Bottom left corner. Someone made a weird Garfield cartoon.
But we make each other laugh, and that’s what’s important.
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Dasien: Girl Of Goo Where Are You?
Hey, we talk about cartoons a little bit.
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The Worst of Tom & Jerry
Nothing says Halloween like terrible Tom & Jerry cartoons!(???)
Yes, we’ll be talking about the Filmation Tom & Jerry Comedy Hour as well as Hanna Barbera’s Tom & Jerry Show. We’ll also mention Gene Deitch and “The Karate Guard”.
Strangely, we never mentioned the movie. Perhaps that’s for the best.
Also mentioned:
New Sailor Moon vs original Sailor Moon
As such, a lot of what we say may no longer be relevant. We had a lot of criticisms of early episodes, and I can’t say if any of our criticism have been addressed, because I haven’t watched it since then.
That said, joining us for this episode is Abby Lehrke and Kittyhawk!
And now, the cavalcade of derp faces!
Derp!
Derp!
Derp!
Derp!
Derp!
Derp!
Derp!
Derp!
Confession time. With episode 122 of Animation Aficionados, we jumped the gun. We mourned the loss of Saturday morning, but we didn’t actually realize that this year would mark its official death. This past Saturday, there were no major networks running cartoon blocks. It’s dead. It’s finally dead! You maniacs! You blew it all up!
So join Ben and myself as we retread this topic. It’s truly a sad time to be a child of the 80s. We’ll miss you Saturday morning.
We had some good times. Waking up at the ass crack of dawn. Setting the VCR. Eating shitty cereal. Oogling at the toy commercials. And most importantly, consuming the very worst that Hanna-Barbara, Ruby-Spears, and Dic had to offer.
]]>This is not your regularly-scheduled Animation Aficionados. This is a relief for anyone who’s been following the gaming press drama that’s been going on since late August. We’re not going to talk about that. Instead, we’re going to shift focus to video game reviewers that we like.
These are all YouTube guys. I might provide links later, if anyone is interested. For now, most of the noteworthy ones can be seen in the videos below.
Simpsons Meet Family Guy
After the show, Ben and I sit down and talk about things we’ve seen. He saw the new TMNT movie. I saw some whiny Robotech fan crying about Happy Console Gamer. We discuss both.
Below are some videos of content discussed in the show:
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The Homestar Runner Cast
We also discuss other early internet phenomena, such as Camp Chaos, the Fic Bitches, Cat Man, Regurge, Twisted Wire, Odd Todd, and other weird things we used to look up on the internet ten or more years ago.
Visit homestarrunner.com!
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Ghostbusters
Today’s episode of Animation Aficionados is a dual treat. First, we have a special dedication to Casey Kasem, which, fortunately for us, will not be coming off of an up-tempo record.
Then strap on your particle accelerators, because Kittyhawk and Red Ink join us for some Ghostbusters.
The REAL Ghostbusters!
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Lies. All lies.
Folks, I am depressed. Here it is, episode 150, and we watched a movie so foul that it pushes both Robin & Dreamweavers and Eight Crazy Nights off the tip top of my top movie shit list and claims the number one spot. Holy shit, folks. It’s Food Fight!. And no, that exclamation point doesn’t mean I’m excited. That’s actually part of the title.
Words just cannot describe my disappoint. What a way to celebrate our sesquicentennial podcast.
Joining us this week is the constantly awesome Kittyhawk, who radiated sunshine to pierce the dark cloud cast by this movie.
Extra reading: “The Long Strange Odyssey of Foodfight”
Here is the original trailer for the film:
Not great, but it’s passable.
Now here’s what it ultimately ended up looking like:
And here’s the only Food Fight that will ever be near and dear to my heart:
Denver The Last Dinosaur
Extra long episode this week. We burn out pretty quickly on Denver, so we ramble a bit during the show. And we have our usual spirited after show, where we just talk about random shit. Also, I diss Peter Criss and Ace Frehley some more. LONG LIVE THE ANKH WARRIOR!
BK Kids Club kids
Denver cereal?!
Creatures of the Night – The best Kiss album ever made!
Lynn Minmay
Well, this has been amended. Sometimes revered, other times reviled, Carl Macek left behind an incredible legacy of work and undoubtedly paved the way for the anime market that came after Robotech.
Here we have the somewhat complete story of the amazing career of Carl Macek, though we did skip over some things, such as his time at DiC and Spumco. We talk about his rise with Harmony Gold, the rise and fall of Streamline Pictures, and his time at ADV.
We also tread through the Robotech saga again, this time a bit more in detail. And if any of this is at all confusing, don’t worry. You’re running about average. Truth be told, Robotech shows its seams, and even with additional animated content made to bridge the three separate sagas, it still is an obvious hodgepodge of content.
I still very much recommend ADV’s dub of Macross, IF you can still find it.
Robotech – The Macross Saga
Dirty Pair – Flight 005 Conspiracy
The Professional: Golgo 13
Kill la Kill
We discuss Kill la Kill, which was still running new episodes at the time of this recording. It’s a show about two girls wearing as little clothing as possible so as to kick as much ass as possible.
Sounds like something right up our alley!
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Adventure Time!
It’s a quirky show full of oddball humor and weird subtext. It’s even got its following among adults.
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The Late, Great Arthur Rankin
In the first segment, we reach out to you, the fans, to generate some topics for you. In the second half, Ben and I talk animation news, including the deaths of Hal Sutherland and Arthur Rankin.
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Thundercats
Your hosts:
Ben Carver: Hero Academy
Neil Purcell: Dasien – Superhero Webcomic
Kittyhawk: Sparkling Generation Valkyrie Yuuki
An Octadic of Whimsical Evenings
This movie is so foul that I almost turned it off.
Product Placement
Fake Dog Poop
This image is burned into my retinas, so I must share in my pain.
Your hosts:
Ben Carver: Hero Academy
Neil Purcell: Dasien – Superhero Webcomic
Kittyhawk: Sparkling Generation Valkyrie Yuuki
The Ridiculous He-Man She-Ra Christmas Special
Today’s podcast is a special after-Christmas show about some of the Christmas cartoons we forgot to talk about on the last Christmas episode. We talk about Garfield, Family Circus, and even a Christmas special put out by the phone company.
Kittyhawk joins us again.
Mentioned in the show: Kyle And Luke Talk About Toons.
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Welcome to a new year of Animation Aficionados! Err, don’t ask me why we’re starting the year with a Thanksgiving special. It’s not that this episode was delayed since November. Honestly, we recorded this well after Thanksgiving.
We also veer off topic more than usual in this show, and yet it still manages to be a staggering two hours long. So yes, not only are we giving you an episode themed on a holiday that’s already a month-and-a-half behind us, but it’s also the most digression-tastic episode ever. And the post-show is longer than the regular show.
Next week will be better. But don’t fear, as we have Kittyhawk with us, who is always entertaining.
]]>New episodes of Animation Aficionados will be along just as soon as I come down off my holiday sugar buzz.
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All-Purpose Cultural Cat Girl Nuku-Nuku
And in a bonus section, we also talk more about the Brian Griffin incident and why Seth McFarlane is actually just trolling the internet.
Duke Togo is greater than Solid Snake
Brian is Dead. ZOMG!!! SPOILERZ!!!!
Yep, we’re even chiming in on this. A controversial episode of Family Guy kills off beloved character Brian Griffin. Fans are outraged and have started petitions demanding the character be returned.
In this, a very special Animation Aficionados, we discuss other famous on-screen deaths, including some from past episodes of Family Guy.
Note to Family Guy producers: These are NOT facial expressions!
Gee, I wonder if this cut-away gag is going to tie into the upcoming Christmas episode. Derp.
This is, like, totally garbage!
Topics include:
The Mysterious Cities of Gold
Code Lyoko
Oban Star Racers
Totally Spies
Martin Mystery
Code Lyoko
Oban Star Racers
Totally Spies
The Mysterious Cities of Gold
Captain Kirk
Joining us today are Kittyhawk and Thomas Revor.
What the hell?!
Today, we look at The Lord of the Rings animation trilogy. Combining films produced by both Rankin Bass and Ralph Bakshi, the trilogy loosely tells a story in three films that apparently Peter Jackson is going to tell in six.
As usual, we give our thoughts on what we like and what we don’t. Two movies are worth a watch. One is not. I’m sure you know which one.
Joining us on this ride through insanity is Kittyhawk, and Pablo drops by later in the show! Yep, the gang’s all here for this spectacular jaunt through Middle Earth.
We also have a MAMMOTH pre-show, the longest ever, in which we talk about the bullshit that is Platinum Studios and their acquisition and subsequent destruction of Drunk Duck.
And oh yeah… Cowboy And Aliens can eat a dick!
90’s Superboy
In this debut episode, Host Ben and JT from Saskatoon sit down and talk about their history in comics. They also talk about Flashpoint Paradox, Jonah Hex, and THE Star Wars.
Bonus Podcast! Also be sure to check out Neil’s appearance on The Pullbag with Mike Blanchard. It’s all about Dasien!
Kittyhawk and Pablo join us this week as we look back upon the career of Lou Scheimer, the man behind Filmation.
Which one is the stuck-up rich girl? Trick question! THEY ALL ARE!
Adult Swim
All kids out of the pool! We’re joined by Ren of Marshmellow Surprise to talk about Cartoon Network’s late night adult animation block!
Is Adult Swim a second life for shows previous abused by the Fox Network, or is it frat party for Flash animators?
Only one truth prevails.
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Okay, seriously! What the fuck IS this?!
Find out who is guilty of being a weeabo and who isn’t. Like it’s any mystery who our #1 offender is.
I could eat an octorok!
Kittyhawk is back, and we’re talking about video games AGAIN!
Yes, this week it’s all about cut scenes and other ways that animation has found its way into video games over the years. Laserdisc, FMVs, and cinema scenes. Some of it good. Some of it bad. We’re going to be talking all about it.
I also threw in some game music interludes, because you know I love game music. Choices are from Lunar 1 and 2, from both the Sega CD and PlayStation soundtracks, plus a little something from Dark Wizard.
Twelve laughs a year? You think THAT’S bad…
This week’s episode is all about Ben and I geeking out over cartoon crossovers. What happens when two or more of your favorite cartoons pals meet? Well, hopefully something good, but usually not.
The appeal of a crossover should be simple enough to understand. It’s a chance for popular characters to meet and share the spotlight. It’s like watching two of your favorite shows simultaneously. It’s a chance to mix and match styles of different universes to play off of one another. But usually what happens is that one half of the crossover will assume the lead and the other will simply be along for the ride. Sometimes there’s no chemistry and no reason is ever given for the crossover to have occurred. And sometimes, crossovers fail because the hype surround a crossover becomes so great that the people making it forgot to tell a story.
In any event, Ben and I talk about some of our favorite and not-so-favorite cartoon crossovers that have happened over the years.
Topics:
Defenders Of The Earth
Who Framed Roger Rabbit
Jetsons Meet The Flintstones
Cartoon All-Stars To The Rescue
The Jimmy Timmy Power Hour
Daffy Duck Meets The Groovie Goolies
Hector Ramirez
Scooby Doo
This was the greatest nergasm of my childhood.
Well, we knew it had to happen sooner or later.
Hector Ramirez; the shining core of the Sunbow universe!
“Thith ith the latht time I work with thomeone with a thpeach impediment!”
Some crossovers are best forgotten.
Bat cookies and bat milk for everybody!
Today we have a rather short episode in which Ben and I discuss early animation at Warner Brothers. We’re rather glib about the short careers of Buddy and Bosko, but honestly there’s not much to say about them.
What I personally find more interesting is what went on at the studio around that time as the animation industry was taking shape. Animation was in its infancy. Characters barely had personality. Many old cartoons were played with the accompaniment of music. It wasn’t until cartoons could be timed to their soundtrack that the medium we know of today was born.
So sit back and listen to about twenty minutes of Ben and me gabbing about this stuff. Afterward, you can hear us babble on about stuff in the webcomic world and other random cartoon topics. In all, it’s still an hour-long show. Our main topic is just dreadfully short this week.
Also, be sure to check out my hosting of The Tonncast. I was a bit clumsy in my duties, but it was a fun show. My surprise shocking guest for the show was the ever gracious Todd Robert Anderson!
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When Ben told me we’d be talking about the Rumik shorts, I must have gotten confused and thought he meant this.
Breaking my no-epic-length rule, this one is well worth the listen, filled with lots of laughs and the silliness of Rumiko’s cartoons. We were initially only going to talk about the Rumiko shorts, but due to some miscommunication, we ended up talking about virtually everything under the sun.
Sango from Inuyasha! Why? Because!
Fire Tripper
Kodachi is crazy
Rumiko animals
Yep, we talk about everyone’s favorite chase cartoon. Tom and Jerry was good. Syvester and Tweety were better. But no one beats Coyote and Roadrunner! We contrast and compare with other chase cartoons, and we even talk about Ralph Wolf.
Later in the episode, we talk a little bit about Tom & Jerry as well as early television Hanna-Barbera cartoons. We also talk about Blanchard’s favorite topic, which is John Semper and Spider-Man. We have a mini discussion about John K. and even engage in the riveting topic of how Jefferson Airplane became Jefferson Starship.
Yep, it’s gonna be one of those rambly episodes. Oh, but they’re all rambly.
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I shall punish you!
Yes, after many weeks of giving it the stink eye and pulling my hair out, it’s the Sailor Moon episode. Normally, I can clean up the audio and present you with a pristine podcast. But, one of our recorders failed, so I had to default to the Skype recorder and using other recordings to fill in some of the mess.
For the most part, it sounds okay, but you’ll notice some crackling and background noise. I tried my best.
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The GOOD Clone Wars
After the show, we have was is apparently an impromptu episode of Comic Connoisseurs. In essence, today’s podcast is a two-in one show, as our post show is as long as the main show. In the extended segment, we talk about our experiences as webcomic authors and spill some webcomic community dirt.
Links to our stuff
The Crossoverlord
Crossoverkill
Majestic Knight
Dasien
Hero Academy
Point Guardian
One moooooore thing:
Between the first and second segments, you’ll hear a clip in which “Bill Cosby” reads the opening crawl to Star Wars Episode 2. This is actually an old clip from DVDpodBLAST. It’s an old favorite podcast of mine, in which a bunch of mid-westerners transplanted to north Hollywood record their own alternative commentaries for some of the worst movies ever made. Nothing is scripted, and they’re funnier than Riff Trax.
There, I said it. Blasted, Riff Trax!
Check out their entire archive rightch’ere!
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Pixar
Join us for our 80-minute main show and our after show. In all, one hour and forty-seven minutes of entertainment for you!
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from Megazone 23. Yes, this is what passed for aerobics wear in the 80s. It was indeed a magical time.
The 80s was a special time. It was a time of leotards and legwarmers. Leather jackets and torn jeans. And everyone had a boombox with high-speed dubbing.
But there is nothing so aggressively 80s as the anime of the era. Come join us for this brief journey into some of our obscure favorites, and tell us some of yours.
Project A-Ko – Possibly the most iconic anime of the era.
Riding Bean is what came before Gunsmith Cats. Gunsmith Cats is better, but if you want more guns and cars in an 80s car chase scenario, you might want to check out Riding Bean.
Doraemon
This is what you would get if you took the Force out of Star Wars. You’d have Han Solo: The Movie. …aka Crusher Joe.
Listen to the show to hear about the rare localized Harlock cartoon. Possibly the most obscure of them all!
Girl in school uniform versus girl in one-piece bathing suit/battle uniform. Need I explain why I love Project A-Ko?
Nothing to do on a rainy day except listen to a podcast.
Needing a week free of podcast editing, I and my humble podcast companions threw together a directionless show in which we talk about a bunch of nonsense stemming from (but not limited to) the bonus discussions from last week. Kittyhawk joins the fun and the merriment in yet another bonus show.
Oh just admit it. You can never have too much Kittyhawk.
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The Original Fat Albert
This is mostly off-the-cuff not meant to be in-depth. I know there are a few that we failed to mention, but that’s where you listeners come in. Tell us what we forgot to mention in the comments. What is the lost treasure that you’d like to see found?
Inexplicably, there is a lengthy cereal discussion in the middle of the show, which goes on for about twenty minutes. Also, after the main show concludes, we have an extensive bonus segment, in which we retread the localization debate and talk about recent superhero movies. We hope you enjoy these bonus discussions.
Additional animation segments were made for the Bugs Bunny Show.
The Sesame Street Crack Monster
A cel from the rarely-seen “Hey, Hey, Hey, It’s Fat Albert”
The Land Before Time has about 11 minutes of animation deleted from the final film. Only very few traces of these scenes survive.
The Score for “Hey, Hey, Hey, It’s Fat Albert” was composed by Jazz Musician Herbie Hancock.
RetrowareTV does a commentary of a rare full episode of Saturday Supercade, with commercials!
By the way, I was correct. Earlier Cookie Crisp commercials don’t have the dog.
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This week, we mourn the loss of an institution of animation. Every weekend, we’d race to the TV with a bowl of cereal and remote control at the ready. It was Saturday morning. Six hours of animation across three networks. It was the event you waited for all week.
And then one day, it went away. What happened? Was it the advent of Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network? Was it the glut of crap? Was it the unwarranted invasion of teen comedies? Was it all of the above? Could be!
We talk about all of these things with guest Thomas Revor!
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What idiots buy for their children
What happens when you let a talentless political idealist direct a cartoon as opposed to an actual cartoonist? You get this. A half-hour of preachy values, strained connections to ancient fables, and bargain basement cartoon characters so forgettable that even Chris-Chan doesn’t know who they are.
I suppose it could have been worse. It could have been Veggie Tales.
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Toon Makers Sailor Moon
We really enjoy our pre-shows and post-shows on Animation Aficionados. The episode you’re about to hear is a little of both. Recorded over three nights, these outtakes feature guests from our King Kong and Magic Knight Rayearth shows, plus some extra bits that we had laying around.
We talk about the upcoming Sailor Moon episode as well as the Toon Makers Sailor Moon. Oh, the horror!
It’s nearly two hours of bullshit just for you!
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Magic Knight Rayearth
We explore a series about three little girls who are summoned to a magic realm by a princess who wants them to kill her for falling in love…because love is bad if you’re the princess, apparently. Oh, and there’s some stuff about being the pillar, or some other such gobbledy gook. Something about a little Pikachu-thingy creature also being God. And then the series asks if it’s really incest if you’re making out with yourself.
Look, the point here is that Rayearth is a weird attempt to follow up the shoujo groundwork laid by Sailor Moon. As I had only played the Sega Saturn game (and a fine game it is) I sat back slack-jawwed as the ladies explained to Ben and me exactly what this show is all about.
So sit back, relax, and enjoy some magic girly goodness, I guess.
Oh, you guys get bonus homework! Since I lerves me them vidjero games and wish to spread as much love as I can about the Saturn and publisher Working Designs, I humbly ask that you listen to this episode of Retronauts to hear an interview with Victor Ireland. He talks about the torture that it was to port Rayearth to the states and what the US anime rights holders had asked him to do! Yikes! Must listen!
Oh, and don’t forget to subscribe to the new Retronauts blog, because they’ll be making new episodes again soon!
that Alcione is quite the looker, I must say.
Well. My head asplode.
Ah, memories.
Jenny Stigile sang the theme song on the Sega Saturn version of Magic Knight Rayearth.
Amazingly brought to life by Willis O’Brien, a master of stop-motion animation.
King Kong is a triumph of stop-motion animation. Though stop-motion had been around for years by this point, this is the first time that a true character was realized using the art. Willis O’Brien brought this amazing character to life using metal armatures, rubber, and imagination.
We also talk about the people who were inspired by O’Brien, including the late Ray Harryhausen. At the time of this recording, Ray had not yet passed away, so we awkwardly talk about him as he was still alive.
Ray and so many others, such as Phil tippet, Stan Winston, and Peter Jackson, have had their lives transformed by the awe and spectacle of King Kong. The movie itself redefined the art of movie magic and set the standard for decades to come.
It was truly my pleasure to cover this movie. It is one of my favorite films of all-time, and in my opinion, it has never been topped.
Discussed:
Dinosaurs!
The Spider Pit Scene
The Log scene
Ray Harryhausen and Mighty Joe Young
Son Of Kong
Creation
The Most Dangerous Game
The Pest
Peter Jackson needs to learn how to use scissors
Red shirts
Dwan
Ann Darrow doesn’t care about King Kong
Nintendo 1; Universal 0
This really did scare the shit out of me when I first saw it.
Perhaps lost forever. A legendary scene that has not been viewed since the earliest test screening of the movie.
Originally, a styracosaurus was to be positioned on the other side of the log following a tremendous chase scene. Sadly, this scene also appears to be lost.
Stuff we forgot to mention:
Fay Wray’s boob slip
The pastel nightmare colorized King Kong
The show this is from is better animated than anything Filmation ever did.
In a bonus round, we also talk about the next Ninja Turtles crossover. Seriously, one was enough.
Over a month ago, Ben, Kittyhawk and I all made a special appearance on the Webcomic Beacon to talk about Crossoverkill stuff. As timely as ever, Fes sat on the episode for weeks until he finally released it today.
Here’s a special cut I made of the show, which Fes didn’t use for some reason. There’s no significant difference between my cut and his cut, except for an audio tweak here and there where I was inaudible for some reason. Otherwise, this is a rough cut without any ad breaks or show music.
You get to hear me bitch at length about the Zelda timeline.
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G-Gundam
Ben and I joined this week by Pablo and listener Robert Bell to talk about G-Gundam, an odd entry in the Gundam series, which fuses giant robots with professional wrestling. ]]>
Godzila’s mighty mile-long dropkick!
It’s our all-new podcast! Joining us are Thomas Revor and Pablo. We talk about giant rubber monsters that destroy buildings and breath fire.
History shows again and again how nature points out the folly of man.
Monsters mentioned:
Godzilla
Rodan
Mothra
King Ghidora
Gigan
Megalon
Zilla
Ninya
Baragon
Megalon
Jet Jaguar
…and Godzooki
This is awesome!
Tonight, we’re joined by Pablo to talk about animation great, Genndy Tartakovsky!
Discussed:
Dexter’s Lab
Powerpuff Girls
Samurai Jack
Sym-Bionic Titan
…and more!
Nobel Gundam awards you
Then we switch focus and talk to Pablo about G-Gundam. This is not an official topic show about G-Gundam, so anyone who wants to appear on such an episode is still invited, although we’ve gotten many requests.
Oh, and we talk about Spaceballs a lot. Because why not?
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“Hey, Double-M! We’ve got our own podcast!”
This is a show about a webcomic series. We’ll back to our regularly-scheduled nonsense next week. For now, sit back, relax, and enjoy this special video presentation (actually, it’s more like a slide show) about this comic project that Ben and I worked on a few years ago.
There’s also a podcast version, if you don’t want to be glued to your screen, but we strongly recommend the video.
Crossoverlord was a labor of love and something I’ve become very proud of. We’ve never before told the story of how this comic came to be, and so here we are to tell the tale.
Joining Ben and me are Al Schroeder of Mindmistress, Abby of Green Avenger, and Remus of Indefensible Positions. It was an honor to work with these wonderful people, and I was happy to finally put something together that the fans could enjoy.
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Vision Of Escaflowne
Kittyhawk and the Chu take over this episode and a lot of passion for the show, both positive and negative, comes to the surface. Things become heated for a moment, but we’re all cool in the end.
This episode may have some of the longest stretches of audio in which neither Ben nor Neil say ANYTHING.
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Rockin’ you like a hurricane!
What counts as a theme, you ask? Well, it can be an opening theme, a closing them, or even a music score. We lay it all out for you and give you a look into our personal musical tastes.
Come taste the podcast.
Discussed:
From now on, like your parents were…
The Old Cartoon Network: Sodomy Allowed!
Genndy got away with some shit!
Yu Yu Hakusho: The Brazilian Cut!
It’s like Whitney Houson on crack!
Nico Nico Douga: Still the craziest medley ever
A rough approximation of the animation staff on these shows.
Oh, the selection we have for you today. We’re covering four shows; one produced by Ruby-Spears, and the rest produced by Dic. Get ready for some pasta jokes and some gaming lore, because we’re about to stomp all over the Mario cartoons!
Joining us this week is friend of the show, Pablo Praino. We have an hour’s worth of fun just for you. …and you! …and YOU!
We talk about:
Go! Go! Gadget Crossover!
Mario’s nightmare: can’t stomp enemies
Yoshi is an idiot
Thin Luigi
Princess Toadstool’s Popeye arms
Blame it on King Koopa
Creepy pasta
That’s a spicy meatball!
Sakura Wars
This is an anime about an acting troop that also fights monsters by piloting steampunk mech water heaters. Based on a dating sim/tactical RPG for the Sega Saturn, this series features a cast of eligible women (and one bro). Cute characters. Fun story. Awesome theme song.
It’s Sakura Wars!
This also happens to be our shortest show in quite a while, so if you’re aching for more audio content…uhhhh…listen to episode 35 of Retrunauts, where they talk about the Saturn. Shut up! You can never get too much Saturn!
Segata Sanshiroooooo!!!!!!
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Please stand by
The second half is us discussing the fan series Star Trek: Phase II. Set phazers to Shake ‘N’ Bake. This one’s gonna be a hoot!
Topics:
Upcoming episodes.
Weird superhero costumes.
Gay characters.
I used to be such a letch. What happened?!
Nazareth wrote the best dick song ever
Neil’s rendition of a typical episode of 2 Stupid Dogs
Star Trek fan wankery
Songs that are literally about wankery
Not mentioning anything that starts with “S” or ends with “onic”
This is the true and original Sonic. All other Sonics after this are invalid.
Yes, it’s just us complaining for over an hour, but your reward for this is Stardust Speedway.
Topics
Cute Sonic
Beep! Beep!
The actual Knuckles!
Lolcow theater
Ken Penders is crazy
The most offensive web reviewers
The banana fits perfectly in the hand, the mouth, and…
Hardly edgy, is it?
How may I serve you?
Beep! Beep!
We stand on the shore of the cosmic ocean, Tails. Billions and billions.
He’s just waiting for a ride
True fact: The color of Sonic’s shoes are based on Santa Claus.
Some people REALLY need to get their facts straight!
Tonight, we talk about Sonic cartoons. All Sonic cartoons. Longtime listeners know my views on this for the longest time, and now you can hear it, in full!
Joining us is Sam from the Afr0Blu3 Youtube Channel (he’s done several Sonic reviews), and once again, The Chu of Slightly Damned. Now I know SatAM has a following… I don’t care. It’s still a bad cartoon. And an even worse Sonic cartoon.
Topics Discussed
The Archie characters don’t deserve to live
Sonic birthing Furries
TRUE AND ORIGINAL!
Being too faithful, yet less faithful
Sally goddamn Acorn
Cleaning flecks of gold out of shit with your tongue
Echidna Politics
Chili dogs
There is no good Sonic cartoon
“I’m waaaaaiiiting!”
Compare this…
With This! Different design language entirely!
How embarassing….
“Look sharp, Stimpy!”
We talk about the whole run. The original Spumco seasons, the Games era, and Adult Party Cartoon! We talk about the transition of power that took place prior to season 3 and why the series took a nosedive after John K was relieved of duties. It’s all here.
Topics
The political stance of John Arbuckle
The dirty deed
40 minutes is too long for Ren & Stimpy
George Liquor! American!
Dr. Mr. Horse
Powdered Toastman for President
The animation of John 2K
The Battletoads four-player race
Sierra adventure games
And a bit more about Spider-Man (because you never get enough!)
George Liquor! American!!!
“My foist material possession!”
“Leave everything to me!”
Maybe referencing that one Bob Clampett cartoon wasn’t such a good idea.
Ren & Stimpy – Worm Food
Actual production note from Nickelodeon: “Change duck to woodpecker.”
John K’s response: “No.”
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Here, have some cheesecake.
This week’s guests are Kittyhawk and the Chu! It’s Ah! My Goddess!…or is it Oh My Goddess!?
Well, whatever you call it, it’s a show all about a tech nerd who gets a goddess girlfriend by mistake. And then stuff happens. And there are pretty girls. As Chu would say, why else are you watching Ah My Goddess?
Ben and the guests talk about the anime series, the movies, the OVAs, and even the comics. I sit quietly for most of the podcast, because I had seen very little. But I did enjoy the eye candy, so I suspect you will, too.
Discussed
The main guy isn’t a loser!
The Goddess Help Hotline
Chemical castration
Goddess of cock block
Adventures with a rat
There’s that car alarm again
Explosions happening off-screen
The Bedtar
Cute, adorable Belldandy. She’s so lovable, except for that part where she lobotomizes you libido.
Keiichi Morisato – Dates a goddess; doesn’t get any. What’s the point?
Peorth – Resident hotty. This angle was selected VERY carefully.
Words… stuff…
Um, I don’t presume that the series is all tantalizing fan service, but when doing image searches for the show, this is all that kept coming up!
Here’s the picture we were talking about during the show. Note the extremely creepy early Belldandy on the left.
The unloved Tom & Jerry cartoons. Are they really that bad or just misunderstood?
Discussed:
Gene Deitch’s Tom & Jerry
70s and 80s Hanna-Barbera
Ruin Explorers
CLAMP
Love Hina
…And one confession from Neil that brings the house down
Would YOUR child watch this guy?!
We also briefly mention the upcoming Bozo: The Lost Tape special, to air this Sunday. Bozo himself is not a cartoon (those Larry Harmon cartoons don’t count!!!), but he’s so tied to our love of animation that it would have been a crime not to mention him.
Stick around after the show for some rare clips and even more off-topic banter.
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Powerful Living Rocks
In 1986, another transforming toy robot movie was released to theaters. Yes, I know. Transformers, Robotech, and Gobots all in one year. What were these companies thinking?
Battle Of The Rock Lords was meant to kick off a Gobots spin-off, the Rock Lords, powerful living rocks! This film is the only recorded attempt to kick off a series which never actually took place. Not only did the Rock Lords grind to a halt, but so did the Gobots. The Gobots were dead and buried months before the Transformers movie followed its lead in theaters.
This film features the talents of Telly Savalas, Margot Kidder, Roddy MacDowall, Michael Nouri, Frank Welker, and Peter Cullen.
Topics
Walking and talking
Sticker faces
Toy-accurate designs
Riding on a lava boat
Hanna-Barbara’s B-Team
Leader-1 is Jimmy Carter
Turbo is the Gacy clown
Scooter saves the day
Telly Savalas neither knows nor cares who Cy-Kill is
Margot Kidder passed up Superman III for this
The Rock Lords theme is utter butt rock
Gobotron vs Unicron
Not actually from the movie. Look how much cooler Fitor looks in Japan!
The true evolution of Scooter.
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More than a three-episode fourth season; Japan got a whole new show!
Look again. This ain’t no Optimus Prime!
Now that you know who he is…
Oh never mind. You know the joke by now.
Seriously! What is it with Transformers hanging out with damn kids?!
The Disney Afternoon Gang
Next week, we’ll have a special Black Friday episode. Don’tcha dare miss it!
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Golden Boy
Joining us tonight once again is Pablo. We’ll be discussing our thoughts on this hilarious series. We all agree that it’s something you need to check out. Golden Boy is truly golden.
Also, after the show, we have an additional 35 minutes of us talking about nonsense, though there is a lot of cartoon-related discussion.
Discussed:
Kintaro’s obsession with toilets
Boner jokes
Jiggly boobs
Vibrating motorcycles
Kintaro suddenly realizes that beautiful women sit on toilets.
Expect to see this angle a lot.
Kintaro goes off-model when important things happen.
Unfortunately, I don’t think Ben will let me show the screen capture of this character that I wanted to show you.
So here’s the swimming instructor instead. Enjoy!
Lizard Of Death
This is a special non-animation, non-edited interview with internet modder, Ben Heckendorn. We talk about movies, games, and a whole bunch of other nonsense. This is a companion to our Possumus Woman review. Mr. Heckendorn offered to be on the show, and before we even had a topic in mind, we were just shooting the breeze.
Yeah, don’t expect much direction to this show. This is NOT your regularly-scheduled program. This is a bonus.
Happy Halloween.
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Possumus Woman
Yes, kiddos. It’s another movie night. But this ain’t no cartoon, dude! It’s Possumus Woman! One of the greatest low-budget movies ever made. We’re again joined by the Kittyhawk, and we regale for you the tale of watching this amazing movie, which you can actually download for FREE!!!
We also talk about the apparent demise of DC Nation after the movie review, so those of you who came for cartoon talk will get your share. Don’t worry, this IS Animation Aficionados, so we’re going to talk about animation, eventually.
But in honor of Halloween, we couldn’t let a chance like this escape!
“It’s headed toward the RESOOOORT!”
The extremely rare Marcupoflias Plant!
Possum ‘B’ Gone!!!
“A phylum I’ve never heard of before! But it’s fuuuuurrrr!”
Slayers TV
We also have an extrended pre-show, in which we talk about time lines and story chronology, and we talk about why some people don’t understand that trying to make everything fit together ruins the story more than it helps. Somehow, we resisted bringing up Star Wars.
Topics covered:
The Slayers (TV series)
Slayers Next
Slayers Try
Slayers Revolution
Slayers Evolution-R
Slayers Royal
Lost Universe
The Slayers
The Slayers series is so extensive and huge that we had to split it up into two halves. This week, we’ll be talking about the movies and OVAs. Returning to the show is the Chu as well as Lina Inverse herself, Cynthia Martinez. Even after hearing us spoil the hell out of this series, you’re going to want to track down these DVDs and share them with everyone you know.
Slayers is one of the funniest anime series ever made.
Discussed:
Slayers The Motion Picture
Slayers Special
Slayers Return
Slayers Great
Slayers Gorgeous
Slayers Excellent
Slayers Premium
World’s Least Frightening Vampire
A mystery is solved
Bad airbrushing! A 90s direct-to-video tradition!
After the first half, we take a break and come back with Cartoon All-Stars To The Rescue, a crossover cartoon filled with anti-drug propaganda that could only be enjoyed by pasty old white people who have no idea who these characters actually are.
Topics:
Bad VHS Covers
No timeline theories!!!
The color of the Statue Of Liberty
The color of cheese
Pacifist Native American mice who make death traps
The magical scarf that hides your race
“Will everyone just go and do?!”
“What’s up, Doc, is your life!”
Don’t do dope, but obesity is okay.
Shut up, Michelle Obama!
An anti-drug message that’s probably more entertaining if you’re high on acid.
Tonight, listener Tim Silvers joins us to talk about Ghostbusters.
Real Ghostbusters or Faux Busters? Hmm…
The Virtua Fighter anime logo. Adjust your expectations downward from here.
After four episodes, we had enough, so we decided to sit down and talk about the show. Our opinions were mixed. Some of us were genuinely entertained, but somehow this is a series unfitting of Virtua Fighter.
Our review is a bit short, so after the break, we come back with our review of Saint Warrior Girl Valkyrie, a Japanese live action rip-off of Kittyhawk’s own Sparkling Generation Valkyrie Yuuki! It’s a show so terrible that it bankrupted the company that made it.
Please, please don’t watch it, but you can listen to us groan about how terrible it was. We’ll forgo any screen shots, because we’re just not that cruel.
Topics:
Zoning out
How old is Pai?
Smile Steak
“Herroooo! Deribery guy!”
Run away!
A boy hanging from a tree
A classic cartoon trap
The normally jovial Akira gets serious if he puts his bandanna on.
Otherwise, you can expect something more like this.
Smile Steak!
Helloooo…. Helloooooo… HELLOOOOOO!!!!!
A Team Rocket classic
Not mentioned in today’s episode, Virtua Fighter Animation for Game Gear is actually based on this series.
Some music from the video games…
Bonus Topic:
This is the most disturbing thing I’ve ever watched.
John K – Professional Screwball
Tonight, we’re joined by internet animator Spazkid! Please check out his YouTube channel.
We talk about:
Creator-driving cartoons! What a concept!
Working on some of the worst cartoons of all-time
The astonishingly short list of Spümcø programming
“A Day In The Life Of Ranger Smith”
“Boo Boo Runs Wild”
GEORGE LIQUOR! AMERICAN!!!
Eating a girl’s face off
Ripping Friends
Powered Toast Man!
Jimmy The Retarded Boy
The Three Stooges
Games Studio
Bob Jaques
Bob Clampett
Ed Benedict
The cartoon that changed everything.
Eddie’s clean hand
Actual production note from Nickelodeon: “Change duck to woodpecker.”
John K’s response: “No.”
John K pays homage to classic H-B cartoons with the help of Ed Benedict!
Weird show, but still animated better than most cartoons on at the time.
John K tried to get this obviously dirty joke onto Fox Kids. And he kind of succeeded.
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The common Naruto Fan Reaction to the Naruto Episode
Because you asked for, and boy did you ask for it, Neil and I, along with Pablo Praino(interrupted from eating Tacos just to do this, TACOS!) come back once again to talk Naruto. But first, we explain our method of operation. We don’t need to watch every single episode of a show to say it’s bad or doesn’t grab you. I usually give a show about 8 episodes. I think that’s more than fair. But just to be even more fair, I read the whole manga. Pablo did more research too.
Topics Covered
Why Our Method Works
Not retracting a damn thing
Ok, it’s not 30 episodes of screaming
The endgame villain is still lame
Ninja Jesus!
It’s a ray gun! PEW! PEW! PEW!
In the first portion of this podcast, Ben and I run through our thoughts on censorship in cartoons and other mediums. We get a little ranty. We touch on reactionary censorship in cartoons, video games, and motion pictures. Our position is that it’s not right to erase history. In the second segment, Tom Revor joins us to give us his thoughts on the matter.
Topics:
Gary Owens is ALIVE!
James Rolfe presents: Scat Hat
“It’s Nerf or NOTHIN’!!!”
Self-censorship is BULLSHIT!
“Stop, or I’ll show my badge!”
Violence in animation: east vs. west
Using Lucasfilm computers to erase OJ from The Naked Gun
Catcher In The Rye
Cartoon PSAs
Pew-pew guns
Erasing Chris Benoit
Layla’s coda
Video games
King Kong and Son Of Kong
Shrapnel would have killed the parachuting GI Joe pilots
One of many scenes that were cut from the 1938 re-release of King Kong. Kong was sanitized in an era in which hyper-sensitive idiots wanted to play nanny. Sadly, people like this still exist.
A scene that GI Joe fans are far too familiar with
From the infamous Pokemon gun episode. Never seen in America.
We are NOT suggesting that 4Kidz should have put this in the American version of Pokemon. This is just here for laughs.
Filmation cartoons put these PSAs at the end of every show to sanitize the violence in the cartoon a bit. Still, would you take moral advice from a klepto?
Pew! Pew!
Pew! Pew! Pew!
Pew! Pew! Pew! Pew! Pew!
Thank God it’s over!
None of us were really prepared for this show. We read from the Naruto Fan Wikia. Neil listens in awe of the ridiculousness.
Topics Covered
Naruto Fan Wankia – Believe it!
Citation needed
The worst of DBZ
Dead? No, just a shadow clone.
Orange jumpsuits and fox wiskers
Ninjas that don’t look like ninjas
No one will ever think to look over the giant wall!
It’s because SHUT UP!
Snake nerds!
Eyes that PIERCE THE SOUL!
Always loving the pervert
Nevell Longbottom is the hero
Global economics of mercenary armies in a world the size of Connecticut
Maggot cheese
One shall stand. One shall fall.
Make him go away!
Even the best parts of Naruto aren’t that special. This character doesn’t do anything.
Admit it. You got it for the shower scene.
Surprisingly a lot of American productions in this list, but it’s still mostly anime. We again talk about the horrors on USA Cartoon Express while mostly trying not to repeat ourselves. But as bad as that was, some of the anime ain’t much better. I even mention my all-time worst anime experience on this episode.
Topics Covered
BISON!!!
Jiggly boob characters
The Ambigously Gay Duo
Chun-Li’s shower scene
Jobbing Cammy
They found Captain Winkie
I like turtles
The Derrivery Guy!
Learn what a succubus does!
Conveyor belts – Obobo’s only weakness
Kevin Nash can’t move
Street Combat – secretly a Ranma game
And lots of help from the chat room!
A fucking ugly ass anime with the worst dub track I have ever heard!
What is happening in this scene? Why are these cartoons drawn so badly. Goddammit, USA Cartoon Express!!! I thought you were cool once!
Touching swords.
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The Bare
Tonight, we are joined by Rick from “United States of Geekdom” to talk about The Jungle Book! I met Rick at Dallas Stripcon at the beginning of August, and we had a blast! I broke his mind multiple times, and yet he keeps coming back!
Topics Covered
Jungle Peter Pan!
The Right to Bear Arms!
Louis Prima’s Widow is a bitch!
Tigers that ooze class
The Disney Xerox look
Walt spinning in his grave
Ben explains Amazing Spider-Man again
Jerry Nelson
Original Voice – Do Not Steal
Also, check out Neil’s appearance on Episode 38 and Episode 39 of Toocast Beyond.
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Play ball!
If you like sports, you might be interested in some of these. There’s a little something for everyone, whether you like baseball, soccer, rugby, kickboxing, wrestling, tennis, or even majong. (Yes, majong.) We also cover some of the manga.
After the show, we have our now-standard bonus segment, where we get an update from Kitthawk and talk about the upcoming Archie Comics gender swap issue, with pencils by our pal, Gisele Legace!
Topics
Trying out for the WWWA
We’re going to Koshien!
Three hours of commercials occasionally interupted by a football game
Where have all the sexy sports anime gone?
Battle Athletes: Too loli to be enjoyed
Ayane’s High Kick really sucks
Secretariat The Animated Series
There’s that bear again
Wiping out the dinosaurs
Reverse-Dale
Archina and Jugs
If it wasn’t for my horse, I wouldn’t have spent that year in college
This show makes me feel dirty.
Prince of Tennis
A nice zoom-in on Sabrina’s boobs, cleaverly disguised as a close-up on Salem! We see what ya did there, Gisele!
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Yeeeee-ha! Fes is gonna chow down on that big ol’ burger in today’s very special podcast!
We start off with a podcasting panel from this year’s Dallas Stripcon! On the panel with Ben were Fes of The Webcast Beacon Network, Adam from The RADcast, Kyle of The Tech Tard Show, and Rick of The United States of Geekdom.
After the panel, we have a series of outtakes from 2011. We talk sodas and animation outsourcing with Kittyhawk. Then we talk about a variety of geek topics with Thomas Revor. We have a brief conversation with Mike Blanchard. And finally we GET IN THERE! with Ben Heckendorn!
Yes, it’s the Ben Heck bonus show that we promised over a year ago, and it’s totally worth the wait!
It’s time for HER to pay!
The ups and downs of pocasting
Coke vs. Soda
Fes’ gigantic burger
The circle of outsourcing
The Day The Clown Cried
As Tears Go By
Clancy Brown is always the villain
“Who the hell is Ben Heck?”
Colorized film versus 3-D conversion
Where the hell did the real George Lucas go?
Acting on the green screen
Wicker Man… comedy
Possumus Woman
Hanna-Barbera’s OTHER out-of-time family comedy.
Joining us tonight is the always delightful Kittyhawk, artist and writer of Sparkling Gneration Valkyrie Yuuki. For seventy minutes, the three of us sit and compare notes from our favorite cartoons from this era. There is so much that we each brought stuff to the table that nobody else had heard of.
We talk about:
The All-New…
Boomerang
Cartoons based on sitcoms
Wait Till Your Father Gets Home
The Roman Holidays
Blue Falcon & Dynomutt
Jabberjaw
Speed Buggy
All-Star Laff-A-Lympics
Help! It’s The Hair Bear Bunch!
The Pebbles & Bamm-Bamm Show/The Flinstone Comedy Hour
Captain Caveman & The Teen Angels
Mutley/Mumbly
Robonic Stooges
Pac-Man
Devlin
and Godzookiiiiiii
…IN SPACE!!!
You jumped over some of my buses!
No wonder Kittyhawk calls this the drug era.
Hmm… This setting looks familiar!
Well, at least Hanna-Barbera kept its star roster active. Even if it was in the Laff-A-Lympics.
I don’t even remember this episode.
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Seriously, Neil never watched this?!
Tonight on Animation Aficionados, we come closer to finishing our Shonen Jump series with Bleach! A series about death gods, grim reapers, shinigami, and people in black kimonos with katanas. We promise this episode will not sound too HOLLOW… And sadly, Neil barely talks, because… wait… all the sexy girls here, Neil NEVER WATCHED THIS?!?
Topics Covered
Seeing Dead People
Rescue Arc!
Comedy cutting through bullshit
Filler Arcs!
Legendary animator Don Bluth
Joining us tonight is The Chu of Slightly Damned as we talk about such Bluth projects as The Secret Of NIMH, An American Tail, Dragon’s Lair, All Dogs Go To Heaven, The Land Before Time, Rockadoodle, A Troll In Central Park, Thumbelina, Titan AE, and more! Plus we talk about some of the fever dream sequels, such as Feivel Goes West (no seriously, American Tail 3 writes it off as a dream!) and all of those shitty Land Before Time direct-to-video sequels.
By the way, this was just a few days prior to our appearance on TGT Media, which we mention briefly on this show. After you’re done listening to this episode, you should hop over there and listen to our interview.
Topics:
Mine is the rooster that pierces the heavens!
The big-lipped alligator moment has a point to the plot, DOUG!
Need to brush up on your third act.
If you can’t beat Speilberg, join Speilberg.
LIving in the shadow of Disney
An Internet Troll in Central Park
Non-Bluth sequels
Bluth’s vidja games
The innocent charm of Feivel makes our hearts melt.
You’ve got the POWAAAAAAAAAH!!!! YEAH!
There’s the token babe.
This is a travesty. This is like if Filmation did a sequel to Pinocchio. …oh wait.
Watch it! She can blow you up!
Tonight we interview Cynthia Martinez, voice actress from ADV, the voice behind many characters from Slayers, Madlax, Martian Successor Nadesico, Godannar, Kaleido Star, Galaxy Fraulein Yuna, Excel Saga, Puni Puni Poemy, and many more!
We mostly talked about Slayers, but we asked Cynthia for some of her best booth stories. And boy did we some! Cynthia was hilarious, and we enjoyed having her on the show. We’ll have to get her back some time.
Cynthia is also in a Latin acoustic band called SinTema. Check them out at www.reverbnation.com/sintema
Topics:
The screaming Lina
Making fun of a twelve-year-old’s breast size
Funny stories from the sound booth
“Mah leg”
Man Lina
Lisa Ortiz vs. Cynthia Martinez
Puni Puni Poemy
DRAGON SLAAAAAVE!!!!
Puni Puni Poemy… Believe it or not, this is TAME.
Cynthia is exclusive to the Slayers movies and OVAs.
Dino Damage!
Tonight on Animation Aficionados, we talk with Chuck of the famous “What’s on Joe Mind” Podcast promo about toy commercials! We go into the politics of toy commercials, parents groups, He-Man, Mighty Max, and so much more!
Topics Discussed
DINO DAMAGE!
Sam Neil Action Figure
Mighty Max is the male Polly Pocket
Pre-emptive protection against chinese knockoffs?
The Truth about He-Man Toys.
We are very happy to have Tiffany Grant back again to talk about Gunsmith Cats! A show that is so american, it’s awesome! Like an 80’s action flick, it has chicks, guns, and cars. Rally might prefer a 9mm, but we won’t hold it against her! The best thing about Gunsmith Cats, I think is the ambiance, the sound design. Good thing Tiffany’s here to keep us on task!
Topics Covered
Getting every gun sound right
Stallone’s Cobra’s got the Touch!
Chicago land!
“No Pizza…” you know the rest!
Not Kosher
So much worse than we could have ever imagined.
Yes, it’s here at last. Robin & The Dreamweavers. The darkest chapter of the Lou Scheimer legacy. This “movie” was brought to you by man who gave us Fat Albert & The Cosby Kids, Groovy Goolies, Faux Busters, Pinnochio & The Emperor of the Night, He-Man, and She-Ra. As it turns out, this isn’t a movie at all, but rather a very poorly made premium channel pilot. Much like the Gen 13 pilot, Robin & The Dreamweavers was doomed to a fate of obscurity upon completion. (That is, until the internet set it free!)
We’re joined this week by Kittyhawk and Trevor Jay. We had to steel ourselves to power through this thing. A couple of us didn’t make it. But for the most part, we’re unscathed.
By the way, please send in your Naga laughs! HO! HO! HO! Information at the beginning of the podcast.
Topics
Magic tattoo birthmarks
Reusing Bravestarr sets
TV Pilotitis
90s techno babble
Air drumming
Boob keyboard
Net raves
The Brogrammer
Gay Vincent Price
Roger Rabbit haxxor
Brenda: the original and true creator of Farmville
Doors to nowhere
Eye fetishes
A tube of cat urine
XXX’s giant phallus
Porn is evil
The truth about Sweedish school girls
A comet falls offscreen
The Scheimer exposition machine
This movie is NOT sexy
ROOOOOOOBIN!!!
The following screen shots were color corrected, because the DVD transfer is really bad and washed out. The actual DVD looks like shit.
Air Drums
Here are the Dreamweavers.
Also, get used to this background painting. You’ll be seeing it a lot!
Robin’s Frottage Cottage
A video game programmer trying to impress a girl. The pig!
Oh well. At least he didn’t try to pick her up in an elevator.
Here is the only panty shot in THE ENTIRE MOVIE. Yeah. It’s Brenda.
Dr. Octopus has a child with Shadow Weaver.
Wait… What?! WHAT?!?!
Why would anyone WANT this?!
Gee, look what arrived in the mail on the same day as this episode released!
The Simpsons
The Simpsons is the longest-running animated prime time show. Over 20 years after it first hit the air, it’s still going strong. But has Simpsons hit its stride? Is it past it’s prime? Is it time to take the show behind the barn and put a 22 in its temple? We discuss this very issue on this week’s edition of Animation Aficionados!
Topics:
“Hi, I’m Troy McClure.”
Homer is the real star
Continuity in-jokes
Holding off Seth MacFarlane Domination
Ned Flanders is a butt monkey
Simpsons All Growed Up
The McBane trailers
Deconstructing Itchy & Scratchy
Poochie
Ray Romano compared to Snuffaluffagus (and nobody makes an Ice Age reference!)
“The real gold is in Weekend At Bernie’s 2!”
The greatest center square of all-time
John Lovitz atones for The Critic
Did Mike make a sodomy reference??!?!
Vegan Shaggy
Lisa, go to your room!
Yes, this is as badass as it looks!
Topics:
Cribbing from Adam Warren
Yuri living up to her name once again
A village of Bretts
Rearry orffensive Asian stererotypes
Yes, I said that Dirty Pair Flash is better than GITS. Live with it.
You don't get transformations like this in Sailor Moon!
Warrior Princess Yuri surrounded by a village of Brett Weavers
This guy's English voice is SO wrong.
Leave it to me to find the space bikini in Dirty Pair Flash!
Showing skin. There's lots of this!
I love Star Trek reunions
Tonight we talk about Gargoyles, the action series created by Disney that the Mouse doesn’t know what the heck to do with. Co-created by Frank Paur and mostly written by Micheal Reaves, it is a good, solid series, if not slightly overrated by fans. We are joined by JT from Saskatoon to go over the particulars of this series.
Topics Covered
Ok ok, Greg Weisman helped too… I guess.
13 Backdoor Pilots
Star Trek Reunions
Japanese Episode to Japanese animators? Put the spurs to it!
The Green!(amigo!)
Ethnicity Not Important!
Let’s see, our organization needs hoods!
Greg always going back to Gargoyles
We here like Silly Kenshin
Topics Covered
The hero that doesn’t kill
How awesome Kaoru is
Watsuki’s unique artstyle
Watsuki’s love for Marvel Comics
Sandy Fox
Ranma Crossover? Not on my watch!
Why I hate the OVA’s
Rurouni Rex
The Upcoming Movie
Retelling the Same Story
"Hey, Puppet Pal Oshii!" "Hi, Puppet Pal Shirow!"
Ben and I decided to take a few moments to address, very briefly, the episode 79 controversy. Oh, Blanchard’s in this special episode, too. Most of this conversation is comprised of outtakes from the night we were recording the finale to season 1 of Tooncast Beyond.
Aside from defining the Oshii Puppet Syndrome, we also talk about future episodes about Sonic The Hedgehog cartoons as well as a side-by-side between The Simpsons and…The Simpsons(?)! Yes, we draw an arbitrary line and compare old Simpsons to new Simpsons. Stay tuned for that one.
We also talk about Expendables 2, Battleship, Filmation, John Semper, and Popeye.
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oh shit...
To be fair, our gripe with Akira is mostly directed at how overhyped it is. Yes, we know the animation is absolutely gorgeous, but the story itself is nothing particularly special. Oh, and it’s also way too long. It’s padded out with pseudo-philosophical mumbo-jumbo that nobody can follow, because it makes no damn sense. It’s fun watching gorgeous animation of a city getting torn to bits, but I shouldn’t have to sit through 100 minutes of nonsense about ameoba children in order to get to that part.
And then there’s Ghost In The Shell. Finally, you guys get to hear why I hate this movie and everything it inspires. Get ready for a smackdown on the existential crisis genre of anime, because I lay the hate down on this film. It’s not even animated as well as Akira. It’s slow, boring, and had me fidgeting in my seat, despite being 40 minutes shorter. Ghost In The Shell might be the king of pretentious anime.
This episode is about:
The star child
Ninja Turtles and Power Rangers
“Get your ass to Mars!”
“Kakarot!!! I mean…Kaneda!!!”
Ooshi must be stopped, no matter the cost.
Fuck both of these films; watch Roujin Z
Watch Dominion Tank Police, too.
Oh, here’s something that drives me crazy. I wouldn’t hate Ghost In The Shell half as much if I didn’t know so many people who make the exact following argument.
If you've ever made this argument, do the world a favor and kindly get over yourself.
I'm sure these are all just coincidences
Yeeeeeaaaaah....
Shit we forgot to mention:
Kid Kusanagi
Ah, girls entertainment in the 80s. Pastel and sparkly.
We talk about a lot of fun stuff, like the different generations of Ponies, later iterations of MLP that you may not (and should not) remember, and how the My Little Pony movie manages to be even more of a toy commercial than the Transformers movie. Speaking of which, My Little Pony: The Movie demonstrates why you should never mix animation from AKOM and Toei. Don’t do it!
We talk at length about “Rescue From Midnight Castle”, which might actually be one of the most badass things that Marvel/Sunbow ever produced. It’s a shame that the quality of MLP dropped so rapidly afterward.
And at the end of the show, stick around, because we have some bonus animation talk with our guests about obscure shit that you may or may not have heard of. One of our listeners requested that we get Robin & The Dreamweavers. Funny enough, we were already talking about that before the request was made! And guess what! Kittyhawk is going to get it for us! OH NOES!!!!
Pre-Crisis Megan
Showtime, Synergy!
Orko!!! How did you get in here?! Don't tell anyone what you saw!
Yes, it’s He-Man tonight, ladies and gentlemen. And helping us is Andy, a listener of the show and quite the He-Man buff himself. While we blast the (extremely) limited animation and overuse of rotoscoping, Andy brings in his knowledge about the toy franchise.
Topics covered:
How to pronounce Conan
“…but, Adam!”
Teela is fucking stupid!
Two men on a horse
Orko walked in on He-Man with his sword in his hand
Theatrical five-part episodes
Taking moral advice from a klepto
Skeletor’s faceturn
Princess Adora is hot
The New Adventures… not how I remembered ’em!
King Randor kicks ass in the ’02 series!
Also, be sure to check out Blanchard’s Powers Of Grayskull series for a more indepth, episode-by-episode coverage.
Boy, when Teela finds out about this...
Only 25 years to get an action figure
Kei and Yuri
As you might imagine, this is one of my all-time favorites. It’s got girls with long, lucious legs in a space utopia filled with flying cars, interstellar space travel, rocket backpacks, robots, and all sorts of neat stuff!
Who doesn’t love the Dirty Pair?! Terrible people. That’s who.
This episode was recorded to coincide with the release of the new Dirty Pair movie box set, which includes both the ADV English dub and the highly sought-after Streamline Pictures English dub! Yes, it’s justice for Carl Macek. You need to buy it right now!
We’ll return to Dirty Pair in July with the DVD release of Dirty Pair Flash!
The original novel version of the Pair
This image may require a mop.
John Semper- Hero or Menace?
In atonement for not researching the 1994 Fox Spider-Man cartoon thoroughly, we bring you Spider-man: The Truth. This special episode, we explore the foundation of lies on which this cartoon rests. We also explore the one man who is the biggest source of information about this show and… why you probably shouldn’t listen to him.
Topics Covered
It’s NOT Spider-Man:TAS. Stop Lying
Mostly TMS? HAH!
John Semper cries cancer curing tears
The reason why Bob Richardson still gets work
And what do you get when you drain Elvira of hotness AND Humor? CREEPORIA!
Now you saw it. You cannot un-see it.
References
The Wikia article in all it’s… glory
Semper… master of the bus throw
John Semper’s current project ]]>
Wait... What the heck is he swinging from?!
This week, we’re joined by Space Captain Steve of Blade Kitten and Hal Hefner of Heavy Metal’s Gates, as we talk about Spider-Man through the ages! We go over pretty much every Spider-Man animated cartoon ever made, and even some of the live action ones. We talk about all incarnations of Spidey, Peter’s love life, and our ideal production of Spider-Man.
In a bonus round, we’re joined by 1UP’s Bob Mackey, where we make a discovery of something that was overlooked in the main part of the show. Could this episode be…TO BE CONTINUED!?!??
Again I ask; considering how far up he is, what exactly is he swinging from?
If it doesn’t, then come join Me and Neil as we talk to Techies Tom Revor and Tim Groves about technology!
]]>
There's baloney in our slacks!
Topics covered
Pre-Crisis Daffy
Mary Sue Adventures
The Bloody Head Fairy
Justice For Buttons
Tongue…two…three, one…two…three
Torturing Buddy
Baby Plucky
The Wretched Clown
The Plucky Duck Show
Jaimy Kelner, television lumberjack
Don’t Stop The Sandman
It’s the 90s, time for Klax.
…While Bill Clinton plays the sax!
Tiny Toons... just little versions of better cartoons
Kennedy Cartoons did this. No, it doesn't look any better in motion.
Here’s “The Looney Beginning,” which is actually one of the better-animated episodes of Tiny Toons. In fact, these are the best results that they ever got from Kennedy Cartoons.
…But watch as this episode of Animaniacs completely outpace it in every way.
Also, check this shit out. This is the guy who played Wakko.
This is the most maddening thing you’ll ever hear…
A Compilation of Glen Kennedy’s ‘Contribution’ to the industry…
And finally…
The tragically rare Donna Troy Wonder Woman costume
Topics covered:
Footwear: Flats vs. Heels
Sleeves or no sleeves
The French cut
Cloaks: It’s all about what’s underneath
Athletic costumes versus underwear
Sporty chicks are hot
Snaps, buckles, and zippers: How much is too much?
Using nanotech to explain why the clothes don’t just fall off
Neil and Kittyhawk make some not-so-subtle references to their own comics
And finally…LEOTARDS!!! (Yes, I’m that lame.)
Discussed in the show - The many costumes of Jean Gray
The SUPERIOR Star Sapphire costume, without the crappy Witchblade shit all over her
Ed Benes' Fairchild
Jennie Breeden's boots - Proof that girls can look awesome without heels. Seriously, knock it off with the heels! Nobody fights in pumps.
Tonight, we are finishing the long-unfinished DCAU series with Batman Beyond.
A dark, possible future for Batman, Batman Beyond balances out the bleak future with sly humor. Is it the “for sure” future? That’s up to you to decide.
Topics Discussed
Original Villians
Creepy Ra’s
Mad Stan Berkewitz
This Never Happened to the Other Fella
Terry’s Friend Dates a Robot!
Clown Gangs? Akira Influence?
The BatBoys from Brazil and the lost Batman Beyond movie!
Effing pandas!
Get ready for two solid hours of wrestling commentary!
The first half of our show is all about the golden era of the World Wrestling Federation. This is the place that gave us grown men who refer to themselves as bulldogs, junkyard dogs, snakes, cats, birds, dragons, gorillas, and weasels! This ain’t no wildlife fund. This is the real WWF!
The second half is our look at the Monday Night Wars between WWF and WCW. Two juggernauts square off in one of the most brutal ratings wars in television history. In the end, the rivalry is almost literally thrown away as WCW goes out of its way to fail again and again. And if that wasn’t enough, WWE pisses on the corpes of its former rival by first buying the company and then destroying everything that anyone ever loved about it.
The ultimate showdown of two giants that ended in a whimper.
Topics covered:
Verne Gagna’s ego
Hulk Hogan’s even bigger ego
DOOKY!
ARM BAR!
The Big Gold Belt
The Dirty Pair and the WWWA
We got pyrotechnics!
The evil twin referee
Black Saturday
Bobby Heenan
Scary Sherri
Dusty and Virgil
Terra Rizin
The KISS Demon
The Finger Poke of DOOM
The West Texas Rednecks
WCW snatches fail from the jaws of success
JT fails at trivia
The Legend of Korra
Tonight, we do a quick mini ep about the sequel series to Avatar the last Airbender…. The Legend of Korra! The ULTIMATE Pallette cleanser after last week’s weeaboo special of Teen Titans. Anime-inspired done right? Why even call it Anime-inspired? It took and branched out, became it’s own, beautiful thing. Neil and I talk about why you should watch Legend of Korra, at Korranation.com.
You just don't see expressionism in animation anymore. Oh wait! There's Korra.
When the evil Slade attacks, those Titan kids don't cut him no slack!
This episode is all about:
What the #@%! was Slade’s plan?!
Why is Robin such a DICK?!
Battered spouses
Once a hyper-competent, homicidal sociopath
Cyborg’s magic
Wanking off to anime
Episodes that were rape-tastic!
The Tyler Durden Episode
The weakest heelturn EVER!
People who defend Chris Benoit
And finally, we ask the question: Was Sam Register snorting coke off of the backs of Ami and Yumi?
Dear Cartoon Network... Stop designing characters like this! STOP IT!!!
Isn't Robin wonderful? Don't you love it how he abuses us? Let's dress up like him!
Now, I don’t mean to brag or anything, but this is kind of how the show went:
Don't worry, Cyborg. Soon, you'll be in a much better cartoon.
Justice League Doom
Here we are at last! The final episode of the Animation Aficionados and Tooncast Beyond Crossover! In this episode, we review the newly-released Justice League Doom. In this, the last movie penned by Duane McDuffie, the Justice League are under attack from plans concocted by one of their own. We really nitpick this movie, with the understanding, of course, that such nitpicks go the film’s credit, because it really is a marvelous work that we could not identify any major flaws. This is a template for how animated superhero movies should be.
As with the other crossover episodes, we have our usual array of extras, including a rough cut, so you get to hear all the funny asides when we screw up. There’s also over an hour’s worth of a bonus show featuring Thomas Revor and listener of the show Richard, as we talk more about the DC movies, comics, and… Girl Scout cookies.
Be prepared to set aside two hours of your time. This is a long one, folks!
It appears to be the Ace of Spades!
Booyah!
We love Wonder Woman!
The correct title card
Fortunately, today is the day that you get to hear the showdown over The Crapman! Richard (just Richard) comes down from Canadia to defend Sam Register’s baby. We attempt reason. After a while, Tom Revor even steps in. It goes three-on-one for a while.
Nearly two hours of us judging the show by its demerits.
Click to enlarge:
How they made Mr. Freeze
Hasbro says: "HERPA DERP DERP DERP!"
Topics:
Hasbro’s IP fetish
Vocal minorities ruin television
Other derpy cartoon characters
Tom’s brony sound board
“It’s the Sears Tower.”
Kittyhawk scars us for life with “BOOYAH!”
Bonus discussion:
Final Fantasy (all of them)
Shining Force III
Breath of Fire II
Albert Odyssey
Phantasy Star
Lunar
Earthbound
Panzer Dragoon Saga
Arc The Lad
Grandia
It's the Sears Tower.
The Chrono Trigger ending that EVERYONE got to see.
Son-Goku, everyone's favorite super monkey alien from another planet
Topics discussed:
Pablo remembers the urination scene
POW!!! Right in the KISSER!
Fights that last for weeks. Literally!!!
Mr. Satan saved the world
I’m just burnin’, Doin’ the Fusion Dance!
You will not hear “Rock The Dragon” anywhere in this episode
Gogeta Cheese
No. Caption. Needed.
Hope you enjoy profile shots. You'll be seeing a lot of them.
Topics covered:
What’s with the English opening?!
Why saints?
Hope you like ¾ profiles
Endrogenous boys
Secretariat’s here!
The Green Loontern
Topics Discussed
Daffy turns heel
Reviving the Corps
Offending the target audience
Robot Highschool Rivalries
A superstitious and cowardly lot
What does Neil Gaiman think about Teen Titans?
Cantaloupe, Watermelon...
Jamie Kellner is a douche
It’s called Cartoon Network for a reason
The Crapman still sucks, like Smallville
When will they kiss?
Actual photograph of Jamie Kellner
No one ever drew Fairchild better.
As someone who was inspired by Al Rio, I was shocked to hear of his death. He was and always will be one of my favorite comic artists. I think I speak for everyone on the show when I say that we will miss Al Rio.
This is a fairly short episode, so after the mid-show commercial break, you’ll get to hear some bonus audio that we recorded with Pablo Praino.
Topics Covered:
The secret of every good girl artist: Frederick’s Of Hollywood
Exposure – It’s like Dirty Pair with nuns.
“Wait a minute! That’s not J. Scott Campbell!!!”
Fronk Cho’s mom
We love Amanda Conner
Adam Warren, Adam Hughes, and Ed Benes
Bonus Content:
More stiff with Pablo
Dragonball is silly
His name is PAIN!!!!
The Crapman
I'll take the Mary Marvel on the right. Thank you.
It's like Dirty Pair...without all the genocide...and with nuns.
Being from Brazil, this working environment is far from being inaccurate.
Impenetrable armor, for sure.
Yep, that's how we felt this time last year. Thanks, Al!
Exiled: A Jim Gordon Story
Tonight on Animation Aficionados, we cover Batman: Year One. This is an animated movie based off the groundbreaking graphic novel and post-crisis reboot of Batman after Crisis. I appreciate what the movie intended to do, however in the end, I think the movie overall fell short.
Topics Covered:
The Art missing the rawness
Being too literal in an adaptation
Classic Noir storytelling
You either Die a hero…. or live long enough to have adaptation decay
The Catwoman Short is Better
We have some bonus material from Space Captain Steve as well!
Bonus Topics:
Toon Link is not bad
Ahnuld’s commentaries are GOLD!
"I'm always on duty!"
Tonight we talk about Inspector Gadget with Space Captain Steve, creator of Blade Kitten.
Perhaps DiC’s finest show from back in the day, Inspector Gadget blew away nearly everything else that was on children’s TV at the time. Little did we know that were seeing the dawn of Japanese animation for American television, a practice that would later become standard in shows like Transformers, GI Joe, Thundercats, and Ghostbusters.
We go off topic a lot, as we compare Gadget to the likes of Inspector Clouseau, Maxwell Smart, Robocop, and even Dyno-Mutt! We also establish a continuity connection that links Inspector Gadget to Super Mario Bros., GI Joe, and classic WWF.
This message will self destruct.
Topics:
Most ridiculous gadget
So many connections!
Gadget Boy and other spin-offs
Matthrew Broderick, and French Stewart
Australia doesn’t want Captain Planet
Does the dog have to wear a dress?
You can’t stop Uncle Owen
REVEALED!!! Dr. Claw's face.
Bonus:
Mentioned in the episode is the special Best Of at1UP, featuring the theory that Boba Fett is actually a bumbling idiot. Later in this podcast, the 1UP staff tries to guess what the Blade Kitten game is about. See?! There are all these connections!
As long as I'm on this show, you can always count on me to highlight the girl in the leotard.
The best comes to those who wait. Our expanded edition of the Emerald Knights review once again features Mike “TFG1” Blanchard of the Geekcast Radio Network. In this exciting episode, we cover another set of DC animated stories compiled into a film. However, unlike Gotham Knight, which was a disjointed mess of barely-connected stories, this one actually comes together at the end in a satisfying way. The stories were hit-or-miss, but there is enjoyable stuff here, particularly Laira (and no, I don’t just mean her costume).
Expanded content in this episode includes our standard cold opening, plus a whole middle section that you’ll not hear in the Tooncast Beyond version of this show. Additionally, we have short conversation with 1UP‘s Bob Mackey plus a tease for next week’s show. Be sure to check out Bob’s podcast, Retronauts.
Topics Covered:
Laira’s hot
Arisia is jailbait
Kilowog is a poozer
Mogo vs. Unicron – Who wins???
Batman and the Golden Lagoon
Green Lantern's greatest weakness: That yellow metal that Autobots always use.
Bob Mackey of Retronauts is our guest
Tonight on Animation Aficionados, we are joined with Bob Mackey of Retronauts as we journey through cartoons based off video games. You may not believe it, listeners, but games used to be much more abstract than they are now. A storyline for square sprites, hard to believe!
Topics Covered:
Creepy Pasta
Peter Cullen IS Mario!
The Sonic cartoon that takes itself too seriously
The clairvoyance of the Zelda cartoon
The origin of Yoshi’s idiot/baby voice
The shortcomings of DiC and Ruby-Spears
Sonic is best when he’s mute
We prefer to call it “Pokey-Mans”
Super Fighting Robot! Vacuum Cleaner!
The Pac-Man/Richie Rich/Little RascalsOur Gang Show
A round red ball living with four other random roommates as they solve crimes?(That sunnabitch had an AX!)
POLE POSI-TIOOOOOOOON!!! What’s behind their stunt shooooow?!
Do the Mario! Swing your tools into your crotch!
Well, excuuuuuuuuse ME, Princess!!!
"Can you read my mind...?"
Over 45 minutes of extras over the Tooncast version. You have our standard pre-show, a short interlude about Vampires Suck, and a post-show conversation between Ben and me about future episodes, filled with hilarious off-the-cuff remarks.
Topics:
Best. Lois. EVER!
Tom Welling… VOICE ACTOR?!?!
Grant Morrison GETS Superman!
Superman sets his controls for the heart of the sun.
Did we mention that Lois was smokin’ hot in this film?
Atlas and Samson - One of many storyline deviations that really don't progress the plot at all. The meaning of this contest? It's over Lois, of course!
Super Lois. Is there a better argument in favor of this film? (Well, yes...but I'm being a pig.)
Bonus Content Topics:
Anime Flex
Carlton Banks is the greatest African-American character in the history of television
Jeff Matsuta can’t draw fingers
Jackie Chan Adventures
Apologizing for Scrappy
Lando is not two-faced
The Crapman – Call it the right name!
A preview of our Cartoons Based On Video Games episode
We discuss our upcoming Shonen Jump spotlight
“I’m stronger than you by the beat of a bumblebee’s wing!” ]]>
Captain Planet - He's a zero!
...ugh
Hitler's mustache is SO OFFENSIVE, that they turned him into Triple-H.
Stuff we talk about:
Captain Planet
Toxic Crusaders
Widget The World Watcher
Yogi’s Gang
Tiny Toons
…& more!
Bonus! Bonus!
Download Ben Heckendorn’s Possumus Woman!
Toxic sludge creates a monster... and there are no condescending environmentalist messages anywhere! YES!
"One of only 3 left on Mother Earth. The Marcupoflias Plant blooms once every 30 years, is ingenous only to this area, and can cure cancer."
Not truly the Apocalypse, but perhaps a sign.
We’re not too crazy about the Turner-inspired art style. The story is…okay, if not for the total pussification of Darkseid.
And could someone please, PLEASE knock Jeph Loeb’s dork out of his hand whenever Batman is involved in something?!!? There’s no way Batman should be in a battle against an army of Doomsdays. I don’t care how underpowered they are. they were killing Amazons! Stop it! Stop it! STOP IT!!!
Okay, look people. Batman is a badass. He's taken on beings many times his strength and won. But under no circumstances should he be holding his own against an army of Doomsdays!
Seriously! What' with Superman's face?!??! Oh yeah... Michael Turner.
Battle Armor Batman - Only $29.99!
IT'S THE SAME FACE!!!
On the other hand, does Wonder Woman EVER look bad? I mean, aside from the JMS version.
Celebrating One Year!
Come along for two hours of fun. We laugh. We cry. We insult Marvel animation. It’s great.
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Batman's up to his bat ears with villains in this film
We give away a few spoilers, but it’s nothing you don’t get from the first ten minutes of the film, anyway.
Overall, we liked this.
Also, for our bonus section, we conclude our first attempt at the video games episode. By the end, it becomes obvious why we recorded a second take. Still, we felt that the conversation was entertaining enough to release as supplemental material. Now as to what we’re going to put on the end of next week’s Tooncast Beyond episode, I have no idea. We’ll think of something.
Cooked Robin anyone?
Guess who!
Get away from her, you bitch!
Tonight, we continue with our crisis of two podcasts! Tooncast Beyond and Animation Aficionados sit down together and talk about perhaps the best DC movie yet, A Crisis On Two Earths. Featured on this episode are TFG1 Mike and Steve “Megatron”.
In a story originally meant for the DCAU, the Justice League meet their match. Literally! A heroic version of Lex Luthor leads them to a world in which the super powers, dubbed the Crime Syndicate, are evil. What follows is an exciting, non-stop rollercoaster of an action movie. We highly approve of this one, and we think you will, too.
Minor spoilers in this episode. The bad guys lose. Bet you didn’t see that coming.
Show Topics:
Martian Manhunter’s costume sucks
A crisis of infinite turtles
Mind sex
Super Woman’s costume is awesome
Bonus Show Topics:
Rankin Bass cartoons
Rerun killed Peanuts
There’s no business like snow business
I'll take number 3.
Karloff. Not Carrey.
So stoke up the fire, roast some chestnuts, and put some marshmallows in your hot cocoa. It’s time to talk about some animated holiday classics! BOW DOWN! BOWN DOWN! BEFORE THE POWER OF SANTA!!
Topics:
Kittyhawk is dreaming of a white Saturn
Commercialism in Christmas
What’s REALLY in Underdog’s energy pill?!
The true meaning of this pagan holiday we call Christmas
Oops! We forgot to talk about:
The Johnny Bravo Christmas Special
The Bear Who Slept Through Christmas
The Legend Of Frosty The Snowman
The He-Man/She-Ra Christmas Special (although, we mentioned it!)
There are no good Frosty cartoons past 1969.
SAN-TA! SAN-TA! SAN-TA! SAN-TA!
If only this was real
The Impossible Kick
This week on Animation Aficionados, you can believe a man can polish shit. Superman/Batman: Public Enemas is on the chopping block today. The crossover with Tooncast Beyond continues, and by god, Mike brought a friend, Steve “Megatron”. The Tooncast folks sort of disagree with me on this movie, but I think it’s important to know what the (crappy) source material is just to marvel at how much Timm changed to make a cohesive story out of it. Like sewing together a bunch of old carpet squares to make a prom dress. Admirable effort, but it’s still made from it’s source material.
Topics Discussed
NOT being Faithful to the Source Material
Ed McGuiness sucks
Jeff Loeb Sucks
Dropkick into a Mountain? Srsly?
Captain Atom reflects on him not being invited
Superman builds Robot Sex Dolls
Trouble in the balcony!
Anyhoo, we’re joined this week by Stephanie O’Donnell and Don McLeod. For nearly two hours, we run through the entire history of the Muppets from Sam & Friends to Muppets In Space. We dig up some obscure Muppets you may not have even heard of. We talk about the Muppeteers, too.
This episode is dedicated to Jim Henson and Richard Hunt, two geniuses who left us too soon.
Show Topics:
Sesame Street presents The Seven Deadly Sins
Why did Gonzo cross the road?
Is Oscar homeless?
Scary Muppets
Stephanie is a stan
Tiny Fuppets and Meet The Feebles
Fonzie jumps a voodoo shark while the corpse of Bernie dances a jig
Jason Seagal gives kermit a pearl necklace
…and Little Muppet Monsters TOO!
Bet you forgot he was involved in that movie!
Just another day on the job for Rich
Oopsie… Almost forgot! Here’s that Smokey Robinson vid!
Green ring do your thing!
My goodness. Even though I probably would have preferred a story that took place on Earth and left the Green Lantern Corp. to the wayside, I cannot deny that this was one hell of a movie. I was impressed that the passing of the ring to Hal Jordan was only the beginning of the story and didn’t encompass and overpower the story. The characters were great. Even though we knew who the bad guy is, there were surprises to be had, anyway. This is a very spoileriffic review, which is why I’m getting my impressions out of the way right now. You might want to see the movie first.
And, of course, joining us again this week is TFG1 Mike for our continuing crossover with Tooncast Beyond. The episode wraps up before the 40-minute mark, but dread not, dear listeners! We have another 30 minutes worth of nonsense in our post-show.
Show Topics:
Bruce Timm: Straight-to-video gold
Ryan Reynolds: Box office lead
Chi’p: Is he the one in the wheelchair?
“You wanna fly, Bobby?”
Poozer
Bonus Content Topics:
Lineman Diags
Biggest box office bombs
YouTube and iTunes trolls
Kunio, Renegade, Double Dragon, and River City Ransom
Dipping your breakfast sausages into the syrup
The greatest flavors brought together since Mr. Reese got chocolate in his peanut butter!
The Mirage Era goes out with a bang
We love the Turtles. Though only one show can emerge victorious, this isn’t quite the landslide that was our X-Men Side-By-Side. Both shows here are recommendable. Just stay away from anything involving rewinds or red skies.
Topics:
April’s cleavage
Destroying the Technodrome cures Splinter
Battletoads still sucks ass
Donatello and Jack Kirby save Asgard
Shredder vs. Skeletor vs. Cobra Commander
Neil can find cartoon-accurate live-action hotties
GOONGALA!!!
We loves us some sexy April!
JT is responsible for this, and he will pay!
April’s well-animated ass in an otherwise poorly-animated cartoon
Click here for even more ’87 Ninja Turtles animation errors.
Nothing to lose your head over...
Tonight, we continue our crossover with Tooncast Beyond, discussing the DC Animated original… Wonder Woman! A total palette cleanser after last week’s bomb.
Topics:
-Crap!
-Girls naked in a pond, splashing each other playfully
-Neil takes a long time to process the film
-Steve Trevor fapping in the bushes
-Tom Wilson is an awesome stand-up comedian
Bonus content topics:
-PC gaming
-Sega CDX: The battery muncher!
-Saturn and Neptune
-Yugi Naka’s head is up Uranus
How do you screw THIS up?!
And that’s the weird part, folks, because beside the chronological link between each story, they have almost nothing to do with one another. Oh, but don’t let this blog entry spoil everything. You’ll need to listen to the show to listen to us really rip this POS apart.
Topics:
-Batman vs Duke Togo would break the universe
-OMG! KAWAII BISHOUNEN BRUCE WAYNE! (I wanna throw up after typing that)
-Anthology movies usually have an over-arcing plot. USUALLY!
-Neil adds a rating to the IGN Replacement Crew scoring system
-Mike gets up to answer the door.
As usual, our show is expanded, with hilarious pre- and post-show banter. Technical difficulties happen. We discuss sound elements. A toilet is flushed. Stuff you’re only going to hear on our show. And Married… With Children.
There is also special “bonus track” featuring audio from our first attempt at the video games episode. Lots of off-topic discussion kept the show from being released, but the best banter has been spared, with topics that were not covered in our released version!
Bonus content topics:
-An expanded discussion of Mario’s lore
-The two Sonics
-Kittyhawk’s Franken-Saturn
-Game manual artists
-Everyone’s dead in Lavender Town
-The Sakura Wars theme… My GOD! The Sakura Wars theme!!!!
Yep, it’s filler episode time, boys and girls! We’re here with our Black Friday special, and it’s only a day late! Kittyhawk sits down with Ben and I to talk about some vidji games. But WAIT! We are not alone on this intrepid journey, because joining us tonight is none other than Mike “The Birdman/Captain Awesome” Dodd of This Week In Geek! Pop some Nodoze, folks. This is gonna be a long one. Yes, we love video games so much that we allowed the show to go EPIC-LENGTH!!!
This episode is about:
Let’s play some Mary-Oh, eh?
Only 40 hours until it starts getting good!
Tales from the Game Stop
Dick games
Sega fanboys
Neil doesn’t like Rare.
Our favorite chip tune themes
Neil responds to Chris Bores
Saturn is the greatest system ever, and you suck if you think otherwise
The guy who took Kittyhawk’s copy of Final Fantasy III is rightchere
Don’t like the CDi Zeldas? Well exCUUUUUSE ME, Princess!
Classic heroes done classically. Who'da thunk?
We continue with our Animation Aficionados/Tooncast Beyond crossover with this very special episode about a very special movie. It’s Justice League: The New Frontier! This movie has all the characters we love in their classic incarnations. However, bucking the usual trend, Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman all take a back seat here, because the real star of this movie is Barry Allen! No wait, it’s Hal Jordon. No, actually it’s Martian Manhunter.
Oh, I don’t even know anymore! Just watch the film. It’s pretty good.
As with last week, our version of the show has additional audio. In our extras, we discuss Thundercats, Bill Paxton Pinball, and Nintendo Wii. Plus, Ben tries to break Mike’s brain with the Animaniacs clown… and SUCCEEDS!
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So...hungry.
Topics Covered
Power Rangers
Thor
Transformers
internet reviewers
Les Stroud beating the tar out of Bear Gryls
polar bears!
Superman gonna be okay, Uncle Lar'?
This is the extended cut of the show. You get more than ten minutes of extra audio! Our usual cold opening, plus a post-show!
This episode was about:
That skirt
The saga of the super mullet
Brokeback Luthor
Solid Snake with super powers
Puking up a bucket of blood
Superman: filthy, dirty murderer
You will NOT believe that Adam Baldwin can fly.
Blanchard enjoyed a lobotomy
Courtesy flush or upper-decker? Decisions, decisions.
Revealed for the first time in this film is Superman's struggles with acne as a child.
Jimmy Olsen: Pimp. Seriously, how did we forget to mention this?!
We have met the enemy, and he is us!
Joining Ben and me today is Stephanie O’Donnell of the webcomic Perfect Agent. I was also very honored to have Kittyhawk of Sparkling Generation Valkyrie Yuuki sit in on this episode.
Discussed
This ain’t no Art Clokey!
We’ve found the cement factory level!
Wrong-sounding Muppets
Otomo? Oshii? Oh, what’s the difference?
Goat-Woman
NO DOGS ALLOWED!
Phantom limbs that crush
Akira is NOT on this list!
Disney fired 1000 workers; hires a Xerox machine
SUUUUUUPERMAN!
Yeah, you knew this movie would be in here somewhere
Thank you, Kylie! We love you! Thankfully, they never made Street Fighter The Animated Series - The Game.
Discussed
The REAL Ghostbusters
The Addams Family
Street Fighter
Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventures
Dumb And Dumber
Ace Ventura
The Mask
Back To The Future
Teen Wolf
The… Warrior King?!??!
…and MORE!
Teen Wolf! Comin' out to play!
A crossover connection between Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter?! Yeah! Believe it or not, this guy made a very brief cameo in the Mortal Kombat cartoon, as you'll see in the very next image.
Click to see full image
Nothing is sacred.
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"Are Kup and Hot Rod gonna be alright, Uncle Prime?" "Kup and Hot Rod are gonna be just fine, Li'l Tommy."
How has it taken 44 episodes to get to this?! Ben and I sit down with TFG1 Mike and JT from Saskatoon to talk about robots that turn into cars, planes, and boomboxes. Yes, it’s The Transformers. At last, this day has come!
I know that it’s not great storytelling. Heck, the show can barely go an episode without contradicting itself. But when it comes to creating iconic characters by the seat of its pants, nothing… I mean, NOTHING tops G1 Transformers. Optimus Prime, Megatron, Hot Rod, Starscream, Jazz, Soundwave, Grimlock, Ironhide, Cyclonus, Kup, and many, many more.
Today, we make fun of G1 a lot, but it’s all out of love.
Topics Discussed
GET THAT CRAP OUT OF MY ROBOT SHOW!!!
Optimus Prime: Death and Resurrection
The immaculate conception of Spike Witwicky
Robots with souls
Gay love Autobots
Of Mice And Dinobots
“No one’s ever really disabled as long as they have COURAGE!”
“Don’t sneak up on me, Tommy!”
Daniel cries like a baby
Rodimus listens to old Cure albums and cuts himself
The birth of AKOM
Toy-accurate Ultra Magnus makes us cry
Targetmaster contortionists
Ninja consultants
A life support system that you wear into battle
Putting dead giant robots into wooden caskets
The F*@!ING CYBERNETIC SPACE CUBE!!!
The Go-Bots movie SUCKS!!!!!!!!!1111oneoneone
Proof that Rodimus is a terrible leader. Optimus would NEVER have taken Grimlock along on a spy mission.
And Mike Blanchard wants an explanation for why I think that this is a terrible episode. Isn't it obvious?!??!
Here's the guy I pray to every Sunday!
The colors BLEED!
This is a special Bonus episode we had stored up for many months. We talk about many many things, comics, video games, movies… Geoff Johns being a hack. We have Tome Revor and JT from Saskatoon. Please enjoy this special collection of pre shows, post shows, and ESPECIALLY enjoy the part where I reveal how Darth Maul died in the extended universe…
The smoking corpse from Episode 4 took down a Super Saiyan Sith?
She looks like she's eaten some sandwiches and done some armcurls
Tonight, me and TV’s Mr. Neil watch Episode 7 of the 2011 reboot of Thundercats! This is the first pure commentary track episode we’ve done. Just find a commercial free version of Episode 7, synch with us, and away we go!
Topics Covered
Where’s the damn intro?
The book is the fucking Animus!
Hotter than Cheetara? HELL YEAH
A Rankin-Bass Universe? ehh…
The Space Opera is here! (then gone)
Leo(Liono)’s Toy Form!
A Comic Book and Animation Legend
This is it guys! This an interview with a Wolfman… Marv Wolfman! We have as a special guest host once again, Thomas Revor(how could we not get a big time comic book fan with a guest like Marv Wolfman?). This is by far my favorite interview yet. We hope you all enjoy listening to it as much as we all enjoyed doing it.
Topics Covered
The Death and Rise of Optimus Prime
Working with Sunbow
Writing Comics vs Cartoon episodes
SUPERMAN!
The Beast Machines Series Bible
Ze Viper is Coming....
Today, we talk about some REAL AMERICAN HEROES with Thomas Revor and Eric(Eric slips out silently… is Eric a Ninja?). 80’s Patriotism, Consistent animation, hot chicks… this cartoon had it all! Well, except for people hitting targets worth a darn, but it was the 80’s!
Topics Covered:
Jello fights
Punching a dog!
The Cobra Clutch
Five-Part Episodes
Whatever happened to Major Bludd?
A Cobra to the heart!(and you’re to blame!)
…And knowing is half the battle!
Before Team America, THIS was “America, FUCK YEAH!”
Why is Dr. Doom sharing a laugh with Bob Cratchet?
And now for the proper episode for this week. Tom Revor joins us yet again to talk about one of the earliest Marvel Productions cartoons, Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends. While most of the episodes were finished at David DePatie’s old animation studio here in the good ol’ US of A, three very special episodes were done by Toei in Japan.
Show topic:
How to draw spider webbing
Microwavable breasts
Backdoor pilot episodes
Marrying a supermodel
Aunt May’s secret villainous side
Sadly, MOST of these people are dead.
Taking a break from our normal routine of talking about animation, we’re joined by Tom Revor to talk about local kids shows (and some shows that are technically not appropriate for children) as well as some network and public access shows as well. Although, we never stray too far from the mark, because even Jim Henson got his start in local TV.
This episode was put together to honor the life of Mr. Peppermint, who died this past week. Ben was the most familiar with the show Peppermint Place. Later in the show, Tom and I kind of take over with our Chicago nonsense, and I barrage the show with sound clips from the WGN library. …Oopsie.
Discussed:
Mr. Peppermint
The Lone Ranger
Sesame Street
Mr. Rogers
Captain Kangaroo
Bozo
Ray Rayner
Garfield Goose
The Gigglesnort Hotel
Thomas The Tank Engine
…and so much more.
Where does he get those wonderful toys?
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Today's episode is about a CBS program based on a popular role-playing table-top game. Fortunately, this is not that program.
Why would we start a series of episodes about the Sunbow era with a show that had absolutely nothing to do with Sunbow? Because we like being thorough, and it’s just easier to throw a few unrelated shows that are worth talking about under a larger banner. …And because we’d rather talk about a good show than Charmkins.
Today, we’re joined by Pablo Praino once again to talk about the beloved Dungeons & Dragons cartoon series. Before Transformers. Before GI Joe. Before even Muppet Babies. This show excited kids back in the early 80s with awesome adventures, funny characters, and outstanding animation.
As a special bonus, we have a commentary of the first episode at the end of our show!
Topics discussed:
Panty shots
Eric is our hero.
Dungeon Master is an asshole.
Doors that are big enough for your dragon
Thieves and ninjas are too edgy for children, apparently.
The DVD for Mazes And Monsters is blatantly dishonest.
It’s a kooky movie anyway.
So is Jack Chick.
...because you remember the Dungeons & Dragons roller coaster back in 1983, right? Of course you do. They were all over the place!
"You guys have got it all wrong! The real culprit is... RED HERRING!"
Believe it or not, this is nothing compared to the real horror of the Dungeons & Dragons movie. There's a Wayans Brother in it!
Tragically, when the Thief upgrades, he BECOMES the Ninja. The poor guy just can't catch a break!
Pineapple salad cannot kill Roy!
Today, we were joined by Kittyhawk and voice actor Brett Weaver to talk about the fine art of localization. We also talk about Carl Macek a bit, but not as much as we had planned. Maybe we can return to Carl at a later date.
As for today’s episode, you have 100 minutes to look forward to of us rambling about why the anime snobs of the 90s were all wrong.
Topics discussed:
Streamline Pictures
Tomato soup
Ninja consultants
Averting archaic internet memes based on bad localizations
Random falling H’s
“No” DOES mean “Yes”!
Making fun of Sandy Fox
Singing… IN JAPANESE!!!
The white Richard Roundtree
“FUCK YOU, BEN!”
Fortress Maximus meets with Ninja Consultant Six Shot to balance his budget... IN STEALTH!!!
"He's a bad mother..." "Shut your mouth!" "I'm just talkin' about Nabeshin!"
Once again, we agree that Jenny Stigile is the superior MKR singer to Sandy Fox.
In today's exciting episode, we blow up a doll house!
Today’s very special episode of Animation Aficionados is a 2-in-1! We had two episodes with a short running time, so we just smooshed them together.
In the first episode, Fes of Webcast Beacon joins us to talk about Reboot, the first ever totally CGI program produced for television. Part way through the show, JT from Saskatoon joins us to give the kanuck perspective on this Canadian production.
We then shift gears completely and talk about Heavy Metal and Heavy Metal 2000, side-by-side! Hal Hefner joins us for the second segment as we look back on an awesome movie and its mediocre sequel. We talk about awesome music, hot chicks, and exploding doll houses!
Discussed:
Neil’s disdain for “classic CGI”
Tech demos
Beast Wars blows
Uni-boobs
Plastic hair
Illegal (space) aliens
Carpets matching the drapes
The worst CGI character of all-time
We owe Fes a cookie
“When you listen to fools…”
Reboot's character modeling may have been cutting edge for its time.
...But was it really any better than this?
...or this???
Cinema: Bruce Timm Style
Mike TFG1 Blanchard joins us for the DC Animated Universe movies. This includes Batman: Mask Of The Phantasm, Batman & Mr. Freeze: Sub-Zero, and Batman Beyond: Return Of The Joker. We also discuss Mystery Of The Batwoman and Superman: Braniac Attack, and we ever so lightly touch upon World’s Finest and Starcrossed.
This episode is about:
Flappy fronts
World’s Finest Lesbians
The worlds suckiest CG submarine
The DCAU outlived the Gameboy
Don Bluth, film marketing scientist
Let’s break out the Tiki Torches!
Giving the middle finger to Joel Shumacher
"I told you I'd shoot! But ya didn't believe me! Whyyyy didn't you believe me?!"
Obligatory harem anime/manga series, Love Hina.
Kittyhawk swoops in to talk about harem anime with us. Halfway through the show, Eric of Exiern joins the conversation. This show is all about girls, girls, girls! Long legs and burgundy lips!
Discussed on the show:
Tenchi
Ranma ½
Love Hina
To Love-Ru
Girls Bravo
DNA²
No Bra
Change 123
Golden Boy
Kämpfer
Ai Yori Aoshi
Archie (when Cheryl is in play)
It's a TRAP!
Also discussed:
Sucking breasts to get power
The optimal harem number
Harem girl tropes
When the main girl doesn’t win
The guy is always the same character
Harems versus threesomes
Big Love, The Bachelorette, and My Five Wives
THE TRAP!!!
A page from Change 123
A kinder, gentler animator with one of his beloved characters...
Harry Partridge the world (in)famous internet animator joins us for a very special interview! We were planning this interview for over half a year and it finally happens! Neil and I were VERY excited and we’ll do our best to not fill this post with Harry’s video, all available on his youtube channel. We learn why non-tweened Flash animation just LOOKS better, some of Harry’s favorite cartoons growing up, and much more!
Show Topics:
The Miley Cyrus show
Imitating Filmation(lovingly?)
Stephen the Lesbian
How easy it is to sound American
26 episodes of Nicholas Cage wanting CAKE!
Christian Weston Chandler!(yeah, we’re sorry about that….)
I think I'm turning Japanese. I really think so!
An apocrypha is a collection of stories that has been tossed aside from a main canon for a variety of reasons. The shows we talk about tonight are jettisoned from the DCAU continuity not just because we may feel that they’re inferior, but also because they have deviated stylistically and creatively from the main canon. Zeta started out as a spin-off of a DCAU property but found its strength in being its own thing, whereas Static Shock’s only claim to DCAU connectivity lies in a few desperate crossover attempts as its popularity waned. Teen Titans, however, has a restraining order keeping it from going anywhere near the DCAU.
Show Topics:
What do the Gordanians have to do with the price of tea in China?
Shaq, the Backstreet Boys, and the Hoop Squad
Oh no! There goes Tokyo. Go go Teen Titans!(?)
Sexualizing underage cartoon characters
Lauren Faust for the win!
Booyah!
STUNT DAWGS!!!
The man who killed Optimus Prime!
To commemorate the 25th anniversary of Transformers The Movie, we spoke with cartoon and video game writer Flint Dille about his work over the years, with such properties as Buck Rogers, Dungeons & Dragons, Transformers, GI Joe, and Ghostbusters. It was a lot of fun and he had a lot of great stories about Vin Diesel, Gary Gygax, Orson Welles, Robert Stack, and Chris Latta.
Topics discussed:
The Rodimus Prime controversy SOLVED!
The girls of GI Joe
How come we’ve never seen Don Bluth and Flint Dille at the same time in the same place?
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen with AWESOME NAMES!
Frank Miller and the death of Optimus Prime
Unicron – Orson Welles’ swan song
Chris Latta – We miss him!
Megatron’s mullet
Knowing is half the battle!
Children of the 80s will immediately recognize this type face
Transforming the summer of 1986!
"It appears to be the Ace of Spades!"
This week, we’re joined by Geekcast creator and Evolution-denier, TFG1 Blanchard. We compare the original X-Men animated series to the more modern X-Men Evolution. We challenge our guest to make an argument in favor of the 1992 series.
Here’s a game for our listeners. Take a drink for every time Blanchard appeals to his nostalgia instead of the actual quality of the shows. You will be passed out before the show ends.
Episode Topics
“And that’s great, but…”
Only 267 awesome moments out of 52 episodes!
Not punching someone makes you a douche bag.
Having awesome horsemen is like Carly talking to Megatron. (WHAT?!)
“The name’s Bishop. Remember it.”
Giant robots in purple underwear
X-Men on a boat that can’t stop. Worst episode ever.
Shockingly, not a single creationism joke from Neil.
The only card you need is the Ace of Spades! The Ace of Spades!
This image was a "Fuck You" every week to fans.
This week we took a short break from the DCAU to talk with Hal Hefner of Heavy Metal Magazine’s “Gates” about both Avengers animated series: 1999’s “Avengers: United They Stand” and 2010’s “Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes”. Back to Marvel, eh? Hopefully just a short visit. We attempt to break the Avengers curse which swallowed two episodes whole!
This episode’s topics:
Vision is NOT Commander Data!
No! NO! The world is NOT about to break, but my ears are!
Captain America jerking off to Hulk
Timmitations: Then and Now
Working on rodents instead of Superheroes?!
Winter Soldier?!? NOOOO!
How many episodes do you GIVE a show before giving up?(5 is enough, right?!)
Shitty animation; then and now!
A hell of a lot more heroes
Justice League Unlimited is the direct follow-up to Justice League with a much more robust cast of heroes. We’ll talk about what we like about it and where we feel that Bruce Timm (after nearly ten years of DCAU) may have finally shown some fatigue. …but only a little. Justice League Unlimited still kicks a lot of ass!
Note: Some audio distortion occurs approximately a half hour into the show. We’ve done our best to eliminate the most problematic audio, and it should not disrupt your enjoyment of the show too much. The issue persists only sporadically and is eliminated completely after fifteen minutes.
In this episode, we talk about:
Government Conspiracies
The Crap Embargo
No-Men
3D moving-going
32 Flavors
Losing bars
Brainiac wants pants!
NIC CAGE WANT CAKE!!!!
Galatea - Not quite Power Girl
Yeah... I just put this picture up, because I could. Don't judge.
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 Heckendorn, himself!
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!
Cool lighting and coloring play a role throughout the movie
How's that for scale?
This scene will rip your heart to pieces
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...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.
]]>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
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!
The faces of animation over the decades.
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.
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
This looks like a job for SUPERMAN!
In this episode, we continue to gush over Bruce Timm’s ability to breathe new life into classic franchises, invent new characters, and expand a universe. We’re fanboys (and girls) for the ultimate fanboy cartoon!
Up, up, and awaaaaaaay!
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For a generation, this was the sign that the bad ass was about to start.
Tanya Higgins of Webcast Beacon and Tom Revor of Crossworlds join us this week to discuss the action cartoon that put action cartoons back on the map in the early 90s. You know it. You love it. It’s Batman.
For nearly two hours, we wade through the origins of the Timm-Verse and all of Bruce Timm’s innovations that have since been smuggled back into the comics during a time when the face of animation was changing. You won’t want to miss this, the first in our DCAU series. Batman!
This episode is about…
Firing Tim Currey
Firing AKOM
Girls wearing men’s shirts as pajamas
Reinventing the relationship between comics and animation
Escaping Tiny Toons
Robin laid an egg
Timmitators
Hornswoggle!
Winning!
Awwwww YEAH!!! That's what I'm talkin' about!
The DCAU
Tonight, we are talking about the DC Animated Universe as a whole. We give Bruce Timm the kudos he deserves. Oh, we bash the Marvel animated universe a bit more too… but they DESERVE it.
This is just an introductory episode, so it’s just a nice, cool 30 minutes this week, folks. Next week, we’ll dive in head-first into Batman.
Topics we talk about:
Bruce Timm; he’s a hero
Marvel doesn’t understand continuity.
Sending stuff back to Korea
Fucking BONE CLAWS! (How do they work?!)
Dion died on camera
The Dreamworks face
Neil drops an Animation Runner Kuromi reference
The etymology of AKOM
The Apocrypha of the DC Animated Universe
"No pizza and no Chinese..."
Oh boy, guys! Heaven can wait, we have Tiffany Grant! A fun-filled episode where we learn about a legendary voice actress’s methods. This is so special that I, Ben Carver, am writing this post! Mr. Neil can’t be the ‘man behind the curtain’ the whole time, right? Rob spilled orange tang on his clothes and later on, also embarrasses himself! We bombard Tiffany with industry questions, and even questions about her interior decorating.
Topics covered:
Rapture was late
Tiffany’s acting method
Industry Secrets
The Gurren that almost was…
Hello Kitty bathroom and the picture that Tiffany Refused to take
Tiffany Grant’s Asuka lost a contest?
We don’t know anyone named Lucy Moralez or Helen Bed
Oh, and the guys and I tried hard restraining ourselves from asking Tiffany doing voices… we MOSTY succeeded.
Overall, this was an awesome episode! Come back next week, and we will have more fan service!
HO! HO! HO! HO!
"What are you? STUPID?!"
Tiffany always plays the one named Kyouko in Nuku-Nuku, even after she switched heads with Arisa.
"No pizza and..." Yeah, you get the joke by now.
GO TEAM VENTURE!!!!
This is our longest episode yet, clocking in at an astounding two hours, which is technically not epic length, or I totally would have started hacking stuff out.
This week is all about…
Failure!
Nerfing the killing machine
Hank is not an idiot
The trap that wasn’t
Album names we’d like to see
The Senko Photoshop that didn’t make it
SPOOOOOON!
Note the psychotic killing machine that's flying the plane.
Neil's calendar girl...who is not a trap.
Bonus stuff we talked about:
Sail Away To Future!
Joining us this week were Kittyhawk of Valkyrie Yuuki and Pablo Praino. This was to be the favorite of our Blade Runner Era episode, but we couldn’t do it without the Kittehhawk. We were so pumped for this. In fact, we were so excited to do this episode that we forgot to do an opening for the show!
In This Episode:
“…back to Tylor!”
Seducing the computer.
The Blockbuster Four.
Crispin Freeman is awesome!
Nelvana cock blocks Card Captor Sakura
Tales from the Working Designs liner notes!
Watch Roujin Z!
Kittyhawk's sidearm of choice
Oh! Oh! Oh-oh-oh!
We even talk about the golden tones of Jennifer Stigile!
The stuff of horrors.
We’re down in the basement, putting on a show. We’re joined this week by Stephenie O’Donnell, Aisaku, and Pablo Praino. We talk about the first and only good kid-ified cartoon ever made, Muppet Babies, by the only man who could ever pull off such a show, Jim Henson.
We talk about why the show worked. We talk about how it influenced other shows. We even talk about that one segment that everyone forgot about.
Topics discussed:
Muppet orphans.
Headless Nanny.
TARDIS is the nursery.
Scientology propaganda.
Breaking up the Muppet sausage fest.
Bean Bunny, Robin, and Janice show up.
Baby Fonzie jumps the shark.
The dark side of Frank Welker.
That piece of trivia that everybody knows.
Neil drops a bit of season 2 trivia that nobody remembers.
Shemp is better than Curly, and lots of other digressions.
And it all takes place in an autistic kid’s brain.
Giant Muppet Babies on stage!
Check the date. Stephenie went to see Muppet Babies Live two weeks before Jim Henson's death.
AAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGHHHH!!!!!!!!
Tim and Rob sync up with us in this episode to talk about Evangelion. I was fortunate enough to get pulled away from the show for nearly 45 minutes while the topic continued, but while I was gone, the panel conspired against me by adding a bunch of audio drops from the show. Overall, we discussed the imagery and characters of Eva and came the horrible conclusion that we may need to do a second part to this. Kill me now.
Folks, if I never hear another Shinji scream as long as I live, it’ll be too soon.
This episode is about:
Shinji whining.
Shinji screaming.
Congratulations, Shinji!
Random Christian imagery.
The Gainax Effect. (Two of them!)
Rei III is creepy.
People exploding into orange Tang.
Tiffany Grant is hot and cosplays as her own characters.
We love Monica Rial, no matter what that Tim says!
We hate the weeaboos.
We also hate rap.
Robotech DVD sales > Eva DVD sales. (Eat it!)
No pizza, and no Chinese!
OOOOH-HO! HO! HO! HO!
This week, we’re joined by Gisèle Lagacé and Kittyhawk for our second Sexy Girls show! Continuing from our Archie discussion, we move into the topic proper. We start out with the girls we forgot from last time and then spend a long time talking about the girls of anime and video games. Both western and eastern animation are covered.
Be sure to also check out our Sexy Girls part 1 and the supplementary Archie Aficionados, as well as many other fantastic episodes!
Girls we talked about:
Naga The Serpent
Dr. Mrs. The Monarch
Princess Daphne
The Puma Twins
Rachel from Ninja Gaiden
More fighting chicks
The girls of Oh! Great
Our favorite redhead in a yellow jumpsuit!
Other topics:
Girls in glasses
More traps
Vampires
The origin of cheesecake
How to get a song out of your head
The possibility of Sexy Girls part 3!
One-Winged Angel Sephiroth versus… Barack Obama?!!?!
Did we miss anything?
use the Suggest A Show tab to let us know what girls you’d like us to talk about in the future! Kittyhawk promises to return if we get enough!!!
The Dark Goddess Scene from Lunar The Silver Star
Greatest WTF Moment in Comics History
This week, we were joined by Gisèle Lagacé and Kittyhawk for our second Sexy Girls show. However, we ended up talking about Archie Comics for a good portion of the pre-show and about twenty minutes of the actual show itself. These parts have been spliced together with a little editing sleight-of-hand to present a special preface for our Sexy Girls 2 episode. So while you wait for the main program, please enjoy our special Archie Aficionados!
The Girls:
Betty
Veronica
Cheryl
Sabrina
Josie
Melody
Alexandra
Valerie
Pepper
…even Ethel
Neil's favorite Archie harem girl
Also discussed:
Archie the schemer
Crazy Betty
The Harem of Archie
Archie meets the Punisher
Singing Archies
The New Archies
Josie In Outer Space
Loosening up Pepper
Prettying-up Ethel
Alexandra = Betty and Veronica doing the fusion dance
The REAL reason we loved Archie when growing up.
Stuff we forgot to mention:
Mike Blanchard, you are so wrong about this! This shit is AWESOME!!!
Today we’re joined by Mike Blanchard of Geekcast Radio, Aisaku of Hero Academy, and Essay Bee of Fusion, and we’re talking about two series with the same name: CLONE WARS!
Show topics:
Mike needs his eyes and ears checked
Ahsoka should be dead
Jar Jar is smarter than he looks
“LIAR!” …and other great acting bits
Ghost Hand
Peg leg Jedis
Buddy comedies
George Lucas pulls a dick move
Stan Lee and Ahnud stink up the air waves
Fox’s Spider-Man still blows
Mentioned in the show:
Star Wars Episode III – Abridged by GeeksOn (Must listen!)
Also, check out Neil’s newest appearance on The Nerd News Network!
Ghost hand force choke!
LIAR!!!
One image that ruins the credibility of the entire show. She should be dead at Grievous' feet!
Worse than Jar Jar!
It STINKS!
It’s the final countdown! You’ve heard 25 thru 11. Now hear the final ten.
In this episode:
“Previously, on Animation Aficionados…”
Storm can match the Beyonder
Going into another dimension
Ben nearly kills Buster’s joke
Elmer in drag
Racist cartoons
Preachy cartoons
The Baby Fozzie Effect
The fireworks factory
Spümcø (sometimes) gets a bad wrap
CG motorcycles that don’t move
Seth MacFarlane talking to himself for a half hour
Jimmy Corrigan. ‘Nuff said.
Manatee jokes
Gee, can you guess what our #1 pick is?
It's like watching money burning in a barrel, isnt it?
This is so much worse than how I remembered it.
Baby Fozzie becomes a metaphor with which to attack other cartoons
Uh-Oh! One of Ben's picks draws controversy. Hmm... I wonder which one.
What once was whole was torn asunder (by Neil, since a 2-plus-hour episode was too much even for him).
Neil’s Note: An epic-length podcast?! Not on my watch!
In this episodes, we talk about Reboot, and the fans who love it. Bokurano was jokingly put on the list, then removed. Does Winston truly taste good…like a cigarette should? Clone Wars and it’s availability. Williams Street’s productions are discussed in length. Boondocks Preaching? NOOOOO!
Faux Part 2 coming soon!
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Matt Senko is FOREVER RED!
Welcome to the Power Rangers Aficionados! We’re joined this week by DVD PodBLAST’s Matt Senko! Matt was an extra on the original Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers. We’re also joined by Geekcast’s own Jonathan Toderian.
We sat down this week look back upon the 18-year legacy of Power Rangers. Every show in the series is mentioned, and nearly all of them discussed. We even talk about the “lost episode”. Strangely, nobody mentioned Bulk and Skull.
Show topics:
Trainwrecks! (…and the people who watch them)
Behind the scenes of the Zordon Era
Giant robots assembled by helicopters
Goosing your Zords
Rodent Senseis
Dogs can be rangers, too
Quantasaurus Rex
Skating robot trains
Trapping enemies in YuGiOh cards
Evil Rangers
Emo Rangers
Zsa Zsa needs rent money
Mr. Belding does karaoke
Matt looks for a dull rusty knife
Jesus doesn’t tap
However, lying makes Baby Jesus cry
Piston Punch!
CHOO-CHOO! CHOO-CHOO!
Actor inside of the Quantasaurus Rex costume:
Darren T. Mangler in a Jenny Craig commercial:
The Four Wheel Chairs of the Apocalypse
We’re joined by Ben’s friend Rob this week as we talk about cartoons for the kiddies. We digress a lot in the episode, so bear with us. If you don’t mind having a good laugh, though, then please enjoy. In spite of the subject matter, this show is probably not appropriate for children.
Show Topics:
Structure? What structure?!
The “it’s just a cartoon” mentality
Writing up to children rather than writing down
Spongebob Squarepants
Ed, Edd, & Eddy
Rugrats and Klasky Csupo
Disney ruined Doug
Pepper Ann’s theme song SUCKS!!!
Neil wants Toonmaker’s Sailor Moon pitch reel on Blu Ray
Miyazaki needs to embrace technology
Preachy cartoons
Teddy Ruxpin is scary
Too much juice
Excel Saga… Wait, WHAT?!?!!?
Bonus Round: This week on Destroy All Podcasts DX, Jeremy and company talk about one of Neil’s favorite movies, The Secret of NIMH. It’s an 80-minute film, by the way.
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Nene is staring you DOWN!
This was a crazy idea from the start. Whose idea was it to cover three shows in one podcast?! What do you think this is? ROBOTECH?!
We’re blaming it all on Nene, because nothing goes right for Nene. Nene is the specter of calamity.
Space Captain Steve joins in to laugh at us as we stumble.
Also on this show, we talk about:
What IS the Blade Runner Era
Why Akira and Ghost In The Shell are immediately disqualified from discussion
Why you should watch Roujin Z instead
Other shows as the era, such as Dominion Tank Police and Appleseed
Sequels to Bubblegum Crisis are woefully disappointing
Kenichi Sonoda knows how to draw dames
Adam Warren rules!
Watching professional wrestling will inspire you to create classic characters
Beware of tentacle robot balls
Salads don’t kill
Minmay is still a waste of flesh and needs to be slain
Also, Akira fans: Eat it.
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CHOO! CHOO!
Stage fright! Go away! This is our big day! In today’s exciting entry in the continuing odyssey of Animation Aficionados, Ben and Neil are joined by Tim the Canadian Macross expert after a first attempt at this episode ended in disaster. We talk about giant planes that can transform into pilotable mecha, with the intent to battling an alien race composed entirely of giant raging virgins.
After a brief history lesson in Robotechnology, the gang moves onto the show that everyone wants to talk about and never again mentions Southern Cross or Mospaeda. MAAAA-KUUUU-ROOOOSSSS!!!!!
Topics covered:
Do You Remember Love is beautiful
Maximilian Jenius is the greatest human being to ever live
Dueling Minmays; which would we murder first?
Admiral Hunter has an Ahab moment and becomes a genocidal maniac
The Shadow Chronicles is a titillating addition to the Robotech saga
Robotech was nearly grafted onto the continuity of another show (Oh the irony!)
Skyfire has a gerwalk mode (from the episode “Day Of The Machines,” by the way)
Simon Furman likes to destroy Go-Bots
Salads can be deadly
Carl Macek gets props
Toby MaGuire does not
You can end wars by singing
You can still fight when yerrrr drunk!
Also, nobody mentions Kaifun, the worst character in Macross. Yay!
Oh, and finally, here is the clip of Machine Robo with the most recognizable Go-Bots designs. Surreal, isn’t it?
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In this titillating episode, Ben and Neil sit down to talk about an old favorite, Birdy The Mighty, confirming once again that you can never get enough of invincible girls in revealing battle leotards. This is a special side-by-side episode, where we talk about the Birdy OVA versus the Birdy Decode TV series.
The animation direction in both are nice, but we definitely prefer the original.
Neil also weighs in the sub-versus-dub debate and confirms yet again that he had a very heterosexual childhood.
This episode is not very produced. There are some volume issues, but with a higher quality recording, clarity shouldn’t be a problem. Just make sure to have your volume set at a comfortable level. Also note that we were very tired.
Be sure to check out Neil’s second appearance on This Week In Geek, as he sat in for the Nerd News. Neil before Dodd!
Next week is Macross. No, really.
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We’re joined this week by Kittyhawk to talk about sexy girls in animation and beyond! A discussion about the ways and hows of creating a great female sex symbol rapidly derails into vapid drooling. Definitely not for prudes.
Also, beware of traps!
They’ll trap ya.
I give a shout out at the end of the show to Noelle Dreves of Dangermoth, a webcomic with delicious cheesecake.
]]>On this special episode, we’re joined by webcomic artist Stephanie O’Donnell, author of Perfect Agent. Also, Neil is reunited with childhood friend Jeff Waske.
]]>Are we done with the Marvel stuff for a while?
]]>Unfortunately, the show was pulled just as it was getting good.
]]>Also, Spider-Man can apparently scale a launch tower faster than a shuttle can take off. He also announces that he’s taking his pal Peter Parker along, so that nobody on Earth would become suspicious of Parker’s sudden disappearance.
Oh, and Peter’s hair totally looks like Fighter from Final Fantasy.
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(By the way, we apologize for the bad audio glitches. There’s nothing we can do about it.)
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