Episode 29 – The Iron Giant

The Iron Giant

A boy and his giant robot

The day has finally arrived. We talk about the greatest animated film that nobody ever saw and the greatest Jennifer Aniston/Vin Diesel movie ever made. It’s The Iron Giant! Joining our host Ben and myself is Pablo, and we were all gracious to be in the presence of none other than Ben Heckendorn, creator of the Atari Portable, Bill Paxton Pinball, and Possomus Woman!

We all agree that The Iron Giant will take even the most hardened heart and turn it into a sopping puddle of goo. This the touching story of a boy, his single mother, and the giant robot from outer space who learned what it means to be alive.

Ben Heck!

Ben Heckendorn, himself!

In this episode, we discuss:
Cold war paranoia
Having a cool name gets you movie parts
How to do CG animation the right way
Brad Bird – Animation hero
We thank Quest For Camelot for sucking

Also, you don’t invite Ben Heck on your show and not ask him cool stuff! In this episode, we have, for the first time ever, a special “lights out” segment is instituted, with some segments taken from out-takes of the show. The conversation went on for so long, we didn’t even put it all on this episode! So stay tuned later this week for a special supplementary episode in which we chat with Ben. And yes, we talk about POSSUMUS WOMAN!

Iron Giant Screen Shot

Cool lighting and coloring play a role throughout the movie


Iron Giant Screen Shot

How's that for scale?


Iron Giant Screen Shot

This scene will rip your heart to pieces


Episode 28 – Special Episode, Comic Connoisseurs

Wonder Woman 609

...unfortunately not.

Sadly not Revenge of the Sexy Girls, this episode is about DC comics, and it’s stupidity.  We talk about my new site, NoSuperPants.com. We take a journey about why DC comics now sucks, what it has to do to save itself, and what other evil plans the Didiot have planned for our heroes!

Comic Connoisseurs will not become a spin off show, sadly. I think we all sort of blew through our hate load through this one.

Minisode – Tech Talk

I can't wait to bomb some Dodongos!

NOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!

We all sat down one evening to talk about the upcoming DC relaunch, but then we started talking technology, E3, and video games. Joining Ben and I once again are Tom Revor and Kittyhawk.

Join us for this extremely off-topic edition of Animation Aficionados, in which we don’t talk about animation one bit. Don’t worry. We’ll get into the meat of the discussion in short order.

Discussed on this episode:
Bombing Dodongos
Vagina loaders
Sony = FAIL!!!!
Pac-Man has good graphics
Brian Kuh is a slimy little shit

Episode 27 – Animation 101

AKOM

AKOM - Made from the worst shit on Earth!

In this week’s almost-but-not-quite-epic-length episode, we’re joined by Pablo Praino to talk about the animation industry as a whole. We talk about the techniques, the terminology, and the evolution of the medium as a whole. Legendary icons are discussed. Bruce Timm, Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera, John Kricfalusi, Walt Disney, Lou Scheimer, Chuck Jones, and more.

We also crack a lot of jokes and riff on Rodimus Prime a bit more.

Discussed in this episode:
Good animation is like a fine wine
You can get sued for being a good impersonator
GoAnimate: The Family Guy generator
Feet are sexy
Don’t listen to that Murakami kid
AKOM sucks

We also invaded This Week In Geek again to talk about The Green Lantern!

Animation 101

The faces of animation over the decades.

Episode 26 – Justice League

Justice League

Justice League

We’re joined this week by The Film Pigs to discuss Justice League and Justice League Unlimited. That’s right. Calamity struck before we could complete our topic, and thus only one show was covered in depth.

Shockingly, we covered quite a bit of ground on this digression-filled train wreck of an episode. And it all comes screeching to a halt when one us doesn’t make it to the end!

Topics covered:
Getting your hand eaten off by piranhas
Dong Yang is a workhorse
The big three and the lesser four
Screaming Hulk and The Banners
Clutch Cargo and Max Headroom
Rodimus Prime: Garbage truck or Winnebago?
Doing a pilot with Tim Daley
Being a terrible father
Jumping into a superhero series without a parachute
A shocking new twist on the endings of Lost and Battlestar Galactica!
Never shock a flat line

We’d like to thank our guests, The Film Pigs, for appearing on our show and being good sports about how it ended. We all had a good laugh, and we hope you have one, too.

The Film Pigs

From Left to Right: Todd Anderson, Stephen Falk, and Stephen Skelton. Falk couldn't make it due to having a real job.

Also, come check out our second appearance on This Week in Geek, where we tease Mike Blanchard about Rodimus Prime.

From our Dr. Who discussion at the top of the show