NES Game Reviews #58: Kirby and Kings of the Beach go on a QUEST to save Klax from Klash Ball!

 

OK. I know I talked a lot about the Kickle Cubicle ad but I think this might beat it. First off the whole LIFES A BEACH AND THEN YOU DIE take on the old saying of LIFES A BITCH AND THEN YOU DIE is kind of amazing. The fact they had to take the two most random games they published and put it in comics and magazine ads. It's also amazing that I had never seen this before. I love it. I am sure that you know the drill by this point. I will discuss six NES games and then maybe argue with portnoyd about them in the comments. It will be fun and we will all have a good time.

 

I have no real idea what PC gaming has ever been like. I did not play any King's Quest games ever. or Space Quest. or Police Quest. They seem to he pretty interesting games and I kinda would like to play them. I like Point and Clickers but I am not great at them. I always end up confused somewhere and not sure what to do. I did beat Deja Vu and Uninvited but I ended up using guides to help me because I suck. I would like to try these Quest games but uh, I'm sorry konami but I have to do it on the PC. This just feels janky and weird and wrong somehow. It doesn't feel right to play this on a NES, even if like every other point and click game was brought over from some computer that Damien knows everything about but I know jack shit about. I also wonder if this version does the thing a lot of these Quest games were famous for which was if you didn't pick up a random thing from early on in the game you could never beat it. That was something that would have REALLY annoyed me as a kid and probably make me throw the damn computer into the ocean as an adult. I do live near the ocean since I LIVE ON A DAMN ISLAND so don't mess with me Kings Quest V if I ever do play you.

 Oh hey another sports game, but I'm gonna be a bit nicer here because honestly this game is pretty decent for what it is. I am going to talk about how I do think the variety of sports games on the NES is pretty good. I mean if you are a sports game fan you'll probably find at least one sports game for the NES to enjoy based on about any sport. I mean the NES has like I think four Volleyball games. I can't even think of any Volleyball games for any other console. So yeah. This one is by Konami so you know it's competently made even if you aren't very good at it. SPeaking of which remember how I mentioned PLAY THE NES before. Someone on that forum considered this to be the worst NES game and I really wonder if they played more than 5 NES games. This isn't even the worst fucking Volleyball game made for the NES. That's for sure. There's just not much for me to say about this game. I don't know either of the supposedly FAMOUS volleyballers that were in the game or anything. I don't know sports. GO AWAY.

Hey it's Kirby! I love Kirby! Anyway I've always forgotten if he started out on the Game boy or the NES. It turns out to be the Gameboy. I have not played pretty much any Kirby game made after the N64 game and I've only played a little of that one but I love every single one of them. Even the weird spinoffs like Kirby's Dream Course (which is really hard to me but whatever). Hell I love Kirby's Avalanche and that's just a Puyo Puyo game just turned into Kirby. I think that's what that series is called. I dunno. I don't really care. I just like Kirby. Kirby if you just want to beat it is a simple walk in the park. It's just charming and fun. However if you want to 100% any Kirby game it will be REALLY hard weirdly enough. I did it with Dream Land 3 and it was nuts. Still these games were something I loved as a kid and I still love today. Just simple unique fun with a big puff ball.

 Kiwi Kraze or THE NEW ZEALAND STORY is the game of uh a Kiwi trying to save his friends from WALLY THE WALRUS. If that isn't the best plot for a game ever than I don't know what is? Anyway this is what I like to call a puzzle platformer becuase you will have to figure out how to get to the end AND how to get past several bad guys without getting hurt. This also has some really fun bosses and the music and graphics are very cute. I just really like this game and I'm glad I was able to finally beat it for the NES bounty makes me very happy. Kiwi Kraze is a pretty fun game by Taito and shows why they are #4 for Third Party Companies (when it comes to the NES and how many companies worked for it #4 is really good). I do think the challenge is a bit lopsided as it gets hard a bit sooner than I would like but it's not too bad. It can be done if you put in enough effort. I like Kiwis and I like this game.

 Klash  Ball is a game I don't think I ever played before. I actually think this is the first time I've even heard of this game. I could be wrong about that and I could have owned it. Who knows. It's a pretty generic title for this kinda honestly weird made up sport sports game. I played one game and I actually kinda liked it. Kicking the ball off the wall felt pretty good and I'm sure people who can play this game really well feel pretty good playing it. I dunno I want to play this game and see if I can hit the ball against both walls and score a goal. Just see if that's possible. Yeah I know I can't believe I kinda want to play a sports game to see the end of it. That's happened with like two sports games. Ever. (BOTH ON THE NES TOO WYLDE HUH?). So yeah, I kinda like Klash Ball and think it's A-OK.

 You know I'm going to make a HOT TAKE that will annoy the SHITTY JERKS on Youtube who refuse to buy unlicensed games. Tengen might be #5 in the list of NES GAME COMPANIES. Yep  I mean for the THIRD PARTY STUFF. I dunno how Port feels but Tengen's best games are a lot of fun. I dunno. Anyway Klax is a puzzle game that was made in the 1990s. Different colored blocks fall off a platform and you have to make sure they hit on the bottom platform in the right place. This game can get REALLY frantic later on. Trust me, I beat the game. I mean I would use warps the game just lets you have it and it can be WILD later on. Still it's always a FUN time. Sadly ITS THE 1990S AND THEIR IS TIME FOR KLAX doesn't mean if you beat it you are brought back to January 1st, 1990. Would have been really damn nice if that was what happened though. 

GOOD GAMES: 155

BAD GAMES: 123

OKAY GAMES: 52

GAMES IMPATIENT: 5

GAMES OVERALL: 335 

NES Game Reviews #57: A Bunch of Kids Annoy some King........of Kings.

 

I couldn't actually find ads for ANY of the games I'm going to review for this post. I mean American ads. This game has a really great little Japanese ad here. I can't read anything but I would be sold on Kid Icarus and have bought a copy. So good job. So we have another six games to discuss and one of them makes me very angry. So let's see what game that is!

 

 

We go through our KIDS N KINGS which is what I like to call this set of six games. You see every one of them has Kid or King in the title. That's why? I didn't want to leave you wondering why. Anyway Kid Icarus is NOT a game I had as a kid but when I started collecting again in 1998 so when I was a teenager I had a copy of this game. I don't know where or when I got it. I like how these games feel like black box games but weren't. They were gray box games. It was only two games Kid Icarus and Metroid. They do have some similar feel to me even if they are different. Anyway the first time I played this game I kinda fucking hated it. The first level is ANNOYING then and it is STILL annoying. It's probably one of the most annoyingly hard first levels in any game. The game starts with you going up and then you get a Super Mario Brothers side scrolling stage then another going up stage and then blam you get put into a maze level. You do this over four levels except the last level I think is just a shooter stage. I'm never sure if I did get the best ending in this game ore even how to do it. I know I did get A ending in this game and it was good enough for me at the time. I should go back to this game because once you get past stage 1-1 the game becomes much easier. I mean despite all of the SHITHEAD ASSHOLE CUNT DICKFACE DIRT ASS BITCH SHITLIPPED Eggplant Wizards. Turning into an EGGPLANT WAS ALWAYS SO ANNOYING. Still a very unique little game that should be played. I really should try the gameboy version or the Wii?? game. Kid Icarus really does need more life even if he was the most annoying character in Captain N.

 

 

I don't know if this makes any sense to anyone but I'm going to talk about it anyway. I am a forty year old man. In August I will be 41. There are a lot of more serious things I'd like to do and see. There are some frivolous silly things I would like to watch and rewatch.  There are things on that list that will probably end up annoying the shit out of me yet I kinda want to watch them. There are also a lot of things I'm sure I will enjoy on this list. I'm just getting less and less out of things that are simply OKAY. I want a positive or negative reaction. I want to feel something. Kid Klown if I am to be honest really does not make me feel anything. It is a simple and honestly generic platformer. No it is not poorly made or anything at all however it's just very there. I think I ended up paying $50 for my copy, maybe even less. I really wish I had kept records like the BIG NERD PORTNOYD did. This now goes for $500 and I really don't see how anyone could buy this game for that much. Seriously if you are one of those BRUTE FORCE OH MY GOD I HAVE ALL THIS MONEY I WANT NES GAMES collector you could literally just wait and get I dunno Bonk's Adventure or something. Hell go for Flintstones 2. Those are at least better experiences than this. Of all the supposedly rare NES platformers this is honestly the worst. It feels so "yeah whatever". Like the people behind it were competent programmers but they weren't really passionate. They just didn't care to go that extra mile to make this more than OKAY.  The strangest thing is that this game is probably one of the ULTRA RARE SUPER OH MY GOD NES GAMES that might actually be kinda hard to find. I only ever saw one copy which I got from cracked8ball. Yes I know I'm in NEWFOUNDLAND AKA THE EDGE OF THE PLANET. This game isn't terrible but it's also very "this is a thing that exists" and I dunno the older I get the less I care about things that just exist. 

 If say I dunno Super Mario Brothers is love. Kid Klown being complete indifference (which is the opposite of either love or hate. to love or hate something you need passion. indifference has no passion involved) this would be hate. Kid Kool was a game that I remember seeing at a grocery story sometime between when my NES was fed cheese by my sister and before I wanted to get a second one and play these games again. I do believe I saw it in a Lewisporte grocery store. or convenience store. I really don't know which one but I remember it looking well Kool. The late 80s/early 90s kinda cool. The best kinda cool. I don't even know what is considered cool by 8-13 year old kids but I am sure I would be completely and utterly baffeled by it. Growing old kinda sucks but at least I got to be there for this kinda cool. I mean look at the kid there. That's a cool 1987-1992 kinda guy. He's got a dragon on his leg THAT'S TURND BACKWARDS and some fuzzball on his back. The bad guy who I doubt even shows up in the game. It does not look like the kinda characters you see within the game. He's getting ready to shake his fist which means he's ready to FUCK THAT OLD WIZARD GUY UP. It's a really cool memorable cover. Which was something a LOT of things did to get you to buy something that was not as cool. Like I would say at least 50% of silly b-movies I wanna watch are not going to be good but I see the VHS art and I'm like MAN I JUST CAN'T SAY NO. It's weird but they still got some weird magic. Anyway that weird blather I just did on KID KOOL is quite something but uh this is one of the worst fucking NES games. I dunno if portnoyd will say that but I will. This game wants you to beat it VERY QUICKLY. like it seems to want to make sure you get everything before the king dies and he can it you dilly dally at all. Sorry but I like to be able to think about what I'm doing and how to pull it off, so that's one problem right there. To get to some areas that are nessassary to get too you have to do a RUNNING jumps and when you get past a screen the GAME STOPS YOU. It just STOPS EVERYTHING no matter how fast you were going. It's very very very annoying. Your fuzzball friend can be used to kill enemies very easily but once you lose him you pretty much end up dying. I kinda hate this shit. However this game at least fills me with a burning hatred with is passion. I kinda want to beat it. I know if I did I would have a heart attack and die but I still want to show this piece of shit whos boss. I beat Kid Klown once and I just don't care enough to ever do it again. I do not know whats up with me.

 I love this HOT PINK cover. HOT PINK was a big thing back in the day. It was a wonderful time when all could enjoy HOT PINK. Anyway Kid Niki is probably my favorite Data East game. I am just realizing it was a arcade hit. I never owned this game in the box. I'm not portnoyd. He owns like every NES game in the box. With manual. HE COULD COME HERE AND TELL US ALL ABOUT THE KID NIKI MANUAL. Anyway this is weird becuase it's a platformer and I can't think of many arcade feeling platformers. I'm sure someone will list off a list. I know of beat em ups and Pac-Man score games but not many platformers. Still this game is pretty fun. Yes, it's jank and it's annoying to die from one hit but it's one of those games that you really have to get into a groove to beat. It's hard to explain but you just gotta know what the game wants and please it like a beautiful woman. There's just not much else to say about this game. Except everything about is goofy as hell. I also wish I was better at Kid Niki 3 for the FAMILY COMPUTER. So yea Kid Niki is cool by me.

 Yes, I know there is a game inbetween Kid Niki and this. It is called King Neptune's Adventure and I cannot get it to work in FCEUX. I also just do not care enough right now to try to find an emulator where it works. I hopefully will come back to it (and the Power Pad games... and the European only releases when I can) but right now I must move on to the future. and the Future is.........more bible games. This is just like Bible Adventures just with three more platforming games. One had you playing as Mary and Joseph to save Jesus one has you getting to the place where the BABY JESUS was to be born and the last one was about the three wise men. The big problem with this game is the same problem with every other platformer made by Color Dreams/Wisdom Tree/Bunch Games this game is just really broken play control wise. I just do not enjoy playing any of them. Trying to attack enemies is just annoying and unpleasant and I just don't get much out of this game. I'M SORRY LINCOLN. I do however love this cover. That giant happy fast as shit smiling Camel is one of the best things that came out of the NES and no I don't care what you have to say about that. Bitch.

 Man this is another game I honestly want to really like. There's something here that I like. Maybe it's because it's a Squaresoft game that is not a RPG. Like the second Square made money with Final Fantasy they went HOG FUCKING WILD on RPGs. It was actually kind of amazing how HOG WILD they went with them. This was a game prior to Final Fantasy. It's a weird shooter. You play as four characters who have to play through a level each. Then they team up and fight the big bad guy. You play as a Knight. A Wizard. A Monster and a Kid Thief. Here are the really big problems that majorily annoy me and kinda ruin this entire game. First off it starts off with not a lot of enemies and then it gets out of control. It's even worse because you have to shoot out a place to move around in. So while you are shooting mountains to get farther in the game 304 enemies are shooting your asshole in. The second problem is that this and I'm not sure if it is is one of those old timey obtuse games. The one that you have to d osomething that you don't even know what you have to do to actually beat it. I feel like you have to go to the underground area with each character and kill the boss. I also get the feeling that if you do not beat each stage and get each character that you will NOT be able to actually beat the game. Games would do that back in the day. Still there's something about this game that I want to enjoy so I come back to it from time to time and will probably one day maybe even beat it. I have a better chance of beating this than ever playing Kid Klown again, even if Kid Klown is probably better made. This at least feels more engaging I guess. I dunno. I'm done with this crap for now.

GOOD GAMES: 152

BAD GAMES: 123

OKAY GAMES: 49

GAMES IMPATIENT: 5

GAMES OVERALL: 329 

NES Game Reviews #56: Karnov, Kickle, The Karate Kid and the Karate Champ fight in the Jurassic Park. For some reason.

 Well now. I went for a Kickle Cubicle ad for the top image of this post. I picked it for one reason really, because it's my favorite game within this group. I am glad I picked it becuase this ad is amazing. I mean it's amazingly BAD but that's still amazing. Look at the character they picked for Kickle. He looks more like SPIDER MAN than the character you actually play or is on the box. That character looks like some kind of kid of some sort. Or a dwarf. I don't know. We also get the terrible joke of no more mr ICE guy and if you know me I love terrible forced puns like that. Anyway I did not even look to see what the ads for the other games even looked like because I knew they would not beat this beauty.

 

We finally finish off the J's. The terror of the H-I-J's is finally over. K is a overall a pretty good letter. Most of the games are well pretty interesting to at least talk about and not like Hoops or Jeopardy. I'm glad I picked the idea of just reviewing all Jeopardy games in one paragraph becuase doing four reviews of them would have been really pointless and it would have me smashing random letters at the final game. I should do that for a really awful game. Just jam my fingers on the keyboard until a paragraph of gibberish pops out. Anyway, I will not be doing that for this game which is really fucking amazing because it's made by Ocean. That's right Ocean made two games that were actually pretty good on the ol' NES (The other one is Addams Family). If you know me you know I hate Ocean more than LJN or THQ or any (except Micronics. Fuck you Toshi) company that made games for the NES. Just something about their games annoys me. I think it's the fact they took two really good licences away from better companies like Konami or Sunsoft or Capcom or Tecmo or Taito or KID or whatever. Just imagine a GOOD RoboCop 2 (RIP Tom Noonan) or a GOOD Darkman game. Annoys the hell outta me. The fact that I actually like some LJN and THQ games is more. Anyway they did a pretty good job here with Jurassic Park and weirdly enough like Addams Family it doesn't feel like a EuroTrash game. They should have made more games without a the stink of Europe all over them. So this is a game wher you go around and pick up dinosaurs eggs. You have a big area to go around and find stuff. The areas get bigger and bigger and all that. The only problems I had with this game are this. Sometimes you'd just get stuck on something and dinosaurs would fuck you up and sometimes you'd just miss one egg because you didn't realize you could go over to that area. Sometimes the timer got to be a little annoying but never so bad that I got pissed off. I dunno but  I did beat this game and would probably do it again. It's worthy of being put in the Good pile. Good job Ocean you didn't fuck this one up.

 

  The Karate Champ is a terrible ugly stupid awful game. It is a terrible port of what I feel was probably not very good of a arcade game. I get the feeling that it was one of those things you just played while at a grocery store because you didn't want to follow your mother. It was like the one other thing you could do while waiting for your mother or parents or whatever buy oranges or some shit. This game has the worst controls of all time and you get really very little to do. I like a good amount of the simplistic arcade ports for the NES. Something about them are usually well done. This is not one of them. This game is a boring ugly mess. The play controls, graphics and music are just so awful. I know I did not play this game until I became a collector and if I was given this for Christmas in like 1991 I probably would have puked on whoever got it for me. No one wants that. There's also very very little same to about this stupid shit game.

 

I am a big fan of the four Karate Kid films made between like 1984 and sometime in the 1990s. Yes, I know the third movie and fourth movie get some poop thrown at them but I dunno I find them to be a fun series of movies. The first one is clearly the best but I believe this was a game that took stuff from the first two movies and made into a game. So if you like Terry Long or Michael Ironside you are shit outta luck and get nothing. You start in the Karate Tournament and this shit is really quite easy. Then you do some levels which are really annoying. You got a bunch of bad guys just chasing you and a LOT of them. If you get hit you get go backwards and get knocked into a hole. Despite all of this you can easily beat this game within 15 minutes. You just probably won't enjoy it. I do kinda like the mini games where you catch flies or break ice even if I'm not very good at them. I believe ATLUS somehow was the company that made this game for LJN but I could be wrong. Anyway no matter who made this game its pretty shitty. I do like the goofy wink Mr Miyagi gives you when you win the game in the end. Thanks for believing in me Mr Miyagi!!!

 This game reminds me of Play the NES, the last NES forum that had a sizable userbase. It was run by a man named Roth and he loved this game. He also did a dumb edit that would change some word to KARNOV which I fucking hated. DROVE MY ASS OVER THE MOON with that shitty garbage. I hated it so fucking much that along with not liking several of the forum letters made me kinda not use PLAY THE NES FORUMS. This is where I asked PAT THE NES PUNK my VERY SERIOUS QUESTIONS that he did not answer. Pat the NES Punk, more like PAT THE NES JERK WHO TAKES STUFF WAY TOO SERIOUSLY. Seriously. What a bunch of shit garbage. Port, one of the users on this site was SMUGGIER and MORE UP HIS OWN ASS than Loogaroo if you can believe it. It was pretty wild. So what do I think about Karnov? I fucking hate Karnov. I don't know when I picked it up but it was very early on. The game is just awkward. Karnov moves slow enough thats its annoying. You get two hits and the enemies (some of which are very annoying) are just put in the worst places possible. Also enemies will just randomly pop in and annoy the shit out of you. This is a game I want to beat because I HATE IT AND WANT TO MAKE IT MY BITCH not because I actually enjoy it. Data East was such a weird company and I really do not like this game. Sorry, Roth. Not that you'll ever read this.

 This is a pretty great little game created by KID for Taito. Strange how I never hear it get talked about as much as THE OTHER TAITO GAMES that are SUPPOSEDLY SUPER RARE (and they aren't. Not even Little Samson. Seriously will you come across this game back in the day if you were to EBAY things when EBAY was an actual source and not GIANT GOOBER SHITHOLE for collecting games. Yes, honestly pretty easily too. Would you find this game if you were looking for it via flea markets and places like that. Yes. You totally would. It wouldn't happen every visit BUT This is a game I found in Newfoundland. In fact I remember finding several copies. Sorry but you must realize that makes this game uncommon at best. Rarity means your game comes up on ebay like once every 3 years. Like Stadium Events would back in the day. I'm not saying Stadium Events isn't rare but I honestly do believe there are more copies out there that poeple trying to make 20k on it are loonies but not as looney as anyone who spends money on it. Yes, yes I'll get to Kickmaster in a second. You know that I've made it a thing the shit on new collectors whenever a supposedly rare game comes up. So yeah, how about the actual game? If this were normal era prices of like I dunno 1998 to 2007 then I'd say yes, spend that $20 on this UNCOMMON NES game. This is very much worth $20. You will play it and enjoy yourself. You get all kinds of different magic and all kinds of amazingly cool bosses to fight. The levels are pretty well designed and the graphics and music are all worth it. The only problem is that the last stage is WILD and you WILL need a lot of magic power to use it which you will have depleted within the last stages. Still if this were NORMAL LAND aka BEFORE 2011 I'd be like yeah spend $20 on that game you deserve it! If you spend $140 on this game I will however have to break my foot off in your ass and I don't want to do that, mostly because my foot will be not connected to my body and be in your STUPID FUCKING WORTHLESS SHOULDNT HAVE ANY MONEY ASS. Way to ruin collecting you SHIT FUCKING ASSHOLES.

 

 I will never get NEW AGE COLLECTORS because I looked up this game and it only goes for like $25 bucks. This was no joke are harder game for me to find than Kickmaster which I saw many times after I spent $20 on it. Remember that feeling of looking everywhere for something and when you got it everyone else popped out copies that were ALWAYS cheaper than the price you paid. It was like they were just waiting to make a damn fool out of you. Anyway Kickle Cubicle is a game that I would see more than once but less than I ever saw Kickmaster. There was this one guy who I think was still a teenager when he started selling NES games in like 2007? I dunno. I really am not good with them. I seriously wake up sometimes and still think it's 1998 until I realize I am an adult and then I just cry a little bit. Uh, yeah. This guy went around and found SO many games. He had Chip N Dale Rescue Rangers 2 at one point. He had a LOT of NES games. Like if he collected them he probably would have beaten my collection and had all the games. Except Stadium Events. I doubt that shit even came to Canada. It's just weird because this just feels more RARE to me than Kickmaster. I dunno, maybe it's just better when you didn't have 394240 dudbes buying up everything to then resell. I dunno. I can't get too angry at resellers even if they did help ruin this shit. It's just that kid was also a reseller. So Kickle Cubicle is a really great little game by Irem. It had some fantastic music and graphics and the puzzles are fun. You have to use your ablitily to make ice blocks to find your past obstacles to get to the end. Simple Lolo like stuff that ends not so simple. It does feel like a good progression. I enjoyed playing this game when I finally got a copy. I think the bosses are fun and entertaining and the game was worth buying. The price was less than $25 too but am I wrong in feeling this game should be a bit more than that in todays CRAZY FUCK WHAT THE HELL PRICES? 

GOOD GAMES: 150

BAD GAMES: 121 

OKAY GAMES: 47

GAMES IMPATIENT: 5

GAMES OVERALL:   323

The Comic Review #107: Ravage 2099 (1992)

 

I know last time I said I would do just New Universe but I felt like going over just the NEW UNIVERSE after I have made a list of 100+ Comic Reviews that I would like to do and I would like to do them. I mean I will keep doing New Universe comics till I have none left but I want to widdle down this this HUGE LIST I made of things I want to discuss on this blog. It's a huge insane list that I hope to one day finish it. Maybe. As long as portnoyd promises to comment on each and every one of them. I have to drag him into this insanity somehow. Anyway I decided to go with 2099 and I decided to go with the one I wanted to talk about the least Ravage 2099.

So 2099 started as an a one shot that was going to be called The Marvel World of Tomorrow and was first announced in STAN'S SOAPBOX. It was then made into a line of books. First called Marvel 2093 (cuz it would be 100 years after they were released. Then Marvel 2099. Earth 928 is the designated earth where all of this takes place. I thought that was also the same Earth where Spider-Girl took place but no that was Earth 982. I love Alternative Universes but man it can get pretty wild sometimes. Anyway I picked Ravage 2099 for two reasons I heard it was really really really not good and if you liked it you were a stupid-head. Sometimes I like to stick up for unloved things but sometimes I just don't. The second reason is Stan Lee.

Is it wrong that my anxiety issues are so bad that I'm afraid of waking up one day to like 92230 comments of people screaming at me on this blog. I mean yeah I could just delete them but I just don't want to become the INTERNET'S ANGER SPOT for the day.  This is just another reason why the internet sucks with like this many people on it. You say something people didn't like on a forum you'd get like maybe at max 5 people yelling at you. Who were then usually told to shut up. I dunno. I say this because I have mixed feeling on Stan Lee. Yes, I have mixed feelings on a INTERNET LOVED PERSON.  You know it's fun to have mixed feelings on a INTERNET LOVED PERSON or THOUGHT or IDEA because then you get both groups of people who seem to roam around the internet these days yelling at you. The left wingers and the right wingers! That's always a great time. I love it. 

Stan Lee did not create the Marvel Universe single handedly and people really should know more about Steve Ditko and Jack Kirby and every other artist who worked with him in the 1960s. People shouldn't also give credit to Stan Lee for things that happened after he left Marvel. A lot of people deserve credit for the Marvel Universe and the upkeep of said universe. That is my feelings on that. However and here come the mixed feelings. EVEN IF THE ONLY THING HE DID WAS WRITE DIALOGUE STAN LEE IS STILL VERY IMPORTANT TO THE WHOLE THING. Some people want to say he just edited Jack Kirby's dialogue. No. Sorry, Not a fucking chance. I don't want to disparage Jack Kirby but his dialogue was wild and weird at times. I have come around to enjoying it but I do not think it would have made a lot of people happy in the 1960s. Steve Ditko's dialogue was worse. Jack Kirby's at least had flair to it. Steve Ditko's dialogue is dryer than a British Man's sense of humour.  If that's all he did and I believe he did more it would still make it enough for him to be one of the main creators or guys who got it started. This debate and discussion gets people on fucking edge and it's never fun to talk about. It's one of those debates that feel like it could turn into a crazed knife fight at any second but my feeling is Stan Lee is important to Marvel Comics. Just not as important as just about everyone else on the internet would think.

The artist on this comic was Paul Ryan. I don't know how many issues he did but he did these. He was not a fan at first because he had to come up with MANY sketches until his wife was like Why don't you just ASK Stan Lee what he wanted? Paul did that and drew that. Stan was finally happy. Paul drew this issue and I think up to #8 when someone else came in as Writer or Artist. Stan Lee would get an itch to do something with Spider-Man or Silver Surfer or Marvel in general and then get bored and leave again. Or because he had to be on like 5400 talk shows.  Paul was born in 1949 and worked on Fantastic Four (my least favorite Fantastic Four issues but they are very well drawn) and the Phantom comic strip after Lee Falk stopped doing it. I like the 1990s Phantom movie. It is wild and ridiculous. Billy Zane is cool.

 So I guess it's time to review this comic. Ravage 2099. Let's see if I like it or dislike it. We start with some guy running away from an ECO Patrol. He is just known as a Polluter. He runs into the sewer when the ECO PATROL finally find him and fry his ass. We then see his body being taken away by a cool flying ambulance thing. I really thought I would get to fly a car as an adult but no I would just see my faith in humanity die. I do not love that. I bet it would be cool to be in a flying car though. I still have faith in that. So at ECO CENTRAL some BIG WIG is wondering why the guy was not brought in alive! He is Paul-Phillip and he wants to get rid of the corruption within the ECO PATROLS. He says he will alert Alchemax but his secretary is like NO and then tells him a story of how her father tried to do the same thing but was then taken to HELLROCK to live with MUTROIDS. I hope Mutroids are just Mutants on steroids because that would rule. He tells her to GET STUFFED because HE'S THE HEAD OF ECO HE WON'T GET SENT TO HELLROCK. He then fights a cool 1990S FUTURISTIC GANG. 1990s FUTURISTIC stuff is second coolest only to 1980s futuristic stuff.

 One of the FUTURE GANG KIDS was the son of the guy who was killed earlier. He tells them that his father was coming to tell them about CORRUPTION and BAD THINGS and that he had him killed. He denies this and then forces the kid Dack to come to Alchemax with him. Man Paul-Phillip is a goober. They talk to MR HENTON and he's like OH NO ILL FIND OUT WHATS WRONG. and then when he leaves just kills his butler because he feels he heard to much. He then talks to the other ALCHEMAX bosses and oh no they were all in on the corruption!!! THE CORRUPTION LEADS TO THE TOP! They are going to frame him for a crime. I think Paul-Phillip's secretary hears him and wants to help. I don't know why she's at HENTONS place but I guess it could only be here. Paul-Phillip and the kid DACK have a argument and now a MUTROID is after him. They look like a Albino Thing wearing dressed up like a homeless person. He implicates PAUL PHILLIP in a crime. Oh shit he's gonna be sent to HELLROCK. He fights some guys and then jumps out of the WINDOW ON THE TOP LEVEL to try and save him and TIANA the secretary because the MUTROID that was controlled by HENTON was gonna EXPLODE.

HENTON talks about how he's so good and then kills the lady giving him a massage or whatever and then stops watching the video because he can't see through the fire. However Paul-Phillip and his lady are safe. They are holding on to a ledge. They get back into the  office and escape without being seen. They somehow find DACK'S house and PAUL-PHILLIP is all like IM NOW RAVAGE AND THEY BETTER WATCH OUT!!!!!!!!!! He goes to a garbage yard to steal stuff for his costume including an old GARBAGE TRUCK made out of STEEL and not PLASTIC and it somehow works after not being used since like 1993 or whenever. He busts out and then we get a final page of a character called DEATHSTRIKE or some 1990s goofiness. wait no he's DETHSTRYKE. Yeah the 1990s were goofy as shit for comic books.

FINAL THOUGHTS: can we say OKAY? OKAY. GOOD can we say GENERIC? GENERIC!! good!! that's what this comic is. It's very been there done that but not with anything that really makes you want to pick up the next issue. The dialogue doesn't even feel Stan Lee-y. I dunno. It's not awful but while I will be reading more Doom 2099 (probably just for my own amusement and not the blog) I do not think I'll read any more of the 31 issues this comic got. I just don't got the time man. 

 

 

The Comic Review #106: Mark Hazzard: Merc #1 (1986)

 

Well, I made a list (which I will probably try and look back on ALL of the old posts to see what needs to be continued or redone sometime soon. I might even do that today. One of the things I did say I would do is look at the "alternative universe" Marvel Comics such as the New Universe, 2099 and MC-2. I have talked about one series from each. So It's time to read all of those comics and get them done with. I think I will start with the New Universe and review every first issue from its 1986 lineup. We have already talked about Star Brand and I thought it was a pretty good comic. Now we will talk about the comic I was least interested in because why not let's get that out of the way so it doesn't pop up later and make me go "BUT PORT I DON'T WANNA TALK ABOUT ITTTTT". You gotta keep Port interested and sometimes listen to what he says. Not always but sometimes. Maybe just like once every 5 years.

So you are asking what is the New Universe? Well let me tell you about it in 1986. It was Marvel's 25th Anniversary (actually to be fair it was their 47th Anniversary as a company but they were only known as Marvel for twenty five of those years) and Jim Shooter who was Editor in Chief at the time was working on finding out an idea for the anniversary. He came up with the New Universe a alternative universe that was more down to earth and REAL feeling. Full of new characters and new stories and new everything, thus NEW universe. It failed like uh, i dunno a lead potato. Would you eat a lead potato? No. None of the titles sold very well (all though I feel it probably sold better than comics of today) and by 1989 it was gone. I just think no one wanted to read the new characters. I don't know if there was even any really good build up trying to sell you on MARK HAZZARD MERC but all of these comics just sit in 25 cent/dollar bins all over North America and probably not even sold anywhere else. The sad fact is that it's hard to sell new characters to people.

One thing I gotta mention before I forget is that Mark Hazzard Merc actually got a ongoing series before the Punisher did. This was during the time when the Punisher would show up in a different heros comic and either reluctantly team up with the hero or fight them. I love that era of the Punisher the most. I just think the character works the best that way. I mean sure some of the later stuff was fun but that era was my favorite. I just had to tell you all that. MARK HAZZARD didn't last long and I think it was the first or second New Universe title to be cancelled but he beat the Punisher to an ongoing. You can use this as trivia in comic book discussions and look like a complete moron because no one except you knows who the fuck Mark Hazzard Merc is.

Archie Goodwin is credited for creating Mark Hazzard and that's wild because I heard he was like the nicest guy in comics and the only person he ever had a problem with was Jim Shooter. He felt that Jim Shooter had weasled his way into the EIC chief and got him out of that job. I guess in the eight years between that happening and the New Universe happening he just forgave the man or something. I dunno. It's hard to discuss these things second hand (I learned this factoid from the book Marvel Comics: The Untold Story which is an excellent book on Marvel Comics) and I can't talk to either man about it because they are uh enjoying time with Jesus. Archie Goodwin did write some of my favorite Iron Man comics of the 1960s though. Dude was pretty good.

The writer of this comic was Peter David though. A man that Bill Jemas decided to shit all over with his Marville stunt because he was a stupid asshole and working under him must have been a pain in the ass. Peter David literally wrote everything. Marvel, DC, Star Trek, Star Wars, Babylon 5 stuff. HE WROTE SEVERAL MOVIES FOR CHARLES BAND'S FULL MOON PICTURES. The man literally did everything. Sadly he passed away in 2025 but my god he left a lot of work for all kinds of people to enjoy. Hearing that he wrote the first four issues makes me laugh at the reddit account who was like MARK HAZZARD MERC worst MARVEL COMIC EVER? Yeah no. I haven't even read them yet but I can tell you it's not even close. Fuckin reddit. 

Gray Morrow drew several of the issues. I can only remember one issue of his art and I thought it was pretty good. He was born in 1934 and passed away in 2001. Wow talking about a lot of people who have passed away in this post. Pretty depressing 

So with all of that out of the way, let's get into Mark Hazzard: Merc #1. We start with Mark scaring the shit out of a kid who stole an apple into putting the apple back. Two ladies are talking about some dictator that I'm sure Mark Hazzard is gonna fuck up and also about how much of a hunk Mark Hazzard is. Mark Hazzard literally has a grumpy pissed off "go the fuck away" look on his face. It's great and I love it. Mark enters his house talking about how he's ONE OF THE GOOD ONES because the ladies were like I WANT HIM TO FUCK ME RAW and how he knows about war and history and knows how to use all kinds of hand guns and that SOME OF THE THINGS HE HAD TO DO WEREN'T VERY NICE. This is all very seen it before but I love this goofy action shit too much to complain really. 

 Anyway his son Scott calls him about his little league game and he ignores it like a jerk. He ignores a call from his wife and some girl. The call he's waiting for is to JOIN UP WITH HIS 'NAM BUDDIES AND FUCK SHIT UP. That's what Mark Hazzard does! He and some other guy are at EL PRESIDENTE'S HOUSE and ready to well BRING SOME JUSTICE TO THESE PEOPLE and he just goes into his house and EL PRESIDENTE is like MY FRIEND LETS TALK which is code for his wife to shoot Mark Hazzard. They have done this many times before and think they will do it again BUT THEY AIN'T BEEN UP AGAINST MARK HAZZARD. He sees the presidents daughter whos hes like CUTE KID TOO BAD SHES AN ORPHAN. Jesus Mark. Also two guards come up and then Marks like the PRESIDENT IS DEAD and instead of shooting Mark they literally start arguing with each other and well kill one another. This comic is already bonkers and I love it.

So ALL of the other guards and people start arguing over whos gonna be president that all except five die. The five are like WE WILL GOVERN TOGETHER before uh being BLOWN THE FUCK UP by the other guys explosions. Seriously fuck that guy on reddit and anyone who agreed with him. This comic is fucking wild. We also find out that the rebels really aren't any much better than the jerks who were in power in the first place. He finds out that the rebels are playing coin toss to decide who gets to rape EL PRESIDENTE'S daughter. Mark Hazzard pretends to be into this and says that he and his friend get first dibs and they go in and literally kidnap this girl from the rebels. I'm literally like four pages in to this BEAUTIFUL CRACKED OUT LUNACY. The guards are all like don't worry the guards outside will get them over an image of well SEVERAL DEAD GUARDS. No one fucks with Mark Hazzard!

 The daughter who I'm going to call uh, Susie I guess. That'll work and Mark argue back and forth. Susie I think is about 15-18 years old I would guess. They argue about America pretty much. About how AMERICA is no good but Mark is like AMERICA IS VERY GOOD. You know the kinda feelings these nations had about America and how AMERICA feels about itself. We also get a nice moment with Mark Hazzard's parents yelling at him for leaving West Point Military School to just go to Vietnam. Mark's dad is a jerk. A COOL 1980S BLACK GUY is the pilot whos waiting for Mark and Mal (who apparently is from New Zealand and is not happy that Mark saved the girl and lost them some money)  The Pilot who I am going to call COOL LEON has to fight over several rebels. Jesus Christ the rebels are all pissed about not getting to rape. Mal blows up the entire truck that was after COOL LEON. COOL LEON just got to kill one dude.

Mark tells the girl to keep moving and that he saved her because he felt responsible for what the rebels were going to do (no shit lol) He has some memories about NAM but all NAM GUYS remember NAM. You can't get that kinda shit outta your head easily.  Anyway they finally GET TO DA CHOPPA. He thinks about the last time he saw his mother. MARK HAZZARD had THREE TOURS IN VIETNAM  COOL LEON's actual name is Treetop but that's dumb so I'm going to keep calling him COOL LEON. Anyway Mark gets on the plane but the girl gets away. She of course gets RIDDLED WITH BULLETS. Should have listened to your parents killer YOU LITTLE MORON. Wait.

Mark is dissapointed he disapoitned his son Scott and just helped one SCUZZBALL get into power over a different SCUZZBALL. He was hoping something came out of this worthless thing. Mal is like UH WE COULD HAVE HAD MONEY MARK YOU JERK. COOL LEON agrees with Mal but doesn't really get as angry as Mal does. Mark is like IM NOT DOING THE LIBYA JOB I GOT SOMETHING MORE IMPORTANT TO DO. Which is go see his sons baseball game. AWW HOW SWEET. His wife looks at a picture and goes GOD DAMNIT MARK WHY DID YOU HAVE TO STOP DISAPOINTING PEOPLE NOW. she's married for over two years and finally got Scott to see his new stepdad as a positive role model and now you have to come back. The comic ends on this note.

FINAL THOUGHTS: This is a pretty goofy comic but Peter David does put some effort into trying to make Mark Hazzard feel a bit different than other action guys. No this is not his best story by a long shot but I still had fun with it. It was a wild time and the reddit guy who said it was the worst marvel comic is high on something. Do you think I should come back to the other 12 issues (11 regular issues and an annual) READERS OF MY BLOG (aka port and sometimes shain and damien)? Just curious if you'd like me to come back to this stuff. 

 

The Final Episode #138: Disney's Adventures of the Gummi Bears (1986 - 1991)

 

The Disney Afternoon was one of the first things I talked about on my blog. In fact it was blog post #2. It was an announcement where I was going to talk about all of the shows that showed up on there between 1990 and 1996. I am mentioning this now because I have finally done it. I thought Bonkers was the final show I had to talk about but no this is the show I have to do to finally finish the Disney Afternoon. After 505 posts I am finally going to discuss Disney's Adventures of the Gummi Bears. It will finally get its due on the Final Episode. After this I cannot do Final Episodes for I think the one remaining show. I'm sure portnoyd will annoy me until I find a way to review it but I'm just going to pretend it doesn't exist for now. Yeah, so let's see how the Gummi Bears ended their tenure on the Disney Afternoon.

 So this cartoon reminded me of the real gummy bears. You know the Candy and with a y ad the end instead of a I. I wonder if that was what they did not to get sued as if anyone would try to sue Disney. Anyway that candy was created in 1920-1922 by a German man named Hans Riegel Sr. He died in 1945. So these candy were brought over to america and then we made gummy worms and gummy hands and gummy gummies. Anything that could be turned gummy was. Gummy worms are my favorite personally. I just like them the most. Anyway gummy candies are pretty great and I respect them a lot. So Michael Eisner was trying to find an idea for a cartoon when his child was like DAD I WANT SOME GUMMY BEARS and Eisner shouted THAT'S IT and leaped over his desk. I hope he bought his kid the biggest bag of gummy bears he could find. This was what Disney needed to make it on Saturday Morning (where this show originated) 

  Art Vitello and Jymn Magon were the show creators and show runners for the series. Art Vitello has one hell of a career as an animator. He started working on Pink Panther cartoons with I'm sure Friz Freleng and David DePatie. Then he worked with RALPH BASHKI yes. the weirdest animator of the 20th century. In the fifty five years since he's worked on just about everything. Spider-Man, Charlie Brown, Bobby's World, Curious George, one of the 295 not very good Land Before Time sequels!  The Tick! Taz-Mania! Tiny Toons! Art literally has done it all and I salute him. He's even still at it. I do not know how old Art is but he's gotta be getting up there but damn he still just wants to draw cartoons and who could blame him!!!? Jymn Magon worked on every Disney cartoon from the Disney Afternoon era it seems. Except for like Bonkers. He even helped write A Goofy Movie. You know black people really like A Goofy Movie. I'm seriously not trying ot be racist here! Black people got good taste becuase A Goofy Movie is hella good. He worked on Archie's Weird Mysteries which is cool! He also worked on two Casper movies which is not cool! He also worked on that weird animated Titanic movie with the rapping dog. Which seems not cool but hilariously weird so it works out to being better than Casper. Fuck Casper.

The show took place during the medieval ages. I can't think of a time that would be worst to live in but also kinda fun to watch from afar. You got wizards and witches and dragons and all kinds of shit. It's a great era to put a cartoon into. It just wasn't a very nice time to actually live in. Anyway this show has several gummi bears who have a powerful juice that causes them to jump everywhere. An evil Knight and some gross ogres and trolls want the gummi bear-y juice so they can take over the kingdom. You know simple fun stuff like that. Nothing wild just a fun group of bad guys versus a fun group of good guys. It also helps that the characters are voiced by June Foray, Lorenzo Music and Bill Scott. Lorenzo Music really should have done more cartoon voice overs. He was very, very good at it.

Now we move to my favorite paragraph. The one where I blather on about how and when I would watch this show. Except I cannot really do it for this show. I know I saw it because the characters look memorable and all that. I just don't remember it. I remember The Care Bears. I remember Teddy Ruxpin. I even remember when Bugs Bunny would annoy the three bears. I just don't remember the Gummi Bears all that well. Honestly if you were to do a test on my knowledge of this dumb crap the one Disney Afternoon should I would forget about would be this one. I mean yeah it was only on the Disney Afternoon for the first season but still I should remember this more than Shnookums and Meat's Funny Cartoon Show. Alas I am the odd one out who remembers Shnookums and Meat's Funny Cartoon Show instead of Gummi Bears. 

The Adventures of the Gummi Bears was weird as it had a episode that was INTENDED to be the Final Episode and a random adventure episode that became the Final Episode due to messing up. I figure that I will review both because I want too and I can. I am going to give this show a through overlooking dangit! We will start with the episode that just happened to air last called The Rite Stuff, a take on the name of the movie The Right Stuff. I have no idea what happens in that movie except that it has astronauts and cosmonaut is a cooler term. Sorry America but Russia wins there. This episode was written by Kevin Hopps, who wrote for Disney and Norman Lear sitcoms. Maude and Good Times! What a career! He's also still at it as of 2023. All these workhorses and all I do is write about 35 YEAR OLD CARTOON EPISODES. 1991 was 35 years ago. Mylanta I feel like my bones will crumble to dust very soon.

 This episode starts off with two BARBARIAN BEARS of some kind climbing a mountain. A girl bear and a boy bear. The boy bear is complaining about having to do it while the girl bear says its important. The BOY BEAR BARBARIAN (try saying that three times fast) just wants to play his flute. They throw the spear they are attached too farther up so they can keep climbing. Two Goat Men show up and mess things up by dislodging the spear. THE BOY BEAR BARBARIAN acts like a saucy goober. He does not care about his TEST OF BEARHOOD tomorrow. I mean this is after they almost crashed into the ground like a pancake so I can't blame him. We then move on to Cavin a human friend to the Gummi Bears.

He is practising fighting a dragon so he can become a knight. The dragon is just Lorenzo Music Bear and Pink Bear dressed up in a costume. Sir OLD BEAR comes out and fights them. He's old and goofy. I do not remember this character in the slightest. Anyway Sir Old Bear invites the Gummis of the Glen to come participate in Buddy (this is the Boy Bear Barbarian)'s test of Bearhood. They argue if Cavin should come.  They think it would be okay but no the Bear Barbarians are not fans of people! Oh and the Grouchy Bear character showed up too. Anyway the BEAR BARBARIANS now want Cavin to do the ANCIENT TEST OF BEARHOOD too. Now it's cookin! 

They do the first ritual, which is some bow and arrow related shit. Then they have to climb up the bows and arrows and get back to the start and win. Not so hard. However this isnt it and THE LADY BEAR gets them to go through GORIAN GULCH before night fall. This is where the real shit happens. Lol, Cavin gets trapped in well a trap and thats where the commercials for like I dunno Ninja Turtles or Nintendo would go but when we come back to the story BLAM he's out of the trap. Didn't even show us lol. Kinda weird. Anyway we see THE GOAT MEN come back. They want animal fur to sell.  They are not a big threat as they knock themselves out like the morons that they are. Cavin (I want to write Calvin here so badly) and THE BOY BEAR BARBARIAN are still running through the gulch. One overcoming another for a little bit. The both of them have finally gotten to the mountain.

This is a deadly as fuck mountain these two are on. First you got THE GOAT MEN (one of which sounds like Bullwinkle Moose which is really weird because the voice actor for said character was a part of season one of this show before he passed away.) looking for you. Then you have deadly rock bridges that cause one of you to quit,the BOY BEAR BARBARIAN quits for like 5 seconds before some kind of crazy magical quicksand gets Cavin. Seriously it turns into a hand to drag him down into the goop. Quicksand was like the scariest damn shit for a child. It seemed to be fucking EVERYWHERE. Anyway he is saved by THE BOY BEAR BARBARIAN using his brain to tie a rope to a rock and get cavin to reach it and then push the rock away and save cavin ad the last moment.

Now Lady Bear, Grouchy Bear and Old Bear are in the Gordian Gulch looking for Cavin and Boy Bear Barbarian. No I won't stop it with that joke. Jerk. Anyway they get into trouble with one of the Lady Bears things. It causes a boulder to crash at them ALA Indiana Jones. Did you know an old Carl Barks Scrooge McDuck comic did that decades before Indiana Jones? Wild. So Cavin and Boy Bear Barbarian team up to save the day. They end up trapping the two Goat Men into a trap (probably the same trap Cavin easily got out of and they forgot to show us) and save everyone. Making Ursa realize she was wrong.

The Final Episode which was the Final Episode for most of the world that wasn't America was called King Igthorn.  Igthorn was a knight that wanted to take over the kingdom the Gummi Bears lived in. He wanted the Gummi bear-y juice and would do anything he could to get it. This time he has found a termite called Bigtooth and well it's gonna be a big deal because this was the one and only two parter this show did! Cubbi, Cavin, Calla and the Princess are all working on a balloon float for Monarch's Day when the float gets away from them taking Cavin and Cubbi with it. They get sent to Drekmore where Igthorn and the ogres live. They end up realizing that no one is there. They don't realize Igthorn is just off on a quest to find a termite. They bring other gummis there and everyone just believes that Igthorn has given up and left. All except Grouchy Bear. I know that's not his actual name but I'm calling him that because it amuses me. He wants people to wait before going to find the Great Gummis. They do actually wait several months!

 It ends up being an actual year or so later. Everyone is just like let's try for peace and get the Great Gummis out of hiding. Grouchy is still like NO FUCK NO DON'T BE DOING THAT WE HAVE TO MAKE SURE HE'S GONE. however no one listens to him. THEY WILL LISTEN SOON THOUGH. Oh hey look, Igthorn and Toadie are just wandering around finding themselves back in town and ZUMMI GUMMI the magician guy just pulling fireworks out of his ass and shooting them everywhere. Grouchy Bear is like GOD JESUS FUCK WHY CAN'T YOU PEOPLE MAKE SURE IGTHORN IS GONE BEFORE YOU LET EVERYONE KNOW WHERE WE LIVE! Igthorn finally knows where the Gummi Bears live. He still does all kinds of stuff in the background and in silence. Igthorn gets Toadie to put BIGTOOTH THE TERMINATOR the scariest termite of all time on top of Zummi Gummi's head without them knowing. Wow, I wonder how many villains could pull of crazy evil schemes if they did stuff in secret.

Anyway the plan works. BIGTOOTH THE TERMINATOR eats the entire fucking Gummi Bear glen. All of it. It even makes it look like Zummi Gummi is gone because he went back to get the GREAT BOOK OF GUMMI or whatever. We come back to see Zummi Gummi just barely make it out with the book only for it to be taken by Igthorn. I must say the guy voicing him gives him a great voice. It's this sleazy weiner man voice. It's hard to describe but I love it a lot. Lorenzo Music Bear and Grammi Bear try to save Zummi but they fail and to save the Great Book from being destroyed Grammi says she'll cook the gummi bear-y juice for Igthorn. They try to trick him but he makes Lorenzo Music Bear take the first mouthful of juice. He finally gets what he wants and has been trying to get for 6 seasons now. Igthorn has the gummi bear-y juice and he and all of his ogres are going to grind THE CASTLE TOWN WHOS NAME I FORGOT INTO DUST. 

 So Grouchy Bear and Bear I think Is Voiced by Leonardo from the Ninja Turtles fell into a hole and somehow got back into the house which is now underground. They start chasing after Bigtooth the Terminator. Leonardo Bear thinks of an idea to easily and quickly capture him and he does. They then see Igthorn and his Ogre army coming down the way. They start attacking the CASTLE TOWN WHOS NAME I FORGOT. Grouchy Bear and Leonardo Bear try to fight him but he drinks some of the Gummi bear-y juice and just knocks the shit outta them with a fucking tree. Damn gummi-bear-y juice really does make you strong as fuck.

So Grouchy Bear and Leonardo Bear and handed to an Ogre to be put in a special place. Then they throw the little toadie Ogre into the CASTLE TOWN to open the drawbridge. He does that and then Zummi Gummi finally shows up to realize EVERYTHING WAS HIS FAULT AND HE SHOULD STILL PAY ATTENTION TO THE WEIRDO FREAK THAT WANTS TO KILL THEM EVEN IF HE GOES AWAY FOR A YEAR. Dummi Gummi is more like it.

The second part opens up with Igthorn as king, gloating over his new captures (the old king and princess) and telling his new subjects that he wants all of their gold for his royal coffers. He wants this becuase he's a greedy little asshole. The gummi bears that haven't been captured and Cavin go back to the Gummi Bear house while Toadie goes back to Drekmore to get more Gummi Bear-y Juice. I think I've typed the word gummi more times than anyone else has ever. It's pretty awesome. Zummi Bear goes to see the Barbics from the other episode and they decide to help. They gotta do it quick though before The Great Gummi's come! Zummi tries to reach the great Gummis but fails because Old Bear is a dumbass. He wrecks the giant space seeing scope thing. I forgot what the word for that is and it will come to me 21 seconds after I hit Publish on this post. I just know it will.

Anyway we go back to Drekmore where they are making more gummi-bear-y juice to be taken to CASTLETOWN which is now the new name of the place shut up I don't give a shit. Grammi Bear and Lorenzo Music Bear escape by using the berries to grease up their chains. They hide in a juice barrel and are brought out easily. Cavin, Pink Bear and Yellow Bear are going to Drekmore they see the ogres bringing juice so they ambush them and then start running away. We see Zummi and the Barbics come out of some secret tunnel. They all meet up and start their plan. Grammi and Lorenzo Music Bear have to destroy the juice factory. Cavin, Zummi and the Barbics have to go into CASTLETOWN. We also see THE GREAT GUMMIS coming in by ship and Igthorn going THEY WILL BE BLOWN TO KINGDOM COME!

Now we see the Barbics, Zummi and Cavin inside the prison. I guess WE WILL HAVE TO GUESS HOW THEY GOT IN HERE. They save Grouchy Bear and Leonardo Bear and it's off to the races! King Igthorn tries to get the older King and princess to believe in Gummi Bears. It fails because they just escaped. So The Barbics want to leave because HUMAN AFFAIRS are none of their business. However they realize that no one is safe with a powerful Igthorn around. So they come back to the team. Igthorn and his Ogres are now trying to take down the GREAT GUMMI SHIPS. Toady who was forced to stay and look for the gummis who escaped is taken down by ZUMMI who steals the great book back! Zummi gets a spell that causes teh book to fly off with Zummi and Toadie on it. Toadie loses his grip and falls to the ground just to see Cavin having helped the knights escape.

 Zummi flying on the GREAT BOOK OF GUMMI gets the Gummi ships to turn around but not before he gets hit with a giant boulder being flung from a catapult. Leonardo Bear then calls him a bunch of silly nick names hoping he will surface but he does not. The Gummi Bears and Barbics get the Ogres to chase one of them while the others destroy the rest of the gummi bear-y juice that Igthorn has. They also destroy the rest of the catapults with the help of BIGTOOTH THE TERMINATOR. I was wondering when he would pop back into the story. The Knights show up and scare away all of the Ogres. Igthorn and Gregor the old king have a sword fight and Gregor wins. Igthorn gets away though running back to Drekmore. Speaking of which we finally get back with the other gummi bears and see them destroy the juice factory. One Troll gets stuck in the machine which somehow ends up sending all of Drekmore right into space. Right as Igthorn was going in. He complains about how he lost his troops and everything. He tries to sit down on a chair just for it to be eaten by BIGTOOTH THE TERMINATOR and falls on his ass. 

The Gummi Bears meet up in BARBICS CITY and talk to each other about what happened. Zummi says he made a mistake believing that evil just went away and he should have been more careful. He wishes he could have told that to the Great Gummis and made them understand what happened. They then get a great gummi message from the telescope (yeah I figured it out before I pressed publish!) about how they had to turn back but still want to meet again soon. Everyone talks about how they will finally meet the Great Gummis. 

FINAL THOUGHTS: A great little send off for this show. It's epic, it shows the villain winning for at least some time. It gives all the characters something to do and it was just a lot of fun to watch. The other episode was also pretty fun to watch too. I wrote over 3,300 words on this FInal Episode. I am a cool guy.

TV You Forgot About #14: Fries With That (2004)

 

The more I look back on the first half of 2021's output I realize that wow so much of it needs to be redone. Do you know how long I spent talking about the Transformers Final Episode? Not enough time damnit! I mention this because there is probably going to be some redo-es coming in the Future. Except The Final Episode #25 which is Webster. I believe, I could never make a perfect review of that episode without going mad. I could send a hundred poets too write hundreds of poems about it's beauty and still never have enough. The reason I bring this up is that you'll probably see a TV YOU FORGOT ABOUT #15 about RADIOACTIVE or something. I'm not too fond of going back to that but I believe it deserves a better shout out. So just another bunch of stuff that I'll have to revisit. It'll be fun though.

Anyway I'm amazed that it took till like 1989 with the creation of Hey, Dude! for Nickoldeon. That was the first Kids/Teen sitcom I can think of. I'm very certain that before that any show that had a kid in it was still made for Family viewing and not just for little Joey and little Tina.  Anyway I never watched Hey, Dude!. I don't believe it ever aired up here. It's just a thing I know that exists and I enjoyed watching it. Clarissa Explains It All  is something I swear I've seen but I cannot actually find any proof that it aired in Canada. Some AI SHIT said it appeared in Canada on YTV but the YTV Schedule Archives do mention that stuff. And yes I also looked at the Family Channel Schedule Archives too.Yes they had one for Nickelodeon too portnoyd. It's a fun rabbit hole to go down.

Speaking of which, I had to look up to see when this show ended and I looked through the YTV Schedule Archives and I saw that they showed a Hanna-Barbera show called Sneezy and Breezly that I had NEVER heard of before. I think I now have to discuss every Hanna Barbera show. All of them. Show portnoyd that they are all EXCELLENT ANIMATION that JAPAN LOVES. Are you sassing Anime now portnoyd!?!? The weebs will not be happy about that, portnoyd! I felt like taking this pointless tangent because why the hell not. After all this is my blog and I like pointless tangents so SHUT UP. It gives you more time to make your dumb JO-JO BARDIO  and LARRY HARDA "jokes" 

Anyway Canada got into the Kids/Teens Sitcom genre with Student Bodies in 1996. It was very inspired by Saved by The Bell, but was different enough to make it a fun watch. I very much enjoyed Student Bodies as a child. I have not seen it since then and I also hear that season three changed a lot of things up. I guess I will have to add it to my list of things to watch or rewatch. A list that will never not be a list. In 1997 they followed it up with Breaker High. it took place on a cruise ship like some Nick show I think that appeared a decade or so later. NICKELODEON RIPPED OFF CANADA!!!!!! I never watched Breaker High and I get the feeling portnoyd will be like WATCH EVERY EPISODE AND TALK ABOUT IT FOR ME. I guess I might do that why not?. Then they had Radio Active. It took place in a radio station in a high school. I did not like this show in 1998 and I didn't like it when I re-watched it in 2021.

This show appeared in 2004. 2004 the only TV I really did any watching off was a two hour block of tv shows. Alf, Boy Meets World, Chip N Dale Rescue Rangers and Sailor Moon. I'd also watch like Duckman on Teletoon. Most of the stuff that would show up on my tv would be background noise that I really never payed attention too. I don't know if this show even ended up on my Television or anything. I stopped using TV as a background noise in like 2006 or so when YouTube became a thing. Anyway, I was way too busy watching horror movies/80s movies (and then talking about them on internet forums) or playing NES games (and then talking about them on internet forums/IRC) I missed Fries With That? A teen sitcom about a bunch of goofy teens working in a restaurant somewhere probably in like Toronto or British Columbia. None of these sitcoms took place in Newfoundland. DA B'YS GO FISHIN would be the title of a Newfoundland sitcom. 

I've decided since I have four episodes in my possession, I will discuss these four episodes. Fun huh?

 

 The first episode is entitled Metal Mouth and was the second episode of the first season. It starts with the girls talking about who they are going to take to the dance. The weird hippie chick who is into astrology did not take a dates offer due so some wacky reason. She is going to be a DJ. The other two girls do not like that at all. Because she plays WEIRD music you see. It's weird. They can't dance to it. Comedy gold. The thinks too highly of himself guy comes in and talks about his date. Random Girl Whos Name I Refuse to Learn talks to Tess I think is her name about her tooth hurting and having to go to the dentist. We then meet their boss. Who is wacky. Everyones wacky in these shows. It's just hard to come off as geuninely wacky or offbeat. Or offbeat but still likable. I do not really care what happens in this show as of right now but hey maybe that will change.

So while Tess goes to the Dentist. Random Girl, Hippie Girl and Asshole Guy all work and try to find out who is the SECRET SHOPPER. The one who was sent in by corporate to make sure they are doing a good job. The Annoying Assistant Manager Guy Who Was Also In Radio Active... is annoying. He still tries too hard. Comedy may not look hard but man it really is. It takes a special something to be funny on camera. I dunno if he could make you laugh as your friend but he's not a good comedic actor. I am not a big fan, sorry. Anyway it turns out Tess has BRACES and I thought this being a show that was going for WACKY at least it seems to be that she would start causing metalic things to stick to her. You know like in Ernest Goes to Jail. Sadly no, it's all because she'll be EMBARRASSED AT THE DANCE. How many episodes in those shows involved THE DANCE? It had to be like way to fucking many. She refuses to open her mouth EVER AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!! I think I was too hard on the Final Episode of City Guys.

BRACES GIRL acts weird in front of a customer and OH MY GOD NO IT WAS THE INSPECTOR AND THEY WILL GET A BAD GRADE. at least thats what they think. You see the Shitty Manager Jerk got a tip that the Inspector had a limp and this guy has a limp. Something will happen and this guy won't be the inspector. I hope. I'm dying for something that isn't the most simple damn story ever. OH NO THE BOY SHE WANTED TO DANCE WITH DIDN'T LIKE HER BRACES!!!!! OH NO!!!! The Asshole Guy gets dumped and then asks BRACES out to the Dance. They go to the Dance. Woo. Oh and I was wrong, the Bulky Inspector really was that guy they made mad. He came back to give them another chance but everyone was gone and he got mad again.

Yeah, I've had enough.  I'm not talking about the three other episodes. This show feels a lot like Radio Active. Trying to hard to be wacky but not really wanting to commit to it. This show did not know what Nickelodeon sitcom it wanted to. Sorta wacky but still down to earth like Clarissa Explains it All or CRAZY TOWN BANANA PANTS like The Adventures of Pete and Pete. I dunno if this show gets any better or what. This was the second episode. I just don't really care. Maybe I'll come back to this show when I run out of other shows to talk about for The Final Episode and we will see. Or maybe not. Anyway I'm off to try to find Student Bodies and Breaker High episodes. I'm wondering if they hold up any better.

NES Game Reviews #55: John Elway and Jordan play Joust in the Jungle Book's pages. While on a Journey to Silius. Also Joshua is there too. I guess. These titles are really bad.

 

You know what's funny is that I said I'd try to make less NES posts like two days ago in Discord and now I'm already deciding against that. I mean yes, I do have a list of things that are not NES related that I would like to discuss for you all within this blog. It's a decent sized list but at least two of those things I can't do until the weather gets better and you can walk around easier. And two of them I can't do until I sit down and watch two tv shows in their entirety. However I'm going to be looking around for other things that I said I would do to make posts on. I know there's a big one but I'm still not really up to starting that right now. Anyway I'm not feeling great and I'm also worried and I also want to kill time so there's nothing better for that than talking about six games for the Nintendo Entertainment System and then having portnoyd discuss them too. It's a lot of fun and I do enjoy it. I just also want to get to the stuff on the list. Anyway, time to discuss six games and hopefully at least enjoy talking about four of them. That's actually a pretty good ratio.

 

This is one of the many sports games I never played. This is probably the one positive thing I can say about this game is that I like that this reviewing every NES game is having me talk about EVERY NES game to some degree, which means finally playing like the less than twenty games I have never talked about. From 1998 when I got into collecting NES games until like 2007 I was really only going for the best games, my favorite ones. The stuff that I knew I would play. However sometime in 2007 I got a bug up my ass because I had like 250 or so games that I enjoyed playing and felt like hey let's go for the full set. I sold all of my games in 2014 and wish I had kept them in boxes for like six years. It's amazing how selling those games for like WAY too much money made me happy then but it's kinda fucked realizing that Little Samson now goes for 2k. I sold it for like 700 or so. I spent 50 bucks on that copy. I don't know why I'm talking about rarity because this game is one of the least rare games made for the NES. Copies of this game will exist after the apolcalpyse. Right along side VHS tapes of Titanic and Jerry Maguire. I do not get why  there were so many copies of Jerry Maquire. I thought it was not very exciting when I saw it, but yes. I spent $2 on this game, when every one who sold NES games at the flea market (or any other games) made their games at least $5. That two dollars could have gone to buy something much more enjoyable. Like a kick to the nads. This game somehow moves slower than 10 Yard Fight. 10 Yard Fight at least has a reason why it sucks and is no fun. It was like one of the first damn Famicom games in 1983. This game came out in 1989. The same year as Mega Man 2, TMNT and Ninja Gaiden to name a few. This game is a huge embarrasment. This is the worst game Rare had anything to do with. This has to be the worst football game for the NES, right? I fucking hope so.

 

 This is yet another sports game I have never played. Here's the thing about sports games I feel that the majority of them are games you really have to play with a second person. I do not have anyone in my life who wants to play ratty old NES sports games when they have 10000 better choices. Very few sport games seem to hold up from the NES era and this is not one of the ones that too. This is a very dull looking and playing game. It's just not exciting. I really wish I could say more but I can't. This was also a $2 purchase in a time when $2 was not the go too. I can't even call this the worst basketball game because I'm sure there is another one. It's a very boring game that probably wasn't very well liked whenever it came out. Despite there also being like 912031 copies of this game out there. I really know I am in the minority when it comes to sports loving but I'm sure there were better options than this back then right? Arch Rivals was a better game. so was Double Dribble. This is just boring shit.

 

 Wisdom Tree adds such a weird flavor to the NES. For two reasons. One it was the second name change for Color Dreams. Yes Color Dreams was THREE companies. Color Dreams, Bunch Games and Wisdom Tree. They just changed their name three times. The second reason is they put out a lot of Jesus-y religion games out on the NES (and oddly enough Game Boy and Genesis) which adds a weird flavor to the games. There's interesting questions to ask the people who worked on these games and I would love to be able to do that. I don't think I could figure out a single question to ask about the previous two games. As for this game. I must admit it's not bad. I think it was the sequel to Exodus which was done on the Crystal Mines engine. I must admit I think the puzzles in this game are better and more fair than either of those games. The only problem is, if I feel like playing a puzzle game. I'm seriously going for one of the Lolo games, Kickle Cubicle or Fire N Ice. This is a game I've played off and on and only ever gotten to like level 20 or so. I think. It gets to the TOO HARD AND ANNOYING point way too quickly and I dunno, not in love with that. I'm gonna have to put this in the okay pile because it's still a decent $5 pick up. I mean if you are like an ULTRA SUPER PUZZLE FANATIC who eats up Lolo and Tetris and everything even remotely puzzle-y then yeah this is a worthy addition and will probably keep you entertained for a while. For people who are like me who enjoy puzzle games but aren't going to rush to play everything it's simply just okay. Still would love to talk to that Nina lady. I bet she's cool as hell!

 I remember back in the NES SCENE DAYS OF YORE this was a game the OTHER PEOPLE would like. YHou know the non-NESecisty people. THE ROYAL RANGER LIKERS (which I am one of. He was a nice guy). It just reminds me that there was a time when you could have several forums for NES games and have people who didn't like others on one side. It was wild but also kinda fun. I dunno. I was sixteen and it was entertaining to get into a flame war because RandX got a bug up his ass because Sappy called Pokemon gay. I have no idea why RandX ever stayed in the same chatroom as Sappy for more than a minute but to be fair I don't know why anyone stayed in a chatroom with Sappy. Dude just liked to get a rise out of people. Not that RandX wasn't foolish as hell at times. I don't know why I am bringing this up but this game reminds me of that era. RoyalRanger was a big fan. I know STRX10 was a big fan. Everyone who played it was a big fan of it at the time. Except one person. That person was me. I loved every other Sunsoft game I played but I could never get into this one. I could never beat the first level. However in like 2006 I finally decided while trying to beat as many games as I could (again with Strx) I pretty much put this game into the NES and played it until I could beat the first stage and became a HUGE FAN. This is a great game. Seriously I think if it had stayed as a Terminator game which it originally was going to be it COULD have taken the top spot for best Licensed game and when you realize how good Batman and Gremlins 2 were that's high fucking praise. All of the weapons are really cool and the levels are fun and varied. The music is fantastic and the graphics are incredible. The challenge is pretty good too. Once you really get a feel for the game you can get through it. This is one of the best 100 games and I'm glad I finally did see what everyone else saw. I used to call this game Journey to Sillyass because I make terrible jokes. Play this game if you haven't.

 

This is an arcade hit! As it says on the box. I mean SUPER arcade hit. Sorry. Anyway I have never played Joust on the arcade but I do think this NES version is pretty good. You play as a knight who flies around on an ostrich Jousting other knights into lava. The level gets harder and harder to play on the longer you play and you just play wanting to get points or until you feel you have to do something else. These are perfect kinda games to just play 15 minutes of to let off some steam. I dunno if I could do it like other arcade guys do and play this on an actual arcade for 40295 hours to get an insane high score that someone then makes a documentary out of, but I do enjoy playing these games. They are simple but tough. Even when they get hard they never lose that simplicity. It never becomes like you have to do a billion things to get to the next stage. However this might be blasphemy to some but I like Balloon Fight a bit more than I like this game. I think Balloon Fight just has more variety which is better. Not to say that this isn't worthy of being in your collection (if you you know collect these days like a stupid idiot). Still these games never get THE ALMIGHTY BLOWJOB from new collectors and they deserve it more than fucking Stadium Events that's for fucking sure!

 The Jungle Book might just be the worst movie Walt Disney had something to do with. This was the last movie he personally had something to do with and was released after his death in 1967. The movie has 15 minutes of plot and like 45-50 minutes of dancing. I don't even think it makes it to 70 minutes. It's very nicely animated dancing but seriously Baloo and the kid whos name I can't spell piss around for the majority of the movie until the plot comes back in at the last 5 minutes. It's amazing how they put again 15 minutes of plot in a movie that might have barely made it to 70 minutes. It's not great. I've seen it I think twice in my life and both times I was not very impressed. I don't know why I brought up a movie review but I felt like it. I did at least one point say I would review as much Disney content as I could and there you finally got a Disney movie review. Anyway I had The Jungle Book on the SNES as a kid and I wasn't a big fan of it. I played it recently and am not a big fan of it. I no joke think this NES version, one of the last NES games to ever be released is much better. It showed that the NES still had some power left in her. They could have kept making games but seeing as Nintendo and Virgin are companies and they need to make money and most people were not playing NES then. I'm sure many NO IM NOT BUYING YOU A SUPER NINTENDO parents had relented and bought one by 1994. Anyway unlike the SNES game where you can go straight to the end if you know where it is, this game you have to pick up a bunch of gems before you go to find Baloo. The levels are nice and in size but never really too big that you get lost (except in like one level I believe, with the treehouses that bring you to different areas) in. It's a decently challenge, has pretty good graphics (but they look a little weirdly dark to me?) good music and I dunno I enjoy playing it. That's all I can really say about this game in the end is that I enjoyed playing through it and would probably do it again.

 

GOOD GAMES: 147

BAD GAMES: 118

OKAY GAMES: 47

GAMES IMPATIENT WHATEVER GO AWAY: 5

GAMES TOTAL:  317