May 29, 2020 19:52:54 GMT @ness said:

Are you guys ready for a Baker level Kim Possible post? Because that's what's likely going down.

Anything But Basic

There are clearly big shoes to fill and I'm not sure I'm up to it. This will be part retrospective and part Ness story, so if you aren't down with that you might as well just hit the back button. I'm mostly just going by memory since I feel if I do any major research I'm just gonna be regurgitating what someone else wrote, but here goes nothing. So Kim Possible was an early 2000s cartoon on Disney Channel. It premiered either at or around the time of my high school graduation, so why was I watching it? Well, you have to understand something about that time period. Youtube and streaming services weren't really a thing then. While I had high speed internet to download videos other than having Winamp playing my mp3 collection in the background there wasn't much choice in the way of white noise. So I tended to have random stuff like Nick and Disney on the TV in my room when I wasn't actively watching something. Or at least that's what I told people at the time when they caught something someone like me shouldn't be viewing (i.e. soap operas or court shows).

So this show wasn't just thrown on willy nilly and left to sink to swim, there was a concentrated effort to get it over. Before the series began there was a serious push via vignettes and interviews. Disney Channel had this bad habit (so you can see how often I had it on) of filling time with a lot of fluff: music videos, interviews, Mickie Mouse Club esque mini-shows, etc. If you had it on a lot you saw everything 1000x, a lot like working in a grocery store and hearing the same old shit on the overhead radio. Nothing is gonna be new. So going in they went behind the scenes with the leads. Kim was voiced by Christy Carlson Romano of Even Stevens fame, a live-action Disney sitcom which ended it's initial run either around the creation of this show or was heading that way. So she was already established with the audience so they had an in. Seriously between these two shows and the made-for-tv movie, Cadet Kelly starring alongside Hilary Duff... she was really getting that monster push. Her co-star playing the character of Ron was voiced by Will Friedle who you may know from his time as Eric from Boy Meets World. So as you can see they kinda brought everything together because the regular Disney fans were cool with Christy, but also had an "in" with fans of Boy Meets World which had ended a little while beforehand. I say "end" in theory because all these shows were in constant rotation thanks to syndication.

In the same sorta way as Buffy or Tomb Raider, Kim Possible was a girl-themed hero going through high school and dealing with the ups and downs of that pool of AIDS while also moonlighting as a secret agent. What made this show so addicting and just good was it had a bit of everything despite on paper being seen as just a girly show. It spoofed spy themes ala Austin Powers only instead of PG13 humor it added that thin layer of behind the camera winkage you might find annoying if overused, a catchy as hell theme and just snappy dialogue. Throughout the series they will reference all the little things including lines from the opening song which is just "mwah". And I'll go ahead and get it out the way... as far as cartoon women are concerned I'm going to just nominate Kim for a top 10 candidate. Seriously look at her... goddamn!

Kim seems like a character I would honestly hate if I came across the show with fresh eyes today. She's everything I'm not and honestly I've never been the type to live vicariously through another dude. You know the old phrase "guys wanna be him"? Yeah, doesn't apply to Ness. I just resent them and become incredibly jealous. Yes, in another Earth Ness is clearly a super villain Kim would be fighting. For whatever reason it worked here. Despite her jabs at Ron for being a dorky loser who IRL is probably rotting away in Mom's basement I liked her dialogue and witty comebacks. Sometimes I feel insulted by the Internet implying certain segments of the male population are against strong female characters when there are plenty of instances where guys will root for a properly written and designed character. Kim is an example of that. And obviously it doesn't hurt that she's fun to look at. Seriously goddamn!

Her sidekick is Ron and much like Eric Matthews acts as the comic relief of the series. While it's painfully obvious his "end game" is your typical less attractive nice guy who pines for the goddess next door and that's lame, but probably thanks to Will being natural at it... you completely overlook for the comic timing and just great persona. He has his moments and generally needs to be rescued just as much, but he serves his role well and without him the series isn't possible. There's also Wade, a kid genius hacker that acts as tech support. We generally only hear of him via his bunker as the familiar "dot dot  doooooot dot" beeping of Kim's equipment, where she uses her catch phrase "what's the sitch?"... which until this thread popped up I didn't realized was short for situation.

Obviously a hero is only as good as their villains and I'm gonna say something controversial... Kim Possible's rogues gallery is on that level. Batman is generally regarded as having the best, with Superman/Spider-Man/Flash as a secondary tier. No one is going to argue with Batman having the best, but give this some credit. Her nemesis is Dr. Drakken and he ticks all the boxes of those in the arch-villian role: first one she encounters, most frequent and gives her the most trouble and the first one you think of when cite her villains. Drakken is a mad scientist, but usually gets in his own way if not for Kim and her team. He is usually seconded by Shego, a mercenary who is more likely Kim's true arch-rival of the series. We actually see her even more frequently than Drakken since she has assisted or lead other endeavors with villains that weren't her boss and since she generally is the one battling Kim I give her even more credit in that regard. Don't wanna say breakout character, but she's probably the best part of the show voiced by Nicole Sullivan of MAD TV and King of Queens fame.

I could go more in depth to the other members of her villains cast, but I wanna touch up on the amazing theme song, Call Me Beep Me. Should warn you if you view that in another tab that your Youtube feed is probably going to be infected with a bunch of show themes from that time period (cartoons and shows like Drake & Josh and iCarly) which may be good or bad depending on how you're feeling. I'd probably argue half of the show's success stems from this song and yes I've been listening to it on loop for like a week straight. The show really revolves around the premise of the song, the beeps happen at the most unfortunate times and she must find a way to step out and deal with it. Nothing new there as anyone who has been following Spider-Man or really any hero juggling the double life can attest to.

I don't know if I have more for a second post, but don't want this getting too long as I know attention spans and all that. I honestly haven't thought about this show in years although the theme song will occasionally get listened to every so often whenever I think of it. Here's how many times it was listened to in my lifetime. There's a certain part in the "tv size" version where Ron yells "KIM!" as part of the opening. Obviously they don't include that with the official single of the song, but when I listen to that version on Youtube I always know exactly where "KIM!" should be. I'm no Baker or Big Pete but hopefully this did some justice.

Yeah... Kim's a ten.

Team Shego all day, all night. Call me, beep me, if ya wanna reach me.

Sinister Scotsman was the most feared Scot since Groundskeeper Willie. He had a Rory McElroy esque golf shot that always gave K.P. fits.

EDIT: Oh he had a name Duff Killigan! :rofl:

Christy Romano shoulda been bigger than Shia LeBeouf out of Even Stevens, I said it!

For real Kim Possible was one of the best 00's cartoons. They didn't fall into the trap a lot of shows would and go high school life 1st, spy 2nd, there was more action than unnecessary nonsense(Felt Totally Spies was the polar opposite). They often had sometimes an ongoing HS life crisis occurring that led the first portion of the show followed by K.P. foiling whatever bad guy it was attempting to do. I remember Drakkan, DNAmy, Shego, Duff Killigan, the kung fu monkey that was like Gorrilla Grodd but less smart but a MMA tactician that led a Planet of the Apes takeover in his episodes. The show for a Disney TV 14 had plenty of action and until maybe the later seasons(Which I don't have as many good memories), the writing was top notch. One of the last few Disney shows for me.

Batman Beyond, another beloved show of mine was the same way(Go figure another show Eric Matthews did, Terry McGinnis FTFW). They had some HS lingering thing that occured to Terry or his GF or best friend Max or someone else(Willie Watt) and they actually went sorta deep in the morals/themes in the show but it never overshadowed the actual motive of the villain or the action. If I were to do one of these posts, I would so go for Batman Beyond because there's a show that had to follow Batman:TAS and more than held it's own but because it was too "sway" and futuristic, it ended up not catching on but man the themes they did: Bullying, doping/drugs, loss of fatherhood/father figure, political corruption

I only caught the first season of Kim Possible, but it was a surprisingly solid cartoon. On the surface, this just seemed like another low effort Disney Channel cartoon designed to attract new subscribers and just to give their actors more roles and create a fake synergy between programs ala Cadet Kelly. On top of all that, Kim was clearly this flawless character who's sole defining trait was being a teenage girl. It had train wreck written all over it, another Teamo Supremo if you will, but to hand the writing staff their credit they actually hired some great voice actors to support the cast, the show got the character dynamics just right and the episodes were pretty watchable.

My only gripe is that some 18 years later, I couldn't tell you a single plot line. It's what seperates the good and the great cartoons. Even a show like the Power Puff Girls which I wasn't a huge fan of, had some great episodes like the one with that middle-class dad who develops a serious case of schaudenfreude following this news story where the PPG are in serious trouble and gets inspired to become a super villain out of it. PPG survive, he gets pissed, but then they turn out to be friends with his daughter and he plans to kill the professor during family dinner - that episode always struck me because there had to be people out there just like that.

But yeah solid cartoon, I can still hear the beeper and the theme song passes the test. It's a very Destiny's Child theme song, very early 2000s.

From what I understand, the characters actually developed on the show and got better? Kim started developing more flaws, Ron became more competant and even the villains started hooking up.

I'm still keeping an eye on Exosquad, I may have to watch an episode to get a better feel.

Speaking of episodes sticking with you, the 'cool' drug everyone on in Batman Beyond always stuck with me. I remember it being pretty matter of fact about party drugs and while it was apart of some sinister scheme, it wasn't like a big PSA like Captain Planet? It was pretty confronting for a kids cartoon.

May 31, 2020 18:34:45 GMT Big Pete said:

I'm still keeping an eye on Exosquad, I may have to watch an episode to get a better feel.

I was going to share a video of the first episode but it looks like all the eps up on Youtube or Dailymotion have been tampered with to avoid getting pulled for copyright claims. What a shame. Don't even get me started on how Universal has done Exosquad dirty over the years. That ill-treatment alone would likely result in 2 or 3 angry posts of substantial length.

I do plan on coming back to cover Exosquad in depth at some point. Just not sure when that will be.

Earlier this week I discovered a tv channel I get airs The Flintstones every weeknight at 6 p.m. Today I finally had time to watch my first full Flintstones episode in nearly 25 years.

Betty & Wilma won tickets to Hollyrock. A director cast Wilma to be in his play as the wife of a Fred Flintstone-like lead character known as "The Frogmouth." Things weren't going well back in Bedrock for Fred & Barney so they decided to fly out to Hollyrock and pay their wives a surprise visit. One thing leads to another and Fred ends up replacing an actor referred to as "the polliwog" as "The Frogmouth." Fred becomes insufferable and the director sabotages his own play just to be rid of Fred Flinstone.

Ring any bells Shootist?

One day I'll go back in time

And catch up

On this and all the other threads

Jun 6, 2020 0:55:12 GMT Baker said:

Earlier this week I discovered a tv channel I get airs The Flintstones every weeknight at 6 p.m. Today I finally had time to watch my first full Flintstones episode in nearly 25 years.

Betty & Wilma won tickets to Hollyrock. A director cast Wilma to be in his play as the wife of a Fred Flintstone-like lead character known as "The Frogmouth." Things weren't going well back in Bedrock for Fred & Barney so they decided to fly out to Bedrock and pay their wives a surprise visit. One thing leads to another and Fred ends up replacing an actor referred to as "the polliwog" as "The Frogmouth." Fred becomes insufferable and the director sabotages his own play just to be rid of Fred Flinstone.

Ring any bells Shootist ?

Sure does, Frogmouth also referring to Fred having a big mouth which lands him the part. That producer character also stuck with me since he was one of the first characters I remember having that "stock" Hanna Barberra voice that many other characters in their stable had.

Looks like weekday Flintstones watching is going to be my new thing. That 6 pm timeslot is ideal for decomposing (TM George Costanza) in front of the ol' television set for an hour in between the daily grind and my nightly PW posting.

Today's episode revolved around a case of mistaken identity where Fred was confused for wealthy business tycoon gone AWOL, JL Gotrocks. Ring any bells Shootist?

I preferred this episode to the one I watched Friday. In what I thought was a nice touch, the show ended before Fred could explain what the hell had been going on. 
I weirdly remembered the JL Gotrocks name, though not his character or this particular episode. This lead me to believe he was a semi-recurring character. Wrong! Turns out this was his only appearance. I feel the writers dropped the ball here. There was more they could have done with Fred's double. He should have come back about once a season imo. 

I don't remember any episodes off the top of my head. We'll see if any of these eventually trigger a hitherto forgotten memory.

Flintstones is followed by Happy Days, which I vaguely remember being one of my old man's favorite shows when I was extremely young, but one I never really watched until now. This Flintstones + Happy Days line up is so old school  :lol:

Jun 9, 2020 1:21:16 GMT Baker said:

Looks like weekday Flintstones watching is going to be my new thing. That 6 pm timeslot is ideal for decomposing (TM George Costanza) in front of the ol' television set for an hour in between the daily grind and my nightly PW posting.

Today's episode revolved around a case of mistaken identity where Fred was confused for wealthy business tycoon gone AWOL, JL Gotrocks. Ring any bells Shootist ?

I preferred this episode to the one I watched Friday. In what I thought was a nice touch, the show ended before Fred could explain what the hell had been going on. 
I weirdly remembered the JL Gotrocks name, though not his character or this particular episode. This lead me to believe he was a semi-recurring character. Wrong! Turns out this was his only appearance. I feel the writers dropped the ball here. There was more they could have done with Fred's double. He should have come back about once a season imo. 

I don't remember any episodes off the top of my head. We'll see if any of these eventually trigger a hitherto forgotten memory.

Flintstones is followed by Happy Days, which I vaguely remember being one of my old man's favorite shows when I was extremely young, but one I never really watched until now. This Flintstones + Happy Days line up is so old school 

I have all the seasons on DVD and watched them on a countless loop for around a decade everyday at noon, all 167 episodes are ingrained in my brain. JL Gotrocks was a classic episode, "Whose baby is that? What's Your Angle? I'll Buy That." This soared over my head in my youth but now having a smidge of business knowledge that scene with Fred on the phone(s) is even more hilarious. There is also a season 6 episode where Barney's double is some royal prince.

Happy Days was a brief after school jaunt in the late 80's for me, sandwiched between Turtles and Wheel Of fortune iirc.

I just remembered Barney has two more "double" episodes. One where he's supposed to aide some jewel thieves during a winter pageant and one where he is mistaken for a scientist by Mr. Stonefinger.

Today's Flintstones episode featured Fred & Barney being too dumb to live. First they accidentally signed up for the army. Then they inadvertently volunteered to be astronauts. Both men took a Homer Simpson-level cartoon beating along the way. Worst episode of the 3 I recently watched.

Jun 10, 2020 0:12:12 GMT Baker said:

Today's Flintstones episode featured Fred & Barney being too dumb to live. First they accidentally signed up for the army. Then they inadvertently volunteered to be astronauts. Both men took a Homer Simpson-level cartoon beating along the way. Worst episode of the 3 I recently watched.

No way, The Astro-Nuts was always one of my favorites. I know it 60's animation but Hoyt Curtain's music for when they think they're on the moon creeped me out in my younger days. It did infuriate me that once again Betty and Wilma screw things up for the boys, this time with their dyslexia. 

Today's trip to Bedrock saw Fred and the gang briefly get conned into working for Fred's old friend, shady hotelier "Smooth" Gus Gravel. To the gang's credit, they quickly wised up to Smoothy's scheme and left him hanging. I liked how they weren't too dumb to live in this episode.

Baker fruity or cocoa?

Cocoa. Chocolate is always going to win out for me unless it's up against peanut butter. Then it becomes a toss up. I've got nothing against Fruity Pebbles though. Tis a perfectly cromulent cereal.

Jun 11, 2020 1:08:58 GMT Baker said:

Today's trip to Bedrock saw Fred and the gang briefly get conned into working for Fred's old friend, shady hotelier "Smooth" Gus Gravel. To the gang's credit, they quickly wised up to Smoothy's scheme and left him hanging. I liked how they weren't too dumb to live in this episode.

Another favorite, I always liked the vacation episodes, the Boy Scout Jamboree and the one with the Yogi Bear cameo are right up there too with this one.

Jun 11, 2020 1:10:55 GMT @ness said:

Baker fruity or cocoa?

Jun 11, 2020 1:12:45 GMT Baker said:

Cocoa. Chocolate is always going to win out for me unless it's up against peanut butter. Then it becomes a toss up. I've got nothing against Fruity Pebbles though. Tis a perfectly cromulent cereal.

@ness, you def need to bring back the cereal countdown. It's time.

Fruity Pebbles were my #2 to Life. Cocoa was a weak downgrade IMO (unlike Cinnamon Life, which was an almost equally good side adventure on occasion).

Cartoons are my peanut butter and yams, sonnn.

They were pretty much my third parent and I was lucky to grow up in the second golden age (a second golden age usually doesn't exist, but exceptions should be made for...) - the 90's. 

Dear god, I don't even know where to begin; It'd be kimpossible to rank them, so in order of what I started watching would probably be better.
. 
Outside of Looney Tunes, FOX Saturday Mornings were huge for me early on. Bobby's World, X-Men, Spiderman, Life With Louie, Transformers: Beast Wars. The big one was the Batman Animated Series though; one day I'm going to find the complete box set of that (starting to wonder if it even exists) and buy that bitch, I don't care how much -- just take my damn money, Warner Brothers! 

My dad used to let me watch Ren & Stimpy when I was just 5, but wouldn't let me watch Nightmare Before Christmas because Tim Burton was, quote: "weird". Totally makes sense. I was big on Animaniacs around that time, too.

Pokemon changed everything. Then I graduated to Digimon a year later and of course, the pimp daddy of them all -- Dragonball Z after that. I wrote DBZ fan fiction lonnnggg before pro wrestling. I used to think Dragonball AF was a real thing and I had a Funimation (VizKids I think it was?) subscription wayyyy back in 2000. I just started watching Super and I'm not sure what to think of it. Pretty sure my Crunchyroll free subscription just ran out though so, that's a bust...

Nickelodeon and CN deserve big mentions: Hey Arnold I would rank as my all-time favorite Nick cartoon, Dexter when it comes to CN. Doug was a perennial favorite of mine, too. 

Someone also needs to shout out Pirates of the Dark Water. That was an amazing cartoon that ended WAYYY too soon. The video game was pretty slick, too. I found out later on that there was a fan movement to either bring the show back or get it released on DVD, not sure which, but wish I'd have known because I would have had my wallet wide open for that one. 

On the adult end, my all-time favorite is and always will be King of the Hill, though Rick & Morty certainly gives it a run for its money from time-to-time. South Park used to occupy that spot until the mid-2010's hit and the show started going downhill. 2000's South Park was the closest thing to classic Simpsons  outside of the great animated god that is Futurama, which is also very close to the top for me.

I warned you guys, I have a hard time shutting up about cartoons, there's just too much awesomeness to make mention of. Guarantee I'll have more to list at a later date.

Jun 11, 2020 7:21:04 GMT rad said:

Cartoons are my peanut butter and yams, sonnn.

They were pretty much my third parent and I was lucky to grow up in the second golden age (a second golden age usually doesn't exist, but exceptions should be made for...) - the 90's. 

Dear god, I don't even know where to begin; It'd be kimpossible to rank them, so in order of what I started watching would probably be better.
. 
Outside of Looney Tunes, FOX Saturday Mornings were huge for me early on. Bobby's World, X-Men, Spiderman, Life With Louie, Transformers: Beast Wars. The big one was the Batman Animated Series though; one day I'm going to find the complete box set of that (starting to wonder if it even exists) and buy that bitch, I don't care how much -- just take my damn money, Warner Brothers! 

My dad used to let me watch Ren & Stimpy when I was just 5, but wouldn't let me watch Nightmare Before Christmas because Tim Burton was, quote: "weird". Totally makes sense. I was big on Animaniacs around that time, too.

Pokemon changed everything. Then I graduated to Digimon a year later and of course, the pimp daddy of them all -- Dragonball Z after that. I wrote DBZ fan fiction lonnnggg before pro wrestling. I used to think Dragonball AF was a real thing and I had a Funimation (VizKids I think it was?) subscription wayyyy back in 2000. I just started watching Super and I'm not sure what to think of it. Pretty sure my Crunchyroll free subscription just ran out though so, that's a bust...

Nickelodeon and CN deserve big mentions: Hey Arnold I would rank as my all-time favorite Nick cartoon, Dexter when it comes to CN. Doug was a perennial favorite of mine, too. 

Someone also needs to shout out Pirates of the Dark Water. That was an amazing cartoon that ended WAYYY too soon. The video game was pretty slick, too. I found out later on that there was a fan movement to either bring the show back or get it released on DVD, not sure which, but wish I'd have known because I would have had my wallet wide open for that one. 

On the adult end, my all-time favorite is and always will be King of the Hill, though Rick & Morty certainly gives it a run for its money from time-to-time. South Park used to occupy that spot until the mid-2010's hit and the show started going downhill. 2000's South Park was the closest thing to classic Simpsons  outside of the great animated god that is Futurama, which is also very close to the top for me.

I warned you guys, I have a hard time shutting up about cartoons, there's just too much awesomeness to make mention of. Guarantee I'll have more to list at a later date.

I think there is a box set for Batman but it's not real fancy, just a giant sized plastic DVD case. Blu Ray I'm not sure about. I have the entire series in the individual boxes that came in 4 volumes.
EDIT: turns out it is on blu-ray

Seems I'm the only one who caught the Marvel Action Hour on Fox, guess that's why it lasted only 2 years. If people like the quality of X-Men then those Iron Man and Fantastic Four cartoons are right up your alley. They did change the animation though for the final season of FF and not for the better.

Today's episode saw Wilma & Betty make the finals of a baking tournament with the winner receiving a $10,000 prize. Alas, they were unable to participate after contracting the measles from the boy next door. Fred & Barney still wanted to win the $10,000 so they entered the baking contest themselves by cross-dressing as "Wilma & Betty." They actually won before the decision was reversed due to Barney admitting they didn't use the sponsor's flour. This episode generated a few laughs.

Are the Flintstones on TV again?

But the Jetsons aren't?!

Bullshit

Jun 11, 2020 17:59:18 GMT Shootist said:

Jun 11, 2020 7:21:04 GMT rad said:

Cartoons are my peanut butter and yams, sonnn.

They were pretty much my third parent and I was lucky to grow up in the second golden age (a second golden age usually doesn't exist, but exceptions should be made for...) - the 90's. 

Dear god, I don't even know where to begin; It'd be kimpossible to rank them, so in order of what I started watching would probably be better.
. 
Outside of Looney Tunes, FOX Saturday Mornings were huge for me early on. Bobby's World, X-Men, Spiderman, Life With Louie, Transformers: Beast Wars. The big one was the Batman Animated Series though; one day I'm going to find the complete box set of that (starting to wonder if it even exists) and buy that bitch, I don't care how much -- just take my damn money, Warner Brothers! 

My dad used to let me watch Ren & Stimpy when I was just 5, but wouldn't let me watch Nightmare Before Christmas because Tim Burton was, quote: "weird". Totally makes sense. I was big on Animaniacs around that time, too.

Pokemon changed everything. Then I graduated to Digimon a year later and of course, the pimp daddy of them all -- Dragonball Z after that. I wrote DBZ fan fiction lonnnggg before pro wrestling. I used to think Dragonball AF was a real thing and I had a Funimation (VizKids I think it was?) subscription wayyyy back in 2000. I just started watching Super and I'm not sure what to think of it. Pretty sure my Crunchyroll free subscription just ran out though so, that's a bust...

Nickelodeon and CN deserve big mentions: Hey Arnold I would rank as my all-time favorite Nick cartoon, Dexter when it comes to CN. Doug was a perennial favorite of mine, too. 

Someone also needs to shout out Pirates of the Dark Water. That was an amazing cartoon that ended WAYYY too soon. The video game was pretty slick, too. I found out later on that there was a fan movement to either bring the show back or get it released on DVD, not sure which, but wish I'd have known because I would have had my wallet wide open for that one. 

On the adult end, my all-time favorite is and always will be King of the Hill, though Rick & Morty certainly gives it a run for its money from time-to-time. South Park used to occupy that spot until the mid-2010's hit and the show started going downhill. 2000's South Park was the closest thing to classic Simpsons  outside of the great animated god that is Futurama, which is also very close to the top for me.

I warned you guys, I have a hard time shutting up about cartoons, there's just too much awesomeness to make mention of. Guarantee I'll have more to list at a later date.

I think there is a box set for Batman but it's not real fancy, just a giant sized plastic DVD case. Blu Ray I'm not sure about. I have the entire series in the individual boxes that came in 4 volumes.
EDIT: turns out it is on blu-ray

Seems I'm the only one who caught the Marvel Action Hour on Fox, guess that's why it lasted only 2 years. If people like the quality of X-Men then those Iron Man and Fantastic Four cartoons are right up your alley. They did change the animation though for the final season of FF and not for the better.

Thank you for this confirmation. I'm going to buy that entire series one day, it's worth all the moneys. I'm convinced I'll have to buy it online probably -- no video stores around my area have seemed to carry it, it's usually just a compilation of a dozen episodes or so on random DVD's.

I faintly remember the Fantastic Four series actually but I don't recall Ironman. I remember enjoying what I saw from FF but it either wasn't on long enough in airing or syndication when I started watching it or the other stuff later on just stood out more vividly. I think late 1995-96 would be about as far back as I can remember. 

Jun 12, 2020 2:33:50 GMT rad said:

Jun 11, 2020 17:59:18 GMT Shootist said:

I think there is a box set for Batman but it's not real fancy, just a giant sized plastic DVD case. Blu Ray I'm not sure about. I have the entire series in the individual boxes that came in 4 volumes.
EDIT: turns out it is on blu-ray

Seems I'm the only one who caught the Marvel Action Hour on Fox, guess that's why it lasted only 2 years. If people like the quality of X-Men then those Iron Man and Fantastic Four cartoons are right up your alley. They did change the animation though for the final season of FF and not for the better.

Thank you for this confirmation. I'm going to buy that entire series one day, it's worth all the moneys. I'm convinced I'll have to buy it online probably -- no video stores around my area have seemed to carry it, it's usually just a compilation of a dozen episodes or so on random DVD's.

I faintly remember the Fantastic Four series actually but I don't recall Ironman. I remember enjoying what I saw from FF but it either wasn't on long enough in airing or syndication when I started watching it or the other stuff later on just stood out more vividly. I think late 1995-96 would be about as far back as I can remember. 

Marvel Action Hour ran from Sept. '94 to Feb. '96 and even by late 1995 I had stopped watching since they replaced Iron Man with Biker Mice From Mars, ugh. It had huge hype though in the comics, I had a long lost promo comic included with Iron Man #310 that came with animation cells and posters.

*Last daily Flintstones post. Next week I'll do an end of the week synopsis of all 5 episodes.

Today's episode began with Fred even grumpier than usual. He wanted to beat up Barney for the heinous crime of.....writing a poem for Betty. Fred's a jerk. But Barney isn't! He wrote Fred a poem too! Anyway, one thing lead to another and Fred & Barney soon collaborated to write a "hit" song. It turned out to be terrible. BUT Hoagy Carmichael (who was apparently a real life celebrity) liked the "Yabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Doo" title and reworked it. He befriended The Gang and invited them to the debut of his version of "Yabba Dabba Dabba Dabba Doo."

This was another decent episode. I laughed once or twice.

Loving these Flinstones recaps. I haven't seen the show since the early days of Cartoon Network but even then it was clearly one of the better HB cartoons.

I've been meaning to do a follow-up to Pokemon for awhile now but I've just been caught up in the restart of the Rugby League season. My poor Broncos are 0-3 since the resumption and suffered a record loss the other week so I've been busy conducting post mortums. Never the less, I wanted to touch on the better monster show: Digimon.

So in 1999, PokeMania had swept the world and words like Pikachu and Mewtwo suddenly entered our vernacular. Obviously a lot of copy cat shows were on their way and the first one to hit was Digimon. Just to illustrate that point, it took nearly two years for Pokemon to hit the USA, in Digimon's case it was a matter of months. Saban Entertainment was desperate for their own slice of the pie so they cobbled together a team as quickly as possible to translate the show.

What made Digimon stand out is that it actually had a plot. Seven kids got sucked into a mysterious world and to get home they had to defeat the evil virus Devimon and restore order to the digital world.

In the case of Pokemon, there really was no over-arching plot. The whole purpose of the show was to teach kids about Pokemon and each episode was centered around learning, this gave Digimon a huge advantage.

Watching the first few episodes, you get the distinct impression the show was only meant to last 13 episodes. There was a clear end game established and the characters seemed like traditional stereotypes, it was only through these basic frameworks the show creators realised what they had on their hands and they turned it into a fully fledged series.

The kids would defeat Devimon after the weakest digimon gave it's own life to take down the evil virus. Unfortunately the kids still couldn't afford proper spyware so a new virus popped up in the form of a Etemon, a monkey elvis impersonator.

We don't really talk about Etemon.

Just when it seemed like the show was running out of ideas, the show made a dramatic shift. A new more powerful digimon by the name of Myotismon escaped the digital world and was on a mission to track down the eighth child and destroy both worlds.

Not only did the show raise the stakes, the shift from the digital world to the real world developed these characters in a way that was completely foreign to most television shows. The kids all had families going through their own issues and a lot of the parents and siblings all became major characters, supporting their kids or letting them down when they needed them most all for their own reasons. It gave the show so much more depth than expected as a lot of things we learned about the kids in the digital world turned out to be fronts and in their own environment they were completely different.

After a lot of drama including some tragic digimon related deaths, it turns out the eighth child was the younger sister of Tai (the dude with the goggles standing in the middle) and her digimon is actually the hired hand of Myotismon. Right as Myotismon looks to have conquered the world, Kairi and her partner save the day before the kids put the evil digimon out of it's misery.

There was a final saga where they had to go back to the digital world and clear out some more virus' but it was only a few more episodes and Myotismon was the clear high point. The show ends with the digital monsters returning to their realm and the kids returning back to their normal lives.

Okay, so you're completely lost right now and that's completely fine. I've tried my best to streamline the show and give you the plot beats, but what was the appeal of the show? Basically the appeal was watching these monsters power up and evolve. Just about every episode would see these monsters transform into bigger more powerful creatures and the build up and final result left kids wanting to see more. Not only did these monsters become bigger, they'd usually get a hold of guns and other artillery, making them far more cooler than their Pokemon counterparts.

The other thing that made them cooler? All of them could actually string a few sentences together. One of the big complaints about Pokemon is that ordinarily Pokemon could only say their name. It was cute the first couple of times, but a 1060 episodes later it gets a little tiresome. The digimon all had their own personalities that either complimented or contrasted their kids.

Naturally the show spawned a couple of sequels.

Adventure 2 saw a time skip where a 9th child had enslaved the digital world and a younger crew made up of only two of the original party members had to save the day. The series started off strong, but once they ended the 9th child's reign it became convoluted with a bunch of fake out enemies. In the end, it turned out the real bad guy was Myotismon all along and the only way to beat him was through the hopes, beliefs and dreams of every kid around. That's right, Little Timmy's Dream of become a ramen vendor saved the world. The show started out promising with the 9th child storyline in particular being a highlight of the show's run. We learn that he's actually a tragic figure who accidentally got his older brother killed who was this celebrated child star everybody in the nation adored. The older brother was supposed to be the ninth child, but the younger brother takes his place and gets corrupted by this evil programmer who was behind the virus' (or as we later find out, was corrupted by Myotismon to create virus'). It was good stuff and the sibling stuff really struck a chord.

Digimon Tamers was a complete retcon of the series with the events of Adventure 1 and 2 being works of fiction for television. Digimon is just a popular kid's franchise...or so we thought, they're actually real and for whatever reason they're showing up in the real world. Tamers is considered by and large the best series to date, taking the elements of the Myotismon arc and really expanding it to the point where the whole show feels like a deconstruction of the genre. The kids aren't equipped to handle the violence and the show takes some very dark turns. By this point I was done after Adventure 2, but I've always been curious to go back, even though I know a lot of the main plot beats.

There were more shows after this, but they were running out of ideas and were appealing to younger audiences. The franchise laid dorment for a few years until recently when they started re-booting the original series.

There was also a Digimon Movie, which nobody likes to talk about. Saban butchered it, taking three seperate movies, cutting out heaps of content so they could run it as an anthology movie while also promoting another show of theirs a morbid Canadian show called Angela Anaconda. Angela and her pals were at the movies having a Digimon marathon and we'd get their reactions through out, it was jarring to say the least.

On the brightside, the soundtrack rocked. Less Than Jake, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Smash Mouth, LEN, Fatboy Slim - right in that early 2000s nostalgia.

It was nowhere near as big a show as Pokemon, but it did make network television and most kids I knew had their own digimon tamagotchis or card collection.

Next up is the one monster show hardly anyone from my generation remembers: Monster Rancher.

Can honestly say I never gave Digimon a fair shot. Similar to Beetleborgs/VR Troopers vs. Power Rangers. Just wasn't buying the clones at the time.

Jun 13, 2020 14:23:33 GMT @ness said:

Can honestly say I never gave Digimon a fair shot. Similar to Beetleborgs/VR Troopers vs. Power Rangers. Just wasn't buying the clones at the time.

I was the same way, Digimon started off as this show other kids would interject into conversations about Pokemon.

"You still watch Pokemon? Lame, Digimon is soooo much better."

This was still during the peak of Pokemon so I didn't want to hear it, especially since it was based on a virtual pet of all things. What's next? An epic adventure show on pet rocks? Stoned Rollers? I pushed it away until I caught an episode at a sleepover. I think it helped that it wasn't the first episode so a lot was happening and the friends I saw it with were really into it.