Top Ten TV Cartoons (plus Three Honorable Mentions)

-Swinebread

A Few Things

I’ve been watching SyFy’s (I F-ing hate the name change btw) new hit show Warehouse 13. Essentially it’s a show about that “secret government warehouse” you’ve been hearing about all these years. All kinds of supernatural relics or advanced artifacts are acquired and stored here so the general public is kept safe. Every episode usually revolves around the lead characters tracking down an object after some weird/supernatural occurrence happens. It’s not a perfect show as the investigations are laughable but it has a Buffy-esque charm that plays well. W13 could easily devolve into an artifact of the week akin to a monster of the week show but thankfully it’s mostly a character driven program with moments of humor. Probably the best things about the show (besides the excellent casting of Saul Rubinek) is that W13 is one of the best possible ways to do a “fantasy show” with a limited budget. It’s had a few hiccups but I feel it’s on good footing for a first season. It’s interesting to note that 50% of the audience for W13 is female which is a huge jump for the SyFy channel. The first season hasn’t even finished its run yet and a second season has already been green lit. On a comic book geek note CCH Pounder who plays the government agent Amanda Waller in Justice League Unlimited plays a similar role here as Warehouse 13’s Shadowy boss.

I’ve also been enjoying the BBC’s Being Human about a Vampire, Werewolf, and Ghost sharing a flat together. It sounds really corny and it kinda is but like Warehouse 13 I like that fact that there is almost no budget for the show consequently so much relies on the dialog and the personality of the characters. It rips off tons from the World of Darkness games (among other things) but BH has a certain charm. The first episode was confusing though because I felt that I had missed an episode and indeed I had. There was a pilot that had two of the three major characters cast with different actors and of course that pilot was not shown in the states. Check it out if you like “Thrift Store Horror.”

I tried to think of something fun to give my niece last month and for some reason Galaxy High School popped into my head. Why I thought a 23 year old Saturday morning cartoon would entertain a modern high schooler, I’ll never know. But my intuition was on the money as apparently she’s been watching the DVD set over and over like crazy. It’s too bad it only had one season.

I saw program about exoplanets over the weekend on the science channel. What the was really cool is that the show nicknamed planets that orbit pulsars as Zombie Planets because they are dead worlds created from the debris after the destruction of a whole system. Hmmm…


-Swinebread

Karl Malden RIP

Karl Malden was real actor, not one of those lameos you get at the five and dime.




Don't Leave Home without 'em



-Swinebread

News I Missed... A Jericho Comic!

Well, back in March Devil's Due Publishing announced that they had secured the rights to continue the Jericho story in comic book form. (See here). Obviously I missed that bit of pop news, proboably because i'm busy taking care of Swinebread Jr. As of yet, there is no mockup or cover to go from (it's due in October) but I'm cautiously optimistic despite the fact that the art for such projects can often be less than stellar.

Personally, I think a comic book is a great way to continue the story since Jericho was cancelled (Twice!). A comic gives one that visual connection to the characters that you just can't get with a novel. Plus, several other franchises have been succesfully continued in comic form. Some hardcore fans don't quite agree (see here) but for me it bodes well. I'm really interested in finding out more detail concerning the conspiracy to create the Allied States of America.

I do wonder though, if Dark Horse or Dynamite Entertainment might have been a better fit to publish a Jericho title as DDP are the same guys that are doing Barack the Barbarian.



There is a tiny rumble about a Jericho movie too, but I'm not holding my breath on that one.

-Swinebread

This Is What I Think Hell Looks Like.

All that's missing is the Bearded One himself- George Lucas.

-Dean

The L League

I was watching the L Word the other day when I realized that I would enjoy this show even more if it was about lesbian superheroes.


-Swinebread

Ricardo Montalban Has Passed Away

A very versatile and talented actor that just happened to be one of the best parts of the Star Trek legacy. He will be missed. see here






Ricardo Montalban tribute part one


Ricardo Montalban tribute part two


Ricardo Montalban tribute part three


-Swinebread

RIP Eartha Kitt

On Christmas... of all the ironies :(


clip from Batman




-Swinebread

Movie of the Week: Star Wars Holiday Special

What better way to celibrate the Christmas Season than by paying homage to this infamous bit of the Star Wars Universe. Guess What? This year is the Star Wars Holiday Special's 30th Anniversary!

I actually watched this as a kid but I didn't really remember much of it other than that the cartoon portion had Boba Fett.

I do recall, even as a young-in, that I felt something was really off with the show. Well now with youtube you can see how bad it really was. After watching these clips, I'm now glad I couldn't remember the Star Wars Holiday Special.

Intro and outakes


Here's the Cartoon. This was pretty fun actually.


Cooking with an alien Harvey Korman


Bea Arthur sings at the cantina


Hologram acrobatics!


Leia Sings... Heard she was really high when when they shot this.



Happy Life Day everybody!



-Swinebread

I sure wish they had THIS cartoon when I was a kid!




-Swinebread

Tip of the Hat/Wag of the Finger to Marvel Comics

-Swinebread

Star Trek the Experience Memories

Back in March 2007 the wife and I took a trip to Las Vegas. I hadn’t been blogging very long so I was a kinda overwhelmed about how to cover the whole trip so I just didn’t. I had been to Las Vegas before back in 1991 and I was pretty blown away by all the changes. The highlight of this mini vaction for me was Star Trek the Experience. It was a geek’s dream come true. Recently, Dean Wormer told me that this theme ride had closed down in September (I’d been too busy to notice with the Baby and the election) therefore I decided to show some of the photos I snapped… I wish I’d taken a lot more…

The entrance to the Ride/Show area of STtE had an amazing collection of props used in the various films and TV shows. I wanted to take a little more time in this area but I didn’t want to bore the wife, as she wasn’t familiar with Star Trek. This one was my favorite display cases as it had Nomad, the 3-D Chess set and miniskirt uniform.


You can see Voyager and Deep Space Nine uniforms but I can't remember where the one in the middle is supposed to be from.


Cast photos of the shows


A vulcan case, you can see Sarek's costume and Spock's harp.


Spock's Casket from ST II and ST III.


A Borg display to get you hyped up for the Borg Invasion 4-D. Starngly I didn't take any pictures of the other side that had all the Klingon stuff.


Borg Queen mannequin.

Quark's Bar was on the lower level next to the giftshop. The wife and I had a lot of fun eating there and I tried the Romulan Ale. Every section of the Bar had a different TV screen playing one of the ST films over and over again.

The salt sucking monster from the "Man Trap" episode of ST:TOS. This mannequin was on the lower level by Quark's Bar.


The classic Gorn from the ST:TOS episode "Arena." This mannequin was on the lower level by Quark's Bar.


Voyager and Enterprise D hung from the ceiling.

The show's themselves were expensive but very exciting. Of course the newer Borg Invasion 4-D was better than the dated Klingon Encounter, because it had a more interactive experience and the Borg are scarier villains. I have to admit, though, when I stood on the bridge of the Enterprise D (the Next Generation) during the The Klingon Encounter from the perspective of the crew, it was transportive experience so to speak.




There is some talk about opening the show again at Neonopolis Mall in Downtown Las Vegas.

-Swinebread

Galaxy High School

I picked up the Galaxy High School DVD set. It’s a fun little cartoon from 1986 that only lasted one season. Basically, it’s your not-so-standard high school drama with two earth kids that interact with all kinds of weird alien creatures, and corny sci-fi at an intergalactic school. The show was imaginative for it’s time and has a pretty good soundtrack. Of course, you have to throw logic and reason out the door and just enjoy the crazy antics of the characters. GHS has obviously been released to ride the success of Andy Mangles’ cartoon boxed sets like Dungeon and Dragons and the Filmation programs that have come out the last few years. He clearly didn’t produce the Galaxy High School DVD as it has absolutely no extra features and is not digitally re-mastered, but then at ten bucks, it’s a great deal. Oh those Saturdays… they had lots good-natured gems, and GHS is one of them.





-Swinebread

Posted with no comment





-Swinebread

Generation Freakazoid!

I finished up Generation Kill this week. The reviews have been very positive and I have to agree. This HBO mini-series based on the book by Even Wright is, in some sense, the most elaborate docudrama ever made because it simply lays out what happened. Nothing is glorified, and the Marines’ boredom is as palpable as the combat. It’s easy to make up your own mind about the folks involved and their actions but Generation Kill never asks you to and I appreciate that. And of course Sergeant Majors are crazy… …they’re always crazy. The tagline for this production might be “War is”

Here’s one of the Trailers. Note that the show itself doesn’t have a “soundtrack” like this trailer.


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I picked up the first season of Freakazoid!. It’s got a cult following so I wanted to see if it lived up to it’s rep. Well, I have to say it’s a fun show with lots of wild antics and an Animaniacs style of humor. I like crazy superheroes a lot and this one doesn’t disappoint. Freakaziod is clearly a forerunner to the content of Adult Swim on Cartoon Network.

Another reason I was interested in this show is because of the controversy with Madman creator Mike Allred. Madman is considered to be one of the main “unaccredited” influences on Freakazoid but I really don’t see it all that much. Ambush bug and the Mask seem to be ripped off much more directly.





-Swinebread

Movie of the Week

My super at work tasked me with choosing a movie of the week. All this means is that I select some random movie and post its poster or a still from it in our work area. I don’t even have to have seen it. It’s one of those little cultural enrichment type deals.

Well, to keep it interesting I thought I’d post it here on Atomic Romance too. I’m not setting any rules for this, so maybe I’ll talk about the film or maybe I just upload a picture. We will see. This could be fun.

The first film up is Mansquito. I was telling the gang how awful the Sci-Fi channels original movies were, and they didn’t believe me that a made for cable movie was actually titled Mansquito. I've only seen about one minute of the film.





-Swinebread

Foxxy She-Hulk

The other day, between feedings and diaper changes, my mother-in-law, and my wife were relaxing while I scanned through cable channels. At one point I came upon Disney 2, which was showing the Incredible Hulk cartoon from the 1990s. Now, I’ve never seen this show because I was outta the country at the time it aired, so I’ve always been interested in it because the 2nd Season starred She-Hulk. The particular episode that was showing did have Shulkie and it was fun to see her in action. Apparently, Jennifer went home for her high school reunion and all broke hell broke lose when the Gargoyle’s minions attacked. He was in love with her and the Gargoyle thought he could force her to be his lover (makes me wonder what the Silver Age Hulk tales would have been like if She-Hulk had been around then).

Anyhoo, my wife and my mother-in-law actually watched the cartoon for a little bit. They found She-Hulk intriguing. My SO remarked, “wow! She’s really tall,” and then she explained to her mom that She-Hulk was the female Hulk in Japanese while making a few more comments. This was fun for me because my wife has seen me read the She-Hulk comics but has always tuned me out when I talked about the character before. I guess it’s another thing entirely to see She-Hulk in action even if it’s just a cartoon. I hope that Shulkie will be in the next Hulk movie that way more folks will get see how cool she really is.

After watching that episode for a while I realized that I’ve heard She-Hulk’s voice before. Rather quickly, I recognized that She-Hulk had the same voice talent as Foxxy Love from Drawn Together… minus the jive of course. Cree Summer provides the voice work for both characters. I’m thinking It would be fun if She-Hulk did have Foxxy’s speech patterns though, imagine She-Hulk saying: "Hey Hey Hey" or “I'm like Sherlock Holmes, if he played tambourine and shaved his cooch.” Hmmmm… sounds like a good idea for a youtube.


-Swinebread

Never Ever

I was in a store yesterday wandering though the DVD section when a couple passed by me in a hurry to checkout the boxed sets of 24. I guess they were looking for a deal on the latest set. When they noticed that the one they wanted wasn't there they began to walk away dejected and the male of the couple said: "24 is the greatest network show ever... ever"

LOL...

A show that legitimizes torture isn't for me (See here) but most folks are cool with it... sadly.


-Swinebread

We Make Holes In Teeth!

For those of you that might not know about the Cavity Creeps as mentioned in my Tubular Expression post it's Youtube to the rescue.








-Swinebread

Comic Con For Me

Of course Comic Con is going on this weekend but for obvious reasons I haven’t been paying much attention, But here’s a few stories that sparked my interest.


Rose McGowan and Robert Rodrigez talk about the new Red Sonja movie that's due out in late 2009 (here). It looks like it could be a lot of fun and I like what both McGowan and Rodrigez had to say about the Character and the project. The director, Douglas Aarniokosk, seems like a total putz though with statements like this:

"We're trying to do what Chris Nolan did with Batman, and that's [to] take an established story and an established character and reinvent it," he said. "You didn't have to see the other 'Batman' [movies] to appreciate it. You didn't have to read the comics to appreciate it."

You don't even have care about the Red Sonja at all to appreciate it... sigh

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The Greatest American Hero is set for a comic book debut this fall. The cast and crew reunited for walk down memory lane to talk about a what made the show so special and why it was canceled before its time. Plus, there’s a buzz of for possible film in 2009. See Here

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Frank Miller’s adaptation of Will Eisner’s classic comic The Spirit might be really cool or it might suck and maybe Samuel L. Jackson might make or break the film project. See here

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Watchmen, Watchmen, Watchmen… blah, blah, blah see here

Also, watch Dave Gibbons discuss his experience with the film here

Take a gander at the Nite Owl's ship here

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The Warlord is returning to comics for his 35th anniversary and this time the relaunch will be done by the character's creator Mike Grell. See here. This a big relief after the reimagining that DC did a few years ago stunk so bad. It is time to get back to the original version. Hopefully the new Warlord will be a success so some Warlord Showcase Presents will get published.


-Swinebread