TV Review #1: Clue Club (1976)

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What If Wednesday #3: Kurt Busiek let me down man

 

Welcome one and all to the best Wednesday thing on a blog ever! What if Wednesday #3! I am going to be so hard pressed to talk about stuff in the first paragraph of each and every one of these! Anyway up there is an image of the Watcher's first appearance from Fantastic Four #13 all the way back in like 1963 or something. I feel a What If post should probably start off with some kind of picture of the Watcher man. I don't know when I will use my favorite picture of him but we will get to it! Anyway we got more What If's from Volume 2 to talk about!

Holy moly ass shit! Now this is a comic book (by Doug Murray of the 'Nam fame and Rik Levins) that grabs your ass and doesn't let go until the last 3 pages which are just weird joke what ifs that I guess they just decided to shove in there for some reason or another. We will get to the wacky issues of What If someday and boy howdy they are something! Anyway this time the mob DOES NOT kill The Punisher's family AND he becomes a police officer. An honest cop trying to do the best he can, you know like Frank Serpico. He finds out about corruption, judges, his partner and even his Captain are in on it (they are all pretty much working for the Kingpin in the end) it doesn't end well for his family. And then it doesn't end well for the corrupt cops and judges this go around because THEY are who he's after this time. So keep your nose clean or Frank Castle will shoot it off. I'm amazed that 30 years ago we were still talking about issues we are talking about now. And they still haven't been resolved. And the fact people are complaining NOW that comic books have discussed social and political issues. Anyway, this comic comes Highly Recommended! 

What If #22 by Ron Marz and Ron Lim (double Ron action for ya!) is pretty good too. I think I like it because it has a mostly positive ending really. OK so in the mainline Marvel Universe comics published between 1966 and 1987 that had the Silver Surfer in it had him confined to earth (I believe that Silver Surfer #1 from 1987 by Steve Englehart and one of the best Batman artists EVER!, Marshall Rogers was the first time he finally passed the barrier put on him by Galactus. You can easily correct me if I'm wrong becuase I 1.) haven't read every damn comic ever made and 2.) can't remember every single detail about them) but in 1987 he finally found his way off planet and had wild cosmic adventures. THIS what if keeps him confined to earth and accepts membership into THE FANTASTIC FIVE! and they start whuppin ass like its going outta style. In a two page spread they beat the piss outta Dr. Doom, Annihilus, The Frightful Four and fucking Terminus, the huge ass motherfucker space robot guy. Then after that they get a call from a priest worrying about shit and after the priest is possessed BLAM they get sent to fucking HELL and have to fight Mephisto, one of the stand ins in Marvel Comics for you know, Satan (my favorite is Satannish because he's not Satan he's just kinda Satannish.. its wild). Mephisto tells the Surfer he has to stay in Hades forever unless he wants the rest of the Fantastic Five to be tortured by him. The Surfer agrees but refuses to sign his agreement because "The Surfers Word is his Bond" and Mephisto just burns the shit outta the Human Torch. Long story short the Surfer ends up taking over Hades and making Mephisto his prisoner and all Evil disappeares. Wild stuff. Recommended.

I had a hell of a time trying to get those two images to stick there. One would always get deleted. Uh, yeah I think we finally got to the first What If that I really did not like which is weird because it's by Kurt Busiek who usually does very good work. I wasn't exactly thrilled with What If #69 but I'm sure someone would dig it, this I don't think it works very good. Anyway, this two parter starts off with a bang with Scott Summers, Jean Grey and Professor Xavier being blown the fuck up... by Cable. Then it goes back to them all talking by Professor X (who had returned early from space in this timeline) and he tells Cable he's no longer leader of the New Mutants which causes him to throw a tantrum and start a fight and the New Mutants go with him. Oh and THEN they go back to the start of the story where they are at a funeral now and the X-Men break into two factions, one who wants to kill Cable and one who wants to bring him in. It's not even like they both go after him, just the murder crazy faction (led by Wolverine) but the Storm faction is now being taken down by supervillains all teaming up and the X-Men don't bother trying to get help from any other superheroes or anything nah, that's foolish talk. So with several X-Men dead it becomes a time for Magneto to take over the USA and then the Sentinels are sent out and if you don't see that this is going to the Days of Future Past future than you are being silly. It ends with Wolverine pulling some Mutants out of the camps (and people think X-Men isn't an allegory for civil rights from everyone to Jewish people to black people to gays and on) because he got some fail safe thing that made it so that Sebastian Shaw (who made these metal-less Sentinels so it wouldn't be able to tell hes a mutant) saying the X-Men are back. 

Boy fucking howdy I did not like this story. Everything about it feels forced, from Cable not stepping down to the New Mutants not leaving Cable after he killed Xavier and Scott and Jean (I mean you can be against the X-Men for trying to execute Cable without a fair trial and all but JESUS these people were your mentors for crying out loud! Didn't feel like that was something they would be for), then Storms side not trying to get some help from anyone or anything. THEN Dazzler and Sunspot and Strong Guy just being like "ok sure i'll now join you Magneto and these people who killed my friends and not the pro mutant people like the Fantastic Four". I know for some of these you'll go "DURR IT'S AN ALTERNATIVE UNIVERSE SILLY" and I'll respond "Yeah but it just splits off at this second, these characters should still act like they did in 616 unless giving really good reasoning and it wasnt here" it just felt like Kurt had a idea to make this end up in the Days of Future Past like Future and just wanted to shove it all in there. The bring side this comic does have Siryn in it, Banshee's daughter and lady redheads very sexy. Oh and the art was pretty decent and those covers are pretty cool. I'll probably end up owning these but if you aren't the kind of person who needs to own every issue in a series I'd say these comics come really Not Recommended at all.

Anyway, what comics will happen next Wednesday!  WAIT AND SEE!

What If Wednesday #2

 

Hello ladies, gentlemen and people of ambiguous gender identity! Hello and welcome to What If Wednesday! A series that takes place each Wednesday where I discuss three issues of Marvel's what if comic book! I know I said last week that we were going to alternate but I just felt like reading more of series two, because I've read most of series one and very little of series two and it is my blog and I can do whatever dumb shit I want with it so there!

Holy hot damn! Now this is a comic book story! Written by George Caragonne (a man I had never heard of until today just to realize he died in 1995...) with art by Ron Wilson! Seriously just look at the cover to part one of this story Fuckin Adolf Hitler's corpse just rotting away like the fucking useless trash it was. If that doesn't get you to pick up a comic book then I really and truly don't know what would. The story is what if the guy who created the super soldier serum DIDNT die and was saved by Captain America at the last second and holy shit this story ends up getting DARK. I mean they kill Hitler and the Red Skull (THATS WHAT THEY THINK HOHOHO) and fucking Captain America, Steven Rogers ends up being the only survivor of a U-boat attack and becomes president......and then starts treating everyone who isn't a white man like shit and you then realize it's that fucking nazi piece of shit The Red Skull who is in a cloned body of Captain America... HIS super soldiers end up killing The Fantastic Four, The Hulk, Ant-Man, Spider-Man and the fucking X-Men before they even get to become heroes. So it's up to the REAL Captain America and HIS Avengers to beat the everloving shit out of the Red Skull and his super soldiers and save America, which they do but damn this is still one dark What-If and I'm glad that I live in the real world where America didn't go down any fascist path....oh wait. Highly Recommended. Get these issues.

One of the things I like the most about What If comics it that you never really know what you are going to get. Sometimes like with #28 and #29 you get some crazy story that takes in all of the Marvel universe and is a big bruhaha. And sometimes you just get a smaller scale story with What If #98, written in the last year of the titles publication, comes a story that revolves around a few mutants. Rouge, Destiny, Nightcrawler and Mystique. In this story they pretty much have Nightcrawler be Mystique's son (the original idea by Chris Claremont was that Mystique turned into a dude and had lovings with Destiny and they birthed Nightcrawler but I do believe shes his mom in the real universe too, there's so much between like 1992 and 2017 that I don't know about marvel comics) This story has Nightcrawler living with her in the attic when she takes Rogue in, she's training with the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants (I love how they call themselves stuff like that because no one really thinks what they are doing is evil even if it is evil!) Rogue and Nightcrawler become friends and I think I'll leave everything else a secret becuase I liked how they played it out. Art I really liked (mostly, Blob looked silly) by Leonardo Manco and a nice little story by Bill Rosemann. Recommended.

                                                 

Alright here we go talking about the literally only What If issue I owned as a kid and the only one that goes for more than $3 at any good comic store, well of the second series at least. Don't pay 3 bucks for any of them even the best ones because they aren't hard to find. Anyway What If #105 is the first appearance of the Mayday Parker, Spider-Girl, who's appearance in this issue was so damn popular she got TWO series and like at least 120 issues. I enjoyed what I read of her actual series. This diverges from the original universe by having the baby Peter and MJ were having during the terrible overlong never ending clone saga. The Neverending Story has nothing on the Spider Man Clone Saga from the 1990s. but this was 1997 and that was FINALLY coming to an end. Anyway enough bitching about that story and let's see how good Tom DeFalco and Ron Frenz's story holds up! And this definetly reads like an origin story, like they were already planning to make a Spider-Girl series and thought this was a good place to put the origin in to see if people wanted it and they did! This shows off the new Fantastic Five and A2 which weren't as popular as Spider-Girl... it sets up that Mayday is a basketball player AND into science, so she's being torn between two different high school worlds, so you can have all kindsa drama with that but not feel like you're rehashing the Stan Lee/Steve Ditko High school days of the original Spider-Man. The art is, I have to say, not Ron Frenz's best, the man did much better art, even during this era, Not to totally say the art completely sucks but theres some wonky shit within this one. It's still Recommended tho.

I think we will just keep going with Volume 2 because I have to read at LEAST 90% of it and I want to see how and when I will hit one that really makes me yell and scream because I just can't keep Recommending them, the people want blood!!!

 

What If Wednesday #1

 That's right mother fuckers! We are going to talk about the greatest comics ever published right here, mother fucking WHAT IF? I love alternative takes on characters and stories which you can do in comics! What If was the best thing that Roy "The Boy" Thomas (do you think he hated that Stan gave him that nick name, seeing as he was like 25 at the time?) ever did for comics. Created by him in 1977 and still gets brought out every little time Marvel feels like it, however most of the comics we will be discussing are from the 1977 to 1984 series and the 1989 to 1998 series. The first had 47 issues and the second had 114 issues, so we will hopefully be doing this for many Wednesdays to come!

This weeks first comic is What If, Volume 2, #1 and boy howdy is this a hum dinger of a comic book. Written by Roy Thomas with art by Ron Wilson you get a lot of stuff for your $1.25 (I wish comics still cost that much) The original story The Evolutionary War was a story that took place in the previous years annuals and if I recall correctly was a pretty enjoyable affair... it's about The High Evolutionary (who does sadly not get as ripped as FlowingMindspin) creating a genetic bomb to well cause man and mutant to evolve without their consent. And the Avengers have to stop him because who knows WHAT people could evolve into! This story tells us... they evolve into big headed freaky looking motherfuckers who are a hive mind, no more care for good or bad... but powerful enough to make a fucking Celestial (you know those giant robot God things created by Jack Kirby that Marvel will now make into a movie that I'll watch once and go yeah that was fun but will read the Eternals by Jack Kirby 1,000 times because the comics are better than the superhero movies. Just letting you know that) but what about the mutants. They also become a hive mind and decide to leave earth and fuck the shit out of the universe (no joke, they beat the shit out of the Kree, the Skrulls AND the Shi'ar (you know the bird woman that Professor X bones from time to time is one of them before going on to fuck up Galactus, Death and Eternity before becoming a wild mix of both Death and Life AND CREATING A NEW UNIVERSE.)  Roy Thomas literally packed the entire Marvel Universe into this story and its a whole hell of a lot of fun to read. Highly Recommended.

The Armor Wars was a story that took place in Iron Man's book (except for one issue of Captain America which tells Captain America's side of the fight they had) and was one of the best Iron Man stories probably ever! And this What If is a neat side piece that should be included in any trade that has the full story within it (and the story was originally called Stark Wars which is not as good) Anyway the original Armor Wars story involved Tony Stark finding out that technology he created was being used by Justin Hammer so he decides to make sure that no one cause use that technology by beating up every body who might have the technology, regardless if they are good or bad. It's got a lot of fights, internal pathos and great art! This what if issue is not perfect but I think it's a good companion piece to the original story. The what if differs is that Justin Hammer finds out that Second Ant Man was sent by Tony to help him uncover what was going on and his daughter Cassie gets kidnapped and he has to rat on Tony. Justin Hammer then again takes control of Tony's armor and causes him to help blow up S.H.I.E.L.D. bases and both East and West Coast Avengers bases and makes Tony unmask in front of everyone and confess making it harder for Tony to walk back. Then if that wasn't enough A.I.M. literally shoots Justin Hammer in the back and steals ALL the information he had! So Tony has to end up teaming up with a group of armored bad guys to fight A.I.M. and in the end has to fight for his time in court. The interactions between Tony and the other characters are fun but I'd still believe that if Tony told any of the Avengers he was being controlled they would believe and help him. And the art is pretty good but I don't like how now Superstar Artist of Batman, Greg Capullo draws Justin Hammer. Despite these issues I'd still say What If #8 comes Recommended!

I've got to admit some probably controversial opinion right here and now and say that I think the majority of the 1990s X-Men stuff is very unmemorable. I didn't even read them as a kid all that much because I was picking up much better back issues from the 1980s. I find the 1990s era of X-Men very dull and I know a lot of people think highly of this era but it leaves me very cold. I couldn't even tell you about the story of X-Cutioner's Song except it involves Strfye and Cable way before they were put in better stories and actually made enjoyable characters. I'm sure someone is complaining about how they make Cable a kid in new issues of X-Men but I actually enjoy that series by Gerry Duggan which is a whole part of the X-Men relaunch of sorts by Jonathan "Big Jon" Hickman. Anyway this time the X-Men die and then Cable fights Stryfe and takes over for X-Factor  and X-Force who become the new X-Men. There's not much too this story written by Fabian Nizicia's brother and while I'm not a fan of 90s X-Men, I did enjoy his Thunderbolts but I don't think comics worked out for his brother. The art is very of that era and if you dig it you dig it. I'm kinda hot and cold on the art from this era. I will probably end up adding this to my collection as not owning every issue of something gives me hives but I don't think I can give it a recommendation. Not Recommended. Oh, and like everyone else on the internet I'm obliged to go "oh nice, the sex number!"

That's it, next time we will alternate and go for a full discussion of issues from the original volume. What three will be picked! Who knows! That's why you gotta come back next week!