Animated Shows on DVD - How Some Companies Just Don't Give A Damn

Not a review and not a list, but I felt like typing an observation (or a rant, but it's a well-informed rant with lots of pictures, so at least I know what the hell I'm talking about) that's been eating away at my brain for years now, just festering in my brainmeats like some sort of tumor that just needs to be cured with some sort of chemotherapy.

Namely, how some companies totally rip you off when they release their animated show on DVD.

Well, there goes my rent money.

Collecting DVD box sets of animated shows is a relatively recent thing that sort of needed the invention of DVDs in order to properly work. Whereas before you had to have like 20 VHSes on standby in order to collect your favorite episodes of Tiny Toons, now, you can just go out and buy the show. We live in a glorious, disc-filled age where, if you feel particularly fond of a certain show, there's an 80% chance that you can run out and get the DVDs and everything will be hunky-dory. Companies like Shout Factory! (and yes the punctuation is required) thrive on the business that is nerds having to own physical copies of a certain show because sometimes the Internet access will go down, you're too inept to work a decent torrent, or the only existing video files of a certain show are blurry videos on Rutube with Russian subtitles.

And, as you might expect from someone who owns a blog like this, I own a lot of shows on DVD. Like, a frightening amount. And, like everything, from video games to books and replacement hips, no DVD is the same in terms of quality.

But today, I'm going to talk about how sometimes even a great show beloved by all can be completely and utterly screwed over by a weak DVD package. This is the tale of one such show, a pretty popular show by all accounts, one that should be familiar to fans of cartoons, and the struggles it faces as its parent company seems to believe that fans of the show will just buy whatever they deal out to them regardless of quality.

Darkwing Duck - It's a Wonderful Leaf

Since it's incredibly easy to talk about this show, the next Christmas special will be about ducks in capes.

Like any good Disney show, Darkwing Duck happens to have a Christmas special, and what a Christmas special it is. You know how Frosty the Snowman never let up on the whimsy and the cutesy-wutesy? This episode, on the other hand, proves that it can have an ending that ends on a warm, fuzzy note while at the same time depicting one of the more horrifying ways to apprehend a villain in this series. Darkwing Duck continues to kick ass and chew bubblegum even when he's supposed to be filled with the holiday spirit, so don't think that just because Santa's in this cartoon that Darkwing's going to let up on the cartoon violence.

Which is good, because after the schmultz that Frosty and his underaged minions forcefed me, I can use some good old-fashioned 90's-grade violence.

And before someone points this out, yes, this is yet another Bushroot episode, effectively making three out of the four Darkwing Duck posts I've done so far Bushroot episodes and placing him in a giant majority on my blog. Well, what can I say? The mutant vegetable finds himself in quite a few episodes that are themed around holidays, and he happens to be one of the show's main regulars. I promise you, I will do a non-Bushroot episode next. Mostly because there is such a thing as too much of a good thing, and in Bushroot's case, his whiny Tino Insana voice will grate on your nerves after too long.

So deck the halls with whiny plants with low self-esteem and install really complicated security systems on your trees, for you're about to be bombarded by lame, Disney-style puns in...

It's a Wonderful Leaf

Darkwing Duck - Night of the Living Spud

Halloween month continues and it's time to revisit an old friend of mine, one that helped me form this blog in the first place. Time for the terror that flaps in the night!

He's a very happy, child-friendly terror, but still a terror.

This is one of those shows where you can pick practically any episode and have loads to talk about, but you have no idea how excited I am to talk about this episode in particular. This is one of those episodes I just have to cover because it's just so insane, so unbelievably out there that I'm getting giddy just talking about it.

For you see, this episode is a Bushroot episode, which instantly makes it one of my favorite episodes on account Bushroot is as awesome as he is whiny and pantless, and it involves giant vampire potatoes that turn people into zombies. That idea alone, the fact that there are blood-sucking spuds that spread some weird plant-like infection around like a Left 4 Dead/Plants Vs. Zombies crossover instantly brightens up any Halloween. In fact, ever since I bought my DVD box set, I've made it my life's mission to never go through an October without watching this episode at least once, it's that magical.

That is why I went with this episode as opposed to say, any of Morgana's episodes. Sorry Morgana. I know you're supernatural and more traditionally Halloween-y than a hideous abomination that makes roots sprout out of people's brains, but I had to go with my gut and choose the episode that has used the "Night of the Living Dead" pun that every single 90's entity has to make at least once.

Also, some people will be quick to note that this episode, "Night of the Living Spud", comes right after "Getting Antsy", effectively making my three Darkwing Duck reviews in show run order and therefore making me look like a huge Darkwing Duck geek. I assure you, I didn't intend for that to happen. So don't expect the next Darkwing Duck post to be about "Apes of Wrath" because it's not. Probably because I intend my next episode of this show to cover one of the OTHER main villains lest this blog looks like it has a Bushroot bias.

...it does, but I'd rather not have it appear that I do.

Anyways, remove your pants and imitate your favorite duck as we dive into the spectacle of horrors that is...

Night of the Living Spud

Darkwing Duck - Getting Antsy

Normally I won't go back to a topic I had just recently covered in order to give other cartoons their chance to shine, but I'm going to make an exception with Darkwing Duck just because that first post was sort of a "test the waters, do I really have the capability to write a blog" sort of deal. It was fun to see what worked and what didn't work about my own blog writing, and for that it was a decent learning experience.

But there was one problem. I was covering an episode that I've watched over and over and over as a kid, one that had a well-loved place in a recorded VHS and I can practically recite by memory now. Because of that, I could instantly make reference about things that always bothered me as a kid, stuff that I would write in my diary next to a crude drawing of Bushroot and Rhoda riding off into the sunset riding the T-Rex from We're Back: A Dinosaur's Story. Suppose I covered an episode that I didn't like and therefore couldn't draw upon childhood frustrations?

Luckily for me, one such episode comes right after Beauty and the Beet, making it pretty convenient for a lazy person like me who feels like a winner when I don't have to switch DVDs. Darkwing Duck had been going good with both its two-parter TV movie and the introduction of one of the most memorable villains on the show, so what came next? A one-shot villain that's more annoying than endearing, one that a lot of people, when questioned about the show, usually have no recollection of the guy because not only is he annoying but he's also kind of forgettable.

All superhero shows have these lowly one-shot villains that no one cares about, the ones that aren't even lucky enough to get nonspeaking cameos in one of the movies later down the line. If Bushroot is Darkwing Duck's version of Poison Ivy, what's Darkwing Duck's version of The Ratcatcher or The Minstrel? Let's find out.

Getting Antsy

Darkwing Duck - Beauty and the Beet

Since this is my first blog post, I'm going to start with something easy; Darkwing Duck. I watched the show both in the early 90's when I was a little kid and in the early 2000's back when Toon Disney was Disney's Boomerang and had older shows. On top of that, the show was actually popular enough to be remembered to this day, with a comic book revival and everything. It's one of the shows that, if you watch 90's cartoons, you know of its existence. People unaware of the existence of Darkwing Duck don't last long in animation circles because they're usually disappear mysteriously. Therefore, it should be relatively easy to explain this premise.

The Premise of Darkwing Duck
Batman, if Batman was a duck, had an adopted daughter, and if Robin was miraculously even more of a doofus than before. (and also a duck)

That was easy! Moving on...

I went with this episode first because when I was a kid, this was the episode of Darkwing Duck. Villain origin episodes always had a special place in my heart because they're usually the better written parts of any animated show, partly because the writers had 22 minutes to give a coherent explanation as to how and why a villain became the way he is and why he's such a menace to society, all while having enough action scenes to entertain the viewers who care not for plot and character development. Usually the writers, to flesh out their villains and make them not look like a jerkhole with nothing better to do, give an almost heartbreaking sordid tale of rejection and revenge.

In this episode's case, it's the villain origin episode of Bushroot, my personal favorite villain on the show. I liked Bushroot because he wasn't really evil, just misunderstood. All he wanted was a significant other or a friend (or to kill Darkwing in the watered-down portrayal of him in the Fearsome Five eps), someone that would make him feel less like an insane piece of vegetable matter that hid in plant nurseries and talked to giant vampire potatoes for kicks. His voice can be a little too whiny at times, but I imagine if you were transformed into something that spits in the face of nature, you'd cry and moan about it a lot too.

It's a tale of unrequited love, rejection from society, and giant floating hamburgers. It's a tale of power of the love, and the power of scientists that should really know better. You'll see a mutant try to impress the woman of his dreams, and then you'll see that same mutant get mowed into oblivion by a runaway lawnmower.

And with that, I bring you...

Beauty and the Beet