Comic Review #36: Adventure Comics #327 (1964)

                                     

 

I love my old man. He likes fishing, Star Trek, Huckleberry Hound, Drew Barrymore and watching old music informercials. So on this Father's Day I dedicate this sure to be insane story to him and all fathers. I also want to talk about some fathers from comic books. Uncle Ben the surrogate father of Spider-Man was pretty great but he's also dead. Iron Man's dad is an asshole. Captain America's dad died before he was like 10 and then they retconned him into being a abusive drunk. Splinter is a pretty great dad though. He knows ninjutsu and is a mutant rat and loves his ninja turtle children.  So comic dads are a mixed bunch. I guess comic writers didn't have great parents? I have great ones though!

Adventure Comics was one of the first comic books DC ever started publishing. It was home to Superboy for decades. It was where the Legion of Super-Heroes got their start. It was home to Starman, Plastic Man, Superboy, Supergirl,  Aquaman, Dial H For Hero. It was the grab-bag of DC comics for about 48 years. In 2009 they brought it back for another 32 issues and no one seemed to care. Kinda  sad. If I could I would bring back Adventure Comics just because I had that power. 

I'm only going to talk about the story entitled "The Menace of Superboy's Father!" which is possibly the greatest title ever. All other titles will never reach the beauty of that one. This was also a reprint from Superboy #48 but I went with this one because I could tell a damn great cover from some well drawn but forgettable cover. You know you wanted to see Pa Kent rush into the boys room with a huge ass piece of Kryptonite. It doesn't happen in the story but you want to know how insane the story in this comic is and it shows that off perfectly.

Anyway this fine piece of literature starts with Pa Kent taking money out of the bank and giving it to notorious criminal Blackmarket Bolton. I'm going to assume Blackmarket Bolton appeared in one Superboy comic and that was it. He gets some Kryptonite from the man and we are all wondering what the hell Pa Kent is gonna do. We aren't left wondering for long because Pa Kent literally pulls the Kryptonite out and cuts it in half with a table saw. You'd think that Kryptonite would be stronger than a regular old table saw but you'd be wrong because it cuts that shit clean! He leaves some Kryptonite for Superboy and we are all left wondering what the christ is going on in this lunatic asylum known as a comic book? 

Superboy shoves lead all over the Kryptonite and puts it who knows where. Superboy then waits to see if the Prowler who he thinks put the Kryptonite there will come out but all that comes out is Pa Kent, who still has another hunk of Kryptonite. Superboy then goes to the General Store owned by the Kents and has to get out of ANOTHER Kryptonite trap. Pa Kent then goes outside and in a hilarious scene jumps on the damn tree Superboy is on and tries to climb it. Superboy then finds out that Pa Kent thinks he and Clark Kent are two different people and that he has done something to Clark. Superboy flies to the roof just in time to see that Pa Kent is about to walk into a damn fire because he's gone fucking bananas and thinks hes invincible. Superboy doing the logical thing creates a giant water pistol out of some trash and saves his dad.

Pa Kent thinks this is just a rain shower so he goes upstairs to close the celling skylight. He then sees a customer and decides to walk off the roof to meet the man because he's fucking out of his gourd. Superboy has to go get his giant human sized fishing pole (I'm just assuming because Superboy stories of the Silver Age were so fucking crazy that he had one just laying around somewhere) and saves the man. Superboy then goes home and changes into Clark Kent. His dad comes home and puts him to sleep and still believing both of them are two different people puts Kryptonite underneath his bed. Thankfully Clark uses his fire breath to just send the Kryptonite to the floor below. Superboy then goes to the General Store to shock Pa Kent out of his delusions by pulling up the entire General Store and flying away with it. Because this is a Silver Age story this bit of insanity works! Pa Kent is back to normal!

Superboy then goes after Blackmarket Bolton and Pa Kent throws the Kryptonite in the lake and I don't think that's a very safe idea because I'm sure people swim in that lake and who knows what Kryptonite can do to a person. He really should have called Kryptonite Control which I am assuming and probably rightly so is a thing in the DC universe. He and his son have a great dinner together and all is well.

FINAL VERDICT: I had a great time reading this comic book. It's fun, goofy, lighthearted fun that I enjoy from this era of Superboy. It's got charm out the wazoo and the art is great. I love that Pa Kent looks like the stereotypical man of the era with his suit and tie. I also must mention that this story takes 8 PAGES to tell. It's nuts and I love it.

The Final Episode #57: Dennis the Menace (1986 - 1988)

 

Another new day has brightened our souls and refreshed our hearts and you know what that means - It means I talk about another thing that you have forgotten about, yet is still somewhere stuck in a crevice within your brain. Yes, today we talk about another totally picked out at random television show. It's not really at random. It's the first thing my brain thinks of when I wake up. When my brain finally started working after getting up I first thought of this, the Dennis the Menace cartoon from our good old friends at DiC animation. This is the era of DiC animation that I affectionally refer too as "Inspector Heathcliff" which is from 1983 to about 1988 before Andy Heyward started making the cheapest cartoons he could. I don't care what you say but those 5 years produced some great animation and I will die on this hill. Yes, I will die on the hill for the Dennis the Menace cartoon no one remembers. The best thing I can say in my defense is that it's clearly not the worst thing to die on a hill for. Where the hell did the term "Die on a hill" even come from?

Anyway, I hope I don't really need to go in fully about DiC animation this time. They created Inspector Gadget. If were born between 1977 and 1990 you saw enough of their cartoons to choke a cow. I love DiC Animation. Yeah not everything they made was good, but man I had great memories of a lot of their series. I will now completely and randomly jump to talking about the creation of Dennis the Menace because I never listened in school because I didn't want to be there. They tried to figure out every reason why I wasn't doing well except just asking me  and I would have said I DONT WANNA BE AT THIS CRAP HOLE. Jesus man. Maybe ask the damn child before you go to the specialists. Uh... let's just begin a new paragraph and pretend this one didn't exist. Sound good? Sounds good to me too.

Dennis the Menace was created all the way back in 1951 by a man named Hank Ketchem. I should also mention because we are going to talk about those rascals in GREAT BRITAIN today for a bit that on the EXACT same day someone working at the Beano created THEIR Dennis the Menace. That Dennis the Menace would probably shiv you. This one is just a bit hyper. Britain is a weird place. It was a pretty popular comic strip as in 1959 they created a TV show that apparently appeared as reruns on YTV. I was literally amazed by that. I watched that after school break because it had Batman and Power Rangers and I would have sworn to Jesus that I had never seen a second of that series. I'm just wondering If I did or not. Yes, Only I could have an existential crisis over the 1959 - 1963 Dennis the Menace television series. In 1985 DiC hit gold with another animated series based on a comic strip Heathcliff so I guess they decided why not let's do Dennis.

I must say that when I was a kid I loved Dennis the Menace. I watched this cartoon. I liked the movie. I apparently watched the 1960s series (is it fair to really call a series that starts in 59 a 50s series? Do you call it both? This is a question that comes up in my brain quite frequently because my brain is strange and makes no sense.). I bought tons upon tons of the comic strip in little cheap books that I'm amazed survived for 30 years before I got my hands on them and ruined them. I read that shit like their was no tomorrow. I would go to Dairy Queen as much as possible because uh I liked the ice cream treats they had there but they also had Dennis the Menace on them and I would feel remiss if I did not mention that fact.

The Final Episode of this show was hog wild. I forgot the insane adventures that Dennis the Menace had. The only problem I had with this episode was the fact that I watched it from a staticky weird noised video file that was probably taken from a decades old VHS tape. If you don't know what a VHS tape is this blog is not for you and please go away. There are three episodes and they are all a whole hell of a lot of fun and this version of Dennis gets himself into so much insane shit. In the first story called "The Wright Stuff" Dennis is doing an experiment about flying involving the Smart Kid Who's Name I Was Too Lazy To Look Up and BAM! a fucking out of nowhere lightning shit happens and Dennis is sent back in time. If you know a single thing about history you know where he goes too. Dennis meets Orville (what a nerd name lol) and Wilbur Wright. The guys who flew the first airplane. They get Dennis to look after the airplane from people who want to steal it. The Wrongo Brothers (yes a joke you'd only find in a 1980s cartoon. I love it) and it ends up with DENNIS being the first person to fly a plane correctly except no one sees him. The Wright Brothers still get the credit and Dennis talks to his friends about his weird ass experience. 

The second segment called "Hassle in the Castle" involves Dennis and his dad Henry (yes Hank Ketchem named the dad character after himself and his son was also named Dennis! wild!) going to a business trip in JOLLY OLD LONDON ENGLAND. The business trip gets cancelled so they go on a tour of a castle that has the Crown Jewels in it. I'm pretty sure every cartoon series or hell any series that went to England HAD to mention the Crown Jewels or the Queen would judo chop them in the face. She's a tough old broad. Uh... anyway they meet a kid named Nigel and also there's a big deal made about a frog in the first few minutes that Dennis brought with him and you'd expect him to do something at the end but the writers at DiC Animation told Chekov's Gun to go fuck itself. It doesn't rule what they want!

Anyway they are met by the ghost of a lady called Annie Bonley or something. This isn't a history lesson on wither or not this person existed. This is a history lesson on the Final Episode of Dennis the Menace's cartoon series from the 1980s. A much more important and serious thing that should be discussed. She's got her head in her hands and I'm pretty sure if a cartoon did this today she'd have it on her body. Cartoons today are made for wimps and bums. She shows them to some police officers or as they call them in JOLLY OLD LONDON ENGLAND, Bobbies. England is a weird place. Anyway they have been tied up and have their clothes stolen and its up the Dennis the Menace to stop the theives. Which he does. There's a bunch of scenes in this segement that were clearly put in to make it longer than needed to me and I just jumped to the end. The Police Bobbies see the ghost and freak out but Dennis' dad is dead inside so he does not care about seeing a ghost. 

Sadly the last segment is still fun but it's clearly not HOG WILD like the first two. It's just Dennis bothering the shit out of a poor old man. It's funny as hell though. It's just your usual Dennis the Menace stuff. They all end up sleeping in a tent in the backyard because of Dennis being a hooligan. I'm pretty sure Mr Wilson never wants his wife to go away again.

FINAL VERDICT: I had a great time rewatching this episode and highly recommend it to others. I need to do more DiC shows. DiC is the best!

Comic Review #35: Care Bears #1 (1985)

 

I've decided to review this comic for two reasons: 1.) I love to unearth the weird and obscure things from the histories of these companies. The stuff that didn't work, stuff that kinda worked, and stuff that seemed to work pretty well for a short time before just ending. I'll get into this imprint in the next paragraph. reason #2.) I want to talk about those goofy Bears that Care. It's been too long that I haven't talked about the Care Bears on a nostalgia blog because I loved those guys as a child. I had the stuffed toys. I watched the movie. I've seen The Care Bears Movie 2: The New Generation more times than any human being should. That was my go to movie for years. It is still a fucking masterpiece of cinema. I will probably review it one day. The only reason I haven't done them on The Final Episode is because it's really weird to talk about a Christmas Episode in June. Yeah that and one other show that I will not name ended on a Christmas episode. Weird huh?

Star Comics came along when Marvel realized they didn't have any comics for little children instead of teenagers and big weirdo adults. They  decided to get licenses for tons of stuff. Like a shit ton of stuff hoping that the kids will read them and then grow into reading the older audiences stuff. The licenses were Thundercats, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (both Marvel AND DC had this license wild huh!?) Inhumanoids, Visionaries, Heathcliff, and the new characters were like Spider-Ham, Top Dog and 32 ripoffs of Harvey Comics and you know how I feel about Casper the Friendly Ghost and his stupid asshole friends. Alf was not under the Star Comics imprint weirdly enough. The imprint ended in 1988 BUT several series still kept on under the Marvel name. It wasn't a world shattering thing that stayed for decades but it clearly lasted long enough for me to say it wasn't a failure.

This is the paragraph where I give you some nice information that I mostly stole from Wikipedia and turned into a paragraph. Howard "Howie" Post was born in 1926 and he was into drawing and art from the earliest possible age. He worked at Marvel before they were even known as Marvel, you know the Journey Into Mystery age. I would like to see that art because his goofy comic art in this comic is a lot of fun and I'd like to see him what his horror art looks like. He also worked at gross ass Harvey Comics doing their gross ass comics. I am never reviewing a Harvey comic that isn't the Saved By the Bell one. He created the very popular caveman character of Anthro for D.C. Comics. I have a few issues of that and should check them out. He also created some comic strip called The Dropouts that existed from 1968 to 1981. Apparently took place on a deserted island or something. I dunno. I never even heard of it until now. He went back to work at Marvel AND DC doing stuff like this comic series and the Looney Tunes Magazine. He passed away in 2010 at the age of 83.

The story of Care Bears #1 was called The Plot to Steal Summer and It's a simple story. It starts out with the Care Bears looking at us from the clouds to see if people need any help. I'm just curious though is Care-A-Lot a part of Heaven? These are the questions I ask myself every day. I'm going to say yes because I like thinking that Care-A-Lot is a part of Heaven. Anyway it turns out that the even Glump monster is trying to steal summer by turning it into winter! He's getting Haywood the Hail Hare to make it hail everywhere. He's getting Beezy the Sleazy Freezy Dragon to make it cold and Slush Monkey to get everything all Slushy! The Care Bears won't stand for this kind of hooliganism and well they get the bright idea of having winter related fun! In the summertime! This causes the Glump monster to fire all of his minions and they tell him in nice kid comics way to piss off and go hang out with the Care Bears. It ends with Birthday Bear celebrating a birthday because it's someones birthday out there and guess what it turns out to be Glumps birthday! Everyone is happy! Even the dickhead who tried to ruin summer.

Howie Post was clearly having a lot of fun with the art, the story, the characters, the designs, all of it. It shows through in the story. I'd say check this out even if you have no nostalgia or care for the Care Bears. It's full of silly jokes but kids like silly jokes. I enjoyed re-reading this quite a bit and would enjoy checking out more issues of this and Heathcliff (which Post also did). Best of all I felt this story didn't speak down to children unlike the Masters of the Universe comic I read from Star. That one was not very good but I'm going to save it all for another review

FINAL VERDICT: a fun comic based around one of my favorite old tv shows. I don't know what happens in like 14 of these 18 issues because I only own a few of these. One of them had them fighting the Mad Balls and really is there anything better than a Crossover with the mad balls. Oh and Spider-Man met the Transformers AND Top Dog. I believe Top Dog met Spider-Man and also Heathcliff so these things now take place in the Marvel Universe proper. I'm sorry but I don't make the rules.

The Final Episode #56: Gargoyles (1994 - 1997)

 

We finally go back to the well of the Disney Afternoon. I am surprised I have not covered every single show that was on that and the One Saturday Morning block of shows because they were all a big big big part of my younger years. The Disney Afternoon's origin's start around the mid 1980s when Michael Eisner became CEO of Disney. He got them into TV animation and when they had enough shows to make a two hour block of programming that could be syndicated they did just that. That year was 1990. The shows were The Adventures of the Gummi Bears, Duck Tales, Chip N Dale Rescue Rangers and TaleSpin. They were all great, well I wasn't too keen on TaleSpin as a kid but I've grown to appreciate it. I've grown to appreciate anything half way well made from the past as an adult in this scary shitty bad world of being an adult. It's no fun.

The Disney Afternoon would change shows all the time. Darkwing Duck took out Gummi Bears. Goof Troop took out Chip N Dale Rescue Rangers (or was it Duck Tales? I'm old and I do not remember.) and on and on. The Disney Afternoon ended in August of 1997 JUST in time for One Saturday Morning. The last two shows put on the Disney Afternoon were Quack Pack, an abysmal Donald Duck series that was quite possibly the most 90est thing to exist within that decade. At least the 90est cartoon. It was just not very enjoyable Donald Duck content and I love that guy! and The Mighty Ducks, a show about space ducks who fight Tim Curry and Megabyte from Reboot. It's not as cool as it sounds. I will talk about those shows in more depth and yes it will be a miserable time for everyone involved.

Gargoyles came out in 1994 close to the end of the Disney Afternoon and it was one of the best series in the blocks history. In fact I honestly believe it was the last good Disney Afternoon show. The rest of them were of poor quality to be quite honest. Gargoyles however kicked fucking ass. It was without a doubt one of the best shows Disney ever produced and one of the best shows of the 1990s. It was dark and moody but could also be funny. The characters were all incredibly fun to watch do their thing. The show was an ongoing story really not like say Darkwing Duck which while a great and fun show was just random adventure after random adventure. Stuff from one episode of Gargoyles impacted on other episodes. Even if it were just minor points. You had to see every episode and holy shit I was there. It was something I would not miss. 

I must also talk about how GREAT the voice cast of his series was. I usually don't do this but this show has people worth talking about. Not a single person cares about the cast of Denver the Last Dinosaur, not even me the self proclaimed single fan of Denver the Last Dinosaur. Yes I will review Denver the Last Dinosaur.  The show had like every person who ever appeared on Star Trek the Next Generation. I'm not exactly a huge Trek fan but they really work for every single character they voiced and it's a neat thing to point out. Keith David, the smoothest voice in the history of smooth voices voiced Goliath, the main hero Gargoyle (and his evil clone Thailog... yes). Also Mr. Lou Grant himself, Ed Asner voiced Hudson the old Gargoyle. I love Ed Asner's voice acting so much. It's what I think of him before movies like The Slender Thread or Mary Tyler Moore Show, despite the quality of those things. He was Hudson from this show, J. Jonah Jameson from the 1994 Spider-Man show and Cosgrove from Freakazoid. His deadpan delivery of every line in Freakazoid is hilarious. 

The Final Episode of Gargoyles was apart of the The Goliath Chronicles at least that's what they called it originally. The episodes I watched literally just use the same Gargoyles theme song from the first two series. Season 3 had some different stuff changed. David Xanthos had become a good guy after the Gargoyles had saved his child Alex. Macbeth had given up his grudges against the Gargoyles too. I forget why because It's been a while since I sat down and watched this entire series. They brought in a new gang of bad guys called the Quarrymen who are just Klansmen who hate Gargoyles because they are bigoted. This season does a lot with the concept of peoples bigotry of Gargoyles. Not a bad idea I think. Most people really don't seem to like this season but I like it honestly. I even rewatched the first two episodes of this series and I think it gets too much flak from people because Greg Wiseman wasn't Story Editor anymore.

The Final Episode was "Angels in the Night" which involved the Quarrymen trying to frame the Gargoyles for blowing up a building. A building that the main Quarryman owned. They think the Gargoyles had died except for Angela (Goliath's daughter) and Bronx (the dog Gargoyle). Angela and Bronx are taken into custody because the Gargoyle hating Assistant D.A. was buying the building being destroyed even when you think about it it makes no sense. How the hell would the Gargoyles even create a bomb? Why haven't they done it before? Was there nothing of the cage the Gargoyles stuck in that explosion? It was a pretty fucking big cage? You ever watch something and enjoy it but when you go to talk about it on your dopey little blog and think about it too much you find all of weird stuff that doesn't really work?

Anyway apparently Xanthos? Is that how you spell his last name? I dunno. He has a spy on the Quarrymen team and he had his spy pay the person developing the cage a bit more money to add in a secret passage so that they can replace the actual Gargoyles with fake Gargoyle rubble (I should have mentioned somewhere that the Gargoyles turn to stone at sunlight). The D.A. somehow lets Eliza Maza (a friend of the Gargoyles and the only police officer I trust in this day and age.) come in on the moving the Gargoyles up to Albany (this show takes place in New York!). It sounds at least to me during the dialogue that she thinks Eliza Maza is gonna help the Gargoyles escape and she now doesn't care. Weird character angle I guess.

So they are all going by train and The Quarrymen find out about this stuff  the Gargoyles and the Quarrymen fight. The train gets put into danger because of the main Quarryman guy John Castaway. He and Goliath get into a tussle which he clearly loses because he doesn't even have his fancy Quarryman hammer to fight with. The people in the train see the Gargoyles actually helping them and now believe the Gargoyles are heroes. Yes. All the people of New York were on that train and apparently now love the Gargoyles. I mean Goliath goes on about how now the people support them. Man Cary Bates wrote this episode and I really gotta review something he did that I like. The man was good I promise!

FINAL VERDICT:  I didn't really go into it but Nelvana (yes the Canadian cartoon animation studio I will probably end up talking about some time) put some not great work into this Final season. I did still like the first two episodes of this series and they clearly put some effort into them but I guess by the end of this series they realized they weren't going to be brought back because of One Saturday Morning and just phoned it in. Not the way a show as cool as Gargoyles should go out. I hope my nitpicks sound like they were worth pointing out and not in the YouTube way of "OH I GOTTA NITPICK EVERYTHING" This was a show where they clearly put in a ton of work and even Cary Bates wrote several fun and great episodes for the show. This one just didn't work very well. I promise to Cary who I know is a big fan of my blog that I will review a Captain Atom comic he did with Greg because those were awesome and a lot of fun.

Comic Review #34: DC Pride #1 (2021)

 

Things are pretty lackadaisical around here on Michael's Fun Time Blog Of Otherworldly Delights (I really don't know why I called it this when I have no Otherworldly Delights to show or give to you but anyway). I take days off. I review what I feel like when I feel like it. I don't really put in the best grammar or spelling because well I've never been able to do that. I never learned good grammar and I care very little about it on the internet. Don't mistake this lackadaisical attitude for me not caring about the content of the thing I review or the content of my review. I still want to get my thoughts out pretty well and all that jazz. I don't just want to force this blog into something that it isn't. It's just some fun for me to do and post stuff. I don't want to this to get too serious and make it no fun and ruin the only thing about the internet that doesn't make my asshole swell.

Okay, enough discussion of my asshole because no one wants to think or hear about that. Last Month we got DC Festival of Heroes that took a look at Asian-American and Asian heroes in the DC universe. I have to say that it was a pretty good comic book and I think it was worth a looksee. I think I like DC Pride better. I think my favorite thing about newer comics is how they have a wide variety of art styles. I think it's really neat that every story in this comic has a nice style and they are all way different than each other. So much of 90s and 2000s art felt so samey. It's neat to see so many styles of art. Even when it comes to the variant covers up there. 

I would have to say that I enjoyed most of the stories in this book and like before I will talk about my three favorites. The first one I'm going to talk about is the story about the Green Lantern. You know the original one. The one that your grandpa read comics of. I think the fact they made him gay is pretty interesting honestly. Kinda interesting to see the gay characters that older than most of the heroes. I liked that about the JSA in recent years how they were all older heroes. I hope DC comics comes up with a new JSA series. This story is about the Original Green Lantern going out to meet his son Obsidian and his boyfriend. It also shows us the first guy the Original Green Lantern was in love with. Obsidian and his father have some issues but its revealed that his son IS the reason he came out of the closet and they end with a hug. It's a sweet story and I'm a sap for that kinda thing.

The next story involves the non-binary Flash I think? I think this character is from the recent crossover event called Future State with all kind of characters in the Future. I liked the interaction between this character and the New Mirror Master called Reflex or something. You know like Reflect, like a Mirror. I enjoyed the relationship between them and their girlfriend. I would like to see more of this character. 

The final story I'm going to talk about involves the character of Dreamer who appeared on the DC TV series Supergirl before coming a comic book character. She's transgender and people literally shit their pants over her just existing. I know this woke stuff is just a repackaged version of Political Correctness from the 1990s but people didn't get angry at a character just existing back then right? Of course they did. The world's been a crazy shit show forever. Uh, She's dating Brainiac 5 who I guess lives in the past now. She fights the League of Shadows. You know the guys that work with Ra's Ah Ghul. Anyway she beats the piss out of the main guy and in the end you see her showing up for her date with Brainiac 5 WITH the criminal in cuffs. She says she wanted to get the information out of this one personally. I laughed when you see them in a movie theatre enjoying their date and he's unconscious in another chair.

FINAL VERDICT: I would recommend anyone who enjoys a fun comic book to pick this one up. In one week we will see how Marvel's Pride comic works out! It'll be fun! I hope!

The Final Episode #55: Veronica's Closet (1997 - 2000)

 

One of the best things about being a sad loser who other kids would never hang out with was that you got a lot of free time to watch all the television and movies you can. I can now make references to Veronica's Closet and Rugsuckers From Outer Space. While all of you were enjoying the company of other people I was not enjoying the comedic stylings of Veronica's Closet, but I can easily say that I was there man! I watched Veronica's Closet. If by watched you mean turn this show on for 5 minutes and then go "fucking hell this shit sucks" and then turn on Caroline in the City. Yes I watched Caroline in the City. Are you really surprised? I had all the time in the world to do this stuff and I didn't want to be at school so I would never do any homework and spend as much time as I could spending my time doing things that weren't school. Sorry I'm not in the greatest of moods today and this very poor piece of 90s TV does not help.

Veronica's Closet for the many many people who had better things to do with the precious God given gift of life, was a sitcom starring Kirstie Alley. Kirstie is a actress that I have never not once ever really liked seeing in a movie or television show. I liked the movie Madhouse but that's just because of every one else in the film. It's not because she's a Donald Trump supporting conservative. It's that she's never been good at her job. She is not funny or charming or a good actress. She even brought down the show Cheers. I'm a Shelly Long man, damnit. She's still better than Kirstie Alley. Fuck you if you disagree. This is gonna be an angry review because I'm in a pissy mood and this crap doesn't help. This sitcom took place at a lingerie company called Veronica's Closet. whoopidee shit.

The characters on this show were Josh, a man who for most of the series was heterosexual but GET THIS he liked things that weren't manly and were totally gay!!!! That is pure proof he loves to kiss men and is a man lover and wow what a great joke! This joke was done a bit better in the movie In & Out but both that movie and this show ruin whatever comedy can come from that situation by actually making the characters BE gay. Yes, Josh ends up coming out in the 3rd season and dates some fancy black man (the only black person in a 90s tv show who wasn't a ANGRY BLACK MAN). The joke is completely dead when the character actually is gay and just happens to like stereotypical gay things. Like it's barely a good joke but it's dead when they are actually shown to be gay. There's also Leo and man there are TV series from the 1970s that have better developed black characters than most from the 1990s. Like if it wasn't Family Matters every black person on a sitcom that I've seen as of late was the stereotypical ANGRY BLACK GUY. I'll give this guy that much he's probably the best actor in the show and actually seems to care. Perry uh was a player. Yeah that's it. Oh and Olive was Kathy Najimy so she played a Kathy Najimy character. I actually like that lady but she's so much better in many other things.

The Final Episode of Veronica's Closet was called Veronica Checks Out and appeared in 2000. In the New Millennium when we had just fought off the Y2K bug and all that. I don't care enough to check out the day of this episodes ending. No one cares. It involves Veronica dating Perry and oh man they have problems because shes his boss! Oh man! You could probably make funny stuff out of this situation but they certainly didn't try! I'm really not very hard to please with comedy but I think I laughed twice during the two episodes I watched. That's not very good. Yeah I ended up watching two episodes because this wasn't something I watched back in the day and I watched Caroline in the City AND Suddenly Susan. It wasn't like I had taste at the tender age of 12 but even then I realized Kirstie Alley sucks. She's not a very good actor.

Oh and Kathy Najimy apparently made tons of money, like millions on the internet and quit her job. Now she wants to buy out this lady June's half of the company. Apparently she married a guy named Alec who owned half of the company and was in a relationship with Veronica. He ends up falling into a Volcano (actually it turns out that she pushed him in. Despite in the episode she first appears in not even realizing this guy had money. Also wouldn't he have to change his will within the 2 days they were married. Hey maybe if the cast or the writers had put effort into the jokes I wouldn't be nitpicking them) Kathy Najimy ends up getting her half of the business. Woo.

The Gay Stereotype Man's boyfriend whos name is Bree? or Brie? I don't know. Ask his parents. Bree comes out to his conservative black parents who want to meet him. Only problem is that he's a white man and they are conservative!!! Oh man!!!! They rope THE ANGRY BLACK MAN into going on a date with Bree until Perry or some other shithead does something HE doesn't think is honest, which they then respond "hey aren't you supposed to be on a date with your boyfriend and his parents!" Which causes him to go to the restaurant and woah!!! everything ends up working out for him!!!! WOAH!!!!

It then ends with everyone happily exclaiming something. Perry and Veronica happily exclaim they are dating! Kathy Najimy happily exclaims that she is half owner now! Josh exclaims that he's going to be moving in with his boyfriend and THE ANGRY BLACK MAN exclaims hes going to see some foliage. Yes we liked to see leaves change in the late 90s and early 2000s. If this were any other show I'd be like well that was not a very good joke but since this is a very lazy television show I'm pretty sure this was their way of saying goodbye because this was The Final Episode. I'm honestly amazed that I remember this show because it's about as memorable as The Brady Bunch and I'm sure as hell it hasn't been replayed as much as that show. This show's biggest problem is that it doesn't seem to try enough. I mean one of the characters dies from falling into a volcano. You think they'd go the full way and make a scene where you actually see that. Nope, just volcano. This entire show just feels halfassed, but then you see that Kirstie Alley was a producer and you realize why.

FINAL VERDICT: I think this is the new winner for the worst Final Episode. I didn't think Spider-Man 1967 would ever get dethroned but at least you still got some of those weird trippy visuals you'd see from the third season of this show. This show has nothing. Congrats Kirstie Alley on the bottom spot!

 

The Final Episode #54: The Brady Bunch (1969 - 1974)

 

I like to keep it relatively upbeat and positive on this silly blog and talk about things that I enjoy. The only time I don't do that is when I want to yell at portnoyd, but sometimes you gotta talk about godawful stuff you never liked. Sometimes its because that stuff stuck with you for decades despite not being popular like Monster By Mistake. Sometimes it was because the stuff was ungodly popular and you couldn't understand why that was so like Friends. Even when I talk about something I don't like I still try to be somewhat positive and at least not make fun of people for like it. It's all silly ass entertainment in the end really. Except if your portnoyd he's wrong about everything and is stupid. That big jerk needs to get his ass kicked by a giant donkey or something equally foolish. I wouldn't have to write awful introductions like this if I was reviewing something I did enjoy now would I. Alas we have to talk about The Brady Bunch.

The Brady Bunch was a tv show that ran for what felt like 82 years but in reality was only 5. From 1969 to 1974. One of those shows that ended in one decade and started in another one. I'm sure one thing that could possibly be interesting is to see how the 1960s ended and the 1970s because well the 1970s. Just because it became 1970 didn't mean styles and ideals and stuff changed. It takes a while for any decade to really find its footing really. You can really see this in this final episode because the clothing is pure 1970s. I kinda find that fascinating really. The main plot of The Brady Bunch was a man marries a woman who has 3 daughters and he has 3 sons. It's pretty much taken from the 1968 film Yours, Mine and Ours with Lucille Ball and I believe Henry Fonda as the parents of like at least 18 kids. Oh and they remade it in the 2000s for Nickelodeon and the remake was very bad. I once went through a phase where I watched all those remakes and reboots from the late 90s and 2000s and they were all mostly not great. People bitching at reboots and remakes forget that Hollywood has always been kinda lazy and will with something that was a hit even if they forget what made that thing a hit in the first place.

Here is the paragraph where I talk about the old memories I have of The Brady Bunch. I'm pretty sure every person who is not Amish has seen this television show. I'm even going to go out of my way and say some Amish people have seen some episodes. It had a lot of episodes to rerun because it was made between 1950 and 1974 because every tv series had a ton of episodes then. I watched it on TBS when it became a part of our cable company and it was on at like 6 o clock. Getting up early to watch anything on weekdays was worth it for me for reasons I don't really want to get into let's just say I didn't like school and getting to see anything before school was worth it. I want to say it replaced Sailor Moon or the Mega Man cartoon which are both better pieces of entertainment than this show. I didn't really like this show but I would get up early to watch it anyway. I was weird. My dad made fun of me saying I was in love with Marsha. My dad is weird. He likes to watch music cd informercials just to listen to the songs they play. He's one of a kind.

That and the one episode of The Brady Bunch where Marsha gets hit in the face with a ball of some kind, I do not remember one thing about The Brady Bunch. Does anyone? I seriously think this may be the least memorable sitcom of all time. I never see many people mention any great moments from this series except for Marsha getting smacked in the face with a ball. I don't even remember the ball. Does anyone? I'm seriously asking because I'm sure you can remember moments from every other sitcom you've seen. Like actually funny moments and not someone getting smacked in the face with a ball. I really am baffled because I believe everyone's seen this show but the only thing that ever gets referenced is Marsha getting hit in the face with a ball. I'd like a fan of this show to actually tell me some memorable moments. It's weird because the same guy who made this Gilligan's Island and that is actually at least memorable.

The Final Episode is just as memorable as the rest of the episodes. This episode involves Bobby Brady the youngest boy getting taken by advisements for hair tonic and buying all of it to resell. He gets Cousin Oliver (people seem to hate this kid but he's honestly just about as interesting as the other kids to me) to buy tonic and fails. Cindy Brady also tries to sell rabbits and ALSO tries to con Cousin Oliver into helping her. She also fails because she ended up buying two male rabbits and they can't make any babies. Oh and Greg Brady uses the tonic and his hair turns orange. I wish they made it look worse because it's only kinda awful looking really.

He ends up going to a Beauty Parlor to get it dyed BUT OH NO two ladies from school see him and they might think he's A FRUITY BOTTOM MAN KISSER and Greg the Stud can't have that so he lies and says his mother is bald. He gets his hair dyed and oh Bobby gets the hair tonic accidently on the rabbits so they get to sell them back to the pet store AND sells the hair tonic so the pet store guy can turn the rabbits orange. Yeah that's it. I got more out of Punky Brewster and Webster and they were fucking clip shows. Oh and Mike Brady doesn't show up because Robert Reed thought this episode's plot was cliché and WOAH holy SHIT man you finally figured that out after 5 years and who knows how many episodes!

FINAL VERDICT: This show was really honestly boring as hell. I really did not enjoy it. I will put this higher than the Power Rangers ending, Everybody Loves Raymond, or the Spider-Man 1967 show but not very much higher. I have a movie where Robert Reed, Mike Brady himself plays a obscene phone caller. I didn't know where else to put that information but I believe people need to know that exists. It's called The Secret Night Caller.

Comic Review #33: Sleepwalker #4 (1991)

 

I had a lot of fun talking about Darkhawk #1 a few days ago so I felt it was just natural to discuss my other favorite Marvel guy from the 1990s. Another rather obscure character that I'm sure will be turned into a movie. Speaking of obscure Marvel properties why the hell haven't they milked the hell out of Power Pack? Like that would be a damn hit if they made a cartoon of that. Note to self, review a Power Pack comic. Anyway todays review is of a Sleepwalker comic. So come join me as we talk about some crazy shit. It's always fun!

So here is the paragraph that's usually longer than anything else because I talk about the creators of this fine comic book. First up is the man who co-created Sleepwalker and wrote I believe every issue of his series (all 33!) Mister Bob Budiansky, most famous for his work on the Transformers, both the comic and toy line. Wrote 55 of the 80 issues of the comic and came up with the names for pretty much every Transformer. Except Optimus Prime, that was apparently Denny O' Neil (RIP). I enjoy his stuff as it's wild and weird but still has that realistic touch to it (the relationship stuff between Sleepwalkers host and all that kinda stuff). The second person is the artist of this comic Rick Leonardi. The man's been working on comic books since 1981 with Thor #303. I like his art. He makes Sleepwalker look creepy and weird like the character should. We will get to what you should never make Sleepwalker look like one day. Another note to myself: Review Thor #303 and a Transformers comic.

I'm not actually sure what the full origin of Sleepwalker is. You see I'm lazy when it comes to my blog, very lazy so I didn't read issue #1 I just read issue #4. Apparently every intelligent mind  is connected to this dimension called the Mindscape and that's where Sleepwalker comes from. He gets connected to a guy named Rick Sheridan and whenever he goes to sleep. A nice little blurb you can put on the top of each page near the STAN LEE PRESENTS. Why doesn't Stan Lee Present these comics anymore? Anyway you get a good enough idea about the character from this comic. 

So the character that Sleepwalker fights this week is called BOOKWORM. I picked this comic just for this reason. He gets his powers from a sleeping Rick Sheridan because Rick is connected to the Mindscape more closely than other living beings I guess. He amplified some stuff with his computers and got a electric shock. He gets powers to take heroes and villains out of any book and here's the reason I picked this comic. This reminds me of Meteor Man and I wanted to be the only blog on the internet that still updates to mention that Robert Townsend classic. Meteor Man gets powers to get any information out of a book for 30 seconds. Yeah, so that's about it. Thankfully this is still a fun enough comic that I don't feel like it was a slog to write about. Note to self: Review Meteor Man.

Of course getting his powers he finally decides to go and get revenge over being picked on by Whitney Cooper III (a preppy asshole) and Whitney gets freaked the fuck out when he pulls out some fucking Amazon women out of a book to wreck his shit. It's amazing. I love it. He doesn't get killed because you know the hero of the comic saves him but the ordeal has freaked him out so badly that its all he can talk about. Don't fuck with the Bookworm. Sleepwalker leaves a telephone message (having learned about them from Rick leaving HIM a telephone message) and then he learns about Bookworm always going to the library. Bookworm somehow got a sexy 90s babe to date him and they go to the library. He and Sleepwalker fight for a bit and then The Sexy 90s Babe Whos Name I Forgot trips up Bookworm giving Sleepwalker enough time to capture him. 

FINAL VERDICT: This comic was a lot of fun to read. I enjoyed the weird mix of bronze age comic and more modern stuff. I like Sleepwalker and his design. I haven't read all 33 issues because only random issues of this comic ever showed up at the local stores around here. Same with Darkhawk. and New Warriors (note to self review New Warriors to bother portnoyd) and if I ever get a job at Marvel Comics writing Howard the Duck or something, expect Bookworm to make a return! He hasn't been used since this issue and I think that's a shame honestly. He's a fun goofball villain and you know that I love me some of them.

The Final Episode #53: Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers (1986 - 1987)

 

One of my favorite things about this blog is finally getting to dig into the weird and obscure stuff that doesn't get as much attention as say Transformers. I feel that Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers is an example of a somewhat obscure thing that I've brought to the light of day. Probably not the most obscure seeing as I like to review weirdo religious movies but still. That the best thing about The Final Episode is no matter how obscure or well known the show is it had an ending and I'm able to talk about it. Boy howdy is this a great one. 

Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers is a cartoon series from the 1980s. It has a lot of history behind it actually. The company behind it Gaylord Entertainment Company. It started as a tabernacle all the way back in 1892. A tabernacle is some kind of religious building or something? It became a hotel chain in 1925 and ran by Edward Gaylord. That was back in the day when you could have the name Gaylord and not be made fun of. I don't know why they mention it was a tabernacle first on Wikipedia but I felt like I had to mention it. It became the home for the Grand Ole Opry for like 30 years! Who doesn't love the Grand Ole Opry??? It went from hotel chains to making entertainment for people because they wanted more money. That's pretty much the whole reason. One of the things they made was this show.

Tokyo Media Shinsha did the animation and I think it's time for me to discuss them because holy hell did they do a lot of animation work. The Name clearly shows that they were a part of GLORIOUS NIPPON! They started all the way back in 1946, must have been one of the first anime companies ever. They did Lupin the 3rd and Detective Conan and one of the Golgo 13 movies. Those are the only animes they've done that I've heard of. For American audiences they worked on Inspector Gadget, Batman: The Animated Series, Spider-Man: The Animated Series, The Real Ghostbusters, Tiny Toon Adventures, Animaniacs, and a bunch of others. You totally saw TMS animate something as a kid. They were bought up by the Sega Sammy Corporation. You know Sega games and AMERICAN SAMMY (my favorite name for a video game company ever!) Yeah they own them now. Everyone owns everyone else even all over the world. It's sad.

So what is The Adventures of Galaxy Rangers even about you ask? Well my dear sweet inquisitive person I just made up! This show is about two aliens coming to earth to ask for our help. They give us blueprints for the hyperdrive and we go out and live in space. We need a space police force of sorts so they get the Galaxy Rangers and they give them horses like its a western because the horse would be an extra toy for your parents to buy. Yes this had a toy line too. Yes I do think the people who made these cartoons still put effort into them but they clearly were only made for the toy lines. It can be both people who rag on 80s cartoons while masturbating feverously to some terrible shit like Adventure Time. I will never get the popularity of that show. The big bad of the show was the Queen of the Crown who well wanted to take over the universe. I'm guessing they fought other bad guys too but this is the first episode of the show I've seen. Yeah, I was lazy so I didn't watch more than one. 

The Final Episode is well a pretty big doozy. It's not like they finally stop the Queen of the Crown because it wasn't one of the 80s cartoons that got a definite ending. I can't even think of one that had a definite ending right now. Some just ended on cliffhangers like The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin. This is a better episode than that because this is action packed and ridiculous. It makes sense that this was animated by an anime company because holy hell this series finale is buck wild. It starts with one of the Galaxy Rangers named "Doc" who is well the guy whos good with mechanics and stuff I think. He wants the people of this planet that's based around medieval stuff to awaken the HEART OF TARKAN but the King's advisor doesn't want this because well he's the secret bad guy of the episode duh. They have to wake up the HEART OF TARKAN so that they wont be destroyed by the Queen of the Crown.

He finally gets the King to agree to at least put on the All Seeing Eye (for people who apparently hate machines they are using these things that uh pretty machine like) and he sees that TARKAN will be destroyed if they open up the HEART. He then joins the Galaxy Ranger and his daughter against the Kings Advisor and a bunch of pissed off people. They escape via cool airship. Not as cool as Teddy Ruxpin's airship but that's a hard bar to press. Despite the fact they are in stormy weather. They need Doc to help fix some shit on the airship. There's a second airship ran by the King's Advisor who jumps out on a damn wind ski thing and so does Doc. They end up fighting and then a LIGHTING BOLT hits the Kings Advisor and he turns into Scarecrow! I love this crazy fuckers design. I think they fought before but I can't be sure on that but man this Scarecrow would have probably scared the shit out of me. 

Doc stops him and then cuts into the Airships balloon and they make it to the HEART OF TARKAN. The Heart turns out to be a big machine. There's a hologram and it tells them they need a lifeforce to keep living. The Shaman ends up giving up his lifeforce to the machine and becomes the Hologram. Scarecrow is back and is talking about his ancient foes of Tarkan. So I guess Tarkan was in more than just this episode and after he fights Doc and the others the Shaman gets sick of his shit and BLOWS THE MOTHER FUCKER UP. Holy shit. I would have watched this cartoon daily if they had shown it on YTV. I would have made sure this show was on the air until 2020. They save Tarkan and the King gets everyone to agree to be okay with machines. They agree and everyone is happy.

FINAL VERDICT: This episode was pretty wild. Like absolutely nuts. I don't think the plots perfect or anything because these Tarkans have technology and someone does mention alien technology is what they hate but thats like once and that technology is clearly not the All Seeing Eye or the HEART OF TARKAN. I think this could have used a second part to fix up some stuff. I dunno. I was entertained and it was pretty fun. I say check it out.

Comic Review #32: Darkhawk #1 (1991)

 

A tip to any collectors who also want to read these things and don't have enough money. Do not, I repeat DO NOT spend the insane amount of money people want for this #1 First Appearance right now. This is not Thanos or the Fantastic Four where you won't find a copy of it. No this is a comic book that sold well enough that you'd be able to find tons upon tons of issues of it in 25 cent to 1 dollar bins. I don't know how or why it went up in price. Probably someone speculating that they are going to be in a Marvel Cinematic Universe movie that I'm growing to kinda hate more and more. Seriously keep looking long enough and you'll find this comic. It's a pretty good comic that I enjoy quite a bit but is it in no way worth $300 bucks which it goes for in NM condition I guess. The second he gets put in a Marvel Movie (and trust me if the Eternals can get a Marvel Movie, Darkhawk can too. No hero is obscure enough anymore. Also expect Howard the Duck to get him self a new tv series or movie. Even if the one from the 1980s probably will end up having more charm to it. Once you realize that most of the Marvel movies are very similar you kinda get bored of them. The comics are better than the movies and I will fight anyone who says differently.

I'm also going to fight portnoyd because this comic was a lot of fun to read. I really had a great time but I'll get that into the review. First up is a bit of history about the writer or artist. I think I'm gonna go wit the artist this time. Mike Manley doesn't seem to be anyone's favorite artist from the 1990s but honestly I like him. He's got a good style. It's just not as flashy in a good way (like say Jim Lee) or flashy in a bad horrible ugly awful way (Rob Liefeld) so he kinda got lost in the fervor of the 1990s. I think his art is good and I like it.  He worked on  Batman, Superman, The Phantom and even a Aliens Vs. Predator comic. He also co-created the character we are going to talking about today.

I mostly picked this comic despite what portnoyd said because I realized I have not talked about a first appearance or a first issue. I might say this character is a bit more 1990s than I remember but this is a story and character created by talented people who knew how to create characters like Tom DeFalco and Danny Fingeroth and Mike Manley who created a likeable character and a neat costume. On the other hand Jim Lee and Rob Liefeld pretty much created bad ripoffs of Marvel Characters. Youngblood and W.I.L.D.Cats are bad and I refuse to ever read them. They can suck my taint something fierce. So It's not that I dislike 1990s excess in comic books I just dislike when it's bad. Like Youngblood. Portnoyd likes Youngblood and has read every issue.

So what was this comic book about then Clawzy! Well thank you for asking person I made up! I will tell you all about Darkhawk #1. It starts with the Hobgoblin who at this point was the Jason Macendale Hobgoblin (who was cooler when he was the original Jack O Lantern). The people who wrote him tried so many things. To give him demon powers in the X-Men crossover Inferno. To give him a cybernetic  eye. To having him fight other heroes all the time. They just never made him as cool as the original Hobgoblin even if I do have a nostalgic love for some of those issues Demon Hobgoblin issues. The Second Hobgoblin wants this powerful item that he's been told exists somewhere in New York. He is working with Phillipe Bazin, a crime lord to find this item. 

Phillipe Bazin is trying to buy off the mother of our soon to be new superhero who is a District Attorney but she won't budge period! She's not that kinda lady, Bazin! You fuck! Then we go to Chris Powell and he talks about Wonderland a theme park that's going to be torn down (If you guess that's where the super powered item the Hobgoblin and Bazin want then you'd be right! Congratulations! Have fun and do a happy dance!  Chris has two brothers Jason and Jon. They are twins and like 11 years old. They really want to go see Wonderland before it gets torn down. Oh and their dad is a cop who doesn't want to be a cop anymore. Totally broken down about crime and all that stuff and yes if you guess he's going to take Phillipe Bazin's money then have a second happy dance for being right! Except if you portnoyd. No dancing for him. The jerk.

So Chris is babysitting and his cool early 90s friends come and take him out to the milkshake shoppe. He says he will only be 15 minutes but is an hour and when he gets back he gets a earfull from his mother. He goes to Wonderland to look for them and meets some hobo. The hobo tells him where they are and he and his brothers end up finding their dad taking money from Bazin! Not a good sight! There's a fight and Chris and his brothers get away. Chris finds an amulet that is the POWERFUL ITEM OF DOOM and uses it and becomes THE DARKHAWK. Or in a joke I found amusing was when Chris quickly thinking of a name to call himself calls him the really lame name of Edge-Man because Chris mentioned how he wanted to help his dad fight crime but needed an edge. He fights off 3 goons and one of them while trying to kill Chris kills himself and all thats left is a damn skeleton. Don't play around with electricity people it's not cool! Chris goes back to his dad who leaves them! We get a scene of the family where the two twins fight over one of them calling their dad a crook. Chris goes back to Wonderland to find it all destroyed, his hope to find anything about the amulet destroyed. THE MYSTERIOUS HOBO mentions the name he will take on DARKHAWK.

FINAL VERDICT: Yeah it's a little silly and you can easily tell what's gonna happen but I found a bunch of Darkhawk comics in a dollar bin at one point and had fun with them. It's not the best first appearance or a origin ever but it still keeps me intrigued enough to see what happens to Chris Powell and his family. Whats up with the amulet and all that stuff. I've pretty much forgotten those comics so re-reading them will be a treat. I will re-read an issue and review it every time Portnoyd is a really big shithead instead of a regular shithead so expect a new review every now and then.

The Final Episode #52: Punky Brewster (1984 - 1988)

 

I know that I write about a lot of sitcoms and cartoons as Final Episodes but this is really an column of sorts that really started because I just thought it would be neat to showcase the Final Episodes of TV shows I watched as a kid. It grew into something a bit different but I still go back to stuff I did watch. So I talk about a lot of sitcoms and cartoons because I watched sitcoms and cartoons. I wasn't the weird kid watching Star Trek or Hill Street Blues behind his parents back or something. No I watched Punky Brewster like a good little boy/not nerd. I wouldn't be come a nerd until it wasn't fashionable to still enjoy this stuff and become a boring adult whos only fun he gets is from getting black out drunk. It's easier to be a nerd than that on your liver. Of course you have to deal with other nerds so that's not so easy on your brain. What I'm saying is you gotta deal with shit no matter who you are sometimes. Uh where was I? Oh yeah Punky Brewster.

I still enjoy reviewing the Final Episodes of cartoons and sitcoms because you never know what you are gonna get. In the realm of sitcoms it seems to be one of four things: A wedding, A baby, Moving out of the family home/beloved area the show took place or A clip show. Punky Brewster actually combines two of these things for its Final Episode which I will get into when I go over the history and the overall plot of the show like I usually do so keep on reading to find out what the hell I'm babbling on about (I promise you this time you will find out) 

Punky Brewster had a weird premise honestly. It was about a little girl around 10 years old who was abandoned by her mother in a Chicago department store. She would find a vacant apartment to live in with her dog Brandon before being found out by Henry played by George Gaynes. George is probably most famous for playing Commandant Lassard in Police Academy, Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment, Police Academy 3: Back in Training, Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol, Police Academy 5: Assignment Miami Beach, Police Academy 6: City Under Seige, and Police Academy: Mission to Moscow (yes they finally got rid of the sequel numbers at part 7). He did not show up for the animated series (I don't think anyone did) or the live action show (Michael Winslow did though bless his heart).

Henry and Punky become close and Henry becomes her foster father and then adopts her sometime in season two I believe. Punky becomes friends with Cherie and all kinds of other kids in the apartment building. They go on your usual shinanagians that sitcom kids get up too. This show also talked about some serious shit and got dark. Cherie gets stuck in a damn refrigerator.  I must also comment on how they had a cartoon spinoff by Ruby-Spears called It's Punky Brewster that ran for one season of about 12 episodes on Saturday Morning. She befriended an alien or some mystical creature and that's all I know about it. It sounds fucking wild. Oh and this show had TK Carter AND Eddie Deezen in it (although Deezen leaves after a few episodes in season one) and ANY thing that has those two in it is worth while.

So what were my memories of Punky Brewster, well for one my kid sister loved the show so much that she called this dog toy she got Brandon. She still has that toy 25 or so years later. Pretty wild I think. I wish I didn't tear the shit out of my toys. Anyway Punky Brewster to the best of my memory would come on one of the SPECIAL channels. You know the channels that would stay scrambled until you paid for them. I believe one was a movie channel, one was The Family Channel which was Disney Channel Canada Style (this channel would show Duck Tales so it was cool too) and I believe TBS was the channel that showed Punky Brewster. This would make sense as the Family Channel and TBS would become a part of our cable package after enough time. We went from 20 channels to I think around 40. It was wild the day waking up to find that out. Anyway Punky Brewster wasn't something I sought out but of all the shows I had to watch with my sister this one was fine. It was charming and funny and I had already seen every Police Academy movie (don't worry I will not repeat the list) so I liked seeing Commandant Lassard be a nice old man instead of a goof. I also desperately wanted a dog as a child so getting to see Brandon in just about every episode was always great. Brandon got himself into like 8,000 costumes it seemed.

So I think I should start by mentioning this according to Cherie Johnson (who played Punky Brewster's best friend Cherie and would also play Laura Winslow's best friend Maxine in Family Matters) this wasn't intended to be the Final Episode because of the 1988 Writers Striker. I don't know if that means they were planning to renew this show for Season 5 and the Strike messed things up or if they just had to hurriedly come up with something for the Final Episode. Now I know what you are thinking: Oh yay a new CLIP SHOW Final Episode. I love hearing Michael complain about old clip show episodes. It's a great time for everyone anywhere! Thing is this clip show episode is weird because it's also a wedding episode. 

Yes that's right, at least this clip show episode was something more than the cast talking in a room about old memories of old episodes so that they could show clips and call this a new episode. They actually give this one a plot. So you are asking yourself Is Henry getting maried? Nope. Now you are all weirded out because there's not many other choices of who can get married. This doesn't take place in Alabama so they can't have child brides so who gets married!? If you guess Brandon the dog than yes. You are correct! Brandon gets married! To Brenda! I liked the bit when Henry thinks Brenda is Brandon and sees two Golden Retrievers and makes some silly joke about having Double Vision. The comedy in Punky Brewster is very silly but still feels kinda natural. 

This might be my second favorite clip show after Webster because well there's still stuff to talk about. This entire episode has so many dogs in it so if you love canines you will love this episode. After watching it you will probably get depressed because you realize that all of those canines and several members of the cast have all gone on to Heaven (remember All Dogs go to Heaven told us that well all dogs go to heaven and I'm sure George Gaynes went to heaven too becuase God wanted another Police Academy movie I guess?) I also enjoyed seeing Cherie's grandma or aunt or whatever she was crying over the wedding. I enjoyed the interaction between her and Gaynes. Still there's not that much to talk about because it's also a wedding episode and they didn't really have enough time to do anything new with the wedding stuff because of the Writers Strike. Still they made a better clip show than fucking Spider-Man 1967 did that's for sure.

FINAL VERDICT: Maybe I'm not being completely fair because it is a clip show and I can't say I'm in love with them but seeing the clips of Brandon acting like a silly dog were fun. I like silly dog clips. It's like this episode was Youtube before Youtube! This episode also has a Care Bear cookie jar in it and if that doesn't mean it gets a passing grade than I don't know what does!

Comic Review #31: Marville #1 (2002)

 

This comic has a weird history behind it. Everyone I've ever seen mention it has mentioned it's the worst comic book Marvel put out in its 82 year history. Hell some consider it the worst comic book period. I've never seen a positive or respectful word to be said about this comic ever on the internet. Not a single person has ever praised this book. I honestly was scared because well comic book fans are a picky lot and never agree on anything but if they can agree on this then hoo boy it must be bad bad bad. I decided that today will be the time I delve into the first issue (I had planned to write about the entire thing but the first issue was so bad that I felt I could get enough out of just that so here we are) 

I guess we do the usual thing we do in these reviews and talk about the creator of the comic. Bill Jemas was the president of Marvel Comics and it seemed he didn't very much like comic books. He didn't like continuity and thought it clogged up stories and made it impossible for newbies (I don't fully disagree here but I also like the fact that Marvel Comics has this weird ongoing narrative that hasn't been stopped since forever) and actively insulting the fans of the stuff. I know Comicsgate thinks someone telling you to fuck off after you call them a piece of shit or a (insert bigoted slur here) is insulting the fans but those guys are just Twitter Culture War Morons and not actual fans of comic books. Anyway enough about those turds and more about Bill Jemas. Bill ended up getting into a fight with Peter David over his Captain Marvel series and said that it needed to be more engaging to newer fans so he put up a bet to see who could get the most new fans and well let's say the man with actual talent won which as you can see wasn't Bill Jemas.

I gotta start with the opening page and I will post an image from this because I have too to get my point across. In the second paragraph of this opening page if you can't see, Bill Jemas takes a pretty shitty and nasty hit at Paul Levitz of DC Comics. Yeah I know port will be like LOL THEY STINK but I think even port can realize that there's a huge difference between a silly jab and being like LOL UR BAD AT UR JOB EVEN THOUGH WERE THE COMPANY WHO WENT BANKRUPT! Saying he wants to keep his company obscure as possible even though it owns Superman and Batman. And are owned by AOL at this point. Yes, Bill Jemas loves himself some AOL jokes. He makes 14,000 in the first fucking issue. None of them are good. Not a single joke in this comic is good. I'll get into that shit later. Ted Turner and Jane Fonda are also mentioned somehow they are KalAOL's parents. 

The comics actual story opens up in 5002 A.D. with someone saying they finally brought Marvel out of bankruptcy from Ron Perelman. I know Bill didn't know about the MCU in 2002 but did he really think it would take 3000 years to take them to get out of debt? I know this is a big hyperbolic statement but it's not very well done. Shit who knows if we even have comic books in the year 5002 we will probably be able to become super heroes in weird Star Trek fantasy chambers that bring fantasies to life (I don't know what they are called and I'm too lazy to look them up). Hell I even doubt Humanity will even be around in 3000 years. I'm very negative. Anyway I just don't feel the joke works and it is sure as hell dated because who other than sad weirdos like me even know who the hell Ron Perelman was?

Oh yeah this is yet another parody of Superman's backstory. 5002 A.D. is being destroyed by meteors or some shit. A meteor hits Marvel Comics right after the person says the company is finally out of debt. Hilarious. Great. So Ted Turner and Jane Fonda, I don't know if this is supposed to be the real Ted Turner and Jane Fonda or some kind of ancestor because my brain is trying to purge everything about this comic book out of my mind so that I can breathe easier and enjoy life again. They have a son called KalAOL. You know like Kal-El. Despite the fact no one else has a Kryptonian name except him. No Ted-Varr or Jane-Fon or whatever. It feels pretty lazy to me. Also apparently Ted Turner bought Earth and then gave it to AOL. Yes, Bill Jemas loves jokes that age like wine. Oh sorry I meant milk. Get used to seeing AOL in this review because it will keep coming up. Get it AOL was big in 2002. Comedy gold!

So they can't send him to Earth because they are on Earth except its called AOLrth or some shit. So they send him back to 2002. He gets sent there and then after that they send AOLstro the dog. Who is an old dog and does nothing. He finds out that he can freeze time and wants to become a superhero. He meets some lady and tries to make her his sidekick. She doesn't even believe he has a super power. Hilarious. They also mention how he has a convoluted silly backstory DC comics backstory. Yeah there's not a single Marvel character that has a weird silly or convoluted backstory. Bill Jemas is a dipshit and I think I may hate him. They end up meeting a bank robber and KalAOL thinks the Dog will die and I think it's some kind of reference to Spider-Man oh and each time the dog knocks out the bank robber a cop comes up and gives him money. One sack of that money was from a bank which I don't think the cop can give away. The issue ends with KalAOL wanting to be a Marvel Superhero and then his parents send him underwear. Yeah apparently they messed up and the world actually wasn't ending. Great.

FINAL VERDICT: I do not want to review the next 6 issues of this series. I really really REALLY do not want to do that, but I am because I have to know how awful this series get. I just have to see how bad this shit goes. This story is not well thought out and goes on several boring tangents that I didn't want to talk about and is incredibly not funny in 2021 and I doubt it was funny 19 years ago. This definitely takes the spot of New Guardians #2 as my least favorite comic I review for this blog. Please do not read this. Ever. Yes, port Deadpool is funnier than this.

The Final Episode #51: MacGuyver (1985 - 1992)

 

Well it's 3 Final Episodes in a row! You know me I kinda like to talk about other things to keep the blog fresh and there's other things I enjoy other than Final Episodes of television shows from the past, but I'm doing this for two reasons. I really really REALLY do not want to talk about the Marvel Comic I have planned for the next Comic Review seeing as every single person I've ever seen say anything about it have said it's the worst comic book Marvel ever published and that you know scares a person. The other reason is well Portnoyd a jerklord I argue with over the internet was probably right about one thing: I should watch at least more than one episode of a tv show I haven't seen before to get a good idea of what the show was like overall, and that's a good idea to be completely fair because I would have probably written MacGyver off if I had only seen the Final Episode, but we will get to that when we can.

MacGyver for those who know nothing about it was an action-adventure show that ran from September 29th, 1985 to May 21st, 1992. It starred Richard Dean Anderson as MacGyver who would solve mysteries and problems for people in mostly non-violent means. He probably gets captured in most episodes but always escapes from these traps. What I'm saying is that MacGyver is Batman without the suit. And less punching. It was created by Lee David Zlotoff (what a cool name) who worked on other shows such as Hill Street Blues and Remington Steele  One other name that worked on the show was Henry Winkler! That's right the damn Fonz worked as executive producer!

So this is where I usually regal you with memories of the show from my youth. Tell you how I loved or liked or hated it. Something even a really dumb boring story but the best I can do is this. I thought MacGyver was a made up show for the Simpsons. I thought Richard Dean Anderson was made up. I had never seen the show when it was on and if I did it was so brief that I didn't remember it from the seventy thousand mentions it got on the Simpsons due to Patty and Selma loving MacGyver and wanting to kiss Richard Dean Anderson. It was a pretty good running joke. Oh and since this is the internet and I mentioned The Simpsons I'm contractually obligated to mention how the show hasn't been good in two decades even though I have no idea how good an episode of the Simpsons even is these days. It was pretty bad the last time I watched it though.

I figure I should talk about the first of two episodes of MacGyver I watched. It was called "A Lesson of Evil" and was first shown on October 29th, 1990. Had I known I would be mentioning Halloween I would probably have waited till October till I watched this. Still It was a really great episode in which Mac goes up with the crazy Dr. Zito. He only shows up in two episodes and you'll wish he had shown up more because W. Morgan Stewart is a great actor and is clearly having a great time playing this guy. It's rated one of the best episodes of this show and I don't see how any episode can beat this one! I've only seen two and I already know what the best episode is! It's got a bunch of Halloween stuff in the episode too. It's a really well done fun episode that made me want to see more.

Sadly, as I've mentioned earlier in this article I was not a fan of the Final Episode of MacGyver entitled "Mountain of Youth". After the pretty serious episode we get this weird pseudo fantasy episode that was honestly pretty boring. I guess watching whats rated one of the best episodes wasn't the best idea in the end. Probably should have picked an episode rated #32 instead. I dunno if I'd have liked this episode anyway because it feels so hokey and not very fun. It starts with Mac landing from jumping off a plane. He throws away his parachute and then some guy comes up. At first I thought this was Stacy Keach and was instantly going to put this on my top 10 Final Episodes. I love Stacy Keach THAT much. That man could make ANYTHING better. Not many actors can do that but Stacy is one of them. Sadly this guy was not Stacy Keach but Bruce McGill. He's a fine actor but he's no Stacy. 

Mac and Not Stacy Keach have an argument. Mac is here to bring him back because Not Stacy Keach is a con-man of sorts I guess? Give me a break I've only seen two episodes of this show. Not Stacy Keach is there just because he wants to get the fancy youth water from a place I will call Very Stereotypical Asian Land. This guy wants the youth water that shows up. You've seen an episode of something that involves water that will make you young. It's pretty done to death by 1992. You've also seen something with this Stereotypical Asian Land before. Nothing new is really done with any of these ideas and we just get some blah stuff.

Mac, Not Stacy Keach and some lady find themselves captured by the EVIL ARMY that somehow hasn't taken over the Stereotypical Asian Land for like 200 years but they decieded to do that now because they want to create a hydrogen bomb with the magic water because they are EVIL and want to kill the world or some shit. Of course they save the day and find proof of the hydrogen bomb to give the UN and even blow up the pump. Not Stacy Keach decides to be a good guy and drop the water he has for a sample he was going to give to a company (and for only like 200 grand if I recall correctly, not only is Not Stacy Keach kind of a dickhead but he's bad with money. Magic water that turns you young SHOULD GET MORE THAN 200 GRAND! JESUS!). It ends on a freeze frame of Mac being happy. This Final Episode is dumb and I wish I had talked about that Marvel Comic instead.

FINAL VERDICT: I think you should check out the episode A Lesson of Evil because it was a lot of fun to watch. I think MacGyver is probably a fun show that just had a last episode that just feels out of place. I don't know. Did fantascial stuff show up in this show more often, you know like the magic water? Also I don't think I'm going to like this Not Stacy Keach character either. Anyway this episode sadly ends near the end of Final Episodes. I do believe that Portnoyd was a fan of this show because he mentioned that he liked it when he complained about the MacGyver reboot was bad. So I guess it's up to port to talk about some stuff to do with MacGyver. Oh and on the website where people rate tv shows rate this episode at #42 out of 139. That feels way too high for this episode. I bet port loves this episode.

The Final Episode #50: Family Matters (1989 - 1998)

 

Well It's been a long time coming, I'm surprised this show was not one of the first ten I ever did. I'm surprised it wasn't in the first twenty, but at a point I had to put it out at a special anniversary number of sorts. I couldn't let Family Matters just be #38. No way man! The Urk-man deserves better than that! So I waited and waited until the day came when we got to an anniversary # like in the comic books. I felt 50 posts about Final Episodes of tv shows was a good time to finally do a show that was clearly one of my top super favorites as a child. Like a show that I would have been sad if I missed, so I knew I had to go with Family Matters. And here we are! I hope this is at least not complete shit because the Urk-Man deserves better. Anyway time for some history that I like to talk about in these things

I can't really go over the history of TGIF because I went over it in the Full House article so let's discuss Boyette-Miller or originally known as Boyette-Milkis, then it became Boyette-Miller-Warren Productions. They were famous for making a ton of famous television sitcoms of the 1970s to the 1980s. Happy Days, Laverne and Shirley, Mork and Mindy, Perfect Strangers, Bosom Buddies, Full House and Family Matters to just name a few. They lasted till 1999 but apparently came back in 2015 but I haven't seen any of these new shows they made. The last show of theirs I watched was Two of a Kind and that wasn't a very good television show and I don't think it even lasted a season.

Family Matters started in 1989 and was your typical family sitcom. It was pretty much Full House except it had black people and not as many cast members (seriously Full House must have had like 500 people on the cast) it was fine but one episode had a special guest that was so popular he pretty much took the show and made it his own. Yeah they would have family problems and stuff but there was an insane amount of Urkel and more and more Urkel each year. If sometime in the future alien beings find our planet after humanity has died I will tell them this the 1990s were time for two things: Jaleel White as Urkel and Klax. Urkel was that popular. He was even mentioned on other tv shows complaining about how annoying he is. I'll say this right here and now. Urkel is far far far far FAR from the most annoying character on a tv show. I still think he's funny as hell honestly. I'd rather watch Urkel than Sheldon Cooper or Ross Geller from Friends. That's for fucking sure.

But yes the show went from a family sitcom about issues a family would have to The Wacky Adventures of Urkel starring The Winslow Family. Here are some of the things Urkel ended up doing: traveling through time, creating a robot version of himself called RoboUrkel, creating a machine that turned himself into different characters. Like a smooth suave version of himself called Stefan Urqelle. Fought a evil puppet version of himself and also an evil Carl Winslow puppet. Played basketball with a crossdressing person named Grandmama who I think turned out to be a NBA player. Was on American Gladiators. These are the things I remember. I also think he got shrunk to the size of an ant. It was pretty great. I loved it.

The Final Episode of Family Matters actually did not appear on TGIF, I know right? The ninth season of this goofy show was on CBS. It and Step by Step ended on the CBS Block Party. Alongside shows like Meego and the Gregory Hines Show (both of these didn't even last a season and I still feel its sad that Gregory Hines didn't get as popular as he should have. The man was a serious talent and I always enjoyed seeing him pop up in things.) I don't know anything about those two shows and I watched the final seasons of Family Matters and Step by Step. Let's hope that one day I'll be able to enjoy Bronson Pinchot as an alien.

Lost in Space Part 1 and Part 2. Yes another two parter. I think the two parters make for the best series endings. I think every show should get a two or more parter for a finale. They give everyone enough time to breathe and tell a story. Even a silly story for a Family Matters episode. As you can tell from the title Urkel finally goes to space! It was pretty much the last place that crazy son of a gun could go to though. The only other thing I could think of is him finding a city of mole people but honestly he probably did that in Season 4 and I somehow forgot. Anyway this episode starts with an astronaut called Buzz Conrad who walked on the moon. I assume he's this version of Buzz Aldrin. I hope he also punches conspiracy theorists in the face. Those people are very very very very very stupid and I hate them. Unless the conspiracies involve aliens or bigfoot. Those are the only good conspiracies.

NASA or some space organization wants to use the gravity creator thing Urkel has created. I dunno what they called it in the episode but it will create gravity in gravity-less situations. He has to go off to help them make a bigger and better version of it that will work in space ships. He and Laura are actually planning to get married but they put it off so that Urkel can go do this. Yes Laura is going to become Laura Urkel, WILD! Meanwhile in the B-plot which is usually where the family stuff went because every child wanted the hilarity and zany A-plot to be Urkel. Eddie is becoming a cop. I find this interesting because Family Matters did many stories about racism in the police force. Well two but still for a show like this that's a lot. I think they actually were able to do a serious story and a goofy Urkel story and make it work. That takes talent. The only problem with this B-Plot is that it involves the New Harriet.

I don't want to trash this lady I'm sure she's a great and nice person, but she was terrible as Harriet Winslow for the last season (or was it the last two seasons?) This lady did not work with the cast as well as the original. It  was a choice that I could not get behind then and I still don't like it now, but then again how many changes in a character were actually any good? Can you name any? I can't. I also gotta mention this here that Family Matters and Happy Days were both done by the same production company AND they both had a character that went missing. Pretty wild. Chuck left after season one and Judy left after I want to say season four. Weird how that works out. I actually can't think of many other examples of that happening right now but I'm sure it has.

Anyway the B-Plot is New Harriet is worried about Eddie being a cop because of a story Carl tells him of when he got shot. She gets the Police Comminisher's wife (who makes this joke about one of her sons being the lead fork in Beauty and the Beast and she doesn't seem too proud of that. I wouldn't either. Lead fork? Fucking lame bro. At least try for Beauty or the Beast. Or Gaston. Or hell even the french candlestick or the clock. No one liked the damn forks in Beauty and the Beast) The Police Comminisher makes Eddie a Meter Maid. Eddie is not happy. He actually ends up in a shoot out with a criminal and this makes Harriet realize that it will be hard for her to accept that Eddie is a cop but she must and ends up doing so. It's actually very well done.

Back to the Urkel stuff, which I know is the reason you are all here for. Urkel ends up in Space like the episodes promise. His Anti Gravity thing seems to be working until its found out to be too popular which causes a satellite to come crashing down on the space ship. I'm usually a lazy asshole but you HAVE to see the effects for this stuff. It's amazing. It looks like a fucking PS1 game. I love it:

Look at that! Look at it! It's the most beautiful damn thing you'll ever see in this entire damn world and if you disagree about that fact then you can literally get fucked. I don't like getting too mean on this blog but that's the only thing I can think of to say. It's too beautiful. Anyway Urkel causes the ship to get knocked off its course and it spins all over the place. Which means that's where part one ends. Part two starts up with the other two pliots knocking each other out and Urkel having to put the ship back on its course. He actually does this with the help of Mission Control or Houston I guess. He then messes up by turning the Gravity thing on and knocking out the pilots AGAIN. One ends up with a broken arm and the other has to fly the ship. It's up the Urkel to go out in Space and get the satellite off the space ship. 

Urkel actually gets the satellite off the Space ship but he forgot to tether himself to the ship so he's going off into space with the satellite. However me fiddles around with the satellite and causes it to move back to the Space ship. It's actually kinda tense even though you know they wouldn't kill Urkel off in the last episode of this family sitcom. It then ends with Urkel going back home and kissing Laura and Carl tells him how he's proud that he's going to be his Son in Law and even calls him Son. It's a very sweet moment. I liked it.

FINAL VERDICT: I definitely enjoyed this episode quite a bit. It had some good laughs, some fun sappy moments (I love sappy wholesome shit the older I get for some reason), a fun A plot and a more serious B plot that actually meshed well together. I really think that if you enjoyed Family Matters you'll enjoy watching Urkel's last hurrah..