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

 

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Final Episode #5: Transformers (1984)

 

Show Title: Transformers

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

Channel: Syndication

Creator: A whole hell of a lot of dudes.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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! 

The Disney Afternoon Review Showdown Part 1

 

Well It's finally time for me to go on and discuss every Disney Afternoon show. And some other shows that probably weren't techinally Disney Afternoon but were made by Disney made between 1985 and 1997 (The Disney Afternoon itself started in 1990..) and to start I will be rating the shows as either Super Cool and I Like It. Eh, It's Okay I guess, or Fuck Off Wuzzles (I think you can already tell how much I enjoyed that show)

The Wuzzles was the first Disney TV show made in the year of my birth 1985 and It's relativity obscure and only lasted 13 episodes. It's pretty much included in here because I didn't want some pedantic weirdo going "WELL ACKSHULLY" on me and that I've always been somewhat interested in the show because I've always been interested in obscurities (and it's always a crap shoot with them, sometimes it's something that should have been more popular and sometimes it's horse shit) and I'm going to be fair and say if I were born in like 1980 and were alive during the quick Wuzzles craze I have a feeling I'd have had fun playing with the actual toys because to be fair, it's a neat little idea. The actual show just feels lazy. I was going to make a joke about how the show feels like it was voiced by the interns at Disney but actual voice actors who actually do good jobs in other places voiced these characters. Hell one of them was the damn voice of Bullwinkle for crying out loud. I guess even the best can have their off days. This whole show just feels like a proof of product that they made to see if they could actually make animated shows for TV and the two episodes I watched show that off (and yes people on Youtube, you don't have to watch an entire show to know you don't like it) Thankfully A lot of stuff after this is actually good. Sorry Wuzzles but you get the Rating of Fuck Off Wuzzles.

Appearing on the same day as the Wuzzles apparently was The Adventures of the Gummi Bears, which is the better show because well, it clearly is, just from the one episode I watched (and yes I do intend to watch more) it had a better plot, characters and all that good stuff that makes a television show of any kind memorable and had better animation and voice acting which is important for the whole cartoon thing. I actually laughed several times at goofy stuff that was happening in the show which was much better than being bored to tears by the Wuzzles. Even the theme song was better. The overall plot of the show is the Gummi Bears and a boy named Cavin (which is a dumb name) keep the Kingdom of King Gregor from being taken over by the evil Duke Sigmund Igthorn. The medieval kingdom thing is a neat touch for a show such as this and Michael Eisner also was ahead of creating this show but I'm just going to go ahead and give most of the credit to the other two guys who probably fleshed it all out and made something out of it. Rating: Super Cool and I Like It

Now here's the best cartoon of this first part and one of the top Disney TV cartoons ever! Based mostly around the Carl Barks comics of the 1940s to the 1960s except with new character added in (and I'm sure lots of stories not based on his work) comes DuckTales and it's incredibly fun characters, fun adventure stories (and a lot that were more comedic too) and great comedy. This show still cracks me up and I'm 35 dang years old. The only thing I can think of thats negative is that the characters of Webby and her grandma kinda suck and Donald Duck only appears in a few episoes but nothings perfect in this world (I also think the Carl Barks comics are better because they have more Donald Duck but that's just me)  Rating: Super Cool and I Like It

Join me again when I decide to make part two of this thing where I will share some CONTROVERSIAL Disney opinions at you. Holy hell, here's one right now: Disneyland isn't that amazing but I'm not really a theme parks kinda guy. wanting to piss, puke and shit yourself when your on any kind of ride kinda kills most of the fun of a theme park don'tcha know? ANYWAY what are my other controversial opinions about THE HOUSE OF MOUSE... find out next time.....or read anything else on the internet.

The Final Episode #2: Inspector Gadget (Gadget and the Red Rose - February 1st, 1986)

 The Final Episode #2: Inspector Gadget (Gadget and the Red Rose - February 1st, 1986)

Inspector Gadget was one of my favorite cartoons as a kid. I watched the absolute hell out of it. Like I don't want to even know how many times I watched every episode. It had to be at LEAST 50 times each. It was mostly because for the first season Nelvana, a Canadian corporation helped with the animation. So season 1 would be shown in Canada about 5820 times a day on several different channels. I still find the show to be very amusing. At least the first season. The stories of a dumbass cyborg (would you consider Gadget a cyborg?) with all kinds of well gadgets installed in his body and his niece and dog (who actually solve all the crimes) IS great fun to me!

As a kid I never knew there was a second season with 21 extra episodes... and I'm glad I never did because it would have been an incredible disappointment to me to have to watch these episodes. They aren't objectively the worst I've ever seen they just aren't as well animated, well voiced (several voice changes), have pointless new characters (we will get to him in a second) and are just not as enjoyable. Like everything was done worse for the second season which ran from 1985 to 1986.

I do remember the first time I ever saw a second season episode, it was years after I did find out there even was one... and I was excited to find said episode... I had heard from a now defunct website known as Jump the Shark (where people discuss when any random TV show Jumped the Shark) and several people within that site said the introduction of Corporal Capeman (pictured above) was when the show jumped the shark... and yeah I can't disagree with them on that. This fucker is completely useless and not funny in the slightest, just like everyone on that site said... thankfully Townsend Coleman who voiced him went on to do much better work in a lot of much better cartoons.

Anyway, this episode is really nothing to write home about. It involves Inspector Gadget actually creating a seemingly worthwhile invention (which is weird in itself because the guy is a moron, like it's the whole show!) and Dr. Claw finds out about it so he gets this old gangster out of retirement to stop Gadget's new invention with his old invention a Tommy Gun that shoots out rotten potatoes and yes the gangster has a potato pun name (it's Spuds Malone... they should have just went and called him O'Riely and had him be an Irish gangster or something), anyway this episode has Gadget chase after Brain who leads him to the real Spuds Malone and it's done in a pretty uninteresting manner. No real jokes or crazy hijinx really.

FINAL THOUGHTS: It's not going to be the worst thing I'll watch for this blog but honestly, I can't really write much more about this episode cuz it's boring, so I'll just reiterate they should have gotten more money for better animation, made some actual jokes (the gun Gadget makes runs on acidic Sour Cream and when it hits Chief Quimby he goes "Needs chives, Gadget" which WAS pretty funny I thought.. but the rest of the episode wasn't) and not had made that stupid fucking Corporal Capeman at all.

Talkin' About the Disney Afternoon

                                  

So I'm crazy and I feel like doing this among many other things because I waste my entire day on the internet and instead I should waste it watching stuff......It's still a waste but at least something maybe sortof was accomplished... more so than just yelling at twits on the internet. I will never stop being angry at how the internet went from a fun thing to a thing thats terrible, but I will at least try to make fun content instead of being angry at everything. like Twitter users.

This is going to be a multi part thing where I talk about every show on the Disney Afternoon. Including the Wuzzles because I want to cut off the one weirdo who might find this and go "AHEM THE WUZZLES WAS NOT ON THE DISNEY AFTERNOON YOU JUST MADE ME SO ANGRY I SHIT MY PANTS" If I actually finish this we might talk about One Saturday Morning and some newer stuff!!

Here's a list of cartoons I will end up discussing like the cool guy I am:

The Wuzzles

Disney's Adventures of the Gummi Bears

DuckTales

The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh

Chip N Dale Rescue Rangers

TaleSpin

Darkwing Duck

Goof Troop

The Little Mermaid

Raw Toonage

Bonkers

Marsupoilami

Aladdin

Gargoyles

The Shnookums and Meat Funny Cartoon Show

Timon and Pumbaa

Quack Pack

Mighty Ducks The Animated Series

So expect the first part of Reviewing Every Disney TV Cartoon Sorta Kinda Maybe to emerge from my head sometime in the next few days.