Cartoon Graveyard: Too Busy To Bother Edition

Cartoon Graveyard: The Scarry Truth

Childhood nostalgia has its limits. Sure, people are making big money off of movies based on cartoons based on toys, but that’s partly because no one has any original ideas for movies anymore. We remember with fondness our old Saturday morning fare and children’s books, sometime with cause, sometimes not. But some stuff just slips past until years later we see it and say “Hey, didn’t I love that at some point?” To wit: does anyone remember why they liked Busytown? You remember, those Richard Scarry books about the city populated by anthropomorphic animals that taught you what people did all day and that worms wear shoes and Tyrolean hats. Those. I, for one, had not only several Scarry books but also a CD-ROM in which you helped the town’s residents build houses and steal bananas. Yet for the life of me I can’t recall what the appeal was. So you can imagine my confusion upon discovering that this weird franchise still exists, in the form of Busytown Mysteries. What? Exactly.

See, I didn't make this up.

Title: Busytown Mysteries

Network: CBS

Premise: Animal kids pursue the answers to life’s most trivial questions.

Weeaboo Wednesday: the Haruhi Dance!!!

I know it’s been literally an entire semester since I’ve posted a Weeaboo Wednesday, but look, I actually don’t know that much about Japan. I guess I could have kept reviewing weird hentai that I “accidentally” came upon, but I am pretty tired of getting hits from search terms like “world of warcraft tentacle” and “kkids fucking”.

In any case, I HAVE SOMETHING TO SHARE WITH YOU, SOMETHING ABOUT ANIMES!!

Cartoon Graveyard: Can’t Stop The Motion

Confession time: I’m a total geek for stop-motion animation. The very idea of someone going to the trouble of building tiny detailed figures, props, and sets, putting them into dioramas, and then carefully arranging them so as to create the illusion of motion, and telling a story that way, is awesome. It has to be the most labor-intensive animation method on the planet, and it’s worth it because the end product looks so goddamned cool. So naturally I’m impressed by people like Nick Park and Henry Selick that make a living out of it. Hell, Wes Anderson reportedly directed Fantastic Mister Fox from thousands of miles away, just to show off (then again, it’s not like he’s the only acclaimed filmmaker with super powers. You know the real reason Scorsese wears those glasses? That’s right, heat vision). Making a stop-motion film tells me that the director cares enough about his or her story to put a great deal of time and effort into telling it. At least, it should. Unfortunately, sometimes it means that they think the effect will be cool enough that no one will notice if they just dick around for a while. And that, alas, is what we’re dealing with.

I'd like to think they're watching their own show in this shot.

Title: Titan Maximum

Network: Adult Swim (Cartoon Network)

Premise: Two words: shitty Voltron.

New Issue Dropping Right Here Ya Heard

Oh boy!  It’s the latest issue of the Squelch that came out a few weeks ago, finally available on the Internet.  Read it! It’s pretty good!

Vol 19, Issue 2: Gangbusters

It should be noted that this is probably my favorite cover, ever.  Good work, us!  Hooray!

Happy Halloween You Bunch of Goobers

Hey sorry I haven’t posted literally anything onto the blog in literally a month but I’m really very tired.  Also we had an issue a while ago which I haven’t put online yet because see prior statement (tired I am tired).  This will more than make up for it, I promise:

Cartoon Graveyard: Birthday Ba(k)sh

I don’t have anything in-depth written for today, so instead let’s all celebrate Ralph Bakshi’s 71st birthday by watching some of his classic insane work. God bless you, Ralph. Whenever America has need of really weird cartoons, you’ve been there.

And while we’re at it, another very happy birthday to one Dan Castellaneta. Keep the virtuoso voice work coming, Beelzebot!

Actual post next time, I promise.

IRL News: Cred and Circuses

I realize Sarah usually uses this header, but what the hell, this is real life. Anyone who’s walked by Sproul this week knows that the Anti-Abortion Gross-Out Roadshow or whatever is in town, with their huge pictures of aborted fetuses juxtaposed with photos of Barack Obama for some reason. I guess they want him to ban abortion, but you know, not being the Supreme Court, he can’t actually do that, so I’m not sure what the point is really. Anyway, normally I’d write it off as just another useless partisan shout-fest, but then I saw these signs.

This photo isn't from campus, but it's the same sign.

Now, being a Berkeley student, I’m more or less used to displays about genocide. “What could this be,” I thought to myself, not really but for the sake of this rhetorical device. “Perhaps something about Darfur, or a plea to recognize the Armenian victims of Turkey in 1915.” Lo and behold, what should I find but AbortionTownUSA, the traveling exhibit of Comparing Abortion To Things It’s Not. Now, I’m an open-minded kind of guy, but this got me thinking that perhaps these anti-abortion activists were playing fast and loose with their facts. So it’s time for some unsolicited advice.

Weekend Video Jamboree – 10/24/09 – REEEEEmix

hay guys so david hasn been doing this feature much lately actually i havn been blogging much either but you know i kind of just got busy with things like

anyways  WHO WENT TO TREASURE ISLAND LAST WEEK EEEEEEEEH?? it was pretty bombass wasn’t it?! i think i liked mstrkrft the best. i was kind of disappointed in girl talk, but they are more gimmicky than anything! so let’s look/listen to gimmicky music videos!

incidentally, all of these are best seen through the site yooouuutuuube.com (three o’s, three u’s, and three u’s again).

Girl Talk – Feed the Animals

I’ve linked this before, but it’s so much better with a huge fucking embedded video, ISN’T IT?! For some reason it is hard to find the full set of Feed the Animals videos, but THE INTERWEB CANNOT FOOL THE ELITE SQLOG CORPS. Here is the full set, taken from several different sets of uploads– hopefully the intranet po-po won’t get up on this shit. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14

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Alice

Fagottron has a number of awesome videos, but this is my favorite. Especially when viewed through yooouuutuuube.com.

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A Haaaaaandbaaag?! (Remix)

I love “The Importance of Being Ernest“, I love The Importance of Being Ernest, and I love A Handbag ?! Ergo, I love A Handbag feat. Edit Evans:

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Grey Video

If you don’t know The Grey Album, I just feel sorry for you. The Grey Video is fun despite (because?) it being so lo-fi and downright silly.

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We Will Rock and Roll Beverly Hills

Ehhhh fuck Weezer.

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People who go to Weezer concerts clearly want to have MGMT & Lady Gaga played at them

Yeah, seriously, fuck Weezer.

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WANT MORE MASH-UP GOODNESS?! Well, fortunately for you, TONIGHT is Bootie, a bimonthly mash-up themed party in SF. 21+, fortunately/unfortunately (18+ parties tend to be pretty annoying, IMO). Have a great weekend!

Cartoon Graveyard: Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained

The Squelch is nothing if not a hive of conformity and authoritarian oppression, so it should come as no surprise that our respective pop-culture obsessions tend to overlap. Much of the staff have spent the last year or so orgasming over The Wire, our mutual hatred of Family Guy is legendary, and sooner or later every new recruit must face the Dog Police, whom I shall leave a mystery to the uninitiated. Editors in particular tend to merge personalities after a while, and one of the many ways in which David and I are essentially the same person now is our slavish devotion to this week’s series and Best Show On Television candidate, The Venture Brothers, which started its fourth season this past Sunday.

Title: The Venture Brothers

Network: Adult Swim (Cartoon Network)

Premise (via David): What if Jonny Quest grew up and wasn’t as good as his father?