Spliced - Fairly Odd Princesses

I was looking through my older posts and realized that, even though I really like this show, haven't talked about it in a while.

I'll be honest. The last time I talked about the show and made a post about the show, I didn't feel it did the source material justice. Oh, the post isn't bad, I'm not saying that I already hate my own material now. It's just I felt that something was lacking from that post and some of my old jokes are just plain not holding up. I'm personally blaming it on the fact that it was one of the first posts I ever did for this site (Internet writing has a very steep learning curve) so now I hope I can appease the Spliced fanbase (all five of you) by writing a better post!

And what a better way to talk about the show than by actually talking about the episode that really introduced me to the show.

Now, while Stuck Together (the last episode I talked about when introducing the show in my blog) is a good episode and is technically, being a part of the first episode, how most people were introduced to this show, I myself consider this episode to be my show starter. It was the episode that helped prove to me that this was a show worth watching, because it had a giant gorilla with a pony hand making diamonds in its huge monkey fists while a dolphin wore a dress and performed fairy magic. No other cartoon has that, and I doubt no cartoon ever will.

That being said, let the show reference a completely different cartoon in this episode's title while I talk at length about fairies in...

Fairly Odd Princesses

Ace Ventura: Pet Detective - Witch's Brew

With Halloween month drifting to a close like a thin wisp-like fog that fades away with the morning sun, I've decided I'm going to talk Jim Carrey, since I always found the actual actor scary as hell. I talked about The Mask: The Animated Series and I've let everyone know that Dumb and Dumber: The Animated Series actually exists (I wish it didn't), so I might as well bring myself to talk about Ace Ventura: Pet Detective.

Ace Ventura was released around the same time as The Mask: The Animated Series, but was handled by a completely different animation studio. While the glorious green-faced mask-wearing crimefighter was being animated by the geniuses at Film Roman, this idea was passed off to Nelvana. Therefore, save for the one time where the shows had a crossover (called "Have Mask, Will Travel"), these shows really don't have much in common other than the fact that Jim Carrey starred in both movies. The humor is written a lot differently, the animation is done a lot differently, and basically we're dealing with two different products here. Hell, considering the animation company, Ace Ventura's show has way more in common with the Beetlejuice cartoon than anything.

I'll be quick to sum this whole thing up. Ace Ventura: Pet Detective takes off right where the movies left off, and involve Jim Carrey's character, Ace Ventura, solving animal-themed cases with his pet monkey Mr. Watson. It's a really straightforward premise that was incredibly easy to adapt into an animated adaptation, because if there's one thing animators can draw, it's cuddly animals. I actually really like the Ace Ventura movies so that might be a plus. Hey, don't give me that look; I can like crude humor too!

While not as well-remembered or loved as The Mask: The Animated Series (opinions of this show fluctuate more wildly than it's better animated brother), Ace Ventura earns itself the distinction of being the only one out of the trio of Jim Carry cartoons to be revived by another network. After the show ended its first run in 1997, Nickelodeon actually brought it back for a third season that lasted from 1999 to the year 2000. But, like most zombies, it quickly decomposed and fell apart, and couldn't gain any audience after rising up from its grave. I personally blame the fact that Nick never bothered to advertise the damn thing. I clearly remember watching Nickelodeon during that time period and not once did Ace Ventura premieres become any sort of priority with that station.

But let's ignore that. And what's the first episode I'll be dealing with?

Well, since it's Halloween and Buttons and Rusty had completely failed me in their Halloween special, I'm going with another episode dealing with witches. I was going to go with the weremoose episode because the concept was too tempting to pass up, but then I saw Which Witch was Which and now I'm irrationally angry that I didn't get to see some real witchcraft. Hopefully Ace Ventura isn't as big of a liar as Ranger Jones.

I will warn everybody. Copies of this show are hard to find, there's no DVD out of this show, I'm Internet-retarded in that I can't figure out torrents and never will, and the one copy I did find...has a very annoying watermark where the uploader was kind enough to write his name in big fat letters on the actual movie. Incredibly annoying, and I apologize in advance for it, but I can't fault him for trying to advertise the fact that he's the go-to guy for Ace Ventura episodes. This probably won't be the last time this happens, so just letting everybody know before people send me e-mails.

That being said, let's boil up some...

Witch's Brew

Spliced - Stuck Together

You know, I've been talking about some pretty old shows recently. Shows that are almost 20 years old, with one cartoon even being older than I am. Shows that, if I keep talking about the 80's and 90's, might alienate my nonexistent audience into thinking that I some sort of bias towards this period of animation. (I do, but that's not what's being discussed here.)

So you know what? I'm going to cover a show that's only two years old.

You'd think with the advent of the Internet, less shows would escape notice. You'd think with more people coming out of the "I like cartoons and I'm over 18!" closet on the Internet, no animated series would be left unturned. Unfortunately, a lot of shows do, leading several people to believe that there just aren't as many cartoons as there were in the 90's. (which is actually sort of true, but still) You'd be surprised, but there are actually quite a few modern shows that ended up just like Creepy Crawlers; they surface, have a couple episodes, and then sink back into the mud pool of obscurity in which they were birthed from.

One such show is Spliced, a Teletoon cartoon that was barely even in the United States. Considering that at one point in time Teletoon cartoons had infested Cartoon Network like a bad infestation of fleas (remember Stoked, 6Teen, and those Total Drama shows that all looked exactly the same? I mean those), I'm actually rather surprised that Cartoon Network did NOT pick up the Teletoon show that wasn't produced by the same company. But then again, these are the same people who greenlit Problem Solverz and yet refused to renew Megas XLR, Robotomy, and Sym-bionic Titan so I have reason to believe that whoever runs Cartoon Network decided that brains weren't hipster and random enough and had them surgically removed.

Otherwise I'm going to have to come to grips that some person, who thinks and breathes just like you and I, thought that CN Real was a mighty good idea and would totally enhance the network.

It wasn't and it didn't.

But before I get off-topic again (I can rant about Disney Channel in another entry just to make it fair), what is Spliced actually about? Basically a mad scientist splices together a bunch of animals and made a bunch of horrific mutants until he was carted off to jail. So now the mutated animals, without the mad scientist running their lives, built their own society and go on wacky hijinks in the scientists' abandoned equipment. If you ever played any of the Crash Bandicoot games or watched the show "The Wuzzles", this premise will seem kind of familiar.

What has science done!?

Also the intro is extremely catchy AND manages to sneak in the word "crap". Any cartoon intro that manages to do that and not get yelled at wins brownie points in my book.

I figure the best way to look at this show is the first episode, and since this show is like Heathcliff in that it's divided into 11 minute segments, I'll look at the second segment of the first episode. Why the second segment? Because it introduces more of the characters than the first one and because I personally liked it better than the first segment. My cartoon blog, my rules.

Anyways, I present you a cartoon where one of the main characters has a giant udder for feet, a cartoon that goes from charming buddy adventure to a survival horror. I give you...

Stuck Together