A little lovin' for Astro Sasquatch in the T&G

I was very pleased to see my good friend and evil genius Sean Fennel's creation Astro Sasquatch being mentioned in today's T&G Pop Culture Notebook. I was also flattered that my blog might have had something to do with it being mentioned.

However, Sean's video is great on it's own merits.

Click on the link below to check out the article: T&G Pop Culture Notebook

And be sure to visit Sean's Youtube page to check out more of his videos. Including the previous episode of Astro Sasquatch as well as him playing live with his band Sky Blue Mind: Sean's Youtube Page

Best Batman Brave and the Bold yet!!

I think the two part Owlman storyline for Batman: The Brave and the Bold has been my favorite episode yet!! Mainly because they finally introduced the Joker to the series.

What I really like about this series is it's heavily influenced by Dick (who probably should have gone by the name Richard) Sprang style of artwork. Years back, I would have probably hated a series like this. Mainly because of how movies like Batman Forever and Batman and Robin's went over the line of campy and really ruined the whole idea of doing a Batman movie until Christopher Nolan finally put the character back of the right track with Batman Begins.

But now I think there's plenty of room for a series that pays it's respect to the more campier style Batman stories of the 1950's and the early 1960's. Because they do it right. I like the fact that the new Batmoblie looks like a cross between the Lincoln Futura from the Adam West series and the one Tim Burton did for his two Batman movies (and even though his name appears as producer of Batman Forever, I don't consider that a Tim Burton film at all).

But if you haven't had the chance to see this weeks episode Game Over for Owlman! I think it will be repeated tonight on Cartoon Network after 6pm. And you can probably check it out on Youtube as well.

I actually really liked how they both designed the Joker and the voice for the Joker. It's exactly how I would imagine the character sounding in some of the stories drawn by Dick (giggle) Sprang.

And Diedrich Bader continues to impress me with his voice of Batman. I would have never in a million years pictured Oswald from the Drew Carey Show and Laurence (the guy with the mullet) from Office Space, doing a Batman voice that blows Christian Bale out of the water.

Although Jeremy Sisto who did Batman on Justice League: The New Frontier did a great job too.

Boomerang from Cartoon Network

I discovered yesterday that I have Boomerang from Cartoon Network.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with it, basically it's a channel cartoon network dedicated solely to all those cartoons of yester year that you can either remember waking up to on Saturday morning or on weekday afternoons after you get out of school. Or during the mornings if it was either a snow day, you were sick or it was Summer vacation.

However, most of the cartoons on this network consist of all the absolutely shitty cartoons Hanna-Barbera churned out from the late 1960's until the 1980's.

I always knew Hanna-Barbera was awful in the way it dumbed down animation, but I didn't know how awful it was until I watched The Perils of Penelope Pitstop this morning.

I was even more horrified to see the name Michael Maltese in the writing credits.

Michael Maltese wrote many of the great Chuck Jones animations in the heyday of Warner Brothers Animation such as the Duck Season/Rabbit Season cartoons with Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, Duck Dodgers in the 24 1/2 Century, Bully for Bugs and Ali Baba Bunny just to name a few that make me tear up with laughter everytime I watch them.

What I have began to notice watching a great number of Hanna-Barbera cartoons is the way they would have the characters explain a scene. Like Scooby Doo chickening out when Daphne or Velma asks him to do something and hides himself in a room putting a "Do Not Disturb" sign on the outside of the door and Velma then proceeds to read aloud "Do Not Disturb". Like we didn't see that already.

Or if a villainous character is driving along in some contraption, and he suddenly states, "If I press this red button" Of course we see the red button like we didn't know it was a red button, "I will activate my jet-propelled, superfast rocket boosters and win the race. NAAAH!! HA HA HA HA HANAAAAA!!" or some crap.

Again, like we wouldn't have known that if you didn't explain that to us, Dick Dastardly.

I just feel like if I were to slowly and methodically dissect every joke I wrote in that manner and explain the scene away, the scene ceases to be funny.

But of course, they add the canned laughter into the mix just to make sure we know this is suppose to be a funny scene.

Companies like Hanna-Barbera and Filmation really helped in the cheapening and dumbing down of animation. They treated their audience, which was primarily children I suppose, like they were morons.

Honestly, kids aren't that stupid. I can remember watching Bug Bunny and Droopy cartoons when I was young and it didn't bother me that I didn't understand every single joke. The cartoons just made me laugh. And that's all that mattered.

Now, I'm just waiting for Hollywood at some point to release a Peril of Penelope Pitstop movie starring Jessica Simpson in the title role and Steve Carrell as the Hooded Claw. You know it's bound to happen.