them really seem to care that much about this stuff but being POPULAR YOUTUBE GUYS instead. Good lord this is one hell of a saucy post that portnoyd will have a lot to comment on. I guess I owned him a large comment over the Scream post where I'm sure he hasn't even seen a single one of those movies.

Oh cool. Another Fisher Price game. This means I am going to talk about something entirely different that is on my frazzled weird brain that has 8302 completely different things going on within it right now. I am going to complain about politics. I am not going to complain about the conservatives that get angry when a new piece of media shows a black person or a gay person or whatever. No, this time I'm going to complain about the left wingers. I saw some meme about Harry Potter and I must admit that I am not a Harry Potter fan and nor will I ever try. JK Rowling is not really terribly big on Trans people and seems to be spending Harry Potter money on just doing not so swell things to change laws that make it harder for them. I cannot say I like that, however brow beating human beings who like Harry Potter is not the answer. I am sorry but brow beating human beings in general does not work. No one likes to be yelled at for liking something. NO ONE. I AM BOLDING ALL OF THIS BECAUES IF YOU SOMEHOW READ THIS BLOG POST I WANT THIS TO GET INTO YOUR HEAD. ALSO HERE'S ANOTHER THING MAYBE THE HARRY POTTER FAN YOU ARE BROW BEATING INTO SUBMISSION DOESN'T EVEN KNOW WHAT JK ROWLING IS DOING BECAUSE THEY ARE NOT TERMINALLY ONLINE ALL THE DAMN TIME. I AM JUST TIRED OF LEFT WINGERS AND RIGHT WINGERS HOLDING NOSTALIGA AND FANDOM AND SHIT LIKE THAT PRISONER  PEOPLE SHOULDN'T HAVE TO ETHICALLY SOURCE THEIR FUCKING ENTERTAINMENT.. Oh, and Firehouse Rescue works as a game for a four year old in 1991. Or whenever the hell the game came out.

Hey cool. Yet another "This is a game that exists" kinda game. The worst kind of game to talk about for this thing. This game just feels like they put in the bare minimum. I even like a bunch of Codemasters/Camerica stuff. It is an over the top shooter game. You have to go find survivors and bring them back to a ship. The controls are really stiff and weird which is really the worst part of this game. However I cannot get angry at this game. It's like getting angry at a bowl of oatmeal and not even fancy oatmeal. Like the oatmeal your great great great great granpa ate in like 1821 or whenever the fuck your great great great great grandpa was alive. This game doesn't really do anything all that well but other than the controls its not that awful either. I guess the change to front facing scene when you save the survivor and you have to shoot some planes trying to kill him and you. It's just something you've seen done better in retro games. It's a game that exists and you forget does even exist. That's all I can say about Fire Hawk.

Oh good another game that I really have nothing to say about. I am pretty sure I played this game but I honest to God could be wrong because It's just another TOP GUN STYLE GAME (apparently based on a movie that has Danny Glover, Tom Sizemore, Willem Dafoe and Roseanna Arquette in it, yet I don't believe I had heard of it and I know of like 2402 weirdo B-movies that came out in the same year!) This was based on the book that the movie was based on. Or based on the movie that the book was a basis for. I don't know and I don't care. There is ONE game that is like this that I really want to give a good honest try too and I'll mention it when I get to it. I just find the rest of these games to be the most boring shit imaginable. Watching every single Casper cartoon is a more exicting prospect then ever playing any of these games. I do not know what it is but I just go into ZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzZZZZZ mode whenever any of these games come up and this one is no different.

Good Games: 111

Bad Games: 81

Okay Games: 29

Games that Might be Better If I weren't an Impatient Child: 3

Let's Rank and Thus Review The Scream Franchise!

 

Can I say that I do not get Funko Pops. I do not get the people who collect them because I just find them to be weirdly boring and the dead eyes they have just suck the charm out of whatever is being turned into a Funko Pop. I do not get the people who really truly hate them because they feel so boring and banal. It's like getting angry at your grandma's porridge. There's nothing there. I do not know why I made this the main image of this post. Anyway, I liked ranking the Nightmare On Elm Street movies so much I decided to do it again where I review every movie in a series and rank them. I wondered what series to pick for the second post, so many of them are just so much longer now. I wanted to do the Texas Chainsaw Massacre and then I realized I would have to watch too many poor movies for that. I decided to pick Scream because there are six of them and it is connected to Wes Craven as he directed four of the six films. So that's what it would be.

My parents, as I mentioned in the Nightmare On Elm Street post did not let me see horror movies until it was literally the one thing that would get me to go back home after I had an asthma attack and they wanted me to be near the better hospital in our province. Closer ot home for all that. So they were like "fine rent those stupid movies" and you'd better believe your sweet bippy that I did. I rented them all. All of them. Well, no not really as there are a lot of horror movies and you can't really rent them anymore. But I did rent a lot of them. This was in like 1995 which means I was ten years old and on the ground floor for the Scream series and remember watching Urban Legend at thirteen in 1998 instead of I dunno Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century or whatever terrible DiC cartoon was being made at the time. Still Scream was a huge deal in the late 20th century and even into the 21st. I remember the Joblo Movie Forums where people would argue over it being a good movie or not. The fact that I decided to rewatch six movies means that I like these movies pretty well. I just miss forums man. We could just have fun regardless of if we liked something or not. Moderation really did make the internet not shitty.

Scream 3 the end of the original trilogy of films is the worst of the bunch. I cannot give a movie written by Satan aka Ehren Kruger any higher than last. Ehren Kruger first off cannot even spell his first name correctly. It's Aaron, bro. Secondly he wrote three of Michael Bay's Transformers movies.  This movie is really stupid. First off Ghostface now has a voice changer that can change into ANY VOICE. That's a plot Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century would turn down for being to stupid. It then just ends up being weird and convoluted. Apparently Sidney's mom Maureen Prescott was apart of Hollywood where she was sexually assaulted and that gave her a son that she then turned away. That son is the Ghostface for this movie and my God he is a whiney little baby of a man. I hate this guy so much. So, so much. Anyway this movie still has some good points. Courtney Cox, David Arquette and Neve Campbell step back into their roles so easily and are still great to watch. I also loved Parkey Posey who plays Gale Wathers within the meta movie Stab 3. Oh, this movie also has David Putty in it and I love seeing him actually show up in things. He is a bodyguard and he calls Dewey Dewdrop which is like such a douche thing to do. David Putty was so good at being a douche. I don't hate this movie unlike those terrible terrible Transformers movie but this one is still pretty stupid and clearly the worst of the whole franchise.

Scream's first Legacy Sequel. Sorta. Yeah, in 2011 Scream got a sequel after 11 years. This one talks a little bit about the Torture Porn stuff that was being made during the 11 years Scream was away. They also talk a lot about remakes between this time and how none of the old rules mean anything. And how uh, being gay is the only way to really survive. I really don't know this era of Horror very well but I cannot think of many gay characters from this era. A new character named Kirby lists off like 820 remakes to answer one of Ghostface's questions and while I'm pretty sure I saw each and every one of those remakes (I like horror movies what of it) I cannot remember most of those movies and I certainly don't remember a gay character getting to live because they were gay. I know this sounds silly but the "rules" these movies came up with made sense and you could be like yeah that works for like 2852908 horror movies they were satirizing. It just doesn't seem to work very well here. Oh well, despite all that the plot is pretty good. the people who end up being Ghostface make sense and the returning characters are all still lovable. A good way for Wes Craven to go out on and way better than Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century. I'm going to see if I can force a reference to that show into each paragraph.

Isn't it weird how the earlier chapters of this series are lower than the newer ones. I mean this is a nostaliga blog where I talk about everything from the past being so great and I complain about so many remakes and sequels but I honestly really liked the two newer Scream movies. I guess I have to suprise you people sometimes. Not everything from the past was good. I mean just look at Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century. This movie is very well done. It actually has my favorite suspense scene in the entire franchise. It's a scene where they have to get out of a car and crawl over Ghostface who is passed out in the front seat. I also liked a lot of the hints they put throughout the movie on who the killer could be. Like when Jamie Kennedy (who plays Randy Meeks and has really weird ears. Unlike Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century) is killed you can look in the camera in the van and it gives you a hint of who to think is behind it. I enjoyed watching this one again

I'm going to talk about these two together because they are honestly tied for second place. Yep, I know this is wild but I just went to reddit for some reason (It's good for finding pornography and nothing else) and they were all so angry at the idea of one of the new characters being the daughter of Billy Loomis (one of the killers in the original movie) and how that really messed her up and I think that works fine. I actually really quite like it. I enjoyed watching Billy Loomis talk to her in scenes, even bringing back that lovable scamp Skeet Ulrich. They also complained about Dewey dying and man, one of those three characters just had to get it this time. Them surviving everything under the sun started to become comical by the third movie. It doesn't hurt that I think this Sam Carpenter lady is very cute and I would like to kiss her. I would not like to kiss Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century. I like the new characters alot and feel like the returning characters were brought in pretty well and treated fairly. I mean Sidney doesn't show up in the sixth movie because behind the scenes they didn't want to give her money and I'm like bros don't be sassing poor ol' Neve Campbell! SHE IS A CANADIAN TREASURE AND YOU WILL RESPECT AND LOVE HER!  I also love the relationship between Sam and Tara as sisters, and how they make these two movies havea  theme of family. I like it and I like these movies. They have some great scary scenes in them. Like the one on the Subway in part 6. I alsoi like how these movies just sass the hardcore lunatics that happen to be fans of things. Holy hell guys stop crying over these things man. STOP BEING WEIRDOS.

It's hard to tell people who weren't around for this how big a deal this movie was. It was HUGE. Like slashers and hell honestly horror in general was kind of a downfall in the 1990s. From like 1978 to 1990 you could find slashers to watch and all kinds of horror movies to wtach. It stopped being like that in the early 90s. I mean they were still there but it was at least half as what it was in the late 1980s. This movie however brought it back IN SPADES. So many movies with SEXY TEENS (actually people in their 20s and 30s) made for cinema by big companies and for tv and for direct to video and it was insane and I loved it all. I love this era for Horror. The Scream era I like to call it. I really wish Kevin Williamson would get to write stuff that isn't Scream again. The Faculty and Teaching Miss Tingle rule. The characters in this movie feel the most real and entertaining. I love the little interactions between pretty much all of the characters. I also think that Billy Loomis really really really was sick of Stu's shit and couldn't want to kill him in the end of the movie. I think Matthew Lillard is hilarious in this movie and Quinten Tarantino can kiss it. "MY MOM AND DAD ARE GOING TO BE SO MAD AT ME!" Great stuff. Great movie. That opening with Drew Barrymore is NUTS and none of the sequels could ever top it.  Uh. I have never actually seen an episode of Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century.

NES Games Reviews #38: Fester and Felix the Cat Drive Ferrari's in the Fantasy Zone.

 

Wow, two posts in one day. This second post is happening for a few reasons. There are high winds around here and that means we might loser power and have no electricity, and I don't really want to be in the middle of a movie or an episode of Sailor Moon when that happens. I also do not want that post below this one to be the one people see. Who knows how long the power/electricity could be out for. I also want to talk about these six video games.  So might as well just blather on about six video games made in the 20th Century and for that let's go. Also I could not find a Faxanadu ad or Faria ad or even a Fantasy Zone ad. Anyway a bunch of really fun NES games.

I get to do my favorite thing here and that's shit on dumb nintendoage jerks who have infested and fucked up NES collecting. These guys were the ones who were all like LOL UNLICENSED DOESN'T NEED TO COUNT AT ALL. They would then give the dumbest and worst fucking argument in that some unlicensed games were bad. Woah! I just reviewed two licensed games that were WORSE than any unlicensed game, well, most of them. I will not ever get the people who refuse to collect unlicensed games. They were released during the NES lifetime and I can remember seeing them at video stores. the Pac-Man Tengen box art will always be seared into my minds eye. Just him yelling and screaming is so weird. Speaking of Tengen, I'm surprised they never decided to buy them because they are actually quite good. Most Tengen games were pretty good. Totally worth the $5 most people wanted for them back then. Strange that so many people are like LOL NO UNLICNESED DOESN'T COUNT BUT I NEED STADIUM EVENTS LOL people yet Unlicensed games are not $5 any more. I will forever miss those days. Anyway,  Fantasy Zone is the Tengen version of the Sega game. I have never played the Sega version but I have played Fantasy Zone and Fantasy Zone II for the Famicom and they are pretty fun shooter games. You have to shoot these big old fat robot guys and make sure there are no more on the screen. Then you fight a giant boss. It's simple and very fun and people who refuse to collect unlicensed games because they are bad are morons who stink.

Faria is a Zelda clone. The NES had a lot of them. Battle of Olympus, StarTropics, StarTropics 2, Crystalis, Willow and a few others I forgot about right now. Faria is probably the worst of these games but I still enjoyed it quite a bit. It's still fun and honestly the only problem with the game is that the leveling up can be grindy but that's a thing for just about any NES game that has leveling up in it. The graphics are fine and the music is pretty great and Faria is still worth a shot. I did enjoy playing this game and should go back to it because I was close to the end in it. Anyway this game might not be the most original but I don't really care as long as it plays well and I feel this game plays well. Woo.

Oh hey another Zelda like game. This one is a bit more like Zelda II than Zelda and is a better game than Faria. This game has some really good graphics, music and all kinds of swords and shit to play around with. I also must take back one thing because I remember this game being pretty good when it comes to the grinding of levels. It was never that hard to get to the next level in this game. Anyway despite the fact I barely have written anything here Faxanadu is a must play. I think it's a part of a series of games that includes Legacy of the Wizard but I could be wrong there. Portnoyd will yell about this becuase I believe he was a big fan of this game. Anyway this game is incredible and very much worth playing.

I'm pretty sure Felix the Cat is the first Cartoon star of sorts and by Star I mean character that appeared in many many shorts. Felix the Cat started out in 1919 and had 190 cartoons within the Golden Age of Animation. Felix the Cat predated Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Woody Woodpecker and a shit load of others. Felix the Cat literally has existed for 100 years and still gets love. He had a 1960s Tv series, a 1990s movie, a 1990s short lived cartoon (two seasons and I thought it was great!) and they made this video game, which might just be the easiest video game of all time. Seriously there are levels you can just fly the fuck over. Still, there's enough entertainment here to enjoy. This is a game worth playing, great graphics, memorable music and all kinds of pretty well designed (except for the ones you can just fly over lol) stages. This game is now not worth the dumb shit price collectors spend now but it is very much worth playing. Apparently they brought this game and some other Felix the Cat games out in a new collection by Konami who bought Hudson Soft. Wild that Felix the Cat is still making money these days. Anyway play this game and stop reading my shitty reviews.

I've said before that most of my favorite NES racing games were ones that were pretty simple. No buying different cars, no buying upgrades, none of that. Most of the ones I like the most are just simple games where you drive around a track. However this is a different beast. I actually really like this one too. You have to pick the right cars and right upgrades to get to the final 17 races. The only problem is that it becomes INCREDIBLY HARD during those last 17 races. It's like someone told the people the game was too easy (and it wasn't). The graphics are pretty great and the music is too. The racing is fast and firece and fun and the Challenge is pretty fair as it gets harder and harder as the game goes on. It just gets TOO hard and that's probably the worst part of the whole game. Still a worthwhile racing game.

Is Addams Family the only license to get two games based on two different iterations? Like Fester's Quest was based on the 1960s movie. You can see John Astin Gomez in the ending scene. However in 1991 they made a movie based on that tv series and in 1992 they made another Addams Family game made based on that movie (which is a great movie and the game is pretty good too despite being made by Ocean). It was just something I wanted to ask because I really don't know. Anyway, Fester's Quest is a game that gets a little bit of flack but I quite like. Yes, it's a weird version of Blaster Master and is not A-Tier Sunsoft, but B-Tier Sunsoft is still really quite good. Yes, this game has some flaws. Having to start over at the beginning in such a long game is a pain in the ass. Yes leveling up your gun/whip is annoying too and having items that unlevel up your gun is a pain in the ass too. Still this game is pretty great. I think it's really fun to play. I enjoyed beating this game. Yes, I beat this game before Blaster Master (which is a game I really need to beat). I also think this is one of the games with First Person Stages that were pretty well put into the game. You go through a bunch of these and they never get too hard to get through. Also this game is really hard but you do get to see the entire Addams Family. They feel like they a part of this game. Anyway, the Addams Family is cool, so sit down watch a few episodes of the 1960s TV show and then play some Fester's Quest. It's a good time.

GOOD GAMES: 107 

BAD GAMES: 80

OKAY GAMES: 28

GAMES YOU MIGHT LIKE IF YOU AREN'T AN IMPATIENT BABY: 3

NES Game Reviews #37: Not so Fantastic Family Feud's in F-117A's. Woo.

 

So it's time yet again for the NES Game Reviews, where I review six NES games and then yell at portnoyd for saying some dumb piece of GARBAGE was actually good. I will do something different than usual as not complain about the main photo for the post. I think I finally got it, I can just use a great comic ad for one of the games within the post. For whatever reason I picked F-117A Stealth for the AD. They had a lot of great game ads back in the day and uh, this isn't one of them. I don't know if you are supposed to actually be able to see anything in the  dark sky or if it's just my dirty ass computer screen. It's very slim pickings for this group of games, we will see if I can do anything with any of these.

This was the first time I played this game, however I will make the argument that if you have played any Top Gun style NES shooter type game you've played them all. You can do a barrel roll and then you either wait forever for guys to come by and shoot your down because it's too hard to shoot them OR you get overwhelmed by like 30 guys at once. Seriously I don't like these games when they are at their best (like say I dunno After Burner) so this cheaper, uglier and shittier controlly version of After Burner really has no chance. Like even if you LOVE After Burner, I'd say go find After Burner II or the arcade version of After Burner. There's no reason to ever play this version. Hell I might say this could be the worst Top Gun style shooter for the NES. 

This game is incredibly jittery. I almost got sick playing the first level. The first level is Top Gun like and then you get 1943 like levels. This game is very slow, ugly and boring. They have okay enough graphics when they aren't being jittery and annoying. I don't even remember the music and I do not care enough to start the emulator up again and I just played this version. I'm really sorry for this post within this series but when you are given lemon after lemon you can try to make lemonade or you can just complain. I choose to complain. So yeah, you can literally not shoot any enemies in the first level if you don't wanna. It's not fun and I don't like it. 

When looking for an image of the box cover which is terribly uninteresting. Like at least the other two above games had nicer looking art. This was just thrown together art, clearly at the last second. I get the feeling they were like FUCK STEVE THE GAME GOES OUT TO BE SOLD IN LIKE 20 MINTUES MAKE SOME SHIT IN MS PAINT FOR US and Steve gave us this. It's strange how this games art is the only one to have action in it yet it's really less interesting than the other ones. Anyway, back to my pointless little story. I found someone selling this game on ebay for almost 2 grand because it was sealed. A part of me hates this person (because they had this game GRADED.) but I also kinda feel bad for them. Just imagine finding a sealed NES game in this day and age and then finding out that no, it isn't Mario 3, or Little Samson, or Bucky O Hare or Startropics or anything. It's not connected to ANYTHING EVEN REMOTELY POPULAR OR INTERESTING. Like pick any NES game and it would have more interesting "WOW" Factor. Like I would not even pick up this game sealed, but I gotta admire the spunk someone has to literally buy a copy and then try to resell it. Every NES game is someone's favorite but this one. I don't even believe anyone ever played this game and it pleases me to be the first.  And it fucking sucks. I will literally find and shit in the mouth of whoever buys this game sealed. Seriously just go to the first homeless person you see and give them 2 grand. You do not deserve to have money if you waste it on this.

Is this the first Game Show game I've talked about here? I think so. The only person I ever knew who had a crazy love of Game Shows was a giant weirdo who I did not like. I think portnoyd knows who I am talking about here. I do not know if I somehow talked about a game show game before this one so here is Family Feud it is based on a game show that is OK,I guess. I've never been a big game show guy. I mean I was into Who Wants to be a Millionaire and The Weakest Link way back when (can you believe that was 25 years ago now?) Those were actually pretty exicting and it was fun to watch with my family. I mean I also think Jeopardy is pretty alright too and I actually kind of enjoy those games. This game was made during the time when Ray Combs was on the show (I have never seen an episode of his Family Feud and I still know when he was on the show. What information my brain keeps within it is a wonder and a curse) but he does the kissing thing Richard Dawson did. Was Ray Combs into also kissing ladies when he could? Anyway you are given a question that was asked to 100 people and try to find the answer most people guessed, and this game does that well. I just never really thought Family Feud was all that interesting as a tv show or a game. I do like the way the family members in this game look though. So goofy. Anyway uh, I guess I will say this is a good game if you care about the show in any way but the Jeopardy games are still the best.

I think the Dizzy games are kinda interesting. A weird mix of platformer and point and click kinda thing. You go find one random item that you need to use to open a door or move a elevator or shoot at a plant. I just think this game is just too big. I beat Dizzy the Adventurer today and I think that's the perfect legnth for a game of this size. You can easily remember what to do with each item and be done with the game in 30 minutes. This game according to YouTube videos can be beaten in 1 hour and 30 minutes. You know there's like twice the amount of items to remember what to do with and that's just annoying. Also only getting to hold 3 items is kind of a pain in the ass. I'm sure you could have made an entire menu to put items in at this point in the NES' life cycle. I'm sure they had games with actual menus where you could store tons of shit in by this point. Anyway, I don't hate this game but I do think Dizzy the Adventurer is better. Sometimes bigger is not always better. Portnoyd will yell at the Oliver Twins and Dizzy and probably forget about the three better games to yell at above.

I think the Dizzy games are kinda interesting. A weird mix of platformer and point and click kinda thing. You go find one random item that you need to use to open a door or move a elevator or shoot at a plant. I just think this game is just too big. I beat Dizzy the Adventurer today and I think that's the perfect legnth for a game of this size. You can easily remember what to do with each item and be done with the game in 30 minutes. This game according to YouTube videos can be beaten in 1 hour and 30 minutes. You know there's like twice the amount of items to remember what to do with and that's just annoying. Also only getting to hold 3 items is kind of a pain in the ass. I'm sure you could have made an entire menu to put items in at this point in the NES' life cycle. I'm sure they had games with actual menus where you could store tons of shit in by this point. Anyway, I don't hate this game but I do think Dizzy the Adventurer is better. Sometimes bigger is not always better. Portnoyd will yell at the Oliver Twins and Dizzy and probably forget about the three better games to yell at above. Oh and before you complain about me just copy/pasting the review, Portnoyd is like REVIEW ALL THE GAMES BOY and this game is literally the same as the above game except I think you can get more stars with this version. Woooooooo Just shit my pants thinking about how exiting that is!

Hopefully I won't get saddled with a set of games like this any time soon. Holy hell, it was hard to find anything to say about those first three games. Thankfully the next six games are games I'll have much more to say about.

GOOD GAMES: 101

BAD GAMES: 80

OKAY GAMES: 28

GAMES YOU MIGHT LIKE IF YOU AREN'T AN IMPATIENT BABY-MAN: 3

Comic Review #104: Mockingbird #8 (2016)

 

Well, it's back to the era of WOKE MARVEL COMICS. So let's discuss, it's 2016 and I'm probably at home happily reading, I dunno, DC Comics Presents #67 (thats the one where Superman teams up with Santa Claus to stop the Toyman) from like the mid-1980s. I don't have any idea what new comics are like or anything. I sign on to YouTube to see a video about new Marvel Comics and how they are so political these days and so left wing and terrible. I end up getting weirdly hooked on this guys very stupid videos about new comics. I go out and actually pick up new comics and find myself enjoying them and finding out that he left a lot of stuff out of the reviews that I just felt was not fair. I end up arguing with these people who now call themselves comicsgate for way too long. Now, I don't care if you like or dislike these comics. I don't even care if you think they are too conservative. No, I was bothered because of how shitty they treated the people who just wrote comics they didn't like. They would call them pedophiles and trannies and even send death threats. All over comic books. The saddest thing of it all was that so many of these guys didn't even read comics before hand. It was just a single nudge towards left wing politics that caused an insane culture war that is still going on through the internet these days. I don't argue any more on twitter but I spend too much time just watching what's happening. It's wild because they are now tearing themselves a part. It only took ten years for it to finally go away. Now if we could just get rid of their weird offspring of YouTubers yelling about woke movies because a woman shows up or something.

Anyway I was always curious about this comic. I mentioned before that I enjoyed several comics they got all in a tizzy about. Like The Unstoppable Wasp, or Ms. Marvel or Lady Thor (Lady Thor is probably the third best era or run for the Character. At least I think so). So because I ended up liking these comics more than say something that Rob Liefeld ever made people would call me a fake fan. Gatekeeping is really stupid especially when it comes to comics, are you going to come to my house and smack a Brave and the Bold comic written by Bob Haney out of my hand? Really weird unhinged people in that group. I hope they never find this blog. I like being able to smack talk them without having to argue about anything. I really should look to see if there was even a way to block people on blogger but I'm just hoping no one actually finds this blog because they haven't in 5 years and I've written almost 500 posts about crap I'm sure someone would google. Anyway, I felt like this was the time to finally sit down and read this Mockingbird comic and hoo boy, it's a big ol' turd. I'm not going to yell at the woman who wrote it or send death threats but I'm not going to lie and say that this was one of the SJW WOKE MARVEL comics that I enjoyed reading. Because I didn't.

This story starts out weirdly confusing and ends with zombies. It's told in a weird manner only comics could but it's not much fun to read. One part tells stuff that happened earlier but whatever. Mockingbird has some illness or some shit. I just read it and the entire damn first seven issues just floated out of my head. I can remember comics I have not read since I was a damn child but like 20 minutes after reading these I can't remember shit. That's not good. Also I just know Howard the Duck was in it and the comedy fell flat. The person who wrote this tried way way too hard in every aspect of the story. It's also overtly political, talking about feminism. It's just so on the nose that it's really not well done. The character of Mockingbird (one of the lesser known heroes that I always liked) did not feel like the same character from those older 1980s stories and I'm not a big fan of that. The worst part is that it's really really boring.

However the issue that caused everyone in that little group of weirdos to shit their pants was this one. Mockingbird #8. They retconned an older story and I'm somewhere in the middle on retcons. I mean they range from pretty good to awful horse shit. Bucky dying at the end of World War II was a retcon because Stan Lee thought kid sidekicks were stupid as fuck. I would say that did a world of good for the character of Captain America. The retcon here was that she willingly cheated on Hawkeye with Lincoln Slade (a man who later on died because she didn't save him from falling, IIRC, It's hard to keep up with whats a retcon and what actually happened in the original issue and I'm too lazy to pull that comic out of wherever it is in my house at the moment). It uh, makes her out to be really bad because in the original issues he sexually assaulted her and you could probably be like "yeah I can see why she didn't save him after that". Her just cheating on Hawkeye with this guy and then not saving her makes her look like a fuckin crazy woman. Unpleasant to say the least. Yeah. Something about Mercorgis saving her and ghost pirates that end up being feminists somehow. This lady's comedy is so try hard she'd be fucking perfect for the new Deadpool writer. She could try to do Lobo too because he also fucking sucks. Yeah, I said it and I won't take it back. 

FINAL THOUGHTS: a dumb series of stories with a dumb retcon that just makes the character worse off. A waste of time and money. I will never read this again. I think I will try to find my copy of DC Comics Presents #67. I might show it to my nieces. Anyway have fun and if you are comicsgate piss off back to twitter, shithead.

The Final Episode #136: Inspector Gadget (Redo)

 

You know how I said it would be mixing it up with other things, well I decided against that until I get bored of redoing stuff. You might see something else before I'm done with the eight posts I just feel need to be redone. If I literally had no commenters I would probably have deleted those original posts I just do not like them. But I'm keeping them if only for historical context. I mean the people who find this earth after we destroyed it will want to know about Inspector Gadget and I'll be the last website that mentions it! Or at least the last website that goes into great detail about it. I want those people to know that I liked Inspector Gadget enough to write about it twice. To make sure they got all the information they could about it. I don't know where I'm going with this post but I also don't care. I just feel like talking about Inspector Gadget.

So, Inspector Gadget. First we have to talk about DiC, yet again. Quick version. They were an animation company that started in 1971. It was ran by a man named Jean Chalopin. Inspector Gadget was one of their first cartoons that people saw. I mean people who didn't live in France saw. Anyway the two prior were Ulysses 31 and Mysterious Cities of Gold. These two shows were made with help from Tokyo Movie Shinsha. They wanted to work together for a third time. TMS was making a anime based on the Lupin III manga. They decided they wanted to make Lupin the 8th (I don't know that in Roman Numerals and I do not want to look it up. I'm lazy, piss off) but they did not realize that the people who created original Arsenie Lupin books weren't too keen on them using the character. I dunno if they could stop Japan from doing it but when they brought them to France and maybe other places they were like "no way bro" and TMS and DiC then had to figure out what to do. They bring in Andy Heyward from Hanna Barbera and they come up with the idea of Inspector Gadget.

Inspector Gadget is the story of a Police Inspector with all kinds of gadgets that tries to stop the evil crime organization of M.A.D. His niece, Penny and her dog Brain pretty much have to keep on eye on him because he's a complete and utter moron. That's where the comedy comes from. The people of France, Japan, Canada (hey!) and America all came together to bring this cartoon to you. It's a very worldly cartoon. It's pretty much a weird and wild amalgamation of Mission Impossible, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Get Smart, The Pink Panther and Dino Mutt from Hanna Barbera. It was a pretty big hit really. It started in 1983 and was a big enough hit for DiC to get all kinds of other cartoons off the ground. 

It had two seasons of 86 episodes, a Christmas special in 1992, a kid-ified version of the show in Gadget Boy, a weird let's travel the world with Inspector Gadget show, a let's learn about History from the kid-ified Gadget Boy, several video games, and a sequel series in Gadget and the Gadgetinis. Oh and when Disney owned DiC and Inspector Gadget they made two live action movies. Neither of them are very good but the second one is probably closer to the show than the first. Oh and they made several animated movies. One of them being one of the worst things I've ever seen. It was terrible. I do not want to remember it. YOU WOULD KNOW THIS IF YOU WATCHED MY BEAUTIFUL YOUTUBE VIDEO ON THE SHOW.

So, what did I think of Inspector Gadget. Well you see it was partially animated in Canada and except for Frank Welker and Don Adams the entire rest of the cast were Canadian voice actors, such as Dan Hennessey and Cree Summer. Yes that's right Cree Summer was born in Canada. Her dad is the Sherrif character in My Bloody Valentine. I felt you all needed to know that. So with this in hand, that meant that Inspector Gadget counted as Canadian Content. Broadcasters in Canada have to have a certain amount of Canadian Content, so they would pull out stuff from the 1980s and other decades and just put it on. Just about every Canadian channel that needed some content for kids used Inspector Gadget. It wouldn't surprise me if some Canadian channel is showing this show right now. It didn't bother me because I found this show to be incredibly entertaining and really funny. It's definitely not a bingable show. It's very repetitive but watching an episode a day was a great way to see it. It was totally one of my "watch before school" even though at that point I was like a teenager and probably should be watching something more adult. Who cares, I like Inspector Gadget. He's a goof but he still tries his best.

The other thing that happened is that we in Canada would ONLY get the first season, as Nelvana did NOT work on the second season. I mean it wouldn't get reran. I don't know if it aired in 1986 because I was a little baby of a child. That was done in house at the American branch of DiC. When I heard about his from the website Jump the Shark (which literally had a page for like every tv show ever where tyou could read about where other people thought the show stopped being good.) That's where I learned about the second season and it blew my damn mind. It took another 25 years for me to finally sit down and watch them and finally meet the character Corporal Capeman. I don't know what they were thinking of with this character as Inspector Gadget was already the goofy comedic relief. Corporal Capeman was just annoying and I hated him. Jump the Shark website no longer exists and it's remake site Bone the Fish is up but does not work as a website. Isn't it great how whats left of Internet 1.0 is just rotting away. I love it. Anyway the 12 episodes without Corporal Capeman are pretty good. However The Final Episode of this show has him in it.

I must be honest and say that this episode has been sitting in the queue as a draft for like days now. I think it was like December 4th when I first wrote the first few paragraphs of this. This will be the third time I watch this episode and the last two times I wasn't in love with it. I know it's weird and corny and cheesy and lame to complain about a cartoon character as much as I complain about Corporal Capeman but he really is completely useless. He's really bad comedic relief when Inspector Gadget was already the comedic relief. Corporal Capeman is up there with the comedic relief in the Michael Bay Transformers movies. Spike Witwhickys goofy parents getting high or an autobot pissing or shitting on John Tutturo. You know what was cool the fact that for a little while we were getting pretty good Transformers movies (like Bumblebee and Rise of the Beast or whatever the hell the second one was called) but now Michael Bay is coming back again. Wonderful. I hope they don't try to shoehorn in G.I. Joe, I'm sorry movie studios but the time of the CINEMATIC UNIVERSE is kinda over. I don't know why I typed all this.

Anyway the Final Episode of this show was called "Gadget and the Red Rose" and was aired for the first time on November 13th, 1985. I was only a few months old at this time. Just a wee baby. It was written by Jack Hanaran (who wrote for Get Smart, Laugh In and like 2894 DiC cartoons)  and Eleanor Burian-Mohr who wrote for DuckTales and 2895 DiC Cartoons. Just one more than Jack. Anyway the episode opens with Corporal Capeman or as Gadget calls him Capman. Do you think Don Adams thought the characters name was Capeman and was like fuck off when DiC told him to come back to re-record. I hope so because that's funnier than anything in this episode. He is putting Acid Sour Cream into a Gadzooka. and just randomly firing it everywhere. I know Gadget was a complete doofy dipshit from Day one but I think he'd at least tell Capeman to shoot at a target and not a fucking telephone pole. He is told to finally hit a target but his dumb ass shoots poor old Brain's dog house. Then Gadget is like a few more fixes and no MAD weapon will ever stop it. 

We then change scenes to Dr. Claw and MAD Cat. MAD Cat is just hitting the button on the MAD Computer until The Red Rose shows up. The unstoppable weapon. It's owner was Spuds Malone. I don't really like how the second season made MAD goofier. Yeah they could be silly but they still had some menace to them. They make them a lot more comedic and it doesn't work as well. Anyway if you  couldn't tell from Sour Cream and Spuds stuff well, the Red Rose is a machine gun that shoots mashed potatoes at you. He calls Les Reknown or whatever this characters name is and he's old and deaf and thinks Dr. Claw is actually calling asking for Dr. Claw. This bit is just really tired.  Les goes to get Spuds Malone and Spuds Malone is like No dice! Les tells him to cut the Charles Bronson bit and that Gadget was the only witness to the St. Patrick Day's Massacre, as he was the baby that somehow saw Spuds Malone kill people with Mashed Potatoes. I do  like how this scene is done make it it look like an old timey photograph from 1902 or whatever.

Spuds Malone is in. He doesn't want Gadget to send him to jail. So he gets his henchmen Tater and Fingers to help him find Red Rose. They join up and then w e go back to Gadget and Capeman. It's time for Chief Quimby to show up. Chief Quimby's voice actor in Season 1 was much better. Nothing but love to Maurice LaMarche but I just liked Dan Hennessy better in this role. He blows up and then says one of the few comments in this episode that made me laugh. He goes "It needs chives, Gadget" You see the Gadzooka was powered by Acid Sour Cream! He just sounds so defeated when he says it too. It did legit make me laugh. Gadget was given a place to go to find Spuds Malone and he goes right to there. I guess the Police force never bothered to pick him up ever before this. Gadget goes to Spuds house right as Spud and his men boobytrapped the house with tons of potatoes. You know in the first season when they wanted to kill Gadget they used a bomb.  Gadget goes into the house but Brain jumps in front of him and gets crushed by the potatoes. Gadget also said Spud which was the codeword to get Corporal Capeman to shoot acid all over Spuds house and I sit here wondering why I ever chose to do this with my precious God given time.

Spuds and Gadget met up again in their cars. I didn't mention it but I am now. Spuds was going to Heck's Kitchen to find his old slum house and it turned out that his slums were turned into Condos! Oh no! Spuds then decides to go to his old reformatory school to find the Red Rose. Brain as a rose bush runs by after Gadget literally has Capeman shoot tons of acid sour cream on a building destroying it. A building people lived in. They chase them to the reformatory school which is now a Rose garden. The bad guys get into the sewer and everyone does a chase. Spuds Malone gets one of his henchmen to open up the water vane in the sewer oh no. You can tell I'm very invested in this. Spuds remembers where the Red Rose is but Penny also found it and changed it around. Her computer book ends up jamming the Red Rose which stops the bad guys and Chief Quimby says Gadget did a good job and Dr. Claw flies off screaming ILL GET YOU NEXT TIME GADGET and I'm just happy I don't have to watch this episode ever again.

FINAL THOUGHTS: This show clearly ran out of steam with the second season but here's the real thing. I'm pretty sure if I had seen these episodes as a kid I would not have liked them and any time they came on I would have probably gone "Oh it's one of the dumb episodes", changed the channel and found something better. I'm glad I finally gave it the post it deserves but I think I'll wait another decade or two before I talk about Inspector Gadget again.