Annoying – I find yet ANOTHER great animated series, only to determine that it’s already been CANCELLED – argh! So just finished watching the last episode of Sym-Bionic Titan, made by one of my fave animators – Genndy Tartakovsky, you may know him for Samurai Jack, Dexter’s Laboratory or even one of the early Clone Wars animated series.

So apparently this series came out a few years ago but was ultimately cancelled after its first year of 20 episodes in part because there were no TOYS associated with it? Sometimes I really think Cartoon Network has its head up its collective TV set on this stuff?!?

This series is really well-done – it has the always incredible art and design by Scott Wills (also of Samurai Jack fame among others); it has engaging stories that while in some cases a wee bit repetitive (they do generally fight one monster a show) still move a multistory plot along in the background and have the characters actually *develop* along the way. Astute viewers will notice sly visual pop culture references hidden in most episodes or in some cases, dialogue, but ths show doesn’t go out of its way to be ‘hip’ in that respect, which is nice.

One thing that’s very different about this show vs. say, Samurai Jack, is that the violence is definitely more pronounced, definitely more anime-inspired. While in watching some extras about Samurai Jack, they talked about how they could never actually kill a ‘person’ onscreen in that show – so they slice and dice robots and robot kaiju all over the place instead – here, they definitely left that rule behind, sometimes in a big way (the large battles of the ‘Escape from Galaluna’ episode especially).

But like happened to TRON:Uprising – I guess hollywood can’t appreciate (and RENEW for another season!) quality when they see it. Hopefully Mr. Tartakovsky will keep up the great work and using the same animators and art team – amazing stuff, this was…..

Other voices:
Metacritic

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came across this today – Strong Bad, we miss ya!

Homestar Runner’s Strong Bad returns in new music video ‘Fish Eye Lens’

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Discovered they finally finished Initial D – and watched the last four episodes (Final Stage). Very glad they kept with it. These start a bit slow and go a bit overboard on backstory, but all the things we love about Initial D are still there:

– ridiculous, over the top posturing (although less than in past Stages);
– crazy mountain driving without apparently any hint of fear, parental control or police;
– ‘mental monologuing’ throughout where people are constantly explaining things to each other out loud (or through narration);
– and last but certainly not least – Takumi Fujiwara and his amazing AE86 Trueno…..

Enjoy. I am not supplying a link because if you simply do a search, you’ll find it. 🙂 In case you missed Fifth Stage (immediately precedes Final Stage, there are 14 episodes) – you’ll want to search for and watch that first. And if you haven’t watched ANY of them, what were you thinking (and get to work – Funimation has Stages 1-4 online!

According to Wikipedia, there is also a three-part movie remake coming….woo hoo!

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Some time ago I found a page that went into exquisite, delicious detail in ripping on Challenge of the Superfriends episodes. I mean, this would put even Roger Ebert to shame in its level of detail. Having been a huge fan of StompTokyo.com for years now, it’s the same thing – take (largely kids) shows that are starving for lampoon, and send them up by simply using logic and plain observations of what actually happens in the plot. And THEN throw in the frequent slam, comparison or grammar analysis that further pummels the show into the dust. 🙂

So as per usual, a random memory came into my head of reading these (whenever it was in the past) and looked them up again – it turns out there are actually 3 sites devoted to this, and they are all hilarious! Of course it helps if you are 40+ and spent way too many saturdays watching the original cartoons on TV in the mid-late 70s. If you aren’t, or didn’t (or simply didn’t watch ENOUGH of them) – you can catch many on YouTube now (of course).

here are the sites:

Seanbaby.com – The Superfriends

Jabootu – Challenge of the Superfriends

Roger Wilcox – The Challenge of the Superfriends

and here’s my fave quote so far from the first one (talking about Grodd, the evil-super gorilla from the Legion of Doom):

“….He comes from a secret invisible village of talking gorillas, but that’s not that big a deal. I describe my hometown of Baker City, Oregon exactly the same way. At least the people in my town all had rifles. Grodd doesn’t even have pants. But to be honest, even a non-talking gorilla is tougher than most of the people on the Legion of Doom….”

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Back in Monorail campaign days a**holios used to steal our signs all the time – a sad commentary on our society – but we never had gnomes (campaigning for us or stolen)….? I wonder if these were Winklebottom’s 🙂

400 gnomes disappeared in Austria, and it’s causing a political scandal

12 Days of Simpsons, Day 6: Mr. Burns’ guide to business

gotta love that quote:

“I’ll keep it short and sweet. Family. Religion. Friendship.
These are the three demons you must slay if you wish to succeed in business.”

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Scarecrow Video raising $100K on Kickstarter to preserve world’s largest archive of movies

for those of you who don’t know who/what Scarecrow Video is, you need to get INFORMED. 🙂

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I vaguely remember this house being at odds with development in nearby Ballard, but don’t remember the rest, nor that it inspired Up – one of the more somber, yet touching Pixar movies…

The Real-Life Story That Inspired “Up” Is Even More Heart-Wrenching Than The Movie

Viva Tiny Mailmen! 🙂

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This was how I felt about the lame Sony Godzilla movie attempt of 1998! Thankfully that mistake is about to be rectified this coming May….This also makes me think of Bugs Bunny and the Lions….. 🙂

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In having dinner with friends yesterday evening at a deli in Pioneer Square (Delicatus, great, great food!) the subject of animal meat cut diagrams came up (they are all over the walls there of every major meat animal) and I noted the classic RoadRunner one was NOT up there?

Adventures of the Road Runner (1962) – diagram (below) explained at about the 2 minute mark:

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