A quick fun post of two songs with similar aims. . .

First, the Galaxy Song from Monty Python.


Next, the Universe Song from Animaniacs.

Amazon.com is in the midsts of one of their holiday sales; they are selling many of their DVDs at half-off.

While that is going on, I availed myself to their television section to pick up as a gift for a friend that old Wonder Woman series from the 70s, which for some odd reason is cheaper to buy individually by season than it is to buy as the complete set. Actually, that seems to occur frequently at Amazon.com.

That means unless you know there are additional extras in the omnibus packages, shop around Amazon, you might actually find a better deal there.

Just so that this post isn't a complete advertorial, that last link is a postscript by writer Mark Evanier brought upon because of the annoying practice by folks releasing DVDs where to get you to buy the same thing multiple times. For TV, they'll release a show, by season. Then they will collect all the seasons together, but instead of just releasing that, they'll add some treats and extras to try to get you to buy again.

So you think, don't buy right away. Wait for the inevitable full release. Unfortunately, nothing is inevitable. If not enough people buy the first seasons on DVD, they won't release the remaining seasons. It flopped in the marketplace. No point throwing more money down the well. Writer Earl Kress mentions Murphy Brown, and F Troop as such victims. I can give you one more. Right now, I'm looking at Gargoyles: Season 2, Volume 1. with the tag-line "We Live Again" at the bottom. No they won't. Earlier this year, Disney announced they weren't going to release any more. This DVD set concludes cliffhanger-like shortly after the start of a lengthy story arc where our key characters stuck on a magic boat unable to return home. And there's no resolution in sight. This is actually worse than the case of Murphy Brown, as they gave up on the show in the middle of a season! (Though it could be worse... the show could have been cancelled in the middle of the season while on broadcast TV, like a number of continuous dramas this season.)

So, I guess if there is any television series you want to see continued to be released on DVD, now is a good opportunity to buy. If there isn't, just buy Gargoyles. I really really want the rest of season two to be released.

I actually remember this was a skit on his show, though I don't remember if it was added for when the show started rerunning on HBO, or if it was originally a part of that episode of the show itself. But this sketch was done several years ago. Watch to the end, then ask yourself, could he have known...

Let's face facts.

Charlie Brown and friends would never last more than an episode on television today. How can a kid today possibly relate to such a cast of well-adjusted, prepubescent children with freakishly small eyes and limbs. The characters arn't even rendered with sharp angles. The guys don't have gravity-defying hair. The women lack gravity-defying, well, womanly adornment. There's not a giant robot or a mutant alien or a pervert with a laser weapon among the cast. A deranged dog and a lack of parental oversight is a bit of a start, the Peanuts gang is really gonna need serious work to make them cool with todays kids.

Fortunately, the success of Loonatics Unleashed has given us a template as to how to modernize Charlie Brown and friends!

(If anybody knows to whom I should credit for that Charlie Brown reimaginations, drop me a line. I see they're signed by a "GNAW".)

UPDATE: Well, I found Gnaw.

And this is a test to see how it works from the YouTube end of things -- This is one of the most clever reinterpretations of the "Who's On First" bit by Abbott and Costello. It's more plausible as these were the names of actual bands (as opposed to having to believe someone was actually named "I Don't Give a Darn" on a baseball team)

-- Sigh, I guess YouTube won't be making placing LJ cuts easy, I edited the thing to make the video appear behind the cut.

Time again to abuse Web 2.0 -- since LiveJournal has introduced embedded video links we may get to have the type of fun on this weblargh that used to be reserved only to Mark Evanier and MySpacers everywhere. Behind the jump is the famous Burger King "I am Man" commercial, which is actually called "Manthem" (a portmanteau of "man" and "anthem") and discussion about the surprising amount of criticism of the ad itself.

Click Here to see video: Pulling a Malade Out of the Hat from Liquid TV

One of the great shows to be showcased on Cartoon Network's "Cartoon Cartoon" campaign was John Dilworth's Courage the Cowardly Dog. Courage began life as a one-shot short, The Chicken from Outer Space, where a meek little dog who is tormented and mistreated rises to protect his caretaker from a alien chicken. It was popular enough to spawn a 52 episode series, noteable for its almost gothic atmosphere, which contrasts diametrically with the sunny affections that caretaker Muriel shows for Courage. This is pretty much all that allows Courage to persevere against not only all the outside threats that attack him and his caretakers, but to persevere against his mistreatment by Eustice, (presumably) Muriel's husband.

The video clip linked to predates "Courage" by 5 years. It was a segment on MTV's Liquid Television titled "Smart Talk with Raisin - Pulling a Malade out of a Hat". In it we have character which are precursors to those of Courage. Raisin, the little girl hosting the show has the same general sunny temperment that we would see in Muriel, while Malcolm is the misanthrope who would be reincarnated as Eustice. He insults the poor dog Hamilton much the same way Eustice does Courage.

The title of this post comes from the first of the two shorts that aired as the last episode of Courage. "Remembrance of Courage Past" was paired up with an episode titled "Perfect", where a strict schoolteacher continually punishes Courage for not being perfect. That character makes her appearence in this short, thus seemingly deliberately bookending the saga of Courage.

Unlike recent series, this shows appears to have ended at the time by creator Dilworth's wish. The show was not placed on a long hiatus, with the last episodes snuck in under cover of night; nor was it stealthly cancelled as several recent Cartoon Network productions were. This a shame to think what the checkboard network has become.

ALSO: Interview with John Dilworth in Animation World Network from 1999 as Courage first premiered as a series.

This is almost funny in that these ad play more like an Onion parody* than an actual piece of propaganda from the energy industries in trying to convince people that pollution is good. "Carbon Dioxide -- its produced by people, animals, the ocean, the earth, and oh yeah a few factories here and there, lets not think about that now... but it's life. It lets you move and fly and if them crazy environmentalists outlaw it, we'll instantly be thrust back into the stone age! It's not pollution, it's progress!"

(That's only a slight exaggeration of their ad called Energy.)

Their other ad goes about misrepresenting climate science. "It's snowing slightly in a small section of Greenland, so why are they scaring you with all of these reports of glacial melts occurring everywhere else in the world. Crazy environmentalists have infultrated the media and want to send you all back to the stone age!"

This developments actually makes me feel good about the state of climate-change debate. These ads are just like the lobbying done by the tobacco industry just as popular opinion was turning against them as people found out they lied and lied repeatedly about how addictive and deadly smoking is, and that they've known this for almost forever. And the tobacco industry's efforts were far more slick and professional than the exercises in absurdity that the "Competitive Enterprise Institute" has produced.

Hot air! It powers Congress.

*If someone has a link to something from the Onion about someone producing pollution is good ads, please leave me a note!

Adult Swim brings another show back to life.

Earlier: The Saved by the Bell prank.

I remember an old advertisement on Cartoon Network stating that they were the animation network that will only show cartoons 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, forever, and ever, and ever, and ever, and ever.... until the end of time. Obviously time ended back in November 2005 with the airing of "The Goonies".

Here's the news from Variety:

SHIFT ON AT CARTOON NET
Net taps Naito as veep longform development

Major changes are in store for Cartoon Network, which will step
outside its charter for the first time and into live-action
programming. Cabler has opened its doors to the unanimated world as
part of a larger development department expansion that includes
select live-action theatrical movie buys and the creation of a
longform unit.

Cartoon Network now has its own category. Chronicling its death is going to be a fulltime job.

Again, Adult Swim people, if anyone asks, tell them the "Saved by the Bell" gambit is your way of protesting this new initiative.

Seeing a teenaged Mario Lopez wearing a pink tank top, hawaiian shorts and pink novelty sunglasses singing "Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Bahran" caused me to believe I was suffering from an acid flashback. Having Dustin Diamond and Mark Paul Gosselaar, all in 80s (early 90s) glory had me shaking with nerves. I had never consumed LSD in my life.

I had left to shower believing that I had left the TV on Cartoon Network, so for a very brief moment, I thought I lost my mind. Then, I remembered this was the same network that has recently aired The Goonies, Honey I Shrunk the Kids, Snow Day, Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, and Small Soldiers, and has optioned to produce two shows which includes live action (not counting the Canadian produced Zixx), so it is certainly possible that the network has taken its train of stupid ideas to its logical conclusion and crashed it directly into TNBC. Then I saw the tag. "Saved by the Bell on Adult Swim starts April 17th." All in the varsity collegiate typeface.

Knowing this made me feel better.

Regular readers of this irregular journal may now be questioning the veracity of my claim of never having used LSD, as I have been regularly bashing Cartoon Network for airing things that even the most braindead fools would recognise as not being cartoons. As recently as 24 hours ago.

And if this was airing at any time on any other daypart of Cartoon Network, I would start organizing a massive protest in front of Turner headquarters in Atlanta, as well as considering simultanous protests at the Time Warner center in New York, and the Warner Bros. studio lot in Los Angeles. But in Adult Swim, it different. Not because they consider themselves a different network from Cartoon Network daytime. ("Saul of the Mole People" looks to commit the double sin of being live-action, and being Adult Swim filler crap like "Tom Goes to the Mayor" and "12 oz. Mouse".)

No, since Adult Swim first expanded to the 5-6:00am hour, they've had an hour of time to kill. As scheduled, they used to run 3 hours of programming, and then repeat it. The seventh hour was filler, which lately they filled with the lousiest junk they could find. Expanding the weeknight block to the 10:30-11:00pn half hour on the other end reduced the dead block to just 5:30-6:00am. And by lousy, I mean the worse of the worse. Currently, they're using that block to run an animated show called "Chuck Norris: Karate Kommandos". Think of Saturday Night Live trying to produce a parody of the worse star driven animated program possible. Karate Kommandos is worse than that! The opening of the show actually mentions Chuck Norris' name ten times The opening has an ethnic kid and they actually refer to him by his catchphrase "Too Much". Chuck Norris' team actually includes a Samurai and a Sumo Wrestles/Cook. The villians include "The Claw" who was apparently out of work after the cancellation of Inspector Gadget and henchmen who probably got fired from Cobra in the G.I. Joe series. This is how the show opens!

Chuck Norris!
Chuck Norris, man of action!
Chuck Norris stars in Chuck Norris: Karate Kommandos!
Chuck Norris, he's got nerves of steel and strength to match!

You actually get the feeling that the producers of the show was afraid the animation would be so bad, that people wouldn't recognise Chuck Norris without the repeated cues. The animation was pretty bad, even for 80s standards, though at least it seems they got Jack Kirby and Gil Kane to help make sure the people looked recognisable as people. The plots were nonsensical, and there was no continuity within the show itself. You couldn't parody this show -- it was that bad. Which is probably why it wound up on Adult Swim. This show, and the Mr. T cartoon, were the shows they used to prank people on April Fools Day (replacing the popular anime of the night).

Now with Adult Swim showing Saved by the Bell, in a normal title card, they state this is a *special two week run* starting April 17th (Actually, the 18th at midnight). Interestingly, this run overlaps with Cartoon Network's two week run (starting today) of showing movies in prime time. Yes, most of which are live action movies. Tonight they're showing "Roger Rabbit" once again, but tomorrow it's "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids" and Wednesday it is a documentary about the current executives running Cartoon Network. So, right now, I'm happy to assume that the Adult Swim team is mocking the regular network team by showing a show neither animated or suited for adults. (Saved by the Bell wasn't suited for viewing by anyone, despite going on seemingly forever.) This was a show aired on TBS, and many people complained that CN was turning into the TBS dumping ground. (The movies that CN aired in November, January and February had aired earlier on TBS.) I think even on the ToonZone message board, someone suggested that "Saved by the Bell" would be airing on the future "Children's Network".

Of course, it is equally as likely that an Adult Swim executive got wasted and just started laughing like a lunatic at the old show.

Updated at 4:48am -- Well, another bumper stated SBTB will air at midnight (I stated 5:30am originally), so I guess we'll still get to enjoy the suckatude of Chuck Norris at 5:30am, as well as seeing SBTB air twice each night.

As much grief that I have given Cartoon Network over its programming choices and practices, I do have to give them credit for being brave and airing Aaron McGruder's "The Boondocks". Tonight's episode imagines Martin Luther King returning to the world only to find himself completely estranged from the world. As he finds that America has largely turned away from the values he championed -- and even worse, he finds that black America has stopped trying to reach for the dream, but rather have decided to wallow in gross decadence. If I had to guess, this is the episode that most personally captures how McGruder feels about the world -- and he'd give that final speech as spoken by King to his peers if he felt that they'd listen to him. However, his plan B -- to put it in a cartoon -- is as good an backup as any.

Happy Martin Luther King Jr Day.

With the many inscrutable things Cartoon Network has done this past year -- such as cancelling one of its consistently highest rated shows, silently premiering then pulling one of its other critically acclaimed show and letting it disappear from public consciousness for months, and of course airing live-action movies and series -- sometimes the network does something to give me a small measure of hope. They're making a new Tom and Jerry short-subject for the network.

Then Cartoon Network reminds me of why I'm disappointed with them again -- "Snow Day" will be the live-action movie to air Monday.

Despite the graphic used by their website, Cartoon Network did not choose to start broadcasting Zixx from the middle of the series. Yeah, normally you'd never expect a television network to introduce a show to an unfamiliar audience from midway through -- but frankly, Cartoon Network has done a lot of things that has boggled the mind. For example, they've decided to air a largely low-budget live-action Canadian produced series that premiered almost two years ago (if TV.com is accurate).

Frankly, I don't have the will to say much about the show. It wasn't good enough for me to want to watch through, nor interesting enough to want to figure out why I don't like it. It's big selling hook (that kids enter a video-game world to battle villians) seems to be its Achilles Heel -- the battle scenes are as exciting as watching someone else play a mediocre late 1990s video game. This is probably how Ebert felt when he was watching Doom. The bigger disappointment is Cartoon Network is going to give over at least a half-hour a week to this show, when they've treated many decent cartoons rather shabbily. (One example, the series finale of Duck Dodgers premiered last month -- on Boomerang.) Frankly, they're showing as much care and faith to their purported mission statement as they are to designing their website. This is emblematic of greater problems at "Cartoon".

First, to answer my rhetorical question, yes, there was a Level One. And if the show sounds like it something to be played on a XBox or a PlayStation, it's more than coincidence. They opted to use a video game logic engine to animate portions of the series. They play it like a video game, save it and edit the results of that into the show.

Yeah they do, though the frequency that I'm seeing the human faces of Robin Williams, Rick Moranis and Denis Leary on a network that still has "Cartoon" in its logo is troubling. Someone needs to go down to Atlanta to reaquaint the execs to what that word means.

Still, starting back on Monday of this week they've been airing previews of shows that they are going to officially debut next year. Tonight's preview was of "Robot Boy", which seems to be artistically similar to Nick's "My Life as a Teenage Robot", not to mention sharing the Pinocchio plot device of a robot trying to fit in with real human boys that was the crutch of "Teenage Robot" as well as to the short-lived "Whatever Happened to Robot Jones". Actually, to judge it artistically, I'd suggest it follows in the style set by Powerpuff Girls and a bit of the old Astroboy in the designs, and it isn't as clean as the 30s-40s homages as "Teenage Robot". But it seems to be more of an action show than "Teenage Robot". ("Robot Jones" was more of love letter to the 1980s, which probably doomed it to cancellation since I doubt most viewers of the network were even alive in the 80s. Heck, I don't remember much of the 80s.) "Teenage Robot" is more focused on Jenny attempts to fit in with the human high-schoolers, a theme that resonates with the demographic Nick attracts. "Robot Boy", at least from the first ep, focuses more on the battling of other robots, as there even seems to be a major villian who I assume will appear every week. Though this show feels slower, though it may be just the crew trying to get a feel for the show.


Still, it is interesting how certain story themes will wind up being used by several different people in their shows. Look at the similarities to "Juniper Lee", "Danny Phantom", and "Jake Long". (We all know how I feel about Danny, but I admit the show is nowhere near as tooth-grinding as Jake Long frequently is.)

Now tomorrow, Cartoon Network will yet again treat its mission statement as tissue paper as the network will go the Toon Disney route and preview "Power Rangers"... I mean "Zixx: Level Two" (level 2 already?)!

I'll be disappointed if I discover that they cancelled Teen Titans and possibly Justice League for that.

Months ago, I lightly panned Danny Phantom, to the consternation of some of its fans. Frankly, I was torn between revisiting the show again as it has become rather popular (like most every show on Nickelodeon), or to just forget about it.

Frankly, I wound up watching the show again, because its time-slot competition is the disturbingly popular "Loonatics Unleashed" -- a horrible misappropriation of the Looney Tunes characters for use in a paint-by-numbers (using only dark hues) action adventure show.

Danny Phantom is better than Loonatics. That's not saying very much.

This morning's episode of DP was "Control Freaks", an episode showcasing Sam's relationship to her parents and to Danny. A gothic circus comes to town, and Sam and Danny wish to go. However, Sam's parents (rich socialites) feel this gothic phase is harmful to her and that Danny is a bad influence on her, so they forbid her from going. Ironically the circus appears to be having a bad influence on Danny.

That's enough of the plot; there are still too many things that annoy me about the show. Minor ones include Guy Moon's incessant and distracting musical punctuation of when people raise their eyebrows. A character lifts his eyebrows on this show roughly every 3 minutes. (It seems to be a Butch Hartman tick). This stops the show dead in its tracks. It also doesn't help that this eyebrow punctuation seems to occur every time there is a joke that the writers apparently thought was funny.

And getting to that, there was a rather unfunny gag where several characters dress up as Sam and then exclaim that "This is so wrong". It could have been funny at the beginning with Tucker dressing as Sam (he did so to cover for Sam as she skipped school to go to Circus Gothica). However, it was ham-fisted like too many other jokes in the show, and it fell flat. This joke was tried twice more in the show, becoming more pathetic in execution.

The big problem in the show is the jokes are all in the manner of a character acting in a broad stereotype and then remarking to the camera how they are broad stereotypes -- of course with the requisite wink at the camera, and of course the Guy Moon orchestrational punctuation of that moment. We're but steps away from canned laughter, folks. The show has the subtlety of a tin-drum.

I could probably write more if I was willing to watch the show again and anaylize it deeper, but I mean to avoid the show again.

I wonder what bar the execs at NBC spent all night at after learning Must See TV Thursday was wounded by -- of all networks -- UPN! Of course, UPN had "Everybody Hates Chris" by Chris Rock and Ali LeRoi, and all NBC had was the sorry excuse of a show called "Joey". I wonder how Fox feels as "Chris" -- the show they passed up on -- beat out "The O.C."

It's a very good show that worked almost perfectly right out of the gate. (Pilots are expected to be somewhat awkward, as everybody -- the writers, the actors, and eventually the viewers -- are just learning who their characters are.) I can only hope that the show can maintain itself at this level throughout the season.

Now, anyway, if you couldn't see the show (it did air against Survivor, after all), Google is streaming it until Thursday on Google Video.

Following up on the NY Times piece suggesting that King of the Hill should guide democrats, Jaime J. Weinman wonders how useful that suggestion really is. Even though the characters would probably proclaim themselves to be conservative, they have a nuanced view of policy that would thwart ideologues on either side. But I think that is the lesson. Most people don't believe in ideology (I say the only foolproof ideology is a fantasy ideology.). People really just want politicians to solve problems, not street test new governing theories. That's why people don't even listen to politicians or read position papers.

Anyway, King of the Hill is an interesting show in that you can either view it as a too close satire of Texans, or a celebration of Texans.

If any of you out there are fans of the 70s Wonder Woman TV series, the old Superman TV series starring George Reeves, or "Dallas", or "Full House" or any series which Warner Brothers produced, or won the rights to distribute in syndication, TVLand is running a marathon this weekend -- a marathon that really looks like just a collection of random shows. Ostensibly, this marathon is to honor Warner Brother's 50 years of producing television shows, but many of the shows in the marathon -- such as "Fresh Prince of Bel Air" -- weren't produced by Warner Bros. at all, but had bought the rights to sell to stations like TVLand once they enter syndication.

It's sort of like celebrating the achievements of Warner Brothers in film with the showing of "The Wizard of Oz".

But hey, I'll be watching Wonder Woman tomorrow morning at 10am.