Filmation's Ghostbusters - Rollerghoster

Hey guys. Still doing finals, but since I turned in a paper and have some downtime between now and the next finals next week, I figure I'd crank out another Filmation post before resuming hiatus. I would say I'd make up for lost time somewhere down the line, but considering the length of these posts, I'd give myself carpal tunnel trying to achieve like a 14 post month sometime during the summer.

Most people know about Filmation's Ghostbusters by accident. For a brief period of time between the release of the movie Ghostbusters and the release of the TV show The Real Ghostbusters (which happens to be named that way due to this show, by the way; I'll get to that in a minute), kids would read that there was a Ghostbusters cartoon in the TV guide, turn on the idiot box in hopes of watching the exciting antics of Peter Venkman and Slimer, and learn the meaning of the phrase "crippling disappointment".

Guys, I don't think the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man is in this...

Oddly, the most interesting thing about this show is the backstory behind its existence. It's what people in the legal business call "a heaping pile of WTF". Back in the day, Filmation had a live-action TV show called The Ghost Busters, a short-lived live action show where two bumbling detectives and some guy in an ape suit (okay, "a gorilla") tried to stop ghosts and supernatural crap. It only lasted 15 episodes (on account it kind of sucked), meaning the legacy of Ghost Busters should've ended there. Unfortunately, some small-time studio called "Columbia Pictures" wanted to make some small-time movie called "Ghostbusters", and they had to obtain the rights to the name from Filmation for the film. Ghostbusters ended up becoming a huge hit and an instant classic, and Filmation, seeing that there was money to be had from the name alone, went into production with its animated series based on the characters from their original 15-episode series.

In short, the name is the entire reason why this show exists. Welcome to the world of capitalism.

But in fairness to this show, it at least tried to deviate itself from the godawful live-action series it spawned from. For starters, since its an animated show, the ghosts can actually use magical powers and behave more like, well, ghosts and the gorilla can finally look like a goddamn gorilla. This show is also supposedly where Tex Hex from Bravestarr originated from, which makes it even sadder is that this show is considered a cult classic on Wikipedia whereas the Bravestarr Wikipedia page is just "This exists".

Unlike Bravestarr where I had to struggle with choosing an episode, picking an episode for Filmation's Ghostbusters was almost too easy. While Bravestarr I had to shift through all the episodes with mature themes in order to find something I could laugh about, Ghostbusters was as simple as picking an episode blindly and realizing that it doesn't matter what episode I choose, I'm going to run into some strange crap either way.

I hope you can tolerate ghost puns, people. The title won't be the last ghost pun that will spook its way into this deathly scary post!

Rollerghoster

Bravestarr - The Day the Town Was Taken

I, again, apologize for the lack of updates. I did not forget about this blog; I just have college. Maybe I should've waited until after I graduated from college and didn't have to put together senior projects and shows before writing this blog. I have papers to write, paintings to paint, and storyboards to...storyboard.

A strange thing happened with this post. Originally it was going to be about He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (because it feels like a crime to have a bunch of Filmation shows without talking about the one everyone thinks of when they think of this company), but then I saw that Filmation had a show that came after He-Man that seemed way more interesting to talk about. 

His name means "We apologize for He-Man" in Cherokee.

Even though Happily Ever After was the last movie Filmation ever made before they closed their production doors and stopped making cartoons ever again, Bravestarr happened to be their last animated series. I've seen multiple stories on what really killed Filmation (and the company's failure is sort of like a game of Clue), but from the looks of it, while Happily Ever After can take most of the blame for slaying the people behind He-Man, Bravestarr helped. The show wasn't all that popular and the toy line didn't do too well.

Although, that can't really be Bravestarr's fault. The toys are incredibly creepy.

Imagine this thing standing on your bookshelf, watching you sleep, eating your thoughts...

Bravestarr has an interesting past. Apparently back when Filmation was making Ghostbusters (no, not the one with Egon and Peter; the one with the ape and the talking vehicle), they came up with Tex Hex, a villain concept so mindblowingly awesome that they had to make a whole new show just to house that sheer amount of win contained within him. So they created this series that mixes Western elements with space elements, hoping that two great tastes will go great together.

Which is good, because this is one of those shows that runs on pure "This is way cooler than it sounds, trust us" and kind of functions like a Mad Libs version of the old west. Instead of a state of Texas, you get a planet called New Texas. Instead of a gold rush, it's a kerium rush. Alcohol is sweetwater, some cacti happen to be robots, the prairie dogs are actually a sentient race of beings, and most of the outlaws happen to be aliens. Oh, and the Marshall's horse? It's a cyborg that can switch from a horse with robot legs to a bipedal horse alien that can use a giant gun capable of destroying buildings.

Now, choosing an episode to cover for Bravestarr is hard. I wanted to pick an episode that gave the heroes and the villains decent screentime so I can talk about all of them, especially since right now I'm too lazy to cover the entire movie pilot. Sadly, this meant I'm skipping the drug episode for now, even though that's probably the most famous episode out of the lot. I had a handful of episodes that would've worked, but I just went with my gut feeling and went with the one that had a showcase scene for practically every character. It's got most of the villains, it's decently Western, it has all the elements of a Bravestarr episode that everyone loves, and at one point, Bravestarr utilizes technology I mastered when I was six. Hold onto your cowboy hats and your radically steampunk-esque technology because this is... 

The Day the Town Was Taken

The Wuzzles - Crock Around the Clock

Another Wuzzles post? And so soon after the last one?

"Wuzzles" sounds vaguely like the name of a STD.

Well, I'll be honest. Bulls of a Feather was incredibly fun to watch, incredibly fun to talk about, and just a fun, fun thing to experience for the whole family. It was one of my funner posts to write and therefore I believe in the phenomenon of lightning striking twice and figure I can do the same thing again.

Therefore, I decided, what's a better way to talk about this show again than to talk about an episode that focuses on my favorite characters in the show. In this show's case, I happened to really like those ineffective hobos that are somehow considered a threat to the Land of Wuz; Crock, Frizard, and Brat.

Now, you might be thinking, with a show that only lasted 13 episodes, there can't possibly be an episode that focuses on the villains. Well, if you thought that, then you're obviously wrong, for not only did I find an episode with "Crock" in the name, and not only was it heavily Crock-essentric, but it's also the most deranged, the most depraved piece of animation I've ever seen bear the Disney name. I don't want to give anything away in this episode, but let's just say that plot points appear that seem so random that it almost feels like I've accidentally tuned into Cartoon Network by mistake. Hold onto your comically oversized sailor's caps, because there's no turning back from...

Crock Around the Clock

Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers - The Last Leprechaun

In honor of the fact that this month has a relatively small holiday, I'm going to do a cartoon about leprechauns and chipmunks.

It's been a while since I last talked about this show, which is odd, because I blab about Darkwing Duck all the time. I guess I'm just biased towards waterfowl or something. But fear not, rodent lovers. I will not let this show suffer from my petty injustices for any longer!

That being said, there's an unspoken rule that, among the many Disney cartoons that have made their way on various channels throughout the years, pretty much every major holiday is accounted for and has at least one special made in its honor. There are Halloween episodes, Valentine's Day episodes, Christmas episodes, and I'm sure if I looked hard enough, I could even find an episode that talks about Arbor Day or Yom Kippur. 

And sure enough, one of the Disney Afternoon cartoons had something to do with leprechauns, bad Irish accents, and Guinness. Leprechauns needing help from talking chipmunks in Hawaiian shirts. Irish folklore making an appearance in the same show that has some Australian mouse named Monterey Jack. Voice actors trying and failing to imitate Irish accents while another voice actor has to have their voice digitally sped up. This is truly a recipe fit for the gods. It is a great honor I can even share this with you.

In addition to being St. Patrick's Day related, this cartoon, ironically enough, actually aired one day after the previous episode I talked about, Chocolate Chips. Wow, I have half a mind to say that that was totally intentional. (It wasn't.)

But I've been stalling for too long. Waiting for us is a tale of enslavement, betrayal, and squeaky voiced rodents trying to find oversized pots of gold. I shall weave a tale that involves Irish folklore, from terrifying specters renowned for being the omens of death to stereotypical cereal mascots with phoned-in voices. Hopefully you'll learn something from what I'm about to tell you, for it involves fairy tale creatures that are chipmunk-sized and carry racially insensitive names. 

This is...

The Last Leprechaun

Happily Ever After (1993 film) - Part 4 (Final Part)

Part 1.
Part 2.
Part 3.

I was really slacking off on writing this, but in my defense, I thought I'd be really clever in finishing up this movie this month since February was the month of love and all that.

Now, normally, I reserve this space for one again mentioning that this movie is weird (as if you really need me telling you that), this movie is still a guilty pleasure of mine, it was a big favorite of me growing up, various excuses to make myself feel better for liking this stupid movie, yadda yadda yadda, but I have a very special treat in store for my readers for this final part of Happily Ever After.

While I was writing the post up for Part 3, I learned that there is an honest to god Happily Ever After videogame.

This might be the greatest thing I've ever seen.

From what I've seen from the gameplay videos, it's your typical mediocre sidescroller platformer game that was extremely popular during the 16-bit era that gives you the option to play as either Snow White or Shadow Man, and for some reason the first level of the game involves throwing apples at oversized caterpillars when I'm positive that wasn't in the movie, but you know what? I want this game. Not just want, but need. Crave. Thirst. I don't even own a working Super Nintendo right now (at least until I run into one at a swap meet or something) and I desire to own this magnificent cartridge so that I can go up to random strangers and tell them that I, this humble writer of this humble cartoon blog, own Happily Ever After: THE VIDEOGAME.

Yeah, remember the part of the movie where Snow White climbed on a giant beanstalk
and watched Scowl drop bunches of grapes on her?

But you're not here to hear me talk about videogames. You're here to hear me talk about cartoons. Okay, fine. Have it your way, expecting me to talk about nothing but cartoons on a blog titled "Nothing But Cartoons". I might as well conclude the daring chapter that is me nitpicking every last minute of this film once I get into...

Happily Ever After Part 4

The Wuzzles - Bulls of a Feather

The 80's were a strange time to be alive. For solid proof on that, The Wuzzles. 

Ah, yes, The Wuzzles. If you needed a reason to believe that cartoon writers of this era were on some dangerous form of illegal drugs, this is it.

Okay, chances are if you've seen a cartoon, you've run into a character that was half-something, half-the other, but The Wuzzles really brought that concept to a whole new level and made it popular. The whole mismatched hybrid Care Bear reject thing (a remember, back in the 80's, Care Bears were freaking huge) was their entire gimmick, and the kids loved them because who the hell wouldn't want to play with a rhino/monkey mutant? Several attempts at trying to use this hybridization in other shows has happened since The Wuzzles era (Crash Bandicoot and Spliced, for example, took the half-animal hybrids and tried to make them more science-based, and anyone familiar with WoW knows about the owlbears) but they couldn't quite get the level of cuteness that the Wuzzles had. Maybe it was the fact that, inexplicably, all the characters had tiny wings regardless of what animals were spliced. Or maybe it was the bright colors. Either way, The Wuzzles were something if not unique.

That being said, this show is one of those weird, culture-defining shows that people mainly remember the concept but not so much the content. Tons of people remember The Wuzzles, I've found out, and tons of people remember this theme song. But strangely, if you turn to these same people who can recite the "two times the fun" lyric and ask if they remember any of the plots or any of the character personalities or just anything at all besides Wuzzles being, well, Wuzzles, suddenly their eyes will glaze over and act like you just blew their mind.

Why is this show not as well-remembered as DuckTales or Gummi Bears, two shows around this same era? My theory is the fact that this show only lasted one season and thirteen episodes, giving it the unfortunate distinction of being the shortest lived Disney animated TV show. According to Wikipedia (unfortunately my primary source of research for obscure films because seriously, no one's going to write a textbook on these things), the reason for this is because Bill Scott, the voice of Moosel, had died while the second season was made, so they halted production and the show died with him, hence why most people only remember The Wuzzles because of the sweet toys.

And what kind of show was left behind at the wake of his demise? Let's find out by looking at the very first episode of this ill-fated show by looking at...

Bulls of a Feather

Happily Ever After (1993 film) - Part 3

You know, let's just pretend that December never happened. I'm going back to the regular schedule for this month. And boy, do I have a treat for you.

Part 1.
Part 2.

So the best way to wash away the stench of failure that was last month, I'm doing Happily Ever After once again. Because after getting sick, missing deadlines, being surrounded by relatives that I don't really even like all that much, and just plain hating everything for about two months, it's nice to get back to something nice and fluffy again.

Even if my definition of nice and fluffy involves fairytale creatures narrowly avoiding death multiple times while being aided by a reject from He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. I've already said this about a thousand other times when talking about the movie, but here is where it gets weird. The movie, as if ashamed by how cutesy and flowery the first two parts were (and that's saying something, considering both parts contained some pretty messed up stuff like the dragon and the trolltastic mirror that gives children heart attacks by showing them the queen's death mask), decides to cloak the entire movie in darkness and make the children watching this cry as they watch Snow White try to outrun a pack of wolves.

And yet I love every twisted, dark, gruesome minute of this film. But then again, this is coming from someone who wrote four whole blog posts about how much Felix the Cat: The Movie sucks, only to turn around at the final minute and admit I watch that crap every year. By now, you're probably just ignoring my opinions and only come here for the screenshots.

I will warn you though; this is technically the weakest part of the movie (although to be fair, Part 3 of Felix the Cat: The Movie was the same way), so don't complain as I unearth repressed childhood nightmares and recycled animation as I disinter the craziness that is...

Happily Ever After Part 3

Happily Ever After (1993 film) - Part 2

Part 1.

I will conclude the month of November with yet another trip into Happily Ever After, a staple of my video library.

Box office failure or not, this movie will still remain a childhood favorite (and like Felix the Cat: the Movie, I can't bring myself to ever hate this movie), which is basically me saying that this film is a really big guilty pleasure for me. Oh sure, it's bad. I'm not going to deny it. Plot points are unnecessary, and we're about to see stuff that makes the man who can turn into a dragon look sensible, but I still watch this multiple times for enjoyment. It probably doesn't say much about my taste in cartoons, but I get a kick out of movies this cheesy.

And we're journeying into the actual meat of the movie. Compared to the crazy depravity that's going to explode from my disc like an Ecto-Containment Unit in New York City, the intro with the dragon, the He-Man prince, and the rapping owl with a cigar is going to look subdued and downright sane and intelligent. Just warning you ahead of time. We're dealing with Felix the Cat: The Movie levels of crazy here.

Since I can't give too much away, I might as well mention the DVD now that I actually have the DVD of this movie with me. Unless if you really, really, really love this movie, don't buy this thing. The DVD is crap. Oh sure, it's more convenient than the VHS, and I have yet to find a computer that can play VHSes, but this DVD is one of the worst examples I have ever seen of archival quality. There's little things like parts of the screen being out of focus for some scenes, or rings of black surrounding the edges, but it's those little things that just piss me off. From the looks of it, either the movie just hasn't survived that well over the years (and it really wouldn't surprise me, considering Filmation is a defunct company, this movie bombed horribly at the box office, and was critically panned by everybody) and they can't digitally restore the movie, or someone got lazy rushing this thing to DVD.

In short, they did a really poor job and the picture is nowhere near as good as it should be.

Why am I choosing to mention the DVD? Because of the scene selection menu of course.

...yeeeah, what am I supposed to be looking at here? Out of all of the possible stills they could choose for Lord Maliss, they had to go for one where he's trying to be all sensual. The pink curtains in the background certainly don't help.

That being said, don't try to fight it, because you're going to see dragons and feminism aplenty in...

Happily Ever After Part 2

Happily Ever After (1993 film) - Part 1

Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy, I'm so glad that I can share this movie with you. I can't really express this in words, but I'm practically hopping up and down in my seat like a giddy schoolgirl because I get to talk about THIS.

Aw yeah, Happily Ever After.

This movie has had a very unlucky past. Originally called "Snow White and The Realm of Doom", it's pretty infamous for being the movie that sent a pretty famous cartoon company, Filmation, into bankruptcy, and for being the subject of a minor legal dispute with Disney on account it's pegged as an unofficial sequel to that particular movie. Finished in 1988 but finally released in theaters in 1993 (a good five years after its completion), it's also known for being a box office bomb (here's how bad it did; it opened on the same weekend as Super Mario Bros. and that movie made eight times more money than this movie), a regular appearance in store bargain bins, and just all-around derivative of one of Disney's first animated classics. It's not as derivative as Happily N'Ever After, that terrible CGI film, but it's pretty up there.

But when I was a kid, I didn't know of any of these things and watched the everliving crap out of this thing. Yes, it's sad that I'm admitting this, but I liked it. Ah, the days when you could just enjoy something without knowing about other people's opinions of it and getting into large flame wars about it. Instead we were free to make our own decisions.

Disney scholars are going to scoff at me and mock me for my lack of bad taste, but when I was a kid, I loved this movie a lot better than Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. To me, there was no contest. While Disney's Snow White merely had some weird looking evil queen who has to brew a transformation potion in order to turn her into something that could've just used simple costume props, Happily Ever After had dragons, evil sorcerers that shot lasers out of his eyes, a talking bat, a smoking owl, and freaking packs of evil wolves with rhino horns. And while Disney's Snow White just had dwarfs, Happily Ever After had female dwarfs with freaking magic powers that could summon like thunderstorms and crap.

Yes, my friends. This is basically the tale of Snow White on steroids. And man did I cherish this film for it as a little girl.

It was only until later that I found out that people are actually supposed to hate this movie, which kind of bummed me out, but maybe the rosy glasses of nostalgia are blinding me and this truly is a turd wrapped in a pretty princess gown. Either way, I'm going to be looking at the strange, messed up world that is...

Happily Ever After

Buttons and Rusty in Which Witch is Which

While I'm on the topic of Halloween specials, it's time for me to talk about a movie that somehow was a big part of my childhood even though it took me a lot of google-fu in order to remember the name of the stupid thing, partly because the VHS isn't even correctly labelled. Buttons and Rusty, everyone!

Fun fact: There are no ghosts in this movie. This cover is a big fat lie.

Everyone has one of these films. An obscure film that just makes it into your video library when you're a kid even though you have no idea how the hell it got there. Maybe a relative gave it to you when you were little, maybe your parents spotted it in the bargain bin and mistook it for a Disney film, or maybe your VCR recorded it because your house is haunted and the ghosts in your house happen to be hipsters and hate everything with a recognizable brand name. These movies are never really well-known, but they're everywhere, just waiting to be talked about, waiting to be brought to our attention after they've been passed off in favor of something by Fox Entertainment or Warner Brothers.

But yeah, long story short, I think this blog post is going to be something my parents dug up from a bargain bin. Hooray!

Anyways, like Fluppy Dogs, I watched this a couple times as a kid, the VHS wore out, and a good portion of my life was spent recalling weird images of a bear cub and a fox kit having appropriately cute woodland fun even though I couldn't recall the name or much of the plot points. It's that feeling you get where you watch something, you remember liking it, but all you can dreg up is just that vague feeling that you watched something alright. It's sort of like recalling elevator music, really.

But unlike Fluppy Dogs, which was a standalone film, not only did this film exist, but there were multiple films and there was a TV series in the late 90's based off of this concept, with this entire franchise branded as "The Chucklewood Critters". I don't know about you, but when the Internet told me this, my jaw hit the floor and I spent a good ten minutes going "Holy crap! That thing! That thing that I watched! It had sequels!". It took all of my willpower to avoid just running out and buying the other VHSes, but mostly because Youtube happens to still exist at the time I write this.

...that being said, it's actually rather sad that even though Buttons and Rusty starred in like six specials and an entire cartoon that lasted two seasons, the only time I had even heard of any of these things is because I happened to punch in the name into an Internet search engine. Considering I frequent quite a few cartoon sites and talk to people who were raised on 90's cartoons, that's saying a lot. I mean, geez, even Project GeeKeR is mentioned more than the Chucklewood Critters. I have to wonder what the hell the animators did in order to earn such bad luck on their product.

With the introduction out of the way, I'm going to dive right into a giant lake of obscurity and fish up some animation that I'm sure only a handful of people has ever seen. If I don't make any blog posts after this one, it's probably because the VHS of this thing happened to be haunted and I was devoured by the creepy fox corpse that came out of my television screen.

Buttons and Rusty in Which Witch is Which

Fluppy Dogs - Part 2 (Final Part)

Part 1

Hey, guys! You know what's awesome? Prismatic canines that have a magic key that can open doors to other dimensions.

"We'll acknowledge Atlantis: Milo's Return and Belle's Magical World but not this."

That's right, today I'm going to tackle the second and final half of Fluppy Dogs, closing the book (at least until I find another one that did just as badly) on forgotten Disney specials that failed miserably in the ratings. So far, this strange special has brought flying beds, dogs that are supposedly not dogs but just look like dogs and happen to be called dogs, a villain that feels like he should be hanging out in France and attacking cursed princes in enchanted castles, and a really cool idea that's somehow buried underneath all of this. The first half set the whole story up, and now the second half is where we'll get to see some action.

But all in all, there's not much more to say about the Fluppy Dogs, cute as they may be, that hasn't already been said in Part 1, so I'm just going to use this space to inform the readers that, as always, start with Part 1 first. Because I'm not responsible for breaking your brain if you enter Part 2 unprepared.

Time to once again touch upon the piece of animation Disney likes to pretend doesn't exist (on account they forgot it exists), this is...

Fluppy Dogs - Part 2

Fluppy Dogs - Part 1

Everybody has a cartoon they remember bits and pieces of but can't remember the name or what it's about. A cartoon that you saw as a kid, but now you wish you could remember the name because you're a little unsure if it was actually something you saw or something you made up in your head.

In my case, it was Disney's Fluppy Dogs. Never heard of it? I wouldn't be surprised really.

Whenever some Disney fan acts like they're the only person in the world that
knows about The Black Cauldron, bring this up.

This might sound silly, but for a very large portion of my life I swore I saw an animated film on the Disney Channel about talking dogs that could open up doors out of midair with a magic key but I couldn't remember the plot, the title, or even most of the movie beyond little snippets that would appear in my head. But no matter who I talked to, no one had heard of this film. I quickly became more and more distraught, gradually going from "hey, remember this animated TV special Disney would air in the 90's about talking dogs with magic keys?" to "I swear to god this happened why won't anyone listen to me!?" to unfortunate souls like my various roommates and the people standing in line for Space Mountain. Luckily YouTube came to the rescue and proved that I was at least sort of sane (because no sane person would get an art degree, believe me) and didn't suffer from hallucinations as a child.

The reason this movie hasn't been released on DVD or even so much as mentioned by Disney is that Fluppy Dogs could really be dubbed Floppy Dogs on account, when this special first aired, it was one of Disney's lowest rated programs. I'm picturing a room of animators, all pleased that the grueling months are over and they made this really awesome pilot, and then the Nielsen Ratings come in and everyone starts hitting the bottle.

Which kind of sucked for Disney because they had aspirations of turning this into a series and even had released a couple pieces of merchandise (because Disney can and will release merchandise of anything they make) before they knew how much this movie was going to fail in terms of gaining an audience. See, before they released the special, Disney joined up with Kenner Toys (the makers behind Strawberry Shortcake) in an attempt to make a merchandise-driven cartoon similar to My Little Pony or He-Man. Only problem; no one bought the merchandise. I can tell because this stuff shows up on eBay for dirt cheap.

Yeah, this still probably isn't ringing a bell with anyone.

Had this movie been a hit and had the show been picked up, it would've been in-between Adventures of the Gummi Bears and DuckTales chronologically. As it stands, the closest you'll probably get to having a Fluppy Dogs show is watching reruns of The Wuzzles, which by the way, isn't very well-remembered either.

Since this movie is only like 45-50 minutes long, it makes sense that I divide this analysis of this movie into exactly two parts, like a Subway sandwich meant for two. I will also apologize for the quality of this movie's screenshots because, since it never got a DVD or even a VHS release, the only surviving copies that circulate the darkest reaches of the Internet today was pulled from video recordings from the 80's.

So let's dive into one of the most forgotten TV specials bearing the Disney name. This is...

Fluppy Dogs - Part 1

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987) - Cowabunga Shredhead

Lately I've been noticing that I've been sneaking a lot of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles references into my other blog posts. So you know what? It's turtle time!

If you have no idea what this show is, then I feel nothing but immense pity for you.

I really can't really say much about this show as a whole that hasn't already been said by at least 500 other people. This show is one of those shows where, even if you haven't watched an episode of it, you know what it is. It remains one of the most popular animated television shows of all time. I personally don't think I've run into anyone over the age of 18 who hasn't heard of the turtles.

Also, well, there's a lot to cover about this show.
The average cartoon has 2 or 3 seasons, with around 26-50 episodes.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles had 11 Seasons and 193 episodes.

To put this in perspective, think of all the merchandise Spongebob Squarepants has, and then double it. You still won't hit the amount of merchandise this show had. This show honest to god actually made pizza more popular. Dwell on that for a second. To say that this show was popular is an understatement and shames this cartoon. This thing was so humongogigantic in the early 80's that they haven't even invented a word as to how popular it was.

But it's not my job to be a ninja turtle historian. It's my job to digest one of their episodes and regurgitate it up in word form in a way that's at least slightly amusing.

The reason I went with this episode first as opposed to say, the first episode ever is that I've seen quite a few fans of this show, when they cover this show, conveniently only cover the major story arcs from Seasons 1 and 2 (and occasionally the Baxter Stockman arc that spans several seasons, but I'll hit on that later) and then just conveniently ignore the entire rest of the show like it's something that never happened. That apparently the show's best moments were when it was deep, thoughtful, serious, and all those other delightful metaphors usually applied to the 2003 TMNT series.

So because of this, instead of drama and intrigue, I'm going to show you an episode where a ninja covered in cheese graters is programmed by a laser beam to think that he's a giant mutant turtle with a verbal tic while other villains plan to kidnap the president with holograms. Behold how everyone in the 80's was on something in this glorious golden-plated trophy of an episode named...

Cowabunga Shredhead

Felix the Cat: The Movie - Part 4 (Final Part)

Part 1.
Part 2.
Part 3.

What a better way to issue in a brand new month than by closing up on this strange, delightful acid trip to my eyes that is this movie?

...I can probably think of a million better ways to celebrate the month of September than by sitting all by my lonesome in a quiet room and watching the hopes and dreams of Hungarian animators get silently crushed by horrible time schedules and weak budgets, but since I went for a specific theme for my blog, this is what I'll write about. Otherwise I'd be boring you all about anecdotes involving the colorful people that inhabit my dorms.

Anyways, Felix the Cat! I just recently learned this, but there are a couple Felix the Cat black and white shorts involving circuses. There aren't any women dancing in bubbles or overweight alligators with throat scars in them, but this proves that I was wrong about the filmmakers. They were making a really clever allusion to "Felix Wins Out" and "The Circus", very classic silent 1920's shorts.

...either that, or they were making this crap up as the film was being produced. It's hard to tell.  

NO IT ISN'T, FELIX.

Also, you know how I said that the animation is only going to get even worse as time goes on? Well, yeah, that was mainly to warn you ahead of time about the last portion of the film. Even fans of this movie can't excuse the last fifteen minutes of this film, it's that bad. Characters start to melt, eyeballs start to slide off faces, animation clips starts to be reused, and it's just a horrible thing to watch because you know they could do better because anyone could do better than this. It's a sliding scale of badness with this film, unfortunately, and it's really sad when the high point of any animated film is when the main character is being held captive by an overweight lizard mutant.

So be prepared for the final reckoning as we see this movie finally get out of the circus and reach its conclusion. And trust me, you will be disappointed once you see how this movie ends in...

Felix the Cat: The Movie Part 4!

Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers - Chocolate Chips

In dedication on how my first blog post was something from a particular weekday afternoon block from my childhood, I'm going to do yet another Disney Afternoon cartoon. They're easy to do, fun to write, and best of all, I get to mercilessly put shows that I had once found sacred and perfect into the unforgiving grinder of sarcasm and snark. Also, this one show is the one that, if possible, has even more fans than Darkwing Duck. And what a scary big rabid fandom it is. So if I get angry e-mails from this particular blog post, I only have myself to blame.

Quick Disclaimer for the Rescue Rangers Fans: Even though all of these blog posts horrifically rip apart whatever I'm watching, most of time I actually enjoy the show and are poking fun of it because I would spot these weird little logical fallacies even as a kid. The only time I really mean it is if the show is bad, and let's be honest, I'm pretty sure you can tell when a show is bad just by the way I write the post. No one read the Street Sharks post and thought "Oh shut up, that's an awesome show!"

...but moving on. If I could describe this show's premise in one sentence, I would do it like this:

The Premise of Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers
Some talking vermin solve crimes.

Tada!

I'll be honest, but when I watched this show as a kid, I can't really say I was a big fan of it. I like the show, don't get me wrong, but out of the Disney Afternoon, this ranked slightly higher than DuckTales (because it didn't have Webbie and that annoying caveduck), but lower than Gummi Bears, because Gummi Bears kicked ass. It was somewhere in the middle of enjoyment, which is better than my opinion on Shnookums and Meat.

For this show, I chose an episode through the complicated scientific process known as "randomly picking an episode off my Chip and Dale DVD box set because, unlike Darkwing Duck, I never really built a preference for episodes". I went with this one because I guess I was currently in the mood for some confectioneries.

Have some crimes that just keep slipping through the cracks? Have a case that people dismissed as either too big or too small? Well, if you need help, just eat some...

Chocolate Chips

Felix the Cat: The Movie - Part 3

Part 1.
Part 2.

Time to revisit this movie again. I don't like leaving things unfinished, especially if they're nonsensical blog posts where I, someone who's over 20, decide to watch a film about talking cats and try to invoke some form of deep commentary on it.

That, and it's just too easy to point and laugh at the fact that the movie makers thought that any of these plot developments were a good idea. I mean, sure, I guess you can give them points for creativity by having the princess rescue plot take place in a circus filled with tap-dancing mice hybrids, a giant spacelizard who honestly outstages the actual villain, and radioactive interdimensional mud mutants, but yeah, so far my opinion on this movie is that it's crazy but poorly animated movie that would have some great ideas if it wasn't attached to a brand name that it's not doing any justice to.

And it's only going to get crazier and even more badly animated from here on out. The good news is that I have only one or two more parts to do of this movie, but the bad news is that I'm getting to the parts where the movie starts to lose momentum and, if possible, get even worse. I have to wonder if this movie was on a tight "don't spend ANY money at all!" budget once we leave the circus portion because it really shows. The animation starts to drop in quality (even more than before), the plot starts to fall apart onscreen, characters stop being characters and just meander on the screen just to exist, and well...okay, perhaps I'm giving too much away.

This part of the movie, unlike the previous part I just did, actually has the princess and the Duke of Zill. And you'll see why this is a bad thing once we dive into the glittery, badly-animated mushiness that is...

Felix the Cat: The Movie Part 3!

Felix the Cat: The Movie - Part 2

Part 1 of Felix the Cat: The Movie.

I covered Part 1, so here's Part 2 of this wonderfully insane film known as Felix the Cat: the Movie. So far we've run into magic talking bodily secretions squirted out princessy tear ducts, fish with boobs, friendly swamp-traveling miners that like to talk about intelligent bubbles, and a kingdom that is just totally okay with their ruler disbanding the entire army. Will Part 2 be just as acid-tripping crazy as the first part?

The answer to that question is "Definitely yes", because we're heading into my favorite part. This part has a little bit of everything and is arguably the one part where the script writers temporarily got out of their drunken stupors and wrote something that makes some lick of sense.

Unfortunately, in Felix the Cat: The Movie's universe, the part where the movie starts to make sense is when Felix the Cat has to entertain a giant space lizard's circus while he shares a dorm room with some mice/lizard hybrids and gives stand-up comedy to aliens. This bears repeating. The part where the movie makes sense is at a giant space lizard's circus. It's not too late to bail.

But if you choose to stick around, it's time for...

Felix the Cat: The Movie Part 2!

Felix the Cat: The Movie - Part 1

Animated films; the form of entertainment that people use when they objectively look at animation.

To the populace, an animated film with a giant budget and a contained story that has to be told in a given amount of time is the best way to present the craft of animation. Animated TV shows could get away with being cheap because they're the soulless byproduct of an industry, but not films. No, no, no. Not with Pixar around who always thinks about the art and never about the money! (although this state of mind is slowly dying out with the advent of Cars 2) And with animation studios constantly competing with each other in order to make the next film that will be as great as Disney or Pixar, animated films have become a profitable business.

At least most of the time, because for every well-made cartoon with a budget over several million dollars, there are probably like five cheaply made movies that were made with a budget that couldn't get you a Happy Meal from McDonalds. These are the movies that are usually forgotten by the wayside. This movie was one of those movies.

Felix the Cat: The Movie was an attempt to revive an aging cartoon icon after years of being nothing more than a seller of merchandise. Their heart was in the right place (unlike Heathcliff who just repackaged episodes from the TV show and shilled it off for a quick buck)...at least until they decided that the best way to revive one of the oldest cartoon characters still in existence today was to ship off the cartoon product to Hungary and then put the movie in theaters to compete with Disney's Beauty and the Beast. Yeah, that was smart.

Needless to say, Felix the Cat: The Movie bombed at the box office and wasn't the Felix revival the creators had hoped for. Ironically, Disney, possibly still laughing their asses off at the fact that this movie had the same opening day as the Disney movie that almost won Best Picture in the Oscars, would run this movie a lot on the Disney Channel and that's how most people know of its existence.

That being said, I have a sad confession to make. The reason this is going to be my first animated movie blog post is because this was one of my favorite movies from my childhood and still remains a personal favorite for me. I'm currently going to school for an Animation BFA so I know bad animation when I see it, and unfortunately, even though this animation is from an outsourced Hungarian studio, there's admittingly a bizarre charm to it that I can still deprive some entertainment from.

That doesn't change the fact it's a strange as hell movie, though, so into the grinder it goes.

Since I blab so much about only 22 minute episodes, I'm splitting this analysis into multiple parts. So sit back and gaze into the strangely animated abyss that is...

Felix the Cat: The Movie

Heathcliff and the Catillac Cats - Iron Cats

I've been covering a lot of 90's stuff, so I figure now's a good time to cover something a little more ancient. The 80's! That's like ten years older than the 90's!

More importantly, Heathcliff and the Catillac Cats.

Heathcliff has a strange history. The comic came before the Garfield comic strip, but Heathcliff is usually passed off as the rip-off. The Heathcliff cartoon (or cartoons, a fact not many people even know about), came out before Garfield and Friends, but I've seen a disturbing amount of people say the Heathcliff cartoon ripped off Garfield. Heathcliff is like the Time Lord of ripping stuff off.

I went with this show for a couple reasons.

1. The Heathcliff: The Movie phenomenon, where they basically packaged a couple Heathcliff cartoons already made and put it in theaters. That's right, they actually put episodes that were rerunning on television and made parents charge for it. Wow. That level of just not giving a damn from a big name animation studio is pretty amazing and means I have to touch upon this show at least once.

2. The Catillac Cats, DIC creations, managed to outstage Heathcliff in his own show. I guess it was because there was more of them to bounce their personalities off of each other and therefore were more entertaining than the trickster motif Heathcliff's cartoons had, or I could address the elephant in the room and point out that Cleo, with her really humanoid body and curves, probably created her fair share of furries in the 1980's.

It's pretty easy to spot Cleo because she's the only cat with cleavage.

3. The intro was the best part of the series. Don't believe me? I guarantee that if you asked someone what they remembered from the Heathcliff show, they'll probably chime in with "Heathcliff Heathcliff, no one should, terrify the neighborhood!" or recite the part where the singers go "Oh a ohhhh a ooooohhhh oh ohhh a ohhhhh!!" It's one of those classic theme songs that will never leave your head the moment you hear it.

Since this show was split into unrelated 11 minute segments, I'll just cover an 11 minute segment and treat it like it's own episode. That means this blog will either be half the length of a traditional "holy crap that's long" blog post I normally do or nothing about the length changes.

So with that, let's watch Heathcliff! Or rather, a group of cats that has nothing to do with Heathcliff. That's right, Heathcliff won't even appear in this analysis. Not one bit.

Iron Cats