Movie Review #6: Run Hide Fight (2020)

 

Sometime in like the last two weeks or so some random Star Wars actress lady said some dumb shit that Disney didn't like and they fired her. We can argue if that's fair or not till or dick turn blue. I'm not getting into the argument I'm just saying it happened. She then is now going to produce a movie for Ben Shapiro and the Daily Wire. It will be the second movie he works on. They are trying to make an alternative for conservatives in film. I hope that they get better movies than Run Hide Fight (2020)

This is already THE worst movie I've seen this year and I get excited over movies like Night of the Bloody Apes (1969), so you know this is gonna be a messy turd of a film. First off it's a ripoff of Die Hard. This is actually a weird positive point for a movie because I kinda love it when low budget movies ripoff something more popular and high budget. It's amusing to see how and why they do it. This movie uh, does not do it very well. It also decides to make it also a movie about school shootings.

I'm not against people making movies about school shootings. I'm not even against people doing a conservative look at school shootings even if I think what they are going for is really stupid. I'm against these movies being stupid and poorly made. School shootings are a very serious and real thing and you need to make these movies seriously. One of the weirdest things is how they have this lady talk to her dead mother's ghost or some shit. I really do not understand why or how they went with that but I also don't care enough to try to find out. It just does not work very well.

This movie does the whole YEAH YOU GOTTA BE TOUGH AND FIGHT IN A FUCKING SHOOTING SITUATION. I think all these fat guys think they are Steven Seagal in 1990 who could beat anyone in a movie. They don't realize several things. 1.) they are Steven Seagal in 2018, not 1988. 2.) they don't think about what it's like to be in a high stress situation like A FUCKING SHOOTING. 3.) they think they are better with guns than they actually are. These are god damn serious situations and you leave them to the fucking professionals. People who have trained for years for this shit you dopes.

Another thing is that you never get to learn anything about any of the people who die, leaving us not to give a shit. Oh that random person died, I wish I had known their name!  It's like you need to know about a character to feel bad about them in a movie. Who'da thought. The bad guys are all doing it for some reasons. One because he was bullied. Another because he seems to have mental health issues (conservatives seem to love to put it all 100% on people being mentally unwell and then also like to take away access to care for those same people. It would be something if they wanted to fix any of these issues but we disagreed but hey they don't!)  the Main guy does it for a livestream so he can be famous or some shit. Possibly the dumbest damn reason ever. You should realize people forget about stuff like that so quickly because there is nothing being doing about this stuff and people just become complacent of the horrors of the world.

I don't really ever nitpick plot holes. I usually never even realize them because I'm just having fun watching a movie but I realized a pretty big one here. So the guy doing the shootings is really serious about it. He makes sure he even has a get away stuff hidden. He sets off bombs to keep the police and fire trucks away until he wants them there. He even bombs the van he uses. He then crashes into the fucking school. I don't even know where to go with that. You'd think he wouldn't crash into the school because everyone should have heard A VAN CRASHING INTO THE SCHOOL. there's also uh THE FACT IT HAS BOMBS IN IT. Yeah, this very careful school shooter guy would totally have done that. Yeah, makes a lot of fucking sense. You think he'd figure out a different way to get the bombs into the school. Like putting them in a bookbag. Oh wait, HE DOES THAT TOO. holy shit that was dumb as fuck.

Oh yeah he does escape at the end and while it's silly that he thinks no one would recognize him during his attempted escape because he was on a livestream in beautiful Technicolor for all to see. What bothers me even more is that the main girl shoots him with a sniper rifle and just leaves him there after having some kind of talk with him. Yeah, I know it looks pretty bad for the guy but what if you aren't as good with the rifle as you thought and he's just fucking with you, huh? You might have just let the guy escape. Bravo idiot.

I'll give some credit to the actors, the main girl, her friend, the main bad guy and Barbara Crampton (who I didn't even recognize but is apparently in this) all do good jobs. I mean I didn't recognize who Barbara Crampton's character was but she always does a fine job. I could also maybe, just maybe look past these problems if this movie wasn't dull as fucking dishwater.

FINAL VERDICT:  I just think stories about SCHOOL SHOOTINGS should be taken with the utmost seriousness and not end up as boring laughably bad movies. I must also say screw the Daily Wire, Ben Shapiro and that Star Wars dumbass. I must also say screw myself because I know I'll end up watching another pile of shit from these assholes, but you really shouldn't. 

Comic Review #9: Marvel Two In One #79 (1981)

 

Since I talked about Brave and the Bold and Marvel Team Up and DC Comics Presents it felt only natural to end off this little series of discussions on Team Ups (which I'm sure I'll come back too because these comics are always usually a lot of fun to talk about) with Marvel Two In One. The second of Marvel's two team up books (which was cancelled first). The Thing may be tied with the Hulk for second best Marvel character of all time (the first goes to Spider-Man). That's something these companies did that was great, pick the perfect characters to team up with other characters. Another great thing was add in weird obscure characters.

I love the weird obscure guys that get less and less traction. The ones that had a series between 1948 and 1961 and then didnt show up again for like 15 years. The guys that never get to show up and have fun at the party. I also love the weird one off guys, like Tappin Tommy. A EVIL tap dancer that worked for I think Hydra or probably the Maggia or something and tried to fight the Defenders. I really need to try and find that issue because it's a hoot.  Just the weird little nooks and crannies that never get light shun on them before. This was a big thing I wanted to mention so it was a big reason why I chose this issue. TWO obscurities for the price of one! Two characters I'm not even sure if they've appeared in the almost 40 years since this comic came out.  Getting into superhero comics may be a weird and daunting task because a lot of people want a good starting out point, I think Team Up comics are a really good starting point because you'll learn about a lot of characters ranging from the most popular to characters no one remembers but my sad ass. You'll have to figure out what's still in continuity and all that jazz but the characters well personality should be what you really go for...

Our two obscurities of today are, Star-Dancer (who appears here for the very first time! This will be a collectors item in 2052! when Marvel uses her in a movie!) and The Blue Diamond. Star-Dancer is a cosmic character who well welds THE POWER COSMIC. I don't know why it sounds cooler when someone says THE POWER COSMIC instead of COSMIC POWER but it does. It's just sounds cooler. She spends her time out in the stars in the universe. She misses the planet she was born on. Think of her as a weirdly sexy Silver Surfer who's kind of a jerk. The Blue Diamond is one of the many characters from the early 1940s. Like he wasn't Captain America or The Human Torch or Namor so he's well forgotten nowadays. There was an attempt by Roy Thomas to bring a lot of the 1940s characters back into relevance in the 1970s in The Invaders (a series that I don't have many issues of but what issues I do have I enjoyed). In this issue he appears and an old man because of how World War II characters were treated by both Marvel and DC. Marvel had them age and if you wanted The Thing to team up with them he had to time travel. DC had all the WW II characters on their own Earth called Earth Two, and if the heroes wanted to team up with them they had to go to a different earth. It was worth it though no matter how you traveled because you got to throw around some Nazi assholes. That's always a good time.

This is a pretty simple little issue but I still had a fun time with it. It's always a fun time with the Thing. He kinda reminds me of my dad. A little ornery but a good fella. He even fishes in this issue like my dad. I enjoyed reading about the Blue Diamond feeling like he had wasted his life and all that. That's some good ass pathos. He almost dies in the end but the Star Dancer saves him. She causes a ruckus and she and the Thing fight but in the end she's gives the Blue Diamond a cool new diamond form. Of all the Team Up comics I've reviewed this is probably the one that's the shortest on plot but it has a lot of fun and entertaining character moments which do make up for it. I like how thinking of how much of a moron the Hulk is gives the Thing an idea. Tom Defalco was always pretty good at the character moments thing. The art is pretty good too.

FINAL VERDICT: Al Ewing is writing Guardians of the Galaxy and S.W.O.R.D. for Marvel currently. I am going to bother him on twitter with posts about how he should bring back the Blue Diamond and Star-Dancer. Also Darkhawk too. I like Darkhawk. Maybe even Sleepwalker.

NEXT TIME, GADGET, NEXT TIME: We shall be talking about something that isn't from Marvel or DC. I don't know what but expect something cool and good.

Comic Review #8: DC Comic Presents #47 (1982)

 

I'm pretty sure I would have covered this issue sooner or later but since today would have been Curt Swan's 101st birthday. Curt Swan was known for drawing Superman for like 32 decades. And I'm only being a tad hyperbolic there. The man met a DC Writer named Francis Herron sometime during World War II, while working on some kind of magazine called Stars and Stripes in England. I don't know if it was a magazine or some kind of booklets for soldiers or what (that's what other comics legend Stan Lee did in the second World War, wrote booklets and stuff for soldiers, anyway what happened is that he went back to America and drew stuff like the Newsboy Legion and all kinds of stuff even before he did Superman. His first assignment was done in 1946 and I'm absolutely sure they still used him from time to time even in the 1990s. He passed away on June 17, 1996. I only connected with him and his art as an adult because for an embarrassingly long time I considered DC Comics "gay". Like past the age of 12 embarrassing.

Anyway, this was chosen for a few reasons. I wanted to discuss DC Comics Presents because I've talked about two of the four main team up books from both companies and want to keep a pattern of sorts going here at the blog (look forward to stuff that's not even made by Marvel or DC). Once I heard it was Curt Swan's birthday I wanted to talk about a comic he had done something with. I also have always wanted to read this issue because it's always been touted as He-Man's first foray into comics (which isn't even true, seeing as the old figures came with comics unless that happened AFTER this. I'm not up on my He-Man toy lore really. I just like the goofy Filmation cartoon and having some figures on shelves. I'm sure someone could go "AHEM THAT'S CLEARLY A 1987 HE-MAN REISSUE BECAUSE..."

He-Man in comics is actually pretty interesting history. He had mini comics included with figures. A first go around with DC (which includes this comic and I think like a 5 issue mini series) These comics actually even pre-date the Filmation cartoon. Marvel then got the rights when DC lost them. THEY put out a mini series I believe AND a series under there Star Comics brand. I do plan to review something related to Star Comics because who doesn't want to hear me talk about Heathcliff #42? There was even a newspaper comic strip that told the story that branched the Filmation He-Man to the one thing no one who likes He-Man to any degree wants to talk about, The New Adventures of He-Man from like 1990. Where he's in space or some shit. I haven't even seen an episode but He-Mans a fuckin Conan the Barbarian type guy for crying out loud, putting him in space for more than like a 5 episode story arc is really dumb. Kinda like sending Jonah Hex to the future in the series Hex. He-Man is apparently back at DC recently (as in like the last 3 or so years) and I think that's pretty cool.

Anyway whenever I think of Superman I instantly think of Curt Swan, I love the little spit curl that he has in Swans art a lot of the time. Really neat stuff. I don't know if DC comics was going off the mini comics or what but some of the He-Man figures are different and that weirds me out. I do not like Man At Arms without that suave cool mustache that all the ladies like. No artist could make me like that. I guess being used to something different just feels weird. Doesn't ruin the issue though. It just makes me go "wait huh" 

DC Comics Presents #47 is a pretty fun issue. I wish I had my own copy for my own collection because well it costs an arm and a leg. I'm not paying $50 for this comic. No way no how. Plus the only time I ran across it close to home was at the store I don't like giving money too because the owners a crumb bum named Bob. He had it for like 30 bucks. I think someone must have bought it because its been years and I haven't seen it since. It will probably end up being the last comic of this series I end up owning. If I had money and could get a copy I wouldn't have a problem buying something like the first appearance of  Ghost Rider, but this isn't really He-Man's first appearance. Not even in comics. YOU AINT GETTING THAT MUCH MONEY FROM ME FOR IT.

Uh... okay back to the comic. You definitely get a lot more He-Man in this issue then Superman but I get the feeling they really wanted the He-Man comic stuff to be a hit. I don't think it was a big enough hit for DC because well they wouldn't have let the rights lapse and go to Marvel. You see a lot of He-Man characters and they interact before it goes to Superman who at this time was working at WGBS news, a news station, because they were hot back then I guess. Now nobody watches them or reads the newspaper. Anyway he's doing his old Clark Kent is a big stupid dumbass routine so that no one will think he's Superman. It's a well worn trope at this point but I still love seeing it. He ends up getting sucked into Eternia because of a magic space cloud that Skeletor made. I dunno, it doesn't make the most sense but we want to see He-Man and Superman fight, and then team up to fight Skeletor.

Superman wrecks the SHIT out of Beast Man which is probably my favorite page in the entire comic. Skeletor uses magic which Superman is weak against. He gains control of Superman using his magic to have him and He-Man fight. I think it's kinda sad that this wasn't a bit longer of a fight. Superman then gets out of the magic spell and Skeletor runs off like he usually does. Superman then goes back home. I did enjoy this issue but I wish it was paced a bit better you know. Kinda ends a little abruptly.

We get another story within this comic. DC had a long history, even at this point. A lot of there characters had disappeared in to the ether so in the back side of this magazine they had a series called "Whatever Happened to... (insert character here)" and they were usually pretty great. This one finally ends the story of the Sandman and Sandy. The Sandman was a golden age hero and Sandy was the sidekick he had. Sandy was turned into a weird silicone monster. I believe it was a retcon for a story in the 1970s. A Justice League of America issue. The Sandman was wrecked with guilt until he was put under hypnosis to forget about it. Sandy was left in that state for decades. The story starts up with The Sandman looking for Sandy because the HOSPITAL HE WAS IN was destroyed in a earthquake (by the villain of this story, the Shatterer ...a villain so lame that not even I'm going to try to defend him). The Shatterer has Monster Sandy kidnapped until well The Sandman finds him and beats his ass. He then cures him using some mumbo jumbo and the Shatterer ends up falling into a hole caused by an earthquake. What a dumbass. It ends on a nice sweet note and I would have read more stories about Sandman and Sandy trying to live again in the early 1980s...

FINAL VERDICT: This is not a perfect issue by any means but I definitely enjoyed it. The He-Man characters look off to me but Curt Swan still draws them well. I like the way he draws Skeletor. It's just slightly different than the cartoon but I like it more. the weird cloak thing he has on his face is held tighter to his body. If you can find it cheaply this is a fun early 80s comic book that is worth owning. 

The Final Episode #17: Friends (1994 - 2004)

 

I have a dumb facebook group for this stupid blog. I'm not going to link it because the one person who comments here that doesn't comment on facebook thinks facebook is the worst thing on this planet and would be happy if it imploded along with  twitter. I'm not going to argue any kind of point there because I miss the days of forums and stuff. I'm old school, you can tell that by this stupid blog. I just mention this because someone put Friends in a poll I made. The Final Episode was created to discuss the Final Episodes of shows I remember watching but never did end up getting to the last episode or something. New things came up. Weird time changes. Just I never saw the final adventure or story that the characters I enjoyed went through. I just thought it was a neat idea. Now I'm dreading it just because of this show.

Look, I'm not naïve. I knew I would one day have to talk about Friends. I run a silly little blog about nostalgia and comic books. It would have to come up. It just wouldn't feel right to not talk about it. It would be like the elephant in the room to speak of. As you can guess I was uh, never a fan of this show. One of the things I will never understand how this and the other sitcom I hate so much, The Big Bang Theory (thank god thats out of my range because you'd need to give me 30 grand just to watch one episode of that shit). I'm now glad I did this Final Episode thing, because it gives me a reason to just watch two episodes of Friends instead of like 12,000 so that I could do a full review of it. Don't expect that unless someone rich gives me like 10 grand to really make me suffer. This will more than likely be the first and last time I talk about this show here.

I really do not like this show. I find all of the characters obnoxious despite the fact that I've enjoyed things that starred Courtney Cox, Jennifer Aniston and Lisa Kudrow have done. Like Romi and Michelle's High School Reunion. I wish I could be watching that instead. I find how the humor in this show is acted out to be obnoxious, but what makes this show second place to the Big Bang Theory is how much I fucking hate the character of Ross played by David Schwimmer. I don't even care if I'm spelling his name right. He's the whinest, most annoying fucker on this show. I just want to punch him until MY hands are bleeding. People were always about HUH HUH DO ROSS AND RACHEL GET TOGETHER??? and my question was does someone kick Ross out of a fucking Airplane? 

The Final Episode is if you actually enjoyed this show pretty nice. We get nice scenes with Monica and Chandler having Twins with a surrogate mom (played by Anna Farris, probably the only good part of this episode) This episode also apparently has Paul Rudd in it. Not even Paul Rudd could make this show tolerable. He also looks the exact same as he did when he first starred in Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Meyers. That man has not aged in 26 years. He is a vampire. A VAMPIRE. Uh, back to the show. Joey and Chandler have a nice moment, where Chandler gets Joey to keep Chick Jr and Duck Jr. (apparently they owned Chicks and Ducks earlier in the show. I don't know, I never watched much of this show) Joey was going to give them to Chandler as a gift for being a new home owner. Jennifer Aniston is an amazing actress because watching her pretend to give a fucking shit about Ross who most of this stupid fucking episode is about. Yeah they are on again. They say they love each other. I don't fucking care. Just end this shit.

FINAL VERDICT: If you enjoyed Friends. I'm sure you enjoyed this final episode. They made some call backs and the characters you enjoyed got to be happy and shit. I hated this show and I just wanted them all to get punched in the face for 47 minutes. I didn't get that so I'm not happy.

Comic Review #7: Iceman (2017)

 

It's time to mention those dopey shits at comicsgate because well this was one of the first comics that people got angry over, and I will say this I don't think wanting a character to stay the way they were created automatically makes you a hardcore bigot or a dickhead. Yelling homophobic shit at Sina Grace makes you a hardcore bigot AND a dickhead. I get people get attached to things and not want any change. It's annoying for people who do want change in their silly stories involving men who can turn things into ice. 

This comic got their ire because Iceman was retconned into being gay. They were so mad over this one that people got angry over something like this. It's very weird. They all acted like Iceman was the most macho and manly X-Men of all time. Like he made Wolverine look like a wimp. (I'm also not trying to say macho ass gay men don't exist or anything) and I'm here having read a good number of Iceman comics always thinking Iceman wasn't 100% heterosexual (they all were like oh it would have been totally okay if they made him bisexual but I'm sure they were lying. Also talking to any person on that side of the argument was like talking to everyone else yet liberals are the NPCs.) 

Iceman had a weird relationship with a character named Cloud that could change from male to female. That was a neat character, I miss them. Iceman also didn't have the greatest luck with women. Not saying that automatically makes you gay but anyway. Plus 90s X-Men writers totally tried to have him come out in one issue. I'd go try to find that issue but I really don't care enough to prove it to people who aren't going to leave twitter to find this blog.

I checked out a lot of comics that these guys would yell and scream about, like the Unstoppable Wasp and Ms. Marvel (the Kamala Khan version) and they were fantastic comics, so I would always keep an eye out for any comic they didn't like. If comicsgate was angry at something it was worth at least checking out. I must say that this comic isn't that great, but I'm still willing to try more issues to see if Sina Grace will improve. I will talk about the stuff I didn't like about this comic but I won't yell at his homosexuality, showing that yes you can critique this stuff, you just don't be a dildo about it.

This comic to be fair, is okay at best. I do like the cover. It's pretty well drawn and I enjoy the X-Men villains popping up in Ice chunks. It's a neat cover, I must have to admit that. Also I remember one comicsgate weirdo getting angry that they made Mr. Sinister more flamboyant. The dudes a fucking glam rock vampire. He started as fucking flamboyant. One problem with this comic is that a lot of the dialogue at least comedic dialogue feels forced. I dunno, I did like the one scene with the other young mutant who can harden spit. Weird power set, but it was sweet.

Also this feels like it's knocking off a checklist of "Things a newly out gay/bisexual/pansexual/queer man should do" like come out to his parents. This just feels like stuff we've seen quite a few times before. His parents were always weird about his mutation so it at least still makes sense that they wouldn't love him being gay. It just feels like yeah we gotta do this checklist. I dunno, not a big fan of this. It just feels like you can tell more interesting LBGT stories that don't have to do with coming out. I dunno.

The interior art is pretty good, but I dunno, the story itself didn't catch me or anything. He's trying to find a date on a website and talking to his younger time displaced self (comic books are weird, ok?). I dunno. This kinda failed to get my attention, but I did see a ton of LBGT X-men fans enjoy this series so I'm willing to let them have something. Not everything needs to me catered to me. I got enough entertainment to go through till my eyes pop out and my heart explodes around 2062.

FINAL VERDICT: I probably will return to this series to see if it gets any better but #1 kinda mostly failed to entertain me, however if you like the X-Men and also enjoy the same sex to some degree or another this comic might be up your alley! And I criticized something without yelling about the writers sexuality. They gave him a hard ass time. They gave Mags Vissagio an even harder ass time. Maybe I'll talk about her sometime soon.

The Final Episode #16: Boy Meets World (1993 - 2000)

 

Boy Meets World was one of the many TGIF shows from the 1990s. In fact it lasted from near the beginning of the lineup, the year of our lord 1993, I think replacing Perfect Strangers, one of shows that was branded TGIF in its later seasons (I think season 4 onwards). I don't know everything about TV history and I don't even know where to go to look up old TV guides. I'm sure there's somewhere on the internet to do that. Anyway Boy Meets World came on September 22, 1993. It lasted from the zenith of TGIF's popularity to it's end. Boy Meets World survived till the last block of TGIF shows. 

TGIF started incredibly strong really. Family Matters, Step By Step, Perfect Strangers, Dinosaurs and others. All of which got to at least four or more seasons. Most of them getting to 6, 7, or even in Family Matters case 9 seasons. Around 1997 things went down. ABC wasn't feeling the ratings for Family Matters or Step By Step so CBS got them for their last seasons for the CBS Block Party. A thing no one has any nostalgia for, except weird sad people like me. It had two veteran sitcoms from another channel and two shows that didn't even last a year. The Gregory Hines Show and Meego, with Balki from Perfect Strangers (and he also played French Balki on Step by Step!) I don't even think those shows made it past episode 5. It's a shame because I think both Balki and Gregory Hines are underrated performers that should get more respect.

TGIF really tried but the only shows that seemed to keep on running were Boy Meets World and Sabrina The Teenage Witch. No matter how much a fat weird Newfoundland boy loved them You Wish and Teen Angel did not do well with people. Both shows, both of which are connected in continuity (I will get to this in a second) starred Jerry Van Dyke, the superior of the Van Dyke brothers. Yes I said that and no I will not take it back. America needs to realize this!!! They were replaced by The Hughley's and Two of A Kind (which was also quickly cancelled, the second Olsen Twins sitcom did not do it for America the way Full House did) The final TGIF set of shows were Boy Meets World, Sabrina The Teenage Witch, The Hughley's and some shows called Odd Man Out and Making the Band. Those two are shows I didn't even know existed until tonight. ABC sold Sabrina The Teenage Witch to The CW and The Hughley's to UPN. or what ever happens when shows move stations. I don't know, I don't work in television.

Hell, at this point I was barely watching TGIF. Yeah I'd check into Sabrina the Teenage Witch for the most part. Sometimes Boy Meets World (the last few seasons I wasn't a huge fan of. We will get back to this) but most of this time I was busy playing Pokemon Red on my Super Gameboy or coming home from video stores with three rented movie and probably one I got my mom to buy for me. I was watching the hell out of weird and cheesy action/horror/comedy/80s movies. It was like my parents finally stopped caring what I watched so I just went hog wild. I could have probably watched Ilsa the She-Wolf of the S.S. because my parents didn't want to argue anymore. I wish I had rented Ilsa the She-Wolf of the S.S. and a Donald Duck Best Of VHS tape. Just for the response I'd get from the clerk. I bet it would have been something. I was also more into starting my NES game collection and talking about those on Message boards. I'd also talk about the movies I'd rent on JoBlo forums. Holla to the guys I still talk to these days from those forums. Forums are better than Facebook and we all know this!

I think I've bullshitted enough paragraphs about TGIF so now it's time to talk about Boy Meets World. This series starred Fred Savage's little brother Ben. A child with a brillo pad hairdo who grew into a man with a brillo pad hairdo. His hairdo always looked weird and kind of reminded me of Norman and Harry Osborne from Spider-Man comics. You know the Green Goblins. This show was about his family, Mom, Dad, Older Brother, Little Sister (who like most TGIF shows disappeared for some time), his best friend Shawn and his Teacher was his next door neighbor! He couldn't get away from School no matter what he tried! I loved the first four seasons of this show. I loved when Family Channel repeated them as I mentioned in the Alf discussion. It was a really fun show and the dynamic worked. 

Then season 5 happened. They put Cory and Topanga together (what kind of name is Topanga. I doubt even hippies would name their children that) and all kinds of drama happens. Shawn also gets a long time girlfriend named Angela, a black lady. I liked her and Shawn together but the stories just felt lackluster in the comedy and they tried to make them more dramatic. It just didn't work for me. I think the last episode I watched before this one was one where Shawn's dad dies. Like the exact episode after that where Shawn tries to leave Cory and them. They also added in Shawn's half brother who was never a great character in my mind and admittedly a hot tall redhead lady, but I had the internet at this point. Even dial up internet was better than watching these episodes. 

There was something interesting in these last series though, There was a TGIF crossover that started with Salem from Sabrina eating a time ball and the characters from each TGIF show stars would go back in time to the 1940s (Boy Meets World), the 1950s (You Wish), the 1960s (Sabrina) and ended off in the 1970s (Teen Angel) and since Boy Meets World also had a crossover with Step By Step and mentioned Steve Urkel in one episode. That means it's the bridge show that connects everything on TGIF except Dinosaurs. Well Dinosaurs and all those terrible failed shows the channel tried to do but no one cares about in the year 2021. I want a some kind of way to connect Dinosaurs to the rest of the shows. Also does that mean the Archie comics are connected to the TGIF universe? Sabrina was an Archie Comics character? Yes, this is what I think about while trying to sleep at night. That alongside an episode that made fun of slasher movies were the only episodes I remember liking from  this era. I didn't see much of Season 6 and only tuned into these last two episodes because it felt right I guess. I dunno. 

I had not seen this two parter since the second part appeared on May 5, 2000. Everyone in the cast had grown up, finished junior high, high school and even college. It was time to move on from what they had known all their lives into the Brave New World (also the name of the episode. I bet that fancy jerk who wrote the book Brave New World is angry!) These two episodes are all about Cory and Topanga thinking of moving to New York because Topanga got a intern job at some place or another. It's kind of underwhelming two episodes, that's why I blathered on for like forty two hours about TGIF and crossovers and other things. Except for a nice scene at the end with Mr. Feeny these are kinda not the best way to end a show. It's well, a clip show. Yeah, every character ends up talking to each other and then it just abruptly cuts too clips of them from previous episodes. It's weird and I'm not a big fan. They did show the time Shawn was in drag. They had a lot of drag in Boy Meets World. That was a fun episode. Uh, yeah. They have a nice meeting with Mr. Feeny (who was their teacher, their principal, a professor at their college and even banged the Dean of the college too I think. I'm surprised he didn't end up joining them in New York.) and a fun joke is told but that's about it.

FINAL VERDICT: I'm probably the only person who is 1.) angry that Dinosaurs does not connect to the rest of the TGIF Universe (They should start making a TGIF CINEMATIC Universe). It should, damnit. and 2.) can mention weird explotation films like Ilsa, She-Wolf of the S.S. in my reviews. Anyway, this was kind of a let down and felt rushed aside from that nice scene at the very end.

TV Review #10: Unsolved Mysteries (1987 - 2002)

It's finally time for us to discuss quite possibly the best show involving True Crime, that is Unsolved Mysteries. Totally beats the pants off America's Most Wanted, American Justice, Cold Case Files, That one show I can't remember that had the black guy from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. You know the guy, Khan puts that weird worm thing in his ear and he freaks out. Yeah, he had his own true crime show. Came on A&E along side American Justice and Cold Case Files. Was pretty good. He did a good job narrating it. I haven't seen much Star Trek but Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan was pretty good.

Enough about Star Trek or other lesser true crime shows. We are talking about the real deal here son. In the 1980s there were 3 specials called Missing... Have You Seen This Person? They starred the mom from Family Ties. They were definitely a precursor to Unsolved Mysteries and it's kinda sad that they are considered lost media these days. Someone has to have them on some dusty old VHS tape from the mid 1980s. After those 3 specials came several Unsolved Mysteries specials. These specials starred Raymond Burr, Karl Malden and for the last four Robert Stack.  He couldn't take off his trench coat because if he did the universe would explode. Thanks for saving us Bobby Stack! We weren't read to see the cosmic horrors within the trench coat.

Finally on October 5th, 1988 the specials became a full series. I'm pretty sure I didn't start watching until sometime in the 1990s but man I watched the damn ass hell out of this show. This was great stuff to watch to SCARE THE HELL out of you. I don't know how they did it but this show literally still kinda gives me goosebumps, and I've watched like 32 trillion horror films. It was also really incredibly popular. I remember Dinosaurs, the TGIF show made fun of it. That sticks in my mind a lot. A dinosaur in Bobby Stack's trench coat. I wonder if Bobby Stack liked people calling him Bobby?

It lasted on NBC until 1997, then CBS took it for a year. Then it was off until 2001 till Lifetime Television for Women took it on. I'm pretty sure I watched up until NBC took it off. The only time I really remember watching CBS was to see the short lived CBS Block Party that had Family Matters and Step by Step on it for their last seasons. They also made a remake series on Spike TV which was just cut up footage form the original show with new host segments from Dennis Farina. That guy was a decent enough actor but man he didn't have what it took to host this show. The entire show just didn't have the same feel of the series and you could easily watch most of the wanted cases on YouTube.

Although the show definitely works better as a whole. I don't remember many people uploading Treasure segments or the Alien, ghost stuff (apparently Bobby Stack would make fun of the alien and ghost stuff on set) or Lost Loves. It was just the Wanted and Murder cases. Which yeah was the big part of the show but I think it works better as a whole big grab bag of stuff. The Alien and ghost stuff was always fun and it's always nice to see people get reunited. I think the most interesting cases were of Eric Tamiyasu, Mary Morris and Rhonda Hinson. I'd like to see every case on this show end up getting solved but those are the three I'm most curious about. Also don't blame me if you end up going down some kind of insane rabbit hole when clicking on those links. Don't say I didn't warn you.

I don't know if the reboot on Netflix is any good. I'm sure I will end up talking about it sooner or later. I've heard some stuff about the cases and they seem like very interesting true crime cases, it's just they don't do the aliens, ghosts, lost loves or anything else. They are a part of Unsolved Mysteries and it feels weird to forget about them. At least thats what I think.

FINAL VERDICT: Unsolved Mysteries was a really great little show with a great vibe. It's all on YouTube and Amazon Prime and is totally worth a watch.  Never forget Robert Stack, he kept the cosmic horrors from destroying all of space and time and he did it for you and he did it for me. Never disrespect that.

The Final Episode #15: ALF (1986 - 1990)

 

First off before I get into rambling about the last episode of Alf, I tried downloading this image from a website and my computer wouldnt let me. I guess the site was full of viruses or some shit. Anyway I decide to image search said image because really what image is better for this article than Alf after Mr. T gave him all his gold. Only problem is that when it came up google said Michael J Fox Alf. I do not remember Michael J Fox ever wearing gold chains in either Family Ties, the Back to the Future Trilogy or Spin City. I guess I will have to keep an eye out for that, or maybe google is just busted. 

Anyway, Alf  was without a doubt one of THE most popular things of the 1980s. He had his own tv show, a video game, TWO animated tv shows. Hell the animated version even appeared in clearly the greatest crossover ever made, Cartoon All Stars to the Rescue. I'm sorry Marvel Cinematic Universe but you got nothing on Slimer and Bugs Bunny teaming up to stop an evil drug smoke thing voiced by George C. Scott. He even had his own comic book under Marvel Comics Star Comics imprint that ran from 1988 to 1991 for 56 issues, including 4 annuals and 2 specials. Yes, we will discuss one of those comics sooner or later. What I'm saying that between 1986 and 1990 you couldn't get away from the alien from Melmac. Hell even in the late 90s he came back in 1-900-Collect ads. Man I remember too much dumb horse shit.

I'm sure I watched Alf when it was originally on but being only 5 when it ended, my memories of that are vague as hell. No, all my memories of Alf come from the year 2003. No more high school and I could just lounge around the house like a lazy asshole. Thankfully The Family Channel, which was like the Disney Channel offshoot in Canada, because every channel in Canada has to have some Canadian content on it, would end up showing Alf, Boy Meets World, Chip N Dale Rescue Rangers, and after that I would change the channel to YTV and watch Sailor Moon. I don't know about you but if that isn't the best line up of television ever then you need to check yourself before you wreck yourself. The Family Channel started in 1988 and until I think 1995 or 1996 was pay cable. It must have become basic cable around 1995/1996 because until then you'd only get some free weekends, but damn if I didn't watch the Family Channel and TBS like a mad man during those weekends.

Anyway Alf was a sitcom that ran from September 22, 1986 to March 24th, 1990 on NBC. It was about an Alien Life Form, or ALF for short who crash landed on the Tanner's garage in California, somewhere near Los Angeles. He would get himself and the Tanners into wacky adventures and try to keep himself hidden from other people and the Alien Task Force, who uh wanted to kill him so they could dissect him and not so lovely things. The Final Episode, entitled Consider Me Gone is well another cliffhanger but we will get to that soon enough.

Alf is in the Tanner's garage when he gets a message from two other Melmacians (ALF's race) Skip and Rhonda. Rhonda was Alf's girlfriend at one point if I recall correctly. They have bought a new planet and want Alf to help them set things up. He is then for the first half of the episode conflicted on what will happen. Will he stay with the Tanners or will he go with his fellow Melmacians. Also the built in spell checker needs to stop saying Melmacians is spelt wrong! IT'S A WORD YOU TURDS. 

Alf ends up saying Yes, but his messages between them have been seen by the ALIEN TASK FORCE, led by an actor I'm sure you've seen in like 82,000 things but you just don't care enough about him to look up his actual name. He's a character actor but not one of those fun ones you know? Anyway just before Skip and Rhonda are to beam him up the Alien Task Force shows up and captures him. This cliffhanger would be unresolved for six years until the made for TV movie Project ALF came out. I did see this TV movie in like 1996 but man I do not remember a single solitary thing about it. Except that the Tanners didn't show up but that make sense because the  cast uh, didn't like working on the show. Let's just leave it at that (They deserve acting credit because I was amazed to find that out, I think it was my mother who told me.) I'm sure I will end up rewatching that movie for the blog.

I'm just honestly curious on how it would have worked out for a full season. Like would he spend a few episodes being a zany rascal at the Alien Task Force building? Would he escape back to the Tanners? a new family? Would Skip and Rhonda come back and the show take place on New Melmac? I'm just curious one how it would have worked had the show came back for season 5. 

FINAL VERDICT:  This final episode was pretty good. I laughed several times and I ended up feeling bad for the Tanners and Alf. Also I don't know where else ot put this but going back to how the cast hating working on this show. Max Wright after finishing the last episode just got up and left. No Wrap Party. No Goodbyes. It's just FUCK THIS SHIT I'M OUT. Kinda sad that they didn't enjoy the fame this show brought them. 

Comic Review #6: Marvel Team Up #139 (1984)

 

It's back to discuss the sheer cool awesomeness of Team Up comics. This time discussing a Marvel Team Up comic. Issue 139 to be precise. This was WAY near the end of Marvel Team Up's first issue (Marvel Two In One was cancelled in 1983 to make way for a solo series for the Thing... and that series was never as fun as Two in One was). This might not be the BEST issue of Marvel Team Up but it's still a decent look at what most stories in Marvel Team Up were like. A comic that wasn't going to change anything about any of the characters or the Marvel universe as a whole but you weren't going to put the comic down in anger and yell about it on the internet.

Marvel Team Up #139 has one of my favorite kind of covers. A kind where even the damn title is being destroyed. This kind of cover does not show up very often,  but man it always takes me aback when I see it. I can remember a Neal Adams cover with the X-Men logo being crushed by the villain of the issue. That cover (and comic) is definitely way better than this one but I'm always going to pick up an issue where the cover gets destroyed or messed up. It's neat to me, damnit. 

This comic was brought to us by Cary Burkett, Brian Postman (who I have never heard of until right now) and Mike Esposito. I was kinda weary when I saw Cary Burkett's name because well he's very hit or miss on the whole writing comics thing. He wrote some pretty lackluster issues of the Warlord for DC. The story had to do with some kind of weird fancy future stuff and that just doesn't feel like it should be in a series like the Warlord and maybe it shouldn't be his fault. He also created the character of Nemesis in a series of backups in The Brave and the Bold which I'm sure we will end up talking about some time in the future. The main point is what I'm saying is that Cary Burkett has nothing on  Cary Bates! That's the Cary I love. Cary is a weird name. Just name yer damn kid Gary. Brian Postman's art is pretty good and so is the inking by Mike Esposito.  

The story is thus, Spider Man in his Peter Parker duds is taking pictures of a big fancy superstar actress and BLAM a fuckin Dreadnaught comes out to capture here. The best part of this fight is Spider-Man talking about how much he hates to fight robots because he doesn't know what they will do. Don't worry Spidey, I think a lot of heroes feel this way. The Dreadnaught kidnaps the fancy actress. The scene then turns to Nick Fury and Dum Dum Dugan. I always loved how they brought those guys into the present Marvel Universe after their World War II adventures. Fancy science makes them younger so we get grumpy rascal Nick Fury in new stories. Anyway they are found by Dino Minnelli, A Dean Martin take off that was in several war stories with Nick and Dum Dum, who has married the actress lady. Nick Fury says he won't help Dino but that was just to try to keep him from doing anything stupid. 

Nick Fury then goes to a crooked lawyer who works with the Maggia. The Marvel Mafia. I love seeing them fight the Mafia and all that but damn if the name they gave the Mafia, the Maggia in comics just a really dumb name. It just looks so weird to me too. I do not like that name. This also shows one of my favorite things about S.H.I.E.L.D. all the cool James Bond like spy gadgets. This one shoots off from Fury's arm and hits the building the lawyer is in on the other side of the street and is able to listen in on his actions to find where the Actress lady is. He does and he is off! Spider-Man had earlier gotten one of his tracers on the Dreadnaught and when the Dreadnaught was turned off he had time to find where the Maggia were. Here is where we find out that the Actress is in on it! She was hired by the Maggia to show Dino Minnelli that nobody crosses the Maggia. They were going to bankrupt him on the ransom and she was going to leave him, making it that he was BROKE and HEARTBROKEN. Pretty rough shit.

This plan is messed up with Dino Minnelli himself pops up, seeing as Dino Minnelli himself shows up. The Maggia head guy decides that now he can off Dino AND The actress because she knows too much. This causes Dino Minnelli to break through his ropes and take a bullet in the arm for her, because despite it all he still loves her. Nick Fury and Spider-Man then break their ropes too and beat the shit out of the Maggia AND Nick Fury also pulls off his neck collar and it's ALSO a fucking S.H.I.E.L.D. spy device. I want to write a comic where he uses his S.H.I.E.L.D. socks to stop someone. this neck collar when made to combust will uh jam all the Dreadnaughts doohickies inside it. I like the word doohicky.

FINAL VERDICT: This was a decent fun issue. It won't make the top 10 lists of 1984. It won't even make the top 10 issues/stories of Marvel Team Up, but it's definitely worth adding to your collection. It's strange that even at it's worst Marvel Team Up was still decent. Apparently most writers and artists didn't even want to work on the book either! Weird huh?

The Final Episode #14: Duckman (1994 - 1997)

 

I'd like to take this opportunity to talk about Klasky Csupo a very weird animation company with a very weird style of animation. Everything looked weird in their cartoons. You either loved it or hated it. I put my self in the love section even if it was just for todays show, but honestly I felt the weird animation designs brought a lot to Rugrats and Ahhh Real Monsters! too. Founded by Arlene Klasky (no relation to Garfield's girlfriend) and Gabor Csupo (I wish my name was Gabor that's a fun name to say) and they were honestly ALL over the place in the 1990s. From the early episodes of the Simpsons to friggin Mad TV with the Spy Vs. Spy bits. Yes, they even did stuff that wasn't in their weird-o style. Pretty neat huh! Don't forget they worked with Mark Mothersbaugh of Devo! Who doesn't love that?!

DuckMan was originally created by Everett Peck for a comic book in 1990. He first appeared in Dark Horse Presents #22 ALL the way back in 1988. Yes that's right they were making shows based off comic books that weren't superheroes even back in the 1990s. They mine comic books for ideas and people still don't give 'em any respect. Sad as hell man. Anyway, there would be more Duckman comics off and on until Klasky/Csupo and  USA Network got the idea to try a show, which premiered on March 5th, 1994. It was not very popular during its run there sadly, never having the greatest popularity but a cult following did help the show last 4 seasons and 70 episodes. 

I did not get to see this show until it was canceled. In the late 1990s (1997 to be exact) Canada got it's second full time station dedicated to children, called TeleToon. Teletoon well showed cartoons. I don't know if they ever started doing live action Television because I don't have cable anymore. I live in a future where you can get literally every damn thing that you want, unless someone never recorded it from television, still I do miss deciding between two things that weren't all that great. "Yeah sure I'll watch The Vulture (1967) over 6 episodes in a row of City Guys. I do have a lot of nostaliga for early Teletoon like the first few years, ESPECIALLY the later in the night stuff. They'd show like season 1-3 of the Simpsons a lot. I don't know why it was just those seasons. They'd show weird shit from all over the world like Pond Life. It was pretty terrible but they would show it. All kinds of Hanna Barbera stuff. A really fun time to watch stuff, or have it play out in the background as you talk about NES games or Horror movies on some forum. Ahhh to be a teenager again.

Duckman was one of the shows I would always make sure I'd actually sit down and watch, not just have it on in the background. I thought the show was hilarious and incredibly entertaining. I'm pretty sure Teletoon had it on for at least a good decade. I could be wrong about that, again I don't have the TV guides to find out what was on in the end of the 1990s to the end of the 2000s. Just that I watched a hell of a lot of this show. Duckman was the life story of one Eric Duckman who is uh very horny and very abrasive. He's just lost his wife and doesn't know what is gonna happen to him and his family. He has to live with his Sister In Law Bernice who uh, doesn't like him very much. He has three children although two of them share a body (I don't know if this was Klasky/Csupo's weird ass idea or Everett Peck's) Ajax, Charles and Mambo (Duckman always gets his name wrong). Charles and Mambo are child genusies while Ajax is dumb as a rock. Duckman's day job is that of a detective. His partner is Cornfed Pig. He also works with Fluffy and Uranus, two teddy bears that Duckman ALWAYS destroyes in horrible yet comedic fashion. I also have to mention his other Sister In Law who comes around in Season 3, and also King Chicken because it's Tim Curry and well he always has to be talked about.

The Final Episode of Duckman entitled Four Wedding Inconceivable! came about on September 7th, 1997 (which was about a month before TeleToon came to be!) is about well, Four Weddings. It starts at Ben Stein's character's wedding where he gets married to a beautiful woman. Duckman comes in late and DOESN'T hit on the bride. DOESN'T act like a dickhead so everyone is worried about him. It turns out that he's in love! In love with HONEY CHICKEN! King Chicken's ex wife! King Chicken is in love with Bernice! Cornfed is in love with Beverly (his other sister in law). At the wedding JUST after everyone is married, Beatrice, the wife Duckman thought was dead pops in. Everyone is shocked until she says "Didn't Cornfed tell you!?" That's where the episode ends on a fucking hell shit ass fuck cliffhanger that is STILL pissing me off 24 years later! I swear I'm amazed I haven't found where Michael Markowitz (the guy who wrote this episode) lives and just sit outside his doorstep until he tells me! Apparently he told someone on Twitter that it was going to involve government coverups of aliens! THAT JUST MAKES ME WANT TO SEE PART II EVEN MORE.

FINAL VERDICT: Cliffhanger aside, this is a pretty fun episode. My favorite part was King Chicken finally learning what sex was and running out side to vomit. His ex-wife even got him to vomit just by saying penis. I dunno, It made me laugh and I enjoyed watching it. I can't really say much more than that. I'm curious about how some of my other favorite moments from this show stand up and I can't wait to finally re-watch this show.  (Also this is my 69th post on my blog and it feels good that it was this show)

Comic Review #5: Icon #1 (1993)

 

I've always been curious about Milestone Media the imprint that DC had during the early 1990s. Created by Dwayne McDuffie, Denys Cowan, Michael Davis, and Derek T. Dingle because they felt that minorities were not getting represented well in comic books. Yet if you were to listen to those comicsgate fuckheads that ONLY became a problem in 2017 when scary women ended up working at Marvel. I hate to be the bearer of bad news to social conservatives of today but the issues people have been talking about have been issues for decades, which is really sad as fuck you know? This is also a great comic to show the comicsgate crowd who would yell and scream about no politics in comics about how there were already politics in some comic stories way before fucking 2017 when you dumb shits shit all over the place.

I'll move away from comicsgate because I don't want to rant about them for another set of blog posts. I just want to talk about how much I really enjoyed Icon #1 (1993). I can't say if the quality of this series kept up but I can say that Dwayne McDuffie never got the appreciation that he should have. I'm glad he's getting more and more appreciation now but man it's a great shame that he died before that happened. I don't think I've gone away from a story he had some kind of hand in (He was also a part of the Justice League cartoon in the 2000s which was cool and good) that I didn't really enjoy. His first work that I'm aware of was Damage Control, I won't get too much into Damage Control because I clearly feel like talking about that series later on in this little column of mine. He worked on other Marvel projects like a Deathlok series before Milestone Media.

I'm sure there's a lot to the history of Milestone Media that I don't know so I'm just going to get into the meat and potatoes of this issue. Icon stars an alien who ends up crashing onto earth. This is pretty much the only thing he has in common with the Man of Steel, Superman. He is found by a black slave in America in 1839. Thankfully his space pod lets him change appearance and well what she sees is a black baby. He's still alive over one hundred and fifty four years later and is a pretty conservative lawyer. I guess doing boot straps for that long would cause anyone to become conservative you know?

In comes Raquel Erwin, a spunky teenager. She is brought to his house when her friends peer pressure her into going there to well rob Augustus Freeman IV (which is well Icon's alter ego and I can't think of a more 1800s name than that). Augustus does not take nice to being robbed and well makes sure that the robbers never do it again by showing off his super powers. Also uh scaring the shit out of them so they won't tell anyone. I do get the feeling that this will bite him in the buns later on. Raquel comes back a few days later to get him to use his powers to help and also let her become a superhero too. He even brings up how people need to PULL THEM UP BY THEIR BOOTSTRAPS and Raquel is all like "Yeah, that's easy when they already know how to fly!" I like this kid. This will probably be the ongoing thing for a little while, his conservatism vs her liberalism. She even gets several more digs in on him during this issue.

I really enjoyed Icon #1. I want to read more. I do not want to read this comic on the computer. I do not like digital comics. Or reading them from some cheap ass website. I want these comics in my collection. Hell just on THIS comic alone I want the rest of Milestones comics in my collection. Milestone lasted from 1993 to 1997, only four years, but there have been so many rumblings over the past years that DC really wants to bring them back, and I can easily see why. A LOT of people want more stories to involve individuals that aren't just white dudes. It's kinda sad to see them just languish in obscurity. Augustus and Raquel are already a lot of fun. It has some killer art from both Jimmy Palmiotti (on the cover) and M.D. Bright (inside the comic!). 

FINAL VERDICT: I totally recommend this comic book. I am so going to be on the look out for Milestone stuff on the internet and even around where I live. However I've collected comic from these stores for 17 going on 18 years and I've only seen one issue of Static (yes Static Shock, the animated character started here!). So not great on that. I imagine portnoyd will poo-poo this comic like a big turd.

The Final Episode #13: Quantum Leap (1989 - 1993)

 It's time to talk about one of the best television shows ever made. Also the best Sci Fi show ever made. I'm sorry, I don't make the rules. Al, Sam, Ziggy and the gang clearly beat out Star Trek, any Star Wars show, Sliders, Seaquest, ANY AND ALL BOW DOWN TO THE LEAP. I'm sure many will argue about that statement but it just means this is my favorite. I mean I haven't seen heaps of Sci Fi TV, I've only seen like 3 episodes of Star Trek... Okay fine maybe I'm not up to making that statement so I'll just make THIS statement. Quantum Leap is the best show about time travel ever made. See even this listicle site agrees with me and that means Portnoyd can suck my ass and piss up a rope!

So with the usual retort against portnoyd out of the way, it's time to discuss what Quantum Leap was. This was a show where Sam Beckett creates a Time Travel device that lets him "Leap" into other peoples bodies throughout his lifetime (starting August 8th, 1953). Sam would correct what once went wrong in said person of the weeks life. It was mostly an anthology  show that starred two main characters in every episode. Al would pop up with a computer (apparently a girl computer, I must have forgotten that weird tidbit) and they would find out who they were there to help this week. Dean Stockwell and Scott Bakula made a GREAT team and are about 70% of why this show is so cool and good. the other 30% is the GREATEST THEME SONG EVER by Mike Post. That's one thing I refuse to back down on. 

Quantum Leap was created by Donald P. Bellisario for NBC in 1989. The first episode appeared on Television screens on March 25, 1989 as I guess some kind of midseason replacement. I wanted to check out what show it replaced but I don't really have the know how to find old newspapers to find out what television show it replaced. The show ran for 5 more seasons (and apparently was due to be canceled before fans went wild and saved it for two more seasons.) Season 5 was apparently not very well loved but I enjoyed it honestly. I thought the real life people and evil leapers were a nice chance of pace for the show. I never caught the show when it originally came on (that I know of) but I would watch reruns around the early 2000s and I loved it. I ended up seeing all 97 episodes and I can't wait to rewatch them all to give you a full review of the show (Think of these Final Episodes as a side dish to a bigger meal!) 

The 97th and Final Episode premiered on May 3rd, 1993. A pretty controversial series finale to a lot of people. Weird how The Wonder Years also ended in 1993 (on May 12th even) and THATS controversial too. People still end up talking about these endings nearly 30 years later (wow that makes me feel like an ancient crone who might turn to dust at any second). The Final Episode was entitled Mirror Image and boy howdy a lot of stuff goes down in this episode. Sam Becket (apparently only one T according to this episode but that just looks wrong to me!) ends up leaping into the EXACT day of his birth. In fact the second he was born was the second he ended up leaping. Pretty wild way to start this episode huh? Al is stuck in the Quantum Leap room and they can't find Sam so he's all on his own. 

Sam starts talking to the guy who owns the bar and as we find out this is the guy who started it all really. I mean sorta? He ends up letting Sam knowing that it's HIM who can stop the leaping at ANY moment. Pretty darn wild huh? That's a good way to start up a sixth season that well never happened. According to Donald Bellisario himself he wrote this as a way to keep on going with the show but let people know some stuff that happens. Sam meets a guy Russian guy named Steve. Actually he's named the Russian version of Steve and I don't even know how to spell that to look it up on google or anything. They find out that the mine in this coal mining town had trapped several miners. I'll be ruining the big surprise about Russian Steve is that he was also a leaper! Wild huh? I wonder if they would have done more with that in season six. I could see Sam and someone leaping into the same area and having to do the same thing and its kind of a weird race or something. Very interesting ideas that could be done with that you know? I think at least. 

This episode does sadly end on a bittersweet note as Sam finally realizes he can control the leaps and leaps to save Al's marriage but never goes home. That's the whole reason this ending is controversial and my opinion is I kinda like it that way. Sam always was a ridculously good fella for the most part and I can EASILY see him going on to keep on helping people but I can easily see why people were pissed. It was the shows whole thing up until this episode that he was leaping to help people but also get home to his wife (and I think they end up having a child somehow, I might be forgetting things). 

Quantum Leap like everything else NBC owns is well going to end up probably getting a reboot on their Peacock service. I hope they do a bit of a sequel thing honestly. Bring in Scott Bakula (I always misspell his name first before going back to fix it.) and Dean Stockwell as guest stars and let his child come looking for him or something. I don't know if it was a daughter or son or what. If its was a daughter have the Al character be a dude. If his child was a boy have the Al character be short for like Alicia or something. I think if they really worked hard on it they could have something stellar, however it's a reboot of something from the past so at best it will be "Yeah that was actually kinda decent" and at worse you will angrily yell on the internet about it.

I guess it's come to this. A discussion on Cancel Culture.

 

Yes, this is mostly a blog about old television shows, movies, comic books and whatever tickles my fancy to talk about. It's mostly something I try to keep positive but sometimes because some dumb thing gets into my head and weasels around in there forever and ever and wont ever go away. I figure maybe if I talk about it my stupid brain won't think about it as much so new things can fester in there because thats how my brain works. Today I talk about controversial opinions I have on "Cancel Culture" or Consequence Culture or whatever people talk about and I don't know if anyone is really gonna be happy with what I say.

First off, uh... I hate to break it to the people who think this is a new thing just on twitter but it really isn't. People have been talking about whatever dumb thing a celebrity has said since like forever. Like forever. I'm sure I could find Eva Gabor or Eddie Albert saying something dumb in 1968 and having people go WELL I AM FOR SURE NEVER WATCHING GREEN ACRES EVER AGAIN! and someone arguing with them about it. and a third person being like SHUT UP YOU DICKHEADS I DONT GIVE A SHIT. At least thats the three groups I see whenever I see someone talking about whatever dumb shit thing Big Billy Bradworth said. This is the paragraph that will bother people who don't like Cancel Culture. (hi portnoyd)

Secondly, The discussion these people have really does nothing. Sure a lot of trans people gave up on JK Rowling but HBO is still making a Harry Potter TV series. A flipping video game came out like twenty days after this. I'm not saying that you shouldn't give up on someone you feel has abandoned you, even if that person is a celebrity. I'm just saying that trying to get every person who ever read and enjoyed a Harry Potter book to do the same is going to be an miserable task that will not happen. I can't think of a person who was actually "Cancelled" who uh stayed cancelled, hell even Louis C.K. is back on tour doing hacky conservative comedy. This is the paragraph the people who are for it won't like.

Thirdly, I guess that when it comes to people doing crimes you should probably go to the police. Yes, I know that the police are really bad at things. I know the Justice System in just about most countries is messed up and needs fixing due to racial injustice and sexual assaults' stuff and all that, hell I'm sure there are tons of cases of the whitest dudes ever whited getting railroaded into long prison services. I just don't think Twitter actually has any power to fix these issues. 

I don't even know why I wrote this. It's bad. Don't read it.

Comic Review #4: Brave and the Bold #118 (1975)

 I love Team Up comics. They don't really do them as much nowadays because I guess everyone's teaming up for some END THE OF THE UNIVERSE FOREVER AND EVER EVENT every two months it doesn't really seem the same you know. Still I love them. Marvel Team Up, Marvel Two In One, DC Comics Presents and THE BEST OF THEM ALL, Brave and the Bold. I will end up looking at a issue of each of these and see how it's all done and you might as well start with the best. Which is Bob Haney and Jim Aparo on Brave and the Bold.

Bob Haney was a madman. No idea was too strange/weird/silly/insane for him. Nothing would stop him from teaming Batman up with Sgt Rock despite the fact that I'm pretty sure Sgt. Rock was supposed to die on the last day of World War II. If Bob Haney wanted Batman to team up with Sgt. Rock, BOB HANEY DID IT. He just wanted to tell wild and wacky comic book stories and didn't give a dingle dang about continuity. Of course all the big nerds at DC Comics cared about continuity so they put ALL of his stories on Earth-B for Bob Haney. You never knew what was gonna happen in a Bob Haney story. I'm glad that Superhero comics had a man like Bob Haney.

That brings us to Brave and the Bold #175 "May the Best Man WIN....DIE" I don't know how to do an X over win in the blog here so you'll just have to take that. It's the best I can do. This issue came out in April of 1975. Anyway This issue has Batman teaming up with Wildcat to fight the Joker. It has Batman and Jim Gordon trying to get Mike Dubcek to rat out on the Joker, putting him in solitary confinement and all that. It seems to be finally working because of a letter sent to the Joker pretty much says so. The Joker not wanting to end up in prison again decides to poison Dubcek when he is let out to fight a charity boxing match with Ted "Wildcat" Grant. Wildcat wins but Dubcek has now infected all 600 convicts in the prison. Batman and Wildcat must team up not only to save the convicts (Batman even goes and says that they needed to be saved). 

Some team of scientists are working on a vaccine with the help of a lovely little pooch named Spot. Spot is captured by the Joker and runs off. Spot has his own adventure aside Batman and Wildcat. Chasing another Dog, jumping onto a damn garbage scowl, meeting a homeless man who wants to use him to make tons of money before jumping back into a dogcatchers truck. The dogcatcher apparently doesn't know who the Joker is and just gives him the dog. I guess he doesn't watch the News AT ALL. The Joker then breaks into the secret radio frequency Batman has and tells them to meet at some Boxing Arena for a fight between him and Wildcat. They fight to save Spot with these giant ass old timey roman gloves that look like they hurt like a motherfucker. Of course The Joker also infected those gloves with the poison but Batman would have still fought even if he knew that because he's Batman and no one dies under his watch, damnit. Spot bites Joker and he tells his henchmen to kill him while gloating over Batman. Batman then tells Joker that Spot had the posion in him and Joker freaks out and runs off. 

I love this story. It's over the top and insane and an incredible amount of fun to read. It also has beautiful art from Jim Aparo, that man knew how to draw Superheroes. Quite possibly my favorite artist. I loved the way he draws the Joker with that big hideous grin on his face. I love the way he draws Spot as over the top cute. I wonder if Jim Aparo ever went "YOU WANT ME TO DRAW WHAT?" to Bob, or was he like "Yeah okay the thug is gonna kill the ridiculously cute little puppy dog, Alright Bob... talk to you next month". These are the questions I talk about.

Bob Haney stopped writing Brave and the Bold monthly sometime in the late 1970s. It was then taken up by guys like Mike W. Barr and Dennis O'Neil and anyone who had time to write a script. I definetly enjoy a lot of stories they did in the later half of the books run, but it was missing something. Not just Bob's wacky stories but it's good to have a team that is there each month in and out so you know "Yeah I love me some Gerry Conway so I'll keep picking this up" or "John Buscema kicks ass at drawing shit, so I will be getting this!" Maybe that was a reason that it ended in 1983 and was replaced by Batman and the Outsiders (they first appeared in a backup comic in Brave and the Bold #200) 

FINAL VERDICT: I had a great time revisiting this comic. I am definetly going to revisit some more Brave and the Bolds along with Marvel Team Ups and Two in Ones and DC Comics Presents and all that kinda good stuff. Not only are they usually fun to read but they are usually fun to talk about too. I don't know if the next review will be of one of those titles but it will be of a Marvel comic (then I plan to talk about some indie stuff and comic strip compilations books so look out for that!)

The Final Episode #12: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987 - 1996)

 

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was probably my favorite thing between the years of 1988 and I guess 1994? 1993? I don't know when I stopped being high on the turtles, but holy shit when I was with them it was BIG. I had so many Ninja Turtles toys. I must have had every single one of them, and at least a few Foot Soldiers. It was impossible to go to our house in the late 80s or early 90s and not see Ninja Turtles stuff littered ALL over the place, but being a fickle child something new and fancier caught my eye and the Turtles just waned in the background. I'm pretty sure that new and fancy thing was Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, so at least I was still a fan of something with a ridiculous name. I'm not even sure that YTV was even showing the Ninja Turtles by 1994, but It's not like I have a complete collection of the Newfoundland Herald to go and check out.

Anyway, by 1996 it wasn't just me who had given up on the Ninja Turtles. It was pretty much everyone. They were on some thing called the CBS ACTION ZONE, a Saturday morning block of cartoons on well CBS.  I don't think I was watching much CBS at this time so this entire thing looks so 1990s that I had to talk about it. I mean look at that above picture. That's so 1996 it hurts me. But it hurts so good. Anyway, apparently they would preempt these cartoons for golf. That's how bad the ratings were at that time, I guess. I guess the best way to show how the TMNT had fallen from grace would be to tell you that in season 3 they had 47 episodes produced, in season 4 they had 41. This last season had 8. I know season 3 and 4 were syndication but still 8 episodes was all they got for season 10 (and season 8 and 9 for that fact too) The TMNT were just about to end their first television show (and the second, the Next Mutation was so bad that it had 26 episodes and like two of them were fucking clip shows). Still you can't keep a good Ninja down and they got several new shows and comics.

I think when I would have sleepovers with like my only friend as a child (and honestly I don't look back at these memories with fondness) we would end up getting up in the morning to watch cartoons. I think we clicked on a later season episode of TMNT and going "where the fuck are Krang and Shredder?" before just putting on a episode of Gargoyles: The Goliath Chronicles (which I honestly like more than most fans of Gargoyles but that's another point for another article), what I'm saying is Little baby claw was not a fan of late era TMNT which has been called "Red Sky Episodes" because of uh the Red Sky.

The Red Sky episodes were a bit more serious than the previous 7 seasons of wacky escapades. This was probably due to Batman: The Animated Series and I guess kids and sad old weirdos who still watch cartoons wanting something more serious and well done. I don't know how well the entirety of the Red Sky episodes hold up but... This last episode is actually pretty damn good if I must say.

The last episode, entitled Divide and Conquer, came out on November 2nd, 1996 to little fan fare, which is pretty sad because this was a decent little finale for such a show. I mean it feels more final than GI Joe, or The Real Ghostbusters, or Transformers or many other such shows. They didn't really get a final showdown with the Big Bad but the Turtles did. Anyway this episode starts with Dregg the replacement for Shredder and Krang for Seasons 9 and 10 has FINALLY had it with the Ninja Turtles that he's not even trying to take over the earth. He just wants them Dead. DEAD. He wants that Turtle Soup worse than Shredder ever did. He's been sending aliens to go after the TMNT for more than 90 seconds. The Aliens then can just leave if they want too. The Turtles are weirded out by this but we find out pretty quickly that Dregg wanted the aliens to do this so that he can use his new fancy Molecules suit thing to take their powers away from them and probably kill them.

The TMNT then fight Dregg in a pretty cool little fight I guess? I dunno the Turtles end up running away so that they can go to Dimension X and fiddle around the trashed Technodrome (which apparently was finally destroyed and it's pretty cool to see it all wrecked like this) to find Krang's android body so that they can fight the Giant Dregg. Well, two of the turtles (Don and Mikey) go to Dimension X. Leo and Raph have to save April O'Neil (who is not wearing her yellow jumpsuit. which is clearly the worst design change ever) for one last time. Anyway they get Dregg by using the grab someone from behind move Splinter taught them (kinda weird for the last thing he will teach them) and send him into Dimension X. Oh, and the Android Body was shrinking and was gonna fucking explode. So yeah the 1987 Ninja Turtles killed a dude. I mean the original comic Ninja Turtles killed like 5,000 dudes but still. The episode ends with Splinter telling them that he is no longer their Sensei but their equal. Nice way to end it all.

FINAL VERICT: This was a fun little story. I mean I kinda wish the OH SHIT THE ANDROID BODY WILL EXPLODE thing that happens at the last moment was better explained but still I enjoyed the rest of it. Oh, and the new voice actor for Raph was weird. I don't like him. Rob Paulsen wanted a raise in like I dunno Season 9 or so and Fred Wolf probably realized that the zenith of TMNT's popularity had crashed into a Power Rangers sized hole so he didn't pay him. Also it would have been nice to see Krang or Shredder in this final episode but still even if I was completely annoyed by this episode I would have still given it some credit for at least having some kind of conclusion unlike every other cartoon made between 1981 and 1992. 

way too many Comic Book Fans are Stupid And I hate them.

 

This is going to end up as a wild rant where I yell and scream at people, so if you enjoy that bit of my persona than it will be fun for all. Just letting you know that. Anyway, you know I love comic books. They are totally fun as hell. I have a lot of them. I'd have even more if I could. I'd own every single comic book no matter what it was if I could. I want every comic in that above picture so badly. I didn't even know they made a comic on the Mighty Hercules. I loved that stupid cheap cartoon as a kid so damn much. I think it was animated by the same people who made Rocket Robin Hood and Spider-Man. This is just an article where I let off steam about how so many comic fans can go fuck a pumpkin or something.

1.) Okay this might piss me off the most honestly. I know I'd never be able to run a comic shop because the first time someone complained to me two or three months in about BATMAN NOT BEING AS GOOD AS IT USED TO BE i'd tell them to fucking stop buying Batman then. It's about having fun not being angry at the character. Go collect the comics you don't have from the era you love. Fuck I'm so sick of comic fans online going UGH THIS SHIT SUCKS and buying the next damn issue. Jesus harold and fuck you twits. Not only does a character like Batman have an insanely rich history you can delve into to find stories you like. SO DOES JUST ABOUT EVERY OTHER CHARACTER AT DC OR MARVEL. This isn't even bringing into the fact that there are so many other comic stuff you could get into. It's an insane field of stuff, but NOOOO we gotta bitch and fucking moan that Batman changed a little bit and that's the biggest fucking crime on the planet. I hate to break it to you but every person whos ever written a Batman story has a different take on the character. I got back into comics in 2003 and went buying back issues and got curious around 2007 to see what was happening with Spider-Man, I then heard about One More Day and went "wow that's moronic" but you know what would have been more moronic. ME BUYING THE FUCKING COMIC BOOKS TO COMPLAIN ABOUT THEM. JESUS FUCK.

2.)  Calling people fake fans. I'm sorry doodlebug but if someone says they are a fan of something then they are a fan of that thing. I don't care if it's TGIF sitcoms or astro phsyics or Spider-Man. I don't care if they know as much as you do, that doesn't make them a fake fan. Even if they've only read 6 issues of Spider-Man from 1982 they are still a fucking fan and you need to piss the fuck off somewhere else, maybe to Antarctica. Even if for some reason they are lying about enjoying The Incredible Hulk, what the fuck does it matter to you? It's fucking pointless you stupid mongrels.

That's it for now. I got this jazz off my chest. It's great.  Who knows if more stuff annoys me about comic fans I'll start writing it here. Peace out bros!

Movie Review #5: Primal Rage (1988)

 

If you told me I had to write an article (or series of articles) about 100 things that I think are amazing and cool and the best ever, Italian Movies would be on that list. Not just for their amazing Horror Films by individuals like Lucio Fulci and Dario Argento, but for their crazy as hell action films, post apocalyptic movies, and sword and sorcery stuff. Any crazy fuckin thing can and will happen in Italian cinema. They don't give a damn as long as they give the viewer what they want. You want crazy ass horror or action or whatever then start watching Italian movies sucker!

This is the first Vittorio Rambaldi movies that I've seen, and sadly he isn't as prolific as say Bruno Mattei because this was a kick ass movie and I would have watched more of his stuff. The movies plot is pretty gosh darn simple really. A doctor is trying to help people by messing with monkey's brains for some reason or another. Don't ask me, I didn't write this movie, Umberto Lenzi did. However the shit makes the monkey freak out and later on, a newspaper reporter for a college comes to this place and the monkey bites him. He ends up biting a date during some smooching (and she doesn't immediately run away for some reason) and well you know where this is going, they both turn into crazed violent lunatics that only want to murder. Not only them but 3 frat boy rapists do too. So it's now up to another reporter guy from the college and his girlfriend to stop it all. Note I didn't mention the Doctor because he gets killed. Poor Bo Svenson.

This was a very fun motion picture that I highly recommend you check out. It has some very likable characters that you will end up rooting for, and feeling bad when they die, unlike a lot of newer horror films where you don't give a dickhole of a shit about the characters. It moves at a nice fast pace like a thrill ride! It has some crazy ass death scenes in it too. I don't want to ruin them but man the ending 20 minutes is enough for you crazy gore people! This movie even has mentions of Alf, Spuds Mackenzie AND The Noid! I'd have given it a high rating just on that alone!

FINAL VERDICT: I had another ending in mind before I checked and yes this movie was on DVD. And even Blu-Ray. I was going to talk about how movies shouldnt be left to languish on VHS, and I guess that's still true, they shouldn't. All movies are a part of film history weither you like that or not. The TV-REMAKE of The Absent Minded Professor and Care Bears in Wonderland are pieces of film history and should be on blu-ray. Fuck you if you think any movie should be forgotten, even shitty ones like RV. 

Movie Review #4: RV (2006)

 

I must say that I've always liked Robin Williams. The man could do comedy like The Survivors or Death to Smoochy (piss off this movie is great). The man could do drama, like Good Will Hunting. The man could literally be scary in films like One Hour Photo. The man was a terrific actor and It's really sad how it all ended up for him. I've also enjoyed several films by director Barry Sonnenfield, like the first and third Men in Black films, along side the Addams Family movies, but as this movie shows you can literally put people with talent together and you won't always get something worth a damn.

RV is fucking obnoxious, but what did I expect from the writer of The Shaggy Dog remake with Tim Allen? I think this might be a worse movie than that too. Anyway I have many problems with this movie but the first is, it's incredibly unfunny and let's be honest here, I'm not a hard person to get to laugh, you've seen some of the comedic things I've reviewed positivtley. Hell I laughed at Blossom. I just know that this movie does not even try. Even Robin Williams, a man known for improv and trying his best seems to be bored to tears in this movie. 

Secondly his family is obnoxious. All four of them seem to be miserable human beings who hate each other with a passion and being around them is not fun in the slightest. Also they don't seem to earn the OH HEY WE LOVE EACH OTHER AGAIN ending horse shit. One oh hey we are having a nice conversation doesn't make up for the 82 FUCK YOU DAD/CARL/MOM/WHATEVER conversations you had during the previous fucking hour of this fucking movie.

Thirdly, this just might be me. I mean we all have tropes in movies that we are fucking sick of seeing, well I'm fucking sick and tired of seeing the fucking trope of OH I LOVE YOU FRIEND/ANIMAL/MOM/DAD/WIFE/CHILD/ALIEN LIFE FORM but for some reason I HAVE TO LIE TO YOU because that's a good thing!!! You see Robin Williams lies to his family becuase they wanted to go to Hawaii but he's needed in Colorado to give a speech so he can save his job and OH NO WE CAN'T DISCUSS THIS LIKE RATIONAL FUCKING ADULTS WE GOTTA LIE. LIE. LIE. This also ALWAYS, FUCKING ALWAYS makes about 98% of movies that use this trope SCREECH to a halt so that the liar can prove to his grandma or a clone of John Wilks Booth that he truly cares about them with a boring fucking speech that NO ONE NEEDS TO SEE. This might have worked when you first started the trope (when the hell did that first start anyway) but it needs to get shot in the dick and die.

FINAL VERDICT:  This is the worst fucking movie Robin Williams has ever been in, yes worse than Mrs. Doubtfire (fuck you you know this movie sucks). It's a bothersome annoying comedy that wastes the talent of several people. I didn't even mention that Jeff Daniels is in this movie. Yes, the movie wastes Jeff Daniels of all people. I didn't even think that was possible.