Comic Review #69: Quasar #17 (1990)

 

Alright! It's time to get back into reviewing Comics! The last one was in October! That's like two whole weeks ago! I picked this series because I was reminded of this issue and I remember it being a neat little story so I wanted to give it a re-read. It also requires a bit of backstory so when I describe that backstory I get to make it look like I put more effort into these things then I actually do. I usually just vomit words onto the computer screen but this time I get to vomit even more words on the screen making people go "Wow this guy really has a lot to say about this comic book" which is sorta sometimes true but it's mostly me being the wordiest bitch in the history of talking. See just explaining that took an entire paragraph. 

Anyway you might be asking yourself "Well, how did I get here?" and after I get slapped for making that terrible joke I will tell you about the story of Quasar. It goes back many many decades. You see his story kinda goes back to 1940s Marvel. There was a character named Marvel Boy. Then Roy Thomas a man who loved the 1940s more than humanly possible decides to bring him back for a story in the 1970s. Sorta, he gets a new name and I think he turns out to be a robot or something. I haven't re-read that story in a long time. Anyway this guy had Quantum Bands and when he was disintegrated (this is a cool word and should be used more) S.H.I.E.L.D. takes over. This is where Wendell Vaughn comes in. He has to put on the Quantum Bands to fight A.I.M. He stays around as a S.H.I.E.L.D agent for a little while in Captain America comics. 

Showing up in another hero's comic is pretty much his thing until 1989 when Marvel Comics puts out his own comic. Mark Gruenwald was the writer of all 60 issues. This series had all kinds of artists on it, our pal Mike Manley from Darkhawk comics comes in again. So you might be asking yourself what is the plot of this issue huh? Well it's like those old DC comics where Flash and Superman would race to see who was the fastest in that universe (in my mind it should be the Flash who always wins those races because he SHOULD be the fastest man in the universe). This story starts right where the last issue ended, with Quasar, the Squadron Supreme and Captain Marvel flying back home from a space fight with the Stranger. Quasar sees someone run past him and it causes him to shit his britches. They all land and say there goodbyes and when Quasar is flying back to house with Makarri of the Eternals running below him. They meet The Runner!

The Runner is one of the Elders of the Universe. They are the oldest beings in the Marvel universe. They all have this thing they are passionate about and that's how they get their superhero name. Like the Runner or the Obliterator (another cool word that should get used more). Ego the Living Planet is a  Elder of the Universe so they are totally fucking awesome. Anyway the Runner wants to race all of the fastest beings on the planet Earth. So he gets Makarri who is not happy that someone is faster than him. I'm going to skip the stuff that sets up different plot points later on because I really usually do that and discuss the main plot of any comic anyway. 

So let's discuss the people running in this race. First we have Black Racer, a snake lady who is a member of the Serpent Society, a group of snake based bad guys that fight Captain America, mostly in the 1980s and 1990s. Speed Demon, a bad guy who fought Spider Man and I think had one appearance before this. Super Sabre, a guy who would fight the X-Men and is like old as fuck. He's in his 60s I think. Quicksilver probably the most famous of the Marvel speedsters (and probably my favorite. I love arrogant superhero assholes), the second Captain Marvel, Monica Rambeau (and my favorite of the lot of them) and of course the Runner! Oh and the Whizzer but I fucking hate that stupid looking asshole and his stupid name. Would you be amazed that he has that name and wears a yellow suit. What a fucker. The Whizzer is one of the few comic book characters I would totally destroy if I had the chance. Fuck the Whizzer.

So during the race Quasar is brought back to earth to find someone who sent off an alarm he had created using his powers. He's got to keep an alien creature named Eon safe. A man whos pretty much completely naked except for a red and yellow appears out of nowhere thinking about his old world. He is compelled to run and well he ends up beating everyone. He then gives himself the named Buried Alien. If you can't guess by now this special guest is The Flash from the DC universe. the Pre-Crisis on  Infinite Earths Barry Allan Flash. Yep, this is an unofficial DC/Marvel crossover! I love when these things happen. There's a couple of them and they are all fun. Anyway the Runner takes him away and Makkari shows up. Quasar tells him that since Buried Alien wasn't from this earth that makes HIM the fastest man on earth! They have a nice moment together which ends the comic.

FINAL VERDICT: This comic series was for the 30 or so issues I've read of it, a fun time. Mark Gruenwald always wrote fun stories. I love his picking out of the most obscure things from the Marvel universe. The dude knew everything. I like how Captain Marvel loses because she's technically not hitting the ground enough for it to count as running. This might not be the most popular comic but it's had a cult following for over 30 years now and that's gotta count for something. Portnoyd will yell about it for some dumb reason because he's a giant turd.

The Final Episode #90: Reboot (1994 - 2001)

 

I'm honest to God surprised that this show was picked last in the Facebook thing I did. Seriously amazingly surprised that this is the case. I will have to ask Ichiban Crush why Reboot was picked last on his list. Everyone else it was first or second. I was seriously thinking that The Wuzzles or The Fall Guy would have been the last show picked. In fact I was hoping people didn't pick the Wuzzles and I could have been like OOPS I GUESS I CAN'T TALK ABOUT THAT SHOW. The Wuzzles was a show I really should have not picked it at all. I should have just jumped ahead to The Adventures of the Gummi Bears because people give a shit about that show. Not a single human being has ever given a shit about the Wuzzles and I refuse to believe anything to the contrary. 

Enough bashing of the Wuzzles, even though I would like to continue to do so. I have to finish talking about Reboot before I can do that. So what exactly was Reboot you may be asking, if you are either too old to be reading this blog or too young to be reading this blog. Well Reboot was created by Mainframe Entertainment a Canadian CGI cartoon company. They also made Beast Wars. Reboot ran from 1994 to 2001 for four seasons. Well, three seasons and two movies which they then cut down into episodes for the series. I don't think I've ever seen the entire fourth "season" of episodes so think of this as a review of the entire fourth season. Let's do it that way, why not!

Anyway the main plot of Reboot for the first two seasons was Bob and Dot Matrix and Enzo her little brother fighting inside games that the computer user would play. They would have to defeat the user or a section of Mainframe where the game landed would be destroyed and everyone within would be nullified. They would be turned into these weird little blobs. They kinda looked cute to me. They would also have to put up with viruses MegaByte. and Hexadecimel. It changed in the third season to be more of an ongoing episode to episode plot. Bob was thrown into the Web and thought destroyed. Enzo was made the new Guardian of Mainframe despite being like 8. He and Andrea (a game sprite that changed into a mainframer somehow. I forget. Give me a break I didn't rewatch the entire series you jerks) were caught into a game and changed themselves into game sprites and they would go through game after game to hope to return home. It was thrilling television to me as a kid and it was also really funny. One thing I gotta give this show was they were good at building tension but not leaving out the laughs.

So whats up with Season 4 episodes 1-4 or the first movie. Well it starts with this character named Daemon who I guess has this cult of people who join her after she infects them or something. Oh and Dot and Enzo's dad is back! Wild huh? Yeah somehow Good Virus Hexadecimal and a bunch of Nulls worked together and hes back somehow? I dunno. Anyway Little Enzo is being a turd like usual. He didn't become cool until he became Matrix. Matrix is a big grumpy action man so in other words a big asshole. I love him. Anyway Daemon is trying to infect everyone on the web ever! and Bob's sick! Well, this all sounds fine and good but Daemon is a really boring villain and you can't tell a great story with a villain this boring. I know they were trying something different from MegaByte and all but she's no good. Hexidecimal gives up her life to save everyone and I wish it was a better story because she was a fun character and deserved way better.

So Part One of the Final Episode of Reboot starts like this: Well, it actually starts at the end of the Daemon story where the Websurfer pops out of a portal and with him.....ANOTHER BOB. Oh shit, just after Dot had told Glitch Bob she wanted to marry him (I will refer to this bob as Glitch Bob because he and Glitch became one) So the episode proper starts up with a silly gag opening making fun of silly ass sitcoms. It even has a Brady Bunch parody thing. I liked that. the opening turns out to be a dream that Dot is talking to Fong about. Glitch Bob and Bob want to find out whos the real deal. I'm going to assume that this new Bob is just MegaByte the regular villain of the show. The game they play was a lot of fun, a silly take on Pokémon. I laughed and was amused. Yep. 

Part Two of the Final Episode of Reboot is pretty wild. Glitch Bob wants to remove himself from Glitch and tries several different things (one is a teleporter system like in the remake of The Fly, the second is the transporter from Star Trek and the third is some kind of portal thing. The portal thing does not work and ends up turning him into a weird statue. Like Han Solo in the Carbonite). The game they play this time involves a sequel to another game. The one that starred Rocky the Rabid Raccoon. I do not remember that episode but Rocky does look familiar. At the end with Glitch Bob being looked after by the other Guardians and seeing if they can find out what happens. However Dot confesses her love to Other Bob and THEY ARE GONNA GET MARRIED. OH SHIT.

Holy hot moly! What is a moly anyway? Uh... Let's get back on track. Part Three of this Final Episode involves the marriage. They are going by real quick. I kinda don't know if the character of Dot would be so quick to marry him without knowing for certain but I guess she's just too excited. Enzo and Matrix are the best men. Dot gets a bachelorette party!! Bob only gets a kids party because well of Enzo. So yeah, Glitch Bob is having a dream within a dream where he sees a giant glitch (Glitch was this gizmo that Bob used to fight. All Guardians have one.) The Gizmos come back... come out of Bob and bring him back after nothing else works. Kinda uh weird. Feels kinda copout-y. Anyway I was right and guess who New Bob turns out to be. THAT'S RIGHT IT'S MEGABYTE. He's now a Trojan Horse virus and can shapeshift. How the hell will they beat him?!?

So The Final Part of the Final Episode is a doozy of a pickle. MegaByte transforms into Mike the TV and starts getting people panicking. So the main characters all decide to try to perform a plot to capture him. They put the thing he wants the most, the gateway to the super computer right under his nose and he takes it. Not realizing that one of the cars was full of everyone and they fight him and several minions that he turned viral. I was like oh I heard this show ended on a cliffhanger but they captured MegaByte...however it turns out it's just an alias and the real MegaByte had changed into Frisket, Enzo's dog and now has taken control of the main control room of Mainframe! He's now talking about how he's going to start the Hunt and all of the main characters are gonna be screwed and that's how it ends.

Yep, it was a cliffhanger after all. like Duckman or The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin or Spider-Man (1994). I thought I had talked about more cliffhangers but I cannot recall them at the moment. However unlike those they didn't reboot the series in an attempt to make money (and failed miserably because no one watched the Netflix show pretty much and the few that did were very annoyed.) which honestly pisses me off more. Do you realize how much money you could get if you tried to go back and give shows well animated ones (it's kinda hard with live action and all) the proper ending they deserved? You would have made more money and more people happy going back and giving Reboot a proper ending but nope, Hollywood is all about them Remakes adn reboots and reimaginings. We can't get away from them. It's maddening actually, but yeah. Stop the remakes and give us the endings to these shows damnit.

FINAL VERDICT: This is very annoying honestly. I'm seriously annoyed. The first movie was a bunch of nonsense that was not very entertaining and the second one was incomplete. I mean you never like hitting a cliffhanger (yet a clipshow to me is somehow worse. It just feels lazy, but thats here nor there). They just had to go LOL YOU GET A WEIRD POWER RANGERS IN 2017 RIPOFF. ENJOY JERKS. What a waste. I guess you could argue that Tony Jay the voice of MegaByte had passed away but Jesus please stop rebooting everything, Hollywood. Some things had their time and place within the history of things. Reboot was one of them. Fucking hell.

The Final Episode #89: The Fall Guy (1981 - 1986)

 

I don't know for sure why I picked this as one of the five shows for people to pick the order of shows contest thing I had on my Facebook. I think the big reasons were I had never seen this show and Jay of the Game Chasers praises it all the time and I've been curious about the show ever since then. I have a feeling that was the first time I even heard of this show. I also feel that I picked it because I want to discuss television shows that aren't sitcoms or cartoons. I won't stop doing the sitcoms or cartoons but TV is and was a big landscape full of crazy stuff and it feels like I'm not covering enough different stuff. I think I've only covered one sci-fi show for crying out loud! 

So what is The Fall Guy you fine people may be asking? Well it was a television series that ran from 1981 to 1986 for five seasons and 113 episodes. It was created by Glen A Larson for the American Broadcasting Company. You should know Glen A Larson because he created a ton of famous shows from the 1970s and 1980s, including Battlestar Galactica, Magnum P.I. and Knight Rider. You couldn't throw a stone in TVland without hitting a Glen A Larson program in the 1980s! Wow that's probably the worst sentence anyone has ever written in the history of mankind. I love winning because I'm so terrible. The Fall Guy starred Lee Majors, Heather Thompson, and Douglas Barr as stunt performers for movies and stuff like that who moonlight as bounty hunters. It even had Markie Post from Night Court in the show! Who could say no to television like that? Portnoyd probably.

As with TV shows I had never seen before writing the article, I watch a few episodes besides the Final Episode and discuss all of them with you fine beautiful folks. I picked out a few from the last season that I felt deserved some discussion. Now let's get down to talking! The first episode I watched was Femme Fatale and it guest stars the least talented person from the 1980s, Scott Baio. Yep, Charles in Charge himself, except he is not in charge! Someone is trying to kill him because he saw them commit a murder! He hides out in a drag club and the trio of bounty hunters have to go find him. This episode was a lot of fun. You get your usual silly drag comedy where a very conservative man is like "OH BOY I WANNA KISS THIS LADY" when in fact the lady is clearly someone who's being forced to dress as a lady. You get some great action! You get Scott Baio probably not loving what he has to do because he's ridiculously conservative. You also get Ken Foree! You know the badass black dude from Dawn of The Dead. Ken Foree is so cool he should be in everything!

The next episode is a Halloween episode! Had I known this show had two Halloween episodes I probably would have talked about both of them in more detail but anyway, this one was a hell of a lot of fun. It has the gang being forced into a "haunted" house by a shithead movie producer. they go there and it's the house of an British weirdo and a grumpy butler (grumpy butlers should be in everything.) and a mad man who escaped a mental asylum! How are the gang gonna get outta this one! I'm not gonna tell because I thought it was a neat episode and all that AND it has the best guest stars ever. It had Elvira (yes that Elvira), Doug McClure (from such films as At the Earth's Core and The Land that Time Forgot), Vincent Shavielli (the weird looking subway ghost from the film Ghost) AND Vernon Welles. That's right mother fucking Bennett is in this episode! Bennett may be the best action movie bad guy ever. Name me a better one. I dare you. I miss when shows would do a big episode for the holidays. 

Speaking of holidays, we have Escape Claus. And with that spelling you know it's about that jolly old fat man who gives presents. Or at least someone pretending to be him. It's that usual old plot of IS THIS GUY CRAZY OR REALLY SANTY CLAUS. It always turns out to be santy claus. Unless you are watching Silent Night Deadly Night then it's just a crazy person. This Santa is played by Dr. Bombay from Bewitched and age did not help him. His entire face looks like it shrank and he has no chin. it's weird and I don't like it. This is your usual cheesy Christmas episode where Santa and the gang have to save an orphanage from going under. You either love this stuff or want it to burn. Personally I'm a fan. The only problem was the bad quality of the upload..........I mean dvd I watched. You know what would be cool, if they made a streaming service of just old stuff. People would watch it. Sadly they won't do that and fun shows like this just sit rotting away in some jerky studios jerk storage.

The Final Episode was called "The Bigger They Are" and was written by Glen A Larson and Stephen Glantz. Stephen Glantz has written for shows like The New Adam-12 (can I say that 98% of shows with New in the title were bad?) and the movie Showdown in Little Tokyo. Yes, with Brandon Lee and Dolph Lundren. I think that might be the most homoerotic action film ever made. It's great and I recommend it highly. Anyway the episode starts out with Colt, Jody and Howie doing their day job of stunt work. It's a crazy big stunt and It goes well. Colt is met by a lady who I'm going to name Judy and she talks about her son who I'm gonna name Jimmy who is angry at the world because his dad has passed away.  

Colt talks to him and Jimmy really wants to become a stuntman. Even asking for Colt to be his mentor. We then get Colt getting Jimmy to go to a baseball game. After the game Jimmy asks Colt if he will teach him how to fight so he can beat up a bully. Colt does the old "OH I CANT HELP YOU LEARN HOW TO FIGHT YOU MUST USE YOU WORDS" stuff and I'm like man teach the poor kid how to fight and hope he mashes the bully's face into goop. Fuck bullies. In the dickhole. Colt tells him about a boxing place and he goes there. He totally runs into Billy Wolfe, which is what the bullys name is apparently. I think I'm going to change my opinion and say bullies rule because really who couldn't love someone named Billy Wolfe? Anyway they go inside the boxing club and it's ran by this cop dude that Colt knows. The cop talks about how he's got a restraining order on him because he's been investigating the largest PCP seller in the state. PCP is such a 1985 drug.

The Cop tells him that he's not so easy to catch because he uses kids to do his dirty work. He tells him that he keeps a list of all his drug houses in a computer that he has in his disco office. This guy is running a disco in 1985 so I can see why he needs to work in the drug trade also. He's gotten Jody and Howie in on the action. They are even dressed up. Jody actually has a pretty nice dress on and Howie hoo boy I think he pulled that tuxedo out of the shithole. They have to distract Jones the PCP Pusher until Colt can find all the information on the drug houses. It turns out that the dastardly Billy Wolfe is working with Jones the PCP Man and getting him kids to help sell PCP. Man I take it back I'm not a fan of Billy Wolfe anymore! Drug dealing is not cool, jerk. 

Jones the PCP Man is leaving when Jody and Howie literally start beating the SHIT outta each other to keep him from leaving. This is some wild shit. Tables going everywhere. It's a hoot and a half. That's right, almost two hoots!!! This gets them kicked out while Colt is still upstairs!! There's a fight and Colt jumps through an unopened window. I think that's my favorite action movie stunt. It's always just so cool to see a dude or lady blast through a window. It's back at the boxing club where Jimmy is learning how to keep stamina and coordination but he just wants to punch. PUNCH PUNCH PUNCH!!! Colt is still trying to keep him from getting murdered by BILLY WOLFE. Who is now being told of the offer by Jones second in command. I'll call him PCP Man #2 because I just like the term PCP Man. Does anyone even do PCP anymore?

Jimmy ends up in a fight with BILLY WOLFE and his gang. One of his gang members looks like he could be a silent movie comedian. He's got the silly hat AND some suspenders. Suspenders are cool. I can't wait to be an old man to use them. Anyway Jimmy takes a fucking beating and his mom is worried and Colt came to see whats up. Colt talks to Jimmy and learns that his tormentors are also the PCP drug dealers. Colt tells him he will deal with them. Now Colt and The Cop are in a stakeout watching for something at the ONE drug house he was able to find. Jesus Colt really sucks at computers. Anyway they find out that the PCP people are putting the drugs in a garbage bins and taking them back via garbage trucks. A pretty brilliant plan if you ask me. They try to take the drug dealers but the Cop gets shot and Colt gets a truck to drive through the damn drug house. Trucks wrecking a house needs to be in more action related cinema and tv. Just saying.

Thankfully the Cop is fine. Jody and Howie go after some slimeball that knows everything. I think this guy is played by someone I should recognize but I don't. Anyway he pretty much lies to Howies face and steals his money until Jody pretty much puts the squeeze on him. Jones the PCP Man and his #2 guy played by BILLY DRAGO are planning to kill Colt and the Cop before the big shipment comes in.  Jimmy and Colt have a nice chat about what Jimmy is really angry about. Which is his dad dying and leaving him and his mom. That's what he's angry at. Now for some weird out of place comedy that still made me laugh because it's so goofy. Colt's truck gets shot at when trying to get to the place where all the PCP is going to be delivered and crashes into a huge cake. It goes flying and hits a man a lady and a Benji like dog. I laughed when it hit the dog. Poor dog.

Jimmy takes his Walkman and tries to get information on the gang. His mom calls Colt and well I guess it's time to go beat the shit out of Billy Drago and hope to get some information this way. They get their way and are told its in some warehouse! Jimmy is found out and Billy Wolfe is made to kill him, but Colt ain't letting that happen by CRASHING THROUGH THE DAMN DOOR! Colt and Howie beat the shit outta Jones the PCP man and random guy. Jimmy ran after Billy and gets him to the floor. He's about to hit him when he decides not too. Colt's words have gotten through to him! We end on some silly joke and that's that!

FINAL VERDICT: A very fun 1980s action show. Fun likable characters. You can get a goofy plot about saving Santa or a more serious plot about drug dealing. I enjoyed my time with The Fall Guy and I'm sure I will return to watch more. I didn't even get to see Markie Post!

The Final Episode #88: VR Troopers (1994 - 1996)

 

One of the most popular damn things in the 1990s was Virtual Reality. You had it in movies like The Lawnmower Man or Virtuosity or The Thirteenth Floor. I like Lawnmower Man. It's silly and cheesy but still a lot of fun to watch. It was in our cartoons, like The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest. Also why the hell does he not put H in Johnny?  Who the hell has ever spelt it Jonny? Jonny Quest is a dope. Uh. Where was I oh yeah Virtual Reality. They even had it in an episode of Sailor Moon. I'm surprised I haven't mentioned Sailor Moon more in my silly ass blog. You wanna know how popular Virtual Reality was in the 1990s, it even got to our old people, Angela Lansbury of Murder She Wrote was involved in a Virtual Reality plot. No this is not a joke. Virtual Reality was some hot shit in the 1990s.

It even got here to Newfoundland. We had this place you could bring tons of kids too for birthday parties and other events called Totally Tubular. Yes only in the 1990s could a place called that ever exist. Ever. Sadly the one and only time I went there the VR stuff was not working. I still don't know what VR is like or anything, even though you could buy the stuff now for a lot less money than you could in 1992. It just felt cooler in 1992. I really don't know why I mentioned this but it's my blog and I felt like I had to mention Totally Tubular at least once.

Another ridiculously popular thing from the 1990s (One of the things that are still being done these days) was Power Rangers. You know what happens when things are popular and can also be cheaply made. Yep, we get cash ins, or ripoffs, or whatever the hell you wanna call them. You got so many Power Rangers cash-ins, that Power Rangers came it's own genre. You had Superhuman Samurai Syber Squad (which is my vote for the best and worst title to any television show ever.), Tattooed Teenage Alien Fighters from Beverly Hills (or maybe this one gets the worst name), Big Bad Beetleborgs (which I probably should have talked about during Halloween) and today's show VR Troopers. VR Troopers was also made by Saban Productions, You gotta respect them for realizing that they could cash in on their own property!

So VR Troopers was like Power Rangers a show about a bunch of young people from America who become older Japanese people when the fight scenes occur. You see they still did the old stock footage from the Japanese show in this show. I'm sure all of those shows did that. I don't know if Tattooed Teenage Alien Fighters from Beverly Hills did but the others for sure did. They fight a guy named Grimlord and I had a big thing written discussing how great Tim Curry was but just realized that was Superhuman Samurai Syber Squad that he was in. I will have to save my "Tim Curry just might be the greatest actor who ever lived" bit for that show. Anyway the show came to an end because they ran out of stock footage from the Japanese shows. I don't want to give them any ideas but they could have easily reused the footage and most of us youngsters wouldnt have known the difference. It was apparently just as popular as Power Rangers at the time.

So I gotta admit that the Theme Song is one of those themes like Dennis the Menace from DIC that's very very incredibly lazy yet so fucking catchy. It's mostly some people going WE ARE VR!!! I just had to mention it. It's very 1990s. Anyway, VR Troopers starts with the younger version of one of the characters and his dad giving him a dog. The dog is a part of the cast too but still, anyway they mention some shit about how your friends will need your help from time to time. Not a bad message but uh, kinda muddled. Anyway it then goes to two of the VR troopers. The dudes. I'll call them Otto and Joe because I don't know their actual names and I don't care enough to find out. They are looking through the trash to build a robot to help this shows version of Zordon, who apparently is a chill black man with some nice jewelry. I guess they didn't have the budget to give him a Zordon-y look. 

The bad guy clearly sent one of his henchmen to see what the VR Troopers are up too and he REALLY wants this trash monster. So he gets turned into his actual bad guy self (he's apparently a rich guy in human form.) He talks to a black guy and a lady in ridiculous outfits. I mean it is a Power Rangers like show after all. The black guy called "Doommaster" wants to go after the robot. We then go to the VR Troopers headquarters and the dog Jeb from the beginning can now talk. He talks like southern gentlemen who sometimes bleeds into a weird Paul Lynde impression. Jeb is my favorite character. He's a blood hound by the way. I love those goofy looking puppers! So they have built Galileo after the famous science guy. Anyway something isn't working so they decide to bring him to Poindexter, who is clearly a chad that gets all the ladies.

Poindexter shows them one of his wacky new gadgets. It's to clean your face, brush your teeth and do your ears at the same time. Wild. anyway it wackily backfires on him because really it had too. He fixes Galileo but they end up fighting Doommaster and his henchmen and they actually get Galileo. Poindexter reminds them of the homing device so they start looking for Galileo. Grimlord tries to get some information from Galileo but he doesn't know the password! You are all like OH SHIT WILL HE FIND THE PASSWORD and yes, he does. in the same scene. Just randomly screams EINSTEIN and blam! He can download all of Galileo's knowledge of the VR Troopers. Did they even put in all the knowledge about them yet or what? Grimlord is kinda just presuming shit right now.

The VR Troopers find where Galileo but Grimlord has sent several people to go around fucking up shit. So Otto the cool blonde guy goes to fight them while Joe and Kaitlyn have to save Galileo. They do so by blowing the fuck out of the computer that was trying to get Galileo's knowledge.....by some weird lazer robot mind meld or something. They stop the mindmeld and Otto stops the bad guys. They save Galileo and he's all fixed. Jeb and Galileo do some silly comedy and then we go to the last scene where Otto is on a Motorcycle and is thinking about friendship and cool things like that. Yeah there's a message of helping your friends which is good but can they really call Galileo one of their friends? Dudes a cheap shitty robot made from trash. I think they could have put in a better message because apparently we needed television to tell us everything about the world. 

FINAL VERDICT: This episode was silly, goofy, dumb, filled with goofy wonderful costumes. I would say Power Rangers was still cooler because it had ROBOT DINOSAURS, but VR Troopers was a lot of fun and I actually enjoyed this more than the Final Episode of the original Power Rangers series.  

Movie Review #64: The Eternals (2021)

 

Yeah, there are spoilers for the movie in this review. So don't read on if you don't want to spoiled.

Boy oh boy, I think mister Kevin Fiege has grown too big for his britches. Thinking he can turn just about every Marvel Property into a movie not realizing some just work as comics. I'm amazed they went with this one instead of trying to use the X-Men or Fantastic Four that they own the rights too. For better or worse, even port would have to agree that those things have fans. The mass majority of comic readers and movie watchers and nerds had not even heard of the Eternals before this movie. The majority of Eternal fans (7 out of the 10 of them) are just big Jack Kirby fans who will enjoy any of his work. I'm surprised Kevin Feige wasn't like "Eh the Netflix shows aren't canon to the MCU at all now!" and just revamp Daredevil, or Luke Cage, or Iron Fist, or anything into a movie. I'm surprised they haven't tried to make the Thunderbolts. or New Warriors, or worked harder on bringing about the Young Avengers. Like I'm surprised they didn't just give James Gunn some money to just make a comedic Howard the Duck movie. Any of them should have popped up before the Eternals. 

For the 98% of people who don't know about the Eternals, well they were a concept by Jack Kirby made in the 1970s during his return to Marvel comics. They were human beings given superpowers by Celestials (cool robot God guys that are clearly the best part of the Eternals backstory.) and are pretty much immortal. They fight the Deviants (cool Jack Kirby monsters that are completely ruined and made generic in this film.) and some of them have names like Ikaris and Thena and Gilgamesh and are considered to be those actual ancient people/heroes/myths, and I think that's pretty interesting. However the big problem with the Eternals is that the Inhumans are very similar to them and are honestly a lot more fun to me. They know the Fantastic Four and you have that royal family dynamic to work with. I dunno. I think the Eternals are pretty decent enough but are probably the least entertaining thing Jack Kirby created when he came back to Marvel. Devil Dinosaur should have had a movie before the Eternals, any version, Just saying.

Now that I've revealed my true feelings about the Eternals to portnoyd, which is that they are just fine. I'm going to assume he ups his dislike of some things for our goofy arguments and really probably doesn't hate Hanna-Barbera as much as he pretends. Just never cared for any of their stuff. I don't know why I'm even mentioning that, I guess I just don't want to get into this movie, because uh, It's really bad. I'm going to say this B.C. The First Thanksgiving and Ghoulies IV didn't make me stop watching what I was watching like 50 times to go do something else. I figure I should also bring up what I feel about the MCU. I was a fan until around Captain America: Civil War until I realized every movie was very similar and that I probably wasn't going to be ever watching them again. It was just excitement of seeing these characters on the big screen. I did watch until the end of Endgame to see the big first story see its conclusion and then I just gave up pretty much. I did see Shang Chi which was decent enough but nothing amazing. I'd just rather read Shang Chi comics instead of watching the movie. You can say that for any MCU movie. I'd just rather read that characters or teams comics instead.

 You might be wondering why I felt like watching this movie and it really was because I had heard it was terrible. You tell me a movie is good or great and I'm like yeah whatever but if you tell me a movie is stupid or awful or poorly made or worst ever made and I will run like a mad man to see that movie. I just have to know if it's what you said it is. So if you want me to see a good film tell me it's a piece of shit. Anyway that's why I decided to watch The Eternals. This movie is about 73% exposition dialogue. Talkin about who the Eternals are. Talking about the Celestials. Talking about What happened in the past. Talking about what happened when the Eternals broke up. Talking about how they get back together. Talking about how they are apparently robots who the Celestials created (which I'll bring up in the next paragraph.) Yes, I get that sometimes, well most times a movie needs some exposition dialogue. It's gotta happen, but this movie has way too fucking much and you barely get anything about these characters. 

Unlike most of the people who were angry at this movie and downvoted it on IMDB, I don't care that some of the Eternals are now gay, or black, or deaf. Or any of these things. It's just they are apparently some kind of robots so why the hell did the Celestials make them these things? Why did they make them deaf? or gay? or any of these things. Do the Celestials want diversity? I just felt that they kinda didn't do the diversity thing very well. I hate saying shit like that too because I really do not want to be lumped in with YouTube and Twitter weirdos who are all like NO DIVERSITY EVER IN OUR GENRE COMIC ENTERTAINMENT!!!!! I just want the diversity to make a bit of sense. Oh, another problem is the Deviants are so boring. Go and find any image of the Deviants as drawn by Jack Kirby and then look at these weird gray crappy wolf like things. They are generic as fuck. There's also so much exposition dialogue that I didn't get to get a feel for any of the characters. Not a single one of them. Oh and the comedy in the movie is obnoxious and very not funny. Sometimes Marvel actually has some funny stuff happen in the movies and sometimes it's bullshit garbage. In Eternals it's bullshit garbage.

FINAL VERDICT: Yeah. I kinda want this movie to fail just because I want the MCU to go down now. Just because I'm an asshole and I want my comic books go to back down in price and not OMFG THIS CHARACTER MIGHT BE IN A MOVIE IN 2027 SO YOU HAVE TO GIVE ME 500 DOLLARS FOR THIS COMIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! plus it would be funny for them to have the rug pulled out from underneath them because really you were getting too big for your britches when you reached to the absolute bottom of the Z-List for The Eternals. I even think some of the comics are fun and good but there's about 320 Marvel Characters that should appear on the big screen before them. Now to see what Portnoyd says and what I can argue with him about.

Movie Review #63: Robin Hood (1973)

 

Robin Hood is a story about a man robbing from the rich and giving to the poor. Personally I think we need a real Robin Hood these days but we don't need me complaining about billionaires. Anyway Robin Hood was one hell of a popular story for people to make their versions of. They must have made at least a hundred Robin Hood movies between the Errol Flynn movie in 1938 and the Kevin Costner movie in 1991. Another strange thing is after that movie pretty much every Robin Hood movie was a failure. Well, maybe not Robin Hood Men in Tights but that's not exactly the same as a real serious Robin Hood movie. Seeing as I'm doing this whole Disney/Touchstone/Hollywood Pictures watchathon I figured why not, let's talk about the Disney Robin Hood which is still one of the more popular versions of Robin Hood. (Strangely Robin Hood Men in Tights is probably way more popular today than Robin Hood Prince of Thieves) 

So this movie was made during a low point in Disney's history. Way before they became the super duper company that could eat other companies they were not making great money. Walt Disney himself had passed away 6 years earlier and they were trying to find out what movies they would make. This movie was good for the company as it made them money and was considered pretty good by critics. Personally this is one of my favorite Disney films. I'm weird in the fact I really like most of the Disney movies from this period. This movie is Robin Hood kinda mixed with another story called Reynard the Fox (a story that Walt Disney himself wanted to make going all the way back to the Snow White days.) This movie was directed by Wolfgang Reitherman, an animator that had been working with Disney since 1934. He's one of Disney's Nine Old Men. He pretty much directed every Disney movie between 1961 and this film. The ones he didn't direct he helped produce. So he's a big deal. Plus he's got one cool as hell name. 

This movie has a great cast. First off Peter Ustinov is great as Prince John, he's able to be a big sniveling weiner but when he's gotta be a scary angry bastard he's great at that too. Terry Thomas is also great as Hiss. These two have great chemistry together and are very funny. Phil Harris is great as Little Baloo....I mean John. Pat Buttram is great as the Sherrif of Nottingham. Everyone in this movie has a great voice. Secondly the music in this film is really good too, very catchy memorable songs that will wiggle your way right into your head and never leave. The plot is pretty much your usual Robin Hood shenanigans. I'm sure stuff is different from many other versions of Robin Hood but the stuff you wanna see in a Robin Hood story is here. The animation is bright and fluid and very well done, yeah there's some reused animation from things like The Jungle Book or Snow White but I still believe the vast majority of this animation is very good. It's even got Don Bluth working on it! 

FINAL VERDICT: Yeah this isn't the longest review for my blog, but this is a very well made animated film that is very amusing, fun, action packed, memorable and with a great voice cast. There's not much for me to complain about or point out. It's very much worth a watch and I believe you should check it out.

TV You Forgot About #8: B.C. The First Thanksgiving (1973)

 

Welcome back to the column where I discuss a tv series, tv special, tv episode that you forgot about. One that makes you go "They MADE this shit!?". So far it's really been about tv specials based around holidays. Can I say that Thanksgiving may be the most boring holiday. You can do a lot with most other holidays but with Thanksgiving you can have the Thanksgiving holiday get messed up. Or maybe turn the cast into turkeys or something. Despite this you'd be flabbergasted by the insane amount of Thanksgiving episodes and specials out there. Ones I forgot about even! Still I found four the most "wait what" Thanksgiving specials that I hope to get to before the end of the year. Yes, I know it's November 3rd and Thanksgiving is until the end of the month but I really want to show these four crazy messes to you.

So you might be wondering what B.C. is because you are a filthy monster who doesn't read the newspaper and were born in 1997. I don't hate young people it's just everything you do confuses me. Sometimes enrages me. I am an old man and I will never stop talking about newspapers and video rental stores! Newspapers from Saturday was a great time. You'd read the funnies (the ones in our newspaper were mostly not great.) and enjoy Calvin and Hobbes then you'd see what was on the weekend, even though you'd have the TV guide from your area (mine was The Newfoundland Herald, it had Spider-Man and Garfield in the comics section!) but I'd still check out the newspapers what was on thing. I was and still am a bizarre person who does pointless things.

Okay, now I can finally just finally tell you about B.C. it was a comic strip created by Johnny Hart (1935 - 2007). It was a comic strip that was based around cavemen and puns. And goofy jokes. A lot of goofy jokes. My love of dumb goofy dad jokes probably came from these comic strips. I would read B.C. and Hart's other co-production The Wizard of Id (which of the two is a better comic). No these didn't hit the top tier of comic strips like Peanuts, The Far Side, Calvin and Hobbes, Bloom County or Garfield. but B.C. is still a pretty enjoyable mid-tier comic. It's far superior to The Lockhorns (ho ho ho I hate my wife/husband and being married to them is a horrible arduous affair and I want to die) or The Family Circus (quite possibly the most boring thing ever invented by human beings and the fact I'm going to somehow have to discuss it's Christmas special this year makes me very sad). 

I still have to mention several things about B.C. that despite happening doesn't ruin it as a mid-tier comic because it shows how many bad comic strips have existed. Johnny Hart became a born again Christian in 1984 and well he used his comic strips about Cavemen to talk about Jesus. (Yes yes I know they made jokes about things that weren't around in Caveman times but it still feels weird to talk about Jesus in a Caveman comic. Or any comic that wasn't The Family Circus.) and well trashed other religious, like having a Hanukah candle set turn into a cross. Or have a caveman go into a outhouse and have the panel of SLAM drawn as a big I and have him go THIS STINKS. Yeah people argued about that and I'm still not sure if it was a weird bad joke or an old man being old. Despite this it had a Colecovision game which proves people liked it more than The Family Circus. Only the biggest sunday school religious nerds liked that or big goobers. I imagine Gene Siskel was a very big fan of The Family Circus.

So, now we can finally get into discussing the actual special that was put out into our world in 1973. November 19, 1973 to be exact. It was made by Abe Levitow who worked on Looney Tunes cartoons with Chuck Jones and UPA (they were most famous for Mr. Magoo.) He passed away two years later in 1975 at the pretty young age of fifty two. The voice acting in this special is pretty good, first off you got Daws Butler and Don Messick. I'm sure even portnoyd couldn't trash their skills. These men worked for Hanna-Barbera but still worked every where else too. They were incredibly good at voice acting. The kinda guys that could have a conversation with themselves and you'd never realize the voice was the same guy. Bob Holt, a guy who seemed to be a voice on every Dr. Seuss special that existed, except the Grinch. Joanie Sommers, a music lady who voices Fat Broad. You see she's fat and also a broad therefore the name Fat Broad. 

This special opens up, well, the YouTube video I watched opens up with a lady excitedly telling us about B.C. and Flip Wilson. Actually she seems to be the most excited for the late night movie Cotton Comes to Harlem starring Redd Foxx. Frankly I think she made the right choice. Of those 3 things I would be most excited for Redd Foxx. Nothing against B.C. or Flip but really would you choose any differently. Port probably would just to be a dickhead. Anyway the opening of the special is very cheap. B.C. gets run over by the gang of cavemen chasing a turkey and makes a bad joke. Then gets run over again and the opening ends. I can already tell this is going to be a doozy of a pickle.

So the special is uh already something, it starts out with B.C. sleeping and a tree gets hit by lightning. B.C. sticks his hand in the fire and it hurts. They do the usual "delayed reaction to pain" joke you've seen in 82,000 cartoons. It was done better in at least 81,966 of those cartoons. They literally take way to long for B.C. to actually react, and he goes back into his cave for some reason. I guess they didn't have enough money for a reaction shot. Or B.C. is shy. He gets his club and knocks out the fire and then the fire burns the club and we do the "delayed reaction to pain" joke again. It wasn't done any better the second time around. He sniffs the burning wood and sneezes fire, and yes they do this joke twice.

He uses his club as a torch and does a weird little dance number before seeing a volcano. He goes up there and sniffs the volcano but for whatever reason does not sneeze. He then sniffs it again and doesn't sneeze. He walks back down from the volcano. I do not get this. I expected this to be stupid but this is stupid beyond words. B.C. then goes back to sleep. Volcano sniffing is hard work I guess?  Oh NOW he sneezes and the Volcano does something. Yeah the comedic timing is really really off on these jokes, and I'm being very nice calling these jokes. We then get some dumb joke involving a turtle that blesses B.C. after his sneezing. B.C. then wakes up and I consider Daws Butler to be really good at voice acting but he clearly doesn't care here and you can easily tell when he gives up on the Jack Benny like voice for B.C.

Now it's time for some goofy comedy involving a bird and a turtle. They would show up in the comic strip from time to time, along with some ants. They were actually my favorite part. I enjoyed seeing them show up. They aren't very well done here and I guess are shoe horned in. Now we see Thor and this is the worst part of the special, all of the cavemen look alike except for the grumpy one with a hook for a hand for some reason. Not much variety behind these guys.  Thor wakes up. Cute Chick wakes up (yes thats her name) and drinks Fat Broad wakes up and smashes a snake against some water. A dinosaur wakes up and drinks some water. Grog wakes up and drinks some water. They all do some silly thing and you like me are wondering when the fucking hell the Thanksgiving part is  going to come into this Thanksgiving special. This is the fifth damn paragraph about what happens in the special and I've only mentioned turkey like twice! Oh and the wacky jokes aren't done yet. One is scared by Grog out of the water so he goes to lick some sand (no e he just licks sand for what seems to be 82 years). Then another cavemen comes out on his wheel and get this.......DRINKS SOME WATER. JUST LIKE EVERYONE ELSE

The crazy caveman that I thought had a hook for a hand (I swear he did but memory is a weird fucker like that) actually has a peg leg and he was my favorite caveman character as a kid. He uh yells and everyone shits their pants and goes away. He does not like the water drinking apparently waking him up? I know Port is going to go B.C. IS DUMB AND BAD AND EVERYTHING RELATED TO IT WAS SUPER AWFUL but I'm certain that the actual comic strip made jokes and not whatever the hell these things are. B.C. does his sniffing sneezing fire act again and I think the caveman known as Thor comes by and he has a Humphrey Bogart impression for a voice. He goes to Fat Broad who yells at him to put the fire on the sticks. She's cooking rock soup. Yep. tasty ass rock soup!

Now a turkey comes by and sniffs the rock soup. Yep we finally get the actual plot of this special......the caveman chase a turkey around for the next ten minutes. No I'm not joking that's the plot. So one joke has Thor ask Wiley the crazy peg leg caveman what a turkey is and he make some attempt at a joke involving Barbera Streisand. the turkey then sings one of her songs. They chase the turkey around a volcano and into the river and all get boners over Cute Chick (including I'm assuming the turkey.) then B.C. pretends to be a turkey and the turkey comes by and says "If your gonna do it, do it right!". This was the only time I even smiled during this special. The turkey gets stuck in a tree telephone that appeared in the comics. It wants to talk to the Midnight Stalker which was some superhero B.C. became. This just feels like forced fanservice. HEY GUYS LOOK IT WE CLEARLY CARE ABOUT THIS PRODUCT. I'd rather not see the big fanservice if you're just gonna jam it in there outta no where.

Now this thing is finally finally over. Sweet good god it's finally over. I'm disappointed now but I imagine how angry little baby claw who liked this comic strip would have thought. It would have been very not nice. I was even more positive about all the dopey crap I liked as a kid and I would have thought this was poop soup. speaking of soup, I didn't mention it but a dinosaur just randomly comes by and drinks the soup and doesn't like it. I didn't think it would actually come back up at the end of the special but hey they did something with it. They complain about how the turkey got away, there's no fire on the soup (did B.C. forget his fire sneeze power?) and all thats left is some rocks. Fat Broad then gives them the rocks to eat. Then she's like WE HAVE TO GIVE THANKS and they do. This fucking thing finally ends, but not before the turkey starts the chase up again. In a hilarious (not) fashion. Then it finally ends with him talking to Fat Broad, whos so fat she actually eats a rock! 

FINAL VERDICT: This thing fails for a lot of reasons. The biggest is that while I do like B.C. it was mostly a bunch of silly jokes. It was never something that had any really big stories to take from (there was like one story where Peter the inventor caveman went to find the new world, which has nothing to do with Thanksgiving). It was just silly nonsense, that's fine for a comic strip. It's not so good for a special. You could have probably done a better special involving the Wizard of Id crew (thankfully Jim Henson did them as puppets! I'm sure I will talk about that one day too!). The second problem is the budget. This thing clearly had a very small one and you can tell.  A lot of reused stuff appears in this one. I now want to watch more of Abe Levitow. He seemed to be very big in the animation scene, you just don't get to be a part of the Chuck Jones unit when they were making the best Looney Tunes if you don't have talent, but this certainly doesn't show his talent. Weird gags that just don't work and the usual gags fail because they clearly had no money and the timing is very off. Personally I should have gone and watched Cotton Comes to Harlem. Sadly, I watched this. I don't expect very much from the other Thanksgiving specials I hope to cover but I know for one thing they have to be better than this. Now if you don't mind I'm going to find a corner to huddle against and be sad that this thing exists.

Movie Review #62: The Wrong Guy (1997)

 

Well It's finally time. That's right. What am I talking about you may ask? Well back in the early 2010s I was a part of a forum called PlayTheNES, where we would talk about playing the NES.  You know the Nintendo Entertainment System. Well on one of the other forums where you could talk about other stuff I said I would review every Disney movie. Uh, I never ended up doing this. Ever. I didn't even watch a single film. Now It's time to hopefully rectify that. I plan to talk about all the animated movies, their live action movies, their made for tv movies, and the Disney Channel stuff. Yes this includes the direct to video sequels. If It has Disney somewhere on it and I can somehow find a copy I will discuss it on this blog. I will even throw in every movie made by Touchstone Pictures and Hollywood Pictures, two movie divisions owned by Disney. So expect a good time. Hopefully.

So I've mentioned Touchstone Pictures before in one review, well Hollywood Pictures was similar to that, except it seemed to have a lot more non-comedy movies. Sure they still put out comedies but they also did movies like The Sixth Sense, The Hand that Rocks the Cradle and Super Mario Bros: The Movie. That's right, Disney helped bring that fine piece of cinema into the world. I'm not joking about that being a fine piece of cinema either. I think that movie is a very fun time. Anyway I picked this movie for a few reasons. I enjoyed several of the actors within this movie, Dave Foley from Kids in the Hall and NewsRadio. Jennifer Tilly and Joe Flaherty. Three individuals that are pretty underrated and should have had bigger film careers. Dave Foley deserved a film career over Pauly Shore or Nick Swardson or Allen Covert. The shame is that I think this is the one film he was the star of and it's just not very good.

I'll give you a quick rundown of the plot. Dave plays Nelson a man who finds his boss dead (after saying he'd kill him) and gets all bloody and he honestly thinks the police think he killed his boss. Except the boss was killed by someone else and they even have video evidence on this. The guy was hired by the guy who got the job instead of Nelson. Nelson thinks he has to go on the run and the hitman thinks he is following him and you'd think wackiness would ensue but there's long stretches in this movie where they don't even try to make any jokes. Like it's really weird to see. There are also a few jokes that get stretched on way to long. It's like yes we get the joke can we get to the next scene? Another thing  that hurts this movie is that Joe Flaherty and Jennifer Tilly don't show up till halfway through the second act. 

However the biggest problem with this movie is that most of the actors are not comedic actors and ruin jokes by just not being good at this kind of comedy. There's a police officer duo that are wasting the FBIs money doing things not related to finding the killer but the guy just feels bored being in this movie. It's not very good. He's not the only one who's just not very good at comedy. There's a evil farmer who has it out for the Joe Flaherty banker (you know a flipparoo from the usual kinda plot) and well not only is that farmer guy not a good actor this entire subplot is just flushed down the shitter. We don't even know what happens and they do a sorta throwaway joke about it, just they didn't pull off that type of joke just annoyed me. I will be completely fair and say I still did laugh and chuckle at several moments in this movie. There's a fun scene with Kevin MacDonald (also from Kids in the Hall), it doesn't really save this movie. A lot of it is just Dave Foley and the killer going from random different scene to random different scene until Jennifer Tilly comes in and then they don't even finish her and her dad's subplot. 

FINAL VERDICT: I was disappointed in this motion picture. I was hoping for something better and more entertaining. I guess the really big Disney/Touchstone/Hollywood Pictures watchathon is off on a bad foot. Hopefully I'll find another better movie for the next one.

Well, it's come and gone!

 

Yep, The First Annual Cool Halloween Spooktacular That Was Cool AND Good has ended.

I know I said that I was gonna bring it into November but I don't think that will happen. HOWEVER I still have movies I downloa.......I mean took off my DVD shelf and I intend to review them during November and beyond, however It's back to normal as it wont be all spooky scares of ghosts and goblins! It will go back to the usual goofy stuff like Darkhawk and TaleSpin. We will have a good time though

I do still plan to put The Final Episode on hiatus so the other two columns can get to the same number. I do plan to talk about the 3 remaining shows I said I'd do for Ichiban Crush so we will get them done soon as possible.

I also plan to start reviewing Disney movies every few Movie Reviews, so expect to see that stuff pop up.

This will be the only blog where someone will praise both Sword in the Stone AND a Lucio Fulci gore flick!

I plan to try to put a lot of work into the November stuff because this month will be the blogs first birthday! Isn't that cool?

TV You Forgot About #7: The Paul Lynde Halloween Special (1976)

 

Of all the old timey pre-1980 film stars I kinda feel bad for Paul Lynde. The dude was hilarious and memorable in like every role he could get, yet could never get the big role. He was always the guest star. He always wanted the big roles and probably would be flabbergasted that people are still talking about him these days. The man was bigger than life and it was hard to believe for me that he was only in 11 episodes of Bewitched. Like seriously? You'd have thought that he was in like half the episodes! Still he got a weird Halloween special and really did you expect me to not talk about this during the Very First and Very Best Halloween Spooky Spectacular For Cool Kids and Cool Adults... fat chance!

So this special has some interesting backstory at least for me. ABC got Paul into a contract for a television series, The Paul Lynde Show which well was a one season failure. I have no idea about the actual shows quality but it didn't get the ratings they wanted. Then came ANOTHER show from ABC, a show called Temperatures Rising. It also flopped. So they did what they could and put him on a bunch of specials with Donny and Marie Osmond, who have always creeped me the hell out. I do not know why. After those variety show specials they gave Paul his very own! Now wasn't that interesting?!

So they packed this puppy fulla stars of the time. You had the mom from the Brady Bunch. Billy Barty the famous little person actor of the time. He was even in the He-Man movie! the Wicked Witch of Oz, Margaret Hamilton shows up. Betty White! Everyone loves Betty White, even grouchy incorrect assholes like portnoyd. To top this cast all off, those wild rascals known as Kiss even got to play their first live tv gig on this special! Now that's some good watching!

The special starts out with Paul Lynde dressed up as Santa. Margaret Hamilton comes in and is all sassy and old and is like "It ain't Christmas!" Then he dresses up as a giant Easter bunny. She tells him it ain't Easter either. He then tries Valentine's Day. She tells him it's not that either, he then lists off a bunch of holidays and tells her to smile if he gets close. She then gives him a hint about goblins and ghouls and he says "That sounds like Hollywood Squares!"   She then tells him that he knows what day it is and he goes Happy Halloween...woo.. I don't think Paul's really into the holiday spirit! He then goes into a monologue which has the best fat joke I've heard in a while "It's easy to love Halloween when you're the size of a Pumpkin!" The monologue ends and he starts singing his song from Bye Bye Birdie. You know the one the Simpsons parodied in that episode with the SEX CAULDRON I THOUGHT THEY CLOSE THAT PLACE DOWN joke in it. Had I known it was from a movie with Paul Lynde I would have watched it years ago!

The song ends with him being placed in a trash can by Donny and Marie Osmond and they smile this creepy smile. Brrr. I do not like those two. They were a surprise guest that apparently ABC ruind the surprise by putting them in the ad materials. Do you know what a surprise is ABC? It ain't that. After that the fucking trash can explodes and we fade to black. Then when we come back its Paul Lynde and Margaret Hamilton driving around. They are going to Margaret's sisters house. She is played by someone from one of those crazy ass shows by Sid and Marty Kraft. She turns out to be a witch and this is probably the third and last time Margaret Hamilton plays the Wicked Witch of the West from the Wizard of Oz. She also played it on Sesame Street a year earlier. Someone will probably be like UM NO SHE PLAYED IT IN SOME OBSCURE THING FROM 1957 HOW DARE YOU NOT KNOW. Anyway this is a fun bit that even involves Miss Halloween 1976, Betty White herself. Personally Betty White is not very scary and should not be Miss Halloween 1976. 

They say they will give him three wishes if he joins the witches union and helps them get a better rap. I guess just talk about how cool they are on Hollywood Squares or some shit. His first wish is to become a trucker. With the gaudiest most ridiculous costume of all time. Like look at that thing. I love it more than I thought I could ever love something. I want to go as Rhinestone Trucker Paul Lynde one Halloween. It looks like so much fun. He and another trucker, played by Tim Conway! find out they are both set to be married to the same woman. Said woman is Fonzie's Girlfriend! Yep, the lady from the hit 1980 horror film New Years Evil has decided to marry both men. Paul Lynde in a frenzied rage of needing to marry this woman crashes through the damn wall of Billy Barty's resturant. Billy Barty shows his Incredible Hulk like strength to push the truck out of the resturant. Little known fact is that Billy Barty was in fact going to be the first live action Incredible Hulk but they chickened out and went with Lou Ferringo.  Tim Conway and Paul Lynde end up arm wrestling with each other for the love of Fonzie's Girlfriend. I didn't think I'd ever get to write a sentence that weird. Actually sadly they don't do the arm wrestling they just do a test of strength. Of course the Strongest Man Who Ever Lived, Billy Barty proves to be the strength. Tim Conway then says he's the smartest he knows all the numbers AND colors. Paul Lynde wins in the end by saying he's the richest. We don't get to see Tim Conway arm wrestle but WE do get to see him sing with Paul and Pinky! Now that's how you end a comedy sketch.

Then we get another silly bit involving Paul and the Witches which (say that five times fast) leads into one of the performances by Kiss. I like Kiss. They play Detroit Rock City and it kicks ass. Then it's back to Paul and the Witches playing monopoly which leads into our second comedy sketch! Where Paul is a sheik! Who is trying to seduce the Mom from the Brady Bunch! She ends up getting into it which makes me thing that she was really into gay men seeing as Robert Reed the dad from the Brady Bunch also liked to kiss dudes. Paul comes back to the witches again and decides to do something nice for them. They want to go to A Hollywood Disco and they turn it into a cool ass Halloween Hollywood Disco! They introduce Florence Henderson who does a pretty great little song and then Kiss comes back for another song this time Beth the monster hit! The song ends and then Paul makes some corny jokes about Kiss that yes I laughed at ("My dream came true! Four kisses on the first date") he asks Margaret Hamilton for one final wish and it's for Kiss to play one last song. Kiss plays one last song and then everyone starts to dance to a song called Disco Baby. Billy Barty has some kickass dancing moves. Paul Lynde gives us a nice closing monologue and this variety special ends.

FINAL VERDICT: This special has considered by so many people as bad and I don't get it. This entrie thing was very delightful with a lot of great music, fun comedy sketches and that rascal Paul Lynde. If he somehow still exists out there in the cosmos I hope he knows we like trying to pull off his voice. He's up there with Peter Lorre, Vincent Price and Bill Cosby. I think that's a great legacy to have honestly!

The Final Episode #87: Are You Afraid of the Dark (#1 revival series) (1999 - 2000)

 

I had a hell of a time figuring out if I should have done the Final Episode of Are You Afraid of the Dark? because there was a break of 3 years between the original series and what I guess I'll call the revival time. I was like is 3 years enough for it to be called a revival? I then realized that they even got a new cast so I figured it was a good idea to do both versions. Plus the Final Episode of this "revival" sounded really bad and I wanted to at least celebrate this silly little show. So I figured that I would do both. Plus the internet agrees with me that this is a revival series and I'm gonna go with them. I do plan to discuss the newest episodes put out in 2019 and 2021 because why not. We might as well talk about the remakes and see which ones are dumb and which ones aren't.

Another reason I wanted to do this as two posts is the fact that I do not at all remember this version of the series. I was like "Yeah I think that was one of the later episodes... the one with the computer Gremlin" Nope. That was in Season Four of the original series. We can argue if 3 years is a lot of time for an adult but 3 years IS a lot of time for a kid. When the first series stopped I was in the 5th grade going into the 6th. by the time we got to this series I was in grade 8 (I had failed the seventh grade. Yep here's some new information about your old pal claw!) I was into Dragon Ball Z and Pokemon and the shows on One Saturday Morning, that was the stuff for kids I was still into. I didn't really need Are You Afraid of the Dark? anymore because I was allowed to go wild on horror films. I'm also not completely sure this revival series WAS on YTV. At this time the channels I mostly watched where like FOX (for Jerry Springer in the afternoon!), Teletoon, TBS, and The Family Channel. I'm going to say that it had to be on one of those channels because I remember one single episode from this revival and well that happens to be the Final Episode.

So seeing as I don't remember a single episode from this iteration of the show means I'm going to watch some episodes from this series and discuss them. Because that sounds like a whole hell of a lot of fun to do. The first episode I watched was called "The Tale of the Zombie Dice" and holy hell it was weird. I find a lot of the stories on Are You Afraid of the Dark? were weird. They kinda felt like a story a kid would come up with. This one involves a kid played by that Jay guy whos friends with Seth Rogan (a person who is ten times funnier than Tim and Eric will ever ever be) who is scared of gambling or playing games of chance. However he's friends with a kid named Tate who has no fear of gambling or any game of chance. You challenge him and he's gonna do it. So they go to a place called Click's and Tate gets challenged by Click the owner of the place. Mr. Click is clearly without a doubt the best part of this episode. The man is so clearly over the top evil but Tate still ends up taking the bet, even after first saying no. The man's gotta do what he's gotta do. Mr. Click shows him the Zombie Dice and well he loses. After he loses he has to give him his thumbprint which turns him into a eeny teeny Tate that is going to be sold. Jay ends up having to play the game to win Tate back and even has to double down after losing. However he wins by well kinda cheating but the evil Zombie man working for Mr. Click doesn't think so and well Mr. Click is never seen again.

The next episode I decided to watch was clearly intended to be the first episode shown of the revival series. It shows Tucker (Gary's brother from the original series) showing the new kids the place the old Midnight Society would tell their stories. He even calls them the New Midnight Society and says "We're back!" This is clearly a revival series and I get to talk about Are You Afraid of the Dark? twice in one October. Now that's cool! This also answers my question as to what channel showed this, it was apparently the Family Channel. For those not in the know that was pretty much the Canadian version of the Disney Channel. I don't even know if it exists anymore because we get some Disney related channels now. I would watch it but it was always my last choice. I do know that I would watch reruns of Darkwing Duck and that British art show Art Attack on that channel. This episode was "The Tale of the Forever Game".  Also about games and stuff, yet vastly different than "The Tale of the Zombie Dice". This one involves some kids getting lost in the woods and finding a dead tree which one of them falls through and ends up playing a game with another lost kid named Nathanial (who is wearing old timey clothes showing that this dude has been here for a long time.) and whenever they hit a place on the game board it happens in the forest, like bringing a monster to terrorize the two kids stuck in the forest. They end up stopping the Forever game by blowing up the dead tree.

You know how I said I saw The Final Episode, nope I was incorrect and I seriously am wondering if I ever saw any of the Family Channel/Cinar Are You Afraid of the Dark? stuff. Like I was sure this was an entirely different episode so I got some catching up to do with Are You Afraid of the Dark?. Also I don't even see Nickelodeon helping out for this version of the show. It just says Cinar presents? Did Are You Afraid of the Dark? first revival even show up on Nick? I probably should have checked that out first before getting silly and reviewing said episode. Anyway this one is without a doubt my least favorite of the three and I'll get into that in a bit.

The Final Episode of the first revival of Are You Afraid of the Dark? came to us in the year of our lord 2000 and was entitled "The Tale of the Night Nurse" and it's a bit of a wild ride. So we start out with two girls, the usual age of your Are You Afraid of the Dark? protagonists get left by their parents at their grandpas house. They call him "Gramps". If I ever get to be a Grandpa I want people to call me Gramps. It feels very chill. Gramps is chill. Anyway one of the girls, Nikki tells the other AJ that she can handle Gramps... and in the next scene we see AJ clearing the snow path. Man Nikki is a asshole. She also starts hitting AJ with snowballs and they start a snow ball fight. They see a woman go by and they think they hit her with a snowball so they go inside to apologize just for Gramps to be like "Yo dudes there aren't any ghosts here" wait no I got that confused with my Rappin' Grandpa movie script. 

Anyway AJ wakes up in the middle of the night and sees A bunch of of people at a birthday party for someone named Emily! Then we get a few more scares until Gramps confesses that they have Ghosts in his house! He didn't want to scare them. Personally the Grandpa in my Rappin' Grandpa script will give you the low down period, he's an honest dude! He then brings them upstairs to tell them the story of Emily and her Night Nurse who gave her medicine that killed her! Oh shit! Anyway Emily died and The Night Nurse seemed to have gone mad or something. They try to get Emily to talk to them by offering cake but all they get is THE NIGHT NURSE. Whos actress is the best part of the episode. They end up going back up in the attic and finding out about a silly ass time travel dress. Yes, the dress makes AJ time travel and take over the body of Emily. Seeing as she saw what happened to Emily so she decides to try to help her. 

However the Night Nurse is now going insane and going after Nikki, until Emily actually DOES fall down the stairs (like a dumbass) and the Nurse disappears. Then she's after AJ. What finally saves AJ is the fact that Emily had lost her medicine alert bracelet and that she shows him that. Emily was allergic to penicillin. AJ finally gets back to her Grampa's house and saves Emily, showing that in this new world she got to be a big job in college or something else. Honestly I probably would have liked this episode if it wasn't for the two twins playing Nikki and AJ. Holy hell I hated these two characters so much. One of them was so mean and the other was a spineless toad. I also didn't like their acting either. Yeah yeah their kids blah blah, the kids in the OTHER episodes did a fine enough job! Not a fan of this one.

FINAL VERDICT: I may not have liked the Final Episode of this version of Are You Afraid of the Dark? but I'm still kinda excited to be able to see new (to me) episodes of this show. I'm sure I will have an article where I talk about those episodes to you fine people.  

TV You Forgot About #6: Struck By Lightning (1979)

 

Hello fine viewer of this blog! Welcome back to my least used blog column! I do hope to post in this one more. Originally it was for random not so well known holiday specials, but I felt that was too little of a range so I changed it to TV you Forgot About where I can talk about weird tv show episodes, weird tv shows, tv shows that didn't last very long, tv shows from my own country that americans wouldn't know diddly fuck about, and yes those obscure holiday specials I started this column out as. It's a much broader brush to paint with and I can discuss all kindsa weird shit that only amuse me. Struck By Lightning is such weird shit.

I must admit that of all the "classic" film and literature monsters that my favorite of them is Frankenstein. He always just looks really damn cool. It's such a fun and unique look. The vast majority of Frankenstein movies are a lot of fun. Nothing against Wolf Men or Vampires but something about Frankenstein is just the coolest to me. For those who don't know Frankenstein was a novel written by a lady named Mary Shelley all the way back in 1816. She was only like 18/19 years old when she wrote that novel. She also apparently according to legend lost her virginity on her mother's grave. No matter what you do you will never be more goth than Mary Shelley, so you might as well give up right now. 

So what exactly is Struck By Lightning you may ask? Well it was a sitcom that lasted 3 whole episodes leaving 8 unaired in the United States of America (apparently the Australians and the British got to enjoy more of this tv show.) Struck by Lightning told the story of a guy named Ted Stein who gets invited to his ancestral home to find a guy named Frank (played by Jack Elam, the doctor guy from the Cannonball Run movies who got the job because they thought his weird appearance was already so perfect that he did not need to wear makeup.) but it turns out that  Frank is actually Frankenstein and he needs Ted to create a serum that will prolong his life. So now it's a wacky team of Frank and Ted getting into wacky adventures.

So now it's the usual time for me to watch the pilot episode, which is the only one that's available online. So I'm gonna talk about what happens in said episode while making some jokes and weird tangents to talk about something completely different. It starts off with the theme song which was "You're So Beautiful" sung by Mr. Joe Cocker. He'll always be known to me as the guy who sung the theme song to the Wonder Years! Then we get into who sponsored this show. I didn't even know sponsored tv shows were still a thing in 1979. It's our good friends at Folgers who really want use to know that the coffee is MOUNTAIN GROWN. Personally I think all coffee tastes like someone took a big meaty shit in the coffee maker so I'm not the one to ask.

Oh hey before we get into anything else we gotta talk about the writers of this episode. Fred Freeman and Lawrence J Cohen. They wrote several pretty amusing movies, Start the Revolution Without Me, Delirious and S*P*Y*S. They also wrote The Big Bus which was the first disaster movie parody out there. I was not a big fan. So I'm wondering are we gonna get The Big Bus or S*P*Y*S. So we are introduced to Ted Stein who now owns this Inn of his grandfathers and Nora. Ted is played by Jeffery Kramer who's claim to fame was being the deputy in Jaws and Jaws 2. Nora is played by Millie Slavin who had a pretty big career for a woman I don't think I've ever seen before in anything. Started in 1969 with a Dick Van Dyke movie and ended said career in 2002 with an Arnold Swartznegger film. Now that's a career! She doesn't like his smoking and tells him his grandfather told her to leave him in this chair. So now he's got an urn in a chair that whenever you move it lightning strikes.

Oh, speaking of lightning, it's a big damn part of the plot. well, it's a reoccurring gag it seems. So it's finally time for Frank and Ted to meet. Frank apparently is the handyman at the Inn. He gets hit by Lightning a lot. You know the stuff that brought him to life in the first place.  He tells him that he's going to Salem to his great great grandfathers grave and that they need to talk when he gets back. We are then treated to a silly but fun scene of the two of them in Ted's room. Ted intends on selling this place but Frank finally reveals HIS identity AND Ted's identity. It takes getting hit by Lightning yet again to prove who he is.

Now we meet the rest of the cast of this show. The kid character that appears in way too many sitcoms just to be cute and silly. An old man who was played by Bill Erwin. He will always be known as the grouchy grandpa that appears in that one episode of Seinfeld but he had one hell of a career. I'm pretty sure there's no way you haven't seen this guy before. He's great and I love him. Anyway we get a scene in the laboratory where Frank tells Ted that he needs to get a serum that he needs every 50 years to stay alive. There's only one problem, Ted's grandfather ate the paper with the serum on it. So Ted's gotta re-create it, except Ted's not a scientist, just a high school science student. Frank is not happy about this so uh he breaks the table. We then go to another scene of Ted trying to escape from the Inn and sell it but Frank literally smashes his hands through the door and then it turns to Ted pretty much looking like he's doing a 180 and pretending to stay, however during a talk between him and the real estate guy Frank overhears and well you know some zany stuff will happen, and by zany I mean psychopathic because Frank breaks down some trees and telephone poles to break a fucking bridge. And destroy cars. 

Frank is down in the laboratory and Ted comes down to tell him he's leaving. Frank tells him all about his life and how it's not been perfect (He hasn't been on a date in 186 years!) Frank even talks about how he could have had an even better brain if that butterfingers Igor hadn't dropped it! He even talks about how he was promised by Gustav Frankenstein that he'd be built a woman but he couldn't even get that! Ted finally gives in and tells him he will stay until they find a serum. It's a pretty fun and actually kinda heartwarming scene. 

FINAL VERDICT: I enjoyed this. I get the feeling if this were made in like the 1960s it would have been more popular. It was a silly goofball 1960s sitcom just put out in 1979 when people wanted sitcoms that tackled issues like All in the Family. Jack Elam and Jeffery Kramer actually work really well together and I really would like to see the other 10 episodes of this show that were filmed. Oh, and with the YouTube upload of this show we also get some classic 1970s commercials, like Zest, which gives you a good lather and really isn't that what life is all about?

Movie Review #61: Scooby Doo and the Curse of the Lake Monster (2010)

 

Ah, Scooby Doo. The most popular and long lasting Hanna Barbera character. I love his very silly adventures. No matter the era. I like the earliest episodes and a lot of the newer stuff and most of the stuff in between (the times it was just Scooby, Shaggy and Scrappy was a blight on the franchise and should be forgotten by everyone.) but there's a thing I just have to say and I'm sorry if it offends younger people than me who make video essays on nostalgic things on YouTube. Scooby Doo does not work in live action. Period. I'm not opposed to live action movies based off cartoons. The original TMNT movie from 1990 is still one of my favorite movies of all time. It's very entertaining and worthy of respect and praise. It's just the cartoons worked differently. TMNT could actually be serious at times and it's shown in the movie (and still has a lot of great jokes) Scooby Doo is silly 100% of the time doing all kinds of things that work well only in a cartoon. 

It doesn't help that Raja Gosnell is the worst mainstream director of movies probably ever. Scooby Doo and Scooby Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed are both really bad. They may have had scripts from James Gunn but Raja Gosnell shows that he can ruin scripts from very talented people. I'll give it to Matthew Lillard, dude was very good at Shaggy but I didn't really care for the rest of the cast honestly. Also Scooby Doo looks really fucking ugly in CGI, holy fucking shit is he an abomination even in the bigger budgeted films. Scooby Doo and the Curse of the Lake Monster is the 4th of 5 Live Action Scooby Doo movies. This one was made in 2010 for Cartoon Network. Yes live action stuff on Cartoon Network. I don't get it either.

Yes, there was a Scooby Doo movie with the same cast made a year prior I think. I don't know or care. It was probably terrible. I will point out some of the positives that this movie does have, a Special Appearances thing pops up and I was worried at first, thinking it was some random Nickoldeon or Disney Channel stars that I have no idea whos who but nope. You wanna know who the Random Special Guests of this movie are, well here they are: Ted fucking McGinley as Daphne's Uncle Thorton Blake IV. Marion Ross as a owner of a general store, also the descendant of the evil witch the movie revolves around. Richard Moll as the guy who fills the gang in on the curse and shit. Nichelle Nichols from Star Trek as a Senator lady. Oh and he's not listed but Michael Berryman himself has a nice little cameo. Seriously it was as if they asked ME who should be in this movie as guest stars and actually took my suggestions. It's also nice to know that they are all still alive and get to enjoy the things life entails like eating waffles or playing BurgerTime on the NES. I will actually give credit to the cast of this movie. All of them do really well for their characters. Okay maybe the kid playing Shaggy goes a bit too far in his role but none of them actually annoyed me. 

Now for the bitching and moaning about the weirdly convoluted plot that isn't a lot of fun. First off there's this weird thing where the characters save another character and they fall in love with them. First Daphne is saved by Freddy and she is like OH MY GOD I LOVE HIM. Velma saves Shaggy at one point and for the rest of the movie he wants to put his weiner all over her. Velma is oblivious because men are not really her thing. Anyway this is all just put in the movie to keep them from realizing that Velma is the bad guy of the thing. She gets possessed by the evil witch that Richard Moll tells them about. It happens because she touches one of the moonstones that were a part of the witches evil staff. Oh and her favorite song is in the Light of the Silvery Moon from like 1907 or whenever the fuck. 

So Velma as the Witch uses this actually pretty cool Frog Creature so she can find all of the random moonstones and become more powerful again. Shaggy finds one and Marion Ross has one of them because she's the descendant. She gets the gems and then somehow the power of Shaggy's love singing her favorite song depossesses her but after that they kiss each other and she says they have no chemistry so what? I really don't get this stupid Scooby Doo movie. 

FINAL VERDICT: I like Scooby Doo. He's a lot of fun. I even enjoyed a good amount of the animated movies that I've seen, so it's not like he doesn't work in a film format. This is just a bad lazy movie. 

The Final Episode #86: The Munsters (1964 - 1966)

 

I did want to review The Munsters because I've only seen a few episodes and want to discuss it on this blog, but I knew that if I didn't review it for my blog during Halloween AND after doing the Addams Family, I would make someone in North (or is it South) Carolina very mad. So mad in fact that he would speed to my house using his wheelchair and run over my toes repeatedly until they were no more. Seeing as how I appreciate having toes and all that I decided that I just had to review The Munsters and not put it off till next year. So The Munsters is like from what I've seen a sillier version of The Addams Family. It's a family of Monsters instead of just really weird people. A Frankenstein, A Dracula and a wolfman. or wolf boy. Anyway how the hell did Lily and Herman create a wolfboy? I think someone in that relationship has some explaining to do!

The Munsters was created by Allan Burns and Chris Hayward in 1964. Allan Burns literally has my job. Or at least the job I wish I could have had. The man first started in animation helping Jay Ward with stuff like The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends (so did Chris Hayward by the way. That guy created Dudley Do-Right!) Allan Burns would also go on to create The Mary Tyler Moore Show in the 1970s! Not all of the stuff they did separately or together were hits (they also did My Mother the Car and The Duck Factory) but you'd get the Claw Seal of Approval just by being a part of just one of those things I mentioned and he was apart of SEVERAL OF THEM. Now that's like three whole seals! Not a shabby job Allan! (and also Chris who gets an extra seal for creating Dudley Do Right) 

The Munsters lasted for two whole seasons until well at least according to Mr. Butch Patrick (cool name) Eddie Munster himself, Batman came along and took all of their ratings away. They do have a long cult following which made for movies and tv movies and reboots and everything else. They are being rebooting yet again this time by Rob Zombie. I am not looking forward to it because except for House of a Thousand Corpses and The Devils Rejects, I am not a really big fan of Robbie Z. I do not want to see Sheri Moon Zombie as Lily or hear Grandpa say fuck 167 times in a row. It's at the point that I just want to see the past left alone. Stop beating it with a stick you bastards.

Well despite I've seen a few episodes of this show I'm still gonna give this a giant size article where I talk about more than just the Final Episode because well It doesn't feel right to do that for the Addams Family and not the Munsters. They are like the yin and yang of 1960s television and you have to talk about one if you talk about the other, other wise you are a bad person and I don't like you. Before I do this I have to talk about the 100% fucking perfect casting of Fred Gwynne as Herman Munster. This man somehow got the perfect balance of serious when need be and goofy as hell when also to need be. The rest of the cast is great too, no shade on them but Fred Gwynne makes this show. Period. The First episode out of many that I watched was Herman, The Master Spy in which Herman gets lost scuba diving and is found by a Russian boat. They think he's the missing link between human and fish and send back to Russia for help. Russia says no he's a spy! This is a fun back and forth until Lily finds out and ALL SHIT GOES WILD. The ending is very silly because Herman gets in shit for dancing. Poor bastard.

The Second Episode of Four that I've decided to watch was called Herman Munster, Shutter Bug and was all about Herman Munster well becoming a photographer.  Now you're wondering just like I was at the beginning of the episode of how could that big loveable goober screw up and get into trouble taking pictures. Well it turns out he took a picture of two criminals getting away from a bank robbery and the two criminals want that picture. They find out who he is pretty quickly because well he was driving the Munsters car and that thing was weird as hell. Best car of the 1960s. Well I might rate the Batmobile a bit higher but still it's a car I would actually like to own and I hate car shit. If it doesn't transform it's usually fucking shitty as hell. Anyway the criminals are tricked into drinking Grandpa's Homing Pigeon potion and they end up bringing themselves to the police station. A really fun little episode.

A Man for Marilyn was the next episode I watched. Marilyn Munster is the one of them that looks like a quote unquote normal person. Not a Frankenstein, or Dracula, or a Wolfboy, nope, just a regular 1960s lady type. The whole joke is that the other Munsters think she's ugly and that's why she can't retain a man. The Munsters are kinda dopey like that. It YOU scary rascals that scare off the men! Anyway she was just at a wedding and the latest boy has seen Herman and he's running away as fast as possible. However Grandpa has a plan, which is to turn a frog into a prince. However it does not work, but a dude walking by who was played by Don Edmonds, a man who would later go on to direct Ilsa She Wolf of the S.S. and act in the crazy bonkers Body By Jake slasher film Home Sweet Home. The man clearly had the greatest career in cinema. Anyway he thinks she needs to be saved from them and THEY think he's the frog who finally turned into a prince after they left to see their drive in movie. They tie him up and try to marry him to Marilyn but he escapes again. He goes the police and actually gets them to go to the Munsters house but the two cops just think it's a big old prank. The episode ends with Marilyn and the guy meeting up again and she stands up for her family and tells him to get fucked with a cactus! Well, she's a bit nicer than that.

The Final Episode was called A Visit from the Teacher and was written by Joe Connelly and Bob Mosher, probably most famously known for Leave it to Beaver, a boring ass family sitcom from the 1950s and Amos and Andy a incredibly racist television series that showed black people as freaky weirdos instead of people. I haven't seen any of their other shows (or honestly Amos and Andy because I don't really want to watch it) but I'm going to proclaim that the Munsters was the only good show they produced. This was a really great episode though. It starts off with Marilyn and Grandpa in the lab in the basement trying to siphon off electricity from lightning strikes. I must admit that Herman is my favorite of the group but Grandpa played by Al Lewis is not far away. That dude is clearly having the time of his life as Grandpa Munster. They actually at first pull off the lightning thing. 

Now it's all about Eddie Munster writing his report. Can I say that I like that Eddie Munster actually is a part of the plots. I recently talked about The Addams Family series from 1964 and the two kids are oversights. I say this because the two kids in the movies were absolutely wonderful and I would like to have seen the kids from the actual series do stuff. It was really weird because those two were a big part of the movies. Anyway he's got to write a report on his family and ask them all kinds of questions and stuff. They use a different word in the episode but I'm very stupid and I don't know how to spell that word so we are going with report. Marilyn and Lily are cooking Dodo Bird Roast, Sour Apple Pie (with tons of vinegar!) and Cactus Juice when the lightning power fucks up and Grandpa has to fix it. However his fix freaks out and the Dodo bird (which Lily exclaims is very hard to get nowadays!) and they are stuck with eating cold rhino tongue sandwiches.

So Eddie is done with his report and wants to read his report to his family. They make all kinds of silly jokes during this segment until halfway through the speech when it flash forwards to Eddie reading his report to his teacher and principal. This report makes them think Eddie is over imaginative and has a poor living condition so they go to the Munsters house to make sure. At first they think he's faking it because they meet Marilyn. Then they meet Lily and Grandpa and see the house and are freaked the fuck out.  The damn power goes out again just as Herman Munster comes home. The Principal and the Teacher want to get the hell outta there and end up in a coffin. They finally meet Herman as the lights come on and shit the fuck out of their pants. Literally all over the place. 

The last scene has them eating dinner and talking about how the Teacher doesn't want to come back to the Munsters house for dinner. Grandpa is working on making it so they don't have to pay any more water bills. Of course this works out poorly and the Munsters end with Herman Munster sitting under a umbrella eating his dinner. I wonder how Lily's Dodo Bird Roast tastes.

FINAL VERDICT: A very fun time was had by all when I watched these episodes. Very entertaining, fun stuff from the 1960s. The Munsters and  The Addams Family are both a lot of fun and I wish I could get ahold of The Munsters Today. I'm bored of todays constant reboots but I'll still watch one from the 1980s! I hope all fans of this blog especially ones from North Carolina (or was it South Carolina, I always get them confused) have enjoyed this special.